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Two deathstars
3 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
2 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores

Deathstar: Hive Tyrant with armoured shell, paroxysm, hive commander, Psychic scream, Old Adversary, adrenal glands, scytals + lashwhip & bonesword, and 3 tyrant guard.

I play Tau. How in the hell do I beat this?

Use your mobility. Dont keep things off the table - he will be. Gang up on those units the show up.

Use multiple Fish of Fury units and decimate the guants with S5 rapid fire goodness.

Fly away from the Death Star.

You are playing mech tau, right? With a couple of hammerheads, a couple of broadsides, a unit of pathfinders, maxed crisis suits and a couple of units of kroot?

In the rolloff for first turn, try to go second and start everything in reserve. With hive commander, most of his stuff is going to drop on turn 2, so you can roll half your army onto the table in turn 2 far away from where his spods dropped and light him up.

If he forces you to go first, use Kroot to bubble-wrap your firebase, push the dropping spods back and force the spods to waste their shots on kroot in cover. Then shoot things as they drop with the rest of your army.

Ignore the deathstars as long as possible--they have to slog across the table. They're just fire magnets there to make you waste shots that should go to more important targets.

Use massed str6-7 shooting to overwhelm the zoan saves--charging kroot + hounds can also take them out in HtH. The zoans are priority 1, since they're the only synapse that's going to be in your face.

You might have to feed the hormagaunts some sacrificial units, since you're unlikely to kill them all with submunitions and small arms. Give them kroot or pathfinders to eat, and try to save your suits. But if you can manage to catch them out of synapse (because the deathstars are too far away and you killed the zoans) then pin & break tests are your friend, or you can always use your piranhas to draw them off when they rage.

It's a tough matchup for Tau, but the nid army is very one-dimensional, so a balanced mech Tau force should be able to take it.

You need Fusion blasters (Piranhas would be good, but suits could work as well) on the Zoanthropes and pie plates on the Hormagaunts. Rail guns on the "deathstars". When the Zoanthropes are dead you re-purpose the surviving fusion blaster units to help deal with the Hive Tyrants.

I agree with the fish of fury usage against the gaunts. Very affective against the squishyness of gaunts.

I know it's tempting to go for the instakill, but there's a huge problem with shooting a fusion blaster at a zoanthrope. If you hit & wound, it still gets a 3+ save, and if it passes the save now you're within 12" (18" after a JSJ if you're firing a suit). So you get maybe one of those shots, have a tiny chance to kill a zoan, and then the guants jump you.

Similarly, fusion blasters shooting at the deathstars put you much closer than you want to be.

Massed Str 6-7 is better versus zoans because, even though you don't get the insta-kill, you get more shots at a longer range. So you have a couple of turns of shooting to kill what is essentially the equivalent of a 2-wound space marine.

ExarchCain wrote:Two deathstars
3 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
2 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores

Deathstar: Hive Tyrant with armoured shell, paroxysm, hive commander, Psychic scream, Old Adversary, adrenal glands, scytals + lashwhip & bonesword, and 3 tyrant guard.

I play Tau. How in the hell do I beat this?

Easy peasy. Kill the tyrant with mass ap2 fire, they'll die soon enough. Kill the zoanthropes with torrent of fire and then he has no synapse.

However, god knows why hormagaunts are in spore pods because they cannot assault after - esy target!

Make sure you kill the synapse first and then take advantage of the hormagaunts when the drop down; if you take out the synapse the hormagaunts are taking leadership tests.

mercer wrote:

ExarchCain wrote:Two deathstars
3 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
2 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores

Deathstar: Hive Tyrant with armoured shell, paroxysm, hive commander, Psychic scream, Old Adversary, adrenal glands, scytals + lashwhip & bonesword, and 3 tyrant guard.

I play Tau. How in the hell do I beat this?

Easy peasy. Kill the tyrant with mass ap2 fire, they'll die soon enough. Kill the zoanthropes with torrent of fire and then he has no synapse.

However, god knows why hormagaunts are in spore pods because they cannot assault after - esy target!

Make sure you kill the synapse first and then take advantage of the hormagaunts when the drop down; if you take out the synapse the hormagaunts are taking leadership tests.

Easy Peasy? A single unit of HT and 3 TG should take 30 lascannons to take down.

I don't think a single unit will take 30 lascannon shots as they only have 10 wounds between them. Ok 10 is a lot but you're telling me 2/3's of the shots won't hit or do nothing?

When I've run the formation in the past I lose both guard and take wounds on the tyrant; tyrant survives though, barely.

