Fast and Loose: thoughts on dealing with Tau

[IK Viper]

Tau are the new hotness right now in the Meta. I have only had a few games agains them but expect to face several at the next RTT my store is running on May 4th. Consequently I have been thinking alot about beating/ dealing with Tau. I intend this to be a tactical discussion, not a unit by unit breakdown. I am going to throw up alot of my thought and then see what happens, many heads are better then one.

1.It starts before deployment: Tau are built around a gunline of Fire Warriors/ Kroot as their scoring base. Neither of which are terribly tough on their own and are not fast without a transport. This some what forces the Tau player to try and place objectives near the board edges so they can castle up with their FW (Fire Warriors). A Tau player really wants to have multiple objectives in their deployment zone that are close enough to park FW's on each and take advantage of the Support Fire rule. Kroot may outflank onto forward objectives where possible, but will probably not last long unsupprted. The thing to remember, neither of these units hold up to dedicated fire and fold in CC. For this reason I think it is best against Tau to place your objectives centrally. This makes the Tau push forward an extra 6-12 inches to cover that 2nd and 3rd objective which puts them out of their comfort zone. and makes them think alot about where they plan to place any ADL they bring along (a nice thing to have when you run a castle army) 

2. Hunt the troops: duh... but with less MEQ making it onto the tournament scene AP 4 weapons are now starting to look alot better. Baal Predators outflanking on FW's can really hurt for example, thats 10 shots that are AP 4 and wound FW on 2's. Outflank can sometimes get around the ADL problem, specially if the Tau Player (TP from now on) has to deploy it farther forward then he wants, in order to controll forward objectives. Just something to consider, most ppl including me, write off alot of AP 4 weapons, specially if they don't rend.

3. Be Knowledgeable: you have to know what signature systems and support systems their heavy hitters have, and know what it does for yourself if possible, not just take the TP's word for it. Its a new dex, they can easily miss things too.  Riptides with Interceptor (Early Warning Override) can be a pain, specially to DS infantry, nothing worse then having a S8 AP2 pie plate centered over your DS assault marines before then ever get to do anything... Intercepting template weapons are something new Tau bring to the game, watch out!  Also the Velocity Trackers(may choose to gain Skyfire) are an obvious target priority if you are flyer heavy.  The Puretide Neurochip, and Drone Controller signature systems are also huge force multipliers that need to be noted and delt with. 

 

4. Deny Markerlights Where Possible: Markerlights can turn a shooting army that is BS 3 (underwhelming) into a BS 5 shooting army that ignores cover and can improve their snapshots at flyers and overwatch (scarry).  Markerlights are the meat of the army and the faster they are dead the better.  Scout Squads camping a ruin for a 2+ cover must fear the Tau Smart Missile System (SMS) as it is S5 AP5 ignores cover, putting them back on their 4+ save which is not great, and if I am not mistaken, SMS does not need LOS to fire.  Most deckchair units in the game cannot stand up to that kind of fire so you may have to dedicate your Power Armored bodies to holding those points which detracts from your forward push.

 

5. Spread Them Out: Tau need the weight of concintrated fire to repell assaults (using the Support Fire rule).  As such they tend to want to clump up very badly.  Template based weapons are great at discouraging this and breaking up their castles.  Blast templates can affect the TP's tactical decisions since alot of his units do not have great saves.  Pathfinders have 5+ armor so Frag rounds from ML's eat them alive.  FW's are 4+ so Whirlwinds can really hurt them, specially with Barrage fire over an ADL.   

