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 Jancoran wrote:
AV 14 with no Lascannons to pierce them and such.

Yeah, shucks, all we got is this S10 AP1 railgun. What's that good for?

Nothing. i dont use the Railhead.

Well, that's a choice made by you then isn't it?

The railgun EXISTS, if you want it.

Yeah, that's your fault. The option is given to you. If you don't take it, then no sense in complaining it doesn't exist because it does.

OT, I don't think the new book is overpowered. Far from in my opinion. It still has meh troops, and a couple things got hit with a nerfbat. It definitely went up in usefulness, but it's still not at the top

Its to early to tell.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Well, that's a choice made by you then isn't it?

The railgun EXISTS, if you want it.

At max number of three, and if you take that number you'll end up seriously crippling many other aspects of your army.

Tau do have some significant weakness.

1) Markerlight dependence. Its not called Codex: Markerlight for nothing. Pathfinder Squads and Markerdrones are pretty squishy. Severerly reduce the number of markerlights and that army wide BS3 will really begin to show.

2) Leadership. Most Tau armies will include an ethereal because their low LD on most units. Barrage and pinning weapons are highly effective vs Tau.

3) Slow scoring units. Tau really have nothing to go get enemy objectives and score them. Yes Kroot can infiltrate/outflank but then are removed from the Ethereals LD bubble and very vulnerable to LD tests. Not the best unit to grab objectives.

4) CC weakness. Not going to beat this dead horse.

All this being said there are ways a Tau player can mitigate these weakness and then that is where player skill and luck take over.

The thing that will frustrate people playing Tau is that they will not see the same builds from different Tau players due to the great internal balance of the codex. Some people might bring Skyrays and Markerdrone squads. Other might Farsight/Shadowsun bomb, or kroot spam, or fish of fury...etc. There will not be a single hard counter to the entire codex.

That's correct. It is a choice, to those who, for some reason, thought to say so.

I think my point was that you can have a TOTAL of three such STR 10 guns in an army instead of 9, and you may seriously wanna' think about it before you do that. My other point might have been that paying 140 Points for a hull with some cool stuff on it when you used to get two Broadisdes for that much makes me seriously question doing it (as it always did in the previous codex which is why I never did). and Longshanks (as I joyously like to call him) costs a whopping 45 points on top of it.

OR

I can just add meltas to units already in the force and VOILA! Tons of points freed up. I think I'll take 3 Meltas for the cost of Longshanks himself over three hulls costing what, like 450 points depening on upgrades and longshanks?

Given that I already know i will own those other units anyways, why do it?

OR

As happened in my last game, I can blow up three and a half Leman Russ's using EMP grenades. Go forth yon brave pathfinders, go forth!

So...

That was kinda my point. Don't need the expense of a Railhaid Hull to kill Land Raiders. So...why pay it?

Now this IS a style thing. Absolutely a style thing because I play with MOST of my army in an enemies side of the board or have done in the all of my first 9 games.

But then thats the beauty of the new Codex. I can be uber aggresive and in your face with Tau now. Its even fun to do.

Problem is that the codex design just makes no sense from lore viewpoint. Why is Tau artificially restricted to three Railguns, when Marine armies can spam no end of Lascannons? And it's not the case of Railgun being so much better.

The answer cannot be "well it's because you would have some challenge at killing Land Raiders from close range" because that is very poor Codex design principle.

I think it makes some sense. The Railgun seems (to me) to require a VERY large power plant to pull off (ergo the bigger suits). i mean in the end, It IS the most powerful gun in 40K. Literally. So it makes sense that miniaturization would have its limits when you are storing that much power, especially when Tau tech is billed as being primarily "Pulse" which would seem to me to indicate Sonic and plasma type of attacks. The ranges alone are worthy of a pretty healthy power pack but both AP 1 AND STR 10? That's a ton o firepower there.

As for "codex design principle", well... I think that might be exxagerating things a bit. Lol.

