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tneva82 wrote:

 SevenSeasOfRhye wrote:

And say good bye balance when guy with more expensive gun has to pay same price for upgrading to gun X than another guy.

To put very simple example: Is upgrading lasgun to twin-linked lascannon worth the same as upgrading twin-linked assault cannon to twin-linked lascannon? Change in firepower isn't nearly as big when gun you are replacing is shootier than with other guy.

What you're saying makes no sense to me. How is it imbalanced to include the standard equipment into the base cost of a unit?

Example: Let's say a razorback costs 110 pts and comes equipped with twin heavy bolters as part of its base cost, with the option to upgrade the bolters to twin lascannons for +20 pts. What part of this is imbalanced? What part of this doesn't make sense?

You have 2 guys. One has gun worth 1 pts, one has gun worth 20 pts.

You seriously claim it's fair both pay 30 pts for upgrade to same weapon? One guy has then paid effectively 50 pts for the weapon while other paid 31 pts.

You're still not making sense. The *obvious* solution is for this to be accounted for in the base cost to begin with. Again: how is a base cost wargear system incompatible with balance?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
A Tau player cimplaining about starting with a base model in points and then adding piints for weapons and wargear is the most insane thing I have seen in several days. Did you never play with Crisis suits before?

Anyways; since you are having trouble understanding, lets look at some units that have different guns as options:

SM predator: comes with a predator Autocannon. Price with base gear is 151 pts. Under current rules swapping the turret to twin lascannon makes it 152 pts; a fair exchange. It is also not the only vehicle that gets twin lascannon. If the Autocannon cost was built into the price, and you had to pay for the upgrade a predator with twin lascannons would cost 201 pts and never be taken because a third again the pri d is dumb.

Weapons are priced for their effectiveness, units are priced for their ability to use those weapons.

It was one thing to have that with crisis suits, which were explicitly designed to be versatile units capable of holding any conceivable loadout for any situation. It's another altogether to have that for *literally every unit*. It makes no sense to me.

Well, considering what you just said... if the issue is that the lascannon costs too much, why not reduce its price simply?
This isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it's really annoying and by far less smooth than the old system.

One thing i've noticed after reading the FAQ is that +1 to hit rolls has an extra bonus for Tau in that it makes it impossible to roll a 1 and thus suffer a mortal wound if you're overloading something.

Could be useful.

 obsidianaura wrote:
One thing i've noticed after reading the FAQ is that +1 to hit rolls has an extra bonus for Tau in that it makes it impossible to roll a 1 and thus suffer a mortal wound if you're overloading something.

Could be useful.

unless the enemy has a -1 to hit, like those pesky DE stuff

 Vector Strike wrote:

Now they only fire at BS6+ unless you have 2 MLs on the target, do only 1MW each and are still one-use?
Oh, did I forget to mean that Sky Rays - the prime deliverer of Seeker missiles and our best AA platform - lost Velocity Tracker?

Seeker missiles are pretty bad now.

Again - perspective.

Seeker missiles were S8 AP3. They are now essentially S-Infinite and AP-Infinite. And all it costs you is 2 marker light hits. If you really want a missile launcher shot back at an extra +1 to hit then have at it.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

Now they only fire at BS6+ unless you have 2 MLs on the target, do only 1MW each and are still one-use?
Oh, did I forget to mean that Sky Rays - the prime deliverer of Seeker missiles and our best AA platform - lost Velocity Tracker?

Seeker missiles are pretty bad now.

Again - perspective.

Seeker missiles were S8 AP3. They are now essentially S-Infinite and AP-Infinite. And all it costs you is 2 marker light hits. If you really want a missile launcher shot back at an extra +1 to hit then have at it.

Again - perspective

3-4 Seeker Missiles could reliably destroy more or less any vehicle in the game.
You now will now need about 20-30 Seeker Missiles to destroy a vehicle.

Not to mention Missile Shots are d6 damage, and would work at BS2. So yea, Missile Shot Seeker Missiles are better than 1 Mortal Wound Garbage.

