Tau ships

[VexedDuck]

Has anyone seen the forge world Tau vessels? to put it gangsta, " Them janks be hot!." I wonder why it took FW to make the tau fleet look decent?

I've looked at the tau fleet list and there seems to be glaring weaknesses with the ships.

1) the ships are poorly armored. It seems preety bad when your armour is 1 step above eldar with horrible manouverability.
2)Absolutly terrable sheilds. Unless I'm mistake the biggest Tau ship has the same sheilds as a Chaos cruiser.
3) Another thing, tau ships seem to have weapons to me, they just don't seem able to outshoot anybody, despite the fact they're TAU, the by-word for shootiness (exept for SIGAFH guard armies, of course)
4) Slow, tau ships are slow, slower than the Imperium

Some positives. Very good bomber in the Manta. Best torpedoes, darn me if I can see them on any capitol ships though. Exellent vessel in the Hero, if only all of them were as fine.

In short, the High-tech 40K tau don't seem to have converted to BFG.

[Spiritbw]

Haven't seen the Forge World models outside the Ambassador class...I think that was it.

In anycase, the Tau are very new to space still. In fact their FTL drive came off of a ship found crashed on one of thier moons(sounds like a old Imperial craft) but couldn't manouver through the warp. What they came up with was a system where they 'skip' across the surface of the warp. Safer, but no where near as fast as the Imperium or Chaos. Up till they ran into the Imperium this wasn't a problem. Thier worlds are pretty tightly packed together.

Also, up untill the Hero class of cruiser all thier ships where intended mainly as exploration craft, not dedicated warships. It wasn't untill they ran into the Imperium that they started a dedicated shipbuilding system for warships. They are still very much learning the ins and outs of FTL warfare. The fact that thier ships are so small also works against them hence why the escorts need to be hauled around instead of having drives of thier own.

On the other hand they do have a few ideas that work well. While they have weak broadsides they can bring those guns to bear in the forward arc giving them a fairly decent punch. The fact that thier ships are heavily automated means they have better chances at special orders though at the cost that they suffer if boarded.

[Wargamer]

The Tau are a subtle force, but one that has easily-overlooked strengths...

VexedDuck said:

1) the ships are poorly armored. It seems preety bad when your armour is 1 step above eldar with horrible manouverability.

Their armour is no better than the Chaos. In fact, it's more or less the same (stronger in some places, weaker in others).

2)Absolutly terrable sheilds. Unless I'm mistake the biggest Tau ship has the same sheilds as a Chaos cruiser.

They also have an obscene amount of Turrets. Ordnance has a very hard time against Tau.

3) Another thing, tau ships seem to have weapons to me, they just don't seem able to outshoot anybody, despite the fact they're TAU, the by-word for shootiness (exept for SAH guard armies, of course)
40 Slow, tau ships are slow, slower than the Imperium

Tau firepower is best when fully directed forwards. They do not fare well when exchanging "broadsides" (unlike the Imperials, who excell at it).

Gothic is not slaved to 40K. The designers care not for the views of "OMFG! Da Tau must be da r0x0r shootaz!!!!oneoneone". Tau are amateurs in space combat, and their list reflects this (having only one ship that can really fight head to head with another cruiser...).

The only Tau weakness, overall, is that you need talent to use them. The ships must work in tandem, and reflect much more the "ethos" of the Tau than their 40K equivalents do (Tau have to move and work together, whilst the Imperium can use "sit and shoot" tactics).

Some positives. Very good bomber in the Manta. Best torpedoes, darn me if I can see them on any capitol ships though. Exellent vessel in the Hero, if only all of them were as fine.

The Tau do work quite nicely. I've seen them do some terrible damage to an Ork fleet after the greenskins got a tad too enthusiastic on a boarding action (one Escort died, two Kroozers got damaged... and both lost their bridges).

In short, the High-tech 40K tau don't seem to have converted to BFG.

What do you expect? Every other race has had at least 10 millenia to practise. Tau have had barely 2...