 Jancoran wrote:
I think it makes some sense. The Railgun seems (to me) to require a VERY large power plant to pull off (ergo the bigger suits). i mean in the end, It IS the most powerful gun in 40K. Literally. So it makes sense that miniaturization would have its limits when you are storing that much power, especially when Tau tech is billed as being primarily "Pulse" which would seem to me to indicate Sonic and plasma type of attacks. The ranges alone are worthy of a pretty healthy power pack but both AP 1 AND STR 10? That's a ton o firepower there.

As for "codex design principle", well... I think that might be exxagerating things a bit. Lol.

If i recall this would be correct, alot of Tau heavy weaponry requires a butt load of power. and besides that they are too busy strapping them onto their ships.
Im pretty sure the earth cast would love to strap more rails onto things but the fire cast wont have it .

 Jancoran wrote:
I think it makes some sense. The Railgun seems (to me) to require a VERY large power plant to pull off (ergo the bigger suits). i mean in the end, It IS the most powerful gun in 40K. Literally. So it makes sense that miniaturization would have its limits when you are storing that much power, especially when Tau tech is billed as being primarily "Pulse" which would seem to me to indicate Sonic and plasma type of attacks. The ranges alone are worthy of a pretty healthy power pack but both AP 1 AND STR 10? That's a ton o firepower there.

Sure, but not unique - there are other S10 AP1 guns out there. Also leaves open the question, why don't Tau then have some other, Lascannon or Multi-melta-class weapon for other platforms, since obviously Railgun is too a scarce weapon so that anti-tank fire can be left solely for that.

 Jancoran wrote:

As for "codex design principle", well... I think that might be exxagerating things a bit. Lol.

No I'm not. Codex should reflect the way the army is supposed to work. Nothing I've read suggests that Tau think that anti-tank could be left to short-range melta weapons or EMP grenades, because it's more sporting and interesting that way. In fact, completely opposite seems to be the case.

The hit and run tactics of Tau EXACTLY fit the 18" melta for all battlesuits and you may be overlooking the EMP grenades impact on the new codex.

That aside, I just think its laying it on a bit thick to say that this is "poor codex design principle". for the record, this aint no precision machine. Its the imagination turned loose.

 Jancoran wrote:
The hit and run tactics of Tau EXACTLY fit the 18" melta for all battlesuits and you may be overlooking the EMP grenades impact on the new codex.

Really? Why would Tau prefer such very risky, and potentially rather wasteful tactics instead of blowing enemy up from safe distance? Seems rather than they HAVE to make "hit and run" attacks, because their weapons are inferior.

Other armies have this much better figured out:

-Tyranids have shortage of really powerful guns, because they are hard to come by in living platforms
-Orks generally have no technology to make really good guns, plus they don't often mind getting close to the enemy
-Imperials and Eldar have technological means of building very powerful guns, and they can take very large number of them - often they don't, because they are expensive, but they can
-but what is the excuse for Tau? I struggle to think up any.

Glocknall wrote:
Tau do have some significant weakness.

1) Markerlight dependence. Its not called Codex: Markerlight for nothing. Pathfinder Squads and Markerdrones are pretty squishy. Severerly reduce the number of markerlights and that army wide BS3 will really begin to show.

2) Leadership. Most Tau armies will include an ethereal because their low LD on most units. Barrage and pinning weapons are highly effective vs Tau.

3) Slow scoring units. Tau really have nothing to go get enemy objectives and score them. Yes Kroot can infiltrate/outflank but then are removed from the Ethereals LD bubble and very vulnerable to LD tests. Not the best unit to grab objectives.

4) CC weakness. Not going to beat this dead horse.

All this being said there are ways a Tau player can mitigate these weakness and then that is where player skill and luck take over.

The thing that will frustrate people playing Tau is that they will not see the same builds from different Tau players due to the great internal balance of the codex. Some people might bring Skyrays and Markerdrone squads. Other might Farsight/Shadowsun bomb, or kroot spam, or fish of fury...etc. There will not be a single hard counter to the entire codex.

Yea....nope, you are wrong mate.

1-I usually don't pack markerlights, and even when I do its the sensor tower (because it looks awesome, but mostly for twin-linking)

2-Upgrade some team leaders and the problem is migrated, heck suits can go higher LD then marines. sure they dont have ATSKNF, but cheaper units means less of a loss if one runs away (and its most likely taken a heavy beating anyway)

3-Kroot can get the job done, as you said. so can FW with darkstrider. devilfish can also transport you if you really want to. but I find that I never NEED to take backfield objectives, because it does not matter how many I hold, only that the other player holds less.

