Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
Maybe not the way you play them, but remember, Firebase Cadre, Triptides, lawlz Missilesides, ext. It's things like that that probably still leave a sour taste in people's mouths, and they're still not bad builds even to this day.
I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
And trust me pal. Once the new Codex hits I guarantee you the spirit of mid-6th ed will come alive again.
Brace for the new hate that comes from the Tau Decurion. It is nearly a guarantee that it will be something hugely beneficial to shooting and will make many many armies null and void because of it.
Personally though, I'm hoping for Tau to break the MSU fad that has taken the current Meta. If it does, they will get a lot of hate. Make Tau an autowin against a Space Marine Battle Company and all the people that wasted money on Razorbacks will be crying.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
And trust me pal. Once the new Codex hits I guarantee you the spirit of mid-6th ed will come alive again.
Just because you have mechs doesn't make it inherently inspired by anime. Honestly giant fighting robots is hardly only popular in japan. I will admit that them having mechs that fight might be inspired by Japanese culture, I'd like to point out that you'd hardly get away calling pacific rim or other stuff that clearly takes some level of inspiration from Japanese culture as anime.
Also, I'm fairly certain most of the armies that get updated will be called "op" compared to the ones that aren't updated. Tau aren't going to be nearly unique in this regard.
They have nothing in common with Japan. At all. Imperial Japan has much more in common culturally with the Imperium of Man. I mean suicide attacks, worship of an Emperor, love of mecha, sisters of battle waifu crap.
The Tau have more in common with the Classical Greek Republic, Star Trek Federation, and Brave New World all shmushed together. Tau aren't even communist their utilitarians.
Visually they are Asian looking. That's about it.
Edit
Oh they've also been given a Japanese/Asian accent in the games as well.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
And trust me pal. Once the new Codex hits I guarantee you the spirit of mid-6th ed will come alive again.
Just because you have mechs doesn't make it inherently inspired by anime. Honestly giant fighting robots is hardly only popular in japan. I will admit that them having mechs that fight might be inspired by Japanese culture, I'd like to point out that you'd hardly get away calling pacific rim or other stuff that clearly takes some level of inspiration from Japanese culture as anime.
Ultimately, all mechs can trace the idea back to early japanese robot animation. 40k is basically a mishmash of lots of sci-fi together. It would frankly be odd if Mechs didn't make an appearance. Calling it Anime is technically incorrect as that refers to a very broad art style, but seeing the inspiration from a lot of anime storylines isn't. Mechs might not be popular only in Japan, but Japanese animation is what made them popular. You can't divorce the ideas from each other.
Anyway, some of the Tau hates comes from their hypocritical actions. They say everything is for the Greater Good and they seem like good guys on the outside, but once you get past that they're just as ruthless and twisted as every other faction. The difference is the other factions aren't trying to make apologies or cover up what they do. They do what they do because they must. The Tau are no different, they just hide their smut under shiny clean armor and honeyed words.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
And trust me pal. Once the new Codex hits I guarantee you the spirit of mid-6th ed will come alive again.
Just because you have mechs doesn't make it inherently inspired by anime. Honestly giant fighting robots is hardly only popular in japan. I will admit that them having mechs that fight might be inspired by Japanese culture, I'd like to point out that you'd hardly get away calling pacific rim or other stuff that clearly takes some level of inspiration from Japanese culture as anime.
Also, I'm fairly certain most of the armies that get updated will be called "op" compared to the ones that aren't updated. Tau aren't going to be nearly unique in this regard.
... it's popular *because of* Japan. PacRim owes its existence to Japanese movies, both things like Godzilla and Tranzor-Z. It doesn't have to be anime-specifically (though a lot of Tau stuff looks like Robotech and Appleseed, now that you mention it...).
Battletech is basically a western version of robotech, but much better and non of the Japanese nonsense you get.
I like my jap nonsense but in the right place, a good example is metal gear, I love all the games, but some of the silly characters and dialogue is so jap it's amazing.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
And trust me pal. Once the new Codex hits I guarantee you the spirit of mid-6th ed will come alive again.
Just because you have mechs doesn't make it inherently inspired by anime. Honestly giant fighting robots is hardly only popular in japan. I will admit that them having mechs that fight might be inspired by Japanese culture, I'd like to point out that you'd hardly get away calling pacific rim or other stuff that clearly takes some level of inspiration from Japanese culture as anime.
Also, I'm fairly certain most of the armies that get updated will be called "op" compared to the ones that aren't updated. Tau aren't going to be nearly unique in this regard.
... it's popular *because of* Japan. PacRim owes its existence to Japanese movies, both things like Godzilla and Tranzor-Z. It doesn't have to be anime-specifically (though a lot of Tau stuff looks like Robotech and Appleseed, now that you mention it...).
I'll admit I did a messy job making my point on this. I'm not saying that mechs and fighting robots don't owe their popularity to japan and anime, I'm just saying that because they use robots doesn't mean they're strictly anime wannabes. Especially when the trope of giant fighting robots and mechs is as well spread as it is today.
How about the fact that there is nothing wrong with any of the things that people are comparing them to?
Who cares if they don't like them because it reminds them of anime?
Its basically a "stop liking things I don't like" argument.
Anyways, I think the Tau are cool personally, and I have a lot of respect for my local Tau player at my FLGS.
Personally though, I'm hoping for Tau to break the MSU fad that has taken the current Meta. If it does, they will get a lot of hate. Make Tau an autowin against a Space Marine Battle Company and all the people that wasted money on Razorbacks will be crying.
I don't know how they would do that except by making them able to fire an ungodly amount of weapons each turn with split fire on every model or something, and then everyone would be bitching about Tau being OP again... because they would be.
Formosa wrote: Battletech is basically a western version of robotech, but much better and non of the Japanese nonsense you get.
I like my jap nonsense but in the right place, a good example is metal gear, I love all the games, but some of the silly characters and dialogue is so jap it's amazing.
Not that us westerners are any better lol
As if being made somewhere other than Japan makes it not Anime. I contend that Anime is a style that can be made by anyone who can reproduce it. Hence why there are several US made animated movies and shows I consider anime, even when some of the hardcore purists insist that Anime can only be made in Japan(as if that really means anything).
Hu, I never really viewed the Tau as really anime inspired, but I guess I can see it with the Riptide and Crisis. I just always thought of them as the Protoss from Starcraft, which are common alien looking things.
Tinkrr wrote: Hu, I never really viewed the Tau as really anime inspired, but I guess I can see it with the Riptide and Crisis. I just always thought of them as the Protoss from Starcraft, which are common alien looking things.
Really? The Protoss visually really have nothing in common with the Tau that I can see. Aside from... reverse jointed feet?
Both are very similar to many Anime styles I have seen however. I bet the Protoss took some inspiration from various anime aliens.
Tau Battlesuits have more in common with Gundam mechs than those in Western sci-fi. A good example of this is the difference between an Imperial Knight and a Riptide. The Knight has cables, pistons, valves and pipes exposed. It looks like it is slow, ponderous beast that could rip you to shreds once it catches you.
A Riptide is very sleek with minimal inner machinery exposed. It looks to be very agile and fast compared to the Knight. Tau battlesuits, as a whole, follow this aesthetic. But, like others have said, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think it would be cool if the Tau were the Asian inspired faction with anime aesthetics.
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
Have I beaten new necrons, eldar, space marines, and space wolves. Yes even the deathstars and the gak formations! YES! Sure I lost some and eldar can be a pain in the ass but...
Have I ever beaten the tau... no. Not once, not ever, not even close. Now for my orks I expect to lose and I do! (Last game I didn't even kill a unit just shield drones) but maybe its just my friend who plays them or something IDK. But I am sorry until I get a game where I was close to a draw with the tau or a loss that I enjoyed (maybe kill a couple of units or something!?) I will always and forever label them cheap weebo trash.
Just being honest and I am sure all the tau players will say I am a noob and all that good stuff.
Tinkrr wrote: Hu, I never really viewed the Tau as really anime inspired, but I guess I can see it with the Riptide and Crisis. I just always thought of them as the Protoss from Starcraft, which are common alien looking things.
Really? The Protoss visually really have nothing in common with the Tau that I can see. Aside from... reverse jointed feet?
Both are very similar to many Anime styles I have seen however. I bet the Protoss took some inspiration from various anime aliens.
The probes look a lot like the drones, without the gun attachments, at least in the original game which I'm mostly drawing from here.
The skin texture and head shape were more similar for the basic units at least, though Fenix and Tassadar did have more unique looking portraits that differentiated a lot.
The Ethereals remind me a lot of the High Templars, where they aren't really there for combat reasons as much as they are there for their powers, although there are exceptions in both.
They had the whole Conclave thing (controlled by the Judicator Caste, a group not dissimilar from the Ethereal Caste) , and the entire civilization worked kind of for the greater good of it... Not to mention the entire rogue Dark Templar story being somewhat reminiscent of the Farsight Enclave.
Plus it doesn't hurt that there was that dynamic of Space Marines, Tyranids, and Tau to line up with Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
Tinkrr wrote: Hu, I never really viewed the Tau as really anime inspired, but I guess I can see it with the Riptide and Crisis. I just always thought of them as the Protoss from Starcraft, which are common alien looking things.
Really? The Protoss visually really have nothing in common with the Tau that I can see. Aside from... reverse jointed feet?
Both are very similar to many Anime styles I have seen however. I bet the Protoss took some inspiration from various anime aliens.
The probes look a lot like the drones, without the gun attachments, at least in the original game which I'm mostly drawing from here.
The skin texture and head shape were more similar for the basic units at least, though Fenix and Tassadar did have more unique looking portraits that differentiated a lot.
The Ethereals remind me a lot of the High Templars, where they aren't really there for combat reasons as much as they are there for their powers, although there are exceptions in both.
They had the whole Conclave thing (controlled by the Judicator Caste, a group not dissimilar from the Ethereal Caste) , and the entire civilization worked kind of for the greater good of it... Not to mention the entire rogue Dark Templar story being somewhat reminiscent of the Farsight Enclave.
Plus it doesn't hurt that there was that dynamic of Space Marines, Tyranids, and Tau to line up with Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
Starcraft is actually ripping off 40k. It was actually originally going to be a 40k game, but GW backed out of the deal. Blizzard then salvaged it and made Starcraft(and Warcraft).
zombiekila707 wrote: Have I ever beaten the tau... no. Not once, not ever, not even close. Now for my orks I expect to lose and I do! (Last game I didn't even kill a unit just shield drones) but maybe its just my friend who plays them or something IDK. But I am sorry until I get a game where I was close to a draw with the tau or a loss that I enjoyed (maybe kill a couple of units or something!?) I will always and forever label them cheap weebo trash.
I'm not the greatest player out there and neither is my Tau playing mate but I've yet to lose against him with my SoB. It could well be your friend is the greatest 40K General ever.
A few things that help immensely. We don't play on open parking lots. There's enough terrain that the Tau can't all focus fire me one unit at a time. And I always go for the soft targets first - with Marines where every unit is a self-contained killer it's a matter of taste what you kill, with Tau you want to remove those soft things first. No Firewarriors and Pathfinders, no Markerlights to buff his suits (or Riptide). Marine units don't lose effectiveness because another unit was wiped out but Tau do. Kill the softies first every time and see your win percentage go up considerably.
As for the fluff, sure, the Tau describe themself as noble, just and honorable. But there's enough shading and dubious claims to make you think they're not always so squeaky clean when it comes to handling the aftermath of a conquest. Not that I see that as fundamentally less honest than the IoM using Exterminatus or executing loyal soldiers for seeing things. It's justified by the mere threat of Chaos and other subversive influences, but often in the fluff seems totally out of proportion compared to the real threat.
I just dislike tau because they're dull. A successful tau game goes like this:
Deploy. Never move. Shoot everything off the board. Maybe deep strike in some suits, who then continue the trend of just shooting everything.
All the interesting/dynamic units are considered bad because they're not Range=100000", S8 AP2 Ignores Cover. Kroot, Stealth suits, Ethereals, Devilfish, Piranhas, and all the options that could be used to make an interesting army to play with are eschewed in favor of Riptides, Missilesides, Pathfinders and min Firewarriors.
I've seen tau lists of varying levels of effectiveness but I've never seen one break the mold of "interact as little as possible with your opponent and make the game as boring as possible."
Tinkrr wrote: Hu, I never really viewed the Tau as really anime inspired, but I guess I can see it with the Riptide and Crisis. I just always thought of them as the Protoss from Starcraft, which are common alien looking things.
Really? The Protoss visually really have nothing in common with the Tau that I can see. Aside from... reverse jointed feet?
Both are very similar to many Anime styles I have seen however. I bet the Protoss took some inspiration from various anime aliens.
The probes look a lot like the drones, without the gun attachments, at least in the original game which I'm mostly drawing from here.
The skin texture and head shape were more similar for the basic units at least, though Fenix and Tassadar did have more unique looking portraits that differentiated a lot.
The Ethereals remind me a lot of the High Templars, where they aren't really there for combat reasons as much as they are there for their powers, although there are exceptions in both.
They had the whole Conclave thing (controlled by the Judicator Caste, a group not dissimilar from the Ethereal Caste) , and the entire civilization worked kind of for the greater good of it... Not to mention the entire rogue Dark Templar story being somewhat reminiscent of the Farsight Enclave.
Plus it doesn't hurt that there was that dynamic of Space Marines, Tyranids, and Tau to line up with Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
Starcraft is actually ripping off 40k. It was actually originally going to be a 40k game, but GW backed out of the deal. Blizzard then salvaged it and made Starcraft(and Warcraft).
Ripping off, and drawing inspiration are two very different things, and when it comes to these two games I'd say it's the latter and not the former.
However, I did look something up, and it was actually Warcraft that was supposed to be the Warhammer style game. Starcraft came out later, in 1998, but the Tau were not released until 2001. So the fact that neither the Tau, nor the Tyranids, have Fantasy Battle analogues, unlike all the other races, and there's a history of Blizzard and GW having serious interaction in the past, it probably lends more credence to my view that the Protoss and Tau are reasonably related.
Grey Templar wrote: Possibly, but that doesn't mean they both aren't drawn from anime.
To say either 40k or Starcraft/Warcraft are original settings would be utterly false.
Well yes, that is true, however, the more digging I'm doing, the less it sounds like they're drawn from anime as a whole, but rather their influences come from completely different places:
The Tau Infantry models, according to sculptor Jes Goodwin, were designed to have subtle influences taken from Chinese foot soldiers. The Battlesuits and vehicles drew from science fiction exo-suits,[1] and were designed to slightly resemble a faster and more lightweight version of the Space Marine Dreadnought. While the Tau vehicles are 'skimmers', the design brief specified that the Tau Tanks have an impression of being heavier and more solid than the Eldar Grav-tanks while nowhere near as solid as some of the more heavily armed vehicles like those owned by the Orks or the Chaos Space Marines.
in fact, I also found this:
Which is a Mech Warrior thing published in 1997 by a USA and German company.
Edit: I want to make it clear though, I'm not saying they're completely devoid of anime influences, but I am saying that's really no where near their main influence.
You know, its not just the tau that get hate right? I promise your at for every faction there is vocal group that dislikes them whether its because of the inspiring source, the actual fluff, or easily abusable game mechanics.
I get that you play tau and may have been on the receiving end of some of the hate, but you either gotta let it roll of your back or remove yourself from the situation where you're catching flak over plastic alien soldiers. My two cents atleast.
You know Anime stretches back way longer than that right?
Manga had the giant piloted robot concept as early as the 50s and 60s. Well ahead of Mech Warrior and Battletech. And it was popularized in the 70s with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazinger_Z
Ir0njack wrote: You know, its not just the tau that get hate right? I promise your at for every faction there is vocal group that dislikes them whether its because of the inspiring source, the actual fluff, or easily abusable game mechanics.
I get that you play tau and may have been on the receiving end of some of the hate, but you either gotta let it roll of your back or remove yourself from the situation where you're catching flak over plastic alien soldiers. My two cents atleast.
Or you can revel in it. Show them no mercy and laugh. I'm sick of my friends (the ones who suck at 40k) claiming my Tau are OP. It got to the point where I was taking nothing but FW, crappy Pathfinders, Devlfish Transport spam, and spamming XV88 with the crappy Rail Rifle that couldn't even inflict a dent on his Leman Rus. i still won the game. Because I did the objectives. I'm so so so sick of people complaining its my army instead of getting good. So now I just crush everyone and watch them flail around helplessly and whine. It's amusing. When I try and offer constructive criticism they never take it. So they never get good. I'm beginning ti suspect that calling out certain factions as OP or UP is covering up for a lack of skill on the person in question. Now does that mean there are not OP and UP factions? No. There definitely are, but the unskilled are the ones who are least capable of telling which ones are.
They came out in 2001. The death times of good anime coming to the west and being on TV. Oh sure there were exceptions but anime quality deteriorated overall.
Also Cartoons in general started to die off then. Sad Times.
TheCustomLime wrote: all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
Ironically the army with giant robots that DON'T wield melee weapons, aside from one outcast, is the anime one. There is a Knight that has a giant lance as it's primary weapon. I don't really see Tau taking much from anime really.
I don't think thats necessarily true. I think its more we were only getting the good ones coming out of Japan then because thats all that made it over. But now we get all of anime coming out of Japan. So its more we're now actually seeing both the good and bad shows, not just the good ones.
Gamgee wrote: They came out in 2001. The death times of good anime coming to the west and being on TV. Oh sure there were exceptions but anime quality deteriorated overall.
Also Cartoons in general started to die off then. Sad Times.
Which is a Mech Warrior thing published in 1997 by a USA and German company.
Edit: I want to make it clear though, I'm not saying they're completely devoid of anime influences, but I am saying that's really no where near their main influence.
On the other hand, FASA (the American company behind BattleTech) took out a series of classic Mechs because, well, the artwork was straight-out ripped from Japanese Giant Robot animated series. They'd used at least some Macross artwork with permission but with ownership changes etc in the licenses it wasn't worth the risk of lawsuits to continue using them.
Grey Templar wrote: You know Anime stretches back way longer than that right?
Manga had the giant piloted robot concept as early as the 50s and 60s. Well ahead of Mech Warrior and Battletech. And it was popularized in the 70s with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazinger_Z
Sure, and Mech Warrior probably drew some inspiration from that, but took that inspiration and made it it's own Western thing that later influenced other things. Then again if you read the influences of the first anime mechs, they came from vehicles, German V-Weapons, and to an extent Frankenstein. More so, anime itself originated from Western roots of animation and propaganda, but it would be silly to say it's not it's own separate thing, just as it would be to say Mech Warrior is anime and therefor so is Tau, being even further down the line from it.
However, what's important, isn't that Mech Warrior pre-dates the Tau, it's that they actively said they were trying to make a light version of ex-suits seen in sci-fi, and that picture is one of the more prominent ones. What's important about that fact is that if you look at the design, from the shape of the guns, to the little wing things on the shoulder, and even overall form, you can see it looks very much like a proto-type for a Tau Crisis Suit. It's not just some random mech, it's probably most likely the main inspiration for the Tau Crisis (and later Riptide) suits, and it's clearly not an anime style mech suit either.
So yea, the model design so far points to Western origin for the mechs and Chinese origin for the foot soldiers outfits, neither of which is anime.
Problem with Tau is they are pure shooting and really don't stand any chance in close combat. Supporting fire, long range weapons, and only moderate mobility (for their non jet infantry) just serves to reinforce the playstyle of sit and shoot while maybe screening assaults to force lots of supporting fire. Tau have zero reason to want prolonged close combat as it prevents those enemy units from being shot at. Tau needs some units that want to be in close combat so it helps round out their arsenal and lets the Tau get some early board presence and allows for early close combat engagements with Tau that doesn't always involving trying to charge into the Tau supporting fire death ball.
All this focus on shooting makes Tau frustrating to play against as a successful Tau army never lets the enemy engage the majority of the Tau forces in close combat and on the shooting front few armies can go even with the Tau in a straight up shootout. A smart Tau will sacrifice units as needed to buy time and distance from the enemy but even then cutting through a 108 point fire warrior unit isn't very satisfying when the rest of the army continues to dakka down your forces. It honestly has less to do with how powerful Tau is but with how difficult it is for certain armies to go up against the Tau and how seemingly one dimensional their army is (its more complex than that but it comes across to others as very simplistic gameplay).
On the other hand, FASA (the American company behind BattleTech) took out a series of classic Mechs because, well, the artwork was straight-out ripped from Japanese Giant Robot animated series. They'd used at least some Macross artwork with permission but with ownership changes etc in the licenses it wasn't worth the risk of lawsuits to continue using them.
Yes, some were but they seem to be mostly connected
LAMs are an extremely uncommon form of 'Mech capable of transforming between BattleMech and aircraft configurations, an ability that conveys great speed and flexibility at the cost of power and protection. The design of these LAMs, as well as several other 'Mechs, were leased from mecha designs used in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross and other anime series (see variable fighters); resulting real-world legal conflicts ended their official existence within the franchise. The Wasp, Stinger and Phoenix Hawk are the only published LAMs, found in the unrevised edition of Technical Readout: 3025, along with the other "lost" or "unseen" BattleMechs such as the Marauder, Crusader, Warhammer and the non-LAM versions of the Stinger, Wasp, and Phoenix Hawk.
This image however, was done by Mike Jackson who does state that he was influenced by anime mechs when he made this piece, but also wanted it feel more real and still be true to the Battletech universe. In other words, the prototypes of the Tau Crisis suits were a mix of Western mechs and anime, but themselves don't draw from anime.
