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As a tau player, I have a ton of strengths to counter a lot of lists in my local meta. Heavy armor? Doesn't matter, you're dead. Mass numbers? Doesn't matter, you're dead. Armored convoy of supertanks? Yup, doesn't matter, you're dead. I have one major weakness that results in me being tabled nearly every game.... bikes. How do I counter something so fast and generally tough without tailoring to that list specifically? I'm talking about SM bikes, Eldar jetbikes, virtually anything that can scream across the table and force me into dreaded melee faster than I can line up a shot. I don't expect to win every game I play (I know I'm not that good), but I would at least like to avoid being tabled lol. Any advice?

34 pt xeno inquisitor with servo skulls is the default answer to that. maybe a few more points for rad grenades.

It really depends on your set up, how many points are you running and what is your "general" list.

Once you stop them from scouting, you could have to deal with outflank... intercept helps a lot here and your deployment means a lot more.

Well, knowing the genral list you are using will help giving you anything helpful to work with.

But generall pulse fire is the answer.

You shouldn't be having a problem with bikes. Markerlights make their jink save go goodbye, and Sv3+ isn't THAT good. You can still weight of fire it down and you do have Ap1-3 weapons in your arsenal.

The biggest problem with bikes is that they're really expensive, which means that they really need that extra durability to prevent themselves from folding like superman on laundry day. Take away the jink, and they die just like marines. Marines that cost a LOT more than regular marines.

On the off-chance that any happen to survive, feed them a speedbump and the rest of the survivors will crash and burn.

I've seen tau all but table a ravenwing player in just two turns. You have all the tools at your disposal already.

I generally bring at least 2 full squads of FW with at least 1 riptide to any list, regardless of points. I'm a huge fan of stealth suits and broadsides as well, so most list includes at least one of each as well. Most games we play in my area are between 1500 and 2000 pts, more often than not being an 1850 game.

Well Broadsides w/ Missiles can wound bikes on 2+ so weight of fire will hurt. Grav Guns will rip up your Riptide, so using cover will help. Pulse weapons are also good as a 4+ to wound at 30 in is actually pretty good.

Yeah, haven't seen many grav guns in my local meta (yet!) so I'm not overly worried about them. My only real issue is bikes are almost guaranteed turn 2 charge, so I'm just trying to find a way to slow them down. So far it looks like I'm just going to have to sacrifice a squad or two for the great good.

My favorite answer? Kroot.

Kroot conga lines easily block bike charges and can easily be within 6" of several backfield units. I've had it before where my opponent charges a single kroot squad only to notice a trail of models going all the way to the back field. They also put out enough shots to deal some damage, even if they wound on 5+.

I also tend to bring a large number of missile pods. They wound on 2+, have high enough volume of fire at every range to make it easier to move away, and they don't care about the bike unit getting a jink save. HBC will also make short work of them.

The only problem I have with bikes is when they put grav guns and get led by the Chapter Master with the eternal shield.

Missilesides+max missile drones. Repeat as necessary. Deploy your stealth and FWs on upper floors of ruins. If that's not feasible castle up and make them suffer maximum overwatch bubble with kroot wrapping the front. Hammerheads with ion cannons shooting at 2 marker lights help at BS4.

wellikes shouldn't be issue as what was punted out above. Good deployment and screening can help. Also don't foget to move and shoot.

Jetbikes, misslesides, sms devilfish work well to ignore los.

Thanks for all the input guys. I'll definitely give my old kroot a dust-off then, almost forgot about em to be honest lol.

34 pt xeno inquisitor with servo skulls is the default answer to that. maybe a few more points for rad grenades.

Yuck. I'll play riptides, I'll play screamer star, but I'll walk away from this douchebaggery.

 Dakkamite wrote:

34 pt xeno inquisitor with servo skulls is the default answer to that. maybe a few more points for rad grenades.

Yuck. I'll play riptides, I'll play screamer star, but I'll walk away from this douchebaggery.

LOL, I'm a tau purist, so nothing goes into my lists that isn't a servant of the Greater Good.

 Pryamarch wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:

34 pt xeno inquisitor with servo skulls is the default answer to that. maybe a few more points for rad grenades.

