Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Martel732 wrote:
Tables aren't barren. They have a ton of cover. Just not extensive LoS blocking. But GW decided that astartes don't get much benefit from that, and Tau can take that away anyway.

You know it's funny - I can negotiate with most of my opponents.
If they want terrain that is impassable to stop my TWC I let them have it, as long as it also blocks line of sight.

 Galas wrote:
Martel732 is a martir of a power-gaming crow playing with the army he loves, an army that totally sucks and has sucked for years.

You know the "hollows" in Dark Souls, people that has give away all of his hope and just wander like mumies without a purpose?

This is Martel after years of being totally destroyed by Tau and Eldar:

Spoiler:

Is too late for him

is it wrong to hope that blood angels are OP as hell in 8th just to see how martell reacts?

Of course it is.
That's why I'm hoping the same thing.
...although we might never hear from him again.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I don't know why it's always Tau players downplaying so hard, even Eldar players have no trouble owning where their dex sits. Tau community seems incapable of being objective towards their own dex.

I can't speak for everyone, but for us "old Tau" players it's probably because we listened to people bitch for years about our army being "overpowered" even though it was mediocre at best, simply because stuff like JSJ or "Fish of Fury" were annoying to play against, or because they're sour over our basic gun being S5 when the almighty bolter is only S4, etc. I remember that in particular being a pretty big deal for a lot of people, who felt that it was wrong for another army to have better equipment than Space Marines no matter what the justification for it was...people didn't like the railgun, either, since it was strictly superior to the lascannon.

People basically cried wolf for multiple editions, so when the wolf finally showed up in 6th (with an ion accelerator and a jet pack strapped to its back), naturally we were more inclined to ignore them or dismiss it as mere whining and nothing more, since for years before that's basically all it was. Admittedly I didn't see what was so busted about the riptide when it came out, it didn't look that bad on paper really, but honestly I didn't give a gak because I hated the model and told myself I wasn't going to use it anyway. I was more upset about all the cool wargear and other stuff I lost with the new book, and how I was seemingly being pigeon-holed into playing my Tau a certain way (which others have pointed out already), which I wasn't really fond of.

I realize now what happened and just how bad the "new" Tau are, but it's still hard for me to agree with people because, as I said before, I'm coming from years of whining and complaints about how terrible and game-breaking things are that really weren't, and I'm also fully aware that people have more of a real hate for Tau that they don't feel for any other army. There's an obvious bias there which is hard to argue against. When it comes to Tau people always take it too far; they don't just want Tau fixed, a lot of them just want them gone, period. Either that, or to be nerfed into the ground so hard that no one plays them anymore and they can at least pretend that they're finally gone, because in their mind their very existence at all is an offense. It's the kind of irrational hate and disgust that I've never seen any other army receive before or since, and it has nothing to do with rules because that sentiment was there long before they became broken in 6th/7th.

I expect that 8th will fix the problems with Stormsurge and Riptides being pretty good at CC for their ultra durability and the basic rules of Monstruous Creatures.

A Stormsurge is a quasi inmovile platform of heavy fire, it should work like one. I can see a Riptide having more chances in CC, but not to much really. He is a giant robot so he can stil smash some things, but I hope their CC habilities and their durability is very tonned down if they are gonna keep the movility and the absurd firepower.

Wait, Riptides are good at combat? My experience is that they're really terrible for the price. A Necron Wraith is about equivalent. Their moderate firepower on a very mobile, durable platform is what makes them powerful. By extension, what makes Tau so hated, in my opinion, is that you can easily field an army that is both effective and crazy durable by just tossing a bunch of Riptides together with maybe a Stormsurge and go to town. Stormsurges are definitely decent at combat by virtue of stomping things, but they still cost 400+ points. I wouldn't exactly call that broken. In other words, I understand the Tau hate since they're pretty easy to netlist and succeed with, but at least hate them for things worth hating then for. 3 S6 attacks from a 200pt model would not be one of those things.

I thought riptide hate was unwarranted back in 6th, to be honest. They were powerful units, clearly, but you couldn't outright wreck face with 3 of them. Units of Riptides was not a wise inclusion in the 7th book. Pushing that a step further, the Riptide Wing was an exceptionally awful design choice by GW, which I believe they've made fun of themselves for on multiple occasions since announcing 8th. It made Tau pretty brainless to play except at the highest levels of competitiveness, which is really the only place a Riptide Wing belongs. There's nothing fun for a casual gamer about trying to bring down that volume of T6 2+/3++ wounds.