4-no ability, no problem. just avoid the damn thing. except people really underestimate suit CC powers, I had suits beat up marines time to time, and my commander usally wins combat against enemy HQs that are not seriously geared for CC,

And how on earth is the codex having internal balance and as such not repetitive a BAD thing!?


Backfire-Because hit and run works. that's their doctrine, that's how you (fluff wise) don't lose valuable troops.
Tau got INSANE guns, only the oldest races can compete, they just lack the proper soldiers to wield said guns.
Blowing up enemies from a distance is not an easy thing to do, and tau are still pretty darn good at it.
And you really ignore the fact that fluff-wise, Tau are a TINY faction, they just lack the resources to meet with their technology.

Also, people keep saying that "you cant have 9 S10AP1 guns in your army any more" as if its an issue. it was freaking OP, and the only reason Tau didn't dominate with that thing is because it was pretty much the only good thing in the codex, with crisis suits following as "pretty good" and the entire rest between "salvageable" and "outright useless"
No, the ability to blow up every piece of armor on the field turn 1 with little chance to fail is NOT heavy for the game. especially now that glancing to death makes the tau S7 and S5 spam take down the AV10/11 units rather quickly even without any dedicated AT units. and the S7 spam can clear out the 12's easy. at least really heavy stuff with AV13/14 actually require a tiny bit of work now.

Backfire wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
The hit and run tactics of Tau EXACTLY fit the 18" melta for all battlesuits and you may be overlooking the EMP grenades impact on the new codex.

Really? Why would Tau prefer such very risky, and potentially rather wasteful tactics instead of blowing enemy up from safe distance? Seems rather than they HAVE to make "hit and run" attacks, because their weapons are inferior.

Other armies have this much better figured out:

-Tyranids have shortage of really powerful guns, because they are hard to come by in living platforms
-Orks generally have no technology to make really good guns, plus they don't often mind getting close to the enemy
-Imperials and Eldar have technological means of building very powerful guns, and they can take very large number of them - often they don't, because they are expensive, but they can
-but what is the excuse for Tau? I struggle to think up any.

Yes. Really. Really really.

Why would I prefer such tactics? Because I find gunlines boring and unimaginative unlss the enemy has given you NO alternative (and thats rare when you have an army, half of which can come in from anywhere). I'm not trying to insult you, nor say that you areboring or unimaginative, but THAt is why I do it. Because my opponents cant stop it, and they're not used to it. Also because Im 9-0 doing it in the new codex. And because I won a buttload of tourneys and Best Generals that way in the previous codex. In other words, as "wierd and zany" as you might find the idea of NOT gunlining with Tau, thats how I play. Why do it? Because it works of course.

This is the new Tau folks! Enjoy the options!

 Evileyes wrote:
The codex isn't overpowered, it's just new, so people don't yet know how to deal with it.

This. Always happens with a new dex.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Glocknall wrote:
Tau do have some significant weakness.

1) Markerlight dependence. Its not called Codex: Markerlight for nothing. Pathfinder Squads and Markerdrones are pretty squishy. Severerly reduce the number of markerlights and that army wide BS3 will really begin to show.

2) Leadership. Most Tau armies will include an ethereal because their low LD on most units. Barrage and pinning weapons are highly effective vs Tau.

3) Slow scoring units. Tau really have nothing to go get enemy objectives and score them. Yes Kroot can infiltrate/outflank but then are removed from the Ethereals LD bubble and very vulnerable to LD tests. Not the best unit to grab objectives.

4) CC weakness. Not going to beat this dead horse.

All this being said there are ways a Tau player can mitigate these weakness and then that is where player skill and luck take over.

The thing that will frustrate people playing Tau is that they will not see the same builds from different Tau players due to the great internal balance of the codex. Some people might bring Skyrays and Markerdrone squads. Other might Farsight/Shadowsun bomb, or kroot spam, or fish of fury...etc. There will not be a single hard counter to the entire codex.

Yea....nope, you are wrong mate.

