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

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

Yeah I was thinking about that.

It would limit you to taking a single cheap lord of war unless you go unbound.

As it is supposed to be a type of experimental unit.
i think unlocking 1 per hq would be interesting.

Keep it MC its fine. just drop it down to T5 so you could at least ID it. considering broadsides are still T4 and is way more massive than crisis suits.

The Ion needs to be 20 points minimum. probably more.

FNP should cost a bit more but its already very expensive on it.

FNP should not be takeable on Nova. and 90% of the complaints should go away i feel.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


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.

Dark Eldar have lances, blasters (which have Lance), and heat lances (lance and melta). It's not uncommon at all to see a 2k DE list with 25 or more anti-tank guns.

DE also historically have a very strong and noticeable trait. They can deal with very big, very scary things, and do very poorly against lots of mediocre things. They can look at a 4 Land Raider list and destroy it decisively and exceedingly quickly, but will fall apart against an IG chimera gunline, just as they can look at a Riptide and tear it to pieces (massed poisoned attacks and lots of AP2 fire) but will fall very quickly to Fire Warriors (where the poisoned attacks are still only wounding their T3 on 4's and the S5 guns hitting back wound DE infantry on 2's and are effective against their tanks as well).

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

Most do however, and DE certainly don't lack for anti-tank 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.

Yes, walking chainsword wielding maniacs across the board and hoping to win by swamping your opponent with a line of assault troops is largely dead outside of a couple of Ork and Tyranid builds. Yes, that's dead.

However other CC builds do just fine, Necron Lords in Warrior units with Ghost Arks supported by Wraiths and Catacomb Overlords is highly effective, SW TWC armies do pretty well, etc. There are armies that utilize close combat *very* effectively.

And either way, as I explained above, you don't need a dedicated CC unit to kill tanks in CC. A depleted remnant squad of Space Marines is still a very real and lethal threat to any tank that isn't as superheavy, so if they can, they're going to charge it and put some hurt on. A half-strength squad of SM's with no powerfist is on average putting on 1.66HP's on most tanks simply with 5 krak grenades, if the thing's already been immobilized or even just taken a single glancing hit already, it's probably dead.

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.

That's been a fairly common tactic in every edition and has nothing to do with tanks being especially hard to kill in 7E (they're not, you don't see non-skimmer tank heavy armies placing well). You saw the exact same armies in 3E, in 4E, in 5E, and in 6E. It's a very common and viable method of building an army, go big or go home, bring all of one unit type and few or none of another. You'll see IG armies that are either all tanks or no tanks for this same reason, you overload the capabilities of one weapon type that they have insufficient numbers of, and leave the investment in other types of weapons pointless.

That's nothing new, nor is 7E even the edition where it's been its most effective.

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.

Which is distinctly different from a typical list you'd normally see and is designed to be played against other HH army lists (almost all other Space Marine lists barring the new Solar Auxilia and Mechanicum lists) which have all sorts of different counters to that. Such armies are not balanced around fighting other 40k armies in the first place, but rather other 40k armies, and FW has made that quite clear.

That's an entirely different metagame than everything else.

Totalwar1402 wrote:Are you sure you're playing the right edition?

It's an edition of the mind.

Tanks look flimsy now if you solipsistically obsess about hull points. Meanwhile, if you live in a world where CC is MUCH less likely to happen (and those units that can consistently pull it off ruin everything, not just tanks), and frag grenades can no longer hurt vehicles at all, and the vehicle damage table is FAR more generous, which means you're much less likely to be destroyed in a single shot, or stunlocked if you're not, well, then tanks do look a lot better.

Especially compared to infantry. What 6th and 7th did to vehicles pales in comparison to what they did to hordes. You had it right to begin with. A single one-issue poster trying to make the world agree with long-held preconceived beliefs shouldn't have an outsized influence.

@ the walker debate.

I'm actually fine with suits being infantry. Broadsides are a stretch, but now that we have centurions, it's less so. They could definitely stand to be in line with, say, warwalkers, though. They keep the guns, lose the Sv, and take a healthy price cut.

The riptide could also, perhaps, stay as a monstrous creature, but the 2+/3++ W6 needs to end, and end immediately. Either they should get the guns and the save and drop to W3, or get the guns and the W6 and get dropped to Sv4+/ - ++. The point of heavy infantry is to have good Sv. The point of monstrous creatures is to have high W. Having both at the same time breaks MCs, especially when they're tau MCs, that get tons of gadgets for free and no-thought upgrades that let you point and click your problems away.

 Ailaros wrote:


Tanks look flimsy now if you solipsistically obsess about hull points.

Given that they're the primary kill mechanic for vehicles, far more than the damage table even in the last edition (and even compared to 5E's more punitive damage table HP stripping is typically much more effective), that's what's relevant when you're talking about vehicle survivability

Meanwhile, if you live in a world where CC is MUCH less likely to happen (and those units that can consistently pull it off ruin everything, not just tanks),

Nowhere did I say that 7E was a CC edition, however I did point out that its certainly not dead in and of itself (just that you can't throw waves of shock infantry across the board and expect them to get stuck in in one piece and expect to win) as there are several common and powerful CC units that make routine appearances (Wraiths, TWC's, TH/SS termi's, all sorts of MC's, etc) with great success, and additionaly just how easy it was for common basic equipment on even a depleted (and not CC oriented) basic troops unit (which has every reasonable potential of being in a position to assault a tank on turn 2 if it podded in) can present a very lethal threat to a tank.

I noticed you didn't bother to refute or argue either point.

and frag grenades can no longer hurt vehicles at all

Several things here.

First, frag grenades were only able to hurt vehicles in a single edition, 5th. We're in 7th now.

Second, most units with Frag grenades are also paired with krak grenades (which are basic equipment on half the armies in the game and available at very low cost to others).

Third, most units which have access to them but aren't also coming equipped with Krak grenades typically either have much scarier things to hurt vehicles with in CC or weren't going to be charging vehicles in the first place (e.g. IG infantry units).

Fourth, Frag Grenades iwere never much of a threat by themselves, as a full 10man squad charging with frag grenades in 5E averaged 1 glance (and couldn't penetrate at all), basically enough to keep it from shooting for one turn, maybe immobilize it or take a weapon off if you got lucky. Meanwhile a unit with Krak grenades in the current edition will average 3.33 HP's (and 2.22 penetrating hits on average), enough to kill anything and everything from a Trukk to a Leman Russ in a single round on average dice, and that's a huge difference.

Frag grenades not being able to hurt vehicles is is a trivial irrelevance.

and the vehicle damage table is FAR more generous, which means you're much less likely to be destroyed in a single shot, or stunlocked if you're not

You're just as likely to be stunlocked in 7E as you were in 6E, and while less so than 5E, it's still entirely possible and the average vehicle lifespan is shorter as well. Yeah, there's far less capability to blow a tank up with a single shot that you used to, but the damage table hasn't been the primary kill mechanic since 5E, and even relative to 5E's damage table, with most weapons against most targets, you're still far more likely to kill through HP loss than by inflicting a kill result on the damage table. It's only when you get into AP1 weapons with very high S or armor pen capabilities that the damage table becomes a consistently viable (as opposed to hail mary) vehicle kill option over HP stripping.

Especially compared to infantry. What 6th and 7th did to vehicles pales in comparison to what they did to hordes.

There are hordes that still do just fine, like blob squads, and there are others that do not, not much has fundamentally changed for them except arms creep. Either way, something of a tangent when we were talking about MC's and vehicles in the first place in regards to the differences between the Riptide's survivability and those of vehicles.

You had it right to begin with. A single one-issue poster trying to make the world agree with long-held preconceived beliefs shouldn't have an outsized influence.

Do you ever not take a chance to get in those rather unsubtle personal attacks? Seriously, did I run over your dog or something at some point?

Well I think that, as usual (see: Wave Serpent), the really unbalanced stuff with Tau is stuff the designers did not think through, or rules exploits I doubt that they intended.

That means the Riptide 2+ armour save and cheap ion accelerator in the first case, and the idiotic Buffmander with no guns and one commander attaching to a million marker drones in the second.

Get rid of those things, and a) Tau will be a lot less unbalanced and b) a lot of Tau armies will be a lot less stupid

Tau are really not much of a problem anymore. They are a mid tier army that still shoots a lot. With the exception of mostly riptides and broadsides (some vehicles too) they are fragile. Their big guns do little without support.

Drone swarms with marker lights are expensive. Pathfinders have very low mobility and die to a stiff breeze. The army struggles to handle heavy vehicles. They have some options in that regard but by taking them their trademark massed s7 shooting gets severely limited.

The codex is one of medium tier power and they do not perform outstanding at the higher levels even when taking allies. They are seemingly stuck as favorite punching bags, but apparantly no one will be content until the codex is unplayable just because of the Taudar shenanigans of 6th.

Ratflinger wrote:
Tau are really not much of a problem anymore. They are a mid tier army that still shoots a lot. With the exception of mostly riptides and broadsides (some vehicles too) they are fragile. Their big guns do little without support.

Drone swarms with marker lights are expensive. Pathfinders have very low mobility and die to a stiff breeze. The army struggles to handle heavy vehicles. They have some options in that regard but by taking them their trademark massed s7 shooting gets severely limited.

The codex is one of medium tier power and they do not perform outstanding at the higher levels even when taking allies. They are seemingly stuck as favorite punching bags, but apparantly no one will be content until the codex is unplayable just because of the Taudar shenanigans of 6th.

100% agree with you. People just think it is cool to hate on Tau. Since 7th, when I play my Tau cs armies like CSM and Orks, I only win about 50% of the time, so how is that imbalanced?
Other armies like SM, SW, Necrons, Daemons and GKs deserve more hate than Tau.

I would nerf SMS to 24 inches.
Reduce slots on the commander to something like 3 total toys.
Give most things in the dex a small points increase.

While you're fixing Tau take the nerf bat to Eldar also.

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

And that's why everyone's running dreadnoughts and deff dreads left and right...wait...

I think you just need to proxy it as having av13-12-10 3 HP - the protection walkers get at such point levels. And you'll change your mind.

 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.

Actually Tau are the best equipped to totally rape Skimmers with 3+ Jink Saves in the open. And they're the only ones afaik.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Statistics say that Tau are still top tier.

I wouldn't change much about them, maybe make blacksun filters optional - yet very cheap, and then figure something out so that they're not the only codex that has access to all the special rules.

I mean it's quite ridiculous as an Eldar to be told your army is OP, when any Tau can totally wreck you on account of having great access to ignores cover.

It's a bit dumb too that all of that Eldar might simply rides on cover saves.

Right now it feels like all the ignores cover has been given to Tau so my Mech has a hard time against them but doesn't really fear anything but CC against other factions.


It would also be nice if they weren't the only ones to just have access to all the Skyfire and Interceptor in the world... I'm not even sure there's even one Interceptor in all of the Eldar codex, and the Skyfire options are... lackluster.

That's not really a problem with Tau though, although I believe no army should have so much access to all the special rules when others have limited or no access to it.

Tau are all right at handling Dark Eldar skimmers. For the rest they need melta, of which they can get some, but hardly more than anyone else.

Also I would like to see those statistics putting Tau as a top tier army. Sounds weird.

Ratflinger wrote:
Tau are all right at handling Dark Eldar skimmers. For the rest they need melta, of which they can get some, but hardly more than anyone else.

Also I would like to see those statistics putting Tau as a top tier army. Sounds weird.

Tau can take tons of melta and plasma

Define tons. One twin linked melta on every riptide. If you run two tides you can get one pack of Crisis suits. Some more if you take a far sight detachment. Then you need to support them with markerlights. Sure, you can buy some s8-10 shooting. But that cuts into your s5 and s7 shooting a whole lot. By grabbing all that melta you typically are left with too little shooting and too few bodies.

Realistically Tau have some suicide melta suits and their riptides. Mass S7 for dealing with lighter vehicles.

 L0rdF1end wrote:
I would nerf SMS to 24 inches.
Reduce slots on the commander to something like 3 total toys.
Give most things in the dex a small points increase.

While you're fixing Tau take the nerf bat to Eldar also.

I dont think SMS has ever been an issue. nor commander.

Specific things need point upgrades for sure. but i dont think D pods need to as its already bloody expensive for what is basically a camo net

For eldar.... honestly reduce SS to 12" and suddenly eldar wont be so bad.

Wraith nights mabye drop there Str to 8 not 10.

I don't understand all the riptide hate.

First of all nerfing a MC to T5 or making it a walker is totally stupid. By that logic why wouldn't a dread knight be T5? Why is a Dread Knight a MC and not a walker. Same goes for Wraithknights? Its a mini Revenant which is a walker so why not nerf Wraithknights too?

Secondly, have you ever gone against a riptide with no marker support, they almost suck. Either 12 overheating shots that only hit 1/2 of the time and have 1/3 chance of causing a wound just to get the 12 shot rending profile. or the IA which sucks against anything but infantry not in cover without marker support and still has a 1/6 chance of overheating.

Lets not forget that our friends the Wraithknight and Dreadknight have pretty damn good shooting. BS4 Native, access to psychic buffs. The wraithknight has 2 S10 ID capable shots! or that ridiculous cannon which is far superior to the IA and the Dreadknight is pretty damn good considering they are both very capable in CC and faster units than the riptide.

Smart players will take out the markers first.

When it comes to supporting fire a smart player will use more than 1 unit...problem solved. Charge with the sacrificial unit to soak up Supporting fire then charge with the heavy hitters and with riptides not being fearless (unlike the apparently totally balanced Wraithknights and Dreadknights who are fearless or ATSKNF) and only having I2 they can be but down super easy front just a few wounds.

And the 2+3++ people are going on about, are people forgetting that there is a 1/3 chance the riptide will fail and cause an instant wound to its self? Thats pretty high risk for something that is supposed to mitigate damage.

The only thing i might agree on is 1 marker counter = 1 buff to BS/-1 cover.

Rant over

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

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.

To be fair, this is more a problem with DE in general.

Their weapons are pretty awful at the moment - since they have nothing to get round Jink and nothing with multiple shots (and even their meltas are worse than marine ones for no reason whatsoever). All they can do is spam their overpriced lances and really hope to roll that 6 on the damage table.

And, unfortunately, their new codex did virtually nothing to address this. No addition of multiple shot weapons, no buffs to the pathetic lance weapons (AP1 or 2 shots apiece would have helped a lot), not a single weapon with Skyfire or Ignores Cover.


In terms of vehicles, there's a real problem in terms of the gulf between skimmers and tracked vehicles. With the former basically being better at absolutely everything. They can carry more (and often better) guns, they tend to have equal or greater capacity, and they even have more armour. The (slightly depressing) exception being Dark Eldar.

Ratflinger wrote:
Define tons. One twin linked melta on every riptide. If you run two tides you can get one pack of Crisis suits. Some more if you take a far sight detachment. Then you need to support them with markerlights. Sure, you can buy some s8-10 shooting. But that cuts into your s5 and s7 shooting a whole lot. By grabbing all that melta you typically are left with too little shooting and too few bodies.

Realistically Tau have some suicide melta suits and their riptides. Mass S7 for dealing with lighter vehicles.

Crisis suits are pretty heavy with melta/plasma options. Add in the fact that Farsight makes em not scatter and some of the ridiculous crisis suits you can get from FW (2d3 melta shots), and most rear armor vehicles are toast. LRs is probably the only thing Tau have a tough time cracking, and even those won't stand up to repeated abuse.

 Messy0 wrote:
I don't understand all the riptide hate.

First of all nerfing a MC to T5 or making it a walker is totally stupid. By that logic why wouldn't a dread knight be T5? Why is a Dread Knight a MC and not a walker. Same goes for Wraithknights? Its a mini Revenant which is a walker so why not nerf Wraithknights too?

Secondly, have you ever gone against a riptide with no marker support, they almost suck. Either 12 overheating shots that only hit 1/2 of the time and have 1/3 chance of causing a wound just to get the 12 shot rending profile. or the IA which sucks against anything but infantry not in cover without marker support and still has a 1/6 chance of overheating.

Lets not forget that our friends the Wraithknight and Dreadknight have pretty damn good shooting. BS4 Native, access to psychic buffs. The wraithknight has 2 S10 ID capable shots! or that ridiculous cannon which is far superior to the IA and the Dreadknight is pretty damn good considering they are both very capable in CC and faster units than the riptide.

Smart players will take out the markers first.

When it comes to supporting fire a smart player will use more than 1 unit...problem solved. Charge with the sacrificial unit to soak up Supporting fire then charge with the heavy hitters and with riptides not being fearless (unlike the apparently totally balanced Wraithknights and Dreadknights who are fearless or ATSKNF) and only having I2 they can be but down super easy front just a few wounds.

