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Tau are hated in the competitive arena because they flat out ignore a chunk of the rules and on top of that they are under costed. The biggest offender is the buffmander, who keeps showing up in so many allied detachements. They are a focal point of the worst parts of 6th edition. Prior to their release it looked like 6th was set to be the most balanced edition, but then Tau came out, followed by Eldar, and now the monstrousity that is Escalation have turned the compettive environment on its head.

Tau just ignore too many rules, with too many good units, for too few points...

*Note: I say this having not yet lost to Tau but I have had some nail biters/draws against, honestly subpar players who just sat and shot at me as I struggled to out manuever them.

As mentioned SavageConvoy, I think the Tau of 6th edition are definitely different that of the earlier Tau codexes. They really are tailor-made for being kings of 6th edition, where that was not the case in 3rd-5th editions.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

 Archonate wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What do marines bypass?

ATSKNF.... anything else?

Deep Strike/Reserve shenanigans with Drop Pods.

Some of these may be out of date:
Emperor's Champion.
AV14 LRs that are not reduced by Lances.
Do they still auto-rally at the table edge instead of running off?
... Oh and do they still arbitrarily count their clearly Open Top vehicles (Land Speeders and such) as non-Open Top? (To spite this rule I used to insist that my DE Raider full of Incubi was therefore also not Open Top... SM players didn't appreciate that. There sentiment is echoed throughout this thread. "Only SMs are allowed to ignore rules!")

The Incubi might be wearing power equivalent armour. The crew of the Raider most certainly is not.

But is power armour equivalent to light tank armour? not at all.

If anything is broken about Tau its the ignores cover, and just marker lights in general. Take two Sky Rays and a couple of Riptides, and your opponent will already have their hands full!

This Sunday, I played against Tau for the first time since 3rd edition. Black Templars in Purge the Alien. It hurt. The broadsides had so many shots, I thought maybe my opponent was playing them right, but I don't know their rules well enough (though I plan on fixing that soon). Despite losing 5-12 VP, I had fun and played well. I killed half of one Pathfinder squad and even managed to get a Jump Pack squad into assault with the infiltrated pathfinder squad on turn 1.

What irked me the most though, was the destructive power of Supporting Fire (the 6" Overwatch support, if I got the name right) from his Broadsides. I was denied two game critical combats because the squads were wiped out trying to make the charge. Only part that I found soul crushing to play against.

A side note I want to share, though not really part of the current topic, is the Tau player got really upset when my SM Captain and Command Squad started winning the last combat against Farsight, his squad, and a Riptide (that failed Combat Resolution Ld and jumped off the board!). VP had been tallied the whole game through, so we knew I had no chance at winning at this point, but he was still getting worked up. He didn't direct his anger at me, but he was swearing and starting to chuck dice when I was having my last hurrah before getting tabled (no other models left after that squad). Really put me off to playing against Tau (not their fault) and him again.

 gardeth wrote:
Tau are hated in the competitive arena because they flat out ignore a chunk of the rules and on top of that they are under costed. The biggest offender is the buffmander, who keeps showing up in so many allied detachements. They are a focal point of the worst parts of 6th edition. Prior to their release it looked like 6th was set to be the most balanced edition, but then Tau came out, followed by Eldar, and now the monstrousity that is Escalation have turned the compettive environment on its head.

Tau just ignore too many rules, with too many good units, for too few points...

*Note: I say this having not yet lost to Tau but I have had some nail biters/draws against, honestly subpar players who just sat and shot at me as I struggled to out manuever them.

All that adds up to an army that allows its player to perform well above his skill level. Or decent players taking so easy they are playing games on their phones while you try in vein to use your tactical experience to gain the upper hand. In the end though it doesn't matter because that outflanking CC unit just got toasted by a riptide as did your DS units, that cover you were joyous to get to means feth-all, your drop pods and flyers got shot out of the sky and you're left wondering how in the hell the Tau CODEX rofkstomped your game plan while the player was just rolling dice and playing angry birds.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

 Archonate wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What do marines bypass?

ATSKNF.... anything else?

Deep Strike/Reserve shenanigans with Drop Pods.

Some of these may be out of date:
Emperor's Champion.
AV14 LRs that are not reduced by Lances.
Do they still auto-rally at the table edge instead of running off?
... Oh and do they still arbitrarily count their clearly Open Top vehicles (Land Speeders and such) as non-Open Top? (To spite this rule I used to insist that my DE Raider full of Incubi was therefore also not Open Top... SM players didn't appreciate that. There sentiment is echoed throughout this thread. "Only SMs are allowed to ignore rules!")

