111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
As the title says, I don't even know what to do anymore. EVERY GAME I play vs AM is the same- they deploy in masses of infantry and tanks and completely decimate my much smaller army with massed firepower. It's not even close. I've beaten good players before, I'm not clueless, but I really don't know how I am expected to do this. My standard response to heavy armour, the fusion commander, is all but nullified- they hide their tanks behind blobs of infantry, putting them out of range from my fusion blasters. And even if I do get in range, T8 means I'm not likely to destroy or even bracket a russ in one round of fire.
I legitimately have no idea what to do. All the long range fire options available to me completely pale in comparison to the sheer amount of damage output AM has. Coupled with stratagems and orders, the sheer volume of fire is impossible to withstand.
I'm not here to complain- I'm here to ask if anyone, anyone at all, knows of a viable strategy or list composition that can actually handle a cadian gunline. Because I'm out of ideas.
94103
Post by: Yarium
I've always found Tau to be a win hard / lose hard army. They either wipe the floor with you or they are the one the floor is being wiped with. The new Guard are very, very powerful, but beatable. I've find that taking down their tanks first is important, as well as knocking down their LOS-ignoring firepower. Those are the primary damage dealers and everything else tends to be board control and objective grabbing. Their massive firepower gets seriously cut down by -1 to hit modifiers, so damaging and not destroying vehicles is good too, just for that, or try to force their vehicles to move. Tau are a bit better at handling heavy cover sure to their high number of flying units, so flood that board with terrain! Lastly, you have access to snipers, so take advantage of them to take out key characters like psykers, commissars, and commanders.
That's about all I got.
40344
Post by: master of ordinance
The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
The new Guard are very, very powerful, but beatable. I've find that taking down their tanks first is important, as well as knocking down their LOS-ignoring firepower. Those are the primary damage dealers and everything else tends to be board control and objective grabbing.
But I can't take down their tanks. They're too damn tough, too damn resilient. All my lascannon equivalents are super expensive and rare and will usually die immediately. And how would I take out their LOS-ignoring units when there will be blobs of infantry right in the way?
Their massive firepower gets seriously cut down by -1 to hit modifiers, so damaging and not destroying vehicles is good too, just for that, or try to force their vehicles to move.
...how?
107700
Post by: alextroy
I'm not expert at Tau or Imperial Guard, but your comments make it sound like you are not bringing a tool to handle the masses of infantry your opponent is taking.
Does your force have enough Pulse Rifles/Carbines, Burst Cannons, and Smart Missile Systems to kill the screens so that your anti-tank can drop in and kill the tanks on Turn 2 or 3?
6772
Post by: Vaktathi
Tau have some mechanical issues. Some of their stuff is legitimately overcosted, some of it doesn't quite work right (like Markerlights, too many hits required to get benefit for many mechanics).
In general though, anything that can generate -1 to hit modifiers is going to given an IG army fits, and Tau can at least do that. Sniper Drones are a great option against IG, they wound them on 3's, have a long range, and can pick out support characters, can can be made reasonably resilient against IG.
98141
Post by: BlackLobster
I don't play Tau but my experience of playing against them under 8th would tell me the following - you probably need more fire warriors than battle suits. I think the days of battle suit based armies if probably long gone. You need the cheaper massed small arms fire to bring down the enemy infantry and then use the big guns which you have hidden behind terrain or held in reserve to come in and blast the big stuff.
One of my friends plays Tau and his first few 8th edition games he got his backside handed to him with ease. He grumbled and complained that Tau got nerfed under the new edition. It took him a few more games and finally clicking in his head that he had to change tactics and army composition with these rules for him to start winning again. He's still about 50/50 with just the Index list but a change of perspective has helped him a lot.
112239
Post by: SilverAlien
Generally speaking you can't do much, not if your friend is competent and you aren't using a tailored list. Tau are one of the weakest index armies and guard is one of the strongest codex armies. The actual good ways tau have to deal with armor, such as deepstriking commandos, can easily be shut down by guard that screens well due to how cheap their infantry is. Most long range solutions are overcosted, and your fire warriors/gun drones are exceptionally mediocre compared to guard infantry but still better than most of your army. To round things off, Tau can't even fall back on allies this edition.
Your best bet are probably stealth suits and ghostkeels with the crisis commander, some drones, and maybe a flyer or two. But honestly you need your codex rather badly, not much else can be said.
110703
Post by: Galas
Imperial Guard, right now, is just a better version of Tau. Theres nothing Tau can do that Imperial Guard can't do better. Quantity of fire, Quality of fire, even in movility and deepstrike shenanigans they are better.
116685
Post by: clownshoes
From what i have seen, the answer is currently forge world. I can double check in the new year when they are back in town. But what i have seen.
He has a pair of those riptide flame thrower yavara things
the xv9 battlesuits with the double fusion , and blasters for infantry are like pow 5 ap 1, 16 shots, can plink armor after he mulches the bubble wrap. They did a number on my troupes.
Then a bunch of commanders and fire warriors with marker lights.
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Post by: JohnnyHell
Wait for a Codex, spam Stratagems. Same as the rest of us.
94103
Post by: Yarium
 SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:But I can't take down their tanks. They're too damn tough, too damn resilient. All my lascannon equivalents are super expensive and rare and will usually die immediately. And how would I take out their LOS-ignoring units when there will be blobs of infantry right in the way?
I don't know Tau well enough to tell you what your anti-tank stuff is, but you don't need Lascannon equivalents to kill tanks. Plasma-gun equivalents are good too. If you can knock off just HALF of their wounds, you'll knock them down to a -1 to hit. Three wounds through Plasma, or two average Railgun wounds will do this. Anything like that. How much damage do Missile Pods do? What about the single-fire missiles? Things will get this through, it will happen, you just gotta go for it.
For myself, it's been forcing them to move away, or move to engage a better target, due to Line of Sight. If it's impossible to hide your tough stuff from 1 model, you definitely don't have enough LOS on your table. A single LOS blocking piece in the middle of the table gives you a great "dance around" terrain piece that you can move around to force your opponent to engage you at a different angle. Take a terrain piece and just experiment with your movement speed around it so you can see where your vehicle can draw LOS from and too as you go around. You should find that being close to it grants you more protection, and gives you better angles on anything in a back field position. If they get close to it, you Battlesuits or meltas can hop over the piece to engage them at close range destruction.\
And don't Tau have some suits and big suits that automatically impose a -1 to hit penalty against them?
94067
Post by: Jaxler
Tau are a worse IG. Do not even bother.
111832
Post by: Hollow
First. Grab a big box of tissues and dry your eyes. Some of us are doing fine against IG, as we have adapted play styles from 7th and are not just trying to ram the same old triangular T'au tactics into a square shaped 8th edition hole.
Guard tanks are tough but I've found a combination of 3 Hammer Heads with Longstrike, wrapped with mass firewarroirs and complimented by a few deep striking suits to be pretty efficient against AM. Coldstar commanders are also something to be considered.
Perhaps you could provide us with some of your lists, run-through some of your games. What missions are you playing, what is the terrain you are using?
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
 alextroy wrote:I'm not expert at Tau or Imperial Guard, but your comments make it sound like you are not bringing a tool to handle the masses of infantry your opponent is taking.
Does your force have enough Pulse Rifles/Carbines, Burst Cannons, and Smart Missile Systems to kill the screens so that your anti-tank can drop in and kill the tanks on Turn 2 or 3?
The infantry isn't the problem. My army can kill them off just fine. The problem is the tanks- that I can't really deal with because they're too damn tough, too damn many, and take too many damn turns to deal with. In a contest of firepower, I lose every time, and I'm not talking about infantry. Automatically Appended Next Post:  BlackLobster wrote:I don't play Tau but my experience of playing against them under 8th would tell me the following - you probably need more fire warriors than battle suits. I think the days of battle suit based armies if probably long gone. You need the cheaper massed small arms fire to bring down the enemy infantry and then use the big guns which you have hidden behind terrain or held in reserve to come in and blast the big stuff.
One of my friends plays Tau and his first few 8th edition games he got his backside handed to him with ease. He grumbled and complained that Tau got nerfed under the new edition. It took him a few more games and finally clicking in his head that he had to change tactics and army composition with these rules for him to start winning again. He's still about 50/50 with just the Index list but a change of perspective has helped him a lot.
I would agree, but most battlesuits are either mediocre or just total ass. Riptides, broadsides and crisis should just never be bothered with- overcosted and inefficient. It's been made plenty clear that battlesuits are no longer the way to do.
What change of tactics, exactly?
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Post by: Jaxler
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote: alextroy wrote:I'm not expert at Tau or Imperial Guard, but your comments make it sound like you are not bringing a tool to handle the masses of infantry your opponent is taking.
Does your force have enough Pulse Rifles/Carbines, Burst Cannons, and Smart Missile Systems to kill the screens so that your anti-tank can drop in and kill the tanks on Turn 2 or 3?
The infantry isn't the problem. My army can kill them off just fine. The problem is the tanks- that I can't really deal with because they're too damn tough, too damn many, and take too many damn turns to deal with. In a contest of firepower, I lose every time, and I'm not talking about infantry.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BlackLobster wrote:I don't play Tau but my experience of playing against them under 8th would tell me the following - you probably need more fire warriors than battle suits. I think the days of battle suit based armies if probably long gone. You need the cheaper massed small arms fire to bring down the enemy infantry and then use the big guns which you have hidden behind terrain or held in reserve to come in and blast the big stuff.
One of my friends plays Tau and his first few 8th edition games he got his backside handed to him with ease. He grumbled and complained that Tau got nerfed under the new edition. It took him a few more games and finally clicking in his head that he had to change tactics and army composition with these rules for him to start winning again. He's still about 50/50 with just the Index list but a change of perspective has helped him a lot.
I would agree, but most battlesuits are either mediocre or just total ass. Riptides, broadsides and crisis should just never be bothered with- overcosted and inefficient. It's been made plenty clear that battlesuits are no longer the way to do.
What change of tactics, exactly?
Spam drones and crisis commanders. The only way to play tau.
111832
Post by: Hollow
 Jaxler wrote: SevenSeasOfRhye wrote: alextroy wrote:I'm not expert at Tau or Imperial Guard, but your comments make it sound like you are not bringing a tool to handle the masses of infantry your opponent is taking.
Does your force have enough Pulse Rifles/Carbines, Burst Cannons, and Smart Missile Systems to kill the screens so that your anti-tank can drop in and kill the tanks on Turn 2 or 3?
The infantry isn't the problem. My army can kill them off just fine. The problem is the tanks- that I can't really deal with because they're too damn tough, too damn many, and take too many damn turns to deal with. In a contest of firepower, I lose every time, and I'm not talking about infantry.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BlackLobster wrote:I don't play Tau but my experience of playing against them under 8th would tell me the following - you probably need more fire warriors than battle suits. I think the days of battle suit based armies if probably long gone. You need the cheaper massed small arms fire to bring down the enemy infantry and then use the big guns which you have hidden behind terrain or held in reserve to come in and blast the big stuff.
One of my friends plays Tau and his first few 8th edition games he got his backside handed to him with ease. He grumbled and complained that Tau got nerfed under the new edition. It took him a few more games and finally clicking in his head that he had to change tactics and army composition with these rules for him to start winning again. He's still about 50/50 with just the Index list but a change of perspective has helped him a lot.
I would agree, but most battlesuits are either mediocre or just total ass. Riptides, broadsides and crisis should just never be bothered with- overcosted and inefficient. It's been made plenty clear that battlesuits are no longer the way to do.
What change of tactics, exactly?
Spam drones and crisis commanders. The only way to play tau.
Except, you know, for all the other ways.
5462
Post by: adamsouza
3 Stealth Teams with Homing Beacons
3 Commanders with 4 of the Melta Equivalents and Shield Drones
Deploy Stealth teams in cover as close to the enemy as possible. Drop the commanders in withing Melta range of enemy tanks. Obliterate enemy tanks/HQs/psykers.
Use the rest of your army to do useful things like secure objectives
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Post by: the_scotsman
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:The new Guard are very, very powerful, but beatable. I've find that taking down their tanks first is important, as well as knocking down their LOS-ignoring firepower. Those are the primary damage dealers and everything else tends to be board control and objective grabbing.
But I can't take down their tanks. They're too damn tough, too damn resilient. All my lascannon equivalents are super expensive and rare and will usually die immediately. And how would I take out their LOS-ignoring units when there will be blobs of infantry right in the way?
Their massive firepower gets seriously cut down by -1 to hit modifiers, so damaging and not destroying vehicles is good too, just for that, or try to force their vehicles to move.
...how?
So, to better answer the question here I've provided an image from a game I played a couple of days ago between my adeptus mechanicus and a friend's guard. In this shot, you can see a bit of our terrain setup. For both the large and small stones, we used the "statuary" rule from the rulebook, which, IMO, works far far better than "ruin" in terms of enabling general gameplay and is pretty much what I have replaced Ruin with for my "when in doubt, call it this" in 8th ed. Both of our armies had pretty significant gunline components, with him fielding a Wyvern and four Leman Russ tanks and me fielding a pair of Kastelan Robots, a squad of grav/phosphor servitors and 2 neutron laser onager dunecrawlers. Despite that, thanks in large part to the terrain setup it never felt like anything was being nuked from orbit without any counterplay. Several times he was able to use the rocks and central VSG (which we were using as our main objective for the mission) to block the LOS from 1-2 of my major gunline hitters so that I couldn't focus fire on one tank and take it down in a single phase, and I was able to hide my deep striking and mobile elements from the vast majority of his tanks or at least with my dragoons force them to come around corners to hit me where they would be in threat range of my assault. Because we used Statuary, anything 3" away from a rock was in cover relative to the Wyvern (which was parked, as expected, directly behind one of the los blocking stones).
This setup, and a mission that involved a lot of different objectives kept the game from devolving into just a murderfest. There were a couple feels-bad moments (two leman russes got essentially oneshot by supremely lucky onager damage rolls, and I learned by charging into combat with them how supremely trash the hydraulic claw "upgrades" are on breachers) but overall it was a really fun, tactical game which at no point felt like just two armies sitting there and plugging at each other.
I know the game culture is different everywhere. I know this was a comparatively casual game, as his force did not feature the ubiquitous wall o' lasgun screen and mine did not have the cawl+Dakkabot spam auto-include. but honestly it just goes to showcase how much of a difference two players who come into the game actively trying to create several hours of fun times pushing models around can make, rather than just having "win the game, no matter how short/lopsided" as a goal.
1
42382
Post by: Unit1126PLL
So Imperial Guard are very strong right now, that's a fact.
The Tau always struck me as the elite, fast shooting army with few but very powerful guns that uses speed and agility to get its weapons where they need them to be.
Conversely, Imperial Guard are the huge, unwieldy shooting army with tons of guns but fairly low mobility, relying on simply having enough guns that "some are here. some are there, hopefully one or two are were I need them to be" instead of moving to bring them to bear.
The problem is twofold, imo:
1) 8th Editions fairly terrible terrain and indirect fire rules means that a Leman Russ in 1 corner might have a single spot, possibly two spots, that are "LOS shadows", but can otherwise see clear across the board, and since you can't get cover unless you are in it, it can be very difficult to get cover even if a gun is shooting between a unit's legs.
2) 8th Edition also has increased the power of hordes pretty significantly. I think the meta has shaken out fairly much by now, and hordes have gotten much better than in 7th, and elite units have gotten much worse. The question becomes whether that is a failure to adapt (e.g. people are still trying 7th Elite spam) or actually a rules issue (e.g. hordes are just better because of a huge confluence of rules). I am inclined to believe it is a combination of the two, but that's just an opinion.
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Post by: pismakron
 Unit1126PLL wrote:So Imperial Guard are very strong right now, that's a fact.
The Tau always struck me as the elite, fast shooting army with few but very powerful guns that uses speed and agility to get its weapons where they need them to be.
Conversely, Imperial Guard are the huge, unwieldy shooting army with tons of guns but fairly low mobility, relying on simply having enough guns that "some are here. some are there, hopefully one or two are were I need them to be" instead of moving to bring them to bear.
The problem is twofold, imo:
1) 8th Editions fairly terrible terrain and indirect fire rules means that a Leman Russ in 1 corner might have a single spot, possibly two spots, that are " LOS shadows", but can otherwise see clear across the board, and since you can't get cover unless you are in it, it can be very difficult to get cover even if a gun is shooting between a unit's legs.
2) 8th Edition also has increased the power of hordes pretty significantly. I think the meta has shaken out fairly much by now, and hordes have gotten much better than in 7th, and elite units have gotten much worse. The question becomes whether that is a failure to adapt (e.g. people are still trying 7th Elite spam) or actually a rules issue (e.g. hordes are just better because of a huge confluence of rules). I am inclined to believe it is a combination of the two, but that's just an opinion.
I disagree with both points.
1) While this is somewhat true, it was just as true before the Guard codex when Leman Russes were lacklustre. While Guard tanks are really strong now, I don't think that they are OP or gamebreaking. And when the Tau codex gets out, I am sure that Tau will destroy tanks just fine.
I agree with you, that the terrain rules are bad, but I don't think that is what is in play here. 8th edition cover rules actually benefits elite infantry much more than light infantry.
2) I don't think that there is anything inherent in 8th edition that favours hordes over elite infantry. If that was the case, the solution for the Tau player would be to double up on kroot. But it is definitely true that GW has generally overcosted T4 and 4+ or 3+ armour saves compared to T3 and 5+/6+. And unlike the tanks I actually think that Guard infantry is somewhat OP. I wouldn't know how to deal with 120 Armageddon Guardsmen as Tau, for example.
52309
Post by: Breng77
1.) The issue with guard is more tanks/artillery that ignore LOS rather than those that need LOS. Because LOS blocking is the real defense terrain gives is this edition.
2.) There are absolutely things inherent in 8th that favor cheap wounds.
a.) Multi-damage weapons - lascannons, plasma, autocannons, all kill at most 1 cheap infantry model per shot, they can also kill the same number of more expensive models per shot despite those models having multiple wounds.
b.) The S v T changes made T3/4 better than they previously was, because it gets wounded on 2s by fewer weapons while T5 is not as strong as it used to be.
c.) The AP changes - Lots of weapons used to be AP 5 so they would kill 5+ save models outright, now most of those weapons have no AP. Making those models 33% more durable, whereas there was no gain for Elite models with 2+ and 3+ saves.
d.) allowing fall back from combat, elite units can no longer hide in combat to avoid being shot at, on top of which there is no sweeping advance so it is rare for elite units to delete large squads in 1 assault turn.
e.) With deepstrike being reliable and plentiful, taking up space on the table is hugely important as a defensive tactic.
64217
Post by: greatbigtree
As a Guard player, I can tell you what would disrupt me. At 1500 points, I drop in a couple of Scion Squads to move forward / assassinate critical components. I use some Infantry, Russes, and Sentinels to move to centre, to contest / claim objectives. I use some Infantry with Artillery to hold my deployment zone, and to provide ranged fire support.
All of my infantry have support characters. Super, easily, Sniped characters. The very first thing I'd take against Guard would be some sniper type weapons, or abilities that would let you take out the Characters in the first turn or two of shooting.
With Characters out of the way, create an area of concentrated force. Do not engage the Guard board-wide. Flank, or do a dedicated drive up the middle, which is less ideal. By focusing on a board side, you can create pockets to drop your Deep Striking elements into, to gain favorable targeting on Guard's vehicles. Don't shoot the guys in front, necessarily. Shoot the guys in the back, to open those pockets.
I don't know Tau pricing exactly, but I'd suggest transports for the highest output infantry you have. If you can keep them safe from fire for one turn, you should be in position to drop and spray.
Turn 3, drop your heavy hitters. Do everything you can to eliminate board control elements in the first couple turns, so you can gain the advantage there. Guard tries to stop you from being where you want to be. You have to fight against THAT, not kill everything. Crippling vehicles goes a long way to reducing damage output.
FRF, SRF is less scary than you think. Roll 100 dice, and see how many FW it kills. Lasguns are mentally scary for volume of fire, but they have terrible odds of actually taking down anything. On average, 100 lasgun shots should take down 12 Fire Warriors, assuming their stats are the same as before. 8 if you're in cover. Focus fire to eliminate upgrades. DO NOT spread the shots around. 90% of Guard Infantry's damage output is in the last 3 or 4 wounds.
Guard excels at punching above it's weight. The bigger the targets, the quicker they grind things down. Bring numbers to even out the board advantage that IG brings.
113111
Post by: skullduggery
The only way I can compete with my bro's Guard as a SW player is to get lucky with the objectives. Weve also started playing with the cards that give wrinkles or twists to the game. These have helped as well. But I get shot off the board more times than not. Guard is tough to handle especially without a codex of your own with a full compliment of stratagems.
Take it on the chin... from what I understand the roles have been reversed for the past couple of editions with Guard being the low man on the totem pole.
edit: gak I forgot. my bro wont even use stratagems until we all have our codex. hes still rollin.
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
I'll pile in on wait for a codex.
You didn't get point drops in CA. It is destined to be quite soon.
90386
Post by: Nemesis234
My friend plays tau, I play guard. All games at 1500 and I've won them all. When we play singular missions its an easy win for guard, get the objective and hold it.
We have been experimenting with more terrain and also maelstrom and the games much closer now. Our last game had loads of Los blocking and we use house rules when it comes to cliffs so lots of +1 to save.