At BS 4 it will take 30 - 20 wounds - 10 wounds failed after cover.

EDIT: That's assuming you always wounds. In reality it's more like 35 lascannons at BS4.

mercer wrote:

ExarchCain wrote:Two deathstars
3 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
2 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores

Deathstar: Hive Tyrant with armoured shell, paroxysm, hive commander, Psychic scream, Old Adversary, adrenal glands, scytals + lashwhip & bonesword, and 3 tyrant guard.

I play Tau. How in the hell do I beat this?

Easy peasy. Kill the tyrant with mass ap2 fire, they'll die soon enough. Kill the zoanthropes with torrent of fire and then he has no synapse.

However, god knows why hormagaunts are in spore pods because they cannot assault after - esy target!

Make sure you kill the synapse first and then take advantage of the hormagaunts when the drop down; if you take out the synapse the hormagaunts are taking leadership tests.

Your forgetting Hormagaunts feed, so you have two options when out of synapse, either he passes and acts normally, or he fails, in which case the gaunts will probably do what he wants anyway which is to try and assult stuff.

That said, killing the Zoanthroapes first, (Assaulting them with Kroot helps. Zoanthroapes *really* suck in melee), then baiting the Hormagaunts w/ Flechette Piranhas, is trollface tier. This of course depends on other factors like terrain/positioning/etc.

wizard12 wrote:

mercer wrote:

ExarchCain wrote:Two deathstars
3 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
2 zoanthropes w/ mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores
20 hormagaunts w/ adrenal glands, toxin sacs, and mycetic spores

Deathstar: Hive Tyrant with armoured shell, paroxysm, hive commander, Psychic scream, Old Adversary, adrenal glands, scytals + lashwhip & bonesword, and 3 tyrant guard.

I play Tau. How in the hell do I beat this?

Easy peasy. Kill the tyrant with mass ap2 fire, they'll die soon enough. Kill the zoanthropes with torrent of fire and then he has no synapse.

However, god knows why hormagaunts are in spore pods because they cannot assault after - esy target!

Make sure you kill the synapse first and then take advantage of the hormagaunts when the drop down; if you take out the synapse the hormagaunts are taking leadership tests.

Your forgetting Hormagaunts feed, so you have two options when out of synapse, either he passes and acts normally, or he fails, in which case the gaunts will probably do what he wants anyway which is to try and assult stuff.

Ah yes, I did forget about feed so they'll just rage off some where. Just shoot them when they land because they cannot assault.

What points are you playing at?

easy, fire railguns @ the zoanthropes, if HT isn't on table that's the best target for them, their I save, will fail from time to time, plus it will allow the fish to stay mobile. AFP+ TL Flamers will eat gaunts alive. but unless you have a kroot wall you will pay for it.

annoying that his list seems tailored for against tau, but.

Thoughts:

1. tankshock the hormies into a nice clump and then have a unit of suits with TL flamers mass flame them. a commander with air projector and flamer might be nice too. If they are podding close, one unit of suits with TL flamers should get the job done, your talking likely around 30-40 hits, wounding on 3's with rerolls to wound and no armor or cover.

2. kroot and gundrone sacrifice units, make sure he has only one assault target, and block block block.

3. if any of the hormies are out of synapse, markerlight and pin them (this is where gundrones are useful)

4. most people don't field them, but a unit of stealth suits with burst cannons can absolutely obliterate one of the hormy units in one turn with markerlight help, and they can move shoot move back behind your sacrifice unit line, multiple fire warrior units are better but its worth considering maybe if it is a friendly game.

5. remember there's a good chance that non-synapsed hormies /usually/ must assault the closest unit. so driving an empty transport into them will do the job of keeping them busy for a turn so you can shoot them again. remember to resolve all hits at once, that transport might blow and kill a good number of them.

6. remember tau are a finesse army, not a gunline army, you need to move and use your guys efficiently. Your opponent wants to fight one way, your job as tau isn't to outfight him, its to slap his hand and say "no we're fighting my way"

7. if you have to commit, commit with everything, too many times I see people move up what they think is enough to rapid fire down my HT and friends, and fail by 1 or 2 wounds, end end up losing the unit/game because of it. an expensive but doable solution might be pathfinders+broadsides, remove cover save, hitting on 3's with rerolls wounding on 2's , no armor save, with 2 or 3 units of broadsides you will drop a deathstar in 1-2 turns, if played correctly it should only cost you 1 sacrificial unit.

8. oh and use vehicles as your blockers for the deathstars, he'll likely just scream and scare all your blockers away otherwise.

