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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Gamgee wrote:
Honestly I would keep the price the same. They are only single shot weapons platforms and they are limited enough in the fact that only highly expensive platforms can take them to begin with. They need to be less than a drone. I could see 6 points maybe 7 for the d3 but I still wouldn't even consider it honestly. Destroyer missiles shouldn't go up in price at all since the unit isn't really that great for its price and once again single shot they need to do a lot to be worth the price.


d3 Mortal Wounds that are pretty high chance of success is actually pretty strong.

I would say that they also need that Markerlights makes them always hit on a 2+

I would say 8 points for Seeker Missiles and 15 points for Destroyer Missiles.


6+ = 6/36 | Reroll 1s = 7/36 | Reroll Misses = 11/36 ||||||| 5+ = 12/36 | Reroll 1s 14/36 | Reroll Misses = 20/36 ||||||| 4+ = 18/36 | Reroll 1s 21/36 | Reroll Misses = 27/36
3+ = 24/36 | Reroll 1s 28/36 | Reroll Misses = 32/36 ||||||| 2+ = 30/36 | Reroll 1s 35/36 ||||||| Highest of 2d6 = 4.47
 
   
Made in il
Warplord Titan Princeps of Tzeentch






Seriusly, even if seekers did D3 damage, and kept the current price-I wouldn't take them.

Mostly because I can't even bother with markerlights. they are just a hassle, especially given how most benefits don't even apply a large portion of the time.
First marker is redundant if you got rerolls of 1 from one of many other sources like multi trackers, storm of fire, command link drone, sensor tower (who is in itself a markerlight!)
Second is meaningless unless you pack missiles, and as most people would agree, the missiles are not worth bothering with.
Third is useless if you pack rapid fire, in a montka aura, got a TL (any big suit would) or just stand still.
Forth does nothing unless you target has a cove bonus, but cover is less common in 8th, and can be negated by AP just as much.
And the fifth is pointless is you are a commander or longstrike-who are some of our best shooters to begin with-and while its freaking amazing for drones, you can't control who they shoot all that much, and investing THIS much into drone shots is madness...

The fact my tetras are rendered slowed by the FW index doesn't help the markerlight case.

I just can't justify taking any in the current state.
And with zero markers-missiles are out of the question.



The problem with tau isn't that we got nerfed way too hard, or that we can't make a viable list.

Its that just most of the index is useless junk, and there are only a handful of decent units, further condemned by the fact it plays nothing like how it played in the past.
Forget 7th late formation madness (retaliation cadre my beloved...), or even 6th with our power surge (and the annoying taunar), I'm talking 5th here.
Surrounding the enemy with stealth and crisis suits who are just out of reach, keeping out of sight and just making it hard to pin down and get a straight fight-having the battle lines blurred and mayham going on all over the place as shots are coming from all sides, that's just not a thing any more now that JSJ is gone.
Yea, I can drop anywhere, except I cant-because a key part of my "thing" was to drop INSIDE the enemy formations in order to get the perfect shot (fusion on tasty tank mostly), now a bubble wrap don't make it balsy to drop, it makes it outright impossible. so I drop in the outskirts of the general army.
Then I get assaulted because the enemy took casualties from behind-if the unit I shot it was even the one up front to begin with-and I can't move after shooting, plus there is a fair chance my suits are not even as fast as the enemy to begin with.


This isn't my tau.
This isn't the army i built into, invested in in it's lowest, and highest, and stuck with it's purity even when blending allies could bring me greater results (taudar traitors)
Its a playable army, if you are willing to go into spesific paths-but the enclaves battlesuit elite is just gone. I can't replicate it, I've got rules for the models, but these are not the same units any more.
Every model from 7th is playable in 8th as promised-but not every army. farsight enclaves was effectively removed from the list, as did many other tau variations.
If you played dirty, you're gone. anyone that doesn't favor a straight up sludge match is highly disappointed.

can neither confirm nor deny I lost track of what I've got right now. 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






Maybe Markerlights should be allowed to target Characters.

