The Tau threat

[Chris Hadden]

Brothers.... Long time lurker here.

 

I'm curious on how you all have been dealing with the Tau. We have a few Tau players here in my parts and here's the two variations they play...

 

1.) He takes the sky shield landing pad, 2 riptides with interceptor, crisis suits with interceptor and a mess of fire warriors.

 

2.) normal army with a riptide with interceptor... The problem, is that he takes a unit with Farstrike, Shadowsun, and a mess of crisis suits. Basically he deep strikes down, doesn't scatter, has a 3+ cover save, and a few of his bodyguards have the special systems (no codex in front of me at the moment) one forgoes his shooting to give them tank hunter and I think rerolls? It's two or three different things that happen. They all have the special spit fire with a mess of plasma guns and meltas.

 

Both have been pretty difficult. Any thoughts?

[Leonaides]

vs army 2 - Rhinos.

 

His nice big squad of crisis suits it a bit wet if all it can destroy is 2-3 rhinos (since he has to declare targets before rolling to hit he cant target the squads inside the vehicles if he blows up the transport. Net result - he takes out a couple of tnaks then you swarm everything within range towards him and shoot. Maybe some landspeeders with heavy flamers to ignore any cover saves (and/or give them MM to go riptide molesting afterwards).

[Trevak Dal]

Just saw this, and I believe where you posted "Farstrike" that you mean "Farsight", as in the Crisis HQ that can have the super-sized Bodyguard team (7 dudes).

 

Yeah, Puretide Engram Chip, and the other two signature systems are a mean wine, and make your unit not really need Markerlights as much.  Remember:  He can only have 1 Warlord, so don't let him try some tricky crap like "The Gundam Wing can deep strike without scatter AND move 3D6 in the assault phase" because it's either-or (Farsight or Shadowsun as Warlord-I imagine it's a nasty thing to take to tournaments, though perhaps a bit unwise because of high-cost characters.

Edit:

Because of the unique blending of that wargear, namely the twinlinking of all weapons in the squad, and automatically ignoring cover, consider this:  What's a Jink Save?  What's a Smoke save?  Cover saves.  So don't bother popping smoke against That unit, especially if he's running two or more Deathrain+ (riflemen equivalent on a JSJ platform)

 

As for practical advice against them with Blood Angels, I've honestly spent more time playing as Tau than using a Space Marine army.  People like to say Tau suck in close combat.

 

Well, they're not as good as Assault Squads, but against that Gundam Wing unit, every model has at least 3 attacks base at Strength 5 and initiative 2 (shadow sun's at S4), so they're hitting before FIsts and Hammers.  Farsight has the only Power Weapon, and it hits at Initiative 5 and AP2 with Armorbane.

 

I'd move to be as aggressive as possible:  Get up in their grille.  With Chaos, I'd push Spawn and Bikers up at them as hard and fast as possible.  As a loyalist, you got different options, like Troops in Good Landraiders, as well as fast stuff like Speeders and Assault Squads as troops, and Khorne Beserkers done right (Death Company).

 

You never want to get into a shooting fight with tau, because they will burn your planet until the surface is Glass, and all the Emperor's Men won't be able to put those space marines back together again.  Lots of guys in a bum rush with the FNP bubble should mitigate Overwatch.  I'd say to be wary of "Advanced Targeting System" as it makes any suit that takes it count as having Precision Fire shots (and characters to have Precision fire on a 5+), but the only Characters in that unit would be Shadow Sun (2 18in Melta guns) and Farsight (plasma rifle).

 

Riptides are a pain-and they're going to hurt, but from the sound of it he's got most of his points in the Gundam Wing.

Try not to reserve anything:  Yeah you're "letting him dictate your battle strategy" but you're also costing him the points he's not going to get to use (actively) by not allowing the Interceptor rule to come in to play.  Be very, very aggressive.  Reckless even, hit him with the entire weight of your army, take max size Assault squads, then combat squad them-then double (or triple) team enemy units.

