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Lately I have adopted a "Ninja Tau" build like several other Tauists. I find against Horde armies, especially during DoW, that they don't know where to send their horde, and end up spreading their units in confusion. Not only do you get to skip the Night Fighting turn, but you get to come in where their line is weakest, usually a corner. Then the Skimmers form a screen for any disembarked infantry while the Hammerheads go to town. You can even tank shock your way in if they try to block your deployment, which bunches up their lines anyway.

However, I find the disadvantages to Ninja Tau and 3 Hammerheads are you're completely dependent on the reserve rolls. I've had games where 0/3 Hammerheads came in on Turn 2, and thus it was hard to clear space for other units coming on. And then anti-armor was trouble because Hammerheads miss, even with BS 4. Painfully so.

So I usually put all FW's in Devilfish, outflank with a couple units of 10 strong Kroot, and deep strike my suits. This way, you're guaranteed to cause some havok, even if you fail a couple crucial reserve rolls. I enjoy the build very much and enjoy watching my opponent wander the battlefield in confusion, wondering if they showed up too early...

However, Ninja Tau may become hard to use when 2 Officers of the Fleet show up, and either necessitate the use of a Pos Relay or starting everything on the table. However, in KP missions this may backfire on the guard, as I would be happy to go second and leave my entire force in reserve until turn 5!

Im fairly certain ninja tau strategy is based arround the pos Relay.
The tau use it to keep everything off the table until the last couple turns when it shows up automatically and nobody has a chance to kill anything.

To me, Ninja Tau is keeping everything in reserve. I use a Pos Relay if I'm in the mood, but it's not required IMO.

Synchronicity- I see your point and can agree to a certain extent. The part of me that doesn't agree is looking at the situation from a controlled use veiwpoint.

When everything is in reserve the Tau player doesn't have near the control over his army that the positional relay beginning the game on the table does.

IMO, Being Ninja is about controlling the situation through going from absence to overwhelming presence in the most tactically advantageous positions in a controlled manner. Not using the Positional relay makes the tactic much more of a gamble or un-ninja.


I will say that I am beginning to reduce the number of Hammerheads in favour of more crisis suits and pirahnas. I got this idea when looking at doing a Farsight themed Ninja Tau set-up and from my last two wins where only one of my tanks was on the field before 5th turn. I will still probably run the normal Tau but am adopting a more uncoventional army structure to better exploit this Tactic.

what does the term "ninja-tau" describe?

Just a quick thanks to focusedfire for this thread. I tried out ninja tau against my tyranid opponent and it worked a treat, though it was a very close game (8-6 KP victory).

Basically my kroot got sacrificed to slow down his infiltrating fast assault unit which gave me an exra turn to dakka them with stealth suits.

The rest of his army suffered at the hands of markerlight-guided massed fire. Keeping fire warriors in the devilfish improves their survivability tenfold! Also useful for the old 'fish of fury' tactic that worked well against the lightly armoured nids.

Deep striking the suits slowed down the genestealer units and kept my opponent guessing. It was great fun to play this way as well, with all the suits deep striking. Having the pathfinder devilfish also helped as I would have scattered every DS unit without the re-roll from the marker beacon.

So thanks again focusedfire and others - I have definitely learned something useful here!

What if your opponent is more mobilethan yours? I've been more mobile than all the other armies i've face, but now i go up against an eldar army that is highly mechanized. I guess i'm just looking for tips on how to deal with this. I successfully turned away an ork horde by holing up in a corner and blazing away. Would the same tactic work or is this just suicide?

Eh, Eldar can be more mobile then you but they cannot out shooty you. Eldar die easy to tau weps from what I have heard. Wave-serps will prolly be the biggest pain in the butt.

Eldar will out-manouvre most armies with their skimmers and fleet troops. My advice is bring fusion blasters and railguns to deal with the skimmers. These days I use my helios commander to deep strike (blast a key enemy vehicle and then harass their lines using the vehicle wreck as cover!).

I just played an eldar player (this evening in fact!) and burst cannons were effective. A 3-man crisis team with BC and MP guided by pathfinder markerlights could do serious damage to most eldar infantry units. If you're facing more heavily armoured eldar like scorps the you probably want AP2 guns on your suits. Give them markerlight support so they actually hit!

