Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys, have a game coming up where im tau and vsing an Imperial guard player. I happen to know he brings a lot of AV14, like 4+ tanks or something.

How do i get around this? Charging obviously isnt my first choice and i dont know about wasting so many shots into them firing. Just looking for opinions. Thanks!

Best way is probably an Optimized Stealth Cadre. You get BS4, Ignores Cover and count as hitting the rear armor with that formation. Best taken with three Ghostkeels and minimum units of Stealth suits.

Otherwise, deep strike some single Crisis suits with dual fusions and hit that rear armor. 52 points isn't too bad for a suicide unit.

Stormsurges work okay for this as well. You've got some strength D missiles (if you can get some markerlight hits on the Guard tanks) and you can take a Strength 10 Ordnance gun.

The final good option for dealing with AV14 is probably the often-overlooked Hammerhead tank. That railgun packs a mean punch (S10 AP1).

Hope that helps.

You're best be is the stealth squads, though you may want to try and jet them back into cover after firing. Doubling up on fusion blasters will let you shred into rear armor, or even any armor at that point because of the melta profile. You're only problem would be models that ignore that rule (i'e Land Raiders)

A hammerhead with Long-strike is not a bad unit to run, if you are going to run more than one. Than I suggest bringing a sky ray in the least, not to mention loading out the drone turrets with missile pods. Most people would equate firepower for the Tau with a broadside, but its still a single suit, and if memory serves can be one shot by a Leman Russ.

Railheads are pretty terrible at actual anti tank, though their formation (the Armoured Interdiction Cadre) makes them passable as it lets you mitigate one of their major weaknesses - a single shot. Now you just have to deal with glancing on 4's instead of getting ~5 BS3 fusion shots for the same price.

As for missiles instead of the drones on Tau Tanks, I would contend that if you're hunting Guard tanks then missiles are a bad choice as you'll either be able to glance the Taurox to death with your pulse rifles and not need the railgun or you won't be able to hurt a Chim/Russ/Bassie from the front with missiles, at which point, why not take the drones to let them detatch and go be a nuisance, block charges, charge small squads, interfear with movement or even just provide an emergency cover save by using their assault move to hand out a 5+ cover for intervening models after your shooting phase is done.

Having run Tau armour lists frequently, I have to say that drones outperform SMS on hammerheads every time. I wouldn't go past SMS on the Skyray though, it's quite useful for planes and matches the range on ML's well too, unlike the 2 hammerheads which sport far longer ranges on their main guns. Drones don't give up killpoints with, so you can freely harrrass units with them without fear of giving up anything, not to mention the glory of getting those pulse carbines to pin something or the utter win of getting them behind tanks and going on a rampage because str5 vs rear AV10 is dangerous since even though they're BS2 [3 with a drone net], they're also twin linked and 4 shots is enough to make people uncomfortable when you're hitting more than half the time and glancing on 5's.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I am terrified of my hammerhead, to many misses and uselessness.

I do like the idea of small fusion blaster crisis unit drops. Maybe ill throw 3 of those in my list and see how that fairs.

Along with a stormsurge in the back.

idk why i didnt think of th deepstrike, im so used to plasma rifles on my criis suit

An OSC is the definitive answer, but fusions and Stormsurges will also work, as noted. You could get creative and include a Canoptek Harvest to chop down that armor with wraiths. Also, don't forget about gunrigs. The gunfort, 3 gunrigs, is a pretty mean formation. 3 twin-linked armorbane railguns will pretty reliably toast a vehicle per turn for 255 pts.

Go punch them with your MCs. I'm not joking. IG basically can't hurt large Tau suits, so go step on their tanks.

I stormed the castle and took a tournament on Saturday that urged everyone to bring their nastiest big stuff. Saw some nasty armor.

I tabled all three opponents. The Ghostkeels were MVP's.

 Jancoran wrote:
I stormed the castle and took a tournament on Saturday that urged everyone to bring their nastiest big stuff. Saw some nasty armor.

I tabled all three opponents. The Ghostkeels were MVP's.

That doesn't really tell anyone anything. Did you shoot them with Ghostkeels or assault them?

I'd assume he shot with them since OSC Ghostkeels brutalize armor. That must've been one hell of a tourney win, too, since it's apparently worth posting about in two separate threads.

This is why I usually top out at Rhinos, except in my lucifer armor task force list.

I also maintain that "nasty" armor basically doesn't exist in 7th. Anything a vehicle can do, MCs/GMCs do 5X better. Except transport, of course. But what transports count as "nasty" armor? Every non-artillery tank is basically a joke, and marine tanks are also jokes. What's left? Super heavies? Hammerheads?