Honestly, GW messed up with the entire Tau ruleset, and people are now realizing it. I hope to god changes are made when the Codex is developed.

Almost everything Tau has is either overcosted, underpowered, or ineffective. Markerlights are just one more example. Tau units hit on 4+ but if we're moving our most effective and necessary weapon platforms around, they hit on +5, which means rerolling ones is a joke and NOT worth the point expenditure in even taking Pathfinders. The entire Markerlight system needs to be redone.

GW are punishing the Tau of past editions for how powerful they could be, failing to realize that 7th is come and gone, and that the Tau need a redesign for 8th, but not one that punishes them for last edition. This was obviously done because of crying and whining about Tau from the playerbase, resulting in GW gutting the faction.

Anyone here telling you that Markerlights are "fine" either haven't played a game with 8th Tau with Markerlight "support" or are just being armchair professors.

A fairly reliable mortal wound in damage for only 5 points is far from "garbage". It's a shame when decent comments regarding the validity (or not) of various options is tainted with ridiculous hyperbole. Combined with other aspects of a well rounded force they can be instrumental in delivering a very powerful Alpha strike. Your point regarding vehicles doesn't take degradation into consideration either. It's not always about outright destroying something like it was in 7th.

I disagree it is garbage. You need to fire like 3-5 weapons of ML to get it to fire and reliably be able to fire your seeker missiles at an opponent. Then lug around seeker missiles to make it work. You need like 3x the amount of ML drones than normal because you might want to shoot at two different targets. Once your big alpha strike is gone which isn't even that good your out of luck for the game. Then you get your shot off and deal one wound and all the ML's are basically useless since you got that one shot off. If you took drones you may as well have just taken gun drones. It's a huge sunk cost supporting them. Honestly they should have allowed the skyray to fire not only its own seeker missiles but others you bring as well at it's BS to justify it's high cost.

At most I can see ML's being niche for one alpha strike per game on units with high invul saves, but it would cost a lot of points to make it happen and honestly the whole list would need to work around it to support it and there's just better things in the codex. Are they terrible? No, but they aren't very good either.

I'm not sure why your "entire list" would need to be built around it. Say you have 10 seekers in your list and you have x2 10 man Pathfinder squads. That's a nice little bonus of 5/10 mortal wounds you are getting. It's all very situational of course but the fact you will be using the PF's to light up targets anyway in order for your XV8's (for example) to use I don't see how deciding to splash a cheeky 50 points on what could be a really nasty first turn bite out of the enemy could be ever be deemed as "garbage", a bit of a gamble, sure.

A 5 man Harlequin squad is a good target example. With their 4+ inv save, it's very achievable to wipe them out. 50 points well spent.

 Hollow wrote:
I'm not sure why your "entire list" would need to be built around it. Say you have 10 seekers in your list and you have x2 10 man Pathfinder squads. That's a nice little bonus of 5/10 mortal wounds you are getting. It's all very situational of course but the fact you will be using the PF's to light up targets anyway in order for your XV8's (for example) to use I don't see how deciding to splash a cheeky 50 points on what could be a really nasty first turn bite out of the enemy could be ever be deemed as "garbage", a bit of a gamble, sure.

A 5 man Harlequin squad is a good target example. With their 4+ inv save, it's very achievable to wipe them out. 50 points well spent.

There's several problems with that. The first is that 5 seeker missiles aren't wiping out a five man Harlequin squad. More like three members. Even with the two markerlight hits most platforms are going to be hitting their targets on a 4+ rerolling 1s. So a little bit over half the shots hit. Which means you need more like eight seeker missiles to wipe out the five man squad, in addition to the cost of a unit of markerlights. So rather than being 50 points, it's probably closer to 160. Which gets you 20 gun drones. Those twenty gun drones are just as likely to wipe out that five man squad, while being usable again the next turn, or being used as sacrificial meatshield for your more expensive models. I know which one I'd pick.

