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Martel732 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think I'd rather lose to Tau and keep doing okay against GK. If that's the choice I'm having to make. I think that drop pods for BA are a mistake in general, because it's not taking advantage of fast vehicles or furious charge.

I'm not sure i really see that.

Perhaps because you don't play BA.

I play AGAINST a BA player who makes extensive ue of pods, as I've mentioned. His list is very god at both choosing when to hold em and when to fold em. He is adept at its use. And I don't see the Pods adding to any lack of mobility nor being LESS effective against my Tau Empire.

I also have played a while.

You have said openly you won't change. That's fine. Let the consequences of that stand and be what they are.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Asura Varuna wrote:
You're absolutely right about the effectiveness of the Spartan, outside of Hammerhead railguns there is almost nothing in the Tau army that can even dent the front armour of a ceramite Spartan. It's expensive but it will ensure you get your deathstar to where it needs to be.

Well, S9 AP2 Ordnance isn't exactly terrible. Plus these days you're potentially looking at D-Strength missiles too if a Stormsurge is kicking around.

Spartan reduces the S of any attacks against its front armour by 1 EDIT: ONLY with flareshield (thought that would in fact make it -2 S here). Not certain whether the 40k version even gets Flareshield /EDIT.

I thought "Destroyer Missiles" were S8 AP1 one use only (basically glorified seekers/hunterkillers). But yes you could potentially fire 2 D Strength shots from the Pulse Blast cannon if you're within 10". If you're unable to remove the markerlight support then that's likely going to be a kill even on a 5HP Spartan. You could also assault the Spartan with your Stormsurge and pray for a 6 on the stomp table. Or assault the Spartan with Firewarriors with EMP grenades - actually probably one of the best ways to bring it down actually, but rarely practical if you're trying to prevent it from delivering its payload of choppy melee troops.


[

You know what? I don't think the Spartan gets Flareshield in 40k, but you are 100% correct about the rule being useful.

Guess who does get Flareshield?

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Warhammer_40000/Questoris_Knight_Magaera.pdf

It would be really, really good at tanking Riptide and HYMP fire. D-Weapons are the only threat but BA has a lot of ways to take out Markerlights.

So maybe you're onto something here. Good idea!

 Jancoran wrote:

You have said openly you won't change. That's fine. Let the consequences of that stand and be what they are.

I think you have it the wrong way around here, Jancoran. You should learn from Martel - he is a player who knows what he is doing and, since he doesn't know what he will face ahead of time, builds a list that is as TAC as possible instead of tailoring. Not only is tailoring kind of TFG in itself, it is also bad since in Martel's case it will lose him more against other enemies than it will gain him against Tau.

That he loses against Riptidetau is not his fault as a general, it is because Tau as a faction are by far stronger than BA.

IOW you should commend him on the decisions he makes and look up to him, not deride him.

Because I totally want drop Furiosos against Necrons. It must be nice to have S6/7 spam and not make these kinds of decisions.

I've got all kinds of lists. Lists with 30 scouts, lists with a bunch of AV 13 still (flesh tearer detachments make this happen), lists with a lot of bikes, etc. I change lists constantly. And now I've got archangel sanguine wing in the rotation.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

You have said openly you won't change. That's fine. Let the consequences of that stand and be what they are.

I think you have it the wrong way around here, Jancoran. You should learn from Martel - he is a player who knows what he is doing and, since he doesn't know what he will face ahead of time, builds a list that is as TAC as possible instead of tailoring. Not only is tailoring kind of TFG in itself, it is also bad since in Martel's case it will lose him more against other enemies than it will gain him against Tau.

That he loses against Riptidetau is not his fault as a general, it is because Tau as a faction are by far stronger than BA.

IOW you should commend him on the decisions he makes and look up to him, not deride him.

You...dont think...he knows he will be facing Tau Empire? You think this entire thread didn't inform him well enough on that possibility?

"Tailoring" is a stupid term for what you aretalking about. It's not tailoring to be intelligent in list design and say to yourself "They're out there...better prepare".

It really, REALLY isn't mate.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

You have said openly you won't change. That's fine. Let the consequences of that stand and be what they are.

I think you have it the wrong way around here, Jancoran. You should learn from Martel - he is a player who knows what he is doing and, since he doesn't know what he will face ahead of time, builds a list that is as TAC as possible instead of tailoring. Not only is tailoring kind of TFG in itself, it is also bad since in Martel's case it will lose him more against other enemies than it will gain him against Tau.

