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Made in fi
Fresh-Faced New User





To begin with: Hey y'all. I am very very new to the warhammer 40k.

I have a problem with Tau. A good friend of mine is an awesome tactician and I would like to beat him in our first match with Dark Angels.
What I remember, his army so far consists of..

36 Fire Warriors,
3 Crisis Battlesuits with Missile pods, Multitrackers, Shield Generators and Plasma Rifles.
3 Broadsides with god knows what dakka
3 Hammerheads with Railguns
A Stealthsuit team (of 6?) with god knows what
3 Piranhas. (withgodknowswhat)

I know I wasn't too precise about his guns, but you get the idea that he will stay in cover the whole game leaving best possible cones of line of sight to shoot. Also keeping his Hammerheads and other big guns as far away as possible.
Now the question remains.. I love Deathwing. I started to get those Terminators half a year back and thought to myself not to do anything else but full army of Terminators. I have thought of getting as much termies inside Land Raiders and trying to move (and shoot) using best possible covers as I can. I would like to Deep Strike because I love the whole concept of Deep Striking but it has its risks since Deathwing does not have any OP guidance system like Drop Pods (except Belial now<3). Ravenwing would mix the nice Full-Terminator-Army-Wuju but would grant me Teleport Homers. Then I started to ponder the Death/Raven combination.
And one of the results of my train of thought was Outflanking via Scout rule. Would it work? Make a one relatively big Bike Squadron and use Outflank. 67% chance I get to deploy them to the side I want. Worst case scenario would be that I get the side I didn't want, but I would still be VERY MUCH closer to my enemy rather than walk across the whole battlefield. My Terminators would have Hammers and Storm Shields, so they could walk/run that small distance in a relatively short time. I could possibly pick a Predator or a (Devastator Squad of 7/8 Lascannons) to draw as much fire as possible to give Terminators time. This could work since I would deploy the Ravenwing 2" apart from each other. That would give a lot of space for the Deathwing to Deep Stike next to them widely (since the Teleport Homers would work as long as one Terminator would be placed within 6 inches of the Ravenwing and therefore would be a safe landing with no risks. And with the lovely Run rule, I could get close relatively quickly. Ravenwing could also try to assault to lock units in Close Combat (well, anything they can) and possibly block line of sight to give the Terminators more cover.

I would not be too stressed out to go and try this myself and find out whether it works or not, unless I wanted to impress my fellow player!
Still as a new player, I am not too familiar with rules and tactics so far, so I thought to share my idea here and get feedback and possible guidelines how to approach this Tau Boom Boom -problem.
Thank you in advance!

 
   
Made in us
Water-Caste Negotiator





As a Tau player, I'd be more concerned with facing an all Deathwing army personally. 2+/5++ or 2+/3++ is a lot harder to deal with than 3+/4+ cover saves.

He'll be bringing 5 Railguns, 3 plasma rifles, and probably 3 fusion guns to the fight. That's a whopping 11-14 AP2 shots per turn, most of which need to be within 24" to be effective, and several of which are probably BS3. You shouldn't be losing a lot of models to that little firepower. While having some Hammernators will be a benefit, I don't think you need to focus on them to the exclusion of regularnators. He just doesn't have the weight of AP2 to make you worry. The Crisis and Piranhas are pretty vulnerable to small arms fire, and Broadsides / Hammerheads get munched in CC.

The Firewarriors and Stealth Suits put out a lot of dakka, but it's only BS3, and you get your armor saves against it. Statistically, if all of them rapid fire against your Termies, you'll lose about 5.

Assuming you're taking Belial and about 20-25 Terminators, I'd make sure you had about 1-2 Heavy Flamers (FWs go poof), 1-2 Assault Cannons, and the rest Cyclones. The Krak missiles will ID his Crisis suits, and threaten the Hammerheads as well. Assault Cannons are always a fun choice. Make sure you've got some Termies with SBs in there as well - you'll need the extra dakka. Ideally, 2 squads with CML/TH/SS, TH/SS, 2xSB, and Sargent, 1-2 with HF/PF, 2xTH/SS, 1xSB, Sargent, and 1-2 with AssCan / 2xTH/SS, 1xSB, Sargent should do well. That's 20-25 models with 2+ and invuls, enough TH/SS to shield the AP2 shots with proper positioning, and plenty of PFs/THs to hammer things to paste. Do a Deathwing Assault with everything dropping Turn 1, and get into CC ASAP. He won't have the mobility to evade you, and he doesn't have the firepower to outgun you.
   
Made in us
Shrieking Traitor Sentinel Pilot





Being a Tau player, I can tell you a few things:

1) The Broadsides are AT, and amazing at it. They will also kill termies, but only one each per turn. If they don't have shields (little round things) then use good AP, they are multi-wound with 2+ armour.

2) Railgun HH is best for AT, but can also drop good strength AP4 pie plates.

3) Those crisis suits, if he has them in the same configuration, are well rounded. The can mess up light armour (transports) and tear up termies close in. (The missles are basically auto cannons). However, specced as they are, they are very lacking in firepower past 24". Those shield gens give them a 4++, so you want to drown them in volume of fire instead of wasting your good AP on them.

4) That stealth team gets 2/3+ cover save. Close to melee.

If he takes the gunline approach, the best thing you can do is DS in and murder things in melee.

Watch your flanks and rear, anything that doesn't start on the table is just waiting for weakness.

Fire warriors and kroot are his only scoring units. Murder them. Hard.
   
Made in fi
Fresh-Faced New User





So I guess I won't be doing RW/DW combination? Did the outflank sound that bad? Or is risking it all and Deep Striking right in front of him with all I got the best solution? I mean the scatter is pretty nasty.. :/
Also - Really? Outgun him? Outgun Tau?

 
   
 
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