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ok what is your list? for MEQs i only need 1 round of shooting with a crisis suit to either wipe em out or to bring em below 50%

Statistically impossible unless they're running tiny units and you happen to get lucky.

it all depends on the dice it is possible to do it to a full strength unit

With a single crisis suit? Not unless you have a flamer and manage to cover the whole squad, wound them all and watch them all fail their save.

I meant a whole squad vs a full tac team

Even so. That's 3 crisis suits with Plasma Rifles? That's 1 shot each. How do you kill 10 Tactical marines with 3 shots?

How often will that scenario arise? Against a competent player, how often will 3 crisis suits be able to target 10 Space Marines who are out of cover?

the point im trying to make is that it is possible

Or...not, given the scenario you've provided.

With the right weapon load-out it is possible, but then again, it's possible for me to kill a horde of Ork Boyz in close combat with 6 fire warriors.

The point i'm trying to make is that it's not plausible; how often will I let a horde of Ork Boyz reach my fire warriors? How often will I kill said boyz with the fire warriors? The answer to both of these is not very often at all, which is the same answer to 'how often will 3 crisis suits be able to kill 10 space marines in 1 turn of shooting?'.

First, you say we have a lot of 2+ wounding plasma. Not true at all. We have 2 units that can take these weapons, and one of them should never take them. The other costs ridiculous amounts of points fully kitted out.

A marine costs 16 points. Crisis suits fully kitted out in things that can kill a marine are around 60 pts. With a BS of 3, they will only take out an average of 1-1.5 marines a turn, without taking into account the potential of shooting and assaulting, while being in rapid fire range.

Railguns should never be used against infantry, so those are out of the question.

Second, i wish to refute your point about focusing. Yes, focusing can be effective against MEQ. But, look at the big picture. You spend all of your time focusing the entire army on that one unit, and potentially kill it. Great, now you have to worry about the other 1400 pts worth of units which will most likely assault you on the next turn. Most other armies now don't have to focus their entire army just to kill 5-10 marines, they usually have a specific squad that can do that.

Our weakness is that we either have to focus our entire army on MEQs/TEQs to kill them for good, or we have to ignore them for other, potentially more pressing targets, leaving said ignored unit to potentially assault us the next turn. Tau are horrible in assault; this is common knowledge. So, we need to be either good or very good in shooting. As of now, we get outshot by ORKS. I mean, sheesh. If the most advanced and shooty army in the galaxy get outshot by orks, then something's seriously wrong.

I'm not saying my changes are the best, nor that they should be implemented. I was just giving ideas that could potentially further the Greater Good
/rant

Split up your post so it stopped hurting my eyes

True, we only have two plasma carriers in the tau army, but you know what, your going to have alot of the units which *can* carry plasma, and that 62 point suit not only has 2 wounds, but is a jack of all trades, which can take down vehicles, worth the points. And honestly, how many other things are you spending points on in your army aside from suits?

You say that it is detrimental to focus fire, I differ in my opinion as you have discounted pathfinders in your argument AND you are assuming that I have to completly annialate the unit to reduce their threat level. All I have to do is get rid of the plasma or melta or powerfist and that squad becomes way less of a theat, of course if I have to wipe out a MEQ squad completly off an objective, then it would take more then 1-2 units, but almost all armies need the same amount of firepower to dislodge that squad from cover.

I don't like debating on the basis of 'should', but facing any MEQ army, their transports should be gone by turn 2. Then that 1400 points of MEQ seems less scary walking towards you.

