KV128 Warhammer Tau Empire Stormsurge

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Three secondaries on offer for Tau here, and they’re… interesting. Aerospace Targeting Relays is a Shadow Operations objective which requires you to place an Aerospace Designation marker halfway along each battlefield edge, and lets your INFANTRY units do an action at the end of the Movement phase which completes at the start of your next Command phase or the end of the battle. Like similar objectives, your goal here is to scan each point once, and you get a scaling number of VPs depending on how many you achieve – a paltry 2 if you only manage one, all the way up to the maximum 15 for hitting all 4. This system lies firmly in the grip of a tyrannical regime, which must be defeated and the fear of it broken before victory can be achieved.Add 2 to the Military Power of this star system’s Core World. Twelve relics here, a mix of returning favourites and new kit. These are now “Relics” too, rather than Signature Systems, in line with the drive to standardisation (which is good). Farsight Enclaves Detachment: A Detachment in a Battle-forged army where every model has the FARSIGHT ENCLAVES keyword (excluding models with the T’AU AUXILIARY or UNALIGNED keywords). From: The sept that a unit belongs to is the sept they are from. A unit is from a certain sept if they have that sept’s name listed on its Faction keyword line.

Wings: Gunum later told me to add a Seeker Missile to one of the Devilfish, but I have decided it’s funnier to leave it like this. Only the Hammerhead railgun gets to ignore invulns, but all flavours of rail weaponry hit hard and do automatic mortals as soon as they wound, helping push through defences. At the end of the battle round, for each of the high-ranking political figure objective markers, if that objective marker is not controlled by you, subtract 1 from its life total. If an objective marker’s life total reaches 0, it is destroyed; remove it from the battlefield. If every unit in a Detachment is drawn from the same sept, all T’AU EMPIRE units in that Detachment that are drawn from that sept gain a Sept Tenet.Shas’vre, Iridium Suit, 2 plasma rifles, missile pod, counterfire defence system, Stimm Injector – 70 Gunum:“Outer Enclaves? Wings. Why do you let him do this to you all?” Okay, look. I understand, I hear you… but… Hear Me Out, what if… you could take all the benefits from Farsight Enclaves, and still get the utility of the Ethereals? Just as impactful, if not more so, is a keyword change – Crisis and Broadside Battlesuits plus all Commanders are now INFANTRY. For Crisis and Commanders that means they can claim Light Cover, a big survivability boost (especially on Enforcer Commanders, who can get pretty eye-wateringly tough now), while for Broadsides it provides the key ability to lurk just behind a wall till it’s time to strike, then burst through and hopefully keep one foot on the terrain’s base to augment their already juicy 2+ save (or alternatively, stand on some battlements blasting away). One other key impact this has on broadsides is that they are no longer limited to the ground floor of ruins or other terrain pieces, now being able to climb to firing positions that befit their heavy support status.

The original orange Tau – accept no substitutes. Tau Sept start strong as one of this book’s recipients of a “one re-roll” trait, with each of their units getting to re-roll a hit or a wound each time they shoot or fight. This trait almost always ends up as one of the better options available and it’s no different here – there are plenty of strong guns in this book with a small number of hyper-lethal shots, the perfect match for this ability. In addition, Tau Sept units get boosted aura sizes, and a matching boost to the range of Command Phase effects. This is a bit more niche, but does end up with Shadowsun having a truly spectacularly huge re-roll aura, as her Drones also boost the range of these. On that note, one of the unwritten upsides of Tau Sept is that they have access to more Named Characters than anyone else – Shadowsun and Aun’va can go in any list, but get better in Tau, while Longstrike is very good, and Tau only. Ion weapon: A weapon whose profile includes the word ‘ion’, or a Relic that replaces an ion weapon. Finally, Sector D has a couple of generically useful traits in Reliable Weaponry (one Wound re-roll) and Reinforced Armour (the Borkan strength modification defence), both of which could pair up well with the good ones from Sector A if you have the right units in your list. Unfortunately Sector E doesn’t really offer any additional goodness to combine with them, containing one OK trait, two mediocre ones, and then Enriched Reactors, which might be the single worst faction trait that has been published in a codex all edition – it provides a “buff” that only applies to plasma rifles, and makes them worse into almost all targets.It’s also functional! With all the test games I’ve been able to explore, I’ve found Farsight Enclaves to be amazing. I play them currently in 8th, and this new alliteration of them is nearly the best of the Scepts I’ve been able to try. The primary cause of this success is from the massive utility provided by not needing that many markerlights. Self-sustaining support! My lists have been averaging 3 ~ 4 total marker lights and I sometimes feel like that’s too many. With that in mind, along with a deep need to find a way to keep my mecha sons safe, I started to hunt for ways to make those forward forces a bit more durable, and my eyes couldn’t escape the new Sense of Stone, which gives a core unit a 5++. I needed that for my six man Crisis suit unit, so the exploration began. The inhabitants of this system are heavily militarised, and possessed of a volatile and aggressive temperament.Add 1 to the Military Power of each planet in this star system. Ultimately, these pay off for you – it’s very likely that you’re only ever going to want to bring one Ethereal, and there are enough good choices here to fill out that Ethereal’s slots and have them add serious value. Good stuff. Secondary Objectives

There’s some good clean fun in here for Ethereals, with The Humble Stave offering a Master of Sanctity-style buff to know an extra invocation and get +1 to the roll, or the Neuro-Empathic Nullifier which can cause an enemy unit to fail an action on a 2+, or prevent them starting a new one – particularly powerful in the new Nachmund missions, where a significant proportion of the bonus primary objectives are action-based.

Political Centre

One or more units from your army can start to perform this action at the end of the Move Units step of your Movement phase if they are within 1" of a Hatchway. This action can be performed by any unit that is not within Engagement Range of any enemy models, even if that unit is being affected by a rule that would normally prevent it from performing actions. The action is completed at the end of your Movement phase if no enemy models are within 1" of that Hatchway. If there are any enemy models within 1" of that Hatchway, your opponent can attempt to prevent the action from being completed. If they do so, roll off with your opponent; each player adds the Strength characteristic of one of their models that is within 1" of that Hatchway to their respective scores. If you win, the action is completed; otherwise, the action fails. If completed, that Hatchway opens (if it was closed) or closes (if it was open). Sept Warlord Trait: A Warlord Trait associated with a specific sept. These are only available to WARLORDS that are part of a Sept Detachment (and only if they are from the associated sept).

Those who will not accept the message of the T’au’va, and who cannot see the benefits of willing assimilation into the T’au Empire, must be rendered compliant through military force. They will still fall, of course, as battlesuit teams drop from the heavens with guns blazing and Hunter Cadres sweep unstoppably from one battlefront to the next. Regrettably, however, such conflicts may reduce the world’s infrastructure to ruins before they are done.If your Crusade force has a number of Military points equal to or higher than that planet’s Military Power, subtract that planet’s Military Power from your Crusade force’s Military points total and your Crusade force takes over that planet. Remember to apply that planet’s Assimilation Abilities when it is taken over.Last up, Tactical Drones. If you want lots of gun, marker or shield drones you can take these in a separate unit of 4-12 models, and it seems plausible you sometimes might. Four marker drones is your easiest and cheapest way to put down some easy-to-use Markerlights, while in Farsight Enclaves dropping in some big Gun Drone units feels like it might have some play in Mont’ka – twelve of them is a whole lot of shots at only 96pts. Without Saviour Protocols Shield Drones aren’t that useful in their own right now, but if you’re on either of these other plans adding a few Shield Drones can provide some substantial extra tankiness. Definitely feels like there will be some uses for this datasheet overall. Heavy Support