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[quote=]The Tau went from "being really good at shooting" to "being really good at absolutely killing everything on the board while also being super mobile and tough". No one army should be able to hop across the board, AND ignore terrain, AND ignore cover, AND ignore armor values, AND murder hordes, AND murder vehicles, AND outrange everybody else, AND be tough as nails once someone manages to actually get within range to attack you. It's silly.

The Tau were fine when they were a predominantly immobile army, with mid-range volume of fire being their bread and butter and the majority of their anti-armor being restricted to the 12-24'' bracket in Crisis Suits.

Edit- Tau aren't the only ones with this problem btw- Eldar are broken for the same reason. Their original design philosophy was balanced around hitting hard and fast with mid-range firepower and assaults, but crumpling from a stiff breeze. This philosophy kept them in check, and then one day "DUDE WRAITHKNIGHTS LAWL", yet another hyper-durable super-fast unit that also hits like a truck and can do so from across the board. "DUDE JETBIKES LAWL", yet another unit that is extremely fast, hits extremely hard but is also tough due to having a 3+/4++.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Echoing the need for LOS terrain. if a tau player sets up the board and is waiting for a game and there are no large opaque buildings... nope not interested. If there is plenty of terrain then sure great sounds fun. That said marker lights I think are the biggest problem with tau, it lets them ignore far to many rules or guarantee hits (practically) and ignore cover which should be a HUGE part of the game was just plain bad design. I would prefer that their next book introduce a few bulky alien allies or expand croot and vespids to balance the army. I love the theory of tau, a fast hit and run army but hate that in practice that becomes a boring gunline.

Surrender without rolling a dice, bet that works a treat in tournaments.

Here's hoping cover becomes a To-Hit modifier rather than a save. Auto include 4+ to hit Markerlights quickly become very situational 'Weapons'.

tournaments I attend tend to have preset terrain and lots of LOS blocking so not an issue, if I showed up to a tournament and their terrain sucked I would play it out if I had already payed money, otherwise I would just elect to spend my day doing something else rather than participate

 Gamgee wrote:
I hope GW doesn't listen to the posters in here for sure. Or else my best gun will be 3 inches str 2 ap nothing single one shot per game and a stat line fof 2's in everything except wounds. Then after the game the Tau players models self destruct.

Balance is good when it's fair, but there is such a huge hate and bias against Tau in the community I have to be skeptical. To the others it's only balanced when they can beat Tau. That seems to be the general message.

Go play against your own army sometime. With BA. Then get back to me.

No nerfs is fine; then pay more for your invincible MCs. Because they are functionally immortal in 7th ed. Sounds like that's going to change in 8th, but we don't know for sure. As it is, Tau have some of the most undercosted units in the game. That's why you get the hate.


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 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I disagree with the OP. Tau are balanced versus a table cluttered with line of sight blocking terrain. If you are unable to close with Tau without being shot to death, you do not have enough of the right terrain on the table. That's on you, not army balance.

That said, and based on what we are seeing so far with the 8e leaks, the changes look promising for a more balanced Tau. Melee while melee will favor the charger, its implied that any further rounds are simultaneous while Tau might still retain an Overwatch advantage. And range is getting standardized to a bit more quantity over quality, which will harsh on the Monat player and pump up the Breachers.

As always, we shall see.

SJ

On the one hand, I see where this comes from. However, it's a SERIOUS red flag that we have to have a SPECIFIC table set up to make an army fair. That's basically giving the Tau opponent a free advantage to even the odds. That's as much as admitting the Tau as currently constructed are not fair in general. Free advantages is why gladius is so popular except your opponent can't stop you from getting it. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense for EVERY table to have LOS blocking terrain. This means that Tau must be made fair for tables without such features as well.

For my money, the main problem with Tau is the same problem all armies have - there are no requirements to field Troops that have any bite to them. Players (not just Tau) can get away with spending minimal amounts of points on Troops and put the rest of their points into the OP stuff. That's exactly the opposite of the intent of the game. The game gets a lot more interesting and balanced if players actually have to invest a fair chunk of their points in Troops, and use them for more than sitting on home field objectives.

