Well its obvious that the rule mechanics is the big difference between Epic & 40K. Besides scale ...  As noted here previously 40K fluff is a guide for Epic Forces ...  A 40K level game is going to play differently then Epic level game regardess ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Ok, I'll translate that a bit:

Basically, E:A is only one step removed from the level of detail of 40k.  *Very* broadly speaking, it should actually play fairly similarly to 40k.  Forces that rely on long-range shooting (IG) should still rely on long-range shooting.  Forces that rely on closing to hand-to-hand combat (Orks and Nids) should still do so.  Forces that use speed to attack the enemy where the enemy is at a disadvantage while the attacking force is at it's strongest (Eldar and Tau) should also still follow that pattern, whether the final attack is shooting or FF/CC.

The only variance to that should be Marines, as they are poorly represented in 40k.  They should be a 'speed force' like the Tau and Eldar, not the sledgehammer they are in 40k.  In this case, it's to better match the operational style of the Marine background to the way they work in the game.

Now, Tau have evolved over the years.  They started out as an army with a serious split personality:  The basic Fire Warrior was best used to hold ground in a gunline when they first came out, while the Crisis and Stealth suits were short-ranged mobile troops.  Both sides of the Tau had the same weakness:  Close Combat.  Under the 40k4e rules, Fire Warriors became mobile troops as well.  Now, the most effective Tau army uses mobility, but using that mobility requires picking off units that are just outside the reaction range of their flankers, or else the Tau get into CC and die horribly.

Our challenge to this is really because there's two steps to the Engage order:  firefight and close-combat.  If E:A was more like Flames of War (another game involving roughly the same size forces), there'd only be a CC stat, and everyone within whatever the CC distance was (maybe 5cm) would use that stat to attack the opponent.  Instead, there's a Firefight stat, and Close Combat is only for base-to-base.  To some extent, this makes sense.  A lot of the different units that exist in the background will only be different IF you have both a FF and a CC stat.  Say, Dire Avengers versus Banshees or Striking Scorpions. If you didn't have a separate FF/CC stat, and just had a generic 'Assault' ability, then Aspect Warriors would be Aspect Warriors.  The problem comes when a decision was made to have the Tau *NOT* Engage, but to stay just outside that 'assault' range and shoot it out from there.  While this does give the Tau a unique operational method, it also makes certain units hard to balance (Fire Warriors), and makes other units problematic to include (Alien Aux), since they are supposed to cover the poor CC abilities of the Tau.

L4, Don't look at the differences between alternating activation and having to roll for activations versus IGO-UGO, look at how the armies move on the table.  Marine players talk about how to get into combat with their opponent, since that's where Marines are most effective, so they end up using things like a Drop-pod assault and other deep-striking units, or a Rhino Rush, or whatever the flavor of the month for closing without losing too many troops happens to be.

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"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

Just to say on Firewarriors - I am always somewhat amased at the whole 'awful in assault'. They are average. Combined with excellent shooting and nifty transports they are the bee's knees. They can screen the FW with their skimmer can't be CC'ed counter charge 10 fish. They have armour 5+ so are actually better at engaging as the attacker than Imperial guard. They can advance in the open and take 1/3 of the casualties.

There problem has always been they are an anti infantry unit in an army that has better ways of dealing with infantry.

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Well on a game level like Epic ... IMO the only way to play is Alternate Activation ...  And clearly the Epic Armies play differently in 40K vs. Epic, for the most part. The Tau have mobility like the SMs & Eldar ... And the Firepower of the IG and then some ...  + Superior delivery systems compared to other forces ...  They lack the ability to  go into close combat. However, if they use their firepower/ranged weapons & delivery systems properly ... Going into close combat won't be needed ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

The intention of the doctrine thread was not to test who's knowledge of military operations was better. It was an attempt to begin a discussion on the CONCEPTS of the Tau way of war. I use my experiences to frame a concept. I ask all others to put down specific unit stat lines and consider overall operation of the Tau. Why do they fight? How do they fight?
By producing an overall concept the individual "nuts and bolts" are much easier to assemble and operate.
I will suggest a broad concept to Tau warfare in several steps:
1. Eliminate all enemy anti-air assets with 'over the horizon' strikes. (GMs excellent choice here)
1a. If war machines present call in air support to eliminate the war machines with help from long ranged direct fire weapons (Tiger shark and hammer head)
2. Eliminate the enemy armored vehicles with long ranged direct fire weapons supported by indirect weapons. ( by this time any sensible enemy should be surrendering.
3. Close and eliminate the foot bound enemy formations with mounted infantry using stand off firing and air support
4.Repeat on another section of the battle field.

Why would Tau do this "structured murder"? It is precise and incremental, it applies force in a way that is more controllable and at any time the enemy ( poor misguided louts they are) may cease hostilities and join the "greater good", the primary goal of all the Tau.

This also leads to the need  for strongly integrated units. Every unit needs some form of anti-air cover, marker light ability, over the horizon strike capacity, air strike coordination and direct fire weaponry.

