So get this. I had a space marine player i was playing against today tell me on turn 1 after only i took my first turn that dark eldar were 'broken'. The thought amused me considering in 7th dark eldar had to fight tooth and nail to manage a victory and against some armies like tau it was almost impossible for the dark eldar player to win unless they played godly and took absolutely all the right units. I kid you not one tau player i know tabled a guy having maybe lost a couple models or a couple wounds in 7th and another saying they could table anybody in 3 turns with tau.
Apparently being able to shoot 30 poisoned shots (shardcarbines) with a 140 pts unit that can move 14" base and advance d6" at the cost of -1 BS is broken. They have a 4+/6++ with a 6+ feel no pain starting on turn one. In a straight out fight they'd lose to marines i think but the difference is movement. Honestly i think what it shows is that jump packs with guns are actually really effective in this 8th esp. if they're heavy or assault based.
It's funny because we both have about 3 or so games of 8th under our belt so this is a rather interesting thing to announce that dark eldar are now broken. I mean maybe they are but i've only really played against mechanicus (an absolute newbie) and space marines (an 'old guard' player from way back) and beat them both.
I can't help but not feel sorry at all for OP armies in 7th complaining that they suck now because we completely switched power levels only they were much, much worse. Honestly in my game vs the marines player yes i did win and he had a couple alright strategies which i also used against him. It was actually a really close game. He gave up when all he had was one marine and one predator left (both in melee). I still had 2 incubi, a raider with dark lance, 2 dark lance ravagers (one mostly full health and the other with half), my archon (honestly forgot about him), my void raven (down to 1/3 or 1/4 health left and no ammo) and like 2 reavers left. Keep in mind i play pure dark eldar and this was a 1600 pts game where i had a lot of scourge which are really good now and a couple ravagers which are also really good with dark lances.
If i had to honestly say most of this came down to army composition, not knowing 8th well enough and pure luck. My luck was really good first turn and his luck in general all game long was garbage. I'm sorry if you think my faction is OP because your luck is garbage when you statistically should roll better than you are. In fact i've only heard of one guy in the whole store using primaris marines on the field so maybe those are good. I have no idea.
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Far as other stories go i've heard a necrons player saying necrons suck now or at least they didn't like 8th. Honestly i'd feel worse but i really, really don't because overall the power level has changed hands and i was there the whole time i heard a smug tau player act smugly about his tau. Honestly i think it's time they know what it feels like.
Anyway in other news space marines are getting a new codex in a month. Like i'm sure it won't be absolutely broken *rolls eyes* (we all know GW gets too much money on marines to let them suck for long).
I wouldn't call what anyone has so far. "broken"; yes some armies have some powerful options available to them but nothing game breakingly broken.
I have noticed the shift in power too but I don't believe it to be a reversal. Rather a dramatic leveling of the playing field across the board. In 7th, I had to fight tooth and nail against pretty much everything I went up against with Sisters and would flat out refuse to play some armies as it would be an utter waste of time to even put the models on the table.
Now, in 8th, it feels like everyone is on a much more equal footing. I can throw my Sisters on the table and know that I'm going to get a fun, interesting game that can go one way or the other. It's not a foregone conclusion. I love it!
A lot of the old top dogs are just reeling from the change. They're not the OP flavours they used to be or get the free shinies for no reason other than GW wanted to sell models.
This of course is only temporary as codex are incoming.
Personally hope that this equal footing feeling remains when the new dex' drop. The last thing I want is a return to 7th ed codex power creep.
1. The "pendulum" is a thing. In the past, it hasn't been uncommon for really good options to become really meh and vice versa. Which makes sense, right? If a unit is notoriously good, and you want to tone it down, the potential is always there to tone it down a bit too much. Similarly, trying to buff a bad option to make it worthwhile introduces an opportunity to accidentally make that option too good. For those more conspiratorially-minded, there's also the theory that a certain game company has a tendency of inetntionally making certain units really good for an edition to bolster sales before intentionally making them less desirable and boosting some other option instead. See: D-strength wraith guard and scatbikes after those new kits came out. Though as a counterpoint to such theories: malenceptors.
2. 8th is a different ball game. Players that aren't especially conscious of this fact can easily fall prey to tactics that wouldn't have worked in a previous edition. "My scatbikes were awesome in 7th, and now they can't even take down this stupid rhino. Vehicles OP!" Part of a new edition is learning the new tactic for dealing with things. The fact that we got new rules for every army in the game all at once also means it's trickier to digest and prepare for things at this point in time.
3. For the record, I kind of think dark eldar might have gotten a tiny bit nerfed this edition... Though I'm probably in the minority here. Vehicles became a much bigger deal, but most of our anti-tank guns got minorly nerfed in my eyes. Splinter cannons on venoms only hit as hard as they used to if you're within 18" instead of the old 36". We no longer swing first against 90% of our enemies by virtue of a high initiative stat. Similarly, we can no longer potentially sweep an enemy unit. Etc. I like how 8th edition dark eldar play so far, but I think we basically just broke even on the power curb rather than getting dramatically better.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So get this. I had a space marine player i was playing against today tell me on turn 1 after only i took my first turn that dark eldar were 'broken'. The thought amused me considering in 7th dark eldar had to fight tooth and nail to manage a victory and against some armies like tau it was almost impossible for the dark eldar player to win unless they played godly and took absolutely all the right units. I kid you not one tau player i know tabled a guy having maybe lost a couple models or a couple wounds in 7th and another saying they could table anybody in 3 turns with tau.
Your suspicions are so far confirmed. Out of a thread about win/loss reports by Dakkanoughts, we've collected some data. Out of every army with 40 or more reported battles, here is a list of the number of wins each army had per loss so far:
Selym wrote: Time for another W/L ratio, this time of any army with more than 40 games :
1) Astra Militarium - 1.889
2) Space Wolves - 1.643
3) Dark Eldar - 1.471
4) Eldar - 1.192
5) Tyranids - 1.061
6) Necrons - 1
7) Space Marines - 0.743
8) Chaos Space Marines - 0.714
9) Orks - 0.566
10) Tau - 0.429
Tau and Orks are a clear bottom-tier, while DE, SW and AM are right up top.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
flamingkillamajig wrote: Far as other stories go i've heard a necrons player saying necrons suck now or at least they didn't like 8th. Honestly i'd feel worse but i really, really don't because overall the power level has changed hands and i was there the whole time i heard a smug tau player act smugly about his tau. Honestly i think it's time they know what it feels like.
Necrons are going both ways atm, with various players either claiming that they are unkillable asshats, or they're totally killable asshats.
Though as noted in that thread, Space Marines have a ratio much closer to one if you include variant marine armies. Marines benefit massively from characters, and a lot of the best characters are locked to specific chapters.
Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
According to the win/loss table posted above, the best army doesn't even win 2 out of 3 games and the worst army wins nearly half of its games. Sounds a lot better than 7th to me.
True kin is the beast in 8ed. Poison/desintegrator/lance spam is unimaginably good right now. I fear nothing in 8ed. My necron opponent is still looking how to beat me. After almost 20 games i lost only 2 times against necrons, and only because i decided to spam wytches instead of dakka. This ratio was totally opposite in 7ed. SM are even easier to beat as they dont have quantum shields on theirs vehicles. This topic was matter of time to show up. It took so long probably because there is so few de players out there.
Real News wrote: According to the win/loss table posted above, the best army doesn't even win 2 out of 3 games and the worst army wins nearly half of its games. Sounds a lot better than 7th to me.
Not Quite. The table is W/L, not W/(W+L). Tau is winning less than a third of their games and Orks just barely a third.
It IS better than 7th, though.
I quite like the Necron perfection at 50.000000000000000000000000.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So get this. I had a space marine player i was playing against today tell me on turn 1 after only i took my first turn that dark eldar were 'broken'. The thought amused me considering in 7th dark eldar had to fight tooth and nail to manage a victory and against some armies like tau it was almost impossible for the dark eldar player to win unless they played godly and took absolutely all the right units. I kid you not one tau player i know tabled a guy having maybe lost a couple models or a couple wounds in 7th and another saying they could table anybody in 3 turns with tau.
Your suspicions are so far confirmed. Out of a thread about win/loss reports by Dakkanoughts, we've collected some data. Out of every army with 40 or more reported battles, here is a list of the number of wins each army had per loss so far:
Selym wrote: Time for another W/L ratio, this time of any army with more than 40 games :
1) Astra Militarium - 1.889
2) Space Wolves - 1.643
3) Dark Eldar - 1.471
4) Eldar - 1.192
5) Tyranids - 1.061
6) Necrons - 1
7) Space Marines - 0.743
8) Chaos Space Marines - 0.714
9) Orks - 0.566
10) Tau - 0.429
Tau and Orks are a clear bottom-tier, while DE, SW and AM are right up top.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
flamingkillamajig wrote: Far as other stories go i've heard a necrons player saying necrons suck now or at least they didn't like 8th. Honestly i'd feel worse but i really, really don't because overall the power level has changed hands and i was there the whole time i heard a smug tau player act smugly about his tau. Honestly i think it's time they know what it feels like.
Necrons are going both ways atm, with various players either claiming that they are unkillable asshats, or they're totally killable asshats.
Wow the new power levels for armies are odd. It's like UP faction and then OP faction every other army from top to bottom tier as far as where they were in 7th. For instance guard were underpowered but wolves were always good and dark eldar were also underpowered.
Well i guess space marines and chaos marines can both complain till they get their new codexes in a month. I highly doubt marines would ever suck for very long.
I'm rather curious to see the results of faction to faction battles and how they go. For instance in 7th dark eldar actually had a hard fight vs necrons but it was actually fairly winnable. In fact i almost beat a guy i think that had necron decurion with those canoptek wraiths like two units of 6 and a lot of nasty units. However vs tau winning was next to impossible esp. if you didn't do like covens units with talos or bikes maybe. It was rough.
Let's assume, for a moment, all armies are equal. (biiig assumption but truer in this edition then in the past) now you have Bob who played a weak army, he had to WORK for every one of his victories, know his army intimately, take stock of the terrain, know the rules etc. those are gaming habbits and habbits tend to be hard to break. he's gonna carry those into 8th edition and likely, once he makes the adjustment, have a high level of technical skill as a result.
Then you have Tim, Tim, played an OP army, that was pretty point and click, he won tons of games based on the pure strength of his army, he didn't need tactics or anything, he had units twice as good as bobs but only half the price.
now 8th edition comes along, Bob and Tims armies are now, more or less equal.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So get this. I had a space marine player i was playing against today tell me on turn 1 after only i took my first turn that dark eldar were 'broken'. The thought amused me considering in 7th dark eldar had to fight tooth and nail to manage a victory and against some armies like tau it was almost impossible for the dark eldar player to win unless they played godly and took absolutely all the right units. I kid you not one tau player i know tabled a guy having maybe lost a couple models or a couple wounds in 7th and another saying they could table anybody in 3 turns with tau.
Your suspicions are so far confirmed. Out of a thread about win/loss reports by Dakkanoughts, we've collected some data. Out of every army with 40 or more reported battles, here is a list of the number of wins each army had per loss so far:
Selym wrote: Time for another W/L ratio, this time of any army with more than 40 games :
1) Astra Militarium - 1.889
2) Space Wolves - 1.643
3) Dark Eldar - 1.471
4) Eldar - 1.192
5) Tyranids - 1.061
6) Necrons - 1
7) Space Marines - 0.743
8) Chaos Space Marines - 0.714
9) Orks - 0.566
10) Tau - 0.429
Tau and Orks are a clear bottom-tier, while DE, SW and AM are right up top.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
flamingkillamajig wrote: Far as other stories go i've heard a necrons player saying necrons suck now or at least they didn't like 8th. Honestly i'd feel worse but i really, really don't because overall the power level has changed hands and i was there the whole time i heard a smug tau player act smugly about his tau. Honestly i think it's time they know what it feels like.
Necrons are going both ways atm, with various players either claiming that they are unkillable asshats, or they're totally killable asshats.
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
From what I've seen of Necrons-
Necrons will simply outlast most general lists by suffering almost equal losses to them in any particular phase then getting their numbers replenished and thrashing the depleted enemy forces more and more as the game rolls on.
A list that can destroy the Necron's reanimation boosts early in the game will spend the rest of the game on equal or better footing than the Necrons themselves.
Let's assume, for a moment, all armies are equal. (biiig assumption but truer in this edition then in the past) now you have Bob who played a weak army, he had to WORK for every one of his victories, know his army intimately, take stock of the terrain, know the rules etc. those are gaming habbits and habbits tend to be hard to break. he's gonna carry those into 8th edition and likely, once he makes the adjustment, have a high level of technical skill as a result.
Then you have Tim, Tim, played an OP army, that was pretty point and click, he won tons of games based on the pure strength of his army, he didn't need tactics or anything, he had units twice as good as bobs but only half the price.
now 8th edition comes along, Bob and Tims armies are now, more or less equal.
I've played about a dozen games or so and have a 100% win ratio with my Daemons. But other than that I think you're totally right, closest fights I've had we're v Orks and sisters!
Real News wrote: According to the win/loss table posted above, the best army doesn't even win 2 out of 3 games and the worst army wins nearly half of its games. Sounds a lot better than 7th to me.
The worst are winning around 1/3 - half a win per loss.
Rippy wrote: The only thing I think is currently really broken is Forgeworld. The costing of units is way out in my opinion.
Currently not bringing any more Forgeworld to friendly games.
you sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
Rippy wrote: The only thing I think is currently really broken is Forgeworld. The costing of units is way out in my opinion.
Currently not bringing any more Forgeworld to friendly games.
you sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
My Spartan assault tank solo'd an Orks army, and ended up on full hull points at the end of the game, plus it held 20 zombies, Typhus and Necrosius which dominated the late game.
Plasma at 7pts is fine in comparison.
The contemptor is only a little bit more expensive than a normal dread and absolutely dominates both shooting and CC with a butcher cannon and a fist.
Rippy wrote: The only thing I think is currently really broken is Forgeworld. The costing of units is way out in my opinion.
Currently not bringing any more Forgeworld to friendly games.
you sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
My Spartan assault tank solo'd an Orks army, and ended up on full hull points at the end of the game, plus it held 20 zombies, Typhus and Necrosius which dominated the late game.
Plasma at 7pts is fine in comparison.
The contemptor is only a little bit more expensive than a normal dread and absolutely dominates both shooting and CC with a butcher cannon and a fist.
There's good Forgeworld stuff.
120 points for a Lucius DreadPod is hardly broken or OP.
FW made some mistakes with their releases however with how quick the first FAQ came out for the GW ones gives me hope that FW will do the same and get better moving forward. Just like GW they have some insanely powerful units and others that are absolute garbage, personally in my mind it is still way too early to declare FW being OP. I play Death Korps of Krieg and though we got one or two things that are really good overall it's at most on par with how strong Landraiders are IMO.
That being said it is a weird feeling to have been playing with IG for so long and be told all of a sudden that your army is OP/to strong. So far with IG I'm 8-3 with those losses coming to:
-Orks: Found out after we screwed up the rules really badly with his Stormboyz
-Other IG: Slugfest that came down to the wire
-Khorne Chaos: Lord of Skulls refused to fail a demon save the last three turns of the game.
Giantwalkingchair wrote: Personally hope that this equal footing feeling remains when the new dex' drop. The last thing I want is a return to 7th ed codex power creep.
Creep isn't the word I would use, so much as favoritism and preferential treatment. I remember people said 40k was going to be more balanced for 7th, because Orks received such a shoddy codex...then a painfully "phoned it in" Decurion, well after Eldar came out. Not to mention Eldar were still a top army even with their 6e codex, due to Serpents being the best option. 7e made Bikes better than Serpents, only for the pendulum to swing back to Serpents for 8e!
Rippy wrote: The only thing I think is currently really broken is Forgeworld. The costing of units is way out in my opinion.
Currently not bringing any more Forgeworld to friendly games.
you sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
Those I haven't had much trouble with. They can't manage smite but one third of the time, brimstones have no ranged attacks, and big blobs wilt under morale tests if you concentrate fire. Being able to autopass morale 1/6th of the time is no replacement for the morale rules the stronger horde armies have. They aren't a bad choice, but they have more balancing factors than AM does for example.
Players don't enjoy losing, and most people are dumb enough to think that the same units/tactics should work every edition, every game, without ever changing.
Most of these players also happen to be marines, but that's not the point. Can't fault them for being gw's chosen children for 40ks entire existence; if you went from always winning with whatever you wanted to bring, to having to fight a battle the same way as a xenos does, with actual strategy and diverse unit choices, I'd call broken too.
People don't adapt, and are quicker to call broken on something before they even consider that their own choices reason they lost.
fe40k wrote: Players don't enjoy losing, and most people are dumb enough to think that the same units/tactics should work every edition, every game, without ever changing.
Most of these players also happen to be marines, but that's not the point. Can't fault them for being gw's chosen children for 40ks entire existence; if you went from always winning with whatever you wanted to bring, to having to fight a battle the same way as a xenos does, with actual strategy and diverse unit choices, I'd call broken too.
People don't adapt, and are quicker to call broken on something before they even consider that their own choices reason they lost.
riiight we all know Eldar had to use complicated strageties to win games last edition!
fe40k wrote: Players don't enjoy losing, and most people are dumb enough to think that the same units/tactics should work every edition, every game, without ever changing.
Most of these players also happen to be marines, but that's not the point. Can't fault them for being gw's chosen children for 40ks entire existence; if you went from always winning with whatever you wanted to bring, to having to fight a battle the same way as a xenos does, with actual strategy and diverse unit choices, I'd call broken too.
People don't adapt, and are quicker to call broken on something before they even consider that their own choices reason they lost.
riiight we all know Eldar had to use complicated strageties to win games last edition!
Don't forget the tau. There was some deep strategic complexity involved in taking as many riptides as possible.
I usually see marine players use diversity in their army lists far more often than eldar and tau. I think that the lack of diversity and actual understanding of the Tau units is what caused their W/L ratio to be sub-average than any favoritism shown by GW. As for strategy, most of 7th was riptide spam, wraithknight + warp spider spam, and scatter spam.
XTheWaffen wrote: I usually see marine players use diversity in their army lists far more often than eldar and tau. I think that the lack of diversity and actual understanding of the Tau units is what caused their W/L ratio to be sub-average than any favoritism shown by GW. As for strategy, most of 7th was riptide spam, wraithknight + warp spider spam, and scatter spam.
In fact spam is generally the norm for a lot of WAAC builds in general, which is why many people get annoyed by edition changes which do render the old spam build less useful. Afterall, when your army consists primarily of 2 maybe 3 units spammed endlessly, a couple nerfs can leave it virtually unplayable.
blackmage wrote: u sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.
They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2
blackmage wrote: u sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.
