How to make it fun to play against Tau?

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**Gamgee**

GreenShoes wrote:
I trash talk Tau a lot, but it just so happens that a fortuitous situation has me aquiring a Tau army. I don't plan on using Riptides, Stormsurges or Piranha Wings, instead relying on mass Crisis Suits. I've got only one source of Markerlights and one squad with a Buff Sergeant, and both of those additions are there to help deal with Lords of War when I should happen to come across them (which is often enough, blah).

By not taking a TripTide wing or spamming Markerlights, I'm basically playing as a cross between IG and Space Marines, both of which can tear my force a new one if competently piloted. A lot of the hate on Tau comes from things like the OSC, massed Riptide spam, 109's, and ignores cover for everything, and that's from personal experience. By not utilizing those powerful units and tactics, as well as having the majority of my force operating within 24" of the enemy, I'm required to then use more movement and tactics to pull off objectives.

Will I still get hate? Yes. Is it easier to win than with my IG force? Yes. Will I have an auto-win, rage-inducing button every game? No.

It isn't going to be easy, but by playing with a more varied list than what people are winning tourney games and by proving to your opponent that you're not a WAAC anime fan, you'll reap the rewards in a social context, which is really what the core of this game is.

There's a reason that "Forge the Narrative" exists; this game will never be balanced to a pure tournament level, so it's on the players to make it fun. Any time there is cutthroat competition in life people are going to end up butthurt. Save the power units for tournaments and bring out some Vespid and Tiger Sharks!

The fact that your playing Tau. It could be mass Vespid, Kroot, and Sniper Drones means they will bitch. They will always bitch. There is nothing you can do to not make them bitch unless its not play Tau. At some point your going to get sick of using the same units and want to try anything better and they will rage more. Despite how unfair Necrons are and Eldar are almost no one comes online to bitch about it. Tau are certified to be allowed to be bitched about or something. I don't know.

You have three options. 1. Learn to feast on their tears 2. Ignore them and play Tau 3. Don't play Tau.

I usually feast on their tears these days since nothing I tried to do made them stop whining. So may as well justify their whining.

**Gamgee**

Don't bring heavy rail rifles. They are so bad I almost guarantee a loss against all but the most brain dead opponents. They are terrible weapons even compared to Chaos codex.

I once took Broadsides with HRR and my opponent said I didn't have to after that game they were so ineffective. Yep.... they are bad. Maybe even as bad as Vespid but in a different way.

In six rounds of shooting they managed to dent one tank which he just repaired. He laughed. At my Tyranids opponent half my HRR shots were missing and the ones that hit were not inflicting enough casualties. I managed to barely win both these games through objectives but I had a game plan.

They were so sure the HRR were so OP and good I had to show them first hand how bad they were.

Which sucks since I love the model so bad.

**Gamgee**

Jewelfox wrote:
eskimo wrote:
A thought that crossed my mind is removing the assault moves from them. Not having this prevents having a crutch on movement mistakes.

This would perhaps help me to enjoy the game knowing you couldn't run off. But depends on your meta ofcourse.

I've personally found Jump-Shoot-Jump to be a little bit overrated. >_>; At the least, it's a skill that I need to develop. Because the effective melta range on my crisis suits is 9", and while they can assault move an average of 7" a bad move (or poor die roll) can kill the whole squad. Obvs I can put plasma or missiles on them as well, but they're kind of my biggest anti-tank resource right now.

There are a lot of other hard to hit targets in 40k, like fliers, Ravenwing bikes, and 2++ Space Marine death stars. Do people hate Crisis suits just because getting pop-tarted by somewhat-expensive weapon platforms is more annoying than 2+ rerollable jink?

I think that the best solution might just be to hold stuff in reserves to deal with them (like when my IG opponent shot my Crisis suits off the board on his turn with an aircraft's lascannon). Something that I could do to help might be to point out "hey I'm going to deep strike these to deal with your tanks, are you sure those are all the models you want in reserves?" Pointing out stuff like that might help players adjust, to the unusual challenge that Tau present.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gamgee wrote:
Don't bring heavy rail rifles. They are so bad I almost guarantee a loss

Aw, but they look so cool! :c

I guess I needed to buy Hammerheads for that "Tank Shock" organized play event anyway >_>; assuming a store within 5 hours of me is running it.

That's the problem with out codex. The things that are good are amazing, but the things that are bad are near useless. We have no internal codex balance like Eldar or Necrons with vast swathes of choice. We have our few really outstanding things and that's it. We're lucky to have a few mid-tier units that would be great for casual play. A lot of choices are just terrible. Our fliers are useless for example. Without formations drones are mostly junk. Railguns of all types suck the big one and are unlikely to damage anything. Overcosted transports for troops (not likely to bother you). The transport is a mid-ter unit so its not that bad. THen stack on Kroot being better snipers than in melee, terrible vespid, and bad sniper drones. Without formations stealth suits die like fruit flies. Even with formations they die off like fruit flies hiding behind a cover save.

