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XTheWaffen wrote:
I usually see marine players use diversity in their army lists far more often than eldar and tau. I think that the lack of diversity and actual understanding of the Tau units is what caused their W/L ratio to be sub-average than any favoritism shown by GW. As for strategy, most of 7th was riptide spam, wraithknight + warp spider spam, and scatter spam.

In fact spam is generally the norm for a lot of WAAC builds in general, which is why many people get annoyed by edition changes which do render the old spam build less useful. Afterall, when your army consists primarily of 2 maybe 3 units spammed endlessly, a couple nerfs can leave it virtually unplayable.

There are two types of marines, 2+ saves and 3+ saves. The rest is just what weapons they're equipped with.

But again, this isn't my point.

I'm just saying rules change, so do editions - strategies and unit choices also have to adapt with the changing of new editions/rules.

40k has always been a spam game though' and detachments are just making it worse this edition.

 blackmage wrote:
u sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken

Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.

They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2

 Talamare wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
u sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken

Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.

They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2

The only stupid one is the non-imperial one. Sounds about right. I forgot that imperials get a free pass for stupidity, that's basically what all of them are anyways.

People will own whatever they need to own, especially for the competitive scene. Brimstone horrors are easy to make too' super cheap.

People WILL own 100-200 conscripts if that's the optimal number for army lists.

 Talamare wrote:
Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.

They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2

Again, without the global immunity to morale their effectiveness is hampered if you try to field them in anything larger than the basic 10 person squad, which puts a limit on how easily they can be spammed. Even at 10, you can easily squeeze in 2-3 casualities from morale other armies won't worry about. Morale really is a great balancing tool for keeping huge blobs in check.

fe40k wrote:
There are two types of marines, 2+ saves and 3+ saves. The rest is just what weapons they're equipped with.

But again, this isn't my point.

I'm just saying rules change, so do editions - strategies and unit choices also have to adapt with the changing of new editions/rules.

40k has always been a spam game though' and detachments are just making it worse this edition.

I mean... almost every army shares a singular base statline with variations in equipment and a couple special rules here or there, ignoring tanks/MC. That's hardly unique to SM, tyranids and demons are the only real exceptions to that.

And while people do tend to rush to judgement... it's also sometimes easy to tell, from simple comparison, that something is ridiculously undercosted.

Tau arent terrible, but if you hated riptide spam wait until you see commander spam. Everyone wants to take commanders with 4 weapons and bubble wrap them with cheap troops. Seen lists with 8 at 2k points all with fusion blasters. If you dont see them your going to see ghostkeel fill riptides role and tons of drones as well.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.

I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.

Silver144 wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.

I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.

Guess you've never come across the Ghostkeel Shenanigans.
There might not be many of them but they boardwiped almost every list that went up against them, only list they fell short against was Daemon Spam, every Daemon having invulnerable saves, having no interest in shooting and the mission being Relic did not work in the Tau player's favour

fe40k wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
u sure? what about 2pt troop cost, casting smite and save at 4++? place 100 (for just 200ot) on the table and good luck remove anything.what about plasma at 7pt? what about sundercosted stormraven? cmon Gw made things far more broken

Among that list, the only stupid one are the Brimstone Horrors
But very very few people are going to own a silly 200-400 of them.

They are also easily fixed by increasing their point cost by 1 or 2

The only stupid one is the non-imperial one. Sounds about right. I forgot that imperials get a free pass for stupidity, that's basically what all of them are anyways.

People will own whatever they need to own, especially for the competitive scene. Brimstone horrors are easy to make too' super cheap.

People WILL own 100-200 conscripts if that's the optimal number for army lists.

People keep claiming "who will really buy and paint that many?" I'm not even a powergamer, and I lose more than I win, often due to wacky lists (my next ad mech game is gonna see me fielding all of my 8 dragoons!) But I still had 300 skavenslaves when that was a thing, because playing without the recommended amount of slaves was just asking to lose, and I needed enough to scale.

Why is the storm raven being spammed?

Because you're going to face a ton of unlimited range guns hiding on the corner of the map that will blow your squads off the table before you can get in range to fire, unless you're hard to hit, and have the mobility to close the distance.

Or because your opponent will be charging you turn 1, and flying will prevent that.

Or because hordes are in, and they have saves now, and are largely immune to morale. We're literally talking about 200 brimstone horrors on the table with smite, and a 4++. What tool would you use to remove that?

