Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just wondering what units are recommended for taking on Tau. Is it possible to outshoot them? I run a footsloggin horde army, but i've been having some difficulty. Should i go for a Speed Freeks or Big Mek list instead?

One idea for Tau is to get into Close Combat as fast as possible. This may involve such units as storm boyz, kommandos, and many many trukks for delivery of boyz. If you can get into assault in round two, it is a sold deal.

The use of Big Meks with KFF provides much needed cover to your units as you charge forward.

A full squad of lootaz launching a full firing barrage is always fun. It can force quite a large number of wounds down the throat of units. Get enough in there and even cover saves won't help them.

For the vehicles, I'd look into setting up the Trukks with boarding planks so that the nob/warboss inside can rip the various Tau tanks to bits on the fly.

Footsloggin Orks need to spam rokkits (not big shootas) and shootas (not sluggas)
A Mek with KFF makes for a stupidly durable mob (but beware the vindacare assassin)
just about every unit can take rokkits, and they should. It's about as close as Orks get to reliable anti-armor shooting, and can at least keep Av 14 stunned 'til the PKs get to 'em.

Trukks/BW are ideal for killing tau. A good unit, i find, is about 15 stormboyz with zagstrukk, they can assault of the turn they deep strike, giving the tau no time to shoot them!!

Amazingly bad advice being dispensed with glee in this thread!

/popcorn


Exor: You *can* outshoot a Tau army. 3 squads of Lootas (45 total) making a firebase against your rear edge can match the sheer hail of bullets and beams that Tau can lay down. Stick them in battlewagons, put a mek with a KFF in the middle one, and the only thing that can hurt you are broadsides or hammerheads with railguns that you'll get 4+ cover saves against anyway, and your entire Loota arsenal can spend the first turn or two shooting at the Tau anti-tank to essentially deny them the ability to hurt you.

The other "mandatory" elements of any ork army (read: Troops choices) whether you take gretchin to screen your vehicles or Ork boyz can deal with stealth suits, piranhas, or crisis suits trying to sneak close enough to melta you.

Aside from that, if you're building a list specifically to deal with Tau, remember that firewarriors are STR3 T3, and crisis suits are STR5 T4. If you take a couple of Deffkoptas, you have a turn1 assault - Deffkoptas have two wounds and are T5, so can pretty much ignore firewarriors, and tarpit crisis suits while the rest of your army brings destruction. While it *is* fun to outshoot a Tau army, its far more effective (and satisfying) to crunch those ugly blue heads in close combat. If you're going to run a footslogging horde army and be assault-centric (instead of shooting), you have a couple options:

1. Take a squad of gretchin (29 gretchin + 2 runtherders = 107 points) and string them out ahead of your boys to provide a mobile screen of 4+ cover saves.
2. Make one of your squads of boys 'Ard Boyz. If you're feeling frisky, put Mad Dok Grotsnik in there so that have you a 30 man mob of 4+ armor, 4+ feel no pain. Use this unit to screen your boys as they advance up the field.

You don't need to rebuild your entire army to deal with Tau - you simply have to play to your strength and their weakness: close combat. Put Snikrot into your list and 14 other kommandos. You've got a back table edge assault element now with stikkbombs, and are facing one of the only armies that has worse initiative than orks. Bring those kommandos in where they can multi-assault as many units as possible. Firewarriors, suits, broadsides, snipers....anything they can grab. You'll strike first, and if you can hit a firewarrior squad and a broadside unit in the same turn (or anything + broadsides in the same turn) those 2+/4++ broadside teams turn into gibbering suits running off the board because they are part of a multi-assault where firewarriors got eaten.

As for Tau vehicles - again, Deffkoptas are the answer here; put buzzsaws on them. Against Tau, you cannot go wrong with deffkoptas - they'll either go tarpit firewarriors/suits until the rest of your boys reach the fray, or you can use them to turbo-boost scout move (or outflank) and shoot, then assault rear armor on those skimmers. Without knowing what kind of Tau your friends play, I don't know what to suggest. Just remember - foot-slogging Orks can beat down Tau if you play them intelligently. And if you KNOW you're playing Tau, you can tailor a list for them.

