History AwesomeButImpractical / TableTopGames

* In the ''Tv/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' roleplaying game, they mention that chainsaws are realistically very impractical weapon, but because so many movies show them off to great effect, they have it deal a lot of damage, but they take penalties to hit and they can hit the wielder if you botch.

* In the ''Buffy'' roleplaying game, they mention that chainsaws are realistically very impractical weapon, but because so many movies show them off to great effect, they have it deal a lot of damage, but they take penalties to hit and they can hit the wielder if you botch.

** Speaking of Apocalypse, both of the {{Lethal Joke Character}}s. The Warlord Titan is three times the size of a Warhound Titan, which is already gigantic even in miniature scale. There is also rules for a Imperator Titan, which no-one deploys due to just how bloody ''huge'' it is. To say it's easier to {{cosplay}} as one and just stand on the table instead of making a model is NOT an understatement of how big it would be. In fact, it may actually be smaller than making a true-to-scale model. You would need specially-reinforced tables just to use those things.

** In 5e, some subclasses and races, especially those not in the Player's Handbook, can be seen as this. There's also combining races that use one stat for special racial abilities, with a class that uses another stat, such as making a Yuan-Ti Pureblood Cleric, as Yuan-Ti use Charisma for their special abilities, while Clerics use Wisdom for their spells. Still, with the right stat arangement, and a bit of practice, a smart player can come up with a pretty cool character.
*** Fortunately, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything provided a generic racial template that allows a player to place the stat bonuses in whichever stats they want, as long as the DM approves the use of this variant rule. This allows for a lot more interesting racial and class combinations that don't end up being subpar mechanically.

** The Baneblade superheavy tank in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' looks absolutely sweet and its stats on paper are overwhelmingly awesome. After all, it's ready to unleash [[VideoGame/DawnOfWar ELEVEN BARRELS OF HELL!]] However, the sheer ridiculous points cost means that the opponent can field a much larger force, with all the dedicated anti-tank weaponry needed to make the Baneblade into eleven mountains of scrap metal.
** Some people actually pointed out that due to the rules for coming in from reserves, a Baneblade technically can't be put in reserve, despite it being an option (and the only way to ensure it doesn't get scrapped in Spearhead). This is because the literal wording of Reserves means that the unit has to move from off the board onto the board using its normal movement allowance. A Baneblade moves 6 inches a turn, it's almost a foot in length!
** Then came 5th edition which not only made it cheaper (from 650 to 500 which is cheap in 3,000+ point games it's made for), but also harder to kill. It still has its limits -- sinking 500 points into a unit which couldn't capture objectives at the time, is relatively slow, and is vulnerable to rear armour hits like all tanks -- but it's at least usable. Not to mention there's nothing better than [[OhCrap the look on a Guard player's face if you do succeed in wrecking their precious baby.]]
** A lot of special characters fall into this, especially the ones that are pure beatsticks. They are extremely powerful, but also extremely expensive and, if not immune to instant death, die to a single tank round. That's why you don't see the likes of Typhus or Marneus Calgar very often. The most used special characters either buff your other units (like Vulcan, Ghazghkull or Fatereaver) or are {{Game Breaker}}s (like Eldrad).

** A lot of special characters fall into this, especially the ones that are pure beatsticks. They are extremely powerful, but also extremely expensive and, if not immune to instant death, die to a single tank round. That's why you don't see the likes of Typhus or Marneus Calgar very often. The most used special characters either buff your other units (like Vulcan, Ghazghkull or Fatereaver) or are {{GameBreaker}}s (like Eldrad).

