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What is Combat Tactics? I can't find it in my mini rulebook. If you have a page ref for either the mini book or the BBB I can look it up.

It's that new thing marines got? Lets them voluntarily fail morale checks to fall back out of combat?

I would like to see something along the lines of Pulse Rifles being assault 2 instead of rapid fire. Simple, but helps when your 120 point squad of guys that are only good at shooting are going to kill what, 4 or 5 orks over the 2 turns it takes to get caught in CC? 12 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds, 2 saved by 4+ cover. Great, you killed about 24-30 points of Orks per 120 points of firewarriors spent.

Da Boss wrote:It's that new thing marines got? Lets them voluntarily fail morale checks to fall back out of combat?

Oh right, yep I can find it now in my SM codex.

It makes me laugh reading the basic rules description of how when a fight begins all the pals of the engaged model rush in to help. Not if they have any sense if they are Tau!

Railguns wrote:I would like to see something along the lines of Pulse Rifles being assault 2 instead of rapid fire. Simple, but helps when your 120 point squad of guys that are only good at shooting are going to kill what, 4 or 5 orks over the 2 turns it takes to get caught in CC? 12 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds, 2 saved by 4+ cover. Great, you killed about 24-30 points of Orks per 120 points of firewarriors spent.

Assault 2 with range 30 would be too good.

How? It isn't like Firewarriors will win a shootout with anything but special and heavy-less guard squads. All MEQs will simply out attrition them. Cheap stuff like gaunts and orks can easily get cover saves against their shooting as good as their own armor save. They literally don't outshoot anything but stuff that wasn't meant to shoot.

The Crisis suits are supposed to supply the support fire that helps FW engage shooty enemies.

With their overall low Initiative scores, wouldn't most of the Tau just get sweeping advanced when using Combat Tactics?

Tau don't get combat tactics, thats a Space Marine thing.

@Killkrazy:Yeah, Crisis suits are there to kill the hard targets that Firewarriors either have too much trouble killing or simply can't kill. Like Terminators that deep struck next to a Tau gunline with heavy flamers, or a devastator squad wiping firewarriors off of the board with 4x heavy bolters, or whatever else crazy thing with better than suck armor or too many models for them to kill that is wiping the firewarriors. But the firewarriors themselves are only good at one thing, shooting. I am fine with that and actually I prefer the idea that they take things down, HARD, at ranged combat to compensate for no hth. But they aren't particularly good at that anymore either. Ubiquitous 5e edition cover saves ruin them against the light infantry they used to murder like Orks, Gaunts and Guard.

I agree with you on that.

No duh - I know Tau don't have Combat Tactics. I was pointing out why I thought that giving them Combat Tactics was not a good suggestion.

Well with the results of the last GT in the united states. Look like we need to go back to the drawing board. Seems we still are not competitive.


Does anyone know which type of Tau army the players used?

i don't think the tau need any rules changes because pre 5th the one biggest tau player used alot of bs with the skimmer thing on his turn he would say that his hammer head was skimming and so was up about 15 inchs in the air then on the other players turn he would say its landed becuase he bought landing gear so he couldnt be shoot at. nobody likes to play him unless they go super anti tau just to rub his face in the dirt.

everyone i know hates tau with i firery passion that hell could not beat.

i am not saying tau are bad but he just broke there rules alot and on a lot of games he had four heavys we final noticed and his excuse was that army builder didn't stop him from doing it

I would say the trick for the Tau is needing to improve the shooting ability of their basic firewarriors (as their tanks and suits kill things just fine) without resorting to increasing their number (i.e. decreasing their points).

I would think slightly improved rules for marker lights (mostly to simplify their use, needing marker light counters for units hit by them is pointlessly time consuming), something along the lines of any unit hit by markerlights reduces its cover save by one and anyone shooting at it has their BS increased by one. This, coupled with slightly easier access to marker lights army wide, would increase the untilty of their shooting units without increasing their power too much in other areas.

Secondly they need a better option for responding to deepstriking and outflanking units, perhaps the ability to equip their suits/tanks with something along the lines of the jammer on the Scout Speeder transport from the new marine codex.

