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What side shots? Pathfinders, kroot, and stealths are the only units that can outflank. Each is limited to 24" or less of effective range when walking on the board. Plan a head, place your objectives 28" in from any side table edge.

Hammerheads have to come in on your deployment zone. That means straight on more or less, especially if your playing with enough terrain. Cross table diagnal shots should be really limited. If the other guy is running armor he just has to line up in train formation and he gets a 3+ cover save for those tanks.

Smart placement of objectives also help. Stick them in cover and just camp there. Worse if the other guy brings armor. You gotta bust the transport then take out the unit inside. Devilfish with firewarriors only have an effective 26" range on the turn they come in. Just hang back 28" and all you have to worry about is a single burst cannon. Against armor 11+ you can't pen.

Pathfinders are not doing anything the turn they come in, if they disenbark they are dead next turn.

Just like we have said in a lot of other threads, most other armies can out shoot tau. Proper preperations for the two turns that they will have will really hurt.

I'm not putting down ninja tau. I'm really not, but its not a sure thing, once people know what it is, it will easily be cracked because it just a tactic/deployment issue. Its not like magically all your stuff gains a 2+ armor save and T6 and becomes super killy or uber hard to kill. Just keep your calm and know whats coming. Play the objective, not the other guys army, don't get baited. You said try wiping the entire army out in 1 turn. That goes for you too. Tau can't table an opponent in two turns, but with proper planning the other guy can make it really hard for Tau to get enough objectives to win.

Ninja Tau actually works best in KP missions because you are only giving the enemy 2 turns to do massive damage. Unfortunatly the Tau can hemmorage KP really easily. Especially when the enemy has almost all its weapons around for when the bulk of the army does show up.

I've been running the Ninja Tau for a couple of weeks now and I have to disagree a bit.

My Broadside Ethereal anchor Has consistently chewed up two heavy Tanks and a transport a game.

Ninja Tau is the place to run your pirahnas, also. As a matter of personal experience, this list frees you from trying to run a spam list. I run some cheap deepstrikers, a railhead, an Ionhead, Pirahnas, Pathfinders to help with pinpoint deepstrikes, 2 squads of firewarriors and a kroot squad. So far the anchor unit has survived everytime and there is only 1 heavy support left by the end of turn 4.

I have been telling my opponents what I'm doing and so far the only guaranteed counter that I've seen is for my opponent to stall while in a time limit game.

The way I'm seeing it, from what I've played so far, is that your over estimating the vehicle cover save which would be 4+ BTW and if he goes to ground with to protect his troops they no longer score. The side shots come from having a 60" to 72" ranged gun that allows me to exploit table length for side shots.

Your also over estimating the ability to return fire. The tau come in and kill what is close. It is impossible for other armies to be everywhere on the board, during objective missions, and to be able to bring that kind of firepower against the units coming in. The other armies shorter ranged weapons means a turn of no shooting to get into position.

I'm not saying it is perfect but I am beginning to believe that it is semi-competitive. Please to remember that this is from my personal experience and is IMO only. I still believe that the Tau need a redo for 5th. Ninja Tau will keep me playing them until that redo occurs.

Edit for dropped sentence.

focusedfire wrote:
The way I'm seeing it, from what I've played so far, is that your over estimating the vehicle cover save which would be 4+ BTW and if he goes to ground with to protect his troops they no longer score. The side shots come from having a 60" to 72" ranged gun that allows me to exploit table length for side shots.

The train formation is one of the most awesomely broken concepts in 5th edition. You park one vehicle on the butt of a second. If when shooting at a vehicle, if you are in front/side/rear arc of that vehicle, but cannot actually shoot at it (because it is blocked) you are allowed to shoot at the side you can see. However the tank gets a 3+ cover save. So yeah, lists that run a lot of armor use this while moving forward and it sucks rocks.

Also nowhere in the rules (pg. 24 on Go to Ground or pg 90 on scoring units) does it say going to ground removes the scoring ability of a unit.

Jayden, You are absolutely correct about Going to ground/pinned not removing the scoring ability. Must be a hold over from 4th that I'm thinking of.

You are still wrong about the 3+ cover save. Doesn't say anywhere in the book that vehicles count as fortifications. Does say that wrecked vehicles give 4+ cover though.

Land train is over rated. It is not broken but rather the applied use of real world tactics to the tabletop.

You counter it by popping the right vehicles and the formation becomes choked on its self. This formation has the down-side of only being viable on boards with very little terrain. If they are in dense terrain it becomes to easy to choke their movement by killing key tanks.

If the Tanks are lined up front to back you pop the lead vehicle. If side to side you tag the corner pivot closest to you army. I've never had a problem making someone pay for using this tactic by killing their mobility from chocking their paths of advancement with their own vehicles.

