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 sudojoe wrote:
Dropping terminators and drop pods can be countered by a lot of bubble wrap... the bubble wrap can be countered by things like thunderfire cannons/whirlwinds.... the lists that have a lot of bubble wrap will have a lot less big scary guns.

Wrong. An 1500 points Tau army can have an Ethereal, 3 TLFB/Stim/EWO Riptides, 4x10 FWs, 3x7 PFs and a Sky Ray (and the compulsory ADL). And here you go, you have the Fire Warrior Castle, you have the big guns, you have good AA, and it is still 1500 points.

That's what you call "alot of guns" though?

3 riptides is nice and all, but its only 3 serious guns.
That list got no long-range heavy AT, and most of the units in it will die to a single turn of properly set bombardment. the "castle" looses most of its power outside the 30" mark, so just keep out of it and blow it apart.

Seriously, a whirlwind wound cause so much damage there it will pay it's cost in a turn. so would a thunderfire.

Do not blame the tau codex because you refuse to take the units who are good against their tactics. if you don't take blast weapons, why WOULDN'T they castle up?
Its a freaking built-in counter mechanic, that's the whole reason WHY you take blasts.

 BoomWolf wrote:
That's what you call "a lot of guns" though?

In 1500 points? We are talking about either 9 S7 AP2 shots (mostly with BS5) or 3 S8 Ap2 Large Blasts (mostly ignoring cover) for crying out loud! Within the 15" range band, you can unleash 120 (!!!) S5 AP5 shots with BS5 and maybe even with Ignores Cover. Hell, if you are in a dire need of long-range firepower, then you have 6 S8 AP3 missiles too. What else do you need?

And Thduerfire Cannons are pretty bad against FW Castles. You ignore their 4+ cover, but they get their 4+ armor save... Doh! Whirlwidnsa re better, but then you have this problem with Riptides picking them apart and with those guys, you are not really in the TAAC corner, while the Tau player is (so you are playing Tauhammer all over again).

I'll be honest, it's just not that fun to play against a Tau army, and really I can't see how it would be fun to play as one. Most armies have a bit of finesse to them, you have to balance between scoring, anti tank, anti air, mass killing power, ect. Then based on the opposing army, terrain, scenario you have to adjust your strategy. Some armies (SOB, Orkz) are crippled in more than one of these regards and it can lead to unbalanced matchups.

Tau have one strategy; sit here and shoot all the things. I don't hate Tau but I'm not interested in them anymore than gunline Crons. It just leads to a dull game imo.

Boggy Man-Once again, blaming an entire army due to the fact ONE of the strategies they can use is not "fun to play" (enlighten me how a group of paladins who just walks up to you and does not lose a single model when your entire army shoots at them is any more fun?)

AtoMaki-That's not THAT much. it good, but not absurd. except the riptides they all carry just BASIC guns.
Yes, its quite good guns for basic ones (maybe even the best "basic" gun, you just neglect the fact the guys who carry the guns have GUARDSMEN stats, not marine ones. and these squads do not have special weapons scattered around, its just a blob of basic fire screen.
Also, the requirements to "unleash 120 (!!!) S5 AP5 shots with BS5 and maybe even with Ignores Cover." are absurd and should never happen. if you close 15" into the fortress without softening it up first (hint-shoot the pathfinders, they are the easiest unit in the game to remove compared to cost), then the mistake is yours.
Its like saying that a guardsmen blob can shoot 300 lasgun shots. sure, on PAPER. but it will never happen.


General note:
People keep lying about Tau abilities to comfort themselves about their own mistakes, and lying to themselves.

Tau do not "easily remove all cover", they can do it only from within 36" of a fragile, static unit. that CAN and SHOULD be killed early on. these units got no meaningful defense. or a unit that is mobile and not squishy as a conscript, but expensive and BS2.(with the "mark'o" unit aside, who is himself a massive point sink as he is a total overkill. (you never need 8-10 marks on the same target, sure that unit is DEAD, but any other unit is unharmed and you just invested ~250 points into a single marker unit.)

They do NOT shoot "120 (!!!) S5 AP5 shots with BS5 and maybe even with Ignores Cover." unless you walked right into 15" of no less then 40 different infantry models, who's units are all in turn 6" from a single fragile buffer, AND got hit by no less then 4 markerlights PER SQUAD. if he even HAS that many markerlights, he should not have the guns to make use of them.

Giving the list AtoMaki gave for example, he will net, on average, 12 marker hits, if his marker units are UNHARMED. that is 3 units shooting at BS5 with cover ignoring effect, pick-riptides or warriors?
The number will be reduced to 2-3 marker hits per turn at the end of turn 2, if the opponent knows what he is doing and brought any list that is not idiotic and lacks any range guns. there is no way to buff pathfinders survivability without rending them unable to shoot. (the other path, drones, will mean you wont lose markers as fast, but will have with far fewer excepted hits from the beginning)
Also, assuming the "compulsory ADL" includes a quad gun, that list is already a bit over 1500, even if all the squads are bare-bones and don't even get a team leader, meaning that once a single T3 no save model dies, the foot army falls to Ld7 with no redeeming traits. that guy also happens to give a free victory point. also the skyray got zero upgrades, and

Still can't handle the castle? great. just avoid it then. how is it different from a deathstar?
Sit outside of 30" and shoot the long ranged guns you got (you got some, right? if not, your freaking fault.) until you soften them up enough that you do. except the riptides nothing can even shoot you without leaving the castle, and once they do-blow them apart.

