New guy needs some advice please

[Frater Cornelius]

The correct order is:

 

choose unit -> declare charge -> declare overwatch -> resolve overwatch -> resolve charge --> repeat until you charged with all units that you wanted to charge with.

[Z00Z]

supporting fire works like this;

 

- units within 6" of a charged unit can choose to support fire with overwatch. 

- Tau controlling player must declare which units will be supporting fire prior to shooting anything. 

- Overwatch is fired at BS1 unless he has used marker lights. Be aware though that marker lights cannot be used by the unit that hit you with the markerlights, only subsequent units. Tau players abuse this so take note. 

- A unit can only overwatch once. 

 

My suggestion is drop pods with DWL, try to break the 6" chain. Tau will often setup cheap units surrounding their important units. Expect quite a few drones, fire warriors, kroots on the frontline. They will also try and bubble-wrap your units so you effectively will only be able to charge the rats and mice stuff. Take note of the shooting through other units rule, if a unit is behind another and supporting fire, one unit firing through a different unit will give you a cover save. (Another rule conveniently forgotten) 5+ cover.

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

Welcome bigred!

 

I have never faced either of these armies, but I love pod lists. I recommend them pretty highly if you like a more mobile surgical approach to deployment. Null deployment (enough pods so you start with nothing on the board) is also super fun though against tau I suspect it is a bit riskier as they can try to shoot you off as soon as you hit the table.

 

Good luck and welcome brother!

[Bigred9001]

Thank you everyone for clearing those things up. I know he doesn't run any kroot and he jams everything together base to base to get that supporting fire so I'm just gonna run several pods and lots of blast templates to soften him up for my twc to multicharge and lock him in

[Frater Cornelius]

That is a solid strategy so long as your TWC can take some abuse. The overwatch will not be pleasant.

[Bigred9001]

As expensive as it is I'm gonna load several up with shields and maybe even throw in a wolf priest on a bike just for the fnp and pe so hopefully let em get in there

[Z00Z]

for the price differential, consider a 5 man skyclaw unit with f2 flamers and a combi-flamer. The shields will offer little vs volume of fire from Tau. 2 shots + 1 from ethereal overwatch will eat through the shields. They can keep up with the TWC, jump in and drop 3x templates to break it up a bit. More importantly, they can charge first (disordered if possible to tie-up as many tau units), thereafter charge with TWC. A unit can only fire overwatch once.