Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've been playing against a friend with a Tau army for a while now, I've posted before about tactics against him but nothing I've used from previous advice has worked much to my advantage. However I've started to notice some of the major problems I'm having whilst playing against him. This is the list I've been using:

HQ: CCS (medic, 2 bodyguards, vox), Lord Commissar

Elite: Stormtroopers(plasma, melta, flamer) in a valkyrie(multiple rocket pods, lascannon)

Troops: Platoon (PCS with 2 snipers and a vox, 3 vet squads with a combination of meltas, plasmas, lascannons and autocannons all with carapace armour), another vet squad in a chimera with shotguns and heavy flamethrowers

Fast Attack: Armoured Sentinel with Lascannon

Heavy: LRBT(Battle cannon, Heavy stubber, Heavy Bolter sponsons, lascannon), Vanquisher(Vanquisher battle cannon, multi-melta sponsons, lascannon), Basilisk(Storm bolter, heavy bolter)

The two most problematic units of his I struggle with are the Riptide which he usually uses the novacharge on against my tanks and the pathfinders with a crazy amount of markerlights which remove all of my cover saves or buff his hits, after them it's probably the XV88's with their powerful weapons. His tanks tend to go down pretty easily and his kroot usually get mowed down no matter what but I'm really struggling to keep my tanks alive too, in the last game we played he went first and took out a chimera with a tank hunting squad of vets inside and a LRBT straight away, I didn't even get to move and shoot with them.

In every game we have played I have struggled with the Riptide, I've never been able to take it down and our games last about 5-6 turns on average. If the markerlights aren't all spent taking down my tanks they're used shredding my units by removing their cover and buffing hits.

Are the markerlights and Riptide just a bit OP or do I need to use better tactics to take them down?

To be honest your list is not very strong.
You should get rid of the body guards and the vox. They do nothing for you in this edition, you can LOS anyway and with a Lord Commissar nearby you´ll have no need of a vox.

Your LRBT is a pointwaste, due to the ordnance weapon cannon you´ll never make good use of the sponsons and especially not of the lascan. That are points you could use elsewhere.
Most people don´t like to use sentinels too, they die to a stiff breeze.
A single Chimera is an invitation for first blood, it won´t help you in any way because it´s faster than your regular troops and will be overextended or parked somewhere doing nothing of significance.
Carapace armor is a point of discussion too, most people prefer to save the points and buy more bodys instead.
Sniper rifles are pretty useless in 40k too...

Another problem in your list is that you try to fit everything into a single unit instead of specializing them. Especially IG have the luxury to be able to have a specialist for everything, plasma, melta & flamer in the same unit will just confuse you, mess with your target priority and won´t be as effective against their target as dedicated anti-tank/infanter/whatever dudes.
The same goes for your tanks. The Vanquisher has a huge range, the lascan is okay but you´ll never use the multimelta.

Thanks for the advice!

The vanquisher worked surprisingly well last time, the multi-meltas made the killing blow on a hammerhead, but I've left them interchangeable and kept the bolters and flamers.

I'll certainly rearrange the troops to specialize more, I did attempt this with the shotgunners and flamers in the chimera but they were taken out straight away in the chimera. I may keep the snipers as they have been quite useful against his stealth suits in the past. I was toying with the idea of getting a hydra flak tank to replace the LRBT as my friend who plays tau has started using a sunshark bomber, would this be advisable/worth the points cost? I have also been thinking of getting another valkyrie or vendetta.

I've been advised that the storm troopers are a bit of a waste in the past but they've been quite useful when deepstriked with an extra 5 troopers, should i carry on with this or get rid of the spare points and get more troops?

More Vendettas are always a good idea
If the Storm troopser work for you, then use them. Personally I like them but I´d just deepstrike them as suicide squads to kill off targets of opportunity.
You might think about 1 or 2 Manticores. They are quite amazing usually and everything without 3+ armor will try to get rid of them ASAP.

I like the idea of manticores but given the number of turns we usually end up with I'm not too keen on the limited ammunition, is it worth investing in another two basilisks and running all three of them as a battery of 3? Also is it worth getting another storm trooper squad to keep my opponent distracted whilst I move my troops and tanks in?

The only problem I have with getting any new units is that nearly all of my previous units are either heavily converted or have paint schemes that take a long time to complete, but the pay off is a good looking army, I may post some better pictures of my more recent stuff soon.

