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It sounds like it's the players and not the Tau. Knuckleheads are born and bred every day. I like the Tau because they are different. I'd rather be different than like everyone else. I'm just learning so I'll be the better kind of Tau player.

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
One, their playstyle isn't very dynamic. Granted, it's more dynamic than a Gorillaman Gunline since Tau have interesting things like infiltrators and other little tricks, but it's by and large a gunline.

Two, their fluff and design has always struck me as kind of boring. I mean, what exactly are they from a fluff standpoint? Imperials are the "good" guys who resort to awful things just to keep going, Chaos is the corrupting force behind most of the horrible stuff in the universe, necrons are instigators of the old war that began all this crap and are an ancient threat, Eldar and Dark Eldar are the hypocritical fops who think they're all high-and-mighty despite the fact that they've screwed over the universe the most, orks are the genocidal, war-mongering, irredeemable race that somehow serves as this setting's comedic relief, and Tyrannids are the absolutely terrifying beings from another galaxy that are probably the biggest threat out there. The Tau though? They're just some random upstart race that has decent technology.

That, and their designs are utterly boring. They're basically skinny, blue humans piloting Mobile Suit Gundams. None of their robots even seem that menacing compared to the Imperium or especially the orks.

They fill the role if the young idealistic race (though very different ideals from modern western ideals) that is new to the grand conflict and is only now learning the true horror of the setting.
They are the mirror to the past four humanity much like humanity is for the eldar, look at were we cans from-young, native, still believing the galaxy is simply ours for the taking and not fully gasping that we are only one of many fish in the pond, and not a big one.

And no, they don't seem menecing. They don't try to be. They seem efficient and calculated as one who ultimately care only for results, and in some perspective its far scarier-because that's the one faction you can be sure will do everything to win, and the hell with "looking good" while at it. (see shadowsun VS corvin for reference if what happens when you want to look good rather than only care for victory.)
In a galaxy where everyone are going on about honor, glory and imagery, the tau just don't care. They are there to win, not for a fashion show.
It's not for everyone, but it's a style.

Tau don't fight war with terror, which is what makes them stand out, and I think it's good. It's not like they're not also as dark as the rest, but about how they present and conduct themselves.

Most of the people posting dislikes of Tau were apparently never in the military. Tau play very much like a modern mechanized military, not unlike today’s US Army. I’ve always found them fascinating, but the people play them tend to come of a bit dickish. However, if I wanted to play “real” Army, I’d play Advanced Squad Leader. This is my fantasy stress relief hobby, so I play Grey Knights (space Paladins) and Imperial Knights (BattleMechs).

SJ

The problem with Tau is that most of their list has, in any given edition, been crap.

Kroot were a thing once.
Infantry plus vehicles (actually not terrible in 8th although you don't bother with transports)
Crisis suits (....)
Riptides, Stormsurges, all the anime all the time.

But yeah, the army is designed to build the best gunline you ever saw, and trying almost everything else is an exercise in frustration. So I think it has niche appeal. Every game is the same.

Tau have a coupe of issues, one of which is similar to the ultramarine legacy.

People don’t like ultramarine because people didn’t like ultramarines in the past and it’s cool to hate on them, same with tau, when they were introduced the codex line up was very very slow, they pushed other armies aside (perceived) to make room for a new race that didn’t fit the setting at all (at the time), the models were totally different from what people were used to and they played quite differently.

The other issue is of course the theme of the army, they are a sqaure peg for a round hole, they just don’t fit into 40k like All the other races do, which is actually why I like them, because they are different within 40k fluff...

Lack of allies AKA no Tau soup options other than sour Tau with spicy Tau.

Considering the amount of new plastic kits Tau get all the time considering the army 'just' released in 2003, and even got a re-release of the relatively young 2003-plastic troop box (I can't recall that happening for most other races besides Space Marines and Dark Eldar as the other special exception... many like Orks, Guard or Necrons have decade old plastic 3rd edition troops kits) should tell you how popular they are saleswise. There have also always been plenty Tau players around since their launch.

