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 Corrode wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
meta

Salt donkey wrote:
tournaments

Well, looking at the game through a meta tournament list lens misses that Tau have exactly one tournament-winning build (Fire Warrior / Riptide / Ghostkeel-for-taste spam, run as Farsight Enclaves)

What on earth are you talking about lmao

He's not wrong on the one list, but it sure as hell aint that list.

Because most people are clowns and just pick favorites. I on the other hand play almost every army. People actually used to complain about gman ultras when it was at best a coin flip army that couldn't possibly win if you went second. Marines were near the bottom once armies started getting codex. Yet the Marine hate persists even though it was a bottom power level army all edition.

This is what it is like when marines are strong. They are strong right now. It is mostly Ironhands and IF though. Everyone knows why - they have busted superdoctrines that give too much free power.

Tau on the other hand...they are probably everyones leave favorite army to play against. Their army practically automatically removes 2 units a turn at worst and they are practically invulnerable to being assaulted without ignore overwatch. You basically will never get a cover save against the army. Plus....drones. Oh you didn't bring ILOS weapon? You lose.

I think whats even worse is tau players don't even enjoy playing with their tau...I don't...It's hugely boring watching my opponent having very little fun.

The true answer is clear though. There are more marine haters than tau haters mostly because there are more marine players. They are hated for different reasons though. People hate tau because of the playing experience. People hate marines because they like a different chapter or they prefer legion or they are bitter about model support. It is actually a very engaging army to play against though - nothing is particularly hard to kill so it's always a blood bath. Unlike tau drone spam where you literally cant even hurt the riptides.

All marines are strong as hell right now.

If you lose with them in a casual environment, that’s on you. (And if you specifically played for a close game and lost, that’s GOOD on you! But if you’re playing hardball and lose...)

 JNAProductions wrote:
All marines are strong as hell right now.

If you lose with them in a casual environment, that’s on you. (And if you specifically played for a close game and lost, that’s GOOD on you! But if you’re playing hardball and lose...)

Marines have a very tough time against tau. Casually I probably would turn down the game because it is boring. Not being able to assault an army is not fun.

People are complaining at events

I've painted nearly 250 Drones for a few different players locally. My Eyes Bleed

 Xenomancers wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
All marines are strong as hell right now.

If you lose with them in a casual environment, that’s on you. (And if you specifically played for a close game and lost, that’s GOOD on you! But if you’re playing hardball and lose...)

Marines have a very tough time against tau. Casually I probably would turn down the game because it is boring. Not being able to assault an army is not fun.

Tau are about the only bad match up with Marines.

And even then, it’s hardly like Marines can’t win.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Because most people are clowns and just pick favorites. I on the other hand play almost every army.

Said the UM fanboy...you're such a noble martyr Xeno...give me a break. Don't hurt yourself with that back pat.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Yet the Marine hate persists even though it was a bottom power level army all edition.

This is by far my favorite argument. This idea that collective punishment must follow some kind of collective suffering. The best part is how you don't even understand the utterly spurious nature of this argument.

 Xenomancers wrote:
This is what it is like when marines are strong. They are strong right now.

Man, the suffering you must have endured while GW pumped out model after model for you, soup upon soup, if only you'd communicated how much you were suffering, perhaps we would have given a gak. Probably not, but we'd probably enjoy the whining.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think whats even worse is tau players don't even enjoy playing with their tau...I don't...It's hugely boring watching my opponent having very little fun.

Maybe it was the opponent, most Tau players I play seem to be having fun.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think whats even worse is tau players don't even enjoy playing with their tau...I don't...It's hugely boring watching my opponent having very little fun.

Maybe it was the opponent, most Tau players I play seem to be having fun.

I wasn't kidding about how Tau players are playing Guard right now, considering that that is how it feels like our armies feel right now.

It's hard to complain about tau when the rest of their book sucks so much. Complaints are easily brushed aside with "well if you nerf shield drones you have to re-do the entire codex" which is entirely true.

