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I am battling my friends force of necrons with my Tau forces, and I was wondering if I could get some help in defeating them. My force consists of:

Firewarriors (11+1 Shas'o Leader)w/Drones (Shield Choice)
Kroot (15 + Upgrade Shaper)
Crisis Suit (Shas'o w/ all possible and applicable upgrades)

His force:
Necron Warriors (12)
Scarabs (3)
Monolith (1)

Also, I am looking for general Tau tactica so I can improve my skills (for instance, if the kroot model has a knife in one hand and a bladed-gun in the other, does that count as two weapons while assaulting?).

Thank you

Well, thats confusing. how many squads does he have of each? Only 12 Warriors isn't a legal army as he only has one troop choice, and no HQ. What do you mean by all applicable upgrades, you are only allowed 3 systems on a battlesuit IIRC.

But you wanted tactics, so here they are; ignore the Monolith. Go for phase out - that means attacking his warriors and scarabs to remove enough models so that his army dissappears. Close combat the Warriors with Kroot, and shoot the scarabs with fire warriors. Take power weapons on the kroot if you can. Take a broadside or hammerhead in future to deal with the monolith.

Removing twelve models will cause phase out.

We are both starting our armies, so at the moment he only has those options. I know that isn't a legal army, but we are playing for fun. As for the suit, the 3 upgrades I chose were Stimulant Injector, Shield, and Multi-Tracker. He has two fusion blasters and a missle pod for weapons, but they are only pushed in place, so they can be changed for anything.

On the tactics, I tried rushing his warriors with my kroot, but with their WBB roll and the proximity to the monolith (which gives another WBB roll if he teloports them). I was slowly defeated one by one as his warriors wouldn't go down. My Crisis Suit has been jumping from place to place and picking off a warrior or two using the fusion balster instant death when they are away from the monolith. My firewarriors were obliterated when I tried to use their grenades on the monlith and when they hid behind cover due to his Gauss Flux Arc and Particle Whip, in addition to the gunfire from his warriors.


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Do kroot have the option for two weapons?

To fight Necrons you would be better off to equip the Crisis suit with a fusion gun, a plasma rifle and a multi-tracker. This lets him shoot both weapons on one turn. Both those weapons ignore Necron Warrior armour and prevent the use of "I'll be back". With a bit of luck he can kill two Necrons per turn.

If you want to attack the monolith it can be done by equipping your Fire Warriors with EMP grenades and charging. You just need a lucky roll.

Otherwise just keep out of range of the Monolith as much as possible because you need a railgun and you haven't got one.

Shoot the scarabs with the Fire Warriors and Kroot. You can kill them in one turn.

Then shoot everything at the Warriors, especially the Crisis suit. If you hang around in rapid fire range you can put 24 pulse shots and 32 Kroot shots into them. Despite their armour and WBB rolls, you will whittle them down fairly quickly. You should be killing about four each turn even after WBB. If it looks like the Warriors are going to outshoot you, charge them. They are one of the few units in the whole of 40K that Tau can get an edge on in melee.

Kroot do not need an option for two weapons because their Kroot Rifle counts as two weapons in melee.

? Plasma rifles are S8?

AP2.

AP2 does not prevent WBB.

Kill 9 warriors and you win, take whatever does that the fastest

At this point, we are at this standing:

I am down to just my Crisis Suit (HQ Shas'o) with the duel fusion blasters, against his monolith and 9 necrons (out of 12). There are two necrons within range of my suit, but not within range of his monolith, so they don't get the extra WBB roll from teleporting. The other 7 necrons are by the monolith. Do I have a chance of skirting around the monolith and slowly picking off his necrons until he is at 25% (4 models left)?

Drachii wrote:AP2 does not prevent WBB.

IIRC AP2 does prevent it, I am not looking at my Necron Codex, but last time my Tau played against Necron i seem to remember using that to my advantage.

I though having an equal or lesser (1 to thier 2) AP only negates armor save

Vladamyr wrote:

Drachii wrote:AP2 does not prevent WBB.

IIRC AP2 does prevent it, I am not looking at my Necron Codex, but last time my Tau played against Necron i seem to remember using that to my advantage.

