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I have about a 2.8k tau army thats pretty well balanced, 3 squads of FW, some pathfinders, a few devilfish, 2 hammerheads, broadsides, crisis and stealth suits, commander of course, and an ethereal. I am considering buying 3 more battleforces to expand what I can field. That would give me enough to run a fully mechanized fish of fury with 6 squads of FW in fish, it would also get me close to being able to field a farsight army and give me 2.5 full stealthsuit squads, not to mention a ton of kroot. What I want to know is how good Fish of Fury is? I've never run one and I have only seen it played once, against me and I won. I won because he focussed all his firepower on one side of the board, which he obliterated, but then as he was mobilizing to go after the rest of my spread out forces, i shot him up pretty bad from long range, I kept my infantry hidden from his 3 hammerheads and then outflanked and dropped in to take them out, along with 2 broadsides taking out 1 HH and a few devilfish.

I dont know if this was simply bad tactics on his part, but my FW squads sent hails of fire into his squads as they remobilized from their first fight, with the support of a markerlight i put in every squad I can in my static armies, they were really good. One definately bad decision on his part was to use all his hammerheads to fire at my vehicles, since I had the cover save, it took him 4 turns to crack them instead of hunting down and chasing my infantry. I on the other hand, used my HH's to whittle down his infantry and dropped in stealthsuits and crisis suits to drop his HH's at close range(i had missiles and plasmas on the crisis getting to rear and 2 FB's on the stealths, and the S5 melee of crisis suits isnt bad if their guns didnt take it out.) along with my broadside team, who with their TL had better success than his HH at vehicle hunting.

What would be a good tactic to make a mechanized infantry heavy army for tau? Also, for HS I have 2 HHs and a 2 man broadside team, should I replace the broadsides with another hammerhead or a skyray?

It should be a good tactic, many times I have demonstrated to my friends the folly of being just out of range to charge rifle wielding fire warriors, only my ork and IG playing friend has kept anything alive at close range, its hard to drop 2 30ish man squads that are 12" away with only 40ish shots.

Well, the fish of fury tactics works well with two squads of Dire Avengers mounted in Serpents so that the enemy is doomed.
I guess Tau Fire Warriors can achieve a similar effect.

Fish of Fury is a terrible tactic for Tau.
Fire warriors are horrible compared to the other tau troop choices.

You should be investing in Kroot and hounds for your troop choices.

Your real firepower comes from your crisis suits, hammerheads and broadsides.

Hey waitasec. As a man with a nearly complete Mech Guard army, I heartily suggest taking lots of Fire Warriors for their strength 5 weapons.

Question then is in this age of 4+ cover which gives you more firepower point for point?

FoF works in some instances but not others. Just because something is a tactic doesn't mean you have to always employ said tactic. So to answer the original question, It depends on the circumstances and your personal playstyle.

Fish of Fury is very much valid.

The tactic, as I've had it used on me, was to wait for my forces to start moving, then ambush with two Warfish, unloading 24 firewarriors behind a skimmer screen.

When this was first done to me, in 4th edition, it was the most frustratingly effective tactic I'd ever seen. Skimmers having moved 12" are very hard to hit in CC, and parked in a V formation, nose-to nose creates a huge bubble of charge blocking. Enemy infantry cannot move within 1" of the vehicle unless they are charging it.

Now, in 5th, its a little less effective since firing under the skimmers grants the enemy a cover save. Against marines, however, this won't matter. You're just trying to force enough wounds at Str5 to make them fail a handful of 3+ armor saves anway, even in the open.

What the 'Fish (or Serpents) are doing is creating a charge blocking barrier. As troops that rely on shooting but crumble in assault, this is the only way to play Tau with mobility, really. Chances are, one round of shooting isn't going to eliminate the enemy, ever. You may have a good shot at it, but plan for it to just do some damage. If your FWs get stuck in combat, that's it, it's over. You need to make them try to charge around your vehicles -- which they shouldn't be able to do if you parked em right -- and buy yourself another turn to load back up and fly away to set up another FoF.

I've seen this tactic done with 1 Fish, but it's much harder against a canny charger. 3-4 (which would be the basis of an army by itself) could potentially do a lot of damage, but don't expect miracles. With markerlights, you can expect above average performance as troops go, though, and one very frustrated CC opponent.

There are some things that will ruin your day though. Jump Infantry being the biggest, other things like Beasts (12" charge) and Cavalry being an occational nuisance, and then off the wall things like Swooping Hawks with Intercept (to hit all Skimmers on 4+) and grenades. Drop Pod, Gating/Warping psykers, and anything with more mobility that you is going to give you trouble as well. Eldar can be your worst match because they can out-maneuver you with potentially better shooting troops, and top-tier assault troops, too.

One player around my area has taken to running 2 squads of FW w/ Warfish, 1 Squad of Pathfinders w/ Warfish, and 1 Squad of Kroot. He keeps the Kroot squad small enough to fit in a Fish, and starts the Pathfinders infiltrating, and the Kroot in their empty ride. The Kroot do just fine as shooting troops, too, so he uses them in the triple-fish FoF for a little bit of counter-charge, while the FW's really hammer it home with the Markerlight support.

