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Does not a pistol count as a melee weapon? Bikers have pistols.

Maybe they can trade the boltguns on the bikes.

Nope and nope But it'll get fixed.

On a slightly related note, lets say you put 3 gravs on a bike squad and you roll two 6's against a vehicle. Does that ammount to 3 hull points and an immobile result ? Since in the brb it states that subsequent immobile results become an extra hullpoint instead.

Page 51 of the BRB states that pistols can be used as a cc weapon, and actually state that it uses the profile for a cc weapon in that section, and ignores the ranged stats.

As such, when using pistols in cc they gain the stats of a cc weapon, which includes the melee rule, and therefore pistols should be considered melee weapons that can be replaced by special weapons.

As for grav vs. vehicles, it makes sense from a fluff perspective, since you're altering the physics around the vehicle, not hitting the vehicle with a shell or something. Still, I could see them FAQing that to allow for vehicle cover saves for balance purposes.

The point though, is that bikers may take special weapons under the rules just fine and grav can totally ignore vehicle cover saves, which means your grav bikers can totally rip through Tau riptides and vehicles just fine.

It's best policy to play by RAW, not RAI. RAI has a horrible tendency to turn into whatever is best for the person doing the intending.

So for right now, no special weapons for bikes. Else, you are cheating.

Martel732 wrote:
It's best policy to play by RAW, not RAI. RAI has a horrible tendency to turn into whatever is best for the person doing the intending.

So for right now, no special weapons for bikes. Else, you are cheating.

Except it's not necessarily rules as intended. Read BRB page 51. It says pistols can be used as a cc weapon, which implies is has two weapon profiles, a melee profile and a ranged profile. The melee profile makes it a melee weapon.

The crux of the issue comes down to whether saying something "can be used as" is the same as saying "it is" under RAW, or whether that's RAI. Seeing as the ability to use the pistol in melee is inherent to the pistol, I think it's RAW.

The first person that disallows me to take Grav-guns will be deported to Siberia.

Really, there is a difference between RAI and "RAI"..
There is not a single person in the world, except you of course, that would argue it's not intended for them to take a special weapon.

DogofWar1 wrote:
Page 51 of the BRB states that pistols can be used as a cc weapon, and actually state that it uses the profile for a cc weapon in that section, and ignores the ranged stats.

But does it HAVE the melee type or can it be used as if it had the CCW-profile? That's a small difference.
Either way it still needs to get FAQ'd because it's too confusing and weirdly worded.
Maybe we need a new term: RASW (Rules as Stupidly Written).

Kangodo wrote:
The first person that disallows me to take Grav-guns will be deported to Siberia.

Really, there is a difference between RAI and "RAI"..
There is not a single person in the world, except you of course, that would argue it's not intended for them to take a special weapon.

DogofWar1 wrote:
Page 51 of the BRB states that pistols can be used as a cc weapon, and actually state that it uses the profile for a cc weapon in that section, and ignores the ranged stats.

But does it HAVE the melee type or can it be used as if it had the CCW-profile? That's a small difference.
Either way it still needs to get FAQ'd because it's too confusing and weirdly worded.
Maybe we need a new term: RASW (Rules as Stupidly Written).

Right, the question of whether is HAS the melee type or whether it can be used as though it had the melee type could be a potential problem because of sloppy wording, but honestly I think people are trying to deny bikers something they clearly can take, and the reasonable RAW interpretation is that pistols are melee weapons. The fact that you can always use the pistol as a ccw, in that that ability is inherent to the pistol, based upon RAW, I think makes it clear that the bolt pistol has both a ranged and melee profile and is therefore a melee weapon.

People aren't denying them. GW did. Whether its an accident (which I think it is) or not requires their clarification.

Also, bolt pistols are distinct from melee weapons within this codex. That can not be used as an end around for GWs possible mistake.

"Really, there is a difference between RAI and "RAI".. "

Unfortunately, there is no way to distinguish between these, and so this is really not true. GW need to write down what the reality is, and not leave up for players interpretations. That always leads to trouble.

I just love how everyone's saying "Tau aren't that tough, your're just not doing it right". So it's just the other thousands of us who can't figure it out. If that is the case go win a tournament & tell me when I can stop holding my breath. Do you not think that these NOVA players have extensively playtested their lists against the worst, nastiest things out there? You may have good results at your FLGS, but doing that against elite level players who have played their lists hundreds of times against other elite players is another world of competition. I know when I am preparing for a tournament, I play against every worst case scenario matchup repeatedly, even when it means my opponent has to proxy 4 heldrakes.

Martel732 wrote:
Unfortunately, there is no way to distinguish between these, and so this is really not true. GW need to write down what the reality is, and not leave up for players interpretations. That always leads to trouble.

