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I tried to start this thread on warseer but like usual on that site all i got was "waaaaaahhh waaaahhh the sky is green the grass is blue I want to argue with anything even if I don't have a clue what the argument is." basically people just digging up one or two units outside the tau that have shields like the SM chaplin and saying "you're an idiot, this disproves your entire dumb concept becuase everyone has shields all over the place like their pocket watches."

So here I am.

I believe the tau army should have more shield use and less armor. Here is why.

Tau have a bit of an identity crisis. Not in the normal sense of athstetic but in the sense of what they are supposed to do. I'm a new tau player and I've gathered most of this from current players and a little of my own experience. it seems that most tau players are confused why we are the shooty army, but we aren't too great at shooting. Unlike the other shooty armies we don't have 1) mass numbers or lots of templates to make up for innacurate shooting or 2)very accurate troops to make up for small numbers.

Tau are also the mobile army. But they are out mobilised by at least 3 other armies.

These two facts stick tau in an awkward position. They basically have no melee whatsoever, but aren't all that great at shooting. (yes they can be amazing at it sometimes) In general they are mediocre at everything they aren't horrible at. I'm not saying they are a bad army, i like playing them, but they don't seem to have a real niche.

Now for the fluff reasons:

Every race has some sort of sheild like technology, but they are all very rare. Mostly just on characters because they are either an ancient relic, a one off invention, so difficult to produce it's too expensive, or so huge it only fits on titans.

The only exception to this is Tau. They can obviously slap shield gens on battle suits like it's nothing, they even throw them on small mass produced disposable drones. They seem to be the only race that has mastered stable reliable shield technology to the point of it being common place.

The mentality of tau combat is stay at range, shoot a lot, move and repeat. The concept of close combat is completely foreign to them. In my opinion that mentality would lead to the logical conclusion of using sheilds instead of armor in most cases. Especially considering the Tau ideals of mobile combat shields are lighter and easier to move around than big bulky armor. If the entire concept of close combat doesn't even occur to you, and your entire races mode of thinking when it comes to war is that you should always be at a decently long range and should always moving the lighter, slimmer, more efficient shield is the natural conclusion.

More specifically if your mode of warfare revolves around small numbers of well trained soldiers making precision strikes at range (where shields work best) it becomes even more important to make sure each soldier is well protected.

Tau aren't known for heavy thick armor because it reduces mobility, they would obviously use shields in most applications that the other races would use armor for, especially considering how numberous and common shields are for them.


Game mechanics:

not too much to say on this because this is the main part I would like discussion on. I was thinking something like 5+ inv save on all fire warriors instead of their normal armor save to represent them each carrying a shield smaller than the ones mounted on suits. Also having all suits and vehicles come with the 4+ shield automatically. Basically getting rid of armor across the board and replacing it with shields. Except vehicles which would have very thin armor and good shields to compensate.



So basically my opinion is that all the fluff involving the tau technology, the way they conduct war, and even their mentality as a society would naturally lead to them using shields instead of armor and having them on all units. (think protoss from starcraft) Also the game mechanics would help establish a very solid flavor for the tau and seperate them from all the races they are similar too yet not quite as good as. This is not a "make tau better" idea, but a "make tau different and flavorful" idea. obviously unit costs and such would have to be increased.

I like the concept.


prehaps FWs should be able to purchase a Drone that grants the squad a 5+ invuln save against shooting attacks and they keep their 4+ armor. Similer to eldar DAs and their shimmer shields the exarch can get.

T'au vehicles are flimsy enough as is. A 4+ cover would be better then an Invuln. RAW: unless the wargear says so specifically you can't take an Invuln save against damage results. a points increase of 30 pts would probably cover this upgrade.


or maybe have a special vehicle that grants a Invuln save(obscured for vehicles) to all T'au models within a radius against Shooting attacks.

For 5 points Tau vehicles can get a 4+ cover against most ranged weapons already.

Well T'au vehicles are under priced anyway.

the most powerful gun in the game for 135 pts?

seriously, where did the balance go?