Going back to my original point, taking out an anti tank weapon in a MEQ squad if fine enough for me because it stops them from assualting my units. Wait wha...how does that work?

blocking units: kroot, piranhas, devilfish, maybe a hammerhead, will be able to get in the way of the squad and make it assualt the unit I want it to assualt. Kroot are fine because they are as dirt cheap as tau can get and will die on your opponent's assualt phase to a dedicated assualt unit, and will tarpit a regular marine squad. The vehicles are nice because of multi-trackers to let them shoot while going 12", which makes your opponent have to hit on 6s in their assualt phase. ANNNND if you have the points, flechettes dischargers are always fun

The reason tau are fine against MEQ is not the overwelming firepower they produce, but the way they can cripple and stall MEQ/ TEQ armies in a pinch

mythological wrote:Split up your post so it stopped hurting my eyes

True, we only have two plasma carriers in the tau army, but you know what, your going to have alot of the units which *can* carry plasma, and that 62 point suit not only has 2 wounds, but is a jack of all trades, which can take down vehicles, worth the points. And honestly, how many other things are you spending points on in your army aside from suits?

You say that it is detrimental to focus fire, I differ in my opinion as you have discounted pathfinders in your argument AND you are assuming that I have to completly annialate the unit to reduce their threat level. All I have to do is get rid of the plasma or melta or powerfist and that squad becomes way less of a theat, of course if I have to wipe out a MEQ squad completly off an objective, then it would take more then 1-2 units, but almost all armies need the same amount of firepower to dislodge that squad from cover.

I don't like debating on the basis of 'should', but facing any MEQ army, their transports should be gone by turn 2. Then that 1400 points of MEQ seems less scary walking towards you.

Going back to my original point, taking out an anti tank weapon in a MEQ squad if fine enough for me because it stops them from assualting my units. Wait wha...how does that work?

blocking units: kroot, piranhas, devilfish, maybe a hammerhead, will be able to get in the way of the squad and make it assualt the unit I want it to assualt. Kroot are fine because they are as dirt cheap as tau can get and will die on your opponent's assualt phase to a dedicated assualt unit, and will tarpit a regular marine squad. The vehicles are nice because of multi-trackers to let them shoot while going 12", which makes your opponent have to hit on 6s in their assualt phase. ANNNND if you have the points, flechettes dischargers are always fun

The reason tau are fine against MEQ is not the overwelming firepower they produce, but the way they can cripple and stall MEQ/ TEQ armies in a pinch

Problem is, in order to get rid of that powerfist/melta, you're gonna have to wipe the entire squad, because the opponent will know what you're trying to do, and he will obviously protect the melta over the bolter/fist. Second, i think that pathfinders are one of the best units in the codex, and that every army should run at least one squad. But, as said before, pathfinders will only negate cover saves, not armor saves which MEQ thrive on, and which tau has a difficult time cracking. Next, about the kroot/piranhas: they are useful units, but you're essentially giving up KP just to protect one squad of crisis or FW, which most likely will still not be able to kill those MEQ in the next turns of shooting. When they see that you do use the units for blocking/bubblewrapping, they'll just move to a different part of the army to attack instead. Tau are missing the 2 things that can severely hamper MEQs: widespread low AP weapons, and/or torrent of fire. None of our weapons (affordable ones anyway) can release torrent of fire enough to force enough saves to be failed. The 2 weapons we do have that are low AP (fusion/plasma) are both either expensive, or limited in range. As said before, the railgun should not fire at anything that isnt a vehicle or a 2+ save. Next, objective games are extremely difficult to play in aganst MEQ, as it is nearly impossible for tau to push marines off an objective, as the main way is assault, and massed firepower will still take attention away from the other parts of the army that are also a threat, even though they might be footing it all the way across the board.

/textwall

Just FYI, the only reason I use MEQ is because it's the standard, not because the Tau have any specific problem fighting them. Tau have a problem fighting anyone.

Don't underestimate Tau. Tau has one of the best anti-MSU (Broadsides with target locks and Fire Knife or Death Rain).

With the right tactics, Tau can deal with MEQ. The one army that they do have problems against is SW Missile Spam, mass BA FNP Assault Marines, and all TH/SS Terminator armies.

I'm trying out an experimental build where I mass 100 Kroots, which is the equivalent of 100 bolters, but at BS3.

