Tau - Overwatch and Stormsurge

Having just played a game (semi competitive) v Tau at my local club I wondered if fellow members had any suggestions for dealing with the following?

1. Supporting overwatch fire
2.Units, with FLY, being able to jump back out of combat and shoot back at my now unprotected units.
3. The Stormsurge!

With our new Codex, which overall I feel is not too shabby, are there any particular tricks I could now pull?

Clearly I could take a Vexator masked HQ but that would only deal with one unit. I normally use my transports as an overwatch sponge but v supported fire they do not last long. Incidentally he tends to keep his units in close proximity to max out this advantage. Suggestions appreciated.

Red Grief Reavers with toughness drugs have done well for breaking overwatch for me. A big group can hit multiple units and since you're already taking supporting fire there's no reason not to multi charge.

As for Fly units, a succ bus with 5 shardnet sauce bosses could be a pain to break away from. It's something like an 80% chance to trap a unit with a shardnet, so having multiple chances sprinkled around potentially tagging multiple units makes it extremely difficult even for battlesuits.

As for big suits, no idea. Lots of blasters.

Thanks for those suggestions Gorefather.

i have approx 9 Reavers so could try that.

Was not sure the Shardnet worked on Fly units, are they classed as infantry? sorry i do not have a Tau codex to hand.

I believe battlesuits are infantry, the bigger ones are monsters. Not much you can do against vehicles beyond shooting them but it should lock down Commanders and such.

A lot of the tau crisis suits actually aren't infantry which is a bit of an issue for keeping them locked in combat. Most of the flying ones aren't so you really just have to do your best to focus fire them. Wyches can then tie stuff down like fire warriors and stealth suits that are infantry, though honestly wyches won't have any problem murdering any tau infantry unit in cc.

Thank you for that clarification Lord Asvaldir.

The trouble is Tau troops tend to fold under that first charge leaving my unit exposed next turn. Multi assault may be the way to go to try to stay in combat? That and plenty of Darklight

It's not necessarily the most enjoyable way to win but have you considered just outshooting him? We have some awesome firepower in the kabals and with screaming jets to save key units like ravagers from alpha strikes you should be ok. What is your list atm?

Sent from Topic'it App

Not really fixed on one yet under the new Codex.

I can field 6-7 Ravagers (either gun type) 10 Scourges with blasters and will be adding 5 more with Haywire. 15 Grots! Wracks, wyches and warriors about 20-30 each. Reavers x 9. I use proxy Mandrakes and Incubi which just tend to stay in the box. 1 x talos & cronos.

Most recent lists have tended to be a combination of  Mandrakes, scourges, wracks, raiders or venoms plus ravagers.

Charge a Haemy with Vexator Mask? Then charge everyone else?

Use Wyches with Net to keep in combat?

Just ideas.

its not always ideal to multicharge, a unit can fire overwarch only once with "for the greater good" if they fire overwatch regularly they can more than once
try sniping their characters with anything you can find, they give amazing buffs but are made out of paper
poison
a lot of poison
and any sort of -1 to hit is the bane of any tau army, their markerlights hit worse, you get more cover and they are less mobile
stay out of rapid fire range (haha i know) but we should be fast enough to fly close enough without getting shot to bits, their reroll all aura only works of they remain stationary
sourround the stormsurge as best as you can, he is not a BATTLESUIT and cant fly

Also ... I believe it is the Flayed scull obsession that has a 1 CP Stratagem that gives you +1 to hit with shooting attacks against "fly" units as well as rerolls of 1 to hit for your models with the "fly" keyword and then also gives you 'ignore cover" so using that on a Razorwing jetfighter and firing all it's weapons at the battlesuits will probably do a decent chunk of damage to them and then finish them off with a charge from the reavers equipped with either blasters or heat lances and cluster caltrops ... The stormsurge is basically drown it in darklight and the coven would actually probably be a good way to whether the overwatch of the Tau fire warriors as regular Wracks (with a nearby heamy) can be toughness 5, use the coven of 12 (I think) to give them negatives to their leadership and the Tau will fold, also charging in such a way that you can consolidate into another unit once one has been destroyed could help with survivability ... Stuff to think about.

Scourges with shredders might be good! Deep strike them and fire and fade after shooting 4D6 S 6 -1ap reroll to wound goodness?

Thanks all for the comments and suggestions. Hopefully you will be seeing a few extra Tau in the games arena soon...

