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 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The cap of -1 to hit is stupid. You have no point in not bringing Heavy weapons.

The problem is, in a D6 system where nothing hits on a 1+, only very few things hit on a 2+, and many of those most shooting centric armies are built around a 4+, and with generally almost no positive to-hiit modifiers in the game (for things like range, stabilization, large targets, spotting/guidance, etc), once you start stacking modifiers in there, it becomes trivial to shut down far too many armies and units and turn it into a game of fishing for 6's or being unable to do anything at all. Even a -1 to hit penalty can be enough to seriously defang many shooting armies in the current edition, a -2 is enough to make many simply non-functional and something some competitive builds already operate on as an "I-win" mechanic, while a -3 would make many literally incapable of acting entirely. GW's design space with such modifiers is extremely limited.

If the game were something more like "basic guardsmen hits on a 3+, shooting at an obscured tank behind cover with a lascannon at 19" and while moving, suffers -4 to hit from target being obscured behind cover and moving, but gets +1 for large target and another +1 for under half range, and so hits on a 5+", we'd have more space to work with and make such things useful. As we broadly don't have such modifiers however, capping modifiers at -1 is really the only way to keep from totally neutering many armies.

Except that's not scaling. An Infantry with a Lascannon that moved is still hitting an Alpha Legion unit on a 5+. You have no reason NOT to move and not to shoot.

For people complaining about "deadly", they didn't realize that the edition got even more deadlier since now you're able to go after whatever you want.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The cap of -1 to hit is stupid. You have no point in not bringing Heavy weapons.

The problem is, in a D6 system where nothing hits on a 1+, only very few things hit on a 2+, and many of those most shooting centric armies are built around a 4+, and with generally almost no positive to-hiit modifiers in the game (for things like range, stabilization, large targets, spotting/guidance, etc), once you start stacking modifiers in there, it becomes trivial to shut down far too many armies and units and turn it into a game of fishing for 6's or being unable to do anything at all. Even a -1 to hit penalty can be enough to seriously defang many shooting armies in the current edition, a -2 is enough to make many simply non-functional and something some competitive builds already operate on as an "I-win" mechanic, while a -3 would make many literally incapable of acting entirely. GW's design space with such modifiers is extremely limited.

If the game were something more like "basic guardsmen hits on a 3+, shooting at an obscured tank behind cover with a lascannon at 19" and while moving, suffers -4 to hit from target being obscured behind cover and moving, but gets +1 for large target and another +1 for under half range, and so hits on a 5+", we'd have more space to work with and make such things useful. As we broadly don't have such modifiers however, capping modifiers at -1 is really the only way to keep from totally neutering many armies.

Except that's not scaling. An Infantry with a Lascannon that moved is still hitting an Alpha Legion unit on a 5+. You have no reason NOT to move and not to shoot.

In my example above? If they don't move their negative hit modifier would be lower (meant that to be -2 obscured, -2 for moving, guess I didn't spell it out), so if you don't move, the modifier would result in the infantry hitting on their base 3+. If you toss an additional -1 for Alpha Legion onto the target (always hated hit modifiers as being "sneaky", Alpha Legion shouldn't be hard to hit, it should be all about deployment/movement/tricksy arrival/command disruption/etc, but that's a whole other topic), it becomes a 6+ and 4+ respectively. However, again, as none of these other modifiers exist, and we're starting with units hitting right in the middle of the results available already (3+ or 4+ for 90% of the game's units), the cap at -1 makes sense as otherwise it's way too easy for even 2 stacked modifiers to completely shut down opposing shooting.

As is now, you still largely have no reason to not bring heavy weapons, when people leave heavy weapons off units, is generally not because of issues with hit modifiers, it's because the weapons are poorly costed or just don't function with the unit all that well to begin with, and often never face modifiers greater than -1 against most opponents anyway.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The cap of -1 to hit is stupid. You have no point in not bringing Heavy weapons.

