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Seeing as to how much more effective flyers are than armor in the new edition, a powerful AA unit is definitely welcome to me, and I guess that I have no problem with the S8 reduction. It's not like they're making it S6 or anything. Plus, seeing as to how 6th ed is so much more of an infantryman's game, I'm really going to be using my FWs more.

 AtoMaki wrote:


You don't need the 2D6 to be effective. The biggest problem of the Broadside is its vulnerability and complete lack of mobility. The Sunforge can Deep Strike to deal with both problems. And 62 points are still cheaper than 85 .

for 10 points more you can get a Fireforge suit for anit air, while it has a 4.2% less chance to destory a flyer outright it does average out 1.75 hullpoints removed a turn compaired to the sunforges 1.125 hullpoints removed a turn.

 Ninjacommando wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
No they droppd the Broadside down to make you buy Hammerheads.

so 1 hammerhead for $60 or 3 new broadsides for $150..... Yeah they did that to make you buy hammerheads.....................

\\

Yup.

Most competitive Tau players know btter than to invest in a Hammerhead and Broadsides were the order of the day. Now you hve good reasons to take a Hammerhead. I probably still wont for FOC slot blockage considerations, but that's what happened before. Anyone will tell you that the Broadsides were the way to go until 6E. Obviously the FAQ made Hammerheads more interesting and now the Codex has. But it made no sense to reduce Broadsides to STR 8 after being STR 10 for time immemorial unless it was to spread the love amongst units... And the love only needed to be spread to make money. and its going to work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

 tvih wrote:
Call me a jerk if you want, but S8 is hardly useless.

I concur. Sisters have nothing better than S8, and we still manage to kill armor well enough.

Tau are definitely much stronger than Sisters in the current meta, but meh, that's the life of a ten year old codex replaced by a half-assed and lazy white dwarf "codex".

Tau are stronger in the nw Meta than Sistrs? Well... I guess I'm not sold on that, given their allied choices. I am a Tau player for sure and also a Sisters of Battle player and while this new codex seems a big improvement in many ways, I have a hard time seeing my Dominion quail in fear.

I'm so excited for this Tau codex though. Better or worse, it's new and that's fun.

If you count allies there's not that much of a difference in my opinion (since you can ally just about anyone with anyone else anyway), so I was using core units.

 Jancoran wrote:


Yup.

Most competitive Tau players know btter than to invest in a Hammerhead and Broadsides were the order of the day. Now you hve good reasons to take a Hammerhead. I probably still wont for FOC slot blockage considerations, but that's what happened before. Anyone will tell you that the Broadsides were the way to go until 6E. Obviously the FAQ made Hammerheads more interesting and now the Codex has. But it made no sense to reduce Broadsides to STR 8 after being STR 10 for time immemorial unless it was to spread the love amongst units... And the love only needed to be spread to make money. and its going to work.

Agian if they wanted to make more money they would of made Missilesides morepowerful so people would pay $150 for 3 of them for 1 Foc choice compaired to the Hammerhead no one will buy because chances are you have one sitting somewhere. The Str was reduced to make Tau players take a Melta spam squad that you must risk to take out av14 and not keep the Long range DELETE Armour squad. + how many Freaking landraiders/leman russes do you see in the current meta? Does everyone now have AV14 spam that we are not currently aware of? How many parking lot armies do you see?

 Ninjacommando wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:


Yup.

Most competitive Tau players know btter than to invest in a Hammerhead and Broadsides were the order of the day. Now you hve good reasons to take a Hammerhead. I probably still wont for FOC slot blockage considerations, but that's what happened before. Anyone will tell you that the Broadsides were the way to go until 6E. Obviously the FAQ made Hammerheads more interesting and now the Codex has. But it made no sense to reduce Broadsides to STR 8 after being STR 10 for time immemorial unless it was to spread the love amongst units... And the love only needed to be spread to make money. and its going to work.

Agian if they wanted to make more money they would of made Missilesides morepowerful so people would pay $150 for 3 of them for 1 Foc choice compaired to the Hammerhead no one will buy because chances are you have one sitting somewhere. The Str was reduced to make Tau players take a Melta spam squad that you must risk to take out av14 and not keep the Long range DELETE Armour squad. + how many Freaking landraiders/leman russes do you see in the current meta? Does everyone now have AV14 spam that we are not currently aware of? How many parking lot armies do you see?

