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Was thinking about this last time I played vs Tau and wanted some C&C about this

I thought about this as a big F* move for these gunlines that are going rampant in my local meta (4 new tau players, all camping in their corner).

The idea is to DS one (probably two as we usually play 1750pts) monolith just in front of the ADL, making sure to have the door not facing the gunline. Given they are skimmers, if they happen to scatter on the gunline they'll generally auto deviate in front of it.

Then, dimensional corridor a unit (maybe wraiths) and keep them hidden behind the liths.

Tank interceptor shots (usually the tides IA and quad gun so no big deal, at least for the liths, imo)

Fire the ordinance blasts on the castle (or FB wearing Crisis suits, though it's less dramatic), then snap fire the gauss flux arcs.


Given many things can go wrong (scatter dies like to troll me) and 400pts spent on half-suicide units seems a bit harsh what do you think ? Does it seem feasable ? if they don't explose the liths but still manage to disable them somehow, that's still 2 big LoS blocking pieces right in front of them.


I usually have to face armies with ethereal, 4 FW units behind ADL, 2 tides, 2-3 units of Pathfinders, 2-3 missile-sides teams, Longstrike Railhead and a unit of (Suicide or not) Crisis suits, all this in different combinations.

The army I think I would field :

DLord, MSS, SW
DLord, MSS, SW

5x Warriors, NS
5x Warriors, NS
5x warriors, GA

6x Wraiths, 2 coils
5x Wraiths, 2 coils

Monolith
Monolith
AB

1745

Or even a 3 liths list (though I don't see it really competitive)

DLord, MSS, SW

5x Warriors, NS
5x Warriors, NS
5x warriors, GA

6x Wraiths, 3 coils
6x Wraiths, 3 coils

Monolith
Monolith
Monolith

1750

Monoliths don't auto deviate anymore.

Jmills is correct, you will have to DS a bit further away to avoid a mishap. You could still DS them and use the Particle whip that turn, however it doesn't ignore cover and if they have to go to ground for a 2+ I'm sure they will.

Triple monos are a tough nut to crack. You are however pretty much putting your self in melta range of any fusion blasters by getting that close. ( Or nova charged ion accelerator)

If I were to see that, I would pretty much spend the first round focus firing down your wraiths and GA. If they wipe your wraiths, or even just cut you down to a model or two each.. it will suck.

The keystone of the castling Tau is the ethereal. Splat him with a monolith then a couple of despairteks should make chunks of his army run off the board. The look on your enemies face is priceless

You monolith tactic seems viable. I might try it with my destroyer lord and praetorians.

Given they are skimmers, if they happen to scatter on the gunline they'll generally auto deviate in front of it.

I think Perma is referring to the rule in skimmers, page 83 BRB. bottom left paragraph

If a skimmer is forced to end its move over friendly or enemy models, move the skimmer the minimum distance so that no models are left underneath it.

I can't see where in a normal move you would end up on top of other models as you 'have' to land 1" away. Is this rule meant for deepstrike then?

Well... I lurked a bit more after seeing this answer and, in fact, when you deepstrike a lith it counts as having moved.

Thus, DSing isn't moving, it's DSing, and thus the lith is still subject to mishaps when ending on top of a unit (following the rules for DS)

I think this is a great tactic! I think since the mishap table is so forgiving, I'd recommend doing this with two Monoliths and pulling through units that could do some serious damage when they arrive. Don't worry about hiding them behind the monolith, put em right up front and rapid fire the crap out of something. Be dangerous. They are going to be terrified. You don't need to pull through Wraiths, they are fast enough to be in that same location on turn 2 anyways.

I like something like 10 Immortals with an Overlord/crypteks being pulled through by each portal and just dumping fire down. Or two blobs of 20 warriors with support. I imagine that this would be terrifying as a Tau player.

If you're playing at a FLGS tourney, I'd ask your TO how the monolith deepstrike mishaps works. I know personally, my local TO, ruled that since it's a skimmer and deep strike happens in the movement phase, he ruled in the favor that they scatter off enemy or friendly models.

I ran 2 monoliths in my last 1999+1 tourney. I went 1-1-1. The game I won, I destroyed the Tau Farsight Bomb list. I just killed his troops and there were 6 objectives and I was running 60 warriors. The draw was with my brother and we were messing around the whole time (since it was the 3rd game of the day and we couldn't place). The game I lost was against 3 Dakkajets with 2 Scythes and 1 Doom allied in. 6 flyers was too much in kill points. I had no way of killing them and he was spreading his kill points out well so I couldn't kill them fast enough. Dawn of War is rough if they spread out. Monoliths like condense deployment.

I feel like your list can work and it will win a couple games, but it will run into the same problem as I did with flyers. You do have 2 scythes though which is more than what I had. Good list though.

P.S. - Wouldn't run triple monolith for risk of lack of troops/flyers. Also monoliths don't put out that much damage. They have to snapfire all their gauss guns after shooting the whip.

 Brymm wrote:
I like something like 10 Immortals with an Overlord/crypteks being pulled through by each portal and just dumping fire down. Or two blobs of 20 warriors with support.

If that's all you're planning on doing, why wouldn't you just use Veils of Darkness? If they start on the table, you don't even need to worry about Interceptor fire. For as little as 60 points, you can teleport your entire squad into the enemy back field on turn one and wreck some serious face before your opponent even has a chance to do anything.

I don't recommend deep striking them. They are huge and mishap easily, even with a small scatter. Even if it isn't outright destroyed, losing it for another turn can easily lose you the game.

