Stealth team improvements

[Astantia]

Would you take a single unit of stealth teams if they were troops?

[Shas Oh Dear]

Single? I'd have stealth teams coming out the wazoo.

[eiglepulper]

Not for their current cost, no.

E.

[Astantia]

Even though they'd be scoring?

[SavageConvoy]

Its tough to say. I think in some higher point games I'd like to take a unit or two for objective hopping as opposed to spending 135 for firewarriors and devilfish. I'm going to try this out weekend to see if how well it would work.

So how would you suggest running it? I was thinking deepstriking them close to an objective and hoping they come in late. If not atleast direct so much attention towards an objective far in my opponents territory.

[Astantia]

Either that or infiltrate and take shots at infantry as you retreat towards a home objective. Moving 12" a turn gives you a lot of speed to get to an objective mid to late game. In addition, they are fairly resilient. You can throw a couple shield generators or drones in the squad to provide extra protection, and the stealth field generator does a pretty decent job of keeping them safe from long range shooting. Combat is still an issue, but that's part of being a tau commander. I'm curious as to how it goes.

[number6]

Maybe. But probably not. They're more awful on the cost/benefit equation than even lowly Fire Warriors.

Definitely if they were appropriately costed. (Like, say, 17-ish points per model.)

[eiglepulper]

Maybe. But probably not. They're not as awful on the cost/benefit equation as even lowly Fire Warriors.

Definitely if they were appropriately costed. (Like, say, 17-ish points per model.)

That's really the way I was thinking. Their current cost for a minimum squad equates to 75% of a standard Fire Warrior unit, but to make them work they would benefit greatly from a Targeting Array, which now means they cost 100% of a full FW squad. OK, BS would then be better, so more of the shots will hit, and the weapon range is kind of a compromise between the stand still and rapid fire ranges of the Pulse Rifle, so that makes them more attractive. Add in their special rules and yes they would be worth considering.

E.

[Rikimaru]

While the idea is nice enough the fact is the fluff is rigid, Tau have a strict and inflexible caste system throughout every aspect of their society. Fire Warriors are the troops and Stealth are the elite, end of, the progression from Fire Warrior to the elite XV8/XV25 corps is established and rigid. To put it quite simply GW are never going to change the Fire Warrior as sole Tau troops choice, so we may as well get used to it. You may see some additional inducted/alien troops types (can we guess what they will be people?) but as far as Tau are concerned the Tau troops are Fire Warriors.

[Astantia]

From a fluff perspective, that is true. But in game trrms, it is only true in as much as ork boys are troops, guardians are troops and so on.

In recent (read: 5th edition) codices, a much more liberal view of what a 'troop' choice is has been applied. Hell, grey knights can take paladins as troops.

I said a limited troop choice because I could definitely see gw providing some kind of option along those lines, either an hq choice that change troops around, or a limit on how many units you could take as a troops choice, or making a full size squad a troops option, or just by making them scoring.

Gw has proven time and again that they are willing to move things around in order to make a codex competitive, expecting or wanting anything less than what our counterparts are getting is unreasonable at best.