FW are overpriced and compulsory so it balances out. We also suffer having all our best units taking up the same slot so having 1 underpriced unit is acceptable I think.

Wut? Devilfish are 80 pts, base.

Hammerhead with railgun is 150 with burst cannons.
Ionhead is 115.

How many points is a vendetta? Oh yeah, 130 pts for 3 twin-linked lascannons, scout move, transport, fast.
Yeah, I'll trade you.

I appreciate the replies guys. But please do not let this thread turn into a discussion of if tau or overcosted or undercosted. I was more looking for an opinion on the use of shields being more wide spread, the tau can obvious make them on the same tech level as guard make lasguns, and i think it fits the fluff of tau quite a bit.

I think it would be good if Tau could have good inv saves on lots of models (lowering the armour on infantry) but the saves only work for shooting. E.g giving FW a 5+and 3++. of course the points would need to be adjusted.

4M2A wrote:I think it would be good if Tau could have good inv saves on lots of models (lowering the armour on infantry) but the saves only work for shooting. E.g giving FW a 5+and 3++. of course the points would need to be adjusted.

I like the idea of it only working against shooting. It makes fluff sense because if your entire race evolved with the mindset of "every attack I'm going to recieve is going to be a ranged attack because i've never heard of seriously trying to hit someone with a pointy stick in hundreds of years" with no concept of close combat you would develop defensive technology to stop ranged attacks.

Well, I'd really hate to see GW pump out different models for Tau infantry, but if you think about it realistically:

While it is true that an IRL plasma field can stop any material projectile and allow only light to pass through, these are not cheap, and don't work against lasers, at all. Armor, on the other hand, stops bullets that have slowed due to resistance over long range, and can be used with absorbant paint to reduce the firepower of a laser. The Vehicles also can be given cover against all foes > 12" away, so that's essentially long range shielding. Otherwise, I think the Tau's real niche lies in technology, and they need more of it to emphasize this. I'm thinking something more along the lines of direct jamming or range dampening (ever play EVE Online anyone? Sensor Dampening, Jamming, and Tracking disruption; let's apply them to potential combat rules?)

If Tau were really electronic based, they'd have a unit that could either dazzle a target through laser rifles that damage retina's/camera's, jam enemies by jamming radar, or emp, or even create false target signatures to confuse enemies. Dazzle enemies could force them to test for night fighting, or force them to take an attribute test to see if they can assault, jam/emp enemies could force them to take a test to see if they can shoot, false target signatures could provide cover saves because enemies don't know what the real targets are. Forcing people to take lots of tests to see if they can do things is a pretty dynamic way of taking out enemy units effectiveness beyond the standard "shoot you, you dead, you do nothing"

And 4M2A, by best units are you talking about HQ/Elite Crisis Suits, or Heavy Support Hammerheads?

Xyrael wrote:While it is true that an IRL plasma field can stop any material projectile and allow only light to pass through, these are not cheap, and don't work against lasers, at all.

Really? How many true defensive plasma fields do you know of IRL? Powered shields of any kind that are powerful enough to stop a projectile are so high-tech that it's not reasonable for us to claim we understand how they'd work. The ones you might see in the news are there to obscure what's behind them like a holofield, or to mark an area as obviously off-limits like an electric fence, not to actually stop a bullet.

@OP:
I like the idea from a fluff perspective. That said, you should realize that invulnerable saves aren't nearly as useful as you might like, because if you set up terrain according to GW's guidelines it's not too hard to get a 4+ cover save - which is almost as good as a 4+ invulnerable, and you don't have to pay for it.

Xyrael wrote:Well, I'd really hate to see GW pump out different models for Tau infantry, but if you think about it realistically:

While it is true that an IRL plasma field can stop any material projectile and allow only light to pass through, these are not cheap, and don't work against lasers, at all. Armor, on the other hand, stops bullets that have slowed due to resistance over long range, and can be used with absorbant paint to reduce the firepower of a laser. The Vehicles also can be given cover against all foes > 12" away, so that's essentially long range shielding. Otherwise, I think the Tau's real niche lies in technology, and they need more of it to emphasize this. I'm thinking something more along the lines of direct jamming or range dampening (ever play EVE Online anyone? Sensor Dampening, Jamming, and Tracking disruption; let's apply them to potential combat rules?)

