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MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:
Tau have always felt top tier to me. Granted I play Orks so I am immediately at a big disadvantage when I play them. I have 2-3 Tau players in my area and every single game I play against 1-2 Riptides and 3 Missilesides. Always a great game when my orks rely on cover because of our poor armor and Tau have tons of ignores cover.

I generally don't have a problem with Space Marines but Tau/Eldar just kick my butt without much effort. And Necrons i have yet to face.

You'll see lots of that from me too. Since they didn't bother properly updating us since the majority of our units are not that great. Some are downright unplayable like railrifle broadsides, hammerheads, and vespids all stand out poor choices. Kroot could use a little push to see them playable again. Buff them back where they were before being nerfed. Let them actually be better in melee than they are now because they're not better in melee than anything. They're useless. You won't even see them taken in casual games anymore with poison rounds since power creep has set in with other codexes. So no Kroot means no kroot hounds, krootox, or shapers. That's nearing half of our codex options which are just trash.

 BoomWolf wrote:
You know why SoB players do well despite a meh codex? why they are one of my hardest matchups? they naturally gravitates for a properly balanced force-some point blank "up yours" units in dominions, some "match forward" basic infantry and some "fire support" with that freaking piano and rets.

This not only describes what I do to my poor Tau buddy, it is the story of why I've yet to lose a game to him. Granted, he hasn't put money into everything the Tau could have - but he has enough suits that I can never kill them all before the game ends. The JSJ just works too well. What I can do is wipe out all his basic infantry and vehicles, then try to survive for an objectives win. Markerlights are never an issue IMO.

 Gamgee wrote:

MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:
Tau have always felt top tier to me. Granted I play Orks so I am immediately at a big disadvantage when I play them. I have 2-3 Tau players in my area and every single game I play against 1-2 Riptides and 3 Missilesides. Always a great game when my orks rely on cover because of our poor armor and Tau have tons of ignores cover.

I generally don't have a problem with Space Marines but Tau/Eldar just kick my butt without much effort. And Necrons i have yet to face.

You'll see lots of that from me too. Since they didn't bother properly updating us since the majority of our units are not that great. Some are downright unplayable like railrifle broadsides, hammerheads, and vespids all stand out poor choices. Kroot could use a little push to see them playable again. Buff them back where they were before being nerfed. Let them actually be better in melee than they are now because they're not better in melee than anything. They're useless. You won't even see them taken in casual games anymore with poison rounds since power creep has set in with other codexes. So no Kroot means no kroot hounds, krootox, or shapers. That's nearing half of our codex options which are just trash.

Unfortunately, this issue exists with all armies. Though eldar could probably take their worse stuff and still compete at the top tier. And some armies stand little to no chance against the top tier stuff regardless of what they take. One of the worst decisions GW has ever made in a laundry list of bad decisions is their deciding to be a model company for collectors rather than a gaming company. This game would be soooo much better if they TRIED for internal army balance and external army balance. It's a travesty that they don't. I feel gw also doesn't believe their own hype completely that they are a models for collectors company. If they did believe that, there wouldn't be any game rules at all. None. Zip. Nadda.

 Gamgee wrote:

MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:
Tau have always felt top tier to me. Granted I play Orks so I am immediately at a big disadvantage when I play them. I have 2-3 Tau players in my area and every single game I play against 1-2 Riptides and 3 Missilesides. Always a great game when my orks rely on cover because of our poor armor and Tau have tons of ignores cover.

I generally don't have a problem with Space Marines but Tau/Eldar just kick my butt without much effort. And Necrons i have yet to face.

You'll see lots of that from me too. Since they didn't bother properly updating us since the majority of our units are not that great. Some are downright unplayable like railrifle broadsides, hammerheads, and vespids all stand out poor choices. Kroot could use a little push to see them playable again. Buff them back where they were before being nerfed. Let them actually be better in melee than they are now because they're not better in melee than anything. They're useless. You won't even see them taken in casual games anymore with poison rounds since power creep has set in with other codexes. So no Kroot means no kroot hounds, krootox, or shapers. That's nearing half of our codex options which are just trash.

Kroot are ok, just not spectacular, they could probably use either a point reduction or at the least some kind of bonus for close combat. like give them CCW's instead of rifles.

But as far as unplayable units. When I want to be competitive I can't use Killa Kanz, Deff Dreadz, Morkanaut, Gorkanaut, Stompa, Ghaz, Weirdboyz, Nobz, Nob Bikers, Flash gitz, Burna boyz, Storm Boyz or Kommandos. The only thing Orks have going for us is our basic infantry is pretty good at melee and we have Mek Gunz which can be pretty awesome when used right.

I just don't see how Tau aren't considered top tier either now or last edition.

