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Hi all. Hope this is the right place to discuss this topic and if it is I hope someone can help. I have a 2000 point tau army with 2 squads of 7 pathfinders which I seem to always loose early on before landing those well needed marker light hits, because of drop pods filled with dark angels with flamers. Can anyone give advice on the best defence against this. And also the death wing assault terminators with hammers and storm shields? Any advice welcome. Thanks.

I'm thinking reserves, devilfish, or EWO riptides + IA or some combination thereof?

Wouldn't really work. Reserving them, means they come in and snap fire. Devil fish means they disembark and snap fire. IA and EWO risks hitting the pathfinders if the flamers are close enough to them.

Your best bet is to try and deploy where the drop pod can't land safely. Bubble wrap some kroot around them if you have to.

You could set up a denial zone with your other troops so that he can't effectively get units to your pathfinders easily. A spread out deployment that doesn't fit a drop pod would be ideal. Also utilize EWO units to try to knock those DA with flamers off the board before he can do anything to you.

You can do reserves, but as Savage notes, they will fire on snap shots coming in, if they come in at all on turn 2.

Good luck!

Bubblewrapping them is hard, because wound allocation is sequential, so if the Space Marine player does it correctly, the bubblewrap might have a hole big enough to deny the cover saves for the rest of the shooting. Thick enough bubblewrap can indeed work, as can using terrain to your advantage (ruins or hills in particular). If there is literally no room for the pods to land and get to you, it's a pretty safe place to be.

A devilfish would definitely be option two. Sure, you lose your first turn of markerlights to snap shots, but it's better a turn of snap shots than no shots at all followed by dead Pathfinders. While you would also lose a bit of utility by reserving them, you would also gain the possibility of using them at SOME POINT, which it sounds like you currently aren't getting.

Another tactic is a weapon with Interceptor. It's highly likely that the closest Space Marines are going to be the ones with the flamers (if not, they'll be one of the closest). An Interceptor weapon can seriously put a cramp in their style. And if you have a character on it, then I believe they get the possibility of precision hits, which can solve your flamer problem regardless of how far back in the squad they are.

In any event, hope that helps. And on behalf of all the drop pod players, I would like to offer a heartfelt apology. I in no way intend to stop killing Pathfinders with flamers on the first turn, but I'll feel really bad about it, if that makes you feel any better.

Or you can just stop taking Pathfinders. I generally advocate for finding other sources of markerlights because they're so squishy. They routinely give up first blood and that's even in the absence of drop pods.

If Forgeworld is allowed in your meta, it's easy; tetras.

If not, you still have Skyrays for ancillary support, and your primary should then be marker drones. Crisis suit units with missile pods make excellent mounts. A drone controller bumps them to BS3. If you want realllllly rock hard marker support, you take the Mark'o with controller to give them BS5; but that is investing a lot of points. (Although about the same as mounting Pathfinders in Devilfish, so now that I think about it, superior in cost too).

The point is, Pathfinders' only hope is having either a) many units of them and therefore, safety in numbers or b) so many other threats that the Pathfinders get bumped down the target priority list.

I play enclaves, so tetras and Skyrays and drone squads synergize better with my style of play anyway. So I understand if a Sept player enjoys their Pathfinders. The models are VERY rule #1...but they're just squishy and therefore I'd say try out some of the above recommendations.

I think Pathfinders in a Devilfish are a good idea. Keep in mind they also have pulse carbines. After the drop pods come down, disembark and unload some strength 5 pinning weapons into the unit. Next turn, you can use the markerlights normally (but they're certainly not useless before then).

If the opponent doesn't bring drop pods, then just deploy them outside the Devilfish.

If you're having trouble keeping them alive long enough to use, I'd advocate going for a different source for your markerlights. Bubble wrap to avoid my drop pod flamers, and my TFC's will love you for it. Pathfinders are very squishy.

If you're hiding the pathfinders in the Devilfish, then do you need the markerlights at all?
Turn 1 they hide in waiting for the pods. Turn 2 they disembark and use carbines on the flamer units. Turn 3 is your first turn using markerlights. If you're waiting that late in the game why even bother? Just take the points you'd spend on pathfinders and Devilfish and just more crisis suits, piranha, firewarriors, or whatever you want.

Seriously. Guys, devilfish are overcosted and make very little sense for Pathfinders.

