https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/15/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-tau-empire/

The T’au* are known currently for their deadly firepower and mobility. They utilise advanced Battlesuits to level blistering volleys of smart missiles and energy weapons into the enemies of the Greater Good. Riptides particularly–often seen in the Riptide Wing formation–are a common site. The combination of resilience and firepower is a potent cocktail that has left many a pair of smoking boots where once a foe stood. Those that do survive the fusillade to cross the battlefield must withstand the T’au’s other shooting phase, otherwise known as Supporting Fire with overwatch. However, those intrepid warriors that make it through all of that often strike the physically weaker T’au down, as melee is certainly not their forte….apart from the stomps dished out by the Stormsurge. That guy certainly never skipped leg day in the gym!



How do T’au play in new Warhammer 40,000? Will they still be the kings of ranged warfare?

Well, let’s start with the biggest and baddest suit in their arsenal, the Stormsurge. This beast of a suit currently terrorises the tables and will continue to do so in the new Warhammer 40,000, albeit in different ways. The Stormsurge has amazing firepower with its 10 weapons…and yes, I said 10 weapons, each of which can fire on a different target. The Anchors currently allow the Stormsurge to shoot twice, but in the new edition, this has been changed to a more reasonable (but still powerful!) +1 to hit in the Shooting phase, which works great when paired with one Markerlight hit on a target, allowing any T’au unit to reroll 1’s when firing on that unit. BS 3+ and re-rolling 1’s with 10 ranged weapons is enough to render most units to smoking ash. The Stormsurge also has the Walking Battleship special rule which allows him to Fall Back from combat and still shoot, while also ignoring the penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons. Stormsurges will remain a solid choice in the new edition.



The XV8 Crisis Battlesuits are next up on the docket. I consider these suits to be the iconic T’au unit, and the firepower from these guys will be very impressive. Very impressive indeed. They each can take 3 weapons (which again, you can fire all of them!). May I recommend a flamer plus two other weapons of your choice? My preference is dual missile pods for that lovely AP-1 and D3 damage per shot! The flamers give you nasty Overwatch defence, as they auto-hit incoming units that charge within their range. They can also be used offensively to clear objectives.

A unit of three Crisis Suits paired up with Markerlights will bring down even large vehicles relatively quickly. Multiple Crisis Suit units also work well together since supporting fire is still around, now called “For the Greater Good.” All those flamer hits from multiple XV8s into a charging unit is extremely powerful and will stop some of the strongest assault units dead in their tracks. Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect. Brutal! I am loving how these guys play, and they will be scattered all across the tables in T’au armies.



Lastly, I want to talk about Sniper Drones. When paired with the T’au HQ’s such as the Cadre Fireblade they will bring down those pesky support characters with deadly efficiency even if they are hiding behind their infantry. The 48″ range on their Sniper weapons, plus their fast movement, means they will be filling those characters with lead (or plasma?) a lot faster than snipers from other factions. They will be a truly deadly force in your army that will strike fear in opposing characters. Have a look at their datasheet, here:



Overall, the T’au will play relatively similarly to how they do now. They will have a lot more tricks up their sleeves and you’ll see a wider variety of units on the board than you currently do. They’ll catch a lot of people off guard with some of their cool special rules and tactical flexibility. Stop resisting and join the Greater Good, today.

Come back on Wednesday for some insights on the insidious Drukhari.

*A few of you might have noticed that the galaxy’s newest empire have gained an apostrophe in their title “T’au” – think of it as a punctuation drone. We still pronounce it the same way though.

Hooray for Crisis Suit changes, I'll use even more of them now. Also, that "Walking Battleship" rule is just MEAN.

Ugh, first they're revealing a new faction of marines that are what marines always should have been, and now they're buffing Tau and adding an apostrophe to their name. Today was not a good day in the world of 8th edition reveals.

Sounds good! But I'm sad there is no mention of auxilary army choices. I want to see a buff to kroot or some hint that they are getting more models and rules. But still very interesting and I am excited

 Luciferian wrote:
Ugh, first they're revealing a new faction of marines that are what marines always should have been, and now they're buffing Tau and adding an apostrophe to their name. Today was not a good day in the world of 8th edition reveals.

How do you know that they're buffing Tau as a whole?

Tbh they sound broken as hell oO. Remains to be seen what how they really do, but they sound like their shooting tripled at least and they can't be locked in melee after an even stronger overwatch than before AND they can freely murder characters if buffmanders are still a thing.
On a sidenote, they have a "Sept" keyword. That's a really really good sign...I hope.

 Verviedi wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
Ugh, first they're revealing a new faction of marines that are what marines always should have been, and now they're buffing Tau and adding an apostrophe to their name. Today was not a good day in the world of 8th edition reveals.

How do you know that they're buffing Tau as a whole?

Battlesuits being able to split fire all of their weapons each phase and fall back from CC with no penalties are pretty brutal buffs.

That is, if they survive CC at all. We don't know enough to start complaining yet. Why would GW address nerfs in their PR docs?

The Sniper drones lose their spotter?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Luciferian wrote:
Battlesuits being able to split fire all of their weapons each phase and fall back from CC with no penalties are pretty brutal buffs.

It looks like JSJ is gone, though, so Battlesuits will be eating more firepower from the enemy rather than jumping behind cover.

The Stormsurge also has the Walking Battleship special rule which allows him to Fall Back from combat and still shoot, while also ignoring the penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons.

Can they just, you know, not?

Because that would be great. Thanks.

As someone who has not played his Tau army in at least 6 months, I'm NOT happy about this. Tau did not need a buff.

I know we are seeing things in a "rules vacuum", but I just cannot see how buffing Tau is a good thing. On a good note, maybe I will finally be able to sell them....

I hate to be negative, but not enough to not do it.

Once again, the mighty T'''''au get to ignore rules at a whim. The "huge" penalty for falling back? Forgotten.

While I think they will be more manageable than before, and we haven't seen their points, which is a critical component, I just feel... uneasy about them in general.

The whole point of a shooting army is that they are vulnerable to getting charged. Not the T'''''au it seems.

Triple MP suits O_O or triple fusion suits!!! Probably will be 100 pts a pop LOL
Though one "nerf" is it seems 1 ML will only reroll 1's...Maybe 2 ML reroll 1s and 2s? HAHA probably not.

8" movement on Drones...

Woah

 Talamare wrote:
8" movement on Drones...

Woah

but 5+ to hit without a spotter is rough.

Ughhhhh, looks like I'll be boycotting games against this stupid army again.

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Ughhhhh, looks like I'll be boycotting games against this stupid army again.

If that is your answer....most likely people don't enjoy playing in your group.

Gotta love when people collapse instantly at anything other than, "Tau were removed from 40k". I've played since 1985's Rogue Trader. Every edition and codex release that adds or changes "standard" game concepts, people throw their hands up.

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Ughhhhh, looks like I'll be boycotting games against this stupid army again.

People thought nerfing summons would bring balance to 40k.

It's just how people thought nerfing Orks was a sign GW was going to make 7th a more balanced game, before they introduced Scatpacks and mass D-weapons for Eldar.

GW doesn't do balance. GW does favoritism.

 Da-Rock wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
8" movement on Drones...

Woah

but 5+ to hit without a spotter is rough.

Aka... no changes?

 Talamare wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:

but 5+ to hit without a spotter is rough.

Aka... no changes?

The change is there's no spotter.

Peregrim wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:

but 5+ to hit without a spotter is rough.

Aka... no changes?

The change is there's no spotter.

He'll still be around.
He'll just be a "separate" unit that makes the sniper drone team(s) better

Sounds like another edition of me refusing to play against Tau armies.

 Traditio wrote:
Sounds like another edition of me refusing to play against Tau armies.

This really is starting to make me feel better about not playing at gaming stores and tournaments.......The Millennial crying would drive me insane! Sounds like a lot of people will be doing other players a real service by not playing them.

