soomemafia wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
The blood angels death company dreads that do hits than generate extra hits.
They're good because they shredded my 4th edition Nid army in CC.
Grey knights with strength 6 power weapons.

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

And.... What? Have you actually played against BA/GK ever? Because it truly sounds like you haven't.
Yes, but the DC dread will have to wait single whole turn in which you can withdraw out of assault range and wipe it out with all the heavy weaponry and spammed S7.

And you can't justify the BA being good by saving that they once Beatles Tyranids D

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I do always find this argument odd: "Tau aren't overpowered, they just have blah and blah and blah that make them more powerful than other armies". I don't have a lot of experience against Tau because they aren't common in my local meta... but saying they aren't overpowered they just have overpowered options doesn't really make sense.

It's like saying a Corvette is no faster than a Prius.... if you jam the Corvette's throttle so it can't open all the way.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

Without markerlight support even Riptides lose a lot of their teeth, they aren't weak by any means but with 1/6 shots fails to even fire, 1/3 chance to wound themselves, mediocre BS and not ignoring cover they don't actually do that much damage. It's a 1/3 chance to hit and an average scatter distance that means more often than not you won't even hit the area of the board you put the blasts hole over.

 soomemafia wrote:


Somehow you seem to be missing the fact that Tau do have markerlights.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I do always find this argument odd: "Tau aren't overpowered, they just have blah and blah and blah that make them more powerful than other armies". I don't have a lot of experience against Tau because they aren't common in my local meta... but saying they aren't overpowered they just have overpowered options doesn't really make sense.

It's like saying a Corvette is no faster than a Prius.... if you jam the Corvette's throttle so it can't open all the way.

then allow me to explain the difference as I see it, it's best explained with the old saying:

All Apples are Fruit but not all Fruit are Apples.

In this case Riptides, Buffmanders and Broadsides are the the Apples and the Tau codex as a whole is the Fruit.

"Tau are OP" as a statement implies the entire codex is OP and that all Fruit are Apples.

It also leads to silly situations where 6 squads of Firewarriors with 3 Squads of Vespid lead by an Ethereal are OP because "Tau are OP". It's lazy, inaccurate shorthand that assumes all Tau players are using cookie cutter tourney lists.

 soomemafia wrote:


Somehow you seem to be missing the fact that Tau do have markerlights.
Every single faction in this game has it's flaws. Tau just doesn't have to care about it. They can ignore every single of their weaknesses. Thus the OP-ism.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

Without markerlight support...

 soomemafia wrote:

"Medicore BS and not ignoring cover"? Seriously? They improve their BS and they do ignore cover.

Martel732 wrote:
OP options are what make a codex OP. This is the standard convention. Every broken codex in the history of GW has had non-broken choices. Nit picking in this manner by boiling it down to specific units is a meaningless convention. That being said, I'm not sure how close to the top mono-Tau even are anymore. It seems like you are trying to seem smarter than the rest of the room or find a way to look down your nose at those of us concerned about game balance. Not helpful.

If you are allowing the Tau player to place markerlights where he pleases without retaliation the whole game then it's no wonder you find them an unassailable foe.

Martel732 wrote:

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.

Makumba wrote:

I play IG . Could you tell me how to remove marker light tau units fast enough and what should I do if am going second .

Makumba wrote:

If you are allowing the Tau player to place markerlights where he pleases without retaliation the whole game then it's no wonder you find them an unassailable foe.

I play IG . Could you tell me how to remove marker light tau units fast enough and what should I do if am going second .

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Still not getting what makes a riptide good.

You can get more shots from fire warriors and crisis suits with plasma weapons. Better anti tank in a hammerhead and its nova reactor is a liability with a 1 in 3 chance of losing a wound. The str 7 ap2 large blast is good; but then IG can get this in command squads for 35pts A hammerhead with an ion cannon manages a similar trick for an AP2 large blast and its cheaper.

Its tough, but its inv save is low and it can never claim a cover save.Most CC units will kill it for all it being a monstrous creature in the same sense a tomb spider is a monstrous creature.

When using it, the thing has never came across as a stellar unit except as an impromteu AA gun.

Backfire wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

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.

5th was CC when you played 4th edition armies against each other under 5th edition ruleset. When new, shooty 5th edition Codices like IG and SW began to rule the roost, the meta changed. But for example, Orks easily steamrolled 4th edition armies in assault early in 5th.