They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2
The only stupid one is the non-imperial one. Sounds about right. I forgot that imperials get a free pass for stupidity, that's basically what all of them are anyways.
People will own whatever they need to own, especially for the competitive scene. Brimstone horrors are easy to make too' super cheap.
People WILL own 100-200 conscripts if that's the optimal number for army lists.
Talamare wrote: Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.
They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2
Again, without the global immunity to morale their effectiveness is hampered if you try to field them in anything larger than the basic 10 person squad, which puts a limit on how easily they can be spammed. Even at 10, you can easily squeeze in 2-3 casualities from morale other armies won't worry about. Morale really is a great balancing tool for keeping huge blobs in check.
fe40k wrote: There are two types of marines, 2+ saves and 3+ saves. The rest is just what weapons they're equipped with.
But again, this isn't my point.
I'm just saying rules change, so do editions - strategies and unit choices also have to adapt with the changing of new editions/rules.
40k has always been a spam game though' and detachments are just making it worse this edition.
I mean... almost every army shares a singular base statline with variations in equipment and a couple special rules here or there, ignoring tanks/MC. That's hardly unique to SM, tyranids and demons are the only real exceptions to that.
And while people do tend to rush to judgement... it's also sometimes easy to tell, from simple comparison, that something is ridiculously undercosted.
Tau arent terrible, but if you hated riptide spam wait until you see commander spam. Everyone wants to take commanders with 4 weapons and bubble wrap them with cheap troops. Seen lists with 8 at 2k points all with fusion blasters. If you dont see them your going to see ghostkeel fill riptides role and tons of drones as well.
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.
Guess you've never come across the Ghostkeel Shenanigans.
There might not be many of them but they boardwiped almost every list that went up against them, only list they fell short against was Daemon Spam, every Daemon having invulnerable saves, having no interest in shooting and the mission being Relic did not work in the Tau player's favour
blackmage wrote: u sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken
Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.
They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2
The only stupid one is the non-imperial one. Sounds about right. I forgot that imperials get a free pass for stupidity, that's basically what all of them are anyways.
People will own whatever they need to own, especially for the competitive scene. Brimstone horrors are easy to make too' super cheap.
People WILL own 100-200 conscripts if that's the optimal number for army lists.
People keep claiming "who will really buy and paint that many?" I'm not even a powergamer, and I lose more than I win, often due to wacky lists (my next ad mech game is gonna see me fielding all of my 8 dragoons!) But I still had 300 skavenslaves when that was a thing, because playing without the recommended amount of slaves was just asking to lose, and I needed enough to scale.
Because you're going to face a ton of unlimited range guns hiding on the corner of the map that will blow your squads off the table before you can get in range to fire, unless you're hard to hit, and have the mobility to close the distance.
Or because your opponent will be charging you turn 1, and flying will prevent that.
Or because hordes are in, and they have saves now, and are largely immune to morale. We're literally talking about 200 brimstone horrors on the table with smite, and a 4++. What tool would you use to remove that?
People are finding a way to work around the high cost of the Raven simply because it is the only tool that allows you to survive going second in the "whoever goes first probably wins" edition.
Case in point: played a game against guard, where is sea of Manticores deleted the half of my army i'm obligated to place on the table before i got a turn. Reducing his hits from 4s rerolling 1s to 5s rerolling 1s is a big deal.
Again, without the global immunity to morale their effectiveness is hampered if you try to field them in anything larger than the basic 10 person squad, which puts a limit on how easily they can be spammed. Even at 10, you can easily squeeze in 2-3 casualities from morale other armies won't worry about. Morale really is a great balancing tool for keeping huge blobs in check.
Unless... They don't use huge blobs?
Besides I'm not even saying they need to be nerfed to the ground
Make Brimstones 3PPM and they are probably balanced.
The only stupid one is the non-imperial one. Sounds about right. I forgot that imperials get a free pass for stupidity, that's basically what all of them are anyways.
People will own whatever they need to own, especially for the competitive scene. Brimstone horrors are easy to make too' super cheap.
People WILL own 100-200 conscripts if that's the optimal number for army lists.
I have no specific love for Imperium, IG, SM If that list had said the word conscript I would have also said they needed a point increase.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.
Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".
roddo wrote:Tau arent terrible, but if you hated riptide spam wait until you see commander spam. Everyone wants to take commanders with 4 weapons and bubble wrap them with cheap troops. Seen lists with 8 at 2k points all with fusion blasters. If you dont see them your going to see ghostkeel fill riptides role and tons of drones as well.
IMO, commander spam is going to prove to be extremely overrated. The fact that I haven't seen any battle reports with it being used effectively yet is quite telling since you can, largely, take any crisis suit and very easily do a "counts as" to spam them.
At the end of the day, small-arms fire will pop their bubble-wrap, at which point their total lack of survivability makes them a liability rather than an asset. They're a handful of wounds protected with a poor armor save. Commander spam is a glass cannon tactic, which makes it very, very easy to deal with. You just shoot with the appropriate weapons in the appropriate order. Small arms, then heavy weapons.
Bubblewrapping them? Not going to work. The vaunted "drone squad bubblewrap" will buy you a round at most against a determined opponent because the drones only have a leadership of 6, and the only characters in the Tau army that increase that are ethereals, who will NOT be zooming around the board with your spammed crisis commanders.
Drones are not immune to moral tests, their leadership sucks, and they don't benefit from a commander's leadership.
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.
We're going to need to see his list if you're going to make a claim like that.
Any opponent is going to be hard-pressed to kill even a single Ghostkeel in one turn as long as it's protected by a shield generator, much less an entire T'au army that's fielding an appropriate number of infantry units supported by suites (as opposed to using suits to replace infantry, as has been the standard, and which should no longer work)
My big observation for suits in this edition is that a shield generator is nearly a requirement now because of the prevalence of 1d3 damage weapon-spam. Most of it has decent AP values which make crisis armor irrelevant, and the damage makes the multiple wounds you're paying a premium for almost worthless.
Old edition tactics will not work in this edition. This goes for almost every army in the game, but seems to be going double for Tau. You have to actually think about longevity for once.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.
Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".
Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.
Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".
Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.
Your missing the forest for the trees. Tau durability is okay for its cost but armies don't win on durability alone in 8th. They win by killing or objectives and we can't do objectives anymore due to crazy turn one charges. Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army. My tau players in my local have given up Tau against their will since there is no hope brining them and hoping to win. Other races have melee, speed, range, psychic phase, and now better shooting than the Tau. How is that fair? Tau are the worst faction in the game by a mile right now.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.
Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".
Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.
Your missing the forest for the trees. Tau durability is okay for its cost but armies don't win on durability alone in 8th. They win by killing or objectives and we can't do objectives anymore due to crazy turn one charges. Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army. My tau players in my local have given up Tau against their will since there is no hope brining them and hoping to win. Other races have melee, speed, range, psychic phase, and now better shooting than the Tau. How is that fair? Tau are the worst faction in the game by a mile right now.
Tau are dominating the meta where I am, to the point where TO are thinking about banning Forgeworld.
Tau are dominating the meta where I am, to the point where TO are thinking about banning Forgeworld.
This is like seeing a spider and burning the house down. The issue isn't Forgeworld, the issue is outlier units
GW have had far more egregious imbalances before, but nobody bans GW...
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.
LOL! The old, I have a friend who got tabled post...........I have a friend who plays My Little Ponies and he tabled an Imperial Guard player 1st turn without rolling dice, (because the OP My Little Pony army has the army wide ability of, "Your opponent cannot place any terrain and must deploy his entire army as far forward and turned around").
In this edition, well balanced armies are rewarded. DE and tyranids were made ridiculously fast, but this can be countered with shooting, positioning, etc.
The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.
Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.
I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.
This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .
Tau are dominating the meta where I am, to the point where TO are thinking about banning Forgeworld.
This is like seeing a spider and burning the house down. The issue isn't Forgeworld, the issue is outlier units
GW have had far more egregious imbalances before, but nobody bans GW...
Honestly the base game is fairly balanced. But Forgeworld makes 0 effort to be balanced. And it's not just the Tau Forgeworld Riptide, it's other stuff too. For 170 points you can have a tank that shoots 18 assault cannon dice rerolling 1s if it doesn't move, and it's got strong stats.
The extensive playtesting doesn't apply to forgeworld. Let the hyper competitive players use that in GTs and such, until the ITC addresses it somehow.
455_PWR wrote: In this edition, well balanced armies are rewarded. DE and tyranids were made ridiculously fast, but this can be countered with shooting, positioning, etc.
The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.
I largely agree with this; the GK in particular are able to mitigate lack of numbers with good deployment and proper use of their decent mobility.
Both my DE and my Tyranids are playing much more enjoyably thus far. I truly value being able to play a list with a bit of fluff value that is reasonably competitive (or at least not pants-on-head). I'm playing loads more games now that I can bring 'stealers, Warriors, and cheap swarms and still have a nice lore-friendly game without immediately conceding the game to a moderately competent opponent. As long as Codices don't force me to go back to lists consisting of a half-dozen flyrants, I'm a happy camper.
Tau are in a different place in 8th, that's apparent. My SO has found much more success in this Ed. relative to our other local Tau players and I chalk it up to his always having used more lore-friendly Fire Warrior-based army supported by specialist suits, as opposed to the more common suit-heavy lists. I really hope that this edition continues along in this vein, because games are much more interesting right now, IMO.
Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.
I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.
This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .
I know points costs went up accross the board for heavy weapons, and then they stacked on a Tau wuz overpowered tax for last edition too apparently.
Las Cannon 20 points. Heavy Rail Rifle 63 points! They are effectively the same weapon but has one extra shot one less strength and has one additional -1 and on a 6 it adds one mortal wound which will happen less than once a game because of the crappy BS of the broadside. You can get three las cannons and have some spare change for an upgrade for the price of one Heavy Rail Rifle which is insane. Points costs are nearly insane across the board for every Tau weapon when compared to other factions.
Even the base costs on models is crazy high compared to other armies let alone the weapons costs.
Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.
I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.
This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .
I know points costs went up accross the board for heavy weapons, and then they stacked on a Tau wuz overpowered tax for last edition too apparently.
Las Cannon 20 points. Heavy Rail Rifle 63 points! They are effectively the same weapon but has one extra shot one less strength and has one additional -1 and on a 6 it adds one mortal wound which will happen less than once a game because of the crappy BS of the broadside. You can get three las cannons and have some spare change for an upgrade for the price of one Heavy Rail Rifle which is insane. Points costs are nearly insane across the board for every Tau weapon when compared to other factions.
Even the base costs on models is crazy high compared to other armies let alone the weapons costs.
Accessibility to Heavy Weapons is another major issue regardless of the cost of the individual guns.
Things like Predators, Heavy Weapons Teams, Devastators, Havocs, Razorbacks... Armored Sentinels...
Yep they did a hit job on the Tau or something. The only logical theory I have that is more or less me in denial that anyone had a plan for this is.
They wanted to really see if peoples complaints about the Tau were legit and did this knowing a codex was coming soon after so they could undo it. I can't see this being approved any other way from a logical perspective.
But I know this was them listening to the internet hate.
Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.
I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.
This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .
I know points costs went up accross the board for heavy weapons, and then they stacked on a Tau wuz overpowered tax for last edition too apparently.
Las Cannon 20 points. Heavy Rail Rifle 63 points! They are effectively the same weapon but has one extra shot one less strength and has one additional -1 and on a 6 it adds one mortal wound which will happen less than once a game because of the crappy BS of the broadside. You can get three las cannons and have some spare change for an upgrade for the price of one Heavy Rail Rifle which is insane. Points costs are nearly insane across the board for every Tau weapon when compared to other factions.
Even the base costs on models is crazy high compared to other armies let alone the weapons costs.
Accessibility to Heavy Weapons is another major issue regardless of the cost of the individual guns.
Things like Predators, Heavy Weapons Teams, Devastators, Havocs, Razorbacks... Armored Sentinels...
I'm not saying Broadsides are great but, to be fair, the HRR gets two shots, Broadsides can take other weapons as well as a support system for various advantages, and they're a lot less vulnerable to lascannons because of saviour protocols.
In general my sense is that it is completely intentional that suits look like bad buys compared to facially-comparable options in other indices. The idea is to give Tau these really expensive platforms that have a potentially huge number of ablative wounds via drones. I haven't played as or against Tau in 8th yet so I'm not saying they're not underpowered now, but I don't think the direct comparison between Broadsides and Armored Sentinels makes much sense. Broadsides get about twice the firepower for a little more than twice the cost, and are potentially much, much harder to kill.
A Heavy Rail Rifle is not 'basically a lascannon'. If it were it would be 1 shot, AP3, and not do any mortal wounds.
- On a very basic level it has double the shots, so we're at 40 vs 63.
- It has 1 less S, but 1 more AP. I'm hesitant to call that a draw since there aren't a ton of T8 targets, but lets ignore that anyway.
- 2 * .5 * .167 = 0.167 mortal wounds
-- IG Lascannon vs T7 3+ = 1 * .5 * .666 * .833 = 0.28
-- That means this mortal wound is worth 60% of a lascannon against a rhino or 12 points.
-- Against T8 2+ its worth 15 points.
So we're at 53-ish points. 10 short of GW's calculation. Keep in mind mortal wounds will ignore invulnerable saves.
That makes the HRR 254% more effective than a lascannon vs Rhinos, Predators, Dreadnoughts, etc.
20 * 2. = 50.8
So perhaps you're left with a 10 to 13 point deficit, because of the way they treat mortal wounds and i'm inclined to not disagree with that.
Said another way - a successful mortal wound on Magnus is worth 2 lascannon shots. The averages are not tremendous, but i'll do a chart a bell curve as soon as I can.
=============================
A 2+ over a 3+ is not insignificant.
A broadside can fly. A sentinel can not.
A broadside can get extra wounds on the cheap.
A sentinel can't do supporting fire.
Daedalus, I think you forgot that lascannons and HRRs do more than one damage when you fail a save against them. The mortal wounds on the HRR are not that significant unless we're talking about things like Magnus with better than a 4++.
Dionysodorus wrote: Daedalus, I think you forgot that lascannons and HRRs do more than one damage when you fail a save against them. The mortal wounds on the HRR are not that significant unless we're talking about things like Magnus with better than a 4++.
Boy oh boy people trying to prove the Tau are fine don't even know the rules. *sigh* Love it. No wonder why people seem to think they are so good.
Also drones as ablative wounds only gets them one turn more shooting with the sheer amount of firepower. Also there are no damage upgrades worth taking for them other than the oens to negate move and shoot penalties.
They don't magically get wargear to make their guns stronger. The ATS that adds -1 rend is not a worthwhile buy on this gun and that is the only thing we have that can modify a weapons strength.
Also even if drones keep them alive from shooting it doesn't keep them out of being charged and killed that way.
Broadsides suck for their cost and you know you can't justify it. Now imagine the whole codex like that.
Supporting fire is the myth of the anti-tau propagandists it barely ever does anything and on a broadside odds are it's two shots and whatever secondary weapons it has won't hit on overwatch. So we're paying massive extra points for abilities that do nothing.
Even if it could run away it's got the overwatch problem where it only hits on a 6. So that means a broadside on average only every other game will it actually hit with a single shot or possibly two.
Wow man the unreliable potential for 1 damage every other game is apparently worth 60 points.
On paper the stats of most Tau things look fine, but it's the final costs that kill all of them. It's like the Tyranids last edition who had many units simply too expensive and no amount of high stats could matter if the cost was too crazy.
It's like the people in 7th who argued the tyranids had that one good power or weapon and on a 6 it would get extra wounds or something (forget it's name) they said that ability was so good it totally justified the point cost. Yet the Nids were easily bottom tier even with flyrant spam. It's no different now attempting to justify the insane price hikes for abilities that will barely ever trigger.
I think the biggest issue is that a lot of Tau stuff is nice on paper but like ~25% more expensive than they are worth. In theory they have synergy with stuff like the +1BS, the problem is we already have to pay for that. For example, to get the +1 on a single unit you must spend 80+ points to just do that.
There are things like just using a gun drone is for a wound is nice, but when you do so there is no save since it is a mortal wound, but I can agree that maybe 8pts is a bit cheap.
A broadside does not have fly, and don't forget you can get three armored sentinels for the same cost as a broadside allowing greater survivability.
You're right - no fly - I keep glancing at the damned drone rules.
It's totally true that you're getting fewer guns as Tau, but this gun is at least twice as effective, can do supporting fire, has access to markerlight, and support systems.
For 8 points each you get to direct a potential lascannon hit and all of it's damage away from the broadside. Also scoring a 5+ vs a lascannon makes it 100% more durable than a sentinel (in that scenario).
Markerlights require 5 hits to get a +1BS and in the Tau community it's agreed only bad people don't shoot them first. If your opponent has two brain cells he is hitting your pathfinders and with two full squads wounded you will no longer be able to get +1 BS on both squads on average so you need to pool fire.
There is an entirely wasted level of ML's for shooting seeker missiles which sucks and it only fires at the models BS making them useless and overpriced and no one takes them so now it's a dead entry on the chart.
We are effectively a guardsmen tier shooting and you know it. We get a 1+ BS only once per game on a key target and that's it. After that the odds statistically go so far outside th window the ML units are typically used to distribute reroll 1's to as much as possible and act as ablative wounds since they are useless.
Bringing too much ML's brings down the few points you have for the things that can kill. It's harder than ever to hit that nice synergy of ML's to supporting units that kill things now. Actually almost impossible. With nothing worth supporting with ML's that's cost effective it reduces their value even more.
A lot of Tau players are questioning even bringing ML's anymore and they might very well be a dead thing now. With how insanely everything is costed and the minimal benefit they offer it's better to bring boys before toys in this case.
Smart non dumb opponents attack the drones with chaff stuff first and then hit the broadside with the big stuff. Come now. Use your brain. You went to school. Gun drones also have problems targeting enemies and hitting what you need with precise fire we seen this at the caledonian ets tournament just recently where the drones were simply too inaccurate because of their targeting priorities. It's okay to have some of them, but not too much. Even then when you bring drones you need to have a worthwhile unit to protect with them and we don't have any right now other than the commander.
For 2 damage through 6 damage the HRR is twice as effective.
At 1 damage is it 3.5 (rhino) to 10.7 (Magnus) as effective -- this is the mortal wound effect at play on top of having more accuracy with 2 shots.
As a small bonus it has the chance to do 7 wounds. Anything 8+ is way too insignificant of a value to worry about.
No one is saying it isn't a more effective gun, but we're saying it's too expensive. What if a gun in the game existed that did 3d6 damage and on a 6 could instant kill any unit on your opponents army but cost 10k points. Okay great I guess I won't ever get to use it.
There is nothing really wrong with any of the main Tau units, its just that they are often too expensive in comparison to other factions or our own units to be worth taking.
Rockfish wrote: There is nothing really wrong with any of the main Tau units, its just that they are often too expensive in comparison to other factions or our own units to be worth taking.
