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 Peregrine wrote:

GT lists consistently DON'T have three ofs in heavy support, elites, fast attack (and they frequently don't take all the same troops either). How do you explain that? They should just fill all three slots with the best unit, right?

Because sometimes there isn't a singular "best unit" that you automatically take three of in a particular slot. Sometimes there are multiple top-tier units of equal power, and a 2/1 split gives a better result. However, that doesn't address my general point that you always find your best unitS and build your list around them, you don't pick weaker units and try to come up with a strategy to make them less weak.

You'll notice a few of these units are considered "bad" on a power scale. Also, because he took guard he had the option taking some great killy units (including the best fliers), but chose not to.

Sigh. That list again. How about before you post it as an example of a good list you try to understand how the house rules NOVA uses completely change the game and how that list is designed to take advantage of those house rules?

Way to straw man both points.

just a few points you might find intresting:

1-He didnt hide his entire tactical, he hid the surviviors after a stealth took out the rhino, and the snipers killed 2 on turn 2, and another 2 on turn 2 (with the stealth killing 2 on turn 2 as well), the snipers later proceeded to kill a biker, 2 devestators and wound his commander, as well as the markerlight increasing my stealth team kills later on.

Half your distaste f=of them comes from thinking the average less then a kill a turn, while an actual math would result about 1.5 (dont remebmer the precice number ATM)

No clue why you think a unit with 36' range need to be out in the open to shoot guys that are out in the open, use area terrain damnit!

As for the remora-I said nothing except that from a glance they MIGHT to have potential, I did not defend them, nor said how they should be used, in fact I did not give ANY solid "opinion" expect "might be good if used in a certine way", and thats true for every unit in the game, just some less then others. I took a look once, and they looked not as bad as 5th ethereal. nothing more.


As for spamming the "right" units, as in the "op" ones-that too only works sometimes, and its a very boring game. most players are not slowed and build their list with these off-balance units in mind. sure it MIGHT work, but due to raw power rather then any skill or gameplay.

 TheNameless wrote:
Way to straw man both points.

How is that a strawman? Your first point was objecting to something I didn't actually say with a strawman of your own ("3 of a kind or you suck"), and your second was copy/pasting a list from a tournament without bothering to understand the fact that the list was used in a tournament with house rules that completely changed how the game works and what units are best.

 BoomWolf wrote:
1-He didnt hide his entire tactical, he hid the surviviors after a stealth took out the rhino, and the snipers killed 2 on turn 2, and another 2 on turn 2 (with the stealth killing 2 on turn 2 as well), the snipers later proceeded to kill a biker, 2 devestators and wound his commander, as well as the markerlight increasing my stealth team kills later on.

Which isn't what you described. You said fear of the snipers kept them behind LOS terrain, not that they did useful amounts of wounds. If you want to talk about how many kills they inflicted, fine, but you need to actually SAY that instead of expecting everyone to read your mind.

Half your distaste f=of them comes from thinking the average less then a kill a turn, while an actual math would result about 1.5 (dont remebmer the precice number ATM)

The precise number is 1.25 a turn without cover, 0.83 with 5+ cover.

Which, coincidentally is the same number of marines that a plasma Broadside (same cost) will kill at 24".

PS: a squad of eight Fire Warriors (same cost) at 30" will kill 0.89 marines cover or no cover, and 1.8 within 15". I'll let you figure out the wisdom of spending a heavy support slot on a unit that's only marginally more effective (if at all) than your basic troops.

No clue why you think a unit with 36' range need to be out in the open to shoot guys that are out in the open, use area terrain damnit!

Because:

1) The longer the distance the more likely it is that something gets in the way, at least if you're playing on tables with a proper amount and type of terrain. It's just simple geometry, on a table of well-distributed terrain there are more clear 12" shots than 36" shots.

2) If you're using cover to protect yourself there's a pretty good chance that your cover is going to also obscure your target.

As for the remora-I said nothing except that from a glance they MIGHT to have potential, I did not defend them, nor said how they should be used, in fact I did not give ANY solid "opinion" expect "might be good if used in a certine way", and thats true for every unit in the game, just some less then others. I took a look once, and they looked not as bad as 5th ethereal. nothing more.

