NOVA: New Tau Tactic

As a Tau player, I've gotta say: our Codex is ugly powerful, and the Farsight Enclaves supplement only made us nastier.

I actually wrote a tactica on ATT about the nasty tactic at the heart of this nasty unit: a support commander joining a Riptide and making its shooting even more powerful. (So maybe I'm sorta culpable?) Tau players interpret the rules exactly as Count Adhemar has identified: the Riptide can take drones, so its unit doesn't always consist of one model. (I've been assured that there are Tyranid MCs that come is squads, and that Tyranids players attach Tyranid characters to said squads.) Independent of MC shenanigans, as a Tau player, I can't accept Autopilot's rule interpretation; it'd mean that, say, a lone Crisis Suit purchased all by himself couldn't be joined by Commander Crisis Suit.

The Farsight Enclaves only made this Big Daddy+Little Sister combination scarier, since it has an Independent Character Riptide that can reroll Nova charges and 1s. (And if you wanted to make it weirder, you could join the Riptides to Shadowsun, who would give them Stealth and Shroud.)

My advice would be to murder any Markerlight support, and then to try and pick off the commander that's serving as a force multiplier. Furthermore, the Farsight IC Riptide has a WS of 1, so punch him in the face. But you guys probably know all of this.

According to the rules as written, an army (not detacement) that includes models from the Farsight supplement can't take regular Tau signature systems. One of the biggest tournaments around here decided to enforce the rules like that. I understand why they might want to do that (The Tau are powerful enough as they are), but it strikes me as a very obvious RAW reading of the rules, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth, even if it might be justified for balance reasons. I'm suprised they didn't claim that due to the presence of a double negative in the rules, a Farsight army cannot not include Aun'va and Shadowsun (ie. the must always include both).

Nomic, that's definitely a rules interpretation that some of the guys on ATT have run into. As with you, it strikes me as a very dubious reading of the rules; I can't think of a single instance where the the choice of an ally dictated what could or could not be brought in the main detachment (non-duplication of Special Characters not withstanding). Following such a rules interpretation would have prevented these shenanigans, but it still doesn't strike me as very sporting reasoning. (For instance, if the Enclaves are allies to a larger Empire detachment, does the presence of any Enclave forces suddenly make the entire army Farsight? And does the Tau Empire side of the army suddenly have access to Enclave wargear and scoring Crisis Suits?)

I think I'm going to show up in said tournament with a Tau/Farsigh Riptide Bash list that is completely legal according to their rules, just to screw around (you just need to take the member of the Seven Samurai with MSS. You lose the CnC node, but you two Riptides still ignore cover). I was going to use some variety of Tau this year, seeing they're finally playable and I've gotten a bit bored of using essentially the same DE list for about 5 major tourneys. Wasn't going to take anything that OP originally, but I'd like to show em the ruling is both annoingly RAW and pointless.

Nomic wrote:

I think I'm going to show up in said tournament with a Tau/Farsigh Riptide Bash list that is completely legal according to their rules, just to screw around (you just need to take the member of the Seven Samurai with MSS. You lose the CnC node, but you two Riptides still ignore cover). I was going to use some variety of Tau this year, seeing they're finally playable and I've gotten a bit bored of using essentially the same DE list for about 5 major tourneys. Wasn't going to take anything that OP originally, but I'd like to show em the ruling is both annoingly RAW and pointless.

hahahah, do it. Show the flaws in the system by ramping those flaws up to eleven.

And it my experience, RAW relies just as much on interpretation as any other way of intuiting the rules (which is flies in the face of RAW's ostensible "strength", which is being the rules interpretation that appealed to the lowest common denominator) -- and more often than not, RAW leads to some incredibly stupid and illogical places.

The advantage of RAW is of course that it is generally possible to give a categorical answer, as opposed to RAI which is essentially your opinion.

The disadvantage of RAW is that GW can't write rules for toffee and that is what leads to "incredibly stupid and illogical places".

I'm reasonably well known in these parts for arguing on obscure rules issues but I mainly do it in order to a) see if there is a way around a stupid RAW issue and b) pass the time of day when I'm bored  I don't actually use these things in games unless I'm playing against someone who tries something like that on me, in which case it's nice to beat them at their own game.

There's some blatantly stupid RAW stuff that just never got fixed in the past, though. BA went a few years without usable transports because, RAW, their rhinos/razorbacks didn't have any listed access points. Also one of their psychic powers simply states "The Librarian's attacks are made at Strength 10". Simple as. Because it's not a blessing (pre-dates them) and doesn't have any qualifiers attached, RAW you can argue that if you make the test once his powers are therefore S10 constantly as it doesn't state when the power ends.

Of course, these are along the lines that most sensible people wouldn't even attempt to use/enforce because they're not that idiotic and/or stubborn, but some rules are a little less mental and people will stubbornly try to make them stick regardless.

Guys, I wonder what are the possible tactics to beat the TAU. I mean, they have a ridiculous firepower and they can have Interceptor on some of their strongest models.

So if you don't have the first turn, you would like to put some of your guys in reserves. But if you do so, the Tau can intercept them and they still can shoot at their turn with the gun they did not use to Intercept. Now, if you put everything on the table, you have a huge chance to loose all your raider/venom/ravager because the Tau infantry gun is Str 5, and the rest of the army is just better.

As I see it, if I don't get the 1st turn it's over.

What range do you think Tau have on their infantry weapons? Most Tau shooting is pretty limited in range, so basic smart deployment can put most of your models on the field at minimal risk versus Tau.

If it sells them an extra 1,000 Tau armies as people chase the cheddar GW won't FAQ it until the cows come home.

I mean to run this list at a minimum you need the Tau codex $50, Farsight book $50, 2x Riptides at $85 a piece + another character model.

That's $300+ paints, etc (possibly if you even use GW paint)

I really don't mind them doing whatever is profitable they are a company after all I hate it when they throw fluff out the window however.

Now I see Eldar + Dark Eldar + Inquisition?

That is like the Pope reading Popular Science magazine while wearing women's silk panties, and listening to God Smack.