Your right but I feel I need to add this. Nearly any unit no matter how poor it stats could be useful if it's appropriately costed. I said this earlier as well it's not the stats of the units (for the most part) that is the Tau's problem it's the cost.
Daedalus81 wrote: For 2 damage through 6 damage the HRR is twice as effective.
At 1 damage is it 3.5 (rhino) to 10.7 (Magnus) as effective -- this is the mortal wound effect at play on top of having more accuracy with 2 shots.
As a small bonus it has the chance to do 7 wounds. Anything 8+ is way too insignificant of a value to worry about.
The point was that *2* Sentinels cost /less/ than half the cost of 1 Broadside
While providing basically vastly more durability and a ton of mobility.
and Armored Sentinels are a ... mediocre choice for IG or in the words of Polonius
Daedalus81 wrote: For 2 damage through 6 damage the HRR is twice as effective.
At 1 damage is it 3.5 (rhino) to 10.7 (Magnus) as effective -- this is the mortal wound effect at play on top of having more accuracy with 2 shots.
As a small bonus it has the chance to do 7 wounds. Anything 8+ is way too insignificant of a value to worry about.
The point was that *2* Sentinels cost /less/ than half the cost of 1 Broadside
While providing basically vastly more durability and a ton of mobility.
and Armored Sentinels are a ... mediocre choice for IG or in the words of Polonius
While Tau has to RELY on Broadsides.
It's literally one of their BEST Long Range Anti Tank.
So IG Low Tier Stuff = Tau High Tier Stuff.
That's how bad it is.
A Predator will have 4 Lascannons for 200 points
A Hammerhead will have 1 Railgun shot for 200 points
People are asking why Tau players are spamming Melta Monat (Melta Commanders)
It's because the army literally has no real options.
Yep we're in a similar position to flyrant spam of 7th edition but somehow even worse because that list at least could win some games but the commander list while our best list isn't really doing that great since it simply lacks board presence for capping and the commanders are quite glass cannon. If the Tau are not buffed and we have to live with this and power creep we will easily be in a spot as bad as 7th edition chaos. By buff I mostly mena point tweaks and perhaps a tweak to the ML chart so it's not so hard to get +1 to hit maybe only 4 hits required. Also as long as a target has a ML on it it can have seeker missiles fired at it and just remove that from the chart all together. Skyray's should be able to fire all seeker missiles in the army at their bs for the high cost they have which would bring them some more utility provided the target has a ML on it.
Rockfish wrote: and don't forget you can get three armored sentinels for the same cost as a broadside allowing greater survivability.
Right 3 sentinels for 180 points and 3 lascannon shots and 3 4+ S5 attacks - 18 t5 3+ wounds.
As noted earlier Broadside with HRR and two plasma rifles comes to 165. Add 20 for 2 marker drones.
Each drone is a bit of a schrodinger's, but we can say with certainty that the attack hit and wounded, so there would still be a 33% chance of saving if it was put on the broadside. So the "real" value of the drone is .666 * 3.5 = 2.3 That makes the broadside come in at 11 wounds versus 18.
As for shooting - the HRR is nearly the equivalent of the 3 sentinels. Add in the two plasma rifles and it easily tips in favor of the broadside. And the HRR has a 12" advantage on the sentinels.
It has a 7% (0 ML) to 10% (5ML) chance to kill one outright each shooting phase (5+ wounds is 12% to 17%). A lascannon has under 2% chance to kill a broadside (and an extra 2% for each fewer wound).
HRR has a 36% chance to do ANY damage (0 ML). An IG lascannon has 11% to do ANY damage (3 of them would be 33%).
There are a lot of factors at play that make this not such a straight comparison.
The point was that *2* Sentinels cost /less/ than half the cost of 1 Broadside
While providing basically vastly more durability and a ton of mobility.
120 for 2 sentinels is not less than half of a 185 to 200 point broadside.
They can move, but they'll be hitting on 5s. HRR is unlikely to need to move.
While Tau has to RELY on Broadsides.
It's literally one of their BEST Long Range Anti Tank.
I don't really see taking more than one or two, true.
A Predator will have 4 Lascannons for 200 points
A Hammerhead will have 1 Railgun shot for 200 points
2 shots. A predator degrades. Broadside does not. HRR has range advantage.
People are asking why Tau players are spamming Melta Monat (Melta Commanders)
It's because the army literally has no real options.
I disagree. I think people are looking for the most easily calculated benefit. One that doesn't require accounting for other battlefield factors like range.
In the land of turn one charges it doesn't matter how much range the broadside has things are going to get right up in it's face and it can't move effectively to run away. If you want to move and shoot without penalty you need to pay even more points.
The plasma rifle doesn't synergise well with the broadside at all in my experience even in 7th and the same is true in 8th. They are a hold over from when Broadside default could move and shoot no penalties and were taken up the field on their own and also have ML support and good deep striking crisis to support them. The guns were also a lot stronger back then STR 10 and the vehicle pen system was different than now so they were great as you could guarantee some worth while kills with them.
Now however they are slower than ever and the plasma will rarely be a factor since it will only get to shoot when the enemy melee comes in for the kill and the charge of death. Until then the Broadside will mostly just be shooting its hhr unless by chance they have something to plink at with the plasma.
The point was that *2* Sentinels cost /less/ than half the cost of 1 Broadside
While providing basically vastly more durability and a ton of mobility.
120 for 2 sentinels is not less than half of a 185 to 200 point broadside.
They can move, but they'll be hitting on 5s. HRR is unlikely to need to move.
That's a bit of a brain fart. I meant that 1 with an insanely similar stat line was less than half.
Tho that math tidbit doesn't really matter. Both Weapons are absolutely fine, I'm not trying to say Railguns are weak.
The point is
1 - Tau has only a few Anti Tank Platforms
2 - Those Platforms are insanely expensive
3 - The Anti Tank Weapon themselves are incredibly expensive. (63 points for HRR, 38 points for Railgun)
Gamgee wrote: In the land of turn one charges it doesn't matter how much range the broadside has things are going to get right up in it's face and it can't move effectively to run away. If you want to move and shoot without penalty you need to pay even more points.
The plasma rifle doesn't synergise well with the broadside at all in my experience even in 7th and the same is true in 8th. They are a hold over from when Broadside default could move and shoot no penalties and were taken up the field on their own and also have ML support and good deep striking crisis to support them. The guns were also a lot stronger back then STR 10 and the vehicle pen system was different than now so they were great as you could guarantee some worth while kills with them.
Now however they are slower than ever and the plasma will rarely be a factor since it will only get to shoot when the enemy melee comes in for the kill and the charge of death. Until then the Broadside will mostly just be shooting its hhr unless by chance they have something to plink at with the plasma.
I'll agree that none of the extra weapons for the broadside make any sense at all. I don't think reducing the cost of the HRR fixes the problem, but if it was S9/10 it might help.
I do find it odd people dislike crisis suits now. Seems like the are a better option than my chaos terminators for deepstriking special weapons, and I've been fairly satisfied with those.
Have we seen much more about orks? I keep seeing people get absolutely thrashed playing as them, or people wiping the floor. I'm curious if they actually have become top tier, or if it's just some occasional luck.
Tho that math tidbit doesn't really matter. Both Weapons are absolutely fine, I'm not trying to say Railguns are weak.
The point is
1 - Tau has only a few Anti Tank Platforms
2 - Those Platforms are insanely expensive
3 - The Anti Tank Weapon themselves are incredibly expensive. (63 points for HRR, 38 points for Railgun)
Yea I can follow that. Are Longstrike and Hammerheads not viable (I realize one shot only and a yet more expensive gun per shot)? Reroll 1s on those would be very beneficial and Longstrike having +1 to wound is pretty tremendous. Seeker missiles on them also seem worthwhile needing only 2 ML and 3+ to hit.
The more I look at Tau the more it feels like they need to alpha strike with big guns and a kauyon and cripple some big items early on.
Oh yeah the difference between 2+ and 4+ is fairly big, and really kinda unique to tau. Unlike most other armies commanders can be really loaded down with guns as well.
So it isn't crisis suits are bad, you just have really strong HQs that overshadow them. That's a good problem to have honestly.
Tho that math tidbit doesn't really matter. Both Weapons are absolutely fine, I'm not trying to say Railguns are weak.
The point is
1 - Tau has only a few Anti Tank Platforms
2 - Those Platforms are insanely expensive
3 - The Anti Tank Weapon themselves are incredibly expensive. (63 points for HRR, 38 points for Railgun)
Yea I can follow that. Are Longstrike and Hammerheads not viable (I realize one shot only and a yet more expensive gun per shot)? Reroll 1s on those would be very beneficial and Longstrike having +1 to wound is pretty tremendous. Seeker missiles on them also seem worthwhile needing only 2 ML and 3+ to hit.
The more I look at Tau the more it feels like they need to alpha strike with big guns and a kauyon and cripple some big items early on.
Viable is a poor word choice in this instance. Since they are great choices in relation to the state of the Army as a whole. The problem is the state of the army is pretty poor.
Longrails himself is pretty amazing, but that's still only 1 Dude
4Las Predator vs Longrails vs Railside vs Railheads vs Railhead(Longstrike buffed) -- vs a ... I'll be nice to HRR, and say a T7 Tank.
Predator - 4 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5 = 5.18
Longrails - 1 * 5/6 * 5/6 * 3.5 + 1 * 5/6 * 1/3 * 2 = 2.98
Railside - 2 * 1/2 * 2/3 * 3.5 + 2 * 1/2 * 1/6 = 2.5
Railhead(LS) - 1 * 5/6 * 2/3 * 3.5 + 1 * 5/6 * 1/6 * 2 = 2.22
Railhead - 1 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 3.5 + 1 * 2/3 * 1/6 * 2 = 1.77
Also, from experience... If you bring multiple Hammerheads, and Longstrike... People will HARD FOCUS Longstrike, and it makes sense to do so.
Considering Longstrike himself is nearly double the effectiveness of a Standard Railhead. Not to mention makes other Railheads 25% stronger.
roddo wrote:Tau arent terrible, but if you hated riptide spam wait until you see commander spam. Everyone wants to take commanders with 4 weapons and bubble wrap them with cheap troops. Seen lists with 8 at 2k points all with fusion blasters. If you dont see them your going to see ghostkeel fill riptides role and tons of drones as well.
IMO, commander spam is going to prove to be extremely overrated. The fact that I haven't seen any battle reports with it being used effectively yet is quite telling since you can, largely, take any crisis suit and very easily do a "counts as" to spam them.
At the end of the day, small-arms fire will pop their bubble-wrap, at which point their total lack of survivability makes them a liability rather than an asset. They're a handful of wounds protected with a poor armor save. Commander spam is a glass cannon tactic, which makes it very, very easy to deal with. You just shoot with the appropriate weapons in the appropriate order. Small arms, then heavy weapons.
Bubblewrapping them? Not going to work. The vaunted "drone squad bubblewrap" will buy you a round at most against a determined opponent because the drones only have a leadership of 6, and the only characters in the Tau army that increase that are ethereals, who will NOT be zooming around the board with your spammed crisis commanders.
Drones are not immune to moral tests, their leadership sucks, and they don't benefit from a commander's leadership.
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.
We're going to need to see his list if you're going to make a claim like that.
Any opponent is going to be hard-pressed to kill even a single Ghostkeel in one turn as long as it's protected by a shield generator, much less an entire T'au army that's fielding an appropriate number of infantry units supported by suites (as opposed to using suits to replace infantry, as has been the standard, and which should no longer work)
My big observation for suits in this edition is that a shield generator is nearly a requirement now because of the prevalence of 1d3 damage weapon-spam. Most of it has decent AP values which make crisis armor irrelevant, and the damage makes the multiple wounds you're paying a premium for almost worthless.
Old edition tactics will not work in this edition. This goes for almost every army in the game, but seems to be going double for Tau. You have to actually think about longevity for once.
He had a gunline, 3x broadside, riptide, longstrike, missile commander, 3x missile crisis, 30 fw, and some drones (2x 5 ml drones). Thats all I can remember. His opponent was Ynnary (mostly DE and 600-700 pts clowns). At the end of first eldar turn there was only longstrike and couple drones and fw left, no reason to play further.
I know this list is far from great, but when the new edition hit we playtest every faction we can reach in club and no one was so bad as tau. This guy is punished for taking anything outside the commander and s*ttons of drones and markerlights are totally useless, with 5+ drone's BS you need like 15-20 to get that +1 BS. This is not worth the job. Sure, you can play msu horde FW, but tau infantry is boring as hell. No special weapon, no melee (no pile-in mind play, bread of the new edition), you just stand and throwing the dices. It is dull gameplay wise.
SilverAlien wrote: I do find it odd people dislike crisis suits now. Seems like the are a better option than my chaos terminators for deepstriking special weapons, and I've been fairly satisfied with those.
Have we seen much more about orks? I keep seeing people get absolutely thrashed playing as them, or people wiping the floor. I'm curious if they actually have become top tier, or if it's just some occasional luck.
I know this is a bit vague but I was playing in another bracket myself so I never actually got to see his list and I only got to watch the last part of his first match, can't remember how many Ghostkeels exactly, three or four? Each one had two stealth drone escorts that gave a further -1 penalty to to hit rolls against the Ghostkeels but apparently they only needed to be within six inches of any stealth drone to get their bonus, not just their own like the army name suggested - Intangible Ghostkeels.
A pair of fire warriors, one packing a markerlight weapon that seemed to have a good fifty inches of range, I never actually got to see what the other one did and three HQ suits.
What I saw was him systematically table a Necron player.
What I heard and read in the results was that he managed the same with an AM army and a Space Wolves player from my own club who I consider a better SW player than myself.
The only player he didn't boardwipe was a Daemon player who had luck in his back pocket when the TO announced The Relic and then just kept making invul saves.
I played the Daemon player, I think my Deathwatch might have beaten the Ghostkeels, a combination of the Null psychic power and a stupid amount of Special Ammo put the Daemons in their place - it's also possible I could have lost entire units before I even got in Bolter range.
I'm not saying the Ghostkeel shenanigans are broken but Tau definitely have lists that aren't bottom tier.
Silver144 wrote: I know this list is far from great, but when the new edition hit we playtest every faction we can reach in club and no one was so bad as tau. This guy is punished for taking anything outside the commander and s*ttons of drones and markerlights are totally useless, with 5+ drone's BS you need like 15-20 to get that +1 BS. This is not worth the job. Sure, you can play msu horde FW, but tau infantry is boring as hell. No special weapon, no melee (no pile-in mind play, bread of the new edition), you just stand and throwing the dices. It is dull gameplay wise.
This. Tau don't seem to be exceptional in any way right now, there are too many cost issues and every army I have seen seems out of whack. Players are having to give up crisis suits, they are having to spam drones with markerlights, they can't fit vehicles in their lists, they have to double up on Fire Warriors, etc.
There's always been a need to change tactics between editions, but it's a huge change this time. I haven't seen any competitive army lists.
Gamgee wrote: No one is saying it isn't a more effective gun, but we're saying it's too expensive. What if a gun in the game existed that did 3d6 damage and on a 6 could instant kill any unit on your opponents army but cost 10k points. Okay great I guess I won't ever get to use it.
And everyone else is saying that it's fair given the context of the Tau army.
Expensive heavy weapons are the price you pay for having suits that usually fly. For having small arms with 30" ranges and S5. For getting basic infantry with a 4+ save. And for getting access to the best ablative wounds in the game, that can even ignore other armies' sniper rules.
Tau are not IG. The fact that a lascannon costs less than a heavy rail rifle only proves that the two armies are different because this direct-comparison stuff you're trying to pull doesn't work cross-army unless you're Eldar or space marines, and even then it really only works when comparing marines to marines, and eldar to eldar (and sometimes not even then).
Tau are not IG. Congrats. You've proven what the rest of us could only figure out by reading the names of both armies.
Dakka Wolf wrote: I know this is a bit vague but I was playing in another bracket myself so I never actually got to see his list and I only got to watch the last part of his first match, can't remember how many Ghostkeels exactly, three or four? Each one had two stealth drone escorts that gave a further -1 penalty to to hit rolls against the Ghostkeels but apparently they only needed to be within six inches of any stealth drone to get their bonus, not just their own like the army name suggested - Intangible Ghostkeels.
A pair of fire warriors, one packing a markerlight weapon that seemed to have a good fifty inches of range, I never actually got to see what the other one did and three HQ suits.
What I saw was him systematically table a Necron player.
What I heard and read in the results was that he managed the same with an AM army and a Space Wolves player from my own club who I consider a better SW player than myself.
The only player he didn't boardwipe was a Daemon player who had luck in his back pocket when the TO announced The Relic and then just kept making invul saves.
I played the Daemon player, I think my Deathwatch might have beaten the Ghostkeels, a combination of the Null psychic power and a stupid amount of Special Ammo put the Daemons in their place - it's also possible I could have lost entire units before I even got in Bolter range.
I'm not saying the Ghostkeel shenanigans are broken but Tau definitely have lists that aren't bottom tier.
I didn't saw ghostkeels on the table myself yet, but on the paper - it is battlesuit for 168 pts with 2+1d3 meltashots. I don't know, with bs4+ this is not so much, my deepstriking combi- jetpack wolf guards looks better as for me. I mean he will get 2 hits average and his to-hit penalty works only when the enemy is 12', and his drones are only t4 single wound, I can take them down with bolters.
Almost all of them, at the moment. Their rules look like they were rushed out the door by a 3rd grader with a box of crayons.
Disagree, most units actually seem to have decent rules and I haven't seen one that is broken in a way that it would be overpowered to the level of GW Scion Plasma spam, Stormraven spam, Basilisks and the like. Surely there are a few since I won't claim knowing all the FW units rules by head, but there are a few in GW's books all the same.
All the good stuff costs a lot of points. There are errors ofcourse, but I'm talking about something being overpowered only. This ofcourse depends on the context, personally I'm talking about things in a tournament environment. If the most powerful thing someone in a group brings to the table is a basic Predator, then sure, you can consider a 460+ point Y'vahra "broken" - in the competitive meta it's way too expensive to be worth it.
I guess the whole doesn't really mean much in the end, everyone has their own idea of what is "broken."
roddo wrote:Tau arent terrible, but if you hated riptide spam wait until you see commander spam. Everyone wants to take commanders with 4 weapons and bubble wrap them with cheap troops. Seen lists with 8 at 2k points all with fusion blasters. If you dont see them your going to see ghostkeel fill riptides role and tons of drones as well.
IMO, commander spam is going to prove to be extremely overrated. The fact that I haven't seen any battle reports with it being used effectively yet is quite telling since you can, largely, take any crisis suit and very easily do a "counts as" to spam them.
