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Got a game coming up at some point in the next month or so against my bro in law, he plays tau, myself de. What works best against tau and what do I need to be wary of?

kitch102 wrote:Got a game coming up at some point in the next month or so against my bro in law, he plays tau, myself de. What works best against tau and what do I need to be wary of?

Do you know what he has and usually runs?

He has the battleforce, a couple of xv88's and i think a commander, not much else afaik...

Was thinking of tying up the xvs in cc with a squad of mandrakes to hamper his ranged support, just until something else can take them down, wdyt? I know they'd be a suicide squad but could be worth it to ensure survival of bigger squad!

kitch102 wrote:He has the battleforce, a couple of xv88's and i think a commander, not much else afaik...

Was thinking of tying up the xvs in cc with a squad of mandrakes to hamper his ranged support, just until something else can take them down, wdyt? I know they'd be a suicide squad but could be worth it to ensure survival of bigger squad!

That could work. It looks like if he is using the battle battle force it looks like he is running infantry so run some wychs into them and let them a feast. At the same time use the lances on your raiders to destroy his suits since s8 will hurt alot of stuff he has. If you have the raiders use them they will help you get to his troops since if your running a foot list he will have a chance to shot at your squishy units which you defiently don't want.

Lances to take out any transports and then get stuck into CC asap!

Great, I'll admit its more the battlesuits that I'm cautious of as they're completely unknown to me, wychs vs everything else sounds good though

What do i need to watch out for? If my tactics are get stuck in ASAP what should I avoid and aside from cc what are their weaknesses?

kitch102 wrote:Great, I'll admit its more the battlesuits that I'm cautious of as they're completely unknown to me, wychs vs everything else sounds good though

What do i need to watch out for? If my tactics are get stuck in ASAP what should I avoid and aside from cc what are their weaknesses?

Tau Crisis and Broadsides are their most versatile. Crisis suits will use a jump-shoot-jump strategy which can be annoying to get LOS on them, thankfully DE have the mobility to negate this. You can generally expect about 6-9 of them at 1500 points (though with what you've said about the opponent, probably not for this game).

Once the suits are dead the rest of the army tends to fall apart.

Railguns, Missile Pods, and Plasma Rifles will maul your transports so becareful of those. Lances are good to instant-death suits and even poison will force a bunch of saves.

Kroot are used more as a speed-bump to protect the suits than a CC unit. Firewarriors have high-strength guns, but don't have the BS or number of shots to deal with lots of infantry and don't have the strength to really maul vehicles (except for maybe your AV10 tissue paper). Generally firewarriors fold easily and are hiding out in transports as they are a pretty crap unit (but are required to caputre objectives).

Stealth Suits are fairly 'meh' as well, but the burst cannons can be annoying for you.

Lance his broadsides and hammerheads, plus battlesuits, melee everything else

Im safe on the tank front, I think he only has a single devilfish. He's big into his manga / anime so the suits are more his thing, certainly for his first couple of games or until he gets paid and blows a load on hammerheads and skyrays!