5.0 Tactica - Tau Empire

[onlainari]

Some starters:

The two popular crisis configurations seem to be

Fireknife - plasma rifle and missile pod
Deathrain - twinlinked missile pods

There are names for almost a dozen other suits and they will be mentioned in this thread no doubt, but these two are the most popular.

Crisis suits are still difficult to kill in 5th however TLOS means they are more likely to be targeted by heavy weaponry. Shield drones do offer good protection against this, or you could stick with hiding them behind (the limited available) LOS blocking terrain, jumping out, shooting, and jumping back. A Tau army without crisis suits will find it more difficult to kill as many tougher threats such as dreadnoughts and terminators.

While crisis suits are very important in a Tau army, they are relatively easy to use. Just remember in your movement phase the words "will they die if they go here?".

On the other hand, units such as pathfinders, kroot, stealthsuits, piranhas, and vespid require a lot more skill to use effectively.

The tactical uses of kroot include pushing back enemy infiltrators in deployment, and covering areas of the board to deny deep strike. For example, against drop pods, surround the hammerhead so the meltagun can't be within 6", and against lictors, spread them out over a piece of terrain so your suits around that piece are safe. They can also deny areas of the board against outflankers by lining up the short edge, preventing nasty assaults against anything other than your disposable unit of kroot.

The most common thing I do with my kroot is deny assaults against my suits. This is usually called the tactical speed bump. The idea is, the assault marines are within 18" of, say, your broadsides, however you stick a unit of kroot in front of them (the broadsides). You kill some of the assault marines with your firepower, however it is not necessary to kill all of them this turn. They charge the kroot, kill them, and consolidate. You now have a second turn, and they are now close range, making it easy to kill the whole unit so the broadsides can live for the whole game.

Kroot also make nice pill box units, stick them in cover and shoot, and when the enemy assaults them you kill a few more. Fire Warriors do this better, kroot have the options above.

Personally I put my fire warriors in devilfish. So my first question is the tactics involved with fire warriors outside devilfish. All I know is that calling them static is misleading.

Fire Warriors in devilfish are easy to use, I think. Wait for the enemy unit to be small enough that they can't kill the fire warriors back, then unload and shoot them. Keeping fire warriors in devilfish in reserve is a mixed blessing. There seems little point against a shooty army. However against an assault army you may be able to apply a lot of firepower to a weakened assault unit at your lines. On the other hand, they could come on the board and do nothing the whole game, missing the action. All I can say is I would definitely keep a fish squad in reserve in dawn of war against an assaulty army that deployed first.

[Sholto]

Agreed - Crisis Suits in 5th are more vulnerable, especially if you take a max unit of 3. You can make them more survivable with wargear options, but this pushes their cost up considerably, giving you less points to spend on troops. I have been taking them in units of 2, which makes it a little easier to keep them out of LOS and also makes them seem less threatening. I also don't need bonding knives with just 2 suits in a team.

On suit build I have recently been using Missile Pod with TL Flamers (I don't think it has a name). With a few markerlights in the list I get the accuracy of a couple of units boosted per Turn when using the MP, and the TL Flamers make for a nasty surprise when assault units reach my lines. I am not saying it is competitive, just that I like the flexibility it gives me to kill at distance and at close range. 6 TL Flamers can make a mess of even the toughest MEQ assault squad.

One key piece of Tau wargear in 5th is the Positional Relay. The only time I don't use it are when I am facing an army where I want everything on the field from the beginning (horde armies or assault armies). Other than that, the usefulness of being able to eg. deep strike a TL FB monat on any Turn you want should be obvious. In its other use, you can start with your entire army off the field (except for your unit with the PR, usually a Commander), bring on cheap units on Turns 2 and 3 and then your whole army arrives on Turn 4 on a 2+.

Pathfinders. Very hard to use well, since the enemy will always shoot at them on Turn 1 if they can. I deploy them behind my Devilfish to keep them out of LOS on Turn 1. It means I don't get any benefit from them that Turn, but if you deploy them properly they will cover some useful angles that will either dissuade the enemy from advancing there or let you rip them to pieces if they do. Get them in cover with LoS to an unclaimed objective, then point that out to your opponent (or not). Turn 2 or Turn 3 you move the Devilfish (with Kroot inside, perhaps?) so that the Pathfinders can shoot freely that Turn. Hopefully, at that stage, both armies are well engaged and your opponent will have other priorities than a unit that has not done anything yet. Hopefully!

The Pathfinder's Devilfish also works well with the Positional Relay, letting you reroll the scatter for your monat.