If Tau were really electronic based, they'd have a unit that could either dazzle a target through laser rifles that damage retina's/camera's, jam enemies by jamming radar, or emp, or even create false target signatures to confuse enemies. Dazzle enemies could force them to test for night fighting, or force them to take an attribute test to see if they can assault, jam/emp enemies could force them to take a test to see if they can shoot, false target signatures could provide cover saves because enemies don't know what the real targets are. Forcing people to take lots of tests to see if they can do things is a pretty dynamic way of taking out enemy units effectiveness beyond the standard "shoot you, you dead, you do nothing"

And 4M2A, by best units are you talking about HQ/Elite Crisis Suits, or Heavy Support Hammerheads?

That's another awesome idea to emphisize the technology of tau. (i played eve for quite some time btw)

The only worry I have there is that approaches eldar tech. Less so in 40k, but in epic 40k you see a lot more eldar using things that disrupt enemy targeting as a defensive measure over having thick armor. But if it's made different enough from this than it could work very well.

I would like to see the race take a completey difference approach to war than the other races, especially since they developed so isolated and without influence from other races. Almost every other race has the ingrained idea that "more defence equals thicker armor." and it would be cool if this concept was completely foreign to the tau and they instead approach war from the concept of "if you want to stop a projectile shields are the obvious choice, what is this armor you speak of and why would you use it since it's so heavy."




Automatically Appended Next Post:

DaveL wrote:

Xyrael wrote:While it is true that an IRL plasma field can stop any material projectile and allow only light to pass through, these are not cheap, and don't work against lasers, at all.

Really? How many true defensive plasma fields do you know of IRL? Powered shields of any kind that are powerful enough to stop a projectile are so high-tech that it's not reasonable for us to claim we understand how they'd work. The ones you might see in the news are there to obscure what's behind them like a holofield, or to mark an area as obviously off-limits like an electric fence, not to actually stop a bullet.

@OP:
I like the idea from a fluff perspective. That said, you should realize that invulnerable saves aren't nearly as useful as you might like, because if you set up terrain according to GW's guidelines it's not too hard to get a 4+ cover save - which is almost as good as a 4+ invulnerable, and you don't have to pay for it.

I didn't think of that. It's hard for me to get out of the mindset of invul saves being awesome good and rare. So perhaps just swapping the 4+ armor save FW hae now for a 5+ inv would actually be fine. It's less than cover, but you have it all the time no matter what.

In my Fan-dex the Shield drones have been changedto provide a 3" bubble of protection against ranged attacks only. They start out providing a 5+ inv for a single drone and drops for each additional drone down to a maximum inv save of 3+.

Failed saves apply only to the model, so if a FW is killed it does not affact the drone. the drones are destroyed when they fail their own save. I always hated the intervening drone concept where the drone would be jumping all over the place. Seriously, how would you be able to shoot....but I digress.

I think in their next codex the drone tech will be more prevalent. I just hope that they drop model count to compensate for this rather than dropping armour.

The OP's first post sounds like he is suggesting dropping the armour partially or completely. This would then make the Tau too much like Deamons. If he is suggesting dropping to a 5+ armour save then the Tau become a less effective version of what they used to be and would be to similar to eldar guardians and IG troops.

@OP- Your analysis seems to miss the point that Shields are a form of armour and armour is a form of body shielding. I would prefer the Tau to keep both with an increase to what is,IMO, the truly distictive Tau ability to tailor their units to the armies needs.

skullkandy wrote:
Tau have a bit of an identity crisis.

I will get behind almost anything that eases this with the army. Being more shield centric is a pretty good path, and coincides nicely with where I would like to see the fluff go, which is more AI centric.

DaveL wrote:

Xyrael wrote:While it is true that an IRL plasma field can stop any material projectile and allow only light to pass through, these are not cheap, and don't work against lasers, at all.

