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 Peregrine wrote:
Because "elite" is the key point.

Irrelevant. Regardless of how they do it, the Guard still should be able to perform a decent shooting game.

According to you, however, they should not, because that's what Tau are for.

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Because "elite" is the key point.

Irrelevant. Regardless of how they do it, the Guard still should be able to perform a decent shooting game.

According to you, however, they should not, because that's what Tau are for.

Apparently you don't even bother reading what I said. Both armies get the same result (good shooting performance), IG do it through huge volumes of decent guns, Tau do it through a few really powerful guns.

 Peregrine wrote:

Apparently you don't even bother reading what I said. Both armies get the same result (good shooting performance), IG do it through huge volumes of decent guns, Tau do it through a few really powerful guns.

Or that's how it used to be. Nowadays Tau are all about massed mid-strength shooting.
The new Tau play kinda like Storm of Dakka Orks. They're much more spammy.

I don't really mind loss of S10 Broadsides as such (I always thought they were boring unit with crappy model), but when they were replaced with nothing - even the flyers did not get any real anti-tank - it just left the army poorly modelled vis the fluff, as I explained in other thread.

Yeah, I hate to be a spoil sport, but guard shooting isn't actually that good.

But Ailaros! Leafblowers! I hear you say. Yeah, they were good... 4 years ago when leafblowers were at their height. A lot has changed since then.

For example, other armies have gotten shootier than they were before. I used to easily out-shoot necron without even thinking about it, for example, and now I don't. GK also got a lot shootier, and that's to say nothing about other shooty goodies like the addition of DA bolter banners or super-deepstriking deathwing.

While other armies have been getting a lot more multi-shot mid-strength firepower, whether it be from tesla or psycannons or riflemen dreads, etc, guard have been stuck with their firepower coming in the form of blast weapons, which was always inferior, but is now becoming even moreso (basilisks can't even shoot at fliers, for exmaple, and it's not like we're seeing any of those around).

Guard still has a pretty strong edge with special weapons fire on mechvets, but that's only at close range. I've definitely been shredded by gunlines that were not guard before.

Not to say that guard is BAD at shooting, but it's certainly not the best anymore, and it's not even that much better than the average. I guess we'll just have to see when all of the 6th ed codices come out.

No other codex had anything remotely as powerful in terms of long-range AT, and I am GLAD they shoved it down, it made me feel bad to used them.
Auto-kill across the table to all tanks with a unit far cheaper then said tank is idiotic.

I have to disagree with you here. There are a lot of potent long range anti-tank units that can smoke heavy armor from the other side of the board. IG have Vendettas, Medusas and LR Vanquishers. The Dark Eldar have Ravagers, Razorwings and Voidravens, not to mention the ability to bring dark lances on a large range of basic units. Space marines can take predator annihilators and lascannon devastators, which while not exactly economical, are at least options. If you consider that a zooming flyer can cross 36" of table, is immune to assault and well protected against short range weapons such as meltaguns and flamers that would otherwise be devastating at close range, then in practice 12" range weapons on these platforms work similar to 48" range weapons on normal units. Thus space marines are able to smoke heavy armor anywhere on the table using Stormraven gunships, while Necrons can line up multiple armor kills with their Doom Scythes.

As far as cost, properly built 3 suit Broadside squads put me back 280 points. This is well in excess of most vehicles, and even exceeds the cost of most Landraiders, if only marginally. And statistically, the chance of three Broadsides killing a Landraider is only 37.5% if they don't have a cover save, so it is hardly an auto kill. Broadsides were among the best if not the best anti heavy AT unit in the game, but they are nothing that could not have been corrected with an appropriate increase in point cost.

Melissia wrote:
The Imperial Guard are also a shooting army. Why shouldn't they be able to match the Tau in a shooting match? Actually, the Guard is known far more for long-ranged firepower than the Tau are.