The problem is, in a D6 system where nothing hits on a 1+, only very few things hit on a 2+, and many of those most shooting centric armies are built around a 4+, and with generally almost no positive to-hiit modifiers in the game (for things like range, stabilization, large targets, spotting/guidance, etc), once you start stacking modifiers in there, it becomes trivial to shut down far too many armies and units and turn it into a game of fishing for 6's or being unable to do anything at all. Even a -1 to hit penalty can be enough to seriously defang many shooting armies in the current edition, a -2 is enough to make many simply non-functional and something some competitive builds already operate on as an "I-win" mechanic, while a -3 would make many literally incapable of acting entirely. GW's design space with such modifiers is extremely limited.

If the game were something more like "basic guardsmen hits on a 3+, shooting at an obscured tank behind cover with a lascannon at 19" and while moving, suffers -4 to hit from target being obscured behind cover and moving, but gets +1 for large target and another +1 for under half range, and so hits on a 5+", we'd have more space to work with and make such things useful. As we broadly don't have such modifiers however, capping modifiers at -1 is really the only way to keep from totally neutering many armies.

Except that's not scaling. An Infantry with a Lascannon that moved is still hitting an Alpha Legion unit on a 5+. You have no reason NOT to move and not to shoot.

In my example above? If they don't move their negative hit modifier would be lower (meant that to be -2 obscured, -2 for moving, guess I didn't spell it out), so if you don't move, the modifier would result in the infantry hitting on their base 3+. If you toss an additional -1 for Alpha Legion onto the target (always hated hit modifiers as being "sneaky", Alpha Legion shouldn't be hard to hit, it should be all about deployment/movement/tricksy arrival/command disruption/etc, but that's a whole other topic), it becomes a 6+ and 4+ respectively. However, again, as none of these other modifiers exist, and we're starting with units hitting right in the middle of the results available already (3+ or 4+ for 90% of the game's units), the cap at -1 makes sense as otherwise it's way too easy for even 2 stacked modifiers to completely shut down opposing shooting.

I think what Slayer's getting at is that since the penalties don't stack, you might as well keep your Heavy weapons on the move if facing Alpha Legion, since you're hitting on 5+ either way.

I feel that the issue was opposing armies being able to set up permanent debuffs that offered no counterplay, rather than the existence of stacking situational debuffs. You can always choose not to move; there's nothing you can do to negate the defensive bonuses of an Alaitoc flyer.

The real problem with the -1 cap is it makes rerolls even more overpowered than they already were. There is just no way now to stop a space marine castle from hitting close to every shot. Even base infantry will hit 75% of the time against every target, no matter what.

Addressing modifiers without addressing rerolls is just madness. So of course it seems to be what GW did.

9th is shaping up to be the castle edition, even more than 8th was.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:


If anything this kills the idea of MSU melee units in TAC lists as you need to be able to weather Overwatch. Additionally, it means Overwatch denial options are still very important as well.

No, it promotes the opposite. The way you beat FTGG if you don't have overwatch suppression is to use a MSU unit to force them to waste FTGG to wipe it, then charge with a second unit that can't be overwatched except by the primary thing you're charging. It is essentially impossible to "weather" FTGG; whatever you charge with first is going to die, unless they make the cardinal mistake of splitting fire and don't commit enough units to wipe the first charger.

You throw things in that can survive being shot at, like a tank, and use things to turn off the primary unit's overwatch (Suppressors, strats, ect) so even if they break your transport, you can walk in unshootable anyways.

Look, I'm not trying to be mean here...but have you actually played games against competitive T'au lists? Because this just doesn't work.

First of all, nobody takes suppressors, but even if they did, you can't turn off overwatch with them, because they have to destroy a model to do it, and there is no way you are ever going to destroy a model in any T'au unit that matters with drone shields taking the wounds on a 2+. The only thing this could possibly apply to is a crisis suit unit, but again, this just isn't going to work unless by some miracle you've already plinked off most of one suit's wounds and you get really lucky with one of your shots and plink off the last 2 wounds because they rolled a 1 on the saviour protocols roll.

