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Hey Guys,

Specifically this topic is geared towards Tau for myself, but I think this is worthy of a discussion. The current meta and as we saw in many of the LVO lists this past event Null deploying is a thing to do.

However, null deploying has that risk of getting tabled turn 1. Dealing with 3-5 pods on turn 1 plus whatever was on the table is one thing.. but dealing with 7+ pods dropping in turn 1 plus any heavy support on the table is it's own animal.

What would you do tactically to defend against this army if going 2nd?

What would you do if going first?


Please don't respond with "your tau, just put interceptor on your entire army and be done with it", because yeah as that is great to start with, there is clearly not enough interceptor to handle 18+ units dropping in out of pods (assuming there is some combat squads happening).

Cheers!

Take like 5 riptides with interceptor and assault all the bs PA units you don't destroy. It's like the easiest win imaginable.

7 pods with 5 man squads?

Martel732 wrote:
7 pods with 5 man squads?

I like to prepare for all cases. It could be minimum squads or it could be max'd squads, or it could be max'd pods that are combat squaded inside.


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 Xenomancers wrote:
Take like 5 riptides with interceptor and assault all the bs PA units you don't destroy. It's like the easiest win imaginable.

Great answer, 5 riptides... atleast 1 gets hot... the rest statistically scatter 3+ inches off target more then likely. At which point I charge probably the best CC space marine army in the game that has rules like "counter-charge" where at which point when i charge them.. all unengaged units nearby can elect to charge right back at me...




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Call me pessimistic is all

Space Wolves can't combat squad so you don't have to deal with that annoyance.

Umm honestly the best option is to set up in good cover with your expensive units and weather the storm the best you can. Space Wolves shooting isn't anything to write home about and outside of psychic powers they don't really have any ignores cover. 10 man plasma Grey Hunters are not cheap units and that's just 3 plasma guns (1 being a combi). No tactical doctrine allowing rerolls or improved accuracy. Just BS4 shooting. Fitting in characters into a SW pod means your trading out a special weapon so its not easy to get support characters (like say Ulrik) to boost the dakka.

Honestly your army is going to get 1 turn of shooting in before your front line gets charged into. Kroot conga line and Fire Warriors can screen for your more valuable units like Broadsides and Riptides. A counter deep strike unit such as Retailiation Cadre can be very effective to drop in Turn 2 and get the positioning and dakka advantage on the wolves. Once the pod wolves are on foot they aren't all that mobile so you can focus on controlling the board and limiting what they can charge. If your list is a bunch of riptides then you might find yourself getting surrounded turn 1 and locked into combat turn 2 where the wolves will just slowly beat the gak out of the riptide over a few turns. I would probably suggest you reserve your squishy markerlight sources as they are going to be prime target #1.

I fought this list yesterday and it is pretty good as an "anti-meta" list. I was playing optimized Eldar/GK, so scatterbikes WK & 2 DKs. The SW army was NOT optimized and he still killed 4 out of 5 of my Scatterbike units on the first drop with 4 Drop Pod Grey Hunters....I even had a 3+ jink from night fight.

We played Maelstrom and if the game had not gone to turn 6, he would have won. He also had a shooty Imp Knight with Battle cannon/Gatling, had I not rolled the lucky 6 with the WK, he would have probably won
My initial plan was to only deploy the WK and DKs, but he got the -1 reserve rolls warlord trait, so I have to deploy my bikes or risk not gettting to use them at all.

Overall it was a hard fought and incredibly fun game for the both of us. We decided he needed to trade his min Bloodclaw units for min Bike units.
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Defensively I suggest spreading out your units, with any "expendable" units at the outside edges. If you leave just enough room between your units (at max coherency) for a drop pod, he cant drop there. Even though the pod could fit, the unit inside would not be able to disembark and would be destroyed (thus he wouldn't dare drop them there). This will make any melta guns less useful since the ideal melta targets wlll be deep in your units and out of range of the meltas. It will also prevent double tap from Plasmas. I would take 2 big units of Kroot if you are suit heavy, or just tons of Fire warriors.

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insist that your opponent use unopened cans of a beverage that you both like as proxies for the drop pods. For each one that you pop, you get to drink.

 carldooley wrote:
insist that your opponent use unopened cans of a beverage that you both like as proxies for the drop pods. For each one that you pop, you get to drink.

Awesome!


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 Vankraken wrote:
Space Wolves can't combat squad so you don't have to deal with that annoyance.

Umm honestly the best option is to set up in good cover with your expensive units and weather the storm the best you can. Space Wolves shooting isn't anything to write home about and outside of psychic powers they don't really have any ignores cover. 10 man plasma Grey Hunters are not cheap units and that's just 3 plasma guns (1 being a combi). No tactical doctrine allowing rerolls or improved accuracy. Just BS4 shooting. Fitting in characters into a SW pod means your trading out a special weapon so its not easy to get support characters (like say Ulrik) to boost the dakka.

