The Tau and 6th ed

[owen matthew]

Yea our new goal is "Salvo 2" Rifles. =]

I could get down with that!

[otakuzoku]

well as i promised here is the little bit of brain storming i came up with

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...slinger-errata

[lantzkev]

well as i promised here is the little bit of brain storming i came up with

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...slinger-errata

Your ideas are bad or just rehashes of forgeworld.

[Gonefishing]

I dont know about you guys, but the more I look at the 6th edition ruleset the more despondant I become. When I played Tau in 4th I thought they were a good decent army with plenty of nice tricks up their sleeves, when 5th came out and every man and his dog were complaining Tau had been nerfed to oblivion I disagreed completely. 5th changed the way we played Tau and and alot of the old tricks no longer worked, but it gave us lots of nice new tricks and the rules set seemed awash with possibilities......

Now we have 6th, and I have been sat thinking about how to make a viable competitive Tau list (without using allies) and to be honest, I am really struggling. So much so that in another thread on here, with a new player asking about starting Tau in 6th for the first time in 8 or 9 years of playing Tau I was forced to say "Dont" (just being honest with the guy), and that pains me - because I still love my Tau Army, I just cant see a way to play them in 6th anymore, and I would hate any new players introduction to the game to be a steady string of defeats and ass kickings - it will just put him off playing full stop.

I started to make a list of the potential buffs we have gained.

1. Positive: Rapid Fire Weaponry, we can now move and fire it, and rapid fire range has increased by 3" -Good for Fire Warriors and Kroot
Negative: All the battlesuits could already move and fire rapid fire weaponry, all other armies can do this as well so we will face more incoming fire, Fire Warriors are still an awful troops choice, overcosted, with low survivabilty and leadership (who will be facing more incoming fire now), can no longer score in a fish and have no access to any decent specialist weaponry. Kroot now completely nerfed with less survivabilty, no immunity to mysterious forest rolls so could die by entering them, no longer work as bubble wrap due to the changes to the shooting and cover rules and can no longer outflank and assualt.

2. Positive: Black Sun filters mean we can ignore nightfight on a unit for only 3 points. - Really nice option
Negative: We can no longer split fire to maximise this advantage, enemy getting to our (unbubblewrapped) lines by turn 2 at the latest. Changes to nightfighting means you can always spot at 36" and just get a boost to cover saves (which have been lowered generally).

3. Positive: Stealthsuits get Shrouding and Stealth for a great cover save.
Negative: Have lost the ability to not be shot at all (spotting distance) Still a unit with short ranged weaponry who need to be to close to the enemy fire, but lack the fire power to take down the opponent before he minces them. Compete for a slot with Crisis Suits who have better weapons options, can no longer be joined by any special characters because Tau because of the infiltrate rule.

4. Positive: Vehicles can move and keep up fire
Negative: Tau could already do this, we have lost the 4+ DP save, Vehicles now no longer survivable due to Hull Points and CC hit changes.

5. Positive: We can keep Markerlights stationary in a unit that moves to fire and fire Heavy Weapons on the move.
Negative: We still have to stay in coherency so dont get to move much and Tau could already move and fire Heavy Weapons in 5th.

6. Positive: Overwatch - we can shoot at people assualting us.
Negative: This rule looks better on paper than it actually is - For example, assualt Marines attack 12 Fire Warriors, 24 shots - 4 hit, 3 wound, one Marine may fail his save. Then hit back by 9 Auto Hitting Impact Hits, 6 Wound, 3 Tau die - This is before the combat even starts! If lucky this could potentially do more damage, but would require HUGE amounts of luck.

7. Positive: Jet Troops can move 2D6 in the assualt phase.
Negative: Jet Troops can move a random 2D6 in the assualt phase.

8. Positive: Prefered Enemy Gives a reroll to shooting and wounding
Negative: To get it we have to suicide an Ethereal with a corresponding chance of half our army buggering off due to low leadership when we do so.

At this point I genuinely ran out of positives.....If anyone knows any others please let me know, as far as I can see however the only change that is actually ok for us is the Black Sun Filter granting Nightfight.

