Hmm, if half the tau broadside rumors are true...

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

That has been something, Land raiders do look like they would be good against tau now possibly..

[Warsmith Aznable]

 

Khorne has supplied me with an Eight Point Plan:

 

1. Have Huron Infiltrate some weapon teams in to disrupt his backfield.

 

You will have to put them at more than 18" in line of sight or 12" outside line of sight (which may not be easy). If you have first turn you may even be able to criticaly damage, or destroy, one of their units but in the next turn they will annihilate the infiltrating unit. If you go with cheap/suicide units they will likely lack the firepower needed to deal serious damage.

Also consider they have the one of the best infiltrating unit in the game. A unit with a de facto permanent cover of 3+/2+

So it would be like shooting at Storm shield TDAs.

It seems the heldrake wouldn't become a bad choice. There are very few units who can take both skyfire and interceptor, so 2/3 heldrakes may clear objective from fire warriors

 

I am thinking MSU with meltaweapons everywhere, some autocannons for variety, Obliterators, and a pair of Heldrakes. Infiltrate as many units into cover as possible to get near enough to melta something important, DS the Oblits and shoot either the asscans or heavy flamers at his scoring troops on arrival, and hope the Heldrakes come in early and on the same turn with at least one surviving the inevitable Interceptor fire to Vector Strike any suits that rushed my backfield and lay a template down on any super shoot-y troops that rely on cover to survive.

 

The table is only so large, and with lots of small units hugging the terrain and possibly nearly half of my infantry starting on his side of the table I should be able to spread out enough to get some marines into killing range pretty quickly.

 

My overall hope is to take out his Broadsides or Hammerhead first with melta, take out his Fire Warriors and any Snipers he brings next with flamer templates and assaults, then spend the rest of the game hoping his Riptide can't take my guys off of objectives fast enough to force a draw. The game is low enough points that I'm not overly concerned with allies making my life complicated.

[hornywingythingy]

I thought the extra shot HQ thing only worked on pulse rifles and carbines? I could be wrong though?

[Ammonius]

I thought the extra shot HQ thing only worked on pulse rifles and carbines? I could be wrong though?

I think it's pulse weapons, but I'd love to be wrong.

[Nehekhare]

fireblades buff pulse rifles and pulse carbines only, but there is also the etheral's invocation of the elements (storm of fire), which gives +1 shot at <half range to all pulse weapons within 12".

[Ammonius]

fireblades buff pulse rifles and pulse carbines only, but there is also the etheral's invocation of the elements (storm of fire), which gives +1 shot at <half range to all pulse weapons within 12".

That's it, it was the storm of fire. and 12" is a heck of a bubble.

[zyl-]

Farsight being able to deep strike without error is gravy for loyalists. Loyalists can already all but do this with drop pods.

[Brother RedAxe]

Yes but farsight can do it with 8 crisis suits in tow as bodyguard and drones if i remember correctly.

[daveNYC]

Hey ho, I know it's a tad early in the Tau release, but anyone running into Tau as allies (specifically with Broadsides)?  That's the first threat that popped into my mind when the new unit rules were showing up on the net, and I'm just wondering if it's a thing that has come to pass.

[Tenebris]

I had the chance to read over the new Tau codex and so far I think that they are quite an interesting army, with great defensive bonuses for a gunline build and with affordable jet pack infantry for the main thrust. Still we speak of 4+, 3+ overall with few ++ saves available to them. From what I gathered:

 

- Assaulting Tau is a painful thing. Army wide overwatch is nasty in the sheer volume of dice rolled thus if we want to assault the Tau we need to do it with units that can handle such a volume of fire, namely Terminators and Obliterators and in failing that always precede the charge with a wave of cultist first, thus I believe we will be from one even more tasked to take cultists as meatshields.

 

- The suits are quite shooty but they can be quickly drown in melee attacks, attacks that almost every our unit can make. Again I think to use the cultists to tie them and than charge in with a melee unit. 

