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My local gaming scene is having issues with tau, it seems that the tau player has every good ability(ignores cover,high strength and ap) with no real negative effects(plasma guns dont get hot and so fourth). Crisis suits just shot two weapons and scoot away followed up by a riptide that moves and drops a large blast that destroys everything. Seems like everything is built right into them, and its killing the fun factor for everybody. It seems a bit of overkill for a crisis suit team with a crisis suit hq can have higher survivability then an upper level marine hq and still be able to drop twice the heavy wepaons fire then most heavy battle tanks..and then just jet pack away....is there something i'm missing? Is there a common misunderstanding in newer tau players reading their codex?

most of my local scene is heavily space marine and a few other races but nobody can seem to beat the tau

Nope that is actually all par for the course. If all the person is using is battlesuits and and not broadsides or their tanks then you are actually really lucky. Tau are disgustingly tough to beat when it comes to suits and their plasma. Plasma is 2 shots per gun at rapid fire and they each can have two guns.

I have a local player who uses them like that and they are extremely good. Not unbeatable though good. In general my advice is that you need to make them change their groove. Droppods and dev squads to get table control and make it so the Tau have to change up how they do things. That has always been my best luck.

What army do you play? With that we could probably give better advice.

I play IG myself, ive have a few flukes where i've had a vet squad charge a crisis team and cream them...but otherwise it seems i get wittled away screening for the crisis suit bomb into my tanks rear ends

The rules hinted at Anti-Deep Strike units but I haven't seen those. Where are they at and why haven't I heard about them deploying against Tau Deathstars?

There is only one tau deathstar, the farsight bomb.
And its a problematic one as the moment your team is so big, you lose out some of the things that make suits special-as they are not longer isolated small squads that can scatter around.


Anyhow. for dealing with your crisis suit spamming foe, they don't like krak missiles, at all. they also don't fun close combat too fun.

Crisis commanders CAN have an absurd loadout that makes them drop some heavy damage and be largly immortal, but not any more so than an over-the-top equipped chapter master, and if he did not take the iridium armor (chances are he did), he still dies to krak missiles all the same. if he did though, try to find a S10 attack, he has no way to get eternal warrior.
Twice the heavy weapon than a battle tank is a gross overestimate though, they have 2 special weapon class guns (plasma/melta/burst/flamer/minirockets) at BS5, not a lascannon.

Riptides are a whole other story. the ion accelerator (the weapon with the blast) is ludicrously powerful for its cost, and not because it has too much individual power, but because it removes the riptide's NOVA problem, as the gun still works perfectly well without relying on NOVA (unlike the heavy burst cannon who demands you use it non-stop)

As for "having everything go for them", tau do have some powerful synrgies between their units, but the problem is that they mostly rely on them, and the individual strengths are mostly subpar. and that's where you need to take the initiative in order to brake them.
Ignoring cover or aiming properly usually requires markerlights, and markerlights tend to be hosted on the most fragile units in the game. a single whirlwind can wipe out a marker squad with ease, even a tactical team will take them out quickly enough.
Hitting tau with moral weapons and psyker powers also works well, as they got serious leadership issues across the board, and no psyker defense to speak of (escpet a single relic-level item in the enclaves)
Also they got little indirect fire, just the SMS on riptides/tanks and a single "one per detachment" crisis suit gun who also has low S. so hiding behind stuff gives you some breathing room.

As someone said earlier, do your marine players have drop pods? Drop pod heavy armies, with some sternguard with a few combi gravs or combie meltas, an ironclad or two, hell there is even a few cent devies in a land raider with grav cannons, whirlwinds as has been mentioned, more or less anything that can deepstrike into Taus face, deal as much damage as possible to either the supporting units as was said, or i have also seen someone drop all their pods in almost a circle around all the bomb units, and just lay all fire into them and diminish it to absolutely nothing. taking away what the whole army is built for...what does an army do that has lost its one and only ace? Die! Lol, anyway some people will say of broadsides with ewo will take care of drop pods etc etc, well thats why you have a drop pod heavy army. Something like 7, 4 turn one, hopefully 3 turn two.

Pods and pieplates are a powerful way to ruins his day. Magic is also a huge asset as he can't deny it well at all. Thunderfire cannons and whirlwinds can really mess him up.

One other very useful tool is land raiders. The unfortunate reality he faces is that he has no counter for "unusual" av14 vehicles. As a result he really struggles with clan raukkan(iwnd), deathwing (reroll pens, 4+ invul save), and gk raiders (venerable).

