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One of my buddies is doing a tau army. He is planning on a firewarrior base with suits and one or two riptides and then multiple riptides(i dont think he will get more than one becasue of money.) The Army is scary becasue its tau and he is planning of farsight with 7 bodyguards so that seems hard to overcome but a points hole. I play CSM allied with CD sometimes and I like Vehicle armies (rhinos with lots of troops.) I was wondering what are some good lists to use against the Tau and what units would be good against them. i was thinking maybe 2 forgefiends with autocannons and some cultists(fodder to shoot at or ignore and they tarpit.) Im not that good at making lists but that was just my general idea. Maybe Infiltrate some noise marines for the ignores cover slavo 2/3? and blastmasters? Maybe some Preds to shoot at the hammer heads?

I can't help much with your lists as I don't play CSM. But do not rely on tarpitting his Farsight bomb, firstly their overwatch will nearly wipe a cultist squad if he kits it out full with gun drones. Secondly if he has sense he will add Vectored Retro Thrusters on one of the bodyguards, this gives them hit and run. All cultists will do is give him a free 3D6" consolidate move.

What models do you own?

Any heldrakes? The combination of rhino tankshocking them into a proper bunched blob and a heldrake firing his Baleflamer is deadly. Requires timing and positioning, though, that's why it's quite hard to pull off. Even so, a baleflamer works fine even without bunching up.

Any psychers? They basically got nothing against casters. Be it some maledictions targeting them or invisibility targeting you. Also, summoned daemons help bauble-wrapping.

They don't really like decent mellee coming at them from multiple directions simultaniously. Spawns and landraiders work great.

You should get a couple of dirge casters. No overwatch is a bummer for FB.

Anywayz, farsight bomb is gona be tough.

As a tau player what I struggle with most is when I am offered to many targets of priority this is where tau are most likely to make that fatal mistake, so a decent number of squads who all can cause damage at the same time for example a shooting army that have mutliple LOS on the farsight bomb, or 3/4 units that will all charge a single area of units next turn

Try not to present a primary target that you will rely on, spread out to multiple key units where you can although target locks still make this tough to do, but remember he has to decide who is shooting what before he starts shooting he cant take a few shots, then decide if he has killed enough to target unit 2

and one last think multi-assault the firewarriors when you can, you loose extra attack because of the defensive grenades and this will force the overwatch onto one unit (which can be devastating) but frees up your other units to assault as they please, additionally dirge casters are always fun to ruin a tau players glee of overwatch

I don't have a heldrake but that is the next thing in my list of things to buy, my models consist of rhinos and regular CSM (which i plan to make into cult marines by painting but I can't decide yet) I have enough models to play a good game but I can still go in any direction models wise (hope that makes sence)

Against Tau you need to get close, fast.

Against a Farsight Bomb you need to be spread out to mitigate the effectiveness, assuming it's done the 'default' way of land and everything within 12-18 dies

so, you are looking at attacking both flanks to force him to split fire. If you can muster double flying Daemons, I will say go for that, and if not to invest in some Maulerfiends, and a Land Raider with something big-ish in (Flamer Plagues make a mess of tau nicely), to serve as a priority target for the Bomb

Hope that helps

Yes thank you this helps the land raider is after the helldrake on my list, maybe give the landraider dirge caster? And what number should I run the plague marines?

The Raider wouldn't really benefit from a Dirge, as Plague Marines aren't that good in combat.

As to number, that doesn't really matter that much, it'll be the flamers he's afraid of, and you can take two flamers at 5 guys. If you have points spare though, by all means take more Plagues, but I personally have found 7-8 to be the point at which more dudes becomes unnecessary points
that could be elsewhere, with 5 perfectly viable for most games

Never thought I would say this, but if he is running Farsight, stay away, and make him come to you for the first few turns.
I'd put a squad or two of noise marines with Blastmasters in a rhino and bubble wrap it with cultists and such. The sonic blasters would be good IF he deploys in the open and in range (or you could infiltrate as you suggested). If you prefer, use thousand sons, have a nice chat about how 3+ saves are a moot point.

Having charged farsight before with maulerfiends before, stay away if possible, he can kill on on his own. If you go the forgefiend route, I might go with the ectoplasma cannons, or at least take the extra one in the mouth. A farsight bomb is gonna be a big target, and missing won't be likely. Gets hot might be a problem, so a warpsmith might be warranted.

