it certainly doesn't help. the points cost for the guns you can take is a huge nerf now though. gone are the days of running bricks with 4 cyclic ion blasters
I think the real answer is with T5 5W bodies with a 3+ save and no invlunerable save with an 18-24" range that gives up 2 VP to Bring it Down when a model dies really isn't ideal
It is simply a matter of it went from "the only way to use Tau is to field 3 units of Crisis with CIBs" to "optional". They have become specialist and powerful objective grabbers, due to the lowered cost and special rules, but you simply wont see them regularly take up 50% of the total points anymore. Similar case for Breacher-Fish. A lot of people used to run 4-6 units of them, and now you do not see much more than 3(might change again with the Pariah Nexus update, as it puts an emphasis on battleline units).
Honestly I'm just happy that Crisis suits were good for a sec. They sat on the shelf for like 6 editions. Them being kind of meh is way better than the shit that they usually suck.
Crisis suits are overcost for what they do now. Lost a gun, lost a wound with shield drone & lost shield gens for 4++. paragon warsuits not only went up in toughness but their guns/weapons and abilities were buffed as well.
@Bravadous Not really, it cranks up the "cannon" part of "glass cannon", at least for Breachers, but they still die to a stiff breeze and have a hard time punching into higher toughness.
@@SarajevoKyoto Indeed. Try getting them anywhere near a flamer unit. It is a potent unit in terms of firepower, but it loses models(and effectiveness) very easily to random shots. Even with the Guardian Drone, you still only have a total of 11 models that gets wounded on a 4+ most of the time(strength 4 and 5), or even 3+(strength 6 and above). And the Guardian Drone does not work in melee. It is a high risk, high reward kind of unit that needs to get within 10" of an enemy to do any meaningful damage.
You are also giving free points with *ssassination for killing a fairly weak unit who needs to be in close combat. One of the problems with Tau is that two of the missions are extremely effective against them, depending on which list you run. It is very easy to score secondaries against Tau because of that. Like Bring it down is such a blow to the whole concept.
Here is your fun 40k fact of the day: The Tau have MORE 2 CP stratagems across their four detachments than Chaos Marines have across EIGHT detachments. I know that it sounds dubious, but it is true. That's something that I would like to see fixed.
On top of that I feel like 90% of our stratagems are both situational and hardly effective in the situation they’re made for. Meanwhile other factions are respawning units and shooting mortal wound death rays like come on
It's going to be interesting when the dataslate comes through. Either Tau gets the rules changes it needs, like the removal of the splitfire nerf for FTGG or GW saw people at the highest skill level can get a few wins, so no changes.
Tau are no where near as hard to navigate as something like codex marines or admech, literally their simple but ultra effective devilfish breacher combo provides such cheap and powerful trading it's silly. ion riptides are nicely durable elite killers for a good price, and hammerheads practically delete most tanks with ease that don't have a invul especially when dev wound pops. Just literally don't split once you guide with something. Focus your movement and shooting to create a opening in any direction on the board. And if you play this kind of list in a casual setting your friends will envy you.
@@tastefulavengerYou're kinda proving the OP's point by bringing up meta builds. T'au have an insane skill ceiling, always have, but they also have a high skill floor. It's HARD to get competent with them, unlike most armies where you have extra phases or 500+ unit options in your codex to cushion mistakes.
@@SarajevoKyoto That does not mean that the split fire penalty should be removed though. Meta builds have really nothing to do with split fire penalties. I would even say that the "Breacher-Fish" is hardly "meta", but just common sense. A way to deliver a battleline, glass cannon infantry unit to where you need them, makes sense for any faction. It is also far less meta now, due to the point increases. Most list will typically have 1, as a type of "here comes the cavalry" unit, but you dont really see 5-6 units of them anymore. Personally, I do find it weird that the split fire penalty is still there, since very few units can actually use it to good effect now(no massive block of Crisis Suits with CIBs, for instance), but on the other hand, having the ability to consistently give every important unit +1BS and Ignoring Cover(plus various other benefits depending on detachment) is a huge power spike for no risk(unlike something like CSM that risk MW for a powerboost), and I can see the need to have some form of "break" on it. That said, simply "degrade" it to a -1 to hit would probably be ok(plus, it gives you more reasons to take the wargear that negates modifiers to hit) and give you a bit more incentive to use the few indirect fire options that Tau has access to(very rarely used).
