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 Savageconvoy wrote:

How do you figure that? 2 units of 6 with not subpar leadership. 2 wounds to force a leadership check or you could attempt to pin. There are loads of options available. Are thunderfire cannons still a thing?

Thanks for reminding me, I'm ashamed of admitting I forgot that, because that's practically how I dealt with pathfinders last time I faced them.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Extremely good luck considering a BS4 hammerhead ignoring cover has a very remote chance of exploding a vehicle in a single shot. However I think you may just be exaggerating to prove some point.
Which appears the entire paragraph is a situation where everything always goes bad for you, and your opponent has markers from 8 different full strength sources that always hit all the time.

It is indeed an exaggeration, it doesn't happen every game but it does happen quite often.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

You mean like a grav gun? Those are pretty versatile. Thunderfire cannons? Is this another IA exclusive problem?

First of all, just because some other things are equally bad, doesn't mean that they're not bad.
That said, no I do not think grav guns are versatile in all situations as missile pods. Ever tried killing Orcs/nid swarm/skitarii with grav guns? Just to give a couple of examples.

Nor are Thunderfire cannons for that matter. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty versatile and definately a strong unit, but in a different manner. It's good against infantry blobs, but it's obviously less powerfull against anything else.
It's got less strength, less AP and against vehicles and MC's it can do 4 hits at most.

We're talking about missile pods? Missile pods are versatile, but not the most versatile weapon. Necrons have Gauss, Eldar have scatter lasers, IoM has autocannons and assault cannons.

They aren't even that easy to get a volume of missile pds on the field.

That's actually wrong. Spamming it is easy.

But it's not any better than grav at killing hordes, simple issue of shot count.

DaPino your exaggerations are so bad are absurd as a hammerhead taking out even a chimera is not a 25%, even at BS5 ignore cover. So losing big tanks frequently is funny.
Also having at least 3 of your units marked to oblivion after you took out two marker units suggest abnormal marker count, therefor little guns.
That or made up. Nonsense.

Single shot anti-tank weapons in this game are terrible. Which is the exact opposite of reality.

Somewhat late to the party, but here are my thoughts:

1) No, Tau don't have psychic powers. But, nor do several other armies and they don't get anything resembling markerlights.

2) No, Tau don't have any (good) assault units. But, if you have extra shooting to compensate for this... why do you need assault? It's a bit like a fighter in D&D focussing entirely on bows. Yeah, he's not great in melee... but the point is that he doesn't need to be. That's the whole point of being really good with a bow.

3) Back to markerlights for a minute, it should really take 1 markerlight to remove 1pt of cover (not 2 to remove it all). But then, I also think this game could do with fewer Ignores Cover weapons (make them modifiers instead), and fewer stacking cover saves.

4) I think Tau are possibly OP against some of the 6th edition (not that there are many left now) and early 7th edition books, but not against the 7.5 books.

EDIT: Actually, 'OP' is probably the wrong term here. 'Hard-counter' might be closer to the mark.

5) Another factor though is that Tau are the sort of army that *feels* OP, regardless of whether it actually is.
- Being shot by basic troops with S5 guns from the other side of the table *feels* OP.
- Having your cover save removed by 2 laser pointers *feels* OP - especially if you're an army like DE, which has sod-all else to protect it.
- Being overwatched by not just your target but everything near your target (often at higher BS) *feels* OP.
- Enemies that can shoot you, then jump behind LoS-blocking terrain *feels* OP.
- A MC with a 2+/5+ and FNP that can shoot a S8 AP2 Ignores Cover pie-plate *feels* OP.

My point is that a lot of things can certainly feel/appear OP, regardless of whether they actually are or not.

5) Somewhat related to the above, I think Tau is rarely fun to play against (which doesn't help people's perception of it). It's the sort of army that doesn't appear to be participating in much of the game (not to mention ignoring a number of rules), and just has a lot of un-fun mechanics - with JSJ being a particular bugbear in this regard.

 BoomWolf wrote:
That's actually wrong. Spamming it is easy.

I should have specified there are only a few units that actually get them. That and it isn't really anything new. Though thanks to the better wording of the 6th codex we can get double the shots per suit.

I have to ask this, but does anyone actually know why taudar was considered broken cheese in 6th? I had it carefully explained to me elsewhere, I'm just wondering after going through this thread. I'll post the answer I was given in a bit or I'll quote the answer if someone else has it.

beyond that, for everyone who hates facing Tau, what do your opponents usually bring as allies or fortifications? Keep in mind, I'm a FSE player, and I might consider copying them. Personally, I have an Aegis that I bring to games as well as one of each assassin, and 2 Culexii.

Martel732 wrote:
Single shot anti-tank weapons in this game are terrible. Which is the exact opposite of reality.

Well, it's because this game uses... dubious mechanics.

Your to-hit roll is only ever based on BS. You get no bonus for being stationary, you get no bonus for your target being stationary, tanks apparently contain no targeting systems whatsoever, there's no accounting for the size of your target - or even its distance. A stationary land raider 5ft away is exactly as hard to hit as a single jetbike, zooming around on the other side of the board.

And then there's the vehicle damage table, which is basically a 'screw you' to single-shot weapons.

 vipoid wrote:

And then there's the vehicle damage table, which is basically a 'screw you' to single-shot weapons.

Agreed. It sucks my Particle Whip can't even splode a tank no more.

 carldooley wrote:
I have to ask this, but does anyone actually know why taudar was considered broken cheese in 6th? I had it carefully explained to me elsewhere, I'm just wondering after going through this thread. I'll post the answer I was given in a bit or I'll quote the answer if someone else has it.