1-I usually don't pack markerlights, and even when I do its the sensor tower (because it looks awesome, but mostly for twin-linking)

2-Upgrade some team leaders and the problem is migrated, heck suits can go higher LD then marines. sure they dont have ATSKNF, but cheaper units means less of a loss if one runs away (and its most likely taken a heavy beating anyway)

3-Kroot can get the job done, as you said. so can FW with darkstrider. devilfish can also transport you if you really want to. but I find that I never NEED to take backfield objectives, because it does not matter how many I hold, only that the other player holds less.

4-no ability, no problem. just avoid the damn thing. except people really underestimate suit CC powers, I had suits beat up marines time to time, and my commander usally wins combat against enemy HQs that are not seriously geared for CC,

And how on earth is the codex having internal balance and as such not repetitive a BAD thing!?

Gotta love the internet super player.

1) taking too many marker drone sin squads is just begging for a canny player to eliminate them to force LD tests. Using barrage sniping I have ran broadsides and crisis suits off of the table turn one w/o doing a single wound to a suit. Just wait will your drones makes your Riptide run off the table.

2) Character upgrades are expensive. Ten points in 5 or 6 different squads adds up quickly. You lessening a weakness but your paying for it. Want to take a markerlight, you have now paid for 3 more FW or 4 kroot. Also your depending on a single 1 wound character to bolster the units LD. Hello Precise Shot and Barrage.

3) Kroot die. They seriously die. I'm not saying their a bad unit, but they are incredibly squishy and dependant on cover to survive. Not by any means an ideal objective camping unit.

4) Supporting fire is good, but if you have to face a real CC unit your army will just melt if they get into you. Farsight is the exception. A commander with an Onager Gauntlet can suprise someone but you will usually be hitting on 4+ or 5+ so you need it to be lucky.

Don't get me wrong, I love this codex. I think its the best written 6thed codex to date. Its too bad I hate the models and the fluff. I'd be playing them.

I don't think they're terribly overpowered. They certainly have taken the top spot in the "armies actually designed specifically for 6th edition" codices.

That said, I don't really care for the new codex for four reasons.

1.) The codex all but forces you to play gunline, or a barely-mobile MSM wiggling gunline. Both of them are very tedius to play against. Yes, I know that they have the farsight bomb, but that's going to take a miniscule shift in the meta to completely shut down (or just play against another tau player who can take a S8 Ap3 large blast that they can fire interceptor with...). Likewise, their other mobility options are pretty easy to counter. I imagine that we'll see nothing but pure static gunline soon except for a few dire holdouts.

2.) MSM is the worst mechanic in 40k, and the new tau codex got MORE of it. Yes, let's make some units that you get to play with on your turn - moving, shooting, and then doing something in the assault phase - and then your opponent can do absolutely nothing against because your stuff is out of line of sight now. If you're the only one really getting to play, then you're just playing with yourself.

Except that in the 40k world you have to subject someone else to watching, and it takes a couple hours...

If they wanted to make tau more mobile, they should have just made them more mobile, instead of reinforcing one of the most sociopathic abominations in the 40k rulebook.

3.) They ignore rules. Yes, I know that that is slightly the point of having a codex, but it's very easy to take this too far, and I think the Tau codex has.

Remember back when our current blood angels codex came out? You've got tanks, but at least they're slow because they're not skimmers. Except they weren't. And nobody could scout move 12" and then pop smoke for a 4+ cover save out in the open before the game began. Except they could. Nobody could mass assault you straight out of deepstriking. Except they could. Nobody can take flying psychic dreadnoughts or dreads with a hypothetically infinite number of attacks. Nobody can deepstrike transports and allow the infantry inside to assault. It used to feel like I was playing a different, 40k-esque game when I played against them. Like their rules were written with only a cursory glance at what 40k was.

The problem wasn't that they changed the rules in interesting ways. The problem was that they straight-up ignored the rules, and had game mechanics that simply didn't work for them. Why bother having rules and limitations if they're just going to get flat-out ignored?