Really? How many true defensive plasma fields do you know of IRL? Powered shields of any kind that are powerful enough to stop a projectile are so high-tech that it's not reasonable for us to claim we understand how they'd work. The ones you might see in the news are there to obscure what's behind them like a holofield, or to mark an area as obviously off-limits like an electric fence, not to actually stop a bullet.

They're called Plasma Windows, and were invented by Brookhaven National Laboratory (the U.S.) they have to be contained within a magnetic field. Which means it's not a true defensive utility; though I wouldn't put them beyond possible military applications. They're used in particle accelerators, because they can stop particles.

I'm not sure that turning Tau into a Star Wars droid army will solve their identity crisis.

I think a purchasable upgrade that uses existing fluff/rules would be a better solution. Something like a unit-wide stealth field.... maybe a stealth field drone for the unit.

focusedfire wrote:In my Fan-dex the Shield drones have been changedto provide a 3" bubble of protection against ranged attacks only. They start out providing a 5+ inv for a single drone and drops for each additional drone down to a maximum inv save of 3+.

Failed saves apply only to the model, so if a FW is killed it does not affact the drone. the drones are destroyed when they fail their own save. I always hated the intervening drone concept where the drone would be jumping all over the place. Seriously, how would you be able to shoot....but I digress.

I think in their next codex the drone tech will be more prevalent. I just hope that they drop model count to compensate for this rather than dropping armour.

The OP's first post sounds like he is suggesting dropping the armour partially or completely. This would then make the Tau too much like Deamons. If he is suggesting dropping to a 5+ armour save then the Tau become a less effective version of what they used to be and would be to similar to eldar guardians and IG troops.

@OP- Your analysis seems to miss the point that Shields are a form of armour and armour is a form of body shielding. I would prefer the Tau to keep both with an increase to what is,IMO, the truly distictive Tau ability to tailor their units to the armies needs.

shields are a form of defense for sure. I'm using the term armor to refer to actual physical plates used to defend by way of their bulk. In my mind a race that evolved knowing only ranged combat and thinking melee combat to be unsavory would develop technology that mostly just defended against ranged attacks with little thought to melee defense. Also the way they hold mobility in very high reguard would lead to them naturally choosing the less bulky energy shield over adding more plates of physical armor to strengthen the defense of units.

This does cross into deamon territory though, i forgot about them because I never actually play against them. hrm, i wonder what would be a good way to distinguish this from deamons. I do think tau need a better defense somehow though. They are a low-in-numbers force that is supposedly small groups of elite units. But that's hard to do if your units die almost as easily as guardsman.

skullkandy wrote:shields are a form of defense for sure. I'm using the term armor to refer to actual physical plates used to defend by way of their bulk. In my mind a race that evolved knowing only ranged combat and thinking melee combat to be unsavory would develop technology that mostly just defended against ranged attacks with little thought to melee defense. Also the way they hold mobility in very high reguard would lead to them naturally choosing the less bulky energy shield over adding more plates of physical armor to strengthen the defense of units.

This does cross into deamon territory though, i forgot about them because I never actually play against them. hrm, i wonder what would be a good way to distinguish this from deamons. I do think tau need a better defense somehow though. They are a low-in-numbers force that is supposedly small groups of elite units. But that's hard to do if your units die almost as easily as guardsman.

1)What do you think of my stacked drone and armour defense?

2)You are failing to understand the Tau armour design. It is not desined for CC but for ranged warfare. The shield on thier upper arm has very little use in CC but look at the crouched/kneeling model and you will see thatthe Plate does a great job of covering center mass. The Tau are a practical race and if science suggests that body armour is a good defense against half of the weapons they face then they would use it. Personally I really like the look of the Fire Warriors.

3)IHMO Your assessment of their Identity crisis is a bit off. Also IMO, the Tau were designed as a middle army. A xenos army that fell somewhere between SM's, Eldar, and IG. They were supposed to be almost as shooty the IG, almost as mobile as the Eldar, and almost as low of a modelcount army as the SM's. The Tau fit into the position they were designed for pretty well. The problems that they are currently facing can mostly be attributed to the age of the codex and power creep within the game.