It was a decent mix of mobility and firepower. You got a cheap jetseer to throw in with an expensive unit that needed psychic protection or to buff and got to take a unit of jetbikes or two to keep in reserves and drop on objectives late in game.

Farseers could easily get two psychic powers that let two units re-roll misses, which works great for two Riptides that you had close by. Some other fun tricks that I'm sure more will elaborate on.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
I have to ask this, but does anyone actually know why taudar was considered broken cheese in 6th? I had it carefully explained to me elsewhere, I'm just wondering after going through this thread. I'll post the answer I was given in a bit or I'll quote the answer if someone else has it.

It was a decent mix of mobility and firepower. You got a cheap jetseer to throw in with an expensive unit that needed psychic protection or to buff and got to take a unit of jetbikes or two to keep in reserves and drop on objectives late in game.

Farseers could easily get two psychic powers that let two units re-roll misses, which works great for two Riptides that you had close by. Some other fun tricks that I'm sure more will elaborate on.

it was actually that. A farseer with guide cost a fraction of what a supporting unit would cost, whether that unit consisted of a buffmander and\or markerlights. We can still get similar effects, but they cost a boatload more points. Personally, I only take a riptide if I can properly support it, which roughly breaks down to 1 riptide per 600 points of my army. Plus in 6th, buffmanders could join MCs, which would allow what was called O'Vesa star, something that was fixed in 7th.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

And then there's the vehicle damage table, which is basically a 'screw you' to single-shot weapons.

Agreed. It sucks my Particle Whip can't even splode a tank no more.

Try Dark Eldar.

Which is your favourite DE anti-tank weapon?

The expensive, single-shot weapon, or the other expensive, single-shot weapon?

 vipoid wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

And then there's the vehicle damage table, which is basically a 'screw you' to single-shot weapons.

Agreed. It sucks my Particle Whip can't even splode a tank no more.

Try Dark Eldar.

Which is your favourite DE anti-tank weapon?

The expensive, single-shot weapon, or the other expensive, single-shot weapon?

Hmm, yes. I see your point.

At least you don't have to rely on 6s whenever you do hit. >.>

 carldooley wrote:
Personally, I only take a riptide if I can properly support it, which roughly breaks down to 1 riptide per 600 points of my army. Plus in 6th, buffmanders could join MCs, which would allow what was called O'Vesa star, something that was fixed in 7th.

I dropped out shortly into 7th after the maelstrom games proved to be too random and too big of a hassle.
But I did enjoy running a buffmander and a FSE commander in a full suit squad. Various loadouts and target locks had one unit that was very versatile at providing support. 6 markerdrones for use with my FSE HBC Riptide.
ECPA and BS5 made it so fun enough to be a sin. Good times I had with those units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wait, are DE and Necrons complaining about anti-tank?
Don't Necrons have troop weapons that can glance anything?
Don't DE have dark lances by the dozen?

 krodarklorr wrote:

Hmm, yes. I see your point.

At least you don't have to rely on 6s whenever you do hit. >.>

Well, technically I do - as I play Necrons too.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Don't DE have dark lances by the dozen?

Not really, no.

Also, let's say we do have a dozen of them. Thats, what? ~500pts minimum (and 4 HS slots) to kill a single 65pt chimera out of cover. Yeah, can't imagine why DE players might feel a bit short-changed in the anti-vehicle department.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wait, are DE and Necrons complaining about anti-tank?
Don't Necrons have troop weapons that can glance anything?
Don't DE have dark lances by the dozen?

No, Necrons are not complaining. Dark Eldar are, as they have every right to.

Dark Eldar have always been Game Workshop's whipping boys though... and not in the way the Dark Eldar enjoy.

 vipoid wrote:

Not really, no.

Also, let's say we do have a dozen of them. Thats, what? ~500pts minimum (and 4 HS slots) to kill a single 65pt chimera out of cover. Yeah, can't imagine why DE players might feel a bit short-changed in the anti-vehicle department.

Should have worded that better. I've known 2 DE players, one move away before 6th and the second doesn't really use DE that much. I was unaware of your AT status currently. I thought they had better access to lance weapons than that.

 Savageconvoy wrote:

Should have worded that better. I've known 2 DE players, one move away before 6th and the second doesn't really use DE that much. I was unaware of your AT status currently. I thought they had better access to lance weapons than that.

No worries.

In any casel, it's not just access to dark lances - it's the fact that Dark Lances/Blasters just aren't good in this edition. Because AP2 is really unreliable at exploding vehicles, they've basically been reduced to stripping hull-points - which is incredibly inefficient for expensive, single-shot weapons.

The other aspect is that - especially with jink - there are a lot more cover saves these days. But, DE have no anti-tank weapons that ignore cover (nor any way to hand out ignores cover). So, we're often in a position where an enemy can ignore our jink/cover save (basically our only defence), but we can't do anything about their cover save.


But, I think we've gone ever so slightly off topic.

DE are in a really bad shape...for odd reasons.


They got all the tools per see, they are FAST, they got an answer to everything (MC with low armor? kabalite gunship! tanks? scourge haywire guns, etc, etc) and nothing (except witches) is too overpriced.

On paper they look amazing.

But the HQs are practically a tax, and many units require HQ support to truly function.
Add the fact their glass hammer nature makes them mostly want to come from reserves, without any ability to hit the board T1 on deepstrike, and they are relegated to a beta-strike, without the actual ability to endure an alpha-strike, nor any means to assure enough turns up on turn 2.

