In an audatious (possibly foolhardy) move I am going to outline what I think of the Tau list and units, and what changes I would make to the list were someone foolish to put me in control of the Tau army list. Hopefully this will stimulate discussion and thought on what is a very good list, but imo needs a couple of tweaks to play as I see them. The one subject I won't be touching is the Firefight discussion as I feel it has been discussed enough, and I like it as it is.

So firstly, Railguns. I think they should be better. I'll start with Hammerheads. At the moment they aren't putting down enough fire, and are quite cheap. This means if I want them to be more effective (I do) I need to take more of them. The current list is ballanced point to unit, but I feel cheap and numerous is innapropriate. I should also point out that I often see armies without them at all, which suggests to me they are not considered a mainstay unit. The Tau should be like a modern army - less, better units as opposed to more cheaper ones. I propose 2 solutions:

1 - AT3, points stay the same.
2 - AT3, units count as in cover, points 250. (represents disruption fields a la 40K) Upgrade 125.

Potential balance issues mentioned are them being better than the other varients, well, I think Fusionheads would still have their role, and I am with many others as to not knowing what to do about Ionheads, so I still think the changes would be worth making.
The other potential balance issue is the Broadside, which would then go to AT2. Well, my solution for this works in 2 ways. I would change the save to 3+, only giving them a slight % drop in resiliance, but increasing their vulnerability to Macro. Second, I would change their move to 10cm, increasing their reliance on doubling to be used in an aggressive fashion. The 2 changes would mean they would have to be played more skillfully, and increase the point of difference between them and the Hammerheads.

I would also like to introduce the Tau Stealth Field to other units that have some kind of stealth field in 40K. The units that spring to mind are the other tanks, Devilfish and Skyray, and the Stealth Suits themselves. I think the profiles and points of these units are all correct (am undecided about the Init 1+ Stealth issue), but they alll have and commonly use stealth in 40K, and this would be more marked in the sort of large scale game Epic represents. Now there is a risk of this being seen as one of the defining racial characteristics of the Tau: I do not believe it currently is. However for an army to have these devices and not employ them seems crazy to me, so I am suggesting discussion at least on the following possibilities:

1 - Unit counts as in cover (either for shooting or all the time). Pro - cannot be stacked, uses the same mechanism as cover currently does as does the 40K equivalent. Cons, another special rule, would it unbalance them? I don't think so personally.
2 - +1 Armour for Stealthed units. Pros - no special rules. Cons - doesn't feel very Tau-y, gives the Hammerhead a 3+ for example, is stackable with cover.
3 - Invulnerable Saves all round. Pros - no special rules, applies to Macro/TK hits which stealth tech probably should. Cons - usually only given to elite units to make them stand out, is stackable with cover.

Thats all currently. I would love to know if your experiences of the units above matched mine (HH too weak, Stealth not stealthy enough, Broadsides too resiliant against Macro), and how you would feel about some or all of the changes being introduced. Please comment, keeping an open mind - shoot me down if I'm way off, but I'm just trying to reconcile my experiences with the army and my impressions of the units and how they should interact. If nothing else - would love to stimulate some discussion on the board and maybe get more people playing the Tau again.

Thanks for reading.

In general it is best I think to stay away from unit specific special rules in epic, unless there is a very strong reason for them.

Effectively the stealth capabilities of the Stealth suits is represented by Teleport (when they are obviosly not teleporting, just ambushing), first strike - they tend to get the jump on the enemy, and 5+RA. Probably a straight 4+ save is more justified but they get added survivability becasue sometimes when they get shot at they are missed, even by very powerful weapons.

Now personally I can see the merits in terms of rules and background meeting in a straight 4+ save with an invulnerable save and had I been creating the Stealth suits from scratch that may well have been the way I would personally have gone.

But at this point I think they are represented in a perfectly reasonable way.

In regards Hammerheads, they are actually quite expensive at 50pts each vehicle. But as a small support formation in a list that is focused to a degree on Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits they are still a good, fast shooty choice.

Is AT3+ justified for the main gun, possibly although an argument can also be made for AT4+ and the truth probably lies between the two choices which unfortunately it is not easy to represent in epic.

I do actually agree. Any problems with Stealth are unrelated to their stat line, although I thinke there is a strong argument for some kind of concealment rule in the main rules. The inclusion of them is more to do with my feeling that the Disruption Pod from 40K is worth considering for vehicles as it is such an effective and popular upgrade in general. Following from this logic I thought it would be silly if Stealth Suits didn't get the proposed Tau Stealth rule (were one to be introduced).