Grey Templar wrote: You know Anime stretches back way longer than that right?
Manga had the giant piloted robot concept as early as the 50s and 60s. Well ahead of Mech Warrior and Battletech. And it was popularized in the 70s with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazinger_Z
Sure, and Mech Warrior probably drew some inspiration from that, but took that inspiration and made it it's own Western thing that later influenced other things. Then again if you read the influences of the first anime mechs, they came from vehicles, German V-Weapons, and to an extent Frankenstein. More so, anime itself originated from Western roots of animation and propaganda, but it would be silly to say it's not it's own separate thing, just as it would be to say Mech Warrior is anime and therefor so is Tau, being even further down the line from it.
However, what's important, isn't that Mech Warrior pre-dates the Tau, it's that they actively said they were trying to make a light version of ex-suits seen in sci-fi, and that picture is one of the more prominent ones. What's important about that fact is that if you look at the design, from the shape of the guns, to the little wing things on the shoulder, and even overall form, you can see it looks very much like a proto-type for a Tau Crisis Suit. It's not just some random mech, it's probably most likely the main inspiration for the Tau Crisis (and later Riptide) suits, and it's clearly not an anime style mech suit either.
So yea, the model design so far points to Western origin for the mechs and Chinese origin for the foot soldiers outfits, neither of which is anime.
The Tau also speak with Asian accents and seem to satire both Western belief in Japanese culture through the 90s (everyone is a salariman and works 27 hours a day and never takes a day off, but it's good for the company!) and the actual rise of the CCCP.
Grey Templar wrote: You know Anime stretches back way longer than that right?
Manga had the giant piloted robot concept as early as the 50s and 60s. Well ahead of Mech Warrior and Battletech. And it was popularized in the 70s with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazinger_Z
Sure, and Mech Warrior probably drew some inspiration from that, but took that inspiration and made it it's own Western thing that later influenced other things. Then again if you read the influences of the first anime mechs, they came from vehicles, German V-Weapons, and to an extent Frankenstein. More so, anime itself originated from Western roots of animation and propaganda, but it would be silly to say it's not it's own separate thing, just as it would be to say Mech Warrior is anime and therefor so is Tau, being even further down the line from it.
However, what's important, isn't that Mech Warrior pre-dates the Tau, it's that they actively said they were trying to make a light version of ex-suits seen in sci-fi, and that picture is one of the more prominent ones. What's important about that fact is that if you look at the design, from the shape of the guns, to the little wing things on the shoulder, and even overall form, you can see it looks very much like a proto-type for a Tau Crisis Suit. It's not just some random mech, it's probably most likely the main inspiration for the Tau Crisis (and later Riptide) suits, and it's clearly not an anime style mech suit either.
So yea, the model design so far points to Western origin for the mechs and Chinese origin for the foot soldiers outfits, neither of which is anime.
The Tau also speak with Asian accents and seem to satire both Western belief in Japanese culture through the 90s (everyone is a salariman and works 27 hours a day and never takes a day off, but it's good for the company!) and the actual rise of the CCCP.
Japanese, or more broadly Asian, is by no means the same thing as anime in any way. Also yes, their Fire Warriors were based off of Chinese foot soldiers, according to the designer who made the sculpts.
As for their link to the CCCP, nope, I don't see it at all... And my birth certificate has CCCP on the front of it D:
Vankraken wrote: Problem with Tau is they are pure shooting and really don't stand any chance in close combat. Supporting fire, long range weapons, and only moderate mobility (for their non jet infantry) just serves to reinforce the playstyle of sit and shoot while maybe screening assaults to force lots of supporting fire. Tau have zero reason to want prolonged close combat as it prevents those enemy units from being shot at. Tau needs some units that want to be in close combat so it helps round out their arsenal and lets the Tau get some early board presence and allows for early close combat engagements with Tau that doesn't always involving trying to charge into the Tau supporting fire death ball.
All this focus on shooting makes Tau frustrating to play against as a successful Tau army never lets the enemy engage the majority of the Tau forces in close combat and on the shooting front few armies can go even with the Tau in a straight up shootout. A smart Tau will sacrifice units as needed to buy time and distance from the enemy but even then cutting through a 108 point fire warrior unit isn't very satisfying when the rest of the army continues to dakka down your forces. It honestly has less to do with how powerful Tau is but with how difficult it is for certain armies to go up against the Tau and how seemingly one dimensional their army is (its more complex than that but it comes across to others as very simplistic gameplay).
This is why i hate Tau, as they are the BANE OF MY ORK'S EXISTENCE!! And this is largely why others hate them too, there is little incentive to move when you can hit most of the board.
Note that i only hate Tau when im playing Orks, when i started Daemons in 6th (still using the old dex) i enjoyed fighting them as i had crazy maneuverability and big guns of my own to fight back with. Also the Soul Grinder was a godsend. Now i just dont fight Tau with Orks, as its not fun at all. I would much rather get in a shooting match with my Skitarri
If you're tired of the Tau hate you could always just play a less broken faction, I guess. I play Daemons and Eldar, and I've more or less become desensitized to the asshurt of my fellow gamers.
Ironically, Eldar are probably the army most influenced by Japan and Eastern philosophy, both from their iconography and philosophy of the individual's Path through life. Tau battlesuits are definitely influenced by Japanese mecha battlesuits.
Tau also just rub people the wrong way with the way their lore is presented. It comes across as Tau being the ultimate good in the galaxy, but they're actually no better than the Imperium in terms of oppression and just as racist as the Eldar. it's just that the Imperiaum and Eldar are more upfront about it.
Vankraken wrote: Problem with Tau is they are pure shooting and really don't stand any chance in close combat. Supporting fire, long range weapons, and only moderate mobility (for their non jet infantry) just serves to reinforce the playstyle of sit and shoot while maybe screening assaults to force lots of supporting fire. Tau have zero reason to want prolonged close combat as it prevents those enemy units from being shot at. Tau needs some units that want to be in close combat so it helps round out their arsenal and lets the Tau get some early board presence and allows for early close combat engagements with Tau that doesn't always involving trying to charge into the Tau supporting fire death ball.
All this focus on shooting makes Tau frustrating to play against as a successful Tau army never lets the enemy engage the majority of the Tau forces in close combat and on the shooting front few armies can go even with the Tau in a straight up shootout. A smart Tau will sacrifice units as needed to buy time and distance from the enemy but even then cutting through a 108 point fire warrior unit isn't very satisfying when the rest of the army continues to dakka down your forces. It honestly has less to do with how powerful Tau is but with how difficult it is for certain armies to go up against the Tau and how seemingly one dimensional their army is (its more complex than that but it comes across to others as very simplistic gameplay).
^This. Tau are a shooty army in a shooting-oriented edition. Due to bad internal balance, every Tau army looks much the same and are all very similar to play against. Kroot are supposed to be the CC screen, but they suck at that. They also have limited mobility, which reinforces the "sit in a corner and shoot you to death" stereotype. There are only a few armies that can compete wiht Tau in terms of shooting, and Tau have many ways to counter CC. For many armies, it's simply a bad matchup.
^^
Honestly this is what bugs me about the Tau, they have one of the worst internal balances ive ever seen, which is why virtually every Tau army looks the same, and that SUCKS. I mean i would totally play a Kroot army supported by some Crisis Suits, except that would be even worse than my Orks.
Sadly, the hate will be forever our companion. There are those who suffered under the Taudar rule in 6th and got bitter, those who hate mechas, those who hate the clean style of the Tau among the dirty and gritty grimdark of the 40k, those who hate because they aren't one of their loved factions, those who hate because... to each hater you find, tell this:
And carry on, Shas'la.
=====
For those inquiring about Fire Warrior inspiration...
TheNewBlood wrote: ^This. Tau are a shooty army in a shooting-oriented edition. Due to bad internal balance, every Tau army looks much the same and are all very similar to play against. Kroot are supposed to be the CC screen, but they suck at that. They also have limited mobility, which reinforces the "sit in a corner and shoot you to death" stereotype. There are only a few armies that can compete wiht Tau in terms of shooting, and Tau have many ways to counter CC. For many armies, it's simply a bad matchup.
I would disagree on them having bad internal balance in that most of their units can operate quite well on the battlefield. Sure Broadsides and Riptides are the most powerful units in the codex but most of their units can do their respected roles effectively. The only real stinker units are the Tau flyers which are just hot garbage while vespids, piranhas, and stealth suits are just too limited in their utility to be reliably taken. Even Kroot at least make for cheap sniper spam and can conga line a massive supporting fire wall. Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Hammerheads, Skyrays, Crisis Suits, and even Sniper Drones are viable units that work decently well if used correctly. I think the codex as a whole has "aged" with all the power creep going on which down plays their overwhelming firepower while amplifying the design weaknesses of the Tau. I say this with the core of my Tau army being made up of Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, Hammerheads, plus a unit of HYMP Broadsides (zero Riptides in this army). In the tournament setting Tau is really needing to rely on the big guns to do the heavy lifting against top tier lists but for a normal pickup game Tau have a lot of viable options in their arsenal which is unlike say CSM or Nids who have a lot of stinker units.
Tau simply piss me off because they're inconsistent within 40k
Firstly, it was stated within their lore, that large battlesuits (Im talking about Riptide sized and larger) were far too costly resource wise and would put far too large a strain on weapons productions for their allies.
Out comes the Riptide because GW said so, feth the lore, we wanna sell models, makes it a MC because Walkers suck balls and they refused to balance the differences between the two, Tau Riptides fly off the shelves and the entire community find themselves within an erra of 40k with more hate than Chaos 3.5.
So why do people like myself who have collected Tau, hate them so fething much? Because they are by logic, exactly the thing I associate with the decline of popularity within the 40k universe from a gaming perspective, pay to win.
GoliothOnline wrote: Tau simply piss me off because they're inconsistent within 40k
Firstly, it was stated within their lore, that large battlesuits (Im talking about Riptide sized and larger) were far too costly resource wise and would put far too large a strain on weapons productions for their allies.
This is the reason given for why the Tau had not yet developed larger suits. But once they encountered Titans and other large weapons of war this belief was reconsidered.
TheNewBlood wrote: ^This. Tau are a shooty army in a shooting-oriented edition. Due to bad internal balance, every Tau army looks much the same and are all very similar to play against. Kroot are supposed to be the CC screen, but they suck at that. They also have limited mobility, which reinforces the "sit in a corner and shoot you to death" stereotype. There are only a few armies that can compete wiht Tau in terms of shooting, and Tau have many ways to counter CC. For many armies, it's simply a bad matchup.
I would disagree on them having bad internal balance in that most of their units can operate quite well on the battlefield. Sure Broadsides and Riptides are the most powerful units in the codex but most of their units can do their respected roles effectively. The only real stinker units are the Tau flyers which are just hot garbage while vespids, piranhas, and stealth suits are just too limited in their utility to be reliably taken. Even Kroot at least make for cheap sniper spam and can conga line a massive supporting fire wall. Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Hammerheads, Skyrays, Crisis Suits, and even Sniper Drones are viable units that work decently well if used correctly. I think the codex as a whole has "aged" with all the power creep going on which down plays their overwhelming firepower while amplifying the design weaknesses of the Tau. I say this with the core of my Tau army being made up of Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, Hammerheads, plus a unit of HYMP Broadsides (zero Riptides in this army). In the tournament setting Tau is really needing to rely on the big guns to do the heavy lifting against top tier lists but for a normal pickup game Tau have a lot of viable options in their arsenal which is unlike say CSM or Nids who have a lot of stinker units.
All of the things you have written here are proof of "poor internal balance". If the codex is basically a choice between "the new killy hotness" and "hot garbage".... there's no balance there. If the choice is between "well, any one of these 5 units is OK at their specific jobs.... but this one unit is da bomb at all 5 of those jobs and 4 more besides!" then you have poor internal balance.
That the power creep and meta-shift has only heavily favored the Tau is also something that gets them a lot of hate. Used to be, "Survive the shooting until you get to melee" was the trick to beating Tau... but since CC and vehicles have taken such the nerfs in the last couple editions, that is basically a pipe-dream for any CC-oriented army. Never mind the fact that the Tau have units that will simply never wind up in melee in most cases, meanwhile shooting your ObSec troops off the table from half a board away.
Tau also just rub people the wrong way with the way their lore is presented. It comes across as Tau being the ultimate good in the galaxy, but they're actually no better than the Imperium in terms of oppression and just as racist as the Eldar. it's just that the Imperiaum and Eldar are more upfront about it.
Actually, eldar is the most out of place faction in 40k. They just have the benefit of existing since 1st ed. If they were released today, no one would want anything to do with them. eldar is essentially a faction of noble-bright elves, coming in to save the day from the darkness of IoM and the warp, using their superior speed, cunning, firepower, and plot armour to win. Their aesthetic is also terribly out of place, garishly coloured troops march alongside multi-coloured clowns with smooth sleek lines. They're essentially the mary-sue faction of 40k.
Tau is outwardly good hidden behind a veneer of mind-control, genocide, murder of citizens, gene-modification, culling, gelding and slavery. The boxy aesthetic also fits the 40k aesthetic. They're the most subtly grim-dark faction in 40k. Other factions preach decay and destruction, but Tau is far more insidious, they preach an outwardly perfect society, in which no dissent is allowed, especially against the original Tau race, or your entire family/country/race will be annihilated.
Let's just say, 40k would improve tremendously if they squatted eldar and replaced them with Tau.
Tau also just rub people the wrong way with the way their lore is presented. It comes across as Tau being the ultimate good in the galaxy, but they're actually no better than the Imperium in terms of oppression and just as racist as the Eldar. it's just that the Imperiaum and Eldar are more upfront about it.
Actually, eldar is the most out of place faction in 40k. They just have the benefit of existing since 1st ed. If they were released today, no one would want anything to do with them. eldar is essentially a faction of noble-bright elves, coming in to save the day from the darkness of IoM and the warp, using their superior speed, cunning, firepower, and plot armour to win. Their aesthetic is also terribly out of place, garishly coloured troops march alongside multi-coloured clowns with smooth sleek lines. They're essentially the mary-sue faction of 40k.
Tau is outwardly good hidden behind a veneer of mind-control, genocide, murder of citizens, gene-modification, culling, gelding and slavery. The boxy aesthetic also fits the 40k aesthetic. They're the most subtly grim-dark faction in 40k. Other factions preach decay and destruction, but Tau is far more insidious, they preach an outwardly perfect society, in which no dissent is allowed, especially against the original Tau race, or your entire family/country/race will be annihilated.
Let's just say, 40k would improve tremendously if they squatted eldar and replaced them with Tau.
99.9999% of their race is dead.
They have to carefully regulate their feelings, or else a chaos god will eat their souls.
Half the notable stories in their lore are about craftworld a nearly (Lyanden) or completely (Malantai) dying.
Count the number of times the Avatar of Khaine appears in Eldar lore and didn't die, and then point out the "plot armor"
As many posters before me have said, the problem with the Tau is the lack of interaction they bring in a game of 40k. They'll most likely sit still in the movement phase, or move in to LOS or range if they have to. Come the shooting phase, they'll blast you to kingdom come to the best of their ability. Then in the assault phase....they move away. They don't even take part in the psychic phase. This is made worse by the fact that while other races CAN play in this way (Hi there eldar!), it seems to be the ONLY way tau play. GW appear to have completely missed the opportunity to get the alien auxilaries to round off these issues, with both kroot and vespid simply being cheaper shooters for the army to take advantage of. You'll see similar 'hate' directed toward necrons due to their 'walk forward while firing game play.' Interestingly, you see less of this attitude towards imperial guard, likely due to the fact that they're not very manoeuvrable and so easier to catch, and the fact that while they're still bad in CC and nothing to write home about in the psychic phase, at least they take part. They're arguably also just plain weaker.
People taking a shot at Tau for being too 'good' though...I'm afraid they're just missing the point.
Fingers crossed, GW might do something interesting with Vespid or Kroot in the new codex, though I wouldn't hold my breath.
j31c3n wrote: The Protoss are the Eldar, not the Tau. Sheesh.
Pardon?
Protoss are psionic, came before the Tau even existed, are few and are an old civilization in the galaxy.
They're much closer to the Eldar than the Tau
Gonna chime in here and say that I think the Protoss definitely have links with the Eldar rather than the Tau, though my Starcraft knowledge is hardly stellar. They're an ancient dying race of highly psychic technologically advanced aliens whom have lost their homeworld(s). I'm pretty sure the 'Immortal' unit is a dead protoss put in a walker as well! Even if they're physically very different, the back story definitely has similarities.
Tarvitz77 wrote: As many posters before me have said, the problem with the Tau is the lack of interaction they bring in a game of 40k. They'll most likely sit still in the shooting phase, or move in to LOS or range if they have to. Come the shooting phase, they'll blast you to kingdom come to the best of their ability. Then in the assault phase....they move away. They don't even take part in the psychic phase. This is made worse by the fact that while other races CAN play in this way (Hi there eldar!), it seems to be the ONLY way tau play. GW appear to have completely missed the opportunity to get the alien auxilaries to round off these issues, with both kroot and vespid simply being cheaper shooters for the army to take advantage of. You'll see similar 'hate' directed toward necrons due to their 'walk forward while firing game play.' Interestingly, you see less of this attitude towards imperial guard, likely due to the fact that they're not very manoeuvrable and so easier to catch, and the fact that while they're still bad in CC and nothing to write home about in the psychic phase, at least they take part. They're arguably also just plain weaker.
People taking a shot at Tau for being too 'good' though...I'm afraid they're just missing the point.
Fingers crossed, GW might do something interesting with Vespid or Kroot in the new codex, though I wouldn't hold my breath.
j31c3n wrote: The Protoss are the Eldar, not the Tau. Sheesh.
Pardon?
Protoss are psionic, came before the Tau even existed, are few and are an old civilization in the galaxy.
They're much closer to the Eldar than the Tau
Gonna chime in here and say that I think the Protoss definitely have links with the Eldar rather than the Tau, though my Starcraft knowledge is hardly stellar. They're an ancient dying race of highly psychic technologically advanced aliens whom have lost their homeworld(s). I'm pretty sure the 'Immortal' unit is a dead protoss put in a walker as well! Even if they're physically very different, the back story definitely has similarities.
Yes. StarCraft came out years before the Tau were even released. Everyone knew at the time: Terrans = Space Marines, Zerg = Tyranids, Protoss = Eldar. It was pretty blatant, although Blizzard did plenty to distinguish their factions from their 40k counterparts. But Protoss absolutely, definitively, borrowed nothing from the Tau, because barring time travel it physically would not have been possible.
To be fair, it's not clear that the Protoss are dying per se in Starcraft. They just have some homeworld issues with the Zerg. There are a couple of young Protoss characters, so it's clear they can still reproduce.
Also, given the lack of restrictions of any kind of CWE lists, I question GW's own fluff about the Eldar. They seem perfectly okay to me. Again, tabletop reality >>>>>>>> fluff.
pumpinchimp wrote: I like Tau because they are the most Sci-Fi of the factions.
What do you mean by "most sci fi?" Maybe in a Star Trek space opera or Orweillian Dystopia sense. But if you like Jack Vance Dying Earth style techno-barbarism then Space Marines are most sci fi. Weird Tales Magazine classic 60s paperback pulp scifi? Reach for AdMech. More of a near future Enders game/Starship Troopers scifi fan? IG is the most sci fi. Star Wars space monks with hand wavey tech? Back to Marines. Heinlein robots and cyborgs mixed with some classic early 50s Death Rays and Doom Engines and Heat Beams? Necrons are most sci fi.
pumpinchimp wrote: I like Tau because they are the most Sci-Fi of the factions.
What do you mean by "most sci fi?" Maybe in a Star Trek space opera or Orweillian Dystopia sense. But if you like Jack Vance Dying Earth style techno-barbarism then Space Marines are most sci fi. Weird Tales Magazine classic 60s paperback pulp scifi? Reach for AdMech. More of a near future Enders game/Starship Troopers scifi fan? IG is the most sci fi. Star Wars space monks with hand wavey tech? Back to Marines. Heinlein robots and cyborgs mixed with some classic early 50s Death Rays and Doom Engines and Heat Beams? Necrons are most sci fi.
40k is a big big place. So is sci fi.
40k actually falls under the fantasy genre (science fantasy to be specific), not sci fi. (sci fi does not allow supernatural elements). That is also why the Tau stand out so much, as they are the only faction without supernatural themes.
Gamgee wrote: They have nothing in common with Japan. At all. Imperial Japan has much more in common culturally with the Imperium of Man. I mean suicide attacks, worship of an Emperor, love of mecha, sisters of battle waifu crap.
The Tau have more in common with the Classical Greek Republic, Star Trek Federation, and Brave New World all shmushed together. Tau aren't even communist their utilitarians.
Visually they are Asian looking. That's about it.
Edit
Oh they've also been given a Japanese/Asian accent in the games as well.
It's Chinese... Shas'o for one is a slang word for warrior. The word is used in the Firefly series (to describe Zoey in, The Message), in the boxed set they explain about various slang or informal chinese words. The elemental caste system is also based on china's many caste systems through several dynasty's. The Elemental (the people...peasants, traders, scholars) and Ethereal (the inhabitants of the Celestial/Forbidden Palace, or those who ruled the people)
Bottom line the hate that the Tau get is completely overdone and overblown, especially in light of recent codex releases. The Tau have some strong stuff and some shenanigans but I can point to almost any other army and point out just as many ridiculous or even more ridiculous shenanigans that they have access to. I don't know why but the majority of heat seems to stem from Imperial players which I hate to say I have no sympathy for especially with the new Marines, Skitarii/Mechanicum, Imperial Knights ect.
