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1hadhq wrote:

Same for smart missiles. Consider the cost of a missile and the cost of artillery. Imperial artillery wins because its ammo is affordable in numbers your smart missiles could never hope to match.

Smart Missles are the smaller sets of missles mounted on drones.Where do you have any sort of proof that overall the cost of firing an artillery shell is cheaper than firing a self-guided missle? Tau use smart missles and seeker missles instead of Artillery because they want precision strikes instead of indirect fire.

Brother Coa wrote:

nomotog wrote:
And you. Don't try to school tau fans about the tau. They already know more then you do about them.

While that's true they obviously lack good info about Imperium. I am only here to fill up that gap.

Then we require direct quotes with page numbers from the BrB, a codex or IA. If you can't do all that, then don't do anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mentlegen324 wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

Same for smart missiles. Consider the cost of a missile and the cost of artillery. Imperial artillery wins because its ammo is affordable in numbers your smart missiles could never hope to match.

Smart Missles are the smaller sets of missles mounted on drones.Where do you have any sort of proof that overall the cost of firing an artillery shell is cheaper than firing a self-guided missle? Tau use smart missles and seeker missles instead of Artillery because they want precision strikes instead of indirect fire.

We don't know much about what things cost. The SMS could cost as much as a battle fleet or be as cheap as a loaf of bread. Oh they aren't mounted on drones just battlesuits tanks or turrents.

nomotog wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

nomotog wrote:
And you. Don't try to school tau fans about the tau. They already know more then you do about them.

While that's true they obviously lack good info about Imperium. I am only here to fill up that gap.

Then we require direct quotes with page numbers from the BrB, a codex or IA. If you can't do all that, then don't do anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mentlegen324 wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

Same for smart missiles. Consider the cost of a missile and the cost of artillery. Imperial artillery wins because its ammo is affordable in numbers your smart missiles could never hope to match.

Smart Missles are the smaller sets of missles mounted on drones.Where do you have any sort of proof that overall the cost of firing an artillery shell is cheaper than firing a self-guided missle? Tau use smart missles and seeker missles instead of Artillery because they want precision strikes instead of indirect fire.

We don't know much about what things cost. The SMS could cost as much as a battle fleet or be as cheap as a loaf of bread. Oh they aren't mounted on drones just battlesuits tanks or turrents.

Wrong.



Seeker missles at the back, Smart missles at the front.

Brother Coa wrote:

BronzeJon wrote:.
One, their basic infantry equipment. Extremely light weight carapace equivalent protection for the fire warriors, with hyper advanced targeting computers (Tau are like birds and prey animals, eyes on side of head-ish, not good for hunting/shooting. Which explains their god awful WS2), and ability to link into other systems for markerlight tech.

For this I agree but:

Pulse rifle. These are essentially man sized hadron accelerators. Pack as much punch as a heavy bolter, longer range than any other standard rifle, rapid fire capability.

It is more powerful then Lasgun but weaker then Bolter or Imperial Plasma gun, this Sister of Battle is a great proff of this:


It shows how Tau Pulse Rifle has little effect on Imperial Power Armor. Same thing you can see in the fluff if you read BL books regarding the Tau.

Plasma weaponry. The tau's plasma technology surpasses the IOM's so far that they don't overheat and can maintain more accurate and longer bursts of fire, with a small sacrifice in strength of impact.

Not quite. Tau Plasma is more stable to use but it is also weaker. And the reason why Imperial Plasma explode is not because the weapon is build faulty it is because in the heat of battle Marines and Guardsman alike forget to went the Plasma. Tau don't have that kind of problem because their Plasma is on lower energy level and thus wanting is not necessarily.

Smart missile systems, no need for line of site to target and fire and forget basically.

Every race has this except Orks, Necrons and Tyranids. Imperial call it Hunter-Killer missile that acts like smart missile system.

Jet pack suits. This one is killer. Lots can be said about space marines durability combined with power armor, but the suits even have an ejection system and can host much more tech on them.

Battlesuits are quite formidable foe, to this I agree. They can carry up to 2 weapons and have a great precision when firing in mid-air. But their numbers are limited and using the suit has bad influence on it's wielder. But where they are used you can be sure that they will do the damage.

