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The russ is not advance. It's rustic rugged and reliable, but not advance. Though you could still argue it's best.

 Archonate wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Imperial Warp technology is to the Tau what Eldar Warp technology is to the Imperium.

Fair to say. But it can be argued that without Navigators or the Astronomican, the Imperium would have no Warp travel period... Whereas the Tau have engineered ways around such dependencies.

Humans had warp travel before the astronomicon, and still have to rely on the less precise (and thus slower and more careful) method out where the signal is weak. The Tau tech is like a primitive version of the earliest human warp technology.

Imperial laser technology is also superior.

I assume you have a source to back this claim up? I mean, laser technology is pretty simple. As I understand it, Tau have decided that their use of plasma and electromagnetic weaponry yields better results and requires less power. I think if the Imperium had better laser tech, then they would be the ones with Markerlights... But the concept of laser guidance is too advanced for them. They only know how to produce simple hot lasers.

Imperial plasma tech is both more compact and more powerful than Tau (fluffwise, it only blows up if you start it generating plasma and then *don't* fire it, so it's not really all that unstable either) and the Imperium uses railguns on ships, where their disordinately large power requirements aren't an issue. The lasgun is simply a marvel of engineering, being powerful, compact, cheap, and logistically trivial to operate en mass.

Most Imperial technology is actually superior to Tau technology.

I hear this a lot, but in all the fluff studying I've done on the subject, I find this claim completely untenable, except by the rabid anti-Tau movement who's justifications wander down strange paths, far outside the established canon.

Tau tech is bulkier than its Imperial equivalent, and suffers in any number of other ways too, as the individual case may be. Since the fluff doesn't concern itself with logistics, we don't know how sustainable the Tau military is in an engagement where they're not basically just defending an ammo dump, but unless the new codex brings them some magical new handwavium, we can assume it's nowhere near as much so as tanks that can run on anything that will burn, and infantry weapons that can be reloaded by exposing them to sunlight.

I have heard the two techs compared to Miscrosoft and Apple.
The Imperium gets things done with lots of power cords and clutter.
The Tau get the same job done without all the mess.
Which would just make it mostly a matter of aesthetics. Tau getting the same jobs done with neater, more compact devices.
I can't decide whether that's an accurate parallel or not though.

The Imperium gets things done with a messy but compact package, while the Tau get parts of it done, and shove all the mess into a larger, more expensive package. Since the only difference between Apple and every other manufacturer out there is that Apple products cost more and have shinier chassis, it's not a very good comparison all around.

The Russ's most defining Characteristics....

1) Can probably take a beating and still fight back...
2) Expendable
3) Numbers and Production ease

Its designed to be robust and rugged, it can fight without problem in whatever enviroment and whatever world you care to put it on. Sure it has some glaring design problems, but who cares... Its expendable. Sure it has design features reminiscent of obsolete ww1 tanks... but who cares, it can kick out more fire power than almost any other tank its size.
And if it does come up against Superior opposition.... its not just 1 on 1, its 2 or 3 Russ to 1 Hammerhead etc

Lives, manpower and material... inconsequential... Just as long as lts capable of getting the job done.
And thats what the Russ excels at. Throwing enough firepower out to drop whatever it has to deal with in whatever environment you care to fight in, and if you lose 4 of them out of a Squadron of 8 to accomplish the objective... Mission is complete.

nomotog wrote:
The russ is not advance. It's rustic rugged and reliable, but not advance. Though you could still argue it's best.

It's a tall, flat box with fairly thin armor yet it's ridiculously hard to kill. That speaks a great deal to how advanced its armor is, and to how well designed its internals are. Fluffwise, it also boasts rather sophisticated communication, targeting, and navigation tech, not to mention the ubiquitous soft ai ("machine spirit") that's in any large Imperial machine, and systems in place to allow self-repair under the guidance of a tech-priest. Can Tau vehicles and battlesuits fix themselves by being talked through it by an engineer?


Which comes around to the AdMech in general: there you can see the limits of Imperial tech more clearly, with things like the noosphere and direct data interfacing with machines, to say nothing of the high-end augmetics and armies of supersoldiers with integrated heavy weapons, or the ridiculously inefficient engines, that despite all their inherent conceptual drawbacks amount to the toughest and most powerful land-based war machines in the entire setting.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

nomotog wrote:
The russ is not advance. It's rustic rugged and reliable, but not advance. Though you could still argue it's best.