 

- The Tau have good discipline but I still consider Fear in the form of Raptors and other Daemon type units a reasonable bonus.

 

- The Tau are masters of precise fire thus we would really have to think about icons and their positioning. 

 

- Ethereal is a VP if we kill him. A deep strike Brand Lord can be useful here.

 

 

So far the basic strategy that comes to my mind is to wrap everything in cultists and use them as mobile cover and overwatch fodder, followed by a good assault with a more capable unit. I stand behind my idea of Chaos Terminator MSU, this units is a nasty prospect for a Tau army with its 2+ save and a natural ++. 

 

I am more worried at this moment about the Skyray and the Hammerhead and their nasty weapons. Infiltrators are nasty too but I do not have much experience in countering them. 

[Brother Ambroz]

What's the lowdown on the Skyray? Haven't really heard anything about that. Any changes with the Hammerhead too?

[Iron_Within]

What are the major weaknesses of the army? ATM they seem to have a major counter against both shooting and assaulting.

[zyl-]

Yes but farsight can do it with 8 crisis suits in tow as bodyguard and drones if i remember correctly.

Is it really all that more devistating than death company or hammernators? I realize that they will probably have better fire support for the deepstriking unit than loyalists will, but deepstriking a deathstar is alway terrible, since they are so vulnerable to templates. We have one of the best hard counters here since obliterators carry plasma cannons, and are fielded very commonly. We also comonly run drakes and the burning brand, which are also going to hit a lot of models. Unless they are able to make jetpack moves during the assault phase after deepstriking, this strategy is actually less worrisome than a drop pod in my book.

[Sezar]

Unless they are able to make jetpack moves during the assault phase after deepstriking, this strategy is actually less worrisome than a drop pod in my book.

Sadly for most everyone but them, they can

[Iron Father Ferrum]

 

Yes but farsight can do it with 8 crisis suits in tow as bodyguard and drones if i remember correctly.

Is it really all that more devistating than death company or hammernators? I realize that they will probably have better fire support for the deepstriking unit than loyalists will, but deepstriking a deathstar is alway terrible, since they are so vulnerable to templates. We have one of the best hard counters here since obliterators carry plasma cannons, and are fielded very commonly. We also comonly run drakes and the burning brand, which are also going to hit a lot of models. Unless they are able to make jetpack moves during the assault phase after deepstriking, this strategy is actually less worrisome than a drop pod in my book.

 

They can make jetpacks moves after deep striking.  Sorry.

[zyl-]

Meaning they are on par with a drop pod. I still don't find it overly concerning.

[Warsmith Aznable]

OK. Had that 1500 point game against the Tau this evening.

 

Crusade, Vanguard Strike, 5 Objectives, Tau set up and started first. I had about half my army in Reserve to either Deepstrike, Outflank, or come in flying. Everything else was in great cover and trying to look inconspicuous.

 

I had the aforementioned melta heavy MSU, and he played a single Riptide, a couple of Broadsides, Farsight, a Crisis Suit team, two squads of Firewarriors and a Drone squad.

 

First, the Riptide is a beast.

 

Second, everything but the Riptide dies just like it always has.

 

Third, Overwatch shenanigans did not imbalance the Tau, it actually made them a lot more fun to play against than their last codex. Rather than "get shot at, get shot at, get shot at, assault his whole army and kill everything" there are more decisions to be made, and that made it interesting.

 

At the end of Round 5 I held two objectives, had his Commander and Broadsides tar-pitted, taken out all his Fire Warriors and Crisis suits, whittled his Drone squad down to completely ineffective, and still had all 3 Obliterators and a Heldrake on the table. I was also in position to claim a third objective had we played another turn, though he could have likely used his Riptide to dig the single survivor of 3rd squad off its objective and kept me to two.

 

Autocannon Havocs with the Mark of Nurgle and well dug in to cover were the rock stars of the game. They drew an unbelievable amount of fire, and by the time we quit I still had a Sergeant and two AC putting rounds down range.