I don't know a whole lot more, but the rest of their military tech is astounding compared to IOM

Imperium has Grey Knight, Custodes, Assassins, Titan Legions, Entire Space Marine Chapters,Tech Guard, Stormtrooper Regiments. Tau millitary is not quite astounding to how this millitary benches are.

They had 5000 years of uninterrupted evolution and cultural/technological advancement.

And as it is noted xxx times times in the Warp and time in the real space are quite different things. For all that we know it could be 12.000 years for the Tau and 6.000 for us.
Since all available data on that comes from Imperial perspective ( we have yet to hear Tau part on this ) we can't say for sure how many year did the Tau really spend evolving in their sense of time.

Soulstorm should not be used to justify anything. The only reason the Tau pulse shots bounced off in that video is because it looks cool. Black Library writters put whatever the like in their story aswell, just to make it look cool.

No other race uses guided missles to the same extent of the Tau. They have Smart missles and they have seeker missles - both of which are self-controlled direct fire weapons.

No where suggests battlesuit numbers are limited. As they are the main form of combat for any Tau FireCaste member who has survived for 8 Tau years, they will have quite a large amount of them. They do not have bad effects on the user, other than the occasional limb-loss when the Battlesuit looses a limb.

Grey Knight, Custodes, Assassins, Titan Legions, Entire Space Marine Chapters,Tech Guard and Stormtrooper Regiments are not part of the regular Imperial Millitary. The majority of those are dependant on experiance instead of actual technology. Grey Knights, Assasins, custodes, Titan legions and full Space Marine chapters are in low numbers, there are not many in the Imperium, and they are not going to be sent against the Tau often, or in the case of Custodes, not at all. They do not have a large amount of extremely advanced tech either, with a few exceptions.

The Tau also understood how all of their technology works and can easily remake it, unlike the Imperium.

The Tau planet was surrounded by a Warp Storm - not in the Warp itself.

Smart missiles on the front, but those are not drones. They might be drone controlled turrets, but they are vehicle mounted.

nomotog wrote:Smart missiles on the front, but those are not drones. They might be drone controlled turrets, but they are vehicle mounted.

And how is a drone-controlled turret not a drone? Because it can't fly?

Mentlegen324 wrote:

nomotog wrote:Smart missiles on the front, but those are not drones. They might be drone controlled turrets, but they are vehicle mounted.

And how is a drone-controlled turret not a drone? Because it can't fly?

Yes. To put it simply. It's not it's own person. It can't act on it's own rather it's a part of the vehicle. Also. On second thought, I don't think it's drone controlled because it dosen't get it's own BS score like other drone controlled weapons do (See manta).

nomotog wrote:

Mentlegen324 wrote:

nomotog wrote:Smart missiles on the front, but those are not drones. They might be drone controlled turrets, but they are vehicle mounted.

And how is a drone-controlled turret not a drone? Because it can't fly?

Yes. To put it simply. It's not it's own person. It can't act on it's own rather it's a part of the vehicle. Also. On second thought, I don't think it's drone controlled because it dosen't get it's own BS score like other drone controlled weapons do (See manta).

Fair enough, i've always thought they were drones. Guess they aren't.

I made the same error when I was new. Thought the guns on the barracuda where independent drones. No one told me turns out they are just turrets.

nomotog wrote:I made the same error when I was new. Thought the guns on the barracuda where independent drones. No one told me turns out they are just turrets.

I started W40K about 8 years ago and have never noticed it. Always assumed that because they were in the drone slot and look like drones, they are drones or atleast automated. Doesn't seem right that they would need two extra gunners (Depending on the weapon choice) when they could just make them drones.

They don't need extra gunners. I'm actually not sure how it works, but tau have advanced target locks and that might be it.

Mentlegen324 wrote:
No where suggests battlesuit numbers are limited.

I should explain this...
To me, at least, battlesuits represent the most elite form of Tau military - just like Astartes are for the Imperium.
And the Elites cannot go in large numbers, just like Space Marines are few in numbers to. ( I compred the number of battlesuits to number of Fire Warriors )

With everything else I concur, dough most of that are my personal inputs into the Tau technology/culture/history.

Brother Coa wrote:

Mentlegen324 wrote:
No where suggests battlesuit numbers are limited.