It's a tall, flat box with fairly thin armor yet it's ridiculously hard to kill. That speaks a great deal to how advanced its armor is, and to how well designed its internals are. Fluffwise, it also boasts rather sophisticated communication, targeting, and navigation tech, not to mention the ubiquitous soft ai ("machine spirit") that's in any large Imperial machine, and systems in place to allow self-repair under the guidance of a tech-priest. Can Tau vehicles and battlesuits fix themselves by being talked through it by an engineer?


Which comes around to the AdMech in general: there you can see the limits of Imperial tech more clearly, with things like the noosphere and direct data interfacing with machines, to say nothing of the high-end augmetics and armies of supersoldiers with integrated heavy weapons, or the ridiculously inefficient engines, that despite all their inherent conceptual drawbacks amount to the toughest and most powerful land-based war machines in the entire setting.

The books say it's not advanced. You can insist that must be, but it still says that it's not.

The Greater Good is a magnet for people with low self esteem. It lets them feel like they're special, they're on the right side, and they're part of something bigger than themselves.

nomotog wrote:

The books say it's not advanced. You can insist that must be, but it still says that it's not.

The taglines say the Imperium is crude and primitive, when the fluff and stats say otherwise. The taglines say the Tau are advanced, when the fluff and stats say otherwise. It's almost as if flavorful one-liners aren't indicative of the details of the setting...

 LoneLictor wrote:
The Greater Good is a magnet for people with low self esteem. It lets them feel like they're special, they're on the right side, and they're part of something bigger than themselves.

So it takes strong, proud people with high self esteem to think they are nothing special, on the wrong side and not part of anything.
BTW members of the Inquisition also feel like they're special, they're on the right side, and they're part of something bigger than themselves.

 1hadhq wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

The Tau got astropaths out of the deal, giving them something they had lacked, real time ftl communication. It also gave them access to an Imperial Forge world (much to the absolute horror of the tech magi in command) and close up examinations of IN starships. So it does make sense.

When and how did this happen? I can't imagine the Mechanicus taking the loss of any Forgeworld lightly.

Only in "baronIveagh40k" ...

You might want to pick up The Greater Good by Sandy Mitchell then. and I never said they took it. I said they got access to it.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

The taglines say the Imperium is crude and primitive, when the fluff and stats say otherwise. The taglines say the Tau are advanced, when the fluff and stats say otherwise. It's almost as if flavorful one-liners aren't indicative of the details of the setting...

And fluff has it that a squad of Space Marines can jump from Space Ship to Space Ship with nothing but their boots across thousands of km of empty space, and kill gigantic hive ships wit ha single well placed meltabomb. Stats say soemthing else entirely.

 Eetion wrote:
And if it does come up against Superior opposition.... its not just 1 on 1, its 2 or 3 Russ to 1 Hammerhead etc

Which still doesn't help much. The Hammerhead is faster and has a longer-ranged weapon, so all a Leman Russ squadron can do in an open-field battle is throw up a wall of shells and hope to get lucky. Meanwhile the Hammerhead has full control over the engagement. If it can snipe on the move it will do so and win effortlessly. If there are too many Leman Russes it can simply fall back while a nearby (and completely invisible) Remora drone marks the tanks for an over-the-horizon seeker missile strike.

"Quantity over quality" only works if you still have rough parity with your enemy. If, instead, you're completely outclasses it just means you take huge losses until the enemy runs out of ammunition and has to disengage to reload.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's a tall, flat box with fairly thin armor yet it's ridiculously hard to kill.

Not really. It might be hard to kill on the tabletop, but fluff-wise a shot from a Hammerhead's railgun can go in one side and out the other, turning the crew into a bloody mist in the process.

Fluffwise, it also boasts rather sophisticated communication, targeting, and navigation tech, not to mention the ubiquitous soft ai ("machine spirit") that's in any large Imperial machine, and systems in place to allow self-repair under the guidance of a tech-priest.

So they have all this sophisticated technology and yet they didn't bother to put even a crude suspension on the tank so that it could fire on the move or go into rough terrain without immediately immobilizing itself? Of course not. The more likely answer is that a few Leman Russes produced on the most advanced worlds and assigned to the best units have some of those things bolted into the standard hull, but the standard tank is a crude barely-mobile WWI-era mess.

Can Tau vehicles and battlesuits fix themselves by being talked through it by an engineer?