Yuck. I'll play riptides, I'll play screamer star, but I'll walk away from this douchebaggery.

LOL, I'm a tau purist, so nothing goes into my lists that isn't a servant of the Greater Good.

You don't even need to bring the Inquisitor - all you need to do is buy a squad of Kroot (you are probably doing this anyway as Kroot are amazing) and then Infiltrate them in a long line at max coherency across the middle of the board as this blocks the Scout move. Sure you are going to lose the Kroot, but Tau have always been masters of speed bump units anyway. I have seen how much damage Tau can do to optimised Bike lists even after they have had their faces mauled turn 1, and its not pretty. All the Kroot do is buy you a turn (you can actually completely avoid Grav if you don't deploy hard against your zone), but that is enough for you to make a huge mess out of the Bikes. Otherwise remember to bring Hit and Run on a few key units (Batman Suit + Riptide) and an Ethernal to hold things in combat (or at least attempt to).

Most tournaments seem to be moving towards making Inquisition a full ally (rather than their own stupid little FOC attachment) so you don't want to waste your ally slot on a non Battle Brother model which can't attach to anything anyway.

You can also use a buffmander attached to a crisis suit team with duel plasmas (switch one to duel fusion with TL for tank hunting) and they should chew through any non-blob infantry/elite unit in front of them.

Skyrays wreck bikes due to seekers ignoring cover and being ap3.

 Gitsmasher wrote:
Skyrays wreck bikes due to seekers ignoring cover and being ap3.

Great for alpha strike, but the problem is once those missiles are gone you are left with a lot of enemies on the table and significantly less options to deal with them.

Sky rays are cheap and durable. Dropping all the missiles first chance you get makes it a less juicy target and deceptively good. You have an AV13 tank that can now shoot SMS and markers all day long and tank shock anything that gets too close.

Never underestimate what they can do for you.

Very true. I have a bad habit of taking my av13 tanks for granted, and markerlights are never bad, regardless of what platform they're on.

We're talking tau, right? One Bike squad with two markerlights on it should be dead by the next time we speak.

Ignore its cover, throw a riptide at it. What's the problem?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Sky rays are cheap and durable. Dropping all the missiles first chance you get makes it a less juicy target and deceptively good. You have an AV13 tank that can now shoot SMS and markers all day long and tank shock anything that gets too close.

Never underestimate what they can do for you.

QFT.

Skyrays are the best thing in the heavy support slot, bar an r'varna.

Well as a long time tau player myself, I can see how bikes are giving you a headache. If you're intent on running a list without kroot (I run pure tau, no alien auxiliaries) then I would suggest taking another speedbump unit like drones. Just have them hop in front of say your firewarriors to absorb a charge. Also, while supporting fire has a good chance of stopping an assault from one unit, if more than one unit gets in assault range then you could be in trouble.

Don't be afraid to lose a unit or two, because unless everything absolutely falls apart for your opponent, you're going to lose some units, there's no helping it. Best to lose them on your terms instead of your opponents.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Sky rays are cheap and durable. Dropping all the missiles first chance you get makes it a less juicy target and deceptively good. You have an AV13 tank that can now shoot SMS and markers all day long and tank shock anything that gets too close.

Never underestimate what they can do for you.

Indeed.

Pretty much all of my friends fail to realize that the skyray is more than a one hit wonder. I find it harder to bring at higher non2k lists because i end up needing the spots for hammerheads, snipers, or broadsides so it comes to "which do i think would be more useful against this guy...." than anything else.

Its a huge body, with AV13/12/10 armor. Slap d-pods on there and now its got a 4+ cover save on top of that whenever it moves. Only drawback is its not fast and we lost our "pseudo-fast" perks so we cant fire the markers at full BS if we want the SMS, or can only fire 1 marker normally. Because of this i tend to use it as either a piggy-back marker for my other marker units, the occational out-of-sight troops that need mowing down, or (my personal favorite) use it as a major cock-block lol. That huge body can clog a rather wide pathway with ease. Against troops odds are it wont die unless the random upgrade weapon gets lucky. Usually elites take it down easily but its still a precious turn wasted, thus buying you at LEAST 1 turn to kill said elite unit (possibly 2 if it wrecks or somehow survives a melee assault)

Incidentally i do the same tactic with my piranha. Turn 1, dump drones and have commander join them (12 BS5 gun drones + 2 BS5 burst cannons YES PLEASE!) and move forward as much as i can (cannot turbo this turn, disembark rules apply to drones). Turn 2, blast forward as far as i can after firing the rest of my army, giving them 4+ cover and making this very long and annoyingly JUST durable enough wall to deal with before getting to my stuff.

