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Been playing against these a lot recently and finding the rip tides and ravana's very difficult to deal with. Played in a few apoc games against 6-7 of them.

What would be a good counter to them for a SM bike army, or any SM army. Any ideas other than D weapons would be really helpful.

Assault them

Thunderfires and Grav Guns.

Being in melee and very fast spammed assault units.

Assault as mentioned.
Blasting markerlight support makes things easier aswell.

It's possible to kill them in mellee with bikers but you'll need an indep with 3++ to make it there.

Tau other weakness, after the fact they cant fight their way out of a paper bag, and kroot not can't either, is that tau are too good.

Tau have a lot of shiny toys as well they should and many players overinvest. Riptides, crisis etc all add up, while Tau anti infantry shooting is excellent it is often overlooked in favour of the big stuff. A Tau player must be careful not to overinvest or they will find themselves unable to stop a swarm list.

They are weak in melee (even to other basic troops)
They don't have good tools to deal with AV14
Suits are vulnerable to S8 instant death
They have a difficult time dealing with bikes
Their buffing units are fairly squishy (iridium suit commander excepted)
They have bad fliers, so you don't have to worry about bringing AA

Riptides and R'Varnas have no major weaknesses - you basically need to bring an equal number of points worth of AP2 weapons. Kill their markerlight support, then use Gravgun bikes and lascannons to bring them down.

AP2, Grav gunz, leadership checks, fast assault units.

Part of tau big gun lines is depending on the fact they are each very nasty, rather then having alot.

Even 3 riptides is not THAT many pie plates, they only become absurd when you factor in the fact they can ignore cover with high BS tnx to markerlights.

Now, either you respond by taking out the markerlights, who are in turn very squishy, or very expensive.
OR, if your forces have alot of invul-based threats (necron wraiths, LotD, etc), the fact tau can rather effectively ignore cover is rendered far less threatening.
Combining the two methods will do wonders in makng tau fire be less of a threat.

Now, when it comes to tackling the tau defenses, there are two usual formations.
The suit army, that is scattered all around and is very mobile.
The castle army, that is fixated on a single point to make assault extremely punishing. (supporting fire)

If they are loners, fast assault units can catch the isolated sections of the force, and chew them down pretty much instantly. (your bikers makes a good example)
If they are clamped up, artillery pieces will do wonders in taking them down. (thunderfire cannon is your friend, so is the whirlwind, both are also extremely good at taking down the pathfinders-the most common source of markerlights)

So the best setup to assault them, would be to initiate with an artillery barrage to force the tau to scatter his units or suffer dire losses, then having your assault pieces take down isolated units.
If he chooses to stay clumped up, and take the bombing-then you need to make sure your assaults come at once, and in a small portion of his line, to make the supporting fire collapse under pressure.


As for the ravana, make sure the dude is using the up-to-date rules (theone with AP4 guns and that using ripple fire makes you unable to shoot next turn), that version is far less of a threat then the OP original incarnation.

The biggest Tau weakness is multi assaults. At BFSR this weekend I beat three Tau Armies in a row, continually wrapping up bigger and bigger multi assaults. If you get a Riptide in with a squad of Kroot, the Riptide is dead even if you don't wound him.

Battle cannons. S8 AP3 will ID all the multi-wound models in our army other than riptides and something with iridium armour.

Tau's weakness is low toughness, low initiative, low WS & BS and a lack of anti-armor weapons.

Alpha strike what little Anti-armor first turn if fielding armor.

The only thing that's > toughness 4 in their army is the riptide. So their broadsides, crisis suits and commanders are very easy to instant kill.

sonicaucie wrote:
Tau's weakness is low toughness, low initiative, low WS & BS and a lack of anti-armor weapons.

Alpha strike what little Anti-armor first turn if fielding armor.

The only thing that's > toughness 4 in their army is the riptide. So their broadsides, crisis suits and commanders are very easy to instant kill.

Iridium amour gives +1 T as well as 2+ save so watch out for iridium commanders.

My brother likes to send Khorne Berzerkers at my Firewarriors, literal beads of sweat form on my face when it happens.

Aside from assault, s8 weapons can insi-kill crisis suits with ease. I have lost many warlords from melta raptor assassins.

Grav-guns would do great on a riptide, as would any plasma weaponry. If you have Sternguard Veterans, mass Hellfire rounds at a riptide could bring it down.

 DanielBeaver wrote:

They don't have good tools to deal with AV14
They have a difficult time dealing with bikes

Agree with the other parts, but not with this. Tau have just as good anti-AV14 capability as most armies (if not better due to Deep Striking suits), it's just that Plasma suits and Riptides are more en vogue than Melta suits and Hammerheads. Further, Riptides do horrifying things to bikes, and volume of fire is pretty strong against bikes too.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:

They don't have good tools to deal with AV14
They have a difficult time dealing with bikes

Agree with the other parts, but not with this. Tau have just as good anti-AV14 capability as most armies (if not better due to Deep Striking suits), it's just that Plasma suits and Riptides are more en vogue than Melta suits and Hammerheads. Further, Riptides do horrifying things to bikes, and volume of fire is pretty strong against bikes too.

