I know one guy on another forum who's a friend of mine who goes to a club where they play competitively but ban the scummy and overpowered strategies like Farsight bombs, and they get along fine.

Really? "Scummy"? I love statements like this. Who decides what "Scummy" is? On one hand you're saying you don't "get" casual players and on the other you're advocating an arbitrary and artificial limitation on something that was apparently deemed too competitive. Ugh.

The Farsight Bomb can be powerful but there's almost nothing behind it. If you don't have the hitting power to take it down then just play to the mission and 9 times out of 10 you'll probably either beat it or at least have a good go of it. I feel like players in general have lost touch with the "tactics" part of the game in recent years.

Are you playing with the current terrain rules? I have seen a lot of Tau armies go down in my local area just to the fact that they couldn't shoot past a certain distance because of terrain blocking los. I am not saying this is a dead fix for the issues you are bringing up but honestly there are variables outside of just terrain. A commanders ability with strategy, dice rolls, game objectives and so on.

OP has clearly never played a guard player.

Farsite bomb being overpowering is a freaking joke. In a game where objectives matter more than anything else and the fact that you can easily tie up almost all units it is relatively easy for one commander to tie up the bomb and make it so that the unit is useless for the duration of the turns that matter...

I never understood banning certain units because no one wants to take the time to figure out strategy in trying to get rid of the problem.

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

So then playing against an Imperial Guard list that spams Vendettas is fine but anything Codex Tau comes out with just happens to be too good and OP?

Flying Toaster wrote:
Tau are weak against assault, you have to get to them but it is not hard to do so. Drop pods or deepstriking work wonders. I don't understand this generalized complaining about an army that is good at shooting and somehow because they are good at one thing they must be OP.

Deep Striking into an army that has tons of options for Interceptor and who gets to shoot you before you can charge anyway isn't very reliable.

Interceptor is good, but it's limited in use. Riptides and Broadsides are the only realy units that would really use it and some actually favor skyfire on the broadsides as opposed to interceptor. Riptides have a largeblast with no buffs and still has huge potential to scatter. If I were playing against Tau I'd drop pod as close to his units as possible so that those templates scatter where he doesn't want or he doesn't bother to shoot. As strong as Tau shooting is, they are vulnerable as they have ever been. So with a sufficient amount of deepstriking units you can do a lot of damage to Tau lines.

Tau troops and tanks are just as mobile as anything else. The only unique mobility feature is the Jetpack which only offers limited mobility but isn't really impossible to catch with a fast assault list. I've had plenty of games where I was left with no where to run because of fast moving armies.

Random charge and overwatch was made by 6th ed, it has nothing to do with Tau. Where Tau do get a boost is the support fire ability, which is honestly not that big of a boost. If they're castling up to gain the benefit then they are extermely vulnerable to large blasts. If they are spread out then they don't get the benefits at all.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
Tau are weak against assault, you have to get to them but it is not hard to do so. Drop pods or deepstriking work wonders. I don't understand this generalized complaining about an army that is good at shooting and somehow because they are good at one thing they must be OP.

Deep Striking into an army that has tons of options for Interceptor and who gets to shoot you before you can charge anyway isn't very reliable.

So then the argument is just don't try?

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

How do Tau not care or completely ignore certain things in this game? I feel like that is a bad player who just doesn't care about one of the aspects of this game, you have to be mindful of everything in this game in order to get better.

Flying Toaster wrote:

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

So then playing against an Imperial Guard list that spams Vendettas is fine but anything Codex Tau comes out with just happens to be too good and OP?

Nobody said anything about spamming Vendettas.

While you will encounter them against Guard, no doubt, the talking point was the similarity in playstyles between the two and the discussion on what makes for good internal balance.

Yes, the vendetta is OP, but then again many would argue so is the Riptide. Most books have a unit that is spammed to hell and back by competetive players. That isn't the point. The point is that, individual unit issues aside, the Tau book as a whole went from 'we are strong in shooting but weak to melee' to 'we are EXTREMELY strong in shooting but weak to melee, but don't care because you won't get there based on how the book was designed'

Yea, you might not be able to assault them sometimes, but only if the Tau player is smart and has set up his units right. Tau care a lot about getting into assault, in that they want to avoid it to win, that is why the new codex gave them a better chance of not getting into close combat. This goes along the same lines that the Tau have always played with since the very beginning. How is that a problem?

More accurately the book went from "We are on par or worse with other armies for shooting, even if they aren't shooting based, and terrible in CC" to "We are strong in shooting and weak to melee, but the changes to 6th hinder a lot of melee options and we have one option to castle against melee armies but become more vulnerable to large blasts."

XenosTerminus wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

So then playing against an Imperial Guard list that spams Vendettas is fine but anything Codex Tau comes out with just happens to be too good and OP?

Nobody said anything about spamming Vendettas.

While you will encounter them against Guard, no doubt, the talking point was the similarity in playstyles between the two and the discussion on what makes for good internal balance.

Yes, the vendetta is OP, but then again many would argue so is the Riptide. Most books have a unit that is spammed to hell and back by competetive players. That isn't the point. The point is that, individual unit issues aside, the Tau book as a whole went from 'we are strong in shooting but weak to melee' to 'we are EXTREMELY strong in shooting but weak to melee, but don't care because you won't get there based on how the book was designed'

Or it could be that both the Tau book and 6th ed in general make the Tau EXTREMELY strong in shooting. The Tau book alone if looked at does not make the army superior in the shooting phase then all other 6th ed armies. It has one specialized rule in regards entirely to shooting: Supporting Fire. Granted marker lights also aid shooting but you have to bring in units, and drones that give markerlight support.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
Tau are weak against assault, you have to get to them but it is not hard to do so. Drop pods or deepstriking work wonders. I don't understand this generalized complaining about an army that is good at shooting and somehow because they are good at one thing they must be OP.

Deep Striking into an army that has tons of options for Interceptor and who gets to shoot you before you can charge anyway isn't very reliable.

Coughbaitouttheinterceptcough...
The only time intercept is good is if you go first as otherwise you lose an entire round of shooting and a extra phase of shooting. and in ether case that's an entire turn to bumb rush into there field And lock into there TROOPS (or broadsides) not there riptide.

besides that you dont have to charge.

all out shooting them is good enough to cripple most tau army but locking in is just gravy as it stops a riptide from shooting ( who wont be shooting again for a bit if intercepted).

with an LD of 7 they will flee relatively 50/50 though it requires you to remove there ethereal if they had taken one.

just me 2cents on interceptor.

I've been watching this thread with some interest for a while now, while the OP does raise some very good points and in some elements yes the tau can be bent to the point of brokenness especially now that we have the farsight book in the mix as well but I've been a tau player for years (since 2004) and have always played farsight heavy lists and had to struggle over the years because as soon as you hit a 2k points match you simply ran out of things you could play, I remember a game where I literally ran out of heavy support choices so had to take sniper drones which against the other options is something I'm loathed to do but back in the day we had some pretty large limitations that we had to overcome, have tau gone to far? I don't really think so, I run a fairly solid list and still get turned over by solid marine tactics, I've not had the pleasure of face guard in full force yet but demons especially tzeentch focused lists always give me trouble, I hear a lot of complaining from people at my club because the tau are the top dogs at the moment but few of these realised that up until April the tau were very much losing power, yes we still had a solid dex but against the more modern books we constantly got our backsides handed to us and the community all but died out at one point, but the thing to remember is the tau book was a bolt out of the blue no one expected it to be quite this good and given that last addition as soon as you hit a tau line they crumbled, giving the army things like supporting fire and even riptides has allowed us to deal with encroaching threats better than we ever used to, yes the book can be abused, yes I own 3 riptides and for tournament play I will often put 2-3 of them down but that's what tournaments are about, bringing your best, but at heart I am still a casual gamer and competitive play does somewhat spoil the game slightly but if I go to a tourney and face turkey spam for example I now can compete against it rather than just get tabled, for casual play I have 7000 points of tau to select from and while I will very rarely leave farsight at home I will make him less over powered,

We still haven't had all the books out for this edition and I can remember when the helldrake came out people were complaining then about OP but give enough time and the rest of the books will be brought up to the same level and in some cases may even surpass the tau in power, there's even been a slight shift in my community as well as people are adapting to the tau now and changing up their tactics (not necessarily their lists) and finding loop holes to exploit and these are often take all comers lists that are being put down as well,

Do I like this book? Yes I love it but I still miss S10 railguns on my broadsides and the fact that I used to be the only one who would put farsight on the board due to his restrictions but his speed and versatility more than made up for it, but I also like that there is a proper tau community out there now rather than dead board threads and as has been said before the people with the biggest problem always seem to be the ones who used to steam roll us everytime due to our lack of ability to counter assault effectively or deal with more than 1-2 threats at a time, tau can be beat but it just takes a little more these days and even those OP demon lists I mentioned before can be shut down by the right list as well, I think sportsmanship and good humour are better assets in this game than simply winning or complaining because you can't as easily anymore,

My 2p anyway,

whitewolf0158 wrote:
I've been watching this thread with some interest for a while now, while the OP does raise some very good points and in some elements yes the tau can be bent to the point of brokenness especially now that we have the farsight book in the mix as well but I've been a tau player for years (since 2004) and have always played farsight heavy lists and had to struggle over the years because as soon as you hit a 2k points match you simply ran out of things you could play, I remember a game where I literally ran out of heavy support choices so had to take sniper drones which against the other options is something I'm loathed to do but back in the day we had some pretty large limitations that we had to overcome, have tau gone to far? I don't really think so, I run a fairly solid list and still get turned over by solid marine tactics, I've not had the pleasure of face guard in full force yet but demons especially tzeentch focused lists always give me trouble, I hear a lot of complaining from people at my club because the tau are the top dogs at the moment but few of these realised that up until April the tau were very much losing power, yes we still had a solid dex but against the more modern books we constantly got our backsides handed to us and the community all but died out at one point, but the thing to remember is the tau book was a bolt out of the blue no one expected it to be quite this good and given that last addition as soon as you hit a tau line they crumbled, giving the army things like supporting fire and even riptides has allowed us to deal with encroaching threats better than we ever used to, yes the book can be abused, yes I own 3 riptides and for tournament play I will often put 2-3 of them down but that's what tournaments are about, bringing your best, but at heart I am still a casual gamer and competitive play does somewhat spoil the game slightly but if I go to a tourney and face turkey spam for example I now can compete against it rather than just get tabled, for casual play I have 7000 points of tau to select from and while I will very rarely leave farsight at home I will make him less over powered,

We still haven't had all the books out for this edition and I can remember when the helldrake came out people were complaining then about OP but give enough time and the rest of the books will be brought up to the same level and in some cases may even surpass the tau in power, there's even been a slight shift in my community as well as people are adapting to the tau now and changing up their tactics (not necessarily their lists) and finding loop holes to exploit and these are often take all comers lists that are being put down as well,

Do I like this book? Yes I love it but I still miss S10 railguns on my broadsides and the fact that I used to be the only one who would put farsight on the board due to his restrictions but his speed and versatility more than made up for it, but I also like that there is a proper tau community out there now rather than dead board threads and as has been said before the people with the biggest problem always seem to be the ones who used to steam roll us everytime due to our lack of ability to counter assault effectively or deal with more than 1-2 threats at a time, tau can be beat but it just takes a little more these days and even those OP demon lists I mentioned before can be shut down by the right list as well, I think sportsmanship and good humour are better assets in this game than simply winning or complaining because you can't as easily anymore,

My 2p anyway,

Wow. I think you rolled a couple of these: and people were all like

Pretty much, as soon as I could take the new raven O' I found people's moods had changed to the tau, I left my list largely the same as with the last book but with just one or two additions ( I'm a massive mecha/ robot geek so of course I was going to get a riptide) what hasn't helped is the level of WAAC band wagoners that have jumped on in recent months and I would say allies to a certain extend has distorted the mix a little as I now see tau allies with almost every army, again mostly with WAAC or "those guys" but I still think people take this game to seriously,

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

It's probably the worst lore thing I've seen done to a unit in the longest while

vroooom vROOOOOOOM we are space robot motor cyclists!

...Original necron destroyers?

...at the very least, their drivers looked were they were going ._.

Ok, so after much deliberation and debate I am just going to have to agree to disagree on a lot of the counter-points, especially from a lot of the Tau players commenting lately. Tau is a strong book, no doubt. If the book itself presents too much of a challenge for what has worked for nearly two editions casually, I can't think of what else to do than literally bring better lists, as much as it pains me as a fluffy/fun player.

DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE ME DO YOU DAMN FISH PEOPLE!?

That being said, I challenged our play groups Tau player to another game, 1850. I will be bringing my DA.

This is the list I have crafted. Feel free to comment or offer suggestions:

Codex Dark Angels- 1850 Points

HQ: 190 Points

Belial- 190 Points
-Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield

Troops: 1075

Deathwing Terminator Squad- 480 Points
+5 additional Deathwing Terminators
+5x Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields
+Plasma Cannon
+Assault Cannon
+Chainfist

Tactical Squad- 220 Points
+5 additional Space Marines
+Plasma Pistol (Space Marine Sergeant)
+Plasma Gun
+Plasma Cannon

Dedicated Transport w/Locater Beacon- Drop Pod: 45 Points

Tactical Squad- 220 Points
+5 additional Space Marines
+Plasma Pistol (Space Marine Sergeant)
+Plasma Gun
+Plasma Cannon

Dedicated Transport w/Locater Beacon- Drop Pod: 45 Points

Scout Squad- 155 Points
+5 additional Scouts
-9x Sniper Rifles
+Missile Launcher
+Camo Cloaks

Fast Attack: 220 Points

Assault Squad- 110 Points
+Plasma Pistol (Sergeant)
+Flamer x2

Assault Squad- 110 Points
+Plasma Pistol (Sergeant)
+Flamer x2

Heavy Support: 345 Points

Devastator Squad- 150 Points
+Lascannon x4

Devastator Squad- 130 Points
+Missile Launcher x4

Whirlwind

Looks golden though i personally i feel all those plasma pistols are a bit excessive. (should be fine though)

also remove the points costs for upgrade and add it together per unit (against the ruuuuules)

Edit: also i think you should skip the plasma cannons on the tacs if they are podding in as it wont be firing for a turn. (do DA have combat squads?)

 Desubot wrote:
Looks golden though i personally i feel all those plasma pistols are a bit excessive. (should be fine though)

also remove the points costs for upgrade and add it together per unit (against the ruuuuules)

Edit: also i think you should skip the plasma cannons on the tacs if they are podding in as it wont be firing for a turn. (do DA have combat squads?)

Edited out points- forgot about that.

A lot of people tend to bring Combi-weapons on sergeants, which I had considered- I just figured more plasma is better (since the greater collective has deemed it better than melta, and I have plenty of flamers for the few oddball squads in cover).

DA can combat squad. I could split them up, or take Multi-meltats instead of the cannons... I am not sure how effective that would be though, since a snap fired shot the turn you land won't do much. My logic was they drop, blast away at infantry, an MC, or even take 3 plasma shots at a vehicles side armor... then fire plasma full force next turn.

I know a lot of people dislike scouts/whirlwinds, but against Tau they are actually pretty good. The scouts serve doubly as a cheap backfield objective camper who can also take pot shots at Riptides/potentially Pin Infantry.

The Whirlwind is actually very useful against Tau from my experience- especially if he brings Kroot/Pathfinders, or even Drones (S5 AP4 Blast)

The main reason i say less plasma pistols is that they are st 7 and wont instal kill broadsides or crisis suits. unless taken in force per unit (enough to whip a unit of 3 (6 wounds at least + drones) its not always worth it. but if you can rad them it would be a funny way of removing em

I was going to suggest a Whirlwind I hate those things, but you have it covered. Honestly hit fast and hit hard. Your Tau opponent will not know what happened. I have found that a lot of fellow Tau players in my area are reactionary players so if you have a purpose and know what units to ignore such as the riptide you are golden. Rule of thumb. If it takes more than 2 turns to take it out it is better to ignore it.

I have a deep respect for DA and love to see them fielded you will have to let us know how the game goes.

Actually one more suggestion it might be worth it to take an extra whirlwind. The Imperiums creed of 2 is better than one really goes well here.

Tau is a strong book, no doubt. If the book itself presents too much of a challenge for what has worked for nearly two editions casually, I can't think of what else to do than literally bring better lists, as much as it pains me as a fluffy/fun player.

That's your problem right there. An army list that "has worked for two editions" is absolutely no guarantee that it will work in *this* edition. 40K is very much an "adapt or die" style of game, Codex to Codex, Edition to Edition.

I am going to have to agree with the above post. The game changes all the time and dramatically sometimes. Just think Tau has had to change their play-style through 2 editions and during each new codex release.

That's my issue with the book as I stated earlier. I expect to have to swap a thing or two around when a new dex comes out. But the Tau dex literally made me change nearly my entire TaC list. Others I might need to add or get rid of something like adding a unit for anti air but the Tau one really made me change everything and that is my problem with it. Another armies book should not have that huge of an effect on what I bring some change yes but this was to much. Guess I will see what happens with the other codex's yet to come.

So let me try to understand this...

Because you have to change your army list that makes the codex bad? I think that is what you are trying to say. How about the part in which Tau have had no change whatsoever for 10 years, have had to change their playstyle through the edition changes and other army codex changes yet their codex changes to be a part of 6th edition and it is too much of a change?

If that is the case then we need to add Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons to the list of armies that just have had too much change.

I think you are taking my statement rather personal. I stated what my issue is with the Tau book that's all. My issue is that another armies book made me change my entire army not just make some adjustments change my army. My personal feeling is that another armies codex should not have that extreme and effect on my army.
Eldar I have yet to determine but I think I could just make a few adjustments to my old list and do ok GK I hardly had to adjust and Necrons I added a quad gun and sometimes another flyer. Not extreme changes like I said though I have not faced new eldar enough to determine what if any changes I would need to make.

I am not taking anything personally at all, forgive me if I came off as aggressive that was not my intent.

like I stated earlier, this game changes regularly I am quite shocked that you never had to make major army changes because of the edition changes that have taken place is all.

I have had to make huge changes when a new edition comes out or my own armies codex comes out but never had to make huge changes for another armies codex. Like I said some changes but tau was like getting a new codex for my own army the changes I have to make. That is my issue with it. I do think Tau needed an update and a buff in power (although 6th did buff them a little on it's own but not what was needed) I just think they could have taken a different approach.

I just think that the reason for the change is how old the army was. It really had no affect on the meta since any standard list for 5th or 6th was well suited to hurt Tau without having to change things around at all and Tau lists didn't change because they had so few options and items left to cut.

But Tau were always supposed to be an army that access to a lot of AP3 and lower weapons or a large volume of high Strength fire power. This edition just made those options more easily accessible and the fix to markerlights means they actually get some use. If Tau could have taken dual weapons in the last codex and marker drones were reasonably priced then we probably wouldn't have seen that much of a meta change. Everyone was already adapting to the increase in MC, and the Riptide wouldn't have been any different.

XenosTerminus wrote:
The combination of random charge distances, overwatch/supporting fire, interceptor, and general TAU mobility makes dedicated assault elements pretty unreliable as a 'hard counter' to the supposed weakness the army has.

It really doesn't make it a hard counter. What it forces you to do is assault with everything. If you're depending on 1-2 assault units in your "a little of everything" army getting to charge then Tau will block you, out-maneuver you, and kill you with overwatch while all you can do is charge Kroot meatshields. But having 1-2 units is a bad strategy no matter who you're playing, you should be throwing 90% or more of your army into assault on turn 2 and overwhelming the Tau counters. And of course you'll do much better against all the other armies as a nice bonus.

Drop Pods are great, but you would literally the majority of your army right in their face to do any reasonable amount of damage, and even then you have to survive a round of shooting before you can charge.

Dropping the majority of your army is exactly what you do with pods. Pods are all or nothing (outside of suicide melta units), no matter who you're playing against. You either send your entire army in at once and overwhelm them or you don't bother. Sending 1-2 tactical squads just means 1-2 tactical squads get to die before the rest of your army can support them.

XenosTerminus wrote:
This is the list I have crafted. Feel free to comment or offer suggestions:

Much better focus. It's not perfect, but I don't know DA well enough to fine-tune your weapon/upgrade choices. My suggestions:

1) Change the tactical squads to 5-man squads with special weapons instead of 10-man with special and heavy, that way you can use a 5-man squad to draw overwatch and then charge safely with the "other half", as well as shooting all of your weapons on the turn you arrive.

2) Same with the terminators. A 5-man squad is enough to get the job done against Tau, so bring two separate threats instead of one.

2) Trade the assault squads for more tacticals in pods. Why wait until turn 2 to arrive when you can drop everything on turn 1?

3) Buy pods for the devastator squads. You won't actually use them (other than to block LOS), but it will allow you to bring more units in on turn 1 when you choose half your pods.

With these changes you'll have a lot of threats arriving on turn 1 at close range. The Tau player will be surrounded with nowhere to run, and has one turn to shoot you off the table before you charge.

Thank you for the constructive criticism. Let me try to explain some of my choices from a DA perspective, since you mentioned you aren't terribly familiar with them.

Squads of 10 can only take one special/one heavy. Right now I only have 4 drop pods in my collection, so I am making due with what I currently own. I could split these into 4 5-man squads, but I would be concerned with survivability. My thought was to use at least 3 pods so 2 can arrive on turn one (probably the two tac suqads- between the plasma guns/plasma pistols that is 6 plasma shots right away.

