Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 LeadLegion wrote:
A good player will take advantage of the manouverability afforded by the Devilfish

A good Tau player isn't using devilfish, because they're too expensive, their firepower is inconsequential for the price paid, and you're ferrying around fire warriors who, as you rightly pointed out, don't want to move out of their deployment zone anyway. So other than picking up a squad and losing valuable turns of shooting just to put it even closer into melee range for your opponent, you're not really accomplishing anything else with them and you're just wasting points that could have been spent on other, better things.

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.

Objectives in the midfield and enemy zone aren't enough of an incentive?

 Enigma Crisis wrote:


Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

I have often found there is very little need to buff BS to above 5, except where riptides are concerned, and i don't use riptides. Crisis suits clear the board far more efficiently, and far more quickly than any riptide focused force will.
However the point still stands. An O'vesa Star is a fearsome unit, has reasonable firepower, and can take 14 wounds and still be at full strength. it is however 800 or so points, and so its kinda expected that 800 points of anything be a bit nasty. did i get that wrong? you honestly don't expect an 800 point unit to be nasty? its WAAC/TFG behaviour to expect expensive units (from any codex) to perform, or its WAAC/TFG behavior to take them in the first place?

madtankbloke wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:


Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

I have often found there is very little need to buff BS to above 5, except where riptides are concerned, and i don't use riptides. Crisis suits clear the board far more efficiently, and far more quickly than any riptide focused force will.
However the point still stands. An O'vesa Star is a fearsome unit, has reasonable firepower, and can take 14 wounds and still be at full strength. it is however 800 or so points, and so its kinda expected that 800 points of anything be a bit nasty. did i get that wrong? you honestly don't expect an 800 point unit to be nasty? its WAAC/TFG behaviour to expect expensive units (from any codex) to perform, or its WAAC/TFG behavior to take them in the first place?

So overpowered units are fine and dandy - as long as they are in your codex - awesome

 Sidstyler wrote:

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.

Hear hear. I, a fanatic 5th edition Tau player, completely lost interest on the army when the new codex came out.

It's just so damn boring. There is no challenge - you just sit & shuffle and shoot the crap out of everything. At least the old Codex forced you to make tactical gambits and tradeoffs, new book is all about spam, spam,spam. It's a terribly designed Codex.

madtankbloke wrote:

 Enigma Crisis wrote:


Marker Lights are much better now. No more cap to how much you can increase the BS of a unit, need less hits to remove cover, make a seeker missile Ignore Cover. The difference between the O'vesa Star and say a Draigowing or Wraithwing is the Ov'esa Star can easily remove those units in one round of shooting and make it's points back and a pain to get off the board being Majority Toughness 6, 2+, 5++ (3++), 5+++, has Fleet and Hit and Run due to the VRT at I5. If you say it's perfectly fine to run the Ovesastar and other people should get over it that's a WAAC/ TFG mentality.

I have often found there is very little need to buff BS to above 5, except where riptides are concerned, and i don't use riptides. Crisis suits clear the board far more efficiently, and far more quickly than any riptide focused force will.
However the point still stands. An O'vesa Star is a fearsome unit, has reasonable firepower, and can take 14 wounds and still be at full strength. it is however 800 or so points, and so its kinda expected that 800 points of anything be a bit nasty. did i get that wrong? you honestly don't expect an 800 point unit to be nasty? its WAAC/TFG behaviour to expect expensive units (from any codex) to perform, or its WAAC/TFG behavior to take them in the first place?

I expect a 800 pt unit to make it's points back it has shown with tournament results. However it's one of the few ones that are effective at doing that. Draigowings, Raven/Deathwing and Wraithwings rarely make their points back in this Edition heck even last edition after the initial shock they were easily countered. The O'vesa Star really doesn't have a weakness that nerfs or hinders it. No other codex has options to deal with it. It's WAAC/TFG behavior if you field it in anything but at a Tournament but don't expect to gain any brownie points with any of the other players. There are reasons why people have been turning down games with Tau players left and right in a lot of areas. Yes Daemons, Eldar, Gravgun White Scars can deal with them to a degree but the majority of other armies really don't and games are not enjoyable when there is a large chunk of the opponents army that you have no methods to deal with it.

I honestly think that the majority of complaints about Tau being broken revolve around being able to attach a support commander to the Riptide, which were then made worse when they let you take an IC Riptide and throw him in as well.