I hope tau become more fun to play against, currently even a win is... ell i made it to the gunline time to krump it. if i had played objectives I would have been tabled so i had to charge... hope they make the mobile troops part of tau more pronounced. I would love to see more breachers and fire warriors in devilfish screamin around hitting objectives and not just 2 min units for points or now with better snipers probably just kroot

Well, it simply means I won't leave my power weapons at home when playing against Tau this edition, as I have to kill them in one go and can't hide in CC now.

 Da-Rock wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Sounds like another edition of me refusing to play against Tau armies.

This really is starting to make me feel better about not playing at gaming stores and tournaments.......The Millennial crying would drive me insane! Sounds like a lot of people will be doing other players a real service by not playing them.

meh is it bad to not play a fun game? if you bring a list without a riptide wing and a stormsurge i would gladly play it, but have no desire to face that to wipe out my orks again and again. i have seen tau done fun but they were not particularly strong firblade, fire warriors, c0ot and a few crisis and stealth suits plus a hammer head (good match for orks though, it was a blast ended in a tie)

*add**

i should add the riptide wing/ stormsurge thing I once got tabled top of turn 1 by tau as orks... ie there was literally nothing i could have done. ignored all cover, blew my battlewagons (3) opened up trukks, and decimated everything inside. what was left ran... is it being a whiny millennial to say ... no thanks no desire to repeat. (person sore winner to like saying how bad my army did like I somehow had any answer to what he brought, nothing in my codex could have changed a thing)

Anybody remember that scene from The big Bang Theory where they argue about how to pronounce warlords of ka'a? So do we now have [T] [ow] instead of the one word it used to be?

Jbz` wrote:

Peregrim wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:

but 5+ to hit without a spotter is rough.

Aka... no changes?

The change is there's no spotter.

He'll still be around.
He'll just be a "separate" unit that makes the sniper drone team(s) better

That's an assumption based off a comment that the GW Facebook made.

For all you know, it's that Drone Controllers now make it so that there is a bubble where the Drones within it can use the Controllers' BS provided they don't shoot.


In general, I think it's way too early to declare the sky falling one way or the other.
Crisis Suits being able to retreat from a combat with no penalty might be tied to more than just the "Fly" keyword(notice they didn't say that Sniper Drones could do that, despite having the same "Fly" keyword), but rather a new version of Darkstrider's ability that lets his unit fire Overwatch and then retreat.

 Roknar wrote:
Anybody remember that scene from The big Bang Theory where they argue about how to pronounce warlords of ka'a? So do we now have [T] [ow] instead of the one word it used to be?

The end of the article says that it is still pronounced the same way.

People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

Eh, GW says a lot ^^

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

Have you read the nu-marines war scroll?

Assuming that they have the appropriate points costs that they should have, given their stat line, they're going to be trash tier.

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

you don't get to dictate how other people play with their toy soldiers. personally for me it depends on what army i have on me and what you are running. I use take all comers lists in 3 str(tournament str, middle str and fluff/easy), but if i brought my orks (fav army) I have no interest in a tournament level tau. if i brought my elder or space marines game on cheese gets cheese though if you did not bring a stormsurge i am probably going middle list and no/1 riptide reaching for the fluff lists and will probably have a good time

now on the elder and marine front I also have no desire to put my orks against wraithknights and/ or gladius. though honestly it is more a function of my gakky codex having no answer than wnting to play

So flamers still auto-hit on overwatch. I sure hope it's not D6 auto-hits, that seems like too much. The only good thing is, it looks like you can only overwatch with weapons that have range on your target, so it might not be too bad.

I'm also not a fan of retreating from combat without penalties. At the very least it shouldn't be too common, especially at release. Otherwise I'm afraid we'll soon end up with 7th edition, where many rules are just ignored by a so many units (I'm assuming crisis will still be easy to spam). If it's just a few specific models (like the SS or the coldstar), I can live with it, but if 2/3 of the army get to ignore what is supposed to be a core rule, I think there's a problem.

As for the actual buff, it all depends on point costs and possible counter measures from other armies. We also saw that, at least in some scenarios, we can deploy 18" away from the enemy. So T1 charges are probably going to be common. Massed overwatch and retreat from combat might be needed for shooty armies.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

you don't get to dictate how other people play with their toy soldiers. personally for me it depends on what army i have on me and what you are running. I use take all comers lists in 3 str(tournament str, middle str and fluff/easy), but if i brought my orks (fav army) I have no interest in a tournament level tau. if i brought my elder or space marines game on cheese gets cheese though if you did not bring a stormsurge i am probably going middle list and no/1 riptide reaching for the fluff lists and will probably have a good time

Well I play anyone except cheaters. I would have anyways if my community didn't ban Tau players. Now all I can do is basically seethe in anger at the thought of never getting a game here again because of little gaks who were too afraid or too full of hate to let a Tau newbie run a Kroot list or even talk to him like he wasn't some sort of fething pariah. It seems everyone else gets to dictate the Tau can't play where I am form my perspective.

Hypocritical people piss me off so much.

Banning all of Tau seems a bit extreme.

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

I don't think people ever thought it was a problem with the Tau in your case.

Martel732 wrote:
Banning all of Tau seems a bit extreme.

It's not an official ban, but no Tau player can get games there except one long time regular who has an IG army. Any other who try and get into the community are silently shunned. Very cult like attitude.

Martel732 wrote:
Banning all of Tau seems a bit extreme.

Agreed.

Kroot spam should be allowed.

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect. Brutal

Whut.... why : \

How are they ever going to balance out my orks against this,..

Also Characters are as good as dead vs snipers now.

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

I imagine if Nu-Marines are as unfun to play against as Tau and Eldar can be, then yes.

It's this: against some Tau and Eldar lists, the other player often DOESN'T HAVE A CHANCE! I have never minded being bested by superior players (of which there are many). I don't like losing to rules.

You might be a very fair, not at all dickish Tau player who takes a balanced list and doesn't get up to shenanigans. If you are, I salute you. While I wouldn't flat-out turn down a game based on the faction alone, I would ask what they were bringing, and if the answer seemed unfun I'd pass.

 Traditio wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Banning all of Tau seems a bit extreme.

Agreed.

Kroot spam should be allowed.

Unless the Kroot player is facing White Scars...

I have been trying to decide on what army to start for 8th edition now my nids are pretty much complete/too bloated to really add anything to.
About a week ago I decided on a mechanised infantry Tau over Elysian drop troops (largely due to cost).
I don't want to have picked this army to now see it likely OP but does a mech inf tau list seem like it would perform well enough to be fun.
I battled some mech inf lists in 7th edition and transports are so easy to pop it takes all the manoeuvre out of the army

 Gamgee wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

you don't get to dictate how other people play with their toy soldiers. personally for me it depends on what army i have on me and what you are running. I use take all comers lists in 3 str(tournament str, middle str and fluff/easy), but if i brought my orks (fav army) I have no interest in a tournament level tau. if i brought my elder or space marines game on cheese gets cheese though if you did not bring a stormsurge i am probably going middle list and no/1 riptide reaching for the fluff lists and will probably have a good time

Well I play anyone except cheaters. I would have anyways if my community didn't ban Tau players. Now all I can do is basically seethe in anger at the thought of never getting a game here again because of little gaks who were too afraid or too full of hate to let a Tau newbie run a Kroot list or even talk to him like he wasn't some sort of fething pariah. It seems everyone else gets to dictate the Tau can't play where I am form my perspective.

that just sounds like an awful crowd, kroot list can be quite fun and also get a bottom tier fun list. btu they get the hate on the big stuff for a reason, that is why i always want to know what of the big stuff is there before saying yes or no to a game. hoping gw fixes point costs for riptides and stormsurges in 8th, currently it might nto be so bad if they were point appropriate but gw wanted it seems to push big new plastic kits so they got about a 30% points cut off what should be

People think I act like this in real life? Your crazy. I'm very well spoken and polite in real life. You would never know it was me. Heck I was getting along fine with them at first. Then I mentioned Tau and the silent treatment started and has not stopped a year later. At least the owners are not so bigoted.