** You could say 40k was BUILT on this trope. The basic heavy weapon for the Imperium is a hand held semi-automatic armor piercing grenade launcher, chainsaw swords abound, the Orks function purely on ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve and duct tape, the Eldar have slightly better protection than a cardboard box while retaining maximum style points, and the space ships get around by travelling through hell. It's all awesome, but none of it's remotely practical.
*** Eldar tanks are actually as durable as their Imperial equivalents. Eldar lack heavy tanks like Leman Russes or Land Raiders, but compared to Chimaera-and Rhino-chassis tanks (which, like the Eldar tanks, are based on a transport chassis), Eldar tanks are actually more heavily armoured, faster, and have additional defences in the form of power- or holofields. They're still impractical, though, due to their extremely high cost (a Wave Serpent costs nearly four times as much as a Chimera, while having similar firepower and being only slightly more durable).

** Speaking of Apocalypse, both of the [[LethalJokeCharacter Lethal Joke Characters]]. The Warlord Titan is three times the size of a Warhound Titan, which is already gigantic even in miniature scale. There is also rules for a Imperator Titan, which no-one deploys due to just how bloody ''huge'' it is. To say it's easier to {{cosplay}} as one and just stand on the table instead of making a model is NOT an understatement of how big it would be. In fact, it may actually be smaller than making a true-to-scale model. You would need specially-reinforced tables just to use those things.

** In 5e, some subclasses and races, especially those not in the Player's Handbook, can be seen as this. There's also combining races that use one stat for special racial abilities, with a class that uses another stat, such as making a Yuan-Ti Pureblood Cleric, as Yuan-Ti use Charisma for their special abilities, while Clerics use Wisdom for their spells. Still, with the right stat arangement, and a bit of practice, a smart player can come up with apretty cool character.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'' lives, breathes and shits this trope. All the time.

** ''Fireball'' is probably the most well-known spell in D&D, and it's not useless by any stretch of the definition. Fireball deals ludicrous damage for the level it's on, even if the target succeeds their save. That said, it's an AreaOfEffect spell, with a pretty large radius, so unless you and your party are on the same wavelength, you are likely to hit them as well, unless you got the Evocation wizard's Sculpt Spell feature. The spell also deals Fire damage, and only Fire damage, so if you're facing one of the 40 monsters in the base 5e manual with fire immunity, it's useless, and subpar if facing one of the 37 with resistance. You're probably better of taking ''Melf's Minute Meteors'', which also deals Fire damage, but can do a maximum of 12d6 damage, spread over 3-6 rounds, and feature several, smaller areas of effect, affording far better precission.

** Sometimes happens in-universe as well- Commissar Literature/CiaphasCain is depicted with a bolt pistol on book covers (in the style as Imperial propaganda posters), but he himself uses a laspistol: It's lighter, has more shots, can be recharged (given how often he spends cut off from enemy lines with nothing but a gun, chainsword, and Jurgen, running out of ammo is the last thing he wants), and while it doesn't make as much noise when executing cowards, he does his best to avoid executing soldiers (not to mention he doesn't want to make himself an even bigger target).

*** Worth noting that in-universe, the Tau are the only exception to ''Warhammer 40000'''s love of this trope. Everything the Tau use is built with functionality in mind. No trophy racks and battle honours on their sleek, futuristic vehicles - if it serves no purpose, it comes off. The Tau are the only faction in the game who don't often use [[HumongousMecha Titans]], preferring heavy strike aircraft like the aforementioned Manta, much like modern armies in RealLife. However the Tau are not above using [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial large robots that definitely aren't based on Titans]] such as the Ta'unar Supremacy Armour, which while being loaded out with enough guns to make even the [[OurOrksAreDifferent Orks]] jealous, it does suffer from the same issue as other massive units in game, mainly being extremely expensive both in RealLife and in game.

** This trope is so enforced in 40k that the reason they don't use more BoringButPractical methods seems to be that they'll inevitably find ''some'' way to make it impractical. The article "Rocks Are Not Free!" explains that the Imperium relies on expensive high-tech missiles and battleships to depopulate worlds rather than just taking a few asteroids and dropping them from orbit, because the Imperium insists on running that manuever through so many layers of red tape that that the missiles are actually the cheaper option.

