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All right, I’m going to be playing against Tau in two weeks and I don’t really know what they bring to the table. It’s going to be most likely a 2000 point list but there is a small chance it could be 1500 points. My Orks rarely play against Tau so I’m not sure how to build my list. I think the Tau are a shooty army but that’s about all I know. Do they have lots of blast & templet weapons? How good are they at cracking armor? Are they any good in assault? Basically what should I expect and what some good counters for them? Thanks in advance.

Go after the tanks and battlesuits. Ignore the Fire Warriors. They're worthless.

They're not good at assault, but they've got plenty of weapons to crack something as thin as ork armour. You're likely going to see burst cannons (S5 AP5), missile pods (S7 AP4) in abundance on the suits. Flamers are also common. FNP can be used against most battlesuit weapons, with commonly taken exceptions including plasma rifles and fusion blasters.

In a 2000 point game your opponent will probably have at least one hammer head which can fire a solid shot (S10 AP1) or submunition large blast (S6 AP4). There's also a reasonable chance that vehicles will be upgraded with flechette dischargers to wound 50% of the models that assault them.

Fire warriors will be armed with pulse rifles (S5 AP5), 12" rapid fire.

You're going to want vehicles that can get you across the board ASAP, especially since they're going to be targeted early on in the game by broadsides.

If they take commander Farsight their army structure is going to have limits, but they'll also be granted preferred enemy against you.

If you're going to build specificallyo to beat Tau, then you want to build a fast, assault based list. The idea is to close and get into hand to hand combat as FAST as possible; Tau fall apart in HtH.

Don't worry about objectives. You'll table your opponent if you build specifically against them.

Things to take:

-Lots of Deff Koptas: If Tau are mechanized, they can outflank and take down devilfish and hammerheads with rear armor shots. If they are gunline or hybrid, deffkoptas can mix it up with kroot or firewarriors in close combat and take them down pretty easily.

-Stormboyz + Nob/PK. 12" + D6" movement per turn, you can safely bet that these get into close combat with suits or a gunline turn 1 or 2 with a potent 24" possible assault range. Take 3 squads of them.

-Snikrot + 15 kommandos: These are truly the bane of the tau army. You can disrupt an entire deployment because of Snikrot's ability to come on the table and multi-assault broadsides, suits, or anything else you like. Take 14 Kommandos + Snikrot, pack 2 burnas in there to use as powerweapons against suits.

-Other than that....stick a squad of gretchin on the ground; 107 points for 29 gretchin and 2 runtherders, and run 30 man boy squads up the board getting 4+ cover saves from coming in behind the gretchin.

You'll win easily.

Maybe a Big Mek with KFF so the wagons can get there to shoot them. Suits can move in the assault phase and drones on the tanks are likely to be sent at you if you get too close to them. Pulse rifle is range 30" single shot, Pulse Carbines have pinning as well. As for blasts They only have two iirc. One for the Hammerhead and one for the special weapon the commander suit can have. If the commanders gun has three barrels it's the S 4 AP 5 Assault 1 Large Blast that ignores cover. If it's four barrels it's the S 3 AP 5 Assault 5 weapon that has the same rules as rending, but doesn't specifically say it has rending.

All the vehicles will likely have a disruption pod that will give them a 4+ cover save if you're at least 12" (iirc) away. Stelth Suits have to be shot at as if the night fighting rules apply, within a certain range which I don't remember at the moment. One in three of these suits can take a Fusion Blaster, it's the square one they can take, it's a range 12" melta gun. They have infiltrate, so they might go after your tanks as a way of countering them. Don't underestimate the Crisis suits in CC, the Firewarriors are crap, but the Crisis Suits are a little tougher than a normal SM and usually have a few wounds.

If they only deploy a couple of units and keep some in reserve they might be using the Ninja Tau tactic and you should go after the thing (forgot what it was XD) that allows them to have better control over when reserves come in. As for Kroot, unless they have a shaper they have no saves and in CC are basically normal SM with T 3 and I 3. They rely on cover to survive. But the above posts are right, get them in CC and they will die. However a good Tau player will know this and try to make you go after the wrong thing. They should also be focusing most of their fire on a few targets instead of each squad going after an idividual target.

Broadsides also have another weapon called the Smart Missile System, it's Assault 4 S 5 AP 5 iirc. Range 24" and it doesn't need line of sight. They also have a 2+ save. But, unless they have taken the thruster upgrade they cannot move and fire the Rail gun. Which is also twin linked. Drones attached to squads will be annoying as well as they're basically there to take wounds, but if the model with the drone controller dies they die as well. If the drone has two antenaes (spelling? probably wrong XD) it's a sheild drone and some of it's stats are the same as the unit it's with; one of them is the save. Usually they'll be seen with Broadsides or with the commander.