MilkmanAl wrote:
I'd assume he shot with them since OSC Ghostkeels brutalize armor. That must've been one hell of a tourney win, too, since it's apparently worth posting about in two separate threads.

Relevant in two threads.

Optimized stealth cadre, the way mine is, has four attempts with melta, two with Ion Raker. No armor is safe. The stealthsuits kill armor as well. So it was fun.

In other tournaments, ghostkeels really helped against Ynnarri which is tough. 1-1 against ynnarri and the loss required epic luck for his part. So this is just me telling you they are a very strong but underused tool.

If people aren't used to armor being garbage in 7th, they're not playing the right people. You don't need to be up against Optimized Stealth Cadre for that to be a big problem. Just autocannons or scatterlasers.

Doesnt change what I said and this thread is about beating IG with Tau, ixnay on the autocannonsay and assaulay annonscay.

Ig have a great formation that is armored and one that isnt. The ghostkeels deal well w both. But lets face it: if youre already playing I G, you must admit that they tend to play armored more often.

Speaking from the IG perspective, I will say the Optimized Stealth Cadre hurts like hell. The auto-rear armor hits coupled with ignoring both LoS and cover stinks of though, IMO. It's too "point and click" without even taking maneuvering or positioning into question whatsoever. You can literally remove whatever you want on the same half of the table as the Ghostkeel, only (Tzeentch) Daemon invul shenanigans can save you now.


...But they certainly get the job done.

Relevant in two threads.

Marginally so, at best. Your frequent and shameless self promotion is nothing new, so I suppose I should learn to let it go. Newer forum members don't know any better, though.

If people aren't used to armor being garbage in 7th, they're not playing the right people.

I'd agree with that. Vehicles just ain't what they used to be, and Tau have lots of excellent options to deal with them. S7 spam is tough to overcome these days.

 Jancoran wrote:
Doesnt change what I said and this thread is about beating IG with Tau, ixnay on the autocannonsay and assaulay annonscay.

Ig have a great formation that is armored and one that isnt. The ghostkeels deal well w both. But lets face it: if youre already playing I G, you must admit that they tend to play armored more often.

Not in my experience. Most of the good IG players I know gave up on anything tougher than Chimera hulls. Wraithcannon WKs are much more common than Stealth cadre, and basically do the same thing.

At any rate, IG don't have the cheese of interceptor, so deep striking fusion suits are quite viable. But yes, you can still jet a Riptide across the table and step on the tanks as well. There is no Russ variant that really deals well with Riptides, as I think beast hunter shells are AP 3 only. You don't need a Ghostkeel.

An IG armor list is crippled by the Stealth cadre also because IG can't put ignore cover on their tanks with orders like they should be able to.

Tau usually have easy time vs ig. Especially mc spam tau. You're just tougher, faster and shootier. And mc have decent mellee. And ig lack mc-killing stuff relying on weapons and artillery that's outdated in 7-th edition.

MilkmanAl wrote:

Your frequent and shameless self promotion is nothing new, so I suppose I should learn to let it go.

You should let it go. Don't treat success like a crime and don't treat celebrating it like one either. Begrudging people their success is kinda not cool.

Crab Pot Theory

I don't think that's his angle.

Its the end result.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

Not in my experience. Most of the good IG players I know gave up on anything tougher than Chimera hulls. .

Yes but they take a lot of them. think about the two best formations. The Artillery company: Armored and susceptible to Ghostkeels. Veteran Chimera spam? vulnerable. The big blob of blobbiness: susceptible to everything, but hopefully its bulk can withstand the pressure long enough. I just described a huge percentage of IG lists! Either way the Ghostkeel can do work there also. So in the end analysis, whether the IG mix the two together as i do or they don't, the Optimized Stealth Cadre works very well. its kind of a tweener unit that isnt as tough as Riptides but it can so as much damage as they can. Less wounds, easier to double out so theres a reason why you see more Riptides. Ignores cover is a thing. Manticores can drop all the Drones in the unit in one go, maybe double one out as well and end up spewing Tau goo all over the place if you take Ghostkeels so its not like the IG are powerless against them. Newp. But if the Ghostkeels reach you, via deep strike for example, they will end three vehicles in one turn. generally, that's all the vehicles they needed to end. Make sense?So its a scalpel and you gotta use it correctly or it will get blasted by the IG. Nonetheless, when used to its potential, it's simply terrifying.