Now this isn't a flame post against Imperial Armies because my first and favorite Army is the Imperial Guard and always will be. However I do feel that more players need to spend time talking tactics to deal with stuff they are struggling with rather then complain and moan about it and demand they are nerfed into the ground.
pumpinchimp wrote: I like Tau because they are the most Sci-Fi of the factions.
What do you mean by "most sci fi?" Maybe in a Star Trek space opera or Orweillian Dystopia sense. But if you like Jack Vance Dying Earth style techno-barbarism then Space Marines are most sci fi. Weird Tales Magazine classic 60s paperback pulp scifi? Reach for AdMech. More of a near future Enders game/Starship Troopers scifi fan? IG is the most sci fi. Star Wars space monks with hand wavey tech? Back to Marines. Heinlein robots and cyborgs mixed with some classic early 50s Death Rays and Doom Engines and Heat Beams? Necrons are most sci fi.
40k is a big big place. So is sci fi.
40k actually falls under the fantasy genre (science fantasy to be specific), not sci fi. (sci fi does not allow supernatural elements). That is also why the Tau stand out so much, as they are the only faction without supernatural themes.
What Iron Captain said, 40K is more fantasy in space than Sci-Fi. Most of the races have traditional fantasy counterparts, Eldar are space elves and necrons are space-undead. Tau are the most 'alien'.
(I don't agree with sci-fi not allowing supernatural elements though).
You think the Tau hate is bad, imagine what Eldar players are getting right now. Many people refuse to play even against tame Eldar lists. I don't 'really hate Tau myself, I just think that people try to make them out to not be grimdark, and that doesn't really fit with the lore.
Sci fi is completely rife with supernatural themes. Watch a few episodes of Star Trek and tell me how long it takes to run into something omnipotent/fueled by emotion/beyond the boundaries of space/transdimentional. That's what daemons and psykers are in 40k-they're an established transdimensional entity that is well explained in canon and acts under a consistent set of rules.
It's less fantasy than something like "the force" in Star Wars, or telepathic communication in Enders Game, or any huge number of fantastic elements in the works of Jules Verne or Heinlein.
40k hasn't been "Soft Sci Fi" on the level of Star Wars or Dying Earth since before 2nd ed, or whenever psykers and the warp got a concrete explanation.
And besides that, many armies don't touch the Warp in any way, or do so as much as tau do (their lack of psykers is explained in fluff): Necrons, Dark Eldar, The Mechanicum, and Tyranids have little to no "supernatural" elements beyond their fantastical technology, which Tau also have.
Melissia wrote: You think the Tau hate is bad, imagine what Eldar players are getting right now. Many people refuse to play even against tame Eldar lists. I don't 'really hate Tau myself, I just think that people try to make them out to not be grimdark, and that doesn't really fit with the lore.
See anyone that just quits without even attempting to play against the army I have no respect for. Granted if I was bringing a fluffy list and my opponent brought the biggest cheesiest Eldar list he could then I can understand their complaints. However if you are bringing a team list and I still refuse to play then it's their own issue. People need to realize you're not going to get better unless you play against the stuff you struggle with to learn how to beat it. Personally I like a challenge and firmly believe that people have the right to play with what they want to play with how they want to play it. All I ask is that they let me know if its competitive list or a fun list before hand so I can prepare accordingly.
They're a "tack-on" army, who never felt fully like a part of the fluff. I do enjoy their story and think it's neat, but it has always felt like it was added to an already robust storyline.
Their asthetic is great, but their vehicles were always like, pseudo-Eldar, which bothered me It's not as fluid and nice as Eldar, but it is pleasant. The suits are really where they seperate themselves from the rest, but it's not quite my favorite either.
The thing I truely dislike about the Tau is the table top game play. It's never fun. I personally have a good track record against Tau, but even during victory these are some of the toughest battles to win. The battle is always a stressful time and rarely has those cool 40k moments. Also, they ignore some of the basic tenants of the game, which i feel is a poorly thought out thing which robs the fun from the other races. Too many ways to ignore cover and LOS. It takes no work to win with Tau, it's just sit back and shoot. My buddy does run a Farsight bomb and though it's not much worse than a Cent bomb (I don't like those either!), it is stupid that a unit can deep strike without deviation, ignore cover, twin link, and fire at as many targets as the please. Where is the fun? The more entertaining lists tend to be riptide spam or firewarrior spam. At least these lists look like they take finesse and are fun to play with and against.
In the end no one is more or less deserving to be in 40k. The whole idea of it was a role-playing like setting with many races to entertain the masses. While it may not be my particular cup of tea, Tau is cool, and I really hope their new book refreshes them and makes them fun to play and fun to play against, and not just another power dex.
The idea and the background of the tau I love.
The effective shooting combined with good defence, nasty overwatch and double movement I hate as an ork player who likes to foot slog.
So it isn't you or the tau its their suits and their rules
j31c3n wrote: The Protoss are the Eldar, not the Tau. Sheesh.
Pardon?
Protoss are psionic, came before the Tau even existed, are few and are an old civilization in the galaxy.
They're much closer to the Eldar than the Tau
But their government and philosophy is more akin to that of Tau than the Eldar. Additionally the Tau current history of the whole Farsight Enclave is closer to the plight of the Dark Templars in the face of the Conclave, than the Protoss story is to that of the Eldar post origination.
Maybe it's just both, the origin story is obviously closer to the Eldar, which would make sense since Blizzard couldn't base it off the Tau, but Tau probably draw some inspiration from the Protoss too.
Gonna chime in here and say that I think the Protoss definitely have links with the Eldar rather than the Tau, though my Starcraft knowledge is hardly stellar. They're an ancient dying race of highly psychic technologically advanced aliens whom have lost their homeworld(s). I'm pretty sure the 'Immortal' unit is a dead protoss put in a walker as well! Even if they're physically very different, the back story definitely has similarities.
I don't think the Protoss are a dying race, in fact from what I remember they were in a pretty good state at the start of Starcraft, with Auir being in a kind of golden age. They did lose a lot to the Zerg invasion, but they simply reunited their race and moved to Shakuras, which was the home planet of the Dark Templar, which they made their new home planet. They still have tons of colonies and stuff, along with military bases on other planets.
Nope, the Dragoons and the new upgraded model of the Immortal are not dead at all. They are crippled veterans who volunteer to be put in them for the greater good of their race, despite it meaning that they'll live the remainder of their life in what's essentially a giant bubble filled with disinfectant. They're kind of like a Dreadnaught, where the pilot has the choice to become one, and not so much a Wrath-thing.
I don't HATE Tau, I just think they're an inherently flawed faxtion by design (from a game stand-point). The game heavily favors shooting over close combat and Tau are designed around the fact that "they don't have melee hence they should be the best at shooting". Well ok I get where they coming from but that's just not fun. Even a moderately strong shooting army can just nuke most CC armies off the table (with the exception of competitive daemon lists).
Not having CC is definitely not a disadvantage when the enemy can't get to you.
Also, Markerlights. feth markelights. They're the dumbest pieces of wargear any army has. It just gets rid of certain tactical elements entirely.
DaPino wrote: I
Also, Markerlights. feth markelights. They're the dumbest pieces of wargear any army has. It just gets rid of certain tactical elements entirely.
But it adds the tactic where you kill those soft Markerlight units so they can't buff the Riptide. They have 4+ armor at the most and die when hit by a stiff breeze. Or possibly a heavy flamer.
It is all automatic, cheap and they have a ton of it.
The best thing is Tau is no longer battle brothers with eldar and ICs cannot join MCs.
You know what else has those rules? Many units in the Imperium, as well as other xenos factions. Furthermore, Tau have to pay for their markerlights and interceptor/skyfire upgrades.
You know how everyone says guard use flashlight and can't hit the side of a barn, like how we call ultrasmurfs space marines, like how we pick on necron and eldar players, like how we pick on etc etc etc.
Iron_Captain wrote: 40k actually falls under the fantasy genre (science fantasy to be specific), not sci fi. (sci fi does not allow supernatural elements). That is also why the Tau stand out so much, as they are the only faction without supernatural themes.
What if supernatural themes are based using science? In science you are allowed to make science up, thus faster than light travel etc. Fantasy would be the original star wars trilogy.
Baldeagle91 wrote:Oh ffs OP.... it's called banter.
You know how everyone says guard use flashlight and can't hit the side of a barn, like how we call ultrasmurfs space marines, like how we pick on necron and eldar players, like how we pick on etc etc etc.
It has gone way past 'banter'. People are unironically hateful of Tau. You can see here and in other threads regarding the new codex. But it's quite amusing to see some people almost frothing in anger about Tau stuff. It makes no sense... to become irate about non-real stuff.
DaPino wrote:
Also, Markerlights. feth markelights. They're the dumbest pieces of wargear any army has. It just gets rid of certain tactical elements entirely.
Vector Strike wrote: It has gone way past 'banter'. People are unironically hateful of Tau. You can see here and in other threads regarding the new codex. But it's quite amusing to see some people almost frothing in anger about Tau stuff. It makes no sense... to become irate about non-real stuff.
Tbh you see that in most new codex threads.
Tau are hated? God forbid the hate necrons got when they where re-released in 3rd..... *How great now we have terminators (from the films lol) in the game*
I personally think tau players can sometimes be like tau in the fluff. Over sensitive.
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
My only complaint about playing Tau is that it is always the same fething game. Tau gunline in the back with 1-2 Riptides and 3 Missile Sides. Maybe some fire warrior bubble wrap and usually a deep striking crisis suit team with some melta/flamers to feth up anything I leave in the backfield. I have played 3 Tau players in 3 completely different geographic locations and the lists were almost identical.
So beyond that I don't understand the rest of it, I like the Idea behind Tau and I would love to see them more often but with different set ups. Also it would be nice if the Eldar hadn't stolen the whole JSJ from the Tau
Ghazkuul wrote: Also it would be nice if the Eldar hadn't stolen the whole JSJ from the Tau
I have thought about that today. Why do Jetbikes have that assault move? They already have the farthest Run-like ability in the game. JSJ should be only for Jet Pack units.
Baldeagle91 wrote:
Tbh you see that in most new codex threads.
Tau are hated? God forbid the hate necrons got when they where re-released in 3rd..... *How great now we have terminators (from the films lol) in the game*
I personally think tau players can sometimes be like tau in the fluff. Over sensitive.
Some can be, as they fall for the haters' speech and go down a swirl of accusations between them. But if you learn to ignore those and only respond to the more civilized complainers, all is well.
I have thought about that today. Why do Jetbikes have that assault move? They already have the farthest Run-like ability in the game. JSJ should be only for Jet Pack units.
I agree, Battle Focus doesnt belong on Jetbikes. Yes this would suck for the DE Jetbikes, but hose should have a 4+ anyway.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
And trust me pal. Once the new Codex hits I guarantee you the spirit of mid-6th ed will come alive again.
Just because you have mechs doesn't make it inherently inspired by anime. Honestly giant fighting robots is hardly only popular in japan. I will admit that them having mechs that fight might be inspired by Japanese culture, I'd like to point out that you'd hardly get away calling pacific rim or other stuff that clearly takes some level of inspiration from Japanese culture as anime.
Also, I'm fairly certain most of the armies that get updated will be called "op" compared to the ones that aren't updated. Tau aren't going to be nearly unique in this regard.
As a gundam fan i can't not see the resemblance.
Though it was just a resemblence until i watched double zeta.
Spoiler:
Pretty sure that looks allot like a twin linked plasma rifle.
Also apparently the original tau designer was a fan mecha anime. though we are just missing all the ccws that mobiles suits had as backup.
And none of this is a bad thing.
I'll eventually be making a gundam themed tau army.
Honestly most of the arguments about the Tau make little sense at all. I find them more interesting than some other factions, that's for certain. and they definitely aren't Communists, in fact they're probably the most Socialist faction there is.
That said, I must say I find the DOW version of them where they treat humans like second class citizens far more interesting than the version of them where they are the ultimate good guys.
That isn't because I want them to be bad guys, but because it adds more depth to them and draws an interesting comparison to 1930s/40s Germany, what with how everyone in their society thinks its all for the greater good of other nations, their superior weapons and infrastructure, etc...(a comparison which works well if you view the Imperium as being like Stalin's Russia.)
CalgarsPimpHand wrote: Yes. StarCraft came out years before the Tau were even released. Everyone knew at the time: Terrans = Space Marines, Zerg = Tyranids, Protoss = Eldar. It was pretty blatant, although Blizzard did plenty to distinguish their factions from their 40k counterparts. But Protoss absolutely, definitively, borrowed nothing from the Tau, because barring time travel it physically would not have been possible.
To the contrary, Games Workshop likely "borrowed" from Blizzard more than the other way around- when Starcraft came out Tyranids looked nothing like they do now, and it wasn't until years after Starcraft came out that the Tyranids aesthetic began to resemble what we see today.
Starcraft was originally supposed to be a WHFB game, which then became Starcraft. There's little to no evidence that Blizzard was ever taking inspiration from 40K, and if you think about it with the exception of the Zerg, the factions bear little resemblance. The only thing the Protoss and the Eldar had in common are their technology, and the only thing that Astartes and combat marines have in common is their power armor. Not much else.
Gameplay wise the standard tau army is just boring, I'm sorry. It feels like "gaaar I'm gonna charge ya" all the time because that's the only option tau leave other factions. Every assault faction has guns. Every one has some variation in mobility, psychics, armor, etc. And every other shooty fAction uses mobility, or assault screens, or close range to some extent. Tau JUST sit and shoot.
It's like Decurion crons. It's iust boring, there's no way around it.
Signet-Powers wrote: Honestly most of the arguments about the Tau make little sense at all. I find them more interesting than some other factions, that's for certain. and they definitely aren't Communists, in fact they're probably the most Socialist faction there is.
That said, I must say I find the DOW version of them where they treat humans like second class citizens far more interesting than the version of them where they are the ultimate good guys.
That isn't because I want them to be bad guys, but because it adds more depth to them and draws an interesting comparison to 1930s/40s Germany, what with how everyone in their society thinks its all for the greater good of other nations, their superior weapons and infrastructure, etc...(a comparison which works well if you view the Imperium as being like Stalin's Russia.)
Think you need to re-read the communist manifesto.... socalism is the prerequisite to communism... thus kinda communism lite, you know as commie as capitalism can go. Also communism is suppose to be democratic.... just most examples in history and modern day have prime examples of dictators which also exist in democracies (where the term originates).
All in all they're still space commies
The Imperium is more of a massive and elongated feudal system. Actually the DOW still shows the Tau in a stalin like USSR (but remove stalin with a ruling elite, kinda like in china atm), especially seeing many ethnic minorities where most defiantly seen as second class citizens.
Hell even the Vespid so called communication devices have hints of mind control! Primitive troops being used for cc? Sounds a tad like Cossacks to me.
Weirdly enough the 30/40's stance of germany reminds me of how the imperium treats mutants.
It is all automatic, cheap and they have a ton of it.
The best thing is Tau is no longer battle brothers with eldar and ICs cannot join MCs.
You know what else has those rules? Many units in the Imperium, as well as other xenos factions. Furthermore, Tau have to pay for their markerlights and interceptor/skyfire upgrades.
Tau do not have a monopoly on cheese.
Name 4. And no, they can not all be Space Marine, AdMech and IK.
pumpinchimp wrote: I like Tau because they are the most Sci-Fi of the factions.
What do you mean by "most sci fi?" Maybe in a Star Trek space opera or Orweillian Dystopia sense. But if you like Jack Vance Dying Earth style techno-barbarism then Space Marines are most sci fi. Weird Tales Magazine classic 60s paperback pulp scifi? Reach for AdMech. More of a near future Enders game/Starship Troopers scifi fan? IG is the most sci fi. Star Wars space monks with hand wavey tech? Back to Marines. Heinlein robots and cyborgs mixed with some classic early 50s Death Rays and Doom Engines and Heat Beams? Necrons are most sci fi.
40k is a big big place. So is sci fi.
40k actually falls under the fantasy genre (science fantasy to be specific), not sci fi. (sci fi does not allow supernatural elements). That is also why the Tau stand out so much, as they are the only faction without supernatural themes.
Gamgee wrote: They have nothing in common with Japan. At all. Imperial Japan has much more in common culturally with the Imperium of Man. I mean suicide attacks, worship of an Emperor, love of mecha, sisters of battle waifu crap.
The Tau have more in common with the Classical Greek Republic, Star Trek Federation, and Brave New World all shmushed together. Tau aren't even communist their utilitarians.
Visually they are Asian looking. That's about it.
Edit
Oh they've also been given a Japanese/Asian accent in the games as well.
....The Imperium is nothing like the Imperial Japanese Empire. It's literally the Holy Roman Empire in SPAAAACE.
IG has ignores cover on any infantry squad they want at any time (I use it for 5 Lascannons from my blob). Also on a Leman Russ variant and Wyverns. Skyfire/interceptor on hydras, and Aegis line/other fortifications.
Inquisition has Coteaz, who you can add just by himself to any imperial unit by himself for 100 points. Basically grants interceptor on top of 2 warp charges in any discipline.
Eldar I don't know about interceptor, but I know they have skyfire on swooping hawks and their plane as well as tons of ignores cover.
Cult Mechanicus has a formation for Ignores cover Grav/Plasma, a relic for interceptor on everything, and both on the skiitari's crazy Icarus array tank. and they can turn level two Markerlights on their entire army (twice per game). Skiitari can do that 3 times per game.
Grey knights have interceptor on a bunch of stuff, a plane for flyers, and ignores cover super-flamers.
The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
If you are having trouble with tau not moving, you need more terrain. You should also play maelstrom missions. If they are hunkering down in a corner, then stay out of line of sight and win on objectives. It may be boring once or twice, but if you don't make them change their strategy to win games, you won't ever see a different list.
Also, why not include the space marines, admech, and knights? How about the fact that I.G., space wolves, grey knights, and blood angels all have divination?
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: If you are having trouble with tau not moving, you need more terrain. You should also play maelstrom missions. If they are hunkering down in a corner, then stay out of line of sight and win on objectives. It may be boring once or twice, but if you don't make them change their strategy to win games, you won't ever see a different list.
Also, why not include the space marines, admech, and knights? How about the fact that I.G., space wolves, grey knights, and blood angels all have divination?
Stay out of LOS huh? what about those wonderful missile pods that don't have to have LOS to fire. And the PLETHORA of ignores cover they get.
Grey Templar wrote: Anyway, some of the Tau hates comes from their hypocritical actions. They say everything is for the Greater Good and they seem like good guys on the outside, but once you get past that they're just as ruthless and twisted as every other faction. The difference is the other factions aren't trying to make apologies or cover up what they do. They do what they do because they must. The Tau are no different, they just hide their smut under shiny clean armor and honeyed words.
But isn't that part of their appeal? As I thought part of their earlier criticism was that they were allegedly not 'grimdark' enough for 40K.
pumpinchimp wrote: I like Tau because they are the most Sci-Fi of the factions.
What do you mean by "most sci fi?" Maybe in a Star Trek space opera or Orweillian Dystopia sense. But if you like Jack Vance Dying Earth style techno-barbarism then Space Marines are most sci fi. Weird Tales Magazine classic 60s paperback pulp scifi? Reach for AdMech. More of a near future Enders game/Starship Troopers scifi fan? IG is the most sci fi. Star Wars space monks with hand wavey tech? Back to Marines. Heinlein robots and cyborgs mixed with some classic early 50s Death Rays and Doom Engines and Heat Beams? Necrons are most sci fi.
40k is a big big place. So is sci fi.
40k actually falls under the fantasy genre (science fantasy to be specific), not sci fi. (sci fi does not allow supernatural elements). That is also why the Tau stand out so much, as they are the only faction without supernatural themes.
I'd guess that's one reason why they were added. If I wanted to have psykers in my lists I'd play Eldar or most other codexes- the Tau and Black Templars are that middle finger at Harry Potter 40K.
master of ordinance wrote: The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
Grey Knights... They have a flyer. Wow.
Tau ignores cover requires them to hit with (2 or 3 I don't remember) Markerlights, or on missile pods which are I believe AP5.
They don't get Interceptor/Skyfire on everything, it's an upgrade for a couple of their suits and/or tanks. On a riptide, for instance, they can choose two upgrades which can be extra guns or skyfire/interceptor.
100 points for a dude in artificer armor with a demonhammer two psychic levels in any discipline who grants interceptor to everyone is a fuckin bargain. There's only really one or two units worth granting interceptor in an army anyway. You wanna pay 200 points to put interceptor on your whole tau list be my guest I'll just laugh at you.
Since when does IG give a flying Frick about tau anyway? What, is he gonna pay 150 points to fire one BS4 S10 shot at you a turn? Oooh, scary. Nuke his pathfinders with a wyvern turn one and roll over him.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
But this is part of the problem. Originally Tau were Mech, not MechA. Humanoidform battlesuits were only one aspect of Tau war machine. Now, they're becoming Mecha cliche this and Gundam that. It's just lame, no imagination, lets just design new ever bigger battlesuits!