That he loses against Riptidetau is not his fault as a general, it is because Tau as a faction are by far stronger than BA.

IOW you should commend him on the decisions he makes and look up to him, not deride him.

You...dont think...he knows he will be facing Tau Empire? You think this entire thread didn't inform him well enough on that possibility?

"Tailoring" is a stupid term for what you aretalking about. It's not tailoring to be intelligent in list design and say to yourself "They're out there...better prepare".
He has OPENLY STATED that he has 0 idea what he faces before he arrives and has no option to the contrary. So no, he doesnt know he will be facing tau, any more tgan he knows if hes facing eldar, crons or CSM.

It really, REALLY isn't mate.

If it can't beat Tau, it's really not a TAC list is it?

Nope

 Jancoran wrote:

You...dont think...he knows he will be facing Tau Empire? You think this entire thread didn't inform him well enough on that possibility?

"Tailoring" is a stupid term for what you aretalking about. It's not tailoring to be intelligent in list design and say to yourself "They're out there...better prepare".

It really, REALLY isn't mate.

Most players in his meta are not Tau players. Preparing to fight Tau at the cost of becoming more vulnerable to other armies is not sound.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:
If it can't beat Tau, it's really not a TAC list is it?

Hence 'as TAC as possible.'

True TAC doesn't even exist.

Currently, I do agree that he should grab more fliers as no-one takes anti-air anymore. But, as he has said, he doesnt have that many and doesnt have the ability or will to buy more.

Most armies arent capable of making truly "TAC" lists anymore, where they stand a reasonable chance of victory against any opposing army. The 7.5E armies can, ones with ridiculous formation bonuses and hyped up units, but most pre 2015 armies cannot. You cant really take BA ir IG or CSM or GKs and build an army thats able to reasonably engage Knights, Tau, Eldar, Necrons, FMC spam, deathstars, and the like with a single list. They just dont have the capabilities, particularly without allies.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Most armies arent capable of making truly "TAC" lists anymore, where they stand a reasonable chance of victory against any opposing army. The 7.5E armies can, ones with ridiculous formation bonuses and hyped up units, but most pre 2015 armies cannot. You cant really take BA ir IG or CSM or GKs and build an army thats able to reasonably engage Knights, Tau, Eldar, Necrons, FMC spam, deathstars, and the like with a single list. They just dont have the capabilities, particularly without allies.

To be fair, even Eldar can't make true TAC any longer. They can deal with just about everything but it's always possible to tailor against them with Titans or the like.

The main problem is more that many armies can't even take TAFAOC (Take A Fair Amount Of Comers) anymore.

 Swampmist wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

You have said openly you won't change. That's fine. Let the consequences of that stand and be what they are.

I think you have it the wrong way around here, Jancoran. You should learn from Martel - he is a player who knows what he is doing and, since he doesn't know what he will face ahead of time, builds a list that is as TAC as possible instead of tailoring. Not only is tailoring kind of TFG in itself, it is also bad since in Martel's case it will lose him more against other enemies than it will gain him against Tau.

That he loses against Riptidetau is not his fault as a general, it is because Tau as a faction are by far stronger than BA.

IOW you should commend him on the decisions he makes and look up to him, not deride him.

You...dont think...he knows he will be facing Tau Empire? You think this entire thread didn't inform him well enough on that possibility?

"Tailoring" is a stupid term for what you aretalking about. It's not tailoring to be intelligent in list design and say to yourself "They're out there...better prepare".
He has OPENLY STATED that he has 0 idea what he faces before he arrives and has no option to the contrary. So no, he doesnt know he will be facing tau, any more tgan he knows if hes facing eldar, crons or CSM.

It really, REALLY isn't mate.

Swampmist... Let me tell you right now: if you go to a tournament and you do not plan for Tau and Eldar, as well as Battle Companies, War Convocations and the list of other common winners at tournaments...

Well... I mean what do you really expect to happen to you? Seriously, I am asking you how you even plan to compete if you intentionally blind yourself to the possibility. Martel here has so much to say ABOUT Tau that I find it incomprehensible that he would not then have seen them on the field! What's he even talking about if he's not even fighting them? How does he even have an opinion in that case?

Anywho, Martel strikes me as a very nice person but he just does not want t o change and that's going to have consequences. I'm sorry. It will for anyone. He's no special snowflake. He doesn't get a pass on that. none of us do.

Why is it a bad thing when he refuses to weaken his army? Change is not automatically good.