Not sure about the rest of it, but the statement "nobody takes suppressors" is absolutely incorrect, take the LVO for example.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The real problem with the -1 cap is it makes rerolls even more overpowered than they already were. There is just no way now to stop a space marine castle from hitting close to every shot. Even base infantry will hit 75% of the time against every target, no matter what.

Addressing modifiers without addressing rerolls is just madness. So of course it seems to be what GW did.

9th is shaping up to be the castle edition, even more than 8th was.

If they haven't done anything about the overwhelming reroll madness, 9th is already worse off.

 bullyboy wrote:


Not sure about the rest of it, but the statement "nobody takes suppressors" is absolutely incorrect, take the LVO for example.

Interesting. You're right, they saw a huge increase at LVO, that's quite interesting. It'd be interesting to see the stats on how they did; neither of the SM lists that placed 1 and 2 took them.


edit: This suggests they didn't do great; they aren't on the "high win %" list, which basically means they weren't one of the units that made the difference between winning and losing SM lists.

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2020/02/02/lvo-by-the-numbers/

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Wow, for 1CP and a 300+ point unit I can deny Overwatch!
Also Warp Talons don't make a charge from Deep Strike unless you're running that Specialist Detachment, which is already 2CP to get the keyword and Warlord Trait.

Or you run them as Night Lords, get a 3d6 charge, turn off savior protocols with Vox Scream, and lock everything you touch in combat with We Have Come For You.

 kodos wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Sitting in a corner and tabling your opponent for the win doesn't win games in 9th. You have to be scoring objectives and if you're waiting until turn 5 to do so, you're going to lose.

unitl tournaments come up and add "tabling = full points win" because it would be unfair otherwise

Luckily tournaments have been movrng away from that


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:

Heck, I'd give tau more abilities for mobility in the charge phase. Sure they can't hit for gak in combat, but they got some tricks they can pull in key moments to prevent an important wipe, or get to unexpected areas.

Sorry but hard to take seriously anybody who says make x suck. You show you are no better than gw

How do you charge anything that matters? Why would you use vox scream to turn off savior protocols when all you're gonna be doing is fighting drones in the first place?

That's the basic problem with the tau castle. There is no way to get to the juicy stuff inside. You can't shoot it because of SP; you can't charge it because of the 9th edition multi-charge rules.

The new (old) T’au overwatch rule is the reason why nearly all the new marines models have storm shields or are bikers where the one guy left after overwatch has enough attacks on the one guy to wipe out a whole T’au squad or extra range multi meltas (rifles)

yukishiro1 wrote:
The real problem with the -1 cap is it makes rerolls even more overpowered than they already were. There is just no way now to stop a space marine castle from hitting close to every shot. Even base infantry will hit 75% of the time against every target, no matter what.

Addressing modifiers without addressing rerolls is just madness. So of course it seems to be what GW did.

9th is shaping up to be the castle edition, even more than 8th was.

Gee. Put as playtesters who have been making tournament rules that favour marine gunlines and you get this. Who would have thought

I feel like people are ignoring that 9th is using missions that favor mobility (based on how Nova and LVO have done missions) over being static and then complaining about armies being static.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also don't know if GW really did ignore the massed reroll issue since that's all FAQ material.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like people are ignoring that 9th is using missions that favor mobility (based on how Nova and LVO have done missions) over being static and then complaining about armies being static.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also don't know if GW really did ignore the massed reroll issue since that's all FAQ material.

You can play mobile castles....

T'au aren't static. This has already been pointed out several times. Watch a few games Siegler plays. Only bad T'au players sit in a corner not moving. One of the greatest strengths of the T'au castle is that it is vastly more mobile than other castles.

With the reduced board size, every objective on the table is going to be well within range of a T'au castle sitting in the middle of the table. There is no way to score points while being outside it's range.

 deffrekka wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like people are ignoring that 9th is using missions that favor mobility (based on how Nova and LVO have done missions) over being static and then complaining about armies being static.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also don't know if GW really did ignore the massed reroll issue since that's all FAQ material.

You can play mobile castles....