Before the new update came out I was hoping for massive internal changes. Instead our best stuff got better and our worst stuff got worse then all the new units to come out worked well and synergized well with the existing good stuff. Just over half my codex feels useless to me as a fairly competitive guy. Then when I want to make a list better and include a few good units they are way too good. So there is extremes and no middles in our codex. Kroot thankfully are one of our middle options. I like them a lot for toning down lists while not being super uselss. They are the AA star of mid tier Tau. Hahah.

**Gamgee**

TLDR
Space Marine fanfiction spank.

**Gamgee**

I never play static Tau anymore. Well I can if I feel like it but eh. I even like putting my SS up centerline and getting some stompy mayhem now and again on my opponents and watch as they die to them in melee. Heh.

**Gamgee**

Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Gamgee wrote:

Despite how unfair Necrons are and Eldar are almost no one comes online to bitch about it.

Did you not have internet access for the month prior to and the months after Craftworld: Eldar dropped?

To answer the OP, for my money the most obnoxious thing about playing against Tau is they can pretty much just castle up in corner and force their opponent to come to them while putting them under a withering hail of fire. Between that and how gimped assault is in this edition, it can be extremely hard for the opponent to accomplish anything even remotely satisfying. There's also the extremely easy access to Ignores Cover in the form of networked markerlights all over the list like a rash. Pathfinders, I don't mind so much because they're not too hard for a competent opponent to focus on and get rid of, but the networked lights mean I have to kill practically every character in the army to get rid of the markerlight support.

So, if you want to make playing against your Tau more fun for your opponent, I'd say the big thing is make lists intended to come out of your deployment zone. Use Fire Warriors in Devilfish, get them within rapid fire range, contest the midfield. Also, play a variety of units instead of just spamming the best ones. It'll make your army look more interesting on the table, and if there's one an opponent finds especially obnoxious, they can always focus on it and get rid of it. People will probably still sneer about Tau, but there's a considerable difference between people hating Tau and people hating your Tau.

Oh wow one month of complaints. Everyone complains the first month about everything in the first month. Since the day I got here Tau have been Tau bitched about. From the longest days of lurking people have been Tau bitching. Same goes for the site that shall not be named and its player base. Tau bitching ad nauseum. You'll see a bit of Eldar or Necron frustration, but not hate. Not downright furious bile like Tau players get. I regularly have to listen to people telling me they would remove my army from the game, remove its core mechanics, or completely overhaul its visuals and lore so that it isn't Tau. I think the least the other faction players can do is take some hate and live with it for a change.

**Gamgee**

pm713 wrote:
I've seen people just ban Eldar on reputation alone so it's unfair to say it was one month of complaints. Honestly I see way more about Eldar than Tau.

Seems similar to the Tau. I've seen way more people just decide to never play them or ban them outright for YEARS now. Welcome to the club.

**Gamgee**

Grizzyzz wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

Truth

Far worse. http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/03/40k-list-tech-a-tale-of-two-undefeated-lvo-lists.html

**Gamgee**

LockeWatts wrote:
Every time I see a thread like this as a Tau player, the people who are complaining just blow my mind. Almost universally everyone is complaining about the wrong units, and it just confuses me so so much. Like, are y'all just playing with bad Tau players? What is going on here.

Let's give a quick run down of Tau units in the codex.

HQs
Commander - Outside of a buffmander or mark'o, literally nobody cares.
Ethereal - Cheap HQ option, nice for the 6+ fnp or stubborn. For 50 points, not bad.
Farsight - Are you playing a Farsight bomb? (Don't, it's bad). Cool, he's unplayable.
Shadowsun - Not good, either?
Aun'shi - Bet you haven't even heard of this guy.
Aun'va - The space pope. Bet you nobody here has even seen this model in person
Cadre Fireblade - Underappreciated Tau HQs, but not bad for their points.
Darkstrider - Bet you've never seen this guy played, either. Amazing in a Hunter Contingent, but I've yet to meet a Tau player who has built that.

So, of the HQs, there are really: Ethereals, Buffmanders, Mark'Os, Fireblades, and Darkstrider. Which of these are broken OP? Maaaaybe some of you don't like the Buffmander, but for 200 points he's not exactly cheap. He's the equivalent to a Chapter Mater with the Shield Eternal and/or Hunters Eye. Know which one I'd take? Hmm...

