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Martel732 wrote:
They don't own... stalkers!

Units like this are just weird. I prefer venerable dreads over stalkers now.

BA don't get those! FML!!!! I'm only 90% compatible with this thread, sadly. The random T8 and extra wounds can be an annoyance for foes.

Venerables and Stalkers aren’t the same slot though. A venerable mortis would be the clear winner in most cases, if it existed.

Do slots even matter, really? It's just about points for me.

Martel732 wrote:
Do slots even matter, really? It's just about points for me.

Admittedly probably not unless doing a brigade. I’ve been debating on swapping mine back down. Basically it’s trapping me into taking 2 attack bikes and 1 heavy slot I’m not wild about, but going down to 2 battalions meaning converting all those points straight into an HQ (not that Id mind another smash) and cost 3cps. 2 for the brigade and 1 for having to use the 2cp assassin instead of 1cp slot. Even granting that vanilla marines don’t have the best strats, giving up 3 cps for smash cap vs same points in units doesn’t seem like the best return.

Stalkers are pretty nice for filling a brigade. So are the new suppressors. Especially for BA. For any vanilla that might want to punch, suppressors are boss.

Yeah, if I had like 100 more points (dang assassin being too good to skip :p) it’d work out perfectly. I would change the bikes to suppressors. If you saw my post above I was definitely eyeing the Stalker, there’s plenty of fly targets around. Until I build one I’m gonna try the Thunderfire though, I have no source of indirect fire otherwise and those brigade cps mean I can always use the strat.

Indirect fire is powerful. Thunderfire is another of that 10% divergence for ba. Whirlwind isnt terrible if you pretend ig doesnt exist.

Martel732 wrote:
Indirect fire is powerful. Thunderfire is another of that 10% divergence for ba. Whirlwind isnt terrible if you pretend ig doesnt exist.

Spacemarine codex doesn't look soo bad if your pretending IG doesn't exist.

No, it's still bad. Just some options look much better because IG basically has monopoly on effective ignore LoS. As good as hive guard are, they are not catahcan manticores.

Martel732 wrote:
Do slots even matter, really? It's just about points for me.

Not for elites. Battalions give you 6 elites.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Stalkers are pretty nice for filling a brigade. So are the new suppressors. Especially for BA. For any vanilla that might want to punch, suppressors are boss.

Suppressors are really nice. Better than I expected. Their height is actually an advantage. Can't hide from these guys. They are also great for holding back line. I really wish they were HS though. Stalkers are good but I would much rather fill HS with suppressors. Eliminators are okay too I guess - they just don't fit into my builds.

Actually, I really like them fast attack. Look at marine fast attack choices. Yucko. I can even get plasma ASM.

I have nothing from Shadowspear, but in a future maybe I go for Suppressors.

I really like AC because they give you a good rate of fire ( I ussually use my Dreads with AC).

Then, are Suppressors worth it?

Figure 4 Supressors is about the cost of a quad autocannon venerable. So not quite as good shooting, but more mobile and gives another much needed FA option. And the overwatch prevention would be useful in a more assault list.

I keep waffling on the Eliminators. At first I was thinking they’d be quite useful since you get sniping and ignore cover in 1 unit, but then realized at their cost they kinda waste the sniper power as you roll too few dice to fish for mortals and too few to likely do much thru walls. They’re great to prevent an opponent hiding a char with 1w left out of sight, but don’t seem like near as good general case damage for the points as I first hoped.

BA don't get ven dreads, so suppressors are super boss for me.

Eliminators need LoS to use the -2 D3 damage ammo. They benefit a LOT from scyers gaze.

Yeah, that’s my point, the regular Los sniper shot is decent, but worse than scout snipers cause you only get half the mortal wounds. Then the ignore los shot does less damage. Getting them both in 1 unit is nice, but neither half is all that great.

But they're better vs higher armor targets typically because of -2 AP. They're also quite hard to kill.

bort wrote:
Yeah, that’s my point, the regular Los sniper shot is decent, but worse than scout snipers cause you only get half the mortal wounds. Then the ignore los shot does less damage. Getting them both in 1 unit is nice, but neither half is all that great.

Yeah, and you're looking at 72 points for a minimum strength unit right? Doesn't really seem to add up honestly. I haven't gotten any yet, waiting to see what the kit looks like. the models so far are worth buying on looks alone though.

