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 JGrand wrote:
I don't know exactly what they are doing better than you besides shooting (which is vague in and of itself).

A standard competitive Necron list (1-2 DLords, 2-3 units of Wraiths, 4-5 units of Warriors in Night Scythes, 3 Annibarges) has some major advantages over Tau.

-Better speed by far
-Better assault capabilities
-Better board control
-More durable (well, aside from Riptides of course)
-More survivable Troops (Tau will have numbers though)

I'm not saying Tau are bad (they may be the best army right now) or that Tau aren't a bad matchup for Necrons (they certainly can be). I am mainly disputing that Tau are "better at said speciality than Necrons." There are still many categories in which the Tau are outclassed.

Sure, Tau will solidly outshoot Crons; however, you have to always keep the mission in mind. You don't need to kill every last Tau unit, enslave their children, and then salt the earth for good measure in order to win a game of 40k. Use your aggressive units to pin them back for as long as possible. Use your speed to grab objectives. Hope the game ends when you need it to.

-Better speed by far, true but who cares, you get no coversave anyway
-Better assault capabilities, true but once some survivors get there they die to overwatch cheese
-Better board control, again if there is los blocking terrain
-More durable (well, aside from Riptides of course) 2+ cover after their defense line... nah
-More survivable Troops (Tau will have numbers though), uh??? same as above, and riptide missile suits are hard to kill.

A standard competitive Necron list (1-2 DLords, 2-3 units of Wraiths, 4-5 units of Warriors in Night Scythes, 3 Annibarges) has some major advantages over Tau. ???

that is where some are dead wrong, that is a fail against necrons, wraiths die to tons of shots and what do Tau have tons of shots all wounding at 3's or better believe me wraiths die fast, barges can be glanced to death by missile suits. They have the shots for it. Scythes are good, but he will kill one each turn and 1 or two when they come in.
Again all depends on the terrain and the mission, but anything where he can camp on objectives will be very difficult to impossible.

Tau are the nemesis of cron atm. Altough again a decent terrained table should make this playable, it will be an uphill battle the whole time.

Sample Tau list as reference:

Commander, 2+, Missiles, plasma, puretide, interceptor

3 suits plasma, missiles
3 suits plasma, melta

10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
15 Kroot

Markerlight drones

3 Missilesuits, interceptor
3 Missilesuits, interceptor

Aegis, Quadgun

loner wrote:
I saw the title of this thread and the first I thought was that you should consider drowining your opponents in bodies. It generally solves most problems.

Would you care to post your list and your opponent's list? Then we can have a look and perhaps see what's possible.

I would, but it's more a generic discussion than a single problem for me. I'm actually yet to face tau so I don't know. But for me at 2500pts I run;
Overlord on foot
3 lords (2 scythe one voidblade)
Destructek
Stormtek
Despairtek
D.Lord
5 Lychguard (sword and shield)
Stalker
10 warriors
15 warriors
5 Gauus Immortals and 5 Tesla
5 Scarab bases
3 destroyers
5 wraits (4 coils one beamer)
Doom Scythe
Doomsday Ark
Monolith


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and Valek you can't just say crons never beat tau cos they do. Not always, but they do. So don't just put the crons down cos tau win more often, it happens. Besides, with the right general and a bit of luck anything is possible. It's not an autoloss.

-Better speed by far, true but who cares, you get no coversave anyway
-Better assault capabilities, true but once some survivors get there they die to overwatch cheese
-Better board control, again if there is los blocking terrain
-More durable (well, aside from Riptides of course) 2+ cover after their defense line... nah
-More survivable Troops (Tau will have numbers though), uh??? same as above, and riptide missile suits are hard to kill.

A standard competitive Necron list (1-2 DLords, 2-3 units of Wraiths, 4-5 units of Warriors in Night Scythes, 3 Annibarges) has some major advantages over Tau. ???

that is where some are dead wrong, that is a fail against necrons, wraiths die to tons of shots and what do Tau have tons of shots all wounding at 3's or better believe me wraiths die fast, barges can be glanced to death by missile suits. They have the shots for it. Scythes are good, but he will kill one each turn and 1 or two when they come in.
Again all depends on the terrain and the mission, but anything where he can camp on objectives will be very difficult to impossible.

Tau are the nemesis of cron atm. Altough again a decent terrained table should make this playable, it will be an uphill battle the whole time.

I did mention in my post that it isn't a great matchup and that Tau may be the best army in 40k right now--so, I don't disagree. However, I also mentioned that Cron players and everyone else in general has to keep the mission in mind. Those Tau troops die pretty quick if you can bring some templates down on them (I know that not everyone has this). Having the ability to threaten Tau and make them castle up for a few turns is the best you can do at times, but that can be enough to win the mission.

Overall, the point of my post was to respond to the idea that Crons do nothing better than Tau.

 Valek wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Necrons out-tough everyone. That's what they're way better at than anyone else ever - very hard to kill for their points.

