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 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

I've played quite a lot of games against Tau and I still cannot think of a reliable counter to an ADL gunline.

I'll give you a hint. It starts with "M" and ends with "Anticores". Ally one in with IG.

Gaming group doesn't play alllies and if it's one unit in one army that can handle it, it's still ridiculous.

And all the "people that say Tau are OP are just crying babies" posts that are recycled like 50 times in this thread by the next cool guy to walk through the door are just as silly. I've never claimed Tau are OP or if they are, that I have a problem with it. I've said, time and time again, that my problem with Tau is not that I get crushed. I get crushed by a lot of people and smile at it. It's that I don't even get to put up a fight. It's. Not. Fun.

I play this game for fun. I don't know what your reason is, but I play it so that both me and my opponent can have a few hours of fun.

And other guys dont shut down my ability to play?

No. They make it so you can't win. There is a difference.

If I ran my paladin up your line. You fired all your ammo every turn, and I still came on you into CC with no wounds taken, then proceded to kill all your guys, that would equate to the feeling I have after a lot of Tau matches.
If I played Tau in the same situation, managed to kill half of those paladins, and then they came on me and killed all my guys, I'd be fine with that.

It's the complete inability to do ANY damage before you are destroyed that gets to me.

Wait Tau hate is new? Lol I've been playing since third and I was always under the impression most people bashed on the fish in gundams. For me it has always just been a boring one dimensional army to play against and I just personally don't like the esthisic. But to each there own.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Tau armies that don't spam certain non-troop units are fine and somewhat fun to play against. However, castled-up missile-side spam is obnoxious, especially when used with a riptide or two.

This is another thing, Why do i get yelled at for taking good units?
Riptides are good, but i only have 1.
So what if i run 4 misslesides with 4 drones? with them being ap4 most armies are safe against them.

Maybe the people that are most upset play a lot of kill point games. Thats what tau are good at, killing stuff. We are not very good at surviving. Wipe out our troops(and when damn near everything seems to have ap4 that shouldnt be too hard) and we have to table our opponent to win. Play us in kill points and you're likely to lose.

Im just so shocked that people dont put artillery in every list(except tau because we dont have it, its ok though we have ML instead), because i see a lot of people bring an ADL, Its not like its ONLY good against tau infantry, its good against anything willing to stay put.

When it comes to Tau, they seem to be a bit too powerful at the moment as 40k has shifted to a more shooting game then it has in past editions. Now personally I don't think Tau or OP, every army has a weakness, however the Tau's weakness, which is CC for the most part, it is pretty much hard for many to achieve as GW weakened the assault phase, giving them a slight edge over most armies. The only thing Tau have that I think needs to be fixed is the Marker Light spam, as it is kinda ridiculous on how they can use it for over-watch and see that 6+ snap shot turn into a 2+ due to so many of them. Limiting it to only a 4+ max would be fair in my opinion.

But besides that, Tau are not hard for me to deal with. Recently played a nasty Tau list, where is I'm honest, the Tau player was very cocky and laughing as he just demolished everyone, and he challenged me to a game when I told him I play Space Marines. Well, unfortunately for him I ran a Pedro-Sternguard Drop Pod list with 3x units of Sternguard, each with 5x Combi-Flamers and Combi-Meltas that came in turn one right in front of his Aegis Defense Line. Long story short, he was massacred by turn 2 and began complaining on how the Drop Pod list was OP. Well, since the Marines are getting a new book soon and with the way many books are going, I can't wait to see how the Drop Pod list will be updated in the new book =D. But lists that can get into the Tau's face by turn one tend to have great success against them.

 Rommel44 wrote:
When it comes to Tau, they seem to be a bit too powerful at the moment as 40k has shifted to a more shooting game then it has in past editions. Now personally I don't think Tau or OP, every army has a weakness, however the Tau's weakness, which is CC for the most part, it is pretty much hard for many to achieve as GW weakened the assault phase, giving them a slight edge over most armies. The only thing Tau have that I think needs to be fixed is the Marker Light spam, as it is kinda ridiculous on how they can use it for over-watch and see that 6+ snap shot turn into a 2+ due to so many of them. Limiting it to only a 4+ max would be fair in my opinion.

