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Yesterday I played my second game vs. Tau. I decided to try to outgun them with my SM army instead of running the whole way... Vindicator and whirlwind were gone the first turn along with almost 1/4 of the rest of my army.... OUCH.
On another note, I decided to paint my new vindicator purple because my friend thinks purple's "Pimped" and is his favourite colour. Atleast if anyone makes fun of it, it can blast them with a S 10 hit.

So that was why we never try to outgun Tau. The end.

(Didn't put this in battle reports because it's more of just a general statement than a whole battle report)






-Orkishly

Erm, did you try to use cover at all?

Your tanks are not invulnerable (not compared to Tau railguns). Use cover. Sometimes it's better to trade off shooting for a turn if it means you will be in a better position next turn.

There's nothing wrong with trying to outshoot the Tau with SM, but I would always make sure to have a fast strike element, to both prune a threatening unit early (pathfinders or Broadsides) on and also to force them to react to you, which allows you to reatin the intiative.

Scout bikers or BP/CC Scouts in a LS Storm are brilliant for this vs Tau. Either can easily line up a first turn charge on anything exposed (or with enough space in the case of the Storm) and they can pose a credible threat to armour as well as suits and troops.

Jack

In my experience, fighting Tau at range is a losing proposition. They simply get many more and better shots at longer range than you ever will with marines.

Its not impossiable but, it is definately not a good plan A.

I'd recommend relying on that famous space marine flexability and getting up on that Tau players face. As Jackmjor stated stated getting up in their face and forcing them to react to you is basically required when fighting Tau.

They have the rather dubious distiction of being the worst army in the game in CC therefore they must react disproportionately to any unit that threats to lock them up in combat.

I've found that at least 2-3 units should be headed straight for the Tau turn one.

Good luck showing those Space Socialists the glory of Space Fascism.