professorcurly: I can answer a few of your questions.

Stealth suits are IMHO overpriced at the moment. Many of the jobs that they are designed for can be done better and cheaper by other formations. However they are quite resilient, can be very useful in turn 3 because they are fast and can use scout to spread out to contest/claim many objectives, and are good in a FF. I mainly find them useful as blitz guards they have AP3+ Disrupt when on o/w, teleporting to extend my ML cordon or teleporting into an IG artillery park to place them all in their scout zone of control so they can's sustain on their first action.

FW's and pathfinders had their shooting boosted a little bit. The rationale behind the stats was assuming 3 pulse rifles and 2 pulse carbines per base 3 pulse carbines gives you 6 str 5 shots in 40kid the same as 2 heavy bolters so we made them essentially twin-linked i.e AP4+ and 2 pulse carbines 4 str 5 shots so about the same as 1 heavy bolter i.e AP5+.

Hero/Custodians: The pin point attack is essentially a normal titan killer shot the guided missiles are the same as other guided missiles just MW. Tau don't have any barrage weapons.

Seeker missiles do get +1 so are essentially AT5+.

Range stretching: In epic you determine which units are able to be hit by shooting a bit differently than other GW games. You roll for all shooting at the same time then you assign hits front to back. If a formation contains units with different ranged weapons like FW's which have 15cm and 30cm range AP shots the 30cm shots mean that the 15cm shots can be assigned to units up to 30cm away. The devilfish each have 90cm guided missiles which can RAW be used to to lay blastmarkers on AP targets even though they cannot remove the base. Therefore the guided missiles allow the FW's to "stretch the range" of their AP shots allowing hits to be assigned up to 90cm from the firing unit. So if you position your FW's within 15cm of a single enemy unit every AP target in that formation (unless it is enormous) becomes a viable target for your AP hits. I hope I explained this clearly enough. There is a topic on the boards about this which explains it more clearly. It must be said however that this interpretation allowing AT shots to stretch the range of AP shots is RAW not necessarily rules as intended.

I would hazard they would be similar to many UK written Napoleonic rulesets take on the British

Games Workshop sees itself as a 28mm toy manufacturer, so the background materials are written with that in mind. More and more, the background is twisted to suit the crippled rules system that is Warhammer 40,000.

So you get Apocalypse formations where the Tau are supposed to be air-dropping main battle tanks and 'shooty' infantry within 12 inches of the enemy... that makes ZERO tactical sense when looked at objectively, but makes sense if you want to sell an Apocalypse-sized Tau army to a chump.

Twisted background to suit crippled rules, get it?




Effectively, yes.


When applying hits to a formation, you apply front-to-back, the furthest back being the maximum range that a hit could potentially be applied. By including one unit in a formation with a long range, the range at which hits can be applied is 'stretched'.

For example, a Fire Warrior formation with an attached Ion Cannon Hammerhead.
The Fire Warriors can shoot at units 15-30cm away, but due to the Ion Cannon Hammerhead's 60cm range gun, the Fire Warrior's hits can be applied up to 60cm deep into the enemy formation. It's a bit like a 'clipping engagement', only it's the shooting equivilent. Most armies can make use of this rule to some extent, but it is especially useful to the Tau.

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Umm, not proposing it here just asking the question. Wouldn't you just drop both shooting attacks? They'd be basic infantry with pure FF weapons then right? Isn't that easier (and more true to the game) than giving them artifical "shooting stats?" Would they be "better than Marines then?"

Drop both ranged shots and they really should have FF3. They are much better at shooting than Marines in 40k. In the NetEA list that 'better' sits in their ranged shots, rather than FF.

And Jstr's right, either FF4 or FF3 would completely change the balance of the list.

Most likely, Fire Warriors would again become quite rare (As they used to be previous to the E series), and also become Orca-assault specialists (Very little else I'd use 'em for if they lost their ranged shots). The power of the list as a whole would probably suffer, requiring extensive rebalancing and testing.

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[Yay! the new boards finally let me back in!]


Their point is that 40k fails it's internal-consistency check. If you're trading small-arms fire, what is a Minuteman ICBM doing launching and intentionally landing in the same football field?


As a starting competitive shooter, it makes a bigger difference in my shooting than it does in my martial arts. Even if someone is out of focus without my glasses at staff-length, I can still deal with them effectively (being out-of-focus actually improves my ability to see their motion). Being unable to quickly change my focus is killing my scores in pistol-rifle-shotgun competitions, and would probably kill *me* if I was in a real firefight. The focal distance changes a lot more with firearms than in martial arts: From the target (60+ feet away) to the tip of my finger at arms reach (iron sights... gotta love them), back to the target, back to the tip of my finger... ; compared to a pretty constant focus at about 5 feet away in martial arts.

Warning: 40k comparison!
3 Tau w/ Pulse rifles vs. one heavy bolter: Heavy Bolter puts down 3x Strength-5 shots at 36" range (30cm AP5+ attack in Epic). 3 Fire Warriors put down 3x Strength-5 shots at 30" range (30cm AP5+ attack in Epic). When translating ranges from 40k to Epic, the rule of thumb is to read inches as cm, and round to the nearest multiple of 15cm. 24" range weapons in 40k are the only place that gets weird: Sometimes they're 30cm range like Assault Cannons, sometimes they're 15cm range like Plasma Guns, and sometimes they're just absorbed into the FireFight rating, like Storm Bolters. It depends on their role in the entire army, not just their role in the squad.

