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Oh I know I caught him on his faulty logic, but no matter how many times I do this very few people admit they are wrong. It takes a brave person to do that.

 Swampmist wrote:
I voted for it because I don't think it's a nerf. i read the rule, and to me it says they use it as a unit. So yeah, in my opinion this is an actual RAW debate, though I'd rather not get into the debate here. I will say I would like to see if we can get it changed to a two detachment limit instead of 3.

Nope. It specifically first says that once per battle A MODEL may activate the ability. The UNIT then uses that ability that was activated by the MODEL.

It is no different than any other army that has 3 models each with a single use ability. Do those ones have to activate them all at once? Nope. Each one activates it one at a time and it affects the entire unit it is in. That is how it is written RAW and most likely RAI. Otherwise why would anyone put multiple ghost keels in a squad if you can only activate it once? Why wouldn't you always just take 3 seperate one so you could activate it 3 times?

My question is why doesn't the ITC right the actual rule in the vote? Otherwise people who have never read the codex are just going to go into the vote, see 2 options: 1 that helps Tau and 1 that hurts them, and a great deal of people are going to just choose the latter.

EDIT: Probably didn't need to go even that far, but either way I'm done here. I've stated my points, and the fact that I realize that either point of view is fine, and I'm just going to leave it there.

Not to be crass, but it does get hard to take the complaints about Tau nerfs seriously when such posters also proclaim not to have lost a single game of 40k in 2 years.

There's some validity to the arguments against the changes the ITC imposed for the LVO, but mostly they come off as "well I can't bring the Eldar level painstick!", and that doesn't gain traction with most people. Yes, it might seem somewhat stilted, and yes, Eldar *really* deserve some toning down, but those are largely matters of direct unit functionality as opposed to formation mechanics that are much easier for people to accept changing.

Tau may not have dominated the LVO, but they had a very respectable overall showing, and are consistently ranked in the top 5 most powerful and capable armies by most players. Overall, there's nothing that the ITC is doing that's going to utterly cripple the army into unplayability here, they're trimming some of the more outrageous cheese, though yes, they should be spreading that a bit more evenly across some other books as well.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not to be crass, but it does get hard to take the complaints about Tau nerfs seriously when such posters also proclaim not to have lost a single game of 40k in 2 years.

There's some validity to the arguments against the changes the ITC imposed for the LVO, but mostly they come off as "well I can't bring the Eldar level painstick!", and that doesn't gain traction with most people. Yes, it might seem somewhat stilted, and yes, Eldar *really* deserve some toning down, but those are largely matters of direct unit functionality as opposed to formation mechanics that are much easier for people to accept changing.

Tau may not have dominated the LVO, but they had a very respectable overall showing, and are consistently ranked in the top 5 most powerful and capable armies by most players. Overall, there's that the ITC is doing that's going to utterly cripple the army into unplayability here, they're trimming some of the more outrageous cheese, though yes, they should be spreading that a bit more evenly across some other books as well.

That is one heck of a strawman fallacy you pulled there questioning my victory streak and gaming habits as if it had anything to do with the rules discussion at hand and the Tau nerf one. Oh they had a great showing not that it means anything. Tons of Tau players turned up, and despite the boasts that the nerfs were justified we only seen two Tau lists where as Eldar and all the other faction dominated the top of the chart. A good showing means nothing. I could say the musket had a good showing in Vietnam if 65% of people used them, but then if 99% of the musket users perished and all the other guns placed higher in terms of effectiveness and survival rates it still shows the musket had a good showing. Doesn't mean it was good or effective.

OK, one last question here: Anybody have Reece's E-mail? Wanted to ask him about adding a smaller detachment limit to the next poll since it was missing here.

Here is a link to contact FLG

I'm not too sure on Reecius' email, but Frankie co-hosts their podcast and would probably be able to provide the contact details.

Swamp,

I apologize for putting words in your mouth. A number of Tau players have seen people say "tau are strong and need to be nerfed" and so some vote in that vein regardless of what they think is RAW

I do respect your opinion of what RAW is in this case, though I do disagree with it. However, your characterization of it not being a nerf is mathematically inaccurate. Having a squad of 3 allows for BS4 natively, as well as wound allocation shenanigans if you can rotate in between turns. So that was always better. And with 5 point target locks, they can shoot whoever they want so overkill is not an issue.

