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.

Not sure how to deal with the larger 40k vehicles with Tau. They seem to have difficulty with them in my early experiences.

The magic word for big vehicles is fusion.

After the introduction of the Heavy Rail Rifle, Tau lost the ability to scare big vehicles from across the board. Now we have to get close with Fusion Blasters mounted on deep striking Crisis Teams or fast moving Piranhas.

The interesting other option is the members of the Riptide family. A novacharged Heavy Burst Cannon or Ion Accelerator can do some damage, though its somewhat inconsistent against the high AVs. Doubleshotting with Fusion Blasters is also a worthy choice.

The Forgeworld Riptides have some capability against the big ARs. The R'vana can put enough St 8 hits on a vehicle to force something to happen while the newest one has a weapon that scores haywire hits in addition to rolling for penetration normally.

Spammed Heavy Rail Rifles, Seeker Missiles and Ion weapons do pose a theoretical threat to AV 14, but being unable to penetrate concerns me. You may end up investing too much firepower into one kill and not destroying enough of the rest of the enemy.

The final option is kinda fun but almost never works. EMP grenades. Nobody ever expects the Tau to bellow 'LEEEEEEROY JENKINS!!!!!' and charge their land raider, but assuming they live long enough, 12 fire warriors should put 4 glances and a penetration on any vehicle in assault. Of course once that is done, whoever was riding in the land raider has a squad of fire warriors right there to have his way with.

EMP firewarriors can theoretically murderise imperial knights. That'd be gona be a very fun thing to watch. A wall of firewarriors running for it with emp nades in their hands with an ethereal running along to inspire them.

Firebase Cadre handles knights fairly easily as I saw in my last tourny.

Suicide fusion crisis teams. That and the Haywire Riptide. I doubt a squad of firewarriors will make it to the target to assault, too easy a kill point to ignore, on the bright side that's a couple less shots at your other stuff. Hammerheads as well, but one isn't going to cut it by itself. You are also building an army to fight AV14 and not anything else and will get swamped. Best idea on the knight is hit it from multiple sides and rear, its armor isn't great and its shield cant be everywhere.

-Deep Striking Fuison Crisis Suits: When used in combination with either other Crisis Suits, Riptides, Skyrays ect. you can get on multiple sides of one Knight and force him to pick and choose which way to face his Ion Shield.

-Riptides: The new Forgeworld Y'vahra seems it was made to counter the amount of Knight Spam that seems to be taking place recently. Though short Range (12 inches) it can potentially do x3 Hull Points with a S8 AP3 gun AND x3 Haywire table rolls so potentially x6 hull points. Also you can nova charge and give it a 3+ invulnerable save to at least give it a chance when it gets charged next turn.

The R'varna Riptide has the advantage of sitting back at range and unloading 2 or potentially 4 Large Blast templates with Nova that for a single hit with the template would do x3 S8 AP4 hits, basically your hoping to sneak in a few glances over the course of a few turns.

The Standard Riptide with Ion Accelerator and Fusion is the least effective out of the x3 in my opinion but it has a chance to glance a Knight to Death and get lucky with a Fusion shot.

-Broadsides: With a nasty Heavy Rail Rifle that's twin linked they can do damage in large numbers, even the High Yield Missile Pod Broadsides can gance a Knight to death through volume of shots. Also the Firebase Support Cadre as mentioned this is a formation that the Tau can take which involves x6 Broadsides and a single Riptide (Standard) that have preferred enemy and hatred Space Marines.

-Skyrays: Have seen my buddy take two of these and drop a Knight in a single turn of shooting (rolled bad on ward save). What makes them great is that even after their missiles are gone they can support your other melta units with their Networked Marker-Lights.

-Hammerheads: If it hits and gets through the shield you can potentially do a lot of damage, however only being x1 shot hurts it as if you miss you basically cant do anything else.

Longstrike Railhead - you have a 16.66% chance of missing and get to re-roll your armor pen die, if you mess that one up as well. And if you pen, a 33.33% to insta-blow up that tank.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Longstrike Railhead - you have a 16.66% chance of missing and get to re-roll your armor pen die, if you mess that one up as well. And if you pen, a 33.33% to insta-blow up that tank.

you only get the reroll against IG\AM vehicles. Arguably, that is out the window now, on account of the fact that in the Codex he has Preferred Enemy Imperial Guard. That Codex is no longer Imperial Guard, but rather Astra Militarum. Rules as written, his preferred enemy is useless now.

Tank hunter allows him to reroll armor pen, not to hit. The only way for him to get a reroll now is either with markerlights or an ammo dump.

Don't get me wrong, I generally consider him worth taking, but that particular reason is out the window.

Thanks for pointing out.

However, if you open the 1st page of the AM codex, you see the subheader say:

The Imperial Guard

So RAW they're still IG

sorry for the mixup. I just posted a thread here asking a question. take a look?
Personally, I think I'd take a Cadre Riptide with HBC, Stim Injectors and EWO. Tank Hunter on a 12 shot rending MC could answer any number of problems. add to that, you have 6 broadsides with HRRs and (possibly) Seeker Missiles as well.

Another option for a HBC Riptide is a FE one with ECPA and FnP. You'll re-roll 1s on To Hit rolls and 1-2 in the Nova table.

 carldooley wrote:
you only get the reroll against IG\AM vehicles. Arguably, that is out the window now, on account of the fact that in the Codex he has Preferred Enemy Imperial Guard. That Codex is no longer Imperial Guard, but rather Astra Militarum. Rules as written, his preferred enemy is useless now.

I really doubt anyone wil play that way. The intention is quite clear.