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Everyone runs them. They are dirt cheap for what they do, and everyone knows it. At my flgs, a tournament came down to dark angels with tanks, skulking behind an aegis line, and on the other side....tau...skulking behind a line. Guess how many things moved across the middle of the board?

Tau won thru superior cover removal. Bit it was the most boring final match I think I have ever seen.

Who thinks this one unit really messed up the game more than it contributed?

When 6th edition first came out, there was a lot of ADL use due to lack of anti-air amongst armies. As the codices are released, the only time I'm seeing them taken now is as points filler.

Orock wrote:
Everyone runs them. They are dirt cheap for what they do, and everyone knows it. At my flgs, a tournament came down to dark angels with tanks, skulking behind an aegis line, and on the other side....tau...skulking behind a line. Guess how many things moved across the middle of the board?

Tau won thru superior cover removal. Bit it was the most boring final match I think I have ever seen.

Who thinks this one unit really messed up the game more than it contributed?

I do not know what Aegis is. What is it?

I mean if people are hiding behind a wall just run up. Kick the wall down and let out a waagh and you win...right?

It depends on why type of army you are playing with / against if taking a ADL is even worth it .... with tau / imp guard / gunline it can be extremely useful (if your going to be stationary why not take a easy cover save with an icarus or quad gun), earlier in the edition it was spammed due to it being one of the only flyer defense for most armies .... now between allies / codex updates its not the only anti-flier option so it is dependent on what type of army you are playing.

There are a few funny combos you can use with it that are pretty effective ... telion, fire dragon exarch, anything with BS 6 and abilities that make the icarus or quad gun really nasty.

But ultimately its a cover save for gunline and minor flier defense - I don't think it messed up the game in any way

They're on the way out in tournament play. I only played against one at the ATC, and I played some nasty lists. I actually brought a Bastion (hiding place for my FMCs)

Wait, a PA player got to tournament final abd then played defensively against Tau? Me thinks your tournament must have been very small and very local.

I faced two at ATC. They make the game pretty boring. Of course so do Allies. There were Rune Priests and Wraithknights fething EVERYWHERE!

I see them used mostly as AA, and they were used more earlier on. They don't break it any more than LOS blocking terrain, or terrain that grants a cover save.

i actually dont think ive ever taken it with Tau, im always doing the tactical strat where im jumping all over the place rather than castling up (I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE DO THAT lol so i wont do it).

Orks, i find i kinda NEED it. Maybe in the new dex i wont, but right now its just way too easy to pick off my lootas/kannons because if the terrain is light, or the pieces i wanted not on my side, im screwed. ADL gives me a guaranteed cover.

I would actually say the ADL is the only balanced fortification. Bastions are kinda dumb (either impossible to remove or way easy to remove, depending on what army is shooting). The other two are downright crazy for the cost. Only reason people dont take them is because of the size of them and theyre kinda cheesy (4++ elevated platform for 75pts....serously?)

For Orks they are awesome, just because they can practically ignore the downsides to go to ground and they end up with a permanent 2+ cover.

But that story made me laugh.
So you're at this tournament. And right in front of you someone unpacks his Tau.
And the first thing you think is: "Let's hide in cover and have a shoot-out with Tau!"?

I tend to take a ADL to get a comms relay more than for the ADL its self. My army is a pretty mobile battlesuit army with minimal fire warriors and max suits so I often heavily rely on deepstrikes and homing beacons. The comms relay can really help to ensure I get the reserves in when needed, nothing worse than needing that deepstrike and rolling a 1 or 2.

The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Artillery spam Imperial Guard/DKoK might be able to win that fight.

Doubt anyone else could.

They are good for Chaos Marines. Put an aspiring champion on the quadgun, get some Precision Shots, and hope for a Daemon Prince. Its also a good way to keep heavy weapons squads from most armies safe.

The problem is that some people over-estimate the safety of them and crowd up too tightly. I was playing a Tau player with my nids and the Doom came close to nailing five different units in the mosh pit behind the line. Had my scatter not failed, it would have been a bloodbath.

For me, the biggest problem is that they provide skyfire capability AND defence for too cheap a cost. The whole point of having only a single fortification slot should be to make you weigh up what option you should go for carefully.

Want great protection AND firepower, that as a downside is horribly expensive? Fortress.
Want medium protection and medium firepower, that as a downside is kinda expensive? Bastion.
Want great protection, that's fairly cheap, that as a downside is without firepower? Skyshield.

...want medium protection, medium firepower, for even cheaper than the Bastion meaning there's no downside whatsoever, making the slot choice a bit of a no-brainer...? HOORAY!

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Psh. My anti Tau tactic is "Fateweaver gets into a gunfight versus the entire Army." It's super effective (seriously).

Never bothered using ADL. As was previously mentioned, my suits are too busy jumping around while my FWs relocate.

anonymou5 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Psh. My anti Tau tactic is "Fateweaver gets into a gunfight versus the entire Army." It's super effective (seriously).

