Tau Requests Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

ITT Requests and player thoughts on the Tau Empire faction.

The discussion taking place in the comments section of the main mod page shows that a lot of players (including myself) don't feel that Tau are a balanced race in the 1.71 version. Their firepower is incredibly powerful, preventing races even reaching them in melee (the only real hope of beating such ranged power).

I'd posit that the Tau empire are supposed to have superior range, as is currently the case, however the damage output requires addressing. A possible recourse to this would be to reduce initial damage output for fire warriors and battlesuits, and if necessary reintroduce their current damage as expensive later tier upgrades. For instance, the broadside battlesuits provide very high all-target damage at an early stage in the game relative to all other races - introducing a lower base damage for these units, then providing upgrades for their weaponry later on á la the Fire Warrior's plasma gun upgrades is a conceivable balance fix. Such upgrades would ideally be rather expensive given the very high potency of these units with full damage. Similarly, an increase in price for the current fire warrior/stealth suit upgrades may help correct balance. It is currently more expensive to give guardsmen heavy weapon cap increases than it is to increase the range and damage for the best ranged unit in the game (Heavy weapon IG tech - 100req, 100pow, Tau Plasma rifle upgrade 50req, 100pow).

Just some points for consideration.

I have made it clear in previous threads that i'm 100% behind the idea that Tau need some form of weakening to make the game balanced but keeping their range dominance clear. I like the idea of making it higher tiers for the power of suits and fire warriors to come in later. Something drastic needs to be done cause I think pretty much everyone except people who only use Tau realise that they are overpowered. Another way they could be weakened is making their units more specific as in the first battlesuits are only good against infantry unless you want to give them a weapon upgrade? But tbh i prefer your idea.

First off, i apologize for starting a discussion on the comment section, i had hoped someone would just say how they are OP(it was the morning and i was half-asleep), thinking carefully that's not likely to happen.
to clear things up with my comment:
1. when i was talking about melee, i was referring to tau units that are tau not their allies the kroot or vesbids,
2. since you say that only those who play only tau don't notice, figure i would mention that i play all races apart from orcs and tyranids

I never noticed that tau were OP in terms of damage since i could take them out with fast melee units. well as long as they're not nerfed to the point that their ranged damage no longer balances out their melee weakness. I like the idea of the need for research to upgrade the units firepower.
maybe bring back the split tier pathways(tau tanks or kroot allies, again forgot the building names) that way it forces you to choose between melee power and range power, maybe make that one way grants you the relic unit(big dino thingy, forgot the name) and the other grants the mako titan. the one thing i miss the most though is the entrenchment ability for the broadsides, maybe add it back so you need to micro-manage the units more and can't they can't be moved around so much.

maybe i don't notice because i'm the type of player that waits for everyone/every AI(specially the necrons) to start sending max tier units and wins by a hair's breath away from death with a small rag-tag band of units, well half the time.

Let´s settle this down:
Tau are OP early game. AND if they get like a vagillion Skyrays.

First of all; Tau has been OP since the nominal Vanilla game, as they had the most versatile tier 1 unit: The Doomed Fire Warrior Squad. It´s overall efectiveness as a solo-operation squad is remarcably increased by the rather early range & damage upgrade avaible instantly as soon as the research lab is completed. Tau Squads in general are weak melee-melee but are otherwise more stronger than any other race in game (considering their massive ranged avantage mid-late game). The kroots are there for a purpouse. One thing is true: TAU CAN BE DEFEATED. UNDOUBTFULLY. In order to kill a Tau player... whilst you might consider it impossible while charging in with your 100 Tyranid Melee Units and watching them all die from a range of 17 meters of a massive rain of plasma-supersonic rounds, it is indeed possible to kill an unsuspecting Tau player by using certain techniques:
-Melee Ambush- This strategy consists of getting as many powerful & resistant melee units as fast as possible to the main Tau Base/ Main Army checkpoint; whereas you´ll win surely with a carefully planed attack & army coordination. use as many spells & casts as you can whilst on the battle. If possible, you could use your MAX lvl commander as a tank for your incoming melee army.
-"Blitzkrieg" Assault Stike (Lighting Coordinated Assault)- Consists of getting an steady & efficient army of both SIEGE/ASSAULT TANK vehicles & A decent combination of melee/ranged units. If the Tau player doesent have enough RailGuns, you could hope to win almost instantly. Although in this case, this strategy´s main objective is to send your melee units first and use your mobile ranged & vehicular army as an back-up for your otherwise already dieing frontline units. If the Tau manages to repel the initial melee frontal attack you could rely on more heavily siege-focused builds.
-"Thunder Strike Planned Combined Assault" This strategy is heavily dependant on constant micro-managing and worker dancing. Only to be used by experienced players with lots of skill at coordinating a combined assault... It essentially consists of grabbing a small army at the beggining of the game to initiate an inmediate "Thunder" assault against the otherwise unsuspecting Tau forces. If this gets scouted, however, your doom is inminent. The initial assault should include a fast commander and a fully reinforced Tier 1 Ranged/Melee squad and all your workers to hope to defeat the enemy. (In this case 4-5 workers are needed to effectively dance around Tau unit´s fire) This pretty much is the killing blow to the Tau forces. ONLY WORKS FOR RACES WITH A RESISTANT BUILDER

