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Hello Everyone,
I recently started to play WH40K and fell in love with tau. (before I knew they were annoying in some people's eyes) and I have very little experience with an actual game.

I want to know how people counter tau and my response to those counters.
Any help at all is appreciated.

-aceneo

Well, Tau are really nasty if you take what is known as farsight bomb(just google it). The response to that are precision shots and tanky CC beatsticks such as chapter master smash fether of the Iron hands(google it again )which can issue a challenge and then deny all those nasty rules such as BS5 on drones, hit and run(altough i am not sure about that one) once they crush the commander in H2H... Anyway, if you play farsight bomb, don't try to take out deathstars and hard to kill HQs with it, since you will do insignificant damage compared to if you shoot his firesupport/troops, guy on a tournament made that mistake and instead ofnkilling my gunline he killed one biker command squad as retinue to chapter master(and libby) and took one wound off of said chapter master, which i regained next turn from IWND. So use it to cause as much havoc to as many different units as you can instead of trying to break other deathstars(expensive hard hitting hard to kill small units)
Another cheesemongering build is ovesa star which includes taking 5 riptides(ovesa 3 riptides and allied farsight enclaves riptide...
and rest goes into markerlights. Now the obvious weakness of this list is really low model count, and the fact that space marine grav guns are gonna have good time hitting you on 3s(most of the time ) and wounding you on 2ups with OUT the 2+ armor save because said guns are AP2.
Now i would advice you to steer clear of such builds until you get the basics of the game and fluff, because despite what people say, playing 40k is MORE THAN hurl yourself at the enemy and yell FOR THE EMPRAH(OR in your case, park a gunline and yell for the greater good )

ThatSwellFella wrote:
Well, Tau are really nasty if you take what is known as farsight bomb(just google it). The response to that are precision shots and tanky CC beatsticks such as chapter master smash fether of the Iron hands(google it again )which can issue a challenge and then deny all those nasty rules such as BS5 on drones, hit and run(altough i am not sure about that one) once they crush the commander in H2H... Anyway, if you play farsight bomb, don't try to take out deathstars and hard to kill HQs with it, since you will do insignificant damage compared to if you shoot his firesupport/troops, guy on a tournament made that mistake and instead ofnkilling my gunline he killed one biker command squad as retinue to chapter master(and libby) and took one wound off of said chapter master, which i regained next turn from IWND. So use it to cause as much havoc to as many different units as you can instead of trying to break other deathstars(expensive hard hitting hard to kill small units)
Another cheesemongering build is ovesa star which includes taking 5 riptides(ovesa 3 riptides and allied farsight enclaves riptide...
and rest goes into markerlights. Now the obvious weakness of this list is really low model count, and the fact that space marine grav guns are gonna have good time hitting you on 3s(most of the time ) and wounding you on 2ups with OUT the 2+ armor save because said guns are AP2.
Now i would advice you to steer clear of such builds until you get the basics of the game and fluff, because despite what people say, playing 40k is MORE THAN hurl yourself at the enemy and yell FOR THE EMPRAH(OR in your case, park a gunline and yell for the greater good )

Farsight bomb is nasty. Real powerful however since it costs a lot of points and could be an all eggs in 1 fragile basket plan if you don't have good experience with it.

Ovesa star was a 6th edition deathstar that was IMHO one of the coolest deathstars we could ever do hahah. (I loved the way it looked on the table) However, it is no longer legal to do as you cannot bring it to the powerlevel it was because of being unable to ally in a Buffcommander. (TL, TH, MH, Ignore Cover). You can still spam RipTides though...

Actually, given that is specifically says you can ally Tau Empire to Farsight Enclaves, you can still run the O'Vesa Star, and with O'Vesa being an independant character, that means O'Vesa can still join a unit.

@ OP - Assault is a bit of a downer for tau, though something like the O'Vesa star can usually see off any non-dedicated assault unit for a turn before hit & running out to resume shooting. Farsight bomb is much the same, as drones provide weight of attacks.

Ignores cover weapons to remove pathfinders and fire warriors is always a winner, and crisis suits hate battle cannons and krak missiles since they're wounded on a 2 with no armour and it doubles them out.

Riptides are more problematic, but spamming lascannons is a thing, as is getting into combat to try and sweep them through combat res.

Tau generally don't have any answer to psychic powers either bar the talisman of arthas moloc from Faright enclaves, so rolling telepathy for shriek/terrify/domininate/invis are all win. Even shrouded means they need to spend markerlights on removing cover instead of increasing their BS.

Armour 14 (land raiders, monoliths etc) gives Tau fits since they rely heavily on weight of fire from str 7 weapons. A pair of Fusion crisis suicide suits rarely goes astray and fusion as a secondary weapon on riptides is rarely a bad choice either.

Fast assault units with strong invulnerable saves (Grimoure flesh hounds or screamers, necron wraiths, thundercav with Sanctuary) are a pain with no innovative answer beyond shoot them and then tie them up as best as possible with chaff like kroot, trying to ensure they kill you in 1 round so you can shoot them again next turn.

The usual answer to most of these counters is to just shoot them off the board before any of it happens. EWO on missilesides and IA riptides counters drop pods and outflanking for the most part, riptide/fusion crisis sacrifice will pop a land raider in the middle of nowhere, exposing the contents to a round of shooting. Daemons are simply a rough match up for Tau if played competatively.