Why bother with terrain if your opponents can easily ignore cover saves through a variety of means, and mostly just fly over it, so aren't even slowed? Why bother with deepstriking and outflanking if your opponent can throw down absurd interceptor fire and still get to shoot the next turn? Why bother with close combat when your opponent has 30" S5 small arms, and practically the ENTIRE ARMY gets to overwatch your stuff as you run over a speedbump? Likewise, they did a lot to throw out vehicle rules by making them HP strippers and giving them a dreadnought that uses the rules for monstrous creatures. And for virtually free, they straight-up ignore the rules for night fighting.

It's like they went through the codex and said "what rules do we want to ignore?", and then, after the brainstorming was over, decided to just ignore everything they'd written down without discussing it first. Put another way, it's almost like Matt Ward wrote the codex. I thought we were supposed to be done with this kind of nonsense.

4.) Whatever shred of dignity the army had was completely lost when they gained the ability to field a literal gundam. Not just on principle either. So far I've seen a lot of riptides in the store, and 100% of them were by people who picked up an actual gundam model cheap from ebay and stuck it on a monstrous creature base.

Now, of course, if I were a Tau player, I bet I'd really like the new codex. I already liked gunlines, and my gunlines got better, and I was already a HUGE fan of anime, and I finally get to field some of my non-40k models, and I thought that the rules for 40k were too complicated anyways (though I can smirk inside that "lesser" armies still have to be hindered by them). For everyone else, though, I'm not actually all that terribly impressed. I guess they did a pretty decent job with their last few codices, though, so I guess we were due...

Ailaros...... Im slightly confused you say you don't think they're over powered then seem to give a list of reasons as to why they are? not trying to come off coarse just confused

As for the OP question well I play a few different armies myself and the only codex my group doesn't have is sisters of battle and my brother plays necrons sooooo I dang sure know what the most OP codex in the game looks like and Tau aren't it. The codex is likely the most balanced codex in the game with most all of your Slot selections having a few good units to choose from that do different things and the different rules you get you have to pay for (though if you know who and what you are going against it can be used to bad effect).

None of the reasons I gave for not liking them have anything to do with their power level. It's possible to beat someone playing tau.

It's that they've got stuff that's tedious or annoying or dubiously in line with the core rules of the game. Which is why I think it's a slightly bad codex. Nothing to do with power level, though.

 Ailaros wrote:
It's that they've got stuff that's tedious or annoying or dubiously in line with the core rules of the game. Which is why I think it's a slightly bad codex. Nothing to do with power level, though.

Kind of like Guard in 5th edition. They got to be overpowered in addition to being tedious and annoying to fight though.

Leafblower lists were certainly awful to play against, I'd agree.

That said, they didn't have army-wide mass rulebreaking. Artillery could ignore LOS restrictions, for example, but that's only on a couple of units. The colossus and hellhound are units that ignore cover saves, but that's two units, not the entire army. Oh, chimeras ignored the rules for aquatic terrain...

Also, there WERE credible alternatives to gunline guard in 5th edition. I'm not so sure for our current Tau codex.

I took my necrons against them twice and ultimately I feel the tau are about the same as before tactically just better built on the codex.

The first game the ignore cover completely caught me off guard as did the insane number of shots from overwatch. Both thing I agree with for giving the tau, if they cant fight in CC then they can do their best to avoid it.

So once I figured out that a straight rush is just down right silly and destroying markerlights makes cover viable by turn 3 then I would say it was downright favorable for me. If I would have rolled a WBB greater than 2 that is.

All in all it looks to me that the tau got what they needed to keep their old identity and get the desperate upgrade the needed. Speaking as a DE and Necron player I know the pains of long codex waits but the Tau did get the advantage that they really don't need to reexamine their old play habbits and can move seamlessly into the current edition and then only grow from there.


Very well balanced codex.

Gunlines is not the only option. Sit and shoot is whast you mean when you say gunlines right? Maybe a couple Crisis teams back there hucking missiles but pretty much castle up?

If thats what people mean then i have news for you. Its just a matter of time before you see more kinds.

 Ailaros wrote:
Leafblower lists were certainly awful to play against, I'd agree.

That said, they didn't have army-wide mass rulebreaking. Artillery could ignore LOS restrictions, for example, but that's only on a couple of units. The colossus and hellhound are units that ignore cover saves, but that's two units, not the entire army. Oh, chimeras ignored the rules for aquatic terrain...

