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SO a friend of mine is having real trouble dealing with a competative tau army at 2k points.

He started running pure daemons and has tried running detachments of thousand sons as well as black legion.

the last list he tried was

Daemons undivided
pox bringer
spoilpox scrivener

2 units of 30 plaguebearers
a unit of 30 bloodlletters

1000 sons
ahriman
sorceror
winged daemon prince

2 units of 30 cultists
a unit of 10 cultists

black legion
abbadon
another 30 cultists

even getting over half the models into reserve bringing in abbadon, 3 units of 30 cultists and the bloodletters 9" away on turn 2 hasnt been enough is he just missing the key chaos units or is it just being unlucky with dice rolls

tell your friend to take MSU. to break up the large blobs into the smallest legal squad sizes.

Whenever runs plague bearers hordes. Always take a Nurgle tree. That thing cannot be shoot at and can be placed out of DZ. Most importantly, it makes PBs horde extremely fast. Once they are in CC with Tau, it is gg.

I don't think break down the PB hordes are great. It get -1 to hit when in large numbers. That combines with 4++ and 5+++ is just too resilient for Tau to deal with.

I should note as well that list is a board control list full stop. If he is running it to kill things then he is playing it wrong. The goal of such a list is to cap and spread out to as many objectives a turn and just outscore your opponent.

Make sure you are playing objective missions and not just kill each other so that list can do something.

I cant comment much on the plaugebearers but i can say that nurgle tree is pure money, 3 oblits next to it and a dark apostle / nurgle sorcerer and you have an incredible amount of resistance that also puts out a ton of firepower. Those 0+ oblits with -2 to hit wont go anywhere fast, on top of multiple ways to heal them / bring them back (nurgle spell fleshy abundance heals d3 and the nurgle strat to revive one or heal d3).

With tau target priority is important. Firewarriors must die first. Sure that riptide looks scary but firewarriors are what make tau overwatch so effective. Also they can get absurd range.

Next drones. Most tau players wont sacrifice a drone to save a fire warrior, but will to stop a battlesuit from taking heat. So target those drones with as much anti infantry firepower as you have available. Once drones are gone (or most are dead around your target big mech) unload onto it.

Finally always try to remember to play the mission, not the opponent. I have seen many games lost because the winning player got bloodthirsty and left objectives because they wanted to kill that last enemy model completely.

 buddha wrote:
I should note as well that list is a board control list full stop. If he is running it to kill things then he is playing it wrong. The goal of such a list is to cap and spread out to as many objectives a turn and just outscore your opponent.

Make sure you are playing objective missions and not just kill each other so that list can do something.

Ive replayed him several times with a duplicate tau list of the one hes having trouble beating and each game has been objective based some eternal war some maelstrom and in each game ive managed to table him on turn 5 4 on one occasion.

Azuza001 wrote:
I cant comment much on the plaugebearers but i can say that nurgle tree is pure money, 3 oblits next to it and a dark apostle / nurgle sorcerer and you have an incredible amount of resistance that also puts out a ton of firepower. Those 0+ oblits with -2 to hit wont go anywhere fast, on top of multiple ways to heal them / bring them back (nurgle spell fleshy abundance heals d3 and the nurgle strat to revive one or heal d3).

With tau target priority is important. Firewarriors must die first. Sure that riptide looks scary but firewarriors are what make tau overwatch so effective. Also they can get absurd range.

Next drones. Most tau players wont sacrifice a drone to save a fire warrior, but will to stop a battlesuit from taking heat. So target those drones with as much anti infantry firepower as you have available. Once drones are gone (or most are dead around your target big mech) unload onto it.

Finally always try to remember to play the mission, not the opponent. I have seen many games lost because the winning player got bloodthirsty and left objectives because they wanted to kill that last enemy model completely.

I assume the -2 for oblits is including them being alpha legion and being able to cast miasma of pestilence of them.
Also ss mentioned before his list has no issue outscoring me, the last game on turn 4 he was up 13 or 14 VP to my 6 but the next turn he was tabled.
I have been looking at the nurgle tree as well but without a clear answer in the FAQ the RAW seem to indicate that the tree if you paid the points for it and included it in the army would have to be deployed in the deplayment zone.

Pestilent Garden: After it is set up ,a Feculent Gnarlmaw is treated as a terrain feature .Itc cannot move for any reason, is not treated as a friendly or enemy model, and cannot be targeted or affected by any attacks or abilities

This implies that its not terrain until its deployed which means it would need to be deployed in the DZ and then it becomes terrain and the latest FAQ doesnt adress it

The only exception would be using the strategem to deepstrike it in the middle smewhere for 1/2 CP

If you play the Chapter Approved 2018 missions, tabling is not a win condition, so outscoring but being tabled on the last turn is a very viable strategy.