In terms of other things that have been said here:

1. Do not EVER put rokkits into foot-slogging orks. Foot-slogging orks either run during their shooting phase, or double-tap infantry units with their shootas at 18". If you put rokkits in there, you're targeting a vehicle, and now 27-28 of your boyz can do nothing useful with their guns. Don't EVER put rokkits into foot-slogging orks.

2. Don't bother with a Mek with a KFF for foot-slogging boys. Spending 85 points to get a basic big mek with a KFF to give yourself a 5+ cover save when getting free 4+ cover saves is so easy is the mark of an ork player deserving to lose. Don't do it. If you don't know what to use for an HQ, try Mad Dok Grotsnik (explained above) or stick in Old Zogwort or a regular weirdboy - the possibility of multiple Waaaughs! per game is priceless.

3. KoS isn't very effective against Tau, not with the ability of virtually every weapon in their army being long range and capable of popping a trukk. You need to run a full mechanized list to make that work, with a Mek with a KFF, and some other things, and you'll still lose half your army's mobility against any semi-competent Tau player before you get into assault; not a big deal since you don't need your whole army in assault to win, but annoying.

4. Trukks with boarding planks are nice anti-tank, but you run a footslogging horde army; putting a couple vehicles into a foot-slogging list is a mistake. You either mechanize orks or you don't; mixing them is foolish for a lot of reasons (which I'd be happy to link you threads and pages of discussion about).

5. Stormboyz fit well into a KoS list where you can use vehicles to screen their approach and give them 4+ cover saves (while the vehicles themselves get 4+ saves from the KFF mek), but in a foot-slogging list, your stormboyz are going to outpace the rest of your army, ending up getting mulched because of lack of cover as they advance alone into the enemy ranks. The key to ork victory is a unified army working together.

6. Zagstruk: The dude is awesome. Using him however is VERY dangerous. When you deepstrike with him, you need to deep strike him close enough to the enemy that you'll be within 6" to assault; otherwise the whole unit will deep strike in and be sitting out in the open to get torn apart the next turn. Anytime you deep strike within 6" of the enemy, you're asking fr trouble, and in YOUR list where you're using foot-slogging horde....having a single deep-striking unit that comes out on a random turn isn't very helpful. He's a good addition to a larger game when you're using a kan wall or KoS, and there's a LOT of situations (usually objective based) where he comes in handy, but not for a foot-slogging list, and not against Tau if you're going to build a specific army list against them.


Anyway, that's my advice. *grins* Listen to my advice, ignore the others. =p

Snikrot and a full squad of Kommandos with two burnas will solve many of your Tau problems.

olympia wrote:Snikrot and a full squad of Kommandos with two burnas will solve many of your Tau problems.

*looks around furtively before giggling wildly and stabbing a broadside battlesuit in the back*


*EDIT* And I just gave that advice above: You don't need to rebuild your entire army to deal with Tau - you simply have to play to your strength and their weakness: close combat. Put Snikrot into your list and 14 other kommandos. You've got a back table edge assault element now with stikkbombs, and are facing one of the only armies that has worse initiative than orks. Bring those kommandos in where they can multi-assault as many units as possible. Firewarriors, suits, broadsides, snipers....anything they can grab. You'll strike first, and if you can hit a firewarrior squad and a broadside unit in the same turn (or anything + broadsides in the same turn) those 2+/4++ broadside teams turn into gibbering suits running off the board because they are part of a multi-assault where firewarriors got eaten.

Illeix wrote:Footsloggin Orks need to spam rokkits (not big shootas) and shootas (not sluggas)
A Mek with KFF makes for a stupidly durable mob (but beware the vindacare assassin)
just about every unit can take rokkits, and they should. It's about as close as Orks get to reliable anti-armor shooting, and can at least keep Av 14 stunned 'til the PKs get to 'em.

I don't want to ever give footslogging orks shootas or special weapons as they will be running every turn until they get into close combat.

Dashofpepper wrote:

1. Do not EVER put rokkits into foot-slogging orks. Foot-slogging orks either run during their shooting phase, or double-tap infantry units with their shootas at 18". If you put rokkits in there, you're targeting a vehicle, and now 27-28 of your boyz can do nothing useful with their guns. Don't EVER put rokkits into foot-slogging orks.

