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 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player. Also not shooting at enemies charging you is dumb. As dumb as the charger not attacking first was and is in 7th.

True.
But the ability to fire at every unit charging at them as long as you keep killing them/they keep falling on their face is just dumb.

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player. Also not shooting at enemies charging you is dumb. As dumb as the charger not attacking first was and is in 7th.

To be fair, it's not a case of "not shooting at enemies charging you". That could be represented by your shooting phases. And you wouldn't just be stood there, no more so than a unit just leaving Deep Strike or exiting a vehicle, or entering from Reserve and not getting to charge. It's the squad forming up to take the charge, drawing combat weapons, putting aside their guns, throwing defensive grenades - they're not just sat there.

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player.

That's OK. The rest of the 40k players can remember it for you. We can even remind you of it, if you like.

Edited to add: Imagine 3 units of pathfinders stationed behind units of fire warriors but in front of the suits. 6 units of ork charge in a furious Waaagh! Those 3 units of pathfinders gets to fire at ALL of the 6 charges, hitting the orks with 18 (18!!) units full of markerlight shots before any of the fire warriors and the suits get to fire. All of the fire warriors and suits get to fire on the first charge, then if any of the charges (by miracle) actually make it to combat, 1 fewer unit of warriors get to fire again on the remaining orks. The suits and bots to get fire 6 times each, all with full bs because the marker lights lit up the orks like Chrismas trees.

So really, in this case, we've multiplied the Tau shooting phase by a factor of six.

Does anyone else see this as broken?

 Gamgee wrote:
I know when other armies are one dimensional it's okay. When the Tau are it's bad. Annoying.

Really guys? You got that from my post?


I state one "dimensional" in conjunction with "unbalance". I then broke down what I meant by "Unbalanced". None of it equaled "sucks" or "is good". Talk about reading something and missing the mark.........(ie, someone talks about the Raiders black and silver uniforms and you post, "Yeah, people like black and silver because Nazi's wore black and had silver SS pins!")

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player.

That's OK. The rest of the 40k players can remember it for you. We can even remind you of it, if you like.

Edited to add: Imagine 3 units of pathfinders stationed behind units of fire warriors but in front of the suits. 6 units of ork charge in a furious Waaagh! Those 3 units of pathfinders gets to fire at ALL of the 6 charges, hitting the orks with 18 (18!!) units full of markerlight shots before any of the fire warriors and the suits get to fire. All of the fire warriors and suits get to fire on the first charge, then if any of the charges (by miracle) actually make it to combat, 1 fewer unit of warriors get to fire again on the remaining orks. The suits and bots to get fire 6 times each, all with full bs because the marker lights lit up the orks like Chrismas trees.

So really, in this case, we've multiplied the Tau shooting phase by a factor of six.

Does anyone else see this as broken?

Combining outdated 7th edition rules with a small and incomplete preview of 8th edition rules as if the 7th edition stats and codex will be copy-pasted into 8th?

Yeah, I think "broken" is an appropriate adjective.

 Da-Rock wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
I know when other armies are one dimensional it's okay. When the Tau are it's bad. Annoying.

Really guys? You got that from my post?


I state one "dimensional" in conjunction with "unbalance". I then broke down what I meant by "Unbalanced". None of it equaled "sucks" or "is good". Talk about reading something and missing the mark.........(ie, someone talks about the Raiders black and silver uniforms and you post, "Yeah, people like black and silver because Nazi's wore black and had silver SS pins!")

If you look at his posts he's been that way the entire thread when it comes to Tau.

I hope GW doesn't listen to the posters in here for sure. Or else my best gun will be 3 inches str 2 ap nothing single one shot per game and a stat line fof 2's in everything except wounds. Then after the game the Tau players models self destruct.

He started in with a strong bias.

But yeah maybe you'll get through to the other players in this thread.

Jbz` wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player. Also not shooting at enemies charging you is dumb. As dumb as the charger not attacking first was and is in 7th.

True.
But the ability to fire at every unit charging at them as long as you keep killing them/they keep falling on their face is just dumb.

Don't charge a single orc into 20 fire warriors?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
I know when other armies are one dimensional it's okay. When the Tau are it's bad. Annoying.

