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I hope you guys can help me out with a little problem I have been having.

So I am a Tau player, I enjoy games win or lose, but lately I have found myself frustrated fighting a particular Necron list.
Honestly, it is only a particular part of his list.

He runs a destroyer lord with mindshackle scarabs, in a guard of about ~6 ish Wraiths, half of which have the wargear that makes me fight at initiative 1.

There is the rest of his list, but none of it ever mattered. He will always "Look out Sir" onto the Wraiths, spreading the wounds around, it moves too fast to kite,
and with about 25-33% of my shots hitting, with average half of those wounding, I would be lucky to wound at least once. He runs straight across the map, gets in melee, and rolls up
my army and I get tabled by it. It is to the point he does not even move his other troops. I have tried several combinations, nothing has really worked. The end result is usually the same.

Any ideas as Tau how I can defeat this menacing blob? I have trying nearly every combination that does not include Kroot.

first of all he can't spread the wounds around, all los has to go on the closest model first, so no wound allocation shenanigans.

Use markerlights to improve bs then?
Not sure how you are only hitting 33% of the shots that doesn't even seem right with BS3.

They don't need cover so don't waste markerlights on ignore cover.

Throw small firearms into the lord first so he dies and then use your S8 weapons since those insta kills wraiths.

I have used markerlights to boost BS, he just moves way too fast for me to actually kill him off in time.

The issue with str 8 is the lack of it. I have some Seekers, but not many. Would you recommend just trying to seeker missile him to death? If i get close enough for fusion I am close enough for him to assault me, even with JSJ.
My railguns are still only one shot each, and he tends to pass the 3+ invul on the wraiths.

I didnt think seekers were all that great, but i will include more and give it a shot. Ty.

 D34d0n1mp4ct wrote:
I hope you guys can help me out with a little problem I have been having.

So I am a Tau player, I enjoy games win or lose, but lately I have found myself frustrated fighting a particular Necron list.
Honestly, it is only a particular part of his list.

He runs a destroyer lord with mindshackle scarabs, in a guard of about ~6 ish Wraiths, half of which have the wargear that makes me fight at initiative 1.

There is the rest of his list, but none of it ever mattered. He will always "Look out Sir" onto the Wraiths, spreading the wounds around, it moves too fast to kite,
and with about 25-33% of my shots hitting, with average half of those wounding, I would be lucky to wound at least once. He runs straight across the map, gets in melee, and rolls up
my army and I get tabled by it. It is to the point he does not even move his other troops. I have tried several combinations, nothing has really worked. The end result is usually the same.

Any ideas as Tau how I can defeat this menacing blob? I have trying nearly every combination that does not include Kroot.

Well, obviously kroot, but I understand the impulse not to bring them, they aren't everyone's favorite.

Have you tried a Battlesuit squad with advanced targeting arrays? if you can land enough shots on the D-lord you could take him out. Without the D-lord you should be able to hand the rest of the wraiths.

Forgive my ignorance, I don't have the best knowledge on the Necron Codex. Precision shot out the D-Lord, what does that do to the Wraiths?

I guess what I am asking is, how does losing the D-lord make them easier to deal with? If that is the case, by all means, I will do all I can to bring it down.

This is actually really frustruating to fight against as a Tau player. My best advice is to Kroot-wrap your front lines and slap Broadsides with HYMP into them. They're gonna have 3+ saves regardless of your weapon, so your best bet is to pump out wounds. 3 Broadies with HYMP and SMS is gonna put out 2.5 unsaved from the HYMP and another 2 from the SMS; combined with Kroot fire and maybe a couple Ion-heads? (Overcharge for S8 blasts that should deal with them handily) and you shouldn't have much trouble deepstriking your Crisis suits backfield to deal with his heavy artillery.

Here's what you do, markerlight him up, hit him with either a squad of sniper kroot at bs5, needing 4's to wound and rending on 6's and maybe a FW squad or 2, then unload a skyray on the squad. Maybe even start off with the skyray, 2+ to wound and if he LoS,s then they die if they fail a save. Oh boy do i know the pain you feel though, took a full squad of misslesides 2 rounds to finish em off after they ate 6 stealths and a full squad of 12 fw.

Yeah for a ball of death it has a huge appetite.

I didnt think of trying a Heavy Missile BS. He likes to disorderly charge to get multiple units in one go, knowing that the extra attacks really dont matter vs me. As far as heavy artillery, he starts with just 2 of those tesla arc barges ( the 90 point ones) and some scarabs on the field, the rest is in 2 flyers, the 3rd flyer has the uber beam of death. I never really got to know what any of that stuff does, he doesn't really use them, if he can get the beam of death on multiple hulls, he will, or he will eat my BS team with it asap.

From what I am getting, I am thinking of lighting him up and seeker to death, the most damage I ever did to him was with sniper drones, (one sniper drone besting a weakened wraith in melee ^.^) but even then I feel that round was alot of luck.

I dont run more than one HH, so for Str 8 i had railgun BS, some seekers scattered about and i think a fusion blaster somewhere. I was in the process of taking out the fusion blasters, they feel a little too close for the other weapons I have.

Thanks for the advice.

For the most part I am getting from people is to do my best to instant death him. +3 inv is a beast to overcome. Looking back now, I was trying to overwhelm with shots ( coming from a Guard Army I spent a good year playing ) and praying for him to fail his saves. Tau cannot afford the same level of causilties, so I think I will try to instant death him. But isnt that counting on him failing that same save as well?

