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.

Hello dakka and thanks in advance for the help. My younger brother started a tau army a while ago and he just keeps getting crushed to the point where it's not even fun anymore. He usually plays against my marines so I'm asking for help. Any advice for a beginner or things that are really good against vanilla marines and he has access to a lot of models already so that's no issue just tactics for him so he can actually put up a fight against us. So please any advice, tips on units, ways to use them, ANYTHING to help him out would be appreciated. Thanks

What models does he have? And what kind of marines is he going up against? (White scars, iron hands..etc)?

Haha, nice name Anyway, it would be really helpful to know more details. Can you describe a "typical" game where your brother loses? What size games do you play? What do his lists usually look like and what do yours look like? Does he get tabled or lose on objectives?

Without knowing any of that, I would suggest playing more games and talking about the results. Talk about what he could have done differently. Point out any mistakes he made. Maybe you could even switch armies for a game - show him how you would use Tau against your own Marines.

Lastly, if you're just outplaying him in every game and it's no longer fun, try handicapping yourself in some way. Play uneven games (1500 Tau vs 1250 Marines) or simply bring "weaker" lists.

The key to playing Xenos vs playing marines is that as a specialist (in the tau's case: mobile firepower) you need to make the marines play YOUR game. Don't play his.

What I mean by that regardless of the list he runs, if he's not winning, its because he's not playing both to his own strengths and his enemy's weaknesses. As Tau, his units are capable of dancing around a typical marine force (white scars are another story lol). DANCING I say. Another thing: I'm not saying be spammy, but are your brother's army lists redundant enough? Unless its something big enough to weather a storm / too expensive money or points wise, anything worth taking is worth taking TWICE. But that's just my opinion. I sit firmly in the camp of quality over quantity. If you are playing marines, he should always be outnumbering you, except maybe in the troops department. Tau dont really rely on their troops like some armies do, and as a result he can go hog wild on the specialist units that make a tau army so strong.

However, if he is losing on objectives he needs more troops (or maybe just HARDIER troops, if he's running them too fast and loose). At 1500 points, regardless of the army I play, I'd want at least 3 troops units. Tau have the gift of having cheap (but kind of bad) troops. Either put 3 barebones squads of fire warriors in fish (which are a tough nut to crack with their jink save, +1 from mandatory d pods, 12 front -and it's a wide front, and high mobility) and just use them as last minute objective swoopers / bait with a reasonably good chance of surviving light AT fire that would otherwise wreck suits, OR spam outflanking kroot. Actually, a min unit of Kroot is almost always worth taking and just plopping in reserve to either outflank onto an open objective or walking on from your own backfield.

If he's getting wiped off the board, he needs more, cheaper units. Tau are very easy to go overboard with wargear on. Lots of tempting choices to improve units, but in my humble opinion, skip most of them. You can buy more suits and more tanks the less toys they take. For example, he could take one really expensive unit of kitted out crisis suits with all sorts of toys that make them shoot well and give them high survivability. OR he could take two cheap units of crisis suits armed with the same weapons but less toys. Its 4 times as effective. It has twice the firepower, AND is twice the targets he needs to shoot at. If he gives you one really juicy target, there's no question what you shoot. But if he gives you two less insane but still threatening targets, which do you shoot? If he plays it right, it won't even matter because one of them will still make it to the next turn to cause damage, which might not have been the case had he only taken one super unit.

I'd advocate NOT handicapping yourself. He's not gonna learn right that way, and any victory he does achieve will feel hollow and meaningless, because after all, you weren't on even grounds.

The rest of his army should capitalize on the Tau's high mobility and firepower. His suits are extraordinarily mobile AND can be armed for a wide variety of roles.

I would test out this 1500 point list:

+HQ+

Commander: 186
-2 shield drones
-FNP
-Shield Gen
-Fusion
-Plasma
-System Jammer
-Onager Glove

+ELITES+

3 plain jane Stealth Suits 90

1 Riptide: 210
-Ion
-Velocity
-Early Warning
-TL fusion

2x Crisis Suits: 154
-Plas
-Fusion
-Shield

+TROOPS+

Fire Warriors x6: 154
- Devilfish
- D pods
- Sensor Spines

Fire Warriors x6: 154
- Devilfish
- D pods
- Sensor Spines

Kroot x10: 60

Kroot x10: 60

+FAST ATTACK+

Pathfinder x4: 44

Pathfinder x4: 44

Pathfinder x4: 44

+HEAVY SUPPORT+

Hammerhead: 145
-Rail
-D pods
-Sensor Spines

Hammerhead: 145
-Rail
-D pods
-Sensor Spines

Total: 1490

That's an army with a lot of redundancy, a lot of firepower, and a lot of speed. Most of his units can move at least 12" a turn reliably and still fire. The only static element are the pathfinders who should hug cover somewhere midfieldish and hope they survive turn one.