Really guys? You got that from my post?


I state one "dimensional" in conjunction with "unbalance". I then broke down what I meant by "Unbalanced". None of it equaled "sucks" or "is good". Talk about reading something and missing the mark.........(ie, someone talks about the Raiders black and silver uniforms and you post, "Yeah, people like black and silver because Nazi's wore black and had silver SS pins!")

If you look at his posts he's been that way the entire thread when it comes to Tau.

I hope GW doesn't listen to the posters in here for sure. Or else my best gun will be 3 inches str 2 ap nothing single one shot per game and a stat line fof 2's in everything except wounds. Then after the game the Tau players models self destruct.

He started in with a strong bias.

But yeah maybe you'll get through to the other players in this thread.

Khorne is exactly as unbalanced and one dimensional as Tau just, yunno, melee, but the conversation was focused on Tau and how to fix Tau when there are plenty of terribly designed one dimensional armies in 40k (GK, Tzeentch, Khorne, Tau, Tyranids, even SoB no matter how much I love them) But Tau seems to get an unfair amount of critisism because they're good and they're not chaos(which is basically a magical anti-hate forcefield when THOSE armies are good).

You may not of said you were complaining about Tau because they're good, but the implication is pretty clear when you single them out in a sea of terrible boring armies.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player.

That's OK. The rest of the 40k players can remember it for you. We can even remind you of it, if you like.

Edited to add: Imagine 3 units of pathfinders stationed behind units of fire warriors but in front of the suits. 6 units of ork charge in a furious Waaagh! Those 3 units of pathfinders gets to fire at ALL of the 6 charges, hitting the orks with 18 (18!!) units full of markerlight shots before any of the fire warriors and the suits get to fire. All of the fire warriors and suits get to fire on the first charge, then if any of the charges (by miracle) actually make it to combat, 1 fewer unit of warriors get to fire again on the remaining orks. The suits and bots to get fire 6 times each, all with full bs because the marker lights lit up the orks like Chrismas trees.

So really, in this case, we've multiplied the Tau shooting phase by a factor of six.

Does anyone else see this as broken?

Why are only 6 orks charging half the Tau army? Your cherry picking so bad or one of the worse player ever. My only opponent's I've ever fought were swarm armies. Swarm ig, nids, and orks. It was never ever just one squad charging me. I would take Kroot most games over firewarriors. Or only a single small squad of fire warriors to help.

 Gamgee wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player.

That's OK. The rest of the 40k players can remember it for you. We can even remind you of it, if you like.

Edited to add: Imagine 3 units of pathfinders stationed behind units of fire warriors but in front of the suits. 6 units of ork charge in a furious Waaagh! Those 3 units of pathfinders gets to fire at ALL of the 6 charges, hitting the orks with 18 (18!!) units full of markerlight shots before any of the fire warriors and the suits get to fire. All of the fire warriors and suits get to fire on the first charge, then if any of the charges (by miracle) actually make it to combat, 1 fewer unit of warriors get to fire again on the remaining orks. The suits and bots to get fire 6 times each, all with full bs because the marker lights lit up the orks like Chrismas trees.

So really, in this case, we've multiplied the Tau shooting phase by a factor of six.

Does anyone else see this as broken?

Why are only 6 orks charging half the Tau army? Your cherry picking so bad or one of the worse player ever. My only opponent's I've ever fought were swarm armies. Swarm ig, nids, and orks. It was never ever just one squad charging me. I would take Kroot most games over firewarriors. Or only a single small squad of fire warriors to help.

Err, six UNITS of Orks? Not six induvidual Orks, as you make out?

Oh ah. All I got to say is your fighting a dumb as gak Tau player if he is wasting markerlight charges on those. He also brought terrible Pathfinders which are easily kill able by just about anything.

Also if you have not thought of a way to thin out his markerlights in your army your a bad player man. I keep telling my friends over and over AND OVER AND OVER (to the point where no one plays with me anymore) to just shoot the markerlights and kill them.

The only player to listen was the Tyranids player who nearly won that game as a result. From then on he tried to go for them more often and stood more of a fighting chance. Heck he was the only player to ever beat me in my short 40k career. So he had it in him. If he studied the rest of my army more and learned to prioritize what to kill after he ML went down he would have done better.