Then you realize all special-weapon duty (and you gonna need ALOT) actually falls on scourges if you want them in a meaningful, mobile platform, who are not that hard to remove-and you cant afford to have nothing BUT scourges.
All the good assaulty units are in elites-for example witches are nice, but mandrakes are far better at getting close, for marginal cost increase. but how many can you get?

To add insult to injury, they have a "hit first, hit alot" CC statline, with no 2+ armor, nor 2+ weapons. so they rely on rending and forcing saves, niether they got widely available.


So, they have all the right tools, in all the wrong places.

 BoomWolf wrote:
That's actually wrong. Spamming it is easy.

But it's not any better than grav at killing hordes, simple issue of shot count.

DaPino your exaggerations are so bad are absurd as a hammerhead taking out even a chimera is not a 25%, even at BS5 ignore cover. So losing big tanks frequently is funny.
Also having at least 3 of your units marked to oblivion after you took out two marker units suggest abnormal marker count, therefor little guns.
That or made up. Nonsense.

I explicitly said that it WAS an exaggeration, I refer you to my follow-up post where I said that all of those things might not happen at once, but one of them does rather frequently.

The thing is, you're right. A BS5, cover-ignoring hammerhead has abut 23% chance to outright kill an AV11 target and about 18% if the target is AV12, that doesn't look very impressive. But let's look at some other units. Tri-las pred has a 8% chance to explode AV11 and 6% chance against AV12 (assuming the targets are in cover). Same for 3 obliterators using Lascannons. Lascannon havocs 11% and 8% respectively.
Even if you double all those perentages (target without cover), the only thing comming close to the hammerhead is the havocs. So hammerheads do have a significantly increased chance at instantaneously blowing something up.

And I want to stress this again, I don't think Tau are OP, I think they are boring. Against just about any other army, I can mitigate these risks of getting blown up turn one simply by using my brain a bit and deploying so I get cover saves for the right units, against the right units. There are far better tank hunters around but, at least most of the time, I can either 1) stay away or if that's not possible 2) get a save against them. Almost impossible against Tau, which doesn't mean Tau are better at tank hunting, but it makes the game more boring because the tactical aspect of deployment and movement becomes smaller.

Terrain, normally, can both be advantageous or disadvantageous, depending on the situation. It's up to both players to figure out which of those holds true when they're taking a turn.
Unless, of course, Tau are involved. Then terrain becomes nothing but a bother you have to churn through, something that slows you down. It feels like the entire board is part of the Tau's army list because it's only there to help him keep your units away.

 BoomWolf wrote:
DE are in a really bad shape...for odd reasons.


They got all the tools per see, they are FAST, they got an answer to everything (MC with low armor? kabalite gunship! tanks? scourge haywire guns, etc, etc) and nothing (except witches) is too overpriced.

On paper they look amazing.

But the HQs are practically a tax, and many units require HQ support to truly function.
Add the fact their glass hammer nature makes them mostly want to come from reserves, without any ability to hit the board T1 on deepstrike, and they are relegated to a beta-strike, without the actual ability to endure an alpha-strike, nor any means to assure enough turns up on turn 2.

Then you realize all special-weapon duty (and you gonna need ALOT) actually falls on scourges if you want them in a meaningful, mobile platform, who are not that hard to remove-and you cant afford to have nothing BUT scourges.
All the good assaulty units are in elites-for example witches are nice, but mandrakes are far better at getting close, for marginal cost increase. but how many can you get?

To add insult to injury, they have a "hit first, hit alot" CC statline, with no 2+ armor, nor 2+ weapons. so they rely on rending and forcing saves, niether they got widely available.


So, they have all the right tools, in all the wrong places.

Night sheilds + nightfight = beta strike is basically an alpha strike unless the enemy has insane ignore cover.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
DE are in a really bad shape...for odd reasons.


They got all the tools per see, they are FAST, they got an answer to everything (MC with low armor? kabalite gunship! tanks? scourge haywire guns, etc, etc) and nothing (except witches) is too overpriced.

On paper they look amazing.

But the HQs are practically a tax, and many units require HQ support to truly function.
Add the fact their glass hammer nature makes them mostly want to come from reserves, without any ability to hit the board T1 on deepstrike, and they are relegated to a beta-strike, without the actual ability to endure an alpha-strike, nor any means to assure enough turns up on turn 2.

Then you realize all special-weapon duty (and you gonna need ALOT) actually falls on scourges if you want them in a meaningful, mobile platform, who are not that hard to remove-and you cant afford to have nothing BUT scourges.
All the good assaulty units are in elites-for example witches are nice, but mandrakes are far better at getting close, for marginal cost increase. but how many can you get?

To add insult to injury, they have a "hit first, hit alot" CC statline, with no 2+ armor, nor 2+ weapons. so they rely on rending and forcing saves, niether they got widely available.


So, they have all the right tools, in all the wrong places.

Night sheilds + nightfight = beta strike is basically an alpha strike unless the enemy has insane ignore cover.

Night shields + night fighting + deep striking raiders and venoms, I think clearly the way DE were designed to work.

Tau have some poorly implemented mechanics, which isn't the same thing as being overpowered. It isn't really worth trying to argue whether a book is overpowered or not because what history actually shows is that editions tend to elevate a codex to overpowered or underpowered moreso than any inherent units or mechanics in the codex itself. Eldar were monsters in 4th and irrelevant in 5th. IG and Grey Knights went from kings of the meta in 5th edition to crap in 6th. Tau were a dominant faction in 6th but struggle to reach the top of the leaderboard in 7th whereas Marines went from solidly average in 5th and 6th to a powerhouse in 7th. Tyranids have placed in the top 5 of almost every GT since 7th hit.

