Sister's Vs. Tau

[Luc O' Luck]

You're a shooty horde army, your strength is in mid to short range exchanges, but you face an enemy who can obliterate you without ever entering your mid-range kill zone. They out shoot you with their horrible, horrible ranged weapons, turning your sisters into smudges and smears. You use Seraphim to outmanouver them, they use Battle Suits to blitzkrieg your blitzkreigers. You rush forward your one shot combat monsters and they swarm them in Kroot. All these situations beg the question, is it possible to beat the Tau?

[Justicar Valius]

errrrrrm good question.

 

I think hide behind cover so Broadsides cant get you and smash one callidus into them. I am a daemonhunters player but i think the same principles wil apply. Try to get some long range big guns in there if you can. Honestly try playing water style against them. there main guys are going to be fire warriors and they have strength 5 guns but no AP i belive so well armoured untis should get through without many casulties. however there other guns should be slaughtering your stuff all day. So if you can get some lascannons in for picking off their battlesuits and tanks. Also kill any pathfinder devilfish ASAP or you could find some battlesuits flying down and hitting you were it hurts most.

 

One big thing is to make them come to you. camp a few units in cover on your board edge and make them want to go there. Do this by parking an objective there.

[WarriorFish]

It's possible - the fickle dice gods ensure that - the question is more of how probable it is. Which is to say unfortunately not very.

 

Water style is impossible for a foot SoB army, SoB don't have Storm Bolters as standard for starters plus the tau have longer range than you. The only way to get some long range firepower is from Exos (short life span no doubt) or allied Guard. With long range firepower you can't wait for them to come to you either, as they'd just find a bead and pepper you from afar.

 

The best way would be to get as many bodies on the table as possible, with lots of Faith to help you counter. You'd have to play aggressively to make it work though. If Kroot are a problem, it might be worth dedicating something to taking them down. Even a one shot flame weapon will make a difference there.

 

There are no easy answers to this, and I don't think there are many hard ones either. Maybe a couple of 10 girl Ret squads to blast them down with Heavy Bolters, you might be able to create fire lines that can give you more breathing space. Callidus is definitely worth a try, mess with his deployment then send her in to take down/tie up those suits.

 

With good use of cover and some luck you could do well, but the odds are against you. That will just make victory all the sweeter when it comes! I think the best thing for you to do is absorb all the suggestions here and stew them over, then try out a few different things.

[jeffersonian000]

A full Mech Sister army Rhino Rush (i.e., move 12" and pop smoke, move 12" and deploy Systers) can and should overwhelm any Tau gun line. If you through in a Callidus assassin, you can control your opponent's deployment plan via plain old psychology. If you use an Evisor, you should rack up at least 2 squads of Tau before he goes boom, if not 3+. Exorcists need to stand behind blocking terrain, and only reveal themselve to their target. You want to mass fire your Exorcists into one target at a time to produce saturation, which will blow through any 4+ cover save as well as front AV on Hammerheads.

 

Play aggressive, play smart, and you will table a Tau army with Sisters.

 

SJ

[archonbrujah]

As has been said, Eversor, Callidus, Mech rush. Anything that can outflank is huge against Tau gunline.

 

Another possibility, ally DH I Lord, 3 daemonhosts, and DS them. Provides a healthy distraction, and if the hosts get stuck in, all the better.

 

As a Tau and Sisters player, trust me, it's not a one sided game if both sides play clever.

 

Archonbrujah

[Eltnot]

It is possible to beat them without rhinos. It will just cost you a lot of money. Five units of about 20 sisters each running across the board should make it there with enough bodies left over at the end to do something. And should come in at under 1500 points with VSS's and equipment.

[panbient]

if you're dead set against using rhinos i highly recommend at least 1 squad of retributors with 4 HBs

[Venenum]

Another possibility, ally DH I Lord, 3 daemonhosts, and DS them. Provides a healthy distraction, and if the hosts get stuck in, all the better.

 

Daemonhosts are a lot fun against the Tau. So are callidus assassins.