The other thing I really don't like about Tau is that it's too easy for them to get Ignores Cover. A couple of markerlight hits completely negates some units' primary means of protection. That in particular needs to be heavily nerfed, or done away with altogether. The downside of most Ignores Cover weapons is that they're short ranged. Nobody should be able to get it on any unit they choose and apply it from across the table.

Martel732 wrote:

On the one hand, I see where this comes from. However, it's a SERIOUS red flag that we have to have a SPECIFIC table set up to make an army fair. That's basically giving the Tau opponent a free advantage to even the odds. That's as much as admitting the Tau as currently constructed are not fair in general. Free advantages is why gladius is so popular except your opponent can't stop you from getting it. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense for EVERY table to have LOS blocking terrain. This means that Tau must be made fair for tables without such features as well.

I think you're missing the point. The point is, every table should have LOS blocking terrain, because there's going to be disparities between armies relative shooting abilities regardless of what matchup you have. It's just more pronounced with Tau because they're practically all shooting/no melee. Even between armies with identical shooting power, someone has to go first, and one should be able to hide units from the other player's shooting on that first turn, and be able to try to move units up the table while masking them from dangerous shooting units. Hence, all tables should have a healthy dose of LOS-blocking terrain.

There's no rules for LOS blocking terrain placement. That's MY point. It costs no points and has no formalized method for being deployed. It should NOT be THE balancing feature for Tau unless this feature is codified in the rules. Which it is not.

As it is, Eldar and Tau want basically zero terrain and I have to talk them down from that most of the time. I'm not getting huge chunks of LOS blocking without rules to back me up.

Martel732 wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
I hope GW doesn't listen to the posters in here for sure. Or else my best gun will be 3 inches str 2 ap nothing single one shot per game and a stat line fof 2's in everything except wounds. Then after the game the Tau players models self destruct.

Balance is good when it's fair, but there is such a huge hate and bias against Tau in the community I have to be skeptical. To the others it's only balanced when they can beat Tau. That seems to be the general message.

Go play against your own army sometime. With BA. Then get back to me.

No nerfs is fine; then pay more for your invincible MCs. Because they are functionally immortal in 7th ed. Sounds like that's going to change in 8th, but we don't know for sure. As it is, Tau have some of the most undercosted units in the game. That's why you get the hate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I disagree with the OP. Tau are balanced versus a table cluttered with line of sight blocking terrain. If you are unable to close with Tau without being shot to death, you do not have enough of the right terrain on the table. That's on you, not army balance.

That said, and based on what we are seeing so far with the 8e leaks, the changes look promising for a more balanced Tau. Melee while melee will favor the charger, its implied that any further rounds are simultaneous while Tau might still retain an Overwatch advantage. And range is getting standardized to a bit more quantity over quality, which will harsh on the Monat player and pump up the Breachers.

As always, we shall see.

SJ

On the one hand, I see where this comes from. However, it's a SERIOUS red flag that we have to have a SPECIFIC table set up to make an army fair. That's basically giving the Tau opponent a free advantage to even the odds. That's as much as admitting the Tau as currently constructed are not fair in general. Free advantages is why gladius is so popular except your opponent can't stop you from getting it. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense for EVERY table to have LOS blocking terrain. This means that Tau must be made fair for tables without such features as well.

LOS blocking terrain should always be on every board. be it ruins, bluffs, canyons, trees or full buildings etc. The game is designed with terrain involved including los blocking, playing without it is leaving an aspect of the game out. think of it as trying to play monopoly but deciding against using houses or hotels. the game still functions but not as well and those low value properties are now mostly worthless. one could argue that a battle can take place in an open field, but 40k is not a real battle it is a game built around a set of parameters, choose to delete those parameters with your opponent sure but don't say that a key mechanic of 40k should not always be present


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
There's no rules for LOS blocking terrain placement. That's MY point. It costs no points and has no formalized method for being deployed. It should NOT be THE balancing feature for Tau unless this feature is codified in the rules. Which it is not.

As it is, Eldar and Tau want basically zero terrain and I have to talk them down from that most of the time. I'm not getting huge chunks of LOS blocking without rules to back me up.

so don't play the game with them. I would love there to be some sort of formalization to terrain and my club mostly has our own way (divide table into 6ths one big los blocker per section sprinkle in d3 other pieces)

Playing in a table without terrain just makes every shooting army OP. Is just the most boring type of gameplay out there.