People are finding a way to work around the high cost of the Raven simply because it is the only tool that allows you to survive going second in the "whoever goes first probably wins" edition.

Case in point: played a game against guard, where is sea of Manticores deleted the half of my army i'm obligated to place on the table before i got a turn. Reducing his hits from 4s rerolling 1s to 5s rerolling 1s is a big deal.

SilverAlien wrote:

Again, without the global immunity to morale their effectiveness is hampered if you try to field them in anything larger than the basic 10 person squad, which puts a limit on how easily they can be spammed. Even at 10, you can easily squeeze in 2-3 casualities from morale other armies won't worry about. Morale really is a great balancing tool for keeping huge blobs in check.

Unless... They don't use huge blobs?
Besides I'm not even saying they need to be nerfed to the ground
Make Brimstones 3PPM and they are probably balanced.

fe40k wrote:

The only stupid one is the non-imperial one. Sounds about right. I forgot that imperials get a free pass for stupidity, that's basically what all of them are anyways.

People will own whatever they need to own, especially for the competitive scene. Brimstone horrors are easy to make too' super cheap.

People WILL own 100-200 conscripts if that's the optimal number for army lists.

I have no specific love for Imperium, IG, SM
If that list had said the word conscript I would have also said they needed a point increase.

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.

Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.

Martel732 wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.

Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.

Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".

roddo wrote:Tau arent terrible, but if you hated riptide spam wait until you see commander spam. Everyone wants to take commanders with 4 weapons and bubble wrap them with cheap troops. Seen lists with 8 at 2k points all with fusion blasters. If you dont see them your going to see ghostkeel fill riptides role and tons of drones as well.

IMO, commander spam is going to prove to be extremely overrated. The fact that I haven't seen any battle reports with it being used effectively yet is quite telling since you can, largely, take any crisis suit and very easily do a "counts as" to spam them.

At the end of the day, small-arms fire will pop their bubble-wrap, at which point their total lack of survivability makes them a liability rather than an asset. They're a handful of wounds protected with a poor armor save. Commander spam is a glass cannon tactic, which makes it very, very easy to deal with. You just shoot with the appropriate weapons in the appropriate order. Small arms, then heavy weapons.

Bubblewrapping them? Not going to work. The vaunted "drone squad bubblewrap" will buy you a round at most against a determined opponent because the drones only have a leadership of 6, and the only characters in the Tau army that increase that are ethereals, who will NOT be zooming around the board with your spammed crisis commanders.

Drones are not immune to moral tests, their leadership sucks, and they don't benefit from a commander's leadership.

Silver144 wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.

I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.

We're going to need to see his list if you're going to make a claim like that.

Any opponent is going to be hard-pressed to kill even a single Ghostkeel in one turn as long as it's protected by a shield generator, much less an entire T'au army that's fielding an appropriate number of infantry units supported by suites (as opposed to using suits to replace infantry, as has been the standard, and which should no longer work)

My big observation for suits in this edition is that a shield generator is nearly a requirement now because of the prevalence of 1d3 damage weapon-spam. Most of it has decent AP values which make crisis armor irrelevant, and the damage makes the multiple wounds you're paying a premium for almost worthless.

Old edition tactics will not work in this edition. This goes for almost every army in the game, but seems to be going double for Tau. You have to actually think about longevity for once.

 Selym wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.

Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.

Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".

Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.

Martel732 wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.

Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.

Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".

Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.

Your missing the forest for the trees. Tau durability is okay for its cost but armies don't win on durability alone in 8th. They win by killing or objectives and we can't do objectives anymore due to crazy turn one charges. Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army. My tau players in my local have given up Tau against their will since there is no hope brining them and hoping to win. Other races have melee, speed, range, psychic phase, and now better shooting than the Tau. How is that fair? Tau are the worst faction in the game by a mile right now.

 Gamgee wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
Tau have been hit incredibly hard this edition, with ludicrous point increases and a noticeable decrease in effectiveness almost across the board. The larger battlesuits are now not worth taking in a competitive list, the markerlight table has been gutted, and only spam-based lists seem to have potential. Say you want about nerfing the power armies of last edition, but I don't see SM, Eldar, or Ynnari players' best units being turned into paperweights.

Large suits aren't paperweights, you're just spoiled by 7th. You paid 220ish for invincible models. Now you pay an appropriate cost.

Until I see the Tau stats myself, I can't honestly take your word for this, Martel. An accurate description of your view on a unit's power (as it appears on this forum) is essentially: "My BA once lost to it, so it is OP".