--->'''Tex Talks [=BattleTech=]:''' Consider this: For the price of a ''[[LightningBruiser Thor]]''... For the price of a ''single Thor'', at 21 million, 320 thousand, 834 C-bills... You could buy eleven ''[[LethalJokeCharacter Urbanmechs]]''. Or, seven ''[[TankGoodness Rommels]]''. Or, three ''[[MightyGlacier Awesomes]]'', plus spare parts. Or, two ''[[TheDreaded Atlases]]'', plus spare parts. Or, thirty [[SuperSoldier Elementals]], and [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy all their honour]]. Or, in 3052 C-bill conversion rates, you could buy enough burgers from Federated Fast Food to become ''king of Meat Mountain''... Until the birds showed up. [[NoodleIncident Birds always ruin Meat Mountain]]... Where was I? Clan shit is expensive, keep that in mind.

** Abaddon himself is considered this on the tabletop. Costing as much as a Land Raider, Abaddon has enough special rules and weapons to literally murder anything he comes across (even tarpits and superheavy vehicles wouldn't slow him down for long). However, he has the crippling drawback of having no movement modifiers at all; this means even the most basic trooper can simply outrun him if he doesn't have a transport to cart him around. And because of his Terminator Armor, the only transport that will fit him is the aforementioned Land Raider (and no, his faction only gets the vanilla kind unless you dip into Forge World), which is yet another example of this trope. And unlike his other fellow Chaos Champions (Typhus, Huron, even Ahriman) he usually lacks the ability to buff anyone else; even Ahriman can at least cast spells to buff people around him. This results in Abaddon usually ''just barely'' killing enough enemies to make him worth his points, while models like Huron or Typhus can often change the entire flow of the game by merely ''existing''.

** Whips can be used for very flashy combat maneuvers like tripping over, disarming and strangling, but over such short distances it's easier to just draw your sword or shoot your enemy from afar. They are close to useless against armoured enemies, most of animals and monsters.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in the case of mini-crossbows and lamias (whips with metal spikes all over their length). The former deal relatively little damage and have a very short range, but they can be hidden in wide sleeves and shoot two bolts in a single round - [[NoRangeLikePointBlankRange right in the face]], thus dealing absurd damage if used properly. The latter has the range limitations of other whips, but deals damage like a two-handed weapon. And unlike other whips, it overcomes the problem with close-quarter fights, since the handle is a mace.