Then I carried on looking at Negatives.

Negatives:

9. Shield Drones now nerfed - Precision Fire, Wound Allocation Groups and Wound Allocation rules mean they no longer work.
10. None of the missions are great for a Tau Playstyle
11. Kroot Nerfed
12. Piranhas - Easier to kill, can no longer contest objectives, no longer work as a blocking unit (Hit on CC on 3's). The Squadron cant move if one vehicle is stunned.
13. Troops in vehicles can no longer score, they have to get out.
14: Troops cant get out of vehicles if they move over 6.
15 - Combining 13 and 14 this means your fish of fire warriors is going to have to park near an objective in turn 4 and survive a turn....unlikely.
16. Challenges - Tau cant win them
17. Can no longer split fire
18. Hammerheads etc now far less survivable - which is a big deal for Tau when you factor in vehicle cost and the fact we rely on vehicles late game.
19. Enemy Armies faster - we cant bubblewrap effectively
20. No Psykers or Psychic defence
21. No flying defence - possible flier coming out in august, alot is riding on this!
22. Any Skimmers that move over 12" die to imobilised.


Then I looked through the Codex taking into account the positives and negatives.

HQ - Nothing of worth
Troops - No decent Troops
Elites - Only Crisis Suits any good - overall they have been nerfed however.
Fast Attack - Nothing of worth apart from possibly Path Finders - Who are highly expensive and have to take a Fish (Jury out)
Heavy - Only Broadsides now worth the points - suffer from Shield Drone nerf.

Wargear - Most effective things gone.

Then I looked at the missions and rules as a whole:

6th has become the Infantry edition - Tau dont have ANY decent Infantry now, Crisis Suits and Broadsides are ok, but come in small vunerable unit sizes and cost alot of points, will always be heavily outnumbered. Basic rank and file troops are signally useless and are our only scoring units. We cant take objectives, we cant park on or conntest objectives with vehicles. We can no longer split our fire to wrack up killpoints.

Tau strengths have always been against vehicles - less players will be taking them and we will be facing either Heavy Infantry (a Tau weakness due to no heavy Infantry of our own) or Jump Troops - Very fast and we cant bubblewrap against them effectively anymore (They even use the jump move to assualt) or hordes - we cant match them point for point and our most decent anti horde weapon is now mounted on a unsurvivable expensive tank.

We cant advance towards the enemy because getting close is suicide (which leaves our chances of linebreaking down to Outflanking or Deepstriking Units), Slay the Enemy Warlord - Tricky, First blood is more likely to be against the Tau. As for missions like the "Relic" - I dont see an earthly way a Tau army could win that.

Seriously, I know I am being overly negative here, but I really believe Tau have moved right to the bottom of the heap in 6th edition, I honestly don't think there is a worse army out there in terms of units and interaticon with the core rules. I would LOVE to be wrong about this, and maybe I am missing something - But can someone tell me something we do well now? (Without mentioning Fire Warriors and Overwatch and rapidfire because I will not agree on those points).

I will keep playing my Tau, have been playing them to long to give up, but think I am going to spend 6th being bitchslapped around the table by everyman and his dog until we get a new codex.

[Eldoriath]

I actually agree that tau have possibly become weaker due to vehicle nerfs. But regarding rapid fire we still have an advantage because of how you remove casaulties. Move up your troops to just within 30" of 2-3 enemies, or one if possible, and kill them. In their turn they might move forward 6" but won't be within range.

Not a perfect solution, but one that does kinda work.

The biggest problem is scoring and denying most of all. We have no unit resilient enough to move into the heart of the enemy and deny their objectives, thus we must rely on blasting that enemy to their death.

That is why I will try and ally in 2 units of TH/SS terminators with Belial making them troops. Resilient troops that are counter-assault as well.

[Tastyfish]

Disagree here for numerous reasons.

1, IC and Snipers that roll a six can bypass the drones and kill a suit (Which when he dies will also kill the Drones)

2. A Shooting Player controls the Wound Allocation groups - so if a unit fires a shed load of bolters and two meltas you can no longer automatically assign the Melta Hits to the Drones and spread the bolter hits around randomly, the shooting player can choose to resolve the Bolter hits first (and may kill all the Shield Drones,which leaves your suits facing the melta shots.