Regarding the Terminators- Belial not only makes them scoring, but offers them the ability to DS without scattering. Deathwing Assault also allows you to pick turn 1/2 to come in automatically (most people do 1, and this lists goal is to get in my opponents face as fast as possible). The 'blob of terminators' makes for one nasty unit appearing on your doorstop without scatter that can threaten anything in the game. It can't be ignored either since it can take an objective and hold it with impunity.

As for the Assault Squads- I tried to keep them cheaper by excluding Pods- I like your idea of shoving pods down their throat, but I ran out of points/pods in my collection. I put locater beacons on the pods that ARE in the list so anything arrive on turn 2 or later can DS without scattering if need be. These guys are more so harassment for infantry in cover/hunting back tank armor or MC's.

I made a few changes to the list, but that is what I am thinking overall. Currently I can have 20 tactical marines and 10 terminators in my opponents face right on turn 1, with 3 more units to assist the following turns where needed. Since a list like this tends to force opponents to spread units out, or retreat from a threat zone when things get hairy, my other thought was having a few 'late' deep strikers could be helpful to cut off escape routes.

Does that make sense? I could have holes in my strategy, but I am trying to play a very aggressive list that is also reactionary combined with back-field fire support.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Had the "honor" of finally playing a Tau with Riptide spam. Uhm...yeah. I mean, I am used to GW selling overpowered, $-expensive models on purpose but the Riptide's gotta be a joke I somehow missed.

180 points for the Riptide. Uhm. How is this even borderline close to being balanced? Its rules are overpowered compared to even other 6th codices. Even the oh-so-overpowered-Necrons pay at least 205 pts for a C'tan shard that is vastly inferior to it in all regards. And its double-fire ability just takes the cake. Not suprised that the 3x Riptide list at ETC did so well.

Goddamnit GW, you dun goof'd. Again.

I'll just pass playing such lists and if in a tournament, 0 comp or sportsman and move on.

A bare bones Riptide will only get you so far. Granted the upgrade from Heavy Burst Cannon to Ion Accelerator is undercosted. For 180pts you're getting a WS2 BS3 T6 W5 Jetpack Monstrous Creature with a souped heavy bolter and your choice of ignore cover heavy bolter, plasma, or melta. Sounds similar to the Dreadknight which you can take for 130pts. Those 50pts buys you 1-3 chance to take a wound or charge your weapons, shield, or thrusters.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:
Why bother taking the time to think & advance kroot through cover to assault when you can just sit back with battlesuits, drones, riptides & put no thought into the game?

See, this is your problem. You think that Kroot are an assault unit because they used to be in the old codex. They aren't anymore, now they're a shooting unit (often with snipers, to deal with MCs) and cheap meatshield. Taking them or not taking them is just a choice between shooting units, no more or less "fun" than any other shooting unit in the codex, not a sign that the Tau player is "creative" or whatever and going to find a way to assault you.

Which is utterly stupid. Why are the melee choice now suddenly a 24" Sniper Choice?

It's probably the worst lore thing I've seen done to a unit in the longest while, utterly non-existent towards what kroot do!

To be fair, Kroot weren't even a real melee unit in the first place. There were worse in close combat than Tactical Marines. As to the sudden introduction, the Kroot were always portrayed in the fluff as hunters. When hunters are chasing their prey themselves, they often bulleyes them from range.

Kroot were the "melee choice" with Old Tau because... well... what other option did you have? Vespid? They were better than Fire Warriors. That, really, was their "selling point"... "We're better than Fire Warriors".

Decently tough, too, but not compared to the melee troops of armies that really made assault and CQC their "thing". They were bubble-wrap with feathers.

They did get AP5 melee weapons. So they're are still some things they are able to win CC against.

Honestly I think the whole 3 attacks on the charge with S4 was a huge trap for new players. I remember the first time I lost a game because I actually charged a small unit of Space marines. Their attacks reduced my numbers significantly, my attacks all bounced off armor, and then crumpled thanks to a terrible leadership reduction. At least now it's like pointing out that these guys can only take GEQ and even then aren't especially good at it.

 acekevin8412 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Had the "honor" of finally playing a Tau with Riptide spam. Uhm...yeah. I mean, I am used to GW selling overpowered, $-expensive models on purpose but the Riptide's gotta be a joke I somehow missed.

180 points for the Riptide. Uhm. How is this even borderline close to being balanced? Its rules are overpowered compared to even other 6th codices. Even the oh-so-overpowered-Necrons pay at least 205 pts for a C'tan shard that is vastly inferior to it in all regards. And its double-fire ability just takes the cake. Not suprised that the 3x Riptide list at ETC did so well.

Goddamnit GW, you dun goof'd. Again.

I'll just pass playing such lists and if in a tournament, 0 comp or sportsman and move on.

A bare bones Riptide will only get you so far. Granted the upgrade from Heavy Burst Cannon to Ion Accelerator is undercosted. For 180pts you're getting a WS2 BS3 T6 W5 Jetpack Monstrous Creature with a souped heavy bolter and your choice of ignore cover heavy bolter, plasma, or melta. Sounds similar to the Dreadknight which you can take for 130pts. Those 50pts buys you 1-3 chance to take a wound or charge your weapons, shield, or thrusters.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Commissar Benny wrote:
Why bother taking the time to think & advance kroot through cover to assault when you can just sit back with battlesuits, drones, riptides & put no thought into the game?

See, this is your problem. You think that Kroot are an assault unit because they used to be in the old codex. They aren't anymore, now they're a shooting unit (often with snipers, to deal with MCs) and cheap meatshield. Taking them or not taking them is just a choice between shooting units, no more or less "fun" than any other shooting unit in the codex, not a sign that the Tau player is "creative" or whatever and going to find a way to assault you.

Which is utterly stupid. Why are the melee choice now suddenly a 24" Sniper Choice?

It's probably the worst lore thing I've seen done to a unit in the longest while, utterly non-existent towards what kroot do!

To be fair, Kroot weren't even a real melee unit in the first place. There were worse in close combat than Tactical Marines. As to the sudden introduction, the Kroot were always portrayed in the fluff as hunters. When hunters are chasing their prey themselves, they often bulleyes them from range.

You mean aside from the kroot hounds, the krootox, and generally the 24" rapid weapons while they had 2 attacks rather then one? Also not sure how hunting your prey involves standing still for one turn in order to actually take it down, when the kroot prefer getting up and close with their melee weapons so they can devour their prey and absorb the genes.

I never said they were effective at their choice, but they were designed to be the melee "counter-assault" for tau, not the snipers.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Also not sure how hunting your prey involves standing still for one turn in order to actually take it down, when the kroot prefer getting up and close with their melee weapons so they can devour their prey and absorb the genes.

Hunting from range is actually the smart thing to do. They might want to absorb those genes, but it's stupid putting yourself in harms way to do it.

Kroot were a ranged speedbump before this codex. All they did was make them slightly better at what they were used for already.

XenosTerminus wrote:
Regarding the Terminators- Belial not only makes them scoring, but offers them the ability to DS without scattering. Deathwing Assault also allows you to pick turn 1/2 to come in automatically (most people do 1, and this lists goal is to get in my opponents face as fast as possible). The 'blob of terminators' makes for one nasty unit appearing on your doorstop without scatter that can threaten anything in the game. It can't be ignored either since it can take an objective and hold it with impunity.

The issue here is that the Tau solution to assault units they can't handle immediately is to throw a meatshield in their path and deal with it next turn. With a 10-man terminator squad + HQ character you're bringing massive overkill against anything you will be charging, so the Tau player can stall you with speed bumps effectively. With two separate units you're still killing everything you charge in a single turn of combat, but now you're killing two squads at once and making it a lot harder to keep your threats away from the important stuff.

XenosTerminus wrote:
This is not the point that is the primary topic of discussion at this point. The issue is not that Tau is OP or unbeatable- it has always been that they are not enjoyable to fight against for the majority of people, especially casually.

Let me reiterate the primary points here again, although I know people will still continue to reply with the same arguments that are irrelevant to the point (especially peregrine):

1) Are Tau enjoyable to face?
This is an opinion, but I do not believe so (nor do a lot of people, especially form a casual perspective- and honestly, who enjoys seeing 3 riptides on the other side of the table)
.

Well, to be fair, 3 riptides is a "power build", not a casual build. Just like with helldrake spam, vendetta spam its, its going to cause problems unless your list is also optimised. Im just curious here - why are you putting 3 riptides on the level of "casual" play?

XenosTerminus wrote:
2) Are Tau unbeatable?
Of course not, but the book is very good at shooting most 'unfocussed' or 'fun' lists right off the table, which is an issue for casual metas where nobody really brings optimized lists on a regular basis.
Anyone can bring a very optimized list and do well, but Tau is an entirely different beast. Like I mentioned before, even if people like Peregrine refuse to believe it, I have not had nearly as many issues until the new Tau book with the lists he constantly calls bad/unfocused to either win or have a legitimately good game, regardless of what my opponent brings.
.

a "focused" list can be the same as a "non optimised" one. a random collection of models/list with poor cohesion and internal synnergy is neither.

XenosTerminus wrote:
3) Are Tau Cheesy?
As is the trend with every army, the people that play them defend them to death. Tau has, on the other hand, seen an increase in the admittance even by people that play them that they sometimes feel cheesy. The issue comes with the books ability to play on 6e's strengths while simultaneously ignoring core rulebook rules (this is just bad design). The riptide is indeed the flavor of the month and is ridiculously cheap for what it does when you compare it to say, Nid MC's. The book is also poorly designed because unlike IG, the other king of shooting, all of the 'weaknesses' the book exhibits can easily be countered or outright ignored. High mobility, supporting fire, JSJ, Interceptor, etc... Allies further compound the issue, but really that stands for every army.

So marines being able to ignore the whole part about morale in the big rule book is OK? all armies have things that break core rules of the game. its what gives flavour.

And to be fair, the nid codex is horrendously designed, and has severe issues within its pages in terms of balance, power and options. I do not think it is a fair comparison to compare anything as "overpowered" when compared against a badly designed codex like tyranids.

XenosTerminus wrote:
This is pretty similar to how Tau players play gunline. The difference, however, is that Tau has a multitude of special rules and abilities, on top of far superior mobility, to mitigate anyone that survives long enough to get in their face. Proper internal balance/design suggests that extreme strengths should have corresponding weaknesses to compensate. This is not the case with Tau, which is why the book is poorly designed. Mix with allies for more lulz

.

^
Well Said

similarly, tau dont have "extreme" strengths. they have good shooting - but lets be honest, they "match" other shooting builds. necrons, eldar, dark eldar, guard and marines are all equally functional at that game. Tau have great guns, backed up by "average" statlines. Now, factor in tau squishiness, their average-at-best morale and their complete and utter irrelevance in cc, and you can see where they are not overpowered.

Excuse me? Necrons equally functional at that game? At shooting?
My Warriors aren't 9 points, nor are they S5 at 30"; My Doomsday doesn't have a 2+ save.
There is a good reason why our top list spends over half their points on melee-squads and it is NOT because our shooting is "equally functional" to Tau.

Not true. covering your weaknesses is a part of list design and has been since the dawn of 40k.

Where is the design in taking whatever you want since "covering your weakness" is already included in the unit?
If Marker-drones were only available in Drone-squadrons from the FA-slot, you'd have a point.
I would also agree with you if Supporting Fire and Jet Packs were optional and if you had to buy them.

With respect, 'better' lists is not mutually exclusive from 'fun' and 'fluff'. better lists are better lists. nothing more, nothing less.

For many people and codices it is mutually exclusive.
It sucks when you start to play with an army because you like unit/strategy 'X' and get beaten because you don't want to play unit/tactic 'Y'.
I did a little calculation for you: I play with Blood Angels and I have 4k points of models.
But when I want a chance at beating Tau, I need to spend another 300-350 Euro.

Kangodo wrote:

Excuse me? Necrons equally functional at that game? At shooting?
My Warriors aren't 9 points, nor are they S5 at 30"; My Doomsday doesn't have a 2+ save.
There is a good reason why our top list spends over half their points on melee-squads and it is NOT because our shooting is "equally functional" to Tau.

Necron shooting can be very nasty I dont see this as being very outlandish, what with the Tesla (I believe) shinanigans where shots can bounce, a laser you can point in any direction on top of any vehicle that I have can get glanced to death by your guys standard troops. Also 9pt. Fire Warriors dont get the chance to stand up after going down, different strengths but Necron shooting can be just as if not more nasty.

So wait. Necrons troops get very versatile weapons, LD10, a better statline, RP, an AV13 open topped transport, and a flying transport.
And you're complaining about Firewarriors being 9 points. You can't have been serious about that.
And all of those bonuses help with a shooting army since a more durable troop gets to stay out longer and fire more.

I am not complaining.
I am laughing at the idea that Necron-shooting is on the same level as Tau-shooting.

It's almost as bad as the idea that you need 'clever list design' to cover the melee-weakness.
Good list design is when you have to ask yourself: "Do I want to spend these points in more shooting or do I want to make them more durable against melee."
List designing doesn't even come in the picture when your anti-assault stuff is already included in the base cost.

Kangodo wrote:
I am not complaining.
I am laughing at the idea that Necron-shooting is on the same level as Tau-shooting.

It's almost as bad as the idea that you need 'clever list design' to cover the melee-weakness.
Good list design is when you have to ask yourself: "Do I want to spend these points in more shooting or do I want to make them more durable against melee."
List designing doesn't even come in the picture when your anti-assault stuff is already included in the base cost.

Necron shooting is certainly not on the same level as Tau shooting, not even close. Unless you spam Annihilation Barges/Night Scythes, the majority of your shooting is only coming from Warriors- and even then at limited ranges. Bolter's that are better against vehicles are not going to do much against the majority of targets unless you have a lot of shots/are within rapid fire range. The problem with that? You are moving CLOSER to your opponent, which is not something a shooty army that is weak in melee particularly wants to do.

I am in agreement with you, though. Not that I would likely ever want to play AS Tau, I doubt that I couldn't do so after a quick read through the codex and a semblance of decent 40k experience.

If you understand basic deployment and target priority principles, the book basically plays itself for you.

Kangodo wrote:
I am not complaining.
I am laughing at the idea that Necron-shooting is on the same level as Tau-shooting.

It's almost as bad as the idea that you need 'clever list design' to cover the melee-weakness.
Good list design is when you have to ask yourself: "Do I want to spend these points in more shooting or do I want to make them more durable against melee."
List designing doesn't even come in the picture when your anti-assault stuff is already included in the base cost.

Its hard to actually compare Tau shooting to Necron. Gauss and Tesla weapons absolutely benefit from 6th edition changes and the ability to take flying and skimmer open topped transports helps mitigate the army's shorter range. You can't honestly compare the base Firewarrior to an extremely survivable unit like Necron warriors and say that it's better.

But do you honestly think that Supporting Fire is adequate protection from CC? It would be useful if I was going to castle up, but if not then it's probably not going to have any significant effect on a CC. That and if you are castling up then it puts you at greater risk for CC since if one unit gets into combat, it can be in range to charge any other unit that assisted in overwatch. It's a risk vs. reward scenario and it's far from eliminating the weakness in CC. Honestly I'd rather have the Necron's super FNP and better statline since that probably helps out a lot more in CC.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
I am not complaining.
I am laughing at the idea that Necron-shooting is on the same level as Tau-shooting.

It's almost as bad as the idea that you need 'clever list design' to cover the melee-weakness.
Good list design is when you have to ask yourself: "Do I want to spend these points in more shooting or do I want to make them more durable against melee."
List designing doesn't even come in the picture when your anti-assault stuff is already included in the base cost.

Its hard to actually compare Tau shooting to Necron. Gauss and Tesla weapons absolutely benefit from 6th edition changes and the ability to take flying and skimmer open topped transports helps mitigate the army's shorter range. You can't honestly compare the base Firewarrior to an extremely survivable unit like Necron warriors and say that it's better.

But do you honestly think that Supporting Fire is adequate protection from CC? It would be useful if I was going to castle up, but if not then it's probably not going to have any significant effect on a CC. That and if you are castling up then it puts you at greater risk for CC since if one unit gets into combat, it can be in range to charge any other unit that assisted in overwatch. It's a risk vs. reward scenario and it's far from eliminating the weakness in CC. Honestly I'd rather have the Necron's super FNP and better statline since that probably helps out a lot more in CC.

Don't forget the MSS which breaks down any super combat characters you have prepared, not to mention standardized MEQ stats with various crypteks and lords that can buffer CC. The +2S AP1 blade is pretty much a good deterrent as well.

Tau only have like 4 options for CC buffing.
The Onager Gauntlet: S10 AP1 at initiative, but one shot.
The Repulsar field: Useless.
Grav inhibitor drone: Reduces charge by d3", expensive and extremely situational while being limited to a scout unit with longer ranged weaponry. Kind of silly in all regards and I wouldn't take someone seriously if they fielded them.
And standard flamers for overwatch.

XenosTerminus wrote:
If you understand basic deployment and target priority principles, the book basically plays itself for you.

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you. I can see that you are frustrated with the book, and that you are frustrated with the new units. I can even understand being frustrated with a player that was playing markerlights incorrectly. I would smack them upside the head for either trying to cheat or not reading the rules thoroughly. I do not see the book as playing itself for you though. Just like all armies there are some questionably bad units and then some super ultra fantastic units. The problem seems to be people who are playing Tau are fighting an uphill battle because of fear of the new shiny robot suits and not recalling base game mechanics.

Secure the objectives
Focus on units that can be taken
Ignore units that take more than 2 turns to bring down

For every argument that you have against Tau I can use a counter argument from another armies codex.

The Riptide is a unit I always suggest waiting until turn 3 to try and take down. Let it have 2 chances to lose a wound to a nova charge and 2 chances to Get hot. After the main targets are down, such as warlord and marker units, then you can focus some additional weaponry to the Riptide. But with a T6 and 2+ I know it can be difficult and sometimes won't be on your side.

 acekevin8412 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Had the "honor" of finally playing a Tau with Riptide spam. Uhm...yeah. I mean, I am used to GW selling overpowered, $-expensive models on purpose but the Riptide's gotta be a joke I somehow missed.

180 points for the Riptide. Uhm. How is this even borderline close to being balanced? Its rules are overpowered compared to even other 6th codices. Even the oh-so-overpowered-Necrons pay at least 205 pts for a C'tan shard that is vastly inferior to it in all regards. And its double-fire ability just takes the cake. Not suprised that the 3x Riptide list at ETC did so well.

Goddamnit GW, you dun goof'd. Again.

I'll just pass playing such lists and if in a tournament, 0 comp or sportsman and move on.

A bare bones Riptide will only get you so far. Granted the upgrade from Heavy Burst Cannon to Ion Accelerator is undercosted. For 180pts you're getting a WS2 BS3 T6 W5 Jetpack Monstrous Creature with a souped heavy bolter and your choice of ignore cover heavy bolter, plasma, or melta. Sounds similar to the Dreadknight which you can take for 130pts. Those 50pts buys you 1-3 chance to take a wound or charge your weapons, shield, or thrusters.

Except it only costs 5 points to upgrade the Heavy Burst Cannon to a S8 AP2 pie plate with practically infinite range.

A LR Demolisher costs literally 20 points less. Lets weigh the differences there, shall we?

Lose 2 strength for infinite range and the ability to switch to 3 solid shots
Can't ever be killed in one lucky shot save for very rare things like JOTWW.
2D6 jump in the assault phase
12'' move and fire in the movement phase
Nova Reactor
Practically impervious to anything that isn't AP2
Twinlinked meltagun, 'SMASH' ability
Massive height and ability to jump on buildings to extend it even further for LOS purposes.
Can't be killed by Tactical Marines or equivalent in an assault with krak grenades unless he has a miracle
Requires about 2 or 3 times the amount of firepower to reliably kill

And you're telling me that the Riptide isn't underpriced?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
I am not complaining.
I am laughing at the idea that Necron-shooting is on the same level as Tau-shooting.

It's almost as bad as the idea that you need 'clever list design' to cover the melee-weakness.
Good list design is when you have to ask yourself: "Do I want to spend these points in more shooting or do I want to make them more durable against melee."
List designing doesn't even come in the picture when your anti-assault stuff is already included in the base cost.

Its hard to actually compare Tau shooting to Necron. Gauss and Tesla weapons absolutely benefit from 6th edition changes and the ability to take flying and skimmer open topped transports helps mitigate the army's shorter range. You can't honestly compare the base Firewarrior to an extremely survivable unit like Necron warriors and say that it's better.

But do you honestly think that Supporting Fire is adequate protection from CC? It would be useful if I was going to castle up, but if not then it's probably not going to have any significant effect on a CC. That and if you are castling up then it puts you at greater risk for CC since if one unit gets into combat, it can be in range to charge any other unit that assisted in overwatch. It's a risk vs. reward scenario and it's far from eliminating the weakness in CC. Honestly I'd rather have the Necron's super FNP and better statline since that probably helps out a lot more in CC.

Don't forget the MSS which breaks down any super combat characters you have prepared, not to mention standardized MEQ stats with various crypteks and lords that can buffer CC. The +2S AP1 blade is pretty much a good deterrent as well.

Mindshackle Scarabs is one of the dumbest rules ever written and Matt Ward should be hanged by his feet from the gallows for even thinking about it.

Its like the Riptide. Ridiculously underpriced and while incredibly fun for the Necron player the guy who just had to watch the mini he spent hours painting do a spectacular dose of nothing without any defense except pure luck is not having any fun at all. It literally sucks the fun out of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

XenosTerminus wrote:
Thank you for the constructive criticism. Let me try to explain some of my choices from a DA perspective, since you mentioned you aren't terribly familiar with them.

