Tips on fighting Tau

[Venter_Of_Russ]

In the past they've been peaceful little buggers, but they're starting to encroach on the Fenris system and that's an unforgivable offense. I've rallied the brothers, and the wulfen's cries are on the wind.

 

Problems I've encountered:

 

Little 2-drone gun squads fill the air like wasps. The laughing axes pack has been able to line up some solid shots on them, but in the time it takes them to shoot down 2 drones the grey-skins set up a fresh firing line.

 

My best warriors usually fight at my side, complete with terminator armor. The aliens use alot of plasma.

 

Mjardin Bladesong, the oldest of the dreadnaughts assigned to the great company by the old wolf himself, has taken a couple of nasty burns from strange fusion technology.

 

Finally: The aliens love to mount their warriors in skimmers and keep them skyborn until the last possible moment. (Cowardly scum). The problem is, this prevents proper ambushes, because they always land as far from the packs as possible.

 

Your council is, as always, appreciated brothers.

 

For Russ! For the wolftime!

 

-Wolf Lord Venter

 

((My main problem is the gun drone squads which detach from tau vehicles; if I shoot them, I can't assault anything. If I don't, they pin my army.))

[The_Betrayed_Spacewolf]

just have your fastest unit take them out such as land speeders or a character on a bike.

[Vassakov]

Right, well Terminators and Dreadnoughts are not always your best bet against Tau, a correctly geared Crisis Suit squad can chuck 6 Twin Linked shots at you whilst dancing out of harms way. If you must take them, put them in a Pod and pray they come in after his suits.

 

Squads like he has a fish o' fury list, ie lots of Devilfish backed up by Crises suits, in which case a Land Raider (Crusader is your best bet) packed to the gunnels with Blood Claws is your best bet. Of the entire Tau army, only Railguns and Fusion Blasters can touch it. Railguns sound like they're thin on the ground, Fusion blasters will miss regularly and need to be well within wacking distance for any effect.

 

So, to finish up I'll give you my view on Takes and Takes-Nots.

 

Takes:

Anything in a Pod

Land Raiders

Bikes

Predators

 

Takes Nots:

Anything on Foot

Transports (other than Raiders)

Long Fangs

[Helfang]

I go along with Vass, but don't forget your wolf scouts, with a wolf gaurd leader they can be a real pain to any army.

[Grey Mage]

Whirlwinds... I dont care how fast he is, and I dont care what the armor is on his front.... 4+ saves will die. Kroot will die. In droves. On a 6'x4' or anything smaller it can hit the whole board from turn one and in cover. Can you say sweet emperors tacos?

 

Bikers.... He cant outrun that, promise. Just make sure you have atleast five to soak the fire.

 

Assault cannons- AP4 against grunts, rending against everything else.

 

Predator- Go with the annihilator and heavy bolter sponsons. Shoot the sponsons first at broadsides to take down drones, then hit the suit with a lascannon. Also good against troops and transports.

 

Ive actually had really good luck with longfangs against tau. Easy to place in cover.... consider it.

 

Drop pods with deathwind launchers- he cant escape the skies. The new deepstrike rules for pods mean youll always be in range, and a deathwind is a great thing- wounds troops on 2+, can glance vehicles via backarmor, etc. If he blows it up, thats a turn he wasnt killing your vehicles.

 

Power weapons- take this and plasma however you can. Plasma is great for cutting down suits. Consider close range firepower against them.... 4 plasma shots on a suit squad usually equals 2 dead drones and a suit.

 

One note on dreadnaughts, if your going to take one make it a venerable and make sure you have a number of other vehicles on the board. Venies have a good chance of surviving with their reroll damage result, extra armor, and smoke. Give him enough other targets and hell likely survive. Consider taking a plasmacannon and heacy flamer at 183pts it kill suits and close range infantry that might otherwise be problematic.

[Warp Angel]

Predator- Go with the annihilator and heavy bolter sponsons. Shoot the sponsons first at broadsides to take down drones, then hit the suit with a lascannon. Also good against troops and transports.

 

All wounds from a single unit's shooting are allocated at the same time. The Tau player gets to shove that lascannon hit on the drones if he'd like to and let the broadsides make the armor save against the HB.

[Grey Mage]

True enough... doesnt usually get played that way around here so I forget about such things... but you are certainly correct.

[Logain the Ranger]

A predator is good since it can chew up troops and vehicles. Another way to go is the Leman Russ 'Exterminator'.

[Grey Mage]

Thing is armor 14 is nice... but two targets is IMHO better. Predator Destructors are dirt cheap at 85pts per.

