So, about the Tau.

[Lazarus]

Ill be honest, I got this game purely because the Tau are going to be a thing.

As somone who really only played tabletop 40K, I am not too familiar with Tau ships outside of the Manta, which is tiny in comparison to the scale of Battlefleet Gothic.

So basically, what kinds of ships can we expect, and what will their playstyle likely be?

A lot of Tau ships are shaped like wings, so I really can't imagine them doing well at broadsiding. I know from the Manta and Tigershark ships, they have forward facing rail cannons, so I would think they would play similar to the Eldar, but specializing in long range.

Also, with the Tau and their drone technology, will their torpedos be guided? or at least have some level of homing capability? Maybe less damaging than a FAF style torpedo?


Lastly. Im not trying to be pushy, just genuinly curious about how long till we get the Tau? What was the development timeframe for the Space Marines?

[Blacklion]

We are getting Forgeworld weaboos

[Kamen Rider]

Yes tau get homing torpedos, but they are weaker than other factions torpedos, Tau have weak broadsides, but they can fire forward giving them very strong prow attacks. Tau ships are slow, they move at base speed IN ships


tau are getting the forgeworld made Kor'or'vesh fleet

Some one gave a nice expantion of BFG TT tau once

The brief of it is that Imperial and Chaos fleets play like WW1 Pre-dreadnought fleets, up to and including torpedo boats, destroyers, ramming and battlecruisers.

Tau (especially in the GW build) play like a WW2 carrier group.

The most important ships in your fleet are the Mantas and the Orcas/Wardens.

Tau have dirt cheap carriers and exceptional ordnance, so the basic concept is that the carriers cluster together for mutual protection (similar to Imperial ships), with the Orcas/Wardens dotted around as picket ships - escorts whose entire purpose is spot the enemy and flee, and possibly to shoot down torpedos and fighters with their turrets. BFG Armada will model this far more effectively than the tabletop ever could, just by virtue of being double-blind and modelling turrets explicitly.

The other ships join the carriers in this formation, and fill in the gaps. The Envoy/Merchants provide more Orcas/Wardens, the Protector/Hero provide a line cruiser (sort of), which adds to the close range firepower, and the heavy escorts provide additional cheap, disposable guns.

These support ships would orbit the carriers, and the Orcas/Wardens would orbit these, as layers of an onion. An enemy attack has to get past layers of Tau ships, each of which buys more time for reloads - if the Tau player can survive to reload their Mantas enough times, they're going to win.

Allied races and other ships fit into this support cloud and are added pretty much for taste. There are plenty of options, but they're all there to support the carriers (and in BFG Armada, the Orcas/Wardens are going to be picking up contacts and allowing the Mantas to engage the enemy before the enemy can see the carriers).

Actually going on the offensive with Tau is fairly difficult - there is more to manage than the Orks, and they're a little more clunky than the Imperials. I'd expect more micromanagement than either, certainly.

Although the FW models are infinitely prettier (and were cheaper...) I actually prefer the GW rules. They were close enough to make no huge difference, but the GW rules are more all-in on the carrier group concept, whereas the FW rules are are a little more "normal" by comparison to the other races.

[FlippantSausage]

If i remember correctly the Tau have a fairly limited selection of ships, but their guns are low powered and almost always turreted so as to offer a 270 firing arc. So if they all fire at a single target its fine but they can split their fire.

Assuming their play style is anything like what TT suggests, then likely youll see tau needing to stay at a distance and able to stay more mobile, and lots of interesting ordnance choices, since i seem to remember them having quite a few options for those, like homing torpedos.

The Manta is basically thier bomber, dont think they have an assault boat since tau are ass at close combat anyhow.

Additionally i remember that theres some rules concerning how many of their escorts they can take since they need to be transported by line ships, as tau arent too good at warp travel.

Also may see some other alien vessels, like Kroot Warspheres.

[Lazarus]

But... what about the rail cannons? That is a staple of Tau weaponry, and the projectiles are traveling at near light speed.

This is a stark contrast to tabletop Tau which are expensive, but their big guns hit quite hard. Swarming was never really a common tactic, which seems to be the primary tactic here.

I kinda figured the Tau wouold focus more on using their main guns and focus firing from a distance than clustering and swarming.


Kinda re-evaluating my decision now.

What about Farsight Enclave? Will they be included, and if so, will they be any different? They never really used auxilaries and instead used heavy ordinance.

