Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've been faced with a conundrum as of late. I run a very winning-list. Haven't had to make any changes to it in two tournaments, as I'm fairly certain it is as optimized as can be. Essentially it is Gunline-guard with blob lascannons, some Artillery Carriages/Sabres, and a CCS behind an Aegis, with Two Vendettas and a Vulture. With an Allied in Rune Priest and GH squad (with a TL razorback Lascannon). It quite handily beats any list I've yet played with it, with one little hitch.

I haven't had a chance to play a good Tau list. I've played a few 'decent' ones, but I haven't felt like I've faced the brunt of what Tau can bring at "full-cheese".

So my questions (for anyone that feels qualified to speak on the matter) are as follows:

-What does Tau change in the Meta?
-What are their biggest threats to Gunline Guard?
-How threatening is their Anti-air?
-Can they effectively deal with Guardsmen in cover?
-Can they effectively deal with Heavy Artillery Carriages?
-What are the units that take first target-priority usually?

Thanks a million for any responses. Hopefully this thread is useful to IG players looking to adjust to a new, seemingly very solid book.

Cheers,
-TheCaptain

-What does Tau change in the Meta?
Lots of S5 and S7 shots
-What are their biggest threats to Gunline Guard?
30" S5 and markerlights.
-How threatening is their Anti-air?
Very, 3* missilesides with drones should destroy a Vendetta a turn, a riptide with skyfire would also do it. They have a load of anti air.
-Can they effectively deal with Guardsmen in cover?
Markerlights, no saves on them. 2 Lights mean no coversave.
-Can they effectively deal with Heavy Artillery Carriages?
Lots of S5 and S7 shots.
-What are the units that take first target-priority usually?
Markerlight units.

I feel that a well-played and well-constructed Tau list will cause some serious problems to Gunline Foot Guard.

1. They have a few different ways to ignore the cover you depend on, and stay at range while doing so. They can spam Smart Missile Systems (ignore LOS, ignore cover), at least 1 Crisis Suit can carry an Airbursting Fragmentation Projection (18" Barrage Ignore Cover, S4 AP5), and of course there's the Markerlights. 2 ML tokens = one unit gets to ignore cover when shooting at you. That means they can drop pieplates or masses of S5 AP5 into your troops, and you get no cover from those shots.

2. SMS are one of the underrated horrors for foot Guard, IMO. 30" range plus 6" move on vehicles means that I can toss S5 AP5 shots on your CCS / PCS / Heavy Weapon Teams / Psyker Battle Squads / etc regardless of where they're at. A properly constructed list can decimate your command squads, removing the leadership bubbles and commands that your foot guard rely on to be effective. No more going to ground behind an Aegis and getting right back up to fight unimpared. No more FRFSRF when you need it.

3. Tau has some pretty nasty AA right now, with Broadsides spamming TL S7 like it's going out of style at the very least. Also, any Tau battlesuit can take a support system that lets them Skyfire - meaning Fusion / Plasma / Missile Pod shots at full BS against flyers. Riptides and Skyrays can also put a damper on your air support. And that doesn't take into account their flyers, whose weapons are S7 and are all on turrets, so they can get behind you and hammer your AV10 rear armor with ease.

4. Between markerlights and the large amounts of S7+ AP2/3 they can take in a list, it's pretty easy to hammer down artillery platforms. Of course, if they're doing that to your artillery they're not blasting your troops to bits, but depending on the list they can have their heavies use the markerlights to blast your artillery while their SMS and such tear your troops to pieces.

5. Target priority should be Markerlights and Ethereals first, then whatever's still the biggest threat to what you have.

One thing I can say for certain is that they come with an AV13 vehicle that gets a free 4+ cover save that shoots S10 Ap1 shots at twin-linked BS5 against our guard vehicles.

I guess you can take comfort in the idea that he doesn't appear to be that popular.

As for guard infantry, say hello to the new stealth suit - an already arguably overpowered unit that just got a LOT better against a foot gunline. Thankfully, though, these also don't seem to be that popular at first blush either.

However, I'd say you're still screwed with foot guard units. Everything and their pet fish can take a markerlight, and you only need two of those to turn that 2+ aegis cover save into "you're just dead" with a lot of long-range S5 weapons, amongst others.

On the plus side, one of the hot new things is a farsight bomb, which seems rather pointless against guard, being an expensive unit that's designed to take down things like terminators.