So I wouldn't say that Tau are overpowered so much as the vagaries of 6th edition favored their play-style immensely, whereas the mechanics of 7th don't.

Buuuut despite that, the Tau still have game mechanics that are boring at best and downright hostile to the spirit of the game at worst. Markerlights are one big issue, and their complete disregard for three out of the four phases in the game for most of the match is the other. Straight nerfs to all their best stuff isn't going to fix that though- they need buffs and tweaks to their underperforming units and abilities as well, to encourage a healthy variety of competitive builds and strategies.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Night sheilds + nightfight = beta strike is basically an alpha strike unless the enemy has insane ignore cover.

Yeah, our beta strike is just terrifying with all of our weapons hitting on 6s.

Also, you know Night Shields and Night Fighting don't stack, right?

I don't think Tau are OP. I think Ignores cover is OP.

... and Tau have the ability to have it everywhere. Now I know that shooting is the Tau thing, and I understand the investment in markerlights is an expensive one, but let's be honest... Having Ignores cover on practically everything is a bit crazy.

To me... It's getting ignores cover from other resources that makes it a little silly. Just popping a batman commander into some crisis suits makes them OP. Whine-worthy OP? nah... but still OP.

I am an Eldar player and to me... the OP wave serpent issue, was the ease of getting STR 7 ignores cover shots in multiples.

I know when I face a Tau list... at least the ones in my local meta... it always has an abundance of just that... STR 7 ignores cover.... often with Tank Hunter and/or monster hunter. With str 5 ignores cover (and LOS) backing it up.

I always bust my good friend who plays Tau by telling him, the new Eldar Codex made Tau OP. lol Obviously it's a joke, but my point is that Tau now have the most amount of Ignores Cover, and LOS ignoring weapons. They are still in a very good spot.

Again, I have no issue with Tau, I have an issue with Ignores cover being that prevalent in ANY army.

I read the majority of the thread. Personally I think Tau are very strong but not on a level with Necrons and SMs and NO WHERE NEAR Eldar levels!
All of those dexes have the ability to outshoot and also assault Tau if they decide to bring the fight close. Necrons can outshoot them due to their durability, SMs can outshoot them due to incredible amounts of free firepower they can bring, drop podding relentless grav-devs, cent stars etc, and Eldar are... well... Eldar.
I have always been able to outshoot Tau as Renegades too, every time! And still have the points for Spawn (and maybe Giant Spawn) to swat any suits that come close and capture objectives with beast speed. Point for point Renegades bring FAR more firepower to the table then Tau. I have been incredibly surprised that I have never seen renegades described as OP on Dakka. They are so powerful outside of the recent Asterix Magic potion dexes. I'd put my neck out to say the most powerful after the post BA dexes. Far more powerful than Tau in every way.

If the Tau get the Eldar treatment though, I will be furious. They need a buff of their weaker units and maybe a decurion list to be top tier again, but if Riptides get GMC for minute pts increase and D is given out like candy, as well as other strong units being made stronger, it'll just be as stupidly broken as the new Eldar dex.

DaPino wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
That's actually wrong. Spamming it is easy.

But it's not any better than grav at killing hordes, simple issue of shot count.

DaPino your exaggerations are so bad are absurd as a hammerhead taking out even a chimera is not a 25%, even at BS5 ignore cover. So losing big tanks frequently is funny.
Also having at least 3 of your units marked to oblivion after you took out two marker units suggest abnormal marker count, therefor little guns.
That or made up. Nonsense.

I explicitly said that it WAS an exaggeration, I refer you to my follow-up post where I said that all of those things might not happen at once, but one of them does rather frequently.

The thing is, you're right. A BS5, cover-ignoring hammerhead has abut 23% chance to outright kill an AV11 target and about 18% if the target is AV12, that doesn't look very impressive. But let's look at some other units. Tri-las pred has a 8% chance to explode AV11 and 6% chance against AV12 (assuming the targets are in cover). Same for 3 obliterators using Lascannons. Lascannon havocs 11% and 8% respectively.
Even if you double all those perentages (target without cover), the only thing comming close to the hammerhead is the havocs. So hammerheads do have a significantly increased chance at instantaneously blowing something up.

Yes, you said its an exaggeration, but its SO far off reality it makes you look like a fool, rather than like someone trying to make a point. exaggerations need to be somewhat rooted in reality.

Also, you are ignoring the fact that other than the hammerhead, all of them can also get a kill via hullpoint damage-if not alone then in work with a second unit, something a hammerhead is simply incapable of-a bare minimum of 3 is neede for a CHANCE to hullpoint a chimera. and its the most practical method to kill tanks in this day and age.

And you used units who are wildly accepted as subpar for your comparison to boot, good job. (oblits are not subpar in general, but they should only lascanon an MC, not a tank. you got MM for that.) and even there you got the numbers absurdly wrong.

Just for fun, I ran lascanon havocs (so 4 BS4 lascanons), and made them consider cover 5+ against an AV12 target. 8% for hullpoint death alone, on top of 14% to score an explosion. an unsupported hammerhead on the other hand has 9% to score an explosion, despite costing not much less. sure, at BS5 ignore cover its a "great" 23% (we'll get there), but at natural stats? mere 9%. a chimera.

