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Hi, I am new to playing against tau with my space wolves army and I am looking for tips on hot to best get past their incredible fire power. So far I have done well against them as my oponent is new to the game but I know with a little more practice with his army I will start to have a lot of trouble keeping my beloved wolves alive. I can field basically everything except the new flyers, bikes, and no more than 1 dreadnought at the moment(which I hope to change soon).

We currently only play a max of 750pts because he doesn't have many models.

He likes to use;

fire warriors with an ethereal
a couple other squads of fire warriors
crisis suits he breaks them up so its 2 in one squad and 1 by himself(he hasn't quite nailed down how to use them really effectively but I know he has been doing some research)
stealth suits
and I know he is planning on using kroot in the future.

I personally like to use a few drop pods but I am not opposed to trying to get across the board in rhinos or even a land raider at higher points.

So if anyone has some tips other than the obvious get them into close combat it would be greatly appreciated.

Melee is the bane of Tau existence. Space Wolves have great melee. If you don't have it yet, try to pick up a transport or two like a Rhino and get your best melee units across the board as fast as possible while keeping them safe.

If you have thunderwolf cavalry they will be able to move really quickly across the board too and those Storm Shields should keep you alive long enough to get into melee.

Getting to the Crisis Suits might be a pain in the ass because of their assault move. If it were me I would focus down the fire warriors until you're in such a position that the crisis suits have no where to run.

Qlanth wrote:
Melee is the bane of Tau existence. Space Wolves have great melee. If you don't have it yet, try to pick up a transport or two like a Rhino and get your best melee units across the board as fast as possible while keeping them safe.

This is absolute crazy tactics, rhinos are not though or fast enough to get to their targets, and even f they do, the assult unit have to disembark and just hang out in the open for a turn before they get to assault. I would go as far as saying TAUs ideal opponent would be having PA marines chasing them with rhinos.

Qlanth wrote:
If you have thunderwolf cavalry they will be able to move really quickly across the board too and those Storm Shields should keep you alive long enough to get into melee.

This is more like it, however you need some luck still, and lots of TWC.

I would probably do a boring drop pod assault instead. A couple of Grey hunter units with 2 plasma guns junping out of drop pods real close to priority targets. And having TWC advancing across the board at the same time will at least force the TAU player to either focus on the heavy hitting cavalry or GH plasma + assault in turn 2.
Even better would ofcourse be a unit of wolf guard with combi plasma + priest (for rerollable plasma 1s) dropping in, but it takes some effort to just build the unit.

Having wulfen in flying transports sound tempting, but TAU could probably table you before they got in, due to the large amount of Points they use up.

As a Tau player, I can give you some tips on how to win against us. I've played Space Wolves before, and during that match (which was close), my opponent focused on the use of Dreadnoughts. Now, I know you only have one, which means you must utilise it as effectively as you can.

Next would be Drop Pods. Use two or three and bring them down behind the Tau gunline. Assault the Fire Warriors. If you can, kill the Ethereal. You'll get a victory point, because it has a special rule that awards our opponent with a victoyr point for killing him.

The best tactic would be to force us into combat, or to force us to take Leadership tests. Without the Ethereal, we are quite low Leadership.

To deal with the Crisis Suits, try to shoot them or melee them with AP3 or S8 weapons. In combat, don't worry, you will always strike first, they are I2.

Good luck.

My idea for a game around 750 pts was to have 2 grey hunter squads in drop pods with a rune priest with biomancy. Taking an extra empty drop pod so I can still drop my 2 pods on turn 1, possibly putting a deathwind launcher on it if I have the spare points. Then either a dreadnought or a squad of TWC running across the board. The only problem with the TWC is having enough points to give them the much needed storm shields and if I am going second they will likely get shot up pretty bad before my drop pods get into the game. Not sure what that works out to in points but I know it is around 700

I've played quite a bit of Tau. Here's some dos and don't in more casual games against us.

1) Whenever a unit shoots a markerlight, make a mental note of that unit and then murder it dead as soon as possible. Tau shooting without markerlights is fairly mediocre. With markerlights you'll pick up entire squads off the table.

