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I play Tau, and will be playing against my Eldar friend this week. He frequently uses a Seer Council (Farseer+Fortune, 3x Destructor Warlocks, 1x Enchance Warlock) mounted on jetbikes.
This unit really freaks me out, as it will probably kill anything it touches, moves fast, and is able to withstand lots of fire.
My army doesn't have any auxillaries, and he allowed me to field XV9 Hazard suits.

What would be the most effective way to counter this unit as Tau? I was thinking about pouring lots of S6+ fire into it, in the hope of instant killing the Farseer, removing fortune. But that means i would have to ignore the rest of his army... Which will probably blast me appart.


Any advice would we appreciated.

Kroot. Lots of kroot. They're inexpensive and the number of attacks a jetseer council gets won't kill enough in combat to dent the kroot. Taking 20 Kroot and 6 hounds costs 176pts and the council need to kill 7 to force a leadership check whilst weathering 40 Carnivore attacks (60 on the charge) and 12 Hound attacks (18 on the charge).

You cost significantly less than the jet council, and even if you keep them in combat for most the game it'll be points well spent. Anything that survives the kroot should be easily shot down; there shouldn't be many survivors from several turns of that combat.

Kroot tend do quite badly against heavy flamers. If a council gets charged by 20 kroots and 6 hounds someone has done something terrible bad.

Tau suffer against Councils since you have no way of stopping fortune. best thing you can do is pump str 6 shots into them first turn. If you go first he wont have fortune up. The council your friend uses is way to small tho so be glad for that

If I get the first turn, and he deploys normally it won't really be a problem. But if that happens he will probably keep everything in reserve.
Can farseers cast forune on the turn they come in from reserve? Or do they have to be on the table at the start of the turn to do that?

I don't think kroot would work that well, as Tedurur said you would need to charge him, or you would end up being killed by Destructor. Even is he is stupid enough to be charged by the kroot, the council will probably kill ~7 kroot, and you might kill 2 Warlocks. The kroot would most likely fail their morale test and have a 50% chance to be run down. This would mean 3 or 4 members of the council would still be alive, which is more than enough to kill any non-kroot Tau unit in close combat.

The problem with the 'S6 shots' idea is that there will probably also be 6 Warwalkers with 2 SL firing at me, which would need the attention of those S6+ weapons to.

Avatar 720 wrote:Kroot. Lots of kroot. They're inexpensive and the number of attacks a jetseer council gets won't kill enough in combat to dent the kroot. Taking 20 Kroot and 6 hounds costs 176pts and the council need to kill 7 to force a leadership check whilst weathering 40 Carnivore attacks (60 on the charge) and 12 Hound attacks (18 on the charge).

You cost significantly less than the jet council, and even if you keep them in combat for most the game it'll be points well spent. Anything that survives the kroot should be easily shot down; there shouldn't be many survivors from several turns of that combat.

Kroot lose first round of combat, then fail leadership and die.... How on earth would Kroot keep a Seer Council in combat for more than one turn? Unless the seers had terrible terrible hit/wound rolling?
+ Seer council shooting Kroot before going into combat

andTi-ops question, Fortune is done before ANYTHING which means can't do it from reserve ( so also, if your seer council opponent rolls for reserves before casting fortune, then don't let them cast fortune )

Kroot lose first round of combat, then fail leadership and die.... How on earth would Kroot keep a Seer Council in combat for more than one turn? Unless the seers had terrible terrible hit/wound rolling?
+ Seer council shooting Kroot before going into combat

Kroot assumes you've at least had the common sense to shoot them a bit first. You can also outflank them if you have a feeling the council will be near a board edge.

Kroot are good anyway, whilst the council is up at your end, your kroot appear at the other end and tear into the shooty squads. Mechdar is harder to deal with, but there hasn't been a mention of it yet, so i'm not assuming anything.

