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So long story short, a friend of mine in a local GW shop runs solely genestealers. Every time we've played he has beaten me quite handily. I have decently sized tau and IG armies but both suffer from the instantaneous close range damage presented by the genestealers cult ambushing me. I'm relatively new to the hobby (been in it since about November) but I have a decent grasp on what I'm doing.
I'm thinking about running a hunter cadre with some counterfire systems, grav-inhibitors and breachers and a retaliation cadre to drop on his psyker summoners. Again, I'm relatively new, so what sort of tactics should I take to the table? The attached file is a battlescribe roster of the formation I'm thinking of running. Thank you in advance!
With Imperial Guard you're going to want to get alot of chaff units to absorb the initial burst. Basically cheap infantry units you can sacrifice to protect your important ones from dying.
Genestealers rely alot on their alpha-strike damage. If you can survive the initial assault phase it wont be too hard to break their back with shooting.
Ignores cover is your friend here- flamers and wyverns will take you far
Yeah as others had said max flamers in each squad for the guard.
With the Tau don't over commit your assisted overwatch, as a smart player will try to bait out as much of that firepower on a cheaper unit, then hit the real targets
And for Tau, take that BS2 overwatch upgrade on Suits if you can. And Smart Missile. Smart Missiles everywhere.
GSCs rely on infiltrating out of LoS if they don't roll the Ambush result they need. Smart Missile laugh at this.
A bunch of cheap chaff that are going to crumble in 1 round of combat should do the trick for both armies. Let him assault and destroy/sweep your chaff (priestless conscripts or kroot), they exist only as a firebreak to give you another turn of shooting. Anything that helps you get or maintain first turn is also going to be a winner, so Coteaz in a guard army wouldn't go astray, nor would an inquisitor with servo skulls since that should stop most infiltrating shenanigans. Vendettas or Valks for IG should also let you do as you like provided you can survive T1 since the amount of AA that GSC can have is limited at best if they want to make the most of their infiltrating tricks. Tau should beable to play a similar game with suits, especially if you run that formation that allows you to DS once a unit is destroyed. Deploy a lone pirahna and then dump the rest of your stuff out of charge range from DS reserve.
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
Tau is actually surprisingly strong against GSC if Tau goes first.
Riptide Wing with 5 suits with EW will inflict a lot of damage. Only issue is if GSC goes first, and they get lucky and roll a bunch of 6s on many units for a first turn charge.
So you will have to either:
1. Bubble wrap your Riptides with vehicles (piranhas wing) or cheap bodies. Give everyone counter fire systems for BS2 overwatch.
2. Bring a Infiltration Cadre so you can reserve the Riptides.
Tau have interceptor and ignores cover. So SMS Riptides with EWO are perfect. Bubble wrap are useful as wel. Seize modifiers are also super useful to have invade he goes first. If you go first, you can intercept the "6s" no problem.
As Tau, you can overwatch at BS 2 if you pay the points for it. Also, don't forget Tau's supporting fire. Overwatch OP.
Bring flamers. Bring volume of fire. Bring units that you can use to bubble wrap your important units so they don't get assaulted right away.
Even if he goes first, he can only assault you if he rolls a 6. With genestealers costing a lot, that's an issue. He won't have too many opportunities to roll a 6.
I think someone said it but for IG wyverns are ridiculous. Take 3 and profit. Artillery are also suprisingly resilient at T7.
Galef wrote: And for Tau, take that BS2 overwatch upgrade on Suits if you can. And Smart Missile. Smart Missiles everywhere.
GSCs rely on infiltrating out of LoS if they don't roll the Ambush result they need. Smart Missile laugh at this.
Smart Missiles are a good idea, but not necessarily for this reason. GSC players are going to be expecting Smart Missile Systems and as such they're not going to try to LoS your shooting. Instead, they're most likely going to shove everything down your throat from the get-go and try to force a big assault past all your shooting, while using Shrouded, psykers, and the Iconward's FNP bubble to try and limit the damage you inflict. The Ignores Cover is more useful than ignores LoS against GSC.
