Anti-Tau tactica

[7heoz]

I would like to hear your peoples advice on fighting a tau army. The guy I usually fight, LOVES Battlesuits and muilt-trackers (5pts my ars). One plan that I figured out will NOT work is rushing every single model at his army. It wasn't pretty. Currently I have 1 russ, 1 basilisk, 4 infantry squads (+2 command squads), 1 HQ command and a support team consisting of 3 autocannon teams. Also 1 sentinal decked out with a lascannon and a hunter-killer missile.

[Rolling Thunder]

I have three plans. the good, the bad and the uttely hilarious.

The good (reliable): Take cameoline, hide in Terrain and shoot them up, Killing fire warriors if you are a infantry army, Battlesuits if you are Armoured-esque. Hammerheads go to the TOP of the target priority list, regardless. Use a griffon, sit it behind area terrain and pieplate the fire warriors. Take a Hellhound and keep it hull down and burn fire warriors. Use regular russes to kill 'suits. Never take a demolisher, its not woth it as they have no T5 or Armour save 2+ troops. Use deepstriking stormies or armoured fist to take objectives.

The bad: Try and engage them in open combat. You will die outside of terrain, even with carapace armour.

The hillarious: Take a HSO (retinue with 4 plasmas or meltas), 2 spec weapons squads with a demo charge and flamers, sentinals with heavy flamers and possibly some sturmgrenaniders (stormtroopers) with antitank kit. Give the sents improves comms. Deepstrike in next to yon enemies en masse (if you have to reroll successful deepstrike rolls then so be it, but ideally everything will be attached to the command squad)and kill all their fire warriors, broadsides
and suits and fish. Keep the other half of yon army in area terrain with camo+sharps and tie up yon enemies in a firefight. objectibve grabbing is to be done by stormtroopers and infiltatring hardened veterans, or possibly AF teams.

Ladies and gentlemen.

[Deleted]

take as many sentiels W/ heavy flamers as posible. trust me.

[Deleted]

Take the drop troops doctrines. That would be my advice. why you ask? since your troops are in reserve untill turn 2, use your basilisk and autocannon teams as a sort of preliminary bombardment, to soften up some squads. The puprose of your sentinel is to take out his tanks/battlesuits. Taking the lemun russ with the sentinel adds heavy armour to your begining force, gets your opponent scared when he sees that pie plate potential. When turn 2 and onwards come around, you should be basically aiming for rapid fire range, upon initial drop. adding meltaguns or plasma guns also help with taking out his battlesuits. The opponent will be forced to switch his fire power from your bassilisk and russ and autocannons towards the newly arrived reinforcements. Giving less strain on your armour, who ave their duties at harassing enemy armour. Try and see how it is!

[Rolling Thunder]

Squish those 'fish!

[Mabus]

I cry every time I read a post like this. They're pointless anyway, my Tau are unbeatable.

[Deleted]

tau have become an army which require their own anti- list. Although with guard, we always need an anti-blank list for just about everything we face...

tips:

Keep anti-armour forces on the field with good fire zones. this should thwart any attempts for a Fish-o-Fury early on. Get into hand-to-hand ASAP, even with battle suits (they're only WS 2 or 3). Templates are your friends!

[Rolling Thunder]

Tau find my griffons nasty. 3 of them cost 225 points, and there are vitually no ways for tau to get behind the area terrain I have. They kill roughly 1 full fire warrior squad a turn before I turn them on anything else.

The 'fish of fury tactic will die if you manage to treat them like mechanised eldar. A unit of hardened veterans in terrain with 3 melta's, camo, shotguns and a heavy weapon stop devil fish very easily, and most liely slaughter the disembarked troops.

Remember, cover is your friend. Tau have very few anti-cover weapon's like the inferno cannon (and if GW give them some, i'm gonna leave warhammer), so, they'll find it hard to dig you out of it. dug in IG infantry are nigh on imposible to shift by anything barring direct assault (which we'll win).

Don't be fooled by mabus, the little green fish/birds will die if you kill 'em right. The only problem is that they are a challenge for all IG commanders, as they require completely different bag of tricks than other armies. What are these? I'll leave that for you to decide.....