I really like taking the Mark'O with MLdrones and some gun drones for extra ablative wounds! Has yet to fail me and essentially allows me to almost guarantee 1 enemy squad gets deleted. Plus they are relentless and so you dont ever have to worry about moving your ML around to keep em safe or make sure they can actually be useful.

Either EWO on a riptide with either weapons ( make sure it's nova charged ) always works for me alot of my friends have given up drop podding now lol

Or EWO on missile sides should do enough damage potentially

Or back the pathfinders up with enough fire support after the marines have fired when its your turn they will get nuked

But seriously devil fish suck there very expensive and not very effective especially for what you are after

Infiltrate Kroot to deny your opponent a place to put his pods.

If you take a couple cheap units of Kroot, you can spread them out to deny a pretty big area.

Force him to come in where you want him to. Let him fry some kroot or position your skimmers so he has to go through them first. Interceptor w/ plasma suits or a RT. Don't waste the points on a devilfish, complete waste. You need PF's shooting turn 1. Maybe think about ML drones w/ a CO. They would hit on 2's. Or 3-4 tetras. PF's should be no where near your front lines taking fire from short range flamer templates. Best of luck!!

There's actually a number of annoying things you can do to drop pod lists due to the size of the drop pod model.

Early warning override is an incredible answer to drop pod lists. Broadsides, Riptides and Crisis suits(missiles) can all take them. For 5 points, it's easily paid for itself over and over.

Well, there's that solution as well.

SO does EWO actually give you a chance to destroy the pod before the units disembark?

If that's the case what happens to the models inside? do they just land in a crater like if they had been in a rhino that blew up?

Well EWO fires after ALL movement, so by the time you fire, they have disembarked. You shoot the marines, not the pod.

Ah that makes a lot of sense! SO you wouldn't want to trick out your broadsides with rail guns necessarily for that you want the missile pods to wreak havoc.

Lately i've been experimenting with a crisis suit squad for my markerlights. Here is the general set up.

Two Crisis Shas'ui with 2x MP and Target Locks, One Crisis Shas'vre with CnC, M3S, DC and the squad takes six markerlight drones. 261pts total gets you 8 S7 AP4 shots with ignores cover and TL, and 6 markerlight shots with TL. I do it this way so that my commander is free to be his bad self, and i do not have to rely on pathfinders as much. It is also a pretty mobile support/offensive platform, just be careful of making dangerous terrain tests. My drones were r-tards in that regard.

This kind of set up completely wrecks guardsmen for example.

Wow thanks for the reply fellas! I sure do have a few cards I can play now. Think the EWO will be used along with kroot as a meat shield. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks everyone.

Riptide and missileside EWO seriously hurts deep strikers

Once I killed 9 sternguard and the drop pod before they even got a chance to blink haha

Why would you waste CCN and MSS on a unit with a) AP4 weapons and B) marker lights which don't cause damage?

TL markers are nice but not worth giving CCN up for something deadly.

Even at AP4 the missiles will ping just about any light vehicle to death and even do a number on a flyer. I admit it does lose some of it's effectiveness, but it's not really going to waste. Even though you'll probably still hear cries of cheese mongering from down field. The sheer volume of S7 with that long of a range make it a very versatile and threatening unit.

I've tried it before. It's fun. I leave the commander drone less so I can have the option of a few units to attach him to.

MSS and CCN belong on things like Riptides, Broadsides, O'Vesa (and friends), or allied Devastators/Centurions. If you're going to put that stuff in with Crisis at least put it in with plasma.

You are wasting them by putting them in missile pod crisis.

They put out just as much S7 as broadsides, which are already twin-linked, but remain mobile and provide support for the rest of the army. You have a unit that puts 12 S7 shots that are twin-linked and with tank/monster hunter, and also manages to provide 6 BS5 twin-linked markerlights on another target for another unit to use. Look at it like this. You get all the missiles at one target and a Riptide gets BS6 for re-roll and ignores cover at a separate unit.

The commander is good in several different units, which is why so many people complain about it. It really matters more of the list. If you're bringing an IA Riptide, you won't necessarily need extra plasma shots. The missile pod suits are a great middle ground and what I consider the default load out of a suit until your list really gets down to the fine adjustments. When list making it's no problem either since the three main weapons all cost the same and it's easy to swap them out once the rest of the list is made.

I'm counting 8 S7 shots...are you sticking a x2 MP commander in there too?

I was thinking three suits. I wouldn't suggest it outside of max sized units.