And the 2+3++ people are going on about, are people forgetting that there is a 1/3 chance the riptide will fail and cause an instant wound to its self? Thats pretty high risk for something that is supposed to mitigate damage.

The only thing i might agree on is 1 marker counter = 1 buff to BS/-1 cover.

Rant over

Yeah i dont think anyone anywhere though the wraithknight and dread knight was ok too.

the complaints are just less prevalent because they dont come with AP2 long distance death that can EVER be ignore cover.

at that i do think all the various knights need to be lowered in T.

as well any tau player worth his salt will be rocking redundancies so that one player cannot punk all his markerlights

and at that they are 36" range so it wont be easy getting to them all the time.

 jreilly89 wrote:


Crisis suits are pretty heavy with melta/plasma options. Add in the fact that Farsight makes em not scatter and some of the ridiculous crisis suits you can get from FW (2d3 melta shots), and most rear armor vehicles are toast. LRs is probably the only thing Tau have a tough time cracking, and even those won't stand up to repeated abuse.

And how many points of melta is that? To me it sounds like a Tau army without much meat that might explode a few vehicles before it is swept off the board. Realistically Tau will be able to take some melta, but not a whole lot and will struggle against both AV 13 and 14.

Now, granted, I do not really play Tau. But to me it seems whenever they are discussed they are running lists with several super kitted riptides, that have both stimulants and interceptor/skyfire in some magical fashion. They have tons of crisis suits everywhere equipped with expensive wargear, lots of fire warriors w. devilfishes. Buff commanders with swarms of drones, Multiple units of broadsides.

To me Tau realistically brings lots of s5 and s7 shooting, are pretty immobile and fragile and struggle against AV 13+.

 Desubot wrote:

 Messy0 wrote:
I don't understand all the riptide hate.

First of all nerfing a MC to T5 or making it a walker is totally stupid. By that logic why wouldn't a dread knight be T5? Why is a Dread Knight a MC and not a walker. Same goes for Wraithknights? Its a mini Revenant which is a walker so why not nerf Wraithknights too?

Secondly, have you ever gone against a riptide with no marker support, they almost suck. Either 12 overheating shots that only hit 1/2 of the time and have 1/3 chance of causing a wound just to get the 12 shot rending profile. or the IA which sucks against anything but infantry not in cover without marker support and still has a 1/6 chance of overheating.

Lets not forget that our friends the Wraithknight and Dreadknight have pretty damn good shooting. BS4 Native, access to psychic buffs. The wraithknight has 2 S10 ID capable shots! or that ridiculous cannon which is far superior to the IA and the Dreadknight is pretty damn good considering they are both very capable in CC and faster units than the riptide.

Smart players will take out the markers first.

When it comes to supporting fire a smart player will use more than 1 unit...problem solved. Charge with the sacrificial unit to soak up Supporting fire then charge with the heavy hitters and with riptides not being fearless (unlike the apparently totally balanced Wraithknights and Dreadknights who are fearless or ATSKNF) and only having I2 they can be but down super easy front just a few wounds.

And the 2+3++ people are going on about, are people forgetting that there is a 1/3 chance the riptide will fail and cause an instant wound to its self? Thats pretty high risk for something that is supposed to mitigate damage.

The only thing i might agree on is 1 marker counter = 1 buff to BS/-1 cover.

Rant over

Yeah i dont think anyone anywhere though the wraithknight and dread knight was ok too.

the complaints are just less prevalent because they dont come with AP2 long distance death that can EVER be ignore cover.

at that i do think all the various knights need to be lowered in T.

as well any tau player worth his salt will be rocking redundancies so that one player cannot punk all his markerlights

and at that they are 36" range so it wont be easy getting to them all the time.

So the Dreadknights 12" torrent Flamer isnt ignore cover? Or the fact its very very easy to make a wraith knight twinlinked? which although isn't ignore cover increases its damage output significantly (not to mention being able to reroll hits in CC with eldar powers).

we play in an age where super heavies are prevalent, knights are common place. Why wouldn't other armies have such "Knight like" units to counter this?

the riptide has superior shooting because its sucks in CC compares to other equivalent units (which is always ignore cover if we are looking at the advantages of units) and the other knights are native S10 i believe so no need to ever smash compares to the riptides S6.

Prescience is a primaris, both available to the other big shot MC's the riptide needs markers instead, TL BS4 is just as good if not better than BS5, the other knight like units can get invis/forwarning, not available to Riptides. Im struggling to think of a situation where a riptide tops a Dreadknight or Wraithknight in stand alone shooting or CC yet they seem to be recieving far more hate.

AP2 being the key factor of what i was saying

Sucks in combat my foot. ap2 attacks is still powerful. chances may be he will fold but more than likely no one is going to get to charge it because a tau player will kill that threat off the board.

Dreads can toast troops but will have issues with elites or even marines
Wraiths can toast elites but its a few shots at best or a bunch of small blasts which you can always mitigate with cover and placement.

a Riptide will equally remove a unit of troops in cover or deep striking terminator unit with interceptor.

The stupid thing about Tau is that they can take almost any useful USR to ignore whatever USR other armies can get.

Tau can make an entire army where 99% of the models has interceptor and I can't even have 1 interceptor model in my entire codex, that's just a load of bullsh*t.
It's not like it's the most important USR, but it's not only interceptor and you should get the point.

Interceptor has issues though. especially when you bait it. or just ignore them by just starting on the field (save flyers which will probably have the best chance to bait as they cant ignore cover them)

Its just bad when you can put interceptor on a pieplate that is ap2 (for anything in that perfect Deepstrike circle.

Tau shouldn't be nerfed. They're never able to beat me in a match. And that was when I fielded a force 500 points weaker than my opponent.

Da Stormlord wrote:
Tau shouldn't be nerfed. They're never able to beat me in a match. And that was when I fielded a force 500 points weaker than my opponent.

What was you fielding so we can get some sort of context besides just trust me.

Ratflinger wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:


Crisis suits are pretty heavy with melta/plasma options. Add in the fact that Farsight makes em not scatter and some of the ridiculous crisis suits you can get from FW (2d3 melta shots), and most rear armor vehicles are toast. LRs is probably the only thing Tau have a tough time cracking, and even those won't stand up to repeated abuse.

And how many points of melta is that? To me it sounds like a Tau army without much meat that might explode a few vehicles before it is swept off the board. Realistically Tau will be able to take some melta, but not a whole lot and will struggle against both AV 13 and 14.

Now, granted, I do not really play Tau. But to me it seems whenever they are discussed they are running lists with several super kitted riptides, that have both stimulants and interceptor/skyfire in some magical fashion. They have tons of crisis suits everywhere equipped with expensive wargear, lots of fire warriors w. devilfishes. Buff commanders with swarms of drones, Multiple units of broadsides.

To me Tau realistically brings lots of s5 and s7 shooting, are pretty immobile and fragile and struggle against AV 13+.

I play a Tau guy quite frequently. To be fair, I run two LRs usually and our meta usually has a decent amount of armor. That being said, AV 13 is pretty worthless, as rear armor is 10 or so. This is the core problem. When you can deepstrike your melta without scatter, even S5 can glance rear armor on most things. He doesn't normally run Devilfishes or tons of Riptides, so the crisis suits are usually half the army when he's going for AT, I will admit that. But you can take each crisis suit as an individual unit, so stacking wounds on them becomes much harder (yeah Force Org, but Unbound, so who cares?).

I don't think Tau are super OP, but they have enough that their synergy is much easier to do than most other armies. Even Eldar need some form of teamwork. Tau are almost built entirely on the purpose of everything working together. That would seem great, but when you break rule such as ignoring cover and overwatching at almost full BS, that breaks the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:

Da Stormlord wrote:
Tau shouldn't be nerfed. They're never able to beat me in a match. And that was when I fielded a force 500 points weaker than my opponent.

What was you fielding so we can get some sort of context besides just trust me.

"I beat a 12 year old playing Eldar, they're not nerfed." Guess what? There's a reason scientific journals require experimental and not anecdotal evidence.

 Ailaros wrote:


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.

I think this is the more important comment in the thread and everyone has kind of glossed over it. The issue with every problem Tau unit is that they do everything for cheap. There are too many ways to make power units that do everything or ignore every rule. Rethinking the way you build the units so that you have hard choices is exactly what the book needs.

The only other choice is to nerf abilities away or sky rocket points which basically just makes things worthless or OP.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 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.

Orks laugh at tanks In fact, we quite literally rip them apart and take them for scrap to make our own (Albeit weaker) tanks!

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
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.

Im sorry did i miss a chapter. how again is Tau supposed to handle Chaos Daemons and Eldar Wave spam if you do all this? How are necron Bakeries and other power armies going to be stopped?


sounds like sour grapes to me.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
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.

Im sorry did i miss a chapter. how again is Tau supposed to handle Chaos Daemons and Eldar Wave spam if you do all this? How are necron Bakeries and other power armies going to be stopped?


sounds like sour grapes to me.

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. Also, Eldar and Necron Bakeries should get the nerf bat once its been thoroughly used on the Tau

 Jancoran wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
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.

Im sorry did i miss a chapter. how again is Tau supposed to handle Chaos Daemons and Eldar Wave spam if you do all this? How are necron Bakeries and other power armies going to be stopped?


sounds like sour grapes to me.

That the Eldar have an OP unit in their Codex should be addressed by fixing that unit, because that one unit is not a specific counter to certain Tau builds, it's highly, highly, excessively effective for its points cost against... pretty much anything.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
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.

Im sorry did i miss a chapter. how again is Tau supposed to handle Chaos Daemons and Eldar Wave spam if you do all this? How are necron Bakeries and other power armies going to be stopped?


sounds like sour grapes to me.

That the Eldar have an OP unit in their Codex should be addressed by fixing that unit, because that one unit is not a specific counter to certain Tau builds, it's highly, highly, excessively effective for its points cost against... pretty much anything.

Eldar have several OP units.

As a Tau player I do see there are certain spots where rules abuse can occur. A shift in editions has also tweaked a few things.

Here's what I would adjust down.

1) Only one signature system per model.

2) Early Warning Override becomes a signature system that grants Interceptor to the entire unit, but the model with it can't shoot as a part of the attack. This removes the Riptide Interceptor Pie Plate of Doom effect and only one unit in the army can get Interceptor.

3) This isn't Tau specific, but it hurts Tau the most. Change Overwatch to make it like Interceptor in that weapons fired on Overwatch cannot be fired in the subsequent Shooting Phase.

4) Take a hard look at the Riptide's point value. Consider bumping it up a bit, but if so, the Nova Reactor probably needs to drop to a wound on a 1 only.

5) Stimulant Injectors probably can go back to being a Signature System. Again this solves the over buffed Riptide issues.

Edit to add: I'd make a few sidegrades too and there are a couple of units that probably could use slight tweaks upwards, but that's another topic. I'm just focusing on things that could be too strong.

 Psienesis wrote:

That the Eldar have an OP unit in their Codex should be addressed by fixing that unit, because that one unit is not a specific counter to certain Tau builds, it's highly, highly, excessively effective for its points cost against... pretty much anything.

So much so that at the height of that power, during v6, that unit wasn't even spammed that much and Eldar maintained a healthy 51% Win rate average against Tau, Necron, SM and Chaos Daemons.

Really, that unit must by highly highly excessively effective for its points cost against pretty much anything.

But when a Tau whines about Wave Serpents, that's just sad. Most of your codex was designed to simply annihilate them and winning with Mechdar against Tau is an uphill battle.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Ratflinger wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:


Crisis suits are pretty heavy with melta/plasma options. Add in the fact that Farsight makes em not scatter and some of the ridiculous crisis suits you can get from FW (2d3 melta shots), and most rear armor vehicles are toast. LRs is probably the only thing Tau have a tough time cracking, and even those won't stand up to repeated abuse.

And how many points of melta is that? To me it sounds like a Tau army without much meat that might explode a few vehicles before it is swept off the board. Realistically Tau will be able to take some melta, but not a whole lot and will struggle against both AV 13 and 14.

Now, granted, I do not really play Tau. But to me it seems whenever they are discussed they are running lists with several super kitted riptides, that have both stimulants and interceptor/skyfire in some magical fashion. They have tons of crisis suits everywhere equipped with expensive wargear, lots of fire warriors w. devilfishes. Buff commanders with swarms of drones, Multiple units of broadsides.

To me Tau realistically brings lots of s5 and s7 shooting, are pretty immobile and fragile and struggle against AV 13+.

I play a Tau guy quite frequently. To be fair, I run two LRs usually and our meta usually has a decent amount of armor. That being said, AV 13 is pretty worthless, as rear armor is 10 or so. This is the core problem. When you can deepstrike your melta without scatter, even S5 can glance rear armor on most things. He doesn't normally run Devilfishes or tons of Riptides, so the crisis suits are usually half the army when he's going for AT, I will admit that. But you can take each crisis suit as an individual unit, so stacking wounds on them becomes much harder (yeah Force Org, but Unbound, so who cares?).

I don't think Tau are super OP, but they have enough that their synergy is much easier to do than most other armies. Even Eldar need some form of teamwork. Tau are almost built entirely on the purpose of everything working together. That would seem great, but when you break rule such as ignoring cover and overwatching at almost full BS, that breaks the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:

Da Stormlord wrote:
Tau shouldn't be nerfed. They're never able to beat me in a match. And that was when I fielded a force 500 points weaker than my opponent.

What was you fielding so we can get some sort of context besides just trust me.

"I beat a 12 year old playing Eldar, they're not nerfed." Guess what? There's a reason scientific journals require experimental and not anecdotal evidence.

I take it he runs Farsight then. I also take it he apparently uses four marker lights for every single crisis suit that shoots. That it is a lot of points. Especially if the crisis suit is kitted out. Granted, most Tau I play on the other hand have given up on Farsight lists due to not having enough bodies on the table, only using smaller Farsight detachments. On the other hand I rarely play unbound because I think that is a can of worms in itself.

To some degree the point I am trying to make is that Tau does not have free unlimited marker lights for every shooting attack they make. And it might be a bad idea to deep strike a unit of terminators in the open in front of a riptide.

I think it is immensely unfair to say that markerlights let Tau to just break the game. They simply cannot have access to four pathfinders for every attack they make. Especially not if they split their army up in MSU:s.

Non-Farsight units cannot deep strike without scattering and will need melta to handle AV 13. I hardly think lists consisting of 50% anti tank is the norm, especially if they have proper support. That means cutting down on riptides, broadsides, firewarriors. What have you. It makes for a list with limited amounts of shooting, though the shooting is high strength. It also makes for a list with few bodies that will struggle to hold objectives.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
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.

Im sorry did i miss a chapter. how again is Tau supposed to handle Chaos Daemons and Eldar Wave spam if you do all this? How are necron Bakeries and other power armies going to be stopped?


sounds like sour grapes to me.

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. Also, Eldar and Necron Bakeries should get the nerf bat once its been thoroughly used on the Tau

Why not before? In most tournaments I've heard about eldar and daemon lists have consistently placed ahead Tau.

This is something I don't get: there are several strong armies that deserve the nerf bat in various amounts, and yet some of them (tau and eldar) attract orders of magnitude more whine than others (SM and Daemons). Necrons seem to be somewhat in the middle.

As a dread knight spammer I can acknowledge that Dread-knights are a little too strong. However,compared to a riptide they are really over pointed and under powered. Basically every game I've played against Tau I've been forced to ignore the riptides - they take something like 15 laz cannons to take down. Minimum save for a riptide is 4+cover and 5+ fnp and has 5 wounds...they are too tough - I'm fine with their damage.

 Xenomancers wrote:
As a dread knight spammer I can acknowledge that Dread-knights are a little too strong. However,compared to a riptide they are really over pointed and under powered. Basically every game I've played against Tau I've been forced to ignore the riptides - they take something like 15 laz cannons to take down. Minimum save for a riptide is 4+cover and 5+ fnp and has 5 wounds...they are too tough - I'm fine with their damage.

As a Riptide user I feel the exact opposite: I dread Dreadknights (pun intended): They can blast you from cover with their bloody ID Force shots ir they can shunt in your face and break you down in melee.

Jefffar wrote:
1) Only one signature system per model.

2) Early Warning Override becomes a signature system that grants Interceptor to the entire unit, but the model with it can't shoot as a part of the attack. This removes the Riptide Interceptor Pie Plate of Doom effect and only one unit in the army can get Interceptor.

3) This isn't Tau specific, but it hurts Tau the most. Change Overwatch to make it like Interceptor in that weapons fired on Overwatch cannot be fired in the subsequent Shooting Phase.