If you keep running blindly into the meat grinder, you WILL die. just blow it up from a distance FFS.
They have a castle? nice. now FORCE them to move out of it.
If you just allow the tau player to do whatever he wants OF COURSE he will just camp there and shoot you, because its SMART. once you make camping NOT smart, he will stop camping.
You complain that tau force you out of your comfort zone. you know what? I am sick of people who DONT knock me off mine. who wants a boring game where I can just sit there and shoot and you do nothing except walking right into my killzone like an idiot? I want a challenge, not a timewasher.

You know what stops me from castling? people who bring things I can't just grind down while standing still (long range bombardment, tanks who are tough from front by weak from back, hordes too big to mow down, outflankers, infiltrators, scout moves, TACTICS).
You know what I do then? I start jumping suits across the field and try to brake his forces in multiple smaller skirmishes, outflank and deepstrike to hit rear armor, shuffle my firewarriors around to get better positions, make my own infiltration to secure front beachheads to delay enemy advancement, heck I even charge at times.
You know what happens? we both have fun. because we PLAY.

Stop expecting the tau to hold the fun up while you are doing nothing of interest yourself.

 BoomWolf wrote:


General note:
People keep lying about Tau abilities to comfort themselves about their own mistakes, and lying to themselves.

Tau do not "easily remove all cover", they can do it only from within 36" of a fragile, static unit. that CAN and SHOULD be killed early on. these units got no meaningful defense. or a unit that is mobile and not squishy as a conscript, but expensive and BS2.(with the "mark'o" unit aside, who is himself a massive point sink as he is a total overkill. (you never need 8-10 marks on the same target, sure that unit is DEAD, but any other unit is unharmed and you just invested ~250 points into a single marker unit.)

They do NOT shoot "120 (!!!) S5 AP5 shots with BS5 and maybe even with Ignores Cover." unless you walked right into 15" of no less then 40 different infantry models, who's units are all in turn 6" from a single fragile buffer, AND got hit by no less then 4 markerlights PER SQUAD. if he even HAS that many markerlights, he should not have the guns to make use of them.

Giving the list AtoMaki gave for example, he will net, on average, 12 marker hits, if his marker units are UNHARMED. that is 3 units shooting at BS5 with cover ignoring effect, pick-riptides or warriors?
The number will be reduced to 2-3 marker hits per turn at the end of turn 2, if the opponent knows what he is doing and brought any list that is not idiotic and lacks any range guns. there is no way to buff pathfinders survivability without rending them unable to shoot. (the other path, drones, will mean you wont lose markers as fast, but will have with far fewer excepted hits from the beginning)
Also, assuming the "compulsory ADL" includes a quad gun, that list is already a bit over 1500, even if all the squads are bare-bones and don't even get a team leader, meaning that once a single T3 no save model dies, the foot army falls to Ld7 with no redeeming traits. that guy also happens to give a free victory point. also the skyray got zero upgrades, and

Still can't handle the castle? great. just avoid it then. how is it different from a deathstar?
Sit outside of 30" and shoot the long ranged guns you got (you got some, right? if not, your freaking fault.) until you soften them up enough that you do. except the riptides nothing can even shoot you without leaving the castle, and once they do-blow them apart.

If you keep running blindly into the meat grinder, you WILL die. just blow it up from a distance FFS.
They have a castle? nice. now FORCE them to move out of it.
If you just allow the tau player to do whatever he wants OF COURSE he will just camp there and shoot you, because its SMART. once you make camping NOT smart, he will stop camping.
You complain that tau force you out of your comfort zone. you know what? I am sick of people who DONT knock me off mine. who wants a boring game where I can just sit there and shoot and you do nothing except walking right into my killzone like an idiot? I want a challenge, not a timewasher.

You know what stops me from castling? people who bring things I can't just grind down while standing still (long range bombardment, tanks who are tough from front by weak from back, hordes too big to mow down, outflankers, infiltrators, scout moves, TACTICS).
You know what I do then? I start jumping suits across the field and try to brake his forces in multiple smaller skirmishes, outflank and deepstrike to hit rear armor, shuffle my firewarriors around to get better positions, make my own infiltration to secure front beachheads to delay enemy advancement, heck I even charge at times.
You know what happens? we both have fun. because we PLAY.

Stop expecting the tau to hold the fun up while you are doing nothing of interest yourself.

Exalted!!

 BoomWolf wrote:
Boggy Man-Once again, blaming an entire army due to the fact ONE of the strategies they can use is not "fun to play" (enlighten me how a group of paladins who just walks up to you and does not lose a single model when your entire army shoots at them is any more fun?)

