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As the title reads, what are some good tactics on fighting tau as mono-nurgle daemons? My opponent, who enjoys using primarily broadsides and fire warriors, has beaten me a few times against my daemons by hanging out in multilevel building terrains and firing as I move up the board. Given that a good chunk of my plaguebearer's defense is the 2+ cover saves I commonly get, I find my usual tactics fall through from all of his markerlighting and even with FNP usually lose quite a few models.

What sorts of models tend to do well against tau? The only thing I can think of is flying daemon princes, but I want to avoid flying circus levels of cheese. Summoning is very common with me, and try my best to flank his units when I am able

Soul Grinders aren't bad against Tau to be honest. The built in 5+ invuln. helps against markerlights taking away cover and their hefty 4 HP helps against being dakka-stripped by missile sides who need 6's to glance against their AV13. Be sure to take at least 2 though since you need a decent amount of saturation to deal with the (unfortunate) possibility of your opponent getting lucky and popping them in one shot. So have them as your anvil, then have a deepstriking GUO in their backline with ML3 rolling all on Biomancy so you can maximize your chances of getting Iron Arm (T10 ftw!) and 2 Greater Rewards to make him even harder to kill, that way he'll have to split fire or have a veritable monster walking unimpeded on his squishy warriors or broadsides.

Would you say that the vanilla soul grinder is more or less helpful compared to the Plague Hulk unit? I was thinking of buying the latter, and knowing which stats are better would help.

And for the GUO (as I use that exact setup for mine), would it be smarter to aim for the suits or the infantry lines to demolish? He has no riptides so may I assume that aiming for the long range weapon platforms would be the best option?

autumnlotus wrote:
Would you say that the vanilla soul grinder is more or less helpful compared to the Plague Hulk unit? I was thinking of buying the latter, and knowing which stats are better would help.

And for the GUO (as I use that exact setup for mine), would it be smarter to aim for the suits or the infantry lines to demolish? He has no riptides so may I assume that aiming for the long range weapon platforms would be the best option?

The plague hulk is basically the same as a nurgle soul grinder except with different guns (the reduced BS and I literally do nothing). IMO the Plague Hulk is better then a Nurgle Soul Grinder w/ Phlegm but since you know you''re fighting tau you'd probably better of getting Baleful Vomit for Torrent ap4 since that will ignore cover.

Also the GUO should go for what ever it can catch

Fast units are better than slow ones against Tau. Slaanesh, Screamers and some Khorne stuff would be better than no-Run melee Nurgle units.

Plague Drones would be the only melee-able CD Nurgle model I'd use against Tau.

First off, you're playing against Tau with a Nurgle army. Cheese away and hold your head up high! There is no amount of "Cheese" within the chaos factions that can meet up to the disgusting levels of Tau on all fronts and synergies.

Armor is going to be your friend. Soul grinders and plague hulks will definitely help as Tau only have a handful of single shot high str low ap weaponry, most armies tend to take volume of fire str 7. Effectively ignored in their basic infantry since those scum suckers are base Str5 guns (stupid nonsense) but this way you can effectively ignore most of his troop selections.

Focus in on any markerlights, pathfinders and things with Str8+ as they will inevitably destroy your stuff. Run your plague bearers in reserve, any squad with a plague banner, sling shot Deep Strike your way up the board until you're nice and close then unload your Plague Hulks / Grinders in his face. Torrent anything that moves and scurries, and get your troops to run around collecting objectives.

Tau as an army don't really have much board controller outside their grossly broken firepower and abundance at that. That being kept in mind, you should abuse the living hell out of any LoS terrain and make sure anything you can hide, is hidden so as not to fall victim to "Death by a thousand cuts" even though you may have a flying Daemon Prince flying around, being hard to hit means nothing when markerlights break the game and boost ballistics skills past 1.

Also, beware deep striking Crisis suits. They can land behind your Soul Grinders and shoot it to death fairly reliably. Tau can be incredibly mobile, especially in a Hunter Cadre so double check how far they can move. Even something like a Piranha can have a 39 inch Melta threat range.

I'd also watch out for models with Interceptor, especially the Broadsides, when deep striking your own guys. Nothing is more futile than letting your guys die before they even get to shoot or assault.

If you are chaos demons only then you are playing with a quarter of a codex which seriously limits the units available. If you expand to chaos marines (nurgle) and/or IA 13 heretics you will give yourself a lot more quality options.

A heldrake is pretty handy for clearing out squads of markerlights but to take it you want an a comma relay to ensure it comes out turn 2. That also gives you more reliable reserve rolls for anyone deep striking (e.g. 2x torrent soul grinder). That much ignore cover ap 3/4 on turn 2 should help get rid of all the marker lights and fire warriors.

For IA13 the rapier gun batteries with Hades autocannons are pretty great given their T7 vs shooting. But the real stars are the renegade mortar teams.

Finally the Typhoon super heavy can do a lot of work with its melta immunity and S10 ap 2 ignores cover massive blasts all for only 350 points. Don't forget your squad of 50 plague zombies for 150 points.

Great Unclean Ones with Iron Arm can be damned near impossible to reliably take out. Consider some Princes with the same, or the Soul Grinders.