Help vs tau.

[Mothbeast]

Got a tournament coming up in a couple of months and could do with some suggestions as to how I deal with tau? Specifically riptides. Had a couple of tester games against my mate who had two. Coupled with marker lights he was vaping 6 to 7 marines per riptide per turn. It seemed like I was outgunned outnumbered and when I tried assaulting I got over watched to death and interceptored before I could get in.

[Robert2004]

I would also be interested to hear some peoples opinions and tips on how to defeat the new tau. I have a friend who I play on Thursdays and I know he got a riptide last week and has not used his tau army since the new codex so will be itching to get a blast at my ultramarines. With their new hammerhead tank commander, that riptide and basically every unit supporting fire it seems a little much.

 

I have thought about the following however and wonder what you all think. Deep strike an ironclad as close to his hammerhead as I can get it, multi melta it and pop smoke and hold on! Then reserves next round using the homing beacon on the drop pod(if it survives) to deep strike a vanguard squad who can assault the turn they land, trying to get in close as soon as possible.

 

Also thought about a scout squad with teleport homer, and using this to land a squad of assault terminators with a libby as close as possible, or running them in a land raider at his lines. A couple if ideas there, think I will stay away from a gun line army which is my usual type.

 

Thoughts?

[Reichfaust]

The oft-overlooked Whirlwind has anti-Tau written all over it. It's cheap as hell, it's very survivable due to it's ability to hide in cover and the fact that opponents will constantly underestimate it, and both modes of fire are both perfect for killing all but the heaviest of Tau infantry. S5 AP4 pie plates will wreck Fire Warriors in the open, and the S4 AP5/ignores cover missile is death incarnate for Pathfinders.

[W0lfie]

Honestly, new tau aren't as scary as they seem. I am primarily a tau player, and riptides aren't as great as they seem. They're not necessarily bad, but they tend to kill themselves, and sometimes they don't get to shoot due to overheat, and they have poor BS...

 

What you need to be scared of are three-fold: Sniper kroot, Crisis Suits, and the Farsight Bomb.

 

Sniper kroot because they put out an obscene number of precision shots a turn (really good for getting rid of heavy/special weapons) and can threaten everything in your army except land raiders.

 

Crisis suits because they became cheaper, their weapons became cheaper and they can now double up on weapons (a single unit putting out 12 plasma shots at up to BS 10 with markerlights will make short work of anything)

 

And the Farsight bomb, for the same reason as crisis suit but with signature system goodies, a single support suit can have the entire unit re-rolling to hit, ignoring cover and having tank hunters or monster hunters, as well as making your weapons Get Hot! Plus, they can deepstrike without scatter. Much scarier than a riptide.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I've seen a lot of talk about sniper kroot and how awesome they are.  I've played against them once so far, and my Thunderfire put paid to the squad in a single round of shooting.

[pyroknight]

Tau are not unstoppable, all you need is a little practice. As a general rule, stabbing them in face works pretty well. 

Thunderfires and Whirlwinds are great against Tau troops. Generally, its easiest to kill off all their troops so they can't win. 

Krack missiles are great against crisis suits. 

To stop a Riptide, just kill all his pathfinders and marker drones. Then laugh while the riptide can't hit the broadside of a barn (see what i did there).
Hellfire rounds, lascannons, plasma, and assault work decently against a riptide.  Hammernators do decently, and a force axe can inflict instant death. 

Sniper kroot are only dangerous if people are not expecting them. Any blast weapon will wipe them off the board. Your opponent will probably outflank them into cover and you either need to shoot them or avoid them. 

The farsight bomb is actually pretty scary. But once you survive the initial drop attack, its a regular game with 400+ points of crisis suits much closer to you than they want to be. And ripe for being assaulted. 

[W0lfie]

Tau are not unstoppable, all you need is a little practice. As a general rule, stabbing them in face works pretty well. 

 

Thunderfires and Whirlwinds are great against Tau troops. Generally, its easiest to kill off all their troops so they can't win. 

Krack missiles are great against crisis suits. 

 

To stop a Riptide, just kill all his pathfinders and marker drones. Then laugh while the riptide can't hit the broadside of a barn (see what i did there).

Hellfire rounds, lascannons, plasma, and assault work decently against a riptide.  Hammernators do decently, and a force axe can inflict instant death. 

 

Sniper kroot are only dangerous if people are not expecting them. Any blast weapon will wipe them off the board. Your opponent will probably outflank them into cover and you either need to shoot them or avoid them. 

