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 washout77 wrote:
Face it, the Tau were never designed to be a competitive army. If they were, they wouldn't have such terrible Fire Warrior stats (low just about everything) for the price and such low count of possible units (Sure, you can make a dozen units with Battle Suits but still).

Except they were a competitive army. At the time the Tau were created "Fish of Fury" was dominant, skimmers were near-invulnerable gods of battle, JSJ was almost complete immunity to return fire, etc. The problem isn't with their basic design, it's that the core rules have changed to remove the things the Tau used to rely on, while point costs overall have dropped significantly and made all Tau units seem overpriced. All of this is because they're a 4th edition army (really, a 3rd edition army with a few rule fixes) trying to compete after two editions of power creep.

Veskrashen wrote:
I went 3-3 at NOVA with straight Tau, no Fireknives, no Railguns at all - and took Kroot and 3 teams of Sniper Drones. Went on to the semis with that list in my bracket, tyvm.

I rest my case.

Seriously, look at what you just said: you're posting a 50/50 W/L record as proof that the army is good. You didn't win the tournament, and you weren't even close to winning it. All you managed to do is have some decent success against other weak lists/players (since losers play losers), and still not even win your low-tier bracket. The fact that this is considered a success demonstrates my point: the Tau, outside of one build, are a very weak army.

Just to put this in context, can you imagine a Necron flyerspam player claiming a 3-3 record as proof that the army is good? Of course not, because the army has much bigger accomplishments. Tau don't.


Edit: I should add that I'm not saying anything bad about your skills, or that you don't have a right to be proud of your tournament results. It just falls well short of demonstrating that Tau are anything but a bottom-tier army.

 Peregrine wrote:

 washout77 wrote:
Face it, the Tau were never designed to be a competitive army. If they were, they wouldn't have such terrible Fire Warrior stats (low just about everything) for the price and such low count of possible units (Sure, you can make a dozen units with Battle Suits but still).

Except they were a competitive army. At the time the Tau were created "Fish of Fury" was dominant, skimmers were near-invulnerable gods of battle, JSJ was almost complete immunity to return fire, etc. The problem isn't with their basic design, it's that the core rules have changed to remove the things the Tau used to rely on, while point costs overall have dropped significantly and made all Tau units seem overpriced. All of this is because they're a 4th edition army (really, a 3rd edition army with a few rule fixes) trying to compete after two editions of power creep.

Veskrashen wrote:
I went 3-3 at NOVA with straight Tau, no Fireknives, no Railguns at all - and took Kroot and 3 teams of Sniper Drones. Went on to the semis with that list in my bracket, tyvm.

I rest my case.

Seriously, look at what you just said: you're posting a 50/50 W/L record as proof that the army is good. You didn't win the tournament, and you weren't even close to winning it. All you managed to do is have some decent success against other weak lists/players (since losers play losers), and still not even win your low-tier bracket. The fact that this is considered a success demonstrates my point: the Tau, outside of one build, are a very weak army.

Just to put this in context, can you imagine a Necron flyerspam player claiming a 3-3 record as proof that the army is good? Of course not, because the army has much bigger accomplishments. Tau don't.


Edit: I should add that I'm not saying anything bad about your skills, or that you don't have a right to be proud of your tournament results. It just falls well short of demonstrating that Tau are anything but a bottom-tier army.

Agreed, Tau at the very best with a skilled player manning them almost do great on rare occasions.
Average Tau with a good player are just low tier for reasons listed above.

 Peregrine wrote:

 washout77 wrote:
Face it, the Tau were never designed to be a competitive army. If they were, they wouldn't have such terrible Fire Warrior stats (low just about everything) for the price and such low count of possible units (Sure, you can make a dozen units with Battle Suits but still).

Except they were a competitive army. At the time the Tau were created "Fish of Fury" was dominant, skimmers were near-invulnerable gods of battle, JSJ was almost complete immunity to return fire, etc. The problem isn't with their basic design, it's that the core rules have changed to remove the things the Tau used to rely on, while point costs overall have dropped significantly and made all Tau units seem overpriced. All of this is because they're a 4th edition army (really, a 3rd edition army with a few rule fixes) trying to compete after two editions of power creep.

Veskrashen wrote:
I went 3-3 at NOVA with straight Tau, no Fireknives, no Railguns at all - and took Kroot and 3 teams of Sniper Drones. Went on to the semis with that list in my bracket, tyvm.

