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Hi there!

My first army are Tau, but I kinda stopped playing them against my "usual opponent" because I just ran out of ideas on how I could _possibly_ win.

He's playing CSM, but I think this applies to most MEQ. He's doesn't have much vehicles and plays mostly foot-slogging. His army used to be unfocused and all over the place, but the last time I played Tau against him, it looked like this: (Probably 1000 to 1500 pts, don't remember exactly)

Chaos General, not too fancy, probably with an energy weapon and a 4++
6x 5 CSM, 1 Melta, Sgt w/Combi-Melta and Energy Fist
Maybe 2 Obliterators

How can Tau win against this? No matter how well I shoot and evade, he's coming right at me. And no matter how well I shoot, whatever arrives kills my troops.

Does anyone have any good idea on how to win against such an army with Tau? I'm ready to try anything

If he at least had some monstrous creatures or some expensive tanks for the broadsides to shoot at. It's so frustrating to see two broadsides take out two regular marines. Just makes you weep inside.

Hammerheads and Broadsides will turn those obliterators into hamburger. It'll cause instant death and ignore their armor. Plasma guns on crisis suits will eat those Marines alive also. Footslogging Marines are real easy to take care of.

What about my troops? 2 minimal Firewarriors?

Reserve the troops in Devilfish's, shoot his Obliterators, and then since you outrange him, dance and shoot.

I think you can beat him. His biggest strength is in melee and if he can never get into it, hey...

Try this at 1000 points:

100 1 Devilfish's (disruption, Flecheete, multitracker))
120 2 units 7 FW
230 2 Broadsides (both Team Leaders, Advanced stabilizers, TL Plasma, Multitracker, 1 shield drone)
69 Shas'El (TL FLamer, Burst Cannon, Multitracker, bonding knife)
240 3 Sniper Drone Teams.
116 8 Pathfinders (2 x Rail Rifles)
100 Pathfinder Devilfish (disruption, Flechette, multitracker)

That should do it. 8 Markerlights, and 12 AP 3 or better shots plus the normal fusilade from the Devilfish's and eventually the Fire Warriors.

Thanks a lot for that list. Quite different from what I usually field...

So far, I only have 1 Devilfish and 1 Hammerhead. So I cannot really do that list (FW and Pathfindes wouldn't be a problem). But a I have lot of Crisis suits.

I feared to give the Crisis Plasma because it would bring me quite close to CC range, so I basically put TL-Missle Pods on them. Quite cheap but AP 4 (IIRC).

Are the devilfish worth it? They cannot deliver a punch and are really expensive. Or are they more used to block the enemy?

Also, I used a Sniper Drone team once and found it lacking... 3 Shots, 2 hit, one wounds. Or did I just not have enough of them?

You could beat that list with 3 full squads of fire warriors and two full pathfinder teams, then add in a crisis HQ with a cyclic ion/fusion blaster and plasma plus a bodyguard running the same thing (can only run 1 cyclic ion, so run fusion) to deal with the rest.

The chaos player will never make it to your lines. In fact, as soon as he gets within 13-18 inches he's dead next turn. Why can't you shoot him enough? What's your standard list?

It has to be said that CSM are tough and that is one reason why Chaos is begin to grow.

Ignoring their Chaos space magic, though, CSMs are the same as regular SMs. They can be defeated either by lots of shots, or by low AP shots which ignore their armour saves.

Crisis suits with Plasma are awesome against both Termies and 3+ saves. Use Jump-Shoot-Jump to stay out of their charge range.

Use the second weapon mount for either missile pod or fusion gun. The pod gains in range and number of shots what it loses in AP. A fusion gun has a better Instant Death rating against characters. The main disadvantage is you have to get within 12 inches, which leaves you vulnerable to a counter charge by assault marines. It will work fine against other marines, though. You can and should mix up missiles and fusion in a Crisis unit, to take advantage of the wound allocation rules.

Use marker lights to remove cover saves, and to improve your Crisis accuracy.

You can either add marker drones to your Crisis units, or give them gun drones for more shots.

Broadsides will be very good against Defilers and can pick off characters and Daemons with Instant Death. Remember too that you can equip Broadsides with twin plasma rifles in place of their smart missiles.

Tau is a weaker army than CSM but it definitely has things that can work.

Kosta wrote:Thanks a lot for that list. Quite different from what I usually field...

Holy crap. If only I had a Dollar for every time someone told me that...

Kosta wrote:Thanks a lot for that list. Quite different from what I usually field...

So far, I only have 1 Devilfish and 1 Hammerhead. So I cannot really do that list (FW and Pathfindes wouldn't be a problem). But a I have lot of Crisis suits.

