Tactics vs Tau

[RolandTHTG]

In 8th edition, while I've had the usual struggles with being a marine force, it's been Tau that I've felt the most frustration trying to get to grips with, and the most impotent trying to strike. I almost always face some form of fire warrior castle, closely supported by broadsides and hammerheads, with the various other forms of suits depending on the player. This has time and again blown my units away at-will, and with taking barely any damage in return. 

 

 

Therefor I'm asking my other CSM generals, what are the strategies or units that you've had the most success against Tau with? 

While I primarily use an Emperor's Children/Noise Marine force, It'm not opposed to running them as renegades or other forces if necessary. I also have access to several forgeworld units. 

[Iron_Within]

So firstly - play with plenty of terrain, especially LOS blocking terrain, that's how the game is meant to be played and it will break up the ability of his castle to kill units at will. If you're not playing this game there is unfortunately no way you can win - he'll blitz you on the move up then blast you again on the assault and there is little that can be done.

 

I assume he's playing with the Tau Sept - so charging is a frigging nightmare.

 

Play to the mission always the mission. If he's castled and not moving you have mobility on him. Remember in CA18 even if he tables you he can still lose.

 

A big Tau advantage is their ability to stick 5 markerlights on a unit and focus fire like crazy, which he will do for your most valuable units. There are a few things to counter this. 1 small cheaper units make it harder for him to focus fire. 2 distraction Carnifexs, you'll have a few hard hitting units e.g. Obliterators, that he will focus on, use a threat overload tactic - does he shoot the obliterators or shoot the unit claiming the objective.

 

3) Speed. Small units of bikes will help you grab early objectives, as well they are manueverable so can get around the side to shoot his stupid drones. Then hide. On that note.

4) Hide - Null deploy behind LOS terrain - it forces him either to send his rip tides out on their own or break his castle to get you. Smart missiles on their own won't kill you.

 

5) bears re-iterating. Aggressively play the mission. Lots of players focus on killing their opponents army - he flat out has a better army than yours if you're playing Mono Emperors Children, it's sad to say but it's true. So playing the mission and outsmarting him is the way to go.

 

In terms of unit choices - Small units of Sonic Noise Marines, 10 man Cultists unit, bikes, Sorcerers, Obliterators would be my go to's. Sonics can run and gun. Bikes to outmanoeuvre and shoot weak points. Cultists for the back field and Sorcerers for buffing. DS the Oblits in, they are the hard hitting units, hopefully by the time you DS them in you've stipped away some of the drones. He'll likely table you at point, but the aim is to get so far ahead on points he cannot stop you even if he tables.

[DiscipleOfTheWord]

The thing I find most annoying about Tau is that whenever I get a chance to destroy one of their big battlesuits/tanks they just sacrifice a drone and boom that's a lascannon shot or whatever wasted. Is there any way to deal with the drone problem? I'm not sure whether you can actually fire at the drones first because they're in the same unit as the battlesuit/tank (hence, my opponent takes all the small-arms hits on the stormsurge or whatever and then meltagun hits on the drones - is this legal?)

 

A good tactic against Tau overwatch is warp talons. Deep-strike them in and charge multiple units with them, which stops any of them from firing overwatch. For 120 points it's totally worth it so long as you combine it with a load of other charges. Typically I set up all of my charges turn one and then charge basically everything turn two after the warp talons have landed (yes I run a fast army - this is essential against Tau. Warptime is your friend here).

If warp talons aren't available at the time for whatever reason, then charge in something like a Rhino before you charge all other units. The rhino will soak up all the overwatch and probably will still survive and make the charge. 

 

A way of ensuring that you get units up in charge range is putting them in transports - rhino's are ok, land raiders are better and storm eagles are the best option (much faster and pretty durable). With a storm eagle you can get 18 beserkers with chainaxes and chainswords plus a chaos lord and exalted champion into a turn two charge without taking casualties as you slog up the field. You can then charge his castle and be dishing out 80 strength 6 AP -1 attacks plus 40 strength 5 AP 0 attacks re-rolling all hits and wounds, which will completely decimate the Tau gunline. The chainaxes in particular will be wounding fire warriors on 2's and normal battlesuits on 3's. I haven't actually tried this one yet but I'm currently saving up for the storm eagle - I think it should work though. Never try to out-shoot Tau - I always have some shooty units in order to take out their scariest units before overwatch (the warp talons can't charge the whole Tau army at once) - but they should only ever be supplementing your melee heavy hitters. Or you could combine melee with shooting and field defilers and renegade knights, which is what I do. 