Thats why in our tables we always play with a lot of LOS and in general, terrain. Thats why my list favour breacher teams and close-range shooting Tau list.

"The game is designed with terrain involved including los blocking"

I don't think we know that, given GW's lack of transparency. We don't know how much thought, if ANY, was put into 7th ed.


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 Galas wrote:
Playing in a table without terrain just makes every shooting army OP. Is just the most boring type of gameplay out there.

Thats why in our tables we always play with a lot of LOS and in general, terrain. Thats why my list favour breacher teams and close-range shooting Tau list.

We have lots of terrain, just very little blocks LOS. That's the compromise situation. Doesn't help marines much, really.

"so don't play the game with them"

Demanding a certain amount of specific terrain or refusing to play doesn't seem like a very viable position. Especially when GW doesn't back me up on my request for said LOS blocking terrain.

The problem is that there is no standard table to try and balance from that. It's all recommendations.

Glad to see some old guard Tau players here telling how it should be.

See, before the 6th Edition Codex, Tau did not really shoot that much. Or, to be more precise, they could take a build which put out ungodly number of shots but that wasn't often the best way. Also many of their core weapons didn't have a great range - Missile Pod 36", SMS 24", Burst Cannon 18" and so on. Instead, they had wargear and special rules which allowed them to utilize their firepower very well. Tau Tanks and Suits could Split fire, move & shoot, jump back to safety etc. It could be very flexible.

But when 6th Edition book rolled out, they were dramatically changed. Much of the cool wargear disappeared and were replaced by improved Markerlights. Also they got new guns which had longer range than before. Finally, Riptide, hardly needs more commentary. When I first played 6th Edition Tau, I was both shocked and bored senseless. Gone was the finesse, now I was just throwing buckets of dice at my enemy. It felt like playing Dakka Orks, not a cool flexible hi-tech army. So my Tau went to dumpster (figuratively).

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:


Another issue is that Tau bends the rules of not only their army, but that of other armies to conform to them. They can all shoot during the melee phase with overwatch basically as if it was another shooting phase. Failing that, a lot of their units are jetpack units that don't want to charge, effectively turning their melee phase into another movement phase. If they could do nothing during the melee phase and not steal the enemy's melee phase into their own shooting phase, they might be less frustrating to play against.

This summed up exactly what was has been wrong with Tau for the past couple of editions and all on the first page.

Not only do they excel in one of their own phases but they essentially turn your phase where they should suck (assault) into a free shooting phase... where they excel... again. Add on top of that their jump shoot jump ability and the main tactic for dealing with them, being cc, becomes even harder to employ as you spend longer than you would against the other gun-line army trying to chase them down which exposes you to ever more firepower. Not that I'm saying that the other gun-line army in guard are what Tau should be. I'm interested though to see where 8th leaves Tau, Eldar and Marines.

See, here's the problem: When you face a Tau player who actually uses the length and breadth of his codex, the game is incredibly fun. I have a friend whose Tau list is a primarily short range, mobile setup, which he generally calls a "close to close combat" tau army. It's not a softball by any means - it can jump in and blow a huge chunk of an opponent's army away in a single devastating shooting phase, but it also has counterplay and you can come to grips with it in melee.

He's got Breachers in Devilfish, an Optimized Stealth formation with Ghostkeels, and the formation that deep strikes a whole bunch of crisis suits and a broadside down into the board, along with the buncha drone formation for markerlights and carbines, and the formation of the small AV10 skimmers with even more close range weaponry.

It's an absolute blast to face, highly tactical, and can face all but the cheesiest competitive opponents.

Martel732 wrote:
"The game is designed with terrain involved including los blocking"

I don't think we know that, given GW's lack of transparency. We don't know how much thought, if ANY, was put into 7th ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Playing in a table without terrain just makes every shooting army OP. Is just the most boring type of gameplay out there.

Thats why in our tables we always play with a lot of LOS and in general, terrain. Thats why my list favour breacher teams and close-range shooting Tau list.

