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Official Vespid Pics
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Author:  colonel_sponsz [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Just spotted this on the GW news page:



Not sure I really like the look of them. :(

Orde
Author:  blackhorizon [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
They have been their quite a while now (the picture that is), but I have to agree I don't like the look of them.
The whole Vespid thing is dumb, better was more expansion on Kroot or Demiurg introduction into 40k or Nicassar.
Author:  colonel_sponsz [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 1:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
I tend not to keep tabs on GW propper and had only seen the games day pics.

I think that bringing back the Squats Demiurg would be the most popular thing GW could do.  Those that don't remeber would treat them as just another race (like Vespids) and may of the old guard would be buying them up like they were going out of fashion (or being eaten by 'nids).

Orde
Author:  Chroma [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 2:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Does anyone know what kind of major changes are going on with the Tau?  Is there the chance that all our playtest work on the EPIC list may be nullified or rendered moot by things changed in the "Tau Empire" codex?
Author:  colonel_sponsz [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 2:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
I've been looking at some of the rumours on the 40k boards this morning and, aside from the usual hyperbole, there doesn't seem to be much talk of stuff that would effect things at an Epic scale.  Aside from Vespids, most of it is new models for existing units, slight tweaks to weapons & systems and weather the FW stuff is going to become Codex.

Orde
Author:  Legion 4 [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 3:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Well they certainly look alien :alien: ?! :o0 ? Too bad we won't see them in Epic scale ... like a lot of other stuff ! ?:down: ?:evil: ?:angry:
Author:  primarch [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Hi!

What are they supposed to be, a kroot variant?

Primarch
Author:  CyberShadow [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
I have been keeping tabs on things as best I can as well:

The Vespids are a seperate race, similar in status to the Kroot, but completely seperate. They are skimmers/fliers, and reasonably well armed and armoured (but not as heavy as the original rumours suggested at Orgyn size!). I would guess that they will be the 'front line' troops for the Tau, but we will need to wait to see.

The new Tau Codex is due shortly (next year). From what I can gather, it will mostly deal with rules fixes due to fourth edition (where shield drones dont actually get to shield anything as they are usually in the minority with armour/toughness in a unit) and inclusion of things like Tetra, Pirahna and so on into the main 40K Tau list.

I spoke with Forge World briefly when I made an order yesterday and the impression that I got was that the most likely developments in Epic were items already in 40K. For the Tau, the Epic range is actually more complete than the 40K range, so it seems that we should be fairly stable for a while. The only posibilities that this leaves are the Crisis commander variants and the Tigershark AX-1-0 variant... which seems the most likely right now.

Hypothesising a little more, I guess that the new Tau Codex could include rules for more auxilia troops such as Vespids and Demiurg, as well as perhaps Imperial troops...?

Thanks.
Author:  Tactica [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 7:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Tau 40K new Empire Codex: Tau Rumour summary

A compilation of known rumours surrounding the new Tau Empire codex. ?Mainly a courtesy of warseer and daath40 on from various forum boards.

Release date ? February/March/April 2006

Tactica thinks you should note that these are _WH40K_ Tau codex ?_rumors_


HQ

Crisis Suit Commander
HQ choice remain pretty much the same except the Commander (XV8
battle suit) and his Shas'vre bodyguard have access to a range of `special issue' wargear (you can only take one of each type of ?special issue).

Ethereals
Remains pretty much the same except they can take an honour guard of ?veteran fire
warriors (you can upgrade some of their stats for a
points cost).



Elites

No rules changes [outside of twin-link flamer option] currently known about but Crisis suits are now cheaper


Troops

Fire warriors ? No changes known about or rumoured. (Except Devilfish ?may take a SMS instead of drones)

Kroot ? Kroot hounds & Krootox are now part of the general Kroot entry and are purchased as upgrades for the squad.


Fast Attack

Gun Drones ? No changes currently known about

Pathfinders
? Now have the `Scout' USR
? Now have access to Rail rifles (they no longer get hot)
? The pathfinders Devilfish comes equipped with a marker beacon helping with deep strike (details TBC)

Piranha
No details yet but rules assumed to be similar to the FW rules.

Vespid
- Line troops are called Stingwings and they are led by a `Strain ?Leader' equipped
with communication helmet allowing contact with the ?Tau.
- Jump Infantry
- Fleet of Wing
- Skilled flyers
- Better than Tau Fire warriors in hth but still not great.
- Armed with a Neutron Blaster (short ranged) ? Exact details are ?pretty much TBC but generally assumed to be either S3 or S5, AP3 Assault1.


