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So the biggest crying about Tau as I see on the forums is because of marker lights and Riptides. Other than rtfm, what is the cheese with them (and the other Tau goodness I miss here)?

Marker lights give you Ignore cover and BS increase and snapshot BS increase. While all of them are pretty good (and the last one is pretty unique), (nearly) all Tau units have BS3 or worse which is awful for a shooty army, so that needs some way to increase. Would markerlights still be imbalanced if they could only give a single point of BS increase? So BS4 for most units, BS2 on snapshots?

I have heard it said that an army that masters 2 of the 3 phases (Movement, Shooting & Assault) is a viable army. But that was in sixth. With seventh, there is the psychic phase as well, so maybe it still validates.

I can tell you why I started FE: I hate the psychic phase, and I wanted to skip it. That meant playing either Necrons or Tau, and I'm a sucker for suits (just please don't ask how many I have). That they can be played fluffy or competitively was a bonus, but not my primary reason for doing so,

Reasons the Tow Empire is OP-
LOLGUNLINE
72" Range, Str10, AP1, Heavy 1 weapons fired at BS4.
Riptide Ion Accelerator
Riptide HBC
Can remove my Tyranids' 2+ cover every turn.
Missilesides+Landing Pad

Verviedi wrote:
Reasons the Tow Empire is OP-
LOLGUNLINE
72" Range, Str10, AP1, Heavy 1 weapons fired at BS4.
wouldn't you be more worried about the (effectivley) BS10 shot or the S8-9 AP2 large blast?
Riptide Ion Accelerator
Riptide HBC
Can remove my Tyranids' 2+ cover every turn.
Missilesides+Landing Pad
What does the landing pad have to do with anything?

Landing pad gives invul to shooting, makes it hard for assault units to get up into CC.

Pretty good against Tyranids because they have no deep strike essentially. against any force focused on DSing however... they can use it as well which means any of your units on it are vulnerable.

New maelstrom missions and scoring vehicles, the loss of eldar allies and new MC rules have all contributed to taking tau down a peg.

People still complaining haven't noticed that the game has changed. They are good, but they are nothing on eldar anymore.

 Quickjager wrote:
Landing pad gives invul to shooting, makes it hard for assault units to get up into CC.

Pretty good against Tyranids because they have no deep strike essentially. against any force focused on DSing however... they can use it as well which means any of your units on it are vulnerable.

you mean that that is actually viable? I knew already about the opened\closed, but if you fill the landing pad then the enemy cannot assault you? I was under the impression that in such a case just getting in b2b with the structure was enough to count as getting into combat.

One last question to those who own the landing pad - how tall are the legs? I know a riptide won't fit under it, but how about firewarriors or hammerheads?

Zsolt wrote:
So the biggest crying about Tau as I see on the forums is because of marker lights and Riptides. Other than rtfm, what is the cheese with them (and the other Tau goodness I miss here)?

Marker lights give you Ignore cover and BS increase and snapshot BS increase. While all of them are pretty good (and the last one is pretty unique), (nearly) all Tau units have BS3 or worse which is awful for a shooty army, so that needs some way to increase. Would markerlights still be imbalanced if they could only give a single point of BS increase? So BS4 for most units, BS2 on snapshots?

It's not so much the BS increase (although that hurts). It's the ability to remove cover very easily with any weapon (rather than just the specific two or three 'ignores cover' weapons most codices have) plus Supporting Fire meaning that assaulting Tau units is pure suicide.

 carldooley wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Landing pad gives invul to shooting, makes it hard for assault units to get up into CC.

Pretty good against Tyranids because they have no deep strike essentially. against any force focused on DSing however... they can use it as well which means any of your units on it are vulnerable.

you mean that that is actually viable? I knew already about the opened\closed, but if you fill the landing pad then the enemy cannot assault you? I was under the impression that in such a case just getting in b2b with the structure was enough to count as getting into combat.

One last question to those who own the landing pad - how tall are the legs? I know a riptide won't fit under it, but how about firewarriors or hammerheads?