At the end of the day, small-arms fire will pop their bubble-wrap, at which point their total lack of survivability makes them a liability rather than an asset. They're a handful of wounds protected with a poor armor save. Commander spam is a glass cannon tactic, which makes it very, very easy to deal with. You just shoot with the appropriate weapons in the appropriate order. Small arms, then heavy weapons.
Bubblewrapping them? Not going to work. The vaunted "drone squad bubblewrap" will buy you a round at most against a determined opponent because the drones only have a leadership of 6, and the only characters in the Tau army that increase that are ethereals, who will NOT be zooming around the board with your spammed crisis commanders.
Drones are not immune to moral tests, their leadership sucks, and they don't benefit from a commander's leadership.
Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.
I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.
We're going to need to see his list if you're going to make a claim like that.
Any opponent is going to be hard-pressed to kill even a single Ghostkeel in one turn as long as it's protected by a shield generator, much less an entire T'au army that's fielding an appropriate number of infantry units supported by suites (as opposed to using suits to replace infantry, as has been the standard, and which should no longer work)
My big observation for suits in this edition is that a shield generator is nearly a requirement now because of the prevalence of 1d3 damage weapon-spam. Most of it has decent AP values which make crisis armor irrelevant, and the damage makes the multiple wounds you're paying a premium for almost worthless.
Old edition tactics will not work in this edition. This goes for almost every army in the game, but seems to be going double for Tau. You have to actually think about longevity for once.
He had a gunline, 3x broadside, riptide, longstrike, missile commander, 3x missile crisis, 30 fw, and some drones (2x 5 ml drones). Thats all I can remember. His opponent was Ynnary (mostly DE and 600-700 pts clowns). At the end of first eldar turn there was only longstrike and couple drones and fw left, no reason to play further.
I know this list is far from great, but when the new edition hit we playtest every faction we can reach in club and no one was so bad as tau. This guy is punished for taking anything outside the commander and s*ttons of drones and markerlights are totally useless, with 5+ drone's BS you need like 15-20 to get that +1 BS. This is not worth the job. Sure, you can play msu horde FW, but tau infantry is boring as hell. No special weapon, no melee (no pile-in mind play, bread of the new edition), you just stand and throwing the dices. It is dull gameplay wise.
You're honestly trying to tell me that an Ynary eldar force made up of half DE and half Harlequins pushed out nearly (18 +14 +13 + 6 + 9 + 30 + 10) ONE HUNDRED WOUNDS against an entrenched Tau gunline (min save in cover will be 3+ and splinter rifles don't have AP and really have a hard time hurting vehicles) WITH ONLY SHOOTING, in one turn?
You're lying. You are either lying, exaggerating, have one of the most incapable Tau player in the world in your club, or that eldar player was rolling nothing but 6's and the tau was rolling nothing but 1's.
I'm not even sure that the scenario you describe is even mathematically possible. Not first turn. Not even second turn unless the dice gods were simply making fun of him (which happens, but isn't normal).
I have no battlerep video, so I can't give any prof. Don't belive it, so skip this example.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But just for the sake of the math, longstrike and FW (cant recall how many, about the half) was still on the table, as well as some drones, so this is not a HUNDRED wounds.
But overall it is bad manner to give a suggestion without a prof, so take my excuses.
Gamgee wrote: No one is saying it isn't a more effective gun, but we're saying it's too expensive. What if a gun in the game existed that did 3d6 damage and on a 6 could instant kill any unit on your opponents army but cost 10k points. Okay great I guess I won't ever get to use it.
And everyone else is saying that it's fair given the context of the Tau army.
Expensive heavy weapons are the price you pay for having suits that usually fly. For having small arms with 30" ranges and S5. For getting basic infantry with a 4+ save. And for getting access to the best ablative wounds in the game, that can even ignore other armies' sniper rules.
Tau are not IG. The fact that a lascannon costs less than a heavy rail rifle only proves that the two armies are different because this direct-comparison stuff you're trying to pull doesn't work cross-army unless you're Eldar or space marines, and even then it really only works when comparing marines to marines, and eldar to eldar (and sometimes not even then).
Tau are not IG. Congrats. You've proven what the rest of us could only figure out by reading the names of both armies.
Rippy wrote: The only thing I think is currently really broken is Forgeworld. The costing of units is way out in my opinion.
Currently not bringing any more Forgeworld to friendly games.
What FW units do you consider broken?
Almost all of them, at the moment. Their rules look like they were rushed out the door by a 3rd grader with a box of crayons.
Okay so we have a lot of abilities that are clearly over costed for what they do. Fly is useless since everything that has it will be so wounded or so short on manpower after an assault. Anyone with brains will kill the drones with shooting before charging and then charge whatever suit is there a good chance for a single charge kill. Okay then if not I get out of melee with one crisis suit or perhaps a severely wounded ghostkeel or big suit or whatever. Then it fires with its degraded profile woopdee do. Or if it's a unit of crisis it has like one guy left. Morale checks also mess up drones and infantry left right and centre to the point it's a huge threat for our army and where other armies it's almost a non-factor. Fly keyword does almost nothing for our army. It's a party trick that won't win games. Same with overwatch. Overwatch doesn't win games. In an entire army of overwatch shooting you might kill a model or two in a game or wound a tougher one slightly. Is that worth up charging everything the Tau have this edition by so much when their regular effectiveness is terrible due to overcosting? Flying away is a terrible thing. It's a bonus that doesn't amount to much. Right now a lot of Tau players are having problems even keeping their drones alive to protect anything. At most it gets us one extra turn and since our shooting is so terrible anyways on most thing it really doesn't amount to much. The drones are more likely to put out damage than any of our actual units which is just sad.
Also Tau forgeworld was terrible! The AX-1-0 Tigershark for weeks couldn't even fire its macro guns so it had two big guns it couldn't use. Now it has to choose to fire its macro guns or its other ones. Which is so bad for a 600 point model. The only option that is strong is the Y'vahrah and perhaps the R'varnah. The Ta'unar is acceptable as well, but everything else is just garbage for what it costs.
Don't forget Ghostkeel get movement penalties to their main weapon without the upgrade to negate it.
Dakka Wolf wrote: I know this is a bit vague but I was playing in another bracket myself so I never actually got to see his list and I only got to watch the last part of his first match, can't remember how many Ghostkeels exactly, three or four? Each one had two stealth drone escorts that gave a further -1 penalty to to hit rolls against the Ghostkeels but apparently they only needed to be within six inches of any stealth drone to get their bonus, not just their own like the army name suggested - Intangible Ghostkeels.
A pair of fire warriors, one packing a markerlight weapon that seemed to have a good fifty inches of range, I never actually got to see what the other one did and three HQ suits.
What I saw was him systematically table a Necron player.
What I heard and read in the results was that he managed the same with an AM army and a Space Wolves player from my own club who I consider a better SW player than myself.
The only player he didn't boardwipe was a Daemon player who had luck in his back pocket when the TO announced The Relic and then just kept making invul saves.
I played the Daemon player, I think my Deathwatch might have beaten the Ghostkeels, a combination of the Null psychic power and a stupid amount of Special Ammo put the Daemons in their place - it's also possible I could have lost entire units before I even got in Bolter range.
I'm not saying the Ghostkeel shenanigans are broken but Tau definitely have lists that aren't bottom tier.
I didn't saw ghostkeels on the table myself yet, but on the paper - it is battlesuit for 168 pts with 2+1d3 meltashots. I don't know, with bs4+ this is not so much, my deepstriking combi- jetpack wolf guards looks better as for me. I mean he will get 2 hits average and his to-hit penalty works only when the enemy is 12', and his drones are only t4 single wound, I can take them down with bolters.
Unless he makes a decent number of his saves then blows your Jump Squad away.
You'd honestly be better off dropping them on the markerlight guy and his bodyguard to put them out of the battle as quick as possible.
The Necron guy's first volley was against the Drones, so were all his others, the HQ missiles and Ghostkeels put down his Arks then did his 'crons squad by squad.
Twelve inches is Rapid Fire range for Space Marines and Necrons, having Fly means even dedicated CC like TWC can only get one meaningful round on them and there is no relevant penalty on them when they just leave combat so hanging about at the twelve inch range is low risk and means most Orks literally can't shoot them unless they charge the Orks, Guard are effectively Overwatching them in any given shooting phase and wounding them on fives or sixes, meanwhile those HQ suits are laying into anything that truly threatens the Ghostkeels with fairly powerful Missiles while being untargetable to non Sniper models due to the blocking Ghostkeels and drones. Nid swarms, maybe Nurgle zombies and Deathwatch would be the only things in my mind that would have a better than 50% chance as a list against the Ghostkeels, with the Nids and Zombies able to put down so many fearless models that the Tau army simply wouldn't have enough shots to bring enough of them down before just about everything being overrun by the Nids and the Keels having nowhere to escape to so no way of leaving combat or simply outlasted by the Zombies - Deathwatch is another name I'll throw in that hat due to Specialised Ammo and the Tau list having such a small model count.
Remember to factor in the ghostkeels -1 to hit with his mainn weapon after a charge unless he is upgraded to move and shoot with no penalties. If he is degraded profile it might even be a 6+ or if he is degraded with an upgrade to move and shoot with no penalty it's 5+ to hit. Not going ot be doing much. An ork player actually came in second place at the 100 man Caledonian Deathwatch event last week. We don't know his list, but he crushed all other opponents except the flyer spam list going around.
Tau didn't even come close to the top 10. Didn't place very well at all in that tournament. I think most people here are severely over rating Tau abilities and how they are costed. Drones and fly keyword were easily played around by the best players. What a shock.
Even if you don't think you can kill ghostkeels (for some reason) I mean they are one of our mid tier units I will grant you that. You can easily outplay the army on objectives since there is so few of them.
Dakka Wolf wrote: I know this is a bit vague but I was playing in another bracket myself so I never actually got to see his list and I only got to watch the last part of his first match, can't remember how many Ghostkeels exactly, three or four? Each one had two stealth drone escorts that gave a further -1 penalty to to hit rolls against the Ghostkeels but apparently they only needed to be within six inches of any stealth drone to get their bonus, not just their own like the army name suggested - Intangible Ghostkeels.
A pair of fire warriors, one packing a markerlight weapon that seemed to have a good fifty inches of range, I never actually got to see what the other one did and three HQ suits.
What I saw was him systematically table a Necron player.
What I heard and read in the results was that he managed the same with an AM army and a Space Wolves player from my own club who I consider a better SW player than myself.
The only player he didn't boardwipe was a Daemon player who had luck in his back pocket when the TO announced The Relic and then just kept making invul saves.
I played the Daemon player, I think my Deathwatch might have beaten the Ghostkeels, a combination of the Null psychic power and a stupid amount of Special Ammo put the Daemons in their place - it's also possible I could have lost entire units before I even got in Bolter range.
I'm not saying the Ghostkeel shenanigans are broken but Tau definitely have lists that aren't bottom tier.
I didn't saw ghostkeels on the table myself yet, but on the paper - it is battlesuit for 168 pts with 2+1d3 meltashots. I don't know, with bs4+ this is not so much, my deepstriking combi- jetpack wolf guards looks better as for me. I mean he will get 2 hits average and his to-hit penalty works only when the enemy is 12', and his drones are only t4 single wound, I can take them down with bolters.
Unless he makes a decent number of his saves then blows your Jump Squad away.
You'd honestly be better off dropping them on the markerlight guy and his bodyguard to put them out of the battle as quick as possible.
The Necron guy's first volley was against the Drones, so were all his others, the HQ missiles and Ghostkeels put down his Arks then did his 'crons squad by squad.
Twelve inches is Rapid Fire range for Space Marines and Necrons, having Fly means even dedicated CC like TWC can only get one meaningful round on them and there is no relevant penalty on them when they just leave combat so hanging about at the twelve inch range is low risk and means most Orks literally can't shoot them unless they charge the Orks, Guard are effectively Overwatching them in any given shooting phase and wounding them on fives or sixes, meanwhile those HQ suits are laying into anything that truly threatens the Ghostkeels with fairly powerful Missiles while being untargetable to non Sniper models due to the blocking Ghostkeels and drones. Nid swarms, maybe Nurgle zombies and Deathwatch would be the only things in my mind that would have a better than 50% chance as a list against the Ghostkeels, with the Nids and Zombies able to put down so many fearless models that the Tau army simply wouldn't have enough shots to bring enough of them down before just about everything being overrun by the Nids and the Keels having nowhere to escape to so no way of leaving combat or simply outlasted by the Zombies - Deathwatch is another name I'll throw in that hat due to Specialised Ammo and the Tau list having such a small model count.
I don't compare jetpack WG vs ghostkeel direct battle, just notice, that jetpack WG make their the job better (and they have the same role as ghostkeel). And even if we will pit them, ghostkeel will only kill one or two guy average. Look at his weapons, 2x melta and heavy 1d3 melta, with bs4+ it is 2 hits average, 1-2 dead marine, but every one costs 40 pts, not a cheap guys though.
Also I see no reason to take TWC anymore, the WG on bike have same s4 A:2 but have a M:14 instead of 10, can turboboost for extra 6 (not a stupid 1d6 run), have a 3(!) bolters each, so they can make 30 rapidfire shots to clean off the screen before the big target, and they have a smaller base, so they actually can hide behind the los block and benefit from cover, when each TWC has a dreadnought size base. And they are cheaper. Hooray for the WG.
Dakka Wolf wrote: I know this is a bit vague but I was playing in another bracket myself so I never actually got to see his list and I only got to watch the last part of his first match, can't remember how many Ghostkeels exactly, three or four? Each one had two stealth drone escorts that gave a further -1 penalty to to hit rolls against the Ghostkeels but apparently they only needed to be within six inches of any stealth drone to get their bonus, not just their own like the army name suggested - Intangible Ghostkeels.
A pair of fire warriors, one packing a markerlight weapon that seemed to have a good fifty inches of range, I never actually got to see what the other one did and three HQ suits.
What I saw was him systematically table a Necron player.
What I heard and read in the results was that he managed the same with an AM army and a Space Wolves player from my own club who I consider a better SW player than myself.
The only player he didn't boardwipe was a Daemon player who had luck in his back pocket when the TO announced The Relic and then just kept making invul saves.
I played the Daemon player, I think my Deathwatch might have beaten the Ghostkeels, a combination of the Null psychic power and a stupid amount of Special Ammo put the Daemons in their place - it's also possible I could have lost entire units before I even got in Bolter range.
I'm not saying the Ghostkeel shenanigans are broken but Tau definitely have lists that aren't bottom tier.
I didn't saw ghostkeels on the table myself yet, but on the paper - it is battlesuit for 168 pts with 2+1d3 meltashots. I don't know, with bs4+ this is not so much, my deepstriking combi- jetpack wolf guards looks better as for me. I mean he will get 2 hits average and his to-hit penalty works only when the enemy is 12', and his drones are only t4 single wound, I can take them down with bolters.
Unless he makes a decent number of his saves then blows your Jump Squad away.
You'd honestly be better off dropping them on the markerlight guy and his bodyguard to put them out of the battle as quick as possible.
The Necron guy's first volley was against the Drones, so were all his others, the HQ missiles and Ghostkeels put down his Arks then did his 'crons squad by squad.
Twelve inches is Rapid Fire range for Space Marines and Necrons, having Fly means even dedicated CC like TWC can only get one meaningful round on them and there is no relevant penalty on them when they just leave combat so hanging about at the twelve inch range is low risk and means most Orks literally can't shoot them unless they charge the Orks, Guard are effectively Overwatching them in any given shooting phase and wounding them on fives or sixes, meanwhile those HQ suits are laying into anything that truly threatens the Ghostkeels with fairly powerful Missiles while being untargetable to non Sniper models due to the blocking Ghostkeels and drones. Nid swarms, maybe Nurgle zombies and Deathwatch would be the only things in my mind that would have a better than 50% chance as a list against the Ghostkeels, with the Nids and Zombies able to put down so many fearless models that the Tau army simply wouldn't have enough shots to bring enough of them down before just about everything being overrun by the Nids and the Keels having nowhere to escape to so no way of leaving combat or simply outlasted by the Zombies - Deathwatch is another name I'll throw in that hat due to Specialised Ammo and the Tau list having such a small model count.
I don't compare jetpack WG vs ghostkeel direct battle, just notice, that jetpack WG make their the job better (and they have the same role as ghostkeel). And even if we will pit them, ghostkeel will only kill one or two guy average. Look at his weapons, 2x melta and heavy 1d3 melta, with bs4+ it is 2 hits average, 1-2 dead marine, but every one costs 40 pts, not a cheap guys though.
Also I see no reason to take TWC anymore, the WG on bike have same s4 A:2 but have a M:14 instead of 10, can turboboost for extra 6 (not a stupid 1d6 run), have a 3(!) bolters each, so they can make 30 rapidfire shots to clean off the screen before the big target, and they have a smaller base, so they actually can hide behind the los block and benefit from cover, when each TWC has a dreadnought size base. And they are cheaper. Hooray for the WG.
Just don't forget the twc wolves also get to attack, tho I will admit I find your WG on bike idea intriguing.
I know, that TWG has extra 3 5 -1 1 attacks, but 3/6 bolter shots per marine in shooting phase much better, it helps you to deal with the screen before the charge. And M:14 (20) with the ability to use los blocks is a BIG deal
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.
Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.
Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".
Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.
Your missing the forest for the trees. Tau durability is okay for its cost but armies don't win on durability alone in 8th. They win by killing or objectives and we can't do objectives anymore due to crazy turn one charges. Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army. My tau players in my local have given up Tau against their will since there is no hope brining them and hoping to win. Other races have melee, speed, range, psychic phase, and now better shooting than the Tau. How is that fair? Tau are the worst faction in the game by a mile right now.
Crazy turn one charges huh? That succeed on 9's? That you can bubble wrap away with Kroots? Sorry you just can't put down 5 riptides and win anymore, but given the durability of the platform, the HRR sounds priced about right. Multimeltas are 27 pts each now. Welcome to 8th.
It's also really, really hard to feel bad for a list where almost every Tau poster had no problem with the carnage they could cause turn 1 in 7th (5 ion acclerators: sorry about your marine army, bro!, but somehow, turn one charges are the end of the world? You can just walk out of CC, now, you know. It's not a death sentence anymore for Tau. That and all the people bending over backwards justifying the price tag on the 7th ed Riptide. That makes it hard, too. Sorry your MC can't outlast a titan anymore.
Turn 1 charges are blown way out of proportion around here.
If you have nothing to absorb a charge, and leave your most valuable stuff out in the open, unprotected, that's a problem. Forgetting of course that some of your big-bads have wicked flamers.
You'll notice that not one Imperial Guard player is complaining about first turn charges, because they're used to using bodies to protect their tanks, and they understand that a first turn charge is actually not that powerful.
