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I'm playing a Tau player in a while, so I want to create a list that should give him troubles. I know that to kill Tau, kill the markerlights, but is there any tips you could give me? I'm not into the idea of suicide grunts in a horde, seems like a waste to me. I know he will field a pair of Riptides and a Hammerhead at least. Being a clever person, he is also castling up. It's a 2000 point game, so how will I claim a win? I like Vendettas, not afraid to spam them, but he will probably take Broadsides to shoot them down. I also have no luck with DSing Stormtroopers, I always miss with the meltas. Any allies could help too, from SM or GK codex. Please, any help out there?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'm playing a Tau player in a while, so I want to create a list that should give him troubles. I know that to kill Tau, kill the markerlights, but is there any tips you could give me? I'm not into the idea of suicide grunts in a horde, seems like a waste to me. I know he will field a pair of Riptides and a Hammerhead at least. Being a clever person, he is also castling up. It's a 2000 point game, so how will I claim a win? I like Vendettas, not afraid to spam them, but he will probably take Broadsides to shoot them down. I also have no luck with DSing Stormtroopers, I always miss with the meltas. Any allies could help too, from SM or GK codex. Please, any help out there?

Problem with the riptide is that it has a 72 inch range ion accelerator(str 7 ap 2) that can be overcharged to large blast strength 8 ap 2 or another weapon like a burst cannon, interceptor, skyfire, feel no pain, shield drones with invulnerable saves, missiles that ignore cover, can move 4d6 in its assault phase, has 5 wounds, toughness 6, ect.

They're hard to kill and are not surprising when the average tau player puts them in both corners of his table and doesn't move them unless you start moving towards him with something that could do damage to it.

The only thing I can suggest is to come up with some kind of method that can either assault him in combat reliably, tank the shots or deal a lot of ap2 wounds (snipers maybe?)

Hammerheads, skyrays, ect aren't hard to kill because they're vehicles. You can glance them to death or get lucky on the pen. But being a monstrous creature with 2+ and 3++ if it novacharges with 2x 4++ shield drones to back it up, if you don't have a method of dealing a lot of ap2 shots to it or getting into combat to it where you can exploit its initiative 2 and low ws(2); you're just going to be a shooting gallery for them.

Sorry if I'm the bearer of bad news. The worst part is that the riptides won't even fill up half the points in his army.

Go with the vendettas. The armor 12 will mean that his SMS (that ignores your jink saves) won't be able to damage you and he'll be forced to use his strength 7 ion accelerator(3 shots each) to intercept them. They'll be glancing on 5s, penning on 6s. But you get to evade.

Personally I like running some russes against tau. Mainly because they struggle against the armor 14. My favorite is the Vanquisher with a lascannon and Plasma cannon sponsons. I personally like throwing pask in there especially against tau mainly because I lie my tank hunter killing the tau tank hunter long strike. So far pask is 2-0 against long strike.

But I would greatly suggest a manticore or colossus to harass and take out his troops.

As for dropping riptides and suits proxy your marines as SW, use 2 pods, each witha squad of grey hunters and a rune priest in each. You can run up to 9 hunters in each but make sure that theres a spot for that rune priest. Now for each of the rune priest take JAWS power on both and then use a different power Like one takes Living lightning and the other has murderous hurricane since they cant both have the same 2 powers.

Now turn first turn one of the pods comes in and you use your line of JAWS and drop a riptide, hopefully unless he rolls lucky. turn 2 repeat with the other pod. Now take those hunters and rune priests and just try and run through his lines.

One game I had a rune priest kill3 broad sides and 3 crisis suits with one JAWS attack. He then went on to make sure that rune priest died.

When Tau are played "best" they're a highly mobile shooting army. So that means a couple of things.

First, "Fish of Fury" is a tactic that advances Fire Warriors in a Devilfish, drops them as close to 15" as possible, and cracks shots at you from the FW, plus the shots from the Devilfish. Keep in mind, that as a skimmer it gets a cover save just for moving, and with disruptions pods that cover save is improved by one point. That makes the skimmer very "tough" as it shrugs off half your attacks while sitting in the open.