We have lots of terrain, just very little blocks LOS. That's the compromise situation. Doesn't help marines much, really.

"so don't play the game with them"

Demanding a certain amount of specific terrain or refusing to play doesn't seem like a very viable position. Especially when GW doesn't back me up on my request for said LOS blocking terrain.

pull out a white dwarf and look at the tables they use, go to youtube and watch tournament footage or Miniwargaming matches. should provide all the proof you need as to people making the game fair requiring terrain to be large and blocking LOS. if I can use my fire prisms at max range (60") then either I have found one of the only holes to hit your unit in or the table is to sparse.

I disagree, there should be places where you can hit with your max range. If people see a table set up by a Tau player with little to no terrain and are wary, I think its fair that shooty armies players are wary of players playing melee armies and covering up a table in terrain.

As a person who played and played against tau often, I think they're fine, balenced and easily countered with good play, quality list building and smart deployment and movement. Simply put, tau demand you be good at playing the board and dancing around ranges and knowing what to kill first if your going to beat them. The bigger problem is people not changing play style to account for how tau work, or worse not changing their lists when your foot slogging marines/orks get rekt, or you use the worst 4 codexes as a bench mark.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I disagree, there should be places where you can hit with your max range. If people see a table set up by a Tau player with little to no terrain and are wary, I think its fair that shooty armies players are wary of players playing melee armies and covering up a table in terrain.

sure, but it should be line of fire. if my fire prism can hit anywhere on the board without ever losing LOS that is a problem. if there are ruins that block it and I can move into a fire line to hit a specific unit but that requires me to both get there and think about where I could get the next turn to open lines of sight then that is a much more dynamic and fun game

 Jaxler wrote:
As a person who played and played against tau often, I think they're fine, balenced and easily countered with good play, quality list building and smart deployment and movement. Simply put, tau demand you be good at playing the board and dancing around ranges and knowing what to kill first if your going to beat them. The bigger problem is people not changing play style to account for how tau work, or worse not changing their lists when your foot slogging marines/orks get rekt, or you use the worst 4 codexes as a bench mark.

They still have some of the most undercosted units in the game. Even if some tables let you "counter" them with free terrain that just turns them off. That makes the terrain setup way more important than my actual list.

Martel732 wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
As a person who played and played against tau often, I think they're fine, balenced and easily countered with good play, quality list building and smart deployment and movement. Simply put, tau demand you be good at playing the board and dancing around ranges and knowing what to kill first if your going to beat them. The bigger problem is people not changing play style to account for how tau work, or worse not changing their lists when your foot slogging marines/orks get rekt, or you use the worst 4 codexes as a bench mark.

They still have some of the most undercosted units in the game. Even if some tables let you "counter" them with free terrain that just turns them off. That makes the terrain setup way more important than my actual list.

Crisis suits are a 50 point model that is 2 marines in toughness, and gets 1 shot by a melta

Lascannons or melta will delete broadsides like they're butter

Skyrays are nice, but they are support units that act as a one trick pony

Riptides are broken, but that's about it.

If people just knew to drop melta near broadsides and crisis suits, and shot at markerlight support you'd counter most tau armies.

Having lasguns or melta, or a way to get close fast, and corner the tau are all you need to make a good fight. I can do it with grey Knights, you should be able to do it to, with better armies. You can hard counter a lot of tau with just a single skyhammer ported into any army. If you want to beat tau you either need to negate shooting, out shoot them, have a means of pinning them down early in the game, play the field better than them, or have enough long range shooting to snipe key support units in the army whilst projecting yourself better over the board. Kill my pathfinders turn one with the cheapest shooting you have, lascannon the broadsides. ignore hammerheads, ignore skyrays, delete fire warriors because they shoot okay and die like guardsmen, and save riptides for Str D alone or anything that can 1 shot. Set up assaults in such a way that you can have at least 2-3 units attacking at once, knowing damned well the first unit may be oblated down to 1/2 size or less. If you've a Death Star or something that can't die, put it in the tau's face and fast. If you've units closing distance quickly and forcing tau to deal with close range threats your going to beat them and fast.

Also, heavy flamers will hurt any tau list if used correctly abd are able to get where they need to be.