Sounds like the Ghostkeel is really just some fusion suits glued together as to not lose firepower as wounds are taken. And to make S8/S9 hits only take off one wound instead of doubling out a suit. And have stealth tricks on top of it. Standard MCs being better than infantry equivalents cheese. It bet this thing is undercosted like every other large Tau suit.

Most lists have to drop combi-melta terminators or melta ASM or something like that. Tau get to drop this thing. And Tau wonder why they get complained about.

Edit: I just looked up the rules for this thing. Yeah, it's super undercosted for a shooty MC.

"it's simply terrifying"

Because it's undercosted. Blowing up overcosted IG tanks with undercosted Tau MCs should not be a revelation to any experienced player.

Meanwhile: Hunters eye in a unit of Grav Centurions. Just saying.

No the Ghostkeel is a LOT more points. a Crisis suit is 22. the Ghostkeel is a whopping 130 per suit, base and 150 when its fully kitted out. A Crisis team can take the Cyclic Ion Blaster and the TL Fusion for a total of..i wanna say... 52 points? No codex to check. So that is its closest Crisis equivalent to the kitt'd Ghostkeel.

The Ghostkeel therefore pays about 100 points for its extra wounds, Drones and such. It's a pretty considerable cost factor to "upgrade" from a Crisis Suit to a Ghostkeel and thus not free but once you do, it's pretty cool.

People complain because they complain. It's in their nature Martel732. i could play ANY force and you'd hear the same stuff. I played a Genestealer player locally and he isnt quite there with all the models he wants to use, to be fair, but I was playing the "supposedly" weak Dark Eldar and he had plenty to complain about when the game was over by 3 or top of four depending on how you wanted to look at it. I play my Grey Knights and as soon as i pick up 22 dice for the Psyker phase, there's the loud sigh because they hate the phase ( I agree) or they hate the hammering i am about to deliver. I play my Chaos Space Marines and they roll their eyes and say "Well this will be a short game" because they know iam going to pop a few transports, end whats inside and hollow out an entire quadrant of the board here right quick.

People complain. I hate Forge World and wish it was banned, but i just played in a tournament in which i had to face three straight Forge Worldy lists and you know what I did? I took out my feelings constructively or...in this case...DEconstructively. hehehe.

So if Tau is the army you want to complain about its funny how we're in a THREAD about Tau needing HELP dealing with what some say is a weak codex, the IG. Lol. It's all a matter of perspective. How much have you done to adjust to the new situation is the real question?

I asked you via PM about the Drop Pods and you told me it had never occurred to you to drop them empty! ALREADY you're a better player because NOW you have that tool mentally...because of something someone told you after analyzing a loss. The loss taught you something and now you can go back at it and play your Blood Angels better than you ever have, THAT is the right response to getting beaten down for a game. The wrong approach is crowing endlessly about Tau..or Eldar...or whatever. Figure out what to do about them like this poster is doing about IG, instead of constantly crying the victims tale. Just my two cents.

Having access to undercosted models still helps a lot. 150 is far too cheap for that thing after reading its rules carefully. The bottom line for the op is that the tau have access to far superior units than the ig and they can press that advantage to engage ig armor. Tau have numerous ways to deliver fusion weapons. Maybe the ghostkeel is the best; wouldn't surprise me given its mc status.

Hammerheads aren't the solution because railgun and lascannon type weapons are heavily neutered in 7th. Hull pointing units out with hymp or ion rakers is a much better bet, and fusion will knock out the heaviest armor up close.

The ig are indeed a weak codex because they, like ba and orks, have nothing as cost effective as a ghostkeel. I guess there's some psychology to av 14 front tanks, but you just have to realize that russes are actually poor units.

 Jancoran wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:

Your frequent and shameless self promotion is nothing new, so I suppose I should learn to let it go.

You should let it go. Don't treat success like a crime and don't treat celebrating it like one either. Begrudging people their success is kinda not cool.

Crab Pot Theory

lol, I'm ok with shameless self promotion...especially if it leads to expansion of my knowledgebase. Speaking of which - have you considered sticking with the TL flamers for your secondary? 3 of those make an awesome wall of death coupled with all of the other supporting fire. So far I have not managed to get close enough to any armor to make use of fusion blasters. I've been running my Tau army like a really, really large death star moving around like a single unit so if some assaults me - boom tons of supporting fire.

 necron99 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

MilkmanAl wrote:

Your frequent and shameless self promotion is nothing new, so I suppose I should learn to let it go.

You should let it go. Don't treat success like a crime and don't treat celebrating it like one either. Begrudging people their success is kinda not cool.

