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.

An Avatar has as likely of a chance to hit a Deamon Prince as it does a Guardsman or a Firewarrior. And your Weapons skill has to be over twice as high as your opponent's before he or she requires a 5+ to hit you.

I guess that could make sense??? Making sense is sort of a strange way to define a mechanic in a game. It's not like anything about 40K is supposed to be "realistic" or based on anything other than what the designers decide.

But it is setup so that the change in effect between high weapon skill to low weapon skill (and the other way around) is much less of a factor in the game than Strength vs. Toughness. It also means that units that cost a lot in part because of a higher Weapon Skill get less of an advantage than units that pay a premium for higher Ballistic Skill, which is more useful.

 The Shadow wrote:

Purple Saturday wrote:
Everyone knows the Weapon Skill vs. Weapon Skill table is poorly setup. It always has been.

If you're stood next to someone trying to kill him, whilst he's trying to stop several other people around him trying to do the same thing, you have a fairly decent chance of being able to bop him on the head with your rifle. That why it's a minimum 5+. Kinda sucks in game sometime, but it does make sense.

I am sorry, but it makes so sense. Your analogue made no sense whatsoever. That is like saying a complete tit could put up a fight against a MMA expert, just because otherwise they would get their behind kicked.

As was said, the table makes no sense and no excuses can be given.

Naw wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Purple Saturday wrote:
Everyone knows the Weapon Skill vs. Weapon Skill table is poorly setup. It always has been.

If you're stood next to someone trying to kill him, whilst he's trying to stop several other people around him trying to do the same thing, you have a fairly decent chance of being able to bop him on the head with your rifle. That why it's a minimum 5+. Kinda sucks in game sometime, but it does make sense.

I am sorry, but it makes so sense. Your analogue made no sense whatsoever. That is like saying a complete tit could put up a fight against a MMA expert, just because otherwise they would get their behind kicked.

As was said, the table makes no sense and no excuses can be given.

You obviously misunderstood him:
He meant if said complete tit was fighting the MMA expert, while 11 other complete tits are also trying to bash the MMA guy in, it makes it harder for the MMA guy to block/fight whatever.
It doesn't make any sense 1vs1, but then you can justify it with the fact that they constantly have to be looking around for other threats: I.e. a terminator isn't going to be too worried by the grot in front of him, so he's gonna be looking around for the power klaw warboss. However, the only thing on that grot's mind at that point is the terminator.

Edited because I said "power moas"

So, I believe this latest game demonstrates what we were saying very nicely: the biggest problem was the OP's unfocused list, not the Tau being overpowered. Once the OP took a better list the game got a lot closer and (presumably) more fun.

I have no problem with tau. But I'm still suffereing from necron players cant stand necrons...

 Peregrine wrote:
So, I believe this latest game demonstrates what we were saying very nicely: the biggest problem was the OP's unfocused list, not the Tau being overpowered. Once the OP took a better list the game got a lot closer and (presumably) more fun.

So a game where the terrain and the enemy army was fine-tuned against a pretty mediocre Tau list shows that the Tau is not OP at all. Uhm...

 AtoMaki wrote:
So a game where the terrain and the enemy army was fine-tuned against a pretty mediocre Tau list shows that the Tau is not OP at all. Uhm...

There was no fine-tuning of the army list against a specific opponent, just basic "don't bring a list that sucks" fixing. In fact the OP even admits they could do a lot more to tailor against Tau.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:
So a game where the terrain and the enemy army was fine-tuned against a pretty mediocre Tau list shows that the Tau is not OP at all. Uhm...

There was no fine-tuning of the army list against a specific opponent, just basic "don't bring a list that sucks" fixing. In fact the OP even admits they could do a lot more to tailor against Tau.

No it was fine-tuned (not tailored though) against Tau. Just check page 11 (where it was first posted) and onwards. It was effectively a "I want to bring down the Tau with my quasi-fluffy army list" thing.

I think this thread is flogging a dead horse now.
People in general seem to dislike Tau and believe they are OP.
XenoTerminus prove by bringing a better list that it can be done but got unlucky with the roles.
His list was far from optimised (I know the DA codex pretty well) but it was a good shot.

For future a possible suggestion could be Sammael in combat with a Riptide maybe with some knights.
He's gets around quickly although you do have the issue of wounding on 6's you can do hit and run in his turn and then blast with a plasma cannon.

Just a suggestion as I understand you might not have him.

Tactical_Genius wrote:

Naw wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Purple Saturday wrote:
Everyone knows the Weapon Skill vs. Weapon Skill table is poorly setup. It always has been.

If you're stood next to someone trying to kill him, whilst he's trying to stop several other people around him trying to do the same thing, you have a fairly decent chance of being able to bop him on the head with your rifle. That why it's a minimum 5+. Kinda sucks in game sometime, but it does make sense.

