Tau

[calvin the wraithlord]

I Remember reading something on this forum about who we can and cant play against, and honestly i myself agreed, the statement was something to this effect "If we face eldar or tau, shake hands and go and do something else because you cant win" see i always believed this statement, but ive been playing tau alot recently and to be totally honest against us using NSF they really have no chance, we can insta kill there suits (including the riptide) with force weps and failing that hammers, cleansing flame on a libby in a squad of termies with incinerators destroys Fire Warriors, and the NDK can ruin there day in so many ways, be it combat, incinerator, psycannon or even the Gatling, it pumps out all those shots with force on a riptide, theres a good chance one wounds going to get through and then its bye bye riptide. Just dont run Paladins! but then, i dont think anyone does anyway. Thoughts on this?

[Saul Invictus]

An important thing to remember is that you can win almost any game if you are skilled enough to plan ahead, manoeuvre well, and identify key targets. One thing the Internet forgets, is that a skilled player doesn't needed to just use the hottest unit around to win, you just make it easier if you use them.

And I use Paladins...

[calvin the wraithlord]

I think your right to a point man, as we are still useless vs heavy mech lists like serpent spam but other than that as a GK player i consider myself to be using a extremely competitive army no matter what people say, as for Paladins, each to there own i suppose, i just cant see the justification for them, they cost so much and with the abundance of ST8 AP2 in 7th ed they die just as fast as Termies if not even faster as they have a huge target on there head from turn one

[Gentlemanloser]

How do you use NSF versus Tau?

 

Don't they Intercept you as you DS in?

[calvin the wraithlord]

Yeah but theres no way they'll kill everything before it gets in

[Captain Coolpants]

Well you're not going to have more than 5 units deepstriking in 1 turn in a match under 2000pts, and it'll only be that many because they are combat squaded. And sooo much tau can upgrade to intercept, as well as their new ap2 strength 6 torrent Flamer riptide! And broadsides with like a million shots each.

I have never had a successful deepstrike 'near' a tau player. And I've learned the hard way that you can't rely on force psylencers to kill suits, due to only strength 4 with the enemy always getting a save too.

 

Then as you're in the enemies face, the tau player doesn't even have to move, so they stay nice and save behind their gun lines and such, so everything gets to rapid fire, and Kroot get to rend, pie plates get to have a second round at our units after intercepting. Ect

 

Our alpha strike would work so much better if we had more variations of guns like melta, plasma and such, or if we could charge. But we can't.

 

I'm not saying we will lose everytime against tau. But if your opponent takes a half competitive list, and isn't a complete idiot, his army will require very little tactics, other than point and shoot at whatever is the biggest risk.

[Captain Coolpants]

Our best bet is to run a shunt list with flamers, but then... It'll do nothing to suits/vehicles...

It's not because our army is bad.. It's just a bad match up for us.

[calvin the wraithlord]

I said that Gatling's were just one way to kill suits not our only one, i honestly dont see the massive deal, you whether a turn of interceptor and shooting then its GG because you can charge them, no to mention that you'll have shot them up abit already, i get what you mean about interceptor being a real pain i just dont think that it is the be all and end all in this situation, we get all our saved vs there firewarriors, plus under 2k there wont be enough AP2 to down us, also the new riptide cant intercept with its flamer as im pretty sure you can intercept with templates or its D3 or something?, the only way they could bring enough AP2 to kill everything before we made combat would be running Farsight dataslate, which leaves them with alot less marker lights, therefore they will hit alot less, im not saying the Tau arent a hard battle as they are no doubt, what im saying is its not GG from the word go, we stand a very good chance

[Happy-inquisitor]

How do you use NSF versus Tau?

 

Don't they Intercept you as you DS in?

 

I have played this both ways round and those interceptor shots can be a bit of a trap, there are pretty much no markerlights available to the Tau player in the opposition movement phase which makes any shooting then potentially wasteful both due to missing and the lack of ability to strip cover saves. A Tau player can lose their next shooting phase for little gain if you are careful where you deep strike  and they go for the interceptor shots anyway.

 

I have found the new GK very nasty against static gunline Tau, less so against mech Tau and a lot of fun (both ways round) against Farsight Enclaves crisis lists.  FSE are another low model count elite army - where it comes down to whether you can corner them or they can shoot their way out of the trap and feed cheap (probably drone) rearguards to your fast moving units to slow them down.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Don't Deepstrike against Tau.

Seriously. Don't.

Riptides love nothing more than for you to land in perfect large-blast shaped formations with your Terminators. 