[megamat008]

I'd advise against Land Raiders, anywhere from 2 to 9 S10 AP1 shots a turn will make short work of them, and kill some of the troops inside.

 

I agree that DP will murder Tau, and Deathwind on them are also gold.

[Vassakov]

I'd advise against Land Raiders, anywhere from 2 to 9 S10 AP1 shots a turn will make short work of them, and kill some of the troops inside.

 

Indeed. But Broadsides will miss half the time, and avoiding LoS is not too difficult. Also, with a 20" assault range an agressive deployment should hopefully see you with a turn 2 assault at latest. Smokes also help. The point about the Raider being good is that they ONLY have 1 gun that poses any real threat, and it's relatively easy to minimise. As opposed to the Lascannon heavy Marine and Guard armies, or the Nidzilla's, or even a Daemons army. Don't even get me started on the Eldar...

[megamat008]

Broadsides have TL Railguns so hit 75% of the time. And trust me there is a BIG difference between Railguns and Lascannons. AP1 weapons are murder in V5.

 

Daemons, Tyranids, IG, SM and even Eldar (bright lances are horribly expensive, they can only rely on linked prisms at range to tackle a LR) don't have much reliable ranged anti-tank to deal with LRs.

 

The way to get rid of them with these armies is with meltaguns, meltabombs or Monstrous Creatures for Daemons and Nids, so against these opponents you should have time to get in assault range. Except if the guy pods Dreadnoughts on the first turn and has Vukan in the army ;)

[Grey Mage]

Ill agree on the eldar. Brightlances give the army a chance to tackle raiders and such.... but a glancing 4 doesnt make them killers.... it makes them AP railguns. TL Railguns are teh bain of a raider.

[Roland Durendal]

You know I just played Tau the other day in a 2k game.

 

His Army was something like:

 

Commander and 2 Crisis bodyguards, lots of plasma

3 Crisis w/ plasma

3 Devilfished Firewarrior Squads

Hammerhead

2 3man Broadside teams.

 

His crisis teams were deepstriking too.

 

My Army was basically:

Tooled Wolf Lord

Tooled Wolf Prest

Ven Dread w/ ML/TLLC

4man scouts w/ melta, PW and meltabombs

Pod Dread w/ MM/HF/DCCW

2X 10 man gre packs in Rhinos, fully kitted with PW/PF, Melta and at least 1PP

1 BC squad in Rhino (with Priest) with PW/PF, Melta

13man BC squad in LRC w/ 2PF/PW, melta with Lord.

 

Anyhoo what proved most effective that game was my poddin dread. It lasted the entire game and only lost its MM. In fact it destroyed the HH Railgun by flaming it against its rear armor (I was sneaky and moved my dread partially behind the HH and used the flamer to roast the broadsides on the far side. Toasted a shield drone and also hit the rear armor with the template, gthus taking out the HHs effectiveness).

 

Sadly I ended up losing the game 5kp-3kp because I failed to move one of my empty rhinos into cover quick enough and it drew a lot of fire. That and on turn 6 he finally decided to shoot my Pod sitting all lonely in his deployment zone. I found out that slowing down Tau is what wins games against them.

 

My recommendations:

Ven Dread with TLLC/ML - use as a firebase to slow down their movement. Against fish it's wonderful because you'll almost always hit with both weapons, and it is fairly easy to inflict a glance (3+/4+). And all you need is to either stun to immobilize it to be effective. Furthermore, it has a good chance of of pen too (4+/5+). So use this guy on turn one to try and slow some of his vehicle movement.

 

Drop Pod Dread - My personal success with the MM/DCCW/HF dread has converted me. Used in conjunction with the Ven dread and you can pretty much shut down a signicant portion of his moving on turn 1. Nasty tactic to use, is make sure you place the pod in between your dread and any enemy who will be shooting him next turn. You'll either get a 4+ or no shooting due to LoS. Just make sure senior Dread has LoS to the intended victim.

 

As an aside besides the regular dread equipped with MM/DCCW/HF, an Ironclad would work exceptionally well. I don't have the points to squeeze on ein my list (even if I drop my Drop Pod dread), but one of those guys w/ HF, HKs, and Assault Launchers would be plain nasty. Personal preference really, as I could go either way, but the added range of the MM on the standard dread is a benefit.