2) Stealth suits have very short range (18"). If he ever rolls poorly on his assault jumps there is a very good chance that you'll be able to assault them. Also, while they have a very good cover save (2+ in any cover). They're only toughness three, so just make them take saves with high rate of fire weapons (like rapid fire bolters) and they'll die off rather quickly.

3) If you're using a single drop pod be careful with it. You can't expect to just put it in the middle of his gun line with no support. If you do that the squad inside will get mulched by pulse fire from his ethereal/firewarrior combo.

4) Krakk missiles and lascannons are great against crisis suits.

5) Be careful with your dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts with heavy flamers in a drop pod are great against firewarriors and kroot. However, most dreads only have rear armor 10. This means EVERY unit in his army can kill your dread in a single shooting phase if they get behind your dread. Be careful where you point the dreadnaught's booty.

6) Try to avoid getting within the firewarriors rapid fire range of 15" when the ethereal is around if those firewarrior squads are at max strength. 3 shots per firewarrior is a lot.

7) Learn how to multi-assault clumps of tau units. You can kill just a few, force leaderships and sweep the rest.

Son of Russ wrote:
My idea for a game around 750 pts was to have 2 grey hunter squads in drop pods with a rune priest with biomancy. Taking an extra empty drop pod so I can still drop my 2 pods on turn 1, possibly putting a deathwind launcher on it if I have the spare points. Then either a dreadnought or a squad of TWC running across the board. The only problem with the TWC is having enough points to give them the much needed storm shields and if I am going second they will likely get shot up pretty bad before my drop pods get into the game. Not sure what that works out to in points but I know it is around 700

Drop pods are also exelent objective holders/contesters. especially for smaller games.
TWC is fast enough so its wort trying to hide them behind scenery at set up.
Personally I usually deploy my fast cc units in the open at the front line, greedy for a quick confrontation -and its a truly awful tactic that rarely work out well.

A rune priest sounds great for low point games. Im not a fan of the SW Powers, but against TAU it might actually be worth it -basicly all the Powers are usefull against them while biomancy can be really dissapointing if you dont get a lucky roll.

Lots of solid advice here...

Pods and Heavy Flamers...
Make them pass sooo many saves - or none at all.


Meet them in CC, having a unit wrap them up and absorb all the overwatch - then charge them with the rest, un-OW'ed.

Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Congrats, but i think he is not playing tau right if he does not intercept pods on arrival. A pure wolf list against competitive tau list is not a match. Consider allying in librarian conclave and raven wings if you and your friends wants to step up the competitiveness of the game after he has learn to play basic tau.

Turtlesoup wrote:

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Congrats, but i think he is not playing tau right if he does not intercept pods on arrival. A pure wolf list against competitive tau list is not a match. Consider allying in librarian conclave and raven wings if you and your friends wants to step up the competitiveness of the game after he has learn to play basic tau.

For the past 4 games we have only been playing 600pt games so I am not really able to effectively ally anything. He needs to get better at deploying his army and falling back and shooting, keeping my guys at range. Also getting some good use of marker lights would help him a lot. He has gotten better and I know if he gets to point of using competitive type lists I won't stand much of a chance. Honestly though if a person just uses the same list he gets off the internet every time what's the point. Even with the great advice I have got here I still mix it up a bit and put in units that really have no business being in a game at this low of points just for some variety of gameplay. Tau have a ridiculous amount of shooting to the point it is pretty OP against Space Wolves anyways IMO.

We have only been playing annihilation/purge the alien type matches so far but we are gonna have an objective type game today. I am still gonna drop my first wave of drop pods in his face to get first blood, and hopefully slay the warlord(which is a etheral so thats 3 points right there on turn 1)

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Jet Packs are the ones that can make the 2d6 thrust move in the assault phase so was he doing that in addition to the 12" movement or was he just treating them as Jump? The thrust moves can sometimes be even more problematic than just having 12" movement during the movement phase. If you don't like running pods all the time then you can look to use Rhinos or take more mobile units like Thunderwolves or Skyclaws. Footslogging is generally not the way to go unless you have something (like wulfen) making your footsloggers faster. Footslogging against Tau is really difficult due to their long range shooting and their relative mobility with their "Jump Shoot Jump" from Crisis Suits and Riptides.