They can be pretty unfun to play with when the Tau player goes pure "sit in corner and never move" gunline (even if that isn't a great idea in 8th edition), they were very OP in 6th and extremely OP in 7th edition and the fact that a few people either don't like the more "Asian"/"manga" (let's be honest, most suits are heavily inspired by Gundam) aesthetic, or that they at first glance appear to be the only knights in shining armour "good guys" in the setting (which they are not, the grimdark for them comes from very Orwellian/1984-esque themes), so a vocal minority makes a point of showing their displeasure (it's even worse for Space Wolves though, particularly on /tg/).

Them not popping up in video games much has more to do with them neither being Space Marines (#1 pick for 90% of 40k videogames, close to 100% if they are the only playable faction - Fire Warrior remains a massive exeption) nor the holy quaternity of Space Marines/Orks/Eldar/Chaos. When Space Marines are already guaranteed to fill the "good guys" spot in any game (usually together with the Eldar, particularly in Dawn of War) and either Chaos or Xenos have to fill the antagonist spots, little place remains for Tau, as the third "good guy" slot usually gets taken by Guard in expansions. If anything if you want underrepresented video game factions just look at Dark Eldar or Sisters of Battle.

Lots of people hate Tau because they associate it with anime and use that as a punchingbag for their own insecurity. Other people hate them because they tend to have terrible internal balance so lists tend to be cheesier the worst internal balance is. This is made even worse because the shooting phase is the only one that really matters so most lists have quite a bit of mathhammer in them. Savior protocols is also enraging to play against and I have lost count of how many times I have seen the mood go sour because my opponent didn't know/forgot it turns any attack into a single mortal wound. Even Commanders don't hold a candle to savior protocols for the sheer amount of salt drones produce.

As a quick reply from a T'au player:

I picked the Tau because I liked the looks of a wider range of models than in any other army... at that point I haven't read the codex, didn't know the rules and certainly haven't checked what lists won what where... I just liked painting the models.

When I finally started playing I played the models I had painted for the looks. Not caring about "the meta" or any of that stuff. The buddy that got me into the game built a list to match mine and we had a blast every time.

Now meeting the other 40k players: I got cursed at. I was always told how overpowered Tau are (also while a player dished out 11 wounds with "kill instantaneously (2x strength compared to toughness)... something the shooty Tau never could do, not even while shooting. The complaining turned into constant white noise.

I stopped playing my Tau and now I stopped playing 40k totally... I've played other table top games and none of the groups were into "building the strongest lists" and being all competitive... they all tried to have balanced fun game nights.

Maybe the problem is not the Tau, but the group of 40k players thinking that every game is tournament play. - I really regret having started 40k

I dislike Tau for two reasons.

I don’t think that they fit the aesthetic of warhammer 40k. IMO they look too high tech. I would have preferred it if they basically were samurai in space, but they aren’t. They have nice models, but I don’t feel like they fit in this universe.

They are a very one dimensional army. They have shooting and that’s about it. Most armies in the game are at least built around 2 phases, sometimes 3 if you’re lucky. It’s not the fault of Tau players, because they have no choice. If they want to win, they have to kite you from a distance and shoot you before you touch them, if they don’t do this they lose. So it creates a very skewed game that ends up being unfun for one of the players. You either reach them and win, or don’t and lose.

At least GW could give them some close combat gundams for counter assault.

They are so mono dimensional shooting type of army. Obviously there are people like the prometheus78 that didn't understand this when they try to play them but more often there are the majority of tau players that knew the playstyle before they purchased their first fire warrior. Tau players do not engage with their opoonent. They sit in a corner and shoot most of the time not even engaging with the mission because its harder for t'au to go out and cap objectives than it is to sit back and shoot you off the table. In a face to face social game this is really uncomfortable style of game to play against. If I was given the choice for a fun engaging game I would never choose tau.

But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against orks.

obviously this is slightly different in 8th but only very slightly.

I admit though that the tau aesthetic and storyline is awesome but in the game they just aren't fun for opponents the same way playing against a bobby g gunline isnt fun.

Tau players go out and build a melee army and engage with your opponent even though you will lose i guarantee it will be fun

The reason me and my group of mates dint like them is that, 1 they are too “good” in a universe where it’s all supposed to be bad guys and 2, they are a relatively new, come from nowhere race that were a marketing ploy as opposed to a useful addition to the game.