Grey Templar wrote: Anyway, some of the Tau hates comes from their hypocritical actions. They say everything is for the Greater Good and they seem like good guys on the outside, but once you get past that they're just as ruthless and twisted as every other faction. The difference is the other factions aren't trying to make apologies or cover up what they do. They do what they do because they must. The Tau are no different, they just hide their smut under shiny clean armor and honeyed words.
But isn't that part of their appeal? As I thought part of their earlier criticism was that they were allegedly not 'grimdark' enough for 40K.
Exactly. Tau are space opera Human cliches projected to an alien race:
-Short-lived and physically weak but dynamic and ambitious -have grown enormously in power in only short time -very innovative, high technology -not "warrior born" but nevertheless quite adept in ways of war -preach their naive ideology to everyone whilst knowing nothing about dark secrets of the Galaxy.
It is part of why people find Tau annoying: they are designed to be. It's like role reversal from Humans vs Romulans (or Minbari or...)
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: If you are having trouble with tau not moving, you need more terrain. You should also play maelstrom missions. If they are hunkering down in a corner, then stay out of line of sight and win on objectives. It may be boring once or twice, but if you don't make them change their strategy to win games, you won't ever see a different list.
Also, why not include the space marines, admech, and knights? How about the fact that I.G., space wolves, grey knights, and blood angels all have divination?
Stay out of LOS huh? what about those wonderful missile pods that don't have to have LOS to fire. And the PLETHORA of ignores cover they get.
SMS are a single weapon system, and are not really that cost effective. We have them on our HS tanks and our overpriced DT. They are nice, but not a game changer.
Ignore cover should be -1 per token, I agree, but that's what LOS blocking terrain is for until that gets fixed. Besides, pathfinders are pretty easy to take out, TBH. They will be standing still at 36", and they have the same defense as gaurdsmen. They die to a stiff breeze. Now they can turtle in cover, but that also severely limits their effectiveness. Markerlights are very effective when in the right position, but they are also not too hard to avoid/kill.
Goes by a Brothers of Arms/Warrior Code that uses blades?-Bushido-Check!
As Advance Tech that no one have?-Check!( like all the anime where japanese tech is involved).
As "Shaolin/Taoiste Monks" authoritative figures?-Check!
Heavely Inspired by Japanese and Anime culture?-Double Check!
Is that a Problem?-fething nope, it only makes them different from the rest of the 40k galaxy, wich is cool.
Exactly! Tau battlesuits have more than a passing resemblance to Gundam, and IIRC Farsight is a reference to one of their characters; but that doesn't mean that you have to be a Hello Kitty-loving "wiaboo" to play them. And it's not like the other 40K armies don't have historic/pop culture references of their own. See: Necron warriors, Vindicator tank, Ragnarok tank, Inquisition, Commissars, Death Corps of Krieg, Force Weapons, I could go on..
pumpinchimp wrote: I like Tau because they are the most Sci-Fi of the factions.
What do you mean by "most sci fi?" Maybe in a Star Trek space opera or Orweillian Dystopia sense. But if you like Jack Vance Dying Earth style techno-barbarism then Space Marines are most sci fi. Weird Tales Magazine classic 60s paperback pulp scifi? Reach for AdMech. More of a near future Enders game/Starship Troopers scifi fan? IG is the most sci fi. Star Wars space monks with hand wavey tech? Back to Marines. Heinlein robots and cyborgs mixed with some classic early 50s Death Rays and Doom Engines and Heat Beams? Necrons are most sci fi.
40k is a big big place. So is sci fi.
40k actually falls under the fantasy genre (science fantasy to be specific), not sci fi. (sci fi does not allow supernatural elements). That is also why the Tau stand out so much, as they are the only faction without supernatural themes.
Arguably, any setting with FTL travel is fantasy.
If we are going to be technical, Science Fiction is a sub-section of the larger Fantasy genre.
TheCustomLime wrote: I don't know.. considering how they were depicted in DoW and all of the huge mecha suit that are available and coming out for Tau I would say the anime comparison is warranted.
But this is part of the problem. Originally Tau were Mech, not MechA. Humanoidform battlesuits were only one aspect of Tau war machine. Now, they're becoming Mecha cliche this and Gundam that. It's just lame, no imagination, lets just design new ever bigger battlesuits!
Grey Templar wrote: Anyway, some of the Tau hates comes from their hypocritical actions. They say everything is for the Greater Good and they seem like good guys on the outside, but once you get past that they're just as ruthless and twisted as every other faction. The difference is the other factions aren't trying to make apologies or cover up what they do. They do what they do because they must. The Tau are no different, they just hide their smut under shiny clean armor and honeyed words.
But isn't that part of their appeal? As I thought part of their earlier criticism was that they were allegedly not 'grimdark' enough for 40K.
Exactly. Tau are space opera Human cliches projected to an alien race:
-Short-lived and physically weak but dynamic and ambitious
-have grown enormously in power in only short time
-very innovative, high technology
-not "warrior born" but nevertheless quite adept in ways of war
-preach their naive ideology to everyone whilst knowing nothing about dark secrets of the Galaxy.
It is part of why people find Tau annoying: they are designed to be. It's like role reversal from Humans vs Romulans (or Minbari or...)
That's an interesting take on it. When I first saw the Tau I thought they have a narrative equivalent to America being:
-relatively short history and the old powers not expecting its rise.
-Technologically advanced
- Wants to spread "democracy". (Yes the Tau aren't democratic, but their government is certainly more inclusive than the Imperium).
Like how the Tyranids are a narrative equivalent to the Mongol invasion during the middle ages- the established religious fighting gets disturbed by an outsider who comes in vast numbers from outside the known world.
Yes it does, haven't you ever seen a scifi story with psychic powers or magic guns? Even stuff like Mass Effect or Star Trek has "impossible" (supernatural) elements such as Element Zero and the transporter/replicator technology. Unless you're trying to say that the only true scifi is scifi so hard that it's a history textbook?
Yes it does, haven't you ever seen a scifi story with psychic powers or magic guns? Even stuff like Mass Effect or Star Trek has "impossible" (supernatural) elements such as Element Zero and the transporter/replicator technology. Unless you're trying to say that the only true scifi is scifi so hard that it's a history textbook?
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: If you are having trouble with tau not moving, you need more terrain. You should also play maelstrom missions. If they are hunkering down in a corner, then stay out of line of sight and win on objectives. It may be boring once or twice, but if you don't make them change their strategy to win games, you won't ever see a different list.
Also, why not include the space marines, admech, and knights? How about the fact that I.G., space wolves, grey knights, and blood angels all have divination?
Stay out of LOS huh? what about those wonderful missile pods that don't have to have LOS to fire. And the PLETHORA of ignores cover they get.
SMS are a single weapon system, and are not really that cost effective. We have them on our HS tanks and our overpriced DT. They are nice, but not a game changer.
Twin-linked Smart Missile Systems are also the standard loadout on Broadsides, which commonly get fielded with HYMP.
So, 4 shots at S7 AP4 which with Markerlights can Ignore Cover and 4 shots at S5 AP5 which can ignore LoS restrictions and have Ignores Cover as standard on a platform that can be upgraded to have a Support System and 2x Missile Drones--which grant you an additional pair of S7 AP4 shots per Missile Drone.
Ignore cover should be -1 per token, I agree
Negative. That's still patently ridiculous with the availability of Markerlights.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know--"Markerlights still have to hit!". But that's all they have to do in order to provide the benefit they grant you. Look at the Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus combination stuff. There is a single Ignores Cover weapon(Gatling Rocket Launcher on the Icarus Array) and a few ways to subtract from Cover Saves, which are squad upgrades(the Omnispex subtracts 1 from the Cover Saves of any target a Skitarii squad is firing at and is basically mandatory) or weapons only available on certain platforms(in Skitarii the only option for the Heavy Phospher Blaster is the Onager Dunecrawler--which also provides the Icarus Array).
Luminagen weapons which set your target on fire don't grant Ignores Cover, excepting a specific formation("Elimination Maniple" grants Ignores Cover to the Kataphron Destroyers within the Formation when the Kastelan Robots have successfully wounded the targets). They require you not only to hit with a BS3 platform but also cause an unsaved Wound with the weapon.
I've suggested elsewhere, more or less tongue in cheek, to make Markerlights cost points or other nonsense but the reality of it is that at best?
They should be causing -1 to a Cover Save, adding +1 Ballistic Skill, and instead of the silliness of continually stacking?
Markerlights should add additional range to weapons being fired at the target alongside of rerolling failed To Hit or To Wound rolls. Not "Ignores Cover". Never that, never for what Markerlights are.
I also put forward the idea that the Blacksun Filter should grant a -1 to Cover Saves, stackable with the Markerlight bonus, meaning that your mandatory Blacksun Filter on your various Suits suddenly becomes a heck of a lot more useful.
but that's what LOS blocking terrain is for until that gets fixed. Besides, pathfinders are pretty easy to take out, TBH. They will be standing still at 36", and they have the same defense as gaurdsmen. They die to a stiff breeze.
They certainly do.
But they have a 36" range. So it requires weapons that have an inordinately higher range to effectively deal with them. Those weapons usually are also the things that get used for, say, killing Suits.
Or it requires a Deep Striking unit, which can get exposed to the Early Warning Override and shot to crap before it ever gets to do anything.
Now they can turtle in cover, but that also severely limits their effectiveness.
"Turtling in cover" in no way severely limits their effectiveness, with the exception being if you've Gone to Ground or you kept them inside of your deployment zone or deployed them in a poor place.
A first turn of the first round of the game when being deployed with the long sides as deployment zones versus short sides as deployment zones with multiple units of Pathfinders deployed in a forward position, coupled with Broadsides toting HYMPs and Riptides Novaing can be as obnoxiously destructive as any Drop Pod or Skyhammer or whatever list potentially can be.
Markerlights are very effective when in the right position, but they are also not too hard to avoid/kill.
Riiiiiiiiight, because a 36" range "if it hits you're boned" weapon is "not too hard to avoid".
To put it rather politely?
Look at a single Realm of Battle tile. That's 24 inches. Markerlights have range on a tile and a half for anyone playing on RoB.
So that's a tile and a half of "I can't go there unless I get really lucky and he whiffs out his shooting from these units"(which is ALWAYS the first unit to fire from any Tau player I've fought) because otherwise the other units in the army can utilize those Markerlight Tokens to boost up their BS or get Ignores Cover against the target unit.
master of ordinance wrote: The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
Grey Knights... They have a flyer. Wow.
Tau ignores cover requires them to hit with (2 or 3 I don't remember) Markerlights, or on missile pods which are I believe AP5.
They don't get Interceptor/Skyfire on everything, it's an upgrade for a couple of their suits and/or tanks. On a riptide, for instance, they can choose two upgrades which can be extra guns or skyfire/interceptor.
100 points for a dude in artificer armor with a demonhammer two psychic levels in any discipline who grants interceptor to everyone is a fuckin bargain. There's only really one or two units worth granting interceptor in an army anyway. You wanna pay 200 points to put interceptor on your whole tau list be my guest I'll just laugh at you.
Since when does IG give a flying Frick about tau anyway? What, is he gonna pay 150 points to fire one BS4 S10 shot at you a turn? Oooh, scary. Nuke his pathfinders with a wyvern turn one and roll over him.
Well, let us see shall we? We in the Guard used to be the gunline army of the game, then this thing happened. Some wee-a-boo space commies came along and stole our gunline meta. But we still had our tanks. Then the wee-a-boo space commies brought a whole gak-ton of anti armour stuff that they could pack into their wee-a-boo space suits. Then they brought these things called Marker Lights which basically invalidated everything that we in the Guard have save wise and allowed them to shoot the hell out of us. Then they brought this big ass super mecha suit which is just about unkillable unless we bring a Shadowsword.
Then they complained that they where not good enough.
Yes, the super space commies army with better weapons than us and far more flexibility and manoeuvrability complained that they where not good enough and needed more mary sue models to make them better.
Your suits can take skyfire and/or interceptor? Sweet. We get one - ONE - unit with Skyfire and it is overpriced for what it does.
Wyverns? How the actual feck are they supposed to get within range without being nuked off the table? Eradicators? Well, theres a laugh for you. And it is hardly just one shot anyway, it is more like a ton of BS 5 ignores cover shots.
Goes by a Brothers of Arms/Warrior Code that uses blades?-Bushido-Check!
As Advance Tech that no one have?-Check!( like all the anime where japanese tech is involved).
As "Shaolin/Taoiste Monks" authoritative figures?-Check!
Heavely Inspired by Japanese and Anime culture?-Double Check!
Is that a Problem?-fething nope, it only makes them different from the rest of the 40k galaxy, wich is cool.
Exactly! Tau battlesuits have more than a passing resemblance to Gundam, and IIRC Farsight is a reference to one of their characters; but that doesn't mean that you have to be a Hello Kitty-loving "wiaboo" to play them. And it's not like the other 40K armies don't have historic/pop culture references of their own. See: Necron warriors, Vindicator tank, Ragnarok tank, Inquisition, Commissars, Death Corps of Krieg, Force Weapons, I could go on..
DaPino wrote: I
Also, Markerlights. feth markelights. They're the dumbest pieces of wargear any army has. It just gets rid of certain tactical elements entirely.
But it adds the tactic where you kill those soft Markerlight units so they can't buff the Riptide. They have 4+ armor at the most and die when hit by a stiff breeze. Or possibly a heavy flamer.
bs. Targetting enemy key units is already a tactic, regardless of the existence of markerlights.
Baldeagle91 wrote:Oh ffs OP.... it's called banter.
You know how everyone says guard use flashlight and can't hit the side of a barn, like how we call ultrasmurfs space marines, like how we pick on necron and eldar players, like how we pick on etc etc etc.
It has gone way past 'banter'. People are unironically hateful of Tau. You can see here and in other threads regarding the new codex. But it's quite amusing to see some people almost frothing in anger about Tau stuff. It makes no sense... to become irate about non-real stuff.
DaPino wrote:
Also, Markerlights. feth markelights. They're the dumbest pieces of wargear any army has. It just gets rid of certain tactical elements entirely.
Hating markerlights, but not Divination, makes no sense.
A rangefinder equipped with a laserlight does not suddenly make every building between you and the target disappear as long as you can draw line of sight to it. And it doesn't allow you to better aim at a target you couldn't aim at in the first place (e.g. flyers). Nor does it make you more accurate when you're shooting wildly because something is storming at you (overwatch). A range finder fired from another unit, that's obviously in another location, would not even help you be a better marksman.
And even if all of those were the case, it does not matter one bit. You want to know why? Because this is a game and it should not be compared to the real world. If an element deprives the game of depth, then it does not matter how much sense it would or wouldn't make in the real world, it is still bad for the game. And since multiple armies rely on cover saves to be even remotely decent, I do consider markerlights to be such an element.
Squidmanlolz wrote: Has Tau-hate even existed since 5th ed?
Been playing since 4th and the only time I ever noticed 'Tau-hate' was during 5th.
People were furious when a new army was released instead of other dexes being updated. Can't recall what edition this was but tau have been hated since release.
master of ordinance wrote: The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
Grey Knights... They have a flyer. Wow.
Tau ignores cover requires them to hit with (2 or 3 I don't remember) Markerlights, or on missile pods which are I believe AP5.
They don't get Interceptor/Skyfire on everything, it's an upgrade for a couple of their suits and/or tanks. On a riptide, for instance, they can choose two upgrades which can be extra guns or skyfire/interceptor.
100 points for a dude in artificer armor with a demonhammer two psychic levels in any discipline who grants interceptor to everyone is a fuckin bargain. There's only really one or two units worth granting interceptor in an army anyway. You wanna pay 200 points to put interceptor on your whole tau list be my guest I'll just laugh at you.
Since when does IG give a flying Frick about tau anyway? What, is he gonna pay 150 points to fire one BS4 S10 shot at you a turn? Oooh, scary. Nuke his pathfinders with a wyvern turn one and roll over him.
Well, let us see shall we? We in the Guard used to be the gunline army of the game, then this thing happened. Some wee-a-boo space commies came along and stole our gunline meta. But we still had our tanks. Then the wee-a-boo space commies brought a whole gak-ton of anti armour stuff that they could pack into their wee-a-boo space suits. Then they brought these things called Marker Lights which basically invalidated everything that we in the Guard have save wise and allowed them to shoot the hell out of us. Then they brought this big ass super mecha suit which is just about unkillable unless we bring a Shadowsword.
Then they complained that they where not good enough.
Yes, the super space commies army with better weapons than us and far more flexibility and manoeuvrability complained that they where not good enough and needed more mary sue models to make them better.
Your suits can take skyfire and/or interceptor? Sweet. We get one - ONE - unit with Skyfire and it is overpriced for what it does.
Wyverns? How the actual feck are they supposed to get within range without being nuked off the table? Eradicators? Well, theres a laugh for you. And it is hardly just one shot anyway, it is more like a ton of BS 5 ignores cover shots.
because there can only be 1 type of shooting army ?
everything in the tau list has skyfire ? laugh when you don't bring any fliers as they wasted a buttload of points and critical slots for something that now has no effect , unless your letting people list tailor against you , which would be dumb
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote: If you are having trouble with tau not moving, you need more terrain. You should also play maelstrom missions. If they are hunkering down in a corner, then stay out of line of sight and win on objectives. It may be boring once or twice, but if you don't make them change their strategy to win games, you won't ever see a different list.
Also, why not include the space marines, admech, and knights? How about the fact that I.G., space wolves, grey knights, and blood angels all have divination?
Stay out of LOS huh? what about those wonderful missile pods that don't have to have LOS to fire. And the PLETHORA of ignores cover they get.
SMS are a single weapon system, and are not really that cost effective. We have them on our HS tanks and our overpriced DT. They are nice, but not a game changer.
Twin-linked Smart Missile Systems are also the standard loadout on Broadsides, which commonly get fielded with HYMP.
So, 4 shots at S7 AP4 which with Markerlights can Ignore Cover and 4 shots at S5 AP5 which can ignore LoS restrictions and have Ignores Cover as standard on a platform that can be upgraded to have a Support System and 2x Missile Drones--which grant you an additional pair of S7 AP4 shots per Missile Drone.
Wow I'm absent minded today. And yes, the HYPM is OP, we agree on that.
Ignore cover should be -1 per token, I agree
Negative. That's still patently ridiculous with the availability of Markerlights.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know--"Markerlights still have to hit!". But that's all they have to do in order to provide the benefit they grant you. Look at the Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus combination stuff. There is a single Ignores Cover weapon(Gatling Rocket Launcher on the Icarus Array) and a few ways to subtract from Cover Saves, which are squad upgrades(the Omnispex subtracts 1 from the Cover Saves of any target a Skitarii squad is firing at and is basically mandatory) or weapons only available on certain platforms(in Skitarii the only option for the Heavy Phospher Blaster is the Onager Dunecrawler--which also provides the Icarus Array).
Luminagen weapons which set your target on fire don't grant Ignores Cover, excepting a specific formation("Elimination Maniple" grants Ignores Cover to the Kataphron Destroyers within the Formation when the Kastelan Robots have successfully wounded the targets). They require you not only to hit with a BS3 platform but also cause an unsaved Wound with the weapon.
I've suggested elsewhere, more or less tongue in cheek, to make Markerlights cost points or other nonsense but the reality of it is that at best?
They should be causing -1 to a Cover Save, adding +1 Ballistic Skill, and instead of the silliness of continually stacking?
Markerlights should add additional range to weapons being fired at the target alongside of rerolling failed To Hit or To Wound rolls. Not "Ignores Cover". Never that, never for what Markerlights are.
I also put forward the idea that the Blacksun Filter should grant a -1 to Cover Saves, stackable with the Markerlight bonus, meaning that your mandatory Blacksun Filter on your various Suits suddenly becomes a heck of a lot more useful.
Need I remind you that it has always been like that. It works like that. I mean, you can cap the BS to 5, that's reasonable, but just making them worse that they have ever been for no adiquite reason is ridiculous
but that's what LOS blocking terrain is for until that gets fixed. Besides, pathfinders are pretty easy to take out, TBH. They will be standing still at 36", and they have the same defense as gaurdsmen. They die to a stiff breeze.
They certainly do.
But they have a 36" range. So it requires weapons that have an inordinately higher range to effectively deal with them. Those weapons usually are also the things that get used for, say, killing Suits.
Or it requires a Deep Striking unit, which can get exposed to the Early Warning Override and shot to crap before it ever gets to do anything.
Anything with equivalent or better range you mean, especially those who can shoot after moving. And if you head at them with unimporant units, you can distract them for your more valuble units, and take some out in the process.
Now they can turtle in cover, but that also severely limits their effectiveness.
"Turtling in cover" in no way severely limits their effectiveness, with the exception being if you've Gone to Ground or you kept them inside of your deployment zone or deployed them in a poor place.
A first turn of the first round of the game when being deployed with the long sides as deployment zones versus short sides as deployment zones with multiple units of Pathfinders deployed in a forward position, coupled with Broadsides toting HYMPs and Riptides Novaing can be as obnoxiously destructive as any Drop Pod or Skyhammer or whatever list potentially can be.
If they just stay in one place, it is very possible to stay out of their range or out of line of sight, especilly as it's a heavy weapon. It's what I do, and it works for me. And the important parts of that are riptide and HYMP things that are OP. So of cource they are even more powerful when buffed.
Markerlights are very effective when in the right position, but they are also not too hard to avoid/kill.
Riiiiiiiiight, because a 36" range "if it hits you're boned" weapon is "not too hard to avoid".
To put it rather politely?
