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Im about to get some tau and Im exited to know that my pal has a nid army that I can play against. However, Id like to know how this battle between the best shooting army and the best close combat army would turn out.

If the nids get the Tau into close combat, the Nids will win.

dietrich wrote:If the nids get the Tau into close combat, the Nids will win.

I've had FW's get charged and come out standing on top of a ton of dead nids. Farsight has survived against a great deal of them as well.

When we look at Warhammer 40k as a (at least!) theoraticly BALANCED wargame, this battle comes down to the players´ skills.
However, there are a few interesting factors.

Tau pro.: If they get the first turn they will do a lot of damage early in the game due to the long range of all of their weapons.
If there´s a moment in the game the Tau are in rapid-fire-range, the damage caused is huge.
Tau have got tanks, Tyranids have a problem in dealing with them.

Tau contra.: When they get in close combat they will be screwed.


Tyranids pro.: If they get the first turn, they will be in close combat range very early.
They´ve got more "men" than the tau ( well, creatures ...)
Tau are screwed in close combat (as above)

Tyranids contra.: The Taus´ weapons do nearly all ignore the standard-tyranid´s armour
Tau tanks (as above)

If the tyranids get OUTFLANKING units, they can get in close combat REALLY fast ( they appear in your deployment zone, e.g. in the middle of your army), but then again, they´re in rapid fire range.

Terrain.: The tyranids are favoured by the new couver-save-roules ( they need it ) but due to the new close comabt rules, they can´t just hop from closecombat to closecombat anymore. There will be pauses to shoot them.

Objectives.: Both, Tau and Tyranids can be very mobile armies.

Try it out! Have fun!

I think you guys will have a lot of good games that will be decided by skills and missions and terrain.

Have fun!

I play tyranids, my regular opponent is Tau. Keep your fire warriors in a devilfish, take shield drones/generators on w/e you can and just blast stuff to death with massed burst cannon fire. Always move the maximum distance away if you feel the bugs are getting too close. FOCUS FIRE THE WINGED CC TYRANT. Things to worry about are withering fire. As bugs we lack the AP to run around wiping squads and our melee ability is well, average. It's not hard to stay out of melee and don't ever try to argue that it is. If you have the points set up small squads of kroot on your flanks to eat any potential charges from outflankers and nail them with guns on the subsequent round. Keep your fire warriors in a devilfish for as long as possible. Bugs are pretty bad at anti-tank. Also disruption pods mixed with our poor BS makes us an unhappy xeno.

Specific tactics. Use your extreme mobility (piranha squads do best) to get around behind the bug front-line to avoid any cover saves from screening gaunts. Carnifexes with guns just try and stay out of LoS from unless you're packing a full team of broadsides. If so then you might be able to drop one in a turn. Carnifex's glance cannon, max str but can only glance is only very effective against vehicles, it's not AP 2 or 3 so it's not very dangerous to your suits. Close-combat tyrants will much on your broadsides and tanks with sickening effciency, kill them as soon as they're drawn out of cover.

How do I beat Tau with bugs? I move the entire army as a single whole. Gaunts, Gaunts, Warriors, Tyrant+Guard, then Carnifexes, and maybe more gaunts in the back to drop off on objectives. Gaunts screen gaunts, gaunts screen warrios, warriors screen tyrant guard and carnifexes, tyrant guard and tyrant screen carnifex, the gaunts in the back can't be seen. I drop off the two small gaunt squads on objectives as I pass by them, if I have the points I leave a single zoanthrope with each squad. They aren't very dangerous but must be unseated from the objective eventually. The army moves in a single direction. I pick on spot on the table as my objective point and move everything that direction while firing. Personally I don't use cover from being in terrain I use cover from being behind it since terrain only slows me down. I rely on the cover saves from screening units. As my army moves forward the carnifexes take shots at whatever looks like it'll die and the rest of the army unloads on infantry (kroot, warriors, pathfinders) if possible, if non then crisis suits (any version, normal, commanders, etc.), if none of those stealth teams. They fleet whenever possible. Keep us chasing vehicles we can't catch and you've got it made, especially with the piranha move i mentioned earlier.