"Might be good" is still an opinion. The proper thing to do when you don't have any clue what the rules are for a unit is to say "I don't know what the rules are" and stop talking about it.

As for spamming the "right" units, as in the "op" ones-that too only works sometimes, and its a very boring game. most players are not slowed and build their list with these off-balance units in mind. sure it MIGHT work, but due to raw power rather then any skill or gameplay.

Is a win somehow not a win when it's based on "overpowered" units? No.

Plus, part of being a good 40k player is having the skill to recognize and effectively use the most powerful units. Deal with it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheNameless wrote:
Way to straw man both points.

How is that a strawman? Your first point was objecting to something I didn't actually say with a strawman of your own ("3 of a kind or you suck"), and your second was copy/pasting a list from a tournament without bothering to understand the fact that the list was used in a tournament with house rules that completely changed how the game works and what units are best.

By ignoring my position... obviously. I don't think you know what a straw man argument is...

 TheNameless wrote:
By ignoring my position... obviously. I don't think you know what a straw man argument is...

What exactly did I ignore? Your post made two points:

1) An argument against a straw man of your own, saying that top lists don't always include three identical options in an FOC slot and defining "best" in terms of more than just killing power. It's a stupid argument to make because I never said that you take three copies of a single unit, chosen based on killing efficiency and nothing else. Nothing you said in that one point disagreed with my position in any way.

2) A list from a recent tournament along with your statement that it used units that are generally considered "weak" and won. Which, as I pointed out, ignores the fact that the "weak" units were in fact chosen to take advantage of the house rules of that tournament and were NOT weak units in the context of that tournament. Nothing about that list applies to normal 40k, and I sincerely doubt that the person who used it would ever try to play it in a standard 40k tournament.

 Peregrine wrote:
2) A list from a recent tournament along with your statement that it used units that are generally considered "weak" and won. Which, as I pointed out, ignores the fact that the "weak" units were in fact chosen to take advantage of the house rules of that tournament and were NOT weak units in the context of that tournament. Nothing about that list applies to normal 40k, and I sincerely doubt that the person who used it would ever try to play it in a standard 40k tournament.

Ah, the classic "tournament results (that I don't like) don't count because those tournaments aren't real 40k" argument. This is a perfect example of the no true Scotsman fallacy. In practice, I find it much more reliable to base what's good on what actually wins major events at a high level of play (regardless of minor differences in FAQs and scenarios) than on what random Internet people inform me is good or bad.

Theory is nice, but experience is better.

 Kingsley wrote:
Ah, the classic "tournament results (that I don't like) don't count because those tournaments aren't real 40k" argument. This is a perfect example of the no true Scotsman fallacy. In practice, I find it much more reliable to base what's good on what actually wins major events at a high level of play (regardless of minor differences in FAQs and scenarios) than on what random Internet people inform me is good or bad.

It's not exactly "minor differences" when you completely change the victory conditions. NOVA's table quarters condition favors an entirely different set of units than the ones that are good in the book missions, so of course you see a list with huge expensive units designed to sit in a table quarter and claim it. It's no different than trying to argue that Vendettas are bad based on a tournament where flyers were reduced to AV 5 and were always hit on normal BS.

The core elements of the game are the same regardless of (plausible) scenarios-- generally speaking, the differences are outweighed by the similarities, at least among non-comped events. Also, the point of the blobs on Tony's list isn't to claim table quarters-- that's a good example of where theoryhammer can let you down.

It 1.25 kill what you got in your calculations? because I just made one of my own and got 1.527, you forgot to add the markerlight didn't you?

And that is now better then a plasma broadside, who by the way costs 85 and not 80 if you want him to fire both his railgun and plasma required to reach a 1.25 kill ration.

Sorry, say what you want but sniper drones ARE cost-effective marine killers, always were and always will by, its just that the new SFG made them much tougher and by such more viable.