Depends on the repair. And having a user manual that allows the crew to make minor field repairs is not really all that impressive.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

nomotog wrote:

The books say it's not advanced. You can insist that must be, but it still says that it's not.

The taglines say the Imperium is crude and primitive, when the fluff and stats say otherwise. The taglines say the Tau are advanced, when the fluff and stats say otherwise. It's almost as if flavorful one-liners aren't indicative of the details of the setting...

Taglines are fluff. The IoM is crude & primitive. Tau are advanced. Some people conjecture that it's the other way around, but fluff is fairly constant on this issue.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 LoneLictor wrote:
The Greater Good is a magnet for people with low self esteem. It lets them feel like they're special, they're on the right side, and they're part of something bigger than themselves.

So it takes strong, proud people with high self esteem to think they are nothing special, on the wrong side and not part of anything.
BTW members of the Inquisition also feel like they're special, they're on the right side, and they're part of something bigger than themselves.

Exactly, you got it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Eetion wrote:
And if it does come up against Superior opposition.... its not just 1 on 1, its 2 or 3 Russ to 1 Hammerhead etc

Which still doesn't help much. The Hammerhead is faster and has a longer-ranged weapon, so all a Leman Russ squadron can do in an open-field battle is throw up a wall of shells and hope to get lucky. Meanwhile the Hammerhead has full control over the engagement. If it can snipe on the move it will do so and win effortlessly. If there are too many Leman Russes it can simply fall back while a nearby (and completely invisible) Remora drone marks the tanks for an over-the-horizon seeker missile strike.

"Quantity over quality" only works if you still have rough parity with your enemy. If, instead, you're completely outclasses it just means you take huge losses until the enemy runs out of ammunition and has to disengage to reload.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's a tall, flat box with fairly thin armor yet it's ridiculously hard to kill.

Not really. It might be hard to kill on the tabletop, but fluff-wise a shot from a Hammerhead's railgun can go in one side and out the other, turning the crew into a bloody mist in the process.

Fluffwise, it also boasts rather sophisticated communication, targeting, and navigation tech, not to mention the ubiquitous soft ai ("machine spirit") that's in any large Imperial machine, and systems in place to allow self-repair under the guidance of a tech-priest.

So they have all this sophisticated technology and yet they didn't bother to put even a crude suspension on the tank so that it could fire on the move or go into rough terrain without immediately immobilizing itself? Of course not. The more likely answer is that a few Leman Russes produced on the most advanced worlds and assigned to the best units have some of those things bolted into the standard hull, but the standard tank is a crude barely-mobile WWI-era mess.

Can Tau vehicles and battlesuits fix themselves by being talked through it by an engineer?

Depends on the repair. And having a user manual that allows the crew to make minor field repairs is not really all that impressive.

Numbers tend closer to 10 to 1.

I was actually musing on the weapon myst quote. I makes little sense because it's not a hammer head. It's a light walker. They don't have hard ammo.

I wonder if a suit can fix itself? It has fingers. Farsight might be able to. One bit mentions how he insisted his warriors fixed there own gear.

nomotog wrote:
Numbers tend closer to 10 to 1.

And it could be 10,000 to 1. Once the margin of superiority becomes high enough the only limiting factor is ammunition supply, and even then all the inferior side can do is force the enemy to spend all of their ammunition and then disengage to reload.

I was actually musing on the weapon myst quote. I makes little sense because it's not a hammer head. It's a light walker. They don't have hard ammo.

It was about railgun vs. Leman Russ. Fluff is a railgun shot goes in one side and out the other, leaving the remains of the crew painted across the landscape.

I wonder if a suit can fix itself? It has fingers. Farsight might be able to. One bit mentions how he insisted his warriors fixed there own gear.

Depends on what you mean by "fix".

Fixing things like reconnecting a broken wire (the kind of minor field repairs you can make on a Leman Russ)? Maybe, depending on the level of fine control the fingers have.

Fixing things like a destroyed weapon? No, you'd have to take it back to a repair facility and replace it with a new gun. Of course you're not going to be doing that with a Leman Russ either.

I know the quote your talking about. It dosen't say railgun. It say a shot from a light walker.

nomotog wrote:
I know the quote your talking about. It dosen't say railgun. It say a shot from a light walker.

Broadside suits are essentialy light walkers.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Humans had warp travel before the astronomicon, and still have to rely on the less precise (and thus slower and more careful) method out where the signal is weak. The Tau tech is like a primitive version of the earliest human warp technology.