It's not, your argument is fallacious. If you have to compare Tau to Ward-level cheese lists to be favorable, ...well you're being much harder on them than I am. Why do you hate the Tau so much!1!

Seriously though, you've got me curious, since stand and shoot is just one Tau strategy, what would you say are the other ways of playing them? (Builds I mean, not just different ways of positioning once the game starts to turn.)

 Boggy Man wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Boggy Man-Once again, blaming an entire army due to the fact ONE of the strategies they can use is not "fun to play" (enlighten me how a group of paladins who just walks up to you and does not lose a single model when your entire army shoots at them is any more fun?)

It's not, your argument is fallacious. If you have to compare Tau to Ward-level cheese lists to be favorable, ...well you're being much harder on them than I am. Why do you hate the Tau so much!1!

Seriously though, you've got me curious, since stand and shoot is just one Tau strategy, what would you say are the other ways of playing them? (Builds I mean, not just different ways of positioning once the game starts to turn.)

Run and gun. If the player is interested, the tau can have a very mobile army (they do have AV 12 skimmer transports, and mechs that JSJ). It just requires more finesse and strategy to pull off successfully.

I personally think tau are fun; they are like a puzzle that is waiting to be figured out. It's exciting, and frustrating. But if there wasn't a higher wall to scale then the thrill would be over and the game not fun.

 Boggy Man wrote:


Seriously though, you've got me curious, since stand and shoot is just one Tau strategy, what would you say are the other ways of playing them? (Builds I mean, not just different ways of positioning once the game starts to turn.)

We do have the tools for great back field harassment in the sense that we can outflank deep strike or infiltrate alot of our units. being able to outflank kroot relatively accurate into backfield and force your opponent to back track for the objective is priceless.

Ironwill13791 wrote:

 Boggy Man wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Boggy Man-Once again, blaming an entire army due to the fact ONE of the strategies they can use is not "fun to play" (enlighten me how a group of paladins who just walks up to you and does not lose a single model when your entire army shoots at them is any more fun?)

It's not, your argument is fallacious. If you have to compare Tau to Ward-level cheese lists to be favorable, ...well you're being much harder on them than I am. Why do you hate the Tau so much!1!

Seriously though, you've got me curious, since stand and shoot is just one Tau strategy, what would you say are the other ways of playing them? (Builds I mean, not just different ways of positioning once the game starts to turn.)

Run and gun. If the player is interested, the tau can have a very mobile army (they do have AV 12 skimmer transports, and mechs that JSJ). It just requires more finesse and strategy to pull off successfully.

I personally think tau are fun; they are like a puzzle that is waiting to be figured out. It's exciting, and frustrating. But if there wasn't a higher wall to scale then the thrill would be over and the game not fun.

Well it's definitely something different. Still shooty but what isn't in 6th? I'll let you correct me on that Will. (Protip; It helps thatyour post isn't a massive wall of anger caused by me saying something innocuous and subjective.)

Desubot wrote:
We do have the tools for great back field harassment in the sense that we can outflank deep strike or infiltrate alot of our units. being able to outflank kroot relatively accurate into backfield and force your opponent to back track for the objective is priceless.

More people should definitely play Kroot. I guess I have a problem with the way most people play Tau rather than the team itself.
I'd love to counter them with my outflanking and deepstriking Ork units like....
(Ah hell, if Ward writes the codex we'll probably have BS4 AP2 slugga boys and everyone will start giving us the same crap.)

Fish of Fury is less comon these days, but sure is fun (a bunch of devilfished surfing around, waiting to deploy around a victim and blast him to pieces.) and is a lovely work in a mech army.
A triple-hammerhead army with three-four devilfish loaded with warriors, sometimes backed by a few suits for the heavy guns.

JSJ based army, with suits and drones taking the primary focus. often have three full crisis teams, crisis commander, etc...
(if only we had JSJ toops like eldar got, it could be a full army. on an amusing note, people somehow forget about the troop eldar jetbikes, yet manage to complain about tau JSJ, WHILE playing with jetbikes, color me confused.)

The farsight bomb army (not my favorite, but its there)

"Board control", featuring lots of kroot, weapon pathfinders and stealth teams (and usually shadowsun, darkstrider or both) to present too many mobile threats who infiltrate, outflank and deepstrike to make it too hard to chose a target, as the center of action changes every turn.

And naturally, you got hybrids who just throw a little bit of both at you (I run a bit mech, a bit JSJ and a bit board control, for example. the two broadsides will be routed out once another hammerhead will be finished.)

Lots of options, gunline is just the easy answer, because many players from some reason refuse to play correctly to make it not work, or take the proper answers to it.

As for orks, they are poor fellows who need an update. but I dont know too much as I only got to play against them once, and it was a rather new player so it was kina small game, and he made alot of mistakes (like keeping a large group of boys at home objective outside of cover, with a railgun hammerhead on my side just blowing them up turn after turn.)

 Boggy Man wrote:

Seriously though, you've got me curious, since stand and shoot is just one Tau strategy, what would you say are the other ways of playing them? (Builds I mean, not just different ways of positioning once the game starts to turn.)

