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Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Why do people keep saying it takes months? You don't need months to immediately tell whats good and bad.

When you have an army with lots of special rules, potential for combos, synergies and tactics which are not necessarily present in other armies, it takes time to figure what will really works & what doesn't. Look at Necrons, lots of people said that they will be average army at best. Of course from some armies you can tell right from the statline & points costs that they will be powerful - you didn't have to be genius to realize that GK were going to be real powerhouse in the 5th. Ditto IG. OTOH, I recall when 5th ed Space marines came out, and lots of people were crying for cheese, and how GW makes their shop window army overpowered, but it actually didn't turn out quite so powerful people thought.

Backfire wrote:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Why do people keep saying it takes months? You don't need months to immediately tell whats good and bad.

When you have an army with lots of special rules, potential for combos, synergies and tactics which are not necessarily present in other armies, it takes time to figure what will really works & what doesn't. Look at Necrons, lots of people said that they will be average army at best. Of course from some armies you can tell right from the statline & points costs that they will be powerful - you didn't have to be genius to realize that GK were going to be real powerhouse in the 5th. Ditto IG. OTOH, I recall when 5th ed Space marines came out, and lots of people were crying for cheese, and how GW makes their shop window army overpowered, but it actually didn't turn out quite so powerful people thought.

Necrons were average in 5th, outstanding in 6th.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Why do people keep saying it takes months? You don't need months to immediately tell whats good and bad.

SOME people do not need months to tell what is good and bad. However, people are different and have different levels of experience. If you have been playing the game for years it should not be a big chore to separate the wheat from the chaff. 40K has a lot of rules but at the heart of it the basic mechanics are not that complicated.

It is just not true that everyone is equally capable of evaluating an army by reading the codex. Some people are just terrible with statistics or not good at thinking through several turns of moving their army in advance. This doesnt mean they are dimwitted, it is just that not everyone has developed the same skill set at any particular time.

The claim that you need the results of months of tournament reports is pretty silly because tournaments are not standardized and even terrain within a single tournament can vary wildly from table to to table. Player skill is a big factor and if for some circumstance a particular army doesnt appeal to the tournament crowd it may fare poorly just because it was under represented.

And even people that can evaluate accurately at a glance will still take time to evaluate and reevaluate.

Grey Templar wrote:Again, Heldrakes. Everybody thought they were horrible when they came out. Now they're the Vendettas closest competition for most underpriced flyer.

Yeah, as soon as batreps came out the Helturkey was discovered to be Golden. Heck, I played a big match against a CSM about 2-3 weeks post release, and he had one, i thought, "Uh oh, He has a flyer, I don't know what it does, but i don't have skyfire." As it turned out, It torched me badly, only my termies werent spared the barbiecue, but died to KBs in LRs.

Basically the overall strategies and builds take months to evaluate, but individual units can shine in just a couple of games.

The reason it took a while for the Helturkey to get recognized is because it always takes time for real game effects to assimilate into the Internet. And individual person may realize how awsome something is, but until we consistantly get tons of batreps with that thing consistantly doing well we won't know for sure.

Just keeping the score so people know....out of 5 battle reports...Tau won once.

Opponents where Space Marine, Deamons, and Orks. The Tau won against Deamons.

J0kerrMT wrote:
Just keeping the score so people know....out of 5 battle reports...Tau won once.

Opponents where Space Marine, Deamons, and Orks. The Tau won against Deamons.

Wait for tournament results from people with tuned lists against other tuned lists, not battle reports released before people even know what's good in the new book.

Also have to realize people sometimes completely miss the biggest exploit/tactic in a codex for quite some time. Or they misunderstood a rule and with something as confusing as ... half of tau's codex (least the old one still waiting on my new one) thats pretty easy to do.

That one victory i blame on a rock-paper-scissors effect in favor of the tau. The battlefield was a crapton of woods and he had a mass of kroot and landed multiple snapfire shots that had a huge impact. He simply had the army/board that won by default that round, change the map probably not as potent.

It takes a few months because of the flavor dying off before real tactics appear. Right now everyones all "RIPTIDE! RIPTIDE! RIPTIDE!" and who knows in a few months it might disappear all together by some freak of nature and tau revert to mass Devilfish or something lol.
Point is, ITS NEW! IT MUST BE AWESOME! isnt always a fact.

J0kerrMT wrote:
Just keeping the score so people know....out of 5 battle reports...Tau won once.

Opponents where Space Marine, Deamons, and Orks. The Tau won against Deamons.

Doesn't mean anything. Less than anything really. This creates a vacuum of knowledge, actually. Run. Someone divided by zero!