On the flip side, the power of some of the bigger suits makes it a little hard to field a usable army without gimping yourself. Even the oft-forgotten R'varna can lay down serious destruction, so if you happen to like the riptide models, you might just have to risk your opponents' ire to run the army you want. For instance, I really like the look of Y'Vahras and HBC Riptides. I'm fortunate enough to play with a very competitive group of guys who don't have issues with me bringing the pain every game, but if you're up against wych cult armies with any regularity, that'd get boring for everyone real fast.

Well, they are good to be a Shooting platform in a totally shooting army that suck at CC. They aren't "good" in the big scale of 40k as a whole. But they are better that they should be.

And, to add information to my post, I'm a Tau player, so I'm not hating them

BrianDavion wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Martel732 is a martir of a power-gaming crow playing with the army he loves, an army that totally sucks and has sucked for years.

You know the "hollows" in Dark Souls, people that has give away all of his hope and just wander like mumies without a purpose?

This is Martel after years of being totally destroyed by Tau and Eldar:

Spoiler:

Is too late for him

is it wrong to hope that blood angels are OP as hell in 8th just to see how martell reacts?

I've already been through that in 3rd. I was just embarrassing mostly. Although by the end of 3rd, Eldar were better.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

MilkmanAl wrote:
Wait, Riptides are good at combat? My experience is that they're really terrible for the price. A Necron Wraith is about equivalent. Their moderate firepower on a very mobile, durable platform is what makes them powerful. By extension, what makes Tau so hated, in my opinion, is that you can easily field an army that is both effective and crazy durable by just tossing a bunch of Riptides together with maybe a Stormsurge and go to town. Stormsurges are definitely decent at combat by virtue of stomping things, but they still cost 400+ points. I wouldn't exactly call that broken. In other words, I understand the Tau hate since they're pretty easy to netlist and succeed with, but at least hate them for things worth hating then for. 3 S6 attacks from a 200pt model would not be one of those things.

I thought riptide hate was unwarranted back in 6th, to be honest. They were powerful units, clearly, but you couldn't outright wreck face with 3 of them. Units of Riptides was not a wise inclusion in the 7th book. Pushing that a step further, the Riptide Wing was an exceptionally awful design choice by GW, which I believe they've made fun of themselves for on multiple occasions since announcing 8th. It made Tau pretty brainless to play except at the highest levels of competitiveness, which is really the only place a Riptide Wing belongs. There's nothing fun for a casual gamer about trying to bring down that volume of T6 2+/3++ wounds.

On the flip side, the power of some of the bigger suits makes it a little hard to field a usable army without gimping yourself. Even the oft-forgotten R'varna can lay down serious destruction, so if you happen to like the riptide models, you might just have to risk your opponents' ire to run the army you want. For instance, I really like the look of Y'Vahras and HBC Riptides. I'm fortunate enough to play with a very competitive group of guys who don't have issues with me bringing the pain every game, but if you're up against wych cult armies with any regularity, that'd get boring for everyone real fast.

Riptides burn down two units and then tarpit a third for the rest of the game. What other 220 ish pt model can take out three units a game almost guaranteed? They are one of the best tarpits in the game because immortality. MCs get too many free rules in 7th and many people acknowledge this. It looks like this is all going away in 8th, so we'll see.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
I expect that 8th will fix the problems with Stormsurge and Riptides being pretty good at CC for their ultra durability and the basic rules of Monstruous Creatures.

A Stormsurge is a quasi inmovile platform of heavy fire, it should work like one. I can see a Riptide having more chances in CC, but not to much really. He is a giant robot so he can stil smash some things, but I hope their CC habilities and their durability is very tonned down if they are gonna keep the movility and the absurd firepower.

MCs should not have AP2 by default. They should have to have a weapon like a walker to get it. That would help a lot.

I think the question of Tau being a little 1 dimensional is a little deeper than people realize.

Everyone knows that Tau are the king of Shooting, and garbage at melee.

What people forget is that the Tau are also garbage at Psykers too. Too many people forget and underestimate the power of Psykers, but Psykers are a major part of the game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Necrons are the only other non-Psyker major race. Except Necrons also have fair decent melee and shooting.