Actually the owners don't even want to play the dumb ass 40k community anymore. I don't blame them. I've gone into this enough in the past it should be old hat by now though. The owners sold off all their 40k models.

I can see why. I feel like I need to start a private club of not gak human beings at this point.

 oldzoggy wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect. Brutal

Whut.... why : \

How are they ever going to balance out my orks against this,..

Also Characters are as good as dead vs snipers now.

Just to reiterate:
There was no mention of Sniper Drones being able to do the same thing despite having "Fly".

I made a mention in another thread about how it's very likely we have some rules we're missing and that this is another case of the article having been potentially sanitized or the writer having problems communicating their point across.

All right that seems to be all sorts of offtopic.
Can we go back to being terrified by the new T'au again ?

 oldzoggy wrote:
All right that seems to be all sorts of offtopic.
Can we go back to being terrified by the new T'au again ?

I'm not terrified by the new T'au.

No, no. GW is simply giving us a keyword system for declining or accepting games.

If your opponent's army has the key word "daemons," then go get him!

If your opponent's army has the key words "eldar" or "Tau," then politely decline and go find that daemons player.

I, for one, will say that such keyword systems can be very useful.

 Gamgee wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
People thought I was crazy for not getting a game as Tau at my local store. feth all the gak holes here man. Who will be banned from playing games next? I know lots of whiners follow up Tau with Eldar. Are Nu-Marines next?

you don't get to dictate how other people play with their toy soldiers. personally for me it depends on what army i have on me and what you are running. I use take all comers lists in 3 str(tournament str, middle str and fluff/easy), but if i brought my orks (fav army) I have no interest in a tournament level tau. if i brought my elder or space marines game on cheese gets cheese though if you did not bring a stormsurge i am probably going middle list and no/1 riptide reaching for the fluff lists and will probably have a good time

Well I play anyone except cheaters. I would have anyways if my community didn't ban Tau players. Now all I can do is basically seethe in anger at the thought of never getting a game here again because of little gaks who were too afraid or too full of hate to let a Tau newbie run a Kroot list or even talk to him like he wasn't some sort of fething pariah. It seems everyone else gets to dictate the Tau can't play where I am form my perspective.

Hypocritical people piss me off so much.

The real question is why does your "seething anger" extend to your community instead of at Games Workshop?

Was your gaming community refusing to play against Tau before the 6th edition codex came out?

Anyone else not help notice the implications for other units? "Walking Battleship" is almost assuredly going to be a rule that Imperial Knights and Wraithknights will have.

I was really hoping that "Supporting Fire" was going to be either gone, or something different since units can now Overwatch as many times as they want to. The only was for melee unit to be able to get into combat with T'au is if somehow they can deploy much closer and charge turn 1 with at least 80% of their army.
I hope I am exaggerating, but it does not look good.

On the bright side, maybe JSJ is gone from the game (even from Eldar jetbikes) and only Suits having the "Fly" keyword means that at least Fire Warriors can be "shut down" for a turn if you charge them.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect. Brutal

Whut.... why : \

How are they ever going to balance out my orks against this,..

Also Characters are as good as dead vs snipers now.

Just to reiterate:
There was no mention of Sniper Drones being able to do the same thing despite having "Fly".

I made a mention in another thread about how it's very likely we have some rules we're missing and that this is another case of the article having been potentially sanitized or the writer having problems communicating their point across.

Well some abilities do not need that much context. Suits being able to always hit and run and shoot will have predictable consequences. Gunlines being able to auto hit and run and shoot and chain overwatch isn't that much fun for footslogging melee units.

You are right about the drones, not that I expected the to have the rule. They don't need them to kill characters from the other side of the board ; )


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
Anyone else not help notice the implications for other units? "Walking Battleship" is almost assuredly going to be a rule that Imperial Knights and Wraithknights will have.

I was really hoping that "Supporting Fire" was going to be either gone, or something different since units can now Overwatch as many times as they want to. .

It could be a stratagem

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Galef wrote:

I was really hoping that "Supporting Fire" was going to be either gone, or something different since units can now Overwatch as many times as they want to. .

It could be a stratagem

That's a really good point. Let's hope it is and that it takes a fair few CPs to use. From my understanding, Stratagems can only be done once per turn, so T'au may only get to Supporting fire on a single unit per turn.
If you set up multiple assaults, that's a big nerf to T'au.

-

I do want to say that pulling out like that after drawing in the enemy is one of the tau ways to hunt so is fluffy. I'm not gonna condemn tau just yet, but it's looking pretty grim.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect. Brutal

Whut.... why : \

How are they ever going to balance out my orks against this,..

Also Characters are as good as dead vs snipers now.

Just to reiterate:
There was no mention of Sniper Drones being able to do the same thing despite having "Fly".

I made a mention in another thread about how it's very likely we have some rules we're missing and that this is another case of the article having been potentially sanitized or the writer having problems communicating their point across.

Well some abilities do not need that much context. Suits being able to always hit and run and shoot will have predictable consequences. Gunlines being able to auto hit and run and shoot and chain overwatch isn't that much fun for footslogging melee units.

Who said anything about "gunlines being able to auto hit and run and shoot and chain overwatch"?

Have you read literally nothing about the rules yet?

Warhammer Community: Movement Article wrote:Oh, there was one last thing.

If you’re in combat at the start of your turn, you can Fall Back by moving away from the enemy. You’ll lose the ability to advance, shoot or charge that turn, and crucially, enemies will be able to shoot at you! This does, however, open up a vast range of tactical options for armies like the Astra Militarum, who will now be able to effectively deploy in firing lines, with each row falling back from any assaults in good order (if they survived) while the unit behind them fires at the attackers. It goes both ways though – if you have a dedicated assault unit that specializes in killing infantry (like Warp Talons) your opponent will find it much harder to pin them down in combat with heavily armoured units for the entire game.

We have seen two exceptions to this, so far, in the form of Crisis Suits(which might be getting it to represent the fact that they're Bonded rather than anything else; remember the Bonding Knife eh? Eh?) and Stormsurges.

You are right about the drones, not that I expected the to have the rule. They don't need them to kill characters from the other side of the board ; )

Like I said:
The articles don't give us much to go on. It's a bit much to presume that this is going to be an "all Tau all the time" thing.

 Galef wrote:
Anyone else not help notice the implications for other units? "Walking Battleship" is almost assuredly going to be a rule that Imperial Knights and Wraithknights will have.

I was really hoping that "Supporting Fire" was going to be either gone, or something different since units can now Overwatch as many times as they want to. .

It could be a stratagem

Or it could just be a thing that the infantry can do.
Or tied to a character model.
Etc
Etc.

Eldar are #1 strongest army in 7th edition...

but TAU ARE MID TIER...

Bitching about not wanting to play Tau is like proclaiming loudly to the world that you're bad.

The markerlight changes - they mention one markerlight means re-rolling 1s. Do you think that might mean that you re-roll one score on the D6 per markerlight expended eg 2 markerlights = reroll 1s and 2s? If that's the case, that's a hefty nerf to accuracy. and markerlight spam.

Also, snipers drones losing rending seems like a pretty hefty nerf to a unit which no one used anyway. And it seems precision shots lets you target characters, so no more sniping special weapons etc.

Talamare wrote:but TAU ARE MID TIER...

Relative to what?

Compared to assault marines, devastators and tactical marines without grav or drop pods?

Compared to Leeman Russ spam?

Saying "Tau are mid tier" is perfectly meaningless without a point of comparison.

And if your point of comparison is the rest of the OP garbage in the game, then your point of view is skewed, isn't it?

Tau are very much bullies. They completely table the have-not codices, but can't handle unkillable deathstars like superfriends. Because unkillable. Or FMC spam where the FMCs are also psykers, like Daemons.

No one likes a bully is what is working very much against Tau right now.

