This is a bit of a tangent from the other threads regarding the new weapon stats. Most of the conversation has been about marine weapons and most people seem pretty content with them. How are the thoughts about Tyrannid and Tau weapons?

some thoughts

some believe that the new Tau weapons are good because they put the fear of God into Space Marines

some believe that the new stats were necessary for gameplay

Some are happy with the old stats

some are happy with the elites and Masters being improved, but that troops should stay the same because they are only dangerous in hordes anyway.

Maybe the weaker Space Marine weapons, combined with old stats for enemies, would lead to longer battles

Some argue that Masters would be fought alone, while others believe that they would be accompanied by a horde of lesser minions

What has been the general feeling about the new Xenos stats?

Hard to say without actual play.

I'll let you know after I use them against PCs in anger, as no amount of just looking at a page of stats will really tell.

Well Tau pulse weapons went from doing 4-22 (2d10+2) points of damage to 13-22 (1d10+12) points of damage... I don't really see much of a change, with the exception of higher minimum damage.

herichimo said:

The average will now be higher since it assumes one of the die will roll a 10, that is a pretty powerful change.

We checked them out last weekend and of course I'm not very content with the nerfed Bolters but the Tau weapons are in fact less dangerous as only 1 or max 2 shots will hit with the new RoF/low BS of a Fire Warrior and Suppressing Fire being unavailable. Of course this shot will hit hard and a SM is adviced to use his Dodge Skill, but there is no more chance a PC will die a dishonorable death because of some lucky/unlucky dice. Besides Fire warrior shouldn't be used in massive Hordes, this is not the kind of strategy used by the Tau.

The new stats for the Tyranid Fleshborer are simply out of question. Tyranid Termagant attack in giant waves even outnumbering the Imperial Guards deployment strategy so the overall performance of the Fleshborer (higher Damage, Tearing) should match the Lasgun (higher RoF, longer Range) of a Guardsman. This is no real danger for a SM even in Hordes but neither is the Lasgun.

For the Tau weapons, most importantly it's a huge drop in the number of dice rolled, with both the RoF and damage dice being reduced. Which is very good thing for speeding up the game, the higher average damage is going to be fairly insignificant compared and it means that even small mag hordes can more reliably be threat without needing huge number of hits. Which is important for game play because they represent all those foes that are actually as good at shooting as the marines (with numbers on their side) which is a good tactical change.

The Nid weapons were needed for the Elites and Masters as, expecially if the players knew the rules, made them no threat at all. Which is waste of 3 (in Nid warrior case) sentinel sized biological killing machines if you dare try to give them anything but melee weapons. I don't think they were really needed for the horde only weapons.

Even Chaos get a bonus, not in their danger but ease of play. I can imagine I'll be using the errata bolt weapons for NPC's even if I let players keep some of the RAW bolter characteristics.