I rest my case.

Seriously, look at what you just said: you're posting a 50/50 W/L record as proof that the army is good. You didn't win the tournament, and you weren't even close to winning it. All you managed to do is have some decent success against other weak lists/players (since losers play losers), and still not even win your low-tier bracket. The fact that this is considered a success demonstrates my point: the Tau, outside of one build, are a very weak army.

Just to put this in context, can you imagine a Necron flyerspam player claiming a 3-3 record as proof that the army is good? Of course not, because the army has much bigger accomplishments. Tau don't.


Edit: I should add that I'm not saying anything bad about your skills, or that you don't have a right to be proud of your tournament results. It just falls well short of demonstrating that Tau are anything but a bottom-tier army.

Ah you are correct, I forgot about FOF. I guess that counts as one of the 1-dimensional things I mentioned though.

 Peregrine wrote:
Seriously, look at what you just said: you're posting a 50/50 W/L record as proof that the army is good. You didn't win the tournament, and you weren't even close to winning it. All you managed to do is have some decent success against other weak lists/players (since losers play losers), and still not even win your low-tier bracket. The fact that this is considered a success demonstrates my point: the Tau, outside of one build, are a very weak army.

Just to put this in context, can you imagine a Necron flyerspam player claiming a 3-3 record as proof that the army is good? Of course not, because the army has much bigger accomplishments. Tau don't.

Edit: I should add that I'm not saying anything bad about your skills, or that you don't have a right to be proud of your tournament results. It just falls well short of demonstrating that Tau are anything but a bottom-tier army.

Appreciate your edit at the end.

I suppose you and I have different standards of "competitive" then. For me, if I can go 50-50 in a tourney environment with a straight Tau army, after being out of the game for several years, then the codex itself can't be gimped too badly. Especially since I was taking "sub-optimal" units to boot. What would be your definition of a bottom-tier army, or a competitive army? Does it have to be able to field a set of lists that are powerful enough that any player can do well with them, or something?

I totally concede that against Necron Flyerspam it's weak - hell, just about any codex is weak against that, unless you're going foot horde / crowd the board. Which to me is list design dependent and not codex specific, but whatever.

Except they were a competitive army. At the time the Tau were created "Fish of Fury" was dominant, skimmers were near-invulnerable gods of battle, JSJ was almost complete immunity to return fire, etc. The problem isn't with their basic design, it's that the core rules have changed to remove the things the Tau used to rely on, while point costs overall have dropped significantly and made all Tau units seem overpriced. All of this is because they're a 4th edition army (really, a 3rd edition army with a few rule fixes) trying to compete after two editions of power creep.

I actually agree with you here for the most part. The only difference is that Fish of Fury still works like a dream, and our skimmers are even harder to kill than they used to be - with 3+/2+ cover saves instead of a fixed 4+, and that JSJ works just as well as it used to be. The big driver is the points cost that you mentioned - everything else got so much cheaper, while we stayed the same. That makes it hard to field a robust enough list in many cases, without relying on allies at least.

Veskrashen wrote:
The big driver is the points cost that you mentioned - everything else got so much cheaper, while we stayed the same. That makes it hard to field a robust enough list in many cases, without relying on allies at least.

That's a problem for any older Codex, and it seems to hurt more the bigger the game. Last time I faced a Tau army they looked really pitiful in numbers compared to me, and they didn't really have the mobility, the firepower or the durability to make up for it. Sure, anything they managed to hit was usually dead and they did have me outranged, but when they field half the models I do that can't help them anymore. And that was Tau 1500 vs SoB 1500 with the WD army list that mainly adjusted vehicle and HQ prices down and simplified the Faith system.

Ofc, when players of an army refer to their basic Troops as a "Firewarrior Tax" on the rest of their list something must be wrong from the start... The humble Battle Sister on the other hand has always been a really good basic Troops choice - she was good in the WH Codex and is good in the WD list too. That last game I brought 50 of them.

There's only a few terrible units in the tau codex, that being the space pope, skyrays and sniper drone teams. Everything else not only has a use, but can have a list built around it.

I've been running a zero battlesuit army for over a year and mopping the floor with the current and past meta. That's me though, a new player will have trouble.

The player makes the army/list, its when you get pants on head slowed easy to play stuff such as many space wolf, GK, nercon and blood angel lists that the line gets blurred. A good player will bet any chump with a net list anyday.

 juraigamer wrote:
A good player will bet any chump with a net list anyday.