ASS on Broadsides. Not so essential in 5th, since a well-deployed BS can see most of the table with the new LOS rules anyway.

Dawn of War. 1/3 of games have a nightfight first Turn. Put a BSF on a Markerlight model and remember your Acute Senses USR on the suits.

I suppose the hardest part of a Tau army (certainly the hardest for me coming from CSM and Necrons) was that nothing in the army is strong enough to stand alone. Isolated, a Tau unit will die. On their own, Tau units cannot achieve anything near their potential (eg. Vespid), and the only way the greater good can prosper is in good company.

Things I always take. Disruption Pod and Multitracker on Hammerheads. Either Kroot or Gundrones for assault screening. Missile pods on my suits.

Things I always try to find room for. AFP to deny cover saves. Kroot hounds. Positional Relay. Pathfinders.

Things I always take (if my opponent lets me): an XV84 Shas'o. A BS5 Markerlight on a 4 wound model that can JSJ, and it doesn't take up any hardpoints. If your list includes a Shas'o already, this guy is only an extra 15 points.



Sholto

[Asi the Red]

One thing I've been contemplating is a pair of min sized gun drone squadrons to screen CSuits and Broadsides. In your Movement phase you jump the drones out of the suit's path of fire so you're not automatically giving a cover save to your opponent for shooting through your own guys, then in the Assault phase you move them back to give the suits a 4+ cover save against all the heavy weapons that inevitably seek them out.

Another thing that I think I'll always be taking is Flechette Dischargers on my DFish and Hammer. Before I didn't really see the draw, but my most regular opponent plays a horde Tyranid list - the first time I used it it blew away half a retinue worth of Genestealers, put a second wound on the Broodlord and almost paid for the whole vehicle. Those 4 or 5 Stealers that didn't attack were the difference between certain death for my transport and it just being Immobilized and providing covering fire for the rest of the match.

[Metal_King]

I totally agree about the flechette dischargers. Now that it's so tempting for even weak infantry to assault our devilfish (rear armor) and no one in the assaulting squad is allowed to hold back, this is a great way to take out extra enemies in a tight situation. I put these on all my devilfish, even my pathfinder one which just sits back and guides my deepstrikers. If any outflankers show up then this devilfish runs off to shoot and be annoying and try to get assaulted.

On Crisis suits. I love Helios suits (plasma, fusion, multitracker). They saved the day at 'Ard Boyz. I don't think any other kind of suit would have done nearly as well. Using them with the positional relay/pathfinder fish combo made sure they were there when and where I wanted them. I am thinking of dropping one plasma gun for a flamer though. I'm not such a fan of multitasking units, but these are really for dealing with nasty things in the back field, and shooting units in cover count, hence the flamer (it also saves me a few points).

I think ASS on the broadsides is really only useful for Dawn of War setup if you're going second. Your opponent can't shoot them their first round so he spends lascannons on your infantry. Then your turn you walk them on and blaze away. I used to run them with targeting arrays, but the twin-linking is really enough and the movement makes them so much more flexible (I really couldn't have imagined).

[Sholto]

Agreed on Helios. Another suit that is great for Pathfinder deep-striking is the AFP/ Flamer combo. AFP, TL flamer, HWMT and HWTL on the Team Leader and TL Flamer and FB on the other two. Drop these guys near a load of IG in cover. The TL takes on one squad while the 'uis take on another. The FB are not essential, but give the squad some real flexibility.

I doubt many people have the FW Turrets, but it occured to me that putting 4 of these around your 'home' objective makes it very, very hard to reach, plus gives you 4 TL MP in your backfield. You can take up to 4 in a single Heavy Support slot. Place them right and enemy troops cannot get through the gap between the turrets (1" exclusion zone) so must assault the turrets to get past them. AV12 all round makes these turrets pretty strong, and you can give them shield generators (pricey, though) and, vitally, Disruption Pods. This also keeps your home objective pretty safe from deep-striking troops and fast vehicles in the later Turns, and you are never going to not use 4 TL MP, so the cost is acceptable.

Even better, you can take another 4 and (with the benefit of markerlights and a positional relay) deepstrike these 4 with pinpoint accuracy in Turn 2 around an uncontested objective. They come in individually, so when you deepstrike them they do not count as a single unit, forcing the enemy to kill them one by one (it is not clear from the rules in IA:3 if they form a squadron when you do not deepstrike them). You might want to give these turrets BC or PR to fend off the inevitable elite/ troop assault.

I will be trying this out next week (with proxies, at £18 per turret I want to test this first!) - report to follow.

Sholto

[BDA]

Kroot can be very nasty now with the ability to outflank 20+ kroot and 12 hounds can make a dent in most things.