That's right fill it up and and the enemy can't assault you, it's also 3-4 inches tall if IRC, that rule about B2B was for ruins, which the skyshield is not as it is classified as a fortification. But yea, fill it up and no one can assault, they can still shoot, and your units are bunched up so if they got a template you'll be hurting 4++ is still only a 50/50.

Also you CAN be tank shocked off it, which will absolutely DESTROY you, so play that carefully.

Uh, no, if there's no space to put the model on the terrain the thing they're assaulting is standing on, you can put it on the level below as long as its within 3", and still count as being in combat.

My hatred for the tau mainly comes from the fact that if I play against Tau, I'll be a monkey's uncle if anyone from his army ever leaves their deployment zone. I used to be completely okay with them, when the most powerful shooting army in the game was offset by the fact that they needed to purchase somewhat points-inefficient melee troops to keep themselves from being toppled in an assault, and their favored special unit was a medium ranged unit that relied on maubeuvering and positioning to keep shooting and avoid getting tied down. Now, supporting fire eliminates the need for kroot and the Derptide has replaced the elegant crisis suit, so you get an absurdly boring gunline army that just sits back and shoots you.

The Tau are like Team Fortress 2's snipers. Players who completely give up on any semblance of team play so that they can occasionally kill someone when they have absolutely no chance of fighting back. They're not overpowered by any means, just unbelievably boring.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, no, if there's no space to put the model on the terrain the thing they're assaulting is standing on, you can put it on the level below as long as its within 3", and still count as being in combat.

But that's the point, the Skyshield is higher than 3 inches.

Im pretty sure for sake of assault the Skyshield only counts as being "one level higher" meaning 3 inches would still work in getting the guys up top. The reason people cry about Tau the most ive seen:

-They say Riptides are Overpowered, however they often ignore the fact the cost to upgrade it so it is good is almost on par with the cost of a Wraithknight and can hurt itself 1/3 of the time when it tries to make it better (Nova)

-The "Gunline" cheese argument is null in void as in most cases as either they are not playing with nearly enough terrain on the table or just using bad tactics: And as a whole Gunline armies from any Codex got weaker in this edition.

-The Top 2 Tau armies from last edition are no longer legal, really smacking Tau down a few pegs. Also literally no phsycic defense outside one item in the Farsight Enclave leaves a lot to be desired with Psychic heavy armies.

-People haven't caught on yet, as mentioned its a new edition and people still hate on the Tau thinking they were as scary as they were last edition, they aren't. This also ties into the fact of peoples lack of adaptability. I have seen multiple players cry cheese for several reasons for different armies and STILL refuse to change up their tactics or army lists to handle it.

Tau are not cheese, in fact I would rank several armies in this edition ahead of them for several reasons:

-Eldar: Obvious Reasons
-Imperial: I list all the Imperial together because their ability to ally is their biggest strength as any army can take Drop Pods, Grey Hunters, Assasins, Inquisitors ect.
-Demons: Random but being able to bring more units to the table and their phsycic powers wreck Tau.
Necrons: Durability is a good counter to Tau, would put them on par with them.

Just a few examples, not trying to rant but I myself find it silly how everyone claims that Tau are this powerhouse like they were in 6th when they are not even close to being that. I would just take it for what it is and play them if you really want to.

Friend.. I have a Tau book..

#1 thing that plagues shooting is cover saves.
Tau have an easily acquired method for ignoring that and good shooting to boot.

Drop fusion
72" Str ap1
JSJ.

They are the Yankees in the current shooty edition.

I believe the biggest thing with Tau is that they can have an answer to everything, specially if you play with battlesuits. If you know what you'll fight, your counter-play is almost guaranteed (eldar is hard, though).

I only lost with Tau to a DE friend when I fielded the worst units in the codex and IA3. IN any other circumstance, he had no chance whatsoever.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, no, if there's no space to put the model on the terrain the thing they're assaulting is standing on, you can put it on the level below as long as its within 3", and still count as being in combat.

Not anymore. You need to be in base contact to be able to success in your charge. Keeping people in any edge is eough to impede successful charges against them.

