Fighting the tau?

[Vomikron Noxis]

Hello chaps,

 

I have an upcoming battle against the new tau, and don't really know what to expect... Perhaps you'd be kind enough to share some wisdom with me? This is the list I'll be using:

Chaos Lord: Mark of Nurgle; Burning Brand of Skalathrax; Terminator armour. 150

 

5 Plague Marines: 2× meltagun. 140

5 Plague Marines: 2× plasma gun. 150

5 Plague Marines: 2× plasma gun. 150

5 Plague Marines: 2× plasma gun. 150

 

Heldrake: baleflamer. 170

Heldrake: baleflamer. 170

 

2 Obliterators: Mark of Nurgle. 152

2 Obliterators: Mark of Nurgle. 152

5 Havocs: 4× autocannon. 115

 

1,499 points

 

Cheers!

[Xenith]

You'll lose a straight shooting fight with them.

 

They have decent anti air, so try and take that down before your drakes arrive.

[hornywingythingy]

It really does depend what they take, have fought them a few times, and beaten them, but that's using my beastrush list, I'm not sure I'd want to get into a shooting war with them, their weaknesses are, claiming objectives outside their deployment zones (can be countered by allies or fw in devilfish, but they are expensive) and assault, (which is somewhat covered by their multi overwatch) they can do several nasty builds, the ones I have faced were ethereal castles (lots of shooting units close to ethereal, who grants them all extra shots) which is nasty, and the farsight bomb, which I'm still not convinced by. I think you will have a tough time with that list because they could potentially get two turns of shooting on you before anything but the oblits and havocs are in range.

[minigun762]

Assuming they'll field a variety of S7 weapons, of which they have plenty, your T5 isn't going to mean much so be aware that your Plague Marines will likely die quicker than you're used to.

 

Beyond the typical advice of assault them, I would direct your plague marines to knocking out any of the 2+ save heavy suits with havocs focusing on light armor or infantry.

If they have a variety of crisis suits, I'd consider the option of deepstriking your obliterators in, to deny them a safe place to JSJ. If you don't deepstrike, be aggressive with your oblits as they get stronger once they're within 24". Drakes will hunt either crisis suits or infantry campers.

[Nusquam]

Beware markerlights negating cover and overcharged Ion large Blasts. They will erase your Plague Marines one squad at a time. Any source of markerlights are a priority. Footslogging puts you at risk for a plethora of shooting. The heldrakes may or may not get gibbed the turn the come on, it depends on the Tau list you're facing. If it's cover erasing, lots of markerlights and Ion cannons. If its reactionary, lots of intercepotr, skyfire and dakka. Every Tau lists synergizes so well with shooitng. It's one of the least internally balanced codexes I've ever seen as far as shooting vs CC support. It's all shooting. In a shooty edition. Where it auto-synergizes itself. While I don't see it being tier one without serious work, it can be a casual-smasher. Expect serious sudden Tau Only rules that kill or prevent you from killing. I reccomend watching batreps.

[Trevak Dal]

Pretty good advice so far. Pay close attention to his list, and if he has something called the "Puretide Engram Chip", Multispectrum sensor suite, and...oh the other one escapes me at the moment.

 

If they're all on one guy (commander usually) Kill him fast, kill him first. He can choose to not shoot, and make the unit he joins have their weapons as Twin-linked and ignore cover (I don't believe already twinlinked weapons get yet another re-roll, IIRC it mentions something along those lines in the rulebook).

 

He's probably going to have lots of plasma, either twinlinked or 'doubled up'. If he's smart...he may run Burning Eye+ configs (2x plasma rifles per suit, maybe with an advanced targeting system-which allows non character units to gain Precision Fire rule, and characters to get Precision fire on a 5+) for a unit that can drop 6 plasma rifle shots, or a Deathrain+ (2x Missile pod, and the skyfire upgrade) each one of these is the equivalent of a rifleman dread, and can choose to have skyfire. Turkey Season is open.

 

Remember the only save you get against markerlights is Line of Sight blocking terrain. No cover saves, no armor saves, no shroud saves, no night fight saves-that's just your ass and praying to Nurgle he rolls under 4s, because when they start hitting-The Thunder Pwny comes out to play.

[Lord Ragnarok]

Good lord these dudes seem very nasty. Horny, what did you do to thwart them in your beast rush list?  

 

 

I've not played this game in awhile, but when I did I seem to have faced tau many times. The key in my wolf army was to drop pod close and send scouts up the rear. Which units are best to get close very fast? Bikes?