If you're asking how many *I* see that have a Land Raider in them, I'd say pretty frequently. As for a pair of Leman Russ's, also frequently. I never saw huge squadrons of them anyways but a couple times and those were in "what the hell, why not" games, not tourneys, regardless of Edition.

Not sure why that matters. The reality is, STR 10 has always been a halmark of Tau. Now its not. I personally find that unfortunate .

I also have seen some of the scans of the new Tau codex and what I have seen looks good.

The Sniper drones have been changed to BS5 sniper rifles which is better, the Riptide is a T6, 5 wound monstrous creature that can have FNP, Skyfire, Interceptor and a host of other options, the Kroot can upgrade to snipers now, charging the Tau will be risky with BS2 overwatch and all units within 6" firing and I am sure I have barely scratched the surface of what the new codex can do.

Sure the Broadsides have been dropped to S8 Railguns, but like another poster said there is apparently the option to bump them back up to S10 plus from what I am seeing on message boards and the like, the Velocity Tracker option to give Broadsides Skyfire is going to be popular in 6th edition, and let's face it, S10 AP1 Skyfire would be as broken as heck.

I am all for changes in updated codexes for new editions, as long as they are balanced (for the player and their opponents) and they do not change too much of the character of the race (which thus far they have not).

I am not a Tau player, but I do like them a lot and think they will be a force to be reckoned with from what I have seen.

I am encouraged for the Eldar codex when that comes round (Yes, I am an Eldar player).

rohansoldier wrote:
The Sniper drones have been changed to BS5 sniper rifles which is better,

Much worse actually. You go from hitting on a 4+ and wounding on a 2+ (against most targets) to hitting on a 2+ and wounding on a 4+. Same result, except now you can't use markerlights to improve your to-hit roll, and you only ignore armor saves 1/3 of the time instead of almost always. And just to add insult to injury sniper drones now only have stealth, not stealth + shrouded.

the Riptide is a T6, 5 wound monstrous creature that can have FNP, Skyfire, Interceptor and a host of other options

It also costs 250+ points once you include all those fancy toys. It's already looking like a weak unit that will never appear in competitive lists since crisis suits can bring much better firepower for the same points.

the Kroot can upgrade to snipers now

In exchange they've been crippled in assault (the only thing they did well previously), and the sniper shot is arguably worse than the normal rifles. Compare them to IG ratlings, which are even better snipers for the same points but still unplayable garbage.

charging the Tau will be risky with BS2 overwatch and all units within 6" firing

Not really. BS 2 overwatch still isn't all that impressive, and you can still only overwatch once per turn.

Sure the Broadsides have been dropped to S8 Railguns, but like another poster said there is apparently the option to bump them back up to S10

There isn't. Only the Hammerhead railgun gets STR 10.

I am not a Tau player, but I do like them a lot and think they will be a force to be reckoned with from what I have seen.

And this is why you don't realize how bad these changes are. Instead of a proper upgrade to 6th edition we get Codex:Markerlights.

The riptide can only have two support systems and you don't have to give it those two shielded missile drones. You can easily get a cheap riptide for 185 points with an ion accelerator with range 72" and keep it need the back of the board.

I don't mean to be rude in any way, it just appears to me Peregrine that you're just overreacting and letting off steam at all the stuff that's been changed. I understand full well why though. Killing armour 14 now will be a lot more of a challenge, a lack of more ways to get more ranged S9 and S10, kroot although nice as snipers have been gimped in combat, the removal of targeting array for extra BS and the one that REALLY gets to me - crisis suits are BS3... Seriously? Our eiltes, our vets, who have years of battle experience and go in hi-tech suits shoot no better than freshly spawned gaunts? We are a shooting army, we should NOT have to use markerlights as a crutch to be able to shoot well.

He's a link to another thread with nice fresh info from someone with the codex http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/518515.page

That said, i'm really looking forward to all the new stuff, can't wait to make a new list and convert some more suits. Pathfinders are now 11 points each with no devilfish tax, making them more point efficient for markerlights than tetras; considering that tetras are now only BS3 too (although tetras are still more survivable and moblie making them a strong contender).

