Ethereal

[afayer9]

Would it be beneficial with the new preferred enemy rules to take an ethereal and purposely have him die just to try and give the army preferred enemy?

[SavageConvoy]

I have a friend that deploys an Ethereal on a tall structure in his deployment zone, then has him dive off first turn.

Apparently it works well if you roll good for leadership

[Astantia]

Preferred enemy is only a reroll of ones. Anything twin-linked will not benefit at all. It can be nice if you also have a markerlight based army, as that gives you a very tiny chance to miss.

However, tau units have leadership 8 if you're doing it right. Which means you have a decent chance to lose a unit or two. Something I've been toying around with is bringing a second ethereal to provide a morale reroll, but have not had any luck.

[Tau-New Codex Pls]

Put everything in tanks....of course your suits would be effed though...yeah i'd say risks out weigh the benfits..

[Astantia]

Only things that actually take the test get the buff.

[Fedaykin]

The key to this might be Shadowsun. Suicide ethereal turn one and make sure all units are within 18" of her or her drones - they can then use her leadership to pass the rolls

[Astantia]

Just a quick note: according to the FAQ it's only models within 18" of her drone get to use her leadership. It's not a bad idea, but id still be worried about spending so many points just to give some of your models preferred enemy.

[number6]

You can't be serious. The Ethereal is at least as bad as it's ever been. The unit has never -- NEVER -- been a worthwhile choice. Not once, and not even in the 3e version of the codex. Maybe the new Tau codex will make the Ethereal a useful unit to take. But in all honesty, I actually hope not. I hope it remains a liability. I like the fluff as it exists for the Ethereal. And that means to me that Ethereals have no place on the battlefield anyway. They're too valuable culturally, and too valuable strategically, to risk on the battlefield. They should remain in conference rooms making strategic decisions on the expansion of the empire, or perhaps on how to best win a conflict, but under no circumstances should they be risked in any kind of military engagement.

Long live the useless Ethereal!

[Astantia]

I'd like to see something like:

Occasionally members of the ethereal caste will take to observing the actions of the fire caste in person. In these situations he is always joined by an elite cadre of warriors. All tau fire warriors in an army containing an ethereal are bs4, and all tau units have +1 leadership, to a maximum of 10, while the ethereal is alive.
When the ethereal dies, all tau units must make a leadership check or fall back, treating the ethereal's last position as the tau player's table edge. Any unit that takes this test gains the preferred enemy special rule for the race that killed the ethereal.

~100 points, stats the same as now, except ws2 and no save.