Against Wave Serpents and their strength shield thingies, I'd imagine that Seeker Missles and Missle Pods would be very nice.

Melta's are pretty much a waste against eldar wave serpents.

Ah you're absolutely right, wave serpent energy field means only 1d6 penetration even at half range!

Your best bet is deepstriking burst cannons or massed MP fire.

Meltas are hardly a waste since you still get the +1 to the damage roll making a 5 or a 6 a kill on a glance.

You are better off taking missile pods against them. Melta's are dreadfully short range, while Missile Pods have a good chance to pop them from across the board, plus you are not dependent on a single close range "all or nothing" shot.

Hats off to focusedfire this is a very good thread. I have a few questions. 1. How will the new IG's ability to slow reserves effect Ninja Tau. 2. If you built a all comers list (ninja) what would it be 1500, 1750, ect. Just curious because I am thinking of breaking out my Tau that have been gaurding the downstairs family room. I have always liked stealthsuits so this seems like a good fit for me and I have been semi-retired since 5th hit.

Someone mentioned it in another thread but Pirahna spam really seems like a interesting take on Tau and with the low cost of them and high number possible in there units you can't pass up the possibility.

edit:

To say that taking 3 units of 5 give you actually 30 gun drones as well which are actually not that bad when you look at it.

It's very expensive in model cost. £15 for a single Piranha = £225 for all the vehicles.

It would be a fun army in looks and as you say the drones would be useful. You could deploy all of them as three big Gundrone squadrons early on.

The amount of table covered by models might prove to be a disadvantage if you are trying to keep out of the way of the enemy.

It really seems like a interesting army period. Add in Fusion Blasters w/ targeting Arrays; Disruption and Flechette you have something that seems to be very viable.

So, what do you do when your opponent is sitting there with stuff in reserve ready to deep strike or outflank you?

If your opponent decides to put everything in reserve ; more power to him he will find out really quick why not.

Tau Pirahnas are very wide models and perfectt for blocking ; if you go first and they go second and put everything in reserve you have more than enough troops and movement ability to zoom across to the far side of the board and block parts of the board edge.


OutFlank doesnt work well against a highly mobile army thy can just zoom to the center of the board and respon quickly to which side you move onto.

Deep Strike is easy to deal with by either disembarking your drones which you have 30 of and placing around your vehicles so that Multmeltas cannot get in range or placing your army in reserve. Every tank is a fast tank and can move 12 plus with large squad sizes if you fail a reserve roll on one or two of your Pirahna squads you still have a good number as they can fire at seperate targets.

Or simply move on 24 inches.

The thing that is really beneficial though is that you can put your devilfishes and Skyrays out of LOS or way behind cover still move 12 and not require LOS with those units. This gives each one of them a threat range of 36 with SMart Missiles.

Hey guys, I know it has been a while but have been busy with the Fan-dex.

I'm posting because I started exploring another set in stone don't do this as a new tactic. I don't know why but when everyone says a unit just shouldn't be used my mind starts exploring how to use them.

This time it has to do with Pathfinders armed with Rail Rifles. Everyone say don't so it because sniper drones are cheaper but lets look at this.

You buy two or three pathfinder teams.

All of their Devilfish get shuttled over to the fire warriors and kroot.

First Pathfinder team gets marker lights.

But the next 2 get Rail Rifles & Markers

This gives you a bunch of markers, Rail Rifles, and transports for your army all while leaving your Heavy slots untouched.

I'm figuring 3-6 man marker teams, 2 Hammerheads, 1 full broadside team. 3 cheap troop choices, 2 deepstriking elites and a deep striking commander.

Just an idea

Oh yeah, mods sorry if this is threadromancy

It is, but you started this thread and are doing a great job of staying on topic, and have some advice that I will say sounds pretty darned decent.

So we'll keep this thread open.

It's perfectly viable and a good idea your going to have to purchase those Devilfish regardless.

2 Pathfinders w/ Railrifles

5 Pirahnas w/ Fusion and Target links, disruption etc..

10 Man Deepstriking Gun Drone Squad from the Pirahnas which get to reroll because of the Devilfish.


2 Squads of Kroot

2 Squads of Firewarriors.


Inexpensive a good idea and starting base for a solid core army.

