How to kill the Tau... Target Priority and Tactics.

[Denzark]

Hello all

A couple of trends minorly concern me at the minute. The first is an increasing realisation that 40K is coming full circle to gunline. The second, is that the Tau seem best able to do this, and counter other armies. mr Tau player says: "You have fliers? I can markerlight and intercept and Twin-link against fliers using manga suit XV145. You use an assault army? My Warlord ability lets me role an extra 196 D6 at +2 BS when you charge any of my units, even if the warlord isn't anywhere near the combat because I sold the mini on ebay last week."

So, with people slinging around silly numbers of dice due to Tau abilities, I confess I find it quite intimidating.

To redress the balance, I thought I could post this thread, and encourage peeps to deflate the Tau. What are their vulnerabilities, what units need to die first, how do you reduce these markerlight thingies to a reasonable level? Tau players, Learn2Eel, Nabby, other people with handy nderstanding of these blue fish creeps - how do we neutralise them (don't say fight them in hth, I want decent advice) and let the likes of Kharn, Ghazgkull and Hive Tyrants slaughter them in the way to which we are more accustomed?

All thoughts appreciated, if on the other hand you want to big up Tau please do it in a different thread - this is to have a Penn and Teller stylee debunking of Tau.

[Tynskel]

seriously, fighting them in h2h is a good idea. If you take a large squad that can wither the firepower of the overwatch, you can punch through the Tau.

but, if you are going to try to shoot them to death: ignores cover AP4 weapons are important. Str8 weapons for everything else.

Granted, one of the tactics for the Tau to counter assault is drones. Drones make the squad I4 for the purposes of running away–that's important.

[Magpie]

A bit like the "vehicles are dead" doom and gloom that came out when 6th first hit i think the Tau are being a little over rated.

Sure they have had some massive improvements but the general wisdom was that they disparately needed it. They do have lots of T5 shooting now for sure but I still think they are not unassailable.

Land Raiders will still be good assault vehicles against them and my plan (Grey Knights) to beat them is going to centre around Deep Striking and shooting.
Terminators loaded up with psycannon and incinerators should be pretty effective by using teleport homers etc to DS in their midst.
Warp Rift from a Librarian should take a heavy toll of their low Initiative. Blind grenades should help a bit with their overwatch.
My favourite tactic of hidden Purgation Squads with Techmarines and Conversion beamers should also serve to whittle them down a bit.

[pauljc]

That's a bit of a shortsighted way to look at an army.

Tau are not a gunline army. They simply have the capacity to form a gunline like pretty much every other army does. As written in their fluff and combat tactics, Tau are high-mobility ranged army. Position-fire-position. Tau gunlines are simply asking to get pie-plated, flamered, or assaulted.

The reason people seem to think Tau are a gunline army, is because (especially now) they have anti-assault tricks and rules designed to repell close-combat units. However, any assault-based force will still chew them up. You will just lose a few models in the process. But if you aren't backing up your assault unit with others, or pinning fire, then you're asking to get nailed on the charge.

Also, it is not impossible to out-shoot Tau either. And don't forget, pretty much every weapon in the game is wounding them on 3+ or better! :)

Don't be afraid, just learn to understand them, and work around it.

Deepstrike, Outflank, templates, Big Guns.. all work fine against Tau. They simply have an answer for most tactical problems, and that answer is tech

[Caitsidhe]

The first is an increasing realisation that 40K is coming full circle to gunline.

What do you mean? I started saying the Gun was King the moment I read the 6th Edition book and have been harping on that since day one. :) I think most of us realized it at once, but many people clung to the notion that they would be able to operate as they used to do because those were the models they had. The Tau are intimidating but the best way to deal with them (I have found so far) is the Drop & Pop. This means you drop lots of small units with Heavy Flamers (like Obliterators) and Melta to kill their fancy vehicles. This waters down their interceptor as they have to waste shots at 2+ Armor. My "All Comers" List has two Helldrakes and three Drop & Pop units all capable of destroying entire units if even 1-2 of the models survive.

It goes without saying that if you are judicious in which units you drop and pop first, it is to your advantage. Getting rid of their support options can quickly make them dead in the water.

[DarkLink]

but, if you are going to try to shoot them to death: ignores cover AP4 weapons are important. Str8 weapons for everything else.


Pretty much it. Hit their infantry with your smaller guns, usually starting with Pathfinders. ID their suits with big guns. Their heavy firepower tends to be concentrated in a few units (crisis suits, riptides, broadsides), and their markerlights are mostly restricted to pathfinders (though there are enough ways of sprinkling in markerlights that they'll still be annoying).