3. Outflanking / Wolves/Snikrot appearing behind/ Deepstriking. If your Drones are in front of the sides anything that appears behind them or too the side of them gets to shoot directly at the suits (and when the suits die the Drones they control die too).

4. Because opponents can bypass the drones in a variety of ways and hits the suits directly, if a suit dies you lose both the suit and the drones he controls - these all count as models for morale purposes, so a shot that fires and kills 3 models in one go is going to increase the number of morale checks we have to take.

Drones are usually all characters though, so if you have Team Leader - 'ui suit - ui' suit - drones you can Look out sir any bolter type wounds onto the 'ui suits and save the drones for the melta ones (and giving you two extra wounds before you take any casualties). Or if you get flanked, then the team leader can look out sir all the melta hits onto the drones. Likewise with precision fire, it's not really a very good way to take out characters - far more for heavy and special weapons in most cases.

[Kloud13]

I don't even think you have to make a look-out sir with drones.

The Drones are just wargear that get their own model. But, if you look in the FAQ, a Independent Character with his Drones, is treated as a single Independant Character in Close-combat. meaning they are there in a challenge, and there vs Precision hits.

Rules as Intended, I think we all know that Drones were always meant to be there for their Tau Masters. So any friendly games, I think your opponents will be friend enough to let you have that. In a Tournament setting, any opponent should be more than willing to cut a Tau player a little slack. Like Kudo's for being brave enough to bring your Tau. They are probably still getting crushed.

[Tastyfish]

Precision hit is a bit of a jump though, at least against shooting attacks. Good point with the close combat, where precision hits can only be assigned against the drone controller and his drones, rather than being able to split them out.

[otakuzoku]

Your ideas are bad or just rehashes of forgeworld.

Actuley i was trying to bring them in line with each other (forge world and the codex) i never calmed they were all my ideas. like i said it was just an Errata idea to improve the play till we get a new codex, hell i even admitted that my self. and i did not see any constructive criticism, you did not offer any ideas how it could have been improved.

In all serious i do hope the news http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...eworld-codices is true.

[owen matthew]

Gone, the rules have changed, and we only need to figure out the immediate future. I do believe there is a Tau book on the way.

This just needs new thinking, it will get figured out. I thought they were honestly worse in 4th and 5th then they are now. Play to the strengths and we wil be OK.

I have played a Tau all infantry horde since 3rd, and it has always worked. IMHO it just got better. Its not just the army that wins you games, its a serious knowledge of the game mechanics, force composition, the opponent's forces, experience, and VERY smart game-playing. Tau are about as unforgiving as they come, and at their best I always felt I was playing with a handicap but they can work. Go back to the basic principals of dice games and good strategy and the answers are there. They are not marines, you do need to be 100% engaged and focused every step of every turn, you will lose if you make a bad decision, and yes, sometimes you will lose if you do everything right.

Tau are work, and need to thought of as a labor of love. I would not reccomend anyone start with them, but if somebody liked them that much I'd never tell them "no".

[Ronin no Matsu]

Your ideas are bad or just rehashes of forgeworld.

Don't post such trash here dude. Keep it in your yard.

[Flying Toaster]

Heh, I think Tau came out of this remarkably well:

Battlesuits
Better wound allocation rules for suits.
Cheap Night vision superiority,
Possibly higher jump assault move(also lower but I havent have it happen yet when it mattered)
team leader upgrade cheap to allow models to have precision shots.
Bodyguards and commanders have this too. Spam plasma on them and watch specialist marines and sgts drop.
Deathstrikes even better with overwatch D3 flamer hits. TL missile pods destroy medium vehicles so easily now.
Stealthsuits can attack from a flank now and snipe special models in units.
Broadsides are nastier as characters can snipe with railguns now. also 3pt nightvision
Thats all ive come across so far for battlesuits, im sure there will be more appearing soon.