4) Take a hard look at the Riptide's point value. Consider bumping it up a bit, but if so, the Nova Reactor probably needs to drop to a wound on a 1 only.

5) Stimulant Injectors probably can go back to being a Signature System. Again this solves the over buffed Riptide issues.

Edit to add: I'd make a few sidegrades too and there are a couple of units that probably could use slight tweaks upwards, but that's another topic. I'm just focusing on things that could be too strong.

1) I could live with that, though obviously you'd have to change a lot because the most infamous pieces of gear were clearly designed to be used together.

2) Fair enough, I could probably live with that, though I still think it would be a better idea to just price the EWO appropriately for its in-game effect instead. Your proposed solution is probably what GW would be most likely to do, though...if they don't just remove it entirely.

3) That's how it should be anyway, so yes. Although if we're implementing this change then I'd say it's only fair to allow Tau players to continue boosting Overwatch shooting with markerlights.

4) If it were me I'd say consider just getting rid of the riptide entirely, but you know...probably not going to happen no matter how badly I want it to.

5) Again, I dunno...I think I'd rather see a price hike than limiting them to one per army. I guess I'm not that fussed either way though.



I would even go as far as making a few more changes on top of that. I really should be going to bed though so I guess I should keep this short, lol.

1) Get rid of Supporting Fire, good god. Regular Overwatch is good enough I think, being able to Overwatch one unit with everything in range is just over-the-top. Or at least nerf it massively so that you can only back it up with one other unit, maybe? I dunno but that needs toning down regardless.

2) This one is also obvious, but army-wide Ignores Cover is just a little too much. I still think it's a cool thing to have but it should cost a lot more markerlight counters than it currently does. Make it so that removing a counter downgrades the save by one. Hell, two counters if you absolutely must but I think one counter is fair enough.

LordBlades wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
As a dread knight spammer I can acknowledge that Dread-knights are a little too strong. However,compared to a riptide they are really over pointed and under powered. Basically every game I've played against Tau I've been forced to ignore the riptides - they take something like 15 laz cannons to take down. Minimum save for a riptide is 4+cover and 5+ fnp and has 5 wounds...they are too tough - I'm fine with their damage.

As a Riptide user I feel the exact opposite: I dread Dreadknights (pun intended): They can blast you from cover with their bloody ID Force shots ir they can shunt in your face and break you down in melee.

They are similar units. Riptides should cost more than dreads if you ask me. They are a standoff unit that doesn't even have to show it's face to the enemy to deal good damage. Dread knights have max 24" weapons so in order to deal damage they have to risk damage all while having less woulds and less overall durability.

Less overall durability?

If you mean by not having the option to get FNP and or bump up invul at a risk of a wound on a 4+ then i guess.

The Dread is a infantry toaster and a very good vehicle killer IF it gets into combat.

the range makes it so its at least possible to out play it.

Its also the 60" threat range of riptide i think that also makes them complaint bait.

Doesnt the DK come with sanctuary? or was it force and hammerhand only?

 Desubot wrote:
Less overall durability?

If you mean by not having the option to get FNP and or bump up invul at a risk of a wound on a 4+ then i guess.

The Dread is a infantry toaster and a very good vehicle killer IF it gets into combat.

the range makes it so its at least possible to out play it.

Its also the 60" threat range of riptide i think that also makes them complaint bait.

Doesnt the DK come with sanctuary? or was it force and hammerhand only?

It definitely has Sanctuary.

 Desubot wrote:
Less overall durability?

If you mean by not having the option to get FNP and or bump up invul at a risk of a wound on a 4+ then i guess.

The Dread is a infantry toaster and a very good vehicle killer IF it gets into combat.

the range makes it so its at least possible to out play it.

Its also the 60" threat range of riptide i think that also makes them complaint bait.

Doesnt the DK come with sanctuary? or was it force and hammerhand only?

Toe in cover? In ruins? 4+ cover save and 5+ FNP

Dread has sanct. Very rarely is there any point in even casting it. Abusing toe in ruins 4+ cover saves and putting magic dice into more important things works better for me. Sometimes I'll shunt only an objective in no mans land and cast it. Even with a 4+ invo +1 wound and 5+ FNP is better. Throw in some none AP2 fire saturation and ripetide wins by a mile. It's also 60 inches away and costs less. It needs to cost more.

Personally im more in for increasing the cost of the 60" death gun. but ether way i dont think anyone disagrees there needs to be major price twerking.

Well I actually ATTEND a lot of tournaments and I'm tellin you right now: Chaos Daemons and Wave spam are as common as rain and almost always making top tables or very nearly. Tau need no more help losing to them. Sorry.

You're talking about an army that has zero Psyker defense and you want to take out their anti-air?

This just sounds completely unreasonable tripe. I get not liking to lose to a Tau General... but these arent the changes you should really be focused on. Tau can now compete. They do well. They are not dominating tournaments but doing very well and thats fine. the Generals who stuck with Tau tend to BE btter at th game because they had to be.

People forget perhaps that Flyers hac a six-fold increase in survivablity from 5E. That's huge. You have GOT to have something to deal with that.

One of the things about Tau is, they are forced to use Broadsides and Riptides for anti-air instead of killing easier to kill stuff. So you unfortunately dont get to fire them at the Ground targets they are better at killing as often as you'd prefer, compared to a Space Marine who can just chunk off a few points for dedicated anti air, and also sprinkle it liberally amongst his basic Tactcal units!

I watched a brand new player with his pair of basic boxed sets use tac marines to take down a flying Necron Bakery just by using tac squads. That was pretty hilarious. 4 flyers downed over the course of time by run of the mill Tacticals.

So again, this just sounds like sour grapes to me.

Yeah the wave serpant is broken. The problem is that GW clearly intended it to be a tough delivery mechanism for Aspect Warrior. They never considered that it was more useful as a cheap gun platform....

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Yeah the wave serpant is broken. The problem is that GW clearly intended it to be a tough delivery mechanism for Aspect Warrior. They never considered that it was more useful as a cheap gun platform....

If only there were people who could test that sort of thing.

Maybe by playing games and trying it out.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Yeah the wave serpant is broken. The problem is that GW clearly intended it to be a tough delivery mechanism for Aspect Warrior. They never considered that it was more useful as a cheap gun platform....

60" range... I mean... come on...Lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. P

Im sorry. "Other than"? there's no "other than". Thats absolutely what they do and its absolutely a real threat to Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:


That the Eldar have an OP unit in their Codex should be addressed by fixing that unit, because that one unit is not a specific counter to certain Tau builds, it's highly, highly, excessively effective for its points cost against... pretty much anything.

And that really doesnt change the fact that Tau need an answer to it and marker Lights are the only (albeit vulnerable) one they have. So again I think the O.P. has missed his mark on where the changes should be. Besides. Markerlights arent going anywhere.

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. P

Im sorry. "Other than"? there's no "other than". Thats absolutely what they do and its absolutely a real threat to Tau.

Khorne. That is my answer. You can also make a Daemon army without relying on Pink Horror Summoning spam.

As far as I see it, making markerlights like the old ones (-1 cover per, but also the ability to lower Ld), and some price changes on the riptide (or just getting rid of the fluff destroying monstrosity ) would get rid of any problems.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
As far as I see it, making markerlights like the old ones (-1 cover per, but also the ability to lower Ld), and some price changes on the riptide (or just getting rid of the fluff destroying monstrosity ) would get rid of any problems.

Honestly now Riptides are fine... If they where like 1 per detachment considering they are supposed to be experimental and stuff.

 Desubot wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
As far as I see it, making markerlights like the old ones (-1 cover per, but also the ability to lower Ld), and some price changes on the riptide (or just getting rid of the fluff destroying monstrosity ) would get rid of any problems.

Honestly now Riptides are fine... If they where like 1 per detachment considering they are supposed to be experimental and stuff.

That would actually make a lot of sense. A bit like how FW does it's relics thing.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. P

Im sorry. "Other than"? there's no "other than". Thats absolutely what they do and its absolutely a real threat to Tau.

Khorne. That is my answer. You can also make a Daemon army without relying on Pink Horror Summoning spam.

Im not worried about the summoning. And if you play Khorne, good for you. I hope it all goes well. but thats not whose winning torunaments. Tzeentch FMC's are.

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. P

Im sorry. "Other than"? there's no "other than". Thats absolutely what they do and its absolutely a real threat to Tau.

Khorne. That is my answer. You can also make a Daemon army without relying on Pink Horror Summoning spam.

Im not worried about the summoning. And if you play Khorne, good for you. I hope it all goes well. but thats not whose winning torunaments. Tzeentch FMC's are.

So Pink Horror Summoning spam isn't Psychic spam? Good to know. Guess you just summon them and feth around. Also, you said there's no other than, I showed you something that was, and you're answer was "Yeah, but that's not WAAC".

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. P

Im sorry. "Other than"? there's no "other than". Thats absolutely what they do and its absolutely a real threat to Tau.

Khorne. That is my answer. You can also make a Daemon army without relying on Pink Horror Summoning spam.

You can also play tau with stealthsuits and vespid. your point?

 jreilly89 wrote:

So Pink Horror Summoning spam isn't Psychic spam? Good to know. Guess you just summon them and feth around. Also, you said there's no other than, I showed you something that was, and you're answer was "Yeah, but that's not WAAC".

Summoning is fine if your army allows them that kind of time. If they want to fart around on their turn with that, I can deal with most of my armies.

But what we WERe talking about...was... In what ways Tau should be nerfed. And if thats STILL the discussion YOURE involded with then my answer makes perfect sense. I'm pointing out to you that Tau need to worry about ANY army that has heavy Psykers and that a Khorne based Chaos Daemon army isnt as scary to Tau as the one that firse 4D6 Flickering fire twice a round, sometimes more, annihilating entire squads off the board.

Unless you actually have anti-air AND you have markerlights, those armies will just steam roll Tau. So my point...again if you're still discussing the OP's point... Was that the going overboard with nerfs is short sighted because armies like the ones im talking about DO go to top table for a reason and without answers, we'd be just another victim. No offense but I've been playing Tau since 2004 and I think Ive taken quite enough abuse over those 10 years to know what would happen.

So bottom line is a Khornate list isnt going to be the biggger issue. it brings its own challenges but it isnt the major mismatch the Tzeentch FMC list is. Not for Tau.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:

You can also play tau with stealthsuits and vespid. your point?

Ironically I do own that army also.

That's actually a surprisingly fun way to play because nobody expects it. I had someone ask if vespids were a FW unit once .

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

So Pink Horror Summoning spam isn't Psychic spam? Good to know. Guess you just summon them and feth around. Also, you said there's no other than, I showed you something that was, and you're answer was "Yeah, but that's not WAAC".

Summoning is fine if your army allows them that kind of time. If they want to fart around on their turn with that, I can deal with most of my armies.

But what we WERe talking about...was... In what ways Tau should be nerfed. And if thats STILL the discussion YOURE involded with then my answer makes perfect sense. I'm pointing out to you that Tau need to worry about ANY army that has heavy Psykers and that a Khorne based Chaos Daemon army isnt as scary to Tau as the one that firse 4D6 Flickering fire twice a round, sometimes more, annihilating entire squads off the board.

Unless you actually have anti-air AND you have markerlights, those armies will just steam roll Tau. So my point...again if you're still discussing the OP's point... Was that the going overboard with nerfs is short sighted because armies like the ones im talking about DO go to top table for a reason and without answers, we'd be just another victim. No offense but I've been playing Tau since 2004 and I think Ive taken quite enough abuse over those 10 years to know what would happen.

So bottom line is a Khornate list isnt going to be the biggger issue. it brings its own challenges but it isnt the major mismatch the Tzeentch FMC list is. Not for Tau.

My point stands. You said Daemons also needed to be nerfed, and I pointed out that only key units are OP, such as the Psychic Spam. Tau, otherwise, have a lot of very strong units. Even while not being OP, several of their units work well together. This isn't a bad thing, but when other codices don't have that same level of synergy, it makes it unfair. Look at a Daemons list, where mixing Khorne and say Tzeentch or Nurgle doesn't have the same effect.

So yes, I am still talking about OP's point, and I'd rather not have YOU talking down to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Other than Psychic shenanigans, Daemons aren't that strong. P

Im sorry. "Other than"? there's no "other than". Thats absolutely what they do and its absolutely a real threat to Tau.

Khorne. That is my answer. You can also make a Daemon army without relying on Pink Horror Summoning spam.

You can also play tau with stealthsuits and vespid. your point?

That the person I quoted was complaining that Daemons only come in the WAAC variety.

 jreilly89 wrote:


So yes, I am still talking about OP's point, and I'd rather not have YOU talking down to me.

Don't give me a reason and you wont find me doing it. Stay on Target.

Right now what you're telling me is that what?... Tau should be nerfed in these copious ways BECAUSE... they... what? they have synergy? Thats whats unfair to you as you defend INVISIBLE KHORNE DOGS?

Hoboy.

The Tau Empire don't HAVE synergy. They REQUIRE synergy. You can break that synergy. You'd defend Dante for 225 points but you'd curse a Riptide that costs that much? Whose going to win that fight? How many times out of 10? Yeah. and what turn will he be charging in? Turn 2? So i get to fire my cannon once and die? When the Tzeentch Daemon levels 14 STR 5 AP 4 hits against me that never miss basically from a FLYING platform... then Psychic Shrieks my LD 7 or 8 unit, I'll take solace in my synergy wile I remove my Broadside unit and all its expensive Drones.

And when the single Khorne Dog squad made invisible by Be'Lakor eats my entire army on multicharges, I'll try to remember that synergy. Ill try to see how we should nerf the Tau Empire and give it no answers to ANY of that. yeah that'll be MORE fun.

My bottom line point, which you seem to be fighting is that the Tau Empire is competitive and it does well as aforementioned and that's good for 40K but you cant NOT give an army ANY answer to certain threats. those days are gone man. The speed bump armies are gone now and everyone's got a fighting chance, everyone has a schtick. Hell ,the Tyranids are kicking arse at some tournies for the love of Pete and you couldn't count the number of Tyranid armies that went on sale the day that codex did.

Every army needs to have answers to the various 40K threats and the Tau have none for very important and predictable threats if you make the changes being talked about..

No, Tau shouldn't be nerfed.
It's a nice codex to play.
You need to find ways to cope with it.

No, Eldar shouldn't be nerfed.
It's a nice codex to play.
You need to find ways to cope with it.

They shouldn't be nerfed. Only the problem units should be nerfed.

well theres really only one weapon system on one unit that nees it for Eldar so this Eldar codex would be fixed TOMORROW with an 18" range shield. Literally the entire codex looks fine to me but that 60" range made the Serpents NOT vehicles. which is silly.

but really that has nothing to do with Tau

 vipoid wrote:
No, Eldar shouldn't be nerfed.
It's a nice codex to play.
You need to find ways to cope with it.

Right. Nothing to add.

 Jancoran wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:


So yes, I am still talking about OP's point, and I'd rather not have YOU talking down to me.

Don't give me a reason and you wont find me doing it. Stay on Target.

Right. So no Walmart then.

Right now what you're telling me is that what?... Tau should be nerfed in these copious ways BECAUSE... they... what? they have synergy? Thats whats unfair to you as you defend INVISIBLE KHORNE DOGS?

Hoboy.

I never said that. Way to put words in my mouth.

The Tau Empire don't HAVE synergy. They REQUIRE synergy. You can break that synergy.

You can't break Vector Lock or supporting fire.

You'd defend Dante for 225 points but you'd curse a Riptide that costs that much? Whose going to win that fight? How many times out of 10? Yeah. and what turn will he be charging in? Turn 2? So i get to fire my cannon once and die?

Never said that.

When the Tzeentch Daemon levels 14 STR 5 AP 4 hits against me that never miss basically from a FLYING platform... then Psychic Shrieks my LD 7 or 8 unit, I'll take solace in my synergy wile I remove my Broadside unit and all its expensive Drones.

Psychic Shriek requires a roll to hit. Also, I said Psychic Spam was shenanigans, so don't put me on that side.

And when the single Khorne Dog squad made invisible by Be'Lakor eats my entire army on multicharges, I'll try to remember that synergy. Ill try to see how we should nerf the Tau Empire and give it no answers to ANY of that. yeah that'll be MORE fun.

Again, never said that. Also, Invisibile is really OP. So way to make claims I never said.

My bottom line point, which you seem to be fighting is that the Tau Empire is competitive and it does well as aforementioned and that's good for 40K but you cant NOT give an army ANY answer to certain threats. those days are gone man. The speed bump armies are gone now and everyone's got a fighting chance, everyone has a schtick. Hell ,the Tyranids are kicking arse at some tournies for the love of Pete and you couldn't count the number of Tyranid armies that went on sale the day that codex did.

