Tau vs Space marines Boxed Set

[Erik Setzer]

Well, that would have to go on the outside. But since Mad Max has upped that ante, it's a possibility.

A Stompa as a walking concert would be pretty hilarious, too, and totally explain the bubble of Fearless.

[Mr Mystery]

Give it its own special roolz.

Widdly-wah Solo - +1 shot for Shootas and Sluggas within 12" as they show their appreciation.

That sort of stuff.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

This seems related to this thread. From this page... [url]http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/09/tau-and-space-marines-this-weeks-full.html[/url]

[Erik Setzer]

Ah. $150 each. Yeah, so... Glad I'm not a Tau player. (Sort of.)

[son_of_volmer]

[speculation]

what if the alternate build for the fire warriors is just a markerlight on each fire warrior? It would make an interesting Troops unit.

[ak318]

hey so this images was just posted on the tau facebook group.

[Learn2Eel]

I posted these in the comments section of an article regarding the leaked Ghostkeel rules if anyone is interested. LONG POST AHOY! So far I rate both the Stormsurge and Ghostkeel as good units though obviously we don't know the full story about the latter yet even if early impressions point to it being quite a useful model. Of the two though the Ghostkeel seems like it will be the easier one to recommend to people.

The only real potential problem I see with the Ghostkeel right now is that it is an Elites choice which flies in the face of logic based on our current Force Organization chart. As long as the "Decurion" style detachment is good this obviously won't be a problem, and I also am curious to see how much the Force Organization chart gets rejiggered for Tau seeing as the Elites slot is the most competitive (but not numerous) one we have right now. Honestly though the main problem I have with Tau at the moment is the death of Troops choice selections - we only have two in the codex currently! - which should hopefully change if the new Fire Warrior box is anything to go by.

Let me address some of the early criticisms to this model.

"It does what a team of Fusion suits does but weaker".
Fusion Suits have to a) get close and b) try to survive. A team of three Fusion Suits is more expensive, far easier to kill and reliant on Deep Strike to get to a target. The Ghostkeel has a walking 2+ cover save if I read its rules correctly when it is outside of 12" and a 2+ in any sort of cover as well when within 12" of enemies, and it is Toughness 5 with 4 Wounds. That is way, way tougher than three Crisis Suits could ever be, it has similar 18" range (9" for the Melta rule) and can Jet Pack 2D6" in the Assault Phase. It is already more worthwhile than a current Fusion Team just for being much more difficult to kill and cheaper. I also wouldn't be surprised if it can Infiltrate seeing as it is a giant Stealth Suit which would make this comparison even more in favour of the Ghostkeel.

"There's too much high Strength Ignores Cover for it to survive."
Ask yourself a serious question; how many of these weapons exist outside of the TAU codex? The answer is not many at all. You can count very lucky Destroyer hits that roll a Deathblow if you want but saying that's a specific reason for the Ghostkeel being easy to kill when a Deathblow straight up murders almost anything in the game is a tad silly. Most armies do not have a weapon that is both AP3 and Ignores Cover, as otherwise Ravenwing wouldn't be the power-house army they are right now.

"It's Toughness 5 and thus vulnerable to Instant Death."
As mentioned above, outside of combat there are only a handful of S10 Ignores Cover ranged weapons in the game, some of which have already been raised in the comments section but are all generally rare.

"The Blast weapon is weaker than a single shot."
This is patently false in almost every scenario short of being forced to Snap Fire. A single BS3 shot versus a single BS3 Blast ends up with the Blast being more accurate overall with the potential for more hits on a target unit. Yes, you can't shoot at flyers but since when have Tau ever had trouble dealing with flyers in the current codex?

"It doesn't bring anything new to the Tau army."
It does if you look at the mixture of its two-three Fusion weapons (if we go by the picture it is three) and the fact that it is a Monstrous Creature Stealth Suit with all that entails, meaning it will almost always have a 2+ cover save. You can use it in a similar role to a Deep Striking Fusioncide team but unlike those this will actually survive a turn after firing, and it also becomes pretty darned nasty indeed if it actually can Infiltrate as current Stealth Teams do. Basically, what it brings to the Tau army is a source of cheap firepower that can actually take a lot of punishment - the only other units in the codex like this are the Riptide and Skyray, but neither of those can really operate at close ranges like this thing can.

"It's not a good unit at all."
All those Land Raiders and other AV14 you have trouble dealing with as Tau outside of Fusion Crisis Teams can be - if we look at the rules as we know them - far better dealt with by one of these. This thing will survive much longer than any Crisis Team will even despite working in close ranges to enemy units and is a natural bullet sponge with almost permanent 2+ cover saves, 3+ armour, Toughness 5 and at least 4 Wounds - remembering that we still don't know what the Drones do either. Being a Monstrous Creature also means it can probably defend itself better in close combat than a Crisis Team, but being a Jetpack unit means it can pretty freely move around and stay away from potential chargers. I think it is a decent unit at the moment but we will have to wait and see if it has Infiltrate as I think that will be the big deal-breaker for this model.