Hammerhead and firewarriors with a couple commanders. Stay back, take out my tanks, drop in on my basilisk and I'm screwed.
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Post by: adamsouza
Considering how many 7th edition Tau armies just spammed Riptides and Storm Surges, I'm not surprised when some of them feel out of depth in the current meta.
10347
Post by: Fafnir
You don't. Tau are woefully under-armed and outgunned for what they actually pay. You might be able to scratch an IG player every once in a while, but by and large, everything you can do, he can do better and cheaper.
11860
Post by: Martel732
Don't count on a codex as a magical panacea. Basically all power armor lists autolose to IG even with codices.
42382
Post by: Unit1126PLL
Martel732 wrote:Don't count on a codex as a magical panacea. Basically all power armor lists autolose to IG even with codices.
ITT: Chaos (the space marine kind obviously) autoloses to Imperial Guard, despite literally mountains of evidence to the contrary.
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Post by: Martel732
They are not a dedicated power armor list. They have their own throw away units.
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Post by: Unit1126PLL
Martel732 wrote:They are not a dedicated power armor list. They have their own throw away units.
Unless you don't take them, just like regular SM not taking conscripts screening infantry. If SM players can throw tools out of their toolbox and say "I dun wanna" then you gotta assume the CSM players will too.
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Post by: Xenomancers
Vs gaurd you will do best with a strong front line of 3-4 ghost keels with fusion build. Then just spam commanders behind them. Mostly CIB but some FB too. I see no reason to take anything but these 2 unit profiles against guard until the codex comes out. Best part is this is a pretty good list against anything in this game.
11860
Post by: Martel732
Cultists >>>>> scouts. Fundamental problem right now. It's also why IG basically autoroll mono-marines. Yeah, I just switch to IG and play IG vs IG. Okay. There's basically no reason for IG to ever ally in marines.
42382
Post by: Unit1126PLL
Martel732 wrote:Cultists >>>>> scouts. Fundamental problem right now. It's also why IG basically autoroll mono-marines. Yeah, I just switch to IG and play IG vs IG. Okay. There's basically no reason for IG to ever ally in marines.
Where are we going? Do you remember that character from Star Wars Episode IV: "Stay on target! STAY ON TARGET!"
SM have access to screening units and if they use them they don't autolose to guard. That's my premise. Do you have a refutation or...?
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Post by: AdmiralHalsey
Unit1126PLL wrote:Martel732 wrote:Cultists >>>>> scouts. Fundamental problem right now. It's also why IG basically autoroll mono-marines. Yeah, I just switch to IG and play IG vs IG. Okay. There's basically no reason for IG to ever ally in marines.
Where are we going? Do you remember that character from Star Wars Episode IV: "Stay on target! STAY ON TARGET!"
SM have access to screening units and if they use them they don't autolose to guard. That's my premise. Do you have a refutation or...?
I think his point, and a valid one, is that SM have screening units, but guard have _better_ screening units [Cheaper/more wounds] and so while you can screen with SM units, you're shooting yourself in the foot by not swapping them out for some guard squads instead.
The only compelling reason to use scouts is the fact they inflitrate, but so do Ratling Snipers, and they're still cheaper...
I wouldn't say there's no reason to ally in SM as Guard. Allying in some Raven Guard Dev squads seems solid to me behind an AM screen.
42382
Post by: Unit1126PLL
Right, I'm not arguing that scouts are better than cultists. I freely admit that cultists are a better screen.
But Space Marines have access to the best screen in the game: for 180 points you can buy yourself 30 T3 5+ wounds and 2 commanders to order them around, as well as earn yourself 3CP. The fact that someone doesn't doesn't mean they can't, it's just means they're self-nerfing towards some other end, which is a fine way to play, but shouldn't be the standard around which the game is balanced.
As for putting SM units behind an IG screen, I think that was a thing at NOVA; IIRC Guilliman was almost always present with some form of IG.
105418
Post by: John Prins
I'm waiting on the new codex before I get too serious about my Tau. The costs of suits is just waaaay to punitive right now.
108023
Post by: Marmatag
Imperial Guard are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the armies in 40k.
What you are experiencing is what most armies experience when playing against Guard.
And it's always fun to see the same cast of characters flock to these threads to vehemently argue that guard isn't OP as feth.
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Post by: Unit1126PLL
People are defending guard as not being OP as feth?
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Post by: greatbigtree
Nobody's saying IG aren't Top Teir. Nobody. That's just Marmatag's cliché response now. "All IG players say IG isn't OP!" Regardless of topic or in this case, complete irrelevance to the topic.
Marm can't quote anyone as claiming IG aren't OP. It's just his joke response.
To be clear, I tried to outline the way I would approach tackling IG, if I were on the other end. It's what I recommend to my oppponents. I do not claim power equality between Tau and IG, nor that they're anywhere on even footing, or that the approach I suggest is points-feasible without modification between mutually consenting gamers.
But, you know, not just saying, "There's no hope period. Give up, don't play. You're foolish to try." Amounts to championing IG as not OP.
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Post by: Martel732
All this being said, I think that indirect fire mode getting a -1 to hit fixes a LOT of problem. No discount on the models, either. Exactly as they are, but with -1 to hit. So that becomes -2 against raven guard and altoic. That makes taking those units suitably risky.
Because as it stands, the Manticore is a 180 pt tank, not 140.
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Post by: Breng77
Unit1126PLL wrote:Right, I'm not arguing that scouts are better than cultists. I freely admit that cultists are a better screen.
But Space Marines have access to the best screen in the game: for 180 points you can buy yourself 30 T3 5+ wounds and 2 commanders to order them around, as well as earn yourself 3CP. The fact that someone doesn't doesn't mean they can't, it's just means they're self-nerfing towards some other end, which is a fine way to play, but shouldn't be the standard around which the game is balanced.
As for putting SM units behind an IG screen, I think that was a thing at NOVA; IIRC Guilliman was almost always present with some form of IG.
That is just a matter of opinion on whether codices should be designed to stand on their own or not. I can play CSM, competitively without purchasing anything other than codex CSM. Your suggestion is that I cannot do that for marines. IMO that is not balanced. But then I think every faction should be playable on its own, and I dislike that they have pulled all sorts of imperium factions apart to make some things only viable as allies. You can argue all you want that there is no difference between not taking cultists and not taking IG infantry, but financially, number of sources, requirement for a separate detachment etc you would be wrong. Automatically Appended Next Post: Martel732 wrote:All this being said, I think that indirect fire mode getting a -1 to hit fixes a LOT of problem. No discount on the models, either. Exactly as they are, but with -1 to hit. So that becomes -2 against raven guard and altoic. That makes taking those units suitably risky.
Because as it stands, the Manticore is a 180 pt tank, not 140.
Yup, that is what I have felt. You want to be able to hide out of LOS, it becomes harder to hit, just like it used too. Or you can draw LOS and take the risk of return fire to be more accurate.
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Post by: Polonius
I've been on the receiving end of unwinnable matchups, so I feel the OP's pain. I think that in the current meta, this is just one of those super tough match ups.
As others have pointed out, IG have offensive strengths that line up hard with defensive weaknesses of the Tau, namely high volume indirect fire. They also have defensive strengths that line up with the Tau's offensive weakness, which is a lack of cheap, long range anti-tank or fast melee.
I don't want to suggest that you quit, but I'm also not sure there's any secret sauce to this.
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Post by: Martel732
Hammerhead needs to be more effective. Wounding on a 3+ against T6/7 sucks.
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Post by: greatbigtree
I'd be on board with the negative to hit outside of LOS. I believe a Codex should be able to stand on it's own. It doesn't need to have all tools, but should have answers to the questions being asked.
That doesn't really have anything to do with Tau beating AM as they stand though... but I do agree that there are simple and reasonable ways to adjust AM to be more reasonable to play against.
If you have one regular opponent, and you're both in agreement that your armies are mismatched, ask to play at a Handicap. Take 10% extra points, and see if that works out for a better game. No changes needed otherwise. Some thing are OP, but then you basically get your stuff at a discount to off set. Or make the IG player pay 10% extra for his units.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
 adamsouza wrote:3 Stealth Teams with Homing Beacons
3 Commanders with 4 of the Melta Equivalents and Shield Drones
Deploy Stealth teams in cover as close to the enemy as possible. Drop the commanders in withing Melta range of enemy tanks. Obliterate enemy tanks/ HQs/psykers.
Use the rest of your army to do useful things like secure objectives
Extremely situational. If your suits live to do this, it hinges on your opponent now having hidden his biggest tanks way in the back where I can't deepstrike within range. Not to mention that statistically, it takes more than one turn for a fusion commander to wreck a russ- and they usually die in the following turn. Sure I could dedicate 2-3 commanders to kill one tank... but they're 160 pts a pop, and I doubt it would be cost effective. Automatically Appended Next Post: I don't know Tau pricing exactly, but I'd suggest transports for the highest output infantry you have. If you can keep them safe from fire for one turn, you should be in position to drop and spray.
A devilfish costs 127 pts. 10 fire warriors cost 80. Both strike teams and breacher teams can put up impressive volumes of firepower up close, but at the end of the day you're paying 200+ pts to make a single troops choice effective. And they are invariably all killed the very next turn.
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Post by: greatbigtree
I don't know how your Foot-Slogger vs Embarked Infantry price efficiency is. Obviously, if you could get all of your dudes within range to fire, more infantry would be better. But maybe Fish will allow more infantry to be delivered, and thus have higher damage output? I don't know Tau, but I'd look into it. Right now, what you're doing doesn't work, so you have to try something else, right?
IG works on being able to take hella casualties and maintain damage output. Hypothetically, you could knock every unit in the Guard army down to half-strength plus one, and still face 90% of their firepower.
Is there a possibility to Block LOS to your infantry with tanks? I don't know, so I'm asking. You could use your tanks as a rolling shield for your infantry, to block LOS to them. Have your tanks fire at their tanks, where appropriate. That would be the backwards of what I've previously suggested, nuking the infantry to make space to drop suits... but if that doesn't work, try the other? I've always feared Tau small arms in previous editions. You might try Hammerheads blocking LOS to Infantry, HH's purpose is to try to cripple high damage output targets. When Infantry get into range, spread the Fish to allow LOS for Infantry, to clear space for suits to drop.
Again, with Snipers, you can pick off the support characters that make Infantry Squads punch above their weight, and hold longer than they "should". It would be the first thing I'd go for. 2 or 3 squads, to ensure turn 1/2 deaths. 5+ save is junk, just get a couple wounds per character.  I don't know if it's feasible, but that's where I'd probably start.
In all honesty, for a pickup game, I wouldn't be afraid to ask the Guard player if you could tweak points. Points is an easy thing to either agree on or not. You don't have to make any kind of house rule to change the mechanics, one player either has extra points or fewer points. If the Guardsman is looking for an engaging game, they'll likely be thrilled to try it. If they're looking to ROFL-stomp you with Flavour of the Month, then the game was going to suck anyway. So give it at try. Worst that happens is your opponent says no.
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Post by: Slayer-Fan123
Guard are perfectly balanced. You're just another WAAC Marine player.
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Post by: Galas
Martel732 wrote:All this being said, I think that indirect fire mode getting a -1 to hit fixes a LOT of problem. No discount on the models, either. Exactly as they are, but with -1 to hit. So that becomes -2 against raven guard and altoic. That makes taking those units suitably risky.
Because as it stands, the Manticore is a 180 pt tank, not 140.
I'll love for a -1 to hit if you can't see your target, and give things like Scout Sentinels... you know, scouting rules. "If a Scout Sentinel is within 14" from a enemy model, units from your army with indirect fire can fire at it without penalty".
The same can apply to SM Scouts/Land Speeders, etc...
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Post by: Marmatag
Wasn't there a 7th edition Ravenwing detachment that gave you some kind of enhanced precision like this?
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Post by: greatbigtree
At risk of championing the IG, they had a 7th edition Artillery Detachment that let Voxes give rerolls to Artillery if the Vox had LOS to the target and was within... 18? Inches. It still wasn't as good as issuing orders to Earthshaker Carriages.
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Post by: Perth
I play both IG and Tau in 8th, although a fair bit more IG than Tau as of late, for reasons this thread has probably already made apparent.
It's going to be an uphill battle, but in my experience the best way to deal with IG tanks isn't to kill them all. Just touching them in close combat takes them out of the game for a turn (even better if you can use pile in/consolidate mechanics to sneak in without getting overwatched).
I'd suggest focusing on your standard infantry killing stuff like a drone swarm around a Fireblade, possibly with a long range commander for a T1 Mont'Ka. Get in his face and decimate his screen and mortar teams early. His big guns aren't super great at handling swarms of 1W models. Basilisks and Wyverns are T6 so any Missile Pods you have will wound them on 3s, for everything else, massed Pulse fire still wounds them on 5s.
Stealth teams can be used to sneak in DS Commanders or squads of Flamer crisis suits after the meat shield is trimmed down. Don't just shoot though, use that close range drop to charge some tanks.
You'll take heavy casualties turn 1, but later on when a squad of gun drones charges a Basilisk and piles into 400+ points of IG tanks and locks them down, you'll be laughing your head off.
Coldstar suits are also great for surprise charges later on, and with how close IG players tend to pack their tanks, you can probably still lock down multiple.
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Post by: Xenomancers
Let it be known that if you line up Ghost keels on your front line...
And use nothing else but commanders - his first turn is shooting at 6+ to hit for most of his army - maybe some 5+. Realistically - he won't be able to kill more than 1 of these - actually a good chance that he kills 0. Just make sure that he can't see any of the stealth drones. Then you drop the hammer. It might be worth it also to include 1-2 fireblades as they can get reroll 1's on important targets pretty easily and they will also be untargetable behind the ghostkeels. It would be GREAT if you could get more marker lights in the list. The only way you could protect them would be to take 5 Fireblades though - I don't see that being worth it.
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Post by: adamsouza
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote: adamsouza wrote:3 Stealth Teams with Homing Beacons
3 Commanders with 4 of the Melta Equivalents and Shield Drones
Deploy Stealth teams in cover as close to the enemy as possible. Drop the commanders in withing Melta range of enemy tanks. Obliterate enemy tanks/ HQs/psykers.
Use the rest of your army to do useful things like secure objectives
Extremely situational. If your suits live to do this, it hinges on your opponent now having hidden his biggest tanks way in the back where I can't deepstrike within range. Not to mention that statistically, it takes more than one turn for a fusion commander to wreck a russ- and they usually die in the following turn. Sure I could dedicate 2-3 commanders to kill one tank... but they're 160 pts a pop, and I doubt it would be cost-effective.
You can't even target the Commander until you blown through the Stealth Team, who is -1 to be hit with a 2+ save in cover and has 1-2 18" range fusion blasters of their own. Stealth teams are deployed during normal deployment, outside of the enemy's deployment zone and 12" from any enemy models. If you make them your first few deploys, you can get them right up to the edge of the deployment zone.
I play against a Tau player who uses this tactic regularly. It takes a ridiculous amount of firepower to chew through a Stealth Squad.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
I don't know how your Foot-Slogger vs Embarked Infantry price efficiency is. Obviously, if you could get all of your dudes within range to fire, more infantry would be better. But maybe Fish will allow more infantry to be delivered, and thus have higher damage output? I don't know Tau, but I'd look into it. Right now, what you're doing doesn't work, so you have to try something else, right?
I agree I need to try something new, buuut infantry is not the problem. I don't really lose in infantry v infantry- I have plenty of ways of dealing with his infantry. The absurd amount of lascannons, autocannons, battle cannons and general medium-to-heavy gun spam is the problem. Every shooting phase is absolutely brutal, and it's not because of lasguns or the occasional plasma gun.
Is there a possibility to Block LOS to your infantry with tanks? I don't know, so I'm asking. You could use your tanks as a rolling shield for your infantry, to block LOS to them. Have your tanks fire at their tanks, where appropriate. That would be the backwards of what I've previously suggested, nuking the infantry to make space to drop suits... but if that doesn't work, try the other? I've always feared Tau small arms in previous editions. You might try Hammerheads blocking LOS to Infantry, HH's purpose is to try to cripple high damage output targets. When Infantry get into range, spread the Fish to allow LOS for Infantry, to clear space for suits to drop.
Well... as I said, I don't think that would particularly help. IG infantry really isn't the problem. Sure I could LOS block with 2 or more tanks, buuuuut that doesn't help me- I'd much rather my tanks lived than my infantry.
Again, with Snipers, you can pick off the support characters that make Infantry Squads punch above their weight, and hold longer than they "should". It would be the first thing I'd go for. 2 or 3 squads, to ensure turn 1/2 deaths. 5+ save is junk, just get a couple wounds per character. I don't know if it's feasible, but that's where I'd probably start.
Legit the only suggestion so far that gave me any pause. I do not have sniper drones, but maybe it would be worth it?
In all honesty, for a pickup game, I wouldn't be afraid to ask the Guard player if you could tweak points. Points is an easy thing to either agree on or not. You don't have to make any kind of house rule to change the mechanics, one player either has extra points or fewer points. If the Guardsman is looking for an engaging game, they'll likely be thrilled to try it. If they're looking to ROFL-stomp you with Flavour of the Month, then the game was going to suck anyway. So give it at try. Worst that happens is your opponent says no.
Tweak points how? Automatically Appended Next Post:
...they really, really aren't. Between orders, stratagems, regiment bonuses, T8 tanks, cheap gun spam, there is nothing about a well-built IG army that I can beat. I can kill space marines, necrons and nids just fine, but IG? Every shooting phase is brutal, game endingly so, and I am usually dead after three turns tops.
Also I play tau, not marines, read the thread title FFS. Automatically Appended Next Post: It's going to be an uphill battle, but in my experience the best way to deal with IG tanks isn't to kill them all. Just touching them in close combat takes them out of the game for a turn (even better if you can use pile in/consolidate mechanics to sneak in without getting overwatched).
It seems any IG player with half a brain deploys their tanks in the back ranks where getting at them is nigh-on impossible. I'd love to charge them and force a fallback, but how would I even go about it?
I'd suggest focusing on your standard infantry killing stuff like a drone swarm around a Fireblade, possibly with a long range commander for a T1 Mont'Ka. Get in his face and decimate his screen and mortar teams early. His big guns aren't super great at handling swarms of 1W models. Basilisks and Wyverns are T6 so any Missile Pods you have will wound them on 3s, for everything else, massed Pulse fire still wounds them on 5s.
So far it seems like every IG player has heavy bolters, plasma guns and lasguns aplenty to deal with 1W models no problem.
Stealth teams can be used to sneak in DS Commanders or squads of Flamer crisis suits after the meat shield is trimmed down. Don't just shoot though, use that close range drop to charge some tanks.
Not if the tanks are deployed way in the back lines surrounded by infantry squads, which is super easy to do. I would add that crisis suits are horrible, overcosted units that are a waste to take in almost any circumstance.
You'll take heavy casualties turn 1, but later on when a squad of gun drones charges a Basilisk and piles into 400+ points of IG tanks and locks them down, you'll be laughing your head off.
Somehow I don't see the gun drones every surviving.
Coldstar suits are also great for surprise charges later on, and with how close IG players tend to pack their tanks, you can probably still lock down multiple.
I've never even considered coldstars. Automatically Appended Next Post: OK, to sum up my thoughts right now:
The sniper suggestion was neat and I'll look into it, although support characters are not the main problem- the shameless amount of ludicrously tough tanks is.
The idea of deepstriking in to charge a tank and tie it up in close combat is great in theory, but it's really easy for a guard player to hide their tanks in the back, way out of range. I don't think this is viable at all.
Right now, the only real option I see is to get multiple hammerheads with railguns, supported by longstrike, hiding behind terrain (if I don't get first turn) focus firing one tank after another. With 2-3 railguns firing, I might actually get something done.
Battlesuits are really awful. Please stop suggesting I use XV8s, right now they're so insanely overcosted that the only reason I'd get one is gun drones+mobility, otherwise their points would be better spent on fire warriors or more tanks.
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Post by: Breng77
 Marmatag wrote:Wasn't there a 7th edition Ravenwing detachment that gave you some kind of enhanced precision like this?
There is an 8th edition stratagem that gives whirlwinds auto hit if a target is within 12" of a speeder. (and there was similar for raven wing in 7th). Now whirlwinds aren't all that great so I'm not sure how often it gets used. I'm tempted with my Ravenwing to try it out though.
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Post by: xmbk
At first I didn't understand how an army with Fusion Commanders could have trouble with tanks, but reading between the lines I think it's due to not using anything to tie up the tanks once you've eliminated some bubbles.
1) No big targets on the table turn 1.
2) At least 25% of your points in gun drones, supported by Stealth with DC.
3) Minimum size Kroot Hound units.
4) Commanders.
That's the heart of Tau right now, imo. A FW firebase is solid, but less useful against an AM castle. Likewise for Kroot.
You should dominate on objectives. Use ITC rules, they give you a chance if you go second. Going first, game should favor you. Should be throwing out at least 300 S5, hitting on 4's.