But anyway, throwing kroot at them and nothing else won't get you anywhere, I thought shooting them a bit would've been a bit of a given... I was obviously wrong.

To be clear, his army will probably look something like this:

Seer Council

Dire Avengers or Guardians in wave serpents
Occasionally some Fire Dragons in Serpents.

2x 3 Warwalkers with scatterlasers
Wraithlord.
( OR 3 Warwalkers and 2 Wraithlords.)

How big is the game? What do you have available? In a 2k game I would have 6 broadsides. 2 turns of that with markerlight support should pretty much remove them. Railguns will instant kill them and allow no normal armor save. If they are boosting for saves user markers to remove otherwise just light them up, they will fail their default ++ save a lot quicker than the 3+

Well, you said they can kill any non-kroot tau in close combat easily, which isn't strictly true, as long as you're good at making 4+ armour saves, a unit of FWs can hold them for quite a while.

Apart from that, there isn't a whole lot. Shooting will kill them eventually, but that's it...

@Melch - Problem with railguns is that they have a 4+ re-rollable invulnerable save (re-roll from fortune). Half of the time, that falcon or wave-serpent killer will do sweet FA against those locks.

We're playing 1500 points.
My list will be something along the lines of:

Fireknife 'O with pos relay

3x Fireknives
3x Deathrains
3x Another suit configuration (I normally use twin-burst + flamer and a teamleader with AFP for anti horde)

3x 6 man Firewarrior squads + Devilfishes with DP (2 of which are from the Pathfinders)

2x 5 man Pathfinder squads

2x railheads

@Melchiour: As it is a friendly game I can substitute anything I would need. I don't really see the benefit of firing at them with Railguns while Plasma would have the exact same effect.

Donwgrade the O to an El, Os are wasteful at this points level. Positional Relay is only good for deep striking, which is very risky; I prefer to start them on the ground and behind cover with all units on the board instead of hoping they manage to come down.

Flechettes on your fish can deter the Jetcouncil if they decide to charge them.

Broadsides instead of railheads are also favourable; drop one railhead and get two broadsides (if you've set the railheads up properly (railgun, burst cannons, disruption pods and multi-tracker) then you should be able to afford two broadsides with ASS or TA and still have 5pts left over.

The other suit config might be nice as Burst Cannon + Missile Pod. You're putting out 5 shots a time that are wounding mostly 1W models (the warlocks) on 2s and are still relatively cheap. Otherwise, Fireknives might be better; less shots, but more AP from the plasma and a better range. Flamers might (note, might) be okay if you run them twin-linked for re-rolling wounds.

I'd use a pathfinder squad with a high vantage point. The only way to get them with tau is to pump a lot of shot into them. And this is a situation where Sniper drones might not be so bad, but rail rifles could do pretty good, or maybe throw some in with the pathfinders.

Think of it like this, if he deploys first you have a low chance of being able to shoot at him, but if you go first, he'll deploy in a way where you can't see him.

But yeah use the markerlights to increase the BS on your fire warriors. 2-3 squads hitting on 2+ and wounding on 3+ should be more than enough to take out a decent chunk of them. Really what you have to do is deploy in a position where he has to be wide out in the open, so you can shoot them to death.

If you're willing to give it a shot, maybe put a vehicle with a small squad inside, in a place where only the council has a good chance to get it. This way he destroys it and kills the squad inside in assault. Naturally the squad dies, but then you use the opportunity to rapidfire it with everything you have.

And this is a situation where Sniper drones might not be so bad

Much the contrary; BS2(3) with a single rail rifle vs a re-rollable 4+ invulnerable save is just as effective as a Battlesuit's plasma rifle.

Avatar 720 wrote:Donwgrade the O to an El, Os are wasteful at this points level. Positional Relay is only good for deep striking, which is very risky; I prefer to start them on the ground and behind cover with all units on the board instead of hoping they manage to come down.

Flechettes on your fish can deter the Jetcouncil if they decide to charge them.