[Denzark]

Some good answers here. But, at the moment a lot of responses are 'big handfuls'. I would like to see specifics if possible. For example, some of the Tau 'boasts' see people quote 'such and such can fire 26 missile shots'. How do you close that down - or are they strength 4 so you can ignore for a turn whilst you manouevre into charge range?

Markerlights seems to be one tricksy blue fish trick - what units use them, if I can fire at one unit with one unit, and I want to close down markerlights, do I shoot Paddy O'Tas the Warlord, so they lose 1 markerlight, or shout the pathfinders who will lose them 5?

@ Caitsidhe - in terms of more specifics, what ARE the support options to which you refer - all I see across the table is orange painted Manga-a-likes - I need someone to by name, detail what these threats are.

[Caitsidhe]

@ Caitsidhe - in terms of more specifics, what ARE the support options to which you refer - all I see across the table is orange painted Manga-a-likes - I need someone to by name, detail what these threats are.

I'm talking about Pathfinders and any unit by which other more dangerous units are getting their Marker Lights. I also consider Broadsides support since those are the damn things which are going be a problem for my planes. Tau are finesse lists which are very depedent upon one another to get peak results. My All Comers has two Helldrakes. If those birds survive to do their thing they will destroy, quite literally, more than half the Tau army. That means I want to take out whatever units can assist them in shooting at my Death from Above as much as possible. I will probably Vector Strike those units as I come in too. I will, if I can, use the terrain on the board to further obscure my model from as many of the interceptor and skyfire shots as I can. Remebmer that they don't get to take those shots if there is no LOS. The best, specific defense is to put a lot of things down from reserves at one time forcing them to dillute their interceptor fire or lose big chunks of their army.

I also take the Burning Brand of Skalathrax and have it on the way as quickly as possible. :D

To me "support" units are any units providing reliable Marker Light, Skyfire, and/or Interceptor. Interceptor units are my PRIMARY targets and I will do everything I can to kill or weaken those. My secondary targets are going to be Marker Lights. Skyfire is annoying but without the interceptor I have a damn good chance of destroying it before it shoots with my Drop and Pop units not to mention my incoming birds.

I also put Dirge Casters on my vehicles and tend to move in hard and fast with them so that when I assault with my Daemon Prince (and I will) they will not be getting any overwatch. If i'm going first I start my Daemon Prince on the board and go right for their big fella or other Interceptor targets. Deployment matters a lot. Tau really love Hammer & Anvil.

[olberon]

as a space wolves player i would say plasma+drop pods and a lot of hack n slash just drop right in the middle of them and start hacking at least that is what i would do

[rpricew]

I say buy the codex and just read through it. It has nice pictures of what every target looks like, and what their weaknesses are.

Usually, you shoot the Pathfinders/Heavy Supports & the Ethereal (little blue guy floating in a chair) first, then the Elites (Crisis Suits/Stealth Suits/Riptide) and then kill a couple of Fire Warriors from each unit and watch them run off the board! Easy Breezy!!

Of course, I play Tyranids and just deepstrike 8 units onto them turn 2, and then multi-assault everything left alive after shooting.

[jifel]

I think something that's going to be great vs. Tau is Barrage Weapons. Tau pretty much will never have troops in a transport, maybe one 'Fish at tops. Barrage weapons can hide far back and out of LoS, therefore can't be markerlit. Tau have some ignore LoS shooting but its really just Strength 5 Missile Pods. I plan on a standard of 4 Biovores, which should esily clear out Pathfinders and Fire Warriors and Kroot. Once you remove Markerlight support, Flyers are nasty vs Tau. Flyrants and the Doom and Ymgarl Stealers are a pain for Tau unless they have LOTS of Interceptor, which if they do will have very little Skyfire... fine by me! The priority is kill infantry as fast as you can! Tau also have no super fast units (they usually dont need them) so staying out of Line of Sight is great vs. them, as they dont have much to get around it for clear LoS. (One exception to this is the Farsight Bomb, but I'm not overly worried about that build next to the classic gunline.

[Power Klawz]

If someone DOES drop the farsight bomb on you, fire everything you have at it because you'll only get one shot before everything you love is ash.

Hell throw your shoes at it too.

Death star units are pretty passe at this point, but that one still gives me the fear.

[DarkLink]

Some good answers here. But, at the moment a lot of responses are 'big handfuls'. I would like to see specifics if possible. For example, some of the Tau 'boasts' see people quote 'such and such can fire 26 missile shots'. How do you close that down - or are they strength 4 so you can ignore for a turn whilst you manouevre into charge range?