If you weren't allowed to attach IC to Riptides then I think the Tau codex would be knocked down a bit on the OP scale.

Or if Riptides didn't exist in normally scaled games. They (and Wraithknights) are like an apocalypse unit thrown into normal 40K. While cool and fun in one setting, not as much in the other.

I would agree with that if there weren't FMC pskers. Or if MC in general couldn't get access to things like Iron Arm or the Black mace.

The Riptide by itself is not bad, it's only when it gets support that really pushes it over the edge. The problem is that with the Buffcommander is the support is hard to get rid of. If it was only able to get support from marker units, then it would be balanced. I've tried it both ways and a Riptide using only marker support will generally always underperform for me. It takes a lot of 4+ or 5+ units to make the Riptides shots count when I really need them to.

Boniface wrote:
Just a curiosity this because they're like the most hated army in this edition presently.

I'd like to go on record and say i think assault is still mostly fine the way it is and i dont agree with all the gripes but... you know.

Now i don't think that all the changes are bad. Overwatch is fine, random charge length is fine however i do feel that maybe the charge should be rolled before overwatch so you can see if they were successful or not. I'd rather that than just saying "i'm gonna charge you," then person B shooting you and saying "not any more your not." at least this way your committing to the action first.

If outflank/scout assault was still possible etc.

So if there weren't so many 'nerfs' to assault in 6th ED would the Tau be less hated, or are we just doomed?

Assault aint dead man. Take a look


Night Lords incoming!

Feel free to tell me how I can make these better. I already know a couple things I messed up on. I enjoyed playing a close combat army. Been a while since I did, since its generally not my style of play regardless of the army. Night Lords are what I play when I wanna give in to my savage tendencies...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Objectives in the midfield and enemy zone aren't enough of an incentive?

No. Tau Plan A: kill everything, Tau Plan B: secure one ( or two ) table Objectives and then concentrate on atomizing the opponent.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Objectives in the midfield and enemy zone aren't enough of an incentive?

Not until you clear them, which you can do just as easily from your deployment zone most of the time. You don't move up to take an objective if doing so puts you in range to be shot at or assaulted.

madtankbloke wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Try taking an 800-point Deathstar as any MEQ Codex and see how well you end up. The fact that you're comparing Markerlights and Riptides to flamers and special issue ammunition makes it hard for me to take you seriously.

Yes, because Marker lights are the only unit in the game that has the ability to buff, or debuff anything, isn't it. and marker lights are the only way anyone can ever ignore cover with anything. oh wait....

and seriously, are you saying that having an 800 point deathstar that performs, is unfair because MARINES cant do it? because its a Tau army, and not a marine one, i'm not entitled to expect that a significant points investment should have the audacity to actually kill stuff??

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

"Almost exactly the same" except where they completely remove all cover for 2 lights now, and have Riptides available to buff.

If you take an 800-point unit from any Codex that isn't Daemons, Tau, or Eldar it'll almost certainly suck, or at least have a weakness. The O'Vesa star isn't unfair because it deals damage, it's unfair because it deals far more damage than other 800-point units. It's absurdly hard to kill and kicks out well above 800 points of damage.

The second half of your post is silly beyond belief. What I'm saying is that no one else (again, except Eldar and Daemons) gets anywhere near the power of an O'vesa star if they'd pay 800 points, so the level of damage you're expecting is skewed by playing what is arguably the most broken Codex in the game.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

madtankbloke wrote:

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

"Almost exactly the same" except where they completely remove all cover for 2 lights now, and have Riptides available to buff.

Markerlights are much better in new Codex. No more need for gazillion Markerlights to remove those pesky 2+/3+/4+ covers from Stealth, Going to ground or Turbo-Boost. Also, ML platforms have become cheaper and better. In the old Codex, only even remotely affordable way of getting plenty of Markerlights were Pathfinders: now, there are cheap and plentiful Marker Drones.

Sidstyler wrote:

It's GW's fault that games against Tau are "dull" in the end, not mine. They had a chance to give Tau more options and make them a more exciting army to play, but instead they encouraged Tau players to build a static gunline and spam the new $85 hotness, and not only that but they actually took away some of the Tau's mobility while they were at it just to further pigeon-hole us into playing that way. It's one of the reasons why I, as a Tau player, have equally lost interest in playing the game at this point, because I don't have fun sitting in one place the entire game, either, but it's currently not worthwhile to get into mid-range and risk being assaulted (other than with riptides, because they're one of the few units in the book that still have crazy mobility and they're survivable enough to make it worth the risk), when you can more easily win by sitting in your deployment zone the whole game. There's no incentive for a Tau player to move up the board at all. And there's only so much I can do as a player to make the game "fun" without just giving up any chance I have of actually winning.