Every army needs to have answers to the various 40K threats and the Tau have none for very important and predictable threats if you make the changes being talked about.

Since you seem to be throwing words I've never said in my face, let me level with you. I've never said Tau need to be completely nerfed, but they have a lot of stuff that ignore basic rules of the game. This isn't "responding to various threats" when you army outguns everything but Eldar and also makes assaulting them pointless.

Also, where are these Tyranids? Our group has two Tyranid armies. While they're pretty good, guess what? They run almost exactly the same list and none of them have Genestealers in it.

I get it, you're overly sensitive people are calling out Tau. Get over it, realize certain things are broken, and move on. Eldar is broken, Psychic Spam is broken, and certain Tau units are broken. If the majority is claiming it, don't you think there's some truth to it?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
No, Eldar shouldn't be nerfed.
It's a nice codex to play.
You need to find ways to cope with it.

Right. Nothing to add.

No, Imperial Knights/Daemon Psychic Spam/Lords of War shouldn't be nerfed.
It's a nice codex to play.
You need to find ways to cope with it.

I think what you don't like is losing.

Anti-air is necessary. You're saying take it away?

You ARE the one who said synergy was a problem. I think thats a slowed comment.

Supporting fire is just a few extra melee shots with a fancy mechanism attached. You want to steam roll us I assume without resistence? Sporting.

and spare me the "it needs to hit" crap. Tzeentch re-rolling 1, BS 5? Gimme a break.

And your "Khorne" one liner is absolutely desrving of me pointing out the most OBVIOUS build Khorne has. So give that a rest too. You know and I know that Tau without Markerlights \have no answer to it and WITH Marklerlights, they barely do.

No ones putting "words in your mouth, you VICTIM, and over simplifying in order to act obtuse isnt helping tyour cause.

Crusade away though. what I said wa that THESE proposed changes are too mucj. that is MY point.

 Jancoran wrote:
I think what you don't like is losing.

Again, putting words in my mouth.

Anti-air is necessary. You're saying take it away?

Again, never said this.

You ARE the one who said synergy was a problem. I think thats a slowed comment.

I said when everything has synergy that its wrong. Units are supposed to work together, but when everything benefits from each other, that's unfair to other codices that weren't written that way.

Supporting fire is just a few extra melee shots with a fancy mechanism attached. You want to steam roll us I assume without resistence? Sporting.

When you can jump your units away in the assault phase? Yeah, I think Supporting Fire is a bit much.

And your "Khorne" one liner is absolutely desrving of me pointing out the most OBVIOUS build Khorne has. So give that a rest too. You know and I know that Tau without Markerlights \have no answer to it and WITH Marklerlights, they barely do.

No ones putting "words in your mouth, you VICTIM, and over simplifying in order to act obtuse isnt helping tyour cause.

Crusade away though. what I said wa that THESE proposed changes are too mucj. that is MY point.

I'm sorry you got the bad touch at some tourneys from some Eldar and Daemon Psychic lists. Thats not my fault though. Also, I refuse to continue to debate with someone who needlessly uses caps lock and can't be bother to spell check his own list. You obviously are already biased by the aforementioned bad touch, so carry on.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Supporting fire is just a few extra melee shots with a fancy mechanism attached. You want to steam roll us I assume without resistence? Sporting.

When you can jump your units away in the assault phase? Yeah, I think Supporting Fire is a bit much.

I'm not sure what your saying here. Suits can only move during the assault phase on their controller's turn, and supporting fire only happens when a unit is being charged. The jump boost has nothing to do with supporting fire.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Supporting fire is just a few extra melee shots with a fancy mechanism attached. You want to steam roll us I assume without resistence? Sporting.

When you can jump your units away in the assault phase? Yeah, I think Supporting Fire is a bit much.

I'm not sure what your saying here. Suits can only move during the assault phase on their controller's turn, and supporting fire only happens when a unit is being charged. The jump boost has nothing to do with supporting fire.

My point is suits can jump in, shoot, then jump back out. The few times when I can get in charge range, they have supporting fire. That seems like double dipping to me. Also, sorry I didn't really explain my point.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Supporting fire is just a few extra melee shots with a fancy mechanism attached. You want to steam roll us I assume without resistence? Sporting.

When you can jump your units away in the assault phase? Yeah, I think Supporting Fire is a bit much.

I'm not sure what your saying here. Suits can only move during the assault phase on their controller's turn, and supporting fire only happens when a unit is being charged. The jump boost has nothing to do with supporting fire.

My point is suits can jump in, shoot, then jump back out. The few times when I can get in charge range, they have supporting fire. That seems like double dipping to me. Also, sorry I didn't really explain my point.

NP, just didn't really understand what you were saying.
I personally am fine with a supporting fire nerf (such as must pass a Ld test or something). I find I tend not to really use it that much anyway because I like to keep my troops spread out.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Supporting fire is just a few extra melee shots with a fancy mechanism attached. You want to steam roll us I assume without resistence? Sporting.

When you can jump your units away in the assault phase? Yeah, I think Supporting Fire is a bit much.

I'm not sure what your saying here. Suits can only move during the assault phase on their controller's turn, and supporting fire only happens when a unit is being charged. The jump boost has nothing to do with supporting fire.

My point is suits can jump in, shoot, then jump back out. The few times when I can get in charge range, they have supporting fire. That seems like double dipping to me. Also, sorry I didn't really explain my point.

NP, just didn't really understand what you were saying.
I personally am fine with a supporting fire nerf (such as must pass a Ld test or something). I find I tend not to really use it that much anyway because I like to keep my troops spread out.

Really? Maybe a player thing. The Tau guy I play ALWAYS keeps his guys within 6" of each other.

It is double-dipping, and Supporting Fire is overkill anyway when they already brought back Overwatch. Even if they hadn't, though, being able to unload with every Tau unit in range is just stupid. One unit, maybe.

Anyway, if you want a possible explanation for why people get "sensitive" when the topic of Tau nerfs comes up, it's probably because people have been calling Tau overpowered and demanding they be nerfed pretty much ever since they were introduced into the game...regardless of their actual power level, even though they were always kind of a mediocre army and certainly never as bad as they are now even at their "peak". "Fish of Fury" was as bad as it ever got, which I personally don't even think counts since that came about in an edition where you could consolidate into new units after assaulting. It was easily fixed in 5th edition anyway by just letting people assault the damn devilfish, which is why people stopped doing it and suddenly Tau fell all the way down to trash tier (though 5th edition was so well-designed in comparison to what we have now that they were still playable, if you knew what you were doing...every single army had a "best of" list and even sub-par armies could compete).

We've had to listen to this gak for as long as we've been Tau players and it's fething old. Some of it just comes off as sour grapes, too, like the years-old bolters vs. pulse rifles issue. When you point out every single other advantage or perk that tactical Marines get compared to fire warriors all you get is a dismissive "doesn't matter", "doesn't matter", "doesn't matter"...all that matters is that Tau, a foul xenos race, have a basic gun that's one strength higher than the best gun in the UNIVARSE!, and god fething damn it that just can not be allowed. Damn all the reasons why this came to be, Marines are supposed to be the best, end of. Just one example. And when you add to that the fact that many people are quite adamant that Tau don't even "belong" in the universe in the first place, and often ask for the army to be removed from the game entirely instead of just nerfed, I don't know any other way to respond to that than with matched hostility. It feels like fighting a fething war sometimes; these people don't listen to reason, they don't even really care, they just want your army, and you, gone. Period. "Go play a different game you fething weeb, stop tainting my grimdark with your Gundam and Hello Kitty bullgak!"

And in that case it's just Tau, too. You never see anyone claim that Eldar don't "fit in" and that the game would be better off if Eldar just weren't around anymore, even though they're far more powerful than Tau are, and in my opinion their aesthetic clashes with the "grimdark" just as much, if not more...the only thing that makes Eldar "grimdark" is their fluff, and it can be argued that Tau are pretty much the same now if you've actually fething read any of the new stuff. With every new codex they've been making Tau darker and darker and it's to the point now where Aun'Va is coming off as some kind Emperor Palpatine-esque character. Before the evil in the Tau Empire was kinda subtle, now it's all but spelled out for you and slapping you in the face (especially in the Farsight supplement, where he's looking more and more like the valiant hero instead of the traitor turning his back on the Empire like before). The point is though, you never see that with any other army. When people criticize Tau they aren't just doing it for the sake of game balance, they're doing it because of the appearance of the models, or the fluff they personally don't like or find "boring" (And glorious Spehss Mahreens constantly overcoming everything you throw at them because Spehss Mahreens is interesting? Maybe if you're 12...), or some other nonsense factor that has no bearing on the game and is entirely up to opinion, and making it awful god damn personal while they're at it.

Hell, I don't want to have the most overpowered army in the game. I want to feel like my wins actually matter and that the quality of my codex didn't "skew" the result, I don't like feeling like I only won because I played Tau, or the opposite; like all throughout 5th edition where I felt like I was losing because my codex was too old. I really don't want to defend the current codex because it does have legitimate issues that need to be fixed or toned down, but I've been on the defensive for so long it is genuinely hard to see those issues sometimes because I naturally assume everyone falls into that group that just wants GW to Squat my army, or to nerf them so hard into the ground that everyone stops playing them and they achieve the same result, which is getting Tau off the table.

So...yeah, that's my explanation anyway. lol. I type too fething much, I'm going to eat tacos and put some models together now, god damn.

 jreilly89 wrote:


Really? Maybe a player thing. The Tau guy I play ALWAYS keeps his guys within 6" of each other.

Well I'm not really your usual tau player. I started with the older codexs, and usually play very mobile tau. I'm also a fluff purist and , although I love the look of the FW riptides, refuse to use them. Besides, unlike may people it seems, my main objective is not to win, but to have fun.

I still like mech Tau myself, even though it's a horrible list. Personally if I were to actually attempt playing 40k again, I would just pretend Supporting Fire doesn't exist and that all markerlights can do is boost BS up to 5 or launch a useless seeker missile.

Or just play with the old damn book, would probably be easier...

To be honest, the biggest nerf given to Tau in the recent editions was the inclusion of imperial knights. Take 3-ish against Tau, enjoy the easy win.

Sid:
I actually have been working on a combination of the 4th and 6th edition codexes, helped by some of my non-tau buddies (for balence reasons). It's actually not hard to get a well balanced tau codex that allows for gunlines, mech, and mobile tau, and much more. Basic things like getting rid of riptides, lowering devilfish costs, ect. Even stuff that would allow for all crisis lists without FE, a bit like IG tank armies. Essentially to represent different types of cadres other than the basic hunter. Like stealth insertion, rapid response, heavy armour, ect. Not that, knowing my record, it will ever get finished, but without certain things *CHOUGH*riptide*CHOUGH* the codex is not unbalanced at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mulletdude wrote:
To be honest, the biggest nerf given to Tau in the recent editions was the inclusion of imperial knights. Take 3-ish against Tau, enjoy the easy win.

Well that's true with most armies not built for it. Damn knights... *muttermutter*

The more I play Tau the more I come to realize people's hatred of Tau and claims of cheesiness have very little to do with how powerful Tau is at a given point but IMO with 2 things:

-Tau are not very fun to play against unless you beat them badly (and maybe not even then). At the most fundamental level, post people line up their toy soldiers to shoot some stuff, assault some stuff and maybe win the game. With Tau that hardly works: if you try to shoot them they either dance in and out of LoS with thrust moves or they simply overpower you by volume and strength of fire. If you try to assault them, most of their stuff is Jet Pack or (in) skimmers so good luck catching them (Deep Strike doesn't work great either due to Interceptor on hard hitting stuff). As far as I can tell, losing to Tau makes people feel their army didn't achieve much throughout the game.

-Options. Even if these options cost, and usually (apart from Riptides which get 2 slots to play with) are always a trade-off (Broadsides for example can get Skyfire OR Interceptor OR FnP OR Whatever), on paper Tau seem to be able to adapt to various stuff better than many other armies (again, purely personal opinion), which attracts jealousy.

I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that lack of that helped make up for the amount of wargear choices, as well as the fact that the tau have/had relatively few choices. We had two elites choices, and only one of them were worth the points (crisis suits).

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that lack of that helped make up for the amount of wargear choices, as well as the fact that the tau have/had relatively few choices. We had two elites choices, and only one of them were worth the points (crisis suits).

...There are other armies in the same position *cough* with even less unit choices than Tau, that require allies to function properly.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that lack of that helped make up for the amount of wargear choices, as well as the fact that the tau have/had relatively few choices. We had two elites choices, and only one of them were worth the points (crisis suits).

...There are other armies in the same position *cough* with even less unit choices than Tau, that require allies to function properly.

Grey knight? I shouldn't think so.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that lack of that helped make up for the amount of wargear choices, as well as the fact that the tau have/had relatively few choices. We had two elites choices, and only one of them were worth the points (crisis suits).

...There are other armies in the same position *cough* with even less unit choices than Tau, that require allies to function properly.

Grey knight? I shouldn't think so.

Haha ironically I was thinking Miltarum Tempestus.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that lack of that helped make up for the amount of wargear choices, as well as the fact that the tau have/had relatively few choices. We had two elites choices, and only one of them were worth the points (crisis suits).

...There are other armies in the same position *cough* with even less unit choices than Tau, that require allies to function properly.

Grey knight? I shouldn't think so.

Haha ironically I was thinking Miltarum Tempestus.

I won't argue with that. Those were not particularly well designed. And isn't there a mini army that you auto lose with as well?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that lack of that helped make up for the amount of wargear choices, as well as the fact that the tau have/had relatively few choices. We had two elites choices, and only one of them were worth the points (crisis suits).

...There are other armies in the same position *cough* with even less unit choices than Tau, that require allies to function properly.

Grey knight? I shouldn't think so.

Haha ironically I was thinking Miltarum Tempestus.

I won't argue with that. Those were not particularly well designed. And isn't there a mini army that you auto lose with as well?

Legion of the Damned, can't deploy till turn 2.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I have noticed that with the second choice especially, but that it offset by tau, not only having no access to psykers of any kind, and actually having less unit choices than most.

Psychic powers aren't guaranteed... they are not a equivalent, you SHOULDN'T build a army around it, Tau are guarantees. In a game with as much randomness as 40k one less dice roll is that much better.

Given that the widely agreed two best armies of 40k currently (Eldar and Daemons) make heavy use of the psychic phase (and Daemon Factory is actually 100% built on Psychic Powers) I beg to disagree.

Not only that, but while tau are blamed for having "too many options" at times, its even more absurd considering that with allies and all they got some of the LEAST options.

I mean, IoM is basically one big army if you look at it, with options dripping out of their ears. and even than, codex marines ALONE have more options than tau.
Eldar and DE are a mix and match and they compliment each other greatly. they can nearly be seen as one army.
Necrons have the crypteks carry more "relic" type items in that unit alone than entire factions have, not to mention they got strong unit in every posily combat role from basic infantry, to speed assault, gun platforms, air superiority and anything else.
Chaos can mix and match marines and demons and having the four gods each carry his own unique unit style, giving it a slew of options in just two books, yes many options are bad but that's a balance issue, not an options issue.

Tau? they are in the unique place with orks and nids of the "we got one thing we do good. but we can NEVER go outside of that zone". tau have a much smaller unit list size of the other two though, just about half the nids.
Yes they are great shooters and got nice mobility tricks, but that's ALL they are. they got nothing else for them, they can't even properly ally anything else! (in 6th where you could they WERE absurd. but that's past and gone)
There are vast parts of the game entirely barred from them. psykers? not even an option, CC? one named HQ that is half-decent, "endurance" builds? only semi possibly due to the absurdty of the riptide's IA. alpha strike? nope, nothing like a drop pod available. reserve manipulation? nope, nothing. even air superiority is only achieved by the "I can fly, but so can't you" path, and unlike the standard method it does not grant the user his own hard-to-kill superfast jets, despite the fact the investment is similar.

