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IMO the Tau codex is class because unlike a lot of codexes it allows you to take an army that's very reflective of what an actual tau empire army would look like (ie lots of battlesuits) unlike the likes of Eldar where you have nothing but wave serpants. However, as a tau player, I think some things need to change.

1. Make Shadowsun and Farsight Lords of War to prevent them being used in the same game. Or create a rule preventing such a team up ever happening. If he has the Dawnblade, Farsight is always a traitor and would never fight alongside shadowsun or Aun Va.

2. Make it so that only commanders can take buff upgrades and so that they can only have one active at a time. Reduce the amount of upgrade slots they have.

3. Get rid of the drone controller to prevent abusive bs5 markerlight drone swarms. This means the army must rely on lower bs units for its markerlights.

4. Riptides price should remain the same. But, they and also all other battlesuits including broadsides should be prevented from taking intercept and skyfire upgrades. This AA role should be purely given out to the skyrays and tau aircraft. Its simply broken to give main frontline units cheap access to AA and anti flanking weaponry, especially because it directly counters many of the deployment strategies used to counter shooting armies.

The main point though is I think a lot of the problems with tau stem from the buffs and the equipment section rather than the units or weapon profiles themselves.

I think supporting fire is much more damaging. It really hurts assault, one of the areas that are most used to hurt Tau.

Give all battlesuits debuffs based on the amount of wounds they've lost, along with a chance to blow up. So like...make them vehicles pretty much.
Also ia tides with no accessories are exceptionally awesome for their cost.

Battlesuits should just be changed to Walkers.

Making them vehicles would make them immune to str3 weapons and close combat attacks as well as totally resistant to armies reliant on shooting. poisoned weapons.

It would also be impossible to instant death them as they would have hull points.

Making them vehicles would actually make them a lot tougher.

With a melta gun for example, you hit and then kill outright on a 2+ as it stands now. But with an AV10 vehicle you need to roll a 5+ to kill it outright.

Vehicles are not immune to CC attacks.. where did you get that idea? Vehicles are, in fact, most-penalized by being in CC.

 Psienesis wrote:
Vehicles are not immune to CC attacks.. where did you get that idea? Vehicles are, in fact, most-penalized by being in CC.

If you are strength 3 then with a six sided dice you can't actually hurt an AV10 vehiucle. Yes, grenades, but not all races have krak grenades and you are limited to one charge.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Vehicles are not immune to CC attacks.. where did you get that idea? Vehicles are, in fact, most-penalized by being in CC.

If you are strength 3 then with a six sided dice you can't actually hurt an AV10 vehiucle. Yes, grenades, but not all races have krak grenades and you are limited to one charge.

Hah. You gotta love the ambiguity of the English language. When I first read your bullet, I also thought you meant, S3 ballistic attacks, and cc attacks (of any strength) -- rather than S3 ranged and S3 cc.

You're in trouble if all you have to take down Riptides is S3 unit (of any variety), though. I mean, you could also argue that hordes of S3 couldn't scratch the paint job of a Baneblade.

Talys wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Vehicles are not immune to CC attacks.. where did you get that idea? Vehicles are, in fact, most-penalized by being in CC.

If you are strength 3 then with a six sided dice you can't actually hurt an AV10 vehiucle. Yes, grenades, but not all races have krak grenades and you are limited to one charge.

Hah. You gotta love the ambiguity of the English language. When I first read your bullet, I also thought you meant, S3 ballistic attacks, and cc attacks (of any strength) -- rather than S3 ranged and S3 cc.

You're in trouble if all you have to take down Riptides is S3 unit (of any variety), though. I mean, you could also argue that hordes of S3 couldn't scratch the paint job of a Baneblade.

The poster above was suggesting regular crisis teams should be vehicles.

A riptide would probably have an even higher AV. If it was AV13 front for example then the like of plasma guns would struggle against it.

Supporting fire is something that all armies should have. Especially ones lie guard.HOWEVER, as it currently stands, it is far too effective IMO. I would say something along the lines of neding to take a leadership roll on 3d6 or something in order to do it Just something to put out there, I could even go without it for any army. Just feel that if it is gonna be in the game, it shouldt just be given to one army.