 TheCaptain wrote:
-What does Tau change in the Meta?

1) Complete death to flyers. If Sabre guns haven't done it yet the ability to get AA on pretty much every unit in the codex with a STR 7+ weapon should enforce a pretty effective no-fly zone. With Tau in the metagame you have to be able to function without flyers.

2) Huge hit to units/lists that depend on cover. Tau are better than any other army at removing your units from cover, which means that you can NOT count on putting token scoring units behind an aegis line to secure your "home" objectives. Tau don't really even have to move up from their gunline, they can just sit on their own objectives and wipe out anything that tries to score yours.

-What are their biggest threats to Gunline Guard?

1) Riptides. Their pie plate wounds artillery on a 3+ (2+ if they overload) and ignores cover (because of markerlights) and armor saves. Oh, and it has 72" range. They're going to be popular, and a list with 2-3 of them can quickly wipe out your Sabre guns or artillery crew.

2) Markerlights and pulse rifles. You depend on cover to keep your troops alive, and markerlights remove that. That means that Tau troops will often wound guardsmen on a 2+ with no saves of any kind.

3) Farsight bomb. This is a blob of up to 7 crisis suits (plus drones) with twin-linked weapons that always ignore cover, and it arrives by deep strike with no scatter. It's somewhere between 500-1000 points depending on the exact configuration, but it's going to wreck whatever it targets.

4) Shadowsun. She's now an independent character, so she can bring stealth + shrouded to any unit the Tau player wants and give a 2+ cover save to the biggest threat on the table. This is bad when it's a Riptide/AA Broadside unit/etc, but she can also join allied squads and do things like outflank a terminator squad into your gunline with a 2+ cover save (and if they take the Badab War character those terminators are scoring).

-How threatening is their Anti-air?

Extremely effective. Everything with more than a pulse rifle can take at-will skyfire for 20 points. Tau can easily bring enough AA to shut down even the most determined flyerspam, so the only question is whether or not they feel the need to bring it. If you're the only flyers in the metagame they might not. If flyers are common you can expect them to have lots of effective AA.

-Can they effectively deal with Guardsmen in cover?

Easily. Two markerlights = no cover. Your only hope of keeping guardsmen alive is to keep all Tau units outside 36" and spread out enough that the Riptides can't wipe out your scoring blobs.

-Can they effectively deal with Heavy Artillery Carriages?

Easily. Tau have plenty of weapons that can wound T7 effectively, and without cover and (often) armor saves they can kill heavy artillery better than anything but another earthshaker-spam IG player. The only "problem" Tau have is that their best artillery killer (the Riptide) is going to pie plate them, so there's a good chance that they'll kill the crew out in front, put a wound on the gun, and fail to kill the last model standing behind the gun. This might give you another turn or two of fire before they can put three more wounds on the gun.

-What are the units that take first target-priority usually?

Riptides first, then crisis suits or rail rifle Broadsides depending on who has the skyfire upgrade and who is in range to kill you effectively. Markerlight units are also a very high priority if you can get to them, but it may not be worth spending a ton of fire to dig them out of cover.

What are their most potent Markerlight-units?

Cover-removal sounds like their most potent threat against a list like mine (well, that I can try to nullify)

It's not a matter of potency, it's a matter of ubiquity. Yes, pathfinders can take a LOT of markerlights, but you only need two to shut down cover saves, and practically anything can take a pair of marker drones (or more) or a few markerlights just in a squad (like firewarriors).

It's just like how everything can have nightsun filters. Everything can have markerlights, practically speaking. Tau ignore both the rules for night fighting and for cover saves with roughly equal ease.

 Ailaros wrote:
It's not a matter of potency, it's a matter of ubiquity. Yes, pathfinders can take a LOT of markerlights, but you only need two to shut down cover saves, and practically anything can take a pair of marker drones (or more) or a few markerlights just in a squad (like firewarriors).

Note that these are NOT networked markerlights, and it's not usually a good idea to shoot an entire Fire Warrior squad at a unit of Sabre guns behind cover just so the BS 2 marker drones can maybe light it up for a the Riptide. Instead you treat the random marker drones as a nice bonus and have at least 1-2 units purely dedicated to efficient markerlight support. So, how it can be done:

1) Pathfinders. Each carries a single BS 3 markerlight, so a small squad can reliably remove cover for a single shooting unit, while a full 10-man squad can provide cover removal and/or BS boosting to multiple units focusing on a single target. And since most of our fast attack units are pretty bad you're not really losing anything by taking three small squads of them.