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Post by: the_scotsman
It may just be me playing against and seeing somewhat less optimized lists, but when people describe the Guard lists they're struggling against it seems like they've got practically everything: 50+ bodies screening the tanks, enough commanders to issue orders to every squad, at least three mortar HWS, enough basilisks and manticores sitting out of LOS to table their army even if they're totally out of sight, and enough T8 leman russ tanks and/or superheavies to make S8 anti tank weaponry worthless.
how are they fitting all this in a regular sized game? The Guard lists I've experienced have generally had two trouble-causing elements to them, but not necessarily all four. I play against Cadians with a big infantry screen packing tons of lascannons and orders paired up with arty - they tend to be devastating if allowed to shoot but much less scary if you focus a bunch of anti infantry fire spread across the different infantry squads. I play against Catachans with mechanized close combat squads and arty buffed by harker. They tend to be very threatening offensively but since they have no substantial screen you can tie their guns up right away. I play against a list with half a dozen T8 russ bodies, but they dont have a ton of LOS ignoring stuff or more than ~20 bodies of screen because of it.
All the lists are strong and threatening and there's no doubt it's a top tier codex that can do all of those things, but there's a level of fatalism that comes with believing you'll always be facing all of those elements all at once that just feels counterproductive.
Do they have a ton of T8 vehicles? Do they have enough screening elements that it's impossble to shoot (for example) a coldstar commander into combat with a vehicle or two to shut them down for a turn? Do they have all kinds of ignore-LOS stuff? That's going to inform your tactics.
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Post by: Breng77
the_scotsman wrote:It may just be me playing against and seeing somewhat less optimized lists, but when people describe the Guard lists they're struggling against it seems like they've got practically everything: 50+ bodies screening the tanks, enough commanders to issue orders to every squad, at least three mortar HWS, enough basilisks and manticores sitting out of LOS to table their army even if they're totally out of sight, and enough T8 leman russ tanks and/or superheavies to make S8 anti tank weaponry worthless.
how are they fitting all this in a regular sized game? The Guard lists I've experienced have generally had two trouble-causing elements to them, but not necessarily all four. I play against Cadians with a big infantry screen packing tons of lascannons and orders paired up with arty - they tend to be devastating if allowed to shoot but much less scary if you focus a bunch of anti infantry fire spread across the different infantry squads. I play against Catachans with mechanized close combat squads and arty buffed by harker. They tend to be very threatening offensively but since they have no substantial screen you can tie their guns up right away. I play against a list with half a dozen T8 russ bodies, but they dont have a ton of LOS ignoring stuff or more than ~20 bodies of screen because of it.
All the lists are strong and threatening and there's no doubt it's a top tier codex that can do all of those things, but there's a level of fatalism that comes with believing you'll always be facing all of those elements all at once that just feels counterproductive.
Do they have a ton of T8 vehicles? Do they have enough screening elements that it's impossble to shoot (for example) a coldstar commander into combat with a vehicle or two to shut them down for a turn? Do they have all kinds of ignore- LOS stuff? That's going to inform your tactics.
The issue is that guard has a lot of cheap stuff.
100 man screen - 400 points
3-4 LOS ignoring tanks 400 points(800)
5 psykers + a few commanders 300 points (1100)
15 Mortars 170 points (1300)
4 Leman russ varients 700 points (2000)
you can also swap some points of for deepstriking plasma units, or Taurox primes etc. It is really pretty easy to fit all of this stuff into a list if you want.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
the_scotsman wrote:It may just be me playing against and seeing somewhat less optimized lists, but when people describe the Guard lists they're struggling against it seems like they've got practically everything: 50+ bodies screening the tanks, enough commanders to issue orders to every squad, at least three mortar HWS, enough basilisks and manticores sitting out of LOS to table their army even if they're totally out of sight, and enough T8 leman russ tanks and/or superheavies to make S8 anti tank weaponry worthless.
how are they fitting all this in a regular sized game? The Guard lists I've experienced have generally had two trouble-causing elements to them, but not necessarily all four. I play against Cadians with a big infantry screen packing tons of lascannons and orders paired up with arty - they tend to be devastating if allowed to shoot but much less scary if you focus a bunch of anti infantry fire spread across the different infantry squads. I play against Catachans with mechanized close combat squads and arty buffed by harker. They tend to be very threatening offensively but since they have no substantial screen you can tie their guns up right away. I play against a list with half a dozen T8 russ bodies, but they dont have a ton of LOS ignoring stuff or more than ~20 bodies of screen because of it.
All the lists are strong and threatening and there's no doubt it's a top tier codex that can do all of those things, but there's a level of fatalism that comes with believing you'll always be facing all of those elements all at once that just feels counterproductive.
Do they have a ton of T8 vehicles? Do they have enough screening elements that it's impossble to shoot (for example) a coldstar commander into combat with a vehicle or two to shut them down for a turn? Do they have all kinds of ignore- LOS stuff? That's going to inform your tactics.
This sunday I played vs an IG player. At 1600 pts, he fit in a russ, a tank commander, 2 hellhounds, mortars, 6+ infantry squads well over minimum size, 2 sentinels, multiple heavy bolters for his infantry squads, a psyker... all in all more than enough to butcher my stormsurge in a single turn. The guard has access to a F-U-C-K-L-O-A-D of guns, guns that hit hard and are so numerous that losing a few do not really hamper their ability to do damage. Therein lies the issue. Quantity>quality in this game.
They have russes for T8, and russes pack a punch. Why on earth would I want to use a coldstar commander? That's a burst cannon and a singular missile pod (pods being insanely overcosted, I should add), and a pod does D3 damage if it wounds. For LOS-ignoring they have mortars, which have a '48 range and are excellent for taking out markerlights, which are kind of essential go optimise your shooting.
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Post by: the_scotsman
Breng77 wrote:the_scotsman wrote:It may just be me playing against and seeing somewhat less optimized lists, but when people describe the Guard lists they're struggling against it seems like they've got practically everything: 50+ bodies screening the tanks, enough commanders to issue orders to every squad, at least three mortar HWS, enough basilisks and manticores sitting out of LOS to table their army even if they're totally out of sight, and enough T8 leman russ tanks and/or superheavies to make S8 anti tank weaponry worthless.
how are they fitting all this in a regular sized game? The Guard lists I've experienced have generally had two trouble-causing elements to them, but not necessarily all four. I play against Cadians with a big infantry screen packing tons of lascannons and orders paired up with arty - they tend to be devastating if allowed to shoot but much less scary if you focus a bunch of anti infantry fire spread across the different infantry squads. I play against Catachans with mechanized close combat squads and arty buffed by harker. They tend to be very threatening offensively but since they have no substantial screen you can tie their guns up right away. I play against a list with half a dozen T8 russ bodies, but they dont have a ton of LOS ignoring stuff or more than ~20 bodies of screen because of it.
All the lists are strong and threatening and there's no doubt it's a top tier codex that can do all of those things, but there's a level of fatalism that comes with believing you'll always be facing all of those elements all at once that just feels counterproductive.
Do they have a ton of T8 vehicles? Do they have enough screening elements that it's impossble to shoot (for example) a coldstar commander into combat with a vehicle or two to shut them down for a turn? Do they have all kinds of ignore- LOS stuff? That's going to inform your tactics.
The issue is that guard has a lot of cheap stuff.
100 man screen - 400 points
3-4 LOS ignoring tanks 400 points(800)
5 psykers + a few commanders 300 points (1100)
15 Mortars 170 points (1300)
4 Leman russ varients 700 points (2000)
you can also swap some points of for deepstriking plasma units, or Taurox primes etc. It is really pretty easy to fit all of this stuff into a list if you want.
And again, yeah, maybe this is just me playing in a slightly more casual meta where these weaknesses exist in lists and they don't other places. For instance, the guy that plays the tank company list in the picture I linked above generally has about 20 infantry screening but that's it, because he likes to run tanks, and most of his tanks are fully loaded up with sponsons and hull weaponry. The list I played against at 2k was two transports full of fairly beefy infantry, a single 10-man infantry squad, a wyvern, a FW Medusa, a Hellhound, an Armored Sentinel and then four Leman Russes and that was the list. But the more competitive Cadian list I regularly play against has 60 infantry with lascannons, 3 commanders, standard plasma drop goonsquad, 4 basilisks, 2 wyverns, 2 hydras, 3 armored sents with lascannons, 2 manticores. So, hell of a wall of firepower for sure, but alpha strikeable and not totally impossible to respond to at range (there's almost never enough terrain for him to hide more than half his tanks out of LOS). In my experience your odds of success against his list are totally based on how few tanks you have (the fewer the better, those lascannons and arty freaking demolish vehicles) and whether you get turn 1. I've seen him get two-turn tabled by tyranids and new blood angles when they got the drop on him, and I've beaten him myself with Dark Eldar by just getting turn 1 and presenting a big wall of firepower to the infantry and a couple vehicles.
But again, I don't play in a "Ebay a new unpainted half-assembled army every time the meta shifts" kind of location. People take suboptimal stuff here because it's what they've got and what they've painted and things like "it is boring to paint fifteen identical vehicles and 1200 identical guardsmen" factor into peoples decision making.
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Post by: Unit1126PLL
Yeah. Guard are really cheap. Just look at the list I ran for a grudge match between Baneblades and Knights:
1) 3 Baneblades. Fair enough, only 3, they're big tanks.
2) 30 infantry and 2 commanders. Oh, that's actually a good screen and IG infantry have lots of utility (through orders) for scoring objectives and more, even with just lasguns.
3) 15 Skitarii and 2 Tech-Priest Enginseers with the super-repair loadout and the Graian relic.
That's 52 models and 13 command points, at 2000 points, in an army that includes 3 superheavy tanks. I'm happy I could make the list less skew, but it is definitely a good illustration of just how CHEAP imperial guard really are.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
At first I didn't understand how an army with Fusion Commanders could have trouble with tanks, but reading between the lines I think it's due to not using anything to tie up the tanks once you've eliminated some bubbles.
Try reading the thread. Any IG player with half a brain will anticipate fusion commanders and park their artillery waaaaaaaaaaaayyy in the back screened by infantry. IT DOESN'T WORK. Why people in this thread keep saying this, I have no idea. Even if you use a stealth team to homing beacon yourself in, T8 means you're scoring an average of two wounding hits against a russ- at best you'll bracket it once. Barring extreme luck, you're not going to kill a tank with a fusion commander. And what happens when it's the IG player's turn? The commander is immediately shot to bits.
1) No big targets on the table turn 1.
2) At least 25% of your points in gun drones, supported by Stealth with DC.
3) Minimum size Kroot Hound units.
4) Commanders.
That's the heart of Tau right now, imo. A FW firebase is solid, but less useful against an AM castle. Likewise for Kroot.
I seriously don't understand what you're trying to say here.
You should dominate on objectives. Use ITC rules, they give you a chance if you go second. Going first, game should favor you. Should be throwing out at least 300 S5, hitting on 4's.
Going first, game should favor you
HOW. PLEASE. It's the same story every game- they park their artillery where my fusion blasters can't touch them, open fire, and I'm lucky to have anything left by turn 3.
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Post by: xmbk
Yeah, definitely no Stormsurge. Hellhounds aren't really an issue. So really, just 2 tanks you couldn't reach. Don't see how that is wrecking you, if you are easily removing the wrap.
IG are good, no doubt. You have to bring your a-game, and a-list. Tau can hang, but don't have nearly the list variety of a codex list. Shouldn't be long until that changes.
<edit> Just read your post above, you are obviously getting frustrated. Step back, it can and is being done.
You don't have to DS your commanders until the tanks are unwrapped, which shouldn't take long. Two hits is 7 wounds, and you should have more than one commander. Not sure what you don't understand, I listed the 4 key components to a list that can handle AM.
Instead of getting frustrated, re-read what I wrote earlier, it has everything you need. Play good missions. Being mostly eliminated by turn 3 works both ways. That AM list you posted is far from fearsome. If you are eliminating his wrap like you say you are, there's not much left of his army. But you absolutely should not have tanks or big suits, or really any suits.
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Post by: greatbigtree
I can only really suggest what would work well against me.
So far, OP, you've convinced yourself it's impossible. It sounds like you were hoping for an echo chamber. I'm not going to tell you it's easy. I can tell you possibilities, and I can supply strategies that may work, but you've convinced yourself it's impossible.
You've asked for ideas, and shot down pretty well each idea. If you aren't having problems with infantry, you should be able to get close enough to nuke tanks with melta equivalent weapons. If you're dropping individual suits down, there's no way that tanks are killing suits faster than suits are killing tanks.
So if you're facing tanks, surrounded by infantry, you have a problem with infantry. Tanks will die to dedicated fire. I can assure you of that. If you can't drop in close enough to melta, you've got a problem with board control, which in Guard's lingo = infantry.
So you need to front-load infantry killing, to make space to drop tank killers in. That's the jist of what I'd do, if I were you. Your ground units will take hurt from their tanks for a couple turns, then you'll drop in and nuke tanks. It may be a change of tactics, but if you think about it, your tactics aren't working, so you've got to do something you think WONT work, in order to change. Best, most honest advice I can give you.
So seriously, take some snipers, deal with the infantry, and then bring in the tank killers once there's space. If you don't have problems with infantry, you have no reason to not just drop in suits to kill the tanks with mega-melta.
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Post by: Martel732
Honestly, dump fusion as I've dumped melta. Get some weapons where first turn WILL help you. My BA usually rock 6-8 lascannons at 2K and BA are a melee chapter. The artillery tanks are more vulnerable than russes to things like rocket pods. Try some mass rocket pod backed up by rail guns. The actual infantry can't really hurt you that much.
52309
Post by: Breng77
the_scotsman wrote:Breng77 wrote:the_scotsman wrote:It may just be me playing against and seeing somewhat less optimized lists, but when people describe the Guard lists they're struggling against it seems like they've got practically everything: 50+ bodies screening the tanks, enough commanders to issue orders to every squad, at least three mortar HWS, enough basilisks and manticores sitting out of LOS to table their army even if they're totally out of sight, and enough T8 leman russ tanks and/or superheavies to make S8 anti tank weaponry worthless.
how are they fitting all this in a regular sized game? The Guard lists I've experienced have generally had two trouble-causing elements to them, but not necessarily all four. I play against Cadians with a big infantry screen packing tons of lascannons and orders paired up with arty - they tend to be devastating if allowed to shoot but much less scary if you focus a bunch of anti infantry fire spread across the different infantry squads. I play against Catachans with mechanized close combat squads and arty buffed by harker. They tend to be very threatening offensively but since they have no substantial screen you can tie their guns up right away. I play against a list with half a dozen T8 russ bodies, but they dont have a ton of LOS ignoring stuff or more than ~20 bodies of screen because of it.
All the lists are strong and threatening and there's no doubt it's a top tier codex that can do all of those things, but there's a level of fatalism that comes with believing you'll always be facing all of those elements all at once that just feels counterproductive.
Do they have a ton of T8 vehicles? Do they have enough screening elements that it's impossble to shoot (for example) a coldstar commander into combat with a vehicle or two to shut them down for a turn? Do they have all kinds of ignore- LOS stuff? That's going to inform your tactics.
The issue is that guard has a lot of cheap stuff.
100 man screen - 400 points
3-4 LOS ignoring tanks 400 points(800)
5 psykers + a few commanders 300 points (1100)
15 Mortars 170 points (1300)
4 Leman russ varients 700 points (2000)
you can also swap some points of for deepstriking plasma units, or Taurox primes etc. It is really pretty easy to fit all of this stuff into a list if you want.
And again, yeah, maybe this is just me playing in a slightly more casual meta where these weaknesses exist in lists and they don't other places. For instance, the guy that plays the tank company list in the picture I linked above generally has about 20 infantry screening but that's it, because he likes to run tanks, and most of his tanks are fully loaded up with sponsons and hull weaponry. The list I played against at 2k was two transports full of fairly beefy infantry, a single 10-man infantry squad, a wyvern, a FW Medusa, a Hellhound, an Armored Sentinel and then four Leman Russes and that was the list. But the more competitive Cadian list I regularly play against has 60 infantry with lascannons, 3 commanders, standard plasma drop goonsquad, 4 basilisks, 2 wyverns, 2 hydras, 3 armored sents with lascannons, 2 manticores. So, hell of a wall of firepower for sure, but alpha strikeable and not totally impossible to respond to at range (there's almost never enough terrain for him to hide more than half his tanks out of LOS). In my experience your odds of success against his list are totally based on how few tanks you have (the fewer the better, those lascannons and arty freaking demolish vehicles) and whether you get turn 1. I've seen him get two-turn tabled by tyranids and new blood angles when they got the drop on him, and I've beaten him myself with Dark Eldar by just getting turn 1 and presenting a big wall of firepower to the infantry and a couple vehicles.
But again, I don't play in a "Ebay a new unpainted half-assembled army every time the meta shifts" kind of location. People take suboptimal stuff here because it's what they've got and what they've painted and things like "it is boring to paint fifteen identical vehicles and 1200 identical guardsmen" factor into peoples decision making.
The game is basically pretty well balanced overall if people are not seeking optimization (it is not perfect). The issue with AM is that if one seeks optimization the cost of firepower is so cheap that you don't really need to make choices about what to include.
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Post by: xmbk
Here a non-optimized list that can hang with AM. If you want to tailor, drop the support HQ and Carnivores, maybe Pathfinders and some FW. Add more drones and an FC.
++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (T'au Empire) [34 PL, 542pts] ++
+ Fast Attack +
Pathfinder Team [4 PL, 113pts]: 2x MV4 Shield Drone
. Pathfinder: Markerlight
. Pathfinder Shas'ui: Markerlight
. 3x Pathfinder w/ Rail Rifle: 3x Rail rifle
Vespid Stingwings [6 PL, 75pts]: 4x Vespid Stingwing, Vespid Strain Leader
Vespid Stingwings [6 PL, 75pts]: 4x Vespid Stingwing, Vespid Strain Leader
+ HQ +
Cadre Fireblade [3 PL, 50pts]: Markerlight, MV1 Gun Drone
Ethereal [3 PL, 61pts]: Honour blade, 2x MV1 Gun Drone
+ Troops +
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (T'au Empire) [60 PL, 966pts] ++
+ Fast Attack +
Kroot Hounds [2 PL, 20pts]: 5x Kroot Hound
Kroot Hounds [2 PL, 20pts]: 5x Kroot Hound
Kroot Hounds [2 PL, 20pts]: 5x Kroot Hound
Kroot Hounds [2 PL, 20pts]: 5x Kroot Hound
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
+ HQ +
Commander [7 PL, 176pts]: 4x Fusion blaster, 2x MV4 Shield Drone
Commander [7 PL, 176pts]: 4x Fusion blaster, 2x MV4 Shield Drone
+ Troops +
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
Strike Team [4 PL, 56pts]: 2x MV1 Gun Drone
. Fire Warrior Shas'ui: Pulse rifle
. 4x Fire Warrior w/ Pulse Rifle
+ Elites +
XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [7 PL, 115pts]: 2x MV4 Shield Drone
. 2x Stealth Shas'ui w/ Multi-tracker: 2x Burst cannon, 2x Multi-tracker
. Stealth Shas'vre: Burst cannon, Drone controller
XV25 Stealth Battlesuits [7 PL, 115pts]: 2x MV4 Shield Drone
. 2x Stealth Shas'ui w/ Multi-tracker: 2x Burst cannon, 2x Multi-tracker
. Stealth Shas'vre: Burst cannon, Drone controller
++ Outrider Detachment +1CP (T'au Empire) [38 PL, 492pts] ++
+ Fast Attack +
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
Tactical Drones [4 PL, 40pts]: 5x MV1 Gun Drone
+ HQ +
Ethereal [4 PL, 66pts]: Honour blade, Hover Drone, 2x MV1 Gun Drone
Ethereal [4 PL, 66pts]: Honour blade, Hover Drone, 2x MV1 Gun Drone
+ Troops +
Kroot Carnivores [3 PL, 60pts]: 10x Kroot
Kroot Carnivores [3 PL, 60pts]: 10x Kroot
++ Total: [132 PL, 2000pts] ++
Created with BattleScribe
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
I can only really suggest what would work well against me.
So far, OP, you've convinced yourself it's impossible. It sounds like you were hoping for an echo chamber. I'm not going to tell you it's easy. I can tell you possibilities, and I can supply strategies that may work, but you've convinced yourself it's impossible.
You've asked for ideas, and shot down pretty well each idea. If you aren't having problems with infantry, you should be able to get close enough to nuke tanks with melta equivalent weapons. If you're dropping individual suits down, there's no way that tanks are killing suits faster than suits are killing tanks.
I've asked for advice and every bit of advice I've gotten doesn't seem to do me much of any good. That's not "convincing myself it's impossible" or "creating an echo chamber".
Commanders aren't necessarily getting killed off by tanks, no, but the surrounding infantry will finish the job. Easily.
So if you're facing tanks, surrounded by infantry, you have a problem with infantry. Tanks will die to dedicated fire. I can assure you of that. If you can't drop in close enough to melta, you've got a problem with board control, which in Guard's lingo = infantry.
So you need to front-load infantry killing, to make space to drop tank killers in. That's the jist of what I'd do, if I were you. Your ground units will take hurt from their tanks for a couple turns, then you'll drop in and nuke tanks. It may be a change of tactics, but if you think about it, your tactics aren't working, so you've got to do something you think WONT work, in order to change. Best, most honest advice I can give you.
A fair suggestion. The problem is, I'm very skeptical that I can afford waiting long enough to have thinned out his infantry. Because no matter how much I shoot, he's still going to have a metric truckload of infantry left. And every shooting phase that my fusions are not firing, means a shooting phase that will demolish what I've got on the field.
So seriously, take some snipers, deal with the infantry, and then bring in the tank killers once there's space. If you don't have problems with infantry, you have no reason to not just drop in suits to kill the tanks with mega-melta.
