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Anyway, Marines and Fire Warriors have more or less equivalent shooting, point by point, assuming that doctrines and the extra 6" range are roughly equivalent in value.

Placed 24", or even 30", across from each other, in an equal points matchup between Marines and Fire Warriors, the Marines will win, unless the Fire Warriors can somehow maintain a relevant 6" range difference for a significant period of time, which is going to be impossible because a) 6' + running is more than just 6" and b) even if this were not the case, the table is finite and they can only move so far. At which point, by the way, if they break, which is not unlikely, they will run off the board.

I don't think the Marines even have to engage in close combat at all to win this match, but if they just run across the table, they are almost certain to reach the Fire Warriors and butcher them in close combat, since they will statistically lose no more than a few models in the c. 2 turns they have to cross the intervening space.

So I don't see how this is even a question.

pm713 wrote:
I've seen people just ban Eldar on reputation alone so it's unfair to say it was one month of complaints. Honestly I see way more about Eldar than Tau.

In one upcoming tournament here in Finland did exactly that, craftworld space elves are completely banned. So far I haven't seen anyone complain about it.

 Lammikkovalas wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I've seen people just ban Eldar on reputation alone so it's unfair to say it was one month of complaints. Honestly I see way more about Eldar than Tau.

In one upcoming tournament here in Finland did exactly that, craftworld space elves are completely banned. So far I haven't seen anyone complain about it.

I imagine that's because the WAAC players can play another army and people who wanted fun have given up.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Traditio wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:and in CC SM's are an order of magnitude more capable, have access to things like drop pods that Fire Warriors do not, and have organic access to atuff like Meltaguns, Powerfists, Lascannons, Flamers and Meltas that Fire Warriors have no ability to field.

The +1S on their guns is really very minor in comparison, and the ability to glance AV14 or wound WK's is realtively trivial as thats desperation fire in most instances, and SM's with their specialized heavy/special/cc weapons are much more of a threat to such units typically.

I only wish to note that you simply cannot compare an upgraded space marine to a fire warrior. It's not a fair comparison. A tactical marine with a plasma gun is a 29 point model, whereas the fire warrior is only 9 ppm.

The game isnt built around naked individual infantrymen, its built around units, you have to take the unit options and capabilities into consideration. A Space Marine Unit has far more tools to deal with a much wider variety of threats, able to potentially emgage a greater number of targets (combat squads) at potentially even longer ranges than FW's (they dont have anything that can hit out to 48") and can be successful at both shooting an CC.

That Fire Warriors have a couple advantages that SM's dont is not unfair. FW's are slightly better at 12-24" with their basic guns than SM's against a narrow range of targets (that is, again, largely desperation fire), and can hit targets within a 6" range band that SM's cannot with their basic guns, but SM's are *dramatically* better at under 12" once assault ranges are threatened, and have upgrade options to give them far greater reach and versatility than Fire Warriors could ever hope for.

The unit capability is what matters, SM's are not designed or intended to be fielded unupgraded.

But that drives their cost up significantly.

Traditio wrote:

Grizzyzz wrote:Woah.. firewarriors do not have BS2 overwatch and thats an extra 5ppm on suit squads.

Oh. Never mind.

Still, though, their overwatch BS can be improved with marker lights. That's completely OP.

And Dark Angels can overwatch at full BS with their entire army without having to hit on 6's with another unit to increase the BS of one unit in overwatch.

Traditio wrote:

I completely agree. Feth Tau. They are just like the Anor Lando archers or the Shrine of Amana.

They simply shouldn't exist in this game.

Love it, keep it up

 Lammikkovalas wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I've seen people just ban Eldar on reputation alone so it's unfair to say it was one month of complaints. Honestly I see way more about Eldar than Tau.

In one upcoming tournament here in Finland did exactly that, craftworld space elves are completely banned. So far I haven't seen anyone complain about it.

I'd complain... but I play elder and have since 4th when they were the lowest tier army along side tau. I prefer footdar with a lord of war (lol why is he LOW) Avatar. though as I understand that when I bring all the bikes and fun stuff they are pretty overpowered. I only bring the WK and wave serpents to tournaments.

Merellin wrote:And Dark Angels can overwatch at full BS with their entire army without having to hit on 6's with another unit to increase the BS of one unit in overwatch.