Look at a single Realm of Battle tile. That's 24 inches. Markerlights have range on a tile and a half for anyone playing on RoB.
So that's a tile and a half of "I can't go there unless I get really lucky and he whiffs out his shooting from these units"(which is ALWAYS the first unit to fire from any Tau player I've fought) because otherwise the other units in the army can utilize those Markerlight Tokens to boost up their BS or get Ignores Cover against the target unit.
Hardly. Only if the firepower aimed at you is powerful enough to wipe the unit completely. And other than things that areOP (riptide, HYMP) that usualy mean multiple units, in which case you just allowed your units in the corssfire between 3+ units. It's pretty obvious when that happens.
master of ordinance wrote: The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
Grey Knights... They have a flyer. Wow.
Tau ignores cover requires them to hit with (2 or 3 I don't remember) Markerlights, or on missile pods which are I believe AP5.
They don't get Interceptor/Skyfire on everything, it's an upgrade for a couple of their suits and/or tanks. On a riptide, for instance, they can choose two upgrades which can be extra guns or skyfire/interceptor.
100 points for a dude in artificer armor with a demonhammer two psychic levels in any discipline who grants interceptor to everyone is a fuckin bargain. There's only really one or two units worth granting interceptor in an army anyway. You wanna pay 200 points to put interceptor on your whole tau list be my guest I'll just laugh at you.
Since when does IG give a flying Frick about tau anyway? What, is he gonna pay 150 points to fire one BS4 S10 shot at you a turn? Oooh, scary. Nuke his pathfinders with a wyvern turn one and roll over him.
Well, let us see shall we? We in the Guard used to be the gunline army of the game, then this thing happened. Some wee-a-boo space commies came along and stole our gunline meta. But we still had our tanks. Then the wee-a-boo space commies brought a whole gak-ton of anti armour stuff that they could pack into their wee-a-boo space suits. Then they brought these things called Marker Lights which basically invalidated everything that we in the Guard have save wise and allowed them to shoot the hell out of us. Then they brought this big ass super mecha suit which is just about unkillable unless we bring a Shadowsword.
Then they complained that they where not good enough.
Yes, the super space commies army with better weapons than us and far more flexibility and manoeuvrability complained that they where not good enough and needed more mary sue models to make them better.
Your suits can take skyfire and/or interceptor? Sweet. We get one - ONE - unit with Skyfire and it is overpriced for what it does.
Wyverns? How the actual feck are they supposed to get within range without being nuked off the table? Eradicators? Well, theres a laugh for you. And it is hardly just one shot anyway, it is more like a ton of BS 5 ignores cover shots.
because there can only be 1 type of shooting army ?
everything in the tau list has skyfire ? laugh when you don't bring any fliers as they wasted a buttload of points and critical slots for something that now has no effect , unless your letting people list tailor against you , which would be dumb
I never said that.
However all the Tau army does is take what the Imperial Guard's primary tactic and do it better. They castle and when anything gets close they just jump away and fly off. Getting within effective range is damn near impossible and assaulting them is an utter joke.
There are ways to fix that, and it should be fixed (cannoticaly it's the exact opposite of tau tactics). The number one thing is to make our DT not stupidly expensive.
master of ordinance wrote: The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
Grey Knights... They have a flyer. Wow.
Tau ignores cover requires them to hit with (2 or 3 I don't remember) Markerlights, or on missile pods which are I believe AP5.
They don't get Interceptor/Skyfire on everything, it's an upgrade for a couple of their suits and/or tanks. On a riptide, for instance, they can choose two upgrades which can be extra guns or skyfire/interceptor.
100 points for a dude in artificer armor with a demonhammer two psychic levels in any discipline who grants interceptor to everyone is a fuckin bargain. There's only really one or two units worth granting interceptor in an army anyway. You wanna pay 200 points to put interceptor on your whole tau list be my guest I'll just laugh at you.
Since when does IG give a flying Frick about tau anyway? What, is he gonna pay 150 points to fire one BS4 S10 shot at you a turn? Oooh, scary. Nuke his pathfinders with a wyvern turn one and roll over him.
Well, let us see shall we? We in the Guard used to be the gunline army of the game, then this thing happened. Some wee-a-boo space commies came along and stole our gunline meta. But we still had our tanks. Then the wee-a-boo space commies brought a whole gak-ton of anti armour stuff that they could pack into their wee-a-boo space suits. Then they brought these things called Marker Lights which basically invalidated everything that we in the Guard have save wise and allowed them to shoot the hell out of us. Then they brought this big ass super mecha suit which is just about unkillable unless we bring a Shadowsword.
Then they complained that they where not good enough.
Yes, the super space commies army with better weapons than us and far more flexibility and manoeuvrability complained that they where not good enough and needed more mary sue models to make them better.
Your suits can take skyfire and/or interceptor? Sweet. We get one - ONE - unit with Skyfire and it is overpriced for what it does.
Wyverns? How the actual feck are they supposed to get within range without being nuked off the table? Eradicators? Well, theres a laugh for you. And it is hardly just one shot anyway, it is more like a ton of BS 5 ignores cover shots.
because there can only be 1 type of shooting army ?
everything in the tau list has skyfire ? laugh when you don't bring any fliers as they wasted a buttload of points and critical slots for something that now has no effect , unless your letting people list tailor against you , which would be dumb
I never said that.
However all the Tau army does is take what the Imperial Guard's primary tactic and do it better. They castle and when anything gets close they just jump away and fly off. Getting within effective range is damn near impossible and assaulting them is an utter joke.
I thought that they're just stronger in different ways. For example the Imperial Guard don't have to choose between anti-tank or anti-infantry fire, they can just place down S8/9 large blast ordinance templates because reasons.
Edit: I forgot there is the over-charge on the ion cannon, but even that needs to take a Gets Hot test.
Gamgee wrote: They have nothing in common with Japan. At all. Imperial Japan has much more in common culturally with the Imperium of Man. I mean suicide attacks, worship of an Emperor, love of mecha, sisters of battle waifu crap.
The Tau have more in common with the Classical Greek Republic, Star Trek Federation, and Brave New World all shmushed together. Tau aren't even communist their utilitarians.
Visually they are Asian looking. That's about it.
Edit
Oh they've also been given a Japanese/Asian accent in the games as well.
....The Imperium is nothing like the Imperial Japanese Empire. It's literally the Holy Roman Empire in SPAAAACE.
Say what you will anime fan.
@Some othe rguy
Also to anyone who says Science Fiction is fantasy go to any school or literary course and say that. I fething dare you. Let's see how long you last.
There are types of science fiction that blend elements of fantasy into them and are called space operas or science fantasy. However there are hard science fiction which is based on speculative science of today. If you try and argue that even hard science fiction is "fantasy" because the events are fictional then every single book would be labeled fantasy since everything is made up except for history textbooks.
But I assume your not some sort of illiterate and can tell the difference between a genre classification and the real life definition of what a story is without getting the two confused. I hope. I've been wrong before though. Otherwise we would call any book a fantasy book with your logic. Because your confusing two different uses of the word fantasy.
So, make their intercept and skyfire worse than every other race, instead of simply reducing their availability or increasing cost, make their markerlights worse than they have ever been for no real reason?
master of ordinance wrote: The Ignores Cover is an order and requires you to be within range of an officer and to pass a Leadership test.
The Leman Russ variant that ignores cover is strength 6 AP 4 and can only reach to 36". It is also extremely expensive and can only snapfire its other weapons.
Wyverns are not a bad unit
Hydras are an anti air vehicle. Almost every faction has an AA platform. Tau just get it on almost everything.
Aegis can be used by anyone. Try again.
Inquisitor Coteaz. A 100 point upgrade to give a single unit interceptor. Compared to the Tau "lolz intercept everything"
Eldar are not even Imperial.
Mechanicus is Mechanicus and thats a formation, you have to take things to get it, you dont just get it automatically. You may also have noted that I specifically mentioned non Adeptus Mechanicus and non Space Marine stuff - stop judging us all by two armies.
Grey Knights... They have a flyer. Wow.
Tau ignores cover requires them to hit with (2 or 3 I don't remember) Markerlights, or on missile pods which are I believe AP5.
They don't get Interceptor/Skyfire on everything, it's an upgrade for a couple of their suits and/or tanks. On a riptide, for instance, they can choose two upgrades which can be extra guns or skyfire/interceptor.
100 points for a dude in artificer armor with a demonhammer two psychic levels in any discipline who grants interceptor to everyone is a fuckin bargain. There's only really one or two units worth granting interceptor in an army anyway. You wanna pay 200 points to put interceptor on your whole tau list be my guest I'll just laugh at you.
Since when does IG give a flying Frick about tau anyway? What, is he gonna pay 150 points to fire one BS4 S10 shot at you a turn? Oooh, scary. Nuke his pathfinders with a wyvern turn one and roll over him.
Well, let us see shall we? We in the Guard used to be the gunline army of the game, then this thing happened. Some wee-a-boo space commies came along and stole our gunline meta. But we still had our tanks. Then the wee-a-boo space commies brought a whole gak-ton of anti armour stuff that they could pack into their wee-a-boo space suits. Then they brought these things called Marker Lights which basically invalidated everything that we in the Guard have save wise and allowed them to shoot the hell out of us. Then they brought this big ass super mecha suit which is just about unkillable unless we bring a Shadowsword.
Then they complained that they where not good enough.
Yes, the super space commies army with better weapons than us and far more flexibility and manoeuvrability complained that they where not good enough and needed more mary sue models to make them better.
Your suits can take skyfire and/or interceptor? Sweet. We get one - ONE - unit with Skyfire and it is overpriced for what it does.
Wyverns? How the actual feck are they supposed to get within range without being nuked off the table? Eradicators? Well, theres a laugh for you. And it is hardly just one shot anyway, it is more like a ton of BS 5 ignores cover shots.
because there can only be 1 type of shooting army ?
everything in the tau list has skyfire ? laugh when you don't bring any fliers as they wasted a buttload of points and critical slots for something that now has no effect , unless your letting people list tailor against you , which would be dumb
I never said that.
However all the Tau army does is take what the Imperial Guard's primary tactic and do it better. They castle and when anything gets close they just jump away and fly off. Getting within effective range is damn near impossible and assaulting them is an utter joke.
I thought that they're just stronger in different ways. For example the Imperial Guard don't have to choose between anti-tank or anti-infantry fire, they can just place down S8/9 large blast ordinance templates because reasons.
Edit: I forgot there is the over-charge on the ion cannon, but even that needs to take a Gets Hot test.
Wait, we dont have to choose?
Those blasts have to hit the target as if they scatter even a small amount they will be striking at half strength.
You know what's overpriced when it's used as a Skyfire unit? A freaking 200 point Riptide. Strength 7 AP2 3 shots-and remember, it can't boost it's BS or ignore cover unless he snap fires marker lights-and the odds of it doing anything even to an AV10 flyer are next to nothing.
The only effective anti aircraft weapons in 40k currently are a handful of planes and a flyrant. Guard, incidentally, are on that list with the Valkyrie and Vulture.
You love making arguments that have absolutely no basis in reality. How is a wyvern supposed to get close enough to fire? Uh, I dunno maybe put it behind a fricken building because it's a barrage weapon. Tons of anti tank weapons? What tons? Where? You got a hammerhead, equivalent in points to a LR with a S10 AP1 single shot-that's pretty good, it's got a 7% chance of destroying a Russ if it uses ignores cover. You've got a Riptide, S9 AP2 large blast ordnance, not bad but on a 185+ point platform, not great. It's only scary because it can get ignores cover and wipe out heavy infantry or bypass jinks-guess what guard don't have to worry about? The Skyray is S8 AP3, decent against chimeras but hot garbage against Russes-and if they want to waste all their smart missiles popping a 65 point transport, well....yay? And then you got suits. Hey look, it's drop melta. But we both know guard can't do AAAAAANYTHING to stop drop melta. Nope, no possibility of a cheap infantry screen here, move along folks.
IG are the only army that CAN reliably out shoot tau. Turn one, wyvern the crap out of any pathfinder teams on the board. Then laugh as he tries to crack open your Russes with lots of BS3 S8-9 low ROF weaponry.
Or, option B, which is always an option I suppose, you could just continue to cry.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Striking at half....what?
I think it would be absolutely brilliant if the new Tau Codex absolutely broke MSU.
There is quite some variety in builds now, but MSU is more prevalent than most. One scissor to that paper would encourage diversity further and I'll say it's a good thing.
When the Markerlights rule in the last codex was written, cover could be difficult to obtain (you had to have 50% of the unit in cover), and cover itself was more powerful, a 4+ save instead of a 5+. At the same time, there were far less rules that allowed for a cover save better than 4+. Those Tau Markerlight rules allowed to reduce cover by 1 for each hit. So this means to eliminate a cover save of 4+ you needed to hit twice.
Then 6th Edition happened.
Cover itself was changed. The 50% rule was no longer a factor, now it was done on model-by-model basis. Cover was a bit more scarce, and Cover was reduced to a normal 5+ save. However at the same time we had MANY more ways to increase the cover save, with Stealth, Shrouded, Jink, Mysterious Objectives, Terrain special rules, etc. Seeing 3+ cover wasn't very unusual.
The new Tau book then decided that 2 hits from Markerlights could completely negate ALL cover saves. On top of that, the majority of Tau has automatic access to the Blacksun Filter or had it cost a laughable ONE point.
On a fundamental level these changes just makes Tau simply too powerful at negating one of the MAIN variables in the shooting phase: the cover save.
The second factor that changed with 6th Edition was Overwatch. Tau were given the ultimate in anti-overwatch abilities. This encouraged the Tau to simply turtle up, keep all their units together, and not move at all over the course of the game.
The third factor was their easy access to Interceptor, which has somewhat been helped by the changes to the Interceptor rule for 7th Edition, but personally I think it's still a bit on the strong side.
What I'd LIKE to see, and what I think would make Tau more interesting to play with/against is taking the Markerlight rule back to where it was in the previous edition. Make them pay for Black Sun Filters. Then take away the Supporting Fire rule. In return, fix Kroot. Then Tau can't simply win games by sitting the majority of their force behind an Aegis Defense Line and using a few Crisis suits to maybe go get an objective or two. They'll actually have to use tactics and plan for the assault phase.
Changing things like that will make it more interesting for everyone. Tau will actually need to maybe MOVE to avoid Assaults. They'll have to use Kroot and other units to protect their shooty and squishy units. If that turns into gameplay moments where a player needs to decide, "Do I shoot the Kroot so I can assault them next turn and win, or do I shoot the Fire Warriors behind them and risk getting assaulted by the Kroot?" then I think that's awesome. It'll make for better games.
Runic wrote: I think it would be absolutely brilliant if the new Tau Codex absolutely broke MSU.
There is quite some variety in builds now, but MSU is more prevalent than most. One scissor to that paper would encourage diversity further and I'll say it's a good thing.
If Tau were powerful enough to break MSU, they would be overpowered to an extent that Eldar could only dream of. Not everyone likes to play deathstarhammer.
the_scotsman wrote: You know what's overpriced when it's used as a Skyfire unit? A freaking 200 point Riptide. Strength 7 AP2 3 shots-and remember, it can't boost it's BS or ignore cover unless he snap fires marker lights-and the odds of it doing anything even to an AV10 flyer are next to nothing.
The only effective anti aircraft weapons in 40k currently are a handful of planes and a flyrant. Guard, incidentally, are on that list with the Valkyrie and Vulture.
You love making arguments that have absolutely no basis in reality. How is a wyvern supposed to get close enough to fire? Uh, I dunno maybe put it behind a fricken building because it's a barrage weapon. Tons of anti tank weapons? What tons? Where? You got a hammerhead, equivalent in points to a LR with a S10 AP1 single shot-that's pretty good, it's got a 7% chance of destroying a Russ if it uses ignores cover. You've got a Riptide, S9 AP2 large blast ordnance, not bad but on a 185+ point platform, not great. It's only scary because it can get ignores cover and wipe out heavy infantry or bypass jinks-guess what guard don't have to worry about? The Skyray is S8 AP3, decent against chimeras but hot garbage against Russes-and if they want to waste all their smart missiles popping a 65 point transport, well....yay? And then you got suits. Hey look, it's drop melta. But we both know guard can't do AAAAAANYTHING to stop drop melta. Nope, no possibility of a cheap infantry screen here, move along folks.
IG are the only army that CAN reliably out shoot tau. Turn one, wyvern the crap out of any pathfinder teams on the board. Then laugh as he tries to crack open your Russes with lots of BS3 S8-9 low ROF weaponry.
Or, option B, which is always an option I suppose, you could just continue to cry.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Striking at half....what?
What rules are you playing with here?
Standard blast rules since 4th edition, a vehicle that is under the blast marker but not under the centre of it is hit at half strength.
Wyverns indirect firing are doing so at BS- or in other words those 4 shots aint doing diddly squat unless you get lucky on the scatter role.
Every damn battlesuit can pack some form of AT weaponry.
Cover IS my main, sorry, ONLY save so guess what? Ignores Cover dicks me and mine right over.
Cheap Infantry screen? You are having a laugh right? Oh sure we can deploy 50 or so infa-oh no, there they all go. Tau have a feck ton of anti personnel stuff.
Strength 8 on the flanks of a Russ.... Ah well, bye bye.
Yeah, I suppose I could continue to cry. After all it isnt like Tau make my armies shooting look like an utter joke. It isnt like I struggle to even get within range for most of my basic stuff. it is most certainly not like a Riptide is an almost impossible to beat obstacle to my army and two or more in a game that I forgot to bring/wrap in tons of bodies and lesser vehicles my Shadowsword are an utter joke - I may as well not bother setting up my army.
I am not finding that half-strength blast rule anywhere in my rulebook. I'm looking under "vehicles" and "blast" special rule. And I've played every week since the start of 7th edition and I've never seen that rule come up. Can you cite a page number?
Also, are you forgetting Wyverns are twin-linked? They have over a 50% chance of a direct hit using indirect fire, and with four shots, that means 2 will directly hit, translating to at least 6 hits on a max spread unit of pathfinders. Even if they're taken in units of 10, there is almost no way to not force a morale check and pinning check any time you shoot them. And they're what, LD8? LD7?
Automatically Appended Next Post: After a quick google, it appears the half strength rule was indeed removed in 6th edition, and blast was not changed significantly in 7th.
Knowing the rules: an important step to thinking your army isn't gak!
Wow I'm absent minded today. And yes, the HYPM is OP, we agree on that.
And I forgot that Broadsides can each take a single Seeker Missile for 8 points/model so, there's that thrown into the mix as well.
Need I remind you that it has always been like that. It works like that. I mean, you can cap the BS to 5, that's reasonable, but just making them worse that they have ever been for no adiquite reason is ridiculous
"It has always been like that" is pretty much why Terminators outside of Deathwing or Paladins are still regarded as lackluster..
Capping the BS benefit to +1 and removing a single point of Cover, while granting rerolls to both "Hit" and "Wound" rolls is somehow "worse than they have ever been"?
Effectively, all weapons are twin-linked and all the Tau come with Preferred Enemy(target)...and it's "worse than they have ever been".
Hah!
Anything with equivalent or better range you mean, especially those who can shoot after moving. And if you head at them with unimporant units, you can distract them for your more valuble units, and take some out in the process.
Find me something on basic or elite infantry that isn't a special weapon, a swapped for weapon, or a heavy weapon with a minimum 36" range.
Go on. I can wait. The only thing you'll find will be Eldar Rangers with their Long-Rifles. A unit that has a 5+ save and relies on Stealth/Shrouded to keep itself safe.
You could argue Space Marine Scouts with Sniper Rifles, but remember you pay points for Sniper Rifles.
And while we're at it, let's find something with on demand Ignores Cover--because if you're leaving your Pathfinders out in the open that's your own problem.
If they just stay in one place, it is very possible to stay out of their range or out of line of sight, especilly as it's a heavy weapon. It's what I do, and it works for me. And the important parts of that are riptide and HYMP things that are OP. So of cource they are even more powerful when buffed.
If you deploy lengthwise(i.e. along the long sides of the board) on a standard sized board(6 ftx 4 ft), it actually is potentially impossible to stay out of their LOS--especially if someone deploys LOS blocking terrain in ways that make obscene kill-funnels.
And emphasizing that the "Riptides and HYMP are the things that are OP" does not change the fact that Markerlights are a large part of what can make them OP. HYMP and SMS on a BS3 platform? That's not horrible in and of itself.
The fact that these weapons are not Ordnance or Blast(meaning that they can't be Overwatched/Snap Fired with) coupled with Markerlights being able to boost them up and Broadsides being able to use Supporting Fire? That's bad.
The fact that these weapons are on platforms which can expend a number of Markerlight counters to gain Ignores Cover(2 tokens means Ignores Cover--which also means "Ignores Stealth and/or Shrouded and/or Jink") and any remaining Markerlight counters can be used for boosting their BS skill for not just that one model but the whole unit which is firing as part of this shooting attack(so potentially 3 Broadsides with 6 Missile Drones, unloading twin-linked HYMPs and SMS) get those benefits.
Hardly. Only if the firepower aimed at you is powerful enough to wipe the unit completely. And other than things that areOP (riptide, HYMP) that usually mean multiple units, in which case you just allowed your units in the corssfire between 3+ units. It's pretty obvious when that happens.
And that's why Markerlights are broken as it stands, yet somehow you're not seeing it.
"Oh you just let yourself get caught in a crossfire!"
"I had to prioritize taking down Markerlights and I don't have anything with high enough range and/or Ignores Cover other than Y"
"Well, tactics better!"