Still he didn't want to take anymore help after that so he never won again and I never did get to upgrade my list to a more cheesy one.

That's my experience with 40k players as a whole. Terrible. And they are so bad they don't want to actually learn new things when I tried. Heck I even suggested swapping armies for a game.

They wouldn't hear it. That's all I've learned from the dumbass community that hates Tau players irrationally.

I tried toning down my lists to rail rifle broadsides and vespids and just playing to objective and not the pure shooting game. Still couldn't lose. The IG and Ork players were laughing at how ineffective my railrifle was and yet that didn't stop me from winning. Heck I even charged my Riptide up the field one day just to watch it die for once. Just because I was so bored. I was trying to lose and couldn't do it.

So if your that tier if player then lord help you son your probably never going to get good.

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player...

So.. you only played two games of 7th edition then...?

I can't remember a game I had where I -didn't- hit with my overwatch - and I don't play gunline. Look, I'm with you, I don't want Tau nerfed into uselessness because of internet hate, but lets not pretend that we don't have the best overwatch ability currently available in the game.

Trying to hand-wave it away with statements like that aren't doing our argument any favors, on top of making you seem woefully uninformed about the strengths of the Tau.

When most of your army is kroot and mobile suits all over the board and skyrays in the back I NEVER used that ability.

I even did a super heavy terrain series of games and still won. Other then two losses to my 40k career when I've never lost. One was when I was beginning my career and learning the rules and the other was a tough son of a bitch of a fight against that Tyranid player who won by the skin of his teeth.

I can't get any more games now. 24 wins and 2 losses. Not even trying to win half of them. I retired form playing to just collecting.

If it helps my friends liken me to Lelouch and Tywin Lannister. If there was a way for me to get to serious tournaments with actual competition I would probably be there.

Edit
As a matter of fact I found that supporting fire was so worthless due to its highly random nature I designed my army not to use it. More of a last resort than an actual tactic.

 Gamgee wrote:
Oh ah. All I got to say is your fighting a dumb as gak Tau player if he is wasting markerlight charges on those.

It's free Overwatch? What else would he shoot with: pulse carbines? Especially when the markerlights only need to hit, and then they exponentially improve the shooting of the other units Overwatching?

If you didn't use Markerlights in that situation, I would be genuinely confused about your quality of generalship.

He also brought terrible Pathfinders which are easily kill able by just about anything.

Lasguns? Grot blastas? Or is that just hyperbole?
And again, how else do you get Markerlights? Marker drones? Their BS isn't too good, and die easier than Pathfinders, IIRC. And, I think they also lack Supporting Fire, which is what makes a Marker-ed up Tau Overwatch so effective.

Also if you have not thought of a way to thin out his markerlights in your army your a bad player man. I keep telling my friends over and over AND OVER AND OVER (to the point where no one plays with me anymore) to just shoot the markerlights and kill them.

That's all well and good if you can actually do so. Perhaps the powerful Tau long ranged shooting from Riptides, Stormsurges, HYMP and SMS have thinned out the shooting potential of an already poor-at-shooting Ork list, making retaliation against the Pathfinders, who are most likely behind the Fire Warriors, and then benefiting from a cover save, negligent.

Again, we're looking at this situation in a vacuum, so your "advice" isn't applicable. To a real game, maybe, but in the scenario, we have no knowledge of the previous shooting phase, and only that six units of Orks charged a gunline of Tau.

And again, there may be multiple other reasons people don't play with you, not just that. I don't know, I don't play with you.

The only player to listen was the Tyranids player who nearly won that game as a result. From then on he tried to go for them more often and stood more of a fighting chance. Heck he was the only player to ever beat me in my short 40k career. So he had it in him. If he studied the rest of my army more and learned to prioritize what to kill after he ML went down he would have done better.

Still he didn't want to take anymore help after that so he never won again and I never did get to upgrade my list to a more cheesy one.

As far as I knew, Tyranids have better shooting than Orks. So, how do you advise Orks to outshoot Tau, with your seeming expertise in your "short 40k career"

That's my experience with 40k players as a whole. Terrible. And they are so bad they don't want to actually learn new things when I tried. Heck I even suggested swapping armies for a game.