Honestly your army is going to get 1 turn of shooting in before your front line gets charged into. Kroot conga line and Fire Warriors can screen for your more valuable units like Broadsides and Riptides. A counter deep strike unit such as Retailiation Cadre can be very effective to drop in Turn 2 and get the positioning and dakka advantage on the wolves. Once the pod wolves are on foot they aren't all that mobile so you can focus on controlling the board and limiting what they can charge. If your list is a bunch of riptides then you might find yourself getting surrounded turn 1 and locked into combat turn 2 where the wolves will just slowly beat the gak out of the riptide over a few turns. I would probably suggest you reserve your squishy markerlight sources as they are going to be prime target #1.

Great tips, I have only played space wolves once every, and it was sub 1k, so there was really not much going on.

My usual list is Dawn Blade with Retaliation Cadre as core. I suspect he will also have an Imperial knight with him, but I am not too worried about that compared to other things.

take a couple dual crisis suits with 4 flamers, shield(?) drones and a VRT. If you know you are going to be going into CQC, take a couple squads that can break your guys out of combat.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
7 pods with 5 man squads?

I like to prepare for all cases. It could be minimum squads or it could be max'd squads, or it could be max'd pods that are combat squaded inside.


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 Xenomancers wrote:
Take like 5 riptides with interceptor and assault all the bs PA units you don't destroy. It's like the easiest win imaginable.

Great answer, 5 riptides... atleast 1 gets hot... the rest statistically scatter 3+ inches off target more then likely. At which point I charge probably the best CC space marine army in the game that has rules like "counter-charge" where at which point when i charge them.. all unengaged units nearby can elect to charge right back at me...




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Call me pessimistic is all

Riptide beats marines in combat every time...it doesn't matter how many attacks they have...you are basically immune to their damage...2+ save and 5+ FNP and they wound you on 6's.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Riptide beats marines in combat every time...it doesn't matter how many attacks they have...you are basically immune to their damage...2+ save and 5+ FNP and they wound you on 6's.

Your not wrong, my riptides have slayed units of Grey knight terminators. But it is a grueling process. I only dismissed this idea because it would be happening so early in the game. Riptides not shooting/moving starting turn 2 usually doesn't work out well for me.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Riptide beats marines in combat every time...it doesn't matter how many attacks they have...you are basically immune to their damage...2+ save and 5+ FNP and they wound you on 6's.

Actually, they wound you on 4+ (krak grenades), but your statement is true. In my game I use a DK to charge a 10-man unit, then he immediately counter charged with another (because of their special rule). As an experiment, he rolled regular attacks with 1 unit and krak grenades with the other unit. He dealt more wounds with the krak grenades, although I passed all my saves.

Although DKs hit much harder in CC than Riptides, the Riptide is harder to kill because it has 1 more wound and FNP.

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Riptide beats marines in combat every time...it doesn't matter how many attacks they have...you are basically immune to their damage...2+ save and 5+ FNP and they wound you on 6's.

Your not wrong, my riptides have slayed units of Grey knight terminators. But it is a grueling process. I only dismissed this idea because it would be happening so early in the game. Riptides not shooting/moving starting turn 2 usually doesn't work out well for me.

Hes shoving a huge army down your throat. It's going to be ugly. It's also the only way he has any chance against you. Correct me if I am wrong but do not vespids have ap3 flamers? I could see them having a good use against a bunch of podding 3+ saves.

What is this? 5th ed? Exploit the fact that they are stuck on foot once they land. Of course, Tau aren't using their Devilfish anymore, so most of THEM are on foot.

Back in the day, this was countered by MSU razorspam. I suspect this list straight up loses to gladius.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Riptide beats marines in combat every time...it doesn't matter how many attacks they have...you are basically immune to their damage...2+ save and 5+ FNP and they wound you on 6's.

Your not wrong, my riptides have slayed units of Grey knight terminators. But it is a grueling process. I only dismissed this idea because it would be happening so early in the game. Riptides not shooting/moving starting turn 2 usually doesn't work out well for me.

Hes shoving a huge army down your throat. It's going to be ugly. It's also the only way he has any chance against you. Correct me if I am wrong but do not vespids have ap3 flamers? I could see them having a good use against a bunch of podding 3+ saves.

You know... i dont even own any vespids.. one because they used to suck really bad, and two they wont make new plastic ones =/ Tau auxiliary armies don't have as much love as i think most people would appreciate. They do have ap3 blasters tho. And i don't have a 107 which i think is the forgeworld riptide with the ap2 flamer

But yeah I feel you.

