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Ok, so I play Tau, I admit that i find it heavily frustrating to hear so much negativity toward them but we'll not go into that now.
There has been a thread recently about how unfair Tau is and therefore not getting games so i wanted to ask for guidelines into what is considered 'fair' and what is considered 'too much'.
(I would like to state that i don't think this in its own right is right or fair but that is life).
The reason being I actually want to play the game and don't want to be a Tau guy that never gets games.

So how about we get some guidelines about what isn't fair (this is a genuine attempt at leveling playing field out a bit)

Simple dont take loads of riptides

I've been wondering if you could do a HUGE kroot army with a few broadsides for anti tank lol

So is 2 at 1850 fair or unfair?

Never played against (and in a way with) Tau so I may be wrong but from looking at posts, it looks like riptides are the ones people hate the most.

I would say as a general guide that 1 riptide per each 750pts above 750ptd. So none at 750pts and under, 1 up to 1500, 2 up to 2250 etc. It's really up to you though.

Boniface wrote:

So how about we get some guidelines about what isn't fair (this is a genuine attempt at leveling playing field out a bit)

Here are the restrictions I've found worthwhile:
- No C&C Node or MSSS
- No Farsight and Shadowsun in the same army
- No Ethereal
- 0-1 Riptide
- 0-2 Pathfinder Teams
- No Missile Drones for Broadsides
- 0-1 Sky Ray

Just a small warning: even with these restrictions, your Tau army will be still pretty tough to beat. Warn your opponents to leave their "fun" and "fluffy" armies at home to avoid awkward situations.

From what I've seen on the net, 2 riptides is the most you're allowed to field. And there'd better not be ANYTHING else in your army classed as 'good'.

I'd fight any list put in front of me. If I fought 4 or 6 or 8 riptides I'd still do it.
If I lose, then so what? everyone expects everything to lose to 3+ riptides.

If I win - Woo, I beat 'riptide spam'

It doesn't matter what the list is, you still have to roll dice to kill me.

The best way to resolve Tau-hate issues is to simply talk to your perspective opponent/s before a game and discuss what kind of gaming experience you're after.

For example, tell them if you've brought a hard-as-nails, take-no-prisoners type of tournament army that's combining say Tau+Eldar or Tau+Farsight Enclave. On an open gaming day/night, a lot of people for example don't want to be bothered playing such a cut-throat game outside of tournaments.
If you're say testing such a list, then tell people and ask them if they don't mind helping you out/taking on a massive challenge.

Otherwise, mellow it out a bit. Don't take all the fully optimised options all the fething time!
Try out some of the so-called 'sub-optimal' choices. Don't always take Eldar/Tau allies - mabe try something a little bit quirky or storytime'ish, such as say including a Greater Daemon and some Lesser daemons to support him - ie: the Tau have stumbled across an ancient site that's imprisoning a powerful dameonic entity which then possesses the force's Ethereal, but the Tau in their naivete have mistaken it for their Ethereal gaining awesome new powers for the Greater Good and are now under the Daemon's sway!

People hate playing vs. Tau in general because they can make the game very, very boring due to being the shooting army in an edition which is slanted towards shooting, on top of the Tau's ability to gain truckloads of re-rolls and practically ignore cover wherever they want with spamed Markerlights.

Adding enough LOS blocking terrain to the table will help a lot as well.

Just take stuff you want to take. Like every army tau only becomes broken when you start spamming the same units. Don't take 3 riptides. Spread things out and try a little of everything.

An important thing to do is get a feel of what everyone else is bringing. If you have a bunch of casual players bring a casual list. If you have a bunch of hardcore players bring a hard to beat list. People say they have trouble picking up games but when ever there is a tournament coming up everyone wants to practice against the tau player.

This isn't necessarily accurate, but I would say that if it's a list that you would bring to a tournament or a list that has the sole purpose of winning, it might be "too much".

There's nothing wrong with bringing Markerlights or Riptides or Buff Commanders. Just have fun with the list. Break the mold a little bit - take Piranhas or Sniper Teams or a Sunshark Bomber or crazily upgraded Crisis Suits. None of those things are outright bad anyway.

Maybe play a game or two that doesn't use one of the commonly seen units at all. Make a list that has 0 Riptides. Make a list that runs 0 Broadsides.