As to complaints about vehicle based drones giving away kill points, I figure that so long as a unit can contest (not claim) an obejective (i.e. everything) it also has to be worth a kill point as thats part of the mission balance. Now if drones have their ability to contest objectives stripped then having them not count for KP would be fine by me.

Jack

The problem with the gun drones being worth a kill point wouldn't be that bad if the devilfish would have the same way of picking their secondary weapon. As it is now, Tau players pay a certain amount of points for a standard Devilfish, including the drones, and than need to pay 20 points extra to drop the extra kill point for the smart missile systems, effectively making the SMS cost 40 points on a Devilfish. The way the secondary weapons are selected for the Hammerhead is way better and more logical.

About increasing the shooting abilities of the fire warriors, I'd suggest assault 2 Pulse Carbines, possibly making the upgrade from Pulse Rifle to Pulse Carbine cost 1 point for every fire warrior. This would bring them more in line with Dire Avengers. Heck, even orks have assault 2 range 18" weapons on their basic troops.

I do not agree with Jackmojo saying suits are just fine. Sure they kill things just fine, the problem is they get killed so fast. Our suits relied on JSJ to survive. JSJ has become less usefull with the introduction of TLoS. A decrease in points cost is needed for the suits.

How to tau handle a running ork horde these days?
Do you have to be mechanised or is there some sort of clever tricks you can pull to make it hurt less?

I steamrolled our tau player (who is pretty good) in our only game of orks vs. tau so far, albiet with heavy causulties from his clever redeployment of fire warriors at exactly the right time.

Not really, Horde armies with cover saves just steam rolls tau. Tau bases there ability to shoot and move. With horde armies and +4 cover saves. You can't shoot them fast enough. They can not win in hand to hand. The speed of armies now and the ability to flank or infiltrate with the cover saves makes tau unplayable.

An 18" range gun would be a non-upgrade. Firewarriors need to kill at range, fast, or they are toast. Even if it's an effective 24" after moving, you end your turn within 18" inches of an enemy. Thats far too close for me, especially with jump pack troops, leaping Tyranids, and truck borne orks. Even WAAGHing Orks can catch you if they roll well enough. If they don't you'd get a second turn of shooting...so lets see.

4 shots per firewarrior per game. 12 Firewarrios per squad. Against Orks, 48 Shots , 24 hits, 16 wounds, 8 saved by 4+cover. 48 points of Orks killed per 120 points spent on Firewarriors before they get smashed in HtH. It doesn't get any better when you factor in power armored enemies or units that bring their own transports. I don't think Firewarriors really need a boost against vehicles. They need a boost in firepower so that they can overcome the cover silliness that 5th edition allows. Outflanking, scouting et. al make it even worse.

Airmaniac wrote:I do not agree with Jackmojo saying suits are just fine. Sure they kill things just fine, the problem is they get killed so fast. Our suits relied on JSJ to survive. JSJ has become less usefull with the introduction of TLoS. A decrease in points cost is needed for the suits.

This is dependant on the type of terrain modeling you have done, both my collection and the game store I occasionally play at have plenty of LOS blocking terrain (big hills, large ruins/buildings), and as such JSJ keeps the suits out of return fire well enough (asssuming the enemy is primarily in one direction, which given outflanking is not nearly so frequent).

Just like everything else, model collections (including terrain) can need to change when a new edition of the rules comes out.

Jack

A lot of good ideas for the tau so far. So now I'd like to add my wish list some of which has already been mentioned(sorry for any repitition)............................................................
First) Bear with me for a sec when I say IMHO Tau tanks are under gunned for the price.The new defensive weapon rule hurt an army that doesn't really have any thing underS5. Give the Tanks flamers or increase the current ROF. The Railgun while incredible ain't what it used to be(50pts for a Heavy 1 no Blast unless sub-munition S6 ap4) drop the points by 10 and twinlink it at least. Maybe improve the railgun blast profile or make the ion cannon go from heavy3 to heavy 2 blast? Devilfish burst cannon? Why put an assault gun on on a transport (range 18 S5 AP5 Assault 3) that doesn't carry assault troops? Maybe make the gun a long barreled burst cannon(range 36 S6AP4 Heavy3) instead of dropping the price. Yes the diruption pod does need to be at least 10 points. Yes, the decoy launcher needs to work on all immobilized not just glancing.(breath)