MilkmanAl wrote:
Wait, Riptides are good at combat? My experience is that they're really terrible for the price. A Necron Wraith is about equivalent. Their moderate firepower on a very mobile, durable platform is what makes them powerful. By extension, what makes Tau so hated, in my opinion, is that you can easily field an army that is both effective and crazy durable by just tossing a bunch of Riptides together with maybe a Stormsurge and go to town. Stormsurges are definitely decent at combat by virtue of stomping things, but they still cost 400+ points. I wouldn't exactly call that broken. In other words, I understand the Tau hate since they're pretty easy to netlist and succeed with, but at least hate them for things worth hating then for. 3 S6 attacks from a 200pt model would not be one of those things.

I thought riptide hate was unwarranted back in 6th, to be honest. They were powerful units, clearly, but you couldn't outright wreck face with 3 of them. Units of Riptides was not a wise inclusion in the 7th book. Pushing that a step further, the Riptide Wing was an exceptionally awful design choice by GW, which I believe they've made fun of themselves for on multiple occasions since announcing 8th. It made Tau pretty brainless to play except at the highest levels of competitiveness, which is really the only place a Riptide Wing belongs. There's nothing fun for a casual gamer about trying to bring down that volume of T6 2+/3++ wounds.

On the flip side, the power of some of the bigger suits makes it a little hard to field a usable army without gimping yourself. Even the oft-forgotten R'varna can lay down serious destruction, so if you happen to like the riptide models, you might just have to risk your opponents' ire to run the army you want. For instance, I really like the look of Y'Vahras and HBC Riptides. I'm fortunate enough to play with a very competitive group of guys who don't have issues with me bringing the pain every game, but if you're up against wych cult armies with any regularity, that'd get boring for everyone real fast.

Wraiths are dedicated melee units, their shooting costs extra, has a 12" range and kills a grand total of one model per shot and one shot each per turn.

Riptides are dedicated...shooting? That can't be right - they're fast moving with Move Through Cover, heavy armour and invulnerable saves, clearly for crossing the board to get into melee, then they have Fear, Hammer of Wrath, high Strength and Toughness plus natural ap2 attacks to bust up units in melee. So, dedicated melee units then...they're highly mobile for staying out of range of melee units and have three standard 36" range Heavy weapons with Relentless and high RoF to make sure they're always dropping maximum shots into the enemy while they stay out of both movement and charge range combined.

 Talamare wrote:
I think the question of Tau being a little 1 dimensional is a little deeper than people realize.

Everyone knows that Tau are the king of Shooting, and garbage at melee.

What people forget is that the Tau are also garbage at Psykers too. Too many people forget and underestimate the power of Psykers, but Psykers are a major part of the game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Necrons are the only other non-Psyker major race. Except Necrons also have fair decent melee and shooting.

Dark Eldar.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Dark Eldar.

Hmm true, thank you. Tho they do have Eldar as battle brothers which means they do have true access to Psykers.
Necrons and Tau have no BBs.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
They add fancy auxiliaries that are supposed to do things that help Tau without giving them a major oneup in that area rather then adding more and more suits.

We used to have melee units in the Kroot. Then GW took away a point of their strength and gave them the option of turning their rifles into sniper rifles.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
They add fancy auxiliaries that are supposed to do things that help Tau without giving them a major oneup in that area rather then adding more and more suits.

We used to have melee units in the Kroot. Then GW took away a point of their strength and gave them the option of turning their rifles into sniper rifles.

To be fair they were a bit rubbish at combat then too.
Sure they got an extra attack and strength over now.
But T3 sv -/6+ made sure there weren't enough of them left to make the most of it.

Plus Rapid-fire on the rifles made them have to choose between shooting and assault

 Talamare wrote:
I think the question of Tau being a little 1 dimensional is a little deeper than people realize.

Everyone knows that Tau are the king of Shooting, and garbage at melee.

What people forget is that the Tau are also garbage at Psykers too. Too many people forget and underestimate the power of Psykers, but Psykers are a major part of the game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Necrons are the only other non-Psyker major race. Except Necrons also have fair decent melee and shooting.

That's still 1 dimensional

If they were great at psyking they'd be 2 dimensional

And even without any melee or shooting they are still one of the strongest armies in the game, which needs to be toned down. They provide a style of gameplay other armies don't, if you want to play something a little more all-rounded in strengths play one of the plenty other armies that support this playstyle rather than trying to get Tau changed into something that they aren't.