megablackste I like your idea of the entrenching battlesuits as that would solve some problems and prevent them jetpacking away the battlesuits. I mentioned the kroots because they are available to all tau right now. (Also the relic unit was the greater knarloc)

Darth Caesar why do I have to do some ridiculous strategies to stand a chance of defeating a Tau?

Lets dissect all your strategies....
Melee ambush: Who actually has resistant melee to the tau battleuits? And how can i sneak an army past their army seeing as they have invisible units and on a lot of maps thats impossible. The way that would be slightly possible is with jetpack units which suck against buildings.

Blitzkrieg assault strike: why do i have to sacrifice my entire army to stand a chance at defeating a tau army on the off chance that they don't have enough rail guns, that's just ridiculous.

Thunder strike planned combined assault: I don't even know where to start on how ridiculous this strategy is. IF my army is spotted my doom is imminent, tau has invisible units! dance workers round tau fire, thats just ridiculous and impossible this isn't an fps. Also what are these workers hoping to achieve? and by the time I have a full squad tier 1 unit, they aren't going to have an upgraded listening post?

Please tell me if i'm wrong about any of this but it brings me back to the point why should I have to do ridiculous strategies to defeat a tau player?

Also to do with the split pathways, who is actually going to pick the melee pathway when the ranged pathway is just so powerful, whenever i've played as tau i have'nt even bothered using melee cause i just don't need them when i have so many battlesuits as they would be a waste of cap. I just use them as an example of how tau do have melee.

Also to add to what I said to Darth Caesar any startegy based on luck or the other player messing up is not a strategy.

Edited by: monkeynut

i agree with monkeynut, those strategies are ridiculous and over-the-top.(side note: i had the right letters for the greater knarloc...just forgot the order)

to start with a tyranid and maybe even an orc 'zerg rush' would be a perfectly acceptable(providing you have the resources) plan, even when faced with disruptive weaponry, you can push past and take them out(specially if you micro-manage a jump assault). hell, even IG can pull it off with a mass armored assault(one reason i like playing them).

seriously though...those strategies are way too 'extreme', thanks to jazz and monkeynut i'm starting to understand how the tau are OP(well, i think anyway).
but darth caesar, the way you talked in your post just makes me think that the tau are godly and that the fire warriors can take out a titan which they're not and can't. no offense but it just sounds like your no good at fighting tau. i guess that the term 'dancing' meant using the workers as a meat shield, but why do that, if you want to take them out right at the start(whats the point of the battle then) just rush them with tier 1 units while they are still building or have 1 or 2 fire warrior units(given you know the location of the base).

slightly off topic: this thread/topic gave me an idea of what to do next game - tau(me) + IG v necron , IG are just for fodder so i can turtle up, gonna go hardest difficulty and see how long i can last on the defensive against necron at max tier after all it should come down to OP+fodder v OP (probably have game enders off)

