Anti Tau Tactics

[Storm Hunter]

Don't take them on with guns because you will get absolutely hammered. Thx to the hammerhead nothing is really safe so use some devastators or havocs to kill it. use as much cover as you can to get really close then charge into close combat and put them to the slaughter. I also hate tau and love to put them to the slaughter with my world eaters :D

[Leethal]

Do you want to know how I hand Tau Vechiles?

 

Higher up Chaplain, MC'ed Thunderhammer, Meltabomb, Plasma Pistol, Ad Mantle. Throw in termie honors if you wanna overkill him. Seriously and then give him a jump pack, grab 10 Assault marines, arm the sarge with a PF, stick some meltaguns or plasma guns. Vechile hunter/Crisis Suit eating monster.

 

I had this one group take down 2 Hammerheads and a Skyray, rip apart 1.5 Tau Fire Warrior squads, and 5 Crisis Suits, and 9 Kroot in one game. Course the Chappie was on his last wound at the end, but still. As long as the thunderhammer hits, the vechile is dead meat. I love thunderhammers :)

[I am Legion]

You know I just had a great Idea. Why not run a rhino or 2 down one of the flanks (with squads inside perhaps), and once you're close enough drop pod a dreadnought (furioso for BA). The rhinos will act as the wall for that turn that it cant do anything, and after that it just runs around with a heavy flamer/assault cannon or goes into close combat. My tau tactic is to leave them in a box formation and not move for the entire game. not much strategy (and luck heavy), so it's not much of a strategy, but it works. I'm going to try this tactic this weekend when my buddy is finished working.

[Cale]

There are lots of problems with that plan. Most notably, Rhinos dont' block LOS to Dreads very well--the Dreads are significantly taller.

 

Second, you can't force the Dreadnought to come in when you want it to. You might run your Rhinos up only to fail to bring your Dread in as anticipated. Coordination between units on the ground and deepstriking units is pretty much always a bad plan.

 

Third, you've got an Assault Cannon and a Heavy Flamer on that Dread which you can shoot the turn it disembarks. Shoot them. If they don't manage to kill a whole squad of firewarriors, well...that's pretty unucky. Or, hell. Shoot it at a tank. That Assault Cannon is better than a Lascannon at tank hunting.

 

Finally, the Drop Pod itself is big enough to hide the Dread. If you really want to hide, you've got a ready-made LOS blocker that allways shows up at the exact some time and in the exact same place.

 

Dreads drop on their own just fine. Postulating some manner of coordination between a dropping dread and a Rhino Mounted tactical squad is basically just silly.

[Tfcdogbert]

One thing i think would be quite funny to do, is to outfirepower tau, it will be difficult but i think possible, if you think about it Tau with the exception of Heavy support and suits are not very good shots, they are only BS 3, their save is mediocre, their gun is excellent admittedly, but their toughness is easily beaten, i would think it entirely possible to outfirepower tau, maybe 3 destructors, they will eat fire warriors, 2 hellfire dreads to take out the inevitable hammerhead, tactical squads with plasma cannons to template his suits to death.

 

Or for chaos, Defiler, 2 predator annihalators, tactical squads with standard loadoud (las-plas), some cult troops i was thinking noise marines and some fast units to whip around the side...

 

THis is a crazy idea born of little sleep and lots of sugar, but im going to try it against my mates tau army.

[I am Legion]

There are lots of problems with that plan. Most notably, Rhinos dont' block LOS to Dreads very well--the Dreads are significantly taller.

 

Second, you can't force the Dreadnought to come in when you want it to. You might run your Rhinos up only to fail to bring your Dread in as anticipated. Coordination between units on the ground and deepstriking units is pretty much always a bad plan.

 

Finally, the Drop Pod itself is big enough to hide the Dread. If you really want to hide, you've got a ready-made LOS blocker that allways shows up at the exact some time and in the exact same place.

 

Dreads drop on their own just fine. Postulating some manner of coordination between a dropping dread and a Rhino Mounted tactical squad is basically just silly.

 

check your models again, my dread is the exact same height as my rhino. the drop pod as cover is a good point, I always forget about that. and yes coordinating deep strike is impossbile, but it doesn't matter it will show up eventually and it will do some damage, and if not, it'll take the fire from his railguns, and allow the rest of your trrops to close in unscathed.

