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Hi DakkaDakka,

So I'm looking into adding Tau to my stable of armies. I've collected a handful of models - a riptide, broadsides, fire warriors, etc. So now I'm starting to think about lists but after reading through the 'dex and I don't see how Tau can deal with land raiders and monoliths. The only thing I see that would stop either of these is the rail gun solid shot. Am I missing something?

Fusion Blasters.

Fusion blasters. Honestly even before they changed broadsides railguns to heavy rail rifles you had better odds of getting a pen with a melta than a railgun.

Other than that the railhead with the SC for tank hunter is decent if a little pricy.

Also you can always smash the land raider to bits with a ripetide in assault if your shooting fails to do the job. Ripetides both main weapons can kill av14 with the nova charge or you can just use the TL fusion (firing twice from nova) to do the job.

Not sure if trolling..

Every tau codex has had this melta weapon, and in the new codex it has +6" added to its range.
































its called a Fusion blaster

Don't Tau also have grenades with the haywire special rule?

Riptide SMASH!

 Necrosis wrote:
Don't Tau also have grenades with the haywire special rule?

Yes, but at 2 points a model and only available on Pathfinders and Firewarriors we don't see them in play all that much.

While not particularly reliable, S9 AP2 ordnance coming from nova charged iontides is not a negligible threat, even to AV14.

 Ninjacommando wrote:
Not sure if trolling..

Every tau codex has had this melta weapon, and in the new codex it has +6" added to its range.
its called a Fusion blaster

Nope, not trolling. I guess most of the lists I've played against didn't sport a lot of fusion weapons.

I also play IG and I can see where Tau would have some issues with my russ's and to a certain extent my colossus and manticore. The last two I try to hide completely out of site in a building or something behind the ADL. I know Tau can remove cover but if you can't be seen it's really hard to get a shot in - at least for a couple of turns. For instance I thought stealth suits were kind of the Flayed Ones of the Tau if you'll excuse the Necron comparison. But if you could infiltrate them near enough to an exposed target that thinks it's high AV is going to save them then score one for the home team. I just haven't seen them used in the games at my club.

I don't see whats wrong with a S10 AP1 Hammerhead Railgun shot. That seems alot better then what most armies have.

Tau have possibly the most options of any dex to kill AV14 outside of melee.

And then there's haywire on pathfinders, and a lot of ability to get to side armour...

Tau really only have the railshot, which is unliked because its not terribly hard to take out and doesnt do much besides pop vehicles against most armies (since its pi plate is ap4), Riptide punch, Falcon punch (Gauntlet on a crisis suit/commander), or Meltas. Meltas being the most common as almost every suit team you see will have at least 1 melta in it somewhere, and riptides usually have it too.

However one of the better anti-AV14 people tend to dislike because it does have an element of risk, is the riptide using a HBC. 12 rending shots (requires nova charge, hence the risk) can very easily strip hull points as a further rull of a 3+ after Rending will either glance or pen av14. Throw markers to BS6 (to avoid gets hot) and you'll land most if not all of them, or hide a buffmander in there for twinlin/ignore cover/tank hunter. Just move the buffmander after the HBC riptide is done ripping vehicles apart, as he wont do THAT much else unless your opponent relies on 4+ or worse armor.

I really like riptides as answers to AV14. Two 'tides will do the trick when working in tandem with markerlights. I think the strength of Tau vs high AV targets is the variety of options for fusion units they have. Being able to take them on shadowsun, commander, stealth, crisis, riptide, piranha and then the Railgun on hammerheads offers a lot of versatility in list building. Riptide is probably the best option because they are durable and can get in the melta half range easily, and once they are charging in for the str 10 smash attacks becomes an option.

However, I also really like stealth suits and piranha for the job. They aren't necessarily the most competitive, but both have great upsides. I especially enjoy the free 10 gun drones 5 piranhas come with. I don't think I would take all fusions on a unit of 5 piranha, usually 3 fusion, 2 burst.

Problem with stealth suit fusions is now you are either dumping a lot of points on a, lets face it, "throwaway unit" that now splits what it wants to hit. Only reason you'd use them over BC Crisis Suits at all is if youre facing Xenos armies and want to piss off your opponent with hard-to-hit units shooting his infantry off the board turn 1. Giving them fusions, now they have to get even closer for 2D6 pen and you must buy Target Locks now or waste the other 4 suits shooting something they cant hurt. I'd prefer counter charge or adv targeting (either to dissuade assault or character/big gun sniping).

Pirahna are kinda in the same boat. I'd be willing to bet if you have meltas on them you MIGHT have 1-2 left by the time theyre in melta 2D6 range since theyre so light. And again, theyre throwaway units so keep'm cheap. 5 pirahnas and 5 drone duos will cockblock assaulty armies to hell and back for a turn or two lol.

No, the REAL problem with stealth is that a team of 3 crisis suits (two with double burst and one with double fusion and a TL) is far cheaper.

The ONLY reason one should ever consider a stealth team, is when you want them to do something that a crisis team cant, so either you pile on a homing beacon to serve as an infiltrating DS hub, or you might as well ignore them.

And for homing beacon you need a team leader, getting even more expensive, so you should probably tone down the team to keep it cheap.

Fusion, which is why I like nothing more than making Tau players cry with melta proof spartans, proteus, or achilles tanks.