I know they have a sinister edge with ethereals mind controlling and stuff but they just aren’t as mean and unpleasant as everyone else. The imperium aren’t good guys, they are evil in a truly evil way.

Hate fighting against gunlines (looking at you IG) but love the Tau. Slowly building up a Farsight force and I have zero intention of going for the gunline.

lare2 wrote:
Hate fighting against gunlines (looking at you IG) but love the Tau. Slowly building up a Farsight force and I have zero intention of going for the gunline.

Sounds like fun. Lets meet up and you can play against my ork gunline army. It will be a bloodbath for all the wrong reasons!

 nurgle86 wrote:
They are so mono dimensional shooting type of army. Obviously there are people like the prometheus78 that didn't understand this when they try to play them but more often there are the majority of tau players that knew the playstyle before they purchased their first fire warrior. Tau players do not engage with their opoonent. They sit in a corner and shoot most of the time not even engaging with the mission because its harder for t'au to go out and cap objectives than it is to sit back and shoot you off the table. In a face to face social game this is really uncomfortable style of game to play against. If I was given the choice for a fun engaging game I would never choose tau.

But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against orks.

obviously this is slightly different in 8th but only very slightly.

I admit though that the tau aesthetic and storyline is awesome but in the game they just aren't fun for opponents the same way playing against a bobby g gunline isnt fun.

Tau players go out and build a melee army and engage with your opponent even though you will lose i guarantee it will be fun

Yeah. It's amazing how much fun the game is overall when people go outside the box with their army. Tau can't do a literal melee army, but one of my favorite armies to play against is my buddy's Viorla sept tau, with lots of Breachers, Stealth Suits, Crisis Suits and pretty much nothing with over 18" range. It basically just survives melee and bounces around, and really only charges if it wants to tie something up, but it's a far more dynamic style of play than the sit-and-shoot style.

We've got people in our group that play melee eldar, fluffy emperor's children/slaanesh daemons, jump pack heavy night lords, walker orks...

the_scotsman wrote:

 nurgle86 wrote:
They are so mono dimensional shooting type of army. Obviously there are people like the prometheus78 that didn't understand this when they try to play them but more often there are the majority of tau players that knew the playstyle before they purchased their first fire warrior. Tau players do not engage with their opoonent. They sit in a corner and shoot most of the time not even engaging with the mission because its harder for t'au to go out and cap objectives than it is to sit back and shoot you off the table. In a face to face social game this is really uncomfortable style of game to play against. If I was given the choice for a fun engaging game I would never choose tau.

But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against orks.

obviously this is slightly different in 8th but only very slightly.

I admit though that the tau aesthetic and storyline is awesome but in the game they just aren't fun for opponents the same way playing against a bobby g gunline isnt fun.

Tau players go out and build a melee army and engage with your opponent even though you will lose i guarantee it will be fun

Yeah. It's amazing how much fun the game is overall when people go outside the box with their army. Tau can't do a literal melee army, but one of my favorite armies to play against is my buddy's Viorla sept tau, with lots of Breachers, Stealth Suits, Crisis Suits and pretty much nothing with over 18" range. It basically just survives melee and bounces around, and really only charges if it wants to tie something up, but it's a far more dynamic style of play than the sit-and-shoot style.

We've got people in our group that play melee eldar, fluffy emperor's children/slaanesh daemons, jump pack heavy night lords, walker orks...

That would be something interesting to see in action, still i miss the variety that supposedly comes with a Tau army in form of auxilia. Infact i would not even be opposed to Gue'la units for tau, if it meant less sitting in a corner and more central bord interaction. Also , Kroot, why do they suck since, well nearly forever? could we boost them, just so that they might be worth taking?

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah. It's amazing how much fun the game is overall when people go outside the box with their army. Tau can't do a literal melee army, but one of my favorite armies to play against is my buddy's Viorla sept tau, with lots of Breachers, Stealth Suits, Crisis Suits and pretty much nothing with over 18" range. It basically just survives melee and bounces around, and really only charges if it wants to tie something up, but it's a far more dynamic style of play than the sit-and-shoot style.

