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'sup Dakka!

As your all super awesome and full of knowledge (and I don;t need to behead you highlander style to gain it), I'm in a fight Against the Tau empire in about a weeks time, my army is going to be either Nurgle or Nurgle/Tzeentch Chaos Marines co-oping alongside a Dark Eldar army, it hasn't been established yet if we are fighting 2 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 yet but I just wondered the best way of taking them down, the Pts are set at about 3k (with that split between myself and the DE player).

Now I know Tau are SUPER awesome at Long range combat and are not be trifled with if the player knows the army well and that they really suffer at close range. I was just wondering if there is a quick simple tic-tac to kick them in the nuts and shake the morale?

I have 2 Defilers and I was gunna plan on trying to them in, but the issue is I only have 1500pts to play with and with needing 1HQ 2 Troop that 1500 is gunna go rather rapidly (what with me having plague+/Thousand sons).

Also have Terminators, Havocs and vindicators as well as 2-4 Plague squads, 1 thousand sons squad w/ sorc, land raider, pred tank and a few squads of no-frills chaos marines.

Only asking this as I've never played a proper fight against Tau yet.

Thanks for reading

GalePrime

Anything large blast, str 8 or higher, ap 3 or less tends to work wonders against tau, as does getting in their face fast.

Havocs are a no go, they won't do well.

The tau will destroy all your vehicles by some point in the game, expect that.

More infantry is better vs tau.

So perhaps ditch having defilers and stuff, go all out infantry, perhaps Death Guard for their extra T and FNP? But throw them into Rhinos and fly them up the board at them?

Do everything you can to punch them in the face. An average squad of Chaos Marines can rip Tau to pieces in hand to hand combat. If you can engage his Fire Warriors in hand to hand combat, shoot his Kroot with bolters, and shoot his Battlesuits with either your Defiler battlecannons or Vindicators, you'll have effective counters to everything he's got.

Thanks a bunch! I'll keep what you said in mind when im pointing up :-) ill keep ya posted on how I got on :-D

I'd suggest normal CSM and saying they're less corrupted by nurgle than plague marines or something. TBH, they'll easily deal with kroot and fire warriors, and a few meltaguns and power fists will make battlesuits and vehicles easy as well.

I play chaos marines myself and have to say from what you've listed as available to you you've got just about everything you could need to deal with Tau.
Take squads of Plague marines in large numbers so rather than have 4 squads of 5 take two squads of 10 as an example as this makes Tau have to use a lot more bang to get rid of them. Vehicles aren't a bad choice, but its safe to say they WILL be wrecked by the end of the game. Havocs aren't bad if they have the mark of Nurgle or Tzeentch, kit them out with ML for dealing with Crisis/Stealth Suits OR PG/MG them up and make them fire support for your Plague boys.

So to make it simple:
When dealing with Suits: Any kind of Power Weapons in close combat, Missile Launchers at long range or Plasma/Meltaguns at short range.
Kroot: bolter.
Fire warriors: Heavy Bolters or Autocannons at long range, or bolters and CC.
Tau Vehicles: Meltaguns/Meltabombs at close range and Missile Launchers (mass amounts) at long range.

Nice! Thanks for that! Will update :-D

Just a note, the tau vehicles use Disruption Pods a lot, and if you're playing anyone with half a brain, all his/her vehicles will have them. If the vehicle is attacked from 12" away or more, this gives it a 4+ cover save. So bring plenty of meltabombs and close-range tank-destroying things. They have bad rear armour, so don't worry about charging them, even if just with krak grenades.