Official 9th Edition Discussion Thread

[trantos01]

Honestly I like the changes to morale.

Previously if you took a 20+ man unit and didn't have unique moral rules like the Orks or something that grants auto-passing morale, the enemy could wipe out half and then the rest would run since it was d6+10 (unless you burned 2 CP to negate it). With this, you still have a chance to lose a fair number of troops to battle attrition but you won't be spending CP just to keep the unit in the fight post first shooting phase.

[Typhus]

T'au Faction Focus is live:

www.warhammer-community.com/2020/06/25/faction-focus-tau-empiregw-homepage-post-4fw-homepage-post-4/

Very little information, as always, but juicier than almost any other thus far. Of note:

- Units with FLY have lost the ability to fall back and shoot
- Full rules for hit modifier cap have been shown (and explicit "automatically hit" rules - anybody remember when people were trying to cheese Burna Boyz in concert with Dakka Dakka Dakka? lul)
- Updated For The Greater Good rules. Worried that Tau were losing army-wide Overwatch, or changing in some way? Never fear!

Warhammer Community said:

The T’au specialise in using small units, such as Drones, that can spread out and control the board. In many mission formats, these small units would punish the T’au Empire force by easily giving away victory points. However, it’s possible to select secondary objectives for the new missions that emphasise board control over the destruction of enemy units, allowing the T’au to really lean into this specialism.

...Because Tau are super good at board control, and super bad at killing enemy units? Who writes these things?

[Jack Shrapnel]

yeah was just coming here to share the same thing... so oppressive tau shooting is still a thing, never fear...oh good...lol

[Frosty the Pirate]

I mean. Tau are super good at board control. They just usually do it by saying "so I'm gunna stand here, and if you decide your not ok with that and come within X inches of me, we're gunna fill you so full of lead you'll be able to use your d*** as a pencil"

Fly not allowing stuff to act normally is pretty nice after falling back is good for the game. It really gave certain armies with access to a ton of Fly a real advantage over those who didn't.

Honestly with the amount new terrain rules are likely to affect LOS, I would seriously think gunlines are going to need to rethink things at least a little.

[vadah]

Jun 25, 2020 13:12:10 GMT -5 Frosty the Pirate said:

I mean. Tau are super good at board control. They just usually do it by saying "so I'm gunna stand here, and if you decide your not ok with that and come within X inches of me, we're gunna fill you so full of lead you'll be able to use your d*** as a pencil"

Fly not allowing stuff to act normally is pretty nice after falling back is good for the game. It really gave certain armies with access to a ton of Fly a real advantage over those who didn't.

Honestly with the amount new terrain rules are likely to affect LOS, I would seriously think gunlines are going to need to rethink things at least a little.

I'm just here to say I appreciate the three amigos reference

[ohgodsnakes]

I personally feel that people who see this as a big buff for tau really over-estimate how deadly overwatch is outside of a few key instances (crazy flamers, T'au sept which has fallen a bit out of vogue after the custom traits of PA:The Greater Good) In my experience, Iron Hands and Ultramrine overwatch coupled with a Chapter Master is far deadlier.

Fly no longer allowing units to shoot after falling back is a far bigger detriment. Think about everything in the T'au army you actually care about not shooting. Chances are it could fly.

Let look at a quick hypothetical situation. A riptide is charged by a rhino. Originally, this was a great chance for the riptide to plink a wound or two on overwatch, laugh at the rhino's attacks, and then fall back and destroy some actual targets somewhere else on the board.

Now, that rhino charges in, looses the exact same amount of wounds as in 8th, and effectively makes itself the only target the Riptide can shoot at next turn. The tide can either shoot it's weaponry at -1 to hit into the rhino (so hitting on 5's, since they are heavy), with no help from markerlights, or it can fall back and pick its nose for a full turn unless you spend 2 CP's to do what it could already do in 8th.

Fear not enemies of The Greater Good, this is good for you.

[Jack Shrapnel]

you know, I totally missed the whole part about fly changing... guess I'm so used to just skimming these "faction focus" articles that I came out of that with "oh tau stay the same"... so yeah... losing fly back and shoot normally is a HUGE blow against the tau. It hits a few other armies a little bit as well (flyrants, seraphim, inceptors etc.) but really the biggest threats in tau all fly. actually being able to tag them is going to be... weird...

I may have to rethink my list of "armies I hate the most"... I mean Eldar will always have top spot, but maybe now tau won't be a close second

[trantos01]

Of course it's highly likely that there will be at least some natural exceptions (and/or strats+relics) that get around the new rule of flying units can't shoot after falling back.

Also in the bottom of the latest Necron post, they mentioned that they would be releasing two new paints. First is one that 'can help achieve that aged brass look' and the second is apparently a technical specifically for creating glowing effects.

I'm meh on the former since some videos have already shown how to get the effect using a metallic base and washes. Though the second I will admit to some curiosity about.

[dave]

I'm not really upset about retaining my ability to overwatch all day every day. I feel like Tau need something to offset their atrocious melee skills. We're good at shooting, but I've seen guard and marine lists that made my fire caste plenty jealous. Then the smash captain showed up. For now I'll take a unique strength. At least until they give out the rule as a chapter tactic in the next SM book.

That said, the one thing I was hoping for in 9th was more incentive to move out of the static castle. Unfortunately For the Greater Good runs fairly counter to that desire. It may be that I just need to come up with better battle plans that don't revolve around character buffs and supporting defensive fire. Suggestions welcome.

Maybe crisis suits are coming back? They are pretty good at the whole mobile army thing. Oh wait, can't fallback and shoot anymore. Also they are not monsters or vehicles, so can't fire into combat. Could be that these rules are good for the game as a whole, but they sure don't help my motivation to build the 6 I have sitting on the shelf. Maybe I'll have to practice my kiting skills with the 3 I do run. 8" move and a 18" gun isn't terrible

Hammerheads, riptides, and ghostkeels will certainly be plenty annoyed when they have to waste their turn blowing up your chaff, instead of something important. They can still kill something though, and isn't that what's really important?

I am all for a more melee friendly environment. Sure, my army is awful at it, but it should be a viable way to play the game. Psychic powers can all go though. No one needs that nonsense...

[Jack Shrapnel]

well that monster unit of crisis suits that Connor runs is pretty gross... I think they can be made pretty deadly

[trantos01]

Still, it does look like I'm going to have to go combined arms. Screen with warriors, destroyers/D.Arks in the back and potentially some wraiths or melee destroyers playing intercept/distraction Carnifex.

[raceygaming]

I'll admit it looks a touch grim for "fly" key word. I am hoping that 'jetpack' or 'battle suit' keywords will actually have an effect other than losing out on cover as per 8th.

[Frosty the Pirate]

Drukhari faction focus is up.

From the article:

with the addition of the Desperate Breakout Stratagem, units like Wyches with their No Escape rule to prevent units from falling back will be even more important if you need to lock things up in combat.

Looks like some melee units will have special rules allowing them to lock up units in combat. It's a bit random but I suspect there will be buffs for certain units where you get +1 or there will be things like a free re-roll

Otherwise not really much information. FLG hinted at there's a huge bomb yet to drop about how melee combat works during their podcast on Weds but this seems too minor to be a "giant bomb".

[kaelon]

Getting 8 cp for having 6 patrol detachments seems a little bit insane. Everyone else starts with 12 if they have a battalion and there Saturday eldar start with 20 if they have 6 patrol detachments

[LizardTau]

Well they would be spending 10 cp on 5 of those detachments since they don't have the warlord in them