But besides that, Tau are not hard for me to deal with. Recently played a nasty Tau list, where is I'm honest, the Tau player was very cocky and laughing as he just demolished everyone, and he challenged me to a game when I told him I play Space Marines. Well, unfortunately for him I ran a Pedro-Sternguard Drop Pod list with 3x units of Sternguard, each with 5x Combi-Flamers and Combi-Meltas that came in turn one right in front of his Aegis Defense Line. Long story short, he was massacred by turn 2 and began complaining on how the Drop Pod list was OP. Well, since the Marines are getting a new book soon and with the way many books are going, I can't wait to see how the Drop Pod list will be updated in the new book =D. But lists that can into the Tau's face by turn one tend to have great success against them.

I can agree to basically everything except the marker lights.

an army that is spamming them will be wasting a ton of points to bump up 1 or 2 units at most to only ignore cover and hit near 100%. those marker lights being generally on very squishy low LD models. or armor 4+ on a wasted hq slot.

and in overwatch, those squads need to be within 6" of a charge or being charge to even get to fire them, at most getting 2 hits. thats only a bump to bs 4 at most unless multiple marker squads are within 6".

you should be able to jink and use cover against markerlights, it's annoying not having any defence against them except being out of LOS.

But tau have always been able to ignore cover. ML have always had that ability

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But tau have always been able to ignore cover. ML have always had that ability

They did? Odd, I don't recall a tau springing that one on me last edition. I just remember the +1 bs bonus.

That doesn't mean it's right. It just feels odd that it's as easy to hit a stationary tank as it is to hit a fast moving jetbike, or being behind fortifications offers no protection from it.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But tau have always been able to ignore cover. ML have always had that ability

They did? Odd, I don't recall a tau springing that one on me last edition. I just remember the +1 bs bonus.

It was 1 marker light to bump up bs +1 up to bs 5, -1 ld for pinning?, -1 cover save, and shoot a seeker from wherever

so before you would need a marker for each cover instead of 2 for ignore cover now ( which i prefer)

Edit: The whole reason the marker lights are heavy is that the model is siting there painting the target the whole time until impact.

its not like a marker dart that sticks on the enemy and besides that even in today technology, we can pre lase a target that a smart missile or bomb can track even after the lase is off. (if i recall the new javalen system uses that so that the solder can shoot and scoot to avoid retaliatory fire)

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But tau have always been able to ignore cover. ML have always had that ability

Forgive me but wasn't it slightly different? I thought there was something like you can pick to ignore cover but only have a bs of 3 or increase bs

Ah whoops thank you for explaining it. Knew it was something but never fought our local tau player all that much. And yeah you would love 2 marker lights removing cover xD he he (granted I doubt plasma would be able to curve down. You plan to go to ground for a cover save where they can hardly even see you let alone hit you? See the corner of an arm just barely? CURVING FRIGGIN PLASMA!)

 StarTrotter wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But tau have always been able to ignore cover. ML have always had that ability

Forgive me but wasn't it slightly different? I thought there was something like you can pick to ignore cover but only have a bs of 3 or increase bs

Ah whoops thank you for explaining it. Knew it was something but never fought our local tau player all that much. And yeah you would love 2 marker lights removing cover xD he he (granted I doubt plasma would be able to curve down. You plan to go to ground for a cover save where they can hardly even see you let alone hit you? See the corner of an arm just barely? CURVING FRIGGIN PLASMA!)

I swear, the tau are using aimbots!

You could always strip cover, and the limit was boosting BS could not get better then BS5.

It just took a bit more marks to totally remove cover, and the units with the markers were generally bad.

Now that they are actually worth a damn, it still leaves the markers on either a lousy guardsman that got to stand still, or the drone who can't aim unless a commander babysits it.