And yes, at first I presented their threat value and not kill record, because that was what I found amusing at that game more then a few dead marines. and if you would have calculated the real kill potential of sniper drones properly you would have realised WHY he hid his units away, they just cant FACE sniper drones while out in the open



And the remora that unfortunatly I am forced to return to as you insist on twisting what I say, I looked at it at the past, and it seemed an ok unit, but I dont REMEBER much of it these days. I am said nothing SOLID on it, just a general flaoting thought.


As for "Is a win somehow not a win when it's based on "overpowered" units?", of course its still a win, but a cheap one and that tactic wont work more then once because people will KNOW you do that, and will prepare accordingly. (bad players aside, they dont tend to respond to the shifting meta well.)

You seem to forget one of the core concepts of game balance-lead disadvantage. the "strongest" is always at a disatvantage, as everyone see it coming and prepare themselves.

 BoomWolf wrote:
It 1.25 kill what you got in your calculations? because I just made one of my own and got 1.527, you forgot to add the markerlight didn't you?

I didn't forget, I assumed that the markerlight will always go to more useful things than boosting a mere three rail rifle shots. Unless your entire army is dead except for the sniper drones you will never use it for their own shots.

And that is now better then a plasma broadside, who by the way costs 85 and not 80 if you want him to fire both his railgun and plasma required to reach a 1.25 kill ration.

So what, it's a 5 point difference, not enough to make any meaningful difference in the final result. For all relevant purposes they're the same cost.

Sorry, say what you want but sniper drones ARE cost-effective marine killers, always were and always will by, its just that the new SFG made them much tougher and by such more viable.

Err, no. A cost effective marine killer needs to be better at killing marines than your basic troops or anti-tank units. And sniper drones are not.

And yes, at first I presented their threat value and not kill record, because that was what I found amusing at that game more then a few dead marines. and if you would have calculated the real kill potential of sniper drones properly you would have realised WHY he hid his units away, they just cant FACE sniper drones while out in the open

Ok, fine, let's even throw away our markerlights and bump it up to 1.5 dead per turn. That is not scary firepower. If your opponent hid his squad because two meatshields died your opponent made the newbie mistake of being so afraid of taking casualties that he effectively took the unit out of the game anyway. Only a new (or bad, I suppose) player is going to make that mistake, a more experienced player will accept that 1-2 casualties per turn is the price of doing business, move up, and start returning fire effectively.

This is why every new player should be forced to play IG or Orks until the can win consistently, so that they learn how to accept losses and keep going, or even sacrifice entire units without hesitation if it's the best strategy.

As for "Is a win somehow not a win when it's based on "overpowered" units?", of course its still a win, but a cheap one and that tactic wont work more then once because people will KNOW you do that, and will prepare accordingly. (bad players aside, they dont tend to respond to the shifting meta well.)

You know what the nice thing about overpowered units is? It doesn't matter if you see them coming and prepare, they're still good enough to win. A good list that makes effective use of the most powerful units will always be better than a "surprise" list with weak units no matter how much you prepare for the good list.

Tau can't be competitive because the older books were costed differently than the newer ones. Codex creep means GW reduces point values on units so that you have to....dun.dun.dun...buy more models.

So Tau, like Eldar and other older books are playing against books that have 120 percent or more troops on the field. It is a deficit that is all but impossible to overcome.

Ghaaa...you contredict yourself so much its frustrating.

You claim the markerlight has "better things to do" yet you dismiss the squad as if it does not even exist (and the spotter is the most relyable markerlight out there except tetra)
If you ignore the markerlight, you shuold ignore his cost, and compared to a pathfinder 'ui (closest comparison, and an option considered "ok") he shoud cost 30-40 points on his own (22 the ui, 5 the cheapest for TA, and the SFG is worth quite some points.), so in fact you only paid 40-50 for the snipers themselves.

