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.

Hello brother Space Marines,

I've got a 1500 point game against tau this weekend and I expect to see a lot of vehicles (mechanized Tau?). I don't often get a chance to play and when I've played against Tau the results were often a loss for me.

What Space Marine units to you recommend I choose in facing a typical or potentially vehicle heavy force? A unit I'm considering taking to deal with the cowardly assault-jump troops is a jump pack equipped librarian with "fear of the darkness".

Any advice is welcome, Thanks.

The main stradegy of every Tau player I've been against has been twofold. The Hammerhead and 36'. The only viable Heavy option is the Hammerhead with a railgun. You first priority is that. Second, the Tau infantry's effective weapon range is 36' and less. you want to shorten this distance as much as possible and get into HTH.

3 Whirlwinds+Fury of Ancients to negate JSJ ability of suits
squad lascannons to shut down skimmers.
Speeders or bikes to claim objectives
maybe an assault squad at 1850 if he is playing FishofFury and you don't have enough lascannon to shut all the skimmers down.

Alternatively
Drop Pods full of marines w 2 Fearing librarians
'
With both builds its more a case of 'how do you lose' rather 'than how do you win'

Thanks for the advice, here's a quick update:

Well, this last weekend was a success for the space marines. My oppoenent was an experienced 40k player who's been playing for quite some time. He plays just about every army so hes not a complete stranger to the Tau. Both of our armies were fully painted which looked great.

As the game began, Omega level was rolled for the mission making escalation rules in effect which greatly hindered the Tau. My opponent was only able to put about 1/3rd of his army on the board while I was only missing my assault squad and a jump-pack-equipped librarian. This let me easily dispatch his two fire warrior squads and then bring on my librarian into his stealth suits the following turn. Things got hairy later in the game when my assault squad simply would not show up (it never came on the entire game, I rolled a 1 for reserves 3 turns in a row).

He brought mostly crisis suits armed with twin-linked plasma guns and shooting upgrades, this led to the destruction of 2 of my 6-man infiltrating veteran squads, but not much else. He also brought a rail-gun armed skimmer of some kind which my assault cannon rounds bounced harmlessly off for 3 turns :/

On turn 5 I was able to get an angle on his jump-retreating suits with my terminator squad and my devastator squad. Casualties from this shooting phase led to Tau morale checks, he rolled an 11 for both of his remaining crisis suit groups causing them to fall back. The were backed up against the edge of the board when they broke and retreated off the map. He conceded at this time.

My only losses were the two infiltrating veteran squads, about 3 marines, and 3 terminators. Id say it was essentially a slaughter.

Thanks for the advice!