If an Ethereal is added to the squad, it can give the FW a boost that lets them triple tap at rapid fire range. The 15" range is important. If you're hugging cover, you'll only typically get a single shot in retaliation to their 3. Further, markerlights will strip your cover save... so you're taking 3 times the shots, wounding on a 2+ without save, while he's taking single shots, at 4+ with a 4+ save... usually.

His Suits can move, shoot, then jump out of sight in the assault phase, potentially allowing him to shoot you without your being able to shoot back! Same deal with Rip Tides, if I remember correctly.


If you allow him to control the game with movement, you'll lose.


I've found the best option is to take units that can prevent him from playing peek-a-boo. A Platoon including Al'Raheem can put a ton of firepower in his backfield, where you can then "pincer" him in a way that you can at least shoot rear armour on his tanks, or you can fire at troops that are moving in and out of sight from your "Main" force. Artillery pieces, like the Colossus, don't require LOS, so you can still hit him without needing to see him.

Knocking out Markerlights will dramatically increase the survival of your units, assuming you actively use cover to increase your survivability. I think that "Smart Missile Pods" are able to ignore cover, and punch through your save, so look out for those as well. A somewhat cheesy solution can be to purchase a Skyshield Landing Pad, which gives you an "invul" save instead of cover.


So my best suggestion would be to NOT play a gunline army. You need to be able to counter his mobility somehow. You don't need to worry about very heavy AV, other than maybe a Hammer-head, and it has less AV than a Russ. It also will tend to keep moving, so expect it to have a Jink save. As such, single shot "melta" weapons tend not to work well, as they can move out of range, and the low volume has a good chance to be saved. I offset that with saying that Lascannons are good, since his vehicles need to see you to shoot, and that means they will be in range / LoS. As LC's are reasonably likely to explode vehicles, that can be a viable way to destroy them rather than HP'ing them to death.

Focus on survival, you'll likely loose more of your points than he will in the game. That said, you can probably win by getting rid of cover-ignoring weapons, then his troops, and then going to ground on objectives. That's what I've done, and have a 2/3 win record vs Tau, played by one of the best players at my game store. You may just have to suck it up if he brings a super-tough Riptide. They can be tough enough that the odds of taking them out is too slim. Take out the other things. A Riptide can't score an objective.

 tankboy145 wrote:
Personally I like running some russes against tau. Mainly because they struggle against the armor 14. My favorite is the Vanquisher with a lascannon and Plasma cannon sponsons. I personally like throwing pask in there especially against tau mainly because I lie my tank hunter killing the tau tank hunter long strike. So far pask is 2-0 against long strike.

But I would greatly suggest a manticore or colossus to harass and take out his troops.

As for dropping riptides and suits proxy your marines as SW, use 2 pods, each witha squad of grey hunters and a rune priest in each. You can run up to 9 hunters in each but make sure that theres a spot for that rune priest. Now for each of the rune priest take JAWS power on both and then use a different power Like one takes Living lightning and the other has murderous hurricane since they cant both have the same 2 powers.

Now turn first turn one of the pods comes in and you use your line of JAWS and drop a riptide, hopefully unless he rolls lucky. turn 2 repeat with the other pod. Now take those hunters and rune priests and just try and run through his lines.

One game I had a rune priest kill3 broad sides and 3 crisis suits with one JAWS attack. He then went on to make sure that rune priest died.

While jaws would be a good attack to use against the riptide, dropping them in from a drop pod will see them disappear instantly.

The riptides have intercept. So as soon as you come in, they're just going to intercept and destroy that squad. It technically will save you from the next turn of shooting from them since you can't fire a weapon in the next shooting phase if you intercepted with it. But you won't get to use jaws and that's what matters.

Take two Leman Russ Executioners, then place two plasma/melta Veteran Squads in Chimeras behind them in a relatively tight square. His S8 pie plates can't do jack to your LR's front armour and you're getting heavy cover saves on the Chimeras, which otherwise can't be shot at by ground level units because of LOS, giving them an AV14 defense on the tank in front.



I did it at a tournament recently (see above) and it worked quite well.

The two types of unit are both effective at knocking wounds off Riptides. Vendettas are too, and so are Al'Rahem outflanking blobs with melta guns, possibly with attached Psyker Inquisitor.