Troops
Strike Teams - These are getting complained about in here? Huh? Who runs mass Firewarriors? Who thinks that's even playable? Who are you people losing to Firewarriors? They're T3, 4+ save dudes. They're as durable as IG vets with no special weapons, except they're BS3. Who here thinks IG vets are OP? Let's run through some counters:
Eldar - Shoot them with bikes.
Marines - Heavy flamers in drop pods, Heavy flamers in landspeeders, a Thunderfire cannon.
Necrons - Shoot them with immortals.
Admech - Shoot them with anything. Or assault them with the fast dudes. Or jus ignore them.
IG - Shoot them with any number of AP4 large blasts.

I can continue, but really guys. If Firewarriors are beating you, you need to build better lists. They just straight up aren't very good.

Breacher teams - These are unplayably bad. 5" range for the good profile, lol, okay. Then they become worse then the above bad Firewarriors.
Kroot - Yay for outflanking shenanigans? I don't think anyone is arguing Kroot are good. They're not.

All Tau troops are bad. The only ones potentially worth playing are Crisis Suits through Farsight, and even then, no.

Elites
Stealth Battlesuits - They cost as much a Terminator but are T3 3+ and fire a worthless gun! Woo! Seriously overpriced, these things are tax on Ghostkeels.
Crisis Battlesuits - They're 52 points a model for a T4 3+ no invuln no cover 2W model. Krak Missiles, hoooo!
Ghostkeels - Now, these are a really good unit. One of the best in the Tau codex. Nobody is complaining about them, though. Weird? I'll leave that alone, but really. Complain about these. The OSC makes them worth complaining about (kind of? It's still a 600 point formation that dies to assault marines.).
Riptides - All of the complaining that revolves around these things blows my mind. Yes, they're hard to kill (If you don't have grav or D or the ability to assault, so... low tier codecies, I guess?), but they don't do very much. The IA gets hot 1/6th of the time. It scatters 2/3rds of the time at BS3. The odds of this thing actually hitting on target are 32.4%. The odds of it missing completely are 32.4%. Not a typo, same percentage. So basically, a third of the time it works, a third of the time it doesn't, a third of the time it kind of does.

How does this scare you? It's a 200 point model that makes Grey Knight Paladins and Ork Mega Armoured Nobs afraid. Nobody else should care? Seriously?

Fast Attack
Drone Teams - Nobody takes them outside of the Mark'O build.
Piranhas - When's the last time you saw one of these?
Pathfinders - Also terrible unless they're in the Ranged Support Cadre, then they're playable.
Devilfish - 80 points for 12 11 10 3 HP. Hah.
Sunshark - Have you ever seen a Tau flier?
Razorshark - See above?
Vespid - Worst unit in the book. Get fethed, auxiliaries.

Heavy Support
Sniper Drone Team - BS5 markerlights is nice. Only ever seen one person use them, these are underappreciated.
Hammerheads - Single shot railguns! Ion cannons! On 130 point platforms that are vehicles with AV13 front? And can't move? Please. I wish Hammerheads were good. I got into Tau for the grav-vehicles aesthetic and because I loooooved Railguns as a child. They're terrible. If I could run a Tau armoured company with 6 Hammerheads, 6 Warfish, 3 Skyrays and some fliers, I would go down on that SO hard. But I would lose 80-90% of my games, which sucks a lot.
Skyrays - Probably the best vehicle Tau have for the markerlights and the fact that they're cheap, but still not great.
Broadsides - The other OP unit in our Codex (as far as that attitude goes. Nothing in our Codex is OP, check ANY tournament results. No Tau are winning gak. Thanks Eldar.) Broadsides are really good. They're also static as feth, and die to meltaguns like you would not believe. A tac squad with melta combi melta in a drop pod will go point efficient against Broadsides a lot of the time, assuming you can survive the interceptor (the other reason these are really good).
Stormsurges - These boys are also good, but have a few key weaknesses. The first being they're T6 3+, so Krak Missiles are a problem. Knights with gatling cannons are a BIG problem. Anything with power firsts is a problem. They require some work to bring down for sure, and put out a lot of firepower, but they're also fething 380 points if kitted lightly, 430 if kitted with a shield. Go compare that to a wraithknight and get back to me.

So, yeah. There are like 5-6 playable units in this Codex. The rest of it is REALLY bad. I lose a majority of my games as Tau against my friends, and then do decently (3-0 and 4-1 normally) at tournaments. But I'm never winning anything. It's a matter of knowing what you're doing, target priority, and flexible list design.

A Space Marine list with Hunters Eye, Centurions in a pod, and 4 tac squads in pods will run my day real fast. So will ignore cover relic tanks. There are plenty of answers to Tau, and good tournament players know them. I don't know what's going on with Firewarriors and Riptides, sounds like bots posting from 6e, but the world has evolved.