[hornywingythingy]

Sacrificed a unit of spawn to distract most of his gunline for a turn, used the terrain to limit the number of units that could overwatch, and used virtually invulnerable units to absorb overwatch (loc with 3+, and the psy power granting rerolls to hit, wound and failed saves trolls tau, as does nurglespawn with a 4++) I really don't think tau is a well written dex, it feels more like a 5th ed dex, cos its gonna win tournies without trying, and it horribly invalidates some dexes... It helps I come from a backgound of playing fantasy, and realise how easily games can be lost in deployment. I'd hate to be trying to run guard or generic marines against them, I don't think you'd stand a chance.

 

Droppods isn't a great idea, they will likely have a riptide of two with interceptor, firing s8 ap2 large blasts at you....

 

Spawn, av14, those are good, perversely they aren't as good at getting through av14 as they were. Flesh hounds with the grimoire are good too.

[minigun762]

Let us know how the game went.

[Aias]

I will state that, as a Tau player, drop pods still give me fits, despite my good interceptor stuff these days. Maybe it's an instinctive reaction to dudes suddenly showing up in my back lines, but it's still problematic even with those ion pies being thrown out.

 

Now, if you want to beat Tau using CSM (my newest army, admittedly, but my Alpha Legion is doing decently well), I'd recommend target priority first and foremost. Riptides look and sound scary, but they're really not all that great. What makes them great is markerlight support. Dig out his Pathfinders (he will be running them if he's got a list worth anything at all) and suddenly the rest of his big guns aren't really that scary. Once they're gone, focus on his troops because they are weak and fairly stationary, so you should be able to keep them from the objectives fairly well.

 

To accomplish this, obviously the Baledrake will work wonders, but beyond that, flamer squads in Rhinos or on bikes will help in taking out those Pathfinders quickly, while those same units, along with missle launchers and autocannons, will do the trick against Fire Warriors or Kroot.

[hornywingythingy]

Unless he is running markerlight drone squads to jsj with the markerlights, this is more common here since then they are damn near unkillable....

[Trevak Dal]

Unless he is running markerlight drone squads to jsj with the markerlights, this is more common here since then they are damn near unkillable....

 

Indeed.  "Oh, I want to run a unit designed to be a 'force multiplier' but it can take new and interesting guns...oh but they are static, BS 3, and only have a 5+ save"

 

VS a toughness 4, agile, mobile platform with a 4+ save, capable of getting a 4++ save if you add in a few Shield Drones, and attach a commander with a drone controller and BAM!  BS 5 markerlights that can jump-shoot and jump.

 

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah.  Pathfinders are kinda like the Beserkers of the Tau codex, in that a new unit or options have come along to sort of make them...obsolete.

 

At least they got a new kit with blinging guns smart players won't use outside of Kill Team games (I want that Railrifle for Crisis or Stealth suits though.  Mmm.)

[Aias]

 

Unless he is running markerlight drone squads to jsj with the markerlights, this is more common here since then they are damn near unkillable....

 

Indeed.  "Oh, I want to run a unit designed to be a 'force multiplier' but it can take new and interesting guns...oh but they are static, BS 3, and only have a 5+ save"

 

VS a toughness 4, agile, mobile platform with a 4+ save, capable of getting a 4++ save if you add in a few Shield Drones, and attach a commander with a drone controller and BAM!  BS 5 markerlights that can jump-shoot and jump.

 

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah.  Pathfinders are kinda like the Beserkers of the Tau codex, in that a new unit or options have come along to sort of make them...obsolete.

 

At least they got a new kit with blinging guns smart players won't use outside of Kill Team games (I want that Railrifle for Crisis or Stealth suits though.  Mmm.)

 

Of course, the unit with commander is at least half again as expensive as the Pathfinders and locking down a valuable HQ choice doing nothing more than escorting a bunch of drones around. And if you don't take or, dare I say, have the commander picked off, then the squad is arguably worse than the Pathfinders and simply more expensive. I can site multiple units of Pathfinders well enough to cover the entire midsection of the board while still being decently defended for far fewer points, allowing more room for other units.

 

But seeing as this isn't a Tau forum, a squad of marker drones is a harsher proposition for us to deal with than straight up Pathfinders. While they should be priority target, obviously, I still think that the methods for dealing with Pathfinders shouldn't be much different in principle, only in execution since you have to account for their maneuverability as well. Squads on bikes or in rhinos, along with Baledrakes and well-placed heavy weapons.

[hornywingythingy]

Also skyrays with the networked skyfire markerlights, I'm dreading when the tau players round here catch on to just how good skyrays are! Atm they are using hammerheads, which is fine, except they are best at killing mech, and very few round here even run mech...

[TheDevourer]

Skyrays all over here . They are so powerful. That burst of damage when they fire all their missiles to lock down the one important target in your army and then they fire their ignore cover rockets all day, being pesky but not worth killing. Always 2-3 per list here sadly.

[hornywingythingy]

First it was broadsides here, then when that wasn't what they wanted, it moved to sniper teams, now its hammerheads, I don't think it will be long to skyray city here...