I looked at the sniper team rules and costs. At range '48, S5, 4+ to hit, no AP and no ability to do extra mortal wounds, they seem extremely underwhelming.
All in all I do think your suggestions have been somewhat enlightening, but I generally just feel frustrated. I feel like this thread has been dominated by people with a poor understanding of the problem itself, or how to communicate ways of addressing it.
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Post by: G00fySmiley
its not just Tau, the Guard codex is just broken, chapter approved should have adjusted points up to balance them, but rumour is that Robin Cruddace, a self proclaimed tread head pro IG guy, who had a large hand in the codex and chapter approved doesn't want to acknowledge the obvious imbalances.
Part of the issue as well is balancing their costs of weapons to a platform. an autogun on a heavy weapons team is hard to balance against one on an armored sentinel, and a lascannon on a leman russ is a hell of a lot better than on a heavy weapons team. this should be reflected in the unti cost, but it just seems to be ignored.
While Cruddane is actually a pretty decent rules writer and he suffers from the same thing as Matt Ward wanting the armies he likes to be top tier. This would not be a bad thing if there were passionate writters for every codex, unfortunately for Tau like Orks there does not seem to be a passionate writer for you. The index nerfed your army and it remains to be seen if the Codex will fix them (be optimistic but hedge that with boatloads of skepticism.
My honest suggestion would be the same thing I do with orks... just don't play against Guard with them. One of my good friends and consistant opponents plays Guard, and I played him once to show how rough Orks even optimized to try and take guard would do. I did the same with my tau. both games were over turn 3 with most everything off the table. So I bring Space marines or Eldar now... If tau is your only army then honest answer is you are not even close to on the same level as Guard so turn down games from guard players.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
it'd be helpful if you actually provided an estimate of what you generally face, because it sounds like a solo opponent who always gives you trouble.
The reason advice people give may not be applicable is that they're envisioning THEIR guard opponents lists or THEIR guard list. Unit saying "Fusion commanders should blow the bejeezus out of them!" is most likely because Fusion Commanders do blow the bejeezus out of 3 superheavies. Me saying "I spend a turn concentrating all firepower on Infantry, then drop in stuff to help deal with tanks" is because the most competitive guard list I face uses all infantry squads with plasma guns/lascannons and they wind up accounting for a much larger point per model than completely bare-bones infantry would. There is actually some value in me concentrating fire and killing the infantry, and then when he responds almost his entire arty core is focused into anti-tank, which can kill my transports sure enough but most everything else is either a flyer or held in reserve.
Basilisks and Manticores are really not great matched up against Voidraven Bombers and Razorwing Jetfighters, which is the core of my anti-tank when I play Dark Eldar. The flyers are positioned high up, so it's tough to hide the arty from them, their anti-tank weaponry is ideal for chunking out T7, and they're hard to hit with a 5++ invuln. A basilisk averages about 1.6 unsaved wounds versus a razorwing with the cadian reroll 1s to hit, and the razorwing returns about 4.0 wounds. Pretty good exchange considering the basilisk is 108 points and the razorwing 155.
I know Tau are bad even for an index, but you have to understand I'm working from an index perspective as well. What I don't know is what you're playing against.
82852
Post by: KurtAngle2
Honest answer? You just can't. IG is the epithome of the best mechanics the 8TH has to offer: cheapest and simultaneously best infantry (in terms of damage output/survivability per point spent) in the ENTIRE game, cheapest and best vehicles, best doctrines/relics/warlord traits, easiest access to Brigade detachments, easiest CP regeneration (and also highest CP availability), best psyker in the game for its cost (Primaris Psyker) with one of the best Psychic tables in terms of buffs, easiest abuse of the untargetable character rule and so on...you would be stupid not to play Guard in this moment
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
the_scotsman wrote:it'd be helpful if you actually provided an estimate of what you generally face, because it sounds like a solo opponent who always gives you trouble.
The reason advice people give may not be applicable is that they're envisioning THEIR guard opponents lists or THEIR guard list. Unit saying "Fusion commanders should blow the bejeezus out of them!" is most likely because Fusion Commanders do blow the bejeezus out of 3 superheavies. Me saying "I spend a turn concentrating all firepower on Infantry, then drop in stuff to help deal with tanks" is because the most competitive guard list I face uses all infantry squads with plasma guns/lascannons and they wind up accounting for a much larger point per model than completely bare-bones infantry would. There is actually some value in me concentrating fire and killing the infantry, and then when he responds almost his entire arty core is focused into anti-tank, which can kill my transports sure enough but most everything else is either a flyer or held in reserve.
Basilisks and Manticores are really not great matched up against Voidraven Bombers and Razorwing Jetfighters, which is the core of my anti-tank when I play Dark Eldar. The flyers are positioned high up, so it's tough to hide the arty from them, their anti-tank weaponry is ideal for chunking out T7, and they're hard to hit with a 5++ invuln. A basilisk averages about 1.6 unsaved wounds versus a razorwing with the cadian reroll 1s to hit, and the razorwing returns about 4.0 wounds. Pretty good exchange considering the basilisk is 108 points and the razorwing 155.
I know Tau are bad even for an index, but you have to understand I'm working from an index perspective as well. What I don't know is what you're playing against.
2 guys in my club basically... and they play the exact things I've been talking about: tanks in the back, truckloads of infantry in the front, and no reliable way for me to deal with either one. Of particular nuisance is: a) obnoxious mortars that get parked behind cover and murder the gak out of any and all markerlights I have and b) cheap hellhounds that push a flank and force me to respond directly, or get any infantry or suits nearby obliterated.
3 fusion commanders do blow up superheavies. A knight costs a majillion points though, whereas a single russ... does not.
112654
Post by: xmbk
Kurt, I'm having a hard time juxtaposing that last post with your signature. 
88921
Post by: Stevefamine
Unit1126PLL wrote:Martel732 wrote:Don't count on a codex as a magical panacea. Basically all power armor lists autolose to IG even with codices.
ITT:
Chaos (the space marine kind obviously) autoloses to Imperial Guard, despite literally mountains of evidence to the contrary.
I run a 30 Terminator meme Abbadon list. I dissolve against IG
Local friend has a list of 80 drones, commander spam and a few Broadsides sprinkled in. He will still struggle to win against IG. Its not a favored match up but it doesnt mean its impossible.
Another player mentioned lack of infantry / Fire Warriors. I'm seeing 2-3 squads of fire warriors more and more in the local meta instead of full suit lists. He also runs Vespids in tournaments
Also - how is the local terrain?
112654
Post by: xmbk
Can't hide from drones. Markerlights are a waste of points, just get more shooting. Hellhounds should get blocked by Kroot and Hounds, or you take advantage of short range for FW.
If you go first, I don't see how he has many infantry left, and tanks shouldn't be efficient for killing what you bring. Multi-wound weapons should always be doing just 1 wound. If he goes first, it's an uphill battle for sure.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
See, that's still pretty darn vague. "a lot" of infantry backed up by "tanks." obviously hellhounds, some quantity of mortars, obviously leman russes, and I'm going to assume some basilisks and some manticores?
I don't know what the russes are equipped with for guns, I don't know how many, I don't know how much infantry, whether the infantry has heavy weapons (infantry with lascannons seem fairly common, and bumps up the cost of the squad by half. A 40 point infantry unit is rarely worthwhile to shoot, but a 60 point infantry squad you can focus without feeling too bad)
If you gave me unlimited funds to start a Tau list specifically to fight guard, it'd probably feature the following:
1) Several units of Kroot Hounds. Ultra-cheap wounds I can use to block the movement of Hellhounds, sprint at tanks to force the opponent to target them or get tied up, just generally be a pain in the arse
2) Commanders (I'd just use basic crisis suit models for these TBH i'm assuming when the codex drops commanders will get toned down and ) with quad fusion. I know it's predictable, I know it's not perfect, but I need them killing tanks and that's the gun they can have that does that. Each commander always 100% comes with drones, I'd do one shield with one Marker for every two Commanders. Those marker drones would be the only marker support I'd bother with - I figure two commanders take down a heavy tank, one takes down a medium tank (T8 vs T7 does make a really big difference in your damage output) so I want them to come down in pairs to use the drones and have one out of two markers landing. Every other commander gets a drone controller to get those markers coming in on a 4 instead of a 5.
3) Next thing I need is to create a situation where my commanders can come down, ideally turn two. For that I need maximally efficient anti-infantry firepower, for Tau that means Strike Teams. No good stratagem access means I don't care about maximising my CPs otherwise I'd likely bring some stealth suits as well. Probably around a hundred fire warriors and some units of gun drones, however many I think I could get to within 18" (usually Guard has enough infantry that I can get within 18" of something without too much trouble).
Importantly, I'd put absolutely no vehicles down on the board if I could avoid it. with the exception of mortars, most guard stuff I see either has short range, or is anti-tank. So if I get first turn, great, I spend it scything down as much infantry as tauily possible with the idea that commanders show up whenever I make enough of a dent in the screen to expose a tank or two. Kroot Hounds and Drones sprint into midfield to be a nuisance, and if they survive until commanders come down they'll be a REAL nuisance thanks to character rule+drone savior protocols. If he's got barebones infantry squads with no special upgrades, I aim to kill seven in the squad and morale should sort the last few. If I get second turn, hopefully I can weather the mortars and that's likely the only terribly effective anti infantry fire I'd see since lasguns are 24" range and he's got points put into basilisks and russes and such.
Commanders come down in pairs with drones behind and I try to get as many drop positions as possible so that he cant focus fire on any one given character to kill him then move to the next. Drones tank savior protocols and fire a marker light, commanders fusion away from 12".
That's what I got. I know it's probably not a ton of super specific advice but I don't super specifically know what you're facing.
111832
Post by: Hollow
I don't think T'au players should be looking to fit StormSurges in at 1600 points. They are too big, cost too many points (Not that I think they are over-coasted). It restricts your options, flexibility and movement (all things that T'au should excel at, especially against Guard)
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Post by: greatbigtree
OP
I missed your question earlier. Tweak the points by playing unequal point values. You take 1650, Guardsman takes 1500. Worth asking if you're unwilling to change strategy.
Sniper drones are perfect for killing Guard characters. I don't know the rules, but I'd wager that 6 of them probably have a great chance to take down a one wound character. Characters are a force multiplier worth more than the heir points.
Don't bother with marker lights. Quantity beats quality.
Tau can't play a slug fest with Guard. You have to play to Guards very limited weaknesses. Engage their units in cc. Force them to retreat and deny their shooting.
You've proposed that other people don't understand your problem. I propose that you don't understand your engagement strategy is flawed, and you need to rework your fundamental strategy away from trying to beat them at their own game.
You believe you cant survive their overpowering shooting. You believe you can't engage with efficient tools. You can't gain board control to get into range.
The Stealth suit plus commander option sounds like a good way to mitigate damage. More bodies and fewer marker lights would likely help. Transports sound like they would help.
You lose because you're not achieving board control. You're being forced to engage in a way you don't want to. You need to change your strategy to change that.
I'm not sure if the tools are there. Even if they are, it's an uphill battle. But the core of beating Guard is taking away their board control.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
 Stevefamine wrote: Unit1126PLL wrote:Martel732 wrote:Don't count on a codex as a magical panacea. Basically all power armor lists autolose to IG even with codices.
ITT:
Chaos (the space marine kind obviously) autoloses to Imperial Guard, despite literally mountains of evidence to the contrary.
I run a 30 Terminator meme Abbadon list. I dissolve against IG
Local friend has a list of 80 drones, commander spam and a few Broadsides sprinkled in. He will still struggle to win against IG. Its not a favored match up but it doesnt mean its impossible.
Another player mentioned lack of infantry / Fire Warriors. I'm seeing 2-3 squads of fire warriors more and more in the local meta instead of full suit lists. He also runs Vespids in tournaments
Also - how is the local terrain?
If you play broadsides for anything other than lulz then you're playing badly and deserve to lose. The unit is badly overcosted and shouldn't be used.
I run plenty of fire warriors, I want my battallion detachment and both of my other troops options are useless (especially the kroot).
The local terrain is just fine. Plenty of LOS-block available.
111832
Post by: Hollow
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
If you play broadsides for anything other than lulz then you're playing badly and deserve to lose. The unit is badly overcosted and shouldn't be used.
Wow... you sure have become all knowing in regards to T'au units... compared to the short few months ago when you were asking advice as a new player on a T'au list containing Broadsides.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
See, that's still pretty darn vague. "a lot" of infantry backed up by "tanks." obviously hellhounds, some quantity of mortars, obviously leman russes, and I'm going to assume some basilisks and some manticores?
I don't know what the russes are equipped with for guns, I don't know how many, I don't know how much infantry, whether the infantry has heavy weapons (infantry with lascannons seem fairly common, and bumps up the cost of the squad by half. A 40 point infantry unit is rarely worthwhile to shoot, but a 60 point infantry squad you can focus without feeling too bad)
I'll try and remember exactly what he had. Something like... six or more infantry squads, at least two of which were veterans and two conscripts. Plenty of bodies all over the field. Regular squads had heavy bolters, most of them. One mortar team of three. 2 groups of 5 man scions, one with meltas and one with plasma. One basilisk. Two hellhounds. Two sentinels with lascannons. A russ with battle cannon, las cannon and heavy bolter. A tank commander with the exact same. I also remember there being some autocannons as well. A primaris psyker.
The most obnoxious problem was the the psyker would make the commander -1 to hit, and then he'd pop smoke to make sure it was -2, the other russ being -1.
If you gave me unlimited funds to start a Tau list specifically to fight guard, it'd probably feature the following:
1) Several units of Kroot Hounds. Ultra-cheap wounds I can use to block the movement of Hellhounds, sprint at tanks to force the opponent to target them or get tied up, just generally be a pain in the arse
I don't own any hounds, but I'll keep this in mind.
2) Commanders (I'd just use basic crisis suit models for these TBH i'm assuming when the codex drops commanders will get toned down and ) with quad fusion. I know it's predictable, I know it's not perfect, but I need them killing tanks and that's the gun they can have that does that. Each commander always 100% comes with drones, I'd do one shield with one Marker for every two Commanders. Those marker drones would be the only marker support I'd bother with - I figure two commanders take down a heavy tank, one takes down a medium tank (T8 vs T7 does make a really big difference in your damage output) so I want them to come down in pairs to use the drones and have one out of two markers landing. Every other commander gets a drone controller to get those markers coming in on a 4 instead of a 5.
I'd probably use at least 2 myself. I'd never spend points on drones, though- marker drones hit on a 5+, and a drone controller means one less fusion blaster s
3) Next thing I need is to create a situation where my commanders can come down, ideally turn two. For that I need maximally efficient anti-infantry firepower, for Tau that means Strike Teams. No good stratagem access means I don't care about maximising my CPs otherwise I'd likely bring some stealth suits as well. Probably around a hundred fire warriors and some units of gun drones, however many I think I could get to within 18" (usually Guard has enough infantry that I can get within 18" of something without too much trouble).
All this hinges on me getting first turn, which is hardly guaranteed. The house rules of my club (which I generally do like) give +1 to the roll-off for whoever finished deploying first, but a bad roll can still screw you.
But yeah, let's say I do get first turn. First off, I'd probably consider some piranhas for anti-infantry firepower- at 71 points a pop, they have 12 shots each; better than fire warriors at long range and with a move of 16 they can get just about anywhere you need.
...a hundred fire warriors. 800 pts of infantry. In a 2000 pts list? That sounds just... bananas to me.
Importantly, I'd put absolutely no vehicles down on the board if I could avoid it. with the exception of mortars, most guard stuff I see either has short range, or is anti-tank. So if I get first turn, great, I spend it scything down as much infantry as tauily possible with the idea that commanders show up whenever I make enough of a dent in the screen to expose a tank or two. Kroot Hounds and Drones sprint into midfield to be a nuisance, and if they survive until commanders come down they'll be a REAL nuisance thanks to character rule+drone savior protocols. If he's got barebones infantry squads with no special upgrades, I aim to kill seven in the squad and morale should sort the last few. If I get second turn, hopefully I can weather the mortars and that's likely the only terribly effective anti infantry fire I'd see since lasguns are 24" range and he's got points put into basilisks and russes and such.
Right now the only high-strength, long-range anti-tank gun we got (that isn't on a stormsurge) is the railgun. Buffed by longstrike, they could do some real damage, so I wouldn't discout them.
Commanders come down in pairs with drones behind and I try to get as many drop positions as possible so that he cant focus fire on any one given character to kill him then move to the next. Drones tank savior protocols and fire a marker light, commanders fusion away from 12".
That's what I got. I know it's probably not a ton of super specific advice but I don't super specifically know what you're facing.
This is interesting. Not necessarily the solution, but worth considering.
88921
Post by: Stevefamine
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
If you play broadsides for anything other than lulz then you're playing badly and deserve to lose. The unit is badly overcosted and shouldn't be used.
I run plenty of fire warriors, I want my battallion detachment and both of my other troops options are useless (especially the kroot).
The local terrain is just fine. Plenty of LOS-block available.
Might be a different meta, most local stores rarely have more than 1-2 LOS blocking ruined structures here and all area terrain. Broadsides tend to do okay in 2000-2500.
I thought you were a new Tau player
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
I missed your question earlier. Tweak the points by playing unequal point values. You take 1650, Guardsman takes 1500. Worth asking if you're unwilling to change strategy.
Changing strategy is the reason I made this thread, since what I'm doing right now really isn't working at all. I don't like the idea of playing with an advantage- the game shouldn't have to work that way.
Sniper drones are perfect for killing Guard characters. I don't know the rules, but I'd wager that 6 of them probably have a great chance to take down a one wound character. Characters are a force multiplier worth more than the heir points.
Six of them, plus the spotter, costs somewhere in the realm of 140 points. '48 range, no AP, no special ability to deal mortal wounds on sixes (like scout snipers do, for example). Looking really underwhelming.
Don't bother with marker lights. Quantity beats quality.
An interesting approach, I guess. Worth considering.
Tau can't play a slug fest with Guard. You have to play to Guards very limited weaknesses. Engage their units in cc. Force them to retreat and deny their shooting.
Their infantry is basically immune to this, what with their Back Into The Fight orders. With their tanks I could see the utility, but their tanks are usually out of assault range.
You've proposed that other people don't understand your problem. I propose that you don't understand your engagement strategy is flawed, and you need to rework your fundamental strategy away from trying to beat them at their own game.
Well, I'm here to try and learn. The problem I've seen is that a lot of people in the thread regurgitate the same advice that I know isn't going to work against what I've faced- so clearly there's a miscommunication issue of some sort.
The Stealth suit plus commander option sounds like a good way to mitigate damage. More bodies and fewer marker lights would likely help. Transports sound like they would help.
More bodies and fewer markers? I could try that. Stealth suit and commander? ...as I've said a million times, it doesn't work. It really doesn't. The tanks stay out of safe distance and the longer I wait to clear out enemy infantry, the longer I can get totally destroyed. Moreover it'd take somewhere in the realm of three commanders- 480 pts- to reliably destroy a single russ. Who would immediately be gunned down afterward. Maybe two could do it, but the problem is the same.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Hollow wrote: SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
If you play broadsides for anything other than lulz then you're playing badly and deserve to lose. The unit is badly overcosted and shouldn't be used.
Wow... you sure have become all knowing in regards to T'au units... compared to the short few months ago when you were asking advice as a new player on a T'au list containing Broadsides.
Yup, I did ask that around summer or so. Every practice game I've had since, every critical evaluation of the unit I've delved into, every opinion I've gotten from other players led me to the same conclusion: it costs way, way too much. It's a bad unit for its cost. You will not get a return on your points. It's comparatively easily killed (two wounding hits from a lascannon will do it, statistically), and provides little firepower for the 170-200ish pts it costs.
I'm not "all knowing" by any means, I'm not a seasoned veteran, but nothing I've seen so far has given me any reason to think differently. I might express myself in absolute terms, but that's out of convenience, not out of absolute conviction.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stevefamine wrote: SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
If you play broadsides for anything other than lulz then you're playing badly and deserve to lose. The unit is badly overcosted and shouldn't be used.
I run plenty of fire warriors, I want my battallion detachment and both of my other troops options are useless (especially the kroot).
The local terrain is just fine. Plenty of LOS-block available.
Might be a different meta, most local stores rarely have more than 1-2 LOS blocking ruined structures here and all area terrain. Broadsides tend to do okay in 2000-2500.
I thought you were a new Tau player
What GTs have you attended with Tau?
If you can show me tournament contender lists with broadsides, be my guest. To the best of my knowledge, the unit is all but useless- overcosted something horrible, relatively easy to kill, relatively little firepower compared to its cost.
108023
Post by: Marmatag
KurtAngle2 wrote:Honest answer? You just can't. IG is the epithome of the best mechanics the 8TH has to offer: cheapest and simultaneously best infantry (in terms of damage output/survivability per point spent) in the ENTIRE game, cheapest and best vehicles, best doctrines/relics/warlord traits, easiest access to Brigade detachments, easiest CP regeneration (and also highest CP availability), best psyker in the game for its cost (Primaris Psyker) with one of the best Psychic tables in terms of buffs, easiest abuse of the untargetable character rule and so on...you would be stupid not to play Guard in this moment
/thread
100083
Post by: pumaman1
Piranhasx5 with 2x seeker missile 405 pts, 3x hammerheads 2x seeker missle ~543 pts, Longstrike with 2x seeker missiles 201 pts, and 2x max squad of path finder 160 pts,
Oh, and go first, because you can just do that (sarcasm)
1309 so far, and 10 seeker missles on 4+ rerolling 1s, 8 seeker missles on 2+ rerolling 1s, so roughly 12-15 mortal wounds, alpha strike down 1 or 2 super markerlighted units, and then have 4x hammerheads benefitted from longstrike to destroy any and every armor. and each piranha still puts out 12 shots (thanks to embarked drones) s5 to chew through infantry
could even be made more efficient rather easily with markerlight strategem etc, but something spit out quick
actually better becuase pretending 5 ML hits, that's 3+ on seeker missiles re rolling 1s from piranhas! can you tell I am at work?