I am sorry, but it makes so sense. Your analogue made no sense whatsoever. That is like saying a complete tit could put up a fight against a MMA expert, just because otherwise they would get their behind kicked.

As was said, the table makes no sense and no excuses can be given.

You obviously misunderstood him:
He meant if said complete tit was fighting the MMA expert, while 11 other complete tits are also trying to bash the MMA guy in, it makes it harder for the MMA guy to block/fight whatever.

I was not talking about 1 vs 11, but e.g. 3 WS2 vs 5 WS4.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/546759.page

I rest my case

Wait, Tau are OP!? You say they ignore the core rules!? Hold on, wasn't that what the tyranid gaunt birthing machine does? And the Necrons We'll be back thing do? And the Blood Angels turn one Deep strike Terminators? What about all those Psyker powers that don't allow saves and grant crazy free powers? Those don't break the rules but stripping a cover save does? The same cover save that is mostly worthless most of the time anyway as good 3+ armor is the norm, 2+ is 'great' and the units you bring to shoot 2+ armor are sad pandas cuz said 2+ armor most often has an invuln save anyway?

See I thought after a year or so playing now that this 40k made a "rule book", then printed a bunch of "break the rules books"? Isn't that how it works? I'm serious! That is the game were talking about right? B-t-dubs, anyone know what a tau army sells for? I have to start investigating the sad possibility

There's a difference between a unit or two per army breaking core rules and an army whose core tactics are based around doing it.

Space Marines don't miss those cover saves. Guard, Tyranids, Orks, Eldar and Dark Eldar sure do.

Pretty sure all those armies can bring plenty of models or plenty of heavy units that don't rely on cover to be tough. Yeah, not getting cover hurts, but it's still losing an entire unit that's dedicated to buffing another unit. And all those armies are susceptible to whirlwinds anyways, it's nothing special about Tau.

Speaking solely from Tyranids as they're what I play - you'd be wrong. Tyranid armies very rarely, even when horded, have enough models to lose a lot and not care. Their one method of spawning is unreliable and frequently stops doing so for the whole game. Their MC's are overpriced and underpowered for what they do (with the exception of the Tervigon) and completely lack access to invulnerable saves, and there won't be many of them.

Tyranids rely on cover saves to get across the board (either smaller bugs from small arms fire or larger bugs from surplus anti tank firepower). Dealing with a whole army that denies them their primary tool for survival cannot really be compared to their one unit that breaks the game by spawning a couple of small Termagant squads. Their one saving grace, psychic powers, doesn't mean much when their squads are getting blown to peices because a whole army can ignore the thing that means they can live to cast those powers.

As an ork player I can say we really really rely on cover saves of one sort or another Bikers, KFF, or just ordinary cover. I don't feel for folks with 4+ armor when most the ork book is 6+.

I still find it funny when marine players complain that tau brake rules while they got ATSKNF-ignore moral effects, meaning holding objectives is dirt easy as long a single model survives-your guys wont run away.

Also drop pods-they don't "break rules"? you ignore the chance that deepstrike will go horribly wrong.

Combat squads-you can turn your army to MSU at will, AFTER seeing if killpoints come up-and field up to 12 troop choices.


Sure, tau brake rules. EVERYONE brake rules. tau brake cover and overwatch rules, marines brake FOC, DS, and moral.

Nids brake unit limit and FOC even harder.
IG brakes FOC with tank squads and platoons.
Necrons brake pretty much anything with crypteks.
Give me a codex-I'll show you just how many rules it brakes-there isn't a single army that does NOT brake a hell lot of rules.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I still find it funny when marine players complain that tau brake rules while they got ATSKNF-ignore moral effects, meaning holding objectives is dirt easy as long a single model survives-your guys wont run away.

Also drop pods-they don't "break rules"? you ignore the chance that deepstrike will go horribly wrong.

Combat squads-you can turn your army to MSU at will, AFTER seeing if killpoints come up-and field up to 12 troop choices.


Sure, tau brake rules. EVERYONE brake rules. tau brake cover and overwatch rules, marines brake FOC, DS, and moral.

Nids brake unit limit and FOC even harder.
IG brakes FOC with tank squads and platoons.
Necrons brake pretty much anything with crypteks.
Give me a codex-I'll show you just how many rules it brakes-there isn't a single army that does NOT brake a hell lot of rules.

Try Chaos Space marines and Sisters of Battle.

KnuckleWolf wrote:
And the Blood Angels turn one Deep strike Terminators?

I can do that? Really?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I still find it funny when marine players complain that tau brake rules while they got ATSKNF-ignore moral effects, meaning holding objectives is dirt easy as long a single model survives-your guys wont run away.

Because marines don't take morale checks??

How exactly is a codex, that is part of the rules, able to break rules anyway?

