Tau win NOVA

[Happy-inquisitor]

It is too bad it was another castle. Would love to see mobility return.

 

It is a combination of mission, matchup and more generally the meta.

 

That list is actually pretty mobile and the big hitters can happily move 12" every turn if they get markerlight hits to mitigate the -1 penalty. I don't think he uses Kauyon much so its not a stand and shoot castle in that sense.

 

But quite frankly when it comes to GSC almost any list needs to screen like crazy or just lose - that is a feature of the way GSC play. The fact that this game had GSC being 3-pointed by T'au should highlight that it was not just a passive castle sitting there shooting.

[Happy-inquisitor]

I wish drones were still just part of units and it was only gun ones that came in massive clumps.

 

Lol no faction should be intentionally boring to play with or against.

 

Eldar flyer spam is still a bigger offender there than anything Tau.

 

Thousand Sons characters hiding behind plague bearers isn't fun either but is at least melee and mortal wound focused and therefore a shake up.

 

The thing is that being really boring to play against largely means that a list has prevented the opponent from doing what they wanted to do - which is halfway to winning the game. So competitive tournament lists will generally not be that much fun to play against, unless you enjoy the cerebral challenge of solving the problem. That is just good tournament list design, deny your opponent the opportunity to play their game while you retain the freedom to play yours.

[Happy-inquisitor]

Hey, people told me to stop defending Guilliman in the last marine codex.

 

People have to stop defending the drones lol

 

Drones in general are fine. Shield drones are the boring little bots of the drone world.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

 

 

 

 

Lol no faction should be intentionally boring to play with or against.

[cries in Necron]

 

 

Ey, Necrons have plenty of fun. You just have to bring fun things, instead of 30 tesla immortals 3 doomsday arks.

 

Tide of kamikaze scarabs anyone?

 

 

Good thing I only have 10 tesla Immortals and 0 Doomsday Arks then.

 

And more Scarabs than I know what to do with.

 

 

I can only conclude that your lack of fun is your own fault, then.

 

I bet you're the type of player who says oldcrons were boring because they had no fluff

 

I play Maynarkh.

[chapter master 454]

Hey, people told me to stop defending Guilliman in the last marine codex.

 

People have to stop defending the drones lol

 

Gulliman was really never an issue in my opinion. He was stacked but largely taken more as a nice piece of aura-ware and not as a combination of everything (most days, he would of done well to bring his astartes class sun chair!) which was somewhat distracting from the fact he is meant to be getting stuck in, not just shouting "you shoot better, you wound better".

To be honest, not sure how I feel on him now. I almost feel bad because GW just went with the quick fix and now people talk of just running Calgar and a Lieutenant. Not a great fix to be honest for the Lord Commander or the Imperium (however I am interested in the fact he outright states that he isn't disappointed in Calgar in the new codex).

 

Drones however, the shield ones in particular, are being picked on for doing their one and only job and doing it well...wait what? "Hey, that unit is doing good at its design brief!". I defend drones only in the sense that they need balance, not kneecapping.

Simple change like this:

"When a friendly TAU EMPIRE INFANTRY or BATTLESUIT is hit by an enemy attack in the shooting phase and is within 3" of the drones squad, one of the drones can attempt to intercept the hit. Roll a D6 and on a 3+ the hit is considered to have struck the drone squad instead of the selected target. Continue the attack sequence against the drone squad instead of the selected target"

Even maybe have a fun stratagem to go with it

"Drone Saviour Protocol Over-ride 2CP

The tau empire employ drones not only as support but also to help prevent loss of life

When a TAU EMPIRE INFANTRY or BATTLESUIT unit is selected as a target of a ranged attack in the shooting phase. Select a friendly DRONE unit with 3" of the targeted unit. All attacks made against the INFANTRY or BATTLESUIT are now considered to target the DRONE unit (ignoring range and line of sight) and the DRONE unit is considered to be the same distance from the attacking unit. For the rest of the turn, any attacks against the affected INFANTRY or BATTLESUIT are considered to hit the DRONE unit instead. The DRONE unit does not gain the benefit of cover while under this effect"

 

However what I think people want to see is drones gutted, tossed like a frisbee and better served as parts for hats in conversions! At least that is how it feels/looks like.

