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.

I think if everything in tau had shields it would become quite a frustrating army to play against.. I just envision seer council or SS termies on everything and go yuk.

I think tau should just get more accurate firepower. All those lenses and optics and their still bs3..

focusedfire wrote:

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.

Yes, your idea is in fact OP. Let's look at the shooting example. In that case, the Space Marine player has taken casualties. He doesn't get to have his marines fall back at the beginning of the phase to avoid being shot altogether.
What balances Combat Tactics is that you must take casualties for it to work. If your tac squad wins a combat that you don't want them in, tough cookies, they're staying.
If my assault squad is just barely at 5-6" out at the beginning of my assault phase and you get to fall back without taking casualties, that's a death sentence for my squad. They get to sit out in the open while the rest of your army shoots them up. At least against Space Marines I'd get the chance to do some damage before the squad escapes.

Mad Rabbit wrote:Yes, your idea is in fact OP. Let's look at the shooting example. In that case, the Space Marine player has taken casualties. He doesn't get to have his marines fall back at the beginning of the phase to avoid being shot altogether.
What balances Combat Tactics is that you must take casualties for it to work. If your tac squad wins a combat that you don't want them in, tough cookies, they're staying.
If my assault squad is just barely at 5-6" out at the beginning of my assault phase and you get to fall back without taking casualties, that's a death sentence for my squad. They get to sit out in the open while the rest of your army shoots them up. At least against Space Marines I'd get the chance to do some damage before the squad escapes.

There is a very big flaw to your argument. The marines can still just stand and shoot. At 6" the SM's out shoot the Tau.
Then there is the fact that you could combat squad during deployment and use the two resulting units to pin the Fire warriors where they could only fall back.


But, I understand, If it means that SM's might theoretically have to use tactics then it is OP.

focusedfire wrote:

Mad Rabbit wrote:Yes, your idea is in fact OP. Let's look at the shooting example. In that case, the Space Marine player has taken casualties. He doesn't get to have his marines fall back at the beginning of the phase to avoid being shot altogether.
What balances Combat Tactics is that you must take casualties for it to work. If your tac squad wins a combat that you don't want them in, tough cookies, they're staying.
If my assault squad is just barely at 5-6" out at the beginning of my assault phase and you get to fall back without taking casualties, that's a death sentence for my squad. They get to sit out in the open while the rest of your army shoots them up. At least against Space Marines I'd get the chance to do some damage before the squad escapes.

There is a very big flaw to your argument. The marines can still just stand and shoot. At 6" the SM's out shoot the Tau.
Then there is the fact that you could combat squad during deployment and use the two resulting units to pin the Fire warriors where they could only fall back.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Your plan is to protect FW's from assault. At 6", I think a FW squad will outgun an Assault squad, not to mention any nastier stuff you may have. Tac squads won't be charging you in the first place; they win close range firefights anyways.
This would really feth any assault unit over. For example, you get to neuter Crusader squads. Instead of charging and destroying FW squads, you get a dice roll. If you roll well enough, the Crusaders eat another turn of shooting, then they get another chance to maybe charge you.
Combat squads really have nothing to do with this. Theoretically, if I wanted to commit a unit to 2-3 turns of chasing FW's off the board, I could do so, and waste that unit, regardless of what squad it is. The lack of heavy weapons means that FW's would gain very little from combat squads anyway.
I don't have a problem with FW's having some sort of mechanism with which to get out of assault, but avoiding charges in the first place is unfair.

focusedfire wrote:But, I understand, If it means that SM's might theoretically have to use tactics then it is OP.

That's a bit much. Attacking me doesn't strengthen your argument.

Mad Rabbit wrote:I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Your plan is to protect FW's from assault. At 6", I think a FW squad will outgun an Assault squad, not to mention any nastier stuff you may have. Tac squads won't be charging you in the first place; they win close range firefights anyways.

Then you would be thinking wrong. You are forgetting that Assault squads get weapon upgrades. If you are in assault range then you are in range to use 2 Flamers + 8 Bolt pistols.

The average SM player will get about 6 FW per flamer for 12 hits then include 8 BS 4 shots comes for an additional 5-6 hits. This results in 19 S4 hits which comes to 12 wounds with 4+ save means 6 dead FW.

Now, 12 FW that rapid fire, but wait, the assault squad was out of range. If the FW want to rapid fire they must move. This means no voluntary fallback move. Now if you are looking at a turn of shooting while the Assault squad is at 15 inches the it is 12 S5 BS 3 shots, which means 6 hits, 4 wounds, 1.333-ish dead SM's.