If I had any constructive complaints I would have been on here railing against them and even though I had my butt handed to me by Siegler and Pullen there's very little I can complain about because their books internal balance is so bad that it would take a complete re-write to fix them.

With the point drops to stealth suits, vespids, kroots, etc... the Tau lists that don't rely on shield drones and Riptides are better than ever.

Of course if you want to win tournaments is stupid to play them but a Tau player that complains that our army is useless outside of that one competitive list even in a casual meta is just ignorant.

That doesnt mean that the rules of drones are busted and they should be removed. Drones should be bought as add-ons for suits and units, and only work for that unit, and have a cap like 2 drones per small suit, 4 for bigger ones and characters. And be removed as their own units.

I don't have an issue with Drones as they are, per se. It's just the FnP that comes along with them that makes them a pain. Like, not only are you eating an attack for another unit, but you got a 1 in 3 chance of not even losing a Drone for doing so.

But even that isn't really that bad. It's annoying, but that just means I have to work around it.

 flandarz wrote:
I don't have an issue with Drones as they are, per se. It's just the FnP that comes along with them that makes them a pain. Like, not only are you eating an attack for another unit, but you got a 1 in 3 chance of not even losing a Drone for doing so.

But even that isn't really that bad. It's annoying, but that just means I have to work around it.

Depending on the army, it's seems less of a problem to deal with.

They seem to be bad against Orks and IG, for instance (according to 40k stats). Which makes sense -- Shield Drone are really good against powerful shooting, but less good when you can just blow them out with chaff shooting.

Why aren't people complaining about Tau? Let's looks at the Stats over the last 4 weekends of Tournaments (courtesy of 40Kstats.com):

Space Marines:
Field Percentage 23.62%
Average First Loss Round 2.37
TiWP (went 4-0) 45.07%
Undefeated 14
Win Ratio: 57.36% (58.77 if Mono faction)

Tau:
Field Percentage 4.97%
Average First Loss Round 2.07
TiWP (went 4-0) 4.23%
Undefeated 3
Win Ratio: 51.29%

People aren't complaining about Tau because Tau are not great. They have a good build that does great with the proper generals. Outside of that, they are average (over 50% win ratio, but less then Field Percentage for doing well in the tournament).

Tau are a video game boss. Kill the marker lights, kill the drones, then kill anything else that you need dead.

People are rooting for Tau because 1) we instinctively love an underdog and 2) everyone hates marines with VERY JUSTIFIABLE REASONS. When an OP army is 25% of the game...yeah you're gonna be happy when anything beats it.

Unfortunately, this effect has been a problem in the "top players" meta for awhile: Basically it's ok to have an otherwise OP army that counters the top list, cause we hate the top list. What they don't think about is every other matchup.

 JNAProductions wrote:
All marines are strong as hell right now.

If you lose with them in a casual environment, that’s on you. (And if you specifically played for a close game and lost, that’s GOOD on you! But if you’re playing hardball and lose...)

How's this work out when you're playing hardball SM & you lose to another hardball list in a casual environment?


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 Xenomancers wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
All marines are strong as hell right now.

If you lose with them in a casual environment, that’s on you. (And if you specifically played for a close game and lost, that’s GOOD on you! But if you’re playing hardball and lose...)

Marines have a very tough time against tau. Casually I probably would turn down the game because it is boring. Not being able to assault an army is not fun.

You know what isn't fun for the Tau player? Being assaulted.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Tau are a video game boss. Kill the marker lights, kill the drones, then kill anything else that you need dead.

This applies to every force in every game system you know.
_______ are a video game boss. Kill the _______, kill the ________, then kill anything else that you need dead.

ccs wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
All marines are strong as hell right now.

If you lose with them in a casual environment, that’s on you. (And if you specifically played for a close game and lost, that’s GOOD on you! But if you’re playing hardball and lose...)

Marines have a very tough time against tau. Casually I probably would turn down the game because it is boring. Not being able to assault an army is not fun.

You know what isn't fun for the Tau player? Being assaulted...