 

A final tactic is to use Death Hex. A lot of expensive Tau battlesuits have high invulnerable saves, so I deep strike a jump sorceror with my warp talons. (Although since I play renegades for the speed, I normally now make the chaos lord who comes in with the beserkers Huron Blackheart and give him Death Hex - I prefer to have my sorceror warptiming my defiler up the field for a second turn charge and casting prescience on my backfield gunline). Cast death hex on his most powerful battlesuit and then unleash hell on it. If you don't then you risk wasting a lot of powerful guns on an invulnerable save. A possible way to get rid of drones is by shooting them down with bolters before you shoot the battlesuit - my worst nightmare was when I fired my Sicaran Venator (AP -5) at a stormsurge and the ten wounds of damage were all taken on one drone... 

[Mekhitar]

So, the drones become their own units as soon as the battlesuit+drones deploy. You can then target the individual drones with your chaff-clearing shooting (noise marines, bikes, storm bolters).

 

Also, iirc, the Stormsurge is not a battlesuit - nor is the hammerhead - and so Savior Protocols don’t work on it. That is, the Tau player cannot intercept a hit on a hammerhead or a stormsurge.

 

They can, however, guard their commanders, broadsides, and riptides with drones. You will have to chew through those drones - it is a fact of life.

 

Death hex is a good spell; cast it on the large unit of shield drones and then shoot them with, say, heavy bolters, or your high AP weapons (plasma is great for this) and force them to rely only on FNP. Also, drones cannot intercept mortals from psychic powers.

 

Heldrakes get +1 to hit fly and love to mince most of the tau Codex (suits and drones all have fly) in CC. They also have the speed to catch tau suits and commanders.

 

Tau overwatch is a free shooting phase for them. Only charge if your unit is designed to kill things in CC.

 

Tau are only bs4+. Use smoke and -1 to hit Powers to great advantage.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

Agree with much of the above. Smoke, -1 to hit, lots of high ROF to clear drones and mulch Fire Warriors.

 

That last point bears repeating.....they can't overwatch when they're already dead. 

 

Why not just roll up to point blank range and murder them with shooting, Psychic Powers, and Leadership shenanigans without even charging?

 

Inside 24 inches, CSM shooting can actually be pretty horrifying and Slaanesh units, in particular, excel at chaff clearance. 

 

You can easily build a list that puts out 1 bolter round or Sonic Blaster shot per Fire Warrior and drone he has, every turn. Tau just can't stand that kind of firepower for long and if you split your fire correctly, some of his larger units might start to melt from morale (especially the drones), depending on how well he's set up.

 

I've watched Dark Eldar just take similar Tau lists apart in batreps just by drowning them in splinter fire and dividing shots to maximize morale casualties. You can really bring the pain on that front if you add Slaanesh Daemons.

 

 

If you must charge, send in a Rhino, Dreadclaw, Heldrake, etc. first to soak overwatch fire and tie up the target.

[Trevak Dal]

Heldrakes are straight bad touch for Tau, especially with warptalons and raptors.

[Panzer]

The thing I find most annoying about Tau is that whenever I get a chance to destroy one of their big battlesuits/tanks they just sacrifice a drone and boom that's a lascannon shot or whatever wasted. Is there any way to deal with the drone problem? I'm not sure whether you can actually fire at the drones first because they're in the same unit as the battlesuit/tank (hence, my opponent takes all the small-arms hits on the stormsurge or whatever and then meltagun hits on the drones - is this legal?)

 

A good tactic against Tau overwatch is warp talons. Deep-strike them in and charge multiple units with them, which stops any of them from firing overwatch. For 120 points it's totally worth it so long as you combine it with a load of other charges. Typically I set up all of my charges turn one and then charge basically everything turn two after the warp talons have landed (yes I run a fast army - this is essential against Tau. Warptime is your friend here).