It is nice to see some coverage of the faction as a T'au player, but looking tournament lists this shortly before a mission pack release seems a bit futile. Particularly for T'au in that regard as the change in secondary missions makes me suspect that including Ethereals that give you a second command point on a 4+ at the end of your command phase will become important. On the flipside it also means that one of the big center-piece Tau units, Commander Farsight, will become even less interesting as you can't play him if you have an Ethereal in your army.
For a faction obsessed with the tactical genius of its stand out warriors-to the point that putting them in stasis, creating AI thought-pattern implants, and even full tilt AI clones are all common-it’s odd that the “have me stand literally anywhere to generate CP” unit isn’t a special fire warrior. Doesn’t Farsight have a Riptide AI broski that they keep refining the coding for every time he gets popped? I feel like he should be a free/nearly free upgrade for one riptide in an army that has Farsight and does the whole “I conjure CP” thing. AI Riptide Bro: Implanting Farsights bro into a Riptide in your army confers the following benefits to that unit. +1 BS -1 WS Abominable Intelligence: At end of your turn Roll a D6. On a 2+ generate 1 CP. On a 1 the unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. Place a “engram degradation” token on the model. If AI Brotide rolls another 1 on any subsequent CP Farm check, the unit is killed. Remove the unit and replace the model with your choice of Great Unclean One, Keeper of Secrets, Bloodthirster, or Lord of Change. The Daemon immediately charges the closest Tau model and attacks it in melee. So long as this model remains in play it will always charge and fight any Tau model in range. If no model is in range it will move its maximum move, and advance with an automatic maximum advance roll, to the closest Tau model. This model automatically rolls a 12 for all charges.
My take on tau is that they are likely among the last codices written before 10th was truly known how it works. Why are our Elite troops ballistic skill 4+? Why does forgefiends get devastating wounds every turn for their guns but we get it for ONE gun for ONE phase. I feel these lists show that you can get milage out of the codex but lets see: Stealth teams are auto take for just a whole laundry list of reasons: need our faction rule to hit on reasonable ballistic skill, they aid consistency, good for objectives, durable for the cost...they just are good. Sadly we don't see much for tau this balance pass, still too new. If we do I'd be happy but largely they need buffs, and I would rather those buffs be an army wide pass of elite troops getting BS3+.
I mean tau have always been the low BS, great weapons list. Plus you'll almost always be hitting on 3s if you set the army rule up properly - stealth suits and pathfinders should be in every list for this purpose
160 pts for OC3 mind you. Also, for the points, low damage output. T8 for a 160 pts vehicle is not good, and is only viable due to how difficult it is to damage it from range. Melta weapons are deadly against it, because they partially bypass its damage reduction if within Melta range(drones can set the characteristic to 0, but the Melta damage is added after that). They also have massive AP. It is a tricky unit to deal with, but sometimes(depends on your army) you can just ignore them and focus on scoring instead.
@@fendelphi Yea, they are good at being durable and annoying but maybe you’re right in that I should just ignore them. They also ignore a damage roll twice per game. I hardly ever seem to kill them.
@@DmanDrums They do not ignore the damage roll entirely. It sets it to 0. The order of operations goes "set damage to X, half damage if applicable, multiplication if applicable(never seen this to be honest), additions if applicable, substractions if applicable, round up. So in this case, we set the damage to 0(Ghostkeel drone), then we add the Melta damage modifier(+2 in most cases). Other abilities that gives a unit "+1 to damage" works in the same way. Anyway, yeah, they are tricky to take out.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a 1k point army for a new player? Im looking to get into playing tabletop, but 2k points of units is a lot for me at the moment
Always go for the models you like best. Rules always change. Just try and get a balance of anti-infantry and anti-tank. Breachers are the best infantry rn. Hammerheads/sky rays are good antitank. And just fill the rest with stuff that looks cool to you lol
As a new Tau player, I’m really struggling to get wins. There’s NO room for error when playing them. You have to be a really good player to get the most out of them it seems. I’d like GW to make them a bit more accessible to new players. It’s compounded by the fact Tau are disproportionately affected by battle shock when compared to other factions as it affects their army rule
They where once OPRESSIVE like their win rate was like 58% once some editions ago. They are opted now for the glass canon high risk, high reward play. They had stratagems before what could half the units movements and they got buffes with shooting that every unit hit on 2+ and on crits they had sustained hits turn 1. The faction is glass canon now ... if you want more sustain then sadly a other faction could help but yeah.