Indeed, and the imperium will stay ahead in this department unless the Tau figure out the webway or something.

Imperial plasma tech is both more compact and more powerful than Tau (fluffwise, it only blows up if you start it generating plasma and then *don't* fire it, so it's not really all that unstable either)

Simply (and obviously) untrue. (Though they are more powerful) If the Pulse Rifle is lighter and better balanced than a lasgun, then it's definitely lighter and more compact than a plasma gun. Fluffwise, the Plasma Gun blows up because it is unstable and prone to malfunction. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Plasma_Gun
Sounds a lot like Ork teknology, imo...

and the Imperium uses railguns on ships, where their disordinately large power requirements aren't an issue.

If true, this would be news to me. Either way, it sounds like their power supply tech, as well as Railgun tech is inferior.

The lasgun is simply a marvel of engineering, being powerful, compact, cheap, and logistically trivial to operate en mass.

Yes I'm sure the Tau are just insanely jealous...

Tau tech is bulkier than its Imperial equivalent, and suffers in any number of other ways too, as the individual case may be.

Also simply and obviously untrue.

XV15 stealth suit offers the same protection as power armor, is more compact, less bulky, and has a built in stealth field generator. It can be fitted with hard-wired upgrades such as shield generators. Power Armor, on the other hand, is bulky, clumpy, noisy and crude in comparison and lacks upgradability because the tech marines can only repair damaged armor, because they lack rudimentary understanding of their own tech.
XV8 Crisis suits/XV88 Broadsides. Tau equivalent of a Dreadnought, only more compact and a lot less bulky in favor of increased mobility.
Piranhas are equivalent to Land Speeders, only they are more compact and less bulky.
Tetras are equivalent to Bikes, only more compact and less bulky.
Pathfinders equivalent to Scouts, plus compact, minus bulk.
Imperial vehicles have nothing on Tau vehicles... except (you guessed it) bulkiness.
Pulse Rifle is nearly as powerful as a Heavy Bolter, only much, much more compact, and considerably less bulky.
Imperium has no Drone equivalent on the battlefield, but if they did I'm pretty sure it would stick to Imperial tradition of being bulky.

Since the fluff doesn't concern itself with logistics, we don't know how sustainable the Tau military is in an engagement where they're not basically just defending an ammo dump, but unless the new codex brings them some magical new handwavium, we can assume it's nowhere near as much so as tanks that can run on anything that will burn, and infantry weapons that can be reloaded by exposing them to sunlight.

In battles of attrition the Imperium is much better equipped to dig in and prepare for the long fight. For many players, this is an attractive attribute.
To players like myself, the ideology that considers such engagements unnecessarily wasteful, is more attractive. I like the way the Tau say "Meh, this isn't going well, let's ditch this fight."

Can Tau vehicles and battlesuits fix themselves by being talked through it by an engineer?

Tau Nano repair tech eliminates the need to verbally goad their machines into repairing themselves.

Where did you see tau nano tech?

 Archonate wrote:

and the Imperium uses railguns on ships, where their disordinately large power requirements aren't an issue.

If true, this would be news to me. Either way, it sounds like their power supply tech, as well as Railgun tech is inferior.

They're called macrocannons. They fire kiloton-grade metallic projectiles at relativistic speeds. Imperial/Chaos warships pack bank upon bank of these things along with laser/plasma/melta cannons in their Weapon Batteries. Compared to Tau vessels' ship-mounted Railguns, Imperial/Chaos Weapon Batteries pack a heavier punch.

And yes, I would argue large-scale Imperial energy sources are better than what the Tau have, considering that Imperial plasma reactors can power huge vessels and planet-sized cities. Or...the Imperials just build more reactors as needed.

The lasgun is simply a marvel of engineering, being powerful, compact, cheap, and logistically trivial to operate en mass.

Yes I'm sure the Tau are just insanely jealous...

Superior power or not, I'd take a Lasgun over a Pulse Rifle any day. It's light, reliable, and has infinite ammo (I can recharge the e-packs by simply leaving them in sunlight).

Since the fluff doesn't concern itself with logistics, we don't know how sustainable the Tau military is in an engagement where they're not basically just defending an ammo dump, but unless the new codex brings them some magical new handwavium, we can assume it's nowhere near as much so as tanks that can run on anything that will burn, and infantry weapons that can be reloaded by exposing them to sunlight.