2) Sniper drones. The drones themselves are mediocre, but each unit comes with three spotters, each with a BS 5 markerlight. And since the unit has stealth they're great for sitting behind a ruin or aegis line and giving out cover removal or BS 4-5 to a single unit. The only downside is they're heavy support, so they conflict with some other appealing options.

3) Marker drones + commander. Take a blob of marker drones (or heavy gun drones), add a commander with drone controller to make them all BS 5. This is the most efficient way of getting lots of markerlights, but since they all have to go on a single target it's only useful if you're going to focus a ton of shooting on a priority target. On the other hand having your whole army shooting at BS 5 with no cover against a single tough target tends to make it go away.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
It's not a matter of potency, it's a matter of ubiquity. Yes, pathfinders can take a LOT of markerlights, but you only need two to shut down cover saves, and practically anything can take a pair of marker drones (or more) or a few markerlights just in a squad (like firewarriors).

Note that these are NOT networked markerlights, and it's not usually a good idea to shoot an entire Fire Warrior squad at a unit of Sabre guns behind cover just so the BS 2 marker drones can maybe light it up for a the Riptide. Instead you treat the random marker drones as a nice bonus and have at least 1-2 units purely dedicated to efficient markerlight support. So, how it can be done:

1) Pathfinders. Each carries a single BS 3 markerlight, so a small squad can reliably remove cover for a single shooting unit, while a full 10-man squad can provide cover removal and/or BS boosting to multiple units focusing on a single target. And since most of our fast attack units are pretty bad you're not really losing anything by taking three small squads of them.

2) Sniper drones. The drones themselves are mediocre, but each unit comes with three spotters, each with a BS 5 markerlight. And since the unit has stealth they're great for sitting behind a ruin or aegis line and giving out cover removal or BS 4-5 to a single unit. The only downside is they're heavy support, so they conflict with some other appealing options.

3) Marker drones + commander. Take a blob of marker drones (or heavy gun drones), add a commander with drone controller to make them all BS 5. This is the most efficient way of getting lots of markerlights, but since they all have to go on a single target it's only useful if you're going to focus a ton of shooting on a priority target. On the other hand having your whole army shooting at BS 5 with no cover against a single tough target tends to make it go away.

So I'd wager that out of these, Pathfinders are the biggest thing to think about in a competitive environment, being that none of the others really sound like competitive options?

Crush the weakest units first. For tau, that is often going to be the pathfinder teams. Those are brought to support the bigger/tougher/shootier things.

Depending on the list, a blob of drones +a commander may also be a valid target.

Basically, destroy the flash lights.

Markerlight chaining is actually the most competitive use I've found for them. For an extra 24 points on each of your units, you slap down 2 marker drones. Then, you start with a unit of pathies or snipers and fire at something until it dies, using the markerlights from the unit before to boost the markerlights for the unit after.

I think I'd actually worry about the "Mark'o" and his cadre of drones more. The commander is functional on his own, and being able to basically pick a unit to wipe off the board every turn obviously can be devastating. I'd certainly go after those drones first if the opportunity presented itself. Bascially, just wipe out the dedicated markerlight units ASAP, whether they're drones, snipers, or Pathfinders.

 TheCaptain wrote:
So I'd wager that out of these, Pathfinders are the biggest thing to think about in a competitive environment, being that none of the others really sound like competitive options?

The others are absolutely competitive.

"Sniper" drones are awesome, the only drawback is that they take up heavy support slots. But with Broadsides getting severely nerfed there's a lot less competition for Tau heavy support slots than there used to be and you can actually imagine a competitive Tau army that doesn't even use all three of them.

Marker drone blobs are situational, but very good in the right situation. The drawback of concentrating a ton of expensive markerlights on one target is a relevant one, but often as Tau you want to focus on one threat at a time anyway. So yeah, you might get ten markerlight hits on something, but that means ignoring cover with two Riptides and then boosting a crisis suit squad to no cover and BS 5 to finish them off. It's less likely to happen in a small game, but in a larger game it's an entirely competitive choice as long as you know it's going to work well with your strategy and not just be a waste of points.