Also, there WERE credible alternatives to gunline guard in 5th edition. I'm not so sure for our current Tau codex.

Leafblowers weren't the only annoying thing Guard could do in 5th, or do now in 6th. You can't honestly think it was fun fighting against a Guard powerblob (yeah, lets let them bury multiple power weapons in 50 man blobs! Awesome game design!) or mechanised lists before hull points. And now, you can't honestly think it's fun for the opponent to stare down multiple Vendettas in a Guard aircraft list.

Every person has armies they find simply tedius to fight, but Guard did it well in 5th. Very well. They've carried over well in that regard in 6th as well.

Note that I'm not saying Guard are exceptions. A lot of armies can do it. I'm sure it's not fun being on the receiving end of a Tyranid breeding factory backed up by Dakka Flyrants, especially with all the boosts psykers got in 6th edition. But, when someone who played one of 5th editions most annoying builds comes out and says another army is annoying to fight, my irony meter buries the needle.

 Ailaros wrote:
2.) MSM is the worst mechanic in 40k, and the new tau codex got MORE of it. Yes, let's make some units that you get to play with on your turn - moving, shooting, and then doing something in the assault phase - and then your opponent can do absolutely nothing against because your stuff is out of line of sight now. If you're the only one really getting to play, then you're just playing with yourself.

Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Either you're playing with people who cheat and claim LOS blocking from things that don't block LOS, you're playing with way too much conveniently-placed LOS blocking terrain, or you're just bad at 40k. I'll let you decide which answer is the right one, but JSJ is far from 100% protection and does not at all make the rest of the game cease to exist.

3.) They ignore rules. Yes, I know that that is slightly the point of having a codex, but it's very easy to take this too far, and I think the Tau codex has.

What's your point? Every codex ignores the rules. You even started off by describing how BA ignore the rules (therefore making Tau just a typical codex, not something special), but let's look at the rules IG ignore:

* LOS (artillery)
* Morale (anything with a commissar or standard)
* Cover (artillery, FOMT)
* Night fighting (free searchlights everywhere)
* Mass heavy weapons are supposed to be heavy support (platoons)
* Bringing lots of scoring units is supposed to require sacrifices (platoons with tons of scoring sub-units)
* MSU is supposed to penalize you in kill point games (combined squads)
* The FOC is supposed to put a limit on tanks (vehicle squadrons)

And that's just the rule/design convention breaking stuff. As much as you hate JSJ Tau IG are just as capable of making a list that some people aren't going to have any fun playing against, and you need to stop pretending otherwise.

So far my tally is WD SoB - 1, new Tau - 0. So yea, not really scared... yet.

Wait til people figure it out.

I remember when the sisters of Battle WD came out and people were just LIVID. Actually, I was one of them so fair disclosure. Even wrote about it in my blog.

But then...It clicked. I HATED the fact that I now had to use transports. But... I DID own enough of them so... I gave it a shot. WAS NOT excited about it.

And...they owned face. Like all codex's, theres a list in there just waiting for your personality to sync up with it (so to speak). I found a combo that worked for me and I was off like a champ with that thing. Lost my last tourney but won the three before it with em.

Now that Tau are out, people will slowly figure them out and then it will pop and people will find their groove with it.

I think the main problem here is that Ailaros truly belives that gunlines is the only army type Tau can bring.

Now, first thing first, coming from IG, who are the kings of gunlines, complaining about gunline armies seem a bit absurd, but I'll let that one slide.

Tau have many tricks up their bag except gunlines, in fact gunline is the lowest level of stratagy the tau codex employs.
Yes, some units like the fireblade contribute to it, but not all.

You have deep strikers, outflankers, infiltrators, heck most of Tau guns are at their best at 18"!
The fact you have only seen gunlines mean you are facing poor players and gunslines are easily broken, especially by IG template spam (and don't even try to deny you IG does that!)

Heck, my own fire warriors tend to be marching up the field all game long! (except backfield objective teams naturally)
Sure, I turtle up from time to time, but only when the opposing army list forces me to, when I can afford to move up, I do.