 

The farsight bomb is actually pretty scary. But once you survive the initial drop attack, its a regular game with 400+ points of crisis suits much closer to you than they want to be. And ripe for being assaulted. 

To be fair, a full Farsight bomb can beat just about anything that isn't Honour Guards or terminators from C:SM in CC.  It's main weakness is drawing too much attention.  The Riptide is the other way around.  If you kill it with anything that isn't Instant Death, you've wasted your shooting.  They can be ridiculously hard to kill, having up to 7 T6 wounds, 2 @ 4++, 5 @ 2+/3++ FNP.  If you remove the supporting units, you neuter the threat, because it's shooting is not usually powerful enough to make back it's points (unless it blows up a landraider, or one-shots a tactical squad, but those are both unlikely events).  

 

On big reason sniper kroot are scary is that fact that they are so cheap as to be disposable, but can inflict horrendous damage with their shooting attacks.

[Robert2004]

Some good advice here so far, was thinking the riptide was very scary and a primary threat, will now focus on the support units and make sure and cut its supply. What weapons would you recommend for one shot killing it, is it not like toughness 6? So would potentially need a strength 12 weapon to one shot it and space marines don't have any of those? I have a terminator assault squad but no force weapons which means I can't one shot it ha ha, if I even get that close.

 

Playing a 1,500 point game vs a tau player this Thursday evening, have you guys any thoughts on an army list or what to use mostly to kill him?

 

As I said thinking along the lines of drop pod dreadnaught, vanguard vets and a land raider with terminators?! =]

[Iron Father Ferrum]

  If you kill it with anything that isn't Instant Death, you've wasted your shooting. .

 

Yeah, this statement makes no sense.  You can't double its T6; are there any shooting weapons in the game with the Instant Death rule?  Because the way I kill Rip Tides is concentrated plasma and lascannon fire.  It's especially effective when your opponent keeps overloading his gun and not his shield generator.

[cielaq]

Well, there are ways to lower T of the model - Enfeeble is one, from the top of my head (sure, you'll not always have it). DA can use Rad Grenades on the bikes. And then - Vindicator for instance has S10.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Eh. . . Enfeeble will do the trick, sure, but then you've got to hit it with one of our three S10 options, all of which are blast and probably better splatting infantry in the open instead.  Plus, you'll get one shot at it, so you'll need to avoid the dreaded 1 on your to-wound roll and hope he fails his Invulnerable save. . . I think concentrating high-strength fire is better than hoping for a one-shot kill option. 

[Mothbeast]

I'm thinking of going in with drop pod assault and teleporting terminators. Get in their face from the start and hope I don't take to much damage from interceptor, and if he does target me with his pie plates he may scatter and get his own if I'm close enough.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I'm thinking of going in with drop pod assault and teleporting terminators. Get in their face from the start and hope I don't take to much damage from interceptor, and if he does target me with his pie plates he may scatter and get his own if I'm close enough.

 

With this, your drop pod alpha strike needs to ignore the Riptides, I think.  They're too hard to kill right off the bat.  Instead, gun for anything with markerlights.  Without those, the Riptide is stuck with its crumby BS3, giving your "hope they scatter badly" tactic a better chance of producing results.

[W0lfie]

 

 

If you kill it with anything that isn't Instant Death, you've wasted your shooting. .

Yeah, this statement makes no sense. You can't double its T6; are there any shooting weapons in the game with the Instant Death rule? Because the way I kill Rip Tides is concentrated plasma and lascannon fire. It's especially effective when your opponent keeps overloading his gun and not his shield generator.

I meant to say attacks...the intent was fairly obvious however. I have played a fair few games with my riptides, and they have only ever been killed by Jaws of the World Wolf and Nemesis Dreadknights.

 

Also, DE. They eat Monstrous Creatures for Breakfast.

[Robert2004]

Pardon my ignorance but what does 'DE' mean? =/

[bystrom]

Pardon my ignorance but what does 'DE' mean? =/

It's short for Dark Eldar.

 

 

 

 

If you kill it with anything that isn't Instant Death, you've wasted your shooting. .

Yeah, this statement makes no sense. You can't double its T6; are there any shooting weapons in the game with the Instant Death rule? Because the way I kill Rip Tides is concentrated plasma and lascannon fire. It's especially effective when your opponent keeps overloading his gun and not his shield generator.

I meant to say attacks...the intent was fairly obvious however. I have played a fair few games with my riptides, and they have only ever been killed by Jaws of the World Wolf and Nemesis Dreadknights.

 

Also, DE. They eat Monstrous Creatures for Breakfast.

Yeah, a ton of poisoned shots followed by a dozen S8AP2 shots tends to do that.

