Just a curiosity this because they're like the most hated army in this edition presently.

I'd like to go on record and say i think assault is still mostly fine the way it is and i dont agree with all the gripes but... you know.

Now i don't think that all the changes are bad. Overwatch is fine, random charge length is fine however i do feel that maybe the charge should be rolled before overwatch so you can see if they were successful or not. I'd rather that than just saying "i'm gonna charge you," then person B shooting you and saying "not any more your not." at least this way your committing to the action first.

If outflank/scout assault was still possible etc.

So if there weren't so many 'nerfs' to assault in 6th ED would the Tau be less hated, or are we just doomed?

The whole point of doing overwatch, before rolling for charge distance is to make it more likely that you'll fail your charge roll. There are some units that badly need some special rules to allow them to charge the turn they come on. (( Yes I'm looking at you Genestealers )) but then I got into the game again just as 6th was being released, so I don't know 5th as well as I know 6th.

Tau are just one of those armies, that you either love them, or you hate the space communists. A lot of the rage directed at them, is the fact that they can get high strength, low AP large blasts, that ignore cover, so people used to getting armor saves (like Space marines) are now having a hard time dealing with them.

Tau were hated even when they were the unquestionably weakest codex in the game and the only thing going for them was OP broadsides, while everything else was overcosted, sometimes by huge factors.

Last codex had weaker burst cannons, weaker pulse carbines, weaker EMP grenades, less versatile and less equipped crisis suits, ethereal were outright harmful to have, etc...
Almost everything costed more-and had less.

The tau hate has NOTHING to do with power, its just that some people cant accept their whole being in the 40K universe.
Yaknow, someone who is actually trying to be good, and not outright "OMG SO GRIMDARK!" somehow ruins their galaxy.

Not to mention that the hardcore assault lovers seem to find it somehow wrong that somebody is trying to AVOID combat, rather then jump at them with his own assault units.

Assault was nerfed hard, you know why?
Because last edition, a SINGLE squad of the not-too-impressive assault marines, could wipe out an entire shooter army, without the shooter even getting a chance to respond. ("Wiped your squad? great, consolidate into another, fight, you can't shoot me, and got no chance to win combat.")

And still, some of the major dominant lists are assault oriented.
Just showing you that assault itself works perfectly fine, just not dumb "I got a handful of marines running at you" assault, you need to actually support your assault elements.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Yaknow, someone who is actually trying to be good, and not outright "OMG SO GRIMDARK!" somehow ruins their galaxy.

Well, truth to be told, Im no Tau hater, but their fluff and visual style isnt something I would expect and like in WH40K. They scream to me "we must add another faction!" (despite fact that they are here "few" years, I know ) and all the mecha irritates me. On the other hand, I think that their "we are gooooood" is probably another face of grimdark, just GW didnt evolve the story to show their brainwashing etc.

Still, no Tau hater, just dont like them much, but whatever, many people loves Tau, so enjoy

I have played Tau all through 4th, 5th and now 6th edition.

The actual Codex did not change a lot. Stuff got cheaper and wa got a Riptide. We lost the ability to bump Crisis Suits to BS 4 but did gain a good ability to twin link / ignore cover and our markerlight system has gotten a tad better.

The biggest issue with Tau for other players are two fold in my opinion.

Tau used to be unknown to most. Nobody played it and when they did, a single mistake meant that you lost the game.
In order to be a good Tau player, you had to know every rule, every loophole and had to watch for mistakes. This nurtured a Tau player that had to be a good general in order to win a game.

Now that we have a new codex, everything is looking a lot better. Units are viable and the gunline Tau can hold their own. If we couple this with the same player from a previous edition, you have a tough nut to crack.

Tau are balanced in my opinion. I have won, I have lost.
The only difference is that we are now the most recent codex and other mainstay armies aren't anymore.
And this makes Tau unbalanced against the more older codices ( poor poor niddies...)

I honestly think that Eldar, Eldar/Tau, Tau/Eldar & Daemons earn far more hatred than just Tau by their little 'ol selves.

I also think that a bigger issue is that last edition, Loyalist Marines & Guard were the undisputed kings and Xenos armies were laughably outclassed for the most part. Marine players got used to just batting an eyelash at the likes of Tau/Eldar/'Nids/Daemons/Oldcrons and watching them fall over.
Now that we're all mostly updated instead of floundering with 10+ year old rules, (Just Orks & 'Nids left out in the old!), Xenos as a whole kicks arse and can compete with Marines & even table them.

Spoiled, over entitled Marines players are now having to learn a new game where Xenos armies are on an even footing and sometimes slightly above.

I am fine with Tau except I think the Riptide is just a bit too good - the sheer durability of it is immense/overwhelming - if it had been armour 3+ like the Wraith Knight would have been I feel fairer.

Otherwise happy to play with my Tau army or against with my Imperial and Xenos armies.

I love the Firewarrior and Kroot models, but just don't like the aestetics of the Crisis Suits/Broadsides - and far prefer the look of the FW Riptide

I am ok with the new Tau (I have played them twice; once with old eldar and squeaked a draw and the second time with new chaos marines and managed a bloody victory).

They are nasty when used well and kick out a horrendous amount of accurate ignoring cover shots when markerlighted.

I am also OK with the riptide (and other nasty units like heldrakes and wraithknights) as long as they are not spammed. One in a 1500pt list is ok (in fact I fought one the other night in 1500, it was nasty but manageable and I almost killed it).

I think the reason it has a 2+ save is because it only has T6 (unlike the T8 Wraithknight). It can also kill itself with the overcharging if you are unlucky.

Riptide also has a decent invulnerable save which it can boost plus often has Feel No Pain on top as icing on the cake...... its just a little too much IMO

Single ones you can sort of cope with by ignoring and trying to kill the rest of the army but mulitples are pretty horendeous.

I play against Tau weekly, as Tau a few times. Personally, the biggest problem I have with Tau is the fact that many of the Tau players I have seen simply sit still and shimmy tanks left and right only enough to get a jink save and a devilfish (and ethereal) slightly re-adjusting itself so that all the Fire Warriors are in triple tap bubbles. They are supposed to be this versatile ever changing, fluid army, but that doesn't translate into actual game play. The other issue is amount of ingore cover they throw around. I understand they pay through the nose for markerlights, but 3 or 4 markerlight hits to negate the cover save on my Nurgle Grinder so that a lone suit with extra BS and a single melta can take it out first try? That's a bit much. I liked the old Pathfinders (never thought I'd say that), or at least allow me to make some cover saves against markerlights. I can hide form a laser pointer can't I? Oh, and free (or nearly free) blacksun filters on damn near everything. Really? Just another way that Tau can get free cover without any drawback. Being bad at melee is irrelevant when no one can get into melee without charging through 12 flamers in a farsight bomb and 36 overwatch shots from 2 squads (each). They are too good at synergizing.

Riptides aren't a big issue for me. With some clever play and a few well-placed plasma guns can deal with him.

I've only played against a tau list once, and it was tough, but not cause for rage. However, some of my friends who play at the FLGS have other thoughts on tau, and I think the issues are largely in part due to the WAAC players that have been fielding them.

The big one is, nobody likes to play against a static gunline, no matter what the army is. Gunlines are dull to play against, and to many, gunlines are dull to play WITH. What do tau do better than just about any other army? Form gunlines! And with the supporting fire rule and marker lights, it makes assaulting a tau gunline a frustrating proposition. Now think about your typical WAAC player who changes armies every release? They don't bother to learn the sublty of the army, they just plop down the latest netlist and sit back and leave the army on autopilot. And their lists NEVER CHANGE, so if you play those guys, you are always playing against a Riptide and Broadside heavy gunline. Naturally, this will eventually lead other players to loathe playing aginst tau, and all tau players will get lumped into the stereotype. Just another example of a few rotten apples spoiling the whole bushel.

Experiment 626 wrote:
I honestly think that Eldar, Eldar/Tau, Tau/Eldar & Daemons earn far more hatred than just Tau by their little 'ol selves.

I also think that a bigger issue is that last edition, Loyalist Marines & Guard were the undisputed kings and Xenos armies were laughably outclassed for the most part. Marine players got used to just batting an eyelash at the likes of Tau/Eldar/'Nids/Daemons/Oldcrons and watching them fall over.
Now that we're all mostly updated instead of floundering with 10+ year old rules, (Just Orks & 'Nids left out in the old!), Xenos as a whole kicks arse and can compete with Marines & even table them.

Spoiled, over entitled Marines players are now having to learn a new game where Xenos armies are on an even footing and sometimes slightly above.

Yes. Because somehow it is always the fault of the Space Marines. Seriously? Why all the SM hate? I also think you are wrong. Most players also have a different army next to their SM.

I think a lot of the hate is because they terribly punish assault armies...who were already weaker during this edition (and mostly last edition as well.)

They just stack the odds so much against assault.

Most assault armies rely on cover (Tau can ignore this in large quantities.)

Ok then well I'll hide out of LOS...well Tau can ignore that in large ways as well.

Oh then even though I cannot assault out of reserve with most units...I'll deepstrike in or outflank up close to dimish fire power...oh Tau get interceptor for pretty cheap as well...

Oh and Thier entire army gets to overwatch...ok well I'll charge in a sacrificial unit to eat it...sorry no I don't have to overwatch that unit with units other than the charged unit...

Ok well at least its only BS 1....sorry again we can raise our BS using markerlights during overwatch....oh and a lot of stuff is twin linked as well.....


It is essentially that they can get so many special rules that negate many of the basic tactics in the game.

I feel like Tau should have gotten some of this but not all of it....I don't hate them for it...but it is a bit much.

If Markerlights did not work in overwatch (it happens to fast for them really to be effective). and went back to -1 cover per light...it would go a long way.

I would also just like in general if squads needed to pass a LD test to overwatch (not a big deal for most units) then you could have fear effect this test...making it actually useful.

Honestly, the only thing I would change in the entire Tau book is making markerlights affect cover like they used to.

For each light you reduce the cover save by one.

 ductvader wrote:
Honestly, the only thing I would change in the entire Tau book is making markerlights affect cover like they used to.

For each light you reduce the cover save by one.

I wouldn't mind so terribly much. 2 hits would still get rid of area terrain like it does now, and even a 2+ cover save going to 4+ would be a fine use of 2 markerlights. Along with the increased avalibility of them in the new codex I wouldn't have objected to this.

Of course that signature system that lets you get ignores cover would become more valuable as a result of that.

I dislike tau because they look lame and their fluff is stupid. Has nothing to do with how they perform in game, my daemons usually crush them.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Honestly, the only thing I would change in the entire Tau book is making markerlights affect cover like they used to.

For each light you reduce the cover save by one.

I wouldn't mind so terribly much. 2 hits would still get rid of area terrain like it does now, and even a 2+ cover save going to 4+ would be a fine use of 2 markerlights. Along with the increased avalibility of them in the new codex I wouldn't have objected to this.

Of course that signature system that lets you get ignores cover would become more valuable as a result of that.

Exactly, no reason to just straight up ignore it. It was just written to sell more pathfinders.

I hate screamstar, seerstar, and slaanesh. That's it

Markerlights aren't as bad as the Ignores Cover Chip, combined with an IC Riptide. Riptides and Chip Commanders, That's pretty much all the Tau have going for them at the moment.

Fire Warrior spam is tier 2 and easily countered with TFCs. Their troop choices are pretty weak.

Eldar are the real problem, imo.

People hate Tau because of the lack of interaction; you sit back and shoot, and if you shoot well enough you win. There isn't much interaction involved.

Yes, Tau will still be hated by me no matter the form & shapes they come in

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I honestly think that Eldar, Eldar/Tau, Tau/Eldar & Daemons earn far more hatred than just Tau by their little 'ol selves.

I also think that a bigger issue is that last edition, Loyalist Marines & Guard were the undisputed kings and Xenos armies were laughably outclassed for the most part. Marine players got used to just batting an eyelash at the likes of Tau/Eldar/'Nids/Daemons/Oldcrons and watching them fall over.
Now that we're all mostly updated instead of floundering with 10+ year old rules, (Just Orks & 'Nids left out in the old!), Xenos as a whole kicks arse and can compete with Marines & even table them.

Spoiled, over entitled Marines players are now having to learn a new game where Xenos armies are on an even footing and sometimes slightly above.

Yes. Because somehow it is always the fault of the Space Marines. Seriously? Why all the SM hate? I also think you are wrong. Most players also have a different army next to their SM.

Last edition Imperial players in general had the best of everything and the top tier armies were ALL Loyalist codices... SW's, BA's, IG, GK's, they ruled the roost and playing a Xenos army overall was pretty much like trying to chew on a glass sandwich filled with nails.
Now that most of the Xenos books have been updated though, all of a sudden "Tau/Eldar/Daemons/Taudar/Eltau/Helldrakes" are no fun and are apparently needing to be heavily comped/banned. (Feast of Blades for example is literally telling Daemons to go suck a lemon in their 1st draft comp, while the Riptide is being hinted at being nerfed to a 0-1 choice!)

So yes, part of the problem is Marine players getting whiny again.
Equally part of the problem is that Tau just aren't fun to play against when they choose to simply gunline, Daemons are no fun when they plonk the 900+ pts Screamerstar down and Serpent spam Eldar are also a lesson in eating your pride and trying not to throw-up.

The thing is, last edition Xenos players overall either shelved their armies, or took it on the chin, or had their cries for comp shouted down...
Now that the roles are reversed though? That same group that laughed at comp as being 'for noobs' are now trying to push that it's needed again now that Xenos rule the roost.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
I dislike tau because they look lame and their fluff is stupid. Has nothing to do with how they perform in game, my daemons usually crush them.

Damn.... Thats some harsh judgement. Also.... What kind of Daemon list do you play? Most competitive Tau armies laugh at FMCs.

I don't understand all the Tau hate. People should be hating on Eldar right now, looking at the big tourny results.

Lucarikx

I had more hate in the past with st 10 ap 1 broadsides.

Though now my friend hates my single riptide, not because its a Mc but because with a toolbelt commander and the ion, i blew up i think 2 Annbarges, 1 triarch stalker and stunned a ghost ark with no cover and stuff.

 UlrikDecado wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Yaknow, someone who is actually trying to be good, and not outright "OMG SO GRIMDARK!" somehow ruins their galaxy.

Well, truth to be told, Im no Tau hater, but their fluff and visual style isnt something I would expect and like in WH40K. They scream to me "we must add another faction!" (despite fact that they are here "few" years, I know ) and all the mecha irritates me. On the other hand, I think that their "we are gooooood" is probably another face of grimdark, just GW didnt evolve the story to show their brainwashing etc.

Still, no Tau hater, just dont like them much, but whatever, many people loves Tau, so enjoy

Yeah, I was around when the Tau first joined the 40K universe, and I just thought the whole Japanime look to the army was kinda silly. It was a very obvious demographic grab to get the other group of kids with the weird hair and the BESM pictures drawn on everything.

And this comes from a guy who grew up with the original Robotech (Macross) cartoon, and Battletech. So it wasn't like I hated the idea of mechs. The Tau aesthetic just seemed out of place for 40K.


Then I grew up and realized the Tau were Aldous Huxley's [i]Brave New World[i/] which is an awesome book, and then I wasn't sure whether or not I should like them.

BoomWolf wrote:Tau were hated even when they were the unquestionably weakest codex in the game

Well, they were never unquestioningly the weakest, but certainly they've been hated for many, many a year, regardless of their particular place on the power curve at any given time.

On the soft scores, they've always suffered from the anime aesthetic (and, more damningly, being a helvetica army in a chancery world), a pointless, poorly-thought-out fluff, and a player base that has a worse than usual reputation for whining and powergaming. On the hard scores, even when they've been low on power, their army has always been annoying to fight with. Mostly it's because tau have really only ever been able to gunline, and that's always been a tedious kind of army to play against, but also because tau have always had kind of "cheaty" things - whether Mass TL S10 Ap1 meaning you lose your best few units every game before they get to do anything, or whether it's been MSM which is ALWAYS frustrating to play against (and one of the worst mechanics in the game, IMO), or plasma guns that don't suffer get's hot, etc. etc.

What's so bad about tau now is that you take everything that people already hated about tau, and make it 10 times worse. Now they have MEGA-GUNDAMS. Now they gunline absurdly good and shut down anyone who isn't also a gunline (so they force you to play the most tedious play style as well, or suffer a frustrating experience trying to be relevant while your opponent debases the game to yahtzee). Now they have even MORE cheaty things, like ignoring cover saves, and hard-countering deepstrike, and ignoring night-fight, and ultra-overwatch, and psychic powers that don't need a psychic test. The list goes on and on of "well, tau are superior, so they just don't have to deal with these messy rules" thing.

Honestly, I think the main problem with tau is that they don't have any flaws. This is somewhat overlookable during times when they have the "flaw" of appearing underpowered in the codex cycle, but it certainly isn't now. There's no grittiness or darkness or uncertainty on the one hand, and there's no serious risks or real drawbacks to their playstyle (because "we're bad at assault" has always been an absurd fantasy). Since the beginning, it just doesn't feel like they fit into 40k.

Which is probably why in the other thread, there are almost more people who think tau should be booted out than every other army combined. You don't get rid of that kind of hatred with just a few little tweaks. Tau need a complete reboot to fix that. A reboot they're unlikely to ever get.

 UlrikDecado wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Yaknow, someone who is actually trying to be good, and not outright "OMG SO GRIMDARK!" somehow ruins their galaxy.

Well, truth to be told, Im no Tau hater, but their fluff and visual style isnt something I would expect and like in WH40K. They scream to me "we must add another faction!" (despite fact that they are here "few" years, I know ) and all the mecha irritates me. On the other hand, I think that their "we are gooooood" is probably another face of grimdark, just GW didnt evolve the story to show their brainwashing etc.

Still, no Tau hater, just dont like them much, but whatever, many people loves Tau, so enjoy

Funny, people keep thinking the Tau are good guys. But they are just another early stage Imperium. The Tau's motto is "For the Greater Good." Sounds nice, but for the "Greater Good" any atrocity, any extreme, can be justified.

I play Tyranids and for the most part of love the Tau. The animeish design, the backstory, the battlearmor, so much of it. I just don't like how anemic they make Space Marine look.

Sorry, I think that anyone who thinks Tau are 'good' isn't reading the fluff closely enough.

They're perhaps the most insidious faction in 40k, since their evil is so cunningly hidden. They manipulate, sideline, and enslave 'lesser' races. They are a frightening Orwellian brand of nasty in a setting not known for its subtlety. Personally, I love the Tau for precisely this reason.

As a side note, I don't think that Tau are the most hated faction by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from Marines, they seem like the most popular army for people to play, at least in my neck of the woods. Most people like the Tau army, in my experience, they just don't like some of the Tau players.

Before anyone brings it up again, they're a lot less "anime" than the emo space elves and their goth space elf friends - both which have long hair, eerily slim bodies and like to dance around waving freakishly long blades that can cut through everything...

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, I think that anyone who thinks Tau are 'good' isn't reading the fluff closely enough.

They're perhaps the most insidious faction in 40k, since their evil is so cunningly hidden. They manipulate, sideline, and enslave 'lesser' races. They are a frightening Orwellian brand of nasty in a setting not known for its subtlety. Personally, I love the Tau for precisely this reason.

This, so much this!!!
One of the latest Ultramarine novels, 'Courage and Honour' reveals a great deal of just how manipulative and insidious the Tau really are.

I also love their sheer naivete and complete ignorance of just how god-awful a place the 41st millennium really is! They look down their collective noses at humanity being nothing more than overly superstitious morons who lack true civility, yet they;
- Fight a Champion of Slaanesh and his CSM warband, kill him and believe they've slain a Chaos God! (because Gods are a silly fabrication of less evolved cultures of course!)

- See a bunch of Tyranids ripping apart a research outpost, and decide, "hey, these guys look different, let's go and talk to them about joining the Greater Good!" (bad idea is obvious bad idea)

- Are getting the backsides handed to them, then meet a Haemonculus and his coven of twisted creations and agree to form an alliance, despite the gak-faced grins on the Dark Eldars' faces and the general chuckling of 'exactly, how bad can we be?!'... (then become the 'payment' for services rendered themselves!)