Capping the BS benefit to +1 and removing a single point of Cover, while granting rerolls to both "Hit" and "Wound" rolls is somehow "worse than they have ever been"?
Effectively, all weapons are twin-linked and all the Tau come with Preferred Enemy(target)...and it's "worse than they have ever been".
Hah!
Yes , that would be the very definition or worse if we did what you propose
Kanluwen wrote: Find me something on basic or elite infantry that isn't a special weapon, a swapped for weapon, or a heavy weapon with a minimum 36" range. Go on. I can wait. The only thing you'll find will be Eldar Rangers with their Long-Rifles. A unit that has a 5+ save and relies on Stealth/Shrouded to keep itself safe.
You could argue Space Marine Scouts with Sniper Rifles, but remember you pay points for Sniper Rifles.
And while we're at it, let's find something with on demand Ignores Cover--because if you're leaving your Pathfinders out in the open that's your own problem.
Exactly why are we limiting to non special weapons ? I mean if you CAN take them why are we ignoring them ?
Kanluwen wrote: If you deploy lengthwise(i.e. along the long sides of the board) on a standard sized board(6 ftx 4 ft), it actually is potentially impossible to stay out of their LOS--especially if someone deploys LOS blocking terrain in ways that make obscene kill-funnels.
You choose the mission then set up terrian , how is this even happening ?? Why are you letting it happen ?
Kanluwen wrote: And emphasizing that the "Riptides and HYMP are the things that are OP" does not change the fact that Markerlights are a large part of what can make them OP. HYMP and SMS on a BS3 platform? That's not horrible in and of itself.
The fact that these weapons are not Ordnance or Blast(meaning that they can't be Overwatched/Snap Fired with) coupled with Markerlights being able to boost them up and Broadsides being able to use Supporting Fire? That's bad.
The fact that these weapons are on platforms which can expen d a number of Markerlight counters to gain Ignores Cover(2 tokens means Ignores Cover--which also means "Ignores Stealth and/or Shrouded and/or Jink") and any remaining Markerlight counters can be used for boosting their BS skill for not just that one model but the whole unit which is firing as part of this shooting attack(so potentially 3 Broadsides with 6 Missile Drones, unloading twin-linked HYMPs and SMS) get those benefits.
Riptides aren't op , the cost of the IA is. HYMP aren't overpowered , the rail rifle is just terrible since they nerfed it so its used cause "lack of a better option"
This scenario has all types of things wrong with it . Your assaulting broadsides , and broadsides are very slow , so they probably in the deployment area of tau . Somehow you didn't kill marker light sources on the way in , or did you just wave at the pathfinders while you drove by them? Or maybe they actually brought a skyray and since its been a few turns , it's useless except for 2 marker lights and a SMS on it since all the missiles are now gone from it.
I like how every unit in tau dex has thier own dedicated markerlight source of at least 4 hits per turn and for every unit.
Tau formation : Schrodinger's Markerlight
Goes by a Brothers of Arms/Warrior Code that uses blades?-Bushido-Check!
As Advance Tech that no one have?-Check!( like all the anime where japanese tech is involved).
As "Shaolin/Taoiste Monks" authoritative figures?-Check!
Heavely Inspired by Japanese and Anime culture?-Double Check!
Is that a Problem?-fething nope, it only makes them different from the rest of the 40k galaxy, wich is cool.
Tau only bring half as much shoulder pad as space marines. I agree on the japenese culture but not anomie culture. Shaolin monks are Chinese. The imp of man has baby carriers knights and the biggest giant robots of all as well as huge shoulder pads but aren't considered anime inspired. Being si-if isn't inherently anime style, and their tech lady I checked isn't strictly more advanced than eldar stuff.
Goes by a Brothers of Arms/Warrior Code that uses blades?-Bushido-Check!
As Advance Tech that no one have?-Check!( like all the anime where japanese tech is involved).
As "Shaolin/Taoiste Monks" authoritative figures?-Check!
Heavely Inspired by Japanese and Anime culture?-Double Check!
Is that a Problem?-fething nope, it only makes them different from the rest of the 40k galaxy, wich is cool.
Exactly! Tau battlesuits have more than a passing resemblance to Gundam, and IIRC Farsight is a reference to one of their characters; but that doesn't mean that you have to be a Hello Kitty-loving "wiaboo" to play them. And it's not like the other 40K armies don't have historic/pop culture references of their own. See: Necron warriors, Vindicator tank, Ragnarok tank, Inquisition, Commissars, Death Corps of Krieg, Force Weapons, I could go on..
Nah Tau isn't gundam, they're macross.
Kind of, their battle suits are actually inspired by Battletech Mechs that the artist drew inspiration from various mecha animes and basically blended the two styles:
Edit: Also, their base troops are Chinese, not Japanese in inspiration: " The Tau Infantry models, according to sculptor Jes Goodwin, were designed to have subtle influences taken from Chinese foot soldiers. "
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
My only complaint about playing Tau is that it is always the same fething game. Tau gunline in the back with 1-2 Riptides and 3 Missile Sides. Maybe some fire warrior bubble wrap and usually a deep striking crisis suit team with some melta/flamers to feth up anything I leave in the backfield. I have played 3 Tau players in 3 completely different geographic locations and the lists were almost identical.
So beyond that I don't understand the rest of it, I like the Idea behind Tau and I would love to see them more often but with different set ups. Also it would be nice if the Eldar hadn't stolen the whole JSJ from the Tau
Wow I'm absent minded today. And yes, the HYPM is OP, we agree on that.
And I forgot that Broadsides can each take a single Seeker Missile for 8 points/model so, there's that thrown into the mix as well.
Seeker missles are crap since they changed them . Garbage on anything but the skyray , and then they are so so .
The only change I see for them is they went from range: Unlimited and a maximum of 2 per vehicle @ 10 points each in the previous Tau Empire book fired at an assumedBS of 5(which at the time was the cap which BS could be boosted to via Markerlights) to 72" range, maximum of 2 per vehicle and the addition of Broadsides being able to take a single Seeker Missile @ 8 points each and no auto-BS5.
The effects are the same, barring the Unlimited range by expending 2 Markerlight Counters for +2 BS and utilizing a Markerlight Counter for "Seeker".
Capping the BS benefit to +1 and removing a single point of Cover, while granting rerolls to both "Hit" and "Wound" rolls is somehow "worse than they have ever been"?
Effectively, all weapons are twin-linked and all the Tau come with Preferred Enemy(target)...and it's "worse than they have ever been".
Hah!
Yes , that would be the very definition or worse if we did what you propose
I would suggest you actually try it out sometime, in addition to some of the other proposals that I've put forward--such as Blacksun Filter granting a -1 to enemy Cover Saves and HYMPs/SMS getting an "alternate" fire mode with a blast mode.
Kanluwen wrote: Find me something on basic or elite infantry that isn't a special weapon, a swapped for weapon, or a heavy weapon with a minimum 36" range. Go on. I can wait. The only thing you'll find will be Eldar Rangers with their Long-Rifles. A unit that has a 5+ save and relies on Stealth/Shrouded to keep itself safe.
You could argue Space Marine Scouts with Sniper Rifles, but remember you pay points for Sniper Rifles.
And while we're at it, let's find something with on demand Ignores Cover--because if you're leaving your Pathfinders out in the open that's your own problem.
Exactly why are we limiting to non special weapons ? I mean if you CAN take them why are we ignoring them ?
Because Markerlights are standard wargear on Pathfinders, not an optional upgrade, and if you read the post I replied to, he stated the following:
Anything with equivalent or better range you mean, especially those who can shoot after moving. And if you head at them with unimporant units, you can distract them for your more valuble units, and take some out in the process.
So yes. I'm limiting it to non-special weapons because realistically, the point I made of "Markerlights are equivalent in range to what most armies use for longer-ranged special weapons or heavy weapons" means that his response was nonsense.
Most of the "unimportant units" that he mentions as using expendable chaff towards Pathfinders? No Tau player in their right mind is going to waste Markerlight shots on. And those units are NOT going to be able to outrange 36" in any regards--meaning my initial point of Pathfinders effectively locking down a tile and a half of game board is very valid. It also means that my point of most armies requiring some kind of dedicated unit that could REALISTICALLY be focusing instead on something like a Riptide or Crisis Suits or Broadsides is instead being wasted rooting out Pathfinders, a unit which has before stated to be "subpar and really only good for Markerlighting things".
Understand now why I specifically excluded Special/Heavy weapons, or should I draw you a picture?
Kanluwen wrote: If you deploy lengthwise(i.e. along the long sides of the board) on a standard sized board(6 ftx 4 ft), it actually is potentially impossible to stay out of their LOS--especially if someone deploys LOS blocking terrain in ways that make obscene kill-funnels.
You choose the mission then set up terrian , how is this even happening ?? Why are you letting it happen ?
I'm going to suggest you read pages 128 to page 131 in the BRB.
You choose the mission, you set up terrain("Exactly how you set up Citadel scenery models is purely a matter of personal taste, and they can be placed upon the battlefield in any way the players find agreeable"), then you potentially roll to see which deployment map you use. 1-2 is lengthwise(aka: "Dawn of War").
And remember that fortifications purchased as part of an army are deployed as part of a player's army rather than as neutral scenery(meaning they get set up during Deployment rather than the timeframe of setting up the table's terrain), and also remember that some places will not let you move their terrain around for whatever reason--meaning he who chooses best can win.
Kanluwen wrote: And emphasizing that the "Riptides and HYMP are the things that are OP" does not change the fact that Markerlights are a large part of what can make them OP. HYMP and SMS on a BS3 platform? That's not horrible in and of itself.
The fact that these weapons are not Ordnance or Blast(meaning that they can't be Overwatched/Snap Fired with) coupled with Markerlights being able to boost them up and Broadsides being able to use Supporting Fire? That's bad.
The fact that these weapons are on platforms which can expend a number of Markerlight counters to gain Ignores Cover(2 tokens means Ignores Cover--which also means "Ignores Stealth and/or Shrouded and/or Jink") and any remaining Markerlight counters can be used for boosting their BS skill for not just that one model but the whole unit which is firing as part of this shooting attack(so potentially 3 Broadsides with 6 Missile Drones, unloading twin-linked HYMPs and SMS) get those benefits.
Riptides aren't op , the cost of the IA is.
Who fields Riptides without IA?
HYMP aren't overpowered , the rail rifle is just terrible since they nerfed it so its used cause "lack of a better option"
Railrifles are basically just as viable as Transauranic Arquebus are for Skitarii Rangers. Not my problem that you play min/max and seem to be obsessed with only what the interwebs says are gud.
This scenario has all types of things wrong with it . Your assaulting broadsides , and broadsides are very slow , so they probably in the deployment area of tau . Somehow you didn't kill marker light sources on the way in , or did you just wave at the pathfinders while you drove by them? Or maybe they actually brought a skyray and since its been a few turns , it's useless except for 2 marker lights and a SMS on it since all the missiles are now gone from it.
I suggest you actually read posts before replying in the future.
If they just stay in one place, it is very possible to stay out of their range or out of line of sight, especilly as it's a heavy weapon. It's what I do, and it works for me. And the important parts of that are riptide and HYMP things that are OP. So of cource they are even more powerful when buffed.
That is what I replied to.
Nowhere did I ever say anything about Assaulting Broadsides or other such nonsense, and given that it was still replying to his hypothetical garbage of "you need to send in unimportant units to distract the enemy player so your more valuable units can come in and clean up".
His hypothetical is predicated upon playing against a Tau player who doesn't know how to play their army, nothing more.
I like how every unit in tau dex has thier own dedicated markerlight source of at least 4 hits per turn and for every unit.
Tau formation : Schrodinger's Markerlight
Tau formation: Apologist Mark II.
Go!
And realistically, what else are you using your FA slots for if you don't have Hazard Suits or the FA Riptide? Piranhas? Gun Drone Squadrons? Bombers?
I have NEVER seen a Tau army without at least one unit of Pathfinders.
The other thing I don't get, is why do people keep saying Japanese when Tau are a shooting army and the Chinese (who the designer said they were based on) were historically a much more advanced ranged army.
The Chinese were the ones to invent the first guns known as a "Hand Cannon" and were also the ones who had the Chu-ko-nu which was a repeating crossbow that could fire at a faster rate than any normal crossbow.
edit: On the Chu-ko-nu: "... in the hands of a trained soldier, could easily launch ten bolts in fifteen seconds.[1] In comparison, an arbalest could only deliver about two bolts a minute. "
Edit 2: I think I found our Tau:
(A soldier from the Qianlong era, by William Alexander, 1793.)
You can use marker drone squads. Also hazard suits are overpriced for what they do when crisis suits are an option. Also don't discount pirhana, they're not terrible and 15 of them for 600 points could be scary when each unit of 5 for 200 points also doubles as a free 10 man gun drone squad
Also to anyone who says Science Fiction is fantasy go to any school or literary course and say that. I fething dare you. Let's see how long you last.
The distinctions of genres that you're stretching for are not "taught" in anything other than Marketing classes. Literature classes could not give *less* of a gak about such things.
Also to anyone who says Science Fiction is fantasy go to any school or literary course and say that. I fething dare you. Let's see how long you last.
The distinctions of genres that you're stretching for are not "taught" in anything other than Marketing classes. Literature classes could not give *less* of a gak about such things.
Indeed libraries typically have science fiction and fantasy in the same "sci-fi/fantasy" section- JRR Martin in with Dan Abnett. Honestly you're not going to get a librarian or book shop owner saying- "Hmm... this Black Library novel about the Tau Empire would go in our science-fantasy section as that's what Warhammer's genre is, but Iron_Captain has informed me that they don't have neo-wizards, so I'm now going to put them strictly into our science-fiction section..."
Wow I'm absent minded today. And yes, the HYPM is OP, we agree on that.
And I forgot that Broadsides can each take a single Seeker Missile for 8 points/model so, there's that thrown into the mix as well.
Seeker missles are crap since they changed them . Garbage on anything but the skyray , and then they are so so .
The only change I see for them is they went from range: Unlimited and a maximum of 2 per vehicle @ 10 points each in the previous Tau Empire book fired at an assumedBS of 5(which at the time was the cap which BS could be boosted to via Markerlights) to 72" range, maximum of 2 per vehicle and the addition of Broadsides being able to take a single Seeker Missile @ 8 points each and no auto-BS5.
The effects are the same, barring the Unlimited range by expending 2 Marker light Counters for +2 BS and utilizing a Marker light Counter for "Seeker".
Your missing the most important function from the previous codex . Yes the missile got cheaper by 2 points , yes you have the added benefit of using it without marker light support , you also have the additional rule of what ever shot the missile , now must shoot at the same target as the unit calling in the missile , previously if i had 2 seekers on my DF and i expended tokens , the DF wasn't stuck shooting at what ever the missile hit. The entire point of them was to have the firewarrior teams use them since they are disallowed from have any special weapons ( barring the 1 marker light a upgraded character can have )
Capping the BS benefit to +1 and removing a single point of Cover, while granting rerolls to both "Hit" and "Wound" rolls is somehow "worse than they have ever been"?
Effectively, all weapons are twin-linked and all the Tau come with Preferred Enemy(target)...and it's "worse than they have ever been".
Hah!
Yes , that would be the very definition or worse if we did what you propose
I would suggest you actually try it out sometime, in addition to some of the other proposals that I've put forward--such as Blacksun Filter granting a -1 to enemy Cover Saves and HYMPs/SMS getting an "alternate" fire mode with a blast mode.
There is no reason to try it out , i can simply look at it . Hit less, check. Enemy gets more saves, check . Path finder squad can be smaller cause there is no reason to get more markers , Check . Save points on pathfinders , Check . Lose 2 models from shooting and have the unit run off the table , Check. yep its worse.
HYMP doesn't need a alternate fire mode , the rail rifle really really needs to not be a POS. its not even about min maxing. Its the same reason no one uses carbines on Firewarrior teams , it's just bad to bring. The HRR used to be the AV for tau ( that's not on suicide units ) now your smacking things with a wet noodle , so yeah its not getting any playtime
Kanluwen wrote: Find me something on basic or elite infantry that isn't a special weapon, a swapped for weapon, or a heavy weapon with a minimum 36" range. Go on. I can wait. The only thing you'll find will be Eldar Rangers with their Long-Rifles. A unit that has a 5+ save and relies on Stealth/Shrouded to keep itself safe.
You could argue Space Marine Scouts with Sniper Rifles, but remember you pay points for Sniper Rifles.
And while we're at it, let's find something with on demand Ignores Cover--because if you're leaving your Pathfinders out in the open that's your own problem.
Exactly why are we limiting to non special weapons ? I mean if you CAN take them why are we ignoring them ?
Because Markerlights are standard wargear on Pathfinders, not an optional upgrade, and if you read the post I replied to, he stated the following:
Kanluwen wrote: Anything with equivalent or better range you mean, especially those who can shoot after moving. And if you head at them with unimporant units, you can distract them for your more valuble units, and take some out in the process.[/color]
So yes. I'm limiting it to non-special weapons because realistically, the point I made of "Markerlights are equivalent in range to what most armies use for longer-ranged special weapons or heavy weapons" means that his response was nonsense.
Most of the "unimportant units" that he mentions as using expendable chaff towards Pathfinders? No Tau player in their right mind is going to waste Markerlight shots on. And those units are NOT going to be able to outrange 36" in any regards--meaning my initial point of Pathfinders effectively locking down a tile and a half of game board is very valid. It also means that my point of most armies requiring some kind of dedicated unit that could REALISTICALLY be focusing instead on something like a Riptide or Crisis Suits or Broadsides is instead being wasted rooting out Pathfinders, a unit which has before stated to be "subpar and really only good for Markerlighting things".
Understand now why I specifically excluded Special/Heavy weapons, or should I draw you a picture?
Draw me a picture , preferable something with fruit.
Your reasoning is totally flawed , not counting things because you have to pay points ? ok , the pathfinder teams markers unit B . I score 4 marker tokens , YAY ! . Now nothing happens , cause i would have to had pay points for another unit to be able to shoot at them.
Kanluwen wrote: If you deploy lengthwise(i.e. along the long sides of the board) on a standard sized board(6 ftx 4 ft), it actually is potentially impossible to stay out of their LOS--especially if someone deploys LOS blocking terrain in ways that make obscene kill-funnels.
You choose the mission then set up terrian , how is this even happening ?? Why are you letting it happen ?
I'm going to suggest you read pages 128 to page 131 in the BRB.
You choose the mission, you set up terrain("Exactly how you set up Citadel scenery models is purely a matter of personal taste, and they can be placed upon the battlefield in any way the players find agreeable"), then you potentially roll to see which deployment map you use. 1-2 is lengthwise(aka: "Dawn of War").
And remember that fortifications purchased as part of an army are deployed as part of a player's army rather than as neutral scenery(meaning they get set up during Deployment rather than the timeframe of setting up the table's terrain), and also remember that some places will not let you move their terrain around for whatever reason--meaning he who chooses best can win.
ok i was wrong about the order , but you still get to choose to place terrain , you can still place terrain that would be meaningful against the long deployment , you choose not to. You can't balance things if you choose to limit yourself. Yep , ther is a chance you don't get the long edge , and there is a chance you do
Kanluwen wrote: And emphasizing that the "Riptides and HYMP are the things that are OP" does not change the fact that Markerlights are a large part of what can make them OP. HYMP and SMS on a BS3 platform? That's not horrible in and of itself.
The fact that these weapons are not Ordnance or Blast(meaning that they can't be Overwatched/Snap Fired with) coupled with Markerlights being able to boost them up and Broadsides being able to use Supporting Fire? That's bad.
The fact that these weapons are on platforms which can expend a number of Markerlight counters to gain Ignores Cover(2 tokens means Ignores Cover--which also means "Ignores Stealth and/or Shrouded and/or Jink") and any remaining Markerlight counters can be used for boosting their BS skill for not just that one model but the whole unit which is firing as part of this shooting attack(so potentially 3 Broadsides with 6 Missile Drones, unloading twin-linked HYMPs and SMS) get those benefits.
Riptides aren't op , the cost of the IA is.
Who fields Riptides without IA?
people who don't think shooting 12 shots nova charged with gets hot is a big deal
HYMP aren't overpowered , the rail rifle is just terrible since they nerfed it so its used cause "lack of a better option"
Railrifles are basically just as viable as Transauranic Arquebus are for Skitarii Rangers. Not my problem that you play min/max and seem to be obsessed with only what the interwebs says are gud.
I have no idea what those are , can't comment
Kanluwen wrote: Nowhere did I ever say anything about Assaulting Broadsides or other such nonsense, and given that it was still replying to his hypothetical garbage of "you need to send in unimportant units to distract the enemy player so your more valuable units can come in and clean up".
The fact that these weapons are not Ordnance or Blast(meaning that they can't be Overwatched/Snap Fired with) coupled with Markerlights being able to boost them up and Broadsides being able to use Supporting Fire? That's bad.
Kanluwen wrote: His hypothetical is predicated upon playing against a Tau player who doesn't know how to play their army, nothing more.
I like how every unit in tau dex has thier own dedicated markerlight source of at least 4 hits per turn and for every unit.
Tau formation : Schrodinger's Markerlight
Tau formation: Apologist Mark II.
Go!
And realistically, what else are you using your FA slots for if you don't have Hazard Suits or the FA Riptide? Piranhas? Gun Drone Squadrons? Bombers?
