New Tau and Marines in WD#90 10-17-2015

[Mr Mystery]

I could make a Game of Thrones style, erm....throne, out of spare bits and sprues and that.....

But I really, really need a DVD storage solution. As current flat is Pixie like in it's dimensions, they're stacked up (neatly) on the floor. As new flat is much biggerer, I can get a proper storage thing.

Might wander into the British Heart Foundation. See if there's owt second hand that tickles my fancy.

[Claimh_Solais]

Love the new comander , will be a nice ad to my blood angels

[Learn2Eel]

Just my quick thoughts on the Breachers;

Unlike the Stormsurge and Ghostkeel the Breachers are very reliant on the actual codex to determine just how good they are; if there is a formation or detachment bonus that doles out free Devilfishes, or Devilfishes get a significant price reduction, they can actually be a very legitimate close-ranged scoring unit. They are essentially a close-combat variation of Fire Warriors done in the Tau style of warfare. Strictly speaking you don't want to operate at such a close range for Fire Warriors and in that sense a Strike Team loaded with Pulse Carbines (if they still exist for Fire Warriors) will generally be better. However, there's nothing like going to your opponent "oh hi, my 90 point unit puts out 20 Strength 6 AP3 shots that can be buffed by Markerlights, how do you do?". Super shotguns for the win!

For raw damage output at close ranges these guys are pretty nasty, especially if you factor in possible Overwatch when they inevitably get charged. There aren't many units that out-damage them at 5" for 90 points for 10 models, and getting a 5+ invulnerable save for the unit for 22 points including an always useful Shas'ui option is nifty seeing as Fire Warriors usually get butchered by AP4 Ignores Cover weapons. Again, we will have to wait and see on this unit as unlike the more independently-operating Ghostkeel and Stormsurge this is more like your average Tau unit in that it is reliant on other units to function (namely the Devilfish).

I also played a game with two Stormsurges today, 1500 in an ITC format game (for the purposes of the match my opponent and I went off the FLG indication that they will be allowed in ITC, plus the assumption that they will be fieldable in units) against a swarm-based Tyranid list in a practice game for an oncoming tournament that my opponent will be attending next week - we were all curious to see what they could do! My Stormsurges never took a wound and accounted for something like 80 model kills out of a 120-130 model army, and that was without them ever benefiting from any Markerlights at all. They most definitely shred hordes and are good purely for the fact that you can split so many shots between so many units and never have to worry about "overkill" and wasting shots. I was running them both with Blastcannons, Shield Generators and Twin-Linked Airbursting Fragmentation Projectors; the firing twice thing was....brutal. My opponent had first turn and had two thirds of his army in my table half before I got a chance to shoot, in my turn even firing just once the Stormsurges deleted tremendous chunks of each unit and basically prevented my opponent from charging them. The Supporting Fire bubble that two Stormsurges present for a clustered Tau army is kind of silly. When they got to fire twice in the second turn....my opponent had about forty models in my deployment zone before my Stormsurges shot and zero after they shot. Again, all of this without Markerlights. The Cluster Fire Rockets were amusing for just sheer amounts of saves being forced; a highlight included both CFRs being fired at a Swooping Flying Hive Tyrant, even Snap Firing I still got more than enough to hits to drop its last two wounds.

I'll be playing a big game against an Eldar Wraith army tomorrow which will be a better test of their capabilities, even despite the first game being a favorable match-up for the Stormsurges the fact that they did so much work without Markerlights or any potential formation buffs from the new codex was really satisfying to me. They were simply untouchable. As Reecius, jy2, abusepuppy, TheDiceAbide, Frankie and a whole bunch of other major tournament players have echoed, this thing is at worst a decent unit and certainly I expect the cost of the Shield Generator upgrade (which we know they get) to be a big indicator of just how competitive they actually are.

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loving the infantry and the new drones. assuming those two forces are the box contents then it doesn't actually grab me as it happens, I have enough pathfinders and stealth suits, don't want a piranha. the ethereal is nice though. definitely a couple of infantry boxes and some terrain though, awesome. so we have fire warriors with pulse blasters, in the background are some fire warriors with pulse carbines, that look like the old ones, so I assume the pulse rifles are probably the same as well.

Don't worry, the new Fire Warrior box makes either Breachers or Strike Teams (Pulse Rifle/Pulse Carbine equipped Fire Warriors) as we've confirmed from the description of the Fire Warriors box in that leaked image. Unless you mean the guns themselves are the same? I'm tired and not reading properly haha.

