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Tau Pathfinder killteam new edition comparison
- Date
Table of Contents
The two biggest changes in this edition are:
- Crits can no longer block 2 normal hits
- Shas'La Pathfinders can now group activate.
So let's look at a side-by-side comparison when shooting a regular space marine. (W:14 SV:3+) For all of these charts, I'm comparing the 2021 edition to the 2024 edition and 2024 edition with the new Shas'La group activation. For Markerlight Comparison, I'm assuming the target is in light cover.
Markerlight
| Markerlight | KT21 | KT24 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Balanced | Saturate |
| 2 | Saturate | Balanced |
| 3 | BS +1 | No Obscure |
| 4 | No Obscure | Seek Light |
| 5 | Seek Light | - |
Shas'ui
Core stats are unchanged.
Art of War was completely reworked.
Shas'la
This is a huge change. Group Activation alone is a massive buff, but fearless on the frontline negates a lot of melee threats. A common strat used against Tau was to shoot them and then charge them. Forcing them into melee combat upon activation, which usually kill them. This change completely negates that strategy as now they can just take a step back and shoot you. This doesn't apply to specialists of course, but the new Firefight ploy of "Point Blank Fusillade" can help with that.
Blooded
Pulse Accelerator Drone
Weapons Expert
Should you bring 2 weapons experts or 2 Shas'la pathfinders? On pure damage output alone, the Group Activated Shas'la are better in terms of pure damage output. However this requires the pair of them to stick together and not be split up.
The Weapons Experts do not benefit from Group Activation and do not have 1AP Disengage. However, 1 Weapons Expert is better than 1 Shas'la meaning you can split them up to cover more area, whereas your Pathfinders have to stick together to get the most out of them.
So it's a trade-off between flexibility and damage output.
