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Hi Tau generals.
I don't pretend to be the best general (I don't get to play enough) and I've been having trouble with anti-tank in the Tau codex. Or at least a perceived trouble.
I've pretty much settled on fusion suits with Farsight for weaker armour exploitation because my Hammerhead never hits and gets blown up in seconds.
So the question I ask is what do you guys use for your anti-tank?

A hammerhead is BS4 and can sport a constant 4+ cover save even in the open, they should be pretty solid. Usually their bigger issue is that there just aren't enough of them for all of your AT needs.

Now, when talking about AT, are you looking at anti-AV14 or just general light/medium tank killing? AV14/13 will generally limit you to fusion suits and Hammerheads. AV12 and lower vehicles Tau can paste with gobs of missile pods, ion cannons, etc.

I can't trust Hammerheads anymore. The last straw was a tournament where I didn't kill a single tank until the 4th turn of the 3rd round I finally managed to kill an exorcist with one of my two Hammerheads.

For anti tank I'm fond of deep striking twin-linked fusion suits as Farsight troops. It's cheap, scoring, and fairly reliable.

In the standard codex I rely on fusions on Riptides, crisis suits, and Piranha. Usually trusting the riptide since I can always charge and smash the tank.

Also I have the same streak with Riptides smashing tank as I do with Hammerhear railguns.

I have to agree that the single shot rail gun has a really bad track record against my AV 13 preds! The Hammerhead is one piece of Tau equipment I really don't fear.

I agree with hammerheads always missing. Mine has failed to kill anything with an armour value.
I want to use them.

I don't really fear Railheads save for Long-strike, who thanks to his tank-hunters, can rival a Pasquisher with ease in tank hunting.

Sorry to hear about everyone's bad luck with hammerheads. I've experienced the opposite with mine, mine usually gets its points back each game.

Longhead has a 50% chance of blowing up av14 off the bat which i enjoy.

But otherwise i also will echo the fusion drop suits. just keep em cheap and expendable.

For lighter armor (10-12, maaaaaybe 13), a unit of Broadsides decked out with missiles usually does the trick - 12 S7 shots that re-roll to hit, plus missile drones (adding up to another 12 shots if you run 6 drones) is plenty to take out anything below 13.

For 13 and 14, I usually run some type of Crisis Suit unit, usually Farsight and Shadowsun in a squad of plasma/melta suits with target locks. That tends to get the job done, since they can drop in wherever they want without scattering, and then they get to sit on a permanent 4+ cover save with Shadowsun's suit.

10-12 we have a ton of options. HBC Riptides, Missile Broadsides, Seeker Missiles, Fusions, and even Iontides.

AV13/14 is pretty much limited to Fusions, Railheads, or an HBC riptide with support to fix his BS issue.
HBC riptide is about as reliable as the Hammerhead though. Only reason i tend to favor him over the Hammerhead is because its considerably harder to kill and more mobile. But, Hammerhead doesnt have the 3+ chance to even attempt to hit armor the HBC does, so its this endless toss-up ending in a preference rather than best unit for the job lol.

Technically Railgun broadsides and Iontides can damage AV13/14 but its only a glance or pen'd on a 6. Not worth the risk unless its all you got to shoot at lol.

I took 5 hammerheads (including longstrike) all rail canons, and failed to kill 4 predators during an apoc game, thy failed 2 turns in a row, even after firing all their seeker missiles they still failed. Damn things suck.

Boniface wrote:
Hi Tau generals.
I don't pretend to be the best general (I don't get to play enough) and I've been having trouble with anti-tank in the Tau codex. Or at least a perceived trouble.
I've pretty much settled on fusion suits with Farsight for weaker armour exploitation because my Hammerhead never hits and gets blown up in seconds.
So the question I ask is what do you guys use for your anti-tank?

Longstrike, Railguns, and delicious Fusion blades. Granted I play with my friend's models (want to build them sometime) involving a battlesuit heavy army.

Hammerheads are fantastic at this. Depending on how the die is feeling it can make or break games for me.
A team of crisis suits with duel fusion blasters is also a good choice.

Pirhanas slipping into the rear arc to Burst Cannon a tank to death. (Armor 13 in the front, armor 10 in the back. Mullet machines!)

Hit 'em with a Sun Shark Bomber.

...

Mind you, I play a bit differently than most.

Longhead is really good at popping stuff, I don't get the hate. I mean, sure, it's one shot that can miss, but then again anything can, and if you give it submunitions, it can blast infantry once the tanks are dealt with. With it's long range and a jink save it's safe and it won't die that easily to retaliatory fire if it fails to explode it like fusion suits would. Of course suits can do stuff like hunting hidden Manticores, but if they succeed, all they can to next is just objective camping because with their amount of shots they won't be killing anything reliably.

I have been taking farsight and 3 crisis suits, two with 2x fusion and target lock and one with 2 x fusion and vectorthrusters. Being able to deep-strike where ever you want is huge. Opponents will often have two or more vehicles next to each other and you can do pot shots on their back armor. After that you can start assaulting units hiding in the back. Farsight has ws5 s5 I5 A4 which can put the hurt on many non-melee units. Taking down a tank or two and then clearing out an objective is amazing.