I should explain this...
To me, at least, battlesuits represent the most elite form of Tau military - just like Astartes are for the Imperium.
And the Elites cannot go in large numbers, just like Space Marines are few in numbers to. ( I compred the number of battlesuits to number of Fire Warriors )

With everything else I concur, dough most of that are my personal inputs into the Tau technology/culture/history.

I agree with this. Some people seem to think that battlesuites are stamped out in an assembly line, but the impression i get is that they are fairly rare and expensive reserved only for the elite members of the fire caste. Just there name should tell you something in the tau language they are called the mantel of the hero. My circulations are that 8% of fire warriors use battlesuits.

the numbers are deliberately kept on the low side to maintain the "mystique" and l33tness of the suits for the tau. this is akin to terminator armour for a marine. its a huge honour, and a huge responsibility. those with suits are the officer corps of the tau.

that said, i dont think they're *that* rare, *that* being on the scale of, say, marines to guardsmen. every cadre has between 50 and 100 fire warriors. I'd hazard a guess that you'd be dealing with maybe a dozen suit pilots, including the shas'el, his shas'vre bodyguards, and a squad or two of regular pilots. sure, rare. but most shas will regularly come across an officer in their daily rot'aas.

Actually, in a standrad Hunter Cadre (as per in the Apocalypse book) there are:
-Two FW Teams
- Three Crisis Teams
- One Broadside Team

So counting with maxed units, there are 12 suits for 24 FW...

Deadnight wrote:the numbers are deliberately kept on the low side to maintain the "mystique" and l33tness of the suits for the tau. this is akin to terminator armour for a marine. its a huge honour, and a huge responsibility. those with suits are the officer corps of the tau.

that said, i dont think they're *that* rare, *that* being on the scale of, say, marines to guardsmen. every cadre has between 50 and 100 fire warriors. I'd hazard a guess that you'd be dealing with maybe a dozen suit pilots, including the shas'el, his shas'vre bodyguards, and a squad or two of regular pilots. sure, rare. but most shas will regularly come across an officer in their daily rot'aas.

Going by the sample army in the codex.

90 tau. One three member strike team. One two member battlesuit team. One three member command team. 3+3+2=8 8/90= .o8888 Or 8%. There are my calculations. Not anywhere as rare as a SM.

WE have discussed this to death. Imperial tech is higher in regards to the tau. Tau Spacecraft get their arse kicked by Imperial Ships. The Imperium only sent 8 ships in and they DESTROYED THE ENTIRE TAU FLEET!
Twice!
Tyranids same thing.
The Tau do not have space flight abilities. Oh they have railguns? So does the imperium but they are more powerful. And they are on all the space craft, and starships. (Please read BFG Turret info, specifically says railgun)
Railguns are really ineffective, when the imperium is facing things that move alot. Unforunately GW does not know that You could easily move out of the way of a Railgun weapon. Making it completely ineffective against infantry and walkers.

The Tau weaponry is kinda bad compared to a bolter, hotshot lasgun, and the entire imperium weaponry reserves.

Helk they have only fought scout titans and that caused them a hell of a lot of trouble.

200 marines and 3 regiments went against the tau and almost brought it to its knees before having to retreat because they didn't see it as worth it.
The Imperium does replicate technologies and does adapt to them. (Tyranic Wars, Tau Campagins, and many others where they develop weapons against the xeno's races.)

The tau weapons may not be better, but they do so some form of progress.

I like the cold war anaology that was broughtup.

Asherian Command wrote:WE have discussed this to death.

And thank you for putting out all of that again.
Now I can leave this thread in peace.

Asherian Command wrote:WE have discussed this to death. Imperial tech is higher in regards to the tau. Tau Spacecraft get their arse kicked by Imperial Ships. The Imperium only sent 8 ships in and they DESTROYED THE ENTIRE TAU FLEET!
Twice!
Tyranids same thing.
The Tau do not have space flight abilities. Oh they have railguns? So does the imperium but they are more powerful. And they are on all the space craft, and starships. (Please read BFG Turret info, specifically says railgun)
Railguns are really ineffective, when the imperium is facing things that move alot. Unforunately GW does not know that You could easily move out of the way of a Railgun weapon. Making it completely ineffective against infantry and walkers.

The Tau weaponry is kinda bad compared to a bolter, hotshot lasgun, and the entire imperium weaponry reserves.

