Tau Codex Break Down: Fast Attack
April 18, 2013 by anateus
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Day four of our Tau Week is here and Gav and Jack get on to the Fast Attack section of the book to give us their thoughts on what got better and what stayed the same.
So will you be running out to grab the new Sun Shark Bomber or will you be sticking to the classic Forge World Barracuda?
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I have to agree with you on the fliers. Just not enough punch for the points you are paying. I’d nearly have Vespid sting wings before them. (Because I actually have the models.)
But honestly i believe Drones and Pathfinders are the number one choices in the fast attack options.
Another post to highlight mistakes (I love doing these):
As we said in the hq video, pulse carbines are assault 2, but still have pinning, which we kept saying they had lost
A drone squadron cannot score or contest an objective
Jack
Oh, and the Ion Rifle is ap 4 when it over charges, not ap 1 or 2
Gonna have to agree with you two on the flyers. Until FW releases an update for the Barracuda, it’s the way to go. Can’t see it staying the way it is atm though. The overcharged Ion Cannon shot from it is nasty at that cost. I imagine it’ll get a slightly tougher chassis more in line with these flyers and go up in price.
I was doing some math-hammer on the Sun Shark Bomber, to consider how strong the 2 drones are, and how much would they cost if let’s say, a regular drone would be upgraded to have the same stats. After calculating the price of the drones, we can take that number away from the original 160 points of the Sun Shark Bomber. So let’s see: Gun drone-14pts Ion rifle(on Pathfinders)-10pts Twinlinking the Ion Rifles (on battle suits it’s half the cost again)-5pts Interceptor(Early warning override)-5pts Skyfire(Velocity Tracker)-20pts This gives us 54pts per drone, not counting the turbo-boost ability which cannot be… Read more »
Markerlights are used by units when selecting targets, so any markerlights expended only increase that units shooting, not all units shooting at the same target. The neutron blasters did get a 6″ boost to range and gained hit & run, meaning at the end of an enemy turn you can flee from combat on an initiative test of 5-, shoot with marine killers, then charge into assault with hammer of wrath at initiative 10 and plus one attack to their profile for charging, at initiative 6. Don’t know if they are actually worth the points and fast slot, but they… Read more »
I think we may have covered the Ion bomb in more detail in another take of the video, as a lot of the information I remember recording wasn’t there. We meant that the rules don’t specify that a the Sunshark starts with a bomb, and thus the cheese hunters out there will undoubtedly argue that it therefore doesn’t have one at the beginning of the game, though we personally didn’t agree with this view point, but were just pointing it out.
I thought you two sounded pretty miffed when you were talking about the whole bomb thing. I feel like I have something not so positive to say after each video, but I don’t mean to come across that way. I think you guys did a great job in every video so far, I just mention these minor issues for the sake of the community (“the greater good”) getting all the facts right. Considering how much this codex has change since the last edition, there are only one or two minor mistakes in any of the videos. Job well done gents!
For fast, I’ll be looking at just getting marker drones (and add the commander with drone controller) and the pathfinders (and add either shadowsun or darkstrider or even both 🙂 )
The flyers are really, really, really poor. Good thing I’m gonna do a Tau+Eldar Allies army (What with the eldar being the next 40k dex).
How can the piranhas fire the seeker missile after going flat out? I understand they could in the last book but I don’t how they can now?
The flyers are a deception. But the pathfinders and markerlights are much better. Fearsome. I know a guy who was making a really good use of gun drones… They’ll be even nastier now.
pirahnas are still grand and can take 5 in a squadron now rather than 3 (evil laugh) take 5 with burst cannons and the overwatch upgrade… 40 overwatch shots 20 of which pin you? EVIL and pathfinders just got better end of… still like the vespid but like you guys said tau have more than enough anti marine this time around why do they need another? The flyers… had great hopes for them but there such a damp squib… i wouldn’t say there bad but the tau as a codex don’t need them… maybe an allied force would like them… Read more »
Overwatch cannot cause pinning or any other kind of leadership test. But a five model piranha squad could really bugger someones plans.
Doesn’t exactly need hover mode when the main weapon systems are turrets with a 360 degree arc of fire.
mmm its a hard one.. some of the flyers in the latest codex’s seem a bit… meh.. but having said that they seem to be much more balanced. The problems is, when you compair them to some of the other flyers that first came out there seem quite under powered for the points cost. Having said that, I’m a Necro fan, but I felt that the flyers in that were pretty under powered too. I low the fact that they both have twin linked Annalitor’s, but at 24″ and only 4 shots, its the only real gun you have to… Read more »
I went and read the Pulse Bomb entry and generates ‘another’ pulse bomb on a 2+. In order to have ‘another’ you need to have a pulse bomb to start with. Therefore, the Sun Shark starts with a pulse bomb so that it can generate ‘another’ pulse bomb after it makes it’s first bombing run.
So for 200pts you get 5 piranha, and a free (140pt) 10 drone gun drone squad. That is pretty amazing. The only draw back I see is the actual cash cost of the Piranha themselves.