At 2 Markerlights, you can send Seeker Missiles at Characters.


   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Say bye to commander spam courtesy of Reece and Frankie who are drinking the Tau hate cool aid so much they don't even realise it.

Frankie and Reece on the podcast 547 start gaking on Tau again. Reece... are you crazy? Yea spam lists are a problem, but you list the Tau commander spam list despite the fact that is easily gets swept by flyer spam lists? Man you have got to have some serious data to make those claims. Show me the numbers and data.

This is insane. It almost sounds like they want Tau nerfed more on the poadcast... holy hell. Do they actually have a vendetta against Tau or something?
   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

 Talamare wrote:
d3 Mortal Wounds that are pretty high chance of success is actually pretty strong.

It wouldn't be OP even if they did it. After all, races with psykers all have access to Smite, which is very easy to successfully cast and causes d3 mortal wounds, possibly d6 on a good roll. And it is spammable by some armies (looking at you Chaos Daemons). Giving this level of firepower for Seeker Missiles would go a long way toward making Sky Rays viable. It would be Tau's version of Smite.

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/1/23, including modeled wargear options):
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Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2023: 40 | Total models painted in 2024: 12 | Current main painting project: Dark Angels
 Mr_Rose wrote:
Who doesn’t love crazy mutant squawk-puppies? Eh? Nobody, that’s who.
 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Connecticut

 Gamgee wrote:
Say bye to commander spam courtesy of Reece and Frankie who are drinking the Tau hate cool aid so much they don't even realise it.

Frankie and Reece on the podcast 547 start gaking on Tau again. Reece... are you crazy? Yea spam lists are a problem, but you list the Tau commander spam list despite the fact that is easily gets swept by flyer spam lists? Man you have got to have some serious data to make those claims. Show me the numbers and data.

This is insane. It almost sounds like they want Tau nerfed more on the poadcast... holy hell. Do they actually have a vendetta against Tau or something?


I believe any reasonable person would take their words as saying taking an army of nothing but commanders is silly.

Because it is.

It being viable or not doesn't mean it isn't SILLY that it's a thing.

The world is not always a conspiracy theory crashing down against Tau.

Blood Angels, Custodes, Tzeentch, Alpha Legion, Astra Militarum, Deathwatch, Thousand Sons, Imperial Knights, Tau, Genestealer Cult.

I have a problem.

Being contrary for the sake of being contrary doesn't make you unique, it makes you annoying.

 Purifier wrote:
Using your rules isn't being a dick.
 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




 Gamgee wrote:
Say bye to commander spam courtesy of Reece and Frankie who are drinking the Tau hate cool aid so much they don't even realise it.

Frankie and Reece on the podcast 547 start gaking on Tau again. Reece... are you crazy? Yea spam lists are a problem, but you list the Tau commander spam list despite the fact that is easily gets swept by flyer spam lists? Man you have got to have some serious data to make those claims. Show me the numbers and data.

This is insane. It almost sounds like they want Tau nerfed more on the poadcast... holy hell. Do they actually have a vendetta against Tau or something?


When things slip through that are too strong, then, yes, balancing should be done. This means fixing the Marine issue but it also means fixing the Commander issue.

My guess? Limit any battlesuit to two of the same weapon. Double fusion? That's fine. Quad? Too much.

I expect to see the Marines hit as well, with the Stormraven likely getting a cost increase (And hurricane bolters as well), with the assorted command buffs being reconfigured to only support Infantry, not all Marine units, so no rerolling to-hit with the Land Raider or wounds with your Hurricane spam.

Too early to know, yet, and once the too-tall things are whcked down to size, I expect them to raise a few of the too-short units to compensate. A reduction in Broadside points, for instance, would be a given, and a reduction of Dire Avengers from 17 points to 12. It's still *very* early in the 8th cycle, so we'll see what is to come.
   
Made in br
Fireknife Shas'el




Lisbon, Portugal

Wasn't Frankie a Tau player? He even wrote the Tau faction stuff before the edition release.