Part of it was something they can't do anymore. Before the FAQ, everything could buy missile drones for, what, 12pts each? You basically could get two mobile autocannon equivalents on every single unit in your whole army, hence the ~26 missile comments. They made sure to fix that real quick. You can still get a lot of missile, but at the expense of taking, say, high AP weapons (tau missiles are generally str 7 ap 4 36").

Edit:
BTW, has anyone seen the Dakka thread "Riptides are the new Heldrake"? Some person (of whom I have little positive to say about his knowledge of the game) went on a massive, hilarious rant about how impossible broken triple Riptide lists are, and condescendingly dismissed everyone who even slightly disagreed with him. There's some pretty funny stuff in there.

For one, he claims "Riptides always have a 4d6 jump move, plus their 72" range, which means you will never have range to shoot them". Also, "Since they've always got a 2/3+, and 5 wounds, and T6, they're basically unkillable".

[Denzark]

I'm talking about Pathfinders and any unit by which other more dangerous units are getting their Marker Lights. I also consider Broadsides support since those are the damn things which are going be a problem for my planes. Tau are finesse lists which are very depedent upon one another to get peak results. My All Comers has two Helldrakes. If those birds survive to do their thing they will destroy, quite literally, more than half the Tau army. That means I want to take out whatever units can assist them in shooting at my Death from Above as much as possible. I will probably Vector Strike those units as I come in too. I will, if I can, use the terrain on the board to further obscure my model from as many of the interceptor and skyfire shots as I can. Remebmer that they don't get to take those shots if there is no LOS. The best, specific defense is to put a lot of things down from reserves at one time forcing them to dillute their interceptor fire or lose big chunks of their army.

I also take the Burning Brand of Skalathrax and have it on the way as quickly as possible. :D

To me "support" units are any units providing reliable Marker Light, Skyfire, and/or Interceptor. Interceptor units are my PRIMARY targets and I will do everything I can to kill or weaken those. My secondary targets are going to be Marker Lights. Skyfire is annoying but without the interceptor I have a damn good chance of destroying it before it shoots with my Drop and Pop units not to mention my incoming birds.

I also put Dirge Casters on my vehicles and tend to move in hard and fast with them so that when I assault with my Daemon Prince (and I will) they will not be getting any overwatch. If i'm going first I start my Daemon Prince on the board and go right for their big fella or other Interceptor targets. Deployment matters a lot. Tau really love Hammer & Anvil.

Caity THANK YOU this is exactly the sort of detail I am after...


I say buy the codex and just read through it. It has nice pictures of what every target looks like, and what their weaknesses are.

Yes, very clever. Well I say people save your £30 and read this thread. Price if you have nothing sensible to say, go and crayon on another thread.

Usually, you shoot the Pathfinders/Heavy Supports & the Ethereal (little blue guy floating in a chair) first, then the Elites (Crisis Suits/Stealth Suits/Riptide) and then kill a couple of Fire Warriors from each unit and watch them run off the board! Easy Breezy!!

Of course, I play Tyranids and just deepstrike 8 units onto them turn 2, and then multi-assault everything left alive after shooting.


If someone DOES drop the farsight bomb on you, fire everything you have at it because you'll only get one shot before everything you love is ash.

Hell throw your shoes at it too.

Death star units are pretty passe at this point, but that one still gives me the fear.

What is the Farsight bomb?


Thanks for the sensible answers, some good gen here.

[DarkLink]

Farsight, plus a 7 suit bodyguard, with a bunch of target locks so they can shoot at a bunch of different stuff.

[Sonikgav]

One ive worked out comes in just over 900pts.

Farsight
Commander with Iridium armor, TL+Ignore Cover for the unit and a pair of TL flamers
4 guys with Double (double, not Twin Linked) Plasma, 3 with Double Fusion and Target Locks all around except for one guy with Thrusters giving the unit Hit and Run just incase.
Oh and 10 Shield Drones.

[DarkLink]

I'm not gonna lie, I've played the new Tau a couple of times, and I've yet to actually have fun doing it.

[Mr Mystery]

One ive worked out comes in just over 900pts.

Farsight
Commander with Iridium armor, TL+Ignore Cover for the unit and a pair of TL flamers
4 guys with Double (double, not Twin Linked) Plasma, 3 with Double Fusion and Target Locks all around except for one guy with Thrusters giving the unit Hit and Run just incase.
Oh and 10 Shield Drones.

And who in their right mind would field such a unit? Seriously. 900 points, all in one unit? Shield Drones sound great, but I'll just pepper them with small arms fire, which ultimately isn't at all fussed by invulnerable saves, then start with the big boys.....