Good luck running up score for holding more table quarters with a castle


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
T'au aren't static. This has already been pointed out several times. Watch a few games Siegler plays. Only bad T'au players sit in a corner not moving. One of the greatest strengths of the T'au castle is that it is vastly more mobile than other castles.

With the reduced board size, every objective on the table is going to be well within range of a T'au castle sitting in the middle of the table. There is no way to score points while being outside it's range.

Siegler is an exception not the rule. Stop defining armies by the way top table players run them. Your average player either doesn't have the same list, or can't run it half as effectively.

yukishiro1 wrote:
How do you charge anything that matters? Why would you use vox scream to turn off savior protocols when all you're gonna be doing is fighting drones in the first place?

That's the basic problem with the tau castle. There is no way to get to the juicy stuff inside. You can't shoot it because of SP; you can't charge it because of the 9th edition multi-charge rules.

You use Vox Scream to turn off savior protocols on the drones protecting the riptides so your big guns can knock them out. The warp talons are there to lock everything up you can so they can't shoot and the rest of your army can get in the next turn.

 Nah Man Pichu wrote:

gungo wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

gungo wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
And now he's an old geezer running around with a power klaw chasing after a wacky Ork Warboss and his Waagh!...he's not really "embodying" anything other than an old guy trying to keep others from having fun.

He's been Ghaz's tactical whetstone at least. I mean he can't fight Ghaz physically, but tactically he's pushed Ghaz and contributed to making the Beast of Armageddon even more dangerous for everyone else.

Ghaz best him and decided not to kill him because he enjoyed fighting him... that’s isn’t exactly mean he’s ghaz tactical whetstone..

Ghaz lost to him once, then came back sharper and beat him (only to get countered with massed Astartes).

He didn’t quite lose to him.. it was just an endless grind that was no longer fun...
Then second time beat him, let him live and a bunch of Astartes ruined his fun.
Orks like to kick but and win they get bored quickly when the fighting slows down even if they could tactically win by dragging out the fight.
In each case of armeggedon ghaz was like I’m done here. Left some peon warboss to continue the battle and ghaz went looking for more boys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The cap of -1 to hit is stupid. You have no point in not bringing Heavy weapons.

There are always exceptions... I can’t beleive they will allow heavy weapons to move and shoot without additional penalties.

T..they already said infantry take a -1 to hit when moving and shooting with heavy weapons.

What more do you want?

We want the -1 to hit modifier for moving heavy weapons to stack. Otherwise as much as the -1 hit modifier has been handed out it becomes mostly pointless reason to not move heavy weapons.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 deffrekka wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like people are ignoring that 9th is using missions that favor mobility (based on how Nova and LVO have done missions) over being static and then complaining about armies being static.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also don't know if GW really did ignore the massed reroll issue since that's all FAQ material.

You can play mobile castles....

Good luck running up score for holding more table quarters with a castle


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
T'au aren't static. This has already been pointed out several times. Watch a few games Siegler plays. Only bad T'au players sit in a corner not moving. One of the greatest strengths of the T'au castle is that it is vastly more mobile than other castles.

With the reduced board size, every objective on the table is going to be well within range of a T'au castle sitting in the middle of the table. There is no way to score points while being outside it's range.

Siegler is an exception not the rule. Stop defining armies by the way top table players run them. Your average player either doesn't have the same list, or can't run it half as effectively.

Mate. I'm not trying to be mean here, but what you're saying just isn't correct, and the fact that you've never played a competitive T'au list is really showing.

T'au take the middle and wipe anything that comes within range. That's how they play. If you hold the middle you're in a position to control who holds more. You don't have to be Siegler to know how to basically play the faction in a competent way. What Siegler does better than everybody else is the little stuff, not the big stuff.

You have to define armies by the way top table players run them. If balance isn't based on competitive play it creates a disaster.

So presumably you will only ever get a -1 to hit a flyer now? So there is no reason not to chase it with those lascannon devs up the board! There will only be a -1 penalty for moving

Wonder if we are going to see Things like heavy weapons change to a ballistic skill modifier versus a -to hit.