Dark Angels ravenwing are also completely OP. An entire army of bikes with 2+ rerollable jinks on turn 1? Which don't sacrifice their next turn's shooting capabilities? 3+ rerollable jinks after turn 1? The ability to take landspeeders which can fire overwatch, even if they're not even the ones being assaulted?

I call shenanigans!

GW needs to calm the feth down and dial things down a notch or 10.

kingbobbito wrote:Three squads of fire warriors firing overwatch is at least 3 times more threatening than a single squad of marines firing overwatch. Losing a model or two from a melee powerhouse on your own turn while you try to charge (that you may fail) is a bit frustrating. Sure, you'll wipe out the fire warriors, but a good melee squad will have no trouble with tacs either. Nothing is more of a slap to the face than losing half a melee squad to 60 overwatch shots from tau.

So this is where discussion and practice actual differ. Let's say you did have 60 overwatch shots. That's 10 hits and math showed it took 9 hits to averagely remove 1 marine.. so really. That is some scary overwatch indeed..

Let's assume however it is soo scary..
) why is the dedicated melee unit charging into a group of units unsupported? Tactically speaking you would wipe them out leaving yourself in the open in the middle of my army. No bueno
if they are supported. Why charge them in first? Overwatch is still once per turn. Let me waste some by charging an expendable unit first.

Just some friendly tips. Works on other armies too!

** EDIT ** Bad maths 2.2 marines fall to 60 overwatch shots. My error

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Traditio wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:and in CC SM's are an order of magnitude more capable, have access to things like drop pods that Fire Warriors do not, and have organic access to atuff like Meltaguns, Powerfists, Lascannons, Flamers and Meltas that Fire Warriors have no ability to field.

The +1S on their guns is really very minor in comparison, and the ability to glance AV14 or wound WK's is realtively trivial as thats desperation fire in most instances, and SM's with their specialized heavy/special/cc weapons are much more of a threat to such units typically.

I only wish to note that you simply cannot compare an upgraded space marine to a fire warrior. It's not a fair comparison. A tactical marine with a plasma gun is a 29 point model, whereas the fire warrior is only 9 ppm.

The game isnt built around naked individual infantrymen, its built around units, you have to take the unit options and capabilities into consideration. A Space Marine Unit has far more tools to deal with a much wider variety of threats, able to potentially emgage a greater number of targets (combat squads) at potentially even longer ranges than FW's (they dont have anything that can hit out to 48") and can be successful at both shooting an CC.

That Fire Warriors have a couple advantages that SM's dont is not unfair. FW's are slightly better at 12-24" with their basic guns than SM's against a narrow range of targets (that is, again, largely desperation fire), and can hit targets within a 6" range band that SM's cannot with their basic guns, but SM's are *dramatically* better at under 12" once assault ranges are threatened, and have upgrade options to give them far greater reach and versatility than Fire Warriors could ever hope for.

The unit capability is what matters, SM's are not designed or intended to be fielded unupgraded.

But that drives their cost up significantly.

It absolutely does, but with SM armies, the troops are intended to fill roles that Fire Warriors are not too, and such enhancements a lot to the utility of these units.

From a purely infantry perspective, theress nothing wrong with FW's vs Space Marines. There are some issues with the Tau army as a whole (as there are with SM's too), but fundamentally Fire Warriors having better guns than SM's is not something thats unfair or unbalanced.

S5 guns are not the problem with Tau. Its the MC suits and gimmick abilities.

Traditio wrote:

Merellin wrote:And Dark Angels can overwatch at full BS with their entire army without having to hit on 6's with another unit to increase the BS of one unit in overwatch.

Dark Angels ravenwing are also completely OP. An entire army of bikes with 2+ rerollable jinks on turn 1? Which don't sacrifice their next turn's shooting capabilities? 3+ rerollable jinks after turn 1? The ability to take landspeeders which can fire overwatch, even if they're not even the ones being assaulted?

I call shenanigans!

GW needs to calm the feth down and dial things down a notch or 10.

That's really not how things are. Unless you have nothing but Dark Shrouds and Black Knights. As for the turn 1 thing you give up a turns shooting for that.