Assuming you're playing a typical/mixed Tau list rather than one skewed around a Deathstar or spamming a certain unit, the best counter to them is Assault. Whenever I'm playing Tau, I'll go all-out on the offence no matter what army I'm using. Even relatively ineffective CC units like Necron Warriors, Imperial Guardsmen and Space Marine Tacticals will beat out Fire Warriors/Suits/Pathfinders in Close Combat if they can get there, so there's no sense in hanging back and trying to fight them at range, as basically, you won't win.

One of the few times this didn't work was because my oppoent had some mobility I really was not expecting (he usually played pretty static). On each flank he had a Devilfish full of Fire Warriors and a Piranah or two, and basically, I ran in, he stalled my Assualts with blocking units (single suicide suits, Kroot Squads) before swinging round with those units, popping my Transports with the Piranahs and then unloading with the Fire Warriors on each side on the troops that spilled out. After that counter-strike, I was pretty much out of the fight, and it was just a cleanup job for him...



Another tactic against Tau is to rob them of their Markerlights, the only real way to counter this is to carefully deploy your Pathfindersand have units ready to take a charge for them or give them a Cover save. A Tau army without Markerlights is way less scary than one that can be boosting BS or lifting cover left right and centre.

The thing to remember when charging tau (or getting charged if you are playing tau) is that a large portion army of the tau army gets more dangerous the closer you get. Once you're within 18 inches you're in their killzone. Burst cannons, drones, pulse rifles, all of these are going to be laying into you, HARD.

Once you commit to the charge don't back down. You don't need a full strength squad to beat tau in cc.

Basically, don't let the pulse volleys scare you too much.

 Paradigm wrote:
Another tactic against Tau is to rob them of their Markerlights, the only real way to counter this is to carefully deploy your Pathfindersand have units ready to take a charge for them or give them a Cover save. A Tau army without Markerlights is way less scary than one that can be boosting BS or lifting cover left right and centre.

This. A tau army spends points on markerlights at the expense of more guns; killing these makes the remaining guns some-to-much less effective.

Basically; a squad of burst cannon spamming guys on BS5+ will wreck face, whilst a BS3 squad will be underwhelming. Against an opponent that may jink or have an awesomne cover save, there difference to damage will be huge - As most of the weapons don't inherently ignore cover.

Don't forget to Multi-Assault against Tau as well - they're going to use Supporting Fire to have multiple units Overwatch you anyway, so the only downside is a disorganised charge (which might be a problem if you're relying on Furious Charge or Rage or something). Still, if you can use a "sacrificial" unit to multi-assault and tie up multiple units, then you can charge in your "real" close combat units without fear of eating a load of overwatch to their face.

 aceneo wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I recently started to play WH40K and fell in love with tau. (before I knew they were annoying in some people's eyes) and I have very little experience with an actual game.

I want to know how people counter tau and my response to those counters.
Any help at all is appreciated.

-aceneo

Some things to think about:

Battle Report link

Another Battle Report link

Early Tau Review

Tau Toys

3 things from a longtime tau player (though I've only played one game with the current rules)
1. Get a Culexus.
2. Marker Drones are awesome.
3. Take a look at the character Longstrike, and consider playing him aggressively (eg multi-overwatch).

1) @Drasius: What do you mean you can still run Ovesastar?

Ovesastar is usually:
O’vesa w/ 2 shielded missile drones
Burst Canon Riptide w/ 2 shielded missile drones
Commander Farsight
Tau Buff Commander

If O'vesa is an IC, but you cannot join MCs anymore, then how does this still work? I'm not saying your wrong, I was just under the impression that this is illegal now.

Can anyone clarify?

2) Farsight bomb got nerfed I think. If my memory serves me right (recent GW rulebook FAQ): You can no longer deploy models/units with infiltrate with units without infiltrate. So I think you can still DS them but you can't infiltrate the bomb anymore. Which means if you deploy you also wont get stealth and shrouded until you can join the unit on your 1st turn.

 syypher wrote:
1) @Drasius: What do you mean you can still run Ovesastar?

Ovesastar is usually:
O’vesa w/ 2 shielded missile drones
Burst Canon Riptide w/ 2 shielded missile drones
Commander Farsight
Tau Buff Commander

If O'vesa is an IC, but you cannot join MCs anymore, then how does this still work? I'm not saying your wrong, I was just under the impression that this is illegal now.

Can anyone clarify?

2) Farsight bomb got nerfed I think. If my memory serves me right (recent GW rulebook FAQ): You can no longer deploy models/units with infiltrate with units without infiltrate. So I think you can still DS them but you can't infiltrate the bomb anymore. Which means if you deploy you also wont get stealth and shrouded until you can join the unit on your 1st turn.

Farsight Bomb did get nerfed with the Infiltrate update.

As for O'Vesa, an IC can't join MC's as you stated - but it can join another IC.

So you say 'O'vesa is joining this unit' so that O'vesa as the IC is attaching itself to the other IC - getting around the MC/IC clause.

I wouldn't worry about it being used on you, a normal Riptide is FAR superior to O'Vesa.

Oh so you would have Ovesa join a buff commander. But then thats it. since you can't join a non IC regular riptide in? **Ovesastar was comprised of Ovesa + 1 regular Riptide + Buff commander**

So you can still do it, but it'd be a liquidated version of it...?