If you have some daemon princes you can use, run them as CD princes and roll on Tzeetnch for flickering flames. Try to get to that rear armor if he hides in devilfish and pour the shots out when they are in the open. If you can get be'lakor on the board, use invisibility to full advantage (nothing like bubble wrap he can't flamer).

I have two DPs but no belakor so I could use one as belakor , where do I find his rules?

Something that has worked great for me is Ahriman, tripple psychic shriek is nasty against Riptides, since they dont have the best Ld, the expected value of 3d6 is about 12, so three shrieks can quite easily kill a Riptide. Just remember to bubblewrap him with something.
Noise Marines with sonic blasters or blast masters have worked good for me with Ahriman/Huron (for infiltrate) too, since they can take out those markerlights with either salvos or blast, while staying out of happy fun range (15") from any fire warriors. Tau without markerlights are a lot less dangerous, and quite often they dont have too many sources of them.
This last part might be unorthodox, but i also like distraction Helbrutes, in the 3brute formation, for 345 points you get 3 av12 guys with IWND, armed with heavy flamers, at 1500p+ it might be worth taking for the ability to DS and screw up the opposing players target prioritization.

Be'Lakor is a data slate from Black Library

Well if he's using Farsight bomb that means he's going to be spending 700 points to drop right by you. Try to bait out his attacks with a land raider, Forcing him to attack it or get wrecked by it in the next turn.

Use Either a sorcerer or CD allies to get a bunch of firestorm attacks off, or other rapid fire attacks (maybe pink horrors if you got them) This will either entirely wipe out his gun drones or get a dent off on his crisis suits (try to position your troops so that the crisis suits are the first ones going to be hit.

Tau really suffer from the psychic phase as we don't have a psyker of our own, and the only good way to get DTW is from the far sight supplement, which doesn't let you do a proper far sight bomb.

So if you want to match his 700 point far sight bomb and wipe it out, try using one or two land raiders (loading troops is optional) to bait out an attack, and then a bunch of cheap psykers to get off rapid fire attacks, or template attacks. Or you can take the route of S8 hits to double his toughness.

Farsight is strong, but suffers from the fact that it is separated from the rest of the team, and unless it can GTFO right after it kills its targets, chances are its getting wrecked.

From the IA13 book, i recommend typhon siege tank, and any thing that ignores cover.

What I've experienced as a new tau player:
Death company aren't the best of opponents to face, so take them raptors (I think that's what there called) the close combat guys with jump packs

Helbrutes. Hate them.

Nurgle bikers with melta guns aren't bad and are instant killing suits.

Flying daemon Princes always upset. Built with psychic abilities normally is best. My personal favourite though is khorne with the Axe of blind fury. Again, strength 8 attacks and a potential for 13 of them on the charge. Run that khorne DP next to Be'lakor, use Be'lakor to invis the khorne Prince, and then laugh very evilly as he charges in.... If anything survives, Be'lakor can join the fight next turn.

Invulnerable saves screw tau too. They care not for cover saves or armour saves, but don't have anything that ignores saves altogether. So MoT is quite useful. And I never ever thought I'd suggest this but perhaps MoT warp talons?

I've used Battlesuit Heavy Tau to stress test my mech guard so I have some ideas in general, but I have no specific idea for CSM due to a lack of the rulebook. In general, the thing to remember about the suits is that they're tough to crack but gooey on the inside. If you can get Khornate types or other heavy CCs close, they're excellent against most suits (but be aware that the suits have extra attacks and decent strength-- they're battlesuits, after all) Killing the support early, often, and hardcore is important. If you have pieplates, try to get them on drones, pathfinders, etc.-- except for special characters/commanders, most Tau actually have IG platoon-levels of BS and without Markerlights, they won't be putting saves on fast. Even the Broadsides only have T4, so again, pieplates-- defilers, I believe? can evaporate most of them if you can get past armour save (3 for most models, but the 'sides have 2).

Riptides are hardpoints. But they are monstrous creatures and hence suffer from some limitations; I once took out a riptide by having a valkyrie drop a 10-ratling squad near it and they did some serious damage even after with shoot and scarper until I let them get into smart missile system range of the dang 'sides. So if you have a way of producing small amounts of snipers, or ranged poison, or what have you, or anything that can put instant death without needing the x2 over toughness, the Riptides are more vulnerable than they look. But make dang sure you enforce the Nova rules on him: make him declare and roll for them at the START of the movement phase. For almost any other army and almost any other unit, I'd say be flexible, but 'tides are undercosted and overpowered. Nova bennies are way too flexible to let the guy put them in after he's done his movement and has a better tactical lookout.