Well, I have only played 3 full games in 5th edition, and all were with my tau vs a tyranid player. I came out 1/1/1 (draw, win, loss in that order!).

I definitely felt that I would have been more competitive had I had a more mobile list. But other than that, I thought the lists were pretty well balanced. It wasn't a sure thing that he was going to be able to overwhelm my lines and force combat, and it wasn't a sure thing I was going to be able to blast him to bits, either!

Definitely a fun matchup... although I hope to try to play against another shooty army soon, to see the comparison

Cyporiean wrote:

dietrich wrote:If the nids get the Tau into close combat, the Nids will win.

I've had FW's get charged and come out standing on top of a ton of dead nids. Farsight has survived against a great deal of them as well.

Farsight is also the most melee-oriented Tau unit I know, discounting Aun-Shi and maybe one or two others that slipped my mind.

On paper, the tau will get raped backwards if Nids get in CC, but if you bring enough guns or the Nid has garbage rolls you won't have to worry about Nids in CC as they'll get shot to pieces. If you're playing objective missions, though, things could get interesting, depending on the mission and who's defending.

Against tau some of a nids worst units suddenly become usable...raveners, hormagaunts and to a lesser extent lictors.

If your opponent brings these you couldbe in touble...unless you have 3 hammerheads with railcannons. That's been my experience anyway.

Also, is there any advice you could give me to deal with genestealers/brood lords? my buddy has like 14 of em.
And thanks for the info!

Genestealers will run over anything in the Tau list that they assault.

Several general options:

If in cover, light them up with Markerlights, then shoot them to remove the cover saves. Using the Hammerhead is great for this (with the submunition round), but a large Firewarrior squad works too. The key is to have one unit cause a number of wounds, then use the markerlights since it benefits the whole unit.

I'd consider Flechettes on your vehicles.

Throw out a cheap unit to get assaulted. A small FW squad, a small Kroot squad, etc. They'll get eaten, and leave the Stealers out in the open to be shot next turn.

The most important thing to do is to prevent a multi-unit combat. Don't let one nid unit assault several Tau units, or several Nid units charge several Tau units (something like nid unit A charges Tau units 1 and 2, and nid unit B charges Tau units 2 and 3). If they only assault one unit, they can only destory one unit, but if they can assault three units, they can wipe all three out.

dietrich wrote:If the nids get the Tau into close combat, the Nids will win.

I wanted to touch on this subject. People perhaps overestimate gaunts in CC. The "if we get into melee we win" isn't very true at all. I don't see very many nid players taking melee oriented lists. The most melee I ever come packing is genestealers and if I'm playing over 2k points I may take some melee warriors if I feel like dropping a fex.

Gaunts are very similar to Fire Warriors with the exception of initiative and squad size. So by putting two groups of relatively evenly matched units in CC one always wins? That doesn't make much sense especially considering Tau's 4+ save vs a gaunt's 6+. I've charged a squad of 17 gaunts into melee with fire warriors, killed two. They attacked and killed five. I lost three more due to fearless. The 4+ armor helps make up for the lower initiative. Gaunts 6+ and fearless make them die. I tend to save assaults for when there's 7 or less fire warriors or if i have more than one squad available to assault with.

This same applies to fighting imperial guard. My friend keeps saying how if I get into CC I win and pushes me to try and get in CC so I can "see how well nids do in CC" well I did in the last game. I threw 22 bodies into his 17 guardsmen. Guess what, we're both 3's across the board for stats. I dealt most of my wounds from shooting which ignores his armor. In CC due to the powerfist I lost a couple automatically and failed saves on many others with my pathetic 6+. He won by 6 wounds, I lost 6 gaunts to fearless.

Now HORMAGAUNTS are a different story, but are too costly to field in large enough numbers. They cost nearly triple a normal gaunt.

Can someone please explain the "nids win if they get into CC with me"? The most melee I ever do is when a MC gets within range of a tank or crisis suits.

Well people saying that "nids win if they get into cc" are generally right. Not just talking about gaunts here. Look at the army list...it's pretty heavily biased towards cc units. Of course if you go for the shooty stuff then the case doesnt apply as much. But take your average warrior. Give him a deathspitter and scything talons (shooty) and he still has 4 attacks on the charge.