The turn 3 charge vs a target of value is way more powerful in 8th ed. This frankly doesn't surprise me as this is the crowd that I mathematically showed how crazy the Stimtide was, but the still refused to admit anything. "It's not THAT bad" "You have to learn strategy" "It can't fight in melee!"
Zan wrote: The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.
Tau are not IG. The fact that a lascannon costs less than a heavy rail rifle only proves that the two armies are different because this direct-comparison stuff you're trying to pull doesn't work cross-army unless you're Eldar or space marines, and even then it really only works when comparing marines to marines, and eldar to eldar (and sometimes not even then).
Never called for Tau to become IG but it's only one with his head in the sand that can claim that Tau wasn't hit harder when the editions changed.
Quad Lascannon Predator went from 140 to 200 (+45%)
Triple Lascannon HWT went from 60 to 72 (+20%)
Manticore went from 170 to 125 (-30%)
Double Auto Cannon Venerable Dreadnought went from 145 to 156 (+8%)
Double Lascannon Razorback went from 75 to 115 (+50%)
Broadside HYMP+SMS went from 65 to 202 (+315%)
Broadside HRR+SMS went from 65 to 183 (+285%)
Crisis MP went from 45 to 115 (+250%)
Next problem was the changes to Markerlights.
While it's awesome that they don't go away now. The bonus they give have also been neutered.
Tau players relied on Markerlights to make expensive shots like the 65 point Broadsides (was seen as a skosh expensive even in previous editions) hit their target accurately.
That's gone now, since you need a TON of Markerlights to the +1 BS, where previously you needed just a few shots to get BS increases.
So they Doubled/Tripled our costs AND nerfed our ability to fix our Accuracy where it matters.
I could also mention the loss of JSJ... but at this point... Does it really matter?
-Cynical Joke- "Let's make an army with no psychic powers... that's bad at melee... AND ... wait for it... bad at shooting... AND make their models really expensive!"
Crazy turn one charges huh? That succeed on 9's? That you can bubble wrap away with Kroots? Sorry you just can't put down 5 riptides and win anymore, but given the durability of the platform, the HRR sounds priced about right. Multimeltas are 27 pts each now. Welcome to 8th.
It's also really, really hard to feel bad for a list where almost every Tau poster had no problem with the carnage they could cause turn 1 in 7th (5 ion acclerators: sorry about your marine army, bro!, but somehow, turn one charges are the end of the world? You can just walk out of CC, now, you know. It's not a death sentence anymore for Tau. That and all the people bending over backwards justifying the price tag on the 7th ed Riptide. That makes it hard, too. Sorry your MC can't outlast a titan anymore.
As a player who never fielded riptide wing and only ever fielded one riptide at a time I take a bit of offense to this. However I must say there is some truth to it. I played mostly crisis suit, stealth, and ghostkeels in 7th and right now I am doing pretty good using those same units also my devilfished are coming back. My record with tau is 4-0 (against DE, harlequins, IG, and marines if any one cares) and I have to say the fly keyword is outstanding. Tau players need to adjust just like everyone else.
Tau are not IG. The fact that a lascannon costs less than a heavy rail rifle only proves that the two armies are different because this direct-comparison stuff you're trying to pull doesn't work cross-army unless you're Eldar or space marines, and even then it really only works when comparing marines to marines, and eldar to eldar (and sometimes not even then).
Never called for Tau to become IG but it's only one with his head in the sand that can claim that Tau wasn't hit harder when the editions changed.
Quad Lascannon Predator went from 140 to 200 (+45%)
Triple Lascannon HWT went from 60 to 72 (+20%)
Manticore went from 170 to 125 (-30%)
Double Auto Cannon Venerable Dreadnought went from 145 to 156 (+8%)
Double Lascannon Razorback went from 75 to 115 (+50%)
Broadside HYMP+SMS went from 65 to 202 (+315%)
Broadside HRR+SMS went from 65 to 183 (+285%)
Crisis MP went from 45 to 115 (+250%)
Again, it's almost as though different armies are different or something!
Take a basic transport with ~12 wounds. A quad lascannon pred with a 3+ BS will shoot with 4, hit with 2-3, wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points.
Broadside with HRR and a single markerlight will shoot with 2, hit with 1-2 (re-rolling 1's), wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points with a, roughly, 1 in 3 chance for an extra mortal wound.
For return fire, the pred has ~12 wounds, ~T7, and a 3+ save.
The Broadside has 6 wounds, T5 or 6, a 2+ save, a potential 4++ save, and drone bubble-wrap with more 4++ saves or markerlights.
Can someone look up broadsides for me and tell me how easily they can take advantage of cover?
Next problem was the changes to Markerlights.
While it's awesome that they don't go away now. The bonus they give have also been neutered.
Tau players relied on Markerlights to make expensive shots like the 65 point Broadsides (was seen as a skosh expensive even in previous editions) hit their target accurately.
That's gone now, since you need a TON of Markerlights to the +1 BS, where previously you needed just a few shots to get BS increases.
So they Doubled/Tripled our costs AND nerfed our ability to fix our Accuracy where it matters.
Cry me a river. Markerlights are still disgustingly powerful. Only difference now is that in 8th edition, the other player will get to actually play with their vehicles for a bit before the Tau blow them all off the board. Also, it's like they want you to actually have to suffer through having a BS of 4 on occasion, or something.
I could also mention the loss of JSJ... but at this point... Does it really matter?
-Cynical Joke- "Let's make an army with no psychic powers... that's bad at melee... AND ... wait for it... bad at shooting... AND make their models really expensive!"
JSJ? No. It doesn't. Not now that everyone can advance AND now that you can simply walk your units out of CC and have the rest of your army level the assaulters.
I'm not touching your joke seeing as how it just flatly ignores every single strength in the Tau army, including how their shooting is NOT bad.
Zan wrote: The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.
Orks have a far worse winrate than those.
Only in games reported on dakka. In Dakka reported games, orks have an almost identical win percentage to Space Marines There aren't enough games with the factions you mentioned (Grey Knights, Dark Angels) to draw a meaningful conclusion about their quality. Orks finished 2nd overall in a 100 person tournament. If Orks are as bad as dakka suggests this wouldn't be possible.
Automatically Appended Next Post: forums bugged out
Again, it's almost as though different armies are different or something!
Take a basic transport with ~12 wounds. A quad lascannon pred with a 3+ BS will shoot with 4, hit with 2-3, wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points.
Broadside with HRR and a single markerlight will shoot with 2, hit with 1-2 (re-rolling 1's), wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points with a, roughly, 1 in 3 chance for an extra mortal wound.
For return fire, the pred has ~12 wounds, ~T7, and a 3+ save.
The Broadside has 6 wounds, T5 or 6, a 2+ save, a potential 4++ save, and drone bubble-wrap with more 4++ saves or markerlights.
Can someone look up broadsides for me and tell me how easily they can take advantage of cover?
Broadsides are not Infantry, they actually need to be 50% hidden.
Drone Bubble Wrap gets no saves when they take wounds, so no 4++
You basically need a 2 Broadsides to equal a Predator
400 points to equal 200 points
A Quad Pred Lascannon will shoot 4, hit with 3, wound with 2, deal 3-7 damage (~10% chance of dealing 0 damage)
A HRR Broadside will shoot 2, hit with 1, and like miss, or maybe get a few wounds. (~40% chance of dealing 0 damage)
Again, No one cares that the armies are different. What we care about is that
Army A - Has Good Psychic, Good Shooting, Good Melee
Army B - Has No Psychic, Bad Shooting, Worst Melee in the Game
These are PROVEN OBJECTIVE MATHEMATICAL TRUTHS.
Zan wrote: The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.
Orks have a far worse winrate than those.
Only in games reported on dakka.
In Dakka reported games, orks have an almost identical win percentage to Space Marines
There aren't enough games with the factions you mentioned (Grey Knights, Dark Angels) to draw a meaningful conclusion about their quality.
Orks finished 2nd overall in a 100 person tournament. If Orks are as bad as dakka suggests this wouldn't be possible.
Actually given the relatively narrower power gap this edition, the fact detachments allow you to easily spam 1-2 good units, the unstable meta, and normal random chance, it's actually entirely possible for that to happen and orks be a subpar army overall. Honestly it'd actually be impressive if an army didn't have any viable builds right now. They'd have to either have an exceptionally small selection of units, no decent cheap HQs and no flyers or LoW of note, or flat out not have anything worthwhile in their army.
Of course, with codices coming out so quickly, I doubt any real consensus will emerge for quite a while. A new codex every month can easily keep the meta from stabilizing, and that's the point where armies with only a couple viable builds and good units will start struggling.
Gamgee wrote: Remember to factor in the ghostkeels -1 to hit with his mainn weapon after a charge unless he is upgraded to move and shoot with no penalties.
Just about everyone else has that penalty, with no means to alleviate it.
Again, it's almost as though different armies are different or something!
Take a basic transport with ~12 wounds. A quad lascannon pred with a 3+ BS will shoot with 4, hit with 2-3, wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points.
Broadside with HRR and a single markerlight will shoot with 2, hit with 1-2 (re-rolling 1's), wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points with a, roughly, 1 in 3 chance for an extra mortal wound.
For return fire, the pred has ~12 wounds, ~T7, and a 3+ save. The Broadside has 6 wounds, T5 or 6, a 2+ save, a potential 4++ save, and drone bubble-wrap with more 4++ saves or markerlights.
Can someone look up broadsides for me and tell me how easily they can take advantage of cover?
Broadsides are not Infantry, they actually need to be 50% hidden. Drone Bubble Wrap gets no saves when they take wounds, so no 4++
You basically need a 2 Broadsides to equal a Predator 400 points to equal 200 points
A Quad Pred Lascannon will shoot 4, hit with 3, wound with 2, deal 3-7 damage (~10% chance of dealing 0 damage) A HRR Broadside will shoot 2, hit with 1, and like miss, or maybe get a few wounds. (~40% chance of dealing 0 damage)
Again, No one cares that the armies are different. What we care about is that Army A - Has Good Psychic, Good Shooting, Good Melee Army B - Has No Psychic, Bad Shooting, Worst Melee in the Game These are PROVEN OBJECTIVE MATHEMATICAL TRUTHS.
In a vacuum. Only in a vacuum.
Broadsides have secondary weapons they pay points for, that make them useful in other situations. SMS can be used to bombard approaching infantry from cover. Plasma rifles can be used to pop marines as they approach. Broadsides can benefit from markerlights, and their weapon packages make them highly value that 3rd hit. Meanwhile, a moving predator has to eat that -1 to hit if it wants to move. Broadsides get a support system that can include a 4++ save over their 2+, or a drone controller to enable their own markerlight drone spam, or a velocity tracker to turn them into anti-air batteries for a mere 2 points without gimping them against non-aerial targets.
Oh, and shield drones get their 4++ save against any wounds allocated to them through their savior protocols. I have no idea where you got the idea that they cannot take their invuln save. The protocols just allow you to allocate the wound. It's still saved against as normal.
Finally, again, Tau do NOT have bad shooting. They have 4+ bs, but also have a higher than average strength. It's not the army's fault that you like elite spam that doesn't take advantage of it.
Firewarriors and Breacher teams are where your advantaged shooting is. They reverse the math against the marine standard by hitting with half and wounding with 2/3rds (compared to a bolter vs a marine that hits with 2/3rds and wounds with half). The infantry units you don't use have marine shooting before markerlights are taken into account, and do so for about 60% of the cost per model.
Your broadsides should be supporting your gunline. Not standing in place of it.
You're trying to argue that the entire Tau army sucks, and your proof is that Broadsides aren't as good as a las-pred in a vacuum. If you can't understand why that's a bad argument, I don't know what else I *can* tell you.
Edit: I thought you were comparing Tau to IG. How did space marines enter into theis? We already know that SM shoot really well for their points because they pay for it with 13 point models at a minimum. A better comparison given the context of the rest of the conversation would be a broadside vs a LRBT.
Gamgee wrote: Remember to factor in the ghostkeels -1 to hit with his mainn weapon after a charge unless he is upgraded to move and shoot with no penalties.
Just about everyone else has that penalty, with no means to alleviate it.
Also, the Ghostkeel just has an option to alleviate it. 3 Markerlight hits will do the same for the entire Tau army.
If you're willing and able to coordinate your ghostkeels with your markerlight assets, you don't need to take a Target Lock. I, personally, consider a shield generator to be mandatory for a Ghostkeel, and would take a target lock as a good second option. However, if I'm markerlighting it's targets, I would gladly drop the target lock out for a stimulant injector. It's actually a really attractive strategy from a potential perspective.
Zan wrote: The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.
Orks have a far worse winrate than those.
I have a win/loss table to debunk the above claim (not about Orks).
Selym wrote: Deer Lawd, the Tau have been taking it up the ass as of late.
Anyways, here's the customary W/L ratio, of any army with 30 or more games. For inclusion's sake.
Martel732 wrote: Didn't saviour protocols get whammyed with mortal wounds?
Not to my knowledge? Granted, I haven't been paying that much attention so I could be wrong. However, as I understand it a wound is a wound, and savior protocols just interrupt the normal allocation step and allow the tau player to allocate the wound to a drone. The wound roll would then occur as normal, followed by an armor/invuln save if applicable.
If it's a mortal wound, then yeah, it would ignore any armor or invuln save, and automatically deal 1 damage. But there's nothing there that says anything about allocated wounds becoming mortal, or allocated wounds ignoring any other rules. They can just be allocated to a drone unit within 3" instead of the target unit.
Pages 53, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73
and 74 – Saviour Protocols
Change this rule to read:
‘Saviour Protocols: If a <Sept> Drones unit is within 3"
of a friendly <Sept> Infantry or <Sept> Battlesuit
unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you
can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal
wound instead of the normal damage.’
I suspect the shield drone will get an exemption in the codex.
Not really. I have noticed much more a huge upswing on lowered tiered armies though. Which means the upper tier armies/lists are losing more and since they aren't adapting they believe they've swapped.
As for the Tau deal. It really comes off as a L2P kinda thing. Which makes sense as 8th pretty much in its infancy and we all need to L2P.
The thing many playing Tau forget is you're paying for marker lights. If you want your weapons to be the equivalent to a lascannon...then demand the removal of markerlights from your army and then readjust points from there.
It appears many want homogenization of armies so the differences are minor at best and with different looking models at most. Never got upset that I didn't have Nurgle unit equivalents for my Dark Eldar nor desiring my Nids having equivalent weapon options as say, Space Marines.
Why? Because I enjoy variety in armies gameplay as a theme. Could some of the Tau issues be points? Maybe, but again they get markerlights. My Nids don't get marker lights nor do my Dark Eldar or 1K Sons.
Point being weapons that fulfill the same/similar role as other armies aren't equal. They carry different weight/value based around the style of army it is. High quality range fire that is ridiculously powerful and easy to hit...needs to have a balance point.
Lastly, Mathhammer is utterly atrocious for an argument. Mathhammer works under averages. Playing actual games, sorry to tell you...they do not care about averages. Furthermore, Mathhammer only works when its agenda driven to support ones own unchanging worldview on something as it removes vasts amount of elements that are also a part of the game.
It doesn't account for the rest of an army. It doesn't account for the skill of the players. It doesn't account for terrain or how the player rolls. It makes assumptions based in a closed environment and when wisely used it helps players to balance during a match success potential, but most of the time its used to backseat rule write and to be on hand as an excuse of soothing one's ego on why they lost.
TL;DR
Tau isn't IG which isn't Nids which isn't Space Marines. Markerlights are a thing, learn to use them now rather than how you used them before.
" Playing actual games, sorry to tell you...they do not care about averages"
Actually, they do. The only question is how far into the law of large numbers of dice you go. Mathhammer tells you what will happen over many games for sure. Individual games can be outliers, but the aggregate data set will obey mathhammer guaranteed.
cavebear56 wrote: Markerlights are a thing, learn to use them now rather than how you used them before.
People have basically abandoned them beyond the one markerlight hit, the cost to get more then a single unit fully marked ends up being prohibitive given the cheapest way to do so is 80pts of pathfinders.
I basicly expect T'au to be played as a horde of inf with fusion commanders or longstrike supported hammerheads for popping anything big, which I will be honest is a bit boring (at least to paint).
Martel732 wrote: Pages 53, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 and 74 – Saviour Protocols Change this rule to read: ‘Saviour Protocols: If a <Sept> Drones unit is within 3" of a friendly <Sept> Infantry or <Sept> Battlesuit unit when an enemy attack successfully wounds it, you can allocate that wound to the Drones unit instead of the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers a mortal wound instead of the normal damage.’
I suspect the shield drone will get an exemption in the codex.
Oh.. GW and their damn FAQs again. Figures.
Reading that, I'm never, ever taking shield drones. It's not worth it if they never get the invuln saves they pay 2 ppm for.
cavebear56 wrote: Markerlights are a thing, learn to use them now rather than how you used them before.
People have basically abandoned them beyond the one markerlight hit, the cost to get more then a single unit fully marked ends up being prohibitive given the cheapest way to do so is 80pts of pathfinders.
I basicly expect T'au to be played as a horde of inf with fusion commanders or longstrike supported hammerheads for popping anything big, which I will be honest is a bit boring (at least to paint).
Don't forget vespid, those are still getting praised for obvious reasons.
Lastly, Mathhammer is utterly atrocious for an argument. Mathhammer works under averages. Playing actual games, sorry to tell you...they do not care about averages. Furthermore, Mathhammer only works when its agenda driven to support ones own unchanging worldview on something as it removes vasts amount of elements that are also a part of the game.
While true that basic Mathhammer works on an average, Mathhammer also recognizes the deviation and extremes.
This line basically invalidates everything else you said.
Also, no one is asking for homogenization. Stop pressing that strawman.
cavebear56 wrote: Markerlights are a thing, learn to use them now rather than how you used them before.
People have basically abandoned them beyond the one markerlight hit, the cost to get more then a single unit fully marked ends up being prohibitive given the cheapest way to do so is 80pts of pathfinders.
I basicly expect T'au to be played as a horde of inf with fusion commanders or longstrike supported hammerheads for popping anything big, which I will be honest is a bit boring (at least to paint).
Yeah. As has been said, it looks like there are a lot of tau players who never learned how to actually play tau. Every step in the markerlight table has a distinct value to it that cannot necessarily be mathed out, and it looks like there are a lot of Tau players who simply don't know the game well enough to take advantage because they take one look at it and say "first hit and last hit are the only ones worth it"
One hit has obvious benefits. Especially if you're firing anything Ion.
If a vehicle has 4 or 5 wounds left, two markerlight hits can let you finish it off one seeker at a time if you have a heavy weapon that doesn't quite get the job done. How many times have you said "Oh man, just one more wound!" or "If I roll a 4, 5, or 6, it dies", only to roll a 3? This fixes that problem.