---

I agree the ML table should be fixed before GW even adresses seeker/destroyers. There are so many repeatable stuff among our army regarding ML buffs that they seem pretty underwhelming.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/13 03:25:41


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"FW is unbalanced and going to ruin tournaments."
"Name one where it did that."
"IT JUST DOES OKAY!"

 Shadenuat wrote:
Voted Astra Militarum for a chance for them to get nerfed instead of my own army.
 
   
Made in il
Warplord Titan Princeps of Tzeentch






Na, its rather well known that they hate tau's guts and went as far to outright change rules in their tournaments last edition just to mess with tau formations (despite said formations not even being all that good)

As for the commander spam, the problem is not in the commander.
I repeat, the problem is NOT in the commander.

The tau commander is the only "leader HQ" in the game who's bubble effect is once-per-game rather than a constant buff, and its even once-per-game shared between ALL commanders, and not even one for each commander.

HOWEVER, they can shoot.
And sadly enough, nothing else in the tau arsenal can shoot, at least not in the "big boys" league.

Crisis suits are poor, ghostkneel are poor, riptide are junk, stormsurge are poor, hammerheads (other than longstrike) are poor, skyrays are junk.

Tau currently does not HAVE any big tools other than commanders. they get spammed not because they are so amazing (they are good, don't get me wrong), but because NOTHING ELSE IS WORKING.

Tau currently has commanders and light infantry.
And you can't work with just light infantry.
Sure, we got plenty of light infantry that works (drones, fire warriors, weapon pathfinders, vespids
Even some heavy infantry (stealth suits)
But nothing above that paygrade other than the commander (and longstrike) really works, and as good as these infantry units are, they can't handle enemy heavy platforms well.
Aside the sunshark, who is pretty darn good at thinning hordes. but that's not what tau infantry are lacking at.

can neither confirm nor deny I lost track of what I've got right now. 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





I hope games workshop is getting this feedback. According to someone on ATT they knew a play tester and there was a big outcry against a lot of the Tau nerfs and rules we now have and much of the points being addressed by us here were hotly contest, but Reece and his group won the day.

The tighter Reece and Frankie tie the noose the more people speak out about them. i hope GW looks through our suggestions and looks at the actual data and see show brutally Tau are doing right now and logically gets them balanced like every other race.

If you do read this GW I don't want Tau over powered and even in 7th I was a Tau player calling for nerfs (but knew all too well we would be over nerfed). I like what you did with 8th and I want to see you keep improving it all the time and that means balancing.

I suspect once Tau are slaughtered at the BAO GW will finally start to consider our suggestions. We'll have to wait until thewn and that will be about 3 months anyways more than enough time to paint two dozen or so infantry/drones if you didn't somehow have any as a Tau player. I can do 12-15 troops a week and more if I cut down on quality and did tournament 3 color minimum.
   
Made in us
Blood-Drenched Death Company Marine




Both of you guys are ridiculous.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/13 07:01:12


 
   
Made in us
Frightening Flamer of Tzeentch




 Crimson Devil wrote:
Both of you guys are ridiculous.

If it is so well known FLG hates Tau why can't you supply the episode or any media where they say it?

It's just a conspiracy theory you two clowns have latched on to. And you're looking for anything to confirm your bias. FLG wants your money, they want you to go to their tournaments. Why would they deliberately undermine those goals?



The fact they nerfed Tau in 7th after the codex dropped before one event was ran yet SM or eldar won event after event is what many tau players see as prof of the hate. I will say if they try to limit what weapons tau can take and only tau then to me they become a cancer to the game.
Also are they not pro drone nerf?

2000 6000 with Reaver Titan guard 2k
2500 (imperial force)
2500 (trimming down in 8th)
TS 30k at 5k points
Yes I have a problem
 
   
Made in it
Shas'la with Pulse Carbine





 BoomWolf wrote:
Spoiler:
Seriusly, even if seekers did D3 damage, and kept the current price-I wouldn't take them.