Piranha spam is very effective and fast moving, since model in the unit comes with 2 passangers that can disembark and then JSJ around the table.

 BoomWolf wrote:


You know what stops me from castling? people who bring things I can't just grind down while standing still (long range bombardment, tanks who are tough from front by weak from back, hordes too big to mow down, outflankers, infiltrators, scout moves, TACTICS).

So first you say that one should weaken the Tau castle before venturing within 15", then you recomend outflanking and infiltrating. Que?


Also, for the record, unless you're playing as Imperial Guard, what TAC list stands a reasonable chance of outshooting 3 Riptides at >30" range at 1500 points? What if you're playing an army that can't match the Tau shooting but has no good way of getting in close (Templars, Blood Angels, arguably Dark Eldar, Orks)? How do you deal with Tau without creating a gimmick list that falls apart against other Codices?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


You know what stops me from castling? people who bring things I can't just grind down while standing still (long range bombardment, tanks who are tough from front by weak from back, hordes too big to mow down, outflankers, infiltrators, scout moves, TACTICS).

So first you say that one should weaken the Tau castle before venturing within 15", then you recomend outflanking and infiltrating. Que?


Also, for the record, unless you're playing as Imperial Guard, what TAC list stands a reasonable chance of outshooting 3 Riptides at >30" range at 1500 points? What if you're playing an army that can't match the Tau shooting but has no good way of getting in close (Templars, Blood Angels, arguably Dark Eldar, Orks)? How do you deal with Tau without creating a gimmick list that falls apart against other Codices?

Why does the game have to be free of bad matchups? Im sure an update to BT, BA, DE and Orks will help them perform against tau, but theres nothignwrong with some dexes being a hard counter to others... DE has been a ard counter for Tyranids forever, and thats fine.

 davou wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


You know what stops me from castling? people who bring things I can't just grind down while standing still (long range bombardment, tanks who are tough from front by weak from back, hordes too big to mow down, outflankers, infiltrators, scout moves, TACTICS).

So first you say that one should weaken the Tau castle before venturing within 15", then you recomend outflanking and infiltrating. Que?


Also, for the record, unless you're playing as Imperial Guard, what TAC list stands a reasonable chance of outshooting 3 Riptides at >30" range at 1500 points? What if you're playing an army that can't match the Tau shooting but has no good way of getting in close (Templars, Blood Angels, arguably Dark Eldar, Orks)? How do you deal with Tau without creating a gimmick list that falls apart against other Codices?

Why does the game have to be free of bad matchups? Im sure an update to BT, BA, DE and Orks will help them perform against tau, but theres nothignwrong with some dexes being a hard counter to others... DE has been a ard counter for Tyranids forever, and thats fine.

There's a difference between "bad matchup" and "completely shuts down 25% of the Codices in the game and gives the remaining 75% a really hard time". I'll say it again; Tau are the Space Wolves of 6th edition. You either build your list to focus on dealing with Tau or you lose. Not every Codex can do this and remain TAC.

EDIT: Further, I'd argue that there shouldn't be counters of the level of DE vs. 'Nids or GK vs. Daemons in the first place. I want to play the game and win because I outplay my opponent, not because I play an army that more or less automatically counters my enemy. On the same note, I'm fine with losing, but not without having a fighting chance.

Tau also scales to any point level, where e.g. my BA do not. I haf excellent (and even) games against Tau in 5th edition. Now with 6th I cannot compete against the same models with my own, without investing a lot of cash to new models.

Let's see how Codex SM turns out. Maybe I will start using some new chapter with those rules instead.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


You know what stops me from castling? people who bring things I can't just grind down while standing still (long range bombardment, tanks who are tough from front by weak from back, hordes too big to mow down, outflankers, infiltrators, scout moves, TACTICS).

So first you say that one should weaken the Tau castle before venturing within 15", then you recomend outflanking and infiltrating. Que?


Also, for the record, unless you're playing as Imperial Guard, what TAC list stands a reasonable chance of outshooting 3 Riptides at >30" range at 1500 points? What if you're playing an army that can't match the Tau shooting but has no good way of getting in close (Templars, Blood Angels, arguably Dark Eldar, Orks)? How do you deal with Tau without creating a gimmick list that falls apart against other Codices?

Well, I don't expect you to do EVERYTHING at once, I just listed options. and infiltrating and outflanking can be used to get into places NOT near the castle as well, people really underestimate the potential of these maneuvers.

And "what TAC list stands a reasonable chance of outshooting 3 Riptides at >30" range at 1500 points?"......
You are joking?!
Outside of markerlight influence, 3 riptides have nearly NO firepower from what a list can bring, can hardly hurt an AV 13, AV14 requires sheer luck, shoot at BS3, and cant aim at jets worth nothing.
If your list cant outperform THAT shooting in range, its not TAC from the firstplace! because ANY gunline will pummel you to the ground.
If we look at the non-blast profile, its a total of 9 shots, of them 4.5 hits, and then 3.75 wounds.
3.75 infantry models killed per turn, if they have no invul and no cover. AMAZING.
Sure blasts CAN hit more, but they can also get hot, and can scatter completely off, and you still got cover and invul. 3 large blasts per turn, no matter how powerful each individual blast is, should NOT be a major threat. as you can just spread thin, and get into cover, negating threat.

