Advice against Tau

[Roma]

with the new FAQ, tau are very good. You need a way of destroying his vehicles in cc (range is inefficient due to their amazing saves). Bikers would be a good choice, also double as a fast way to get in cc with those squishes.

[Darkseer]

Getting across the board as quickly as possible to beat face is the best solution.

You're unlikely to win a shooting match VS the Tau with a marine army.

[techsoldaten]

Just got back from this game, it went much better but I did lose by one victory point. Mistakes were made on both sides and I really would have won except for some bad rolls, explained below.

 

The game was for 2100 points, and the list I ran was as follows:

 

- CL on Bike with Sigil of Corruption, Black Mace, MoS

- CS with Terminator Armor, MoN, 2 extra levels, Combi-Melta

- 2x 5 man Biker squad with MoS, IoE, Meltas

- 2x 10 man NM Squads with Sonics, Blastmasters, IoE, VoTLW and Rhino

- 1x 4 man Terminator squad, MoN, Combi-melta, VoTLW

- 2x Predators, Laser Cannons, Laser sponsons, Havoc Launchers

- unit of 3 Obliterators with MoN, VoTLW

 

... plus an assortment of minor upgrades.

 

He brought 3 hammerheads, 3 squads of broadsides battle suits, a lot of firewarriors, a bunch of crisis suits, some stealth teams, and his HQs were all in crisis suits. His army had an absurd number of drones, rail guns and jump infantry in suits, the later of which were constantly moving.

 

I don't have a real battle report to offer, the game was very fast paced and I would have a hard time recounting it. My opponent (who claims to have never lost under 6th edition rules with his Tau army) did say this was the hardest fight he has had recently, and that there is something special about Tau armies at 2100 points. I didn't quite catch it, but it had something to do with the math around maxing out elites and heavy support. Just something to remember, Tau may get tougher at 2100 points and above (at least according to this guy).

 

Some of the major events:

 

- My Sorcerer failed a perils of the warp tests and was shot up in my opponent's next turn. But for that, I would have won.

 

- I received Black Crusade as a Warlord trait, which proved to be useless. He received master of the vanguard and all his troops were running 6 inches the whole game.

 

- The first turn was perilous, he glanced all of my vehicles but none of them went down until round 3.

 

- He had one spectacular round of shooting, it happened in the 3rd turn. He blew up one of the preds, the entire terminator squad, all of the bikers in the CL's squad (but not the CL himself), and damaged most of my other units that round.

 

- He had a several squads of pathfinders, I knew what to look for this time and my bikers were brilliant against them.

 

- My Obliterators wiped out all 3 Hammerheads pretty much on their own after deep striking. They were the MVPs for the game.

 

- The CL caused 5 or 6 wounds one round on his own, charging a unit of fire warriors through dangerous terrain.

 

- FNP on the Noise Marines made a huge difference. He had a bunch of crisis suits and jumped in to shoot up one of the squads, they made like 3 FNP rolls that round before wiping them out the next turn.

 

- One Noise Champion became a Chaos Spawn after rolling on the boon table. This was a first.

 

Had the game gone one more round, I also would have won b/c he didn't really have much left on the board. All his hammerheads and battlesuits were gone, it was really just a stealth team, a devilfish and a gun drone squad facing a laspred, 2 almost-complete squads of NMs, 2 Rhinos and my Obliterators. But it did end, so that didn't matter. Really fun game.