Tau Previews

I'd simply say that you can only use strategems of a certain key word like craftworld when ALL MODELS IN YOUR ARMY have that key word.
It always struck me as weird to gain access to all craftworld strategems by simply adding a far seer and some jetbikes and essentially being able to use BOTH strategems.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Well, yeah. Soup should be authorized, but having a mono-faction army should give you advantages.

For example, instead of giving you 3 CP when you are battle-forged, you could say :

- If you have models coming from different factions, you must be battleforged
- If you are battleforged and all your models are from the same faction, you gain 3 CP.

This sounds *much* better to me than trying to penalizing players for taking allied detachments.

CptMetal wrote:

I'd simply say that you can only use strategems of a certain key word like craftworld when ALL MODELS IN YOUR ARMY have that key word.
It always struck me as weird to gain access to all craftworld strategems by simply adding a far seer and some jetbikes and essentially being able to use BOTH strategems.

That sounds a bit *too* punishing. Limiting stratagems in some way would be acceptable, but barring them completely for taking allies? That's ridiculous.

How about the following: When taking multiple detachments that have different factions in your army, pick one of them as your primary faction. Stratagems that cost more than 1CP cannot be used on models that aren't of your primary faction.

Perhaps combine this with the suggestion above to give a bonus 3CP to mono-faction armies.

Or maybe even having to pick 1 army, and only use the stratagems from that army. You can have mercenaries, but they don't get to use their stratagems.

Scrz wrote:

Heh, no worries. I was really replying to Sushibwai.
https://youtu.be/F848KPj5Rww

Wasn't trying to gripe at you - I simply have zero interest in soup. I didn't start playing DE thinking someday my success with DE would hinge upon having to expand to another army entirely. Not what I signed up for.

SushiBoy013 wrote:

Scrz wrote:

Heh, no worries. I was really replying to Sushibwai.
https://youtu.be/F848KPj5Rww

Wasn't trying to gripe at you - I simply have zero interest in soup. I didn't start playing DE thinking someday my success with DE would hinge upon having to expand to another army entirely. Not what I signed up for.

No worries. I was showing that CWE cooperating with DE is not unheard of in The Fluff.
If the soup is righteous or if the soup is wicked, The Fluff does not judge.
The Fluff only 'is'.

Scrz wrote:

How you choose to play with your toys is your own business.
I thought you might want to use a factually accurate justification for your choice.
Just trying to help.

Soup is here to stay. It makes way to much sense for both players and GW.

As players we get to collect various factions and incorporate that on to the tabletop. It's not unfluffly to have guard fight alongside space Marines or some mix of imperials or having daemons fight alongside chaos Marines.

Eldar society seems some what fluid in the current lore which makes sense for being so that live as long as Eldar do. The idea that Craftworld and Commorite forces are openly and constantly at war is pretty old and sounds more like old fantasy lore than anything in the past couple of editions of 40k. Not saying they are all super best friends but, they have each other's contact info so to speak.

I typically run DE by themselves but, I'm not above mixing in other Eldar factions. I think it adds more layers to list building. Bonus points if you take the time kitbash units mixed in such as Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics 7th edition LVO bike list or some of the "Dark Eldar"wraithknights I've seen. I've still got the idea of making some True Kin Shining Spears for a Ynnari detchment on the project log.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Or maybe even having to pick 1 army, and only use the stratagems from that army. You can have mercenaries, but they don't get to use their stratagems.

That works too. Though I would make an exception for universal stratagems from the core rules, and for mission-specific stratagems (like in the CA narrative missions section).

lament.config wrote:

Scrz wrote:

How you choose to play with your toys is your own business.
I thought you might want to use a factually accurate justification for your choice.
Just trying to help.

Soup is here to stay. It makes way to much sense for both players and GW.

Also, allies didn't become *not* a thing until 3rd edition. Granted, I don't recall there being lots of soup in 2nd ed (but I didn't really play much of it either), but allies were definitely an option.

