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Just like the topic says, any tips and strategies for taking down the robots and keeping them down with the poor tau?

Depends what your opponent is running.

If he's flyer heavy twin linked missile pod, twin linked Railguns and massed pulse rifle fire are your way to go.

Wraiths swarms are lots of pulse rifle shots and Hammerhead Submunition rounds. This also works okay on large units of warriors and on scarab swarms.

Lots of immortals? Plasma rifles and ion cannons.

Dont forget that you can negate Nightfighting with Markerlights, though it is probably worth it to give your heavy support and missilepod crisis suits Black Sun Filters.

Railhead large blast on warrior units with ignore cover from marker lights.

Anything str 6 or higher on scarabs.

Str 5 spam on wraiths.

BSF on all team leaders.

Destroy units one at a time, don't try to whittle them down.

I'd suggest not trying to build a list based specifically on what you expect your opponent to bring (as that is a good way to be caught with your metaphorical pants down if your opponent takes a different style of list that day).

That said, it's a good idea to be aware of what your opponent 'can' bring based on familiarity with their codex and play-style and bring something that serves as a hard counter to it.

For example, Necrons, Tau, and Gray Knights are pretty common in my metagame. Therefore bringing something that bypasses 4+ armor is a good idea, as is something decent to pop vehicles.

I tend to recommend taking broadside teams for your long-ranged AT and Anti-heavy Infantry.

Mid range stuff would be Crisis Suits and your HQ typically done up with either missiles or fusion guns.

Add a couple of Firewarrior Squads in Devilfish for mandatory troops.(remember to take disruption pods on your fish)

and you have a strong option vs just about anything but isn't specifically tailoring against something you cannot guarantee you'll face.

Jefffar wrote:

Lots of immortals? Plasma rifles and ion cannons.

Forget the term "ion cannon" until a new codex comes at the very least, from now on learned the term "plasma torrent hammerhead", you lose a bit of range for an extra shot, and twin-linking at the same cost, MUCH stronger.

Well yes, if your local opponents are willing to allow forgeworld units on the table (you still need to ask) there are some excellent choices available in there.

well...I have fought necrons twicewith my tau since 6th and came out victorius both times.

all I have is 2 battleforces and an HQ...


so with that said... my ace in the hole is always my stealth suits...I find they do a hell of alot of damage to pretty much everything they fight... I do 2 squads of three...leader has markerlight and 2 marker light drones...everyone gets TA for the +1 bs.
I always run the 2 crisis suits and HQ as fireknife suits. Plasma rifle and misslepod. TA for the regular bros. hq i give a shield gen for the invul. I use the devilfish as a hammerhead for any vehicles he takes. kroot outflank. and fire warriors move up to rapid fire then slowly move back to draw out the necrons...That is how I normally run the army. but everyone plays different. hope this helps a little

Where I play there tends to be a lot of flyers and vehicles, with minimal troops.

If you are facing lots of vehicles and flyers then you probably can't go wrong with more broadsides.

A squad of three broadsides has about a 1/3 chance of making a flyer explode every turn. They also should do well against any of the AV 13 vehicles and they ignore that whole gauss unpleasantness. Just make sure you have some good cover for them if your opponent is bringing Doomsday Arcs with their big blast of Doom and Doom Scythes with their Deathray of Doom.

Deepstriking or infiltrating Crisis and Stealth Teams can be used to hit the weak AV 11 back ends of anything with quantum shielding. Missile pods will do a number here, fusion blasters even more so. Even Plasma and Burst Cannons can whittle away the hull points.

If they bring monoliths ignore them as long as possible or try to sneak a fusion blaster in close. These things suck up a lot of railgun shots that are better used elsewhere.

To parrot what everyone else is saying

for the basics of basics take as many broadsides as you can fit in as twin link and st 10 hurt both air and there crazy av13

If you want take a bastion with a aa turret as well as you can sit your broadsides up there for a decent vantage point.

Against troops, a clean hammerhead sub rail is great, as well as fire knives / death rain for ap 4-2

As for tactics: focus fire 1 squad at a time till they all go away, don’t let them res.

That’s what I learned so far from playing against croissants baguettes and donuts

9 broadsides is total win VS everything