[Rude Mechanical]

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 cluttered board. Maybe take one. Keep it hidden all game and just take from it what you can get. Don't use minefields or incendiaries--stick to the s5, ap4 shots.

 

I'll offer the opposite advice - take two, with Castellan missiles. Park them as far back as you can to reduce the amount of firepower that can reach them. Drop minefields where his suits are hiding. Two S6 attacks per suit, per turn, will shut down the jump-shoot-jump dance and force those suits to find cover elsewhere. This will rattle all but the coolest Tau player, as they're used to getting their fancy suits safely out of LOS.

 

Remember that any Tau worth his salt will keep his tanks moving over 6" - with two Whirlwinds in opposite corners, you can cover all those places where he's likely to move his Hammerheads. That would be the dead zones behind cover, and the gaps between. If he goes gunning for your Whirlwinds in retaliation, then he's not pounding your transports or dreads, or pelting your troops with buckshot :)

[carnage]

Drop pod everything. Seriously. Bolters and two Plasmas or Meltas a squad, with 10 men a squad makes confetti out of those blasted fire warriors. And if you have two plasmas or meltas, you are also pretty much guaranteed to kill a tank or two. Add a Chaplain or a librarian and remember that the drop pod gives a cover save.

[eyescrossed]

Here is my Tau list: 6x 12 fire warriors, 6-7 broadsides, and an ethereal. this is about 1500 points.

you cheated! tau XV8 commanders are 1+, so if you don't have one, you've got yerself an illegal army!

[Levett]

The trick to tau is denying them the ability to setup dedicated fire positions. Essentially you need to herd them up like cattle and keep them contained, then simply condense in towards them. This will eventually force his Crisis suits to have to jump back towards his support units, which will allow you to take them down. The second you let Tau move around you and lead your units, you've lost.

[Br.Pat]

Tau are pretty shooty, but the right Space Marine army list can be pretty shooty too. For example, my chapter has the Purity Above All Trait, which allows tactical and elite squads to have apothecaries. With three 7 man tactical squads (that's 3 plasma guns 3 lasguns), upgrading your veteran seargent to an apothecary allow you to ignore 3 wounds from shooting every turn. Sweet!

 

I also advise Deep Striking with all units that can. Against Tau I would Deep Strike both my Dreadnoughts (Drop Pods) and my Assault Squad. That should send a shiver down his spine.

[Lynnean]

i can say 1 thing, iamlegion, you are right about the termi's, but what u forget to see, is that blood angels have more to give. with assault marines as troops, get yourself a lot of jump packs, and if they shoot some down, poor them, there are enough. ow, and dante with honour guard( apothecary, company champion, tech marine, standard bearer, 2 power weapons, and 4 normal honour guard assault marines) do the works fine too. ignore the first missed armour save, dante with 3 wounds, and he hits 4 attacks in cc. with melta gun that counts as pistol it hurts really hard. ow and with death company with jump packs isn't very nice to have in combat or even near too. i'll be silent about the rhino's and the BAA'predators :lol:

BA are good at tau, never lost a battle to a tau player :P :P

[Captain Idaho]

The trick to tau is denying them the ability to setup dedicated fire positions. Essentially you need to herd them up like cattle and keep them contained, then simply condense in towards them. This will eventually force his Crisis suits to have to jump back towards his support units, which will allow you to take them down. The second you let Tau move around you and lead your units, you've lost.

 

agreed. i find that 2 or more Rhinos full of troops will terrify Tau, and the beauty of them is destroyed/imbolised Rhinos block LOS, thus really annoying a Tau fire line. attack up a flank and it will do the herd trick Levett spoke of.

 

and prioritise your targets; a Tau army without its Hammer Heads and Broadsides really struggle against armour. a couple of Lascannons at Broadsides will instant kill them, thus weakening the Tau response quickly. remember that a Hammer Head is just a tank, so if you stun it your laughing.

[Br.Pat]

I know that Tau have superior firepower, but how does it compare to the Space Marines'? Do we have enough to win a firefight with the right list?

[Captain Idaho]

i reckon so. after all, 20 Firewarriors vs 10 Tactical Marines works out the marines being cheaper. they are more likely to hit, wound the same and get better saves. i a long range shoot fest, the Marines have the advantage further as you can take on the Tau piecemeal.