 Dunklezahn wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
OP options are what make a codex OP. This is the standard convention. Every broken codex in the history of GW has had non-broken choices. Nit picking in this manner by boiling it down to specific units is a meaningless convention. That being said, I'm not sure how close to the top mono-Tau even are anymore. It seems like you are trying to seem smarter than the rest of the room or find a way to look down your nose at those of us concerned about game balance. Not helpful.

And you assume malice and superiority where there is none. I'm not looking down my nose at anyone, simply stating the fact that assuming everyone plays the same Tau list is wrong and that not all fruit are apples. I go out of my way to state how certain units are stronger and when used as the core create a stronger force, that alone does far more for addressing balance than echoing the cry that "Tau are OP!" will *ever* do.
Please refrain from trying to attack me in order to invalidate my opinion, it's A) Not permitted by site rules B) not helpful to the discussion

Fire Warriors are Tau units, Vespid are Tau units, Krootox are Tau units, "Tau" are not OP. Riptides are too good, Buffmanders are too, for brevity, Broadsides are too good. That is not nitpicking, it's addressing the issue with the level of distinction necessary to make sense of the problem at hand rather than making broad, sweeping, kneejerk statements that have no use in describing the situation.

If I make a pizza and it has mushrooms on it I don't hate the taste of pizza, I hate mushrooms. One of those statements is an accurate assessment of the situation, one of them is not.

Makumba wrote:

If you are allowing the Tau player to place markerlights where he pleases without retaliation the whole game then it's no wonder you find them an unassailable foe.

I play IG . Could you tell me how to remove marker light tau units fast enough and what should I do if am going second .

Step one: Buy a Colossus Siege Mortar,

Fair enough, but I've never seen a Vespid fielded. Ever. As far as I'm concerned, Codex: Tau IS Codex: Riptide, because that's what anyone who wants to do well is going to take.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
I started to play Tau the second their codex came out, leaving my 750 points of Space Marines Raptors Chapter in a bin for the rest of eternity. I fell in love with the Tau as they had mechs, and as a Battletech fan from the age of 6 (My older cousing regularly played, and let me play the computer games and card game with him) that was all I needed to fall in love, as the dreadnoughts of the Space Marines were simply not doing it for me.
From the day I started playing Tau they were hit or miss against most armies. I never really seemed to have a solid advantage of any kind against any army, and the codex offered few unit combinations that could stand up to what would become known in 4th and 5th edition as death star units. I never placed in a tournament until I was 19 years old and took second once with my Tau in all of 4th edition. And once lost a third of my army in a single turn to a Cannoness that kept consolidating into new assaults every victory. Then 5th came out.
I was devastated in 5th edition, and convinced that GW hated Tau as Space Marines became more and more ridiculous to deal with and my few feeble tanks could not stand up to the might of Imperial armor. I slowly learned the worth of broadsides, buying three of them, but as they were only T4 they usually got blasted off the table fast. When Nids and orcs received their codex’s I thought it was the end for my Tau.
With only 2 blast templates in their entire codex the Tau 4th ed codex was drastically outmatched by hordes, and if I prepared for hordes I was destroyed by armor. My army developed a mechanized feel and started to consist of fewer and fewer crisis suits, the reason I chose the army in the first place. Winning became a pipe dream as it became clear playing Tau was playing on hard mode. Despite this I did win first in a single tournament and second in two more, mostly due to tactics, and the incompetence or lack of tactical skill of my opponents as opposed to the worth of my units. I started to rely on manipulating the rules to win, surrounding transports with drones before wrecking it to kill the units inside, ramming, and tank shocking like crazy to make use of my only anti horde weapons, flamers, more effectively. When the Space Wolf dex dropped I almost quit the hobby. Not only did I lose every game, but I never survived past turn 3. 3 local players started Space Wolves armies, and they won every game they played. I started a guard army just to be able to put up a fight, but even then I barely managed to tie games, and never came close to winning a tournament. Than after a long 4 years 6th happened.
I was delighted in the new rules seeing myself become more and more powerful with every game. I started shredding enemy vehicles with incredible efficiency. I picked up 6 more broadsides as my S10 AP1 weapons where now the best anti tank weapons in the game. But slowly the tanks started to disappear and horde armies took their place. I had nothing that could compete, I started flooding the table with Firewarriors hoping to do something, anything to win one game, but no matter what I did they always made it to melee, and I always lost.
When we got our new codex I was delighted, my crisis suits were useful again, and new units like the riptide and missilesides gave me a fighting chance again. We even got new blast templates in the Ion Head and Ion Accelerator, but something horrible started to happen. My once noble and diverse force started to dwindle to two units Riptides and Broadsides, and the rest of my army became obsolete. After investing much money into these units I finally won a tournament beating out Chaos Space marines allied to Daemons, Dark Eldar, and Eldar for first. But the victories weren’t easy, at 2000 points I barely won every game, but the one against Dark Eldar, losing both riptides to melee assaults by Daemons in one game and contesting my way to victory with only a handful of Firewarriors left on the board, and being decimated by Shadow Weaver tanks and Wave serpents in my most challenging game, pulling a victory out of nowhere in the final second using a pair of piranha that counted as scoring to nab an objective worth three points as my last act.
I was convinced after this game that 6th edition was more about how willing you were to use Wave Serpents and FMC’s than anything, as my huge investment of currency in the newest, and most effective models had only won me slight victories. That was until I played a 500 point tournament in which I practically won by de fault for bringing a Riptide. It was then I realized what power the new unit possessed, and how little fun they were to face.
It was at this moment I decided to no longer use Riptides, or Broadsides. I miss having the distinction of playing the game on hard mode, but I have to say it was fun to win a few games, Do I think Tau are overpowered? Yes, in some ways they are the Grey Knights of 6th, and in others they are one trick ponies. To win against all the shenanigans in 6th a Tau player must either exercise tactical brilliance, or bring an army that is so boring to play you hardly understand why you enjoy the game anymore. My new army is noncompetitive and I know I cannot defeat Serpent spam, or take on flying Daemons, but I never had fun playing those lists anyway, I remember how it felt to lose to them before I had the Riptides, before I went broke buying Broadsides, I wanted to quit. And I refuse to do that to my fellow gamers. So no I will not win tournaments at all costs anymore, I will try to outthink, and maybe just outplay these sorts of players, and probably lose doing it. But hey at least, or rather hopefully I will start to have some fun again, because frankly I miss the days when the worst army in the game could beat the best if its owner knew what he was doing and executed his plan perfectly.