The Incubi might be wearing power equivalent armour. The crew of the Raider most certainly is not.

But is power armour equivalent to light tank armour? not at all.

It takes a krak missile to get through power armour, but you can bring down a Land Speeder (or a Raider) with bolters. That sounds like light tank armour to me.

vehicle armor is closer to toughness than to an armor save.

Lol, it used to be toughness in Rogue Trader!

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Please, tell me more. I'd love to hear it. Do tell.

I would, but you keep crying about Tau so much I feel like I can't get a word in between the tears.

I had some alcohol in me the other night, got pissed that there was yet another Tau bashing thread, and decided antagonizing Marine fanboys would be a good idea for some reason. Then I forgot I posted, came back, and saw a bunch of people jumping on my ass and didn't quite know how to respond. Not only that but most of the examples I would have given already were, and were already shot down, so I really don't see the point in continuing on with that line of discussion anymore, especially since I don't think it would change anyone's mind even if I did have damning proof that Marines are bullgak, so I'm just going to say I was being a hyperbolising douche and move on...

Except not really because I'm going to keep being a hyperbolising douche in the text wall below.

Martel732 wrote:
The marine codex is so lack luster my BA have a winning record against it. Grav guns are meh compared to weapons Xenos already have.

And my brother's Blood Angel army has a winning record against my Tau. He also won our first and only game in 6th edition using his CSM, against my new codex (no riptides or heldrakes).

Therefore Tau are actually terrible.

 Mojo1jojo wrote:
I feel that people hate the Tau because it is painful to remove your models that you painstakenly painted and custumized of the table right after you put it on, then spend the rest of the time hiding the others behind cover.

But if it's my models getting pulled off the table without me being able to do anything about it (from being assaulted), it's okay.

If there's any reason at all why Tau just "don't work", it's that: they were designed to shoot all day and do literally nothing else. GW doesn't even want Tau armies to move around anymore, just castle up and shoot gak coming towards you. Even Kroot, who were really gakky for an "assault" unit, got CC nerfs and were given sniper rounds so that all they can even think about doing anymore is shooting. It pisses me off, because I really kinda like that about them, and it makes them different from almost every other army, but it's precisely the reason why Tau are "no fun" to play with or against. Either you're bending your opponent over the table and he's sullenly pulling models off before he gets to do anything, or the Tau player trips up and then he's the one taking all his models off the table without being able to do anything...which admittedly is a lot harder to do now without intentionally taking bad lists and playing like an idiot, but still.

 gardeth wrote:
Prior to their release it looked like 6th was set to be the most balanced edition, but then Tau came out, followed by Eldar, and now the monstrousity that is Escalation have turned the compettive environment on its head.

Really? "The most balanced edition"? I could have told you 6th would be broken as feth when allies and double FOC were first rumored. In fact I think I did, I remember suggesting that allies would break the game and only encourage the min/maxing that everyone hates so much (and it did!). And being able to spam twice as much broken gak needs no explanation. And I don't think anyone could have predicted titans and super heavies showing up in regular games.

Hell, the very first codex had the heldrake in it, and the same gakky internal balance and bad game design that the old codex had. Right out the gate GW started putting out crappy copy/paste codexes that had almost none of the changes people actually wanted to see, and were either god-awful or had one or two overpowered units/builds in them. I don't know how in the world anyone could have thought 6th edition would be balanced but I'm telling you, it's not, it never was, and it's not Tau's fault, either.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
That doesn't override/conflict with the rules stated in the BRB. The crap that tau does in my above post does.

How does paying points to give a unit Interceptor "override/conflict with the rules stated in the BRB"? That right there is a good example of what I'm talking about, things like drop pods, open top speeders that somehow aren't open top, and ATSKNF "override" core rules but it's okay because you supposedly pay points to do that. But when Tau do it, this thread happens.

The only thing you can possibly argue is that EWO is underpriced for what it does, and I'd actually agree with you, it really is. Much like the Disruption Pod before it, it's way too good for a 5 point upgrade (typical GW, "fix" one thing and break something else). I still think it should exist, because I don't think there's anything at all broken about the ability to pay points to give a unit Interceptor, but maybe bumping it up to 10-15 would be more "fair". Raging about Tau being a giant cheesewheel because they can pay points to ignore the BRB when literally every army does that in some capacity, however, is just being stupid.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
You realize you CAN ally tau with tau, right? How else does one run quad riprides?