Turtlesoup wrote:
Congrats, but i think he is not playing tau right if he does not intercept pods on arrival. A pure wolf list against competitive tau list is not a match. Consider allying in librarian conclave and raven wings if you and your friends wants to step up the competitiveness of the game after he has learn to play basic tau.

He posted the Tau player's list and it didn't include any Riptides or Broadsides so its highly unlikely that he would put interceptor on the Crisis Suits. Wolves can still do ok vs Tau but its not an easy match. Pods are still quite good if you use them well because interceptor limits the number of units that can fire and there is usually a lack of markerlight support. Pods also close the gap taking away the Tau's range advantage. In addition why would you bother with a raven wing to "counter" Tau when Tau have some of the most abundant Ignore Cover in the game.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Jet Packs are the ones that can make the 2d6 thrust move in the assault phase so was he doing that in addition to the 12" movement or was he just treating them as Jump? The thrust moves can sometimes be even more problematic than just having 12" movement during the movement phase. If you don't like running pods all the time then you can look to use Rhinos or take more mobile units like Thunderwolves or Skyclaws. Footslogging is generally not the way to go unless you have something (like wulfen) making your footsloggers faster. Footslogging against Tau is really difficult due to their long range shooting and their relative mobility with their "Jump Shoot Jump" from Crisis Suits and Riptides.




We were playing so that he was making a 12'' move and then the 2d6 thrust move so it was pretty hard to catch up to them. I do like thunderwolves but for the same price I can get 6 guys and a drop pod, or 5 a plasma gun, and a pod. That's just base thunderwolves too. Those storm shields aren't exactly cheap and are really handy for keeping those thunderwolves alive when running across the board. Then again it is nice to not have to worry about failing a reserve roll for a drop pod and they are fun to use, but in a 600pt game they are a little hard to justify. TWC are probably my favourite unit in terms of looks and their fluff is pretty cool too.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Jet Packs are the ones that can make the 2d6 thrust move in the assault phase so was he doing that in addition to the 12" movement or was he just treating them as Jump? The thrust moves can sometimes be even more problematic than just having 12" movement during the movement phase. If you don't like running pods all the time then you can look to use Rhinos or take more mobile units like Thunderwolves or Skyclaws. Footslogging is generally not the way to go unless you have something (like wulfen) making your footsloggers faster. Footslogging against Tau is really difficult due to their long range shooting and their relative mobility with their "Jump Shoot Jump" from Crisis Suits and Riptides.

Turtlesoup wrote:
Congrats, but i think he is not playing tau right if he does not intercept pods on arrival. A pure wolf list against competitive tau list is not a match. Consider allying in librarian conclave and raven wings if you and your friends wants to step up the competitiveness of the game after he has learn to play basic tau.

He posted the Tau player's list and it didn't include any Riptides or Broadsides so its highly unlikely that he would put interceptor on the Crisis Suits. Wolves can still do ok vs Tau but its not an easy match. Pods are still quite good if you use them well because interceptor limits the number of units that can fire and there is usually a lack of markerlight support. Pods also close the gap taking away the Tau's range advantage. In addition why would you bother with a raven wing to "counter" Tau when Tau have some of the most abundant Ignore Cover in the game.

Actually, most competitive tau list has intercepting drones due to drone network vx 1-0 formation with at least 16 intercepting marker drones. So as you can see tau can shoot units entering reserve almost at full strength. In my list, only my fire warriors and commanders do not intercept. Drop pod is actually not effective against tau. close distance landing of drop pod to tau gun line is actually prefered as not all tau guns are long range. Some are in fact medium to short range such as smart missile systems, burst cannon, plasma and fusion. Dropping in close means that more guns can shoot at your unit.