 Vector Strike wrote:
I believe the biggest thing with Tau is that they can have an answer to everything, specially if you play with battlesuits. If you know what you'll fight, your counter-play is almost guaranteed (eldar is hard, though).

I only lost with Tau to a DE friend when I fielded the worst units in the codex and IA3. IN any other circumstance, he had no chance whatsoever.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, no, if there's no space to put the model on the terrain the thing they're assaulting is standing on, you can put it on the level below as long as its within 3", and still count as being in combat.

Not anymore. You need to be in base contact to be able to success in your charge. Keeping people in any edge is eough to impede successful charges against them.

Touching the same peace of cover is equal to base contact as far as I know.

Just to stay on topic: why is Eldar cheese? Wave serpent spam and Wraithknight only, or other stuff too?

Tau units are just good for the points, and have basically no weaknesses. They are not weak in the assault phase, and are not any weaker to psychic powers than most armies. You can certainly make cheesy armies with Riptide and Broadside spam, but even "non-cheesy" Tau armies can be tournament competitive. People don't like Tau because they're frustrating to play against. Combos such as the markerlight ignores cover + ion accelerator 60" S8 AP2 pie-plate are particularly frustrating to play against, because there's really no defense against it (which is not good game design).

I'm puzzled why people claim that they're weak in maelstrom missions. With the exception of Firewarriors and Kroot, all Tau units have above average mobility, and they are able to accomplish a lot of the "destroy an enemy unit with shoot" or "cause an enemy unit to take a morale check" with ease. Granted, Eldar do this better - with their durable obsec jetbikes and fast skimmers, they can easily lock down objectives that are on the other side of the board (on top of their just generally overpowered units).

Riptides are weak in assault. Getting into that position is hard though. I have on more than one occasion tar pitted one for 3+ turns with a 60 point unit.

The tau have weaknesses but they are a lot harder to exploit than other armies' weaknesses.

Wave Serpents on the other hand are just... On the bright side, with all the long range cover-ignoring fire the Tau put out, they can kill wave serpents. (Or anything else really.)

Zsolt wrote:
So the biggest crying about Tau as I see on the forums is because of marker lights and Riptides. Other than rtfm, what is the cheese with them (and the other Tau goodness I miss here)?

Marker lights give you Ignore cover and BS increase and snapshot BS increase. While all of them are pretty good (and the last one is pretty unique), (nearly) all Tau units have BS3 or worse which is awful for a shooty army, so that needs some way to increase. Would markerlights still be imbalanced if they could only give a single point of BS increase? So BS4 for most units, BS2 on snapshots?

The BS-thing: probably.
My "issue" is the following (it's not really a big issue, it's just what I find incredibly strong about Tau) for example: Fire Warriors.
Yes, they have BS3. But they are incredibly cheap and have S5 weapons, so that balances out the BS3.
But then they also have Markerlights, which makes them BS4 or 5.
So where is the downside exactly?

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
New maelstrom missions and scoring vehicles, the loss of eldar allies and new MC rules have all contributed to taking tau down a peg.

People still complaining haven't noticed that the game has changed. They are good, but they are nothing on eldar anymore.

Which would be a nice thing if I played Eldar, sadly I play Blood Angels so I'm not seeing the difference between 'getting my ass kicked really really hard' and just 'getting my ass kicked really hard'.

I think the trouble with Tau is that, even if they don't have many 'cheese' units, they have the sort of stuff that feels both cheesy and boring to play against. I mean, all their cheese is basically variations of the same thing:

- We blast you.
- We blast you through a wall.
- We blast you then jump behind a wall.
- We blast you with improved accuracy.
- We blast you and ignore your cover.
- We blast you and ignore Night Fighting.
- We blast a charging unit, and then every other nearby unit blasts them too.

Cheese or not, it just gets really dull really quickly.

I still find it funny that a Battlesuit Commander has a better statline than my Necron Overlord, is better at shooting, and can buff other units, and my Overlord is just mediocre in combat.