Funny that, I see Kroot populate the Troops slot at least as much if not more often than Fire Warriors in tournament lists. Here's the thing; damage wise, Kroot are lacking compared to almost anything. They don't shoot even half decently unless you give them the Sniper rounds, they are poor in close combat, they are fragile, etc. However, optimized Tau lists don't NEED firepower from their Troops slots when a single Broadside is roughly points equivalent with 7 Fire Warriors and shoots better than they ever could. Kroot give you the cheapest ObSec models for points per model in the codex, they can Infiltrate into good early scoring positions and have Stealth (Forests) plus Move Through Cover to stick around.

In the day and age of heavy firepower being such a widely accessed commodity the Kroot tend to be just as hard to kill as Fire Warriors given the ridiculous amount of AP4+ shooting going around; plonk the Kroot in cover and go from there. In the odd case that they don't have something better to shoot at, they are also much harder to kill with Graviton weapons. Of course, whether you use Fire Warriors or Kroot can be a bit meta dependent. Kroot are miles better in Maelstrom missions. Additionally, if you do what a lot of competitive Tau players do and just keep your Troops in reserve, Kroot have the edge with being able to Outflank with possible Acute Senses. I will point this out however; in a Hunter Contingent where truthfully you just want the smallest tax on the "Troops", Fire Warriors nudge ahead in my experience. However, that's also due to the fact that the Fire Warriors can actually make great use of the detachment bonuses.

If someone actually says Kroot are "unplayable" or "crap", they don't understand how the unit works at all. Kroot made up the Troops choices of the newest Australian Masters winning pure Tau list, just as an example.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

MorkorpossiblyGork wrote:
Tau have always felt top tier to me. Granted I play Orks so I am immediately at a big disadvantage when I play them. I have 2-3 Tau players in my area and every single game I play against 1-2 Riptides and 3 Missilesides. Always a great game when my orks rely on cover because of our poor armor and Tau have tons of ignores cover.

I generally don't have a problem with Space Marines but Tau/Eldar just kick my butt without much effort. And Necrons i have yet to face.

You'll see lots of that from me too. Since they didn't bother properly updating us since the majority of our units are not that great. Some are downright unplayable like railrifle broadsides, hammerheads, and vespids all stand out poor choices. Kroot could use a little push to see them playable again. Buff them back where they were before being nerfed. Let them actually be better in melee than they are now because they're not better in melee than anything. They're useless. You won't even see them taken in casual games anymore with poison rounds since power creep has set in with other codexes. So no Kroot means no kroot hounds, krootox, or shapers. That's nearing half of our codex options which are just trash.

Kroot are ok, just not spectacular, they could probably use either a point reduction or at the least some kind of bonus for close combat. like give them CCW's instead of rifles.

But as far as unplayable units. When I want to be competitive I can't use Killa Kanz, Deff Dreadz, Morkanaut, Gorkanaut, Stompa, Ghaz, Weirdboyz, Nobz, Nob Bikers, Flash gitz, Burna boyz, Storm Boyz or Kommandos. The only thing Orks have going for us is our basic infantry is pretty good at melee and we have Mek Gunz which can be pretty awesome when used right.

I just don't see how Tau aren't considered top tier either now or last edition.

Tau are most definitely top tier with the new codex and campaign books, they were top tier in 6th Edition as well. There was a brief period before the 7th Edition codex came out where they were starting to lag behind in 7th tournament results mostly due to certain builds (O'Vesa star notably) becoming illegal due to core rule changes, plus the move towards Maelstrom of War missions which the common lists at the time were pretty ill suited to winning in. The new codex kinda changes all that despite being few direct changes to the main units themselves which is pretty darned impressive.

As far as Orks are concerned, the unit list you mention kinda perplexes me. Orks have Zhadsnark and Troop Warbikers going for them, Orks have the Big Mek Buzzgob Big Mek Stompa going for them, Meganobz and Tankbustas are both highly valuable Elites choices, Deffkoptas are fantastic skirmishing units for Maelstrom missions, etc. I would also say that you probably don't understand why a Wierdboy is actually fairly good, points-cost wise he's a great little psyker but importantly he gives Orks some pretty hilarious powers. Take Sanctic Daemonology and put the Weirdboy in a Green Tide, the results are...disgusting. Gate of Infinity, Hammerhand and probably Sanctuary are all amazing powers to add to a Green Tide, and you have decent chances of getting at least one of those three in every game. Also Mek Gunz aren't "pretty awesome when used right", they are one of the best artillery units in the game period, especially once you start adding the ablative Grot wounds to them.

I'm fully aware Orks struggle competitively and, like Chaos Space Marines, have to rely on a bit of Forge World love (Zhadsnark, the super discounted Big Mek Stompa) to compete at the top level but generally speaking there's more to the army than you give it credit for. I'm kind of expecting them to get a codex this year honestly - if Space Wolves are (not confirmed, could just be a model release) then I'd be amazed if Orks didn't, so suffering through the growing pains of being a 7th codex rather than a 7.5 codex might not last much longer.