So what do you collectively think?

Well that sounds the way I pretty much try to fight most of my Epic forces(SMs, IG, Squats, Eldar maybe even Orks ... and probably my Tau ... if they were not SIB!).  Suppressing Enemy Air Defenses, Calling in CAS on Priority Targets, Engaging & Suppressing Targets with Direct & Indirect Supporting Fires, Maneuver, Close with Kill, Capture and Destroy Enemy Personnel and Equipment ...  Seems likes perfectly sound combined arms tactical doctrine to me ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

gbear58, what you are describing sounds very like a modern 'combined' arms scenario - but one where the various formations act in concert rather than having a more permanent affiliation. So you have FOs to coordinate artillery and air-strikes, possibly an attached armoured platoon etc.

As L4 says, a lot of what you are describing already exists, though one addition might be to allow the Tau more flexibility in their ad-hoc formations. For example allow any Tau formations that are 'intermingled' to act as a single formation for all purposes, except that the coherency rule only applies to the components of each individual formation. Formation sizes would be slightly smaller allowing a greater number of them, while the apparent size of the Tau formations would be much larger.

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1.  identify which unit(s) need to go away immediately (often AA units, not always)
2.  set up killzones where target unit needs to be to accomplish it's job.
3.  kill the unit.
4.  lather, rinse, repeat.

At the operational/tactical level, this is called OODA:  Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
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Ah, hadn't realized that you wanted a tighter description than my usual Sun Tzu-isms.

Broadly speaking,
1.  Kill the enemy's AA
2.  Establish defensive killzones against Air Assaults (bounding overwatch)
3.  Use Air to kill enemy's artillery
4.  Now that Artillery is dead, use cover to close with and destroy the enemy by either pulling units out of line or by rolling a flank.

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@Hena:  I think that's an issue with the way the rules of the game make the army work, like how the 3e Tau were a Napoleonic gunline instead of a saber dance.

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"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

Indeed, Epic should match the background first and foremost.

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From my knowledge (I've been interested in Tau since they first came out and actually finished as the highest scoring Tau player in the 40K UKGT with 6th one year) Tau doctrine is to fall back in the face of the enemy and avoid direct and costly firepower duels.  Tau don't believe in holding ground, they'll quite happily surrender territory in the short term.  As they fall back they harrass the enemy and sting them and draw them in, while systematically picking off the enemy's supply chain, and ability to maneuver with long range railgun shots and guided missiles.  Once the Tau commander feels like they have the advantage they'll maneuver in for the kill, sending in kill teams of crisis suits, springing traps laid by stealth suits and Kroot and cadres of devilfish mounted fire-warriors supported by drones and Hammerheads.

Once the enemy has been crippled/destroyed they'll rapidly recapture the ground.

This was one of the reasons why the fury of the damocles crusade caught the Tau out, once it reached a major Sept world.  The Tau were forced to stand and fight Imperial style to defend their cities and would, most likely have had their asses handed to them had it not been for Hive fleet behemoth turning up.

So Tau doctrine has traditionally been:
- Territory is not important
- Draw the enemy in and systematically cripple his ability to fight while avoiding a direct stand up fight.
- Once the enemy has atrophied, unleash the killing blow.
- Once the enemy has been destoyed, advance back, re-capturing territory.

A good friend of mine once described fighting tau as like punching jelly.  The jelly flows around your fist with you doing little/no damage and all you get for your trouble is a wet hand.

You're right, but there isn't a whole lot of background *specifics* for how the Tau fight.

There's really a couple stories in the two Codecii, and then there's IA3.

Throughout most of IA3, the Tau are concentrating on hit&run, ambush-style engagements.  The Tau even ambushed the Marines at the Governor's Palace (after the Marines drop-podded in).

That type of battle is not necessarily a fun game for both sides.

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"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

That's the problem with all those fluff descriptions about them not holding ground yada yada. That's all the ideal situation for them.

In fluff they very rarely fight on their own worlds. And when they do all these lofty principles just stop applying.

As for IA3, I'd describe the fluff there as pretty bad. To say that Imperials weren't acting intelligently would be pretty charitable to them.

I dunno about that, most of the time the Imperium gets to fight in long battle-lines, WW2 style.  Any force that assumes it can fight according to it's preferred doctrines all the time is going to lose fairly often.  Honestly, how often do Imperial Forces win UNLESS they're fighting in WW1/WW2 lines in the background?

Honestly, IA3 sounds like the Imperial forces on the ground never figured out how to bring the Tau to battle, much like the US in Vietnam or the Russians in Afghanistan.

At any rate, we're wandering off topic again.

I agree with E&C that the Tau should be a 'Saber Dance' army, but we need to be careful:  Saber Dance armies can be very un-fun to play against.  I had people tell me that they didn't want to play my Crisis Horde in 40k because it wasn't fun for them.  I'd like to avoid that situation in the Epic version.

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