They wouldn't hear it. That's all I've learned from the dumbass community that hates Tau players irrationally.

Or, perhaps Tau are genuinely so unlike every other faction that they hard-counter many threats, and are genuinely that powerful? Or has that not crossed your mind, and instead, it must be the entire "dumbass community" (really appreciating the blanket statement about an entire community of gamers there ) that is in the wrong.

I tried toning down my lists to rail rifle broadsides and vespids and just playing to objective and not the pure shooting game. Still couldn't lose. The IG and Ork players were laughing at how ineffective my railrifle was and yet that didn't stop me from winning. Heck I even charged my Riptide up the field one day just to watch it die for once. Just because I was so bored. I was trying to lose and couldn't do it.

So if your that tier if player then lord help you son your probably never going to get good.

Or, MAYBE, it's just that the Tau, even when using Vespid and Rail Rifle Broadsides, are still beyond the power level of IG and Orks. I've eked out victories against competent Tau players, but if I had to do it with Orks, I feel sure I'd have little chance. Orks are not a shooty army, and the sheer firepower Tau can put out would stop so many charges flat out. Just see the example given above for how bad it'd be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gamgee wrote:
I can't get any more games now. 24 wins and 2 losses. Not even trying to win half of them.

And was that all with Tau?

If you want to prove generalship, and that it's not the army that's doing all the heavy lifting, try playing Orks, or CSM, or Blood Angels, as Martel would propose.

Actually, Marker-Drones are generally superior to Pathfinders for several reasons

1) Better toughness (4) and Sv (4+).

2) Relentless Jet Pack infantry; so they can reposition easier. And, iirc, if taken in the Drone-Net formation, they benefit from +1 BS, so have the same BS as Pathfinders.

3) Can be joined by a Commander w/ a Drone Controller for BS5 markerlights

Most of your 'competetive' Tau lists will have no Pathfinders in their army at all, just Marker Drones.

 Vryce wrote:
Actually, Marker-Drones are generally superior to Pathfinders for several reasons

1) Better toughness (4) and Sv (4+).

2) Relentless Jet Pack infantry; so they can reposition easier. And, iirc, if taken in the Drone-Net formation, they benefit from +1 BS, so have the same BS as Pathfinders.

3) Can be joined by a Commander w/ a Drone Controller for BS5 markerlights

Most of your 'competetive' Tau lists will have no Pathfinders in their army at all, just Marker Drones.

Ah, I will concede the durability point. Good catch!

However, excluding Formations and added Characters, which could improve Pathfinders in similar ways, Drones have less BS (not relevant for Overwatch though), and AFAIK lack Supporting Fire.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Vryce wrote:
Actually, Marker-Drones are generally superior to Pathfinders for several reasons

1) Better toughness (4) and Sv (4+).

2) Relentless Jet Pack infantry; so they can reposition easier. And, iirc, if taken in the Drone-Net formation, they benefit from +1 BS, so have the same BS as Pathfinders.

3) Can be joined by a Commander w/ a Drone Controller for BS5 markerlights

Most of your 'competetive' Tau lists will have no Pathfinders in their army at all, just Marker Drones.

Ah, I will concede the durability point. Good catch!

However, excluding Formations and added Characters, which could improve Pathfinders in similar ways, Drones have less BS (not relevant for Overwatch though), and AFAIK lack Supporting Fire.

Drones do have Supporting Fire. And the lower BS is countered by the fact that they're Relentless, but you're right, that doesn't matter in the case of Overwatch.

Gamgee wrote:

I even did a super heavy terrain series of games and still won. Other then two losses to my 40k career when I've never lost. One was when I was beginning my career and learning the rules and the other was a tough son of a bitch of a fight against that Tyranid player who won by the skin of his teeth.

So your argument for Tau not being overpowered is that ever since you learned the rules, you've only ever lost one game ever, and even that was close as hell?