Gandair, I agree with your comments. Fearless and gaunts are a problem in CC, and hormagaunts are way too overpriced for what they do since they also can die easily. As Lukus said, there are other nids that are better in close combat, but I think nids still give the impression that they should still be a swarm CC army (apart from stealer shock or nidzilla) even though they can not easily do that anymore. Have to wait for a new codex to hopefully fix this and make nid swarms feared in CC.

On topic: Playing more and more against Tau I've noticed that a good way for Tyranids to defeat them is to back them up into terrain. Sometimes they'll use their assault move to go sideways rather than back away from you to avoid the dangerous terrain test. This requires more gaunt bodies though. I've also found my target priority is a little different. Normally I'd unload on the hammerhead gunship, but it's railgun gives only a single shot through my carnifex. A squad of crisis suits or boradsides is FAR more dangerous. By killing the suits off earlier I've seen my MCs live longer to have more time to put down said tanks. When possible I use the winged tyrant to crunch some armor. I take a gamble by deepstriking him in and it works well a lot of the time. I eat maybe two railgun shots and save the few smallarms shots that manage to wound. He usually makes it to his turn with 1-2 wounds left and that's enough to not only "om nom nom" on a hammerhead, but also it draws fire from a LOT of the army allowing my units to get closer in order to assault and get the fire off my tyrant so it can munch on another tank.



Less on topic:

Shoud fire warriors ever charge gaunts? It may sound insane but they have equal toughness and strength. The tau's 4+ against a gaunt's 6+ means it's likely the fire warriors won't take enough casualties to be at a disadvantage. This may only apply in games I run but I usually run squads of 16 spinegaunts which is 32 attacks on the charge. My opponent usually runs a squad of 12 warrs, one's a suqad leader, and 2 drones for 15 attacks, which is 29 on the charge. The bugs swing first, but the tau have a 4+ save compared to a gaunt's 6+. In addition the gaunts will take fearless wounds if they lose. Am I losing my mind or can this happen? So long as the number of tau melee attacks exceeds the number of gaunt attacks (29 to start vs 16) is it worth it? This is assuming pulse rifles not carbines. With carbines I can see it totally being worth it.

Gandair wrote:Shoud fire warriors ever charge gaunts? This is assuming pulse rifles not carbines.

With carbines I can see it totally being worth it.

With Pulse Rifles, close enough to charge = close enough to RF. If Tau shooting and HtH both hit on 4s, I think that 2 S5 attacks that negate armor saves is better than 2 S3 attacks that don't.

Carbines? Yes, of course you assault instead of being assaulted.

JohnHwangDD wrote:With Pulse Rifles, close enough to charge = close enough to RF. If Tau shooting and HtH both hit on 4s, I think that 2 S5 attacks that negate armor saves is better than 2 S3 attacks that don't.

Carbines? Yes, of course you assault instead of being assaulted.

The question here is: Is charge denial worth more than rapid fire? Alternatively, is the armor save denial of the pulse rifles more valuable than the charge denial?

Platinum7 wrote:Also, is there any advice you could give me to deal with genestealers/brood lords? my buddy has like 14 of em.
And thanks for the info!

Yes, run away from them a lot. That's the simplest method. Try and keep your skimmers in the center of the table until the genies are on the board, then move them to where they are not. Small squads of kroot make horribly effective speed bumps. Especially since if the tyranid player doesn't upgrade their save, then kroot rifles ignore their armor. Also remember a broodlord and his retinue CAN NOT make fleet of claw moves, only run moves. This means once within 18 they can't get the extra d6 in the shooting phase.

To be shorter, throw small cheap units at them to stall them. Small squads of gun drones do this very well. As kroot are probably better left on objectives.

Final bonus note, genies with feeder tendrils cannot have flesh hooks, meaning if you're in cover you might pop a couple before they strike.