Erm... I didn't say 5 Seekers could do it. I said 10 could. Also, putting the entire cost of the Pathfinders in there isn't really right, considering they will be used across a game by multiple units for multiple things. I view it more as, I have spent 1950 points of a 2k list. I could add 10 seekers into the mix or 6 more gun drones. I know what I'd have (considering they would be mainly coming from HH's buffed by Longstrike.)

 Hollow wrote:
I'm not sure why your "entire list" would need to be built around it. Say you have 10 seekers in your list and you have x2 10 man Pathfinder squads. That's a nice little bonus of 5/10 mortal wounds you are getting. It's all very situational of course but the fact you will be using the PF's to light up targets anyway in order for your XV8's (for example) to use I don't see how deciding to splash a cheeky 50 points on what could be a really nasty first turn bite out of the enemy could be ever be deemed as "garbage", a bit of a gamble, sure.

A 5 man Harlequin squad is a good target example. With their 4+ inv save, it's very achievable to wipe them out. 50 points well spent.

Harlequin aren't exactly a great target to use Seeker Missiles on, they have low toughness and mediocre saves. A little bit of weighted firepower should be more than enough to handle a few Harlequins

Let's do some math
Skyray are 28/36 accuracy
Piranha are 21/36 accuracy
BS2 are 35/36 accuracy

Let's assume Hunter Kill Missile Stat Line for Classic Seeker Missiles S8 AP-2 d6 damage

vs Land Speeder
Mortal P - 7 / (21/36) = 12 Seeker Missiles
Mortal S - 7 / (28/36) = 9 Seeker Missiles
Classic - 7 / (35/36 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5) = 3.70 Seeker Missiles

vs Rhino
Mortal P - 10 / (21/36) = 17.14 Seeker Missiles
Mortal S - 10 / (28/36) = 12.85 Seeker Missiles
Classic - 10 / (35/36 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 3.5) = 6.61 Seeker Missiles

vs Land Raider
Mortal P - 16 / (21/36) = 27.42 Seeker Missiles
Mortal S - 16 / (28/36) = 20.57 Seeker Missiles
Classic - 16 / (35/36 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 3.5) = 18.80 Seeker Missiles

This is why we say it's Garbage. Because 1 Mortal Wound isn't a strong enough effect
What they should have done is made it d3 Mortal Wounds for Seeker Missiles, d6 Mortal Wounds for Destroyer Missiles
vs Land Speeder
Mortal P - 7 / (21/36 * 2) = 6 Seeker Missiles
Mortal S - 7 / (28/36 * 2) = 4.5 Seeker Missiles
Classic - 7 / (35/36 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5) = 3.70 Seeker Missiles

vs Rhino
Mortal P - 10 / (21/36 * 2) = 8.57 Seeker Missiles
Mortal S - 10 / (28/36 * 2) = 6.42 Seeker Missiles
Classic - 10 / (35/36 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 3.5) = 6.61 Seeker Missiles

vs Land Raider
Mortal P - 16 / (21/36 * 2) = 13.71 Seeker Missiles
Mortal S - 16 / (28/36 * 2) = 10.28 Seeker Missiles
Classic - 16 / (35/36 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 3.5) = 18.80 Seeker Missiles
This last one may seem a little amazing, but...
LR vs Lascannon - 16 / (28/36 * 2/3 * 2/3 * 3.5) = 13.22 Lascannon Shots
So while better than a Lascannon Shot, it's not by such a massive margin. Not to mention single use vs standard use.

Current Seeker Missiles are underpowered

I appreciate the obvious time and effort you put in there, however, I think running the numbers with a hypothetical idea of what seekers could have been, going on what they were in a previous edition is... a complete waste of time. Harlequins just popped into my head as they are in small units with a 4+ inv save (which is not mediocre, your description of things really leaves me scratching my head at times) A 5+ armour save is mediocre. A 4+ inv is a good save. The point I was making is that seekers could be used to wipe out a small elite unit at the start of the game granting you first blood at very favourable rate of point-spent-for damage.