And then what do you do when your opponent brings 2-3 land speeders with HF? Almost a staple in most marine lists.

Rapid firing s5 guns isn't really all that great in 5ed when everyone and their mother are in transports.

Well, you can count on Timmah to skim anything and say something completely negatory as if we all played like retards in a void.

Timmah, I dare you to come up with one Tau tactic that is "perfect" in your estimation. If your answer is "there isn't one" then get out of the thread and stop trying to ruin the game for people.

All tactics CAN work. There are also counters to every tactic. This is what makes the game interesting and fun. War (as this game is supposed to simulate) is about which game plan happens to work, and which one happens to fail.

That being said, yes, Heavy Flamers, Flamers, and Flamestorm template attacks will all be devestating to a grouped up bunch of FWs or Kroot.

Choose your deployment carefully, and prepare to spend a few games loosing and learning. Experience is a better teacher than internet critics anyway.

Oh, watch out for squads with a melta and a heavy flamer. I knew a guy who did this to an eldar player aall the time, in the end he got so frustrating that those two squads were wiped out first turn, doomed and an entire army focussed on them, because he'd fire at the serpent and position the flamers so that it hit the squad as well, heavy flamers are death to eldar and meltas are death to vehicles, It was a very effective tactic.

EDIT: thats would work amazingly with falmestorms now that it comes to mind.

Timmah wrote:And then what do you do when your opponent brings 2-3 land speeders with HF? Almost a staple in most marine lists.

Rapid firing s5 guns isn't really all that great in 5ed when everyone and their mother are in transports.

Umm...shoot them down on turn 1 or 2 with all that lovely S5 firepower the Warfish carry?

Firewarriors aren't for killing transports. Railguns and crisis suits kill transports; FW kill the squishy insides, once they've been dismounted. Meanwhile, the Warfish provide mobile cover for your suits to work from, and contribute some decent-quality fire of their own.

It's actually not a bad tactic just difficult to pull off and remain mobile to a degree.

24 Shots @ BS 5 w/ 3+ to wound.

38 shots @ BS4 w/ 4+ to wound with Doom rerollable Wounding or Guide and doom.

Hollismason wrote:It's actually not a bad tactic just difficult to pull off and remain mobile to a degree.

24 Shots @ BS 5 w/ 3+ to wound.

38 shots @ BS4 w/ 4+ to wound with Doom rerollable Wounding or Guide and doom.

You mean BS 3 really eh?


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Warfish tend to be needed for Fish of Fury.

7 S5 shots are incredibly good for base transports.

Look at the other races transports and see how many of those get that many quality shots (Guard Excluded)

I tabled a Ork player using this tactic. He also couldn't get more than a weapon destroyed result. That didn't help.

It probably didn't help that my gun drones pinned his nobs 2 turns in a row.

He also had black reach but not much else (1 other boy squad) so ddn't have enough bodies.

If you are facing Daemons, Orks and Tyranids it works wonders but at other times I wouldn't advise it.

If you can bring enough guys to draw bead on MEQs it works, but those MEQs may beat face if you don't kill enough of them. XV8 Backup is neccessary.

Fish of Fury works quite well, especially for Eldar-

Bladestorm+guide+Doom+Wave Serpent = Dead enemies.

also

Storm Guardians + 2flamers + Destructor + WS = dead enemies

radiohazard wrote:7 S5 shots are incredibly good for base transports.

Look at the other races transports and see how many of those get that many quality shots (Guard Excluded)

Now look at the cost of those transports and compare them to your 120 point Warfish. Warfish are overpriced compared to other transports in the game (especially compared to the Chimera). That doesn't mean Warfish aren't any good though, the other transport options are just undercosted. The 5th Edition survivability upgrade was enough of an upgrade for all Tanks, the drastic points reduction is the recent codex releases was just uncalled for.

Airmaniac wrote:

radiohazard wrote:7 S5 shots are incredibly good for base transports.

Look at the other races transports and see how many of those get that many quality shots (Guard Excluded)

Now look at the cost of those transports and compare them to your 120 point Warfish. Warfish are overpriced compared to other transports in the game (especially compared to the Chimera). That doesn't mean Warfish aren't any good though, the other transport options are just undercosted. The 5th Edition survivability upgrade was enough of an upgrade for all Tanks, the drastic points reduction is the recent codex releases was just uncalled for.

The 5th edition bonus that skimmers got was not immediately being "wrecked" when immobilized unless moving "Flat Out". That's a welcome change from 4th but then they also lost "Skimmers Moving Fast".

Also, FoF requires a little bit taller flight stands on your 'fish, as TLOS makes it difficult for the Fire Warriors to see under the devilfish if it's mounted on a small flight stem.

In my group we assume the skimmer is up high enough for the warriors to see under. I'd hate to tell my buddy he has to buy more stands just so we can play the way we want to.