Fire warriors
Fire warriors are now actually decent at shooting since they can move and shoot full range.
Tau are some of the most manoeuvrable armies in the game now in terms of firepower.
Can now wreck transports too plus Overwatch is a nice boost also.

Havent tried kroot yet, rapid fire rules also benefit them too.

I never liked having to take transports to have an effective tau army in 5th so its nice to have more points to spend now on more infantry.

Hammerhead is a little weaker but also gets a 4+ save moving 12" whilst firing all its weapons with a multi-tracker

Sniper drones are better with cover and sniper rules.

Sure some things have taken hits, but this level of moaning is unnecessary, just man up and deal with it till we get a new codex (hopefully with splinter-cannon-esque burst cannons )

[Gonefishing]

Gone, the rules have changed, and we only need to figure out the immediate future. I do believe there is a Tau book on the way.

This just needs new thinking, it will get figured out. I thought they were honestly worse in 4th and 5th then they are now. Play to the strengths and we wil be OK.

I have played a Tau all infantry horde since 3rd, and it has always worked. IMHO it just got better.

I think in 4th the "Strong" Tau build was Mech Tau, and that worked very well - Especially as the Terrain Rules in those days meant your suits could hide behind size 3 terrain and pop up attack - 4th was very much the heyday era of the JSJ crisis suit.

When 5th came out it compleely changed the mechanics for a Tau Army, all the old tricks from 4th no longer really worked, and Hybrid Tau became the "Strong Build". I still think Tau were a competitive strong army in 5th (thats the way I found them to be anyway) and had no end of internet arguments with people that belived the Tau were no longer competitive. It did help that as 5th developed the meta was for strong vehicle based armies, and Tau have always excelled at anti mech. - None the less, in 4th and 5th I loved my Tau and thought they were a tough competitive army - although in both editions I played very different types of lists.

Now I dont disagree with you when you say:

Its not just the army that wins you games, its a serious knowledge of the game mechanics, force composition, the opponent's forces, experience, and VERY smart game-playing. Tau are about as unforgiving as they come, and at their best I always felt I was playing with a handicap but they can work. Go back to the basic principals of dice games and good strategy and the answers are there. They are not marines, you do need to be 100% engaged and focused every step of every turn, you will lose if you make a bad decision, and yes, sometimes you will lose if you do everything right.

All of the above is true, and the only part I would disagree with is the handicap part, in 4th and 5th (especially 5th) I never felt I was playing at a Handicap - I felt I had a good army that could go toe to toe with any other race out there and win. But yes, I have to agree that Tau played very very differently to any other army in 40K and required a great deal of focus, if you made a mistake it was very hard to pull back from that (and it was always fun rocking up to a tourney and seeing your opponents face when you tabled their Booldangels or Wolves etc with Tau lol).

Now however, in 6th, I do feel like I am playing with a handicap, and that handicap is not my codex entirely, its what the new core rules and FAQ have done to my Codex. When 5th came out the transition from 4th to 5th was for me easy, I looked at the rules and there were a plethora of new tricks and buffs for different units in the army. Kroot became awesome as blockers and outflanking assualters/Objective takers (with Hounds), Piranhas were fantastic as blockers and late game objective contestors (fastest thing in the codex), Crisis Suits took a hit but were still good, Broadsides and Hammerheads remained awesome, Firewarriors were still awful but they had a place in there scoring fish etc etc. Positional relays were fantastic for reserve control, Disruption Pods for vehicle saves - things worked.

6th is just like - wtf? Nothing works. Vehicles have always been important for Tau, not just as Fire Platforms but as end game objective contestors and takers (with Fire Warriors inside), now not only are vehicles completely unsurvivable they can neither score or contest. Kroot are nerfed and can no longer outflank effectivly or assualt, or even bubblewrap. Firewarriors got the gun boost but are still as god awful as they have always been for all the other reasons. On top of this Kroot and Firewarriors are the only scoring infantry we have in what is now going to be an Infantrycentric edition - They cant take objectives and they cant hold them. On top of this we have nothing now that can get into an opponents half of the table and contest objecties with any reliability. The Codex now only seems to have two truley viable good units, Crisis Suits (who have been nerfed even further since 4th) and Broadsides, and both of these are extremely vunerable to ID.

