Need some help against the new Tau

[Ederan]

Alrighty so I have a game coming up next week and it wil be quite a large one with 5-6 players at 1500pts per person, which can be a blessing and a curse really....I will almost be guarenteed to be playing against the Tau player and his new riptide has me a bit concerened. I haven't had a chance to play against the new codex yet. He also likes to take a lot of stealth suits which is a pain in the arse. He uses them fairly well....

 

So yeah..any advice? Heres the list I plan on taking to the game. I will be going over and tweeking it up until game day, so feel free to make any suggestions!!

 

HEADQUARTERS

Chaos Lord 155pts
Mark of Nurgle
Terminator Armour
Sigil of Corruption, Gift of Mutation

Sorcerer 140pts
Mark of Nurgle
+1 Mastery Level
Gift of Mutation, Spell Familiar, Jump Pack

TROOPS

Plague Marines 242pts x 3 = 726pts
+3 Plague Marines [8 members total]
1 Flamer, 1 Meltagun
Powerfist, Icon of Despair

ELITES

Chaos Terminators 219pts
+2 Terminators [5 members total]
Mark of Nurgle, Blight Grenades
Powerfist, Reaper Autocannon

FAST ATTACK

Raptors 155pts
[5 members total]
Mark of Nurgle
Flamer

HEAVY SUPPORT

Chaos Predator 100pts
Side Sponson Heavy Bolters
Warpflame Gargoyles

 

The Chaos Lord will run with the Terminators and be my heavy hitters, while the Sorcerer will be paired with the Raptors for the extra bodies and perform a harrassment roll and or cover my flanks and back 40 from those pesky stealth suits. We will be teamed up so I will have additional support, but I can't really make any concrete tactical plans until I find out who's on my team and how we deploy. Guarenteed I will be paired with the other Nurgle player IF he shows up. He likes his heavy hitters and usually takes typhus with zombies, kharne and bezerkers in a landraider, a helldrake or two and a forgefiend, with some fillers in between. My biggest worry is that it's a smaller game, (we usually play 2000pts with teams of two players on an 8x6 table) and I wanted to try out a sorcerer for once, so I couldn't fit in my customary havoc squad with 4 skyfiring MLs (sometimes I'll field 2 units, if I anticipate lots of flyers) and a forgefiend.

[Malatox]

Wow, that will be a lot of points haha!

 

 

I'll work through your army-list, stage by stage, asking questions and making pointers, that cool? :). And obviously, if you don't have the models, ignore what I'm saying haha.

H.Q-  What are you arming your Lord and Sorcerer with, in terms of Melee-Weapons, by the way? I'm assuming a Power-Axe on the Lord and probably the same on the Sorcerer?
In regards to your Sorcerer, which Psychic Powers are you planning to roll with? I'd suggest taking the Mark of Nurgle off of him, and then you'll have free reign to choose from the Rulebooks disciplines (although the Nurgle Psychic Powers are probably the best in our Codex, in my opinion.)

Troops- I'd suggest gearing each of your Plague Marines Squads towards a goal, i.e. popping armour with Meltaguns, flaming hordes of infantry with Flamers or being versatile with Plasmaguns. I'd also suggest getting some Plasmaguns in those squads, as then you'll be able to hurt TEQ, Light Vehicles or Monstrous Creatures.

I think the Icon of Despair is a waste of points, and points, combined with point scrimping else-where, with which you could use to begin a cheap Cultist squad that's only job is to sit at the back on an objective.

I think your troops choice will be pretty mean to deal with, and good at dealing out the pain, though I'd suggest just tolling them up a little better.

 

Elites- First of all, I'm not too sure if you can give your Terminators Blight-Grenades, but I don't have my Codex to hand to prove that. It could be easily solved anyway by giving your Lord the Blight-Grenades anyway.

I'm assuming you're Deep-Striking these guys? Are you going to be doing this aggressively or...? Just asking, so you can get advice on them.
I'd make sure to vary the weapons on these guys; some with Lightning-Claws, some with Chain-Fists (much better than Power-Fists for a measly cost) and Power-Mauls. It'll make your squad much more versatile and mean you have tools for every job. Also, I see this squad as being Melee-centric, so I'd lose the Reaper Autocannon.
 

Fast Attack- I'd suggest losing the Mark of Nurgle on these Guys as well, especially if your Sorcerer is going to. And what is your Champion going to be armed with, by the way?

If you can, I'd suggest using a Heldrake instead, or maybe Nurgle Bikers: both of which are much more point efficient and nasty units. You could always park your Sorcerer in a Squad of your Plague Marines and he'd be pretty survivable in there too.

 

Heavy Support- I'd suggest Obliterators here, as they are just too amazing not to take. I feel that your Predator will be wrecked before it can truly make it's points back, especially in such a big game and against Tau. Or I'd use your Havoc Squad you mentioned, as there will no doubt be fliers up against you, and if not, at least they are versatile.

 

It sounds like you'll be having a fun game any which way you play! If your Nurgle player does turn up, I think you have a good chance of winning, as he'll have his heavy hitters and you'll have the back-up elements in your army.
Anyway, any questions or stuff, just say.

- Malatox

[Phytoon]

Seems like a pretty solid list, actually. Flamers wreck Tau fire warriors (go figure) so you're not going to have too much trouble with their foot soldiers. As for the riptide, all I can suggest is to batter away at it with meltas until it gives in. It's a monstrous creature, not a vehicle, so remember that if you try to charge it. Plus, since a lot of those battle suits they have are jet pack units, they can be incredibly mobile, so you need to try to avoid getting surrounded.