Don't build a Deathstar, and put all your faith into it, because Tau are Rogue Squadron to Death Stars.

[Boomkapow]

Let me start off by saying that if this is not a tourney, your gaming buddy(ies) is kind of a douche. That being said, I think Rhino's are your best shot. Go flat out right at him. At that point, if he blows up rhinos, he's doing you a favor. Not to mention if that gundam wing can't move 3d6 in assault, it should be close to charge range during your turn. Rhinos, bikers, and no deepstrikers. Also, have you tried All Mech? Try Baal Preds and Storm Ravens. Tau have issues with AV13 and AV12 with Ceramite. And if they shoot, they cant shoot the following tau turn. Dont forget that.

[Morticon]

Let me start off by saying that if this is not a tourney, your gaming buddy(ies) is kind of a douche.

 

I dont think its fair or appropriate to dictate how another player plays the game by inferring he's a douche for bringing a hardcore combination.  

Some gaming groups love the challenge of fighting the biggest, baddest, nastiest combo.  

 

Bemoaning another players list for being cheesy, beardy, broken of WAAC does nothing to improve our tactical ability.

It just makes us giant wingers.

We must man the heck up and find a way around it.

[Ushtarador]

The friend is mostly a douche for playing shadowsun and farsight in one squad, that's one of the worst possible violations of fluff in the entire game :D

 

But gameplay-wise there are way worse combinations than this one, it's just a mobile deathstar that folds in cc.

[IK Viper]

I don't honestly expect to see the "Farsight Bomb" to much in tournament play because of the Helldrake.  Alot of drones are required to even have a shot at standing up to its VS and Baal Flamer.  I think the Riptide/Longstrike/Skyray/Broadside gunlins is alot more scarry and reliable. 

 

List 1 is a serious abuse of the Sky Shield and he should feel like a turd for doing it really.  This is also why alot of tournaments do not allow the foritfication.  If you must fight it, I would try my best to kill off the troops, he must spread out at some point to cover the objectives.  Not sure what else to say without tailoring a list to the army.  If you were going to tailor I would field 30 to 40 ASM with Melta Guns and Power Fists, Mephiston , Sang. Priest, Furioso Librarian or 2 with Wings and Shield and whatever else you choose to take.  (Baal Preds, Vendicators, and Stormravens are great)   It is not very tactical but then again, you are playing a guy who has chosen to play a magicaly shielded parkinglot where his ONLY TACTICAL DECISION is what to shoot at and in what order...  so who cares. 

 

If you ar playing the Max Jumper crush army a couple things that can help you out:

 

1. Combat Sqaud => the buffs I have suggested are bubble based, not unit based, so abuse this fact to get more targets for him to have to shoot at.  This also waters down the effects of Markerlights

 

2. Send Mephie to wreck stuff but keep him in the Shield of Sang. and FnP Bubbles, which greatly add to his life span.  He can even look to kill a Riptide in CC if you get him there, all he needs is 1 wound to get through that 2+ save and the force weapon does the rest.  BTW that Riptide hits him on 5's and must smash attack to reliably wound the Lord of Death, so Mephie should be able to at the very least lock it down for a while. 

 

3. Issue Challenges when you charge, looking to maybe lock in combat with that one charactor instead of burning straight through and getting shot again next turn... 

 

4. Go Big: unless you have some means built into your army to actually do meaningful damage from range and not get blown away by the retaliation (good LOS blocking cover/ fire lanes for example) I would puch forward hard with everything,  even if that means rolling forward with a Predator and only getting to fire 2 weapons in order to but your AV 13 bulk between your guys and the enemy guns (nothing like a moving bunker to hide a few key models from site, Mephiston comes to mind... lol) 

 

5. Go First if you can: rememeber your opponent must deploy their fortification before either player starts to deploys so you know where he is going to be, thus nullifing the main advantage of going 2nd.  Also we need to limit the number of rounds of fire you take so by going 1st you should be able to jump and run forward so you can be pretty well set up for a turn 2 if not turn 3 assault. 