- Have yet to face a true Imperial Crusade, (because the IoM is busy dealing with much more serious issues, like Hive Fleet Leviathan, Abbadon's 13th Crusade, the Necrons waking up in greater numbers every other day, etc...), but believe humanity in general to be 'conquerable'. (because they have no concept of how vast the galaxy really is!)

It's awesome really, because despite their outlook towards the other races in general, they're arrogant and woefully unprepared for the real truth that they're completely ignorant of.

 Jimsolo wrote:
As a side note, I don't think that Tau are the most hated faction by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from Marines, they seem like the most popular army for people to play, at least in my neck of the woods. Most people like the Tau army, in my experience, they just don't like some of the Tau players.

That goes for every single army...
If all you ever face when playing against SW players for example is 'Hunter spam + Missile spam Long Wangs, then you'll be of the opinion that SW players are d*cks. Likewise, if the only list the local Daemon players run is Screamerstar or Flying Circus, then you'll likely think Daemon players are d*cks.

In a goodly number of areas, it seems that Tau players tend to gunline-up and abuse Riptides, hence a good portion of the hate.
Now as a Daemon player myself, I could honestly care less about Tau shenanigans, because I don't generally take to the air with my LoC, and my Tzeentchian minions have a complete field day exploding fish-goat-people with their psychic pyrotechnics because Tau lack any kind of psychic defense unless they ally something in. And all their fancy ignoring cover gimmicks mean squat because my saves are always invulns!
If I was playing my Sallies however, I'd probably find far less enjoyment getting blown to crap by those same gunlines my Daemons eat for lunch.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, I think that anyone who thinks Tau are 'good' isn't reading the fluff closely enough.

They're perhaps the most insidious faction in 40k, since their evil is so cunningly hidden. They manipulate, sideline, and enslave 'lesser' races. They are a frightening Orwellian brand of nasty in a setting not known for its subtlety. Personally, I love the Tau for precisely this reason.

- Have yet to face a true Imperial Crusade, (because the IoM is busy dealing with much more serious issues, like Hive Fleet Leviathan, Abbadon's 13th Crusade, the Necrons waking up in greater numbers every other day, etc...), but believe humanity in general to be 'conquerable'. (because they have no concept of how vast the galaxy really is!)

To say the Tau haven't faced a "true" Imperial Crusade is entirely false and facetious. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was exactly that a crusade that was fought to a draw between both sides. Now if the Nids didn't show up it would have become a straight war of attrition which the Imperium would have won due to man power and resources. They haven't faced a Crusade back during the Golden Age of Man size strength crusade and probably never will. You are correct that the Imperium have much bigger threats to deal with at this point in time but the Tau are still a thorn in their side that eventually will cause more problem and headaches for the Imperium of man if left unchecked for long. (We will never know what happens as GW won't continue the timeline, which IMO they should do.

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, I think that anyone who thinks Tau are 'good' isn't reading the fluff closely enough.

They're perhaps the most insidious faction in 40k, since their evil is so cunningly hidden. They manipulate, sideline, and enslave 'lesser' races. They are a frightening Orwellian brand of nasty in a setting not known for its subtlety. Personally, I love the Tau for precisely this reason.

- Have yet to face a true Imperial Crusade, (because the IoM is busy dealing with much more serious issues, like Hive Fleet Leviathan, Abbadon's 13th Crusade, the Necrons waking up in greater numbers every other day, etc...), but believe humanity in general to be 'conquerable'. (because they have no concept of how vast the galaxy really is!)

To say the Tau haven't faced a "true" Imperial Crusade is entirely false and facetious. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was exactly that a crusade that was fought to a draw between both sides. Now if the Nids didn't show up it would have become a straight war of attrition which the Imperium would have won due to man power and resources. They haven't faced a Crusade back during the Golden Age of Man size strength crusade and probably never will. You are correct that the Imperium have much bigger threats to deal with at this point in time but the Tau are still a thorn in their side that eventually will cause more problem and headaches for the Imperium of man if left unchecked for long. (We will never know what happens as GW won't continue the timeline, which IMO they should do.

The Damocles Gulf Crusade IIRC was a rather hastily assembled affair and was fairly small by Imperial standards, partly because the IoM badly misjudged the growing strength of the Tau Empire & partly because of the Tau Empire's location being where it is. (ie: in a rather non-critical corner of the Ultima Segmentum)

The Tau have yet to face anything like the Imperial might of the Sabbat World's Crusade, the combined forces of the extened 3rd Armageddon War campaign or the forces assembled to defend the Cadian Gate and it's surrounding systems from Abbadon's 13th Black Crusade.

They faced a poorly prepared and vastly over confident Imperial force, and still only managed to actually gain ground once Imperial Command recalled it's forces to face the much greater threat of Hive Fleet Leviathan.
If the Tau were to face an Imperial force such as even the 3rd Armageddon War forces, the Imperium would likely beat them bloody. (over the corpses of a couple billion dead guardsmen of course! )

 taudau wrote:
Before anyone brings it up again, they're a lot less "anime" than the emo space elves and their goth space elf friends - both which have long hair, eerily slim bodies and like to dance around waving freakishly long blades that can cut through everything...

I don't think you've been watching the right anime then. Because the anime mecha aesthetic is their defining trait.

Less tentacle porn, more Gundam. Then you'll understand.

I personally cannot stand Tau. The JSJ strategy just irritates the hell out of me till no end. The fact their only weakness is assault and how badly assault in 6th got neutered, they can markerlight (albeit a small chance, but as good as chance as any other number to come up on the dice) and then rapid fire your assault to further cripple your assault distance? Makes me puke.

My closest 40K buddy is a Tau enthusiast and even admits Tau are the cheesiest army in 40k (minus screamerstars) and refuses to play them that way. My finest moment was when another Tau player tried todo his cute little JSJ with his Riptide and had my Daemon prince cut him in half turn 2, and both Heldrakes made it on and roasted the little fish robots promptly and he conceded turn 4 after the oblits deep struck and melted all his battlesuits with plasma cannons. Sorry but if I see Tau, I suddenly turn into a WAAC player.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, I think that anyone who thinks Tau are 'good' isn't reading the fluff closely enough.

They're perhaps the most insidious faction in 40k, since their evil is so cunningly hidden. They manipulate, sideline, and enslave 'lesser' races. They are a frightening Orwellian brand of nasty in a setting not known for its subtlety. Personally, I love the Tau for precisely this reason.

- Have yet to face a true Imperial Crusade, (because the IoM is busy dealing with much more serious issues, like Hive Fleet Leviathan, Abbadon's 13th Crusade, the Necrons waking up in greater numbers every other day, etc...), but believe humanity in general to be 'conquerable'. (because they have no concept of how vast the galaxy really is!)

To say the Tau haven't faced a "true" Imperial Crusade is entirely false and facetious. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was exactly that a crusade that was fought to a draw between both sides. Now if the Nids didn't show up it would have become a straight war of attrition which the Imperium would have won due to man power and resources. They haven't faced a Crusade back during the Golden Age of Man size strength crusade and probably never will. You are correct that the Imperium have much bigger threats to deal with at this point in time but the Tau are still a thorn in their side that eventually will cause more problem and headaches for the Imperium of man if left unchecked for long. (We will never know what happens as GW won't continue the timeline, which IMO they should do.

The Damocles Gulf Crusade IIRC was a rather hastily assembled affair and was fairly small by Imperial standards, partly because the IoM badly misjudged the growing strength of the Tau Empire & partly because of the Tau Empire's location being where it is. (ie: in a rather non-critical corner of the Ultima Segmentum)

The Tau have yet to face anything like the Imperial might of the Sabbat World's Crusade, the combined forces of the extened 3rd Armageddon War campaign or the forces assembled to defend the Cadian Gate and it's surrounding systems from Abbadon's 13th Black Crusade.

They faced a poorly prepared and vastly over confident Imperial force, and still only managed to actually gain ground once Imperial Command recalled it's forces to face the much greater threat of Hive Fleet Leviathan.
If the Tau were to face an Imperial force such as even the 3rd Armageddon War forces, the Imperium would likely beat them bloody. (over the corpses of a couple billion dead guardsmen of course! )

Yes the Crusade was small compared to 3rd Armageddon but the Orks proved to be a major threat which each force larger than the next. Could the Imperium wipe out the Tau? Hell yes they could but as the "opening crawl" for 40k always says the Imperium of man is besieged on all sides and stretched thin. So I doubt the would be able to fully muster a big enough force to wipe Tau out completely. In that time since Damocles Tau's tech has grown leaps and bounds since then and the population has increased a lot. It would be a bloody fight and it wouldn't be one sided. I would love to see them create an Imperial Armour book that goes into detail and allow for players to play the Damocles Crusade.

 Lucarikx wrote:

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
I dislike tau because they look lame and their fluff is stupid. Has nothing to do with how they perform in game, my daemons usually crush them.

Damn.... Thats some harsh judgement. Also.... What kind of Daemon list do you play? Most competitive Tau armies laugh at FMCs.

I don't understand all the Tau hate. People should be hating on Eldar right now, looking at the big tourny results.

Lucarikx

I think people hate tau more because when you fight eldar you interact. They will zoom around, take risks and have quite an active turn. Tau, sometimes, are just 'markerlight that, oh, 4 of them. Now roll these dice, and these dice, and that unit is dead, no cover etc'

It just becomes dull to lose and look back on the game and think 'There is nothing I could have done differently.'


Von Chogg

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sorry, I think that anyone who thinks Tau are 'good' isn't reading the fluff closely enough.

They're perhaps the most insidious faction in 40k, since their evil is so cunningly hidden. They manipulate, sideline, and enslave 'lesser' races. They are a frightening Orwellian brand of nasty in a setting not known for its subtlety. Personally, I love the Tau for precisely this reason.

- Have yet to face a true Imperial Crusade, (because the IoM is busy dealing with much more serious issues, like Hive Fleet Leviathan, Abbadon's 13th Crusade, the Necrons waking up in greater numbers every other day, etc...), but believe humanity in general to be 'conquerable'. (because they have no concept of how vast the galaxy really is!)

To say the Tau haven't faced a "true" Imperial Crusade is entirely false and facetious. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was exactly that a crusade that was fought to a draw between both sides. Now if the Nids didn't show up it would have become a straight war of attrition which the Imperium would have won due to man power and resources. They haven't faced a Crusade back during the Golden Age of Man size strength crusade and probably never will. You are correct that the Imperium have much bigger threats to deal with at this point in time but the Tau are still a thorn in their side that eventually will cause more problem and headaches for the Imperium of man if left unchecked for long. (We will never know what happens as GW won't continue the timeline, which IMO they should do.

The Damocles Gulf Crusade IIRC was a rather hastily assembled affair and was fairly small by Imperial standards, partly because the IoM badly misjudged the growing strength of the Tau Empire & partly because of the Tau Empire's location being where it is. (ie: in a rather non-critical corner of the Ultima Segmentum)

The Tau have yet to face anything like the Imperial might of the Sabbat World's Crusade, the combined forces of the extened 3rd Armageddon War campaign or the forces assembled to defend the Cadian Gate and it's surrounding systems from Abbadon's 13th Black Crusade.

They faced a poorly prepared and vastly over confident Imperial force, and still only managed to actually gain ground once Imperial Command recalled it's forces to face the much greater threat of Hive Fleet Leviathan.
If the Tau were to face an Imperial force such as even the 3rd Armageddon War forces, the Imperium would likely beat them bloody. (over the corpses of a couple billion dead guardsmen of course! )

Yes the Crusade was small compared to 3rd Armageddon but the Orks proved to be a major threat which each force larger than the next. Could the Imperium wipe out the Tau? Hell yes they could but as the "opening crawl" for 40k always says the Imperium of man is besieged on all sides and stretched thin. So I doubt the would be able to fully muster a big enough force to wipe Tau out completely. In that time since Damocles Tau's tech has grown leaps and bounds since then and the population has increased a lot. It would be a bloody fight and it wouldn't be one sided. I would love to see them create an Imperial Armour book that goes into detail and allow for players to play the Damocles Crusade.

It would still be one-sided due to two facts. One that despite popular belief IG and SM commanders are dumb they are in fact decent tacticians and learn how to fight new opponents. Second point is that the wars at Armageddon and the 13th Black crusade have so much invested in them that with just one freeing up would be more than enough to wipe out the tau. While the tau have expanded they are still so very small in comparison to even the Eldar who are dying out and even though their tech is improving they still have one of the slowest navies and some of their new tech is just as deadly to them as it is to the enemy.

Back to topic, I really like the tau my main problem is lack of tau fluff without a lot of . One never reads about epic battles between the tau and the IG, Orks, Nids, or the other races in the game. It is always the greater good overcomes. No nothing when it comes to the battles how the tau faired did their tech really help them as much as we are led to believe. The tau starting to realize just how big the galaxy is and to scoop of some of the threats they face. The Orks, Nids, and IG should be real good match ups for the tau. As an IG player as well the big thing that gets me is were under the broadside profile it says that a few broadsides held entire tank companies at bay that to me is bull . First off I look to game stats as a rough fluff to in game translation and there is no way a broadside could pen the front armor of a Leman Russ and even shots against the side would have a very difficult time so I ignore that and when it comes to Hammerheads to me it would be more interesting if the tau tankers are told to go for the sides of a Leman Russ for a better shot due to the fact that even with the mighty rail gun when it comes to IG tanks a side shot is still better. There is missed moments for some really good fluff that just get turned into the greater good over comes. To me the biggest thing is tau fluff lacks character. Though don't get me wrong the bad guys in disguise is one of the things that I like best about them they represent the false hope in 40k and can't have grim dark without hope.

Though gun line tau are not a fun thing to play against at all no gun line is really. Not fun to play either.

 Gunhead1 wrote:


It would still be one-sided due to two facts. One that despite popular belief IG and SM commanders are dumb they are in fact decent tacticians and learn how to fight new opponents. Second point is that the wars at Armageddon and the 13th Black crusade have so much invested in them that with just one freeing up would be more than enough to wipe out the tau. While the tau have expanded they are still so very small in comparison to even the Eldar who are dying out and even though their tech is improving they still have one of the slowest navy's and some of their new tech is just as deadly to them as it is to the enemy.

Not denying that the Imperium doesn't lack smart commanders (Yarrick, Calgar, Sicarius, Shrike, Kantor etc.) The Farsight Enclaves Expands on the fluff on of the Battle of Daylth Prime and both sides had to constantly keep changing tactics to outsmart the other. Going on to even say that Shadowsun's use of Kauyon was more effective than Farsight's Mont'ka. Up until the most recent codex Ion weaponry was safe and it was Infantry Rail tech that was risky.

 Gunhead1 wrote:

Back to topic, I really like the tau my main problem is lack of tau fluff without a lot of . One never reads about epic battles between the tau and the IG, Orks, Nids, or the other races in the game. It is always the greater good overcomes. No nothing when it comes to the battles how the tau faired did their tech really help them as much as we are led to believe. The tau starting to realize just how big the galaxy is and to scoop of some of the threats they face. The Orks, Nids, and IG should be real good match ups for the tau. As an IG player as well the big thing that gets me is were under the broadside profile it says that a few broadsides held entire tank companies at bay that to me is bull . First off I look to game stats as a rough fluff to in game translation and there is no way a broadside could pen the front armor of a Leman Russ and even shots against the side would have a very difficult time so I ignore that and when it comes to Hammerheads to me it would be more interesting if the tau tankers are told to go for the sides of a Leman Russ for a better shot due to the fact that even with the mighty rail gun when it comes to IG tanks a side shot is still better. There is missed moments for some really good fluff that just get turned into the greater good over comes. To me the biggest thing is tau fluff lacks character. Though don't get me wrong the bad guys in disguise is one of the things that I like best about them they represent the false hope in 40k and can't have grim dark without hope.

Though gun line tau are not a fun thing to play against at all no gun line is really. Not fun to play either.

I have to agree as well especially with Broadsides being down graded from Rail Guns to Heavy Rail Rifles I find it to be a little far fetched. The thing about the fluff about Tau that irks me is how in previous versions the Tau really haven't been about taking risks with weapon and tech to lose the life of the one using it, as it was a waste of "resources." Tau were never about weapons that killed their user hence the weaker plasma weapons.

To Enigma Crisis
I think the big thing about tau tech is that it is changing and improving, but there is still risk when you do that and with the increased threat level the tau are facing the Ethereals are clearly willing to risk tau lives to improve their odds of winning on the battlefield. They don't have the option to wait for safe tech anymore they need big guns NOW.

Tau are hated moreso due to their fluff then gameplay imo. They're the "nicest" faction in 40k and unlike all the other sides have some shred of humanity to them, which inevitably results in morality arguments blah blah.

Give it time and new Codex releases and the power will shift. The FOTM players will move on and those players who like the army will stay. Rinse and repeat. I do believe Assault isn't what it could be. But I would still play Tau and a shooting army even if Assault was stronger.

 Harriticus wrote:
Tau are hated moreso due to their fluff then gameplay imo. They're the "nicest" faction in 40k and unlike all the other sides have some shred of humanity to them, which inevitably results in morality arguments blah blah.

Well, they're the "nicest" until you say "no"...

Its a tough fight for my BAs. Wouldn't be half as tough with out the riptides. Those things make FW look reasonable.

If there is a true weakness to the Tau for capturing my attention it is the rules GW applies to them. I rather like their fluff, as it makes them unique. What would be the point if they were just like the other factions but with different tech? Just because they aren't "in your face" Grimdark like the other races doesn't mean they don't fit into the setting. For things to be sinister and unsettling, they don't have to be drawn-out and melodramatic, that's just how the majority of GW writers prefer it to be.

The already have their "Greater Good" mentality, the Ethereals, and one of their greatest commanders (Farsight) is hugely older than a Tau should be, and is wielding some sort of giant unknown alien sword.

Honestly I find it a combination of their horrid fluff and the fact they are absolutely no fun to play against.

I don't mind losing, but losing when it feels like there is little i could have done is no fun at all.

AegisGrimm wrote:What would be the point if they were just like the other factions but with different tech?

What? Eldar and Orks are extremely different than each other. Both of them are extremely different from Tyranid. Their differences are not only in their tech.

GW can write good xenos fluff. It just didn't do a good job with tau. That's not surprising, given that they also botched necron. In any case, they do a good job with some and a bad job with some. That doesn't mean you can't call a spade a shovel without making tau "just like the other factions".

Maybe not Orks because of their outlook on life, but Eldar are certainly "teetering on the brink" like everyone else. Tyranids by their nature are not, but they are part of the "on the brink" setting by function.

That's what I meant. Tau can fit in a Grimdark setting without being in the twilight of their civilization.

Overwatch is not a thing that should be.
If Angron (to an even higher magnitude the Night Haunter) charged you, would you think of anything else other than literally throwing your squadmates in front of him?
It's not even over something. It might make contextual sense if the unit "overwatching" had to be the above the unit charging.
Random charging?
How the flying feth does that make sense with real logic? I guess maybe they might not perform the full twelve inches all the time but 2? No.
Simply my input on the matter.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Overwatch is not a thing that should be.
If Angron (to an even higher magnitude the Night Haunter) charged you, would you think of anything else other than literally throwing your squadmates in front of him?
It's not even over something. It might make contextual sense if the unit "overwatching" had to be the above the unit charging.
Random charging?
How the flying feth does that make sense with real logic? I guess maybe they might not perform the full twelve inches all the time but 2? No.
Simply my input on the matter.

To be fair, they're trying to replicate the realities of actual battle using models, a tabletop, and dice. I've never been in a firefight of any sort, but just watching the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" illustrates how charging an enemy who's shooting at you may have some pretty diverse results.

For the record, Tau models look way better than Craftworld Eldar models ever will.

zbg97 wrote:

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Overwatch is not a thing that should be.
If Angron (to an even higher magnitude the Night Haunter) charged you, would you think of anything else other than literally throwing your squadmates in front of him?
It's not even over something. It might make contextual sense if the unit "overwatching" had to be the above the unit charging.
Random charging?
How the flying feth does that make sense with real logic? I guess maybe they might not perform the full twelve inches all the time but 2? No.
Simply my input on the matter.

To be fair, they're trying to replicate the realities of actual battle using models, a tabletop, and dice. I've never been in a firefight of any sort, but just watching the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" illustrates how charging an enemy who's shooting at you may have some pretty diverse results.