If warp talons aren't available at the time for whatever reason, then charge in something like a Rhino before you charge all other units. The rhino will soak up all the overwatch and probably will still survive and make the charge. 

 

A way of ensuring that you get units up in charge range is putting them in transports - rhino's are ok, land raiders are better and storm eagles are the best option (much faster and pretty durable). With a storm eagle you can get 18 beserkers with chainaxes and chainswords plus a chaos lord and exalted champion into a turn two charge without taking casualties as you slog up the field. You can then charge his castle and be dishing out 80 strength 6 AP -1 attacks plus 40 strength 5 AP 0 attacks re-rolling all hits and wounds, which will completely decimate the Tau gunline. The chainaxes in particular will be wounding fire warriors on 2's and normal battlesuits on 3's. I haven't actually tried this one yet but I'm currently saving up for the storm eagle - I think it should work though. Never try to out-shoot Tau - I always have some shooty units in order to take out their scariest units before overwatch (the warp talons can't charge the whole Tau army at once) - but they should only ever be supplementing your melee heavy hitters. Or you could combine melee with shooting and field defilers and renegade knights, which is what I do. 

 

A final tactic is to use Death Hex. A lot of expensive Tau battlesuits have high invulnerable saves, so I deep strike a jump sorceror with my warp talons. (Although since I play renegades for the speed, I normally now make the chaos lord who comes in with the beserkers Huron Blackheart and give him Death Hex - I prefer to have my sorceror warptiming my defiler up the field for a second turn charge and casting prescience on my backfield gunline). Cast death hex on his most powerful battlesuit and then unleash hell on it. If you don't then you risk wasting a lot of powerful guns on an invulnerable save. A possible way to get rid of drones is by shooting them down with bolters before you shoot the battlesuit - my worst nightmare was when I fired my Sicaran Venator (AP -5) at a stormsurge and the ten wounds of damage were all taken on one drone... 

 

You can shoot the Drones separately but unless you shoot with anti-infantry weapons it's pretty much always better to shoot at the Battlesuit instead.

You shoot a Lascannon or an Autocannon at a Drone? That'll be at best a dead Drone. You shoot the same stuff at the Battlesuit? That'll be at best some damage on the Battlesuit (keep in mind he has to roll a 2+ for the Saviour Protocols to kick in) and otherwise still a dead Drone.

 

The Warp Talon tactic is incredibly risky. It's far from likely to make the 9" charge with them (40-something% chance of success with re-rolls and you usually want something like 80% for making reliable charges). If you fail to make the charge it's basically a dead unit.

Also never announce multi-charges if you don't have to against T'au because that gives them free Overwatch. Regular Overwatch you can make as long as your unit isn't in melee, but For the Greater Good is different. If a unit announces to help with Overwatch via FtGG it can't do any FtGG or regular Overwatch for the rest of the turn anymore even if it didn't get to shoot (the T'au player has to announce all the units doing FtGG when you do the charge just like you have to announce all the weapons targets when shooting with a unit).

Now you announce a charge against his two Firewarrior units in the front and the T'au player has to decide. Will you fail the charge and he still has them free to help with Overwatch against other charges, or will you make the charge and he should better use FtGG to prevent the two Firewarrior units to get locked in melee.

Also this obviously only works if you can charge with multiple units in the same turn. If you send your units in one by one the pressure you build is basically zero and the T'au player will have a field day with your melee units.

 

Landraiders are decent due their T8 since T'au have mainly S8 and S7 anti-tank. However it's still an incredibly expensive brick that won't be able to use any of its weapons once it gets charged by the T'au (yes T'au player charge themselves as well. Especially with fun stuff like Drones and Stealth Suits). Taking 3 Rhinos for the same points is probably still the better option and if they survive on their way to the T'au castle you can use them to charge and soak up overwatch as well without wasting the points you paid for all the heavy weaponry on a Landraider.

 

Actually the only suits with invul saves T'au player take these days are Riptides and Stormsurges. Sometimes the Commander as well. The Riptide is the only one you really have to worry about here since the others have only a 4++ while the Riptide can increase his 5++ to a 3++. Crisis and Stealth Suits pretty much never have an invul unless your opponent feels like trying something else instead of min-maxing the hell out of his list. Ghostkeels sometimes have a 4++ but rarely.