Jbz` wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
They add fancy auxiliaries that are supposed to do things that help Tau without giving them a major oneup in that area rather then adding more and more suits.

We used to have melee units in the Kroot. Then GW took away a point of their strength and gave them the option of turning their rifles into sniper rifles.

To be fair they were a bit rubbish at combat then too.
Sure they got an extra attack and strength over now.
But T3 sv -/6+ made sure there weren't enough of them left to make the most of it.

Plus Rapid-fire on the rifles made them have to choose between shooting and assault

Whilst true that they were never amazing, they at least represented the fluff and offered some semblance of a tool which you could use in melee combat (and remember their old Cannibalism rule where they might refuse to sweeping advance a beaten opponent because they were too busy eating the dead? ). But then they instead got turned into just another shooting unit.

And then there was GW removing multi-trackers and target locks from our vehicle armoury, two upgrades which were basically required for many of our vehicles to function as they were designed. Basically, despite GW managing to overpower the Tau, they had no actual idea of how the army and certainly many of its units were meant to work.

I mean, look no further than the fact that GW turned two separate Burst Cannons on the Hammerhead into 1 twin-linked Burst Cannon and then made the Twin-linked SMS a free upgrade for that Burst Cannon. There is absolutely no reason to ever keep the Burst Cannon as the SMS is flat out better in every possible way.

I can't remember who said it but someone in the forum has a quote in their sig along the lines of "Congratulations Tau players, you got more than you asked for whilst simultaneously getting nothing you asked for."
That pretty much sums up how I felt about the Tau 6th and 7th ed codices.

Surprised people think Necrons are "just" a shootie army. Necrons have Marine Statlines, Marine Costs and Marine Shooting - in short totally average - what Necrons have unique to them is durability, gauss and almost army wide relentless.

While amazingly irritating Necrons are also amazingly average.

On the subject of Necrons I wonder what's going to happen with Gauss now that anything can wound anything +3 rend value when firing on vehicles?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Surprised people think Necrons are "just" a shootie army. Necrons have Marine Statlines, Marine Costs and Marine Shooting - in short totally average - what Necrons have unique to them is durability, gauss and almost army wide relentless.

While amazingly irritating Necrons are also amazingly average.

On the subject of Necrons I wonder what's going to happen with Gauss now that anything can wound anything +3 rend value when firing on vehicles?

Take a look at what gauss does in Shadow Wars: Armageddon.

Shred.
Semi Shred, better Shred or just a fancy Necron name for Shred?

Okay, so I finally got through the thread, let me try to add a few new points and not repeat the previous 4 pages.

I got into 40k at the start of 5th and Tau was my first army. We had that codex for 7 years and 2 editions before getting an update. It wasn't crazy, but it sure didn't hold up to what came out in last year of 5th edition. So a natural bump in power was expected. We are still working off of that bump, and formations were there to sell more models.

While reading I was thinking of the Tau player base I know and when they got involved with Tau. An all suit army has only really been viable for 4 years. So if you know a player that started Tau after 6th, the unit selection tends to lead towards the common heartaches ie: Riptide wings, Stormsurges, all suits, etc.. Lets remember this observation applies to the majority, not all. So keep your pants on kroot army guy.

Now when thinking of what is Tau, I draw the similarity to the Covenant from Halo. Tau released October 2001, Halo November 2001, so lets not get into they did it first blah blah. Bungie did not make a game in 20 days. period.

The Covenant/Tau are a collection of races driven towards a common religious belief/goal. So far we have 3 races represented in models(that 1 air caste dude does not count), but 4 types of tau, kroot, and vespid. Where are the rest? Surely these guys didn't just get 2 races to sign on board and stop. Lets look at the Covenant troops grunts, elites, jackals, hunters, brutes, little bug guys. That's 6 right there and we haven't gotten into the specifics and lore. Each race uses their natural abilities and weaknesses to form a cohesive fighting force with superior technology. Kroot and Vespid should be fleshed out a bit to where they could be run as a viable army or a new race should be introduced. A Harlequin army is 3 boxes with 5 builds and a few blisters

For the future, I look forward to 8th because all factions are being reworked at the same time, hopefully for balance, and not to just push gamers to buy the latest and greatest to be competitive. If I had to place a bet, look for kroot and vespid to get a bump in 8th! Wubba lubba dub dub!

