Specialist Arms Forum
Battlefleet Gothic => [BFG] Discussion => Topic started by: CyberShadow on May 04, 2015, 04:50:53 PM
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There seems to a resurgence in space games right now, with X-Wing/Armada, Halo, Dropzone Commanders space effort and a few others on the horizon, and a few locals here have decided that BFG is worth dusting off.... and I am certainly not going to argue.
This will be an opportunity for me to collect a small fleet. I wont be using official miniatures, and will proxy my ships, so none of the following is affected in any way by the availability/coolness of the ship designs.
I am going through my options - I am tempted by an Eldar fleet, but I always found the movement rules got in the way of my plans and they are very fragile. I really want a fleet that is solid and dependable and reliable, but also flexible.
I was also looking at both the Tau lists. The GW list seems ok, but it appears on paper to be undergunned, and I look over it struggling to find the numbers. A Tau Hero Cruiser is OK, with torpedoes, and a couple of launch bays and a few weapons batteries, but the ships seem to try to be good at everything. Compare that to the Eldar or Imperials, and their Cruisers will throw out double the weapon battery numbers and drop the lances to do it, but have more ship options.
So, questions....
- What are the comments on the GW Tau fleet list and stats. Are they a solid fleet, or do they struggle against the core blue book forces?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the two available Tau fleets, and what kind of play styles do they suit?
I realise that I could probably go with Imperials or Chaos and get a core, solid fleet, but I like the idea of trying a different fleet list and I never really got into Tau in BFG (or Tyranids, Necrons or Ad Mech).
Thanks.
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I've struggled with the GW/SG Tau fleet. Only way I've gotten it to work is to go ridiculously ordnance/attack craft heavy which makes for a dull game. That being said I haven't played the game in five years so I'll shut up now and expectantly await advice from more experienced players.
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Been forever since I played against Tau. I remember CPF being better in general though
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Can confirm that going Ordnance heavy is the way to go with Tau, especially the Kor'vattra. I've always gone with a combined GW/FW fleet, simply 'cause I didn't have the knack for making a pure GW fleet work, definitely a thinking mans' fleet! A composite fleets also gives you more firepower.
If you're going to proxy stuff, then I'd start with IN. Probably the closest to Tau in terms of play stlle, Only with weaker weapons, if a longer range. The trick with Tau is to overwhelm your opponents AC with torpedoes, use your own AC to get rid of any waves protecting ships or a cheeky bombing run, then hit with more torps to finish. As for shooting, focus your fire on one target at a time. Yes, i know this is par for the course in any fleet, but with Tau it's even more important. Mistakes will be fatal.
This is my take anyway. I play Tau as an alternate, and am not the best player with them at all, but have had some success.
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Its possible to have a combined Tau fleet? Why did I not know this? This would change everything, and make it far more attractive to me. I dont even mind something underpowered, if I can experiment with it and find its roles and strengths, and both fleets individually seem too miche to allow that. But, a combined fleet would be excellent, even if it meant no mercenries/allies. Is this an 'official' ability (combining both fleet lists) or just something that people do and most people are OK with?
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Combined fleets are in the 2010 FAQ, along with updated stats for the FW stuff. Although produced by the HA, it's not officially official so to speak, but is widely used. Links in the rules thread :)
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Thats official enough for me! :-)
The rules thread link also had an alternative FW Tau list.... Which is the most recent/official version? The one in the rules thread/compendium or the one from Armada? (I assume the Compendium version.)
EDIT - Its OK, I have just seen the list and rules for the combined force in the fleet selection list in the Compendium (FW) fleet list.... and thats what I will go with, using proxy ships. Thanks.
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Heya,
perhaps a little late to the game but:
The first rule sets were the one in Armada (the SG/GW Tau fleet) and then the one from the Taros campaign book (also as pdf from FW) the so called FW Tau Fleet.
Now the SG/GW fleet was then by a long shot the best fleet. Also getting really good results (winning twice) at Adepticon. However with good that meant only having Explorers and Heroes plus the Orca's. The Merchants and rest was just not good enough.