Very true, but it won't beat a shooty Tau force cos 1 in 3 gets up again cos they'll outshoot the Crons and whittle them down

Should be 1 in 2 gets up again - bring those res-orbs! And 20-man warrior phalanxes are hard to whittle down, while you use wraiths / scarabs / destroyers /other fast things to tie up the tau in Close Combat while the Necron phalanxes get close enough to assault - at which point THEY will be the ones doing the whittling.

Think you should read the Tau codex again, if the Tau can keep their line up you will never get into hth, plain and simple, 20 warriors will go down in one shooting phase no rez protocols for you my friend.
The only answer in beating Tau is hoping that they have LOS blocking terrain and lots of them or its autoloss for every army.

Please, no. Tau generally have an advantage on a sparse terrain board, I'll give you that. But even with little to no terrain, a speedy Daemons list can still run over a Tau gunline, IG Arty Carriage Armies can definitely outshoot them, and shooty DE can annihilate them (although to be fair, only if going first)

You shouldn't play on a sparse terrain board, shooty tau or no.

A lot of complaints about the game stem from improper terrain from my experience. If you play with a proper amount of terrain the game is quite good actually.

At least 30% of the board surface area should be covered, and half of the pieces should be able to at least partially block LoS to even the largest model.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You shouldn't play on a sparse terrain board, shooty tau or no.

A lot of complaints about the game stem from improper terrain from my experience. If you play with a proper amount of terrain the game is quite good actually.

At least 30% of the board surface area should be covered, and half of the pieces should be able to at least partially block LoS to even the largest model.

I agree totally terrain is a big help in games (ask DE). But if you simply don't have funds for terrain (usually cos its all been spent on the models you want) you're kind of up the proverbial.

 Valek wrote:

Sample Tau list as reference:

Commander, 2+, Missiles, plasma, puretide, interceptor

3 suits plasma, missiles
3 suits plasma, melta

10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
15 Kroot

Markerlight drones

3 Missilesuits, interceptor
3 Missilesuits, interceptor

Aegis, Quadgun

Just thinking aloud, but wouldn't the old AV13 spam list work reasonable against that? Missile pods can only glance an Ark/Barge/Stalker on a 6 so quantum shielding will never drop from missiles and they only have one unit that can deal with high armor values easily.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You shouldn't play on a sparse terrain board, shooty tau or no.

A lot of complaints about the game stem from improper terrain from my experience. If you play with a proper amount of terrain the game is quite good actually.

At least 30% of the board surface area should be covered, and half of the pieces should be able to at least partially block LoS to even the largest model.

100% correct, but that is generally every game you play even in local tournaments a big issue.

And that was my point, as a gunline some armies are about unbeatable when they get the objectives in their deployement and cower after their aegis defenseline... again not every army has large templates in quantities enough to worry the bunched up gunline.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strat_N8 wrote:

 Valek wrote:

Sample Tau list as reference:

Commander, 2+, Missiles, plasma, puretide, interceptor

3 suits plasma, missiles
3 suits plasma, melta

10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
10 Firewarriors, champ with markerlight and may shoot other unit
15 Kroot

Markerlight drones

3 Missilesuits, interceptor
3 Missilesuits, interceptor

Aegis, Quadgun

Just thinking aloud, but wouldn't the old AV13 spam list work reasonable against that? Missile pods can only glance an Ark/Barge/Stalker on a 6 so quantum shielding will never drop from missiles and they only have one unit that can deal with high armor values easily.

Forgot the railgun hvysupport tank in their but that is only one, altough yes av13 spam is something he still has more than 20 twinlinked S7 shots it will glance them to death. Not all at once but still they will start suffering fast, then again when you come to them they will cower at the defense line, if you dont they will shoot you out of your range...

So again you are in need of enough LOS terrain, and not having the Tau sitting on two crap objectives fo the four to have a possible match up, and then the skill of Generals will be the deciding factor

That sample Tau list has enough S7 shots to glance to death 1 AV13 skimmer per turn, on average. That's not exactly a massive existential threat. You could easily run 3x Annihilation Barges, and then Warriors in Ghost Arks.

A sample Necron list:

Overlord with MSS, Warscythe, 2+ save, Rez Orb
Overlord with MSS, Warscythe, 2+ save, Rez Orb
2x Royal Court with:
- Despairtek with Veil
- 2x Despairteks
- Cryptek with Chrono
- Lord with Warscythe, 2+ save, MSS
4x7 Warriors in Ghost Arks
3x Annihilation Barges

The Overlords, along with a Chronotek and Despairtek, join 2 squads of warriors; the remaining 2 squads get Lords with Despairtek and Veiltek. They charge the lines to dump lots of delicious templates and gauss fire into them at point blank range before assaulting. Annibarges of course do their thing. Ghost Arks and Rez Orbs make them resilient, and in the end the Veilteks bampf the two warrior squads onto far away objectives via Deep Strike. All his anti-air is wasted, and you'll get the majority of your forces into his lines on turn 2-ish.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Necrons out-tough everyone. That's what they're way better at than anyone else ever - very hard to kill for their points.

I would say that nurgle daemons can out-toughness crons pretty well, but they lack the shooting and CC that necrons have.