The argument was that Tau have to purchase a separate $50 supplement to do so. No one said it wasn't possible, just that Space Marines were the only army currently that had permission to ally with itself in the parent codex.

Also, I think you'll find that most people, even Tau players, will probably agree that the Farsight supplement being able to ally with Tau Empire is kinda stupid and shouldn't have happened, and obviously only did because it lets GW sell more riptides. Same with the firebase support cadre. I don't even see why they needed a broken formation to sell that set but I guess that's why I don't have a successful business.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Either way both Scars ans IH have the faults of every MEQ army and can't share chapter tactics. What you're proposing would cost on the order of 700+ points to run well. How much for 3 riptides and a unit of markerdrones?

Actually, if I'm not mistaken it would be similar in cost. Maybe not quite that high, but three riptides alone, all outfitted with EWO and ion accelerators, would be about 600 points. I'm not saying that makes them any more balanced, but they are expensive.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
The tau dex is one big fat cheesewheel. The SM dex has sprinkles of shreddes cheddar here and there. Perhaps having to buy that second $50 book is the universe's way of saying "don't be a dick to your opponents".

Just to clarify, playing your army the way it was written = "being a dick", apparently.

In this context the only way to not be a dick to your opponents is to either purposely lose or just don't play Tau. Neither of which are exactly fair for the Tau player.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
A str 9 ap2 plate of death per riptide smokng a unit per blast coming in from reserves... for 5 pts, (aside from being the cheesiest goddamn thing I've ever experienced) effects the game in a huge way, as does missiles not needing LOS, and being able to negate any and all cover saves for your opponent(which is always invariably followed by a single markerlight buffing the taus BS by 2pts). Are you seeing how those have a more noticable impact than a landspeeder giving a weapon shooting it an additional +1 on the damage chart?

Not really, no. Mainly because I've played Tau since late 4th and most of the things you mentioned they were already capable of doing. SMS never needed LOS and as far as I know is still the same as it was before. Markerlights were already capable of removing cover and boosting BS (one counter = -1 cover save, and it was cumulative...arguably a lot more balanced than it is now and even other Tau players will agree with me on that one). And Tau were one of the bottom tier armies all through 5th. The only thing new, and once again what seems to be causing the most bitching, is the fething riptide, but no, that can't possibly be the problem! Even though nothing else in the army is spitting a S9 AP2 pie plate at your reserves, which seems to be above all else what has gotten your goat...

It's the riptide. Like it's been said over and over again already, get rid of the riptide and you'll go a long way towards "fixing" Tau just with that one change. But as far as I'm personally concerned, you'll get even better results if you just fix 6th edition, because:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Tau's list of tricks haven't actually changed a whole lot, but the context of the game has changed. Tau are the best shooting army in an edition where shooting is everything.

6th edition is broken, end of story. No one army is to blame for it, it's all GW.

Absolutely. The Riptide is the Tau "Wave Serpent" (although the Wave Sperpent is a case of GW taking a unit that was thought to be too powerful for it's points by many, and then simply making it even better. The Riptide, among other new things in the army, get's the distinction of raising a low-tier army to the top right out of the gate.)

Basically it seems like 6th edition is what made Tau what they are, because everything people hate about them (mechanically) can be listed as "all the new codex changes to make tau uber-shooty", plus "Aegis Defence lines". In other words, 6th edition overpowered them.

Before, if Tau wanted to mitigate their assault deficiencies, they had to pull guns off the line to invest in things like Kroot. But then Kroot suddenly became a shooting unit. Whu?

In previous editions, Tau were the army you got chuckled at if you played.

Older Tau players would point out Kroot have always been a sort of shooting unit. Even before they lost 1strength they were a terriple cc unit, with the same bs as firewarriors with a much lower points cost and the ability to come in a muc larger unit. Being able to perform as a big tarpit doesn't exclude them from being used as shooting units when they're not blocking someone's charge.

 Sidstyler wrote:

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Please, tell me more. I'd love to hear it. Do tell.

I would, but you keep crying about Tau so much I feel like I can't get a word in between the tears.

