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[nenjin]

It's ironic for me because I've never had a 40k dream, despite trying. Then this just popped up out of the blue.

[Telgin]

I finally had a chance to play 8th edition some, and won / was on the winning team for both games I was part of.  Much to my surprise, my shooty marines were significantly outshooting my brother's tau army, which he believed was optimized to be anti-marine since he had lots of plasma and fusion weapons.  I was inclined to agree, at least until the battle was underway.

His biggest issue was that his weapons were fairly short ranged.  I had lots of heavy bolters and a few lascannons, and outranging him made a big difference, especially when heavy bolters can chip away his battlesuits.  It didn't help that he has cursed dice.  Both of us used the same dice so we were both disadvantaged, but when I'm rolling 6 dice for a twin heavy bolter, rolling a few 1s doesn't hurt nearly as much as when a model only gets 1 fusion shot and rolls a 1.  Or rolls a 1 on the wounding roll.

The beta rules for marines and bolters also feel kind of cheap.  For no increase in point costs, marines can rapid fire at max range if they don't move, and vehicles can do it regardless.  Since I had lots of storm bolters, I got lots of extra shots...

[nenjin]

Sounds like the lesson I learned in WHFB. It doesn't matter what your armor saves are, or how much toughness you have, it's hard not to roll enough wounds to kill fucking everything when you're shooting 60 Goblin Short Bows at a time.

[Tack]

Well in this case the Tau should outnumber the marines, but honestly Tau plasma is quite awful now. S6 exists in a strange void where it’s uses are only against death guard or light vehicles.

[Grim Portent]

Plasma and Fusion makes me think Crisis Suits were being used, both of which I recall being poor in this edition due to how much the base suit costs before weapons. A team of them is far less useful than Fire Warriors which easily outperform marines under most circumstances.

Commanders are far more cost effective carriers of the same weapons, able to cram as much firepower as a team for less points at greater accuracy.

My friend who plays Tau mostly uses Fire Warriors, a couple of Riptides and a Stormsurge for heavy weapons and they vaporise marines.

[Tack]

Currently trying to make a Tau kill team list and I've only just realized that a mix of suits and soldiers actually just gives the enemy a target to push their plasma and things at.

Wondering if I should stick to breachers, finders and fires, or just stealths and crises.

[Telgin]

Plasma and Fusion makes me think Crisis Suits were being used, both of which I recall being poor in this edition due to how much the base suit costs before weapons. A team of them is far less useful than Fire Warriors which easily outperform marines under most circumstances.

Yeah, he had a squad of 3 crisis suits plus some drones, which I seem to recall managed to kill 4 marines throughout the entire game before they were killed by a combination of overcharged plasma shots and a dreadnought's assault cannon.  I'm certain it wasn't an equal trade in points.

[Tack]

It's been said that Tau are highly competitive in the current meta, but a friend said a podcast said that they are 'Neither fun to play as nor to play against', because no matter who shoots at what, drones are all that will die.

[Grim Portent]

It's been said that Tau are highly competitive in the current meta, but a friend said a podcast said that they are 'Neither fun to play as nor to play against', because no matter who shoots at what, drones are all that will die.

That's been my experience against my friend. Riptides running around with shield drone bodyguards, every character bubble wrapped and buffing multiple units.

The only thing I can generally kill without having to more or less completely abandon my preferred melee armies is a Coldstar Commander he uses to try and take out stuff from my backfield.

[LordPorkins]

Yeeeaah. Tau are REALLY unfun.They basically skip 3 phases of combat (4 if they don’t move, which is likely) and they still curb stomp you.

Then again I play Orks. So I might be a bit bias. Though I do love fighting guard. So who knows

[Telgin]

It's been said that Tau are highly competitive in the current meta, but a friend said a podcast said that they are 'Neither fun to play as nor to play against', because no matter who shoots at what, drones are all that will die.

The drone thing was definitely happening in the two games I played.  I still don't fully understand the rules for how drones' savior protocols work, but if I remember right it's kind of cheesey because you can allocate a wound on them that they get a feel no pain save against, so they are effectively as tough as whatever you're shooting at and serve as ablative wounds.  Seems like it would make more sense for them to have a fixed stat line that the owning player had to use for them taking hits, and had to allocate the hits before rolling wounding or saves.

Actually, you can target the drones directly as a different squad I think... maybe next game I'll just heavy bolter spam the drones first instead of trying to chip the battlesuits to death with them and watching as the drones eat the hits anyway.

I probably also got lucky because my brother kept accidentally moving his units out of savior range for the drones, so he ended up wasting them to save pathfinders more than once instead of his suits.

[Tack]

Well, only shield drones get the FNP, but shield drones also have a 4++ which makes them tough(er) to clear off with massed fire.

But yeah the weirdness of the rule is that first you have to wound the actual target (So if you're lascannoning a broadside you need a 3), but before damage it gets shunted off to the drone. So heavy weapons turn into a single mortal wound on drones, making it tough to take out those T5 broadsides with anything else.

I personally think either Crisis suits need to be T4 or broadsides need to be T6, because the size discrepancy is super noticeable now that they aren't just re-kerjiggered crisis suits.

[sprinkled chariot]

So far only effective and cheap drone removal I have found is cadian wyverns( for dat sweet 4d6  rerolling to wound  no los requiring  cheap dakka)/ mortar teams

[Telgin]

Had another game and my brother won with the tau this time, although it was pretty close.  He swapped out some weapons on his riptide to add missiles and a burst cannon, and things went more in his favor.  8th edition definitely seems to be a case of more shots = better.  It didn't help me that the burst cannon did 2 damage per shot somehow, so it was mowing down my terminators.

I think I see the value in command points now too.  This time I switched out my army to use a spearhead detachment instead of the brigade detachment, meaning I had less command points.  I've been using orbital bombardments before but didn't have the points this time, and really wish I did.  The orbital bombardment seems like something that probably looks better on paper than it actually performs, but the few times I've used it it did a surprising amount of damage.

[sprinkled chariot]

Had another game and my brother won with the tau this time, although it was pretty close.  He swapped out some weapons on his riptide to add missiles and a burst cannon, and things went more in his favor.  8th edition definitely seems to be a case of more shots = better.  It didn't help me that the burst cannon did 2 damage per shot somehow, so it was mowing down my terminators.

I think I see the value in command points now too.  This time I switched out my army to use a spearhead detachment instead of the brigade detachment, meaning I had less command points.  I've been using orbital bombardments before but didn't have the points this time, and really wish I did.  The orbital bombardment seems like something that probably looks better on paper than it actually performs, but the few times I've used it it did a surprising amount of damage.

He used riptide- one of really really cost effecient units.
You used terminators, who are ughhh, and they are from faction, which is in ughhh place in current meta.