Necron Flyerspam

You're really overestimating the importance of skill in 6th edition.

Veskrashen wrote:
I suppose you and I have different standards of "competitive" then. For me, if I can go 50-50 in a tourney environment with a straight Tau army, after being out of the game for several years, then the codex itself can't be gimped too badly. Especially since I was taking "sub-optimal" units to boot.

The problem is that by the time you've got a 50/50 record you're far into the "losers" section of the tournament. You're playing against other weak armies and/or players because of the way the matchup system works, so even horrible lists can still get a 50/50 record. Once you add in factors like the truly awful 0-X players, people who stop caring and start playing casually because they've got no chance of winning any prizes, etc, it's easy for even low-tier lists/players to drop down into the loser's section and then pick up some wins for an overall 50/50 record.

What would be your definition of a bottom-tier army, or a competitive army? Does it have to be able to field a set of lists that are powerful enough that any player can do well with them, or something?

A bottom-tier army is an army that has little or no chance of winning the tournament. In simple form, assuming equal player skill for all lists:

Top-tier: strong chance of winning the tournament, consistently places near the top even if it doesn't win.

Mid-tier: small chance of winning the tournament (usually with a little luck or a really good player), consistently gets a decent W/L record and finishes in the top half of the standings.

Low-tier: minimal chance of winning the tournament (always with either amazing luck or the best player), have to be optimistic to expect even a decent W/L record.

Garbage tier: negligible chance of winning the tournament (only with loaded dice), lucky to even win a game. Usually saved for the worst players and/or "fluff" lists.



In the case of Tau they're mid-tier with the 'standard' list, but low-tier if you consider the codex as a whole since anything other than the 'standard' list has no real chance of winning.

 juraigamer wrote:
There's only a few terrible units in the tau codex, that being the space pope, skyrays and sniper drone teams. Everything else not only has a use, but can have a list built around it.

That's incredibly optimistic. Tau units by slot:

HQ:
Crisis suits: good.
Ethereal: garbage.

Elites:
Crisis suits: good.
Stealth suits: garbage.

Troops:
Fire Warriors: adequate.
Kroot: weak.

Fast:
Pathfinders: decent but you shouldn't have to take them.
Gun drones: garbage.
Vespid: garbage.
Piranhas: mediocre.

Heavy:
Broadsides: awesome.
Hammerhead: decent.
Sky Ray: garbage
Sniper drones: garbage.


IOW, in every FOC slot you have one, maybe two options that aren't garbage. Everything else is garbage, and a list based around it will not win consistently against an equally skilled player who doesn't take garbage in their list.

I've been running a zero battlesuit army for over a year and mopping the floor with the current and past meta. That's me though, a new player will have trouble.

I seriously doubt you're playing against good opponents then. Without battlesuits of some kind you don't have enough anti-tank firepower to even have a chance of winning against top-tier lists.

I would argue that Firewarriors belong into the garbage section. Their only saving grace, the pulserifle, is almost negated by the low BS ( they shoot about as hard as sisters...yay, great ).

 KingDeath wrote:
I would argue that Firewarriors belong into the garbage section. Their only saving grace, the pulserifle, is almost negated by the low BS ( they shoot about as hard as sisters...yay, great ).

Sisters shoot at BS4, so I'm not sure why your using them as an example.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 KingDeath wrote:
I would argue that Firewarriors belong into the garbage section. Their only saving grace, the pulserifle, is almost negated by the low BS ( they shoot about as hard as sisters...yay, great ).

Sisters shoot at BS4, so I'm not sure why your using them as an example.

Because tau with BS3 and Str5 weapons are about as effective as sisters with BS4 and Str4 weapons. For a rather expensive and fragile unit which is exclusively meant to shoot, this is pretty bad.
Now remember that sisters, which are two points more expensive, have better stats, better armour, better special rules, access to adequate special weapons and are still considered to be slightly overpriced.

I think tau are great now. They have really great shooting platforms in broadsides and crisis suits. Fire warriors aren't terrible, and the vehicles are top notch now.

All you need to make them competitive is add in some ultramarine allies. TH&SS terminators, drop pod dread/sternguard, a librarian or chaplain, some attack bikes. Even two tac squads that can combat squad and add some defense for the tau lines. Lots of goodies to cover the tau weaknesses.