There is also a useful tactic for using kroot in combat I call hammer time.
In the new combat rules you can not attack a new unit that has joined an existing combat.
So allow the assault squads to blunt there attack on a photon equipped fire warrior squad and between the reduced attacks and there 4+ save you should have a good go of sitting the attack out.
Then in the next turn pile your kroot in and they will get all there attacks and the enemy can not opt to target them.

A suit combo I have played with is a single suit with TL fusion and a missile pod or a targeting array.
Deepstrike them next to the target let them have both barrels and if they land out of rang you can use the missile pod. Also at str 5 I have found battle suits can damage most tanks in combat as well if you really need to finish them off.

Oh and if you deepstike a squad with jet packs don’t forget they can now spread out in the assault phase to limit damage.

I have tried vespid agene and agene even 2 squad of 10 and deep striking and I find that there short range and lack of shots tends to mean that unless you out number the target by 3-1 you are going to be in trouble.....

Large squads of gundrones are lots of fun to deep strike behind enemy tanks and then keep hitting there week armour

Smart missile systems are very handy for picking off IC who are hiding as well as units trying to be screened by friendly units and terrain.

Pathfinders are a must and with 36" range they should be able to stay out of all but heavy weapon range. Taking 2 squads is an idea and allow fire warriors to use there devilfish.

Out flanking with stealth suits if fun and even if they come on from the wrong side they can jump run jump. Also the team leader with a marker light and any maker drones them (as well as crisis suist squads) can now move and fire.
I tend to do this with stealth suit squads as the maker light drones get the stealth ability and I don’t feel so bad about paying 30 points. In fact they can make a very good alternative to a pathfinder squad.

The rail rifle on both pathfinders and sniper drone squads is now a better comparison to the standard sniper rifle and don’t forget if you have 3 squads of sniper drones you can get them to all target different units. it is possible though unlikely to inflict 9 pinning test a turn.

[Asi the Red]

In the new combat rules you can not attack a new unit that has joined an existing combat.

I'd not heard that one before, could you please provide a page reference out of the rulebook for me to check that out? I have balanced Tyranids and assault CSM as my main two opponents and that's something that'd kinda help me out.

[Darkstar2586]

Page 41 of the BRB....good job i have the rulebook at work on my comp

Its going to be the new combat tactic, eldar are already using it by letting their wraithguard get charged then counter with harlequins so all hits are aimed at the tougher wraith guard

[Sholto]

Page 41 of the BRB....good job i have the rulebook at work on my comp

That's a new rule to me! Thanks. Will be very helpful if I ever feel the insane need to charge Crisis Suits into an ongoing combat.

Sholto

[Metal_King]

I really must espouse the use of many many kroot. Whether infiltrating or outflanking, they are just fantastic (and fantastically cheap). The downside of them not being very effective (on paper) is that your opponent will ignore them if given other targets. Sure, you shoot my 150 points of FWs while my 70 pts. of kroot grab that objective.

Oh man, kroot going to ground on a forest objective. 2+ cover save. I can see my opponent's eyes bugging out already.

I've never bothered to take kroot hounds or a shaper. The only way I could see these being useful is if it was a dedicated counter assault or outflanking assault unit. Even then I think having just a ton of regular kroot with the option of shooting or assaulting is better.

Now if only we could use some of the Kroot Merc. rules to modify our regular kroot. That would be great.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

There is also a useful tactic for using kroot in combat I call hammer time.
In the new combat rules you can not attack a new unit that has joined an existing combat.

I'm afraid that's not what it says. Of course you can attack any unit in b2b. For a discussion of this rules question, see here.

[Metal_King]

So I just played a 1750 tournament in which I used 3 10 man kroot squads. Very mixed results. I found in all three games that 2 units would do something useful while the third would just get wacked or end up in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. I did outflank them all most of the time. None of my opponents used infiltrators and the terrain wasn't great for it anyway, so I didn't bother infiltrating mine.

When I used 2 slightly larger units they did something and weren't wasted. I think I might go back to that. 15 outflanking kroot is nothing to sneeze at. Except for killa kans...they sneezed all over them (with much stompy death). Only second time fighting new orks and I didn't know they could run/waagh like normal boyz. Scary.

Edit.

So scratch that last comment. Killa kans don 't have the Waagh special rule. I'll have to let that guy know. Yep, looks like I'm spending more time reading other codexes to know my opponents better.

[steevn]

hi

i'll have my first tournament next week and for the first time i'm going to use 10 kroot, any advice? any kroot tactica

the list was posted on this board a couple of weeks ago

greetings

[Fixer]

With the new wound allocation rules, Firewarriors are starting to take center stage in Tau affairs again. Stealth suits too.