Maybe your rejection of reality is why your opponents wont play against you anymore. I knew a Tau player who was exactly the same as you, I put it to you to pick up your friends Orks and play against your own Tau army. Believe it or not, there is much more strategy than just "focus the pathfinders" especially if you've positioned them sensibly, and contrary to what you seem to believe on the matter, the army doesn't just fold the instant the pathfinders get mopped, which is usually multiple turns in and heavy losses for the armies you described. BS3 is not a death sentence, the army can perform fine with it at that stage, pretty much everything in Nids is BS3. Orks too but at least they have better assault.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Vryce wrote:
Actually, Marker-Drones are generally superior to Pathfinders for several reasons

1) Better toughness (4) and Sv (4+).

2) Relentless Jet Pack infantry; so they can reposition easier. And, iirc, if taken in the Drone-Net formation, they benefit from +1 BS, so have the same BS as Pathfinders.

3) Can be joined by a Commander w/ a Drone Controller for BS5 markerlights

Most of your 'competetive' Tau lists will have no Pathfinders in their army at all, just Marker Drones.

Ah, I will concede the durability point. Good catch!

However, excluding Formations and added Characters, which could improve Pathfinders in similar ways, Drones have less BS (not relevant for Overwatch though), and AFAIK lack Supporting Fire.

You have no idea what your talking about do you. A Tau Commander upgraded can buff his drones to BS 5. Then join a unit of them. Since his drones are his equipment he can split fire on a key target and then the other 4 drones in the squad markerdrone someone else. It was common before drone net formation. Also all of your examples are just in a vacuum as well and prove nothing just as much as mine. Also I don't have any of those codices and its been so long I can't even begin to remember what they have to kill marker lights. All I know is I was not given the chance to swap armies to try and see it from the other side.

So hey I can't help it if the 40k fanbase has a stick so far up its ass I can't even try learn other armies. My community in particular is extremely hostile. I met another nids player and complimented his army. We were talking for about 10 mins and him and his 3 friends. Then as soon as I mention I play Tau they all go stone faced and say they don't play Tau and don't want to talk to me anymore.

What the gak am I supposed to do man? What next Tau player go straight into the incinerator next?

40k community can rip itself to pieces for all I care now. The Tau are not overpowered. The orks are underpowered and need buffs. The Nids too. That is what you should be selling the whole 40k community and you would have more support. I would be there with you. But when you go and pick on one race as if it's the most powerful thing and nothing else your just being discriminatory. If your pathetic armies can't even dent the balanced Tau then I can only imagine how ineffective they would be against Eldar, Chaos Deamons, and super friends death stars.

You can't compare things like Khorne to Tau and say 'see! they're both one dimensional!' Why? Because Tau counters the actual strategy you'd use against them. They're a long range, squishy (well, in melee) army that's pretty static. So deep striking seems like the best counter to that right? They have more skyfire/interceptor than any army. You WILL lose drop pods. That leaves you with running up the board, against the longest ranged, shootiest army in the game. You are always fighting on their terms. Khorne are walking up the board with 5+ saves. Might as well be orks at that point.

But this is all irrelevant anyways when the new edition drops, so lets just put our torches and pitchforks away until then if we can.

ERJAK wrote:

Jbz` wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player. Also not shooting at enemies charging you is dumb. As dumb as the charger not attacking first was and is in 7th.

True.
But the ability to fire at every unit charging at them as long as you keep killing them/they keep falling on their face is just dumb.

Don't charge a single orc into 20 fire warriors?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Da-Rock wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
I know when other armies are one dimensional it's okay. When the Tau are it's bad. Annoying.

Really guys? You got that from my post?


I state one "dimensional" in conjunction with "unbalance". I then broke down what I meant by "Unbalanced". None of it equaled "sucks" or "is good". Talk about reading something and missing the mark.........(ie, someone talks about the Raiders black and silver uniforms and you post, "Yeah, people like black and silver because Nazi's wore black and had silver SS pins!")

If you look at his posts he's been that way the entire thread when it comes to Tau.

I hope GW doesn't listen to the posters in here for sure. Or else my best gun will be 3 inches str 2 ap nothing single one shot per game and a stat line fof 2's in everything except wounds. Then after the game the Tau players models self destruct.

He started in with a strong bias.

But yeah maybe you'll get through to the other players in this thread.