As someone who has been bullied by them for two editions now, I can say I'm sick of their gak.

As a Tau player the worst thing about this article was that they said 0 about Auxiliares. In others articles they mentioned things like Ogryns, Rough Riders, Possessed, etc...

No love to my Vespids

They did mention septs though. That's good for tau and possibly other xenos factions too.

Martel732 wrote:
Tau are very much bullies. They completely table the have-not codices, but can't handle unkillable deathstars like superfriends. Because unkillable. Or FMC spam where the FMCs are also psykers, like Daemons.

No one likes a bully is what is working very much against Tau right now.

As someone who has been bullied by them for two editions now, I can say I'm sick of their gak.

I hate to bring in politics, [MOD EDIT - Then don't? RULE #2 is STAY ON TOPIC. - Alpharius]

I have to consider those units, because I play against them constantly. As I said, Tau are bullies. The start to fall apart against the truly potent builds. It's just that many codices don't have truly potent builds and so can't challenge Tau in a meaningful way.

 Galas wrote:
As a Tau player the worst thing about this article was that they said 0 about Auxiliares. In others articles they mentioned things like Ogryns, Rough Riders, Possessed, etc...

No love to my Vespids

Yep I wanted to see this and was sad I didn't. I'm hoping we get some news on them soon

Sweet Jesus, there's so much salt in this thread! We barely know any of the rules or point costs, much less how everything is going to interact, yet many are already wanting to burn the witch. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to a more balanced game overall, and these rules seem pretty cool.

MilkmanAl wrote:
there's so much salt in this thread! We barely know any of the rules or point costs, much less how everything is going to interact, yet many are already wanting to burn the witch. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to a more balanced game overall, and these rules seem pretty cool.

Do you realize that people say this about practically every OP thing every single edition?

First you say: "We don't even know the points costs of wave serpents."

Then you say "I mean, it looks bad, but we haven't seen it on the table."

And then it goes onto the table, and it's exactly as game breaking as the naysayers expected.

Then the cries change from "It's not as bad as it looks" to "ADAPT, SCRUB!"

But then the edition changes.

And then you say: "We don't even know the points costs of those scatterbikes..."

No. Chances are, it's going to be exactly as bad as it looks.

It has been before. It likely will be again.

Although it's too early to tell in full I really dislike the rules so far.
I had hoped my Tau might be more balanced (they still might) as I didn't want to be the owner of 'one of those' armies, but there are some definitely 'bad' looking rules.

Tau are the second most popular army though (marines are first in terms of sales from what I know).

There are some things to consider though counter to the Tau hate.

The formations (or whatever they're called), it might be the tau army has to have 3-4 firewarrior squads an ethereal etc. leaving only minor options for big suits.
Or it could be the big suits cost like twice as much.

I'll wait to pass full judgement but these kinds of rumours don't bode well.

well i have an old tau forces i was considering bringing back, not now.

I feel like you should collect whatever you want to be honest. I have not come across any hostility to tau and I play nids, so I have had plenty of uphill battles with the likes of tau and eldar. They can still be fun games

 Boniface wrote:
Although it's too early to tell in full I really dislike the rules so far.
I had hoped my Tau might be more balanced (they still might) as I didn't want to be the owner of 'one of those' armies, but there are some definitely 'bad' looking rules.

Tau are the second most popular army though (marines are first in terms of sales from what I know).

There are some things to consider though counter to the Tau hate.

The formations (or whatever they're called), it might be the tau army has to have 3-4 firewarrior squads an ethereal etc. leaving only minor options for big suits.
Or it could be the big suits cost like twice as much.

I'll wait to pass full judgement but these kinds of rumours don't bode well.

where are you getting tau as the second most popular army from, not saying they can't be, just curious. I would have though chaos space marines would be after space marines and the top few armies to be different types of space marines. After that my personal thought would be imperial knights, elder, then orks but again that is just observing my meta not actual statistics.

on the topic though I am hoping it is all balanced and I hope they make tau troops and such as mobile as the fluff suggests they should be, hit and run where mobility is as important as firepower, just points being correctly assigned and maybe give up some shooty for more mobility.

I'm not going to have too much problem with this if it's restricted ie limited to what we've seen. As it stands, getting into combat with Tau has little reward as they can just pull back a blast any assaulted to smithereens in next turn and if they survive, have to endure ridiculous overwatch again.
If Tau shenanigans like supporting fire and interceptor are limited by Strategum Points, thats go a long way to balance.

Eg: supporting fire could be that the assaulted unit and one other unit may overwatch. Every unit beyond that first supporting unit can overwatch at the cost of 1sp per unit.

Interceptor stuff could intercept fire at deepstriking and outflanking units at the cost of 1sp per unit. Makes Tau have to think about what and where to spend as opposed to just spamming overwatch and intercept.

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
I'm not going to have too much problem with this if it's restricted ie limited to what we've seen. As it stands, getting into combat with Tau has little reward as they can just pull back a blast any assaulted to smithereens in next turn and if they survive, have to endure ridiculous overwatch again.
If Tau shenanigans like supporting fire and interceptor are limited by Strategum Points, thats go a long way to balance.

Eg: supporting fire could be that the assaulted unit and one other unit may overwatch. Every unit beyond that first supporting unit can overwatch at the cost of 1sp per unit.

Interceptor stuff could intercept fire at deepstriking and outflanking units at the cost of 1sp per unit. Makes Tau have to think about what and where to spend as opposed to just spamming overwatch and intercept.

I'm not confident supporting fire will be so limited, given that the faction focus page described it as a 'second shooting phase'.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Boniface wrote:
Although it's too early to tell in full I really dislike the rules so far.
I had hoped my Tau might be more balanced (they still might) as I didn't want to be the owner of 'one of those' armies, but there are some definitely 'bad' looking rules.

Tau are the second most popular army though (marines are first in terms of sales from what I know).

There are some things to consider though counter to the Tau hate.

The formations (or whatever they're called), it might be the tau army has to have 3-4 firewarrior squads an ethereal etc. leaving only minor options for big suits.
Or it could be the big suits cost like twice as much.

I'll wait to pass full judgement but these kinds of rumours don't bode well.

where are you getting tau as the second most popular army from, not saying they can't be, just curious. I would have though chaos space marines would be after space marines and the top few armies to be different types of space marines. After that my personal thought would be imperial knights, elder, then orks but again that is just observing my meta not actual statistics.

on the topic though I am hoping it is all balanced and I hope they make tau troops and such as mobile as the fluff suggests they should be, hit and run where mobility is as important as firepower, just points being correctly assigned and maybe give up some shooty for more mobility.

I have no idea. Even I don't think they are that high. Last I heard is overall Tau are 5th most popular just a tiny fraction behind orc players in terms of players owning the armies.

Source is this. The data is getting a little old. The Tau might well be the 4th most owned now since it was such a neck and neck contest with orcs.

http://www.totellstories.com/40k/

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Boniface wrote:
Although it's too early to tell in full I really dislike the rules so far.
I had hoped my Tau might be more balanced (they still might) as I didn't want to be the owner of 'one of those' armies, but there are some definitely 'bad' looking rules.

Tau are the second most popular army though (marines are first in terms of sales from what I know).

There are some things to consider though counter to the Tau hate.

The formations (or whatever they're called), it might be the tau army has to have 3-4 firewarrior squads an ethereal etc. leaving only minor options for big suits.
Or it could be the big suits cost like twice as much.

I'll wait to pass full judgement but these kinds of rumours don't bode well.

where are you getting tau as the second most popular army from, not saying they can't be, just curious. I would have though chaos space marines would be after space marines and the top few armies to be different types of space marines. After that my personal thought would be imperial knights, elder, then orks but again that is just observing my meta not actual statistics.

on the topic though I am hoping it is all balanced and I hope they make tau troops and such as mobile as the fluff suggests they should be, hit and run where mobility is as important as firepower, just points being correctly assigned and maybe give up some shooty for more mobility.