Taking the numbers you did run however, makes the Seekers completely OP IMO. How you think it would be justifiable for 4 seekers to wipe out a Land speeder. Never mind a unit made up of 2/3 wounds infantry. You are expecting way too much from a little 5 point point piece of additional wargear.


PS: While Mathammering can be interesting and can give an insight into how things may/may not perform, it only ever paints a small part of a much larger overall picture.

 Hollow wrote:
I appreciate the obvious time and effort you put in there, however, I think running the numbers with a hypothetical idea of what seekers could have been, going on what they were in a previous edition is... a complete waste of time. Harlequins just popped into my head as they are in small units with a 4+ inv save (which is not mediocre, your description of things really leaves me scratching my head at times) A 5+ armour save is mediocre. A 4+ inv is a good save. The point I was making is that seekers could be used to wipe out a small elite unit at the start of the game granting you first blood at very favourable rate of point-spent-for damage.

Taking the numbers you did run however, makes the Seekers completely OP IMO. How you think it would be justifiable for 4 seekers to wipe out a Land speeder. Never mind a unit made up of 2/3 wounds infantry. You are expecting way too much from a little 5 point point piece of additional wargear.


PS: While Mathammering can be interesting and can give an insight into how things may/may not perform, it only ever paints a small part of a much larger overall picture.

I said you should just use Weighted Fire, The vast majority of Weighted Fire doesn't have any AP value.
In which case Fire Warriors 4+Save is equivalent to Harlequin 4++Save, Actually it's better than Harlequinn 4++Save since Fire Warriors can benefit from cover to make it a 3+ Save
but moving on, I don't care enough about Harlequinns to continue that thread.

The effort was done in order to prove that Seeker Missiles have been vastly nerfed. Your argument seems to be at it's core that "They still do things" and of course they do.
The point is they don't have enough impact!

Finally, I accept that 5 points would be too cheap if they did 1d3 Mortal Wounds. 10 points seems acceptable.
Which is another thing to mention. Seeker Missiles cost slots to bring. You cannot just take a unit of Seeker Missiles *cough Skyray cough*, they are always a byproduct of a secondary unit.
It's better to have an expensive and impactful missile when you're only allowed a small amount of it. Than a cheap and unimpactful one.

The issue you seem to have is that Seeker missiles no longer do what they DID in 7th as well. (Destroying vehicles) I'm trying to say that directly contrasting and comparing what the missiles did in the previous edition and then claiming they are underpowered because they no longer do the exact same thing, is ignoring the fact that the ENTIRE game has completely changed. It has been made clear by GW that in 8th edition vehicles are meant to be more durable, a one shot missile isn't meant to wreck a vehicle (generally speaking) in this edition, multiple damage weapons are best suited for this role and the Tau have many of them. I think Seekers have a place within this new edition, although I would admit that I'm not 100% exactly sure what that place is, as it is still very early days.

You say they are underpowered, say they should be more powerful and cost more points, so that they are better able to recreate what they did in the last edition. How is this new? How is this different? What is the point in changing edition if the roles of various units and gear can't change over time. Seekers are different now, the game is different now and it seems to me that having the option to throw an additional 5/10 mortal wounds out for a very modest amount of points is certainly something to be considered, and the debate should be over what is their role within the new meta is, not how compared with the previous meta, they no longer do the same thing, are therefore garbage and should be changed with the new editon having only been out for 2 weeks. It's reactionary and unfair.

Out of curiosity do you have any direct real world experience running Marker Lights, Seekers etc?

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Honestly, GW messed up with the entire Tau ruleset, and people are now realizing it. I hope to god changes are made when the Codex is developed.

Almost everything Tau has is either overcosted, underpowered, or ineffective. Markerlights are just one more example. Tau units hit on 4+ but if we're moving our most effective and necessary weapon platforms around, they hit on +5, which means rerolling ones is a joke and NOT worth the point expenditure in even taking Pathfinders. The entire Markerlight system needs to be redone.