Most importantly, with regards to the holophoton rule, all 3 ghostkeels are protected from 3 units (if you read as 1 activation per suit). In solo squads, each suit can protect itself once. So if your opponent has 3 squads to shoot, the big squad can make all bullets snap fire. But in separate squads, 2 or your opponent's squads will fire at full BS if he decides to focus fire one ghostkeel down (which is the smart thing to do anyways). So it's actually a fairly significant ruling

Oh, no, I guess i misspoke. i meant I didn't feel that it was done purely as a nerf, but as a rules clarification. I won't argue that the change nerfs the Ghostkeels, that would be ridiculous. I just don't care how it's ruled because I believe that both readings are possible and I respect them, and as such would be happy with either reading being voted on. And thank you, I'm sorry for being so abrasive and not explaining myself well enough.

Also, I'm not sure where this should go. do I send it to the contact-us section, or to the Rules Question section? It's not really a rules question as much as a proposed change to the format, so I'm not sure...

notredameguy10 wrote:

 Swampmist wrote:
I voted for it because I don't think it's a nerf. i read the rule, and to me it says they use it as a unit. So yeah, in my opinion this is an actual RAW debate, though I'd rather not get into the debate here. I will say I would like to see if we can get it changed to a two detachment limit instead of 3.

Nope. It specifically first says that once per battle A MODEL may activate the ability. The UNIT then uses that ability that was activated by the MODEL.

It is no different than any other army that has 3 models each with a single use ability. Do those ones have to activate them all at once? Nope. Each one activates it one at a time and it affects the entire unit it is in. That is how it is written RAW and most likely RAI. Otherwise why would anyone put multiple ghost keels in a squad if you can only activate it once? Why wouldn't you always just take 3 seperate one so you could activate it 3 times?

My question is why doesn't the ITC right the actual rule in the vote? Otherwise people who have never read the codex are just going to go into the vote, see 2 options: 1 that helps Tau and 1 that hurts them, and a great deal of people are going to just choose the latter.

Voted for Ghostkeels to only get one use of countermeasures per unit cause well.. that's what the rule says.

Report me again if it makes you feel better.

 Gamgee wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not to be crass, but it does get hard to take the complaints about Tau nerfs seriously when such posters also proclaim not to have lost a single game of 40k in 2 years.

There's some validity to the arguments against the changes the ITC imposed for the LVO, but mostly they come off as "well I can't bring the Eldar level painstick!", and that doesn't gain traction with most people. Yes, it might seem somewhat stilted, and yes, Eldar *really* deserve some toning down, but those are largely matters of direct unit functionality as opposed to formation mechanics that are much easier for people to accept changing.

Tau may not have dominated the LVO, but they had a very respectable overall showing, and are consistently ranked in the top 5 most powerful and capable armies by most players. Overall, there's that the ITC is doing that's going to utterly cripple the army into unplayability here, they're trimming some of the more outrageous cheese, though yes, they should be spreading that a bit more evenly across some other books as well.

That is one heck of a strawman fallacy you pulled there questioning my victory streak and gaming habits as if it had anything to do with the rules discussion at hand and the Tau nerf one.

It's relevant in two ways, first in how the complaints about the ITC are being raised and their perception by other players, and in that it shows the strength of the army already and that the changes are either for the best given such victory streaks (assuming you play regularly and your opponents are competent players and you aren't just curbstomping newbies or ultra casual gaming pals) and kept Tau turning into another Eldar debacle, or that they just weren't as egregious as one thought and the impact of their non-inclusion was minimal.

I've played this game through many editions and many armies (including Tau since the tail end of 4th edition! they're just not painted save for one hammerhead, one fire warrior, and two Crisis suits ). I've played utterly filthy and broken armies and completely incapable ones (often the same army through multiple editions...), and defeats should come at least once in a while either way unless there's a very real power issue.

Oh they had a great showing not that it means anything. Tons of Tau players turned up, and despite the boasts that the nerfs were justified we only seen two Tau lists where as Eldar and all the other faction dominated the top of the chart.

