My Hope for the Tau's Future

So after nearly writing this article in it's entirety once before, I've since had the virtue of not “updating your word processor while editing” extolled upon me. But it's okay, I didn't like the structure of it anyways, so I'm sort of thankful for the opportunity to re-write it. Without further adieu, I present to you, my hope for the Tau's future, revised, and heavily abridged.

First off, what you should know is that this article is highly subjective. It revolves exclusively around my opinion, and while filled with truths on the Tau, they are my truths and certainly not shared by all. You can chalk up any resemblance between what you read here and the finalized Tau codex, to thematic consistency on the part of GW, and maybe common sense. There are no rumors or leaks, or anything else to sate the information hungry soul, just my words. If that doesn't daunt you, read on.

While there are plenty of topics that I really want to get to with this blog (the suggested redesign of Marker-Lights, the new Skyrays, new Crisis Suits, just to name a few), this is a topic that's going to serve as a framework for all that comes after. It's something I found myself reaching for in the last article, where we discussed the Demiurg and they're potential build – something we're going to revisit here, and it'll serve as an example that hopefully pulls the whole thing together. So to be honest with you, while this might not be the most informative article, it absolutely needed to get written.

See, the Tau stand on the razors edge, we look out from our small corner of the galaxy and see ourselves surrounded by barbarians. Who would have thought, that in the far flung future of the 41^st millennium, that the bastard child of a sword and a chainsaw would be the weapon of choice? We are an island of sanity, awash in a sea of madness, and all that stands between us and the crashing waves are our guns. With our fate in the hands of others, we can only sit back and ponder as to which side of the razor we will fall. Will we be streamlined? Close combat units shoe horned in at every turn to make up for our failings? Or will GW choose the high road, and balance a ranged army in a close combat game? My hope is for the latter, and here's why.

At the core of the Tau, there exists a set of themes. These themes appear in a multitude of other armies, but aren't as central to them as they are to the Tau. In many ways, these themes form the foundation of the army, and because of the Tau's unique nature, there exists an untapped opportunity for growth. No matter what comes, these elements will be present in the next Tau codex, I don't doubt that for a moment. The real question will be whether or not they remain the dominating factors they are today.

Ranged Combat

Everyone knows the Tau like to fight at arms length, and fold like paper in close combat. That being said, the header may as well have read “Ranged Combat, and lack of Close Combat”. This is possibly the single most defining element of the Tau. Those who play as Tau know it, and those who play against Tau know it. What's unique, is that as a community, Tau players have embraced this flaw, and it stands as the best example of an armies identity shining through the game's mechanics, that the hobby has to offer.

Lets be clear, I'm not asking for the Tau to be able to vaporize the enemy from across the board. What I'm asking for is to have our ranged abilities balanced around our absence of assault abilities. What I'm certainly not asking for are units that can engage in close combat, to do so might not unbalance the Tau from a mechanics perspective, but it would certainly unbalance their character. This is a case where we can have our cake and eat it too.

Mobility

While the Tau's reputation might be built on our penchant for firepower, it's our mobility that wins the game. Every-time a Crisis Suit jumps behind cover in the assault phase, every-time a Piranha moves flat out to contest an objective, you see it. The ability to Deepstrike, Infiltrate, or Outflank is present on nearly every commonly used model. The truth of the matter is, if the Tau are to remain a ranged army, we can't expect to be able to stand in one spot and shoot. Opposing armies can cross the field in two turns, sometimes less. We need to be able to respond to that in kind.

While I doubt we'll be seeing Broadsides with Scout anytime soon, capitalizing and expanding on the Tau's ability to move in unpredictable, flexible ways will be paramount to a new codex where ranged combat is still the norm. No matter how much you balance our ranged abilities, you'll never strike a fair bargain for the lack of close combat – the Tau's mobility is a perfect place to fine tune that balance, and make sure a fair and competitive codex is delivered.