Crab Pot Theory

lol, I'm ok with shameless self promotion...especially if it leads to expansion of my knowledgebase. Speaking of which - have you considered sticking with the TL flamers for your secondary? 3 of those make an awesome wall of death coupled with all of the other supporting fire. So far I have not managed to get close enough to any armor to make use of fusion blasters. I've been running my Tau army like a really, really large death star moving around like a single unit so if some assaults me - boom tons of supporting fire.

Well if you're asking me/the group (looks like you're asking MilkmanAI but I'll throw two cents in on flamers) no. I would never keep the flamers on there. I am hunting with the Ghostkeels. I get to within 18" of my target with all three, and i Target Lock away! Then I bounce. As they must be reasonably close to do their thing at full strength, many fast units can catch them; so I do understand the thought on Flamers. However, I am accompanied with my Stealthsuits, who are also laying the lumber and so if it seems inevitable that I could be charged, I think I'd opt for throwing one of them to the wolves to block for me instead of giving up my impressive killing power for the flamers defensive advantages. The jump backs help but their is only so far you can run with Celestine and Magnus and other big bad guys running around.

I Build mine with three Ghostkeels in the Optimized Stealth Cadre. Two Ion Rakers and one Fusion Collider, along with three TL fusion Blasters. Two Target Locks. If it's a large enough game I add Early Warning Overrideto two of them and on one IonRaker I put the thing that makes you BS 2 on overwatch.

I put 5 or 6 Stealthsuits out with a Fusion on each unit. After all, Gotta start somewhere on those WraithKnights.

Formation costs about 650 to 700 points to do it. Results have been excellent but you are not going to want them tied up by stuff, so look out for Dark Eldar speed armies, or any army that has a lot of fast melee that can sport good saves. I've been torn apart and lost the unit to just one enemy character before. Lol. Dante creamed the unit once which was a bummer, But hey: thats why there's a Dante around. The FnP from the priest helped the matter.

Armor is just not as cool as it was in previous editions. Some form of change to the armor rules could help in 8th Edition. I don't know where the balance would be. I suppose what they COULD do is say that any one unit can only cause one Hull Point, even though you still get multiple rolls on the table for the result. So for example a unit hits a Leman Russ and causes 4 damage results. You'd roll for all four damage results, but only one Hull Point would be removed. this would allow it to still be destroyed, but disallow it from being hull pointed out in one go? It's a thought. Just to emulate how tough armor can be. Killing a Leman Russ might take you four units worth of shooting! Now the Leman Russ might be stripped of weapons by then but its not dead and that does matter...

Also, one more thing: list tailoring is not a good way to learn how to play. You don't always know the nature or even the codex of your next opponent.

Martel732 wrote:
Also, one more thing: list tailoring is not a good way to learn how to play. You don't always know the nature or even the codex of your next opponent.

Im pretty sure list tailoring hasn't come up. What are you talking about? if by that you mean "Adjusting successfully to the new reality of the people you play" then i guess its tailoring. i don't see it that way. You're an idiot if you dont adjust to the people you are playing. Just saying.

Ghostkeels are a solid unit, but I wouldn't say they're undercosted. They're pretty short-ranged, and anything that gets within 12" of them will dismantle them handily. With that in mind, I definitely would not keep the flamers on. You want to be jumping in and out of range, so hopefully you'll never even be able to use them.

You should let it go. Don't treat success like a crime and don't treat celebrating it like one either. Begrudging people their success is kinda not cool.

Nobody is begrudging you success or treating yours as a crime. I like that you do well in tournaments and can share your experience. However, "I won a Stormsurge!" while cool (and something I'd like to do!) isn't exactly helpful. Ditto your post in this thread. I'd be excited for you and share in your celebration if you didn't have a long history of popping into threads to advertise your blog and/or drop a line about how good you are at the game. As things are, it's just annoying. You have plenty of experience to draw from and can help people considerably. Maybe just offer advice instead of peacocking all over the place? You'll notice that nobody else does what you do, despite some pretty successful players posting in the big Tau thread.

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Also, one more thing: list tailoring is not a good way to learn how to play. You don't always know the nature or even the codex of your next opponent.

Im pretty sure list tailoring hasn't come up. What are you talking about? if by that you mean "Adjusting successfully to the new reality of the people you play" then i guess its tailoring. i don't see it that way. You're an idiot if you dont adjust to the people you are playing. Just saying.

There's a big difference between meta consideration and specific information about a specific list. Using that knowledge is not cool.