And then, you insist that an "effective killer" is one better then your basic troop-that I accept, but you claim the sniper team is not, because you refuse to calculate the full power of the sqaud as "the markerlight has better things to do", and that is JUST MY POINT about verstility, that unit CAN boost it self, and it WILL boost itself, but when situation arise it might have BETTER things to do. you dont dismiss something the unit does (and does well) because at gives situations it would do even MORE.
You logic pretty much follows "snipers are bad because firewarriors of the same cost of the entire team kill as much as what a portion of the sniper team does", you compare partial units-compare partial prices! you take the spotter off the calculation, then take 30 points off the price calculation too! I am sure you will find that 5 firewarriors dont do as much damage as 3 snipers, and the drones start shooting from further away.

Units are not stand-alones, they are a part of an army, and units such as snipers are just the point of being able to assist multiple different units against multiple different targets, you cant take the markerlight, who is one of the Tau trademark abilities, out of the equasion, not when its 25% of the squad!

You also seem to forget that there is a BIG difference between 36 and 24 range when you are forced to walk to them, the 24 range will sepnd at least one turn not even shooting at the enemy, and the a turn hardly throwing shots at all, while the 36 range would fire freely.


On another note, "moving forward and accepting losses" is not a winning stratagy when the losses to accept is to lose everything and do notihng at all in return, if he moved his squad out that game he would only spare my sniper shots from going elsewhere, nothing more. (and when they died the stealth would have a free walk to his devestators as they later did) he favored a chance at holding the objective rather then having my snipers having a free shooting gallery, and that was the correct call. (the splitting to combat squads is what allowed me to take out the heavy weapon, but thats another issue)

 BoomWolf wrote:
If you ignore the markerlight, you shuold ignore his cost, and compared to a pathfinder 'ui (closest comparison, and an option considered "ok") he shoud cost 30-40 points on his own (22 the ui, 5 the cheapest for TA, and the SFG is worth quite some points.), so in fact you only paid 40-50 for the snipers themselves.

Err, no. You don't get to discount the overpriced "cost" of a markerlight. A BS 4 markerlight shot is worth 14 points (1/4 of a Tetra with TA), not 30-40. Think that's high? Too bad, you shouldn't have overpaid for your markerlight.

You logic pretty much follows "snipers are bad because firewarriors of the same cost of the entire team kill as much as what a portion of the sniper team does", you compare partial units-compare partial prices! you take the spotter off the calculation, then take 30 points off the price calculation too! I am sure you will find that 5 firewarriors dont do as much damage as 3 snipers, and the drones start shooting from further away.

The point is that even if they do somewhat better per point outside rapid fire range (even if you deduct the 14 points for the markerlight it's not that much less) you're comparing them to TROOPS. Fire Warriors can score, and occupy an (effectively) unlimited FOC slot. Sniper drones take up a valuable heavy support slot so they have to do BETTER than the Fire Warriors, and better by a significant margin.

On another note, "moving forward and accepting losses" is not a winning stratagy when the losses to accept is to lose everything and do notihng at all in return, if he moved his squad out that game he would only spare my sniper shots from going elsewhere, nothing more. (and when they died the stealth would have a free walk to his devestators as they later did) he favored a chance at holding the objective rather then having my snipers having a free shooting gallery, and that was the correct call. (the splitting to combat squads is what allowed me to take out the heavy weapon, but thats another issue)

And you keep going back and forth on this.

If the squad was in a good position to screen the devastators and hold an objective than your claim that your sniper drones forced him to hide is nonsense. Your drones didn't do anything, he wanted to be there and wouldn't have moved even without the drones.

If the squad was NOT in a good position then your opponent screwed up. A couple casualties per turn is not enough to hide a unit and let it effectively be taken out of the fight, so you only got the movement denial because your opponent made a newbie mistake.

*eats popcorn, sitting on a chair being amused*

I likes this thread, yes indeed

You can put it aside, I'm done. you cannot have a reasonable disscussion with people who ignore facts that are uncomfortable to them.

Just to point something out-you go againt the NOVA "rules changing the game" then use forgeworld as an example of the worth of things? if forgeworld was the global norm then ALOT would change, not just the worth of markerlight.


as for "he wounld not have moved them anyway" I feel bad for not having a picture of that field, becuase he would have LOVED to move them toward the 4-point objective that was a walk distance away, but he figured it would fail. he CHOSE to put them there, yes-but as the lesser of two evils, rather then the optimal situation. he made some mistakes, but that was not one of them, his tacticals could really do nothing else because they were quickly reduced to nothing.

