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He plays tau, and says that all tau units are balanced, but everything else is imbalanced.
What do you think about that, and what do you think I should say?

Thank you, dakkadakka.

Remind him that all of the army books are part of the one whole game, and so long as any part is 'imbalanced', then everything is in terms of relativity. Which are the only terms that really matter.

On the other hand, since he is obviously just taking the piss, say; "Cool story, bro," and walk away.

It seems (from what you've said) like he must not win all too often, and, like most of us, prefers to blame army balance over tactical errors.

If it's a good friend, at one point, I think you should just nod, smile, and change the subject. But, if he's just someone you occasionally play 40k with, nod, smile, say "that sucks", and start talking to someone else.

I could understand stating some armies are more imbalanced (I seem to recall BA and DoC being at the top of the "blame list") but if every army but his is imbalanced, he is unlikely to improve if he never consider any other reason why he may lose, such as poor strategic decisions, and poor list building.

Mind you, this is with the assumption that he's not winning many games, since most people don't complain about imbalances if they're on a winning streak.

Sounds to me like your friend is a moron.

Remind him of the days before true line of sight when jump-shoot-jump let suits bounce around a small hedge that was "area terrain". This let Tau shoot, but not be shot. Very annoying.

They will get their own book. Eventually. 2014 maybe...

Otherwise he should learn better tactics (Tau aren't *that* bad) or pick a different army. We can't all play Tau and there are certainly rock/paper/scissors in this game. Plus every new codex released adds wrinkles and makes you think. The game keeps changing and will never be balanced 100% of the time.

Tell him to go play checkers . . . that game is PERFECTLY balanced, he should love it.

I have a friend who sings exactly the same tune, then when we talk between game days, he gloats about all the awesome plans he has for his guys, and then when I bring it to him or say how I like my army (win or lose!) he gets wicked butthurt about it abd cries about new codices all being OP

Tell him that Railguns shoot genestealers directly into close combat.... and Drones can call down marine drop pods and summon chaos daemons if you give them an icon for all I care.

Tell him to try 'balancing' any other army either. Try juggling Eldar (dark or craftworld variety) where every unit is all-or-nothing... Most importantly just tell him to play until he figures it out. If he can't get the hang of it, well, that's why SMs come in every intro box.

Tell him that Tau are overpowered and it's only by exceptionally inept play that he somehow manages to lose with his army. In fact for the first few games you wondered if he was losing on purpose for some reason, but now you realize he just doesn't know anything about how to play.

Or not.

Lucid wrote:Tell him to go play checkers . . . that game is PERFECTLY balanced, he should love it.

offtopic: NO WAI! red is over powered!
ontopic: I pay tau, and a small nid army and used to pay orks, and from what I can tell, tau stuff my be a little outdated (and maybe a litle overpriced, but that's easy to fix, just don't buy everything you see, stick to the things you need, etc), but it must be list building problems/tactical errors as a friend of mine uses a shrike first turn assault tactic (AND he's startied a small BA army ) and I still give him a good game (even against his blood angels) as in it's 1kp either way, or an objective, or down to him making that one fleet move atleast 3", etc.

Tau can win games with ease, it's just that they only really have one or two tricks in the book.

Lucid wrote:Tell him to go play checkers . . . that game is PERFECTLY balanced, he should love it.

Actually there is a tiny first move advantage in Checkers (or Draughts as we call it in the UK -- you learn something new on Dakka every day)!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The frustration in 40K is that in theory it should be possible to balance the game -- for instance the first move advantage can be balanced out by a points penalty.

I'm pretty sure the only game that's perfectly balanced is tossing a coin way way up in the air. One guy wins and the other doesn't. It spins around, maybe wind affects it, or the spin put on it by a really adept tosser, the ground it lands on affects the angle of the bounce and spin... ech... now that I think about it, nothing is balanced. All hail discordia.

he thinks Tau aren't strong enough? tell that to the Mech Guard who got blown to smithereens.

Tell him to stand next to a Necron player and preach that garbage and see how long before he gets shut down.

Hello JSK-Fox,

Wow, I sympathize! Not because my friends are like your friend, they aren't. But because I used to be like your friend.