If you have a particularly one-sided game, offer to swap armies for a round. Maybe your opponent can learn from the way YOU play against the Tau. Maybe you can find parts of your army that are frustrating to play against.

Boniface wrote:
Ok, so I play Tau, I admit that i find it heavily frustrating to hear so much negativity toward them but we'll not go into that now.
There has been a thread recently about how unfair Tau is and therefore not getting games so i wanted to ask for guidelines into what is considered 'fair' and what is considered 'too much'.
(I would like to state that i don't think this in its own right is right or fair but that is life).
The reason being I actually want to play the game and don't want to be a Tau guy that never gets games.

So how about we get some guidelines about what isn't fair (this is a genuine attempt at leveling playing field out a bit)

To be honest it seems like a double standard. Do chaos players local to you limit the number of helldrakes they take? do IG guys not take full squadrons of Russ tanks? Every book has a unit or units that everyone hates, if you gimp your list I guarantee they won't limit their power units and they will attempt to table you.

If you are worried about "fairness" try to play the more competitive players or tournament players. They will have more fine tuned lists and will most likely enjoy a challenging game.

This.

Tau aren't unbeatable, and i'd play them even cheesed out, just like i'd play GK in 5th, Skimmerspam Eldar in 4th etc.

They ARE, however, a tad trolly. Wasn't bad with the previous codex, as they needed a little trollyness to even count as 'poor' with the edition changes, but now that they are top tier people don't accept that trollyness so easily

My Orks, for example, are pretty reliant on cover, as their vehicles are frail, their armour is nonexistant and nothing is a skimmer.

They get mulched by tau at range, and then cut to ribbons by enhances overwatch as they try to close.

Annoying, but the answer to that one is 'bring moar boyz'


My DE and Daemons do better, though losing my cover boost for my mono-nurgle daemons is vexing, and i have to pay out for flickerfields to counter the fact that i will not be getting a jink save all game

Riptides are tough, and six of them is Gouda to be sure, but i have no problem fighting 2-3 in a list.

Talk to your regular opponents- see what they want to try out and work from there. Failing that, tell them to cheese up too, and play Hardcore

Yes, its always fair to offer them to play your army for a change. I remember one time when I was just getting back into it, that one of the other players let me play his Nids and he played my dark angels. It was a fun game and I learned a lot about how to play against nids by playing them.

I agree with what everyone else has said. Avoid Riptide spam, I only have one riptide, and only intend to have one.

Look at your Meta! Do you play against a lot of people using Space Marine? Space marines have alot of trouble against two now that we have plenty of AP 3 weapons. So instead of loading up on Ions to ignore their armor, take the railgun with sub-munition. They ask you about it just say you wanted to be ready for heavy armor.

OK Look. Its not that Tau are "unfair" and its not that Tau are "overpowered". Its that long range tau gunlines, win OR lose, are incredibly dull to play against and effectively suck the fun out of the game for one or both players.

If you want to play Tau and have people not complain about them, build a list that focuses on firefighting at 10-24 inches away form the opponnent. Bring considerations about assault, rapid fire, and movement back into the game and add an element of tactical depth to the experience instead of just Target Priority Yatzee.

That said, if you like Tau for the long range fire power, and have the most fun huddling behind an Aegis Defense line with a list designed to shoot the opponent off the table from accross the board without moving around. Don't be suprised that nobody wants to play with you. Very few people have fun playing against a Gunline, even if its an unoptomized gunline, and even if the Gunline ultimately looses the game.

Its not a matter of power or cheese (although those considerations do come into play) but rather a complaint about the army style that Tau Netlists follow almost to a T.

Wow, more people whining about Tau.

Mono Tau is not that powerful, if you or or opponents think it is, play better opponents or make it ultra casual.

The simply truth, Riptides aren't that great. Supported Riptides are. So, if you have a Buffmander, Many Markerlights, or allied Psyker they become much more powerful. Alone, Riptides aren't that great and IA riptides have a relatively low damage output for their cost.


Just to illustrate my points, here is the Feast of Blades Breakdown. These are some of the best 40k players around. http://www.torrentoffire.com/1745/feast-of-blades-invitational-by-the-numbers
Mono Tau had a substantial losing record. Tau/Tau did better, Tau/SM, did even better, Tau/Eldar did better yet, Eldar/Tau even Better, and Pure Eldar dominating the field. Three of the bottom six players were Mono Tau.