Oh the joys of a double heavy flamer, meltaproof spartan rolling up to fry your puny T3 4+ troops while your weapons bounce off it's mighty AV14 and 5hp. Oh and shows your vehicles 4 twinlinked lascannon shots and everything else ten angry hammernators in a box.

The swiss army knife that is O'ralai isnt bad either.

 Kain wrote:
Fusion, which is why I like nothing more than making Tau players cry with melta proof spartans, proteus, or achilles tanks.

Oh the joys of a double heavy flamer, meltaproof spartan rolling up to fry your puny T3 4+ troops while your weapons bounce offit's mighty AV14 and 5hp. Oh and shows your vehicles 4 twinlinked lascannon shots and everythimg else ten angry hammernators in a box.

Was just about to say this
The Achilles is hilarious against tau, and DE ignoring melta AND lance is just funny especially when it comes with AV14, 5HP, 2 T-L multi-meltas, and a thunderfire cannon and a 6 man transport capacity

Pathfinders and Firewarriors can take Haywire grenades. Glance it to death.

Hammerhead railgun has a 1/3 chance to penetrate AV 14, and with AP1 it will be pretty much assured of at least knocking a weapon off (anything but a 1).

This one is a surprise, but the ordinance on the ion riptide has a 30% chance to pen AV 14 (only ~3% less than a railgun). Since it's AP2 it still has a little bump to the damage chart. Also I'd just like to add that it has a 55% chance to take a hull point because of how ordinance works.

The heavy burst cannon... this one is a little hard to wrap my head around. It has a (1/6*1/3) = 1/18 chance to pen AV 14 per shot, so out of a given nova barrage you have a 66% chance of getting a pen. no damage chart bonus though.

Last we have the humble fusion blaster. If you can get into 9" then you penetrate on 7+ on 2d6, which is about a 55% chance if Warmachine has made me memorize my bell curve correctly(58%, close enough). Has a 73% chance of taking a hull point, although if you're shooting with fusion in melta range you probably don't care about stripping hull points since that model needed the tank dead to survive. This makes it the best weapon overall since it has the 2nd highest "pen per weapon" while also being AP 1 for the damage chart bonus. The only downside is that you have to be within 9" to use it right. Of course there's always the dreaded "haha ceramic plating trololol" to deal with.

Then we have the"less traditional" options involving charging it in close combat. a riptide can smash if it wants to, although it hits on 4+ since it's WS2 (I think...did they manage to make the bump to 3 on the riptide pilot?). The donkey punch is always an option as well, and can actually be combined with the fusion blaster if you really want to and the fusion didn't take it down. I've never actually used haywire grenades, so I can't comment on their effectiveness, however I don't list them as a practical option since if you're close enough to use them then either 1. the tanks are on your doorstep, which means it's too late, or 2. you're using devilfish suicide squads, which sounds fun but isn't a strategy I've used or thought about enough to give an effective analysis on (seems like a waste of points to me at first glance though).

I am surprised...on a weapon by weapon basis the heavy burst cannon actually scores the highest chance of penning av 14, just by number of shots. Of course if you apply any other effectiveness metrics to it (availability, pens/points cost, effectiveness against secondary targets...) then the justification probably goes away. I also find it funny that people say "the tank railgun is only good for killing the opponent's tanks. Take meltas instead". I actually think that out of all the options above the hammerhead railgun is one of the more applicable to shooting things that aren't tanks (heavy burst cannon can be better depending on how clumped up the models are, but the 36" range makes it a tradeoff to me, although it is mounted on a much more durable platform...).

You really have to balance what opponents you're likely to face with what weapons you want to take. For instance, I absolutely love the hammerhead railgun because in my local pool of opponents (who admittedly all run very strange armies) the hammerhead railgun submunition is good enough to handle their troops choices, and having strength 10 sitting around "just in case" is always nice for me.

NO MORE EDITS I'm done.

I'd say if your really concerned, take 5 piranha, only put fusion on 2 of them. Disembark the gundrones turn one and put them with a commander, zoom your piranha up and use them to block the landraider from moving on turn one. Now you opponent has to spend a decent amount of fire power to kill all of the piranha that has AV11 (just face them toward what might shoot at them) and a 4+ cover save.

This should handle one landraider reliably. With two or more, then your going to need those riptides/longstrike/fusions to start rolling well.

 Coyote81 wrote:
I'd say if your really concerned, take 5 piranha, only put fusion on 2 of them. Disembark the gundrones turn one and put them with a commander, zoom your piranha up and use them to block the landraider from moving on turn one. Now you opponent has to spend a decent amount of fire power to kill all of the piranha that has AV11 (just face them toward what might shoot at them) and a 4+ cover save.

This should handle one landraider reliably. With two or more, then your going to need those riptides/longstrike/fusions to start rolling well.

Beat me to it! I would just tie landraiders up by surrounding them with piranhas! Not very competitive but the look on the opponents face is priceless!

Well as other have mentioned tau has quite a bit of options to take care of av14 outside of assault. OtherwiseA land raider shouuld be focused as its probably caring something deadly, as well as the monolith but if your playing IG as I play them you could Ignore the russes and kill all the scouring troops to pretty much guarantee a tie if he somehow kills all your scouring. But if hes running a crazy mech heavy army with double FOC with a crazy amount of russes well thats another problem.