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Hey there,

I have been regularly losing to a Vulkan drop pod list and I am in serious need of advice. I play Tau, and have tried "castling" several times and reserving everything. All the sites say that “castling up” is the way to win, but I’ve never had it work (especially versus a Vulkan list that is melta/flamer heavy). Here’s my typical deployment vs a drop pod list:



Here’s my issue with castling: My opponent picks a spot to pod in over my troops so he has to auto-deviate, even if he rolls a direct hit. I can’t find anything in the rules that say he has to pick an unoccupied spot for his landing zone, so I think that’s legal. Since he can’t safely land on a troop, he auto-deviates to the closest “safe location”, which is right next to my kroot.


He then lays into me with flamers and meltaguns (which count as twin linked due to Vulkan). That’s when I start breaking, lose morale and run into either a friendly unit or run off the board (either which is death).

I’m usually beat by turn two, though sometimes I can escape with a fish or two and a hammerhead.

If I try reserving everything, he will just land his pods near the table edge and wait for me to slowly trickle in.

Do you have any advice on beating a Vulkan drop pod list with Tau?

I have around 8k points of Tau (I’m an impulse spender), so I can pretty much field whatever list anyone can come up with.

First, if you read the Drop pod rule, you REDUCE the scatter to make a safe landing. If he can not REDUCE the scatter, then he mishaps.

Also, when you fall back, you move around friendly and enemy models, not through them.

Kroot screens are a really good defense, but make sure that you are spread out in your firebase as much as possible. You want flamers to only hit 4 models at most whenever possible.

The issue with a firebase is that should your screen fail, you are now cornered. I would recommend deploying centrally, so you can fall back in any of 3 directions over a spread out front.

Finally, if you abandon the firebase idea all together and simply deploy everywhere, you can use your mobility to retreat from where his dangerous units are. As long as you have a few drones on your suits to soak the initial melta hits from the drop, you should escape fairly unscathed.

Spread out. The problems with trying to castle against a Drop Pod army is that your playing to their strengths; being clustered in one spot so they're army can just drop in close proximity.

You'll have alot of trouble with a Drop Vulcan list, as those flamers will insta-gib your Kroot and the meltas will instant kill your suits.

It's just the way it is for now, unfortunately. Try to limit the Alpha Strike as much as possible by spreading out, your gun range completely dwarfs his, so he'll have to decided what to go after first and foot slog the rest of the way.

Yes, as mentioned he is allowed to drop his pods in mishap range, but you can't reduce a hit, meaning any pods that hit mishap.

He drops his guys in, which is fine, you should win with a simple reserve and outflank list provided he doesn't block your entry.

Now another trick involves two 20 man kroot squads and any kroot hounds you can spare, you simply bubble around your deployment, keeping guys in transports and behind transports for even more cover. If you deploy right, it would keep the enemy around 12 inches away from your lines, but if your list is only lots of suits and little mass firepower, it makes sense you are getting killed by him showing up on your doorstep.

thanks guys! I never really noticed the reduce line in the SM Codex. I'll give it a shot.