Also Piranhas with Fusion Blasters are tank hunters, they can come in a squad of up to five each with two gun drones that can be removed to make one ten drone squad each with twinlinked Pulse Carbines.

So get them in CC fast, but don't forget they know they suck at it and will try as hard as possible to stop you from getting there. Crisis Suits will probably give you the most trouble in CC, the Kroot die easily in CC because of their save, but can take out a few Orks on the way.

They really cna't do anything in assault unless they're using Kroot. Shoot at the big guns first though. And make sure your tanks are very durable.

I really wouldn't worry too much about your tanks being durable. One of the only things tau are good at currently (and I play them) is shreading any type of armor. If you go mech bring as many vehicles as possible and don't stop to shoot. Tau are the only army iirc that doesn't have a small blast template and the only units that can get flamers are crisis suits. The sooner you cross the table the better.

n0t_u wrote:All the vehicles will likely have a disruption pod that will give them a 4+ cover save if you're at least 12" (iirc) away. Stelth Suits have to be shot at as if the night fighting rules apply, within a certain range which I don't remember at the moment.

There's no certain range to it. As with night fighting, the range of attacking models is limited to a maximum of 36" with an average of 21".

n0t_u wrote:If they only deploy a couple of units and keep some in reserve they might be using the Ninja Tau tactic and you should go after the thing (forgot what it was XD) that allows them to have better control over when reserves come in.

The positional relay; usually carried by a shas'el or shas'o, but able to be carried by a shas'vre.

Alright got codex this time.

Disruption pod only works if they are at least 12" away, so I did remember right.
Stealth Field Generator has no range to it and anything shooting at it counts as if night fighting was in effect and it effects any drones in that squad.

n0t_u wrote:

Broadsides also have another weapon called the Smart Missile System, it's Assault 4 S 5 AP 5 iirc. Range 24" and it doesn't need line of sight. They also have a 2+ save. But, unless they have taken the thruster upgrade they cannot move and fire the Rail gun.

Wait. I don't have my codex on me but isn't the SMS Heavy 4? And it's not the thrusters your thinking of its the Avanced Stabalizers (a Must for your broadsides). The thrusters give you that ability to withdraw from combat on your movment phase. Broadsides are the coolest unit in the army. Slow but have so much umph.

VoxDei wrote:

n0t_u wrote:

Broadsides also have another weapon called the Smart Missile System, it's Assault 4 S 5 AP 5 iirc. Range 24" and it doesn't need line of sight. They also have a 2+ save. But, unless they have taken the thruster upgrade they cannot move and fire the Rail gun.

Wait. I don't have my codex on me but isn't the SMS Heavy 4? And it's not the thrusters your thinking of its the Avanced Stabalizers (a Must for your broadsides). The thrusters give you that ability to withdraw from combat on your movment phase. Broadsides are the coolest unit in the army. Slow but have so much umph.

lol yes they are heavy 4, like I said I didn't have codex at the time. Just checked now though and they are. The stabalizers are what I meant, I just didn't remember the name. They're both kind of the same thing outside of rules

Thanks for the insight. My game got bumped back another week and it is going to be 2000 points so more thoughts about this will still be helpful. With some good intel I found out he has two transport tanks, one tank with a big gun (rail gun?), three suits two the same one different, two groups of kroot with little dogs, and troops that I don’t know about.

Ok, so he's running hybrid mechanized.

Take Deffkoptas, and use them to outflank; you'll pop his vehicles getting rear armor / side armor shots. Make sure you find out if there are disruption pods or flechette launchers that you need to deal with so you don't get caught by surprise. Railguns are hammerheads are best used for killing large swaths of infantry, so if you take a foot slogging list, make SURE that you do something to give them cover saves. IE, gretchin spread out front = 4+ cover saves.

Outflanking and ambushing units will be your bread and butter. Honestly....want to do something funny?

Take 3 units of Kommandos (1 with Snikrot) = 3 elites
Take 3 units of DeffKoptas (3-5 each), with twin-linked rokkits, at least one big bomb per squad, and a buzzsaw one one of them = 3 fast attack
Take A warboss + Nob bikers, or take Wazdakka + warbikers as a troops choice, x2. If you can't proxy them or use them, take a small squad of boyz and hide them somewhere in your rear lines to keep them alive until late game.

Your kommandos and Deffkoptas will kill his entire army. You're WS4, and competing against WS2-3, and you're STR4, competing against STR3 (5 on suits). Burnas are powerweapons, which means that suits just die. Powerklaws do the same, and a few boyz can wipe out an entire firewarrior squad. You'll be fine.

