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Tau markerlights are broken, everyone seems to agree on this, because of the way they can turn any mediocre unit into a pinpoint murder machine.

Fix:
Markerlights only affect missile weapons (Missile Pods, High Yield Missile Pods, Seeker Missiles, Smart Missile Systems, etc) and Barrage weapons.

Add Laser TAG (as Markerlight for Imperial missile and barrage weapons) to the Special Weapon list for Adepta Sororitas, Astra Militarum, Inquisition, Militarum Tempestus and Space Marine armies.

Add Pointer Fing (as Markerlight for Ork missile and barrage weapons) to the Ranged Weapon list for Orks. Up to a third of the models in a Grot Mob may exchange their Blasta for a Pointer Fing as long as they don't get caught.

All Eldar psykers gain Psychic Beacon, a ML1 power that acts as a Markerlight for all Eldar missile and barrage weapons.

Etc, etc, as fluff appropriate.

After all, why should only Tau get their target designators on the table top, when fluff has them all over the galaxy?

Not really much of a fix when it is giving everyone the same broken thing. It takes away a fundamental aspect of Tau play without really fixing the rules at all.

 curran12 wrote:
Not really much of a fix when it is giving everyone the same broken thing. It takes away a fundamental aspect of Tau play without really fixing the rules at all.

Totally agree you can't fix something by flooding it with more broken bits.

Markerlights really arent broken lets be fair. Whats broken is riptides, missileside spam, and the buffmander to a lesser extent. Markerlights are on highly fragile easy to kill units and most of the people who think they are OP are im afraid, just butthurt that an army that has a unique feature beat them.

The only change I would agree with with markerlights would be to change scour back to -1 cover save per token expended, for the addition of "suppression" which would be the old -1ld for pinning per token expended, which for some stupid reason was removed.

 curran12 wrote:
Not really much of a fix when it is giving everyone the same broken thing. It takes away a fundamental aspect of Tau play without really fixing the rules at all.

Ah, you're assuming that I agree that the game effect is broken. No, it's the fluff that's broken!

I would like to see Cover saves allowed vs Markerlight hits. Cover prevents the Markerlights from painting their target and allowing the tokens to be placed.

Cover saves don't make complete sense though. You take cover in the heat of battle because you hear a gun go off, not because a little dot that you don't notice appeared on your chest. I agree with Bobug, have it take cover per hit, not just two and you don't get anything.

If that's not enough, try and have it so only battlesuits can use the boost to ballistic skill. They have the advance optics that would let them see them in the first place.

Tau are supposed to be technologically advanced compared to everyone but eldar and necrons. It's expected that they have more toys to use that no one else has.

The OP sounds like he only plays against people who spam them, and he relies on cover to make his army less squishy. I play tau and have maybe 2-4 markerlights max.

It's not about markerlights being broken, it's all about the type of people that are playing. The people that spam them because they are only playing to win and use the missilesides spam, and the three riptides with FNP to tank shots, and the firewarrior gun line with the ethereal behind them shouting to shoot again.

Every army has something that can be spammed to death and made cheap. Space Marines have their grav weapons on bikes, Eldar have their Wave Serpent spam, Necrons have the Spammable flyers, wraiths and Annihilation Barges, and Demons can swarm the board with an uncountable amount of psykers that can keep on growing. It just sounds like you got bad luck with someone that likes doing that.

Actually, I'm a she, and I play two of the most durable armies in the game. My main problem is the fact that even though markerlights are the kind of thing that makes modern armies work, they're excluded for no reason other than "but that's the Tau's trick".

The thing is most armies in 40k aren't 'modern', otherwise they wouldn't be running up and trying to chop folks' faces off with chainsaw swords. The Tau are supposed to be the technologically-advanced intelligent modern-warfare faction; everyone else either has a different set of tools or a different approach to warfare such that Markerlights wouldn't make a lot of sense.

That said you'd get rid of 90% of complaints about Markerlights if they were cut back to the 4e Codex version that imposed a penalty to cover instead of outright ignoring it, because that actually does line up with existing wargear within other factions and doesn't up and completely take away someone's toy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Going down the list, lorewise:

Chaos: No Markerlights because they're too sophisticated/organized to fit the tone of the army. Also because Daemons just don't care.
Orks: No Markerlights because the noise of the guns is more important to them than hitting anything.
The Imperium of Man: No Markerlights because nobody's got an STC on hand that specifically works that way. Their technological support trick for guns is called an Auspex and it doesn't happen in every army, which is a discussion in and of itself.
Dark Eldar/Eldar/Necrons: No Markerlights because everyone who would care is carrying secondary support systems that lorewise do basically the same thing built into their stuff, having someone else paint their targets would be redundant.
Tyranids: Skree.

