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I know one guy on another forum who's a friend of mine who goes to a club where they play competitively but ban the scummy and overpowered strategies like Farsight bombs, and they get along fine.

Really? "Scummy"? I love statements like this. Who decides what "Scummy" is? On one hand you're saying you don't "get" casual players and on the other you're advocating an arbitrary and artificial limitation on something that was apparently deemed too competitive. Ugh.

The Farsight Bomb can be powerful but there's almost nothing behind it. If you don't have the hitting power to take it down then just play to the mission and 9 times out of 10 you'll probably either beat it or at least have a good go of it. I feel like players in general have lost touch with the "tactics" part of the game in recent years.

Are you playing with the current terrain rules? I have seen a lot of Tau armies go down in my local area just to the fact that they couldn't shoot past a certain distance because of terrain blocking los. I am not saying this is a dead fix for the issues you are bringing up but honestly there are variables outside of just terrain. A commanders ability with strategy, dice rolls, game objectives and so on.

OP has clearly never played a guard player.

Farsite bomb being overpowering is a freaking joke. In a game where objectives matter more than anything else and the fact that you can easily tie up almost all units it is relatively easy for one commander to tie up the bomb and make it so that the unit is useless for the duration of the turns that matter...

I never understood banning certain units because no one wants to take the time to figure out strategy in trying to get rid of the problem.

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

So then playing against an Imperial Guard list that spams Vendettas is fine but anything Codex Tau comes out with just happens to be too good and OP?

Flying Toaster wrote:
Tau are weak against assault, you have to get to them but it is not hard to do so. Drop pods or deepstriking work wonders. I don't understand this generalized complaining about an army that is good at shooting and somehow because they are good at one thing they must be OP.

Deep Striking into an army that has tons of options for Interceptor and who gets to shoot you before you can charge anyway isn't very reliable.

Interceptor is good, but it's limited in use. Riptides and Broadsides are the only realy units that would really use it and some actually favor skyfire on the broadsides as opposed to interceptor. Riptides have a largeblast with no buffs and still has huge potential to scatter. If I were playing against Tau I'd drop pod as close to his units as possible so that those templates scatter where he doesn't want or he doesn't bother to shoot. As strong as Tau shooting is, they are vulnerable as they have ever been. So with a sufficient amount of deepstriking units you can do a lot of damage to Tau lines.

Tau troops and tanks are just as mobile as anything else. The only unique mobility feature is the Jetpack which only offers limited mobility but isn't really impossible to catch with a fast assault list. I've had plenty of games where I was left with no where to run because of fast moving armies.

Random charge and overwatch was made by 6th ed, it has nothing to do with Tau. Where Tau do get a boost is the support fire ability, which is honestly not that big of a boost. If they're castling up to gain the benefit then they are extermely vulnerable to large blasts. If they are spread out then they don't get the benefits at all.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
Tau are weak against assault, you have to get to them but it is not hard to do so. Drop pods or deepstriking work wonders. I don't understand this generalized complaining about an army that is good at shooting and somehow because they are good at one thing they must be OP.

Deep Striking into an army that has tons of options for Interceptor and who gets to shoot you before you can charge anyway isn't very reliable.

So then the argument is just don't try?

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

How do Tau not care or completely ignore certain things in this game? I feel like that is a bad player who just doesn't care about one of the aspects of this game, you have to be mindful of everything in this game in order to get better.

Flying Toaster wrote:

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

So then playing against an Imperial Guard list that spams Vendettas is fine but anything Codex Tau comes out with just happens to be too good and OP?

Nobody said anything about spamming Vendettas.

While you will encounter them against Guard, no doubt, the talking point was the similarity in playstyles between the two and the discussion on what makes for good internal balance.

Yes, the vendetta is OP, but then again many would argue so is the Riptide. Most books have a unit that is spammed to hell and back by competetive players. That isn't the point. The point is that, individual unit issues aside, the Tau book as a whole went from 'we are strong in shooting but weak to melee' to 'we are EXTREMELY strong in shooting but weak to melee, but don't care because you won't get there based on how the book was designed'

Yea, you might not be able to assault them sometimes, but only if the Tau player is smart and has set up his units right. Tau care a lot about getting into assault, in that they want to avoid it to win, that is why the new codex gave them a better chance of not getting into close combat. This goes along the same lines that the Tau have always played with since the very beginning. How is that a problem?

More accurately the book went from "We are on par or worse with other armies for shooting, even if they aren't shooting based, and terrible in CC" to "We are strong in shooting and weak to melee, but the changes to 6th hinder a lot of melee options and we have one option to castle against melee armies but become more vulnerable to large blasts."

XenosTerminus wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:

XenosTerminus wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
OP has clearly never played a guard player.