Piece of area terrain blocking sight for your heavy weapons? Three markerlight hits allows you to move into position and open them up. There are a lot of heavy weapons in the Tau index that 3 markerlight hits will help you get into position, and most of them are attached to highly mobile units that love to move.
Are you fielding Breachers? How about squads of gun drones? Stealth suits? Ghostkeels? Hell...a Riptide? Three markerlight hits let them move, advance, and open up without penalty.
Marines scout-snipers in cover? Four markerlight hits and you can make them gone.
Don't like your odds on finishing off an almost dead target because all your seeker mounting units had to move this turn? Two more markerlight hits can fix that (remember boys and girls. Seeker missiles are Heavy 1)
5-man Marine fire team in a building with a 1+ save because city fight rules are giving them +2 to their saves? Four Markerlight hits and your breacher team will dust them.
Five markerlight hits gets you a +1 BS. However, it also grants the rest of the markerlight benefits as well. Tag something 5 times and you reroll 1's, get your BS on seekers to fix those "I almost killed it!" moments, can move and shoot with heavy weapons and advance and shoot assault weapons without penalty, ignore cover, AND get +1 to hit. All at the same time.
The only people who look at that and think "Gee, only the first markerlight is worth anything" are Tau players. Literally everyone else is telling you that markerlights are awesome, and that we fear them because they will allow you to wreck us.
Lastly, Mathhammer is utterly atrocious for an argument. Mathhammer works under averages. Playing actual games, sorry to tell you...they do not care about averages. Furthermore, Mathhammer only works when its agenda driven to support ones own unchanging worldview on something as it removes vasts amount of elements that are also a part of the game.
While true that basic Mathhammer works on an average, Mathhammer also recognizes the deviation and extremes.
This line basically invalidates everything else you said.
No. You don't get to say this after trying to argue against my point using vacuum-math on a las-pred.
Yeah. As has been said, it looks like there are a lot of tau players who never learned how to actually play tau. Every step in the markerlight table has a distinct value to it that cannot necessarily be mathed out, and it looks like there are a lot of Tau players who simply don't know the game well enough to take advantage because they take one look at it and say "first hit and last hit are the only ones worth it"
One hit has obvious benefits. Especially if you're firing anything Ion.
If a vehicle has 4 or 5 wounds left, two markerlight hits can let you finish it off one seeker at a time if you have a heavy weapon that doesn't quite get the job done. How many times have you said "Oh man, just one more wound!" or "If I roll a 4, 5, or 6, it dies", only to roll a 3? This fixes that problem.
Piece of area terrain blocking sight for your heavy weapons? Three markerlight hits allows you to move into position and open them up. There are a lot of heavy weapons in the Tau index that 3 markerlight hits will help you get into position, and most of them are attached to highly mobile units that love to move.
Are you fielding Breachers? How about squads of gun drones? Stealth suits? Ghostkeels? Hell...a Riptide? Three markerlight hits let them move, advance, and open up without penalty.
Marines scout-snipers in cover? Four markerlight hits and you can make them gone.
Don't like your odds on finishing off an almost dead target because all your seeker mounting units had to move this turn? Two more markerlight hits can fix that (remember boys and girls. Seeker missiles are Heavy 1)
5-man Marine fire team in a building with a 1+ save because city fight rules are giving them +2 to their saves? Four Markerlight hits and your breacher team will dust them.
Five markerlight hits gets you a +1 BS. However, it also grants the rest of the markerlight benefits as well. Tag something 5 times and you reroll 1's, get your BS on seekers to fix those "I almost killed it!" moments, can move and shoot with heavy weapons and advance and shoot assault weapons without penalty, ignore cover, AND get +1 to hit. All at the same time.
The only people who look at that and think "Gee, only the first markerlight is worth anything" are Tau players. Literally everyone else is telling you that markerlights are awesome, and that we fear them because they will allow you to wreck us.
Lastly, Mathhammer is utterly atrocious for an argument. Mathhammer works under averages. Playing actual games, sorry to tell you...they do not care about averages. Furthermore, Mathhammer only works when its agenda driven to support ones own unchanging worldview on something as it removes vasts amount of elements that are also a part of the game.
While true that basic Mathhammer works on an average, Mathhammer also recognizes the deviation and extremes.
This line basically invalidates everything else you said.
No. You don't get to say this after trying to argue against my point using vacuum-math on a las-pred.
I can provide a TON more examples about how Tau Heavy Weapons are severely overpriced.
Tho it would all reach the exact same conclusion.
As far as the Markerlight Table is concerned.
2 - Seeker Missiles are pretty garbage, it would take quite a bit of math to prove this tho. I have done it before, and I just don't think this thread is worth the effort so far.
3 - This is a massive gamble. If you fail to reach 3 Lights on your target, then you have severely punished your shooting.
4 - Arguably decent. The effect is fairly strong, but situational. Against Anti Tank it's often irrelevant since most Tanks won't have this benefit.
As well as Cover as a whole is a lot less common in 8e.
If a Vehicle has 4-5 wounds left, you will need about 10-15 Seeker Missiles to get the job done. Those Missiles need platforms that can carry them.
As well as the order of operation matters here. If you shoot with let's say AT Weapon #1 that carries 2 Seeker, it does poorly. ATW#2/2 Seekers, it does okay. AT#3 and it is now low enough to justify using Seekers on... You can't go back and use the Seekers on the 1st 2.
Gun Drones are easily the most broken thing in the Tau Codex. I would happily see them nerfed in return for the rest of the Index being viable.
The hard truth about Markerlights is that too many people have hangups of their power from previous editions. So they automatically assume they are "GOD GG SSS TIER".
When the truth is... their effects can often be replicated with intelligent play or other options.
Again, it's almost as though different armies are different or something!
Take a basic transport with ~12 wounds. A quad lascannon pred with a 3+ BS will shoot with 4, hit with 2-3, wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points.
Broadside with HRR and a single markerlight will shoot with 2, hit with 1-2 (re-rolling 1's), wound with 1-2, and deal 3-7 damage for ~200 points with a, roughly, 1 in 3 chance for an extra mortal wound.
For return fire, the pred has ~12 wounds, ~T7, and a 3+ save.
The Broadside has 6 wounds, T5 or 6, a 2+ save, a potential 4++ save, and drone bubble-wrap with more 4++ saves or markerlights.
Can someone look up broadsides for me and tell me how easily they can take advantage of cover?
Broadsides are not Infantry, they actually need to be 50% hidden.
Drone Bubble Wrap gets no saves when they take wounds, so no 4++
You basically need a 2 Broadsides to equal a Predator
400 points to equal 200 points
A Quad Pred Lascannon will shoot 4, hit with 3, wound with 2, deal 3-7 damage (~10% chance of dealing 0 damage)
A HRR Broadside will shoot 2, hit with 1, and like miss, or maybe get a few wounds. (~40% chance of dealing 0 damage)
Again, No one cares that the armies are different. What we care about is that
Army A - Has Good Psychic, Good Shooting, Good Melee
Army B - Has No Psychic, Bad Shooting, Worst Melee in the Game
These are PROVEN OBJECTIVE MATHEMATICAL TRUTHS.
In a vacuum. Only in a vacuum.
Broadsides have secondary weapons they pay points for, that make them useful in other situations. SMS can be used to bombard approaching infantry from cover. Plasma rifles can be used to pop marines as they approach. Broadsides can benefit from markerlights, and their weapon packages make them highly value that 3rd hit. Meanwhile, a moving predator has to eat that -1 to hit if it wants to move. Broadsides get a support system that can include a 4++ save over their 2+, or a drone controller to enable their own markerlight drone spam, or a velocity tracker to turn them into anti-air batteries for a mere 2 points without gimping them against non-aerial targets.
Oh, and shield drones get their 4++ save against any wounds allocated to them through their savior protocols. I have no idea where you got the idea that they cannot take their invuln save. The protocols just allow you to allocate the wound. It's still saved against as normal.
Finally, again, Tau do NOT have bad shooting. They have 4+ bs, but also have a higher than average strength. It's not the army's fault that you like elite spam that doesn't take advantage of it.
Firewarriors and Breacher teams are where your advantaged shooting is. They reverse the math against the marine standard by hitting with half and wounding with 2/3rds (compared to a bolter vs a marine that hits with 2/3rds and wounds with half). The infantry units you don't use have marine shooting before markerlights are taken into account, and do so for about 60% of the cost per model.
Your broadsides should be supporting your gunline. Not standing in place of it.
You're trying to argue that the entire Tau army sucks, and your proof is that Broadsides aren't as good as a las-pred in a vacuum. If you can't understand why that's a bad argument, I don't know what else I *can* tell you.
Edit: I thought you were comparing Tau to IG. How did space marines enter into theis? We already know that SM shoot really well for their points because they pay for it with 13 point models at a minimum. A better comparison given the context of the rest of the conversation would be a broadside vs a LRBT.
SMS is one of the worst points per wound weapons in our dex. So now we stack the two terrible things together? SMS is hugely over costed and a broadside is looking at another 40 points total for both the sms which brings the broadside even less into points efficiency than the tank. It's still only 8 heavy str 5 shots no rend.
I do agree that SMS are garbage for their points. They've got the whole "no LOS required" thing going for them, but they're still garbage for the price.
Plasma wins over SMS every single time.
SMS just isn't an interesting weapon system. They don't do anything interesting.
I know this is a bit vague but I was playing in another bracket myself so I never actually got to see his list and I only got to watch the last part of his first match, can't remember how many Ghostkeels exactly, three or four? Each one had two stealth drone escorts that gave a further -1 penalty to to hit rolls against the Ghostkeels but apparently they only needed to be within six inches of any stealth drone to get their bonus, not just their own like the army name suggested - Intangible Ghostkeels.
A pair of fire warriors, one packing a markerlight weapon that seemed to have a good fifty inches of range, I never actually got to see what the other one did and three HQ suits.
What I saw was him systematically table a Necron player.
What I heard and read in the results was that he managed the same with an AM army and a Space Wolves player from my own club who I consider a better SW player than myself.
The only player he didn't boardwipe was a Daemon player who had luck in his back pocket when the TO announced The Relic and then just kept making invul saves.
I played the Daemon player, I think my Deathwatch might have beaten the Ghostkeels, a combination of the Null psychic power and a stupid amount of Special Ammo put the Daemons in their place - it's also possible I could have lost entire units before I even got in Bolter range.
I'm not saying the Ghostkeel shenanigans are broken but Tau definitely have lists that aren't bottom tier.
I didn't saw ghostkeels on the table myself yet, but on the paper - it is battlesuit for 168 pts with 2+1d3 meltashots. I don't know, with bs4+ this is not so much, my deepstriking combi- jetpack wolf guards looks better as for me. I mean he will get 2 hits average and his to-hit penalty works only when the enemy is 12', and his drones are only t4 single wound, I can take them down with bolters.
Unless he makes a decent number of his saves then blows your Jump Squad away.
You'd honestly be better off dropping them on the markerlight guy and his bodyguard to put them out of the battle as quick as possible.
The Necron guy's first volley was against the Drones, so were all his others, the HQ missiles and Ghostkeels put down his Arks then did his 'crons squad by squad.
Twelve inches is Rapid Fire range for Space Marines and Necrons, having Fly means even dedicated CC like TWC can only get one meaningful round on them and there is no relevant penalty on them when they just leave combat so hanging about at the twelve inch range is low risk and means most Orks literally can't shoot them unless they charge the Orks, Guard are effectively Overwatching them in any given shooting phase and wounding them on fives or sixes, meanwhile those HQ suits are laying into anything that truly threatens the Ghostkeels with fairly powerful Missiles while being untargetable to non Sniper models due to the blocking Ghostkeels and drones. Nid swarms, maybe Nurgle zombies and Deathwatch would be the only things in my mind that would have a better than 50% chance as a list against the Ghostkeels, with the Nids and Zombies able to put down so many fearless models that the Tau army simply wouldn't have enough shots to bring enough of them down before just about everything being overrun by the Nids and the Keels having nowhere to escape to so no way of leaving combat or simply outlasted by the Zombies - Deathwatch is another name I'll throw in that hat due to Specialised Ammo and the Tau list having such a small model count.
I don't compare jetpack WG vs ghostkeel direct battle, just notice, that jetpack WG make their the job better (and they have the same role as ghostkeel). And even if we will pit them, ghostkeel will only kill one or two guy average. Look at his weapons, 2x melta and heavy 1d3 melta, with bs4+ it is 2 hits average, 1-2 dead marine, but every one costs 40 pts, not a cheap guys though.
Also I see no reason to take TWC anymore, the WG on bike have same s4 A:2 but have a M:14 instead of 10, can turboboost for extra 6 (not a stupid 1d6 run), have a 3(!) bolters each, so they can make 30 rapidfire shots to clean off the screen before the big target, and they have a smaller base, so they actually can hide behind the los block and benefit from cover, when each TWC has a dreadnought size base. And they are cheaper. Hooray for the WG.
Sorry, I thought you were putting up a scenario, that's kind of what happened to my buddy's Space Wolves - he tried to naff the Drones with his combi-plasma Jump Guard, managed to off three then they got Markerlighted and blown away by the Ghostkeels and a HQ's missiles.
I gave him gak about why he didn't punk the Marker-dudes sitting off in the distance all alone. Since last edition killing Tau Markermodels has been top priority for me - he said he expected six Plasma-shots and four Bolter-shots to erase more Drones but the fact they were in different units made him seperate fire one plasma and one bolter each for two units, one plasma on the third, naturally he overkilled one unit, got one from two of the second and failed to even hit any in the third.
One hit has obvious benefits. Especially if you're firing anything Ion.
If a vehicle has 4 or 5 wounds left, two markerlight hits can let you finish it off one seeker at a time if you have a heavy weapon that doesn't quite get the job done. How many times have you said "Oh man, just one more wound!" or "If I roll a 4, 5, or 6, it dies", only to roll a 3? This fixes that problem.
.
Thank you. I was starting to think that I was the only one who had realized this.
Except the reason you have those wounds left over is because you wasted points tanking inefficient seeker missiles instead a more points efficient option that would have wounded way more stuff.
2 - Seeker Missiles are pretty garbage, it would take quite a bit of math to prove this tho.
It would take an infinite amount of math, because you cannot mathematize the value of being able to allocate exactly how many shots you need to fire to accomplish a specific task, which is precisely what seeler missiles, especially on Skyrays, provide.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gamgee wrote: Except the reason you have those wounds left over is because you wasted points tanking inefficient seeker missiles instead a more points efficient option that would have wounded way more stuff.
Thnk for five seconds man. You know target x has two wounds left, you fire exactly two missiles, and you are pretty much 100% guaranteed of the target being destroyed (assuming a Skyray with 5+ ML support, because 97% chance of a wound per missile fired).
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm pretty sure it's the only way in the game to do that.
2 - Seeker Missiles are pretty garbage, it would take quite a bit of math to prove this tho.
It would take an infinite amount of math, because you cannot mathematize the value of being able to allocate exactly how many shots you need to fire to accomplish a specific task, which is precisely what seeler missiles, especially on Skyrays, provide.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gamgee wrote: Except the reason you have those wounds left over is because you wasted points tanking inefficient seeker missiles instead a more points efficient option that would have wounded way more stuff.
Thnk for five seconds man. You know target x has two wounds left, you fire exactly two missiles, and you are pretty much 100% guaranteed of the target being destroyed (assuming a Skyray with 5+ ML support, because 97% chance of a wound per missile fired).
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm pretty sure it's the only way in the game to do that.
Thats nice and all but why are you even taking a skyray? It has 6 seeker missiles, 2 burst cannons or so of guns, and two markerlights for 170+ points, once you have spent those 6 missiles (of which ~4 will hit) you are 6 pathfinders effectively.
Talamare wrote: 2 - Seeker Missiles are pretty garbage, it would take quite a bit of math to prove this tho.
It would take an infinite amount of math, because you cannot mathematize the value of being able to allocate exactly how many shots you need to fire to accomplish a specific task, which is precisely what seeler missiles, especially on Skyrays, provide.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gamgee wrote: Except the reason you have those wounds left over is because you wasted points tanking inefficient seeker missiles instead a more points efficient option that would have wounded way more stuff.
Thnk for five seconds man. You know target x has two wounds left, you fire exactly two missiles, and you are pretty much 100% guaranteed of the target being destroyed (assuming a Skyray with 5+ ML support, because 97% chance of a wound per missile fired).
Think for six seconds man, 100% guaranteed =/= 94% chance of success.
This is a honest question for Tau players, not a slight at all.
What percentage of players only own about 2000 points (7e cost) of tau models, all purchased in 6th/7th? I would assume from this thread that these armies would be decimated by the best 8e Tau list. Would some of Tau's troubles be related to lack of models?
cavebear56 wrote: Lastly, Mathhammer is utterly atrocious for an argument. Mathhammer works under averages. Playing actual games, sorry to tell you...they do not care about averages. Furthermore, Mathhammer only works when its agenda driven to support ones own unchanging worldview on something as it removes vasts amount of elements that are also a part of the game.
It doesn't account for the rest of an army. It doesn't account for the skill of the players. It doesn't account for terrain or how the player rolls. It makes assumptions based in a closed environment and when wisely used it helps players to balance during a match success potential, but most of the time its used to backseat rule write and to be on hand as an excuse of soothing one's ego on why they lost.
Exactly, but no one applies Scientific Method to their Mathhammer.
1] Come up with the Theory
2] Test your Theory at least Three Times.
3] When you can duplicate your Theory Three times then you can say you have proved your Theory.
With Table Top Gaming it is a little bit harder, you need to kick it out to 5-9+ times because you need to deal with all of the variable including your different list, your opponents, your opponent's list and the different terrain.
Yeah, and mathhammer is especially bad when you deliberately make bad assumptions, obfuscate the facts, and deliberately refuse to account for various things that you'd need to account for.
See: Martel's hilarious series of threads about space marines.
JimOnMars wrote: This is a honest question for Tau players, not a slight at all.
What percentage of players only own about 2000 points (7e cost) of tau models, all purchased in 6th/7th? I would assume from this thread that these armies would be decimated by the best 8e Tau list. Would some of Tau's troubles be related to lack of models?
I have about 12K points, purchased since 5th edition. I own multiples of every single core GW model, with the exception of the SS, because I find the design to be hideous, and several FW units. And honestly? I haven't been able to field a list that another faction can't do better...
The best Anti-tank we have is on about the same level as a quad-lascannon predator. The best. And that's the Quad-fusion Commander. Our next anti-tank is Longstrike, who fires a single S10 D6 damage shot a turn. Then I want to say... Gun Drones?