 

 

my worst nightmare was when I fired my Sicaran Venator (AP -5) at a stormsurge and the ten wounds of damage were all taken on one drone...

 

Separate quote because important: The Stormsurge is NOT a battlesuit nor infantry so Drones can't protect it! Hence why nobody plays Stormsurges in serious matches and only Riptides!

Heldrakes are straight bad touch for Tau, especially with warptalons and raptors.

 

And Renegade Bikes.

[Trevak Dal]

I hate how bikes look and as a concept...I almost want to buy inceptors and do count as.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

 

 

The Warp Talon tactic is incredibly risky. It's far from likely to make the 9" charge with them (40-something% chance of success with re-rolls and you usually want something like 80% for making reliable charges). If you fail to make the charge it's basically a dead unit.

Also never announce multi-charges if you don't have to against T'au because that gives them free Overwatch. Regular Overwatch you can make as long as your unit isn't in melee, but For the Greater Good is different. If a unit announces to help with Overwatch via FtGG it can't do any FtGG or regular Overwatch for the rest of the turn anymore even if it didn't get to shoot (the T'au player has to announce all the units doing FtGG when you do the charge just like you have to announce all the weapons targets when shooting with a unit).

Now you announce a charge against his two Firewarrior units in the front and the T'au player has to decide. Will you fail the charge and he still has them free to help with Overwatch against other charges, or will you make the charge and he should better use FtGG to prevent the two Firewarrior units to get locked in melee.

Also this obviously only works if you can charge with multiple units in the same turn. If you send your units in one by one the pressure you build is basically zero and the T'au player will have a field day with your melee units.

 

Agreed.

 

Warp Talons can have this downside mitigated somewhat by allying with Thousand Sons or Khorne or Tzeentch Daemons. Khorne can get rerolled charges and tons of extra attacks, but not an option for Emperor's Children as it requires the Talons be Khorne-marked. With Tzeentch/TS  allies, you can reroll the charge of one unit with Gaze of Fate, or spend a CP to reroll just one die, increasing the overall odds of success. Again, not all of this is easy or desirable for Emperor's Children.

 

For EC, I'd personally just Warp Time/Advance some Possessed up the table with Delightful Agonies on them and pop in some Slaanesh Heralds at the point of attack so that they can Advance and charge and get +1 Strength in the bargain. Drop in Obliterators to target likely sources of serious overwatch before you charge. Assist with Denizens of the Warp Daemonette Bomb or Fiends if necessary. Then stack Ld debuffs and spam Cacophonic Choir. Use Maulerfiends or Defilers with cheap loadouts for threat saturation, since those can Advance and charge too if a Herald's nearby.

[DiscipleOfTheWord]

I'm glad that it turns out I can shoot the drones separately - I never realised that...

 

As for the warp talons tactic, if you deep strike a jump sorcerer with them (or just have a sorcerer on hand) then you can warptime them forwards 12" and absolutely guarantee a charge. Then try and charge as many units as is humanly possible in order to deny them all overwatch. The talons won't actually do anything in melee because they only have 2 attacks with the claws, but this doesn't matter because I just use them to set up the charges of proper heavy hitting combat units like beserkers, defilers etc. For only 120 points I think it's well worth it, as by the time you've made the initial charge against a large chunk of the Tau army they struggle to reclaim the rest of the game. A large unit of 50 cultists could do the same thing (they would survive the overwatch) except firstly it is twice as expensive, secondly they have to slog up the board so wouldn't work for a second-turn knockout charge and finally so many of them would die from overwatch added to any casualties they've taken earlier that they wouldn't do any damage at all whereas at least the warp talons will kill a couple of fire warriors.    

[Gederas]

I'm glad that it turns out I can shoot the drones separately - I never realised that...