Have any of you guys noticed from the price list image that the Tau Aegis Line-thing is "a mobile Tau fortification complete with guns, drones and shields!"
A Tau Aegis Line.
That.
F**king.
MOVES!?
And we know from the image that it has a turret-mounted railgun...........
WTF!?!?!??!!?!?

The hilarious thing is that if it does function as a barricade/defence line as we assume it does and it really moves, this will actually give T'au players that prefer static gun-lines a reason to actually move forward due to the strong defensive bonuses and grab objectives without sacrificing their many defensive bonuses (i.e. Supporting Fire). Not to mention we know it has a freaking Railgun turret(s)! The "shields" part is interesting, perhaps it gives an invulnerable save to certain parts of the defence line, plus the Drones thing sounds interesting. Still....XENOS TERRAIN WOOO!!! I'm getting the terrain, at least two boxes of the new Fire Warriors, at least two-three Ghostkeels (I already have two Stormsurges), at least one new Enforcer/Coldstar and at least one-two of the new Crisis Teams. Purely from a model perspective this may be the most universally liked release in ages, certainly it is my favorite as the models are awesome and they have chosen to give a lot of love to an army that was still fairly limited for total kits and new sculpts.

[Mr Mystery]

If they can take on of those Grav Impeder drone things (the one that came out with the Pathfinders), and then sit in cover, they become a thorny proposition for most people trying to charge them. Too long a range, and you may miss it. Too close, and if your fluff your dice, that's an awful lot of dakka coming your way.

[Learn2Eel]

Oh definitely, a lot of the time people will still go off the theory that charging/getting close to Fire Warriors is the way to neuter/kill them and while that is still the case here the enemy will get obliterated at close ranges if they don't have Toughness 7+/2+ armor/AV12 or higher. These things wreck anything that doesn't have any of those three defensive stats even without Markerlight support at 5".

Just a note on the campaign box sets; for us Australians the individual sum of the units minus the exclusive Ethereal is $126, meaning we pay $59 for that exclusive Ethereal and the Tau campaign book, it's not super good value but I think people saying it is awful value are forgetting you get the army-specific campaign book as part of the box. On the Raven Guard side of things it is $185 for each unit individually meaning the exclusive Captain and campaign book work out to be $65. Again, not terrible but not really ideal for those looking for cost-savings like the Stormclaw or Deathstorm boxes.

[Kirsten]

I was about to say mobile barricades sounds ridiculous and they probably mean they can be set up quickly, dropped from orca etc. but then yesterday I noticed that the walls don't appear to be on the ground, and was wondering why not...

[Learn2Eel]

I was about to say mobile barricades sounds ridiculous and they probably mean they can be set up quickly, dropped from orca etc. but then yesterday I noticed that the walls don't appear to be on the ground, and was wondering why not...

If I'm not mistaken this will be the first fortification in the game that can move, right? That is if we assume "mobile" and its floating nature mean what we think they mean. Honestly from a fluff-perspective it makes complete sense in a way; Tau don't believe in static positions but aren't stupid enough to run head-long into a fight, so a moving barricade for them to constantly advance behind while firing is ridiculously smart. It also uniquely fits with the whole "Tau are super-advanced" thing as only Necrons and maybe Eldar could possibly replicate that kind of technology. The cost of it will be a deciding factor as I'm guessing all of the drones and turrets are optional, if it is priced similarly to an Aegis Line just for the moving barricades it will be a near must-take for Tau. It's also no surprise that a Stormsurge is sitting behind it as unless I'm mis-remembering model size doesn't matter for claiming cover from a barricade.

Gotta love being the first army in the game to have a plastic army-exclusive fortification with actual rules! The monetary price doesn't seem too steep either given how massive it appears to be.

[Path Walker]

Those damn clunky boxes for Crisis suits were stopping me from starting a Tau army. Damn them for making them look much cooler. Damn them to hell.

[Learn2Eel]

Those damn clunky boxes for Crisis suits were stopping me from starting a Tau army. Damn them for making them look much cooler. Damn them to hell.

Welcome to the Fire Caste, Gue'vesa

The new kit is everything we've ever wanted; an updated version of the current kit that isn't too visually dissimilar, but is seemingly fully pose-able. Honestly even if the rules for the codex aren't great - but from what we know so far we should be pretty happy especially as Necron and post-Necron codices tend to revolve around formations - I think as a model release this is one of the best in years.

[Kirsten]

Gotta love being the first army in the game to have a plastic army-exclusive fortification with actual rules! The monetary price doesn't seem too steep either given how massive it appears to be.

where is the price? I missed that bit