For Tau, Early Warning Overrides, Smart Missile Systems and Air-Burst Frag Projectors are the things to look for. More generally, Ignores Cover weapons, bubble-wrap, and some form of psychic defence are the tools you want to beat back GSC. A Culexus or Sisters of Silence squad will prevent you being maledicted, but you want a couple of psykers of your own for Denying Summons and buffs.
For Tau I would also suggest Kroot - not terrible at melee, inexpensive, able to infiltrate and available in large units.
Wrap your key units with them to blunt the initial rush of the Genestealers.
Also, Vectored Retro Thrusters and drones in as many units as possible so that you have a chance to break contact with your survivors and start shooting again.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/03/03 11:42:00
As mentioned, SMS are killer against GSC. Fortunately, most things toting SMS should also have EWO. Unless your opponent really goes nuts with 6s, you should have enough small arms to neutralize most of the immediate threats. Kroot and FW make particularly good meat shields, and if you really have to, get your Stormsurge stomping into the mix. Turn 1 in GSC vs Tau is pivotal. If you get your big guys swarmed, it's probably curtains. on the other hand, if you can repel his ambushes and can take out a few extra units, that's close to game.
If a GSC player puts everything in front of you and they don't get turn 1, its going to be a bad day for them. Nova charge everything and gun down the nearby Magus or patriarch units first if you can.
I'm not sure how much you want to tailor your list. But even in a TAC list, 3-4 double flamer Crisis in a Farsight CAD are solid, cheap, mobile, hide-able ObSec units you won't regret having around. And having all those D3 overwatch hits against 5+ saves is money.
Another fun, cheap thing to do which won't break the back of a TAC list is to bring promethium relay pipes. For the cost of a piranha, You'll get 12" torrent for those aforementioned flamer suits, in addition to some built in cover.
Lastly, if a little Farsight CAD is your secondary detachment, your primary should be a Hunter Cadre. The 12" supporting fire helps against any army, but especially against GSC. And back to the Farsight CAD for a sec, your HQ should be an Ethereal, even though it's unfluffy. Him granting stubborn could be very useful for combats you want to prolong.
Overall, Tau really should have an easier time than most against GSC.
The Shrike wrote: I'm not sure how much you want to tailor your list. But even in a TAC list, 3-4 double flamer Crisis in a Farsight CAD are solid, cheap, mobile, hide-able ObSec units you won't regret having around. And having all those D3 overwatch hits against 5+ saves is money.
Another fun, cheap thing to do which won't break the back of a TAC list is to bring promethium relay pipes. For the cost of a piranha, You'll get 12" torrent for those aforementioned flamer suits, in addition to some built in cover.
Lastly, if a little Farsight CAD is your secondary detachment, your primary should be a Hunter Cadre. The 12" supporting fire helps against any army, but especially against GSC. And back to the Farsight CAD for a sec, your HQ should be an Ethereal, even though it's unfluffy. Him granting stubborn could be very useful for combats you want to prolong.
Overall, Tau really should have an easier time than most against GSC.
Too many tax units in a hunter cadre tho. I like the Piranha Firestream formation, for 400 something points you can still get a crap load of free gun drones even with the FAQ nerf to act as meat shields and help with overwatch.
Jefffar wrote: For Tau I would also suggest Kroot - not terrible at melee, inexpensive, able to infiltrate and available in large units.
Wrap your key units with them to blunt the initial rush of the Genestealers.
Kroot aren't great as bubblewrap. They can be rinsed away easily enough by GSC shooting and they won't stand up to Hybrids in close combat, which means they can be used to Sweep your Suits. You could maybe use them to block Cult Ambush Infiltrate, but that's super risky. If you don't win the roll off the GSC player can potentially force your entire bubble-wrap out of position at deployment, and even if you do the majority of his army will be within 9" of you, with any 6s able to land within 3" and anything that Outflanks able to land within 1".