** Abaddon himself is considered this on the tabletop. Costing as much as a Land Raider, Abaddon has enough special rules and weapons to literally murder anything he comes across (even tarpits and superheavy vehicles wouldn't slow him down for long). However, he has the crippling drawback of having no movement modifiers at all; this means even the most basic trooper can simply outrun him if he doesn't have a transport. And because of his Terminator Armor, the only transport that will fit him is the aforementioned Land Raider (and no, his faction only gets the vanilla kind unless you dip into Forge World), which is yet another example of this trope. And unlike his other fellow Chaos Champions (Typhus, Huron, even Ahriman) he usually lacks the ability to buff anyone else; even Ahriman can at least cast spells to buff people around him. This results in Abaddon usually ''just barely'' killing enough enemies to make him worth his points, while models like Huron or Typhus can often change the entire flow of the game by merely ''existing''.
** Assault Centurions have some of the beefiest armour in the Space Marine list, cool-looking siege drills, and [[MightyGlacier a movement speed roughly akin to molasses]]. This is a ''melee unit'' that can barely outrun the ''scenery''. You could always put them in a Land Raider, which has the minor problem of being akin to walking into battle with a "SHOOT ME" sign.
** Penitent Engines and Dread Knights look like this, both of them are walkers bristling with devastating close-range weaponry - with pilots ''intentionally'' left fully exposed to enemy fire. Background material claims that it not to be the case. Dreadknight has a forcefield that protects the pilot while Penitent Engine has its pilot consciousness downloaded inside the machine and not affected by pilot's body being blown off.
*** Plus the Dread Knight's pilot is wearing Terminator Armour, the heaviest in the Imperium, and the entire point of the Penitent Engine is to get its pilot gloriously killed to atone for their sins.
** A lot of relics fall into this territory. Most common is the "evolving weapon" type, where the weapon gains additional attributes as you rack up kills. The problem is, unless it allows you to kill mooks and you wipe an entire squad from the get-go, these bonuses often accrue so slowly that you'd maybe see their effects on the last turn of the game, when it's too far gone to put it to good tactical use. Similarly, a lot of other relics apply some awesome effect to a generic weapon, but the effect is either overkill (such as the Norn Crown) or completely useless (such as instant death on a To Wound roll of a 6). If a relic manage to avert all of this, sometimes good'ol points costs ruins them as anything viable. Those that manage to completely avert this unfortunately become [[GameBreaker Game Breakers]].
** Imperium Plasma Pistols. Strength 7 [=AP 2=] will kill or wound most anything in the game, but the plasma pistol suffers from a variety of drawbacks that are usually mitigated in its bigger cousins (the rifle-sized plasma gun and the heavy plasma cannon). The plasma pistol costs the same amount of points as the others (15 points, enough to add one Space Marine or three Guardsmen to a squad), yet is limited to one shot a turn compared to two shots or a small blast like the plasma gun and cannon respectively, it's 12" range requires that the wielder gets close to the enemy, and it has a 1 in 6 chance of not only missing but blowing up in the wielder's face and removing the pistol as a threat. When fighting against cheap horde armies like Orks or Tyranids, a plasma pistol will struggle to make its points back, and when targeting tanks or Monstrous Creatures it might only take off one or two wounds/hull points before the wielder dies.
** This trope is so enforced in 40k that the reason they don't use more BoringButPractical methods seems to be that they'll inevitably find ''some'' way to make it impractical. The article "Rocks Are Not Free!" explains that the Imperium relies on expensive high-tech missiles and battleships to depopulate worlds rather than just taking a few asteroids and dropping them from orbit, because the Imperium insists on running it through so many layers of red tape that that the missiles are actually the cheaper option.