Markerlights If a bullet is going to hit you, the muzzle of the gun needs to actually see you. Likewise a laser pointer. If your behind a wall, you could use the wall to cause the bullet to hit the wall. The same can be said for a marker light. If your behind the wall, the red dot of the light could hit the wall instead of your actual body. I feel you should get cover saves from marker lights because the guy pointing the light at you might not be able to hit your actual body with it just as the bullet might not hit your actual body.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Supporting fire is something that all armies should have. Especially ones lie guard.HOWEVER, as it currently stands, it is far too effective IMO. I would say something along the lines of neding to take a leadership roll on 3d6 or something in order to do it Just something to put out there, I could even go without it for any army. Just feel that if it is gonna be in the game, it shouldt just be given to one army.

Markerlights If a bullet is going to hit you, the muzzle of the gun needs to actually see you. Likewise a laser pointer. If your behind a wall, you could use the wall to cause the bullet to hit the wall. The same can be said for a marker light. If your behind the wall, the red dot of the light could hit the wall instead of your actual body. I feel you should get cover saves from marker lights because the guy pointing the light at you might not be able to hit your actual body with it just as the bullet might not hit your actual body.

Take away the ability to overwatch with markerlights and its fine.

Eh.

Honestly only need 3 things

1) Markerlights cannot buff overwatch
2) you have to purchase photons
3) Increase the cost of the ion accelerator by quite a bit.

There you go. tau is now middle teir near SM and CSM (non whitescars bike sm)

The main problem with tau is how many rules they just straight up ignore. Combined, of course, with all the ones they practically ignore, like the entire section on close combat. That and the way they ignore rules comes with virtually no penalty, so you don't have to make any serious decisions or tactical sacrifices to get them.

For example, all the most important units can just ignore night fight, for practically free. If this were their one and only racial trait (like DE), this might be given a pass, but instead it's a duh upgrade that you can just slap on everything. Likewise, all the heavy hitters can take skyfire and interceptor, without losing anything meaningful in the process.

Probably the biggest violator of this is the ubiquitous markerlight. Taking a unit of pathfinders is scarcely a burden on points or FOC slots, and they synergize WAY higher than their cost. Meanwhile markerlights have no risk, they don't displace other weapons you need pathfinders to be taking, they don't require any serious skill to use, and your army can pick and choose what they want to use the markerlights for, rather than having to make decisions in advance. Once again, if this were their only racial trait, like guard (who still have much more limited number of times they can use them, require leadership tests on low scores, and have to use them before any other shooting attacks), it might be passable, but in this case, they're better and they just get them tacked on to all the other stuff.

And this is before you add on such things as psychic powers that aren't psychic powers, MSM, etc. etc. etc.

What tau need to do to be fixed is to strip everything away, so that everything doesn't get to take everything. Restore some meaningful choices to the codex. You can spend points to give your riptide one of his god-mod abilities, rather than being able to choose any of them on the fly. You can take skyfire, but not with interceptor. You can add blacksun filters or MSM, but you have to give up a weapon slot to take them. There are two kinds of markerlights, ones that reduce cover saves, ones that increase BS, and you need to decide in advance which you're bringing. Those kinds of things.

Because tau will always be pointlessly mary-sue when they offer up easy-mode on a platter. Force tau players to actually think about what they want before they get it, and a lot of the obnoxiousness will dissipate.

Meh... I think Tau are mostly balanced, it was the abominable 6th edition ally matrix + Riptide joining characters that broke them.

I find them currently to be mostly balanced, but would like to se minor changes be made:

1) Riptide is a walker. GTFO, it's neither monstrous nor a creature, don't qualify it as such. Pain stimulants gives it IWND and degrades crew stunned to crew shaken. Fix the cost of Ion Accelerator.

2) Supporting fire is now an initiative test, vehicles pass this automatically.

3) 1 marker light hit = -1 cover. The fact that 2+ cover just instantly disappears from only 2 marker light hits, is just plain stupid.

I think in 7th Tau are fairly balanced personally, maybe slightly on the high end.
I think that if the Riptide gets walker-sized then all suits should get the same treatment. I don't mind this but what is the effing point in singling out one suit because everyone dislikes it. I'm happy with all walkers though if that what is decided. Either that or make a new class for the suits which isn't either.
Markerlights should be a straight up -1 or +1 to things per counter.
Supportive fire isn't really that massive of a game changer, but I accept that it is annoying.
Other than that lets look at what Tau have.
Ethereal that is quasi-psyker without perils that can't be denied. Irriating yes, but we have like no psychic defence. Plus he dies to a strong wind.
Night vision, why more things don't have built in night vision is beyond me. Can we just get rid of the whole night thing?
What else is there to comment on?
Incorrectly costed upgrades - let's add a few more points to them. Interceptor and feel no pain are the big ones. Maybe make feel no pain a special one limited to HQ.
Ps Tau ignore close combat? We don't ignore IT as much as beg to avoid it.