What if, hypothetically, their armor save gets decreased to 5+ and then the "Sheild" drones give them a 5+ cover save/+1 to whatever cover save they had (max of 3+)? The cover save only works against ranged shots, and it's not an invulnerable save like the Daemons.

And 4M2A, by best units are you talking about HQ/Elite Crisis Suits, or Heavy Support Hammerheads?

Well the elites block is the main problem but heavy support suffers from this a bit. I really think stealth suits need to be fast attack.

I quite like the ideas so far. I think they really need to emphasize that Tau aren't really a race thats suited for combat. They aren't fast, strong, or tough however what they do have is easiest access to some really good gear. I think the items should be very customisable (as they currently are) and be improved to help us survive such a combat heavy environment. We really need more defensive stuff.

I'm giving the Tau Bentu'mont(Wise War or Guerilla) Tactics.

With this rule-In any turn that a fire caste unit does not move they may voluntarily fall back, in any direction, at the beginning of their opponents assault phase. This fall back occurs after the assault phase has started but before models are moved into base contact. The models will have to roll to regroup in their following turn and if this roll is failed the units fall back normally.

@4M2A- The Tau have the same physical stats as humans. They just have eyes that don't adjust quite as fast to depth perception changes as humans. This affects initiative for in close combat but has no real effect on ranged warfare. Their lower WS is purely due to lack of "Focus"(Sorry for the pun, but I had to) on HtH training. Other than those two small things the tau are just as tough and strong as the average human.

Again we go back to codex creep. 10-12 years ago the average Gaurdsman or Eldar gaurdian represented what was supposed to be the norm. Time has changed this.

focusedfire wrote:
@4M2A- The Tau have the same physical stats as humans. They just have eyes that don't adjust quite as fast to depth perception changes as humans. This affects initiative for in close combat but has no real effect on ranged warfare. Their lower WS is purely due to lack of "Focus"(Sorry for the pun, but I had to) on HtH training. Other than those two small things the tau are just as tough and strong as the average human.
.

Actually I think that's not in the current codex; so I guess they all got contacts.

The existence of bonding knives and honour blades (and particularly the stats of Farsight, the Aun, and so on) put the lie to notion that the Tau aren't familiar with close combat.

The emphasis on ranged combat is deliberate, just like Farsight's relative emphasis on close combat is deliberate (though in narrative terms I'd suggest it's the logical answer for a military cut off from the supplies of advanced weaponry that render close combat the idiot's way to fight).

I like how Markerlights and other direct-synergy rules in the Codex make them fight more like modern soldiers than the Imperial Guard. The notion for Shields is interesting, ignoring the bizarre arguments made by the original poster in favour of them, but what really ties the army together is their combined-arms approach.

Maybe if they generalized all Markerlights to act like Networked Markerlights, allowed them to boost BS past 5, and basically reworked them for 5th edition, added "Ordnance, Large Blast" to Seeker Missiles, emphasized the Stealth technology they have access to, and gave the little blue bastards Combat Tactics then I think they'd be just fine.

The argument that shields would be better I think would turn Tau into Daemons. Now, while Daemons are the only ones based purely on invul saves (which means it'd be nice to spread the invul love) you can't really add a 3+ invul save to basic troopers against shooting.... That'd gimp all other shooting armies, and ignores weapon strength: If a lascannon or D-cannon hits a shield, what chance does an infantry-sized shield generator have when the poor guys being sucked into a gravity well? OTT. Giving all Tau units Conceal, just like the Eldar, would work better as a "shield", and that shield would be like the disruption field, only for infantry.

Also, the argument that Tau are inexposed to close combat doesn't work; not because of Bonding Knives or O'Shovah, but because their first foes were Orks, their most numerous foes were Orks... Humans and Tyranids have been in there as well.

Also, combat tactics for Fire Warriors would be amazing.

Are not the drones supposed to be the 'meat shield' for the tau? I suppose the 5th edition rules have crippled that idea in which case an update to the codex to allow wounds to first be attributed to drones for Tau would be in order.