I had some alcohol in me the other night, got pissed that there was yet another Tau bashing thread, and decided antagonizing Marine fanboys would be a good idea for some reason. Then I forgot I posted, came back, and saw a bunch of people jumping on my ass and didn't quite know how to respond. Not only that but most of the examples I would have given already were, and were already shot down, so I really don't see the point in continuing on with that line of discussion anymore, especially since I don't think it would change anyone's mind even if I did have damning proof that Marines are bullgak, so I'm just going to say I was being a hyperbolising douche and move on...

Except not really because I'm going to keep being a hyperbolising douche in the text wall below.

Martel732 wrote:
The marine codex is so lack luster my BA have a winning record against it. Grav guns are meh compared to weapons Xenos already have.

And my brother's Blood Angel army has a winning record against my Tau. He also won our first and only game in 6th edition using his CSM, against my new codex (no riptides or heldrakes).

Therefore Tau are actually terrible.

 Mojo1jojo wrote:
I feel that people hate the Tau because it is painful to remove your models that you painstakenly painted and custumized of the table right after you put it on, then spend the rest of the time hiding the others behind cover.

But if it's my models getting pulled off the table without me being able to do anything about it (from being assaulted), it's okay.

If there's any reason at all why Tau just "don't work", it's that: they were designed to shoot all day and do literally nothing else. GW doesn't even want Tau armies to move around anymore, just castle up and shoot gak coming towards you. Even Kroot, who were really gakky for an "assault" unit, got CC nerfs and were given sniper rounds so that all they can even think about doing anymore is shooting. It pisses me off, because I really kinda like that about them, and it makes them different from almost every other army, but it's precisely the reason why Tau are "no fun" to play with or against. Either you're bending your opponent over the table and he's sullenly pulling models off before he gets to do anything, or the Tau player trips up and then he's the one taking all his models off the table without being able to do anything...which admittedly is a lot harder to do now without intentionally taking bad lists and playing like an idiot, but still.

 gardeth wrote:
Prior to their release it looked like 6th was set to be the most balanced edition, but then Tau came out, followed by Eldar, and now the monstrousity that is Escalation have turned the compettive environment on its head.

Really? "The most balanced edition"? I could have told you 6th would be broken as feth when allies and double FOC were first rumored. In fact I think I did, I remember suggesting that allies would break the game and only encourage the min/maxing that everyone hates so much (and it did!). And being able to spam twice as much broken gak needs no explanation. And I don't think anyone could have predicted titans and super heavies showing up in regular games.

Hell, the very first codex had the heldrake in it, and the same gakky internal balance and bad game design that the old codex had. Right out the gate GW started putting out crappy copy/paste codexes that had almost none of the changes people actually wanted to see, and were either god-awful or had one or two overpowered units/builds in them. I don't know how in the world anyone could have thought 6th edition would be balanced but I'm telling you, it's not, it never was, and it's not Tau's fault, either.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
That doesn't override/conflict with the rules stated in the BRB. The crap that tau does in my above post does.

How does paying points to give a unit Interceptor "override/conflict with the rules stated in the BRB"? That right there is a good example of what I'm talking about, things like drop pods, open top speeders that somehow aren't open top, and ATSKNF "override" core rules but it's okay because you supposedly pay points to do that. But when Tau do it, this thread happens.

The only thing you can possibly argue is that EWO is underpriced for what it does, and I'd actually agree with you, it really is. Much like the Disruption Pod before it, it's way too good for a 5 point upgrade (typical GW, "fix" one thing and break something else). I still think it should exist, because I don't think there's anything at all broken about the ability to pay points to give a unit Interceptor, but maybe bumping it up to 10-15 would be more "fair". Raging about Tau being a giant cheesewheel because they can pay points to ignore the BRB when literally every army does that in some capacity, however, is just being stupid.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
You realize you CAN ally tau with tau, right? How else does one run quad riprides?

The argument was that Tau have to purchase a separate $50 supplement to do so. No one said it wasn't possible, just that Space Marines were the only army currently that had permission to ally with itself in the parent codex.

Also, I think you'll find that most people, even Tau players, will probably agree that the Farsight supplement being able to ally with Tau Empire is kinda stupid and shouldn't have happened, and obviously only did because it lets GW sell more riptides. Same with the firebase support cadre. I don't even see why they needed a broken formation to sell that set but I guess that's why I don't have a successful business.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Either way both Scars ans IH have the faults of every MEQ army and can't share chapter tactics. What you're proposing would cost on the order of 700+ points to run well. How much for 3 riptides and a unit of markerdrones?

