Tau giving me a hard time, any suggestions?

[skeletoro]

Hmm, swiftclaws aren't really inaccurate, per se; I mean, they hit everything in melee WS 3-6 on a 4+. They only need 5s against WS 7+. Yeah, they don't get the extra accuracy boost marines do vs. WS 3 targets, that's true.

 

Their rapid fire bolters have a 75% hit rate, so, better than most other SW units. The main area they're inaccurate, I guess, is if you take an attack bike (you should; they're so cheap!) or if you take a special weapon.

 

The other big cost of WS/BS 3 is that MEQ (and, for that matter, many other things) hits THEM in CC on a 3+. Personally I think this is probably the biggest issue, given that they're kinda more of a melee unit anyway, and generally MEQ strikes simultaneously with them (well, leaving Hammer of Wrath aside).

 

Not that a wolf priest is a bad idea at all though. (Also, probably worth mentioning that Preferred Enemy increases hits by 1/6th regardless of whether you're normally hitting on a 2+, 3+... or 6+. Hitting on a 2+? You were hitting 5/6 of the time; you're now hitting (1+ 1/6)*(5/6) of the time. Hitting on a 6+? You're now hitting (1 + 1/6)*(1/6) of the time. So as a percentage improvement, it helps everyone equally. In absolute terms though, it technically increases hit rate of accurate targets more.

 

[Ghostwolfalpha]

Do you think putting a rune priest on a bike squad and then casting storm caller for the cover save would make them a higher priority for marker lights to allow other foot troops to get into place and pods to drop in?

Welcome to the Fang. A wolf is a wolf and the pack is stronger the larger we become. The Wolf Lords here have great advice and have made me a better player. I'm sure they will help turn you into a monster on the table in no time. Link us pics of their tear filled eyes when they lose to the shewolf. Mwahahahahaha

 

I think that is a great bait unit. Its best to support forward units, so those TWC could keep up with the bikes and add a nice one two combo. They will be forced to devote fire to both packs in order to keep the line alive and that allows your grey hunters to get into position. Their speed almost guarantees cc by turn two, so reserves will have a turn or so to shoot them before they start reeking havok.

[hendrik]

how about dual heavy flamer landspeeders? they are relatively cheap (60 pts if i recall correctly) and will take out a whole fire warrior/pathfinder unit in a single turn of shooting (no armour saves, no cover save, wounding on a 3+). a whirlwind is another great option although it is less accurate. my usual opponent is now starting out a tau army (as a reaction to me getting an imperial guard allied detachment which now became my primary army) butsomehow landspeeders feel like the go to option in my mind.

 

even a decent sized unit of skyclaws could put a lot of hurt in the tau, and they can catch up with their jumpsuits more easely.

the key to facing the tau though is target priority, and taking out those markerlights (especially pathfinders) as soon as possible. once he's unable to negate your cover or increase his BS he'll start having trouble as you close in for the kill (which you should do btw, but take out any ethereal or fireblade commander first, these guys massively increase the tau their close quartre firepower so blast those fishheads to pieces!

[Friz 80]

First let me thank all of you for all the support, I only wish I could receive such friendly advice from the guys at the shop. I was thinking of putting a pack of 10 FW in front of my bikes also just because I like the models and they are good fast fodder.

[Roma]

The guys at the shop? If you man a GW the staff just want to sell you things for halfbaked reasons, and the people who play in GW tend to be the least elite.

 

Try find a gaming club/tourney of some kind.

[Friz 80]

Our local gaming store. As I stated before a lot of guys don't want to help a girl out with her army, they I guess are afraid I will eventually beat them and they don't want to lose to a girl LOL,On this forum everyone has been so nice and answered all my question and gave me good ideas.

[Grey Mage]

Our local gaming store. As I stated before a lot of guys don't want to help a girl out with her army, they I guess are afraid I will eventually beat them and they don't want to lose to a girl LOL,On this forum everyone has been so nice and answered all my question and gave me good ideas.

That is the kind of attitude that kills games, and shame on them.

