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I see a ton of posts here about the strength of "Taudar".

In all honesty, I have no experience playing with allies ( We all agreed here not to use them, amongst other things). That said, I have a Tau army, one of our other group members plays Eldar quite often. As a group, we have found that both armies are quite tough, but not overpowered.

So I was curious to see what others who have experience in this arena think. Is it that both armies alone are overpowered? Or is it the combination of the 2 that causes the problem?

I am simply looking for opinions, I am not trying to rant about allies.

I look forward to your replies!

If i recall there aren't really any wombo combos to make em overpowerd together besides that they are both very very strong, other than divination which is also very very strong.

The armies are in the top 3 of all lists by themselves. And they are indeed "overpowered" compared to non top 3 armies.

I think he was asking if there was any reason besides that they are strong like a interaction between allies (like eldar dark eldar 2++ re rollable stuff)

And if Tau and Eldar, in some order, are #1 and #2, what are numbers #3, #4, and #5?

Tau are solid, but it's the way the Eldar compliment them that becomes amazing.

One of Tau's only weak areas is getting/denying backfield objectives late game. Eldar have no problem with this thanks to cheap and easy to hide jetbikes. That and Farseers are relatively cheap buffing units.

It's not so much one combo, just that the good units they have work good in unison.

Daemons/Necrons (Both roughly equal) and... Idk.

Variations of tau eldar + allies and then deamons are up there.

As far as I understand, there are some buffs possible because they are battle brothers and can swap Independent Characters. So you can stick a Tau Commander with 3 War Walkers and give them re-rolls to hit and ignore cover. Or a Farseer can cast Fortune on a unit of two Enclave Riptides (IC Riptide FTW!) to give them both re-rollable 2+/3++ (with Nova)

To clarify.

I know both armies are strong. My question is does the combing of the two cause the visceral reactions I see here and on other sites?

Or would people still react the same to those armies separately.

Chaos Demons have a legit claim to one of the top slots. So Eldar/Demons are 1/2 to me, and mono Tau is #3.

#4 is a huge drop off from these lists. I'd say GK and Necrons are 4/5. Maybe vanilla marines at 6, but I'm not convinced by seeing them in action.

Martel732 wrote:
Chaos Demons have a legit claim to one of the top slots. So Eldar/Demons are 1/2 to me, and mono Tau is #3.

#4 is a huge drop off from these lists. I'd say GK and Necrons are 4/5. Maybe vanilla marines at 6, but I'm not convinced by seeing them in action.

GK really aren't very good anymore.

I'd agree with you for the most part though

Daemons
Eldar
Tau
Necrons
White Scars

While i do enjoy the what army is in what tier debate, it is a bit off the topic.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Chaos Demons have a legit claim to one of the top slots. So Eldar/Demons are 1/2 to me, and mono Tau is #3.

#4 is a huge drop off from these lists. I'd say GK and Necrons are 4/5. Maybe vanilla marines at 6, but I'm not convinced by seeing them in action.

GK really aren't very good anymore.

I'd agree with you for the most part though

Daemons
Eldar
Tau
Necrons
White Scars

GK still have tricks the marines can't touch. Their standard troopers are way more capable than tac marines.

Best I can see is that Eldar plugs the main holes Tau have.

Psychic power defense, mobile scoring, even more psychic buffs. These are the exact reason allying eldar with Tau was so popular before the new codexes came out and they got turned up to 11.

I'm not really an expert in the exact synergies (or Eldar in general) because I plan on allying Necrons with my Tau once I finally get my main army built up completely.

Zothos wrote:
To clarify.

I know both armies are strong. My question is does the combing of the two cause the visceral reactions I see here and on other sites?

Or would people still react the same to those armies separately.

Difficult to answer.
I know for Tau the problems people have with them will always be present regardless of if they have an ally or not. Tau are focused in shooting and can enjoy their range and with markerlights can boost themselves fine. Without a battle brother ally they would still get the same complaints. Not fun to play against because they aren't trying to move down field and avoid combat against units that will easily slaughter them (note: it is fine when IG do this though). They are too good at shooting (based solely on one or two units). They ignore key parts of the game (gravity weapons are fine, atsknf ignoring the negatives of ld and fear tests is fine, vehicle hulls that ignore melta is fine).

Zothos wrote:
While i do enjoy the what army is in what tier debate, it is a bit off the topic.

Sorry, Zothos, I didn't mean to hijack your topic, which is an interesting one in it's own right.

I think that several people have hit on it already. Both Tau and Eldar are, in their own right, top codexes. Both offer a number of units which are staples because they are simply better than the rest of the codex (and honestly would rank top 10-20 in all units across all codexes: Riptides, Guardian Jetbikes, Broadsides, Wave Serpents, War Walkers, Wraithknights, Warp Spiders, etc.) When you can take a combination of the two, they definitely separate from the pack.

Tau suffer from lack of psychic ability and a lackluster HQ section in general, plus a lack of mobility for capturing objectives. They have massed high-quality shooting, good skyfire options and solid troops choices.
Eldar suffer from a high point cost, low number of models, limited skyfire and frankly not much else. They've got mobility and resilient tanks to spare.