This illustrates the design problem of Tau. It's very difficult to have a close or interesting game as or against them; either the Tau player has no fun (because someone got to melee) or the other player has no fun (because nothing can get to melee). In my experience there's very little middle ground.

Tau has been the most hated faction, Triptide is at least my most hated list, Marines have gotten some unfun mechanics and the stupid amount of Stratagems which is hard to keep track of, but mostly they are just OP. SP and FTGG are super unfun and Triptide relies a lot on these mechanics. I have almost no experience with Eldar flyer spam (3-4 usually and sometimes 3 Drukhari aircraft as well), if I'd had as many games against 6+ Alaitoc aircraft as Triptide my dislike might lie elsewhere. The Tau players I have played have been great, lots of fun games, a bit more fun when they brought alternative lists.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think whats even worse is tau players don't even enjoy playing with their tau...I don't...It's hugely boring watching my opponent having very little fun.

Maybe it was the opponent, most Tau players I play seem to be having fun.

I've heard several team tournament players complain they were pushed to play Tau, never heard the same for any other faction.

Bacause Tau are not broken, they are barely good with basically only one build (which is boring as hell to play, tbh).

40kstats reports the win rates of the various factions.
Tau sit at a decent 50.84% win rate, since September 2019.
Space Marines at 56.96% win rate, with IH over 67%, WS at 59% and IF at 57%.

Other factions with better win rates than Tau in this period include: Drukhari (52.72%), Ynnari (52.71%), AdMech (52.55%), Craftworld Eldar (52.27%) and Harlequins (51.22%), while Orks are on par with them (50.66%).

The thing is that a couple of the best competitive players in 40K (Siegler and Pullen among others) are Tau players so their tournament wins with Tau make the "news" and everyone thinks that since Tau win, Tau are OP.
The reality is that 40K is much of a rock-paper-scissor game in tournaments and Tau perform relatively well against Marines, when compared to other factions. Couple that with some luck in the pairings and you have some of the best Tau players carrying this faction to victory.

The Rock-Paper-Scissor aspect of 40K just becomes very, very pronounced, when a faction is as dominant (in a % of the field sense) as Marines are now.


Marines vs. ....


Marines struggling against Tau (and to a lesser degree Necrons) has given them a lift.

Inversely, while Tyranids weren't great pre-Marines (though arguably not necessarily worse than things like Necrons), Marines owning them nearly 90% of the time really hurts their viability. Similarly, Marines winning basically 2 out of 3 games vs. Orks isn't fun if you're Orks, despite Orks arguably still being a top tier faction against anything that isn't Marines.

 catbarf wrote:


Well, looking at the game through a meta tournament list lens misses that Tau have exactly one tournament-winning build (Fire Warrior / Riptide / Ghostkeel-for-taste spam, run as Farsight Enclaves), and it's that build that's boring and un-fun to play against. In a more casual context Tau can be shooty but mobile (eg Piranhas, Vespids, Devilfish-borne troops, Crisis Suits) and it makes for a more interesting game.

I find it much harder to hate on an army that has one competitive build than one that smashes tournaments and casual games alike.

Exactly this, tau are not even remotely as broken as SM.


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 DominayTrix wrote:
Tau are doing well because they are very good against marines and marines saturate the meta. They get dumpstered by Eldar Flyers, GSC, Orks, and go fairly even against the rest of the pack. Marines also are something like 50% of top 4 placements in recent tournaments, so while Tau tend to do well they aren't as big of an issue.

Also this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Inversely, while Tyranids weren't great pre-Marines (though arguably not necessarily worse than things like Necrons), Marines owning them nearly 90% of the time really hurts their viability. Similarly, Marines winning basically 2 out of 3 games vs. Orks isn't fun if you're Orks, despite Orks arguably still being a top tier faction against anything that isn't Marines.

It's also worth mentioning that those competitive orks are boring as hell to play just like the lone competitive tau built, and the majority of orks players constantly tries to play something different, even at tournaments.