When you're only looking at the ultimate top sliver of results out of ~300 players, where the difference between any particular (or even multiple) placings may be a single dice roll amongst very closely ranked players, it's going to skew your perception, to say nothing of the fact that there's more armies than there are places in the top8/10/12, which means that some armies just aren't going to show no matter what, and fewer still if any armies show up more than once. For an event with what, 300 people, you really should be looking at the top 10-20%, not just the top 3 or 4%, and when you look at the top 10%, you see Tau in there twice, almost 3 times, just as well as Chaos Daemons and AdMech, only slightly behind Necrons, as opposed to say, IG, who didn't even clear the top 100 or BA's where their top finisher was 93rd, while CSM's had one result in the top 10% (and, IIRC, allied with Daemons) and then nothing until spot 113.



Overall, the Tau did well at the LVO, well enough that most players would rank them in the top 5 most competitive armies in most cases. Were they *the* top? No. But they weren't crumped to SoB/IG/CSM/MT/etc status either, far, *FAR* from it, and there's no guarantee they would have done any better if the changes were not in place. Tau armies ranked highly enough that a couple dice rolls going differently (even by players in other games) could have gotten them "top" spots, and with that sort of a showing, it shows there's nothing wrong with their functionality.

A good showing means nothing. I could say the musket had a good showing in Vietnam if 65% of people used them, but then if 99% of the musket users perished and all the other guns placed higher in terms of effectiveness and survival rates it still shows the musket had a good showing. Doesn't mean it was good or effective.

Which bears zero resemblance to the situation we're talking about...the Tau were not massacred by all their opponents and left hanging mostly around the middle and bottom placings like certain other armies, nearly half the Tau armies that showed up placed in the top 20%, while only *one* placed in the *bottom* 20%.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not to be crass, but it does get hard to take the complaints about Tau nerfs seriously when such posters also proclaim not to have lost a single game of 40k in 2 years.

That is why I voted to bring balance to Tau.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not to be crass, but it does get hard to take the complaints about Tau nerfs seriously when such posters also proclaim not to have lost a single game of 40k in 2 years.

That is why I voted to bring balance to Tau.

Be sure to vote 5 or 6 more times to counteract the buttmad Tau kids stuffing the boxes.

Nah. I'm going to trust in Reece throwing out all the cheaty votes.

Tau hate is real. Fish men are people too.

 thejughead wrote:
Tau hate is real. Fish men are people too.

Truth be told, I don't get it. Yeah they're strong but so are a number of other armies. I would place at least 4 armies above Tau in terms of overall power at the top of the tournament tier. My only hope is that people don't vote for "game balance" meaning "my dark eldar can't beat this so I'll vote to nerf unit/army X".

Thankfully this has not been shown to be true as a pattern statistically, so we'll see how things shake out. I trust that the guys at FLG are smart enough to see trends (often because they get emails from us pointing them out) and they do have the ability to adjust things if they so choose. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if like 9/10 votes or so come out in the negative for a given army, then it's more likely than not that that's how people are voting.

Unfortunately, this is the reality http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/680156.page#8459058.

I'd prefer a council of the top tournament players and be done with the masses.

 thejughead wrote:
Unfortunately, this is the reality http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/680156.page#8459058.

I'd prefer a council of the top tournament players and be done with the masses.

It wouldn't be a bad idea from a balance standpoint, but it's tough to justify from a business standpoint. FLG are both trying to balance 40k in a tournament format and make the experience as enjoyable as possible for the majority of their customers that attend their tournaments. It's a tough middle ground to walk, but truth be told I would be fine with them just doing game balance. They do more play-testing in a month than I do in a year.


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Pain4Pleasure wrote:
We can all only hope and pray every tau nerf sticks, so that tau players will continue to be minimal and outside of the top listings as the warhammer gods intended for it to be.

(Assuming you're serious)

You do realize that this attitude is not only the worst kind of sportsmanship, but also indicative of a generally selfish person who is also bad at 40k, right?

I apologize because that is harsh but it is really the truth. People not wanting other armies to have nice things and voting for that express purpose is the only way that the ITC format for FAQs and rules interpretations falls apart. I get something being broken and unfun to play against, but saying "I hope Faction X just falls off the face of the planet and I'm going to continue to vote in such a way so that that happens" is completely bigoted and more than just a little sad.