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
wait...
two russes, one basilisk, two sentinels?
So, if you had a vehicle out of line of sight, you would be at risk of being hit by...one basilisk.
That changes the ball game somewhat. The reason I was totally discounting longstrike here is I was picturing something more like the ultra-optimized guard list mentioned above, with at least 4 ignores LOS anti-tank weapons, which would be capable of easily cleaning longstrike's clock and leaving you with an unbuffed Hammerhead Pal. With just one 'lisk opposite you, longstrike should be included all day every day. Stick some drones next to him, he won't have a scratch on him.
Basically I think your biggest issue here is just not having enough downrange anti-infantry firepower. I honestly think with the few vehicles he's got with him, two commanders and longstrike should be more than enough to deal with what needs dealing with. He's got a turn of making his LR's real obnoxious with that psyker trick, but smoke launchers are only one turn. If he pulls it turn one with Strike and Shroud, you pop the commanders down turn 2 and on turn 1 you just shoot Longstrike at a sentinel or something.
Basically my advice would be:
1) Make sure everything valuable has a couple drones next to them. Commanders, Longstrike, other vehicles. Use those to eat battlecannon/lascannon wounds.
2) More anti infantry firepower, SMS would be particularly helpful for their anti-mortar capabilities, but in general it seems like he's skewed wayy hard towards infantry but they're not incredibly optimized, which is good news for your points efficiency taking them out.
3) if you continue to have problems, consider my proposal of putting absolutely everything that is vehicular off the board turn 1 and plopping it down in the form of commanders when the time is right. I always tend to assume a general tau player has at least 6 Crisis Suits - there's your 6 Commanders.
I don't buy that this Guard list with heavy bolter infantry squads and conscripts and lascannon scout sents is so optimized that it is undefeatable by an optimized tau list. I'm not making a dig at you with that - I'm telling you as a guy who's still using indexes for most of my armies I have taken on guard lists far more optimized than that and won. Maybe not pure, 100% perfect tournament competitive, nothing but a wall of upgrade-less infantry, 15 mortars, plasma scion copy/pasta and 8 basilisks/manticores, but I have taken on the pretty dang competitive cadian list I described several times now.
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Post by: KinGensai
I'm beginning to think that Pathfinders are a no go. 2 Fireblades and Darkstrider seem like the way to get markerlights into a Tau list because the uplinked markerlight stratagem allows that module to achieve 5 markerlights on the priority target relatively reliably and have the protection of the character rule.
I don't know if Tau can actually write a list efficient enough to beat IG in a shoot-out, but from what I've been playing, Stealth suits are defensively capable enough to engage in a protracted firefight with infantry and slowly beat them out. As far as engaging leman russes, I don't see efficient options outside of shooting back with fusion commanders hidden around stealth suits. Not having XV8s, XV9s, and XV10s as an option really sucks right now, and hammerheads are straight trash in terms of points efficacy.
111832
Post by: Hollow
Ahh, the often forgotten, but incredibly fun Piranha.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
 pumaman1 wrote:Piranhasx5 with 2x seeker missile 405 pts, 3x hammerheads 2x seeker missle ~543 pts, Longstrike with 2x seeker missiles 201 pts, and 2x max squad of path finder 160 pts,
Oh, and go first, because you can just do that (sarcasm)
1309 so far, and 10 seeker missles on 4+ rerolling 1s, 8 seeker missles on 2+ rerolling 1s, so roughly 12-15 mortal wounds, alpha strike down 1 or 2 super markerlighted units, and then have 4x hammerheads benefitted from longstrike to destroy any and every armor. and each piranha still puts out 12 shots (thanks to embarked drones) s5 to chew through infantry
could even be made more efficient rather easily with markerlight strategem etc, but something spit out quick
A worthwhile suggestion, I'll keep that in mind. Seeker missiles might be useful if applied en masse.
100083
Post by: pumaman1
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote: pumaman1 wrote:Piranhasx5 with 2x seeker missile 405 pts, 3x hammerheads 2x seeker missle ~543 pts, Longstrike with 2x seeker missiles 201 pts, and 2x max squad of path finder 160 pts,
Oh, and go first, because you can just do that (sarcasm)
1309 so far, and 10 seeker missles on 4+ rerolling 1s, 8 seeker missles on 2+ rerolling 1s, so roughly 12-15 mortal wounds, alpha strike down 1 or 2 super markerlighted units, and then have 4x hammerheads benefitted from longstrike to destroy any and every armor. and each piranha still puts out 12 shots (thanks to embarked drones) s5 to chew through infantry
could even be made more efficient rather easily with markerlight strategem etc, but something spit out quick
A worthwhile suggestion, I'll keep that in mind. Seeker missiles might be useful if applied en masse.
The whole 1 mortal wound.. has to be en masse enough.. with enough surviving ML to at LEAST let them shoot at user BS
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
wait...
two russes, one basilisk, two sentinels?
So, if you had a vehicle out of line of sight, you would be at risk of being hit by...one basilisk.
That changes the ball game somewhat. The reason I was totally discounting longstrike here is I was picturing something more like the ultra-optimized guard list mentioned above, with at least 4 ignores LOS anti-tank weapons, which would be capable of easily cleaning longstrike's clock and leaving you with an unbuffed Hammerhead Pal. With just one 'lisk opposite you, longstrike should be included all day every day. Stick some drones next to him, he won't have a scratch on him.
Basically I think your biggest issue here is just not having enough downrange anti-infantry firepower. I honestly think with the few vehicles he's got with him, two commanders and longstrike should be more than enough to deal with what needs dealing with. He's got a turn of making his LR's real obnoxious with that psyker trick, but smoke launchers are only one turn. If he pulls it turn one with Strike and Shroud, you pop the commanders down turn 2 and on turn 1 you just shoot Longstrike at a sentinel or something.
Basically my advice would be:
1) Make sure everything valuable has a couple drones next to them. Commanders, Longstrike, other vehicles. Use those to eat battlecannon/lascannon wounds.
I've tried this. The result, invariably, every time is that my opponent fires smaller guns at the drones, take them out, and then fire lascannons etc at the priority target. Saviour Protocols being useful is a rarity to me.
2) More anti infantry firepower, SMS would be particularly helpful for their anti-mortar capabilities, but in general it seems like he's skewed wayy hard towards infantry but they're not incredibly optimized, which is good news for your points efficiency taking them out.
SMS is definitely a good idea.
3) if you continue to have problems, consider my proposal of putting absolutely everything that is vehicular off the board turn 1 and plopping it down in the form of commanders when the time is right. I always tend to assume a general tau player has at least 6 Crisis Suits - there's your 6 Commanders.
I definitely will. I realise I have to change the way I think if I want to win. My issue is that I usually like to learn one catch-all playstyle that is reasonably good against most things and then learn that as best I can, rather than specialising a list toward any one thing- which is usually the way to go if you like to play tournaments (which I do, for local stuff).
I don't buy that this Guard list with heavy bolter infantry squads and conscripts and lascannon scout sents is so optimized that it is undefeatable by an optimized tau list. I'm not making a dig at you with that - I'm telling you as a guy who's still using indexes for most of my armies I have taken on guard lists far more optimized than that and won. Maybe not pure, 100% perfect tournament competitive, nothing but a wall of upgrade-less infantry, 15 mortars, plasma scion copy/pasta and 8 basilisks/manticores, but I have taken on the pretty dang competitive cadian list I described several times now.
I should add that our terrain was not the most intense. We had a few LOS-blockers, a few cover spaces, a chunk of partial LOS-block, but there weren't super many places to hide. A factor, I guess, although I'm not sure it would have drastically changed the outcome. More LOS-block would have affected me too.
To clarify: both of us, in the game in question, were playing non-optimised lists. It's just that even in a less than optimised situation it completely mirrored every experience I've had with guard up till this point- optimised guard murderkills me, less optimised guard murderkills me slightly less. But the outcome is the same.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hollow wrote:Ahh, the often forgotten, but incredibly fun Piranha.
I actually think they're pretty decent for what they can do. They just get overlooked a lot.
Also I freaking love the design. Automatically Appended Next Post: Just to add real quick, before I make myself look like an idiot: I am indeed kinda new to the game. I've played a good number of games in 8th but I definitely have a lot left to learn.
I'm opinionated and tend to express myself very strongly, which isn't something I do on purpose. If I get something completely wrong, feel free to tell me.
100083
Post by: pumaman1
outrider detachment, 2 fireblades, 3x 5x piranhas with 2x seeker missile, 1299 pts,
2nd outrider detachment, 6x 10 pathfinders 2 fireblades,
1863 pts for 34+ average ML hits and 30 Seeker missile opportunity. An eggs all in 1 basket approach, but probably would be silly-good fun and extremely surprising to your opponent.
Heck upgrade a squad of piranha to fusion blasters to make it 2000 ish points to have anti tank after you launch ze' missiles
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
pumaman1 wrote:outrider detachment, 2 fireblades, 3x 5x piranhas with 2x seeker missile, 1299 pts,
2nd outrider detachment, 6x 10 pathfinders 2 fireblades,
1863 pts for 34+ average ML hits and 30 Seeker missile opportunity. An eggs all in 1 basket approach, but probably would be silly-good fun and extremely surprising to your opponent.
Heck upgrade a squad of piranha to fusion blasters to make it 2000 ish points to have anti tank after you launch ze' missiles
Sir I tip my hat to you. That sounds outrageously silly but it also sounds like it could be fun!
112654
Post by: xmbk
Kroot only suck in this match up, and then only if you go second. You need hounds, there are cheap GW hounds of various sorts on ebay from the old fantasy days, doesn't have to be the expensive actual models. Have to learn the value of screeners and throwaway units.
As for the fact that he can blow away your drones before you kill his chaff, that's the crux of your problem. Tau certainly have the answers for eliminating infantry. Gun drones with DC are basically twice as good as FW. That's what the Stealths are for, homing beacon is just a bonus. If you are taking Suits and Vehicles, you are hamstringing yourself.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
but, his list has no mortars, unless you didn't mention them. And drones come in units of 2s and 3s. They're also very, very easy to hide behind the exact thing they're protecting unless you're letting someone sight to the flyer base.
As your opponent I would definitely try to hit the drones if possible, but there is a crap-ton of good ways to hide a couple tiny duo units out of line of sight on a battlefield. drop a commander next to a ruin, pop the drones 3" away totally hidden behind the ruin walls and between the commander and the opposing army. Boom, your opponent now needs to kill those dudes somehow or there is absolutely no way for him to target the commander they're next to.
"but scotsman! Mortar teams!" 3 mortars kill one single drone in cover per turn, and in an optimal situation all the SMS' in your army have spent two turns dropping everything they've got on them. 2 SMS', 1 dead mortar team * 2 turns. Any that he can't cram out of LOS should be taking fire however you can deliver it to him, and the rest you can target with SMS. If you can figure out a way to fit 6-8 drones in an inconvenient spot for him to hit the turn you drop your commanders down, he's very likely to not have enough mortars left to clear them out.
Please don't think I'm trying to be disparaging here: it freaking sucks to have the weakest rules around, and these are the same kinds of things I had to work out with my Dark Eldar. Different units get settled on as useful (Flyers, Scourges and splinterboat venoms are my go-to competitive units) but you can make the same calls. And the upshot of the commander and fire warrior spam strategy is that if the codex drops you've just got yourself a whole bunch of really generalist Tau models.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
but, his list has no mortars, unless you didn't mention them. And drones come in units of 2s and 3s. They're also very, very easy to hide behind the exact thing they're protecting unless you're letting someone sight to the flyer base.
I could have sworn I mentioned the mortars. There were three of them. Drones are also nigh on impossible to completely hide out in the open.
As your opponent I would definitely try to hit the drones if possible, but there is a crap-ton of good ways to hide a couple tiny duo units out of line of sight on a battlefield. drop a commander next to a ruin, pop the drones 3" away totally hidden behind the ruin walls and between the commander and the opposing army. Boom, your opponent now needs to kill those dudes somehow or there is absolutely no way for him to target the commander they're next to.
Not a bad idea in theory, but highly situational. It relies on there being a ruin to hide them behind in the relevant area.
"but scotsman! Mortar teams!" 3 mortars kill one single drone in cover per turn, and in an optimal situation all the SMS' in your army have spent two turns dropping everything they've got on them. 2 SMS', 1 dead mortar team * 2 turns. Any that he can't cram out of LOS should be taking fire however you can deliver it to him, and the rest you can target with SMS. If you can figure out a way to fit 6-8 drones in an inconvenient spot for him to hit the turn you drop your commanders down, he's very likely to not have enough mortars left to clear them out.
Please don't think I'm trying to be disparaging here: it freaking sucks to have the weakest rules around, and these are the same kinds of things I had to work out with my Dark Eldar. Different units get settled on as useful (Flyers, Scourges and splinterboat venoms are my go-to competitive units) but you can make the same calls. And the upshot of the commander and fire warrior spam strategy is that if the codex drops you've just got yourself a whole bunch of really generalist Tau models.
I honestly don't think we have the weakest rules. I've faced off against plenty of competitively built lists and done fairly well, and even when I've lost I usually had a good idea what went wrong- it's just that in this case I have no idea what to do because I don't actually know what I could do differently.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
So, something like this https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/e/e4/Gun_Drone2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120915035542
That has to be 3" away from something like this
https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99120113028_TauHammerhead01.jpg
and you're saying it's "nigh on impossible" for you to figure out a spot to put the first little guy where he is not visible to the bulk of the enemy army.
and I'm assuming you've tried "behind the second big guy"?
If this was a bigger unit of bigger models I would totally buy it - there's not always enough LOS blocking stuff to go around after all. But drones, at least the kind that come with vehicles and commanders, are itty freaking bitty and there's two of them. and you just need one in the right spot to create a huge pain in the butt for your opponent.
I guess it's just so difficult for me to figure out how there's perfectly sufficient room for an opponent to fit 9 60mm mortar team bases and a basilisk completely perfectly out of sight of your deep strikers and troops with 30" range guns, but how it's highly situational for there to be a ruin or small rock somewhere near where you could put a commander down.
I'm sorry to keep bringing up my Dark Eldar, but I usually have about five venoms full of splinter warriors in my competitive dark eldar list. Each one on average can dish out 22 poison shots at BS3+ if they get within 12", and they fly 16" and shoot at full BS, so typically turn 1 I'm hunting for good spots to put them out of sight of any major gunline elements. Any that survive can fly up and unload, and within 12" they deal 6 wounds and lower LD by 1 so they can pretty much sort a guard squad each. They don't need to be invisible to everything, but I want them split enough that my opponent can't get more than 2-3 anti tank shots off at any given one. I can almost always accomplish that with a small tank. 1-2 small infantry sized characters, it's usually pretty trivial.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
Saviour Protocols applies only to keywords infantry and battlesuit. Hammerheads cannot make use of them, unless there's been an FAQ update I haven't heard of. I guess it's just so difficult for me to figure out how there's perfectly sufficient room for an opponent to fit 9 60mm mortar team bases and a basilisk completely perfectly out of sight of your deep strikers and troops with 30" range guns, but how it's highly situational for there to be a ruin or small rock somewhere near where you could put a commander down.
So far my experience has been: mortar teams parked behind a ruin, close to the table edge, with infantry squads fanning out around it, completely denying deepstrike. What's highly situational isn't there being a ruin to park your commande within- it's there being a ruin to park your commander within that is within the '18 range of your fusion blaster that makes it less than reliable.
70436
Post by: D6Damager
Play Maelstrom missions and use more LOS blocking terrain. Parking lot armies don't have it so easy then.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
Fair. Just one more reason not to present any vehicle targets at all turn 1 I suppose. I wasn't aware that savior doesn't work on vehicles.
The mortars are definitely more of a problem that others face than me I'd guess. Razorwings sit way high up, I've never had a problem getting sight on mortar teams with them, or basilisks/manticores for that matter, and they come with the beautiful "Mortars-B-Gone" missile profile of assault D6, S6 AP- D2.
Figuring out what targets you can deny presenting in a gunline meta is supremely important. if turn 1 everything facing the enemy is chaff infantry, every basilisk, manticore, lascannon and russ is worthless. That's what some of the powerful chaos soup lists do - everything, EVERYTHING that matters is a character standing behind brims.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
the_scotsman wrote:Fair. Just one more reason not to present any vehicle targets at all turn 1 I suppose. I wasn't aware that savior doesn't work on vehicles.
The mortars are definitely more of a problem that others face than me I'd guess. Razorwings sit way high up, I've never had a problem getting sight on mortar teams with them, or basilisks/manticores for that matter, and they come with the beautiful "Mortars-B-Gone" missile profile of assault D6, S6 AP- D2.
Figuring out what targets you can deny presenting in a gunline meta is supremely important. if turn 1 everything facing the enemy is chaff infantry, every basilisk, manticore, lascannon and russ is worthless. That's what some of the powerful chaos soup lists do - everything, EVERYTHING that matters is a character standing behind brims.
I'll 100% make sure to pay more attention to terrain as the board is being set up. Cover seems essential.
Just asking: Longstrike and 2 hammerheads, all with railguns. With his +1, and markerlight #3, (ignore heavy penalty) they'd all hit on a 2+, rerolling 1s. Longstrike wounds vehicles on a 2+, the others on a 3+. -4 AP. If they all wound, that's 3d6 damage. That would be somewhere in the realm of 520ish points. Worth it?
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Post by: Unit1126PLL
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:the_scotsman wrote:Fair. Just one more reason not to present any vehicle targets at all turn 1 I suppose. I wasn't aware that savior doesn't work on vehicles. The mortars are definitely more of a problem that others face than me I'd guess. Razorwings sit way high up, I've never had a problem getting sight on mortar teams with them, or basilisks/manticores for that matter, and they come with the beautiful "Mortars-B-Gone" missile profile of assault D6, S6 AP- D2. Figuring out what targets you can deny presenting in a gunline meta is supremely important. if turn 1 everything facing the enemy is chaff infantry, every basilisk, manticore, lascannon and russ is worthless. That's what some of the powerful chaos soup lists do - everything, EVERYTHING that matters is a character standing behind brims.
I'll 100% make sure to pay more attention to terrain as the board is being set up. Cover seems essential. Just asking: Longstrike and 2 hammerheads, all with railguns. With his +1, and markerlight #3, (ignore heavy penalty) they'd all hit on a 2+, rerolling 1s. Longstrike wounds vehicles on a 2+, the others on a 3+. -4 AP. If they all wound, that's 3d6 damage. That would be somewhere in the realm of 520ish points. Worth it?
Sadly... no. Not to keep riding the "guard are ridiculous" train, but the current Gold Standard in First-Rate Anti-Tank is the Shadowsword, which, for 404 points, brings a 6-shot Heavy Bolter and a 3d3 shot Str. 16 AP-5 D 2d6 gun. 520 points will get beaten by this 404 points every game, and that's just how it is because guard are really good.
100083
Post by: pumaman1
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:the_scotsman wrote:Fair. Just one more reason not to present any vehicle targets at all turn 1 I suppose. I wasn't aware that savior doesn't work on vehicles.
The mortars are definitely more of a problem that others face than me I'd guess. Razorwings sit way high up, I've never had a problem getting sight on mortar teams with them, or basilisks/manticores for that matter, and they come with the beautiful "Mortars-B-Gone" missile profile of assault D6, S6 AP- D2.
Figuring out what targets you can deny presenting in a gunline meta is supremely important. if turn 1 everything facing the enemy is chaff infantry, every basilisk, manticore, lascannon and russ is worthless. That's what some of the powerful chaos soup lists do - everything, EVERYTHING that matters is a character standing behind brims.
I'll 100% make sure to pay more attention to terrain as the board is being set up. Cover seems essential.
Just asking: Longstrike and 2 hammerheads, all with railguns. With his +1, and markerlight #3, (ignore heavy penalty) they'd all hit on a 2+, rerolling 1s. Longstrike wounds vehicles on a 2+, the others on a 3+. -4 AP. If they all wound, that's 3d6 damage. That would be somewhere in the realm of 520ish points. Worth it?
... No. but as long as longstrike is there, they can move and shoot at normal bs just becuase he's within 6(?)", even better with the markerlights helping. Longstrike personally gets to reroll to wounds versus monster and vehicle. so better chance to not do 1 or 2 wounds with him.
At least that they all have sub-munitions by default is nice, if you need to punch infantry.
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
... No. but as long as longstrike is there, they can move and shoot at normal bs just becuase he's within 6(?)", even better with the markerlights helping. Longstrike personally gets to reroll to wounds versus monster and vehicle. so better chance to not do 1 or 2 wounds with him.
At least that they all have sub-munitions by default is nice, if you need to punch infantry.