Getting my ass kicked by Tau. (sorry for the long post...)

I've played mostly against a Tau army and after several crushing or clear defeats its starting to see like we (my army) have no answers for them.

We've been playing missions from the rulebook and Chapter Aproved. I'm using Raven Guard chapter tactics. My forces roughly:

- Captain (or 2). The other captain has been a terminator captain deepstricking with 2 terminator units.
- Liutenant (or 2)
- sometimes a techmarine to repair dreadnoughts

- 3 scout squads with bolters
- 2-3 intercessor squads

- 2 x devastator squad (lascannon/missile launcher + heavy bolter)
- 0-2 hellblaster squads with the heavy version

- Reiver squad deep striking
- Terminators and sometimes assault terminators
- Venerable Dread with twin lascannon and missile launcher
- Dreadnought with assault cannon and CCW
- Aggressors with bolt weapon

- Stormhawk Interceptor with assault cannons, skyhammer missiles and icarus storm cannon


Tau forces roughly

- Small detachment from different sept than the rest of the army. They are markerlight users:
- Cadre Fireblade and 3 marksmen guys with (Sa'sea? sept) re-rolls to ther markerlighst


- Cadre Fireblade (going with bunch of fire warriors)
- Coldstar Commander (flying where ever he wants)

- 2 x Riptides (accompanied by 10-15 shield drones, so I can't even touch the battle suits with my big guns because all of the drones have to be killed first)
- Broadside sometimes

- Ghostkeel
- 2 units of those smaller stealth suits

- 6 guys with Crisis suits deep striking (accompanied with some drones)

- about 3 units of fire warriors
- some drone units

Situation at the end of the 1st battle round: "This does not look good."
Situation at the end of the 2nd battle round: "The battle has been decided."
After 3rd round: "Lets see who is the last marine to get killed today"

Main problems:
- Tau firepower. Riptides at the forefront are just deleting my units like flies
- The survivability of the Tau. Battlesuits with their invulnerable saves and shield drones make them really hard to kill.
- Speed and board control. Stealth suits start all over the field and those other battlesuits move with pretty good speed.
- "Tau are bad in close combat", they said. Even IF I manage to get to CC with them, the overall overwatch is just brutal. WHEN my turn ends the battlesuits just fly away from CC and shoot my guys to bits. And my guys even aren't that special in combat anyways!

So, I know my army isn't a tournament force and it doesn't have to be, but atleast I would like to put up a fight against them. All tips are welcomed
Is there any hope for us? What is/are the magic units I'm missing?

Don't try to assault them.

Kill markerlights first.

Kill drones second.

Only then kill the big stuff, otherwise, its immortal.

If drones are out of LoS, you must have ignore LoS weapons.

Tau are like a video game boss in the way they must be approached.

Don't use marine flyers or hellblasters. Ever.

Martel732 wrote:

Tau are like a video game boss in the way they must be approached.

This is exactly what I think about them.

Alex_85 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Tau are like a video game boss in the way they must be approached.

This is exactly what I think about them.

They are perfectly beatable, however just not with marines for the most part. Though that could be said about most codex's when your using pure marines as your base.
Nids, guard & eldar do fine vrs tau heck even soup does well vrs Tau. GSC are nasty to them,marines just haven't got the right tools.

Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.

Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.

Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.

Again savour protocols arn't exactlly OP, just marines as they should lore wise loose a shooting war with Tau.
They also loose a shoot out with guard and heck they even loose a shooting war with Drukari.
That's not a problem with saviour protocols it's marine shooting being poor and having 0 melee ability outside of smash captains.
Funny enough guard, eldar of both colours, GSC and soup do plenty well enough against Tau which indicates that they aren't the problem, marines just not bringing worthwhile rules is.

Ice_can wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.

Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.

Again savour protocols arn't exactlly OP, just marines as they should lore wise loose a shooting war with Tau.
They also loose a shoot out with guard and heck they even loose a shooting war with Drukari.
That's not a problem with saviour protocols it's marine shooting being poor and having 0 melee ability outside of smash captains.
Funny enough guard, eldar of both colours, GSC and soup do plenty well enough against Tau which indicates that they aren't the problem, marines just not bringing worthwhile rules is.