Cypher also works quite well, he can too outflank a platoon by attaching him to them in deployment and he himself can quite easily kill or rout a Riptide, while giving shrouded to his entire platoon for 5+ cover saves in open ground or 2+ cover saves in ruins, on Guardsmen, which is pretty mental.

Lascannon teams in various units can be an alright way to go as well.

Yeah, we might be outmatched but as said above we still have a few tricks up our sleeves.

The Las/Plas Vanquisher is great against tau just because it can deal with almost anything. It can reliably put a couple of wounds a turn on a Riptide if everything's in range, can easily take out their AV13 tanks, and also has 2 weapons that can ID Crisis Suits/Broadsides, which is great. THey've also got excellent range, so can hang back pretty far. Make sure to bubble wrap it with infantry, though, as otherwise you'll lose it to DSing suits. Bring a couple of best results.

We also have a couple of great indirect-fire AP4 weapons, namely the Manticore and Colossus. You can get 2 of the latter for the price of one of the former, so it depends on whether you want anywhere between 4-12 S10 AP4 templates over the course of the game (better against vehicles, less reliable, easier to take out) or 2 S6 AP4 blasts a turn consistently (same against Infantry, worse against vehicles, and you can take them as separate units to split enemy fire).

Another thing we have over Tau is the fact that, while their infantry are amazing at under 30", they can't do squat beyond that. IG, on the other hand, can throw a Lascannon or Autocannon in every squad for as little as 60 points, and can sit back 48" away and still be just as useful against anything other than infantry as they would be at 1". The chances are you will be firing the LC/AC at something the Lasguns would be useless against, so you lose nothing by hanging out at maximum range.

If you go down the Mech Guard route, then you've got effective Anti-infantry weapons on every chimera (this is one of the few times I'd advocate 2x Heavy Bolters) so Fire warriors won't be an issue. Similarly, Pathfinders should also go down fast.

The advice for using Jaws is pretty good if you've got SW allies, or if you've got SM then some Grav-bikers can put the hurt on Riptides fast. Inside our own codex, dropping Plasma-toting vets in rapid-fire range can do some good things. At the very least, it will force them to use the 3++ overcharge, making the Ion Accelerator less useful.

What IG units do you have?

IG can always out castle Tau, An Aegis defence line and a platoon split into 3-4 squads with a command squad (for gtg then get back in the fight) nets you 2+ cover saves.

a mini squad of ratlings might help against the riptides.

Or just sit back with manticore/basilisk/colossus and ream chunks out of his castle.

A deathstrike would be funny to use as well, it might force him to come closer to your other guns to try and destroy it before it fires.

I find a single Hyrda sitting back with its 72" range can be effective against devilfish's maneuverability, and can't be jinked .

Manticores are pretty fatal to castled up Tau. I always bring 2 or 3. If he's relying on an ADL to protect his FW and Pathfinders, you can probably blow most of them off the table in one volley.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Manticores are pretty fatal to castled up Tau. I always bring 2 or 3. If he's relying on an ADL to protect his FW and Pathfinders, you can probably blow most of them off the table in one volley.

Yep. I've done this... It hurts.

I've got a Vendetta, a CCS, 2x PCS, 5 combined Infantry Squads, a Veteran Squad, a Leman Russ Demolisher kit (so I get Punisher, Demolisher and Executioner), a Sentinel and a Chimera. That's all I got so far, but I'm considering more Vendettas and ordnance. I was planning on a MoO and three Basilisks, for 4 pie plates of S9 Ap3 goodness. How much better would Manticores serve me? They cost more points, so there could be an issue there. I'm also concerned as to how I can protect them if he goes first?

Manticores beat Bassies against most opponents, I think. Against anything but marines, you're doing the same damage per blast, except you potentially get more of them. As for protecting them, just put them out of LOS behind a building or hill. Tau are distinctly lacking in barrage weapons.

