Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Can We Please Get the Minis and Datasheets to Match?
I’ve been building T’au with the new codex – and well, “Houston, we have a problem.” The minis don’t come with the bits to match their datasheets!
Before the coming storm of Eldar content let’s get something off my chest a bit. I hate how box sets start to feel like they are missing the options laid out in a codex. I know that GW has strived to do a lot of tweaking to some armies (cough cough Death Guard). But there’s the fact that T’au have options you can’t purchase in their units’ boxed set. That leaves me kind of annoyed.
Crisis Suits Are Missing Something
It doesn’t help that those options are good andlikely will show up recast, 3d printed, or badly converted. For those not understanding that new Tau book gives Crisis Suits a weapon option that doesn’t come in the box set. It’s an option that is probably a good cause of concern as it really makes the game very boring. The Air Fragmentation Burst Cannon was a gun originally given to Commanders and Stormsurges but now is available for all Crisis suits.
The gun is a no Line of Sight gun and while yes – it is expensive if you add a ton to a bunch of suits – it’s a problem due to a crazy amount of stacking. Modifiers to hit, modifiers to AP, and modifiers to wound on things you can’t hide from leaves a very bad taste in players’ mouths. Plus you could give 3 to each Suit which leaves 3d6 shots per model to hit you from behind a wall.
What are the current unfun rules in 40k right now? Body Guard and no Line of Sight damage potential. One solves the other one pretty well but not every army has it or has “good” weapons attached to it. It just feels not everyone gets to go to a gunfight with a good gun. Well we’ll see as again it isn’t “easy” to get for the regular player. So while the high-end competitive players will get the option no matter what, it does mean the regular weekday local games might not be completely min-maxed. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I bet GW will hammer fist this with a point adjustment or go the route of the old Sky Dwarves from AOS’s devastator unit by limiting options available. I know that for my games it means most likely going full on assault. Hiding and holding a point doesn’t work when you are hit by waves of bullets that ignore your cover.
Dust Off the Transports?
It also means we will probably see some armies bring back the Rhino or other APC to ensure they hide their squishy bits. This way they can at least save a turn of death or get a quick push up forward to ensure they control the middle. Making a base in the middle with options that can shoot out will be important. My poor Space Goats will have to go first and hope to YOLO to victory or face death by no-LOS.
Time For a Minis-Rules Alignment
I really want GW to look at their kits and build datasheets that can be built with what comes in the box. There shouldn’t be a push to try and convert/print things to make a “viable” unit especially with GW back in events. It causes a weird situation where one set of events represent true power and others are limited due to availability so it becomes hard to truly see where balance is needed. We all know the old days of certain armies being good at specific groups events due to Terrain/Missions/FAQ’s. The community and GW have come a long way to try and make the game the same for each tournament.
Or maybe FW will come out with a Tau weapon pack you can purchase for X amount of space bucks. Who knows, maybe they’ll will come with their own NFT and stamped certification you can scan to play. I’m just not looking forward to trying to figure out what some weird gun is on a Crisis suit.
But hey – this all could be moot once the Eldar come out and wreck shop with their ancient space weapons. So maybe I’ll just jump off my Soapbox and let T’au wreck some battlefields for a few months. I hope Chaos Space Marines get players just as mad when they finally come out.
Until next time roll 6’s.