Not as diverse as 600% differential.
That's just unreal.
But yeah there's going to be some differences in charging distance.
Just think about what a group of fire warriors would do if Konrad Curze showed up out of nowhere while there was night fighting.....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilytank wrote:
For the record, Tau models look way better than Craftworld Eldar models ever will.

I like the new Avatar way more than the riptide.
To each their own though.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
If there is a true weakness to the Tau for capturing my attention it is the rules GW applies to them. I rather like their fluff, as it makes them unique. What would be the point if they were just like the other factions but with different tech? Just because they aren't "in your face" Grimdark like the other races doesn't mean they don't fit into the setting. For things to be sinister and unsettling, they don't have to be drawn-out and melodramatic, that's just how the majority of GW writers prefer it to be.

The already have their "Greater Good" mentality, the Ethereals, and one of their greatest commanders (Farsight) is hugely older than a Tau should be, and is wielding some sort of giant unknown alien sword.

I believe that Farsight's 'alien' blade is heavily hinted at being of Necrontyr origin.

While it didn't state it really IS necrontyr product, it really makes sense to them.
Who else would make a sword that liturally takes away the natural lifespan of those you kill and adds it to your own? (as revealed in the enclave supplement.) (and on the feth does that even WORK?)


As for the 600% differential, its not between two likely results, its between the most "wow, that worked better then planned" result to the "catastrophic failure" result, on opposite sides of a bell cruve.
Both results are highly unlikely, and should never, EVER be relied upon. even 3 and 11 (lower then 400% here) are two radical results
Two thirds of the time, it will be somewhere between 5 and 9. meaning 180% between a failure, and a success.

And if we look at gameplay level, compared to 5th edition, you get 10/36 results under the old version, 5/36 results just like old times and 21/36 results who are longer, by little or alot, then last edition.
The only difference, is that now its no longer a pure distance calculation of "I got into 6, your unit is dead.", and just like shooting-even being in optimal range, might not end up as planned.

I'm probably one of the minority who likes tau for their fluff and aesthetic, the one thing I don't like too much is how they are played in the game (looking at gun-line ADL missileside, riptides), in all honesty if I wanted to play against anything like that I would have just created a "Battle of the Somme" scenario tbh, I think if players used fissure fury again Tau would be just as hated, but a lot more interesting to play against imo

I guess my problem is Eldar (but then again I play chaos ) I just don't enjoy playing against Serpent spam, as I feel compelled to spam the PM which im not too keen on, and the game just feels too much of "Advancing Omaha Beach" imo.

Filthy Elves ..

 BoomWolf wrote:
While it didn't state it really IS necrontyr product, it really makes sense to them.
Who else would make a sword that liturally takes away the natural lifespan of those you kill and adds it to your own? (as revealed in the enclave supplement.) (and on the feth does that even WORK?)
.

Dark Eldar - they would love that blade and have several similar artefacts / weapons, in fact it could just be ancient Eldar blade from before the fall
Chaos - again what Chaos Champion would not want that blade - its also fits with pretty much all the Chaos Gods ideas of a good reward, I know several people who read the description and thought it was a Deamon balde (Stormbringer stylee)

A N Other Xenos race.

nothing syas its Necron, nothing says its not. Although why would the Necrons need to make such a blade for themselves?

 Mr Morden wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
While it didn't state it really IS necrontyr product, it really makes sense to them.
Who else would make a sword that liturally takes away the natural lifespan of those you kill and adds it to your own? (as revealed in the enclave supplement.) (and on the feth does that even WORK?)
.

Dark Eldar - they would love that blade and have several similar artefacts / weapons, in fact it could just be ancient Eldar blade from before the fall
Chaos - again what Chaos Champion would not want that blade - its also fits with pretty much all the Chaos Gods ideas of a good reward, I know several people who read the description and thought it was a Deamon balde (Stormbringer stylee)

A N Other Xenos race.

nothing syas its Necron, nothing says its not. Although why would the Necrons need to make such a blade for themselves?

Eldar does not need it, they can live forever as it is. why bother extending a lifespan of "infinite +1"?

Chaos, even less relevant to them, demons don't even have the concept of age and "natural lifespan", and its not given to chaos worshippers purely because its way too old, much older then the IoM.

Unknown xenos is just adding additional races to the setting. guesswork should be towards established existing things, not random "might be out there" things.

Necrons might be machines that live forever, but before they were machines, they were Necrontyr.
And Necrontyr are a very, VERY short lived race, they will WANT this, very, very much. even if it wasn't at all useful at combat it would be priceless for them.
Heck, the whole "turning into machines" concept was to escape the pathetically shot natural lifespan they have.

Also, while more apperant on the old model, the blade resembles necron blades in shape.

 ThePrimordial wrote:
Overwatch is not a thing that should be.
If Angron (to an even higher magnitude the Night Haunter) charged you, would you think of anything else other than literally throwing your squadmates in front of him?
It's not even over something. It might make contextual sense if the unit "overwatching" had to be the above the unit charging.
Random charging?
How the flying feth does that make sense with real logic? I guess maybe they might not perform the full twelve inches all the time but 2? No.
Simply my input on the matter.

Eh, I disagree with almost everything you said except random charges. They should be a lot less random, 1d6+6 not 2d6.

Although the idea of assault armies against anybody with modern/ future tech is actually silly unless the assaulters have special things to close the distance before they can be shot to hell, like teleportation or cloaking tech.

If I had a modern ranged weapon and someone was stupid enough to come running at me screaming waving melee weapons? My first inclination would be to shoot them, a lot, over and over. Overwatch is reasonable, especially with the BS1 its tied to. Its when you tie the overwatch + random charge range + overwatch effective increasing charge range if it kills people that is the problem. Add in Tau's ability to create massed overwatch, ignore cover, and increase BS while overwatching from multiple means really makes them unpleasant to fight against assault armies.

I love it how when people calculate tau overwatch capeabilities, its under the assumption the assaulter is dumb enough to attack with only one unit, and assault a squad that is somehow 6" away from half the tau army, the markerlights are suddenly not on BS1 themselves (meaning few, if any, hit anything to allow you to ignore cover or increase BS of other shooters) and the tau are always in full strength.

I mean, seriously, are you TRYING to make the least efficient assault possible?

Assaulting tau is not that hard.
Pick a target, isolate it with AoE shots to force the enemy to scatter up (and reduce the supporting fire), kill the damn marker units (like you should have done from the firstplace), soften the target up with whatever small shooting you can muster with the assault unit (or with the AoE you used to isolate them, in cast you missed a bit) and wipe them out with little effort even with a unit not designed to assault from the firstplace.

Its 100% player skill.
There is a reason some players never manage to get a charge off at me (at least not one I do not allow on purpose because it suits me at the time), yet others I almost never manage to stop from landing at least one or two assaults.

The best way to get a unit into assault-give me something else to worry about! if all you do is run blindly at me, why WONT I just gun down the closest enemy each time?

Heck, even if I wan't tau, why would ANY army do anything ANY different if your strategy is summed up in "run forward!"

 BoomWolf wrote:
I love it how when people calculate tau overwatch capeabilities, its under the assumption the assaulter is dumb enough to attack with only one unit, and assault a squad that is somehow 6" away from half the tau army, the markerlights are suddenly not on BS1 themselves (meaning few, if any, hit anything to allow you to ignore cover or increase BS of other shooters) and the tau are always in full strength.

It also makes the assumption that markerlights are still on the table after turn 2... which in my experience is pretty much never. Of course that might very well be my own failure to properly utilize my pathfinders. I'm guessing the scout redeployment with them is a trap... but darn if I don't keep putting them in front of my fire warriors.

Its not the riptides, markerlights, fluff, S7 spam missilsides, unparalled access to skyfire, interceptor, or shutting down assault armies completley with networked overwatch making it impossible to ever get into combat....

Its the fact that tau are so boring to play against and please say Im not the only one.

All tau players that I have played, just deploy on their board edge, don't use the moving or assault phase unless really necessary, and just role bucket loads of dice blowing you off the table piece by piece as you try to get closer to shoot/assault them which by that point half your army is gone in the first two turns.

For the record, I'm undefeated against tau, I dont care how over/underpowered they are now or in 7th/8th/9th edition to come. Its just the playstyle is so easy and bland and boring that I just refuse to play against them because the game is just not fun.

Just my 2 cents.

I hate Tau because like so many others have said, they never change. Always shuffling around on the table edge, jumping out of LOS, laying down stupidly stupid amounts of firepower.

I would go and play as Tau just to try it out, but I suspect that after a few games it's about as fun as canasta.

 tuiman wrote:
Its not the riptides, markerlights, fluff, S7 spam missilsides, unparalled access to skyfire, interceptor, or shutting down assault armies completley with networked overwatch making it impossible to ever get into combat....

Its the fact that tau are so boring to play against and please say Im not the only one.

All tau players that I have played, just deploy on their board edge, don't use the moving or assault phase unless really necessary, and just role bucket loads of dice blowing you off the table piece by piece as you try to get closer to shoot/assault them which by that point half your army is gone in the first two turns.

For the record, I'm undefeated against tau, I dont care how over/underpowered they are now or in 7th/8th/9th edition to come. Its just the playstyle is so easy and bland and boring that I just refuse to play against them because the game is just not fun.

Just my 2 cents.

Could be your player base that you are playing against. Part of it I think has to be that the Cadre Fireblade HQ forces the troops to remain stationary and our Troops are very fragile so they tend to not be staying out in the open. I'm using the Farsight Supplement using Crisis Suits as Troops so i have to constantly be on the move to get suits into position.

BoomWolf wrote:Unknown xenos is just adding additional races to the setting. guesswork should be towards established existing things, not random "might be out there" things.

Why? 40K has dozens of named alien races which aren't represented on the tabletop. The armies for the tabletop are simply those which have been differentiated enough to provide unique playstyles without diluting the product line with too many model ranges.

Like I've always said, never mistake the Warhammer 40K tabletop game for the Warhammer 40K universe. It's just a set of rules designed to let you play "evenly" matched battles on neutral terrain. It's not a simulation, nor is it an accurate depiction of combat in the universe.

 Enigma Crisis wrote:

 tuiman wrote:
Its not the riptides, markerlights, fluff, S7 spam missilsides, unparalled access to skyfire, interceptor, or shutting down assault armies completley with networked overwatch making it impossible to ever get into combat....

Its the fact that tau are so boring to play against and please say Im not the only one.

All tau players that I have played, just deploy on their board edge, don't use the moving or assault phase unless really necessary, and just role bucket loads of dice blowing you off the table piece by piece as you try to get closer to shoot/assault them which by that point half your army is gone in the first two turns.

For the record, I'm undefeated against tau, I dont care how over/underpowered they are now or in 7th/8th/9th edition to come. Its just the playstyle is so easy and bland and boring that I just refuse to play against them because the game is just not fun.

Just my 2 cents.

Could be your player base that you are playing against. Part of it I think has to be that the Cadre Fireblade HQ forces the troops to remain stationary and our Troops are very fragile so they tend to not be staying out in the open. I'm using the Farsight Supplement using Crisis Suits as Troops so i have to constantly be on the move to get suits into position.

Tau do have a very mobile army, it is just not utilized. One of the reasons (in my mind) is the cost of our transport. It cost more than two upgraded crisis suits, or three naked ones. It is a good transport, but that's all it is and is extremely over-costed.

80 point devilfish just makes me cry inside. How much does a chimera cost for guard? How about a wave serpent for Eldar? Could I maybe get something about halfway between those two points costs for our transport?

It's just so ridiculous because everything got points reductions in the new codex...except the transport! Of course, I still remember the days when the transport could move in the assault phase like a crisis suit... so I guess I'm just spoiled.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Not to mention that the hardcore assault lovers seem to find it somehow wrong that somebody is trying to AVOID combat, rather then jump at them with his own assault units.

Assault was nerfed hard, you know why?
Because last edition, a SINGLE squad of the not-too-impressive assault marines, could wipe out an entire shooter army, without the shooter even getting a chance to respond. ("Wiped your squad? great, consolidate into another, fight, you can't shoot me, and got no chance to win combat.")

And still, some of the major dominant lists are assault oriented.
Just showing you that assault itself works perfectly fine, just not dumb "I got a handful of marines running at you" assault, you need to actually support your assault elements.

Sorry, we're in sixth edition, not fourth.

You couldn't consolidate into combat in fifth, fourth you had a three inch consolidation move to try it. Third you got a 2D6 run which meant that assault was a viable tactic for clearing a board.

Assault has not been a dominant force for two whole editions. Daemons are about the only army that can pull it off now. Tyranids may do when their Codex comes out.

Sixth edition is more shooting oriented than fifth, and Tau and Eldar are the undisputed kings of shooting.

 dementedwombat wrote:
80 point devilfish just makes me cry inside. How much does a chimera cost for guard? How about a wave serpent for Eldar? Could I maybe get something about halfway between those two points costs for our transport?

It's just so ridiculous because everything got points reductions in the new codex...except the transport! Of course, I still remember the days when the transport could move in the assault phase like a crisis suit... so I guess I'm just spoiled.

It's really sad when an un-upgraded basic transport cost five points less than an un-upgraded main HQ. or when it costs more than the unit it is transporting. I has always been overpriced, other than when the fish of fury was possible (buts that was just cheese, and everybody (including most tau players) is glad it's gone.

 dementedwombat wrote:
80 point devilfish just makes me cry inside. How much does a chimera cost for guard? How about a wave serpent for Eldar? Could I maybe get something about halfway between those two points costs for our transport?

It's just so ridiculous because everything got points reductions in the new codex...except the transport! Of course, I still remember the days when the transport could move in the assault phase like a crisis suit... so I guess I'm just spoiled.

The Wave Serpent is pretty pricey for a transport clocking in at 6 points less than a 3 man crisis team with dual plasma. The thing that sucks for our transport is it has more of a defensive role than offensive. You pay a pretty penny for being a skimmer.

The problem is, people hate tau for the same reason they hate dwarfs in fantasy. Gunlines suck to play against. There are 3 phases to the game, and games are most interesting when all 3 are important.

Armies which double down on long range shooting or play keep away shooting are incredibly one dimentional and boring to play against. Maybe if the dominant tau strategy wasn't gunline... then people wouldn't hate them

 akaean wrote:
The problem is, people hate tau for the same reason they hate dwarfs in fantasy. Gunlines suck to play against. There are 3 phases to the game, and games are most interesting when all 3 are important.

Armies which double down on long range shooting or play keep away shooting are incredibly one dimentional and boring to play against. Maybe if the dominant tau strategy wasn't gunline... then people wouldn't hate them

See, I always experienced it from the opposite side of the coin in earlier editions. I never really liked how shooting didn't matter because I never could kill enough models to actually stop them from just assaulting me and removing my entire army anyway, and letting people assault out of drop pods or from outflanking (curse those genestealers...they effectively made me deploy on a table 3 ft wide) meant I couldn't even shoot at them before they got to assault into me and destroy my army.

There's a perfectly valid argument for armies that can assault from out of nowhere being as unfun as armies that run a gunline. It all depends on your perspective. And don't say "close combat is more engaging because both sides are fighting". There's a reason I always offer to just remove the squad from the table as soon as it gets in close combat. It's just you rolling dice and killing my models without me being able to do anything about it.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
I dislike tau because they look lame and their fluff is stupid. Has nothing to do with how they perform in game, my daemons usually crush them.

Well I think Tau have one of the best miniature ranges GW have ever produced (with a few exceptions, the new kits aren't all that great with the sun shark being the absolute worst, and crisis suits desperately need a redesign, but everything else is good and the FW models are awesome). I also don't think their fluff is any more or less stupid than any other 40k race: really, they all have stupid fluff, even your daemons which can apparently just pop out of the warp anywhere they want to now, and aren't really as big of a threat as they should be because the four gods are all squabbling children who are more interested in screwing with each other than anything else. And the less said about the daemon miniatures the better, really...it's pretty clear that whoever they got to do the vast majority of CSM/Daemon models was their worst sculptor, or some kind of trainee. It's funny to me when the mecha army looks less cartoony than a bunch of fething hell-spawned daemons from a nightmare dimension.

All you need for Tau really is a good paint job and a little weathering. But not even a Golden Demon level painter could make the stock daemon models look good, in my opinion.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Tau do have a very mobile army, it is just not utilized. One of the reasons (in my mind) is the cost of our transport. It cost more than two upgraded crisis suits, or three naked ones. It is a good transport, but that's all it is and is extremely over-costed.

I would love to be able to play a more mobile Tau army and still be competitive, but the rules discourage it. And naturally GW only made things worse with the new codex. The overpriced devilfish is just one of many problems...but yeah, it either needed a 30-40 point drop with no other changes, or to get more weapon options, like maybe the FW hammerhead turrets or an ion cannon, some heavier firepower to make it worth those points.

Good gosh... why!? Why can't they make good daemons? For bloody sake. The old pink horror models had 1 bad model and 1 good model. The big hands was stupid but t he one ripping its mouth open for two pink horrors... YES! Make it eldricht, illogical, change, hope, trickery, sheath them in flames but nooooo they have to make them all into kid buu. ANd of course I had to start playing daemons in the time where daemons get goofy models and so I build them with hopes of making my own custom models someday (or stealing them). Now personally, I don't really care for Tau and honestly even if they weren't the top 3 codex I still doubt they would be liked. It seems like they have always had a large amount of dislike projected to them.. Personally, I like their fluff. Naive, arrogant, abusive, subtle... they are a brave new world. They are Orwellian in tone just creeping beneath the surface. And I bloody love that. Along with that, I enjoy their models. That being said, I don't like their models within 40k if that makes any sense. It's anime and really doesn't mesh much IMO. Anyways, my bigger problem is rules. Personally, I've seen mobile armies of Tau. Those are awesome! They are agressive, mobile, fly around the battlefield in a dance whilst the layer combines some caution with brazen agression. It is glorious to watch... but the rules don't heavily favor that. Instead, the Tau codex almost seems to want you to play by way of castling which is a dull theming. Gun lines are bleh to be honest. Keep in mind, I like close combat and assault (assault = close ranged fire arms so meltas and flamers etc). The only Tau weakness is arguably a joke due to how the rules work. My biggest two gripes are the buffmander and the riptide in combo with markerlights. That's what really puts the final nail. Though I guess I just rage in a giant battlesuit being as tough as my MC and my Deamon Prince only being T5 meaning you can ID him in bloody CC.

Also, in terms of the sword, it could still arguably be chaos. Chaos has been sense centuries ago. At the very least it was in the 1000 long before 40,000 and I would not be surprised if chaos spans even further back so it could be some sort of gift to chaos or something. Heck, there is a daemon weapon that is called Soul Eater (wound the enemy = extra wounds for you! )

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
While it didn't state it really IS necrontyr product, it really makes sense to them.
Who else would make a sword that liturally takes away the natural lifespan of those you kill and adds it to your own? (as revealed in the enclave supplement.) (and on the feth does that even WORK?)
.

Dark Eldar - they would love that blade and have several similar artefacts / weapons, in fact it could just be ancient Eldar blade from before the fall
Chaos - again what Chaos Champion would not want that blade - its also fits with pretty much all the Chaos Gods ideas of a good reward, I know several people who read the description and thought it was a Deamon balde (Stormbringer stylee)

A N Other Xenos race.

nothing syas its Necron, nothing says its not. Although why would the Necrons need to make such a blade for themselves?

Eldar does not need it, they can live forever as it is. why bother extending a lifespan of "infinite +1"?

Chaos, even less relevant to them, demons don't even have the concept of age and "natural lifespan", and its not given to chaos worshippers purely because its way too old, much older then the IoM.

Unknown xenos is just adding additional races to the setting. guesswork should be towards established existing things, not random "might be out there" things.

Necrons might be machines that live forever, but before they were machines, they were Necrontyr.
And Necrontyr are a very, VERY short lived race, they will WANT this, very, very much. even if it wasn't at all useful at combat it would be priceless for them.
Heck, the whole "turning into machines" concept was to escape the pathetically shot natural lifespan they have.

Also, while more apperant on the old model, the blade resembles necron blades in shape.