If you have the models, you can try this list out:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/365294.page

I generally find my chances against MEQs are the same as against horde.

The only list I simply cannot beat is a drop pod list. I only have 1000pts but I usually either draw or win. Im not scared to play it dirty and castle either.

The issue with the Tau codex is that about 50% of the units are useless. So as soon as you get past 1000pts your thinking "what should I add?" the answer is "add what I already have"

The useful units are actually quite good at working together, its just if you asked 5 Tau players to make a 1500pts army list, im pretty sure they would all come back with very similar lists.

Tau troops choices are weak, kroot need assault weapons, but used en masse with the addition of kroot hounds they can actually make a mess of whatever they are fighting(case and point I wiped out an incubi squad last night while only taking 6 casualties).

I think if the Tau codex was redone it wouldnt be a huge overhaul, just some tweeking here and there.

I generally find my chances against MEQs are the same as against horde.

The only list I simply cannot beat is a drop pod list. I only have 1000pts but I usually either draw or win. Im not scared to play it dirty and castle either.

The issue with the Tau codex is that about 50% of the units are useless. So as soon as you get past 1000pts your thinking "what should I add?" the answer is "add what I already have"

The useful units are actually quite good at working together, its just if you asked 5 Tau players to make a 1500pts army list, im pretty sure they would all come back with very similar lists.

Tau troops choices are weak, kroot need assault weapons, but used en masse with the addition of kroot hounds they can actually make a mess of whatever they are fighting(case and point I wiped out an incubi squad last night while only taking 6 casualties).

I think if the Tau codex was redone it wouldnt be a huge overhaul, just some tweeking here and there.

+1

The tau don't need abundunt plasma or a huge torrent of fire because that would just be OTT, in my opinion, as it stand right now (speaking from my own experience) MEQ/ TEQ are my favorite army to face as tau because it is so easy to predict their moves and out-play them.

The worst army for tau to play against would probably be horde armies, because of the lack of firepower as was mentioned before, well, unless you have flechettes on your vehicles

And as to the comment on KP: 1. only a primary senario 1/3 of the time, if that 2. So what, I lost a kroot KP in order to leave a MEQ/ TEQ unit in the open, works for me. You can't worry about KPs when your Tau because you WILL lose units, you just got to aim at those nice vehicles we have no problem taking out to rack up the easy KPs

either way you see it, Tau rely heavily on Crisis suits. You could take stealth suits, but Crisis are better. You could take vespids, but Crisis are better. You could take sniper drones but Crisis are better. Its not neccessarily a bad thing but crisis suits are expensive(both money & points)

The new codex would have to move away from this reliance. Also adding mobility for troops would be great. So many times ive found myself in objective games trying to take an objective but being scared of moving away from my own castle.

Kroot maybe the answer but you cant guarantee the outflank will come in the right place and they will be able to kill whatever is on the objective.

I know nothing beyond what I've read in this thread about tau, but the fact crisis suits have the same BS as sm scouts amuses me greatly. What about just upgrading all units bs by one or two? Seems to me a shooty army should have decent ballistic skill, not the same ballistic skills as a newbie in a space marine force or a standard guardsman >.>

indeed, the technology of Tau is also alot better than anything the imperium can muster...surely targetting would improve accuracy? No? ok....

A major problem with the tau that i have found agains MEQ is that they are incapable of dealing with deep-striking units. The thing is the 30" range (though the tau have a low bs and a high ap) lets you have a least a couple of turns of picking off people (even if it is only one or two) before you get to assult ranges. Not many armys can effectively out range tau (except mayby the Guard) and it is useful (though not all the time) to use that range.

However i concour the point that XV8's NEED a higher BS to be competative. It seem absurd to have such an expensive unit upgraded with a expensive gun to have a 50% chance of it being wasted, and lets face it XV8's are not that sutble they will draw alot of fire and without a better chance of hitting ii find they can be left somewhat defenceless.