Mostly because I can't even bother with markerlights. they are just a hassle, especially given how most benefits don't even apply a large portion of the time.
First marker is redundant if you got rerolls of 1 from one of many other sources like multi trackers, storm of fire, command link drone, sensor tower (who is in itself a markerlight!)
Second is meaningless unless you pack missiles, and as most people would agree, the missiles are not worth bothering with.
Third is useless if you pack rapid fire, in a montka aura, got a TL (any big suit would) or just stand still.
Forth does nothing unless you target has a cove bonus, but cover is less common in 8th, and can be negated by AP just as much.
And the fifth is pointless is you are a commander or longstrike-who are some of our best shooters to begin with-and while its freaking amazing for drones, you can't control who they shoot all that much, and investing THIS much into drone shots is madness...

The fact my tetras are rendered slowed by the FW index doesn't help the markerlight case.

I just can't justify taking any in the current state.
And with zero markers-missiles are out of the question.



The problem with tau isn't that we got nerfed way too hard, or that we can't make a viable list.

Its that just most of the index is useless junk, and there are only a handful of decent units, further condemned by the fact it plays nothing like how it played in the past.
Forget 7th late formation madness (retaliation cadre my beloved...), or even 6th with our power surge (and the annoying taunar), I'm talking 5th here.
Surrounding the enemy with stealth and crisis suits who are just out of reach, keeping out of sight and just making it hard to pin down and get a straight fight-having the battle lines blurred and mayham going on all over the place as shots are coming from all sides, that's just not a thing any more now that JSJ is gone.
Yea, I can drop anywhere, except I cant-because a key part of my "thing" was to drop INSIDE the enemy formations in order to get the perfect shot (fusion on tasty tank mostly), now a bubble wrap don't make it balsy to drop, it makes it outright impossible. so I drop in the outskirts of the general army.
Then I get assaulted because the enemy took casualties from behind-if the unit I shot it was even the one up front to begin with-and I can't move after shooting, plus there is a fair chance my suits are not even as fast as the enemy to begin with.


This isn't my tau.
This isn't the army i built into, invested in in it's lowest, and highest, and stuck with it's purity even when blending allies could bring me greater results (taudar traitors)
Its a playable army, if you are willing to go into spesific paths-but the enclaves battlesuit elite is just gone. I can't replicate it, I've got rules for the models, but these are not the same units any more.
Every model from 7th is playable in 8th as promised-but not every army. farsight enclaves was effectively removed from the list, as did many other tau variations.
If you played dirty, you're gone. anyone that doesn't favor a straight up sludge match is highly disappointed.


Amen to that.

I just hope that somehow GW listens to the multiple feedback from Tau players. I have no interest in having a tier 1 army, I rarely play games at all and let alone tournaments. But I want a playable army.
Having a bottom tier army hurts the Tau community. The problem is that, just like me, there are a lot of players who are influenced in their purchases by the actual rules, at least to a certain degree.
Let's hope that the game designers realize how much the Tau playerbase is being hurt, if they even care about it. If their marketing guys think that Tau sold too well in the last few years and cannibalized sales from other factions, let's brace for a few years of insignificance.

If all the FLG theory is true, I just hope that Matt Ward gets the job of writing our next Codex.

And to come back to the actual discussion: I think that the problem does not lie in the Commander itself. If the other battlesuits were costed and balanced appropriately (BS 3+ for example), we wouldn't have to spam Commanders.
As for how to balance them, I'd say limit the Commander to 3 weapons + 1 support system, bring all the suits to BS3+ and merge the first two ML effects (thus having a 1-4ML table). Then balance points accordingly.


 
   
Made in be
Mysterious Techpriest





Belgium

Wow this is really sad all this pessimistic posts. If you want to get your Farsight special rules you'll have to wait until the T'au codex is out like every other faction. Space Marines have no personality neither, as do Chaos, and we'll finally have chapter-like specific tactics for every faction, I think it's great. Plus they say they'll flesh out heavily units in their Codices, I wouldn't be surprised to have a new Markerlight table and Sept specific rules that allow for a true custom army. If anything the Indexes are just there to allow us to have a taste of 8th Ed in advance, so that we don't have to wait one more year to play a new edition. It's a beta-test, to see by ourselves how this edition will work rules-wise and to let us adapt to changes before any more drastic changes are added in the codices.