As far as I am aware eldar grow old and die - always have done?
Dark Eldar - well its exactly the same as their power from pain - give me your life so I can live linger.
Chaos - they have been around a lot longer than the Imperium of Man the warp has always been there - remembrr the Old Ones fought the Necrons with the power of Chaos/Warp - plus the blade could have been made by the Old Ones

it might be Necron - it might not be

 Sidstyler wrote:

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
I dislike tau because they look lame and their fluff is stupid. Has nothing to do with how they perform in game, my daemons usually crush them.

Well I think Tau have one of the best miniature ranges GW have ever produced (with a few exceptions, the new kits aren't all that great with the sun shark being the absolute worst, and crisis suits desperately need a redesign, but everything else is good and the FW models are awesome).

Forgeworld is more awesome then you think, they even give you the crisis redesign you want.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Tau/TAU-BATTLESUITS-AND-DRONES/XV89-CRISIS-BATTLESUIT.html

Officially just another look for a crisis suit these days. (used to be a special system, but it was so god aweful people jused it as alternate crisis anyway )

 dementedwombat wrote:

 akaean wrote:
The problem is, people hate tau for the same reason they hate dwarfs in fantasy. Gunlines suck to play against. There are 3 phases to the game, and games are most interesting when all 3 are important.

Armies which double down on long range shooting or play keep away shooting are incredibly one dimentional and boring to play against. Maybe if the dominant tau strategy wasn't gunline... then people wouldn't hate them

See, I always experienced it from the opposite side of the coin in earlier editions. I never really liked how shooting didn't matter because I never could kill enough models to actually stop them from just assaulting me and removing my entire army anyway, and letting people assault out of drop pods or from outflanking (curse those genestealers...they effectively made me deploy on a table 3 ft wide) meant I couldn't even shoot at them before they got to assault into me and destroy my army.

There's a perfectly valid argument for armies that can assault from out of nowhere being as unfun as armies that run a gunline. It all depends on your perspective. And don't say "close combat is more engaging because both sides are fighting". There's a reason I always offer to just remove the squad from the table as soon as it gets in close combat. It's just you rolling dice and killing my models without me being able to do anything about it.

I have a problem with this argument as a Tyranid player. Say I was running two squads of outflanking Genestealers, say that they could assault from outflank like they could in 5th. Now the worst thing that should happen to you is you lose a squad or two, which is a big hit, but for what Genestealers cost is it out of the question that they COULD be able to do that? Chance are they are going to wipe what ever they charge off the table the turn they charge, which means on my turn, that means you have your turn to wipe an extremely squishy unit off the table with an extremely shooty army.

So while it sucks to lose a squad like that, without being able to fight back, you only have to deal with it twice and I have to deal with it every turn against Tau. Outflanking assault is in a weird position were is extremely powerful but without it some units flat suck, like Genestealers. So what do we do? How do we find a balance where Genestealers can be effective without just being unfun to play against. It is the same reason that Tau are no fun to play against.

Modelwise I hate the anime robots, always did, however their tanks and infantry are pretty nice ('cept Kroot and Vespid which I also hate for differen reasons). The Hammerhead is one of my favourite tank models in this game.

Fluffwise there's just something about them that makes me want to see them suffer. Maybe it's because of how damn sterile and boring they seem. Even Eldar have their own brand of poncy badass, the Tau however are like a really goddamn lame version of the Federation.

Ruleswise, eh, their best lists have always been some of the lamest in the game for both sides. I like their mechanized style list, one that gets a bit more close to shoot, that's completely fine with me but the gunline and long range keepaway style are both lame and I really hate that they have a dreadnought that was made into an MC just so it was cheesier and would sell better, always did hate Wraithlords for the same reason.

A friend plays 2 Railheads, 2-3 devilfish, some pathfinders, crisis suits and some kroot. I think it's a pretty balanced and fun army to play against too, still krumped my foot Orks pretty handily, haven't tried mech Orks against it yet. I'm only guessing but I think if Riptides were walkers with AV people wouldn't be complaining about Tau nearly so much.

I had the dubious pleasure of playing against an entire genestealer army. It wasn't two squads of outflanking genestealers, it was about 4-5. And they all had brood lords (those things take some killing, even for Tau guns. Especially old codex tau guns). The only thing he started on the table was a lonely tyranid prime hiding in a corner somewhere.

Actually this guy still plays the exact same army with infiltrating instead of outflanking and surprisingly does very well with it in local tournaments by very good play and sticking to the scenarios. And by shear meta busting army potential. Nobody expects 5 squads of genestealers.

But at any rate, I agree it can be unfun both ways when a really shooty army goes up against a very stabby army in this game. The determining factor is what style of play is favored by the rules in the current edition. I just don't see the arguments of one being somehow "worse" than another.

I think the majority of people just hate Tau because of their anime look. I mean all the silly head crests, the gem encrusted weapons and armor, the pointless loincloths on robots, guns that shoot shurikens, and high heels on their robots.

Oh. Wait.

Seriously, the whole mecha aspect is not something that's only found in anime. If anything the Tau are very far from an anime and more in line with a Mechwarrior style since they favor function over flair. If you honestly think that Tau are too anime-ish, then you probably aren't too familiar with sci-fi, anime, and/or Tau.

Also I'd have to point out that anime isn't even a genre. It's more of a medium. It's the same as saying "I don't like Flames of War because it's far too live-action looking". I know that it's generally referring to the style, but I really don't like things like Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, FLCL, and One Piece falling into the same category as any of the thousands of "Harem" shows, G Gundam, and Naruto.

Rautakanki wrote:The Hammerhead is one of my favourite tank models in this game.

Same here. Probably one of my favorite tank designs ever, honestly. That model alone is probably what eventually convinced me to take the plunge and do Tau in the first place. I was holding out hope that the new codex would allow us to take them in squadrons so I could field even more.

Rautakanki wrote:I like their mechanized style list, one that gets a bit more close to shoot, that's completely fine with me

I like a more "aggressive" mechanized list myself, and really wish the rules allowed me to play a list like that competitively. But in my experience doing that is usually suicide, and while I have no doubt that's more "fun" for the other player it's not exactly fun or fair for me.

Having played Tau for six years and having almost a year to get used to the new codex, and think a lot of the problems with the current Tau have to do with the fact that Vetock did not understand how the Tau worked in the slightest. He took what was a maneuver warfare army, an army for which the movement phase was every bit as important as the shooting phase, and turned them into a castling, gunline style army. There are still ways to construct a mobile Tau army, but now you are almost handicapping yourself by doing so and fighting the underlying construction of the army, while pure gunlines, which used to be suicidal builds used by inexperienced Tau players, can now just crush the opposition.

I think the old Tau army often gave an appearance of a long range gunline army, but it was not. This is probably because of the extra 6" of range on the pulse rifle and the extraordinary range on the railgun, but that was by and large the extent of Tau long range firepower. Both the elite choices, Crisis and Stealth Suits, along with most of the fast attack choices and the kroot operated within 24", and often optimally within 18", 12" or even closer. Virtually all these choices have some sort of enhance mobility. This meant that a huge chunk of the army where mobile, short range shooting based units, very similar to Sisters of Battle units in many respects.

Problem is a lot of things in 5th edition gave the appearance the old Tau army were a gunline army. Tau heavy support, especially broadsides, were arguably the strongest units in the codex which resulted in a lot of heavy support heavy armies with a disproportionate amount of long range fire. Also, the one weapon Tau Crisis Suits had that had a range greater than 24" was the missile pod, which just so happened to be the specialized for taking out light armor. Against the ubiquitous parking lot armies of 5e, Tau players would often eschew other Crisis Suit weapons in favor of all missile pod loadouts because it was all they could do to stop the endless wave of vehicles being sent against them. Hence you got armies that were nothing but firewarriors, Deathrain Crisis Suits and Broadsides which tended to give the mistaken impression the Tau ran gunlines.

When the Tau codex finally got updated, they got enough firepower to make up for two editions worth of codex creep. However, despite armies getting significantly faster and more mobile due to codex changes sense 4e, Tau mobility was severely hampered through the loss of multitrackers and A.S.S. Coupled with rubbish codex flyers, dependence on markerlights which are fielded cheapest if stationary, and a transport that never received a badly needed points discount given out in virtually every other dedicated transport in the game since the old Tau codex, the new Tau codex tends to encourage gunline armies. The Tau army and 40k are poorer for the changes in this particular direction.

You...I like you. You are smart.

But yeah, that's basically it right there. Tau lost some of their mobility with the new update and devilfish remain overpriced and useless. You can't blame the Tau player for playing to their armies strengths, blame GW for pigeonholing us into a single, boring style of play that also happens to be unpopular.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
I honestly think that Eldar, Eldar/Tau, Tau/Eldar & Daemons earn far more hatred than just Tau by their little 'ol selves.

I also think that a bigger issue is that last edition, Loyalist Marines & Guard were the undisputed kings and Xenos armies were laughably outclassed for the most part. Marine players got used to just batting an eyelash at the likes of Tau/Eldar/'Nids/Daemons/Oldcrons and watching them fall over.
Now that we're all mostly updated instead of floundering with 10+ year old rules, (Just Orks & 'Nids left out in the old!), Xenos as a whole kicks arse and can compete with Marines & even table them.

Spoiled, over entitled Marines players are now having to learn a new game where Xenos armies are on an even footing and sometimes slightly above.

Yes. Because somehow it is always the fault of the Space Marines. Seriously? Why all the SM hate? I also think you are wrong. Most players also have a different army next to their SM.

Last edition Imperial players in general had the best of everything and the top tier armies were ALL Loyalist codices... SW's, BA's, IG, GK's, they ruled the roost and playing a Xenos army overall was pretty much like trying to chew on a glass sandwich filled with nails.
Now that most of the Xenos books have been updated though, all of a sudden "Tau/Eldar/Daemons/Taudar/Eltau/Helldrakes" are no fun and are apparently needing to be heavily comped/banned. (Feast of Blades for example is literally telling Daemons to go suck a lemon in their 1st draft comp, while the Riptide is being hinted at being nerfed to a 0-1 choice!)

So yes, part of the problem is Marine players getting whiny again.

Disclaimer: I say this as a Black Templars player, i.e. an army that shared the "glass sandwich" with Xenos in 5th and which doesn't even exist as a standalone army in 6th.

Orks, DE, and Necrons did just fine. Further, if it was unfair that Xenos were weaker in 5th, why is it suddenly OK that they're more powerful in 6th? It cuts both ways you know. Trying to blame Marine players for being "whiny" while ignoring the massive amount of hate that Marines took for all of 5th edition from (primarily) Xenos players is dishonest at best, and outright lying at worst. If there's any faction that's "fair game" for jibes, veiled (or open) insults and belittling comments in the 40k hobby, it's Marines. Whining about Marine players whining is just silly.



EDIT: +1 to Phaniaxis.

And I am chaos! Where do I go on this list!? We haven't had a good codex (a few op lists, several good, why must thousand sons always be bad?) since 3.5! But yeah, Tau suffer from a combination of multiple aspects that amount into the oddly large amount of dislike for them.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I think the majority of people just hate Tau because of their anime look. I mean all the silly head crests, the gem encrusted weapons and armor, the pointless loincloths on robots, guns that shoot shurikens, and high heels on their robots.

Oh. Wait.

Seriously, the whole mecha aspect is not something that's only found in anime. If anything the Tau are very far from an anime and more in line with a Mechwarrior style since they favor function over flair. If you honestly think that Tau are too anime-ish, then you probably aren't too familiar with sci-fi, anime, and/or Tau.

Also I'd have to point out that anime isn't even a genre. It's more of a medium. It's the same as saying "I don't like Flames of War because it's far too live-action looking". I know that it's generally referring to the style, but I really don't like things like Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, FLCL, and One Piece falling into the same category as any of the thousands of "Harem" shows, G Gundam, and Naruto.

Can you break this down for those of us who have had sex with girls?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I think the majority of people just hate Tau because of their anime look. I mean all the silly head crests, the gem encrusted weapons and armor, the pointless loincloths on robots, guns that shoot shurikens, and high heels on their robots.

Oh. Wait.

Seriously, the whole mecha aspect is not something that's only found in anime. If anything the Tau are very far from an anime and more in line with a Mechwarrior style since they favor function over flair. If you honestly think that Tau are too anime-ish, then you probably aren't too familiar with sci-fi, anime, and/or Tau.

Also I'd have to point out that anime isn't even a genre. It's more of a medium. It's the same as saying "I don't like Flames of War because it's far too live-action looking". I know that it's generally referring to the style, but I really don't like things like Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, FLCL, and One Piece falling into the same category as any of the thousands of "Harem" shows, G Gundam, and Naruto.

Can you break this down for those of us who have had sex with girls?

And for us who are girls?

The quick way to look at is like this; there are genres and there are mediums. Mediums are ways the story is told; such as claymation, live-action, puppet, stop motion, animated and such. Genre is sci-fi, western, historical, and so on. Anime encompases many different genres like Cowboy Bebop (sci-fi western), One Piece (Pirate, comedy, steam punk, sci-fi), and Grave of the Fireflies (Historical drama).

When you say they look too anime-like, it's a nonsense phrase. It's like you don't like the look of the ships in Star Wars and you say that it's just too "live-action" for you that you prefer gritty Historical War style, even though there are plenty of live action gritty historical war style settings out there.

My only real problems with the tau are markerlights and the high strength low AP ignores cover. I don't care about lots of high S low AP attacks, but the fact that alot of their attacks are only gonna allow invulns does bother me. Particularly for armies like eldar who rely on cover saves. Shouldn't even have to explain why I dislike marker lights. I don't hate the tau I just think they should have been done differently.

I don't like tau designs that much personally.

Battlesuits are silly - ton for ton, something on treads is better than something on legs in 99% of cases.

Hovertanks are silly - using up engine power just to stay in the air doesn't make sense. And how does one fire a solid-slug weapon at immense velocities without sliding backwards with disturbing rapidity? If it's because the engine is working against the recoil, then why don't they just make the main gun a Directed Energy Weapon that uses not only the same power used to fire the railgun, but also is enhanced with the engine power that would have been spent reducing the recoil as well?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Battlesuits are silly - ton for ton, something on treads is better than something on legs in 99% of cases.

Not really. Remember, Tau battlesuits aren't walkers, they're (book) Starship Troopers-style heavy power armor with jet packs. It makes sense to have them fight like infantry in the kind of difficult terrain/buildings/etc where vehicles aren't a very good idea.

(Of course the Riptide is pretty stupid, but GW never should have released such a fluff-ignoring abomination.)

Hovertanks are silly - using up engine power just to stay in the air doesn't make sense.

Actually it makes a lot of sense. That's a huge difference in mobility compared to a ground vehicle, even ignoring the fluff of Tau tanks being a lot faster than Imperial equivalents. A tracked vehicle is going to be slowed or stopped by things like tank traps, deep mud/water, rubble, etc, that a hover tank can just ignore. And then you have fun abilities like using the lift engines to "jump" above cover, take a shot, and drop back before any return fire can even aim properly. Essentially Tau have managed a ridiculous feat of engineering and made a vehicle that has all of the best parts of a helicopter and a tank, without the drawbacks of either.

And how does one fire a solid-slug weapon at immense velocities without sliding backwards with disturbing rapidity?

Easily. I've done the math on it and unless you assume railguns are far more powerful than any conventional tank gun (in which case a little recoil is a small price to pay) a Hammerhead is pushed back at a slow walking pace at most. The tank's engines would easily be able to correct for it, so the only real effect would be the same need to reset the gun's aim for the next shot that any conventional tank has to deal with.

If it's because the engine is working against the recoil, then why don't they just make the main gun a Directed Energy Weapon that uses not only the same power used to fire the railgun, but also is enhanced with the engine power that would have been spent reducing the recoil as well?

Because the additional engine power required is minimal (well within normal thrust levels), engine power can't necessarily be converted efficiently into electrical power for a laser (look at the efficiency losses in drawing power from a jet engine to drive a generator), the input energy to shot energy ratio for railguns may be better than for energy weapons, and energy weapons and solid shot have entirely different damage mechanics.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Battlesuits are silly - ton for ton, something on treads is better than something on legs in 99% of cases.

Not really. Remember, Tau battlesuits aren't walkers, they're (book) Starship Troopers-style heavy power armor with jet packs. It makes sense to have them fight like infantry in the kind of difficult terrain/buildings/etc where vehicles aren't a very good idea.

(Of course the Riptide is pretty stupid, but GW never should have released such a fluff-ignoring abomination.)

So, you're saying, battlesuits are ok except for the one that isn't ok. Got it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Hovertanks are silly - using up engine power just to stay in the air doesn't make sense.

Actually it makes a lot of sense. That's a huge difference in mobility compared to a ground vehicle, even ignoring the fluff of Tau tanks being a lot faster than Imperial equivalents. A tracked vehicle is going to be slowed or stopped by things like tank traps, deep mud/water, rubble, etc, that a hover tank can just ignore. And then you have fun abilities like using the lift engines to "jump" above cover, take a shot, and drop back before any return fire can even aim properly. Essentially Tau have managed a ridiculous feat of engineering and made a vehicle that has all of the best parts of a helicopter and a tank, without the drawbacks of either.

I guess. Depending on the method of hover, of course, but tracked vehicles have other properties that hover vehicles lack, such as the ability to have increased weight (seriously, if you think powered anti-gravity holding up 70 tons isn't wasting a LOT of juice that could go elsewhere, you're silly) without too much wasted power. There's also the ability for the tank to fight after having suffered major engine damage. You also are perturbed less by electrical damage; e.g. an internal combustion engine powering a conventional drive train isn't really worried about power surges as much as a handwavium-powered antigravity drive.

In fact, this illustrates my main problem with the Tau. They're basically the 'handwavium' faction.

 Peregrine wrote:

And how does one fire a solid-slug weapon at immense velocities without sliding backwards with disturbing rapidity?

Easily. I've done the math on it and unless you assume railguns are far more powerful than any conventional tank gun (in which case a little recoil is a small price to pay) a Hammerhead is pushed back at a slow walking pace at most. The tank's engines would easily be able to correct for it, so the only real effect would be the same need to reset the gun's aim for the next shot that any conventional tank has to deal with.

I do assume that railguns are far more powerful than conventional tank guns. The Vanquisher, noted as rare and hard to build, is Str 8 AP 2 (admittedly with armorbane, shrug). This represents, for me, an average high-velocity antitank gun, given 38,000 years of development. Now compare that to the Str 10, AP1 Tau railgun and tell me that there isn't a major power difference.

 Peregrine wrote:

If it's because the engine is working against the recoil, then why don't they just make the main gun a Directed Energy Weapon that uses not only the same power used to fire the railgun, but also is enhanced with the engine power that would have been spent reducing the recoil as well?

Because the additional engine power required is minimal (well within normal thrust levels), engine power can't necessarily be converted efficiently into electrical power for a laser (look at the efficiency losses in drawing power from a jet engine to drive a generator), the input energy to shot energy ratio for railguns may be better than for energy weapons, and energy weapons and solid shot have entirely different damage mechanics.

There must be some way to convert engine power to electrical power efficiently. Railguns are fired by electrical power. I suppose you could power your railgun with some sort of battery - but really? A battery? For a RAILGUN? And as far as the damage mechanics - yes, it's true. I suppose if you like having to store ammunition and deal with recoil, then a railgun is better than a DEW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Eh, my last post was a bit harsh. After reflection, I suppose I should reconsider my position, so I will...

...those damn dirty Eldar and their handwavium. *grumps*

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, you're saying, battlesuits are ok except for the one that isn't ok. Got it.

Yes, except for the one that was a blatant milking of the "large MC kit" cash cow that ignored the existing fluff that the Tau don't use anything that big.

I guess. Depending on the method of hover, of course, but tracked vehicles have other properties that hover vehicles lack, such as the ability to have increased weight (seriously, if you think powered anti-gravity holding up 70 tons isn't wasting a LOT of juice that could go elsewhere, you're silly) without too much wasted power.

Sure, that's the design tradeoff you make. The tracked LRBT carries a lot of tons of armor and gets AV 14, the Hammerhead sacrifices some of that armor for a huge improvement in mobility.

There's also the ability for the tank to fight after having suffered major engine damage.