In battles of attrition the Imperium is much better equipped to dig in and prepare for the long fight. For many players, this is an attractive attribute.
To players like myself, the ideology that considers such engagements unnecessarily wasteful, is more attractive. I like the way the Tau say "Meh, this isn't going well, let's ditch this fight."

Cowards! Stand and fight like men

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
They're called macrocannons. They fire kiloton-grade metallic projectiles at relativistic speeds. Imperial/Chaos warships pack bank upon bank of these things along with laser/plasma/melta cannons in their Weapon Batteries. Compared to Tau vessels' ship-mounted Railguns, Imperial/Chaos Weapon Batteries pack a heavier punch.

Well, only because Tau ships favor long-range torpedo and bomber attacks over crude cannon broadsides.

And yes, I would argue large-scale Imperial energy sources are better than what the Tau have, considering that Imperial plasma reactors can power huge vessels and planet-sized cities. Or...the Imperials just build more reactors as needed.

Err, you realize that the Tau also have large starships, right?

Superior power or not, I'd take a Lasgun over a Pulse Rifle any day. It's light, reliable, and has infinite ammo (I can recharge the e-packs by simply leaving them in sunlight).

Which only matters if the enemy survives long enough for ammunition supply for basic infantry weapons to become an issue. We all know the Imperium loves to have decades-long sieges and grinding the enemy down in a war of attrition is their default plan but not everyone is bound by those limits.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
They're called macrocannons. They fire kiloton-grade metallic projectiles at relativistic speeds. Imperial/Chaos warships pack bank upon bank of these things along with laser/plasma/melta cannons in their Weapon Batteries. Compared to Tau vessels' ship-mounted Railguns, Imperial/Chaos Weapon Batteries pack a heavier punch.

Well, only because Tau ships favor long-range torpedo and bomber attacks over crude cannon broadsides.

Which ends badly for them once Imperial ships get in range.

And yes, I would argue large-scale Imperial energy sources are better than what the Tau have, considering that Imperial plasma reactors can power huge vessels and planet-sized cities. Or...the Imperials just build more reactors as needed.

Err, you realize that the Tau also have large starships, right?

And those ships aren't as heavily armed as Imperial warships are.

Superior power or not, I'd take a Lasgun over a Pulse Rifle any day. It's light, reliable, and has infinite ammo (I can recharge the e-packs by simply leaving them in sunlight).

Which only matters if the enemy survives long enough for ammunition supply for basic infantry weapons to become an issue. We all know the Imperium loves to have decades-long sieges and grinding the enemy down in a war of attrition is their default plan but not everyone is bound by those limits.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Which ends badly for them once Imperial ships get in range.

IF they get in range. It's like saying an aircraft carrier is terrible because it will lose a close-range fight against a battleship.

And those ships aren't as heavily armed as Imperial warships are.

Which isn't a necessarily a bad thing. You could pretty easily argue that Imperial warships are overburdened with crude and ineffective guns and it would be better to build several smaller ships instead.

Then force the enemy to fight on your terms.

How? How do you force a more mobile and better-equipped force to fight trench warfare rather than just slaughtering you from a safe distance?

 Peregrine wrote:

Which still doesn't help much. The Hammerhead is faster and has a longer-ranged weapon, so all a Leman Russ squadron can do in an open-field battle is throw up a wall of shells and hope to get lucky. Meanwhile the Hammerhead has full control over the engagement. If it can snipe on the move it will do so and win effortlessly. If there are too many Leman Russes it can simply fall back while a nearby (and completely invisible) Remora drone marks the tanks for an over-the-horizon seeker missile strike.

"Quantity over quality" only works if you still have rough parity with your enemy. If, instead, you're completely outclasses it just means you take huge losses until the enemy runs out of ammunition and has to disengage to reload.

Hammerhead, meet Vendetta. Vendetta, meet... oh wait, the pricy, unmaneuverable pseudo-gunship's already a smoking wreck.

Also, seeker missiles barely scratch the paint of a leman russ, regardless of what the Taros "armored column forgets it's made of tanks mid-paragraph" Campaign says.

What does a hammerhead run on, anyways? Is it literally anything that can burn? How about it's ammo reserves, and the massive power requirements a railgun carries?

Not really. It might be hard to kill on the tabletop, but fluff-wise a shot from a Hammerhead's railgun can go in one side and out the other, turning the crew into a bloody mist in the process.