Actually, if I'm not mistaken it would be similar in cost. Maybe not quite that high, but three riptides alone, all outfitted with EWO and ion accelerators, would be about 600 points. I'm not saying that makes them any more balanced, but they are expensive.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
The tau dex is one big fat cheesewheel. The SM dex has sprinkles of shreddes cheddar here and there. Perhaps having to buy that second $50 book is the universe's way of saying "don't be a dick to your opponents".

Just to clarify, playing your army the way it was written = "being a dick", apparently.

In this context the only way to not be a dick to your opponents is to either purposely lose or just don't play Tau. Neither of which are exactly fair for the Tau player.

BaalSNAFU wrote:
A str 9 ap2 plate of death per riptide smokng a unit per blast coming in from reserves... for 5 pts, (aside from being the cheesiest goddamn thing I've ever experienced) effects the game in a huge way, as does missiles not needing LOS, and being able to negate any and all cover saves for your opponent(which is always invariably followed by a single markerlight buffing the taus BS by 2pts). Are you seeing how those have a more noticable impact than a landspeeder giving a weapon shooting it an additional +1 on the damage chart?

Not really, no. Mainly because I've played Tau since late 4th and most of the things you mentioned they were already capable of doing. SMS never needed LOS and as far as I know is still the same as it was before. Markerlights were already capable of removing cover and boosting BS (one counter = -1 cover save, and it was cumulative...arguably a lot more balanced than it is now and even other Tau players will agree with me on that one). And Tau were one of the bottom tier armies all through 5th. The only thing new, and once again what seems to be causing the most bitching, is the fething riptide, but no, that can't possibly be the problem! Even though nothing else in the army is spitting a S9 AP2 pie plate at your reserves, which seems to be above all else what has gotten your goat...

It's the riptide. Like it's been said over and over again already, get rid of the riptide and you'll go a long way towards "fixing" Tau just with that one change. But as far as I'm personally concerned, you'll get even better results if you just fix 6th edition, because:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Tau's list of tricks haven't actually changed a whole lot, but the context of the game has changed. Tau are the best shooting army in an edition where shooting is everything.

6th edition is broken, end of story. No one army is to blame for it, it's all GW.

If you can't see the difference in how 6thed markerlights negatively impact the game as opposed to non-open topped landspeeders and ATSKNF, the, single most overrated army trait in the game, then the problem is with your perception, not mine.

As for the rest of it, you're basically saying;
- I've got nothing, no way to drive my original argument home because I was drunk and trolling.
- Yes, I know tau can, and do perpetrate some really broken, cheesy gak BUT
- Its okay because they were a hot mess in previous editions


The prosecution rests.

 Sidstyler wrote:

BaalSNAFU wrote:
Please, tell me more. I'd love to hear it. Do tell.

I would, but you keep crying about Tau so much I feel like I can't get a word in between the tears.

I had some alcohol in me the other night, got pissed that there was yet another Tau bashing thread, and decided antagonizing Marine fanboys would be a good idea for some reason. Then I forgot I posted, came back, and saw a bunch of people jumping on my ass and didn't quite know how to respond. Not only that but most of the examples I would have given already were, and were already shot down, so I really don't see the point in continuing on with that line of discussion anymore, especially since I don't think it would change anyone's mind even if I did have damning proof that Marines are bullgak, so I'm just going to say I was being a hyperbolising douche and move on...

Except not really because I'm going to keep being a hyperbolising douche in the text wall below.

Heh, that made me chuckle. Have an exalt.

"And my brother's Blood Angel army has a winning record against my Tau. He also won our first and only game in 6th edition using his CSM, against my new codex (no riptides or heldrakes).

Therefore Tau are actually terrible. "

You're doing something wrong, then. I've army swapped with Tau, and BA are an easy, easy out. Although, for honest disclosure, I've won every army swap with BA. And all but one with C:SM. Marines are very vulnerable this edition.