Of course the value of that depends on the firepower you're facing. If anti-tank weapons are usually a one-shot kill then if you take a hit that damages the engine the rest of the tank is probably a burning wreck. And remember that the tabletop game scales down the effectiveness of those anti-tank weapons to give vehicles a chance to survive past the first turn. In the fluff you have to consider things like a Vulture popping up from behind a hill and one-shotting eight different LRBTs with its anti-tank missiles. In that case the Hammerhead's mobility and ECM are much more valuable since they allow it to avoid suffering the damage entirely.

You also are perturbed less by electrical damage; e.g. an internal combustion engine powering a conventional drive train isn't really worried about power surges as much as a handwavium-powered antigravity drive.

Which is complete speculation. It could be the exact opposite, an internal combustion engine can still have electrical parts while the antigravity drive might have such a high tolerance for things like power surges that it's effectively immune to them.

I do assume that railguns are far more powerful than conventional tank guns. The Vanquisher, noted as rare and hard to build, is Str 8 AP 2 (admittedly with armorbane, shrug). This represents, for me, an average high-velocity antitank gun, given 38,000 years of development. Now compare that to the Str 10, AP1 Tau railgun and tell me that there isn't a major power difference.

I don't mean "kind of better", I mean orders of magnitude better. To get meaningful recoil on a Hammerhead you're talking about a weapon that would go through one tank, through the tank next to it, and flatten the building behind them, without any real difficulty. And we just don't see that in the fluff or in the gameplay.

There must be some way to convert engine power to electrical power efficiently. Railguns are fired by electrical power.

Yes, but every stage of that conversion process has efficiency losses. It may be more efficient to fire the railgun and spend a tiny amount of thrust (and remember, the thrust engines may just be conventional jet engines) to counter the slight recoil than to try to make a laser that does the same amount of damage to an average target. Since neither weapon actually exists it's impossible to say which one requires more total power (weapon power + thrust + anything else) to achieve the same level of firepower. It's an engineering question that depends greatly on the exact system you're talking about, not a fundamental property of railguns or lasers.

I suppose you could power your railgun with some sort of battery - but really? A battery?

Yes, it's called a capacitor. Railguns would use them, and lasers would use them. You aren't firing continuously so you charge capacitors while you're moving to set up your next shot, and dump all of that energy into a single burst that vastly exceeds the maximum continuous power the tank can supply. But, again, this applies equally to both types of weapon.

And as far as the damage mechanics - yes, it's true. I suppose if you like having to store ammunition and deal with recoil, then a railgun is better than a DEW.

I think you missed the point here. Railguns (and other kinetic weapons) kill a target by mechanical deformation of the armor, producing either a penetrating hit that wrecks stuff inside or shattering the inside face of the armor and producing damaging splinters. Lasers kill a target by melting/vaporizing the armor until they hit something important (with a possible secondary effect of radiation or armor cracks/splinters from the shock of suddenly heating and expanding material). It's impossible to tell which of these methods will do more damage to a target (for a given input energy to the weapon) without building each of them and shooting them at the target you want to kill. And that's without even getting into specific countermeasures like ablative ceramic plates to stop lasers, or reactive armor to stop certain types of kinetic shots.

And sure, railguns have ammunition to store, but it's just inert metal spikes that don't take up all that much room. Meanwhile lasers may not use any ammunition directly, but they have appallingly low efficiency so you're probably stuck with expendable coolant to keep your gun from melting itself. So which would you rather have, some metal spikes or some 55 gallon drums of liquid nitrogen?

Finally, don't forget that physical ammunition is sometimes a good thing. A laser is always going to be a laser, but kinetic guns have a lot of interesting tricks available. Submunition rounds to kill whole squads of infantry while the laser can only kill the one person the beam hits, explosive demolition rounds to bring down buildings with a single shot, indirect fire rounds to kill a target without ever exposing yourself to return fire from the LOS-only laser, guided rounds to ensure a kill even at long range, etc.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Eh, my last post was a bit harsh. After reflection, I suppose I should reconsider my position, so I will...

...those damn dirty Eldar and their handwavium. *grumps*

Not really. Remember, Tau battlesuits aren't walkers, they're (book) Starship Troopers-style heavy power armor with jet packs. It makes sense to have them fight like infantry in the kind of difficult terrain/buildings/etc where vehicles aren't a very good idea.

Exactly as described. The Tau battlesuits are pretty decent direct translations of the military tech in one of the oldest and most respected sci-fi books.

Hovertanks are silly - using up engine power just to stay in the air doesn't make sense.
--------


Actually it makes a lot of sense. That's a huge difference in mobility compared to a ground vehicle, even ignoring the fluff of Tau tanks being a lot faster than Imperial equivalents. A tracked vehicle is going to be slowed or stopped by things like tank traps, deep mud/water, rubble, etc, that a hover tank can just ignore. And then you have fun abilities like using the lift engines to "jump" above cover, take a shot, and drop back before any return fire can even aim properly. Essentially Tau have managed a ridiculous feat of engineering and made a vehicle that has all of the best parts of a helicopter and a tank, without the drawbacks of either.

Exactly. The Military would be absolutely orgasmic over the technology for the ability to make a helicopter as survivable and well-armed as a main battle tank (or even a light tank!). Also, if you hate the Tau grav-tanks, you should hate the Eldar and Dark Eldar grav vehicles and all variants of Space Marine landspeeder. And most types of flyer as they are effectively helicopters using thrust engines instead of props, which for most purposes would be much less effective without lots of handwavium-tech. A

And hand-wavium tech pretty much defines 40K.

Peregrine, you make a lot of sense.

 dementedwombat wrote:
80 point devilfish just makes me cry inside. How much does a chimera cost for guard? How about a wave serpent for Eldar? Could I maybe get something about halfway between those two points costs for our transport?

It's just so ridiculous because everything got points reductions in the new codex...except the transport! Of course, I still remember the days when the transport could move in the assault phase like a crisis suit... so I guess I'm just spoiled.

Are you kidding with this .....I'm not saying Devilfish are costed well but they are 25 points more than an IG Chimera and 35 points less than a serpent....pretty close to half way if you ask me....and they would be more expensive if you wanted to be exactly half way....

Except it is almost outgunned by the chimera itself, packs nothing of note (or can it make any greatly noticable upgrades), forbids whoever is inside from doing anything, and comes as on option for 2 units. one of them don't even want to move from the firstplace, and the other just has no incentive to do so.

The serpent at least moves around units that actually need that added gap-closing.
Fire warriors are either in a fort formation, or fighting retreat as it is. the only variation that gains anything from advancing is EMP commandos, and as you can't assault from it, it does not even help them.

If it was an assault transport at least it could carve a niche of EMP commando platform, but even that is forbbiden to it.
If it had real firepower, it could be a support gunship.
(and lets admit guys, EMP commando fire warriors charging in with a devilfish is as awesome as it could get considering just how much tau need to avoid getting too close in general. its like saying "I know I'm going down, but god damn it I'm taking something with me!")

But 80 points for a simple shield that prevents you from shooting unless you drop it? a big squad is just wasting it's shots, a small squad-you might as well get another!


Now, if you want to talk balance and mobility issues, that's what tau are currently facing:
1-Devilfish needs either a great boost, or a great point cut. at the moment its just a bad choice 99% of the time. even if the boost is a niche, at least it will have something going for it.
2-Vespids could use a bit lower cost, so could stealth teams.
3-Railsides got TOO nerfed. at least give the rail Tank Hunters or something, to make its role as an AT gun more reliable.
4-HYMP on the other hand is too efficient.
5-And the riptide should not combine great range, good mobility and massive firepower. at least force him to choose.
6-ASS is missed. so is tank-MT. they were crucial for mobile tau lists.
7-Tau airforce is confused, give it a role and stick with it, right now they don't know their jobs.

Other then these factors who kill list flexibility a bit and cause a bit of gun-lining, the book is great.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Except it is almost outgunned by the chimera itself, packs nothing of note (or can it make any greatly noticable upgrades), forbids whoever is inside from doing anything, and comes as on option for 2 units. one of them don't even want to move from the firstplace, and the other just has no incentive to do so.

The serpent at least moves around units that actually need that added gap-closing.
Fire warriors are either in a fort formation, or fighting retreat as it is. the only variation that gains anything from advancing is EMP commandos, and as you can't assault from it, it does not even help them.

If it was an assault transport at least it could carve a niche of EMP commando platform, but even that is forbbiden to it.
If it had real firepower, it could be a support gunship.
(and lets admit guys, EMP commando fire warriors charging in with a devilfish is as awesome as it could get considering just how much tau need to avoid getting too close in general. its like saying "I know I'm going down, but god damn it I'm taking something with me!")

But 80 points for a simple shield that prevents you from shooting unless you drop it? a big squad is just wasting it's shots, a small squad-you might as well get another!


Now, if you want to talk balance and mobility issues, that's what tau are currently facing:
1-Devilfish needs either a great boost, or a great point cut. at the moment its just a bad choice 99% of the time. even if the boost is a niche, at least it will have something going for it.
2-Vespids could use a bit lower cost, so could stealth teams.
3-Railsides got TOO nerfed. at least give the rail Tank Hunters or something, to make its role as an AT gun more reliable.
4-HYMP on the other hand is too efficient.
5-And the riptide should not combine great range, good mobility and massive firepower. at least force him to choose.
6-ASS is missed. so is tank-MT. they were crucial for mobile tau lists.
7-Tau airforce is confused, give it a role and stick with it, right now they don't know their jobs.

Other then these factors who kill list flexibility a bit and cause a bit of gun-lining, the book is great.

1. The devilish would greatly benefit from a 20-30 point price drop, and make it actually worth it.
2. If they made the vesipd's gun assault 2 they might be worth it. A quick fix for stealth suits would be to make them troops (that would mean there would be no price change needed).
3. Tank hunters would be good if they only got it from the heavy rail rifle.
4. Meh, I don't really have an opinon on this one
5. I say make the ion accelerators over charge ordnance as well, or something along those lines.
6. Don't forget the target lock.
7. Currently the FW flyers are much better. Either a flyer with an ion cannon, or a squadron of cheap flyers with shrouded.

Its because the Tau do not follow the rules. Has anyone ever played against the Eldar in Battle Fleet Gothic? Its kind of like that.

You are playing 40k with your more conventional army, that has to deal with cover saves, LoS, single moves, et cetera, and then you have the Tau playing some different game against you.

Nothing is wrong with tau - people just got used to them being terrible for so long, them being good again was a shock....then came the cheese.....

its just the same jerks that were making old cheese lists have found a new formula for new cheese.

Leafblower
Razorspam
FNP spam
GK purifier spam
GK dragio wing
Necron flyer spam
Necron scarab spam
Flying circus
Screamer star
Riptide spam
Wave serpent spam
Seer council 2++
Grav gun spam
white scars scout spam

WAAC jerks will be jerks regardless - they stay the same, just the army changes.

up next...
Inquisition OP combos
Tyranid Build X spam....

Ad infinitum...

Marines have ATSKNF which completely nullifies Fear and a lot of the other LD based penalties.
Marines have a banner which turns the bolter from a rapid fire weapon into a salvo weapon.
Marines have drop pods which prevent mishaps on deepstriking.
Marines can take a 10 man squad then decide to make it 2 5 man squads whenever they want, while other armies have to decide this when making their list.
Marines have vehicles which ignore armorbane.
IG have tons of artillery that can be hidden outside LOS.

I don't understand why people say Tau don't follow the rules. The entire game is based around the BRB, and then each army will have huge deviations from that. It's how each army manages to stand out with out being bland.

Also, not all Tau weapons ignore LOS and cover. The ones that ignore LOS and cover are easily survivable. The ones that ignore cover need marker support and can be beaten with simple placing units at max coherency, even breaking up squads, and staying out of LOS.

davethepak wrote:
Nothing is wrong with tau - people just got used to them being terrible for so long, them being good again was a shock....then came the cheese.....

its just the same jerks that were making old cheese lists have found a new formula for new cheese.

Leafblower
Razorspam
FNP spam
GK purifier spam
GK dragio wing
Necron flyer spam
Necron scarab spam
Flying circus
Screamer star
Riptide spam
Wave serpent spam
Seer council 2++
Grav gun spam
white scars scout spam

WAAC jerks will be jerks regardless - they stay the same, just the army changes.

up next...
Inquisition OP combos
Tyranid Build X spam....

Ad infinitum...

Exactly. This "Tau destroy 40K" discussion has had a variation for each of those lists/Codexes, and will for new lists for years to come.

The only codex that doesn't get hate every time it is made more powerful with a new iteration is Space Marines, for obvious reasons.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Marines have drop pods which prevent mishaps on deepstriking.

Drop Pods can still mishap you just don't mishap for scattering onto Impassable/other models. You can still scatter off the board and within 1" of another unit.

I don't agree with the OP that Tau are the most hated. If my flgs is any indicator, then Tau are one of the most popular armies out there.

I don't have any huge problems with their rules (inasmuch as I know them). I really like some of the models too, its just they seem so out of place in the 40k world. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, and that war is waged by optimistic space hippos in Robotech suits.

jasper76 wrote:
I don't have any huge problems with their rules (inasmuch as I know them). I really like some of the models too, its just they seem so out of place in the 40k world. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, and that war is waged by optimistic space hippos in Robotech suits.

You should read their fluff more carefully and look beyond the superficial propaganda the Tau use. They're only "good" in 40k because they're the only army that says "submit or die" in a universe where everyone else just kills you. In pretty much any other setting they'd be the generic expansionist evil empire. So it only highlights the grimdark when the Tau are the closest thing to "good guys" the setting has to offer.

 Peregrine wrote:

jasper76 wrote:
I don't have any huge problems with their rules (inasmuch as I know them). I really like some of the models too, its just they seem so out of place in the 40k world. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, and that war is waged by optimistic space hippos in Robotech suits.

You should read their fluff more carefully and look beyond the superficial propaganda the Tau use. They're only "good" in 40k because they're the only army that says "submit or die" in a universe where everyone else just kills you. In pretty much any other setting they'd be the generic expansionist evil empire. So it only highlights the grimdark when the Tau are the closest thing to "good guys" the setting has to offer.

And that, in turn, makes the whole setting much more grimdark in the eyes of someone that delves into it.

"A strict caste society that subjugate other races, ruthlessly expands their borders at other's expense, hinted at atrocities such as mind control, mass castigation, etc, and these are the local HIPPIES?!"

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

jasper76 wrote:
I don't have any huge problems with their rules (inasmuch as I know them). I really like some of the models too, its just they seem so out of place in the 40k world. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, and that war is waged by optimistic space hippos in Robotech suits.

You should read their fluff more carefully and look beyond the superficial propaganda the Tau use. They're only "good" in 40k because they're the only army that says "submit or die" in a universe where everyone else just kills you. In pretty much any other setting they'd be the generic expansionist evil empire. So it only highlights the grimdark when the Tau are the closest thing to "good guys" the setting has to offer.

And that, in turn, makes the whole setting much more grimdark in the eyes of someone that delves into it.

"A strict caste society that subjugate other races, ruthlessly expands their borders at other's expense, hinted at atrocities such as mind control, mass castigation, etc, and these are the local HIPPIES?!"

I was thinking about addressing this, but you two did it pretty brilliantly.

Well, see it's not like the paint their armor in the blood of innocents from their own race to go fight daemons, or feed the life force of a thousand people a day into their "god", or anything as "appropriately" grimdark as that. Wussy space-hippies.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Seriously, the whole mecha aspect is not something that's only found in anime. If anything the Tau are very far from an anime and more in line with a Mechwarrior style since they favor function over flair. If you honestly think that Tau are too anime-ish, then you probably aren't too familiar with sci-fi, anime, and/or Tau.

Tau draw heavily on 1980s boxy scifi design and fluff wise it's mostly Heinlein meets Orwell. I don't see the anime connection either. I sort of wish the GW designers had actually bothered to look at some Gunpla. Riptides and battlesuits offer such poor value in terms of model complexity and detail compared to what companies like Bandai, Wave or Kotobukiya put out these days.

Yeah, I never did understand that. The Gunpla models have a wide range of varying detail and sized kits in multiple colors and types of plastic and are made in a way so that they are able to take a large number of poses.

I mean I have both the FAZZ and the Riptide, but the one that is larger and much more complex is actually cheaper.

Breng77 wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
80 point devilfish just makes me cry inside. How much does a chimera cost for guard? How about a wave serpent for Eldar? Could I maybe get something about halfway between those two points costs for our transport?

It's just so ridiculous because everything got points reductions in the new codex...except the transport! Of course, I still remember the days when the transport could move in the assault phase like a crisis suit... so I guess I'm just spoiled.

Are you kidding with this .....I'm not saying Devilfish are costed well but they are 25 points more than an IG Chimera and 35 points less than a serpent....pretty close to half way if you ask me....and they would be more expensive if you wanted to be exactly half way....

The devilfish is totally not between the two. Devilfish basically sacrificed the option to have some dudes shoot out and any real gun to get an AV12 front, which admittedly is pretty damn good for a transport. Problem is in todays meta, vehicles arent that great unless massed, flying, or AV13+. Our tanks are very tough for a vehicle becuase theyre av13 and almost always have 4+ cover (15pt upgrade). Even if they cut the armor down to 11/11/10, removed the SMS upgrade option, but cut the cost by 25-30pts it would be a vastly better transport. Its not a gun ship, its a more-armored-than-usual delivery system in an army that usually DOESNT want to get THAT close lol. It isnt fast either, which btw the wave serpent IS fast and one of the few (if not the only) vehicles that actually have Fast and multiple weapons (Piranha dont count, gun drones are treated as passengers that shoot at the same target of the vehicle, so they always fire snaps more than 6" which i dumb) or for that matter a deadly weapon. Every other fast vehicle i know of sports a Str5 weapon, usually twinlinked, and thats it.

Anyway, back on topic, as several others mentioned before Tau really didnt change "that" much. Riptide is basically the biggest change, the rest we already had it was just unpractical (marker lights) or hard to utilize properly (seeker missiles, certain crisis load outs). That or just outright horrible (kroot, ethereal) lol. The new code just made things cheaper and more available. I miss the networked markerlight drones but for an 18pt cut i'll live with it (and DC options hehehe).

i find Eldar to be worse than Tau. They make no sense with what they have available vs what they look like, unlike every other army. Wraithknight actually looks tough, Wraithguard do not lol yet they are. And theyre a BS4 army now, which even with the old guns thats a major buff but now they have even nastier guns? They make 0 sense to me, i swear they just threw cool things at them for an army list.

Actually I quite like the Tau themselves. However I absolutely detest playing against them. Mainly because my CSM just have no hope of reaching them with more than 1-3 models left. It's just no fun to play against them.

Admittedly I may not be the best tactician. But playing for a year being tabled by the same gunline, just takes it out of you. My mate who has them is a very good player, but also not one to throw me a bone from time to time. W0hich at this stage, I'd take that charity to just try and have an enjoyable game against them. (though have already told him I'm not playing his tau again, till the PTSD has worn off).

I actually think that their old codex was pretty powerful too, but only with selected builds. But really I think that they would have a lot less hate if they just changed a few things.

Allow cover saves vs markerlights..... I can always duck when a laser pointers being shone on me....? Who cares if it doesn't wound. It's all about LOS with them.

Reduced the range on their Fire Warrior rapid fire guns to 24" max. After all, Eldar and guard have a shorter range before they can blow things away (with their crap guns). It's just really hard for any assault army to get that close these days, without having roads or clear openings to get to them.

It would make them rely a lot more on the multiple overwatch that they have, which I think is a great little rule and gives them something unique for the army. Like the Eldar's run/shoot gimmik.

I actually quite like the riptide as well. But obviously if you overspam a unit, it's going to suck (Can't see the facination with more than 2 heldrakes myself - Can't stand cultist builds).

I am also conserned as to how the new building rules are going to make things even more difficult to go up against Tau. Can you imagine them holed up in an AV15 building with firewarriors everywhere?

Just would be nice to actually have a Tau army come to me for a change, or at least be able to get halfway over the board before they opened up and destroyed me. They're meant to be a fluid mobile army. But I can't remember ever playing one.

 Grumzimus wrote:
Allow cover saves vs markerlights..... I can always duck when a laser pointers being shone on me....? Who cares if it doesn't wound. It's all about LOS with them.