This is a little meta, but watch out for a toy called The Talisman of Arthas Moloch. Even if I wasn't tailoring, I might consider it for a Tau unit:

The Talisman of Arthas Moloch confers a 5+ invulnerable save. In addition, the bearer
and all friendly units within 12" roll four D6 for their Deny the Witch rolls instead of one,
taking the highest result.

25 points and you get holy beemperor look at my Deny Rolls, Ma. Kill that dude with long range fire.

You dirty traitor, etc.

 Alienoid wrote:
One of my buddies is doing a tau army. He is planning on a firewarrior base with suits and one or two riptides and then multiple riptides(i dont think he will get more than one becasue of money.) The Army is scary becasue its tau and he is planning of farsight with 7 bodyguards so that seems hard to overcome but a points hole. I play CSM allied with CD sometimes and I like Vehicle armies (rhinos with lots of troops.) I was wondering what are some good lists to use against the Tau and what units would be good against them. i was thinking maybe 2 forgefiends with autocannons and some cultists(fodder to shoot at or ignore and they tarpit.) Im not that good at making lists but that was just my general idea. Maybe Infiltrate some noise marines for the ignores cover slavo 2/3? and blastmasters? Maybe some Preds to shoot at the hammer heads?

I play Daemons mostly and play against Tau frequently. Haven't played against a FarsightBomb in a while though. My usual advice would be "KILL ALL THE MARKERLIGHTS NAOOO!!!" but that doesn't really help since the Bomb brings all the support it needs internally. As mentioned tarpitting doesn't really help either as it's almost guaranteed to have HnR. If you have the models, bring plenty of Daemons as they are much less susceptible to the strengths of his deathstar. Lots of TL, high strength shooting will still put a dent in your forces, but you are ignoring the points he's spending on all those low AP weapons because you have a built-in invuln save. Your idea of bringing Noise Marines is a pretty solid bet. Blast masters will make his deathstar have a bad day especially if he doesn't take drones as ablative wounds. Every wound you do with blastmasters is going to double out a suit. I would not infiltrate them though. Make him come to you, and try to put as many speed bumps between the bomb and your blastmasters (NOT Sonic Blasters, they won't do much to the bomb) as possible. Other than that, try to kill off the rest of his army as much as possible and win on objectives. Good Luck!

IsawaBrian wrote:
I once took out a riptide by having a valkyrie drop a 10-ratling squad near it

Ratlings have heavy weapons, thus have to snapfire after being dropped by a valk. Let's count the chances anywayz:

10 snapshots = 1.66 hits
wounding on a 4+ means 0.55 regular wounds and 0.27 rending wounds

0.55 regular wounds against 2+ armor are ~0.09 wounds and 0.27 rending wounds against 5++ are ~ 0.18 wounds resulting in ~0.27 wounds against a riptide out in the open.

10 ratlings without need to snapshoot will deal 3 times more damage - means ~1.08 wounds.

Chances of taking out a riptide with a bunch of ratlings are extremely low. I'd not count on it as a solid tactix.

Stealth (And S&S into further cover which as far as I know still works after a Grav Chute) helps them survive until the next turn; having already dinged it (and other units having taken out markerlights), they served admirably both as distractions and the coup de grace next turn; having functionally done 4 of the wounds, I count it as being their kill.

Yep, more detalisation helps

Plasma vets would have done more wounds though, i guess. However, would have gotten pieplated as they can't s&r and come to be more expensive with 3 PG. Furthermore, need to be within 12'.
More versatile, though. But 3 plazma in double tap range deal like 1.77 wounds to a riptide. Add in a krak nade if you're lucky enough to get within 8' and a bunchof lazgun shots and you're close to 2 wounds. Can also recieve orders at ld8 if someone capable of issuing them survives till turn 2 at least

How do you beat the Tau? With a stick. While they sleep.

Get soul grinders, 3 of them, with slaanesh and torrent flamers. Cook all his infantry, and laugh at his str 7 missiles.

Flesh hounds with a herald are another decent unit vs tau. They scout, are fast, durable, and hit hard.