 

But if you're including allies from the DH list you just can't beat an Inquisitor Lord's metalstorm Retinue. 3 HBs + Psycannon for the IL, sage, and maybe a couple of acolytes with bolters. This will go through the enemies troop choices like a hot knife through butter

[WarriorFish]

I'm not sure it's very helpful to recommend mechanised SoB when Luc asked if it was possible without Rhinos :)

 

Victory definitely lies behind a lot of bodies and getting into the thick of it, but 20 girl squads are a bad idea. Too many points in a unit that's pretty unweildy, especially against a mobile opponent. I'd deploy lots of 10-14 model squads instead, more managable yet still durable and forcing your opponent to split fire.

[Ice warrior]

Well if you must play 3-4 battle sister units which contains 20 sisters.

Then buy 2nd canoness with only ccw, bp & litanies of faith. 1st wave will include canoness, put them in single line base to base contact (in turn one). place 1 or 2 squad behind them and run like hell.

This way your second unit receive cover and 1st will have 3+ invunerable save(use litanies of faith). This way you will survive further... And remember if you really have 20-60 sisters in tree squads. Enemy must concentrate lot of fire to shoot units like that down. When they have that fire power to shoot, I think enemy will be only 12" away.

 

Then i wouldn't rely on retributors cos their poor range of heavy bolters. Fire warriors will possible just be debloyed further away and suits just laugh to their shots.

 

Continues -IC-

[Eltnot]

Instead of Retributers, I would look at including a unit of Imperial Guard. This maintains your high body count as well as letting you include a couple of lascannons with which to try to crack open some of their transports.

 

In objective based missions, the Tau player will generally rely on trying to push your units off the objectives in the late game. Try to take down their tanks before they can tank shock your units away from their destinations. Keep one of your smaller units of sisters near the guardsmen to provide some unmodified leadership for them to prevent the Tau player from pinning the crap out of them every turn. A budget Canoness or a ten men squad, rets if you have the points I suppose would be good.

 

The idea is simply to fill the board with so many bodies that the Tau player simply cannot deal with the threats.

[ArmouredWing]

Well if you must play 3-4 battle sister units which contains 20 sisters.

Then buy 2nd canoness with only ccw, bp & litanies of faith. 1st wave will include canoness, put them in single line base to base contact (in turn one). place 1 or 2 squad behind them and run like hell.

This way your second unit receive cover and 1st will have 3+ invunerable save(use litanies of faith). This way you will survive further... And remember if you really have 20-60 sisters in tree squads. Enemy must concentrate lot of fire to shoot units like that down. When they have that fire power to shoot, I think enemy will be only 12" away.

 

Then i wouldn't rely on retributors cos their poor range of heavy bolters. Fire warriors will possible just be debloyed further away and suits just laugh to their shots.

 

Continues -IC-

Ok, lets not get overawed by what tau can do because when you look at the facts and figures you aren't gonna be facing THAT many weapons which will negate 3+ armour saves and certainly not enough to wipe out larger squads of sisters.

 

I'd have to say that everyone is focussing on the wrong things here when looking at tau. The problem isn't their weaponry but generally their mobility and anyway, a good tau general will not pack that much low ap stuff against sisters because of the ability to use SotM. The other thing to take into account is the squad size that FW's can have. 12 is not a number that is to be worried about, firstly because tau are not the best marksmen in the game and secondly because you'll very rarely find a good tau commander fielding 12 FW's in the first place as Kroot are a far more attractive proposition because of the value, the large squad sizes available and their CC effectiveness.

 

As for suits? Well again they are very restricted by their available squad sizes and as such so is their firepower. So, the best way to nail suits is hit them with weight of bolter fire (to kill the shield drones if they have them) and then pile on exorcist fire to get the instant kills. Simples.

 

Don't be fooled into thinking that sisters have to be in rhinos to be effective against ANY army. Toys will only go so far to making them effective, the biggest advantage you should look for is tactical and on the table using terrain and your opponents moves against them and it's no difference against tau.