 

In my opinion, though, I would avoid bringing the predator, since it's not very tough for Tau to crack into it, and it won't have a whole lot of power with just the autocannon. I'd try to find room for obliterators, so you can potentially plop them next to that riptide and melta it or fill it full of lasers. That thing will have a 2+ armor, iirc, so anything meant for exploding vehicles should serve you well. The main problem with it is that it has five wounds, so even with all of your dudes hitting it with meltas, you might not kill it in one turn.

 

Also, the best advice I've gotten from these forums is to prioritize your tagets and stick with them; killing troops prevents the enemy from taking objectives, so they should be high up on your kill list unless you're not playing objectives. And try not to run out too far, because if you send one unit into the fray too soon, they'll get focus-fired to death, especially if it's your terminators and lord. Wait until you can get a big rush going with everyone, then lay into them and they won't be able to shut you down entirely by just killing one squad.

 

Edit: For Malatox - You can't give the terminators blight grenades, but he can give them to his lord, so the squad will have them from him. That should free up 5 points, though, since he can't give those to the termies.

 

Second Edit: I noticed you didn't give your lord an artifact. You might want to consider the Burning Brand of Skalathrax, since flamers are really good against Tau, and this one has better range AND AP3. If you find yourself up against some of the lighter suits, such as the crisis suits, for example, you can ignore their armor and give them soul blaze counters on top of that.

[nurglez]

I'd suggest giving the lord blight grenades (as the terminators can't have them), the sorcerer ml 3) trying to give the raptors another special weapon and also doubling up on special weapons in the plague marine squads, although I understand some people like to diversify, and that's fine, however dual special weapons is more reliable. Maybe go for combi melta's on your champion's if you want to keep the flamer.

 

To afford this I'd suggest dropping gift from your lord and sorcerer, and also making your plague marine squads 7 man instead of 8 and losing their banners.

 

If you can afford it combi weapons on the terminators and the lord are well worth it.

 

I still haven't fought the new tau so I can't say much about fighting them.

[Ederan]

Thanks for the advice guys! Its really hard to kind of tool a list right now as the players and armies are uncertain. Usually its myself with the other nurgle player, against tau and tyranids but we usually play at 2000pts a player. Makes for a very nice big game. Would be better if one of us had the apocolypse rule book. But so far from what I'm guessing is that there could be Imperial Guard (a new player to the game, so if I'm against him he should be easy to out strategize), tyranids, tau and the other chaos guy and possibly a necron player now that I think of it.

 

The one thing I have definitly learned over the years playing Nurgle is to support my units, focus fire and try not to over stretch myself. I've played a few people who made that mistake and sent their units at my line one by one, and one by one they fell. As such I find I play a fairly defensive turn 1-2, and crank up the heat in turns 3-6. My biggest obstacle is the tyranid player. A friend of mine who I brought into the game, but has a strong tactical mind. I have a few years experience on him, but he grasped the concept very quickly and for the last 10yrs he's been my toughest opponent.

 

[edit]

My Chaos Lord is modeled with a Power Lance, I've found that it keeps him fairly efficient with out slowing him down. And the model is just bad ass lol

 

With my Sorcerer I'll keep the Force Weapon. In 5th he was pretty good at taking down my buddies Tyranid MCs. He once took out a Trygon Prime single handedly, but died in the process. More then made up his points. I'm a little leary about using him too aggressively in 6th, with only 2 wounds now. As for powers I was going to take from the Nurgle tree, and depending on my rolls take the Primaris and one other spell.

 

The Terminators I usually Deep Strike fairly aggressively. Depending on the scatter, its gone both ways :p For the most part however, just having them put pressure deep on a flank or behind enemy lines is enough to distract, disrupt and tie up my opponents key elements. It's the wrench in their gears so to speak. Below you'll see I trimmed them down to 3, 4 with Lord. For this reason I might hold them back a bit, unless the timing is ideal enough to get them right into the fray. I typically use these guys against less elite units, stuff that won't give them too much trouble but just enough to draw it out into a two turn combat so I can leap from one unit to the next. 

 

[edit x2]

So I drank waaaaay to much coffee today and I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking of this game so I wrote up another list, one I hope is a little more tactical/flexible. If this should be in the chaos list sub forum, I'm sorry :P I'll move it if I can, if not, please accept my apologies mod!

 

So what I did was took off the Gift of Mutations, Icons of Despair, re assigned the Blight Grenades, trimmed down the Plague Marines to 7 and gave them Rhinos with Havoc Launchers for extra fire power and mobility/moving cover. I also ditched the Predator, trimmed theTterminators to a 3 man squad as well as throwing out the Reaper Autocannon. I gave the Raptor Champion a Power Weapon and almost added two plasma pistols but I couldn't trim the points for them. I then added in a Havoc squad with Skyfiring Missile Launchers. Heres the write up, it came up to 1498pts :

 

HEADQUARTERS
Chaos Lord 145pts
Mark of Nurgle
Terminator Armour
Sigil of Corruption, Blight Grenades

Chaos Sorcerer 130pts
Mark of Nurgle
+1 Mastery Level
Spell Familiar, Jetpack

TROOPS
Plague Marines 255pts x3 squads = 765pts
+2 Plague Marines [7 members total]
Powerfist
1 Flamer, 1 Meltagun
Transport: Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher

ELITES
Chaos Terminators 138pts
 [3 members total]
Mark of Nurgle
Powerfist

FAST ATTACK
Chaos Raptors 125pts
Mark of Nurgle
Power Weapon

HEAVY SUPPORT
Havocs 190pts
Mark of Nurgle
4 Missile Launchers w/ Flakk Missiles