Heavy Support

Broadsides ? May purchase an `advanced stabilisation system' giving ?them the Slow & Purposeful USR. (move and fire heavy weapons)

Sniper Drone Teams
- One spotter and three sniper drones (armed with rail rifles)
- Multiple teams can be taken as part of the same Heavy Support choice.
- May have other special rules but they are TBC

Hammerhead ? No changes known or rumoured.

Sky-Ray ? Rumoured addition to the codex, assumed to be generally ?similar to the entry in IA3 (The Taros Campaign).



Special Characters

Aun'va'denta ? The oldest & wisest of the Ethereals
Comes on a drone Zimmer frame ?(unknown if there are rules for it). Highly inspiring
to the Tau but don't let him be killed
Comes with an honour guard of very tough Tau.

Commander Farsight ? As per the original Tau codex unknown if there ?are any rules changes but there is a little more insight into his ?motivations.

Commander Shadowsun
- The new female commander of the Tau armed forces and student of ?Aun'va'denta.
- Wears a highly advanced battle suit
- Armed with twin fusion blasters able to fire at different targets ?- Accompanied by a unique drone.



General
Crisis Suits & Stealth suits come with deep strike as standard (not ?broadsides).
Vehicles are limited to two seeker missiles each.
New and improved range of vehicle wargear.
New and improved range of crisis suit wargear.
New drone type ? Marker drone
Special issue wargear is a mixture of command, movement and weaponry.

New Markerlight system
Each time you hit a target unit with a marker light you place a
counter next to that unit, during that shooting phase you may expend ?a counter to allow Tau & Vespid units (If the strain leader is alive) ?to take a variety of actions.

Fire a single Seeker missile

Allow a unit to increase it's BS by 1 (multiple counters may be
expended allowing a max increase to BS5

Allow a firing unit to automatically pass a target priority test.
Impose a -1 to the leadership score when taking pinning tests
(multiple counters may be expended allowing a cumulative effect).

-1 to cover saves (multiple counters may be expended allowing a cumulative effect).

Markerlights cannot be used to benefit other markerlights

There are two types ? Standard and Networked, both do the same thing ?but network markerlights can self designate for the unit/vehicle the are in.

Veteren Abilities, Doctrines, etc

There's talk of a customizable system to be built into the tau list - similiar to that found in the Chaos, IG, Space Marine and Tyranids codices.

Tactica thinks you should please note these are all RUMOURS and remain so until OFFICIAL publication proves otherwise
Author:  primarch [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Hi!

Interesting. I dont necessarily dislike it, but I wonder "Why" Tau need more parts to it?

Beyond GW selling more models of course.... :;):

Primarch
Author:  Lion in the Stars [ Wed Nov 09, 2005 11:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
At least part of it was to fix the problems that v4 created.

Why in god's name is GW including an AA vehicle in the Codex?  The Stingray would kinda make sense (as much sense as the Basilisk does, anyway), but a SKYray?  WTF, GW?!?  Besides, GW is trying to keep the 'TACAIR' out of the 40k table, IIRC.

Also, the Kroot extras ('ox and 'hounds) used to be squad extras that take an extra FOC slot, and really restricted the heavy support choices available to the Tau, just to have some heavy guns in the Kroot flock.

Frankly, tau are in a bit of trouble facing Marines or Necrons, with a massive lack of CC ability (I know it's a part of their army character, but...)  The Vespids are supposed to be a way to show the growth of the Tau empire, and introduce new minor races to 40k.  We'll see how effective they really are come March.
Author:  Tactica [ Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:39 am ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
Quote (Lion in the Stars @ 09 Nov. 2005 (22:10))
At least part of it was to fix the problems that v4 created.

Why in god's name is GW including an AA vehicle in the Codex? ?The Stingray would kinda make sense (as much sense as the Basilisk does, anyway), but a SKYray? ?WTF, GW?!? ?Besides, GW is trying to keep the 'TACAIR' out of the 40k table, IIRC.

Also, the Kroot extras ('ox and 'hounds) used to be squad extras that take an extra FOC slot, and really restricted the heavy support choices available to the Tau, just to have some heavy guns in the Kroot flock.

Frankly, tau are in a bit of trouble facing Marines or Necrons, with a massive lack of CC ability (I know it's a part of their army character, but...) ?The Vespids are supposed to be a way to show the growth of the Tau empire, and introduce new minor races to 40k. ?We'll see how effective they really are come March.