Its all well and good to say play to the strengths, but the problem I see is that in 6th about the only strength we actually have is the ability to not be affected by nightfighting.....Other armies troops and jump troops / bikers etc have got considerably more powerful while our codex now seems to have been completely....broken. Maybe I am too negative, but seriously, has anybody out there actually see a valid tactic for Tau in 6th out there that gives us a chance? (Without relying heavily on allies). Against a competent opponent with virtually any other codex I struggle to see how we can win any of the current mission sets without divine intervention!

[Guyver 3]

I for one dont see taking allies as a valid tactic for an army that only has 2 fairly mediocre units ( the rest being garbage) i will be using tau as allies not as a main army for the forseeable future

Crisis suits and broadsides are good at what they do so i'll take them in my ork army to give the boys some much needed ap2

Bring on the new codex even god forbid a wd codex at this point would help.

[unknown_lifeform]

I managed to get some 6th ed games in today and tried my tau out. It pretty much confirmed what I already thought - that if anything tau would now be slightly better under 6th ed ruleset. Stealth suites are pretty tasty now and the changes to rapid fire were noticable - my kroot and fire warriors actually made a noticable contribution to proceedings rather than just sitting in a transport all game or pulling up dechairs on a rear objective.

The biggest positive change for me was something I wasn't expecting - its the change to transport rules combined with hullpoints. Usually when I see a line of rhinos I'm bricking it and know I have 1, maybe 2 turns to destroy them before I'm charged. Now you can't assault the turn you get out of a rhino and the rhino can only go max 6" if you want to get out. This gives you at least 3 turns before facing an assault. Railguns still blow up transports as before, but now fire warriors and missile pods can reliably strip off hull points.

The second major buff was that the forward objective I was defending turned out to be a grav wave generator which meant my opponent never got to assault me. Of course, you can't rely on getting that

Don't rely on theoryhammer when writing off your tau. They still have a badly aging codex but 6th ed seems far kinder to them that 5th was.

[Eldoriath]

Tried a bit of team-tag game today, but still feel it worked out well. IG/Eldar/my Tau with allied DA against a mass of necrons. So basically two gun lines against each other were we traderd blows, but really those allied DA (Belial with 5 TH/SS terminators with banner and FnP) gave us a big victory by deepstriking onto the objective and denying it from the enemy. So, while tau on their own is pretty shafted imo they work great with some allied units to be forward objective grabbers.

[Charistoph]

Some realistic assessments combined with hyperbole

Dude, seriously. Tau Fire Warriors didn't suddenly become naked, the vehicles didn't become Armor 10 all around, Kroot have always been naked, and the Jet Pack Suits have gained in potential mobility. Nothing in 6th Edition made Tau any weaker than other armies. What has hurt the Tau has similarly hurt the other armies as well. In fact, with very little weaponry below Str 5, the ability to Glance vehicles to death quickly is only less than the Necron.

Could things have gone better? Most definitely, Target Locks being the most glaring issue. But for everything that would make Tau better would invariably improve that of Marines and other armies as well. The only thing that will truly make a difference is a brand new codex. Considering the popularity of the army, even as weak as it is, and how old the codex is (oldest Non-Imperial), I doubt it will be that much longer for the update to occur.

[Gonefishing]

Dude, seriously. Tau Fire Warriors didn't suddenly become naked, the vehicles didn't become Armor 10 all around, Kroot have always been naked, and the Jet Pack Suits have gained in potential mobility. Nothing in 6th Edition made Tau any weaker than other armies. What has hurt the Tau has similarly hurt the other armies as well. In fact, with very little weaponry below Str 5, the ability to Glance vehicles to death quickly is only less than the Necron.

Could things have gone better? Most definitely, Target Locks being the most glaring issue. But for everything that would make Tau better would invariably improve that of Marines and other armies as well. The only thing that will truly make a difference is a brand new codex. Considering the popularity of the army, even as weak as it is, and how old the codex is (oldest Non-Imperial), I doubt it will be that much longer for the update to occur.