** the [=XV104=] Riptide Battlesuit is amazingly awesome. It's stock loadout, is the GatlingGood Heavy Burst Cannon, which fires 8 shots a turn to wreck infantry squads, paired with a secondary weapon choice of either Twin-Linked Smart Missile Systems, Plasma Rifles, or Fusion Blasters. Thanks to the Riptide's dark matter powered Nova Reactor, it has the option each turn to be Nova-charged to spit out 12 shots, and gain the Rending rule. So that's the Awesome part, The Impractical? Well, aside from needing to make a 3+ activation check to use the Nova-Reactor, with a failure meaning you get no benefit out of the Nova Reactor, and suffer an automatic wound with no saves allowed on the Riptide, a Nova-Charged Heavy Burst Cannon also gains the "Gets Hot!" rule, which means on a [[CriticalFailure roll of 1]] you receive a wound. That means, you've got [[ThirteenIsUnlucky 13]] chances to wound your particularly points expensive Elite Battlesuit during it's own turn. For a few extra points, that it barely even matters, you can upgrade the Heavy Burst Cannon to an Ion Accelerator, which has incredibly massive range, allowing you to safely tuck your Riptide away and out of reach of most other units, hit's much harder, and for much safer risk of just 1 chance at over heating, can be overcharged normally like all Ion weaponry of the Tau, to switch from 3 shots, to a Large Blast with more power. The only time you will ever need to consider turning on the Nova Charge reactor for the Ion Accelerator, is if your intended target also involves using the words "Armor Value 14", or simply take the previously mentioned Fusion Blasters secondary weapons which has the Melta rule, and can be nova-charged to fire more rapidly with no risk of getting hot.
*** Worth noting that in-universe, the Tau are the only exception to ''Warhammer 40000'''s love of this trope. Everything the Tau use is built with functionality in mind. No trophy racks and battle honours on their sleek, futuristic vehicles - if it serves no purpose, it comes off. The Tau are the only faction in the game who don't often use [[HumongousMecha Titans]], preferring heavy strike aircraft like the aforementioned Manta, much like modern armies in RealLife. However the Tau are not above using [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial large robots that definitely aren't titans]] such as the Ta'unar Supremacy Armour, which while being loaded out with enough guns to make even the [[OurOrksAreDifferent Orks]] jealous it does suffer from the same issue as other massive units in game, mainly being extremely expensive both in RealLife and in game.
** On paper the Fire Prism looks pretty awesome. It is tougher than a Land Raider when fully upgraded, can fling S9 laser bolts around, and can combine fire with other Fire Prisms to make even bigger superlaser-of-death shots. Then again, in smaller games a single 90pt War Walker can hit tanks harder than 2 115-pt Fire Prisms combining their shots, a Dark Reaper squadron can kill heavy infantry nearly as effectively, and a Falcon can blow more things up for the same Heavy Support slot while remaining just as tough. Thank Khaine for Carnifexes, because if there were no Monstrous Creatures the Fire Prism wouldn't exist.
*** In the 6th edition Eldar codex, this is no longer the case, as the Fire Prism has become much more practical. It's gun has 3 firing modes, a S5 [=AP3=] Large Blast, perfect for blasting apart large units of everything from Marines on down, a S7 [=AP2=] Blast, perfect for Terminators and the like and an S9 [=AP1=] Lance, perfect for killing tanks. The clincher? All 3 of these have a 60 inch range and can be fired after moving 12 inches, meaning that in a board of any size, it's very difficult to return fire on one. Awesome Yet Game Breaking might be a better term.
** In a similar vein, the Land Raider itself is this. On paper the thing looks damn impressive, having enough firepower to destroy any other tank in the game, or take on a full squad of elite troopers, while its armor laughs off swarmers and anything not dedicated to killing it. Its point cost, while high, is still affordable in most standard games. The problem is, the primary perk of a land raider is to ''survive'', which does little for something that cannot 1.) do that much damage and 2.) capture points. For the same cost as a land raider, you could have afforded two tanks with twice the amount of weapons, and are viewed as less of a target.
*** The [[KillItWithFire Redeemer]] and [[MoreDakka Crusader]] versions, however, are a different story.
** Many a vanilla unit is prone to find itself in this role. Consider assault terminators. A Codex Marines army can spend 400 points just fluffing out a ten man squad. Sure, they'll hit like a ton of bricks if they catch anything in melee, but because of their high value and slow movement, they aren't going to catch many things in melee at all, and certainly not enough to make back their points. The Marine player will likely find that unit has a hard time getting in close with anything that matters, meaning the enemy can avoid it if they want, feed it a low-value unit if they must, and pick apart the rest of the Space Marine army with their force. A ''smaller'' terminator force would be far more dangerous because it will be supported by other units who can keep the enemies from having a whole table to maneuver on. There's nothing sadder than finding a new Space Marine player put his two hundred point HQ into his 400 point assault terminator squad and all they did was take down a squad of RedShirt Imperial Guardsmen.
** Terminator armor itself was considered this in-universe at one time. During the Great Crusade there were plans to replace all power armor with terminator armor. However the suits proved too slow and easy to outmaneuver, leading to the plan being scrapped.
** In the fluff, [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Abaddon the Despoiler's]] unimaginatively-named flagship ''Planet Killer''. Sure, it has the most powerful weapon pretty much in the known universe (the [[SarcasmMode imaginatively-named Armageddon Gun]]), and sure, it bristles with lance batteries and torpedo tubes, and sure, it has a crew of millions of slaves and thousands of [[SpaceMarine psychotic ten thousand year old badass warlords]], but the one time its captain tried to take it into action without escorts, a small squadron of cruisers sat out of range, flipped the bird at it, and blew it to pieces with long-range torpedoes. Undeterred by this, he built another one.
** Similarly, Imperial Ironclads. Ancient warships from before the development of DeflectorShields, they protect their occupants with ''tonnes'' of armor. Because they are built in the times before or during the Dark Age of Technology, they often have ''apocalyptically'' powerful armament, but their lack of shields makes them GlassCannon units at best. The Imperium usually recognizes this and converts them into either planetary assault ships (fit some rudimentary deflectors, fill it with guardsmen and bombardment weapons) because they can actually land on planets due to their freakishly strong construction, turning them into BoringYetPractical. Other uses include stripping out the weapons, replacing them with ''more'' bolstering, [[RammingAlwaysWorks adding shields at the front, massive engines at the back and using them to ram things]], or replacing everything with a {{BFG}} and using it to kill planets. Some of the very youngest ironclads[[note]]Or those the Imperium can viably fit proper shields to.[[/note]] are, however, much more useful -- they keep their Dark Age of Technology-level weapons, but their plate armor ''is'' good enough to stop "modern" weapons, and glows [[IncendiaryExponent red hot with each hit, making them look]] ''[[IncendiaryExponent awesome]]'' as they advance into battle.