"Up to two Space Marine Bikers may each take one item from the Special Weapons list."
I think that line makes the intent quite clear, so there is a way to distinguish between the two.

Martel732 wrote:
People aren't denying them. GW did. Whether its an accident (which I think it is) or not requires their clarification.

Also, bolt pistols are distinct from melee weapons within this codex. That can not be used as an end around for GWs possible mistake.

"Really, there is a difference between RAI and "RAI".. "

Unfortunately, there is no way to distinguish between these, and so this is really not true. GW need to write down what the reality is, and not leave up for players interpretations. That always leads to trouble.

What do you mean by "bolt pistols are distinct from melee weapons within this codex"? Sure, it's under the "ranged" section, but it follows the rules from the BRB according to the codex. And the rules from the BRB give pistols a profile for use in assault with the melee rule, making it a melee weapon that can be replaced. If they had said in the SM codex "bolt pistols do not follow the BRB rules for bolt pistols, but rather follow the profile stated here *insert ranged profile here*" then you could perhaps make your argument, in that they would be distinguished from regular bolt pistols which are melee weapons with a melee profile. Even that though would be suspect logically though, since it would likely still have the pistol rule, and it is the pistol rule that makes them ccws, and therefore melee weapons, so really they would always be melee weapons unless you specifically removed the pistol rule for the bolt pistol.

I'm sure they will clarify because people have made such a stink about it, but to say it is cheating to take special weapons in a bike squad is not accurate. That is your interpretation, and there are both written rules and clear intention to dispute your interpretation.

Also, according to CrashCanuck over in the FAQ answers thread in YMDC, grenades also count as melee weapons, which is supported by the BRB. So you could replace either the frag or krak grenades with a special weapon too (probably not frag because of assault initiative stuff, but swapping krak for a sw is fine).

Regardless, there are three pieces of wargear a marine on a bike may swap out for a special weapon, so grav gun those Riptides to death from the safety of a bike to your heart's content.

I think tough troops (allied?), 'hidden troops' or an ethereal to support will become ever more important.

Reason why - the ability to cause damage to infantry at range has just become silly. Cheap dual special drop-pod ASM's. Troop-choice speeder storms. Thunderfire cannons.

Focus on troops. Focus on markerlights (and/especially pathfinder markerlights). My 2 cents.

DogofWar1 wrote:

What do you mean by "bolt pistols are distinct from melee weapons within this codex"? Sure, it's under the "ranged" section, but it follows the rules from the BRB according to the codex. And the rules from the BRB give pistols a profile for use in assault with the melee rule, making it a melee weapon that can be replaced. .

I'm not exactly sure if you are in an assault when you are replacing the bolt pistol... I mean, assault=/=army creation (most of the time at least). IfyouknowwhatImean .

What is the Tau powerbuild?


Why are they so powerful?

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:
What is the Tau powerbuild?


Why are they so powerful?

There is no Tau "powerbuild". The codex is just so infinitely flexible that most lists that come out of it are relatively good and decent Take-All-Comers lists. This in turn makes it difficult for the majority of armies to make valid Take-All-Comers lists because each Tau list will vary from one person to the next so whilst the Tau player retains their momentum in a tournament you could potentially come to a stand still because one Tau player has taken MissileSide Spam over Riptide spam.

I think this kind of flexibility is a good thing as it stops the meta from becoming over-centralised, however, it's only a good thing if every codex out there can do it. Otherwise, we end up with the situation as it is now where Tau are undoubtedly one of the top three armies in the game at the moment and arguably, the best because of its inherent flexibility.

Iranna.

Can we say what the competitive choices are?

Buff-commanders
Ethereals
Fireblades
Farsight/Shadow sun together

Riptides
Crisis

Fire Warriors (spammed)
Kroot snipers

Missile sides


Anything else?

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:
Can we say what the competitive choices are?

Easier to say what choices are not competitive:
- Named Ethereals
- Darkstrider
- Fireblades (so-so)
- Stealth Suits
- Kroothounds/Krootox
- Razor/Sunshark (the Razorshark is a so-so)
- Vespids
- Piranhas
- HRR Broadsides

Everything else is competitive.

Wrong on strider, he makes a decent second HQ for that one squad in a devilfish that goes for a relic steal/backfield steal.
Also, wrong on prianhas, they are a good choice in farsight armies.


Naturally both applies to the actual rules, not the silly NOVA missions where balance is thrown off the window because setting elites into "hard to kill" can score points on its own. (also half the reason riptides dominate there, they actually score points, so you gotta kill them rather then "kill their markers and leave them be, harder to kill then the damage output" they are.)

Isn't a Fireblade a great addition if you take Tau as allies?
I have always thought of them as the cheapest and best option if you take a minimal Tau-ally.