 

What initiative do rip tides/suits/broadsides have? Jaws does seem like a pretty effective way of killing expensive tau easily.

[minigun762]

Remember you don't need to kill the Riptides, simply getting them stuck in assault stops them from shooting and that's a win for the rest of your army.

 

Really, this is true of pretty much all of the Tau army. Assault to kill or tie up.

[FlamingDeth]

And if you're meched up you can use your rhinos to block LoS to their Supporting Fire units. Control the fire lanes and you neuter their shooting, and after that even regular tactical marines can curb stomp their troops.

[Febelcrofas]

And if you're meched up you can use your rhinos to block LoS to their Supporting Fire units. Control the fire lanes and you neuter their shooting, and after that even regular tactical marines can curb stomp their troops.

Ditto this. Played a couple of days ago against my mates new tau army and I just made it so he couldn't see my juicy bits until i was smashing him in the face. Admittedly it was a force with allied eldar as he hadn't quite got all the broadsides he wanted, our local gw sold out very very quickly, but I think I got an idea on how to close down his lanes of fire.

 

I will say that you do have to capitalize on this very quickly or the rhinos and all will just go bye bye in a couple of turns.

[Robert2004]

Played the game tonight against my pal and just about won the game, rolled purge the alien and I wont it 10-9 lol! Thank god it ended on the 6th turn as he would have completely wiped me out the next turn or two. The new tau are very shooty he brought farsight and his command unit and melted my assault terminators and chaplain before he even got into combat fs.

 

My capt then wiped out the whole squad with a sweeping advance lol, is that even legal? It was epic they were like 6-700 points worth! Also had a single scout wipe out a 8 man fire team unit after a combat round, but its bloody getting into combat is the main thing!

 

Reflections, Vanguard vets are way too bloody expensive hope they get a points nerf, I did manage to down a gunship with them (due to lack of infantry to charge). The tau are very shooty and once your into combat its easy but getting in you will pay for that!

 

Don't think I had enough heavy weapons and took too many points expensive troops so will have to work on my list a little! Overall think I managed a steal on the victory but hey gonna take em while I can!!

 

Took out his marker light drone units with general ease but they still managed to light my terminator assault squad and it got owned, thankfully he never had a riptide! My game in general needs work so only more games will provide it, getting better tho!

[pyroknight]

Played the game tonight against my pal and just about won the game, rolled purge the alien and I wont it 10-9 lol! Thank god it ended on the 6th turn as he would have completely wiped me out the next turn or two. The new tau are very shooty he brought farsight and his command unit and melted my assault terminators and chaplain before he even got into combat fs.

 

My capt then wiped out the whole squad with a sweeping advance lol, is that even legal? It was epic they were like 6-700 points worth! Also had a single scout wipe out a 8 man fire team unit after a combat round, but its bloody getting into combat is the main thing!

 

Reflections, Vanguard vets are way too bloody expensive hope they get a points nerf, I did manage to down a gunship with them (due to lack of infantry to charge). The tau are very shooty and once your into combat its easy but getting in you will pay for that!

 

Don't think I had enough heavy weapons and took too many points expensive troops so will have to work on my list a little! Overall think I managed a steal on the victory but hey gonna take em while I can!!

 

Took out his marker light drone units with general ease but they still managed to light my terminator assault squad and it got owned, thankfully he never had a riptide! My game in general needs work so only more games will provide it, getting better tho!

 

If you catch Tau in a sweeping advance, they all die. That's true for everyone actually except space marines, because we are awesome. 

 

Tau die very quickly to assault. They have low initiative and low leadership so they are likely to try and flee and will die in the process. As you have discovered, the trick is getting that close to them. 

 

Space Marine vanguard are generally considered too expensive, and must be taken with few upgrades and then used with care. 

 

Congrats on your win, but keep practicing. It is the only way to get better. 

[Robert2004]

Thanks man! Yeah they are bloody expensive don't think I will take them again but its the only way I thought of getting close to them without getting smashed up in the process. I dropped a dreadnaught first round and melted his devilfish but it got nuked on his turn so that was that ha ha.

 

What ideas do you have of getting close to his lines fast? I did have a razorback with capt and 5 man team in it but again it got nuked on his first turn also. He had like two hammerhead gun ships and one of those ion cannon tanks, all which were destroyed or badly injured come the end of the game but they done massive damage to me in the process.

