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40k Rules Conundrum – Did GW Just Break Tau on Accident?

By Rob Baer | October 28th, 2015 | Categories: Rules Conundrums, Warhammer 40k Articles & News

tau_ shaso large

There’s big trouble in little Tau’na. Come see what trouble the USR’s are making for one little line of text in the yet to be released Tau Codex!

Checkout the new Hunter Cadre, or as it’s commonly known “the Tau Decurion”:

tau-hunter-contingent

Hunter Contingent (I.E. Tau Decurion)

Consists of:
0-1 Command
1+ Basic
1-10 Auxiliaries

Special Rules : Reroll Warlord trait, Units can combine their shooting attacks, and shoot as if they were a single unit. (So they can get benefit from special rules and the same markerlight, for example.)

Cadre.Decurion

Because it does not list these command benefits as “special rules” this means that RAW it’s fair game for rules to be conferred to squads to independent characters, and from ICs back to squads (assuming a USR worked that way to begin with).

While that may not be what Games Workshop intended, the “gotcha” I think for most folks comes from the wording – “resolving their shots as if they were a single unit”.

So what does that mean exactly?  Well honestly it’s anybody’s guess at this point, however I think the case can be made that via the example they give above it was definitely made with Markerlights in mind.

However, the issue has seemed to morph out of control and there are forum flame wars happening over this little line of text currently.

Can one Crisis Commander join such a formation and confer all his rules to basically the entire Tau army? There is tons of folks out there saying yes and no, and honestly who’s to tell them otherwise?

iron man robert downey jr general 40k

 

Solution?

Step one, breathe.

Step two, restrict it to just marker-light abilities and the problem may be solved.

If you play someone that tries this on you, never play him again. WAAC thinking like this may be one of the biggest things plaguing this hobby. Giving players in your community traction for doing things this breeds malcontent in your gaming club/store/league and it can lead to even worse things down the road.

You have to power to stop recklessness like this in your community and help foster a creative, courteous, hobby concentric environment that keeps players excited to play, for all the right reasons.

While this is probably one of those rules that needs a FAQ from tournaments, we’ve weathered the 5 D knights, we can handle this as a community too.

New Tau Rules Roundup

#brininghobbyback

Tau Tidewall Hot or Not? – Episode 23

About the Author: Rob Baer

Virginia Restless, Miniature Painter & Cat Dad. I blame LEGOs. There was something about those little-colored blocks that started it all... Twitter @catdaddymbg