Squads of 10 can only take one special/one heavy. Right now I only have 4 drop pods in my collection, so I am making due with what I currently own. I could split these into 4 5-man squads, but I would be concerned with survivability. My thought was to use at least 3 pods so 2 can arrive on turn one (probably the two tac suqads- between the plasma guns/plasma pistols that is 6 plasma shots right away.

Regarding the Terminators- Belial not only makes them scoring, but offers them the ability to DS without scattering. Deathwing Assault also allows you to pick turn 1/2 to come in automatically (most people do 1, and this lists goal is to get in my opponents face as fast as possible). The 'blob of terminators' makes for one nasty unit appearing on your doorstop without scatter that can threaten anything in the game. It can't be ignored either since it can take an objective and hold it with impunity.

As for the Assault Squads- I tried to keep them cheaper by excluding Pods- I like your idea of shoving pods down their throat, but I ran out of points/pods in my collection. I put locater beacons on the pods that ARE in the list so anything arrive on turn 2 or later can DS without scattering if need be. These guys are more so harassment for infantry in cover/hunting back tank armor or MC's.

I made a few changes to the list, but that is what I am thinking overall. Currently I can have 20 tactical marines and 10 terminators in my opponents face right on turn 1, with 3 more units to assist the following turns where needed. Since a list like this tends to force opponents to spread units out, or retreat from a threat zone when things get hairy, my other thought was having a few 'late' deep strikers could be helpful to cut off escape routes.

Does that make sense? I could have holes in my strategy, but I am trying to play a very aggressive list that is also reactionary combined with back-field fire support.

I think your list is alright, but I'd still reccomend picking up some extra drop pods for the assault squads.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

12'' move and fire in the movement phase

*6"

Reading through the last few pages, it seems as though the common argument is that the riptide is undercosted/too survivable as a T6 MC. Here is my question for those against Tau:

Would you still consider the Tau OP if the riptide didn't exist?

I know markerlights and some of the high str low ap weapons are something people have an issue with too. However, it sounds like its a combination of markerlights and the riptide running around that has people upset.

As a Tau player I want to come to the army's defense, but I'm starting to wonder if this thread's anger is targeted particularly at the cheese Tau players.

I run zero riptides (the model just doesn't fit IMO), do not run a gunline, and have 8 markerlights at 1500-1750 pts.

Does this thread's hate apply to myself and similar players?

Woah woah woah. We have to draw a line right now.
Lets talk a second about broken rules shall we if you think tau are almighty.
Necrons get back up if they die (where is that fun for the opponent or fair
Space marines (50% of all armies) cannot be swept and regroup automatically acting as normal all the time and cost as little as 13 points each (if DA codex is a true representation)
Tyranids can spawn additional models that don't count for you points (although I like this rule as it makes sense)
Daemons are all invulnerable and fearless with so many powers to buff them.

And people are complaining about supporting fire (6" range) hits on 6.
Markers that cost either 11 or 16 points each with 5+ or 4+ save at bs 3 or 2 I.e. 4+ or 5+ to hit.
And Jsj which means 2-12" average 7".

I don't see what the big deal is really.
Maybe if we had all of the above.
People put it out like all our weapons are s8 ap1 36" range or something.

I think it literally stems from players going "ergh I have to change my list"
I would have thought hobbyists would enjoy painting more models.

This turned into list making but can't you put a 10 man squad in a drop pod that has been combat squaded, thus actually putting 4 x 5 units in turn 1? Also why not just DS 5 termies with Belial turn 1 and the rest turn 2 as you are going to have beacons in place?

You can combat squad 10 guys you can still deep strike together then separate them.

2 squads = 4 targets (6 if you include the pods).

A LR Demolisher costs literally 20 points less. Lets weigh the differences there, shall we?

So you compare a Riptide to a unit from an old book that hasn't gotten its update yet and that's your standard for it being over-priced?
Unless I missed an FAQ (which is very possible as I'm always behind on those) then ...

This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous. Has the OP had his game with the DA versus Tau? I am curious to how that went.

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous

Your statement is pretty offensive, just to let you know. I, for one, think that Tau are a great army now with limited, but effective options. The only problem I see right now is the vastly undercosted / overpowered Riptide that needs to be kept in line. While 1 is no problem, 2 are already a clear message and 3 are just breaking the game. If the Riptide gets somehow fixed, Tau is a great army book.

Tycho wrote:

A LR Demolisher costs literally 20 points less. Lets weigh the differences there, shall we?

So you compare a Riptide to a unit from an old book that hasn't gotten its update yet and that's your standard for it being over-priced?
Unless I missed an FAQ (which is very possible as I'm always behind on those) then ...

Its not going to end up much cheaper, is it. Vindicators sit firmly on the 125 point benchmark right now established by Codex Dark Angels so realistically the maximum drop I expect to see is the LRBT being 135 and the LRDT being about 145. 40 points for that many extra advantages and about 3-5 times the amount of durability is still disgusting.

Vehicles cost almost the same as MC's yet are many times easier to kill. Its a joke.

Kangodo wrote:

Excuse me? Necrons equally functional at that game? At shooting?
My Warriors aren't 9 points, nor are they S5 at 30"; My Doomsday doesn't have a 2+ save.
There is a good reason why our top list spends over half their points on melee-squads and it is NOT because our shooting is "equally functional" to Tau.
.

tesla. gauss. necron airpower. necron dakka is solid.

fire warriors cost 9, have a good gun coupled to average stats and OK leadership. they have the same kill ratios as basic marines with boltguns for half the survieability, some of the holding ability, and none of the close combat ability. Similarly, 30" is nice, but outranged by a lot of things - i cant tell you the amount of times ive seen fire warriors lose a shooting duel to a unit with heavy bolters for example. oh, and they dont come back from the dead either.

Kangodo wrote:

Where is the design in taking whatever you want since "covering your weakness" is already included in the unit?
.

can you clarify what you're trying to say here mate - i apologise, but im not getting your argument.

Kangodo wrote:

If Marker-drones were only available in Drone-squadrons from the FA-slot, you'd have a point.
I would also agree with you if Supporting Fire and Jet Packs were optional and if you had to buy them.
.

jet packs and markerdrones are hardly free mate. crisis suits are hardly what i call "cheap", nor do they offer unparalleled mobility. at best, they're as fast as what other codices have access to. there are plenty of ways to run them down.

Kangodo wrote:

For many people and codices it is mutually exclusive.
It sucks when you start to play with an army because you like unit/strategy 'X' and get beaten because you don't want to play unit/tactic 'Y'.
I did a little calculation for you: I play with Blood Angels and I have 4k points of models.
But when I want a chance at beating Tau, I need to spend another 300-350 Euro.

I genuinely dont see how. With respect, the poster i was referring to said he "can't think of what else to do than literally bring better lists, as much as it pains me as a fluffy/fun player." the poster impies that "better" lists are somehow wrong-that they utterly go against, and are incompatible with both "fun" and "fluff". and honestly, i find that argument both ludicrous, and insulting. my point was "better" lists are not mutually exclusive from either "fun" or "fluff". imperial guard airborne wings are top tier builds, for example (elysians, or harakoni warhawks for example), and are completely fluffy. better lists are better lists. fluff is an entirely separate matter. a "better" list can be as "fluffy" and as "fun" as an unoptimised one.

To an extent - i'll agree. its a pain when you want something to work, and it doesnt. but im a pragmatist at heart. and this is 40k. if i want to do well, i'll have to change things up. if things are within my power that will help be do better, and i dont take them, then the loss is on me, not the other guy being somehow "OP". as much as i might want to run X, my first question to myself is this: is it practical? if its not, then to me, there is no point. harsh, but true.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous

Your statement is pretty offensive, just to let you know. I, for one, think that Tau are a great army now with limited, but effective options. The only problem I see right now is the vastly undercosted / overpowered Riptide that needs to be kept in line. While 1 is no problem, 2 are already a clear message and 3 are just breaking the game. If the Riptide gets somehow fixed, Tau is a great army book.

I guess it must be my meta because not a lot of people are spamming the Riptide. Also if you cant beat it with a stick ignore it. The riptide might seem rather mighty on paper but it has the chance at get hot rolls it has the chance at screwing up overcharge, it can easily be tied up. I just do not understand the complaints about the unit at all.

Flying Toaster wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous

Your statement is pretty offensive, just to let you know. I, for one, think that Tau are a great army now with limited, but effective options. The only problem I see right now is the vastly undercosted / overpowered Riptide that needs to be kept in line. While 1 is no problem, 2 are already a clear message and 3 are just breaking the game. If the Riptide gets somehow fixed, Tau is a great army book.

I guess it must be my meta because not a lot of people are spamming the Riptide. Also if you cant beat it with a stick ignore it.

Practically impossible because it has infinite range and a huge LOS field.


The riptide might seem rather mighty on paper but it has the chance at get hot rolls it has the chance at screwing up overcharge

Both of which are unlikely, one of which can be totally avoided and usually is


, it can easily be tied up.

Not when its on the other side of the board, behind a building, JSJ'ing.

Still has Guardsman BS, Still needs Support to make those awesome sauce shots with a possibility of hurting him self when nova charging

the gets hot roll is negligible indeed

There is only soo much board to move. JSJ will give you average 7" move or on a 3+ 12-(14?)", not enough to fly clear over and out of range, or back up against a table edge.

Boniface wrote:
I would have thought hobbyists would enjoy painting more models.

Painting yes, buying no

Its not going to end up much cheaper, is it. Vindicators sit firmly on the 125 point benchmark right now established by Codex Dark Angels so realistically the maximum drop I expect to see is the LRBT being 135 and the LRDT being about 145. 40 points for that many extra advantages and about 3-5 times the amount of durability is still disgusting.

And now you're comparing a Space Marine vehicle to a Guard one? Honestly, I can see the LRBT going as low as 100-120 in this new edition. Sounds crazy I know, but I can really see it. Anyway, point is, it's just silly to base your specific argument on a unit that isn't updated.

For example, when the new CSM book came out I said that I thought cultists should actually have been a little cheaper. People immediately screamed that I was dumb because they were cheaper than Grots. Then the Tau book came out. When you compare a cultist to a Kroot and look at their costs ... yeah. The cultist is too expensive. So anyway, point is, if you're going to claim something is not properly costed, at least compare it to something from the SAME edition.

Deadnight wrote:
tesla. gauss. necron airpower. necron dakka is solid.

I never said they weren't solid but I would never call their shooting on the same level as Tau.

fire warriors cost 9, have a good gun coupled to average stats and OK leadership. they have the same kill ratios as basic marines with boltguns for half the survieability, some of the holding ability, and none of the close combat ability. Similarly, 30" is nice, but outranged by a lot of things - i cant tell you the amount of times ive seen fire warriors lose a shooting duel to a unit with heavy bolters for example. oh, and they dont come back from the dead either.

Same kill ratio? That is only true if you ignore Markerlights or the CnC-node.

can you clarify what you're trying to say here mate - i apologise, but im not getting your argument.

Okay, I will.
The weakness in the Tau codex are BS3 and melee.
In my opinion it's too easy for them to 'cover this weakness'.
Markerlights are thrown around like candy, it allows overwatch on BS2 or 3 and it ignores cover.
And Supporting Fire is on almost every unit in the codex.
Battlesuits have a Jet Pack which helps them even more.

You ignore markerlights and CnC node for FW because you'd have to be silly to put a Commander suit with a CnC node in Firewarrior squads and markers are still hard to come by so can't be used by EVERY squad. It's also why you don't factor in special/heavy weapons for marines.

Ooh, in that case I am sorry.
I am just imagining Tau players domination everywhere from 500 point breaklunch-games to championship tournaments.

I have played Tau all through 5th edition and love the new dex. In the 3 tournaments so far that I played I have lost to FMC heavy Chaos Daemons w/Chaos Marines (Heldrake + cultists) twice and another Tau list once. The best thing going now though is the Farsight supplement as allies to bring Battle suits as troops.

In casual games no one has refused to play me and I still have fun, close, games as we play with a lot of terrain. YMMV

Flying Toaster wrote:

I guess it must be my meta because not a lot of people are spamming the Riptide. Also if you cant beat it with a stick ignore it. The riptide might seem rather mighty on paper but it has the chance at get hot rolls it has the chance at screwing up overcharge, it can easily be tied up. I just do not understand the complaints about the unit at all.

You cannot ignore it. It has a huge range, can even ignore LOS with its rockets and is very durable. The "Get Hot" rules are a 33% chance to not get the bonus effect. That doesn't change that it has extremely good stats to begin with and good weaponry to back it up - let alone in-built counters to e.g. DSing enemies aiming to take them out. Tieing them up needs list-tailoring as Tau tend to just protect them with cheap meatshields, mainly big Kroot units.

i give it a month before we here the same contrived arguments about space marines being OP. With broadside equivalents that can move and shoot multiple targets with lascannons.

Oh wait... over powered marines... that doesn't happen.

Kangodo wrote:
Ooh, in that case I am sorry.
I am just imagining Tau players domination everywhere from 500 point breaklunch-games to championship tournaments.

If Tau players really are dominating every thing as you state, back it up with some facts that they are actually taking over as the dominant army in tournaments.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:


You cannot ignore it. It has a huge range, can even ignore LOS with its rockets and is very durable. The "Get Hot" rules are a 33% chance to not get the bonus effect. That doesn't change that it has extremely good stats to begin with and good weaponry to back it up - let alone in-built counters to e.g. DSing enemies aiming to take them out. Tieing them up needs list-tailoring as Tau tend to just protect them with cheap meatshields, mainly big Kroot units.

Are you even playing with the suggested amount of terrain or are you just playing on a base table with little to no coverage. I must come from Bizaro land in which Tau are not as OP as everyone seems to make them because they are not the unstoppable super power that everyone makes them out to be in my local area. Let me guess your from the camp that states the Helldrake should be nerfed as well.

Flying Toaster wrote:
Let me guess your from the camp that states the Helldrake should be nerfed as well.

I'm not sure yet if you're just lacking experience or trolling.

Flying Toaster wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
Ooh, in that case I am sorry.
I am just imagining Tau players domination everywhere from 500 point breaklunch-games to championship tournaments.

If Tau players really are dominating every thing as you state, back it up with some facts that they are actually taking over as the dominant army in tournaments.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:


You cannot ignore it. It has a huge range, can even ignore LOS with its rockets and is very durable. The "Get Hot" rules are a 33% chance to not get the bonus effect. That doesn't change that it has extremely good stats to begin with and good weaponry to back it up - let alone in-built counters to e.g. DSing enemies aiming to take them out. Tieing them up needs list-tailoring as Tau tend to just protect them with cheap meatshields, mainly big Kroot units.

Are you even playing with the suggested amount of terrain or are you just playing on a base table with little to no coverage. I must come from Bizaro land in which Tau are not as OP as everyone seems to make them because they are not the unstoppable super power that everyone makes them out to be in my local area. Let me guess your from the camp that states the Helldrake should be nerfed as well.

GW Tournament boards do not have a lot of terrain at all. I went to a tournament hosted by England's ETC team for practice a few months ago and their boards featured clear lanes of fire but a fair number of area terrain features.

A Riptide has a massive LOS and can jump on buildings (and then jump down!) to fire. That means that even if you're playing on a ridiculously thick city board you'll still be able to see most of it. As for cover bonuses a 5+ is not something you'll crave against AP2 pie plates.

Kangodo wrote:
Same kill ratio? That is only true if you ignore Markerlights or the CnC-node.
.

indeed. same kill ratio. factor in markerlights, and now they are more killy, but also more expensive. and X points of "support" is X points less of actual killy stuff. so it works out favourably when you do the comparisons. now factor in all the areas in which they are weaker...

Kangodo wrote:

Okay, I will.
The weakness in the Tau codex are BS3 and melee.
In my opinion it's too easy for them to 'cover this weakness'.
Markerlights are thrown around like candy, it allows overwatch on BS2 or 3 and it ignores cover.
And Supporting Fire is on almost every unit in the codex.
Battlesuits have a Jet Pack which helps them even more.

you are looking at it with too narrow a focus. its not just bs3 and melee. to be honest, average stats are just that- "average". neither a strength nor a weakness. just kinda "meh". Look beyond bs3 and melee. what do you see? average ld, low model count, average mobility, and general squishiness also factor into it (t3 with a 4+, or 5+ save isnt great. t4, 3+ save and 2 wounds but costing 70odd points is also quite squishy. and kroot?). tau have a lot of good things going for them now, but they have a lot of things where they are merely on a par with everyone else, and then there is the stuff that ties them to the ground too.

tau were always about having the tech to make their average doods great. as such, markerlights do the job perfectly. they're an asset. they're certainly a strength. they're "enablers". but they're hardly free. most markerlight platforms are expensive and/or squishy and as mentioned, X spent on support is X-less spent on killy stuff. So do you want less stuff better, or more stuff at average? it works out the same. and then you kill the support, or tie it down in some way, and the less spent on killy stuff starts to suffer as it cant carry its own weight.

regarding melee - they cant ever do well in it, but they can throw a spanner in the works. but this is an edition where GW didnt want melee to be the focus ie they have tricks to counter melee in a game edition designed to counter melee. come on, its not rocket science. It means you need to adapt to the edition- you should be shooting them. you dont need to get them into melee. they're squishy. bolters and flamers do a number on their basic infantry. plasmas and meltas shred their suits.

markerlights as candy? my personal take is id prefer less markerlights, but make them more awesome. personal tastes aside, markerlights are a feature of the tau, and always have been. its like ATSKNF for marines. regarding the fact that it ignores cover - it allows one unit potentially to ignore cover. its not like there are other weapons out there from other factions that dont natively ignore cover either. cover saves are the bane of tau. they used to have utter fits dealing with them.

supporting fire? works within 6'. castling tau? hit them with blasts.

jet packs? theyre on pricey units, and lets be honest here, they're not fast. they're as fast as a lot of what other codices have on offer-12" a turn, and slow against others. they're on expensive, relatively fragile platforms. and with the multitude of threat vectors available to a canny player (infiltration, outflanking, deepstriking, vehicle speed, long range dakka etc) you can overwhelm them with threat vectors and leave them with little room to hide, and less room to run to - there is only so much space on a 6" by 4" board after all. its a nice trick, but its hardly overwhelming.

 Mr.Omega wrote:


GW Tournament boards do not have a lot of terrain at all. I went to a tournament hosted by England's ETC team for practice a few months ago and their boards featured clear lanes of fire but a fair number of area terrain features.

A Riptide has a massive LOS and can jump on buildings (and then jump down!) to fire. That means that even if you're playing on a ridiculously thick city board you'll still be able to see most of it. As for cover bonuses a 5+ is not something you'll crave against AP2 pie plates.

Woh wait a sec

1) GW runs Tournaments again?
2) a Riptide being a MC cant land on top of buildings(ruins) at least your supposed to decide with your opponent which levels and areas are able to support big creatures. otherwise they have to be on the base floor IF they fit.

Sooo....

It boils down to "Tau has gone too far" and the entire codex is a horrid thing and should be never played with because it has ONE underpriced unit?


FFS, if you at least bothered making arguments that made sense I'd prove you wrong, but the entire "anti-tau" camp is either projecting the riptide's price issue on the entire codex, or say outright nonsense.

"Markerlights are thrown around like candy", yea. like candy that costs almost a tactical marine, have have a statline worse then basic guardsman, so OP.

"it allows overwatch on BS2 or 3 and it ignores cover. " increase accuracy and ignore cover....what does that remind me of...OH! PSYKERS! yaknow, the ones tau can't have.
Oh, template weapons ignore cover too! whats this? most armies got stronger template guns then base flamers? OH MY!

Now, yes-we can count the markerlight effect into a fire warrior squads with no price modification. to see "how effective" they are, once we count DA tactical as having a banner of devastation for free as well.

"far superior mobility" because they got jetpacks and skimmers....would I make a short list of things that compete with or beat it?
Dreadknight shunt, covering 30" in one turn.
Eldar/Dark jetbikes.
The ENTIRE eldar army battle focus. (rather then just elites and FA)
Warp spiders-FAR more mobile.
Eldar/Dark-FAST skimmers.
Land Speders-more fast skimmers.
Ravenwing and bikers-move faster.
Assault Marines-moves faster.
Chaos spawn and other "beast" types keeping the "more movement" theme.
Thunderwolf Cavalry-still faster.
FMC-still faster.
Liberian "gate" power
Cryptek "gate-like" equipment
Every BA tank, they are all fast.
IG artillery-who cares about mobility? I got infinite+1 range and need no LOS.
That's just the top of my head-there are sure to be way, way more.

And the mere argument on supporting fire from the firstplace, you mean it seems MORE reasonable that the one army that got literally NO units capable to hold their own on assault, and their most "assault oriented" squads are about on par with a guardsman would NOT have some defense to prevent assaults?
Because being fair requires that the tau player will need to eat an assault in turn 2 by two squads on assault marines, a notoriously bad unit, and yet it would be enough to wipe out his entire army.
The most reasonable thing is that the "we can only shoot" army would be the easiest army in the game to get into CC with, right?
You know full well that without it even a dumb ass tactic of sending tactical marines running forward until they are in charge range and then just charge would have a fair chance against tau. supporting fire its not a privilege, its a necessity.


And to all who compare to the old codex, you seem to forgot that codex had one army list late fifth-take minimum troops because you have to despite them being completely worthless, spam 9 broadsides, fill the rest of the points with whatever you want, it hardly matters as nothing else is remotely worth the price.