FW, while not impressive be any means, are at least cheap, so it makes it that you dont waste too much resorces on them( unless you FoF, and then their low survivability is taken out of the equasion a bit by the devilfish's high survivability, yet the costs jump up. a transported FW team should be viewed as a completely different unit.)

Peregrine is MOSTLY correct there, I would rate ethreals as "weak" as they do have some uses, steath teams as "adcuate" as they can be helpful in a list desigend for it, and sniper drones as "weak", as they serve a purpose, as long as you are fighting marines.

Still a horrible situation, but it opens up a bit of room to play with by force multipliers and stacking buffs

for example, gun drones are worthless, markerlights are medicore and stealth teams are weak, but a gun drone blob in a stealth team assisted by markerlight is a serious threat, as he gains both the defensive boost of the stealth team, the cost reduction as being "wargear" instead of stand-alone, and the fact his low BS TL nature means markerlights effect him more.
Still not top-notch unit, but this stacking makes it a fair game against armies that dont stack stuff like that.

FW are NOT cheap.

They are almost twice as expensive as a Guardsmen, for +2Str and AP5 on their gun and a 4+ armor save. And they lose a point of WS and Inititive. And have no special weapon options.

 Grey Templar wrote:
FW are NOT cheap.

They are almost twice as expensive as a Guardsmen, for +2Str and AP5 on their gun and a 4+ armor save. And they lose a point of WS and Inititive. And have no special weapon options.

They also come with 30'' range guns...but alas, let's not forget we're comparing a Tier 1 to a Tier 3 codex.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
FW are NOT cheap.

They are almost twice as expensive as a Guardsmen, for +2Str and AP5 on their gun and a 4+ armor save. And they lose a point of WS and Inititive. And have no special weapon options.

They also come with 30'' range guns...but alas, let's not forget we're comparing a Tier 1 to a Tier 3 codex.

yes, however they pay a premium for a Str 5 gun.

IIRC SoB are something like 17pt/model for str3/t3/3+ str 4 bolter.

Naw, SoB are like 12 pts each IIRC.

I personally find the Tau codex to be right in the middle when it comes to power level. To completely honest this is where I like having any codex that I play.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Naw, SoB are like 12 pts each IIRC.

whoops, should be 13 I had my CSM prices horribly wrong. I was told they were the same as Reg CSM.

I feel FW are a bit Overpriced. That said though they can't be too cheap/good as they're not really "bad" as it stands. With a minor points reduction keeping the same statline would be fine. However I fear for them losing Str 5 guns w/ said pts reduction.

My brother and I are kinda new to tau, so forgive a noob in the greater good, but what is this typical "only way to be competitive" list every1 keeps referencing?

edited for grammar

overlordweasel wrote:
My brother and I are kinda new to tau, so forgive a noob in the greater good, but what is this typical "only way to be competitive" list every1 keeps referencing?

edited for grammar

Commander w/whatever you like, just keep it cheap
Sammy, the suicide Etheral (optional)
3x3 Deathrains (Crisis Suits w/ TL Missile Pods)
2x10 Fire Warriors
2x20 Kroots (optional)
3x2 Tetras (if you are OK with Forge World)
2x6 Pathfinders (if you aren't)
3x3 Broadsides
Maybe an Aegis with Quad, if you have the points

Well, I think one strike against the Tau (at a tournament / competitive level) IS the fact that they only have one list.

That list isn't half bad.. but it is predictable and plays in predictable ways. Whatever your opponent plays, he'll know which element in that list is the biggest threat to it and how to go about it.

While this is also true for.. say.. a Razorspam list, the "one Tau list" isn't a redundancy list, but a unit-synergy list. Being a highly predictable unit-synergy list, it's not magic for a reasonably experienced opponent to pick it apart.

That said, I think Tau might be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new double FOC rules, etc.. . It's really a shame too many people these days seem to go the way of 1999+ with larger point games. It cuts short the ability to experiment and play in new ways with precisely the older entries like Tau where the conventional lists are "too well known":

 Fafnir wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
A good player will bet any chump with a net list anyday.

Necron Flyerspam

You're really overestimating the importance of skill in 6th edition.

On the contrary, Necron Flyerspam requires very high amounts of skill to play effectively-- much higher than the typical army. A novice player using Necron Flyerspam can be defeated in the Movement phase alone-- using Zooming Flyers requires good predictions about the game situation and careful positioning.