If so they it would be functionally -2 to hit

No wolves on Fenris wrote:
So presumably you will only ever get a -1 to hit a flyer now? So there is no reason not to chase it with those lascannon devs up the board! There will only be a -1 penalty for moving

Yep, and they'll always hit 75% of the time no matter what if they have a reroll bubble.

9th is going to be even deadlier than 8th for anything in LOS of anything else.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The cap of -1 to hit is stupid. You have no point in not bringing Heavy weapons.

The problem is, in a D6 system where nothing hits on a 1+, only very few things hit on a 2+, and many of those most shooting centric armies are built around a 4+, and with generally almost no positive to-hiit modifiers in the game (for things like range, stabilization, large targets, spotting/guidance, etc), once you start stacking modifiers in there, it becomes trivial to shut down far too many armies and units and turn it into a game of fishing for 6's or being unable to do anything at all. Even a -1 to hit penalty can be enough to seriously defang many shooting armies in the current edition, a -2 is enough to make many simply non-functional and something some competitive builds already operate on as an "I-win" mechanic, while a -3 would make many literally incapable of acting entirely. GW's design space with such modifiers is extremely limited.

If the game were something more like "basic guardsmen hits on a 3+, shooting at an obscured tank behind cover with a lascannon at 19" and while moving, suffers -4 to hit from target being obscured behind cover and moving, but gets +1 for large target and another +1 for under half range, and so hits on a 5+", we'd have more space to work with and make such things useful. As we broadly don't have such modifiers however, capping modifiers at -1 is really the only way to keep from totally neutering many armies.

Except that's not scaling. An Infantry with a Lascannon that moved is still hitting an Alpha Legion unit on a 5+. You have no reason NOT to move and not to shoot.

In my example above? If they don't move their negative hit modifier would be lower (meant that to be -2 obscured, -2 for moving, guess I didn't spell it out), so if you don't move, the modifier would result in the infantry hitting on their base 3+. If you toss an additional -1 for Alpha Legion onto the target (always hated hit modifiers as being "sneaky", Alpha Legion shouldn't be hard to hit, it should be all about deployment/movement/tricksy arrival/command disruption/etc, but that's a whole other topic), it becomes a 6+ and 4+ respectively. However, again, as none of these other modifiers exist, and we're starting with units hitting right in the middle of the results available already (3+ or 4+ for 90% of the game's units), the cap at -1 makes sense as otherwise it's way too easy for even 2 stacked modifiers to completely shut down opposing shooting.

As is now, you still largely have no reason to not bring heavy weapons, when people leave heavy weapons off units, is generally not because of issues with hit modifiers, it's because the weapons are poorly costed or just don't function with the unit all that well to begin with, and often never face modifiers greater than -1 against most opponents anyway.

Which equates a deadlier game with no need to try and counter play. In 8th, if your Devastator Plasma Cannon needed to move and you had two targets, an Eldar flier with -3 to hit already next to you with 3 wounds left, and a Wave Serpent that is just now in range, you might not choose to move so you can have a better chance to kill the flier, ergo you actually have a choice to make. Under 9th, you have literally no reason not to move and get a chance to kill the Flier and knock a couple of wounds off the Serpent. You have no reason to not just move with your Heavy Weapons against Stygies, Raven Guard, Alpha Legion, etc, which means you miss the point of Heavy Weapons: moving them should be an actual consequence and now it really isn't against several armies and units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:

No wolves on Fenris wrote:
So presumably you will only ever get a -1 to hit a flyer now? So there is no reason not to chase it with those lascannon devs up the board! There will only be a -1 penalty for moving

Yep, and they'll always hit 75% of the time no matter what if they have a reroll bubble.

9th is going to be even deadlier than 8th for anything in LOS of anything else.

Dingdingding we have a winner!

 ClockworkZion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:


If anything this kills the idea of MSU melee units in TAC lists as you need to be able to weather Overwatch. Additionally, it means Overwatch denial options are still very important as well.