I think it matters too much too him whether he wins or loses, so everything seems threatening and disproportionately powerful. I was playing when the Terminators first came out, how I wailed and yanked my hair out! Every new rule change terrified me. When the Marines got assault-cannons I just couldn't believe it, ha ha!

See, I was a day dreamer, and put too much of my heart and soul into my little models when I was painting them during the week. The weekend would come and they would be slaughtered horribly and I would feel devastated emotionally. Do you think that is happening to your friend?

Wish I could tell you how to cure this malady, but for me it took time and a lot of games. If you play very often you start to relax and know any one game is not the end of the world. And I think if he focuses on some other aspects of the game, he might be happier too. Does he paint nicely? Tell him so! Does he like the fluff? Talk with him about it. Try to find something in the game to praise him about. Like, if he gets tabled but managed to kill your dreadnought, let him know it was a great deed!

Suggest an army exchange once a month? Let him play your army and you play his. He'll soon learn first hand your army isn't a mindless auto-win!

I know, I'm asking you to baby sit. You must decide whether it is worth your time to do that or not. It's a game, and it shouldn't become social service work for you. But if he's a good friend, well, maybe...?

Sorry if I'm way off base!
Emperor bless and cherish you!
Frankie

Everything IS unbalanced. While evry Codex on the whole may have the capabilty of producing armies that can be reasonably balalnced against each other, in practice it's not going to happen. If I bring more tanks than you bring tankbusting ability, it will be pretty one-sided, even if we are both fielding forces from the same codex. There is no silver bullet, there is no magic answer. Newer codices tend to be "more" balanced for the current edition of the rules, but I don't think it is a gamebreaker.

Petite Francois wrote:Hello JSK-Fox,

Wow, I sympathize! Not because my friends are like your friend, they aren't. But because I used to be like your friend.

I think it matters too much too him whether he wins or loses, so everything seems threatening and disproportionately powerful. I was playing when the Terminators first came out, how I wailed and yanked my hair out! Every new rule change terrified me. When the Marines got assault-cannons I just couldn't believe it, ha ha!

See, I was a day dreamer, and put too much of my heart and soul into my little models when I was painting them during the week. The weekend would come and they would be slaughtered horribly and I would feel devastated emotionally. Do you think that is happening to your friend?

Wish I could tell you how to cure this malady, but for me it took time and a lot of games. If you play very often you start to relax and know any one game is not the end of the world. And I think if he focuses on some other aspects of the game, he might be happier too. Does he paint nicely? Tell him so! Does he like the fluff? Talk with him about it. Try to find something in the game to praise him about. Like, if he gets tabled but managed to kill your dreadnought, let him know it was a great deed!

Suggest an army exchange once a month? Let him play your army and you play his. He'll soon learn first hand your army isn't a mindless auto-win!

I know, I'm asking you to baby sit. You must decide whether it is worth your time to do that or not. It's a game, and it shouldn't become social service work for you. But if he's a good friend, well, maybe...?

Sorry if I'm way off base!
Emperor bless and cherish you!
Frankie

QFT.

I believe every word in this passage is wise and benevolent. Well said Frankie.

Brother SRM wrote:Sounds to me like your friend is a moron.

QFT.

I believe every word in this passage is wise and benevolent. Well said Brother SRM

Dude. Don't be mean to the new guy. Calling names just discourages them from actually learning how to make the best of their army and get frustrated and quit. Showing ways to play rock-paper-scissors better encourages him to delve into his army list and figure out solutions to mismatches like more experienced gamers do. Calling him a moron just makes you look mean and him feel weak. That quote you doubled makes me know how juvenile this hobby really can get. The fact that you re-wrote it makes it doubly so. Don't insult people for being frustrated noobs, encourage them, teach them, impart your wisdom. If you have any, which by that last re-quote evidently some of you don't have the maturity to understand such a concept.

Sounds like a moron to me too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I hate to be captain obvious here, but that last remark was not intended for OP's friend, just thought I might need to make that clear, given the maturity level and cruelty level I occasionally have to observe.

Truth to tell, Tau are one of the weakest armies in the game right now.

They are not impossible to win with, but they are more difficult than Space Wolves or IG for examples.

If your friend scores hits with his first round barrage of rail guns, he's got a chance. If he misses or fails to slow down the charging transports, he's in trouble.