(As a random aside there if you give other armies Markerlights because it's not fair or sensible that the Tau get them and they don't wouldn't you start having to give the Tau BS4 units and things that aren't ass in melee because it's not fair that everyone else gets them but they don't?)

It's funny, no one complained about marker lights being broken when tau were arguably the worst army. Now with the drop of the new codex they changed slightly. the increase in BS is the same. 2 ignores cover instead of the -1. I cna't auto pin units anymore. I think marker lights as a whole are fine and not broken in the least.

Sargow wrote:
It's funny, no one complained about marker lights being broken when tau were arguably the worst army. Now with the drop of the new codex they changed slightly. the increase in BS is the same. 2 ignores cover instead of the -1. I cna't auto pin units anymore. I think marker lights as a whole are fine and not broken in the least.

The changes to Rapid Fire, the Ethereal and Fireblade granting extra shots, the game's newly-increased reliance on cover saves, the crap surrounding Snap Shots, and the Riptide's guns are probably the reasons. Nobody complained about Markerlights being broken when you couldn't use them to make your AP2 large blast template Ignores Cover or let your Hammerhead one-shot a flyer.

The problem is that Tau can do too many things with Markerlights that other armies need to roll a specific random psychic power to do or can't do at all.

I would be OK with toning down marker lights if Tau could deny the witch on a 4+ and had access to a few more items like the Talisman of Arthas Moloch. I feel like that if my opponent brings psychers then they get a free part in the game where they can do things that I cannot do in addition to me not having a viable response.

 Lord Scythican wrote:
I would be OK with toning down marker lights if Tau could deny the witch on a 4+ and had access to a few more items like the Talisman of Arthas Moloch. I feel like that if my opponent brings psychers then they get a free part in the game where they can do things that I cannot do in addition to me not having a viable response.

Denying on a 4+.... yes I'll look into these allegations further.

Also, Necrons don't have a psychic phase, Dark Eldar don't have a psychic phase.

They also suck at denying just as badly.

But I'm guessing you were just making a funny. At least you don't have to worry about

Dark Eldar have access to Eldar so they do have access to a psychic phase. I will agree that necrons don't but they get something that no other army has either. Thier dudes get back up.

Giving every army a form of markerlights is a bad idea. Not only is it not fluffy, a large part of what makes this hobby fun is that we have lots of different armies, all with their own unique abilities and strategies.
If you're going to give everyone markerlights, you may as well give everyone bolters, power armour, drop pods, etc.
We don't need to make the armies all have the same mechanics, even if they would "make sense" or be optimal from their perspective.

You cannot play the ally game.

The goddamn Ally Matrix is so slowed. It allows people to say, that is fine you can take _______ so your _______ don't suck in ________ so much.

Goddammit GW... WHY ARE THE SPACE WOLVES SO BUDDY BUDDY WITH ME?

But we work with what we got. So yea I guess you are right. But the Psychic phase is either about owning it or not, either you have 10+ die or your opponent has none. I've only gotten into ONE fight where you could say me and my opponent were duking it out in the psychic phase.

Surprise, surprise it was GK vs Daemons.

EDIT: It was a fun game too, but damn it made me wish for longer ranged weapons, Slaneeshi daemons hurt.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Lord Scythican wrote:
I would be OK with toning down marker lights if Tau could deny the witch on a 4+ and had access to a few more items like the Talisman of Arthas Moloch. I feel like that if my opponent brings psychers then they get a free part in the game where they can do things that I cannot do in addition to me not having a viable response.

Denying on a 4+.... yes I'll look into these allegations further.

Also, Necrons don't have a psychic phase, Dark Eldar don't have a psychic phase.

They also suck at denying just as badly.

But I'm guessing you were just making a funny. At least you don't have to worry about

Making a funny with some seriousness. Both DE and Necrons have others options unavailable to other armies. Like what Sargow said:

Sargow wrote:
Dark Eldar have access to Eldar so they do have access to a psychic phase. I will agree that necrons don't but they get something that no other army has either. Thier dudes get back up.

DE got a lot of nice stat and ability modifying from Power from Pain and other shenanigans.

To me it just seems like Marker Lights are Tau's thing. Now are they the equivalent of a Necron's Will be Back? I don't know, but it does seem like if you think about it, each army has a little something extra (except Nids).

Markerlights are hardly 'broken', yeah they're powerful but so are orders, power through pain, prescience, ATSKNF, an all psyker army, Daemon factories, flyer spam, melta spam, alpha strikes etc.

I think the point is that markerlights turn mediocre units into murder machines. That's a feature, not a bug.

Tau are mediocre without them, they are designed that way.

The problem. I think, is units that are NOT mediocre, in conjunction with makerlights. That means Mr. Riptide, a unit the design philosophy behind which baffles me.

Junk Mr, Riptide, a unit that should never have been created, and all will be good.