The difference between ignoring cover saves and the other rules being ignored, is the former is directly resulting in me removing models without getting to roll saves if my opponent so chooses. It's a core mechanic of the game, and it feels like a robbery.

I get similar reactions when my 6 BMs lay down fire at marines, Eldar, or anything not XXX wing. 2+ to wound, only invulnerable saves which aren't common outside of demons. Against orks, my salvo weapons just feel down right dirty.

Saying instead that my sonic weapons are -1 for bolters and -2 for Bms to cover saves would have been a lot more balanced IMO, same with tau. -1/2 to cover saves (not sure which, though I'm leaning towards the latter) would mean orks can gtg in a forest for a 6+, or a 5+ in a ruin, instead of just auto dying in droves.

My other army is nids. I don't use those against tau at all...mostly because it takes waaaay to long to unpack just to get destroyed by turn 3. I don't have this problem with any other army (save de when I went MC heavy, but it wasn't as bad).

That said, I still don't think tau are op outside of 3 riptides

Akiasura wrote:
The difference between ignoring cover saves and the other rules being ignored, is the former is directly resulting in me removing models without getting to roll saves if my opponent so chooses. It's a core mechanic of the game, and it feels like a robbery.

I get similar reactions when my 6 BMs lay down fire at marines, Eldar, or anything not XXX wing. 2+ to wound, only invulnerable saves which aren't common outside of demons. Against orks, my salvo weapons just feel down right dirty.

Saying instead that my sonic weapons are -1 for bolters and -2 for Bms to cover saves would have been a lot more balanced IMO, same with tau. -1/2 to cover saves (not sure which, though I'm leaning towards the latter) would mean orks can gtg in a forest for a 6+, or a 5+ in a ruin, instead of just auto dying in droves.

My other army is nids. I don't use those against tau at all...mostly because it takes waaaay to long to unpack just to get destroyed by turn 3. I don't have this problem with any other army (save de when I went MC heavy, but it wasn't as bad).

That said, I still don't think tau are op outside of 3 riptides

Balanced? The sonic blasters are still pretty expensive for the model its on and the blastmaster is also pretty expensive. Making it -1 to cover save (Which won't even penetrate the basic cover save of 5+ in the game will make it more worthless, and ruins will be the death of the blastmaster. I'd refuse outright if my choir army became worthless in another edition. It's already bad enough that plague marines are still on top by a large margin.

Ruins with a -2 to cover save would grant you a 6+ cover save.
Hardly ruined. If you want, make it -2/-3 instead, so only people going to ground in ruins get saves.

My point more or less was that modifiers to saves need to come back, because all or nothing just doesn't work. It's a little weird that pathfinders in ruins going to ground get no save, as do orks standing there in a forest, at least from my pov. We are already seeing this with marine armies due to the prevalence of ap 2/3 weapons.

But this would require going back to using 2d6 for saves, which I don't see many clamoring for.

Agree on you with plague marines. I don't like the look of nurgle, and don't want to run them.

Akiasura wrote:
The difference between ignoring cover saves and the other rules being ignored, is the former is directly resulting in me removing models without getting to roll saves if my opponent so chooses. It's a core mechanic of the game, and it feels like a robbery.

Not really. I dont see any difference between weapon abilities that ignore cover, and other weapons/abilities that ignore difficult terrain, movement/deployment rules, morale/leadership etc. your ability to roll a save or not is irrelevant on whether something goes against a core mechanic of the game.

as to being a "robbery" - again, no and not really. tau have to work to remove those cover saves. marines just "get" ATSKNF, and dont have to jump through any in-game hoops to gain the benefits.

Also ATSKNF and Combat squading aren't abilities that get removed. If I loose pathfinders and markerdrones then I don't get any buffs and my entire army is now hindered because of it. Imagine having to take a scout squad that's always in LOS of the enemy to get ATSKNF on a few units and if the squads die they lose it.

Also I had a game where I got wrecked because a guy ran so many small combat squaded units spread out. So I got minimal hits under the templates and if it scattered towards another one of the squads then they got cover. Not exactly what I call overkill.

Deadnight wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
The difference between ignoring cover saves and the other rules being ignored, is the former is directly resulting in me removing models without getting to roll saves if my opponent so chooses. It's a core mechanic of the game, and it feels like a robbery.

Not really. I dont see any difference between weapon abilities that ignore cover, and other weapons/abilities that ignore difficult terrain, movement/deployment rules, morale/leadership etc. your ability to roll a save or not is irrelevant on whether something goes against a core mechanic of the game.

as to being a "robbery" - again, no and not really. tau have to work to remove those cover saves. marines just "get" ATSKNF, and dont have to jump through any in-game hoops to gain the benefits.

