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Aside from mech tau, are there alternatives for dealing with Nids?

I am suffering because of their huge charge range (warriors and gaunts with leaping), and multiple outflanking units of stealers squeezing my deployment. Add to that a hive tyrant and fex in 1000pt list and its a lot to think about.

The most effective weapons I have are railgun submunitions for the nids, deep striking TL flamers for gaunts and a broadside team to make the big beasts think twice.

My problem is that the nid ranged attacks decimate any troops not in a transport (firewarriros, pathfinders). So I have to have transport(s). I cant avoid railgun submunitions against nids as there seems to be no other way of blowing them up effectively at range, so its 1-2 HHs. Then to deal with the fex and tyrant I am taking a broadside team. These nids both have 2+ sv and hi toughness so there’s no alternative really – otherwise they will dominate the board with impunity. I complete the list with shasel TL MP tragetting array, and 3 unit crisis team with TL flamer and BC. The crisis team deep strike and hopefully annihilate a unit of 8 stealers or 15-20 gaunts.

All this is fine and has evolved out of some embarassing reversals from my regular nid opponent.

The question is: is there another, more interesting, way of dealing with nids? Using this tactic I sit in my transports and wait for blast markers to do their work. Its uninspiring to say the least, even the idea of it. Plus this is highly tailored to nids. I have to change my list completely if facing eldar or SM.

Does anyone know of workable alternatives that don’t involve judicious/excessive (depending on viewpoint) use of tanks? All my other units just melt away against nids.

Use Fusion Blaster Suits (I forget the designation) to hunt the big guys, twin Fusions Blasters, and uh what ever the +1 bs thing is and a couple shield drones.

For the smaller stuff, Burst Cannons and Flamers should work fine, throw in some gun drones. Also Firewarriors in Fish.

That's my two cents, I'm not all that experienced in the workings of the Greater Good though so someone else may be able to provide you with better support.

Against nids you shouldn't be giving them an opportunity to sneak up on you.

Troops should be in transports, stay away from table edges and shoot the snot out of them. Your list shouldn't have to change much if you can make a decent allcomers list. Tau are the masters of manouvre warfare and have got access to some great guns.

Also, Hammerheads are a must have.

BrotherStynier wrote:Use Fusion Blaster Suits (I forget the designation) to hunt the big guys, twin Fusions Blasters, and uh what ever the +1 bs thing is and a couple shield drones.

For the smaller stuff, Burst Cannons and Flamers should work fine, throw in some gun drones. Also Firewarriors in Fish.

That's my two cents, I'm not all that experienced in the workings of the Greater Good though so someone else may be able to provide you with better support.

Add in Plasma guns to the fusionsuits and they'll bring'em down far more quickly. Especially in pointcosts their a better choice than Broadsides for that job imo, as well as you loose a slot for another HH.
For gaunts and the like Fish with BS should be just fine to clear what's left from the HHs, if needed use rapidfiring FWs for the final punch.
I don't think the flamer suits are a good choice against Stealers, if they scatter a bit too much they won't be able to extinct them at once, so they're dead themselves. Here, too, rapidfiring FWs should be more reliable with the fish as a transport which mustn't be in chargerange on his turn. Mathhammer says it's 8 dead stealers from a 12 man squad if not in cover and without improved armor save. Standard stealer unit size, wonderful, isn't it? And if mathhammer should fail as it always does, there's still the fish for extra punch.
So far my thouhgts on dealing with nids.

One thing you could try is to set up a firebase in depth. That is, have your Broadsides (or whatever you care about the most) take the best firing positions. Then, set up your Fire Warriors around the Broadsides (try not to obstruct LOS) and then Kroot on the outside. Kroot can line up near one board edge to block out flankers, and they can move up to engage any Nids approaching frontally.

If the Tyranids charge they'll have to engage the Kroot first, giving you another round of shooting to blow them away. Forcing the Nids to assault can also bring them within range of your flamer-armed suits without resorting to deepstrike.