I just want to make sure Tau are competitive before I invest a lot of money into them...as space marine are a close second to me...only enough money for one...so I want the most competitive shooty army out of those two...and Tau are shooty.

can it be fair to say Tau atleast wont be rubbish, and in fact will fit in with the rest of the 6th ed codex's?

Give it time so that various stratagies will come out, and dont buy a netlist because i imagine there is going to be lots of combinations to use here.

thats as much as we are waiting too see the "vested man" produce a codex....

J0kerrMT wrote:
I just want to make sure Tau are competitive before I invest a lot of money into them...as space marine are a close second to me...only enough money for one...so I want the most competitive shooty army out of those two...and Tau are shooty.

Ugh... For the thousandth time, any army can be competitive given the right player, opponent, and circumstances. And before we go around declaring Tau to be the new broken OP book, can it get some table tome first?

Can we ban words like "competitive" and replace them with what peoplr mean to say, like "easy to win with"?

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

J0kerrMT wrote:
I just want to make sure Tau are competitive before I invest a lot of money into them...as space marine are a close second to me...only enough money for one...so I want the most competitive shooty army out of those two...and Tau are shooty.

Ugh... For the thousandth time, any army can be competitive given the right player, opponent, and circumstances. And before we go around declaring Tau to be the new broken OP book, can it get some table tome first?

Can we ban words like "competitive" and replace them with what peoplr mean to say, like "easy to win with"?

No..I mean competitive...not easy to win with...just able to win...and they def did not before...as they were the joke of armies everywhere...why so hostile to people asking questions...jeez.

They were competitive before - they were just VERY unforgiving and did not have a lot of good options.

I think they will still be competitive, but not sure if more or less. Possibly more, as I will just have to adjust...

There are a lot of very subtle nerfs in the books, nerfs which seasoned tau players will notice.

Yeah, I get it the game is different in sixth, I get it they have the potential for great anti-air. But the nerfs are there, and they take away a few very key "tau like" things.

The question is, will the new toys make up for it.
I think it will - while I like some of the new combos....there are some forced moves in there as well.

One final comment: while I do indeed love me some riptide...and yes, he is cool and sturdy - that is a lot of points for not a lot of shots. Will I run one - heck yeah, he is cool.

Will he be worth the points...we shall see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

J0kerrMT wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

J0kerrMT wrote:
I just want to make sure Tau are competitive before I invest a lot of money into them...as space marine are a close second to me...only enough money for one...so I want the most competitive shooty army out of those two...and Tau are shooty.

Ugh... For the thousandth time, any army can be competitive given the right player, opponent, and circumstances. And before we go around declaring Tau to be the new broken OP book, can it get some table tome first?

Can we ban words like "competitive" and replace them with what peoplr mean to say, like "easy to win with"?

No..I mean competitive...not easy to win with...just able to win...and they def did not before...as they were the joke of armies everywhere...why so hostile to people asking questions...jeez.

With all due respect sir, I have to say I completely and 100% disagree with your assessment of tau capability before this book.

I have a largely wining record with tau in 5th, and in 6th - note, I am not being hostile or in any way trying to be offending here, but well, lets just say perhaps perhaps you have just never faced a good tau player before.
Were they work to be successful with? heck yeah! (winning with other armies in 5th that I played with was cake compared to tau).

Here is hoping the new book brings us a lot of fun and great games.

The answer is yes. If GW stays with their current trend of pumping out dexes then they will ALL be competitive, as long as your willing to put in the work to play and learn it.

First of all, its hard to judge right now as the codex is still fairly new.

From my experience reading the dex and playing against it, it is on par with the other 6th edition dexes. It's competitive, but not OTT like certain a few certain codex (*cough* necrons*cough*). It should do just fine once people adjust to it.

Old Tau were not competitive because once the others started pulling out powergaming moves, they could not keep up and required a large amount of pure luck to win.

New tau seem, at a glance at least, sit perfectly in the competitive realm along with the other newer codeci, but not due to cheeze units. (yes, the riptide is a nightmare on jetpacks, but it can only do a limited amount of carnage on it own, and if stuck in melee with a tarpit unit will have a hard time getting out.)

How are they compared to the other 3 6th ed codexes?

I haven't had a chance to get a game in yet but so far there seems to be plenty of possibilities

 Desubot wrote:
How are they compared to the other 3 6th ed codexes?

I haven't had a chance to get a game in yet but so far there seems to be plenty of possibilities

All the new books seem quite strong. Uncanny that...

Its a new era, and I can say this...while the new tau were simplified a bit in some areas, they were given a lot of new options and choices, and a few cool opportunities for synergy - they will be by no means easy to play.

Play them and enjoy, but one key observation from an experienced tau player (jack burton, me): they still have fragile troops, and still don't have a cheap or easy way of getting them across the table.

(although recon drone + outflanking kroot might help...if the objective is not the relic).