Point is, say what you want on their tactical value, and who made a mistake and when-they out-killed their cost, and did it while remaining unscratched-and that is a useful unit in my book.

Yes the heavy-support IS a price tag, but as I said from the firstplace they are a unit to CONSIDER when you have HS slots to SPARE.

Stop dissing everything slightly different and insist on the "one right way" to do stuff, especially when the alternate paths are as good but not as predictable.

And when you dont play with forgeworld for the divine plasmahead, you have HS to spare these days. unless you still run 3 teams of broadsides-but considering I didnt even SEE a guy running more then 3 tanks lately, thats a serious overkill.


That's it, I'm done, this will go nowhere no matter what will be said.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Just to point something out-you go againt the NOVA "rules changing the game" then use forgeworld as an example of the worth of things? if forgeworld was the global norm then ALOT would change, not just the worth of markerlight.

Who gives a about the "global norm". GW has explicitly stated that FW rules are part of the game. So, are we talking about 6th edition as published by GW, or 6th edition with house rules like "no FW" or NOVA's weird mission design?

And even if you don't consider Tetras a single markerlight shot is not worth 30-40 points. Even Pathfinders are cheaper than that. You're deliberately overcosting the markerlight to minimize the cost of the squad.

Point is, say what you want on their tactical value, and who made a mistake and when-they out-killed their cost, and did it while remaining unscratched-and that is a useful unit in my book.

Except, as I've said, 1-2 dead marines per turn is not scary. The only people who are going to let the threat of 1-2 casualties keep them from moving to a desired position are newbies who are irrationally afraid of losses. Now, I don't know about you, but I prefer to judge the value of a unit against experienced players, not against newbies.

Yes the heavy-support IS a price tag, but as I said from the firstplace they are a unit to CONSIDER when you have HS slots to SPARE.

Except you never have heavy support slots to spare with Tau. Broadsides are awesome, Hammerheads are good. Unless you're playing a 500 point game you're going to fill up all three of your heavy slots almost immediately. Therefore if you choose to take sniper drones you're also choosing to take another unit OUT of your list.

Stop dissing everything slightly different and insist on the "one right way" to do stuff, especially when the alternate paths are as good but not as predictable.

Except those "alternate paths" aren't as good. The fact that you love a unit and can't get over the fact that it sucks doesn't mean that it's a good unit.

And when you dont play with forgeworld for the divine plasmahead, you have HS to spare these days. unless you still run 3 teams of broadsides-but considering I didnt even SEE a guy running more then 3 tanks lately, thats a serious overkill.

Well, lucky you. Too bad tanks are a lot more common in general. For example, even in a 1250 game my IG have at least six plus flyers. And I'm not even trying to spam tanks.

Plus, as we've already established, Broadsides are almost as good as sniper drones at killing marines (at somewhat shorter range, but a 2+ save lets you deploy closer), but sniper drones are worthless at killing tanks. Broadsides are a strong multirole unit, while sniper drones are a niche unit that isn't even that great at its niche role.

The cost of the markelight wouldnt have been an issue if you hadnt tried to argue it would be better spent elsewhere.
Whilst i agree its not worth 30 and i also agree it will rarely boost the snipers, if you choose to boost something else then its safe to assume that the expected efficiency boost is going to be greater than boosting the snipers so 1.527 is the least efficient scenario.

I think taking snipers allows you to run a more varied crisis suit loadout, If youre running fusion in your list snipers help plug the gap against meq. Assuming the fusion replaced either plasma or missiles.