Jefffar wrote: For Tau I would also suggest Kroot - not terrible at melee, inexpensive, able to infiltrate and available in large units.
Wrap your key units with them to blunt the initial rush of the Genestealers.
Kroot aren't great as bubblewrap. They can be rinsed away easily enough by GSC shooting and they won't stand up to Hybrids in close combat, which means they can be used to Sweep your Suits. You could maybe use them to block Cult Ambush Infiltrate, but that's super risky. If you don't win the roll off the GSC player can potentially force your entire bubble-wrap out of position at deployment, and even if you do the majority of his army will be within 9" of you, with any 6s able to land within 3" and anything that Outflanks able to land within 1".
The last thing you want as a tau player is for your bubblewrap to survive into your turn because then you can't shoot whatever just assaulted them. You put the kroot (or FW, they're both going to die before they get to swing but FW can contribute meaningful fire turn 1 and overwatch and actualy have a save worth rolling against shooting). Place your prefered bubblewrap ~3-4" in front of your important stuff so even if they can infiltrate right next to you, there's still not enough room to legally place the unit while maintaining 1" from all enemy models. Sprinkle marker drones in there as well for overwatch boosting and deploy them behind your important stuff ensuring that they're effectively bubblewrap too.
As for outflank, any tau army worth talking about should have EWO on pretty much anything that can take it, especially staples like Broadsides and Riptides where a combination of high volumes of mid/high str AP4 and SMS fire are going to thoroughly ruin a GSC players day all the while still performing admirably as a TAC list since it's not that much of a burden to be "forced" into taking HYMP/SMS broadsides, and you're only at a minimal disadvantage with the HBC/SMS Riptide (and substantially better off against some armies too).
Just because you can't alpha every army off the board turn 1 doesn't mean everyone should forget how they played tau a couple of years ago when kroot bubblewrap was a virtually mandatory part of every Tau list because something was going to get in your face and you needed to be able to throw speed bumps at them to buy yourself another shooting phase. paying even a couple of hundred points for the ability to make target priority a much lower concern contributes more to winning games against rush armies than an 8th riptide I think.
As for the "taxes" in the hunter contingent, I'm not sure that there's really that many. You probably want a commander anyway, riptide and crisis are rarely going to be taxes and at this point, stealth suits are actually pretty decent, being infiltrate blockers as well as bringing burst cannons where the AP5 isn't pointless and the short range won't matter either. A single pirahna or unit of marker drones is both minimal points as well as contributing to charge blocking or even something as simple as being another unit for combined fire to hand out +1 BS, the 3 units of troops is your bubble wrap, and you can take either sniper drones for some cheap BS5 ML's or a unit of EWO broadsides to ensure whatever outflanks has a bad day 5 seconds after it turns up while a single unit of marker drones is hardly a tax, because what tau army doesn't like more markerlights? You could have a very reasonable Contingent for minimal points:
669 and beyond the FW (who're going to be the beginnings of our bubblewrap), there's nothing in there that's not useful while leaving almost 1200 points free for additional pewpew and some more bubble wrap. Hell, take a unit of 3x Crisis with 6x flamers between them and delete anything you point them at while cooking the hell out of anything audacious enough to charge them or any of their friends within 12", all for under 100 points. Would YOU want to charge 6d3 automatic str4 AP5 hits as GSC? I don't think I'd want to charge that as marines, let alone GSC!
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
Drasius wrote: The last thing you want as a tau player is for your bubblewrap to survive into your turn because then you can't shoot whatever just assaulted them.
Right, but what I'm saying is that GSC don't need assault to get around these units - they can shoot them out of the way. That's not a good thing, because shooting casualties open holes through which multi-assaults can be launched, and once your Riptides and Kroot are locked in combat with a couple of Hybrid units they're in serious danger of being Swept..
Piranhas seem like a much more TAC option, especially if you're taking the Mont'ka formation (Firestream?). They provide a much smaller bubble but can't be pushed aside with autoguns and assault grenades, and they don't lock units in combat either. No reason you couldn't use both, I guess.
