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Does anyone have any advice on how to beat Tau using CSM?

Some of the ideas I have been considering are; using five man noise marine squads with blast masters, five strong units of chaos spawn with a mark of Nurgle,
Chaos Space Marine bikers, and maulerfiends.

I don't have access to the Chaos Daemons codex so Daemonic allies are not an option for me.

Blastmaster spam with heldrakes should do just fine vs. Tau as they are even more hosed by losing their cover saves than CSM in power armor. Target priority is to get rid of pathfinders as they force multiply the army.

Bikes and Maulerfends I don't think will be won't be worth it vs. Tau.

I am still not sure how to deal with Broadsides and riptides however. They have a 2+ armor save which will render the blastmasters or the Heldrake useless.
The reason I am unsure about taking a heldrake is that I am worried that it would be shot down by broadsides upgraded to have skyfire and interceptor on the first turn it arrives.

I also was thinking about attaching a Chaos lord with a steed of Slaanesh to a squad of Chaos Spawn. I am not sure whether the spawn would benefit from his +3 to run moves however.

The FOC really hinders me when it comes to fast attack.

A Juggerlord will be able to close in quite fast with Broadsides. Equip him with an Axe or Fist and you'll paste 'em good. A plain spawn escort gives you lots of fearless wounds.

I've used MSU Noise Marines and successfully outshot the old Tau Codex, but most of it should probably still count. Tau do have a lot of ability to use Cover, so Blastmasters completely ruin that. More importantly, the S8 means that you're doing ID against all but the Iridium Armor Crisis Battlesuit. Broadsides and Riptides won't be as hurt by them, but if you use the Blastmasters to go after the markerlights, and supporting obliterators to lascannon the Broadsides or Riptide, you can actually compete with Tau in a shooting war, and they won't really be expecting that.

Lord with Steed is good, although the Juggerlord with spawn is more damaging -- Running double lord isn't a bad idea actually. CSM HQ can be incredibly effective.

Another random thing would be to use Land Raiders -- with the Broadside nerf, if you can engage any Railheads before they kill the LR, it can basically just be an invincible fire platform or transport. Lascannons, as said before, are good against both Broadsides and Riptides.

As a Tau player, i can tell you the best thing for you will be an army that gets to me quickly. Any unit that can close the distance in 2 turns or less is what I have the hardest time with.

i know chaos doesnt have them, but drop pods are always a pain in the butt. I also had a hard time with a Necron army that was entirely in the transport flyers. The transports poops out a bunch of melee units on turn one and it really, really hurts.

I was also thinking about including a chaos sorceror.
If I take a role on the Telepathy table I can take psychic shriek which will be able to damage riptides relatively easy given the Taus' generally low leadership. I think I would also mount him on a bike for a relatively fast moving unit.

¨helldrake¨ even tough he got skyfire... you still do quite allot with it, + you got that 5+ inv save and ¨It will not die¨ Nurgle bikers are sweet, slaneshi weapons to ignore cover. etc etc ^^

phatonic wrote:
¨helldrake¨ even tough he got skyfire... you still do quite allot with it, + you got that 5+ inv save and ¨It will not die¨ Nurgle bikers are sweet, slaneshi weapons to ignore cover. etc etc ^^

Can the Heldrake survive 10-12 pens and 2-4 glances? I don't think so...... (This is a missleside squad with ML support BTW)

OT: Well, you gotta get close for sure.. Deepstriking isn't the way because of Interceptor everywhere. Juggerlord w/ bikers might be really good.

Lucarolx

 Lucarikx wrote:

phatonic wrote:
¨helldrake¨ even tough he got skyfire... you still do quite allot with it, + you got that 5+ inv save and ¨It will not die¨ Nurgle bikers are sweet, slaneshi weapons to ignore cover. etc etc ^^

Can the Heldrake survive 10-12 pens and 2-4 glances? I don't think so...... (This is a missleside squad with ML support BTW)

OT: Well, you gotta get close for sure.. Deepstriking isn't the way because of Interceptor everywhere. Juggerlord w/ bikers might be really good.