Edited by: megablackste

To be honest, worker dancing is what is is. Dancing. You esentially dance your workers to absorb enemy fire or either to distract the enemy whilst your main army attacks the Tau. And as for the strategies that i posted concerns... They´re just my personal strategies. It doesen´t mean they´ll work at all times. Infact, I did them in some games and I won them, so I realized I´d post them here to show that the Tau arent unstoppable. I didn´t even make them look like "godly" because that´s rather something silly. The main concern here about the both of you is that you can´t stop a combined force of Fire Warriors & Battle Suits. Those strategies don´t actually mean you have to do them. I personally tried some of those against a more-than decent Tau player and both he & me did well. The point is, You can develop your own strategies to defeat something or someone. It´s not like I only play Tau And Tau because I don´t. I don´t say they are an balanced race. They are OP. The fact that monkeynut said that the Armored Division battle win consists of Tau Anti-Armor Battlesuits & Vehicles. If they don´t have them (Which in any case, they will or may not, depending on what tipe of strategy they use or rely on; which in pretty much any game they´ll have atleast some of them, but when they dont have enough... It´s when this strategy comes kicking in.) simply because it´s their main Anti-Armor weaponry, and if they don´t have any (or either not enough Anti-Armor Units) they would loose easily to the combined force assault. None of those strategies consist of sacrificing your entire army nor luck, but rather careful planning, attack coordination & micromanaging. Tau battlesuits can be approached in melee range as long as you have your main army backing up your charging melee units. (This strategy was developed ESPECIFICALLY for jetpack melee units) In the case that you don´t have an back-up support ranged army is just ridiculous because you would end up sacrificing yourself completely due to the massive ranged advantage of the defenders. And as for the ultimatum listening post finishes you could start melta bomb research right away. Still, none of these strategies WERE DESIGNED TO WIN EXACTLY ON HOW THEY ARE WRITTEN. You must have another strategy if you hope to win, even if you did any kind of strategy and killed like all of his workers, plasma gens, or captured like half of the map. I think that was the main problem here. You both thought i posted those strategies to inmediattly win thereforeafter, but to be honest, you must always back up any kind of plan or strategy you have with another one, this one is completely up to you. And the fact that I posted them here personally, doesent mean you have to do them at ALL. I just posted them, because I tend to do those as a basis for my nominal strategy, which is in no way the little text you just saw from me. I should point out, that most of the times, these strategies wont end up killing your oponent after you use them as a BASIS for your own personal strategy, but rather to serve as a crippling & harrass factor.

@DarthCaesar: your tactics are so crazy I can't even be bothered to address them ^^ all I will say is dancing workers? lol wut. They will get killed almost instantly and is a waste of building time. However I appreciate you trying to give advice and understand you do agree they're overpowered

I agree with what monkeynut and Jazz-Sandwich have been saying. My main point is the battlesuits health and damage needs to be reduced. Because as of right now its extremely difficult to get close to them (especially with the jet pack ones that just kite you into more fire!!!) and if you do manage to get into melee combat it will take you an age to bring them to half health by which time you will have already been shredded by the other units in the area firing at you.

To address the melee issue, the kroot carnivors and kroot hounds etc are more than capable (thanks to speed, damage and health) of keeping the opponents melee units occupied. Therefore I disagree with any claims that the Tau faction overall "sucks at melee" because every faction has their melee units and their range units.

I do have to agree that there is no clear or specific strategy/advice that is there to defeat the Tau. Infact, some of them even are completely race-specific, but they don´t really end up working in the end. The important factor of them entirely depends on what your enemy is going for at the early-mid game as then you could develop some kind of strategy that could target it´s main army´s weakness, my strategies, in general, depend entirely on this factor. Still, none of those strategies can make an rather easy/unexpected approach, as the Tau are extremely OP since the Vanilla game, due to their rather obnoxious early upgrades and ultra-powerful ranged dominance, aswell as their stealthy nature in both early-mid and sometimes even late game (although in a reduced factor)

