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The answer to that question is called hypocrisy, because we're not Space Marines we shouldn't be as powerful as people claim we are when in reality were not. Yes we have the best capability in the game for ignoring cover, guess what this is one of the things that makes our army UNIQUE. Tau are not overpowered in the slightest, I say this because the game store that I play in generally is very competitive, even our casual lists are pretty strong and I guarantee if anybody brought a Tau gunline list and they would get stomped.

Again as I stated earlier I personally look at it as either people refusing to change up their tactics, not putting enough terrain on the table which includes LOS blocking terrain, have a sense of superiority (mainly have seen this in Space Marine players) or lack the ability to adapt. Are Tau strong? Yes but they are no stronger then Space Marines, both Eldar armies and would even put Demons, Necrons and Imperial Guard up there all for different reasons.

i often lay against tau and most of my oponents leave their deployment zone very quick and also use a fair ammount of deep striking troops.
helios teams flaming my infantrie, melta teams killing my tanks, riptides jumping on my tanks and smashing em, the new riptide variant with plasma flamer and some cc abilities. hazard teams with short ranged but very deadly guns etc etc...
tau is one of the most diffrent to play armies.
farsight bomb, riptide spam, broadside spam, you can go with many footslogging fw and break havoc on anything infantrie or armor 11 and below, you can make kroot list with great knarlocs and sniper kroots, you can make very mechanised lists...
and even riptide spam is not cheese, those can easily be killed in cc or with id weapons.

I play Tau, and they usually leave their deployment zone in their shooting phase, then re-enter their deployment zone in their assault phase.

As cliché as it is, my problem lies in the riptide. There's only so many times you can watch one of your squads arrive from reserve and be atomised by a 5 point upgrade before it gets old. The riptide with a HBC is priced appropriately and is performs well for it's cost. But the ion accelerator, oh boy.

 Sheokronath wrote:
As cliché as it is, my problem lies in the riptide. There's only so many times you can watch one of your squads arrive from reserve and be atomised by a 5 point upgrade before it gets old. The riptide with a HBC is priced appropriately and is performs well for it's cost. But the ion accelerator, oh boy.

why? the weapon can only be used once, and if used cannot remove a unit on his next shooting phase. (Interceptor, P. 167, rulebook)

The mentioned 5 point upgrade is the Ion Accelerator

A weapon that brakes the riptide by removing his biggest downside-his tendency to kill itself if he wants to have decent killing power.
If Ion accelerator were 30 points instead of 5, they were STILL the go-to pick. and that's pointing at something disturbingly wrong with it.

Tau were my first army and the reason they have markerlghts is because they have bad bs. Their tech is amazing and when played properly they can be very dangerous.

I feel like the Tau can be very powerful, but require some skill in making sure the marker lights are alive and lighting up the correct target. By contrast, spamming Wave Serpents takes no real skill.

By contrast, I think a lot of imperial armies are going to suck in 7th because GW will feel that they don't need an answer for everything because you can bring allies. This runs into the issues of paying points for at least 1 HQ + troop choice just to bring the thing you wanted from your allies and also tournaments limiting people to 2 detachments.

Mobile Market Lights.

Good tau armies either have these or simply don't need/use them.

AP2 Large Blasts. Haywire (I (L) fw tides..). VoF. Mobility. Range.

I think a sense of perspective may be required in this thread so I'll leave this here;

1. Summoning daemons and having substantially more points on the board than you began with
2. Invisible deathstars
3. S10 ap1/2 ignore cover blasts
4. Knights with 4++ rerolls
5. Daemons with 2++ rerolls
6. Transcendant C'tans

Tau are a mid-upper tier army at best.

Mavnas wrote:
I feel like the Tau can be very powerful, but require some skill in making sure the marker lights are alive and lighting up the correct target. By contrast, spamming Wave Serpents takes no real skill.

The problem is none of these takes any real tactical skill.

 koooaei wrote:

Mavnas wrote:
I feel like the Tau can be very powerful, but require some skill in making sure the marker lights are alive and lighting up the correct target. By contrast, spamming Wave Serpents takes no real skill.

The problem is none of these takes any real tactical skill.

QFT. Not to mention EVERY army has to work on target priority. That isn't something only Tau do.

Tau are generally considered OP around my meta for a few reasons:
1-'Cause they can negate many other armies' special rules and strategies without blinking.
You're Marines? Our guns are longer range then many of yours, and we can throw around AP2/3 blasts willy nilly.
You're xenos, and therefore rely on some kind of cover save to keep your models on the table? Too bad.
You're using Deep Strike to try close the distance without having to walk through our WALL OF PLASMA BULLETS? We get to shoot your models off the table before they actually get to do anything anyway.
You have an army that requires getting into Close Combat to accomplish anything? Best of luck, supporting fire and markerlights means our overwatch is nearly a free shooting phase.
You're running a deathstar, possibly invisible? Markerlights can increase our BS past snap-firing anyway, and we have the range and the setup and occasionally ignore LOS so we can kill you dead with everything anyway. Plus psykers are less reliable in this edition so you're not guaranteed the powers you need to make your deathstar viable in the first place.
Plus, the enormous variety of special rules available to Tau (skyfire, interceptor, "split fire", night vision, ignore cover, extra ballistic-skill overwatch, hit & run to extra-negate their single weakness of CC, TWIN-LINKED EVERYTHING) are available either free or so cheap it isn't even funny. And those rules aren't on just a couple of models or units either. They're darn near army-wide.
Oh, and did I mention defensive grenades?