I argue the best tactic amongst all the sm armies is dark angels spamming 4+ shenanigan raiders with good troops inside. Take ezekiel as your hq and he can absolutely cripple his riptide and broadsides, if he doesn't kill them he will mess em up proper (bs1 ws1, i1, ld7 after a single use!).

Target priority is important when fighting the tau. Killing his markerlight units first is very important. With them gone his shooting is now just of a good quantity otherwise it's nothing special. Next his suits need to go. When you've crippled his suits or sent them running his troops choices are helpless.

I hope gw addresses hit & run and his assault jump next codex and brb. I'd like hit & run to be only auto pass on fearless units. And I'd like for assault jump to be only allowing him to move into cc instead of out of it as well. Being able to come and go as you please in a challenge is such bs. It's the reason the displaced field was nerfed.

this is a bit off topic, but how do you folks deploy your field(table size and terrain ETC) we are mostly newb casual gamers so when we deploy the field it ends up being this hot mess of forests and ruins everywhere...i'm in the process of making a 10x8 city as i find it rather obscene to be able to shoot through forests and buildings...i also think its kind of lame that you can get cover saves off a blast because the shot was fired through cover, even though the blast drifts onto units in the open

Without the farsight supp relic, tau have next to no psyker defense. And that relic only works if you are doing something to me, not buffing your own stuff. Yes its a 4+ to deny, but remember to deny you now need as many 6s or more than the warp charges harnessed. Its not a 1 denies 1 ratio, such as you grabbed 3 warps and he denied 2 but you needed 2 to cast the spell. He denies 3, or he denies none. Since we have no psykers, all we have is the initial D6 rolled at the start of the phase. Odds are, we might stop one spell - thats it - because we dont have the charges to deny any more.

Crisis suits have a huge vulnerability of being T4 multi-wounded models. My opponents bring S8 weapons specifically because of my crisis suits, and will even ignore my hammerhead until the suits are dead because he will paste them if he manages to get through the gun drone wall.
Broadsides have the same issue but its nowhere near as easy to exploit without Melta weapons, since most S8 weapons that can shoot more than a Melta/Multimelta usually doesnt have the AP to guarantee the paste.

Riptides....kinda dont have an easy answer to them for IG. Thats probably the only army ive faced that has never killed my riptide, even with frfsrf pumping an asinine amount of lasguns into him. Then again i rarely face IG so could just be my opponents dont have a clue how to deal with it. I would imagine same way my other Tau opponents do - rate of fire - but they have a strength advantage to more reliably hurt it lol.

Lshowell wrote:
As someone said earlier, do your marine players have drop pods? Drop pod heavy armies, with some sternguard with a few combi gravs or combie meltas, an ironclad or two, hell there is even a few cent devies in a land raider with grav cannons, whirlwinds as has been mentioned, more or less anything that can deepstrike into Taus face, deal as much damage as possible to either the supporting units as was said, or i have also seen someone drop all their pods in almost a circle around all the bomb units, and just lay all fire into them and diminish it to absolutely nothing. taking away what the whole army is built for...what does an army do that has lost its one and only ace? Die! Lol, anyway some people will say of broadsides with ewo will take care of drop pods etc etc, well thats why you have a drop pod heavy army. Something like 7, 4 turn one, hopefully 3 turn two.

I suggest you use less terrain...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I suggest you use less terrain...

Deepstrike, Deepstrike, Deepstrike.

Pods are horrid for FE to deal with as well. Get in nice and close and all of a sudden Tau do not seem so hard to deal with. If you play IG pie plate the hell out of them. Nothing like dropping templates like there is no tomorrow when dealing with suits. Focus on their marker support and get rid of that, focus on tying up their Riptides in combat so they are not being useful. Plenty of ways to make Tau suffer.

I'm going to disagree on the drop pod solution. I play FE and my buddy plays Drop Pod Iron Hands. I smoked him every time because of EWO on two riptides and a squad of Broadsides. He'd come in with his Sternguard alpha strike and a couple Ironclads. I'd intercept the Sternguard with my Ion Accelerator and SMS, wipe em out; then Ironclad 1 with my other tide and Ironclad 2 with Broadside's HYMP (wiping it out). Usually if anything is left it's an immobilized or weapon-destroyed Ironclad; which I clean up the following turn with Crisis suits before it ever sees combat.

Now, he adjusted, and this is what he did:

Chapter Master: Gorgon's Chain, Artificier Armor, Thunder Hammer (Now if you're not IH you can use the Shield Eternal instead, the point is, get Eternal Warrior)

3-5 Grav Centurions. Put the above CM in front of them, and attach him to the squad so he can "tank wounds" for them using Look Out Sir! Give the grav centurions an omniscope so they have split fire and proceed to wreck 2 squads of crisis a turn and/or a riptide. Grav cannons are very powerful and if you make them resilient with a method like the one I described they can control the entire table by manning the center.