Helk they have only fought scout titans and that caused them a hell of a lot of trouble.

200 marines and 3 regiments went against the tau and almost brought it to its knees before having to retreat because they didn't see it as worth it.
The Imperium does replicate technologies and does adapt to them. (Tyranic Wars, Tau Campagins, and many others where they develop weapons against the xeno's races.)

I won't deny the Tau's space flight deficiencies; however, everything else is gak as far as I'm concerned.

The Tau have minimized the size and maximized the power and portability of their railguns down to the standard infantry level (rail rifle).

Additionally, I'd take a Pulse Rifle over a Boltgun any day.

Finally, the Imperium attacked ONE decently inhabited sept and were driven back.

Oh...and T'ros (used to be called Taros before, y'know...the Tau TOOK IT)...nuff said.

Mar'tacus wrote:
Finally, the Imperium attacked ONE decently inhabited sept and were driven back.

Just read how many Krieg Guardsamn was on Vraks and you will get the idea how small Imperil Force in Democles was.
+ Tyranids appeared ( Kraken ) and Imperial really need to stop them more then Tau.

Oh...and T'ros (used to be called Taros before, y'know...the Tau TOOK IT)...nuff said.

That Campaign was not supported by the Imperium + army there was lead by bunch of idiots while Space Marines eat popcorns in high orbit.
But Imperium at least destroyed one entire Tau armed force, kill and Ehterial and then repelled their entire Taros army with 200 Space Marines. Nuff said.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mar'tacus wrote:
The Tau have minimized the size and maximized the power and portability of their railguns down to the standard infantry level (rail rifle).

That weapon is still rare and was known to explode at the beginning, don't know if they fixed that yet.

Additionally, I'd take a Pulse Rifle over a Boltgun any day.

I would take a Bolter any day over Pulse Rifle simply because it packs more punch.
Pulse Rifle only have longer range but Bolter is stronger.

Mar'tacus wrote:
Oh...and T'ros (used to be called Taros before, y'know...the Tau TOOK IT)...nuff said.

Nimbosa used to be called Nimbosa, and still is. That's what happens when the world in question is valuable enough to the Imperium.

Asherian Command wrote:WE have discussed this to death. Imperial tech is higher in regards to the tau. Tau Spacecraft get their arse kicked by Imperial Ships. The Imperium only sent 8 ships in and they DESTROYED THE ENTIRE TAU FLEET!
Twice!

the "entire" fleet? iirc wasnt one of those fleets a mainly civilian fleet in the process of an evacuation? plus, this is before the days of the tau CPF. back then, the tau fleet was merchant ships retrofitted with guns. now, they're a lot more decent. still not on a par with imperial designs, but a vast improvement on what they were.

Asherian Command wrote:
The Tau do not have space flight abilities. Oh they have railguns? So does the imperium but they are more powerful. And they are on all the space craft, and starships. (Please read BFG Turret info, specifically says railgun)
Railguns are really ineffective, when the imperium is facing things that move alot. Unforunately GW does not know that You could easily move out of the way of a Railgun weapon. Making it completely ineffective against infantry and walkers.

arguing "realism" in 40k is a bit of a joke to be honest. the rule of cool trumps realism in this setting im afraid.

Asherian Command wrote:
The Tau weaponry is kinda bad compared to a bolter, hotshot lasgun, and the entire imperium weaponry reserves.

how so? longer ranged, more powerful, more accurate-especially at longer ranges (inquisitor rules)easy to maintain. bolters are loud shock weapons, and are not entirely accurate. hotshot lasguns require a backpack sized battery, are awkward, require frequent mainttenance and need to be constantly juiced up. The imperial weapon reserves are big, loud and powerful, but a lot of it is basic projectile and frag weaponry. sure, its bigger than the scale we are used to but its still along the same path. Tau rail, enenrgy and plasma technology is on a similar level, if you ask me. ive seen nothing to say imperial technology is more advanced in that regard. Now, in some areas the imperials most assuredly have the advantage. psyonics for one. in others, such as ai and anto grav, they have equal, but different approaches. the imperials have all but lost anti-grav, but maintain limited capacity for astartes land speeders etc. the tau seem to rely on extremely advanced VTOL technology for their suits and gunships.