I can't find the information about Tau being the second most popular, maybe I heard it or dreamed it.

Well after my initial rage at the retreating while firing crisis suit thing. Catchwords Tau triggered me. Anyways, after the rage died down, I realised that this is is exactly what I described as wanting "hit and run" rule to operate.
I'm probably wrong, but didn't crisis suits have hit and run in 7th?

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Well after my initial rage at the retreating while firing crisis suit thing. Catchwords Tau triggered me. Anyways, after the rage died down, I realised that this is is exactly what I described as wanting "hit and run" rule to operate.
I'm probably wrong, but didn't crisis suits have hit and run in 7th?

They could get it with an upgrade (vectored retro thrusters 5pts).

I guess I can't be that mad either, considering my bikes will probably have something similar as well as a jink save modifier that only reduces BS by -1 since snap shots aren't really a thing anymore.

 Luciferian wrote:
I guess I can't be that mad either, considering my bikes will probably have something similar as well as a jink save modifier that only reduces BS by -1 since snap shots aren't really a thing anymore.

Truthfully, Bikes never should have been made into the gun platforms they've become.

In any regards, saying it again:
I really think this is another example of this particular article writer not expressing himself well. It seems strange that "Fly" gets mentioned as doing this amazing thing for Crisis Suits...but no mention of it doing the same for Sniper Drones.

Boniface wrote:
I can't find the information about Tau being the second most popular, maybe I heard it or dreamed it.

A GW employee said something similar to me once. Something about the Tau being the most popular xenos army, or something to that effect. He emphasized that that was the impression he got selling them locally, and not backed up by official numbers from corporate or anything.

Iirc, it was back when the ghostkeel launched and I commented on the year on the sprue.

Giantwalkingchair wrote:Well after my initial rage at the retreating while firing crisis suit thing. Catchwords Tau triggered me. Anyways, after the rage died down, I realised that this is is exactly what I described as wanting "hit and run" rule to operate.
I'm probably wrong, but didn't crisis suits have hit and run in 7th?

Not base, but it is a support system you can equip them with.

Generally speaking, split fire and that were my top picks for support systems, so I wonder what they're going to do.

I realised the 10 weapons thing on the storm surge is cool and all but it kinda already does it, big gun, SMS, missiles left, missiles right, flamers, 4 missiles (maybe 1 use).

 TheLumberJack wrote:

 Galas wrote:
As a Tau player the worst thing about this article was that they said 0 about Auxiliares. In others articles they mentioned things like Ogryns, Rough Riders, Possessed, etc...

No love to my Vespids

Yep I wanted to see this and was sad I didn't. I'm hoping we get some news on them soon

What a shock that the tournament heavy writers of the articles don't touch on things that don't touch tables in tournaments.

The only thing said about Ogryns and Rough Riders was effectively "wouldn't it be great if they didn't suck?".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Boniface wrote:
I realised the 10 weapons thing on the storm surge is cool and all but it kinda already does it, big gun, SMS, missiles left, missiles right, flamers, 4 missiles (maybe 1 use).

It's the fact that they've gone from twin-linked to individual systems for most.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I really think this is another example of this particular article writer not expressing himself well. It seems strange that "Fly" gets mentioned as doing this amazing thing for Crisis Suits...but no mention of it doing the same for Sniper Drones.

Yeah, frankly the only thing those units had in common before was that they were both jetpack infantry. If that's what confers 'Fly' you're going to see it everywhere, including stealth suits, drones, and units from other armies (maybe even jump pack infantry as well.)

 Captain Joystick wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
I really think this is another example of this particular article writer not expressing himself well. It seems strange that "Fly" gets mentioned as doing this amazing thing for Crisis Suits...but no mention of it doing the same for Sniper Drones.

Yeah, frankly the only thing those units had in common before was that they were both jetpack infantry. If that's what confers 'Fly' you're going to see it everywhere, including stealth suits, drones, and units from other armies (maybe even jump pack infantry as well.)

Yup.

It's why I think that it is tied to an actual rule on the Crisis Suits, like the "Walking Battleship" rule for the Stormsurge.

 Robin5t wrote:

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
I'm not going to have too much problem with this if it's restricted ie limited to what we've seen. As it stands, getting into combat with Tau has little reward as they can just pull back a blast any assaulted to smithereens in next turn and if they survive, have to endure ridiculous overwatch again.
If Tau shenanigans like supporting fire and interceptor are limited by Strategum Points, thats go a long way to balance.

Eg: supporting fire could be that the assaulted unit and one other unit may overwatch. Every unit beyond that first supporting unit can overwatch at the cost of 1sp per unit.

Interceptor stuff could intercept fire at deepstriking and outflanking units at the cost of 1sp per unit. Makes Tau have to think about what and where to spend as opposed to just spamming overwatch and intercept.

I'm not confident supporting fire will be so limited, given that the faction focus page described it as a 'second shooting phase'.

Let me dream...

Ohhhh I see, so the "blood for the blood god" rule us going to be a second assault phase against units trying to retreat

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect.

So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect.

So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

It is still a penalty to shooting armies. Just not T'au

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect.

So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

What was the shooting penalty again?

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect.

So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

Oh, it certainly will be... for fairer armies like IG. The article has only discussed/hinted at buffs for Tau. They didn't say anything like "Oh yeah, 2++ rerollable was pretty bad after all, so we're going to scrap some stuff before making new stuff." Tau Focus was not that at all. Tau Focus was "Yep, Tau were pretty strong. Anyways, we're giving Tau these powerful new abilities, too! Isn't it beautiful?!?1?" They didn't even say anything like "Tau can shoot after falling back, but at BS 1/with penalty to BS." On units with many weapons more than they had previously. And they're certainly not the only units in the army who will invalidate the disadvantage to falling back.

Oh GW, I do wonder if Tau are still going to be the best at shooting. I really do wonder. I had confidence up till now that 8th would be a great deal more balanced than 7th. Now my confidence has been severely shaken.

Giantwalkingchair wrote:Ohhhh I see, so the "blood for the blood god" rule us going to be a second assault phase against units trying to retreat

Sounds good to me. Fluffy and gives Khorne Berserkers something unique and nasty.

Luke_Prowler wrote:So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

 Luciferian wrote:

It is still a penalty to shooting armies. Just not T'au

To reiterate: if it's Fly that allows you to shoot without penalty after falling back then it's going to be spread a lot wider than just crisis suits, and since it's called 'fly' and not 'vectored retro-thrusters' it's a safe bet it's not going to be limited to Tau.

Crisis suits are big expensive special weapons platforms. If you're scared you should be scared of a drone blob being able to do this.

Well I suppose cross your fingers that when the Tau armies start wiping the field out, they'll release their 'general handbook' mk2 and nerf them a bit.
I mean until we get all of the rules plus all the army rules we cant really make any final decisions on balance.
I am happy to wait out and see what happens, my nids can't go anywhere but up...hopefully

I bet Dark Eldar will have lots of fly.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect.

So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

Probably in the same place where all those people saying that shooting will wipe the board.

Seriously. I'm going to say it again and again and again I think, but:

We're not getting the full picture here. Literally NO mention of the same benefit for the Sniper Drones who have the "Fly" keyword. No mention of it when "Fly" has been mentioned elsewhere either. This is not a great article as it goes from being hyperdetailed(the "Walking Battleship" bit for the Stormsurge is exceedingly detailed, for example) to vague.

The bit about Crisis Suits is very likely a rule tied to Crisis Suits, not every single Tau/Guard/whatever army models.
And quite frankly?

If you charge the Crisis Suits with the appropriate unit to begin with, you're likely going to kill one or two suits.
If they Fall Back?
They're still taking a Morale test, which can potentially remove another Crisis Suit.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Oh, and did I forget to mention they have the Fly keyword? This allows them to Fall Back from combat and still shoot at full effect.