I think the strongest build strategy should focus on removing the enemy's mobility turn 1. broadsides and deathrains with markerlights can accomplish this easily, and should focus on trying to remove as many dedicated transports at they can, so that the rest of the army has plenty of time to shoot. This may sound like a gunline army, but I think infiltrated kroot, combined with the deathrains popping transports, would serve as the main anti-infantry firebase, with 20-40 bolter shots per turn, and not half-bad in CC either. Fire warriors shooting from objectives 30 inches away to aid them, devilfish with SMSs would serve as distractions, pumping out fire from behind impassable terrain so that the enemy has to DS or run stuff way out of the way to get to them. The pathfinder ability to reduce scatter will help DSing fusion/plas suits to take out tougher targets.

tl;dr trap them in their deployment zone.

@ Iorek-Thank you for your kind words

@Hollisman-Don't know if the Gundrones get to deploy separate from the pirahna. Is this a new 5thed rules interpretation?

BTW, I was on the thread where the idea of spamming pirahnas came up. If you want I can dig up the guys screen name. IIRC,It was in the How do eldar handle nob bikers thread back in december.
This guy put the idea out and I cursed him because I was going to have to buy more models. You still gotta take a crisis commander though. This bummed me out because I was thinking of running a no Battlesuit force.

@Cannoness Rory- You just described the force and tactics I used to run in 4th edition. The tactics are still very sound but I started having problems with the new 5th ed builds.
So I began to tinker and have been toying with unorthodox builds ever since. Seems of late, whether win or lose, if I make a new tactic work I enjoy myself more that just a win with the same tactics over and over again.

I can't remeber if we covered it early in the thread but yes. Removing your opponents speed is of great importance. About the same as punching a whole in their line to give yourself some place to run to.

One of the build that was being problematic was land speed spam infront of a mechanized wave. There just weren't enough shots to slow the SMs down or to even punch an effective hole before they got there. I figured it out by moving to more of a Ninja type build with my own personal tweeks.

Have you read the whole thread? If so please let me know what you think.

Also, could you double space your posts every couple of lines. It helps to pick out points to address and makes quoting easier.

Have a good one

,Later

You would have to ask someone how the rule works for gun drones; I know you can do it ,but I couldnt explain the order on how you are doing it.


The Pirahna Swarm is one of my Favorite army lists and you can get Pirahnas for pretty cheap on EBAY.

The best thing about it is that it really is a force multiplier in numbers.

I could go on about it but basically.

2 5 man squads of pirahnas
1 Pathfinder squad

5 Fast Attack options.

It must be because the drones are counted as passengers. This makes the Pirahnas into a form dedicated transports under 5th(Or at least they are treated as such). If this is what is being used its like the Pathfinder/Devilfish Outflank/Reserve set up where they deploy seperately but at the same time. Not saying that this is correct. Just the way that I see the rules applying to allow such to happen. It is an interesting wrinkle that defintely improves the Pirahna as a unit.

No prob on the Pirahnas these days but thanks. Its just funny that I was chatting with the guy and as soon as he typed it there were three of us that immeidiately had that light bulb over the head moment. I even started a thread on it but lost interest in the concept when I found the no crisis theme couldn't be done.

I'm glad to see other picked up where we left off and have made it into a good build. It gives the mobility that is necessary for the Tau in 5th ed.

Yeah its definitely one of the better builds for Tau and people do not use it at all.

I am almost positive that is how it works; check Steleks blog he explained it really well.


The tactic out of that though is because of the foot print of the Pirahnas which around 6 inches wide you can effectively just "corner" your opponent by boosting 24 inches forward.


It gives you a 3+ cover save ; You need 6s to hit them in Close Combat. Depending on your interpretation of Flechette you get attacks at the squad when they assault you.


Even moving 24 inches and staying 12 or so away from your opponent really just blocks them completely in.

If they shoot past the pirahnas then your army has 4+ cover saves and your able to deny units cover saves w/ marker lights from Pathfinders.


It's just an all around great army. Cheap Cost Efficient; Able to deal with a Variety of opponents via Target locks etc..

In fairness, what you lose in mobility with Broadside Spam, you get back in sheer titanic amounts of firepower.

I ask you, what can stand against 9 Broadsides?