The fish are there for mobile objective taking, keep em secret, keep em safe. Kroot chill in reserve until he figures out what best to do with them when it comes to objective capping. The commander and two suits can start on board or deep strike in later, depends on enemy deployment. Helios config is great and versatile for taking out heavy infantry and popping vehicles. Pathfinders up riptide and hammerhead BS. Stealth suits can harass his backfield objective troops. Hammerheads blast the zog out of any gits it sees. If it wants to pop a tank, markerlight that baby up and blast away. Play aggressive with riptide. Use it against AA or blowing up DS'ing termies. With loads of maxed out slots, he has plenty of target saturation and hopefully the Riptide will be played so aggressively it can't be ignored, and you have to waste at least a turn or two killing it, meanwhile the rest of his army lays waste to yours.

In my experience, the key to winning the game is to take control of the battlefield. Thats not something we can just tell him how to do. He needs to learn. It took me nearly half a year before I finally stopped being crushed every game and started to get draws. A year later, wins are around every corner. It'll take time and persistence, but in my humble opinion, he needs to play aggressive, but not recklessly. He needs to make YOU adapt to his plan, not vice versa. Once you're on the reacting end you're on the losing end.

This list, because of how mobile it is, can effectively counter most marine strats. Gunline? He can get up in your face with his high powered suits and then jump away well out of rapid fire range and hammer you with the tanks from the corners, far out of your range. Rhino / LR / bike rush? He can keep moving back or force you to split your army by dividing his. The most important thing (except if its the KP mission, not objectives) is he keeps his troops safe. The rest of his army is basically just a giant scary distraction that should prioritize taking out YOUR troops and units that can threaten HIS troops in the last few turns of the game. He should definitely play his range to his advantage. You shouldn't even be able to shoot him on turn one, maybe even turn two if he is dancing range and cover hard, meanwhile he should DEFINITELY be shooting you.

Even if he doesnt try the above list, which is far from perfect, just an example, the concepts of redundancy and keeping things cheap should stick out. Boys before toys. He should have lots of troops units, but keep the squads small. Troops aren't his workhorse. Every other slot is. Kit a unit for a job. If the unit succeeds in its job (ie. destroying more points than it costs, distracting an enemy from more cunnin plans, capping objectives) then thats a small victory, even if the unit dies. And small victories compound and win you the game.

Sorry for the novel, just bored on the computer and hoping to help.

Spam riptides, broadsides markers and kroot - counter to almost everything. The games will be boring but that's somewhat a tourney build if you add eldar and desperate to win despite making tactical mistakes and lacking experience.

Thanks for all the replies and advice! For more information the only model he doesn't have at his disposale is a riptide but I'd let him proxy whatever anyways and I have raven guard chapter tactics. We usually play 1500-2000 games and he's just getting tabled pretty much every time by turn 3 sometimes 4. I usually play really aggressively right off the start and he rarely gets anyone more than one movement phase and from then on basically just tries to fend me off. His lists change constantly because he's still trying out new things so I can't really say much about them but I've noticed hes generally empty in heavy support. Thanks for the replies it's great to hear from people who know that army. Also he uses crisis teams more like I imagine broadsides usually. They just kind of sit back and shoot as I approach so being that they're his favorite unit how would maybe be a better way to use them?

For heavy support he should pretty much always have either a pair of hammers or two units of two broadsides each. There's virtues to both, but I prefer the hammerheads because they have access to pie plates after they're done pillaging armour with markerlight support.

If he wants to run a lot of Crisis suits thats definitely viable. A full unit of 3 with twin linked missile pods and plasma rifles is good for hanging out in the backfield and popping light armour and sweeping up the marines inside once they're done.