Just would be nice to actually have a Tau army come to me for a change, or at least be able to get halfway over the board before they opened up and destroyed me. They're meant to be a fluid mobile army. But I can't remember ever playing one.

Before I post, wanted to agree with the cover save vs Markerlight thing(I do kinda need to see you BEFORE I point the wee itty-bitty lazor at your head afterall), and assure you that I tried to run a mobile stealth supported, infantry force. Its really fun for me to play even though against anything that remotely resembles a competitive list will kill it...easily...

When I first decided I wanted to play the game it was when the Tau were first added to 40k. By the time I had assembled and painted an army, and had a way of getting to a game it was the beginning of sixth ed and the new tau codex was a month away. That was my sad story. The only way GW got me into the game was by saying "Yes! You absolutely CAN be a good guy in this rotten world fighting the good fight!" A few weeks in the forums inform me "No! The Tau ARE evil! The whole universe is evil! Yay Grimdark Nerdom!" To which I go "What the legitimate F!?" I'm consoled that 40k is a sandbox however and I can quietly harbor my own fugitive beliefs of what they really are. I can even believe that they have three toes and not some disgusting hooves and who's to actually stop me? (Not just try to stop me by ranting in my general direction while citing the crap out of the canon.)

Mostly the only reason I even keep an eye on the game is because it has the most interesting evolution of a game I've ever seen.

Points:
-Yeah rip tides don't make much sense fluff-wise and they are stupid powerful, But I <3 my conversion.
-No, dont make Stealth suits troops or cheaper. I tried both, you don't want to know what happened
-Every Codex breaks the rules a metric t-shirt ton each.

How can you justify a cover save against marker lights? Its a laser pointer, unless you are out of sight to begin with (so i cant even attempt to light you up) try and dodge a laserpointer around a barricade. You cant, because its Light not a weapon.

Also i feel it would force us to either go no markerlights or only use Mark'O drone squads because pathfinders or BS2/3 drones dont apply that many marks without a lot of luck. Usually i get 2-3 marks from a 8man pathfinder team. If you could take a 4+ cover against those, i'd be lucky to have 1.

I was fine with old tau, but two things about new tau annoy the hell out of me:

1: Crisis suit Commander: 4 wounds on a base commander, WTF. Come on here, 3 is fine. Also, drone controller should have been +1 BS, not BS5 marker drones.

2: Riptide: I think enough has been said about this. 2+ save shooting MC is a problem.

Everything else i am fine with. Crisis suit spam, marker lights, ect. Its just when you put riptides or 4 wound 2+ save drone controller commanders (for cheap) in, i have problems with them.

Boniface wrote:


I'd like to go on record and say i think assault is still mostly fine the way it is and i dont agree with all the gripes but... you know.

Of course you find it mostly fine.You play one of the shootiest armies in the shootiest edition.Grab a few orks and fight a tau gunline.Tell me how mostly fine it is then.GrumblegrumbleTaudargrumble....

 Grumzimus wrote:


Just would be nice to actually have a Tau army come to me for a change, or at least be able to get halfway over the board before they opened up and destroyed me. They're meant to be a fluid mobile army. But I can't remember ever playing one.

Tau used to be an underpowered army, and the way to (hopefully) secure victory, or at least survive, was to stay as far away from the enemy as possible, and shoot as many of them as possible before they got to grips with you, and tore your army to shreds. This doctrine has transfered over to the new codex, with players adopting the same tactics, but with better chances of success.
The biggest changes are Firewarriors getting buffed by Fireblades and ethereals, broadsides being able to throw out a horrific number of shots, and of course Riptides, being surviveable, but with fairly underwhelming firepower.
The change that is usually missed, and will often make people cry, is that crisis teams got cheaper, and much, much better. They arent taken that often by a lot of players because a gunline army is the new thing, but if you think riptides can dish out the pain.....

A 200 or so point crisis team, with dual burst cannons, and a full complement of gun drones can lay down a hefty 36 S5 AP5 shots a turn. throw in marker lights and you are looking at BS5 shots, 12 of them twin linked. it will totally decimate hordes, drown MEQ's and TEQ's in shots till they go down, and unlike fire warriors they can then get out of the way of return fire. 250 or so points will net you 2 teams of 2 suits, with plasma rifles and some drones to support them, thats up to 16 plasma rifle shots (S6 AP2), again with marker light support, you will be hitting at BS 5 and ignore that pesky cover (and no 'gets hot'!!!)

Since i've loved crisis suits since Tau were released, i was delighted that Farsight armies can take them as troops (OMG!!!) and since the guys at my FLGS hate Tau, and hate riptides, i just took as may crisis suits as i could (no riptides) backed up by commando teams of pathfinders, and i'm working towards a Suits + Drones only army.
Drop pod assaults are painful, mitigated somewhat by interceptor in some units, but i usually end up getting first blood, slay the warlord AND linebreaker against anyone else.

Given my own experiences, you should be glad that you are not facing a mobile tau army, Despite the fact i don't take riptides, i generally dont go 'too' overboard with Tau allies (except to bring even more crisis suits) but crisis teams absolutely eclipse the damage output of riptides, by a significant margin. my regular opponents moan that i DON'T take riptides, and that i DON'T sit in my deployment zone shooting stuff

Just to add on the cover vs. marker thing, a laser targeter doesn't even need to be a visible light. for it to function. So really unless your target just happens to wander into something blocking LOS they wouldn't necessarily know they're being targetted to attempt to take cover. Mechanically the way it works now is fine as far as fluff is concerned.

Da krimson barun wrote:

Boniface wrote:


I'd like to go on record and say i think assault is still mostly fine the way it is and i dont agree with all the gripes but... you know.

Of course you find it mostly fine.You play one of the shootiest armies in the shootiest edition.Grab a few orks and fight a tau gunline.Tell me how mostly fine it is then.GrumblegrumbleTaudargrumble....

Pretty sure orks are one of the shootiest armies out there...

I remember one time Boniface said that it wasn't the Tau codex that was good.Just all the other players are bad and Tau players are good at the game.Ductvader:Only if you go panzee as I call it.(I picked orks to play orks.Not eldar but green.)At least our gunline has to get close.Not THAT close but don't tau have longer range?

 zephoid wrote:
2: Riptide: I think enough has been said about this. 2+ save shooting MC is a problem.

It's really the mid-long range that puts it over the top, if the riptide only had a 24" range he'd be fairly balanced in my opinion.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Da krimson barun wrote:
At least our gunline has to get close.Not THAT close but don't tau have longer range?

No argument there. You want to smash Tau face with orks? Shootboyz in deffrolla wagons. Your AV 14 wall will be nearly indestructable.

Of course!Pity that's for panzees...Remember barun ORKS not green tau...Dakka is for eldarz choppas is for ork...Besides!Who would sit back with shootas when you could be deffrollin!Its not proppa all dis shootin and mukkin about...Dem snakebites have da right idea..Except I'd have to leave behind me trukks...

 zephoid wrote:
I was fine with old tau, but two things about new tau annoy the hell out of me:

1: Crisis suit Commander: 4 wounds on a base commander, WTF. Come on here, 3 is fine. Also, drone controller should have been +1 BS, not BS5 marker drones.

In the old codex we had 2 levels of commander Shas'el and Shas'o. The Shas'o commander istats exactly as it is now and more expensive. However the Shas'el commanderl was cheaper than the O and had one stat point less than the O in everything but Strength, Toughness and Initiative. So WS3, BS4, 3W, 3A and 9Ld. In the new codex Vetock removed the Shas'el leaving us only with the Shas'o and his starts creating the Shas'nel (Seriously WTF?) aka the Cadre Fireblade. I still wish he would have given us the ability to make a stealth suit build a commander.

ductvader wrote:

Da krimson barun wrote:

Boniface wrote:


I'd like to go on record and say i think assault is still mostly fine the way it is and i dont agree with all the gripes but... you know.

Of course you find it mostly fine.You play one of the shootiest armies in the shootiest edition.Grab a few orks and fight a tau gunline.Tell me how mostly fine it is then.GrumblegrumbleTaudargrumble....

Pretty sure orks are one of the shootiest armies out there...

Orks? Shooty? Only because they HAVE to be. Ork Boyz have one of the best troop standard guns because of the sheer numbers they bring with it. Outside that ork shooting is pretty gaking stupid. Lootas are only used because we NEED a stronger gun in current meta (last edition i never ever used lootas, now i cant even attempt to play without them) and theyre the only option we have that works. SAG is too random, but we take it anyway because its AP2 and the only AP2 gun we can get (KMB is stupid).
Orky gunlines work against other assaulty armies because they can fight even without melee equipment. Try an orky gunline against Tau, you will die horribly because they outgun you both in shots, range, and strength (and enough AP on every single gun to take out orks in the open easy).
If they dont give them reasons to go back to choppy in the next codex, then seriously wtf lol. The assaulty still works, its just too unreliable atm due to variable charge and overwatch.

Enigma Crisis wrote:

 zephoid wrote:
I was fine with old tau, but two things about new tau annoy the hell out of me:

1: Crisis suit Commander: 4 wounds on a base commander, WTF. Come on here, 3 is fine. Also, drone controller should have been +1 BS, not BS5 marker drones.

In the old codex we had 2 levels of commander Shas'el and Shas'o. The Shas'o commander istats exactly as it is now and more expensive. However the Shas'el commanderl was cheaper than the O and had one stat point less than the O in everything but Strength, Toughness and Initiative. So WS3, BS4, 3W, 3A and 9Ld. In the new codex Vetock removed the Shas'el leaving us only with the Shas'o and his starts creating the Shas'nel (Seriously WTF?) aka the Cadre Fireblade. I still wish he would have given us the ability to make a stealth suit build a commander.

Have to agree i wish we had stealth suit commanders. Even if they only had 3 wounds, T3, and 3 slots to buy stuff for i would use them. Adding stealh + shroud to any unit i want would be epic. Only reason people dont use Shadowsun is because she is 155pts with her drone and outside the drone's rerolls to hits of 1 for 1 unit and her stealth + shroud, she offers next to nothing. Really dont like fusions on stealth suits, and shes forced to have two (that cant even be targetlocked, one must shoot at the normal unit's target effectively wasting it)

Fair's fair. Based on the maths the Orks were the most shooty army in 2nd edition as well.

Experiment 626 wrote:
If all you ever face when playing against SW players for example is 'Hunter spam + Missile spam Long Wangs, then you'll be of the opinion that SW players are d*cks.

Not sure if deliberate or just a hilarious typo...

They are hated for a reason. Too much cheese, anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. They are the army for kids, manchildren, and people who value winning over having a fun/good/interesting match. If you play Tau or Taudar, there's a very good chance you have a low self esteem, or a tiny penis. probably both.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
How can you justify a cover save against marker lights? Its a laser pointer, unless you are out of sight to begin with (so i cant even attempt to light you up) try and dodge a laserpointer around a barricade. You cant, because its Light not a weapon.

Also i feel it would force us to either go no markerlights or only use Mark'O drone squads because pathfinders or BS2/3 drones dont apply that many marks without a lot of luck. Usually i get 2-3 marks from a 8man pathfinder team. If you could take a 4+ cover against those, i'd be lucky to have 1.

This post is so contradicting. Light can only travel in straight lines, same as bullets. If that ruin im in hasa chance to stop q bullet from hitting me it must have the same chance to stop a beam of light hitting me to should it not?

The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

So are hellguns, lascannons, multilasers...

Maybe the difference is that a markerlight isn't so much a weapon as it is a targeting system, so instead of being a flash of a laser with every shot, it uses a lot less power so it's a sustained beam?

Best way to understand why its allowed for laser weapons and not a markerlight is laser weapons some poor git is going to get slammed before you know anything is happening, but the rest will duck and cover before getting aimed at.

Markerlights simply have to be a targeting system, which can easily be a low powered, infrared beam you can have no idea is even targeting you, so you wouldnt know to hide.

Even if the laser based weaponry was dead silent, the fact that your buddy just went splat right beside you is one hell of an indicator to get to the ground fast lol.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

So are hellguns, lascannons, multilasers...

Maybe the difference is that a markerlight isn't so much a weapon as it is a targeting system, so instead of being a flash of a laser with every shot, it uses a lot less power so it's a sustained beam?

Wouldn't that be EASIER to hide from than something that you literally cannot see coming?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

So are hellguns, lascannons, multilasers...

Maybe the difference is that a markerlight isn't so much a weapon as it is a targeting system, so instead of being a flash of a laser with every shot, it uses a lot less power so it's a sustained beam?

Wouldn't that be EASIER to hide from than something that you literally cannot see coming?

A little spot of light, maybe not even visible if it's infra-red or something, that doesn't even make you warm if it touches you? In the middle of a battle?

 Pouncey wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

So are hellguns, lascannons, multilasers...

Maybe the difference is that a markerlight isn't so much a weapon as it is a targeting system, so instead of being a flash of a laser with every shot, it uses a lot less power so it's a sustained beam?

Wouldn't that be EASIER to hide from than something that you literally cannot see coming?

A little spot of light, maybe not even visible if it's infra-red or something, that doesn't even make you warm if it touches you? In the middle of a battle?

You mean the middle of that battle where you're deliberately taking cover and presenting the smallest target possible to the enemy unit (i.e. are in cover)? The one with smoke and dust that can foul up targeting lasers? The one where standing there pointing a literal flashlight at someone long enough for other units to get targeting data is a good way to get your head blown off?

The one where if the markerlight was just a lasgun, you would've already killed your target?

If cover saves replaced 2nd Editions modifiers to hit then the cover save reflects the bullet or laser missing in the first place, rather than an actual save as such.

If we assume that we probably should get a save against markerlights. It must be harder to hit someone in cover, even if you have a laser.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

So are hellguns, lascannons, multilasers...

Maybe the difference is that a markerlight isn't so much a weapon as it is a targeting system, so instead of being a flash of a laser with every shot, it uses a lot less power so it's a sustained beam?

Wouldn't that be EASIER to hide from than something that you literally cannot see coming?

A little spot of light, maybe not even visible if it's infra-red or something, that doesn't even make you warm if it touches you? In the middle of a battle?

You mean the middle of that battle where you're deliberately taking cover and presenting the smallest target possible to the enemy unit (i.e. are in cover)? The one with smoke and dust that can foul up targeting lasers? The one where standing there pointing a literal flashlight at someone long enough for other units to get targeting data is a good way to get your head blown off?

The one where if the markerlight was just a lasgun, you would've already killed your target?

The laser can be aimed at objects near to the target, they don't have to be pointed at an infantryman's body - except if it's Stargate and a Rebel Jaffa has spotted the Goa'uld he hates the most. Smoke and dust don't foul up visual targeting for anything else, laser or otherwise - barring Ork Warbikes (edit: and vehicles with Smoke Launchers). The targeter can be in cover as well, they don't have to stand out in the open.

A lasgun or even a pulse rifle can take out infantry just fine, but it can't deal with heavily armored vehicles. A markerlight can give a smart missile better accuracy to guide it to a tank or a bunker better, or give a Fire Warrior squad more detailed information as to where an enemy infantry unit is hiding.

sand.zzz wrote:
They are hated for a reason. Too much cheese, anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. They are the army for kids, manchildren, and people who value winning over having a fun/good/interesting match. If you play Tau or Taudar, there's a very good chance you have a low self esteem, or a tiny penis. probably both.

Or just love Mechs and hover vehicles. They also play the way I like, not fighting the enemy on their terms, be a hard target fall back when it is advantageous. Fight smarter not harder. Every army has their own cheese.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

The difference is that the lasgun actually has to hit you to do any damage. If a lasgun shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then you're safe. If a markerlight shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then the seeker missile it's marking you for hits the wall and kills you anyway.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

The difference is that the lasgun actually has to hit you to do any damage. If a lasgun shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then you're safe. If a markerlight shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then the seeker missile it's marking you for hits the wall and kills you anyway.

Except a demolisher shell (designed to destroy walls) hitting that wall won't kill you, but the missile does, because there was a laser were two lasers pointed at the wall.

How do markerlights remove cover again?

sand.zzz wrote:
They are hated for a reason. Too much cheese, anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. They are the army for kids, manchildren, and people who value winning over having a fun/good/interesting match. If you play Tau or Taudar, there's a very good chance you have a low self esteem, or a tiny penis. probably both.

Or we played them before they got so strong, and in spirit of even gaming we dont do the stupid cheesey taudar strats or triple riptides (or quadra).

Tau are not broken. As stated several times throughout this thread, they break the meta and people refuse to adapt. Thats the issue. Eldar are broken, not tau, because at least tau is fragile and all except one of our guns you actually have to worry about are ~30" instead of half an army of table-length like Eldar. And before you say something about stripping cover with any gun, i dont WANT to do that. You hurt my BS making me do that, so cover is still a big boon against tau. I would much rather BS5 w/o ignore cover, than BS3 with ignore cover. But that 4+ cover (3+ going to ground) can nerts a lot of shooting, since most guns that pen power armor or termie armor are low RoF anyway.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

The difference is that the lasgun actually has to hit you to do any damage. If a lasgun shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then you're safe. If a markerlight shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then the seeker missile it's marking you for hits the wall and kills you anyway.

Except a demolisher shell (designed to destroy walls) hitting that wall won't kill you, but the missile does, because there was a laser were two lasers pointed at the wall.

How do markerlights remove cover again?

Oh, is this discussion about the markerlights removing cover saves from following attacks?

I thought it was about not getting a save against markerlights themselves.

Edit: It just occurred to me how hostile that might've sounded. I genuinely did not know I was talking about the wrong thing. Sorry.

sand.zzz wrote:
They are hated for a reason. Too much cheese, anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. They are the army for kids, manchildren, and people who value winning over having a fun/good/interesting match. If you play Tau or Taudar, there's a very good chance you have a low self esteem, or a tiny penis. probably both.

I just wanted to point out that this person is apparently 38-years-old.

If I start acting like this in my old age someone please slap me.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Except a demolisher shell (designed to destroy walls) hitting that wall won't kill you, but the missile does, because there was a laser were two lasers pointed at the wall.

How do markerlights remove cover again?

You know, to me that sounds less like an argument against Tau being able to ignore cover and more like an argument for more "Ignores Cover" in general. And since Guard are supposed to be getting an update soon I'd be real interested in seeing if that changes at all, because a weapon like the demolisher sounds like it really should have it anyway.

Personally I think markerlights work fine the way they are now, except removing a cover save entirely should cost more than two counters. Maybe four, at least.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
How do markerlights remove cover again?

It probably depends on the weapon. For a squad with pulse rifles the markerlights might just improve the shooter's aim enough that they can hit the target instead of the cover. Remember, cover isn't necessarily stopping the shot, it also represents cover making it harder to aim properly, and a markerlight broadcasting a giant "he's right behind this wall" sign could allow the squad to just shoot the target through the wall. And in the case of explosive weapons the markerlights could be getting precise range data to allow the shooter to fire an airburst shot that explodes directly overhead and ignores the wall.

And remember, there's a degree of abstraction in the game mechanics. Yes, there are probably situations where markerlights shouldn't be able to remove cover, but it's much easier to settle for a blanket "ignores cover rule" than to try to analyze whether it would be realistic for the markerlights to work in a particular situation. If you're going to have hiding behind a wall (4+ cover) be worthless against lasgun shots if you're wearing power armor (3+ armor) then you're conceding that it isn't perfectly realistic.

@Vineheart01:

"How can you justify a cover save against marker lights? Its a laser pointer, unless you are out of sight to begin with (so i cant even attempt to light you up) try and dodge a laserpointer around a barricade. You cant, because its Light not a weapon".

OK I agree, yeah they could be outside of the visible spectrum, so you have me there. But "cinematically", when was the last time that you saw laser pointers being aimed at someone in a film/TV and the "hero" (I know grimdark, there are no good guys), didnt spot the marker light and then duck out of the way.

But unless you're painting a cluster bomb, pointing it at the ruin won't hit the guys inside, you'd just hit the ruin.

Just think that it might help mitigate the fact that you've got an extra 12" of blowing me to smithereens before my 2 cultists eventually get into cc.

There's definitely armies out there that can take the Tau. Unfortunately I don't own one so there's little point even unboxing to play them until I get drop pods to get me near you.