 

I could just take vanilla jump pack troops and deep strike them but then again the gets a whole turn shooting at them and then his supporting fire too before I can actually assault anything? =/

 

I've only played about 5 games since I got back into 40k and mostly gunline so struggle with a fast attack or even balanced army list... =]

[Robert2004]

*bump*

 

Played tonight against TAU, played two lost two and the second was a complete demolishing session. The guy had kroot, flying aliens(vespid?), a sky ray launcher, fire teams and all the bells and whistles which come with.
 

It is literally so hard to close the distance and get into combat, I find they are very over powered and do not want to face them. I deep striked an assault squad in and it outright his round of shooting, my terminators go out of a land raider killed a 6 man fire team and again died when he shot them next round... all 5 of em. He was using his capt and a load of gun drones with his bodyguard and it was literally volume of fire which killed me.

 

He also had a squad of them assault my land raider and using the heywire grenades managed to glance it to death...

 

/facepalm

[pyroknight]

So, now for some advanced anti-Tau Tactics:


Getting close is always the hardest problem, and good tau players are excellent at keeping you out of charge range.
Practice will help you get good at maneuvering your army, but target saturation is key. You don’t want the enemy to know what to shoot at first.

If you are going to deep strike, then have 3+ units come in at once (drop pods can help in this).
If you are going to land raider rush, then bring other land raiders, vindicators, or predators to escort it.  or have rhinos to hide behind it and take advantage of its armor.
If your bringing jump units, bring bikes or rhinos that can keep pace with them.
You need to present a unified front to the enemy.

Its also key to know your own Target priority against the Tau:
*Kill force mulitpliers first. These include markerlights, and many of the HQs. Ethereals and fireblades make firewarriors very deadly, so don’t underestimate them.  Special Crisis wargear will turn their models into support units. 
*Second, Know the weakness of his list and elimate that.  If his army is light on troops, you can wipe them out (if a scoring mission). If he has a lot of troops, aim for his big guns. If the list is balanced, you need a more detailed threat analysis. 
*Force leadership tests. It seems simple really, but Tau have pretty low leadership and like to hang out near their table edge. A single failed test will send entire units running off  the board. Pinning weapons are decent as well provided they don’t have an Ethereal.  So keep in mind how many models you need to kill to reduce the squad by 25%. Drones count toward this.
*Don’t let yourself get baited. A good Tau player will throw expendable road block units in your path to prevent you from assaulting his valuable units. If you change them, he will  overwatch the crap out of you.  Know when to take the bait, and when to walk around.  Remember if you can get the Tau units more than 6” apart with your shooting casualties, they can’t combine overwatch when you charge.
*Don’t kill the riptide unless he asks for it. Kill all the markerlights and then tie him up in close combat for a few turns.  Make sure to point and laugh everytime he misses you.
*Get to know your weapons of choice. Missile launchers against crisis suits. Lascannons against broadsides. Thunderfire cannons or whirlwinds against troops. Sternguard can ignore cover or have poison rounds.  


Some general tips against fire warriors:
* Mass firewarrior shots are rather dangerous, even to terminators and light vehicles.  Keep that in mind.
* Haywire grenades can only be put on fire warriors, and are used rarely. Keep in mind which squad has them, and keep your vehicles away. Remember the entire squad must have them, and they are not cheap so he most likely won’t have them on every squad.
*Even a single assault or tactical marine can be a problem for a unit of firewarriors, so sometimes its better to tie them up with your half dead units and let the terminators focus on someone worthwhile.
*No troops = no scoring = no winning 5/6 of the senarios
*Got thunderfire?


Keep up the good work and good luck in your next encounter. Remember that practice makes perfect. 

 

[Robert2004]

Thanks for the advice man, all his squads (4x6) had haywire grenades! I think if the game had been objective based I would have won it as his army was totally gun line and he sat back while I tried to rush.

 

A single land raider in the open was a bad idea I guess should of taken some other tanks with it to as you say present a united front, Also deep strike an assault squad and scouts arrived the same turn on the same table edge so that got him worried. He just lined them up into rapid fire ranged and sheer volume killed them, with those silly marker lights. My dice rolls were the worst both of us had ever seen so that had a major factor, I feel the game would have been even had I not rolled such dire dice.

 

I do not have a thunderfire cannon so that is not an option at the min. Do have a predator, land raider, two devastator squads for heavy support. I might pant some of my tac marine heads white and use as sternguard vets as their ammo is pretty good and drop pod a squad of 10 in rapid fire range will make a mess of a tau unit!

 

It is very frustrating but as you say practice will improve my game play. Have just bought a libarian with force axe and plasma pistol so will try him out a couple of times when I get the chance. Think the next item would be an ADL to shoot any flyers which appear, my army over all is pretty weak on the AA front.