Just my personal opinion

Orca

At 150pts its a perfectly good air transport, doesnt really need anything doing to it. Yes its fragile (still is with 5+RA as anyone who uses Vampires regularly will attest to), but in reality if its getting shot at something has gone wrong.

Its a cheap activation, objective disputer even if it does nothing else all game but if used correctly can ferry a Firewarrior formation into possition to shoot at 8 x AP4+(3+), 8 x AP5+(4+) disrupt overcoming the biggest problem for Fire Warriors the fact they almost always have to double to shoot.

Even nicer are crisis who get to jump out 15cm from the Orca probably allowing you to avoid most ground Flak and then shoot with 4 x AP4+(3+), 4 x AP5+(4+). 4 x MW4+(3+), again overcoming the doubling problem.

All of which is a way of saying although a change in its armour to 5+ RA wouldn't really be a problem from a balance perspective its also not required, Its an army choice that either suits your play style or not. I would never leave home without some sort of air transport option as I think it adds so much flexibility to a list and at 150pts the Orca seems a good deal to me.


Pathfinders

Seems a reasonable idea, certainly seems to fit the background and also gives them a distinct niche within the army over the current slighly more shooty firewarriors with inbuilt markerlights.

Problems I can see are if a points cost was required to avoid the fast assasssin formation they would effectively be (two formations of these could pretty much guarantee you remove an enemy supreme commander), Would any points costs changes cause problems for instance at 200pts they are still just as fragile, but even that 25pts can make a big difference in the Tau list, leading to a lost activation - do they then become bad choices against the recon, where currently with both at the same points they are very evenly balanced and the choice between them is a tricky one.


Ion Hammerhead

There's always one in every list, it really is a tricky thing to do much about. You see effectively its pointed correctly at 200pts for 4 just think about the formation - 4 fast skimmer tanks with 4+ armour, 60cm range main guns that can target infantry and tanks, with inbuilt long range artillery in the seekers and a close ranged ignore cover gun. Its problem is that it sits in an army whose core choices murder infantry through shooting. So when it comes to your support stuff you want to supplement the core stuff with as much anti tank as you can get so you go for the Railcannon.

+1 AP to the Ion cannon doesnt solve the problem you just have a slightly overpowered infantry killing tank formation that you still cant quite fit into a list over Railgun Hammerheads, Broadsides, Recon etc. At the same time you have made up a new Ion cannon type (assuming you differentiate it from the air craft versions) which doesnt really exist in the fluff.

AA6+ too big a deal this is to Tau and all you would then see are Ion cannon hammerheads.

5 Ion cannon or 4 Rail, too much of a boost and the greater numbers make the Ion cannon too much of a better choice. It actually becomes better at tank killing and still retains the infantry killing.

FF change this would probably work in forcing some thought into the choice between hammerheads as having FF5+ is such a big deal in the Tau army. It doesn't really feel right though does it, just seems an ugly fit why for instance does the fussion version have lower FF its just a bit weird.

If it was really required and personally I am not sure the effort is really justified you could have a formation of 4 Ion hammerheads and the option to upgrade to 4 Rail hammerheads for 25pts and leave the upgrade the same as 2 Ion or Rail for 100pts (although that slightly messily does leave an upgrade to an upgrade).

It's right on the edge for me.
*Almost* worth its points, but not quite. 5+RA is just a ~5% boost in save against most armies, and actually a drop in save against the Eldar.



I'd say it's important to give the Pathfinders a unique niche, as you say right now all they are is extra-shooty / "better" Fire Warriors.
That doesn't feel right to me, as they're supposed to be the "pathfinding" scouts of the army, not mainline battle formations.

200pts, I don't think that'd be a terrible cost to pay for the formation.

As to killing a supreme commander, any player that buys 400pts worth of snipers deserves a shot at nabbing a SC!
(And the 400pts of Snipers are probably going to quickly die in return, after killing the 100pt SC, perhaps making for a less one-sided trade than it at first appears...)


That's certainly all we saw ~four years back!

However, now, unlike then, Skyrays have a second important role (Markerlights being much more important now). So they wouldn't win out against Skyrays as they used to... but they might well win out against other Hammerhead types...

...perhaps AA7+...


Mmmm, probably true. Consider that spitball to be in the bin.


Tau often have artificially lower FF ratings, that's a given.

So you can see the Railgun Hammerhead having FF6+ due to difficulty in laying the main gun at short ranges, and perhaps the Fusion Cannon too due to... a slow rate of fire? Lack of efficient short-range targetters?

The Ion Cannon does have a greater rate of fire in 40k than other the Rail or the Fusion, IIRC, so it doesn't feel too far off to me... and it (A FF change) does give more worth to the Ionhead in the wider context of the Tau list, perhaps promoting their use.



Regardless of the chosen solution, I believe the effort is justified.