 

the Battle suits are a worry though, they turn the tide of shooting back into the Tau's favour, especially when accompanied with Broadsides and Hammer Heads, plus marker lights making the Firewarriors firepower actually worth while.

 

id reccomend taking the battle to them though, due to the above reason. out shoot them at closer ranges, threaten them with assault and the Tau Firepower becomes yours to dictate (who is the opponent going to shoot, your supporting Devastators and Tacticals or your Assault squad about to hit his lines?). put the pressure on them.

[Guardian of the Rage]

I think that something that noone has yet mentioned explicitly is that Tau fight in 2 (maybe 3 if you count battlesuit heavy) ways, and they are WILDLY DIFFERENT. These are Mont'ka(Killing Blow) and the Kau'yon styles (patient hunter) styles.

 

Mont'ka - This is very similar to the mech eldar idea, and most of the same principles apply. Essentially the tau player will look to use manouveurability to deny you shots and isolate a section of your force, upon which he will then unleash everything that he's got (mounted firewarriors and ion/rail heads are most common) they will then reposition and try to do this again.

 

Kau'yon - This is the adoption of a 'lure' usually an impossing firebase (typically firewarriors, broadsides and sniper drones) and the inclusion of other mobile elements (most typically crisis suits) to pick of the enemy as they enter a killing ground in front of the firebase. This is sometimes edited to battlesuit heavy lists, but even they actually operate in this way.

 

What experienced Tau players do NOT do is buy 70+ firewarriors, stand shoulder to shoulder and hope to conquer all with wait of fire. This is the way that many of the comments seem to suggest that Tau operate, infact tau doctorine places no importance what ever on the holding of specific ground or locations. They infact see the last stand as the last refuge of a poor commander. Any GOOD Tau player will focus on mobility (ability to move and fire faster than you can), this idea holds true for each style, even battlesuit heavy.

 

Yes, they HATE CC, but most units have the ability to avoid this entirely through fire and manouveur. In a game with only 6 turns and standard 6inch move, it is unlikely to be a problem for them until later in the game. Something lots of players have suggested is the use of bikes. We'll see why i both agree and disagree with this statement later, but in essence if you have only 6 bikes in a 1500 point army, that will constitue around 250 points including upgrades. When you advance ASAP toward the enemy you have moved a sixth of your army a long way ahead of the rest of it, and will have left it isolated. You have just done their job for them, you have divided a small chunk off your own force. They will concentrate fire on these units (probably in rapid fire range for firewarriors by now!) and weight of fire will beat yor 3+ invulnerable saves!

 

Rant over on that score, now How to beat them.

 

The Tau work on a very simple principle using either doctrine. The creation of shots in their turn, and the denial of shots in your turn, primarily through use of fire and manouveur.

 

Once you understand that they will use this to achieve each of the styles, and accept that they are better at this than you (unless you're playing Tau too) the answer to defeating them is obvious. Obvious, but incredibaly difficult to execute without editing your list on an opponent specific basis. You must out manouveur them, with enough force that their main advantage is rendered useless. To understand how to do this, we must first understand how they achieve their goals.

 

The Crisis Suit (aka JSJ) - the crisis suit is one of the deadliest weapons in the game because with correct use, it can fire with inpunity and they repreat into a position out of LOS. This is its only real strength however and while it is durable, they only have the T and Sv of our standard marines, (admittedly with 2 wounds). This means that if you can negate their main advantage, mobility, they are a merely a squad of 3 marines with 2 wounds some good shooting weapons and the ability to move in the assault phase.

 

The Stealth field Generator (suits and sniper) - the stealth generator forces you to use nightfight rules against them when shooting. The average night fight role is 21 inches, thus the snipers are usually able to fire with utter impunity in the first couple of turns. The suits can combine the JSJ and stealth generator, but they have only limited range. Up at close range though (ie: use mobility to get up close) they are both only T3 and so will be easily wounded by the standard bolter.

 

Use of vehicles with a Multi tracker (fire as a fast vehicle) - this means that Ion and rail heads can move 12 and fire all of their weapons. But they CAN'T move back after!!! Thus they must use LOS and rely on the destruction of their target for protection. These are big vehicles and there is only so much space for units like this to hide, true they are skimmers, and are thus difficult to destroy, particularly with decoy launchers for just 5 point (allowing them to force you to reroll an immobilised result on a glance) but all tau vehicles have a crucial weakness. There is no upgrade in the Tau vehicle armoury that allows you to downgrade the can't move or shoot result to one of simply can't shoot on the damage table. Thereany glance what soevr is going to render the vehicle almost useless in the following turn, and thus FIRE and MANOUVEUR are impossible.