Khorne is exactly as unbalanced and one dimensional as Tau just, yunno, melee, but the conversation was focused on Tau and how to fix Tau when there are plenty of terribly designed one dimensional armies in 40k (GK, Tzeentch, Khorne, Tau, Tyranids, even SoB no matter how much I love them) But Tau seems to get an unfair amount of critisism because they're good and they're not chaos(which is basically a magical anti-hate forcefield when THOSE armies are good).

You may not of said you were complaining about Tau because they're good, but the implication is pretty clear when you single them out in a sea of terrible boring armies.

The implication is pretty clear? I am talking about Tau because I play them....I don't play Khorne = hence a discussion about Tau and not one about Khorne....................Talk about someone blinded by their own issues.

The problem with Tau is that, especially now, their entire army design is one dimensional. They do one thing and they do it better than almost all other armies, and the only time they move is to take objectives. A faction that mechanically ignores 2 main phases of the game is just horribly designed and incredibly boring to play against it- add up the fact that it's often overpowered as hell against mid-tier armies and you get something so bad you're forced to boycott anybody who doesn't play a heavily nerfed list. There's no point in playing a game you know you have a 70% or greater chance of losing.

In all honesty what would really help is if Tau didn't get to avoid the gets hot rule. I imagine if Fire Warriors and Battlesuits ran the risk of exploding if you ran an all-gun army and new melee units were added to the Tau similar to Farsight, you wouldn't see Tau players pitch a tent on one side of the board.

And Khorne armies are not one dimensional like the Tau. Not only do they move around a lot, but they don't just engage in melee. They shoot quite a fair bit as well. The only thing they do is ignore the psychic phase, like Necrons.

Yeah, the hate for Tau is more a meme and community thing that based in facts. People hated Tau from the moment they hit the setting. Both from their playstile and their aesthetic and fluff.

When they introduce the OP combos with Riptides and Stormsurges all get worse. I'm lucky that I play with a narrative crow and I always play my Tau's without the OP things.
It helps that they are full mature persons that take this as a hobby, and don't follow the internet culture and take this game more seriously that what it is.

They don't need to make Tau a versatile army to fix them. Adding meele units, more than a token defensive meele one is a very bad thing. Tau's only need to be fixed, to don't have broken combos and make usable the other 70% of their unit roster. The "Movile, medium range-shooting with strong meele and elite troops" are the Eldar.

As a Tau player I move about a lot as well. More so than my IG friend at any rate. Actually I was probably the most mobile player running all around the map.

 Gamgee wrote:
As a Tau player I move about a lot as well. More so than my IG friend at any rate. Actually I was probably the most mobile player running all around the map.

Imperial Guard is the most static army in the game, much much more than Tau. But they suck, and are loved for their aesthetics and fluff. Thats why nobody use the "they are boring because they are static" argument against them.

Personally, I like my Tau movile too. Devilfish, Breacher teams, Stealth Suits, etc... but I don't want them to be the Shooty-Movile army entirely because thats what Eldars are.

 Gamgee wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Vryce wrote:
Actually, Marker-Drones are generally superior to Pathfinders for several reasons

1) Better toughness (4) and Sv (4+).

2) Relentless Jet Pack infantry; so they can reposition easier. And, iirc, if taken in the Drone-Net formation, they benefit from +1 BS, so have the same BS as Pathfinders.

3) Can be joined by a Commander w/ a Drone Controller for BS5 markerlights

Most of your 'competetive' Tau lists will have no Pathfinders in their army at all, just Marker Drones.

Ah, I will concede the durability point. Good catch!

However, excluding Formations and added Characters, which could improve Pathfinders in similar ways, Drones have less BS (not relevant for Overwatch though), and AFAIK lack Supporting Fire.

You have no idea what your talking about do you. A Tau Commander upgraded can buff his drones to BS 5. Then join a unit of them. Since his drones are his equipment he can split fire on a key target and then the other 4 drones in the squad markerdrone someone else. It was common before drone net formation. Also all of your examples are just in a vacuum as well and prove nothing just as much as mine. Also I don't have any of those codices and its been so long I can't even begin to remember what they have to kill marker lights. All I know is I was not given the chance to swap armies to try and see it from the other side.