Piranhas do an insane amount of damage in my meta, far too valuable to just throw away as a speed bump because people don't perceive them as a threat until I unleash a mass of shots that mows down infantry. Using drones is a good idea though, as the overwatch of them might deal a little damage before getting chewed up in melee. You guys have given me a lot of ideas to try out next time I face a bike heavy list.

Oh dont get me wrong if i can actually set up a proper piranha wall but still shoot, i will take the 5+ cover and shoot any day. Thats still 20 S5 shots at BS3, difficulty comes in lining them up since its not a turret weapon, so facing is important for both firing AND the AV11 face preventing troops from popping them without charging.

Never found a use for melta attachments though. Idea is sound, but my meta tends to be a little lacking in cover so i dont think i could have it reach anything i want to pop without getting shot to hell and back first lol.

The commander thing was a side bonus. I usually make him my warlord because thats 12 bodies to get through at T4, 4+ save. I already have the drones, so why not add him to make them do more than add a second speed bump

Tau should take the approach of wound spamming them to death with direct fire. Obviously, ignore cover ion accelerators when they clump up. Like after an assault.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Oh dont get me wrong if i can actually set up a proper piranha wall but still shoot, i will take the 5+ cover and shoot any day. Thats still 20 S5 shots at BS3, difficulty comes in lining them up since its not a turret weapon, so facing is important for both firing AND the AV11 face preventing troops from popping them without charging.
...

The gimbal on the bottom of the piranha should be a turret, though with less room to turn then the Devilfish chassis.
I recommend giving the front piranha a disruption pod so until they get through him, they have a 4+ from the front and put them in a wedge or flank formation.

problem with the d-pods is unless its toting a melta, thats 15pts a model on a throw-away unit. No thanks lol. Especially since i rarely lose more than 1 to shooting, usually its assaults since nobody wants to dedicate any big toys to clearing them out. Even though that'd be the better option so i dont waste your footslogger's time lol.

And i agree it should be a turret. Or at least 180 facing. Unfortunately since VERY FEW VEHICLES are ever stated to have X type of firing arcs for X weapons, you have to go with how it actually looks. And it has a 45 degree arc of motion on it, leading me to believe its not able to hit anything its not directly pointed at. Which blows goats >.<

I think we are having trouble understanding each other.

You don't put Disruption pods on all of them, only the first one or two and use them to soak the damage for the 5 man unit.

No, it looks like from its construction it IS a turret, you even said it has a 45 degree arc. Some people have modified their piranhas to make them look sleeker, but also increase the arc of the turret.

I am actually a big fan of fusion blaster crisis suit teams. These are great for tackling targets such as heavy armor and MCs, but can also be used if you come across bikes. As bikes are typically intent on assault you, they will be forced to enter melta range as they approach. When they do, markerlight them to rob them of the jink save and improve BS, and then hit them with weapons that wound on 2+ ignoring armor. I have vaporized more then one biker squad using fusion blaster suit teams.

 Pryamarch wrote:
As a tau player, I have a ton of strengths to counter a lot of lists in my local meta. Heavy armor? Doesn't matter, you're dead. Mass numbers? Doesn't matter, you're dead. Armored convoy of supertanks? Yup, doesn't matter, you're dead. I have one major weakness that results in me being tabled nearly every game.... bikes. How do I counter something so fast and generally tough without tailoring to that list specifically? I'm talking about SM bikes, Eldar jetbikes, virtually anything that can scream across the table and force me into dreaded melee faster than I can line up a shot. I don't expect to win every game I play (I know I'm not that good), but I would at least like to avoid being tabled lol. Any advice?

Markerlights+Plasma, Fusion blasters, weight of fire (from fireblade/ethereal'd fire warriors or missiletides, doesn't matter which), or iontides usually takes care of Bikes quickly.