Instead I recommend using it as a giant LoS blocking piece. Misslesides can't even glance it, and if they want to get into melta range, the stuff hiding behind them will just focus it down. This makes reserving other units (or just hiding them really well) a safer way to beat tao. I've been doing it in my escalation league, and while it hasn't done anything impressive damage wise, the tactical choices it opens up have won me many games. Plus, many people fear the giant block of plastic like it was death itself. They sometimes over-react to it and waste guns on it that would be better served dealing with other, more dangerous threats (like ABs and other vehicles).

Saythings wrote:
If you're playing at a FLGS tourney, I'd ask your TO how the monolith deepstrike mishaps works. I know personally, my local TO, ruled that since it's a skimmer and deep strike happens in the movement phase, he ruled in the favor that they scatter off enemy or friendly models.

I ran 2 monoliths in my last 1999+1 tourney. I went 1-1-1. The game I won, I destroyed the Tau Farsight Bomb list. I just killed his troops and there were 6 objectives and I was running 60 warriors. The draw was with my brother and we were messing around the whole time (since it was the 3rd game of the day and we couldn't place). The game I lost was against 3 Dakkajets with 2 Scythes and 1 Doom allied in. 6 flyers was too much in kill points. I had no way of killing them and he was spreading his kill points out well so I couldn't kill them fast enough. Dawn of War is rough if they spread out. Monoliths like condense deployment.

I feel like your list can work and it will win a couple games, but it will run into the same problem as I did with flyers. You do have 2 scythes though which is more than what I had. Good list though.

P.S. - Wouldn't run triple monolith for risk of lack of troops/flyers. Also monoliths don't put out that much damage. They have to snapfire all their gauss guns after shooting the whip.

I'm glad to see you had some success against new Tau with a similar list.

Given the very helpful inputs here, I switched some things and I thought it could be funny to add a c'tan shard with Lord of fire to deter the suits from coming into melta range. Here is the new list :

DLord, MSS, SW

C'tan Shard, Gaze of Death, Lord of Fire

5 warriors, NS
5 warriors, NS
5 warriors, NS

6 Wraiths, 3 Coils
5 Wraiths, 3 Coils

Monolith
Monolith

1745

Remember, you measure LOS from the top of the monolith crystal for the particle whip, it is HIGHLY unlikely they will benefit from the Aegis using true line of sight given the height of the model.

Otherwise, focus the meltas, and he'll have a hard time doing anything about it.

DOOMONYOU wrote:
If a skimmer is forced to end its move over friendly or enemy models, move the skimmer the minimum distance so that no models are left underneath it.

I can't see where in a normal move you would end up on top of other models as you 'have' to land 1" away.

It's possible to achieve this with Tank Shock.

DOOMONYOU wrote:
Is this rule meant for deepstrike then?

No. If Deep Strike scatter was considered moving, no model could ever mishap by scattering: BRB, page 10: "A model cannot move within 1" of an enemy model". Note how this rule is just as applicable to DS scatter as the page 83 one.

Perma wrote:Thus, DSing isn't moving, it's DSing, and thus the lith is still subject to mishaps when ending on top of a unit (following the rules for DS)

This is the correct way to play it.

 iGuy91 wrote:

Otherwise, focus the meltas, and he'll have a hard time doing anything about it.

The FB on the tides will be hard to take out quickly, that's why I thought I might add a LoF C'tan Shard... I hope he won't risk losing his so-loved Riptide on a bad roll (edit : though again, if it's twin-linked there is little risk)

Re read lord of fire! It's a separate roll not a to hit roll so twin pinking makes no difference to it. And yes it's a fav tatic of mine to DS a mono then port a c'tan though it to mess with meltas. (one of my opponents likes vulkan he he).

This is the list i run right now, it's really rocking my local community. I usually +-4 the deep strike rules, or ask the to at tournaments. I actually don't end up deep striking the monoliths most of the time, I just walk them up the board with the wraiths behind them, so the los is blocked, and I add in some spyders for repair. 9 times out if 10 both monoliths make it, and the wraiths charge 2nd or 3rd turn, after the particle whips have punched some large blast sized holes in their army. It's a great list that exploits weaknesses in the current meta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Luide wrote:

DOOMONYOU wrote:
If a skimmer is forced to end its move over friendly or enemy models, move the skimmer the minimum distance so that no models are left underneath it.

I can't see where in a normal move you would end up on top of other models as you 'have' to land 1" away.

It's possible to achieve this with Tank Shock.

DOOMONYOU wrote:
Is this rule meant for deepstrike then?

No. If Deep Strike scatter was considered moving, no model could ever mishap by scattering: BRB, page 10: "A model cannot move within 1" of an enemy model". Note how this rule is just as applicable to DS scatter as the page 83 one.

Perma wrote:Thus, DSing isn't moving, it's DSing, and thus the lith is still subject to mishaps when ending on top of a unit (following the rules for DS)

This is the correct way to play it.

I've thought a lot about this since its so important to this list, and after reading it over I'm strongly convinced there is no clear right answer, and any attempt to argue about it just goes in endless circle. GW REALLY needs to address this in an errata.

GW REALLY needs to address this in an errata.

Well, if you and everyone you know starts bombarding them with questions concerning it, they'll have a better chance of actually addressing it (they're not called "frequently asked questions" for nothing, after all)

 skoffs wrote:

GW REALLY needs to address this in an errata.

Well, if you and everyone you know starts bombarding them with questions concerning it, they'll have a better chance of actually addressing it (they're not called "frequently asked questions" for nothing, after all)

Yeah I emailed them a couple times. Hopefully I'm not the only one.

 NinjaStars wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

GW REALLY needs to address this in an errata.

Well, if you and everyone you know starts bombarding them with questions concerning it, they'll have a better chance of actually addressing it (they're not called "frequently asked questions" for nothing, after all)

Yeah I emailed them a couple times. Hopefully I'm not the only one.

If you tell five people, and those five people each tell five people, and those people tell five people...