Asherian Command wrote:
Helk they have only fought scout titans and that caused them a hell of a lot of trouble.

aye, in the past. sure. first time the tau went up against the orks (in space over tau'n) they lost something like 11 ships to the orks 1. Now, they match them constantly. first time they faced titans? yup, they came off worst, and had to rely on manta missile destroyers to counter them. that said, in more recent times, they've done very well for themselves to bring in new anti-titan weaponry and tactics - the AX-10 being a prime example.

Asherian Command wrote:
200 marines and 3 regiments went against the tau and almost brought it to its knees before having to retreat because they didn't see it as worth it.

it was 600 marines actually, and 17 regiments, plus a second similar wave that ended up being warp delayed and coming out in time to ally against the nids and then fight as part of the iron hammer campaign. As to what they did, they defeated the tau colony on hydas, they bombed a fishing colony on an otherwise inhabited world, and as soon as they hit something solid, they (a) almost lost their entire fleet to an ambush by a kroot warsphere, and (b)gground to a halt, and got bogged down into a war of attrition on dalyth. and bear in mind too, this is only local tau forces - a reserve fleet, and reinforcements from other septs never actually arrived to help out. In the end, it was a combination of kryptmanns missive to help out against hive fleet behemoth, and the fact that they were bogged down and going nowhere that led them to decide to pull back. had their been reinforcements? well, thats a different "what if". and pointless really, as i can say just the same regarding "what if" the kroot warsphere and the tau ambush had been successful...

Asherian Command wrote:
The Imperium does replicate technologies and does adapt to them. (Tyranic Wars, Tau Campagins, and many others where they develop weapons against the xeno's races.)

aye, indeed they do perform very limited advances (hey, GW has to shift new land raider kits, right?) but it takes a lot of politicking and fighting to get through the dogma. in a lot of cases, SM field mods (black templars+LR crusader, Space Wolves+Predators and Razorbacks) were only reluctantly sanctioned after all the SMs had taken it upon themselves to modify their kit. Heretek has caused wars in the past-see the Sons of Medusa for example. for every inquisitor who wants to learn about alien tech, there are a dozen magi that consider it heresy.

Brother Coa wrote:

Mar'tacus wrote:
Finally, the Imperium attacked ONE decently inhabited sept and were driven back.

Just read how many Krieg Guardsamn was on Vraks and you will get the idea how small Imperil Force in Democles was.
+ Tyranids appeared ( Kraken ) and Imperial really need to stop them more then Tau.
.

damocles was a typical crusade of that era on the eastern fringe. please rememeber too, vraks was a top priority campaign. they had first pick of the regiments to reinforce-hence the numbers and amount of men and materiel destined for that warzone. i would argue though that the big battles such as these (armageddon, eye of terror, sabbat world crusades) are not indicative of the tens of thousands of normal sized conflicts that take place. its pointless to argue "yeah well the imperials have more men. look at vraks/cadia/etc". this is noy what they have available against the tau. yes, to the tau it might be a huge empire shaking conflict, and to the imperials it will rate a aragraph somewhere in "border skrimishes on the eastern fringe vol:XXXVII".

regarding the tyranids and damocles thats cherry picking the story. they were going nowhere. they were bogged down, and stuck, and tau reinforcements were expected. kryptmanns missive, whilst it was regarding another huge conflict, simply gave them the face-saving opportunity to pull out.

Brother Coa wrote:

That Campaign was not supported by the Imperium + army there was lead by bunch of idiots while Space Marines eat popcorns in high orbit.
But Imperium at least destroyed one entire Tau armed force, kill and Ehterial and then repelled their entire Taros army with 200 Space Marines. Nuff said.
.

sounds like typical guard to me. not everyone is creed. regardless, taros was a good book. it explained in great detail the issues the imperial had from day 1. they got the support that they could, but there were other priorities elsewhere. seems a standard line for them.

the tau came off worst only in 2 situations on taros (one being the diversionary attack from operation comet) and one where they failed to annihalate the retreating guard as the raptors held them off for a day. even then, those victories were phyrric. rearding the etherial, he's t3 with no armour save. and the idiots only had a handful of fire warriors guarding him. no problems for the assassin. that said, look at the consequences. the tau got very peeved afterwards!

