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So I thought bringing two hammerheads and one being Longstrike would help me out against the armor 14 lenan rus death machines. It did not. I also have pathfinders and next game I am considering marker lighting the crap out of the tank unit(consisting of two tanks).

I also have a riptide and am going to bring the burst cannon which nova charged has rending which could help me destroy one I suppose better than the ion accelerator.

I also need to do a better job of creating shooting lanes.

So is there anything else I should consider doing? This is my second game as 6th edition tau so any help on how to deal with armor 14 is appreciated.

Hug cover, spread out to avoid damage from the russes. Then try and deepstrike fusion blaster crisis suits next to them. Add in a commander with split fire for more carnage.

You could also purchase a fortification to hide in, like an Aegis or Bastion.

chaulmers wrote:I also have pathfinders and next game I am considering marker lighting the crap out of the tank unit

You were playing an army from codex:laser pointers without bringing any laser pointers?

chaulmers wrote:So is there anything else I should consider doing?

You have laser pointers.

Also, I feel like there is some kind of unit in the tau codex that can deepstrike with meltaguns.

I had the markerlights but I was using them on infantry and elites at first


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Also deep striking makes me nervous due to all the randomness but I will try it out

Tau are a target priority army. The highest priority from what you describe was the russes, so focus ml's on them, once they are down take out the second most threatening thing.

Also use your riptide as a fire magnet for the russes. Riptides are surprisingly durable. Throw a fusion blaster on so if you get closes enough you can use the melts rule, that will force him to focus on your tide.

Long strike may seem like the ultimate anti-IG death machine, but he ain't if your shooting at Russes front armor.

Hint: Don't shoot at the russes front armor. They are AV13 on the side and 10 or 11 at the back.

Yea I have tried manuevring around but it's not easy

 Gitsmasher wrote:
Tau are a target priority army. The highest priority from what you describe was the russes, so focus ml's on them, once they are down take out the second most threatening thing.

Also use your riptide as a fire magnet for the russes. Riptides are surprisingly durable. Throw a fusion blaster on so if you get closes enough you can use the melts rule, that will force him to focus on your tide.

This

190pts on a Riptide with Ion Accelerator, TL Fusion, and EWO (optional, i usually bring it just in case something deepstrikes or outflanks) that can soak up a ton of fire barring bad luck. Even if the fusion doesnt do the job, its an MC - even Tau hit vehicles on 3+ and its going to be hitting rear armor at S10 once you Smash. Either he focus fires the crap out of it first, letting the rest of your army live longer, or he lets it just eat his tanks.

Also i feel hammerheads without longstrike are pretty crap against av14. Single shot at BS4 that only has a 50% chance to do anything, less than that to pen. I rarely have my hammerheads make their money back unless i brought Longstrike for that rerolling pen dice. Keep the Longstrike one since IG tend to always have armor of some sort anyway (dont forget the subs rounds as that can wreck troops too) but i'd ditch the 2nd one.

Crisis bombs toting fusions would be your most reliable killsquad for vehicles. If you are worried about scatter, bring Farsight into the picture. Its a little more pricy, but he guarantees noscatter and even plasma can damage rear armor russes, not to mention he gives you an I5 for Hit and Run (ALWAYS have 1 crisis with Vectored Retro Thrustors for that) and face it Farsight is much nastier than most things IG have in melee (Yarrick being the only one off the top of my head that actually could kill him, but probably die first due to I1). Ive actually been having interestingly good results adding Farsight instead of a Buffmander into my crisis bomb because i can plop down 2" away from the vehicles and not have a care in the world, instantly killing 1-2 big threats then JSJ away.

Really appreciate the advice. He doesn't deep strike anything. He did kill the riptide last game with the tanks before I could get there to smash.

So you would go with the ion accelerator blast instead of the burst cannon which can rend and score some pens?

For killing vehicles the HBC is better IF it gets its nova charge. The IA doesnt need it unless its hitting AV13/14, which i never try anyway since then its same problem as hammerheads - a single shot.

Problem with the HBC is unless you give it a lot of marker support or a buffmander, it probably wont kill a high armor vehicle very well. You might get some damage, but i'd be surprised if you kill it. The IA wont kill the russes, you shoot at other things as it moves up for fusion range (ligher vehicles, blobs of infantry, etc) because it will wreck them.

Its a weighing of chance vs power basically. HBC is potentially stronger than IA in every field, but has a greater chance to flop and do next to nothing. IA has less top-end power, but is far far more dependable to get a shot off and allows its Nova charge to be used for dual secondary weapon fire or invul boost. Or, if youre feelin froggy, 4D6 JSJ lol. I did that against a vanilla SM guy once, he had his thundercannon on the side and i 4D6 charged right at the damn thing freaking him out. Was hilarious.