So where are all those people saying that Fall Back is still a penalty to shooting armies? Because I'd like to share a few keywords of my own to them

Probably in the same place where all those people saying that shooting will wipe the board.

Seriously. I'm going to say it again and again and again I think, but:

We're not getting the full picture here. Literally NO mention of the same benefit for the Sniper Drones who have the "Fly" keyword. No mention of it when "Fly" has been mentioned elsewhere either. This is not a great article as it goes from being hyperdetailed(the "Walking Battleship" bit for the Stormsurge is exceedingly detailed, for example) to vague.

The bit about Crisis Suits is very likely a rule tied to Crisis Suits, not every single Tau/Guard/whatever army models.
And quite frankly?

If you charge the Crisis Suits with the appropriate unit to begin with, you're likely going to kill one or two suits.
If they Fall Back?
They're still taking a Morale test, which can potentially remove another Crisis Suit.

This is what I had to point out about the fallback ability - any Tau unit that gets charged is taking wounds, (and if it doesn't then the opponent should probably play a different game.....like my little pony). Most likely what we will see is one or two units who survive combat will retreat and fire.....then completely die to another assault.

 Da-Rock wrote:
This is what I had to point out about the fallback ability - any Tau unit that gets charged is taking wounds, (and if it doesn't then the opponent should probably play a different game.....like my little pony). Most likely what we will see is one or two units who survive combat will retreat and fire.....then completely die to another assault.

I wouldn't bother wasting time defending the Tau in this thread. All these players are jaded by riptide spam and are ignoring the fact that their armies could get lots of cool abilities. We also haven't seen point costs - maybe Tau stuff is all 20% more expensive (not so powerful now then is it).

Just play a balanced list and players can't make excuses.

I'll believe ba getting something from gw other than the finger when i see it. Until i see the full rules, i'm assuming tau shooting is still brokenly good vs most lists.

Tau can now perform Kauyon maneuvers more easily and more effectively. Crisis suits and everything else with the Fly keyword (yes, Kanluwen, we know your stance on that, no need to repeat it for the 17th time), IF they survive CQC, can escape and put their firepower into the enemy turn after turn.

IF they survive.

But there doesn't appear to be the assault 2d6 move any more (certainly not for the Sniper Drone, which used to have it), and that means that Crisis Suits can no longer hide behind terrain after shooting or run away from enemy assaulting units.

So Crisis Suits, and their other jet pack brethren, are now EASIER to catch (and we all know what happens when Tau get caught in CQC, right? They die by the dozens), but harder to hold.

Sounds like a sidegrade, rather than an upgrade.

My apologies, though, the salt mining and explicit word denial can now resume again.

If they took away the jet pack move, this is fine. It encourages the use of melee upgrades so you can cut the Xeno scum apart and not allow them to escape. Plus, the battle shock!

Which I suspect will matter. Tau already have some morale-mitigation stuff - I'll bet they'll need to use it.

Well, BA are gonna shoot them with hand flamers and infernus pistols and then charge and they take shock from all those wounds.

That's gonna hurt. And the meltas on your ASMs might still one-shot Crisis Suits, unless they have better than W6 (doubt it. Ghostkeel/Riptide yes, but not Crisis).

I just hope it's not quite the annoyingly un-fun matchup that BA vs Tau is now: Tau flatten BA until they get there, then the sides are reversed. Can has more strategy and tactics, please?

I'd love it to be even enough that it comes down to player skill, or at worst specific unit matchups, not the kind of "do I get the turn 1 charge? Yes? Win. No? Lose." that it is now.

I think it will be better. Tau will have to actually pay attention to pred annihilators. 4 lascannon shots. And Baals: 8 assault cannons shots, 6 heavy bolter shots.

A few points,
1.) marker lights got it straight in the keister, rerolling 1's is less awesome than a +1 to BS.
2.) The storm surges fire power got cut in half
3.) many of the Taus cool guns were templates, and those caught a nerf.
4.) move shoot move appears to be been replaced by the ability to get out of CC and still shoot.

So yeah, a mixed bag, which is what one would expect from a top army in the prior edition, especially one as prone to abuse and unfun to play as the tau. Yes they can shoot after getting out of CC, but since 8th ed appears to be first turn charge-friendly, there is really no other option for them. It would be an auto-loss for Tau if you could permanently tie them up from turn 1 without them getting to shoot back.

Also, it's fine if the Tau have cool stuff as long as it's priced appropriately Ideally I want every faction to have some cool things, as that makes games much more interesting.

 Grimgold wrote:
A few points,
1.) marker lights got it straight in the keister, rerolling 1's is less awesome than a +1 to BS.
2.) The storm surges fire power got cut in half
3.) many of the Taus cool guns were templates, and those caught a nerf.
4.) move shoot move appears to be been replaced by the ability to get out of CC and still shoot.

So yeah, a mixed bag, which is what one would expect from a top army in the prior edition, especially one as prone to abuse and unfun to play as the tau. Yes they can shoot after getting out of CC, but since 8th ed appears to be first turn charge-friendly, there is really no other option for them. It would be an auto-loss for Tau if you could permanently tie them up from turn 1 without them getting to shoot back.

Also, it's fine if the Tau have cool stuff as long as it's priced appropriately Ideally I want every faction to have some cool things, as that makes games much more interesting.

These are all fair points

I also think GW is being very strategic in what rules they are letting us see. They probably think that the build up to how melee will really work is going to really pull in new players.
It's a dangerous game as they have to keep showing enough variation to please the most people without tipping their hand.

On a slightly unrelated note (but still kinda relavant): Violin Ork -when did Dakka get this Orkmoticon? It's awesome! as is this one: Salt Ork

-

I love the salt one, going to have to use that. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if certain melee units get parting shots at enemies leaving CC. Maybe that's the big reveal behind what makes Khorne berserkers so cool, leave and let them get an unanswered parting shot and then charge you again on their next turn, or stay in the meat grinder.

I just realized the sniper drone profile doesn't mention the drone controller at all!

Meaning they're not leashed to stumbling, bumbling, pathfinder dropout and his tripod...

If commanders can still take drone controllers as equipment they'd be down right terrifying.

I bet parting shots will be more of a Blood Angel thing, actually - think about things like ASMs with special weapons, or Sanguinary Guard with their Angelus Bolters. Khorne Berserkers might have some way to run down a fleeing unit and re-engage them, or maybe engage someone else.

Purely spitballing, of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Captain Joystick wrote:
I just realized the sniper drone profile doesn't mention the drone controller at all!

Meaning they're not leashed to stumbling, bumbling, pathfinder dropout and his tripod...

If commanders can still take drone controllers as equipment they'd be down right terrifying.

Though, if there's no drone controller, sniper drones just went from BS5 to BS2, which is a rather substantial nerf especially when they also lost the Rending/Bladestorm equivalent that sniper weapons have in 7e. 48" range is nice but not that much longer than Ratlings, Scouts or Rangers. (Rapid-fire is somewhat more significant, however)

jade_angel wrote:
Though, if there's no drone controller, sniper drones just went from BS5 to BS2, which is a rather substantial nerf especially when they also lost the Rending/Bladestorm equivalent that sniper weapons have in 7e. 48" range is nice but not that much longer than Ratlings, Scouts or Rangers. (Rapid-fire is somewhat more significant, however)

Yeah, absolutely.

Which is why if I can somehow get Drone Controller back... like say, with a nearby crisis commander with a drone controller equipment piece that say, lets me confer her ballistic skill to one or all nearby units of drones (if I don't shoot or something? I dunno)...

That'd be great!

 gossipmeng wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:
This is what I had to point out about the fallback ability - any Tau unit that gets charged is taking wounds, (and if it doesn't then the opponent should probably play a different game.....like my little pony). Most likely what we will see is one or two units who survive combat will retreat and fire.....then completely die to another assault.

I wouldn't bother wasting time defending the Tau in this thread. All these players are jaded by riptide spam and are ignoring the fact that their armies could get lots of cool abilities. We also haven't seen point costs - maybe Tau stuff is all 20% more expensive (not so powerful now then is it).