The only faction that's more affected by battleshock than T'au is Guard, which isn't _locked_ from using the rule on battleshocked units - you first have to expend your orders, and _then_ you test morale; if it fails, the order is gone. Poof. Completely wasted. T'au and Guard are the two factions that need to be carefully watched if battleshock is ever made worse, because they are the only ones to be already significantly affected by it.
@@weissraben4476yeah, my mate plays guard and he’s got the same issue. I wouldn’t mind but it feels like a major imbalance in the game that only two armies get a massive nerf from battle shock
The reason I'll never get WH40K again is the endless constant rules tweaks that never balance the factions. Having said that, I do love Blood Bowl (which has never been balanced) XD
I wonder if any of the Crisis Suits drop in popularity is because lots of people's models became illegal in a WYSIWYG required setting 😅
Let’s be real. Other than the missiles, can the average player identify the weapons on a crisis suit?
it certainly doesn't help. the points cost for the guns you can take is a huge nerf now though. gone are the days of running bricks with 4 cyclic ion blasters
@@ToaTawlee CIB bricks were never going to remain. They are kinda oppressive.
I think the real answer is with T5 5W bodies with a 3+ save and no invlunerable save with an 18-24" range that gives up 2 VP to Bring it Down when a model dies really isn't ideal
It is simply a matter of it went from "the only way to use Tau is to field 3 units of Crisis with CIBs" to "optional". They have become specialist and powerful objective grabbers, due to the lowered cost and special rules, but you simply wont see them regularly take up 50% of the total points anymore.
Similar case for Breacher-Fish. A lot of people used to run 4-6 units of them, and now you do not see much more than 3(might change again with the Pariah Nexus update, as it puts an emphasis on battleline units).
You started talking about Retaliation Cadre and I was like WAIT I KNOW THAT GUY lol, wasn’t expecting to hear Jason’s name here
Honestly I'm just happy that Crisis suits were good for a sec. They sat on the shelf for like 6 editions. Them being kind of meh is way better than the shit that they usually suck.
Crisis where really good in the 9th
Crisis were super strong at the end of 8th and extremely strong with the 9th Ed codex stop whining
JSJ... I miss everyone having JSJ, lol
Crisis suits are overcost for what they do now. Lost a gun, lost a wound with shield drone & lost shield gens for 4++. paragon warsuits not only went up in toughness but their guns/weapons and abilities were buffed as well.
Yeah those Cadres are pretty crazy being able give their entire units an extra attack just flat out let alone with buffs.
Yeah kinda broken tbh
@Bravadous Not really, it cranks up the "cannon" part of "glass cannon", at least for Breachers, but they still die to a stiff breeze and have a hard time punching into higher toughness.
@@SarajevoKyoto Indeed. Try getting them anywhere near a flamer unit. It is a potent unit in terms of firepower, but it loses models(and effectiveness) very easily to random shots. Even with the Guardian Drone, you still only have a total of 11 models that gets wounded on a 4+ most of the time(strength 4 and 5), or even 3+(strength 6 and above). And the Guardian Drone does not work in melee.
It is a high risk, high reward kind of unit that needs to get within 10" of an enemy to do any meaningful damage.
235 points to deliver that combo of 1w t3 dudes.
You are also giving free points with *ssassination for killing a fairly weak unit who needs to be in close combat. One of the problems with Tau is that two of the missions are extremely effective against them, depending on which list you run. It is very easy to score secondaries against Tau because of that.
Like Bring it down is such a blow to the whole concept.
Here is your fun 40k fact of the day: The Tau have MORE 2 CP stratagems across their four detachments than Chaos Marines have across EIGHT detachments. I know that it sounds dubious, but it is true. That's something that I would like to see fixed.