I'm still definitely a fan of helios suits with fusion blasters and plasma rifles. BUT, if he knows he's facing marines, what he could definitely be using is +Twin Linked Plasma Rifle, Plasma Rifle+ Then he gets twice the shots (up to 4!)

Thats a 57 point model that'll kill reliably around 3 marines a turn no saves, then jump back into cover and out of rapid fire. If it gets two turns of shooting, or on its first volley kills 4 marines, it's already made back its points and it's all profit from there on out. Run a full unit of three, or better yet, run two units of 3. Deep strike those bad boys in and basically shred a marine squad a turn, especially if there's markerlight support. Oh, and the important thing about redundancy is that he's redundant to the same target, if that makes sense. If he drops two units of suits within range of one unit and intends on hammering that, that's redundant. If he drops the two units of suits on totally opposite sides of that table, that's not as redundant, because the guys who would normally have to choose between firing at one or the other no longer need to make the decision, and the other unit being threatened is free to defend itself against its lone enemy. Make sense?

If you're playing aggressive with foot marines, he should be able to dance around you with suits. If you're playing rhinos, he needs to break all of them turn one, and as tau, HE CAN, then he should dance around you with suits. If you're doing jump packs he should just shred the marines and try to be doing the tau tango while at it so he doesn't get caught in melee. The most important thing is that he doesn't dance himself into a corner. He has to stay fluid. The great thing about tau is their ranges are so long they can usually viably support each other from across the table if the going get's rough enough.

I have covered Tau a lot on my blog if you want to take a look for articles on them. He would find it useful probably.

Heres one of them to get started:

Battle Report

And some other advice he might like:
Tau Flyers

Against marines, tell him to take 1 or two crisis teams with 2 plasma rifles on each guy. Only 169 points including the Shas'vre. That much plasma tears up marines and terminators alike. In fact my brother and my friend always complain about how ridiculous 6 or 12 when rapid firing, S 6 AP 2 shots is. Have at least two squads of 6 pathfinders. Jump forward, markerlight, then rapid fire with ignores cover and extra BS. Lots of dead marines from that trick. They will outdo a Iontide for damage, but obviously won't survive as long

 Bolg da Goff wrote:

If he wants to run a lot of Crisis suits thats definitely viable. A full unit of 3 with twin linked missile pods and plasma rifles is good for hanging out in the backfield and popping light armour and sweeping up the marines inside once they're done.

I'm still definitely a fan of helios suits with fusion blasters and plasma rifles. BUT, if he knows he's facing marines, what he could definitely be using is +Twin Linked Plasma Rifle, Plasma Rifle+ Then he gets twice the shots (up to 4!)

Thats a 57 point model that'll kill reliably around 3 marines a turn no saves, then jump back into cover and out of rapid fire. If it gets two turns of shooting, or on its first volley kills 4 marines, it's already made back its points and it's all profit from there on out. Run a full unit of three, or better yet, run two units of 3. Deep strike those bad boys in and basically shred a marine squad a turn, especially if there's markerlight support. Oh, and the important thing about redundancy is that he's redundant to the same target, if that makes sense. If he drops two units of suits within range of one unit and intends on hammering that, that's redundant. If he drops the two units of suits on totally opposite sides of that table, that's not as redundant, because the guys who would normally have to choose between firing at one or the other no longer need to make the decision, and the other unit being threatened is free to defend itself against its lone enemy. Make sense?

If you're playing aggressive with foot marines, he should be able to dance around you with suits. If you're playing rhinos, he needs to break all of them turn one, and as tau, HE CAN, then he should dance around you with suits. If you're doing jump packs he should just shred the marines and try to be doing the tau tango while at it so he doesn't get caught in melee. The most important thing is that he doesn't dance himself into a corner. He has to stay fluid. The great thing about tau is their ranges are so long they can usually viably support each other from across the table if the going get's rough enough.

these guys have a lot killing power but what about the support systems? Are there any that would be better to have and drop the twin linked or is he better of just giving them overwhelming fire?

My younger brother also plays Tau and for us it is the opposite. He normally always wrecks my Imperial Fists successor, especially in purge games.

You say he only gets one movement phase then is fending you off? In my experience most good Tau players don't care much for movement. Gunlines are where they excel and by making a solid line it gets very hard to move close to them and play to Marines strengths.