I played with new Tau last weekend. I was completely wiped out with no chance to hurt them.

3 riptides with 3x6 shield drones.
they have +6" shooting range, so no way to hide from SMS backfire. SMS are AP-1 now btw.
They re-roll hits due to comander tactics, they re-roll to wound due to a stratagem. And if I survive the first strike and delpoy my forces out of reserve, I can't hit those riptides back because of shield drones!
4 scorges fire lances and make fantastic 2 sucsessful would rolls. Tau player takes both wounds (before the damage roll!) on the drones with 2+ roll. Then they got 2 mortal wounds, which are negated by 5+ fnp rolls!
And then the Tau player's turn begins...
So I lost all my forses before I made even a scratch on a single riptide.

SERAFF wrote:

I played with new Tau last weekend. I was completely wiped out with no chance to hurt them.

3 riptides with 3x6 shield drones.
they have +6" shooting range, so no way to hide from SMS backfire. SMS are AP-1 now btw.
They re-roll hits due to comander tactics, they re-roll to wound due to a stratagem. And if I survive the first strike and delpoy my forces out of reserve, I can't hit those riptides back because of shield drones!
4 scorges fire lances and make fantastic 2 sucsessful would rolls. Tau player takes both wounds (before the damage roll!) on the drones with 2+ roll. Then they got 2 mortal wounds, which are negated by 5+ fnp rolls!
And then the Tau player's turn begins...
So I lost all my forses before I made even a scratch on a single riptide.

But you know, Tau suck, according to various people on the internet.

What was the rest of your army other than the scourges? What was your target priority? 3 riptides with 6 shield drones each sounds pretty brutal but taking out the drones with more light weaponry should be the priority before firing the lances at he riptides no?

hekatrixxy wrote:

What was the rest of your army other than the scourges? What was your target priority? 3 riptides with 6 shield drones each sounds pretty brutal but taking out the drones with more light weaponry should be the priority before firing the lances at he riptides no?

OK, step by step.
My Forces 1500 pts
Archon
Haemy
Farseer (Auxiliary detach)
4 Slyths
2x5 kabalites
20 kabalites 2 SC (portal)
2x5 Scourges Lances
2 Ravagers Lances
RJF Lances
Raider Lance

First turn Tau. They killed my raider (one Slyth dead), both small squads of warriors and left the Fighter in 2 wounds.
My turn - all my small arms fired the drones, I killed 2 squads of 3. Farseer killed a squad of Fire warriors with Executioner.
Turn 2 Tau. 20 Kabalites are killed with SMS, 10 Scourges are killed with ion guns, Fighter is killed by a Commander, one ravager got crippled by 3rd ion gun.
So now I could try to get rid of the remaininf drones with my HQ team, but I have just 3 lances left on a intact ravager. So next turn I'm wiped out and I quit.

Not to belittle the firepower of Tau, but purely for the sake of information SMS are not naturally Ap-1 so your opponent likely was using one of the suit wargear options (can't remember the name of it) that increases the Ap of all guns on the model by 1. Sorry about the bad game though.

SERAFF wrote:

I played with new Tau last weekend. I was completely wiped out with no chance to hurt them.

T'au isn't strong. Riptides are. GW are simply trying to sell out the big toyz for a maximum cash grab.

The fire warriors comps are decent at best, and clearly not OP (that's a shame, those are the most fluffy comps IMO).
Crisis are still sub-par IMO.
Stealth are still good.
Riptides are crazy.

I guess Tau players will be bringing back their "Riptide Wings" then!

It doesn't sound like there is a lot you could have done in that game SERAFF

For next time, maybe swap the ravagers for RJFs and get the warriors in venoms to force them to hit on 5s against most of your stuff? Once each Riptide is degraded one level it could be relatively safely ignored for the next one as it would be hitting on 6s by that point.

18 shots rerolling hits and wounds can still damage you quite a bit, even hitting on 6+.

