Anti Tau Tactics

[orphanfeast99]

In my local group of players there is one Tau player, and i hate him :angry: . Mainly because of his god forsaken :lol: hammerhead

(its got rang 72 :angry: ). If you know any good strategys to kill this manny pinners and a big-ol hammerhead gunship, by all means, tell me.

 

Try to keep it short though.

[ChaosInCommorragh]

short?

 

close combat, attack bikes with Multimeltas?

[Technoscream]

Chaplain on bike with artificer armour! Turbo boost to glory!

[Lord Solcia]

Since you play with Eldar, I believe you should throw a Brightlance or two in your army. Painful little SOB it can be against heavily armored units.

 

For his Fire Warriors, throw soem Howling Banshees at them!

 

Then again, that Tau player is my partner when we face you...so...I might be lying... =D

[orphanfeast99]

Sup Frank, how goes 3rd period?

[Tfcdogbert]

Infiltrating and fast units, Eldar, striking scorpions come to mind as do hawks with haywires, but more PA related then bikes with meltas and fists, veteran tankbusters (meltas, plasma, lascannons) for the infiltration, depending on how much non LOS weaponry he has cover hopping jump packers might well make a good investment, but bikers really are a little tricky for tau to kill if they turbo boost, as even their battlesuits are only really wounding you on threes with enhanced toughness.

[ObsidianIchor]

For his Fire Warriors, throw soem Howling Banshees at them!

 

Howling Banshees? Overkill much? Throw anything into combat with Fire Warriors. Even Guardsmen or Grots! Fire Warriors have trouble fighting themselves out of a wet paper bag. Either the other troops can chew threw them relatively easily or cost half as much and keep the Fire Warriors from firing their S5 guns! Man for man, punch for punch, guardsmen EQUAL Fire Warriors in combat! That's not even taking into account that the Guardsmen strike first and will take some out. And they cost 4 points less.

Example:

Number models * Chance to hit * chance to wound * chance to fail Armor Save = Casualties

10 Guardsmen * 4/6 * 3/6 * 3/6 =~ 1.67 Tau Casualties

10 Tau * 3/6 * 3/6 * 4/6 =~ 1.67 Guard Casualties

 

Anything with 2 attacks not including the charge should take them out easily. Or if the troop has S4 or T4.

 

Summary: to take out fire warriors, you don't need specialized assault troops. You need warm bodies.

[Cale]

Chaplains, Bikes, Assault Marines, Attack Bikes with Multimeltas, and Terminators with Assault Cannons.

 

That's the short version. To avoid pinning, use Chaplains--they're fearless and make other stuff fearless (read: immune to pinning).

 

Bikes will charge on the second turn and have 3+ invulnerable saves on the first. You can't ask for more.

 

Multi-melta attack bikes hunt fast tanks like nothing else--and as a bonus, they can charge firewarriors or even crisis suits and still win combat.

 

Terminators with Assault Cannons. They're the best mobile gun platforms you're going to get against Tau. With only plasma rifles for AP:2 weaponry (and, really, not too many of those) the Terminator is far and away the most resilient Assault Cannon platform against the Tau. They murder Tau infantry, and they're great anti-tank. Best of all, they can do all this while advancing--to take objectives or just put more pressure on the Tau army.

 

Tau don't like to be close to Marines. Get close fast (and charge them when you can, of course) and they're basically big pushovers.

[Imrix]

That'd be wonderful advice, Cale, but apparently this guy plays Eldar.

 

So that in mind... Hammerhead? Pah! Anything they can do, Eldar can do better. Slap it with a Falcon, unload the Fire Dragons. Sure, it's a Skimmer- six meltaguns hurts whatever it is!

 

Other than that, mostly what people have said. Close combat works extremely well, but I'll give you a tip myself. Wave Serpents with Dire Avengers inside are utterly lethal, and nigh-invulnerable to a lot of Tau weapons. Figure out which Tau guns are capable of anti-tank work and destroy them. The above-mentioned Fire Dragons would do a good job.

[Cale]

Jeez. Where are all you Eldar players coming from, anyway? Crawling right out of the woodwork.

 

Well, whatever. Sorry about that. It didn't really say in his post, and it seemed reasonable to assume that he was playing a marine army, given that it is the Bolter and Chainsword. ;)

[Guardian of the Rage]

i agree with Cale (if your marines that is) one other tactic that can work well is a libby on a bike with arti armour and the fear of the darkness power! Those fire warriors only have LD 8 even with a shas'ui. They usually stay back near their board edge, force them to flee and leave the table.

 

I've seen that used regularly against stactic tau firewarriors.

 

GotR

[Wildfire]

Keep away from the Eldar comments, folks. This is a PA only board. And in any case, no where did I see the origional poster say anything about playing Eldar.

[Sen Starfire]

Hi there, I was just wondering how to get around the other Tau tactic. The battlesuit-heavy Tau tactic. There is this player at my club who just massacres everything with cheesy bouncing 'suits, and I was wondering if there was a way to get around that.

[RedTalon]

Where I play a Tau uses XV8 Battlesuits with shield drones, (3 suits for his command squad, 3 Elites) Devilfish transport and Firewarriors and Kroot, with Hammerhead. The Hammer head is nasty, but those XV8s and their shield drones make em hard to kill cause if the shield fails he just take the hit on the drones.

 

I play SM :sick: and soon DA as my chapter any advise for what i need in my army?

[Tfcdogbert]

Ah, DA makes it a little tricky if you want to stick with the fluff, i was going to advise a vindicare, sheild breaker round and you can take the wound on whoever you want, he cant delegate it to one of the suits or take the invulnerable against it, my other was a callidus, her sword ignores invulnerable save and you can mess about with the positioning of a unit, although the DA are rather loath to allow the Inquisitors to prod around in their private business with the Fallen hanging about, it depends how much of a fluff fiend you are.