 

I can tell however Ishagu would turn in his Mk.X power armour if I ever wrote a codex XD!

[Aothaine]

Hey, people told me to stop defending Guilliman in the last marine codex.

 

People have to stop defending the drones lol

 

 

40k is finally starting to become some-what popular again. This is a great thing for the hobby. But with increased population comes complaining. I say defend the units you love. Everyone wants their army to be good. Everyone should have a good army. Some factions don't right now. 

 

Anyway, kudos to that T'au player! I'm sure they put a lot of work into that army and learning how to use it against various opponents.

[Deadlight]

Hopefully next edition will see the return of template weapons. Indirect firing artillery would discourage castling.

[chapter master 454]

Hopefully next edition will see the return of template weapons. Indirect firing artillery would discourage castling.

 

Please no. no no no no no no.

 

"I think thats 5 guys"

"looks more like 4"

"Also I think the template went more that way"

"no this is right"

"also that was a bit on the short end there, it was 5 inchs not 4 and a half"

 

Please no. no no no no no no.

 

Templates were far more hassle than they are worth not to mention it encourages the most boring gameplay possible:

 

"I'm going to space ALL of my 90+ orks 2" apart as to minimise template effectiveness"

Yea...have fun with that!

[b1soul]

One man's cake is another man's turd

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Shield drones are better than 2++ save. I thought GW was trying to fix the game .

[Iron Father Ferrum]

You guys all know that indirect artillery kills drones easily, right? My TFCs quickly became prime targets for suicide suit commanders, and that was *before* they were BS2+ and could fire twice.

[Volt]

 

Hopefully next edition will see the return of template weapons. Indirect firing artillery would discourage castling.

 

Please no. no no no no no no.

 

"I think thats 5 guys"

"looks more like 4"

"Also I think the template went more that way"

"no this is right"

"also that was a bit on the short end there, it was 5 inchs not 4 and a half"

 

Please no. no no no no no no.

 

Templates were far more hassle than they are worth not to mention it encourages the most boring gameplay possible:

 

"I'm going to space ALL of my 90+ orks 2" apart as to minimise template effectiveness"

Yea...have fun with that!

 

Templates are only a problem if the person you're playing with is awful, and thus not worth playing with in the first place. It's fundamentally no different from charge distances or cocked die either.

[kombatwombat]

Please no. no no no no no no.

 

"I think thats 5 guys"

"looks more like 4"

"Also I think the template went more that way"

"no this is right"

"also that was a bit on the short end there, it was 5 inchs not 4 and a half"

I pity anyone who has to play 40k in this kind of toxic environment.

 

In my area, even against someone you’ve just met in a 100+ person, highly competitive tournament, you give your opponent the benefit of the doubt. Hereabouts templates are more like

 

‘Scatter 6”, looks like... 5 models hit.’

“Nah I reckon your angle’s a bit off, more like 4.”

‘Ok, yep, whatever, so that’s 4 rolls to Wound on a 3+...’

 

I’ve never seen an argument over scatter die or templates, or even a disagreement that went beyond ‘do you want to roll off, or get an adjudication from another player/referee?’ If you can’t take a step back and realise you’re playing a fun game in your leisure time... well, as I said, I pity people who live in that sort of environment. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.

 

The fact remains, though, that templates are an effective means of containing hordes and castling, both of which the game sorely needs now. We are poorer for their loss.

[Morticon]

You guys all know that indirect artillery kills drones easily, right? My TFCs quickly became prime targets for suicide suit commanders, and that was *before* they were BS2+ and could fire twice.

 

I did try that at one stage, IFF.  Sadly, what I realised quickly was how poorly the Tfires did over the course of a few games. 

 

Before, Tfires were 4d3 = 8 shots on average , with 3.5 wounds, 1.75 fails and after FNP saw you sitting with 1.25 drones dead.  

 

Now, with a CP spent, you're looking at 3 drones dead on average. 

 

 

:/ It wasn't exactly the installation of fear into the hearts of my enemies I was hoping for :(   

 

The best whirlwind option we have -the Scorpios - WITH the whirlwind strat (so, firing 3 times total) only nets us just under 4.5 drone kills.  