Probably the only way I can get a win vs Tau is to pack 3/4 Heldrakes, which I'll never lower myself to doing.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:
They are hated for a reason. Too much cheese, anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. They are the army for kids, manchildren, and people who value winning over having a fun/good/interesting match. If you play Tau or Taudar, there's a very good chance you have a low self esteem, or a tiny penis. probably both.

Or we played them before they got so strong, and in spirit of even gaming we dont do the stupid cheesey taudar strats or triple riptides (or quadra).

Tau are not broken. As stated several times throughout this thread, they break the meta and people refuse to adapt. Thats the issue. Eldar are broken, not tau, because at least tau is fragile and all except one of our guns you actually have to worry about are ~30" instead of half an army of table-length like Eldar. And before you say something about stripping cover with any gun, i dont WANT to do that. You hurt my BS making me do that, so cover is still a big boon against tau. I would much rather BS5 w/o ignore cover, than BS3 with ignore cover. But that 4+ cover (3+ going to ground) can nerts a lot of shooting, since most guns that pen power armor or termie armor are low RoF anyway.

er the Riptide is fragile - in what universe - its one of the most durable units in the game with no drawbacks...............

I like the Tau background and some of their models - but the Riptide is underpointed for what it does

 Vineheart01 wrote:

sand.zzz wrote:
They are hated for a reason. Too much cheese, anyone that says otherwise is kidding themselves. They are the army for kids, manchildren, and people who value winning over having a fun/good/interesting match. If you play Tau or Taudar, there's a very good chance you have a low self esteem, or a tiny penis. probably both.

Or we played them before they got so strong, and in spirit of even gaming we dont do the stupid cheesey taudar strats or triple riptides (or quadra).

Tau are not broken. As stated several times throughout this thread, they break the meta and people refuse to adapt. Thats the issue. Eldar are broken, not tau, because at least tau is fragile and all except one of our guns you actually have to worry about are ~30" instead of half an army of table-length like Eldar. And before you say something about stripping cover with any gun, i dont WANT to do that. You hurt my BS making me do that, so cover is still a big boon against tau. I would much rather BS5 w/o ignore cover, than BS3 with ignore cover. But that 4+ cover (3+ going to ground) can nerts a lot of shooting, since most guns that pen power armor or termie armor are low RoF anyway.

I love the defense where people blame the person raising the concern for refusing to "adapt" to their army...

I play six armies, some of them can handle Tau just fine, some of them can not. Most of them can not in fact and it has very little to do with adapting to Tau, it has more to do with the fact that their codex is leaps and bounds more powerful than say the Tyranid or Ork codex. The meta before Tau came along was flier spam, I still only own a single Storm Raven as my sole flier across all of my armies so Tau certainly didn't make my life in harder in terms of the meta. What Tau do that is so irritating and makes them OP is their ability to completely nullify the assault phase. They can jump around and keep our of range, they have massive range on their basic guns, the have incredible overwatch, they have an unending tool box in which they can make assault completely invalid. So, "adapting" as so many people like to call it means playing the shootiest army we can make with codices that have substandard shooting to begin with. MOST Tyranid list that you see now are built around TL BL Devourers, spaming gaunts, and Tervigons. Orks focus on shoota boyz and lootas, throwing buckets of dice and playing the odds that you will throw enough dice to roll enough fives and sixes.

People don't like Tau because they force every army to play on their terms because they have the tools to make assault invalid against them. This meta shift means that if I want to play in a Tournament or make an TAC list I need to build it to beat Tau and Eldar, which require two completely different list in order to even compete. That is why BOTH armies get so much hate thrown their way.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
I love the defense where people blame the person raising the concern for refusing to "adapt" to their army...

It's even funnier when he says they break the meta and people need to adapt. They reinforce the meta of sit back and shoot everything because it's better to gunline than assault. They are just better at it than other gunlines at the moment.

I love how people blame tau for being OP for their JSJ shenanigans with the suits (who cost alot, and except rippy are rather fragile), when eldar do it with EVERY SINGLE UNIT, and many of them do it better. (the jetbike troops? yea, they got JSJ with 3 dice rather then 2.)

Also blame them for haivng the ability to ignore cover with guns, when most armies got that same rule built into some of their guns without the need to dedicate markerlights for it.

Or the fact they shoot like crazy when they are mostly mere BS3 without any markers to support it first (who are, in turn mostly BS3 themselves), markerlight who CANNOT reach over 36", shorter range then enemy cover ignoring guns.


They are leaps and bounds over nids and orks?
Sure they are.
SO ARE EVERYONE ELSE.
Nids and Ors are not a freaking example! they cannot fight SM either, or Eldar, or necrons, or demons. IG, AS and GK also mocks them.
Heck they are not a fair match even against the sub-par CSM and DA!
These two are so freaking flawed in 6th they cannot even handle themselves properly!
You do not use a piece of paper to test the strength of a steel bar. stop using orks and nids as "why tau are OP"-use codcies who are actually any good if any.


As for how the markerlights help you ignore cover, its not like its a simple red dot other soldiers see and go like "lets shoot at THAT", it shoots a small beam of light, and analyzes reflections made by it, using said data to make an image of whatever it is you are marking.
Once the target is marked, the data analyzed is sent to the calculation devices in the other unit's optical measures (Hench why battle brothers cant use markerlights, only the tau themselves can) who in turn tells them not where is the target, but how THEY are supposed to shoot.
It tells them "stand like X, point at direction Y, with angle Z, etc" the unit who actually makes the shot does not know WHY he is shooting like that, he just knows it will hit better that way.
So to get a BS boost, you just need 1 hit, and each hit increases it further-it gives you more and more data on what you should do in order to properly impact the target, under the assumption you are sure about its location-and not fooled by its cover.
Using TWO however, will allow you to triangulate using the firer's own position as the third point, meaning that while you dont get a better idea on what you should do, you know where the target is-the fact he is hidden from sight is irrelevant, you got pinpoint "GPS" location of where he is hiding.

Now the fact cover is a save that competes with armor, and not something incorporated into your chances to actuall hit the target is a silly thing by itself, and a mechanic that does not transulate into real life, at all.
Many guns makes no sense under the 40k cover mechanics, markerlights is the one thing that does.

 BoomWolf wrote:
(Hench why battle brothers cant use markerlights, only the tau themselves can)

So, did Farsight not upgrade from the free 30 day trial then?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
(Hench why battle brothers cant use markerlights, only the tau themselves can)

So, did Farsight not upgrade from the free 30 day trial then?

...
...
...
...*slow clap*

Ok, so the riptide isnt fragile. Yes, youre right, theyre tough as nails.

One model in an entire army doesnt remove the "Fragile army" tag. And there are ways to deal with riptides, ive lost mine to a single shooting wave several times against eldar or other tau. Or jaws for that matter (damn dpods lol).

Back on my rant about Eldar, more than half of their damn army is T5/6+ that are the dangerous targets as well. We have one unit that is both tough and dangerous, they have what 5? Seems like everything that isnt the general ramshackle troop is T5+ that i have to deal with.

For what it's worth, I hate Eldar far more than Tau. With mono Tau, I feel like I've got a shot if a few Riptide blasts go astray. Even if I don't really have a chance, I at least FEEL like it.

Against Eldar, I know what is going to happen and there's nothing I can do to stop it, because they aren't going to miss with their bucket of S6/7 death and the will force so many saves that the Law of Large Amounts of Dice will make it so I can't even get lucky.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Ok, so the riptide isnt fragile. Yes, youre right, theyre tough as nails.

And what model do people complain about fighting in numbers? Riptides

Eldar have aewsome firepower and the much hated Seer Council amongst other things I would agree

Agree with me? Good, because I'm right. And tourney stats show that I'm right.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The best part is that lasguns are lasers too, yet it's ok to get cover against them.

The difference is that the lasgun actually has to hit you to do any damage. If a lasgun shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then you're safe. If a markerlight shot is stopped by the wall you're hiding behind then the seeker missile it's marking you for hits the wall and kills you anyway.

But modern day laser guidence you have to "paint the target". Not, "paint the wall he is standing behind and hope for the best". For a markerlight or laser guidence system to actually have any use it has to have a bead on the enemy does it not. It cant just be in the general area because that would not be enough to benefit any supporting fire.

So if I shoot a lasgun or a bolter against that ork in the ruin and on a 4+ the ruin blocks the shot leaving the ork unharmed. Then surely at the same 4+ the ruin blocks the markerlight. Therefore the ork is not "painted up" and therefore any other units wishing to shoot him have no extra benefit because the marker light never hit its target. Does that not sound reasonable?

The other thing I would change for tau would be the nova reactor being more 50-50. Taking a wound on a 1,2,3 would make it much more tactical to use and decide if its worht the risk/reward. At the moment the risk is very little to the gains it can make by using that piece of equipment.

 tuiman wrote:
It cant just be in the general area because that would not be enough to benefit any supporting fire.

That depends on how close a shot has to get to be lethal. A markerlight guiding in a seeker missile strike or railgun shot probably doesn't have to worry about flawless precision because even a near miss is going to kill anything nearby.

So if I shoot a lasgun or a bolter against that ork in the ruin and on a 4+ the ruin blocks the shot leaving the ork unharmed. Then surely at the same 4+ the ruin blocks the markerlight. Therefore the ork is not "painted up" and therefore any other units wishing to shoot him have no extra benefit because the marker light never hit its target. Does that not sound reasonable?

You're assuming that shots can't go through cover, and that the models on the table accurately represent exactly what is happening in the "real" battle. Consider three scenarios:

Scenario A: a fire warrior is trying to shoot at an ork hiding behind a wall. The fire warrior knows the ork is somewhere behind the wall and his pulse rifle can easily shoot through the flimsy barrier, but isn't sure about exactly where the target is. So he fires blindly at the wall, which is represented by a 4+ cover save for the ork. Half the shots hit the ork, the other half hit an empty part of the wall and are wasted.

Scenario B: our hero has a pathfinder friend in an excellent position to observe the fight. She uses her markerlight to mark the spot on the wall that the ork is hiding behind. The fire warrior uses this information to shoot at the right part of the wall instead of blindly guessing, and most of his shots hit the ork (he's only BS 3 after all).

Scenario C: our hero gains a field promotion to a Hammerhead with a railgun. He again knows that the ork is hiding behind the wall (this time a sturdier wall that can stop a shot), but isn't sure about the exact range to the target. Fortunately his pathfinder friend is still around, and uses her markerlight to find the exact spot, within a reasonable margin of error because it's a 50/50 chance of the markerlight hitting the ork or the wall next to the ork. The Hammerhead gunner now fires a railgun submunition shot with an airburst fuse timed to explode over the ork's head. But because the subminition shot sprays lethal shrapnel over a wide area the small difference in aim doesn't really matter as long as the markerlight narrows it down enough.

I play Dark Angels. Written by the same Codex author, in fact. My issue with Tau is that the types of armies you tend to see people run with them completely counter the majority of tactics I have access to. Biker armies are just point sinks because markerlights mean no jink saves. Tons of important units for Tau have interceptor AND AP2 weapons meaning I can't really run terminators either because then I just lose a ton of my own units, ON MY OWN TURN.

And then Riptides. God. Overpowered unit. Monstrous creature inherently makes you better at close combat, even at WS2 I2, than most units in the game. The fact it can also overcharge and get a 3++ is also just stupid. I managed to charge a Riptide with 2 separate squads of 5 terminators apiece, and only managed to wound it twice in 5 rounds of combat, while it managed, easily, to kill 3 terminators.

Honestly I got into Warhammer 40k as a hobby about a year ago and I am already done with the actual game side of it. It's just not fun, largely because I have yet to win a game against Tau or Eldar. There's a metric load of rules so the game takes forever to play, and because I'm not Tau/Eldar/Grey Knights/Dark Eldar, I can't win pretty much ever. I don't know whether to be happy or glad I enjoy the painting and modeling aspect as much as I do.

 Peregrine wrote:



That depends on how close a shot has to get to be lethal. A markerlight guiding in a seeker missile strike or railgun shot probably doesn't have to worry about flawless precision because even a near miss is going to kill anything nearby.



You're assuming that shots can't go through cover, and that the models on the table accurately represent exactly what is happening in the "real" battle. Consider three scenarios:

Scenario A: a fire warrior is trying to shoot at an ork hiding behind a wall. The fire warrior knows the ork is somewhere behind the wall and his pulse rifle can easily shoot through the flimsy barrier, but isn't sure about exactly where the target is. So he fires blindly at the wall, which is represented by a 4+ cover save for the ork. Half the shots hit the ork, the other half hit an empty part of the wall and are wasted.

Scenario B: our hero has a pathfinder friend in an excellent position to observe the fight. She uses her markerlight to mark the spot on the wall that the ork is hiding behind. The fire warrior uses this information to shoot at the right part of the wall instead of blindly guessing, and most of his shots hit the ork (he's only BS 3 after all).

Scenario C: our hero gains a field promotion to a Hammerhead with a railgun. He again knows that the ork is hiding behind the wall (this time a sturdier wall that can stop a shot), but isn't sure about the exact range to the target. Fortunately his pathfinder friend is still around, and uses her markerlight to find the exact spot, within a reasonable margin of error because it's a 50/50 chance of the markerlight hitting the ork or the wall next to the ork. The Hammerhead gunner now fires a railgun submunition shot with an airburst fuse timed to explode over the ork's head. But because the subminition shot sprays lethal shrapnel over a wide area the small difference in aim doesn't really matter as long as the markerlight narrows it down enough.

But for scenario b and c you are assuming the path finder knows where the ork is. He will be firing blindly at the wall with his marker light the same way the warrior in scenario a is. Only after finally picking out the ork can the markerlight actually be useful to the fire warrior.

Im not saying markerlight hits can be used to ignore cover. Im saying that you should be able to get cover saves against marker lights.

I see a TON of riptide complaints, is just one riptide really that bad?

As far as I can tell one Riptide isn't that bad, although it's still a fairly strong unit. Three or more Riptides can be considered abusive because they're fairly hard to deal with for non-Tau/Eldar armies.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

One model in an entire army doesnt remove the "Fragile army" tag. And there are ways to deal with riptides, ive lost mine to a single shooting wave several times against eldar or other tau. Or jaws for that matter (damn dpods lol).

So your argument is that other Tau players and Eldar players (you know, that other power Codex...) can handle Riptides so they're fine? Are you for real?

Yeah I keep seeing people defend the Tau codex by saying, "But Eldar do all that and more!" Well...yeah...that is why you see people complaining about Eldar too. It's not like a codex being more powerful than another makes the later any less powerful...

There are 15 codices. 15 points of data in the spectrum from most powerful to least powerful so we have plenty of information to go by when considering something as powerful or "OP." That is just counting the base books, not including things like the Inquisitor codex, suppliments, forge world, and allied formations. That is a lot of points on a graph to give an idea of what is ahead of the power curve.

You know what? Tyranids have a boat load of problems but their most powerful builds are better than the median power level of the armies, so I have a hard time with someone discounting them when it comes to a discussion about power creep in this game. Tau and Eldar are so far ahead of the power curve that it is silly to say that one is less powerful than the other so that makes it okay. Necrons are STILL a power house army, just because they aren't number one or two does not mean that the Flying Bakery list is just as powerful as it always was. There are just a few armies out there that can now deal with it. About five out of the fifteen codices can deal in some meaningful way with Flying Bakery, that does not diminish the power of that army. Just like the fact that Eldar can deal with Tau does not diminish the power of Tau.

..because seeker missiles have so good AP properties that e.g. a lascannon miss, of course they kill targets hiding behind walls illuminated by magic markerlight lasers.

No, that does not make any sense. Tau players trying to rationalize that functionality also do not make sense.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
Yeah I keep seeing people defend the Tau codex by saying, "But Eldar do all that and more!" Well...yeah...that is why you see people complaining about Eldar too. It's not like a codex being more powerful than another makes the later any less powerful...

There are 15 codices. 15 points of data in the spectrum from most powerful to least powerful so we have plenty of information to go by when considering something as powerful or "OP." That is just counting the base books, not including things like the Inquisitor codex, suppliments, forge world, and allied formations. That is a lot of points on a graph to give an idea of what is ahead of the power curve.

You know what? Tyranids have a boat load of problems but their most powerful builds are better than the median power level of the armies, so I have a hard time with someone discounting them when it comes to a discussion about power creep in this game. Tau and Eldar are so far ahead of the power curve that it is silly to say that one is less powerful than the other so that makes it okay. Necrons are STILL a power house army, just because they aren't number one or two does not mean that the Flying Bakery list is just as powerful as it always was. There are just a few armies out there that can now deal with it. About five out of the fifteen codices can deal in some meaningful way with Flying Bakery, that does not diminish the power of that army. Just like the fact that Eldar can deal with Tau does not diminish the power of Tau.

Yup can't shift the blame to other codices for being even more powerful doesn't work that way. I personally only bring one Riptide to pick up games in my local LGS and there has been two types of players that I've come across the more "veteran" players being able to overcome the Riptide and the more "inexperienced" players who don't know what to do to deal with getting rid of it. A lot comes down to dice as well as player skill. Saw my friend roll 5 ones and no FNP saves in a single shooting phase. Single Riptides are easy to deal with and as soon as you bring one more it becomes exponentially hard to deal with.

Naw wrote:
..because seeker missiles have so good AP properties that e.g. a lascannon miss, of course they kill targets hiding behind walls illuminated by magic markerlight lasers.

No, that does not make any sense. Tau players trying to rationalize that functionality also do not make sense.

I use a simple house rule that helps with all of this (I did this as a tau player too, so son't lump all tau players together).
Cover saves can be taken for any hit (after rolling to wound/pen). A saved cover save is treated like the shot never hit. This is a logical explanation, that helps greatly with things like laser-lock and marker lights. A laser still has to hit you (even if it is invisible to the naked eye as markerlights are) and unlike armour saves, cover saves represent the munition/laser/thing hitting something other than you.

On the other hand, seeker missiles have internal guidance systems, as well as being guided by the marker lights, so it is a bit like a drone with a bomb attached to it. A markerlighted seeker missile makes sense to have ignore cover and homing (ignore LoS).

Maybe markerlights are more than just a laser pointer for a shot to follow in. Maybe they are an imaging system that feeds info to the other weapons systems that are homing in on them. They give info about what type of cover the target is behind, and the info of the area around it. More like the camera on a guided missile feds to the operator to let them make last minute corrections.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Maybe markerlights are more than just a laser pointer for a shot to follow in. Maybe they are an imaging system that feeds info to the other weapons systems that are homing in on them. They give info about what type of cover the target is behind, and the info of the area around it. More like the camera on a guided missile feds to the operator to let them make last minute corrections.

That would make sense (and it sounds more technologically advances and Tauy than just laser designators.

Hell, from a space-borne race, maybe the image of the area directly around the target is even 3-dimensional.

Also, I don't hate Tau at all. I think their army is really, really cool. I just don't like GW's point assignments on some of their units. The usual problems.

The marker light mechanic is a simple buff and debuff ones. you hit with marker lights and you apply a fairly simplistic system to debuff your enemies, and buff your own units. and marker lights are useable by any unit that wants to use them, but only a single unit at a time can spend 'hits' Understandably, you will generally use the hits to buff something hard hitting, and debuff whatever its shooting at. this leads to an understandable array of Riptides sporting ion accelerators (overloaded of course) accompanied by a commander who makes their guns twin linked, makes them ignore cover, and then the riptide spends marker lights to boost his BS as high as possible so the pie plate of doom doesn't miss.

That sounds about right doesn't it? and the only thing worse than a marker light buffed unit (450+ points for it all) is an O'Vesa Star which is farsight, 2 riptides a buffmander AND marker lights for around 800 points. Personally speaking, if i was to invest 450-800 points in an offensive build for any army, i would be very upset if that build didn't have the offensive punch to wreck face.

You would also think from reading this particular thread that Tau are the only ones who can (de)buff units, and you would be right! there are no psykers, no flamers, no barrage weapons, no special issue ammunition, wave serpents don't have ignore cover shield thingies. daemons can't get 2++ saves either, and to add insult to injury, tau have so many marker lights everything ignores cover, and everything will be BS10

the sky is falling, what shall we do????