This. Rokkits don't belong on footsloggers. For that matter, special weapons in general don't belong on Boyz squads in general. They're a waste of points. Take 30 boyz, give them a PK Nob with a bosspole, and you're done.

Dashofpepper wrote:

5. Stormboyz fit well into a KoS list where you can use vehicles to screen their approach and give them 4+ cover saves (while the vehicles themselves get 4+ saves from the KFF mek), but in a foot-slogging list, your stormboyz are going to outpace the rest of your army, ending up getting mulched because of lack of cover as they advance alone into the enemy ranks. The key to ork victory is a unified army working together.

Here I would disagree. Especially against Tau, the point is to get everything you have into close combat as fast as you can. The argument that the Stormboyz outpace the rest of the army is A. Only sort-of true, since everything will be across the board by turn 3 anyway, meaning the stormies get there a maximum of one turn sooner, and B. Immaterial, because if they do "[get] mulched because of lack of cover as they advance alone into the enemy ranks" that's fine, because that means that all that firepower isn't shooting your footsloggers. The enemy only has a finite number of shots they can put out, and each shot they spend on the Stormboyz is a shot they aren't spending on your horde units. Either they don't shoot much at the Stormies and get mugged by them, or they gun the Stormies down and get mugged by your footsloggers. Either way you win.

I find deffkoptas with buzzsaws are uber awsome to kill the fish heads. You come on from the sides and can normaly go dirrectly into combat, even if you can't you force your opponent to fear the edge, and thus cram him in the middle, easy pickings. As it's been said you can outshoot tau, but why? Orks exel in combat, you should play to your races strengths.

I think everything dash of pepper said was right on the money, but I would like to add something that has worked for me in the past. I would like to start by saying that I run a kan wall list, and I love walkers, so I am biased, but I find a unit or two of kanz backed by a kff mek in front of my footslogging boys does wonders against tau.

They give a 4+ coversave to the boyz behind them, have a 4+ coversave, and eat fire warriors in close combat, because they dont have the option to powerfist. AV 11 puts them in a neutral zone where heavy anti tank is wasted on them, and light fire doesn't really get the job done. I've even had games where the tau player tried to drop my kanz with glancing hits from their firewarriors, and when I hit his lines in turn 3, I hadn't lost a boy.

They work for me, and the models are fun, so I recommend them.

Kan wall is soooooo fun, in every way, it's also very effective and the models are cool enogh, fluff is interesting, but the models themseles are very expensive.

two comments.

One is to Berzerker saying that stormboyz outpacing is not bad. The thing is, they'll mulch the stormboyz with just rapid firing warriors, with markerlights especially. They won't even need to dig into their long range fire that can shoot you the whole way through. You're just giving them a chance to use guns that previously aren't firing.

Second is that tau have a nasty habit of removing cover saves.

Yeah....pretty obvious about stormboyz walking into rapid firing pulse rifles alone, probably getting no cover saves, and simply getting wiped. Not a good idea.

I wrote a freakin' book earlier in this thread so I'm not going to rehash the same things again....but speed IS good, and critical against Tau. Getting into close combat as fast as possible is good. However, not unsupported. Not unless you're a deffkopta with a guaranteed turn 1 assault, or snikrot coming on the back with a pretty much guaranteed assault. Short of that, you need to keep your army together, tight, and roll up a flank. Even if you lose half your army crossing the field to smack into the tau....once you're there, the game is over.

Dashofpepper wrote:3. KoS isn't very effective against Tau, not with the ability of virtually every weapon in their army being long range and capable of popping a trukk.

You sure?


I gladly disagree and claims that KOS IS most effective against Tau. If you are taking trukks, spam them, and support/complement them with fast attacks like deffkoptas, stormboyz, or bikes (if you like bikes). Target saturate your opponent, and there is simply no way the Tau opponent can shut down ENOUGH of your threats before you reach his line. Remember that when you are spamming your trukks, take a KFF Mek. For every trukk your opponent can penetrate, KFF reduces that number by half.