The trick to tau is knowing how their lists need to be built. Take out their markerlights, then their drones, then everything else.

Without markerlights, their units cant hit the side of a barn. If they have a pathfinder team on the field, it needs to die immediately.

Their drones help their suits tank lance shots like a BOSS, but die easily to splinter. Always take out the drones within 3" of any suit before you shoot the suit.

Lastly, MSU. More bodies, more space being taken up, less area for the enemy to run. Try to herd them into a small area, and charge your Coven units in.

what you do is you charge a vehicle in to tank overwatch, then multicharge shard net wyches in to suits and fire warriors, with just the shard net in coherency with the warriors, the rest attacking the suits. DO NOT KILL THE WARRIORS IN THE TURN YOU CHARGE, they are there to protect you from his shooting. then you attack his suits, and in his turn they fall back, while the warriors are locked up. you then kill the warriors in your turn, and the wyches are free to repeat.

If you charge a raider in to tank the overwatch, you could position it behind the unit, 1 inch back and sideways from your perspective.

Once you follow up with the raiders melee contents you would sandwich their unit and make it very hard indeed for the entire unit to make it to 1 inch away and still stay in coherency.

If they can't get everyone 1 inch away from you then they are not out of combat.

Just throwing out a couple ideas:

You could have your Haemonculus with the Vexator do a multi charge.

When you pile in to attack a unit you can pile in near an enemy unit (as long as he his the closest enemy unit and then consolidate to tie up other units. You dont have to be in base to base in this edition to attack so you should have room to move.

The most effective method IMO shoot enemy units to make the unit sizes smaller so you don't have to deal with so much oncoming fire. He may have to pull some models in the shooting phase that would take him out of range for other units to support fire with when the charge phase occurs.

Right!

Because they have to be within 6 inches of each other for supporting fire (Greater Good).

Once again thanks to all for sharing your wisdom on this topic. Time to start building that list

Also if you charge two units  into a single unit and the first one you activate in the fight phase kills a unit the other unit that charged as well can still be activated to pile in and consolidate to the closest enemy unit (basically a free 6 inch move).  You can only do this extra move in a turn that you charged though as stated on page 3 of the designers commentary.  It is a good way to try and keep your melee from standing out in the open.

Designers commentary link
https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/warhammer_40000_designers_commentary_en-1.pdf

"Q: If a unit starts the Fight phase within
1" of an enemy unit but, due to casualties
suffered and models removed, it is no
longer within 1" of any enemy units later
in the phase, can it still be chosen to fight?

A: No, unless the unit in question charged
this turn it cannot be chosen to fight if
there are no longer enemy units within 1".
Note that it is possible – if heavy enough
casualties have been incurred – that even
a unit that did charge may not be close
enough, even after a pile-in move, to
make close combat attacks. It can still, of
course, consolidate."

i probably wouldnt charge a raider if something big is near your target, 3 broadsides almost kill it with ease :/

AzraeI wrote:

i probably wouldnt charge a raider if something big is near your target, 3 broadsides almost kill it with ease :/

Against T'au, if you've got your Raider around by the time its contents are charging then it's already done its job IMO. If they want to focus on the Raider and not the infantry (or your Ravagers on the back line) then that's their mistake - by that point your assault infantry on their line will usually be the more important threat...

In general I'll be running 3 Raiders full of assaulty jerks (wyches/wracks/Grots) mostly as a disrupt/mop up strategy for turns 3-4. Turns 1-2 are more about alpha/beta shooting (Ravagers and Scourges w/ Kabal support) and lining up favorable charges for when PfP makes things a little easier. I'll be using Screaming Jets and Enhanced Aethersails to get in assaulting positions on turn two. Turn one assaults may seem like a good idea, but a canny T'au player will pull back from their front line and/or bubble wrap. But they won't be able to sit on their laurels too long, and as they advance and spread out you'll be able to find exposed points in the line where you can assault with more confidence in weathering the return fire.

I think vs. T'au the key is to try and trade shooting favorably in turns 1 and 2 so that you can keep the initiative and increase your lead in turns 3-4 with the assault. If you 'get off the boat' too early then you can find yourself with too few units in the late game to really challenge where you need to.

So from a strategic standpoint, I recommend prioritizing shooting and evasion in the early game and assault in the late game.

Also make sure that your table has enough terrain. If anyone benefits from planet bowling ball, it's T'au.

Cheers,

The Good Doctor.