T'au basic infantry can wound tanks on 5+ from up to 36" away and you guys complain about that ? They're 8 pts/model. Poor weapon choices on suits ? They're amazing and you have so much choice you can configure each suit as you please. Yeah you don't have any defense against psykers, but there are some things you have to deal with, of course you don't have dedicated CC troops, that's the point of the army. AdMech can't go full assault neither, as much as Orks can try to pretend they are able to outshoot some armies. If all armies had access to all playstyles it could get quickly boring. Of course Space Marines can do that to an extent but they're the posterboys of 40K and thus HAVE to be attractive to play.

I'm sure some of you guys just have difficulty to adapt. At my FLG all the people who were vehemently against 8th Ed now play it eagerly and have accepted the changes in their armies and playstyle. I get it it hurts that the army you collected for so many years is drastically changed but unless your army was full of Riptides you'll get along with it and find a way to love your army again.

I may sound naive and optimistic with this post but I believe it's true and T'au are not that bad in 8th, even if they do need some rework. Tournaments have always been spank-fests with who has the most <Spammable unit of the moment> and the game in my opinion is NOT designed for that, however they want to tell you it's true. GW would have to write their rules according with the WAAC nature of its playerbase and us "casual" players, who form the biggest part of the hobby, would suffer from it.

40K: Adeptus Mechanicus
AoS: Nighthaunts 
   
Made in it
Shas'la with Pulse Carbine





 Aaranis wrote:
Wow this is really sad all this pessimistic posts. If you want to get your Farsight special rules you'll have to wait until the T'au codex is out like every other faction. Space Marines have no personality neither, as do Chaos, and we'll finally have chapter-like specific tactics for every faction, I think it's great. Plus they say they'll flesh out heavily units in their Codices, I wouldn't be surprised to have a new Markerlight table and Sept specific rules that allow for a true custom army. If anything the Indexes are just there to allow us to have a taste of 8th Ed in advance, so that we don't have to wait one more year to play a new edition. It's a beta-test, to see by ourselves how this edition will work rules-wise and to let us adapt to changes before any more drastic changes are added in the codices.

T'au basic infantry can wound tanks on 5+ from up to 36" away and you guys complain about that ? They're 8 pts/model. Poor weapon choices on suits ? They're amazing and you have so much choice you can configure each suit as you please. Yeah you don't have any defense against psykers, but there are some things you have to deal with, of course you don't have dedicated CC troops, that's the point of the army. AdMech can't go full assault neither, as much as Orks can try to pretend they are able to outshoot some armies. If all armies had access to all playstyles it could get quickly boring. Of course Space Marines can do that to an extent but they're the posterboys of 40K and thus HAVE to be attractive to play.

I'm sure some of you guys just have difficulty to adapt. At my FLG all the people who were vehemently against 8th Ed now play it eagerly and have accepted the changes in their armies and playstyle. I get it it hurts that the army you collected for so many years is drastically changed but unless your army was full of Riptides you'll get along with it and find a way to love your army again.

I may sound naive and optimistic with this post but I believe it's true and T'au are not that bad in 8th, even if they do need some rework. Tournaments have always been spank-fests with who has the most <Spammable unit of the moment> and the game in my opinion is NOT designed for that, however they want to tell you it's true. GW would have to write their rules according with the WAAC nature of its playerbase and us "casual" players, who form the biggest part of the hobby, would suffer from it.

Since it should be a beta test, various Tau communities are voicing their discomfort with the poor balancing nerfs and, more importantly, changes to the very Tau playstyle. We can only hope that GW is willing and able to listen.