 

Not just fer girls either- I mean the whole darn commuity. If you dont help noobies then you wont have new players, and you WILL lose old ones... children, jobs, moving, whatever... they all fade away eventually. If you treasure your game, you help new players every chance you get.

 

Even if I wasnt a nice guy, despite the shaggy red beard and runes, Id help you out of my own self interest- because wether you win or lose, atleast I get a game in eh?

 

 

 

Now.... that being said. 40k is a simple game in alot of ways- the stats are all very straight forward, and the key to winning is applying your strengths in just the right spots and just the right amounts to get the job done. Lean, efficient, and precise. Thats why Grey Hunters are such a good unit- theyre lean and efficient if you want them to be, and you as a player get to contribute the precision. However you need to know your enemy. Its why I wrote a 10 forum page article on how to kill eldar- my other army- because knowledge is power. Is it safe to charge that unit? Whats the overwatch going to be like? Do they have defensive grenades. Sure, some of this comes from asking your opponent during the game- what options did they buy etc- but alot of it, the biggest part of it comes from reading the other army books, codexs, codices, whatever, so you know what youre looking at.

 

So... I cant tell you how, or where, you might get ahold of a 50 dollar book for free but perhaps you can find such an excellent deal online somewhere. Or borrow one from a friend or something. Read the tau book, check their forums, learn what they think is good- and then learn how to counter that with units youll be wanting to take anyways. Do that with every opponent that gives you trouble.

 

Thats how you take a '2nd tier' or 'bottom tier' army and win 8/11 tournaments a year like I did with footslogging eldar in the mechanized age of 5th edition.

 

Its surprisingly easy if you like the fluff and have any head for numbers, or a joy of reading. If not, it might be a bit more effort- but Ive got faith in ye.

 

Of course... nothing beats trying it out on the table top. Sometimes units just click well with the rest of an army... it just works, because with the 'just so' of the rest of your list its perfectly balanced for ____ that unit no one ever uses, to shine. Never be so afraid of losing that you wont try something new.

 

Oh... and one last piece of advice for the noobie- enjoy getting your teeth kicked in. When its your turn to teach the noobie, do it to them aswell. Politely. Good conversation, pleasant table talk, jokes. Congratulate your opponent on their successes and dont rub their faces in their defeats. Offer tactical advice in good faith only, or not at all until after the battle is over. Be a 'gentleman' gamer. Only if your opponent shows themselves to be to much of a savage to be polite should you consider being anything less yourself. If for any reason you find your attitude drifting away from this tenant, polite, friendly, 'gentleman gaming' then take a break. Find a different playgroup for a bit or a different army for a while or just go play on the computer for a month or three. Nothing will kill your love for this hobby faster than being viscous towards your fellow gamers. Do yourself, and your gaming community a favor and just avoid the whole issue.

 

Not that youd be rude mind, but it can happen to the best of us.

[Grey Mage]

Also: Drop Pods.

 

Because everythings better once youve survived the fall from orbit ;)

 

 

Buahahahahahaha. Sorry, Im feeling a bit silly tonight. I do suggest though, eventually getting up to five drop pods. You can easiy make them out of cups and a bit of plasticard if you find yourself not wanting to spend hte money. But... five is enough to get you to about 1500pts once youve tossed in some landspeeders, and maybe some bikers or thunderwolves for your HQ to run around with. Having three of the big four ways to run the army- podding, rhinos, footslogging and wolf guard will help keep the army fresh, and let you run whatever the whim of the day tells you is a good idea.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Also: Drop Pods.

Because everythings better once youve survived the fall from orbit

Buahahahahahaha. Sorry, Im feeling a bit silly tonight. I do suggest though, eventually getting up to five drop pods. You can easiy make them out of cups and a bit of plasticard if you find yourself not wanting to spend hte money. But... five is enough to get you to about 1500pts once youve tossed in some landspeeders, and maybe some bikers or thunderwolves for your HQ to run around with. Having three of the big four ways to run the army- podding, rhinos, footslogging and wolf guard will help keep the army fresh, and let you run whatever the whim of the day tells you is a good idea.