TremendousZ wrote:

The Covenant/Tau are a collection of races driven towards a common religious belief/goal. So far we have 3 races represented in models(that 1 air caste dude does not count), but 4 types of tau, kroot, and vespid. Where are the rest? Surely these guys didn't just get 2 races to sign on board and stop. Lets look at the Covenant troops grunts, elites, jackals, hunters, brutes, little bug guys. That's 6 right there and we haven't gotten into the specifics and lore. Each race uses their natural abilities and weaknesses to form a cohesive fighting force with superior technology. Kroot and Vespid should be fleshed out a bit to where they could be run as a viable army or a new race should be introduced. A Harlequin army is 3 boxes with 5 builds and a few blisters

For the future, I look forward to 8th because all factions are being reworked at the same time, hopefully for balance, and not to just push gamers to buy the latest and greatest to be competitive. If I had to place a bet, look for kroot and vespid to get a bump in 8th! Wubba lubba dub dub!

Basically... "It's been 10 years! Where are the other Xenos!"

Need more Tarellian, Ambul, Hrenian, Chuffian, Donorian, K'nibs, Morralian, Ranghon, Nagi ... and hell official Gue'vesa

An interesting thread this. Before I get all game-philosophical I should get the individual unit issues out of the way. 6th edition messed up the internal balance of the Tau codex by making some things worse (largely vehicles) and adding in the Riptide - and specifically its ability to be joined by ICs along with the whole TauDar thing. Then when 7th fixed the Riptide mini-deathstar along came the Riptide Wing which was even worse. In the grand scheme of things none of this was objectively worse than Super-Friends, Screamer-star or Scat-bikes but I agree that if you are running one of the armies that does not have ridiculous stuff it is inherently an issue when you play against one that does - and takes full advantage of it.

The topic of the thread was more about one-dimensional armies and Tau are a single minded shoot-and-scoot projection of modern warfare tactics into the 41st millennium. I think it is a good thing that each army should have a distinctive play style and Tau certainly do, it is from that perspective good game design. Tau are not the only faction to be so single-minded, Khorne are the uncontested masters of obsessive single-minded focus. The thing is that with Khorne they totally want to smash face but that means their opponent does get to move and shoot first to try to avoid disaster. The difference with a single-minded shooting army such as Tau or AM is that shooting comes first in the game, an opponent does not usually get to counter it with assault until the mid-game and in a losing match-up they possibly never get there. This is when the game feels bad. AM would be in the same position as Tau but for the fact that their codex is simply not quite strong enough - the Forge World Renegades variant is stronger and creates some of the same negative play experiences as the strongest Tau lists. If AM generally were stronger we would be having this discussion about both codexes.

The other one-dimensional thing going on with competitive Tau is Monster Mash. This is mostly an issue with the competitive mindset when applied to a codex with internal balance problems. If the playtesting for 8th evens out the balance a bit we should see less giant Gundam and more other things like mechanized infantry and auxiliaries. Pretty much every codex has this issue at present, competitive SM lists are loaded with Grav rather than Missile Launchers, as are Eldar lists loaded down wit Scat Bikes for troops for fundamentally the same reasons: poor internal balance. It is inevitable that some things will be stronger for any given meta - there is an issue where some units in a codex are better than others for any conceivable meta.

The built in weakness of Tau is their need for synergy, their greatest strength is how good their synergies are. BS3 is really not very good on a shooting army and markerlights come in two forms - expensive or squishy. Most of the one-sided games I have played with my Tau have been because my opponent did not target the markerlights - or had a one-dimensional list with that could target or suppress them. My main observation from the last 3-4 years of gaming is that some players idea of a TAC list simply does not include suitable tools for dealing with Tau - because a lot of average players have a poor understanding of how to counter them or maybe just do not play against Tau often enough to care. There is a real sense of defeatism from those players - they assume that Tau shooting is mega-awesome and that there is nothing they can do about it except weather the storm. The players who play well against Tau are mostly those who have played Tau themselves. A couple of the current formations limit the impact of this weakness and for that reason I do think those are poor game design - it is the weaknesses that define an army as much as its strengths.