"The Y'Vahra is better."
The Y'Vahra ranges from heavily under-priced to downright game-breaking depending on how literally you read its rules and if you don't mind being called a cheese-beard for exploiting said poorly written rules. I don't expect many things to stack up well when compared to a Y'Vahra in much the same way comparing a Tau'nar to a Stormsurge is really unfair - the former is criminally under-priced, the latter is on-point with its pricing.

By the by, my opinions are formulated from having used Fusion Crisis Teams in almost every match with my Tau - they are super reliant on killing their target on the drop because they will get shredded by anything afterwards, whereas this thing should actually survive for a good part of the game if you play it right.

I also want to point out that the alternative Ion weapon that replaces the Fusion Blast weapon is actually pretty darned good. Six S7 AP4 shots are almost always better against most vehicles than one S8 AP1 Melta shot, and I'm betting the range of the Ion gun is better than the Melta gun too. It basically becomes - once again - a cheaper but way more durable version of a Missile Crisis Team with some added melta shots via its secondary and tertiary weapon systems. The Ion gun can also apparently be Overcharged to be a S8 AP4 Large Blast which with Tau shenanigans can actually be pretty devastating against most Xenos armies.

[Gamgee]

Unlike the crappy Stormsurge this thing is insane.

It might have 4 weapons.

1. Fusion Blast gun
2. Two fusion blasters or one twin linked (shoulder ones).
3. It's left arm is clearly the upgraded fusion blaster (non twinlinked) that was upgraded from the base twin linked flamer. It looks like it because of the shell around it.

So it could possibly have as many as 4 fusion blasters. It all depends on the stats when we see the rules in a WD. Even with 3 this thing is still pretty good. Four would make these an awesome addition, but three would make them merely a good one. I'm hoping for the former.

I'm actually excited for this thing. Two of these things working in a team could equal or put out more shots than a fusion suit team while being infinitely more durable and capable. For sure I'm purchasing two of these asap. Maybe even three. They were my favourite new Tau unit and the rules back them up.

+1 GW.

Now fix that SS and we'll talk as it is I'm grabbing the Ta'unar.

Working in tandem with my Y'vahrah these suits will be amazing. Also the Y'vahrah is pretty balanced. It's extremely hard to use correctly and one tiny bit of bad luck and it can go down like a sack of potatoes. High risk. Maybe too high risk for your average player, but when it works? Absolutely devastating. I'm crazy like that though (Started DE after my Tau :P )

At the same time I can still see myself using XV8 fusion teams in certain builds. If I just need cheap anti-tank to fill out a different kind of build they got my back.

[Learn2Eel]

Unlike the crappy Stormsurge this thing is insane.

It might have 4 weapons.

1. Fusion Blast gun
2. Two fusion blasters or one twin linked (shoulder ones).
3. It's left arm is clearly the upgraded fusion blaster (non twinlinked) that was upgraded from the base twin linked flamer. It looks like it because of the shell around it.

So it could possibly have as many as 4 fusion blasters. It all depends on the stats when we see the rules in a WD. Even with 3 this thing is still pretty good. Four would make these an awesome addition, but three would make them merely a good one. I'm hoping for the former.

I'm actually excited for this thing. Two of these things working in a team could equal or put out more shots than a fusion suit team while being infinitely more durable and capable. For sure I'm purchasing two of these asap. Maybe even three. They were my favourite new Tau unit and the rules back them up.

+1 GW.

Now fix that SS and we'll talk as it is I'm grabbing the Ta'unar.

Working in tandem with my Y'vahrah these suits will be amazing. Also the Y'vahrah is pretty balanced. It's extremely hard to use correctly and one tiny bit of bad luck and it can go down like a sack of potatoes. High risk. Maybe too high risk for your average player, but when it works? Absolutely devastating. I'm crazy like that though (Started DE after my Tau :P )

I'm inclined to believe the shoulder weapons are the twin-linked fusion blaster. The left arm appears to be the primary weapon - either the Ion gun or the Fusion gun - and the shoulder weapons have two aligned fusion blasters which points to them being twin-linked. The post didn't mention what the right arm gun was; from what I can see it doesn't look like a standard fusion weapon. It may very well be that cover-providing wargear the post mentioned.

EDIT: What the? I double-checked the Y'Vahra rules PDF and noticed I got its weapon ranges wrong, added a sentence to this long paragraph and realized after I submitted the post that I accidentally deleted the paragraph instead. Doh! It makes the next batch of posts humorously context-lacking.

[Gamgee]

Their right arm is the ion weapon since it says that new ion gun can be upgraded to the 6 assault gun. So we're seeing that on the pictures I think. Then it mentions that there is a twin link flamer. I've never seen a twin linked flamer placed so oddly on a model. Usually I see them assembled side by side and linked up. At least that's my hypothesis. So it all remains to be seen who is right. Like I said I hope I am, but I'm not so confident I would make a bet since the other way could easily be right as well.

You have to declare your using its Nova reactor to do all that fancy stuff which drains its health rapidly. That one less wound is a huge factor in its ability to nova charge. Compared to the crazy stuff zooming all over the table these days it's incredibly well balanced. Against a pure IG player though? Nightmare is the only word. I'm hoping all the under powered dexes get good stuff now.