In regards to raven wing, it is still good idea against tau. Why? because they will be part of the wolve friend death star. When your unit is invisible, tau has to work extra hard to get that marker light on the death star unit since tau can no longer share special rule when shooting as hunter contingent army. If the tau need to take away 2 marker counter just to take out cover saves of the invisible death star, that is going to hurt the tau shooting accuracy or effect his ability to launch d missiles. Trust me on this, i have fought many invisible death star with my tau in tournaments and I have to work hard to get maker light on them. I bring 20-24 marker units in my tau list and most tau list dont bring that much marker.

Turtlesoup wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Jet Packs are the ones that can make the 2d6 thrust move in the assault phase so was he doing that in addition to the 12" movement or was he just treating them as Jump? The thrust moves can sometimes be even more problematic than just having 12" movement during the movement phase. If you don't like running pods all the time then you can look to use Rhinos or take more mobile units like Thunderwolves or Skyclaws. Footslogging is generally not the way to go unless you have something (like wulfen) making your footsloggers faster. Footslogging against Tau is really difficult due to their long range shooting and their relative mobility with their "Jump Shoot Jump" from Crisis Suits and Riptides.

Turtlesoup wrote:
Congrats, but i think he is not playing tau right if he does not intercept pods on arrival. A pure wolf list against competitive tau list is not a match. Consider allying in librarian conclave and raven wings if you and your friends wants to step up the competitiveness of the game after he has learn to play basic tau.

He posted the Tau player's list and it didn't include any Riptides or Broadsides so its highly unlikely that he would put interceptor on the Crisis Suits. Wolves can still do ok vs Tau but its not an easy match. Pods are still quite good if you use them well because interceptor limits the number of units that can fire and there is usually a lack of markerlight support. Pods also close the gap taking away the Tau's range advantage. In addition why would you bother with a raven wing to "counter" Tau when Tau have some of the most abundant Ignore Cover in the game.

Actually, most competitive tau list has intercepting drones due to drone network vx 1-0 formation with at least 16 intercepting marker drones. So as you can see tau can shoot units entering reserve almost at full strength. In my list, only my fire warriors and commanders do not intercept. Drop pod is actually not effective against tau. close distance landing of drop pod to tau gun line is actually prefered as not all tau guns are long range. Some are in fact medium to short range such as smart missile systems, burst cannon, plasma and fusion. Dropping in close means that more guns can shoot at your unit.

In regards to raven wing, it is still good idea against tau. Why? because they will be part of the wolve friend death star. When your unit is invisible, tau has to work extra hard to get that marker light on the death star unit since tau can no longer share special rule when shooting as hunter contingent army. If the tau need to take away 2 marker counter just to take out cover saves of the invisible death star, that is going to hurt the tau shooting accuracy or effect his ability to launch d missiles. Trust me on this, i have fought many invisible death star with my tau in tournaments and I have to work hard to get maker light on them. I bring 20-24 marker units in my tau list and most tau list dont bring that much marker.

This is a 750 point game between two players who seem to be relatively new to the game. Don't think invisible superfriend deathstars are needed here.

 Vankraken wrote:

Turtlesoup wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 Son of Russ wrote:
Just realized after my friend and I's last match that jet pack units only over 6'' in the movement phase. Tha'ts my bad for thinking they were just like jump pack units. That makes suits a lot easier to deal with. Even with that extra movement I have still been able to best him so far. Thanks for the advice everyone. I must admit though putting drop pods in his face every time is getting a little repetitive.

Jet Packs are the ones that can make the 2d6 thrust move in the assault phase so was he doing that in addition to the 12" movement or was he just treating them as Jump? The thrust moves can sometimes be even more problematic than just having 12" movement during the movement phase. If you don't like running pods all the time then you can look to use Rhinos or take more mobile units like Thunderwolves or Skyclaws. Footslogging is generally not the way to go unless you have something (like wulfen) making your footsloggers faster. Footslogging against Tau is really difficult due to their long range shooting and their relative mobility with their "Jump Shoot Jump" from Crisis Suits and Riptides.