Moral of the story, just play MonoTau, there are plenty of counters and its not as OP as you think. Things get crazy when you bring Allies into the picture, this is where Tau is getting a bad rap.


As always, make sure you and your opponent know what kind of game you are playing. The Beer and Pretzels league with a fluffy army and upgrades just for the sake of having them don't mix well with competitive players and builds. But, if you think that Tau are too powerful to even be on the table with the other codexes and need to be gimped to the asnine levels some on here have suggested either you don't understand the game, or are playing the wrong style of game with your opponents.

And as tough and as bad as Tau are, Eldar are far far worse and more powerful yet get less hate because people erroneously hate Riptides more than Eldar Jetbikes.

 Zagman wrote:
Things get crazy when you bring Allies into the picture, this is where Tau is getting a bad rap.

Well, yeah.

I don't really play tournaments a lot, so if someone asked me for a game against a brutal Riptide net list during casual play on a Saturday I would accept, because their 3 Riptides and Necrons/Eldar are probably unpainted and I find that funny. Accept any challenge, no matter the odds, etc. etc.

I try to keep to theme and fluff myself, but I have no problems playing any net list out there even though I probably don't stand a chance. I take the side of the rules- If you can do it, you should be able to bring it.

It comes down to the player, and your player group. If you are concerned about losing friends because of 2+ Riptides, then you shouldn't have to change your list.. You should reevaluate your friendships instead. Just my 2cents.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Boniface wrote:

So how about we get some guidelines about what isn't fair (this is a genuine attempt at leveling playing field out a bit)

Here are the restrictions I've found worthwhile:
- No C&C Node or MSSS
- No Farsight and Shadowsun in the same army
- No Ethereal
- 0-1 Riptide
- 0-2 Pathfinder Teams
- No Missile Drones for Broadsides
- 0-1 Sky Ray

Just a small warning: even with these restrictions, your Tau army will be still pretty tough to beat. Warn your opponents to leave their "fun" and "fluffy" armies at home to avoid awkward situations.

Why not just say, only bring kroot.

It's honestly never been an issue where I play, but here is a suggestion. Play doubles matches. They are a hoot, and if you match up each side with one long range and one melee army it adds to the fun and balance. The other suggestion, assuming there is a huge inbalance in the player skill levels, use the short table deployment. Tau lose a ton of advantage if they are forced into that deployment.

These threads still kill me. In 5th I never had a shortage of players that would field a ton of missile launchers and lascannons to one shot my expensive suits and broadsides and every game was an uphill battle. When I mentioned how hard it was I got the response "That's just how it goes with an out of date codex"

So my answer to what's 'fair' use is anything you find in the codex and within the FOC limitations. I never saw people change their list to cater to my underpowered codex before so I don't think it warrants me returning the favor.

If you ask someone for a game and they're too scared to play you so they say no, that counts as a win

The only way to play Tau fair is to actually know the rules and to play on a table with actual LOS blocking terrain.

AKA play the game

I feel bad for Tau players right now. I know not everyone is TFG that plays the FotM armies, and i cant really blame them for taking good units. Its really an effect of 6th's bluffs to shooting and nerfs to assault that has moved the gameplay into Tau's preferred gunline style.

With that said, in my flgs, we have 3 tau players. 1 has actually put his tau army in the shelf because he himself feels they are too OP (he is very competitive and will bring the latest cheese list -screamstar is his current list), after using early taudar triptide lists. He stopped because he wasnt enjoying the game as much, just shooting stuff all day. He likes screamstar because he feels its inherently more vulnerable. (Which i have to agree).

The other tau players have been playing before the new codex, and they have refused to use the latest net lists. They still bring decent gunline tau lists, but other than broadsides, and mixes up the other slots. And their attitudes about gaming is very casual and sportsmanly. One guy is just so much fun to play that he's always booked for games days ahead of our gaming nights.

Tldr;
I really cant say much about what to put in lists other than base it on your local gaming group (2 riptides max in 2k games i guess in non competitive). Your attitude with others will definitely be a plus, i know if any of these guys brought a tourney list, i still wouldnt hesitate to play them just because they arent TFG.

