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I played quite a bit in 5th. I have not played much 6th over the last year. I was wondering what the general "meta" is of the new space marines. While I have no desire to power-game min/max everything. I would like to get a good Idea of which units seem to have good value in general.

Secondly I was wondering of those units what seems to be effective VS Tau. After reading both books coming to grips with them in CC seems mind shatteringly dangerous. I was wondering if the community could shed some light on these issues or point me in the right direction.

Thanks
~Thrawn

The answer to both questions, more or less, is "Thunderfire Cannons." Lots of stuff in the new dex is good, but I think most people will agree that the TFC is best, and Tau are plenty susceptible to it.

Against Tau in particular, you also see grav weapons shine. They wound Riptides and Broadsides on 2+, and those are often the biggest hitters in Tau lists. Grav is best on centurions, or on bikes, though. I'd never give grav to a regular infantry model.

Beyond that, there are 10,000 answers you might get. I prefer Ultramarines in rhinos, but most/any/all space marine tactics and strategies will have reasonable arguments in their favor. The most important thing is going to be to get experience with your army and you'll learn the right moves to make and how to minimize your errors.

TFC'S are good, I can suggest combining them with combat squadded lascannon dev's, Make great use of the bolstered bonus and gives you a good weapon vs riptides and suits.

Gravs are good too, I wouldn't take them on cent's just because they aren't mobile enough and will get blown out of the water vs Tau.

I'd use bikes, stick a runic weapon on the a libby and a bunch of grav's and combi gravs. They will be able to hunt suits and tides. Make sure to take them in sufficient #'s though because Tau really are able to negate both armor and cover effectively. Tau don't have great LD, standard suit comes in at LD 8 without upgrades and tides are 9 so shriek is going to be fantastic.

Sternguard in drop pods is also a fun tactic. Couple that with some bikes and speeders and you've got some maneuverability on em. You have to decide how you want to play before knowing what to field though. But sterns in pods, a typhoon squadron, couple of tfc's, and bike troops would be fun as hell. I have a similar raven guard build minus the tfc's and its a blast to play. At least if you don't win you should have fun with a bunch of fast moving and in your face units.

How well do you guys/gals think tau can handle flyers? I have a stormraven and stormtalon.

Fliers are at their worst vs Tau. Even without skyfire, Broadsides can smash Storm Talons to pieces. Ravens can do better, but Land Raiders are a better investment in this matchup. (Usually, I think the fliers are MUCH better, but this is the exception).

Tau are flyer bane, any suit can have skyfire and/or interceptor. As a tau player I really don't worry about them.

If I know a player has a bunch of flyers I'll make a crisis team with skyfire and meltas and hold them in reserve. When the flyers come in I deepstrike behind them and plug a few meltas in the back armour. Or I always have my ADL quad gun for the same and any HBC riptide I take always has both as well. Plus regular fire warriors weapons are strong enough to glance a standard flyer (S5).

That's all before mentioning the Skyray. It has skyfire and networked MLs so it can use its own lights boosting its BS to 6 and unleashing upto 6 seekers (S8 If I remember right). Plus with 2 MLs we can remove your jink save.

Another trick I like is if I get the warlord trait that grants skyfire to his unit I'll put him with a team of pathfinders to give me 6+ skyfire MLs. Flyers that survive my interceptor attacks don't ever survive my next round of shooting

Yup Flyers are out!

Flyers arent dead at all. But it is critical you stop the vector units who can gank them.

A space marine unit w grav guns can kill a riptide pretty quickly but obviouly may be in great danger to do so. Perhaps worth it. I think plasma is basically a better bet against units in general though. Stern/vanguard can do the job. As can other units.

Space marines would be wise to employ rhinos against Tau. Pod vs early warning systems can be a deadly bet. Im generalizing there since I can't know what Tau force you face BUT...

Land raiders can do a lot to mask an approaching assault. Far from a sure bet but pretty far from a bad one. I hated land raiders but now... Id use them to mask your approach.

Could you give me a breakdown of how I would do that in game. 250 each is a lot for landraiders. how would I mas my assult exactly.

Make sure you kill the marker light support units (Pathfinders, Marker Drones, Tetras). They are the backbone of the Tau firepower.

I'm also a new guy returning to 6th edition. My first opponent will be Tau.