I honestly think most people over emphasize to usefulness of marker lights. I often play a Tau/allied Eldar list that doesn't take any marker lights. Often enough, cover saves can be overcome by sheer volume of fire, and I feel the points I spend on 8 pathfinders (I don't have any forge world, but I plan on getting tetras and a plasmahead. I think the misslehead is almost as good of a choice.) is better spent elsewhere. Just seems like i don't have the points now a days to play around with marker lights, because the missions tend toward the necessity of more troops, and those pathfinder points are better spend on fire warriors. Who have the same survivability but output more firepower on their own and provide the required troops to win objective games. (Although I notice I win most of my objective games by eliminating my opoonents troops while protecting mine.) Marker light are a 5th ed idea that doesn't carry over as well to 6th, may someday when they make seeker missile cheaper or infinte, "and" marker lights as assault weapons. (Seriously, when did a laserlgiht become heavier to wield then a plasme rifle?)

I disagree 81, I think markerlights are what makes a tau army successful. Now I run 4 tetras ever since they have been stamped for approval and they open our army up and give us a lot more mobility. Not only for markerlight use, but shooting into opponents backfields for linebreaker, blocking movement of troops heading for an objective to force them to go around or fight a tetra in cc, etc.. That 24" move is killer late in games when at times markerlights are not needed as much. Now I do not think pathfinders w/ a DF is cost effective. I ran them throughout 5th and if they survived 2-3 rounds it was a good day,but most opponents know you take away pathfinders early you stop tau. You say you don't have the points to play around w/ markerlights. Where are your points going? My tetras cost me about 225pts. I run max troops 6 teams of 12 and max xv8 fireknives and a 2+ fnp O' w/ 2 plasmaheads, an aegis line, and in 6th it has done well. Winning with Tau is hard but you have to know what to take out, when to eliminate that threat, know what weapons can hurt who, what unit to give markerlight tokens too for BS or to take away cover etc. Example of my last turn of my last game where markerlights turned the tide: Turn 5 you have 8 marines 8" from an objective in terrain, 4 terminators 14" away from the nearest unit of tau in open, and Typhus inbetween them. You have say 3 BS4 tetras within 36" and 2 squads of fireknives and 3 teams of firewarriors(a little wounded) and your O' all close. What do you do? Well the marines are his only scoring unit, they are priority number one. Move 1 squad of firewarriors on objective, move other 2 into rapid fire range of nearest which is marines. fireknives move 6 to be in rapid fire of marines, Typhus, or termys. Move your O' closer. Now all suits are rapidfire range. Who do you markerlight? First tetra hits marines 3 times, second tetra hits termys say twice(bad roll), what to do w/ 3rd tetra? I say go for marines. Say you hit another 3 which is likely hitting on 3's. So now you have 6 lights on marines and 2 on termys. What about Typhus? He's irrelevant at this point. Who can kill the marines the quickest in cover? Your fireknives. Give first squad 3 tokens, 2 to up BS 1 to take away cover giving him a 6+ cover save. You fire hitting on 2's 5 plasma hits and all pods hit. Roll to wound say 4 plasmas wound and 5 of the pods wound. Take plasma first he rolls one 6. 3 are dead. He rolls 5 3 up for missile pods and say 1 dies. 4 left. Now what?? You shoot your O' he's BS 5 and a fireknive and he kills 1 more 1 from plasma. 3 left. At this point you have 3 lights left. And 30 firewarriors within range and 1 fireknife squad yet to fire. You have to keep the enemy from taking objective with troops. Termys are 14" away and have to yet to be fired on and you have 2 lights on them you've yet to use. If they move 6 and run best case scenario is 12" move which is unlikely. So 3 marines left in 5+ cover what to do. I say give a light to the firewarrior team closest. 20 shots at 15" hitting on 3"s. 12 hit 8 wound. Marines are using armor at this point and fail 2 times. 1 marine left. At this point fireknives would be overkill for 1 marine. Give 1 more light to the other firewarrior squad who moved 6" and now they can shoot a full 15" and the last marine is now say 16" cause you have eliminated the ones from the front. Only 4 of you fw's are in rapid range. So you are rolling 14 dice hitting on 3"s. 8 hit 5 wound 5 armor saves on a 3up and he fails 2. No more marines. Last firewarrior squad on objective fires at termys from say 22" away with no lights hitting 7 wounding 4 times and all 2ups are made by termys. All 4 still there. Fireknife team 2 has yet to fire and is 8" away from termys and you have 2 lights. They are in the open so no taking away cover saves. Both lights go to up the BS to 5. 5 plasma hits and 5 pods hit. 4 plasmas wound as does 4 missile pod wounds. He rolls 4 5ups for his invuln save which he fails 2. 4 missile pod wounds and rolls 2up and fails 1. Now you have 1 termy left and he has to take test which he inturn passes. So now comes the good part. You have typhus 10" from objective and he can only contest which is a loss to you as you have 3 troops pretty close with one unit on it and the other 2 between him and objective for more roadblocks if you need it.. And the termy who was at the rear of the unit as you killed all termys in front is now 17" away from objective. You roll assault on your suits. O' rolls a 3 as he has irid armor. Not big help he moves away from objective but close to Typhus. Hoping Typhus will take the bate and go after him instead of going for objective. Your other suits roll 2 dice and roll 7 and 9. They are within reach of Typhus and you place both units in a line so Typhus has to face them or go around which would force him to the O' or into some trees. Now he has no choice but to face the suits which he will most likely wipe the floor with but you prolonged him getting to that objective. Termy moves 6 runs 4, he's 7" away and can't do a thing as he is facing a roadblock now of suits and firewarrior teams who will eat his lunch if it goes to 6th turn. Typhus cleans a 3 man team off the boad and is now in open w/ a few more speed bumps in front of him and a whole lot of shots w/ 3 untouched tetras w/ in 36". Game to Tau. You killed the only threat that was left close(the marines) and you stopped Typhus from contesting objective with your wall of suits that you fed to him but it helped you win the game. This is just a rendering of what happened to me in my last game the last turn. Sorry for the ramble just trying to help those Tau players out there w/ questions regarding markerlight use. I find markerlights a must have item for Tau. They help me out immensely.

