Patient Hunter, waiting for that mistake to jump on and smash with superior ranged firepower. Minimum fuss, minimum casualties.

Well thats the ideal, unfortunately the enemy has the annoying habit of wanting to fight back or do the unnexpected and its never quite so easy. But the list works quite well in this role.

As to the debate about better FF etc, well I guess it's a fun debate even if one can probably set some sort of clock by it, along with the Marine air assault debate.

From a personal perspective the list as it is with arbitrarily strengthened ranged shooting and weakened FF is balanced, challenging to play with and against and provides a different playstyle to every other list I use.

Tau is one of those armies that plays differently enough to all the rest that it takes a bit of a mental wrench to get with it, but I think that's part of the flavour of the Tau list. To be honest, almost every army needs a different approach, which is one of the strengths of EA. The challenge is figuring out which is the right approach

Please clarify what this means...

I totally get what your saying and I agree with the statement of the challenge is figuring it out.

Sorry to drag you in...




Agree with that assessment.



Nailed it!

In the Third Phase list the ranged shooting power has been exagerated to a degree in conjunction with the reduction in FF to give the list its distinctive style.

Its doubtful for instance that the Pulse Carbines on a Fire Warrior stand should have a direct ranged shot and would almost certainly be subsumed into a FF4+ value.

Similarly missile pods, smart missile systems and plasma rifles are longer ranged than they should be in the list, fusion blasters are better at shooting (for instance a whole squad of fire dragons has a single MW5+ shot but a single twin linked melta gun on a crisis suit has MW4+).

The seeker missiles bolted on to many of the vehicles are basically upgrade options which are rarely modelled in epic.

etc

I'll take a crisis suit over a fire dragon any day.

I see your point on the shooting ability.

Just to clarify this comparison, Fire Dragons and Crisis Suits are both infantry.
If a whole squad of Fire Dragons (between 3 and 5 Eldar) has MW5+ then it is a whole squad of Crisis Suits (between 3 and 5 suits) that has a MW4+ (not a single twin linked melta gun). Fire Dragons also have MW FF (and FF4+ of course).

Semantics I'm sure but there is no need to use different terminology when discribing the size of these infantry squads/stands.

Point taken on all the other increased shootiness abilities.

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But the crisis squad only has a single melta gun. Look at the loadout for a crisis squad: It has twin-linked fusion blasters, twin-linked plasma rifles and a missile pod. That's 5 out of 6 possible hard points (they're designed based being 3 to a squad). And all 3 weapons have an attack in epic.

So yes, it is correct to compare that single fusion blaster to five fusion guns. And note that Tau are seriously over-gunned.

Like I said, semantics.

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I'll jump in and add my very naive 2p worth.....

from a theme POV I think it fits very well, the whole scout-markerlight-seeker-coordinated-fire combo really works well to give them a very unique playstyle, and I'm only referring to the two games I've actually played, but if the tau had better odds in a firefight, then I would have surely seen a lot more FF engagements from skimmer mounted troops and it would have 'felt' like facing eldar I'm sure (which has happened in almost every single one of the games I've played them)

The tau clearly have the tools to get in close without needing to engage and thus put themselves at risk, I think it fits well and plays well

Perhaps crisis suits should have FF4+ but when you lose out on the MW attacks, and put them at risk of return fire, I would imagine most players choosing to shoot then jetpack away into cover, so it's perhaps more of a fluff/principle consideration than a gameplay one

in terms of resisting assaults, from a fluff POV I thought the Tau doctrine emphasised not holding ground?

has anything like increasing their FF when engaged or when engaged while on overwatch been tested? it would give assaulting units pause, but prevent the tau becoming a fast assault force, more of a grab and hold affair....

again, only been playing 6 months, very naive, don't shoot me....

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Nothing gets through a tau formation on overwatch anyway really, so there'd be no point in having a rule like that IMO.
In fact, any rule that boosted the tau on the defensive would encourage their holding ground too, something the tau prefer only in extremis I think.

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very true, I just suggested it if people felt that it was too easy to 'engage them off an objective'

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I'm perfectly happy with Tau having a lower firefight than one would initially expect. Leaving aside balance reasons, or attempts to differentiate them from Eldar, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect an Imperial Guard trooper armed with Tau weapons to be better at firefighting than a Tau armed with the same weapons. Their training and doctrines differ, and human physiology gives them a greater advantage in firefight situations.

Similarly, it's also easily plausible with the two shooting at long range the Tau would be more effective over any given period of time; again due to doctrine and training.