1. Have a good and friendly attitude
2. Make sure there's actually a decent amount of line of sight blocking terrain on the table
3. Read the netlists, avoid making lists that resemble them
4. Don't take Eldar as allies
5. If, for some reason, you actually own Vespid, take a unit of them for the lulz

Generally speaking, don't take more than 2 riptides and make sure to follow your rules to the letter. I see enough tau players forgetting to use abilities at the right time and over-moving assault jump moves, even as a tau player it pisses me off. Course then I call them out on it saying they can't do that, and they throw a fit.

brother marcus wrote:


I've been wondering if you could do a HUGE kroot army with a few broadsides for anti tank lol

I do that. I take 80 sniper kroot, 10 FW in a fish with etheral, 2 riptides and a unit of 3 rail broadsides, 3 pathfinder teams and shadowsun. Last time I did it was at a nova open tournament placement tournament and beat the pants off two eldar/tau ally bastards and a nid player.

Having the ethereal's boons affect kroot is hilarious.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
When I mentioned how hard it was I got the response "That's just how it goes with an out of date codex"

So my answer to what's 'fair' use is anything you find in the codex and within the FOC limitations. I never saw people change their list to cater to my underpowered codex before so I don't think it warrants me returning the favor.

Yes!

nothing screams a fun game than marching on a broadside and riptide spam hiding behind an aegis defense line.

Problem with tau is its very easy for them to become overpowered compared to most armies. Someone refered to chaos and heldrakes, but thats one unit that helps balance the codex rather than making it ridiculously overpowered. As others have said, speak to your opponent cos Ive 2 tau players at our club i wont even entertain. The clubs a nice friendly enviroment with mainly fluff based armies but the two tau players bring tournament lists /facepalm

The major problem with tau are the models look gash to me. But i love the Firewarriors and riptides, so i dont collect cos Im not having an army that looks crap to get a game lol

 Lutharr101 wrote:
nothing screams a fun game than marching on a broadside and riptide spam hiding behind an aegis defense line.

Problem with tau is its very easy for them to become overpowered compared to most armies. Someone refered to chaos and heldrakes, but thats one unit that helps balance the codex rather than making it ridiculously overpowered. As others have said, speak to your opponent cos Ive 2 tau players at our club i wont even entertain. The clubs a nice friendly enviroment with mainly fluff based armies but the two tau players bring tournament lists /facepalm

The major problem with tau are the models look gash to me. But i love the Firewarriors and riptides, so i dont collect cos Im not having an army that looks crap to get a game lol

The same can be said about Screamerstar, JetSeerCouncil,, Brav Biker Spam, FMC Spam, Wave Serpent Spam. All of which are IMO more powerful and nastier than Riptide Spam. In fact, all of those builds generally beat Riptide Spam.

As to the rest of your comment, its about different playstyles and games. Competitive players vs Beer and Pretzel Players. Both players have to be looking for the same kind of game going in.

I know I generally don't play against the Beer and Pretzel guys because we aren't playing the same game.


I for one play more games in tournaments than I do outside of them. Each player is different, find the right game and opponenents and Tau aren't an issue, nor is any other army.

I think one riptide is fine, any more people start getting upset.

I think a good way to start is look at some of the cheese lists out there and use that as a bad example for a fair army.

I'll worry about getting Tau players to limit Riptides right after getting limits on helldrakes or Wave Serpents. There's more at work here than just Riptides. It's the fact that assault has been repeatedly nerfed and rapid fire was made much better in 6th. Usually against Tau, the fire warriors kill more BA than the Riptides do through sheer dice.

Oh, and I've never had a mono Tau list shoot me off the table as fast as mono Eldar can do it. So which is the abusive army?

My Tau buddy played for 3 years before getting the 6th codex. Didn't complain, just had fun, though he lost more often than not. Now he wins more often, it's just more challenging for me.

Maybe he'll bring 6 riptides next game. Sounds like fun, would like to try fighting that list!

Martel732 wrote:
I'll worry about getting Tau players to limit Riptides right after getting limits on helldrakes or Wave Serpents. There's more at work here than just Riptides. It's the fact that assault has been repeatedly nerfed and rapid fire was made much better in 6th. Usually against Tau, the fire warriors kill more BA than the Riptides do through sheer dice.

Oh, and I've never had a mono Tau list shoot me off the table as fast as mono Eldar can do it. So which is the abusive army?

I agree.