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My first game v Tau


marvmoogy

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Hi guys, 

 

Well, I have never played Tau before and I have my first game (1500 pts) against them next week.  I'm thinking of a drop-heavy list to get in their faces and bring some pain to avoid their shooting so am not going to take my TWC.

 

What are your experiences of Tau?  Any killer units that are a must take?

 

Cheers

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That will either go incredibly well or incredibly poorly. Tau can be built to hard counter almost any tactic in the game. If your opponent knows to expect a pod list you could be dropping into a forest of AP2 Interceptor fire, which is going to give you serious problems.

 

Even without hard counter twinking, Tau can be an absolute nightmare. Unfortunately we don't have a 'killer unit' as such, the stuff that's good in general is also good against Tau. The most important thing is target selection (for you and your opponent). You need to either have something rock hard (like invisible Thunderwolves) that will whether whatever he throws at you, or enough threats to try to make him split his fire, hopefully allowing more (if somewhat battered) units to close. As for your target selection, Markerlights. They all need to die, immediately. After that don't pass up the chance to attack the Suits if an opportunity presents itself, they're not that hard and losing them a a painful reduction in Tau firepower. Riptides will be a problem, but if you can deny Markerlight support they become (slightly) less scar. It will however, take a concerted effort to bring one down, you either need concentrated heavy firepower of your own, or something knarly that can beat it to death (like TWC).

Here is what i have found works best against tau.

 

Helm of durfast psyker, tempestas, with combi plasma in a pod with ablative blood claws. The blood claws can take the volume of fire and interceptor. I sometimes include a terminator pack leader as well to keep the psyker engine alive. 

 

I've also had success with las cannon long fangs. They can stay out of most of tau's range and can double out broadsides and crisis suits.

I find hellfrost gives you at least a small chance of dropping a riptide with 1 shot which always helps.

Drop pods make you massively vulnerable against tau, but the other option is walking or driving into contact and that is even worse

 

also remember if they intercept you, they are snap shotting next turn

The key is to overwhelm them. If you give them your units one by one, they will eat you. But if you land your entire army in his face, you will bring the pain. Since you have a 3+, only the Riptide AP2 pie plate is a danger to you. Remember, non-monstrous creatures are only allowed to fire one weapon. Tau suits can only fire two weapon in the shooting phase. A weapon, that fires Interceptor is not allowed to shoot in the following shooting phase. So they intercept with one weapon only. Spread out to avoid pie plates. Also, try to land close to increase the danger of him scattering his pie plates on his units. Broadsides and Markerlights are your priority. If he is running the Buff-Commander with Marker Drones and Missiles Crisis, that is your number one unit to kill. Riptides are not very high on the list as their damage potential is fairly small without support.

 

What list are you running, anyway?

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

My list is this:

 

Ulrick, 15 Blood Claws in a Storm Wolf (with multi-meltas)

10 Grey Hunters with 2x Melta, melta bombs and CCWs in a pod

10 Grey Hunters with 2x plasma, plasma pistol, power fist and CCWs in a pod

5 Grey Hunters in a Las/plas Razorback

Murderfang in a pod

Las/Plas Razorback

 

Hoping for a fun game, not uber competitive but that can play well

My son plays Tau A LOT and let me tell you the single most effective thing in my entire Great Company.

 

WHIRLWINDS!

 

Don't laugh, against Firewarriors those large blast templates WRECK large numbers of them, Kroot eat it too. Hit a blob of Crisis suits and watch them fail a save or two. Stealth suits? Sorry, no cover saves allowed.... It won't touch a Riptide but if your opponent tries to run a gun line against you, just blast holes in it. I've also wiped multiple units off the board using a dreadnought with the TL Heavy flamer and a second heavy flamer on the DCCW arm in a drop pod. That one was so good I promised never to use it again as it was so stupidly effective.

 

2 whirlwinds for 130 points is a 'gimme' every time I play anyone with Tau.

Find the points to put deathwind launchers on your pods.

Since 7th ed they can fire the turn they arrive and can lay down serious wounds on lightly armoured troops packed tightly together. (heck, last time i took them, they were killing off mutiple plague marines a turn!)

Well, I have played the game and.....

 

STUNNING VICTORY!

 

I started off with 2 Razorbacks and 1 squad of 5 grey hunters embarked on turn one, with the rest deep striking / drop pod assaulting.  The Razor's did nothing but attract fire, and then got promptly immobilised and weapon-destroyed.

 

Murderfang was, yet again, useless!  He has never killed anything in CC but this time took out 3 path finders with his sotrm bolter and flamer.

 

The Stormwolf's hellfrost doodah took out a Riptide and the other one fell to one grey hunter squads plasma weapons.  The blood claws with Ulrik along with 7 remaining GH's from one squad pretty much annihilated 30 fire warriors (despite over-watch fire taking a heavy toll) and the game ended with one Hammerhead? (the tank thing with a big railgun) and 2 crisis suits.  Weapon of the game goes to the Storm Bolters on the drop pods - they were ace!!  They eat path finders and kroot for breakfast!

 

For the next game, I need to target the marker light drones much sooner!!  Oh, and take pictures....sorry about that guys!

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