On the contrary, Necron Flyerspam requires very high amounts of skill to play effectively-- much higher than the typical army. A novice player using Necron Flyerspam can be defeated in the Movement phase alone-- using Zooming Flyers requires good predictions about the game situation and careful positioning.

exactly. One of the main reasons i prefer my monolith or doomsday ark to my doom scythe. Much more reliable, shooting by turn 2 and shooting every turn after until death or game ends. granted i usually play against a GK army that just DSs in my face so my 18" flyer coming from reserve may get 1-2 shots off every GAME.....if even that, he runs 2 storm ravens. TL lascannons and TL multimelta has almost a 100% of popping my 11 armor flyers...and they dont even have the weaponry to fight back (flyers cant be hit by the death ray). I have still yet to see why people call necron flyer spam easy mode and cheesy. Sure, its hard as crap to kill a flyer, but if you move right, 80% of his army cant even target you much less do any damage.

.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
as a side note to were I went off topic on my own post :/....that standard list is kinda...idk. I think a good horde army would eat that for breakfast and laugh....3x3 broadsides? maybe against razorback spam, or the equivalent of, but in 6th a lot of the "mech" heavy armies kinda died out in popularity didn't they? I love instagibbing a full squad of eldar/ and other T3 model with one sub-munition shot from the hammerheads. and its cheaper than a doomsday ark, and arguably more durable (13 armor from QS and living metal versus the 3-2 cover save and 12 armor and being able to move and shoot at full strength.

also arent fireknife better than deathrain? tho deathrain IS cheaper i think....

overlordweasel wrote:

On the contrary, Necron Flyerspam requires very high amounts of skill to play effectively-- much higher than the typical army. A novice player using Necron Flyerspam can be defeated in the Movement phase alone-- using Zooming Flyers requires good predictions about the game situation and careful positioning.

exactly. One of the main reasons i prefer my monolith or doomsday ark to my doom scythe. Much more reliable, shooting by turn 2 and shooting every turn after until death or game ends. granted i usually play against a GK army that just DSs in my face so my 18" flyer coming from reserve may get 1-2 shots off every GAME.....if even that, he runs 2 storm ravens. TL lascannons and TL multimelta has almost a 100% of popping my 11 armor flyers...and they dont even have the weaponry to fight back (flyers cant be hit by the death ray). I have still yet to see why people call necron flyer spam easy mode and cheesy. Sure, its hard as crap to kill a flyer, but if you move right, 80% of his army cant even target you much less do any damage.

.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
as a side note to were I went off topic on my own post :/....that standard list is kinda...idk. I think a good horde army would eat that for breakfast and laugh....3x3 broadsides? maybe against razorback spam, or the equivalent of, but in 6th a lot of the "mech" heavy armies kinda died out in popularity didn't they? I love instagibbing a full squad of eldar/ and other T3 model with one sub-munition shot from the hammerheads. and its cheaper than a doomsday ark, and arguably more durable (13 armor from QS and living metal versus the 3-2 cover save and 12 armor and being able to move and shoot at full strength.

also arent fireknife better than deathrain? tho deathrain IS cheaper i think....

Mech is still alive and well it is just no longer the only mandatory way to create an armylist. in fact the nerf to cover made pure infantry lists weaker than they were before.

 juraigamer wrote:
There's only a few terrible units in the tau codex, that being the space pope, skyrays and sniper drone teams. Everything else not only has a use, but can have a list built around it.

That's incredibly optimistic. Tau units by slot:

HQ:
Crisis suits: good.
Ethereal: garbage.

Elites:
Crisis suits: good.
Stealth suits: garbage.

Troops:
Fire Warriors: adequate.
Kroot: weak.

Fast:
Pathfinders: decent but you shouldn't have to take them.
Gun drones: garbage.
Vespid: garbage.
Piranhas: mediocre.

Heavy:
Broadsides: awesome.
Hammerhead: decent.
Sky Ray: garbage
Sniper drones: garbage.
.

Sorry, as a player who uses them it's not optimistic, it's true. Don't believe the haters

A single etheral in my broadsides keeps my army were I want them, and lets me re-roll leadership tests I want to fail. Add in the fact that he makes the broadsides fearless, and the fact that he's never died (though it's been close) and for how little he costs, he rocks.

Stealth suits used to be a little meh, now they gained an amazing cover save and there's nothing like sitting them and some drones in cover for a fancy 2+ cover, their mobility helps quite a bit. These guys are better fire warriors, but that's about it. A small team of 3 with a fusion blaster in deep strike however has helped me quite a bit recently, since I don't run battlesuits.