Because "elite" is the key point. IG are the horde shooting army, their individual guns may only be lascannons and missile launchers but they can bring them in huge quantities. Tau are the elite shooting army, they're not supposed to have the sheer horde of guns but each unit is supposed to be top-tier in its role (STR 10 AP 1 for static heavy weapons, JSJ crisis suits at midrange, etc).

I have to agree with Melissia here. By all rights IG should as a whole have more long range shooting power. While the Tau are indeed a more elite force, they trade raw firepower for mobility, hence all rapid fire weapon troops with heavier weapons mounted on JSJ platforms. Granted that does nothing to explain the idiocy of the current role reversal between the IG armor killer, the Vendetta, and the Tau railhead, which was needlessly deprived of its multitracker (because three twinlinked lascannons on a zooming tank is ok, but firing a single railgun at cruising speed was apparently too much. Seriously, WTF?).

As far as OPs original query is concerned, the idea that GW is reducing the ability to tackle heavy armor at long range is interesting, but there is little evidence to this end. The Tau took a serious hit to their anti heavy armor firepower with the repurposing of broadsides and the loss of the hammerhead multitracker, but what of the other 6e codices? Chaos is the codex I am the next most familiar with, and to the best of my knowledge, all their lascannons are still there (havocs, oblits, preds), although their anti heavy armor abilities were never stellar to begin with. I am not really familiar enough with either Dark Angels or Demons to comment. Anyone familiar enough with these armies to make a clear determination one way or another in this regard?

That being said, it would be an interesting direction if GW sticks with the idea. But we won't be able to fully gauge GWs commitment to a concept like this until we get to their favored sons (Space Marines and IG) and see what happens to units like the Vendetta.

 Peregrine wrote:
Apparently you don't even bother reading what I said.

Apparently you don't bother reading what you said.

 Peregrine wrote:
Tau [...] should be able to out-shoot every other army at long range.

No, they should not. They should not be flat out superior to Imperial Guard at long-ranged shooting. While they should both be excellent, neither has to be flat out better than the other at it-- instead arriving at their excellency at different ways.

Don't blame me just because you didn't actually read your own post very well.

 Melissia wrote:
Apparently you don't bother reading what you said.

No, you just missed the context of it. Per unit they should be superior, if you compare an IG unit and a Tau unit the Tau unit should be better. That's why the key point is that sentence is that Tau are an elite shooting army. Broadside railguns should be better than IG lascannons because Tau have a few Broadsides while IG have giant piles of lascannons.

And of course they should be better, period, compared to every non-IG army.

 Peregrine wrote:
if you compare an IG unit and a Tau unit

That's a stupid comparison and you know it. Units do not function in a vacuum.

 Melissia wrote:
That's a stupid comparison and you know it. Units do not function in a vacuum.

Now look at the context: a debate over whether Broadsides with STR 10 AP 1 railguns were overpowered. The "overpowered" argument was that on a per-unit basis Broadsides were too good at shooting (based on some bad math) and STR 10 AP 1 was just too much to allow, not that they were too point-efficient.

Speaking as someone who faced a lot of them, 9 old Broadsides, with TL BS4 and Target Lock so that every suit can target a different target if so desired, was broken. I guess this could have been fixed by increasing the points until fielding 3 sets of 3 was no longer desirable, but tweaking them so that they were still good but no longer the solution to anything with an armor value is better in my book.

It's the context. Nobody thought Broadsides were overpowered in the old Codex, in fact I saw people suggest that they were weaker than some equivalent units, for example Obliterators.

Now, putting S10 Broadsides in the current Codex would indeed probably be overpowered (particularly with option to Skyfire), however the point is rather that the current Codex is badly designed and Broadsides have been artificially nerfed to provide Tau player some "challenge" at destroying enemy vehicles. Which is pretty much equivalent of taking all the Lascannons and Battlecannons away from the Guard and let them enjoy the "challenge" of playing Close Quarters Guard.

Backfire wrote:
It's the context. Nobody thought Broadsides were overpowered in the old Codex

That's certainly not true. I heard arguments to the contrary numerous times before the Tau codex came out.

