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my dad plays tau and yesterday played an ork army, the ork army was roughly one warboss on bike, one painboy on bike, and 10 nob bikers
also, a squad of 10 nob bikers, and a squad of like 20 or so stormboys. an 1850 list. a lot of the nobs had pk's.

my dad couldn't kill a single nob, and was totally overrun and completely, to coin a cliche, pwned.

with tau, and no broadsides, as he doesn't have any, what would be the way to handle this army?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh, darn, I posted in wrong place, can someone move it?

Hit the unit with a combination of Rail Rifles and Marker lights to pin them, then continue to pin them while you mop up the rest of his army, then shoot them to ribbons with massed fire.

I'm not completely familiar with the Tau codex but the best way to beat nob bikers is with anything that can ignore FNP and is double their toughness causing instant death.

So basically anything with str 8 or higher, the longer the range the better.

I'd pick up some broadsides.

Rough... massed fire from firewarriors. Crisis suits are also great. And like he said, pathfinders. Remove their cover and lay waste

Fusion guns instant death nob bikers (Piranha skimmers, stealth teams etc.).

However, the best combo if possible is to hit the Nob bikers with a few markerlights and use them to remove their automatic coversave whilst hitting them with broadside teams (say 4 markerlights hit, use 3 to remove the cover completely and then the final one to increase the BS of the broadside team. Should equal 3 dead biker nobs and a leadership test).

Combine with massed pulse rifle fire and plasma rifles and the nob bikers should fold soon enough.

Bubblewrap your Tau with a couple of kroot squads, this should buy you some time to get another turns shooting.

Good luck!

Normally nob bikers have cybork for invulnerable 5+ saves, so reducing the cover beyond 5+ is ineffective as they still get the invulnerable. Essentially the goal with them is going to be to shoot the crap out of them, at tarpit them with units that will die in a single combat phase, so that the nobs are out in the open on your next shooting phase. when the nobs are close enough to assault, its important to start spreading out around them to deny multiassaults.

Its not about reducing their cover-save, although that helps, its about reducing their leadership so that they fail their pinning check.

Dracos wrote:Normally nob bikers have cybork for invulnerable 5+ saves, so reducing the cover beyond 5+ is ineffective as they still get the invulnerable. Essentially the goal with them is going to be to shoot the crap out of them, at tarpit them with units that will die in a single combat phase, so that the nobs are out in the open on your next shooting phase. when the nobs are close enough to assault, its important to start spreading out around them to deny multiassaults.

Well the difference between a 5+ inv and a 3+ cover save is significant. We're talking about an additional 33% chance to kill each one.

If you can actually remove their cover save? That's very helpful. Follow that up with instant death shots that ignore FNP and you'll table them easily.

what was his list? your dads that is

Yeah that kinda of sounded like how i did the first time i played against a nob biker force...
I cant remember if Tau have flamer or not. Lots of template weapons and Str 8 or better.( i know you dont have any close combat). Try Vespid, they might be the trick what is there weapon again some type of Str8 ap3 melta gun right...

Here's the problem for all those of you that advocate pinning tests: when nob bikers turboboost, they "automatically pass pinning tests." Read entry for Turbo-Boosters, p. 76 of BRB. And unless they're dumb, they are turboboosting up to 24" every turn until they get to charge range with a 3+ cover save from turboboosting (or 4+ versus those few guns that negate speed cover). At least, that's how I run 'em.

Tau will have a hard time, they have a hard time with orks overall if the orks ever reach assault range.

Here's the problem, beyond the turboboosting feature, above. They are T5, 4+ armor, 4+ FNP against most things, and, in some gross circumstances, cyborked (I usually don't). So, even with all your Tau tricks, you can't give yourself enough advantages to fire fast enough.

Massed Pulse Rifle fire? I can armor save (4+) AND (FNP). So whatever hits after your BS modification, you only wound on half, I save half, then FNP half the failed saves. That means, at BS3, you need 16 shots to cause ONE WOUND (10.667 shots at BS4). And with individual nobz on a 10-man squad, that means they all live until the 11th wound.

Railgun, melta gun type weapons can instant-kill, but how many do you have? And you still have to negate my cover save first and I might still have an invulnerable.

Any S8 or S9 shot you have that isn't AP2/1, I take on the warboss... he gets FNP on those shots.

Anyway, nobz are stupidly hard to kill. My advice would be to distract them as much as possible to slow them down and give you as many shots at them as possible. Speed bump units of firewarriors for your gunlines so that the ork nobz HAVE to charge you and then sit there for a round of shooting. Repeat. Pick off as many as you can with instant-kill or at least plasma with AP2 so it ignores armor and FNP.

Otherwise, keep your tanks and transports moving, taking potshots as much as possible while remaining out of charge range.

Last bit of advice: remember, you do not have to kill the nobz to win the game! One unit can only do so much damage. At least a couple turns will be spent moving on you, giving them only a couple turns to actually damage you. If that's spent chasing drones or fire warriors or kroot, the ork player has used a 600+ point unit on your throwaway infantry while you focus on taking and/or contesting objectives.

Good luck!

That's why the Kroot bubble-wrap is so good: if the Nob Bikers want to assault then they have to slow down and get into rapid fire weapon. If they want to shoot, then they have to slow down and get into range (18" baby!). Basically if they want to do anything besides zip around the board uselessly, they have to slow down and get shot.

And while they're turbo-boosting, the Tau can concentrate on the rest of the Orks.

I played a touranment this past weekend, Orks vs Nidz.....I'm the Nidz and i have played against Orks enough to know how to handle them. to make a long story short, Orks nob bikers were all wipeout with the help of a Swarmlord and his buddy Tygon.

