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Well, can they?

Sure, tau have a better chance than most. All nids are dangerous to Tau up close but assuming that you havent foregone Genestealers and Raveners for equally dangerous (to Fire Warrior) Gaunts and Rippers, tau can find an advantage.

Nidzilla is low on numbers, and normally is genestealer heavy for troops. That is fine. fewer quality bugs are miore likely to fall to Tau firepower than many cheaper bugs. And while noone is going to have a great time facing a wall of dakkafex S5 basic guns offer a decent chance. 5+ to wound is not that bad odds, double anyone elses so Fire Warriors will take down a few on the way. Add Pathfinders to boost the hit rate and the chances of dropping nidzilla are very good indeed.

This is before firing any heavy weapons. Crisis suits should put a wound a turn each on carnifexes if outfitted correctly. Broadsides are a paper tiger though, too expensive for the firepower they dole out against monsters.

The main negatives are if the opponent fields a guant heavy list with or without zilla, and if they outfit the TMC's with 2+ saves. Flyrants will always be a problem, warp field flyrants are a big problem. Tau are short of Ap2, they are short of Ap3 also, but are relying here on saturating the monsters with saves they have to make.

Of course they can. Just gotta play right, focus one down at a time to open up your movement then just be a bastard and hop around.

Wondering the same question about a year ago, I played a test game of my own Tau vs. my own Nidzilla @1500. I assumed all shots to hit for tau, and gave them first turn.

Tau lost on the bottom of turn 4.

My tau was something of a mech hybrid at the time with shadowsun, so plenty of suits, firewarriors, kroot and 4 skimmers total. The real problem was the T6 wall with raveners in tow and the absolute chaos that kicked in when the choir got into range.

It's not impossible, as I have beaten zilla nids with the same hybrid list in a tournament setting. But it completely relied on my opponent failing to castle and in general just playing it poorly. He stretched his zilla wall out, I turned the flank, minor victory.

If the zilla player walls up and heads for the center of the table, there really isn't much you can do.

Even completely mech'd tau is at a disadvantage in my opinion, though less so than hybrid. Tau skimmers just perform poorly point per point against gunfex, dakkafex, and VC tyrants.

The pie plate hammer heads handle any swarms or geen steelers. If the swarm is hiding behind the wall it will take longer to get to the tau. Out front and the HH will kill it with impunity.
FOF is a great way to kill of lots of gaunts as well.
The crisis suits kill 5 geenstealers or put 2 wounds on a dakka fex per turn.
Ionheads put 1-2 wounds on dakkafexes (they really have nothing else to shoot at)
All skimmers fire SMS systems at the ravaners. Should make quick work of them.

Basically, unless the mission requires the tau to advance into the zillas they will shoot the tyranids off the table from behind cover. Three or so turns of shooting without taking much in the way of damage back is crazy.

cypher wrote:Three or so turns of shooting without taking much in the way of damage back is crazy.

Indeed, three turns of shooting against Dakkafex's would be crazy. It would also mean your opponent left his shooting phase in his game case. While the correct tau list should be able to trade shots with Zilla nids I fail to see how they are gonna do it without taking much in the way of damage back.

I think your list is the problm Moz, but then your tourney list is against all comers so this comment may ot be quite fair.

Kroot dont help, and the only skimmer you need are Hammerheads. Mech Tau dont work because they lose firepower on the long run. Some because you replace fire warriors with Devilfish and second because for every turn you double tap from behind a Devilfish you miss a turns shooting loading up to relocate.

A footslogger list with teams of 14 (inc two gun drones) with Pathfinders (and their mandatory Devilfish), a Hammerhead and select crisis suits are what you need. Use the range advantage to shoot the carnies on one end of the line and work up. If the carnies are screening properly they will be close enough that if you shoot up one flank you can save a lot of your army at the expense of the other flank.

On the weak flank shot to support the opposite then advance to double tap to get some shooting in before you are overrun. By careful deployment you can feed Fire Warriors to the nids piecemeal, allowing one team to double tap and advance to be eaten each turn.