Tau basic infantry may well be able to shoot at 30", but they die like flies as opposed to other horde armies (IG, Ork and Tyr) who are able to ignore morale completely. Forcing an elite shooting army into a horde shooting army, when the BS is low (4+ may be ok for infantry, not for veteran fighters in ultra technological battlesuits) and with little to no possibility to improve it, is just poor game design. It becomes obvious when you start to compare units from armies that are not only good in melee and psychic phase, but also better than Tau in the shooting phase. Try to compare a lascannon Sentinel squad or a shooty Dreadnought to a Broadside suit, a Devastator squad to a Hammerhead Gunship, or anything else with a Riptide. The balancing is just off, way off.
It is not a problem of adapting the playstyle when there are no viable units. Spamming the only decent units (Commanders and Drones) did not work in the first tournaments. If you go over to the thread on 8th ed winrates you can see how Tau are alone on the bottom tier.

I think we should keep this discussion away from a Tau Tactics thread though, since it is a (big) balancing and rule writing issue that is already being discussed in various other threads.


 
   
Made in gb
Scouting Shadow Warrior






 Aaranis wrote:


T'au basic infantry can wound tanks on 5+ from up to 36" away and you guys complain about that ? They're 8 pts/model.


This feels like an extension of the "lasguns will kill landraiders fallacy". The chance of a tank with a 3+ save suffering a wound to a fire warrior at full range (30" not 36" btw) is only 6%. A full 10 man squad have a 46% chance of causing an unsaved wound to said tank.

So while our FWs are possibly able to take a wound off a tank, it's rather unlikely, just slightly less unlikely than other basic infantry.

(3000+ Points)
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Hobby blog: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/773927.page 
   
Made in br
Fireknife Shas'el




Lisbon, Portugal

Firewarriors en masse won't kill T7 3+ tanks that easily as people are thinking. Played a game yesterday vs Taurox spam. From 5, only 2 were really on the Firewarriors' tab (in the entire course of the game due to them coming forward and I having nothing better to shoot at); the QFC killed a 3rd, Coldstar gimped a 4th and a th was full at the end of the game.

Wounding on a 5+ vs most vehicles help, but when they have good armour won't make Firewarriors really good AT options.

What Firewarriors do well is to kill infantry. One time I looked at Conscripts, they killed 5 of them (more than 15" away) and the morale test took another 4 (no Commissars around).

---

And yeah guys, we know our options are lacking now. But complaining for the sake of complaining here won't help much. This thread is for getting more mileage from our current options.
Also, GW doesn't read a line from this or any other forum/reddit board; we need to voice our worries in Warhammer 40,000 facebook page or GW's proper e-mail. Only then we can expect changes in our rules.

Of course, this doesn't mean we shouldn't voice our concerns, but let's try to give another option to cover the bad things with stuff we have!

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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"FW is unbalanced and going to ruin tournaments."
"Name one where it did that."
"IT JUST DOES OKAY!"

 Shadenuat wrote:
Voted Astra Militarum for a chance for them to get nerfed instead of my own army.
 
   
Made in us
Shas'la with Pulse Carbine





Across the Great Divide

I had a game last night vs a pretty strong tyranid list and came out far on top.

His list
Spoiler:

Swarmlord
Old one eye
Tryrant w/wings

2x 15 genestealers
20 hormaguants
12 termagants
3 warriors

2 trygon primes
3 carnifexes

There may have been adrenal glands or other upgraded but the didn't have much impact


My list
Spoiler:

2 quad fusion commanders
Coldstar w/ ats and SG

2x 8 breachers in fish
5 man strike team

2x 4 stealthsuits w/ vt
4 man crisis team w/ 11 ion blasters and a DC
6 gun drones and 2 markers

Y'varha w/ ats and tl


Mission was big guns. He called it at turn 4 when all he had left was a wounded tyrant, wounded trygon and about 22 stealers left.I had only lost 1 stealthsuit, my drones and a few breachers.

I played what to me was an aggressive farsight list. No it wasn't pure suits but I didn't stay on my side on the board at all. I charged units so that his pile ins would block other units and then just flew away. Devilfish tanked several big charges before letting the breachers out to let loose and the highlight was the y'varha flamer killing swarmlord on overwatch after both fusion commanders wiffed.