On the contrary, I have quite a few times (our local Tau player also plays IG). I find it to be boring to fight just like Tau (if they go gunline, which most do).

As I stated, however, IG is fine. Their shooting strength is balanced by other weaknesses, all of which Tau rarely care about when capitalized on.

So then playing against an Imperial Guard list that spams Vendettas is fine but anything Codex Tau comes out with just happens to be too good and OP?

Nobody said anything about spamming Vendettas.

While you will encounter them against Guard, no doubt, the talking point was the similarity in playstyles between the two and the discussion on what makes for good internal balance.

Yes, the vendetta is OP, but then again many would argue so is the Riptide. Most books have a unit that is spammed to hell and back by competetive players. That isn't the point. The point is that, individual unit issues aside, the Tau book as a whole went from 'we are strong in shooting but weak to melee' to 'we are EXTREMELY strong in shooting but weak to melee, but don't care because you won't get there based on how the book was designed'

Or it could be that both the Tau book and 6th ed in general make the Tau EXTREMELY strong in shooting. The Tau book alone if looked at does not make the army superior in the shooting phase then all other 6th ed armies. It has one specialized rule in regards entirely to shooting: Supporting Fire. Granted marker lights also aid shooting but you have to bring in units, and drones that give markerlight support.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Flying Toaster wrote:
Tau are weak against assault, you have to get to them but it is not hard to do so. Drop pods or deepstriking work wonders. I don't understand this generalized complaining about an army that is good at shooting and somehow because they are good at one thing they must be OP.

Deep Striking into an army that has tons of options for Interceptor and who gets to shoot you before you can charge anyway isn't very reliable.

Coughbaitouttheinterceptcough...
The only time intercept is good is if you go first as otherwise you lose an entire round of shooting and a extra phase of shooting. and in ether case that's an entire turn to bumb rush into there field And lock into there TROOPS (or broadsides) not there riptide.

besides that you dont have to charge.

all out shooting them is good enough to cripple most tau army but locking in is just gravy as it stops a riptide from shooting ( who wont be shooting again for a bit if intercepted).

with an LD of 7 they will flee relatively 50/50 though it requires you to remove there ethereal if they had taken one.

just me 2cents on interceptor.

I've been watching this thread with some interest for a while now, while the OP does raise some very good points and in some elements yes the tau can be bent to the point of brokenness especially now that we have the farsight book in the mix as well but I've been a tau player for years (since 2004) and have always played farsight heavy lists and had to struggle over the years because as soon as you hit a 2k points match you simply ran out of things you could play, I remember a game where I literally ran out of heavy support choices so had to take sniper drones which against the other options is something I'm loathed to do but back in the day we had some pretty large limitations that we had to overcome, have tau gone to far? I don't really think so, I run a fairly solid list and still get turned over by solid marine tactics, I've not had the pleasure of face guard in full force yet but demons especially tzeentch focused lists always give me trouble, I hear a lot of complaining from people at my club because the tau are the top dogs at the moment but few of these realised that up until April the tau were very much losing power, yes we still had a solid dex but against the more modern books we constantly got our backsides handed to us and the community all but died out at one point, but the thing to remember is the tau book was a bolt out of the blue no one expected it to be quite this good and given that last addition as soon as you hit a tau line they crumbled, giving the army things like supporting fire and even riptides has allowed us to deal with encroaching threats better than we ever used to, yes the book can be abused, yes I own 3 riptides and for tournament play I will often put 2-3 of them down but that's what tournaments are about, bringing your best, but at heart I am still a casual gamer and competitive play does somewhat spoil the game slightly but if I go to a tourney and face turkey spam for example I now can compete against it rather than just get tabled, for casual play I have 7000 points of tau to select from and while I will very rarely leave farsight at home I will make him less over powered,

We still haven't had all the books out for this edition and I can remember when the helldrake came out people were complaining then about OP but give enough time and the rest of the books will be brought up to the same level and in some cases may even surpass the tau in power, there's even been a slight shift in my community as well as people are adapting to the tau now and changing up their tactics (not necessarily their lists) and finding loop holes to exploit and these are often take all comers lists that are being put down as well,

Do I like this book? Yes I love it but I still miss S10 railguns on my broadsides and the fact that I used to be the only one who would put farsight on the board due to his restrictions but his speed and versatility more than made up for it, but I also like that there is a proper tau community out there now rather than dead board threads and as has been said before the people with the biggest problem always seem to be the ones who used to steam roll us everytime due to our lack of ability to counter assault effectively or deal with more than 1-2 threats at a time, tau can be beat but it just takes a little more these days and even those OP demon lists I mentioned before can be shut down by the right list as well, I think sportsmanship and good humour are better assets in this game than simply winning or complaining because you can't as easily anymore,

