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I know the base range is 30 inches, but in 5.0 what is the range that they can double shot at? is it 12 inches or 15 inches?

All rapid fire is, and has been since 3rd Ed, 12".

thanks for the answer. but I always thought it was half of there max range

thedarkside69 wrote:thanks for the answer. but I always thought it was half of there max range

That's a common misconception based upon the fact that up until Tau all Rapid Fire weapons were 24" range weapons. It as always been 12". I even have my 3rd, 4th, and 5th rulebooks with me if you need page refs.

no I believe you, thanks for the help

No problem, always glad to help!

Although...there are plenty of people in the "proposed rules" section that think Tau should have 5" rapid fire to help a small part in making up for their general suckiness. I happen to agree.

Dashofpepper wrote:Although...there are plenty of people in the "proposed rules" section that think Tau should have 5" rapid fire to help a small part in making up for their general suckiness. I happen to agree.

I think those people are a bit narrow sighted in seeing how nasty Tau can be in 5th.

Marius Xerxes wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Although...there are plenty of people in the "proposed rules" section that think Tau should have 5" rapid fire to help a small part in making up for their general suckiness. I happen to agree.

I think those people are a bit narrow sighted in seeing how nasty Tau can be in 5th.

It is interesting you should say that Tau can be nasty in 5e. I’m sure they can -- any army can have a good day through luck. The game designer needs to look at the overall picture rather than special cases.

Tau was a good army under 4e and was capable of ranking high in tournaments. Many players (not just Tau owners) consider that various changes in 5e worked against Tau more than they worked for them or worked in favour of other armies. Since these reasons have been fully explained in the “How to fix Tau” thread I need not mention them again.

I would be interested to hear your reasons for why Tau do not need any adjustments.

Perhaps you could contribute to the “Fix Tau” thread. It is well worth hearing all sides of an argument otherwise there is the danger of the Tau Need to be Fixed people (like me) falling into groupthink.

gotta love tau and thier massed firepower
as said, rapid is 12", allthough, i had allways assumed it was half until i checked lol.

tau with 15" rapid would be pretty nasty, but alas, im now an ork player, and enjoy my 18" assult 2 XD
even if it takes 100 shots to kill a marine.

Tau did win GT Heat 2. I agree they suffer in 5th in comparison to 4th, but there is evidence a good player can make them compete.

I have always felt that Tau was an army rather like DE which in the hands of a good player could place highly by clever use of the right tactics such as mobility and firepower.

kill, i agree 100%


ive seen a 2k match of tau VS ork.

rough set up:

Ork: 2 wagonz, (one for boyz 1 for nobz and boss) 3 units of trukk boyz and some varous other things.

tau: 3 railheads, a few crisis suits, stealth suits and alot of FW's.

tau's 1st 2 turns consisted of killing all ork transport, leaving the boyz to slog, and then be cut down by plenty of fire.

basic tactic, but tau can pull it off better than most due to thier amazing weps, the standard rifle will glance trukks on a 5 and pen on a 6, so with 10 fire warriors thats pretty much a dead trukk, very quickly.

But if those Tau didn't go first, they would probably have lost.

As an Ork player, if I go first, turn 1 I have 3 trukks and maybe a battlewagon scooting 13-19" across the board towards you. If it was Dawn of War, two of them started 24" on. If it was Pitched battle, they all started 12" on. If I had to go second, my trukks are going into cover, or screening each other. At this point, I'm 25+ inches across the board at a MINIMUM. Tau turn 1, I'm not worried about them blowing up my transports. Lets say they all get blown up. So?

Turn2: I waaugh, and Ghazghkull gives me a free 6" fleet. I've got up to 18" to assault here, which covers pretty much the whole board from my turn1 moves.

I play Tau and Ork. The Tau are mine, the Orks are my wife's. I rarely lose with my Tau. I can smoke some serious bottom with them. However, when I put Tau next to Ork and compare them....there is no contest. Ork can outshoot Tau. Try making a Tau Gunline and sticking it up against an Ork Gunline. Firewarriors and suits can't compare with the awesome destructive power of 3 squads of Lootas, and when you tack on a couple of Shokk Attack guns for your HQs...

On top of that, Ork can make a brutal assault army, potentially better than anyone elses' assault army. Ghazghkull+nobs(equipped differently) in a battlewagon with a Deffrolla are no joke.

I suppose my point is that if you watched a 2000 point game of Tau vs. ork and the Tau brutalized the Orks, the orks did something wrong.