Incoming! Tau Empire





So I mentioned in my last post the Tau, one of the races in Warhammer 40k. I am, to say the least, quite thrilled and excited to see these guys getting some new releases finally.

Some background on how GW works their releases: Typically, several times a year they will release a Codex for an army, containing all the rules for a specific army and usually with several model kits alongside them.

Now, since there are only a small number of armies (something like 15 at this point), and they usually produce 3-4 Codices per year (think that's the proper plural there...), obviously they have to be reprinting them every so often. And you'd be right: rereleases usually contain a number of tweaks to point costs and options, as well as new units necessitating new models.

And so here we are: the new Tau Empire codex releases April 6th, and I am really, really excited about it.

The Tau Empire got their last book in 2006, in the days of 4th Edition. While 7 years may not seem like that long, in that time both Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons have gotten two releases, two new editions of the core ruleset have come out, and my entire tenure with the game has been after that point. Only the Black Templars and the Eldar have codices older, and the Eldar only by a few months.

The Tau were my first army, and I loved them when I first started. They're really the closest thing that the setting has to "the good guys", a status they get because they'll give you the chance to join their empire before they kill you, and they only attack when they have a reason. Granted, that reason could be "we really want your planet", but at least they don't attack indiscriminately like some factions do. Any other setting and they would certainly be The Evil Empire, but in 40k they wind up the good guys.

Anyway, back to the release: we're finally seeing flyers for the Tau, something which was previously only covered by GW's specialty shop Forge World (which, while they make awesome products, are way too expensive even if the listed price wasn't in British Pounds instead of American Dollars). The pic above is the one that sold me on them: I am definitely excited about picking up a couple of them, along with a gigantic mechanized suit, the Riptide. The Tau were always known for their Crisis suits, mechs that gave them great weapons platforms. This one, however, dwarfs the Crisis teams and looks to be spectacular.

All in all, I gotta say that I'm really, really excited and can't wait for the next couple weeks to be here already.