Originally posted by Blacklion:

We are getting Forgeworld weaboos

Heaven forbid somone like something other than the standard races. I am by no means a weaboo, I don't even participate in any of the forum sites that some people seem to hate. I like the Tau because they have cool ships, cool tech, and I like their overall playstyle of long range combat.

[Kamen Rider]

rail guns are going to be lance weapon equivalents in this game

Tau ARE about long range engagement, with strong prow weaponr, weak broadsides and slow ships

[Lazarus]

Originally posted by TenTonHammer:

rail guns are going to be lance weapon equivalents in this game

Tau ARE about long range engagement, with strong prow weaponr, weak broadsides and slow ships

Ok ok, sorry, I misread your post. Thans for clarifying that.

[Blacklion]

Originally posted by Lazarus:

But... what about the rail cannons? That is a staple of Tau weaponry, and the projectiles are traveling at near light speed.

This is a stark contrast to tabletop Tau which are expensive, but their big guns hit quite hard. Swarming was never really a common tactic, which seems to be the primary tactic here.

I kinda figured the Tau wouold focus more on using their main guns and focus firing from a distance than clustering and swarming.


Kinda re-evaluating my decision now.

What about Farsight Enclave? Will they be included, and if so, will they be any different? They never really used auxilaries and instead used heavy ordinance.

Originally posted by Blacklion:

We are getting Forgeworld weaboos

Heaven forbid somone like something other than the standard races. I am by no means a weaboo, I don't even participate in any of the forum sites that some people seem to hate. I like the Tau because they have cool ships, cool tech, and I like their overall playstyle of long range combat.

No need to be rattled sir. I like variety as well (Excited for the Nids) but Tau hold a special place in my heart for their screams of mercy while I RIP AND TEAR THEIR SPINES OUT with lightning claws

[Kinzie Kensington]

Originally posted by TenTonHammer:

Yes tau get homing torpedos, but they are weaker than other factions torpedos, Tau have weak broadsides, but they can fire forward giving them very strong prow attacks. Tau ships are slow, they move at base speed IN ships


tau are getting the forgeworld made Kor'or'vesh fleet

Some one gave a nice expantion of BFG TT tau once

The brief of it is that Imperial and Chaos fleets play like WW1 Pre-dreadnought fleets, up to and including torpedo boats, destroyers, ramming and battlecruisers.

Tau (especially in the GW build) play like a WW2 carrier group.

The most important ships in your fleet are the Mantas and the Orcas/Wardens.

Tau have dirt cheap carriers and exceptional ordnance, so the basic concept is that the carriers cluster together for mutual protection (similar to Imperial ships), with the Orcas/Wardens dotted around as picket ships - escorts whose entire purpose is spot the enemy and flee, and possibly to shoot down torpedos and fighters with their turrets. BFG Armada will model this far more effectively than the tabletop ever could, just by virtue of being double-blind and modelling turrets explicitly.

The other ships join the carriers in this formation, and fill in the gaps. The Envoy/Merchants provide more Orcas/Wardens, the Protector/Hero provide a line cruiser (sort of), which adds to the close range firepower, and the heavy escorts provide additional cheap, disposable guns.

These support ships would orbit the carriers, and the Orcas/Wardens would orbit these, as layers of an onion. An enemy attack has to get past layers of Tau ships, each of which buys more time for reloads - if the Tau player can survive to reload their Mantas enough times, they're going to win.

Allied races and other ships fit into this support cloud and are added pretty much for taste. There are plenty of options, but they're all there to support the carriers (and in BFG Armada, the Orcas/Wardens are going to be picking up contacts and allowing the Mantas to engage the enemy before the enemy can see the carriers).

Actually going on the offensive with Tau is fairly difficult - there is more to manage than the Orks, and they're a little more clunky than the Imperials. I'd expect more micromanagement than either, certainly.

Although the FW models are infinitely prettier (and were cheaper...) I actually prefer the GW rules. They were close enough to make no huge difference, but the GW rules are more all-in on the carrier group concept, whereas the FW rules are are a little more "normal" by comparison to the other races.

I`m really excited about how they manage to balance this carrier fleet to spacemarines.. Spacemarines allready have a really tough time against nearly any other faction and hunter squadrons on enemy side just rips them complete.. so another pure counter comes in why should people get spacemarine dlc then?