FW are 9 (or so i've been able to glean from rumours) points each with a whole lot more synergy with the new HQs.

Ethereals are a vast improvement on what they were, giving buffs to all units within 12" (all apart from the giving pulse weapons an extra shot, which is single target)

Fireblade is a nice cheap FW HQ at i think around about 60 points, that can give the the FW squad he's in an extra shot if the unit remains still. Combine that with the Ethereal and you have a FW squad with FOUR shots each in rapid fire range!

Darksider has some interesting rules on him. He and the pathfinder/FW squad he's with can consolidate after overwatch. Don't know much else about him though.

Crisis suits are still proudly our best, with all new and great support systems and new weapon costs. You can make a suit with no weapons, but makes the rest of the squad he's in TL and ignore cover (only in our shooting phase, for both as they are two different supports), while picking out an enemy unit within 12" in their shooting phase making their weapons get hot. Put him as one of Farsight's bodyguards and you don't need any markerlights for that squad at all. I also believe that suits can take up to two drones without using up a support system. So if you do take drones, give one guy in the squad a drone controller and ALL gun/marker/sniper drones in the squad use his BS! Sure i admit that this unit would be almost 1000 points if fully tooled out, but hey you could do that anyway with farsight, just this time it's way more deadly.

There's plenty more great stuff i'm sure, i just feel it's no use dwelling on all the bad stuff. i look forward to it, buffs, nerfs, the whole lot. Tau finally got the update they needed.

EDIT: Let me just emphasise, that i'm not trying to get in an argurment or belittle anybodies opinions. I'm just tired of seeing people focus on the doom and gloom. Is there bad and stupid stuff in this codex? I'm sure there will, but then again i'm sure there's brilliant things in there to compensate and make it shine.

 Peregrine wrote:

And this is why you don't realize how bad these changes are. Instead of a proper upgrade to 6th edition we get Codex:Markerlights.

This was exactly what I was going to say. New Tau book is Codex: Markerlights. The army is nearly unplayable without them. Which I guess was the point: force people to take them.

If you like Fire Warriors, Battlesuits, Drones and think Markerlights should be core mechanic of the army, then you will love the new Codex. However, if you're like me, love Tau vehicles and their special abilities, then you're totally screwed. They have been throughly gutted.

I'm sticking with the old Codex, thank you.

Overall I'm happy about the changes, it doesn't look too bad.

But did anyone else notice that this book seems tailored to be sub-par against marines and shred everything else? I mean, there is way more S5 spamming. WAY more S7 spamming. And everything seems to have AP4. Rail-rifles (tailored marine killers) are now replaced with sniper rifles. Kroot have less attacks but get AP5...

 DakkaHammer wrote:
Overall I'm happy about the changes, it doesn't look too bad.

But did anyone else notice that this book seems tailored to be sub-par against marines and shred everything else? I mean, there is way more S5 spamming. WAY more S7 spamming. And everything seems to have AP4. Rail-rifles (tailored marine killers) are now replaced with sniper rifles. Kroot have less attacks but get AP5...

Nope. You still have access to tons of plasma and fusion, which are AP2 and 1 respectively.
The sniper rifles are rending, and I think you still get the normal rail rifles; its just that sniper drones get a different weapon this time.

Marines hate hi strength weapons too you know. It doesn't matter what your save is; if you get wounded enough times, you will fail a save.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 DakkaHammer wrote:
Overall I'm happy about the changes, it doesn't look too bad.

But did anyone else notice that this book seems tailored to be sub-par against marines and shred everything else? I mean, there is way more S5 spamming. WAY more S7 spamming. And everything seems to have AP4. Rail-rifles (tailored marine killers) are now replaced with sniper rifles. Kroot have less attacks but get AP5...

Nope. You still have access to tons of plasma and fusion, which are AP2 and 1 respectively.
The sniper rifles are rending, and I think you still get the normal rail rifles; its just that sniper drones get a different weapon this time.

Marines hate hi strength weapons too you know. It doesn't matter what your save is; if you get wounded enough times, you will fail a save.