Also, if he's got any Pathfinders, they become a Priority Target. Tau markerlights are a force multiplier, and removing your cover saves will really hurt you.

He might be running hybrid mechanized. might. After all, all of those assets could likely be used a fairly typical ninja tau list. PM shep about it, he knows that build far better than me.

Do orkz have frags by default? if not, be aware that stealthsuits are always counted as being in cover for assault.

If he's smart, he'll take a bunch of kroot hounds, and use outflanking to charge a unit of boys. don't laugh them off; with kroot hounds, and on the charge, they have a fair chance of beating out a boy unit. if YOU get the charge, however... well, the unit is cheap for a reason. still, hounds are I5, so don't forget that.

Be aware that you can't checkerboard (mix units for a cover save) against SMS, which are found mostly on devilfish and broadsides; the gun doesn't need LOS, so cover saves you'd get by a intervening unit simply aren't there vs. the gun (I think it's in a FAQ or something.) On top of that, he could always just markerlight the hell out of a unit to erase it's cover save, which is honestly something I would do.

Don't get cocky about charging a tank. If he knows how to gear for orkz, he'll grab flechettes, and then simply have the tank move more than 6'', and shoot you anyways because of multi-trackers. then you'll charge, he'll wound half your units (it's on a 4+ regardless of T, and with a ork save, they'll likely die), and then you'll get to hit back .... on 6's. so yeah. It's a incredibly nasty thing to do to assaulty units. Of course, if he doesn't have that, assault away, but be aware it's (usually) to his advantage to bait charges on his tanks instead of his troops.

It's said that melee will kill tau. well, yeah, duh, but you could say the same thing about mech guard, yet I never see people going "lol get in assault"vs that army. No, the REAL way to kill tau is to get in the kill-bubble of their tanks - ...if you had meltaguns, ideally. in your case, you'd want to use whatever you guys use for close-range anti-tank shooting (rokkits on dethcoptas? I don't know). Basically, you'll want to get within 12'' of his tanks, so they'll lose that portable cover save they have. this will cramp his style and his exposed ground units like suits will have to fall back or get eaten in assault, and needless to say, if you're in his kill bubble, you're likely also in assault range. The point is that you need to get close not just to kill his infantry, but the tanks too, the cover save will stymie most long ranged anti-tanks and their tanks can dance around melee units as noted above. The exception to the rule is...

Ok, let me get this out of the way: lootas might be worth looking at here. tau tanks have d-pods for a permanent portable cover save to everything outside 12''. Since orkz, as far as I'm aware, don't really have meltaguns, one solution is to simply oversaturate that cover save with a gakload of s7 shots, which can hurt nearly everything they own. (Since tau tend to dance around with their tanks, av12 shots even on their 13/12/10 tanks are often possible). furthermore, since tau tanks (and tau units in general) are fairly expensive, you really only need to kill a couple tanks this way before his gameplan starts to falls apart, as their lists are VERY synergistic.

One last thing: if he takes farsight... yeah, don't under estimate that guy. normally, he's pretty much midtier to garbagey, but vs. orkz, where he actually starts to pull his point values...yeah, treat his unit with caution. but it seems fairly unlikely that he will take him.

You want to get a Deep Striking or outflanking unit somewhere in your army... something nice and quick to shread his hammerhead (one of the best tanks in the game imo)

Suits are one of the strongest elements of a tau army.. but it's almost often there most costly element too depending on the suit setups.

Smash his transports and the tau lose one of there 2 strongest abilities.. mobility

Markerlights are one of the most powerful items in the tau empire's list
- They can boost the BS of a unit upto BS 5
- They can strip cover saves
- They can force -Ld penalties on your units for the purpose of pinning(Dangerous when use right)
- They can fire a seeker missile (str 8, ap 3, unlimited range)

The following units in a tau army can take them
-Pathfinders
-Sky Ray missile gunships
-Marker drones
-Sniper drone sqaud (team leader)
-Fire warrior sqauds (Shas'ui has the option of taking one.. very costly and few people do it.. but just watch out if he does place one in a unit)
-XV25 Stealth team(team leader)

Big tip - A BS 5 unit of 12 fire warriors rapid firing with STR 5 AP 5 guns is gunna turn your orks into mush. There is a 12" killzone range for rapid firing... once you get close enough call waarrgh! and rush him. Orks on the charge are gunna pretty much wipe out the sqaud of fire warriors in a single round of close combat (or following a sweeping advance )

I thought Tau rapid fired at 15 inches since there normal range is 30 inches?

Nah, rulebook states that rapid fire weapons can fire at max range or 12" when stationary or 12" when moving. There's no actual line stating that they can fire two shots at half range, its just a coincidence that most rapid fire weapons have max range 24".