 

6. Don't deepstrike: that Riptide will pie plate intercetor your butt before you even get to run in order to spread out... not good :-(  the exception to this rule is if there is a good drop location that is out of LOS of the Riptide

 

7. If your looking to rush forward any way, and have the model, a Vendicator is alot better then a Predator in this list becasue it can move 12 and fire its main gun, and a S10 pie plate should give the enemy a good reason to spread out...  you can set across the table and think "of wait, your whole idea was to bunch up onto of a sci-fi cake stand.. im sorry thats a really stupid plan now becasue I can clip 2-3 different things with my blast per shot now :-) you can only make so many 4++'s and the Hammerheads/ Skyrays ususally get 4+ cover anyway? "

 

Also, you could replace the Furioso Librarian Dread with a JP Libby and take Shield and Fear of the Darkness.  Riptides I think are Ld 9 and Broadsides are Ld 8 without an upgrade charactor (which most don't take).  That being said, you can fire off Fear of the Darkness from 24 inches away and they take a leadership test on a -2.  if they fail they fall back (off the skyshield, and hopefully the board) but even if none of this happens, a unit that is falling back must rally and once they have rallied may only make a 3 inch consolidation and then fire snap shots in the turn they regroup (most ppl I play don't beleive me on this but check it out, its under "regrouping" in the BRB).  Marines ignore this with ATSKNF but everyone else does not, this is a great way to shut down a nasty shooting unit for atleast 1 turn so long as they fail thier Ld on a -2.  This is really good vs Broadsides, who must snap-fire if they move, so if you run them off thier firing position, they may very well have to move the next turn after regrouping in order to return to their original firing position, gaining you another round of snap-firing. 

[Chris Hadden]

Thanks a lot! I'm looking forward to trying out a few of these. Funny thing is that I actually just bought 2 vindis and a Baal predator a few days ago because our meta changed a bit with the tau and a tyranids player.

[Squirrelloid]

Depending on how much you trust your luck with DoA, deepstriking on his magical parking lot could be *hilarious* if he tries to intercept you, since he could scatter his pie plate into his own units. And you get the magical 4++ save from the platform too!

[Ushtarador]

So I played against Tau on monday, 1750 points. He had something along these lines:

 

- Commander, Plasmagun, stuff (weak choice)

- Ethereal

- Riptide, Iongun, Melta, Interceptor, Skyfire

- 3x12 firewarriors

- 2x Kroot

- 2x Pathfinders

- 2x Broadsides with missile drones, interceptor

- 6 sniper drones

- 1x Hammerhead

- 1x5 stealth suits

 

I had:

- Mephi

- 2x10 ASM

- 5x ASM w/Pod

- Priest, JP

- Fragioso w/Pod

- 6xDC w/Pod

- 2x dakka Baal

- Stormraven w/HB

 

 

Deployment was along the short table edges, bad for me - and he also seized initiative, even worse. In the end, I was obliterated, as might be expected with those initial conditions. Some insight:

 

- My DC just vanished in front of 36 S5 shots hitting on 2+ and that was just one squad of firewarriors! Ethereal and markerlights is pure hell, and they have an effective range of 21'' to pull this off. Sniper drones also get 3 shots each at 24'' with BS5, quite cool. More drop pods and fragiosos might help with this, if they get more than 1 shooting phase you are as good as dead.

 

- The fragioso is still amazing, just drop outside of riptide melta range and turn your front armor towards the broadsides, little chance they hurt you.

 

- Baal preds and AV13 in general is strong against some tau builds (i.e. builds that don't include fusion blasters on piranhas or krisis suits). However, hammerheads and the overcharged riptide template still have a good chance of killing your stuff, beware.

 

- Combined overwatch can be deadly if you just rush in.

 

 

It was also obvious in retrospect that my opponent could have utilized some units way better than he did, I don't look forward to playing Tau players that have a lot of experience, it will be nasty.