My 2p anyway,

whitewolf0158 wrote:
I've been watching this thread with some interest for a while now, while the OP does raise some very good points and in some elements yes the tau can be bent to the point of brokenness especially now that we have the farsight book in the mix as well but I've been a tau player for years (since 2004) and have always played farsight heavy lists and had to struggle over the years because as soon as you hit a 2k points match you simply ran out of things you could play, I remember a game where I literally ran out of heavy support choices so had to take sniper drones which against the other options is something I'm loathed to do but back in the day we had some pretty large limitations that we had to overcome, have tau gone to far? I don't really think so, I run a fairly solid list and still get turned over by solid marine tactics, I've not had the pleasure of face guard in full force yet but demons especially tzeentch focused lists always give me trouble, I hear a lot of complaining from people at my club because the tau are the top dogs at the moment but few of these realised that up until April the tau were very much losing power, yes we still had a solid dex but against the more modern books we constantly got our backsides handed to us and the community all but died out at one point, but the thing to remember is the tau book was a bolt out of the blue no one expected it to be quite this good and given that last addition as soon as you hit a tau line they crumbled, giving the army things like supporting fire and even riptides has allowed us to deal with encroaching threats better than we ever used to, yes the book can be abused, yes I own 3 riptides and for tournament play I will often put 2-3 of them down but that's what tournaments are about, bringing your best, but at heart I am still a casual gamer and competitive play does somewhat spoil the game slightly but if I go to a tourney and face turkey spam for example I now can compete against it rather than just get tabled, for casual play I have 7000 points of tau to select from and while I will very rarely leave farsight at home I will make him less over powered,

We still haven't had all the books out for this edition and I can remember when the helldrake came out people were complaining then about OP but give enough time and the rest of the books will be brought up to the same level and in some cases may even surpass the tau in power, there's even been a slight shift in my community as well as people are adapting to the tau now and changing up their tactics (not necessarily their lists) and finding loop holes to exploit and these are often take all comers lists that are being put down as well,

Do I like this book? Yes I love it but I still miss S10 railguns on my broadsides and the fact that I used to be the only one who would put farsight on the board due to his restrictions but his speed and versatility more than made up for it, but I also like that there is a proper tau community out there now rather than dead board threads and as has been said before the people with the biggest problem always seem to be the ones who used to steam roll us everytime due to our lack of ability to counter assault effectively or deal with more than 1-2 threats at a time, tau can be beat but it just takes a little more these days and even those OP demon lists I mentioned before can be shut down by the right list as well, I think sportsmanship and good humour are better assets in this game than simply winning or complaining because you can't as easily anymore,

My 2p anyway,

Wow. I think you rolled a couple of these: and people were all like

Pretty much, as soon as I could take the new raven O' I found people's moods had changed to the tau, I left my list largely the same as with the last book but with just one or two additions ( I'm a massive mecha/ robot geek so of course I was going to get a riptide) what hasn't helped is the level of WAAC band wagoners that have jumped on in recent months and I would say allies to a certain extend has distorted the mix a little as I now see tau allies with almost every army, again mostly with WAAC or "those guys" but I still think people take this game to seriously,

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

It's probably the worst lore thing I've seen done to a unit in the longest while

vroooom vROOOOOOOM we are space robot motor cyclists!

...Original necron destroyers?

...at the very least, their drivers looked were they were going ._.

Ok, so after much deliberation and debate I am just going to have to agree to disagree on a lot of the counter-points, especially from a lot of the Tau players commenting lately. Tau is a strong book, no doubt. If the book itself presents too much of a challenge for what has worked for nearly two editions casually, I can't think of what else to do than literally bring better lists, as much as it pains me as a fluffy/fun player.

DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE ME DO YOU DAMN FISH PEOPLE!?

That being said, I challenged our play groups Tau player to another game, 1850. I will be bringing my DA.

This is the list I have crafted. Feel free to comment or offer suggestions:

Codex Dark Angels- 1850 Points

HQ: 190 Points

Belial- 190 Points
-Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield

Troops: 1075

Deathwing Terminator Squad- 480 Points
+5 additional Deathwing Terminators
+5x Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields
+Plasma Cannon
+Assault Cannon
+Chainfist

Tactical Squad- 220 Points
+5 additional Space Marines
+Plasma Pistol (Space Marine Sergeant)
+Plasma Gun
+Plasma Cannon

Dedicated Transport w/Locater Beacon- Drop Pod: 45 Points

Tactical Squad- 220 Points
+5 additional Space Marines
+Plasma Pistol (Space Marine Sergeant)
+Plasma Gun
+Plasma Cannon

Dedicated Transport w/Locater Beacon- Drop Pod: 45 Points

Scout Squad- 155 Points
+5 additional Scouts
-9x Sniper Rifles
+Missile Launcher
+Camo Cloaks