Kangodo wrote:
Isn't a Fireblade a great addition if you take Tau as allies?
I have always thought of them as the cheapest and best option if you take a minimal Tau-ally.

That's why i added the "so-so". They are good as a cheap ally HQ tax but pretty bad for anything else.

The problem with Darkstrider is that Tau doesn't have to play the objective game (that's one of the main reasons of its strength) so anything that helps you to play the objective game is kinda' redundant. Also, he is 100 points, and that's a lot for what he can do.

The Piranha's problem is that you have to spam it liek crazy to be good and since it occupies a FA slot, lots of Piranhas = no markerlights. And markerlights worth their points in gold unlike the Piranhas that are gimmicky at best.

 AtoMaki wrote:


I'm not exactly sure if you are in an assault when you are replacing the bolt pistol... I mean, assault=/=army creation (most of the time at least). IfyouknowwhatImean .

I think this is debatable, and there are some posts on this over in YMDC, the general faq thread. Since page 52 doesn't say anything about "only" in the assault phase, it says "also". Then on 51 it doesn't mention any phases or phase restrictions.

But the real nail in the coffin is the "no specified melee weapon" rule on page 51. If bolt pistols are pseudo-melee weapons, then that rule gets invoked, and wacky stuff starts happening all throughout the game, like Tac squads having 2 ccws. The results of that are so opposed to conventional wisdom that the no specified melee weapon rule cannot apply, and yet, if bolt pistols aren't melee weapons, it must. The logical result we found in the YMDC thread is that bolt pistols are ccws. Grenades were left in the air because all parties involved were tired.

As for Tau power builds, the general tournament strategy seems to be Riptides+Markerlights= profit. There are other cool toys too though, missile sides put out a truly absurd number of missiles, enough to give even a horse army pause for thought.

 AtoMaki wrote:

The problem with Darkstrider is that Tau doesn't have to play the objective game (that's one of the main reasons of its strength) so anything that helps you to play the objective game is kinda' redundant. Also, he is 100 points, and that's a lot for what he can do.

As said, outside of the nonsense NOVA missions. in regular missions tau can't afford to ignore the objective game as much, considering having two objectives outside of LOS to your castle is possible to be setup. (or even just out of reach by placing them away from the ADL)
Tau castle does not really work in regular games.

 AtoMaki wrote:

The Piranha's problem is that you have to spam it liek crazy to be good and since it occupies a FA slot, lots of Piranhas = no markerlights. And markerlights worth their points in gold unlike the Piranhas that are gimmicky at best.

And that's why I said farsight armies.
Bare-bones they are cheap as hell, and not much of a target worth wasting the good shots on once the drones leave, but AV11 ignores most basic guns.
They supply you the S5AP5 back (as firewarriors cost a bit more, they lose out of efficiency) and allows you to keep your entire army fast and mobile.
And as they technically cost 16 (after you drop the drone costs, using the lower "part of squad" cost, if you used the independent cost they are 12 points.) its cheap enough of a unit that using it as a mere roadblock wont even feel like it cost you.
As for the FA slot, it hardly matters. enclave can get all the markers they ever need from drones mingled in crsis teams at troops. and maybe a single squad of supported drones, or tetras if you play with forgeworld.
Once you realise your entire army is JSJ/skimmer, you learn to take advantage and ignore the pathfinders. (they cost a bit more there anyway)
Enclave plays very different from tau. and the piranha notices.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

The problem with Darkstrider is that Tau doesn't have to play the objective game (that's one of the main reasons of its strength) so anything that helps you to play the objective game is kinda' redundant. Also, he is 100 points, and that's a lot for what he can do.

As said, outside of the nonsense NOVA missions. in regular missions tau can't afford to ignore the objective game as much, considering having two objectives outside of LOS to your castle is possible to be setup. (or even just out of reach by placing them away from the ADL)
Tau castle does not really work in regular games.

In my experience, it does. Out of the 6, two missions allows the Tau player to have extra scoring units, one is KP based, one is 1-1 objectives and one is a single objective. Even in Crusade you can force an advantageous objective setup with smart placement. Unless you fight on a Cities of Death table or something similar 80%+ LoS blocking terrain.

Oh, and don't forget that Riptides always contest, no matter the mission. And a contested objective is as good as captured - if you have one, contest 3 and wipe out the enemy from his then you won. Bonus points if your enemy had actually put effort into playing the objective game, restricting his movement, tactics and army composition.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Easier to say what choices are not competitive:
- Named Ethereals

How dare you insult the space pope like that...
On a more serious note since the new codex I've ben meaning to start a Tau army (not due to their cheesiness, just cos I like the look of them and army dynamics)
After reading this thread I figure I might as well go full cheese and take 3 riptides
Well I guess that's not full cheese, due to not doing the full 4 allies thing, but still... screw crisis suits!