An average game we play is 700ish pts

He Takes 24 Firewarriors (12, 6 and 6)
A Fireblade in the 12 FW squad
12 Pathfinders split as 6 and 6, one squad with two rail rifles and an ion rifle
And a small drone Squadron of 4 or 6

The fireblade squad when it doesn't move is throwing out 39 pulse rifle shots a turn at 15'' or 26 at full 30''... mix that with another 12-24 shots from the other two squads, the markerlights from one pathfinder team light up one of my squads and even with 3+ there is just too much fire to stop them falling. The drones despite being in most players eyes a bit useless are great at getting to my flanks and harrying my weaker units with more shots making me have to switch a units target to get rid of them, all the while more fire rains down from the warriors.

The only way I beat him is when I get my LS Storm in close enough to cook some with the flamer and drop off a scout team to start causing havoc in combat. Unfortunately he has seen this tactic work and now I can be sure of 2 to 4 rail rifle shots and 1 or 2 ion rifle shots taking it out turn one.

Tau don't seem a hard army to play with, they just need to do what they do best, and frankly that is stand in one long line, ideally behind cover and rip you to pieces from range.

 throwoff wrote:
My younger brother also plays Tau and for us it is the opposite. He normally always wrecks my Imperial Fists successor, especially in purge games.

You say he only gets one movement phase then is fending you off? In my experience most good Tau players don't care much for movement. Gunlines are where they excel and by making a solid line it gets very hard to move close to them and play to Marines strengths.

An average game we play is 700ish pts

He Takes 24 Firewarriors (12, 6 and 6)
A Fireblade in the 12 FW squad
12 Pathfinders split as 6 and 6, one squad with two rail rifles and an ion rifle
And a small drone Squadron of 4 or 6

The fireblade squad when it doesn't move is throwing out 39 pulse rifle shots a turn at 15'' or 26 at full 30''... mix that with another 12-24 shots from the other two squads, the markerlights from one pathfinder team light up one of my squads and even with 3+ there is just too much fire to stop them falling. The drones despite being in most players eyes a bit useless are great at getting to my flanks and harrying my weaker units with more shots making me have to switch a units target to get rid of them, all the while more fire rains down from the warriors.

The only way I beat him is when I get my LS Storm in close enough to cook some with the flamer and drop off a scout team to start causing havoc in combat. Unfortunately he has seen this tactic work and now I can be sure of 2 to 4 rail rifle shots and 1 or 2 ion rifle shots taking it out turn one.

Tau don't seem a hard army to play with, they just need to do what they do best, and frankly that is stand in one long line, ideally behind cover and rip you to pieces from range.

When ever he has some sort of gun line I get into him and the whole army seems to crumble and I sweep him right off the table. From our past games standing in a line and just shooting has if anything made it easier to table him and if not table still leave me with full board control. At least when he moves a bit I have to work to take everyone out. Do you use any sort of transports? Or what about a whirlwind? Str 5 ap 4 large blast on a group of fire warriors usually seems to wreck their day. Does a gun line work for most tau or are there better ways?

With markers that work on overwatch for some reason, you're looking for a ton of wounds from a tau gunline on your fellow marines. Probably wiping whosle squads. And if he uses his forces wisely - you won't be able to multicharge everything. So you're looking at heavy losses from overwatch and then the whole turn of close-ranged shooting.

As an ork player i can have a battlewagon rush, so even if he murders 20 boyz on overwatch, there are gona be another 40. But marines don't have such good assault transports. A landraider is too expensive and if you field 2, you're allready spending 500 pts. And one can be stopped beforehand with all that 18' melta, s10 ap1 and s9 ordnance goodness that tau possess.

It's a matter of placing. I guess he just lacks experience a bit. It's gona come soon and you're gona be the one asking for advice on how to deal with cheezy tau instead

How does he field his marker lights?(If he does)

Personally I am a fan of using a Mark'O

That's a Crisis Commander with a drone controller attached to a squad of Markerlight Drones.

 Sihdhartha wrote:
How does he field his marker lights?(If he does)

Personally I am a fan of using a Mark'O

That's a Crisis Commander with a drone controller attached to a squad of Markerlight Drones.