Ones to hit still cause mortal wounds to the riptide right?

I don't think so ... I think rolling a 1 to Nova charge causes a mortal wound but not a 1 to hit...

The Nova reactor automatically causes a mortal wounds, but there is no roll so no risk of failure.

The Ion Accelerator (one of it's two primary weapons) set to overcharge does still cause a mortal wound, though it seems to be with one or more hits of 1 rather than for each.

Ion Accelerator btw is the stronger but less shots gun. The very high rate of fire gun is called the heavy burst cannon.

Ubernoob1 wrote:

SMS are not naturally Ap-1 so your opponent likely was using one of the suit wargear options

Yes he was. But hey, if there is such an option, show me a Tau player, who will not take it.
Imagine if our splinter guns could have such an option, what mental disability would force you to leave this upgrade at home?
So we can say for sure now - SMS fire is 36", AP -1, rerolling to hit and to wound.

Mppqlmd wrote:

T'au isn't strong. Riptides are.

That means all the competitive list will consist of Riptides. As before, Tau = Riptides. So that means Tau are strong.
In the 7th Tau had problems with Marines as they didn't have high AP. Now this problem is moslty solved. No marine can hide from SMS spam in ruins.

Now I tell you how I fought 3 Stormsurges list. It was the same event, I had the same list, but played with another player.
So he had Shadowsun, 5 Pathfinders, 2x5 Marker Drones and 3 Surges (one of them has +1 to hit at flyers). He chosen Tau Sept (5+ to hit on overwatch or smt like that).

Hammer and anvil deployment so I put my units as far as it possible.

His 1st turn - he destroys my Raider, cripples a ravager and RWJ with mortal rokets and cluster missiles. SMS and other guns cant reach me.
I cast Doom on a most dangerous Stormsurge.
I fire all my lances back and only 2 of them score (4++ is too OP for me, remember the Wraithknight) with result of 10 damage.
20 kabalites drop from the portal and finish the first Stormsurge. Other guys atack drones.

Then he continues to kill my lances with some bad rolls, so I partially survive. 20 Kabalites turn into 5 kabalites. I kill the 2nd Surge thanks to hired Farseer and his Doom and Smite.
Last Surge finishes all my kabalites and lances.
During 2 rounds I manage to Kill him in close combat with Archon, Haemy, Slyths and Farseer. Then I just Smite the Shadowsun to death.

Opponent tabled. Hard victory, I'm pleased. The performance of my Characters was great I thought.

And the my opponent tells me: DUDE I JUST FOUND OUT YOU COULND'T HURT ME WITH POISON SO BAD - SURGES ARE VEHICLES!
Nuff said.

The best part about believing that everything GW does balance wise is a sleazy sales move is that you can get that hypothesis confirmed by the opposite actions taken.

Riptides nerfed to uselessness? GW is driving sales, needing what people have. GW buffa riptides? GW is driving sales, pushing the big suits.

Riptides are definitely solid. But everything you highlighted as evidence of how OP Tau are is either A) something they have in the index or B) mistaken. ATS (the -1 AP thing) was in the index. The reroll to hit from "commander buffs" is presumably Kauyon, which is a once per game ability that again is in the index. The reroll to wound is a Stratagem available on one suit that requires a nearby commander to do nothing.

These buffs are nice, but saying "sms are now ap-1 reroll to hit and wound" is basically only true when the Tau player is paying basically double the points for his riptide, plus some CP. You have to have a commander (~150ish points) standing there not moving or shooting. ATS also costs points.

If you choose to fire anti tank firepower at a riptide either with its shield up, or with drones still alive, when you could just choose to shoot those drones first, you'll probably have a not great time. The amount of firepower you had left turn 1 should have been more than enough to strip drones and take a riptide down.

I'm not saying this was a good matchup, or to "git gud". But games of 40k are a mix of luck, matchup, and mistakes. You get the most frustration when you don't see the mistakes because you're unfamiliar with the other guys rules.