So, 155 points of havocs got 14% to explode and 8% to wreck, without being willing to calculate the overlap we'll assume a generous of half wrecks explode as well, so its a 18% kill chance. the hammerhead when natural has HALF the chance, for 125 points. a simple ranking system made of "killchance/price" gives havocs a score of 0.116129, hammerhead gets 0.072. havoc efficency ranking is 62% above the hammerhead.
LASCANON HAVOCS. hardly the stuff of legends.

Looking at the buffed hammerhead, just to drive the point in. the buffed hammerhead (ignore cover, BS5) will cost you at the mot efficient method, ignoring all the strings attached a total of 191 minimum for netting it as the average result.
It will explode 18% of the time (wait what? not the 23 you claimed? shocker.)
Then we put it in the ranking system and it gets 0.09424, still 19% in ranking under the havocs.

So even the big bad buffed hammerhead, under the most optimal of conditions, is actually not any better than simple lascanon havocs when it comes to killing a chimera. while not wanting to run the numbers, I'm willing to bet the others are not faring much worse either, despite not fitting for a direct comparison (oblits got an aresnal of choices, including DS with MM, hardly fair. trilas is wildly considered bad anyway, etc...), and lets not forget that lascanon havoks will do more damage to ANYTHING with a T value other than T5 units with at least 5 wounds, or 3 wounds and FnP (you can calculated it if you want)

So unless you are going to claim lascanon havocs are OP, you better drop the act about hammerheads being a serious threat to tanks, or that they in any way "allow no reaction", I just proved to you that a reaction is not even needed-they can't get the job done anyway.

The only way hammerheads constantly take out your tanks T1, is if you are showing them the rear.

DaPino wrote:
And I want to stress this again, I don't think Tau are OP, I think they are boring. Against just about any other army, I can mitigate these risks of getting blown up turn one simply by using my brain a bit and deploying so I get cover saves for the right units, against the right units. There are far better tank hunters around but, at least most of the time, I can either 1) stay away or if that's not possible 2) get a save against them. Almost impossible against Tau, which doesn't mean Tau are better at tank hunting, but it makes the game more boring because the tactical aspect of deployment and movement becomes smaller.

Terrain, normally, can both be advantageous or disadvantageous, depending on the situation. It's up to both players to figure out which of those holds true when they're taking a turn.
Unless, of course, Tau are involved. Then terrain becomes nothing but a bother you have to churn through, something that slows you down. It feels like the entire board is part of the Tau's army list because it's only there to help him keep your units away.

If you think there are no tactics involved when playing against tau I have to assume you are a bad player.
The fact you claim that terrain becomes nothing but a bother is the most obvious alarm bell. against "classic" tau gunline types you want with nearly every army to have as much terrain as possible-its practically a rule of thumb against tau to make sure the table isn't empty.
Even if you won't get cover saves, every 2 markers used to ignore cover are 2 not used to increase BS. you just need to learn how to USE the terrain, rather than be bothered by it.
Against "enclaves" it becomes a double-edged sword, but given that its an army centered around mobility and trickery, I doubt you actually think THAT variation has no tactics involved.

Most of my wins derive directly from my opponents deploying wrong, making the wrong moves, prioritizing the wrong targets and not utilizing the full scope of the abilities of their armies. even simple things are choosing to combat squad wrong (against tau? 100% of the time you do. we find 2 five man squads much harder to remove than a single 10 man squad.), "feeding" me units into the meatgrinder (no, it dosent matter how tough is your unit, if its alone-I'll crack it, you have to dispaly multiple threats), don't take advantage of LOS blocking (markerlights don't help if I got no line of sight with either the marker, OR the shooter, you got 2 block chances-tau got no practical indirect fire.), and generally failing even simple tactics such as not thinking of the fact even a "shooty" unit is going to have an edge on me in CC and not assaulting ("why should I assault? this unit is better at shooting!", yes. but mine is an even better shot, but worse at assault. you go from being a 7 to being a 4, but take my guns from 8 to 3. its your edge.), and even going as foolish as ignoring my markerlights and going for the "real threats". ("it can't kill anything anyway.")

The point is, they are using the same tactics that work against your every day space marines against my tau, and that's simply not working, as tau play differently. our support units carry the "threats", not the other way around, we can shoot to oblivion, but have to focus fire, we consider a "nearly-dead" unit as a still legitimize threat in CC (that 1 assault marine survivor flying around can still disable an entire unit in CC if not dealt with) and we can little for deathstars-we find MSU far harder to deal with.
Your washed-up anti-everything tactics just don't work, so you think there are no tactics. in reality, you are just using all the wrong ones.

My losses on the other hand are mostly against players who figure out how differently they need to act, how to force my hand and how to counter my own tactics. they don't get it right every time-but WHO does it right is consistent. some players can give me a hard game/defeat with every army, others cant do it with any army. I can usually tell if I am going to have an easy game or an uphill battle before even the game starts, there is just that vibe that comes off from serious tacticians that you can simply tell are not going to fall for cheap tricks or repeating builds. some who I have to bring a different list with different MOs against them every time I play, otherwise they will figure me out, find my weaknesses and beat me-sometimes the shuffle isn't enough as they manage to anticipate it in advance.


Seriously, I can make a whole shopping list of the LIKELY tactical mistakes people are making then claiming "tau has no tactics". the same errors repeat with most of them.