GW are punishing the Tau of past editions for how powerful they could be, failing to realize that 7th is come and gone, and that the Tau need a redesign for 8th, but not one that punishes them for last edition. This was obviously done because of crying and whining about Tau from the playerbase, resulting in GW gutting the faction.

Anyone here telling you that Markerlights are "fine" either haven't played a game with 8th Tau with Markerlight "support" or are just being armchair professors.

I have played multiple games of 8th and I think my tau are fine. Last week I tabled a daemon and a IG player. Maybe you should read the rule called stable weapon platform in the book.

Also taking a HQ detach with commanders with 1 ML drone and 4 CIB manga striking in feels like I'm cheating. With that setup in one turn I killed a fateweaver and a bloodthirster.

Kroot carnivores are great, vespid are good, pathfinders amazing! Barrucudas are expensive but damn good, they give so much threat.

 Hollow wrote:
The issue you seem to have is that Seeker missiles no longer do what they DID in 7th as well. (Destroying vehicles) I'm trying to say that directly contrasting and comparing what the missiles did in the previous edition and then claiming they are underpowered because they no longer do the exact same thing, is ignoring the fact that the ENTIRE game has completely changed. It has been made clear by GW that in 8th edition vehicles are meant to be more durable, a one shot missile isn't meant to wreck a vehicle (generally speaking) in this edition, multiple damage weapons are best suited for this role and the Tau have many of them. I think Seekers have a place within this new edition, although I would admit that I'm not 100% exactly sure what that place is, as it is still very early days.

You say they are underpowered, say they should be more powerful and cost more points, so that they are better able to recreate what they did in the last edition. How is this new? How is this different? What is the point in changing edition if the roles of various units and gear can't change over time. Seekers are different now, the game is different now and it seems to me that having the option to throw an additional 5/10 mortal wounds out for a very modest amount of points is certainly something to be considered, and the debate should be over what is their role within the new meta is, not how compared with the previous meta, they no longer do the same thing, are therefore garbage and should be changed with the new editon having only been out for 2 weeks. It's reactionary and unfair.

Out of curiosity do you have any direct real world experience running Marker Lights, Seekers etc?

Lol
What hollow arguments are these.
The "ENTIRE" game did not change, the vast majority of things are fairly similar in role and purpose.
You don't see Melta becoming Anti Infantry. If anything, 8th edition solidified weapon roles. Since Melta used to be a perfectly decent gun to shoot at infantry, now it just seems excess and wasteful.
Not to mention change for the sake of change isn't progress.

My statements have been that they were changed poorly. Even if they kept the same trend they should have from 7th they would have been better than this current iteration.
Nothing is unfair, things are garbage until proven useful. That's a basic law of gaming.

 Talamare wrote:

Lol
What hollow arguments are these.
The "ENTIRE" game did not change, the vast majority of things are fairly similar in role and purpose.
You don't see Melta becoming Anti Infantry. If anything, 8th edition solidified weapon roles. Since Melta used to be a perfectly decent gun to shoot at infantry, now it just seems excess and wasteful.
Not to mention change for the sake of change isn't progress.

My statements have been that they were changed poorly. Even if they kept the same trend they should have from 7th they would have been better than this current iteration.
Nothing is unfair, things are garbage until proven useful. That's a basic law of gaming.

Hollow arguments? They must be excellent then. Also, you seem to be confusing what YOUR "Basic law of gaming is" to basic laws of gaming.

As for your experience with the seekers. x2 Skyray gunships at (I presume 2k points) is ambitious, you say that you only managed to wound a rhino (I would argue that hitting a Rhino with Seekers doesn't strike me a particularly great target priority) Also, you did you not do anything with their support weapons all game?

 Hollow wrote:

Hollow arguments? They must be excellent then. Also, you seem to be confusing what YOUR "Basic law of gaming is" to basic laws of gaming.

As for your experience with the seekers. x2 Skyray gunships at (I presume 2k points) is ambitious, you say that you only managed to wound a rhino (I would argue that hitting a Rhino with Seekers doesn't strike me a particularly great target priority) Also, you did you not do anything with their support weapons all game?

