Agreed. Except Tau can't always hide in turns 1 and 2. Most lists I face have warhounds that simply double or artillery that drops disrupt or pie plates and cripple your most effective formations in one action. There's no counter to this.

How does Steve54 keep his forward trailing recon formation from getting squashed first turn? The artillery problem means I get a crippled formations first turn. To counter that with a recon and sustaining with missiles (only 90cm which is out of range first turn..) in the first action would see that recon formation obliterated with the opponent's first action. Holding back first turn sees you lose formations (broken. dead whatever) that are a key to winning.


Yep, and all in different metagames.

Maybe that is the problem. EUK are a closed circuit but influence NetEA. You guys see many different things to the rest of the world. As the Tau are crossover perhaps there's an issue here you aren't seeing.

Steve may have a different method but I have used the same trick as follows.

Recon 1 (3 Piranha, 3 Tetra) garrisons forward with one or two scout units say somewhere on the 30-40 cm line from my edge, behind terrain. Probably in front of a garrisoned Broadside formation on overwatch to discourage anyone attacking.

The Recon are spread back towards my deployment so that a Tetra is within 15 cm of two other formations Recon 2 (5 Piranha, 1 Tetra) and Recon 3 (5 Piranha, 1 Tetra). Assuming there is something you want to alpha in the opponents deployment zone you co-ordinate fire with recon 1 to do a double going 70 cm and marking out to 30cm (so 100 cm range + 30-40 cm deployment is easily inside the opponents deployment).

Then Recon 2 and Recon 3 do an advance going 35cm forward to a position behind terrain and then each send out 5 x AT5+ (combined 10 x AT5+, 2 BM before casualties) with a range of 90 + 35 + 15 (deployment) cm. While effectively still being only 30-35 cm in front of the main Tau army and behind terrain.

Now indeed Recon 1 is probably a little out to dry and will be broken or destroyed (note you can spread them out a lot so shooting tends to not destroy, just break - but yes an engage may well destroy Recon 1). So this does need to be weighed in terms of risk reward but it is a useful tool.

This may well be true, I assume it must have something to do with terrain, but surely this is even more of an argument for the separate Third Phase and Vior'la lists.

As one of the main areas the Third Phase list sees play is in UK tournaments and if for whatever reason if it is very underpowered in other metas another list is available.

I can personally say, I feel the Vior'la list would be very powerful if I was to use it here at a tournament instead of the Third Phase list, it has very very powerful air and drop assets combined with scout type warengines which seem to cover many weaknesses in a Tau list, while not really loosing anything to do it.

But that is fine if it suits certain metas.

Pretty much what Yme-loc said

@dobbsy I think the guided missile recon tactic has been explained. If the opponents counterattack is at the exposed recon (unless it's an assault it's not going to kill them all as few are visible) and that's one formation that isn't coming forward. Regarding warhounds I restrict their movement with strung out scouts just like with Eldar or any other list.
Skimmer is a massive ability, yes the ability to pop up and shoot has been reduced but it's still great for hiding. Unless the opponent over reaches when I'll pounce on the unit then he isn't going to see anything but recon turn 1 unless I make a mistake

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That's a weak cop out making out its some kind of EUK issue, plenty of non - EUK players aren't having the same issues with tau and Necrons and titans and whatever next is wtf over or underpowered

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I've been following this for a while and just have to add I haven't found too much to complain about with the list. Certainly nothing that means a rethink from the ground up.

I learned the game with Tau and was the end of some bad beats but once I got the hang of them I feel confident I can get a good game out of them against any other force.

You have to be really careful with what you sacrifice and when you do it but seeker missiles, recon, maxed out mech fire warrior cadres, broadsides and orca dropped crisis suits can all be deadly at the right time with Markerlight support.

Maybe it is a terrain thing in part - I don't know but I really don't think the list needs a rewrite, especially when the Vior'la list exists.

Just my 2 cents...

No, I didn't say that. Re-read what I said without the usual unnecessary defensiveness you're injecting. Questioning a process is not an interrogation of EUK as you always seem to make out. This question goes to the NetEA process as well.

You at least agree there is a difference between the two as you've already said :

Yme Loc asked what the problem was and I am questioning if this is a possible answer.

Ta for your answers.

Since you're here, what's the overall plan for when you're aiming to bump the approved version of the list. Do you think some changes are ready to go in and others not, or does everything need more testing? Do we just need to keep going until we hit an iteration of the list where everything has been tested loads and works well?

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By the way I forgot to add some playtesting results from fairly recently. I didn't have the opportunity to track the battle for a full report, but I did keep notes about the changed units.

The matchup was vs Codex Marines but only 2500 points. I had crisis, mech fw, fw, 5 railheads, stealth, broadsides in orca, barracudas. My opponent had devs in land raiders, 2x terminators, scouts, typhoons, bikes, 2 single warhounds, tbolts.

In summary, the game started with me totally forgetting about the 2 formations of terminators and stupidly isolated my crisis (sup com and BTS) away from the rest of my army. They got wiped out straight away along with all but 1 stealth (I foolishly teleported them in to try to save the crisis). However as the game went on I got back into the game and with the help of some luck (mainly by only failing a couple of activations) managed to do some damage. The scouts engaged the pathfinders with only a couple of units (one died to overwatch fire from the distant fire warriors' skyray) hoping to bring in support but promptly lost. I broke a warhound turn 1 with broadsides, and the orca landed on the blitz at the end of turn 2. After winning strategy on turn 3, I destroyed the other warhound that was going to re-take the blitz & T+H with railheads (3 units left). The game ended 3-2 to Tau (Blitz, T&H, BTS to Blitz, BTS).