Well, so much for that idea. I'd really like to try an infantry-and-tank style gunline myself, though.
Also I just checked the rules, Longstrike does not get to re-roll wounds according to index, just +1 to wound.
112654
Post by: xmbk
If you don't at least try a game with no suits and tanks, I'm not sure why you started the thread. You lose the vehicle battle, but win the infantry one. So why fight a tank battle?
111556
Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
xmbk wrote:If you don't at least try a game with no suits and tanks, I'm not sure why you started the thread. You lose the vehicle battle, but win the infantry one. So why fight a tank battle?
Hey, I definitely intend to take some advice from this thread if what I'm doing continues to not work, buddy. This has been some useful advice even if it took a while to get there.
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Post by: pumaman1
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:... No. but as long as longstrike is there, they can move and shoot at normal bs just becuase he's within 6(?)", even better with the markerlights helping. Longstrike personally gets to reroll to wounds versus monster and vehicle. so better chance to not do 1 or 2 wounds with him.
At least that they all have sub-munitions by default is nice, if you need to punch infantry.
Well, so much for that idea. I'd really like to try an infantry-and-tank style gunline myself, though.
Also I just checked the rules, Longstrike does not get to re-roll wounds according to index, just +1 to wound.
1/3rd of the time he'll get d3 mortal wounds, tanks to (ha, dad pun) on 5s and 6s with that
They are good BS seeker missile platforms, and only other reasonable way to get mortal wounds. And we don't have much better choice, so i'd still take them. Pick your poison. Suits (besides commanders and to a degree stealth) are not good, why on earth Hammerheads didn't get supremacy rail-guns (like the tidewall), who knows. Possible upgrade in upcoming codex, but for now, work what you have.
Commanders, longstrike, kroot hounds, vespids, stealth suits, ghostkeels?, under rated piranhas.
If you do get LOS blocking terrain, you only need to expose the tiniest portion of vehicle to shoot, not like the old days
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
1/3rd of the time he'll get d3 mortal wounds, tanks to (ha, dad pun) on 5s and 6s with that
They are good BS seeker missile platforms, and only other reasonable way to get mortal wounds. And we don't have much better choice, so i'd still take them. Pick your poison. Suits (besides commanders and to a degree stealth) are not good, why on earth Hammerheads didn't get supremacy rail-guns (like the tidewall), who knows. Possible upgrade in upcoming codex, but for now, work what you have.
Commanders, longstrike, kroot hounds, vespids, stealth suits, ghostkeels?, under rated piranhas.
If you do get LOS blocking terrain, you only need to expose the tiniest portion of vehicle to shoot, not like the old days
Screw me, I completely forgot about the way modifiers work. Mortal wounds on a 5+ is pretty dang good.
Commanders=absolutely. Piranhas=planned on getting more than one anyway. Kroot hounds... maybe. Ghostkeels seem pretty decent but I'm unsure of their role here, they're not the best at killing loads of infantry (although with burst cannons... maybe).
Man, a supremacy railgun... if you had 2 shots instead of 1, it would be so good.
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Post by: pumaman1
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:
Screw me, I completely forgot about the way modifiers work. Mortal wounds on a 5+ is pretty dang good.
Commanders=absolutely. Piranhas=planned on getting more than one anyway. Kroot hounds... maybe. Ghostkeels seem pretty decent but I'm unsure of their role here, they're not the best at killing loads of infantry (although with burst cannons... maybe).
Man, a supremacy railgun... if you had 2 shots instead of 1, it would be so good.
Kroot hounds role is almost exclusively to sprint as fast as possible across the board, and tie up heavy guns/effective melee units. at 4pts per, and 12" move no gun so always advance. They fulfill the meat shield role well, but aren't great at doing that much damage.
Ghost keels I actually agree, but i read others with more success. -2 to hit outside of 12" helps, but the drones are helpless and dead turn 1 if visible.
Supremacy railgun seems to obvious to not have it as an upgrade, but who knows. If not that at least let a character aim the supremacy rail-gun again, none of this 5+ only closest unit nonsense.
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Post by: greatbigtree
You have received plenty of good advice you didn't want to hear. The pure arrogance of your asking for advice, because you don't know what to do, because your thought processes have lead you to a dead end, and then proclaiming to tolerate some advice that doesn't fix your underlying issue. Amazing. Hope your games get better. Perhaps in the future you could not ask for help, but instead tell everyone what you want to hear so we can echo it for you. It would save a lot of time.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
 greatbigtree wrote:
You have received plenty of good advice you didn't want to hear. The pure arrogance of your asking for advice, because you don't know what to do, because your thought processes have lead you to a dead end, and then proclaiming to tolerate some advice that doesn't fix your underlying issue. Amazing. Hope your games get better. Perhaps in the future you could not ask for help, but instead tell everyone what you want to hear so we can echo it for you. It would save a lot of time.
I'm talking about people repeatedly saying "but just use stealth teams and a couple fusion commanders" when I know that isn't going to cut it. There were a lot of useful perspectives in here- like the idea of skipping markerlights, or massing infantry, or skipping tanks- that I'll definitely be taking into consideration. But some of the suggestions were no good to me and I don't mind saying it. If that makes me "arrogant"... well, whatever.
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Post by: Hollow
Unit1126PLL wrote: SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:the_scotsman wrote:Fair. Just one more reason not to present any vehicle targets at all turn 1 I suppose. I wasn't aware that savior doesn't work on vehicles.
The mortars are definitely more of a problem that others face than me I'd guess. Razorwings sit way high up, I've never had a problem getting sight on mortar teams with them, or basilisks/manticores for that matter, and they come with the beautiful "Mortars-B-Gone" missile profile of assault D6, S6 AP- D2.
Figuring out what targets you can deny presenting in a gunline meta is supremely important. if turn 1 everything facing the enemy is chaff infantry, every basilisk, manticore, lascannon and russ is worthless. That's what some of the powerful chaos soup lists do - everything, EVERYTHING that matters is a character standing behind brims.
I'll 100% make sure to pay more attention to terrain as the board is being set up. Cover seems essential.
Just asking: Longstrike and 2 hammerheads, all with railguns. With his +1, and markerlight #3, (ignore heavy penalty) they'd all hit on a 2+, rerolling 1s. Longstrike wounds vehicles on a 2+, the others on a 3+. -4 AP. If they all wound, that's 3d6 damage. That would be somewhere in the realm of 520ish points. Worth it?
Sadly... no.
Not to keep riding the "guard are ridiculous" train, but the current Gold Standard in First-Rate Anti-Tank is the Shadowsword, which, for 404 points, brings a 6-shot Heavy Bolter and a 3d3 shot Str. 16 AP-5 D 2d6 gun. 520 points will get beaten by this 404 points every game, and that's just how it is because guard are really good.
Disagree. 3 Hammerheads with Long-Strike are well worth taking. I have done so several times and they have been very effective. Just because something doesn't exactly match the potential damage output of one of the strongest Anti- Meq choices in the game, doesn't automatically make it a non-starter. Everything isn't as good as everything else. Synergy, tactics etc all need to be taken into consideration.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
Disagree. 3 Hammerheads with Long-Strike are well worth taking. I have done so several times and they have been very effective. Just because something doesn't exactly match the potential damage output of one of the strongest Anti-Meq choices in the game, doesn't automatically make it a non-starter. Everything isn't as good as everything else. Synergy, tactics etc all need to be taken into consideration.
That's what I was thinking. It's worth trying at the very least.
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Post by: Lorek
Watch Rule #1 here, folks.
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Post by: Sleep Spell
While I like the hammerhead models and their synergy with Longstrike. The damage is capped pretty low making it hard for a group of 3 to duke it out with enemy armor, especially imperial tanks or super heavies. The big advantage seems to be either movement with markerlight support or the ability to switch and put some hurt on infantry without wasting too much firepower so I'd love to hear your results and how they performed; been looking for an excuse to buy a few hammerheads and devilish for an mechanised Tau list.
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Post by: adamsouza
A 6 man stealth team with 2 drones in cover, has 14 wounds, a 2+ save, and is -1 to hit.
Lasguns have a 1.8% chance to wound them.
Motars have a 2.8%
Battle Cannons have 14%
Las Cannons have 18%
I've had an entire 1500 point Guard army concentrate their fire into a single stealth team on turn 1 and fail to remove it.
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Post by: GI_Redshirt
adamsouza wrote:A 6 man stealth team with 2 drones in cover, has 14 wounds, a 2+ save, and is -1 to hit.
Lasguns have a 1.8% chance to wound them.
Motars have a 2.8%
Battle Cannons have 14%
Las Cannons have 18%
I've had an entire 1500 point Guard army concentrate their fire into a single stealth team on turn 1 and fail to remove it.
Bear in mind the Drones are a separate unit, don't benefit from cover unless 50% obscured, and aren't the -1 to hit. Its pretty easy to pick off the drones before going after the Stealth Suits so you can't use Savior Protocols. Don't get me wrong, Stealth Suits got really good in 8th edition, like really good, but generally I see Drones as a bad investment on them outside of getting an extra pair of Shield Drones into the midfield for a Manta Striking Commander to grab or to get a pair of Marker Drones in a good position for a turn before they inevitably get killed. I'd rather invest those points into Support Systems on the Stealth Suits personally, but to each their own.
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Post by: Hollow
 Sleep Spell wrote:While I like the hammerhead models and their synergy with Longstrike. The damage is capped pretty low making it hard for a group of 3 to duke it out with enemy armor, especially imperial tanks or super heavies. The big advantage seems to be either movement with markerlight support or the ability to switch and put some hurt on infantry without wasting too much firepower so I'd love to hear your results and how they performed; been looking for an excuse to buy a few hammerheads and devilish for an mechanised Tau list.
I think when you start talking about superheavies then I agree, the game changes and you need to dig a little deeper within the T'au bag of tricks to take care of them. I rarely (If ever) come across superheavies in sub-2k games (As should be the case). If however, a player insists on taking superheavies then you are really forced into Fusion commander spam.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
adamsouza wrote:A 6 man stealth team with 2 drones in cover, has 14 wounds, a 2+ save, and is -1 to hit.
Lasguns have a 1.8% chance to wound them.
Motars have a 2.8%
Battle Cannons have 14%
Las Cannons have 18%
I've had an entire 1500 point Guard army concentrate their fire into a single stealth team on turn 1 and fail to remove it.
A valid suggestion, thanks.
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Post by: boundless08
It's funny reading through all the comments here. They match exactly what we've been seeing in our small work gaming group. Stealth suits and ghostkeels rule the roost. Ghostkeels especially, not really for the firepower but just the pure threat of the thing. To me it's the new distraction carnifex. In a 1500 point game with me playing chaos it took an entire turn of my army shooting it to destroy it, for guard that should even out to be two turns.
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Post by: GI_Redshirt
 boundless08 wrote:It's funny reading through all the comments here. They match exactly what we've been seeing in our small work gaming group. Stealth suits and ghostkeels rule the roost. Ghostkeels especially, not really for the firepower but just the pure threat of the thing. To me it's the new distraction carnifex. In a 1500 point game with me playing chaos it took an entire turn of my army shooting it to destroy it, for guard that should even out to be two turns.
It's funny that you say that, because the more I play it the more I'm seeing the flaws in the Ghostkeel. Don't get my wrong, I love the thing, awesome model and it is decent on the board, but it does have its issues. First and foremost is that because it hit that magical 10W, it has a degrading statline. Once you get it down to 5 wounds or less, its hitting on 5+ instead of 4+. That's a massive hit to a model with (depending on the loadout) relatively few shots. Second is that while the Keel can be quite beefy at range with that -2 to hit T6 3+, the Stealth Drones are decidedly not. It is not hard at all to kill 2 -1 to hit T4 1W 4+ Drones. And once you do that, the Keel loses that permanent -1 to hit, and only has the -1 from beyond 12" to rely on. For an approximately 200 point model, it does have some glaring flaws that can be easily exploited if your opponent knows what they're up against.
That said, yeah the Ghostkeel is an awesome Distraction Carnifex. Even with the degrading statline and relatively vulnerable drones, it is quite tanky, to the point that many opponents won't even bother shooting at the thing. But they can't leave it alone because it does carry some decent firepower. I take a couple every game, and they do some work. I do believe that Stealth Suits are generally the better unit, but Ghostkeels are nothing to sneeze at. They won't win you any tournaments, and against a good competitive Guard list they won't do you much good, but they are a solid unit and have a place in the Tau arsenal, so long as you remember the weaknesses I mentioned above and learn to mitigate them.
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Post by: boundless08
Agree with everything you said man! When I play against the ghostkeel now I ignore it unless it gets worryingly close to things. Another big flaw is it's hitting on 5s when moving if you haven't got marker lights or that support system
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Post by: Gamgee
Yeah stealth suits in cover with drone controllers are great. The one great thing I can confirm is I had a single squad last an entire turn of IG shooting lol. Unfortunately it was a doubles game and I simply didn't have enough of them. Definitely want to pick some more up and I hope they remain unchanged in our new dex except perhaps a small cost decrease to keep them relevant. They are great for being the wall for deepstrikes. Still not good enough to be a game winning unit. Not with our dex at least.
All we can do is hope for Tau dex buffs.
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Post by: greatbigtree
^^ This is what I'm talking about. Not giving up board control.
Guard have no ready access to jump packs or skimmers. We can only engage along a front, except for Scions and very few other choices. If you can create a front with these Stealth teams, you can effectively pen Guard into a corner, where they can't score objectives, and they can't efficiently engage valuable targets.
At which point, selectively kill infantry to create drop zones for targeted assassinations, and you've got a strategy with potential.
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Post by: Alcibiades
I dunno. Quick napkin math says that three Hammerheads (no Longstrike) with full ML support should do about 8 wounds a turn to a baneblade (or Leman Russ). That's not nothing. With two seekers on each, that goes up to almost 14.
Broadsides actually do more damage, though.(3 will do 9 wounds with the rail rifles)..
It's pretty hard to take a Stormsurge down in one turn. How did that happen?
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Post by: GI_Redshirt
 Gamgee wrote:Yeah stealth suits in cover with drone controllers are great. The one great thing I can confirm is I had a single squad last an entire turn of IG shooting lol. Unfortunately it was a doubles game and I simply didn't have enough of them. Definitely want to pick some more up and I hope they remain unchanged in our new dex except perhaps a small cost decrease to keep them relevant. They are great for being the wall for deepstrikes. Still not good enough to be a game winning unit. Not with our dex at least.
All we can do is hope for Tau dex buffs.
Curious, have you tried them without running DCs on them? In my experience, DCs are not worth it on Stealth Suits since the Suits are generally starting further up the board than the Drones, and the Drones generally want to be doing other things than chasing the Stealth Suits around and vice versa. My preferred loadouts are this. Both loadouts assume a 6 man Stealth unit with a Shas'Vre, 2 FBs, and 4 BCs.
1. All BCs have ATS, FBs have MTs. Gives the BCs some much needed added bite (16 S5 AP-1 shots coming from a unit starting in the middle of the board is nothing to sneeze at) while the MTs give FBs more reliability and less reliance on MLs. Overall makes a more self-sustaining unit that can function as harassers and skirmishers on their own without needing to dedicate additional support to them. This is my default loadout and it has served me very well in 8th.
2. All SGs, all day. Yes, please, come shoot at my -1 to hit, T4 2W, 2+ (cause you know they're deploying in cover), 4++ unit. This unit will not go away. Barring some bad rolls on your part, they will be sticking around all game. Quite fun, quite infuriating to deal with.
It's pretty hard to take a Stormsurge down in one turn. How did that happen?
Not really. A Stormsurge is T7, 20W, 3+. Its arguably less survivable than a Land Raider (more wounds, but worse T and save). It also doesn't have the BATTLESUIT keyword so you can't use Savior Protocols to tank wounds off onto Drones. Even with the almost mandatory SG upgrade, and possibly a Stim upgrade and/or an Ethereal nearby, a Stormsurge really isn't as hard as you would think to kill in a single turn, assuming you have the firepower in your list (which Guard will).
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Post by: RedCommander
I have no idea. My armies consist mostly of IG and I have never lost to Tau. I have to note that I use different tactics than your opposition. I have way more infantry. And non-IG-dudes.
Sometimes, I do wonder if the current ruleset was designed by an IG-player...
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Post by: adamsouza
Math Hammer has always favored large volumes of fire. 8th edition introduced everything being wounded on a 6+ and everything failing it's save at least 16%.
Astra Militarum is just fortunate to have the ability to field cheap easily killable guys, who happen to have competent range weapons.
Orks and Tyranids have cheap numbers, but are hampered by poor BS and less effective ranged weaponry.
Power Armored armies too elite oriented to field in horde sized numbers.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
Not really. A Stormsurge is T7, 20W, 3+. Its arguably less survivable than a Land Raider (more wounds, but worse T and save). It also doesn't have the BATTLESUIT keyword so you can't use Savior Protocols to tank wounds off onto Drones. Even with the almost mandatory SG upgrade, and possibly a Stim upgrade and/or an Ethereal nearby, a Stormsurge really isn't as hard as you would think to kill in a single turn, assuming you have the firepower in your list (which Guard will).
Can confirm. Throw enough lascannons/other multiwound guns at it, and it will be bracketed or killed in one or two turns. Many games I've had to bite my nails wondering if they'll survive turn one. T7 really is pathetic- you'd think our biggest suit would have more than that.
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Post by: GI_Redshirt
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:Not really. A Stormsurge is T7, 20W, 3+. Its arguably less survivable than a Land Raider (more wounds, but worse T and save). It also doesn't have the BATTLESUIT keyword so you can't use Savior Protocols to tank wounds off onto Drones. Even with the almost mandatory SG upgrade, and possibly a Stim upgrade and/or an Ethereal nearby, a Stormsurge really isn't as hard as you would think to kill in a single turn, assuming you have the firepower in your list (which Guard will).
Can confirm. Throw enough lascannons/other multiwound guns at it, and it will be bracketed or killed in one or two turns. Many games I've had to bite my nails wondering if they'll survive turn one. T7 really is pathetic- you'd think our biggest suit would have more than that.
Hopefully the Surge will get the Baneblade treatment in the codex; get buffed across the board while seeing a points drop. Only this time doing so will take a mediocre unit and make it good instead of taking a good unit and making it amazing. 
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Post by: Xenomancers
Storm surge isn't terrible. Gotta bring marker lights though to make it work. One game I took out a russ with one with just the destroyer missiles but that was a pretty lucky shot. I'd say the biggest problem I have with it is that it suffers big time for moving.
The Riptide on the other hand is just flat out too expensive. It should probably go down 40% in cost.
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Post by: GI_Redshirt
 Xenomancers wrote:Storm surge isn't terrible. Gotta bring marker lights though to make it work. One game I took out a russ with one with just the destroyer missiles but that was a pretty lucky shot. I'd say the biggest problem I have with it is that it suffers big time for moving.
The Riptide on the other hand is just flat out too expensive. It should probably go down 40% in cost.
I mean, you literally have to have perfect dice with Destroyer Missiles in order for them to kill a Russ by themselves, not exactly a great way to sell the viability of a unit. "If you roll perfectly, it works well!" Also, a Russ (depending on the loadout) is what, a third the price of a Stormsurge? I would hope that a Stormsurge would be able to kill a single model that's a third of its points cost in a single turn of shooting, seeing as shooting is all it can do.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
Xenomancers wrote:Storm surge isn't terrible. Gotta bring marker lights though to make it work. One game I took out a russ with one with just the destroyer missiles but that was a pretty lucky shot. I'd say the biggest problem I have with it is that it suffers big time for moving.
The Riptide on the other hand is just flat out too expensive. It should probably go down 40% in cost.
Sure, it's not bad. It's worth its points... but not much more than that. It needs a buff IMHO- I'd like it if we got the ability to fire one gun of our choice twice after anchors were deployed, for example.
Riptides need a 75-100 pts drop to be attractive choices IMHO. They're flat out useless right now, possibly worst unit available to us for cost.
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Post by: Martel732
They have to pay for that durabilty. It's not free. See: land raider. Riptides didn't pay for their durability in 6/7th. Maybe they have too much durability to be conceptually effective.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
Martel732 wrote:They have to pay for that durabilty. It's not free. See: land raider. Riptides didn't pay for their durability in 6/7th. Maybe they have too much durability to be conceptually effective.
Well, right now they're 100% useless and nobody even remotely competitive takes them. They're not really that durable- a couple lascannon wounds and it's bracketed, a few more and it's dead- and they're 300+ pts for mediocre BS and firepower. Seriously, 200-220 pts is what I'd consider fair pricing.
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Post by: Galas
I'll have no problems with Riptides being 300 points if they where good enough for that cost.
Normally for "big" models I prefer high points but high power.
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Post by: Martel732
SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:Martel732 wrote:They have to pay for that durabilty. It's not free. See: land raider. Riptides didn't pay for their durability in 6/7th. Maybe they have too much durability to be conceptually effective.
Well, right now they're 100% useless and nobody even remotely competitive takes them. They're not really that durable- a couple lascannon wounds and it's bracketed, a few more and it's dead- and they're 300+ pts for mediocre BS and firepower. Seriously, 200-220 pts is what I'd consider fair pricing.
But the the 2+ save pushes a lot of weapons into the realm of uselessness. I've finished off a few stormravens with boltguns. I wouldn't consider trying against a land raider or riptide. If riptides were much cheaper, it would be trivial for a tau opponent to overload an opponent's ability to bring lances/lascannons.