 

Use of transport for fire warriors - Part of the so called fish-of-fury tactic of FoF, and features heavily in Mont'ka style. This has many of the same points as above with the multi trackers, except that lack of an 'extra armour' upgrade is even more important. The main reason to mount firewarriors in a Devilfish is to drop them off and them rapid fire, similar to the use of a rhino. And shock Horror, just like a rhino, it can't do this if it can't move. And if it can't move, its useless.

 

Now that we understand a little more how the tau do what they do, the answer should be clear. We must counter or overpower their manouveurabiltiy in enough strength to do real damage. In terms of our list selections, this means things that can move 12 and still fire are paramount, backed up by things that can get to the enemy unmolested as in CC, even the tactical marine can defeat 3 or 4 times as many Tau firewarriors. Think land speeders, bikes attack bikes, assault marines and I/Cs with bike or Jumppack. The crucial thing to remember is that like common conceptions about tanks, that you must have 2/3 to make them worthwhile, the same is true of fast units against the tau. If you isolate you're units by allowing the fast units to get ahead without support of other fast units, you WILL be picked apart peicemeal. I short, all together or not at all.

 

Countering the Mont'ka

In most ways, this is the easiest to counter, as it is like other armies of eldar that have been documented well before. They will advance and try to destroy a small section of your force you must anticipate this and tackle their manouveurability with your own. Focus on the Devilfish, they have weaker armour and hold the most victory points (transported unit included) and will suffer most from being 'stunned'. The Rail and Ion heads are a problem but they are pricey with upgrades and can be countered by far cheaper units in our list (attack bikes with MM particularly). These lists rely of the killing power of the rapid fireing firewarrior, keep this in mind and away from them and their ability to kill your force will diminish significantly. I railgun hit on focused can still only kill one model per turn)

 

 

Countering the Kau'yon

This is significantly harder to counter, and i'm going to suggest going totally against what one would expect. The Player is hoping that you will attack the firebase or 'Lure', so do NOT. These units are often regarded by the Tau player as less important and they often employ 'meta-gaming' tactics to get you to attack them. I always include a broadside and 2 shield drones. People quiver at the mere thought of that S10 AP1 gun, but Why? Sure it can destroy absolutrly anything, but it can only fire 6 times a game (assuming 6 turns ofcourse) and if it takes the Slow and purposefull upgrade(everyone does!) it has to use BS 3. Even with twinlinked thats only 75% hits, so thats 4.5 hits per game. it can't fire submunitions like the rail head, so it can only kill 4.5 models a game! Just keep your tanks away from it and it will never be worth whta the tau player payed for it unless you... Concentrate fire on it. Another very common mistake is to fire at it with everything you've got, with a 2+ save and 2 drones with 4+ invulnerables, it will take ALOT of punishment. This fire should be directed at fire warriors or simply don't manouveur so you can see it (thus it can see you). I can't stress enough how imporatant it is not to attack the firebase.... Instead attack the manouveurable support. Using the ideas for counter as above in the JSJ and Stealth generator sections, you should be amply equiped. Thus you will have divided the Tau player, the very thing the Tau player was trying to do. The Hunter becomes the Hunted!

 

In summary

 

1) Tau rely on Manouveurabilty, counter this.

2) Do so in enough force to be meaningful

3) Don't get distracted by 'meta-gaming' of tau units, they each have a main strength which once negated makes them fairly useless

4) Don't spread out to far, (either sideways and forwards) this is what the Tau are waiting for

5) Think carefully about what is in front of you, don't do what the Tau want you to do and see what it is they are doing

 

I hope that this guide helps those players whom don't face Tau regularly. It should be noted that inexperienced Tau players will make mistakes fairly often and thus some of the advice here may be 'overkill' but against an experienced player, it will be of significant use.

 

Finally the best marine armies to fight Tau with are BA, Ravenwing and Traited marines that allow bikes as troops or assault marines as elites (or both!)

 

GotR

[I am Legion]

I just finished playing against Tau at 1100 Points with my BA.