As for outflank, any tau army worth talking about should have EWO on pretty much anything that can take it, especially staples like Broadsides and Riptides where a combination of high volumes of mid/high str AP4 and SMS fire are going to thoroughly ruin a GSC players day all the while still performing admirably as a TAC list since it's not that much of a burden to be "forced" into taking HYMP/SMS broadsides, and you're only at a minimal disadvantage with the HBC/SMS Riptide (and substantially better off against some armies too).
EWOs can be circumvented by units which "outflank" (i.e. roll a 2 on the Ambush table) during deployment. That's who I'm thinking about here. It's not a serious problem, but it's worth bearing in mind when you set up. I can't imagine it'd be much fun having a bunch of Hybrids running around your feet while you're trying to engage the other 100-odd sitting in front of your lines.
Drasius wrote: The last thing you want as a tau player is for your bubblewrap to survive into your turn because then you can't shoot whatever just assaulted them.
Right, but what I'm saying is that GSC don't need assault to get around these units - they can shoot them out of the way. That's not a good thing, because shooting casualties open holes through which multi-assaults can be launched, and once your Riptides and Kroot are locked in combat with a couple of Hybrid units they're in serious danger of being Swept..
Piranhas seem like a much more TAC option, especially if you're taking the Mont'ka formation (Firestream?). They provide a much smaller bubble but can't be pushed aside with autoguns and assault grenades, and they don't lock units in combat either. No reason you couldn't use both, I guess.
As for outflank, any tau army worth talking about should have EWO on pretty much anything that can take it, especially staples like Broadsides and Riptides where a combination of high volumes of mid/high str AP4 and SMS fire are going to thoroughly ruin a GSC players day all the while still performing admirably as a TAC list since it's not that much of a burden to be "forced" into taking HYMP/SMS broadsides, and you're only at a minimal disadvantage with the HBC/SMS Riptide (and substantially better off against some armies too).
EWOs can be circumvented by units which "outflank" (i.e. roll a 2 on the Ambush table) during deployment. That's who I'm thinking about here. It's not a serious problem, but it's worth bearing in mind when you set up. I can't imagine it'd be much fun having a bunch of Hybrids running around your feet while you're trying to engage the other 100-odd sitting in front of your lines.
As to losing your bubblewrap to autoguns, well, that's easily fixed - Get more bubblewrap.
Doesn't a 2 on the Ambush table just give you outflank (which means you're still subject to interceptor) ?
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
SonsofVulkan wrote: The two gun drones purchased with a piranhna, can they be deployed off the vehicle to be used as initial bubble wrap?
No, they must start embarked on the vehicle, but can be disembarked just like a normally transported squad (ie, the vehicle can only move up to 6"). Pg 120 of the new Tau 'Dex.
Peregrine wrote: What, you don't like rolling dice to see how many dice you roll? Why are you such an anti-dice bigot?
2017/03/06 17:07:45
Subject: Re:How to stop Genestealers as Tau or Astra
I've become very successful playing my current Tau list against GSC. I did make some changes over several games but I don't think I moved too far from being a TAC list. Here's what I'm currently running with (from memory):
Basically I've been castling up in ruins and try to survive turn 1 (the two guys I've played against had a Russ that could have dropped pie plates on my head) and hold the stealth suits in reserve for line breakers and plinking rear armor via deep strike. Going second or first almost doesn't matter. Maybe I've been lucky but the 3 or 4 games I've played against GSC they've only gotten a couple of 6's or 5's turn one. My bubble wrap dies turn one and maybe one unit manages to get in but the overwatch is insane. Once I'm passed turn one I start to spread out to cover objective markers and get good firing lanes going for the EWO suits. I didn't put the BS2 overwatch option on just 'cause I never had it in the past and that just seemed too much like list tailoring...and to date I've been fine without it.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/03/06 17:23:01
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