"S5 guns are not the problem with Tau. Its the MC suits and gimmick abilities."

I agree. S5 is survivable and from personal experience not super efficient against most AV 11 targets. There's a huge efficiency difference between fire warriors glancing out a Rhino. (Which might be FREE, might I add) and scatterbikes glancing out an IK on the side. Being able to glance out AV 12 on 6's allows you to get a lot more bang for your buck. Glancing out AV 11 is not nearly as good.

Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

IF scatter lasers were S5 instead of S6, it would bring them back into firewarrior realm of destructiveness. Which is more manageable.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

Truth

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

Truth

Far worse. http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/03/40k-list-tech-a-tale-of-two-undefeated-lvo-lists.html

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

IF scatter lasers were S5 instead of S6, it would bring them back into firewarrior realm of destructiveness. Which is more manageable.

Why not make the bike weapons 1 heavy per 3 bikers again? Seems a better fix.

pm713 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah, scatterbikes are a whole other level of silly, not just in firepower but in resiliency (getting Space Marine T and SV) and mobility. A single Scatterbike beats a trio of FW's all day long.

IF scatter lasers were S5 instead of S6, it would bring them back into firewarrior realm of destructiveness. Which is more manageable.

Why not make the bike weapons 1 heavy per 3 bikers again? Seems a better fix.

Short answer: the scatterlaser is cheap and spammable outside bikers. If the scatterlaser weren't an unreasonable weapon in the era of hullpoints, the bikes wouldn't be as offensive. How good would marine bikers be at 21+10=31 ppm with heavy bolters? The answer is meh.

Additionally, the scatterlaser has never really been a fair weapon due to its range, strength, ROF, and cover system combination. It was the original wound spammer back when everyone was obsessing over AP.

Eh, Id be ok with them if they were back at 1 for 3. I think Eldar heavy weapons in general are undercosted and making them 5ppm more across the board would go a long way to fixing some issues. The Scatterlaser at S6 doesnt bother me too much, its the ability to spam 10 of them per troops slot. On tanks its not an issue, and War Walkers dont seem to be particularly en vogue anymore, but the bikers are just silly, I think even at S5, 40 shots at 36" on a jetbike unit is still excessive.

Thank god they got rid of Laser Lock though...

The fixes for Eldar I think are relatively simple in general. Dump bikes back to 1 in 3 for heavy weapons, up heavy weapons costs by 5pts, dump the fomations (goes for everything really, not just Eldar), change Distort weapons back to their 6E versions, get rid of Fire Dragons AP0, bring the Serpent Shield weapon down to S5, neuter Invisibility, increase the Wraithknights cost by 100pts, and you have a strong and internally well balanced army that isnt ultra easymode broken.

It's hard to say, really. 40 X S5 shots do nothing to dreads or IKs. Going down to 1 per 3 still allows say 9 of them to take HPS off of IKs reliably.

War walkers are out because bikes are in. With the 1 per 3, you might see scatter walkers again.

On Knights, the bikes wiuld have to get to the side and would only be doing 1 hp per turn with a full squad (assuming no shield and no psychic buffs). The HP thing is more of a core rules issue that needs to be addressed in general than a Scatterlaser specific one.

War Walkers Im largely ok with, they at least are heavy support, and being AV10 open topped walkers with a squad size of 3, are much easier to kill, with less mobility and overall firepower (and faster firepower degradatiin per casualty) relative to Troops Scatter bikes

 Vaktathi wrote:
On Knights, the bikes wiuld have to get to the side and would only be doing 1 hp per turn with a full squad (assuming no shield and no psychic buffs). The HP thing is more of a core rules issue that needs to be addressed in general than a Scatterlaser specific one.

War Walkers Im largely ok with, they at least are heavy support, and being AV10 open topped walkers with a squad size of 3, are much easier to kill, with less mobility and overall firepower (and faster firepower degradatiin per casualty) relative to Troops Scatter bikes

Fortuned warwalkers in ruins are NOT easy to kill, unfortunately.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
On Knights, the bikes wiuld have to get to the side and would only be doing 1 hp per turn with a full squad (assuming no shield and no psychic buffs). The HP thing is more of a core rules issue that needs to be addressed in general than a Scatterlaser specific one.