Finally, one of the best ways to beat tau is the psychic phase. With no psykers their defense against invisibility and summoning is pathetic. Be'lakor can require some skill vs tau due to their markerlights and skyfire, however guaranteed invis is a powerful tool.

 koooaei wrote:

IsawaBrian wrote:
I once took out a riptide by having a valkyrie drop a 10-ratling squad near it

Ratlings have heavy weapons, thus have to snapfire after being dropped by a valk. Let's count the chances anywayz:

10 snapshots = 1.66 hits
wounding on a 4+ means 0.55 regular wounds and 0.27 rending wounds

0.55 regular wounds against 2+ armor are ~0.09 wounds and 0.27 rending wounds against 5++ are ~ 0.18 wounds resulting in ~0.27 wounds against a riptide out in the open.

10 ratlings without need to snapshoot will deal 3 times more damage - means ~1.08 wounds.

Chances of taking out a riptide with a bunch of ratlings are extremely low. I'd not count on it as a solid tactix.

Gah. Stupid kindle ate my reply. In short, you actually get ~1.11 wounds per turn on the non-snapshot due to BS 4. And all of that presumes that luck is average. Given that's 100 to a minimum of 180, it would seem a decent trade to me. Though it's not applicable to CSM. My point was more that Sniper weapons have seemed to be pretty cheap in most codices I've seen; if he's got a way to get a bunch, they could heal without wrecking bis budget. And they benefit very well from rerolls and the like; I presume CSM has access to divination? If so, there's a force multiplier.

Hmm. That gives me an idea for a scouting marines/terminator librarian list. I wonder if Tiggy can be made to deep strike. Probably not. And I don't remember if vanilla marines get divination.

Edit: Of course they do, durr, that's Tiggy's true wuv set

IsawaBrian wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

IsawaBrian wrote:
I once took out a riptide by having a valkyrie drop a 10-ratling squad near it

Ratlings have heavy weapons, thus have to snapfire after being dropped by a valk. Let's count the chances anywayz:

10 snapshots = 1.66 hits
wounding on a 4+ means 0.55 regular wounds and 0.27 rending wounds

0.55 regular wounds against 2+ armor are ~0.09 wounds and 0.27 rending wounds against 5++ are ~ 0.18 wounds resulting in ~0.27 wounds against a riptide out in the open.

10 ratlings without need to snapshoot will deal 3 times more damage - means ~1.08 wounds.

Chances of taking out a riptide with a bunch of ratlings are extremely low. I'd not count on it as a solid tactix.

Gah. Stupid kindle ate my reply. In short, you actually get ~1.11 wounds per turn on the non-snapshot due to BS 4. And all of that presumes that luck is average. Given that's 100 to a minimum of 180, it would seem a decent trade to me. Though it's not applicable to CSM. My point was more that Sniper weapons have seemed to be pretty cheap in most codices I've seen; if he's got a way to get a bunch, they could heal without wrecking bis budget. And they benefit very well from rerolls and the like; I presume CSM has access to divination? If so, there's a force multiplier.

Hmm. That gives me an idea for a scouting marines/terminator librarian list. I wonder if Tiggy can be made to deep strike. Probably not. And I don't remember if vanilla marines get divination.

Edit: Of course they do, durr, that's Tiggy's true wuv set

I don't want to discourage you from using such an unorthodox tactix as dropping sniper hobbits out of planes to kill stuff...it's pretty hilarious as is and i absolutely approve such way of thinking!
I'm just telling that it's not super-effective as is.

You're spending 230+ pt of a valk + squad that doesn't really need a valk as they have infiltrate and s&r to kill a 230 pt riptide (probably cheaper) over 4 turns. Meanwhile, a bunch of shots from fw or kroots will cripple your t2 guyz and ld5 ain't close to reliable. While the riptide is acting at full potential all the time.

The thing with MC is that you either have to kill them in one go or ignore them. No use in shooting it over the whole game as you're using models and he ain't. Thus, a concentrated combination of stuff that does more damage would be more effective.

actually, the Talisman gives you a 4+ to deny the witch, not 4d6 (updated in the FAQ). OTOH, I love running a Culexus alongside my own.

If you can weather the overwatch, the Assault phase is where you can win. It has been said that if you own 2 of the phases (Movement, Shooting, Assault) you will likely win. Now there is another (Psychic) and as I don't run psykers, I wonder if this is still true. Tau dominate Movement and Shooting, if you can keep up with them (Movement) and weather their shooting, you can come out ahead.

Lets start by looking at what a buffmander boosted farsight bomb can do:
The problem
Ignores cover
Tank hunter
Split fire
Twin linking everything
Hit and run
Deep strike without scatter (but may just deploy on table)
Wall of death from flamers
18" meltaguns and vast quantities of S7 and S5 shooting

Some things to remember
All targets for a given weapon type must be declared before rolling any dice. He cannot for example fire 2 models roll his dice, see if it is still alive and then choose to fire more shots at them.

