With the new tau codex scheduled to (apparently) drop on the fifth of April, I am both worried and excited about what it may hold for the Tau Empire. Rumours abound of broadsides going up 15 points and their railguns going down to S8, of the new tau flyers having only burst cannons and of many awesome, awesome new models for the tau empire. You can find a great thread compiling rumours and pictures of the new tau here.
My biggest fears for the tau, right now, are for our precious broadsides, for our funny-looking new flyers and for the future of our crisis suits. Broadsides having their weapons turned into glorified krak missiles, while ALSO having a significant price increase terrifies me. They may be the best unit in our codex right now, and certainly a top-tier option by any army's standard. They can put serious hurt on tank, MC, paladins and even flyers (a team of three will usually score at least one hit due to twin-linked, and most flyers can't survive railgun hits reliably). With S8, even if they gain skyfire, it will be a major blow to them, one that may see them taken out of competitive lists (especially if the Skyray finally gains the Skyfire it so obviously deserves). It will mean Leman Russes being almost impervious to their weapons, nurgle obliterators annihilating them in shootouts, rhinos regularly shrugging off hits and, unfortunately, daemon princes being all but impossible for them to kill. The flyer, I am worried will end up faring worse than the Nephilim if it only has S5 weapons, particularly if it has the tragic 10/10/10 armour typical of tau flyers. Crisis suits, I am scared for because I noticed they are now going to be sold in boxes of three. This would indicate they may become individually weaker, and cheaper, and spammable. That is the last thing I want to happen to them; I like them the way they are. If anything, giving them T5 and a price increase would be a better option. I don't want what happen to lesser daemons to happen to them.
Overall, I am hoping this doesn't prove to be the nerf that shelves my tau. But it's not all bad; I have seen some new things that DO give me some hope for the tau.
-Upgrade characters. Upgrade characters are just fantastic, and apparently we are getting two+! One for our tanks (apparently, Hammerheads with this tank commander cost 170, together) who gives them Tank Hunters, A cover boost and the ability to overwatch (Holy Hell! Overwatching with Burst Cannons and a TL PC turret? Ohmygodthat'ssocool). Apparently there's one for pathfinders too, and maybe even a FW one.
-Ion weapons seem to be getting a face lift. S8AP2 blast? Cool! Instead of having a sort-of-rending thing on the blaster, all ion weapons can choose to supercharge, but at a risk to themselves.
-Riptide (MC suit) will be T6 2+/5+, 4-5W and with the ability to supercharge movement, shooting or shields.
-Stealth Suits overwatch at BS2
-All kinds of new drones! This is awesome, I would love to be able to have swarms of drones in a semi-competitive list.
-Markerlights can buff overwatch!
-New weapons with awesome names ("Pulse Accelerator", "Repulsor Field")
Also, going off of the Riptide picture, it seems to have a plethora of guns on it; it had it's main arm gun, a shield generator, a twin-linked plasma rifle and what looked like either two SMS or two FW missile pods on it's shoulders.
All in all, I am thinking that some of the stuff we like about the tau is about to get hit with the nerf stick, but in return we are going to receive some awesome new toys (provided, of course, they are not too expensive [points AND money]).