Nope, but Fire Warriors were not worth their points in 5th and they are even less so now in 6th - as they cant even score in the fish anymore and will be facing even more incoming fire they cant handle. The Vehicles are not 10 all round, and yes, the Hull Point Mechanic has nerfed everyone - but Tau have always relied on Vehicles late game to contest and hold objectives, now they are unlikey to be around late game and even if they were cannot contest objectives. Kroot have always been naked, but in 5th had decent cover saves and worked as either a bubblewrap unit or as outflanking assualters. Focused fire means attacking armies can punch a hole through your bubblewrap, jump troops can jump right over it, and the wound allocation rules mean no mover coversave Kroot conga line. On top of this fieldcraft does not help them in mysterious forests - so they could die just by entering them. Jet Packs have potentially gained in mobility, they have also potentially lost it - would rather have the fixed 6".

What has hurt the Tau has hurt other armies yes, but those other armies have other options to fall back on - Tau dont. Vehicles are nerfed for everyone, but Marines for example, can change to Jump Troops, Pyskers, Bikes and Fliers which have all been massively buffed - Tau dont have those options.

Thats the point I am trying to make, what do the Tau have to change too? I dont mind a new edition changing the way we do things and making old units good and other units bad, thats what happend to Tau between 4th and 5th - But now our Codex choices are almost universley bad, while those other armies affected have options to fall back on that are good, we dont!

[megatrons2nd]

How do you feel about Dark Angels? I played against a Deathwing army for my first game of 6th ed. I lost, but I took my 5th ed army and only altered the Target locks/Blacksun Filters. The outcome was expected, the damage I did to him was not. He only had 1 dread and 5 other models left on the board. I lost by 3 kill points. Not bad when you consider it was as close to a straight over port for my army as possible, compared to his that was built with the 6th ed rules in mind.

If you think Dark Angels are junk then at least I know I will be better when I make the adjustments for the new rules.

[Charistoph]

Nope, but Fire Warriors were not worth their points in 5th and they are even less so now in 6th - as they cant even score in the fish anymore and will be facing even more incoming fire they cant handle. The Vehicles are not 10 all round, and yes, the Hull Point Mechanic has nerfed everyone - but Tau have always relied on Vehicles late game to contest and hold objectives, now they are unlikey to be around late game and even if they were cannot contest objectives. Kroot have always been naked, but in 5th had decent cover saves and worked as either a bubblewrap unit or as outflanking assualters. Focused fire means attacking armies can punch a hole through your bubblewrap, jump troops can jump right over it, and the wound allocation rules mean no mover coversave Kroot conga line. On top of this fieldcraft does not help them in mysterious forests - so they could die just by entering them. Jet Packs have potentially gained in mobility, they have also potentially lost it - would rather have the fixed 6".

What has hurt the Tau has hurt other armies yes, but those other armies have other options to fall back on - Tau dont. Vehicles are nerfed for everyone, but Marines for example, can change to Jump Troops, Pyskers, Bikes and Fliers which have all been massively buffed - Tau dont have those options.

Thats the point I am trying to make, what do the Tau have to change too? I dont mind a new edition changing the way we do things and making old units good and other units bad, thats what happend to Tau between 4th and 5th - But now our Codex choices are almost universley bad, while those other armies affected have options to fall back on that are good, we dont!

Fall back to? Oh, you mean the codex jumpers. Guess what, every problem you mentioned, with the exception of vehicles has been there since before 5th Edition, when Blood Angels received their Whitedex and Orks could have Nob Squads as Troops, heck, even before then. The only thing that has really changed is the meta and some serious point shenanigans allowing 1-2 Special Rules and more models to be squeezed in.

And guess what, those same issues will still be there. Why? Because the stats won't change on the Troops. At best, they get access to some new wargear that makes an Assault suck a little. And people have been winning with Tau in 6th Edition against armies like the Grey Knights. It sounds more like you've stuck yourself in a paradigm and refuse to shift, and that would make ANY army suck.