A conscious decision was made to give the Tau a ranged attack in exchange for a lowered FireFight rating. So, instead of a stand of 3 Crisis suits having a 30cm Missile Pod attack, a 15cm Plasma Rifle attack, and a Macro-weapon FF attack from the Twin-linked Fusion Blasters, they have a 45cm Missile Pod attack, a 30cm Plasma Rifle attack, and a 15cm Fusion Blaster attack (without a MW FF attack). That is the source of the 'range expansion' concept.

One stand of Epic infantry is assumed to have between 4 and 7 total models on it, and I generally assume 5-6 fire warriors plus 1-2 Gun (and/or Marker) drones. The drones alone are capable of delivering the Pulse Carbine's 15cm AP5+, and the 5-6 Fire Warriors would then be the equivalent of a twin heavy bolter attack (30cm AP4+).

I think the others on the list have forgotten that the Broadsides *already* have a different name for their railguns, so it doesn't matter what the Hammerhead stats are. Need to figure out something, because they aren't performing up to standard presently.

-Stealth Suits were designed before they had the option of a Fusion Blaster. It'd give them *effectively* a 'twin' Fusion Blasters 15cm MW4+ attack, possibly at the cost of reducing their Silenced Burst Cannons to AP5+ (4 suits with Burst Cannon, 2 with Fusion blasters). Now I think they could have one, but that's a big change, and there's significant resistance to big changes right now. Besides, they can firefight those artillery vehicles pretty effectively already. It's only when there's an infantry formation hanging around the artillery battery that the Stealth Suits get in trouble (or crappy rolls on the teleport-in leave them suppressed).

- In 40k Stats, Pathfinders have the same armor save that Fire Warriors have. Even if they have less armor on their models, why wouldn't Pathfinder's use of cover and concealment as forward scouts give them the same effective armor save in Epic?
- The Custodian is basically using BIG Seeker missiles. It lands a pair a 3x MW5+ Guided attacks (each effectively MW4+), not templates of any size.
- Seeker Missiles hit on a 5+ base since their target has to be marked, modified as normal for Sustained Fire (Hit on a 4+) or moving At the Double (6+).

Chroma had an FF4+ Tau suggestion over in the other Epic armies section, I think. I've got a copy of v1.2 on my computer, not sure where it's developed to now.

But you don't know that for a fact E&C, right? That's a simple hypothesis only. I know that from my perspective the way FWs are supported by their upgrades makes them worth taking now. Otherwise I'd rather pick more mobile, harder troops. Making them
FF4+ doesn't put me off I can say for sure. They're still highly usable and i doubt their cost would need to rise too much - if at all.

Wow! FF3?? "Much better than Marines in shooting?" That surprises me. I'd definitely use FF3 troops. Who wouldn't? You say it would change the balnce of the list. How so? That FWs get used more? Isn't that one of your aims?

Just re-iterating it's one unit type....

Not one unit type; THE unit type. Fire Warriors are the essential, core Tau unit, and changing the way they work would be massive. Not to mention that they're already bloody brilliant.

Can we just drop the FF4+ thing please? It's just not going to happen in this list. If someone wants to make a different list with FF4+ that's fine, but that's not the way this list is going.

That would be why I said 'most likely'.


Well they are much better than Marines. S5 weapons with AP4, and squad-level markerlights that let them get plusses to hit and ignore cover etc. Currently that means they have the best squad-level ranged shooting in Epic.

So if you take away both ranged shots they should definitely be boosted to FF3... and yeah, I think that would make them considerably less useful than they are right now.

So, write a FF4 or FF3 list if you like (Don't forget to give Crisis Suit units an extra MWFF attack!), but I don't think it'll match the (true) background as well as the 6.x series, and it certainly won't be as intellectually challenging to play with/against... but hey, if you want to play your games of toy soldiers with your own rules why should you let the evil NetEA stop you?


QFT


Welcome back fella.

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The problem is that it is "just one unit type". The list was designed with a weakness in engagements and had increased shooting across the board. If we then fix the deficiency in FF without toning down the shooting abilities of other units do you not see that that would greatly unbalance the list. You can not make changes of this type in isolation.

Why is that an issue? "Perhaps" getting it right? It's not even been tried, correct? If you want one unit to be right surely you'd want THE unit to be correct I would imagine? I have to say that given some players say one thing and others another that they aren't quite right in everyone's mind.


Because a few folks say so without trying it? Fair enough.

I don't believe that anyone has asked to make changes of this type in isolation. I certainly didn't.


Hey Ben.
I'm sorry to drag this back up again and I'm not wanting to get into an argument about the Tau.
I was just wondering how you came by your numbers here.

Maybe I'm being a bit simple (wouldn't be the first time ) but I come up with some quite different numbers.
LR's take 4 hits to kill each one.
That's 8 hits for the 2 LR's.
The 4 Tac Marines require 8 hits to kill them all.
16 hits required so far.

The only other variable is the Supreme Commanders Inv Save (I don't know quite how to work that out right now...).

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This discussion is beginning to get a bit heated. Can we all take a few deep breaths before Godwins law takes effect.

Hits cycle through the formation front to back so in order to hit the Land Raiders enough times to get a statistical kill you have to tap the Tac Marines more than nessesary.


That statement is very authoritarian. Almost Fascistic.

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Thanks for the reply mate.

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Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
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