What's more relevant, however, is that Broadsides were basically a crutch, used to hold up an otherwise kind of subpar army. Hell, they are still a very powerful unit.

Also, your comparison is kind of silly. Even without broadsides, Tau still have powerful long-ranged anti-tank, and come to think of it, the Imperial Guard would have powerful long-ranged anti-tank without lascannons and battle cannons, too.

If you really want an army without any powerful long-ranged anti-tank (in terms of anti AV14)... *[listens to inevitable groans]* ... you'd use Sisters as a comparison.

Backfire wrote:
It's the context. Nobody thought Broadsides were overpowered in the old Codex, in fact I saw people suggest that they were weaker than some equivalent units, for example Obliterators.

Oh yes we did. You know a unit is out of whack when it's a complete no-brainer to take. The only times I would make a list without broadsides was when it was too small a point level to fit them. They were just too good to ever leave at home. When a unit has that kind of status, it's a clear sign they've over powering the other possible selections.

 Melissia wrote:

Also, your comparison is kind of silly. Even without broadsides, Tau still have powerful long-ranged anti-tank, and come to think of it, the Imperial Guard would have powerful long-ranged anti-tank without lascannons and battle cannons, too.

I'd like to know what is this "powerful long-ranged anti-tank" Tau still have.

I hope you don't suggest Railheads, because it sure as heck ain't Railheads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bookwrack wrote:

Oh yes we did. You know a unit is out of whack when it's a complete no-brainer to take.

It was no-brainer because rest of the book blew.

Wait, you consider a lascannon at S10 AP2 firing at BS3 more powerful than a hammerhead's railgun at S10 AP1 firing at BS4?

 Melissia wrote:
Wait, you consider a lascannon at S10 AP2 firing at BS3 more powerful than a hammerhead's railgun at S10 AP1 firing at BS4?

No, I consider the ability to take 10+ Lascannons superior to taking three Railguns (which would leave your army crippled in many other ways).

Backfire wrote:
It was no-brainer because rest of the book blew.

Right, the fact they were amazing in their own right as well had nothing to do with it.

Backfire wrote:
No, I consider the ability to take 10+ Lascannons superior to taking three Railguns (which would leave your army crippled in many other ways).

Taking 10+ lascannons will force a Guard army to give up a lot of anti-infantry firepower, and thus leave it "crippled" in the same way as taking three railguns for Tau.

If you're talking about Vendettas, I agree that they're overpowered, mind you. That doesn't make broadsides less overpowered in their previous incarnation.

 Melissia wrote:

Backfire wrote:
No, I consider the ability to take 10+ Lascannons superior to taking three Railguns (which would leave your army crippled in many other ways).

Taking 10+ lascannons will force a Guard army to give up a lot of anti-infantry firepower, and thus leave it "crippled" in the same way as taking three railguns for Tau.

Why? Guard can take Lascannons in Fast Attack, Troops and Heavy Support (at least, don't remember if other FOC slots can have them), Tau can take Railguns only in Heavy support. I fail to see how these two armies are equivalent in this respect, even if 1 vs 1, Railgun is obviously better.

Seriously, if Railhead was so awesome people make it to be, then players would take them as allies. The fact that no-one does is telling.

Backfire wrote:
Why? Guard can take Lascannons in Fast Attack, Troops and Heavy Support

Lascannon sentinels are not all that popular. Lascannon in infantrymen is pretty expensive compared to just taking a missile launcher or autocannon or some meltaguns, and I almost never see them taken on veterans or CCSs, since that'd just be a waste of points. Better to just mount the vets in chimeras and give them meltaguns, it's much more effective, you'll kill more tanks that way. And on Leman Russes, lascannons are often skipped for the sake of points in many lists I see. The only way 10+ lascannons are ever taken, in my experience, is if the player spams vendettas. The Vendetta is already almost universally reviled as overpowered, so you'd not really get much argument if you mentioned that by name.