At least part of it was to fix the problems that v4 created.


Agreed, v4 of WH40K caused the tau some real problems. Then there was the fact that most of their upgrades are counter productive and not efficient.

Case and point: A Missle shot from the tau in 40K costs 10 for the missle, 10 for the marker light, 10 for the guy carrying the marker light, and 10 for the upgrade to allow him to carry the marker light. Then, its a 6 turn game. So if you want the guy with the marker light to be able to fire a missle each turn you have 50 more points of missles to buy. So the net result was 60 points in seekers + 30 points in marker and guy = 90 points for a missle that first requires a 4+ to hit, then a 2+ to hit, then roll to wound or get through armor accordingly...

Compare that to a 15 point marine with a 30 point lascannon that needs a 3+ to hit and has +1 strength and breaks armor even easier and... well, you get the idea.

Furthermore, v4 assault rules and shooting rules completely broke the defensive intelligent nature of the drones as originally designed in Tau 40K codex.

V4 also makes 'in your face' action happen a whole lot quicker, so as LitS said, tau are handy-capped in 40K due to no h-t-h answers. Kroot just don't do the job. We'll see if Vespids are any better.

Then there's things like bonding and photon gernades that just don't work in the interest of the tau. Bonding - in order to work, requires you to get broken... The better approach is just to take smaller squads and more of them - so the squads become disposable. Then the points saved from bonding can be used to buy more squads. Photon gernades reduce the amount of damage the enemy does in combat... well, that means the enemy has to get to combat... Ulgh! If the enemy gets to combat - due to the way 40K works, I want him to bust through so I can shoot him again on my turn. If he doesn't bust through after charging, I won't be able to shoot him on my turn... and that means he might bust through on the end of the combat on my turn... meaning he just gets to charge again before I can fire! Aaahhh! BAD!

In summary, the army as a whole is getting a bit cheaper to take what you used to take it more efficient and effective. They are adding some new units and give existing units new options. We'll see how those pan out. They are also adopting some FW vehicles - an interesting approach... is this the first of FW and GW squaring off for model production?

Kroot upgrades have never really worked in the list as they took up key Force Organization choices. So people didn't value kroot hounds on par with a forgeworld Tetra formation or even a deep striking drone squadron for that matter. Now they won't have to. Also, the Krootox - who would take 3 krootox and more S7 shots (that the tau don't need) just to lose a chance to get a broadside unit or a Hammerhead unit? Nobody in their right mind would - and quality players didn't. So they are fixing that kroot situation as a whole.

What other options and new abilities they have in order should be interesting. Stealths and / or firewarriors may receive the options to have weapons which are better than what they have today. WE'll see if that pans out. New abilities for crisis commanders could be interesting and new ways to organize the list will probably be an expansion on the farsight enclave as well as possibly other sept army variants.

All speculation, but its good to dream about. Winter couldn't pass any slower for some of us right now... LOL.
Author:  Legion 4 [ Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:41 am ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
More and more 40K is interfering with Epic than helping ! :p :( :;):
Author:  Tactica [ Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:07 am ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
L4,

I think we were just answering the Chroma's questions.

In short, no.

Development on the Epic:A front seems to be right in line with whats in store for the new 40K tau codex and does not appear to be negatively impacted by it.

Do we want to include things like SMS on devilfish, marker drones, alternate weaponry on stealths, crisis or PF's? Do we worry about alternate Auxilia such as vespids - well maybe and maybe not. But these are tedious points in the grand scheme of Epic:A and whether these elements are in or out really doesn't impact the list as a whole one way or the other.

The point is we do not appear to be working on formations in E:A that consist of units which are going away nor are fundamental Tau philosophies change best we can tell. The Tau empire is growing in its new version, and Epic:A already takes that into account.

Unit/formation tweaks are already happening in WIP v4.2.4 and we shouldn't be in any danger of becoming ostrasized by the new tau 40K codex.

So shouldn't be any worries in that arena,
Author:  Nerroth [ Thu Nov 10, 2005 1:27 am ]
Post subject:  Official Vespid Pics
The Vespid aren't exactly my cup of tea, to be honest...


(Why can't we have Demiurg, you silly Studio people? At least let Jervis et al at SG play with them for a while...)


I know, we'll get Forgeworld to make some Epic Demiurg units (maybe mining craft usable as fighter-bombers, as seen in BFG), everyone will buy them, my head will remain in the clouds, yada yada yada...


Gary
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