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Hey, I'm new to Dakka - I've been on before but only just signed up.
My friend plays Tau and he utilizes the battlesuits and their jetpacks very nicely jumping out from behind impassable (I cant see his battlesuits) terrain shoots and jumps back behind it, he also uses disruption pods on his 2 Hammerheads (both with railguns) which are a real pain.

My army list is CCS with Creed and Kell, another CCS with MoO, 2 troops (4 squads) all with lascannons ready to take out devilfish (i like the gunline), stormies, vendetta, and 2 leman russ both with battlecannons.
I leave the MoO squad up the back and high up so he has line of sight, troops into a gunline, i have creed ready for those peskie deep striking battlesuits, and the 2 tanks either between the troops and the MoO or in front of my troops so they get cover from the battlesuits when they come in to tank hunt.
Around turn 3 i deep strike vendetta and stormies both to take out a Hammerhead each.

This does fine until the end when, both tanks (and hammerheads) are dead, usually got around 20 troops left, and MoO squad, but then his battlesuits jump in and out of range and he ends up killing me very slowly.

Any tips?

P.S. we've probs played 8 games, ive won 1 and lost the rest, but they're always pretty close... DAMN JETPACKS!

A good tip would be to remove creed and kell. It's a point eater at 1500 and they arn't truely effective until around 2000-2500. Also designate one hq to the hang back and support role and pack the other with special weapons. Preferable plasma and make good use of their 4BS. If you don't need extra plasma then avoid taking the unit at all. I think you might be better looking at more cost effective ways to deploy because I get the feeling you're handicapping yourself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh btw, take the lascannons out of the infantry. For your one lascannon shot you lose 9 guys of shooting a turn. HWS may be riskier but you gain shooting in the infantry and you make better use of the bring it down order since you get to twinlink three at a time instead of one. Remember that once the enemy armour is down the HWS have done their job so don't worry about them been killed. Just make sure the enemy armour is down first.

If you're going to try to outshoot Tau, indirect fire artillery can hit crisis suits even behind terrain without line of sight.

You can get two basilisks for less than the cost of your two russes (can add camo netting with the extra points if you want). One hit from a basilisk shot instakills a crisis suit with no armor save, and no cover save unless he's in area terrain. If you can get the whole unit of 3 crisis suits under the template and roll a hit, you can wipe out the entire unit with a single shot.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.
I put in the lascannons because I take my squads up into cover, and then they sit there for the fight to come, and as his army is completely mechanised, then I need range and power, because for my lasguns to be of any use, I want to take out those devilfish, also because he is using battlesuits (with heaps of shield drones), he is making the most out of range, so I either jump out of cover and get chomped by burst cannons, or stay back and have one lascannon and 9 wasted lasguns.
I suppose I could remove the one lascannon from each squad and put in one or two squads, especially with all the points I'll have after removing creed and kell.

As for the plasmaguns, I think I'd be better off going with sniper rifles and heavy weapons because he'd never let the plasmaguns get in range of his precious battlesuits.

I like the indirect fire idea, I think with the extra points I might go another MoO not to keen on the basilisk though, I dont like the minimum range... but i will consider...

Oh and do tau vehicles still get the cover save (gained from disruption pods) from barrage weapons? i.e. MoO?


Oh and can troops jump out of a vendetta/valk on the turn it deep strikes to then shoot? potentially doubling my chance of taking out a hammerhead?

Air_Myth wrote:
I like the indirect fire idea, I think with the extra points I might go another MoO not to keen on the basilisk though, I dont like the minimum range... but i will consider...

Oh and do tau vehicles still get the cover save (gained from disruption pods) from barrage weapons? i.e. MoO?

The basilisk can still fire direct shots inside minimum range. Direct shots don't ignore intervening cover the way that indirect shots do, and you need LoS, but if you can see where the terrain is that he's going to hide behind at the start of the game, just deploy 37"+ away from it. Go 42"+ away, and he can't hit your basilisks with his missile pods either.

Disruption pods do grant cover saves against indirect fire. But you don't want to be shooting large blast weapons at tanks anyway--they're too inaccurate, and even with two tries on the penetration die, he gets to point his AR13 facing at you and make the penetration roll hard (how many times have your battle cannons bounced off the hammerheads? Though I should add that if you can manage to land a basilisk indirect shot on a hammerhead, it hits on the side armor, for a str9 vs. AR11 penetration roll with ordinance 2d6-pick-the-highest, which is more effective in every way than a str8 battlecannon to the front armor.)

Also IMO it's a mistake to make the hammerheads priority targets. It sounds like your opponent is using his hammerheads as fire magnets to distract you from shooting at the crisis suits, where your shots will actually matter.

Focus everything--even deepstrikers and lascannons--on killing the crisis suits first. They are much more important than a couple of single-shot hammerheads. Kill the suits=cripple the army. Then you can handle the hammerheads at your leisure.