And the best part? you are not even AIMING at the riptides at turn, you don't need to beat their own defense. you aim at the bulk of the force, the warrior and pathfinders, and once they are thinned out (after 2-3 turns of bombardment) you move in your forces to sweet down the remains, and get the up-close weapons that can take down the riptides to deal with them. so you need spray guns, things that throw alot of dice (or return blasts, the castle is the issue, if they spread thin the castle is already broken)



Also, Naw, I don't know what army you are running, but you seem to forget BA in itself in an outperformed codex, in his own specialties, by newer marine codices. (not to mention how far behind is he on things NOT his specialties), but it still got answers to a castle, and if you don't take them-its YOUR problem. I see no reason why land raiders, whirlwinds, and predators cant be an asset in general, especially when they are a fast tank.
You think the Tau players DIDNT need to brush up new models after the new codex? the average tau player only owned minimum troops, and spammed broadsides, now they spam troops and the broadsides sit outside.
The game changed, your army needs to change. you can't play the same old list and expect it to work just the same against patched opponent, especially when they were "excellent (and even) games" against what was considered a FAILURE of a codex, and one that does not work, over half of it too weak to see even casual games, and some of it actually HARMFUL to the tau itself. the list of "viable" units for a serious game was crisis HQ, crisis suits in elites and broadsides. (and 5th edition crisis suits/commanders were alot less impressive, and tend to cost more to do the same.) then you took some troops because you HAD to. (after 6th edition the rapid fire change made fire warriors promote from "point sink" into "sub-par") and if you go with forgeworld, after the online PDF (still with the 5th edition codex), you had tetras and plasma hammerheads join the list of actually good units.

You had even games against a codex with 2 viable models, and 2 more with forgeworld support. (and none of them troops, something that is a must) your army needs work, not the tau.

 BoomWolf wrote:

You had even games against a codex with 2 viable models, and 2 more with forgeworld support. (and none of them troops, something that is a must) your army needs work, not the tau.

I've not played against the old Tau Codex, you must be thinking of someone else.

I'd imagine that it'd be pretty even, though, seeing as my main army is Black Templars. So please, can we stuff it with the politer versions of "lol l2p"? A BT army shouldn't ever be able to outshoot a properly built Tau list, and I'd be willing to bet that neither would a BA or Vanilla list. You're severely overestimating the amount of >30" range shooting a Marine TAC list puts out.

As for outshooting the Tau castle, it really isn't going to work because if you stand off and try to weaken the Troops for 3 turns they're going to G2G behind an Aegis for a 2+ cover. If you close in earlier you get shot repeatedly. The three Riptides are going to kill TFCs or Whirlwinds first, because those are the actual threats. Heavy mech would probably work better against the Tau, but then you run into the issue of losing against everyone else because you brought vehicles.

 BoomWolf wrote:

If you keep running blindly into the meat grinder, you WILL die. just blow it up from a distance FFS.
....
You complain that tau force you out of your comfort zone. you know what? I am sick of people who DONT knock me off mine. who wants a boring game where I can just sit there and shoot and you do nothing except walking right into my killzone like an idiot? I want a challenge, not a timewasher.

Sooooo.... Your advice is "Play IG gunline!"... Great, I'll tell this to my CSM/CD/Ork/SM buddies too, I'm pretty sure that it will cheer them up !

Otherwise, I must agree with you. "Overgunlineing" a Tau is the best strategy you can employ against the bluefaces. Just build up your own castle from immobile artillery pieces and stationary heavy weapon spam platforms, back it up with lots of expandable bodies, and you will be fine. Stay in one corner of the table, out of the 36" threat range of the Castle, and blast them into pieces from your comfortable little fortress. And the best thing is, this setup will work perfectly against other Tau armies just as fine.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

If you keep running blindly into the meat grinder, you WILL die. just blow it up from a distance FFS.
....
You complain that tau force you out of your comfort zone. you know what? I am sick of people who DONT knock me off mine. who wants a boring game where I can just sit there and shoot and you do nothing except walking right into my killzone like an idiot? I want a challenge, not a timewasher.

Sooooo.... Your advice is "Play IG gunline!"... Great, I'll tell this to my CSM/CD/Ork/SM buddies too, I'm pretty sure that it will cheer them up !

Otherwise, I must agree with you. "Overgunlineing" a Tau is the best strategy you can employ against the bluefaces. Just build up your own castle from immobile artillery pieces and stationary heavy weapon spam platforms, back it up with lots of expandable bodies, and you will be fine. Stay in one corner of the table, out of the 36" threat range of the Castle, and blast them into pieces from your comfortable little fortress. And the best thing is, this setup will work perfectly against other Tau armies just as fine.