 

Shunting is a superior strategy. Put four DK's in their lines with heavy psycannons and force hammers. Tau typically don't take much infantry besides min Sniper Kroot or a few Fire Warrior squads. Take incinerators as well if they're taking the Ethereal+meched Fire Warrior combo, as you'll need to clean up his infantry to avoid getting S5'd to death (its really annoying to eat 60-90 BS5 pulse rounds to the face). 

 

It's honestly our hardest matchup. Try and hit a flank of his army, draw fire with your DK's, and get into melee ASAP. Tau fold in melee to all our units, and if you pull your punches (not shooting prior to charging, Smashing with DK's etc), you can hide in melee during his Shooting phase, then exit at the end of his Assault phase, ready to shoot+charge new targets. 

 

It's true that player skill and mission type can impact on a game, but Tau have an unrivalled capacity to just wipe you out, objectives be damned. You need to play carefully and prioritise targets (its not always the Riptides btw, they can be a trap). 

 

I'd prioritise the following to die;

 

- Support O: He's typically T5, FNP and 2+/4+ saves. If he's rolling with marker drones (a common sight now that he can't join Riptides), dump large blast psycannon onto his unit to force saves (you generate more hits and if you can position yourself well you can avoid him tanking the damage). If he's rolling with Broadsides or Crisis, use 6-shot mode. It's usually more important to kill the unit he's with, as opposed to the guy himself (sometimes he doesn't even have guns). Once he's dead, no more free re-rolls or Ignore Cover, plus he's usually Warlord. 

- Broadsides: These guys are actually more annoying than Tides. The amount of S7 they dump out, plus S5 missiles, will kill your Terminators and even DK's through forced saves. They also murder Interceptors and Purifiers very efficiently. Oh, and Ravens. Heavy psilencer actually has a place against these guys, as they are T4 and 'Force' means even a single failed save is a dead suit. I'd put 'Misfortune' on them as well if you can, to up the odds of getting a wound past their saves. 

- Riptide: Don't shoot them. I'm serious. It's a complete waste of time. Between T6, 5 wounds, FNP, and 2+ armour (and often 3+ invul), they shrug off your fire with ease and they don't stop being effective till their last wound. By comparison, in melee, you only need one 'Force' wound past their invul to kill them. In melee you almost always kill them the turn you charge anyway, so why waste firepower on them? 

- Fire Warriors: With an Ethereal nearby (usually in a Devilfish juking for a 3+ cover save), they go to 3 shots apiece at 15" (21" when you factor in movement). Even I wrote these guys off when the codex dropped (and I play Tau sometimes). They can generate a lot of wounds, and the extra shots also carry over into Overwatch (aka enjoy dying from charging). Supporting Fire is legit, even Termies have to respect that kind of firepower (especially as markerlights from that drone swarm I mentioned earlier can Supporting Fire as well). Heavy incinerator and heavy psycannon wash them away, and they're great for hiding in melee if need be. Sometimes they are meched though, which brings me to...

- Devilfish/Skyray chassis: AV12 front with 3+ cover from Jink is annoying...so get behind them via Shunt or Raven. Once they'r dead, Fire Warriors are a lot easier to deal with, plus they block sight lanes for the Tau gunline. Heavy psycannon and psycannon do the trick, and you can even charge the cargo piling out after doing so. Win win. 

[Captain Coolpants]

Yeah that's a good point about the misfortune power. Although it's extremely situational and completely unreliable, a squad with a bunch of psylencers will be auto wounding anything on a roll of a 6 and also becomes ap2. So if you're lucky, you could potentially get a few ap2 auto wound instant death shots!

 

Best chance for this to work would probably be 5 purgators , 4 with psylencers, with a libby with the soul glaive.

 

And just hope to throne that you pass your force (which you should with the glaive) and also pass misfortune.... And then get a bunch of 6s...

 

 

 

Yeah actually... This is sounding waaaay more effort than its worth...

 

They'd even need transport.... Or draigo to get them in range (more unreliable psyker tests)

 

 

 

... Nevermind lol.

[jeffersonian000]

I'm loving the Draigo Bomb supported by Shuntwing versus Tau.

 

<Bounce> <pew> <pew>

 

<Bounce> <pew> <pew>

 

<CHAAAAAARGE!!!!!!!>

 

SJ

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Yeah Draigo is really annoying for them. Especially with Grav-Centurions Allied in, as they melt Riptides and Broadsides, and nuke his vehicles, and they don't die as easily as Terminators.