A lot of these posts sound like doom and gloom for the IG player but the truth is that the IG book is a lot more powerful than new tau. Tau has better standard guns but IG has better special weapons in every unit. IG has more firepower than guard but Tau has a lot more tricks up their sleeves. TBH I think the game will heavily rely on two main factors, who went first and night fight. If guards goes first and it is not night fight I see them destroying pathfinders, broadsides and then focusing on hammerheads and what not. Without markerlights guards are a lot harder to kill. If it is night fight guard really can't do much to tau. It is very easy for tau to set up 36'' away or just have shroud and cover so they don't get hurt from fire. On the next turn tau will come because they have marker lights tau can ignore cover and they already ignore night fight so they will get a chance to kill the problem areas of guard. If tau goes first and it is night fight I don't see guard doing very well as tau gets two turns before guard can really do one.

chrisrawr wrote:... using the markerlights from the unit before to boost the markerlights for the unit after.

Yup, I've seen this already, myself. All units have markerlights, but not all units have something better to shoot at. A few BS2 markerlights allow for a few BS3 markerlights, which allow the third unit to ignore cover saves. It's especially bad with hurt units, as marker drones aren't likely to be at the front of the squad. You may well be stuck shooting at a unit that's a firewarrior or two and a pair of drones, just to shut down the markerlights, when you'd rather fire at better targets.

lambsandlion wrote:A lot of these posts sound like doom and gloom for the IG player

I don't actually think that's true. Yeah, foot guard is absolutely screwed against tau, but foot guard haven't been all that effective since 6th ed killed power blobs. You just have another reason, among a vast number of them, not to field foot guard.

Meanwhile, tau lost their invincible S10 Ap1 broadside units. In fact, the sharpest edge of tau shooting has largely been blunted, leaving tau units with relying on overcharging to get higher strength, and not even ALL that high of strength to boot. This means that you can run mech against tau. Plasma guns, especially lower-strength ones, are not enough to break apart an AV12 wall, and the chimeras help offset the mobility disadvantage.

The same is true for flier spam. Tau are good against fliers in general, but I actually disagree that they're good against guard fliers in specific. Vendettas are still AV12, which is still pretty strong against S7. Even if you're forced to evade, your weapons are still twin-linked. Meanwhile, tau units can take skyfire or interceptor, but not both at the same time. This means your vendettas still have an alpha strike advantage, and their extra mobility does even more to counter the tau's range and MSM annoyance.

The only real problem is markerlights bumping snap firing back up to full BS, but in this case, you're still no worse off than a chimera, which is now relatively better against tau than they were back in 5th edition.

Don't forget with an allied Rune Priest and CCS Guard can also Become a lot more accurate with shooting and also can force the tau to re-roll saves or even ignore Cover all together.

An Earthshaker or Medusa Battery with attached Rune Priest with Prescience and either Perfect Timing or Misforture cast can wipe out nearly anything in the Tau have to offer in one round of shooting.

If night fight become a problem take searchlights. Don't forget that a vehicle can move 12" and snap fire even if all the shots miss you can still searchlight the target to be hit with Ordnance.

 Ailaros wrote:
Meanwhile, tau lost their invincible S10 Ap1 broadside units. In fact, the sharpest edge of tau shooting has largely been blunted, leaving tau units with relying on overcharging to get higher strength, and not even ALL that high of strength to boot. This means that you can run mech against tau. Plasma guns, especially lower-strength ones, are not enough to break apart an AV12 wall, and the chimeras help offset the mobility disadvantage.

The problem is that you're looking at it in isolation. Yes, mech IG have strengths against Tau, but mech IG is badly hurt by the metagame as a whole where everyone has anti-Chimera guns to kill flyers and Necrons (still very popular) are almost a hard counter. Up until the new Tau codex the best IG list has been Sabre platoons, artillery, and Vendetta troops. It's a very cover-dependent list, and Tau are perfectly designed to tear it apart. But if you abandon it you either go with the standard foot blob list (which, as you said, has problems), or you go with the mech list and auto-lose to Necrons. And I don't really see how trading one difficult matchup for a different difficult matchup is really gaining anything.

Vendettas are still AV12, which is still pretty strong against S7.

Look at the volume of fire though. A unit of three missile Broadsides, without even considering the secondary weapons, missile drones, or a commander giving tank hunters, averages 3 HP against a Vendetta unless you evade. And then remember that Tau can also bring STR 8 AP 1 tank hunter shots, STR 8 spam (Sky Rays are cheap and effective), skyfire 18" melta, STR 6 AP 4 with rending and 12 shots, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lambsandlions wrote:
TBH I think the game will heavily rely on two main factors, who went first and night fight.