Yes, I'll admit I'm not solid on Tau drone - I rarely face them. What I do know is that your BS upgrades are useless in Overwatch, and the general essence of the post was that it was the MARKERLIGHTS, not the Pathfinders, that made Tau overwatch so powerful.
So, let's address the actual Overwatch point then, yes?

And now we see that you actually have no idea what Orks (As per the example given) could even use in this case to kill off the Drones. Let me just say that Ork shooting is, generally, one of the worse in the game. Given that your Markerlight bearers in this situation are close enough to the Fire Warriors to benefit from Supporting Fire, they can't really be charged out, without this situation happening, and any shooting will be negligent, as the Tau player can take out the few decent Ork shooting units with Stormsurges, Seeker Missiles, etc etc.

So, any hints for the Ork player?

So hey I can't help it if the 40k fanbase has a stick so far up its ass I can't even try learn other armies.

What was stopping you learning other armies? And again, loving the generalisation.

My community in particular is extremely hostile. I met another nids player and complimented his army. We were talking for about 10 mins and him and his 3 friends. Then as soon as I mention I play Tau they all go stone faced and say they don't play Tau and don't want to talk to me anymore.

What the gak am I supposed to do man? What next Tau player go straight into the incinerator next?

Talk to them, and understand their problem, instead of insulting them en masse? I don't know, I would need full context to judge that.

40k community can rip itself to pieces for all I care now. The Tau are not overpowered. The orks are underpowered and need buffs. The Nids too. That is what you should be selling the whole 40k community and you would have more support. I would be there with you. But when you go and pick on one race as if it's the most powerful thing and nothing else your just being discriminatory. If your pathetic armies can't even dent the balanced Tau then I can only imagine how ineffective they would be against Eldar, Chaos Deamons, and super friends death stars.

I'm not for nerfing Tau to the ground. I'm for making them balanced. They are not balanced at the moment. That doesn't mean making them S2 AP- pulse rifles and suchlike - it means making sure they can actually be threatened by most threats in the game.

I am selling Ork buffs, Nid buffs, CSM buffs etc etc - I'm selling balance all over. I'm not saying the Tau are the ONLY issue in the game, that would be reductionist of me. I am, however, admitting they're not perfectly balanced, and not the paragon of balance this game should aspire to.

Do you honestly believe that Tau are the single most balanced army in 40k? Asking without any malice, is that your opinion?

 Gamgee wrote:
Oh ah. All I got to say is your fighting a dumb as gak Tau player if he is wasting markerlight charges on those. He also brought terrible Pathfinders which are easily kill able by just about anything.

those are the markerlights he is using in OVERWATCH. On his turn he can fire them at whatever he wants. This 18 units of firing are on my turn.

Also if you have not thought of a way to thin out his markerlights in your army your a bad player man. I keep telling my friends over and over AND OVER AND OVER (to the point where no one plays with me anymore) to just shoot the markerlights and kill them.

agreed. But their armor and cover stack, so they will likely have 2+ or 3+ saves. I'd love to be able to kill those at range. You tau players seem to think we can shoot that far. we can't. They are out of range. Do we need to tell you that OVER AND OVER?

 Vryce wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player...

So.. you only played two games of 7th edition then...?

I can't remember a game I had where I -didn't- hit with my overwatch - and I don't play gunline. Look, I'm with you, I don't want Tau nerfed into uselessness because of internet hate, but lets not pretend that we don't have the best overwatch ability currently available in the game.

Trying to hand-wave it away with statements like that aren't doing our argument any favors, on top of making you seem woefully uninformed about the strengths of the Tau.

Have you ever done the math for Overwatch? Like ever?

It's such a negligible threat that it should almost not exist, but it makes sense as a mechanic.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player.

That's OK. The rest of the 40k players can remember it for you. We can even remind you of it, if you like.

Edited to add: Imagine 3 units of pathfinders stationed behind units of fire warriors but in front of the suits. 6 units of ork charge in a furious Waaagh! Those 3 units of pathfinders gets to fire at ALL of the 6 charges, hitting the orks with 18 (18!!) units full of markerlight shots before any of the fire warriors and the suits get to fire. All of the fire warriors and suits get to fire on the first charge, then if any of the charges (by miracle) actually make it to combat, 1 fewer unit of warriors get to fire again on the remaining orks. The suits and bots to get fire 6 times each, all with full bs because the marker lights lit up the orks like Chrismas trees.

