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Skimmer ought to block LOS again, (including no shooting underneath them) restoring some of the minor tactics of Tau and Eldar armies and reducing the effectiveness of landspeeders etc. en mass.

What say you?

They should declare a level as I think old Epic had it - maybe 'landed', 'low level' (both block LOS), 'high level' (doesn't block LOS) and maybe even 'climb' for a tactical element (flies up above the immediate table airspace to Deep Strike back on next turn)

Nah, I'd say its fine just the way it is (I play Tau btw). If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Posted By Mephet'ran on 09/13/2006 10:01 PM
Nah, I'd say its fine just the way it is (I play Tau btw). If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I may say I feel like it is broken.....

the mech tau skimmer wall of dead, from where you can shoot me but i can nor charge you sounds likes to much chesse for anybody's (not tau) lunch...

but that's just my opinion

I play Tau and the tactic is hardly overpowering. 24 str 5 BS 3 shots kill 2.6 meqs per turn, from a 200pt + unit. With Tau this tactic is effective but hardly gamebreaking. It remains to be seen how well this will work with the new eldar 'dex. With str 8 firedragons, this tactic could be overwhelming.

Personally, I have never had any problem with this tactic.  As someone else said, it's effective, and maybe just a little cheesy, but not game-breaking.  As a Marine player, I find a Callidus assasin very nicely counters it.

Skimmers, in my opinion, should conceivably be able to alter the amount of thrust they vector and in which direction, allowing them to drop down low or soar into the sky (isn't that the logic behind deep striking landspeeders?).

My brother is Tau, and we have a house rule that allows his Devilfish and Hammerhead to block LOS, regardless of whether they're landed or floating. He likes to hide his suits behind his Railhead and JSJ my guard to pieces with those damn Plasma Guns and Missile Launchers. I hate it, but I think it is only fair, since I can hide my guardsmen behind huge tanks.

The tactic is neither cheesy nor broken nor overpowered. No marine player should even dare to say such a thing while he carries on using drop pods and Asscan spam, I mean please... And lets not even go into what Eldar, CSM, Godzilla nids, etc are capable of. Skimmer wall cheesy ? Suuuure.


I quite agree, which is exactly why they don't block LOS, they can move out of the way of their comrades, same as you can shoot past your own infantry models.

Most Ork mobs will go down in a hail of Tau fire, or break and begin running when they get hammered below 50% with fire like a Tau squad, throw out. To say that they made it through all that fire, and are now unable to charge the enemy because their ?floating roadblock? is preventing them from getting any closer, and oh yeah, they can keep firing underneath it.

1: During normal movement, you are not allowed to get closer than one inch to the Vehicle that is hovering in front of the Firewarriors.

2: Being one inch away from the front of the Devilfish leaves you too far away from the Firewarriors to charge them in the Assault Phase. (Greater than 6" away.)

3: Even if you COULD come up with the movement to get to them (Through Fleet or some other 'Codex Specific' movement oportunity), you aren't allowed to 'hang out' under a skimmer, so you have to find enough movement inches to get ALL of your unit to the other side of the 'floating skimmer forcefield' and get in contact with the flanks of the Firewarriors. (This is made doubley hard if your opponent has multiple Fish in line with lots of Firewarriors.)

I, as the Ork player, decide to take one of those pesky vehicles out so I can charge into the Firewarriors.

Not having Lascannons, my only choice is to take them out with Rokkits. Well, being an Ork, I have a lot of them so let?s see how many I am gonna have to fire at Mr. Fish?ead to down one of those pesky Devilfish.(Not even THINKING of trying to take the Hammerheads out frontally.)

OK, let?s do the math:

Orks have BS 2 so only 1/3 of my shots will hit.

Ork Rokkits have S8 and Devilfish have12 Front Armour so only ½ my shots will cause a glance. (We assume that all penetrating hits are glances since that is the purpose of this tactic.)

Of the shots that glance, only 1/6 of the glances will result in a favourable result for me. (The 5 Immobilize will be re rolled with a 1/6 chance of a favourable result on the reroll.)

So lets see 1/3, ½, 1/6 ?

The math says for every 36 Rokkits I fire at the Tau, I?ll down a Devilfish. (The actual number is probably closer to 33 with the 5-result reroll, it?s been a long time since I?ve taken statistics.)

Let?s see, with the average Ork mob only being able to take three ?special weapons? and assuming I make ALL of those choices Rokkit launchers, it will take me TEN FULL MOBS of Ork Boyz doing nothing but firing at ONE Devilfish to bring it down.

Guess what? there aren?t enough points in your average RTT list buy that many Boyz and have any chance of winning.

PS: In case you are wondering, it would take about 50 or so Rokkits to put down a skimming Hammerhead with the 13 Front Armour. (That would amount to just over 16 Ork Boyz Mobz worth of fire.) Orks just plainly have a hard time vs fish of fury if its a walking army. A tau army will rip an ork walking army by march blocking them with the fishes and then blast them to bitz.

The local Orks don't seem to have that much trouble killing my Dreads, and they even get rerolls of damage...

With all those rockets, why don't you just nuke the FW unit ? And why are you walking at Tau anyway ? Thats just asking to be shot to pieces.

But granted, Orks do have it very hard against Tau. Other races shouldn't have much of a problem with skimmers though.

the problem is most ork armies get shot to peices before their weapons usually get within rangfe of the FW or they hide the FW inside the Fish safe from rokkkits until they deploy.

Tank Busta Boyz are quite capable of taking down the skimmers. Plus, like Mephet'ran said, why are you wasting time shooting the fish and not nuke the unit? Buggies with twinlinked rokkits, tank busta boyz, and zzap guns shouldn't have that much problem against skimmers. Orks have it hard against Tau, but the skimmer tactic doesn't break the game. Footslogging orks have it hard against all armies.

Capt K