Thanks, who ever it was that brought this topic back again...
Good to see you back from your holidays Zombo.

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Is it a problem with the list though?

If the list is designed that the Tau are not good at engagements, then it is not the fact that the Tau do poorly in engagements that is a problem. The problem is that the Marines were able to catch half the Tau army in one engagement.

As has been pointed out, if the Tau had been the proactive army in the circumstances, those 1700 points of Tau would have been able to shoot a Heavy Tac formation to bits fairly easily.

Can you explain why you believe this is a problem?

I've already done that (many times) and even I'm getting sick of this subject right now.

Let's move on, nothing is going to change and there are too many loud voices in opposition to my thoughts.

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Sorry Onyx. I read back and found..

I understand.

No worries mate, it's all good.

What's next for the Tau everyone?

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Since the focus of the Tau will be, inevitably, shooting it seems. I feel this is a cogent question.

"Can X points of Tau outshoot X points of 'equivalent' from other armies?"

I'm not sure which other armies are really shooty, IG most likely fit the 2nd best mold. So that's the important question. Are Tau actually better at shooting than everybody else?

Well from one instance that I clearly remember doing so, Chroma and I tested a maxed out mech fire warrior formation in both an engagement and a shooting attack versus a large Ork formation. Both actions came out pretty even but with a minimal difference in results favouring assault actually.... That the Tau lost. That's not right for a shooty army and worse that the Tau were better in assault. Of course this was one instance and not re-tested several times.

Playtesting 6.3!

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If you treat the tau with a similar philosophy to other armies' double-tap to engage, but instead your first activation is to markerlight and gain crossfire and the second is to use fire warriors for a hammer blow results are excellent. Coordinated fire is useful in doing this with only one activation roll.

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Eh? Double-tap? keep in mind that I've only played two games of Epic, and it took me ages to find out what a 'clipping assault' was, much less whatever this double-tap maneuver is. It's also something to keep in mind when designing a list. Do you want to make it so hard to use that others, coming in from 40k with a Tau army, find themselves turned away because they have a hard time playing with it, as a noob?

Except that doing this then means those crossfire units (commonly a recon group) will be wiped out in your opponent's very next activation. It all depends on what you hit and what's nearby to react to your manouevre. In my experience I find opponents make sure they kill your recon units first to remove your ability to do this effectively. Engaging a recon unit in a clipping assault is a common tactic as the recon group has to be close to Markerlight the target and leaves them highly vulnerable to being broken or destroyed. In late game Tau really struggle to make any head-way. If you haven't smashed your opponent in the first turn or two you'll be pushing s%#^ up hill to win decisively.

Sounds about right to me. Tau don't do long-term attritional warfare, they strike then fall back. If their strike doesn't work, they'll get out of dodge.

Would allowing some form of fall back manoeuvre help protect the recon (and possibly pathfinder/stealth) groups from clipping assaults. Would give them the feeling of marking up for an attack then withdrawing as the enemy approaches?

(I assume clipping assault is where you only just get into FF range of the formation?)

Yep, which makes for quite dull gaming... Tau "get out of Dodge" when the 4th turn shows they haven't won their objectives, not because it's almost predetermined that they wont win post-turn 2. If my game is over because I didn't do what's needed in 1 or 2 turns then the list is completely incorrectly designed. I want a game to go to the wire every time. For instance....

"Oh I didn't win by second turn? Congratulations to my opponent. I concede."

I want a list that plays a whole game out thanks.

'Double tap' is slang for shoot something twice. Most armies do something along the lines of shoot and get in support range with first activation, then engage weakened target with the additionally supporting fire with the second.

Tau with one activation potentially with the co-ordinated fire ability get to double the first formation, markerlight the target and set it up for a crossfire for the second formation. The results are comparable due to the modifiers to hit and the -1 to the enemies armour save.

Something from the start for tau, in addition to not favouring assaults, is that they should manefestly be the most synistic and combined arms army, requiring multiple formations to work together to achieve total destruction of the enemy before things get to assault time.