I have NEVER seen a Tau army without at least one unit of Pathfinders.
Right at least 1 , almost never more than 2 . You keep buffing so many units with marker lights you forget your not getting more then 2 units worth per turn ( assumeing +2 bs and 2 for removing cover with a 8 man pathfinder squad , which is 50% hit rate) , so you'll buff 2 shooting units and try and massacre whatever got hit . You buff the riptide and a unit of braodsides first, cause range, Grats the rest of your army is still bs3 and the units they shoot still get cover.
Kanluen, youve made a great arguement but this is getting no where. Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
SDFarsight wrote: I thought that they're just stronger in different ways. For example the Imperial Guard don't have to choose between anti-tank or anti-infantry fire, they can just place down S8/9 large blast ordinance templates because reasons.
Edit: I forgot there is the over-charge on the ion cannon, but even that needs to take a Gets Hot test.
One of the problems is Guard simply are not in the same shooty league as tau. We do have Wyverns but I find they pale in comparison to many of the tau's indirect weapons, their only saving grace being their point cost. But since when is a Wyvern spam fun? And they're "good", not great, simply good.
Sure we get orders to improve them, but look how expensive Heavy Weapon squads are! They're about the same price as equivalent vehicles (bot tanks and fliers) which are all BS3. There's a reason every guard player is going crazy with tank commanders, and even then you get forced to take an additional Leman Russ as well as the commanders, which isn't a bad thing, but you have to waste an order each turn just to let them split fire (edit: not snap fire sorry).
As soon as we come against anything T5 with multiple wounds we also just don't have anything reasonable to deal with them. T4 I can cope with, but when you face multiple T5 units, especially bikes and the like we simply have no response.
Also I've noticed while on paper we have lots of anti-tank, none of it is especially reliable, especially with Hull points and the 7th ed vehicle damage table. Basically we're a decent army against medium infantry, great vs light vehicles and infantry. But bring over enemy medium vehicle and heavy infantry, bikes etc we can't respond the same way tau can. Never mind the fact how immobile we are compared to tau.
Give us a point drop for specialist footsloggers, and the ability to veteran vehicles and heavy weapon squads and I will accept Imperial Guard are an acceptable alternative to a shooty tau army. Hell our only reliable tank killer is a weapon fluff wise designed to take down titans and requires a commander driving it to be effective!
SDFarsight wrote: I thought that they're just stronger in different ways. For example the Imperial Guard don't have to choose between anti-tank or anti-infantry fire, they can just place down S8/9 large blast ordinance templates because reasons.
Edit: I forgot there is the over-charge on the ion cannon, but even that needs to take a Gets Hot test.
One of the problems is Guard simply are not in the same shooty league as tau. We do have Wyverns but I find they pale in comparison to many of the tau's indirect weapons, their only saving grace being their point cost. But since when is a Wyvern spam fun? And they're "good", not great, simply good.
Sure we get orders to improve them, but look how expensive Heavy Weapon squads are! They're about the same price as equivalent vehicles (bot tanks and fliers) which are all BS3. There's a reason every guard player is going crazy with tank commanders, and even then you get forced to take an additional Leman Russ as well as the commanders, which isn't a bad thing, but you have to waste an order each turn just to let them split fire (edit: not snap fire sorry).
As soon as we come against anything T5 with multiple wounds we also just don't have anything reasonable to deal with them. T4 I can cope with, but when you face multiple T5 units, especially bikes and the like we simply have no response.
Also I've noticed while on paper we have lots of anti-tank, none of it is especially reliable, especially with Hull points and the 7th ed vehicle damage table. Basically we're a decent army against medium infantry, great vs light vehicles and infantry. But bring over enemy medium vehicle and heavy infantry, bikes etc we can't respond the same way tau can. Never mind the fact how immobile we are compared to tau.
Give us a point drop for specialist footsloggers, and the ability to veteran vehicles and heavy weapon squads and I will accept Imperial Guard are an acceptable alternative to a shooty tau army. Hell our only reliable tank killer is a weapon fluff wise designed to take down titans and requires a commander driving it to be effective!
I see what you mean about the hull points. Even when I'm benefiting from them as a mech Tau player I still don't like them- they make armour feel much more spongy and 'health point' orientated rather than the all-or-nothing nature of armoured combat. With hull points it's easier to damage vehicles but harder to get an out-right kill.
Tau allied with Eldar made it to the finals of Nova this past weekend. 6 broadsides, a buff commander, riptide, some troops, and a FW little flyer/drone unit. His Strength of schedule was pretty rough also.
So hate Tau? Nah, Tau are just fine and will only get better with the next book.
I see what you mean about the hull points. Even when I'm benefiting from them as an mech Tau player I still don't like them- they make armour feel much more spongy and 'health point' orientated rather than the all-or-nothing nature of armoured combat. With hull points it's easier to damage vehicles but harder to get an out-right kill.
I hate the fact on the rare occasion I actually hit something with a battle cannon, penetrate it and because it's AP3 it can't destroy anything that isn't open topped without bleeding the hull points!!!
And don't get me started on how AP works versus vehicles. I would presume the Armour Penetration Value, would help with the Armour Penetration Roll!!! I find it a tad silly an effect of a S8 ordnance weapon exploding inside a vehicle, even a land raider at the most immobilizes it.... And not only that you need three such attacks to do so.
SDFarsight wrote: I thought that they're just stronger in different ways. For example the Imperial Guard don't have to choose between anti-tank or anti-infantry fire, they can just place down S8/9 large blast ordinance templates because reasons.
Edit: I forgot there is the over-charge on the ion cannon, but even that needs to take a Gets Hot test.
One of the problems is Guard simply are not in the same shooty league as tau. We do have Wyverns but I find they pale in comparison to many of the tau's indirect weapons, their only saving grace being their point cost. But since when is a Wyvern spam fun? And they're "good", not great, simply good.
You lost all credit, you either don't know the rules, or making stuff up.
Tau have NO indirect weapons bar a single relic weapon for suits (who is really bad) and the SMS, who is a mere S5AP5 30" gun.
If you claim the Wyvern, who is hand-down the best anti-light-infantry artillery in the entire game is outdone by the "only on expensive platform as a second gun" SMS, you are not in the ballpark of reality.
If you claim its outdone by some other indirect weapon, I'd like to see that gun-because I sure as hell want to have one.
Also I've noticed while on paper we have lots of anti-tank, none of it is especially reliable, especially with Hull points and the 7th ed vehicle damage table. Basically we're a decent army against medium infantry, great vs light vehicles and infantry. But bring over enemy medium vehicle and heavy infantry, bikes etc we can't respond the same way tau can. Never mind the fact how immobile we are compared to tau.
Give us a point drop for specialist footsloggers, and the ability to veteran vehicles and heavy weapon squads and I will accept Imperial Guard are an acceptable alternative to a shooty tau army. Hell our only reliable tank killer is a weapon fluff wise designed to take down titans and requires a commander driving it to be effective!
And tau HAS any anti-tank solutions except the immobile broadside (who isn't any good against anything over AV12 AND gets close to it), and drop suits?
HRR? don't make me laugh. riptide? hardly worth the cost used that way. railheads? math proves they probably won't even kill a chimera even with infinite markerlights.
At least you can spam lascannons. we don't even have that.
People can complain all they want on how absurd the HYMP broadside and the IA riptide are, and while its true-these are the clutches that holds the rest of the codex in playable level. if you remove them from the codex and keep the rest as-is, it simply do not have the tools to handle anything from FMCs to AV13/14 or anything that cannot be stopped form hitting your lines at T1 (and so many fething things these days can be in your deployment on T1)
And compared to even IG, it has less options.
You always see tau lists who are nearly the same because nothing else is worth fielding except the gimmik farsight bomb. sure we got some solid units, but they don't match well, and don't cover nearly enough bases. we got entire sections of the game locked out of us without any option to participate, we got no worthy allies despite being the faction who is supposedly most cooperative, and our entire collective of alien races has less diversity than codex marines.
Tau's OP guns (HYMP and IA) need to be nerfed-nobody argues on it. but so much else needs to be brought up in order for it to be even playable.
SDFarsight wrote: I thought that they're just stronger in different ways. For example the Imperial Guard don't have to choose between anti-tank or anti-infantry fire, they can just place down S8/9 large blast ordinance templates because reasons.
Edit: I forgot there is the over-charge on the ion cannon, but even that needs to take a Gets Hot test.
One of the problems is Guard simply are not in the same shooty league as tau. We do have Wyverns but I find they pale in comparison to many of the tau's indirect weapons, their only saving grace being their point cost. But since when is a Wyvern spam fun? And they're "good", not great, simply good.
You lost all credit, you either don't know the rules, or making stuff up.
Tau have NO indirect weapons bar a single relic weapon for suits (who is really bad) and the SMS, who is a mere S5AP5 30" gun.
If you claim the Wyvern, who is hand-down the best anti-light-infantry artillery in the entire game is outdone by the "only on expensive platform as a second gun" SMS, you are not in the ballpark of reality.
If you claim its outdone by some other indirect weapon, I'd like to see that gun-because I sure as hell want to have one.
Don't play tau, so when so will have to have a work when I see our tau player on sunday, but he's been playing havoc in our city fighting maps. Some rule concerning lines of sight from other units, may be what you're on about, but it constantly obliterates multiple units.
Also the Myvern is good at exactly what you stated, killing light infantry, and how much light infantry is left in the game these days? Sure you can spam the damn things, but as I said earlier since when has spamming units been fun? I might have to start taking 9 of the buggers!
Then again S5AP5 is pretty much a guard killer, which may be why I had a negative memory of it
BoomWolf wrote: And tau HAS any anti-tank solutions except the immobile broadside (who isn't any good against anything over AV12 AND gets close to it), and drop suits?
HRR? don't make me laugh. riptide? hardly worth the cost used that way. railheads? math proves they probably won't even kill a chimera even with infinite markerlights.
At least you can spam lascannons. we don't even have that.
Only realistic way to do that is via Vendetta. Taking footslogger Lascannons ain't that much cheeper! And we all know guard players reaction to the Vendetta, mixed to say the least. And then our AA options are boarderline overpriced or useless.
MechWarrior was based off of a board game from the 80s. So theres some shade for the "not all giant robot stuff is asian" crowd. Then again theres mecha godzilla, which is older...
Anywho, just wait until the new tau codex drops. Then you'll definitely be that TFG play that-fething-army again. Especially if you have forgeworld. Seriously though, the idea of tau formations makes me lose sleep.
Murrdox wrote: . In return, fix Kroot. Then Tau can't simply win games by sitting the majority of their force behind an Aegis Defense Line and using a few Crisis suits to maybe go get an objective or two.
Red Marine wrote: MechWarrior was based off of a board game from the 80s. So theres some shade for the "not all giant robot stuff is asian" crowd. Then again theres mecha godzilla, which is older...
Anywho, just wait until the new tau codex drops. Then you'll definitely be that TFG play that-fething-army again. Especially if you have forgeworld. Seriously though, the idea of tau formations makes me lose sleep.
The point isn't that it's not Asian, as Tau draw from a lot of Asian cultures, it's that saying it's anime based is silly when it draws only faintly from it by virtue of the Mech Warrior images it was influenced by because those images were trying to fuse the mech warrior style with a hint of anime mecha style.
It's cool that Tau have all of these influences from China and even Japan, but it's absurd to say they're "anime" when their designer said he was influenced by Chinese foot soldiers and sci-fi Mech Warrior designs.
Murrdox wrote: . In return, fix Kroot. Then Tau can't simply win games by sitting the majority of their force behind an Aegis Defense Line and using a few Crisis suits to maybe go get an objective or two.
I think back then it was just the anime-stuff that people didn't like. The Fish of Fury was a good tactic but it was the only really power-gaming thing you could do with that codex unless you were clever with markerlights. Everything else was mediocre. That's why I don't mind the nerf on the Broadside's railguns so much; yes it got nerfed badly, but we now have really powerful units like Riptides to fall back on, as well as some HQ choices that are actually worth taking (remember the Ethereal who's best skill was dying?)
I ran Fish of Fury early on when Tau were still fairly new and uncommon in my meta. It was a bit OP, but I didn't really receive "tau hate" from the locals. Nowadays people get a bit pissed when you bring two or more riptides, but even then I wouldn't say they hat the Tau as much as they hate the player for pulling that kind of cheese.
master of ordinance wrote: Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I can assure you that I don't play Tau, and I'm of the mind they're not overly powerful once you know how they work. You need four Markerlight hits to remove cover and boost a unit to BS5. Four. That's on average an 8-man Pathfinder team. Sure, it's cheap at 11ppm but it's also just eight guys in crappy armor. They'll test for running away after losing two guys. My SoB have never had any problems hunting down and killing Tau infantry - the suits are nasty but without ML support they too are just something to live through. Ofc, I use the utterly inconceivable tactic of having Dominion Squads outflank in Hflamer Immolators... It's sad to hear no other army has the luxury of delivering flamers into the midst of the enemy lines.
master of ordinance wrote: Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I can assure you that I don't play Tau, and I'm of the mind they're not overly powerful once you know how they work. You need four Markerlight hits to remove cover and boost a unit to BS5. Four. That's on average an 8-man Pathfinder team. Sure, it's cheap at 11ppm but it's also just eight guys in crappy armor. They'll test for running away after losing two guys. My SoB have never had any problems hunting down and killing Tau infantry - the suits are nasty but without ML support they too are just something to live through. Ofc, I use the utterly inconceivable tactic of having Dominion Squads outflank in Hflamer Immolators... It's sad to hear no other army has the luxury of delivering flamers into the midst of the enemy lines.
Crappy armor compared to what? Space Marines? yeah it is, but compared to my Orks its awesome. And with my armies lack of Anti Cover weapons I am usually hard pressed to remove those little blighters.
Red Marine wrote: MechWarrior was based off of a board game from the 80s. So theres some shade for the "not all giant robot stuff is asian" crowd. Then again theres mecha godzilla, which is older...
Anywho, just wait until the new tau codex drops. Then you'll definitely be that TFG play that-fething-army again. Especially if you have forgeworld. Seriously though, the idea of tau formations makes me lose sleep.
The point isn't that it's not Asian, as Tau draw from a lot of Asian cultures, it's that saying it's anime based is silly when it draws only faintly from it by virtue of the Mech Warrior images it was influenced by because those images were trying to fuse the mech warrior style with a hint of anime mecha style.
It's cool that Tau have all of these influences from China and even Japan, but it's absurd to say they're "anime" when their designer said he was influenced by Chinese foot soldiers and sci-fi Mech Warrior designs.
GW's designers are mostly middle-aged men, aren't they? (Who by the way seem reasonably well-read and educated -- "anti-agapic elixirs" lol). They are not the anime-watching demographic.
Whereas a lot of GW customers are teenagers or early-20s, who are the anime-watching demographic.
GW customers are reading their own interests into the designers.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Pathfinders only have 5+ (as useless as ork armour against most basic weaponry). It's FWs that have 4+.
So what if Pathfinders "only have 5+"?
They're meant to be equivalent to Eldar Rangers, which are 5+ with Camo Cloaks.
What? That has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
I assumed that, as gahz was comparing PF armour to SMs, he thought they had a 4+, like FWs, when they have a 5+. I was not saying whether they were good or bad, whether the armour was adiquite or not, just that their armour is merely 5+. There's no argument to be made here, it's simply a fact, pathfinders have 5+ amour. I'm not sure what you are trying to prove?
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
People hate Tau.....that's why you keep hearing it. It's not about how good they are competitively, it's that they're really f-ing annoying. You can't see it because you play Tau...you're one of those guys! Let me ask a few questions:
Is your army fully painted? Or are you rocking the 3 Colour minimum? Gotta get those competitive models on the board fast!
Have you ever, in a fit of joy grabbed your opponents model with your greasy fingers to remove it from play? This is a tau/ Eldar thing that seems to happen to me a lot.
And finally what percent of games do you win against your friends? Are you contempt to concede half the games you play? Or do you win 80 percent of the time and still play like its the championship game of the world on those20 percent games where your opponent is ahead?
I mean you can't say that ALL Tau players are like this....I understand that. But I'll tell you that it's been my personal experience. And I know I'm not the only person. It takes a certain type of person to relish in the idea of endlessly Kiting you opponent, taking 2 shooting phases and 2 movement phases. Sadistic nerds with an agenda.....
master of ordinance wrote: Kanluen, youve made a great arguement but this is getting no where. Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I like to think of myself as unbiased towards either Imperial or Tau since I play both (Elysian Drop Troops being my first and favorite army) but im sorry your argument is flawed. You claiming he has no case, seriously the same could be said of you clearly ignoring all the nasty stuff that Imperial armies get by creating specific scenarios to justify your arguments, sorry Imperial Armies are much more nastier then Tau for several reasons (some im sure have been mentioned but im just making a list):
-Imperial Guard get orders to Ignore cover with anything, and before you say "they have to take a leadership check" wow add a 35pt. Commissar for LD9, problem solved.
-Imperial Guard have access to an insane amount of armor 14 vehicles, actually this is been one of the best counters to my Tau from Imperial Guard players.
-Elysian Drop Troops (my army) show up with over x10 flyers at 2000pts. even Tau will struggle.
-Space Marine Skyhammer Assault Formation, nothing needs to be explained here.
-Insane amount of Grav spam that renders my Riptides and Crisis Suits useless.
-Mechanicum Grav Kataphrons, 18 30 inch Grav Cannon shots that can easily be boosted to BS7 with your mandatory HQ.
-Psychic Power shenanigans
-Imperial Knights
-Skitarrii in Drop Pods, this list is just dirty
-And in regards to above the amount of shenanigans you guys can pull with allies, literally having access to over half the units in the game. This is continuously ignored as a "strength" for some reason when this topic comes up but im sorry, we have access to it so it fits perfectly into the argument.
We could go back and forth on the list making and pointing out things but as mentioned (the one thing i agree with) approaching it with a tit for tat argument is not getting us anywhere. However for everything you try and say Tau has that is so "overpowered" there is something equivalent or worse in the Imperial arsenal so your argument is just as flawed as you claim Kanluen's is. And no one said that Tau were not a good army, all that has been said from what I can see is that Tau players find it silly and ridiculous how other players, Imperial players in particular (in my personal experience on here and playing games) complain on how "overpowered" Tau are and ignore all the nasty stuff they can field.
master of ordinance wrote: Kanluen, youve made a great arguement but this is getting no where. Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I like to think of myself as unbiased towards either Imperial or Tau since I play both (Elysian Drop Troops being my first and favorite army) but im sorry your argument is flawed. You claiming he has no case, seriously the same could be said of you clearly ignoring all the nasty stuff that Imperial armies get by creating specific scenarios to justify your arguments, sorry Imperial Armies are much more nastier then Tau for several reasons (some im sure have been mentioned but im just making a list):
-Imperial Guard get orders to Ignore cover with anything, and before you say "they have to take a leadership check" wow add a 35pt. Commissar for LD9, problem solved.
-Imperial Guard have access to an insane amount of armor 14 vehicles, actually this is been one of the best counters to my Tau from Imperial Guard players.
-Elysian Drop Troops (my army) show up with over x10 flyers at 2000pts. even Tau will struggle.
-Space Marine Skyhammer Assault Formation, nothing needs to be explained here.
-Insane amount of Grav spam that renders my Riptides and Crisis Suits useless.
-Mechanicum Grav Kataphrons, 18 30 inch Grav Cannon shots that can easily be boosted to BS7 with your mandatory HQ.
-Psychic Power shenanigans
-Imperial Knights
-Skitarrii in Drop Pods, this list is just dirty
-And in regards to above the amount of shenanigans you guys can pull with allies, literally having access to over half the units in the game. This is continuously ignored as a "strength" for some reason when this topic comes up but im sorry, we have access to it so it fits perfectly into the argument.
We could go back and forth on the list making and pointing out things but as mentioned (the one thing i agree with) approaching it with a tit for tat argument is not getting us anywhere. However for everything you try and say Tau has that is so "overpowered" there is something equivalent or worse in the Imperial arsenal so your argument is just as flawed as you claim Kanluen's is. And no one said that Tau were not a good army, all that has been said from what I can see is that Tau players find it silly and ridiculous how other players, Imperial players in particular (in my personal experience on here and playing games) complain on how "overpowered" Tau are and ignore all the nasty stuff they can field.
I don't understand why you are saying that Kataphrons can get boosted up to BS7. They get Canticles, which effectively makes them twin-linked. Are you refering to that?
Co'tor Shas wrote: Pathfinders only have 5+ (as useless as ork armour against most basic weaponry). It's FWs that have 4+.
So what if Pathfinders "only have 5+"?
They're meant to be equivalent to Eldar Rangers, which are 5+ with Camo Cloaks.
Except, pathfinders do not have Camo Cloaks.
Or any other form of defense, at all.
They got a T3, Sv5+ as their only form of defense, that's basic guardsman level.
Anyone who ever has a problem of eradicating these from a distance-is doing something wrong with his list.
Alcibiades wrote: I don't understand why you are saying that Kataphrons can get boosted up to BS7. They get Canticles, which effectively makes them twin-linked. Are you refering to that?