PS: Would it be worth putting Darkstrider in a until with Rail rifles to try to break that unit? its alot of points in one unit, so yeah, thoughts?

if you have the money and the points a riptide could help you out a lot.

You can't ID the lord since he is T6 and there's nothing better you can do about it.

Riptides are probably a good bet against him.

 D34d0n1mp4ct wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, I don't have the best knowledge on the Necron Codex. Precision shot out the D-Lord, what does that do to the Wraiths?

I guess what I am asking is, how does losing the D-lord make them easier to deal with? If that is the case, by all means, I will do all I can to bring it down.

Oh, yeah, you're right, I thought he enhanced the wraith's defense, but he's really just their to add his warscythe.

Ally in Null Zone (Codex: Space Marines) and shoot them with AP3? >.>

Ap doesnt matter because they have a 3++

The Lord gives the Wraiths Hatred everyone or PE everyone, I forget which, so it's nice to remove him, if at all possible. In my experience (coming from C:SM) there are basically only 2 ways to deal with that squad: either lots of S8 shots or attacks or a huge assault blob to pump out a bunch of attacks.

Not sure how you can achieve that in Tau though.

Wolfnid420 wrote:
Ap doesnt matter because they have a 3++

Not with null zone in effect

NOt sure why Tau would have a huge problem with this at all with the new book (if you told me 18 Wraiths maybe but 6 and a lord?) It sounds to me like failure at a list building stand point (maybe too many toys not enough troops.).

If you don't want Kroot (and you should, but Without them.)

Take 60 or so fire warriors, and an Etherial (or Fireblade). Put all of them in range for supporting fire. Take some Path Finders (or other marker lights).

Once he hits 30" range start shooting him with 60 S5 shots (30 hits on average, and 20 wounds of which ~7 go through (unless he puts the lord in front to tank all the wounds, but even the lord should go down pretty quick to 20 wounds) which kills 3 Wraiths and puts one wound (if the lord tanks you put 2 wounds on the lord and Kill 1 wraith on average.) This does not even count improved shooting with Marker lights (if you go to BS 4 on several squads you get 40 hits and 27 wounds (so 9 unsaved wounds) Then he moves in, if he is within 21" afer he moves step up with everything and rapid fire as much as possible (Etherial means 3 shots per model, so 180 Shots) which puts out 60 wounds, squad dead. Even if not, he charges with whatever is left and you shoot him in overwatch and finish him off.

 Mustela wrote:

Wolfnid420 wrote:
Ap doesnt matter because they have a 3++

Not with null zone in effect

Null zone forces a reroll on successful invulnerable saves, it doesn't negate them. Using AP3 weapons doesn't matter, even under null zone as they still get that 3++ save.

Any advice to use seeker missiles is crap. The destroyer lord is rolling around with a 2+ save and T6, so he's going to bounce the first 12+ missiles off of his 2+ save to preserve the wraiths. Anything AP2 you fire into the squad will get LoS'ed onto the wraiths to preserve the destroyer lord. The only thing that's "super effective" against the squad is massed S8+ AP2 fire power, so that it negates the lords 2+ save, and instant deaths the wraiths when he LoS's onto them and fails a save. That said...I don't think the Tau have much in the way of massed S8 AP2 fire....so that kinda screws you over.

Best advice is torrent firing, since his majority toughness is only 4, your fire warriors will be hitting on 4s (or better, makrerlight those bitches up!) and wounding on 3s. He will probably bounce most of the shorts from his lord onto the wraiths, and they will have the survivability against massed small arms is equal to about 12 normal space marines....which you should have no issue getting rid of.

Consider a Cadre fire blade and/or an ethereal to increase the firepower of those fire warriors and go to town.

Also make sure that you screen your troops from their assault properly, and try to get massed overwatch volleys from as much of your army as possible into them.

Make no mistake, the list this guy is running is basically the strongest army in the game at the moment, so beating this means you can handle pretty much everything else.

AP3 would matter with Null Zone, Wraiths have s 3+ armor save and a 3++ invul. SO if you just use Null Zone, they take their armor saves.

Otherwise I agree, it is important to screen with one unit at a time (don't allow multi Assaults) let him kill that unit then shoot him some more.

Also, I'm not sure why the OP cares about CC buff the Wraiths have, you are Tau, you suck at CC, they could have no upgrades, and it would hardly matter.

Also, lay out your FW so he has to charge a single squad which is physically blocking his charge at the rest.

When he wipes it, repeat, each round they're ALL overwatching him.

60 FW should kill those wraiths from overwatch alone, if my very quick maths works, in that setup.

No the overwatch alone would not be enough, (180 shots, 30 hits, 20 wounds, 7 unsaved (assuming lord does not tank, if lord tanks it is more like 4 unsaved.), now if you get some marker light hits first that is a different story.

What would be the best ways to learn a space marine army?if requested, i will type up a list, but lately, i have been trynig to come up with a better plan on how to use my Space Marines, and win more games. any ideas? ( I have been playing for a couple years now, off and on, but its time for a revamp of my army, and its direction)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have a vindicator on the way, and plenty of ground troops, from what a GW cutomer service guy told me, but I was curious, on how i could really use them (my sm's), to win, and beat down my friends orks, and other armies, THANKS!