If you have tons of troops in smallish squads (say, 10 men) they should be able to weather any Nid shooting and use their nifty guns to blow away the small stuff. By advancing and sacrificing these small squads you can protect the rest of your army, though you do risk giving the enemy cover saves with all those friendly bodies on the battlefield. Obviously, Pathfinders fit well into this kind of build because they benefit from cover saves and they take them away from the bad guys.

Have you tried sniper drones? It depends what the enemy is taking, but they should be largely immune to the bug guns and they work well with Pathfinders.

Sniper Drones would be useless against the 2+ save MC.

You could try castling up on one flank. 1/3 of the time, the Genestealers would be outflanking on the wrong side of the board and when they do come onto your side, they'll take out a sacrificial unit of Kroot/Firewarriors before being shot in the face by your army. Even a sacrificial unit of Gundrones can take the brunt of the Genestealers.

The thing with flamers, plasma rifles, and fusion blasters is that they need to be played aggressively, not defensively due to their short range.

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

I have also come to the conclusion that flamers are not the answer. A lack of markerlights was my problem. Thanks to advice on other threads from dashofpepper, elnicko and other experienced Tau, I have far more markerlights and they have improved the effectiveness of my army.

Dakka is such a great resource. Happy hunting!

TT

If you're playing specifically against Tyranids....I'd do a few things:

1. Leave out the broadsides. STR10 AP1 doesn't autokill a carnifex or hive tyrant, it just causes a wound. Oh noes, a wound on a 4-5 wound model. They're not worth the points here.

2. Take a team of Fusion/Plasma suits with two shield drones, give them markerlight support so that they hit on 2+, and this is your anti-monstrous creature unit. Between your suits, you'll have six plasma shots needing 2+ to hit and 4+ to wound, and 3 fusion shots needing 2+ to hit, 2+ to wound. All of it is AP1 and AP2, and a carnifex or a hive tyrant will crumple in front of it.

3. For the outflanking stuff, you have one of two choices.
A.) Put a devilfish on both flanks with a flechette launcher on each, in which case the nids are going to have to assault through it to get to your firing line. Every model gets wounded on a 4+ and the saves on tyranids aren't exactly awesome.
B.) Tailor your deployment. Everything goes into the middle square to avoid getting outflanked. Turn 1, you move forward and in, taking down monstrous creatures. The weakness of your enemy outflanking is that they're presenting 1/3 of their army to your entire army. I love these kinds of games....your enemy presents 400 points of tyranids to your 1,000 points of Tau....who blast and destroy the monstrous creatures. Then, turn 2/3/4, small increments of the rest of the tyranid army come in and you get to pick them apart piecemeal.

Then, when the flanking happens....some will show up on one side, and some will show up on the other side. Presumably you've kicked ass on the monstrous creatures; if not, then you should be finishing killing them with your MC killing suits. Pick a side. With outflanking on one side and outflanking approaching on the other side....pick a side, and concentrate all your firepower on it. If the enemy has leaping, they can move/fleet/assault a MAXIMUM of 24" if they roll 6 on everything. That gives you a full turn of shooting without being in danger while picking a side and focusing on it.

Finally, if you need to, use a squad of firewarriors (or kroot...gag....) as a screening unit for those charges. Position them such that one squad extends across the entire flank of your army (12 man firewarrior squad at 2" coherency = 36" of coverage). The entire flank of assaulting genestealers/hormogaunts can only assault that one squad (which they'll kill of course), and then consolidate into....who cares, because the following turn you're going to pour 1,000 points minus a squad of firepower into that flank. The next turn, your other flank will get assaulted, and you can sacrifice another squad to protect your other flank...then kill the remainder of that other flank with the rest of your army.

Tyranids are easy to beat down as Tau if you make sure to direct the flow of the battle how you want it to move.

Other than Mech Tau... Mech Eldar.

I'd had success with Orks against non-template-y 'nid lists too - a well timed Waaagh with gretchin decoys to receive charges and you're set. Plus 20 Orks and a Klaw can take down a T6 carnifex surprisingly often on a charge. Outflanking 'stealers are always a pain, but leaping gaunts are just kind of a splashy wave with little staying power.

With Tau you're a bit paperscissored, but stay in cover and just hope he doesn't get those sixes off. Deny multiple charges wherever possible.