FWs have defensive (Photon) grenades and plenty of training.  

Why have infantry armed with assault rifles and armoured for close range firefighting, if they're not going to be used as infantry for close in fire fighting? If they were all for purely long range shooting surely they'd have lighter armour to allow them to run away faster and great big honking rail rifles.

They just don't like it when things get too close (I.e. CC) and that's not because of training, that's down to physiology.

Another person on the local forum has said that Fire Warriors and Dire Avengers have similar short range Fire Fight abilities in 40K (although DA's are much better in an assault apparently).

Dire Avengers have FF4+ Extra Attack +1.

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

I'll say it one more time: 40k should be a rough guide, and where the background is different, or in this case much more detailed, than the 40k rules, then you follow the background for Epic, not the 40k rules.

Yes Fire Warriors are great at short range shooting in 40k... and an Ork boy is statistically more effective at shooting his pistol at medium range as a Guardsman is at shooting his laser rifle (two BS2 S4 shots versus 1 BS3 S3 shot... the Ork has a higher chance to hit, and a higher Strength on his weapon)...

...you cannot just number crunch your way to designing an Epic list, to quote Jervis on this very topic "that way lies madness".

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

As much as I might personally have liked Tau to have been developed from the beginning with good FF values - its a bit of a large change at this point isn't it.

Most of the points values and special rules would need changing (Co-ordinated fire for instance, if fire warriors have FF4+ - just becomes co-ordinate my 3 fire warrior formations into support fire range so when I retain and engage with my crisis I get insane support fire).

Most weapon stats in the list are also artifficialy stronger and longer range than they should be, that would need looking at in view of Tau being pretty good in an engagement.

Then there is just the basic points costs changes.

The suggestion of making Tau better but giving a -2 to engage just feels strange, effectively it makes these well trained soldiers really good at something but too stupid to actually do it.

To me and with crisis activating on a 1+ I would still try and work around it as the rewards are so great. Also something many people forget is an air assault isnt actually an engage its all part of the ground attack action, so that would need another sub modifier only applying to part of an an action, just messy.

_________________
Epic UK - Improving and Enhancing Epic Gaming in the UK
[url]http://epic-uk.co.uk/wp[/url]

Instead of quoting Jervis (who unfortunately, inadvertantly caused this problem) I'll quote myself.


Pg6 of this thread.

I'm not trying to turn Epic into 40K at a smaller scale. I'm not trying to slavishly convert stats.

I'm trying to find out if Fire Warriors really should be better at FF than they are in the present list. If I'm wrong I'll be quiet (it doesn't look like it so far in my research). If I'm right, and if Epic Tau Bat Reps shows that cetain Tau units need to have their FF improved (for both game play and accurate to the fluff) I'll continue to make my case until Honda says he's had enough of my banter.

Surely a good way to find this information out is to ask experienced 40K Tau players?

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

Under my proposal, the Crisis Suits would activate on a 3+ (obviously higher if there were BM's on the Suits). There is a reasonable risk in that.


Fair comment.


So your not a fan of Orks having modifiers to their activation rolls? There is basically no difference. The Tau preference to avoid close combat is nothing to do with being too stupid.


Fair comment again but not something that could be worked out if there was a desire to do so.

So the alternative to trying to fix the list now is to continue with a list that we all know isn't really indicative of how the Tau should play becuase it's too hard ("As much as I might personally have liked Tau to have been developed from the beginning with good FF values...", "Fire Warriors are better than Guardsmen at Engagements", etc).

I'd support E&C's ML idea if it meant that the Tau had a chance in Fifre Fights.

I'd support Morgan's idea aswell (if it could be made playable).

Anything is better than the artificial situation we find ourselves in at the moment. The last game I played where I lost over half my army, in one Fire Fight, for the loss of 1 Marine stand and 1 Land Raider has left a bad taste in my mouth (I rolled statistically acurate dice - it wasn't a lucky win by the Marines, the numbers are just wrong).

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

There is a differnece between the Orks and Tau though, orks are poor troops (init 3+) who are galvanised by certain situations into very very good troops (the chance of a punch up).

Tau would be good troops (init 2+) well trained and passionate about their cause who under alot of circumstances with FF4+ would do exactly the wrong thing - ie be in engage range with good FF and not actually engage, just makes them feel a bit stupid to me.

_________________
Epic UK - Improving and Enhancing Epic Gaming in the UK
[url]http://epic-uk.co.uk/wp[/url]

As yme-loc says, changing one FF stat at this stage would mean having to rewrite large sections of the list. Coordinated fire would have to go, and subsequently many points costs would need changing.

On top of that, I'm still not convinced FW should be FF4+, or that they're underpowered. I think right now they're one of the most consistently successful parts of the list.

If you make them good at engagements the army loses all flavour, and becomes eldar 2.0.

I completely understand that a direct comparison of 40k abilities makes you think better firefight it justified, but 40k is not that great at representing the background in many cases. Tau don't do attrition warfare, that's a well documented fact in the background. This means they will try to avoid geting themselves into a position where the enemy can shoot them on equal terms, (like a firefight), and if so caught will rather disengage themselves than try to duel it out. This means they won't all be focused on shooting the enemy; half of them will be running to safer area, half covering them etc. Because of this their FF will be diluted, so they won't be using their weapons to full effect.

Perhaps they should get some bonus to represent this caution in an assault, such as having hackdown hits halved after an assault or something, but they aren't straight up gunfighters.

Tau at the OK Coral would leg it for cover as soon as the shooting started.

_________________
http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

The Tau do have a chance in firefights... they're still better than Guardsmen in a Firefight.