I understand that the new Tau have a few deterrents for DS'ing opponents, like the Riptide, etc.

?

[legalsars]

My experience with new tau: (YMMV)

drop pods. a LOT of drop pods. TWC, infiltrating sniper wolfscouts, melta/plasma wolfscouts, lone wolves, longfangs AP2 weaponry and as little <AV13 as possible. Bikes are good too, esp with an attackbike melta, landspeeders with meltas.

 

Drop in, stand on their back molars, kick them in the teeth as hard as possible and as repetitively as possible.

 

I find that if the person I'm playing is suit heavy, getting into fisticuffs with the suits as soon as possible will reduce the number of deaths I take on the way in. 

 

At least for me, the larger the game gets (apoc) the more pressure I can put into an alpha strike to drop the sillysuits via drop pod/hunters or nators.

[eyeslikethunder]

Yes Marshall they have many models with interceptor.

 

But the pods will get your troops across the board and allow 2nd turn charges which footslogging and mech (land raiders excepted) won't allow against half decent players.

[Friz 80]

Grey Mage thanks for all the sound advice. I am not the word smith that you are, so don't take my short response as anything less then meaningful . Today I played my brother and his tyranids he was able to win by a score of 3-1, but he would take the time to offer his opinion and tell me what I could of done to stop him and things like that. He is very helpful unfortunately he lives 7 hours away and can't be here to always help out. I do purchase other army books and reAd their forums it truly is the only way to start to feel secure in your battle plan. So would you recommend mastering one army before starting to build your second army? I think my next army will be imperial gaurd, actually I know it will be. I took York advice I now have 5 pods, how many land speeders should I get also when you say run your army with wolf gaurd do you mean wolf gaurd terminators? If so how many? Again thanks so much. :)

[Grey Mage]

My goodness you must be rich. I couldnt imagine just going out and buying five pods- but hey, more power to yah.

 

Id say two landspeeder typhoons would be quite enough, ran as solo units, for anything up to 1850 that you might want to play. You may find you want a third, or to run them in pairs *or 4 singles with double FOC* eventually, but its best to get a handle on how they work first. A fast moving but not-so durable unit, you want to keep them between 36-48" of your target, and over 48" from most anything else if you can. Keeps them alive longer. Also... always moving for the 5+ save.

 

 

As for Wolf Guard... PA or TDA *power armor or tactical dreadnaught-TDA- armor* in any combination you like is something you can do with Logain Grimnar as your HQ. Its a viable tactic, but not one that I specialize in- there are many threads about 'loganwing' or 'wolfwing' around, I suggest you look inside one of them, or have someone with more experience in wolf guard tactics help you out there.

[Friz 80]

I am not rich, however I have a good job. Any thoughts about starting a second army? Should I master the wolves for a year or 2? I have 3 land spreaders one is already bolt work assault cannon and heavy bolter but I will put launchers on the other 2

[Forté]

Our local gaming store. As I stated before a lot of guys don't want to help a girl out with her army, they I guess are afraid I will eventually beat them they don't want to lose to a girl LOL,On this forum everyone has been so nice and answered all my question and gave me good ideas.

You''ll find this place, especially the SW area very welcoming, vocal and sometimes violent. Most come here because it's Space Wolves but stay because of the people. Just be ready for honesty, no matter how brutal it may be.

 

As for starting a second army...pace yourself. Get used to it first. Build a force and see what you like, both to use and to build. And never, ever buy on impulse.

[Grey Mage]

Id suggest playing the wolves for a year or so- get your stuff built and painted, get the hang of the game.

 

If you want some IG feel free- some IG allies can be a good inclusion in a SW force- but try wolves solo for a while first would be my suggestion. The book has every tool in it thats needed to win any fight in the game, with a weakness towards flyers admittedly.

[Khine]

Welcome to the Aett Sister Friz. ^^ It sounds like you are well on your way towards becoming a solid gamer. I know it takes a while to get used to everything. One piece of advice I can give which pay seem rather.. odd but worked well for me is this. Watch videos of real wolves hunting because nature really does have some solid tactics for getting the job done.

