Here’s the full 40k rules breakdown for the Tau as they charge up their plasma and fusion blasters for Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good.
Coming from The Glacial Geek on YouTube, he’s done an incredible breakdown of all the rules and datasheet changes coming inside Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good. Check out everything that the Tau will be bringing to the table.
All the New Tau Rules From The Greater Good
Tau Sept Tenet Custom Rules
There are a few good options off the first half of Sept Tenet options. One of my favorites is Turbo-jets, allowing for a super-fast list grabbing objectives all over with minimal units and as fast as possible.
One of the tenets you can pick from is essentially Target Lock for Battlesuits in your entire army. This lets them ignore the penalties of heavy and moving. This is definitely solid for the bigger suits packing firepower like Riptides.
For another rule you can pick from, For the Greater Good can be increased to 9″. That can be absolutely horrifying if we see more tenet rules to choose from like 5+ Overwatch/+x” to ranged weapons.
On the second half of Tenet options, I really like the Up-gunned tenet. Burst cannons are often a go-to for the tau, and getting that sweet -1 ap is a big deal. The difference between 0 ap and -1 ap is huge.
New Tau Stratagems
For the first page of Stratagems, there are a good amount of viable options. Deadly Aim will be extremely good in sniper drone lists, and Pulse Onslaught is great to help make Breachers more multipurpose.
This spicy little Stratagem makes Riptides (and even R’varhna’s and Y’vharras) incredible. 1CP to max your shot output? Yes, please.
With just as many options on the second page of stratagems, I really enjoy one in particular. Promising Pupil lets you get an extra warlord trait, which can be extremely good for obvious reasons. It does have to be unique but that is hardly a downside.
If you’ve got XV8 suits, you can pick one enemy and they get treated as being lit up by 5 markers exclusively for the XV8 unit you selects. That can be the downfall for a Knight if you manage to drop in a Fusion squad within 18″ and pop this.
Farsight Enclaves have had a lot of practice making the most of their resources. And with their faction once being cut off from the Tau Empire, they’ve trained even their most basic warriors to make every shot count. Danger Close allows you for 1 CP, to reroll wound rolls is not too shabby. You’ll just probably want to use this on a full squad of ten dudes.
New Warlord Traits
For Farsight Enclaves, you can give a +6″ aura to your Commander when he declares Mont’ka. Remember Mont’ka allows units to Advance and shoot as if they hadn’t moved. This is pretty awesome, but considering he can only declare it once per game, you’ll have more of a chance to make it count.
New Tau Relic List
There’s a bunch of model-specific options here. The Gatling Burst Cannon looks appealing to me for the same reason that Up-Gunned was in the Tenet rules.
Just like Primaris Infiltrators, Ghostkeels can not only infiltrate up the board, but they can also deny deep strikers within 12″ of the model. RIP GSC.
With even more options on the second page, one immediately jumps out to me. Cross-Linked Stabiliser Jets, lets a battlesuit reroll hits and wounds of 1 with ranged weapons. If you’ve played against Tau you know how strong this amount of rerolls can be, especially when you remove the need for marker drones (partially).
Farsight Enclaves also get three specific options for Relics they can take. The Mirrorcodex just gives your relic-bearer all the rerolls. However, considering it’ll probably be going on a Commander and they hit on a 2+ anyway, this might not get picked too often. The talismans are back as well, Farsight knows what’s up when it comes to the warp!
New Updates to Tau Unit Datasheets
Shadowsun is most known for being a cheap, mobile Fusion Blaster chassis with decent protection. However, her guns got a bit more versatile with gaining four shots in total using the dispersed profile on her guns. This shot profile is a great alternative for going against something like a five-man squad of Primaris. You essentially double your shot output and keep your insane AP.
Another awesome ability is that she gives off a 6+++ FNP for Tau Empire units within 3″. Sure, that means she’ll have to be right on top of units you want to protect, but being a character, she should be seeded into ranks of other Tau to begin with.
This is going to be amazing for gunline lists running Riptides and Stormsurges as they’ll get a 6+++ FNP tacked onto all their wounds.
Finally, she can join any other Sept (including being able to fight with Farsight) without breaking any Battle-forged rules!
Farsight’s The Eight
And there you have it! Tau looks to be in a much better spot than they currently were just sitting with their base codex in 8th edition. Now the question is…
With Tau’s suits undeniably getting more tricks to pull in-game, what will you be testing out in your next game first?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.