Earlier tau were more like that, outside of broadsides. Shoot and jump suits, mechanised warriors, delayed objective deepstrikes, etc.
Though the whole game was different back then.

Not Online!!! wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 nurgle86 wrote:
They are so mono dimensional shooting type of army. Obviously there are people like the prometheus78 that didn't understand this when they try to play them but more often there are the majority of tau players that knew the playstyle before they purchased their first fire warrior. Tau players do not engage with their opoonent. They sit in a corner and shoot most of the time not even engaging with the mission because its harder for t'au to go out and cap objectives than it is to sit back and shoot you off the table. In a face to face social game this is really uncomfortable style of game to play against. If I was given the choice for a fun engaging game I would never choose tau.

But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against orks.

obviously this is slightly different in 8th but only very slightly.

I admit though that the tau aesthetic and storyline is awesome but in the game they just aren't fun for opponents the same way playing against a bobby g gunline isnt fun.

Tau players go out and build a melee army and engage with your opponent even though you will lose i guarantee it will be fun

Yeah. It's amazing how much fun the game is overall when people go outside the box with their army. Tau can't do a literal melee army, but one of my favorite armies to play against is my buddy's Viorla sept tau, with lots of Breachers, Stealth Suits, Crisis Suits and pretty much nothing with over 18" range. It basically just survives melee and bounces around, and really only charges if it wants to tie something up, but it's a far more dynamic style of play than the sit-and-shoot style.

We've got people in our group that play melee eldar, fluffy emperor's children/slaanesh daemons, jump pack heavy night lords, walker orks...

That would be something interesting to see in action, still i miss the variety that supposedly comes with a Tau army in form of auxilia. Infact i would not even be opposed to Gue'la units for tau, if it meant less sitting in a corner and more central bord interaction. Also , Kroot, why do they suck since, well nearly forever? could we boost them, just so that they might be worth taking?

I honestly don't know. For some reason, certain factions seem to have purposefully bad units that fill an unusual role because "X faction is BAD at that role!"

The way to represent that is by giving them limited unit selection only in a few roles and limited synergy, not by making the individual units purposefully gak at their job. They solved one of the best examples of this in Bullgryns for the guard, which are now not terrible and *surprise surprise* every guard army DIDNT suddenly become full of bullgryns. Ogryns still trash though for some reason.

But you just have to look at Ork shooting units, most eldar melee units and the kroot to see GW still kind of adheres to this philosophy of "make units that fight in the opposite style of the army that we want to encourage, but make them super bad!"

I'm not even talkng about Kroot, though. You can create a very competent army out of Tau where the longest range weapon you have is a marker light, you're using vehicles and suits with Fly to prevent getting locked in melee and crippled, and you're getting highly rewarded for focusing fire at short range so you can actually play the mission and participate in the game. It is a very fun style, it's just not tournament-winning quality.

You just have to find yourself a group where the players are mature enough that they've stopped caring about chasing the meta dragon and they play what they love and have collected for years. Our mechanized iron warriors player with dozens of beautifully painted tanks isn't suddenly going to run out and buy 6 daemon princes because Almighty ITCsus said that's what chaos do. I'm not going to get 3 dissie ravagers and stop playing my full wych cult army because I have delusions about winning Adepticon. Our admech player with a fully painted traffic-cone-orange graia army didn't switch to Mars or stygies because the rules for that forgeworld turned out to be better...because it doesn't matter. everybody wins some and loses some. If you start winning every game in 2 hours, you're just sitting around for two hours doing nothing waiting for everyone else to get done so you can go to the pub.

But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against orks.

When you fight Orks, stuff happens all the time.
It's generally avoidance armies that people don't like to fight (Eldar used to be just like that, too). It's not fun just to take your stuff off the table all the time without proper retaliation.

XuQishi wrote:

But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against orks.

When you fight Orks, stuff happens all the time.
It's generally avoidance armies that people don't like to fight (Eldar used to be just like that, too). It's not fun just to take your stuff off the table all the time without proper retaliation.

^^^^^^this right here.

Everyone is always going to hate avoidance/durability skew in games. This is why you see the biggest hate going towards Tau, Necrons when they're strong, eldar when they're strong, and stuff that can cobble together super-saves (old deathstars).

the_scotsman wrote:
You just have to find yourself a group where the players are mature enough that they've stopped caring about chasing the meta dragon and they play what they love and have collected for years.