** Then came 5th edition which not only made it cheaper (from 650 to 500 which is cheap in 3,000+ point games it's made for), but also harder to kill. It still has its limits -- sinking 500 points into a unit which couldn't capture objectives at the time, is relatively slow, and is vulnerable to rear armour hits like all tanks -- but it's at least usable. Not to mention there's nothing better than [[OhCrap the look on a Guard player's face if you do succeed in wrecking his precious baby.]]

** The Baneblade (and its brother Super Heavies, the Mjollnir and Excalibur tanks) didn't fare much better in the larger scale game ''Space Marine''. True, their 1+ save meant they could only be taken out by reasonably powerful weapons, and they packed Titan class weapons... but for the price of one of them, you could buy one or two units of regulars tanks, which could 1) bring more guns to the party, 2) move much, much faster and 3) not die in a single lucky hit. For that matter, the Ork Super Gargants were also all but useless - being extra hardy is nice. Having only short range and contact weapons on a slower-than-tectonics bullet magnet ? Not so much.

** The Grey Knights is this trope embodied. Not only is the average Grey Knight Trooper more expensive than its loyalist OR Chaos Counterpart (in both in-game point cost and real-life money costs), it still dies by the same weapons that can kill the aforementioned cheaper counterparts. The Awesome part? Even the basic trooper is armed with an appropriately named Nemesis Force Weapon and Stormbolter, which turns each and every Grey Knight into a LightningBruiser / GlassCannon that can tear apart a tank in close combat....if you ever got it that close to a tank. It's even lampshaded in their codex, which mentions that it would be very hard to play a pure Grey Knight army (although possible).
*** This is made even more glaring as most of their stuff is now overpriced and out of date by current marines who, while still being much cheaper than a Grey Knight, has much more equipment to compensate for any of their earlier lackings. Chaos Space Marines also got an update so that they can be upgraded to be harder to kill.
*** This is just not the case anymore. The 2011 Grey Knight codex moves the army into GameBreaker and TierInducedScrappy status. 55 point two wound terminators with force weapons that have 4+ invulnerable saves? That claim objectives?
** ''And'' [[MadeOfIron FNP]]. Never forget [[WhyWontYouDie FNP]].
*** Feel No Pain on the paladins (the aforementioned 2 wound terminators) is itself an example of this trope. Terminators are already very well protected from low strength and AP weapons, paladins more so as they have two wounds and can abuse the wound allocation rules. Therefore, most fire directed at them will either be [=AP2=] or S8 (or both), negating [=FNP=]. Considering how much a paladin apothecary costs, it's hardly practical to get them [=FNP=] instead of just buying more paladins.
** The Deathstrike Missile. It's ungodly powerful (being one of the most powerful weapons you can field in an non-apocalypse game), indestructible, and has a huge blast radius. The impractical part? Due to being a blast weapon, it's inaccurate to the point of suicide (unless you fire it across the table, it's fully capable of flying backwards and obliterating your own troops). Doesn't help that it's being crewed by normal guardsmen, who are not known for their accuracy. You also only get one shot per game. It also can't fire first turn (leaving it open to being shot off the table; It's not that well armored) and is only really useful against less mobile, more concentrated armies (playing Dark Eldar? You'll probably hit 1 unit with it).
** Speaking of Apocalypse, both of the [[LethalJokeCharacter Lethal Joke Characters]]. The Warlord Titan is three times the size of a Warhound Titan, which is already gigantic even in miniature scale. There is also rules for a Imperator Titan. To say it's easier to {{cosplay}} as one and just stand on the table instead of making a model is NOT an understatement of how big it would be. In fact, it may actually be smaller than making a true-to-scale model. You would need reinforced tables just to use those things.