Choir are not the problem, anyone who is taking a morale test that close to the nids is likely doomed regardless. Lictors are the problem with their reliable deepstrike, and flyrants/winged anything.

Dr Phibes wrote:

cypher wrote:Three or so turns of shooting without taking much in the way of damage back is crazy.

Indeed, three turns of shooting against Dakkafex's would be crazy. It would also mean your opponent left his shooting phase in his game case. While the correct tau list should be able to trade shots with Zilla nids I fail to see how they are gonna do it without taking much in the way of damage back.

Not so. T is no defence against zilla's guns, but a 4+ save is good. T3 4+ is more resilient to zilla than Meq by unit cost, and Fire Warrior unit sizes are fairly big. As the Tau will have extra opportunity to concentrate fire the Dakkafex firepower should suffer some attrition before they get within 18". The odds are not too bad.

Lictors? Really? Never ever had a problem with even 3 of them as tau. Deploy right in cover and they can't even drop on you. Dakkafexes are much more punishing in my opinion, and don't steal from the synergy of the list.

Anyways, I'm honestly not in the mood to defend zilla shooting and resilience against the masses again. Carry on with the 'shoot the big ones' advice.

Indeed, three turns of shooting against Dakkafex's would be crazy. It would also mean your opponent left his shooting phase in his game case. While the correct tau list should be able to trade shots with Zilla nids I fail to see how they are gonna do it without taking much in the way of damage back.

JSJ of the crisis suites and using terrain/range to prevent the HH from getting shot (remember, they are immune to dakka fire from AV 13) goes a long ways.

Assuming I have a good hill/forest to hid behind (decent assumption) I can place all 6 crisis suits and both crisis commanders behind it. They will all get to shoot for 3 turns before the fexes can even think of getting to me. Probably four turns.
Lets assume I get first turn.
turn 1 i shoot, you move(18 in away)
turn 2 i shoot, you move(12 in away)
turn 3 i shoot, you move(6+ in away and still no LOS because of the terrain)
turn 4 i shoot, you shoot/assault
With two turns of rapid fire and two turns at range I can make mince meat out of you. Stealth team kills gaunts/stealers. FOF does the same (and probably slows a couple carnifexes for a turn or two) the HH kill lots of small guys, all the raveners and put a wound or two on dakka fexes per turn.

Flyrant dies when he shows himself unless he manages to get the charge in (I get to rapid fire 8 plasma at him before he charges no matter what)

I have played the game 10 or 12 times, lost once. The only problem is that I cant accomplish the mission and hide so alpha can get really hard.

Moz wrote:Lictors? Really? Never ever had a problem with even 3 of them as tau. Deploy right in cover and they can't even drop on you. Dakkafexes are much more punishing in my opinion, and don't steal from the synergy of the list.

Anyways, I'm honestly not in the mood to defend zilla shooting and resilience against the masses again. Carry on with the 'shoot the big ones' advice.

Not saying it will be easy, just easier than most. Noone can laugh off nidzilla. I fear lictors because they can drop into rough terrain, not get shot then charge, once in cloe combat they can hop from one unit to the next, or at least have the potential to do. Anything that distracts the Tau from their priority, shooting Dakkafexes, is going to cost them. No army has enough firepower to wipe out a zilla list before it can hurt you in return, its about keeping ahead in the war of attrition, an early start with as many units as possible, preferably all of them, is required to do this. Having several units tied up by close combat, relocation or retargetting in the opening turns is going to hamper your attrition against the advancing big monsters. Actually its normally enough to turn the tide. The lictors dont even need to survive or kill a single Tau to do this, if they force a paniced relocation they will have done enough.

Now we add in a flyrant, or winged warriors that can follow you around and you cannot outrun. The Tau can suddenly have big problems. Honestly the battle is won or lost before the zilla get into position, if you havent alrwady taken a chunk out of the carnifexes by end of turn 2 you have lost, as the attrition losses will suddenly swing in the nid players favour, 4+ saves or no.

