The army really flops here. Think about the CSM codex, you have a few units that can be taken. Obviously everyone wants to take the Heldrake because it's ridiculously powerful but Bikers are fine (Nurgle bikers), Raptors and Warp Talons are pretty good too. Spawn, in my opinion, are bad and supposed to be so that you aren't happy when you roll them on the Boon Table. But look at the slot as a whole: good units, each of them changes the way the army plays and most importantly can be taken individually and not diminish the rest of the army. What I mean by that is, if you take Nurgle Bikers, your unit of Havocs is not worse off for it. If you take 3 units of Warp Talons, your cultist blobs do no lose effectiveness. If you have Heldrakes galore, your basic troops are not now weaker than if you had taken another unit.
Now look at the Tau Fast Attack slot. They need Pathfinders. The rest of the army relies on shooting and Pathfinders are an army-wide buff to that. If you don't take them you are severely diminishing every unit. But Tau are one of the armies that can't do blobs or semi-mech (tanks are wickedly expensive in this codex and they suck. What.) so they need flyers to support them. How are you supposed to do that with just one?
Another thing you'll notice is Piranhas and Vespids. Vespid Stingwings are nowhere near as good as Chaos Raptors but cost a point more each. They have no options other than a near mandatory upgrade and they have weirdly specific stealth too. To get both Kroot and Vespid stealth you'll have to fight in Machu Picchu apparently. Regardless aren't Vespids insects that live on a gas giant? What the hell in that cultural upbringing gave them Stealth (Ruins)? The fluff in this book is almost completely moot in the army rules it seems. Regardless Vespids are bad and expensive which segues perfectly into Piranhas 40 points to start off? A Rhino has 1 more BS 1 more side AV and 1 more HP and it's 35 points. Does fast and skimmer really count for that much? Is the burst cannon that much better than the combi-bolter? What about gun drones? Are they what tip this unit over the charts on points? Clearly not as those drones are just wound sinks that aren't able to perform that job for the vehicle. What can this unit do outside 18''? Nothing. Unless you want to dump more points into it but then you'll need Pathfinders for the smart missiles you just bought. Oh woe is thee.
Well, I should do a proper analysis of these units anyways but suffice it to say: you need two pathfinder units and you'll want a Sun Shark Bomber even though you'll need 2-3 of those too. Too bad you can't split units like MEQ or, you know, take support systems like some units. Like, I donno, Target Lock? Velocity Tracker? Drone Controller? But ah, whatever, Pathphinders are so good anyways it's not like they set up your whole army right? Let's take a look at Tau Fast Attack.
Pathfinders
You need them in the Primary detachment. Since you can only take one in an ally detachment they quickly become meh because it's super easy to neutralize one but with two the enemy has to choose between spending time eliminating a unit that buffs your army or part of your army. Hard decision. As an ally it's easy though: kill the buff. Especially when the buff applies to every unit that's shooting at the markerlighted unit.
Since you're BS is 3 you'll take an extra 4-6 of these guys depending on points. If you have some deep-striking units or outflanking units definitely take a Recon Drone. Just be warned: It won't do much else once everyone's in. Taking a Grav-inhibitor drone might be good as well because you'll make the average charge range into 5'' instead of 7''. Could save the unit for another turn, possibly long enough to bring fire to bear on whatever is coming at you.
The extra weapons you can take are totally not worth it. No re-rolls with low-BS will just make you pissed as all hell when you finally do land a shot with your Ion Rifle and the MEQ guy just saves it. The Rail Rifle is pretty meh in my opinion due o the low strength and BS combo.
My ideal layout would be having 10 man unit with a grav-inhibitor drone and two gun drones. The gun drones are there to add fire to anything that comes in close and to absorb shooting wounds by sitting in front. Total would be 139 points and I'd take two of these units and attempt to camp them in some ruins that can get them line of sight to most of the map between the two. Not easy, nor always available with every terrain set up but that's the ideal situation.
Pathfinders are extremely weak though. Keep them out of close combat if you can. If you see a Heldrake or Dreadknight with a Heavy Incinerator try to get a round of shooting off before your unit is wiped because either of those will end the unit. It's weird but Pathfinders make exceptionally good bait units. You get an enemy to come at you, marker them up before when they get close, then allow your long-range shooters to take them down. You can also markerlight a unit that is about to take out your other Pathfinder squad, thus giving them improved Overwatch and laugh manically as your the unit fires their Assault 2 pulse carbines at BS5 when the enemy charges.
All-in-all Pathfinders are very weak, like most units in this codex, and thus extremely vulnerable to templates of any sort and close combat in general. You'll probably lose your Pathfinders turn two or three but they will have served their purpose in giving you the long-range Alpha Strike on the enemy army. Hopefully.
Vespids
Don't be silly. They're silly expensive and are there to attempt to pop one MEQ squad before getting wrecked. It's funny though, when I say pop a MEQ squad I mean kill 1 guy. That's if you have the minimum squad. If you have 10 you can get up to an average of 2.2 wounds! Holy cats! What a great unit! Hmmm, how many will get killed if a 10 man MEQ squad rapid-fires back? 3.3.
They just aren't good for the Tau and don't fill a niche that is needed (close combat or good anti-meq). These guys do not fill a necessary role and are taking a slot from a unit that does. Just play them as 'counts-as' Kroot.
Sorry if that was an unusually brief review but Vespids are just Tau version of Assault Marines but fail utterly in that role. Over-costed, low-leadership, bad BS and S and their armor save isn't as good. Why, on Earth, would you take them?