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Made in it
Dakka Veteran




Seems like most Tau losses are due to not adapting to the new edition mechanics and discovering the usefulness of units like Vespid and Hounds (who are INSANE).

Stop playing with 7TH Mentality and units

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/07/13 15:38:12


 
   
Made in us
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

I don't play Tau, but I have heard the complaints and am really curious about the nature of the problem.

Is the main issue that a) GW released bad rules, b) people would need to radically restructure their lists for them to be playable, or c) something else entirely?


   
Made in us
Shas'la with Pulse Carbine





Across the Great Divide

 techsoldaten wrote:
I don't play Tau, but I have heard the complaints and am really curious about the nature of the problem.

Is the main issue that a) GW released bad rules, b) people would need to radically restructure their lists for them to be playable, or c) something else entirely?



I think its a bit of all three. The internal balance in the tau list is gak. Commanders are so much better than everything else its ridiculous.

The lists from 7th aren't as good in 8th. I'm not talking about riptide spam, I think most tau players in this thread have enough collection to have tried lots of units. Maybe not vespids since this is the first time they've been good. But it's the fact that our "best" list is spamming commanders which is unfun, unfluffy, and silly. Our units are so expensive for the fire they bring we can't have weight of fire or accuracy of fire(since markers are not impactful anymore).

And I think there is still some adjustment to the new edition but that I believe is minor. Our core mechanics of jsj and marker lights are gone gutted and useless

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 techsoldaten wrote:
I don't play Tau, but I have heard the complaints and am really curious about the nature of the problem.

Is the main issue that a) GW released bad rules, b) people would need to radically restructure their lists for them to be playable, or c) something else entirely?



The biggest issue in my opinion is that there a only a few viable units so lists that work end up looking and playing about the same, basicly every list that wins and gets posted is some combination of the following:
Commanders
FW
Stealth Suits
Vespid or Breachers in Devilfish
Longstrike + Hammerheads
Y'Vahra
Drones

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/07/13 13:18:16


 
   
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The biggest issue in my opinion is that there a only a few viable units
That's my primary complaint, as well. Shifting unit priorities, functions, and play styles were expected, in my opinion, but I admittedly miss the duck-and-weave style JSJ allowed for. I just really want to have multiple useful units and a diverse palette of units to work with in a moderately competitive framework. We have a bit of a 7th Tyranid-esque book at the moment with a couple units that are clearly much better than other and quite strong overall but a whole bunch of essentially useless selections. I'm really hoping that changes.

Regarding the missile discussion, I like the changes to d3 and d6 mortal wounds for the same or maybe slightly increased price. The missiles are reasonably difficult to actually use and aren't going to hit all that reliably. Having them be powerful isn't unreasonable.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/13 13:37:21


 
   
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Even our "good" units aren't all that great. I am boggled at how they let this thing through testing. Did they think the Tau codex itself was so powerful it was like giving players a nuke or something?
   
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KurtAngle2 wrote:
Seems like most Tau losses are due to not adapting to the new edition mechanics and discovering the usefulness of units like Vespid Hounds (who are INSANE).

Stop playing with 7TH Mentality and units

Its not all about adapting. Tau long range shooting is that poor now that it looks to me like 300pts of Tyranids can outshoot any 300pts of Tau Elites or heavy units. Outside of HQ Tau have fallen below Tyranids in shooting.
   
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DFW area Texas - Rarely

First of all, the tau are NOT that bad. Really.

I played them in 5th competitively - and even this bad index is better than back then.

Secondly, yes, there ARE some issues.

our commander prevalence is exactly the same issue as the flyrants of tyranids of last edition.
* It is not that the commanders/flyrants were OP, its that everything else in comparison was not good.

Note - I did not say "not as good" - I said not good.

There is a subtle difference there.

At its core, the two biggest issues are;
* Playstyle - the radical changes to markers and the loss of JSJ
* Bad internal balance.