To make the Tau "work"? Of the top of my head:

- Fix the Ally matrix (´Not just for the Tau but everybody. BB as the "default" is causing too many problems. )
- EWO should cost a minimum of 15 points, possibly 20. Flakk missiles ( Skyfire ) are 10 points/model and they are garbage.
Access to Interceptor is infinitely more useful and should be costed accordingly.
- Riptide should be a Vehicle ( Walker ). Anything that has a sentient/living pilot inside should be. AV 13/12/10 and
HP4 and possibly and integral Invulnerable Save would have been perfectly reasonable.

Or give Riptide 3+ save. Make it vulnerable to krak missiles and poison ammo.

What my main problem with Tau is that they have an answer for almost everything that could inconvenience their opponent.

Is it night fight the first turn? Well then good luck hurting any tau vehicle with disruption pods and their godly cover saves. Oh and at least youll get cover... Oh wait almost everything has black sun filters and they still have markerlights to strip cover on top of that.

Disruption Pods are dirt cheap and are free cover saves for every vehicle they have making them very survivable.

Also if they take a Hammerhead they are almost assuredly going to upgrade it with the named character tank ace. It gives you BS 5 and tank hunter on a STR 10 AP 1 gun which almost guarantees a tank kill every turn.

Tau have some of the best shooting units in the game I think we can all agree here. How do you normally counter good shooting? By staying in cover? Well too bad marker lights and SMS are here to mess up your day. Well you can try deep striking except for the plethora of units that have interceptor(namely riptides which land a pie plate on some nicely clustered terminators and laugh as they all die).

Riptides are a MC with amazing shooting options. How do you usually counter an amazing shooting unit? Shoot it back? Well its got a 2+ T6 and 5++ and it can have FNP to boot. Not to mention when it opts for 3++. To say the least its an undercosted model that is almost auto include on any tau army. It really should have an armor value instead of a toughness...

Well at least Tau suck in CC right? Yes the avg unit does suck in CC. Your only problem is getting there remotely intact. Its very hard to get close to tau without getting shot to pieces and to top it off when you do get the chance to charge all that supporting fire just drowns you in shots. Not to mention broadsides can get a nice boost to let them hit on a 5+ and they already have a boat load of shots.

All this combines to make a very powerful army that requires little thinking and lots of dice rolling... Not that fun to play against...

yeah it would be more fun to play against , if it didn't have all those things and marines could just drop down in pods , ride up in rhinos , like they did in 5th , and probably 4th ed too , and melee the tau to death ,while rolling a lot dice without much thinking . Yeah that would make the game much better.

I play IG , tau do everything I could want IG to do , but better . But what tau do is good , nothing worse then another edition of razorbacks vs razorback vs psychich razorbacks .

tedbpb wrote:
What my main problem with Tau is that they have an answer for almost everything that could inconvenience their opponent.

Is it night fight the first turn? Well then good luck hurting any tau vehicle with disruption pods and their godly cover saves. Oh and at least youll get cover... Oh wait almost everything has black sun filters and they still have markerlights to strip cover on top of that.

Disruption Pods are dirt cheap and are free cover saves for every vehicle they have making them very survivable.

Also if they take a Hammerhead they are almost assuredly going to upgrade it with the named character tank ace. It gives you BS 5 and tank hunter on a STR 10 AP 1 gun which almost guarantees a tank kill every turn.

Tau have some of the best shooting units in the game I think we can all agree here. How do you normally counter good shooting? By staying in cover? Well too bad marker lights and SMS are here to mess up your day. Well you can try deep striking except for the plethora of units that have interceptor(namely riptides which land a pie plate on some nicely clustered terminators and laugh as they all die).

Riptides are a MC with amazing shooting options. How do you usually counter an amazing shooting unit? Shoot it back? Well its got a 2+ T6 and 5++ and it can have FNP to boot. Not to mention when it opts for 3++. To say the least its an undercosted model that is almost auto include on any tau army. It really should have an armor value instead of a toughness...

Well at least Tau suck in CC right? Yes the avg unit does suck in CC. Your only problem is getting there remotely intact. Its very hard to get close to tau without getting shot to pieces and to top it off when you do get the chance to charge all that supporting fire just drowns you in shots. Not to mention broadsides can get a nice boost to let them hit on a 5+ and they already have a boat load of shots.

All this combines to make a very powerful army that requires little thinking and lots of dice rolling... Not that fun to play against...

