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Don't they have rocket fists? Like, you'd think they'd be able to set off all the missiles at once at point blank range by slamming their rocket container (AKA the rocket fist) into the enemy.

Of course they could do that, the issue is the tau don't have the balls to do something so blisteringly awesome.

Most likely because the resulting explosion would kill the pilot and the Tau don't go in for that sort of loss of life.

Besides you could then argue why don't plasma gunners ram their guns into any convidnent orifice and over heat the weapon. Sometimes the game just doesn't work that way.

Because the missiles have a minimum arming distance and that close they're not even moving that fast.

No, I think he has something here guys.

Imagine it; Tau being able to shoot in combat at their Initiative.

 raverrn wrote:
Because the missiles have a minimum arming distance and that close they're not even moving that fast.

Rockets need time to accelerate - jamming the pod into an enemy would result in them blowing in the launcher IF they didn't have a minimum arming distance mechanism (which they should to prevent misfires blowing up the launcher). FYI, these mechanisms are usually very simple and mechanical for max reliability so it's not like you can flip a switch in the cockpit to disable them

 Quickjager wrote:
No, I think he has something here guys.

Imagine it; Tau being able to shoot in combat at their Initiative.

Yup that's a great idea. It'd really help to widen the gap a little.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
No, I think he has something here guys.

Imagine it; Tau being able to shoot in combat at their Initiative.

Yup that's a great idea. It'd really help to widen the gap a little.

To make it even wider we could even make Supporting Fire apply to it!

And allow them to roll To Hit using their BS.

Because building your highly expensive war machine with the ability to destroy itself catastrophically is incredibly stupid.

The Tau are somewhat smarter than Lockheed.

For the same reason that Terminator with the assault cannon can't shove it into the Broadside's breadbasket and cut him in half with it. Because the rules state you can't shoot guns in close combat. Because Tau are already top tier, their one relative weakness is close combat, and if they could shoot their guns in close combat, they'd be completely over the top.

So basically remove the only remaining weakness most tau units have.

My idea here was to make more of a joke thread, whilst also putting around the idea of a seppuku suit. The tau already have a self destruct button on the suits anyways.


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 DarknessEternal wrote:
Because building your highly expensive war machine with the ability to destroy itself catastrophically is incredibly stupid.

The Tau are somewhat smarter than Lockheed.

What is failsafe detonator?


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 Quickjager wrote:
No, I think he has something here guys.

Imagine it; Tau being able to shoot in combat at their Initiative.

There is a difference here. What your saying is shooting, what I'm saying is punching them with a primed rocket and hoping it goes off. One is melee, the other isn't.


That being said I do realize that balance is something worth considering, but I'm bringing this up because I think it'd be funny more so than anything

Jaxler wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Because building your highly expensive war machine with the ability to destroy itself catastrophically is incredibly stupid.

The Tau are somewhat smarter than Lockheed.

What is failsafe detonator?

An experimental dead man's switch. It is not voluntary.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Jaxler wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Because building your highly expensive war machine with the ability to destroy itself catastrophically is incredibly stupid.

The Tau are somewhat smarter than Lockheed.

What is failsafe detonator?

An experimental dead man's switch. It is not voluntary.

Is it not, as you put it, "your highly expensive war machine with the ability to distroy it's self"

Simply put if the circumstances are the same in all practicality (your about to be dead vs dead already) does the mentality of "take down as many of them with me in the name of the greater good" really change? I read a story in the codex about a pirhana pilot who was a hero and suicided his ship into the enemy as a last act against his foe as apposed to trying to save himself in the face of imminent doom, so it's not like this mentality of "taking an enemy down with you if your about to die" is frowned upon by tau culture so long as it's not your plan A.


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 raverrn wrote:
Because the missiles have a minimum arming distance and that close they're not even moving that fast.

Then how come they can fire at something an inch in front of them/over watch?

Jaxler wrote:
I read a story in the codex about a pirhana pilot who was a hero and suicided his ship into the enemy as a last act against his foe as apposed to trying to save himself in the face of imminent doom, so it's not like this mentality of "taking an enemy down with you if your about to die" is frowned upon by tau culture so long as it's not your plan A.

Source?

Because that's definitely frowned upon in every other piece of background information on the Tau. They do not kill themselves willy-nilly, that's the Imperium's job.