 

Wolf Scouts - A small 4-5 man squad armed with Meltagun, maybe one PP, a PW (primarily for defense or the odd Devastator squad which needs to be taken care of), and meltabombs is a good all around surprise unit. It can crush vehicles with ease (almost always guaranteed melta range, in addition to planting bombs in an assault), and can hold its own for short periods against average troops or small pockets (i.e. Devastator squads) or MEQs.

 

 

My tips anyway

[Guest WG Vrox]

3 attack bikes 2MM 1 HB lead by a WG leader with Storm Shield, to make them realy tough, throw in a WP with HB&P. TB to get close then you have serious FP that he has to be dealt with, but the 3+ invo save will soak up alot of FP, allowing the rest of your army to get into position. 4 models for 215 points not bad.

[Grey Mage]

I dont think attack bikes can take WGPL's, and a WGBL makes that unit more than 215.... with just a powerfist and a bike were looking at 230pts. Explain?

[Guest WG Vrox]

I say this as per the Q & A section from GW posted in the FAQ sticky.

[Grey Mage]

Ahh... found it, thank you. Hrmm....

[Lord Ragnarok]

OBEL'ing wolf scouts. small number (4) with melta bombs, PP, and MG.

[Guest WG Vrox]

I have heard Drop pods and fast attack. Has anyone ever tried numbers, just one big skirmish line, a pred TLLC a Vindi, a Whirly, IronClad Dred, and maybe 3 GH 1 BC, 6 Scouts OBEL. to catch a few of the unaware huggin the edge. just spread them out in a line and head toward the tau. A few RUN rolls, and he should have to back up into a corner where you can Pie Plate him to death followed by an assult with with whatever is left. Other thand the Devil Fish being able to go past nothing else should be able to escape the net. Have only played the tau once and they delt a harsh beating to my wolves, but that was in 4th so...

 

Thougths?

 

WG Vrox

[Vassakov]

It's unlikely to work against an experienced Tau player. They are most likely to blast a hole in your lines and break out, or simply fly away in Fish and use the mobility of the Crisis suits to avoid CC indefinately. Also, the Vindie will not get close.

[OnlyInDeath]

They are also likely to shoot the living bejesus out of you before you have a chance to bottle them up. Foot slogging against tau is most likely the worst idea as the battle suits can just use their mobility to pump plasma into your squad and then "tau shuffle" away in the assault phase. Plus fire warriors with marker lights are damn painful (hitting on 2's, wounding on 3's, that's a lot of wounds to save). Not to mention the ever present rail guns picking off your armor.

 

My best tactics on tau:

 

Bikes. A unit of 5 bikers led by a WP with HP&B or a WGBL will decimate unit after unit, but you need to back them up fast or they will get blown away after winning combat.

 

Drop pods. A good ol termie drop pod of doom dropped right into the middle of them will just tear up your average tau army. With RC's making them tough as nails, and SS's shrugging off those pesky plasma shots, I've had a 6 termie unit shrug off about 2k worth of tau shooting for 3 straight turns, only 2 dead in the end of the battle.

 

More drop pods: Rapid firing GH's will decimate fire warriors and suits alike with enough concentrated fire. With wound allocation, you can now find your way past those damn shield drones just fine, and overwhelming the suits with lots of shots works wonders. It also leaves you in position to have any surviving GH's (since you WILL be shot heavily) be in CC range next turn, and we know how tau are in close...

 

Even more drop pods: dreads in drop pods are a great asset against tau. If you go for a mega flamer dread, you can smoke a unit per turn (ironclads will work wonders here as they cant be glanced by tau plasma, just watch for fusion blasters and the heavy rail guns). a MM dread can get inside the 4+ cover save upgrade most tau vehicles upgrade to, and melt through just about any armor on the board.

 

Plasma bedecked GH's: nothing melts a crisis suit quite like a plasma weapon. Once you get past the shield drones, these guys just absorb the plasma wounds. Plus, since most of the plasma wounds will go onto shields initially, you will most likely take these out in a turn. Then just turn your heavy weapons (meltas and lascannons) on the shieldless suits to instakill them.

 

Lastly: OBEL scouts. Work wonders against those pesky tanks and broadsides sitting on the back of the board taking pot shots at your units. Have these guys come on and shoot/assault any heavy weapons they come across and watch them get their points back after every turn.

[lunchb0x]

Laughing at them works well too.

[Vassakov]

Laughing at them works well too.

 

Unfortunately however ill convieced and silly the Tau are (agents of Hasbro... the =]L[= are coming for you!) those Railguns hurt.

 

Kill first, laugh later.

[LPetersson]

Those of you who are putting BCs in LRs, aren't you forgetting that BCs can only get rhinos as transports...?