Somethings that I´d like to see changed from the Tau:
-Late Skyray tech-, in this case it could be moved to Mont´Ka tech and then, it could only be build if you have a relic captured. It´s range and overall damage is way too offset. (Another option would be to keep it on it´s current tech, but with massive nerfs applied to it)
-Tau Range-Damage Upgrades- It should cost more, and take more time to research. In the way that this upgrade is currently working is completely game breaking.
-Stealth Suit Stealth Upgrade- This addition could mean a huge vulnerability issue to rushes for Tau early game, but it´s otherwise an upgrade that should be taken in consideration, because it´s the only race in the game that has an instantly-cloacked tier 1 unit.
-Build Times- Some of their units are produced way too fast, considering how OP this race is, it could mean that increasing the mainly imba units production rates could also be useful (in certain cases).
-Battle Suit Battle Mode-Ranged Mode- This is something that has already been suggested, but in this case, i´m taking in consideration on how the battlesuits work on FoK. First of all, they have an "Ranged-Assault" mode, which is their otherwise weak anti-air/morale suppresion mode whereas they shoot a couple of missile barrages for average damage and knockback. Their other mode is the "Engaged" mode, focused mainly on destroying highly powered buildings/vehicles but don´t do much to overall infantry, rather than an decent knockback and morale damage.
-Split Paths Of Ascension- This is otherwise a good idea originally written by megablackste, but with different results: Either you choose Mont´Ka (The Killing Blow) or Kauyon (The Way Of The Patient Hunter)---- The Mont´ka path is specifically aimed towards the heavy use of mobile support and vehicles whilst the Kauyon path consists more on advanced infantry tactics and lighting-fast attacks. Mont´Ka essentially aims for Vehicular & Mobile Support dominance in the battlefield, giving the Tau player access to all kinds of battlesuits, vehicles and minor support units aswell as all of their aerial vehicles, whilst Kauyon grants the Tau army with their beloved stealth suit infiltration tactics, all of their infantry avaible at their disposal, all of their kroot allies and a special bonus when fighting in melee range and overall accuracy when an late-game upgrade is completed. (This one is a global upgrade for all of the Tau) Both of the paths have the Ethereal in them. (In this case, the Ethereal would bring special bonuses when built with the Mont´Ka path, granting morale invulnerability for battlesuits, a little more accuracy for missile strikes and minimal health regeneration for all Tau vehicles and battlesuits)
-Infantry Castes- This one consists of Tau units (only infantry and kroots) increasing in power as more of the ranks that you research become avaible for use. At first, Tau units and kroots (Not vehicles or battlesuits, as they have 0 effect on them) begin as weak, but otherwise cheap to build units that are avaible at the start of the game. But then, when the research lab is finished, you can opt to research these upgrades for your units to become increasingly powerful overtime, finishing with the last upgrade that makes them more accurate, more deadly and more resistant, more effective in melee fights as well as much more morale-resistant (this last one is the late-game research, costing lots of req and power) .
These would be the ranks that could be included in each research: (Just a suggestion)
- ´Saal (Cadet)- Effects- Average health increase & range increase.
- ´La (Warrior)- Effects- More health, an increase to morale, a slight increase to sight range and a slight increase to ranged damage.
- ´Ui (Veteran)- Effects- More damage, accuracy and melee damage.
- ´Vre (Hero)- Effects- More morale, more range, defensive bonuses when several kroot or tau allies are present and a slight fire rate increase.
- ´El (Knight)- Effects- More accuracy, more health, more morale resistance, more sight range, much more ranged damage.
- ´O (Commander)- Effects- Much more health, much more accuracy, much more morale, more sight range, knockback resistance, offensive bonuses when several other Tau/Kroot units are nearby and much more efficiency at melee combat, an slight increase in ranged damage and an armor increase for all Tau infantry units (except kroots, battlesuits, vehicles)
Each rank upgrade would increase in cost and research time, for balance purpouses (They would also need their respective tech structures too). Those are my overall opinions on how the Tau Infantry system could become different if these upgrades were in the game. ^^ Although, I could also suggest that as you progress through the upgrades Tau infantry & kroots would become more expensive than they were at the start of the game, for balance purpouses.

Edited by: RoyaLSynteK

megablackste wrote: First off, i apologize for starting a discussion on the comment section

Don't apologise mate, a discussion on such a thing is always enjoyable - for me at least, providing everybody remains civil.

monkeynut wrote: Please tell me if i'm wrong about any of this but it brings me back to the point why should I have to do ridiculous strategies to defeat a tau player?

Define ridiculous? I'm firmly against the idea that there should be a 'one size fits all' approach to any setup. What I like about this mod is that the wealth of extra units affords players to have completely distinct strategies, even within the same race. You should never have an overall strategy that will win you the game if you aren't paying attention to what the enemy is doing, much like in a chess game. What needs to be addressed is balance when a faction has such a strategy, as is currently the case with Tau. I've found that once a player has fire warriors and broadsides backed up with gun drones, maybe throw some skyrays in; they've won.