On top of that I feel like 90% of our stratagems are both situational and hardly effective in the situation they’re made for. Meanwhile other factions are respawning units and shooting mortal wound death rays like come on
It's going to be interesting when the dataslate comes through. Either Tau gets the rules changes it needs, like the removal of the splitfire nerf for FTGG or GW saw people at the highest skill level can get a few wins, so no changes.
praying for broadsides going back down in points. such a cool unit is basically unusable due to the previous cost hikes
Tau are no where near as hard to navigate as something like codex marines or admech, literally their simple but ultra effective devilfish breacher combo provides such cheap and powerful trading it's silly. ion riptides are nicely durable elite killers for a good price, and hammerheads practically delete most tanks with ease that don't have a invul especially when dev wound pops. Just literally don't split once you guide with something. Focus your movement and shooting to create a opening in any direction on the board. And if you play this kind of list in a casual setting your friends will envy you.
@@tastefulavengerYou're kinda proving the OP's point by bringing up meta builds. T'au have an insane skill ceiling, always have, but they also have a high skill floor. It's HARD to get competent with them, unlike most armies where you have extra phases or 500+ unit options in your codex to cushion mistakes.
@@SarajevoKyoto That does not mean that the split fire penalty should be removed though. Meta builds have really nothing to do with split fire penalties. I would even say that the "Breacher-Fish" is hardly "meta", but just common sense. A way to deliver a battleline, glass cannon infantry unit to where you need them, makes sense for any faction. It is also far less meta now, due to the point increases. Most list will typically have 1, as a type of "here comes the cavalry" unit, but you dont really see 5-6 units of them anymore.
Personally, I do find it weird that the split fire penalty is still there, since very few units can actually use it to good effect now(no massive block of Crisis Suits with CIBs, for instance), but on the other hand, having the ability to consistently give every important unit +1BS and Ignoring Cover(plus various other benefits depending on detachment) is a huge power spike for no risk(unlike something like CSM that risk MW for a powerboost), and I can see the need to have some form of "break" on it.
That said, simply "degrade" it to a -1 to hit would probably be ok(plus, it gives you more reasons to take the wargear that negates modifiers to hit) and give you a bit more incentive to use the few indirect fire options that Tau has access to(very rarely used).
70 points a model is all they should be@@ToaTawlee
I would like broadsides to go down to 100 points each rather than 110 I think that's a good cost for them.
90pts each or less would also be nice.
It is nice to see some coverage of the faction as a T'au player, but looking tournament lists this shortly before a mission pack release seems a bit futile. Particularly for T'au in that regard as the change in secondary missions makes me suspect that including Ethereals that give you a second command point on a 4+ at the end of your command phase will become important. On the flipside it also means that one of the big center-piece Tau units, Commander Farsight, will become even less interesting as you can't play him if you have an Ethereal in your army.
For a faction obsessed with the tactical genius of its stand out warriors-to the point that putting them in stasis, creating AI thought-pattern implants, and even full tilt AI clones are all common-it’s odd that the “have me stand literally anywhere to generate CP” unit isn’t a special fire warrior.
Doesn’t Farsight have a Riptide AI broski that they keep refining the coding for every time he gets popped? I feel like he should be a free/nearly free upgrade for one riptide in an army that has Farsight and does the whole “I conjure CP” thing.
AI Riptide Bro:
Implanting Farsights bro into a Riptide in your army confers the following benefits to that unit.
+1 BS -1 WS
Abominable Intelligence:
At end of your turn Roll a D6. On a 2+ generate 1 CP. On a 1 the unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. Place a “engram degradation” token on the model. If AI Brotide rolls another 1 on any subsequent CP Farm check, the unit is killed. Remove the unit and replace the model with your choice of Great Unclean One, Keeper of Secrets, Bloodthirster, or Lord of Change.
The Daemon immediately charges the closest Tau model and attacks it in melee. So long as this model remains in play it will always charge and fight any Tau model in range. If no model is in range it will move its maximum move, and advance with an automatic maximum advance roll, to the closest Tau model. This model automatically rolls a 12 for all charges.
As the omnissiah wills; the noosphere provides. Brother Auspex with more data inloads.
My take on tau is that they are likely among the last codices written before 10th was truly known how it works. Why are our Elite troops ballistic skill 4+? Why does forgefiends get devastating wounds every turn for their guns but we get it for ONE gun for ONE phase. I feel these lists show that you can get milage out of the codex but lets see: Stealth teams are auto take for just a whole laundry list of reasons: need our faction rule to hit on reasonable ballistic skill, they aid consistency, good for objectives, durable for the cost...they just are good.