Shooting attacks have to be double the Necrons toughness to negate WBB.

Close combat attacks that ignore armour do so as well (power weapons etc), but not shooting ones.

WBB isn't FNP. AP2 negates FNP, but if the gun isn't double the target's toughness the necron still gets WBB.

You are still slightly better off with plasma rifle and fusion gun than with missile pod and plasma rifle, even if plasma rifle doesn't negate WBB.


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K262 wrote:At this point, we are at this standing:

I am down to just my Crisis Suit (HQ Shas'o) with the duel fusion blasters, against his monolith and 9 necrons (out of 12). There are two necrons within range of my suit, but not within range of his monolith, so they don't get the extra WBB roll from teleporting. The other 7 necrons are by the monolith. Do I have a chance of skirting around the monolith and slowly picking off his necrons until he is at 25% (4 models left)?

No.

You need five turns to kill five Warriors and you must have fewer than five turns left in the game, if he has already killed all your other stuff.

I know, since we are playing for fun, we are negating the turn limit so we can play total annihlation

Vladamyr wrote:

Drachii wrote:AP2 does not prevent WBB.

IIRC AP2 does prevent it, I am not looking at my Necron Codex, but last time my Tau played against Necron i seem to remember using that to my advantage.

Then you cheated him and he should have invested in a codex (10 bucks used). AP is irrelevant to WBB.

The rule would be in the Necrons codex, which I don't have.

At least we can agree that the fusion gun causes ID and negates WBB.

K262 wrote:I know, since we are playing for fun, we are negating the turn limit so we can play total annihlation

I expect it is possible, however he will get a lot of shooting back at you so you will have to do well on your saving throws.

With my shield and feel no pain (stimulant injector), I get 2+ armor and 4-5+ after that, right?

K262 wrote:At this point, we are at this standing:

I am down to just my Crisis Suit (HQ Shas'o) with the duel fusion blasters, against his monolith and 9 necrons (out of 12). There are two necrons within range of my suit, but not within range of his monolith, so they don't get the extra WBB roll from teleporting. The other 7 necrons are by the monolith. Do I have a chance of skirting around the monolith and slowly picking off his necrons until he is at 25% (4 models left)?

Bolded part - What? He teleports the squad, not individual models. Only 1 member of the squad needs to be within 18" for the "entire" squad to get teleported and EVERY member that failed WBB gets a second chance.


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K262 wrote:With my shield and feel no pain (stimulant injector), I get 2+ armor and 4-5+ after that, right?

Against the warriors and scarabs, yes. If you're hit directly with the particle whip, no. Only an invul save will help you with that. And by directly I mean you're under the hole of the blast marker.

Does the shield that the crisis suit can have as wargear count as an invul?

Shield Generators grant a 4+ invulnerable save.

K262 wrote:We are both starting our armies, so at the moment he only has those options. I know that isn't a legal army, but we are playing for fun. As for the suit, the 3 upgrades I chose were Stimulant Injector, Shield, and Multi-Tracker. He has two fusion blasters and a missle pod for weapons, but they are only pushed in place, so they can be changed for anything.

Your commander is illegal. Crisis battlesuits have three hardpoints. Team leaders, Shas'vre veterans, and commanders may also equip wargear from the battlesuit wargear list. If reading your list correctly, you have:

Twin-linked fusion blaster: Two hardpoints
Missile pod: One hardpoint
Shield generator: One hardpoint
Stimulant injector: Wargear
Multi-tracker: One hardpoint, unless you purchased the hard-wired variant, in which case wargear

Either way, you are using at least 4 of your 3 available hardpoints.

K262 wrote:With my shield and feel no pain (stimulant injector), I get 2+ armor and 4-5+ after that, right?

No. A Crisis battlesuit has a 3+ armour save. If you fail this, you may roll a Feel No Pain save (4+.) You may not take a Feel No Pain save if you are wounded by an attack with Strength at least double your toughness (8 on a Crisis suit), AP 2 or better, anything which does not permit an armour save under any circumstances (for example, power weapons, failed dangerous terrain tests), or an attack which would inflict Instant Death.