A few things I've worked out from playing one of my mates who plays tau religiously are

*limit what they can fire at you.

*Give the opposing player lots of high priority targets.

Doing these will most likely see you going up one side of the board or splitting your forces in half so they each take a different side or route to the tau gun line.
*Their vehicles are normally front armour 13, which is a real pain. So forcing him to pivot towards specific targets or coming up on his flank can be good too.
*Smart missile systems do not need line of sight to hit you. >.<
*Tau players, who aren't new to Tau, are generally very very tactically minded individuals if they played their past book properly.
*Because of their supporting fire overwatch ( which can mean multiple units firing times during multiple charges ) You want to use your more survivable units as the initial assaulting unit or again, limit what can fire at you while you charge.

A thought i had (this is probably going to get me chewed up for the sheer cheesiness) as a fellow wolf who loves his Swiftclaws, is having a second unit of 4-6 bikes + a runepriest on a bike(selecting at least the primas power on divination) but equip them with multimelta attack bike, a flamer and meltabombs. Get a low cost Wolf guard battleleader/wolf priest on foot (not in terminator armour) and the saga of the hunter attached to the swift claws. This will mean you can outflank and come on turn two potentially. Make use of your drop pods so at least one of the unit deep strikes close to where you want to come on. When the swift claws come on, have the battle leader detach and head towards the drop pod unit and let the swiftclaws off their leash to hunt those tanks. True you won't be able to assault the tank the turn you come on but hopefully that multi melta will at least take some threat off the rest of your force and fingers crossed poke a large critical hole in one of their

^ This sort of tactic may not be well received because it is a grey area and to a degree rule bending. Mainly because it uses the Saga of the hunters outflank capability in a way most won't see it as it's intended purpose.

Also... -slides over a flagon of Mjodd to the newest shield maiden-.. have fun, we wolves rarely bite our own. ^-^

[Friz 80]

This is all sound advice, although rule bending is not something I like to do because I would rather play the game then argue, however there are those you play who are quick to travel the grey areas and once they cast the first stone it's fair game :)

[Roma]

I wouldnt let myself be put off. So long as the actual rules in question are clear.

 

The above tactic is perfectly valid and anyone who says its cheesy or whatever is a fluff gamer (in which case he should seek like minded players instead of annoying others), or a whinger.

 

After all cheese is just good tactics/strategies, the above is an example of great out of the box planning, feel free to use it. I doubt anyone would have a problem.

 

The only areas you should try to avoid are where the rules are ambiguous (for example taking runic armour with saga of the hunter).

[hendrik]

don't get an imperial guard force, turst me, you'll end up spending as much on them as your SW force!! (i started out with a "small" allied imperial guard detachment when sixth edition came out. by now it's an army of almost 6000 pts on its own!)

on a more serious note. i'dd say try to magnetise as much of your weapons/models as possible. this will allow you more variaty in your games, making sure you can get the maximal use out of your models. personally i always loved a mechanised space wolves force, however more lately i've grown dull of it and would like to try a droppod force, if only those pods weren't so expensive!

[Friz 80]

I know I just purchased 5 of them. See I just got my bonus check and my space wolf army is almost already so big that I really have nothing else to buy for it. I love the game of war hammer so much it has straitened me out from my past and has given me a great stress blow off. I want to get as good as you guys say you are and I believe that you are as good as you say, but variety can be good so I have moneyedt over and wanted to start a second army and imperial gaurd looks cool and I like all the tanks. Maybe you guys can help me choose a second army. Let me clear nothing will ever take the place of my true live the wolves, however I want something else to just mess around with in occasion my fantasy army is chaos warriors and I have way to much of them to even consider adding more. So I will let my new friends on hear help me choose . I have about 4000.00 to spend on 40k what army should I go with?