Then the SM's move in and still pull 12 wounds mathematically, resulting in 6 dead FW.

As to the Tac Squads not charging. This statement tells me that you don't play Tau. Turn 4-6 they most definitely will assault Tau Fire Warriors if there is an objective involved.

Mad Rabbit wrote:This would really f*** any assault unit over. For example, you get to neuter Crusader squads. Instead of charging and destroying FW squads, you get a dice roll. If you roll well enough, the Crusaders eat another turn of shooting, then they get another chance to maybe charge you.

Re-introducing the running fire fight to this game will not hurt it one bit. This just adds a missing dimension to the game and there are tactics for dealing with this added aspect. Primarily the Bentu'mont would require inter-unit coordination to handle the added mobility of the Fire Warriors. If you know how to pull off a classic envelopement or pincer move then this proposed rule would only serve to make the game more interesting.

Mad Rabbit wrote:Combat squads really have nothing to do with this. Theoretically, if I wanted to commit a unit to 2-3 turns of chasing FW's off the board, I could do so, and waste that unit, regardless of what squad it is. The lack of heavy weapons means that FW's would gain very little from combat squads anyway.

I refer to the classic pincer move just above to answer what combat squads have "to do with this".

I find the line about "waste that unit" amusing. It sounds like you feel this rule is OP because you would have to fully commit a unit to remove a threat.

About the next line, please re-read the post. The SM player would combat squad, which is something similar to what is done IRL when dealing with an opponent using guerilla warfare tactics. I never implied the Tau getting such.

Mad Rabbit wrote:I don't have a problem with FW's having some sort of mechanism with which to get out of assault, but avoiding charges in the first place is unfair.

Yet the SM's have it and you have no problem with it being OP for the SM's. I again refer you to the fact that SM's can use combat tactics from morale checks caused by shooting.

focusedfire wrote:But, I understand, If it means that SM's might theoretically have to use tactics then it is OP.

Mad Rabbit wrote:That's a bit much. Attacking me doesn't strengthen your argument.

Not a personal attack, where the heck are you getting that.

I was attempting to sum up the position you've taken on this subject based upon your words. That your immediate reaction was that it must be OP because you didn't even begin to think about how there are simple counters to this proposed rule. Basically, that you had a knee jerk reaction without fully considering the available counter tactics.

Shaman wrote:I think if everything in tau had shields it would become quite a frustrating army to play against.. I just envision seer council or SS termies on everything and go yuk.

I think tau should just get more accurate firepower. All those lenses and optics and their still bs3..

We're talking about a 5+ save and only against shooting so it would be less frustrating than playing daemons who get 5+ against everything and definitely less frustrating than playing against nurgle and BAs with FnP spam.

Xyrael wrote:

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.

They don't work that way, sorry. They can stop certain kinds of particles, to a point. But their real function is to keep non-accelerated gas from escaping into a neighboring vacuum - which, honestly, is impressive enough. The reason I've seen for wanting them in particle accelerators is that they preserve the vacuum seal temporarily even when a particle punches through the wall of the accelerator, which prevents the serious damage to the accelerator itself that occurs because of a sudden increase in pressure. I've seen claims from science enthusiasts saying that they'll be more than that, but I've never seen anything from the people who actually work with them that says they could ever stop bullets.

As for the discussion of possible rules... if you want to distinguish Tau from daemons, why not make it so that the shield drones offer DE shadow field-like saves? (2++, or 3++, to the whole squad... but the first time it fails, the drone explodes, in addition to the shot getting through and hitting a normal squad member.)
(edited for grammar)

focusedfire wrote:

Mad Rabbit wrote:I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Your plan is to protect FW's from assault. At 6", I think a FW squad will outgun an Assault squad, not to mention any nastier stuff you may have. Tac squads won't be charging you in the first place; they win close range firefights anyways.

Then you would be thinking wrong. You are forgetting that Assault squads get weapon upgrades. If you are in assault range then you are in range to use 2 Flamers + 8 Bolt pistols.

The average SM player will get about 6 FW per flamer for 12 hits then include 8 BS 4 shots comes for an additional 5-6 hits. This results in 19 S4 hits which comes to 12 wounds with 4+ save means 6 dead FW.

Now, 12 FW that rapid fire, but wait, the assault squad was out of range. If the FW want to rapid fire they must move. This means no voluntary fallback move. Now if you are looking at a turn of shooting while the Assault squad is at 15 inches the it is 12 S5 BS 3 shots, which means 6 hits, 4 wounds, 1.333-ish dead SM's.

Then the SM's move in and still pull 12 wounds mathematically, resulting in 6 dead FW.