Yes but the bikes are fast enough to close with the Tau before being completely wiped. White Scars are one of the stongest builds for SM right now for a reason.

Mobile enough to use terrain against Tau, and if they can close, they can assault, tie down a unit through the Tau players turn, the Hit and Run, and do it allll over again.

You don't have to kill those broadsides, just tie them up, same goes with the riptide. Those same units don't like Grav guns either.

Most important of all, stay focussed, and KILL THE MARKER LIGHTS. Tau players are getting smarter about it, so it's harder and harder to do (Mark'O's with iridium and drones/Skyrays vs Pathfinders), but for the love of god do it. Watched my friend play his Taudar against Pure Eldar, and the eldar were able to wreck face because they could kill off markerlights first. Would have been a completely different game if that hadn't happened.

nanook wrote:
Been playing against these a lot recently and finding the rip tides and ravana's very difficult to deal with. Played in a few apoc games against 6-7 of them.

What would be a good counter to them for a SM bike army, or any SM army. Any ideas other than D weapons would be really helpful.

gun line tau and mobile tau play really differently.

But to make a long story short, Dirge Casters and charging are a really awesome way to ruin their day. the threat of charging a Tau line without Dirge casters is justified.

So nuke the markerlights, get the dirge casters in and ram into them (you said apocalypse right?).

One other thing: Tank shocking is VERY effective over the course of a game and very cost effective. What is a storm bolter going to force on a Riptide? Nothing. But tank shocking it will. It forces a morale check and threatens the Riptide with destruction if tis one shot cant kill the tank. Personally, I'd risk 35 points of rhino for that chance. Ten times over.

In fact in general, attacking Tau morale is VERY effective. I used my Eldar force to outflank and cut his Broadsides down with AP 2 fire which YOU can do with Dark Angle Plasma talon bikers which you can ally in I think alongside the SM grav guns. And then you can bring the Terrify power to bear. if playing apocalyse, you may find the Horrify power by Eldar Jetcouncils to be the perfect compliment.as allies for your space marines, and with them instead of plasma talons you can take warwalkers that outflank with star cannons and nuke the most imposing units.

Tigurious can learn Terrify if Im not mistaken. He's kind of a beast. He makes everything better for you. Consider it.

Tau really cant fight out of a paper bag and they hate making morale tests in general. Force both issues. and in apocalypse, hey... your buddies can fill in the blanks you cant.

Tau's biggest weakness is speed. You can assault them, and beat them if you can get there before they kill you. 6" movements aren't going to do it. You need Jump troops, beasts or bikes. When you do get into assault against Tau, make sure you do enough damage or are fearless. Because the high armor saves can go on a roll, and the Riptide hits at AP:2, and can smash. They aren't going to do a lot of wounds, but they are going to make a lot of saves.

Trying to out shoot Tau only works if you are packing a lot of AP: 2 or Grav guns. I regularly play a tau opponent, and I've tried outflanking Devil Gaunts. I can put out 70 BS3 S4 AP5 shots against a riptide, Broadside, or Crises suits. Generally I take one wound off of a riptide, or kill 1 Broadside (if I'm lucky), or Kill 1.5 crises suits. Volume of fire is not enough. You need quality of fire. An Exocrine shooting 6 BS3 S7 AP2 shots is far more valuable.

Speed is import in shooting Tau as well, because in most cases you need to get into range before you can do much damage. Tau doesn't have that problem.

Lastly, be careful relying on Blast weapons. It is not uncommon to see a Tau player deploy 3 Broadsides on 3 different terrain levels. Because blasts have to target a specific level, you aren't going to be hitting large numbers of Tau units, and you are going to scatter and hit nothing more often than against other less cheesy armies.

In my experience the best way to kill Tau is to get in their faces right away with Deep Striking units and/or turbo-boosting Bikes; my Space Marine army is Dark Angels, which gets me teleport homers and the Scout rule on my Bikes, but a similar strategy on normal Space Marines would do just fine. Your bikes can down Tau tanks and Fire Warriors without any extra help and Hammernators will brutalize Battlesuits and Riptides.

As a Tau player i would say something that either hurts or pins my HS down are space marine preditors. These tanks good front armour and long range guns always clip the front of my hammerheads and become the NO:1 priotry target for me, two really do hurt. Still be careful because the Tau player can also fire back with their railguns too. (I have won agaist them by distracting them with my hammerheads then sending a piranha/stealth team on the flank, be warned of our cheap melta!)

what never fails for me when fighting tau is land raiders with lascannons. full of terms. get in close blast the armour and unleash terminator hell. the AV14 all round makes it hard for them to do significant damage and the lascannons pour through most of their armour. make sure you have at least 1 melta around just in case things get hairy.