And both are easy kills, just shoot the damn thing. if they made it past turn 2, you are doing something wrong.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Tau armies that don't spam certain non-troop units are fine and somewhat fun to play against. However, castled-up missile-side spam is obnoxious, especially when used with a riptide or two.

This is another thing, Why do i get yelled at for taking good units?
Riptides are good, but i only have 1.
So what if i run 4 misslesides with 4 drones? with them being ap4 most armies are safe against them.

4 missile-sides is hardly spamming....9 missile-sides, now that's spamming. Also, AP4 is a non-factor when you deal out wounds in bulk like 9 missile-sides can. If AP4 was as harmless as you make it sound, missile-sides wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as they are now.

I hate the Tau for lots of reasons, two of which aren't from the table top, but one is.

1) The anime-esque battlesuits and tanks. While the basic troops and drones look pretty badass IMO, the battlesuits look utterly out-of-place in Warhammer 40,000 and would (I believe) be less out of place in, say, Gundam. Much the same could be said about their tanks.

2) The relative insignificance of the army in the fluff. The Tau have just over a hundred systems, yes? At one point I heard as low as 14, but that's even lower than I anticipated. Anyways, I would have rather seen a badass Barghesi army, or perhaps the Adeptus Mechanicus, or maybe a CraftWorld Eldar codex, than something pulled completely out of the blue. This is not just limited to the 6th codex, I mean this is how I've always felt about Tau.

3) Their battlefield shenanigans. This is the table-top one. The fact that their army can ignore cover, have interceptor, have skyfire, have snipers, have resilient vehicles, have deep-striking and effective anti-tank and anti-infantry, overwatch at full BS, overwatch one charging unit with multiple units, etc. all drive me nuts.

I play a gunline-esque army. I play Armored Battlegroup, and my 1700 point list is ten Leman Russ hulls, including two Vanquishers and two Thunderers, with the rest being basic. My shenanigans are: tough vehicles (against shooting), powerful shooting (sometimes, depending on cover), aaaaaannnnndddd that's about it. Many games I get wrecked because soldiers ran across the field, sticking to cover, than glued meltabombs or krak grenades to my tailpipe because I couldn't overwatch them.

The tau have vehicles with about the same toughness (AV14 ~ AV12-13 w/ jink + disruption pods), better shooting, can overwatch (at full ballistic skill no less!) can overwatch (at full ballistic skill no less) with multiple units simultaneously, can deep-strike, have skyfire on something other than a Hydra, and have interceptor on something period.

Their disadvantages are:
1) Low leadership ([sarcasm]because this matters outside of close combat[/sarcasm])
2) Bad at CC (yes, yes they are. With the aforementioned advantages, however, it is largely irrelevant).
aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnndddddd that's about it.

DISCLAIMER: I, like some others in this thread, have an irrational hatred of Tau and have always had one. I apologize if any of this post came across as rude.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I hate the Tau for lots of reasons, two of which aren't from the table top, but one is.

1) The anime-esque battlesuits and tanks. While the basic troops and drones look pretty badass IMO, the battlesuits look utterly out-of-place in Warhammer 40,000 and would (I believe) be less out of place in, say, Gundam. Much the same could be said about their tanks.

I'm not going to address everything, but this one I will certainly address. Why does Tau always get smacked for looking "out of place"?

Who looks anime now?

I'm seeing a tread here. One that I brought up when I first posted.

Some people just do not like Tau. Period. They do not think Tau fits into 40k and they feel like the Tau's like could have been another race.

Hrud, Admech, Ect. Doesn't matter, Anything else would have sufficed. And like I said this isn't just something trapped to Neckbeards. I'd be willing to bet most people who posted on this topic, Be it pro or Anti Tau, are decent folks who just like or dislike Tau.


At the end of the day, this is something that is applied to Tau Players that you'll have to deal with, Hotsauceman. It's almost no different than people disliking anything else you and I enjoy.

The codex does have a lot of powerful and strange wargear in it, but the Tau were never strangers to weird stuff in the codex. It's just been so long since our last update, most of the new players don't remember the Magical Xeno Empires of 4th edition.

