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'm looking at my options for battling Tau and they're not looking good. The way I look at it is I have two options.

1) Guard gun line and hope I can out shoot them with an overwhelming number of targets to fire at. Stormtroopers and Marbo deep strike in and pick off those damn jumpy battle suit units.

2) Tank line. Lots of Leman Russ and maticores. Preferably punishers for the huge amount of hurt they can put down on fire warriors and battle suits, and Manticores for the indirect line of sight to hit the jumpy battle suits... And marbo and stormtroopers.

Thoughts? I would expect that the Gunline approach would work pretty poorly but it is the one that I have the most models for at the moment, as I have only an LRBT, a Basilisk and a Chimera :(

1 won't work. Anything infantry is asking to get markerlight+missled or markerlight+pulse weaponed off the table as that 2+ ADL cover save becomes a "you're just dead" save. Meanwhile, guard gunlines have always suffered against monstrous creatures, what with relying on single-shot large blast instead of multi-shot high S weapons. Guard just aren't going to outshoot tau in a broadside match.

And marbo looks cool until he gets killed by interceptor fire before he even gets to throw his demo charge...

As for tanks, you're better off with AV14 than a cover save that you'll never get. Wouldn't bother with artillery, though. AV12 is plenty handlable by tau. If you take lascannons and plasma sponsons on everything, you'll also cover a bunch of the shortfall against MCs.

The problem, though, is that you can only field so many russes, and the moment your opponent brings longstrike and blows up a russ a turn is the moment when you're completely powerless against the tau player.

 Ailaros wrote:
1 won't work. Anything infantry is asking to get markerlight+missled or markerlight+pulse weaponed off the table as that 2+ ADL cover save becomes a "you're just dead" save. Meanwhile, guard gunlines have always suffered against monstrous creatures, what with relying on single-shot large blast instead of multi-shot high S weapons. Guard just aren't going to outshoot tau in a broadside match.

And marbo looks cool until he gets killed by interceptor fire before he even gets to throw his demo charge...

As for tanks, you're better off with AV14 than a cover save that you'll never get. Wouldn't bother with artillery, though. AV12 is plenty handlable by tau. If you take lascannons and plasma sponsons on everything, you'll also cover a bunch of the shortfall against MCs.

The problem, though, is that you can only field so many russes, and the moment your opponent brings longstrike and blows up a russ a turn is the moment when you're completely powerless against the tau player.

So then what I'm hearing is that we have lost to tau? And can Marbo not throw his charge the turn he comes in?

The problem is that there are nasty tau units that have more than one weapon and have access to extremely cheap interceptor. That means that marbo shows up, and stuff gets to shoot at him, and then shoot again on their next turn (with their other weapon). Marbo is still pretty much just a guardsman durable.

And no, guard vs. tau isn't an auto-loss. You could be up against a terrible tau player, or you could be up against a bad list, or you could be really lucky. Against a good list played by a good player with average dice, though... I wouldn't personally bet my money on the guard player.

Marbo might die if he deeps strikes in los of a tau unit with interceptor.

Griffons murder fire warriors. Hide them out of los or hull down.

Tau tend to go s7 missile spam. AV 14 does well against s7 missile spam.

It's a tough match up but it can be won.

Ok sorry I'm not sure what an interceptor is, but I'm guessing it lets you get a shot off on a unit that deepstrikes with in 12" of the unit with the interceptor?

And Griffons do seem to mess up Fire Warrriors, but they are very vulnerable to most heavy Tau weaponry. And besides Fire Warriors are only part of the problem, I'd have thought Manticores would do more damage for the time they are there than the griffons could do in possibly the whole game if you get good enough rolls.

Skyshield landing pad 4+ invuln, job done.

The Fortress of Redemption and skyshield landing pad are both great for making Tau work harder to kill you.

Mass artillery tanks can work but require the correct board. This board being lots of LoS blocking terrain or football deployment. IG enjoy a significant edge over Tau on several fronts. Our big guns significantly outrange the guns the Tau tend to depend on, our barrage is much much stronger weapons and outrange the Tau, and we don't loose as much from not having LoS (markerlights are heavy 36" range, and require LoS).

Mass AV14 can work nicely but I don't like how you have to run it in the dex. If you are running double FOC you could run 6 leman russ' pretty reasonably. Either way longstrike is 1 tank that requires LoS. If you really cannot get rid of 1 tank your list has worse problems.

I play with FW quite a bit and artillery units are really great for evening the odds against Tau.