 MrBlackledge wrote:
what never fails for me when fighting tau is land raiders with lascannons. full of terms. get in close blast the armour and unleash terminator hell. the AV14 all round makes it hard for them to do significant damage and the lascannons pour through most of their armour. make sure you have at least 1 melta around just in case things get hairy.

or just pop the smoke on the raider, DONT fire and cackle when the psyker makes it a 3+ cover save on a Land Raider.

There's a lot to be said for the shot you DIDN't take. We know that cover can be ignored if the Markerlights pour in, but then... the Markerlights MUST pour in on the land raider. Instantly adds 350 points worth of effort just so other units can take their shot at it. Hey that's fair.

Tau hate LD attacks and assault. Committing whole hog to assault is not popular to do which is why Tau tend to do well but if people REMEMBERED that assault is actually srtill a phase (despite the rumors) Tau smirks might be less in number.

Multi-assaults and sweeping units kicks ass against Tau.

As an Eldar player, I like playing Tau, because when I can get my troops into combat, I will usually win and sweep them. Like that time I multi-charged 8 Dire Avengers into a squad of fire warriors and a riptide. Caused 3 wounds, to his one. Swept them both.

Tau have 3 basic weaknesses. Here they are from biggest to smallest 1)assault 2) leadership 3) marker light dependence.

as a result the key to beating tau is 1) get in combat as quickly and as intact as possible 2) if they don't have an ethreal (and if they do once he is dead) forcing leadership checks is a win 3) tau shooting become pretty average if you take away the ability to pump up the BS and remove cover.

Tau's true weakness is hidden in secrecy...

But I will spoil it all for you!

Their TRUE weakness, is themselves! :O

Those 3 Riptide + Wraithknight Tau+Dar lists are supreme, except against, your OWN 3 Riptide + Wraithknight Tau+Dar list! Muwahahaha! I've given you a bad taste in your mouth now haven't I?

But in all seriousness, Forcing Ld checks on things like Riptides and basic troops pretty much sums up their weakness. I tests are even better if you have the mechanics to do so. Toughness tests work wonders too (Black Mace in a squad of Fire Warriors = seafood buffet)

A good notion to look at are things that, themselves, might ignore cover and be blasts. As a Chaos Player, Noise Marine Sonic Blasters and Blast Masters are absolute nightmares to my Tau opponents.

Belly wrote:
Multi-assaults and sweeping units kicks ass against Tau.

As an Eldar player, I like playing Tau, because when I can get my troops into combat, I will usually win and sweep them. Like that time I multi-charged 8 Dire Avengers into a squad of fire warriors and a riptide. Caused 3 wounds, to his one. Swept them both.

thats accually not legal. you cant make a sweeping advance if your in combat with more than one unit. sorry to burst your bubble. but yeah, tau go down pretty quickly in combat and usually get swept...

While I will not say that everyone is wrong above, but I think they are missing the point.

HOW MUCH LOS BLOCKING TERRAIN DO YOU PLAY WITH?

try playing against tau with a couple LOS blocking pieces and the game changes dramaticly. Tau can move but are best on an open battlefield, and can easily suffer when forced to move and cut down on thier straight up firepower.

Weeeeeel. Lets not over dramatize. Certain Tau GENERALS play best on an open field.

And Nightflter, you can sweep units you multi charge if they all fall back. If just one stands its ground then no. But otherwise you can kill em all.

Many people still have a 5th edition mindset of tau. This goes something along the lines of "Ha tau, just assault them, easy win."

Now it is true, that once you get into cc most units should beat firewarriors. The issue is in getting there. All that overwatch is murder.
You have to be careful not to simply boost the opponents shooting, by charging and then failing due to overwatch.

Assault does work vs them, but don't think you will be able to simply charge headlong into them. You will have to play smart, try to keep units more than 6 away from each other using your shooting phase and make use of LoS blocking cover.

On to direct counters. Of course SM bike armies have grav guns. If the opponent is spamming battlesuits and riptides then you should have a good advantage. a squad of 5 bikes, with 2 grav guns and a combi grav only costs 145 points. Abuse them.

One thing tau lists struggle with now is heavy armour. They only have 2 counters to this, fusion battlesuits, or hammerheads.
Of these the battlesuits have to be very close, and will often deepstrike, and the hammerheads only get 1 shot a turn.
I play ravenwing, and sometimes run a LRC with my bikes. It acts as mobile LoS blocking, as well as puting out a good number of shots (Ravenwing bolter banner).