As to the Tac Squads not charging. This statement tells me that you don't play Tau. Turn 4-6 they sure will assault Tau Fire Warriors if there is an objective involved,

So you've proven that a full size assault squad can outgun a cheaper unit of FW's. No way. Most armies besides BA's run 5 man assault squads. Besides, your FW's can just move back into double tap range.

Mad Rabbit wrote:This would really f*** any assault unit over. For example, you get to neuter Crusader squads. Instead of charging and destroying FW squads, you get a dice roll. If you roll well enough, the Crusaders eat another turn of shooting, then they get another chance to maybe charge you.

Re-introducing the running fire fight to this game will not hurt it one bit. This just adds a missing dimension to the game and there are tactics for dealing with this added aspect. Primarily the Bentu'mont would require inter-unit coordination to handle the added mobility of the Fire Warriors. If you know how to pull off a classic envelopement or pincer move then this proposed rule would only serve to make the game more interesting.

Mad Rabbit wrote:So you've proven that a full size assault squad can outgun a cheaper unit of FW's. No way. Most armies besides BA's run 5 man assault squads. Besides, your FW's can just move back into double tap range.

Actually I proved that a 5 man assaut squad can out shoot a more expensive squad of 12 fire warriors.

Also, If the fire warriors move back in then they are unable to voluntarily fallback the next turn. You comment about them moving back in is giving me the impression that you are not even trying.

Mad Rabbit wrote:Running firefight? What about CC units that don't have pistols? How many fire warriors are bloodletters going to kill if you can escape their charges?

Plenty. if properly supported. Not so many if being used as a solo fire and forget unit.

Mad Rabbit wrote:So, in your mind, using a unit of my troops to escort yours off the map is a good use of them? There's nothing more important that my units could be doing? I do think its OP if I have to commit a unit for 3 turns to babysitting your FW's when they could be killed and run down in a single assault phase. If you have half a brain, you'll jump the babysitting unit with a small squad of kroot, giving the FW's time to get away and rally.
Also, combat squads are still irrelevant. If I want to do a pincer move, 2 5 man squads are as good as 1 10 man squad split in two.

Yes, They should have to work for it. And what is more important in 5th ed. than removing troops with your unit that is designed for such? Your telling me that you honestly can't see a way for a Jump-infantry unit to deal with this rule. Do you really want to admit such?

Seriously, You seem to think that you are going to be chasing these units all the way from your deployment zone. Not saying it wouldn't happen, just that it would be rare. Really, anyone that can't figure out how to cut off falling back units probably is the kind of player who doesn't understand how two five-man combat squads are better at limiting an opposing units mobility. .......Oh, by looking at you last sentence here, I see that you might be that kind of player.

Mad Rabbit wrote:If you shoot before you charge, you always run the risk of doing enough damage to cause a Ld test that could cost you the charge. So against SM's, my berzerkers won't shoot. That means the tac squad has no way to escape. Against your FW, there's nothing I can do. You get to escape no matter what.

Your ability to rationalize a double standard is most impressive. You ignore that the SM's get to automatically regroup and that this leaves the SM unit in perfect counter attack position.
Yet, after the first turn of the Bentu'mont, the FW have to test for regrouping and if failed they are falling back normally. This means they will be unable to dodge the next assault.

Your exaggeration of them getting to escape, "no matter what" shows that you are not even trying to find tactics to counter this. So yeah, if your not going to use tactics this would seem OP

Mad Rabbit wrote:You're suggesting that I panic at the notion of Space Marines needing to use tactics. I fail to see how that's not a personal attack. No, I guess you were really just trying to "sum up my argument for me." Gee, thanks buddy.

You chose to use the word panic. I said knee-jerk. The are not the same but it is interesting that you chose that word. and BTW, You are welcome.

Not to mention that an MEQ assault squad has flamers and special weapons which all kill firewarriors in droves.

I like the Shadowfield-esque idea. That would make a shield drone worth 30pts. But, I would prefer something a little more tactically reliable.

My proposal would be the ability to buy drones but they don't occupy Force Org. Gun drones would have to be taken in squads of 2/3-10, Shield Drones could be taken as 1-3 and can be split up in any way, same with marker drones. This way you could allocate shields/marker lights to whichever squad you need.

Or, maybe you would be able to buy a certain ammount of drone units (not just 1-3 drones) per drone controller in the army, and make the drone controller standard sergeant wargear.

I don't think the personalized force field generator is quite up to Tau technological abilities. But mounting the larger, bulkier generators on drones with anti-gravetic platforms is well within the scope of their science.