[Theoryhammer] Dr. Shiny's Da'Ieldi T'au
As any fule kno, the story of the Sector Maledicta began over a decade ago, when I was last playing 40K semi-regularly at the dawn of sixth edition. The games against Garbutt's original Hawk Lords Chapter are the bedrock of what we did in our first season back on our bullshit here, but he was not my only opponent in those giant days.
Allow me to introduce the learned Dr. Shiny, a man who I doubt holds even the pretence of a medical degree. He and I have known each other since my first week in secondary school and, at this stage, our friendship is a twenty-five to life sentence with no chance of parole. In the very early days he played Ulthwé Eldar, but after listening to him whinge about how much worse they were in three successive editions of the game, I suggested liquidating them and buying into an army that did all the things he wished his knife-ears were capable of doing.
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| The good Doctor is a working artist, and it shows. I had forgotten how unnecessarily gorgeous his collection was. Did you know the rotten sod is colourblind as well? It boggles the mind. |
Enter the Da'Ieldi Sept. Per the man himself:
It's in what was formerly the N'Dras sept, but the Tau abandoned N'Dras for Unexplained Reasons. So a bunch of other colonies in the old N'Dras area are petitioning to be the new sept centre, with Da'Ieldi being one of them. It's in the same system as N'Dras itself, but further out, so it's colder than the Tau usually like it and a bit darker.
Also, it means "Dark Wing."
Truly, a terror that flaps in the night.
Anyway. Over the years I've come to feel a bit bad about bullying my best friend into abandoning the army he'd had since his schooldays; I also missed his fortieth birthday due to, you know, life circumstances. I decided to run some numbers and see what we could do with his collection as it stands, plus whatever dusty pile of opportunity he has under his bed. Here's what came out of that...
Shas'O Shi'ny's Da'Ieldi Expedition
Experimental Prototype Cadre
Incursion (1000 points)
1x Cadre Fireblade (50 pts)
1x Commander in Crisis Battlesuit [Legends] (90 pts): Warlord, Battlesuit support system, Shield Generator, 2x Shield Drone, Missile pod, Plasma rifle
Enhancement: Plasma Accelerator Rifle (+10 pts)
10x Strike Team (75 pts)
• Guardian Drone, Marker Drone
• Pulse rifles
10x Kroot Carnivores (65 pts)
10x Pathfinder Team (90 pts)
• 6 with pulse carbine, 3 with rail rifle
• Shas'ui with pulse carbine, pulse accelerator drone, semi-automatic grenade launcher
3x Stealth Battlesuits (80 pts)
• 1x Stealth Shas'vre: Homing beacon, burst cannon, 2 gun drones
• 2x Stealth Shas'ui: burst cannon
5x Kroot Hounds (40 pts)
5x Kroot Hounds (40 pts)
Crisis Fireknife Team (120 pts)
• 2x Crisis Fireknife Shas’ui with shield drone, gun drone, missile pod and plasma rifle
• 1x Crisis Fireknife Shas’vre: with shield drone, gun drone, missile pod, and plasma rifle
1x Hammerhead Gunship (145 pts): railgun, 2 seeker missiles, 2 smart missile systems
1x Piranha (60 pts): Armoured hull, 2 twin pulse carbines, Piranha fusion blaster, 2 seeker missiles
1x Piranha (60 pts): Armoured hull, 2 twin pulse carbines, Piranha fusion blaster, 2x seeker missiles
1x Devilfish (85 pts): accelerator burst cannon, 2 smart missile systems
The second Devilfish has to sit out, and the good Doctor will be required to actually paint up the rest of his Pathfinders, but still. I don't think that's a bad little list. It has the Hammerhead and Piranhas to address hard targets, decent and flexible volume of fire from the Fireknife team, and a Kroot auxiliary core to play the divot touching game while the Tau themselves do the killing work.
I've opted for the smooth brained Experimental Prototype Cadre detachment as "everything has longer range and your commander's plasma rifle is super good" feels like an easy on-ramp to the brave new world of stratagem, enhancement, and datasheet.
Of course, I couldn't quite stop there. There's a T'au B'attl'ef'orc'e coming out for the Winterval this year, and I wondered... knowing that there are at least three more Crisis suits as yet unreadied for war... could my number one guy reach the hallowed 2000 points?
Not quite. He'd need another 10 Fire Warriors, and either a Ghostkeel or two more Broadsides on top of the contents of the box. Nevertheless, there is as the old saying goes: "much to think about". If nothing else, the fella probably deserves a commander model who isn't damned with the Legends tag, and I think he'd enjoy the Coldstar's "by the way, my team and I can now run and gun" ability.
Much, indeed, to think about.
Medical degree? Surely this Shiny fellow's PhD in art or art history is more than enough to warrant their Dr title - after all a PhD is a Doctorate, it's literally DESCRIBING a doctor...
ReplyDeleteBe forewarned, between the creative decisions - or lack thereof - taken by GW with the Tau over the last few years there is a non-zero chance of history repeating with your friend, especially if they don't much care for the mech sideshow. The extreme balkanisation of the Tau player base is unlikely to help (in fact there are some uncanny parallels with the 2nd edition legacy Eldar player base in the late 90s).