Not to mention the fact that torrent of fire kills Marines as well; you don't have to have AP3 to kill them.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 DakkaHammer wrote:
Overall I'm happy about the changes, it doesn't look too bad.

But did anyone else notice that this book seems tailored to be sub-par against marines and shred everything else? I mean, there is way more S5 spamming. WAY more S7 spamming. And everything seems to have AP4. Rail-rifles (tailored marine killers) are now replaced with sniper rifles. Kroot have less attacks but get AP5...

Nope. You still have access to tons of plasma and fusion, which are AP2 and 1 respectively.
The sniper rifles are rending, and I think you still get the normal rail rifles; its just that sniper drones get a different weapon this time.

Marines hate hi strength weapons too you know. It doesn't matter what your save is; if you get wounded enough times, you will fail a save.

Not to mention the fact that torrent of fire kills Marines as well; you don't have to have AP3 to kill them.

That too. Shoot a termy enough times with a lasgun, and it will die.

 DakkaHammer wrote:
Overall I'm happy about the changes, it doesn't look too bad.

But did anyone else notice that this book seems tailored to be sub-par against marines and shred everything else? I mean, there is way more S5 spamming. WAY more S7 spamming. And everything seems to have AP4. Rail-rifles (tailored marine killers) are now replaced with sniper rifles. Kroot have less attacks but get AP5...

i'll wait for the codex. s5's kill marines. especially with 3-4 shots per fire warrior, backed up with markerlights.

"sniper" drones were always terrible to begin with. making them sniper drones now makes them do what they were originally intended to do - be sniper weapons.

as for kroot. fine. less attacks with lower strength. but they're cheaper and get sniper rifles now. *shrug* at the end of the day, you'll just have to play them differently. fine, they were "decent" in melee in the old dexes. and by decent, i mean they could pull down a few doods before they were turned into paste. but lets be honest. melee was never their thing. 2-3 ws4 s4 attacks could be nice, but against that was i3, complete lack of an armour save and extremely low ld. No, better than trying to make them do something less poorly, GW have given us options to run them as a better light infantry skirmisher force. 6pts for a bucketload of s4 shots - its still gonna hurt. kroot flankers still have a role. Now with sniper rifles - few shots, but wounding on 4s regarding, backed up with more accuracy. i see potential here.

fire warriors intrigue me. they were something never worth taking before. Now, we have a whole new and viable style of play.

crisis suits? what needs to be said. they're good. as before.

broadsides. less railgun, and more rail rifle. again, like the kroot, you're just gonna have to think about different applications to get the most out of them. I'm not writing them off.

OK, now can someone answer me this. In the old days, our access to proper heavy killing was broadsides and hammerheads. We still have the hammerhead (but is what i'm hearing true about them now being bs3 with no targetting array upgrade?) but im curious - are there other options spread throughout the slots for taking on armour at a decent (say, 36" range) or are we limited to missile pods?

Deadnight wrote:

 DakkaHammer wrote:
Overall I'm happy about the changes, it doesn't look too bad.

But did anyone else notice that this book seems tailored to be sub-par against marines and shred everything else? I mean, there is way more S5 spamming. WAY more S7 spamming. And everything seems to have AP4. Rail-rifles (tailored marine killers) are now replaced with sniper rifles. Kroot have less attacks but get AP5...

We still have the hammerhead (but is what i'm hearing true about them now being bs3 with no targetting array upgrade?)

Don't worry, I think the hammerhead is still BS4. I remember seeing its stat in the leaked codex pages, and I'm pretty sure it was a 4.

Deadnight wrote:

OK, now can someone answer me this. In the old days, our access to proper heavy killing was broadsides and hammerheads. We still have the hammerhead (but is what i'm hearing true about them now being bs3 with no targetting array upgrade?) but im curious - are there other options spread throughout the slots for taking on armour at a decent (say, 36" range) or are we limited to missile pods?

Other than the overcharged ion weapons, the Tau has three S8 weapons: the heavy rail rifle (only available on Broadsides, competing with the much better high-yield missile pods), the fusion blaster (short ranged) and the Seeker missiles (yeah...). They also have 1 S9 weapon (the nova charged ion acceleration, only available for the Riptide) and 1 S10 weapon (the good old railgun, only available for the Hammerhead). The number of armourbane/lance weapons is 0.