Tau has TWO builds-castle up in a gunline, or the "suit dance" type armies.
That's all they have. ever. and somehow even THAT'S "too much options" for some. yes, they can grant a suit a bazilion rules-because its NECECERY, they don't have a vast unit pool, they don't have allies to cover up their flaws. the suits NEED (and fluff-wise DO) cover most battle roles because NOTHING ELSE CAN. suits are your bread, butter, and jelly. they are the beginning and the end of the codex. they have GOT to carry alot on their shoulders.
When we finally get an extended empite, with all the minor races that are in fluff but got no game rules and models, than we can talk about taking off options from the suits, because other options would exist. but right now taking off the suit's versatility it is effectively saying "I don't want this army to be viable"

I just want to go out on a limb here and say, "I think Tau are considered OP because we are in the shooty edition and we're the odd-one-out."
Now what I mean by that is this, 40k 7th is a shooting edition of the game (big time) and Tau are a shooting army.
We don't need (or have the options to) try and shoe horn combat units into the army.
All other armies have these options and many players might make attempts to get those units into the army.
This instantly skews the game in the favour of the Tau army as we're dedicating units for the primary purpose of war (shooting).
Lets be honest melee is bringing a sword to a gun fight (there's a reason melee isn't used any more in reality).
Tau armies don't involve any randomness, all other armies do, think makes us unique in this edition.

Now I do think that there are 2 main big issues with Tau:
The Riptide (the literally biggest cause) and Markerlights
The Riptide would be fixed instantly if you made the IA AP3 or upped the cost
Markers would be fixed if 1 counter meant increase/decrease by 1

Additionally supporting fire and upgrades are issues.
Upgrades I'd say leave as they are (maybe some minor points tweaks)
Supporting fire might need to be a leadership test or something.

Until 40k levels out the issues in the gameplay there will always be issues. Tau are more of a product of circumstance with a couple of overly good options than a completely broken army.

Common misconception about the riptide.
The riptide itself, as it stands is not any problem.
The Ion Accelerator however-is absolutely idioticly overpowered, not by being that much of a great gun, but by nullfiying the riptide's weaknesses (the need to contantly NOVA-with the IA you just don't need to.)

Boniface wrote:

Markers would be fixed if 1 counter meant increase/decrease by 1

That would put the Tau in the unique position of having no access to 'Ignore Cover' whatsoever (I'm pretty sure all other armies do),

LordBlades wrote:

That would put the Tau in the unique position of having no access to 'Ignore Cover' whatsoever (I'm pretty sure all other armies do),

Dark Eldar certainly don't.

Over 50% of people think that Tau are not cheesy, so Tau are fine how they are.

 vipoid wrote:

LordBlades wrote:

That would put the Tau in the unique position of having no access to 'Ignore Cover' whatsoever (I'm pretty sure all other armies do),

Dark Eldar certainly don't.

You mean besides the farseers and 2 serpents they run in almost every list, right?

Makumba wrote:

You mean besides the farseers and 2 serpents they run in almost every list, right?

Show me their entry in the Dark Eldar codex.

 vipoid wrote:

Makumba wrote:

You mean besides the farseers and 2 serpents they run in almost every list, right?

Show me their entry in the Dark Eldar codex.

While you have a point, Makumba does too. Battle Brothers (of which Tau has none) do equal easy access to Ignore Cover, so my point kinda still stands.

Wait, how would that get rid of Ignores Cover? You can still completely remove a cover save, it just might use up all your counters.

There's also the wargear for the battlesuit commander that gives him the ability to grant it to a unit. Or does everyone want that gone, too? Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with giving it to one unit.

LordBlades wrote:
While you have a point, Makumba does too. Battle Brothers (of which Tau has none) do equal easy access to Ignore Cover, so my point kinda still stands.

Why should we include Battle Brothers?

If Ignores Cover is so important, a book shouldn't need allies to get access to it.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Wait, how would that get rid of Ignores Cover? You can still completely remove a cover save, it just might use up all your counters.

There's also the wargear for the battlesuit commander that gives him the ability to grant it to a unit. Or does everyone want that gone, too? Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with giving it to one unit.

Or you might not hit with enough markerlights to completely ignore a piece of cover (going to ground in ruins is 2+ IIRC needing 5 counters). Dedicating 2-3 units to (maybe) ignore cover for 1 unit seems a bit over the top IMO (an AM army can fit 9 cover ignoring Wyverns for example).

LordBlades wrote:
Or you might not hit with enough markerlights to completely ignore a piece of cover (going to ground in ruins is 2+ IIRC needing 5 counters). Dedicating 2-3 units to (maybe) ignore cover for 1 unit seems a bit over the top IMO (an AM army can fit 9 cover ignoring Wyverns for example).

So, dedicating 2-3 units to removing cover is excessive, but 9 Wyverns isn't?

Also, what if that IG player has Basilisks or Manticores? Vehicles which can't ignore cover.

A Tau player can dedicate markerlights, when needed, to aid those units. However, the IG player will have a lot more trouble giving his vehicles ignore cover - and might not be able to at all.

 Mulletdude wrote:
To be honest, the biggest nerf given to Tau in the recent editions was the inclusion of imperial knights. Take 3-ish against Tau, enjoy the easy win.

Not just Tau. Imperial Knights are an easy win against most things, and in my opinion, should only exist in Apoc games or as a LoW, not a legit army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordBlades wrote:
The more I play Tau the more I come to realize people's hatred of Tau and claims of cheesiness have very little to do with how powerful Tau is at a given point but IMO with 2 things:

-Tau are not very fun to play against unless you beat them badly (and maybe not even then). At the most fundamental level, post people line up their toy soldiers to shoot some stuff, assault some stuff and maybe win the game. With Tau that hardly works: if you try to shoot them they either dance in and out of LoS with thrust moves or they simply overpower you by volume and strength of fire. If you try to assault them, most of their stuff is Jet Pack or (in) skimmers so good luck catching them (Deep Strike doesn't work great either due to Interceptor on hard hitting stuff). As far as I can tell, losing to Tau makes people feel their army didn't achieve much throughout the game.

-Options. Even if these options cost, and usually (apart from Riptides which get 2 slots to play with) are always a trade-off (Broadsides for example can get Skyfire OR Interceptor OR FnP OR Whatever), on paper Tau seem to be able to adapt to various stuff better than many other armies (again, purely personal opinion), which attracts jealousy.

I think its way more the first. Tau can be extremely frustrating. The first time I played them, I wanted to give up, because I felt I could not touch them.

I have surrendered to Tau on turn 2 several times. My list had already sustained too much damage to be viable.

LordBlades wrote:

Boniface wrote:

Markers would be fixed if 1 counter meant increase/decrease by 1

That would put the Tau in the unique position of having no access to 'Ignore Cover' whatsoever (I'm pretty sure all other armies do),

Tyranids.

Sure, there's Template weapons, but Tau have those.

rigeld2 wrote:

LordBlades wrote:

Boniface wrote:

Markers would be fixed if 1 counter meant increase/decrease by 1

That would put the Tau in the unique position of having no access to 'Ignore Cover' whatsoever (I'm pretty sure all other armies do),

Tyranids.

Sure, there's Template weapons, but Tau have those.

Impaler cannon is ignores cover.

pm713 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

LordBlades wrote:

Boniface wrote:

Markers would be fixed if 1 counter meant increase/decrease by 1

That would put the Tau in the unique position of having no access to 'Ignore Cover' whatsoever (I'm pretty sure all other armies do),

Tyranids.

Sure, there's Template weapons, but Tau have those.

Impaler cannon is ignores cover.

Fine - I forgot that one since it's not used much at all anymore.

One weapon on one unit isn't any better than the old decrease by 1 markerlights used to have. While not technically Ignores Cover, it lets one unit ignore most cover.

Balancing against the Serpent Shield shooting isn't right. And aside from that and Grenade Packs (s4 ap4, one blast every other round), what do Craftworlders have that ignores cover?

Aren't all SM ignores cover s4 ap5? Either the TFC or Sternies?

IG's Ignore Cover order scares me, but that seems to be the exception, second only to Tau.

Nids are actually quite up there in Ignores Cover shooting. At mid-S AP4, its scary.

Ignores Cover in small amounts appears to be common. Seems like -1 per counter is about right. Might not do much about Spirit Seers shrouding those Striking Scorpions that went to ground in some ruins, but that unit should be hard to kill.

Yeah, the old markerlights (-1 cover per token) make sense. I would like to bring back the -1Ld per token though.

Bharring wrote:
Nids are actually quite up there in Ignores Cover shooting. At mid-S AP4, its scary.

Ignores Cover in small amounts appears to be common. Seems like -1 per counter is about right. Might not do much about Spirit Seers shrouding those Striking Scorpions that went to ground in some ruins, but that unit should be hard to kill.

Scary? On a unit that isn't used much? It's about as relevant as Grenade Packs IME. Sure, it's higher S but it's on a unit that just isn't brought.
Plus, it's on a BS3 model with 2 shots for 55 points.

Meh, whatever. Have whatever opinions you want.

Been playing as Tau for a while and its quite easy to beat Tau: kill the sources of Markerlights, make our vehicles jink, and then close to CC range. If your army can kill Space Marines the it can kill Tau even better, aside from Riptides. (And on the topic of Riptides, at WS2, I2, a damn combat squad of marines has a better chance in CC with it if you'd remember you have Krak grenades.)

Back on Markerlights, every single infantry model that can shoot one is weaker than a marine and BS3; a 110 point unit of Pathfinders only nets you 5 lights on average. Those 110 points are T3, 5+ only. That's it. They are worse than damn guardsmen. Drones aren't much better; slightly improved T and Armor but only BS2. Sure, that can be improved with a drone controller but then I am dedicated a slot on a suit to that, which is one less weapon I can shoot. Do the math. It costs roughly 45 points, regardless of source, to reliably remove the cover save from one shooting attack. MS3? Yeah, that's a 20 point upgrade to a base T4, 3+ save model without an invuln that I can only take 1 of per detachment. Increae BS? Yeah, 20+ points to do it per point.

You know what I fear? SM bikers. Grav Centurians. Wyverns. Thunderwolf Cav. Wave Serpents. Flying Daemon Princes. Flyrants. Pyskers. Jet-bikes. Dreadknights. Heldrakes. Stormravens. Wraithknights. Smashfucker (really any mobile CC Character). DeathCompany. The 80 hojillion powerklaws orks can bring. LRBT. Poison weapons. Thunderfire cannons. Missile Launchers. Plasma rifles. Melta guns. Units that can close the distance, weather a turn of shooting either by durability or distraction, and then ignore my armor saves/wounds when they hit.

The problem most people have with Tau is they present a different set of problems to solve in a game. Target priority is critical both for and against Tau. Good target priority and some forethought into your strategy will go a long way.

 Mulletdude wrote:
To be honest, the biggest nerf given to Tau in the recent editions was the inclusion of imperial knights. Take 3-ish against Tau, enjoy the easy win.

Is it really that simple?
Tau has high strength weapons to deal with Knights.

Not really enough though. And our melta guys (crisis) get 1-shotted before they can get there.

No player who is any good fears missile launchers. The above Tau poster should play against Tau sometime and see how fast his resources are removed from play.

Martel732 wrote:
No player who is any good fears missile launchers. The above Tau poster should play against Tau sometime and see how fast his resources are removed from play.

Againt IK, not so much. And I'm talking about their battle cannon, which kills crisis in one hit.

Welcome to the party pal. Marine players have dealing ig pie plates for a long time.

And so have tau. I'm just saying that tau v IK, IK usualy win, as tau really aren't that good against heavy armour, they are bet against light-medium.

Natec wrote:
(And on the topic of Riptides, at WS2, I2, a damn combat squad of marines has a better chance in CC with it if you'd remember you have Krak grenades.)

5 attacks, 4 hit, 2 wound, both are saved.
Riptide gets 2 attacks? 1 hits, it wounds, can't be saved. Which one wins?

rigeld2 wrote:

Natec wrote:
(And on the topic of Riptides, at WS2, I2, a damn combat squad of marines has a better chance in CC with it if you'd remember you have Krak grenades.)

5 attacks, 4 hit, 2 wound, both are saved.
Riptide gets 2 attacks? 1 hits, it wounds, can't be saved. Which one wins?

Yep. Even some of the heavy hitting CC units I've seen struggle with Riptides. Thundernators are about the main thing I've seen take it down reliably.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Mulletdude wrote:
To be honest, the biggest nerf given to Tau in the recent editions was the inclusion of imperial knights. Take 3-ish against Tau, enjoy the easy win.

Is it really that simple?
Tau has high strength weapons to deal with Knights.

Tau does have a lot of high strength weapons, but they can't bring enough to deal with those knights that easily. 3+ knights means one has the 3++, and even with a drop melta squad at BS5 with markerlights, that knight will turn around and punch those suits. 6 Shots of melta @ bs5 means 2.083 pens go through the 4++, and that's assuming the suits dropped inside melta range (and side/rear arc). The biggest problem with this is you can only take 3 squads of melta suits and doing so prevents you from taking riptides (non-farsight list, obv).

Hammerheads are even worse at taking down knights. The famed longstrike (BS5 S10 AP1, Tank Hunter) costs 50% of one knight, but on average he does 0.312 pens to the knight.
Railsides are in about the same boat. Assuming the 3 railsides are from a firebase and have 4 markerlights for +2 BS and ignore cover, the 3 rail shots from them only cause 0.446 pens to the knight through his 4++ (gets much worse markerlights or the formation).

The last option for causing meaningful pens to the knight is the riptide with nova charged ion accelerator as part of the firebase formation. Assuming successful nova charge and enough markerlights to get to BS6 (and maybe ignore cover), the blast will likely not get hot and hit the target. This one hit causes on average 0.311 pens that need a 6 to cause more damage (as opposed to the 5's needed on all the other pens).

Even a farsight bomb isn't amazing at dealing with knights. It can have 12 (assuming the raven is part of the 8, not a commander) melta shots, and at BS5 ignore cover, twin linked, tank hunters, will cause 5.671 pens, which is actually fantastic for killing one knight. The only problem is that is only one knight, and it costs 173% of one knight to do this.

The last option Tau have for dealing with knights is missilesides. Again assuming BS5 ignore cover, the 4++ from the knight and front armor, the missilesides 12 shots do 1.782 hull points (again assuming from firebase).

Nothing in the troops or fast attack slot will help take down knights reliably (EMP grenades do exist, and are probably awesome, but not reliable). So yes, the Tau fold to multi-knights. It's the main reason my tau are shelved and I'm playing my blood angels again.

The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

 Jancoran wrote:
The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

Now show me how other armies get the ability to
Shut down flyers
Shut down armor
Shut down invisibility
Shut down cover
Shut down close combat, cause support fire
All in one armybook, and without requiring the psychic phase.

And still have one of the best trooper weapons in the game.

Daemons are broken because of the core rulebook and invisibility. The codex itself isn't too bad, and if the powers were removed/changed, the dex would be fine.
Eldar need an overhaul. Banshees need a buff, WS a nerf, etc etc. But the topic is Tau here.

How exactly are tau "shutting down invisibility"?
You need to actually HIT with a markerlight first for a mere +1 to he BS of a single shooting unit

Who ISNT shutting down armor with low AP guns exactly? I find it hard to find a single army that has no low AP guns at all unless its a strict melee army, and it that case it probably has a fair share of ap2 melee attacks, again shutting down armor.
Armor is hardly a selling point in 40k.

How many armies do NOT have cover ignoring guns to begin with? sure tau are in the unique position of "every gun MIGHT ignore cover", but unlike most they don't have much noteworthy guns that comes with in built-in. or with its likely counterpart of indirect fire, that tau got NONE. I'm not sure any other codex is in that spot.

And where is the idiotic concept that "tau shuts down CC because supporting fire" come from? supporting fire is great in order to make the enemy feel a tiny punishment for his assault, but nothing half-decent at it is actually stopped by supporting fire.
Sure it will shut down most assault if the entire tau force is in a neat little bubble where everyone support everyone-but if you don't have the artillery pieces to punish that kind of behavior (AKA long range large blasts/multiblast) than you got nobody to blame but yourself! EVERY army has these.

As for "deamons are only good because invisibility", pure nonsense. they got the ability to generate an abnormal number of psychic dice so as long the psyker phase is not useless-they will be strong there. and screamerstar rerollable 2++ hardly cares for psychic checks to begin with. they are a solid book even if you erase the invisibility power off the BRB and replace it with a dud power.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Who ISNT shutting down armor with low AP guns exactly? I find it hard to find a single army that has no low AP guns at all unless its a strict melee army, and it that case it probably has a fair share of ap2 melee attacks, again shutting down armor.
Armor is hardly a selling point in 40k.

Tyranids. The only low-AP attacks we have are in CC from MCs - and CC is hardly a guaranteed thing in 7th edition.
edit: Forgot the Exocrine. With a 24" range at BS3 though, still not amazing.

How many armies do NOT have cover ignoring guns to begin with? sure tau are in the unique position of "every gun MIGHT ignore cover", but unlike most they don't have much noteworthy guns that comes with in built-in. or with its likely counterpart of indirect fire, that tau got NONE. I'm not sure any other codex is in that spot.