Just play a balanced list and players can't make excuses.

That's what I'm still hoping for. People are claiming that points will be released at the back of books like current profiles to make it easier to change them, one can only hope that means we're starting 8th with a complete rewrite on points values with the acknowledgement that they might be way off the mark.

That's a big and blunt claim.
Is one of these orky smiley faces a skeptic?

 Traditio wrote:
Chances are, it's going to be exactly as bad as it looks.

It has been before. It likely will be again.

You haven't even seen 10% of the full rules content for the army, nor have you seen the full rules for 8th edition. You don't even know all the rules for your own army yet or what it can do.

You're making assumptions based on 7e power levels and 7e rules. You can't do that when 40k is getting its first massive shake-up since 3rd edition and nothing will be like we know it now. The reason why in past editions we could reasonably guess how good or bad things would be is because we didn't see these kind of massive changes before. Jetbikes were good before, but scatbikes became the new broken thing simply because they could all have scatter lasers, and people could reasonably predict they would be stupidly broken assuming that nothing else changed because of what scatter lasers do, it basically all hinged on their point cost. Same with all the other Craftworlds rumors...the wraithknight was already giving people trouble, hearing that it gets strictly BETTER without getting a point cost increase to go with it gives people good enough reason to be afraid. Getting BS4 army-wide was scary when the army's shooting was already oppressive. Etc. The core rules themselves barely ever changed from 3rd to 7th, either, just little tweaks here and there to shake up the meta every few years to shift sales of models. That's why vehicles keep going from being good in one edition, to bad in the next, to good again, then bad again, etc.

And even then, I can tell you from experience that the community has been wrong before, and that there are tons of Chicken Littles who freak out about gak and over-exaggerate the power or impact of a rule or a new unit, only for it to be completely underwhelming when they actually get to play with it. Case in point, when 5th was on the way and we learned that troops were the only units that were scoring, everyone freaked out about it and started predicting that the "winning lists" in 5th edition would be mass troop spam, and started suggesting ridiculous armies that basically spent all their points maxing out troop units with a sprinkling of other things for support. Guess what didn't end up dominating the competitive scene? Lists with 72 fire warriors in them, or 60-80 Marines, etc. The 5th edition Tyranid codex is also a good example. I remember everyone crying about how "OP" that book was when it dropped (the Doom of Malan'tai in particular seemed to cause lots of frothing rage because it could potentially hurt dudes in transports and be DSed onto the table), and after a couple of months and a particularly punishing FAQ that might as well have said "Wanna do something fun with this book? Forget about it.", they were basically reduced to tervigon and/or hive guard spam because that's pretty much the only thing that "worked" and then suddenly everyone changed their tune and started lamenting the poor hammering they'd just gotten. Worst thing was you couldn't even get "official" models for your tervigon spam lists until like two years later because of the Chapterhouse thing.

Anything goes now. We don't know what scatter lasers are going to do anymore, we don't know how powerful they'll be, or how much they'll cost (and I don't see why it's crazy to assume that weapons will be re-costed, we've already seen the melta go from a 10 point upgrade for a Marine up to a whopping 27 points, why does everyone think this will literally be the only change and everything else will remain at 7e prices and power?), we also don't know what an Eldar jetbike's stat line and special rules are going to be, how much a bike itself will cost, what the max unit size will be...we basically don't know ANYTHING important, anything you could use to reasonably judge the power level of them in the new edition. You're just assuming scatbikes will be bullgak because they are now. Likewise with Tau.

You're also ignoring the fact that Tau have only been a top tier army for 2 editions. They were a mid to low-tier army for three editions before that. Tau haven't "always been" overpowered, unless you count those idiots who call everything "OP" because they don't like playing against it, regardless of how balanced it actually is or isn't (Hell, tons of people playing this game are immature and just call your army "OP" because it beat them, even if it's a trash tier army like Orks). Very few armies in 40k have been consistently "OP", usually things tend to swing a lot. I'd say odds are pretty damn good they're going to get reigned in, along with Eldar, which seems to be the whole point of this new edition. GW listened to the community, they're aware that balance is incredibly skewed and that this is pretty much the number one complaint about the game and what's keeping most people away from it (second to their prices, which will never change). They've allegedly done more playtesting for this edition than they've ever done for an edition of 40k, and I find it hard to believe that after all that, even with input from the FLG guys (Reece and Frankie both seem to think Tau needed toning down, based on past comments and videos), they would honestly see fit to give Tau buffs of all things, without addressing any of the problems that they will likely be well aware of by now. Doesn't make any sense. And if it was just blatant favoritism then I think we would see Space Marines being hands down the most powerful army in the game, since we hear time and again that Space Marines have consistently been GW's best-selling product line ever.

And even if for some reason you're right, and your assessment of the army based on one or two literal scraps of information featured in an obvious puff piece meant to make the army sound as awesome and "brutal" as possible (just like every single other faction focus they've done so far, tells you basically nothing of any real use and is basically just one guy insisting everything will be great) just happens to be right, GW have already confirmed the game will get annual revisions and rules will be changed and re-balanced as necessary. Even if the new Tau come out and end up being just as bad as they are now (which I really don't think they will be), you will at most have to put up with it for a year. Much better than the current situation.

As for how "popular" Tau are, no one really knows. The only thing we know for certain is that Space Marines are GW's best-selling army, based on an ancient quote from Jervis Johnson exclaiming that they could be mistaken as a front for drugs, and even then we're mainly just assuming that they're telling the truth because everyone sure does seem to love their Space Marines, so it makes sense. As far as I know though GW has never given us any real data we can use to determine what sells and what doesn't, all we really have are our eyes for that. Like when GW recalled boxes of Dreadfleet presumably to be destroyed because the game was a big flop, or when the "limited edition" of Escape from Goblin Town was still regularly available fething years after it was first released, or the fact that Sisters of Battle seem to have this big fan following and there are people practically begging GW for a proper update or revamp for the line, yet have been trapped in limbo with no new model releases for almost 20 years (and even then they just got the new Celestine and a random Finecast model), barely receiving "get-you-by" rules updates and living on the edge of being Squatted, because the army doesn't sell and is mainly only being kept around because they have friends in the studio, supposedly. I think it's obvious Tau are a popular army, though, even if we can't exactly "rank" how popular they are compared to the others based on hard evidence. Tau have been consistently updated since their introduction, only missing an update in 5th edition which was pretty unkind to xenos in general (except Dark Eldar and Necrons, though even DE started to suffer towards the end and have only gone downhill since then). Considering how conservative and risk-averse GW has typically been, it's safe to assume they wouldn't waste their time, money, and effort updating an army to that extent if it didn't sell. Their Start Collecting box has also consistently been on the best sellers tab on their website since it was introduced, for what that's worth. They also get a ton of love from Forge World that most other armies don't get, and are soon to be included in another IA book. The only thing we know about GW for a fact is that they don't tend to throw good money after bad.

Holy gak I talk a lot.

Just this. A thousand times this. We don't know nearly enough information yet about the rules nor the other races to jump to wild accusation

Rather than assuming Tau are still the awesomeness they currently are or anything else I hope, based on the announcement, there are some changes to markers (a big point of contention).
I wouldn't mind seeing the options be increase bs by 1 per marker and/or (as hinted at) each marker allows rereolls of 1s, 2s etc. depending on markers expended.
Cover alterations 1 marker for 1 point of cover.
Morale alterations (possibly like old markers).

I also would like to see the railgun become more formidable similarly to a lascannon I want more hammerheads.

I would like the riptide to be similar to now but more appropriately costed etc.

I have high hopes for Tau in 8th.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Chances are, it's going to be exactly as bad as it looks.

It has been before. It likely will be again.

You haven't even seen 10% of the full rules content for the army, nor have you seen the full rules for 8th edition. You don't even know all the rules for your own army yet or what it can do.