When wounded by a weapon with AP 3 or better, you may take a 4+ invulnerable save from your Shield Generator, and if this fails, you may be able to take a Feel No Pain save subject to the criteria above.

The Iridium Armour wargear will improve your armour save to 2+, but I advise against this as it will also slow your movement in the Assault phase to d6".

So if how does my suit fare against his particle whip and gauss flux arc from the monolith then?

The Whip tends to kill you, as S8 AP3 pie plates tend to kill everybody. Using a Monolith in such circumstances is .... unsporting. 40k in general isn't very balanced under 1k, and Necrons tend to have the worst of it, but the Monolith is something many armies simply can't handle at that points level.

My suggestion: Buy some Broadsides.

The Grog wrote:The Whip tends to kill you, as S8 AP3 pie plates tend to kill everybody. Using a Monolith in such circumstances is .... unsporting. 40k in general isn't very balanced under 1k, and Necrons tend to have the worst of it, but the Monolith is something many armies simply can't handle at that points level.

My suggestion: Buy some Broadsides.

Str9 AP3, AP1 under the hole.

The Grog wrote:The Whip tends to kill you, as S8 AP3 pie plates tend to kill everybody. Using a Monolith in such circumstances is .... unsporting. 40k in general isn't very balanced under 1k, and Necrons tend to have the worst of it, but the Monolith is something many armies simply can't handle at that points level.

My suggestion: Buy some Broadsides.

Actually using a Monolith (or a Ctan) at that points level is INSANE if you're playing by the rules. It's very tough, and powerful, but it can be outmaneuvered easily, and the rest of the force is weaker for it.

Having 1/4 of your army points at that level not contribute to your phase out makes you far more likely to do so.

Minimum loadout for necrons is 1 lord (1-200 points depending on wargear)

20 warriors in 2 units of 10 (over a third of the 1000 pt total)

The minimum you can get away with at 1000 pts is about half your points, and leaves your force very fragile to phase out. I never use a Lith below 1500 pts for that reason.


If you're playing with 'what you have'

His force:
Necron Warriors (12)
Scarabs (3)
Monolith (1)

He will phase out if you rip up that one unit of warriors. Run around the lith to shoot behind it, with the fire warriors going one way and the kroot the other. He can't focus on both if you keep your distance as you circle it. You really really need transports and or tanks though. if he's going to be fielding tanks. Ask about proxying in one.

The scarabs are frail, and die very nicely to pulse rifle fire or better.


In short, both you guys need to go shopping

Last night we played a match and I found out the hard way not to group Kroot close to eachother. I lost 8 in one particle whip attack. Still, I was able to cause phase out by getting him down to 3 warriors. How does his Gauss Flux Arc work? Is its area of effect in a complete circle around it and is able to hit everything within 12"?



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and to address the battlesuit dilema, we are still learning the game and I will fix it next game (the game I mentioned happened before I checked on this forum again). That is why I am asking these questions

Does the kroot knife add an extra attack or is it just for show?

Flux arcs fire d6 shots at each unit within 12'' - which is why you keep your distance. He can't fire them and the Particle whip at the same time though. It's measured as 12'' from any of the 4 weapon mounts on the corners.

Kroot knife is for show, as are the spare ribs and grenades.

Thanks, and how odd would that be if you could use the spare ribs? Should I invest in some snipers as well, in the eventt he does get a necron lord?

Lord can attach to a unit anyway (and should pretty much always be) so you couldn't pick him out, I don't believe. Besides, if he's smart he'll give the lord the invul save and res orb wargear so your sniper shots would be best put to use somewhere else. Like against a c'tan if he got one.

It's rather moot at the moment anyway since there's a good chance necrons are getting a new codex by the end of the year anyway.

Okay, and by the way, is there any news on when the new Tau codex will be out?

K262 wrote:Thanks, and how odd would that be if you could use the spare ribs? Should I invest in some snipers as well, in the eventt he does get a necron lord?

I used them for motivation

three of my Killakanz are squig-brained Kanz , with a pole mounted over the head that has kroot BBQ hanging from it to make them go forwards