Kroot are amazing, I have lists where I run upwards of 80 of them. Kroot hounds are great wound sinks, and krootox are wonderful fire support, plus they make anyone with toughness 3 models and more than one wound annoyed as ballz.

Pathfinders are there to boost the army, the army doesn't work well without markerlights unless you focus on ways around that.

Gun drones are great on steath suits and battlesuits. Who actually takes gun drones alone?

Vespid are fast firefighting units for the tau, and are quite cheap for the amount of ap 3 they bring to the table. A single vespid squad with 2 or at most 4 markerlights can down a whole squad of MEQ, for cheaper than the MEQ squad was. Tau lack ap3 after all. These buggers always leap out at the last minute and blast away and they work.

Piranha's with fusion blasters are great fire support units, though the lack of their ability to survive in melee is troublesome, sending them after the right targets works well, such as dreads and as backup anti-tank for stuff like landraiders.

Hammerheads are great fire support units, and having that large blast keeps thinning out the hordes very nicely. It's also quite cheap for what it does.

That pretty much covers what I said, in more detail. Except for the fact that nercon flyer spam tends to need a smart player to win with, while other lists don't.

 juraigamer wrote:
A single etheral in my broadsides keeps my army were I want them, and lets me re-roll leadership tests I want to fail. Add in the fact that he makes the broadsides fearless, and the fact that he's never died (though it's been close) and for how little he costs, he rocks.

Except it's mathematically pointless to add an Ethereal. You can either spend points on an Ethereal to pass an additional morale check, or you can spend points on another unit so that even when the first unit fails a morale check you still have a unit left. And since the two unit approach gives you twice the firepower before that failed/not-failed morale check it's the clear winner.

Stealth suits used to be a little meh, now they gained an amazing cover save and there's nothing like sitting them and some drones in cover for a fancy 2+ cover, their mobility helps quite a bit. These guys are better fire warriors, but that's about it. A small team of 3 with a fusion blaster in deep strike however has helped me quite a bit recently, since I don't run battlesuits.

Who cares if they have a 2+ cover save? They don't have enough firepower to get anyone to shoot at them before every better unit has been killed, and a 2+ cover save on a non-scoring unit isn't very useful when the rest of your army has already been wiped out.

Kroot are amazing, I have lists where I run upwards of 80 of them. Kroot hounds are great wound sinks, and krootox are wonderful fire support, plus they make anyone with toughness 3 models and more than one wound annoyed as ballz.

Krootox are worthless. It's worse than an autocannon, and it requires you to take a bunch of Kroot with STR 4 guns that can't even roll dice against the things you usually want to shoot autocannons at. Meanwhile the Kroot themselves are garbage now that you can take allied IG platoons that do the meatshield job much better.

Pathfinders are there to boost the army, the army doesn't work well without markerlights unless you focus on ways around that.

Of course they are. It's just unfortunate that Tau start with such poor BS that you need to take a dedicated support unit just to bring their shooting up to a decent level. That's why I said "good, but it sucks that you have to take them".

However, once you look outside the codex units Pathfinders are garbage since Tetras do their job better in every way.

Gun drones are great on steath suits and battlesuits. Who actually takes gun drones alone?

That's exactly my point. Gun drones as a unit are garbage and a waste of a codex entry.

Vespid are fast firefighting units for the tau, and are quite cheap for the amount of ap 3 they bring to the table. A single vespid squad with 2 or at most 4 markerlights can down a whole squad of MEQ, for cheaper than the MEQ squad was. Tau lack ap3 after all. These buggers always leap out at the last minute and blast away and they work.

Vespid shooting is awful for the points. And they still suffer from the problem of being T4/no save infantry, so by the time you're able to get them into range you don't have an intact squad anymore.

Piranha's with fusion blasters are great fire support units, though the lack of their ability to survive in melee is troublesome, sending them after the right targets works well, such as dreads and as backup anti-tank for stuff like landraiders.

Piranhas used to be decent, but now they're just too fragile. With only 2 HP it's a lot harder to keep them alive long enough to do their job, and they cost way too much for a single melta shot.

Hammerheads are great fire support units, and having that large blast keeps thinning out the hordes very nicely. It's also quite cheap for what it does.

Compare the Hammerhead's blast to a Griffon that costs half as much and has a much better gun. Still impressed?