HQ
Company Command Squad with Lord Castellan Creed, Astropath, Master of Ordnance, 3x Plasma Guns and Regimental Standard = 260

Troops
Infantry Platoon A
Infantry Squad with Flamer and Chimera = 110
Infantry Squad with Flamer and Chimera = 110
Platoon Command Squad with Captain Al'Rahem, Heavy Flamer, 3x Meltaguns and Chimera = 205

Infantry Platoon B
Heavy Weapons Squad with 3x Missile Launcher = 95
Infantry Squad with Autocannon = 60
Infantry Squad with Autocannon = 60
Infantry Squad with Autocannon = 60
Platoon Command Squad with lascannon and 2x plasma guns = 80

Fast Attack
Vendetta = 130
Vendetta = 130
Vendetta = 130

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Executioner with plasma cannons and lascannon = 245
Manticore Rocket Launcher = 160
Manticore Rocket Launcher = 160

The LR and Platoon A outflank together with Creed and AlRahem's rules. The Manticores kill infantry while the Vendettas kill tanks and Riptides. Platoon B and Creed hide in the preset Wall of Martyrs camping objectives. Any help on this or is this solid?

If your taking Alrahem, don't bother with the points for creed.

The rest of your selections are pretty solid. Might want to take an Aegis line since your Manticores can practically invalidate his pathfinders.

sonicaucie wrote:

 tankboy145 wrote:
Personally I like running some russes against tau. Mainly because they struggle against the armor 14. My favorite is the Vanquisher with a lascannon and Plasma cannon sponsons. I personally like throwing pask in there especially against tau mainly because I lie my tank hunter killing the tau tank hunter long strike. So far pask is 2-0 against long strike.

But I would greatly suggest a manticore or colossus to harass and take out his troops.

As for dropping riptides and suits proxy your marines as SW, use 2 pods, each witha squad of grey hunters and a rune priest in each. You can run up to 9 hunters in each but make sure that theres a spot for that rune priest. Now for each of the rune priest take JAWS power on both and then use a different power Like one takes Living lightning and the other has murderous hurricane since they cant both have the same 2 powers.

Now turn first turn one of the pods comes in and you use your line of JAWS and drop a riptide, hopefully unless he rolls lucky. turn 2 repeat with the other pod. Now take those hunters and rune priests and just try and run through his lines.

One game I had a rune priest kill3 broad sides and 3 crisis suits with one JAWS attack. He then went on to make sure that rune priest died.

While jaws would be a good attack to use against the riptide, dropping them in from a drop pod will see them disappear instantly.

The riptides have intercept. So as soon as you come in, they're just going to intercept and destroy that squad. It technically will save you from the next turn of shooting from them since you can't fire a weapon in the next shooting phase if you intercepted with it. But you won't get to use jaws and that's what matters.

Oh so when your troops come out of a drop pod the like to hudle up and give each other a hug before combat??? FALSE! If your looking to win space them out 2 inches apart. Rune priest also has a 2+ lookout sir. Not to mention rune priest line is 24" so if needed drop them further back move into cover and line them to death. Or drop on the other side of terrain so the rest of the army can't see you. If terrain is that bad that you are in sight of his whole army them you've already got it set out to lose.

Ignore riptides as long as you can. U allready know bout markers. Take down broadsides and hammerhead if possible but markers should die first. It's not a bad idea to bring a demolisher - it's gona attract a hell lot of fire and can threaten broadsides.

I took Creed so that the Leman Russ Executioner can get closer to the enemy and give the Chimeras extra cover and fire support. I could swap it for a Demolisher, but wouldn't that make the tank really slow and unwieldy? Also, what to arm it with?

I'd prefer a 2-demolisher's squadron if u're using creed. Depending on situation you can even outflank them. But to be honest, Creed is too expensive to be considered good vs tau. Though, he opens a range of interesting possibilities.

So how could I make points for two Demolishers?

Drop 1 vendetta and 1 manticore. 3 vendettas are not really needed vs tau. And 2 manticores will probably be an overkill.

I want my airforce to live and constantly harry him, so I don't really see it as overkill. I only have two Manticores which can both be killed and then neuter any missiles I haven't fired. A possible 8 Strength 10 AP 4 pie plates sounds great, as opposed to 4. I still have an Executioner, which gets 5 AP2 shots a turn!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I want my airforce to live and constantly harry him, so I don't really see it as overkill. I only have two Manticores which can both be killed and then neuter any missiles I haven't fired. A possible 8 Strength 10 AP 4 pie plates sounds great, as opposed to 4. I still have an Executioner, which gets 5 AP2 shots a turn!

The first blast doesn't count on a manticore. It's only there to place the other possible 3.