Playing my brother's nids soon. I've played them before with my Black Templars (it went
okay) but this is my first time using Tau, in fact, this is my first game with Tau ever. So I wrote up a little armylist, the usual, asking for criticisms and advice. As a first time Tau player, everything is appreciated, because Im really going in blind.
HQ: Shas'o;
TL BC,
CIB, Advanced Targeting system.
118
Troops:
FW team; 9 shas'la, 1 shas'ui
100
FW team; 9 shas'la, 1 shas'ui
100
Elites: XV8 Crisis; Plasma Rifle,
MP
52
Heavy Support: Hammer Head; Submunition rounds,
TL SMS
130
Plans: My brother and I usually play annihilation (which fits the fluff as Tau don't care about "the line" and freely give ground, while Tyranids just generally don't care), and he would most likely agree if I suggest it, so hopefully I can create a strong firebase without having to worry about capturing objectives. My overall plan is to create a firebase, while harassing him with mobile units, causing him to split his assault between the harassers and my firebase. He knows he cant outgun me, so I suspect he will try to swarm me with
cc troops while shooty carnifexes and stealers go after my Railhead. For each unit;
Shas'o: Dakka. He will harass, and hopefully distract, possibly destroy, any stealer swarms, with a special anti-broodlord emphasis with the
CIB and ATS. (He loves stealers and we agreed that Broodlord can still count as
HQ like in 5th edition.) This will keep them away from my Railhead, as rending is one of the only threats against it.
FW teams: Firebase. Protect the Railhead while acting as buttery
cc bait with 40 shots at 15". Hopefully the threat of the shooting with the bait of the units will make him indecisive, especially with my harassers, and split his assault. Shas'uis taken for leadership, in case they are targeted by a shootyfex.
Crisis Suit: Heavy bait, while pretty antiheavy and cheap himself. He will target any
MC's while hopefully bouncing in cover. It's a pretty big threat if I can keep him out of harms way which will force him to focus his (relatively) small amounts of fire away from my Railhead.
Hammerhead: PIEPLATES. Plugged in between my
FW teams in the firebase. Anti-swarm at its most basic.
SMS is free, and has the same profile as
BC's while not needing
LOS, ignoring cover, and a better range. Pretty easy choice.
Like stated earlier, my main plan is to hunker down in a cozy corner with my
FW's and Railhead, while both of my suits bounce around just generally being donkey-caves while distracting his shooting units from my Railhead. First game, any suggestions welcome. Disclaimer, I don't own piranhas, but I do have kroot, 14 more
FW's, stealth team of three, ethereal, skyray, devilfish, 9 pathfinders, and 6 vespid (I know, I was young

) Thanks for reading. I am also promising to post the results of whatever armylist I use for other aspiring anti-Tyranid Tau players, the battle will be sometime this week.