Now, I can understand, to a point, the argument that people need to relearn to play Tau, but here's the thing... I always ran the lists that are supposed to be doing well in this addition. Small, aggressive units of breachers/strike squads supported by varying suits... And a lot of my enemies feel sorry for how easily it is to handle that now. Tau have always revolved around synergy and a single phase of the game, shooting. Some armies won or lost in the movement phase as well, (hi, Farsight Enclaves and all your Crisis Suits.)Yet now there are armies that can easily outdo our shooting for the same price, while being better at every other phase of the game as well. Tau have no psychic ability. Something I want to say can only be said by one other faction in the game in the form of Necrons with their insane durability. Tau used Markerlights. Used. The new Markerlights just don't cut it, the +1 to hit needs to be lower on the list to be viable. Tau are an elite costed army with a horde level BS, and the edition changes highlight this. S5 isn't as good as it was against anything T3, and Tau pay a lot for those S5 guns. Look at a guardsman stat line and Fire Warrior stat line and tell me the point difference isn't that gun. On top of that, one of the "better" levels, which allows you to move and fire heavy weapons, or advance and fire assault weapons without penalty is a trap, since you have to choose to do those things before you're able to get the benefit. It really sucks when you bank on one of your abilities working, and you flub a dice roll and end up with two Markerlights, and now half your army is firing at BS 5+. I'd honestly prefer they drop Markerlights entirely and just give Tau BS 3+. It seems like that's how they're costed, at least.
I'm not going to stop playing Tau, I have several other armies including Chaos, Space Wolves, Tyranids, and Orcs... And Tau are easily the worst off out of all of them. They needed to be tones down a bit, (ironic for me since I never had a opponent complain about my armies before, seeing as how I never played a static gunline...) but they didn't get toned down, they got hammered down, hard. The only things they have going for them are Drone Savior Protocols, abundant Fly, and Quad-fusion Commanders. The first one is easily gotten around by a good opponent, the second only works if something survives combat, and the third is basically a gimmick. Tell me, would you take a Quad-Lascannon Predator with half the wounds, lower toughness, and an 18" range, even when you can deepstrike it, if it costed ~40ish points less? It's a suicide unit. It'll hit one target, admittedly hard, and then die. Yet that's the best option, by far, for Tau.
All in all, they can win, I've done it, but it's certainly not easy, even when you're taking the "good" stuff against another faction's mid/low-tier. For giggles a friend and I tried to do a mirror match with Space Marines and Tau, taking the closest equivalent units. It wasn't even a fight.
Martel732 wrote: You don't need the scientific method for non-observation based claims. Mathematics is tautological, so no hypioheses necessary.
One could think that, but look at when the 5th Edition Space Wolf Codex, everyone looked at Bloodclaws as worthless, then I put 15 + a Wolf Priest into an LRC. The question became who would want to take Grey Hunters?
You have to look at everything you can to make a unit work, not just do some math and go 'That unit is Junk'.
Right now look at the Wolf Guard Battle Leader or the Primaris Lieutenant and their Re-Roll for Damage with Las-Cannons or Missile Launchers or the Wolf Lord and the Re-Roll of 1's To Hit and Plasma. What happens to the Hellblaster Squad and their Plasma Incinerators with that combination, suddenly it goes from an ok unit to vaporizing MC at will.
JimOnMars wrote: This is a honest question for Tau players, not a slight at all.
What percentage of players only own about 2000 points (7e cost) of tau models, all purchased in 6th/7th? I would assume from this thread that these armies would be decimated by the best 8e Tau list. Would some of Tau's troubles be related to lack of models?
I have about 12K points, purchased since 5th edition. I own multiples of every single core GW model, with the exception of the SS, because I find the design to be hideous, and several FW units. And honestly? I haven't been able to field a list that another faction can't do better...
The best Anti-tank we have is on about the same level as a quad-lascannon predator. The best. And that's the Quad-fusion Commander. Our next anti-tank is Longstrike, who fires a single S10 D6 damage shot a turn. Then I want to say... Gun Drones?
Now, I can understand, to a point, the argument that people need to relearn to play Tau, but here's the thing... I always ran the lists that are supposed to be doing well in this addition. Small, aggressive units of breachers/strike squads supported by varying suits... And a lot of my enemies feel sorry for how easily it is to handle that now. Tau have always revolved around synergy and a single phase of the game, shooting. Some armies won or lost in the movement phase as well, (hi, Farsight Enclaves and all your Crisis Suits.)Yet now there are armies that can easily outdo our shooting for the same price, while being better at every other phase of the game as well. Tau have no psychic ability. Something I want to say can only be said by one other faction in the game in the form of Necrons with their insane durability. Tau used Markerlights. Used. The new Markerlights just don't cut it, the +1 to hit needs to be lower on the list to be viable. Tau are an elite costed army with a horde level BS, and the edition changes highlight this. S5 isn't as good as it was against anything T3, and Tau pay a lot for those S5 guns. Look at a guardsman stat line and Fire Warrior stat line and tell me the point difference isn't that gun. On top of that, one of the "better" levels, which allows you to move and fire heavy weapons, or advance and fire assault weapons without penalty is a trap, since you have to choose to do those things before you're able to get the benefit. It really sucks when you bank on one of your abilities working, and you flub a dice roll and end up with two Markerlights, and now half your army is firing at BS 5+. I'd honestly prefer they drop Markerlights entirely and just give Tau BS 3+. It seems like that's how they're costed, at least.
I'm not going to stop playing Tau, I have several other armies including Chaos, Space Wolves, Tyranids, and Orcs... And Tau are easily the worst off out of all of them. They needed to be tones down a bit, (ironic for me since I never had a opponent complain about my armies before, seeing as how I never played a static gunline...) but they didn't get toned down, they got hammered down, hard. The only things they have going for them are Drone Savior Protocols, abundant Fly, and Quad-fusion Commanders. The first one is easily gotten around by a good opponent, the second only works if something survives combat, and the third is basically a gimmick. Tell me, would you take a Quad-Lascannon Predator with half the wounds, lower toughness, and an 18" range, even when you can deepstrike it, if it costed ~40ish points less? It's a suicide unit. It'll hit one target, admittedly hard, and then die. Yet that's the best option, by far, for Tau.
All in all, they can win, I've done it, but it's certainly not easy, even when you're taking the "good" stuff against another faction's mid/low-tier. For giggles a friend and I tried to do a mirror match with Space Marines and Tau, taking the closest equivalent units. It wasn't even a fight.
Sounds like my infantry heavy list I ran in 7th is going to get crushed. More or less what I was expecting. Especially in my very competitive scene and its an itc tournament.
Martel732 wrote: You don't need the scientific method for non-observation based claims. Mathematics is tautological, so no hypioheses necessary.
One could think that, but look at when the 5th Edition Space Wolf Codex, everyone looked at Bloodclaws as worthless, then I put 15 + a Wolf Priest into an LRC. The question became who would want to take Grey Hunters?
You have to look at everything you can to make a unit work, not just do some math and go 'That unit is Junk'.
Right now look at the Wolf Guard Battle Leader or the Primaris Lieutenant and their Re-Roll for Damage with Las-Cannons or Missile Launchers or the Wolf Lord and the Re-Roll of 1's To Hit and Plasma. What happens to the Hellblaster Squad and their Plasma Incinerators with that combination, suddenly it goes from an ok unit to vaporizing MC at will.
Okay, dude. There is more to using a unit than mathhammer, but the mathhammer itself is tautological. Some units, you can say are junk, such as terminators 2nd-7th ed, just from the math. Clearly, the bloodclaws were more of a "bubble" unit that could salvaged by circumstance. Circumstance, however, did NOT change their base mathhammer. So it was never as bad as people originally thought. Clearly.
Of course, your scenario involves a Land Raider which WAS junk in 5th, as well as 6th and 7th. So are wasting 250 pts to empower the blood claws. Maybe they'd have been even better with packs.
JimOnMars wrote: This is a honest question for Tau players, not a slight at all.
What percentage of players only own about 2000 points (7e cost) of tau models, all purchased in 6th/7th? I would assume from this thread that these armies would be decimated by the best 8e Tau list. Would some of Tau's troubles be related to lack of models?
I have about 12K points, purchased since 5th edition. I own multiples of every single core GW model, with the exception of the SS, because I find the design to be hideous, and several FW units. And honestly? I haven't been able to field a list that another faction can't do better...
The best Anti-tank we have is on about the same level as a quad-lascannon predator. The best. And that's the Quad-fusion Commander. Our next anti-tank is Longstrike, who fires a single S10 D6 damage shot a turn. Then I want to say... Gun Drones?
Now, I can understand, to a point, the argument that people need to relearn to play Tau, but here's the thing... I always ran the lists that are supposed to be doing well in this addition. Small, aggressive units of breachers/strike squads supported by varying suits... And a lot of my enemies feel sorry for how easily it is to handle that now. Tau have always revolved around synergy and a single phase of the game, shooting. Some armies won or lost in the movement phase as well, (hi, Farsight Enclaves and all your Crisis Suits.)Yet now there are armies that can easily outdo our shooting for the same price, while being better at every other phase of the game as well. Tau have no psychic ability. Something I want to say can only be said by one other faction in the game in the form of Necrons with their insane durability. Tau used Markerlights. Used. The new Markerlights just don't cut it, the +1 to hit needs to be lower on the list to be viable. Tau are an elite costed army with a horde level BS, and the edition changes highlight this. S5 isn't as good as it was against anything T3, and Tau pay a lot for those S5 guns. Look at a guardsman stat line and Fire Warrior stat line and tell me the point difference isn't that gun. On top of that, one of the "better" levels, which allows you to move and fire heavy weapons, or advance and fire assault weapons without penalty is a trap, since you have to choose to do those things before you're able to get the benefit. It really sucks when you bank on one of your abilities working, and you flub a dice roll and end up with two Markerlights, and now half your army is firing at BS 5+. I'd honestly prefer they drop Markerlights entirely and just give Tau BS 3+. It seems like that's how they're costed, at least.
I'm not going to stop playing Tau, I have several other armies including Chaos, Space Wolves, Tyranids, and Orcs... And Tau are easily the worst off out of all of them. They needed to be tones down a bit, (ironic for me since I never had a opponent complain about my armies before, seeing as how I never played a static gunline...) but they didn't get toned down, they got hammered down, hard. The only things they have going for them are Drone Savior Protocols, abundant Fly, and Quad-fusion Commanders. The first one is easily gotten around by a good opponent, the second only works if something survives combat, and the third is basically a gimmick. Tell me, would you take a Quad-Lascannon Predator with half the wounds, lower toughness, and an 18" range, even when you can deepstrike it, if it costed ~40ish points less? It's a suicide unit. It'll hit one target, admittedly hard, and then die. Yet that's the best option, by far, for Tau.
All in all, they can win, I've done it, but it's certainly not easy, even when you're taking the "good" stuff against another faction's mid/low-tier. For giggles a friend and I tried to do a mirror match with Space Marines and Tau, taking the closest equivalent units. It wasn't even a fight.
Sounds like my infantry heavy list I ran in 7th is going to get crushed. More or less what I was expecting. Especially in my very competitive scene and its an itc tournament.
While I did notice that what was previously considered "OP" armies coming in last while "weak" armies coming in high, I don't think it's due to the rules themselves. I think it's more due to the players.
Although there are exceptions, the majority of people who flock to the OP armies (and especially the OP-lists built out of the OP armies) largely relied on the rules to win games for them and don't have much in the way of tactical sense. When the rules themselves changed on a fundamental level and the game becoming more tactical (like, requiring actual in-game coordination, unit positioning and whatnot rather than just shoot everything and run for the objectives), these people are now at a loss for what to do; the rules could no longer carry them to victory alone. This is why you see a lot of these people going "but X unit in X army costs less than my Y unit in my Y army but they have the same stats!" or go "X weapon use to costs less points and do more damage to Y units". They're still largely stuck in 7th edition mindset and playstyle, which is not going to work in this edition. Paired with the now more balanced ruleset, this means that they're at a severe handicap from the getgo.
Meanwhile, people who have stuck with the "weaker" armies got a huge leg up; these people generally made the best of the worst situation (for some, for many editions now) and balancing out their own army's shortcomings with their own skills. Eking out these tiny advantages have always been part of the mindset of these players and adapting to changes became almost manditory, since your strong stuff often got nerfed with the next edition so you had to change up your game quick. When things got equalized, these players got a massive boost since they were already quick to adapt and seeking out every tactical advantage they could get.
I come to this conclusion because the majority of the people I see that are failing with this edition are either people who've been playing with armies traditionally considered "OP" for a few editions now, or newbloods who just bought their armies within the past edition or so. The people having successes, likewise, are generally oldbloods who have stuck with the game through thick and thin with their armies (although not quite shutting up with the complaining in those editions). Again, there are exceptions, as this is not universal (I have seen some oldbloods with the weaker factions struggle and some newbloods who have adapted extremely quickly), but it does seem like the trend to me.
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: While I did notice that what was previously considered "OP" armies coming in last while "weak" armies coming in high, I don't think it's due to the rules themselves. I think it's more due to the players.
Although there are exceptions, the majority of people who flock to the OP armies (and especially the OP-lists built out of the OP armies) largely relied on the rules to win games for them and don't have much in the way of tactical sense. When the rules themselves changed on a fundamental level and the game becoming more tactical (like, requiring actual in-game coordination, unit positioning and whatnot rather than just shoot everything and run for the objectives), these people are now at a loss for what to do; the rules could no longer carry them to victory alone. This is why you see a lot of these people going "but X unit in X army costs less than my Y unit in my Y army but they have the same stats!" or go "X weapon use to costs less points and do more damage to Y units". They're still largely stuck in 7th edition mindset and playstyle, which is not going to work in this edition. Paired with the now more balanced ruleset, this means that they're at a severe handicap from the getgo.
Meanwhile, people who have stuck with the "weaker" armies got a huge leg up; these people generally made the best of the worst situation (for some, for many editions now) and balancing out their own army's shortcomings with their own skills. Eking out these tiny advantages have always been part of the mindset of these players and adapting to changes became almost manditory, since your strong stuff often got nerfed with the next edition so you had to change up your game quick. When things got equalized, these players got a massive boost since they were already quick to adapt and seeking out every tactical advantage they could get.
I come to this conclusion because the majority of the people I see that are failing with this edition are either people who've been playing with armies traditionally considered "OP" for a few editions now, or newbloods who just bought their armies within the past edition or so. The people having successes, likewise, are generally oldbloods who have stuck with the game through thick and thin with their armies (although not quite shutting up with the complaining in those editions). Again, there are exceptions, as this is not universal (I have seen some oldbloods with the weaker factions struggle and some newbloods who have adapted extremely quickly), but it does seem like the trend to me.
You can say that but I want to be able to field a balanced force of infantry backed up with a few crisis suits and broadsides, a semi fluffy feeling list. However in order to do so I have to take units that are statistically worse than others in my faction, to the point where I effectively have to spend 30% of my points to be objectively worse than the boring lists of commanders and fire warriors that are flooding tau forums. Would it be unreasonable to expect that crisis suits perform competitively compared to commanders?
One Commander costs much less than two identically-armed XV8s, yet has more firepower. For example, one Commander with 4 Burst Cannons costs 116 points and statistically hits 13 times, while two XV8s armed with three Burst Cannons each cost 144 points total, yet will only statistically hit 12 times.
Most of issues tau players are complaining about are that our units are a often a commander but worse, a HYMP broadside is a commander with 4xMP but worse, etc. One can make the argument that maybe commanders are undercosted, and this maybe true, but at the same time people are spamming the commanders without curbstomping people so far. This may change with tournaments overtime, but if people are still not breaking even with our 'ideal' units maybe it would at least be fine to bring our other units back in line when compared to commanders at least.
Oh yeah and people complaining about markerlights should be aware of the the AM spotlight
From Facepunch
They also accidentally created one of the best units in the game with the Sabre platform with defensive searchlight, which is unfortunately no longer for sale. However if you were to make your own out of vehicle spotlights, for 20 points per platform (available in teams of 1-3) you get a unit which can target any enemy unit within 48" and line of sight. Then, one Imperial Guard unit can use the marker to get +1 to hit, much like an old school Tau markerlight. Even better, these do not have to roll to hit, and there is nothing that says the benefit doesn't stack with multiple spotlights or other bonuses. With 3 Saber platforms and an officer giving front rank fire, second rank fire, a unit of 50 conscripts will hit on 2+'s with 100 lasgun shots at 24", or 200 lasgun shots within 12".
Arandmoor wrote: Yeah. As has been said, it looks like there are a lot of tau players who never learned how to actually play tau. Every step in the markerlight table has a distinct value to it that cannot necessarily be mathed out, and it looks like there are a lot of Tau players who simply don't know the game well enough to take advantage because they take one look at it and say "first hit and last hit are the only ones worth it"
One hit has obvious benefits. Especially if you're firing anything Ion.
If a vehicle has 4 or 5 wounds left, two markerlight hits can let you finish it off one seeker at a time if you have a heavy weapon that doesn't quite get the job done. How many times have you said "Oh man, just one more wound!" or "If I roll a 4, 5, or 6, it dies", only to roll a 3? This fixes that problem.
Piece of area terrain blocking sight for your heavy weapons? Three markerlight hits allows you to move into position and open them up. There are a lot of heavy weapons in the Tau index that 3 markerlight hits will help you get into position, and most of them are attached to highly mobile units that love to move.
Are you fielding Breachers? How about squads of gun drones? Stealth suits? Ghostkeels? Hell...a Riptide? Three markerlight hits let them move, advance, and open up without penalty.
Marines scout-snipers in cover? Four markerlight hits and you can make them gone.
Don't like your odds on finishing off an almost dead target because all your seeker mounting units had to move this turn? Two more markerlight hits can fix that (remember boys and girls. Seeker missiles are Heavy 1)
5-man Marine fire team in a building with a 1+ save because city fight rules are giving them +2 to their saves? Four Markerlight hits and your breacher team will dust them.
Five markerlight hits gets you a +1 BS. However, it also grants the rest of the markerlight benefits as well. Tag something 5 times and you reroll 1's, get your BS on seekers to fix those "I almost killed it!" moments, can move and shoot with heavy weapons and advance and shoot assault weapons without penalty, ignore cover, AND get +1 to hit. All at the same time.
The only people who look at that and think "Gee, only the first markerlight is worth anything" are Tau players. Literally everyone else is telling you that markerlights are awesome, and that we fear them because they will allow you to wreck us.
I just don't get it.
I'm sorry but, how many markerlights does this imaginary tau army have? Even with 2 full squads of pathfinders, which is realistically the max anybody will ever take, you average around 10 ML hits (it might be a little higher when you split fire between the squad or do the slow roll to take advantage of their own 1+ reroll, but given they didnt move and havent take any casualties as well). so yea, how many times can you throw 4+ tokens at a unit in cover? How are you going to ensure those 5+ token on that single vehicle that is already almost dead to 'guarantee' it is dead, without accidentally coming up short or massively over saturating the target (in which case grats those 5+ token are now gone because the target is dead and you lost any opportunity to do more damage which those tokens elsewhere)? And, how many tokens do you have left to get 3+ hits on other targets for all those ghostkeels you didnt take target locks on?