Nids have Impaler Cannons - 2 shots of S8 AP4 at 24" with BS3. Yeah, that's some noteworthy gak right there. At 55 points a pop.
No indirect fire? None? Are you really sure of that?
SMS does what now?

And where is the idiotic concept that "tau shuts down CC because supporting fire" come from? supporting fire is great in order to make the enemy feel a tiny punishment for his assault, but nothing half-decent at it is actually stopped by supporting fire.
Sure it will shut down most assault if the entire tau force is in a neat little bubble where everyone support everyone-but if you don't have the artillery pieces to punish that kind of behavior (AKA long range large blasts/multiblast) than you got nobody to blame but yourself! EVERY army has these.

It's not just Supporting Fire. The units that you need to catch in CC are the most mobile - JSJ is a thing in case you've never heard of it.

 BoomWolf wrote:
How many armies do NOT have cover ignoring guns to begin with?

Dark Eldar don't have a single one.

 BoomWolf wrote:
How exactly are tau "shutting down invisibility"?
You need to actually HIT with a markerlight first for a mere +1 to he BS of a single shooting unit

You do realize no other army can do this, right? But I can break it down for you.

The majority of shooting armies are Bs 4, with some being 3 and 1 being 2. You are, essentially, reset to BS 1 when this power comes into play.
Tau lose 2 points of BS to this power, while the majority of shooting armies lose 3 points. They are impacted less then the eldars, cron, SM, and so on.

Next, none of those armies have a way to improve their chances to hit. At all. Zero. Just a +1 to hit doubles your chances to hit. Can you think of another support gear that doubles your chances to hit?
Old school guide comes to mind, and it was arguably one of the most casted powers in its day. Tau just have to hit one time, at all, and they have a much better chance of doing some damage.

Shutting down was too far, but Tau have a prayer against it, while no other army has a hope in hell outside of flamer spam (which tau can also do).

 BoomWolf wrote:

Who ISNT shutting down armor with low AP guns exactly? I find it hard to find a single army that has no low AP guns at all unless its a strict melee army, and it that case it probably has a fair share of ap2 melee attacks, again shutting down armor.
Armor is hardly a selling point in 40k.

Necrons and nids come to mind, they use high AP weapons. Eldar tend not to use them since the shield is strong enough to get the job done, but they can in a pinch. It is really only the IoM forces that have a huge amount of low AP weapons, most xenos armies use weight of fire to carry the day. And they do it very well, and tau have some of the best weight of fire in the game.

 BoomWolf wrote:

How many armies do NOT have cover ignoring guns to begin with? sure tau are in the unique position of "every gun MIGHT ignore cover", but unlike most they don't have much noteworthy guns that comes with in built-in. or with its likely counterpart of indirect fire, that tau got NONE. I'm not sure any other codex is in that spot.

Chaos space marines have the sonic blaster, but plague marines don't get access to them, and are the commonly chosen troop.
Dark eldar do not have them.
Nids don't have too many, and I wouldn't call the gun noteworthy by any stretch.
Wolves tend not to take too many as well.

As you said, only Tau can have every gun ignore cover that they chose, while most armies have 1-2 ignore cover weapons that may not be ideally suited to the task at hand. Tau can always ensure this is the case
Keep in mind, the same wargear that grants ignore cover grants +1BS, so there isn't a reason not to take it.

 BoomWolf wrote:

And where is the idiotic concept that "tau shuts down CC because supporting fire" come from? supporting fire is great in order to make the enemy feel a tiny punishment for his assault, but nothing half-decent at it is actually stopped by supporting fire.
Sure it will shut down most assault if the entire tau force is in a neat little bubble where everyone support everyone-but if you don't have the artillery pieces to punish that kind of behavior (AKA long range large blasts/multiblast) than you got nobody to blame but yourself! EVERY army has these.

Let's not call anything idiotic unless you chose to use math to prove that it is the case. There is not need to be so rude, and it is something commonly felt on the forums.
So let's explore what you said here;
First, overwatch in general can be supported by markerlights so they have a good chance to hit. Much better than anyone else, and no one else can do this. Supporting fire allows you take more shots. Remember, you do not need to kill the squad attacking you, you just need to kill enough so close combat isn't reached. If overwatch would kill 1-2, supporting fire will kill 2-4. Add some markerlights, and the kills go up quickly, making it very difficult to reach CC for all but a very small amount of units (bikes, beasts).
Recall, CC is supposed to be a weakness of the tau, something other armies can use to fight their shooting advantage. With these abilities, many armies can not reach CC at all, and for others, only absurdly tough and fast units will (TWC for example).

As for the second, many armies do not have long range blast and multi/blast.
Space wolves and Blood Angles do not commonly take either
Eldar don't
Marines don't
Dark Eldar don't
Orks don't
Nids Don't

Most armies, in fact, do not take large blasts or multiblasts lists. Frag ML's are likely to only catch 2 guys in a blast, maybe 3 if spacing was done poorly. Add in 3+ to wound and 4+ save, and that is one guy? Hardly ideal. You need heavy fire power...which oddly enough, Tau have the best of.

 BoomWolf wrote:

As for "deamons are only good because invisibility", pure nonsense. they got the ability to generate an abnormal number of psychic dice so as long the psyker phase is not useless-they will be strong there. and screamerstar rerollable 2++ hardly cares for psychic checks to begin with. they are a solid book even if you erase the invisibility power off the BRB and replace it with a dud power.

You mean the screamerstar that requires cursed earth to be rolled and casted? Doesn't that make it care slightly about the psychic phase?
Change the powers and psychic phase and the deamons book is fine.

Akiasura wrote:
As for the second, many armies do not have long range blast and multi/blast.
Nids Don't

Slight correction -
Biovores are really good and cheap barrage platforms that are commonly taken. The Living Artillery Node formation makes them (and the required Exocrine) even better.

rigeld2 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
As for the second, many armies do not have long range blast and multi/blast.
Nids Don't

Slight correction -
Biovores are really good and cheap barrage platforms that are commonly taken. The Living Artillery Node formation makes them (and the required Exocrine) even better.

Oh my, I forgot biovores existed.
They were crap for so long I forgot they were good now.
Remove nids from the lost then

I mean, S4 AP4 is nothing to write home about, but nothing says "weight of wounds" more than 3 large barrage blasts.

Akiasura wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

Now show me how other armies get the ability to
Shut down flyers
Shut down armor
Shut down invisibility
Shut down cover
Shut down close combat, cause support fire
All in one armybook, and without requiring the psychic phase.

And still have one of the best trooper weapons in the game.

Daemons are broken because of the core rulebook and invisibility. The codex itself isn't too bad, and if the powers were removed/changed, the dex would be fine.
Eldar need an overhaul. Banshees need a buff, WS a nerf, etc etc. But the topic is Tau here.

Other armies need to clamor about their own codex's. THIS ocex has answers and needs answers. So do they. If you want to blabor something, belabor the OTHER codex.

and the "trooper weapon" you mention is in part because they are inaccurate to start and dont have the special weapons options every other army gets. Fire Warriors arent toting three plasma guns around, now are they?

 Jancoran wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

Now show me how other armies get the ability to
Shut down flyers
Shut down armor
Shut down invisibility
Shut down cover
Shut down close combat, cause support fire
All in one armybook, and without requiring the psychic phase.

And still have one of the best trooper weapons in the game.

Daemons are broken because of the core rulebook and invisibility. The codex itself isn't too bad, and if the powers were removed/changed, the dex would be fine.
Eldar need an overhaul. Banshees need a buff, WS a nerf, etc etc. But the topic is Tau here.

Other armies need to clamor about their own codex's. THIS ocex has answers and needs answers. So do they. If you want to blabor something, belabor the OTHER codex.

So instead of belaboring this one codex, you feel we should belabor every single other codex out there?
Is that...really what you believe?

 Jancoran wrote:

and the "trooper weapon" you mention is in part because they are inaccurate to start and dont have the special weapons options every other army gets. Fire Warriors arent toting three plasma guns around, now are they?

Let's be clear, 1 troop choice has access to 3 plasma guns, Grey hunters, who are another excellent troop choice. I would hardly call Bs 3 inaccurate, although Bs 4 is the majority, because markerlights are a thing. But you do have a point about their inaccuracy
Their chance to kill something is equal to a marine, since they have -1 to hit, but +1 to wound, have better range, are cheaper, and can hurt tanks easier. Markerlights help with their weakness too.
Also, why is trooper weapon in " "? It is a weapon on a trooper, is it not?
So you can't actually refute any of my points at all then?

 Jancoran wrote:

and the "trooper weapon" you mention is in part because they are inaccurate to start and dont have the special weapons options every other army gets. Fire Warriors arent toting three plasma guns around, now are they?

Akiasura wrote:
Let's be clear, 1 troop choice has access to 3 plasma guns, Grey hunters, who are another excellent troop choice. I would hardly call Bs 3 inaccurate, although Bs 4 is the majority, because markerlights are a thing. But you do have a point about their inaccuracy
Their chance to kill something is equal to a marine, since they have -1 to hit, but +1 to wound, have better range, are cheaper, and can hurt tanks easier. Markerlights help with their weakness too.
Also, why is trooper weapon in " "? It is a weapon on a trooper, is it not?
So you can't actually refute any of my points at all then?

Err, hate to burst your bubble, but vets can have 3 meltas or plasmas at Bs 4, with a 4+ save, so they aren't instakilled by the pulse weaponry.


In terms of the gneral conversation, if you did all these things, i.e. lock down tau accuracy, AA, remove buffmander for markerlighs so the rest of the army sucks, then what have you got?

A bad army that is unenjoyable when playing, and no one will want to play it, cause they will have nothing to combat the meta, because as Jancoran said, flyer overload is a thing, invisibility overload is a thing, and shrouded jinking overload is a thing.

Allow assaulting from ALL vehicles again, and the Tau will cry.

bibotot wrote:
Allow assaulting from ALL vehicles again, and the Tau will cry.

we are experimenting with this and overwatch from vehicles

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

and the "trooper weapon" you mention is in part because they are inaccurate to start and dont have the special weapons options every other army gets. Fire Warriors arent toting three plasma guns around, now are they?

Akiasura wrote:
Let's be clear, 1 troop choice has access to 3 plasma guns, Grey hunters, who are another excellent troop choice. I would hardly call Bs 3 inaccurate, although Bs 4 is the majority, because markerlights are a thing. But you do have a point about their inaccuracy
Their chance to kill something is equal to a marine, since they have -1 to hit, but +1 to wound, have better range, are cheaper, and can hurt tanks easier. Markerlights help with their weakness too.
Also, why is trooper weapon in " "? It is a weapon on a trooper, is it not?
So you can't actually refute any of my points at all then?

Err, hate to burst your bubble, but vets can have 3 meltas or plasmas at Bs 4, with a 4+ save, so they aren't instakilled by the pulse weaponry.

I did forget Vets are a troop choice.
So, 2 troops out of over ten codexes can have 3 plasma guns. I would be willing to bet that Tau firewarriors compete with vets for points, and possibly Grey hunters as well. And these are excellent troop choices. My point stands.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

In terms of the gneral conversation, if you did all these things, i.e. lock down tau accuracy, AA, remove buffmander for markerlighs so the rest of the army sucks, then what have you got?

A bad army that is unenjoyable when playing, and no one will want to play it, cause they will have nothing to combat the meta, because as Jancoran said, flyer overload is a thing, invisibility overload is a thing, and shrouded jinking overload is a thing.

Strawman, I never suggested removing all of these things. I am suggesting that all of these things together are too far, and make playing Tau unfun. It basically feels that the game is decided in the list building stage even moreso than usual.
These issues are something every army in the game has to face, and they do it without the crutches the Tau force relies on. Most of them, outside of invisbility, are coming from a few codexes going too far that will hopefully be nerfed soon.

Fair enough, and for the vets points, a squad of 12 with shas'ui is about 30 points more expensive, but there are two more dudes and you don't have to pay for a 4+.

I think this is a blatant case of:

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
I think this is a blatant case of:

This guy knows where its at.

Akiasura wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

Now show me how other armies get the ability to
Shut down flyers
Shut down armor
Shut down invisibility
Shut down cover
Shut down close combat, cause support fire
All in one armybook, and without requiring the psychic phase.

And still have one of the best trooper weapons in the game.

Daemons are broken because of the core rulebook and invisibility. The codex itself isn't too bad, and if the powers were removed/changed, the dex would be fine.
Eldar need an overhaul. Banshees need a buff, WS a nerf, etc etc. But the topic is Tau here.

Tau need to:

Shut down flyers because their own flyers suck. How would Tau compete with a let's say Necron Bakery without having neither fliers nor the ability to shut down fliers?
Shut down armor because their own armor sucks (Hammerhead with Longstrike is the single usable Tau tank and that's one per army). How would Tau compete with a heavy armor army (Kinghts, AM Pask&Stuff, Necron AV 13 wall) without having neither armor nor the ability to shut down armor?
Shut down invisibility: This is an ability pretty much unique to the Tau, but on the other hand Tau are in the minority of armies that have no psychic phase and no special special defense whatsoever. combating Invisibility is just a corner case in which they do.
Shut down close combat: tau shut down CC somewhat, but on the other hand they are the absolutely worst CC army in the game. Most other armies have no ways to shut down CC but also have ways to hold their own in CC. Tau don't.

How do you think a Tau army that lacked even some of the above would play and how it would be anything else than absolute bottom tier (since they would auto-lose to armies employing the tactics they can no longer counter, which are pretty common)?

LordBlades wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

Now show me how other armies get the ability to
Shut down flyers
Shut down armor
Shut down invisibility
Shut down cover
Shut down close combat, cause support fire
All in one armybook, and without requiring the psychic phase.

And still have one of the best trooper weapons in the game.

Daemons are broken because of the core rulebook and invisibility. The codex itself isn't too bad, and if the powers were removed/changed, the dex would be fine.
Eldar need an overhaul. Banshees need a buff, WS a nerf, etc etc. But the topic is Tau here.

Tau need to:

Shut down flyers because their own flyers suck. How would Tau compete with a let's say Necron Bakery without having neither fliers nor the ability to shut down fliers?
Shut down armor because their own armor sucks (Hammerhead with Longstrike is the single usable Tau tank and that's one per army). How would Tau compete with a heavy armor army (Kinghts, AM Pask&Stuff, Necron AV 13 wall) without having neither armor nor the ability to shut down armor?
Shut down invisibility: This is an ability pretty much unique to the Tau, but on the other hand Tau are in the minority of armies that have no psychic phase and no special special defense whatsoever. combating Invisibility is just a corner case in which they do.
Shut down close combat: tau shut down CC somewhat, but on the other hand they are the absolutely worst CC army in the game. Most other armies have no ways to shut down CC but also have ways to hold their own in CC. Tau don't.

How do you think a Tau army that lacked even some of the above would play and how it would be anything else than absolute bottom tier (since they would auto-lose to armies employing the tactics they can no longer counter, which are pretty common)?

While these are all valid points the Razzroshark strikefighter with a missile pod instead of burst cannon actually owns other flyers, in my experience, while still being able to pose a very real threat to ground forces..

LordBlades wrote:

Tau need to:

Shut down flyers because their own flyers suck. How would Tau compete with a let's say Necron Bakery without having neither fliers nor the ability to shut down fliers?

How do you see a pure-DE list dealing with that list?

LordBlades wrote:

Shut down armor because their own armor sucks (Hammerhead with Longstrike is the single usable Tau tank and that's one per army). How would Tau compete with a heavy armor army (Kinghts, AM Pask&Stuff, Necron AV 13 wall) without having neither armor nor the ability to shut down armor?

Wait... what are we talking about here? What are Tau supposedly losing? I thought all this started because someone suggested making markerlights reduce cover saves by 1 for each markerlight used? What's killing their ability to shut down armour?

LordBlades wrote:

Shut down invisibility: This is an ability pretty much unique to the Tau, but on the other hand Tau are in the minority of armies that have no psychic phase and no special special defense whatsoever.

Necrons say 'hi'. So do pure-DE, for that matter.

Also, should we really be balancing armies around powers that have no right to exist in the first place?

LordBlades wrote:

Shut down close combat: tau shut down CC somewhat, but on the other hand they are the absolutely worst CC army in the game. Most other armies have no ways to shut down CC but also have ways to hold their own in CC. Tau don't.

No, but they have ways to escape combat and kill melee units before they can ever reach combat.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

and the "trooper weapon" you mention is in part because they are inaccurate to start and dont have the special weapons options every other army gets. Fire Warriors arent toting three plasma guns around, now are they?

