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Hi guys I have only recently started playing and yesterday I was at a local club for a 1000pt game and four of the five games going on had at least one side playing tau and from watching some of the other games as well as mine it seems we all had a real problem dealing with Tau on 4x4 tables
In my case my opponents list was something like this
Ethereal
3x XV8 'Crisis' Battle suit Team
Pathfinders
Fire Warrior Team
Fire Warrior Team + a char that increased the fire warriors bs skill
Piranha with mutil melta
Hammerhead Gunship with large blast ap2 gun
Hammerhead Gunship with Rail gun
Rip Tide with plasma gun
Aegis Line

I had no idea who I would be playing so took a general list which was
Rune Priest
9x Grey Hunter, Mark of the Wulfen, Plasma Gun, Wolf Standard
Drop Pod - Storm Bolter
Lone Wolf Chainfist, Storm Shield, Terminator Armour
Wolf Scouts 5x Wolf Scout -5x Boltgun, Meltagun, 4x Sniper Rifle
10x Grey Hunter, Mark of the Wulfen, Flamer , Flamer, Wolf Standard
10x Grey Hunter, Plasma Gun, Plasma Gun, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard
Long Fangs Pack 3x Missile Launcher, 2x Lascannon

There were four objectives two in his half which he put one just in front and the other just behind the agis and two on my side which I put in the two ruins on my side of the board. The was hardly any terrain on the board just two ruins on my table half and a wood in the centre of the table.

I stole the inative and went first bringing down my drop pod just behind his aegis and the rune priest managed to take out all three suites one fire warrior squad and half the path finder’s with Jaws after this he exploded the drop pod and shot the squad up till there was just the standard bearer left.
On my subsequent turns I mamaged to take out one hammerhead with the two lasscannons and the lone wolf destroyed the piranha and then charged the riptide and was over watched by about 4 million dice and thus my problem.
The armour sat behind the agis killed me at range and the over watch from everything in six inches killed anything that tried to charge or even get close. I used the standard bearer to charge the riptide and take all the overwatch and then charge it again with my wolf scouts which did put it down but that was more fluke than skill.
I am a new player and I know the board sucked for lack of cover ect but I am looking for ways of combating tau with a mostly foot wolf list or is it as I think maybe simply impossible to counter that style army build without use of mass drop pods or heavy armour.
This weekend I am planning on dropping the scouts and five grey hunters and adding a second long fang squad with more Lascannons.
Any advice would be great thanks.

'there was hardly any terrain on the board'.

there's your answer,.use more terrain.

Kill all pathfinders first so he cannot ignore cover saves or boost BS. Then kill the firewarriors. After that he has no scoring units. Ignore riptide unless you have something that can down it easily/quickly. Its AP2 plate should only hit 2-4 marines if you spread out, and with cover should be manageable.

Beating Tau is about playing for the objectives and taking out the right units first, which usually isn't the big gun. People seem to always think they need to kill the tanks and riptide first, I don't think thats right, kill the support and the troops and then mop up.

"Hammerhead Gunship with large blast ap2 gun" when did this happen?
"Fire Warrior Team + a char that increased the fire warriors bs skill" double what?

i think you should read the tau codex

drop pods and land raiders i feel will give tau gun line a lot of problems though


Edit: also jaws makes tides cry

 Desubot wrote:
"Hammerhead Gunship with large blast ap2 gun" when did this happen?
"Fire Warrior Team + a char that increased the fire warriors bs skill" double what?

i think you should read the tau codex

Good point here as well. The large blast is AP3 on Ion hammerhead. No character in Tau dex increases BS, but markerlights can.

thanks for the info, going to go over the tau codex as thinking some shenangians might have being going on from me not knowing it well at all.
From a rough build on battlescribe it seems the guys list was quite a few points over and he never rolled to see if the rip tide would lose its 2+ save.
But then i guess when you play a teenager at a gw store you should not expect them not to try it on a bit to win.

 toumas wrote:
thanks for the info, going to go over the tau codex as thinking some shenangians might have being going on from me not knowing it well at all.
From a rough build on battlescribe it seems the guys list was quite a few points over and he never rolled to see if the rip tide would lose its 2+ save.
But then i guess when you play a teenager at a gw store you should not expect them not to try it on a bit to win.

Riptide does not loose the 2+. He can activate engine and try to get a 3++ save.