The good old aircav IG requires a great deal of finesse against Tau as you have to know how to place your flyers to avoid interceptor fire. People tend to assume every Tau list brings interceptor and skyfire on every suite. If you have actually seen any of the Tau lists being played you will quickly realize each model with skyfire costs and additional 20 pts. This adds up fast and so you usually only see 1 riptide and/or 1-2 missile broadsides.

I would seriously consider some SM allies in your IG pie. DA make decent allies and are cheap to buy. The PFG libby with prescience gives people fits as your tanks within 3" suddenly get a 4++ inv.

^
Speaking of DA allies. I just played a Tau player with my IG and DA army a few days ago and won!

My list:
HQ-CCS, 4 melta in Chimera
Troop-2 Melta Vet squads in Chimera
-PCS, 1 flamer
-2 inf squads, naked
Elite-Marbo
Fast Attack-2 Hell hounds w/multi-melta
Heavy-punisher w/bolter sponsons
-demolisher
-2 colossus
Allies
HQ- Librarian lvl1 with power field generator
- Techmarine with power field generator
Troop - 5 man scout squad with camo cloaks, sniper rifles and missile launcher

Basic idea Libby and techmarine join naked infantry squad and hide behind tanks as they move forward

(this is blast formation, it is very easy to hide the entire squad if needed)

Libby casts prescience on colossus first turn and then on the punisher following turns. Hell hounds scoot forward and can angle it just right to be in range of the generator for the invul save if needed.

Anyway my 2 cents after all that is to kill the marker lights and play to the objectives. Also play till the end, I felt like I was going to lose for sure after turn 2 but continued until the end and won. Been a long day sorry if this is hard to read/follow.

 ansacs wrote:
The Fortress of Redemption and skyshield landing pad are both great for making Tau work harder to kill you.

Mass artillery tanks can work but require the correct board. This board being lots of LoS blocking terrain or football deployment. IG enjoy a significant edge over Tau on several fronts. Our big guns significantly outrange the guns the Tau tend to depend on, our barrage is much much stronger weapons and outrange the Tau, and we don't loose as much from not having LoS (markerlights are heavy 36" range, and require LoS).

Mass AV14 can work nicely but I don't like how you have to run it in the dex. If you are running double FOC you could run 6 leman russ' pretty reasonably. Either way longstrike is 1 tank that requires LoS. If you really cannot get rid of 1 tank your list has worse problems.

I play with FW quite a bit and artillery units are really great for evening the odds against Tau.

The good old aircav IG requires a great deal of finesse against Tau as you have to know how to place your flyers to avoid interceptor fire. People tend to assume every Tau list brings interceptor and skyfire on every suite. If you have actually seen any of the Tau lists being played you will quickly realize each model with skyfire costs and additional 20 pts. This adds up fast and so you usually only see 1 riptide and/or 1-2 missile broadsides.

I would seriously consider some SM allies in your IG pie. DA make decent allies and are cheap to buy. The PFG libby with prescience gives people fits as your tanks within 3" suddenly get a 4++ inv.

Interceptor isn't very prevalent, true.. but Tau bring a lot of twin-linked missiles and have ways of improving their snap fire shots. Twin-linked BS1 still hits 1/3 of the time.. So 6 twin-linked BS1 markerlights will net two tokens and then the Broadside unit is shooting between 12-24 S7 shots at your vendetta at BS3 twin-linked (well, half twin-linked).

The problem IG have against Tau is that they - like Tau/Dark Eldar/ and other weak GEQ style armies rely on cover saves. Against Tau, you aren't getting a cover save unless you are behind LOS blocking terrain. Hull down doesn't even matter - they'll either barrage you with shot (hello 6 seekers turn 1 from Skyray at BS4 probably ignoring cover) or simply strip your cover and peg you with a couple shots (looking at you long strike). As a Tau player, I would say that AV14 is your best bet - but even then most Tau players have at least 2-3 units that can deal with AV14. Fusion piranhas, Longstrike Hammerheads, Riptide(s), fusion suits are all things that show up regularly in Tau armies.

My opponent had a riptide and even with the novacharged ordnance gun he couldn't hurt my tanks. Keep the front facing him and hope the dice gods favor you!

Keep in mind I only played 1 game vs Tau so take some salt with my other post.

/salt

griffons are only good against firewarriors if they're not spread out over multiple levels of a ruins, or if they're not displaced, or if they're not in cover.