The railheads felt better with Lance. In game terms it made a slight difference - they killed a warhound, which would probably have been broken anyway but if not it would probably have killed the orca sitting on 2 objectives. In previous turns I believe they killed a land raider and possibly stripped some shields, but they were targeted because my opponent was (too) wary of their Lance.

The broadsides are a pretty good unit, being a relatively rare source of AT and pretty good at it too. They shrugged off some attention too thanks to their armour. LV turned out to be a slight liability as they're rolling enough dangerous terrain dice to make a failure not all that rare, but with few enough units that each one lost makes a difference. They broke in the end, demonstrating their weakness. Overall I feel 300 is about right.

The stealths were almost wiped out in the second activation of the game (though the remaining one actually survived, providing markerlights all through turns 2 and 3). In teleporting I initially rolled 2 1's but with re-rolls that resulted in 0 BMs. It made no difference to the game though.

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Perhaps the problem is you attack people when they offer an opinion?

He's only trying to find out what the problem could be. Maybe is all down to Australia plays true line of sight?

How could you get new blood into this forum when the only voices listened to come from a handful of people? Its the same few voices echoing around this empty forum. Ignoring any new persons opinions.

As for Dobbsy being the only one with a problem, he isn't. He is the only one who is bothering to tell you. With attacks like that the guy must have the patience of a saint. He is also not just voicing an opinion he backs it up with evidence which you disrespectfully dismiss.
This is a small snapshot from a recent conversation. I omitted the name so they don't come under that same 'your crap at epic' excuse.

dubhgilla:
I'd love to know how (omitted) finds the Tau Third phase Expansion? I've had a real hard time playing my Tau.

Reply:
Tau continue to frustrate players across the globe I am sure. I sat next to XXX during a game as I was on the next table and he had the same issues I have heard from others. Having not yet played it I can't comment myself.

Further reply

I'm finding Tau to be an all or nothing prospect.

They die horribly against most things. If your opponent is packing a moderate amount of Teleport you may as well not bother with deployment and congratulate your opponent for choosing 'rock' to your 'scissors'. The only way to combat this is to deploy packed in clumps and spend between 1/6-1/3 or your total force cost on scouts to deny as much of your table half as possible. Then you had better hope that they don't have any indirect barrage weapons....cause they just kill everything (OK, maybe the Broadsides will survive) you have without risk.

About the only force they do well against is Imperial Guard....but that is only when they leave all of their artillery at home and don't have too many Rough Riders. Even a single 3 gun battery of Basilisk will ruin your day. Manticores would be even worse to face off against. Oh, you had best be packing two Hammerheads (railguns only, the other weapons options are not worth a pinch of sh!t) for every one Leman Russ.

Tau do laugh at some of the smaller titans. Warhounds and the like can be killed off with easy. However, once you start dealing with 4+ reinforced armour you suddenly stop killing anything without bring overwhelming numbers of hits to bare.

Markerlights are INCREDIBLE. But you have to accept the fact that the unit doing the marking is dead. Having to move within 30cm range is a joke for a list that wants to stand off at 75cm. Every other list can get indirect weapons that can whack you without any negative side effect (usually from a range greater than anything the Tau have), yet the Tau must get units to near point blank range before they are at their best.

Steve54 maybe you are great with the Tau but many people are not as fantastic. Table top genius? Or maybe you get in hundreds of games?

This list has big problems and is affecting any other child list that springs from it. But that is to be expected when you remove such an important part of the games mechanic.

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To make out its just me saying tau are fine is completely false.

I've never said I have more or less ability than anybody else, just enquired how exactly situations in batreps have occurred and detailed how I use tau.

Regarding the gaming issues in your post , yme-loc has already detailed how to alpha strike vs artillery (I hope with suitable humbleness so as not to upset you). Most tau armies have 3-4 recon or scout formations which can use their zone of control to stop teleportation near units.

If Dobbsy or anybody else for matter starts discussions with statements like 'How is the list approved' or repeated similar hyperbolic statements about tau, Necrons and AMTL then they should expect some defensiveness in return. Making out that it's some Epic UK vs the world situation is ridiculous, perhaps we could dismiss all the other people commenting with the same views from Denmark, Sweden, USA etc with its not the same meta/your ignoring me .... Rather than actually looking at how terrain is used

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It might be time for a brief pause to remember that Tau are just an imaginary race in a futuristic tabletop game, and that none of our differences are as great as our shared love of the game.

And breaaaaaaaaaaaaaathe.

Back on topic:
Tau aren't the most powerful army in the game, and probably never will be (the assault mechanics are frankly more powerful than the shooting ones, but that's Epic)

However, we've had some real progress made thanks to collaboration, play-testing, alterations and compromise. For those who want/need it, there's now a more mid-field version of Tau moving through the development phase, and for those who don't the 6.71 has numerous improvements, not the least the Shas'o and Hammerheads that can actually sting Leman Russes, all while remaining true to the core principals of Tau and the fluff behind the list.

The future is bright, the future is Tau.

For the Greater Good!

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it's very definitely a two-way street, half the recently released EpicUK lists are based on the NetEA versions, so netEA has an influence on EUK too



perhaps.... but to be honest I doubt it.... as far as I'm aware you guys play area terrain? (ie. all terrain is infinitely high and blocks LoS unless specified?) that's the big game changer for me, if you can't hide from stuff like titans as easily...


the only other suggestions I can see are stuff like the UK's strong preference for air-assault (not really relevant to this scenario) and heavy usage of spacecraft (may have made a difference, maybe not) most of the tournament winning marine, tau and eldar armies in the UK include a spacecraft.....

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Another insult? Really...?

Please, Steve, that is not what I was doing. I never said it's the reason, I simply questioned whether it could be.


This is pretty much what I'm interested in perhaps resolving here: (currently the last post in the thread)
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=28292&start=30
and have yet to receive any reply.