But ATSKNF affects your own army, while removing cover affects mine. That's the difference between ignoring cover and ignoring moral, movement, difficult terrain, etc etc.
Remember Eldar wards that caused you to roll 3d6 for ld tests when using pyskers, or the current rune priests? Those are some of the most hated abilities around, because its your army doing something to mine, and there isn't a lot I can do about it.
Imagine if chaos had an ability that caused the enemy to reroll successful ld tests for +1 pt. That would probably be viewed as more powerful then ATSKNF, even though it probably wouldn't come up as often.

Akiasura wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
The difference between ignoring cover saves and the other rules being ignored, is the former is directly resulting in me removing models without getting to roll saves if my opponent so chooses. It's a core mechanic of the game, and it feels like a robbery.

Not really. I dont see any difference between weapon abilities that ignore cover, and other weapons/abilities that ignore difficult terrain, movement/deployment rules, morale/leadership etc. your ability to roll a save or not is irrelevant on whether something goes against a core mechanic of the game.

as to being a "robbery" - again, no and not really. tau have to work to remove those cover saves. marines just "get" ATSKNF, and dont have to jump through any in-game hoops to gain the benefits.

But ATSKNF affects your own army, while removing cover affects mine. That's the difference between ignoring cover and ignoring moral, movement, difficult terrain, etc etc.
Remember Eldar wards that caused you to roll 3d6 for ld tests when using pyskers, or the current rune priests? Those are some of the most hated abilities around, because its your army doing something to mine, and there isn't a lot I can do about it.
Imagine if chaos had an ability that caused the enemy to reroll successful ld tests for +1 pt. That would probably be viewed as more powerful then ATSKNF, even though it probably wouldn't come up as often.

No it wouldn't, because then we still couldn't sweep an ATSKNF army.

As a tau player I have found that some people don't want to play against tau because they expect a gun line, and admittedly that's boring. I like to play my Tau as aggressively as I can, I play the enclaves rules so that I can better equip my Commander for CC, no tau aren't going to win in CC but if I get a chance where I might be able to challenge another warlord I like to take it. I like to shake it up while still playing my armies strengths. Winnings not everything but its a lot of fun to play the way I do, for me it is anyways. You don't need a gun line to win.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
The difference between ignoring cover saves and the other rules being ignored, is the former is directly resulting in me removing models without getting to roll saves if my opponent so chooses. It's a core mechanic of the game, and it feels like a robbery.

Not really. I dont see any difference between weapon abilities that ignore cover, and other weapons/abilities that ignore difficult terrain, movement/deployment rules, morale/leadership etc. your ability to roll a save or not is irrelevant on whether something goes against a core mechanic of the game.

as to being a "robbery" - again, no and not really. tau have to work to remove those cover saves. marines just "get" ATSKNF, and dont have to jump through any in-game hoops to gain the benefits.

But ATSKNF affects your own army, while removing cover affects mine. That's the difference between ignoring cover and ignoring moral, movement, difficult terrain, etc etc.
Remember Eldar wards that caused you to roll 3d6 for ld tests when using pyskers, or the current rune priests? Those are some of the most hated abilities around, because its your army doing something to mine, and there isn't a lot I can do about it.
Imagine if chaos had an ability that caused the enemy to reroll successful ld tests for +1 pt. That would probably be viewed as more powerful then ATSKNF, even though it probably wouldn't come up as often.

No it wouldn't, because then we still couldn't sweep an ATSKNF army.

Hmm...good point.
Ok, auto fail ld tests, and it overrides ATSKNF

It depends on how easy it is to get that ability. If it's +1 point on a single unit of T3, 5+, LD7 models then I don't see how it's game breaking. You kill the unit and the effect is over.

That and I don't think they've ruled that wasn't in the favor of ATSKNF.It's been the other way, where ATSKNF overrides core game mechanics like Fear. I forgot about that. An entire rule that deamons get that's completely ignored by marines. That's doing something to the deamon player because it's affecting his army.

Akiasura wrote:
Remember Eldar wards that caused you to roll 3d6 for ld tests when using pyskers, or the current rune priests? Those are some of the most hated abilities around, because its your army doing something to mine, and there isn't a lot I can do about it.

No, that's not at all why they're hated. Those abilities are hated because they're 5th edition leftovers after 6th edition nerfed psychic defense. They weren't a problem with psychic hoods were area psychic denial, but when 6th reduced hoods to nothing more than a small bonus to defend against psychic attacks ROW and rune priests were suddenly way more effective than any other psychic defense. And it was even worse because both (old) farseers and rune priests are cheap models with access to the best psychic powers, so you were getting an extremely efficient divination psyker and getting free "better than you're supposed to have in 6th" psychic defense.

Expect the same thing to happen with BA vanguard vets now that (supposedly) the C:SM version can no longer assault out of deep strike. People are going to hate the BA unit because they're going to have a rule they're not supposed to have anymore (and will almost certainly lose when BA get a new codex) just because GW is slow at updating codices.