Fast Attack: 220 Points

Assault Squad- 110 Points
+Plasma Pistol (Sergeant)
+Flamer x2

Assault Squad- 110 Points
+Plasma Pistol (Sergeant)
+Flamer x2

Heavy Support: 345 Points

Devastator Squad- 150 Points
+Lascannon x4

Devastator Squad- 130 Points
+Missile Launcher x4

Whirlwind

Looks golden though i personally i feel all those plasma pistols are a bit excessive. (should be fine though)

also remove the points costs for upgrade and add it together per unit (against the ruuuuules)

Edit: also i think you should skip the plasma cannons on the tacs if they are podding in as it wont be firing for a turn. (do DA have combat squads?)

 Desubot wrote:
Looks golden though i personally i feel all those plasma pistols are a bit excessive. (should be fine though)

also remove the points costs for upgrade and add it together per unit (against the ruuuuules)

Edit: also i think you should skip the plasma cannons on the tacs if they are podding in as it wont be firing for a turn. (do DA have combat squads?)

Edited out points- forgot about that.

A lot of people tend to bring Combi-weapons on sergeants, which I had considered- I just figured more plasma is better (since the greater collective has deemed it better than melta, and I have plenty of flamers for the few oddball squads in cover).

DA can combat squad. I could split them up, or take Multi-meltats instead of the cannons... I am not sure how effective that would be though, since a snap fired shot the turn you land won't do much. My logic was they drop, blast away at infantry, an MC, or even take 3 plasma shots at a vehicles side armor... then fire plasma full force next turn.

I know a lot of people dislike scouts/whirlwinds, but against Tau they are actually pretty good. The scouts serve doubly as a cheap backfield objective camper who can also take pot shots at Riptides/potentially Pin Infantry.

The Whirlwind is actually very useful against Tau from my experience- especially if he brings Kroot/Pathfinders, or even Drones (S5 AP4 Blast)

The main reason i say less plasma pistols is that they are st 7 and wont instal kill broadsides or crisis suits. unless taken in force per unit (enough to whip a unit of 3 (6 wounds at least + drones) its not always worth it. but if you can rad them it would be a funny way of removing em

I was going to suggest a Whirlwind I hate those things, but you have it covered. Honestly hit fast and hit hard. Your Tau opponent will not know what happened. I have found that a lot of fellow Tau players in my area are reactionary players so if you have a purpose and know what units to ignore such as the riptide you are golden. Rule of thumb. If it takes more than 2 turns to take it out it is better to ignore it.

I have a deep respect for DA and love to see them fielded you will have to let us know how the game goes.

Actually one more suggestion it might be worth it to take an extra whirlwind. The Imperiums creed of 2 is better than one really goes well here.

Tau is a strong book, no doubt. If the book itself presents too much of a challenge for what has worked for nearly two editions casually, I can't think of what else to do than literally bring better lists, as much as it pains me as a fluffy/fun player.

That's your problem right there. An army list that "has worked for two editions" is absolutely no guarantee that it will work in *this* edition. 40K is very much an "adapt or die" style of game, Codex to Codex, Edition to Edition.

I am going to have to agree with the above post. The game changes all the time and dramatically sometimes. Just think Tau has had to change their play-style through 2 editions and during each new codex release.

That's my issue with the book as I stated earlier. I expect to have to swap a thing or two around when a new dex comes out. But the Tau dex literally made me change nearly my entire TaC list. Others I might need to add or get rid of something like adding a unit for anti air but the Tau one really made me change everything and that is my problem with it. Another armies book should not have that huge of an effect on what I bring some change yes but this was to much. Guess I will see what happens with the other codex's yet to come.

So let me try to understand this...

Because you have to change your army list that makes the codex bad? I think that is what you are trying to say. How about the part in which Tau have had no change whatsoever for 10 years, have had to change their playstyle through the edition changes and other army codex changes yet their codex changes to be a part of 6th edition and it is too much of a change?

If that is the case then we need to add Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons to the list of armies that just have had too much change.

I think you are taking my statement rather personal. I stated what my issue is with the Tau book that's all. My issue is that another armies book made me change my entire army not just make some adjustments change my army. My personal feeling is that another armies codex should not have that extreme and effect on my army.
Eldar I have yet to determine but I think I could just make a few adjustments to my old list and do ok GK I hardly had to adjust and Necrons I added a quad gun and sometimes another flyer. Not extreme changes like I said though I have not faced new eldar enough to determine what if any changes I would need to make.

I am not taking anything personally at all, forgive me if I came off as aggressive that was not my intent.

like I stated earlier, this game changes regularly I am quite shocked that you never had to make major army changes because of the edition changes that have taken place is all.