The limited ammo is not that big of an issue imo. When you run out of ammo you should have earned your points back or you´ll be between a rock and a hard place anyway.

Personally I´m not a fan of squadrons of 3 vehicles because they all have to aim at the same target. This will be overkill most of the time and you waste points you could use offensively somewhere else actually doing damage.

I would keep the vanquisher. I started using the vanquisher once leman russes became heavy and found that if you throw a lascannon on them with either MM sponsons or plasma cannon sponsons then you've got yourself a tank that can do a lot of high strength ap2 damage or some ap1 with MM's.

I would not put vehicles in squads of 3 just because they shoot at the same target and usually when your opponent assaults vehicles they destroy them so if your opponent assaults the basilisks do you really want to lose all 3? Its not a good idea.

I didn't realize squadrons had to fire at the same target, that's certainly limiting and definitely worth bearing in mind. I've found the BS 4 on the vets extremely useful as a troops choice but what should I add to specialize against killing Tau?

Can you sketch the list your opponent uses? Tau builds can vary and so do your tactics against them.

There's always Farsight as the warlord with a squad of suits, a Riptide, Hammerhead, pathfinders with markerlights and a regular XV88. Then there's usually two firewarrior squads and a large squad of kroot, another XV88 with missiles as well as a team of stealth suits and some XV8's. There's always a wall of a lot of shield drones that prevents me hitting anything important for the first 2 turns usually.

Edit: I forgot the devilfish thats attached to one of the firewarrior squads and the sunshark bomber as well.

Your list needs significant work and is in fact illegal.

HQ: CCS (medic, 2 bodyguards, vox), Lord Commissar

Cut the fat from this squad and get rid of the medic and body guard. If you have a quadd gun think about sticking this unit on it. Either way keep it cheap and use the order to buff your other units.

Elite: Stormtroopers(plasma, melta, flamer) in a valkyrie(multiple rocket pods, lascannon)

You are wasting all the storm trooper abilities by putting them in a valk (non dedicated transport so they cannot even outflank). Put a vets in the valk and you can do the exact same stuff but for less points and score.

Your use of three special weapons is also illegal. You can only take 2 in a stormtrooper squad. I would recommend two of the same. Plasma or melta are best so you can DS in and hurt a vehicle with them.

Troops: Platoon (PCS with 2 snipers and a vox, 3 vet squads with a combination of meltas, plasmas, lascannons and autocannons all with carapace armour), another vet squad in a chimera with shotguns and heavy flamethrowers

PCS requires a platoon (PCS and 2 infantry squads minimum). Therefore your list is illegal.

Honestly you have a serious issue. You do not have the transports (read mobility) to use vets and you don't have the numbers to run a gunline (which is what you are doing right now). Do you have any more chimeras or valks/vendettas to put them in?

Fast Attack: Armoured Sentinel with Lascannon

This unit is not great but it can work okay if you can outflank it. The regular sentinels are usually a better value.

Heavy: LRBT(Battle cannon, Heavy stubber, Heavy Bolter sponsons, lascannon), Vanquisher(Vanquisher battle cannon, multi-melta sponsons, lascannon), Basilisk(Storm bolter, heavy bolter)

Your setup on the LRBT is extremely wasteful on points. You probably cannot do anything about it but in the future a naked LRBT is a much better use of points.

The Vanquisher is actually a decent unit with pask or prescience to make it more acurate. As you don't have either you will have problems.

The basilisk is a great unit against Tau but you need more stuff to kill his long range AT or some really great LoS blocking terrain.


I can tell from your list that you have almost no way to kill his riptide. This is because your best weapons against the riptide are the lascannon sentinel and the plasma vets/storm troopers. However the sentinel will die too quickly, the storm troopers only bring a single plasma gun, and the vets have no mobility to close so you will rarely get to actually hurt it. The best way to deal with Tau as IG is to kill the weapons with greater than 36" range and then pound them from 42+" with your artillery until they cannot hurt you anymore. After that you can move onto objectives. This works because IG can take 48" lascannons and 60+" pie plates in large quantities. You should also think about getting an ADL so you can make the Tau player burn some marker lights on negating cover rather than buffing BS.