Otherwise, you might as well just remove the Ion Cannon Hammerhead from the list.

I think we as a community have a duty to deliver a list that allows people to use the models they've bought over the years in the expectation of getting to use them (Which I why I still support seeing an "armoured cadre" variant list once the main tau list is finalised, so people can use their Scorpionfishes and Morays and Stingrays etc.), and this is especially important for such "standard" units as the Ion Cannon Hammerhead.

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Just that their armour save feels a little bit off for me as compared to how I feel it should be in a conversion from their 28mm stats. Just a tad too weak. Plus it does feel like it's currently worth 140pts, not 150pts, heh. :-)

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I am not sure that "slightly off compared to how the w40k stats are" is a strong reason to change something that I don't think many people consider to be an issue. Surely the important issue is whether the Epic unit functions as intended?

I have no idea how a unit can seem to be worth 10 points less

Perhaps the strongest reason for changing it to RA is that people expect air transports to have RA, especially since 4+ to 5+RA is a small change for air craft (it means a lot more to ground units that meet a lot more MW shots).

That said I think it is characterful that the Tau air transport is less armoured, to encourage its use in a less "cavalier" fashion.

I personally have never seen an issue with the Ion head. It's a good long range infantry killer which the Tau list sorely lacks since the AP Missiles were removed from the Tau list. Versus Orks (or any horde lists) it's a bit of a god send in numbers as you can pick off infantry at range and reduce their numbers before they reach you. Also as an attachment to Fire Warrior formations they have the same tasking as the FWs (AP killing) and the FW fm can now "reach out".

Instead of reducing all the other Hammerhead's FF values, how about increase the Ion Head's FF to 4+ (high rate of fire for the Ion Cannon can be used as a good reason). Then the Ion Head would join the Manta and the the Krootox Herd as the only FF4+ units in the army.
That would make them more appealing.

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anybody ever considered an increase in DC for the Orca from 2 to 3? I know a variant list where that's been done, along with a drop in the armour save (5+ normal I think) and FF/CC (6 each). Made them a little less vulnerable to light flak but still caused them to drop like flies heading into heavy flak. Seems an interesting way of approaching the "fragile but not too fragile non-frontline transport" question. THough you do then get other issues with assault resolution..

Ok, let's slow down before this gets all wound up and out of control.

#1. The Orca is a trash hauler that is used to ferry stuff around. Sometimes the Tau used it in combat situations and it suffered accordingly. It's a transport. A big one, but still a transport.

No Change

#2. I stated previously that I could support a single unit upgrade to sniper for PFs in a similar fashion as SM Scouts. They don't deserve anything more than that. No one took me up on the offer. We are not making fundemental changes to the list at this point.

#3. No. The current changes (points adjustments) haven't been play tested yet (one game doesn't count). I intend for us to ride what will be v6.3 for awhile with the help of yme-loc and the Epic-UK resources.

No Change

Right now you (collectively) are falling back into the same old Tau pattern of not finishing off a task (i.e. testing) and resorting to "feelings" and "wants". We're not going there. That's what has prevented this list from getting to a final form for years.

So, I will apologize upfront if this is rebuke coming off a bit harsh, but really, we should all know better. We've been there before, done that, and the T-shirt looks like crap.

I will be working on updating the list so that we can get a v6.3 out there and that's where it's going to stay for awhile.

More later...

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All I can say is that I waited until after posting my first v6.3 test game report before posting my current concerns, and I will not cease asking that #2 and #3 be most seriously considered.

#1 is marginal for me, but #2 and #3 I regard as very, very important.
The former for the feel of the list (Pathfinders currently lack a unique role), the latter for the internal balance of the list (Ion Cannon Hammerheads are simply inferior).

These are not recent concerns of mine; I've seen them as problem points for many months.



I could get it up for you tonight, if you don't have the time.


I do not think that the Tau list needs another upgrade option.

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Um I have a question..I see the fire warrios squads can get 6 stands, and 3 devilfish. You also have fire warriors as an upgade. My question is there is no way to get more devilfish for the warriors that you might buy for an upgrade. Is this intentional or was it an oversight?

This is how it reads in the army lists;



So you can choose between upgrading with 4 stands of Fire Warriors on their own or 4 stands of Fire Warriors accompanied by two Devilfish.

Ok I was looking at v6.2..What list are you all talking about?

Never mind, I found it. I guess I totally missed it for some reason. Just ignore my post..lol

Oh, I'd also like to note that as of yesterday my regular Tau opponent (Jstr19) is now on a 6 game winning streak. All 6 games played under v6.3.

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Hey, our game was a draw! And we didn't even dice for turn 5!

Wasn't it a win on points for Ryan?

Apologies if I'm mistaken. If it was a draw then he's gone 5-0-1. :-)

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