Grow up, get a spine, and hate the damn riptide, its the only thing that is wrong with the tau codex, and even he not by THAT much. other codecies got far more undercosted options. Heck, there is not a single thing in the tau codex that cant be done in some way by at least a few others, it just takes a different path.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
So wait. Necrons troops get very versatile weapons, LD10, a better statline, RP, an AV13 open topped transport, and a flying transport.
And you're complaining about Firewarriors being 9 points. You can't have been serious about that.
And all of those bonuses help with a shooting army since a more durable troop gets to stay out longer and fire more.

you forgot auto-glance on a 6

Personally being an IG player first and an Tau player second I can understand peoples frustration towards, the Riptide, to a degree anyway. I dont like hearing that because I take more then one Riptide that automatically makes me a "cheese" or TFG kind of player as that is not the case at all, personally I love the model, being a kid that grew up watching and loving Gundam Wing, ect. and honestly think some people are overreacting when it comes to the "invincibility" of the Riptide. With my Airborne IG I have never had a problem against Riptides as either my Vendettas or Veterans with plasma guns handle them in short order, but since that is in regards to a specific "list" that I run ill try and do it in neutral terms.

 Mr.Omega wrote:


Except it only costs 5 points to upgrade the Heavy Burst Cannon to a S8 AP2 pie plate with practically infinite range.

A LR Demolisher costs literally 20 points less. Lets weigh the differences there, shall we?

Lose 2 strength for infinite range and the ability to switch to 3 solid shots
Can't ever be killed in one lucky shot save for very rare things like JOTWW.
2D6 jump in the assault phase
12'' move and fire in the movement phase
Nova Reactor
Practically impervious to anything that isn't AP2
Twinlinked meltagun, 'SMASH' ability
Massive height and ability to jump on buildings to extend it even further for LOS purposes.
Can't be killed by Tactical Marines or equivalent in an assault with krak grenades unless he has a miracle
Requires about 2 or 3 times the amount of firepower to reliably kill

And you're telling me that the Riptide isn't underpriced?

-LR Demolisher has 14 Front Armor, a S10 AP2 large blast template, can take a great variety of other weapons and you can take more then x3 of them. Different Strengths and different weaknesses, would be a better argument if it was against another MC, like the Wraithknight for example.
-In regards to point cost I do believe it is undercosted, however so are many other things in different books and other armies spam them just as readily, its not just Tau players.
-3 Solid shots that are good Strength and AP but are BS 3 and have a chance to hurt the Riptide if charged, 1/3 of a chance to hurt it if it Nova Charges.
-Its a MC and just like other MC there is little that can drop one of them in a single shot, Riptide being a MC as well should be treated no differently.
-Average roll for the 2D6 jump is around 7-8 inches and the fact that its such a large model you should always be able to shoot it.
-As mentioned, it only moves 6 inches and fire in the movement phase, not a jump pack monstrous creature like the Wraithknight.
-Nova reactor is a double edged sword as it has a chance of failing 1/3 of the time and hurting your Riptide.
-AP2 helps but it is not impervious to everything not AP2, Eldar Shuriken shots will take one of these down pretty quickly thanks to rending and poison hurts as well.
-Yes a TL Meltagun, 4 shot heavy bolter or plasma gun, when compared to other things such as the Scatter Laser shinanigans of Eldar, the Power of the Machine spirit from Space Marine variant vehicles it is not to far fetched, and it is still BS3. And again it is a MC so of course it is going to have the "Smash" ability just like every other MC.
-I have played with the rule if the model fits and does not fall over it can land on top of certain things, that being said yes it gets great lanes of fire, that is just being tactically smart and not limited to the Riptide.
-Marines need 6's to wound it in CC whereas the Riptide only has 3 attacks base if it does not use its "Smash" ability. Add in Krak Grenades and you need 4's to wound it in CC, do more wounds which is not as hard as you think as the Riptide only has LD8 giving it a good chance to break.
-Again just like all MC's it takes alot of firepower to kill it.

I understand that you are entitled to your opinions guys so this is not a personal attack on them. I can agree that the Riptide is good and slightly undercosted for what it can do but even then I dont think it is as bad as many of you are making it out to be. If you are seeing alot of Riptide spam instead of saying how OP it is start constructing your lists to counter them better, I feel that the points I made above are a pretty fair counter argument for all that was listed. In regards to "ignoring cover" and things like that that involves a completely different unit (expensive and squishy ones at that which as already mention take away from shooting) and which is why I ignored them for the sake of this as I was focusing on the "Riptide" alone.

Why do i always hear people talking about Tau being able to ignore line of sight as though its a gamebreaking weapon?

SMS is Heavy4 S5 Ap5 30" - so what? theres very little that AP5 will pen to make the ignores cover part viable, and anyone shooting this out of line of sight means they arent firing their main gun at something across the table.

Tau cannot split their weapons on each individual suit unless its Shadowsun. Target Locks only say they can fire at a different target than the rest of the unit, says nothing about different weapons (like it used to, if i recall correctly).

I completely ignore the SMS except on hammerheads since its better than the burst and free. Dont think ive ever caused a wound with it that wasnt saved, even the few times i had it on my riptides.

 BoomWolf wrote:

"Markerlights are thrown around like candy", yea. like candy that costs almost a tactical marine, have have a statline worse then basic guardsman, so OP.

That analogue doesn't make sense as you pay for the ability to mark the opponent, thus enabling others to do nice tricks. Using same analogue, would you accept a grot with a lascannon but without any additional cost because it's just a sucky grot?

And to all who compare to the old codex, you seem to forgot that codex had one army list late fifth-take minimum troops because you have to despite them being completely worthless, spam 9 broadsides, fill the rest of the points with whatever you want, it hardly matters as nothing else is remotely worth the price.

Now here is some news, a codex with useless units in it, forcing a competitive build to spam the best units. At the same time you could ask were the broadsides too good to be able to do any task?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, another thing our Tau plays incorrectly: Target lock. So it is not only the Markerlights..

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous.

I like Tau, and the current Codex is a horrible adomination to the game.

You miss the fact that while pathfinders have worse-then-guardsman stats, they have triple the cost-and all the get is the fancy laser pointer.
A good deal? probably, its a good tool.
Too much? not at all, you pay for what you get.
Its not a "grot with a lascannon but without any additional cost", as you pay just as much as a IG HWT for that lascannon, but keep the grot stats.

Think of it as a level 0.25 psyker, because honestly that's what it is. the more you got, the more reliable and powerful the "psyker" becomes, but they can be twiddled down, and for each such (easy to make) kill, the "psyker" gets weaker. its a good buff, but nothing special compared to sorcerers, farseers and Liberians. just going differently about it.



Riptides aside, most of the tau codex has this sort of mismatch-really good guns on a platform that is not good enough to make proper use of it.
I won't say a crisis suit is BAD by any count, but comparing its suitability to its cost is nuts, it takes as much shooting as two marines (and as much CC as one and a half), but costs four or five times over.
Now, once mobility and firepower enter the game, they are getting good.
But cost/survival ratios on tau are rather lousy on most units. its part of the army's "thing"-compensate crappy soldiers with superior weapons.
The riptide...is questionably too good, I admit that part. though I still think its over-rated. other codecies got far more foul costs for some things. price mistakes happen in every codex.



As for "having useless models that require a single build to be competitive", that's what you seem to miss-the old broadside spam, with all glory of the old broadsides, was a casual list.
Yes, sapmming 9 of a completely OP unit was casual at best.
Because the entire rest of the codex was bad enough to drag it down. there was not a remotely decent option to be had anywhere except HS. there simply wasn't. once you advanced over 900 points (9 broadsides, minimum troops, minimal HQ and a few upgrades) every increase in point just made tau fall further behind. you had to pull off the cheesiest tricks possible to be on par with casual lists.
Now we got a proper codex, but used to mill out power and play cheesy, so there is a bleed of playing "too competitive" for the casual game at times. but a non-WAAC player knows to tone himself down when playing casual.



As for the target lock "mistake", it seems you tau makes alot of "mistakes". before I was suspicious, now it is obvious, your tau is a cheater.
Read the entire codex yourself, I am willing to bet he has made more such "mistakes". makes your complaints rational though, as you are dealing against abilities the tau never had.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Think of it as a level 0.25 psyker, because honestly that's what it is. the more you got, the more reliable and powerful the "psyker" becomes, but they can be twiddled down, and for each such (easy to make) kill, the "psyker" gets weaker. its a good buff, but nothing special compared to sorcerers, farseers and Liberians. just going differently about it.

You can't use that as a defence, as Tau can BB Eldar and benefit in a huge way.

As for the target lock "mistake", it seems you tau makes alot of "mistakes". before I was suspicious, now it is obvious, your tau is a cheater.

I am not the OP, markerlights were not used in so imbalanced way. Our Tau is a new player and probably just accidentally mixes old and new codex. Honest mistakes happen, at times we mix up 5th and 6th edition rules as we play both.

Backfire wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous.

I like Tau, and the current Codex is a horrible adomination to the game.

That is a very educational statement, lots of info to back your claim up there, you deserve an oscar for "most over-dramatic" actor.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous

Your statement is pretty offensive, just to let you know. I, for one, think that Tau are a great army now with limited, but effective options. The only problem I see right now is the vastly undercosted / overpowered Riptide that needs to be kept in line. While 1 is no problem, 2 are already a clear message and 3 are just breaking the game. If the Riptide gets somehow fixed, Tau is a great army book.

How is his statement offensive? Its pretty true.

Backfire wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous.

I like Tau, and the current Codex is a horrible adomination to the game.

I simply don't get this. You claim to like Tau and follow up with it's a horrible abomination.

Onto the tau hating.
I don't see what all the fuss is about with Tau. I play them exclusively and win and lose games to a variety of armies.

Just for the record does everyone know the codex only has
3 elite options
2 troops
1 transport
6 fast attack (2 are flyers)
and 4 heavy support

Beside HQ options we're not exactly presented with an over abundance of options to make up a list and our flyers are useless because our bomber might not actually start with a bomb and our fighter cant technically hit other flyers (the gun is underneath it).

So we got 1 unit that is powerful, like the drake or wraithknight from this edition or vendetta or dreadknight from last.

I think all this moaning stems from 'toys out the pram' syndrome.

You can get into assault with us.
You can survive our shooting.
You can take cover saves most of the time.
You can deepstrike
You have access to psykers that do the same sorts of things we don't (outside of allies which is a whole other mix of broken).

People clearly need to learn to play the game.

I remember GK players making similar claims in 5th
Necrons making similar claims in 6th
Chaos making similar claims with the 3.5 dex (which, to be fair, had 2 overpowered builds as compared to everyone else's one)
Eldar making similar claims in 3rd (claiming table quarters last turn and hiding all game? How was this fun?)

Just the fact these posts exist, and go on for more than 5+ pages, should be a sign that something is wrong.

Akiasura wrote:
I remember GK players making similar claims in 5th
Necrons making similar claims in 6th
Chaos making similar claims with the 3.5 dex (which, to be fair, had 2 overpowered builds as compared to everyone else's one)
Eldar making similar claims in 3rd (claiming table quarters last turn and hiding all game? How was this fun?)

Just the fact these posts exist, and go on for more than 5+ pages, should be a sign that something is wrong.

Amen.

Akiasura wrote:
I remember GK players making similar claims in 5th
Necrons making similar claims in 6th
Chaos making similar claims with the 3.5 dex (which, to be fair, had 2 overpowered builds as compared to everyone else's one)
Eldar making similar claims in 3rd (claiming table quarters last turn and hiding all game? How was this fun?)

Just the fact these posts exist, and go on for more than 5+ pages, should be a sign that something is wrong.

And what exactly is wrong? The fact that people are complaining about an army or that there must be something wrong with the army because people are complaining about said army?

The latter

Akiasura wrote:
The latter

Not really. People whine about everything when it comes to 40k. Ever hear the joke that a Group of 40k players is known as a whine of 40k players?It's not necessarily a measure of anything. A huge amount of this thread has been extremely good advice as to how to deal with Tau, and a lit of points pointing out how their supposed op-ness is overblown.

I noticed a distinct lack of whining regarding the DA codex and CSM codex, outside of drakes. Even with the noise marine buff, you still don't see it.
Eldar also don't seem to have many OP threads, despite the wave serpent being considered the best tank in the game.

I don't know how you can say that a massive post count claiming a book is OP isn't a sign that the book is op. By which other standard should we judge it by?


Edit;
I never heard that joke before, but I can see how it fits. I have never seen someone throw 300 dollars worth of toys across a public place until I saw IG vendetta spam, so this certainly isn't the most mature group I've come across

Akiasura wrote:
The latter

Fair enough. But if you look at the arguments about said army and the units in question. The issue is more of a child seeing that their friend got a shiny new toy and now he wants to either A) Degrade said toy so that it looses its luster or B) complain about said toy until they themselves get a shiny toy of their own.

Honestly every argument that has come up so far about the new Tau codex can easily be explained and has been explained by numerous people in this thread as why it is not as OP as the original post states. Unfortunately the complaints will always be louder than the compliments and in this case dealing with the internet there is going to be an over abundance of complaints. Is the Riptide a pain in the behind? Perhaps. But keep in mind that each army has several nuances and benefits that could be argued as OP. Necrons with their regenerative abilities, Imperial Guard with their super cheap Vendettas, Chaos Space Marines with their Helldrake's. The funny thing is there are counters to all of these things, and amazingly enough said counters can be found in either your codex or with the aid of the new allies rule that was introduced with 6th edition.

Another argument is that one now has to change their list to the point of loosing it's original character and they do not think this should happen. Well unfortunately tabletop war-gaming is a evolving beast of it's own and as editions come and go and new army rules are released changes no matter how one feels about them are bound to happen. Is this the fault of the codex in general? Perhaps this is the fault of GW in wanting to expand how their game is played with the changes in the rules. This in no way is the fault of the people that play said codex which quite honestly is not an overly powerful cheese monstrosity that this thread has made it out to be.

Perhaps my local meta is one of rainbows and unicorns and chocolate water because honestly Tau has yet to make a sweeping in any of our normal games. They are not some super over powered horribly ruled army that beats everything in it's path. Or possibly a more logical rational reason can be found. Perhaps my local meta has seen what the Tau army can bring to the table and have made the needed changes to make what so many on this thread are claiming as an unbeatable powerhouse really just another army with a few new toys that can still be taken down with sound tactics and strategy.

Reactionary people will always blame the unit and will always complain about how it is not their fault. Calm minded Generals will see the unit for what it is and counter accordingly.

This is a game of objectives and missions as well as bad dice rolls and stupid good luck that can be edged and guided with tactics and strategy. This game has never and for the foreseeable future ever been one with the new codex means automatic power creep and horrible death and disaster to anything older than it.

This whole thread was started because the OPs wayyyyy out of date black templar got crushed by his opponent who was cheating by basically not using tokens with markerlights (once a markerlight hit, every Tau unit shooting that turn was able to get +BS/remove cover against that target).

This topic is now just dragging on because of riptides. 1 riptide isn't a big deal, 2 is annoying, 3 OKAY fine 3 is a bit too strong for some armies to handle. However, the same goes for 3 hell drakes, 3 annihilation barges, 3 vendettas, 3 wraithknights (although many pts), etc.

40k isn't designed for ultra competitive play. Some armies no mater how hard you try will never be as good as others because that isn't the point.

If you spam 3+ riptides - you are just a FotM Tau player and I disown you - you are just giving the rest of us a bad name by pissing off all the cry babies.

They went to far when your only option is to try and get your guys in close combat while they nuke you from orbit.

Akiasura wrote:
I noticed a distinct lack of whining regarding the DA codex and CSM codex, outside of drakes. Even with the noise marine buff, you still don't see it.
Eldar also don't seem to have many OP threads, despite the wave serpent being considered the best tank in the game.

I don't know how you can say that a massive post count claiming a book is OP isn't a sign that the book is op. By which other standard should we judge it by?


Edit;
I never heard that joke before, but I can see how it fits. I have never seen someone throw 300 dollars worth of toys across a public place until I saw IG vendetta spam, so this certainly isn't the most mature group I've come across

A lot of people complaining about the new Tau codex either do not like markerlights, do not like the riptide or have played against a Tau player that has misused markerlights and has trounced all who come before them.

The issue a lot of people have is that the new Tau codex is not the old Tau codex and therefore it is over powered. Honestly the book is balanced, and has synergy. Because it has synergy and the units rely on each other they must be overpowered. If you look at this so called massive post count claiming the book is OP look at how many of the people complaining that are the same few people. Now realize that if for example 5-6 people are complaining about something a lot it might look massive but it is only 5 or 6 people with a lot of the same things to say without listening to the counter arguments presented by the Tau Generals in this thread. That sounds like a handful of grumpy people making a massive issue over nothing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MMJ24 wrote:
They went to far when your only option is to try and get your guys in close combat while they nuke you from orbit.

And when they nuke you from orbit they cannot fire the following turn... Yeah super over powered there.

Flying Toaster wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
I noticed a distinct lack of whining regarding the DA codex and CSM codex, outside of drakes. Even with the noise marine buff, you still don't see it.
Eldar also don't seem to have many OP threads, despite the wave serpent being considered the best tank in the game.

I don't know how you can say that a massive post count claiming a book is OP isn't a sign that the book is op. By which other standard should we judge it by?


Edit;
I never heard that joke before, but I can see how it fits. I have never seen someone throw 300 dollars worth of toys across a public place until I saw IG vendetta spam, so this certainly isn't the most mature group I've come across

A lot of peoples complaining about the new Tau codex either do not like markerlights, do not like the riptide or have played against a Tau player that has misused markerlights and has trounced all who come before them.

The issue a lot of people have is that the new Tau codex is not the old Tau codex and therefore it is over powered. Honestly the book is balanced, and has synergy. Because it has synergy and the units rely on each other they must be overpowered. If you look at this so called massive post count claiming the book is OP look at how many of the people complaining that are the same few people. Now realize that if for example 5-6 people are complaining about something a lot it might look massive but it is only 5 or 6 people with a lot of the same things to say without listening to the counter arguments presented by the Tau Generals in this thread. That sounds like a handful of grumpy people making a massive issue over nothing.

I agree with the above and I feel like a big issue is that many Tau players are getting zero credit for their major asset - maybe we know what the hell we are doing?

Personally for 8 years I had to fight tooth and nail with an extremely limited tool box to pull of a minor victory against "newer codices" who's players could practically faceroll their strategy and still beat me. Now Tau actually have everything they had before with some updated mechanics and pt costs that make units actually accessible (go look at an old markerlight drone's pt cost.... HA).

Many Tau players are veterans who know what works and what doesn't. It was very easy to throw together competitive lists from day 1 without needing to go through a period of a few months to test out builds. On the other hand, it doesn't help that non-Tau players had to learn the codex from scratch as they probably had little exposure the army previously.

Veterans with competitive lists on day 1 vs opponents just starting to learn their enemies capabilities is definitely a factor in this whole argument.

Flying toaster,
I'm not sure if its intentional, but the condescending tone of your posts isn't helping your otherwise excellent points. Suggesting that people who see tau as op are children jealous of their friends do you no favors.

Imperial guard vendetta spam is widely considered an op build, and is why they are the most commonly taken allies. Look in most marine tacticas on various sites, the common paintbrush applied to every list posted is "add more IG/vendettas".

The magic number of heldrakes is two, and you do see csm taken as allies for a single drake, but rarely the main list. This is mostly because the rest of the dex is well...awful, with few exceptions.

Necrons regen isn't what makes them op, it's the fliers, specifically the transports. I don't often see any complaints about them getting back up, other than its annoying.
Oh, and MSS, but that's more not fun than op, since assault isn't popular anymore.

Eldar wraith knights aren't what makes that codex strong, it's the wave serpents and walkers.

I really doubt your meta is filled with calm rational players only while the rest of the posters who disagree with you are reactionary children, or have metas filled with such. Then again, I don't think personal attacks add weight to an argument. The fact you didn't know why half of the armies you posted about are considered strong isn't helping either, and makes me think less of your meta's competitiveness, not more.

You also never addressed my point about none of the other codexes that have recently come out producing this kind of reaction. Though looking at who posted what, I'm willing to concede its the same 9-10 people posting.

I think people's issue with the tau codex is solid shooting on suits and troops followed by the riptide, easily the best MC in the game right now, in an edition where MC's are amazing. Psyker powers that don't follow the psyker rules (marker lights being like divination's best power, dat ethereal) seems to annoy people, but I don't think those are really op in any sense.

To be fair, I don't think the tau dex is op unless you take 3 riptides, but this is every op dex in the last two editions (except gk, which didn't require spamming only one unit). As you said, IG spam vendettas, necrons spam their flying transports, so on and so forth.

Gossipmeng, you always see people who play the army leaping to its defense because people discredit your wins even if you aren't using the op builds. I do feel your pain here, and it does suck. One unit being spammed is causing most tau players to be labelled as FOTM players, which is just awful for everyone.
I myself felt it when playing the chaos 3.5 dex and the Eldar 3.0 dex, where I never used the siren bomb or IW, and didn't hide the whole game and spammed warp spiders. Recently my wolves were considered op, despite not using jaws, long fangs, and spamming scouts.

Akiasura wrote:
I do feel your pain here, and it does suck. One unit being spammed is causing most tau players to be labelled as FOTM players, which is just awful for everyone.

:( /hug

Akiasura wrote:

Bunch of stuff that makes sense...

I was not trying to be condescending in the least bit. I can see where you are coming from and appreciate the fact that you pointed it out. As far as my examples go, I just pulled stuff out of thin air that I have heard complained about on Dakka here before. I am fully aware that Necron flyer spam is a problem.