Now, I'm going to risk sounding extremely rude and border on the inappropriate, but please don't make any more comments on the subject of tau being OP, boring, uncreative, offer no counterplay or whatnot unless you properly study the subject first to make sure the things you type are anchored with reality.
Its exhausting when I need to take off my precious time to defend empirical truths about my army by math, because otherwise notions like the one you are promoting that tau are somehow a problem are taught to the unknowing who takes them for granted despite not having any solid information, and they later ruin my gaming fun when I face baseless hate.
I do NOT enjoy repeating need to be proving that everything and anything tau haters say is outright wrong in a mathematical sense any more then I enjoy homework. its tedious. its almost like trying to unconvert a cult.
Its not fun for me, and I'm sure it not fun for you to get scolded. but you will get it as long as you keep spewing nonsense as you have done in this thread so far.
Hopefully you are among the people who will actually bother to read, learn and improve themselves, and many I have encountered in this forum keep returning to the same mistakes no matter how many times I prove them wrong. please don't be one of those people.



That being said, I have already ran the math of practically every tau unit in the past, proving them to be equal or inferior to the very same units that the haters try to compare them to (unsuccessfully), the TWO exceptions are the IA, and the broadside's HYMP, the very same things every reasonable tau player will have no problem admitting are just too good.
Unfortunately they are also the crutches the tau codex stands on. other then them, few tau units are actually worth it. even on the same units-the other guns are simply bad compared to anything.
People say the tau codex is bland, well. that's a given. its a very SMALL codex (despite supposedly representing a whole federation of races)
Beyond the two troublemakers the -good- units in the tau codex settle in crisis suits(and commander), ethreals, fire warriors and pathfinders, with skyrays and longstrike being "decent enough, and mandatory due to lack of alternative". with such a small pool to work with, there is hardly a reason to wonder tau armies repeat themselves.
We got not nearly the same amount of raw materials to work with as the likes of eldar or marines, even without counting allied mixing they got more options that are good then our entire codex, good and bad combined.
You want tau to be less repetitive? the first step it to make the entire rest of the codex not as mind-numbing irrelevant. and expand upon it. there is infinite room to expand, just add more alien races.

Poly Ranger wrote:
I
I have always been able to outshoot Tau as Renegades too, every time! And still have the points for Spawn (and maybe Giant Spawn) to swat any suits that come close and capture objectives with beast speed. Point for point Renegades bring FAR more firepower to the table then Tau. I have been incredibly surprised that I have never seen renegades described as OP on Dakka. They are so powerful outside of the recent Asterix Magic potion dexes. I'd put my neck out to say the most powerful after the post BA dexes. Far more powerful than Tau in every way.

I assume this is because of 2 reasons:
1-few people play renegades and heretics, so there is not much talk about them.
2-IoM and chaos players allow IoM and chaos armies get away with ANYTHING. but will hate anything a xeno has that is better, even if its only situational, marginal or requires a sacrifice elsewhere. its just their horde mentality for some reason, don't know why.

 Gangrel767 wrote:
I
I always bust my good friend who plays Tau by telling him, the new Eldar Codex made Tau OP. lol Obviously it's a joke, but my point is that Tau now have the most amount of Ignores Cover, and LOS ignoring weapons. They are still in a very good spot.

Tau has very little LoS ignoring guns. in fact, just the SMS. nothing else (well, there is that one "relic" gun but its only 18" anyway, and mere S4AP5 plate, not exactly game changing)

I second Boomwolf.

Was thinking about posting pretty much the same thing about Terrain myself, but figured it wouldn't be worth it as very few people have paid attention to it in the past. Too many players focus on the Cover Save as if that is all Terrain is good for, when it is the Line of Sight blocking element that every player should be looking to use to their advantage. I've had some people argue that they shouldn't have to rely on Terrain in order to beat any army, even against Tau, because it 'cheapens the experience.' They consider it a bad thing to ensure the Terrain favours them, probably because of opponent complaints when successful, even if the decision not to only allows their opponents a massive advantage. Yet, against Tau for sure, using Terrain to ensure there are 'blind spots' that prevent firing lanes is vital to ensure you are not fighting on Terrain that unfairly favours your opponent.

I never could understand this 'anti-terrain' mentality, as fighting on favourable ground is one of the things real world Armies try to do as much as possible.

 BoomWolf wrote:

DaPino wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
That's actually wrong. Spamming it is easy.

But it's not any better than grav at killing hordes, simple issue of shot count.

DaPino your exaggerations are so bad are absurd as a hammerhead taking out even a chimera is not a 25%, even at BS5 ignore cover. So losing big tanks frequently is funny.
Also having at least 3 of your units marked to oblivion after you took out two marker units suggest abnormal marker count, therefor little guns.
That or made up. Nonsense.

I explicitly said that it WAS an exaggeration, I refer you to my follow-up post where I said that all of those things might not happen at once, but one of them does rather frequently.

The thing is, you're right. A BS5, cover-ignoring hammerhead has abut 23% chance to outright kill an AV11 target and about 18% if the target is AV12, that doesn't look very impressive. But let's look at some other units. Tri-las pred has a 8% chance to explode AV11 and 6% chance against AV12 (assuming the targets are in cover). Same for 3 obliterators using Lascannons. Lascannon havocs 11% and 8% respectively.
Even if you double all those perentages (target without cover), the only thing comming close to the hammerhead is the havocs. So hammerheads do have a significantly increased chance at instantaneously blowing something up.

Yes, you said its an exaggeration, but its SO far off reality it makes you look like a fool, rather than like someone trying to make a point. exaggerations need to be somewhat rooted in reality.

Also, you are ignoring the fact that other than the hammerhead, all of them can also get a kill via hullpoint damage-if not alone then in work with a second unit, something a hammerhead is simply incapable of-a bare minimum of 3 is neede for a CHANCE to hullpoint a chimera. and its the most practical method to kill tanks in this day and age.