 

Sorry for all the typos and jacked up wording I am trying to text during a work meeting :)

[Ghostwolfalpha]

Pick an army based on fluff and your playstyle. Just because necrons are one of the top armies, doesn't mean its for you. I like playing aggressively and being the "Good Guys", so I went with SW (because werewolf space vikings are just to cool and they are protectors of the innocent) and Blood Angels (Good guy space vampires to work with my space werewolves, plus, I love Jump infantry)

 

IG is a great second army to go with wolves, thet have a lot to offer that wolves dont have access to and fluffwise, it will always fit. With that kind of spending money, you could easily have an IG army and some.

 

Look into forgeworld stuff, that's an easy way to empty your pockets.

[Grey Mage]

Yeah, if I had about 4k to spend on 40k, an IG army with titan backup would be on the list of things to do, or a truely impressive tyranid swarm. But thats me....

 

 

If you like IG, and you really want to grab them, go for it. Consider looking for a club that runs alot of apocalypse, or investing in good terrain to use- beautiful terrain makes for fun games I find. Theres rumors of a new apocalypse book coming out this summer, a couple warhounds might not be amiss if you fancy the big stompy robots. Otherwise.... what do you like about the IG? Massed infantry platoons? Tanks? Valkyrie style insertion? Lots of options, most of them competitive.

 

Edit: Something else to consider is army transport. I didnt have any foam for the first 12 years I played this game, it was hard to find in MT. I cant recommend it enough if you want to paint your minis.

[Khine]

I know I just purchased 5 of them. See I just got my bonus check and my space wolf army is almost already so big that I really have nothing else to buy for it. I love the game of war hammer so much it has straitened me out from my past and has given me a great stress blow off. I want to get as good as you guys say you are and I believe that you are as good as you say, but variety can be good so I have moneyedt over and wanted to start a second army and imperial gaurd looks cool and I like all the tanks. Maybe you guys can help me choose a second army. Let me clear nothing will ever take the place of my true live the wolves, however I want something else to just mess around with in occasion my fantasy army is chaos warriors and I have way to much of them to even consider adding more. So I will let my new friends on hear help me choose . I have about 4000.00 to spend on 40k what army should I go with?

Sorry for all the typos and jacked up wording I am trying to text during a work meeting

Great commitment to the hobby already XD

In terms of picking a second army to play there is a few things you should keep in mind.

*Rule of Cool ( Doesn't have to be some incredible army rules wise in order to enjoy it )

*If you want something completely different, don't go with another power armour army. So no SM/BA/DA/GK/BT/CSM. Though a new Space marine codex is rumoured to be out in October.

*Consider who would work well in terms of allying with your Wolves.

Personally, i would advice against picking up Necrons and Sisters of battle. No to Necrons because the models are aggravating to assemble. No to Sisters because the model range is extremely limited.

If you want a tanks then yeah Imperial guard or possibly orks. Guard is great because there is tons of different types of armies/army looks you can give them loyalist and chaos. There are so many different loyalist regiments with different flavours that you might find fun. If you don't like the Cadian or troops on the GW site, have a look at the Forgeworld Cadian hostile environment models/Death corps of krieg (great tank army and the infantry looks awesome) or just convert some the way you like them.

On the other hand, if you like the tanks you could make some cool looking looted loyal imperial tanks in the army. Very rag tag looking army. Could do an army that is fantasy orks with 40k war gear. ^-^

Daemons can be a very pleasing looking army and can be fun to play.

Tau + Eldar is going to be a great looking army + fun to play with. Pick which one you want as your main force though and then pick a few from the other that you like as allies. Both are very sleek looking and will be a great way to improve your painting skills.

Dark eldar and Tyranids mights look really cool as an army but it doesn't really have the rumbling tank feel to them.

Last piece of advice, learn about the fluff of the different armies and find something that appeals to you. Though, it sounds like you have your heart set on Guard and want some validation as to it being a good army. If that is the case, just do it because you love the feel of it and not because someone on a forum suggests you do it.

[montegue]

I have a thematic suggestion if you want to play sisters of battle. Try to buy female head bits, and put them on power armored bodies. Give them wings, use the Blood Angels codex, and call them Valkyries.