I guess what it really comes down to and this is something that Gossipmeng has stated, it is unfortunate that there is this projected backlash of the Tau Codex and how it is written based on a few bad experiences. I have played Tau practically since day one and we have struggled through it all just to claim victories no matter how minor they were.

This is a first on a warhammer forum.
3 people with opposing view points agreeing with one another and admitting they each made excellent points.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to prepare my bomb shelter. This must be the end times

I know this is kind of off topic but I don't consider myself a WAAC player and try to bring a balance list for everything.
So would this be considered a cheeses list? I've attempted to cater for everything.

1850
HQ
Farsight 165
5 body guard & 5 gun drones 403
(2) 2x fusion, target lock
(2) 2x plasma, target lock
Drone controller, C&CN (reroll misses) and MSSS (ignore cover)

Elite
Riptide ion, fusion, skyfire, interceptor 210
Riptide ion, fusion, skyfire, interceptor 210

Troops
Firewarriors (10) shas'ui 100
Firewarriors (10) shas'ui 100
Firewarriors (10) shas'ui, devilfish SMS, Dis pods, spines 210

Fast
Pathfinders (5) 55
Pathfinders (5) 55

Heavy
Broadsides (3) Shas'vre HYMP, SMS, interceptor 220
Hammerhead, ion, SMS, dis pods 140

Or something like that (my memory for exact details fails me right now).

It has antiflyer, anti MEQ/TEQ, fire saturation redundancy (to a certain level).

I wouldn't call it cheese.
But you are probably going to kick ass with it

Boniface wrote:
I know this is kind of off topic but I don't consider myself a WAAC player and try to bring a balance list for everything.
So would this be considered a cheeses list? I've attempted to cater for everything.

1850
HQ
Farsight 165
5 body guard & 5 gun drones 403
(2) 2x fusion, target lock
(2) 2x plasma, target lock
Drone controller, C&CN (reroll misses) and MSSS (ignore cover)

Elite
Riptide ion, fusion, skyfire, interceptor 210
Riptide ion, fusion, skyfire, interceptor 210

Troops
Firewarriors (10) shas'ui 100
Firewarriors (10) shas'ui 100
Firewarriors (10) shas'ui, devilfish SMS, Dis pods, spines 210

Fast
Pathfinders (5) 55
Pathfinders (5) 55

Heavy
Broadsides (3) Shas'vre HYMP, SMS, interceptor 220
Hammerhead, ion, SMS, dis pods 140

Or something like that (my memory for exact details fails me right now).

It has antiflyer, anti MEQ/TEQ, fire saturation redundancy (to a certain level).

I'd lose the devilfish. You can do so much with those points.

Naw wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Think of it as a level 0.25 psyker, because honestly that's what it is. the more you got, the more reliable and powerful the "psyker" becomes, but they can be twiddled down, and for each such (easy to make) kill, the "psyker" gets weaker. its a good buff, but nothing special compared to sorcerers, farseers and Liberians. just going differently about it.

You can't use that as a defence, as Tau can BB Eldar and benefit in a huge way.

You can't use it as an argument. "tau are OP because they can bring NON -TAU?"
Guess what. eldar can bring eldar too! ELDAR RUINED THE GAME OMGWTFBBQ.
Yea....no. if any, its an allies matrix issue, and I can't even see the problem here, you get allies to do your buffs rather then use your own buffs. as said-same goal, different ways to it, some like markers, some like psykers. (oh, and you cant use markers for your allies BTW, just saying.)
Seriously that's the silliest argument I've seen in a long time, and I regularly argue with religious zealots. arguing X is too good because you can bring less X for more Y.
Tau are too good because they can choose not to play tau....hilarious.
You really mised the fact the allies chart works for everyone right? (except nids at least. and some get the shorter sticks. but most armies got some use of them.)

Naw wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

As for the target lock "mistake", it seems you tau makes alot of "mistakes". before I was suspicious, now it is obvious, your tau is a cheater.

I am not the OP, markerlights were not used in so imbalanced way. Our Tau is a new player and probably just accidentally mixes old and new codex. Honest mistakes happen, at times we mix up 5th and 6th edition rules as we play both.

No, the OP's opponent used it as "one marker boosts the entire army against target", rather the "one marker boosts one squad against target"-TOTALLY different, and completely overpowered. and it was never like that, not for the markers and not for the target locks.


Maybe the fault isn't in the tau codex at all, and just all the kids who jumped the bandwagon are cheating/idiots who can't understand the basics of their own rules?

Tactical_Genius wrote:

I'd lose the devilfish. You can do so much with those points.

Probably chuck in a Ethereal at least.

 Desubot wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

I'd lose the devilfish. You can do so much with those points.

Probably chuck in a Ethereal at least.

That would work or Longstrike (I love him so much he should be in every army!)

Flying Toaster wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

I'd lose the devilfish. You can do so much with those points.

Probably chuck in a Ethereal at least.

That would work or Longstrike (I love him so much he should be in every army!)

Actually why not both.
just realized it wasnt a stock fish but one that was a bit kitted out.

And you could probably cut the skyfire off the Riptides. There is no way I'd give up a turn of shooting with that cannon to take three BS3 pot shots at a flyer.

Akiasura wrote:
Imperial guard vendetta spam is widely considered an op build, and is why they are the most commonly taken allies. Look in most marine tacticas on various sites, the common paintbrush applied to every list posted is "add more IG/vendettas".

You seem to be a little confused here. If you want to spam Vendettas you don't take IG as allies (which are restricted to a single Fast Attack choice), you take them as the primary detachment. And, as a matter of fact, armies that take IG as the primary detachment (the only way to "spam" Vendettas) are far from "overpowered" as demonstrated by solidly middle-of-the-pack performance in 6th edition GTs (only 6 top-five showings in 17 GTs featuring 30+ players).

You can take multiple vendettas per fast attack choice

Edit:
Not to be rude, but I think you are the one who is confused. 2-3 flyers is hard for most armies to deal with, and outside of necrons and IG, nobody can take that many. This is why them, plus chaos for the drake, are the most common allies. But for marines (maybe not BA, they might use necrons) 2-3 vendettas is all the anti air you'll ever need unless facing the flying bakery.

In addition, I said that's the most common advice given to marine armies. Most GT winners are not using marines as the main detachment, so I'd expect IG allies to not been seen there.

Not to use a cliche fallacy, but you just text book straw manned me.

Akiasura wrote:
Flying toaster,

I think people's issue with the tau codex is solid shooting on suits and troops followed by the riptide, easily the best MC in the game right now, in an edition where MC's are amazing. Psyker powers that don't follow the psyker rules (marker lights being like divination's best power, dat ethereal) seems to annoy people, but I don't think those are really op in any sense.

To be fair, I don't think the tau dex is op unless you take 3 riptides, but this is every op dex in the last two editions (except gk, which didn't require spamming only one unit). As you said, IG spam vendettas, necrons spam their flying transports, so on and so forth.

Gossipmeng, you always see people who play the army leaping to its defense because people discredit your wins even if you aren't using the op builds. I do feel your pain here, and it does suck. One unit being spammed is causing most tau players to be labelled as FOTM players, which is just awful for everyone.

I do understand your points how x3 Riptides is a pain in the butt and how some armies would have issues with it especially when x3 are brought to the table. But as mentioned there are other army builds that are if not just as good but worse then this (necron flying circus for example) and the fact that I want to take x2 Riptides I hate it that makes me seem like a WAAC or TFG, neither being the case. I feel that I am an out of place player here because other players at my store and myself have not had an issue fighting Riptides as so many other people are saying they have. A good friend of mine ran an Space Marine with Dark Eldar allies army and the poison the Dark Eldar put out had killed all of his riptides by turn 4 giving him the win as he basically outshot the rest of his Fire Warriors with Riptides and well placed orbital bombardment.

I also can see the validity of your statement saying the Riptide is the best MC in the game, however that being said I think that you may need to consider the Wraithknight as the best MC in the game, just watched a game where x3 Wraithknights all with swords, shields and x2 scatter lasers supported by Waveserpent spam slaughtered a x3 Riptide list even with the Tau player using the good tactics and was actually having good dice roles. Yes the Wraithknight is much more expensive, however most Riptides are upgraded to be about 210-220pts for them to be as effective as they are, and the Wraithknight has the advantages of being faster and T8 really helps it out alot.

The wraith knight is amazing, and I'd certainly put it up there with the riptide in terms of performance. Against the most commonly faced army, marines drop podding, the riptide performs a bit better, which does make it appear superior in the current meta. If transports become a thing, the wraith knight might pull ahead.

I think the combo of marker light and riptide is what makes it feel broken. Only invulnerable saves can be taken against it at that point, and the large blast template helps with the weaker bs, which makes players feel like there is no defense

Are you sure it wasn't the wave serpent spam that won it? I'm half joking here, but wave serpents are very strong (it's a shame the basic Eldar troops are just average, unless wraith guard. This could be bias, iyanden was my first army)

Edit, that said, 2 riptides don't make you TFG. I love the model personally, and can understand fielding as many as you own. 3 riptides however...
This is the same with necrons. 2-3 flyers is fine. 7-9 though?

 Savageconvoy wrote:
And you could probably cut the skyfire off the Riptides. There is no way I'd give up a turn of shooting with that cannon to take three BS3 pot shots at a flyer.

I tend to use the TL fusion blaster for that with ripplefire (should the gen not blow up in my face).
trying to cover all the bases.

So you think longstrike and and ethereal over a fish?

I have totally hijacked this thread. I apologise.

Don't think it's much of a problem since the thread has always been rather directionless.

But Devilfish are generally never worth it. They're expensive and only transport troops that should really be sticking into cover and enjoying the 30" range weapons. But when you ask "Is this expensive and questionable tank worth less than a BS5 tank hunting hammerhead and a huge leadership buff" The answer should be fairly obvious. I haven't unpacked my devilfish since day 1 of 6th ed and even then it was only for recon drone turbo boosting outflanking antics.

I can see your idea behind the TL fusion hitting flyers, but that's still rather hard to do. Two TL bs3 shots are indeed better than 3 BS3 shots, but it still forces you to give up shooting the main weapon. Give the skyfire to your Broadsides since they could use it more. Dedicating all of their firepower into a flyer would be far more suitable than wasting the primary weapon in hopes the secondary weapon will smudge their paint.

 gossipmeng wrote:
This topic is now just dragging on because of riptides. 1 riptide isn't a big deal, 2 is annoying, 3 OKAY fine 3 is a bit too strong for some armies to handle. However, the same goes for 3 hell drakes, 3 annihilation barges, 3 vendettas, 3 wraithknights (although many pts), etc.

3 dreadnoughts? I am interested which unit I should spam with BA

yeah your right longstrike is an obviously better option it's just 45 points seems like a lot.

I'll give it a go.
I thought it was only the weapon that fired that couldn't fire, rather than the model.

INTERCEPTOR
Thisweapon has been calibrated to target
incoming drop troops, teleporting assault
squads and other unlooked-for enemies.
At the end of the enemy Movement
phase, a weapon with the Interceptor
special rule can be fired at any one unit
that has arrived from reserve within its
range and line of sight. If this rule is
used, the weapon cannot be fired in the
next turn, but the firing model can shoot
a different weapon if it has one.
If a weapon has both the Interceptor
and Skyfire special rules, it uses its full
Ballistic Skill against all targets (unless it
is firing Snap Shots).

Akiasura wrote:
You can take multiple vendettas per fast attack choice

"Spamming" a unit typically refers to taking the maximum number of said unit. Furthermore, taking 3 (and, arguably, 2) Vendettas in a single FOC slot is inefficient, nevermind part of an "overpowered" list. I'm left wondering if you comprehend the terms you're using.

Not to use a cliche fallacy, but you just text book straw manned me.

Like "spamming" and "overpowered," it's clear you don't know what this term means either.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Naw wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
its a good buff, but nothing special compared to sorcerers, farseers and Liberians. just going differently about it.

You can't use that as a defence, as Tau can BB Eldar and benefit in a huge way.

Tau are too good because they can choose not to play tau....hilarious.

There, I helped you. Now, as you can have Farseer buff your guys it's no good complaining about other psykers. Tau don't have a weakness there.

Maybe the fault isn't in the tau codex at all, and just all the kids who jumped the bandwagon are cheating/idiots who can't understand the basics of their own rules?

Yes, that must be it, them cheating kids are what make the 6th edition Tau codex very powerful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

I'd lose the devilfish. You can do so much with those points.

Probably chuck in a Ethereal at least.

That list and these suggestions illustrate one point very well. No need to play for objectives if you can table your opponent.

Really? How in the world is that list going to table the opponent. I guess it goes back to people not playing with terrain. If that is the case then yes Tau could easily table the opponent in the barren landscape that they are fighting in.

Naw wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

I'd lose the devilfish. You can do so much with those points.

Probably chuck in a Ethereal at least.

That list and these suggestions illustrate one point very well. No need to play for objectives if you can table your opponent.

Exsqueese me?

How is suggesting one of the most synergistic model and a slightly overpriced but still good tank commander ignore objectives?

Edited for fail quotes

Just in case anyone is wondering I have not played the game against my Tau opponent yet- that will probably happen on either Friday or Saturday.

I do have a rules clarification for you Tau players. Can you explain how Target Locks work exactly?

Since the Markerlight shenanigans my buddy pulled I am not 100% positive he is playing something else correctly either.

Almost every game he takes the same HQ setup- A crisis Commander with a Target Lock, Irridium armor, missile pods.

He attaches this to 3 other Crisis Suits, all with the same weapon systems.

He claimed that this unit can fire at as many targets per suit as he wants because of the upgrade the commander grants them. This in turn allowed him to DS, split fire at whatever he wants, ignore cover, or give Tank Hunter/MC Hunter. Needless to say any back field tanks never survive against this, and I don't exactly have the luxury of keeping units back to protect them when I need to get in his face ASAP.

Is he being a douche again?

I really should read the book.

Boniface wrote:

Backfire wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
This thread is divided by those that do not like the Tau and believe the army is a horrible abomination to the game and then those that are trying to defend the army it is rather ridiculous.

I like Tau, and the current Codex is a horrible adomination to the game.

I simply don't get this. You claim to like Tau and follow up with it's a horrible abomination.

Liking Tau and liking present Codex are two separate issues. Current Codex is in my opinion boring, with one-dimensional strategy, poorly models supposed Tau way of war or how their equipment is meant to work.

Um yeah no, target lock does not work that way at all... Let me just put it this way so I am not breaking any rules, Have him prove to you that target lock works that way.

I take that back I just re-read your post. (READERS ARE LEADERS).

If the other suits are taking Target Lock as well then yes he is not doing any shenanigans. Keep in mind that each model can only fire at one target at a time though.

Flying Toaster wrote:
Um yeah no, target lock does not work that way at all... Let me just put it this way so I am not breaking any rules, Have him prove to you that target lock works that way.

I take that back I just re-read your post. (READERS ARE LEADERS).

If the other suits are taking Target Lock as well then yes he is not doing any shenanigans. Keep in mind that each model can only fire at one target at a time though.

Eh.. even so.. this still seems dumb. It's impossible for me to run any sort of backfield tank support with this thing zooming around. This squad on average with twin-linked and Tank Hunter will kill any AV12 vehicle in a round. Unfortunate, since most of my tanks fall in this category (or he just gets side shots on my preds)

How does this squad have Tank Hunter? Sorry but I think I have to be missing something.

XenosTerminus wrote:
Eh.. even so.. this still seems dumb. It's impossible for me to run any sort of backfield tank support with this thing zooming around. This squad on average with twin-linked and Tank Hunter will kill any AV12 vehicle in a round. Unfortunate, since most of my tanks fall in this category (or he just gets side shots on my preds)

It can't go both ways. If your opponent is splitting fire then two "autocannons" per tank isn't killing much. If your opponent focuses the whole squad on a single target their chances of a kill go up, but they aren't shooting several units simultaneously anymore and you can return fire with the survivors and kill the crisis suits.

And really, compared to things like podding combi-melta sternguard (10-man squad splitting on arrival to hit two targets) which have a much higher chance of killing a tank in a single shot the crisis suits are pretty weak.

Flying Toaster wrote:
How does this squad have Tank Hunter? Sorry but I think I have to be missing something.

No idea. He said the commander grants either Tank Hunter or Monster Hunter to the squad. So he basically deep strikes, chooses what he wants dead, and fires a metric ton of missiles that all re-roll. It's not unusual for this squad to make back it's points 3fold.

I would normally counter it with Rockets/Lascannons, but since he deep strikes the unit he usually has enough time to kill my devs or outlets for this sort of firepower. That, and the 2+ lets him tank rockets.

XenosTerminus wrote:
Just in case anyone is wondering I have not played the game against my Tau opponent yet- that will probably happen on either Friday or Saturday.

I do have a rules clarification for you Tau players. Can you explain how Target Locks work exactly?

Since the Markerlight shenanigans my buddy pulled I am not 100% positive he is playing something else correctly either.

Almost every game he takes the same HQ setup- A crisis Commander with a Target Lock, Irridium armor, missile pods.

He attaches this to 3 other Crisis Suits, all with the same weapon systems.

He claimed that this unit can fire at as many targets per suit as he wants because of the upgrade the commander grants them. This in turn allowed him to DS, split fire at whatever he wants, ignore cover, or give Tank Hunter/MC Hunter. Needless to say any back field tanks never survive against this, and I don't exactly have the luxury of keeping units back to protect them when I need to get in his face ASAP.

Is he being a douche again?

I really should read the book.

I say he's cheating. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt that every suit was equipped with a target lock to split fire, his Commander would've needed the Purdetide Engram Chip and the Multi-Spectrum Scanner to give the USRs and ignore cover. In doing so, his commander would also have to forfeit his shooting. Did he say how he was removing your cover saves? Markerlights or a fancy piece of wargear?

Only the Commander was ignoring saves, which he claimed were AP4. Naturally my Scouts didn't like this.

He had a turn where he deep struck, split fire at 4 targets, took out 3 vehicles and a scout squad. 4 units in a turn.

If he is doing something incorrectly, well I will have to have a talk to him again. If not... this is another reason I hate the book. That's just stupid.

XenosTerminus wrote:
Only the Commander was ignoring saves, which he claimed were AP4. Naturally my Scouts didn't like this.

He had a turn where he deep struck, split fire at 4 targets, took out 3 vehicles and a scout squad. 4 units in a turn.

If he is doing something incorrectly, well I will have to have a talk to him again. If not... this is another reason I hate the book. That's just stupid.

He would have to be using the "Puretide Engram Neurochip"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have to say no wonder you don't like Tau. Your opponent or buddy as you put it has pretty much incorrectly understood major parts of the army and ran with it. I would be angry as well.

Actually

Tank/monster hunter applies to the whole unit not the model.
(chip gives commander tank hunter > a unit with a model with tanker hunter gives rerolls to pen ect ect)

anyway it never hurts to ask. if it sounds ridiculous just ask to see the book and read it your self. also should ask to see his army list as well

 Desubot wrote:
Actually

Tank/monster hunter applies to the whole unit not the model.
(chip gives commander tank hunter > a unit with a model with tanker hunter gives rerolls to pen ect ect)

anyway it never hurts to ask. if it sounds ridiculous just ask to see the book and read it your self. also should ask to see his army list as well

Your right, I wasn't thinking it through... it grants the special rule and the special rule applies to all. Thanks for pointing that out.

XenosTerminus wrote:
He had a turn where he deep struck, split fire at 4 targets, took out 3 vehicles and a scout squad. 4 units in a turn.

Not cheating, but getting very lucky. The squad of four can split fire against four different targets, but not while using the upgrade that makes them twin-linked and ignore cover (since you have to forfeit that model's shooting to use them, leaving only three shooting models). So you're shooting at four different targets, but not very effectively. You shouldn't be losing three vehicles and a scout squad to two BS 3 "autocannons" each, so you just had bad luck. And you can't judge game balance based on bad luck.

But really this just confirms what we've been saying previously: you don't understand the Tau codex very well, so don't complain about how "overpowered" it is until you've read it and understood it.

Really? I find a single darkstrider mounted devilfish be quite effective .

As for "drop pod marines being the most common", am I playing the only local meta where power armor is the thing you are LEAST likely to face?

Actually something sounds off.
He didnt split fire each individual gun right?

because otherwise it would be impossible for 1 model to kill an entire scout squad (5) with a single or even double missile pod (4)

 BoomWolf wrote:
Really? I find a single darkstrider mounted devilfish be quite effective .

As for "drop pod marines being the most common", am I playing the only local meta where power armor is the thing you are LEAST likely to face?

No.

My meta is almost entirely xenos.

To the point where i'm thinking of picking up SM to ally with my Tau just for some variety, or GK's as a standalone army.


On topic.... yes Tau are powerful, but i'm just surprised how far this thread has gone on the onus of the OP that is essentially "Was taking an unoptimized disorganized list against a cutthroat tourney Tau player who was abusing / cheating the markerlight rule."

... 15 pages later, still going strong.

-- Haight

Well, regardless of my circumstances, the topic at hand is still relevant. A lot of people still feel strongly about Tau one way or the other.

I'm going to have to review the rules with him before the game/read the entries, because something does seem off. I don't believe he does this on purpose, though. Perhaps he is just poor at interpreting rules lol

It seems like he has a lot of problems understanding all his rules, but I'm not the best either. When I read the markerlight rules the first time, I was declaring what the markerlights would be used for as they hit. But seriously, a lot of drop pods will really help against him. You should probably use all ypur drop pods, I think you said 4, right? Interceptor is only useful on riptides and broadsides, so he can't take too much. The pods and the termies dropping in on turn 1 should be the focus of his fire, so you can do some damage and charge with anything that's left.

