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At my club thats pretty much been the established story for a lot of members. Ever since the new codex came out and we had one tau player win the 18 player tournament and another tau player (me) come second.

Would you say thats right or not?

Personally I think some of what they complain about is a little OTT or besides the point. I don't think riptides are that powerful for instance. They don't particularly do anything spectacular for the army like, say, Longstrike in a hammerhead. The only battle where my riptide achieved anything was when it used skyfire to shoot down two vendetta gunships with its ion accelator; which was purely luck. Whilst some rules things like insisting that you should get a cover save against markerlights is silly because, this was never an issue in the older edition and their boosts are basically the same.

I think the army itself is fairly balanced. The reason why myself and the other tau player did so well has more to do with the HQ we took. He put a commander with drone controller in a squad of markerlight drones with the ability that lets you re-roll misses and used that to get mobile super accurate marker lights. Myself, I put shadowsun in a squad of XV8s tripped out with plasma guns and fusion blasters. Using the stealth, shrouded, her 3d6 disengage and the fact that dangerous terrain can basically be ignored it made her great at both soaking up enemy fire and putting out damage whilst avoiding close combat (even then she only just killed Ghasgul with a stand and shoot roll of a 6 ). When I didn't use this tactic in a friendly game vs necrons he essentially won the game handily, with me only literally stealing victory by contesting his objective with 1 guy.

This again?

Yes, they are OP.

Definitely OP.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

I think the army itself is fairly balanced. The reason why myself and the other tau player did so well has more to do with the HQ we took. He put a commander with drone controller in a squad of markerlight drones with the ability that lets you re-roll misses and used that to get mobile super accurate marker lights. Myself, I put shadowsun in a squad of XV8s tripped out with plasma guns and fusion blasters. Using the stealth, shrouded, her 3d6 disengage and the fact that dangerous terrain can basically be ignored it made her great at both soaking up enemy fire and putting out damage whilst avoiding close combat (even then she only just killed Ghasgul with a stand and shoot roll of a 6 ). When I didn't use this tactic in a friendly game vs necrons he essentially won the game handily, with me only literally stealing victory by contesting his objective with 1 guy.

You see all these things?

Yeah, believe it or not other armies can't do that. They don't have options to ignore cover with every gun they have, increase their ballistic skill, shoot then jump back into cover, fire multiple weapons a turn at different targets, snap fire with their whole damn army including vehicles at assaulting units.

For many armies strength 10 AP 1 is a myth, and strength 5 is something you see on specialist weapons, not on basic troops. Most armies have to use the actual walkers rules for their walkers, rather than using MC rules because they're better.

So yes, I'd say Tau are overpowered.

They are the undisputed (well...Eldar can dispute I suppose) kings of shooting/shooting shenanigans in an edition that is focused around shooting.

Eldar are the undisputed (well, demons can dispute) kings of psychic power buff shenanigans/durability in an edition that favors absurd durability.

Tau and Eldar separately both are very strong armies, although I would argue that they don't cross the line into flat out overpowered unless you deliberately build a list that makes it so (insert "polite discussion" on fluffy vs competitive lists and how I shouldn't have to limit my list selection based on my opponent here).

The upper tier of either Tau or Eldar, and pretty much any combination of the two, are indeed cheese wheels of the highest order (especially if you count escalation stuff. That bloody stupid eldar titan breaks the game severely, and to be fair the Tau don't exactly have the best lords of war but they do get non blast strength D on a superheavy flier, so that can be a pain in the butt even if its not game breaking).

You can take solace in one thing though (I guess), the Tau rules are heavily optimized for 6th edition. I'm guessing when 7th hypothetically drops and close combat ends up back as the master of the battlefield like it was in 3rd or 4th (or at least more fairly balanced with shooting like it was in 5th) then Tau will resign their throne of awesomeness and steadily creep back down the tier of power to average or worse.

As someone who has happily got my little blue fish face punched in repeatedly throughout 3rd-5th edition I'm just enjoying my time in the sun while I have it and trying not to make my opponents hate me too much.

Yes they are, even more so when you stick them behind a aegis defense line in a corner for a 2+ cover.

In a world without allies, or data slates, or anything else that isn't found in the Tau codex, Tau are very strong but not OP.

However, add in all that other pay to win stuff and Tau can very quickly jump into the OP territory.

OP? Definitely.

Compared to what? Gravstars? No. Seer Councils? No. Screamerstars? No.

Meqs? Yes. Orks? Yes.

OMG DUDE, we get it, you like TAU, stop making so many DAMN topics

Tau are not OP.

They are, however, easy to learn to play, which leads to faster mastery of the base strategies of the army. This leads to the mistaken belief that they are somehow stronger than other armies, which isn't correct. Experience is a far more telling advantage than any perceived difference in codex strength. A player who has experience with their own army (and experience against Tau) will be just fine. I've lost maybe two games to Tau since the new codex came out? And both of those losses were with armies I had little experience using. With my primary army, I haven't lost to the new Tau once.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Tau are not OP.