Tauownz, can you re do the text wall? Want to read it, but I get lost in the wall.

Markerlights will always be a point of contention between varying tau players. Each player will have their playstyle and each player will eventually come to the conclusion of either "Markerlights are awesome and must take" or "Markerlights dont' do much for me, I can live without"

I'm in the latter camp. I tried hard to get markerlights to work for my playstyle but found they just don't do it for me at all. Majority of my opponents are MEQs, so taking AP3 or better weaponry is always much more effective than taking markerlights. I'm not a big fan of the whole "this batch of points sets up to make this other, already effective batch of points more efficient...maybe" line of thought.

And this is where the Rail Rifles argument comes in. I find it absolutely hilarious to read Peregrine's comments because he's under the illusion that there is only one way to play Tau armies and that's his way and all other ways are wrong. I personally like the idea of Rail Rifles. Not so much on pathfinders, but sniper drones? I think they're quite impressive. I can get 9 rifles and three markerlights for less points than my broadside squad and do just as much damage to infantry!

I just havn't found an effective way of including them in my list just yet. Probably dropping a hamerhead and some upgrades for another unit and then putting them in that spot, leaving me with three heavy slots full of 1 hamerhead, 1 broadside team and 1 sniper team.

I was meh on Markerlights until the first time I put Tetras on the field. Once you can use them in a points efficient manner they really turn into force multipliers.

For example, I used to run static Broadsides with Target Arrays. This in turn made me have to run static Kroot or Firewarriors as screening forces.

Now, with Tetras I run mobile Broadsides and Mobile Firewarriors who disperse in the face of an assault unit while a speed bump of Kroot or Gun Drones rushes in to slow the other guy down.

Result is the nasty assault unit eats a throw away unit and then still has another two or three turns of getting the heck shot out of it before it has a chance to chomp on tastey broadsides and Firewarriors. The Tetras use their Markerlights to make sure my Broadsides don't pay for their mobility with reduced accuracy.

Also, as a fun side note, my Tetras have also repeatedly glance or penetrated the side or rear armour of vehicles they were lighting up with their twinlinked Pulse Rifles. I think almost half my vehicle kills feature a Tetra removing a hull point and three quarters feature markerlight tokens on the vehicle in the turn it dies.