 

For a tau player with 16-24 drones, the majority of which will be out of LOS, artillery is a really nice supplementary tactic, but cant be the main one. 

[Panzer]

And here we go with the template discussion again.

 

Guys, just accept that these kinds of arguments happened plenty all over the world and no it's not necessarily because the player is toxic or whatever. We don't need to have this same discussion stretched over multiple pages again, especially because it's offtopic here.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’m not going to keep the template discussion going but I do think there needs to be more effective tools against large clumps/blobs of several units.

 

With the buffs/auras available by grouping everything around certain HQs there are certainly benefits to tight groupings. I think it’s only fair then that there should be some risks too.

 

This would help to balance out these castles we keep seeing and make grouping up a tactical choice rather than the no brainier it is now. That’s partly why I think people are saying it’s so unfun to play against, because we lack tools to counter or threaten the castles and it just kind of feels wrong that we can’t lob some big shell at that juicy blob of targets :)

 

I’m not proposing anything radical, but I personally think those abilities that let you pick a spot and roll X for each unit within Y distance for Z mortal wounds need beefing up a bit.

[kombatwombat]

Just so long as they’re not more goddamn :cussing mortal wounds!

 

 

I do remember playing a game against a Tau castle last edition, when I had a unit of 3 Vindicators fire a combined 10” Ignores Cover 10” Demolisher shell into it. Game over, immediately.

 

The most satisfying wargaming experience of my life! :P

[Iron Father Ferrum]

 

 

You guys all know that indirect artillery kills drones easily, right? My TFCs quickly became prime targets for suicide suit commanders, and that was *before* they were BS2+ and could fire twice.

I did try that at one stage, IFF. Sadly, what I realised quickly was how poorly the Tfires did over the course of a few games.

 

Before, Tfires were 4d3 = 8 shots on average , with 3.5 wounds, 1.75 fails and after FNP saw you sitting with 1.25 drones dead.

 

Now, with a CP spent, you're looking at 3 drones dead on average.

 

 

:/ It wasn't exactly the installation of fear into the hearts of my enemies I was hoping for :(

 

The best whirlwind option we have -the Scorpios - WITH the whirlwind strat (so, firing 3 times total) only nets us just under 4.5 drone kills.

 

For a tau player with 16-24 drones, the majority of which will be out of LOS, artillery is a really nice supplementary tactic, but cant be the main one.

This must be an example where the math falls apart once models hit the table, because I was wiping small squads with a single salvo. If his saves were good, it might take both cannons to kill all of them - and then he started with bigger squads - but killing one drone with eight shots was a rarity, not the average.

 

Edit: it just occurred to me that reroll support might explain the discrepancy. I always have the CPT & LT duo directing my fire base.

[Kilofix]

Whenever I play Tau, I use a lot of Shield Drones to take wounds too but my pals have all learned to shoot the Drones first with just volume. Then work on the Suits with Heavy Weapons.

 

Did the the Tau opponents not know this or was there some other trick to somehow obscuring the Drones?

[The Yncarne]

I believe you can keep the drones out of opponent’s LoS as long as they remain 3” of the unit using them.

[Guest Triszin]

I believe you can keep the drones out of opponent’s LoS as long as they remain 3” of the unit using them.

Ya, I think this is my only but pick issue work the drone rules.

 

In a building, within 3" on a technicality.

[Morticon]

Whenever I play Tau, I use a lot of Shield Drones to take wounds too but my pals have all learned to shoot the Drones first with just volume. Then work on the Suits with Heavy Weapons.

 

Did the the Tau opponents not know this or was there some other trick to somehow obscuring the Drones?

 

Most games ive had vs tau have had them hide drones behind ruin walls ><; 

[Ishagu]

That's the problem, technically you can put a big Tau suit behind short wall, surrounding it with drones that can't be shot.

 

Now you can only wound it reliably with limited high strength weapons, and the drones cannot be a target for your more numerous guns.