 

As for the warp talons tactic, if you deep strike a jump sorcerer with them (or just have a sorcerer on hand) then you can warptime them forwards 12" and absolutely guarantee a charge. Then try and charge as many units as is humanly possible in order to deny them all overwatch. The talons won't actually do anything in melee because they only have 2 attacks with the claws, but this doesn't matter because I just use them to set up the charges of proper heavy hitting combat units like beserkers, defilers etc. For only 120 points I think it's well worth it, as by the time you've made the initial charge against a large chunk of the Tau army they struggle to reclaim the rest of the game. A large unit of 50 cultists could do the same thing (they would survive the overwatch) except firstly it is twice as expensive, secondly they have to slog up the board so wouldn't work for a second-turn knockout charge and finally so many of them would die from overwatch added to any casualties they've taken earlier that they wouldn't do any damage at all whereas at least the warp talons will kill a couple of fire warriors.    

RE the bolded: Not anymore thanks to the most recent FAQ.... Which really, really sucks. Apparently GW wants Warp Talons to be totally hot trash and not "somewhat mediocre, but have a decent synergy" 

[DemetriiTZ]

Tau are a gear check. Your list either has enough volume of firepower to beat drones or does not. Protip: Deredeo Dreads and Plagueburst Crawlers and other "mortar" weapons ruin a Tau castle, because drones cannot hide from those weapons.

Protip #2: Do not melee Tau -- shoot Tau to death.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Tip #3: do melee Tau if you can thin out the supporting Overwatch before hand. Its like clubbing baby seals.

[DemetriiTZ]

Because if you can't, you're giving them a second shooting phase.

[PurpleSoulDragonSlayer]

mortal wound spam, drones cant stop them and you can wipe a whole list if you target correctly, i had magnus solo an entire army with minimal support from arhiman and a sorcerer.

[Panzer]

Magnus lived long enough to solo a T'au army? Must've been horrible target priority from the T'au player.

[PurpleSoulDragonSlayer]

First turn warptime and not a single failed power just overload of psychic powers killed all his heavy hitters as well as some assistance from a defiler, the infernal gateway power with potential +4 to tests because of magnus and the 3 psyker stratagem hitting a clumped group of units for a potential d6 damage each is terrifying along with treason taking a hq hostage then throw it into the scariest over watch units so magus wouldnt get hit  by too many high damage shots. if i had gone second i definitely would have lost magnus immediately haha

[Slayer le Boucher]

Tau Fire Warrior Castles... its at times like this that i miss Large explosion templates...

[Iron_Within]

I was listening to a video from one of the top Tau players on how to beat them. From it I've come up with a few thoughts. 

 

The usual tactics of using pure CSM forces don't work as well - Tau are better at shooting at the ranges we tend to go for. Obliterators will come down and make a mess but without support they get blasted off the board. The Tau have excellent shooting with suits at up to 18" range that will just rip us to pieces and they have really good shooting with basic Tau units at up to 30 inches. beyond 30", they're not that good. They don't have an awful lot of good firepower to take out units of marines or vehicles easily. And at this range we are better than Tau.

The humble Havoc squad with Autocannons and/or Heavy Bolters can put out a large number of shots that will shred basic Tau infantry. My gut tells me Autocannons are a bit better in this role with their 48" range over the 36" of the heavy bolter. A 5 man unit of Havocs with Heavy Bolters/Autocannons is 105 points, or 315 for 3 units. Alternatively missile launchers have utility, but I again still think the Autocannons are better. You could give the units a greater foot print with 10 man units, though that would come to a total of 510 points for the 3 units. I would reckon somewhere in the middle would work well.

Maybe having 2 Autocannon Havocs and 1 Heavy bolter Havocs, drop Prescience, Endless cacophony and VoTLW on the Heavy bolters. Those three units would kill 17-20 Tau Firewarriors a turn, which is a good chunk of a castle which can give no response.

 

In order to respond to the threat of the Havocs the Tau player would have to break up their castle. 

 

The other thing that hurts tau (especially Tau Sept castles) is assault units that shut down Overwatch, we have one unit that can do that - Warp Talons. They are not very good at it of course, because it's difficult to pull off a charge is difficult, so perhaps taking 3 units of minimum sized Warp Talons at 120 points a pop, so 360 points in total, that will shut down any overwatch and go for for the suits. 

 

Last option, would be Cultists, bodies to soak up damage and die horribly to firepower. Or alternatively regular CSM, Tau basic firepower has lots of shots good strength but poor AP. I would say (again) avoid large blobs, this will give up Kill points and so you'd be screwed in KP games, but in objective games you've screwed up their ability to focus fire on valuable targets. 