2-'Cause of their incredibly high volume of reasonably cheap high S fire. Infantry get shredded. Most dedicated transports (AV 10-12) can rarely make it across the table to deliver their cargos. Sure Marines get their armour saves, which they pay for. But most xenos armies get demolished before they can ask what happened, as most xenos have ~4-5+ armour saves which Tau chew through. Not to mention Tau have some of the best and yet cheapest troop choices out there.

3-'Cause regardless of what kind of army you play, they have an answer to it. They can sit in a gun line forever and shoot away all your nice everything, whether you're trying to out-shoot them or striving to make that vital charge but getting cut down by 4-5 units worth of overwatch. This generates player rage, which leads to name-calling. They usually aren't all that terribly much fun to play against.

4-'Cause of how bloody durable their various suits are. Tau have easy access to many multi-wound, T4-6, 3+ or 2+ save models. Occasionally with ++ to back it up. So even when someone does manage to put some damage on a Tau unit, they're far from guaranteed to hurt the unit enough to remove it as a threat. Even a single suit can put out enough fire to wreck a transport, finish a half-dead infantry unit, or fry a special character.

djn wrote:
I think a sense of perspective may be required in this thread so I'll leave this here;
1. Summoning daemons and having substantially more points on the board than you began with
2. Invisible deathstars
3. S10 ap1/2 ignore cover blasts
4. Knights with 4++ rerolls
5. Daemons with 2++ rerolls
6. Transcendant C'tans
Tau are a mid-upper tier army at best.

^^This, let me add on to the list:

7.Tau have 1 Item out of both books for Psychic Defense
8. Massed IG Armor Lists (even we struggle against x8 Leman Russes)
9. Space Marine Grav Weapons = Dead Riptides
10. Imperial Armies Ally shenanigans, every army can get a Knight, Drop Pod ect.

Ps- you can't blame the codex for ally shenanigans. Thats something wrong with the rules system and how it works, but is not a strength to the army.
If an army has weakness that need ally's to solve it, that's a problem. A big problem. Every army should have the ability to handle the situation themselves and bring ally's for fluff or specialty, not because it is necessary.

I am now stuck imagining the psilencer instead being a Grav weapon... glorious.

DK with Heavy Psilencer; oh lord, one sec I need to talk to one of my mates just to see how this would play out, I expect Op-ness but one can always wonder.

Verviedi wrote:
Reasons the Tow Empire is OP-
LOLGUNLINE
72" Range, Str10, AP1, Heavy 1 weapons fired at BS4.
Riptide Ion Accelerator
Riptide HBC
Can remove my Tyranids' 2+ cover every turn.
Missilesides+Landing Pad

I dont agree about the Gunline. Tau Gunlines, especially when they trap themselves behind an Aegis is just... Unwise against a general like me. I play Tau myself and mine can be anywhere, when and where needed. If I were anyone complaining about Tau, the LAST thing I'd complain about is that because a TON of armies can handle it well.

a single shot weapon thats no better or worse than the IMperial Guard can field on its AV 14 chassis seems... Odd to complain about as well. Its primarily good for Land Raiders (since you dont need that kinda firepower against most other things really) and its a lot of points to use against other things.

Riptide Accelerator isnt any worse than a Plasmacutioner and probably not as good. its on a good chassis of course and thats what people dislike: they cant "pop" it like a tank. But then again... You can melee it into the ground JUST LIKE A TANK. So. Here again: melee based forces will do well against it. the new Dark Eldar are the bane of Riptides and can end them several ways, MOST armies have the Psykers to melt the brains of a Riptide and of course there is poison, Rending, Grav Guns and all the world of other things that can take it. None of the answers for Riptides are rare or in poor supply. If people dont TAKE them, thats not a Riptide problem.

The Removing cover thing is indeed cool. The army does have a fair amount of it. that is its Shenanigan, really. The rest of the stuff can be handled but ignoring cover is pretty awesome... And then we look to IG Wyverns, EVERY Psyker with Divination and suddenly you kinda realize that the Tau have no Psykers... so they have to do it a different way. So in a way, they pay for Psykers who already have the Ignores cover power in a way without the benefit of the Psyker defense.

Missilessides have 36" range. It isnt hard to figure out where that range ends. LOS FROM a Landing pad is terrible when you get down and look. So Unless they are almost to the edge of that platform and you actually TOOK the platform... mmm... But this is a good combo. Not better than Invisible beastpacks and Centurion stars. Not better than the nigh invincible Wave spam. But sure. it's good.