For all those complaining - play against a good tau player - it will be very enlightening.
(I am very fortunate that there are several other tau players in my area - and while all of us agree the tau got over nerfed - none of us believe in all of this doom and gloom.)

DavePak
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London

The problem for many of us is that suddenly our armies are bad. We have collections including units - particularly riptides and broadsides, which are now not much use. Like it or not people bought stuff in 7th edition that was good in 7th edition, and now it is not good.

I've been playing Tau since they came out in 3rd edition, during rhino rush. In 4th made an army that got me onto the podium at national tournaments against Ulthwe seer council/black guardian lists and Iron warriors. And so on and so on. I'm used to editions changing stuff and I'm very used to pulling the gems in an army list out of the muck.

Right now I'm cross because, if I want to play Tau effectively, it will be like making a whole new army - again. I need a bunch of the new commanders, some vespids (possibly the worst models in GW's entire range, and expensive to boot), and I need to leave the majority of my collection on the shelf.

It's a lot of work, and money. Why should I bother? I might as well start a new army of basically anything else. If I ran my imperial stuff at least some of my existing models would be useful.

I'm not going to give up on my Tau. What I'll do is wait for the codex and see if some of the issues are fixed. I actually think that's probably the best thing just about everyone can do right now. With 10 codexes scheduled to come out between now and Christmas it doesn't make sense to invest heavily in plastic kits that may only be the new hotness for a few months - only to see the balance swing yet again.

It's not that I couldn't make a good army from the index Tau list. I could. I just can't be bothered to do it all over again. Stop the pendulum swinging, I want to get off.
   
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davethepak wrote:
There is a subtle difference there.

At its core, the two biggest issues are;
* Playstyle - the radical changes to markers and the loss of JSJ
* Bad internal balance.

For all those complaining - play against a good tau player - it will be very enlightening.
(I am very fortunate that there are several other tau players in my area - and while all of us agree the tau got over nerfed - none of us believe in all of this doom and gloom.)

I would have said the biggest issue at the core is something is seriously wrong when close combat army’s outshoot us both at short range and long range.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/13 16:07:27


 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




I'm not really surprised that the pendulum swung. As discussed above, anyone who pays attention to the FLG guys and the ITC in general knows that they have a heavy bias against Tau. I am, however, surprised how hard that pendulum swung. Here's hoping the codex fixes some of the more egregious nerfings.

I saw a fairly interesting tactic last night at a 40k league: drone charges. It seemed fairly effective, considering the points invested. Granted, it was against 2 meganobs, but the 1-2 punch of massive burst cannoning with some extra attacks on top was quite effective, and the drones were able to kite pretty well. I guess I'm still getting used to the whole going first on the charge thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For all those complaining - play against a good tau player - it will be very enlightening.
(I am very fortunate that there are several other tau players in my area - and while all of us agree the tau got over nerfed - none of us believe in all of this doom and gloom.)
I don't know about the others in this thread, but I don't feel like everything is awful. I've been running troop-heavy lists with some success for quite awhile (i.e., during 7th), so I'm fine with the shift in favor of that style. I like to consider myself an above-average player, overall, though I certainly need a hell of a lot more experience with the current edition, obviously.

What I don't like is the extreme dumbing down of our elite shooting units. It's kind of weird being primarily a horde army now since that has never, ever been the case. I'm not saying we need to go back to the big suit madness of a couple months ago, but it's be nice to stud my army with suits of various sizes without feeling like I was unnecessarily handicapping myself.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/13 16:23:06


 
   
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I have yet to play a game in 8th, newborns tend to reduce your playtime. But i am looking forward to trying outlandish tactics with coldstar and devilfish, as well as no longer hearing the constant "tau try-hard" moaning for bringing a riptide. Now a riptide is playing down.
I am frustrated several of the "most improved" units are still expensive metal models. Would love to get my hands on kroot hounds and vespid, but at $25 for 4 hounds, or $45 for 5 vespid... we are talking an untenable sum to bring a meaningful amount at even 1000 points. Here is hoping this means plastic is on the way.
   
 
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