Ive played against a large nob biker unit twice, and both times they have failed to reach my lines (although im using eldar the idea remains the same) They usually come turbo-boosting towards you, meaning you have to kill them there and then, or throw a unit at them to slow them down.

-Killing them there and then. I recommend quantity over quality regarding shots, throw a bucket of dice at the nobs and they will eventually die. Praying to the dice gods will help in this situation. Fire warriors, burst cannons, ion cannons, anything you got, shoot EVERYTHING at them and hope for the best.

-Failing that, throw small units at them to slow them and keep firing at them every turn. You could mech up, let them trash a devilfish and rapid fire with the fire warriors in your next turn, thats some decent S5 shots and two units to tie the orks up with.

my dads list was a couple of hammerheads that never hit, a 20 kroot squad, never did anything, 1 squad of 12 fw's, 2 squads of 6 fw's, broadside w/ bodyguard, and bodyguard team, and 1 stealth team.

1 turn of everything shooting at nob bikers on average caused 2 wounds. but yeah, I see how the kroot thing could work.

The layers of your defence is important.

Sacrifice kroots to delay the bikers.

Your transports then.

A fire warrior need about...16 shots to cause a single wound from a nob biker. Could be ignored.

So maybe you should sacrifice every other units to keep your battlesuits.

In this humble guardsmen opinion Ork nob bikers are the most overpowered unit in the game. So don't feel too bad, just insult their manliness and their lack of skill. I play tau as well and long have I pondered how to deal with them and the sad truth is that tau have no real way to deal with them. 9 broadsides maybe but who wants to buy 9

Let's face it TAU and Necron are the bottom fishes nowadays, shame on the Ork player took a nobbikers list against your dad's friendly list of TAU.

yeah, he was the employees brother, so he knew what he was doing.

Your best bet with rolly polly fisheads is a multiple objective missions. Keep your units spread out so the nobs can't multi charge them. This is just a terrible matchup no matter how you slice it. Nice batrep btw.

G

I have played Tau now for a while and generally play for the entertainment value. The army has usually 6 broadsides, 2 units of FW, 2 of Kroot, some pathfinders and as many V8s as I can get. The pathfinders provide the only tanks I have in the form of warfish. Generally I find that against a very mobile, in your face army, that it is best to deploy as many speed bumps as possible. Also, try to spread out a bit. As was pointed out, you do not want the bikers jumping from one target to the next. I would not even try to kill both units of bikes as there are just too many. You might divide the army into one part you want to keep alive and one part that is to be sacrificed. Concentrate all your fire on trying to save the units in the part you wish to save.

If all has gone well, then one flank will have collapsed but the other is intact. One advantage of DF is they can tank shock and you can always use this to disrupt him. Otherwise just move them into his path and hope they survive. The key units for me are the Broadsides and the V8's. Pack a lot of plasma! FNP does not work against them! Fireknives are usually quite good here!

Almost forgot, the ABFP on an el is useful for the stormboys as well as is the Firerain with a flamer in the third slot. A lot depends on how he deploys but going first is really important. You get one more round of shooting in before he starts killing your units. I would tend to focus on the stormboys if they are a threat and the nob bikers without the boss. Let the boss and his escort wreck mayhem if they wish as in a 5 turn game they can normally only kill 4 units. Whatever you do, do not allow him to attack 2 or more units with his one. He will then be able to wipe out more than one unit a turn with the warboss and escort!

You can also trickle things in from reserve to deny the nob bikers targets to assault.

Couple of other items to try. One is a Farsight bomb. The other is to try and use a city scape with multi-story ruins. Putting the broadsides on the upper levels means they cannot be assaulted by bikes!!!!!!! Thus you can shoot at them without fear of an assault. Farsight is rather fun though.

ED209 wrote:Let's face it TAU and Necron are the bottom fishes nowadays, shame on the Ork player took a nobbikers list against your dad's friendly list of TAU.

sound more like ... Noobikers

here is the easiest way to deal with Nob bikers, Get the high ground. What i mean by that is ruins or buildings with more then one level, since Ork Nob Bikers are -not- infanty or are they Jetbikes they can not go up the levels to get you. Same with beasts and Cavary (ie. Raveners and Thunderwolfs) soooo put you tau up a few levels, if he is running the cheesiest of cheese 2 warbosses and 2 nob bike squads with invul and painboys (meaning about 22 bikes ish, for 2 hq's and 2 troops) which most run, then he will be forced to "Shoot" you and thats pretty much all he can do, don't forget though that he does get Dakka guns, which can be pretty nasty. But yeah, get some ruins, get on the top floors, and shoot him to death, almost nothing he can do at that point about it. He will actually have to put his foot sloggers down to get you, and against Broadsides and Stealth teams with Plamsa and fusion blasters, and rail cannons, not a good idea, you can also set you're skimmer down on to the top layers of terrien. meaning those hammerheads now are unreachable by his Nob bikers


best battle i ever witnessed a 2000 point Tau vs Ork battle and the tau didn't loose a single model. The orks Got markerlight, Railcannoned and could never reach the tau as the tau player used his terrien peaces with levels




happy Nob killin

Fusion piranha spam would work wonders against this nob biker list. They would probably do enough damage before going down to allow you to use mass small arms to deal with the rest. The stormboys should not be to big of a problem to handle after that.

Although, who has fifteen piranhas laying around?

augustus5 wrote:Fusion piranha spam would work wonders against this nob biker list. They would probably do enough damage before going down to allow you to use mass small arms to deal with the rest. The stormboys should not be to big of a problem to handle after that.

Although, who has fifteen piranhas laying around?

Yeah, pretty much. Nob Bikers are a pain, but killing their cover save and using Crisis suits would be amazing. Use SMS often, as far as I know. But move away their cover w/ markerlights.