No confusion, it's simple
If something is good
It will get proven that it's good time and time again
It has yet proven to be good, and no arguments have been made to prove that it's good

It was 1500, and as far as popping Rhinos go, Why not? His Warlord was in there, and it would have been successful in 7th. I suppose I forgot to mention it was my 1st game in 8th, but it hardly matters. You don't know what was on the table, so you don't know how good of a target that would have been.

However, I will bite. Give me a common target you will see on the other side of the board, give me how effective Seeker Missiles are against it compared to other common options.
As I said twice now, Prove that Seeker Missiles are good. Basic Law~

As far as "Support Weapons" go, 2 Markerlights for 150 points isn't exactly what I call cost efficient. The 2 Gun Drones were probably awesome, but it's hard to remember exactly which set of 2 Gun Drones belonged originally to which group. Tho overall, yea Gun Drones are amazing, but this isn't really about Gun Drones being amazing.

The preferred target for Seekers is obviously one-wound models with very good saves; infantry in ruins, for example.

 NL_Cirrus wrote:
5, +1 to hit, this would be helpful if it were lower on the list, so we could use it to compensate for our bad BS,

There it is again. I cringe every time I see this fallacy.
BS 3 (4+ now) isn't 'BAD BS' it's AVERAGE BS for a highly trained soldier. It's exactly what fire warrior should have, because it puts them on par with other similar units in the game.
BS 4 (3+ now) is for super human bio-engineered soldiers who have an excessive level (decades) of training. It is also for aliens whose biology is naturally superior to humans - to the point where their grace and accuracy appears magical (i.e. Eldar). This does not describe Tau at all!
BS 2 could be called 'bad' BS, but even that represents a soldier who has received training, albeit limited. (Conscripts, orks)

Zustiur wrote:

 NL_Cirrus wrote:
5, +1 to hit, this would be helpful if it were lower on the list, so we could use it to compensate for our bad BS,

There it is again. I cringe every time I see this fallacy.
BS 3 (4+ now) isn't 'BAD BS' it's AVERAGE BS for a highly trained soldier. It's exactly what fire warrior should have, because it puts them on par with other similar units in the game.
BS 4 (3+ now) is for super human bio-engineered soldiers who have an excessive level (decades) of training. It is also for aliens whose biology is naturally superior to humans - to the point where their grace and accuracy appears magical (i.e. Eldar). This does not describe Tau at all!
BS 2 could be called 'bad' BS, but even that represents a soldier who has received training, albeit limited. (Conscripts, orks)

Regardless of what you think is appropriate "in real life", BS3 is indeed garbage, especially when moving heavy weapons around and against specific armies. Look at playing against Dark Eldar, for example, with all their vehicles imposing a -1 hit modifier - now our entire army is practically hitting on a +5, which is unequivocally garbage. Most other armies are hitting on +3, and if Tau could rely on a reasonable markerlight table, this wouldn't be an issue. Instead, we have the disaster table we have now.

Zustiur wrote:

 NL_Cirrus wrote:
5, +1 to hit, this would be helpful if it were lower on the list, so we could use it to compensate for our bad BS,

There it is again. I cringe every time I see this fallacy.
BS 3 (4+ now) isn't 'BAD BS' it's AVERAGE BS for a highly trained soldier. It's exactly what fire warrior should have, because it puts them on par with other similar units in the game.
BS 4 (3+ now) is for super human bio-engineered soldiers who have an excessive level (decades) of training. It is also for aliens whose biology is naturally superior to humans - to the point where their grace and accuracy appears magical (i.e. Eldar). This does not describe Tau at all!
BS 2 could be called 'bad' BS, but even that represents a soldier who has received training, albeit limited. (Conscripts, orks)

BS 3+ is also for Imperial Guard Veteran Squads. Can you explain that one for me?

Yet the Fire Warriors, a group raised from birth in a warrior caste dedicated to ranged warfare only deserves a 4+. Worse, Crisis Suits, the veterans among those warriors raised from birth in a Spartanesque system don't get the same bump up to their to hit, but jump up from 4+ to 2+ when they get promoted.