War Walkers Im largely ok with, they at least are heavy support, and being AV10 open topped walkers with a squad size of 3, are much easier to kill, with less mobility and overall firepower (and faster firepower degradatiin per casualty) relative to Troops Scatter bikes

Fortuned warwalkers in ruins are NOT easy to kill, unfortunately.

True, but they are exceedingly vulnerable to many common ignores cover weapons, having to rely on that 5+ instead, and that relies on there being ruins on the table in a place thats good for them to operate from, and can be challenged in the psychic phase and the psyker can be killed to prevent the power being used, unlike an armoe save or Jink on Jetbikes.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
And no, I have never played anything before 6th and know no one else who did. Tau have always been OP and are still OP, alongside Eldar. Meanwhile, Orks and CSM have always been next to useless.

So you start off basically by admitting you have no idea what you're talking about, since your experience playing 40k has been very short and limited, and then boldly make bullgak claims about editions you admittedly weren't around for as if they were indisputable fact?

You'd make a good politician.

Thanks for the compliment I absolutely love politics. I think I want to be a diplomat when I finish my education.

But the discussion here is about the current (7th edition), which makes earlier editions completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether Tau were powerful or weak in 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th editions, the only thing that matters is that they are OP in 7th edition. The second and third statements are facts. They are true for me, but your mileage might vary. There is no such thing as "indisputable facts".

Its just weird you'd write 'always' when you really mean 'this edition', and call it a fact. By saying always, its not a fact. By saying 'this edition', then sure, it becomes a fact.

Many people here remember when those factions were in a distinctly different power balance.

I need to keep up appearances to the Tau community, how could I have let such a thread slide

Tau have one flaw in general. They forsake everything to specialize in one phase. Because of that the designers have to give them the tools necessary to handle everything in that one phase.

And that phase is the least interactive phase in the game.

Every army has a way to participate in most phases. Most of the time an army is built to specialize in two phases, because speciality armies always are meant to overpower the others in those phases.

Tau don't get that. Shooting only. Alongside good durability on robots that shouldn't be ducking MC.

Traditio wrote:
I simply shouldn't exist in this game.

FTFY

(Watch me get banned now while the doods calling for every Tau player to pack up and go home aren't)

 Quickjager wrote:

Tau have one flaw in general. They forsake everything to specialize in one phase. Because of that the designers have to give them the tools necessary to handle everything in that one phase.

Respectfully disagree, and it is a general misconception that Tau can only play in the shooting phase. While they are only ws2, I have charge many firewarriors into combat in the right situations to much success. Whether it be firing carbines and then charging or taking out a landraider with EMP grenades. My favorite moment was taking out a Ironclad with Firewarriors in CC.

-------

It is all about the people you play against honestly. Play people who revel in the 'pick a ruin and castle' you are not going to have much interaction. But I think it is unfair of everyone to label a community based on what previously was the norm.

Most Farsight Enclaves and even newer Tau Empire lists are much more interactive. Look at the core formation for the Hunter Contingent. "units withing 12" of commander or fireblade may run and shoot"... Tau with battlefocus, Awesome! Even the rules are trying to pull people off of gunlines and be mobile.

And maybe it is just me, but how does it help anyone to bring toxic comments and tell a group to pack up and leave, or straight ban them.. this goes for any army not just Tau. I think the 40k community in general has become worse over this past year in terms of just utter hatred towards each other. Anyway, point is, remember we are all apart of this Grimdark universe and the Tyranids are coming for everyone!

It is worth noting that I didn't know there was a core formation that gave Tau battlefocus.

Should tell you how often the players around here, at least, move.

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Respectfully disagree, and it is a general misconception that Tau can only play in the shooting phase. While they are only ws2, I have charge many firewarriors into combat in the right situations to much success. Whether it be firing carbines and then charging or taking out a landraider with EMP grenades.

My Tau opponent doesn't usually charge with his Firewarriors but his suits often do if it seems like a good idea. They can outlast weaker non-CC dedicated infantry and remain shielded from shooting while doing so, not always a bad thing. Not to forget they can play mobility too - suits have JSJ, Kroot can outflank, you can pack Firewarriors into Devilfish. A Tau player doesn't have to play gunline, and in fact might surprise an opponent pretty nastily if he goes for another option.