Generally it's pathfinders and marker drones but no drone controller. Mark'O is something I haven't heard of though I'll be sure to tell him about that setup. Hopefully I grow to hate that guy very quickly

The commander attached to the drones gives them BS 5, and while they cost 2 points more they are jet pack infantry allowing them to move shoot move and it gives them relentless, this coupled with the fact that they have 4+ armor rather than 5+ makes them more mobile, survivable and with the higher BS you need less of them to land the same number of marker lights on target.

I like the Mark'o as well, problem is that all those markers go on one unit, so prioritising what needs to die is important.

What kind of list does your bro bring? What kind of games? It sounds like you're just straight up tabling him really. How big is the board? Do you have enough/ too much terrain? What kind of list are you running? All this is useful info for us to know to help.

Oh, if vehicles are a consistent problem, I'd run Crisis squads like this:
Suit with 2X plasma
Suit with 2X plasma
Suit with 2X Fusion, Target Lock

 liquidjoshi wrote:
I like the Mark'o as well, problem is that all those markers go on one unit, so prioritising what needs to die is important.

What kind of list does your bro bring? What kind of games? It sounds like you're just straight up tabling him really. How big is the board? Do you have enough/ too much terrain? What kind of list are you running? All this is useful info for us to know to help.

Oh, if vehicles are a consistent problem, I'd run Crisis squads like this:
Suit with 2X plasma
Suit with 2X plasma
Suit with 2X Fusion, Target Lock

His list changes almost every game but I usually have a combination of drop pods and rhinos, aegis with quad gun and missle dev in the back beside a whirlwind and assault squad led by a chaplin with teeth of terra and sternguard with a librarian. drop pod in meltas combat squaded take out big tanks usually while the whirlwind takes out FW on 2+ no saves the rhinos blast toward them and the assault squad flanks them. Chaplin engages small squads with the teeth of terra rampage and long assault range from raven guard while his squad hits another, devastators cover back field and ID crisis suits then once the rhinos reach them rapid fire then next turn assault what's left while the sternguard do pretty much whatever they're needed to like attack riptides or shoot whatever's left and for wherever the fighting goes in his favor most I drop in more reinforcements. terrain changes and as far as objectives go if he has no army it doesn't really come up usually. Hope that helps clarify

Well, the Aegis with quad gun is a great start to dealing with drop pods, but a couple of Sunshark Bombers and their Intercept drones will stop them dead in the water. The first time your CO and his squad drop in, get Intercepted, watch the pod blow up, and fall to the ground for Str 10, unsavable hits (that instakill the CO on a 2+, no look out sir allowed!), well, things change.

Beyond this, he needs to learn target priority.

1) Transports
2) Transports
3) Transports
4) Enemy units that are within 13" (Effective charge range)
5) Enemy Troops
6) The rest

Cracking Rhinos open while they're all the way over *there* is essential, while sniping drop pods out of the sky gets rid of problems before they're problems.

That's the most important skill to learn, regardless of the weapons he's putting on the table.

Wakshaani wrote:
Well, the Aegis with quad gun is a great start to dealing with drop pods, but a couple of Sunshark Bombers and their Intercept drones will stop them dead in the water. The first time your CO and his squad drop in, get Intercepted, watch the pod blow up, and fall to the ground for Str 10, unsavable hits (that instakill the CO on a 2+, no look out sir allowed!), well, things change.

Beyond this, he needs to learn target priority.

1) Transports
2) Transports
3) Transports
4) Enemy units that are within 13" (Effective charge range)
5) Enemy Troops
6) The rest

Cracking Rhinos open while they're all the way over *there* is essential, while sniping drop pods out of the sky gets rid of problems before they're problems.

That's the most important skill to learn, regardless of the weapons he's putting on the table.

^^^ This, there is nothing more important to Tau than target priority, you need to get rid of the things that are going to get into your face quickly and then make your opponent walk under fire from your weapons to get to you.

Even if you play a more mobile Crisis Suit/Mech army you still need to be very good at prioritizing what has to die first.

As for drop pods remind him for 5 pts any of his battle suits can pick up interceptor, normally that is what I will use a Riptide for.

Tau dude needs heavy fire to. Marker lights hit adl or whrill wind turn off cover boost bs and nail the tank dead with whatever the hell you want.

As for drop early warning ovride some plasma suits or burst cannon should reduce anything you can do, still you drop lose guys and he mops.

