New Tau Empire Wargear, Points, & Secondaries 40k Rules

By Andrew Schrank | February 18th, 2022 | Categories: Tabletop Gaming News, Tabletop Gaming Products, Tau, Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Community

Don’t miss all the new Tau 40k Wargear, Points, and Secondary objectives for their updated 9th Edition Warhammer 40k codex.

With the Tau Empire Codex in hobbyists’ hands and rules previews aplenty from Games Workshop, we can get a better picture of what all the new rules are looking like for the Greater Good.

Tau Empire Wargear, Points, & Secondaries 40k Rules

These unique faction rules are collected from all the following reviews on YouTube, and Warhammer Community alike, so be sure to watch your favorite presenters talk about their take on the book at the links below!

Codex: T’au Empire Retail Price: $50

Click here to get yours for less from these retailers: | Amazon | Dicehead Games | Gold Goblin Games or full price on the GW Webstore

This 136-page book comprehensively covers the T’au Empire. It has everything you need to bring the technological might of the T’au to bear on the tabletop in order to expand the empire, plus a selection of lore and art to inspire your own collection.

Tau Empire 9th Edition 40k Wargear Rules

Other than keeping the definitions official, the first page of weapon profiles goes over the less-used melee weapons for Tau. As the faction is known for its heavy ranged focus, these kinda go under the radar, however, some still look decent!

Farsight’s Dawnblade for example now has two profiles, giving him the same flexibility so many other top-dog named characters have. With a sweeping attack for chaff and a strike for a single target, he might be even more deadly in melee now!

As for the second page, we get into the meat of Tau… All those ranged weapons! Across the board pretty much all missiles got an extra AP and Burst cannons got even better. Burst cannons were already the weapon of choice for many units, so this buff might just push it over the edge to be the auto-include weapon for a majority of the models who can take them.

Closing out the weapons we see more of the widespread missile and burst cannon buffs, but also the huge change to plasma rifles! They are now even more long-range, with higher AP and damage, making them even better at taking out armor from range.

Just before Thanksgiving Warhammer Community started unveiling rules for each of the new factions getting codex books in early 2022. Here’s what we saw for the Tau:

You’ll no doubt be pleased to learn, then, that the range of both of their primary weapons has been increased. The pulse carbine, for example, now has a very healthy reach of 24″ (a handy boost for the Pathfinders you picked up in Kill Team: Chalnath, too!).

Just what Tau needed, more range to sit further back… Seriously though, this is a pretty good buff overall.

With an enormous 36″ range, Fire Warriors armed with pulse rifles will be able to outrange the Troops units of almost any other faction, giving them a crucial early advantage as well as the ability to Rapid Fire up to 18″. What’s more, they now come with a handy pip of AP for some added punch.

With more range and getting a small bump in AP, we might see more footsloggers than ever for Tau.

Here are some of the other talking points for the new weapons that we saw early on:

Plasma Rifle is Assault 1, S8, AP-4, Dmg 3.
Broadside Rail Gun is Heavy 2 S9, AP -4, d3+3 damage, 1 auto MW on a successful wound.
Seeker Missile: 72″, Heavy 1, S9, AP -3, Dmg 2d3, one shot per seeker.
Sky Rays have a Seeker Missile Rack – 72″, Heavy d3+1, S9, AP-3, 2d3 dmg
Vespid Neutron Blasters are 18″ Assault 2, S5, AP-3, D2

Tau Empire 9th Edition 40k Points

Looking at the points, they all hover around the similar points they were at, with a few going up or down a couple of points. However, the big change comes in at the weapons for each model.

Now you are heavily punished for taking multiples of the same weapon, with each one past the first getting more and more expensive. With some weapons getting better, it makes sense to make it hard to spam the “best option”. At the end of the day, some people might still go for 4x fusions, but maybe it’s time for a shift to more diverse weapon load-outs for Tau?

Most of the same additions on the last page with the same point penalty for multiples of the same weapons. Another notable change here is the Riptide moving from Elite to Heavy support and going down 20 points base.

Tau Empire 9th Edition 40k Secondaries

Of the three new Secondary Objectives, each of them seems to be an interesting choice without a clear winner.

A Clean Victory puts a decent amount of agency in your opponent’s hands thanks to them knowing your plans and path to victory. This gives them a window to try and counter you!

The same is true for Decisive Action. However, at the end of the day, you might be able to power through, even if it’s obvious what your plan is. Only time will tell which is the best.

Here’s all the latest on the upcoming Tau rules updates and points changes for Warhammer 40k.

Click Here for all the Newest GW Model Previews

What do you think about the new wargear, points, and secondaries for the Tau Empire?

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