Initial Thoughts on the Experimental Protoype Cadre
Cards on the table, I thought the new detachment rumors were a whole lot of nothing.
Equally surprising- the new detachment seems like it has a lot of teeth. I’m looking forward to experimenting with it, and while I don’t know if it will work for me, I do want to open with this blisteringly hot take- This is the detachment that all new T’au players should start with.
Right off the bat, this is the first (non-kroot) detachment that just has a flat rule. You don’t have round restrictions, you don’t need to get your fragile battlesuits in chainsword range, and you don’t need to triangulate your railguns using a Space Dog. You just get a flat bonus to ranged weapons and a versatile suite of stratagems to use them. It even has some real teeth for my beautiful Giant Son, the Stormsurge, but that needs to come down in points a bit for seeing any serious table time.
And while the range on most T’au guns is “yes”, there are three units that are champing at the bit for this detachment. The flamer and fusion flavors of Crisis Suits, and the ever reliable breacher team. In my discussion on T’au Infantry, I mentioned one of the biggest downsides of breachers being their limited range and their reliance on transports. This detachment basically negates all of that, with some stratagems that will basically let them kill anything that dares to stand on an objective.
6” for Crisis suits also means fusion guns get in melta range all the easier, while the flamer teams can be a lot more threatening as rapid ingress support, making an opponent think twice about charging. You can even really goozle someone with piranhas alpha-striking with missiles and meltas! Again, there are a ton of great strats that amplify the damage potential here to the point that I think will make this detachment a real threat at mid tables everywhere.
That said, I do see some vulnerabilities here. While the additional range on our closer-combat units is huge, it lacks a lot of the movement tricks that help control the board. It is also very command point hungry, and though we can mitigate that with Ethereals or Commander Shadowsun, it’s not necessarily the best use of points.
Betting man that I am, this detachment is going to really help ham-and-egger Tau players like myself who don’t always use the rules we have to their fullest extent. There is a significantly lower skill floor here, and while the ceiling isn’t as high this is ultimately going to help mid and low tables compete. I’m looking forward to putting in some practice rounds with it- stay tuned for battle reports!