HTFU, adapt or die

madtankbloke wrote:
The marker light mechanic is a simple buff and debuff ones. you hit with marker lights and you apply a fairly simplistic system to debuff your enemies, and buff your own units. and marker lights are useable by any unit that wants to use them, but only a single unit at a time can spend 'hits' Understandably, you will generally use the hits to buff something hard hitting, and debuff whatever its shooting at. this leads to an understandable array of Riptides sporting ion accelerators (overloaded of course) accompanied by a commander who makes their guns twin linked, makes them ignore cover, and then the riptide spends marker lights to boost his BS as high as possible so the pie plate of doom doesn't miss.

That sounds about right doesn't it? and the only thing worse than a marker light buffed unit (450+ points for it all) is an O'Vesa Star which is farsight, 2 riptides a buffmander AND marker lights for around 800 points. Personally speaking, if i was to invest 450-800 points in an offensive build for any army, i would be very upset if that build didn't have the offensive punch to wreck face.

You would also think from reading this particular thread that Tau are the only ones who can (de)buff units, and you would be right! there are no psykers, no flamers, no barrage weapons, no special issue ammunition, wave serpents don't have ignore cover shield thingies. daemons can't get 2++ saves either, and to add insult to injury, tau have so many marker lights everything ignores cover, and everything will be BS10

the sky is falling, what shall we do????

HTFU, adapt or die

According to your post - give up or buy new Tau, Eldar or Demon armies -

madtankbloke wrote:
The marker light mechanic is a simple buff and debuff ones. you hit with marker lights and you apply a fairly simplistic system to debuff your enemies, and buff your own units. and marker lights are useable by any unit that wants to use them, but only a single unit at a time can spend 'hits' Understandably, you will generally use the hits to buff something hard hitting, and debuff whatever its shooting at. this leads to an understandable array of Riptides sporting ion accelerators (overloaded of course) accompanied by a commander who makes their guns twin linked, makes them ignore cover, and then the riptide spends marker lights to boost his BS as high as possible so the pie plate of doom doesn't miss.

That sounds about right doesn't it? and the only thing worse than a marker light buffed unit (450+ points for it all) is an O'Vesa Star which is farsight, 2 riptides a buffmander AND marker lights for around 800 points. Personally speaking, if i was to invest 450-800 points in an offensive build for any army, i would be very upset if that build didn't have the offensive punch to wreck face.

You would also think from reading this particular thread that Tau are the only ones who can (de)buff units, and you would be right! there are no psykers, no flamers, no barrage weapons, no special issue ammunition, wave serpents don't have ignore cover shield thingies. daemons can't get 2++ saves either, and to add insult to injury, tau have so many marker lights everything ignores cover, and everything will be BS10

the sky is falling, what shall we do????

HTFU, adapt or die

Try taking an 800-point Deathstar as any MEQ Codex and see how well you end up. The fact that you're comparing Markerlights and Riptides to flamers and special issue ammunition makes it hard for me to take you seriously.

 Mr Morden wrote:


According to your post - give up or buy new Tau, Eldar or Demon armies -

As it is and always has been with GW, the newer the codex the stronger the army out of the box. So yeah, if you want to compete on a purely power for point perspective, you use the big boy codexs or go home. And usually, but not always, the big boy codex is one of the last three to be released. GW has been doing it this way for 15 years, I don't see them changing their tune anytime soon.

The Tau's biggest enemy is GW. At separate times they have gotten flak for being either a crap army, or an overpowered army.

'Course, so has Eldar.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The Tau's biggest enemy is GW. At separate times they have gotten flak for being either a crap army, or an overpowered army.

'Course, so has Eldar.

That is true. For a long time it seemed like I could fine no one else who played tau (asides form ATT, but that doesn't really count). Now people are playing tau, not because they like to fluff or the models (the reason I, and most original tau players got in for), but because the tau codex is viewed as powerful. This is a lot of the reason for tau hate right now as I see it. All these WAAC players and TFGs got tau armies or tau allies* and have been wining, so the hate is shifted on to anyone who plays tau, including people like me who have played tau from the beginning, and may have not altered their army lists at all (other than some wargear to update to the new codex). There are lots of people out there who hate tau. They attack the tau's fluff, saying it's not grimdark (a complete fallacy BTW, the tau are plenty grimdark, they are just not in-your-face grimdark), say that they are just unoriginal anime gundam things (Compared to magical space elves, chitinous monsters from space, superhumans in power armour, demons, WWI armies, and an army made of terminators. And the anime thing is stupid too, have you guys watched sci-fi movies at all? Battlesuit-like things are everywhere. ). The real reason for most of that is that the tau codex is viewed as cheese. A lot of the old hate is Fish of Fury based, and a lot of things in the tau codex just seem to be the new FoF.



*Despite the much of the tau allies table making no fluff sense whatsoever. Tau are battle brother with space marines but not with IG. What happened to "Death to xenos scum!"? What happened to gue'vessa? GW really needs to fix the table.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Try taking an 800-point Deathstar as any MEQ Codex and see how well you end up. The fact that you're comparing Markerlights and Riptides to flamers and special issue ammunition makes it hard for me to take you seriously.

Yes, because Marker lights are the only unit in the game that has the ability to buff, or debuff anything, isn't it. and marker lights are the only way anyone can ever ignore cover with anything. oh wait....

and seriously, are you saying that having an 800 point deathstar that performs, is unfair because MARINES cant do it? because its a Tau army, and not a marine one, i'm not entitled to expect that a significant points investment should have the audacity to actually kill stuff??

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

madtankbloke wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Try taking an 800-point Deathstar as any MEQ Codex and see how well you end up. The fact that you're comparing Markerlights and Riptides to flamers and special issue ammunition makes it hard for me to take you seriously.

Yes, because Marker lights are the only unit in the game that has the ability to buff, or debuff anything, isn't it. and marker lights are the only way anyone can ever ignore cover with anything. oh wait....

and seriously, are you saying that having an 800 point deathstar that performs, is unfair because MARINES cant do it? because its a Tau army, and not a marine one, i'm not entitled to expect that a significant points investment should have the audacity to actually kill stuff??

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

The only actual change for markerlights is that they can get BS to higher than 5 (IIRC they were limited because there was to BS6+ at the time, I forget which edition that was then), and that cover used to be -1 per markerlight.

 UlrikDecado wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Yaknow, someone who is actually trying to be good, and not outright "OMG SO GRIMDARK!" somehow ruins their galaxy.

Well, truth to be told, Im no Tau hater, but their fluff and visual style isnt something I would expect and like in WH40K. They scream to me "we must add another faction!" (despite fact that they are here "few" years, I know ) and all the mecha irritates me. On the other hand, I think that their "we are gooooood" is probably another face of grimdark, just GW didnt evolve the story to show their brainwashing etc.

Still, no Tau hater, just dont like them much, but whatever, many people loves Tau, so enjoy

I think the Tau are fairly fascist in there methods actually. Yeah if you join them life's great, but they blow the crap out of you if you tell them to feth themselves.

 Aleph-Sama wrote:

 UlrikDecado wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Yaknow, someone who is actually trying to be good, and not outright "OMG SO GRIMDARK!" somehow ruins their galaxy.

Well, truth to be told, Im no Tau hater, but their fluff and visual style isnt something I would expect and like in WH40K. They scream to me "we must add another faction!" (despite fact that they are here "few" years, I know ) and all the mecha irritates me. On the other hand, I think that their "we are gooooood" is probably another face of grimdark, just GW didnt evolve the story to show their brainwashing etc.

Still, no Tau hater, just dont like them much, but whatever, many people loves Tau, so enjoy

I think the Tau are fairly fascist in there methods actually. Yeah if you join them life's great, but they blow the crap out of you if you tell them to feth themselves.

The only reason tau are the "nice guys" is that they offer you a chance to join them. Everybody else just shoots/virus-bombs/rapes/burns you.

madtankbloke wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Try taking an 800-point Deathstar as any MEQ Codex and see how well you end up. The fact that you're comparing Markerlights and Riptides to flamers and special issue ammunition makes it hard for me to take you seriously.

Yes, because Marker lights are the only unit in the game that has the ability to buff, or debuff anything, isn't it. and marker lights are the only way anyone can ever ignore cover with anything. oh wait....

and seriously, are you saying that having an 800 point deathstar that performs, is unfair because MARINES cant do it? because its a Tau army, and not a marine one, i'm not entitled to expect that a significant points investment should have the audacity to actually kill stuff??

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

My personal beef with Tau is that they are just so...damn....boring to play against. A good player will take advantage of the manouverability afforded by the Devilfish, or will place their defence line outside the deployment zone and move forward in their first turn to bring the Fire Warriors into range, but most of the time they're just so darn static. Even IG move forward more. But the only "movement" I ever really see are Riptides moving into the mid-board and (maybe) lone, deep-striking crisis suits.

Just......so........dull.

 LeadLegion wrote:
A good player will take advantage of the manouverability afforded by the Devilfish

A good Tau player isn't using devilfish, because they're too expensive, their firepower is inconsequential for the price paid, and you're ferrying around fire warriors who, as you rightly pointed out, don't want to move out of their deployment zone anyway. So other than picking up a squad and losing valuable turns of shooting just to put it even closer into melee range for your opponent, you're not really accomplishing anything else with them and you're just wasting points that could have been spent on other, better things.

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 LeadLegion wrote:
A good player will take advantage of the manouverability afforded by the Devilfish

A good Tau player isn't using devilfish, because they're too expensive, their firepower is inconsequential for the price paid, and you're ferrying around fire warriors who, as you rightly pointed out, don't want to move out of their deployment zone anyway. So other than picking up a squad and losing valuable turns of shooting just to put it even closer into melee range for your opponent, you're not really accomplishing anything else with them and you're just wasting points that could have been spent on other, better things.

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.

Objectives in the midfield and enemy zone aren't enough of an incentive?

 Enigma Crisis wrote:


Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

I have often found there is very little need to buff BS to above 5, except where riptides are concerned, and i don't use riptides. Crisis suits clear the board far more efficiently, and far more quickly than any riptide focused force will.
However the point still stands. An O'vesa Star is a fearsome unit, has reasonable firepower, and can take 14 wounds and still be at full strength. it is however 800 or so points, and so its kinda expected that 800 points of anything be a bit nasty. did i get that wrong? you honestly don't expect an 800 point unit to be nasty? its WAAC/TFG behaviour to expect expensive units (from any codex) to perform, or its WAAC/TFG behavior to take them in the first place?

madtankbloke wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:


Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

I have often found there is very little need to buff BS to above 5, except where riptides are concerned, and i don't use riptides. Crisis suits clear the board far more efficiently, and far more quickly than any riptide focused force will.
However the point still stands. An O'vesa Star is a fearsome unit, has reasonable firepower, and can take 14 wounds and still be at full strength. it is however 800 or so points, and so its kinda expected that 800 points of anything be a bit nasty. did i get that wrong? you honestly don't expect an 800 point unit to be nasty? its WAAC/TFG behaviour to expect expensive units (from any codex) to perform, or its WAAC/TFG behavior to take them in the first place?

So overpowered units are fine and dandy - as long as they are in your codex - awesome

 Sidstyler wrote:

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.

Hear hear. I, a fanatic 5th edition Tau player, completely lost interest on the army when the new codex came out.

It's just so damn boring. There is no challenge - you just sit & shuffle and shoot the crap out of everything. At least the old Codex forced you to make tactical gambits and tradeoffs, new book is all about spam, spam,spam. It's a terribly designed Codex.

madtankbloke wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:


Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

I have often found there is very little need to buff BS to above 5, except where riptides are concerned, and i don't use riptides. Crisis suits clear the board far more efficiently, and far more quickly than any riptide focused force will.
However the point still stands. An O'vesa Star is a fearsome unit, has reasonable firepower, and can take 14 wounds and still be at full strength. it is however 800 or so points, and so its kinda expected that 800 points of anything be a bit nasty. did i get that wrong? you honestly don't expect an 800 point unit to be nasty? its WAAC/TFG behaviour to expect expensive units (from any codex) to perform, or its WAAC/TFG behavior to take them in the first place?

I expect a 800 pt unit to make it's points back it has shown with tournament results. However it's one of the few ones that are effective at doing that. Draigowings, Raven/Deathwing and Wraithwings rarely make their points back in this Edition heck even last edition after the initial shock they were easily countered. The O'vesa Star really doesn't have a weakness that nerfs or hinders it. No other codex has options to deal with it. It's WAAC/TFG behavior if you field it in anything but at a Tournament but don't expect to gain any brownie points with any of the other players. There are reasons why people have been turning down games with Tau players left and right in a lot of areas. Yes Daemons, Eldar, Gravgun White Scars can deal with them to a degree but the majority of other armies really don't and games are not enjoyable when there is a large chunk of the opponents army that you have no methods to deal with it.

I honestly think that the majority of complaints about Tau being broken revolve around being able to attach a support commander to the Riptide, which were then made worse when they let you take an IC Riptide and throw him in as well.

If you weren't allowed to attach IC to Riptides then I think the Tau codex would be knocked down a bit on the OP scale.

Or if Riptides didn't exist in normally scaled games. They (and Wraithknights) are like an apocalypse unit thrown into normal 40K. While cool and fun in one setting, not as much in the other.

I would agree with that if there weren't FMC pskers. Or if MC in general couldn't get access to things like Iron Arm or the Black mace.

The Riptide by itself is not bad, it's only when it gets support that really pushes it over the edge. The problem is that with the Buffcommander is the support is hard to get rid of. If it was only able to get support from marker units, then it would be balanced. I've tried it both ways and a Riptide using only marker support will generally always underperform for me. It takes a lot of 4+ or 5+ units to make the Riptides shots count when I really need them to.

Boniface wrote:
Just a curiosity this because they're like the most hated army in this edition presently.

I'd like to go on record and say i think assault is still mostly fine the way it is and i dont agree with all the gripes but... you know.

Now i don't think that all the changes are bad. Overwatch is fine, random charge length is fine however i do feel that maybe the charge should be rolled before overwatch so you can see if they were successful or not. I'd rather that than just saying "i'm gonna charge you," then person B shooting you and saying "not any more your not." at least this way your committing to the action first.

If outflank/scout assault was still possible etc.

So if there weren't so many 'nerfs' to assault in 6th ED would the Tau be less hated, or are we just doomed?

Assault aint dead man. Take a look


Night Lords incoming!

Feel free to tell me how I can make these better. I already know a couple things I messed up on. I enjoyed playing a close combat army. Been a while since I did, since its generally not my style of play regardless of the army. Night Lords are what I play when I wanna give in to my savage tendencies...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Objectives in the midfield and enemy zone aren't enough of an incentive?

No. Tau Plan A: kill everything, Tau Plan B: secure one ( or two ) table Objectives and then concentrate on atomizing the opponent.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Objectives in the midfield and enemy zone aren't enough of an incentive?

Not until you clear them, which you can do just as easily from your deployment zone most of the time. You don't move up to take an objective if doing so puts you in range to be shot at or assaulted.

madtankbloke wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Try taking an 800-point Deathstar as any MEQ Codex and see how well you end up. The fact that you're comparing Markerlights and Riptides to flamers and special issue ammunition makes it hard for me to take you seriously.

Yes, because Marker lights are the only unit in the game that has the ability to buff, or debuff anything, isn't it. and marker lights are the only way anyone can ever ignore cover with anything. oh wait....

and seriously, are you saying that having an 800 point deathstar that performs, is unfair because MARINES cant do it? because its a Tau army, and not a marine one, i'm not entitled to expect that a significant points investment should have the audacity to actually kill stuff??

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

"Almost exactly the same" except where they completely remove all cover for 2 lights now, and have Riptides available to buff.

If you take an 800-point unit from any Codex that isn't Daemons, Tau, or Eldar it'll almost certainly suck, or at least have a weakness. The O'Vesa star isn't unfair because it deals damage, it's unfair because it deals far more damage than other 800-point units. It's absurdly hard to kill and kicks out well above 800 points of damage.

The second half of your post is silly beyond belief. What I'm saying is that no one else (again, except Eldar and Daemons) gets anywhere near the power of an O'vesa star if they'd pay 800 points, so the level of damage you're expecting is skewed by playing what is arguably the most broken Codex in the game.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

madtankbloke wrote:

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

"Almost exactly the same" except where they completely remove all cover for 2 lights now, and have Riptides available to buff.

Markerlights are much better in new Codex. No more need for gazillion Markerlights to remove those pesky 2+/3+/4+ covers from Stealth, Going to ground or Turbo-Boost. Also, ML platforms have become cheaper and better. In the old Codex, only even remotely affordable way of getting plenty of Markerlights were Pathfinders: now, there are cheap and plentiful Marker Drones.

Sidstyler wrote:

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.


Hear hear. I, a fanatic 5th edition Tau player, completely lost interest on the army when the new codex came out.

It's just so damn boring. There is no challenge - you just sit & shuffle and shoot the crap out of everything. At least the old Codex forced you to make tactical gambits and tradeoffs, new book is all about spam, spam,spam. It's a terribly designed Codex.

I feel the same way. Although I didn't so much lose interest in the army as a whole as I did loyalty to the army itself. This is to say that I will not hesitate to use allies, dataslates and supplements to make the Tau army play the way I think it should play. The thing is, this is a lot trickier than if the codex was designed properly I gave me all the tools I needed. It also tends to get you labeled as WAAC.

For those Tau players interested in a mobile army, Riptides are a godsend, but tend to draw a lot of hate, far more than the Hammerheads that they replace. But without the vehicle multitracker, the Tau player has no choice but to run a Riptide for mobile, heavy firepower. So it is either run Hammerheads and get accused to running a gunline because they were given a vehicle that can't function in other capacities, or run Riptides and get accused of WAAC, or just abandon your big guns entirely. It is a terrible dilemma the Tau player is put in that gets him hated just for running big guns in a shooting focused army. For anyone who hates playing against Tau, I suggest they let the Tau player run multitrackers and target locks on vehicles if they don't want to go up against Riptides, as this may improve the situation for everybody.

As for being unable to take cover saves against markerlights, while this might not make sense realistically, it does make sense from a game mechanics standpoint. You already have to take an absurd number of markerlights because half would miss do to BS test, and the ability to take saves would require the incorporation of additional lights. Also, as a means to deny cover saves, markerlights would not be very useful against models with 2+ and 3+ cover saves if they could be taken against the markerlights themselves, because the Tau player would be unable to get through the cover saves to generate the markerlight counters needed to bypass the selfsame cover saves.

Also in regard to markerlights, you were never permitted to take cover saves against them in the previous codex, as cover saves are a mechanic based around negating wounds, which markerlights do not inflict. I knew some people who insisted that they could take cover saves against the markerlights, but this is a mechanic of their own invention, it was never part of the actual rules..

Admittedly the whole implementation of markerlights is rather clunky. The idea of twelve models all in the same squad all marking the same tank makes no sense, certainly you wouldn't need more than one model per squad marking the target. Personally I think there are better ways of implementing markerlights than using a shooting attack, and I think markerlights should be distributed across the army rather than in one squad with a giant "shoot me" sign over it, but I am not the one writing the codices.

Backfire wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

madtankbloke wrote:

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

"Almost exactly the same" except where they completely remove all cover for 2 lights now, and have Riptides available to buff.

Markerlights are much better in new Codex. No more need for gazillion markerlights to remove those pesky 2+/3+/4+ covers from Stealth, Going to ground or Turbo-Boost. Also, ML platforms have become cheaper and better. In the old Codex, only even remotely affordable way of getting plenty of markerlights were Pathfinders: now, there are cheap and plentiful Marker Drones.

I think the point is markerlights have hardly changed at all (2 for ignore cover instead of one per point to decrease). They have actually gotten a small nerf (although not necessarily equal to the cover negation buff) in the fact that they lost the ability to impose leadership modifiers and allowing units to ignore night fighting. Nobody said anything about markerlight platforms. Pathfinders cost exactly the same (10 points originally, now 11 and come with photon grenades which were a 1 point upgrade). The only real difference is increasing the maximum squad size by two and making them not have to take a devilfish (being still massively overpriced despite the codex update). They also used to autmaticly come with a marker beacon which allowed you to re-roll deepstrike scatter dice if the devilfish was visible to the deep-striking unit (where you declared a deepstrike). Marker drone aren't 30 pts. anymore, and you can take them in gun drone squadrons, but that forces you to either have BS2 markerlights, or sacrifice a commander that could be doing work elsewhere.