Sorry TRC, but not everyone is ultra competitive and frankly I'm glad. The set up allows you to do anything you want with this formation. Ultra Competitives can choose whichever way they want to go and so can non-UC's. Changing the Recon design to the way you would like it, means those people who aren't UC are then stuck with your proposal and unable to be free withtheir choices.

And that is definitely a fair point of view, but they shouldn't make everyone tow their line.

Well, the all Tetra formationis all I've ever used in the past. I find that their high attrition rate means that if I have an all-tetra formation I may just have some left after several turns of being shot at. Sure I don't get the long range missile attacks but over the course of a game I usually have a couple left to ML stuff if they haven't already been destroyed. I also use them for the scout ability to cover ground and block teleport zones - something you can't do with a 3/3 set up.


Yep, absolutely. As many have said in the past, some formations are not as good as others. It's not "ultra-competitive", it's just how lists are in some instances. It looks like it's done that way to give choice to those interested in fluff units or those not too worried about competition games.

But the lists are for tournament games, thats the whole point. This isn't the playing forum but the playtesting tau forum, that means coming at it from that angle.

Me playtesting and me playing are too different things.

As for teleport screens I prefer pathfinders, put out 8 disrupt shots as well on overwatch at 4+ which is on average a dead terminator and 5 blast markers. If they are silly enough to be crossfired, they are broken.

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Thick rear armour trumps your crossfire blueskin  

It trumps the -1 Save modifier, not the extra BM for first casualty.

Morgan Vening

Extra blast marker for the kill still breaks you tin can

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As i stated 1/5 fits the fluff more. Actually IF following Apocalypse it would be 1/10  

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Sorry TRC but this seems like another storm in a teacup to me.

I've played 4 games now with the new list. I've used the 3/3 split in every game. It's a very useful formation and I see no need to restrict it in any way.

All Tetra or all Pirahna formations just seems like someone is being a bit fussy to me (nothing personal and I know that you are a great source of playtesting).

I hope I've understood the meanings behind this thread... I've got a stinking head cold  

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I'm with Dobbsy here; the lists are for tournament style pointed gaming but they don't need to be optimised purely for ultra-competitive. If you choose to play that way fine, but lots (IMO possibly even most) players won't nor should the tournament lists be written to assume they would.

I think the Tetra/Piranha split as is is fine and should be kept, no change needed.

Ok, I think I understand your perspective now. I will certainly admit that I am not and will probably never be a UC type of player, e.g. I prefer to play my SM pure, no titans because I like them that way.

That being said, I don't at all mind using their tips to help me play better.  

So, I'll fiddle with the combinations a little and see how that works for me.



A very good point. However, at this time, I don't see making a change to this formation for the following reasons:

1. I don't see anything wrong with a formation being "tunable", if I could butcher the language so.

That allows players who find themselves in the rigor of tournament combat able to get the most out of their formations, i.e. be competitive. Competitiveness should not be discouraged.

2. On the other side of the coin though, are those players who "just want to have fun", to quote Cyndi Lauper.  

That too is not a bad thing. I also see leaving the formation as is, because the open format allows people to experiment with their lists. If you codify how the formation will be used, then you take any guesswork out of the formation and it now becomes as well defined as a pawn in chess.

Since my mindset is that too many restrictions result in stagnation, I don't want the list to have any more than it needs in order to remain balanced. I still believe that the Tau are very pragmatic and to my interpretation, that includes remaining flexible.

Now do we need to correct the typos? Absolutely, and that will be done.

But for now, I am comfortable leaving things as is until faced with evidence that we have an imbalance issue.

And for the record, this type of analysis that you've done, is extremely beneficial to the overall development of the list. As you point out and as I stated earlier, you look at lists differently than I do and most likely quite a few others because of how you use a list.

So my comments are not a rebuke of your discovery, in fact, I'm glad you've pointed this out. I hope other Tau players give it a look and try it in their games.

Cheers,

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I don't buy this.  Starting out this might be true.  However, comparing the formations after damage is equally important and I think it takes very little damage for the 2/4 combo to be equal to or better than 1/5.

Even before considering damage to the formation, with 2 Tetras and Scout coherency, you can afford to send a Tetra off to mark something up to 50cm from the rest of the formation.

Once you start considering what happens to the formation under light fire, pretty much all the advantages of 1/5 quickly disappear.  As soon as you have BMs you're suppressing Tetras and the firepower disparity quickly vanishes because the units aren't firing anyway.  Once there are actual kills, a lucky hit on the Tetra drops the firepower and/or target selection for the Piranha's precipitously.  They either lose AT and a substantial amount of their AP or they are forced to seek out targets marked by another formation.  Basically, if you kill a Tetra, 1/4 is better than 0/5 both for raw firepower and for flexibility.  Same thing for 1/3 v 0/4 and so on.

Finally, when you hit the point of heavy damage to the formation and their relative use late in the game, Scout and ML is going to be very valuable.  That one extra potshot from a Piranha might be quite valuable as well, but we all know how valuable that Scout ZoC is to last-minute objective grabs as you use it to block terrain and force the enemy to burn activations.  I'm betting that 2 Tetras or 1/1 is going to be more useful in the end game than 2 Piranhas in most situations.

So, for my points, I'd say optimal formations are 2/4 for the most direct engagement or 3/3 if you want to garrison.  I would take 1/5 (or maybe even 0/6) if I were planning to use the formation as a pseudo-arty and area denial against infantry.

Edit:  For that last role as pseudo-arty and area denial, I'd probably buy the upgrade and go with 1 Tetra (just in case) and 8 Piranhas.

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Markerlights can't be suppressed so if the tetra is suppressed its no problem.

Yes you could do that, however why would you? The 1/5 formation is a support fire formation, the Tetra is a backup in case all the other ML formations go down, then you use one of these, or if you wish to engage at 15cm with the 4(3)+ secondary weapon.

2/4 sacrifices firepower in a formation that will either be behind terrain 90cm away from the enemy, or acting as a back up ML formation to others.



And there is no reason to lose the tetra. It should be all the time in the back of the formation unless the formation itself goes mobile as a back-up ML.
BM's apply to any formation, once you start taking bm's and kills of course the firepower drops. Having 2 tetra further drops that firepower. This is a support hidden artillary unit, not a recon unit, its primary weapon is a 90cm AT weapon. The tetra is there for late game attrition, not use early on and certainly not marking the formation a target unless it has too.



And late game that Tetra should still be alive as unless your actual 3-5 'proper' ML formations have been pasted you still have markers bombing around.



I have to ask why else would you get a piranha formation? They aren't for recon, they are for long range fire and short range defence, at least those are their stats. On an advance they have a 50cm range hitting infantry in cover on a 4+, there is no reason to push them up, they are far better at reacting.

Also a general tau point upgrades are a waste of time in my view. With co-ord fire the list is the ultimate popcorn list with few of the draw backs, any time you need firepower its there. 3 1/5 formations can if needs be act as one with no drawback and cost the same as two 1/8.

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I think its not necessarily an imbalance issue - more looking ahead to a typical tourny army and what gets taken and what doesn't. Vindicators can be taken for fun too you know



Oh me too, certainly those sorts of ideas try and be viable for the sally army. Still though if I took that to a tourney I know I wouldn't win.

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With the above recon mix then being for flexibility, couldn't the pathfinder and firewarrior formation be mixed? Is it a similar thing (after all the recon formation is)? Wouldn't take much to balance the FW and PF against each other in the same formation.

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In which country TRC?

The one that would wipe the floor with the others Dobbsy

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