 

Fire Warriors ceased to be a thing about Round 3. The last of the Crisis suits were taken out Round 5 when my Obliterators and melta-Havocs arrived and caught them in a vicious crossfire. His Broadsides were resilient because he had well placed Shield Drones, but after I got the remnants of my Chosen stuck in they were doing nothing.

 

The Riptide took two wounds the entire game. Both of them were from the Heldrakes pulling off Meteoric Descent as they flew over on their way to drop templates, just like I planned on happening. Had the game continued I would have turned the Obliterators onto it, but I honestly don't know if it would have done any good with its Shielded Missile Drones circling it. It got a wound from overcharging its Nova thing, but it had the FNP subsystem that negated it. Other than that, it used the Nova thing about every round with no problems.

 

The upshot of all of this is that they don't have an Instant Win Button, nor are they an ill-conceived mess. The game really could have gone either way but for a couple of key moments. It's a good codex, and was fun to play against.

[the jeske]

which ally did he use SW or normal marines?

[Warsmith Aznable]

which ally did he use SW or normal marines?

 

Neither of us played with allies. At 1500 points I don't know what he would have wanted to sacrifice to bring allies in. I think he could have got away without his Drone squad, but then he would have lost his Marker Light spam. There's a point where you give up so many of your signature units for more effective allies that you have to ask yourself why your allies aren't your main army anyway. Tau will make rocking allies for Space Marines, of this I am sure.

[Cmdr Shepard]

 

which ally did he use SW or normal marines?

 

Neither of us played with allies. At 1500 points I don't know what he would have wanted to sacrifice to bring allies in.

 

That's one of the reasons you didn't encounter too much problems ;)

For what I learned it seems one of Tau's most significant drawback is capturing objective outside their deplyoment zone. The fire warriors are excellent for a gun line but if you start to send a single team alone to hold/deny an object they will die for sure. The 5th edition "devilfish rush" does not always work because you have to disembark to capture/deny an objective and if someone is already sitting on that object he will likely kill the fire warriors.

 

Allies mitigate this drawback. SW are strong allies for such purposes while the SM battle grade alliance will open some nice "combo". I believe in a very competive setting SW would be a better choice.

Also 2 scoring units are usually not enough, especially when they are fire warriors. A 3 Crisis unit is not very survivable and since he played Farsight a "Farsight Bomb" unit (namely Farsight in a 7 Crisis bodygaurd unit) would habe created more porblems.

 

Just a note on the infiltrating melta MSU:

How can you pontentially be able to kill one of their vehicle in turn 1? You have to deploy at more than 18" in line of sight or more than 12" out LoS. Even if you put your MSU behind a wall your unit can ignore difficult terrains (like a squad of suicide raptors) your opponent will likely make sure his hammered will never be the closet unit (putting an other unit before it for example) so you will be rarely in melta range at turn 1. Just thought.

[the jeske]

dont fusion guns have a range of 18" ? as in without movment.

[Cmdr Shepard]

dont fusion guns have a range of 18" ? as in without movment.

 

Indeed. They have a 18" range so their melta range is 9".

However I was talking about the aforementioned CSM infiltrating melta MSU which will rarely be withing 6" of Tau vehicles on turn 1 unless Tau player made some huge mistake with deployment...

[the jeske]

infiltrating oblits using huron ?

[Warsmith Aznable]

infiltrating oblits using huron ?

 

No, I used Deepstrike for the Oblits. Ordinarily I would have started with the Oblits on the board, but I figured that facing the Tau's superior maneuverability and shooting range it might be good to drop the Oblits right next to a target of opportunity, guaranteeing at least one round of full firepower shooting to overwhelm any invulnerable saves. Ideally the first shots taken with the Assault Cannon to put 12 potentially Rending shots out, but also having access to the flame templates in case I needed to put the hurt on troops choices gathered in cover.

[the jeske]

So a bit how it looked in 4th ed with gav dex against eldar cirucs match ups.