You're making assumptions based on 7e power levels and 7e rules. You can't do that when 40k is getting its first massive shake-up since 3rd edition and nothing will be like we know it now. The reason why in past editions we could reasonably guess how good or bad things would be is because we didn't see these kind of massive changes before. Jetbikes were good before, but scatbikes became the new broken thing simply because they could all have scatter lasers, and people could reasonably predict they would be stupidly broken assuming that nothing else changed because of what scatter lasers do, it basically all hinged on their point cost. Same with all the other Craftworlds rumors...the wraithknight was already giving people trouble, hearing that it gets strictly BETTER without getting a point cost increase to go with it gives people good enough reason to be afraid. Getting BS4 army-wide was scary when the army's shooting was already oppressive. Etc. The core rules themselves barely ever changed from 3rd to 7th, either, just little tweaks here and there to shake up the meta every few years to shift sales of models. That's why vehicles keep going from being good in one edition, to bad in the next, to good again, then bad again, etc.

And even then, I can tell you from experience that the community has been wrong before, and that there are tons of Chicken Littles who freak out about gak and over-exaggerate the power or impact of a rule or a new unit, only for it to be completely underwhelming when they actually get to play with it. Case in point, when 5th was on the way and we learned that troops were the only units that were scoring, everyone freaked out about it and started predicting that the "winning lists" in 5th edition would be mass troop spam, and started suggesting ridiculous armies that basically spent all their points maxing out troop units with a sprinkling of other things for support. Guess what didn't end up dominating the competitive scene? Lists with 72 fire warriors in them, or 60-80 Marines, etc. The 5th edition Tyranid codex is also a good example. I remember everyone crying about how "OP" that book was when it dropped (the Doom of Malan'tai in particular seemed to cause lots of frothing rage because it could potentially hurt dudes in transports and be DSed onto the table), and after a couple of months and a particularly punishing FAQ that might as well have said "Wanna do something fun with this book? Forget about it.", they were basically reduced to tervigon and/or hive guard spam because that's pretty much the only thing that "worked" and then suddenly everyone changed their tune and started lamenting the poor hammering they'd just gotten. Worst thing was you couldn't even get "official" models for your tervigon spam lists until like two years later because of the Chapterhouse thing.

Anything goes now. We don't know what scatter lasers are going to do anymore, we don't know how powerful they'll be, or how much they'll cost (and I don't see why it's crazy to assume that weapons will be re-costed, we've already seen the melta go from a 10 point upgrade for a Marine up to a whopping 27 points, why does everyone think this will literally be the only change and everything else will remain at 7e prices and power?), we also don't know what an Eldar jetbike's stat line and special rules are going to be, how much a bike itself will cost, what the max unit size will be...we basically don't know ANYTHING important, anything you could use to reasonably judge the power level of them in the new edition. You're just assuming scatbikes will be bullgak because they are now. Likewise with Tau.

You're also ignoring the fact that Tau have only been a top tier army for 2 editions. They were a mid to low-tier army for three editions before that. Tau haven't "always been" overpowered, unless you count those idiots who call everything "OP" because they don't like playing against it, regardless of how balanced it actually is or isn't (Hell, tons of people playing this game are immature and just call your army "OP" because it beat them, even if it's a trash tier army like Orks). Very few armies in 40k have been consistently "OP", usually things tend to swing a lot. I'd say odds are pretty damn good they're going to get reigned in, along with Eldar, which seems to be the whole point of this new edition. GW listened to the community, they're aware that balance is incredibly skewed and that this is pretty much the number one complaint about the game and what's keeping most people away from it (second to their prices, which will never change). They've allegedly done more playtesting for this edition than they've ever done for an edition of 40k, and I find it hard to believe that after all that, even with input from the FLG guys (Reece and Frankie both seem to think Tau needed toning down, based on past comments and videos), they would honestly see fit to give Tau buffs of all things, without addressing any of the problems that they will likely be well aware of by now. Doesn't make any sense. And if it was just blatant favoritism then I think we would see Space Marines being hands down the most powerful army in the game, since we hear time and again that Space Marines have consistently been GW's best-selling product line ever.

And even if for some reason you're right, and your assessment of the army based on one or two literal scraps of information featured in an obvious puff piece meant to make the army sound as awesome and "brutal" as possible (just like every single other faction focus they've done so far, tells you basically nothing of any real use and is basically just one guy insisting everything will be great) just happens to be right, GW have already confirmed the game will get annual revisions and rules will be changed and re-balanced as necessary. Even if the new Tau come out and end up being just as bad as they are now (which I really don't think they will be), you will at most have to put up with it for a year. Much better than the current situation.

As for how "popular" Tau are, no one really knows. The only thing we know for certain is that Space Marines are GW's best-selling army, based on an ancient quote from Jervis Johnson exclaiming that they could be mistaken as a front for drugs, and even then we're mainly just assuming that they're telling the truth because everyone sure does seem to love their Space Marines, so it makes sense. As far as I know though GW has never given us any real data we can use to determine what sells and what doesn't, all we really have are our eyes for that. Like when GW recalled boxes of Dreadfleet presumably to be destroyed because the game was a big flop, or when the "limited edition" of Escape from Goblin Town was still regularly available fething years after it was first released, or the fact that Sisters of Battle seem to have this big fan following and there are people practically begging GW for a proper update or revamp for the line, yet have been trapped in limbo with no new model releases for almost 20 years (and even then they just got the new Celestine and a random Finecast model), barely receiving "get-you-by" rules updates and living on the edge of being Squatted, because the army doesn't sell and is mainly only being kept around because they have friends in the studio, supposedly. I think it's obvious Tau are a popular army, though, even if we can't exactly "rank" how popular they are compared to the others based on hard evidence. Tau have been consistently updated since their introduction, only missing an update in 5th edition which was pretty unkind to xenos in general (except Dark Eldar and Necrons, though even DE started to suffer towards the end and have only gone downhill since then). Considering how conservative and risk-averse GW has typically been, it's safe to assume they wouldn't waste their time, money, and effort updating an army to that extent if it didn't sell. Their Start Collecting box has also consistently been on the best sellers tab on their website since it was introduced, for what that's worth. They also get a ton of love from Forge World that most other armies don't get, and are soon to be included in another IA book. The only thing we know about GW for a fact is that they don't tend to throw good money after bad.

Holy gak I talk a lot.

Have an exalt!

When someone called Tau a mid-tier army, someone else had the presence of mind to ask "relative to what?" a reasonable question. It is all relative. Why aren't people doing this now? We know almost nothing of the entire T'au faction, we know almost nothing of any other faction they will be going up against, and we don't even know the full rules of 8th edition yet. So it's literally impossible to compare the still mostly unknown 8th T'au against the mostly unknown everything else.

Here's a few things we do know:

-units can assault out of ordinary transports now
-monstrous creatures and vehicles will weaken as they take wounds
-mortal wounds ignore all saves, including invulnerable
-heavier weapons like melta and lascannons will be able to cause multiple wounds per hit
-GW is trying to beef up assault units like khorne berzerkers, howling banshees and assault marines etc
-JSJ has been removed (already the movement stat on drones is going to be slower than the, on average, 13" movement they had in 7th)

Most of these things are indirect hits to the T'au.

However it doesn't stop there. These faction focus articles are hype pieces designed to pump up the player base of whatever particular faction they are writing about. You know, the people who actually buy those particular models. So they focus on the good and not the nerfs. Those astute, however, will have noticed something at the beginning of most of these articles-a rundown of how the army currently plays in 7th. Importantly, they acknowledge the overpowered stuff, such as wraithknights, riptide wings, psychic stars etc. A subtle way of informing the player base that they are aware of the broken stuff, which almost certainly means they are going to balance them accordingly.

Maybe I'm way off base with this, but we haven't seen a franchise wide shake-up like this in 40k since the transition from 2nd and 3rd. Perhaps we should wait and see what 8th will bring before we claim the sky is falling.