I'm intrigued by the prospect of re-introducing the split tech-tree approach. However, perhaps at an earlier stage? Mont'ka and Kauyon were late game decisions, and often competitive games would never last that long. Such a decision at the start - as with Chaos - may be an interesting direction to take Tau. It may not have to be so divisive; choose between primarily Tau with limited kroot auxillaries, or primarily kroot with limited tau support, rather than only one or the other. Tau are currently a race that have units that can excel at any role, other races tend to have tactics strong in one role but weak with another. Let's take the Imperial Guard example; consistently strong at ranged, very weak once you close in. You can have Ogryns, but their deal is damage resistance rather than damage output really, and they have a prohibitively high squad cap, then you have your commanders. Tau, on the other hand, have their fabled strong range, but have a kroot command squad with no cap, have a relic unit for melee PLUS a relic unit for range, have krootoxes to tank, have kroot hounds for high melee damage output, and finally have vespid as jump troops. You can have all of your bases covered, while other races need to play with a particular strength.

Of course, apart from nerfing Tau another possible recourse would be to ensure that all races have dedicated units for different strategies, but that would sort of ruin the fun of strategising accordingly as well as robbing the races of their uniqueness.

Then there's the balance by expense option! I personally think this is the way to go. Divide the power amongst tech upgrades, and make particular offending units more expensive / have a limit / higher squad cap. Although I would argue that having a tech upgrade for each Fire Caste rank as Darth Caesar proposed may be a tad excessive.

Finally, I would strongly oppose the idea of making stealth suits visible by default. These units are tremendously weak to start off, making them visible is just overkill. Have you ever seen a scouting unit come along, wait for the stealth suit to finish capping the strategic point, then take it as soon as it's finished? The stealth suit can do absolutely nothing with it's tiny damage output. These units in particular should not be nerfed, not at the early stage at least.

Well, the stealth suit upgrade could be dumped indeed. I was thinking of maybe an ability that made them invisible for like 30-35 seconds and then recharge for a cooldown of about 12-18 seconds, and then the upgrade that wouldn´t cost that much and that would be avaible for Tier 1 right away. Anyway, the balance by expense is probably, as Jazz said, the most proeficient option that there would be to make The Tau balanced. But still, I have no idea on how this sistem would work. I actually posted an idea of the "ranks" that are somewhat crazy I know, but they otherwise make the Tau units more expensive overtime when you finish researching each upgrade. Still, the massive advantage that the Tau infantry would have in the end of researching all those Ranks would be a little bit overpowered. Maybe it would work based on what the current upgrades are? The ranks are a good idea, but they would need some polishing, however. Also, as a compensation for the lack of permanent invisibility super early game, there could be another upgrade that would make them a little bit more powerful or with a little bit more of range. (Although in this case, only as a slight addition to their already set-base weapon damage and overall range)

Edited by: RoyaLSynteK

I personally never liked the fact that your units could not detect enemies that are shooting them point-blank range(unless they can detect cloak). so rather then making cloak have a duration, why not just make so if they are standing toe to toe with an enemy unit then the cloaked unit would be revealed(I've seen this in a mod before). this is actually more directed at chaos who can have almost their entire army cloaked.

@darthcaesar - are you referring to the tau stealth unit alone having a time limited stealth or for every stealth unit?

The only thing i'm concerned about if the tau do get nerfed is that they lose their race uniqueness which is range superiority(got to love that word) which is why i like the idea of upgrades as reducing the initial damage and range(or whatever it is that's the problem) will fix the problem but are still compensated for the reduction in mid-late game. I'm not quite sure how i feel about the ranking system though.

maybe instead needing to build the chosen building and then researching to go down the path, have a 'pre-teaching' which will be either of the 2(locking out the non-chosen building). this would mean you will still need to research the teaching of mont'ka/kauyon later game but allows the player to make a decision at the start.

@megablackste Yeah, I was referring only to the Tau Stealthsuit. Still, the idea of the chosen paths is quite interesting, but it would have to be tested out, to ensure balance.

Increase req pwr and pop costs of battlesuits. They have far too many abilities to really consider attempting a nerf on the actual units themselves, and it would take away from the substance of the race. Tau should be at least balanced around the concept of being "flexible on a unit basis", considering many of the units have escapes and firepower or something in between. All about costly lightning counters instead of watching your shit get overrun with 50+! battlesuits. I would even say buff some of the unit aspects if the increases are drastic and increasing pop cost. Alternatively add some more tech requirements for using some of the battlesuits.

also kroot need more shit in general going on. Is it possible to add a "wargear scavenge" function to cannibalism? Like 35 percent chance to obtain a random one handed weapon melee or ranged.