 

Other things to fill out the points, not sure yet, likely the usual suspects. My main thoughts are that Warp Talons and Havocs with dakka type weapons have greater utility against Tau.

[Slayer le Boucher]

Valid argumentations!

 

Also in the departement of fast enough to engage them, there's of course Heldrakes, and like it was pointed out they have a +1toHit vs Fly units( and all Suits as Fly).

 

And Bikes, or if you take allied demons Hounds and Slaanesh riders.

[Panzer]

Heldrakes are annoying but as T'au player playing a T'au Sept castle I wouldn't worry too much about those. They do barely any damage, aren't very durable and can't hide. If you crash them into my lines turn 1 (and survive the overwatch) they are pretty much alone and get shot to bits next turn and if you hold them back to do a coordinated charge with other units they are a sitting duck and you'd be better off with just another Bike unit to do the same job.

[Iron_Within]

Okay, so based off those assumptions I gave above along with Slayers input about Helldrakes, I've come up with a quick list that *could* be terrible or not. On paper it doesn't look like it would do the business by normal assumptions, but hey ho this is a thought excercise.

 

Iron Warrior Detachment (because I work with Iron Warriors so there we are....)

 

Battalion

HQ - Chaos Lord, Chainsword WARLORD - Cold and Bitter

HQ - Sorcerer - Prescience, Delighted  Agonies

Troops - 40 Cultists

Troops - 5 Chaos Space Marines

Troops - 5 Chaos Space Marines

Troops - 5 Chaos Space Marines

Flyer: Helldrake with Baleflamer

Flyer: Helldrake with Baleflamer

 

Outrider Detachment

HQ - Terminator Chaos Lord with Power Sword and Combi Bolter MURDER sword

Fast Attack - 5 Warp Talons

Fast Attack - 5 Warp Talons

Fast Attack - 5 Warp Talons

 

Spearhead Detachment

HQ - Sorcerer with Jump Pack, Power Sword/Axe and bolt pistol, Warp Time and Death Hex.

Heavy Support - 10 Havocs with 4 Autocannons

Heavy Support - 10 Havocs with 4 Autocannons

Heavy Support - 10 Havocs with 4 Heavy Bolters

Flyer: Helldrake with Baleflamer

[Iron_Within]

Heldrakes are annoying but as T'au player playing a T'au Sept castle I wouldn't worry too much about those. They do barely any damage, aren't very durable and can't hide. If you crash them into my lines turn 1 (and survive the overwatch) they are pretty much alone and get shot to bits next turn and if you hold them back to do a coordinated charge with other units they are a sitting duck and you'd be better off with just another Bike unit to do the same job.

 

I wouldn't run them into your line Turn 1 with the above list - I'd wait at 37" range to charge turn 2 with a combined charge with Warp Talons to shut down your overwatch, then use the Baleflamer to burn the Drones. 

 

Blindly crashing them into a tau Castle turn 1 is an excellent way to lose them turn 1 - I've seen Rowboat die to Tau castle overwatch.

[Panzer]

Yeah but as I said if you wait for turn 2 they are sitting ducks for a whole turn (they really can't hide with such a profile) and afterwards aren't exactly much better than Bikes. Being able to cross the battlefield in one go turn 1 is pretty much the only redeeming point Heldrakes have aside of the model looking awesome.

My post wasn't to promote a turn 1 charge, it was to highlight how Heldrakes simply aren't that great a solution against such a T'au list.

[Iron_Within]

What would shoot at it if its 37" away? Pulse Rifles are out of range as are Markerlights so to shoot them you'd have to move them into LOS of the CSM armies heavy weapons (I'm assuming here you're playing Tau Sept and not Bork'an)

 

The Broadside Battlesuits Heavy Rail Rifle would kill it, but without Markerlights only has a 50% hit rate so with 2 Helldrakes you have a good chance of surviving. A Stormsurge with a Pulse Driver Cannon would be scary for sure, and would likely take 1 of the two in the above list out - though I've not really seen many people take the Pulse Driver Cannon because of its cost (though that could just be me).

 

You're right though, within 30" the Helldrake... or anything else will not last long against the Tau, so don't be in 30", Hell don't be in 36" and bait the Markerlights into the open.