I'm not blind to the power Tau have, I just think it's taken out of context. Lost of other armies have equally good stuff it's just more hidden at present because close combat is harder to achieve.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Talys wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Vehicles are not immune to CC attacks.. where did you get that idea? Vehicles are, in fact, most-penalized by being in CC.

If you are strength 3 then with a six sided dice you can't actually hurt an AV10 vehiucle. Yes, grenades, but not all races have krak grenades and you are limited to one charge.

Hah. You gotta love the ambiguity of the English language. When I first read your bullet, I also thought you meant, S3 ballistic attacks, and cc attacks (of any strength) -- rather than S3 ranged and S3 cc.

You're in trouble if all you have to take down Riptides is S3 unit (of any variety), though. I mean, you could also argue that hordes of S3 couldn't scratch the paint job of a Baneblade.

The poster above was suggesting regular crisis teams should be vehicles.

A riptide would probably have an even higher AV. If it was AV13 front for example then the like of plasma guns would struggle against it.

It wouldn't have the issue however of W5 and a 2+/5++/3++ with potentially FNP on top. Even with the invul and AV13, it'd probably only have 3HP, and could be shaken, stunned, immobilized, etc. Vehicles are *way* easier shut down and kill in general than MC's are.

Honestly, if they're going to keep it an MC, I could live with that, but make it closer to Land Raider priced like the R'varna is.

I think a lot of the complaint might go away if it was T5.

Then you could at least TH them away with the right set up. or demolisher.

And if they are novaing for the 3++ then its not running away harder or shooting heavy pieplates.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Talys wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Vehicles are not immune to CC attacks.. where did you get that idea? Vehicles are, in fact, most-penalized by being in CC.

If you are strength 3 then with a six sided dice you can't actually hurt an AV10 vehiucle. Yes, grenades, but not all races have krak grenades and you are limited to one charge.

Hah. You gotta love the ambiguity of the English language. When I first read your bullet, I also thought you meant, S3 ballistic attacks, and cc attacks (of any strength) -- rather than S3 ranged and S3 cc.

You're in trouble if all you have to take down Riptides is S3 unit (of any variety), though. I mean, you could also argue that hordes of S3 couldn't scratch the paint job of a Baneblade.

The poster above was suggesting regular crisis teams should be vehicles.

A riptide would probably have an even higher AV. If it was AV13 front for example then the like of plasma guns would struggle against it.

It wouldn't have the issue however of W5 and a 2+/5++/3++ with potentially FNP on top. Even with the invul and AV13, it'd probably only have 3HP, and could be shaken, stunned, immobilized, etc. Vehicles are *way* easier shut down and kill in general than MC's are.

Honestly, if they're going to keep it an MC, I could live with that, but make it closer to Land Raider priced like the R'varna is.

This. Even a LR only has AV 14 and 4 HPs. Given how huge plasma and melta are, making a Riptide AV 12 or 13 reduces its survivability much more.

at about making the markerlights need more "hits" to make it more effective on a unit? I mean like 1hit = -1 cover. In order to get the -2 cover, you need an additional 2 hits In order to get the -3 cover, you need an additional 3 hits (on top of the one hit for the first "boost" and the two for the second "boost") and so on and so forth? Just a thought.

You mean the original marker light system?

i have no issue with it.

half the time you kinda waste the extra hits to just chuck it into BS past 5 which is kinda meh.

Not really, tanks are stupidly difficult to kill in 7th edition.

With my own tanks I barely even notice things like weapon destroyed and shaken. They're so tough that its a minor price to pay

Im finally restarting war hammer as Tau, and I agree with some of this.

Shadowsun OR far sight. One or the other. You shouldn't ever be able to take both.

I think they should leave in buff upgrades, but increase the costs all around so you really need to think who wants it and who needs it.

personally I don't mind drone controller, but I feel like a good way to stop it would be limit it to two drones being able to take the commanders BS, or allow drones in his unit to reroll at BS2

I HATE riptides. They are OP. They should make a one riptide limit per 1000 points. Super heavies like riptides really need to be restricted for all armies anyways. make them 1500+ or something.