Fluffwise, it also boasts rather sophisticated communication, targeting, and navigation tech, not to mention the ubiquitous soft ai ("machine spirit") that's in any large Imperial machine, and systems in place to allow self-repair under the guidance of a tech-priest.

So they have all this sophisticated technology and yet they didn't bother to put even a crude suspension on the tank so that it could fire on the move or go into rough terrain without immediately immobilizing itself? Of course not. The more likely answer is that a few Leman Russes produced on the most advanced worlds and assigned to the best units have some of those things bolted into the standard hull, but the standard tank is a crude barely-mobile WWI-era mess.

Except that even on the board (where vehicles are heavily nerfed for balance reasons) they can fire while moving. The fluff involving the internals has them outfitted with rather sophisticated electronics.

Depends on the repair. And having a user manual that allows the crew to make minor field repairs is not really all that impressive.

Not the crew, the vehicle itself. Because that's a big part of tech-priest field repairs: telling the system to switch to backups, or alter such and such a piece, and so on.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Which ends badly for them once Imperial ships get in range.

IF they get in range. It's like saying an aircraft carrier is terrible because it will lose a close-range fight against a battleship.

Which they can and do, considering that Imperial warships are faster, and better protected than Tau ships. Not to mention, the Imperium also has it's own Attack Craft, and actually have more. The latest iteration of the Gal'leath-class, the primary Tau carrier, only fields four squadrons; the Imperial Emperor-class/Chaos Despoiler-class can field eight. The Lar'shi-class can field 2 squadrons; the Imperial Dictator-class/Chaos Devastation-class can field four.

Ork Terror Ships and Eldar Eclipse-class ships also field four squadrons each. And against Eldar Holo-fields, the highly precise nature of Tau ordnance is all but useless; the only reliable counter against Holo-fields are massed fire from Weapon Batteries. Considering the relatively weak
nature of Tau ship-mounted Railguns and their weak shields, the Tau are at a disadvantage against Eldar Pulsar Lances and Holo-fields.

And those ships aren't as heavily armed as Imperial warships are.

Which isn't a necessarily a bad thing. You could pretty easily argue that Imperial warships are overburdened with crude and ineffective guns and it would be better to build several smaller ships instead.

Oh really?

Then force the enemy to fight on your terms.

How? How do you force a more mobile and better-equipped force to fight trench warfare rather than just slaughtering you from a safe distance?

That's the Guard's problem. The Imperial Navy just has to get the cruisers close while our own fighters shoot down enemy ordnance. Then, the real work begins.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Hammerhead, meet Vendetta. Vendetta, meet... oh wait, the pricy, unmaneuverable pseudo-gunship's already a smoking wreck.

Vendetta, meet Barracuda. Barracuda, meet... oh wait, the transport with bolted-on heavy weapons just got shot down by a proper air superiority fighter.

Also, seeker missiles barely scratch the paint of a leman russ, regardless of what the Taros "armored column forgets it's made of tanks mid-paragraph" Campaign says.

Oh yes, let's just throw out fluff in favor of game mechanics. Should we also assume that a Leman Russ has such an inaccurate weapon that a shot at close range is likely to fly backwards and hit the firing tank, like the game mechanics say?

Except that even on the board (where vehicles are heavily nerfed for balance reasons) they can fire while moving. The fluff involving the internals has them outfitted with rather sophisticated electronics.

Which is ridiculous. The tank has no suspension which means that on anything other than a mathematical plane (IOW, any real terrain) the tank is going to be bouncing around so much that you'd be lucky to get a shot to hit within a mile of the target.

Not the crew, the vehicle itself. Because that's a big part of tech-priest field repairs: telling the system to switch to backups, or alter such and such a piece, and so on.

IOW, it can activate backup systems if the tech-priest presses the "activate backup systems" button. Not very impressive, and minor field repairs are still well short of, say, repairing a railgun shot through the engine.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The fluff involving the internals has them outfitted with rather sophisticated electronics.

Quite true. Dan Abnett showed this well in a Gaunt's Ghosts novel once. The horrible visual representation on the TT aside, the Leman Russ is fast, agile, and very maneuverable, and equipped with stabilizers, auto-loaders, auto-targeters (though the experienced crews treat this aspect with a grain of salt), heavy weapons, auspex guidance, and laser-rangefinders.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Which they can and do, considering that Imperial warships are faster, and better protected than Tau ships. Not to mention, the Imperium also has it's own Attack Craft, and actually have more. The latest iteration of the Gal'leath-class, the primary Tau carrier, only fields four squadrons; the Imperial Emperor-class/Chaos Despoiler-class can field eight. The Lar'shi-class can field 2 squadrons; the Imperial Dictator-class/Chaos Devastation-class can field four.

