Content by Spooky, T0nkaTruckDriver, Written by T0nkaTruckDriver, Edited by T0nkaTruckDriver
While not specifically pertaining to the Tau or to Mech Tau in particular, the concepts of front-loading and end-loading are important nonetheless.
End-Loading
The concept of end-loading revolves around the purchase of defensive upgrades to help you preserve your troops throughout the game. By plinking away at your opponent while simultaneously preserving your own soft forces, you will hopefully have an advantage in the last few turns as your opponent has been whittled down and you are still largely at full strength.
However, end-loading includes more than this. Anything that in any way "defends" against something bad happening is considered an end-loaded upgrade. Dozer blades on a Rhino, Bonding on a Firewarrior Team, Decoy Launchers on a Hammerhead are all end-loaded upgrades since they help preserve your other investments. In this sense, end-loading can appear to have a snowball effect associated with it. The more a unit costs, the more you want to spend to protect it... which makes it cost more... which makes you want to spend even more to protect it!
In order to determine if an end-loaded upgrade is worthwhile you must consider several factors.
- How much does the upgrade cost?
- How much does the unit that this upgrade is protecting cost?
- How often does the event that this upgrade defends against occur?
- If the event does occur, what is the chance that this upgrade will defend against it?
There are certain end-loaded upgrades for which these variables are easy to determine, Decoy Launchers are a prime example of this. If we assume that the vehicle in question is going to have a glancing hit scored on it once per game (not an unreasonable assumption) we can analyze it as follows: For 5 points, the Decoy Launcher increases the survivability of our vehicle by 11%, reducing the chance of a glancing hit destroying it from 33% to 22%. Because it will save our vehicle 1 out of 9 times and costs 5 points, is worth taking on vehicles which cost over 9 x 5 = 45 points. In other words, it will, on average, prevent the destruction of a 95 point Devilfish once every 9 games (since we're assuming it will take one glancing hit per game). Therefore, on average, it accounts for the preservation of 95 / 9 = 10.6 victory points each game. Since the upgrade costs 5 points, it's generally considered a worthwhile investment. If your vehicles are shot at more frequently than this, the efficiency only gets better.
However, other upgrades are more difficult to analyze. Take Bonding for example. In order for bonding to be useful, the following events must occur:
- Squad takes 25% shooting casualties, thereby forcing a morale check
- Squad is below 50% strength... but not wiped out
- Squad fails its morale check
- Squad falls back 2d6", but not off the table
- Squad succeeds in its attempt to rally
- There is sufficient time remaining in the game for the squad to return to it's former firing position and have a meaningful impact on the rest of the game.
What's the chance that these things will happen? It's relatively straightforward to figure out the chance of failing a leadership check, but how about the others? We could make assumptions, but in this case, we'd be making so many that the situation would become quite contrived very quickly.
In conclusion, end-loaded upgrades appear to be useful at first glance, however if care is not taken to analyze their true usefulness and value in your army, they can quickly account for a significant portion of the overall points in your list.
Front-Loading
The concept of front-loading revolves around the purchase of offensive upgrades to allow you to better deal damage to your opponent in an early-game crippling blow. While an army built around this concept might have little to no ability to take return fire, the hope is that the enemy's ability to wage war effectively will be so reduced after a few turns of whithering fire, your lack of durability will be largely moot. Seeker Missiles are a great example of a powerful front-loaded upgrade.
The classic mantra of front-loaders the world over is always, "buy more guns". The points spent on defensive upgrades are better used to buy more shots in the hopes that the extra firepower will so horribly debilitate your opponent that whatever catastrophe your end-loaded upgrades might be protecting against, will never occur in the first place. While a neat idea in theory, there is little chance that the ~20 points saved by removing the Decoy Launchers from all your vehicles and using them to buy more guns will enable you to remove every single Las Cannon from the table on turn 1.
Front-loading also generally is more flexible. While guns are almost always useful, no matter who you're facing, end-loaded upgrades are not always guaranteed to be "worth their points" in all situations. Against an army without "hidden setup", Sensor Spines are useless. Against an all-infantry Sisters army whose only anti-tank firepower is in Multi-Melta Dev squads, Disruption Pods are useless. However, when brought in the proper proportions, more guns are never a bad thing.
Conclusion
It's obvious that certain situations are nigh inevitable. Your tanks will have glancing hits scored on them at some point during a game. I don't care what you say, no amount of front-loading can prevent it. In these circumstances, end-loaded defensive upgrades are useful. However, you must be careful to keep it under control. The Tau have a lot of neat Wargear available... it's just a matter of how much you are willing to pay to get it.