100% on the money. Exalted. I don't get why so many airheads assume its only a marine problem. I can't see how any army can enjoy playing tau. They out range and outshoot IG and Eldar, they have zero reason to fear flyers or deepstriking units and they laugh while demons, DE, orks and nids try to make it into CC.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 happygolucky wrote:

And this is the reason why Tau get so much hate is because of how much people are willing to abuse the rules a set of poorly written rules and create abusive lists with Tau, just to win a game of toy soldiers.

This is why Tau get so much hate.

Excuse me, but I must have misread something. See, my codex states that I can choose up to three elites in a single FOC with no mention or repeating units. I only have three options. Why am I the bad guy for choosing three units that I'm perfectly allowed to field?

There's an old saying...

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should..

This applies to all armies not just Tau its just Tau is the subject of the topic, so it applies in this context.

Its the same with triple Helldrakes, Tau-Dar, etc, etc,

It would be nice to see a variety of armies than just "Netlist X, Y and Z" in tourneys, but alas because people just like to hit the "Insta-win" button.

Exactly. the same argument could be made for "Why shouldn't I field virus grenades?" in 2nd edition- something universally known by anyone who played back then to be the epitome of horrible game balance.


The Tau are complete bastards in 6th edition because, well, GW.

I think the more appropriate saying would be

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

It's not my job to make the game fair and balanced. I'm a player. My part is to use the army I have to make the best TAC list I can make.

 Archonate wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What do marines bypass?

ATSKNF.... anything else?

Deep Strike/Reserve shenanigans with Drop Pods.

Some of these may be out of date:
Emperor's Champion.
AV14 LRs that are not reduced by Lances.
Do they still auto-rally at the table edge instead of running off?
... Oh and do they still arbitrarily count their clearly Open Top vehicles (Land Speeders and such) as non-Open Top? (To spite this rule I used to insist that my DE Raider full of Incubi was therefore also not Open Top... SM players didn't appreciate that. There sentiment is echoed throughout this thread. "Only SMs are allowed to ignore rules!")

EC has always been a pretty underwhelming guy in his own right (I find 2 wounds don't really get you very far, especially as a hero slayer), and while his vows were pretty good, at the time they were written, they only allowed re-rolls of To Hit in assault, which was sort of a compensation for having no Devs or Whirlwinds in the codex (funny that, marines who love to duel being proficient at the very thing ).

Blessed Hull was good its true... but it was also a 50pt upgrade for BT LRC's only. Very specific and costly, for something which would only come in hand in a scarce few situations).

As for the auto-rally at table edges and the LS stuff, I don't recall that sort of thing ever being the case (not sure though).

Makumba wrote:
yeah it would be more fun to play against , if it didn't have all those things and marines could just drop down in pods , ride up in rhinos , like they did in 5th , and probably 4th ed too , and melee the tau to death ,while rolling a lot dice without much thinking . Yeah that would make the game much better.

I play IG , tau do everything I could want IG to do , but better . But what tau do is good , nothing worse then another edition of razorbacks vs razorback vs psychich razorbacks .

I play IG as well and your right Tau do everything that IG do but better and cheaper(like pask vs tau tank commander). I think my biggest complaint is that markerlights are so easily able to remove cover from units. Not getting cover saves is really painful against a primarily shooting army(especially one that can throw out so many ap 2 pie plates). Wouldnt be so bad if I could get cover at least...

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I think the more appropriate saying would be

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

It's not my job to make the game fair and balanced. I'm a player. My part is to use the army I have to make the best TAC list I can make.

Well, no, it's to play an enjoyable game. Slight distinction there. Doesn't necessarily preclude making the "best list", or mean fielding a list that's fair/fluffy/well-painted/enjoyable to play against, but I feel it's important enough to be said.

tedbpb wrote:

Makumba wrote:
yeah it would be more fun to play against , if it didn't have all those things and marines could just drop down in pods , ride up in rhinos , like they did in 5th , and probably 4th ed too , and melee the tau to death ,while rolling a lot dice without much thinking . Yeah that would make the game much better.

I play IG , tau do everything I could want IG to do , but better . But what tau do is good , nothing worse then another edition of razorbacks vs razorback vs psychich razorbacks .

I play IG as well and your right Tau do everything that IG do but better and cheaper(like pask vs tau tank commander). I think my biggest complaint is that markerlights are so easily able to remove cover from units. Not getting cover saves is really painful against a primarily shooting army(especially one that can throw out so many ap 2 pie plates). Wouldnt be so bad if I could get cover at least...