Remember, it's bombers and missiles. You can't just look at one attribute in isolation, Tau ships have weaker guns because they're stand-off bomber and missile platforms that want to attack from outside effective gun range, and adding heavier guns would make them worse in their primary role. It has nothing to do with whether or not the Tau are capable of producing equivalent guns.

Oh really?

Sorry, but any unguided shot that takes half an hour to reach its target is crude and worthless. No sane opponent is going to be where you aimed half an hour ago, so those guns are just a waste of space until/unless you get in close where they can actually hit something. Meanwhile if you get too close fixed broadsides become a suicidal liability and a smaller number of turrets would be more effective.

That's the Guard's problem. The Imperial Navy just has to get the cruisers close while our own fighters shoot down enemy ordnance. Then, the real work begins.

So what you're saying is that every single Tau vs. IN fight is a one-sided massacre where the Tau have no chance of winning and the Imperial ships automatically get to close range?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Quite true. Dan Abnett showed this well in a Gaunt's Ghosts novel once. The horrible visual representation on the TT aside, the Leman Russ is fast, agile, and very maneuverable, and equipped with stabilizers, auto-loaders, auto-targeters (though the experienced crews treat this aspect with a grain of salt), heavy weapons, auspex guidance, and laser-rangefinders.

Why does this representation take priority over all others which disagree with it?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Which they can and do, considering that Imperial warships are faster, and better protected than Tau ships. Not to mention, the Imperium also has it's own Attack Craft, and actually have more. The latest iteration of the Gal'leath-class, the primary Tau carrier, only fields four squadrons; the Imperial Emperor-class/Chaos Despoiler-class can field eight. The Lar'shi-class can field 2 squadrons; the Imperial Dictator-class/Chaos Devastation-class can field four.

Remember, it's bombers and missiles. You can't just look at one attribute in isolation, Tau ships have weaker guns because they're stand-off bomber and missile platforms that want to attack from outside effective gun range, and adding heavier guns would make them worse in their primary role. It has nothing to do with whether or not the Tau are capable of producing equivalent guns.

Fighters can shoot down Drone Missiles too.

Oh really?

Sorry, but any unguided shot that takes half an hour to reach its target is crude and worthless. No sane opponent is going to be where you aimed half an hour ago, so those guns are just a waste of space until/unless you get in close where they can actually hit something. Meanwhile if you get too close fixed broadsides become a suicidal liability and a smaller number of turrets would be more effective.

Apparently, the combat record of Weapon Batteries disagree. Especially against Eldar

That's the Guard's problem. The Imperial Navy just has to get the cruisers close while our own fighters shoot down enemy ordnance. Then, the real work begins.

So what you're saying is that every single Tau vs. IN fight is a one-sided massacre where the Tau have no chance of winning and the Imperial ships automatically get to close range?

Of course not. The Damocles Gulf is an obscure frontier sector, and the Tau a relative border threat, so the Imperial Navy doesn't field it's larger formations there. But in a fair fight, the Imperial Navy would beat the Tau because of their:

1) Larger numbers of Attack Craft
2) Heavier Guns
3) Boarding/Hit-and-Run

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Quite true. Dan Abnett showed this well in a Gaunt's Ghosts novel once. The horrible visual representation on the TT aside, the Leman Russ is fast, agile, and very maneuverable, and equipped with stabilizers, auto-loaders, auto-targeters (though the experienced crews treat this aspect with a grain of salt), heavy weapons, auspex guidance, and laser-rangefinders.

Why does this representation take priority over all others which disagree with it?

 Archonate wrote:
Simply (and obviously) untrue. (Though they are more powerful) If the Pulse Rifle is lighter and better balanced than a lasgun, then it's definitely lighter and more compact than a plasma gun. Fluffwise, the Plasma Gun blows up because it is unstable and prone to malfunction. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Plasma_Gun
Sounds a lot like Ork teknology, imo...

Since when is a pulse rifle smaller than a lasgun? Whereas plasma guns are somewhat smaller.

Yes I'm sure the Tau are just insanely jealous...

While the closest the Tau have are fancy laser pointers.