They are, however, easy to learn to play, which leads to faster mastery of the base strategies of the army. This leads to the mistaken belief that they are somehow stronger than other armies, which isn't correct. Experience is a far more telling advantage than any perceived difference in codex strength. A player who has experience with their own army (and experience against Tau) will be just fine. I've lost maybe two games to Tau since the new codex came out? And both of those losses were with armies I had little experience using. With my primary army, I haven't lost to the new Tau once.

You can accuse GW of many things.

Competence is not one of them.

If a company as competent Nintendo can't balance every character in super smash brothers, I have zero faith that the pack of brainless mouth breathers running GW has the skill to balance every unit and army in 40k.

Really, this thread again?

Yup. An army that gets to pick and choose which BRB shooting rules to.follow and has an in-codex hard counter option for every single inherent weakness will always be OP.

Their str5 guns and str10 ap1 guns have always been in the game. Their markerlights which ignored cover and upped blastic skill have also been in the game since at least last edition. There were a lot of topics on how you could NOT make tau a viable army in its old codex despite pathfinders because they were too easy to kill and had to take a devilfish.

By common consensus, tau were an incredibly weak and outdated army during this time which regularly got curb stomped by melee and marine armies. I know because I remember my 3.5 chaos marine army going through them like butter.

Shadowsun has always been able to fire at different targets and this was a battlesuit upgrade in the previous edition. Only two changes were made to that unit. Her stealth ability became a cover save, she could join crisis suits and under 6th could confer that special ability to the squad she joined.

Battlesuits have always been always been able to fire and redeploy. On a small board this rarely ever mattered in older editions. Granted, the distance increased substantially from 6 to 2d6; however this random element, like charging into close combat should technically make using the ability harder not easier.

So I am not sure why the complaints would center around their old rules.



edit - I fully expect that they will allow you to charge from one squad to another like in third and possibly allow an "overwatch" shooting attack by the assaulting unit as well. However you're ignoring just how powerful some assault armies actually are: such as blood angels and grey knights. Most of their units would have been considered death star under previous editions like 3rd or 4th. 5th was not balanced between shooting and CC. It was a CC edition, except it had Imperial Guard boosted.

The complaints are not really about the old rules though.

1.) Tau markerlights never full out ignored cover it was 1 light = -1 cover save which is a big difference. If I have say a 2+ cover save now it takes you 2 lights to remove it, before it would have taken 4/

2.) Supporting fire allows markerlights to be used in overwatch to make overwatch devistating, it also removes the ability to eat overwatch with other units for a primary charging unit.

3.) Missile Broadsides were not a thing...3 S10 shots is way worse than tons of S7

4.) Commanders handing out special rules like candy...also a new thing.

Now are Tau OP? IT is about reference point...against other top armies not really, especially with a good amount of terrain.

Against your typical army...yeah they are...especially if terrain is lacking.

Yes.

I played about half a dozen games with tau, and another few with farsight enclaves. Never came close to losing, and had flawless victories a couple times. (a couple riptides took wounds, but not even a single model of mine actually left the table.)
And this was just typical rolling. Nothing outlandish like ridiculous morale fails on turn 1 or anything like that.

Eventually stopped playing them because of the gigantic difference in model-to-point quality between them and most other armies.

Riptides are the biggest offender there. They have about the right amount of firepower for their point cost, but they should never have been as durable as they are without at least another 50 points added on. Then of course, they're randomly ACTUALLY threatening even when you do get them in melee, just thanks to being a monstrous creature, and the stupidity of the WS chart, meaning that when attacking the usual troop WS of 3-4, they still hit on 4's.

Among all downsides a model could have right now, "crappy WS" is by far the least harmful.

Tau OP?

It's certainly a good army, but it strikes me as weird that they keep getting singled out as the OP army. There's a reason why they don't win tourneys.

Thud wrote:
There's a reason why they don't win tourneys.

This is a joke right?

Please me tell me this is a joke.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
OMG DUDE, we get it, you like TAU, stop making so many DAMN topics

This. Absolutely this.
And yes, Tau are OP. Very much OP.

 Blacksails wrote:

Thud wrote:
There's a reason why they don't win tourneys.

This is a joke right?

Please me tell me this is a joke.

Not really. Sure, they might win the small, local tourneys, but so do Orks, Dark Angels, and what-have-you.

Take the LVO, for example; not a single Tau army in the top bracket. In Caledonian Uprising, the top Tau primary came in 4th, the next on 16th. Came in 5th at the UK GT.

I can't even think of a single major tournament won by Tau since NOVA.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
However you're ignoring just how powerful some assault armies actually are: such as blood angels and grey knights.

The worst army in the game and a shooting MEQ army in an edition that punishes MEQ? Wut?

Thud wrote:
Tau OP?

It's certainly a good army, but it strikes me as weird that they keep getting singled out as the OP army. There's a reason why they don't win tourneys.