This is where I am going to have to disagree. First - I think the Hammerhead is points balanced, if it is to be regarded simply as a "small support formation". However I think this designation is a mistake, especially at this scale. It is the MBT in an advanced race and to sideline it in this way subtracts from the scale of Epic battles. A Hammerhead should be costed the same as a Leman Russ, and be a better anti-tank platform than the same.

Is AT3+ justified? I (obviously) come down on the side of yes. For 3 reasons all based on 40K compared to a Battlecannon:

1 - better BS (+16.6%)
2 - better average penetration (+16.6%)
3 - +1 damage when penetrated (+16.6%)

Now I know the original designers of the Tau lists felt the same way as it historically had AT3+. I think the constant jiggling with the lists have taken the unit down gradually until it isn't properly represented, and I would like to see them more used on the tabletop. I don't think that the HH is alone here - the Meta doesn't see MBTs used in quantity generally, and I think its a shame. However thats probably outside the scope of this discussion. I do however find my own experiences to show they just don't kick out quite enough hurt/point.

are you accounting for the abundance of markerlights in the tau army in your assessment? also, in my experience the coordinated fire rule helps out a great deal, adding a layer of flexibility

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The reason that HH's aren't AT3+ now is because Broadsides have a twin-linked version of the same weapon. In epic that translates as +1 to hit. It was deemed unreasonable with the addition of the marker light rule to the list to have a unit that could double and still hit on a 2+. That is why rail guns were downgraded it had nothing to do with 40kid but rather game balance within epic.

The problem HH's have is not really their stats but rather they are a little too expensive and broadsides are a little too cheap. The range on rail guns and the better to hit ratio on broadsides makes the extra speed and skimmer on the HH's not worth as much in game terms as the reinforced armour on the broadsides. Until broadsides cost more on a unit to unit basis than HH's I still can't see any reason to consider taking them. The problem isn't helped either by piranhas IMHO being significantly under priced.

Yes, those are both useful and helpful rules, but thats not what I am talking about. In 10+ games using between 3 and 6 formations of Hammerheads they just aren't performing for me. They are good against non-RA units but don't force enough saves on RA, even taking into account Crossfire etc. When I use loads of them I can get a fair result from spamming them, however I don't see that as characterful. Given that the design brief of the Tau is to raise their shooting and lower their firefight I think that should be a good enough reason for AT3+, when the Hammerhead with a Railgun is demonstrably a better weapon as well for me it seems that the character of the tank isn't being shown.

Look, I don't want to come across as "Hammerhead Guy" or anything, it just stands out as an underwhelming unit in an otherwise very well thought out list. As I said above the unit as it stands is balanced - I just think its wrong.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

All good points that I considered in my first post. Our preferred method for balancing them against the Broadside may differ, but I do see the problem. I just don't see it as a reason to have a unit that is wrongly represented where there seems to be little current discussion on resolving it. This is a development forum after all...

The problem is that bumping the HH to hit value would also bump the broadside to hit value and achieve little in making HH's a more competitive choice. If you find HH's underwhelming I suggest at the moment frankly abandoning them in favour of piranhas (currently point for point the most effective unit in the list IMHO) and broadsides. That essentially what I ended up doing.

Well the problem here is that epic is a fairly abstracted scale and you are applying the argument for AT3+ to a single case - from which I could quite easily just take the conclusion that Battlecannons should be AT5+ .

Other weapons which are AT4+ are demolisher cannons, A Str 10 Ordinance blast weapon that compares quite closely with a Railgun in terms of anti tank abilities in 40K. In epic the main cannon of a Baneblade achieves the mighty AT3+ despite I am pretty sure having 40K armageddon rules of pretty much auto pen (maybe auto destroy - I am a little rusty on the 40K rules).

Many weapons in the epic scale could be argued to be a little incorrect or might compare oddly against each other if their 40K stats were compared directly and considered against their epic versions.

Is AT4+ with in reality quite often AT3+ from markerlights really a bad representation of a Hammerhead, In my opinion no.

That is a seperate discussion to is the Hammerhead a good choice in the list and could it be priced differently.

From a purely developmental perspective changing the main stats on the Hammerhead from AT4+ to AT3+ is a big boost which probably throws its points values out and presents a problem of stating the Broadsides. I just don't see a need to make such a change.

Not certain but I don't think so. IIRC it's just a bit superior to a standard battlecannon, in that it has similar stats but a bigger template.


Right now I agree. Some of the rumours about what they're going to do with the Railgun in the next update of the codex are pretty beastly though.

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[quote="yme-locFrom a purely developmental perspective changing the main stats on the Hammerhead from AT4+ to AT3+ is a big boost which probably throws its points values out and presents a problem of stating the Broadsides. I just don't see a need to make such a change.[/quote]

Fair enough - I tried . I may try out the armoured list as well to see if that feels different.

Any thoughts on my other impressions?