And you used units who are wildly accepted as subpar for your comparison to boot, good job. (oblits are not subpar in general, but they should only lascanon an MC, not a tank. you got MM for that.) and even there you got the numbers absurdly wrong.

Just for fun, I ran lascanon havocs (so 4 BS4 lascanons), and made them consider cover 5+ against an AV12 target. 8% for hullpoint death alone, on top of 14% to score an explosion. an unsupported hammerhead on the other hand has 9% to score an explosion, despite costing not much less. sure, at BS5 ignore cover its a "great" 23% (we'll get there), but at natural stats? mere 9%. a chimera.

So, 155 points of havocs got 14% to explode and 8% to wreck, without being willing to calculate the overlap we'll assume a generous of half wrecks explode as well, so its a 18% kill chance. the hammerhead when natural has HALF the chance, for 125 points. a simple ranking system made of "killchance/price" gives havocs a score of 0.116129, hammerhead gets 0.072. havoc efficency ranking is 62% above the hammerhead.
LASCANON HAVOCS. hardly the stuff of legends.

Looking at the buffed hammerhead, just to drive the point in. the buffed hammerhead (ignore cover, BS5) will cost you at the mot efficient method, ignoring all the strings attached a total of 191 minimum for netting it as the average result.
It will explode 18% of the time (wait what? not the 23 you claimed? shocker.)
Then we put it in the ranking system and it gets 0.09424, still 19% in ranking under the havocs.

So even the big bad buffed hammerhead, under the most optimal of conditions, is actually not any better than simple lascanon havocs when it comes to killing a chimera. while not wanting to run the numbers, I'm willing to bet the others are not faring much worse either, despite not fitting for a direct comparison (oblits got an aresnal of choices, including DS with MM, hardly fair. trilas is wildly considered bad anyway, etc...), and lets not forget that lascanon havoks will do more damage to ANYTHING with a T value other than T5 units with at least 5 wounds, or 3 wounds and FnP (you can calculated it if you want)

So unless you are going to claim lascanon havocs are OP, you better drop the act about hammerheads being a serious threat to tanks, or that they in any way "allow no reaction", I just proved to you that a reaction is not even needed-they can't get the job done anyway.

The only way hammerheads constantly take out your tanks T1, is if you are showing them the rear.

I'd seriously like you to show me the math. I've done it over and over against AV11, a hammerhead should have 23% chance of exploding it instantly.
If I'm doing this wrong, just tell me and that'll be that, you'll be right and I'll be wrong, no need to be so condescending.

For a BS5 hammerhead with ignores cover
1 shot
BS 5 so 0.833333... hits or a 83.33% chance to hit.
AV11 so needing a 2 to pen means 0.833333....*0.833333... = 69.44% chance to pen
Needing a 5 to explode, meaning 0.6944444...*0.33333 clearly = 0,23 or 23% chance to get an explodes result.

If that's wrong, fine, I just figured that's how it was. You'll have changed my view, just as you wanted.
Also, I did not ignore the fact that other things have a way bigger chance of glancing things to death because of their increased volume of shots, but that's just not what we're discussing. I said I'm bothered by the hammerheads increased chance to kill a vehicle in 1 shot on turn one, not because of it's immense anti-tank capabilities. Not a single unit I've named has a realistic potential to glance a vehicle to death turn one, unless I'm doing the math incorrectly again, in which case I'd be more than happy to believe you providing you give me some math.
True, all of the units I've listed are considered sub-par, but so is the hammerhead so I don't see why I can't compare them.

 BoomWolf wrote:

DaPino wrote:
And I want to stress this again, I don't think Tau are OP, I think they are boring. Against just about any other army, I can mitigate these risks of getting blown up turn one simply by using my brain a bit and deploying so I get cover saves for the right units, against the right units. There are far better tank hunters around but, at least most of the time, I can either 1) stay away or if that's not possible 2) get a save against them. Almost impossible against Tau, which doesn't mean Tau are better at tank hunting, but it makes the game more boring because the tactical aspect of deployment and movement becomes smaller.

Terrain, normally, can both be advantageous or disadvantageous, depending on the situation. It's up to both players to figure out which of those holds true when they're taking a turn.
Unless, of course, Tau are involved. Then terrain becomes nothing but a bother you have to churn through, something that slows you down. It feels like the entire board is part of the Tau's army list because it's only there to help him keep your units away.

If you think there are no tactics involved when playing against tau I have to assume you are a bad player.
The fact you claim that terrain becomes nothing but a bother is the most obvious alarm bell. against "classic" tau gunline types you want with nearly every army to have as much terrain as possible-its practically a rule of thumb against tau to make sure the table isn't empty.
Even if you won't get cover saves, every 2 markers used to ignore cover are 2 not used to increase BS. you just need to learn how to USE the terrain, rather than be bothered by it.
Against "enclaves" it becomes a double-edged sword, but given that its an army centered around mobility and trickery, I doubt you actually think THAT variation has no tactics involved.

Most of my wins derive directly from my opponents deploying wrong, making the wrong moves, prioritizing the wrong targets and not utilizing the full scope of the abilities of their armies. even simple things are choosing to combat squad wrong (against tau? 100% of the time you do. we find 2 five man squads much harder to remove than a single 10 man squad.), "feeding" me units into the meatgrinder (no, it dosent matter how tough is your unit, if its alone-I'll crack it, you have to dispaly multiple threats), don't take advantage of LOS blocking (markerlights don't help if I got no line of sight with either the marker, OR the shooter, you got 2 block chances-tau got no practical indirect fire.), and generally failing even simple tactics such as not thinking of the fact even a "shooty" unit is going to have an edge on me in CC and not assaulting ("why should I assault? this unit is better at shooting!", yes. but mine is an even better shot, but worse at assault. you go from being a 7 to being a 4, but take my guns from 8 to 3. its your edge.), and even going as foolish as ignoring my markerlights and going for the "real threats". ("it can't kill anything anyway.")