 

6. Go MSU: Tau have blistering firepower and can often rip through full squads at a time given the right Markerlight hits, etc. So minimize the damage buy breaking into smaller squads.  The TP only has so many Markerlights (MkL from here on) to pass around, so make him spend his force multiplyers on 5 man units instead of 10 man squads.  Also, Tau need to be assaulted and the more units you have assaulting, the less likely their Support Fire Overwatch blasts you out of charge range.  Send in that 2 man ASM Combat Squad first and then see what the TP decides to do in his Overwatch shooting.  Does he use all his shots and make sure they die, or does he hope one squad is enough and save some of his other near by units to deal with your real threat, knowing that if he doesn't kill the whole squad, they make the charge and lock in combat, preventing further Overwatch (maybe, would need the exact wording on the Support Fire rule to know for sure).  Also, a smart Tau player will Overwatch first with his MkL's, looking to up the BS of future squads Overwatching.  Be aware of this as it can add up in a hurry and all of a sudden that last squad can be overwatching at BS3 or 4... ouch! 
 

7. Jet Pack Does Not Mean Jump Pack: Jetpack units "move as a unit of their type" or may use their thrust move, which is a 2d6 move (which may be used later in the Assault phase and ignores intervining terrain and models) but the BRB nowhere indicates that they have a 12 inch regular move.  Unless theres a unit of Jetpack Jump Infantry which there currently is not.  Just food for thought. 

 

I think Tau are really good but can certainly be beat.  I suspect they will have some effect on the flyer meta but not the sweeping "No Fly Zone" predictions some ppl are touting.  They will overall probably help MEQ armies and also MSU based tactics, both of which were taking it on the chin pretty badly here recently.  As a Blood Angel player I know our stuff is over costed compared to basically everything in the game except some of the realy old dex'es like Eldar (getting a new book).  So in order to keep up we as BA players must force multiply by using lateral tactics.  GW has cheapened everything in the new codexes so much that a head on fight will often go badly for us purely based on attrition and economics...  so we much out play them. 

 

Brothers (and sisters, I greatly encourage female gamers, my wife plays) let us show them the flash of our guns and the bite of our steel, for we are the Angels of Death!  

[CitadelArmyGuy]

SMS is Str5/AP5 but otherwise great writeup, major kudos.

 

One of the things I've already encountered is 'chainlinking Markerlights.' The opponent takes tons of Markerlights, but not in easily neutered units like Pathfinders/Drone Squadrons. Instead, each unit of FW and Suits take 2 each, and there may be a 'chain-starter' Unit of Markers with higher BS.

 

The 'chain-starter' shoots first, placing 2-4 markers on a target. Then the next unit uses those markers to boost their BS, but in doing so they 'replace' those markers with their own. And so on and so on, so that every unit benefits from boosted BS.

 

Mephiston took 4 wounds through pure dakka in this manner, the opponent had more than 100 BS5 Str5+ shots at him. And as I've said, the markerlights experience 'graceful degradation' in that manner, since they aren't consolidated into one place. It is easy to say 'remove the markerlights' but when every unit has them, it is much harder in practice. Yes Tau are BS3, but when you realize they will almost always be shooting at BS4+ you gain much greater respect for the firepower.

 

Abosolutely absolutely go MSU--- Multiple Small Units. Combat Squad everything possible, and use blocked LOS as much as possible. MSU will help mitigate Markerlights to a degree, since the chainlinking goes cold once the initial unit is dead. Even if the Tau went heavy on Interceptor doesn't mean you are totally dead in the water if there is LOS blocking terrain involved. One problem with going MSU however is they can easily 'get to' your ICs such as Libbys and Priests, so use LOS-denial (terrain or tanks) to protect them. Just watch out for Homer weapons...

 

I will second the excellence of Baal Preds versus the Tau-- mine Outflanked and killed an Ethereal hiding in the rear of a FW unit in the back-pocket of the table. Granted, that was exploiting the opponent's mistake and not necessarily going to be valid all the time. But I would hazard a guess that with Eldar getting their reboot soon that the Baal Pred will only get better, even used directly with AV13 as shield for Mephiston to move up. Tau and Eldar were the rare T3 4+ Sv codicies that didn't see much table time, but seeing them more means Str5 AP4 shooting is perfect against them. I was truly impressed at the damage my two Baals were putting onto FW--- some of whom failed morale checks and ran off-table.