I might be getting Skitarii and Mechanicum mixed up, was pretty sure though Mechanicum had BS boosting shenanigans as well, if im wrong that's my bad . Either way doesn't hinder their ridiculous damage output, have watched way to many units get obliterated turn one by a mere 165pt. unit.
master of ordinance wrote: Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I can assure you that I don't play Tau, and I'm of the mind they're not overly powerful once you know how they work. You need four Markerlight hits to remove cover and boost a unit to BS5. Four. That's on average an 8-man Pathfinder team. Sure, it's cheap at 11ppm but it's also just eight guys in crappy armor. They'll test for running away after losing two guys. My SoB have never had any problems hunting down and killing Tau infantry - the suits are nasty but without ML support they too are just something to live through. Ofc, I use the utterly inconceivable tactic of having Dominion Squads outflank in Hflamer Immolators... It's sad to hear no other army has the luxury of delivering flamers into the midst of the enemy lines.
Crappy armor compared to what? Space Marines? yeah it is, but compared to my Orks its awesome. And with my armies lack of Anti Cover weapons I am usually hard pressed to remove those little blighters.
Alcibiades wrote: I don't understand why you are saying that Kataphrons can get boosted up to BS7. They get Canticles, which effectively makes them twin-linked. Are you refering to that?
I might be getting Skitarii and Mechanicum mixed up, was pretty sure though Mechanicum had BS boosting shenanigans as well, if im wrong that's my bad . Either way doesn't hinder their ridiculous damage output, have watched way to many units get obliterated turn one by a mere 165pt. unit.
Mechanicus can get Skitarii Doctrina Imperatives (which can raise BS to 7) through the war cohort formation.
Otherwise they're stuck with twin-linking their grav cannons. So BS 4.5, about.
But yeah grav-cannon Destroyers have jaw-dropping damage output against anything that is 2+ or 3+.
Alcibiades wrote: I don't understand why you are saying that Kataphrons can get boosted up to BS7. They get Canticles, which effectively makes them twin-linked. Are you refering to that?
I might be getting Skitarii and Mechanicum mixed up, was pretty sure though Mechanicum had BS boosting shenanigans as well, if im wrong that's my bad . Either way doesn't hinder their ridiculous damage output, have watched way to many units get obliterated turn one by a mere 165pt. unit.
Mechanicus can get Skitarii Doctrina Imperatives (which can raise BS to 7) through the war cohort formation.
Otherwise they're stuck with twin-linking their grav cannons. So BS 4.5, about.
But yeah grav-cannon Destroyers have jaw-dropping damage output against anything that is 2+ or 3+.
Nope. Cohort gives canticles to everyone, not imperatives.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, for the record, how many points are 3 grav cents? They shorter range but 2+ armor as opposed to 4+.
Alcibiades wrote: I don't understand why you are saying that Kataphrons can get boosted up to BS7. They get Canticles, which effectively makes them twin-linked. Are you refering to that?
I might be getting Skitarii and Mechanicum mixed up, was pretty sure though Mechanicum had BS boosting shenanigans as well, if im wrong that's my bad . Either way doesn't hinder their ridiculous damage output, have watched way to many units get obliterated turn one by a mere 165pt. unit.
Mechanicus can get Skitarii Doctrina Imperatives (which can raise BS to 7) through the war cohort formation.
Otherwise they're stuck with twin-linking their grav cannons. So BS 4.5, about.
But yeah grav-cannon Destroyers have jaw-dropping damage output against anything that is 2+ or 3+.
Nope. Cohort gives canticles to everyone, not imperatives.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, for the record, how many points are 3 grav cents? They shorter range but 2+ armor as opposed to 4+.
Convocation then? The one that requires a unit of everything from both codexes. Not the one with the Knight.
Edit: I'm wrong, cohort does give you one turn of imperatives for cult mech. Good thing that formation is a minimum of around 2200 points and gives you one squad of grav servitors.
Red Marine wrote: MechWarrior was based off of a board game from the 80s. So theres some shade for the "not all giant robot stuff is asian" crowd. Then again theres mecha godzilla, which is older...
Anywho, just wait until the new tau codex drops. Then you'll definitely be that TFG play that-fething-army again. Especially if you have forgeworld. Seriously though, the idea of tau formations makes me lose sleep.
The point isn't that it's not Asian, as Tau draw from a lot of Asian cultures, it's that saying it's anime based is silly when it draws only faintly from it by virtue of the Mech Warrior images it was influenced by because those images were trying to fuse the mech warrior style with a hint of anime mecha style.
It's cool that Tau have all of these influences from China and even Japan, but it's absurd to say they're "anime" when their designer said he was influenced by Chinese foot soldiers and sci-fi Mech Warrior designs.
GW's designers are mostly middle-aged men, aren't they? (Who by the way seem reasonably well-read and educated -- "anti-agapic elixirs" lol). They are not the anime-watching demographic.
Whereas a lot of GW customers are teenagers or early-20s, who are the anime-watching demographic.
GW customers are reading their own interests into the designers.
Tau suits share the blocky shapes of Japanese 1980s mechanical design in comics and animation. FASA (Mechwarrior/Battletech - RPG, miniatures) used those designs and most of the GW designers were in their teens and twenties back then. Westernized Japanese animation like Robotech and Transformers were also pretty popular back then in the UK.
I agree that modern anime is unlikely to be an influence. Current mecha designs have been radically different since Evangelion and share little with the retro Tau style. In addition Gundam didn't catch on in the west outside of die hard anime circles before the 2000s.
Some third edition releases like Catachans, Necrons, Tau and Tyranids were more more sci-fi rather than science fantasy and all borrow elements from major movie properties like Alien, Predator, Starship Troopers and Terminator. The Tau suits and military in general heavily resembled the power armored mobile infantry from Heinlein as well which ironically would make them just as much Space Marines as their imperial counterparts.
master of ordinance wrote: Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I can assure you that I don't play Tau, and I'm of the mind they're not overly powerful once you know how they work. You need four Markerlight hits to remove cover and boost a unit to BS5. Four. That's on average an 8-man Pathfinder team. Sure, it's cheap at 11ppm but it's also just eight guys in crappy armor. They'll test for running away after losing two guys. My SoB have never had any problems hunting down and killing Tau infantry - the suits are nasty but without ML support they too are just something to live through. Ofc, I use the utterly inconceivable tactic of having Dominion Squads outflank in Hflamer Immolators... It's sad to hear no other army has the luxury of delivering flamers into the midst of the enemy lines.
Crappy armor compared to what? Space Marines? yeah it is, but compared to my Orks its awesome. And with my armies lack of Anti Cover weapons I am usually hard pressed to remove those little blighters.
It's five plus armor dude.
EVERYTHING in the ork armory is AP5.
Except that unless im playing against the world dumbest Tau player, or had a board where we agreed to zero terrain (which would bone me harder then him) those pathfinders will be sitting in 4+ ruins. Also what Ork weapons have AP4? the weapons that DO have AP4 or less are usually our higher strength weapons that were trying to wreck vehicles with or are range 24 or less, or close combat weapons. And the only common AP4 weapon that has the range to feth up Pathfinders is the Deff Gun S7 Ap4 which again I would rather be shooting at higher priority targets then T3 models. 1 unit of lootas would have to give up shooting a higher priority unit to negate the Pathfinders armor and as I said above THEY ARE ALWAYS IN COVER if they aren't then the Tau player failed already. a unit of 10 lootas rolling 2 shots a piece = 20 shots, 6 - 7 will actually hit and 5-6 will wound statistically. So yeah if they are in the open HOORAY we did something, if they are in cover then only 3ish die.
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
People hate Tau.....that's why you keep hearing it. It's not about how good they are competitively, it's that they're really f-ing annoying. You can't see it because you play Tau...you're one of those guys! Let me ask a few questions:
Is your army fully painted? Or are you rocking the 3 Colour minimum? Gotta get those competitive models on the board fast!
Have you ever, in a fit of joy grabbed your opponents model with your greasy fingers to remove it from play? This is a tau/ Eldar thing that seems to happen to me a lot.
And finally what percent of games do you win against your friends? Are you contempt to concede half the games you play? Or do you win 80 percent of the time and still play like its the championship game of the world on those20 percent games where your opponent is ahead?
I mean you can't say that ALL Tau players are like this....I understand that. But I'll tell you that it's been my personal experience. And I know I'm not the only person.
I don't see what your point is; I could just as easily copy-paste that and replace "Tau" with "[strong codex of the month]"
It takes a certain type of person to relish in the idea of endlessly Kiting you opponent, taking 2 shooting phases and 2 movement phases. Sadistic nerds with an agenda.....
Yes, the agenda of playing with a different, more creative strategy than just 'sprint and chainsword'. They're obviously hiding something nefarious
master of ordinance wrote: Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I can assure you that I don't play Tau, and I'm of the mind they're not overly powerful once you know how they work. You need four Markerlight hits to remove cover and boost a unit to BS5. Four. That's on average an 8-man Pathfinder team. Sure, it's cheap at 11ppm but it's also just eight guys in crappy armor. They'll test for running away after losing two guys. My SoB have never had any problems hunting down and killing Tau infantry - the suits are nasty but without ML support they too are just something to live through. Ofc, I use the utterly inconceivable tactic of having Dominion Squads outflank in Hflamer Immolators... It's sad to hear no other army has the luxury of delivering flamers into the midst of the enemy lines.
Crappy armor compared to what? Space Marines? yeah it is, but compared to my Orks its awesome. And with my armies lack of Anti Cover weapons I am usually hard pressed to remove those little blighters.
It's five plus armor dude.
EVERYTHING in the ork armory is AP5.
Except that unless im playing against the world dumbest Tau player, or had a board where we agreed to zero terrain (which would bone me harder then him) those pathfinders will be sitting in 4+ ruins. Also what Ork weapons have AP4? the weapons that DO have AP4 or less are usually our higher strength weapons that were trying to wreck vehicles with or are range 24 or less, or close combat weapons. And the only common AP4 weapon that has the range to feth up Pathfinders is the Deff Gun S7 Ap4 which again I would rather be shooting at higher priority targets then T3 models. 1 unit of lootas would have to give up shooting a higher priority unit to negate the Pathfinders armor and as I said above THEY ARE ALWAYS IN COVER if they aren't then the Tau player failed already. a unit of 10 lootas rolling 2 shots a piece = 20 shots, 6 - 7 will actually hit and 5-6 will wound statistically. So yeah if they are in the open HOORAY we did something, if they are in cover then only 3ish die.
... Again, pathfinders have a 5+ not a 4+. Fire warriors have a 4+.
How people have issue killing T3 models with a 5+ save (4+ IF they get cover potentially) that cannot move since Marker Lights are a Heavy Weapon is beyond me. Newsflash, if you kill the Pathfinders your neuter their entire army especially one that is over reliant on them...hint...hint!
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
People hate Tau.....that's why you keep hearing it. It's not about how good they are competitively, it's that they're really f-ing annoying. You can't see it because you play Tau...you're one of those guys! Let me ask a few questions:
Is your army fully painted? Or are you rocking the 3 Colour minimum? Gotta get those competitive models on the board fast!
Have you ever, in a fit of joy grabbed your opponents model with your greasy fingers to remove it from play? This is a tau/ Eldar thing that seems to happen to me a lot.
And finally what percent of games do you win against your friends? Are you contempt to concede half the games you play? Or do you win 80 percent of the time and still play like its the championship game of the world on those20 percent games where your opponent is ahead?
I mean you can't say that ALL Tau players are like this....I understand that. But I'll tell you that it's been my personal experience. And I know I'm not the only person. It takes a certain type of person to relish in the idea of endlessly Kiting you opponent, taking 2 shooting phases and 2 movement phases. Sadistic nerds with an agenda.....
I've got my army painted in like 8-12 colors depending in what I use for detailing, and I've gotten most of my army painted. I tend to not net list the op gak I can and because of this I'm not exactly winning 80% of the time. I don't touch other people's stuff and I most certainly don't concede half of the time. I'm not a sadistic feth, I'm just a guy who wanting to play the army that does something logical and brings a gun to a sword fight. Also tau look a lot better than space marines IMO which is also a large part of why I chose to run them.
But if you think I've some sort of unholy plan to ruin your fun whilst I twiddle my cliche Saturday cartoon villain mustache than you must be true right?
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
Yeah you are right man, ignoring cover save isnt a big deal at all in warhammer 40k...
master of ordinance wrote: Sadly this is one of those Tau players whom dosnt like to admit just how powerful Tau are.
I can assure you that I don't play Tau, and I'm of the mind they're not overly powerful once you know how they work. You need four Markerlight hits to remove cover and boost a unit to BS5. Four. That's on average an 8-man Pathfinder team. Sure, it's cheap at 11ppm but it's also just eight guys in crappy armor. They'll test for running away after losing two guys. My SoB have never had any problems hunting down and killing Tau infantry - the suits are nasty but without ML support they too are just something to live through. Ofc, I use the utterly inconceivable tactic of having Dominion Squads outflank in Hflamer Immolators... It's sad to hear no other army has the luxury of delivering flamers into the midst of the enemy lines.
Crappy armor compared to what? Space Marines? yeah it is, but compared to my Orks its awesome. And with my armies lack of Anti Cover weapons I am usually hard pressed to remove those little blighters.
It's five plus armor dude.
EVERYTHING in the ork armory is AP5.
Except that unless im playing against the world dumbest Tau player, or had a board where we agreed to zero terrain (which would bone me harder then him) those pathfinders will be sitting in 4+ ruins. Also what Ork weapons have AP4? the weapons that DO have AP4 or less are usually our higher strength weapons that were trying to wreck vehicles with or are range 24 or less, or close combat weapons. And the only common AP4 weapon that has the range to feth up Pathfinders is the Deff Gun S7 Ap4 which again I would rather be shooting at higher priority targets then T3 models. 1 unit of lootas would have to give up shooting a higher priority unit to negate the Pathfinders armor and as I said above THEY ARE ALWAYS IN COVER if they aren't then the Tau player failed already. a unit of 10 lootas rolling 2 shots a piece = 20 shots, 6 - 7 will actually hit and 5-6 will wound statistically. So yeah if they are in the open HOORAY we did something, if they are in cover then only 3ish die.
Didn't read the reply at all, huh. So they're T3 units with LD 7 and 5+ armor. Shoot them, with anything (why would you need AP4? Do you think AP works on cover?) and they'll die.
Jaxler wrote: Most of the arguments I see are either about tau being too noble bright, being animie inspired or about them being OP and annoying to play against. Most of which I feel aren't exactly grounded in realty or are based off older versions of the game or Tau lore. I'll admit I'm a little biased as a guy who plays tau and finds Japanese history interesting, but most of the stuff people complain about usually seems a little ignorant to me, especially when it's the same complaints I've seen be put out over and over without any facts or arguments to back it up. I also wish the people who complain about tau being "weebo trash" would realize that just because something takes inspiration from eastern culture doesn't mean it takes inspiration from eastern pop culture. Also, when people still call tau OP even after necrons space marines and eldar have gotten their new codexes It makes me roll my eyes a little. I really feel tau don't deserve the disproportionate amount of spite and loathing that they get.
Yeah you are right man, ignoring cover save isnt a big deal at all in warhammer 40k...
Tau using markerlights? How rude and OP of them!! I bet some Tau players even have the audacity to bring S5 infantry weapons with them too! Next you'll get Space Marines having a 3+ armour save!
gmaleron wrote: How people have issue killing T3 models with a 5+ save (4+ IF they get cover potentially) that cannot move since Marker Lights are a Heavy Weapon is beyond me. Newsflash, if you kill the Pathfinders your neuter their entire army especially one that is over reliant on them...hint...hint!
Except you dont, because most competent users of Tau armies bring 2 squads of Pathfinders or Tetras and barely make ample use of their Markerlights. Why bother when you can just IA your Riptides up and nuke down squads of Terminators? This is the entire problem as to why Triptide was abusive as feth. If you honestly think Markerlights being destroyed means a Tau line of Fire Warriors won't Overwatch the living crap out of anything charging them, you're delusional and simply trying to hard to Waifu Tau.
Insert AP5 into my comment and it stays the same. And 4+ cover is rather nice at stopping a unit from getting shot off the table.
His argument is that anything can kill 5+ armor so they aren't difficult to kill but my point was that nobody ever leaves them exposed in the open, they always have them in cover of some sort and usually in a Ruins.
But if you think I've some sort of unholy plan to ruin your fun whilst I twiddle my cliche Saturday cartoon villain mustache than you must be true right?
Hey, that's his personal experience. That trumps everything. All of my experiences, everything I thought I knew before...gone, just like that. Bob knew me better than I knew myself, and all he needed to know was my choice of 40k army.
When I look in the mirror now all I can see is the twisted face of a sadistic nerd with an agenda.
Xenomancers wrote: Tau are too good already - they don't need buffs - they will get them - once tau has access to D the game is dead...DEAD.
Where've you been? The game's already fething dead.
Except you dont, because most competent users of Tau armies bring 2 squads of Pathfinders or Tetras and barely make ample use of their Markerlights.
I like how in the same sentence they're both competent in their list building and incompetent in that they don't make ample use of what they brought.
Why bother when you can just IA your Riptides up and nuke down squads of Terminators?
Oh, boohoo, my unit that's designed to kill TEQs at range killed TEQs at range? I feel so bad for you. Terminators are bad to begin with, but ignoring that, the IA is perfectly fine as is. Everyone who thinks it's OP needs to either play more competitively, or respond to the meta better. Sorry, but the Riptide isn't even close to the top of the cheesy list anymore. Get out of 6th edition.
This is the entire problem as to why Triptide was abusive as feth. If you honestly think Markerlights being destroyed means a Tau line of Fire Warriors won't Overwatch the living crap out of anything charging them
Charging into 48 firewarriors and 20 pathfinders gets you hit by 28 S5 hits. That's 3 dead terminators. Seems like you're just using them wrong, all things considered.
you're delusional and simply trying to hard to Waifu Tau.
Naw dude, I hate anime, I hate that people associate Tau with anime, I play them because I think close combat in futuristic combat is stupid, and because I like space communists. You're just bad at this game.
But if you think I've some sort of unholy plan to ruin your fun whilst I twiddle my cliche Saturday cartoon villain mustache than you must be true right?
Hey, that's his personal experience. That trumps everything. All of my experiences, everything I thought I knew before...gone, just like that. Bob knew me better than I knew myself, and all he needed to know was my choice of 40k army.
When I look in the mirror now all I can see is the twisted face of a sadistic nerd with an agenda.
Xenomancers wrote: Tau are too good already - they don't need buffs - they will get them - once tau has access to D the game is dead...DEAD.
Where've you been? The game's already fething dead.
Is GW going to kill it again?
Yeah you are right but if we start seeing D weapons on riptides it's fethed again lol.
I think all right-thinking people on these forums are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up on these forums with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not! And I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
Gamgee wrote: They have nothing in common with Japan. At all. Imperial Japan has much more in common culturally with the Imperium of Man. I mean suicide attacks, worship of an Emperor, love of mecha, sisters of battle waifu crap.
The Tau have more in common with the Classical Greek Republic, Star Trek Federation, and Brave New World all shmushed together. Tau aren't even communist their utilitarians.
Visually they are Asian looking. That's about it.
Edit
Oh they've also been given a Japanese/Asian accent in the games as well.
....The Imperium is nothing like the Imperial Japanese Empire. It's literally the Holy Roman Empire in SPAAAACE.
Say what you will anime fan.
@Some othe rguy
Also to anyone who says Science Fiction is fantasy go to any school or literary course and say that. I fething dare you. Let's see how long you last.
There are types of science fiction that blend elements of fantasy into them and are called space operas or science fantasy. However there are hard science fiction which is based on speculative science of today. If you try and argue that even hard science fiction is "fantasy" because the events are fictional then every single book would be labeled fantasy since everything is made up except for history textbooks.
But I assume your not some sort of illiterate and can tell the difference between a genre classification and the real life definition of what a story is without getting the two confused. I hope. I've been wrong before though. Otherwise we would call any book a fantasy book with your logic. Because your confusing two different uses of the word fantasy.
How much do you even know about the HRE?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tinkrr wrote: The other thing I don't get, is why do people keep saying Japanese when Tau are a shooting army and the Chinese (who the designer said they were based on) were historically a much more advanced ranged army.
The Chinese were the ones to invent the first guns known as a "Hand Cannon" and were also the ones who had the Chu-ko-nu which was a repeating crossbow that could fire at a faster rate than any normal crossbow.
edit: On the Chu-ko-nu: "... in the hands of a trained soldier, could easily launch ten bolts in fifteen seconds.[1] In comparison, an arbalest could only deliver about two bolts a minute. "
Edit 2: I think I found our Tau:
(A soldier from the Qianlong era, by William Alexander, 1793.)
Repeating crossbows were a gag weapon and only useful due to Asian armies, especially the various Chinese kingdoms, making heavy use of lightning armored infantry. While an Arbalast was slower, it was ludicrously more powerful courtesy of it requiring a pulley system to even load the thing due to the high amounts of energy stored in the string. Those two bolts would also be casualty makers if they hit, whereas a repeating crossbow is far more likely to have its bolts glance on anything wearing half-decent armor due to less energy stored in the string.
A real shooty army of the time was the Japanese, not Chinese. The Chinese only qualified in terms of volume of fire, but it was ineffective and their firearms were a bit of a joke. Japanese firearms actually outpaced Medieval Europe until the Early Modern Era. Handgonnes such as those used by the Chinese and Europe were utterly pathetic, worthless weapons in term of actual enemy losses they might inflict. They were terror weapons- their projectiles were slow, had horrible range, terrible ballistics, and often would fail to penetrate armor.
Newsflash, if you kill the Pathfinders your neuter their entire army especially one that is over reliant on them...hint...hint!