** Also for Tau, and from Forge World, the [=XV9=] Hazard battlesuit. Tougher than almost every other battlesuit option out there, armed with a variety of Anti-infantry weaponry. The catch? Well for starters, it's a Forgeworld Model which means money costs are high. Second, most of it's weapons only reach out to 18", and leave quite a bit to be desired in the Armor Piercing department for most of them. The Phased Ion gun is quite bluntly, a ShoddyKnockoffProduct of the Space Marines Assault Cannon, with the only difference being, you can equip two of them per suit, and for anti armor, it's Fusion Cascade is a Melta weapon, but has lower power in exchange for a D3 shots per turn, making it's armor busting potential questionable. And the final nail in the coffin, for a lot cheaper costs (money and points wise), you can use Stealth Suits, which are incredibly effective in cover, and have up to 6 in one squad (3 more than any other Battlesuit squad), Crisis suits, which are BoringButPractical and can be kitted out much more reliable (and further shooting) weapons, or take Broadsides with High-Yield Missile Pods, and Smart Missile Systems (aka, "[[MacrossMissileMassacre Missilesides]]"), which have higher strength than most of the options on the hazard, shoot much further, and will always put out 8 shots a turn, with re-rolls to misses, thanks to being twinlinked. and the Smart Missiles ignore cover, and don't require line of sight either. All of which are from the standard Tau Empire Codex.

** ''Fireball'' is probably the most well-known spell in D&D, and it's not useless by any stretch of the definition. Fireball deals ludicrous damage for the level it's on, even if the target succeeds their save. That said, it's an AreaOfEffect spell, with a pretty large radius, so unless you and you're party are on the same wavelength, you are likely to hit them as well, unless you got the Evocation wizard's Sculpt Spell feature. The spell also deals Fire damage, and only Fire damage, which is the second most common immunity in the monster manual and third most common resistance. You're probably better of taking ''Melf's Minute Meteors'', which deals far less damage in a single round (maximum 4d6 damage on a failed save per round, over three rounds, but offers a much higher degree of precision, since it affects several smaller areas.

** In fact, the boards have a general term for this: practical optimization, and theoretical optimization. Practical optimization is about creating characters that are certainly good at their jobs, but don't outright break the game or require too much work to manage or put together and should therefore pass muster under most [=DMs=] and be fun to use. Theoretical optimization is about creating the most powerful character theoretically possible under the rules as written, regardless of lore conflicts, EarlyGameHell, balance issues, or wording mishaps. Sure, these characters are powerful, but they would be essentially unusable in actual play because your DM is unlikely to let you [[DiscOneNuke ascend to godhood at Level 1]] or obtain unlimited wishes, and even if they did, the campaign would either end right there or result in the DM pulling out something [[LensmanArmsRace even more ridiculous]] [[RocksFallEveryoneDies to kill you.]]

*** Worth noting that in-universe, the Tau are the only exception to ''Warhammer 40000'''s love of this trope. Everything the Tau use is built with functionality in mind. No trophy racks and battle honours on their sleek, futuristic vehicles - if it serves no purpose, it comes off. The Tau are the only faction in the game who don't use [[HumongousMecha Titans]], preferring heavy strike aircraft like the aforementioned Manta, much like modern armies in RealLife.