Broadsides instead of railheads are also favourable; drop one railhead and get two broadsides (if you've set the railheads up properly (railgun, burst cannons, disruption pods and multi-tracker) then you should be able to afford two broadsides with ASS or TA and still have 5pts left over.

The other suit config might be nice as Burst Cannon + Missile Pod. You're putting out 5 shots a time that are wounding mostly 1W models (the warlocks) on 2s and are still relatively cheap. Otherwise, Fireknives might be better; less shots, but more AP from the plasma and a better range. Flamers might (note, might) be okay if you run them twin-linked for re-rolling wounds.

I prefer railheads over Broadsides. I don't encouter that much AV 13 or 14 vehicles, and any AV 10, 11 or 12 ones are dealth with by the Deathrains or fireknives, so i mainly use the submunition rounds on the railheads. Also, Railheads are more mobile, and have an AV, which takes fire away from the Devilfishes carrying troops.

I'll change the 'O with Pos relay out for an 'El with a TA, which gives me around 25 points, and try the BC + MP config.

Soulx wrote:But yeah use the markerlights to increase the BS on your fire warriors. 2-3 squads hitting on 2+ and wounding on 3+ should be more than enough to take out a decent chunk of them. Really what you have to do is deploy in a position where he has to be wide out in the open, so you can shoot them to death.

Mathammer! 1 shot * 5/6 chance of hitting * 2/3 chance of wounding * 1/3 of getting past 3+ * 1/3 again since he's got fortune = 5/81 ~ 6.17% chance of killing one per shot.

That leads to an average of 16 shots to kill a single warlock in the group. You're gonna need a lot of fire warriors to feel confident in doing enough damage that you won't lose your scoring units.

I'm an IG player, and the Seer Council is really rough for me, too. IG really don't have any answers that are good. My tactic thus far has been to deal with the rest of the army if it's seriously threatening, like Wraithlords that are too close. If nothing provides an immediate threat the next turn, put the rest of your firepower at the council.

The lucky thing is that their lack of power weapons means they can be tarpitted by something with a good save. I've seen terminators hold them off for ages. Maybe assault them with a unit of suits? Your 3+ and multiple wounds might be able to hold them off for some turns, if you can avoid being swept.

Avatar 720 wrote:

And this is a situation where Sniper drones might not be so bad

Much the contrary; BS2(3) with a single rail rifle vs a re-rollable 4+ invulnerable save is just as effective as a Battlesuit's plasma rifle.

Well it's actually BS3(4) and the spotter has a networked markerlight too.

ElCheezus wrote:

Soulx wrote:But yeah use the markerlights to increase the BS on your fire warriors. 2-3 squads hitting on 2+ and wounding on 3+ should be more than enough to take out a decent chunk of them. Really what you have to do is deploy in a position where he has to be wide out in the open, so you can shoot them to death.

Mathammer! 1 shot * 5/6 chance of hitting * 2/3 chance of wounding * 1/3 of getting past 3+ * 1/3 again since he's got fortune = 5/81 ~ 6.17% chance of killing one per shot.

That leads to an average of 16 shots to kill a single warlock in the group. You're gonna need a lot of fire warriors to feel confident in doing enough damage that you won't lose your scoring units.

Well as bad of odds as that is, it's the essentially the best you'll be able to get. 2 squads of 12 rapid fire shots should be enough to kill 3 if you want to use mathhammer(2 squads of 12 is 24 warriors, 48 shots is divisible by exactly 3). If he runs a seer council like he says he will, that will get a good chunk of them, and most likely he'll take off all of the destructors. That seems pretty good to me.

The problem with using fire warriors is that, from my understanding, Tau don't usually use a lot of troops units. If you get assaulted by a Seer Council, I'm betting the fire warriors won't make it out alive. So you really only want to bring them that close if they're almost guaranteed to take the unit out, I'd say.