 Melissia wrote:
Even without broadsides, Tau still have powerful long-ranged anti-tank

No, they really don't. The only anti-vehicle weapons in the Tau codex with better than 36" range are the Hammerhead's single shot railgun (a mediocre barely-mobile unit with a high chance of failure), and the Riptide's nova-charged pie plate (extremely expensive, high chance to fail and wound the Riptide). Neither of these are very good options for killing vehicles, so that leaves "autocannon" (but with shorter range) spam and melta doing the vast majority of Tau tank killing.

Lascannon in infantrymen is pretty expensive compared to just taking a missile launcher or autocannon or some meltaguns

You're still thinking of 5th edition. Now that AP 3 is a penalty on the damage table the default IG heavy weapon is the lascannon. ACs are pretty much gone outside of a niche role of dedicated light vehicle killing, and missile launchers are pretty much nonexistent. Every single foot IG list is going to have several LCs in blob squads, and some of them will also have HWS or Sabre guns with LCs. Then of course there's the Vendetta. Yes, it's overpowered, but as long as it exists that's the standard we have to judge other armies by.

And that's just lascannons, not anti-tank weapons in general. On top of that IG have bastion breacher Medusas, Manticores, LR Vanquishers, etc, to kill vehicles at long range. Tau struggle to get enough long-range anti-tank shooting, while IG players have to remind themselves not to take so many of their awesome anti-tank options that they fail to bring enough anti-infantry shooting.

"Every single foot IG list is going to have several LCs in blob squads"

Peregrine, what 40k do you play?

Look at lists that bring blobs and what you'll mostly see is 5x Power Axes, 5x Meltabombs and maybe 1 special weapon for increasing the wound pool range. I haven't seen too many IG lists taking Lascannons outside of their Vendettas.

Nowadays you don't need to bring as many tank poppin' weapons because there aren't as many tanks. I'd also say that GW definitely aren't reducing dedicated AT. The difference i'm noticing is less Str8+. Which certainly makes AV13-14 much more surivivable, but who cares? Massive amounts of Str.7 will take down almost anything that matters, ask Crons, ask GK. Tau can pack more durable Str.7 than any other army, they will have no problems destroying armored units.

 LValx wrote:
Look at lists that bring blobs and what you'll mostly see is 5x Power Axes, 5x Meltabombs and maybe 1 special weapon for increasing the wound pool range. I haven't seen too many IG lists taking Lascannons outside of their Vendettas.

Ok, every single pure IG foot list, not the token ATSKNF allied blob.

Nowadays you don't need to bring as many tank poppin' weapons because there aren't as many tanks.

I love it when people think this way.

 Peregrine wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Look at lists that bring blobs and what you'll mostly see is 5x Power Axes, 5x Meltabombs and maybe 1 special weapon for increasing the wound pool range. I haven't seen too many IG lists taking Lascannons outside of their Vendettas.

Ok, every single pure IG foot list, not the token ATSKNF allied blob.

Nowadays you don't need to bring as many tank poppin' weapons because there aren't as many tanks.

I love it when people think this way.

I love it when people think like you. Mech has too many decent counters and your scoring units will likely be small if taken in dedicated transports (the major way to get saturation). If you have Vendettas, thats expected, Manticores as well. But if that is all you are taking, most lists will have decent ways to deal with you (Necrons for example, have more efficient shooting and can take that stuff apart). I don't think mech works as well in this edition, you may disagree. I'd point to army lists taken at big events, they usually aren't mech based (unless Necron flyers). That's why the ASTKNF blob is everywhere. Most of the higher placing armies I see aren't taking as much mech as in 5th. The new hull point system made vehicles both more fragile and durable (they start to die to to attrition, in my experience).