Between the two, it's easy to patch all of your holes and not have any glaring weaknesses.

Zothos wrote:
I see a ton of posts here about the strength of "Taudar".

In all honesty, I have no experience playing with allies ( We all agreed here not to use them, amongst other things). That said, I have a Tau army, one of our other group members plays Eldar quite often. As a group, we have found that both armies are quite tough, but not overpowered.

So I was curious to see what others who have experience in this arena think. Is it that both armies alone are overpowered? Or is it the combination of the 2 that causes the problem?

I am simply looking for opinions, I am not trying to rant about allies.

I look forward to your replies!

As usual with most gamae blance issues - the armies are not overpowered, specific units (Riptides, Waveserpents) are OP.

When you combine the best of the best and also have excellent synergy between them then it gets horribly OP.

If the basic armies were roughtly equal than ally issues would be far less of a problem - so for me its really fixing the issue with both the OP units and the underpowered, unused units of the Eldar/Tau codex as well as brining everyone else up to their level.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Zothos wrote:
To clarify.

I know both armies are strong. My question is does the combing of the two cause the visceral reactions I see here and on other sites?

Or would people still react the same to those armies separately.

Difficult to answer.
I know for Tau the problems people have with them will always be present regardless of if they have an ally or not. Tau are focused in shooting and can enjoy their range and with markerlights can boost themselves fine. Without a battle brother ally they would still get the same complaints. Not fun to play against because they aren't trying to move down field and avoid combat against units that will easily slaughter them (note: it is fine when IG do this though). They are too good at shooting (based solely on one or two units). They ignore key parts of the game (gravity weapons are fine, atsknf ignoring the negatives of ld and fear tests is fine, vehicle hulls that ignore melta is fine).

This post reminds me of a Family Guy episode where Peter says "when you bang your wife, no big deal, but when I do suddenly IM the homewrecker"..Seriously though, huge difference in game disruption caused by Tau loopholes compared to Astartes loopholes.

Beyond this ill hang onto my two cents because I'm pretty sure most of GD knows where I stand on the issue.

BaalSNAFU wrote:


This post reminds me of a Family Guy episode where Peter says "when you bang your wife, no big deal, but when I do suddenly IM the homewrecker"..Seriously though, huge difference in game disruption caused by Tau loopholes compared to Astartes loopholes.

Beyond this ill hang onto my two cents because I'm pretty sure most of GD knows where I stand on the issue.

Tau have been able to ignore cover with markerlights since the 4th ed codex came out, hell back then you could also reduce Leadership with markerlights, and you could bring more of them to the table for alot less than you can now, So I don't know why everyone is complaining about it being "new" since they have pretty much always been able to.

The ranking that people have posted are pretty spot on.

If you play with LOS blocking terrian Tau will drop down in the ranks towards WS/CSM/RW.

Of all the complaints about tau I've ever heard,spoken, written or read, I don't believe I've ever encountered the word "new". If it wasn't as much of a problem in 4th, its probably because it lacked the synergistic impact that has now. Or it could be because buffing ld pails in comparison to a single drone removing an entire units 3+ cover. My point stands

Just saying, you need 2 markerlight hits to remove cover. So you's either need 6 drones, 4 pathfinders, or some combination of the above/ballistic skill increases.

Dang do I wish I could still reduce leadership for pinning checks. i completely forgot that was an option because frankly I never used to use markerlights because I just couldn't justify taking them instead of more guns (2 editions of getting mercilessly slaughtered while playing Tau has given me the tabletop version of PTSD. I still twitch reflexively in a "scoop models off the table" gesture whenever I see a unit of nob bikers).

Savageconvoy wrote:
Zothos wrote:
To clarify.

I know both armies are strong. My question is does the combing of the two cause the visceral reactions I see here and on other sites?

Or would people still react the same to those armies separately.

Difficult to answer.
I know for Tau the problems people have with them will always be present regardless of if they have an ally or not. Tau are focused in shooting and can enjoy their range and with markerlights can boost themselves fine. Without a battle brother ally they would still get the same complaints. Not fun to play against because they aren't trying to move down field and avoid combat against units that will easily slaughter them (note: it is fine when IG do this though). They are too good at shooting (based solely on one or two units). They ignore key parts of the game (gravity weapons are fine, atsknf ignoring the negatives of ld and fear tests is fine, vehicle hulls that ignore melta is fine).