Spoiler:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
I started to play Tau the second their codex came out, leaving my 750 points of Space Marines Raptors Chapter in a bin for the rest of eternity. I fell in love with the Tau as they had mechs, and as a Battletech fan from the age of 6 (My older cousing regularly played, and let me play the computer games and card game with him) that was all I needed to fall in love, as the dreadnoughts of the Space Marines were simply not doing it for me.
From the day I started playing Tau they were hit or miss against most armies. I never really seemed to have a solid advantage of any kind against any army, and the codex offered few unit combinations that could stand up to what would become known in 4th and 5th edition as death star units. I never placed in a tournament until I was 19 years old and took second once with my Tau in all of 4th edition. And once lost a third of my army in a single turn to a Cannoness that kept consolidating into new assaults every victory. Then 5th came out.
I was devastated in 5th edition, and convinced that GW hated Tau as Space Marines became more and more ridiculous to deal with and my few feeble tanks could not stand up to the might of Imperial armor. I slowly learned the worth of broadsides, buying three of them, but as they were only T4 they usually got blasted off the table fast. When Nids and orcs received their codex’s I thought it was the end for my Tau.
With only 2 blast templates in their entire codex the Tau 4th ed codex was drastically outmatched by hordes, and if I prepared for hordes I was destroyed by armor. My army developed a mechanized feel and started to consist of fewer and fewer crisis suits, the reason I chose the army in the first place. Winning became a pipe dream as it became clear playing Tau was playing on hard mode. Despite this I did win first in a single tournament and second in two more, mostly due to tactics, and the incompetence or lack of tactical skill of my opponents as opposed to the worth of my units. I started to rely on manipulating the rules to win, surrounding transports with drones before wrecking it to kill the units inside, ramming, and tank shocking like crazy to make use of my only anti horde weapons, flamers, more effectively. When the Space Wolf dex dropped I almost quit the hobby. Not only did I lose every game, but I never survived past turn 3. 3 local players started Space Wolves armies, and they won every game they played. I started a guard army just to be able to put up a fight, but even then I barely managed to tie games, and never came close to winning a tournament. Than after a long 4 years 6th happened.
I was delighted in the new rules seeing myself become more and more powerful with every game. I started shredding enemy vehicles with incredible efficiency. I picked up 6 more broadsides as my S10 AP1 weapons where now the best anti tank weapons in the game. But slowly the tanks started to disappear and horde armies took their place. I had nothing that could compete, I started flooding the table with Firewarriors hoping to do something, anything to win one game, but no matter what I did they always made it to melee, and I always lost.
When we got our new codex I was delighted, my crisis suits were useful again, and new units like the riptide and missilesides gave me a fighting chance again. We even got new blast templates in the Ion Head and Ion Accelerator, but something horrible started to happen. My once noble and diverse force started to dwindle to two units Riptides and Broadsides, and the rest of my army became obsolete. After investing much money into these units I finally won a tournament beating out Chaos Space marines allied to Daemons, Dark Eldar, and Eldar for first. But the victories weren’t easy, at 2000 points I barely won every game, but the one against Dark Eldar, losing both riptides to melee assaults by Daemons in one game and contesting my way to victory with only a handful of Firewarriors left on the board, and being decimated by Shadow Weaver tanks and Wave serpents in my most challenging game, pulling a victory out of nowhere in the final second using a pair of piranha that counted as scoring to nab an objective worth three points as my last act.
I was convinced after this game that 6th edition was more about how willing you were to use Wave Serpents and FMC’s than anything, as my huge investment of currency in the newest, and most effective models had only won me slight victories. That was until I played a 500 point tournament in which I practically won by de fault for bringing a Riptide. It was then I realized what power the new unit possessed, and how little fun they were to face.
It was at this moment I decided to no longer use Riptides, or Broadsides. I miss having the distinction of playing the game on hard mode, but I have to say it was fun to win a few games, Do I think Tau are overpowered? Yes, in some ways they are the Grey Knights of 6th, and in others they are one trick ponies. To win against all the shenanigans in 6th a Tau player must either exercise tactical brilliance, or bring an army that is so boring to play you hardly understand why you enjoy the game anymore. My new army is noncompetitive and I know I cannot defeat Serpent spam, or take on flying Daemons, but I never had fun playing those lists anyway, I remember how it felt to lose to them before I had the Riptides, before I went broke buying Broadsides, I wanted to quit. And I refuse to do that to my fellow gamers. So no I will not win tournaments at all costs anymore, I will try to outthink, and maybe just outplay these sorts of players, and probably lose doing it. But hey at least, or rather hopefully I will start to have some fun again, because frankly I miss the days when the worst army in the game could beat the best if its owner knew what he was doing and executed his plan perfectly.