In regards to the Sniper Drone team, if that unit had Infiltrate, they would be a must play. Put them in area terrain on the sides of the enemy deployment zone and force the enemy to either waste time trying to kill them or give up AV 10 and AV 11 to the ST 6 Railguns. Another good use is on top of a Bastion (2+ Cover) with the Spotter (BS 4) manning your Quad Gun or Icarus Lascannon. For extra fun a Broadside team inside the Bastion.

Jefffar wrote:
I was meh on Markerlights until the first time I put Tetras on the field. Once you can use them in a points efficient manner they really turn into force multipliers.

For example, I used to run static Broadsides with Target Arrays. This in turn made me have to run static Kroot or Firewarriors as screening forces.

Now, with Tetras I run mobile Broadsides and Mobile Firewarriors who disperse in the face of an assault unit while a speed bump of Kroot or Gun Drones rushes in to slow the other guy down.

Result is the nasty assault unit eats a throw away unit and then still has another two or three turns of getting the heck shot out of it before it has a chance to chomp on tastey broadsides and Firewarriors. The Tetras use their Markerlights to make sure my Broadsides don't pay for their mobility with reduced accuracy.

Also, as a fun side note, my Tetras have also repeatedly glance or penetrated the side or rear armour of vehicles they were lighting up with their twinlinked Pulse Rifles. I think almost half my vehicle kills feature a Tetra removing a hull point and three quarters feature markerlight tokens on the vehicle in the turn it dies.

In regards to the Sniper Drone team, if that unit had Infiltrate, they would be a must play. Put them in area terrain on the sides of the enemy deployment zone and force the enemy to either waste time trying to kill them or give up AV 10 and AV 11 to the ST 6 Railguns. Another good use is on top of a Bastion (2+ Cover) with the Spotter (BS 4) manning your Quad Gun or Icarus Lascannon. For extra fun a Broadside team inside the Bastion.

Are you running ASS on the Broadsides instead of the TA? Otherwise the Marklights are not going to do anything about Snap Fire.

 YotsubaSnake wrote:
And this is where the Rail Rifles argument comes in. I find it absolutely hilarious to read Peregrine's comments because he's under the illusion that there is only one way to play Tau armies and that's his way and all other ways are wrong.

Hardly. There are choices to be made in how to play Tau. However, sniper drones are far on the wrong side of the "useful unit" dividing line. You can use them if you stubbornly insist on it and still win based on other factors, but they're very clearly not an optimal choice in any list that cares about winning.


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barnowl wrote:
Are you running ASS on the Broadsides instead of the TA? Otherwise the Marklights are not going to do anything about Snap Fire.

I would assume that's the case, take ASS instead of TAs and make up the lost BS with efficient Tetra markerlights.

@Tauownz After getting knock unconsious from your wall of txt I see what your runnign and I see a glaring weakness you've built into your army by spending all those points on tetras (2 tetras seems like a max imo) You have no broadsides, just plasmaheads and you also have no troops that can take forward objectives (I.E. allies that can do it)

I run broadsides with A.S.S for the ability to hide and reducing opponents chances of hiding from them, thus I agree two tetras add a lot to a list for a very cheap price, but when you start taking old pathfinder teams worth of points or more in tetras (units that don't kill stuff by themselves) then you've not multiplying your firepower by much because you don't have as much firepwoer to begin with.

My opinion on Sniper Drones....They needs to have a codex change and be an option in a heavy drone squadron. A squadron of drones (that come with targetting arrays) taht have the option to take railrifles/missilepods/plasmarifles/burstcannons. Then may add a FW spotter. The unit size is too small to be useful. And yes I know you can take 3 untis for one slot, but that is not as good as if they were all together with one spotter for KP purposes and marklight purposes. I would totalling run a squad of sniper drones if they were 6 in a squad with one spotter with markerlight and splitfire ability.

And I still don't think that the Tau book in 6th is competitive on it's own, it has a few glaring weaknesses. But with allies it's competitive in the right hands. Not as easy to jump into as GK or nercons due to the importance of target priority but still competitive.