Edited by: theshodan

@darthcaesar - i know tau get stealth right at the start but unless you mean they need to do more research to perm stealth then its slightly unfair since almost every other race(i think) has at least 1 stealth unit.

@theshodan - interesting idea, basic make it quality over quantity. for the kroot, about the idea of 'wargear scavenge', how would this work? would it show them using and holding different weapons?

At like Tier1 they have the possibility of picking up base weapons avaliable to other t1 squads like bolter pistols/chainswords and T2 gives way to power weapons and then at Tier3 they will have a chance to pick up power fists or equivalent wargear (powerfists does sound stupid realistically though). But i think all the percentages should stack so T1 scavenges stand at 35 percent, T2 at 20, and T3 at 15. Considering the wargear is lost upon model death this shouldn't be too OP or anything.

Tier1 weapons include laspistols, bolter pistols, chainswords, tau pulse pistols, shuriken pistols, etc. as long as they are one handed

Edited by: theshodan

some of the problems could be:
1. they would need to make animations of the kroot holding and using the weapons, which may take a lot of time(this is purely an assumption, I could be wrong)
2. chances are they would not know how to/be unable to operate some weapons (Bolters/bolt pistols have a scanner type system in the handle so only those that match the scan can operate it(such as space marines, again i may be wrong about the bolt pistol).

anyway i had a game of 5 race free-for-all with tau(me), IG, orcs, Chaos and necron. the fire warriors already have a upgrading system for each tier (also affects the suits i believe) and the default damage isn't that OP, i think its the range + damage that may make it seem so (but they require spotter units to be able to achieve max range). the broadsides i believe should be changed to single units(maybe reduce the price accordingly). the crisis suits could maybe have a price increase but left with squads of 3.

anyway as expected necrons won who systematically took out each race (they played the waiting game while every other race was fighting in a massive battle). the constant infiltration, phase-shifting, scarab spamming and the need of mirco-managing the fight(to change targets from the phase-shifted ones) was hell. i believe i last about 20 minutes of direct attacks from them(when it became 1v1, total time was between 1 hour and 40 minutes).

Edited by: megablackste

"Technically" you could reuse the rifle animations lol. They have a ranged and melee element already. Also for the second point I had actually considered what could happen when they get their hands on plasma weapons, probably nothing good for their own safety. Considering the chances to obtain said weapons can be made low, using weapons is less of a matter of picking them up and more of a matter of genetic memory after the process of cannibalism.

also necron global infiltrate... for shame. It also still technically works on their titans locally. I think the way to beat necron endgame is to ironically outnumber them drastically in model count. I played SoB against them and had 10 squads of celestians with multi meltas hitting them from afar. Works well against living metal apparently.

Edited by: theshodan

Well imo Tau aren't that OP early game but I believe its because of my fraction and the one strategy I use to beat them every time. They always go complete ranged so I just gets wave serpents and banshees and just throw them at them. It usually works out as battle-suits can't slap-box Banshees back BUT it all falls to shambles when they get a sky-ray. That unit is what I believe is the most annoying unit in their arsenal even more so than battle-suits. They constantly knock-down anything and EVERYTHING they want which includes my banshees in melee. Skyrays need the nerf hammer but thasts about it, ranged can beat melee if they can kill the melee before they get in range but if my melee gets constantly knocked to the floor when charging or EVEN WHILE IN MELEE then theres not much you can do. Nerf the skyray make their long range arty an upgrade at T3 or something but its too abusive at early game.

megablackste wrote: anyway i had a game of 5 race free-for-all with tau(me), IG, orcs, Chaos and necron. the fire warriors already have a upgrading system for each tier (also affects the suits i believe) and the default damage isn't that OP, i think its the range + damage that may make it seem so (but they require spotter units to be able to achieve max range). the broadsides i believe should be changed to single units(maybe reduce the price accordingly). the crisis suits could maybe have a price increase but left with squads of 3.

anyway as expected necrons won who systematically took out each race (they played the waiting game while every other race was fighting in a massive battle). the constant infiltration, phase-shifting, scarab spamming and the need of mirco-managing the fight(to change targets from the phase-shifted ones) was hell. i believe i last about 20 minutes of direct attacks from them(when it became 1v1, total time was between 1 hour and 40 minutes).

Well thats Necrons for you early game is shit with their lord being the only saving grace while having phasing raping doomsday monoliths....yay.

Whoah! I just noticed this thread today, and... jackpot much? Thanks guys for your feedback about the Tau, I had noi idea!