Riptide isnt immune to fire though, its quite possible it'll die as you evidently found out when it gets that close. Thing is though, did you just fail multiple 2+ wounds in a row or did he fire his entire damn army at it to kill it? Thats the question, how much did it soak before dying thus how much of the rest of your army is still alive? lol. And it happens where you fail multiple times in a row, i lost my last riptide to BOLTER FIRE because i rolled 4 1s in the same throw...fml

I have two drones on it he killed those with one squad of thirty and did a wound with his elites. He then used his 20 shot thing, got a lot of rendinds and I failed my five plus invulns.

Thanks for the in depth breakdown. I have used the large plast and smart missiles on normal guys as I am charging towards his tanks. Honestly using the 4d6 seemed like an appealing option

Riptides can be a very hard nut for IG to crack. Most of the scary IG stuff is blasts which will only hit the riptide once per shot. Heavy weapon teams can give riptides problems so try to kill those first, which shouldn't be a problem with ignore cover missile pods and ignore cover sms. The riptides should be really a distraction unit, charging up the front line trying to draw fire, if he makes it to the back field he can do some damage to the russes Just avoid large blobs, especially with priests who will just tie you down for the rest of the game.

Most IG players tend to clump their russes all together, which deepstriking fusion blaster suits can do a number on. I like farsight + 2 crisis suits with 2x blaster + target lock and 1 crisis suit with 2x blaster + retrovector thrusters. You can drop down exactly where you need to be and take out a russ or two. When two russes are next to each other I like to shoot 2 crisis at one and one at the other. If able to get melta shots on the back armor of three russes shoot all three. The more targets the better. 3 suits pretty much guarantee a kill, but if you spread out your fire you are likely to blow up one and stun or immobilize the others. Weapon destroyed also has a 50/50 chance of taking out their big gun which effectively neuters them. Immobilize keeps your farsight team alive another turn as does stun. If you kill two russes you make your points back,

Giving kroot sniper rounds and outflanking them can also end up killing a russ or two. Sniper rounds are also really nice against all the special characters in an IG list.

Why don't you post your list and we can see what you have to work with.

Sniper kroot against russes? Unless they somehow get rear armor they cant glance AV13 side Snipers are S3 against vehicles, which with a 6 then further rending bonus of 3 = 12

Also dont forget if theyre a vehicle squadron you dont have to splitfire them. Glances and pens will transfer to the other vehicles just like a normal unit. If he has 2-3 russes in the same group bunched up and you plop a pinpoint fusion bomb behind them, theyre dead....theyre just fething dead lol (forget if theyre 10 or 11 rear but gun drones are S5 so they can glance them to death too).

In my experience IG players tend to bubble behind their tanks. Try to clear a spot if you can, this is usually where i'd fire my riptide pi plates. If he moves more models to block it thats less crap in front of the tanks or on the sides, so its still good. All you need is a 5" disc to dump 3 suits, farsight, and 6 drones if you took them...less if you didnt.

Also, dont use shielded missile drones. Theyre bad lol. T6 isnt that hard to wound with numbers and a 4+ isnt that difficult to get by with 3-6 wounds on the damn thing. They die, you take a leadership check and have a chance to run 2D6 away and waste your next turn's shooting even if you regroup. Thats 50pts saved for you too lol

Thanks guys! He keeps his russes together as one unit though. This hasn't been an issue because of the hammerheads but since they are a unit doesn't that mean I don't need to target lock as they are both the same unit Witt the same profiles or do tank units work differently than usual units


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Thanks vine posted that before I saw you posted. Also I just had them there for survability. But maybe I'll add a stim injector instead.

Usually if i have points lying around first thing i do is try to put stims on my riptides. Its 35pts for them, so i prefer not to auto include it but i'll cut a couple FW or something to get it if im like ~5pts shy or something lol. Especially if im expecting it to take some heat.

chaulmers wrote:
Yea I have tried manuevring around but it's not easy

Try taking a stealth team or similarly durable unit with a homing beacon then jump them up near the tanks and perfect deep strike on side or rear armour with anything that has a jetpack (hint this could be a riptide) 12 str6 rending shots on armour 11 or 10 will kill.


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Even outflanking kroot can put the hurt on the rear armour of a russ so long as it isn't a demolisher or punisher.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Sniper kroot against russes? Unless they somehow get rear armor they cant glance AV13 side Snipers are S3 against vehicles, which with a 6 then further rending bonus of 3 = 12

Outflank behind the russes. It doesn't always work but it can. Also, russes usually can't afford the turn around to shoot the kroot, so if you clear the blob out behind the russes you should be good.

But farsight with fusion suits is great. I have been really enjoying it against many armies. Armor is making a come back and at worst you are pin-point dropping behind some devastators and killing half of them before charging in and letting farsight do the rest.