Yes Tau are nothing compared to any other race, fluff wise, but they were initially made to cash in on Anime money in 3rd during the big anime bubble, but after GW figured out that alone, combined with all the crazy nonsense in the 3rd edtion codex, wouldn't move the army, they focused it to represent the little people were made to represent the smaller factions that otherwise wouldn't be mentioned.

Ignore it, Relish in the tears, or avoid it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

3) Their battlefield shenanigans. This is the table-top one. The fact that their army can ignore cover, have interceptor, have skyfire, have snipers, have resilient vehicles, have deep-striking and effective anti-tank and anti-infantry, overwatch at full BS, overwatch one charging unit with multiple units, etc. all drive me nuts.

Their disadvantages are:
1) Low leadership ([sarcasm]because this matters outside of close combat[/sarcasm])
2) Bad at CC (yes, yes they are. With the aforementioned advantages, however, it is largely irrelevant).
aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnndddddd that's about it.

Ok, I can't help it, I'm hitting this too: yes we can do all that, but not at the same time. Those are all individual weapons/wargear. We have to buy all those advantages. Our tank doesn't even come with a gun...we have to buy it (this was worse in the old codex where we put a 50 point gun on a 90 point tank, but it's still a thing). All of the talk about "tau can break all the rules" is because we can break rules with our wargear, but not all of them every game.

Disagvantages: our basic troop leadership is 7...7 ORKS have leadership 7, AND an alternate leadership rule! Imagine failing 40% of the leadership checks you have to make. That's why we take Ethereals, and now you have a t3 no save model you can kill for a free victory point. (sorry, i got a little carried away there, moving on).

And bad in close combat is a legitimate advantage, it's just that the basic game rules made it very hard to get in close combat. Once 7th edition gets released and close combat is back on top (like it's been in every other edition since 3rd) we will probably suck again, since overwatch probably won't even exist anymore and so our army special rule will be useless.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

3) Their battlefield shenanigans. This is the table-top one. The fact that their army can ignore cover, have interceptor, have skyfire, have snipers, have resilient vehicles, have deep-striking and effective anti-tank and anti-infantry, overwatch at full BS, overwatch one charging unit with multiple units, etc. all drive me nuts.

Their disadvantages are:
1) Low leadership ([sarcasm]because this matters outside of close combat[/sarcasm])
2) Bad at CC (yes, yes they are. With the aforementioned advantages, however, it is largely irrelevant).
aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnndddddd that's about it.

Ok, I can't help it, I'm hitting this too: yes we can do all that, but not at the same time. Those are all individual weapons/wargear. We have to buy all those advantages. Our tank doesn't even come with a gun...we have to buy it (this was worse in the old codex where we put a 50 point gun on a 90 point tank, but it's still a thing). All of the talk about "tau can break all the rules" is because we can break rules with our wargear, but not all of them every game.

Disagvantages: our basic troop leadership is 7...7 ORKS have leadership 7, AND an alternate leadership rule! Imagine failing 40% of the leadership checks you have to make. That's why we take Ethereals, and now you have a t3 no save model you can kill for a free victory point. (sorry, i got a little carried away there, moving on).

And bad in close combat is a legitimate advantage, it's just that the basic game rules made it very hard to get in close combat. Once 7th edition gets released and close combat is back on top (like it's been in every other edition since 3rd) we will probably suck again, since overwatch probably won't even exist anymore and so our army special rule will be useless.

You may not be able to do all of those things at the same time. But you can still do them if one is absolutely necessary. Many (I would go so far as to say most) armies cannot do one or more of them at all.

Leadership 7 is only really bad if you flee and then can't rally, i.e. at the end of close combat. Otherwise it's nearly a 60% chance of passing, which means even a squad that does break will rally next turn unless the dice gods really do not like you that day. I would also like to mention that basic Guard are LD7 and then LD8 with sergeants, just like Tau.

And the basic rules don't make it THAT hard to get into close combat. My Black Templars (!) still manage it against every other army in the game except Tau. That's not a basic rule problem.