MEQs are a very difficult army to deal with as Tau. Is it because of the fact they are MEQs? No, it's because the main MEQ army (Space Marines) can field many varied armies that are competative.

Land Raider spam is quite easy to deal with, but have you tried dealing with Khan outflanks or Shrike armies? Deep-striking causes all hell to break loose, and the abundance of cover means our markerlights go on whittling it down before they can bring our BS up (if there are any markers left).

The weapons MEQs can take are also varied; they can take heavy bolters to pelt our units with fire from a safe distance, they can take plasma to shoot down crisis suits that dare to get close (meaning that we need to keep jumping to 24" and back out, so we only ever get 1 plasma rifle shot per suit, with the only other weapon we could possibly take being a missile pod because nothing else can out-range plasmaguns).

Meltaguns are their answer to suits that get close; try and take on a squad in cover, you might kill one with your fusion blaster of rapid-fired plasma rifle, but next turn they'll move out, blast you in the face with a meltagun and rapid fire any other wounds down with bolters. Missile launchers also allow them to snipe our suits before they even get close.

Space Wolves are one of our worst match-ups. If they take a rune priest with Jaws in a drop pod and plant him behind our lines, we can say goodbye to any broadsides he can line himself up with. Razorback spam might seem good, but if they spend turn 1 moving up and popping smoke, next turn all there'll be is empty transports firing lascannons at us. With Long Fangs splitting krak fire between crisis teams, we can do absolutely nothing.

Blood Angels are almost as bad, their strengths being able to deep-strike with great efficiency and blast you apart you with melta weapons whilst blood lance snipes anything dangerous.

GKs are easier due to their small units, but with no psychic defense whatosever, we've exposed a huge weakness. If the plasma siphon gets FAQ'd to include Plasma Rifles, we might as well watch the effectiveness of our crisis suits fly out of the window. Whilst not an auto-lose, it is a match-up that where any mistake or bad luck we have will work against us moreso than versus other armies.

Necrons are also a very tough opponent unless you tailor towards them by using kroot hordes. All they need are large warriors units and a res orb. Tau cannot put out enough shots to kill off large amounts of necrons in range of a res orb lord before they reach us.

This happened to me, 40 warriors and a lord + c'tan and monolith (the latter two were ignored mostly, since it was a KP game and the only possibly way I could win was to phase them out, since I had too many relatively squishy units) were my opponents, and by the end of the game i'd killed 13 warriors. 13. With a fireknife HQ, 3 elite slots worth of fireknife crisis suits, two broadsides, two hammerheads, 30 fire warriors and a pathfinder unit.

Sisters will also be difficult. Exorcists can blast our crisis suits to kingdom come, and we won't be able to put out enough firepower to kill anything against a competent sisters player.

Even vanilla SM give us trouble. A fast army will have us on our knees very early on, and since our only troops are fragile, objectives games will be an uphill struggle as we fight to keep our troops alive until we can make late objective grabs.

Sure, we can beat most of these armies, but can we do it with a standard all-comers list? No, we cannot, and THAT is why we need an overhaul. Just because we CAN do it, doesn't mean that we will. We CAN beat necrons warrior spam + orb, but will that same list beat a BA army or a standard SM army? It's doubtful, you'll have to change your list, but will that changed list then be able to beat that Sisters army or that Shrike army? Again, you'd need to change it.

When an army list needs to be changed in order to have a chance against your next opponent, something is wrong.

i think that might of been the point....to make you think more carefully where you jump shoot jump and when but yes better BS for suits but then again the bodyguard and shas'o have the bs 4 and the shas'el has the bs5

Here's my big question about tau vs MEQ armies: Is there any way for tau to kill just a basic 190 pt marine squad in cover without resorting to directing 300+ points toward or kitting suits just for that purpose? Therein lies my criticism of the army and its potential against MEQ. Judging the difficulty of a whole army just to deal with a commonly seen 1/7 of another.