Deadawake1347 wrote:

Zustiur wrote:

 NL_Cirrus wrote:
5, +1 to hit, this would be helpful if it were lower on the list, so we could use it to compensate for our bad BS,

There it is again. I cringe every time I see this fallacy.
BS 3 (4+ now) isn't 'BAD BS' it's AVERAGE BS for a highly trained soldier. It's exactly what fire warrior should have, because it puts them on par with other similar units in the game.
BS 4 (3+ now) is for super human bio-engineered soldiers who have an excessive level (decades) of training. It is also for aliens whose biology is naturally superior to humans - to the point where their grace and accuracy appears magical (i.e. Eldar). This does not describe Tau at all!
BS 2 could be called 'bad' BS, but even that represents a soldier who has received training, albeit limited. (Conscripts, orks)

BS 3+ is also for Imperial Guard Veteran Squads. Can you explain that one for me?

Yet the Fire Warriors, a group raised from birth in a warrior caste dedicated to ranged warfare only deserves a 4+. Worse, Crisis Suits, the veterans among those warriors raised from birth in a Spartanesque system don't get the same bump up to their to hit, but jump up from 4+ to 2+ when they get promoted.

Not to mention the idea that Tau has vastly superior technology that should allow them to have extremely accurate targeting computers

Deadawake1347 wrote:

BS 3+ is also for Imperial Guard Veteran Squads. Can you explain that one for me?

Yet the Fire Warriors, a group raised from birth in a warrior caste dedicated to ranged warfare only deserves a 4+. Worse, Crisis Suits, the veterans among those warriors raised from birth in a Spartanesque system don't get the same bump up to their to hit, but jump up from 4+ to 2+ when they get promoted.

The fluff reason is that Tau have crappy vision that is made up for by technology. The Commander's 2+ is his really really snazzy suit, not him.

The in-game reason is that Tau units are designed to be mediocre in isolation.

Anyway, I think the new MLs are quite good, especially because units can now use them to affect themselves. Don't get a dedicated ML platform. Sprinkle them throughout your squads.

Played a couple games by now. Thoughts:

Markerlights are still bad, but not as bad as I thought. Given the pulse carbines and the nasty overwatch it brings (put in a fireblade, and you can reasonably expect to kill even a couple of space marines), the mediocre bonuses aren't that bad considering their cost. Still not happy with it, but it's workable. Really wish marker #2 wasn't so completely and utterly useless, though.

Infantry is GREAT. The overwatch you get with a fireblade's buff bubble is insane, as is rapid fire in the shooting phase. Anything short of dedicated assault troops (or sheer numbers) will hesitate to run into 60+ pulse shots.

Fusion commander=amazeballs. Broadsides are a wee bit overcosted, but still useful.

Seeker missiles. IMO are for one thing. Kill securing.

My rails do what they can. Maybe i use a Command point to seal the damage maybe i dont. The target is already saturated with markerlights because the target was already the target of my heavy hitters. Blam blam blam. Hit wound damage saves. And after the tank or whatever has 1 -2 wounds or whatever left. Then my seeker with Hopefully a 3 or 2+ To hit with rr1s. Hits. Auto wounds. No saves. No need to worry about that last pesky hitpoint that is now gone.

Most seekers are mounted on the very frame thats job is to eliminate these threats and for 5 points is the little nudge to make the goal.

Only garbage if used incorrectly.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like i get that ML are not what they used to be but when i first seen the rules I honestly seen it as a seeker missile buff.
Like piranha semi suck. We wont be getting 9 broadsides on the table. But if i have longstrike and two hammerheads with him. Five markerlights should reliably get me to two or three on the chart , fire the seekers and that is an extra elite choice made moot after my alpha. How is that bad?
Before would that not hve taken like teice as many markerlight hits to launch and the markerlights would of been already taken up by units doing more important things or the seekers would of gotten in the way of not being able to split fire.