I cant understand how tau are losing to such an odd army comp from marines. I mean they can litteraly turn off your aegis wall for free ish, destory your drop squad before it gets to do stuff, have supporting fire.. I think he needs to make a steady tau list and learn what to work with. You dont need riptides to win as tau but it makes it easier for your case op.

Wakshaani wrote:
Well, the Aegis with quad gun is a great start to dealing with drop pods, but a couple of Sunshark Bombers and their Intercept drones will stop them dead in the water. The first time your CO and his squad drop in, get Intercepted, watch the pod blow up, and fall to the ground for Str 10, unsavable hits (that instakill the CO on a 2+, no look out sir allowed!), well, things change.

Beyond this, he needs to learn target priority.

1) Transports
2) Transports
3) Transports
4) Enemy units that are within 13" (Effective charge range)
5) Enemy Troops
6) The rest

Cracking Rhinos open while they're all the way over *there* is essential, while sniping drop pods out of the sky gets rid of problems before they're problems.

That's the most important skill to learn, regardless of the weapons he's putting on the table.

I could be mistaken but breaking a drop pod doesn't inflict str10 hits, it's not a flyer just a vehicle. And interceptor takes place at the end of the movement phase after the squad has disembarked already. And the drop pod is LOS blocking so they just hop out on the other side generally combat squaded and pop hammerheads and the like on turn one. If it's too hot of a landing zone just drop the cheaper squads first. Using scout deployments rhinos move 12" before he even gets to fire then depending on terrain and cover use smoke grenades and stealth on turn one so unless he marks them all they usually get a decent save. And yeah it's not a standard list but it works better then you'd imagine

Tau when played correctly are the bane of Marines, no matter the type. But for you in specific, he should really try a simple Hammer/Anvil strategy.

Anvil: The Anvil is what starts on the field, usually blobbed up behind an Aegis. *Lots of Fire Warriors go here* The intent is if you try to Assault this castle you'll face down so much overwatch you can easily be wiped just by that. The way I normally see these is 4-6 teams of 8-12 Fire Warriors, A team of three Missile Broadsides(though against marines, Rail Rifle/Plasma gun might be more effective(?)) and the unique Hammerhead Longstrike, who can snapshot every time possible with all of his weapons. If you want the HQ here, a Ethereal makes a great force multiplier, allowing more shots at Rapid Fire Range, meaning (depending on rule interpretations, apparently this is highly disputed) more overwatch fun.

Hammer: The hurt of the list. I normally see 3 Helios Pattern Crisis Suits (Plasma/Fusion), a Ion Riptide (S: 8 AP: 2 Large Blast) and an Unkillable Gunboat Commander with another team of suits (Plasma/Burst Cannon or more Helios). These are used as a scalpel to remove whatever enemy units bug you most. In other words, he should drop one of these teams near the back to annihilate your Whirlwind and Dev's.

The Gunboat commander is the real terror though, slap on Irridium, Stim Injector, Shield Gen, Fusion Gun, Cyliac Ion, Onager Gauntlet, and Plasma gun. This terror can effectively level two weapons at every target with efficiency, punches tanks like no ones business, CAN tangle in challenges (though I wouldn't suggest it) and will be by far the hardest model you've ever had to kill.

Wakshaani wrote:
The first time your CO and his squad drop in, get Intercepted, watch the pod blow up, and fall to the ground for Str 10, unsavable hits (that instakill the CO on a 2+, no look out sir allowed!), well, things change

Since when is this the case?

 IXLoiero95XI wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:
The first time your CO and his squad drop in, get Intercepted, watch the pod blow up, and fall to the ground for Str 10, unsavable hits (that instakill the CO on a 2+, no look out sir allowed!), well, things change

Since when is this the case?

I think he's saying intercepting a Drop Pod is = shooting down a flyer transport. While I agree that that would make sense (and is a house rule for me) it's not in the actual Rulebook.

 siphen2112 wrote:

When ever he has some sort of gun line I get into him and the whole army seems to crumble and I sweep him right off the table. From our past games standing in a line and just shooting has if anything made it easier to table him and if not table still leave me with full board control. At least when he moves a bit I have to work to take everyone out. Do you use any sort of transports? Or what about a whirlwind? Str 5 ap 4 large blast on a group of fire warriors usually seems to wreck their day. Does a gun line work for most tau or are there better ways?