Drone Squadron
Drone Squadrons are a weird new unit in the codex (new in the sense that it doesn't have to be all gun drones) that doesn't add much above your normal Firewarriors. They're 5 points more expensive and their twin-linking grants them 5/9 hit average as opposed to 1/2 (.55 vs. .5). They have a higher init and toughness but that just puts them up to MEQ levels, not a terrifying prospect. Regardless, you're paying a lot for them and they don't grant all that much.
The only real use for these guys is to bond them to an IC HQ. And then it gets to a rules question because you're gonna want to use that HQ's drone controller but it only counts for his unit and the Squadron can never be his unit, just a unit he has joined. If it does count, woopee, you've now got a nice wound soak with a 35/36 chance of hitting with Gun drones and can add markerlights with style. If, if, it's ruled that the Drone Squadron counts as part of his unit I'd take these guys over Pathfinders every time. You can take just under half as many as get the same results. If you take, let's say, 6 you can have 2 of them be shield drones, the rest markerlights. You have a 5/6 chance to hit with each markerlight causing 3.3 hits and two shield drones for your buddy HQ to absorb wounds and give him an invuln. It set you back 84 points. Paltry.
The only problem is that I don't think it'll work like that. Since the unit isn't his unit per RAW. I hate it but it kinda makes sense? Though regardless, how you rule it really takes these guys from either being in the scrap heap to being a very viable alternative to Pathfinders.
Piranha
The Piranha has a distinct problem that plagues some other Tau units immensely: low BS. I'm sick of saying it by now but with a 50/50 chance to hit and having only a few shots it's just ridiculous that they don't get a twin-linked weapon. It's another matter that it's more expensive than a Rhino for really no good reason. The options you can take are meh and the vehicle can die to pretty much any weapon. I've destroyed DE vehicles with Flickerfield with bolters with some regularity, these vehicles are no stronger. If you manage to get into CC with one as a MEQ the vehicle is gone. If you have a squadron of these the assault rules are no better because of assaulting rules. You can quickly lose all 5 to a 10 man MEQ squad.
The vehicles are able to upgrade their burst cannon to a fusion blaster but in my mind that's not the best choice. If their within the blaster's range there is a good chance they can be assaulted soon. And, what's more, they only have a 50/50 chance of hitting with the 1 shot blaster because it's not Twin-Linked. They can give you an Alpha strike but a bad one really as they all have to shoot at the same unit so even if you take 15 you can only kill 3 vehicles before you lose 750 points worth of unit.
They can't wither anti-vehicle fire, the can't take care of blobs, they have bad BS and are thus bad at killing vehicles and they are over-costed. Also it has no counter for Flyers. Merde. This unit is just not good in my opinion.
Sun Shark Bomber
This is the one Flyer that I'd take. Being able to bomb multiple times is very good, the interceptor drones are great and would be a lot better if anyone but this guy could take them. The bomber is also one of the few units that gets a Networked Markerlight (where you can Markerlight a unit then shoot it with the same unit, something that should be purchaseable by nearly everyone).
The bomber suffers from Tau AV syndrome where you can get shot down by fucking everything. A guad-gun will absolutely wreck this plane. Really anything remotely anti-air will take this guy down without much effort. To prevent this you'll have to take a Decoy Launcher but what that just makes it last 1 turn longer before destruction and anything that just has Skyfire downs the plane. Flakk missiles come to mind.
In the end the Sun Shark Bomber is good but paper-thin. You have to buy a disruption pod just so you can get 2 rounds of shooting off before being blown out of the sky. It'd be so much better with even just Necron AVs. If I have a Tau primary I'd be tempted to bring 1 and if I'm taking Ally Tau I'd be even more tempted. Pathfinders are better though.
What's weird: allied Tau are exceptionally good at bringing down Tau aircraft. They are their own counters.
Razorshark Strike Fighter
The Razorshark is just as likely to get it's ass shot out of the sky. The benefit it gives you is similar to Autocannon Havocs from CSM, anti-light vehicle and anti-air. The problem is that Havocs can take other marines to get shot in the face for them, and have a 48'' range.
I'd take a missle pod on it just so I don't have to split up my rolls (I'm that lazy). The goodly amount of fire that the Razorshark can put out is lackluster, however, because of MEQ armor saves. You can't buy a weapon that negates them either and even the enemies that you can negate the armor of typically won't worry about losing 3 guys to a round of Flyer shooting. 6 shots, 4+ to hit, 2+ to wound, no save = 2.5 wounds average. Against MEQ? .83 wounds average.
They aren't scary, they're pretty weak without Decoy Launchers and are taking up a slot for better units. I'd avoid these guys, even for modelling purposes. (They look like a unit from 70's Gundam to me)
Conclusions
Pathfinders are somewhat of a necessity for main army Tau. The other Fast Attack choices are pretty poor and actually hurt your army by taking away more units of Pathfinders. Drone squadrons would be pretty good if they had the ability to use an HQs Drone Controller but I'm not sure that works. The Flyers are as impressive as Ork Flyers but cost a ton more. Consider the Night Scythe: 45 or 60 points cheaper, can transport units (other than drones), has AV11 all-around and has the equivalent stopping power versus MEQ and FX. And the Night Scythe is only really dangerous because you can take so many. The Tau Flyers are both strictly worse and more expensive. Why bother taking either?
Fast Attack presents you with a unit that, due to Tau short-comings, becomes a necessity. As allies you won't take anything from this more than a minimum unit of Pathfinders and as the main force you'll need two Pathfinders (at least) to be competitive. So that's that then, I'll finish up Heavy Support later today and give some sample builds.
No comments:
Post a Comment