Hardly. Don't take my word for it. Go look them up. They're not THAT bad. They were able to suck up like 40+ lascannons in 7th. They can't do that anymore. Commence the QQ. Nova charge Stimtides were more durable than Warhound Titans in 7th. Yeah, it's all me.

Your missing the forest for the trees. Tau durability is okay for its cost but armies don't win on durability alone in 8th. They win by killing or objectives and we can't do objectives anymore due to crazy turn one charges. Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army. My tau players in my local have given up Tau against their will since there is no hope brining them and hoping to win. Other races have melee, speed, range, psychic phase, and now better shooting than the Tau. How is that fair? Tau are the worst faction in the game by a mile right now.

Tau are dominating the meta where I am, to the point where TO are thinking about banning Forgeworld.

 Marmatag wrote:

Tau are dominating the meta where I am, to the point where TO are thinking about banning Forgeworld.

This is like seeing a spider and burning the house down. The issue isn't Forgeworld, the issue is outlier units
GW have had far more egregious imbalances before, but nobody bans GW...

Silver144 wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

Tau armies aren't bottom tier by a long shot. When you can buzz around the battlefield with high output battlesuits that don't take a penalty for wimping out of combat and inflict a -2 to hit penalty to all shooting aimed at them you're a far cry from bottom tier. The problem is that Tau players coughed up big bucks and purchased the right suits for 7th which aren't so special in 8th. They'll be back after they save up their pennies for the new hotness.

I will disagree. The only battlesuit tau has is a commander, every other is laughable overpriced. They has to spam gun-drones and 5-man FW squads with shas-ui markerlight for rerolls of one to be semi-competitional. They lose their mobility, markerlights are nerfed to the point, that it is not worth take it in army (outside the single shas-uis and fireblades). We have a guy who refuse to play dron spam and was tabled 1-st turn without moving a single model at 2k point game.

LOL! The old, I have a friend who got tabled post...........I have a friend who plays My Little Ponies and he tabled an Imperial Guard player 1st turn without rolling dice, (because the OP My Little Pony army has the army wide ability of, "Your opponent cannot place any terrain and must deploy his entire army as far forward and turned around").

In this edition, well balanced armies are rewarded. DE and tyranids were made ridiculously fast, but this can be countered with shooting, positioning, etc.

The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.

 Gamgee wrote:

Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.

I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.

This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .

 Selym wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Tau are dominating the meta where I am, to the point where TO are thinking about banning Forgeworld.

This is like seeing a spider and burning the house down. The issue isn't Forgeworld, the issue is outlier units
GW have had far more egregious imbalances before, but nobody bans GW...

Honestly the base game is fairly balanced. But Forgeworld makes 0 effort to be balanced. And it's not just the Tau Forgeworld Riptide, it's other stuff too. For 170 points you can have a tank that shoots 18 assault cannon dice rerolling 1s if it doesn't move, and it's got strong stats.

The extensive playtesting doesn't apply to forgeworld. Let the hyper competitive players use that in GTs and such, until the ITC addresses it somehow.

 455_PWR wrote:
In this edition, well balanced armies are rewarded. DE and tyranids were made ridiculously fast, but this can be countered with shooting, positioning, etc.

The only armies with a strict disadvantage are low number armies like primaris, grey knights, deathwing, etc. However, they usually set up fist and get to go first, which helps semi balance the battles before they start taking casualties.

I largely agree with this; the GK in particular are able to mitigate lack of numbers with good deployment and proper use of their decent mobility.

Both my DE and my Tyranids are playing much more enjoyably thus far. I truly value being able to play a list with a bit of fluff value that is reasonably competitive (or at least not pants-on-head). I'm playing loads more games now that I can bring 'stealers, Warriors, and cheap swarms and still have a nice lore-friendly game without immediately conceding the game to a moderately competent opponent. As long as Codices don't force me to go back to lists consisting of a half-dozen flyrants, I'm a happy camper.

Tau are in a different place in 8th, that's apparent. My SO has found much more success in this Ed. relative to our other local Tau players and I chalk it up to his always having used more lore-friendly Fire Warrior-based army supported by specialist suits, as opposed to the more common suit-heavy lists. I really hope that this edition continues along in this vein, because games are much more interesting right now, IMO.

Alcibiades wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.

I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.

This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .

I know points costs went up accross the board for heavy weapons, and then they stacked on a Tau wuz overpowered tax for last edition too apparently.