Still- Thanks for pointing out the Gone to ground /pinned still score. It amazes me how many things are still turning up that I've missed.

focusedfire wrote:You are still wrong about the 3+ cover save. Doesn't say anywhere in the book that vehicles count as fortifications. Does say that wrecked vehicles give 4+ cover though.

Actually he's right, you're not. Fortifications have nothing to do with the dreaded Choo-Choo train.

p 62 BRB, "it may rarely happen that the firing unit cannot see any part of the facing they are in (front, side, rear), but they can still see another facing of the target vehicle. In this case they may take the shot against the facing they can see, but to represent such an extremely angled shot, the vehicle recieves a 3+ cover save."

For the rule in question.

Point I'm making is that I wouldn't target the inside vehicle but pop the ones on the perimeter. Thus trapping the interior vehicles.

The perimeter vehicles will get a best a 4+ cover and with the tactical flexibilty to deploy for clean shots this isn't even really a concern. Land train tactic just doesn't work againt the Ninja tactic.

You haven't played against it enough, or are not playing with enough terrain. A smart opponent will give you either a smoked/screened 4+ cover, or choo choo 3+ cover. The only perimiter vehicle is the front one, all the ones following it are getting 3+ cover save. If you do pop the lead vehicle, the second just drives over it. Wrecks are not impassable terrain. The new dozer blade upgrade makes dangerous terrain checks more or less moot. Just rince and repeat until you get where you need to go.

Its also important to note that I'm not talking only 2-3 transports here. More like 6-7 including heavier tanks. With a single broadside unit or even a hammerhead that shows up on turn 3, you will never pop enough before they get where they need to go. And thats it, they are not necessarily trying to get at you, but get to a point just to block you and secure their own position.

Playing against ninja tau is just like planning for second turn. You know he is going to hit you hard in a single turn, but you have 3-4 turns to get into position/find areas of cover, etc.

But your having a good run with it as it is now. Good for you, may your success continue for many many months to come. Seriously, I mean that. But I wouldn't bet on it having quite as big of a factor against the same opponent after about three games. Where I play, there is just too much armor, too much psychic crap, going on where repositioning of units, and units in a hurry is pretty easy to achieve.

I've been cutting my teeth on mechanized Black Templars for years now.

Ya know whats tougher than someone running landtrain? Someone who does it with power of the machine spirit on every bloody vehicle he has.

This guy is the local tourney champ and we split games evenly. His current list runs 3 HS Tanks, 1 tank, 2 land speed squadrons, then his troops in rhinos and razorbacks that comes normally to 3-4 more vehicles.

Says he likes playing me because I come up with new stuff for him to deal with. The important thing is that we split wins vs losses close enough to say the armies are evenly matched.

I do thank you for your good wishes and do return the courtesy with hopes that the game will be fun for you and that you have a long winning streak(Unless we meet in a game, Then its every man for himself).


I do not feel that the Tau are bottom rung. I do feel that they are more and more in need of an update with each new codex though. I, really, hope that GW doesn't hold off until they are bottom rung or at least they won't have to spend years there before the next update.

you have to remember a few things:
1. Seeker missiles are often overlooked. A single squad of pathfinders can, on average, bring 4 if these to bear per turn. pops MEQs, especially high priority ones like Sternguard, Command squad, and Honor guards like nobody's business. Can even glance Land raiders, though that is what your railguns are for.
2. Kroot are point sinks except in very specific circumstances.
Against guard they are good, against other Tau, on small boards they are good. Where they really shine, and I hate to say this because it goes against the fluff, is against Greater Daemons, Terminators, and other super-strong units. You can tie them up for a long time, even if they don't die it gives you time to bring more firepower to bear against them.
3. Mobility Mobility Mobility. It's the name of the game. Bring the Firepower of large parts of your army against the enemy, and then scatter to the four winds when they get too close.
4. Fire warriors. You can never have too many. NEVER.
5. Hammerheads. You can never have too many. NEVER.
actually yes you can. 4 hammerheads is too many, because you only have 3 HS slots.
6. 1 squad of pathfinders is ESSENTIAL. 2 is Ok. 3 is too many.

That's all the advice I have.

Revalator- In response to your post. Please keep in mind that all of these replies are just,IMO.

1)Too expensive for one shot weapons that still give up a cover save and you have to roll twice to hit.

2)Kroot are extremely handy in almost every build I run. For me the key was learning how to run assaulters and using the kroothounds.

3)Pretty much agree with this one. I'd adjust "scattering to the four winds" to following your late game mobility battle plan and using the areas cleared by overwhelming firepower as your lanes of egress.

4)Actually, you can have too many Fire warriors. The Tau need to be a balanced general army. Spam listing just doesn't work as well with them.

5)Two hammerheads with squad of Broadsides is usually optimal.

6)Yes, absolutely agree.