tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1831276194138109948.post6310965932017431437..comments2024-03-28T10:14:58.693+00:00Comments on The Good the Bad and the Insulting: Tau Empire Part 2 - The Rules (Warhammer 40,000 Codex Review, 7th Edition)Bellariushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02652722543111095280noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1831276194138109948.post-47616520389590492572015-11-15T14:30:20.982+00:002015-11-15T14:30:20.982+00:00I'm inclined to agree to a point. It's a s...I'm inclined to agree to a point. It's a subject which has been getting worse over the last two editions at least, and while players usually had to actually know what they were doing to use the Tau Empire, they could hit far too hard. It really seems of late like they've taken a fast moving army with high firepower but little melee capability and just turned them more and more into the Craftworld Eldar. The two ideas might have always been close, but their sheer adaptability these days has gone through the roof. Even close combat isn't THAT much of a hindrance to them now with the metagame favouring long ranged engagements and things like the Ghostkeel packing a surprising punch. They just need to be tweaked a little more to keep them back on track, for the moment anyway.<br /><br />As for using a Heresy era army, you might actually be onto something there. I'll admit, that's one of the few areas we've not really tried to get into with play-testing these books, and often it's against your common or general tabletop force rather than anything Forge World related. The only ones we did find able to seriously hold out against them were those who could shrug off pinning or weather that general firepower, like the necrons or one or two combined lists involving the Mechanicus forces with someone else oddly enough. Dark Eldar can still also be a threat but they need to get in very close very quickly, and Khorne Daemonkin tend to only be a threat if they can spawn enough daemons while charging into battle. Even then that last one's kind of pot luck though;Bellariushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02652722543111095280noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1831276194138109948.post-42177183853060287032015-11-11T07:44:31.548+00:002015-11-11T07:44:31.548+00:00You know one thing I've never liked about the ...You know one thing I've never liked about the Tau? They're almost never all that fun to fight. I've never enjoyed winning a one-sided battle, and I don't enjoy losing one either, but at least I've never thought that they were just plain unbeatable (aside from being really lucky with the dice). The only way I can see me beating them now is using my Necrons and abusing their new durability (I'll sure need it) and just trying to gun them down before they gun me down.<br /><br />Maybe I'll break out my Death Guard, after all the new Codex's have become increasingly powerful to the point that they're pretty much at 30K's ridiculous power level, but I'll probably have to proxy my Death Guard as something else, like Iron Warriors since the Death Guard are as close to tailor-made to destroy the Tau as you can possibly get. <br /><br />They try pinning? The Death Guard are immune to Pinning. They try to outgun them? The Death Guard can have Heavy Support Squads (armed with things like poisoned frag grenades and missiles for dealing with high Toughness monsters in large units with other things like Drones) as Troops. The Tau go all in for infantry spam? The Death Guard have terminator HQ Character Units (as in characters who group into a unit so they only take up one HQ slot and get two wounds each), Terminators in Elites (the same unit), different Terminators in Heavy Support (also armed with poison weapons) and optionally regular Terminators as Troops. The Tau try to hide behind Cover? The Death Guard can bring guns that turn ground from open terrain/cover into Dangerous Terrain, while having the Move Through Cover rule on everyone so they aren't negatively affected and to top it off they can all inflict -1 to the enemies Toughness when they reach combat with a certain HQ unit able to inflict -3, meaning everyone T3 and lower simply dies the second he gets into combat (because they become T0) without him ever needing to fight.<br />I guess whether or not I will bring out the Death Guard depends on the next couple games that I play with other armies. If it goes the way I think it will then I guess I'll stop feeling guilty about using them.<br /><br />I think I should talk about what I like though, I like how they kept the Etheral as a buffer, and personally I see him working similarly to Psykers as not being that bad, mainly because I can't think of a better mechanic (it always seemed more in common with Imperial Guard orders then anything else).<br />I'm glad they found some use for the other aliens, personally I'd rather they'd branch out with that (why couldn't the breacher squads be some new aliens with the same rules for example).<br />I think Markerlights removing the BS of units they're put on is actually a good thing, so long as it's done in moderation, though I'm still not a fan of it reducing cover saves, especially with how cover works in the new edition, because it now means the Tau are literally shooting through solid objects to kill the things behind them.<br />Grouping drones together and requiring them to work with the army to be useful? I think that's a genuinely great idea.<br /><br />I guess the main problem I'm going to have with regular armies is that the Tau can literally be prepared for everything, so I legitimately have no idea how I'm going to win beyond luck. At least it does take thought to put the winning Tau army together though, rather than just pick units at random and expect the game to win itself for you.<br />grdaathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00722216755745063033noreply@blogger.com