But how to crack Tau? As others have said, you need to break their synergy. Isolated, your average Tau isn't that much cop. First thing that needs a good kicking are the Pathfinders. They'll have the majority of the markerlights, and if your opponent is sloppy, they'll also be worked forward into isolation. Soon as you can, get them. Yes they'll likely be in cover, but that's good, after a fashion. Point enough weapons their way, and your opponent may be tempted to go to ground. If they do, issue solved, as sure they aren't dead, but they are very much contained. Pinning weapons are also your friend. Tau leadership isn't that high, so well worth considering.

If you've got them, also consider bikes against Tau. Generally pretty respectable firepower, very nippy, and typically a decent toughness. They can go straight through dangerous terrain for the most part, pour on some dakka, and then charge any survivors with a reasonable expectation of winning the combat, but not breaking your opponents unit until their own turn.

And for goodness sake.... Attack en masse. These aren't the old Tau, where it only took a couple of units to get into HTH to carry the day. They've got back up now, and so should you. They can only support fire once per unit per phase. Exploit this. Divide up his firepower. Deep strike, infiltrate, use transports, but for goodness sake coordinate!

Poke your own strategic holes in his line. Takes a bit of practice, but it can be done. Sure Mr Shootydeathkill O'Dangerous and his squad of ill tempered drones can over watch at full BS. But not if you contrive some way to splash his Brians to the four winds before it becomes a concern.

Supporting fire requires each unit to be within 6" of each other. Which means he'll likely be quite bunched up. Do I really need to point out why blast templates, and lots of them would be funny here?

Distract him. Move en masse as well. Present enough targets, and force tactical errors where you can. Divide up that incoming firepower, and reduce his overall effectiveness.

And don't get prissy about your own casualties. If you genuinely expect your superduped mega unit to not only carry the day all by itself, but also emerge unscathed? Pack and go home, you've already lost. You simply never need to hit Tau that hard. If you know you're going up against them, quantity trumps quality in HTH stakes. Even your humble power sword is overkill against most Tau units, so leave it at home. Powerfist? Save it for the Riptide, and the Riptide alone. Trust me. Wiling out a Tau unit on the charge is counter productive, as you'll be left standing around waiting to be shot at. As mentioned before, the trick (and it is a trick, no tactical nuance can guarantee it) is to break him in his own turn, freeing up your units to go pick another fight with only over watch to concern them.

[rpricew]

@ Denzark: Troll much? I'm not giving you grief or a hard time. From what is sounds like in your original posts, you don't have a clue what the Tau forces offer. If you don't have the money to buy the codex, then borrow one from a friend and read it. I bet you could even find a free copy online.

You come on here and ask for us to do it for you. "Tell me what they look like." "Tell me how to kill them." "Tell me what to shoot first."

How about you do a little work first? I gave you some follow up advise that works. But you have to know what the enemy looks like.

all I see across the table is orange painted Manga-a-likes - I need someone to by name, detail what these threats are.
If we say shoot the pathfinders, and you go "I don't know which ones they are" then you've wasted our time! Get real and quit being so defensive.

[Maelstorm]

Throw 2 units into CC with them in 1 turn and make them choose who to hit with support fire. A unit of Scarabs as the first wave followed by Wraiths in the same turn. If they shoot at the incoming Scarabs, the Wraiths attack unmolested. If they ignore the Scarabs and wait for the Wraiths to charge, they are tied-up and their support fire is watered down. Scarabs are large bases, be creative and multi-assault with the scarabs and then you can choose which unit gets punked by the Wraiths as they follow-in.

A cautionary note: run the numbers before the assault and make sure you stay stuck-in CC during his turn to prevent your fun assault crew from getting hammered during the Tau shooting phase.

Marine players: Flamers are your (dirt-cheap) friends. No self-respecting Assault squad should leave home without one (or two)!

[Sonikgav]

I never said the Farsight Bomb will be common, and I overloaded on extras for the Support Shas' O too so that 900 point unit can be thinned down, but that much Firepower, deepstriking into your lines (it doesnt scatter so precision drop) and opening up with (potentially) 30 TL Plasma Rifle shots that ignore cover, at as many different units as it likes is going to hurt. If you get a list like the one I posted with a few Fusion Blasters you also just lost 2/3 tanks as well as your infantry taking a beating.

Its a devastating Alpha strike that can also take a beating, isnt Terrible in combat if you try to tie them up with anything other than a dedicated Combat unit since theyre all at worst, S5, 2 wound MEQ's and Farsight himself is tasty. Then to top it off they hit and run out of combat and open up with that firepower again!