@ Avatar

The armies you pointed out (aside from Necrons, SOB, and Space Marines, which are easily dealt with by using proper blocking units, which you had none of when you described your army) are very competitive and it is not just Tau that have a problem with them

Its like saying that a nuclear bomb would destroy humans, but neglecting to say that the thing would take out anything else as well.

While you make very valid points which cannot be argued, the fact is that ALL armies have to deal with the same things, and in many cases with the same difficulty as we do. I'm not saying that tau are uber-competitive, but am saying that they can hold their own in a fight (as long as its not one of the knife variety )

If it's near a board edge, outflank 20 Kroot and you might have a chance in combat, if you get lucky with the board edge.

Apart from that, the lasguns markerlights you have to flash at the squad will take up the majority of the points used on taking the marines down, and removing cover is the cheapest way of killing them.

Avatar 720 wrote:

polari wrote:For the firewarriors and markerlight issue the shas'ui can take a markerlight if you have overlapping fields of fire have them markerlight for each other. i dont even have pathfinders in my army i just use firewarriors and stealth teams and honestly its psych out for the opponents cuz its not just 1 unit with markrelights they need to worry about

And what happens when those lone markerlights miss 50% of the time? At least with Pathfinders, what you intend to light up is usually lit up; with single markerlights you need to hit, otherwise you need another markerlight to tear away from its intended target and light up the other instead, and if that misses you need another etc. etc.

The one time I went up against an army with Markerlight Pathfinders, I was able to take them down by turn three with sustained fire from Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against Markerlight Shas'ui, I have to take the units down one at a time, which is a lot more painstaking.

mythological wrote:@ Avatar

The armies you pointed out (aside from Necrons, SOB, and Space Marines, which are easily dealt with by using proper blocking units, which you had none of when you described your army) are very competitive and it is not just Tau that have a problem with them

Its like saying that a nuclear bomb would destroy humans, but neglecting to say that the thing would take out anything else as well.

While you make very valid points which cannot be argued, the fact is that ALL armies have to deal with the same things, and in many cases with the same difficulty as we do. I'm not saying that tau are uber-competitive, but am saying that they can hold their own in a fight (as long as its not one of the knife variety )

Easily dealt with? No. Kroot will be flamered down by sisters, hosed down by marines, and the nightbringer can simply go in and hold up kroot for all eternity if the warriors haven't already flayed them down with 20/40 shots (13.34 hits from non-rapid fired gauss sees 8.89 dead kroot. In any sized unit that's more than 25% casualties and they're testing on Ld7 to not run the hell away. Proper blocking units don't work against armies that can kill/ignore them. The only way I could kill that necron army was if I had maxed out my troops with Kroot; the monolith's particle whip, the nightbringer and the hail of fire would elimnate any 'blocking units' I could put in the way, and would've lost me even more kill points.

I'm not arguing that Tau can't hold themselves in a fight, i'm arguing against how MEQ armies are seen as easy wins for Tau, when they aren't.


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Your Friend Doctor Robert wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

polari wrote:For the firewarriors and markerlight issue the shas'ui can take a markerlight if you have overlapping fields of fire have them markerlight for each other. i dont even have pathfinders in my army i just use firewarriors and stealth teams and honestly its psych out for the opponents cuz its not just 1 unit with markrelights they need to worry about

And what happens when those lone markerlights miss 50% of the time? At least with Pathfinders, what you intend to light up is usually lit up; with single markerlights you need to hit, otherwise you need another markerlight to tear away from its intended target and light up the other instead, and if that misses you need another etc. etc.

The one time I went up against an army with Markerlight Pathfinders, I was able to take them down by turn three with sustained fire from Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against Markerlight Shas'ui, I have to take the units down one at a time, which is a lot more painstaking.