Also simply and obviously untrue.

XV15 stealth suit offers the same protection as power armor, is more compact, less bulky, and has a built in stealth field generator. It can be fitted with hard-wired upgrades such as shield generators. Power Armor, on the other hand, is bulky, clumpy, noisy and crude in comparison and lacks upgradability because the tech marines can only repair damaged armor, because they lack rudimentary understanding of their own tech.
XV8 Crisis suits/XV88 Broadsides. Tau equivalent of a Dreadnought, only more compact and a lot less bulky in favor of increased mobility.

Crisis suits, despite being the size of dreadnoughts, barely provide the protection of a suit of power armor, and if the xv15 is so tough, why don't they field equivalents as their standard infantry armor? All the battlesuits, further, rely on primitive neural interfacing technology that drives their users mad over time, in contrast to the control systems the Imperium has for power armor and augmetics, which notably don't (we only see negative ramifications in their neural interface technology when the link is with a massive, impossibly complex and powerful system, like an engine or ship).

Piranhas are equivalent to Land Speeders, only they are more compact and less bulky.
Tetras are equivalent to Bikes, only more compact and less bulky.
Pathfinders equivalent to Scouts, plus compact, minus bulk.

Space Marines field random trash. They're required by law (codex astartes) to be ineffectual and backwards, after half of them up and turned to chaos.

Imperial vehicles have nothing on Tau vehicles... except (you guessed it) bulkiness.

Easier to manufacture, logistically trivial to operate, self-repairing (under the instruction of tech-priests), and tough as nails. Also smaller and more compact than the comparable tau vehicles.

Imperium has no Drone equivalent on the battlefield, but if they did I'm pretty sure it would stick to Imperial tradition of being bulky.

Servo skulls.

In battles of attrition the Imperium is much better equipped to dig in and prepare for the long fight. For many players, this is an attractive attribute.
To players like myself, the ideology that considers such engagements unnecessarily wasteful, is more attractive. I like the way the Tau say "Meh, this isn't going well, let's ditch this fight."

Guerilla warfare works in two situations: when you have absolutely no stationary bases of operation nor supply lines, and have a massive army of untrained troops with rubbish equipment who, when fighting from ambush, can inflict somme casualties on the enemy while dying like flies in the process (see: vietnam, and the maoists fighting the nationalists); or you have superior firepower and mobility, and so can just up and decide what's worth killing and what's not (see: modern US doctrine).

How exactly are the Tau, with their inability to handle a straight up fight, supposed to take a fortified Imperial position, or hold a position against an Imperial army that doesn't split up because "well how else could the Tau win?"? If you abandon positions on the ground, you lose stationary assets and resources, and if you refuse to engage the superior force, eventually you're going to wind up with no local resources left to call upon, and your logistically inefficient extravagances are going to stop working, leaving you stranded or forcing an evac, where you'd be torn apart by the superior Imperial navy.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Fighters can shoot down Drone Missiles too.

Ok, so we're just going to declare that Imperial defenses are 100% effective at stopping all long-range attacks. That's fine. I'm going to make an equally reasonable decision that all Imperial ships self destruct when facing the Tau because the shame of not being part of the Greater Good is just too much to bear.

Apparently, the combat record of Weapon Batteries disagree. Especially against Eldar

They're useful at close range. They're a waste of space at long range.

Because Dan Abnett writes better than most others?

Oh yes, and it's just pure coincidence that it's the source that makes the Leman Russ look good...

Which they can and do, considering that Imperial warships are faster, and better protected than Tau ships. Not to mention, the Imperium also has it's own Attack Craft, and actually have more. The latest iteration of the Gal'leath-class, the primary Tau carrier, only fields four squadrons; the Imperial Emperor-class/Chaos Despoiler-class can field eight. The Lar'shi-class can field 2 squadrons; the Imperial Dictator-class/Chaos Devastation-class can field four.

Finally got out the rules and now I can point out how you're wrong.

The Emperor class carries eight squadrons and no torpedoes, the Custodian class (the "modern" Tau carrier) carries eight squadrons, three light escorts, and four torpedo launchers. The Tau carrier is also faster and somewhat cheaper, so an equal point value (representing fleets of equal size for each side) of Tau ships has a solid advantage in a long-range fight.

The Dictator class has an extra two squadrons, but the Protector has better torpedoes (pretty important when we're talking about dedicated torpedo ships) and is cheaper.