It's not artificial, it's properly representing the background (read Zombocom's post above).

The "artificial" game is Warhammer 40,000, which is simply too "dumbed down" to be able to represent the kind of non-attritional stand-off warfare that the Tau engage in in the background.


I ran the numbers on that assault when you raised it the other day, and not only was it a lucky win on the part of the Marines (they should have lost 4-5 units, not 2), it was a huge tactical mistake on your part to have fully half your army intermingled and open to Engagement by the Marines (the best Engagement army in the game).

I would draw no balance conclusions from such a tactically unbalanced situation.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

*Edit - Quote: 
The Tau do have a chance in firefights... they're still better than Guardsmen in a Firefight.
Not if the Chimeras are placed up front (and why wouldn't they be). Then it's a total draw.

E&C, you are wrong on the stats unfortunately.
The Land Raider Crusaders were in front of the infantry so they received 2 hits each with the loss of only one Crusader (statistically accurate). The other 5 hits (I scored 9 nine total - statistically accurate) were placed on the 4 Marine stands and only 1 failed (2.5 should have failed).

*Edit - I've just been reminded that one of the other Marines stands failed it's Armour save but it was the Supreme Commander and it made it's Inv Save.
Anyone who looks closely at the Tau force you would realise that the entire force was being transported by the Manta and disembarked as part of the Assault. No accidental leaving formation intermingled.

It wasn't a great deal of luck that won the assault and I expected to lose the assault once it began (as I have mentioned many time). My point is that the Tau should be doing more damage at this range. You obviously agree with that statment or you would have made your ML FF4+ proposal.

And lowering yourself to criticise my tactics is not helpful to giving your argument weight.

I think I'll wait now and see what Honda has to say.

I believe I've made a good case for my opinion which has included game play examples and anecdotal evidence from 40K (I'm not basing my argument on 40K stats, just getting guidance from them to help Tau forces play true to their fluff).

I'm yet to be convinced that I'm 100% wrong and indeed many have stated that the Tau need to be improved in some way (it just seems that, as usual, we can't fully agree on a method).
My own game experiences (in over 10 games in recent months using Tau) also lead me to believe that, in certain areas of the Epic Armaggedon system, the present Tau list underperforms quite badly.

I fully understand if Honda says no thanks.
It is late in the day for such changes. Unfortunately, under this list, Engagements will will hold no fear for competent opponents whilst Fire Fighting a Tau Fire Warrior Cadre or a Crisis Cadre, should be a dangerous proposition. Epic doesn't work well with artificial stat nerfing to try and portray army psychology/physiology. There are more elegant ways of dealing with this situation.

Tau at the OK Coral would leg it for cover as soon as the shooting started as long as they weren't defending a place/person of importance. Tau fluff is full of Tau bravely defending specific situations. Defending the Ethereal from the Eversor attack in IA3 is one. The defence of Fio'vash (Tau codex 2001 pg53) is another.

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

Heh, and they totally failed at that defence, come to think of it. BOOM!  

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

They still tried...    

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

As I stated in an earlier post in this thread my opinion is the same as yme-loc we should try and develop the list with its current constraints rather than try to change things which will have a very large knock on effect.

Onyx: How do you use FW's? If you put the FW's within 30cm of 1 AP target in an opponents formation the 90cm shot will stretch the range to cover the entire formation. This should limit the number of units able to FF in a responding engagement. FW's as noted are actually not bad in FF and should be able to deal with the APC's which should be the only units that are able to close to FF range. I realize that when your opponent moves to within engagement range you can't and has a higher strategy rating you can't always avoid the engagement but if you clump 3 formation together for mutual support, don't get too close on turn 1 and attack the flanks of your opponent you should be able to minimize engagement opportunities.

My losses with the Tau list have mainly been due to bad luck or bad play not because I feel the list is in some way deficient. It is the job of the player to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of a list and then play in a manner which emphasizes this. So stay at long range till turn 3, neutralize artillery and AA in turn 1 and the Tau should do fine.

Also I'm not sure the list as a whole is underpowered one construction on paper seems overpowered as zombo discussed with us on Monday. I came up with:

9 Recon
2 FW with Skyray
1 FW with Skyray and bonded team
Ax-1-0
2 Barracuda

15 activations 3000 points

This comment is not to say that certain bits of the list are not underpowered and/or over pointed. Crisis Suits, HH's, Stealth Suits, Gun Drones, TS and the Skysweep formation being the main areas of concern IMHO.

Think of it as being more their over-reliance on simulation and interdependancy between cadres makes them reluctant to commit themselves, they certainly train heavily for firefights (there's several examples of Firefight training in the Battledomes on Vior'la, which seems exclusively for this sort of thing) but are always told to think of the big picture. Commiting to engage an enemy in a Firefight means to enter a very unpredictable environment whilst putting yourself into a position where you aren't going to be able to come to, or really draw on the aid of another cadre. They're not stupid, but they won't commit to a Firefight without updating the coalition command on their situation and requesting more detailed intel on the area they are about to engage in.

Surely the fact that Firewarriors are armoured to protect themselves from small arms fire, rather than long ranged anti-infantry weapons also shows that they are fully willing to get close to the enemy (compare the armour a Firewarrior wears compared to a Pathfinder) rather than just hang back at range.

[edit]Just chiming in more for the background argument (since there seemed to be people saying the Tau don't like to get into close quarters combat, rather than just hand to hand), it's been a while since I'v played (v4.4 I think!) but as we're getting back into Epic I have to say I do like the feel of the differing requirements for activation.

What a scary thought and dull game I don;t know who would like it. oh bar all those starfleet battles guys