[Nusquam]

 

And if you don't take or, dare I say, have the commander picked off, then the squad is arguably worse than the Pathfinders and simply more expensive.

 

Bodyguard teams auto-pass Look Out Sir rolls. My answer is multiple Blastmasters.

[hornywingythingy]

Which, as aforementioned only works if you can see the drone team, which shouldn't happen when they can jsj...

[Aias]

 

 

And if you don't take or, dare I say, have the commander picked off, then the squad is arguably worse than the Pathfinders and simply more expensive.

 

Bodyguard teams auto-pass Look Out Sir rolls. My answer is multiple Blastmasters.

 

 Discussion was about *drone* teams, not Bodyguards. If he's with bodyguards, he's not attached to the drones and the discussion's moot as anyone who pays for the Commander, bodyguards and every drone they can buy just to have a marker team with that many expendable wounds has too many points laying around.

 

Also, the odds of actually being able to completely hide a decently-sized unit of drones with a commander from *everything* in your army are fairly low. Unless there's just a proliferation of LoS blocking terrain on the table, like maybe a cityfight, you should be able to maneuver something to be able to kill at least a couple of marker drones no matter how he hides. Is it impossible? No, just unlikely, especially in the quantities of markerlights that a Tau player would need to effectively prosecute an opponent.

 

And I don't know how I forgot about Blastmasters; they're a good solution and actually a good part of my current CSM army. Whoops, lol

[Brother Augustine]

Just played two games against the new Tau the other day, and some advice I have that hasn't been mentioned here yet; Watch the blasted Kroot. With their new sniper rifles they can be agonizingly effective, especially if they get to hide in a forest. Speaking of sniper rifles, watch out for the sniper teams. Both of these squads were the bane of my scoring units existences in both games and did more damage than the rest of his army combined.

[Smurfalypse]

Have played three games against Tau (Two different people) and have come out ahead in all three. The more you play against them the more you can get a feel for how their army operates (it is like nothing else in 40k previously), my first game was very close, my second game was a solid victory and my last game was a blowout (against the person who was a close win). 

 

What I found was to just keep pushing close combat. Even if you only have a squad of two CSMs or something, jump in melee, they will win or draw it out, which is much better. 

 

Focus on the mass marker light targets first then move on from there. 

 

Pressure the flanks. If there are things that are not grouped up with the main force of the army, kill that stuff first. This will lock them into a corner as the stuff outside of the "chumball" is the mobile stuff. My first game I went straight at him and payed a heavy heavy price, they shoot like no one elses business. Kill the flanking units and then hit a side, this limits the amount of units that can overwatch you and such.

[*Furyou Miko]

My advice for taking on Tau?

 

Thousand Sons. :p

 

All those scary weapons are suddenly a lot less scary when the majority of your army has a 4++ invun, but all Tau weapons basically turn your Nurgle guys into bog standard CSM.

[Saa]

My advice for taking on Tau?

Thousand Sons.

All those scary weapons are suddenly a lot less scary when the majority of your army has a 4++ invun, but all Tau weapons basically turn your Nurgle guys into bog standard CSM.

MY advise on taking on Tau?

Weep inconsolably because you will lose nearly every game you play against them.

A static gunline army of incredible proportions vs the weak sauce codex Chaos has to offer will furnish your opponent with all the delicious tears he can drink.

I dare you to try deepstriking anything of value against them.

One of my main opponents is a Tau player and though to be fair he's stuck with them for 2 editions while they sucked a bit, he's now reaping every single one of us every time we play.

Is my post constructive? - No, and for that I apologise.

Is my post accurate? - May the Gods help you when you face the Tau in the hands of a skilled player.

Saa

......or something like that

[TheDevourer]

Erm play skilled yourself. Play enough Dragons, play Typhus with zombie hordes. Watch him weep while all his troops die and yours seem to be innumerable. Obliterators for taking out tanks/Infantry. Haven´t lost to them yet. Although the first game was a nasty shock. Just don´t repeat your mistakes. Play tactically. Kill markerlights to mitigate damage. 

[Saa]

Erm play skilled yourself. Play enough Dragons, play Typhus with zombie hordes.

 

So, without trying to sound as offensive as you've come across yourself, you're idea of *skilled play* is to spam helldrakes or to play the Typhus zombie ballache list?

 

I'm failing to see the *skill* in either.  

 

My point is that the Chaos codex is very lack luster when facing the raw shooty might of a Tau army.  Deepstriking is tough when they can shoot you as you land, supporting fire decimates charges, rhinos rarely survive longer than 2 turns as transports, and even the beloved *skillful* Helldrake spam can be gunned down with relative ease.

 

You brag that you haven't lost to a Tau player yet, maybe your opponents aren't *skilled* and could benefit from some of your gemlike wisdom.

 

Saa

 

.......or something like that