I'm not saying mech can't work, I think for certain armies it can, but I don't think IG are one of them. Lascannons on blobs is, IMO, inefficient. I don't use Forge World and none of the folks I play use it, so I don't know about how awesome Sabres are. I hear they are really good. Vendettas seem to be the most efficient Lascannon platforms. But if you go second you may have to endure a whole armies worth of shooting while you are out 400 PTs for 2 turns.

 Peregrine wrote:
Ok, every single pure IG foot list, not the token ATSKNF allied blob.

I looked through IGMB's army list section and found... not a single 2k point pure IG list that had more than three or so lascannons in infantry squads, after about twenty or so lists. The most popular form of anti-tank was either a Vendetta or mechanized melta veterans (or Vendettas carrying melta veterans).

I have my doubts that it is anywhere near as prevelant as you lead it to believe.

 Melissia wrote:

Backfire wrote:
Why? Guard can take Lascannons in Fast Attack, Troops and Heavy Support

Lascannon sentinels are not all that popular. Lascannon in infantrymen is pretty expensive compared to just taking a missile launcher or autocannon or some meltaguns, and I almost never see them taken on veterans or CCSs, since that'd just be a waste of points. Better to just mount the vets in chimeras and give them meltaguns, it's much more effective, you'll kill more tanks that way. And on Leman Russes, lascannons are often skipped for the sake of points in many lists I see. The only way 10+ lascannons are ever taken, in my experience, is if the player spams vendettas. The Vendetta is already almost universally reviled as overpowered, so you'd not really get much argument if you mentioned that by name.

Vendetta's overpowered, but because it exists, most players use it to fullfill their Lascannon requirements. Hence your argument "Guard can take Lascannons in other units but they aren't popular" isn't really very good one. Tau, by contrast, can't take Railguns anywhere else, also can't take any heavy weapons for their Troops at all.

And whole point was that Guard CAN take tons of Lascannons and other long-range anti-tank weapons if they happen to need them. Tau can't.

Yeah but Tau can pack 60+ Str. 7 shots, most of which are twin-linked, along with ways to strip cover, boost BS, etc.

Tau might not have quality, but they have tons of quantity. I'd say that by taking a look at recent "strong" codices, it'll be come apparent that quantity > quality. Both Crons and GK don't have Str8+ in spades, but they do have massive amounts of Str.7 for cheap. So far it has worked out well for both of those codices and I think that Tau will be just fine as well.

I'd much rather have the HYMP than the old Broadside, but maybe i'm crazy for that.

 LValx wrote:
Yeah but Tau can pack 60+ Str. 7 shots, most of which are twin-linked, along with ways to strip cover, boost BS, etc.

Tau might not have quality, but they have tons of quantity. I'd say that by taking a look at recent "strong" codices, it'll be come apparent that quantity > quality. Both Crons and GK don't have Str8+ in spades, but they do have massive amounts

See, this is my problem. Tau are no longer finesse army. They are brute force spammy army, not unlike Storm of Dakka Orks. It's just infinitely more boring than old Tau where you really had to count your shots.

GK don't have S8 in spades?

Inn my meta i still meet Melta - (more plasma these days)
Havocs (mostly longfangs derp) with missle launchers.

Mhm what else...Hammer heads still there, as it's really the only str 10 (good source) they got.

Backfire wrote:

 LValx wrote:
Yeah but Tau can pack 60+ Str. 7 shots, most of which are twin-linked, along with ways to strip cover, boost BS, etc.

Tau might not have quality, but they have tons of quantity. I'd say that by taking a look at recent "strong" codices, it'll be come apparent that quantity > quality. Both Crons and GK don't have Str8+ in spades, but they do have massive amounts

See, this is my problem. Tau are no longer finesse army. They are brute force spammy army, not unlike Storm of Dakka Orks. It's just infinitely more boring than old Tau where you really had to count your shots.

GK don't have S8 in spades?

Psyflemen is about all they have. And those compete with Knights now. Either way, your more likely to see massed Str. 7. IMO, RoF beats quality in 6th. Its good to be able to fill multiple roles with your shooters. Broadsides do this very well.