Have to say I am shocked by that, Surely he must be having some limited success with pulse rifle barrages hitting your Tacticals?

Either that or he is the unluckiest dice roller in the world?!

Generally I find Gunlines work best, you see armies with Kroot being used to get up close to opponents and some mechanised armies using lots of Devilfish but nearly every Tau player I play uses an old fashioned gunline.

I generally use a LS Storm or two and a Rhino but even these crumble under pulse rifle shots.

 throwoff wrote:

 siphen2112 wrote:

When ever he has some sort of gun line I get into him and the whole army seems to crumble and I sweep him right off the table. From our past games standing in a line and just shooting has if anything made it easier to table him and if not table still leave me with full board control. At least when he moves a bit I have to work to take everyone out. Do you use any sort of transports? Or what about a whirlwind? Str 5 ap 4 large blast on a group of fire warriors usually seems to wreck their day. Does a gun line work for most tau or are there better ways?

Have to say I am shocked by that, Surely he must be having some limited success with pulse rifle barrages hitting your Tacticals?

Either that or he is the unluckiest dice roller in the world?!

Generally I find Gunlines work best, you see armies with Kroot being used to get up close to opponents and some mechanised armies using lots of Devilfish but nearly every Tau player I play uses an old fashioned gunline.

I generally use a LS Storm or two and a Rhino but even these crumble under pulse rifle shots.

When he has massed fire warriors in a small area they get hit with enough blasts that they usually get crippled to some extent. I combine that with using my rhinos as a screen once they're close. Tacticals shoot then transport goes 6" to block LOS and then assault on the following turn with atleast a couple squads even if they're small it limits the use of supporting fire. The rhinos get more time because most of his tanks get killed by the melta guns and then if he doesn't deal with the drop pod guys they tie them up in CC anyways and if he does deal with them the rest of the army advances on them. 12" scout movements on the rhinos and then 12 more on turn one with the drop pod assault. At least that's how it usually goes

I am surprised he is having a hard time removing the LOS blocking Rhino, I have watched a lot of people castle their Tau up until it looks like one solid mass packed into a corner, I prefer to spread out a bit more (no matter how tempting it is not to with support fire). That gives me a few various fields of fire rather than just one.

I hated them for a long time, and a lot of people won't agree but I have had recent luck running a squad of Vespid as a mobile fire fighting brigade in my own back field. I play vrs. Dark Eldar & Eldar (in various combinations a lot) and was having issues with Serpents rushing forward and either disgorging Wraithguard with D-Scythes (and one D-Cannon to increase how many models they could kill) or getting hit and then disgorging them (same effect really), the Vespid have actually done a pretty good job of being able to get into position to wipe these threats out before they can fire. The same may work for him regarding Marines (Vespid are AP3).

I would say he needs to possibly work on his deployment and have mobile units ready to plug the holes so to say.

I'm not sure how much stuff you would let him proxy or how badly you want to get stomped, but he could try this out.

HQ:

Commander (M-sSS, PEN, C&CN) - 135

Troops:

Fire Warriors x6 - 54
Fire Warriors x6 - 54

Elites:

Riptide w/ IA, EWO - 190
Riptide w/ IA, EWO - 190

Fast Attack:

Pathfinders x8 - 88

Heavy Support:

Skyray w/ BSF - 116
Skyray w/ BSF - 116
R'Varna Riptide w/ EWO - 265

Dataslate: Firebase Support Cadre:

Riptide w/ HBC, EWO, VT - 205
Broadsides x3 w/ HYMP, SMS, x6 Missile Drones - 267
Broadsides x3 w/ HYMP, SMS, x6 Missile Drones - 267

Fortifications:

Aegis Defense Line - 50

Total 1997 Points.

Attach the Buffmander to the R'Varna and hide behind the Aegis and watch him shoot you off the table on turn 1.

The Dataslate adds Tank Hunters and Preferred Enemy Space Marines to all the units in it, so it should be quite nasty.

You said he doesn't own a Riptide, so I'm going to assume you haven't played against one yet. This list might come as a shock if you let him proxy that stuff.

That list could provide a shock to people that have played them before!!!!

As a Tau player even I can admit that the R'Varna is cheese extream.