(ironically, word on the street is the Eldar right now are doing swimmingly - perhaps not as much as the golden age of 3.5 - 4th, or the silver age of 7th, but certainly riding a bubble of being one of the more exciting armies to play in your 10th edition).
If your friend was able to endure Eldar in 5th edition then they should be fine, especially in the very Yes And environment of the Maledicta sector, but be prepared for some culture shock if they managed to escape Nuhammer world up until now.
Not to be discouraging, just be aware that 10th edition Tau are a very different animal from 6th edition Tau, and wildly different again from pre-6th edition Tau, and it is recommended that you have a plan ready in case that causes trouble.
A yuletide gift of shiny new stuff can help bridge thing over too of course.
I did misquote the line from Toy Story slightly, but that's no call to PhDsplain to someone who was, after all, attempting one a few years ago. The joke, you see, is that he's not a doctor at all, and for some reason it's never landed - even in the "he's not more a doctor than I am a captain!" days when we started this bit.
DeleteI'd quite like some unpacking and detail I can pass onto my colleague, rather than vague portents of doom. Could you substantiate some of your observations?
In this instance it seems to have been a case of two jokes violently colliding with each other - whenever doctor authenticity comes up I just can't resist quoting one of my favourite Brooklyn Nine-Nine bits, no matter how obscure it may be.
DeleteSo, from what I have observed re: Tau in 10th,
The overall vibe seems to be that while there has been progress made (especially with the recent reworking of the army rule), the game faction does still feel somewhat watered down and still trying to play 6th edition and wondering why it's not working.
For someone coming straight in from 2013 - 2014ish, two very iconic Tau staples, markerlights and drones, have been almost completely abstracted away, being rendered down to an army rule/unit special rule that does army rule a little better and mostly invisible wargear respectively. Models having markerlights still does something, but it's not the granular dramatic laser-guiding of other 40k games. Similarly, a character having drones still does something, but the drones themselves are not discrete followers (which is why a lot of Tau tourneycorns no longer bother modeling them).
The other big issue that commonly gets brought up is pulse rifles/carbines, which 10th edition has not been kind to. Any AP characteristic they may have still retained was removed - a casualty of 10th edition's original design goal to Make Power Armour Great Again - which combined with only a single damage characteristic leaves Fire Warriors with perceptibly anemic firepower. Pulse carbines have been hit particularly hard since pinning is not a thing in 10th edition, leaving them sawn-off pulse rifles with only a very limited range window where they outshine the rifles.
These days conventional 10th edition wisdom is to task Fire Warriors with divot touching, as an alternative divot-toucher option to Kroot that trades divot stickiness for the ability to reach out and offer light supporting fire from 30" away while still sitting on a divot.
For killing work the popular troop option is Breaching Teams carrying ARC blasters with an engagement envelope not a million miles away from Guardian Defenders in 3rd edition.
Crisis Teams are strange, being split between a legendary stat profile that retains granular loadout options and a trio of Predator-style variant stat profiles with semi-fixed equipment loadouts. If your friend was the sort who liked tinkering with battlesuit weapon fits, they may have to settle for the former.
Similarly, battlesuits great and small are pushed fairly hard on players, but that is only 50% GW and 50% self-inflicted.
Note that there is quite a bit of historicity to this. Like I say, the Tau player base is (ironically given what they're fans of) highly balkanised, and most of my observations have come from the primary Tau subreddit which is dominated by a specific clique (a three-way coalition between the cult of the mech, the splinter-cult of the mech sword, and the NeanderTau helmet lobby, with the alien allies fur alles club being the largest opposition). There have been recent dissenting takes claiming that Tau are much better in 10th than conventional wisdom would have you believe, and that much of the discontent comes from very vocal cliques trying to force their preferred unit combinations to work instead of adapting to what actually works, but they are thus far in a minority when it comes to publicity and online traction.
All of this is far from insurmountable, but if your friend was annoyed by the abstraction treatment Eldar went through from 2nd edition to 3rd, then there is a non-zero chance they will also find the abstraction treatment Tau went through from 6/7th edition to 10th to be similarly irritating.
Best of luck though, I do actually want to see my fears proven wrong with this venture.
Ahh, I see. The Bits passed in the night, exchanged broadsides, and were gone - onward into the void. Fair enough. I'm sorry for being tetchy about it: the Maladies have been quite serious of late and I suspect you were, as the children say, "catching strays."
DeleteI find it interesting that the pulse and gauss weapon have received similar bullying in the last decade - certainly, mine have retained their Roll Sixes For Goodstuff aspect, but that's not such a special thing when everyone and their dog seems to be doing it.
I'd noticed the split in the Crisis suits, but the good Doctor expressed a positive opinion at seeing the old names come up again, having been there when they were the style at the time, so I think we're all right on that front. (He has built his solo suit with two flamers, though, so the commander may have to have a slight tweak.)
I'll keep you posted. I suspect the new normal will be greeted with the same genteel, contemptuous whinging as ever, but over the years I've come to suspect that's how he has a good time.