This post reminds me of a Family Guy episode where Peter says "when you bang your wife, no big deal, but when I do suddenly IM the homewrecker"..Seriously though, huge difference in game disruption caused by Tau loopholes compared to Astartes loopholes

How short our memories are. I have to agree with SavageConvoy here. Back when they were released, IG were every bit as bad if not worse than Tau. Properly built IG list could execute crippling alphastrikes that could destroy a 3rd of an opponents army before they even got to go. And their stupidly resilient transports meant relatively inexpensive IG units could take a enormous beating before going down. Back in 5e, IG Chimeras were arguably the best units for the points. As far as shenanigans are concerned, IG had a ton: veterans never having to leave their transports throughout the course of the game, because they could both fire and score out of them; enormous control over both their reserves and their enemies reserves via astropath and master of the fleet; the ability to reduce enemy units to Ld 2 using the underpriced pskyer battle squads (from within the safety of a Chimera, naturally) ensuring the unit would run off the board if it took 25% casaulties; the ability to give 5 point models 3+ cover saves by going to ground and then ignoring the pinned state using "get back in the fight"; abundant, hard hitting artillery pieces with barrage which can bypass both LOS and cover; access to an artillery pieces that can shoot str 10 ap2 large blast or str 10 ap2 armorbane small blast across the board; access to another that shot 1d3 str 10 ordinance barrage large blast acroos the board; access to a fast skimmer tank with more firepower than the actual skimmer tanks in the Tau or Eldar codices, with transport capacity and scout thrown in for fun; the ability to outflank with anything using special characters, including a Leman Russ squadron armed with Demolisher Cannons, Multimelta sponsons and a heavy flamers (with rerolls to which board edge to come in on thanks to astropaths). With all this and more, IG easily outclassed both Eldar and Tau by at least the same margin, if not more, than these armies now outclass them. But nobody seems to remember a few years past.

Tau have been able to ignore cover with markerlights since the 4th ed codex came out, hell back then you could also reduce Leadership with markerlights, and you could bring more of them to the table for alot less than you can now, So I don't know why everyone is complaining about it being "new" since they have pretty much always been able to.

Correct accept for the cost. Markerlights came down considerably in the new codex. Markerdrones dropped in price by 16 points (18 points if purchasing for another unit rather than independently), essentially halving their price. Pathfinders only dropped by one point, but they lost that albatross, the mandatory and overpriced Devilfish, that essentially forced you to pay double for the squad to purchased a transport you would never use with the selfsame squad. The only thing that didn't change price was the firewarrior and Stealth Suit Shas'ui markerlights, and those were never practical to field to begin with.

Back on topic, my answer is the same as the others. Eldar and Tau seem to naturally patch gaping deficiencies in the army. Eldar lack both anti-horde weapons, while pseudo rending catapults are nice, the rending effect is meaningless against the likes of Ork Boyz at which point they become overpriced, shorter ranged bolters, while scatter lasers, forcefields and prism cannons are the only weapons available that even begin to put out the volume of fire needed to deal with the hordes. Tau armies do nothing but put out high volumes of fire, covering this weakness well. Eldar also have only one AA option, an AV10 flyer that can easily be downed by interceptor fire before it can even engaged enemy flyers, while the Tau can make virtually any unit into an AA unit by just adding a multitracker.

The Tau on the other hand, lack a good scoring unit, while Eldar possess the superb jetbikes and waveserpents, have no psykers, while Eldar have some of the best psykers in the game, have no reserve control, which they can gain through the use of an Eldar Autarch, and lack reliable long-range anti-heavy armor, which can be dealt with using the readily available Eldar bright lances. Add in the fact that battle brothers enables the armies to share buffs and freely attached ICs, and you got a winning combination.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Just saying, you need 2 markerlight hits to remove cover. So you's either need 6 drones, 4 pathfinders, or some combination of the above/ballistic skill increases.

Dang do I wish I could still reduce leadership for pinning checks. i completely forgot that was an option because frankly I never used to use markerlights because I just couldn't justify taking them instead of more guns (2 editions of getting mercilessly slaughtered while playing Tau has given me the tabletop version of PTSD. I still twitch reflexively in a "scoop models off the table" gesture whenever I see a unit of nob bikers).

Just saying that if tau kept the old version of markerlights people would still complain about it removing cover saves.

Correct accept for the cost. Markerlights came down considerably in the new codex. Markerdrones dropped in price by 16 points (18 points if purchasing for another unit rather than independently), essentially halving their price. Pathfinders only dropped by one point, but they lost that albatross, the mandatory and overpriced Devilfish, that essentially forced you to pay double for the squad to purchased a transport you would never use with the selfsame squad. The only thing that didn't change price was the firewarrior and Stealth Suit Shas'ui markerlights, and those were never practical to field to begin with.

Tetra was 55 pts for 4 Bs 4 markerlight shots on a platform that was hard as hell to remove from the field

Tetra was 55 pts for 4 Bs 4 markerlight shots on a platform that was hard as hell to remove from the field

Tetra is forgeworld though, and their rules are not dictated by the change in codex, just main rulebook changes and forgeworld updates. Codex markerlights became far more accessible, so unless you were already playing in a forgeworld heavy enviroment, they vastly increased in abundance when the codex hit (plus the loss of things like the target array almost seemed to be forcing players to run them even if they didn't want to). Prior to the latest codex, many Tau players, including myself, had abandoned markerlights entirely because they were so awkward to use (I didn't acquire Tetras until after the latest codex hit). Only a priviledge few enjoyed Tetras prior to the current codex.