Also, I already said that Hammerheads were decent.

I'm in an escalation league right now, and my hammerhead has been an absolute treasure. It's fast, well armored, hard to hit, and can do quite a bit with submunitions and solid shot. I basically just cackle every time I play Big guns never tire.

Stealth suits look nice, as long as you don't notice the insane points cost. In comparison I could take two death rains for the price of 3 Stealthsuits. I'm getting +1W, +1T, double the range, and -2 shots at +2 S. to get the huge 6 man and 12 gun drone squad is stupid for the price. Yeah you can just park it on an objective, but its kinda silly just to spend the points on a blob.

3 suit, 6 drones is the optimal use of stealth teams ATM, in the right size to be efficient, and costs-per-power levels are quite fine.
Not an A+ unit, ut it's the Tau codex, A+ units are virtually nonexistant (and crisis/broadside suits are freaking expensive in $ and points)

As for the phirana, I think peregrin seriously discredits how hard is it to take it down until it gets close, and when it does get close-it shot it's fusion already. not a good unit even then, but not "too fragile", just "too counter-productive", having its survivability depend on being away, yet payload depends on being point-blank.

The hammerhead on the other hand....
That thing is a freaking monster, vitrually unkillable (heck, my devilfish usually take about 15-20 anti-tank shots aimed at it before finally going down), packs the mot verstile main canon in the game railgun setup, a nice array of upgrades to choose from, overall a very, very sweet ride. you pay preimum for it, but it will make your day. (especially if you got the forgeworld plasma torrent, costs like an ion, but does so much more.)

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I'm in an escalation league right now, and my hammerhead has been an absolute treasure. It's fast, well armored, hard to hit, and can do quite a bit with submunitions and solid shot. I basically just cackle every time I play Big guns never tire.

The fact that the Hammerhead "does quite a bit" with submunitions just shows how weak the Tau codex is, and how it leads to low standards among Tau players. For IG players, with a strong modern codex, the Hammerhead's submunition is a joke compared to the far superior Griffon at half the cost. But Tau players are forced to settle for the Hammerhead and like it.

But really the worst problem for the Hammerhead is that it occupies the same FOC slot as Broadsides, which prevents you from getting enough tank saturation to keep the Hammerheads alive. A mix of two Broadside units and one Hammerhead might not be bad in theory, but with no other tanks on the table your Hammerhead is going to be the target of every anti-tank weapon in your opponent's army and, 3+ cover or not, it's going to go down. Compare this to something like mech IG, where everything on the table is an AV 12-14 tank.


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 BoomWolf wrote:
3 suit, 6 drones is the optimal use of stealth teams ATM, in the right size to be efficient, and costs-per-power levels are quite fine.
Not an A+ unit, ut it's the Tau codex, A+ units are virtually nonexistant (and crisis/broadside suits are freaking expensive in $ and points)

It's not just "not an A+ unit", it's barely even a D- unit. That stealth/drone unit is expensive and has pathetic firepower. Taking it over an equal point cost in crisis suits is always a significant drop in the effectiveness of your list.

As for the phirana, I think peregrin seriously discredits how hard is it to take it down until it gets close, and when it does get close-it shot it's fusion already. not a good unit even then, but not "too fragile", just "too counter-productive", having its survivability depend on being away, yet payload depends on being point-blank.

Who cares how hard it is to take down before it gets close? If it wants to do anything (whether it's suicide melta or movement blocking) it has to get up close, and when it gets up close it's an AV 11/10/10 open-topped vehicle with only a 5+ cover save to keep it alive. And with the 6th edition HP rules even basic tactical squads with bolters are going to quickly destroy it.

Now, the Piranha TX-42 isn't bad since it can take missile pods and make use of its disruption pod, or TL melta and almost guarantee a hit on a suicide run, but the basic Piranha is pretty disappointing.

That thing is a freaking monster, vitrually unkillable (heck, my devilfish usually take about 15-20 anti-tank shots aimed at it before finally going down), packs the mot verstile main canon in the game railgun setup, a nice array of upgrades to choose from, overall a very, very sweet ride. you pay preimum for it, but it will make your day. (especially if you got the forgeworld plasma torrent, costs like an ion, but does so much more.)

It really isn't a monster. It's a decent tank (mostly because of the 3+ cover save at range), but that's balanced out by having only AV 13/12/10, defense that is worthless against melta, and a weak main gun.