He plans for Eldar, and Tau, and everything else, but he has to do all of it at the same time. Naturally that means he can't focus on a single thing.

 Ashiraya wrote:


Most players in his meta are not Tau players. Preparing to fight Tau at the cost of becoming more vulnerable to other armies is not sound.
.

If preparing to fight Tau actually "made him vulnerable" you'd have a point.

You don't have a point, because it doesn't inherently nor automatically do that.

Also: if he's not playing Tau, then where is his opinion coming from? guessing? No. He plays against Tau. His opinion would be worthless if the opposite were true.

He does not ALWAYS fight against Tau. In fact, most of the time he doesn't.

 Swampmist wrote:
Currently, I do agree that he should grab more fliers as no-one takes anti-air anymore. But, as he has said, he doesnt have that many and doesnt have the ability or will to buy more.

Will. Not ability. He has explicitly said he wont pay GW a dime more. You can't get on a forum and engage in a discussion wherein change is anathema to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why is it a bad thing when he refuses to weaken his army? Change is not automatically good.

He plans for Eldar, and Tau, and everything else, but he has to do all of it at the same time. Naturally that means he can't focus on a single thing.

"Weaken" it? No one told him to do that so again... if they had...you'd have a point. But no one did. So you dont.

Ok, I can. I play codex marines (both 40k and 30k) so its not hard for me. Melta Sallies, Smash Fether, and Talon strike force are all options I have. BA, without allies, don't. No if, ands, or butts about it. He doesn't have a aeapon that counters literally everything like Grav, atleast not in large enough quantities. To bring enough to reliably do well against tau he has to be prepared to lose horribly to an army like crons or gladius which plays very differently.

 Ashiraya wrote:
He does not ALWAYS fight against Tau. In fact, most of the time he doesn't.

Good. So plan for Tau anyways. they are coming. MOST things in most lists handle most things in most other lists.

The tweaks that you have to make for facing certain armies can be quite small.

Example: JUST got my butt handed to me last night by a Daemon Flying Circus. I think Ive beaten that army very few times. Not because it is inherently the most powerful thing ever, but that is the way it has turned out. I dont fill pages and pages and PAGES of different threads with "Wowa is me" about it.

But it is a truth that I haven't faced them often and when I have, I have come out on top far less times than I'd like. Very similar circumstance. The difference here is that I know I have to make a change. I get my beating from time to time and it reminds me that as much as I don't want to, I Do need some actually dedicated anti-air in the list to get me over the hump. I am vulnerable, unnecessarily so, when I don't, even though many armies do not have any air. I need to accept that, as few times as I see that list. I gotta' do something about it. I wasn't happy about my beating last night but on the other hand I went to my drawing board, altered the list slightly to compensate for my weakness and now i think if the same game were to happen again, I would probably win it. As it was, i did reasonably well despite the poor matchup in an even poorer mission choice (It was Big Guns Never Tire ITC mission, and I was the only one with a heavy Support, lol). It was what it was.

So Martel needs to use these "instructional" games to remind himself that change is just a necessity. He'll get beat hard every so often and realize "yeah...i really CAN afford to change if I want to play well". The rest of my army was able to kind of work (though when you're rolling with a grimoire and two Invisibility spells on flying stuff...well...) but it needed to be altered. It has been altered and I feel stronger for the reminder. His comment after the game was that the game had convinced him not to even try that list at the upcoming tournament because as good as winning felt, it was a lot closer than he wanted to be and had i been a little more prepared...just a little... It might easily have gone the other way (paraphrased).

 Ashiraya wrote:
The main problem is more that many armies can't even take TAFAOC (Take A Fair Amount Of Comers) anymore.

We could say the game is FUBAR but I won't explain what that one really means

lso, Im not gonna blame him for not wanting to buy anymore models, seeing as many BA players got gak on with the new codex when they made assault marines a FA and not a troop. I know that WS players would feel the same if bikers lost their ability to be troops.

 Swampmist wrote:
Ok, I can. I play codex marines (both 40k and 30k) so its not hard for me. Melta Sallies, Smash Fether, and Talon strike force are all options I have. BA, without allies, don't. No if, ands, or butts about it. He doesn't have a aeapon that counters literally everything like Grav, atleast not in large enough quantities. To bring enough to reliably do well against tau he has to be prepared to lose horribly to an army like crons or gladius which plays very differently.

Decurion is trumped by Obsec, speed and patience. You think these things are going to not fit in a fight with Tau? They will. Gladius can Obsec you to death. To counter that you need... Speed, obsec and... patience? Does this formula sound at all familiar?