I find that reason to be because "ridiculous combo units between certain allies or certain wargear items that never should have been able to interact" exist.

If you start removing those from the equation, either by house rules or just general "those are too good to use without being TFG" etiquette in your meta, you'll find the Tau near the top of the dogpile.

The existence of a few OP builds that are not Tau is not evidence against the Tau being OP.

I feel confident that I can pick units from the Tau codex blindfolded and win 90% of LGS games.

I use the following logic:

a) an army whose best list can only be beaten by a few other top tier lists is overpowered
b) top Tau lists can only be beaten by a few other top tier lists
c) therefore, tau is overpowered

For example, vanilla marines are considered a middle of the road army, they aren't going to win relevant tournies this edition but they're not as terrible as Orkz. And yet, the best vanilla marine netlist is going to have a hard time dealing with triptide, even under a skilled player, does anybody even debate this?

Overpowered.

Experience does matter, but this game is not chess. Some units are strictly better than other units in their categories. Tau has many of these because of their shooting shenanigans compared to other armies' shooting shenanigans in Warhammer 40k: Rooty Tooty Shooty Edition.

I'd say that Eldar are more considered OP.

Tau might be too powerful because of the game rules as opposed to their rules, it's hard to quantify though because of the rules being what they are.

I'm aware of the ignoring cover thing. I think drop it back to -1 cover for 1 marker and things would be a lot better.

Heheh again with this....

Yes they are. They're the autowin button incarnate in a gunline.

What really grinds my gears now however (As I've got over my PTTSD) is the fact that these whooores can ally with EVERYONE apart from Nids....

Whereas some of us only get to ally with like 5 guys.

That new chart makes interesting reading. Tau can ally with like 11 guys.... So there's zero penalty for being OP in the shooty.

Knights? sure why not... Orks? Chaos? Sure! chum up braaa.

Each army is meant to have a strength and weakness. Allies could be a good way to limit them a little and allow them to be played more. As opposed to being shunned.

Thud wrote:
Tau OP?

It's certainly a good army, but it strikes me as weird that they keep getting singled out as the OP army. There's a reason why they don't win tourneys.

Of course pure Tau doesn't win tournies, Taudar and ridiculous invincible death stars are still a thing.

Tau, Necrons, Eldar, and Daemons are the big four, sure sometimes they appear with an army outside of the big four grafted onto them, but it's hard to deny that they are the competetive overpowers in the game.

Marines and Guard are also good, but not as good. The GKs seem to be middling overall, Codex: Death Guard with maybe some other stuff on the side also falls into the middle tiers, the Dark Angels are wondering why they always have to be the base that other loyalist MEQs improve off of, and the Tyranids have this mystifyingly low quality book paired with over the top formations.

What about those guys? The SoBs, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, DEldar, and Orks? Yeah they're hanging around down there, one's waiting for a full codex some day, one's a MEQ assault army in an edition that conspires against both MEQs and Assault, one's still rocking a mid-5e codex that is seriously starting to show it's age, one's an aging book that is really hard to play right and is unforgiving of mistakes, and one's still wallowing with a 4e going on 5e book but has a cheerful never say die attitude,

But the big four? Still top dog with most tournies featuring them either alone or combined with something else seeing them placed in most of the top slots, although the glut of imperial only goodies seems set on bringing Imperial armies back up there.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Their str5 guns and str10 ap1 guns have always been in the game. Their markerlights which ignored cover and upped blastic skill have also been in the game since at least last edition. There were a lot of topics on how you could NOT make tau a viable army in its old codex despite pathfinders because they were too easy to kill and had to take a devilfish.

By common consensus, tau were an incredibly weak and outdated army during this time which regularly got curb stomped by melee and marine armies. I know because I remember my 3.5 chaos marine army going through them like butter.

Shadowsun has always been able to fire at different targets and this was a battlesuit upgrade in the previous edition. Only two changes were made to that unit. Her stealth ability became a cover save, she could join crisis suits and under 6th could confer that special ability to the squad she joined.

Battlesuits have always been always been able to fire and redeploy. On a small board this rarely ever mattered in older editions. Granted, the distance increased substantially from 6 to 2d6; however this random element, like charging into close combat should technically make using the ability harder not easier.

So I am not sure why the complaints would center around their old rules.



edit - I fully expect that they will allow you to charge from one squad to another like in third and possibly allow an "overwatch" shooting attack by the assaulting unit as well. However you're ignoring just how powerful some assault armies actually are: such as blood angels and grey knights. Most of their units would have been considered death star under previous editions like 3rd or 4th. 5th was not balanced between shooting and CC. It was a CC edition, except it had Imperial Guard boosted.

5th was not CC. CC had the same problem as 6th: no consolidation into a new combat. So the same kinds of things happened: One squad gets contacted, and the army prepares to shoot the victors.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
At my club thats pretty much been the established story for a lot of members. Ever since the new codex came out and we had one tau player win the 18 player tournament and another tau player (me) come second.

Maybe they're REALLY good players?