This, but louder for the people in back. A LOT LOUDER. Not just louder- Put it in big bold letters with damned cannons going off alongside it, pole dancers, confetti, neon lights, a laser show, and cans of beer being hurled into the crowd while a monster truck jumps over a Motley Crue concert. That's how monumentally crucial this is.

Because 'FLGS arms races' are the worst. Soon you find yourself putting together a model, sighing, because you're not that enthusiastic about it but you 'need' it to counter something that other people are playing, and the army that you actually think is 'cool' is sitting on a shelf or in foam trays somewhere else. And that, my friend, is when you've lost the spirit of the hobby game we play. Now you're not enjoying good beers with friends, you're sucking bitter boxed wine out through a rubber hose on an empty stomach because you MUST GET DRUNK.

Chilled-out, fun, "Let's just see what happens and maybe we can do a narrative thing while we're at it" are by far increasing in popularity and the people playing that way seem to be much more satisfied and enthusiastic about their hobby than the hyper-competitives.

the_scotsman wrote:
If you start winning every game in 2 hours, you're just sitting around for two hours doing nothing waiting for everyone else to get done so you can go to the pub.

Case in point- our most competitive players have 'fun lists' they play at the FLGS, and won't put down tournament lists unless someone asks for a game like that (or they get arrogant and cocky and need to be taken down a peg or two). Why? Because the guys that were just crushing the piss out of everyone with those hardcore netlists? Sat in a chair, with their boxes of models, watching everyone else playing and having fun. Because the guys having fun learned, and they didn't want to play with them. Hell, it's practically a common response here now that when some hyper-competitive WAAC hardcore player starts coming and criticizing someone's army- "Okay, I don't care what you think I need to use or what I should play unless you're buying it, I'm trying to have fun."

InControl summed it up well recently... The army has the least interaction of all races. This is one thing in itself, it also ATTRACTS the kind of person who doesn't want to play an interactive game, and just wants to roll dice and blow up your models. This also leads hand in hand with the type of people to get salty if you force them to interact and they can't keep up. Not all Tau players are like this, some are very competent and incredibly skilled players who wield Tau to then full extent of their playskill, and I've seen some of the best ones give out verbal backhands to nobodies online trying to do that stereotypical Tau thing of acting like their army is on struggle street, and it's quite a humorous sight. But these people leave a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouth for Tau - it's the go-to low-skill army for beginners looking for easy wins, and I don't find it at all surprising that so many people dislike Tau's inclusion in 40k.

 nurgle86 wrote:


But looking at the opposite mono dimensional army of the orks, everyone loves playing as and against ork

Tau players go out and build a melee army and engage with your opponent even though you will lose i guarantee it will be fun

Ew, no, playing as Orks sounds dreadful.

Tau players should play what they want to play, not what you think is d'un.

bibotot wrote:
...No Tau is featured in supplement campaign books like Valedor or Damnos...

...Or, you know, Damocles? Or Taros?

 SHUPPET wrote:
InControl summed it up well recently... The army has the least interaction of all races. This is one thing in itself, it also ATTRACTS the kind of person who doesn't want to play an interactive game, and just wants to roll dice and blow up your models. This also leads hand in hand with the type of people to get salty if you force them to interact and they can't keep up. Not all Tau players are like this, some are very competent and incredibly skilled players who wield Tau to then full extent of their playskill, and I've seen some of the best ones give out verbal backhands to nobodies online trying to do that stereotypical Tau thing of acting like their army is on struggle street, and it's quite a humorous sight. But these people leave a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouth for Tau - it's the go-to low-skill army for beginners looking for easy wins, and I don't find it at all surprising that so many people dislike Tau's inclusion in 40k.

That's something I would say is lost on a lot of people playing Tau or playing against Tau with casual players tends to be very bleh and people don't even try to do anything bar just run at them piecemeal approach hace a shooting dual, IG can do it in 8th but it's not exactly a good plan against what is sold by GW as the shooting faction.
Against more experienced players there is a lot of movement and LOS manovering and also being able to play the mission over just straight up kill missions.