Unfortunately this is probably true. The person who gets the first turn has a huge advantage: IG can exploit the fact that everything but Riptides is really vulnerable to instant death, while Tau can ignore cover and wipe out whole squads from 72" away. Whoever gets first turn can potentially deliver a crippling alpha strike and end the game before it really begins.

Overall though I think Tau have the advantage.

 Ailaros wrote:
The same is true for flier spam. Tau are good against fliers in general, but I actually disagree that they're good against guard fliers in specific. Vendettas are still AV12, which is still pretty strong against S7. Even if you're forced to evade, your weapons are still twin-linked. Meanwhile, tau units can take skyfire or interceptor, but not both at the same time. This means your vendettas still have an alpha strike advantage, and their extra mobility does even more to counter the tau's range and MSM annoyance.

Keep in mind that Tau flyers likely won't be shooting at that AV12, they'll be behind the Vendetta shooting at much squishier AV10. Twin-link on the 'Detta definitely helps though, that's certain.

I do feel that Mech is probably the way to go for Guard against Tau, especially with the ability to be shooting all those special / heavy weapons out the top hatch. AV12 is pretty good against the majority of Tau shooting; what you'd need to be worried about would be outflanking / infiltrating Kroot with Krootox to get side shots against your Chimeras, or Tau fliers coming on to get the same kinds of shots. Not to mention all the deep striking melta-toting Crisis out there.

 Ailaros wrote:

I don't actually think that's true. Yeah, foot guard is absolutely screwed against tau, but foot guard haven't been all that effective since 6th ed killed power blobs. You just have another reason, among a vast number of them, not to field foot guard.

Buuuuut foot guard with SW allies is the only Tourney-worthy way of running IG.

 Peregrine wrote:

 lambsandlions wrote:
TBH I think the game will heavily rely on two main factors, who went first and night fight.

Unfortunately this is probably true. The person who gets the first turn has a huge advantage: IG can exploit the fact that everything but Riptides is really vulnerable to instant death, while Tau can ignore cover and wipe out whole squads from 72" away. Whoever gets first turn can potentially deliver a crippling alpha strike and end the game before it really begins.

Overall though I think Tau have the advantage.

I think given first turn IG has a bigger advantage than tau does when it is given first turn. There is a 50% chance that tau goes first and a 50% chance that there will be night fight. So I see 25% of the time IG will go first and have no night fight and have a huge advantage. 25% of the time tau will go first and have no night fight and have pretty nice advantage. 25% IG will go first with night fight and tau will have a pretty nice advantage. Then 25% of the time tau will go first and have night fight and will have a huge advantage. So tau is probably favored but its still anyone's match.

Tau ignore night fighting almost as easily as dark eldar.

Mech guard can do it at least somewhat decently. After all, you're going to be targeting only SO many units on the first turn, but foot guard is pretty much 100% screwed against tau in a night fight, regardless of if they get first turn or not.

Not to say that they aren't screwed already...

 Ailaros wrote:
Tau ignore night fighting almost as easily as dark eldar.

Mech guard can do it at least somewhat decently. After all, you're going to be targeting only SO many units on the first turn, but foot guard is pretty much 100% screwed against tau in a night fight, regardless of if they get first turn or not.

Not to say that they aren't screwed already...

Yes, that is why I am saying tau get such a big advantage when it is night fight. If tau goes first and it is night fight tau gets one turn of shooting. IG then gets no shooting because 36''. Then the next turn comes and tau gets a second round of shooting. So it gets two turns to kill what it needs to before IG can do anything.

As far as I know guard only has spot lights that can ignore night fight but you need to hit something first before the spot light takes effect and if tau is out of 35'' you are out of luck.

 Ailaros wrote:
Not to say that they aren't screwed already...

Only under your self-imposed limits of no FW, no allies, and no Vendettas. In the normal game of 40k foot IG are still a very effective list, or at least they were until the new Tau codex arrived.

If only there was a way to outflank Azreal and 50 man blob with conscripts as overwatch fodder...