Massed wounds can cripple an enemy unit by taking out leaders or special weapons. This is especially true when facing Eldar aspect warriors or any flavour of space marines. Additionally you can really use markerlights to great effect.

The drawback of the old pathfinder unit is now gone. You can scout your pathfinders and leave the fish somewhere else. with 8 markerlights you can get a good number of hits on a single unit. 4 being the mean number you'll get with a full squad. Since you don't have to worry about cover saves on the enemy from ML hits as well you can put them behind all sorts of squads and suffer no drawbacks on firing.

A single target lit up by a pathfinder squad, then hit by two devilfish mounted units disembarking and rapid firing. 48 BS 5 St5 shots. 27 wounds against a T4 target. That will murder pretty much anything.

Also, markerlights can strip obscured saves from tanks or cover saves allowing you to rip to shreds a KFF Ork unit or punch a hole through a sneaky hiding tank. Especially useful at cracking open transport vehicles with smoke launchers popped.

Of course, you also have the possibility to stack negatives to pinning checks, so combined with sniper team or two you can lock down the enemy in the middle of no-where and repeatedly plasma them to death with Crisis suits.

The biggest problem and one that I have had no real chance of fighting is twin lash chaos. No defense against it and it rips the heart out of my army. If anyone has found a way of beating twin lash that doesn't involve large amounts of luck or your opponent being a complete *****, please let me know,

[Asi the Red]

Best plan against Twinlash seems (to me) to be to go full out mechanized. That way your Firewarriors are safe inside their transports, ready to disembark and fire when the time is right. Keep in mind that skimmers now block LOS, so you can use those DFish that your Firewarriors are hiding in to shield your vulnerable suits. Two DFish lined up side by side with a gap in the middle can create a fire lane to draw line of sight through for you to fire, but if the gap is less than the width of a Crisis' base he can't be Lashed through it (I think).

[ReveredChaplainDrake]

Tau can actually take down Lashprinces very easily. (Sorcerers are a bit harder because they hide and Tau don't have the Powerfists to insta-gib them in CC like everybody else does.) The average Pulse Rifle is a Str5 gun. Shooting at a T5 Daemon Prince with only four wounds with a full Fire Warrior squad, it ought to do at least half damage, and that's without any Markerlights or supporting fire.

Kroot can also do nasty things to a Prince. When their Toughness, Initiative, and (ha) Armor would make them weaker than normal, to a Daemon Prince, it's all the same. You'd be surprised how much damage Kroot can do in return.

[Metal_King]

I haven't faced lash princes, but they fall into my "big and ugly" category. And for taking out big, ugly units I use deepstriking Helios suits. 3 crisis suits with plasma/fusion, multitrackers, and usually a targeting array on the team leader. It's a little expensive, but they're good for lots of things. Monstrous creatures, tanks, dreadnoughts, terminators, plague marines (really saved my butt against a Nurgle heavy CSM army last week), just about any hard target.

I pair them with a pathfinder devilfish (and the pathfinders too if they can help via marker lights) to make sure they don't die to the scatter die during the deepstrike. I haven't lost a unit yet.

So, there is a nasty lash prince hiding behind an enemy tank. You drop a unit of Helios suits next to him (rerolling the scatter dice if needed), and then proceed to unload many high strength, low AP shots.

It's pretty simple. The thing you have to watch out for is whatever is accompanying your target. These guys may be good at their seek and destroy job, but you can't leave them out all on their own and expect them to survive. A shield drone or two is great. Even better is a nearby unit of FW in a warfish who can cruise over and unload on a unit that could threaten your suits.

[hivetyrant333]

Out flanking with stealth suits if fun and even if they come on from the wrong side they can jump run jump. Also the team leader with a marker light and any maker drones them (as well as crisis suist squads) can now move and fire.
I tend to do this with stealth suit squads as the maker light drones get the stealth ability and I don’t feel so bad about paying 30 points. In fact they can make a very good alternative to a pathfinder squad.

How so? I would find this incredibly useful.

[AceXT]

It's in the main rulebook, under the general rules for jet packs. Troops with jet packs can move and fire heavy weapons.

[hivetyrant333]

It's in the main rulebook, under the general rules for jet packs. Troops with jet packs can move and fire heavy weapons.

SWEET. Army list revision time!

EDIT: On second thoughts, I'm unsure of the effectiveness of Markerlights in a Stealthsuit squad. It seems that the main strengths of the 'suits render MLs much more useful on Pathfinders.