High Technology

It would be fair to say that “high technology” could encompass the Tau's love of ranged combat and mobility, but where as those exist as doctrines to be empowered, technology as it appears in the Tau's employ goes beyond our use of Rail Guns and Jet Packs. Technology guides the entire aesthetic of the Tau model line, not to mention is single handedly responsible for our entire selection of Wargear. Everytime you use a Marker-Light, you're not just increasing the BS of your Crisis Team, you're utilizing something that makes the Tau unique.

Now just because it's technology doesn't mean that it can suddenly do something a psychic power, or a Chaos mutation can't. Every army has it's contrivances for manipulating the game's rule set, and this is ours. If anything this is the one attribute of our army that will remain the most unchanged just due to it's nature. That doesn't negate the importance it plays in defining us as an army, however, and if it were handled poorly, it could cast the entire codex in an ugly light.

Auxiliaries

If rules were made to be broken, the Tau's auxiliaries are a codex writers best excuse for getting away with it. But yet, even this comes with a caveat of paramount importance. Auxiliaries should always compliment an aspect of the Tau's existing tactics, and should never be used to cover a weakness. When designing our auxiliaries, this above all else should act as a compass to whomever is writing our next codex.

The ability for an army's units to cooperate is the hallmark of any good codex, this is especially true of one that incorporates several completely different species. The Kroot for instance, were not developed so that the Tau could have a close combat unit, but so that they might have a troop that was as flexible in it's deployment as many of the armies other options. It's true that the Kroot's peripheral abilities go into sort of a grey area, and that it often muddies their intended role, (and to be honest we could write an entire article on this alone) but that's okay – to an extent.

Those are my four pillars (don't roll your eyes) for the Tau as an army. These things above all else should be preserved and expanded upon. But what does it all mean without a practical example? Well in the case Demiurg, we couldn't ask for a better dart board. To recap, the Demiurg we heard about are rumored to be a slow moving, assault based, tar-pit unit that can score. As I said before, we don't have all the details, but without creative methods of deployment, this unit is going to have to wait for the action to come to it, and with a board covered in models that want anything but to be assaulted, they're going to be low on the enemies priorities. Even if you bubble wrap static elements of your army with them, you're looking at an awkward solution to the Tau's balancing needs. And in truth, we can't even say that it would balance anything at all.

The Demiurg are a fantastic unit, worthy of making it into our codex. They have a colorful history both in and out of the lore, and a lot of potential to be a fun and interesting unit, but not like they appear above. Try this instead; keep it a troop. Bring the strength and toughness in line with out other troop choices (hint: they're not going to be assault based). Keep the Feel No Pain, because we want to make these guys an unappealing back field scoring unit, still low on the enemies list of priorities. Slow and purposeful is hideous, but if just being plain out Relentless isn't in the cards, so be it. Round them out by giving them a long-ranged heavy-weapon, making them similar to an IG heavy weapons team, or an Eldar Guardians weapons platform - they gave us Ion technology in the lore, so that sounds like a good place to start. This frees up our Fire Warriors to be an armored, or mobile scoring choice, and our Kroot to again take up the mantle of infiltrator. And it gives our Broadsides and Sky-Rays some back field company. Let them load into a standard Devilfish, and you've even got a handy way of moving them about the field if things get to hot for them. Suddenly we have a unit that sees synergy with it's codex, follows it's own lore, and doesn't violate any of our major themes. Granted, everything but the name of the rumor has changed. But luckily, it's just that at this stage in the game, a rumor. Again, only time will tell what the Demiurg's role is destined to be, but we can always hope.

Consider this; while it might be okay to allow a concession or two to these themes (just as the Kroot brook no connection to the theme of high technology), for every unit that makes such a concession, there's one less that will subscribe to each of the four themes, in effect, diluting the codexes essence. There is a threshold I don't care to speculate about, where our codex will transition from a thing of familiarity, to just a book, filled with foreign concepts and alien tactics.

What do you guys think? Are there themes you feel I've missed? Do you think I'm over-reacting? I'd love to hear your opinion on the direction the Tau are heading in. As always, thanks for reading!