I'd like to see more kroots and vehicles, playing against 6-7 overpowered big robots is extremely boring. I hope riptides, stormsurges and ghostkeels get nerfed and the typical tau list becomes something with more variety, like a couple of piranhas, 1-2 blobs of kroots and 3-4 transports full of firewarriors, other than the big shooty guys.

I don't want big suits nerfed so much we never see them. I just want them to only have one or two be taken. As crazy as it sounds I got into the Tau army because I seen the Riptide and I was only familiar with the DoW1 roster. However I also liked the faction for everything else, but big robots were number one. Now I feel we're good on big robots for now. I want to see some stuff int he Crisis Suit to Ghostkeel size and no larger until next release. Or if they do a big suit balance it out with some other stuff. Give us a new aux or vehicles or a cool Tau equivalent to the Corvus Blackstar. Cool new drone soldiers or drone tanks or something!

It just got too much suit focused even though I like them. I also liked the Breachers a lot from the release as well.

Edit
Yeah Ghostkeels are good, but they are just not points efficient. You won't see them in tournaments. I would rather take Broadsides due to their cheapness. Or neither and grab sum Barracuda's or Riptides (fr a competitive list). Heck I would rather take Skyray gunships. I love Skyrays. Most undervalued unit in the codex that is really powerful. Considering the top Tau player at the LVO this year took four (I usually only take two or three to tone my lists down) says a lot. If only Hammerheads could be as strong.

happy_inquisitor wrote:
The topic of the thread was more about one-dimensional armies and Tau are a single minded shoot-and-scoot projection of modern warfare tactics into the 41st millennium. I think it is a good thing that each army should have a distinctive play style and Tau certainly do, it is from that perspective good game design. Tau are not the only faction to be so single-minded, Khorne are the uncontested masters of obsessive single-minded focus. The thing is that with Khorne they totally want to smash face but that means their opponent does get to move and shoot first to try to avoid disaster. The difference with a single-minded shooting army such as Tau or AM is that shooting comes first in the game, an opponent does not usually get to counter it with assault until the mid-game and in a losing match-up they possibly never get there. This is when the game feels bad. AM would be in the same position as Tau but for the fact that their codex is simply not quite strong enough - the Forge World Renegades variant is stronger and creates some of the same negative play experiences as the strongest Tau lists. If AM generally were stronger we would be having this discussion about both codexes.

I always felt IG was stronger than Tau, but had a significantly higher barrier of entry. A $500 2000pt Tau list can include most of the stupid broken cheese, IG barely is even able to field 2000 for that little investment.

 Blackie wrote:
I'd like to see more kroots and vehicles, playing against 6-7 overpowered big robots is extremely boring. I hope riptides, stormsurges and ghostkeels get nerfed and the typical tau list becomes something with more variety, like a couple of piranhas, 1-2 blobs of kroots and 3-4 transports full of firewarriors, other than the big shooty guys.

Ghostkeels are pretty bad actually. Crisis Suits in general outperform it... Hell I bet even Fire Warriors outperform it.

Khorne are the uncontested masters of obsessive single-minded focus. The thing is that with Khorne they totally want to smash face but that means their opponent does get to move and shoot first to try to avoid disaster

And even then Khorne still wants shooty along with the Melee. There's a reason why there are Havoc Squads full of autocannons nicknamed "The Teeth of Khorne" who bleed enemies in the name of Khorne by using Dakka based weaponry like Heavy Bolters and the like.

 Talamare wrote:


I always felt IG was stronger than Tau, but had a significantly higher barrier of entry. A $500 2000pt Tau list can include most of the stupid broken cheese, IG barely is even able to field 2000 for that little investment.

IG with Forge World i would agree, although I think they just get better with larger games so 2500 point games favour them more than the current tournament standards of 1500-1850 points. Of course taking the FW stuff makes it really expensive in real money and begs the question of why you are not using the Renegades list which is objectively much better for pretty much the same models.

We still need to see a lot more about 8th but so far my impression is that the changes to shooting / cover / weapon profiles look to be tweaking shooting power down a little bit. Meanwhile the fixed to hit in melee will increase the lethality of close combat slightly and units with pistols (generally CC units or at least shooting/CC all-rounders) will have a little extra kick to them. I get the impression that taking away the tar-pit effect of combat (an utterly feel-bad game for shooting armies when it happens) has freed up the game designers to just tweak things a little in favour of combat - as we see more information we will learn if that is really the case. If it is then much of the issue with single-minded shooting armies will go away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
And even then Khorne still wants shooty along with the Melee. There's a reason why there are Havoc Squads full of autocannons nicknamed "The Teeth of Khorne" who bleed enemies in the name of Khorne by using Dakka based weaponry like Heavy Bolters and the like.