Edit: just wanted to add this. Playing two S3 T3 armies against each other is at least for me SO MUCH more fun than playing against marines. The games come out very close to even. With MEQs many of my games are made or broken depending on my deployment, and how I affect them in the first two turns. I've only beaten one marine army. I deployed in a very specific manner with a very specific plan in mind. It didn't go as planned, but sticking to my original plan enabled me to pull out a win. I guess going for what I viewed as a "bait" unit won it for me, but that's a batrep for another day. I have so much fun playing against my friend's tau because CC's are very even and shooting isn't difficult. Tau also aren't packing oodles of lascannons. Sure they have rails and plasma rifles, but they aren't nearly as plentiful as i see in marine lists. I guess it comes down to there's moe action rather than riding out the results of early turns. I can see my fate turns in advance playing marines, whether loss or draw, with Tau I am never sure. This concludes my rant. In summary: I love playing against Tau. They're so friendly and awesome.

i play my friends nids all the time and the things that give me the most trouble are his genestealers and broodlord. what are the best tactics for taking them out? (with the tau of course )

GENESTEALERS
GENESTEALERS
GENESTEALERS

And did I mention genestealers?

Lots of gaunts are very important for cover saves. Even the basic tau rifle will not have that much trouble putting wounds on T6 carnifexes. By volume of fire a Nidzilla list will die. I've had a lot of success with gaunt swarms and infiltrating stealers and barbed strangler fexes.

BitesizedPirate wrote:i play my friends nids all the time and the things that give me the most trouble are his genestealers and broodlord. what are the best tactics for taking them out? (with the tau of course )

I mentioned this in an above post, but seeing my paragraph structure I can see how it was missed.

For broodlords stay inside 14+ inches from the edge of your table and they won't be able to make it into assault when they arrive. Then move any threatened units away and unload on them. They melt quite quickly in the open. If they're the 4+ sv version they're a lot more difficult to blast away. Dancing with them using a crisis team with pod/plas does very well also. Finally like I said above, if possible sacrifice a unit to block their path so they don't assault a more valuable unit. Kroot and Gun Drones do well in that role. Hell if you're not taking pirhanas two minimum sized squads of gun drones one on each table edge does wonders to stall genies and a lord.


On an unrelated note I've noticed that my personal ways of referencing units vary substantially from the way everyone here does. Everyone here calls em stealers, long before I found dakka I called them genies. This was partially due to their name and also how they "magically" appear on your board edge and subsqeuently how they "magically" disappear after their first assault... *sadface*

Thanks for the tips Gandair

Ahhh, I miss the days of the unstoppable ball of genestealers that could just jump from combat to combat until the Tau line was dead. Course, Outflanking makes up for it.

RustyKnight wrote:Ahhh, I miss the days of the unstoppable ball of genestealers that could just jump from combat to combat until the Tau line was dead. Course, Outflanking makes up for it.

I hear a lot about outflanking but I've never once had it be successful in roughly 7 games. They either get shot to death immediately, are too far away to matter, or show up on the wrong side.

I guess it doesn't help my common opponents keep everything more than 12 inches in when they play my bugs. I just don't bother outflanking now because when they (my opponents) play bugs they expect it and it just causes me to throw away a unit.


Any helpful tips or is that just the way it is?

Do the math for outlfanking and you'll see how touchy it can be. It really is a hit and miss, even if you do have lictors to help your reserve rolls. For those who can outflank where they want, congrats. If you can't, like me, it just isn't worth it. Especially if you end up playing spearhead or something equally screwy.

I always remember that giving stealers scuttlers basically allows them to infiltrate or outflank. I've actually done very well just infiltrating the broodlord and a unit of stealers into dense cover 18" away from the enemy front line.. Like you said, it basically makes it a throwaway unit, but if even a few survive they can foil just about any plan. It'll also take fire away from your big guys if you play anything like horde or elite style.

So all in all, it often is the way you say it is, but it all depends on the scenario. I think spearhead is too risky as there's a 1/3 chance of them being totally useless. Infiltrating them however, is very often a decent second choice.

When I'm going in with flanking 'stealers, I usually take two units and third accompanying a Broodlord. Feeder tendrils and scuttlers, nothing else. They always work well for me.

If anything, one squad could at least force your opponent into the middle.

I'd say that nearly as much of the outcome in these Tau vs. Tyranid battles depends upon list composition as it does execution of the proper battle plan.