Also psychic shriek is a tau'a worst nightmare. Same with almost all mind bullets. The real counter to tau is psychic powers, not assault. Once you realize this you learn the secret sauce to crushing any tau army.

My experience with Tau salt - playing both as them and against them - is this: Ignores Cover and Interceptor everywhere drives everyone nuts. Monster Mash drives everyone nuts. Tightly gaggled gunlines that let every unit overwatch on every charge drive people nuts. Tau winning melee drives people nuts (even when it's pure luck, but the Riptide and Stormsurge attract a lot of rage here).

The Riptide does too much, and the Ion Accelerator is a double-heretical abomination of the highest order. It's not actually as bad as some people assume - it doesn't get 12 shots with AP2 that ignore LOS - but what it really does do is more than bad enough. You can sit back, 72" away due to the stupendous range. You don't need to use the risky nova-charge, because its relatively safe Overcharge mode is almost as good. When you do use the nova-charge, you can use the legendarily frustrating 3++ option every time, no need to use anything else, ever. You can get FNP and Interceptor without having to give up anything that an IA-equipped Riptide cares about. (Too far for overwatch, too few shots for Skyfire, precision shots don't matter, Riptides can't take VRTs). Oh, and if someone decides to drop close, you get to drop an S8 AP2 pie-plate on them before they can act, maybe ignoring cover too if the right drone formation is around. Too much at once.

The Stormsurge wouldn't be all that bad, but Interceptor and Stomp are evil, and chewing through 8 wounds without multi-wound weapons is hard. Combined with the Riptide, it's more double-heretical abomination.

Fix these, fix Ignores Cover, and fix Overwatch, and Tau become a lot less rage-inducing.

8e is already confirmed to have multi-damage weapons, Mortal Wounds and the ability to retreat from melee. It's a fair surmise that Overwatch will either go away or become a Command Points thing, which will do a lot to rectify that, and Supporting Fire may disappear along with it. It's mostly there now, so that there's some risk in charging Tau, since even if you don't kill them, you tie up a unit that can never meaningfully participate in the battle unless they escape somehow. With everyone able to escape at the cost of their ability to attack next turn.

My hopes are fairly high that 8e will succeed in making Tau less maddening to play against without nerfing them into the ground.

Martel732 wrote:
There's no rules for LOS blocking terrain placement. That's MY point. It costs no points and has no formalized method for being deployed. It should NOT be THE balancing feature for Tau unless this feature is codified in the rules. Which it is not.

As it is, Eldar and Tau want basically zero terrain and I have to talk them down from that most of the time. I'm not getting huge chunks of LOS blocking without rules to back me up.

I think I've found your problem - you play against holes. As a Tau player, I load up the board. I want several pieces of LoS blocking terrain, I want plenty of cover for both myself & my opponent to use, I want difficult/dangerous terrain everywhere. I don't have any fun if I'm just deleting units of my opponent. Throwing dice & watching their army evaporate isn't any more fun for me than it is for them. I want a reason to pull my models out of the foam as much as they do. I want to have a good, engaging battle, where winning comes down to maneuvering, target priority and tactics. Not because I erased 3-4 squads a turn.

Maybe I'm lucky in that the store I play in has a full room of various different terrain to choose from, from the ruined imperial buildings, to 12" tall rock formations that span an entire quadrant of a 6x4 table, I dunno. Granted Martel, I -know- your BA suck. I do. They're as bad off as my GKT army that I love (and still play, btw). But I play regularly against a gun-line DA player (no formations, no grav, no cents, etc.) and our battles are bloody, hard, and down to the wire. It's anyone's game up until the last turn or two. Same against a friend of mine who plays Ad Mech.

You simply play against a bad class of people, I think.

Martel732 wrote:
There's no rules for LOS blocking terrain placement. That's MY point. It costs no points and has no formalized method for being deployed. It should NOT be THE balancing feature for Tau unless this feature is codified in the rules. Which it is not.

As it is, Eldar and Tau want basically zero terrain and I have to talk them down from that most of the time. I'm not getting huge chunks of LOS blocking without rules to back me up.

Sounds like you need to learn better negotiating. If they want none, you need to start wanting a city fight table of LOS blockers, then you meet in the middle. Or if you are playing the classic 25% terrain, alternate each player picking a piece of terrain until that 25% is full, then set it up the same way.