Brother Coa wrote:
That weapon is still rare and was known to explode at the beginning, don't know if they fixed that yet.

yup, its been fixed for a long time now. the headasploding rail rifles were just the first batch. also, they're not "rare". they're limited, but not rare. fact remains, the tau can mass produce them, and equip a large amount of their pathfinders, and rail rifle drone teams with them. regardless, its an amazing feat to miniaturise something that once required a frickin starship to mount it.

Brother Coa wrote:
I would take a Bolter any day over Pulse Rifle simply because it packs more punch.
Pulse Rifle only have longer range but Bolter is stronger.

where do you get it that its stronger? statwise, the pulse rifle is a lot more powerful. and id go with that more than a 3rd party FMV. any fluff i've read puts the pulse rifle as being more powerful. also, as above, its easier to maintain, more accurate, longer range...

I like to think the Space Marine missile launcher is partly guided... hence why you can snipe men with it. Plus, and maybe I'm being stupid here, 'missile' implies some kind of guidance to me as opposed to a rocket launcher...

Deadnight wrote:
damocles was a typical crusade of that era on the eastern fringe. please rememeber too, vraks was atop priority campaign.

Thank you for making my point on why Tau survived the Damocles.

sounds like typical guard to me. not everyone is creed. regardless, taros was a good book. it explained in great detail the issues the imperial had from day 1. they got the support that they could, but there were other priorities elsewhere. seems a standard line for them.

Good book? Yeah, some parts were good. I especially loved the assassination part, were Eversor were gunned down by several FW and he just go TROLOLOLOL on everyone
Adn that book just showed how low priority Tau is to the Imperium as a whole ( note the Cadian Gate massing and Cadinal onjection to the campaign for fighting a "small and worthless world".

Brother Coa wrote:
yup, its been fixed for a long time now. the headasploding rail rifles were just the first batch. also, they're not "rare". they're limited, but not rare. fact remains, the tau can mass produce them, and equip a large amount of their pathfinders, and rail rifle drone teams with them. regardless, its an amazing feat to miniaturise something that once required a frickin starship to mount it.

Ok, I agree here. But they are only as good as at get. I would still pick Longlas every day over Railgun.

Brother Coa wrote:
where do you get it that its stronger? statwise, the pulse rifle is a lot more powerful. and id go with that more than a 3rd party FMV. any fluff i've read puts the pulse rifle as being more powerful. also, as above, its easier to maintain, more accurate, longer range...

Rules wise yes, fluff wise no. ( remember that rules serve to balance the army's on table, otherwise Astartes would be unstoppable )
In fluff single Astartes with Bolter is more deadlier then a team of FW with Pulse Rifles.
Also Pulse Rifle is weaker then Bolter in fluff, due to Tau decreasing her power to add to stability and accuracy.

nomotog wrote:They don't need extra gunners. I'm actually not sure how it works, but tau have advanced target locks and that might be it.

They'd atleast need someone to control them, and controlling two guns at the same time isn't going to do too well.

nomotog wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Mentlegen324 wrote:
No where suggests battlesuit numbers are limited.

I should explain this...
To me, at least, battlesuits represent the most elite form of Tau military - just like Astartes are for the Imperium.
And the Elites cannot go in large numbers, just like Space Marines are few in numbers to. ( I compred the number of battlesuits to number of Fire Warriors )

With everything else I concur, dough most of that are my personal inputs into the Tau technology/culture/history.

I agree with this. Some people seem to think that battlesuites are stamped out in an assembly line, but the impression i get is that they are fairly rare and expensive reserved only for the elite members of the fire caste. Just there name should tell you something in the tau language they are called the mantel of the hero. My circulations are that 8% of fire warriors use battlesuits.

Battlesuits are the elite Tau - every Firewarrior who survives 8 Tau years get's the chance to use a Battlesuit of some sort. They are the standard form of combat for all Tau above Shas'ui, so clearly they have quite a large amount of them. In terms of actual numbers i'd say that Space Marines are rarer than battlesuits. There may not be as many Battlesuits as Marines, but that is just because the Tau military is no where near the same size as the Imperium, but they are certainly more common than Space Marines.

Battlesuits would be mass produced, they are certainly not rare.

Brother Coa wrote:

Ok, I agree here. But they are only as good as at get. I would still pick Longlas every day over Railgun.