Mecha-Tau is tough for ANY Tyranid force, if the mobility and range of its firepower is used well. Cutting out the major organs of a 'Nid force from range by concentrating on one or two major elements ONLY at a time is vicious & effective. Tyranids do have issues dealing with mobile, armored forces that can tear down MCs nearly at will.

Tyranid 'Nidzilla is equally brutal against an unprepared or indecisive Tau commader. If the majority of a Tau force is comprised of Fire Warriors & suits against 'Nidzilla... a well executed shooting round with continuous advance towards soft targets makes for rough times!

I see a lot of posts which appear to weigh Tyranid lists as primarily CC oriented or focus on getting a few specific units into CC to kill the enemy. I very often find that it's easy to build a 'Nid list which has very effective shooting, continues to press forward and constrict enemy movement & utilizes CC broods to collapse one flank or disrupt the focus of enemy fire from fully handling the MCs. This combination is tough to shake when executed well.

Bugs are versatile if used in that way... not unbeatable by any means but certainly capable of adjusting mid-battle to tactical changes. Of course the army commander is the key in those situations.

Composition is so key because there is a close match in both of these lists in many ways and a dominating dynamic in others... on both sides of the table.

Mech-Tau isn't the definitive answer, nor is 'Nidzilla... neither is an auto-win in a Tau-Bug battle. I say, bring a plan. Find the weaknesses your list can exploit and have a great time. It works for me, win or lose that always brings a great battle to the boards.

I surprised no-one has mentioned the gun line approach yet, so long as you keep away from the table edges Tyranids are one of the few armies a classic Tau gunline will still rip up. Massed firewarriors will eat gaunts for breakfast, Hammerheads firing submunitions cause genestealers to be a non-issue (with marker support of course) and rapidfiring plasma rifles keep the MC's off your back. If you really want to make a nidzilla player cry bringing sniper drones to the table will make sure those mc's are taking a dirt nap by turn 4.

As for the broodlord just have markerlights ready to remove coversaves stay more than 12" away from table edges and most of all don't panic you have all the tools you need to shoot him down before he does anything to ruin your day.

Bugs can make a very limited safe zone for Tau.

Scuttling gaunts will be 12 to 18" away in most 5th ed scenarios. Combine that with flanking stealers and you need to stay 18" away from each board edge. So the only "safe zone is the middle 1' x 2' area in the center of your deployment zone and in many setups it is really only a 6" x 2' zone. Now the barbed stranglers chew up anything within that constricted area.

My vote would be for the mech-Tau list with requisite flechette dischargers...

I collect both Nids [as you can see] and Tau. In my personal experience with playing with and against both armies here is the thing:

Nid will pretty much win unless!

You have some serious firepower [with Tau thats not hard to find], kroot to counter the close combat and very mobile units.

If Nids have outflank then put your Kroot to the side and let your firepower deal with the Nids [if any] coming from the front, otherwise have them at your front line or in a possition to assult [this wont really stop the Nids, it will just slow them really]. Have lots of crisis battle suits and a crisis commander [or 2 if possible] since they can move and pretty much fire any weapon that they could have [stealthsuits are good too]. Hammerheads for the big nasties [or if none the elite swarms like genestealers or warriors], fire warriors should go with a devil fish if possible, if not then just try and keep them out of close combat [good luck with that one!].

As a final strategy: Firstly DESTROY SYNAPSE CREATURES!!!!!!!!!!!!! as this seriously screws up Nids and their LD just goes down the toilet [unless the army is genestealer based, then your pretty screwed], and secondly anything that really is the closest in range of close combat and is easy to kill [but this is just common warhammer player sense anyway]

This should defeat them, or at least keep them out of close combat. But with my personal experience this is very hard to do, so best of luck!!!!!!

I have been playing tau since about 2006 and in that time I am undefeated against nids of the swarm and nidzilla varieties my strategy has always been to castle up in the center of the board and just blow the head off of whatever happens to be closest to me. Yes scuttling genestealers can make things hairy but genestealers die VERY quickly to massed firewarriors and/or Hammerhead templates leaving the crisis suits free to out maneuver and destroy the lumbering MC's heading for my firebase. Stranglers can be a pain but if the strangler is paired with a venom cannon they need to make the choice between shooting at my FCW's or shooting at the Hammerheads and they really can't afford to leave either unmolested.