[Spiritbw]

Not even two. The Tau went form stone tools 2,000 years ago to what they are now. They probably ahve been spacefaring for less than 500 years.

[VexedDuck]

(looks sheepish) Um, yeah, I geuss my expectations were to high of Tau in space.

[Wargamer]

Most people do. GW seems to want us to believe that the Tau are an all-conquering force, whereas they are little more than a localised disturbance...

[Spiritbw]

I think PLAYERS made it that way Wargamer but that could be just my opinion. All the stuff in thier codex and in what fluff I have read have suggested that the Tau are still pretty small fish in a big pond. The crusade carried agaisnt them IIRC only stopped because the imperium had bigger concerns with the Tyrandis most recent hivefleet.

Tau might be a tough nut, but the only reason the Imperium isn't trying harder to crack them is that there are bigger things that need thier attention. Even the expantion the Tau did during the 13th black crusade was more because the Imperium had most of it's forces across the galaxy than due to the might of the Greater Good.

[BFEoT]

Wargamer said:

they are little more than a localised disturbance...

+++So, a little like the DE are now that GW decided they weren't selling too well... but, GW don't even try and make out that the Tau are an all conquering race, in fact at every opportunity they call them naive, inexperienced, unpopulous etc. Even so they are a force to be reckoned with within the tiny area of space that their empire occupies. They have excellent technology (better in many ways than that of the Imperium which has been around for tens of millennia). But, at space travel they are extremely inexperienced. If it weren't for their exceptional technology then their ships wouldn't even stand a chance+++

+++That's the way I see it anyway...

[lonesalamander]

vexedduck said:

Has anyone seen the forge world Tau vessels? to put it gangsta, " Them janks be hot!." I wonder why it took FW to make the tau fleet look decent?

I've looked at the tau fleet list and there seems to be glaring weaknesses with the ships.

1) the ships are poorly armored. It seems preety bad when your armour is 1 step above eldar with horrible manouverability.
2)Absolutly terrable sheilds. Unless I'm mistake the biggest Tau ship has the same sheilds as a Chaos cruiser.
3) Another thing, tau ships seem to have weapons to me, they just don't seem able to outshoot anybody, despite the fact they're TAU, the by-word for shootiness (exept for SIGAFH guard armies, of course)
4) Slow, tau ships are slow, slower than the Imperium

Some positives. Very good bomber in the Manta. Best torpedoes, darn me if I can see them on any capitol ships though. Exellent vessel in the Hero, if only all of them were as fine.

In short, the High-tech 40K tau don't seem to have converted to BFG.

I think the biggest advantage of the tau, is their relatively low points cost.

for example: the explorer.

I think its equivalent would probably be the styx class heavy cruiser. Both have a pair of launch bays on each side, and a prow armament. For the 60 extra points of the styx, you lose 2 squads of ordinance, 2 turrets, and 4 hit points, but gain 10 cm in speed, 1 shield, and 5+ armour at the rear.

looking at the statistics, and the purpose of the ship (carrier), im going to argue that for the points, tau are a great deal.

another bonus, is that nearly all of their weapons have multiple firing arcs. If a criticle hit knocks out your port weapons battery, you won't be left helpless if attacked from that side. with this, i think their weapons are alot more evenly placed than most imperial vessels.

bombers and torpedoes have already been mentioned. Bonus that they move 10cm faster than normal torps.

somebody also mentioned their turrets. couple this with a messenger class ship, and you're coming pretty close to ordinance invulnerability. (explorer vs. regular bombers= 1/6 chance of a hit, then needing 5+ to damage, then divided by 2 for rerolls) is (assuming my math is correct) a 2.7% chance of damaging the ship. :S)

Orcas are also an above-average light escort, when used en masse.

Right now im just short of 600 pts. (1 explorer, 1 merchant, 4 orcas, and a messenger), and my tactics so far have been to screen with the squad of orcas, with a messenger right behind them, followed by the explorer, spamming the ordinance, and the merchant protecting the flanks.