ElCheezus wrote:The problem with using fire warriors is that, from my understanding, Tau don't usually use a lot of troops units. If you get assaulted by a Seer Council, I'm betting the fire warriors won't make it out alive. So you really only want to bring them that close if they're almost guaranteed to take the unit out, I'd say.

That's right. My Firewarriors hardly ever leave their devilfish, because if they do, and the enemy merely blows in their direction they either die, or start running (atleast in my experience). I just take them to make their transport scoring.

Anyway, I think I'll just hope to get the first turn, and wipe them out as fast as possible. As there doesn't appear to be a really effective way to deal with them.

If you are going to defeat the Seer Council with firepower -- and how else are the Tau ever going to do it? -- the way to do it is to shoot the whole army at them until they are dead.

It doesn't matter how good their save is, if you hit them with enough shots they will eventually miss their invulnerable saves by luck.

Just pour it on relentlessly, until every one of them is a spot of burnt grease, and enjoy watching your opponent's face while you do so.

You can probably obliterate them in one turn.

There's no way the rest of his army can beat yours in one turn. You'll take some losses, but as long as you keep some decent anti-armour units alive you can then batter the rest of his stuff.

I've seen 2/3 comments suggesting Tau can win combat against Seer Council....... They only need to lose 1 model to lose and run away, i don't like to be harsh, but seriously as soon as Seer Council are in combat with Tau, Tau lose....No matter how you dress it up, i once charged 4 Fire WArriors squads at once (silly silly deployment from him, all 4 squads right next to each other, when he's facing a squad with 8/9 jetbikes, with what 2" bases? so can essentially cover over 24" line) lost none of the Seer Council, killed a few Fire warriors, he failed 4 leadership tests, caught one squad, other 3 ran away, but were only 12" from his board edge......)

They do however have a lot of Fire power, so really its hit and hope, if i were using Tau against Seer Council, i wouldn't be confidant of winning, but i wouldn't concede a loss from turn 1. Its a matter of being sensible with unit placement really. At ToS tournament at the weekend, i played a Guard army, and he put 2/3rds of his army in one corner.... One Seer Councl squad killed that whole corner, if he had spread out more, he would have had a chance, as he actually did a fair bit of damage to me with shooting. I think potentially the best thing you can do against Seer Council is try and get him to bite on some bait....Maybe a Kroot unit lined up infront of the whole of your army (would have to be large, as shooting from bikes and potentially Falcons/wave serpents/fire prisms/war walkers) will kill some kroot, possibly opening up a whole in the wall. Maybe pathfinders and fire warriors (hitting on 2s? can they hit on 2s when the unit is makerlighted?) wounding on 3s can put a lot of wounds on the seer council, and then hope the dice work in your favour.

With a full Seer Council he is almost guaranteed to hit combat with you eventually. All you need to do is make sure he can't assault your heavy hitters or assault multiple units at once so you can keep shooting him and don't lose too much stuff at once. A couple of units of Kroot, suitable spaced in front of the rest of your army should mean that he has to assault 1 unit, kill it (obviously) then spend another turn of fire in the face of your guns before repeating the whole process again next turn with another unit of Kroot. You can also use Devilfish (empty so they aren't too valuable) to block him off/slow him down in a similar way (as you can't get locking in combat with vehicles so you will always be able to shoot him). Piranhas are even better than Devilfish for this but not everyone has them.

Everything else should probably deploy on the board, you want to be able to fire everything all the time from maximum range and even the Fire Warriors will be able to drop a few wounds on the unit. Make sure you save your S6+ multi shot shooting until last if possible, you want to try and get enough wounds on the unit so that he has to allocate one to the Farseer. Its a long shot but you might as well as the second he loses Fortune the unit disintegrates.

Well it's actually BS3(4) and the spotter has a networked markerlight too.

No, the drones have BS2(3), the spotter has BS3(4). I have the codex open next to me as i'm typing this.