Tell him to keep small, sacrificial kroot or fire warrior units around the point sink units and keep firing.

I think it's funny that he uses the term "balance." It's more likely that one army is unbalanced than every other army being unbalanced, no?

Tau are weak, but if you look at the codices, most are considered at least fairly strong. IG & wolves are very strong, Chaos, Orks, Nids, marines, Blood Angels, Eldar and Demons are pretty strong, DE & WH are wild cards, leaving DH, BT, Necrons, Tau, and DA as the weak links.

The difference between, say, Eldar and IG is less than the difference between Eldar and DA or Necrons, by which I mean the weakest armies are weaker than the strongest armies are strong.

And Tau are probably the strongest of the weak armies, if only because they do very well against very strong armies like Mech IG. admittedly they only have one effective build, but they can and do win.

The idea that a player loses because his army is inferior or unbalanced or what have you is an excuse, and nothing more.

What's happening here (from what I can tell) is simply that he's new to the game, doesn't know the ins and outs of it quite as well as he'd like to (or as well as he thinks he does). It's a pretty common story - a player will pick an army due to aesthetics, fluff, or perceived tabletop tactics, and later find out that, whoa! Maybe that army isn't played quite the way they are in the fluff, or quite they way they wish they were!

The truth is that anyone who thinks Tau are weak has not played a good Tau player. Do they only have one or two really great tricks in their codex? Absolutely. Does that make them weak? If it did, my Tau wouldn't win nearly as often as they do.

Claiming a loss is due to a weak codex is like claiming that you got sunburned because the sun was too bright. Instead, you need to get out of the sun and sit in the shade, or put on some sunblock. It's blaming the game, when there is nobody to blame but the player.

The solution is simple, of course. Tell him to stick with it, read up on some Tau tactica if he wants, talk to some other Tau players to see what they recommend, have someone look at his list, and basically just hang in there and he'll learn that he can in fact win with his army.

Or, pick a different army - but don't let him think that'll allow him to win easily. Every army has its nuances and winning builds, and if he picks up a new army he's going to have to learn the exact same things he'll have to learn right now about his Tau.

And if he wants to argue against any of these points, or just ask for help, point him towards me.

Tell him that you've done your internet research and that you actually agree with him. Ask him what he wants you to do about it, and even offer some solutions:

1) Swap armies every so often. He may beat you, which may satisfy him, or you may win, in which case, he may learn some new ideas of how to use his army.

2) Build up a handicap each time you play. Say you play at 1500 points ezch time. Each time you win, the other player gets 100 points extra next game. If you are on a three game winning streak, your opponent therefore has 1800 points to your 1500. He then wins, and next time you will have 1600 to his 1500.

3) Play more scenario-based missions where points are imabalanced and you both have very different strategies to win. Play each scenario as attacker and defender.

4) Make sure he plays against a lot of other opponents to learn how to use his army.

I almost feel like there's very successful trolling going on here...besides that everyone has pretty much voiced opinions similiar to my own.

That being: "He's new and whining. Learn how to play."

Sgt.Sunshine wrote:I almost feel like there's very successful trolling going on here...besides that everyone has pretty much voiced opinions similiar to my own.

That being: "He's new and whining. Learn how to play."

Successful trolls cause arguments, not general agreement on a given point with slightly different wording.

I think just about all of us are saying the same thing, the only difference being some of us think the Tau are weak, some do not.

Except SRM, who just thinks OP's friend is a moron.

I had a very similar experience...I started 40k a couple of years ago with the 3rd edition IG codex, and I felt like I was at a distinct disadvantage against other armies because of my "old" book. Looking back on it though, I realize that my general cluelessness, poor list construction, and lack of tactical understanding had a lot to do with my losses. What made me realize this was that the new IG codex came out...and I kept losing! By process of elimination, the only common denominator in that equation was me.

I guess the moral of the story is New Player + Old Codex = Angst. The best advice I can give is to stick it out; those feelings have passed with time for me, and it is likely they will for your friend as well.

Just assure him that he is correct and move on.
I'm sure he'll blow a blood vessel if he ever game WarmaHordes a look....

I don’t think any of the armies are really imbalanced. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. There is no one army that truly cant be beaten by another.