Sadly we don't see much for tau this balance pass, still too new. If we do I'd be happy but largely they need buffs, and I would rather those buffs be an army wide pass of elite troops getting BS3+.
I mean tau have always been the low BS, great weapons list. Plus you'll almost always be hitting on 3s if you set the army rule up properly - stealth suits and pathfinders should be in every list for this purpose
For the Greater good!
The good for greater!
For the Goodest Great!
All these lists are missing 2 Strike teams. It is extremely punishing to Infantry with its ability to decrease 30% of their efficiency.
Did gw balancing actual work for tau? Seems if power is there but not op than perhaps so
I’m hoping I can get a response as I’m old to this but the montka list is 20 points over 2000pts. What would you change?
I hate playing against the ghostkeels. My buddy takes three of them. Lone op, high toughness, 2+ save -1 to hit in shooting. Jeeeeasch
160 pts for OC3 mind you. Also, for the points, low damage output.
T8 for a 160 pts vehicle is not good, and is only viable due to how difficult it is to damage it from range.
Melta weapons are deadly against it, because they partially bypass its damage reduction if within Melta range(drones can set the characteristic to 0, but the Melta damage is added after that). They also have massive AP.
It is a tricky unit to deal with, but sometimes(depends on your army) you can just ignore them and focus on scoring instead.
@@fendelphi Yea, they are good at being durable and annoying but maybe you’re right in that I should just ignore them. They also ignore a damage roll twice per game. I hardly ever seem to kill them.
@@DmanDrums They do not ignore the damage roll entirely. It sets it to 0.
The order of operations goes "set damage to X, half damage if applicable, multiplication if applicable(never seen this to be honest), additions if applicable, substractions if applicable, round up.
So in this case, we set the damage to 0(Ghostkeel drone), then we add the Melta damage modifier(+2 in most cases).
Other abilities that gives a unit "+1 to damage" works in the same way.
Anyway, yeah, they are tricky to take out.
@@fendelphi ahhh I see. So a havoc lascannon gets a wound and the drone ignores the d6 roll BUT the +1 still goes through ?
@@DmanDrumsPossibly, although it sounds off.
My codex says stealth suits are 75 for 3. What am I missing?
Does anyone have any recommendations for a 1k point army for a new player? Im looking to get into playing tabletop, but 2k points of units is a lot for me at the moment
Always go for the models you like best. Rules always change. Just try and get a balance of anti-infantry and anti-tank. Breachers are the best infantry rn. Hammerheads/sky rays are good antitank. And just fill the rest with stuff that looks cool to you lol
Orks or Marines. Gw tends to castrate them less than other armies
Hello, love your vids
As a new Tau player, I’m really struggling to get wins. There’s NO room for error when playing them.
You have to be a really good player to get the most out of them it seems.
I’d like GW to make them a bit more accessible to new players. It’s compounded by the fact Tau are disproportionately affected by battle shock when compared to other factions as it affects their army rule
They where once OPRESSIVE like their win rate was like 58% once some editions ago. They are opted now for the glass canon high risk, high reward play. They had stratagems before what could half the units movements and they got buffes with shooting that every unit hit on 2+ and on crits they had sustained hits turn 1. The faction is glass canon now ... if you want more sustain then sadly a other faction could help but yeah.
The only faction that's more affected by battleshock than T'au is Guard, which isn't _locked_ from using the rule on battleshocked units - you first have to expend your orders, and _then_ you test morale; if it fails, the order is gone. Poof. Completely wasted.
T'au and Guard are the two factions that need to be carefully watched if battleshock is ever made worse, because they are the only ones to be already significantly affected by it.
@@weissraben4476yeah, my mate plays guard and he’s got the same issue.
I wouldn’t mind but it feels like a major imbalance in the game that only two armies get a massive nerf from battle shock
Gw really a$$ graded the Tau in this last ed...
I play tau without battlesuits
For the Greater Good!
win big is a bit of an overstatement..
❤
Kinda sad bc I wanted to start a Tau force, but they just keep widening that gap as the most $$$$ faction.
I lay claim
Awesome
GW: lets make some awesome DA and Kroot models
Also GW: nerf DA and Kroot into the ground
The reason I'll never get WH40K again is the endless constant rules tweaks that never balance the factions. Having said that, I do love Blood Bowl (which has never been balanced) XD