No, it promotes the opposite. The way you beat FTGG if you don't have overwatch suppression is to use a MSU unit to force them to waste FTGG to wipe it, then charge with a second unit that can't be overwatched except by the primary thing you're charging. It is essentially impossible to "weather" FTGG; whatever you charge with first is going to die, unless they make the cardinal mistake of splitting fire and don't commit enough units to wipe the first charger.

You throw things in that can survive being shot at, like a tank, and use things to turn off the primary unit's overwatch (Suppressors, strats, ect) so even if they break your transport, you can walk in unshootable anyways.

Look, I'm not trying to be mean here...but have you actually played games against competitive T'au lists? Because this just doesn't work.

First of all, nobody takes suppressors, but even if they did, you can't turn off overwatch with them, because they have to destroy a model to do it, and there is no way you are ever going to destroy a model in any T'au unit that matters with drone shields taking the wounds on a 2+. The only thing this could possibly apply to is a crisis suit unit, but again, this just isn't going to work unless by some miracle you've already plinked off most of one suit's wounds and you get really lucky with one of your shots and plink off the last 2 wounds because they rolled a 1 on the saviour protocols roll.

If you charge in with a transport, they just don't shoot FTGG at it. Why on earth would they? All it'll be charging is a drone screen, and they don't care if your transport gets into contact with a drone screen; in fact, they want it to, since it takes up space that could be filled by your real melee. You do realize the can still FTGG even if you only declare a charge on a unit that's already in combat, right?

I haven't played a competetive Tau list like you described because not everyone plays against competetive boogeymen and builds to counter threats only seen at GT level tournaments.

Ok, that's fine. Not everyone has to play competitively. But it does mean you're not really in a position to talk about what to do to to beat FTGG in a competitive T'au list. There is no answer except a unit that can't be overwatched, and in 9th, that doesn't work either.

Shock and Awe allows a Black Templar unit disembarking a LRC to be unable to be Overwatched. Warp Talons Deep Striking can't be Overwatched. There are tools to negate Tau's FTGG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And even if someone plays "competitively" doesn't mean they face the same lists that make the top tables at GTs. Let's be honest, most players can't play those lists properly anyways.

But they'll still play that list. And the issue isn't "it's too good" or "it's not good enough". The problem with competitive tau isn't its quality. It's how it interacts with the mechanics of the game. And a bad player taking a top tau list for a spin and still losing because he can't manage target priorities, or he doesn't know when to switch from ruining the opponent's list to actually scoring objectives doesn't make the play experience any better. The way tau play when you combine their best options is all sorts of awful and unfun and GW needs to also make it bad so people stop playing that way period and then they need to make other ways to play good so that tau players aren't just fethed.

Yeah. Even Siegler agrees that SP and FTGG should get nerfed in return for improving T'au in other ways. The non-interactive nature of the faction just doesn't make for fun games.

So, how are the new strategic reserve working; does it function so that I can deploy half of my force in deep strike reserve (1k points worth terminators), and other half into new strategic reserve (assuming that I have enough cp)?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 deffrekka wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like people are ignoring that 9th is using missions that favor mobility (based on how Nova and LVO have done missions) over being static and then complaining about armies being static.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We also don't know if GW really did ignore the massed reroll issue since that's all FAQ material.

You can play mobile castles....

Good luck running up score for holding more table quarters with a castle


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
T'au aren't static. This has already been pointed out several times. Watch a few games Siegler plays. Only bad T'au players sit in a corner not moving. One of the greatest strengths of the T'au castle is that it is vastly more mobile than other castles.

With the reduced board size, every objective on the table is going to be well within range of a T'au castle sitting in the middle of the table. There is no way to score points while being outside it's range.

Siegler is an exception not the rule. Stop defining armies by the way top table players run them. Your average player either doesn't have the same list, or can't run it half as effectively.

For a guy that bangs on his drum none stop about the big picture you seem to be willfully ignorant of the new reserves

It is laughably easy to take all four corners of the table with any castle now. You just walk on the table with any unit from turn 2-3.

And the entire premise that tau castles or play style means they are trapped into the corner is false. It isn't unfair to use a known example to highlight the upper end of possibility. Especially when it directly contradicts your claim.