Which, of course, relies on being able to take lots and lots of guns with a better than 36" range that are good at killing stuff with 2+ cover saves, so BA, BT, Vanilla, Dark Angels, Tyranids, Sisters of Battle, Orks and Dark Eldar are all gak outta luck on that part (I didn't include 6th edition Codices that have an obvious other way to combat Tau). If you're playing GK, SW or Imperial Guard you can do it and if you're playing Necrons you're playing Necrons, but fully half the armies in the game are hard-pressed to deal with Tau. 'Nids probably do fine between Ymgarls and Biomancy MCs, but still.

So far just about every match up against Tau with my sisters ends up being "run to your death" Dominions get interecepted when outflanking, Seraphim get the same fate when DS. My exorcist sometimes survive more than 3 turns. Not fun when you have one unit with 48" range,

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


There's a difference between "bad matchup" and "completely shuts down 25% of the Codices in the game and gives the remaining 75% a really hard time". I'll say it again; Tau are the Space Wolves of 6th edition. You either build your list to focus on dealing with Tau or you lose. Not every Codex can do this and remain TAC.

EDIT: Further, I'd argue that there shouldn't be counters of the level of DE vs. 'Nids or GK vs. Daemons in the first place. I want to play the game and win because I outplay my opponent, not because I play an army that more or less automatically counters my enemy. On the same note, I'm fine with losing, but not without having a fighting chance.

So much wrong.

Of course you wont manage to kill 3+ broadsides, a riptide and two hammer heads before they manage to slap you with the same or greater damage output, the tau gimmick is ranged power; but you don't have too. All you have to do is kill the pathfinders/lights, and then you've neutered the damage output of a tau castle by up to half. After that's done, the only thing you need to worry about are troops that have t3 and a 4up save, or worse, troops with a 6up save and some special rules. Complaining that you can't neuter tau at range before taking them close up is like being upset that most armies can't go punch for punch with THSS termies.

Drop pods are still very viable, and you don't even have to eat interceptor if you position yourself cleverly (make sure you move you dudes to be all within 2.5 inches of an enemy mode, and suddenly it becomes impossible to place that nasty blast over them). Likewise, almost everything that can fall out of a drop pod, can combat squad; do that and even if you can't position to deny a blast, you can only eat intercept on one.

And if you wanted to completely avoid any of the somewhat finesse answers, you can always use dirge casters or a number of other armies shenanigans. Just about every time I play wolves, my riptide eats a jaws. Shunting torrent DK are absurdly good at removing markerlights, the heldrake likewise does gangbusters against lights of all sorts. TFC ruins fire-warriors in a castle, as does drop pods that have taken the blast weapon.

The above are all things that do absurdly well at removing cultists too btw, so not gimping a TAC setup.

Necrons can use the dimensional corridor to drop an absurd amount of firepower right next to a castle, and before they do it, they can block LOS with the av 14 monoliths

IG can put Ord-barrage into a castle that not only negates the benefit of the ADL, but can land right on the head of an ethereal, snagging a whole 'nother VP and neutering the LD of the entire line down to ork levels, and the cheap access to av14 is not easilly countered by tau.

Eldar wave serpent is a hard counter to markerlight dependent lists; sure tau are just about the best book for killing the serpents, but they output right back.

DE, orks and BT are they only dexes I can think of that are absolutely stuck when it comes to answering tau... And DE get opportunities to inflict that butt hurt elsewhere themselves so its not so bad; the other two are due for updates so soon we can smell the books.


If you wanna outplay your opponent, you might start by reasoning out how to do it rather than stomping your foot and saying you couldn't play. So far two people at my club 'get it' and have shifted their list building a touch to include some tau answers, the rest keep loosing to it (and the 'why' is very obvious to all those that do 'get it')

Tau have just as much right to play in the meta-park as any other dex, and given how long the fanboys have waited, you can expect them to take up a good deal of space for a while.

 conker249 wrote:
So far just about every match up against Tau with my sisters ends up being "run to your death" Dominions get interecepted when outflanking, Seraphim get the same fate when DS. My exorcist sometimes survive more than 3 turns. Not fun when you have one unit with 48" range,

Its probably best not to deepstrike or outflank against tau unless you have alot of LOS blocking terrain or if you do it en mass.

at most you will have 3-4 models intercepting at bs3 that requires los at range or a bunch of st5 ap 5 within 30"

Otherwise a Rhino rush with multiple units and seraphims should do well. vehicles should explode but as long as it gets your models into charge distance turn two it shouldn't matter. (general power armor tactic)

 davou wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Tau are the Space Wolves of 6th edition. You either build your list to focus on dealing with Tau or you lose.

So much wrong.

*lists builds and options that hard-counter Tau but somewhat bad in a TAC army*

If you wanna outplay your opponent, you might start by reasoning out how to do it rather than stomping your foot and saying you couldn't play. So far two people at my club 'get it' and have shifted their list building a touch to include some tau answers, the rest keep loosing to it (and the 'why' is very obvious to all those that do 'get it')

Oh my god, this is getting ridiculous ...

 AtoMaki wrote:

 davou wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Tau are the Space Wolves of 6th edition. You either build your list to focus on dealing with Tau or you lose.

So much wrong.