Definitely look at the codex for any rules he uses that seem off to you. He seems to be really bad at reading his rules.

Boomwolfe
MEQ seems to still be the most common army, and traditionally, it always has been. This is the first edition where xenos have been stronger than marines on average, so i would expect that to change, especially in metas with newer players. Personally i view this as the greatest change ever to hit 40k.

Xenos,
You really need to read the codex. Never assume your opponent knows his own codex, let alone the rules. Its been my experience that players tend to be...fuzzy, especially with xenos players. Mostly because they aren't as standard as meq
and the imperium (much respect to anyone that memorizes all the stats in the various nid codexes)

Akiasura wrote:
Boomwolfe
MEQ seems to still be the most common army, and traditionally, it always has been. This is the first edition where xenos have been stronger than marines on average, so i would expect that to change, especially in metas with newer players. Personally i view this as the greatest change ever to hit 40k.

Xenos,
You really need to read the codex. Never assume your opponent knows his own codex, let alone the rules. Its been my experience that players tend to be...fuzzy, especially with xenos players. Mostly because they aren't as standard as meq
and the imperium (much respect to anyone that memorizes all the stats in the various nid codexes)

I dunno, 4th edition had Skimmerspam Eldar (GODS) and Fish of Fury tau, which was far and above better then any of the other armies at the time.

Also 2nd edition Eldar with jump packs and Shurikens being GODLIKE.

There were a few outliers, but in general, imperial/MEQ was stronger. This could just be my local experience...online wasn't a big thing for me in 3rd and 4th for 40k, but I did play a lot more back then.
Nids were really strong, and I remember eldar's time in the sun. They competed with the rhino rush and a few other power builds, but you are 100% correct with eldar skimmer spam being just wtf. not only op but unfun to play against. Before them chaos was the most broken thing ever, and came in several flavors of nasty, though that's just another marine flavor. I never found Tau strong before now, but I'll readily admit to seeing their strength represented online, if warseer posts are anything to go by
On average, I think the imperium has always been a bit stronger then xenos, and it's rare to see the same xenos army stay strong throughout edition changes. Something MEQ doesn't have to worry about, since you can always hop codexes pretty easily.

I didn't play second when it was out, but I've tried it. It always seemed the equipment was really strong (bombs) then anyone else.

XenoTerminus

Just to give you a quick bit of advice.
Tau have a chip that allows various rules that have to be picked at the start of the owning models movement.
Target locks basically mean the owning model can shoot at 1 different target.
Marker lights don't affect the shooting of the unit that used them. (So no shooting them first)
Wargear for re-rolls and ignore cover can be used together but the owning model can't shoot.

I hope that helps.

Mr Omega - how are you getting a 6" moving riptide (not 12", like you seem to think) to jump ON a Ruin?

For a start it is only allowed to move on the ground floor

EVen if you agree otherwise, most ruins are 2 stories, meaning to get on top is a 6" move vertically - so they have to be stood directly underneath the level they want to be on

Finally to then jump back down they have to roll at least 6" on 2D6. Far from guaranteed

Back in 4th edition with stupid area terrain LOS rules, JSJ was Godlike. Not the case any longer.

Those are just some of the issues I have with your "Riptide OP!!!" rant

I'd highly recommend that the OP go to his local store and read the Tau codex for 20 mins or ask your opponent to browse through theirs.

Make sure the Tau player's suits only have 2 weapons and 1 piece of equipment (such as target lock) or 1 weapon and 2 pieces of gear, etc. (commanders can have up to 4 pieces of equipment/weapons though).

Next make sure units equipped with multispectrum sensor suite or command & control node aren't shooting if they are using the gear that turn (these are the gear that twin-link weapons and remove cover without markerlights).

Also as other have mentioned previously, it is almost statistically impossible for 4 battle suits to kill 3 vehicles and a scout squad in a single turn with missile pods. It would pretty much require every shot to pen the vehicle and then roll 6s on the damage table.

I really need to meet this Tau opponent of yours and get some tips because my crisis suits can't pull off these feats.

We always generate our lists with army builder and give a copy to the opponent. But I suppose that requires some knowledge of the point value in advance.

Is it possible that this Tau "Player" is having the entire suit team fire at each target?
IE: all four suits fire at tank A, then all fire at tank B, and so on.
THAT might explain how he's wiping out 3 tanks and a squad...

BTW, OP, Target Locks do NOT allow that!
Only the "owning" unit with the Target Lock may fire at a separate target.

Even if all four suits in that team have Target Lock, that'd mean that each suit could hit ONE extra target.
IE: Commander shoots Tank A, Suit 1 shoots Tank B, Suit 2 shoots Tank D, and Suit 3 shoots at the Squad.

As said earlier, with each suit shooting one target, there's no way he'd wipe all four targets.
Sounds seriously off to me, and I've only been able to 'read for fun' 6th ed so far!

Yeah the only way I could see that happen is he's either pulling a fast one on you or he's got target locks on all 4 and has used up all his luck for the rest of the week in one round of shooting.

Tau certainly have some nasty rules against which it is quite easy to come unstuck fairly easy. The biggest issue when they were released wasn't the fact that they were particularly nasty, more the fact that the new tau are head and shoulders above the old tau and require a completely different set of tactics to beat. They are also an army which more than most, require you to use units in synergy to maximise their efficiency, take out one element, and you badly affect their overall abilities.

The most common build i've seen is firewarriors behind an ADL, pathfinders, riptides and some other supporting units to support them. leading to a fairly static army that is essentially counting on you trying to get to grips with them, so they can negate your coversaves, annihilate you with high AP weapons, and then move forward with the firewarriors in the mid to late game to claim objectives. Its a nightmare to get close to, suicide to assault, and with the range and potency to have a good deal of board control.

The counter i have used, to very great effect is to start to use more whirlwinds in my IF force. they can blast pathfinders out of buildings, ignore ADL's with correct placement, and given the number of players i see who pack their firewarriors in behind ADL's like sardines, absolutely massacre their scoring units. without markerlights your units in buildings can withstand return fire a lot better, and without firewarriors they can't score. then its just a matter of dealing with riptides, which can be annoying, but sniper rifles can threaten them so i've started using them more too.

The good thing is, that whirlwinds are good against quite a few armies, especially given their low points cost, so you aren't hamstringing yourself, and they have the range to sit nice and safe away from anything the tau can throw at you.

Deepstrikers are an issue, but at the very least you get 1 turn of shooting from your whirlwinds, and against a largely intact army, which you should have when they arrive, its pretty much a suicide mission unless its a farsight bomb.

The key is not to go 'OMGWTFOP' but to make their strengths work for you without necessarily crippling your TAC list against everyone else

Thank you madtankbloke for posting those tactics and showing that Tau are not the super uber boogymen that people seem to think. You are absolutely correct with Whirlwinds, those tanks are devastating on the field against Tau and other Xenos threats.

General Annoyance wrote:
Fire Warriors are some of the most expensive standard troops in the game, and T3 and a save of 4+ is rather average for 10 points.

ummm, fire warriors are the cheapest, and best troops choice in the whole flipping game... str 5 30" range, with awesome synergy from dirt cheap characters, for 10pts...

my elite storm troopers are t3 4+, for 10 pts, and have worse guns, with worse range, and are not troops...

one firewarrior is better then two guards men, for the same cost.

that being said, I have a fairly decent time handling tau since i can get into combat 2nd turn and have plenty of ignores cover stuff, but they are the best codex right now, by far, on top of that it seems like too many people are either mistakingly/deliberaty not knowing their own rules so that might compound it (ie ethereals giving 4X shots at full range, more then one over watch from supporting fire, ect)

 easysauce wrote:

General Annoyance wrote:
Fire Warriors are some of the most expensive standard troops in the game, and T3 and a save of 4+ is rather average for 10 points.

ummm, fire warriors are the cheapest, and best troops choice in the whole flipping game... str 5 30" range, with awesome synergy from dirt cheap characters, for 10pts...

my elite storm troopers are t3 4+, for 10 pts, and have worse guns, with worse range, and are not troops...

one firewarrior is better then two guards men, for the same cost.

that being said, I have a fairly decent time handling tau since i can get into combat 2nd turn and have plenty of ignores cover stuff, but they are the best codex right now, by far, on top of that it seems like too many people are either mistakingly/deliberaty not knowing their own rules so that might compound it (ie ethereals giving 4X shots at full range, more then one over watch from supporting fire, ect)

Fire Warriors cost 9 points now.

lol I stand corrected... even BETTER best troops ever...

tis the next dex anywys

 easysauce wrote:
lol I stand corrected... even BETTER best troops ever...

tis the next dex anywys

Er...I beg to differ. Despite being "only" 9 points they still only have a max of 12 men per unit meaning that they can only take so many casualties before they take a leadership test which is quite average for them without the use of an ethereal. Their lack of an in-unit ability/upgrade to mitigate this also makes them that much more susceptible to multiple Ld-based attacks such as psychic powers or pinning weaponry. Also that 4+ save, while decent, only increases their survivability against AP5 weaponry such as bolters and they are still, if not more so due to smaller squad size, vulnerable to weapons such as heavy flamers, the Hellhound's inferno cannon, a Whirlwind missile launcher, and other blast template weapons that they will likely encounter due to their predilection towards a more static-gun line sort of deployment to make the most of supporting fire. Also don't forget that as a troops choice they lack any options for special weapons that could supplement their firepower which, though S5 is impressive, leads them to lack a level of diversity/versatility in a unit that other troops choices can have that prevents them from being a truly best unit in the game. They're definitely good especially in the context of their own codex but I think saying there the best troops is a bit of a stretch. Notably they're also only BS3 meaning that they miss half of their shots most of the time which isn't bad but often requires buffs from a Fireblade or Ethereal to get more dakka to compensate which IMO I think the "best" troops shouldn't have to rely upon and should be more able to be self-sufficient in their roles.

For example in comparison to Ork boyz, who are 3 points cheaper, we can take large ass mobz of boyz that are fearless, have a bosspole with a Nob in case for back-up as well as have the option to take a power klaw to crack open transports and with shoota boyz in particular we have a massive volume of anti-infantry shots that allow us to overwhelm most units which can supplemented even further with big shootas or with, though it's not as common, rokkit launchas to further give us chances to strip off several hull points and even get a lucky penetration shot for a possible immobilization/weapon destroyed result for vehicles. This is without mentioning how we can hold our own in combat with our massed attacks (even more so with slugga boyz) and overwatch the shizzle out of anyone foolish enough to charge them. And the best part is that the very same weapons that hurt MEQ and 4+ save units like Fire Warriors such as a Heldrake's Baleflamer don't really mean much to them with how we only have a 6+ save anyways and that the casualties they suffer are expendable since you need to wittle boyz down to under 10 models in order to start making them take leadership tests and it's really hard to do all that when you're swarming on the table with 3-4 units of 30 boyz rampaging through all in their path. The best part is that even with only 20 boyz they're still quite effective (again particularly as shootas) which mean you can choose to go for a more mobile force if you want to and put them in battlewagons instead. All of this without the need of an external force aiding them and athough they can obviously benefit from HQ choices being attached to them like KFF meks their inclusion does not change their offensive/defensive output so much that they're auto-includes when taking them.

There's several other contenders such as Grey Hunters who also have an amazing versatility in their 2 special weapons options mixed in with having counter attack and both a bolter alongside their bolt pistol/CCW making them amazing objective holders since they lose nothing from you charging them. There's also Eldar Guardians/Dire Avengers that can tear through all kinds infantry with precision through their shuriken weapons and retreat with impunity thanks to battle focus.

9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

Since Tactical_Genius already pointed out how using a character to justify their "awesomeness" is contradictory to them being the best troops choice (because again a good troops choice would imply that they can get along without external character/army buffs) I find it funny you bring up 3+ armour being useless because for all intents and purposes 3+ armour is becoming increasingly less useful because of the proliferation of anti-MEQ ignoring cover weaponry in the current meta such as heldrakes, things like marker lights taking away cover saves for that one squad squatting in a ruin to suffer the full effects of an S8 AP2 large blast from their riptide and also standard infantry weaponry such as Eldar shuriken catapults having pseudo-rending results in that 3+ save ending up not being what it's chalked up to be. Why do you think marines are going down in cost? It's because they have to compensate for how easy it is to dispatch marines in 6th edition! So if killing marines too quickly is becoming so common that GW has to lower their unit costs this shows that by extension that Tau Fire Warriors, who are much less versatile in general, are even MORE vulnerable as they have an even crappier save while also being T3. Then you throw in the rest of the arguments that you haven't countered and I find it hard to believe that Fire Warriors are what you would consider the "best troops in the game".

 easysauce wrote:

ummm, fire warriors are the cheapest, and best troops choice in the whole flipping game... str 5 30" range, with awesome synergy from dirt cheap characters, for 10pts...
)

and yet they're straightjacketed into a single role: killing (light) infantry, and pretty much lack any and all flexibility via heavy, and special weapons, zero cc ability, and very limited staying power courtesy of low toughness and a decent-at-best armour save.

they're good. but they're neither the cheapest, nor the best.

 easysauce wrote:

my elite storm troopers are t3 4+, for 10 pts, and have worse guns, with worse range, and are not troops...

ap3 guns and more shots and options, lets not forget. and bear in mind, storm troopers are generally regarded as a really poor choice in the codex. compare them to veterans instead.

 easysauce wrote:

one firewarrior is better then two guards men, for the same cost.

in ways he is. but is he better than guard tanks? is he better than guard artillery? Is he better than guard flyers? you cant compare individual choices in a codex without looking at the codex in its entirety.
beyond that, there are a hell of a lot more guardsmen than there are fire warriors. fire warrior guns are overkill againt guardsmen. lasguns in return have very decent kill ratios against fire warriors. in any case, its apples and oranges.

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...
.

only if they were unkillable. plenty things outrange them, and outkill them.

 easysauce wrote:

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.
.

true. but they also have the "kill me and everything runs" sign on them, and they're not that hard either.

 easysauce wrote:

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...
.

fire warriors with support versus... orks? come on, factor in ork support too please.

 easysauce wrote:

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

No, not really.

4+ isnt "awesome". t3 and 4+ is decidedly weak. it means they're wounded on 3s by the widely used basic weapons in the game (str4) and they fail half their saves. note: basic weapons. throw in flamers and h.flamers and fire warriors literally melt. and beyond the long casualty lists which will be forcing leadership checks, lets point out that thier leadership is dicey at best.

beyond that, lets look at other factors. what are fire warriors role in the game? well, they're a shooting unit whose job is to kill infantry, preferably light infantry. and they do that reasonably well. str5 is good. but think about this - when i think 'shooting unit whose job is to kill infantry', i think a squad of devestators loaded with h.bolters. they both outrange fire warriors and outkill fire warriors. i know who is winning that shooting duel.

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

the only tau troops that I sweat are the danged Kroot a couple blobs of those can give orks fits..(danged sneaking hiding sniper) that and Stealth suits ..(shudder)

Farsight Enclave units ..easy as pie to wipe out ..not enough bodies ..

Farsight bomb into my backfeild ..amoung all my troops ..what are you mad ..orks love it when the squishy fishboy jumps in the middle and puts himself not only in shooty range but inside assult range as well ..of everything...we then bury him in bodies ...and go mop up the rest of the feild since about half his points just got wasted ..and most of the ork points are still standing..)

Shadowsun or darkstrider setup right Max stealth suits ..Lots of kroot blobs, with snipers, hidden in the trees and hounds, Pathfinders running about.. now thats downright scary...but still killable..(this one gives me the hardest time and the best fight )

Tau sitting back in a gun line ..well thats what Kommandoes and outflanking deffkoptas are fore ..

 illuknisaa wrote:

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

Kind of seeing the Support fire thing be thrown around non-stop in this thread... Is everyone who has a problem with this fighting a Tau army thats deployed within a 6" bubble? While I a lot of people like to spread their army out to prevent pieplates from riping up good portions of their army... maybe its time to include some pieplates to remove this 6" bubble force.

About the orks lacking numbers... Have you tried green tide?

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

Er...no offense but have you faced Orks before? Either in green tide or battlewagon bash format? Because number one while you're right about trukk boyz being small in number typically that is mitigated by having another set of trukk boyz tagging along to provide additional support/soak overwatch fire. Anyone who runs Speed Freaks/Trukk Spam knows that you always go with the buddy system so you're not just using 12 boyz to do the work for you.

Furthermore it seems you ignored my post about Battlewagon Bash and Ork Boyz of 20 inside them. They are by far more common than Trukk Boyz and are far more fearsome as well with their additional numbers and thanks to it being open-topped they can be assault vehicles AND mobile-dakka bunkers that are relatively impervious to your vaunted S5 dakka as well with shoota boyz. Also they do have access to special weapons and you can't ignore this simply because you don't like rokkit launchas. You forget they have dirt cheap big shootas which only add to their massive volume of shots from shoota boyz and while rokkit launchas may not be the bees knees like meltas it does provide an alternative supply of supplementary anti-vehicle fire especially in this edition where you just need to knock off a few hull points and the vehicle is wrecked. This is furthered from the addition of the PK nob that still is invaluable this edition for cracking open tanks and tearing through people in challenges. Plus in a green tide list cumulative amounts of rokkit launchas and big shootas take their toll which you can't easily eliminate like devastators thanks to the high number of ablative wounds.

Also in terms of bolter over watch...again it's only on rolls of 6 to hit and not like the end all be all as you make it seem. Orks are all about numbers so even if one unit gets chewed up by supporting fire (which again makes them vulnerable to multi-assault and blast/flamer templates) it means the rest of the boyz are able to get stuck in after they waste all their shots on one unit. And if they spread it out over the others then they just set themselves up for more units to deal with to tear them apart in melee.

Of course the individual ork dies relatively fast (and even then at least they're T4) that's why they're bloody 6 points each and you take more than 12 of them to take on a unit! That's why mob rules there to give them fearless when they inevitably take casualties, and they can handle it! What more do you want? T10? 3++ invuln. save? I swear some people are so used to playing MEQ and TEQ armies that they can't understand how horde armies work and that armour saves by themselves are not what makes a unit useful.

I know S5 weapons are good, but I think they've actually taken a step back since Kroot are cheaper even with Sniper rounds. I mean the one nice thing about S5 is that you can still wound MC more than bolters, but then they give Kroot a 4+ wounding weapon. FW have better armor, but really they were always going to be in cover anyways. Kroot just have far better deployment options.

Firewarriors are just kind of a bad place to be. They're a versatile unit that has the firepower to do several roles, but it's a bad army for that. When you can customize just about any unit for a specific role for no significant cost having a unit that does several jobs decently just feels like it does no job effectively. Which is why I think Kroot are better. They do many jobs decently, and for cheaper with more deployment options.

Also toss in that Firewarriors have a terrible transport, which for some reason people keep trying to explain is the best transport in the game. Super expensive, one decent weapon option, only one worthwhile upgrade that's also on the expensive side, and the large size really just make it more of a hassle. The only time I've ran one in the last 2 years has been trying out the recon drone deployment shenanigans... then I realized stealth suits can do the same for a better price and easier.

 Grimskul wrote:

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

Er...no offense but have you faced Orks before? Either in green tide or battlewagon bash format? Because number one while you're right about trukk boyz being small in number typically that is mitigated by having another set of trukk boyz tagging along to provide additional support/soak overwatch fire. Anyone who runs Speed Freaks/Trukk Spam knows that you always go with the buddy system so you're not just using 12 boyz to do the work for you.

Furthermore it seems you ignored my post about Battlewagon Bash and Ork Boyz of 20 inside them. They are by far more common than Trukk Boyz and are far more fearsome as well with their additional numbers and thanks to it being open-topped they can be assault vehicles AND mobile-dakka bunkers that are relatively impervious to your vaunted S5 dakka as well with shoota boyz. Also they do have access to special weapons and you can't ignore this simply because you don't like rokkit launchas. You forget they have dirt cheap big shootas which only add to their massive volume of shots from shoota boyz and while rokkit launchas may not be the bees knees like meltas it does provide an alternative supply of supplementary anti-vehicle fire especially in this edition where you just need to knock off a few hull points and the vehicle is wrecked. This is furthered from the addition of the PK nob that still is invaluable this edition for cracking open tanks and tearing through people in challenges. Plus in a green tide list cumulative amounts of rokkit launchas and big shootas take their toll which you can't easily eliminate like devastators thanks to the high number of ablative wounds.

Also in terms of bolter over watch...again it's only on rolls of 6 to hit and not like the end all be all as you make it seem. Orks are all about numbers so even if one unit gets chewed up by supporting fire (which again makes them vulnerable to multi-assault and blast/flamer templates) it means the rest of the boyz are able to get stuck in after they waste all their shots on one unit. And if they spread it out over the others then they just set themselves up for more units to deal with to tear them apart in melee.

Of course the individual ork dies relatively fast (and even then at least they're T4) that's why they're bloody 6 points each and you take more than 12 of them to take on a unit! That's why mob rules there to give them fearless when they inevitably take casualties, and they can handle it! What more do you want? T10? 3++ invuln. save? I swear some people are so used to playing MEQ and TEQ armies that they can't understand how horde armies work and that armour saves by themselves are not what makes a unit useful.