[droozy]

A bit like the "vehicles are dead" doom and gloom that came out when 6th first hit i think the Tau are being a little over rated.

Sure they have had some massive improvements but the general wisdom was that they disparately needed it. They do have lots of T5 shooting now for sure but I still think they are not unassailable.

Land Raiders will still be good assault vehicles against them and my plan (Grey Knights) to beat them is going to centre around Deep Striking and shooting.
Terminators loaded up with psycannon and incinerators should be pretty effective by using teleport homers etc to DS in their midst.
Warp Rift from a Librarian should take a heavy toll of their low Initiative. Blind grenades should help a bit with their overwatch.
My favourite tactic of hidden Purgation Squads with Techmarines and Conversion beamers should also serve to whittle them down a bit.

Rail gun on Hammerhead tank w/ that commander that raises the bs to 5 will pop a land raider before it can get any kind of position. Even 10 terminators disgorged into charge range won't survive supporting fire from 2 squads of fire warriors if they have that HQ that gives them the extra attacks. Don't let them have a pathfinder squad nearby. I played my buddy with his farside commander and retinue, that massive amount of rapid fire twin-linked(because of that one mech that gives up attacks to allow his squadmates to re-roll misses) plasma guns ran through all my termies. These weren't just termies they were Chaos terminators with mark of tzeench(4+ invulnerable). It was painful, they deep-struck in with no scatter into rapidfire range and demolished them.

[droozy]

I'm not gonna lie, I've played the new Tau a couple of times, and I've yet to actually have fun doing it.

Here here

[Power Klawz]

I need to play a 900 point farsight bomb just once before I die. I wonder if anyone would even play against me if they saw it being unpacked?

Just to see what happens man haha.

[Tynskel]

I've played against FSF (Farsight and Super Friends) in the past. They are entertaining.

[Blusox69]

I play a farsight bomb with a command suit in there and a mixture of plasma and missile pods, all with target locks. If there's armour on the table I throw in a few fusion blasters. With the new FAQ hinting you can take 2 of the same weapon without twin linking, then adding the comman suit to get rerolls it steam rolls most stuff. As for marker lighting stuff that is out of LOS I use a pack of tetras or the ML on the razor shark. Also throw a few ML drones into the farsight bomb and light things up from behind after you deep strike in.

The first few times I played with the new codex opposition used old tactics against me, mainly trying to get into CC, but with the right positioning and load out 2 FW teams with overlapping fields of fire just cut most units down. I use pathfinders as bait to get CC squads into my FW kill zones. Until people play a few games against the new Tau then they won't learn the new tactics required to beat them. Right now though I'm just enjoying taking apart all those damn Marine armies :-)

[DeadPanda]

Me, I would think some Salamanders, MC TH/SS Terminators, TL Meltas and Flamers on everything, Ironclads in drop pods, basically I would think any marine army that makes use of Vulcan He'stan and his tricks is onto a winner.

[Sonikgav]

It depends on the composition. Tau can filled a **** ton of Sniping/Precision Fire so those Meltas/Flamers could get picked off pretty quick. Railheads turn LandRaiders into scrap, nevermind Ironclads and dont think Pods will save them since theres a decent Chunk of Interceptor in there too.

The Shielded Termies are a good bet against most things but Tau can put out a large weight of fire and the more saves ur making the more 1's ur gonna roll.

[Da Gargoyle]

I bought the codex last week and have not read it fully yet. My standard tactic in a game is to try for the enemy infantry first as they are the scoring units for claiming objectives. It strikes me that Tau infantry units are vulnerable to pinning which suits me fine being Eldar. My standard choices include pathfinders and wave serpents with missile launchers, both of which cause pinning. Even the Sahz a delic upgrade only improves leadership to 8 so there is a good chance to pin them. So you pin the support units, flame the target unit and then assault. Of course Eldar are similar to Tau in that you have to use your units in combined actions. My heavy options include Falcons and a Wraith Lord who can be kitted with star cannons which gives me AP2 shots so to me it will be fun to take them on.

The last time I fought Tau I used Falcons with a Vyper outrider, a wave serpent full of scorpions, a farseer on a bike, pathfinder snipers and two Storm guardian units, one chased Tau armour into a corner of the board, (They had a Warlock with singing spear and fusion guns).

Looks like it might be a while before I can game them again though. My club just folded as a victim of internal politics.

[Da Gargoyle]

Do the drones have a leadership issue? It strikes me that being drones they are fearless because they are machines, but I thought I saw leadership in the stat's. So does this mean they respond to shooting attacks ?

[Blusox69]

Drones have a basic AI and will self preserve so they can fail LD tests.