5.0 Tactica - Tau Empire

[Rogerio]

After a while being crushed with my Tau in almost every game i think i have now realised how to actually use them properly. As ive mentioned before splitting them up is key IMO to winning the battle.

Last night i played against my mates Eldar force and in capture and control, i decided to stick most stuff off in one corner but to give it a wide frontage so as not to lose everything quickly. But i also stuck a nice juicy tatger out on the far right a good 20 odd inches away from the rest of my stuff, a Hammerhead a tetra and 2 suits.

The ploy worked quite nicely and he had to divert a serpent full of avengers, 2 Vypers and a Falcon with farseer and warlocks off to deal with them. In the end the suits bought the farm quickly but the hammerhead survived as did the tetra and did very well at splitting the enemy up. I like this plan of splitting, also using the tetra as mobile cover for my hammerhead when the enemy is within 12 inches is a new one ive found!

[IAMNOTHERE]

Splitting your force can work well if your opponent goes for it - which they did. Are you putting up a quick batrep/army list?

Unfortunatly due to a course I'll not be able to game for a few weeks so I need my gaming fix some other way.

I can see how 3 squads of Snipers would be a big win more button, my single squad does wonders for me but the points cost is a bit steep. Still they are good for troop and transport killing and I like versatility.

[roirin]

'Competitive' being as good as the joint bottom ranked codex can manage: 12-15 Crisis Suits, 6-9 Broadsides as a base. Probably 12 Fire Warriors, possibly 6 and a squad of Kroot, often some Piranhas. Probably 0 Devilfish, 0 Pathfinders, 0 Hammerheads, and definitely 0 Stealth Suits, 0 Vespid, 0 Ethereals.

I agree with most of your points but i for one think devilfish are really worth it. Yeah they are expensive but a fish is still a really solid transport with armour 12 and disruption pod and the best thing in our codex for scoring objectives. I don t think its feasible with a shooting army to expect to table your opponent in every game, there will nearly always be something left that can score, 3 wracks hiding behind a 6 inch tall wall, a unit of five plaguebearers that deepstrike turn five onto an objective. My devilfish almost never dies as its tough, it doesn t come on till turn 3-4 (avoiding the melta spots) and no one cares about a bs3 burst cannon. Plus it can ram itself onto an objective which comes in really handy as movement comes before shooting. I win 80% of my games with Tau and the only armies i ve ever tabled completely are dark eldar and maybe grey knights. I always have at least one fish but take two at 2000pts.

[Ronin no Matsu]

Same as roirin, fish are worth it.

[taudau]

Personally I find dpod-Fish to be excelent mobile cover for my suits. They're also nice to taxi my scoring FW around.
We might not be as competitive as we used to be, but the Fish is still a way better transport than a chimera. It's only way overpriced.
Unlike the Chimera/Razorback it actually acts like a troop transport, and not an IFV.

P.S.: Also love annoying people with the drones in non-KP missions

[Kelanen]

Kelanen: Did you actually say you were getting the most out of your Chaos before they get Nerfed? I hope to god you aren't serious about that because the 4th ed dex neutered them beyond belief and if they get nerfed anymore they will have to take them out of the game lol

I did. But I much prefer the current codex to the previous one (I'm in a minority I know!). This is probably because I regard the fluff as risible, and am a pure powergamer, and proud of it.

My army was not legal in the last codex, and probably won't be in the next. I *hate* fluffy Legion lists, I want to play a best of everything list - Slaanesh Princes, Berzerkers and Plague Marines as Troops, etc.

What people mostly mean by it being nerfed was they can't play their Legion specific lists. The current mono-build best list is better than anything in the previous codex bar Iron Warriors (which were broken). So it's not nerfed for power level at all. It's nerfed for fluffy players being able to get rules for a Legion, rather than just a paintscheme.

I have well over 10k in CSM, but I have a suspicion I will be retiring it for non-Apoc games. If Lash is swapped for Pavanne (possible) or HW choices unlock cult troops, then nothing like my list is playable. If I'm lucky I may get away with a Black Legion list, but I'm pretty sure I'll be going with the WD update for CSM, rather than the new Codex: Legions. The problem is, every WD published list for the last few years has sucked - look what they did to BA and SoB...