If your just playing straight up BRB mission for who killed the most your not playing the same game as even CA, malstorm and i hate to think how many ITC list would do in that format.

 SHUPPET wrote:
InControl summed it up well recently... The army has the least interaction of all races. This is one thing in itself, it also ATTRACTS the kind of person who doesn't want to play an interactive game, and just wants to roll dice and blow up your models. This also leads hand in hand with the type of people to get salty if you force them to interact and they can't keep up. Not all Tau players are like this, some are very competent and incredibly skilled players who wield Tau to then full extent of their playskill, and I've seen some of the best ones give out verbal backhands to nobodies online trying to do that stereotypical Tau thing of acting like their army is on struggle street, and it's quite a humorous sight. But these people leave a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouth for Tau - it's the go-to low-skill army for beginners looking for easy wins, and I don't find it at all surprising that so many people dislike Tau's inclusion in 40k.

This sounds incredibly gatekeepy, but its because those people don't play them correctly. IG are your stand and shoot army. Tau are more scoot and shoot. It's been part of their tactics since day 1 with it even mentioned in the first 3rd ed codex (Mont'ka).

This was why I always loved playing my Farsight list- So many people were unprepared for playing a Tau army that got right up in your face as they were far too used to seeing someone sit at the back of the board with their mobile army that they didn't quite know how to handle it, but in a far more refreshing way as they were finally playing against a Tau army the way it was meant to be played, with them getting up into middle range of you for some hefty rapid firing then using Jetpacks to back off. Eventually either you wipe out whatever you're shooting at and/or in the process the game of cat and mouse catches up with you and they have finally caught those slippery bastards.

Loved playing that army, it was a challenge to play but satisfying to use.

Personally?

Aesthetically, I'm not super fond of Tau because I'm a big anime fan and they hit a sort of uncanny valley for me. They immediately catch my eye, but as I really look at them they feel wrong and fake. Realistically, that's a good thing compared to simply ripping off anime, but it drives me away from the faction.

Mechanically, I don't really care for them because it feels like they're kind of stuck in a gear check role. They have a pretty point and click playstyle that feels kind of one sided, one way or the other. It feels like its very hard for them to be competitive without being overpowered .

bibotot wrote:
I am getting the feeling this particular faction is very unpopluar.

Tau broke the game from their inception by having stronger basic weapons than the Space Marines. In an edition where basic weapons had been toned down so that the bolter performed well against shuriken catapults and had advantages against shootas, the Tau walked in with a strength 5 rifle, previously the domain of heavy weapons which were immobile or mounted on vehicles.
Bolters were supposed to be a +1 gun, now Tau had a +2 gun, with extended range.

Having a racial immunity to chaos corruption in 40k is like having all the lights on in a horror movie- its just not the same atmosphere.The tau just don't fit in 40k for that reason, their struggles are purely military and don't involve any deeper consequences for them. For a human to recover an artifact of unknown provenenace- he risks chaos possession, opening warpgates to hell, simply going mad from some alien influence or revelation. The tau just sit there in their labcoats, smelling like day old sushi, treating it like a rock they're studying.

In other words, they are boring and stale compared to 'ancient alien skeleton robots trying to steal your flesh' or 'elf aliens with crystals and psychic powers trying to avoid being eaten by an elder god' . They belong in battletech, a game of robot fights between conevntional space empires.

 =Angel= wrote:
Bolters were supposed to be a +1 gun, now Tau had a +2 gun, with extended range.

Surprise, surprise, the dedicated shooting army with a focus on elite units has a better gun than the "do everything adequately" army. Why should space marines have a better gun and have better melee ability, aside from space marine fanboyism?

Having a racial immunity to chaos corruption in 40k is like having all the lights on in a horror movie- its just not the same atmosphere.

So Necrons, Tyranids, Orks, GK, and probably something else I'm forgetting, those factions aren't ok either? Is 40k not 40k anymore when you're playing against those armies?

The tau just don't fit in 40k for that reason, their struggles are purely military and don't involve any deeper consequences for them.

Only because you narrowly define "struggles" in terms of what you do with an ancient artifact you find. Tau have a significant part in the story if you bother to see it.