Apologies if all you Tau lot have been over this before but down our local club last night we had a brief discussion about the Tau and there perceived gun line style; how ML and GM's are causing a bit of a headache etc...
From our logic we figure Tau vehicles can't carry enough missiles to last a battle; especially seeing as each turn in epic is meant to be indicative of several in 40k, and we don't believe that giving the GM's Single Shot would result in too much book keeping; many people will prefer an all or nothing approach when firing them, perhaps keeping one or two missiles in reserve in order to lay BM's in later turns.
On Air Caste units and other appropriate models then one shot would not be necessary.
Finally we also stumbled upon the idea of only allowing UNITS within a target formation that are marked to be taken as casualties, i.e if 4 pathfinders are within range then only the 4 enemy models closest to them can be hit and destroyed. I don't believe this would result in 'sniping' as hit allocation would just be worked from front to back from the pathfinders.
Mightn't this tone things down a bit or is it old ground?

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This is old news I'm afraid (and it is generally accepted as not be a practical or viable solution) - Last post on this page.

The list has been developing quite a lot recently and these revisions will help a lot with making the Tau fun to play with and against (I hope). Have a read of all the recent threads to see what I mean.

Steve.

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Hi MoK

On the ML casualty removal, I think it would be far better only to allocate GM hits front-to-back to 'lit' units, but that does seem a reasonable proposal.

I am less sure about the need for 'one-shot', and would echo Shmitty's proposal to remove GM from any 'one-shot' vehicle.
In the discussions, did you consider the current proposals

- To limit GM fire to those formations that are 'lit',
- To stop the practice of deploying Remote Sentry Turrets in the opponents table-half.
- To replace 'Support Craft' with 'Skimmer, Always Popped Up'.

IMO the first two proposals will encourage the appropriate employment and engagement of ML equipped formations, which together with the third should significantly reduce abusive long-range GM fire - but these proposals do need to be tested

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I generally agree with you Man of Kent and have brought up the idea before.  It was not a popular choice.  I followed the same logic as you in this case and just can't see how a small craft like a Piranha can carry enough GMs for a full battle.  It is a pet peeve of mine with the list.

I would like to see the number of GM attacks on Tau vehicles reduced for this and one other reason.  It also makes the units that use GMs as their primary weapon more unique.  The Stingray and Scorpionfish are a lot more interesting when they are the primary GM carriers in the army and every other vehicle in the list doesn't have the same kind of attack.

My favorite idea is this:

Remove the GMs from the Piranha, Devilfish, Hammerhead, and Swordfish.

Keep the GMs on the Skyray, Stingray, and Scorpionfish, where they are the primary weapon system, as is.

Give the Tau 1 Seeker Missile Spread per 500 (or 750 or 1000) points in the army to represent the extra missiles carried by all of these vehicles.  A Seeker Missile Spread can be fired by any infantry formation with a ML when it is shooting (1 per action).  It has something to the effect of 2x AT5+.


This emulates the fluff in that the infantry can request/use the extra firepower of the seeker missiles.  It better defines the roles of the various vehicles.  There are still units using the GM/ML rules as they are, including the Air Caste, which maintains the synergy aspect of GMs.

Does that sound any better to you Man of Kent?  or would you just prefer less GMs in the army?

Another special rule for GMs is really not what we need. Let's try the latest revision of the GM rules first before we go rewriting them again.






Having said that, I'd personally like to see a big reduction in GM numbers, combined with adding sniper to the remaining GMs. It makes sense - the ML calls the GMs in against a specific target.

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That could be good too.

At a very minimum, this idea will need to be tabled for possible later review.

One of the things that I would prefer not seeing is another brainstorming session when we haven't even gotten the new release out yet. We have gone down that path before and it has not resulted in productive efforts.

Remember that our renewed efforts are just starting to take off, let's stay the current course for the time being.    

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I remember E&C pointing out that Sniper would just mean enemy command units/important minis (read AA vehicles) would get smashed quickly - not really fair or an accurate representation of GM's at all.

I'm not in favour of Sniper or of reducing GM's.

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Yes, we assumed that it had been mentioned before. I did notice that you didn't link to any of the counter arguments against it, nor present any of your own. Is that because there are't any that stand up to casual inspection?

The fact is that it is clearly wrong that every tau vehicle is somehow carrying enough GMs for an entire engagement of EA. I consider it akin to giving every imperial vehicle in the game continous missile shots every turn from their (supposedly limited and optional) hunter-killers... (ho-ho, those free rhinos will be more useful now won't they?)

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Well I like this idea. I think shmittys view of how this will work is very good.

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Again,

This is an interesting idea, but it is extremely fiddly and a potential logistical nightmare.

I appreciate the thoughts, but we're not going down this path. Logistics is an issue that is best left abstracted, especially at this level.

@Hymirl

The fact is that it is clearly wrong that every tau vehicle is somehow carrying enough GMs for an entire engagement of EA. I consider it akin to giving every imperial vehicle in the game continous missile shots every turn from their (supposedly limited and optional) hunter-killers... (ho-ho, those free rhinos will be more useful now won't they?)

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It wouldn't be more fiddly as ...say...keep track of the number of a Gargant's Power Fields.
Just use a dice which shows the number of Seeker Missiles left.

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You are speaking in generalities and not addressing any particular point of failure in the list.

Shmitty's got it right, but i also agree with Hena as regards tracking everything.
In the meantime though as Honda has pointed out that, although this is a valid argument to be having, it's not where we want to be going for now and so i'm more than happy to let the issues rest and to take a look at the peer review version coming soon.
R>

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