 

Blood Angels do alot of damage to Tau. I denied him all shooting this game except ONE gun drone squad that did no damage. He fired that squad twice this game, and NOTHING else. How was this done? I looked over the pitiful terrain and realized he will mulch my assault troops as they advance, so instead I just deep struck 4 of my squads, while one was on the table. I hid my tanks from his two hammerheads. on my first turn I destroyed his first hammerhead with my baal predators assault cannons (thank you rending!). Then I slowly moved my MM attack bike around a building and fried his second hammerhead at close quarters. I assaulted his crappy commander & bodyguard with my 5 assault troops and tied them up for 2 turns until my deep strikers could assist, at which point I crushed him. all he had were some firewarriors to help, but they did nothing. I lost around 100 points this game. This was the second game I played against him. and the first game I lost about the same, though I used a different list. I'm not scared of Tau anymore. I could have crushed that army with a;

baal pred

autocannon and HB pred

5xRAS w/PW

MM attack bike (which fired once but killed his hammerhead which exploded taking out a bunch of his guys, and a couple of mine)

and a 5xVAS w/PW

The rest of my army didn't really get to fight. and I had 3 more assault squads (one of which was my DC and Chaplain)

[Lynnean]

you see? Ba's are superior at Tau killing jobs ^^

[antique_nova]

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

lol

Holy orb chaplins works well or assault cannons, i also find that a terminator assault squad with thunderhammers are very good providing you have firepower to pin the tank down, but so far assault marines with melta bombs and a chaplin if you want to are very useful ( just charge the assault marines straight into their most isolated units and they wont shoot them with the big guns e.g. rail gun and if they do it will kill just one marine and make sure you always have 2 suqads of them one to distract the other to kill it, and in city terrain they ( hammer heads) are useless against assault marines lol

thanks

Antique_nova

[Grindgodgrind]

Try and get to assault as fast as possible....use bikes/assault marines/drop pods/termie.

 

Bike are fantastic against Tau, they scare the beejesus out of them. Turbo boosting terror!

[antique_nova]

Try and get to assault as fast as possible....use bikes/assault marines/drop pods/termie.

 

Bike are fantastic against Tau, they scare the beejesus out of them. Turbo boosting terror!

 

Well that is until, they put a large blast template over you, several times, or rapid fire you with everything XD

that would be....lets say amusing lol

thanks

Antique_nova

[Grindgodgrind]

Take enough bikes so that their shooting has minimal effects. Use cover more efficiently. Use infiltrators. And as far as I know, they could put a 'large blast template' over you what, 3 times? You'd still get an armour save from it, too.

[antique_nova]

Take enough bikes so that their shooting has minimal effects. Use cover more efficiently. Use infiltrators. And as far as I know, they could put a 'large blast template' over you what, 3 times? You'd still get an armour save from it, too.

 

The bikes are expensive and black templar players can only get 15 max without special weapons.

TOO EXPENSIVE!

thanks

Antique_nova

[Grindgodgrind]

My normal Marine bikes cost 32pts each, and yet they can absolutely bum Tau.

 

Another consideration. If you're a codex chapter, a Librarian with fury of the ancients can be useful for pinning down squads.

[Mycroft Holmes]

My "take any challangers" list that I developed mostly against Tau:

 

8Dev 4 rockts

LandRaider Crusader

Predator 3 las

10Tac PF and LasCannon

10Tac PF and LasCannon

10Tac PF, Melta, BP/CCW

5man Assault Terminators

Chaplain Terminator

10Assault PF, 2 PP

Landspeeder

 

The Good:

The strength of this list against Tau, 3 major units that push forward. The walking squad threatens firewarriors with out transports and even the transports themselves with the melta gun. The jump troops force Suits to move, even if they can't catch them, ties up broadsides quickly and the 2 PP do a great job against side/rear armor. The Crusader, with proper use of smoke launchers and cover, catch batlesuits/broadsides and tear them to shreads with the re-roll to hit and to wound and no armor saves.

 

The Ok:

The 2 tactical and devastator squads provide very good support in trying to stun the skimmers and put good pressure on battlesuits out of cover.

 

The Bad:

The landspeer gets eaten alive by almost anything in the Tau army. Don't leave it anywhere it can take many shots.

The Predator provides good stunning power against their tanks... expect it to be a priority target and to not survive long with out some impressive deployment/luck.

 

Mycroft

 

(EDIT: forgot to mention this is an 1850pt list)