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Ok well, this will be my first time using Tau, and to be honest, I'm confident but not.. whats the phrase?.. 'Aiming high'.
Unfortunately, My army isn't much, and its not exactly varied, the only reason I manage to pull 1.500 points is by throwing so much equipment on the models that I had to hire assistants to aid in the throwing.

Anyway, any help would be great; From playing Marines, Necrons in my eyes are a vicious (quite ironic, that ) force that at high points really become a pain in my areas.
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What I have to work with so far:

- Crisis Battlesuit Commander

- XV8 Battlesuit (4)
This will probably be two Fireknife suits and two others (Helios/Firestorm)

- Hammerhead Gunship (2)

- XV88 Broadsides Battlesuit (2)

- Fire Warrior Team (3)
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Greetings.

Unlike with other armies, Tau don't need to ignore Monoliths and attempt a phase out, especially since you're not the kind of army that is going to run around trying to jump into close combat and sweep them.

The army you have is suited for taking down Necrons - your unit of two broadsides (make one a team leader, give them two shield drones) should focus on anti-monolith duties while your two hammerheads should take Ion Cannons (preferable to the Railgun for this occasion unless you don't have Ion Cannons) - make your suits Helios - Fireknives won't do you much good (you need AP2/AP1 weapons to take down necrons reliably), and you're set.

Sounds like a solid plan, but I'm not sure that I can justify using the Ion Cannons; the railgun submunition round is going to hit a much larger area of warriors (the guy I'm going to play has quite a few..).. Though saying that: WBB, is this negated by a higher AP than the save? I don't get to play as often as I'd like so I tend to forget things.

Also, combatting Flayed Ones, how would one go about doing that? My army isn't CC heavy and they would make a lot of mess when outflanking.

Grayspear wrote:Sounds like a solid plan, but I'm not sure that I can justify using the Ion Cannons; the railgun submunition round is going to hit a much larger area of warriors (the guy I'm going to play has quite a few..)..

However, taking down Destroyers with an Ion Cannon is much easier...

Grayspear wrote:Sounds like a solid plan, but I'm not sure that I can justify using the Ion Cannons; the railgun submunition round is going to hit a much larger area of warriors (the guy I'm going to play has quite a few..).. Though saying that: WBB, is this negated by a higher AP than the save? I don't get to play as often as I'd like so I tend to forget things.

Also, combatting Flayed Ones, how would one go about doing that? My army isn't CC heavy and they would make a lot of mess when outflanking.

The problem with your submunition round: It will scatter - and if your opponent keeps his warriors spaced out, you'll hit few enough of them anyway. Its also AP4 so he'll get his normal 3+ armour save, and even if you knock over 1-2, he'll get back up on a 4+.

In terms of protecting yourself from assault: Think of an onion.

Pick a corner of the map, and castle up. Nestle your firewarriors into ranks around your entire army in layers, so that one unit of 12 firewarriors is in coherency but around your whole army - so that whether you get flanked or charged, your enemy is only going to get a single unit of firewarriors - wipe them up, then be sitting in rapid fire distance of your other firewarrior units - as well as suits that can jump over your firewarriors, rapid fire plasma and drop fusion blasters into the flayed ones / wraiths / other, then jump back behind the firewarriors to be safe again.

I actually hate playing against Tau with my Necrons more than any other army.

Just gun them down. Sadly, Crisis suits can kind of own Warriors in CC. Just keep that in mind.

Well I'm glad that Tau are held in high esteem against necrons

Thanks for the help guys, feeling much less random about how this is going to pan out.
If you are interested in the outcome, I'll be posting the battle reports in about a week (the game takes place tuesday/ wednesday) along with a host of other games that will be played around the same time: SM, DE, IG, Daemons, 'Nids..
Quite multicultural I think.

Anywho, thanks again, your advice won't be wasted!