Exor, seriously read DashofPeppers post (the novel) then print it out and read it some more. He is one of the very few on dakka that syas "hey I cant lose with my Orks" and I believe him. Anytime Ive read his advice on killing things with Orks, its pretty much bang on to what you DO.
And yea Im just one of many saying, that Tau's major weakness, is CC. Even Farsight isnt THAT great in CC. Id just get the boyz in CC as fast, and in as good of shape as possible.
My only difference, is I prefer using, what I call strike forces. I haul my boyz in trukks of 12. 11 orks w/big shoota and 1 nob w/power klaw. Move the trukks up, dump out boyz, fire (because why not you usually kill at least one) and then assault them to death. That works AWESOMELY on Space Marines in CC, so Id imagine that on Tau would be just slowed. And yes a BigMek with KFF either way you decide to go at it, will make up his points in about 10 seconds into the first shooting phase lol

Some thoughts from a veteran Ork AND Tau player:

Wall of kanz is not scary. If you have no wagons or trukks for my rail guns, I will use them on the kans. If you do, I will use the rails appropriately and my deathrain squad will decimate your wall of kans.

Cover saves are irrelevent vs tau. Do not count on them, as the markerlights WILL take them away.

Zagstruk with stormboyz is not a great idea - to get within 6 on a deepstrike is dangerous, to not get within 6 is instant death.

Great:
Massive quantity of trukks.
Lootas in wagons
Snikrot with a max squad of kommandos and 2 burnas
deff koptas with buzzsaws
30 boyz with 3 big shoota, 26 shoota, nob w/ pk and bosspole X as many as you can squeeze in.

Surprisingly effective:
Battlewagon with Ghaz and 10 cybork nobs w/ painboy kitted for wound allocation
Battlewagon with grotsnik and 10 cybork manz
Snikrot / kommandos with 2 burnas
As many trukks as you can squeeze in for the points with 12 slugga boyz - nob w/ pk and bp

All the nobz and meganobz have cybork bodies and feel no pain. mmhmmm. The joy of this build (to me) is that the manz and nobz kill and die and keep your opponent in near panic mode trying to deal with them while the boyz do the heavy lifting unmolested.

Inigo Montoya wrote:

Great:
Massive quantity of trukks.
Lootas in wagons
Snikrot with a max squad of kommandos and 2 burnas
deff koptas with buzzsaws
30 boyz with 3 big shoota, 26 shoota, nob w/ pk and bosspole X as many as you can squeeze in.

I'm new to Orks and 40k in general so forgive my ignorance but I do not understand why you would put Lootas in a wagon. Standard game mats are small enough that you can usually shoot with them from far away without really needing to move them, but maybe I am missing something here.

Also I've seen many people recommend putting buzzsaws on Deffkoptas but it seems really expensive in points, is it really worth it?

can anyone give me the list of what to give my 10 nobs so that i can take advantage of wound allocation..... i found the thread once but lost it.

cheers

Burto89 wrote:can anyone give me the list of what to give my 10 nobs so that i can take advantage of wound allocation..... i found the thread once but lost it.

cheers

There's no single list. Equip them how you want. I do mine this way:

1. slugga and choppa
2. slugga and choppa, ammo runt
3. powerklaw and twin-linked shoota
4. powerklaw and shoota
5. choppa and shoota-skorchi kombi weapon
6. bosspole
7. waaagh banner
8. big choppa
9. 'eavy armor
10. painboy

All with cybork bodies obviously.

Couple notes;

Cover saves are *not* Irrelivant against Tau. they only have so many marker lights, and the vast majority of them will have to shoot at one target at a time.

In a mech list in most deployments, it's going to take you two turns to get into assault. Broadside suits can be scary, but they can't shoot if they are in CC. Using a Deff Kopta to tie up a squad of broadsides for a turn or two eliminates their guns from being a factor in the only turns they really matter in, though if you have first assault, that has lower priority from destroying hammerheads before they start cruising around 12" a turn.

Speed freek's of course

3 squad's of 6+1 nob biker's(kitted for wound allocartion) with 2 warbosse's and 4 koptas with buzza's for fast vehicle kill.

Just turbo boost with them, and then launch second turn assault. any Tau list i played with were easily wiped out with this cunnin plan.