I have a general idea based on Reecius' Raven Guard list. Unfortunately I have a crap load of Space Marine boots, but not a lot of treads. I do have two Rhinos/Razorbacks (used magnets so I can choose between the two), so my plan is to rush them with Sternguard, an Honor Guard, and 10 man ASM squad. I plan on taking Lascannon Devastators, and a Predator. Make him choose between getting rid of the Pred or focus firing the Rhinos.

How do people feel about:

Teleport Homing Terminators against Tau? Both Shootinators (Cyclones or AssCans) and Hammernators?

My other idea was the scout rush up two squads of tacs with teleport homers (Raven Guard), rushing them forward, then teleport homing in Deathwing Terminators (I also bought the DA Codex). I would drop the Honour Guard then, since I'd be getting a cheap Librarian as Raven Guard HQ and using Belial as the DA HQ.

Mirehn wrote:
I'm also a new guy returning to 6th edition. My first opponent will be Tau.

I have a general idea based on Reecius' Raven Guard list. Unfortunately I have a crap load of Space Marine boots, but not a lot of treads. I do have two Rhinos/Razorbacks (used magnets so I can choose between the two), so my plan is to rush them with Sternguard, an Honor Guard, and 10 man ASM squad. I plan on taking Lascannon Devastators, and a Predator. Make him choose between getting rid of the Pred or focus firing the Rhinos.

How do people feel about:

Teleport Homing Terminators against Tau? Both Shootinators (Cyclones or AssCans) and Hammernators?

My other idea was the scout rush up two squads of tacs with teleport homers (Raven Guard), rushing them forward, then teleport homing in Deathwing Terminators (I also bought the DA Codex). I would drop the Honour Guard then, since I'd be getting a cheap Librarian as Raven Guard HQ and using Belial as the DA HQ.

I think a smart tau opponent is probably gonna ignore that single pred and focus on popping the rhinos to put your marines on foot. I'm a marine player and would go ahead and assume prior to his first round of shooting that the pred would be safe for a few rounds as its not that much of a threat. As far as teleport homers on tac marines...if i'm not mistaken only scouts can take those. Correct me if I'm wrong on that as I don't have my codex with me. If tacs can take em and their suicide mission is to get the homer up close, think about stripped down scouts. Less points to throw away.

Even so, if you're running Belial, remember his unit doesn't scatter. But for your other DW termies coming in, just be mindful of the possibility of your opponent loading his suits with interceptor as stated above in an earlier post. That could ruin your day fast if that's gonna be your go-to tactic. Your opponent will realize that you've put alot of points into DW termies and concentrate on intercepting and wiping em out.

A mix of pods and rhinos might be better against Tau than scouting RG rhinos alone.

The problem with the rhino spam is exactly what happened in Reece's batrep. When you go first, you have to deploy your rhinos centrally, which causes your opponent to refuse a flank and forces you to string your rhinos out. Even if he doesn't seize, you can't deliver the whole force fast enough to overcome the localized fire superiority.

Similarly with pod spam and no rhinos, you're depending on reserve rolls to bring in the second half of your force, which means they can get strung out and taken down piecemeal.

But a blend of 3 pods (that's 2 dropping turn 1) plus 3-4 scouting rhinos and then either bikes, jump infantry and/or deathwing assault would allow you to deliver those critical 6-7 hard-hitting units in turn 1 and 2 that can have a chance to overwhelm the Tau firepower. The pods and bikes/jumpers allow you to respond to the refused flank with the rhinos following on a turn later.

 Thrawn2600 wrote:
Could you give me a breakdown of how I would do that in game. 250 each is a lot for landraiders. how would I mas my assult exactly.

With Tau, the good news for them is they have a ton of STR 7 and most dont like taking the heavy RailSides anymore. That leaves the duty of can opening primarily to melta guns on the Riptide or the Crisis teams.

Land Raiders like most transports can move flat out. unlike most transports, they can do so with relatively no downsides. So instead of blazing away with the guns on it, just move flat out 18" in round one. the Rhinos swing in behind the landraider, masking their approach and effectively giving the enemy no GOOd angle or range to kill the rhinos from. So the rhinos safely arrive in round 1. In round 2, the Grav Guns from two heavy units carve the Riptide into Thanksgiving day turkeys...and then the land Raider moves flat out to mask them again. Now they killed two Riptides, are largely immune to counter fire and you wait til round 3.

