Tau 101

[christopher300]

I have seen a post previously about dealing with crisis and broadsides.

I need to go a step back and start from the beginning.

Can someone give me a rundown on the Tau, what are they about? How do they fight, what should I look out for.

I know nothing about them except that they can ignore cover saves.

I will be engaging in a conflict with the Tau on Tuesday, against an inknown foe.

[gamma016]

Tau are a purely shooting army. They have stronger guns than us and out range us. Has ever they have next to no blasts, so numbers will be your friend. Also are not good in assualt. Take some dedicate assualt choices an you should be good. Tau are rather squishy, just like the guard, but they rely heavily on cover for their saves. A hellhound and some flamers can do wonders against them. Make sure you take some stronge guns to ID their crisis suites, and try to get in close for an assualt and you shoul be good.

[Empirespy]

OK, I shall betray the empire to give you some chance you pitiful Gue'La

Firsty, ignoring cover saves. The only thing that can always ignore cover saves is a flamer and a special issue (1 per army) gun, which seams designed to kill guard, as it's large blast, and flack armour is useless. But fear not, they have to be within 18" to fire it, so you should be able to return fire.
The item you are probably thinking of is the markerlight. It is fired for another unit to use, so the unit firing it cannot benefit from it, unless it is a networked markerlight, in which case it is fired before the rest of the team. For each hit, (they do have to hit with it) they get a counter on your unit. They can then expend these counters when any tau unit fires at that unit, and one count can equal -1 to cover, +1 to BS, or reduces your Ld, it can also fire a HK missile equivalent at you. It is important to note that the reducing cover effect is only to one unit firing, if another unit wishes to fire with reduced cover, they must expend more markerlight counters. So it's good, but it's not overpowered.
If you want to win, just kill their troops. They are very fragile. unfortunatley they normally hide in arguably the most jammy tank ever. For the cost of a guardsman, they get stealth and shrouded from shoots over 12" away, which means if they move, they get a 2+ cover save thanks to jink. That's OP. Long range fire power is not advised here, unless you order fire on my target, as it is a cover save, and spam it with auto cannons. What works wonders here is melta. if you can fire your meltas, your in the no cover bubble, meaning they die like everything else, and then you can kill the squishy stuffs inside.
the only other troops option is kroot, which are the same cost as veterans, for +1 WS, A and S and -1 BS and no Sv. Their gun is 1 point better then a lasgun S and AP. due to their lack of save, anti infantry guns (your lasguns ) will decimate them. Mortars are very effective in my experience (as tau).

After the troops are dead, it's just mop up time.

Hopefully this helped, pitiful Gue'La...
-Empirespy

Edit:
Although Tau are a shooty army, I'd say Guard out shoot them at medium to long range. The tau have very little in that area. And the blasts they have are evil, S6 AP 4 LB, and The ignors cover one, as well as the flamers they can have.
I second the hellhound though, that thing kills. As for crisis suits, the battle cannon is your best friend.

[Julian Sharps]

Hug cover until you get close, then flame and assault. Tau hate Heavy Flamers and Hellhounds, and Russes are high on their target priority list. I advise taking an Aegis Defense Line with an Icarus Lascannon, and putting a Lord Commissar on it if you can spare the points (because a BS 5 lascannon with that kind of range is amazing). Fire On My Target and Bring It Down are your friends against Tau tanks.

Also, keep in mind that most of our heavy weapons have a longer range than most of theirs. Additionally, your target priority should be units with markerlights>battlesuits>units with railguns>tanks>everything else. However, since a lot of Tau players seem to like Deep Striking or infiltrating with their battlesuits, you shouldn't have to worry much about them for the first couple turns.

[christopher300]

Ok well, I fought against the Tau and man I dont like them.

He did not have any markerlights so that was ok I guess, however,

Ratling Guns - Oh Dear, I didnt really have an answer, two tanks with ratling guns and 3 battlesuits with them made short work of my hellhound, chimera and 2 basilisks. Also these missile things the ones that can go around cover kind of destroyed me.

I charged stealth suits with my company command squad - Mistake ha i didnt realise they had 3+ armour save. So they won.

The stealth suits came around my flank they would move over my aegis line shoot up one of my units, (They took out my lord commissar as well) then in the assault phase, because they had jetpacks they would jump back over my own aegis line and use it as cover. So whenever I returned fire (with lascannons to get through their stealth suit) he got a cover save.

The devastating thing about them s that they are shooty but with quite lethal weapons their normal guns have a good AP.

We played a relic mission and I made the mistake of not going out the blocks quickly enough to get it and I got bogged down in the wrong parts of the board.

But yes they are tricky to assault as ther overwatch was quite lethal and I suppose quite lucky,

[egon]

Well, as long as you learn from your mistakes and, most importantly, had fun, it was a good day anyway.

BTW, they're called 'gatling guns'. A Ratling gun is something completly different.

[chapwilliams]

Gatling? tau aren't from the 19th century. Look at the context, blowing up tanks, the gun is mounted on a tank. The gun is called a rail gun, str 10 ap 1 supersonic magnetically accelerated goodness.

[christopher300]

Yeah I just have Ratlings on the brain for some reason. yeah a rail gun! They are actually lethal, especially when there were so many, I only had so much that could take care of them in one turn and even then they went first!