We have the Bork’an Sept preview and some rumours around the Relics for Tau this morning.

Relic rumours:

via realmanig on Advanced Tau Tactica

relating to relics

From the grapvine(ie. not me):

T’au Sept – Commander can Jump, Shoot, Jump

Farsight – Fusion Gun, Fusion Blades in CC

Bor’kan – Good plasma gun, I remember fixed damage 3, for S and AP

Flamer Upgrade – S6, AP-1, 8″ auto hit

Onager Gauntlet – S10, AP -4, Damage D6

Airbursting Frag Launcher – S6 AP-1, D2, can shoot at targets out of LoS.

All of these are… well good really. It is a shame Fusion Blades may be locked to Farsight but the ability for a Commander to JSJ (we assume there will be another stratagem for this), having a 3D plasma rifle on a Bork’an Commander who it seems can take a Warlord Trait for +1 to wound rolls, a combat weapon at S10 (hopefully not restricted to one attack again) and a 2D AFG at S6… Even the flamer is a buffed heavy flamer. The only downside if there are no other non-weapon Relics which would seem odd but given that Tau have the most offensively capable HQ in the Commander, this isn’t surprising. I would expect there are more Relics we have not seen so Ethereals et al can have some goodies, too.

The Bork’an and T’au Sept previews confirm a lot of the rumours we have already received. I will quickly look at the T’au review as we did not do this yesterday.

The big reveal is that Longstrike has a XV02 battlesuit which indicates he could potentially gain access to Saviour Protocols which would obviously increase his durability a lot. Throw in JSJ from the T’au Sept Relic (assuming it is not jetpack limited) and a medium tank with all the offensive abilities actually has some durability.

A stratagem to buff Breachers when shooting at units in cover (re-roll wounds) in a game where re-rolling wounds is not that common is solid though seems to pair oddly with Markerlights and removing cover (apparently this has already been put to the FAQ team). Breachers are certainly an interesting option with Viro’la (effectively extra range through a free advance) and are a point cheaper, so any assistance that can be provided through stratgems is not bad.

Focused Fire is a great stratagem to really allow a target to be eliminated effectively but at 3CP, it is expensive. A Tau brigade is relatively easy to access with cheap options in every slot but still, 3 CP is 1/4 of your total if you have a battle forged brigade and other armies have similar effects for cheaper (Cadia being the most broadly applicable). There are a lot of applications for Tau here, particularly given their lack of S9+ weaponry (so ensuring wounding everything on 3s) and the S5 Pulse weapons compared to S3 Lasguns wounding T7/8 models on 4’s instead of 5’s with this is narry something to sneeze at. Through in Sniper Drones / Railweapons getting Mortal wounds on 5’s (Longstrike on 4’s) and the loss of Mortal Wounds on Seeker missiles can easily be made up for with one or two Focused Fire stratagems (and all your CP will be gone by T2!).

So now, Bork’an.

Again, +6″ on range bodes well for Fire Warriors (18-21″ triple tapping with Fireblade and Pulse Accelerator Drone assuming they stay the same) and key units like Y’vahras (seriously, 14″ range on that flamer is nuts). While T’au or Vior’la are more likely to be your go to for standard Septs, like Kronos for Tyranids, a Bork’an detachment with key models is likely going to be commonplace and a strong addition.

The Riptide weapon profiles are confirmed and thank you GW for providing a side by side comparison. The HBC at 2D makes it an infantry and vehicle shredder – especially with Focused Fire laid down along with 12-18 shots. The Overcharged Ion Accelerator going back to S9 is really useful for getting those 3’s to wound on all vehicles and the Nova charge being a set number of shots (6) is super important. I am not sure why they just did not have set shot numbers for each level though rather than gamble, gamble, set. A stratagem to allow both the shooting and 3++ profile for the Riptide is also great (one assumes this does not cause double Mortal Wounds as well).

I am glad to see the range bands are “confirmed” as working with the Bork’an Sept for the Stormsurge which we have not heard of getting a massive discount (sans the Cluster Rockets) but still appears to be a decent choice when taking a shield generator (4++ makes it a lot harder to take down). A 16″ range on the close-in shot for the Blastcannon makes that a lot scarier. Whether it brings the Stormsurge back… Not sure. The Experimental Weaponry stratagem for Bork’an is nice though it does seem that most of the random weapons have mostly been provided an option for straight number of shots in the Overcharge phase so this may be less necessary. It is a shame this is Bork’an keyworded though.

All in all, some positive things still from T’au though nothing Eldar powered yet (probably a good thing; expect c. March 2018 nerf) though the Crisis Suits look to remain languishing on the shelf / counting as Commanders for a while yet.

T’au Empire Preview: Bork’an Sept