Times I have taken my BW's against Tau they have been blown up with ease. Suits drop in for rear armor shots 2 to 3 BW's explode killing 9 or so of those boys in the process. Marker lights and missile sides take out a 15 man loota squad in 1 turn. Kinda puts you in a conundrum if you see your opponent has deep striking suits. You want to get your boys up and in your opponents face but to do that most the time you are going to expose your rear armor for those suits. If you don't see the suits however your BW's have a chance of getting your boys into range to actually shoot their own guns. My money is still on the tau though. But comparing a boy to a firewarrior is apples and oranges S5 shots are awsome but so is fearless, you need this unit to make the firewarriors better but need a nob with bosspole and a high squad count for the boys, boys with big shootas for every 10 in a truk that will be 1 in a bw 2 on foot 3. Taking cover saves from orks really just destroys them so vs orks the markerlights are worth their weight in gold but vs marines maybe not so much lots of things effect how you look at either unit. Waiting for a new ork dex to see where things go for them now.

Is this thread still going on?
They are powerful.
They are dominating Tournaments.
Friendly games are being annihilated by the new Tau, no matter what list they take.

And people still claim they aren't strong and there is nothing wrong with the army?
What the hell is wrong with you guys? Just admit it and get on with your lives or stay out of the thread -_-'

Kangodo wrote:
They are dominating Tournaments.

Link to tournament results?

Friendly games are being annihilated by the new Tau, no matter what list they take.

Probably because, as we've established, "friendly" for many people seems to mean "unfocused pile of random units". So yes, of course they're getting annihilated by an army that at least helps you avoid making the worst list-building mistakes. Maybe these "friendly" players should try improving their lists a bit before complaining.

And people still claim they aren't strong and there is nothing wrong with the army?

Being strong and being overpowered are not the same thing. Tau are obviously a good army. They are not an overpowered army.

What the hell is wrong with you guys? Just admit it and get on with your lives or stay out of the thread -_-'

IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH ME STOP POASTING PLZ!!!!!!

 Peregrine wrote:
Probably because, as we've established, "friendly" for many people seems to mean "unfocused pile of random units". So yes, of course they're getting annihilated by an army that at least helps you avoid making the worst list-building mistakes.

And as I've seen even the Tau need to have some redundancy in the form of several units that can do the same thing. Once one link in the army goes down the rest lose effectiveness at exponential rates.

My mate's outflanking Kroot are generally useless because he only has one large pack of them. They hurt my backfield a bit, then get killed. Suits need to be deployed in numbers too, otherwise they'll get chewed up or be forced to JSJ out of the way of the main battle. And the poor firewarriors and pathfinders can't really take anything once even one SoB squad with flamer/heavy flamer gets close enough (and they eventually do because I run several in rhinos). Even if I'm forced to disembark and footslog from a wrecked rhino I'm already in range to throw some bolter shots upfield, and it doesn't take many casualties to force a morale check on the Tau troops. No troops, no scoring.

Tau are good not overpowered.

Overpowered means nigh unbeatable.
Just as a sign from all the Tau players how many times have you lost?

I run the army I listed earlier and have lost to (excluding allies):
Tyranids,
Dark Eldar
Eldar,
Chaos Daemons

notice the distinct lack of MEQ. I think it's a power armour thing, but equally I haven't had the chance to play many with this list yet.

It seems like the problem stems from PA armies that are getting the hump.

Kangodo wrote:
Is this thread still going on?
They are powerful.
They are dominating Tournaments.
Friendly games are being annihilated by the new Tau, no matter what list they take.

And people still claim they aren't strong and there is nothing wrong with the army?
What the hell is wrong with you guys? Just admit it and get on with your lives or stay out of the thread -_-'

I think someone is a bit angry.

They are powerful
They are dominating tournaments.
Freindly games are being annihilated.

I don't know what the your issue is with Tau but it is deep seeded. They are honestly a decent army with decent toys that can do things really well because of synergy. You take a unit out it weakens the entire army, You take markerlights out you weaken the entire army. So far every argument that makes Tau seem to be uber awesome and amazing has been countered with rational, logical, kind explanations on why that belief is bunk. In response we get posts like yours. Nothing but anger, resentment and a dose of spite just because for some reason you have a bitter vendetta against a particular army.

Perhaps you should stay out of the thread if you have nothing credible to say with actual facts to backup your statements.

To add to that, It's not just the army but sometimes also the player - skill, experience and opponents not used to their own army.

For example... People were a bit upset at our Necron player in our friendly mini-tournament last year where he mostly crushed everything thrown at him. But the fact is he's also a very good player. He did an extra game, taking one of the armies he absolutely crushed and played it against his own Necrons (another player playing them). He crushed them too.

 Grimskul wrote:

Spoiler:

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

Er...no offense but have you faced Orks before? Either in green tide or battlewagon bash format? Because number one while you're right about trukk boyz being small in number typically that is mitigated by having another set of trukk boyz tagging along to provide additional support/soak overwatch fire. Anyone who runs Speed Freaks/Trukk Spam knows that you always go with the buddy system so you're not just using 12 boyz to do the work for you.

Furthermore it seems you ignored my post about Battlewagon Bash and Ork Boyz of 20 inside them. They are by far more common than Trukk Boyz and are far more fearsome as well with their additional numbers and thanks to it being open-topped they can be assault vehicles AND mobile-dakka bunkers that are relatively impervious to your vaunted S5 dakka as well with shoota boyz. Also they do have access to special weapons and you can't ignore this simply because you don't like rokkit launchas. You forget they have dirt cheap big shootas which only add to their massive volume of shots from shoota boyz and while rokkit launchas may not be the bees knees like meltas it does provide an alternative supply of supplementary anti-vehicle fire especially in this edition where you just need to knock off a few hull points and the vehicle is wrecked. This is furthered from the addition of the PK nob that still is invaluable this edition for cracking open tanks and tearing through people in challenges. Plus in a green tide list cumulative amounts of rokkit launchas and big shootas take their toll which you can't easily eliminate like devastators thanks to the high number of ablative wounds.

Also in terms of bolter over watch...again it's only on rolls of 6 to hit and not like the end all be all as you make it seem. Orks are all about numbers so even if one unit gets chewed up by supporting fire (which again makes them vulnerable to multi-assault and blast/flamer templates) it means the rest of the boyz are able to get stuck in after they waste all their shots on one unit. And if they spread it out over the others then they just set themselves up for more units to deal with to tear them apart in melee.

Of course the individual ork dies relatively fast (and even then at least they're T4) that's why they're bloody 6 points each and you take more than 12 of them to take on a unit! That's why mob rules there to give them fearless when they inevitably take casualties, and they can handle it! What more do you want? T10? 3++ invuln. save? I swear some people are so used to playing MEQ and TEQ armies that they can't understand how horde armies work and that armour saves by themselves are not what makes a unit useful.

1000 point list

4 trukks of boyz (~600pts)
1 hq(~100pts)
+extra (pair of dakkajets, 1 bw with boyz or something else)

I would recon that two units of fire warroirs can take out majority of that list pretty easily while only costing 1/5 of total point costs.

You only have one turn to take it out if you go second. Two if you go first. Fire warriors aren't taking out all that in one/two turns. Not only that, but it's a bad list.
Trukk spam isn't effective with only 4 trukks, and so going BW spam would work better. This would mean more boyz, and more AV14. Good luck fire warriors.

I have to agree, Trukk spam lists is just that spamming the hell out of trukk's You can never go wrong with a mass amount of boys green wave is devastating to almost all the armies out there right now.

Flying Toaster wrote:



I think someone is a bit angry.

They are powerful
They are dominating tournaments.
Freindly games are being annihilated.

I don't know what the your issue is with Tau but it is deep seeded. They are honestly a decent army with decent toys that can do things really well because of synergy. You take a unit out it weakens the entire army, You take markerlights out you weaken the entire army. So far every argument that makes Tau seem to be uber awesome and amazing has been countered with rational, logical, kind explanations on why that belief is bunk. In response we get posts like yours. Nothing but anger, resentment and a dose of spite just because for some reason you have a bitter vendetta against a particular army.

Perhaps you should stay out of the thread if you have nothing credible to say with actual facts to backup your statements.

I don't have any personal issues with the Tau. Our group hardly plays them.
I do have an issue with people denying the obvious.

People have explained the issue with Tau more than enough, you should really show me those "counters".
All I get in return is stuff like "but they are really weak in melee!", how many times do you want me to point out that this melee-weakness is nonsense?

Kangodo wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:



I think someone is a bit angry.

They are powerful
They are dominating tournaments.
Freindly games are being annihilated.

I don't know what the your issue is with Tau but it is deep seeded. They are honestly a decent army with decent toys that can do things really well because of synergy. You take a unit out it weakens the entire army, You take markerlights out you weaken the entire army. So far every argument that makes Tau seem to be uber awesome and amazing has been countered with rational, logical, kind explanations on why that belief is bunk. In response we get posts like yours. Nothing but anger, resentment and a dose of spite just because for some reason you have a bitter vendetta against a particular army.

Perhaps you should stay out of the thread if you have nothing credible to say with actual facts to backup your statements.

I don't have any personal issues with the Tau. Our group hardly plays them.
I do have an issue with people denying the obvious.

People have explained the issue with Tau more than enough, you should really show me those "counters".
All I get in return is stuff like "but they are really weak in melee!", how many times do you want me to point out that this melee-weakness is nonsense?

If all you have gotten from this thread so far is that "melee-weakness" is the only chink in Tau's armor then you need to re-read the entire thread. There have been multiple posts explaining more than once how to deal with all the complaints people have against Tau.

As far as your argument about me having to re-explain everything in the thread again posted by Tau commanders perhaps you should do as I previously stated and re-read the thread. If you have an issue with this thread in general perhaps you should just not lurk in it. It does seem that you have exceeding bitterness against this particular army for reasons unknown other then the supposed "obvious" that honestly is not so obvious in the first place other than lackluster complaints from people that are not willing to change their play-styles or army lists.

Tactical_Genius wrote:
You only have one turn to take it out if you go second. Two if you go first. Fire warriors aren't taking out all that in one/two turns. Not only that, but it's a bad list.
Trukk spam isn't effective with only 4 trukks, and so going BW spam would work better. This would mean more boyz, and more AV14. Good luck fire warriors.

With bw spam you can have max 3 units of boyz and 1 warboss

mega warboss w/ cybork + attack squig
20x boyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
20x boyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
18xboyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
3x bw w/ deff rolla
5 lootas

998

This list couldn't kill a single riptide without focusing entire army on the riptide.

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:
You only have one turn to take it out if you go second. Two if you go first. Fire warriors aren't taking out all that in one/two turns. Not only that, but it's a bad list.
Trukk spam isn't effective with only 4 trukks, and so going BW spam would work better. This would mean more boyz, and more AV14. Good luck fire warriors.

With bw spam you can have max 3 units of boyz and 1 warboss

mega warboss w/ cybork + attack squig
20x boyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
20x boyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
18xboyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
3x bw w/ deff rolla
5 lootas

998

This list couldn't kill a single riptide without focusing entire army on the riptide.

Good thing you only need to lock it for the rest of the game.

Is there really anything left to discuss in this thread? (besides from OPs Battle date?)

 illuknisaa wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

Spoiler:

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

Er...no offense but have you faced Orks before? Either in green tide or battlewagon bash format? Because number one while you're right about trukk boyz being small in number typically that is mitigated by having another set of trukk boyz tagging along to provide additional support/soak overwatch fire. Anyone who runs Speed Freaks/Trukk Spam knows that you always go with the buddy system so you're not just using 12 boyz to do the work for you.

Furthermore it seems you ignored my post about Battlewagon Bash and Ork Boyz of 20 inside them. They are by far more common than Trukk Boyz and are far more fearsome as well with their additional numbers and thanks to it being open-topped they can be assault vehicles AND mobile-dakka bunkers that are relatively impervious to your vaunted S5 dakka as well with shoota boyz. Also they do have access to special weapons and you can't ignore this simply because you don't like rokkit launchas. You forget they have dirt cheap big shootas which only add to their massive volume of shots from shoota boyz and while rokkit launchas may not be the bees knees like meltas it does provide an alternative supply of supplementary anti-vehicle fire especially in this edition where you just need to knock off a few hull points and the vehicle is wrecked. This is furthered from the addition of the PK nob that still is invaluable this edition for cracking open tanks and tearing through people in challenges. Plus in a green tide list cumulative amounts of rokkit launchas and big shootas take their toll which you can't easily eliminate like devastators thanks to the high number of ablative wounds.

Also in terms of bolter over watch...again it's only on rolls of 6 to hit and not like the end all be all as you make it seem. Orks are all about numbers so even if one unit gets chewed up by supporting fire (which again makes them vulnerable to multi-assault and blast/flamer templates) it means the rest of the boyz are able to get stuck in after they waste all their shots on one unit. And if they spread it out over the others then they just set themselves up for more units to deal with to tear them apart in melee.

Of course the individual ork dies relatively fast (and even then at least they're T4) that's why they're bloody 6 points each and you take more than 12 of them to take on a unit! That's why mob rules there to give them fearless when they inevitably take casualties, and they can handle it! What more do you want? T10? 3++ invuln. save? I swear some people are so used to playing MEQ and TEQ armies that they can't understand how horde armies work and that armour saves by themselves are not what makes a unit useful.

1000 point list

4 trukks of boyz (~600pts)
1 hq(~100pts)
+extra (pair of dakkajets, 1 bw with boyz or something else)

I would recon that two units of fire warroirs can take out majority of that list pretty easily while only costing 1/5 of total point costs.

I notice you haven't bothered to give any expository arguments or evidence as to my previous arguments as Tactical_Genius pointed out...

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Not to mention that this list only accounts for trukk boyz and not battlewagon bash nor a green tide list both of which are even more likely to hand a castling Tau-gun line formation their asses. Also you chose a random trukk list without giving any details as to how it would be defeated by 2 units of fire warriors considering that "100 point HQ" is probably a Big Mek with a KFF making the survival of those trukks even more likely. Throw in the fact that those tau fire warrior units can each only shoot at one trukk at a time alongside the possibility of night fighting makes it even harder for them to likely down them fast enough to handle the additional trukks with boyz. If the orks manage to get first turn the Tau basically have only one round of shooting (because going flat out mixed in with normal movement makes them dangerously close with a 24" zoom down the table) possible to try and take out a max of 2 trukks which may or may not kareen + explode into your Tau Fire Warrior units or just break down with no Ork casualties. Furthermore, I'm presuming that those 2 units are castling within 6" of each other for supporting fire, meaning that they are easily in range of getting multi-assaulted making them even likelier to get caught in combat simultaneously and likely wiping them out even with a weakened squad of boyz.

Then against stuff like Battlewagon Bash you require, as previously shown, outside help from Crisis Suits, Hammerheads, Broadsides or Riptides to handle the high frontal AV or to try and get side/rear armour shots that Fire Warriors would find hard to manoeuvre around without being assaulted by the unit inside or tank shocked into submission. Which this reliance on external helps results in showing that as troops choices they are not self-sufficient enough to be considered top tier troops choices. Even with EMP grenades they need to get close which defeats the purpose of having long-ranged weaponry.

Similarly for a Green Tide list Tau Fire warriors would be hard pressed to keep down 2 30-man mobz of Shoota Boyz where green tides easily have double or triple that number which, in conjunction with one another, easily start adding casualties with their loads of dakka (with on-par range thanks to big shootas, etc.) that steadily decreases the amount of return fire from your own Fire Warriors due to their small model count and their average leadership means they can and will flee once they take too many casualties.

This alongside many other issues with Fire Warriors that you have not answered leaves me very confused as to how you agree they're one of the top tier choices in 40K.

It seems that the only people who have a legit complaint against tau are those that face 3 riptides.

While some stuff is strong (HQs, suits, support elements) I wouldn't call any of it OP.
the troops aren't the strong part of the dex, and orks are an older codex regardless.

Put a 1k list of tau against csm, da (weaker 6th dexes), or Eldar, and I doubt you'll see a disparity.
At 2k, unless 3 riptides are taken, I'd still give even odds to any of those armies chances.

 Desubot wrote:

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:
You only have one turn to take it out if you go second. Two if you go first. Fire warriors aren't taking out all that in one/two turns. Not only that, but it's a bad list.
Trukk spam isn't effective with only 4 trukks, and so going BW spam would work better. This would mean more boyz, and more AV14. Good luck fire warriors.

With bw spam you can have max 3 units of boyz and 1 warboss

mega warboss w/ cybork + attack squig
20x boyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
20x boyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
18xboyz w/ nob+pk+bosspole
3x bw w/ deff rolla
5 lootas

998

This list couldn't kill a single riptide without focusing entire army on the riptide.

Good thing you only need to lock it for the rest of the game.

Is there really anything left to discuss in this thread? (besides from OPs Battle date?)

Honestly this thread is just funny now. I am curious as well to how the OP's games go today and tomorrow against his opponent. But till then we have this roflcopter of a thread and people keep contributing the funny complaints.

 Grimskul wrote:

 illuknisaa wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:

Spoiler:

 illuknisaa wrote:

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
9 pts for 30" str 5 weapon, and 4+ save is huge...

ethereals are dirt cheap, and give a ld10 bubble , + more shots and buffs, to all the fire warriors around them.

thats far more effective then 1.5 orks
the orks will get shot before they get 24" to the tau...

orks do not have a 6+ FNP yet, so thats really not a good arguement to make...

tau get 4+ armour with cheap long ranged str 5 shots for 9pts, thats dirt cheap, for high str, range, 4+ is an awesome armour save... thats almost marine level, sure flamers/autocanons/hbolters go through it... so what... no small arms fire goes through it, and that is the point... may as well say 3+ armour is useless because of plasma/helldrakes too.

He never said anything about 6+ FNP. And you can't say that they're better because they're cheap, and then go on to say you have to buy another character for them. That doesn't work.
Ethereals also give up VP, which isn't good in an edition that often comes down to secondaries.

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Orks in trukks lack numbers too (max unit size 12)
Orks lack special weapons too (1 per 10 models and rokkits are useless)
I already die to bolter over watch. Guess how well I will survive a str 5 bolter overwatch from multible units
I got 6+ save
Nope. Orks have very poor staying power. Hard to get into cc, lack the puch to do anything, furious charge wears off.

Er...no offense but have you faced Orks before? Either in green tide or battlewagon bash format? Because number one while you're right about trukk boyz being small in number typically that is mitigated by having another set of trukk boyz tagging along to provide additional support/soak overwatch fire. Anyone who runs Speed Freaks/Trukk Spam knows that you always go with the buddy system so you're not just using 12 boyz to do the work for you.

Furthermore it seems you ignored my post about Battlewagon Bash and Ork Boyz of 20 inside them. They are by far more common than Trukk Boyz and are far more fearsome as well with their additional numbers and thanks to it being open-topped they can be assault vehicles AND mobile-dakka bunkers that are relatively impervious to your vaunted S5 dakka as well with shoota boyz. Also they do have access to special weapons and you can't ignore this simply because you don't like rokkit launchas. You forget they have dirt cheap big shootas which only add to their massive volume of shots from shoota boyz and while rokkit launchas may not be the bees knees like meltas it does provide an alternative supply of supplementary anti-vehicle fire especially in this edition where you just need to knock off a few hull points and the vehicle is wrecked. This is furthered from the addition of the PK nob that still is invaluable this edition for cracking open tanks and tearing through people in challenges. Plus in a green tide list cumulative amounts of rokkit launchas and big shootas take their toll which you can't easily eliminate like devastators thanks to the high number of ablative wounds.

Also in terms of bolter over watch...again it's only on rolls of 6 to hit and not like the end all be all as you make it seem. Orks are all about numbers so even if one unit gets chewed up by supporting fire (which again makes them vulnerable to multi-assault and blast/flamer templates) it means the rest of the boyz are able to get stuck in after they waste all their shots on one unit. And if they spread it out over the others then they just set themselves up for more units to deal with to tear them apart in melee.

Of course the individual ork dies relatively fast (and even then at least they're T4) that's why they're bloody 6 points each and you take more than 12 of them to take on a unit! That's why mob rules there to give them fearless when they inevitably take casualties, and they can handle it! What more do you want? T10? 3++ invuln. save? I swear some people are so used to playing MEQ and TEQ armies that they can't understand how horde armies work and that armour saves by themselves are not what makes a unit useful.

1000 point list

4 trukks of boyz (~600pts)
1 hq(~100pts)
+extra (pair of dakkajets, 1 bw with boyz or something else)

I would recon that two units of fire warroirs can take out majority of that list pretty easily while only costing 1/5 of total point costs.

I notice you haven't bothered to give any expository arguments or evidence as to my previous arguments as Tactical_Genius pointed out...

You have failed to address most of the points given:
•Lack of numbers.
•Lack of special/heavy weapons
•Have to pay a premium for support to make them effective (ethereals, fireblades, markerlights etc.), which means they aren't cheap at all. Grey Hunters are far better on their own in this respect.
•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.
•Orks are probably better for staying power because of T4.

Not to mention that this list only accounts for trukk boyz and not battlewagon bash nor a green tide list both of which are even more likely to hand a castling Tau-gun line formation their asses. Also you chose a random trukk list without giving any details as to how it would be defeated by 2 units of fire warriors considering that "100 point HQ" is probably a Big Mek with a KFF making the survival of those trukks even more likely. Throw in the fact that those tau fire warrior units can each only shoot at one trukk at a time alongside the possibility of night fighting makes it even harder for them to likely down them fast enough to handle the additional trukks with boyz. If the orks manage to get first turn the Tau basically have only one round of shooting (because going flat out mixed in with normal movement makes them dangerously close with a 24" zoom down the table) possible to try and take out a max of 2 trukks which may or may not kareen + explode into your Tau Fire Warrior units or just break down with no Ork casualties. Furthermore, I'm presuming that those 2 units are castling within 6" of each other for supporting fire, meaning that they are easily in range of getting multi-assaulted making them even likelier to get caught in combat simultaneously and likely wiping them out even with a weakened squad of boyz.