Great job Martel732 taking me totally out of context and not seeing the debate that me and Traditio had. If your cherry picking Tau players responses like that no wonder you probably think we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.

You guys don't seem to realize that if you can roll for invisibility and put it on assault units, you'll beat tau almost always, because you've negated their shooting almost completely with a huge threat.

I believe AOS has terrain rules, each 2x2 segment is supposed to have d3 pieces of terrain.

As for Tau. They were 1 trick ponies and the only way they could function was to do that trick well. They are not invincible. Any Tau player worth his/her salt hated the complaints and boring play that came with the safe strategy of castling up in the back. You didn't always win but it was more fun to be as mobile as possible.

Would these changes make you haters redirect that rage to the real problem, Eldar and Whitescar Gladiuses?
Markerlight changes -
2 ML to increase BS by 1
1 ML for seeker
1 ML for Destroyer
2 ML to decrease cover by 1

Make kroot and Vespid worthwhile melee fighters. Other than that you're talking about adding dedicated melee units to the army that are decent enough that people want to take them. Like a CC suit or Melee Drones. Is this acceptable?

If supporting fire becomes a command trait that you have to expend points for would you cry less?

Also 8th ed. will no longer have formations so riptide wing is dead and gone. Hooray!

Lastly - I'm sure Tau's weapons will be reworked to follow a defined progression. Where some weapons play off each other, like say, Plasma and Ion. Plasma should do more wounds while Ion does more shots.
- Hope they do something like this so that Tau players actually have a reason to consider all the weapons in the arsenal.

Naaris wrote:
I believe AOS has terrain rules, each 2x2 segment is supposed to have d3 pieces of terrain.

As for Tau. They were 1 trick ponies and the only way they could function was to do that trick well. They are not invincible. Any Tau player worth his/her salt hated the complaints and boring play that came with the safe strategy of castling up in the back. You didn't always win but it was more fun to be as mobile as possible.

Would these changes make you haters redirect that rage to the real problem, Eldar and Whitescar Gladiuses?
Markerlight changes -
2 ML to increase BS by 1
1 ML for seeker
1 ML for Destroyer
2 ML to decrease cover by 1

Make kroot and Vespid worthwhile melee fighters. Other than that you're talking about adding dedicated melee units to the army that are decent enough that people want to take them. Like a CC suit or Melee Drones. Is this acceptable?

If supporting fire becomes a command trait that you have to expend points for would you cry less?

Also 8th ed. will no longer have formations so riptide wing is dead and gone. Hooray!

Lastly - I'm sure Tau's weapons will be reworked to follow a defined progression. Where some weapons play off each other, like say, Plasma and Ion. Plasma should do more wounds while Ion does more shots.
- Hope they do something like this so that Tau players actually have a reason to consider all the weapons in the arsenal.

How about we give cover saves to markerlights instead of making them half as useful across the board when 99% of the units that give them die to a stiff breeze? Also making supporting fire a 3inch bubblewould do enough. It'd force you to be in multicharge levels of closeness to pull off effectively.

I havent played my Tau in some time, but I have played against them plenty.

Being a heavily shooting army isnt the core of their issue. IG are almost exclusively shootinf oriented as well and havent been seen as particularly competitive for half a decade.

The original Tau concept was a heavily mechanized semi-elite force with tanks backed up by 3-4 dozen infantry and a handful of mobile elite battlesuits acting as the specialist firepower.

This worked through 3E and 4E spectacularly. It stumbled in 5E because the army was heavily built around the terrain and skimmer rules of the older editions and never got a 5E update. In 6E and 7E however Tau took a different turn.

Two big changes happened. First, they got a whole lot of enhanced firepower and gimmicky rules that greatly enhanced the quality of their firepower. Second, they basically became a Nidzilla army, built around shooty MC's masquerading as robots, moving away from the mechanized vehicle format from earlier editions and reaping the bonuses MC's provided. Coupled with formations and the like, and they became somewhat absurd.

