Tau Tactics

[LardO'Blood]

I just told my friend about warhammer 40k so he goes to the website, decides he likes tau and end up buying a freakin big lot of tau guys on craigslist, does anybody have any ideas for tactics against this list (Hes not going to use much of it, I only have a 500-750 point list)?

2 troops of fire warriors, 12 in each troop

4 gun drones

2 battlesuits

1 broadside battle suit

1 sky ray missile defense

1 devilfish

16 kroot warriors

6 vespid stingwings

pirahna

My list is:

1 tactical squad

1 dreadnought

1 5 man terminator squad (shooty)

black reach commander (Maybe lysander or a chaplain in terminator)

1 scout squad

[Ming]

You are in for a world of hurt.

 

Infiltrate the scouts close as possible turn 1, on the edge of cover. Deep strike T2 the terminators, and go after the tau in CC. Get everyone else to head in the same direction. Crunch and munch!

[archangelCJ]

if its an objective game then ignore the objectives at first and just go for the fire warriors.

 

you should ignore the battlesuits because they will be far to mobile for you to catch and will take to much of your time to catch (however if you get the opportunity give em a shot form a meltagun or plasma gun), if you can get rid of his fire warriors its game over for a Tau player.

 

make sure you keep your dreadnaught out of line of sight from the Broadside. if the broadside gets a shot off it will kill!

 

make sure to keep your tactical squads away form the Vespids! Vespids are the Tau players Marine hunters, you don't get armour saves.

 

if yoru terminator squad is shooty then i suggest that you sned them aftwer the Kroot, they have practicly no armour bet get a buffed cover save, a flamer would be good there.

 

the last thing you need to watch out for is the markerlights on the Sky Ray. not only do these make the rest of his army shoot better but they can minus your leadership fo pinning from the drones, and reduce your cover save, other than that the sky ray can't hit that hard unless they are relatively close (by Tau standards)

 

your Dreadnaught will probably die really quickly in tehse games, between the railguns on the broadside, fusion blasters on the Pirahna, seeker missiles on the Sky Ray, and the overpowered weapons on the battlesuits it wont last long. see if you can spend the points on something more survivable.

 

also... what gear does your guys have?

[wizard12]

be happy he has no hammer heads and he has no pathfinders

 

the hammer heads would tear you arpart much like the broardside

the pathfinders would markerlight loads of stuff making the sky ray missle ships missles hit hem automaticly if I rember the codex i had a year ago

 

apart from skyrays, battlesuits and hammerheads their pretty meh. Sure those parrahnas will reduce your armour to moltem slag but for a army that is only good at long range, their acturlly not so good at hitting you (by marine standards) at bs3 you just may have a chance

[Brother Xeones]

but for a army that is only good at long range, their acturlly not so good at hitting you (by marine standards) at bs3

 

This is a common misconception about Tau. There are actually only a handful of weapons in the Tau armory that have truly long range. In fact, while Tau do posses some excellent long range weapons, there are only 4 weapons out of a total of 18 in the Tau arsenal that have a range better than 36 inches. Tau are actually much more deadly in the 12 to 18 inch bracket.

 

He will have to take at least one fire warrior team and one battlesuit as a commander. If he is smart, he will put the fire warriors inside the Devilfish and probably use the kroot as his second troop choice (leaving them in reserve to outflank) Even in small games, he'll likely take the broadside to take out your foot-slogging dreadnought before it can get into range to use it's multi-melta and certainly before you'll have a chance to get it into assault. Be sure to keep your dreadnought away from the broadside. Out of sight is best, but in cover or popping smoke at it advances should also keep it alive longer.

 

if yoru terminator squad is shooty then i suggest that you sned them aftwer the Kroot, they have practicly no armour bet get a buffed cover save, a flamer would be good there.

I completely disagree. Against a squad of sixteen Kroot, your Terminators are not the best tool in your arsenal. If the Kroot get the charge, you are going to statistically lose 4 of your 5 terminators before they even get a chance to swing those power fists. Additionally, there is no point using an expensive squad equipped with all power weapons on a target that has no armor save anyway. If you can manage it, get your dreadnought into assault with the kroot. Since the kroot have no way to damage the dreadnought, it will keep the Kroot tied in assault for a good long time and it will save your dreadnought from getting a railgun slug through its armored hide. It's win win.

 

Do you know what the weapons load-out is on the two battlesuits? If it's a common configuration like fireknife (plasma/missile pod) expect them to use the reach of the missile pods to pummel you until you are close enough that they can use their plasma rifles on you. If you can manage to tag the suits with a missile launcher or the multi-melta when they are out in the open, you can kill them out-right due to Instant Death!

 

In an objective mission, I'd place one of your objectives near the board edge --close enough that your scouts can easily outflank onto it (I'm assuming that you are using CC scouts). Then place your dreadnought out of LoS nearby. This will make him think twice before sending his kroot to claim it. Use your tacicals to guard your home objective, and use the Terminators to contest a third. If you can manage to do all of that, it should be all you need to win a small game like this.

[greatcrusade08]

ive played a tau army a few times.. most scout units can be very effective aslong as ylou know what your doing