I’m not an expert on Tau but I do play Tyranids and I think I have a good understanding of what your issue is. I hesitate to call the Tyrant/guard groups “Death Star’s” but that’s beside the point.

The key here is to mechanize.

I see Hammerhead sub munitions are being really handy at vaporizing those gaunts as they come in. When they deploy from the spore pod they’ll be bunched up and a 72” ordinance blast is an excellent fly swatter.

Many people will tell you to try and insa-kill the zoanthropes (and this is handy if you can) but I find the BEST way to deal with zoanthropes is usually through sheer weight of fire. 12 Fire warriors in Devilfish is the key. That’s 24 shots, 12 hits, 8 wounds, and (statistically) one should die if you factor in the Devilfish shooting… so that means you need at least 3 of these squad groups to combine fire on the Zoanthropes as they drop in. I recommend at least 4 because your opponent will likely down at least 1 with his lances leaving your Fire Warriors out to dry. Of course I don’t need to tell you to position your transports in a way to make it difficult for the gaunts lurking about the board to assault them.

So… with 4 Devilfish + 12 Fire Warriors each + 3 hammerheads you’re sitting at between 1100 and 1300 points which leaves you enough points for a decent HQ. I personally feel that Tau HQ’s are a bit overpriced but you can take whatever you want really... after HQ, I'd reccomend MORE mounted fire warriors.

His “death stars” are a distraction to get you thinking “OMG! How do I stop, not one but TWO uber CC units?!?!” while his other stuff drops on your head, ties up your shooting, and allows those scary beasts to walk into your line unmolested.

After the small stuff and zoanthropes are dead the Tyrants/Guard are fodder to be picked apart at range.

I'm not going to say that I disagree with using mech tau against this list but I think that a strong gunline can do better.

9 broadsides protected by flamer/burst cannon suits and maximum foot firewarriors with markerlights ought to do nicely.

I imagine having a base of broadsides protected by two screens of firewarriors, and your flamer/dakka suits.

Your s5 pulse rifles will rip right through the weakened gaunts after your suits do their job and provide many wounds against the zoans and even the tyrant.

augustus5 wrote:I'm not going to say that I disagree with using mech tau against this list but I think that a strong gunline can do better.

9 broadsides protected by flamer/burst cannon suits and maximum foot firewarriors with markerlights ought to do nicely.

I imagine having a base of broadsides protected by two screens of firewarriors, and your flamer/dakka suits.

Your s5 pulse rifles will rip right through the weakened gaunts after your suits do their job and provide many wounds against the zoans and even the tyrant.

A castle strategy could work… especially in spearhead deployment (depending on terrain). One problem comes from objective missions where the Nid player merely drops his gaunts on objectives with hidden zoanthropes for synapse and forces the Tau player to advance toward the Hive Tyrants.

remember gaunts will be able to run after deep striking after the spod lands, getting even closer. Flamers may not be the cure-all. Keep meched up, zoeys are first priority, followed by tyrants, or if any horms are near foot units, those.

I think one more dimension needs to be added to this discussion: spods land anywhere and will basically never mishap (in the hands of a decent player with decent rolls). The entire army will be able to land in front, behind, and in the middle of your entire force if you castle them. Bugs still have a very hard time with highly mobile vehicles as we have virtually no ranged weapons to deal with the effectively. Keep moving and we probably won't be able to deal with all of the vehicles.

Another slight problem with the deathstar unit is that it's highly overpowered. Throw a sacrificial until in its path and it'll either be forced to assault it, kill it, and then be completely open to be shot at, or it'll have to move around to get to its desired unit. Either way, it's a one dimensional list that keeps getting slower. You just have to be willing to sacrifice some of your little blue people

What does this list do against Ninja Tau?

Great! you deepstrike everyone turn 2... but how fast can you reposition everyone after I deepstrike everyone turn 3 and 4?

Are you going to spread out your forces to meet my initial forces? (IE: 2 Pathfinder units, 3 Broadsides, and my positional relay crisis team)

All of them are positioned within range of each other (so 42")

Basically I see a list with only 2 things to fear... the death star units and it will take awhile for them to become effective...

Deepstrike to attack the broadsides? Great! The 2 Fire warrior teams come off the board and double tap that unit to death...
Try and Grab the Pathfinders? Great! the 2 units of Kroot can come off and double tap you or even assault you...

Your death star units seem tough but that is what specialized crisis teams are for... cracking the death star that is found in everyone's list... This is done by giving every unit (for the exception of the positional relay team) a plasma rifle or a fusion gun... JSJ helps with the terrible range of double tap or fusion gun...