The point is, they are using the same tactics that work against your every day space marines against my tau, and that's simply not working, as tau play differently. our support units carry the "threats", not the other way around, we can shoot to oblivion, but have to focus fire, we consider a "nearly-dead" unit as a still legitimize threat in CC (that 1 assault marine survivor flying around can still disable an entire unit in CC if not dealt with) and we can little for deathstars-we find MSU far harder to deal with.
Your washed-up anti-everything tactics just don't work, so you think there are no tactics. in reality, you are just using all the wrong ones.

My losses on the other hand are mostly against players who figure out how differently they need to act, how to force my hand and how to counter my own tactics. they don't get it right every time-but WHO does it right is consistent. some players can give me a hard game/defeat with every army, others cant do it with any army. I can usually tell if I am going to have an easy game or an uphill battle before even the game starts, there is just that vibe that comes off from serious tacticians that you can simply tell are not going to fall for cheap tricks or repeating builds. some who I have to bring a different list with different MOs against them every time I play, otherwise they will figure me out, find my weaknesses and beat me-sometimes the shuffle isn't enough as they manage to anticipate it in advance.


Seriously, I can make a whole shopping list of the LIKELY tactical mistakes people are making then claiming "tau has no tactics". the same errors repeat with most of them.







Now, I'm going to risk sounding extremely rude and border on the inappropriate, but please don't make any more comments on the subject of tau being OP, boring, uncreative, offer no counterplay or whatnot unless you properly study the subject first to make sure the things you type are anchored with reality.
Its exhausting when I need to take off my precious time to defend empirical truths about my army by math, because otherwise notions like the one you are promoting that tau are somehow a problem are taught to the unknowing who takes them for granted despite not having any solid information, and they later ruin my gaming fun when I face baseless hate.
I do NOT enjoy repeating need to be proving that everything and anything tau haters say is outright wrong in a mathematical sense any more then I enjoy homework. its tedious. its almost like trying to unconvert a cult.
Its not fun for me, and I'm sure it not fun for you to get scolded. but you will get it as long as you keep spewing nonsense as you have done in this thread so far.
Hopefully you are among the people who will actually bother to read, learn and improve themselves, and many I have encountered in this forum keep returning to the same mistakes no matter how many times I prove them wrong. please don't be one of those people.



That being said, I have already ran the math of practically every tau unit in the past, proving them to be equal or inferior to the very same units that the haters try to compare them to (unsuccessfully), the TWO exceptions are the IA, and the broadside's HYMP, the very same things every reasonable tau player will have no problem admitting are just too good.
Unfortunately they are also the crutches the tau codex stands on. other then them, few tau units are actually worth it. even on the same units-the other guns are simply bad compared to anything.
People say the tau codex is bland, well. that's a given. its a very SMALL codex (despite supposedly representing a whole federation of races)
Beyond the two troublemakers the -good- units in the tau codex settle in crisis suits(and commander), ethreals, fire warriors and pathfinders, with skyrays and longstrike being "decent enough, and mandatory due to lack of alternative". with such a small pool to work with, there is hardly a reason to wonder tau armies repeat themselves.
We got not nearly the same amount of raw materials to work with as the likes of eldar or marines, even without counting allied mixing they got more options that are good then our entire codex, good and bad combined.
You want tau to be less repetitive? the first step it to make the entire rest of the codex not as mind-numbing irrelevant. and expand upon it. there is infinite room to expand, just add more alien races.

I never said no tactics are involved when playing against Tau, don't put words in my mouth. I said there's less tactics (as in fewer tactical choices), not that they're non-existant. For exampe, in a battle against another army I'll have to figure out what unit I need to deal with first. When playing Tau it's "go for the markerlights".

I am fully aware that every 2 markerlights spent on IC are 2 not spent on a BS upgrade, but that doesn't change the point that some armies are almost entirely designed about having cover saves.
I agree with you however that making people waste markerlights is a tactic in and of itself, but it's also just about the only tactic.

And I don't know how many times I've got to tell you before it gets through to you, it's not the strength of the army that bothers me. I've never said I'm bothered by how repetetive Tau lists are, nor have I said anything about having not being able to win against them. Again, don't put words in my mouth. I bet it's exhausting to defend empirical truths about your army, especially if you're going to do it every time even if they are not the point of discussion. You're right, it's not the players fault that they aren't given enough options, but that doesn't make those options more fun to play against.
Every battle vs Tau I have feels like a chore. And again, I'm not saying Hammerheads are OP tank-hunters, in fact broadsides would do a far better job at it than hammerheads, I realize that. But that doesn't make it any more fun to see how units get destroyed without so much as a save (whereas they would have gotten one vs just about anything that's not Tau).

Someone I play regularly (yes he's a Tau player) once said to me how boring the psychic phase is for him because he doesn't get to do anything and it takes so long (while in reality it doesn't even last 2 minutes). Well that's exactly how Tau shooting feels to me. It's sitting there, hoping on the off-chance that he's finally going to shoot something I DO have a realistic chance of saving against. Meanwhile I'll wait until I have to remove X amount of models from unit Y when called upon.



P.s. you shouldn't have been bothered by risking sounding rude because you've been pretty rude so far regardless.