Ehhh - they are OP agains the weapons you need to kill their 2+ save units in cover. Intercepting shots against weapons which tend to have only few shots is OP. Also their intercept ability working out of LOS is particularly busted because that means you can't use effective weapons on the drones. It becomes very quickly a game you can't even possibly win without a good portion of your army having ignore LOS. Plus its not like Shield drones are easy to kill ether. 3+ in cover and 4++ and a 5+++ at all times. I've fired 2 WW and a thunderfire cannon into them before only to watch them make a bunch of 4+ 5+++ which basically means the rest of my army is doing practically nothing.

The only way you can assault a tau fort realistically is to have an ignore overwatch ability which is particularly rare. So that isn't a viable way to beat them ether (where it really should be their weakness)

 Xenomancers wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.

Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.

Again savour protocols arn't exactlly OP, just marines as they should lore wise loose a shooting war with Tau.
They also loose a shoot out with guard and heck they even loose a shooting war with Drukari.
That's not a problem with saviour protocols it's marine shooting being poor and having 0 melee ability outside of smash captains.
Funny enough guard, eldar of both colours, GSC and soup do plenty well enough against Tau which indicates that they aren't the problem, marines just not bringing worthwhile rules is.

Ehhh - they are OP agains the weapons you need to kill their 2+ save units in cover. Intercepting shots against weapons which tend to have only few shots is OP. Also their intercept ability working out of LOS is particularly busted because that means you can't use effective weapons on the drones. It becomes very quickly a game you can't even possibly win without a good portion of your army having ignore LOS. Plus its not like Shield drones are easy to kill ether. 3+ in cover and 4++ and a 5+++ at all times. I've fired 2 WW and a thunderfire cannon into them before only to watch them make a bunch of 4+ 5+++ which basically means the rest of my army is doing practically nothing.

The only way you can assault a tau fort realistically is to have an ignore overwatch ability which is particularly rare. So that isn't a viable way to beat them ether (where it really should be their weakness)

Except your not listening again.
Do marines have the tools to beat Tau NO.
Does that make Tau OP like you claim NO.
Does it highlight that marines suck yes.

You know what kills drones good MW, Weight of dice & ILOS.
You know what kills battle suits well, dissy cannons, MW spam, Battlecannons, raw weight of dice.
T5 doesn't matter against massed S3

Marines just don't have any of the above that doesn't automatically make other armies OP.
Jesus by that logic everything outide of 1W power armour is OP.

ILOS is exceptionally rare unless you are playing Imperial guard. Mortal wounds are mostly ignored by having screening units. Weight of dice is countered by 2+ saves. It seems like you are ignoring the real issue here. Being unable to target the units you need with the weapons you need to is pretty unbalanced in a game that is essentially 90% tactically about target priority.

Oddly enough - space marines have some unique ability to apply mortal wounds to units through screens with line breaker bombardment...unfortunately the ability is too short ranged and dependent on going first it doesn't work.

Regardless - there are plenty of armies that don't have real ILOS options...that makes drones OP and in essence makes tau OP.

Eldar do well against tau because tau can't deal witrh -2 to hit...(almost no one can)
Guard do well against tau for obvious reasons (ILOS for days) Plus they outrange most of their super shooty units with their own super shooty units.
Nids are actually terrible against gaurd. They don't even need drones to beat nids. They are practically immune to their assault units and 2+ saves in cover nids can not deal with. At least not after turn 1 Kuyoun wipes out everything in your army that shoots competently.

One of the biggest problems with Tau right now in my opinion is Darkstrider and Shadowsun. The Tau can just spam the gak out of Riptides and infantry, and you can't ever kill the Riptides because they always have a 3+ invuln save (which Knights can't get anymore how come Riptides get it?) and you can't engage them in close combat either.

Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!

And he's how many points? With how many wounds?

Insanity.

Tau need a huge nerf. HUGE.

Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!

I mean, you do play Imperium, there is a good bit of access to snipers. Darkstrider is almost the perfect target.

There must surely be a space marine codex coming very soon? So many units not included in the book now and even more on the way.

All the stuff from shadow spear plus we also have the new repulsor tank destroyer and a new iron hands Primaris guy too. Even if it's just a second edition like chaos got?