Sadly I can't help you here. The only time I fought lots of drop pods was with the green tide and they all got munched. Or when the squiggoths were roaming which had the same effect of being munched.

I really think the best thing to do here is not list tailor and see how well your normal list can do here.

Martel732 wrote:
I really think the best thing to do here is not list tailor and see how well your normal list can do here.

He plays Tau.

He doesn't have to list-tailor beyond "I'm putting Early Warning Override on everything that can take it".

 Kanluwen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I really think the best thing to do here is not list tailor and see how well your normal list can do here.

He plays Tau.

He doesn't have to list-tailor beyond "I'm putting Early Warning Override on everything that can take it".

Generally speaking I don't usually list-tailor to an extreme... no one can honestly say they don't tweak something in their list based on what they are facing.. it just happens.

But from my OP, you can see I asked for tactics advice rather then, "what should I equip my army with to win".

Cheers guys! Some of you gave some really good tips so far thank you!

 Grizzyzz wrote:
However, null deploying has that risk of getting tabled turn 1.

How does a turn one table happen with this list?

 Lord Scythican wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
However, null deploying has that risk of getting tabled turn 1.

How does a turn one table happen with this list?

So i null deploy meaning I have only a few units on the table. lets say 9 pods drop in surrounding those few units and they are blasted off the table.

Since reserves can't come in until turn 2 (..normally) regardless of my going first or second, i am tabled and lose the game.

I have been informed from ^ further up the thread that wolf shooting is not that strong so this may not be an issue for me after all. I just have little experience playing against space wolves let alone drop pod lists that ALL COME AT ONCE

 Lord Scythican wrote:

 Grizzyzz wrote:
However, null deploying has that risk of getting tabled turn 1.

How does a turn one table happen with this list?

The idea is that you place as few units deployed as possible and reserve the rest, hoping that all his pods drop in with nothing to do but kill a few "expendable" units, but not all the units. But if you opponent kills everything you have on the board turn 1, you auto lose before getting the chance to roll reserves. This is why all flyer/reserve lists died went 6th ed dropped. Only imperial armies can alpha strike with stuff like Drop Pods and GK turn 1 Deep strikes.

@Grizzyzz and Galef: Ahh gotcha!. So you need to deploy enough to not lose to all incoming fire. Thanks.

Tau do have the "infiltration cadre" i think it is called, that if any unit in that formation is destroyed your reserves auto come in..

so if you go 2nd, and he destroys a unit then your entire army could arrive turn 1...

Never seen it played though

 Grizzyzz wrote:
Tau do have the "infiltration cadre" i think it is called, that if any unit in that formation is destroyed your reserves auto come in..

so if you go 2nd, and he destroys a unit then your entire army could arrive turn 1...

Never seen it played though

It's a pretty interesting formation--but it does encourage minimal points investiture to ensure that things get destroyed.

Have you given any thought to a Ranged Support Cadre?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Have you given any thought to a Ranged Support Cadre?

I have used this formation once before but was extremely underwhelmed. I think I need full squads of broadsides to be effective... I was doing 2 models per and that just wasn't enough to make a dent. (I only have 3 actual models so i have to proxy for more =D )

Keep the Pathfinders close, leave them in a spot where someone is going to have to charge.

Have HYMP/SMS Broadsides lurking nearby.

Profit!

 Grizzyzz wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I really think the best thing to do here is not list tailor and see how well your normal list can do here.

He plays Tau.

He doesn't have to list-tailor beyond "I'm putting Early Warning Override on everything that can take it".

Generally speaking I don't usually list-tailor to an extreme... no one can honestly say they don't tweak something in their list based on what they are facing.. it just happens.

But from my OP, you can see I asked for tactics advice rather then, "what should I equip my army with to win".

Cheers guys! Some of you gave some really good tips so far thank you!

For those of use who don't know their opponents ahead of time we can say that. I've had flamers in my list against all IK.

Martel732 wrote:

For those of use who don't know their opponents ahead of time we can say that. I've had flamers in my list against all IK.

No doubt! In my meta most people bring TAC lists so I can expect a variety of threats even with specific formations being used. My general statement was more inclined towards that very case you mentioned... if you know your opponent is bringing a bunch of Knights.. then even if you don't tailor your list (such as bringing all Fusion crisis suits for example), you are not going to equip flamers on them..

I use Inquisitor Coatez very often. The Ive been expecting rule helps block of a large part of the board.

I had him with a unit of MM servitors against a SW drop pod list....It was pretty nasty...it moved all the drop pods to a semi safe distance.

MAybe this has been covered somewhere else....but we argued about the order of how things happen....

Would I be able to shoot at both the drop pod, then the unit that comes out?

Am I only allowed to shoot the drop pod?