People are complaining about marines for edition lag, but this is what riptides should have costed all along. Because immortality in 6/7th.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
 Galas wrote:I'll have no problems with Riptides being 300 points if they where good enough for that cost.
Normally for "big" models I prefer high points but high power.
I agree. If they actually had a whole bunch of shots and nice bonuses to justify the points, I'd be fine with it. Automatically Appended Next Post: But the the 2+ save pushes a lot of weapons into the realm of uselessness. I've finished off a few stormravens with boltguns. I wouldn't consider trying against a land raider or riptide. If riptides were much cheaper, it would be trivial for a tau opponent to overload an opponent's ability to bring lances/lascannons.
People are complaining about marines for edition lag, but this is what riptides should have costed all along. Because immortality in 6/7th.
Only weapons that aren't meant to be effective against it in the first place. Plasma (of all kinds), lascannons, autocannons, all forms of anti-SMEQ/anti-tank guns are highly effective against it. This is a pretty odd counterpoint to make. Right now, most factions have the ability to spam lascannons (or their equivalents) en masse if they so like. It would not be difficult to build a list accordingly. If they cost something in the realm of 200 and I brought three... I still would expect to lose most or all of them to any competitively built list.
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Post by: Sidstyler
It's also a weird argument to make that the riptide is fairly-priced now because that's how much it "should have been" in a previous edition, which is no longer relevant and doesn't work the way the current edition does.
That's not really how game balance works. I'd hoped GW would have learned that lesson by now.
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Post by: the_scotsman
 Sidstyler wrote:It's also a weird argument to make that the riptide is fairly-priced now because that's how much it "should have been" in a previous edition, which is no longer relevant and doesn't work the way the current edition does.
That's not really how game balance works. I'd hoped GW would have learned that lesson by now.
Its pretty clear that many units people 'loved to hate' in 7th were balanced very...cautiously in 8th in the index releases. They wanted to be very sure that in one of the first tournaments someone didn't show up with a half dozen riptides or a WK/Scatbike list and cause a "here comes the new boss, same as the old boss" moment.
It also helps to get buy-in from the folks like above who want to see "balance Karma" for units or factions that were oppressive in earlier editions. Don't play 7th where you have to deal with centurions, riptides, screamerstars, scatbikes, wraithknights, warp spiders, etc, they're all gone over here!
Here's hoping that the codex gives some help, and comes soon. I am really hoping for Tau after Daemons in january (and for my own selfish reasons, Dark Eldar after that, but we'll be more likely to see Necrons first as they were the other faction in CA who got diddly)
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Post by: An Actual Englishman
I think one problem with Guard is that they are so efficient across the board. I reckon the majority of people who play 40k do so semi casually. There are always WAAC players but they're in the minority of most play environments outside of tournaments. Guard are extremely strong in a competitive environment. The combos and synergies between units they can put forward are shockingly powerful.
I also believe they are exceptionally strong when a more casual list is taken and this is the reason for the complaints. Most players throwing a list together with their available models play a game against a Guard player doing the same thing and lose, probably quite badly. I have watched a few reviews and have gone through the Guard codex myself, there are very few 'bad' choices. Almost across the board their units are useful and have a place, sure some are better than others at various tasks but their weakest units are still comparatively strong. I don't think this is true to the same extent in any other codex where some choices are objectively worse than others. GW also made some of the most popular Guard models strong which probably doesn't help in a more casual environment.
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Post by: the_scotsman
 An Actual Englishman wrote:I think one problem with Guard is that they are so efficient across the board. I reckon the majority of people who play 40k do so semi casually. There are always WAAC players but they're in the minority of most play environments outside of tournaments. Guard are extremely strong in a competitive environment. The combos and synergies between units they can put forward are shockingly powerful.
I also believe they are exceptionally strong when a more casual list is taken and this is the reason for the complaints. Most players throwing a list together with their available models play a game against a Guard player doing the same thing and lose, probably quite badly. I have watched a few reviews and have gone through the Guard codex myself, there are very few 'bad' choices. Almost across the board their units are useful and have a place, sure some are better than others at various tasks but their weakest units are still comparatively strong. I don't think this is true to the same extent in any other codex where some choices are objectively worse than others. GW also made some of the most popular Guard models strong which probably doesn't help in a more casual environment.
I don't know how much I buy that a purely casual guard list is *that* much stronger than any other given casual list. Infantry squads, for instance, are quite good but their upgrades very quickly make them not nearly as points efficient. A basic infantry squad is 40 points, but an infantry squad with a grenade launcher, vox caster, heavy bolter, and plasma pistol/power sword sarge is 67. I do definitely agree that it's far more likely that someone ends up with a powerful 8th ed guard list because "some infantry squads, some scions, company commanders, leman russes with few upgrades, basilisks, and mortar teams" is very powerful, wheras to accidentally get a competitive chaos army you'd have to have magnus, mortarion, and some khorne bezerkers just already in your list.
But the more competitive guard list from previous editions (Wyverns, chimeras+3 melta veterans, paskisher+cheap pal) is not nearly as potent in 8th. In general a fully mechanized guard list is loads easier to deal with than arty screened with completely naked infantry, because you actually introduce some of the probably intended weaknesses of how easy it is to permanently lock their vehicles and tanks into an overwatch-get charged-cant shoot loop.
they definitely are suffering from some of the 7th ed Tau Problem, where the super-cheesy competitive list uses a lot of the most beloved/common units in the army (scions, leman russ battlecannons, infantry squads and officers) leading to their perceived power being far and above all the other competitive factions when they're actually a lot closer to par with the other high tier stuff when you look at tournaments.
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Post by: pumaman1
Martel732 wrote: SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:Martel732 wrote:They have to pay for that durabilty. It's not free. See: land raider. Riptides didn't pay for their durability in 6/7th. Maybe they have too much durability to be conceptually effective.
Well, right now they're 100% useless and nobody even remotely competitive takes them. They're not really that durable- a couple lascannon wounds and it's bracketed, a few more and it's dead- and they're 300+ pts for mediocre BS and firepower. Seriously, 200-220 pts is what I'd consider fair pricing.
But the the 2+ save pushes a lot of weapons into the realm of uselessness. I've finished off a few stormravens with boltguns. I wouldn't consider trying against a land raider or riptide. If riptides were much cheaper, it would be trivial for a tau opponent to overload an opponent's ability to bring lances/lascannons.
People are complaining about marines for edition lag, but this is what riptides should have costed all along. Because immortality in 6/7th.
So we drop the riptide with IA in price to 190pts, its armor degrades to a 3+, we change the Ion Accelerator from heavy 3 s7 ap-3 72" to heavy 4 s9 ap-3, but only 48", we improve its bs to base 3+. The shield generator is gone, but it can buy a 4++ for 50 pts, and it can be repaired d3 per turn by a nearby fireblade. Balanced?
And we agreed previously (former thread) that 7th ed riptides were too effective (worse in 6th with tau-dar), but arguing that something with the same fireoutput as a squad of conscripts w/o orders is appropriately costed, but since ap affects everything now, ap-1 isn't negligible any more.
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Post by: An Actual Englishman
the_scotsman wrote:I do definitely agree that it's far more likely that someone ends up with a powerful 8th ed guard list because "some infantry squads, some scions, company commanders, leman russes with few upgrades, basilisks, and mortar teams" is very powerful, wheras to accidentally get a competitive chaos army you'd have to have magnus, mortarion, and some khorne bezerkers just already in your list.
Couldn't agree more with this. I guess it feels like a punishment to take fluffy units in most armies while as you've said it tends to work well for Guard (comparatively). I think a lot of players of other factions are jealous of the flexibly that Guard are afforded, I certainly am since it was supposed to be like this for all armies. This jealousy is probably part of the reason for all the hate around Guard at the moment.
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Post by: Vaktathi
An Actual Englishman wrote:I think one problem with Guard is that they are so efficient across the board. I reckon the majority of people who play 40k do so semi casually. There are always WAAC players but they're in the minority of most play environments outside of tournaments. Guard are extremely strong in a competitive environment. The combos and synergies between units they can put forward are shockingly powerful.
I also believe they are exceptionally strong when a more casual list is taken and this is the reason for the complaints. Most players throwing a list together with their available models play a game against a Guard player doing the same thing and lose, probably quite badly. I have watched a few reviews and have gone through the Guard codex myself, there are very few 'bad' choices. Almost across the board their units are useful and have a place, sure some are better than others at various tasks but their weakest units are still comparatively strong. I don't think this is true to the same extent in any other codex where some choices are objectively worse than others. GW also made some of the most popular Guard models strong which probably doesn't help in a more casual environment.
Hrm, whatever you want to say about the IG book's external viability, internally it's a pretty big mess. For every Pask or Manticore there's a Deathstrike or Tech Priest. Where we have the Battlecannon Russ we have the objectively worse Exterminator Russ. There's a lot of junk in there, and a classic 5E-7E style mechanized infantry IG army is in fact very difficult to make viable in 8E.
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Post by: master of ordinance
 Vaktathi wrote: An Actual Englishman wrote:I think one problem with Guard is that they are so efficient across the board. I reckon the majority of people who play 40k do so semi casually. There are always WAAC players but they're in the minority of most play environments outside of tournaments. Guard are extremely strong in a competitive environment. The combos and synergies between units they can put forward are shockingly powerful.
I also believe they are exceptionally strong when a more casual list is taken and this is the reason for the complaints. Most players throwing a list together with their available models play a game against a Guard player doing the same thing and lose, probably quite badly. I have watched a few reviews and have gone through the Guard codex myself, there are very few 'bad' choices. Almost across the board their units are useful and have a place, sure some are better than others at various tasks but their weakest units are still comparatively strong. I don't think this is true to the same extent in any other codex where some choices are objectively worse than others. GW also made some of the most popular Guard models strong which probably doesn't help in a more casual environment.
Hrm, whatever you want to say about the IG book's external viability, internally it's a pretty big mess. For every Pask or Manticore there's a Deathstrike or Tech Priest. Where we have the Battlecannon Russ we have the objectively worse Exterminator Russ. There's a lot of junk in there, and a classic 5E-7E style mechanized infantry IG army is in fact very difficult to make viable in 8E.
^ This. Outside of conscript and Manticore spam the IG codex is extremely weak, with many units heavily overpriced.
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Post by: pumaman1
 master of ordinance wrote: Vaktathi wrote: An Actual Englishman wrote:I think one problem with Guard is that they are so efficient across the board. I reckon the majority of people who play 40k do so semi casually. There are always WAAC players but they're in the minority of most play environments outside of tournaments. Guard are extremely strong in a competitive environment. The combos and synergies between units they can put forward are shockingly powerful.
I also believe they are exceptionally strong when a more casual list is taken and this is the reason for the complaints. Most players throwing a list together with their available models play a game against a Guard player doing the same thing and lose, probably quite badly. I have watched a few reviews and have gone through the Guard codex myself, there are very few 'bad' choices. Almost across the board their units are useful and have a place, sure some are better than others at various tasks but their weakest units are still comparatively strong. I don't think this is true to the same extent in any other codex where some choices are objectively worse than others. GW also made some of the most popular Guard models strong which probably doesn't help in a more casual environment.
Hrm, whatever you want to say about the IG book's external viability, internally it's a pretty big mess. For every Pask or Manticore there's a Deathstrike or Tech Priest. Where we have the Battlecannon Russ we have the objectively worse Exterminator Russ. There's a lot of junk in there, and a classic 5E-7E style mechanized infantry IG army is in fact very difficult to make viable in 8E.
^ This. Outside of conscript and Manticore spam the IG codex is extremely weak, with many units heavily overpriced.
Well, conscripts, maticores, scions, basilisks, orders, cheap psykers, morters, hellhounds.. more than just 2 units, and weak isn't a fair measure of more than a handful of units like... rough riders? death-strike for sure b/c it probably will never fire
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Post by: the_scotsman
master of ordinance wrote: Vaktathi wrote: An Actual Englishman wrote:I think one problem with Guard is that they are so efficient across the board. I reckon the majority of people who play 40k do so semi casually. There are always WAAC players but they're in the minority of most play environments outside of tournaments. Guard are extremely strong in a competitive environment. The combos and synergies between units they can put forward are shockingly powerful.
I also believe they are exceptionally strong when a more casual list is taken and this is the reason for the complaints. Most players throwing a list together with their available models play a game against a Guard player doing the same thing and lose, probably quite badly. I have watched a few reviews and have gone through the Guard codex myself, there are very few 'bad' choices. Almost across the board their units are useful and have a place, sure some are better than others at various tasks but their weakest units are still comparatively strong. I don't think this is true to the same extent in any other codex where some choices are objectively worse than others. GW also made some of the most popular Guard models strong which probably doesn't help in a more casual environment.
Hrm, whatever you want to say about the IG book's external viability, internally it's a pretty big mess. For every Pask or Manticore there's a Deathstrike or Tech Priest. Where we have the Battlecannon Russ we have the objectively worse Exterminator Russ. There's a lot of junk in there, and a classic 5E-7E style mechanized infantry IG army is in fact very difficult to make viable in 8E.
^ This. Outside of conscript and Manticore spam the IG codex is extremely weak, with many units heavily overpriced.
This is just false, unless your definition of "many" is less than a quarter of the codex.
Most units in the guard codex are average to good if you structure your army around them.
Rough Riders, Deathstrikes, Vanquisher, Chimera, Veterans, regular Ogryns, Bane Wolves, and maybe Kell are the only units I'd actually classify as "bad" out of the guard codex, in the sense that they're just a waste of points or that there's another option right there in the codex that just does their job 100% better 100% of the time (see Ogryns, Bane Wolves). That's not "many". That's a few, and they're all pretty non-central besides the Chimera.
What else would you be pointing to as overpriced? All their artillery is pretty solid, Hydras are actually half-decent at their job, all their named characters have a reason to exist for the first time in forever, flyers are good since the codex, heck even their melee units actually do their job now. There are a couple winners and losers on the regiment doctrine front, but not many, and mostly just because they're outshone by others (See Mordians by Cadians). A Vostroyan list took first place at a recent tournament in november, and they're like the one everyone points to as crap.
Mechanized lists with vets I can definitely say are not comparatively very good, mostly on how bad the chimera is and how much the vets have gotten the indirect shaft from GW trying to nerf scions. I have seen some really killer airborne mech lists played though, and elite guard is extremely viable through scion lists.
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Post by: Xenomancers
Yeah...vets aren't even bad - compared to an infantry squad they are bad but infantry are obviously 5 point models not 4 lol.
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Post by: the_scotsman
Xenomancers wrote:Yeah...vets aren't even bad - compared to an infantry squad they are bad but infantry are obviously 5 point models not 4 lol.
they're mostly bad because you take them as special weapon spam units and you've got
-Scion-prices on their two best specials
-You can just take Command Squads, which are priced identically per model and can just all take special weapons. So instead of a 10-man squad where 6 are 100% stuck with expensive lasgunners to get you three specials, you can have a 4-man squad with just the specials
-You want to take them in a transport, which is basically spending even more good points after bad units because chimeras are really expensive and not great.
-Scions and Infantry squads are also right there, and in the troop role so they get you more command points.
Veterans are both internally and externally not good. If they were troops, I'd probably agree that they're just internally not good, but they are elites.
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Post by: Xenomancers
the_scotsman wrote: Xenomancers wrote:Yeah...vets aren't even bad - compared to an infantry squad they are bad but infantry are obviously 5 point models not 4 lol.
they're mostly bad because you take them as special weapon spam units and you've got
-Scion-prices on their two best specials
-You can just take Command Squads, which are priced identically per model and can just all take special weapons. So instead of a 10-man squad where 6 are 100% stuck with expensive lasgunners to get you three specials, you can have a 4-man squad with just the specials
-You want to take them in a transport, which is basically spending even more good points after bad units because chimeras are really expensive and not great.
-Scions and Infantry squads are also right there, and in the troop role so they get you more command points.
Veterans are both internally and externally not good. If they were troops, I'd probably agree that they're just internally not good, but they are elites.
Filling elites is actually a benefit if you want to complete brigades. You don't even need to put a single special weapon on them - they are great for FRFSRF.
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Post by: the_scotsman
Xenomancers wrote:the_scotsman wrote: Xenomancers wrote:Yeah...vets aren't even bad - compared to an infantry squad they are bad but infantry are obviously 5 point models not 4 lol.
they're mostly bad because you take them as special weapon spam units and you've got
-Scion-prices on their two best specials
-You can just take Command Squads, which are priced identically per model and can just all take special weapons. So instead of a 10-man squad where 6 are 100% stuck with expensive lasgunners to get you three specials, you can have a 4-man squad with just the specials
-You want to take them in a transport, which is basically spending even more good points after bad units because chimeras are really expensive and not great.
-Scions and Infantry squads are also right there, and in the troop role so they get you more command points.
Veterans are both internally and externally not good. If they were troops, I'd probably agree that they're just internally not good, but they are elites.
Filling elites is actually a benefit if you want to complete brigades. You don't even need to put a single special weapon on them - they are great for FRFSRF.
They're not though. Taking naked veteran squads as elites on foot and trying to use them for FRFSRF is just objectively points inefficient, especially in a guard army presenting those same toughness targets in the troop slot but less effective for less points. The vets are just going to die before they fire.
If I said "Tactical marines are only bad because you're taking them in transports with special weapons - they're great if you just walk them up the field with bolters in a captain aura!" you'd quite rightly just laugh at me. If they were the only option in the elites slot, you'd take them just to fill brigades, but they'd be a tax. Currently they're competing with command squads, scion command squads, commissars, priests, bullgryn, ratlings, platoon commanders and astropaths and they're just never going to win that fight because they are a below-average unit in the context of the rest of the armies currently in the game and they're in a codex filled with average to amazing stuff.
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Post by: pumaman1
Wait.. 60 pts per squad is a complain-able tax? wow.. i mean.. you are truly taxed and oppressed.
Yes, there are better units for that slot within your codex, but FRFSRF firing 4 shots each at 12", hitting 2/3rd the time, 40 shots 26 hits. 4 to wounds on a 6+ to wound.. out of 60 points of tax is something i think a few codexes/indexes would like to have words about
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Post by: Martel732
How quickly the IG becomes the Eldar.
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Post by: the_scotsman
pumaman1 wrote:Wait.. 60 pts per squad is a complain-able tax? wow.. i mean.. you are truly taxed and oppressed.
Yes, there are better units for that slot within your codex, but FRFSRF firing 4 shots each at 12", hitting 2/3rd the time, 40 shots 26 hits. 4 to wounds on a 6+ to wound.. out of 60 points of tax is something i think a few codexes/indexes would like to have words about
60+30 for the commander you just used to give them four shots. Also, it's 37 shots at 12", the sarge just has a pistol.
For 1 point more per model, I can have a Skitarii Ranger, who has
-Troop slot
-30" range, S4 rapid fire gun that gets -1AP when it wounds on a 6
-4+ armor, 6++
-Canticles of the Omnissiah, which does not require me to use points to purchase an officer to use them
-Pretty much universally better and cheaper special weapons
-Minimum squad size 5 and no mandatory sarge melee gear
and THOSE are considered bad. So yeah, 60 points for a vet squad that might be useful if I manage to get them within 12" and in order range to rapid fire something that cares about S3 AP-, I'm unimpressed.
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Post by: Vaktathi
pumaman1 wrote:Wait.. 60 pts per squad is a complain-able tax? wow.. i mean.. you are truly taxed and oppressed.
Yes, there are better units for that slot within your codex, but FRFSRF firing 4 shots each at 12", hitting 2/3rd the time, 40 shots 26 hits. 4 to wounds on a 6+ to wound.. out of 60 points of tax is something i think a few codexes/indexes would like to have words about
Except its not just 60pts, you have to purchase an officer, and have them nearby (and a target within 12"), making that a minimum of 80pts (or 75pts if you want to include an HQ officer and split its cost among the two units it can issue orders to). Against a 6+ to wound, assuming a 3+ save (most anything T6+ is going to have a 3+ save), we're averaging 1.4 wounds for 75/80pts.
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Post by: pumaman1
Thank you for noting the sarge does only have las pistol, that is a legitimate mistake. but for 5 points you can get a bs3+ plasma pistol, and plasma is pretty rockin'
Rangers are bad because they have to foot-slog, they don't have a standard way of getting across the board quickly/deep-striking. They don't even have the option for an overpriced chimera to take them "safely" across the board to camp in cover with a las cannon and 8 ablative wounds, with cadian to re-roll 1s sitting still.
Agreed you do have better for elites, but for the "terri-bad, never take," impression that i am getting, i don't think its earned. And you get 2 per necron warrior, and i think most people would like 2 vets over 1 necron warrior
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Post by: usmcmidn
master of ordinance wrote:The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
Ironic isn’t it? I remember a time when Tau players would smoke armies easily... Tau once were a very very tough army to play against. I feel it’s a lot more balanced now.
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Post by: Sedraxis
It's hilarious to see people dismiss 75% of the Guard codex as overpriced and unviable, even tho it's all better or on par with options in other codexes. Every other model in the game is overpriced if you compare it with the "viable" IG options.
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Post by: SevenSeasOfRhye
Sedraxis wrote:It's hilarious to see people dismiss 75% of the Guard codex as overpriced and unviable, even tho it's all better or on par with options in other codexes. Every other model in the game is overpriced if you compare it with the "viable" IG options.
^That. IG is insanely powerful right now, and it has an absolute ASSLOAD of good choices and combos available. This is not in question.
