What army is the Tau weak against?

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**junk**

Man, I love Tau; I love awful, fluffy farsight enclave tau, just crisis suits everywhere with all sorts of unnecessary wargear and just drones everywhere...

I win often enough that I'm not crying about how outdated the codex is (also because I don't want a new codex to come along and take farsight away), but against some armies, I can't help feeling that I need to get lucky to win before the first unit is placed.

It does feel nice to be able to rip apart space wolves and grey knights competitive lists as if they were typical casual sunday afternoon at the FLGS rosters; but then to roll over on turn 2 vs a mediocre Van list because your opponent is playing shrike; or a tyranid player because your opponent is playing shrikes.

Tau were the first models I painted (and the first models I stripped and repainted), converted, magnetized, dropped off the table and accidentally stepped on.

What were we talking about?

**obsidianaura**

labmouse42 wrote:
obsidianaura wrote:Well what GKs do is they take a Tech Marine with Servo-Skulls, a model with Psychic Communion perferably a GKGM, Several Squads of GKSS and dreadknight/Riflemen Dreads or 2

The Servo Skulls deploy close to the Tau lines (but not so close as to be removed by tau movement.)

The Tech Marine bolsters defenses on some ruins and the Rifleman Dreads set up there gaining a 3+ Cover save, stands by to repair any damage if needed.

Then Strike Squads deepstrike on the servo-skulls and will land safely. And then cut into the Tau with with stormbolters and psycannons.

You can flank with your dreadknights and get into combat as fast as possible using grand strat
Here is the thing. I have not seen a competitive GK list with dreadknights or Servo Skulls.
Don't Tau have markerlights to get rid of cover? It seems they would be the one army capable to handling the dreads.
Stormbolters and psycannons deep striking are not going to do all that much to a set of suits with drones. Remember, the psycannons are assault 2 on the move. That means that even 10 strike marines dropping in is going to have 20 shots. You can expect to make 10 saves on your squad if hes using psybolt ammo. I'm sure it will hurt, but it wont wipe out your suits and drones. Your return fire with plasma, on the other hand, will.
All that is elementary, however, as most GKs don't bring those either.

With GK armies your going to face one of three builds
* Henchmen spam with Psybacks
* Purifier spam
* Draigowing
Tau have the tools to handle all 3 of these.

Here is why you don't see Tau in tourneys. While you can have a good matchup vs. 50% of the people you will be playing, you will have a poor matchup vs the other 50%. Unless you get GK every round, a Tau army is not one to take to a tourney. (Although I would consider bringing one just so I could stick it to any GKs i did play)

This list works well for me so far althought only theory vs Tau, there will be a lot of seperate targets (combat squads) as well the flanking Dreadknights all very likely appearing turn 2, so it'll be hard to spread the fire to so many seperate targets. Chances are they will charge after only 1 turn of being fired at.

I suppose the advantage with GKs vs Tau gets greater the higher points limits are.

In smaller games I think its hard for GKs to afford things that work.

**maceria**

I've tried putting my Etherial with my broads a few times, and every time they receive double the volume of fire, and he still dies pretty quick.

I love my Tau, outdated or not. The fluffyness and style is awesome. They CAN be competitive, but it's hard, and hard is fun. If I wanted easy I'd play Space Marines.

**ruminator**

Surprised no mention of Nids. A stealer spam list can cause them massive problems as can tervigon/gant spam.

**Miraclefish**

I've found that a good Tau list can still take apart the Dual Lash/Rhino/Plague Marines build if played properly.

One of my fondest gaming memories is an opponent who had two Plague squads in front of two Rhinos in front of a Defiler, who said "Go on then, lets see you take down any of these!"

At which point my markerlights lit his defiler up like a Christmas tree and one of my Broadsides destroyed it with a single shot.

**notabot187**

Miraclefish wrote:I've found that a good Tau list can still take apart the Dual Lash/Rhino/Plague Marines build if played properly.

One of my fondest gaming memories is an opponent who had two Plague squads in front of two Rhinos in front of a Defiler, who said "Go on then, lets see you take down any of these!"

At which point my markerlights lit his defiler up like a Christmas tree and one of my Broadsides destroyed it with a single shot.

The FAQ put the final nail in the dual lash coffin. Not that it has been good since 5ed lists started appearing.

Sounds like your chaos opponent was a scrub. Defilers are comically easy for tau to take out. Plagues in the open vs tau is just asking for plasma death.

To the point of the original question: Tau are weak against every army if they are played by the typical player. A good general can make tau work against any army though. Figuring out how to fight in depth and do the JSJ dance with tau is a skill that many people just don't master.

To be fair its not really their fault. Most options tau have are noob traps. The number of good builds for each point level can be counted on one hand. Actually playing these builds correctly is also difficult to master. But when its all said and done once you HAVE mastered this, you can win against some of the better lists even piloted by good players.

TLDR: Tau have a steep learning curve and are unforgiving to new players.

**samus5678**

notabot187 wrote:TLDR: Tau have a steep learning curve and are unforgiving to new players.

I will agree as someone who is new to the game and starting with tau. I would say that any army can easily table the tau if they don't have broadsides or a hammerhead, and kroot or farsight is basically it for assault. From what I have seen from other armies, tau seem like an easier beginner army compared to sisters for example.