*lists builds and options that hard-counter Tau but somewhat bad in a TAC army*

If you wanna outplay your opponent, you might start by reasoning out how to do it rather than stomping your foot and saying you couldn't play. So far two people at my club 'get it' and have shifted their list building a touch to include some tau answers, the rest keep loosing to it (and the 'why' is very obvious to all those that do 'get it')

Oh my god, this is getting ridiculous ...

Quit being a potato, those weren't list builts, those were options you can insert into most lists with minimal push and pull. If you wanna take some random TAC list that has worked ofr you since 2011, by all means do it, but dont bitch that it does not work in the new meta if you refuse overtly to tweak it when the option is there.

if you can't shift 20 or so points and swap a single unit in your list so that you have SOMETHING to deal with new threats, you're not being shoehorned, your're being thick.

 davou wrote:

Quit being a potato, those weren't list builts, those were options you can insert into most lists with minimal push and pull. If you wanna take some random TAC list that has worked ofr you since 2011, by all means do it, but don't bitch that it does not work in the new meta if you refuse overtly to tweak it when the option is there.

You say this like Drop Pods would be a good idea against Heldrakes, Whirlwinds would do the same thing as Vindicators and Monoliths would be a great idea in any other scenario than "drop Warriors next to a FW Castle"... Like, okay, I can see your point, but accusing people with being inflexible then advising dedicated anti-Tau options that are usually pretty bad against everything non-Tau is a weird thing, isn't it? It carries the implication that you must tailor your list and your tactics against the Tau or it will be an uphill battle. And I don't think that this is something people want to do: breaking your TAC list just to beat one type of opponent is kinda' counterproductive.

Oh, and as a side note, I'm actually a Tau player . So I'm not b*tching or anything, just sharing my views from the other side of the gaming table .

 Desubot wrote:

 conker249 wrote:
So far just about every match up against Tau with my sisters ends up being "run to your death" Dominions get interecepted when outflanking, Seraphim get the same fate when DS. My exorcist sometimes survive more than 3 turns. Not fun when you have one unit with 48" range,

Its probably best not to deepstrike or outflank against tau unless you have alot of LOS blocking terrain or if you do it en mass.

at most you will have 3-4 models intercepting at bs3 that requires los at range or a bunch of st5 ap 5 within 30"

Otherwise a Rhino rush with multiple units and seraphims should do well. vehicles should explode but as long as it gets your models into charge distance turn two it shouldn't matter. (general power armor tactic)

Wasn't my best game tactically, but playing opposite corners on a 4x8 with pentinent engines, and not a lot of cover at all(guy that set up the board went for a barren desert table setup I guess) didn't help. going flat out with 3 rhinos at the same time. First game against New Tau.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 davou wrote:

Quit being a potato, those weren't list builts, those were options you can insert into most lists with minimal push and pull. If you wanna take some random TAC list that has worked ofr you since 2011, by all means do it, but don't bitch that it does not work in the new meta if you refuse overtly to tweak it when the option is there.

You say this like Drop Pods would be a good idea against Heldrakes, Whirlwinds would do the same thing as Vindicators and Monoliths would be a great idea in any other scenario than "drop Warriors next to a FW Castle"... Like, okay, I can see your point, but accusing people with being inflexible then advising dedicated anti-Tau options that are usually pretty bad against everything non-Tau is a weird thing, isn't it? It carries the implication that you must tailor your list and your tactics against the Tau or it will be an uphill battle. And I don't think that this is something people want to do: breaking your TAC list just to beat one type of opponent is kinda' counterproductive.

Oh, and as a side note, I'm actually a Tau player . So I'm not b*tching or anything, just sharing my views from the other side of the gaming table .

All the things that are a hard tau counter are also a hard counter against things like eldar snipers, IG footblobs, backfield cultists and pink horrors (probably more than that too, but I don't particularly feel like hunting them down)

Drop pods work decently against heldrakes actually, because its lets you plop something down in its rear armor. The drake does not typically have to show you any weak facings in order to do its job. Its not the best answer to them by any stretch, but its an option.

Monolits are traditionally a bad option yes, but they ARE an option now. Adding one to your list will carry an oportunity cost, but it will also give you some options if the major complaint is having none. I didnt suggest anyone scrap their list and run three monoliths, or go all missile drop pods.... but adding one may not hurt in the new 40k

I honestly cannot wait to see what sort of tears I will be able to drink when C:SM drops if people are this averse to adapting

 davou wrote:

Drop pods work decently against heldrakes actually, because its lets you plop something down in its rear armor. The drake does not typically have to show you any weak facings in order to do its job. Its not the best answer to them by any stretch, but its an option.

Only if you take multiple Drop Pods. But then, you are better off with a full-DP army. And we are in the "change your army to combat Tau" circle again. The same goes with the Monolith: you have to build an army around it because it is both expensive and has this one-trick-pony feel.

And of course you can't comfort yourself with "Oh, this option is at least useful against one opponent now!" because it will still suck against everything else. If you take a Whirlwind, you have to kill Fire Warriors with it to make it an effective investment. Chipping down a few (relatively) guardsmen or cultists won't cut it.