He cannot shoot at models that emerge from a wrecked transport (if the wreckage was caused by the bomb).

Tankhunter gives S7 a ~50% chance to glance AV12. With twin linked and ignores cover and the insane volume of attacks you are looking at avoiding AV 12 entirely.

Melta range is 9" so if you have a landraider it needs to have 9" of bubble wrap.

He can only overwatch once, so feed it a chump charger

Some great CSM units
5 nurgle spawn + lord of nurgle with PF+LC (Its 3s to wound and no saving throw for your spawn but its still 15 wounds for 180 points
20 flesh hounds (Its 2s to wound but its 320 points for 40 wounds at 5++)
Bastion + kharn the betrayer + 19 cultists + escape hatch (Av 14 and you can charge out of the hatch straight into combat)

Some ok CSM units
Soul grinders of slaanesh (AV 13 means 33% chance to glance with tank hunter and S7. They will still go down fast but are quite cheap)
Units of 10 cultists (can chump charge)
Heldrakes (might come in too late, chances are if you take 2 rounds of fire from bomb you haven't got much army left)
Landraider + 3 nurgle obliterators (very expensive but twin linked plasma double tap then charge with 9 power fist attacks ignoring overwatch isn't too bad if you can get in range)

Some bad CSM units (vs the farsight bomb)
Nurgle daemon princes (Twin linked, monster hunter and ignores cover will slaughter these guys especially if you don't get first turn)
Melee princes (these are even worse since they aren't even hard to hit)
Plague marines (even in rhinos these guys will die in droves to twin linked S7)
Chaos space marines/berserkers (these are just worse versions of plague marines right?)
Hellbrutes/maulerfiends/forgefiends (see the AV 12 vs tankhunter argument)

Tau has difficulty beating almost anything nurgle related. they are betting they can bring your guys down before you get close and nurgle oriented chaos armies are though to bring down before they close in.

Same goes agianst AM/IG for that matter.

MoT possessed in rhinos!

 carldooley wrote:
actually, the Talisman gives you a 4+ to deny the witch, not 4d6 (updated in the FAQ). OTOH, I love running a Culexus alongside my own.

If you can weather the overwatch, the Assault phase is where you can win. It has been said that if you own 2 of the phases (Movement, Shooting, Assault) you will likely win. Now there is another (Psychic) and as I don't run psykers, I wonder if this is still true. Tau dominate Movement and Shooting, if you can keep up with them (Movement) and weather their shooting, you can come out ahead.

You know, that'd be an interesting use of a Comes the Apocalypse for _Tau_, to flip it on its head-- put a Culexus out there. You can use up to 3 of your own Warp Charges for her boom, giving you a use for the Psychic Phase, and if your opponent plays a psyker, you can target in.

For that matter, not that I should be helping a traitor, but Comes the Apocalypse isn't as nasty of a negative for assassins, and I'd imagine a Vindicare would make short work of suits. I need to sim that after I recover my saves from my computer crash. @.0

 Alienoid wrote:
One of my buddies is doing a tau army. He is planning on a firewarrior base with suits and one or two riptides and then multiple riptides(i dont think he will get more than one becasue of money.) The Army is scary becasue its tau and he is planning of farsight with 7 bodyguards so that seems hard to overcome but a points hole. I play CSM allied with CD sometimes and I like Vehicle armies (rhinos with lots of troops.) I was wondering what are some good lists to use against the Tau and what units would be good against them. i was thinking maybe 2 forgefiends with autocannons and some cultists(fodder to shoot at or ignore and they tarpit.) Im not that good at making lists but that was just my general idea. Maybe Infiltrate some noise marines for the ignores cover slavo 2/3? and blastmasters? Maybe some Preds to shoot at the hammer heads?

Tau dont like you getting close, one bit. they hate it even worse with Dirge Casters.

So. Build an army that gets really close, is tough and features Dirge Casters.

mmmm... Dirge Casters. Basic melee will pound Tau. You need nothing fancy for that. But you certainly cant afford the overwatch.

One other thing. The Black Legion has an awesome item I slap on a biker commander: The Eye of Night. Talk about clearing out castled up vehicles! If he's doing the 2+ armor thing with Riptides though yer just gonna have to plasma and assault him to death