Hear hear. I, a fanatic 5th edition Tau player, completely lost interest on the army when the new codex came out.

It's just so damn boring. There is no challenge - you just sit & shuffle and shoot the crap out of everything. At least the old Codex forced you to make tactical gambits and tradeoffs, new book is all about spam, spam,spam. It's a terribly designed Codex.

I feel the same way. Although I didn't so much lose interest in the army as a whole as I did loyalty to the army itself. This is to say that I will not hesitate to use allies, dataslates and supplements to make the Tau army play the way I think it should play. The thing is, this is a lot trickier than if the codex was designed properly I gave me all the tools I needed. It also tends to get you labeled as WAAC.

For those Tau players interested in a mobile army, Riptides are a godsend, but tend to draw a lot of hate, far more than the Hammerheads that they replace. But without the vehicle multitracker, the Tau player has no choice but to run a Riptide for mobile, heavy firepower. So it is either run Hammerheads and get accused to running a gunline because they were given a vehicle that can't function in other capacities, or run Riptides and get accused of WAAC, or just abandon your big guns entirely. It is a terrible dilemma the Tau player is put in that gets him hated just for running big guns in a shooting focused army. For anyone who hates playing against Tau, I suggest they let the Tau player run multitrackers and target locks on vehicles if they don't want to go up against Riptides, as this may improve the situation for everybody.

As for being unable to take cover saves against markerlights, while this might not make sense realistically, it does make sense from a game mechanics standpoint. You already have to take an absurd number of markerlights because half would miss do to BS test, and the ability to take saves would require the incorporation of additional lights. Also, as a means to deny cover saves, markerlights would not be very useful against models with 2+ and 3+ cover saves if they could be taken against the markerlights themselves, because the Tau player would be unable to get through the cover saves to generate the markerlight counters needed to bypass the selfsame cover saves.

Also in regard to markerlights, you were never permitted to take cover saves against them in the previous codex, as cover saves are a mechanic based around negating wounds, which markerlights do not inflict. I knew some people who insisted that they could take cover saves against the markerlights, but this is a mechanic of their own invention, it was never part of the actual rules..

Admittedly the whole implementation of markerlights is rather clunky. The idea of twelve models all in the same squad all marking the same tank makes no sense, certainly you wouldn't need more than one model per squad marking the target. Personally I think there are better ways of implementing markerlights than using a shooting attack, and I think markerlights should be distributed across the army rather than in one squad with a giant "shoot me" sign over it, but I am not the one writing the codices.

Backfire wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

madtankbloke wrote:

and marker lights are almost exactly the same as they were in the last codex, just an FYI

"Almost exactly the same" except where they completely remove all cover for 2 lights now, and have Riptides available to buff.

Markerlights are much better in new Codex. No more need for gazillion markerlights to remove those pesky 2+/3+/4+ covers from Stealth, Going to ground or Turbo-Boost. Also, ML platforms have become cheaper and better. In the old Codex, only even remotely affordable way of getting plenty of markerlights were Pathfinders: now, there are cheap and plentiful Marker Drones.

I think the point is markerlights have hardly changed at all (2 for ignore cover instead of one per point to decrease). They have actually gotten a small nerf (although not necessarily equal to the cover negation buff) in the fact that they lost the ability to impose leadership modifiers and allowing units to ignore night fighting. Nobody said anything about markerlight platforms. Pathfinders cost exactly the same (10 points originally, now 11 and come with photon grenades which were a 1 point upgrade). The only real difference is increasing the maximum squad size by two and making them not have to take a devilfish (being still massively overpriced despite the codex update). They also used to autmaticly come with a marker beacon which allowed you to re-roll deepstrike scatter dice if the devilfish was visible to the deep-striking unit (where you declared a deepstrike). Marker drone aren't 30 pts. anymore, and you can take them in gun drone squadrons, but that forces you to either have BS2 markerlights, or sacrifice a commander that could be doing work elsewhere.