Second) Vehicles Pirahnas .......Tank Hunters USR and drop the price or give them fusion cannons(multi-melta). Maybe A shield gen option that makes them no longer open topped, it would make more sense than the eldar walker shield rule IMHO. Getting The tetras would be nice or some type of jet bike.

Third) Vespids are fine except they are named stingwings, give them a poison attack and emps at 18 pts. they work pretty good now as long as you don't jump to early. Would like for them to deep strike though. Too much??????(breath)

Fourth)Gun drones possibly as a troop choice and definetly give them a flamer option. Would make flamers on tanks easier.


Fifth) Kroot, Yes, fix the Kroot special rules and get rid of the terrain requirement. Also, Natural armour 5 but make their leadership purely point based. Kroot still work pretty well if you use large numbers with hounds. I, agree that they need some type of grenade that would give them some minor anti-tank and assault in cover without penalty, supposed to be really deadly in cover according to the fluff). Not asking for assault rifle IMHO would make them to good........or would it?.........
(breath)

Sixth) Crisis suits, pretty darn good, just make the shield gen intergral for the same price to make up for decreased effectivesess of shooting(cover saves). Give them equip to take advantage of relentless rule, integral marker lights & heavy guns that have greater range(make them expensive we're used to paying for it). Cyclic ion, they couldn't get the rule written right for the codex. How about this, Range 18-(24?) S4 AP4 Assault 4 Rending? Airburst frag? Give it range 24 S5 AP4 Large blast. Command Node Leadership within 12".

Seventh)Fire warriors. Drop the no organic fire support fluff. FW are in it for life following a lifelong path of improvement. A seargent(Shas'ui) is getting ready for crisis suit. Take a stealth torso(no jump pack) and let him choose from battle suit guns. I agree carbines need either higher ROF or special rule for the grenades, (you guys are geniuses). As far as DP in front lines, Like the skyray getting to shoot at them makes sense. Improve the Photon grenade.

Eighth)Seeker missles, keep price same but AP1??????HOW ABOUT NO COVER SAVES!!!!!!

Ninth) Yes, streamline markerlight rules. Did I mention you guys are geniuses.(breathe)

Tenth) BRING BACK AUN 'SHI. Make Ethereals some kind of useful, Initiative 5 Rending attacks Invulnerable 3+? Why do they even have a BS (give them a ranged effect)? _OR_ Tweek the inspiring presence rule. Kill an ethereal The Tau Become truly scary Initiative +2 stregth +1 bezerk fury or furious assault, stubborn, preffered enemy. Crisis suit get to shift power from guns where HTH attacks are power weapons.

Eleventh) Give the sniper drones the sniper rule. Could be usefull when facing a C'tan and make them worth the points.

And Finally Twelveth)Purely a pipe dream. A new race called the barghessi. Trading for the technology to fight the tyranids, incredible HTH butUberexpensive. 50 - 100 pts per model expensive. Right now BT, SM, &Necrons can stand at 24" and if just straight trade volleys of gunfire will out shoot the "shootiest" army. The thought on my wish list is to make the Tau current & streamlined for the same price not really to make them cheaper. The Shootiest army should then be the shootiest and if any major improvements in HTH They should COST.(whew)(gasp)(breath)

Dude, take a breath sometime...

Break that mess into paragraphs!

JohnHwangDD wrote:Dude, take a breath sometime...

Break that mess into paragraphs!

Sorry not a secretary or english teach. Will try to work on it...........................................................................................................


There is that better?

Stop trying to shoehorn a race of non combatants into a game of brutal hand to hand melees.

That's what needs to change.

Yet these shoe-horned non-combatants are still competitive in a galaxy of brutal HTH combat. Makes one wonder about the supposed Supremacy of the warrior doctrines of these unenlightened races.