Further more, the new missions seem to be direct ripoffs of the ITC/NOVA mission pack which do anything but promote mobility. You just choose late game scoring and killpoint conditions and table the other guy. There is a reason why gunlines run rampant in those formats. If anything the new missions make it worse, especially with a smaller table but similar distance between armies, because now gunlines will be that much harder to outrange and easier to screen. Which as others have already demonstrated the new charge rules make screening even easier.

The Tau overwatch exception was not only stupid, but a massive step back. All they had to do was give them access to the overwatch strat for 0CP and leave greater good so they can lend support. Whats moronic is that a single Y'Vara can shoot infinite volleys into oncoming chargers. So even if I charge the fether with 10 5 man berserker units, he can easily kill all 50. Something impossible in his own turn. Unlimited OW is sloppy and a "feels bad" mechanic.

Lastly, this whole idea that T'au require OW or that it's "their thing" is wrong. For one, they never had it until OW in general was reintroduced in 6th. And further more sucking at melee is not a good argument for them to have it. Melee sucks at melee lol. It really not much of a sacrifice, forfeiting a broken core mechanic to double up on the better one. For them to miss out, melee would have to work to begin with and even then they already fixed much of the issues with tarpiting. For one they have desperate breakout. For another they can now nuke you in combat with riptides. Riptides ALREADY were used offensively to tarpit. Now there is almost no reason to not charge them into anyone they can grab each turn. Especially enemy infantry who can't fire into combat or fall back and shoot even with fly. It just protects the riptides that much more OR forces attacks in melee into them where they can funel them into drones.

I can't wait for every army to get an exception to the new OW rules, despite GW themselves acknowledging it is a poor mechanic and a time sink.

They haven't said yet. I kinda assume that anything in strategic reserves will count towards the 50% reserves limit.

yukishiro1 wrote:
They haven't said yet. I kinda assume that anything in strategic reserves will count towards the 50% reserves limit.

But that isn't a real big deal is it?

I can get 9 power level ~180pts of cheap objective grabbers for only a single CP. Which, is more then enough for a few cheap troops. Even if a tau FW jumps to 9ppm thats four 5 man units for exactly 180. Thats 2 teams turn 2, 2 more turn 3 to run into the other quads.

So the premise that castles can't score is wrong.

Basically GW brought back the 5th edition "grot squad" everyone would toss into lists.

I wasn't responding to that, I was responding to the guy who asked if he could DS half his army and reserve the other half.

Castles are going to be an even bigger problem in 9th than they were in 8th.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Mate. I'm not trying to be mean here, but what you're saying just isn't correct, and the fact that you've never played a competitive T'au list is really showing.

T'au take the middle and wipe anything that comes within range. That's how they play. If you hold the middle you're in a position to control who holds more. You don't have to be Siegler to know how to basically play the faction in a competent way. What Siegler does better than everybody else is the little stuff, not the big stuff.

You have to define armies by the way top table players run them. If balance isn't based on competitive play it creates a disaster.

I haven't played an ITC, ETC/WTC, or Nova list, sure. But I have played against competetive Tau. Even outside of that there exists a massive group of players who don't play the "competetive" list you claim defines Tau as an army.

My point is you can't define an army off of a small data subset because most players either don't play that army or can't play that army effectively. Defining Tau by that single metric and then shutting down discussion regarding all other varieties of Tau is reductive to both the nature of the army as a whole and the actual discussion.

Like I pointed out earlier with the Grey Knights: just because one person can top table (or even win a GT) with an army doesn't change that army in the hands of the wider community. Stop defining armies by the exception.

Most players define Tau as a static gunline because modt players only see static gunline Tau. Pretending that Seigler's mobile list that locks down the table center is the norm ignores that for the sake of going "See!? Tau will break the game!"

One thought that crosses my mind as a general counter play strategy is the secondary for holding table quarters. It seems like a good counter play to a center table castle. Stay out of Line of Sight, claim all four corners because the opponent is clustered in the middle and run up your points every turn.