With 8E, a lot of this is going out the window, so who knows what itll end up looking like.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Echoing the need for LOS terrain. if a tau player sets up the board and is waiting for a game and there are no large opaque buildings... nope not interested. If there is plenty of terrain then sure great sounds fun.

Surrender without rolling a dice, bet that works a treat in tournaments.

I keep looking for where G00fySmiley mentioned tournaments. Not seeing it. In fact I see something to indicate he was not talking about tournaments. "if a tau player sets up the board and is waiting for a game."

That said, there is a branch of tournament goers who go to the largest and most competitive events to play on the lower table numbers on the second day of the event. And many of them will concede to an army they have no interest in playing and go take a lunch break. They'll usually not be rude about it and give some excuse, but if you see a guy go "oh, I just got an important text. I'm sorry, I have to concede. Let me sign the game report sheet. Bye!" but then they're happily playing the next round and then laughing their asses off with gaming buddies on the bottom tables, you probably found one of the guys who regularly do this. You won't see this in single day tournaments because there's no point of true separation between the top and bottom tables until at least a few rounds. Any of the big tournaments like Adepticon? These people are definitely there. For both 40k and AoS.

So yeah, if the goal is a positive gaming experience, then it does work a treat as no gaming is better than bad gaming and there are like minded individuals waiting for them at the bottom tables of bigger events.

The real solution though is terrain. Something definitely shifted when GW started selling terrain kits and even making rules so you could put them in your army list. And it wasn't a change for the better.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Echoing the need for LOS terrain. if a tau player sets up the board and is waiting for a game and there are no large opaque buildings... nope not interested. If there is plenty of terrain then sure great sounds fun.

Surrender without rolling a dice, bet that works a treat in tournaments.

I keep looking for where G00fySmiley mentioned tournaments. Not seeing it. In fact I see something to indicate he was not talking about tournaments. "if a tau player sets up the board and is waiting for a game."

That said, there is a branch of tournament goers who go to the largest and most competitive events to play on the lower table numbers on the second day of the event. And many of them will concede to an army they have no interest in playing and go take a lunch break. They'll usually not be rude about it and give some excuse, but if you see a guy go "oh, I just got an important text. I'm sorry, I have to concede. Let me sign the game report sheet. Bye!" but then they're happily playing the next round and then laughing their asses off with gaming buddies on the bottom tables, you probably found one of the guys who regularly do this. You won't see this in single day tournaments because there's no point of true separation between the top and bottom tables until at least a few rounds. Any of the big tournaments like Adepticon? These people are definitely there. For both 40k and AoS.

So yeah, if the goal is a positive gaming experience, then it does work a treat as no gaming is better than bad gaming and there are like minded individuals waiting for them at the bottom tables of bigger events.

The real solution though is terrain. Something definitely shifted when GW started selling terrain kits and even making rules so you could put them in your army list. And it wasn't a change for the better.

Tournaments are just a better place to find people who don't care how they win, sadly enough I've met people both in and out of tournaments who not only wouldn't recognise you still playing at the event but would brag about their 'crushing victory' got to listen to one of those as I set up to play him last weekend "Took one look at my army, knew he couldn't win and scampered like a sook. Could I be any more awesome?" way I heard it he packed up after an argument about a piece of ruins counting as LoS blocking terrain.

 Vaktathi wrote:

With 8E, a lot of this is going out the window, so who knows what itll end up looking like.

Reset of all the codices has given me modicum of hope that some sense and character are reinserted to Tau. That said, I am pretty sure that rewrite will be done along the lines of "hugely successful" Vetock codex. These threads demonstrate that much of the current playerbase only know present caricature of Tau and do not know or remember how the Tau used to be.

When 7th edition Tau came out someone in Warseer commented the discussion: "Why would a Tau player complain about anime robots added to his army? That's like a Tyranid player complaining about new Codex having new chitinous monsters!" It was not irony.

I do like robots, but I miss all the other stuff too. Lore wise the Tau are great, except for their actual army lore which seems to be moving in the direction of a Tau only battlesuit army. I miss auxiliaries and vehicles. I want a normal sized battlesuit release. Not every suit needs to be gigantic. I also want giant suits. Also better flyers.

Basically a cool Tau army with battlesuits as a core, but not the main focus of everything. However I suspect we'll just see more suits.