*shrugs at the naysayers*

I started life as Tau, and firmly believe that my Tau are capable of utterly destroying pretty much any army. When a mechanized ork list hits my "line" on turn2-3, they're fragmented from the destruction I've been wrecking. Then, when they hit my "line" what they're actually hitting is a squad of firewarriors spread across the front whose purpose is to absorb that assault. That ork assault is going to smash, flatten, and crush my squad of firewarriors. And then, I'm going to spend the whole next turn rapid-firing and disintegrating all those orks. If I don't kill them all, I'll have a second squad of firewarriors spread across my front to absorb the turn 3-4 assault that comes next.

Rinse and repeat. Then again, I'm pretty much the only advocate on the forums here for a Tau gunline and everyone scoffs at me. My fondest wish is that I could meet them/you/whomever on the table for a game, with stakes.

In asnwer to the previous poster's question about how to outfit ork nobs for wound allocation magic, the configuration I've settled with and appreciate the most is as follows:

1. Painboy
2. Bosspole
3. Waaaugh! Banner
4. powerklaw
5. powerklaw + Ammo Runt
6. Powerklaw + Kombi-skorcha
7. Big Choppa
8. Big Choppa + Ammo Runt
9. Big Choppa + Kombi-Skorcha
10. Normal Nob

I give them all 'Eavy armor and put them in a vehicle. I do not give them cybork bodies, and you should not either. There are volumes elsewhere about why you shouldn't do so.

Tau have huge problems with more than 100+ models. Simply because fire warriors are so gakky and even though they have a STR5 rapidfire or 30 range they still cannot deal with squads getting in your face.

Hammerheads somewhat.


Really though just taking Lootas blow up most of their mechanized a Hammer head has Armour 13 max so you can still glance and make it useless.

Dashofpepper wrote:*shrugs at the naysayers*

I started life as Tau, and firmly believe that my Tau are capable of utterly destroying pretty much any army.

So if the TS follows your advice for his orks, and meets a Tau Gunline army like yours, is he suppose to win or lose?

Davicus wrote:So if the TS follows your advice for his orks, and meets a Tau Gunline army like yours, is he suppose to win or lose?

That's not really a fair question. There are way too many variables to say which army is "supposed to" win. Luck, player skill, mission, it all depends.

I asked because Dash uses words like "utterly destroying", "never loses". Since he sounded utterly confident on either build, I ask out of curiosity.

Ok, I have an Ork tactic question, as I've finally been able to start playing some games with them:

bosspoles: Is the re-roll done with the same penalties? I'm assuming so; but man is it frustrating to get sweeping advanced because your power klaw and Big Mek /w Burna rolled rocks for a round of combat while 5 boyz got killed off.

Had a wolf priest make 9 4++ saves in a row during the game, just him against Thraka, a Nob, and roughly 6 boyz. Kept assault going for four assault phases with those saves, and only sheer luck on the leadership rolls kept Thraka from getting swept, and at the end it was only Thraka who was left standing at the end of combat. Of course it helped him that for two of those assault phases Thraka only caused one wound a phase (stupid 2's on swinging to hit).

Davicus wrote:So if the TS follows your advice for his orks, and meets a Tau Gunline army like yours, is he suppose to win or lose?

Haha, much like the story of the seller who CLAIMS that his sword can pierce through the toughest shield in the world and his shield can ward off the finest sword in the world. He has no answer when someone ask what happens when his sword go against his shield.

Dashofpepper wrote:
I give them all 'Eavy armor and put them in a vehicle. I do not give them cybork bodies, and you should not either. There are volumes elsewhere about why you shouldn't do so.

Please, tell me where these volumes are so I can read them I pretty much figured it was insurance against the inevitable lascannon I'm going to get shot at with. (Or should I throw that wound onto the warboss and shout "Toughness five HA!" ) In any case, my nobz mob of doom is similar, only some guys don't have armor at all, just cybork, but everyone has one or the other, most have both. I also have two waaagh banners and three bosspoles...probably excessive and wasteful, but this way I can throw some away and have more to fall back on.

In the great matchup of Orks VS Tau, simply remember to stay together....I mean have ALL your units stay together, worry about objectives later, if you branch off in any way your going to get picked apart. Then it will simply be a mater of who is luckier, him with his shooting, or you with your cover saves (Unless he has deathrains that also carry a flamer....then you are screwed )