Of course, I'm making a Crisis only team, so I'm probably pretty biased, but I think those changes all around would break the current tau meta. As the Tau meta is very annoying :/

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Not really, tanks are stupidly difficult to kill in 7th edition.

With my own tanks I barely even notice things like weapon destroyed and shaken. They're so tough that its a minor price to pay

vehicles are stupid easy to kill...what game are you playing?

Skimmers with 3+ jink saves in the open and flyers are an exception, but vehicles practically auto-die in CC and require about half the average number of shots to kill that you would have needed in 5e.

cover saves against Marker lights, Riptides either pointed more accurately or not Monsterous Creatures.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Not really, tanks are stupidly difficult to kill in 7th edition.

With my own tanks I barely even notice things like weapon destroyed and shaken. They're so tough that its a minor price to pay

vehicles are stupid easy to kill...what game are you playing?

Skimmers with 3+ jink saves in the open and flyers are an exception, but vehicles practically auto-die in CC and require about half the average number of shots to kill that you would have needed in 5e.

Not every army has access to anti tank grenades or melta guns. Several armies are built with very short range AT guns and low strength weapons which struggle to deal with vehicles.

You also have these things called super heavies.

The last half dozen or so games have pretty much hammered into me that anything without an anti tank gun os borderline useless because killing tanks is so hard to accomplish. Too often do my opponents just load up on tanks, deliberately knock out all of my AT guns and then auto win because the rest of my army can't possibly hurt them and I just sunk a lot of points into units I can't use.



Close combat? Are you sure you're playing the right edition?



Tank is king. Troops are dead.

Most armies have meltaguns and AT grenades or equivalents in large quantities. Of those that don't, most have multiple other methods, necrons for instance have gauss to strip HP's and Tessa weapons capable of generating huge numbers of hits that will simply wipe anything that isnt AV14 quite quickly.

Pretty much only daemons and tyranids lack these things. Both can field tons of flying fmcs and other dealios to deal with tanks. Daemons certainly dont have any issues with tanks.

CC is very much alive, even if not dominant, I haven't had a game of 7th yet where I haven't lost a tank to CC, and you only need a couple guys to make it in to make it count, 3 marines aren't scary to an MC but are a lethal threat to 85% of vehicles.

Besides, its not melta thats the big general tank killers, its hp stripping guns like tesla destructors and autocannons.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Most armies have meltaguns and AT grenades or equivalents in large quantities. Of those that don't, most have multiple other methods, necrons for instance have gauss to strip HP's and Tessa weapons capable of generating huge numbers of hits that will simply wipe anything that isnt AV14 quite quickly.

Pretty much only daemons and tyranids lack these things. Both can field tons of flying fmcs and other dealios to deal with tanks. Daemons certainly dont have any issues with tanks.

CC is very much alive, even if not dominant, I haven't had a game of 7th yet where I haven't lost a tank to CC, and you only need a couple guys to make it in to make it count, 3 marines aren't scary to an MC but are a lethal threat to 85% of vehicles.

Besides, its not melta thats the big general tank killers, its hp stripping guns like tesla destructors and autocannons.

Dark Eldar lack these things. All of their guns are short range and low strength. Their only good AT gun (still short range) can only be used by scourges. The army very deliberately had all of its AT grenades removed.

Not every army has cheap and easy access to hull point stripping guns.



CC is dead. I was playing when you could walk your chainsword wielding maniacs across the board and win. What you have now is a cat and mouse game in which the goal is to avoid being shot at at all in order to get the chance to charge.

My main issue last few games has been me taking a balanced army with an average amount of bodies and being owned purely because my opponent takes the absolute bare minimum infantry and takes all tanks. Hence they just autowin because unless you build your entire army around AT or play an army with easy access to units that can deal with tanks its impossible to deal with them.


Also, autocannons? You clearly haven't played a HH game against a Spartan and four land raiders all with armoured ceramite. That sort of army laughs at your AT.

You know that's an interesting idea buff the riptide and make it a superheavy walker, like an Imperial Knight.

Do you really want stomping riptides?

 Desubot wrote:
Do you really want stomping riptides?

I take it back superheavy riptides = bad idea