I have watched and played a few games against the new Tau and from what I have seen and learned:

-Armor 14 will win games, the Tau do have alot of high strength shots but when it comes to armor 14 they do lack somewhat in that department outside the Riptide, Hammerhead and stealth suits. Friend of mine who runs "chaos guard" has yet to lose to the new Tau because he brings a minimum of 4 leman russ variants to every game.

-On that not the Eradicator (which I love and is probably the most underrated tank in the game we have) is phenominal. It will force stealth suits to take their 3+ armor save (which is not bad but better then a 2+) and fits into the new meta of infantry spam quite nicely.

-Flyers, yes the Tau have an insane ability to shoot down flyers (as my poor Elysians found out once) but if you know what to target prioritize you will be fine. Focus on pathfinders first and that will help alot, but utilize your flyers, especially our Vendettas into targeting the suits as soon as they fly on. At my store at least and from what I have read and gathered its that most Tau players equip their suits with the "skyfire" upgrade instead of the "interceptor" upgrade which means you shoot first when you fly on, so shoot those blasted suits!

-To Guard blob army players, form a line of sacrificial guys in the front and advance, advance and advance! It may sound insane to advance into all the fire they can put out but if you are spamming guardsmen you could afford a few squads of casualties. One player at my store forms a wall of 50+ conscripts and runs them forward (usually in a line of 25*2 look) and the rest of his guys swarm behind under the cover of barrage weapons. Yes Tau can put out alot of shots but so can we, the difference is we are going to smart a little getting to the 12 inch mark.

-On the outflanking note, taking Ahriman and a platoon of guys really hurts the Tau, the same "blob army" guard player uses this in a good portion of his games and it works great. Nothing like 2 chimeras coming on your flank, heavy flamer the stealth suits and raise hell on the flank.

Creed can also be good for outflanking, the two best options are either a squad of demolishers or a squad of bane wolves. Both will eat Tau.

I think guard would be a good counter to Tau really, yes you have markerlights to remove cover and 1 good anti tank unit, while guard have ignore cover and barrage to bring the pain to your pathfinders, good amount of s7 plus shooting from HWT's to take out your tanks, good anti tank in the form of barrage weapons. I think a well thought out TAC guard gun line list will cause big problems for Tau

As stated before AV14 is the big weakness of the Tau.

Unless they can get around you (unlikely in vast amount of situations) they will be firing only at AV14. Hammerheads are the only reliable punch to AV14 and its rediculously unpopular. Riptides CAN punch it but it kinda needs all the stars to align for it to happen (HBC: Novacharge has Rending so if it rolls a 6 on the pen and a D3 on the Rending bonus it totals 15....IA: Novacharge is Str9 and Ordnance so has a better chance of rolling a 6 but still not great. Tankhunter can boost that luck a little as they work differently, but still unlikely)

That was my first fear when i read the new codex. My thoughts: "Great, so now BOTH my armies suck at shooting AV14" (I play orks mainly).

Not sure if i can see a tau list that could prepare for both an airforce and an AV14 gunline. Odds are, they will prepare for an airforce as that is much more popular and likely across many races not just IG.

EDIT: Which i find weird that an entire shooty army cannot take out AV14 without insane luck. Land raiders i wouldnt fear because of the Riptide smashing it and the Gauntlet punch, but i sincerely doubt any tau would charge any IG tanks due to the insanely huge blobs of IG that tend to bubble them. I understand broadsides needed a nerf they were kinda cheap for a TL S10 AP1 shot, but i think making them Str9 AP2 would have still nerfed them quite a bit, but not completely kill their role.

Best way to deal with AV14 using a Riptide ?

Overcharge your Nova reactor, get to the tank, shoot twice (using your nova charge) with your TL-Fusion Blaster in Fusion Range, pray for a nice roll on the dmg chart.

This hasn't been mentioned, and I think it's another important factor: Tau can pull of some outflanking shenanigans that might cause trouble. The Positional Relay bit of gear lets a unit come in automatically on a board edge that the Relay is within 6" of, even if it's the enemy's deployment board edge. If they get an infiltrating Stealth team to a long board edge, that means Kroot and Pathfinders can show up behind your lines. Kroot can be toting a three Rapid Fire Autocannon equivalents per squad, and carry S4 guns themselves, so rear armor is going to be hit in a really bad way. They'll also outshoot Guardsmen point for point at close range unless you've got a lot of flamers, so consider packing some extra if you don't already. They'll also score your objectives to add insult to injury.