Spoiler:

Still not getting what makes a riptide good.

The str 7 ap2 large blast is good; but then IG can get this in command squads for 35pts

Shell them. At ld7 or 8 you are likely to pin them or make them runaway.

Martel732 wrote:

Fair enough, but I've never seen a Vespid fielded. Ever. As far as I'm concerned, Codex: Tau IS Codex: Riptide, because that's what anyone who wants to do well is going to take.

Makumba wrote:

This. Last big tournament I went to had 22 people using tau as primary , ally or formation . Not a single of those armies had vespids or krotox , but all had riptides and broadsides . And before someone says that is tournaments , we play the exact same list outside of tournaments here. No one has the cash to have normal list , a bad list , a FW list and an escalation list.

Makumba wrote:

Still not getting what makes a riptide good.

skyfire and interceptor on same model . being +2sv and having an inv save . Being jump infantry . A crissis suit takes a helldrake to the face , then gets flamed and a unit of them will be half dead. the Side laughs at ap 3 weapons.

The str 7 ap2 large blast is good; but then IG can get this in command squads for 35pts

with lower T, no save , no inv , no drones , no bufffmander attached and this being the HQ slot , being hunted for slay the warlord , more then one of the 2 to 4 riptides.

Shell them. At ld7 or 8 you are likely to pin them or make them runaway.

The tau I play against are stubborn . With either etheral, buffmander and eldar HQ or etheral buffmander and farsight HQ. I could of course try to take 3 mortars , hope that the tau player won't go first and then have a chance to pin one of his marker light units . But I still have to play against tau with just one unit of markerlights , unless they are ally.

Makumba wrote:
So you play tailored anti tau lists with FW units, that would lose all their troops to any chaos lists . I can't use FW units and we don't tailor our lists.

OzTeg8ndPwRfl wrote:
Blobs with Commissars, Las Cannons, and Krak Grenades
Aegis Defense Line
Colossus
Manticore
Leman Russ Executioner

Makumba wrote:
So you play tailored anti tau lists with FW units, that would lose all their troops to any chaos lists . I can't use FW units and we don't tailor our lists.