Akiasura wrote:
Let's be clear, 1 troop choice has access to 3 plasma guns, Grey hunters, who are another excellent troop choice. I would hardly call Bs 3 inaccurate, although Bs 4 is the majority, because markerlights are a thing. But you do have a point about their inaccuracy
Their chance to kill something is equal to a marine, since they have -1 to hit, but +1 to wound, have better range, are cheaper, and can hurt tanks easier. Markerlights help with their weakness too.
Also, why is trooper weapon in " "? It is a weapon on a trooper, is it not?
So you can't actually refute any of my points at all then?

Err, hate to burst your bubble, but vets can have 3 meltas or plasmas at Bs 4, with a 4+ save, so they aren't instakilled by the pulse weaponry.


In terms of the gneral conversation, if you did all these things, i.e. lock down tau accuracy, AA, remove buffmander for markerlighs so the rest of the army sucks, then what have you got?

A bad army that is unenjoyable when playing, and no one will want to play it, cause they will have nothing to combat the meta, because as Jancoran said, flyer overload is a thing, invisibility overload is a thing, and shrouded jinking overload is a thing.

Over simplifying what I said doesnt do a thing for you.

Bottom line there are legitimate identifiable threats and we must have answers. Having the only answer we DO posess (and we do) is nonsense.

What's all this "woe is me" from DE players? I thought that GK players were the whiniest bunch

SGTPozy wrote:
What's all this "woe is me" from DE players? I thought that GK players were the whiniest bunch

I wasn't aware that pointing out facts and asking reasonable questions was considered "whining". How remiss of me for not realising that.

LordBlades wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The army I built for my friend has EMP on the Fire Warriors and the Path Finders because of armor overload forces.

Veloctiy Trackers becaue Flyer overload is a thing. An actual thing that actually happens.

Has Markerlights because: Invisibility happens and Flyers happen when Velocity Trackers disappear.

Has Ignores cover weapons and/or capability because: Shrouded Jinking is a thing.

the meta has demanded that Tau Empire have answers, as it does for all armies. Leaving us with none is in no way a fair request when these things ARE things.

Now show me how other armies get the ability to
Shut down flyers
Shut down armor
Shut down invisibility
Shut down cover
Shut down close combat, cause support fire
All in one armybook, and without requiring the psychic phase.

And still have one of the best trooper weapons in the game.

Daemons are broken because of the core rulebook and invisibility. The codex itself isn't too bad, and if the powers were removed/changed, the dex would be fine.
Eldar need an overhaul. Banshees need a buff, WS a nerf, etc etc. But the topic is Tau here.

Tau need to:

Shut down flyers because their own flyers suck. How would Tau compete with a let's say Necron Bakery without having neither fliers nor the ability to shut down fliers?
Shut down armor because their own armor sucks (Hammerhead with Longstrike is the single usable Tau tank and that's one per army). How would Tau compete with a heavy armor army (Kinghts, AM Pask&Stuff, Necron AV 13 wall) without having neither armor nor the ability to shut down armor?
Shut down invisibility: This is an ability pretty much unique to the Tau, but on the other hand Tau are in the minority of armies that have no psychic phase and no special special defense whatsoever. combating Invisibility is just a corner case in which they do.
Shut down close combat: tau shut down CC somewhat, but on the other hand they are the absolutely worst CC army in the game. Most other armies have no ways to shut down CC but also have ways to hold their own in CC. Tau don't.

How do you think a Tau army that lacked even some of the above would play and how it would be anything else than absolute bottom tier (since they would auto-lose to armies employing the tactics they can no longer counter, which are pretty common)?

Most of the armies in the game do not have the answers to all of these things. Many can not answer even one of these outside of armor.
Again, you are missing the point. The point isn't that Tau do/don't need answers to all of these things.
The point is, why do Tau and tau alone get answers to all of these when no other codex does?

Jancoran, I literally went through your post and answered every point. How is that simplifying it?
You, in fact, strawmanned me by constructing an argument I never made, and argued from that point of view. If anyone is messing with the other's argument, it is yourself.
Again, why do Tau get answers to all the threats running around, but no other codex does?

I played Tau myself, with a small army, and played against them, on games from 1,2k to 2,5k on a friendly and hard environment, with more than three armies in the past. The thing I noticed while playing with them and against them is that the main problem seems to be that every weakness the Tau army has can somehow be nullified. Sometimes it is easier to do this, and sometimes it is harder to do it.

For example:

Guy 1: Hm Markerlights are good, let’s make them heavy so that it can be a tough choice if you want to move or not.
Guy 2: Yeah but make it 36", no cover saves against them, and give the guys holding them a scout move.
Guy 3: Yeah and also give it to drones too so that they can benefit from JSJ, better toughness and a better armor save and the possibility to fire markerlights with BS5.

Guy 1: The broadsides have BS3 and their weapons are heavy too, should be good for enemies to keep them out of range.
Guy 2: Yeah but give the rockets 36" and the other weapon 60" and make everything twinlinked for free to compensate for BS3.

Guy 1: CC should be the weakness of the army, as tau are clearly focused on shooting.
Guy 2: Lucky us that the shooting phase is way more dominant than the assault phase, but to be sure give them a better overwatch for free, and make it possible for the markerlights to boost the BF when firing snap shots.

Guy 1: Krisis are some cool multifunction units, with many strong weapons, which are somewhat short in range and with T4 and 3+ Armor it shouldn´t be so hard to kill them.
Guy 2: Yeah but give them JSJ so that they have the potential to get up to two movement phases for free, so that they are not in any kind of danger after shooting in 9 out of 10 cases. Oh and let’s not forget that every single one can deepstrike to make up for that short range they have and that they can ignore most terrain freely to get that heavy weapons in range.

Guy 2: Let´s also find a way to ignore some other rules like night fighting and blind for free or 1 point only, and make it so that they can defend themselves against deep striking units, for 5 points on all the heavy weapon systems.

So to make a long story short, I don´t think that Tau are far too strong, maybe the riptide with the IA is a problem, but besides him, the Tau simply needs some weaknesses where there isn´t a dirt cheap way to get around it.

Akiasura wrote:

Again, why do Tau get answers to all the threats running around, but no other codex does?

I'm not missing the point. i GET your point. I just think you're misdirecting your ire and allowing (dare i call it Codex envy?) to blind you to the reality that nerfing the Tau codex doesnt accomplish anything.

I play Dark Eldar and Coven. Their lack of anti-Psyker ability hurts them badly, but they also have the means to knock out the most heinous of the caster types (FMC's) so their defense is a good offense unfortunately. Im not excited about needing planes in my Dark Eldar list, but it is only my own stubborness that would cause me to not make use of the answers i DO have. Now having said all that...what in bloody blue blazes does my Dark Eldar codex's shortcoming have to do with Tau? So Tau are better at something than i am. So what! they cant fight their way out of a wet paper bag and when I get to their front lines, I am going to smash their faces in, with alacrity and conviction. No amount of Overwatch will save them. So what MY Coven codex DOESN'T have isn't WHY a Tau Empire codex should be nerfed!!! That just makes no sense at all and is absurd to suggest. We didn't ALL get to be 6 ft tall either but some of us figured out how to use what we did have and used it. I own a business and the 6 footers work for me now. Done. Same for Codex's. We cant ALL have a Centurion Star. Sorry. That's not a reason to rob space marines of theirs (and no, I don't own any Centurions, nor do I own Tigurius, for the record).

 Jancoran wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Again, why do Tau get answers to all the threats running around, but no other codex does?

I'm not missing the point. i GET your point. I just think you're misdirecting your ire and allowing (dare i call it Codex envy?) to blind you to the reality that nerfing the Tau codex doesnt accomplish anything.

I also own a Tau army, so I doubt it's envy of any kind. I bought one when they came out and have enjoyed the mobile shooting elements, since I don't play my eldar as much as I used to.

 Jancoran wrote:

I play Dark Eldar and Coven. Their lack of anti-Psyker ability hurts them badly, but they also have the means to knock out the most heinous of the caster types (FMC's) so their defense is a good offense unfortunately. Im not excited about needing planes in my Dark Eldar list, but it is only my own stubborness that would cause me to not make use of the answers i DO have. Now having said all that...what in bloody blue blazes does my Dark Eldar codex's shortcoming have to do with Tau?

The only strengths that matter are relative ones. While the Dark Eldar alone do not effect the Tau codex, when you compare all of the codexes to Tau and see they have answers to everything while others have shortcomings...well...they need to be toned down. I would prefer it was the difficulty of getting into CC with them that was taken down a bit, and possibly the riptide upgrade.

 Jancoran wrote:

So Tau are better at something than i am. So what! they cant fight their way out of a wet paper bag and when I get to their front lines, I am going to smash their faces in, with alacrity and conviction. No amount of Overwatch will save them.

This is debatable. It seems a lot of people that play other armies feel Tau are very difficult to get into close combat, and the edition itself doesn't really favor it. Not for all armies (the BA formation will probably wreck tau, for example).
Also, it is more than one thing. Tau are better against fliers, have arguably better shooting against everything that isn't a MC (possibly better against flying MC, I'd have to run the numbers), and avoid close combat better. They also deal with stars a lot better as well, a big problem.

 Jancoran wrote:

So what MY Coven codex DOESN'T have isn't WHY a Tau Empire codex should be nerfed!!! That just makes no sense at all and is absurd to suggest. We didn't ALL get to be 6 ft tall either but some of us figured out how to use what we did have and used it. I own a business and the 6 footers work for me now. Done. Same for Codex's. We cant ALL have a Centurion Star. Sorry. That's not a reason to rob space marines of theirs (and no, I don't own any Centurions, nor do I own Tigurius, for the record).

Caps lock and !!! doesn't make you right, let's tone it down. You kinda flew off the handle there at the end. If it makes you feel better, I am not 6' tall, though my girlfriend is, and I boss around 1200 students a semester. I occasionally have to stop them from going to medical school or graduating as well.

It's not the one codex, it's the fact that most codexes have 1 weakness that is a style of the army, and they can't overcome this.
Eldar are fragile (WS compensate for this, and are often complained about because of it), Orks lack armor saves and accuracy, Space Marines are often outnumbered, De vehicles die to a stiff breeze if struck...
But Tau don't have a generic weakness that comes into play. They avoid CC better than most armies can enter it, through various means. They have an answer for everything, while most codexes do not.

Tau, Eldar, and Crons will most likely be nerfed, it seems to be the way the codexes are going tbh.

And I was not asking for a Centurion star. I hate the idea of deathstars in this or any game. It's stupid. Just one overpowered unit going around smashing faces, and, barring bad luck or a similar unit, can not be stopped. It ruins the game and is extremely unfluffy and boring to see and play against.
Do not suggest this is what I was asking for.

What is it with these forums and strawmanning? And slippery slopes?

Not gonna' "tone it down". If you cant handle words used for emphasis, try another forum.

You used "arguably" a lot in these sentences and that's exactly right. It is and I do argue it.

I can get my guys into close combat and I dont whine about it when a few die on the way in. My Night Lords, my Coven, My Dark eldar, my Grey Knights, my Ravenguard and so on all get their just fine. Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

You know, sometimes I lose. and sometimes when I lose, Tau happened to be the opponent. I think that had a little to do with the General. I own like 11 Codex armies now and so i think I have a pretty decent view of whether or not the CODEX beat me.

The Codex doesn't win my games for me. doesnt lose them either. At some point the General needs to adjust and the codex needs to fad from your mind because honestly, the bitching and complaining on this particular forum is crazy.

Even I, with my blog dedicated to unusual solutions to difficult 40K problems sometimes give in to the want to be critical. I for example hate Tzeentch Flying Monstrous Creature Circus's. I feel of all the army forms, it alone stands tall as one that you can beat but the entire game feels like a loss even when you pull it out. I admit to an open hatred of that list because its absolutely just not fun. It doesnt feel like an epic battle and thats what i like about 40K's scale of fights.

But the "not fun" factor plays a lot bigger with me than the cries for game designers heads.

I don't play these Triple Tide power lists and most of my blog speaks to that. So i dont GET the hairy eyeball near as often from opponents. Im a breathe of fresh air when my weird armies show up just because they are different. But Im only able to play those types of lists if they ALSO provide answers to these key issues I outlined.

I dunno. It seems like a lot to do about nothing. Allies rules scrwed some things up for Tau Generals because of some of the craziness it allowed. I can see hate for allies. I can see hate for abusive players.

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
I think this is a blatant case of:

I'm detecting a large amount of handwavium here. I'll have to remember this picture next time people bitch about GW.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

Im pretty sure opinions are whats happening on forums. Just saying.

And yeah. Its a myth I've proven false again and again and I have a bunch of battle reports to prove it.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

Erm, actually, it is a myth, for example, dark eldar moving across the board turn one to disgorge some incubi into my left flank and kill all 24 of the fire warriors there (edit) in close combat. Believe me, it's a myth.

 Jancoran wrote:
Not gonna' "tone it down". If you cant handle words used for emphasis, try another forum.

I can handle it, but I don't see what a rant about people's height and how you now boss them around serves your argument at all.
But freedom of speech and all that, so carry on

 Jancoran wrote:

You used "arguably" a lot in these sentences and that's exactly right. It is and I do argue it.

Good. Different opinions and rational debate is how we discover these things. I don't travel to play, work forbids it really, so my sample size is somewhat limited.

 Jancoran wrote:

I can get my guys into close combat and I dont whine about it when a few die on the way in. My Night Lords, my Coven, My Dark eldar, my Grey Knights, my Ravenguard and so on all get their just fine.

I can see how Dark eldar and Coven manage it (I think their problem against most armies is that they aren't very good at close combat outside of a few units, not that they can't reach it...unless they don't go first), but how are you managing this with Chaos, Ravenguard, and Greyknights? They don't have good options for reaching CC against the tau.

 Jancoran wrote:

Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

I wasn't crying, I don't play armies for power levels. I played them because I liked the society and mobile firepower, so I continued to play them. They did need a buff then, and most of my group was willing to admit it (except this one Necron player. He's a bit of an ass though, thinks Cryx is underpowered against Skorne for example).
And I am not claiming it is impossible. I claimed it was exceedingly difficult for units that aren't extremely tough or fast, which is, for most dexes, 1 maybe 2 units. For an army that has a weakness that is close combat, that seems a bit extreme, but that is only my opinion. It's not like either of us work at GW, so ultimately this is just speculation and opinion swapping.

 Jancoran wrote:

You know, sometimes I lose. and sometimes when I lose, Tau happened to be the opponent. I think that had a little to do with the General. I own like 11 Codex armies now and so i think I have a pretty decent view of whether or not the CODEX beat me.

I own every army nearly as well, so I think I have a decent view of the codexes (I do not own Sisters or DE. We only have 1 sister player and 2 De players, so my knowledge of them is more limited then I would care for). I lose games, everyone does in a dice game. Sometimes it's the general, although there isn't a lot a general can do against a pod list like what I play outside deployment, but often in 40k it's the codex and army list. The game isn't very complicated after all, despite the rules, and the large online community allows most people access to the better lists and strategies.

 Jancoran wrote:

The Codex doesn't win my games for me. doesnt lose them either. At some point the General needs to adjust and the codex needs to fad from your mind because honestly, the bitching and complaining on this particular forum is crazy.

Earlier you mentioned the Tau codex being weak in prior editions. I played with that codex at that time, and my lose rate did go up. I didn't lose all my games, I've been playing for a very long time after all, and know some tricks, but the lose rate still did go up despite me loving the army and playstyle. Me being a halfway decent general did allow me to win, but the codex certainly held me back from winning some match ups (like against Crons, or GK at the time). Sometimes it felt that there wasn't a lot I could do, especially if the other top 2 generals at my store were on the other end of the table.
When we both play marines, it's a pretty even game. Give us different codexes, and it changes.
Part of this is particular styles working better with people (I never like the top tier characters in most fighting games, for example, because I do not like rush down, but I still do alright). Part of this is the fact that the codexes are not balanced. Most of us who have been playing can name iconic lists or codexes that dominated stores from older editions.
Siren bomb, Iron Warriors, Rhino Rush, so on and so forth...this wasn't the case of good generals always picking the same armies (though I imagine that happened...used to be a lot of jumpers back in the day), some codexes are just easier to play and result in higher win rates.
It sucks if your codex is one of these and you DON'T run one of those lists. Jackasses will claim you only won because you play X, even if you're running banshees and falcons for example.
It's why I haven't played my Tau in a while.