[Kelanen]

You don't need to eradicate every last troop from the field, just hold one more objective, although I will admit I do miss tank shock, I still win far more with no fish/head hulls though.

Plaguebearers are the least of my worries, playing as many suits, and using several Helios teams, they are easy to kill. Everything I fire at them ignores the FNP. They are a pain in the behind for some armies, but Tau with planty of Plasma Rifles and Fusion Blaster like mine laugh at them. Then again to be fair Daemons are mostly a bad army anyway, and not something to worry about. They are optimised for CC, which is utterly wasted on Tau as everything except IG roll us in CC anyway, so they are paying lots of points for ability they don't use, and we have lots of counters to them. Daemons are an army to take against assault oriented MEQ, they are dire against Tau.

[samiens]

I know this is a tau discussion but I agree with Kelanen on csm but I have hope that legions won't be so pointlessly restrictive as 3.5 and that enough units retain their bolter, bolt pistol and chainsword combo as that's what attracted be in the first place- tons of units that are ok at shooting and assault. Anyway, back on topic...

Daemons are an expensive per model assault army- so basically they pay a lot of points for bonuses that are utterly unnecessary against us. What's more, their units behave in an entirely predictable way so its pretty easy to deploy etc- they're a pretty decent match up for tau!

[roirin]

Out of current meta of grey knights, dark eldar, necrons and space wolf, wolves are the only one i find are good against Tau. As it stands the only two lists i m scared of are Ghasgul's green tide and Fateweaver prince spam. The most competitive Tau lists use quality of fire these days and when your fighting 5 t6 flying monsters with re-rollable invuns that deploy in your face turn 1 i find it causes problems. Our str 6 plasma dislike t6 enemies especially ones who block 55% of the wounds caused. Plaguebearers are the least of my worries when i m playing that army. My list can t account for either of those two extremes though so i just have to live with it.

But back to devilfish the thing i like about them the most is that they remove variables. Two six man fire squads 25% of the time will end up both on the table on turn two. Each of those squads has about 45% chance of failing a moral check when two toughness 3 models die. A fish is far more reliable as a scorer. My army naturally starts to clear out the anti-tank stuff first along with the transports as most anti-tank is also anti-suit. Its alot harder to clear out the bulk of the enemies anti-infantry by turn 2 because pretty much every weapon is anti infantry.

Its the same reason i use shadowsun and tetra markerlights. They remove variables. With shadowsun there i get accurate melta and know that none of my guns (especially broadsides) are going to run off the table cause of a couple of drones being shot.

[Kelanen]

Out of current meta of grey knights, dark eldar, necrons and space wolf

A metagame where Necrons are a big deal, and Blood Angels and Imperial Guard aren't makes no sense to me. I've hardly seen any takeup of Necrons at all other than on the net, and BA and IG are both much better than Necrons best, and for the most part DE too.

Its the same reason i use shadowsun...

And this was the point I knew for sure that we really do have very different ideas of competitive, or even viable. Very different metagames too it seems.

[roirin]

I play against blood angels too, but i don t even really consider them a problem. Railguns were pretty much designed to kill predators. Guard players are a rare breed around my club but i don t see why being shot by 9 twin-linked lascannons each turn off the vendetta's would make me not want ld10 broadsides.

[IAMNOTHERE]

I've not seen an effective IG list in a while, I think I said earlier in the thread that they stopped being domiant around the time GK and DEldar came out. Sheer S8 and lance spam just ruined their carparks.

Their other trick of Psyker Battle Squads were ruined by -4 Ld targetting GK who didn't care.

Sure they still have plasma/melta vets and some other tricks but once their ranged stuff became less of a problem T3,5+ just dissapears.

There are a few Newcron builds out there that really hurt - I've played the wrthing worldscape combo and when moving hurts you you tend to bog down. Quckly. Couple this with wraiths etc and it's an uphill struggle.