Put another way, griffons are only good against firewarriors if your opponent is very dumb.

portugus wrote:
(this is blast formation)

Pssh...



If you're not in a circle at perfect maximum coherency, you're not in blast formation.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:

Interceptor isn't very prevalent, true.. but Tau bring a lot of twin-linked missiles and have ways of improving their snap fire shots. Twin-linked BS1 still hits 1/3 of the time.. So 6 twin-linked BS1 markerlights will net two tokens and then the Broadside unit is shooting between 12-24 S7 shots at your vendetta at BS3 twin-linked (well, half twin-linked).

The problem IG have against Tau is that they - like Tau/Dark Eldar/ and other weak GEQ style armies rely on cover saves. Against Tau, you aren't getting a cover save unless you are behind LOS blocking terrain. Hull down doesn't even matter - they'll either barrage you with shot (hello 6 seekers turn 1 from Skyray at BS4 probably ignoring cover) or simply strip your cover and peg you with a couple shots (looking at you long strike). As a Tau player, I would say that AV14 is your best bet - but even then most Tau players have at least 2-3 units that can deal with AV14. Fusion piranhas, Longstrike Hammerheads, Riptide(s), fusion suits are all things that show up regularly in Tau armies.

I believe you meant skyfire is not very prevalent. TL BS 1 is 0.306 chance to hit, it is not quite 1/3, close enough though. This is why I said this takes finesse to play such a list. You are talking about a 42" radius threat range on the markerlights and missile sides. Both of these units are almost universally put within 6" of a back board edge as they are both relatively fragile. So there is most of the board that will not be covered by these two units. Additionally the markerlights do not have access to interceptor. This means you get to beta strike the broadside units with a average interceptor of 1 stripped hull point. In return you will average almost 2 killed broadsides (if you manage to strip the drones away with weaker firepower or angle your shots right). This is why looking at these units with limited range and synergy elements in a vacuum is so difficult. BTW the drones in such a unit can be stripped fairly reliably with some nice manticore fire or AC fire.

You act like markerlights are taken in 5+ squads. The Tau player will usually have 1-3 units with markerlights. This means they can only effect 1-3 units within 36". They could theoretically affect a unit 42" if they snap fire or had a drone unit (which means 1 unit affected). If you had listened to any of the stuff from me or portugus you could see that cover is nice but sources of 4++ inv saves are even better. Either way cover will cause the Tau player to burn marker tokens that he could have used to increase BS or shoot seeker missiles. The real problem with Tau for the IG is the riptide which is a horrific pain to kill and when you end up on a "ruins" board with the short board deployment. Ruins just help the Tau, you need to get LoS blocking terrain or at least some inv saves. If you can fight a 42"+ range firefight with Tau the IG actually has a very good chance to win. Either option kind of stinks as they tend to be boring.

Actually that is the real problem with IG vs Tau. If the IG player wants to win then he has to play with the most boring army in the most boring way...yep it stinks. Now add some allies into the mix and you can get a good fight, you need some aggressive forward elements to pressure the Tau lines or units to give your guys inv saves so they can advance despite the firepower killing them.

 ansacs wrote:

Actually that is the real problem with IG vs Tau. If the IG player wants to win then he has to play with the most boring army in the most boring way...yep it stinks. Now add some allies into the mix and you can get a good fight, you need some aggressive forward elements to pressure the Tau lines or units to give your guys inv saves so they can advance despite the firepower killing them.

Tau are a very powerful army with their new codex. Ive only played against them in 2v2 games where my opponent either ran the gun line where he used a lot of marker lights and sat back and shot or he used the farsight enclave and massed suits.

The enclave isnt hard to beat. You just need to focus on the targets that are closest and the biggest threat. Ive found that those lists dont really put out a lot of damage.

The gunline is a hard counter. Guards gunline will require you to spam artillery to just nuke your opponent and hope he doesn't focus on them. Our infantry dont have range to sit back and fire away as taus infantry out range us. And even if we throw hwt's in each infantry squad we won't have enough fire power to make a significant impact.

Now if you go russ heavy then you have a good advantage as they dont exactly have great weapons to take on a bunch of heavy armor. But usually russ heavy lists are great all rounders as most other armies have units that have plenty of assault units that would tear a tank apart in close combat. Also if your building a list to just tailor against tau then thats not exactly sportsman like its good to build an all rounder list that has tactics to play against all armies.

What point level do you usually play around as well tht tau is troubling you?