Xyrael wrote:The argument that shields would be better I think would turn Tau into Daemons. Now, while Daemons are the only ones based purely on invul saves (which means it'd be nice to spread the invul love) you can't really add a 3+ invul save to basic troopers against shooting.... That'd gimp all other shooting armies, and ignores weapon strength: If a lascannon or D-cannon hits a shield, what chance does an infantry-sized shield generator have when the poor guys being sucked into a gravity well? OTT. Giving all Tau units Conceal, just like the Eldar, would work better as a "shield", and that shield would be like the disruption field, only for infantry..

Or like I said previously, allow them to purchase wargear/drones that provide a stealth field like for stealth suits.

Xyrael wrote:Also, the argument that Tau are inexposed to close combat doesn't work; not because of Bonding Knives or O'Shovah, but because their first foes were Orks, their most numerous foes were Orks... Humans and Tyranids have been in there as well..

I guess this has always bothered me too. I mean, you can dislike close combat all you like but any intelligent species wouldn't ignore it to the point they'd just law down and die when a marine breaths on them...

Xyrael wrote:Also, combat tactics for Fire Warriors would be amazing.

Wouldn't work because their initiative is so low; they'd never be able to get away from an opponent to make it work unless you added that such checks are made at a higher initiative to denote their disciplined training.

agnosto wrote:

Xyrael wrote:Also, combat tactics for Fire Warriors would be amazing.

Wouldn't work because their initiative is so low; they'd never be able to get away from an opponent to make it work unless you added that such checks are made at a higher initiative to denote their disciplined training.

Unless being Bonded gave them a +2 Initiative for the purpose of those tests. To show that it "wasn't their first time to the rodeo", so to speak.

focusedfire wrote:I'm giving the Tau Bentu'mont(Wise War or Guerilla) Tactics.

With this rule-In any turn that a fire caste unit does not move they may voluntarily fall back, in any direction, at the beginning of their opponents assault phase. This fall back occurs after the assault phase has started but before models are moved into base contact. The models will have to roll to regroup in their following turn and if this roll is failed the units fall back normally.

Is it just me or does that seem 110% super overpowered? Here you have a unit with good shooting are horrible assault skills whose ability allows them to escape assault altogether.
Space Marines have this, but first you have to fight through a round of close combat, which generally means losing a marine or two.

I think the problem with Fire Warriors is not their lack of ability to evade assaults, but simply their cost. They cost nearly as much as a Space Marine, yet they are inferior in every way except for their gun's 6" and +1 Str.

I do think Tau should be more shield-centric. When I first read about their shield generators, I wondered "Why aren't these more prevalent?" I think it fits their fluff and would realy showcase their 'technologically advanced' identity.

I think the idea of a FW squad upgrade of a drone that offers a non-melee 5+ Invul save to the squad is a good idea. Its not too overpowered since they should be in cover anyways and its just more points for a costly unit. Since all the races overlap to some degree, its actually a good idea to share the Invul saves with Daemons.

The Tau Bentu'mont is another good idea. Remember that FWs don't have ATSKNF and have to regroup next turn, so they might keep running (additionally so if they are being chased by assaulters). Maybe a LD test or something to initiate the fallback would balance it.

But then again, I could be completely wrong in my estimation of power level.

Mad Rabbit wrote:Is it just me or does that seem 110% super overpowered? Here you have a unit with good shooting are horrible assault skills whose ability allows them to escape assault altogether.
Space Marines have this, but first you have to fight through a round of close combat, which generally means losing a marine or two.

I think the problem with Fire Warriors is not their lack of ability to evade assaults, but simply their cost. They cost nearly as much as a Space Marine, yet they are inferior in every way except for their gun's 6" and +1 Str.

First, Combat Tactics is not limited to Assaults. It can be used any time that the squad with this rule takes a morale test. This may not seem to matter until your Eldar has whittled a squad down but before the coup d' grat they fall back. Then they automatically regroup the next turn.

And you say that my Idea is OP

As to points cost, If you make Fire warriors cheap they break their fluff and become xenos guard. If I wanted to play a horde guard army, I would play IG.
It is my deepest hope that in the next codex that the Tau are improved up to their points cost as opposed to being dropped in cost just to sell more models.