40k has always had seasons where specific armies do well in the meta. This is a shooting meta. Tau (one of, if not the premier shooting army, who can't really do any of the other phases particularly well) SHOULD be doing well; otherwise they would be woefully under-powered. I hope that some day, every army *COUGH CSM COUGH* has their day in the sun (or you know, all of the armies are just good)

On a non-Tau topic:

I wonder if more people would be open to more/unlimited Detachments if ITC limited the number of Factions your army can have. Allies are fun and all, but Superfriends getting 4 codices worth of models is no fun.

Requizen wrote:
On a non-Tau topic:

I wonder if more people would be open to more/unlimited Detachments if ITC limited the number of Factions your army can have. Allies are fun and all, but Superfriends getting 4 codices worth of models is no fun.

They really should have just put in a "Chapter Tactics: <Insert Non-Codex Space Marine Chapter Name Here>" special rule within Space Wolves, Blood+Dark Angels, and Grey Knights.
It would let them cut down on the USRs they list for each unit type(just have them shoveled under Chapter Tactics) and it would have the benefit of totally screwing over Superfriends because of the addition of "Chapter Tactics" to the wording.

That got voted down a while back. If you want a re-vote then contact them. Too many people like their deathstars.

Aye, and thats unfortunate because they're really just not fun to play against at all.

 luke1705 wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
Tau hate is real. Fish men are people too.

Truth be told, I don't get it.

I think it's more a referendum on the Tau players than the Tau Codex...

Hate the player, not the game.

I think a lot of people vote for Tau nerfs simply because they hate the faction. Personally, I wouldn't mind a "council" of high-end players who know the rules and tourny play making these calls. Then at least you know the people making the calls and all the biases, perceived or actual. Anonymous voters sort of scare me.

A "council" of top end players isn't as clean an idea as one might think. First, defining that is difficult, many of them only play a year or two and then are gone (and/or may rotate armies depending on whats strongest and have no problem leaving abusable stuff around or kneecapping other armies) and usually only go to one "big" event each year, and while they may be good at playing they dont necessarily have any ability in the areas of game design/balance or event organization.

Much like you dont necessarily want race car drivers designing cars, they know how to drive but arent engineers

Top end players have biases too. I know a few and they have a list of things that they would nerf/buff without question.

The best would be to get some people with game design experience to work on it and have rigorous testing before even talking about changing it with people at large.

The notion of an all-wise, all-knowing, impartial and unbiased council is a nice idea, but you're basically talking about dudes having meetings to decide what everybody else will play.

At best, you'd get one representative per Codex, but that's pushing 20 representatives with the addition of GSC and Deathwatch. And most of them will still be Imperial Super-Friends, with much to lose and an even stronger interest to nerf the hell out of Xenos. Especially Tau. At least Team Eldar will have 3+ reps (CWE, DE, and Harlies), so they'll be able to hold their own in the votes. But the presence of so many SMs means that nothing will fix Gladius.

Also, note that more of Imperial Super-Friends have Team Eldar armies on the side, so there's that bias as well.

No, if there's a council, expect Tau and Necrons to be nerfed into oblivion, as the sacrificial lambs to show that the Council is serious about reining imbalances.

 thejughead wrote:
Unfortunately, this is the reality http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/680156.page#8459058.

I'd prefer a council of the top tournament players and be done with the masses.

This isn't a bad idea, but be sure to include the top players for each army. Otherwise it's just an oligarchy of Eldar/Necron/Tau/SM/Daemon players making rules to keep out the others.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 thejughead wrote:
Unfortunately, this is the reality http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/680156.page#8459058.

I'd prefer a council of the top tournament players and be done with the masses.

This isn't a bad idea, but be sure to include the top players for each army. Otherwise it's just an oligarchy of Eldar/Necron/Tau/SM/Daemon players making rules to keep out the others.

You mean a council that just doesn't arbitrarily nerf anything?


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Aka, GW

Surprised that ITC isn't changing their LoW prohibitions... such as the Tyhpons.



If that were allowed, then super deathstars may drop a bit.

STR 10, AP 1 7" blast ain't nuth'in to sneeze at.