[Panzer]

To be honest, unless you play a castle list you really need the Drones to be the way they are because you can't just hide them behind walls. My Crisis Suits and Ghostkeels die way too fast without them and they usually can't camp near walls all the time. ^^

 

Also the Drones are kinda factored into the cost of some of the units. Without Drones the Riptide is a T7 W14 Sv2+/5++ model that can hurt itself to improve its invul to a 3++ or boost his damage output from (assuming Heavy burst cannon with ATS) 12 S6 AP-2 D2 shots to 18 shots for almost 300p. For the same points AM can get two Leman Russ Punisher with T8 Sv3+ W24 and a turret weapon that puts out 40 S5 AP0 D1 shots with grinding advance (so 80 for both).
 

The damage output of a Riptide with ATS buffed HBC without nova buff / Riptide with nova and ATS buffed HBC / two Leman Russ Punisher with Grinding Advance looks like this (only counting the main weapons here):

Cultists: 5 / 7.5 / 22.22

T3 Sv4+: 4.17 / 6.25 / 13.33

Marines: 2.67 / 4 / 8.89

Primaris: 5.33 / 8 / 8.89 

T5 Primaris: 5.33 / 8 / 6.66

 

In return it takes the following amount of hits to kill a Riptide / nova buffed Riptide / 2 Leman Russ:

Lascannons: 9 / 18 / 12.34

Melta: 7.86 / 15.75 / 12

Autocannon (S7 AP-1 D2): 42 / 42 / 72 (good thing Autocanons are usually cheaper and with higher RoF compared to Lascannons and Melta lol)

 

tl;dr A Riptide does usually less damage than two Leman Russ for the same amount of points and if it wants to be more durable it needs to lower its damage output even more and suffer a Mortal wound each turn. How many Shield Drones does a Riptide usually have? 4 or something? That's 120 more points for 3 Riptides which is almost the cost of another Leman Russ Punisher.

 

It's not so much that Riptides and Drones are broken. It's more a case of it being a mechanic that easily puts a lot of control during the opponents shooting phase into the T'au players hands and thus feels unfair for the one playing against the T'au. If they were broken we'd see them winning tournaments much more often instead of them being on the lower top/upper mid tables.

Same goes for the For the Greater Good rule in combination with the T'au Sept 5+ overwatch, because for other Septs it really isn't anywhere as strong an ability. For me as Dal'yth Sept player it's usually just a lot of dice rolling that ultimately doesn't change the outcome of a charge anyway. The more interesting thing about the T'au Sept is the Stratagem that gives a unit +1 to-wound but that's kinda ignored by everyone on the forums because it's not so out of the ordinary as Drones or FtGG hitting on 5+.

 

So yeah I can understand why it's no fun to play against T'au if they go all-out with their list building. Unfortunately from what I've seen in various forums and facebook groups the mentality of many many T'au players is very different from Marine and Chaos players. The questions are way more often about how to build the strongest list, how to crush the opponent and so on and almost never about anything fluff or such. Not sure why that's the case, maybe it's the reputation as super strong and cheesy army that backfires here, but it seems like the faction attracts mostly competetively minded players regardless of whether they are new or not.
Kinda a self fulfilling prophecy at work here. T'au have the reputation to be strong and cheesy > they attract players who want to play such an army > those players only play strong and cheesy lists > others see mainly strong and cheesy lists > T'au maintain the reputation to be strong and cheesy > T'au attract more players who want to play strong and cheesy lists > ....
Of course there are exceptions but they feel rare. Maybe if we'd stop moaning about T'au being strong and cheesy we'd stop making people who don't want to play such an army feel bad for considering them and eventually we'd see more 'casual' T'au lists being played at least outside of tournaments. ;)

[Closet Skeleton]

I'm of the opinion that Punishers should have been nerfed down to 15 shots when Grinding Advance was introduced but S5-6 AP-2 D2 is essentially the perfect generalist weapon profile while Ap0 D1 is a specialised horde killer so they aren't comparable weapons. Same Reason why Avenger Gatling cannons are superior in every way to a battle cannon.

 

Its the fact that they aren't useless against vehicles that makes relying on Riptides viable. Riptides are amazing at killing Primaris but if that was all they were really good at you couldn't spend over half your points on them and win a 5 wound tournament.