Turtlesoup wrote:
Congrats, but i think he is not playing tau right if he does not intercept pods on arrival. A pure wolf list against competitive tau list is not a match. Consider allying in librarian conclave and raven wings if you and your friends wants to step up the competitiveness of the game after he has learn to play basic tau.

He posted the Tau player's list and it didn't include any Riptides or Broadsides so its highly unlikely that he would put interceptor on the Crisis Suits. Wolves can still do ok vs Tau but its not an easy match. Pods are still quite good if you use them well because interceptor limits the number of units that can fire and there is usually a lack of markerlight support. Pods also close the gap taking away the Tau's range advantage. In addition why would you bother with a raven wing to "counter" Tau when Tau have some of the most abundant Ignore Cover in the game.

Actually, most competitive tau list has intercepting drones due to drone network vx 1-0 formation with at least 16 intercepting marker drones. So as you can see tau can shoot units entering reserve almost at full strength. In my list, only my fire warriors and commanders do not intercept. Drop pod is actually not effective against tau. close distance landing of drop pod to tau gun line is actually prefered as not all tau guns are long range. Some are in fact medium to short range such as smart missile systems, burst cannon, plasma and fusion. Dropping in close means that more guns can shoot at your unit.

In regards to raven wing, it is still good idea against tau. Why? because they will be part of the wolve friend death star. When your unit is invisible, tau has to work extra hard to get that marker light on the death star unit since tau can no longer share special rule when shooting as hunter contingent army. If the tau need to take away 2 marker counter just to take out cover saves of the invisible death star, that is going to hurt the tau shooting accuracy or effect his ability to launch d missiles. Trust me on this, i have fought many invisible death star with my tau in tournaments and I have to work hard to get maker light on them. I bring 20-24 marker units in my tau list and most tau list dont bring that much marker.

This is a 750 point game between two players who seem to be relatively new to the game. Don't think invisible superfriend deathstars are needed here.

Agreed, but as to my previous post, I told him what would happen if they step it up, which means they are both becoming more famiiliar to their armies and becoming more competitive. It is just and extended discussion of possible future games if both becomes better at it. So if both are getting better than the wolve player will be unable to play the tau without calling in some allies. Thats the point i want to make, not about fitting in invisible start to a 750pts friendly game.

Yeah no need on planning on doing any kind of deathstar type games in the near future. My buddy doesn't have the money to buy models anytime soon(he actually owes me $50 still) and as much as I enjoy the game don't have much interest to get to that level of competitive play. I like being able to play around with units and have somewhat fluffy battles but the tau are a hard fight so I haven't played around as much as I normally would because I have to get the most for my points. I'm pretty sure my friend doesn't feel exactly the same way as I do and will eventually try and use some sort of OP lists that I will have no answer to without looking for answers on forums such as this one. I have a fair bit of experience with my wolves against Astra Militarum and Chaos Space Marines but again they weren't so focused on winning that they would use overly competitive tactics. I guess you could say I am just a casual player, that being said I do enjoy discussing tactics and getting new ideas so let's keep this conversation going. I am sure that it will at the very least help others that are looking for strategies.

 Fayric wrote:

Qlanth wrote:
If you have thunderwolf cavalry they will be able to move really quickly across the board too and those Storm Shields should keep you alive long enough to get into melee.

This is more like it, however you need some luck still, and lots of TWC.

I would probably do a boring drop pod assault instead. A couple of Grey hunter units with 2 plasma guns junping out of drop pods real close to priority targets. And having TWC advancing across the board at the same time will at least force the TAU player to either focus on the heavy hitting cavalry or GH plasma + assault in turn 2.
Even better would ofcourse be a unit of wolf guard with combi plasma + priest (for rerollable plasma 1s) dropping in, but it takes some effort to just build the unit.

Having wulfen in flying transports sound tempting, but TAU could probably table you before they got in, due to the large amount of Points they use up.

This is the correct answer. As someone who plays Tau, being in our face with drop pods really puts pressure on us to reposition and forces you to move a certain way. If you put pressure with drop pods while advancing with TWC to cut us off, that would be the best play.

Rhinos are useless unless you're massing them with a battle company style army. They'll get blown up by practically any unit in the codex.