So "blast weapons" and "AV13+" are things that are a pure ta counter and a waste of points against everyone else? having units with a shard of tactical flexbility except "walk up and shoot/punch stuff" is somehow only working against tau?

Good to know, I was under the impression that they work against all armies. at at the very least help in every case. sure, some get less effected then others, but its like complaining about plasma being dedicated anti-GK, because some armies just shows up with a horde of weak guys and the plasma is overkill against anything. sure, its better against SOME lists, but if that list is what gives you trouble, then bring a freaking answer to it.
That's the MEANING of TAC. take ALL comers.
If an entire army type is impossible for you to beat, then you DON'T take all comers, just MOST comers.
You might as well bring no AP2 guns, then complain that terminators are unbeatable. they aren't, you just chose not to pack the weapons that works against them.

Seriously, you bitch about a castled up army with no serious AT guns, then ignore the fact EVERY army got tanks, and pretty much every army got AoE weapons around? (or units that throw enough dice at a distance, so they can force a GtG)

Let them go to ground, you know what it means? THEY CANT SHOOT PROPERLY NEXT TURN, nor can they overwatch. (the two things you complain about)
If you roll in with heavy numbers, and inflict enough rolls to force the tau army to GtG, you already freaking WON because the castle won't do much damage, and you can repeat next turn.
If your bombardment can force the tau to GtG every turn, it means your close-shooters can get close fearlessly. and swipe it down.


If you HAVE no ranged bombardment at all, and you have no armor, then yes, my answer to you is learn to play. because these are the obvious answers to various small-arms-fire gunines, and tau is far from the only army to pull one off. heck, even DA, a marine army, can pull off such a list. (salvo 4 bolters anyone?)
And if you play an army who has no easy means to deal, like BT, or BA, then stop blaming that tau for the fact you got a codex that is old and malfunctioning, even without tau around your codex would STILL be beaten up, because newer marines do the same job better.

As for outflank/deepstrike not working because of interceptor, its still just a handful of shots per turn, and once you intercept you cant shoot that gun next turn. it changes nothing, if you got numbers it WONT matter to you (nor will you care as much if you got cover, or better yet, LoS blocks)



AlmightyWalrus-your point is a joke, every army in your list is an out-of-date codex that needs his own updates before it can compete with ANY 6th edition codex, tau is just one of many that pummle them.
Except vannila, who you are DEAD WRONG about, because they can field TFC (the awesome all-horde-mower), and even a single one can potentially brake a tau castle, alone. (heck, it can realistically return it's cost in a single shooting phase.) whirlwinds, predators, ironclads (AV13 front, the castle wont harm it much till its too late) landraiders to tank the damage.
And DA, with the dirt-cheap whirlwind they got I assume also count, no? and devestation banner bikers (being 24" away is too far for the storm of fire to kick in, so just kill pathfinders to keep your cover saves) still got predators too. still land raiders.

Now lets move to the really old stuff?
BA got whirlwinds too, and predators, and baals that can kill everything once they get close enough, and furiso that can theoretically kill two full squads in a charge. oh, and again land raiders.
Then comes nids, that can swarm you with so many tervigons and temegaunts it stops being funny and even the tau castle cant kill THAT much, or just have 10+ pskyers to throw tricks at you, while no defense at all, and doom who ranks up kills by just being around, etc, etc...
Oh and sisters, who ironically are one of the HARDEST match ups for tau gunlines, due to the immortal celestin heavy flamer, the T1 dominion flamers reach, the super-agile seph flamers, and the HB rets who get slightly better range then the castle, and good enough suppression to blast it down. and invuls all around means that even without cover, they still got a save from the riptide's shots.

So...we are left with BT who are so malfunctioning that other SM do their own specialties better, and orks and DE that just might have a proper answer, but I just don't know the codex. (though, don't orks got some sort of AV14 tank, and some flamer squad? and lootas? and the option to horde and roll an extravaganza of dice?)\

Yep, your point is silly. even the "all gak outta luck" armies you presented CAN pull off enough ranged firepower with investing 25% or less of the army to it, and its not like that ranged firepower goes away when not facing gunlines.
Enough is not "the entier list, and just blow him from afar the entire game", enough is 2-3 units, who will put a DENT in the castle (by killing the units who hold it up, in tau case pathfinders), then let the rest of the army do his thing (assault, close-range shooting, swarming, whatever)

Yaknow, like a REAL army would. trying to talk up to a fortified enemy position without suppressing fire is slowed, even IF you got better guns and armor. thats why you got mortars, artillery cannons, heavy machineguns, light rockets, etc. you need to make the fortified position to be forced to respond. if they CAN just sit in a pilbox and shoot at you as you walk up to them like a slow, they will.



conker249- 4x8 board? how did that come up? and even a desert should have terrain around (dunes, hills, rocks, something) there are rules for terrain, and if you dont even have the minimum terrain, I say you should have called shenanigans.
However, and correct me if I'm wrong, pertinent engines are a rather flimsy unit in any match up, is it not?