That's what drones are for. Or idiots that follow Farsight. Or the "allied" slave races.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Jaxler wrote:
I read a story in the codex about a pirhana pilot who was a hero and suicided his ship into the enemy as a last act against his foe as apposed to trying to save himself in the face of imminent doom, so it's not like this mentality of "taking an enemy down with you if your about to die" is frowned upon by tau culture so long as it's not your plan A.

Source?

Because that's definitely frowned upon in every other piece of background information on the Tau. They do not kill themselves willy-nilly, that's the Imperium's job.

That's what drones are for. Or idiots that follow Farsight. Or the "allied" slave races.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Piranha

Scroll down to the part about notable pilots.

Self-sacrifice for the Greater Good is not unheard of, to be fair. It is definitely considered an exception, though (and therefore all the more respectable), rather than the expected.

Is there a legit source, rather than the fan fic website of wikia?

I can't look through it as on a work system but surely you have a specific reference?

 IGtR= wrote:
Is there a legit source, rather than the fan fic website of wikia?

I can't look through it as on a work system but surely you have a specific reference?

It's in the 7th Ed codex. I read it there first then looked for a source I had on me right now.

Tau are like the militiaries of many real-world countries in that regard. They try to keep their soldiers safe, but moments of heroism and self-sacrifice happen too.

If I call correctly even drones are spent carefully because the Tau don't have the near endless resources the imperium has especially basic equipment and man power.

Tau consider Drones to be skilled members of their society, a resource to be utilized wherever it might benefit the greater good. In warfare, a Drone can take the place of a soldier, but not as an expendable munition, as an actual soldier.

SJ

such sweet naivete has always made me like the Tau. It's nice to have one faction that doesn't quite realize how terrible the 40k universe is. My favorite Tau story is them killing a greater Demon, a great accomplishment and due to a misunderstanding of the cultist muttering thinking that was an actual Chaos God.

I would be okay with this if my Devastators can jam their Lascannons into anything they are fighting and blow them to pieces or my Furioso Dreadnought can grab ahold of something in CC and blast it apart with its underslung meltagun. Difference is, there is an example of the Dreadnought doing exactly this in the fluff (Cassor the Damned does it in Deathstorm).

Basically, no one could do this because, despite it probably being awesome, would require a bunch of changes to the rules across the board. I would be in favor of Pistol weapons being able to use their regular profile in place of any additional CC attacks. Then they might actually be worth their points.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Tau consider Drones to be skilled members of their society, a resource to be utilized wherever it might benefit the greater good. In warfare, a Drone can take the place of a soldier, but not as an expendable munition, as an actual soldier.

SJ

Well, shield drones kind of are expendable munitions. Taking hits is their job.

Make it a Initiative test? If ya fail you don't get to do diddly?

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I would be okay with this if my Devastators can jam their Lascannons into anything they are fighting and blow them to pieces or my Furioso Dreadnought can grab ahold of something in CC and blast it apart with its underslung meltagun. Difference is, there is an example of the Dreadnought doing exactly this in the fluff (Cassor the Damned does it in Deathstorm).

Basically, no one could do this because, despite it probably being awesome, would require a bunch of changes to the rules across the board. I would be in favor of Pistol weapons being able to use their regular profile in place of any additional CC attacks. Then they might actually be worth their points.

I agree about the point about pistols.

If you could use pistols (like, say, an S7 AP2 plasma pistol) in combat with their profile, there would be no point in melee weapons. Think, people!


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For that matter, there would be no point in krak grenades and little in melta bombs.

Alcibiades wrote:
If you could use pistols (like, say, an S7 AP2 plasma pistol) in combat with their profile, there would be no point in melee weapons. Think, people!

They could be balanced out by making your Bs half in close combat (down to a minimum of 1) or just flat out making all pistol shots resolve as if they were snap shots, or frankly any number of things could be done to to change the numbers so pistols do something in CQB without being broken good.

Alcibiades wrote:
If you could use pistols (like, say, an S7 AP2 plasma pistol) in combat with their profile, there would be no point in melee weapons. Think, people!


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For that matter, there would be no point in krak grenades and little in melta bombs.

They would be giving up ALL of their additional attacks for the opportunity to fire their pistol in the assault phase. In many cases, this would mean giving up 2+ attacks in CC (one for charging, one for having two CCWs).