So really, in this case, we've multiplied the Tau shooting phase by a factor of six.

Does anyone else see this as broken?

It's not just Tau. Dark Angels are also a massive head ache when it comes to overwatch. So are wraithguard with D flamers.

Personally, I would have preferred them to have taken overwatch out of the game altogether.

 Wyzilla wrote:
The problem with Tau is that, especially now, their entire army design is one dimensional. They do one thing and they do it better than almost all other armies, and the only time they move is to take objectives. A faction that mechanically ignores 2 main phases of the game is just horribly designed and incredibly boring to play against it- add up the fact that it's often overpowered as hell against mid-tier armies and you get something so bad you're forced to boycott anybody who doesn't play a heavily nerfed list. There's no point in playing a game you know you have a 70% or greater chance of losing.

In all honesty what would really help is if Tau didn't get to avoid the gets hot rule. I imagine if Fire Warriors and Battlesuits ran the risk of exploding if you ran an all-gun army and new melee units were added to the Tau similar to Farsight, you wouldn't see Tau players pitch a tent on one side of the board.

And Khorne armies are not one dimensional like the Tau. Not only do they move around a lot, but they don't just engage in melee. They shoot quite a fair bit as well. The only thing they do is ignore the psychic phase, like Necrons.

Emphasis mine.

Tau have always been one dimensional in design. They were introduced with the idea that they, as a species, found close combat to be an anathema to their way of war. So, they had their allies, the Kroot, for that. Unfortunately, they were horribly designed for it. They had no save, no real 'combat' ability, and had Rapid Fire weapons. At best, they were a screening unit. Tau have had shooting as their bread and butter for ~16yrs now. The basic rules have just come to a position that drastically highlights this particular way of war. And of course, the codex writers jumped the proverbial shark, as it were, when writing their 6th/7th ed codeci.

And Tau don't get to avoid the Gets Hot! rule. Our plasma weaponry is lower strength then Imperial variants, so therefore, does not Get Hot!. All the other weaponry we have that does Get Hot!, unless it is twin-linked, or boosted to the point of re-rolls for high BS, we have to worry about killing/hurting us too. And we aren't the only army that has twin-linked Gets Hot! weapons, so that's not all on us either.

Also, please stop trying to shove 'melee suits' down our throats. Very few of us want that (at least the players that enjoy the Tau for their fluff certainly don't). We don't "Set up a tent" across the table from you because we can't engage in melee. We play to the strengths in our army that the current rules encourage. Speaking for myself only here, castling up in my deployment zone makes for a hellaciously boring game. I'm far more mobile than most marine armies I face, actually.

I've said it many times in this thread, but those of us who actually love the army for its fluff, are as unhappy with the ultra-suit spam and the ungodly formation benefits we enjoy that many of you are - and those of us with an ounce of sportsmanship have actively decided not to use the grossly ridiculous offenders.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


And now we see that you actually have no idea what Orks (As per the example given) could even use in this case to kill off the Drones. Let me just say that Ork shooting is, generally, one of the worse in the game. Given that your Markerlight bearers in this situation are close enough to the Fire Warriors to benefit from Supporting Fire, they can't really be charged out, without this situation happening, and any shooting will be negligent, as the Tau player can take out the few decent Ork shooting units with Stormsurges, Seeker Missiles, etc etc.

Well, Ork Lootas are a good shooting unit to take out any markerlight unit as they outrange the markerlight and also negate saves. So then it is a matter of getting them into position and keeping them alive. Or there is Lobbas. Again they outrange markerlights, they also negate pathfinder armour and could potentially negate cover depending on what cover the pathfinders have. They don't require LOS either.

So then it is just a matter of keeping those units alive, which is best done by distracting the scary stuff with your scary CC stuff loaded in battlewagons and keeping their AV14 pointing at the Tau army. Hold them back out of markerlight range until you've weakened the markerlight units. The Tau player will have to react in order to try and take out the units hitting their markerlight sources, which can pull their units out of position and into the range of your own guns.