Tau Wishlist!

[shasodnarb]

Since there's many Tau players in the area, I figured why not...

Preamble:
- Yes, I am biased.
- It's just for fun.


HQ

- Commander: additional weapons and suit options will be a welcome addition, for variety if nothing else. In particular, I'm looking forward to a couple of new suit types to take, including a stealth variant (XV22) and a heavier variant (XV9).

- Bodyguard: again, additional weapons and suit options, but the option to improve BS instead of WS would be very cool.

- Ethereal: make them part of a command group, perhaps with options for advisors, such as the Nicassar (psychic and anti-psychic), Demiurg (defensive bonus or ion bombardment), and that sort of thing.

- Farsight: although I utterly despise him and would never run him in a list, give him XV8s as scoring units, just to be cool like that.

ELITE

- Crisis Squad: base points costs and weapons costs could be variously adjusted both up and down but ultimately, not much to change. I assume the coolest new suit options will be reserved for the commander-types, obviously.

- Stealth Squad: please give them the stealth USR, thank you. A stealth special character would rock too, btw... maybe some sort of monat (lone wolf type) that could call down a torpedo barrage.

- Fire Warrior Veteran Squad: led by a Shas'Ui with a bonding knife, the unit would have a slightly better BS, free grenades of both types, and the option to choose a unit specialty. For example, it could choose to be tank hunters and receive that USR.

HEAVY

- Broadside Squad: Slow & purposeful for free and rewrite advanced stabilization so instead, if the squad doesn't move, it gets a +1 BS. Also, please more definitively explain/rewrite the multitracker and other pieces of kit.

- Hammerhead: w00t! A couple more turret options would be cool, though, and compared to other heavy tanks, it's a little expensive. Let all skimmers deepstrike if they want and incorporate this into the new edition.

- Skyray: to name a couple changes, make the missiles better against skimmers and give it a different missile option other than the standard 8/3.

- Sniper Drone Squads: remove them and put the rail rifle drones as an option for the Gun Drone Squad in the Fast slot.

- Demiurg Squad: a tougher, well armoured defensive unit that can take ion tech options, and can reinforce cover by +1.

FAST

- Gun Drone Squad: more drone types! Too easy.

- Pathfinder Squad: maybe their leader could be the one carrying reserves-manipulating gear, to better fit fluff.

- Piranha: reduce base cost slightly, perhaps, give it another main weapons option, and rewrite decoy launchers.

- Vespid Squad: reduce cost a bit. Maybe give them rending in close combat. Strain leader could have special ability to reduce enemy's initiative in first round of vespid assault.

TROOP

- Warrior Squad: maybe slightly cheaper, definitely give them more drone options, to give them more firepower options without losing the light infantry flavour.

- Kroot: despite the fluff, extend their cover and movement bonus beyond just things with trees, please... oh, and assault 1 weapons!

- Devilfish: give it more weapons options. It's a perfect platform for that ion cannon.

- Gue'Vesa: Humans! A light squad with similar options to Tau Warriors but also with more garrison-like options such as weapons teams.

[voodoo]

HERE! HERE! Nicely put D'Narb

[shasodnarb]

One idea I liked (read it on a blog the other day, maybe 3++) was dividing weapon options for suits with long ranged weapons for XV-8s, medium for XV-25s, and short for XV-9s.

[voodoo]

Or simply more weapon options, I've always wanted to see a stealthsuit mounted rail rifle or a heavy flamer option, hell, even assault weapons in fire warrior squads would be nice. And last but not least, ion cannon options for broadsides, and/or additional heavy weapons for broadsides and hammerheads.

[Mythweaver]

For the sake of you Tau players I hope they come up with a decent assault or counter assault option. All of your firepower is astounding already but when the enemy closes with you it gets pretty messy...space cow parts all over the place!

[shasodnarb]

Actually, I hope they don't. However, I would love to have a good-sized dismounted unit with decent toughness and armour that can sit in improved cover and shoot with heavy weapons (Demiurg!).

[redshirt2375]

If Tau suddenly got good CC units they would stop being Tau. The whole theme of the army is that with all their fire power you should never make it to combat with them

[shasodnarb]

Aye, I hope for variety's sake, they include an extra ally or two but I pray that they don't fundamentally change the way Tau are played. Even if new allies are very different to the Tau playstyle, I think one way to preserve their way of fighting is to limit allies to 0-1 for each type.

[Mythweaver]

I promise to never again wish for something nice for the cattle of the universe...

So sorry!!

[shasodnarb]

Heh heh, imho, my Kroot aren't actually supposed to fight. In my view, they're skirmishers and are therefore supposed to die so that everything else gets to run away and shoot.

[Mythweaver]

They do die rather nicely!

Almost as well as my space elves.

[shasodnarb]

Yup. I forget, did they do anything in our 1850 game?

[Mythweaver]

They died!

Half to Tank shock the rest to guardian jetbike shooting.