Th game i mentioned, 3 unitis over watching, 1 dead.
Yeah, SO OP

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Th game i mentioned, 3 unitis over watching, 1 dead.
Yeah, SO OP

That one model, more likely than not, can alter the charge distance by as much as 3" given coherency and spreading to avoid blasts. So yes, it's very op. I just lost 1/4 of my maximum charge distance, and roughly half of my average charge distance.

That can happen in any overwatch though

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
That can happen in any overwatch though

The Tau hitting on full BS with more than one unit significantly increases the chances compared to a single unit hitting on 6's. You don't see why that might be a problem?

Would a single unit firing at BS1 have still killed that model in all likelyhood?

I just hate tau in general always have always will except for Aun shi that dudes a badass its their fluff that does it for me teir whole greater good concept grinds my gears

Most Tau hate comes from several different sources: first, the fluff purists who don't bother to read the Tau fluff before declaring that they don't sound GRIMDARK enough to fit into the rest of the galaxy (hint: 1984 is a very, very dark book about a society that spouted a lot of rhetoric about peace, truth, love, etc), second, the poor sports, who complain that every new book is overpowered because they haven't figured out the holes in it yet, third, the nostalgic GW-sucks whiners who gripe about everything, and fourth, people with legitimate and well-thought-out concerns about some aspect of the rules or the fluff. Distinguishing between the four categories can be a chore, but I have yet another hint: people who give you a single unpunctuated run-on sentence about how much they hate the Tau and people who sit around presenting single in-game anecdotes about the Tau being really, really good at the stuff they're designed to be really, really good at aren't the ones with legitimate and well-thought-out concerns.

What upgrade allows Tau to overwatch at full ballistic skill? I have a Tau codex and I somehow seem to have overlooked this mythical gem entirely. Tau -do- have an upgrade that they can purchase for their battlesuits that allows them to overwatch at ballistic skill two. Unless you are talking of overwatching with markerlights, then increasing the overwatch to hit roll of the unit being charged. Even then.. the likeliness of that working out so perfectly is low.

Nightwolf829 wrote:
What upgrade allows Tau to overwatch at full ballistic skill? I have a Tau codex and I somehow seem to have overlooked this mythical gem entirely. Tau -do- have an upgrade that they can purchase for their battlesuits that allows them to overwatch at ballistic skill two. Unless you are talking of overwatching with markerlights, then increasing the overwatch to hit roll of the unit being charged. Even then.. the likeliness of that working out so perfectly is low.

Exactly, very rarely will your marker lights even hit.

Nightwolf829 wrote:
What upgrade allows Tau to overwatch at full ballistic skill? I have a Tau codex and I somehow seem to have overlooked this mythical gem entirely. Tau -do- have an upgrade that they can purchase for their battlesuits that allows them to overwatch at ballistic skill two. Unless you are talking of overwatching with markerlights, then increasing the overwatch to hit roll of the unit being charged. Even then.. the likeliness of that working out so perfectly is low.

I believe it has to do with the Marker Lights or there Etheral leader, can't remember exactly, however that is my only beef with these guys as I find that being able to over-watch with a decent BS is a bit overpowered to say the least, especially against assaulting armies. But besides that they aren't as scary as people make them out to be. Drop-Pod lists, Leman Russ spam lists, and even mass infantry armies usually do well, and air superiority lists are also effective in my experience.

Nightwolf829 wrote:
What upgrade allows Tau to overwatch at full ballistic skill? I have a Tau codex and I somehow seem to have overlooked this mythical gem entirely. Tau -do- have an upgrade that they can purchase for their battlesuits that allows them to overwatch at ballistic skill two. Unless you are talking of overwatching with markerlights, then increasing the overwatch to hit roll of the unit being charged. Even then.. the likeliness of that working out so perfectly is low.

That is what I think that individual was mentioning which admittedly is, as you put, a tad over dramatic. Admittedly, Tau overwatch (if we have a unit of 6) is likely to get a single 6 meaning overwatch will be at bs3 for battlesuits (if they got the upgrade) and bs2 for troops.