 

Also, my Stormraven achieved great results versus a fully-kitted Broadside team in cover. After the TLAC/TLMM/HBs/3BS were done, before saves I had inflicted a total of ten 'dakka' wounds and two Str8 AP1 wounds. He was in multi-level ruins, so that there were two drones and a suit on each level, with the drones nearest towards me.

 

I had him makes saves one at a time, using the Str4/6 wounds to clear the drones--- then when a Suit became the closest model, I had him make a save on the Str8 AP1 wounds.  End result: 5 dead drones, 2 dead Broadsides leaving 1 Drone and 1 Suit remaining. The dakka killed the drones and the quality caused instant-death on the suits. Be sure to apply tight control of your wound-pool. MM-ABs also have low-AP mixed with high-AP shooting.

 

Final note-- I'm sure it's been said before in the other anti-Tau threads on the board, but remember to use Fear of the Darkness Librarians. Tau love to hide at their back-edge, so causing Morale checks could easily net you a few Units by making them run away off the table. Especially delicious things like Broadsides. This is pretty good since you'll be wanting to take Shield of Sanguinius Libby anyway against Tau---- if they use markerhits to remove coversave then they aren't using them to boost BS... maybe. Every little bit helps I'd say. Plus, if you are using Fear then your choices versus Tau are Shield or.... Shackle Soul? I dunno Shackle Soul could have hilarious results against Crisis Suits... morale check to move, to shoot, to jet-pack move and to overwatch. Making them fail even one of those would be pretty cool.

[Alyssis]

Great post! Lots of good things to know here..!

One of my buddies is starting a Tau army, so im trying to figure out how to win..!

 

[IK Viper]

thanks for the correction CAG, that makes me feel better about running scouts still as a deck chair/infiltrate unit.  Post updated to reflect the correct weapons profile on the SMS. 

[Cmdr Shepard]

 

One of the things I've already encountered is 'chainlinking Markerlights.' The opponent takes tons of Markerlights, but not in easily neutered units like Pathfinders/Drone Squadrons. Instead, each unit of FW and Suits take 2 each, and there may be a 'chain-starter' Unit of Markers with higher BS.

 

The 'chain-starter' shoots first, placing 2-4 markers on a target. Then the next unit uses those markers to boost their BS, but in doing so they 'replace' those markers with their own. And so on and so on, so that every unit benefits from boosted BS.

 

I can confirm it is a very effective way to deliver marklights on the battlefield. Even if first unit land a single marklight the next FW team will fire at BS4, becoming the facto a Space Marine with S5 weapon (for shooting purposes, of course).

 

Another thing Tau players can do it to marklight the marklights. The first unit fire its marklights then the second marklights rises his BS, usually up to 5 (or even more) and the pathfinders deliver about 8 additional marklights.

 

A note on Troops and objectives: Tau's most relevant limitation is the difficulty to hold objectives in the enemy deployment zone. Devilfish are a fast deliver means but once they disemabrk FW won't last long, unless they are supported by other strong units. Kroots dies easily with ML blast shots. Capturing objectives with kroot is very difficul since as soon as the leave cover they die easily. If Tau do not bring allies they will have problems with objectives in your deployment zone. Keep it in mind ;)

 

Riptide and Longstrike will be painful: the first, especially when supported by the commander who allows him to reroll hits and ignore cover, can potentially remove entire units from play ; they second is a constant threat to vehicles.  Put your devastators and objective holding tactical squad models in different floor of ruin to minimize the number of deads per turn if he uses the ion accelarator...

I hope it helps ;)

[CrimsonMajick]

I don't have a strong grasp on the new Tau codex at this point, so bear with me...

 

I like to drop a Sternguard squad with a Heavy Flamer or two and combimeltas. Is this still effective against the Tau?

[Alyssis]

Not if they hit you with their interceptor thingie.. You have to be carefull where to put them at the very least.. If the Riptide has line of sight, or anything else with that rule, they will fire at you in your movement face..!  As mentioned above, the riptide can hit you with a str 8 ap 2 pie plate when you land.. That can be very dangerous..!