Then against stuff like Battlewagon Bash you require, as previously show, outside help from Crisis Suits, Hammerheads, Broadsides or Riptides to handle the high frontal AV or to try and get side/rear armour shots that Fire Warriors would find hard to manoeuvre around without being assaulted by the unit inside or tank shocked into submission. Which this reliance on external helps results in showing that as troops choices they are not self-sufficient enough to be considered top tier troops choices. Even with EMP grenades they need to get close which defeats the purpose of having long-ranged weaponry.

Similarly for a Green Tide list Tau Fire warriors would be hard pressed to keep down 2 30-man mobz of Shoota Boyz where green tides easily have double or triple that number which, in conjunction with one another, easily start adding casualties with their loads of dakka (with on-par range thanks to big shootas, etc.) that steadily decreases the amount of return fire from your own Fire Warriors due to their small model count and their average leadership means they can and will flee once they take too many casualties.

This alongside many other issues with Fire Warriors that you have not answered leaves me very confused as to how you agree they're one of the top tier choices in 40K.

^ This man knows his stuff
1k Green Tide (rough):
Big MEk w. KFF ~100pts (IIRC)
boyz ~ 220 (again, IIRC)
boyz ~ 220 (again, IIRC)
boyz ~ 220 (again, IIRC)
boyz ~ 220 (again, IIRC)
Maybe lose some boyz somewhere get some big gunz?

Either way, that list is pretty solid against Tau. Good Luck mr Fish.

FYI I am most likely getting in the first game tonight. I modified the criteria for the battle a bit, however.

I did this primarily based on the feedback received from everyone (both on suggestions on how to fight them, what to take with DA, rules clarifications..etc).

It's pretty obvious that optimized Tau will roflstomp most things, especially older/less focused lists. So we decided to take 'somewhat' competitive lists and see how the books fare against each other. Neither of us are going to spam anything, but we are going to bring good units and maintain as much synergy as we can without going full on 'tournament' mode.

The list I posted a while ago is predominately the same, I just tweaked a few things (mostly because I wasn't able to finish chopping up units and swapping weapons in time).

-Instead of Belial, I took Azrael who will be joining a Tac Squad in one of the pods. The reason I took him over Belial is that I worked in a Bike squad (instead of the Assault Squads) for another fast unit, and he makes them scoring WITH the Terminators. He can also double-tab a Blinding Plasmagun the turn he lands. All of the Tacticals + Terminators should be able to shoot 8 Plasma shots on turn 1. I intend to murder his Riptide this way.

-The Lascannon Devastators have been replaced with Plasma Cannons (removed from the podding Tacticals since they can't really benefit the turn they drop). I should be up in his face enough with this list with a lot of threats to vehicles to the point I am not concerned with not having these. If he mechs up that is less points shooting at me en mass, which is fine. Besides, 4 plasma cannon shots from a Dev squad is hilarious against suits, riptides, and any exposed troops

Really the only major changes. The list is very similar, just tweaked slightly for more plasma spam (I kept meltas on the bikes, however)

Thoughts before the game?

I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Best of luck with the game. The only major thing I can tell you is that Warhammer 40k is an objective based game. You will come out on top if you stay focused on your objectives. Focus on taking out his troops and try to ignore the rest if you can while camping on objectives or moving to contest already taken objectives.

Flying Toaster wrote:
Best of luck with the game. The only major thing I can tell you is that Warhammer 40k is an objective based game. You will come out on top if you stay focused on your objectives. Focus on taking out his troops and try to ignore the rest if you can while camping on objectives or moving to contest already taken objectives.

Yep. I combat squad one of the podding tacticals, and the scouts. That makes 8 scoring units in the list, 11 if it's Big Guns Never Tire. I fully intend to break apart the synergy units Tau rely on and use literally 75% of my army to play for the objectives

i dont personally like plasma cannons, they just seem bad to me. I understand why you would go with them though.
Good luck with it.

Boniface wrote:
i dont personally like plasma cannons, they just seem bad to me. I understand why you would go with them though.
Good luck with it.

Well I swapped for a few reasons- I have a saturation of things that can deal with Vehicles that are deep striking on Turn 1. The Missile Devs can also be used for this purpose.

While 4 Lascannons would be nice for the vehicles/riptides, I think the Plasma Cannons are overall a bigger threat to the vast majority of what Tau can bring to the table. Kroot? Ouch. Suits? Ouch. Firewarriors/Pathfinders? Ouch. Riptide? Ouch.

Granted I will probably end up blowing my own guys up, but I have a feeling these guys will draw a lot of attention simply because they do present such a big threat to what he typically brings. And for 130 points, it's not a huge deal if I lose it. The less fire he draws on my alpha strike the harder it will be for him to run away.

Is there really anything left to discuss in this thread? (besides from OPs Battle date?)

Honestly, no.

No one is changing anyone's mind here.


I know my (nor anyone else's) arguments have not swayed any of the "Tau are overpowered / ruining the game / , and i know none of their arguments have swayed me from thinking Tau are fine and are currently basking in some overdue codex limelight-ery.



-- Haight

Edited to remove some mildly sarcastic language meant in jest, but in retrospect could have been read as me being a dousche (which was not intended).

XenosTerminus wrote:

Boniface wrote:
i dont personally like plasma cannons, they just seem bad to me. I understand why you would go with them though.
Good luck with it.

Well I swapped for a few reasons- I have a saturation of things that can deal with Vehicles that are deep striking on Turn 1. The Missile Devs can also be used for this purpose.

While 4 Lascannons would be nice for the vehicles/riptides, I think the Plasma Cannons are overall a bigger threat to the vast majority of what Tau can bring to the table. Kroot? Ouch. Suits? Ouch. Firewarriors/Pathfinders? Ouch. Riptide? Ouch.

Granted I will probably end up blowing my own guys up, but I have a feeling these guys will draw a lot of attention simply because they do present such a big threat to what he typically brings. And for 130 points, it's not a huge deal if I lose it. The less fire he draws on my alpha strike the harder it will be for him to run away.

There is nothing wrong with Plasma. Please for the love of all that is good and right in the world post your battle results tonight from tonight's game. I am really curious to see how your opponent plays his army and if there are anymore glaringly off issues that you might encounter. If you have more rule questions shoot me a PM and I will be happy to answer any and all of them.

Good luck on the battle. Do tell us how it went with new options and the ideas presented here. I know Tau aren't invincible but they do hurt things, a lot. :-)

 Grimskul wrote:

•No staying power. 10 rapid firing bolters at fire warriors will kill 4 (that being the most likely result). This is appalling for 9ppm.

I'm not really invested in this either way, though I will say, and have said many times, that unless you are putting a proper amount of LoS blocking terrain down, all shooting armies (this includes but is not limited to Tau) have a big advantage in this edition.

However, this quoted section is just not true. Only losing 4 Tau to 20 Bolter shots is pretty good for a basic trooper that costs 9 points. Eldar Guardians would lose 80/9 wounds or approximately 9 models in this same scenario at the same points level. Now, I'm not arguing that Guardians are poorly costed, I think they are about right, but Tau Fire Warriors are far from flimsy at the 9 point mark.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but guardians are considered a lousy troop choice for eldar army, no?


And "only" losing 4 guys to 20 bolter shots...bolter shots....
Bolters were ever a viable threat?

Tau...haven't really played them but I'll tell you what I don't like about them...the FLUFF!!!

Arrghh the Tau sound like such over achievers who are just full on annoying!!!!

They don't like getting their precious hands dirty so close combat is a no-no, the just like to sit on their lazy bums and shoot from the other side of the battlefield.

So that is why there is Dark Eldar. Fly them in super fast before the Tau even realize and the CC all the way, sprinkled with some poisoned shots. HA

Take that rainbow farting idealists!

Oh that felt good...

DrSchwartz wrote:
Tau...haven't really played them but I'll tell you what I don't like about them...the FLUFF!!!

Arrghh the Tau sound like such over achievers who are just full on annoying!!!!

They don't like getting their precious hands dirty so close combat is a no-no, the just like to sit on their lazy bums and shoot from the other side of the battlefield.

So that is why there is Dark Eldar. Fly them in super fast before the Tau even realize and the CC all the way, sprinkled with some poisoned shots. HA

Take that rainbow farting idealists!

Oh that felt good...

Dark Eldar? The original Alpha Strike army? The one that in 5th edition either shot off your entire army off the table due to massed venoms and darklights, or exploded on the first turn.

Haha, yes you make a fair point

 BoomWolf wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but guardians are considered a lousy troop choice for eldar army, no?


And "only" losing 4 guys to 20 bolter shots...bolter shots....
Bolters were ever a viable threat?

Huh? Guardians are widely considered one of the best Troop choices in the game now.

By popular request, the results of last nights battle.

I can post the exact army list once he sends it to me, but I can quickly overview what he took:

-The Suit Commander with his Missile posse (like last time)
-An Ethereal
-3 Big squads of Fire Warriors
-1 Small Squad of Fire Warriors in a Devil Fish
-An ADL
-2 Ion Heads
-1 Rail Head
-1 Riptide
-2 Groups of Kroot with a hound in each
-2 Groups of Pathfinders
-1 Group of Stealth Suits

I posted the changes to my original list earlier, so I won't review that unless requested. This will be fairly detailed, so a warning that a wall of text will be inevitable- this is primarily to analyze the direction my list went (more competitive than last time).

It was 3 Objectives, Diagonal Deployment (a blessing and a curse).

I went first.

He deployed his ADL in is corner in front of a large area terrain ruin. the 3 large Fire Warrior Squads and all 3 Tanks deployed behind the ADL, along with the Riptide and one Pathfinder Squad. Everything else reserved. I deployed my Devs and Whirlwind/Scouts in or behind cover in the back field where the 3 objectives were. He had none in his deployment zone.

Azreal and his Tactical Squad, the Dreadnought Drop Pod, and both Terminator Squads deep struck in his face. The Bikes Scouted forward towards the ADL and behind the pods that landed.

He Intercepted Azraels Squad. Direct hit. 5 die even with his 4+ Invuln boost. Wonderful start.

All of my Dakka and the Flame from the Dread manage to take out the Pathfinder Squad and probably 5-6 Fire Warriors. I originally planned to Alpha Strike and assassinate the Riptide, but he deployed it behind the ADL, Fire Warriors, and a Tank. I had no room/good LOS to it, and even if I did put all my strikers near it and pour some fire into it, I would have taken far more casualties in the following turn with the Pathfinder support and more Fire Warriors alive.

My Back Field heavy support is all out of range of anything meaningful, which is also unfortunate. I couldn't deploy anything in or near cover and also in range.

On his Turn he killed all but my Attack Bike, one Terminator, and a few more Tacs/wounded Azrael once. Not as much damage as I expected, honestly.

The following turn was actually very devastating for him. I made a mistake with a Terminator Squad, though. I split fired on one of his tanks with the Assault Cannon, which prevented me from charging a Fire Warrior squad behind the ADL. I still managed to charge this same squad with one of the Tacticals, though. I split Azrael up so he could charge the Ethereals Squad, The Dread moved into position to flame the third Fire Warrior Squad/charge, and the Attack Bike moved towards a tank.

The Dread flamed and killed 8 Fire Warriors- satisfying to say the least. The Bike hit/penned, but he made his cover save (naturally). I then made all 4 charges.

This is where my rolling started to quickly spiral out of control. I didn't do much damage with my Tacticals, so the combat stuck. Azrael did a lot of damage (Ethereal denied challenge). Dread killed 1 out of the 2 remaining Fire Warriors (Dreads are embarrassingly bad in combat- a huge pet peeve of mine). The Bike did not mange to glance the tank.

The LD buff/Stubborn from the Ethereal allowed everyone but the squad Azrael charged to stay in combat- this squad ran away, however, and I rolled a 1 (+5 I). He rolled a 6. He ran away from Azrael. God dangit.

On his next turn his Ethereal Fire Warrior Squad rallied. He moved his tanks around the ruin and started to move towards the mid field along with his Riptide (failed an overcharge). One group of Kroot outflanked on the opposite board side near my scouts/devs. His suit commander deep struck over here as well, but behind a lot of terrain. His Stealth Suits, the Battle Suits, the Riptide, and the Kroot all took shots at my backfield support. I ended up losing all but 4 scouts, and several Dev models. He shook the Whirlwind. The ongoing assaults continued. I didn't do much damage, again. This is also a big pet peeve of mine. Although Tau have literally half the WS, they still hit you on 4's. The games WORST army in melee still hit's Marines on 4's. Well done GW. He also killed my attack Bike this turn.

Next, my other tac squad podded in and landed right in front of his Kroot squad that just arrived from reserve. I made sure to deploy on the other side of the pod to block LOS to his riptide that would have been in LOS, because the bastard can Intercept nearly anywhere on the damn board. A group of Termies joined the combat with the Tacs to finish it up, while the other squad started to head towards the central objective. Azrael joined the Dreadnought combat since my opponent added more fodder via deployed drones from his tanks before he moved. His goal was to tie the dread up as long as he could, which was working. I actually had targets for my devs now. The missiles/plasma cannons all fired at his suit squad. The missiles did nothing except against his commander who was up front next (he rolled a 1 for armor save). One Plasma Cannon overheated, 2 went way off target, and one hit. Total of 4 hits. 3 wounds. All this did was kill two drones near him. My podded Tacticals open fired at the Kroot in the open and killed all but 2. The few scouts I had left had no real good targets, so fired at the stealh suits. I managed to kill 2. He went to ground, though. In Assaults, my termies cleaned up the remaining Fire Warrior Squad tied up with the tacs, and Azzy/the Dread rolled like gak again and were left with 1/2 models left out of 3 separate units of Fire Warriors/Deployed drones. His Kroot broke and ran from the shooting.

On his turn the rest of his reserves came. The Pathfinders walked near the Dread/Azzy combat to further speedbumb me, while his Devil Fish with Fire Warriros in it drove on near his suits towards two of the objectives. His Ethereal Fire Warriors Separated and moved towards the Azzy/Dread combat. The Riptide moved towards my Devs along with his suits. The other Kroot squad walked on near the Tac Squad I podded. His shooting wasn't terribly good this turn. He finished a Scout Squad, killed all but one Missile Dev, and all but 2 remaining Plasma Devs. His Kroot took out a few Tacticals as well. He just sent more fodder into the Azzy combat, which went decently well for me. Still stuck in combat with a handful of models, though.

On my turn. I continued to move the termies towards the central objective. I hid my scouts behind a ruin. The Whirlwind moved because it could shoot now with a clear LOS shot, no obstructions, to his pathfinders that walked on. I managed to kill all but 1 (because he went to ground). 2 Plasma Cannon shots at the Riptide- 1 wound caused (invluln saved the other). Tacs opened up with pistols and killed 4 kroot. I charged. The tacs killed most kroot but he actually made his LD test so I stuck around (what I wanted). Azzy/the Dread cleaned up finally and consolidated. The Dread towards the center, Azzy to try to assassinate his Ethereal for a VP/Line Break.

On his turn he continued to move his tanks away from the dread/towards the objectives, and he parked his Devil Fish behind a ruin by the middle objective. He started to move his Riptide/Suits towards the middle to intercept the Termies coming towards the objective. He took a lot of shots at them, but I rolled 2+ saves like a boss. Not a terribly great turn for him really. He did take out my Whirlwind, though.The tacs finished the Kroot and consolidated onto an objective.

On my turn I really didn't have much left other than the termies and that tac squad... just a few remnants of support. The Termies moved onto the middle objective and fired at his Devil Fish. Nothing. In fact, I did essentially nothing to his vehicles all game with the Assault Cannon, random Plasma, Melta, and the Rocket Devs. He consistently made his 4+ saves, or I rolled poorly on the damage chart and did nothing but HP loss. Azzy Charged an Ion Head- only a HP loss. That's right. 5 hits with STR6- only one HP lost. 3 more plasma shots at the Riptide. Down to 1 wound. I can't roll well to save my life.

His turn he moved onto on objective with his Devil Fish Fire Warriors (disembarked on it). Riptide moved towards my Tacs/Devs on the objective. Commander and suits moved towards the Termies. He unloaded on me with everything he had left. Tacs down to 1 man. Termies down to 3 in 1 squad, 1 in another. Azzy got punked by a singled Rail shot and gibbed. Dread was immobilized. Scouts killed. Game went on.

Two Plasma Devs shot and hit the Riptide. 2 Wounds. He made both invulns. Termies charged his suits (I absorbed overwatch with the singleton termy, who died). He took the challenge with a crisis leader. I hit 3 times and rolled 3 ones to wound. He caused one wound to the Sergeant and killed him. Hammers managed to murder every other suit in the squad except the challenge.

On his turn he moved an Ion head in front of the Objective I planned to consolidate on after (hopefully) finishing the last suit in melee. He killed the last tac. As you can probably guess, he won via the back field objective- he also joined the termy combat with the riptide to tie it up just in case. I did kill it with the hammer, though.

So Tau won. Overall I think my list is headed in a good direction. I certainly did a lot more damage to him, and this was with rolling like absolute gak through most of the game (he mentioned it to me during the game- I didn't even say anything about my rolls. You know it's bad when your opponent says something to you and you haven't).

This list, with more tweaks/optimizations, would be very effective against Tau gun lines. My opponent is unique, however, in that he takes a lot of non-traditional units he outflanks with/deep strikes. That is the issue with fighting his list with what I have been advised to take VS Tau. The more resources I devote to crushing his back field, the less I have to support mine (which allowed him to mop up and take over that board side). I considered keeping more units back, but had I not devoted as many resources as I did his line probably would have held. It was a catch 22.

I honestly don't think I made too many tactical errors (save the Termy thing early game). The Riptide is still ludicrous (I will relent and say I don't think Tau is OP, but the Riptide is undercosted- really? 5 Points for the Plasma Upgrade GW? I pay 15 points for a freaking Plasma Pistol). Obviously I rolled poorly. My opponent also likes Tau Tanks, which I find ridiculously hard to kill with Marines. That 4+ and AV12/13 really makes it difficult.

It is worth pointing out there was a lot of LOS blocking terrain, to test that Theory. This is not a 'solution' to Tau. JSJ allows his Riptide/Suits to shoot targets and then hide. I can't then shoot him with mass plasma/missiles. My Heavy support is also static and not mobile, so if he isn't in firing lanes the firepower is wasted.

I managed to kill basically everything he had save his Tanks and Suits.

So again, definitely better. My opinion hasn't shifted on the Riptide (God, imagine facing 3), and Tau is still not terribly enjoyable to fight for me, but it was an overall better game. Had I not rolled like absolute balls I may have actually won.

" I rolled a 1 (+5 I). He rolled a 6."
If you Tie, chaser win i though.

And you also should be able to charge still against something that you spit fired with. so long as the original target is what your charging. (IIRC no book in hand atm)

Glad too see though it wasn't a complete roflstomp.

 Desubot wrote:
" I rolled a 1 (+5 I). He rolled a 6."
If you Tie, chaser win i though.

And you also should be able to charge still against something that you spit fired with. so long as the original target is what your charging. (IIRC no book in hand atm)

Glad too see though it wasn't a complete roflstomp.

He rolled a 6, then added his 2I, so he won the rolloff and broke away.

Regading the Split Fire, you are correct, however the Tank was BEHIND the Fire Warriors. I couldn't have charged both since I had no path to the Tank.

To be honest this sounds less like Tau are OP and more like you have bad luck rolling dice. Two very different things. We all have that issue sometimes and it really sucks when it happens.

Edit: Ninja'd by xenos.

Sounds like a decent rematch. Yes Riptide upgrades are too cheap.

One thing though, your opponent made a lot of saves on his Riptide and vehicles. Was his Riptide using its base 5++ save? Did his vehicles have a disruption pod and move every turn for his 4+ cover?

Also I know your pain with bad dice rolls, I've had Farsight fail to kill anything in 3 turns of combat against naked bikers. On the topic of bikes though I highly recommend getting some raven guard. They have the speed and durability to weather some fire and smack some Tau face.

Xenos,I want to point out something you mentioned in your battle report(which was a good read I must say),something that as an Ork player having faced the new tau in several battles.
You wrote;

." Although Tau have literally half the WS, they still hit you on 4's. The games WORST army in melee still hit's Marines on 4's. Well done GW."

I think this flys in the face of all the tau players arguing they "suck in melee"..sorry folks but they aren't that bad at all,mainly due to the inherent game system.Sure tau aren't going to perform in melee like a dedicated assault army but defensivly they can hlold their own and often do just that for a couple of turns tying up a group of said assault troops.Remember..those Firewarriors also have a 4+ armor save which is huge in CC...actually for that matter Tau seem to have an across the board 4+ save vs anything that gets thrown at them but I digress..

Everyone knows the Weapon Skill vs. Weapon Skill table is poorly setup. It always has been.

 Torrent of Ire wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but guardians are considered a lousy troop choice for eldar army, no?


And "only" losing 4 guys to 20 bolter shots...bolter shots....
Bolters were ever a viable threat?

Huh? Guardians are widely considered one of the best Troop choices in the game now.

I think I'm the only one in my group running a true Ulthwe army (based on the limitations placed in third edition) - 2 Farseers, Warlock Council, fewer Aspect squads then Guardian squads, etc..