 Jancoran wrote:

Even I, with my blog dedicated to unusual solutions to difficult 40K problems sometimes give in to the want to be critical. I for example hate Tzeentch Flying Monstrous Creature Circus's. I feel of all the army forms, it alone stands tall as one that you can beat but the entire game feels like a loss even when you pull it out. I admit to an open hatred of that list because its absolutely just not fun. It doesnt feel like an epic battle and thats what i like about 40K's scale of fights.

That's how a lot of people feel about Tau though. Sure, it can be beaten, nobody is claiming they are better than eldar for example, but they seem to have easy access to solutions for all of the problems a force like them should have.
I agree with you on how 40k battles should feel epic. If I'm playing it instead of warmachine, it's for the fluff and epic battle feeling you get that warmachine lacks.
Would you mind linking your blog? If it has battle reports I'd like to check it out.

 Jancoran wrote:

But the "not fun" factor plays a lot bigger with me than the cries for game designers heads.

Agreed.

 Jancoran wrote:

I don't play these Triple Tide power lists and most of my blog speaks to that. So i dont GET the hairy eyeball near as often from opponents. Im a breathe of fresh air when my weird armies show up just because they are different. But Im only able to play those types of lists if they ALSO provide answers to these key issues I outlined.

If you don't play those lists, that's fine. I don't either. But sometimes the...stink....rubs off on those that don't.
I played Chaos back in 3.5, an alpha legion list. I got a massive amount of hate because we had 2 iron warrior players and 1 siren bomb player (the latter was one of the best generals at our store and has an amazing emperor's children list).

 Jancoran wrote:

I dunno. It seems like a lot to do about nothing. Allies rules scrwed some things up for Tau Generals because of some of the craziness it allowed. I can see hate for allies. I can see hate for abusive players.

It is a lot to do about essentially nothing to be frank. It's not going to accomplish something, my store doesn't allow house rules so even if we came up with a good one I couldn't use it.
It's just venting.

 Jancoran wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

Im pretty sure opinions are whats happening on forums. Just saying.

Reread your posts. You weren't stating opinions. You were attempting to disprove by presenting anecdotes as fact.
I really love the "opinion" that the Codex never loses the game for you, but the Tau Codex was a "constantly hapless victim".

And yeah. Its a myth I've proven false again and again and I have a bunch of battle reports to prove it.

Anecdotal evidence isn't.
And who cares that you're assaulting Fire Warriors. Woo freaking Hoo. Congrats?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

Erm, actually, it is a myth, for example, dark eldar moving across the board turn one to disgorge some incubi into my left flank and kill all 24 of the fire warriors there (edit) in close combat. Believe me, it's a myth.

Wow - Fire Warriors. That's a challenge.

Why'd you move forward? Him getting a turn 1 assault is either you deploying poorly or you moving poorly.

Akiasura wrote:


how are you managing this with Chaos, Ravenguard, and Greyknights? They don't have good options for reaching CC against the tau.

Would you mind linking your blog? If it has battle reports I'd like to check it out.
.

Well my Night Lord List is well chronicled on the blog if you read backwards in time. It works awesome and is pretty much a melee based army. Death raining from above and in front of you. GRAR.

Ravenguard get up there just fine. I don't know what unit combos others use but the Ravenguard idea has always been fun to me and it's kind of why I made a Chaos Space Marines "version". That and I don't play Space Marines really. I have a lot of it but its not a passion for me.

Grey Knights are close combat monsters. they were obviously better before 7E. The changes were dramatic for Grey Knights. Despite those issues, they are very very fast. DreadKnights and jumpers can putthe pain on ya' and the Psyker phase with those is pretty epically cool. I havent got as many Grey Knight games in for 7E, but I just got two DreadKnights and fully intend to make that happen. =)

As a link to fins info on my thoughts and yes, definitely battle reports:

http://www.40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/



Automatically Appended Next Post:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

Im pretty sure opinions are whats happening on forums. Just saying.

Reread your posts. You weren't stating opinions. You were attempting to disprove by presenting anecdotes as fact.
I really love the "opinion" that the Codex never loses the game for you, but the Tau Codex was a "constantly hapless victim".

And yeah. Its a myth I've proven false again and again and I have a bunch of battle reports to prove it.

Anecdotal evidence isn't.
And who cares that you're assaulting Fire Warriors. Woo freaking Hoo. Congrats?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Its a MYTH, this "impossibility" of getting into melee with them

It's not a MYTH.

and no one was crying for Tau when they were constantly hapless victims, now did they? Now they can fight back a bit and people dont like it. The worst part of human nature, I swear. the crab pot effect.

Actually, people were. I was.

But that doesn't agree with your assertions of fact so you'll ignore it.

Erm, actually, it is a myth, for example, dark eldar moving across the board turn one to disgorge some incubi into my left flank and kill all 24 of the fire warriors there (edit) in close combat. Believe me, it's a myth.

Wow - Fire Warriors. That's a challenge.

Why'd you move forward? Him getting a turn 1 assault is either you deploying poorly or you moving poorly.

You love that opinion? Weird. Seems like you dont.

I was referring to the IMpRESSION most people had of the Tau and what they would do to them. And that thought has now been largely erased from their mind, and replaced with sour grapes over their IMpRESSION that they can no longer do it.

It just occurred to me: The arguments for nerfing Tau wouldn't exist if someone didn't feel like they were losing to it. Now would they? So my thought on this is, Tau Generals have had to play an unorthodox style of Warfare in order to win consistently, yes because the Codex was challenged a little. Most people dont even remember how the codex timing made certain gear almost immediately useless, and points costs almost immediately high. But the changed to 5E and later 6E and their timing with the Tau codex's that came before this one made it a challenge to play.

But I liked that about them. They could be devastating when played to their strengths. I won a lot of tournaments in 5E with Tau, and I suppose a few Best generals in the time 6E was around. But the new codex finally was a 'caught up" version that reflected the current and COMING realities of the other codex's and it probably did seem ridiculous when people showed up with 5 Riptides. but then... Those are player issues that were borne of the Allies matrix.

A bit of context helps when looking at this issue. But whatevs.

I have about a 50/50 won/loss vs Tau with Tyranids, so it's not sour grapes that I'm losing all the time. It's just frustration that the codex is literally designed to ignore all the normal rules of 40k. Cover? Don't care. Night time? Don't care. Snapshots? Don't care. Can only target one unit? Don't care. Low BS? Don't care. LoS? Don't care. Only one movement phase? Don't care.

And what's sad is that if you propose that maybe - just maybe - it's silly for a codex to be written like that, you get all kinds of rage saying things like "WE EARNED IT" or "GENERAL > CODEX LAWLZ" without someone actually trying to understand the issues.

rigeld2 wrote:
I have about a 50/50 won/loss vs Tau with Tyranids, so it's not sour grapes that I'm losing all the time. It's just frustration that the codex is literally designed to ignore all the normal rules of 40k. Cover? Don't care. Night time? Don't care. Snapshots? Don't care. Can only target one unit? Don't care. Low BS? Don't care. LoS? Don't care. Only one movement phase? Don't care.

This would be a much more convincing argument if other armies didn't do their share of ignoring the "normal" rules. For example, C:SM: morale? ATSKNF. Units have to stay together? Combat squads. Can't do all-reserve armies anymore? Drop pods. Can't ally with your own codex? Just pick two different chapters. Plus, some of those ways that Tau ignore the "normal" rules don't really mean much. Who cares if Tau ignore night fighting when it's just a +1 cover bonus for one turn. And sure, you can fire snap shots at higher BS, but only if you have a ton of marketlights available (and those markerlights will often be firing snap shots).

 Peregrine wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
I have about a 50/50 won/loss vs Tau with Tyranids, so it's not sour grapes that I'm losing all the time. It's just frustration that the codex is literally designed to ignore all the normal rules of 40k. Cover? Don't care. Night time? Don't care. Snapshots? Don't care. Can only target one unit? Don't care. Low BS? Don't care. LoS? Don't care. Only one movement phase? Don't care.

This would be a much more convincing argument if other armies didn't do their share of ignoring the "normal" rules. For example, C:SM: morale? ATSKNF. Units have to stay together? Combat squads. Can't do all-reserve armies anymore? Drop pods. Can't ally with your own codex? Just pick two different chapters. Plus, some of those ways that Tau ignore the "normal" rules don't really mean much. Who cares if Tau ignore night fighting when it's just a +1 cover bonus for one turn. And sure, you can fire snap shots at higher BS, but only if you have a ton of marketlights available (and those markerlights will often be firing snap shots).

I'd trade ATSKNF for assault jump moves any day. Same for Ignores Cover. Only things that really Ignore Cover in SM are a Libby power on chance roll, TF Cannon, and some Whirlwinds. Also, SM can't just give Ignores Cover to any unit. Also, would trade ATSKNF for targeting other units, although IIRC Tau have some of that, but not a ludicrous amount.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
I have about a 50/50 won/loss vs Tau with Tyranids, so it's not sour grapes that I'm losing all the time. It's just frustration that the codex is literally designed to ignore all the normal rules of 40k. Cover? Don't care. Night time? Don't care. Snapshots? Don't care. Can only target one unit? Don't care. Low BS? Don't care. LoS? Don't care. Only one movement phase? Don't care.

This would be a much more convincing argument if other armies didn't do their share of ignoring the "normal" rules. For example, C:SM: morale? ATSKNF. Units have to stay together? Combat squads. Can't do all-reserve armies anymore? Drop pods. Can't ally with your own codex? Just pick two different chapters. Plus, some of those ways that Tau ignore the "normal" rules don't really mean much. Who cares if Tau ignore night fighting when it's just a +1 cover bonus for one turn. And sure, you can fire snap shots at higher BS, but only if you have a ton of marketlights available (and those markerlights will often be firing snap shots).

I'd trade ATSKNF for assault jump moves any day. Same for Ignores Cover. Only things that really Ignore Cover in SM are a Libby power on chance roll, TF Cannon, and some Whirlwinds. Also, SM can't just give Ignores Cover to any unit. Also, would trade ATSKNF for targeting other units, although IIRC Tau have some of that, but not a ludicrous amount.

You know all those Firewarriors that crumple in combat? If they had ATSKNF, they could stay in combat to the last man and just laugh. They might even win some that way. ATSKNF is nothing to take for granted, it's amazing. Ignores cover savers for marines? And giving out rerolls and ignores coversaves is fairly easy with access to cheap librarians. Try flamers across every unit in the army, BA now have troop heavy Flamers. Orbital Strikes. Marines even have access to splitfire on some of their important units (centurions). I think with the rediculous access to allies that armies of IoM have. they have no right to complain about Tau. I might cut Nids a breaks and perhaps DE. That is about it.

Librarians can't take Div. Oh how I wish they could.

Certain CTs can.

I play orks.

So at range : no melta, no lance, no ignore cover, no access to anti armor grenades expect in tank bustas, no poison . Some one on the first page mentioned that every army has access to above mentioned things. So wanted to get that off my chest =p

Now as for tau. I think even as an ork, they are fine. I've lost to them plenty. Bit now I realized the loses were more due to my army that theirs.

Just had a game were I faced 3 riptides. Killed 2 with my shooting and finished the third off in cc.

Tau have a few weakness. First high armor if you screen it right from meltas. Armor 13 and 14 is rough for them. Second the mission. If they have to get and hold objectives , make sure you place objectives to where they have to advance. Again as an ork in place as many objectives as I can mid field. Third they rely on key units. Take them out first. Example if I can hurt the missile sides or kil a few quickly, it's a lot easier. If you can take out their marker lights do it.

My in game experience says they are rough , but can be handled.

 Coyote81 wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
I have about a 50/50 won/loss vs Tau with Tyranids, so it's not sour grapes that I'm losing all the time. It's just frustration that the codex is literally designed to ignore all the normal rules of 40k. Cover? Don't care. Night time? Don't care. Snapshots? Don't care. Can only target one unit? Don't care. Low BS? Don't care. LoS? Don't care. Only one movement phase? Don't care.

This would be a much more convincing argument if other armies didn't do their share of ignoring the "normal" rules. For example, C:SM: morale? ATSKNF. Units have to stay together? Combat squads. Can't do all-reserve armies anymore? Drop pods. Can't ally with your own codex? Just pick two different chapters. Plus, some of those ways that Tau ignore the "normal" rules don't really mean much. Who cares if Tau ignore night fighting when it's just a +1 cover bonus for one turn. And sure, you can fire snap shots at higher BS, but only if you have a ton of marketlights available (and those markerlights will often be firing snap shots).

I'd trade ATSKNF for assault jump moves any day. Same for Ignores Cover. Only things that really Ignore Cover in SM are a Libby power on chance roll, TF Cannon, and some Whirlwinds. Also, SM can't just give Ignores Cover to any unit. Also, would trade ATSKNF for targeting other units, although IIRC Tau have some of that, but not a ludicrous amount.

You know all those Firewarriors that crumple in combat? If they that ATSKNF, they could stay in combat to the last man and just laugh. They might even win some that way. ATSKNF is nothing to take for granted, it's amazing. Ignores cover savers for marines? And giving out rerolls and ignores coversaves is fairly easy with access to cheap librarians. Try flamers across every unit in the army, BA now have troop heavy Flamers. Orbital Strikes. Marines even have access to splitfire on some of their important units (centurions). I think with the rediculous access to allies that armies of IoM have. they have no right to complain about Tau. I might cut Nids a breaks and perhaps DE. That is about it.

How many Librarians are you gonna take to try and get an Ignores Cover? Depending on your ML, you have a 1/3 shot, plus it takes up an HQ slot. I will agree with you on the Centurions and the Orbital Strikes. However, I play DA and have none of that.

 Peregrine wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
I have about a 50/50 won/loss vs Tau with Tyranids, so it's not sour grapes that I'm losing all the time. It's just frustration that the codex is literally designed to ignore all the normal rules of 40k. Cover? Don't care. Night time? Don't care. Snapshots? Don't care. Can only target one unit? Don't care. Low BS? Don't care. LoS? Don't care. Only one movement phase? Don't care.

This would be a much more convincing argument if other armies didn't do their share of ignoring the "normal" rules. For example, C:SM: morale? ATSKNF. Units have to stay together? Combat squads. Can't do all-reserve armies anymore? Drop pods. Can't ally with your own codex? Just pick two different chapters. Plus, some of those ways that Tau ignore the "normal" rules don't really mean much. Who cares if Tau ignore night fighting when it's just a +1 cover bonus for one turn. And sure, you can fire snap shots at higher BS, but only if you have a ton of marketlights available (and those markerlights will often be firing snap shots).

Skyrays don't have to Snap Shot at Flyers. Really want one dead but out of missiles or don't want to use them there? 2 lights gives that Pathfinder unit BS3 Snap Shots, which ramps up to let some other unit blow the Flyer out of the sky. Or Supporting Fire - because why not toss Markerlights at a unit charging something else?

The "can't ally with your own codex" is mostly irrelevant now with multiple detachments. It's one more troop than an allied detachment. Zomgtehbennies. And you listed things that are mostly irrelevant (combat squads can be "duplicated" by taking multiple 5 man teams... They just can't share a transport). ATSKNF is a rule I likewise hate, and Drop Pod Assault is fluffy but also stupid. You listed 4 things for C: SM and 2 were stretches. I listed 6 for Tau (and there's more) and 2 were stretches (really 1, but I'll give you Snap Shots for the sake of argument).

Pretending other codexes do it to the same extent is just that.

 Dakkafang Dreggrim wrote:
I play orks.

So at range : no melta, no lance, no ignore cover, no access to anti armor grenades expect in tank bustas, no poison . Some one on the first page mentioned that every army has access to above mentioned things. So wanted to get that off my chest =p

Now as for tau. I think even as an ork, they are fine. I've lost to them plenty. Bit now I realized the loses were more due to my army that theirs.

Just had a game were I faced 3 riptides. Killed 2 with my shooting and finished the third off in cc.

Tau have a few weakness. First high armor if you screen it right from meltas. Armor 13 and 14 is rough for them. Second the mission. If they have to get and hold objectives , make sure you place objectives to where they have to advance. Again as an ork in place as many objectives as I can mid field. Third they rely on key units. Take them out first. Example if I can hurt the missile sides or kil a few quickly, it's a lot easier. If you can take out their marker lights do it.

My in game experience says they are rough , but can be handled.

Do you own a gorkaught or morknaught named mom? I literally just watched a game where an ork player played against 3 riptide tau with farsighted and won. He brought 60 boys. Weird.

what are the arguments for why the tau army isn't cheesy again? I honestly don't know. Also it would be nice if they weren't immune to blind I mean ist a rule specifically designed against shorting armies but tau get to ignore it. It would be nice if the riptide would be fixed also maybe they can go a little easy on the strength 7 spam you know I so running rhinos aren't useless.