I feared to give the Crisis Plasma because it would bring me quite close to CC range, so I basically put TL-Missle Pods on them. Quite cheap but AP 4 (IIRC).

Are the devilfish worth it? They cannot deliver a punch and are really expensive. Or are they more used to block the enemy?

Also, I used a Sniper Drone team once and found it lacking... 3 Shots, 2 hit, one wounds. Or did I just not have enough of them?

With plasma on Crisis suits you can jump-shoot-jump, which will let you kite them a bit and rapid fire often. You could move to 12", rapid fire, then jump back 6" to get out of assault range. AP4 isn't going to help against Marines, but you can get some wounds in. They're great at killing rhinos, but the dude you're fighting is footslogging. Devilfish are worth it to keep your Fire Warriors safe, move onto objectives late into the game, and provide a little fire power.

I edited the list slighttly to onnly have two devilfish's. that actually looks scarier anyways. Make the Hammerhead a Devilfish. voila!

@Jancoran: Thanks! I'll try out the list, in a few weeks

The problem with Devilfish: If he gets close, he'll pop them easily. Every squad of 5 has a meltagun and a combimelta. But I can try. I read about Tau players using a lot of Devilfish, but I never understood why

Yes, he's using some variations, e.g. using the one Rhino he has or use a some Chaos Magic to completely obliterate me. (His Chaos General pulling my units towards him... I'll never forget that!)

But the main problem, and the one I asked about, was that no matter what I did in the very basic game, I could not stop his troops from reaching and wiping me.

Yes, I already used Jump-Shoot-Jump but I feared that I'd mess it up with Plasma. Ok, I'll try the lower-range more-punch plasma weaponry

Here's the list I played last time. I am aware that it's not very competitive, I wanted to try out Piranhas. But the feeling I had after the game was "I could not possibly make it competetive enough":

Shas'el, TL-MP, Blacksun
2 Crisis, TL-MP, Blacksun
2 Crisis, TL-MP, Blacksun

10 FW, Shas'ui with ceremonial dagger
Devilfish, Disruption & Decoy

7 Kroot
7 Kroot hounds
(I never knew what to do with them. They basically just sit there, stand in the way and get slaughtered)

3 Piranha
Fusion Blasters
Targeting Array

Hammerhead
Railgun, SMS, Disruption, Decoy

2 Sniper Drone Teams
(Ok, so I *had* two of them. They never delivered any punch. But maybe that's my fault for the lack of Pathfinders)

3 Broadsides
Targeting Array, Advanced Stabilization System (the game just before, we rolled dawn of war and I swore they get ASS next time).

As I said, not a perfect list. The Piranhas are too expensive and rather hit seldomly. Their one Fusion blaster isn't even synced!

Ok, I guess I'll have to read-up on how to place and use Pathfinders

If you have units in your army that you don't know what to do with, like the Kroot, then drop them and get something else.

You will always be better off with units you know how to use effectively, even if they are theoretically weaker units.

Brother SRM wrote:
With plasma on Crisis suits you can jump-shoot-jump, which will let you kite them a bit and rapid fire often. You could move to 12", rapid fire, then jump back 6" to get out of assault range. AP4 isn't going to help against Marines, but you can get some wounds in. They're great at killing rhinos, but the dude you're fighting is footslogging. Devilfish are worth it to keep your Fire Warriors safe, move onto objectives late into the game, and provide a little fire power.

Ever hear of lash? If you end within 36" of a demon prince your JSJ is not going to work. I think a DP can take out a full unit of crisis suits all by himself.

well the Flechette Launchers should make it less fun for him. also remember: you can deploy only the big guns and reserve the other things til he gets closer. Its an endgame. Tenderize him for two rounds and then open the floodgates and finish him

Kevlar wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:
With plasma on Crisis suits you can jump-shoot-jump, which will let you kite them a bit and rapid fire often. You could move to 12", rapid fire, then jump back 6" to get out of assault range. AP4 isn't going to help against Marines, but you can get some wounds in. They're great at killing rhinos, but the dude you're fighting is footslogging. Devilfish are worth it to keep your Fire Warriors safe, move onto objectives late into the game, and provide a little fire power.

Ever hear of lash? If you end within 36" of a demon prince your JSJ is not going to work. I think a DP can take out a full unit of crisis suits all by himself.

Wait, what is a DP's toughness? Looking in my BRB it looks like you could insant death it with a railgun. If I am wrong on the toughness than disregard this, but if I am right, just get a hammerhead or some broadsides to pop him. Even if I am wrong on the toughness, broadsides should be able to pop him pretty well as well as any vehicles.