Drop lrbt or keep it barebones battlecannon with a heavybolter. Add Pask to a vanquisher, though i consider vanquishers a waste on the whole. I'd go for exterminator instead but vanquishers just look really cool - their cannonz are stripped from a WW2 IS (Iosif Stalin) heavy tank - killer of Panthers and Tigers.

U can convert a valkerie into vendetta and get 3 tl lazcannon shots for cheap.

I'd drop a sentinel with a lazcannon. U could get extra 10 guyz in platoon.

I'd also drop sniper rifles on a pcs but let's just let it go.

2 bodyguards for 30 pts in a ccs are bad - better take a chimera.

If you use stormtroopers - you need to specialise them on a single role:
-Tankhunters. Take 2 meltas + a plazmapistol on serg, don't forget they can throw a s6 ap4 nade also. Deepstrike them - they can get reroll for a deepstrike which is very handy. Best option imo.
-Anti-support infantry. Need to get rid of that annoying pathfinders that make tau so strong at shooting? Or there are packed firewarriors behind an adl? Take a couple of flamers and u're forcing like 10-15 saves with just them.
-MC/Heavy infantry hunters. Melta or plazma. Though it's not gona work vs riptides - they got interceptor for 5 pts.

Min squad of 4 + serg is the best for stormtroopers imo. Don't waste a valkerie's transport capacity on them - they're good at deepstriking anywayz. And be VERY careful with interceptor.

 Hallakhan wrote:


The two most problematic units of his I struggle with are the Riptide which he usually uses the novacharge on against my tanks and the pathfinders with a crazy amount of markerlights which remove all of my cover saves or buff his hits, after them it's probably the XV88's with their powerful weapons. His tanks tend to go down pretty easily and his kroot usually get mowed down no matter what but I'm really struggling to keep my tanks alive too, in the last game we played he went first and took out a chimera with a tank hunting squad of vets inside and a LRBT straight away, I didn't even get to move and shoot with them.

In every game we have played I have struggled with the Riptide, I've never been able to take it down and our games last about 5-6 turns on average. If the markerlights aren't all spent taking down my tanks they're used shredding my units by removing their cover and buffing hits.

Are the markerlights and Riptide just a bit OP or do I need to use better tactics to take them down?

I use this list for TAC competitive games for my IG at present, with a heavy emphasis on not getting boned by Riptides/Wraithknights.



Notice how everything is configured to be capable of punishing a Riptide except the CCS. That's very deliberate.

The Inquisitor is a straight, no brainer upgrade over the Lord Commissar at present. For cheaper he's far better at CC, gives you prescience, LD10, stubborn and has -1WS/+1I, but mainly he gives you some absurdly good toys like -1T grenades and Psyoccolums which give your entire unit BS10 against psykers.

To defend the Chimeras, I always place them behind the Leman Russ Executioners and steadily move up the board towards the objectives, breaking formation to intercept incoming units and then melting their faces at double tap range with plasma. The Executioners butcher infantry and are by far the best LR variant at tackling Riptides, and in turn can't be easily killed by them at all. The Vendettas are the most efficient means of countering them and the platoon can cause heavy disruption, taking objectives.

Thanks for the advice! I really like the idea of using Inquisitors, are they from the Sisters of Battle codex?

The easiest way to bring tau down a notch or two is to take out the pathfinders. with only T3, and a 5+ save they are very squishy, and usually somewhere they can get a good LOS, so they are liable to getting shot up very quickly. if they are in area cover, volume of fire will kill them quickly, but if they are behind cover, then using barrage weapons is the key, griffons will murder pathfinders and firewarriors with reckless abandon, and are fairly cheap. mortars do the trick as well but you may want to spend points on other things.

As far as the riptide goes, volume of fire will down them fairly easily, they have a nasty statline, but if you arent AP 2 or better you 'only' need to do 30 wound to them to statistically kill them, Punishers can do the business quite efficiently.

you should also bear in mind that tau have very little in the way of super long range firepower, and very little that can threaten AV14 outside of hammerheads, melta suits, and if its nova charged, the riptide.

How i've seen a puretide list beaten is as i've mentioned. the riptide was largely ignored, and the guard player in question used massed barage and template weapons to kill the meat of the army, vendettas came in and downed the enemy tanks, and then what was left was blown to pieces by massed fire

and, well, it needs saying,

GET MARBO!!! your opponent can kiss his broadsides good bye!

You can get inquisitors from 'Inquisition Codex', it was released digitally.