So go fig .

 AtoMaki wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

OK, now can someone answer me this. In the old days, our access to proper heavy killing was broadsides and hammerheads. We still have the hammerhead (but is what i'm hearing true about them now being bs3 with no targetting array upgrade?) but im curious - are there other options spread throughout the slots for taking on armour at a decent (say, 36" range) or are we limited to missile pods?

Other than the overcharged ion weapons, the Tau has three S8 weapons: the heavy rail rifle (only available on Broadsides, competing with the much better high-yield missile pods), the fusion blaster (short ranged) and the Seeker missiles (yeah...). They also have 1 S9 weapon (the nova charged ion acceleration, only available for the Riptide) and 1 S10 weapon (the good old railgun, only available for the Hammerhead). The number of armourbane/lance weapons is 0.

So go fig .

Fusion is armorbane, and so is the dawn blade I think.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Fusion is armorbane, and so is the dawn blade I think.

Fusion is only melta. And the dawn blade... okay, I'll give this to you, but yeah, it isn't a big thing (weeeeheeee, we have a melee weapon with armourbane in a super-duper shooty focused army).

 AtoMaki wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Fusion is armorbane, and so is the dawn blade I think.

Fusion is only melta. And the dawn blade... okay, I'll give this to you, but yeah, it isn't a big thing (weeeeheeee, we have a melee weapon with armourbane in a super-duper shooty focused army).

Isn't melta armorbane?

Edit: had a look. Melta = armorbane in ranged combat.

So a bit more than 0

No lances though. I guess they wanted to keep lance as an eldar thing.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Isn't melta armorbane?

Nononono. Armourbane gives 2D6 armour penetration for the full range of the weapon. Melta only gives 2D6 at half range or below. So the fusion blaster will only roll 8+2D6 for armour penetration if the vehicle is within 9".

 AtoMaki wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Isn't melta armorbane?

Nononono. Armourbane gives 2D6 armour penetration for the full range of the weapon. Melta only gives 2D6 at half range or below. So the fusion blaster will only roll 8+2D6 for armour penetration if the vehicle is within 9".

Oh I see. I thought Armorbane was melee only. I didn't see the second paragraph until now

Well, that and I don't see that many ranged weapons with armorbane either.

Deadnight wrote:

as for kroot. fine. less attacks with lower strength. but they're cheaper and get sniper rifles now. *shrug* at the end of the day, you'll just have to play them differently. fine, they were "decent" in melee in the old dexes. and by decent, i mean they could pull down a few doods before they were turned into paste. but lets be honest. melee was never their thing. 2-3 ws4 s4 attacks could be nice, but against that was i3, complete lack of an armour save and extremely low ld. No, better than trying to make them do something less poorly, GW have given us options to run them as a better light infantry skirmisher force. 6pts for a bucketload of s4 shots - its still gonna hurt. kroot flankers still have a role. Now with sniper rifles - few shots, but wounding on 4s regarding, backed up with more accuracy. i see potential here.

OK, now can someone answer me this. In the old days, our access to proper heavy killing was broadsides and hammerheads. We still have the hammerhead (but is what i'm hearing true about them now being bs3 with no targetting array upgrade?) but im curious - are there other options spread throughout the slots for taking on armour at a decent (say, 36" range) or are we limited to missile pods?

Kroot melee abilities were always secondary, but they were sometimes important, for example in attacking vehicles, or acting as counter-charge units attacking already weakened enemy assault units, or munching up weak back-line objective holding enemy troops.

Thanks to their melee nerf (which totally flies in the face of estabilished fluff) they are no longer useful in any of those roles. They are only cheap cannon fodder snipers now. They can't even hurt vehicles now - even Fire Warriors can!

As for killing Marines, that was never problem for Tau. Marines die to Plasma and torrent fire, both which Tau always could do. Problem was FNP units, like Nobs, Plague Marines, Death Company etc. Now, there are multiple ways to deal with them, since the army actually contains high-strength, low AP blasts, which it didn't previously (I actually bought Forgeworld Fusionhead turret to address this problem).