Recently he's made it even more nasty by taking a librarian and rolling invisibility on them. It doesn't always go off but when it does it renders them effectively invincible. And they're hard to tarpit because there's a Chapter Master with a freakin' Thunder Hammer in there!

Enough on that one unit. Great supporting SM units are:

Thunderfire Cannons (can wipe out Broadsides and Crisis with ease just by sheer number of wounds. And they positively EAT drones)

Tactical Marines in Rhinos (Objective Secured and Combat Squad make beautiful music together)

Grav Bikes. Same concept as the GravCent Bomb; just more mobile and dispersed grav instead of the more plodding and concentrated centurions. The bottom line is, grav guns/cannons are amazing.

--------

As for Astra Militarum, take Wyverns! Like TFCs, they're just brutal. The good ol' Leman Russ is good too. Imperial Knight allies are great with guard. You hang back and shoot while the knight charges forward and pins him back.

My buddy now takes the gravcent star I mentioned above, 2 TFCs AND an Imperial Knight against me and the tables have now turned! I still keep it competitive but it's really tough to beat and I've had to adjust my list a lot to stay close.

I am playing iyanden and i got absoloutely pasted..
This guy used his 2 riptides and two skyrays... the skyrays unloaded all their missiles and th3n the riptides annhilated the exposed wraithguard... any advice? It was the worst game i have ever played.


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My wraithguard were in wave serpents

one units of 3 broadsides with missile pods (or suits? I don't remember which they were) get, 12 str7 missiles, and 12 str 5 missiles to shoot. Good luck tanking that with your little 2+/6++ chapter master there.

buttman wrote:
I am playing iyanden and i got absoloutely pasted..
This guy used his 2 riptides and two skyrays... the skyrays unloaded all their missiles and th3n the riptides annhilated the exposed wraithguard... any advice? It was the worst game i have ever played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My wraithguard were in wave serpents

Skyrays are brutal against Wraithknights, I am guessing both Skyrays targeted your Wraithknight and killed it outright?

Nah they pumped my wave serpents.. first turn he killed two wave serpents.with two skyrays then killed both squads of wraithguard by dropping the tau pie plate on them... from then i was crippled. Its bs that they can shoot 6 missiles in one volley.

 raiden wrote:
one units of 3 broadsides with missile pods (or suits? I don't remember which they were) get, 12 str7 missiles, and 12 str 5 missiles to shoot. Good luck tanking that with your little 2+/6++ chapter master there.

Actually it's quite easy for a standard Gorgon's Chain Chapter Master to tank that. He does it against me ALL the time. An average of 7 S7 wounds and 4 S5 wounds. So 11 2+ armor saves. You Look out Sir! at a 2+ to the 2+ save, 2 wound centurions and take a 2+ yourself and +1 to FNP for the ones you fail to LOS. Typically, 0-1 wounds go through. AND he has IWND, and so does the Sergeant, who's next in line for wounds so it's easy to regenerate any that go through. You'd have to talk to one of the stat heads on here to give you more precise math but the Chapter master is a beast.

ALSO, if you get Invisibility off, you're only hitting the centurions on 6's anyway; so even tougher to kill them.

I'm going to break some news to you guys. Tau's reputation is unearned. They were a fluky army in 6th with 2 builds that were tournament competitive. They won ONE major event. That's it. Already in 7th, they did not place in the top 10 at the ATC (American Team Championships). Top places went to Eldar, Necrons and here's the kicker, Space Marines! So don't tell me you can't beat Tau; because the SM book is vastly superior in 7th to Tau. We now make a better ally to other armies than we perform as a primary detachment.

That's what i think as well, Riptides were heavily neutered by not being allowed any kind of TL. Tau don't have the mobility to deal with the maelstrom missions, not with normal lists at least. 7Th dispensed some needed buff to assault armies, not enough to make full assault the new black, but surely the armies that could hold their own in meele got better (marines) . At the same time gunlines based on big units suffered quite a nerf with the new cover rules.

 The Shrike wrote:

 raiden wrote:
one units of 3 broadsides with missile pods (or suits? I don't remember which they were) get, 12 str7 missiles, and 12 str 5 missiles to shoot. Good luck tanking that with your little 2+/6++ chapter master there.