 

But i would possibly advise lots and lots of ravenwing, fall upon him like the sword of secrets, get up to his lines as damned quick as you can to make him panic and shoot at what looks the scariest not what is the best, then rip him up in close combat.

[Captain Pugno]

if the player uses suits then his AT is weaker than normall so load up on hunter killers

[Cale]

Yeah, with DA go for the Ravenwing. Getting close quickly is the key to winning, and nothing does that better than bikes--except bikes that scout. Viola! Ravenwing.

 

Take meltas so you can hunt his tanks, but focus on charging things and killing them in combat. Use your scout move to get closer and block as many first turn shots as possible. First and foremost, though--get closer. Nothing beats the snot out of a Tau army like first-turn assaults, and Ravenwing bikers can pull those off.

[Tfcdogbert]

Yeah, with DA go for the Ravenwing. Getting close quickly is the key to winning, and nothing does that better than bikes--except bikes that scout. Viola! Ravenwing.

 

Take meltas so you can hunt his tanks, but focus on charging things and killing them in combat. Use your scout move to get closer and block as many first turn shots as possible. First and foremost, though--get closer. Nothing beats the snot out of a Tau army like first-turn assaults, and Ravenwing bikers can pull those off.

 

What he said, plus if theres any cover on the table he is not occupying perhaps infiltrate some things into it, scouts to rush out and CHAERG! or i dont know if Loyalists vets can do this, but some veterans with full kitted up plasma to give his suits a good close up pasting.

[Cale]

Space Marine scouts can not get a first turn charge. Ever. They can't deploy within 12" of an enemy model.

[Wildfire]

Space Marine scouts can not get a first turn charge. Ever. They can't deploy within 12" of an enemy model.

 

They can, however, make a very good second wave, after the bikes have pinned him in place.

[Cale]

I guess, but hitting in waves is pretty much strictly inferior to hitting with everything you have simultaneously. Those points are better spent on more bikes, basically every time.

 

Now, if you couldn't take bikes as troops, then Scouts would have more merit--but, of course, DA can, regular marines can, and DA Scouts are elites, not troops.

[I am Legion]

As a Blood Angel player, AND a Tau player, all I can say is, Cover is very important as you move up the map. Now when I play against my buddy (who uses my tau or BA) we try to figure out tactics for both armies. Here is my Tau list: 6x 12 fire warriors, 6-7 broadsides, and an ethereal. this is about 1500 points. Now. Fire warriors are the key to this army. 32 wounds against 5 teleporting terminators(after about 62 shots that round).....leaves nothing but dust in the wind. Vehicles can't be out in the open. troops (including Nids who are probably the most powerful army out there in my opinion) get decimated before they can charge. even my chaplin and assault marines get dragged to the ground and die to rifle butting. Now the one tactic which I found works generally well is to take as much luck out of the factor. This includes learning how to measure inches in your minds eye so that you can bombard tau with whirlwinds. NEVER deep strike. and if you are a blood angel player and you can manage it, get 6 rhinos with assault troops inside. some will die along the way, but the others will make it, and survivors will get there in the next couple turns. as far as I'm concerned my tau army is the hardest one to defeat (I killed aprox 1600 points of tyranids and marines in the same game, while loosing 8 firewarriors and 3 broadsides=240 points not even a quarter of my army. and this was 1000 points each army, until they realized I was too powerful and both went against me. fun game by the way. any other tau list isn't that hard to kill because they limit the amount of firepower they can pour. Attack bikes w/MM work fantastic against any of their vehicles and suits. CC in large numbers will decimate them though....

[Wildfire]

I guess, but hitting in waves is pretty much strictly inferior to hitting with everything you have simultaneously.

 

That's true as far as it goes, but fails to include the fact that bikers are about 2.5 times more expensive than scouts. If you can get either 4 biker squads or 2 biker squads and 5 scout squads, personally I'd go for the second option.

 

I'm not saying that scouts are better than bikers (or that bikers are better than scouts), but if you are looking to get into CC you'll often want more bodies than a few biker squads can provide.

[RedTalon]

Great advise, and legion he plays with about that many firewarriors in 1500 pt games, but we were playing 1000pt, so he was using the other army. Now I'm also wondering since bikes are good, what about landspeeders w/MM ? or even Typhoon? roughly same price but with armour over powerarmour saves. And the vindicator is nasty I know, but what about 2 whirlwinds instead of 1 vindicator?

[Cale]

A problem with Land Speeders against Tau is that strength five Pulse Rifles wreck armour 10 vehicles. The Typhoon is probably the best choice, since it can stay outside of 30", and the Tornado with the Assault Cannon is the next best choice, just 'cause it kicks out far more damage than any of the others, but both are pretty likely to get shot down quickly--and unlikely to really make a huge impact on the game.

 

Against Tau, I'd take Whirlwinds over Vindicators any day, but I probably wouldn't bother with either. The Whirlwind, at least, can stay hidden, but a board which can hide two from a good Tau army is a very[/ii] cluttered board. Maybe take one. Keep it hidden all game and just take from it what you can get. Don't use minefields or incindiaries--stick to the s5, ap4 shots.

 

I wouldn't blow points on a second unless there's really nothing else to buy.

 

I'm not saying that scouts are better than bikers (or that bikers are better than scouts), but if you are looking to get into CC you'll often want more bodies than a few biker squads can provide.

 

It just doesn't take that many bodies to beat Tau in combat. One or two survivors of a bike squad really ought to do it fine.

 

I still say stick to bikers over scouts, even if scouts aren't a terrible choice.