People that think markerlights are still good dont know what they are talking about. The 1+ reroll is nice for a little bit added to hit, and yea its good when overcharging ion weapons, but the rest is just to high a cost and unreliably to be useful. You'll either end up with to few hits to achieve the result you wanted, or to many wasting even more point efficiency. And dont get me started on seeker missiles, they were marginally useful in 7th but hitting at firer bs is just so bad for the dmg they do for a one shot weapon.
You can say that but I want to be able to field a balanced force of infantry backed up with a few crisis suits and broadsides, a semi fluffy feeling list. However in order to do so I have to take units that are statistically worse than others in my faction, to the point where I effectively have to spend 30% of my points to be objectively worse than the boring lists of commanders and fire warriors that are flooding tau forums. Would it be unreasonable to expect that crisis suits perform competitively compared to commanders?
One Commander costs much less than two identically-armed XV8s, yet has more firepower. For example, one Commander with 4 Burst Cannons costs 116 points and statistically hits 13 times, while two XV8s armed with three Burst Cannons each cost 144 points total, yet will only statistically hit 12 times.
Most of issues tau players are complaining about are that our units are a often a commander but worse, a HYMP broadside is a commander with 4xMP but worse, etc. One can make the argument that maybe commanders are undercosted, and this maybe true, but at the same time people are spamming the commanders without curbstomping people so far. This may change with tournaments overtime, but if people are still not breaking even with our 'ideal' units maybe it would at least be fine to bring our other units back in line when compared to commanders at least.
Oh yeah and people complaining about markerlights should be aware of the the AM spotlight
From Facepunch
They also accidentally created one of the best units in the game with the Sabre platform with defensive searchlight, which is unfortunately no longer for sale. However if you were to make your own out of vehicle spotlights, for 20 points per platform (available in teams of 1-3) you get a unit which can target any enemy unit within 48" and line of sight. Then, one Imperial Guard unit can use the marker to get +1 to hit, much like an old school Tau markerlight. Even better, these do not have to roll to hit, and there is nothing that says the benefit doesn't stack with multiple spotlights or other bonuses. With 3 Saber platforms and an officer giving front rank fire, second rank fire, a unit of 50 conscripts will hit on 2+'s with 100 lasgun shots at 24", or 200 lasgun shots within 12".
In terms of the Commander, I do concede that he is statistically better than two crisis suits on average. However the Crisis suits do bring something else to the mix. First (going by the example listed, this is assuming we're talking about two suits armed with 3 burst cannons each, totaling 6 over the commander's 1 suit with 4) is that it's two models rather than one, mitigating multi-damage weapons a little bit better than the commander (although only in the case of low rate of fire multi damage weapons, like the lascannon). And while the Commander has more hits on average, the suits have the potential for more hits in total. On the other hand, the commander, as I understand it, can hand out buffs on top of this. Whether or not the differences is worth the extra 30 points is up for debate, but for me the differences are small enough that I wouldn't go and say Crisis suits are worthless. The reason I focus on potential rather than statistics is because this edition is something I view as a far more tactical game, so flat out potential can sometimes be worth more than statistical calculation. At the very least, the absolute maximum number of shots the commander can put out per turn might make me thing twice about who he shoots, even if he's statistically going to kill more than two crisis suits. If I remember, crisis suits now come bare minimum of 3 models, so in this example there would be somewhere around 9 burst cannons in that one unit. Against hordes and swarms (which seem pretty prevailant this edition) I would rather use crisis suits on them over the commander if given the option; statistically more will die to the commander, but the suits have the potential to wipe the entire unit. And as several of these threads have shown, sometimes the difference between completely wiping a unit and leaving one or two models alive can mean all the difference.
Again, not saying the Crisis suits are better than commanders (in fact I do agree they are statistically worse), but they do have their uses. And unlike last edition, even units that are "worse" are worse by a smaller margin this time around (with a few exceptions, like the Dire Avengers). It wasn't a giant chasm of suck like the 7th ed Berserkers vs World Eaters Chaos Space Marines.
On the subject of the AM though, I believe that's a forge world unit? I fully agree that FW dropped the ball on their Index and that one needs a rewrite. That is a completely different issue than the GW indexes. But then again it is forge world; they've never had a stellar track record for their rules (GW at least had some moments in the past, like the Dark Eldar 5E codex).
The problem with potential is that the Tau already suffer from unreliability in their big guns (hammerhead, HRR broadside, etc), without also having to suffer from it in their small guns too. Crisis suits can win a game with their potential, but over a tournament that unreliability is gonna bite you. Why would you bring a squad of crisis suits for 216 and hit ~18 shots, when you can bring two commanders for 232 and hit ~26?
Most of my bringing up the AM is that people are gonna use them, just like people use Y'Vahra.
In terms of the Commander, I do concede that he is statistically better than two crisis suits on average. However the Crisis suits do bring something else to the mix. First (going by the example listed, this is assuming we're talking about two suits armed with 3 burst cannons each, totaling 6 over the commander's 1 suit with 4) is that it's two models rather than one, mitigating multi-damage weapons a little bit better than the commander (although only in the case of low rate of fire multi damage weapons, like the lascannon). And while the Commander has more hits on average, the suits have the potential for more hits in total. On the other hand, the commander, as I understand it, can hand out buffs on top of this. Whether or not the differences is worth the extra 30 points is up for debate, but for me the differences are small enough that I wouldn't go and say Crisis suits are worthless. The reason I focus on potential rather than statistics is because this edition is something I view as a far more tactical game, so flat out potential can sometimes be worth more than statistical calculation. At the very least, the absolute maximum number of shots the commander can put out per turn might make me thing twice about who he shoots, even if he's statistically going to kill more than two crisis suits. If I remember, crisis suits now come bare minimum of 3 models, so in this example there would be somewhere around 9 burst cannons in that one unit. Against hordes and swarms (which seem pretty prevailant this edition) I would rather use crisis suits on them over the commander if given the option; statistically more will die to the commander, but the suits have the potential to wipe the entire unit. And as several of these threads have shown, sometimes the difference between completely wiping a unit and leaving one or two models alive can mean all the difference.
Again, not saying the Crisis suits are better than commanders (in fact I do agree they are statistically worse), but they do have their uses. And unlike last edition, even units that are "worse" are worse by a smaller margin this time around (with a few exceptions, like the Dire Avengers). It wasn't a giant chasm of suck like the 7th ed Berserkers vs World Eaters Chaos Space Marines.
Basically you're arguing that the Maximum should be taken into consideration. You are absolutely correct.
A Crisis Suit Team with 2 Missile Pods+ATS would have 12 Shots... the problem is that this will cost 294 points
A Commander in comparison will have 3 Missile Pods+ATS, so 6 Shots... at 156 points
So, 2 Commanders will have equal number of shots as 3 Crisis Suits, for only 18 points more.
Maybe that was a bad example? Regardless Commanders have 4 Slots, compared to 3 Slots for Crisis Suits.
Even with Full Weapon Loadouts, that still means 8 to 9.
Ork Players Would KILL to get a 4+ save on their BS5+ 18" st 4 shoota boys for 8 lousy points. Absolutely KILL for something that good.
Except you get 30" range at bs4+ and st 5.
I don't get it. What is Tau complaining about? Just line up 200 fire warriors and blast the world off the table.
You know, ork boys are supposed to be melee unit and they are damn good at it right now. 4 atk per model + hidden claws.
About the FW: switch them to gundrones, 4+, T4, assault4 str5 18' shooting (BS5+) for the same 8 pts. And this is how the Tau works this edition. 100+ drones and commanders. The question is - will you wan't to play such army? The only tactical decision you made is choosing shooting order. This is boring as hell and still statistically worse than those 150+ boys.
Ork Players Would KILL to get a 4+ save on their BS5+ 18" st 4 shoota boys for 8 lousy points. Absolutely KILL for something that good.
Except you get 30" range at bs4+ and st 5.
I don't get it. What is Tau complaining about? Just line up 200 fire warriors and blast the world off the table.
The problem is a single unit does not make a good codex (see flyrents in 7th), the thing people keep skimming over when considering the Tau balance is that they see we have some good units and point them out without consideration to the internal balance of Tau. I believe that the Orks are suffering from a similar thing right now, tho this may be less visible because of hordes being more viable for them. Right now the Tau index suffers from units beyond FW, Commanders, Vespid, and Longstrike + Hammerhead being inferior to commanders or just plain old worthless like the skyray, resulting in boring lists and even more boring hobby. I am gonna be honest the biggest thing stopping me from spamming FW is that they are honestly pretty boring to paint, other than a squad leader they are effectively identical with little to be creative on, ordinarily this is fine cause I get to have breaks and paint cool suits and stuff but there is no point in doing so right now.
Ork Players Would KILL to get a 4+ save on their BS5+ 18" st 4 shoota boys for 8 lousy points. Absolutely KILL for something that good.
Except you get 30" range at bs4+ and st 5.
I don't get it. What is Tau complaining about? Just line up 200 fire warriors and blast the world off the table.
You know, ork boys are supposed to be melee unit and they are damn good at it right now. 4 atk per model + hidden claws.
About the FW: switch them to gundrones, 4+, T4, assault4 str5 18' shooting (BS5+) for the same 8 pts. And this is how the Tau works this edition. 100+ drones and commanders. The question is - will you wan't to play such army? The only tactical decision you made is choosing shooting order. This is boring as hell and still statistically worse than those 150+ boys.
Shoota boyz are 3 attacks per model if there are 20 of them, 2 if not. Yes, they are good at combat, just like tau are good at shooting.
The problem is the 6+ armor for 6 points vs 4+ armor for 8. If and when orks get armor, it is almost certain that they will pay 10 or more points total. This is the problem. 6+ armor should get them some kind of discount relative to all the cheaper 5+ armor around and 4+ armor that is so cheaply found elsewhere.
Rockfish wrote: The problem is a single unit does not make a good codex
And yet people are claiming Orks are good because of Boyz. Go figure.
Indeed, I even mentioned this in my post but I don't play Orks so I did not want to comment too much on that. It is particularly interesting when you consider right now the bottom two faction seem to be Orks and Tau, I suspect the reason people are not talking about it is that Ork players already had a enough boys to make lists work.
Rockfish wrote: The problem is a single unit does not make a good codex
And yet people are claiming Orks are good because of Boyz. Go figure.
Indeed, I even mentioned this in my post but I don't play Orks so I did not want to comment too much on that. It is particularly interesting when you consider right now the bottom two faction seem to be Orks and Tau, I suspect the reason people are not talking about it is that Ork players already had a enough boys to make lists work.
Evidently not, they are getting hammered right now. I reckon people are just used to Orks being bad. Nobody ever takes an Ork list looking to be competitive, so we have nobody who's used to just playing "point, click, delete".
Rockfish wrote: Indeed, I even mentioned this in my post but I don't play Orks so I did not want to comment too much on that. It is particularly interesting when you consider right now the bottom two faction seem to be Orks and Tau, I suspect the reason people are not talking about it is that Ork players already had a enough boys to make lists work.
And yet the Ork win/loss rate is so bad it's only equalled by Tau. It's tragically bad. Even Orks that play spamming Boyz don't have a good winrate. Boyz just aren't that good.
Ork Players Would KILL to get a 4+ save on their BS5+ 18" st 4 shoota boys for 8 lousy points. Absolutely KILL for something that good.
Except you get 30" range at bs4+ and st 5.
I don't get it. What is Tau complaining about? Just line up 200 fire warriors and blast the world off the table.
You know, ork boys are supposed to be melee unit and they are damn good at it right now. 4 atk per model + hidden claws.
Boyz are only 2 attacks per model with +1 for a choppa that they lose if they go for a shoota. The 4th attack requires support from a wierdboy which I refuse to include by default into this calculation on principal, given the dakkadakka tau community's seeming aversion to markerlights.
About the FW: switch them to gundrones, 4+, T4, assault4 str5 18' shooting (BS5+) for the same 8 pts. And this is how the Tau works this edition. 100+ drones and commanders. The question is - will you wan't to play such army? The only tactical decision you made is choosing shooting order. This is boring as hell and still statistically worse than those 150+ boys.
Gundrones have LD 6 unless they're in an ethereal's bubble. Firewarriors have 7, 8 with a sergeant, and don't need a nearby drone controller.
Gundrones ARE great, especially if you properly support them, but don't go and replace all your firewarriors with them. That's a bad idea.
Like anything, the tool relies on the hand of the user. I didn't have any problems wiping the floor with people in 7th with pure Dark Eldar. But people who rely on old tricks that helped them win in 7th won't help them here. It's way too soon to know what's OP or not.
Gamerely wrote: Like anything, the tool relies on the hand of the user. I didn't have any problems wiping the floor with people in 7th with pure Dark Eldar. But people who rely on old tricks that helped them win in 7th won't help them here. It's way too soon to know what's OP or not.
It's really silly to just assume everyone who plays a top tier army is a low tier player. I agree it's generally too soon to judge (though AM is such a massive outlier already that they're a clear problem) but saying that imbalances are fine because you can stomp on bad players is just silly.
Ork Players Would KILL to get a 4+ save on their BS5+ 18" st 4 shoota boys for 8 lousy points. Absolutely KILL for something that good.
Except you get 30" range at bs4+ and st 5.
I don't get it. What is Tau complaining about? Just line up 200 fire warriors and blast the world off the table.
You know, ork boys are supposed to be melee unit and they are damn good at it right now. 4 atk per model + hidden claws.
Boyz are only 2 attacks per model with +1 for a choppa that they lose if they go for a shoota. The 4th attack requires support from a wierdboy which I refuse to include by default into this calculation on principal, given the dakkadakka tau community's seeming aversion to markerlights.
And they got the Greentide rule, which gives them third base attack when they are 20+ models. And every ork I saw maximaze boyz units due morale mechanic. And with wierdboy it is up to 5 atk.
But overall you right - this is 3(4)(5) atk per model.
Ork Players Would KILL to get a 4+ save on their BS5+ 18" st 4 shoota boys for 8 lousy points. Absolutely KILL for something that good.
Except you get 30" range at bs4+ and st 5.
I don't get it. What is Tau complaining about? Just line up 200 fire warriors and blast the world off the table.
You know, ork boys are supposed to be melee unit and they are damn good at it right now. 4 atk per model + hidden claws.
Boyz are only 2 attacks per model with +1 for a choppa that they lose if they go for a shoota. The 4th attack requires support from a wierdboy which I refuse to include by default into this calculation on principal, given the dakkadakka tau community's seeming aversion to markerlights.
And they got the Greentide rule, which gives them third base attack when they are 20+ models. And every ork I saw maximaze boyz units due morale mechanic. And with wierdboy it is up to 5 atk.
But overall you right - this is 3(4)(5) atk per model.
Arandmoor wrote: Yeah. As has been said, it looks like there are a lot of tau players who never learned how to actually play tau. Every step in the markerlight table has a distinct value to it that cannot necessarily be mathed out, and it looks like there are a lot of Tau players who simply don't know the game well enough to take advantage because they take one look at it and say "first hit and last hit are the only ones worth it"
One hit has obvious benefits. Especially if you're firing anything Ion.
If a vehicle has 4 or 5 wounds left, two markerlight hits can let you finish it off one seeker at a time if you have a heavy weapon that doesn't quite get the job done. How many times have you said "Oh man, just one more wound!" or "If I roll a 4, 5, or 6, it dies", only to roll a 3? This fixes that problem.
Piece of area terrain blocking sight for your heavy weapons? Three markerlight hits allows you to move into position and open them up. There are a lot of heavy weapons in the Tau index that 3 markerlight hits will help you get into position, and most of them are attached to highly mobile units that love to move.
Are you fielding Breachers? How about squads of gun drones? Stealth suits? Ghostkeels? Hell...a Riptide? Three markerlight hits let them move, advance, and open up without penalty.
Marines scout-snipers in cover? Four markerlight hits and you can make them gone.
Don't like your odds on finishing off an almost dead target because all your seeker mounting units had to move this turn? Two more markerlight hits can fix that (remember boys and girls. Seeker missiles are Heavy 1)
5-man Marine fire team in a building with a 1+ save because city fight rules are giving them +2 to their saves? Four Markerlight hits and your breacher team will dust them.
Five markerlight hits gets you a +1 BS. However, it also grants the rest of the markerlight benefits as well. Tag something 5 times and you reroll 1's, get your BS on seekers to fix those "I almost killed it!" moments, can move and shoot with heavy weapons and advance and shoot assault weapons without penalty, ignore cover, AND get +1 to hit. All at the same time.
The only people who look at that and think "Gee, only the first markerlight is worth anything" are Tau players. Literally everyone else is telling you that markerlights are awesome, and that we fear them because they will allow you to wreck us.
I just don't get it.
I'm sorry but, how many markerlights does this imaginary tau army have? Even with 2 full squads of pathfinders, which is realistically the max anybody will ever take, you average around 10 ML hits (it might be a little higher when you split fire between the squad or do the slow roll to take advantage of their own 1+ reroll, but given they didnt move and havent take any casualties as well). so yea, how many times can you throw 4+ tokens at a unit in cover? How are you going to ensure those 5+ token on that single vehicle that is already almost dead to 'guarantee' it is dead, without accidentally coming up short or massively over saturating the target (in which case grats those 5+ token are now gone because the target is dead and you lost any opportunity to do more damage which those tokens elsewhere)? And, how many tokens do you have left to get 3+ hits on other targets for all those ghostkeels you didnt take target locks on?
People that think markerlights are still good dont know what they are talking about. The 1+ reroll is nice for a little bit added to hit, and yea its good when overcharging ion weapons, but the rest is just to high a cost and unreliably to be useful. You'll either end up with to few hits to achieve the result you wanted, or to many wasting even more point efficiency. And dont get me started on seeker missiles, they were marginally useful in 7th but hitting at firer bs is just so bad for the dmg they do for a one shot weapon.
With 160 points of pathfinders (before drones), a cadre fireblade, and two to three markerdrones, you should be able to all but guarantee 5 hits on two units every turn unless your opponent focuses on removing your markerlights from the table. With that, you should be actively focusing on utterly removing whatever your markerlight from the table, which suggests a LOT of concentrated fire. The fireblade marks once for one pathfinder squad, and the marker drones mark for the other. The first hit should guarantee the other four.
If you're shooting at more than one or two enemy units per turn, IMO, you're doing it wrong. Doesn't matter what army you run.
You want first blood. You want to un-wrap your enemy's characters and expose them to shooting by killing the units screening for them, and the +1 to hit from markerlights with concentrated fire is the best way to do it.
It has 6 seeker missiles, 2 burst cannons or so of guns, and two markerlights for 170+ points, once you have spent those 6 missiles (of which ~4 will hit) you are 6 pathfinders effectively.