Your assessment is mostly spot on. Breachers though can be pretty good with the right list to support them. The top Tau list at LVO had some. Crisis Battlesuits can be good but trying to find enough of the new weapons to field a team with their new non-experimental gun is hard. The one that is str 7 and short range. Drones are usually preferred markerlight platform in tournaments because when paired with the commander and his build it makes them very effective and they are all average toughness of 4 as opposed to pathfinders 3. Piranah Firestream wing and Drone Net is extremely potent combination from FSE. Drown them in drones.

A lot of good Tau lists these days have to bring Y'vahrahs to stand any chance at winning tournaments.

**Gamgee**

No I meant the Breachers do well in a list where the opponent has bigger problems than them. The list they were included in took two 5 man breachers w./ emp grenades, an ethereal, and put them in two devilfish.

It also had two Stormsurges, and I think three Y'vahrah. If I'm not mistaken. So what are you going to shoot at? The SS and Y'vahrah? Or the Breachers?

The more heat you can take off of them the better they will perform which is why I think the list had so much unexpected success. He went undefeated. So it's making me want to test some Breachers out in a more casual list without the insane amount of MC and GMC's. I know a lot of bad players who have bad target priority though. So it all depends on how that goes.

**Gamgee**

Traditio wrote:
Grizzyzz wrote:
So actually I am going to post my 2000 point list i usually take here for critique from those who hate playing Tau to see what you think.

We have started following ITC at my FLGS.. it matters

Dawn Blade: Retaliation Cadre
Fusion Blade commander
1x3 misslesides, plasma, target locks
Riptide, IA, fusion, FNP, EWO
1x3 Crisis, dual plasma
2x3 Crisis, dual burst cannons
+
Drone Net:
4x4 Marker drones
+
Piranha Firestream:
4x1 Piranha, 2 seekers, MTC
+
Allies: Ghostkeel wing:
3x1 Ghostkeel, Raker, flamers, EWO

I left out some of the fine tuned equipment.. but this is the gist of it... OK IM READY, let me have it.

Crisis suits and a riptide?

No thanks.

Your Retaliation Cadre need 3 units of Crisis teams not three models. Split off the two man team into two individual units and then your legally good. Unless you meant that you have two separate burst cannon ones.

**Gamgee**

Ghostkeels can get pretty potent when in groups and also formations. They don't work on a linear power, but an exponential power level. One is meh. Two is okay and could replace HYMP Broadsides in a casual list. Adding those two into formations makes them great and finally some lists that go Ghostkeel heavy with 3 can be extremely potent with a Ghostkeel Wing. It's a very undervalued unit because its stats are deceptive.

Though most lists will likely just focus on two since they aren't that cheap.

**Gamgee**

Quickjager wrote:
The problem is on a fundamental level with Tau. They can't assault, they don't have psykers, they go all in on shooting.

That would leave movement as the one area to make Tau fun in, but the range of their weapons mean the most effective use is to fire and backup.

If I catch the units of a Tau Opponent they invariably concede. I don't get to do anything except play a hour long game of tag.

If I get caught I fight it out unless we both agree to concede, but I don't concede. Anything can happen with those dice.

**Gamgee**

Quickjager wrote:
They were calling you names for looking at Tau models wtf? donkey-caves, Tau got some of the better looking infantry models with their update.

i got some looks from people in my FLGS when I was looking at the models. I also had the store owner give me a strange look when I mentioned wanting to start Tau or Dark Eldar. Thankfully he steered me away from DE which he said had a bad dex (this was I believe their 6e dex) he said it had only one way to be viably played. I had done some research that confirmed it was kinda limited dex.

Like I said Eldar might be hated, but I think the Tau are the only despised faction that a large chunk of the player base at large just hates with all their guts.

**Gamgee**

Oh what's that? No Tau in the top fething 10 again?

Wooooow it's not like I didn't call this one for the past.... how many months? Using this thing I like to call brainpower, logic, and data.

I will once again kindly ask the ITC to look at reducing the nerf to some of our units. It's ridiculous. Since everyone has been so kind and informative to me, debated with me with such a level head, and were completely unbiased I have to give you all some props. I realize Adeptacon doesn't use ITC. I just find it unlikely we'll see any Tau in the top 10 in any major tournaments this year. Particularly with ITC nerfs.

Spoiler:

**Gamgee**

Sidstyler wrote:
Don't like my attitude? Blame the Tau haters. You guys literally killed the fething hobby for me so you're damn right I'm a little bitter about this topic.

Me too truth be told. I'm pretty pissed off too. I just found out my FLGS uses ITC too so I have no options if I ever manage to get there.

Edit
Damn Sid that is some deep thoughts. I couldn't say it better myself except to hope some person out there somewhere actually realizes how they've been acting and treating people. I know I'm a bit of an donkey-cave myself but its because I care so much in the first place.