The Hero was at 180pts a much better ship then the Lunar at 180pts. The build in restriction of the Hero was to easy to come around.
The FW fleet then wasn't bad, it had potential, but it was just plain boring. The ships looked completely different and still had the same rules.
And then a memory test: a few days before FW released the Taros book the HA, Ray, Bob and Nate released a pdf with rules for the Forgeworld ships. FW asked SG to remove those rules.
That set had some really interesting options in it but still lacked an unique part.
Then some fans under the lead of Xisor and Shinnentai made a nice ruleset for the fw rules. Then some weird fans made things like Project Distant Darkness...
And the last thing around FAQ/Compendium 2010 the latest set of rules was made for the FW vessels and these rules are pretty good and cool for them. So, yes, use these.
The battle core will still be the GW vessels (Explorers/Heroes) while the FW vessels are more of a raiding fleet.
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Wow. When did playing with spaceships become work? OK, I think that I have all that I need now. I have the Compendium (FW) fleet list. including the 'combined arms' list at the back, and the GW Tau fleet list from Armada for points costs and stats there. Plus, the Tau FAQ from the Compendium. Thats everything.... right? Now to find some cool proxies. Suggestions?
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;D
See this thread for proxies of all kind:
http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=5345.0
Shapeways had Tau... copies...?
;)
Albeit being a tad expensive I think.
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Yeah, I have just been through all 17 pages of that thread. I am more interested in cool, currently available minis that 'fit' the Tau, than KO copies of OOP designs, to be honest. One of the reasons that I went with Tau is that their style is pretty fluid and lots of designs would fit.
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First that comes to mind are the Aquans from FSA or the Relthoza from FSA.
Or these:
http://www.ninjamagic.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl.h,content=10&
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As I went through the proxy thread, I made a list of URLs and had a look at the Spartans today. I find the Aquans a little too organic, and the Relthosa a bit borg/Necron. But a few of the alliance/merc ships are very nice and there are a couple of very interesting ship designs in that selection. I will certainly be getting a couple, at least.
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Speaking of FSA, I always thought the Omnidyne stuff was a good fit for Tau.
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If you're not opposed to resin casts, the Chinese have the GW ships available, and shapeways has a not-quite-FW tau caster. Both sets are priced spectacularly ($22 for an explorer, for instance).
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I am leaning towards the Spartan Terran ships, and the Directorate ships. There are a lot of the Alliance and Marauder ships that are also pretty cool. I will avoid the recasting scene right now. I like the rules for the BFG Tau more than the minis, and this is an opportunity to buy some cool ships for a variety of sources and cherry pick the best of each.
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Another quick question.... I am looking right now at the Firestorm Armada and Full Thrust mini ranges. But, I know that there are real size differences. FA looks larger than BFG (and is.... based on my dim memory) and FT I know are smaller. So, a simple question, for both of these ranges, what size class works as the usual BFG ship classes.
So, something like:
- BFG Escort = FA Frigate = FT Cruiser
- BFG Cruiser = FA Escort = FT Battleship
- BFG Grand Cruiser/Battlecruiser = FA Cruiser = Battle Carrier
- BFG Battleship = FA Grand Cruiser = N/A
Thanks.
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I think that is about right.
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One more quick question... In the combined Tau fleet list, the Merchant is listed as 95 point, but the main GW Tau fleet lists it at 105. The implication is that the combined fleet list overrides the previous list where there are differences, but is this correct?
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Yup.
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Awesome, thanks.
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This is making me want to do Tau after I finish off my IN and Chaos (which I will be done with this summer)
I wouldn't want to proxy really with other games fleets, but acquiring Tau is really $$$. Anyone have success converting/scratch building Tau?
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Cant help there, as I am going full on proxy (I ordered my first 500 points yesterday, from four different sources!). The GW Tau fleet should be pretty easy to throw together as they are really mostly geometric shapes in a queue.