Las Cannon 20 points. Heavy Rail Rifle 63 points! They are effectively the same weapon but has one extra shot one less strength and has one additional -1 and on a 6 it adds one mortal wound which will happen less than once a game because of the crappy BS of the broadside. You can get three las cannons and have some spare change for an upgrade for the price of one Heavy Rail Rifle which is insane. Points costs are nearly insane across the board for every Tau weapon when compared to other factions.

Even the base costs on models is crazy high compared to other armies let alone the weapons costs.

 Gamgee wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.

I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.

This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .

I know points costs went up accross the board for heavy weapons, and then they stacked on a Tau wuz overpowered tax for last edition too apparently.

Las Cannon 20 points. Heavy Rail Rifle 63 points! They are effectively the same weapon but has one extra shot one less strength and has one additional -1 and on a 6 it adds one mortal wound which will happen less than once a game because of the crappy BS of the broadside. You can get three las cannons and have some spare change for an upgrade for the price of one Heavy Rail Rifle which is insane. Points costs are nearly insane across the board for every Tau weapon when compared to other factions.

Even the base costs on models is crazy high compared to other armies let alone the weapons costs.

Accessibility to Heavy Weapons is another major issue regardless of the cost of the individual guns.
Things like Predators, Heavy Weapons Teams, Devastators, Havocs, Razorbacks... Armored Sentinels...

Wait a tick...
Armored Sentinel
8" BS+4, S5, T5 6W 3+
Lascannon
60 points

Broadside
5" BS+4, S5, T5, 6W 2+
Heavy Rail Rifle
140 points

Yep they did a hit job on the Tau or something. The only logical theory I have that is more or less me in denial that anyone had a plan for this is.

They wanted to really see if peoples complaints about the Tau were legit and did this knowing a codex was coming soon after so they could undo it. I can't see this being approved any other way from a logical perspective.

But I know this was them listening to the internet hate.

 Talamare wrote:

Wait a tick...
Armored Sentinel
8" BS+4, S5, T5 6W 3+
Lascannon
60 points

Broadside
5" BS+4, S5, T5, 6W 2+
Heavy Rail Rifle
140 points

D:

Who in their right mind...

Playtested my ass, this is GW being GW again.

Yet more reason to disbelieve people who think that codex creep will be eliminated.

 Selym wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

Wait a tick...
Armored Sentinel
8" BS+4, S5, T5 6W 3+
Lascannon
60 points

Broadside
5" BS+4, S5, T5, 6W 2+
Heavy Rail Rifle
140 points

D:

Who in their right mind...

Playtested my ass, this is GW being GW again.

Yet more reason to disbelieve people who think that codex creep will be eliminated.

Only one video can reply to this.

 Talamare wrote:
Broadside
5" BS+4, S5, T5, 6W 2+
Heavy Rail Rifle
140 points

Don't forget you also have to take at least the plasma rifles, so you are spending 165+

 Talamare wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

Our firepower is anemic. We pay huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective effective than any other army.

I'm going to repeat here what I said in the IG thread when people were bemoaning the huge extra points costs on weapons that are less effective than any other army.

This happened to all heavy weapons in all armies, pretty much (things like the rupture cannon notwithstanding). The game has moved away from being offense-based. You can't one-shot things or wipe out whole squads anymore, 95% of the time. (Which is why I find the "fusion blaster commander spam" to be really silly. People are still trying to alpha strike.) .

I know points costs went up accross the board for heavy weapons, and then they stacked on a Tau wuz overpowered tax for last edition too apparently.

Las Cannon 20 points. Heavy Rail Rifle 63 points! They are effectively the same weapon but has one extra shot one less strength and has one additional -1 and on a 6 it adds one mortal wound which will happen less than once a game because of the crappy BS of the broadside. You can get three las cannons and have some spare change for an upgrade for the price of one Heavy Rail Rifle which is insane. Points costs are nearly insane across the board for every Tau weapon when compared to other factions.

Even the base costs on models is crazy high compared to other armies let alone the weapons costs.

Accessibility to Heavy Weapons is another major issue regardless of the cost of the individual guns.
Things like Predators, Heavy Weapons Teams, Devastators, Havocs, Razorbacks... Armored Sentinels...

Wait a tick...
Armored Sentinel
8" BS+4, S5, T5 6W 3+
Lascannon
60 points

Broadside
5" BS+4, S5, T5, 6W 2+
Heavy Rail Rifle
140 points

Actually it's 165 per broadside because you also have to take a secondary weapon, cheapest of which costs 22 pts (2x plasma rifle).