Tau Empire: Part 3, Unique HQ's

The Unique HQ's in this codex have always been a point of contention. Hardcore Tau players have always loved their heroes regardless of how much actual tabletop use they have. Aun'va was always a running joke as undoubtedly the worst Unique HQ in the game. He actually loses the title, in my opinion, of worst unit in any codex (the title could probably be split between Norc Deddog and Parasite of Mortex). You know you screwed the pooch when you have to add new rules to a unit and reduce its cost by half to make him good. Honestly, if you haven't read the old codex I suggest you do. Aun'va had the amazing power to get 1 shotted by anything bigger than a plasma gun and once he died he had a second astonishing power: he caused his entire army to take a leadership test or flee. Also he was 205 freakin' points. But you got Preferred Enemy and Furious charge if you succeeded which means you get smoked to high heavens in close combat by everybody. Unlike before where you all died with no kills back you get like 2 kills back now. Wow.

Anyways, just like the Catholic Church the Tau have a new Pope and he's waaaaaay better. Not sure if I would take him but he's no longer a straight awful option now. So..yay? Let's check out the 'new and improved' Tau HQs.

Commander Farsight

He's 5(!) points cheaper now and doesn't suffer from any army limitations. Meaning you can take him with Aun'va and have them join the same squad. Fluff be damned! I thought the allies list showed that GW cared about fluff? (Sarcasm) He and his unit do not scatter when deep-striking. He can still take his bodyguard of 7 battlesuits. His Dawn Blade gives him the old Monstrous Creature rules (now called AP2 and Armorbane) which is nice. I don't know why you're busting tanks with a sword though. 

His bodyguard is 10 extra points per unequipped suit. So you're spending 10 extra points per guard for the auto-pass Lookout Sir!. Sheesh. If you take the full squad you're creating a deathstar. An incredibly expensive yet ineffective deathstar. With the whole squad being a minimum of 389 points with no equipment you're gonna have to spend another 20 points per to get valid shooting. If your squad gets into close combat expect to be losing a guy or two per turn. You're totally boned if someone charges you (you don't have hit and run either). With TL missile pods you can get 3 MEQ a turn with a full fullisade from all 7 guys. That unit will only cost you a paltry 364 points in addition to Farsight. With TL Plasma you can get 9 MEQ a turn. Guess what you should take? Especially since you can still whack Rhinos and other AV10 rear vehicles. 

I'd say just take an Elites slot worth of Crisis Suits. The bodyguard is too expensive. With the points you save you can get both vectored retro-thrusters, allowing you to escape close combat, and Target Lock, allowing each of the 4 members of the squad to fire at different targets.

The weirdest part about Farsight is definitely his lack of unit restrictions. You can field only Kroot troops, attach him to a Riptide, then support with broadsides. No other Crisis suits in the army and no firewarriors. Hell, you could have him and an ethereal join the Riptide (no restrictions on joining monstrous creatures that I know of). IT's wonky but hey, Farsight crippled his army before but looks good now. 

Would I take him? Probably not. Ethereals are good enough. If you're taking Crisis suits I'd be tempted though. Getting to plant a small commando squad near a high priority target is awesome. 

Sample build: 3 Crisis Suits, Farsight.

One suit gets a vector retro-thruster

One suit gets a target lock

One suit gets a repulsor impact field

All the suits get a twin-linked fusion blaster

Total: 165 + 156 = 321

4 TL meltas, ability to Hit & Run, and if assaulted gets counter attacks at I10. Let's you injure a dedicated CC squad that assaults you so you won't get killed and be able to escape and shoot again. Little bit expensive but I think it's a good buy. You'll probably take two shield drones bumping the price to 345 points. Be worried about plasma and power weapons though. Could be nasty.

Commander Shadowsun

A mediocre HQ at best. With an unmodified toughness of 3 there are plenty of small arms that can one shot this poor lady. She's got good BS but isn't really much of threat at distance. Her equipment loadout confuses me. So does Shadowsun come with two drones? Does she have to pay for them? In essence: does she get a free command drone and a free 3++ shield drone with the option of buying another command drone and 2 more shield drones or does she not get two from free and instead has to buy all of them? If it's the later this unit is really crappy. Granting infiltrate to a unit is really all you're getting. 

Her stat-line is abysmal. Her special rules are crap. She's expensive and begs to be taken with the sub-par stealth suits. I guess you can take her if you want a random squad to be able to infiltrate *coughRiptidecough* but other than that, a really unfortunate HQ Guardsmen equivalent HQ for 40 points more. She should be 75 points and even then I doubt I'd take her. 

Also, now that I've read it a few times, it appears you do not get the drones for free. Yeah this chick sucks.

Aun'Va - Enter the fist!

He used to be the butt of jokes (known as Space Pope) and was the easily the worst unit in any codex (even counting old Rage rules that didn't allow you to control your own unit. A whole other can of worms since you weren't allowed to pre-measure but had to know which enemy unit was closest.). He's now excellent. You get free re-rolls for every leadership test on every codex unit. No matter if they have line of sight or not. Also everyone within 12'' can benefit from his Ld 10 and 2 of the Ethereal powers per turn. He gets his two free bodyguards and his wierdly crappy Paradox of Duality (lasguns become effective against him as do bolters but plasma guns do not? I guess you can just kill him slow?) that doesn't do much for him. Also you get the warlord power that let's you drop your army to the ground only to have them stand up and unload on the poor people coming at you. 

I'm seeing a strategy where you just hide behind an Aegis until the enemy is close and pop back up and unload. Pretty neat. Really though his army-wide re-roll is what you'll take him for. It's super useful and combined with the pretty good Ethereal powers Aun'va is actually completely worth his points now. He'll get wrecked by any unit if they get to shoot at him or assault him though. 

Aun'Shi

He's a monster in CC! Just kidding. He sucks like all the other Tau. He has a special blade stance that either makes him slightly less killable or mildly better at killing. Either way this guy is a total chump and a waste of points. Against MEQ he can does .88 wounds on average. His abilities that he grants the army are half-priced on an Ethereal. I honestly have no idea why you would take him.

Darkstrider

You can do a bit with this guy. Most of them annoying and game delaying. The free consolidate after Overwatch means you'll probably watch his poor squad get wiped out by ranged weapons. He counts other squads as 1 toughness less for shooting attacks so that's bad for FX. Not so worrying for MEQ. He also grants his unit Outflank and Scouts but he can only join Firewarriors or Pathfinders. Not units you want to get close to the opponent. 

He also has worse armor than the Firewarriors he's with and thus can pew-pew'd by freaking bolters no problem. Useless HQ, take a Fireblade.

Note: His signature system is Structural Analyzer and it only works on non-vehicles. Apparently it's anatomical structures. This and the Early warning Override are the poorest named equipment in some time. 

Conclusion

Take Farsight if you want some heavy backline damage. Don't take Shadowsun unless you want to have a really sneaky Space Marine or Eldar unit. Or a Riptide haha. Tau equivalent of Creeeeeeed. Aun'va is actually really useful and I'd be tempted to take him. The only problem is he can get killed extremely easily if he's found. Luckily there's no Morale test if his dumbass dies. Unfortunately both Aun'Shi and Darkstrider are terrible (so bad in fact that my hand keeps reflexively typing Aun'Shit). In the end the Tau basic HQ's aren't too bad as they can hide in other squads and have auras that grant pretty good abilities to your units. 

In the end, hard as this is to say, I'm probably taking an Ethreal as they're the most useful HQ.

That sentence still sounds weird.