If you face Eldar, you are going to need...Speed, board presence because of THEIR speed and speed bumps.

Wait... So the piece that is needed to fight one that isnt common necessarily to the others is...the speed bump unit? Yes! So the tweaks within an army that you have to make can be small.

The anti-air thing: bring some. In whatever form, but bring it. You need to even the odds a little. Yeah not everyone is flying all over you...but they can. And not planning for it is not a great idea. "ignore it" sy some people online and that isnt entirely a bad thing depending on your army but relying on an ability to ignore it and never attack the Air? mmm.... risky.

So you have to look at the army as a tool bag. YES it will look odd to some people but the sum is greater than the individual parts.

Oppressive board presence is a thing. Blood angels do it well. Assault is a thing. Blood Angels can do it well. Are they the worlds finest at either? no. They dont always have to be though so saying they arent isnt a dagger to the heart of your chances.

In this thread we are talking Riptides. anyne in this thread should be acknowledging that the riptide is there and you need to be able to face it...or find another thread that has nothing to do with Riptides!

So let's say a buy 2 more SRs. There are a ton of downsides to Angel's Fury. Look! TWC! I just lost. Because I've got 3 full tac squads that I'm relying on to punch things. That's why I don't have the models for Angel's Fury.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Most armies arent capable of making truly "TAC" lists anymore, where they stand a reasonable chance of victory against any opposing army. The 7.5E armies can, ones with ridiculous formation bonuses and hyped up units, but most pre 2015 armies cannot. You cant really take BA ir IG or CSM or GKs and build an army thats able to reasonably engage Knights, Tau, Eldar, Necrons, FMC spam, deathstars, and the like with a single list. They just dont have the capabilities, particularly without allies.

This is a recent battle report of the new RG detachments going against multiple Riptides:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/679236.page

So there's a lot to note about how much the updated books help, even in an army like RG that hasn't received a lot of attention in GTs.

 Swampmist wrote:
lso, Im not gonna blame him for not wanting to buy anymore models, seeing as many BA players got gak on with the new codex when they made assault marines a FA and not a troop. I know that WS players would feel the same if bikers lost their ability to be troops.

Wait. Wait. Wait. You wont BLAME him for it (which I am fine with) but you CAN blame him for complaining about a problem he can solve but chooses not to . THAT is blame worthy. You simply cannot get on a forum and complain about something you allegedly never see (in which case, stop complaining) nor can you complain about how "good they are' when you wont willingly use the Codex you do have (however woeful you may find it personally) to its fullest potential to give the enemy a good game.

And it is a game so i mean... Maybe he should play it for the cinematics. Skip the winning part. But if thats what he's going to do, no more complaining about the cinematics either! Lol.

How do You out speedy obsec a WS Gladius? No seriously, they have more obsec than anyone else, and with scout can be on the midfield holding objectives before anyone else. Fast vehicles are cool, but their not free.

Martel732 wrote:
So let's say a buy 2 more SRs. There are a ton of downsides to Angel's Fury. Look! TWC! I just lost. Because I've got 3 full tac squads that I'm relying on to punch things. That's why I don't have the models for Angel's Fury.

Thunder Wolf Cavalry cant kill things that arent on the board. As it turns out. So maybe you need to consider that and plan accordingly? KiLLING the Thunderwolf Cavalry isn't the only way to win and they arent the only targets on the board. Just saying.

Actually, generally people DO play lists made up of only TWC. Its kinda the only big competative build rn.

TAC doesn't exist. TAC hasn't existed for as long as I've played - there's always going to be some sort of lopsided list spamming X or Y that prevents TAC from working. In a lot of cases, codexes simply lack the tools to even consider taking a TAC list, or even tailoring for a specific threat. Perhaps that's poor game design. Perhaps that's a part of the inherent asymmetrical "balance" that makes 40k exciting.

Really though, BA have a lot of tools. Whether it's from their own codex or with their IoM allies they have a suitably diverse toolkit to deal with almost any particular list. (which is more than can be said for armies such as Orks...). However, a TAC list SHOULD NOT be able to beat every specialised list out there. If you load up on AA, you'll lose to ground troops, if you load up on anti tank, you can lose to infantry and vice versa. If you take a small sample of each, you'll likely lose to any of these lopsided lists. That is simply what 40k is.

If there was a list that was truly TAC, that would be completely and utterly gamebreakingly overpowered. (Basically 7.5 Eldar).