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Hey there!

I need advice on how to counter Imps with my Tau force.

I haven't played against Imps yet, but a friend of mine and his brother have that matchup on a regular basis.
The Tau seem to be inable to win this matchup.
AV14 Tanks is a huge problem as well as Wyvern (?) with their Ignore Cover Shred Barrages.
Basicly he gets rid of the Taus pathfinders on Turn 1, so no more markerlights.
The Tau fields some crisis, a riptide, a stormsurge, a hammerhead and a squad of missilesides. (as far as I know).

I can bring to the field:

1 Com
1 Ethereal / Fireblade
9 crisis
3 Broadsides
1 Riptide
1 Optimized Stealth cadre (6 Stealth Suits, 1 Ghostkeel)
1 Hammerhead
10 Pathfinders
Some Drones (Could be enough for a drone network)
24 Firewarriors
1 Devilfish
20 Kroot

The wyvern will be in deed a big Issue I guess and if I don't have first turn they will easily punch a huge hole in my forces.
AV14 is not the Issue for me since I can drop enough fusion crisis and have the awesome Stealth Cadre.

I will definitely field A Riptide, the stealth cadre and the crisis, since those are the best units I have.
My broadsides are build as Riflesides, but I dont mind proxying. (neither does my opponent ;-) )

Looking forward to your advice!

Imps? As in Imperial Guard? As in Tau lose to Imperial Guard?
Are you trying to rub salt in the wound of all the IG players who went from upper tier to trash with an edition change?

appreciate any helpful comments!
Others.... not so much.

Lol!

Usually putting infantry in transports is a good way to protect them.

Crisis with flamers and AFP are good to deal with their masses

Crisis with CIBs or Meltas to deal with the Wyverns. You can make a Retaliation Cadre formation to DS turn 2. Or you can use the OSC.

Try to space your infantry as much as possible. outflank the kroot.

Go for the objectives, as generally IG has low mobility (tauroxes and hellhounds are their fastest vehicles - destroy them asap)

Your OSC will murder most Leman Russ Tank and any vehicle with AV10 rear, 2 *3 stealth suits with 4 burst cannon and 2 fusion should be ok to destroy 2 Leman Russ in one go. That's not include the big guy's fusion gun. For other vehicles that have only AV 12 on front, your Broadsides or Riptides will handle them well.
Generally Speaking, I don't think Tau would have problem against IG, IG do not have actual "super tough" unit (i.e. Chapter Master Smashfether, WK), do not have great psychic units (imho psychic is only true weakness of Tau, who have no answer to invisibility or fortune, basically could only rely on luck in the psychic phase), do not have super mobility like Eldar, nor awesome fire power like Eldar or Tau themselves.

Based on you opening comments, it sounds like your buddy relies to heavily on the markerlights.

What point level is the game? If you can bring a Tau Cadre with Hunter Cont. and OSC, then you really don't need the marker lights. A little careful targeting you should be using bs4 tau most of the time already any way.

Aeri wrote:
Hey there!

I need advice on how to counter Imps with my Tau force.

I haven't played against Imps yet, but a friend of mine and his brother have that matchup on a regular basis.
The Tau seem to be inable to win this matchup.
AV14 Tanks is a huge problem as well as Wyvern (?) with their Ignore Cover Shred Barrages.
Basicly he gets rid of the Taus pathfinders on Turn 1, so no more markerlights.
The Tau fields some crisis, a riptide, a stormsurge, a hammerhead and a squad of missilesides. (as far as I know).

I can bring to the field:

1 Com
1 Ethereal / Fireblade
9 crisis
3 Broadsides
1 Riptide
1 Optimized Stealth cadre (6 Stealth Suits, 1 Ghostkeel)
1 Hammerhead
10 Pathfinders
Some Drones (Could be enough for a drone network)
24 Firewarriors
1 Devilfish
20 Kroot

The wyvern will be in deed a big Issue I guess and if I don't have first turn they will easily punch a huge hole in my forces.
AV14 is not the Issue for me since I can drop enough fusion crisis and have the awesome Stealth Cadre.

I will definitely field A Riptide, the stealth cadre and the crisis, since those are the best units I have.
My broadsides are build as Riflesides, but I dont mind proxying. (neither does my opponent ;-) )

Looking forward to your advice!

1. Attempt to use the Strategic Warlord Traits table. Infiltrating units can outflank instead.
2. Fusion on the Optimized Stealth Cadre should bust some armor. Deep strike to the side arcs when and where you can.
3. Arm Pathfinders with EMP. If going first, rush them up the sidelines to get within 6" of the enemy's board edge. Give them the Drone that allows the Kroot to come on from the enemy's board edge
4. Arm the Fire Warriors with EMP and Carbines so they can attack the IG low leadership and kill tanks.
5. Crisis Teams can clearly Deep Strike. Arm them with a Melta and TL melta. drop them in as singular suits so that enemy fire is ablated against them. Arm a couple of them with Flamers and TL flamers to take out important infantry. if you make them all Farsight Enclave, you can make them Obsec as well!

Don't know what the enemy force actually looks like but i know this: ONE SUIT can fit right next to a Wyvern a lot of the time and pop it from Deep Strike. =)

X

-Try using the 4x drone formation and make the drone squads makrer drones. They're 3pt more than pathfinders, but have WAY more survivability AND relentless with JSJ.

-OSC is great for dealing with tanks, retaliation cadre is pretty good to, but I think the OSC is better for pure tank killing. Retal however does get you a riptide and guaranteed DS on turn 2.

- if you use a CAD, go farsight with it so you don't take the fire warrior tax, and get up to 6 squads of crisis suits as troops vs the normal of 3 squads as elites.

Drones for markerlights pathfinders are way too squishy