Just like Guard could do everything Tau could do only better (and a lot of stuff they couldn't do too) around the time the last guard codex came out. Truly the great wheel of army balance keeps turning.

I also vividly remember outflanking genestealers making me effectively deploy on a table that was 3 ft wide since I had absolutely zero way of stopping them from eating me out of reserves...then the Yamgarls and the Doom showed up (he wasn't exactly assault though, so there's that)...

Things change. Tau sat out 2 pretty horrible editions (remember when we used to be the oldest non-BT codex that everybody laughed at?). Now we're on top. Probably once 7th edition drops we'll be back on the bottom of the heap because our rules are so custom tailored to 6th.

I don't know, I guess people just love to complain.

I have to agree with dementedwombat here. The cycle of power creep has ensured that there is almost always an army or two out there that just absolutely curbstomp the rest. I remember my Tau getting hopelessly crushed match after match by Orkz of all armies, with my firepower down right ineffective against Biker Nob deathstars and the fact that the broken and ubiquitous boss Snikrot was pretty much guaranteed to destroy 1 or 2 backfield units in assault before I even got a chance to shoot back. Imperial Guard were even worse after their codex dropped, as they outnumbered, out shot and thanks to there new Vendettas and reserve manipulation abilities, could even outmaneuver Tau. And of course my opponents would take the best stuff from their respective armies. Everybody always complains about tough list with multiple copies of strong units but I never see anybody handicap themselves by refusing to take the good choices from their codices.

The only difference with in regard to the Tau codex is what has already been stated by Sidstyler:

If there's any reason at all why Tau just "don't work", it's that: they were designed to shoot all day and do literally nothing else. GW doesn't even want Tau armies to move around anymore, just castle up and shoot gak coming towards you. Even Kroot, who were really gakky for an "assault" unit, got CC nerfs and were given sniper rounds so that all they can even think about doing anymore is shooting. It pisses me off, because I really kinda like that about them, and it makes them different from almost every other army, but it's precisely the reason why Tau are "no fun" to play with or against. Either you're bending your opponent over the table and he's sullenly pulling models off before he gets to do anything, or the Tau player trips up and then he's the one taking all his models off the table without being able to do anything...which admittedly is a lot harder to do now without intentionally taking bad lists and playing like an idiot, but still.

That is to say, in addition to your standard GW power creep, the Tau were altered to use gunline units and tactics in place of their much more interesting maneuver warfare tactics. Had Tau been built around mobility, close range shooting and given superior reserves manipulation, the army would be more interesting to play against if nothing else, which would reduce a lot of the animosity towards it.

Phanixis wrote:
That is to say, in addition to your standard GW power creep, the Tau were altered to use gunline units and tactics in place of their much more interesting maneuver warfare tactics. Had Tau been built around mobility, close range shooting and given superior reserves manipulation, the army would be more interesting to play against if nothing else, which would reduce a lot of the animosity towards it.

I don't think it'd reduce the animosity at all. You play mobile, people complain about JSJ being BS. You play gunline and people complain that you brought too much dakka. It's not something you can win.

Yeeesh. More bitching about tau an riptides. Every edition, people find some army to piss and moan about, and try to make guys who like the army in question feel like douches for using them.

We got literally this exact thread on necrons. Remember mss? Night scythe spam? Imotekh lightning?

Before that it was gk draigo wing.

Then the DE venomspam

And so on and so on.

Seriously, just.... STAHP with the pissing and moaning. The simple fact is this: the rules are the rules. Either accept this and play the game, or don't. But whining on forums literally does nothing, and certainly won't make GW issue a new codex for said army with a "whoops sorry we screwed up so here's a fix" and it definitely won't make someone put away hundreds or even thousands of dollars in minis just because they are the hated martyr of the season.

Learn to deal with these. In about 6 months the next thing will be out and everyone will hate on that.

And just because I'm nice, killing riptides is easy. All you do is shoot them. Seriously. Force enough wounds, and they go down. Treat em exactly like any other 2+ armor 5 wound unit. Heck, throw enough Bolter fire at them and they die. (Insert math hammer but but but) shove your math up your disruption pod. I've seen CULTISTS take down a riptide 3 wounds in a single shooting phase. I've seen marines do the same. Heck, a dev squad with missile launchers will do it. DE just laugh and say splinter cannons at that thing, and so on. Learn to deal and stop whimpering like a kid who just got his pogs confiscated.

Yeesh