As a CSM player I would say put in a metric ton of Fire Warriors. They wound on 3s and there's lots of them. I do not subscribe to the internet view that they are worthless. They are nasty to face, especially with a foot army. Backed up with a Devilfish transport to shuttle them out of harm and they are a real pita. Beyond that plasma rifles and railguns are also your friends.

Buttons wrote:

Kevlar wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:
With plasma on Crisis suits you can jump-shoot-jump, which will let you kite them a bit and rapid fire often. You could move to 12", rapid fire, then jump back 6" to get out of assault range. AP4 isn't going to help against Marines, but you can get some wounds in. They're great at killing rhinos, but the dude you're fighting is footslogging. Devilfish are worth it to keep your Fire Warriors safe, move onto objectives late into the game, and provide a little fire power.

Ever hear of lash? If you end within 36" of a demon prince your JSJ is not going to work. I think a DP can take out a full unit of crisis suits all by himself.

Wait, what is a DP's toughness? Looking in my BRB it looks like you could insant death it with a railgun. If I am wrong on the toughness than disregard this, but if I am right, just get a hammerhead or some broadsides to pop him. Even if I am wrong on the toughness, broadsides should be able to pop him pretty well as well as any vehicles.

Princes are T5 base, but they are also Eternal Warriors so nothing ever IDs them. However they're also MCs so in a foot list, so they'll just be on their 5++ most of the time. Just torrent them with shots and they go away. T5/3+/5++ W4 isn't too hard to get rid of, in usual lists they mostly exist to force you to shoot them instead of the rhinos.

USE THE KROOT. Put them in cover, They leave only when something is within 12" of them to shoot and assault. I field 25 kroot and 12 hounds as a matter of course (that's only 250 points). Hounds make it better (you go first in CC).

With my kroot, that's 180 points of marines (12), minimum dying on the charge... and they can tie up more than that. This gives all of your guns plenty of time to unload on those not fighting kroot. The Kroot should survive one full round, robbing the CSM player the ability to move or shoot those CSM fighting the kroot. Again, use Kroot as a shield and to buy time.

Crisis suits are a god send against PA, Fireknifes will do very very well (feel free to fire at range 24 and then move 6 back).

I was always under the impression that, although Tau are fine at vehicle cracking, foot armies stand less chance than Mech ones against Tau.

GreyHamster wrote:

Buttons wrote:

Kevlar wrote:

Brother SRM wrote:
With plasma on Crisis suits you can jump-shoot-jump, which will let you kite them a bit and rapid fire often. You could move to 12", rapid fire, then jump back 6" to get out of assault range. AP4 isn't going to help against Marines, but you can get some wounds in. They're great at killing rhinos, but the dude you're fighting is footslogging. Devilfish are worth it to keep your Fire Warriors safe, move onto objectives late into the game, and provide a little fire power.

Ever hear of lash? If you end within 36" of a demon prince your JSJ is not going to work. I think a DP can take out a full unit of crisis suits all by himself.

Wait, what is a DP's toughness? Looking in my BRB it looks like you could insant death it with a railgun. If I am wrong on the toughness than disregard this, but if I am right, just get a hammerhead or some broadsides to pop him. Even if I am wrong on the toughness, broadsides should be able to pop him pretty well as well as any vehicles.

Princes are T5 base, but they are also Eternal Warriors so nothing ever IDs them. However they're also MCs so in a foot list, so they'll just be on their 5++ most of the time. Just torrent them with shots and they go away. T5/3+/5++ W4 isn't too hard to get rid of, in usual lists they mostly exist to force you to shoot them instead of the rhinos.

Very well then, I just looked in the back of the BRB to find out. Either way, a few battlesuits or railguns should make quick work of them.

So yeah did you proxy a battle with him to see how it would work?

As Tau the advantage you have over other shooty armies (IG) is your mobility. If they are just footslogging at you with no transport you should easily be able to move around them if you keep your fire warriors in devilfish and keep JSJ-ing with your crisis suits. Obliterators will go down fast from focused fire, especially from railguns, however hammerheads would probably be better to take over broadsides against this build. They are more mobile and have the option of a large blast instead of a single shot.

One threat to your crisis suits could be the melta guns on the squads, but if you're wary and keep them in cover on the assault move then you should be fine.

Take advantage of long range and use Pulse Rifles and Broadsides to kill off Oblits and Plasma to shoot Marines. Keep some pathfinders for the Lord's unit to whittle him down before using Plasma to ignore his TDA.