With the introduction of Khor’hrakh the War Shaper we finally have our Melee Warlord for T’au! It’s been a long time coming, and while we may get a sidelong glance from Farsight, the Shaper will definitely come as first in class for all those T’au players who really want to get up close and personal.

That said, the T’au roster isn’t one naturally inclined towards Melee and so Khor’hrakh brings a surprisingly flexible rule that cares about Wounds as well as Melee, allowing your biggest cards to become formidable, and resilient, dual threats. Let’s take a look at his rule now!

Warlord Rule

Strengthened by the Flesh

“Whenever an enemy card is destroyed by a Melee attack, all friendly cards heal for 20% of their base Wounds. Additionally, each friendly card increases its Melee attack by 50% of the Wounds it healed in this way.”

Mastering the Rule

So, whenever you destroy an enemy card with Melee attack, all your deployed friendly cards gain 20% of their own base Wounds. Further to that, the Melee attack of those cards increases by half of the amount healed, functionally 10% of their Base Wounds. It’s worded in this way as the Melee gain is tied directly to the amount of Wounds gained.

So this gives two key areas to balance, Wounds and Melee. There are a lot of big bulky T’au cards that don’t have a lot of Melee, such as the larger battlesuits, and so their Wounds gained, and Melee increase will be very significant indeed, but their chances of killing a card in melee is also fairly low. Likewise there may also be some high Melee attack cards, but with low Wounds, who won’t get a lot of benefit from the kill effect.

Maximising Wounds and Melee is obviously the best place to start, however, using big bulky Wounds cards, with enough Melee specialist support is viable, since all deployed cards get the benefit, regardless of whether they made the attack or not; they just need to be present.

So setting a large battlesuit up on the far left and getting a Melee kill before that suit attacks can definitely charge it up, ready to swing for some serious damage. With almost every T’au card packing some strong firepower, you also need to balance not getting too many ranged kills, because any enemy card destroyed in this way will provide no benefit at all. After all what use is your lunch if its all the way over there!

This is at its core a very momentum based rule. Get a few key kills and your cards heal and get more lethal, and can quickly become unstoppable. However, if they are burst down unexpectedly you effectively get reset, with any new cards coming in fresh with no bonuses.

This should pose a very unique playstyle to the T’au and also has a number of different valid ways to build, giving a good range of variant decks that are playable regardless of your collection.

May you feast upon your foes, and remember, seasoning is not For the Greater Good!