[Deleted]

The three Hs (well 2 Hs and a D)-Hellhounds, Heavy bolters, and Drop troops. Get some platoon HQs in there with CC weapons and flamers! Oh and missle launchers (fired krak, of course) wreck battlesuits.

[mccaptain]

If you're using drop troops against them, is it better to take Chamolien or Carapace?

[Rolling Thunder]

Carapace, as you can't DS straight into cover and so you'll be vulnerable from the word go.

[Deleted]

well you should use the autocannons to tear open the battlesuits.

chimeras work wonders to. i would add missile launchers to your regular squads

also use the supprort squads to their full potential.

[mccaptain]

My brother plays Tau and he uses the broadside battlesuits in a squad of two w/ 2 shield drones. Is there a good way of busting those up?

[Rolling Thunder]

Autocannons are better for F warriors, cause they don't penetrate battlesuit armour. Stick to battlecannons, earthshakers and missile lanchers for the Tau.

[Deleted]

I've played the Tau a couple of times. Here's what I've learned.

1. Any transport, regardless of what's inside it> Fire Warriors > Battlesuits > Everything else. Yes, even the mythic Hammerhead. I kept one hammerhead shaken/stunned for most of the game with my Leman Russ. He finally blew it up with his main gun, but by then, I'd already used my tank to mow down a lot of his infantry.

2. Get into cover. You'll lose a turn a shooting, but the extra protection is worth it.

3. Tau might have some the best guns in the game, but they have NO Ordnance, and most of their models are BS3, just like you. Treat them as you would a Guard player with extra range.

4. Outrange 'em with a well-placed Basilisk. I used mine to knock all three of his Crisis Suit squads down to less than 50% to win me the game.

5. Get in their face! This is the one time that the Guard might actually have an advantage over someone in Close Combat. My HSO kept a group of Stealth Suits held up for three turns before I decided to use his Power Fist to get through their armor.

6. Don't always count on hits to destroy their men, even Instant Death. He'll most likely deck out his high-end units with surrounding drones to take fire for them.

[acolyte]

Feb 3, 2008 3:12:30 GMT -5 Rolling Thunder said:

Carapace, as you can't DS straight into cover and so you'll be vulnerable from the word go.

WAIT up there m8, erm yes you can DS into cover. exact wording says "impassable terrain" "off board" or "enemy units (erreta say friendly units too)" are bad for DSing

id also like to give a shout to my techpriest with an Hon Imp, he carved his way though 3 units for fire warriors with veterans and only died to the 4th unit of 12!

[Rolling Thunder]

You are right sir. This new discovery (for me) now leads to its obvious conclusion- the exploitation of this rule to its most beardy, unfluffy and stupid extent.

[chromepip]

well, sure Drop Troops can be kind of beardy, but if you land on any other unit, you are wiped out. I would state that it really isn't that cheesy.

and if you play a tournament list, it isn't cheesy, it is being competitive. If you are playing just for fun, then you are right, exploiting the rules won't make you any friends.

[Rolling Thunder]

Drop troops, griffons, autocannons, heavy flamer sentinals....

Those blue-skinned scum don't have a chance.

[genilyenovick]

I find that the best way to take down the tau is with a good old fassion firing line. Keep in cover, as was said earlyer dug in IG are a pain to get out. THe other little trick that I noticed works is to have a couple of lascannons in the fireing lanes, you may only pick them off one by one but a well placed las will drop asuit in one shot. Not only that but you can use those to take care of the hammer heads and the devilfish to keep those Russes on the infantry or the suits. Cover every thing as best you can the less area to hide the more vunerable suits are. Griffons are good but a basilisk can do just as much and it has that beutiful S8 AP3 to hit suits in hiding with. Just keep a head about you and watch for any tricky flanking attempts.

The only other thing I use that I don't necessarily recomend is a hardened veterans squad with 3 flamers and shotguns. Use achimera to get them close while you keep the pressure with more important targets then get those boys into the tau fire line. With the hardened fighters doctrine these bad boys will tear their way through the tau (ws4 vs ws2) and all you have to do is pick off the fatties with strategic ordinance fire.

GOOD HUNTING.