@Cypher, you lost to Nidzilla with your Tau? When? It certainly was not against me. My bugz have been crushed against your damn Tau.

My Nidz list has done very well against every build in the game except Cyphers, crisis suit heavy list. I hate his list.

Darrian

Against david fey. First time playing them and all lvl 2 area terrain (no hiding spots)

How many crisis suits is a crisis suit heavy list?

Just curious.

I figured mobility is the key, mainly I made this thread to go "see everyone else agrees with me."
He keeps lamenting that firewarriors should be the tau backbone. He doens't take enough suits. (i'de say a minimum of nine.) And he gets too bold with his hammer heads so the stay shaken the entire game.

Oh. Hmm. Yeah I run 10 suits.

Fire Warriors are....well....they're horrible. Kroot are more useful.

I always laughed at people saying FW were going to own the game. As soon as they can rapid fire 15", they'll be dangerous. Not till then.

gdurant wrote:I figured mobility is the key, mainly I made this thread to go "see everyone else agrees with me."
He keeps lamenting that firewarriors should be the tau backbone. He doens't take enough suits. (i'de say a minimum of nine.) And he gets too bold with his hammer heads so the stay shaken the entire game.

I dont agree with you, when it comes to shooting nids. Devilfish are an investment that dilutes your Fire Warrior firepower, when facing nidzilla you simply cannot afford this. Againast other lists, yes 'fish of fury' is a sound strategy.

Fire Warriors ought to the the backbone, being troops. They arent bad for the points cost either, but they desperately need support and kroot dont go far enough.

Devilfish are an investment that dilutes your Fire Warrior firepower, when facing nidzilla you simply cannot afford this.

Just the opposite actually

In my experience the worst thing you can have facing nids is lots of static fire warriors-warfish for the win-i move 12" i shoot and hit on 3's i split fire, i fire indirect, if i need even more fire my warriors can get out and add it. if you assault me(which you will have to do eventually) thanks to fletchettes i hit first in CC, i hit everybody automaticaly and i wound on 4+ reguardless of your toughness and if you happen to survive and hit me back you need 6+ to even touch me, and then you need to get past my AV(12 if i faced it right) and then its only a glance which i will likely survive.

Massed static fire warriors will get assaulted by no later than turn 2 and eaten by nids. fire warriors and warfish deal with the little bugs while hammerheads and suits deal with the big bugs. its not all that hard to beat nidzilla with tau as long as your mobile and mechanised. it works pretty well against all the other armies out there as well.

Mughi you are not describing nidzilla, either in their ability to deal with Devilfish or their assault on turn 2 capability.

The trouble is even if the fish survive the Fire Warriors in order to use them must reembark. Every turn reembarking is a turn not shooting. Tau armies are not so big that you cannot space between the units, and still half the army is still mobile, the battlesuits and Hammerhead. Meanwhile your gun range is long enough that isolated tau infantry still can provide concentration of fire.

The trick is to erode one flank, not one rank of the army, so that elswwhere you get eaten piecemeal, but at a rate you can afford while the majority of the army is able to maintain range and keep up the torrent of fire.

The only real flaw to this is when table quarters are important.

Mughi you are not describing nidzilla, either in their ability to deal with Devilfish or their assault on turn 2 capability.

actually i am because i play against them.
Will they kill a devilfish or 2? likely yes
Will it be enough to make a difference? not really since it will take them most of the game to do it.

Most nidzilla lists use steelers, ravenors or leaping gaunts that do get to you in a turn or 2 while the 3+ fex's and a couple tyrants shoot or back up the assault. no matter how you move or place-static firewarriors will get eaten very quicly.

The trouble is even if the fish survive the Fire Warriors in order to use them must reembark. Every turn reembarking is a turn not shooting.

To keep a unit alive and scoring through the entire game i will give up a couple rounds of shooting that hits on a 4+

If you want a static gunline you play IG where they get bonus's for it. tau are mobile and should play to that strength.