Here is my .02 US.

How does the shootiest army - shoot like a bunch of grots? I mean honestly I have to take Target Arrays to get my suits to hit something consistantly - dont get me started about the new cover save rules....

Simply increast the BS of all tau - not kroot & vespid to a 4 leave everything else the same. I hate shooting at the same BS as a 3 point grot. I also like the photon grenades for free idea.

I agree kroot need improvements - grenades, actual save worth taking not reliant on a shapper.

Sniper teams - give them snipers already...otherwise call them rail rifle teams also giving the snipers rule might revitalize the option for pathfinders.

Markerlights - make them all networked so they are attractive to take w/fire warrior sergents.

Vehicles - i'm fine with the disruption pods points upgrade - but then give us something in return - seeker missles 5 pts or ap 1 seems fair to me.

Etherials (sp? dont have codex on me) - give them more of a role or a reason for opponent armies not to kill them.

Finally instead of creating a new group of aliens bring back the human converts/merks/abandond imperial fools - I thought it was a cool idea but never found the rules for them. Also for fluff - i like the idea of the join us or die idea - maybe boldness left over from 3rd expansion.

Casper your the dude. Forgot about basic BS increase. Spent to long hearing the game balance excuse in 4th ed

focusedfire wrote:Casper your the dude. Forgot about basic BS increase. Spent to long hearing the game balance excuse in 4th ed

hugh...you must be thinking of someone else...that was my first post.

Ok mabe not on the FW but still...be nice to actually put some other wargear on my crisis suits besides target arrays - my pathfinders are dead turn 1 alyways...via bad luck, poor strategy but mostly my friends hate them.

If giving them 1 point in BS would cause a points increase ide think it would only be 2 point tops - thats all you have to pay for the etherials body guard....but who would ever have one of those?

Casper, dude' take the compliment. "I" spent to much time listening to GW talk about game balance. So much so that I didn't even think about basic BS increase in my dream wish list for the next codex.
We're not talking about a lot of pts increase on these ideas because 5th ed reduced individual unit effecticveness. Also, using the new SM codex as a template. Points for the same thing should drop, or stay the same with tweaks to make them more suitable to 5th ed.

focusedfire wrote:There is that better?

TYVVM, it's much easier to read.

1. The Defensive Weapon change hurts non-Tau more by removing most of the S10 AP1 (might as well be against Tau T3 Sv4+) anti-infantry fire, so you should want to keep that in place, rather than giving people more free shots at your dudes. But yeah, your Grav-tanks are priced for 4E, just like nearly everybody else. Suck it up until the next update, which shouldn't be too far off.

2. I agree with Tau getting Jetbikes in the next edition. I'd support a T4(5) Sv2+ Jetbike as kind of a mobile tough unit - something the Tau should get.

3. Vespids are a good start, but the Tau should have more Xenos added to the mix - Rending S6 T5 A4+ Donorian Clawed Fiends; Hrud Snipers; and more.

4. Flamer Drones would be pretty good, and I could see them as upgrades to the existing Tau infantry. Basically, make the Gun Drones the Special weapons slots on the standard Tau Warrior units. That would force some interesting tactics.

5. Kroot are very close to being right as decently fighty Troops. If they were S4 A2 base, and counted the Rifle as +1A, then that would be about perfect. Maybe steal more of the options from the Kroot Merc list.

6. Crisis are good, basicly super Space Marines with JPs for the Elite slots. I don't know that they really need changing.

7. As above, Fire Warriors should be able to upgrade the Gun Drones to carry Special Weapons, or at least improved Basic Weapons.

8. How about an alternative fire mode, similar to how Imperials toggle between Frag and Krak?

9. Yeah, Markerlights need to be totally redone.

10. No real opinion on Ethereals.

11. Yes, Sniper Drones should be Sniper.

12. Barghessi are effectively similar in concept to Donorian Clawed Fiends, but 50+ pts is a ton of points. For that you need a Fleet Monstrous Creature. Seems like overkill and out of place to me.