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Post by: Xenomancers
Most people would just give the vet sarge a bolter which is only 1 point a little worse to the same in about every situation as the double shooting lasgun.
Also you don't factor the cost of a 30 point co commander into the cost of the unit because you have to take it anyways to make a brigade cheaply. The standard setup for an IG brigade gives you 6 orders for 6 infantry squads and 3 vet squads. Considering you are going to lose some infantry over the course of the game so it's actually efficient to not have a commander for every unit or you'll have commanders running around doing nothing. Automatically Appended Next Post: Sedraxis wrote:It's hilarious to see people dismiss 75% of the Guard codex as overpriced and unviable, even tho it's all better or on par with options in other codexes. Every other model in the game is overpriced if you compare it with the "viable" IG options.
What you are meaning is it is funny to see how even mediocre AM units are better than just about everyone elses units that are considered good.
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Post by: techsoldaten
usmcmidn wrote: master of ordinance wrote:The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
Ironic isn’t it? I remember a time when Tau players would smoke armies easily... Tau once were a very very tough army to play against. I feel it’s a lot more balanced now.
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
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Post by: pumaman1
 techsoldaten wrote:usmcmidn wrote: master of ordinance wrote:The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
Ironic isn’t it? I remember a time when Tau players would smoke armies easily... Tau once were a very very tough army to play against. I feel it’s a lot more balanced now.
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
t7/8 3+ 14w is a bit different than massed t4 5+ 1w... But in this very specific and very common application (versus armor guard, or heavy armor supported infantry), Tau feels a bit short on answers. And in general from Tau players, and people who've faced tau regularly, yes Tau are in a bad way. we've got 1 "reliable" trick, deepstriking quad-fusion commander, that is well known and easily shut down.
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Post by: A Town Called Malus
techsoldaten wrote:usmcmidn wrote: master of ordinance wrote:The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
Ironic isn’t it? I remember a time when Tau players would smoke armies easily... Tau once were a very very tough army to play against. I feel it’s a lot more balanced now.
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
Saying Tau do well against Orks and are therefore not terrible is not a very persuasive argument due to the kicking that the orks have endured for several editions when it comes to them getting good rules from GW.
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Post by: the_scotsman
Xenomancers wrote:Most people would just give the vet sarge a bolter which is only 1 point a little worse to the same in about every situation as the double shooting lasgun.
Also you don't factor the cost of a 30 point co commander into the cost of the unit because you have to take it anyways to make a brigade cheaply. The standard setup for an IG brigade gives you 6 orders for 6 infantry squads and 3 vet squads. Considering you are going to lose some infantry over the course of the game so it's actually efficient to not have a commander for every unit or you'll have commanders running around doing nothing.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sedraxis wrote:It's hilarious to see people dismiss 75% of the Guard codex as overpriced and unviable, even tho it's all better or on par with options in other codexes. Every other model in the game is overpriced if you compare it with the "viable" IG options.
What you are meaning is it is funny to see how even mediocre AM units are better than just about everyone elses units that are considered good.
...you do have to factor him in, because he does cost points and usually the standard ig brigade actually fills that slot with 2 commanders and a psyker. Unless in the Skitarii conversation you want to factor in a TPD, which I did not because he's not free either.
And it is funny, but mostly because of how people like you are sitting there just willing something to be true no matter how ridiculous it is.
Look at the reply from the guy who bothered to even address the Skitarii comparison. Skitarii are bad because they can't get across the board. And we're comparing them, saying that they are worse somehow than a unit with shorter range, lower armor, no shroudpsalm, and lower minimum squad size because....you want it to be?
You're saying that vets are better than others' good units. I'm saying that they're worse than Skitarii in almost every measurable way, which are considered a bad unit. Which good units then are they so much better than?
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Post by: Galas
Is sad to see how people look at a codex and in 15 minutes they discard 90% of the codex as "overpriced crap" even without trying anything.
I have seen it with the Tyranid Codex. I have a good friend that has played Tyranids since 2nd edition, that is basically 100% tournament player. For him, this new 8th Tyranid Codex has just some units that are not optimal, but the rest of the codex goes from decent/balanced to pretty good.
But then, reading any kind of thread about Tyranids you'll find that if something isn't literally THE BEST AT EVERYTHING is just crap.
The black and white mentality of the min/maxer sucks all the fun out of this.
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Post by: chrispy1991
Vets are in the "ok" category within the IG codex. They can synergize very well with other units, and their options for kitting them out with special/heavy weapons makes them a flexible unit. 80 pts to put a vet squad with a lascannon team really isn't bad when you consider doctrines and orders that synergize well with them. My typical build with them is cadian veterans with 3 snipers and a lascannon. You have 5 ablative wounds before you lose any meaningful firepower, have the range to sit still and get the free rerolling 1's, and can be ordered to reroll all misses instead, or 1's to wound or both (w/laurels). They don't have an officer tax like the command squads do either.
An alternate take is running a few Tallarn squads of these guys. Moving, advancing, and still getting to fire all their plasma is pretty nasty. Or ambush 2 vet squads with 3 plasma guns and a plasma pistol with an officer (with a plasma pistol because why not) and you have a relatively inexpensive force that will cause the opponent a headache, especially if you can ambush them into cover. It's not as cheap as 2 command squads, but 2 command squads has less than half the durability, and every casualty they take is a dead plasma gun vs the vets that can take some casualties without becoming a non-threat.
I don't feel like people value the ablative wounds enough. They are by far not the best unit in the codex, but you guys are making it out like there is some ridiculous gap in power between them and other units.
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Post by: Amishprn86
Galas wrote:Is sad to see how people look at a codex and in 15 minutes they discard 90% of the codex as "overpriced crap" even without trying anything.
I have seen it with the Tyranid Codex. I have a good friend that has played Tyranids since 2nd edition, that is basically 100% tournament player. For him, this new 8th Tyranid Codex has just some units that are not optimal, but the rest of the codex goes from decent/balanced to pretty good.
But then, reading any kind of thread about Tyranids you'll find that if something isn't literally THE BEST AT EVERYTHING is just crap.
The black and white mentality of the min/maxer sucks all the fun out of this.
What? Most of the nids book is really good and balance, IDK anyone that says most of the book is over priced crap, only a few units.
Look at DE if you want to see some Over priced crap, Heat Lance, Blaster Pistols, Reavers, Hellions, Talos, Cronos, Bloodbrides, Grots, literally all the Named HQ's. etc...
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Post by: kurhanik
usmcmidn wrote: master of ordinance wrote:The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
Ironic isn’t it? I remember a time when Tau players would smoke armies easily... Tau once were a very very tough army to play against. I feel it’s a lot more balanced now.
Eh, Tau shouldn't be paying for last edition's sins. Hopefully their codex, which I would hope is soon, improves them and cuts prices where necessary. From what I hear, they need maybe all of 1 thing nerfed, and just about 1/2 of the rest of their stuff buffed.
chrispy1991 wrote:Vets are in the "ok" category within the IG codex. They can synergize very well with other units, and their options for kitting them out with special/heavy weapons makes them a flexible unit. 80 pts to put a vet squad with a lascannon team really isn't bad when you consider doctrines and orders that synergize well with them. My typical build with them is cadian veterans with 3 snipers and a lascannon. You have 5 ablative wounds before you lose any meaningful firepower, have the range to sit still and get the free rerolling 1's, and can be ordered to reroll all misses instead, or 1's to wound or both (w/laurels). They don't have an officer tax like the command squads do either.
An alternate take is running a few Tallarn squads of these guys. Moving, advancing, and still getting to fire all their plasma is pretty nasty. Or ambush 2 vet squads with 3 plasma guns and a plasma pistol with an officer (with a plasma pistol because why not) and you have a relatively inexpensive force that will cause the opponent a headache, especially if you can ambush them into cover. It's not as cheap as 2 command squads, but 2 command squads has less than half the durability, and every casualty they take is a dead plasma gun vs the vets that can take some casualties without becoming a non-threat.
I don't feel like people value the ablative wounds enough. They are by far not the best unit in the codex, but you guys are making it out like there is some ridiculous gap in power between them and other units.
The problem with Veterans is in several layers - they pay for Scion's sins, they are competing in the Elite slot rather than Troops, and in order for them to be effective, you need to sink a lot of points into them.
What I mean by Scion's sins is that they pay the same price for weapons as the unit that can deep strike accurately and dump their salvo into the foe. For any instance where you think on taking Veterans, you can just look and realize for a few points more you can take Scions and be that much more effective. I've suggested it before, but simply cutting the price of the special weapons 3 points (on 3+ units), and then actually making scions pay 3-4 points for their deep strike ability (which would become optional) would give Veterans a new breath of life. The options would be Veterans for cheaper bodies, Scions for the heavy infantry, and then deep strike scions for the heavy strike but at higher cost.
Being in the Elite slot, they are competing with other units that can be more useful. A Chimera is not the best thing in the world, so loading up on units other than Veterans could be a more efficient use for the transport - a Bullgryn taxi, fully kitted Command Squads, or heck, even stuffing 2 special weapons squads for the special weapon overload could be more useful investment. Note that all of those are in the Elite slot as well, and can perform at their job better than Veterans.
For the last point - you can equip Veterans up and make them killy, but by that point the points invested in them could have been better spent elsewhere. If you want to move them up the board without simply being killed off, you need a transport (Taurox or Chimera), to use those juicy orders you need an officer (20/30 points minimum) and likely a vox caster (10 points for 2), and then to spend the points to kit them out. A 3x melta squad in a Chimera with a Platoon Commander backing them up ends up running a minimum of 224 points. Meanwhile, within the same codex, you can just dump two squads of Scions with 4x melta between them without having to risk them on board while they advance for a total for 164 points (though why you'd use melta over plasma on them is up for debate).
And for the comment of "just filling Elite slots for brigade" - there are cheaper options for that as well.
I'd rank them as "below average" - just a little love and they would definitely be worth it, but as is they are just falling short of other options.
And I'd say the Guard dex is probably 1/5 below average/bad, 2/5 average, 1/5 good, and 1/5 too good. Tweak the highest performers and the lowest performers and it would be great. I think a good suggestion I heard that would fix a good chunk of issues is a general rule that makes indirect fire hit at a -1 unless it has direct line of sight. Combine this with an appropriately costed "spotter" unit that foes can target out, and you would get far more tactics and interesting interactions out of artillery combat.
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Post by: the_scotsman
You don't even need a spotter: give vox casters a purpose. Make them 10pts and allow indirect fire to enrmy units within 18" of a model with a vox.
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Post by: greatbigtree
I'm not sure why Vets are being discussed here... but they're inferior to both Infantry Squads and Scions for their purpose within a Guard Army.
And there are more useful options in the elite slot, like Masters of Ordnance, Harker, pretty much anything.
Vets want a transport. At that point, you could buy 20 scions with 8 specials, instead of 10 Vets with 3 Specials and a Chimera. [Ballparking, here.]
Also, Vets don't support board control like Infantry / Scions do. They're just inferior for the purposes that Guard would put them towards. They might be good in other armies, but they're not terribly useful to Guard.
B.O.A.R.D Control. Know it. Do it. Love it. Win it.
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Post by: adamsouza
A Fire Warrior is basically an IG Infantryman with a 2 point weapon upgrade a 2 point armor upgrade and the greater good as it's special order.
They'll only get better when the codex introduces their faction abilities.
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Post by: Gamgee
techsoldaten wrote:usmcmidn wrote: master of ordinance wrote:The exact same way the Imperial Guard handled Tau over the last two editions:
learn your opponents army, learn how to play, get good and get lucky.
Ironic isn’t it? I remember a time when Tau players would smoke armies easily... Tau once were a very very tough army to play against. I feel it’s a lot more balanced now.
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
Chapter tactics podcast went in depth summing up the 2017 8th ed year and at launch Tau dropped 30% in usage and even with commander spam in the bottom tier of usage and 3rd worst army in the game. Dark Eldar and Deathwatch have it worse. As time went in and power creep and people adapted to the Tau’s one easy to counter list they dropped off even more and are now completely irrelevant and only a diehard 4.5% use them now.
There is no question they were bad at launch and are now terrible.
Thanks chapter tactics crew. They have complete access to all the ITC data which backs up my point.
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/12/18/chapter-tactics-50-year-in-review-and-which-factions-dominated-2017/
Of course as in previous editions I doubt all the logic and facts in the world will mean anything to most users here. They seem to like arguing with no sources or data and emotions first. Thankfully your local resident misanthrope has got you covered.
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Post by: bananathug
I really think your problem is AM is a really good faction and Tau are not (but you have hope that your codex will fix it)
Also, looking at the other thread as to how many competitive/tourney lists people on this forum face it's pretty clear that the majority of people are beer&pretzels here instead of hyper competitive metas.
But listening to these results it's clear that SM and guilliman needed a nerf and Chaos/ IG/Eldar were perfectly fine...I'm sure CA was an attempt to balance the meta and not sell more primaris at all... 
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Post by: A Town Called Malus
adamsouza wrote:A Fire Warrior is basically an IG Infantryman with a 2 point weapon upgrade a 2 point armor upgrade and the greater good as it's special order. They'll only get better when the codex introduces their faction abilities.
But those upgrades make an individual Fire Warrior twice the cost of the Guardsman. Are they twice as effective? They are not twice as durable: 3 AP0 wounds needed to kill 2 guardsmen vs 2 wounds to kill 1 Fire Warrior. 2.4 AP-1 wounds to kill 2 guardsmen vs 1.5 to kill 1 Fire Warrior. 2 AP-2 wounds to kill 2 guardsmen vs 1.2 to kill 1 Fire Warrior. So the guardsmen are more durable. Their damage output? Per shot fired: Against T3: 2 Guardsmen equals 0.5 wounds, 1 Fire Warrior equals 0.33 wounds. Against T4: 2 Guardsmen = 0.33 wounds, 1 FW = 0.33 wounds. Against T5: 2 Guardsmen = 0.33 wounds, 1 FW = 0.25 Wounds. Against T6: 2 Guardsmen = 0.167 wounds, 1 FW = 0.167 wounds Against T10: 2 G's = 0.167 wounds, 1 FW = 0.083 wounds. So the guardsmen are more damaging except against T4, at which point they are equal.
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Post by: pumaman1
 A Town Called Malus wrote:
They are not twice as durable:
3 AP0 wounds needed to kill 2 guardsmen vs 2 wounds to kill 1 Fire Warrior.
2.4 AP-1 wounds to kill 2 guardsmen vs 1.5 to kill 1 Fire Warrior.
2 AP-2 wounds to kill 2 guardsmen vs 1.2 to kill 1 Fire Warrior.
So the guardsmen are more durable.
?!?! They are both bs4+ T3, FW has a 4+ save, the guardsmen has a 5+, care to show the math on this one?
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Post by: tneva82
pumaman1 wrote: A Town Called Malus wrote:
They are not twice as durable:
3 AP0 wounds needed to kill 2 guardsmen vs 2 wounds to kill 1 Fire Warrior.
2.4 AP-1 wounds to kill 2 guardsmen vs 1.5 to kill 1 Fire Warrior.
2 AP-2 wounds to kill 2 guardsmen vs 1.2 to kill 1 Fire Warrior.
So the guardsmen are more durable.
?!?! They are both T3, FW has a 4+ save, the guardsmen has a 5+, care to show the math on this one?
AP0. 3 wounds in. In average 1 saves=2 dead. Firewarrior 2 wounds in, 1 saves, 1 dead. So 6 wounds toward guardsmen=4 dead, 6 wounds to firewarrior=3 dead. Against AP0 therefore you kill 4 guardsmen for every 3 firewarrior. How much more pricey firewarriors were? For 4 pts per guardsmen just on survivability firewarrior should thus cost 5,3333 pts. Of course then comes firepower and difference between firepower, mobility etc.
But durability isn't just stats. Price of model also factors in. If you can swamp models in that's durability as well. 20 guys T2 no save is easily more durable than 1 guy T5 2+ save.
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Post by: pumaman1
tneva82 wrote:
But durability isn't just stats. Price of model also factors in. If you can swamp models in that's durability as well. 20 guys T2 no save is easily more durable than 1 guy T5 2+ save.
Right, but that wasn't stated. You just stated a Guardsman is more durable than a fire-warrior. You didn't demonstrate per point until the follow-up. But now that you have its is more clear, thank you.
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Post by: Gamgee
bananathug wrote:
I really think your problem is AM is a really good faction and Tau are not (but you have hope that your codex will fix it)
Also, looking at the other thread as to how many competitive/tourney lists people on this forum face it's pretty clear that the majority of people are beer&pretzels here instead of hyper competitive metas.
But listening to these results it's clear that SM and guilliman needed a nerf and Chaos/ IG/Eldar were perfectly fine...I'm sure CA was an attempt to balance the meta and not sell more primaris at all...
This is the exact same argument I made last edition about Tau and no one agreed with me. So good luck despite you bring right. In the balancing world of games there is something called "double penetration buff" I coined the term after CoH 1 team kept making the same mistake over and over again when balancing tanks. The two factions were always super close in balance but there were a few to be ironed out. At one point german tanks were way too good. So they decided to nerf them a little. At the same time people complained that the US tanks were no good. So they implemented both without thinking. They nerfed the germans tanks penetration and buffed the allies ones armor. This resulted in a double debuff to German effectiveness when they should have tried one or the other and then it sent the pendulum swinging way over away.
So this means that you are right. The IG are strong but many factions are also weak. If they both nerf the IG and buff the Tau or any army they might very well run into situations like the above. GW needs to decide what it wants to do now. Do they want all armies about the level of effectiveness of the current crop of tournament armies. Or do they want to nerf some armies down and some up. I made this exact same post last edition to no effect too. This is so they can determine a normal level of power an army should be capable of bringing. I'm running off the assumption they want to buff stuff up to the current competitive standard since it looks better for weaker armies than to see their bad army not changed and only see the outrage of those getting nerfed. As you are in fact IG I don't think you'll see too much nerfs since your not Tau (a whole different topic).
Not only are you right but its a philosophy of balance that should be adhered to by any game attempting to get balanced and on its feet. Also players like consistency. The blind favouritism and hateism going in cliques sucks. Yes this means if we want to balance armies perfectly (as humanly possible) that even space marines will only be as likely to win as anyone else and you need to be a better player. Yes this means factions you don't personally like will have to be given equal fair treatment. I once seen Reece say strong Tau are bad for the meta. He should have aid a strong imbalanced armies are bad for the meta.
Now why should any of the pubers care at all about this? Well balance flows from the top. A more balanced game at the top levels of play usually indicates a more healthy meta at the lower levels too. Monkey see monkey do. People here despite not being the most competitive for the most part can tell what are and aren't good armies in part because they hear it from more skilled players and also those skilled players can upload videos or even just talk to other players and help them to grasp of the current meta. And if your a puber who truly doesn't care about any of this than you don't care about a balanced or imbalanced game so why not make it as balanced as possible. Though I will say in a balanced meta you've got a much greater chance of those cool random epic wins happening more often than not.
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Post by: Alcibiades
techsoldaten wrote:
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
Yeah. My impression on dakkadakka is that people are running around with lots of suits. I don't know that the way the game works is amenable to that kind of list right now.
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Post by: Gamgee
Alcibiades wrote: techsoldaten wrote:
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
Yeah. My impression on dakkadakka is that people are running around with lots of suits. I don't know that the way the game works is amenable to that kind of list right now.
Funny he should mention orks. They are actually one of the stronger xenos right now. Though with the Eldar dex out I'm sure it will change. They were even winning some comp games too though I can't find the list used.
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Post by: Kanluwen
the_scotsman wrote:
What else would you be pointing to as overpriced? All their artillery is pretty solid, Hydras are actually half-decent at their job, all their named characters have a reason to exist for the first time in forever, flyers are good since the codex, heck even their melee units actually do their job now. There are a couple winners and losers on the regiment doctrine front, but not many, and mostly just because they're outshone by others (See Mordians by Cadians). A Vostroyan list took first place at a recent tournament in november, and they're like the one everyone points to as crap.
Obligatory "It wasn't actually a pure Vostroyan list" callout.
That's the list which was a Vostroyan Detachment for troops with random Grenade Launchers thrown on all the infantry squads and an illegal Cadian Detachment with Relic(Cadian Relic on a Primaris Psyker in a Spearhead Detachment filled with Manticores) and a Death Korps Outrider Detachment filled with Death Riders list as "auxiliary" detachments.
Pointing out that specific list as some kind of amazing example of gameplay isn't really appropriate. He had some of the best CC units that Guard have to offer in the Death Korps detachment, a subpar Vostroyan Detachment, and an illegal list for his Cadian Detachment.
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Post by: fe40k
Gamgee wrote:Alcibiades wrote: techsoldaten wrote:
Yeah, and I question how much of the problem with Tau is simply people not adapting their armies to 8th edition meta.
The best Tau army I have seen was Fire Warriors and drones. Blew away Orks left and right. Not perfect, but was certainly not horrible.
Yeah. My impression on dakkadakka is that people are running around with lots of suits. I don't know that the way the game works is amenable to that kind of list right now.
Funny he should mention orks. They are actually one of the stronger xenos right now. Though with the Eldar dex out I'm sure it will change. They were even winning some comp games too though I can't find the list used.
Orks have one build - Maximum Boyz.
As Tyranids/horde armies get more popular, their one strength, the ability to skew the matchups; will be taken away from them.
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