I think the marines make the most noise is because they're present at all levels but also can easily dominate at all levels, take any SM list with a chapter master and you're probably in a good spot. A weaker tau list or a poor tau player will still probably lose as many games as they win, where a marine player with average list will probably still be winning local games more then losing.

Because they aren't new, and when something is new it takes time for people to adjust their tactics. Example I don't buy every single book and pour through it anymore. Thus nowadays I'm just clueless.
So my opponent is like "I move twice, get +1S, re-roll everything to hit, add 1 to wound rolls, and for a CP get to bare my buttocks at you, and everything is -20AP.
My only recourse is to deny him the pleasure of rolling, and just take the 5 man combat squad with flamer off the table. Funny enough GW managed to make new space marines great while still leaving my old Imperial Fist army in the competitive trash bin.

I am more worried that the Tau seem to be irrelevant in lore terms. They played no role in Vigilus Defiant, Vigilus Ablaze or Phoenix Rising plus I am assuming that they are not involved in Faith and Fury or Blood of Baal. All sorts of galaxy-changing events are going on and the Tau (and Necrons) are not important enough to get more than a passing mention.

 Bilge Rat wrote:
I am more worried that the Tau seem to be irrelevant in lore terms. They played no role in Vigilus Defiant, Vigilus Ablaze or Phoenix Rising plus I am assuming that they are not involved in Faith and Fury or Blood of Baal. All sorts of galaxy-changing events are going on and the Tau (and Necrons) are not important enough to get more than a passing mention.

They were on Vigilus. They just got banished to the moon and forgotten.

Its mostly because to be honest, they only have one busted model, with one busted rule.

Thats the shield drone turning 6 damage into 1 damage, which it then has a FNP against. The rest of the army is good to poor in quality.

Change the shield drones, and you'd never see Tau on a competitive table again. Not saying thats what should happen, but thats why nobody is complaining.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Its mostly because to be honest, they only have one busted model, with one busted rule.

Thats the shield drone turning 6 damage into 1 damage, which it then has a FNP against. The rest of the army is good to poor in quality.

This.

I would argue though that people *do* complain about T'au, just not so much on the internet. In my local community, getting a game is hell for a T'au player unless he chooses to not use Shield Drones. Most players will do anything they can to avoid playing against T'au, because it's utterly frustrating and unfun.

There was an article a few days ago on BoLS stating that T'au were not OP but definitely broken. Tbh, I wholeheartedly agree with this.

When your entire army hinges on shield drones not getting a points increase, it’s bad. And if they do, you might as well not show up in competitive play.

Codex is poorly constructed if your only competitive option is piling on as many ablative wounds as possible.

It sort of shows: things in 8th which have staying power become broken when they are otherwise fine if they die sooner.

tulun wrote:
When your entire army hinges on shield drones not getting a points increase, it’s bad. And if they do, you might as well not show up in competitive play.

Codex is poorly constructed if your only competitive option is piling on as many ablative wounds as possible.

It sort of shows: things in 8th which have staying power become broken when they are otherwise fine if they die sooner.

Well, that's been true for a while. People skewed hard on -to hit penalties, skewed hard on T8 with invul Knights, skewed hard on first mass Brimstones, second mass Poxbringers, third mass Cultists, finally mass Plaguebearers, etc..

Than Iron Stone & character dreads came along.

And all the while, people have been terrain-shaming TOs to build ever larger, ever more ridiculous giant LoS-blockers just to keep even the skew-lists alive for a turn or two.

Etc...

"Normal" stuff just dies way to fast in 8th, doubly so on a "White Dwarf battle report"-style table without giant Ls or whatever...

It's probably still an overcompensation from 7th Ed. unkillable Death Star trauma, but a tiny, little, less lethality (in ways you couldn't immediately skew and spam again ... dunno, not a game designer. Strats probably?) would go a long way IMO.

Yeah, exactly.

Or like the recent iron hands orb castle. When you can’t kill a vehicle reliably, all of a sudden that 320 point price tag looks cheap.