Rules wise yes, fluff wise no. ( remember that rules serve to balance the army's on table, otherwise Astartes would be unstoppable )
In fluff single Astartes with Bolter is more deadlier then a team of FW with Pulse Rifles.
Also Pulse Rifle is weaker then Bolter in fluff, due to Tau decreasing her power to add to stability and accuracy.

Railrifles are not really the tau version a Longlas. The Longlas is a sniper, a Railrifle is a long range light anti-armour weapon. Different purposes.

A Bolter is rarer than a pulse-rifle. We haven't really had a fluff-consistant description of the power of either weapon though.

Brother Coa wrote:

Rules wise yes, fluff wise no. ( remember that rules serve to balance the army's on table, otherwise Astartes would be unstoppable )
.

i call shenanigans on the "if marines were represented in game terms as they were in the fluff" argument. if marines are being represented as per the fluff, then so is everyone else. tyranids with X100 your points values, recycling every unit, and a special rule saying "you can never win agaist tyranids. the best you can hope for is to hold them off a bit longer". eldar would win on a 2+ as they killed the opponent commanders grandfather 80 years ago, thereby making this current battle never happen. *shrug* if thew tau were represented as per the background i wouldnt have anything on the board. id be sniing you from a tennis court distance away. and my guns would shred armour like paper.

Brother Coa wrote:
In fluff single Astartes with Bolter is more deadlier then a team of FW with Pulse Rifles.

please note emphasis on the astartes bit. of course a space marine with a bolter and chainsword is better than any dozen fire warriors. its got nothing to do with the bolter though! he's a space marine for feth sake. fire warriors are grunts. one of the emperors finest, and one of the best warriors in the galaxy. but thats the upper limit. "give me 100 space marines, or a thousand other troops" - Rogal Dorn. that said, give a space marine a pulse rifle, and i can guarantee you there will be some fun times.

Brother Coa wrote:
Also Pulse Rifle is weaker then Bolter in fluff, due to Tau decreasing her power to add to stability and accuracy.

Nope. youre thinking of the crisis suit plasma rifle has a decreased power output to add to stability. the tau pulse rifle is more powerful. full stop. there is no fluff anywhere saying they decrease its power of the pulse rifle for accuracy. (if they did, why then is it str5? maybe it was originally str6? )

the stats represent it as a more powerful gun because its a more powerful gun, not in spite of it. in fact, there are references in the tau literature, specifically their index:xenos stating how it is more powerful than abolter, and can even match the heavy bolters in raw power output, but it lacks the ability to crack armour like a heavy bolter.

ive never read any references anywhere in the fluff stating that the bolter was more powerful. you'll have to show me your references, or it didnt happen.

You know at taros the tau where outnumbered over 10 to 1. Not even counting the SM or titans. They still won, so dose that mean that one FW is = 10 guardsmen. And if one SM is also = 10 guards men. Something to think about.

You know at Taros that there was never any knockdown, dragout slugfests so numbers were irrelevant.

Kanluwen wrote:You know at Taros that there was never any knockdown, dragout slugfests so numbers were irrelevant.

I don't get why that matters, but I mainly posted to point out that the rations are simply crazy. Something I don't think most people get. They tend to describe the ratios of 1vs3 1vs5, but the actual ratios are much higher. Mostly because people over estimate the tau presence. There regiments can be as small as 6 people.

nomotog wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You know at Taros that there was never any knockdown, dragout slugfests so numbers were irrelevant.

I don't get why that matters

Really? You don't get why the fact that the weight of numbers never actually was brought to bear matters?

but I mainly posted to point out that the ratios are simply crazy. Something I don't think most people get. They tend to describe the ratios of 1vs3 1vs5, but the actual ratios are much higher. Mostly because people over estimate the tau presence.

And you underestimate it. We have no exact numbers, just suppositions from the Imperium's point of view.

You also aren't counting the PDF which was operating alongside the Tau, the population of slave miners who turned to the Tau, etc which were part of the Tau's forces but not the Cadre proper.

Their regiments can be as small as 6 people.

No, they can't be.
Unless you're talking about Crisis Suit strike forces--and if you're counting a Crisis Suit as a "single Fire Warrior", then I can count a Sentinel as a "single Guardsman".