Also, Markerlights. The BS mechanic is not that bad, but I think it should have stayed how it used to be. Caps out at BS5, and each one removes one point of cover, not all of it for only 2. That's the most slowed thing.

Zsolt that is indeed correct when talking about multi level ruins, but since the fortification is not classified as such all assault rules are replaced with distance and dangerous terrain test. So if the skyshield is blocked on the edges, it is in fact impossible to assault.

Don't all the buffs balance out though? If I may digress, there is Prescience (rerolls to hit), Foreboding, Forewarning, & Perfect Timing. None of which Tau have access to. I could understand these reactions in 6th, when Tau had access to Eldar and Space Marine battle brothers. But they don't. Not anymore, and they have no access to it at all. If the Enslavers make an appearance as an allied race then I could see such a thing becoming an issue again, but there won't be, will there?

 carldooley wrote:
Don't all the buffs balance out though? If I may digress, there is Prescience (rerolls to hit), Foreboding, Forewarning, & Perfect Timing. None of which Tau have access to. I could understand these reactions in 6th, when Tau had access to Eldar and Space Marine battle brothers. But they don't. Not anymore, and they have no access to it at all. If the Enslavers make an appearance as an allied race then I could see such a thing becoming an issue again, but there won't be, will there?

The only guaranteed of the above is prescience, otherwise you need to rely on luck to the psys you want, and that's really hard to plan on. Of course you can increase your chances with more/higher level psykers and re-rolls, but that's still chance, while marker lights are predictable and guaranteed to work. Not to mention that the Ignore cover and better overwatch psy only works on the psyker and it's unit, while anybody in the Tau codex can use marker lights.

Also, not all books have access to those abilities.

Necrons and DE certainly don't.

Tau are cheese because their amazing shooting mechanics and (for the most part) markerlights are simply too strong and under costed on anything and everything that carry them.

Having a decent sized Tau army myself, I can happily tell you that the Tau army and rule set are hilariously broken when you decide to use them at their full advantage.

Eldar are broken as GAK because their basic troops can harm just about everything due to Bladestorm being broken as balls. Distort isn't totally broken neither... Hell naw.

Look, dont take my word for it, I only play both armies and recieve flak for bringing them out. (Which is exactly why I force them down everyone's throat when they try new things in friendly tournaments) I will happily enforce the hatred of Games Workshop and their terrible codex writing capabilities and balance teams. Most people know me as a Chaos + Daemons player, but when that "New guy" comes around, or a GW Tournament comes forth from under it's rock, I bust out the Eldar and Tau. Because Guns are better than baseball bats in the world of 40k.... And in real life.

I find it amusing how people say that "even unoptimized tau armies can be competitive", yet even the most cheesy lists tau can pull off do not reach top tables in tournaments these days.

Also, people pointing out HAMMERHEADS as cheese.
Or the HBC riptide, who statistically takes off 4.66 of his own wounds during a game.

Tau have 2 forms of cheese these days, and only 2.
IA on riptide, as it nullfies the need to NOVA and the self-damage of the riptide while giving massive range.
HYMP on broadside, as its too efficient.


As for markerlights being undercosted for anything that carries them-you DO remember the main markerlight carrier has the durability of a guardsmen, triple the costs and has to stand still in order to fire right?

Anything else in the codex drives from "slightly subpar" to "strong yet fair", with a few cases of ICs being "cool, but overpriced"

What I don't understand is how people find it boring to fight modern Tau who have to be mobile now, yet don't complain about the most boring army to play against: GK alpha strike.

SGTPozy wrote:
What I don't understand is how people find it boring to fight modern Tau who have to be mobile now, yet don't complain about the most boring army to play against: GK alpha strike.

that army is new. Few people have played against it, while considerably more have played against Tau. Personally, I have a rather large Tau army. I have yet to play a game with it. My FLGS closed last year, and my first game may possibly be next week.

SGTPozy wrote:
What I don't understand is how people find it boring to fight modern Tau who have to be mobile now, yet don't complain about the most boring army to play against: GK alpha strike.

1) People find different things boring.

2) Isn't there a thread about how boring GKs are?