The ones hardest on T’au are often….
….T’au players.
I’ll say firstly, the hate for tau from other factions, is far greater. Seems to come from past editions, and people can’t let go of it (triptides, etc). That being said, there seems to be a lot “oh man, look at this, we’re being ruined, our army!”
Sure, we have rules that we like, nerfed for no good reason. Sure, we have units we like from past editions go to legends. GW definitely has favorites in factions, and also can make some pretty braindead decisions. But seeing the faction focus has brought mixed opinions, from what I’m seeing.
The changes to wording and numbers on some existing detachments to what was shown in the faction focus can be disheartening. Having expro rule work only on a led battlesuit unit, for one. But if you’re gonna be running a list that has mostly units that aren’t led suits…why are you using that detachment? I’m sure all these detachments still have more enhancements and strats than what was shown.
Looking at the others,
-Advanced Acquisition is actually great because it lets us do our thing (shooting), amongst all the new terrain and vision rules. The +1 save Strat is nice to have too for our squishy blue weebs.
-Auxiliary Cadre’s change, I believe, is pretty decent. Only having to worry about one aura type, firstly. Aux benefiting from extra detection, AND the staying hidden if your stealth units are forward with them. Don’t even get me started on the actual possibility of deep striking 33-63 Kroot in one turn with the enhancement. And if your tau are forward with Kroot, which they will be, the lethal hits Strat is nice. Compared to the current tau +1Ap and auxiliary 18” lone op, I’d say improvement.
Plus, we saw these detachments that are 1 point each. And for a while our existing ones still work. At the end of the article, it’s stated “These detachments can be combined in all sorts of ways, as each of them only costs 1 Detachment Point, and most of those found in Codex: T’au Empire only cost 2.”
So we literally have a handful more to work with by the time codex comes around, and we haven’t seen them yet. I can see plenty of possibilities to mix and match detachment rules, with how cheap they seem, relatively. These focus articles are just peeks at the new modular style system.
I 100% could see more detachments, like stealth based, tank based, etc. Heck, I bet there’s gonna be more 1 pointers we haven’t seen. The fact is we have to wait to see more. I’m sure the 2 and 3 point detachments are gonna be fun to work with. And with the coming of a new edition, there’s always balancing changes, be it to rules, stats, or cost.
(Real talk, need to see more Tau hopecore 😂. If a local goofball at my LGS can have fun and clap cheeks with our “dookie army”, maybe shift perspective and be open to change. Maybe hold off on jumping ship. While lots of change we’ve had is bad, doesn’t mean it always will be.)
Open to being corrected and interacting with comments.
Edit: To dip into Expro cadre, yes, the limiting of +6” range to only battlesuits feels awful. But it’s now a 1pt detachment. So supplementing it to another one like montka is entirely viable. Especially given that, as stated before, most of the detachments will be 2pt or less.