However, I am not even done with reading the half of it yetr. But Ill get to it eventually.

You´re welcome ^^

Although, there hasn´t been much going on in this thread lately... Hmmm. Anyway, I´m currently working on testing all the races & making sure that both off-race match-ups and mirror match-ups are perfectly balanced. So far, I have found certain things that could be polished for certain races, but they have probably already been posted in the main page comments, so I guess It´s not really that helpful at this point, because I suposse the Team already took a brief look at (nearly) all of the balance issues that have been commented thru time. I personally haven´t been on this page lately, so I might have missed a few things, but I´ll definitely stay on the look out for this mod.
Regards, -RoyalSyntek-

MOST Tau requests are now ingame for version 1.72. Including but not limited to:

- Fixed Skyray issues.
- Deducted range damage in general making the Tau no longer dominating all factions with ranged fire power AND ridiculous damage at the same time.
- Battlesuits were definitely nerfed.
- Tyranids regarding the opposed Tau opposition is fixed.
- Kroots were definitely rethought up and sort of made with better use.
- All OP units like the XV9 Hazard Suit and some other units like Broadsides were nerfed as well.
- Tau XV202 Mako Titan multiple deepstrike is getting worked on.
- Sniper Drones were also nerfed.
- Honor Guards - nerfed.
- Added jumps to the other Hammerhead chassis vehicles like the Skyray or Devilfish.

However, I have not touched at all:
- Via mentioned Pathfinders
- XV22 Commander and his "OP" sense of damage.
- Their turrets.
- Drones. Regards to them being short ranged.

In other news:
- Necrons were nerfed.
- Tau is basically in testing phases.
- Tyranids are all perfect except their beginning ai.
- MANTA IS GETTING PUT INGAME!!!! Of course balancing it is no problem.

"MANTA IS GETTING PUT INGAME!!!! Of course balancing it is no problem."

THAT was my initial reaction. The Manta sports pair of Heavy Railguns, the largest weapons in the Tau arsenal. Their regular shots have as much power as the Imperial laser weapons most commonly found on Titans. While lacking a blast radius that these weapons normally have, the regular munitions of the Heavy Railgun are more than capable of laying waste to an Imperial Titan. Its second mode of fire is using Sub Munitions: while not as lethal as the regular shots they prove a very real threat to MEQ forces and can even deal significant damage to large Tyrannic Bio-Organisms.Its secondary weapons are six long-barreled Ion Cannons. Nearly as potent as Plasma weapon and with one helluva range, they chew straight through anything that does not wear Terminator armor at a frightening speed with 3 shots per weapon.As its tertiary weapons the Manta sports two missile launchers: one being a regular Missile Pod that is for all intends and purposes as good as an Autocannon. The second is actually a bay containing ten Seeker Missiles, allowing for a quick barrage of deadly anti-vehicle fire against enemy flyers for when its primary weapons are in use.Finally the Manta spots no less than 16 drone-controlled long-barreled Burst Cannons all aimed in different directions. While they are the least potent of the Manta's weapons, the sheer balls-out power that these weapons provide Dakka (you will always have at least 24 shots no matter the direction the enemy comes from) and devour anything the size of a Guardsman that dares to come close. Even the largest of creatures can be taken out by the sheer magnitude of fire these weapons can pump out. A potential maximum of 96 LB BC shots a turn!

The Manta is unique in that it has two separate decks that it can carry troops on: an upper one designed for Fire Warriors and Drones, and a lower one designed for vehicles and Battlesuits. The upper deck can hold 55 models: four full squads of Fire Warriors, six support drones and a seat for the Commander, who can only be (looking at the Codex) an Ethereal or Shadowsun (who is technically only 1 transport space big).The lower bay can carry up to 145 models. Of these there can be 8 Battlesuits or 4 Broadsides (count as 3 and 6 each), up to 4 vehicles (Devilfish, Skyray or Hammerhead, and yes you can load up the Devilfish with Fire Warriors without them costing any cargo space) that cost 30 space each.

Good luck balancing that. Well you can scale it down which im assuming you would but yea the thing is monstrous.

After having read the comment by Haku-men, I'm thinking the Manta should cost all the requisition, power and Relic Cap Tau has to offer =P also I'm glad to hear that Tau are finally getting the nerf they deserve!

Ok, so I was wrong. There will be no Manta afterall. Sorry for the false statement.