2nd this with havocks on sky shield and noise marine spam.
Cover? We don't need no stinking cover!

Always using one myself as well. I don't have another choice running a no-flyers army.

Akiasura wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Psh. My anti Tau tactic is "Fateweaver gets into a gunfight versus the entire Army." It's super effective (seriously).

2nd this with havocks on sky shield and noise marine spam.
Cover? We don't need no stinking cover!

Yeah I could see that working too. Tau are only really dangerous at 15 inches, and somewhat dangerous at 36, past that, they're not throwing anything scary down range (that's the area where Guard dominates), thus you can play the range game versus them and win (assuming you have the right tools).

I wrote what is effectively a novel about how I do it.
http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2013/08/16/guest-editorial-by-anonymou5-fateweaver-versus-the-world-or-a-way-to-fight-tau-a-tournament-vignette/

I play IG and If I had interceptor units I would probably rethink aegis . But there are no , so am using it and it also works nice with going to ground and standing up .

anonymou5 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Psh. My anti Tau tactic is "Fateweaver gets into a gunfight versus the entire Army." It's super effective (seriously).

2nd this with havocks on sky shield and noise marine spam.
Cover? We don't need no stinking cover!

Yeah I could see that working too. Tau are only really dangerous at 15 inches, and somewhat dangerous at 36[

...which means they cover the entire table

 gossipmeng wrote:
Never bothered using ADL. As was previously mentioned, my suits are too busy jumping around while my FWs relocate.

This is how I've always imagined Tau on the battlefield.

 Super Ready wrote:
For me, the biggest problem is that they provide skyfire capability AND defence for too cheap a cost. The whole point of having only a single fortification slot should be to make you weigh up what option you should go for carefully.

Want great protection AND firepower, that as a downside is horribly expensive? Fortress.
Want medium protection and medium firepower, that as a downside is kinda expensive? Bastion.
Want great protection, that's fairly cheap, that as a downside is without firepower? Skyshield.

...want medium protection, medium firepower, for even cheaper than the Bastion meaning there's no downside whatsoever, making the slot choice a bit of a no-brainer...? HOORAY!

No downside? Ignore cover renders it useless...going to ground doesn't prevent LOS. It can provide your opponents a cover save. You opponent can use your own quad gun/icarus against you if it gets into base to base with it.

Bastions are AV14. Granted, there's more consequence to glances and pens that don't destroy the building, but, at least in my local meta, there's not much that gets fielded that can reliably hit AV14.

ADLs have downsides but most opponents don't take advantage of them. I had a game where I took over the other guys quad gun and was firing both his and mine in the same turn. It was glorious.

My group considered banning them because we are sick of one or both sides simply sitting behind one. Some armies are worse, Tau and IG seem to have pretty much become armies which encamp behind aegis lines and don't advance at all. Fine in itself, not much different to a gun line in 5th BUT they also have the added annoyance of having a barrier to assault. Shooty army now seems to equal troops + fortifications of some kind.

There are hard counters to everything. At 1,500 points, with IG, I run a pair of Manticores, so I love Firewarrior castles chilling out behind ADLs. My CSM army doesn't do nearly as well against that type of setup though.

ADLs are useful for gunline armies, as they should be, but they don't always factor well into aggressive armies necessarily.

i take an adl + quadgun for my havoks, another 4 ac shots TL on a unit already toting them, means the champ does something other than stand there.

 Sigvatr wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

anonymou5 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Psh. My anti Tau tactic is "Fateweaver gets into a gunfight versus the entire Army." It's super effective (seriously).

2nd this with havocks on sky shield and noise marine spam.
Cover? We don't need no stinking cover!

Yeah I could see that working too. Tau are only really dangerous at 15 inches, and somewhat dangerous at 36[

...which means they cover the entire table

Haha. No, it just means you eat the hits you have to at 36 inches, and stay out of 15 inches. Plenty of Armies put out more fire power at 16-36 than Tau do. Eldar, Banner DA, Guard, Daemons.... You just have to know your best range bands, and have the mobility to exploit that.

It's not as bad as I had originally feared. But yeah, ADLs and first blood, in addition to what they did to close combat makes 6th ed a gunline game.

As for tau gunlines hiding behind an ADL creating the most boring games of 40k, welcome to new tau.

If you don't like playing yahtzee with miniatures, the only thing you can do about your opponents is to not play them. Otherwise, the only things you can do are changes to your own army to try and bring your own units that shake up the game a bit.

 Kain wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
The first rule of Warhammer is: never get into a gunfight with Tau.
The second rule of Warhammer is: NEVER get into a gunfight with Tau.

Artillery spam Imperial Guard/DKoK might be able to win that fight.

Doubt anyone else could.

I'm sure non-artillery IG could win with enough LR and Guardsmen through sheer dice. Also Necrons and very specific Eldar/Dark Eldar lists may be able to out-shoot Tau.