In round 3, you charge or if no target, then cautiously advance to prepare to do so, again in the shadow of the Raider. Because you are now so close, this may be easy. Or the Tau may move away into a nice corner... which is okay since this strategy will ask of you to take a few Blast weapons to take advantage of this natural inclination. This is made easier by the propensity to take Aegis lines that Tau have. They are now being herded.

Now it is entirely possible that they take the Raider out in round 1. maybe. But remember that the Land Raidr isn't really there tofight. it's there to be a soak. If Riptides fire at the Tank rather than the rhino...good. Nothing is in the Raider anyways. Obviously the Riptides, to be in "juice" range of the Raider means they are easily within range of the grav guns and assaults. The Tau player must weigh his chances of popping that raider versus losing, say, 400 points worth of Riptides.

So the core of this force might be this:
Land Raider
2 rhinos
2 x Vanguardvets w/ Grav and plasma guns (or similarly transportable unit)

The rest is up to you. But that is a way that i can foresee it ending well for you. Vanguard vets have heroic intervention, so multicharging isn't a mean nasty word. They do it well. Tau hate multicharges.

One other piece of advice: angle your OTHER support fire such that when the enemy takes off casualties, they are the closest to the thing you want to charge. By doing this, you can get the enemy Tau OUT of their 6" supporting fire range. Most Tau spread out pretty well, and that means that a lot of time, killing the three closest to the thing you're about to charge will ideally...ideally... take them out of the 6" range. if they are not spread out, well... I did mention the need for blasts as part of your strategy here.

Barrage weapons work the best for the "spacing" technique. Be as surgical as you can about it.

As has been said, Markerlights should be killed as early as possible, and in PARTICULAR if they are nearby the unit you want to charge.

Does that help? I am a Tau player to the core so I speak from a position of considerable experience. if I was terying to beat most of these net lists i see, that's how I'd do it. Tau generals tend to want to sweep you away like a tornado in a trailer park but sadly for them, that means deploying in ways i probably wouldn't. But they will. They always do. And when they do, you make them pay.

I've heard a lot of chat about TFC and I agree they're excellent against Tau. But don't discount the humble whirlwind for mashing up Firewarrior squads that think they're safe behind cover as well. We can argue that a TFC is better bang for the points, but I do like my whirlwinds.

Whirlwinds are an inexpensive tool and unlike some things in Warhammer, you get your points out of them consistently. Maybe they dont set universes on fire with how awesome they are but then...you didn't pay that much for them anyways. And Heavy FOC slots can quickly be compensated for through allies so its hardly a "sacrifice" to take them any longer. A pair of them are a good idea in some forces.

Kill the pathfinders, they are t3 with a 5+ save and ld 7 without a team leader, kill them fast and the tau army will suddenly become a very unreliable force

Tau are pretty good vs fliers due to access to seeker missiles (and skyrays) and twin linked/multiple shot s7/8

Tau struggle against high-AV vehicles due to the lack of STR9-10 weapons unless they are running triple hammerheads, even then not entirely reliable

Riptides, although dangerous, are actually not that powerful without pathfinders to support them and tend to make their points back by absorbing firepower rather than dishing it out

As a tau player I find the most powerful range is ~15", This is the rapidfire range of the pulse rifle, and without good JSJ range fro crisis teams to rapid fire plasma. I would suggest that when youre going to get to this range have in mind exactly what you want to do, as this is the killzone where you will lose alot of models, but if you can survive you can do some serious damage back

Supporting fire hurts. Alot. Normally being the person dishing it out it feels pretty good, but being in the receiving end is painful. It also makes it very likely that you will lose your charge range, which leaves you open to another round of rapid fire death. It might be useful to feed a depleted or small unit, or a unit with less likelihood to reach charge range anyway, to the tau line so they will hopefully rapid fire the living gak out of them before your actual assault unit makes an easier, now unhindered charge into the unit you want to kill.

Also, crisis suits, especially commanders, are surprising hard in close combat, and will batter many a unit with their surprisingly high number of attacks and Str5


Ive probably babbled on a bit but I hope something helpful's come out of it!

Also as said before, thunderfires are fantastic, and whirlwinds are great