Quote: (Dobbsy @ 20 Feb. 2009, 01:51 )
Markerlight changes - This may all be unfounded but it does spring immediately to mind:
I only have one concern about this and it will only pan out once I get some games in, however, if your opponent can take out all of your ML units (and it's a well-known practice that most opponents will kill your important units first - given the fragility of Tau units and the fact they will have to be in the enemy's face to work, this is pretty easy) what do you do with your units that are largely GM carriers? You essentially gut those formations.... Does this design concept have a balance for this? e.g If I take a Pirahna formation, a Scorpionfish and 2 Pathfinder formations and you kill all the PFs then the Pirahnas/SF are pretty much useless. They're there for the GM attacks not the secondary attacks so will be relegated to just running around the table and popping off 1 BM here or there.
I applaud your push for synergy but I'm worried about this. Opponents will go out of their way to kill all your ML units. Once they do your army will be neutered - OK, I hear people saying "that's what we want", but I'm not sure this is entirely fair to Tau players. There's only so many points I can put into ML units and given the cost of most, if I have to throw in so many ML units to be able to use my shooty units then it's counterproductive to my list as I'll have to take more ML units than shooters....
IMHO this dependency on ML is a welcome built-in weakness to the Tau forces, but I do understand the point being made. I have a feeling that the answer will lie in both army make-up and tactics employed to preserve the weaker ML equiped formations, or only to employ them in a FO role where the greater Tau firepower is required etc; both of which will have an effect on the way the army plays.
Now whether that matches up to people's expectations is another story, but given the potential impact to the list, this is the first area that should be tested to prove the point either way. Given the idea has been around for a while, has anyone actually fought using the revised ML / GM rule, and if so, what happened??
) I've been able to get in since the GM/ML dependancy was suggested have been all about direct fire armies for me.