Anti-tank thing is bit weird. I guess they were worried about large amount of S10 AP1 fire upsetting the meta (admittably, a valid concern). However, Tau have now no long-range anti-tank fire over S8, other than Hammerhead. And you get max. three, and that eats up your precious HS slots. I'm not sure how this issue is going to be addressed. Well, Riptide has Rending when it uses Nova reactor...?

Max 6 actually. You can have 2 FOC now.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Max 6 actually. You can have 2 FOC now.

Sure, but then the enemy can field 12 Land Raiders...

Backfire wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Max 6 actually. You can have 2 FOC now.

Sure, but then the enemy can field 12 Land Raiders...

Haha, yeah, that's true. Wouldn't 12 LR be close to about 3000 points though (I'm assuming most of them are dedicated transports)? I'm sure you can pack plenty of fusion and railheads in 3000 points.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
S8 Vs A13 means you only pen on a 6 and it is useless against A14 because for that price and a Heavy Support slot it shouldn't be forced to "glance it to death" unless it gets a crazy amount of shots. Look at the Forgefiend for example, which will 8 shots total for about 4 hits compared to BS3 Broadsides with twinlinked railguns for at most 3 hits. The Forgefiend would be the more reliable choice to me since it also gets to reroll to pen rolls and is comparable in price. It's also in an army with a versatile Obliterator and Triple Twin-Linked Lascannon Predator.
However suits can now take 18" Melta guns, so armor might not be an issue anyways.

AP1 is a lot different than AP4. The range is also greater.

 Exergy wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
S8 Vs A13 means you only pen on a 6 and it is useless against A14 because for that price and a Heavy Support slot it shouldn't be forced to "glance it to death" unless it gets a crazy amount of shots. Look at the Forgefiend for example, which will 8 shots total for about 4 hits compared to BS3 Broadsides with twinlinked railguns for at most 3 hits. The Forgefiend would be the more reliable choice to me since it also gets to reroll to pen rolls and is comparable in price. It's also in an army with a versatile Obliterator and Triple Twin-Linked Lascannon Predator.
However suits can now take 18" Melta guns, so armor might not be an issue anyways.

AP1 is a lot different than AP4. The range is also greater.

Unfortunately, AP1 means nothing in Glancing hits nowadays. What was great in Railgun in 5th ed was that even glancing hit had decent chance of stopping that Land Raider or Battle wagon, or could even destroy it.

Funniest thing was when Weapon Destroyed hit from a glance immobilized my buddy's Battlewagon. See, he thought he was going to be smart and save points by not buying any "useless" armament to his BW.

 Jancoran wrote:

 Ninjacommando wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
No they droppd the Broadside down to make you buy Hammerheads.

so 1 hammerhead for $60 or 3 new broadsides for $150..... Yeah they did that to make you buy hammerheads.....................

\\

Yup.

Most competitive Tau players know btter than to invest in a Hammerhead and Broadsides were the order of the day. Now you hve good reasons to take a Hammerhead. I probably still wont for FOC slot blockage considerations, but that's what happened before. Anyone will tell you that the Broadsides were the way to go until 6E. Obviously the FAQ made Hammerheads more interesting and now the Codex has. But it made no sense to reduce Broadsides to STR 8 after being STR 10 for time immemorial unless it was to spread the love amongst units... And the love only needed to be spread to make money. and its going to work.

Or for rebalancing... yeah, rebalancing AV14 actually sounds far more reasonable to me.

Also, how is BS3 that huge of a deal that people consider it army-breaking? Markerlights certainly make Tau shooting more reliable and are intended for some obvious synergy, but I'm not convinced that Tau are going to be uber-fail without them.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Also, how is BS3 that huge of a deal that people consider it army-breaking? Markerlights certainly make Tau shooting more reliable and are intended for some obvious synergy, but I'm not convinced that Tau are going to be uber-fail without them.

It's because the old Codices gave us a choice of either building self-sufficient, but less shooty force, or very shooty but Markerlight-dependent force, or some combination thereof. Now, because everything is BS3 and Tau vehicles are nerfed, Markerlights are essentially necessary. For some reason, some people seem to think that this forced "synergy" is an improvement over previous state of affairs.

We are being force-fed Markerlights like we were French goose fattened up for foie gras. That's what irks people (eg. me).