Lucarolx

most things dont come with intercepter. You have to buy it. and frankly, a lot of tau players dont buy it.

Yea there really isn't going to be interceptor every where unless the tau player is over spending IMO. Saturate him with fast units. Jugger lord and spawn work. DS oblits can handle his B-sides or riptide. Honestly tough don't forget that termicide units can help. If turn two he wastes his interceptor on 3 plasma termies then your heldrake is safe and you can torch his troops. Thats the key top tau, ruin the troop units. The flesh is weak

However, don't forget to look at your TAC lists. You don't always get the luxury of tailoring.

Interceptor is cheap. Very cheap. 5 points per model, so broadsides and riptides can easily have it.

I think my 1500 point list has 3 crisis suits, 4 broadsides and a riptide with interceptor, all for 40 points.

I ran 3 maulerfiends, 2 helldrakes, Nurgle Spawn, and the rest 5 man noise marine squads with a no upgrade slannesh lord against the new tau codex and it worked out quite well. My noise marnes minimized the pathfinders first turn and then my line of quickness consisting of the maulerfiends and nurgle spawn crossed the field towards the riptide and broad sides by turn 2 and 3 and made for a great distraction away form my hell drakes. They had to make a choice, do i shoot down those helldrakes (maybe) and save my troops only to get wrecked next assault phase or do I take out that quick battle line and let my troops eat flame. I use this same army list to terrorize all the local GK players who like to run the Coteaz list.

Ahriman could seriously ruin someone's day. Or anyonewwith his warlord trait would really help get in his face fast.

Infiltrate should give you a forward position to support your faster moving units.
Outflanking could Also really help.

My list has 4-6 turn 2 assault threats.
I'll let you know how my game vs tau goes on Thursday but it sounds good in my head at least.

I've found, as a Tau player, that the thing I'm most afraid of is losing my markerlights early on, and having fire warriors shot at. If you stay focused on the objectives, and kill off the fire warriors and pathfinders, Tau really don't have many scary units that can stand on their own without markerlight support - it's why my lists have focused on turn 1-2 unloading as much firepower as possible, so that I can stand an even chance once the laser pointers are gone.

If you have the choice of a couple crisis suits or a pathfinder unit, and want to figure out which to shoot at, always choose pathfinders. BS5 crisis suits may be scary, but BS3 ones can essentially be dealt with at your leisure.

Always force as many ld checks as possible. Tau leadership is poor, and losing 25% of a unit has often meant losing the entire unit for me. As soon as a unit needs to take ld, switch your targets. At-range, Tau firepower isn't really that great without markerlights, and probably matches CSM's base ability. Just remember target priority, and don't be fooled by the giant scary riptide - he's really not that scary without bs5/ignores cover.

uberjoras wrote:
I've found, as a Tau player, that the thing I'm most afraid of is losing my markerlights early on, and having fire warriors shot at. If you stay focused on the objectives, and kill off the fire warriors and pathfinders, Tau really don't have many scary units that can stand on their own without markerlight support - it's why my lists have focused on turn 1-2 unloading as much firepower as possible, so that I can stand an even chance once the laser pointers are gone.

If you have the choice of a couple crisis suits or a pathfinder unit, and want to figure out which to shoot at, always choose pathfinders. BS5 crisis suits may be scary, but BS3 ones can essentially be dealt with at your leisure.

Always force as many ld checks as possible. Tau leadership is poor, and losing 25% of a unit has often meant losing the entire unit for me. As soon as a unit needs to take ld, switch your targets. At-range, Tau firepower isn't really that great without markerlights, and probably matches CSM's base ability. Just remember target priority, and don't be fooled by the giant scary riptide - he's really not that scary without bs5/ignores cover.

100% agree.
Tau are an army of support, take away the support early on and then play an objective game with them.
Riptides especilly are just too hard to kill with most things, but taking away their support and they arent that scary.