Thanks guys ^^

After reading all this I feel a little more confident, I might get onto writing up a short temporay army list based on what I've been told here, if you're keen to see (and advise xD), just keep an eye on this post.

Fully Mech Tau should beat that list more often than not. Hybrid Tau has a tougher go of it.

Reserve up, try to go second, let his Zoeys drop on an empty board, focus fire them to death, then move and shoot away from the foot units and shoot them to death.

Shouldn't be too hard.

The key to tau from my understanding is... I do not have to beat you... I have to win the mission... focus on the mission.

If the mission is KP based... Deny kp and take his easy points (the spore or the gaunts) denying him kp is as easy as staying out of range and nipping his units to death.

Tau is a subtle army to play, I am still working on the subtle part with my recent switch from orks...

As a spod heavy player myself I think I can also bring something to this discussion.

The deathstar units are trash. They are there purely to distract you. They are slow and have no guns so will probably not get involved in the game until turn 3/4 earliest. They are also costing a ton of points which don't actually help his spod theme, besides bringing them in on a 2+.

Now on to the good stuff. To make things easier lets assume your opponent won the roll off and made you go first. You have 2 choices. Deploy everything, or reserve everything. With tau my vote would be to deploy. You have manoeuvarability on your side once he actually drops down, and with some careful deployment you can actually reduce his effectiveness quite substantially.

First you want to screen whatever hammerheads you have. Kroot for sure. Lots of them. You need to make sure his zoanthropes can't spod within 12" of your hammerheads (disruption fields is it?) so you need to stagger your defences in a castle formation. So that's phase 1.

I would also like to point out at this point that your XV8's are gonna be valuable. Missile pod and plasma is a good combo. Medium range combined with your JSJ means you can get out of assault range quickly. They can be your backup shots...helping out where needed most.

When it comes to shooting you are just gonna have to suck it up and hope that your cover saves are gonna carry you through. When it's time to begin shooting start with the zoanthropes with kroot. Rapid firing should take care of them. Killing them is actually really important since it means you can launch submunitions on the hormagaunts and get them to take an LD test. Divert other resources if you have to. Just make sure the synapse dies. Not always possible but weight of firepower *should* see off 3++ saves.

I'm a bit rushed for time so that's my take. I hope it helps.

killerpat wrote:What points are you playing at?

1500pt mate, I'm pretty sure that list is sitting at 1480 or something.

Your opponents list that you have written up is nearer the 1900 mark.

Edited for a 'duh' moment

For 1980 - He should remove one of the 'death stars' (which really aren't death stars, they're decoys) and 40 points from elsewhere. 4 hormagaunts, a mycetic spore, something. Then he'd be at 1500.

If he played that list against 1500 points of your stuff no wonder you had trouble. he had nearly 133% of your point total invested!

take second turn if you can to force him to declare how is thropes will deploy. Create a fire base with your FW, suits /w shield drones, and Kroot. Leave all your vehicles in reserve, or alternatively bring on dfish on the board as bait.

When the spods come in, the thropes either have no good targets or they've fallen for your bait. Next turn rapid fire the FW on the thropes and assault any still alive with the kroot. Fusion gun the spods.

After that focus on the hormagaunts with fw and kroot shooting(stripping cover saves with marker lights as much as possible) until vehicles start arriving, then mount up and zoom around the flanks, using submunition rounds after stripping cover to decimate the gaunt squads. Broadsides focus their shots in the tyrant unit, along with long range plasma from suits. A team of crisis suits /w TL flamers could help take out the hormogants.

Something to remember about synapse. If you force a unit of gaunts to take a leadership test for losing 25% and they are outside of synapse, they will probably fail. They will then fall back. They do not revert to basic instincts - that is only if they are not already falling back.

If he lands a group of gaunts outside of synapse, you only need to kill 5 to force a leadership test - gaunts are LD-5. And they will run until they get into synapse - no 'feed' basic instincts.

Also, as soon as you can, get his zoanthropes into assault. They get one attack each. So what if your fire warriors are just sitting there wiffing -he isn't going to hurt you either. You don't need to kill them, just neutralize them from hitting your tanks.

If you are playing KP, each of those pods is only T4 and worth a KP, so make sure you take them out. If you ignored his HQ unit and killed everything else, that is 10 KP, which should win most battles.

Also, after you take out his zoans, he has NOTHING that is going to do anything to your vehicles as long as they move 12. Adding on that 10 pt upgrade that wounds anything that assaults a vehicle is a must against his list.

just my thoughts