Khorne armies I have faced have lacked even that - which has led to really skewed games in which they struggled because they could not touch my markerlights until it was too late. Autocannons really put the hurt on marker drone squadrons - hydraulic fluid for the blood god

 SHUPPET wrote:
I recall the general opinion of Tau was "underpowered and cant compete", all the way until they were made to be the best dex at the time in their 6th release. So I'm not sure when you are talking to, the only way your post makes sense is if you are referring to 6th like the release of Tau wasn't maybe the most OP dex of the edition. If there was outlandish people complaining about an underpowered dex, congrats, happens to everyone. Happens even to my Nids right now. The statement still stands, how come everyone else is still capable of being objective but Tau players live in a rejected reality?

Not trying to be harsh to you either, as you clearly aren't one of the people downplaying. It is a generalization of the Tau community, and of course there will be plenty of exceptions to that just like every other generalization, and people who actually understand how their dex plays at the highest level. In my personal experience I've noticed players of certain armys often seem to share traits, Ork players are often boisterous and vocal, Dark Eldar players are commonly calculating and focused, Chaos players are the quintessential contrarians who won't hesitate to state how they see something from a completely different view to the commonly accepted truths, and Tau players shared trait seems to be an absurd downplay of their dex. Sad, but reinforced in absolutely every example of Tau discussion I've ever seen, even if it doesn't apply to every Tau player (some of you are true bros and I one of my Tau buddies is my favorite opponent).

I'm talking pre-6th, if that wasn't clear. I started playing 40k at the tail end of 4th, when "Fish of Fury" was a thing, and it felt to me that the general opinion on forums seemed to be "Tau are so OP!", with most of the complaints centering around pulse weapons with range superiority and JSJ tactics. I also think the hate probably had more to do with their background or aesthetic than the rules themselves back then, and people probably picked on the rules just because they needed every reason they could find to justify it. Because you know how the internet is, it isn't enough to just say "This isn't my thing", we have to prove that it's not only the Worst Thing Ever, but is somehow objectively bad for everyone. It's entirely possible a lot of it might have just been me, though, making things seem worse than they actually were.

You're right, though, just about every army you can imagine has been called "overpowered" at some point in time, even ones widely accepted as being weak or struggling, sometimes just because the other player was sour that they lost and looking for an excuse. The internet is also generally full of hate and negativity anyway and most of my interaction with other 40k players has been through the online forum or YouTube comment, so maybe most people were reasonable about it and I just saw the vocal, hateful internet minority which I assumed to be the majority opinion. It did seem to kinda lighten up as 5th edition progressed though, because 5th edition was very kind to Marines but not many other armies and it just got worse and worse as it went on, and I think people were realizing at the end that Tau and Eldar kinda needed a boost. 6th edition went way overboard though and they've been bullgak powerhouse armies ever since, that's inarguable as far as I'm concerned.

I also really want to see more Tau auxiliaries. It sucks that Kroot and Vespid are really all we have (and Vespid might as well not exist considering how often they're used), since that was supposed to be a big part of Tau background and there are so many minor xenos species in the game they could introduce through the Tau, which you could probably even introduce as mercenary options for other armies while you're at it, or make them playable in Shadow War. Since I imagine we're never going to get that plastic barracuda now I wouldn't mind if the next Tau update focused on maybe updating the devilfish chassis and then introducing new auxiliary forces. Getting Farsight in plastic would be cool too, and maybe a new kit for the XV-22 that Shadowsun uses so we can finally build the Tau commander from Dawn of War.

Wow.

With multiple overwatch shooting now a thing, if the Tau keep supporting fire, the Tau would be broken far worse than they are now.

The entire Tau army getting an extra shooting phase is bad enough...now they get MULTIPLE extra shooting phases?

Oy.

Yeah I can barely every remember hitting anything with my overwatch as a Tau player. Also not shooting at enemies charging you is dumb. As dumb as the charger not attacking first was and is in 7th.