Bangels DoA can be a problem if you don't pop their locator beacon pods and the dreads T1; otherwise it's a turkey shoot against expensive MEQ and can be managed.

As for weird HQs, I run an etheral with full honour guard and a marker drone. Holds my objective just fine and makes it to the end of most games without dieing

[Kelanen]

Although I like the AV13 wall for BA, the DoA list is definitely the most competitive. IG Mech-Vets with Vendettas still posts good results in tournies, and a fair number normally make Day 2.

As to why you'd want Shadowsun - it's because you could buy another unit or two for the points. In particular it frees up an HQ slot which is 3 more Crisis suits, and importantly HQ Crisis which is a necessity for some builds (ie: Helios teams)

[samiens]

And as anyone should realise, DoA blood angels are insanely good against Tau...

[Kelanen]

As for weird HQs, I run an etheral with full honour guard and a marker drone. Holds my objective just fine and makes it to the end of most games without dieing

*headdesk* Okay I think we're done here!

[samiens]

What I don't get is why your opponents don't target the ethereal. Honestly, most of my armies (which are from old weak codexes) would nuke that unit in a turn (2 to be generous) and the pay off is so high I would do it to the exclusion of all else!

[roirin]

As to why you'd want Shadowsun - it's because you could buy another unit or two for the points. In particular it frees up an HQ slot which is 3 more Crisis suits, and importantly HQ Crisis which is a necessity for some builds (ie: Helios teams)

She s 175pts for 1.67 melta hits a turn, immunity to long range shooting and a massive ld 10 bubble. 2 BS4 hq helios with two shields comes in about 200pts for 1.33 melta hits and 2.33 plasma hits a turn. I think thats a fair deal. Plus one of my squads of broadsides has plasma for effectively 15pts over A.S.S ones. The rest have targetting arrays. My 3 broadsides waste their plasma vs guard and pred spam but so do helios when the use their melta so i don t see it as much of a biggy. If i m fighting loganwing, grey knights or DoA then the railguns are going for MEQ/TEQ anyway.

[Reivax26]

I got a painting question. I have a couple of schemes in mind and would like your input on which would look coolest. All the clothes will be black with the armor of the Fire Warriors being the main color as well as the Crisis Suits main color.

1. Red Gore main color, with Shining Gold accents.
2. Enchanted Blue main color, with Shining Gold accents.
3. Red Gore main color, with Boltgun Metal accents.
4. Enchanted Blue main color, with Boltgun Metal accents.
5. Blazing Orange main color, with Shining Gold accents.
6. Blazing Orange main color, with Boltgun Metal accents.
7. Red Gore main color, with Blazing Orange Accents

These are the finalists. The Kroot will have brown cloth and green skin just like normal but I really want this army to look unique compared to most Tau lists.

Thanks in advance.

[IAMNOTHERE]

What I don't get is why your opponents don't target the ethereal. Honestly, most of my armies (which are from old weak codexes) would nuke that unit in a turn (2 to be generous) and the pay off is so high I would do it to the exclusion of all else!

Who's to say they don't try? What they have to get through is 12 FW and cover saves in the first place. What they also have to do is fire at an anti infantry unit rather than everything else that is hammering them. In return I get fearless and reroll leadership.

My lists tend to have 4 to 6 high threat units, would you really target the Etheral to the exclusion of all else? Why thank you I'll just start systematically cutting you apart now shall I?

[samiens]

The problem with this is that any competitive army should be able to kill 13 T3 guys in cover in a turn without difficulty unless they suffer horrendous luck. Heck, my Chaos Marines would likely require one lash and one unit of obliterators to wipe them out, maybe 2 units of oblits if I didn't lash them out of cover.

That leaves you taking an awful lot of leadership tests- likely 25% of which you will fail and run, with big hitters like crisis suits having a decent chance of fleeing off the table. Plus, the rest of my army can start work on the remnants of your list- bearing in mind even a heavily beaten squad will likely take you in combat.

Better to take another 'high threat' unit for the points, than a liability that offers dubious gain