Actually it's quite easy for a standard Gorgon's Chain Chapter Master to tank that. He does it against me ALL the time. An average of 7 S7 wounds and 4 S5 wounds. So 11 2+ armor saves. You Look out Sir! at a 2+ to the 2+ save, 2 wound centurions and take a 2+ yourself and +1 to FNP for the ones you fail to LOS. Typically, 0-1 wounds go through. AND he has IWND, and so does the Sergeant, who's next in line for wounds so it's easy to regenerate any that go through. You'd have to talk to one of the stat heads on here to give you more precise math but the Chapter master is a beast.

ALSO, if you get Invisibility off, you're only hitting the centurions on 6's anyway; so even tougher to kill them.

I'm going to break some news to you guys. Tau's reputation is unearned. They were a fluky army in 6th with 2 builds that were tournament competitive. They won ONE major event. That's it. Already in 7th, they did not place in the top 10 at the ATC (American Team Championships). Top places went to Eldar, Necrons and here's the kicker, Space Marines! So don't tell me you can't beat Tau; because the SM book is vastly superior in 7th to Tau. We now make a better ally to other armies than we perform as a primary detachment.

how are you getting that average? the missiles are TL, and usually T1-T2 BS2-3. wounding on 2s from the first 12, and 3s-4s on the second wave....

Try a couple of wyverns, i play tau and ig, when i play tau artillery takes away my hiding which is bad. Also where does he get his marker lights, if they are pathfinders they are like ig infantry with stealth t3 and 5+ save etc. Drones are harder but cost more, take out his markerlights and most everything else is stuck at bs3, except for tanks(bs4) and his commander (bs5)

 raiden wrote:

 The Shrike wrote:

 raiden wrote:
one units of 3 broadsides with missile pods (or suits? I don't remember which they were) get, 12 str7 missiles, and 12 str 5 missiles to shoot. Good luck tanking that with your little 2+/6++ chapter master there.

Actually it's quite easy for a standard Gorgon's Chain Chapter Master to tank that. He does it against me ALL the time. An average of 7 S7 wounds and 4 S5 wounds. So 11 2+ armor saves. You Look out Sir! at a 2+ to the 2+ save, 2 wound centurions and take a 2+ yourself and +1 to FNP for the ones you fail to LOS. Typically, 0-1 wounds go through. AND he has IWND, and so does the Sergeant, who's next in line for wounds so it's easy to regenerate any that go through. You'd have to talk to one of the stat heads on here to give you more precise math but the Chapter master is a beast.

ALSO, if you get Invisibility off, you're only hitting the centurions on 6's anyway; so even tougher to kill them.

I'm going to break some news to you guys. Tau's reputation is unearned. They were a fluky army in 6th with 2 builds that were tournament competitive. They won ONE major event. That's it. Already in 7th, they did not place in the top 10 at the ATC (American Team Championships). Top places went to Eldar, Necrons and here's the kicker, Space Marines! So don't tell me you can't beat Tau; because the SM book is vastly superior in 7th to Tau. We now make a better ally to other armies than we perform as a primary detachment.

how are you getting that average? the missiles are TL, and usually T1-T2 BS2-3. wounding on 2s from the first 12, and 3s-4s on the second wave....

Well, 12 shots at BS3 is 6 hits. You reroll and get 3 more hits. That's 9 S7 hits and 9 S5. You wound on 2's so 7.5 wounds and 4's, so 4.5. If you wanna split hairs and give them 1 more wound for 12 that's fine. This is semantics though. The point is, a Broadside team has little chance of putting more than 1 wound on a gravstar in a shooting phase.

Oh, another Tau complaint thread.

Exactly. It's totally unfounded. Tau will not win a major GT in 7th edition; at least with this codex. Mark it down. The continued misconception that Tau are overpowered is stunning to me.

 The Shrike wrote:
Exactly. It's totally unfounded. Tau will not win a major GT in 7th edition; at least with this codex. Mark it down. The continued misconception that Tau are overpowered is stunning to me.

Pure Tau was never Overpowered, It was Taudar, Space Tau, Orkdar that were getting over powered. The first gave a massive speed and psychic boost, second psychic and durability, third covered the main holes in both armies.

Even though I'm a Tau player, I'll say this. In the current meta, they are exceptionally OP. Sorry (But not too much).

I'm not talking about your local store. Go on Torrent of Fire and look at the data just from 6th edition when they were supposedly a top tier army. It's not great.

Now in 7th when Eldar/SM/Necrons are the top 3; and I suspect SW and BA to join them when they come out, we're in the next tier below, i.e. the middle one. And that's in the hands of skilled players. We don't have Tigurius/Loth to ally in to a Farsight bomb anymore. We can't run O'Vesastar now.

We are not OP. We are the epitome of average.