'One time' and 'heavy bolters and assault cannons' being the main points i'm going to focus on here. One time means sod all; I killed a unit of 6 harlies win a round of CC with 10 Fire Warriors one time, does that mean FWs are now win in CC?

Plus the 'heavy bolters and assault cannons' needing to be sustained before they killed them took up how many points of your army exactly? The pathfinders might've died, but the Tau army spent 3 turns without heavy bolters and assault cannons being aimed at anything else.

Easily dealt with? No. Kroot will be flamered down by sisters, hosed down by marines, and the nightbringer can simply go in and hold up kroot for all eternity if the warriors haven't already flayed them down with 20/40 shots (13.34 hits from non-rapid fired gauss sees 8.89 dead kroot. In any sized unit that's more than 25% casualties and they're testing on Ld7 to not run the hell away. Proper blocking units don't work against armies that can kill/ignore them. The only way I could kill that necron army was if I had maxed out my troops with Kroot; the monolith's particle whip, the nightbringer and the hail of fire would elimnate any 'blocking units' I could put in the way, and would've lost me even more kill points.

I'm not arguing that Tau can't hold themselves in a fight, i'm arguing against how MEQ armies are seen as easy wins for Tau, when they aren't.

weird...I always was under the illusion that a meatshield of kroot was to get in the way of something and die...hmph

The important part is that the enemy is attacking my 100 point (10 kroot, 5 hounds for me) unit which are getting in the way off more important resourse.

You can say they die for the Greater Good

They're not simply meant to fall over, that's called a free kill-point. They're meant to be a road bump; something you can use to hold an enemy up for more than a single shooting phase.

If it's an objectives game, you just lost yourself a scoring unit; if it's KPs, you just gave away a free KP and didn't actually stop anything.

Sisters won't really care if they're flamering Kroot, because their weapons won't exactly be shooting much else unless you were careless with your crisis placement. If you can lay down two flamer templates and 16 bolter shots on a unit, then do so, you'll have moved anyway so chances are your bolters can't shoot anything else.

Necrons, again, will have been moving, so will only have the kroot to shoot-up, and why wouldn't you? Running would mean that next turn you'd just be assaulted.

Similarly so with marines, bolters + moving = nothing to shoot but the kroot in your way.

Bubble-wrapping your units is better than simply sticking a unit between you and the enemy, but since sisters will be blasting your suits apart with S8 AP1 Exorcist missiles and Necrons can particle whip the bubble-wrap unit into oblivion, it's only really vanilla marines that will have to chew through them when they get there, since there's a lack of blast templates that wouldn't be better spent elsewhere; only the Whirlwind really offers you a reliable bubble-wrap-away template, and it just so happens that they're never taken.

Dreadnoughts deep-striking might be an issue. He comes out and hides behind the pod, pod dies, he shoots and assaults, he wins.

Hmm... i just heard an interesting idea that might make tau more of a threat to MEQ: assuming that they get BS4, would an opportunity to make BCs into rail rifles be an okay thing for Stealthsuits to get?

Your Friend Doctor Robert wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

polari wrote:For the firewarriors and markerlight issue the shas'ui can take a markerlight if you have overlapping fields of fire have them markerlight for each other. i dont even have pathfinders in my army i just use firewarriors and stealth teams and honestly its psych out for the opponents cuz its not just 1 unit with markrelights they need to worry about

And what happens when those lone markerlights miss 50% of the time? At least with Pathfinders, what you intend to light up is usually lit up; with single markerlights you need to hit, otherwise you need another markerlight to tear away from its intended target and light up the other instead, and if that misses you need another etc. etc.

The one time I went up against an army with Markerlight Pathfinders, I was able to take them down by turn three with sustained fire from Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons. Meanwhile, whenever I go up against Markerlight Shas'ui, I have to take the units down one at a time, which is a lot more painstaking.

Which is the main reason i do it lol plus it lets me mark several enemy units and not just one....well that and i dont have pathfinders


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woo im a sniper drone now lol