Whack-a-tau

Tau units used to scare me. Big broadsides and suits were scary and blew up my vehicles. Even devil fish threw me through loops. Lately, however, I have found a bigger issue: gun drones deep strike and take out my ravagers from behind, and kroot appear in the woods or on the flanks and mow through my gunboats. The drones tend to get taken out quickly, but they cripple my firepower. The kroot are so numerous that I can't seem to wipe them out, especially when the gun drones knock down my gunboats and venoms. At that point, my tb shardcarbines get overwhelmed by whatever kroot I can't take down in the first volley or two.

What can I do to counter these two troublesome problems.

A very good example where a DE player can't dictate the game and loses. Are you perhaps a little bit predictable (not ment to insult or anything)?Be unpredictable. DS some units yourself that shoot well. I've had some succes with Hellions and Baron Sathonyx. DS them in cover (Baron confers Stealth) and first shoot the Kroot with 20 poisonned shots. Next turn assault them with what survived a turn shooting. Deploy on 1 side of the board and redeploy on the other using our awesome speed. Our vehicles are fast skimmers which can go flatout and gain 4+ coversaves. Overload your opponent with targets (cheap 5 man squads in Venoms/Raiders) and flatout to his vunerable Firewarriors. Be at his throaght all the time. Enhance this by taking Reavers which can turboboost over his Pathfinders or Crisis Suits 1st turn bladevaning them to death and gaining 3+ coversave in the process.

This in general. As for your problems specific.

I would counter the Kroots with DSing Hellions combined with a small squad (0r more... how much you can spare) to take care of the Kroots in unison. While the Hellions are not on the table, ignore the Kroot and stay out of range. Do other stuff that needs taking care of. When Hellions arrive, support them by shooting on the Kroot. Kroot have to decide which unit to shoot and perhaps which unit to assault. They'll probably not assault the Hellions. But you will in your turn.

The gundrones. If you can keep your Ravagers as close as possible with their backsides to the edge of the table, that should take care of DSing units on your back. Make sure they moved all the time to atleast gain 5+ jink save. Make sure they always had a perfect turn on shooting before the gundrones arrive. They are just simply a pain in the butt and you will lose the Ravagers eventually. But luckily we can use 12" every turn to get those perfect angles and shoot.

Kroot are not very good tbh, they have no armor save, SHOOT THEM. Drones are BS2(yes twin linked but still BS Ork), are you taking night shields? They are basically mandatory against tau as we have no hope of out shooting them at 24"+, use LOS blocking terrain to your advantage and KILL THE SUITS FIRST, I cannot stress this enough KILL ALL THE SUITS, screw hammerheads or any of those tanks as long as there are still suits alive, they must die. Broadsides are scary when there is multiple units, but if they only take one I would leave it alone until you take out the stealth's and other suits, BS's need to go right afterward. Kroot are a distraction; stop getting distracted by them =) and DS gun drones is just fail, your friend will realize the error of his ways as soon as you're rdy for them.

my idea: dont run a shooty army against tau. In this case, you cant fight fire with fire. Your Kabalites are better in cc than the tau. Dont shoot, charge! Ram! Shock! Tau are like IG, but instead of 1million shots from one unite to do damage, they rely on s5 weapons. WS? 2! And i dont leave my opponent options to shoot at. 3 raiders with 1 haem in it, 2 flyers, 1 venom with a support/camp unite, others are in cc, so he cant shoot them. C'mon, i dare you to shoot at my flyers! In the meantime, i kill your crisis suits - and if its not a suicide squad of tl-flamers and shields, they are about 60pts each, a 155pts hs traded for a 180pts+ elite choice. I'll take that trade, for by the time, i usually unload most of my missiles, or atleast half of'em.

DSing gundrones shooting...at what, pray tell? Everything has served its purpuse by then, or if not, its still in reserve. Outflanking kroot? Kabalite warriors take care of them! WARRIORS! IN CC! Sadly i dont use any warriors, for i use wyches They dont have AS? this is when shatterfield missiles come in handy, rerolling failed 2+ wounds, instakilling anything you wound, and did i mention, you get to shoot to of these babies in one turn for a mere 5 pts per missile?

I know this doesn't help but it is killing me not to say it. Clever and funny title, I like it.

I think I began by breaking the biggest rule of etiquette: I didn't describe my army. I roll with a 1250 which includes 2 ravagers, 2 5 man warrior squads in venoms with a blaster each, a 10 man raider full of carbineborn and a dissy out front, a venom full of blasterborn with a heamy (venom blade and liquifier), and a squad of 9 reavers with heat lances and a venom blade champion.

I had shot poorly with my ravagers and still had a railgun suit (twinlinked) and a fish full of warriors running about. I was about to move in for the kill when 2 squads of drones dropped in.

Fire warriors had taken out my reavers (totally my fault for leaving them within rapid fire range), so I didn't have their support.

I unloaded with 8 shardcarbines (24 poison 4+ shots) and rapidfired with 5 warriors, but the sheer number of kroot and their stupid dogs ate all the shots and still were hungry enough to take out 4 tb on overwatch and the other four in assault. Drones and a kroot rapidfire took down both of my venoms, so I didn't have any more support.

My blasterborn venom got taken down by drones, which I took care of in assault, only to lose all of my bb to warriors. I wiped most of them out with a severely wounded heamy, which then died in a challenge with the enemy ethereal.

@ tlronin yes, perhaps I can be somewhat predictable. I will have to endeavor to fix that in the future.

w8...your saying, that some bs2 drones spanked you?! lulz!
and i just cant stop repeating myself: dont try to overshoot tau! Thats not how you win! Get cc unites...like incubi, wyches, bb, archon+haems or vect+haems - i am actually starting to mold him in to my army, maybe i will have a nother named HQ that i use - hes just to op ^^

Yeah, I was as shocked as you. And bs2 isn't that great except that it's twinlinked, and he only needs two glances to take out a venom.

And how do you deal with overwatch from 20 rapidfire kroot? They'd shred any cc force I can think of, short of maybe grotesques or beasts.

20 kroot? 2 missiles or send in 5 wyches to take the overwatch and then MWUHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! the enemy ^^

i DO have room in my battlefoam tray for a razorwing...

since most of the opponents dont bother to give them 6up armor, more rather use cover, i would go with the shatterfields, "if the first blast dont get you, the second will!" ^^

Random thoughts on the Tau matchup.

Rule of thumb: if the tau are stuck in close combat, they cant shoot you. You just have to get INTO close combat.

Use your raider's dark lances to instant-death crisis suits and broadsides (if they took shield drones, use reavers to bladevane the squads first and remove the shield drones, THEN shoot them with lances.)

While your doing this, move your raiders closer and closer to assault whoever is still alive after that. Tau have terrible leadership, and are vulnerable to sweeping advance. Guess which army has the best sweeping advance potential in the game? (:<

Most tau players spam crisis/broadside suits with minimal firewarriors, making them very vulnerable to this. If your playing objective games, neutralize his broadsides first (to protect your scoring units inside raiders/venoms), and then take down his firewarriors (they crumble in CC). Crisis suits are your last priority. They are not scoring, but they can destroy YOUR scoring units, which is the only reason to pay attention to them in the first place.

If your opponent took more firewarrior squads then crisis suit squads, BUM RUSH HIM. the only shooting you should ever be doing against this army type is dark lances vs his broadsides (and then devilfish once the broadsides are gone), and splinter pistols/liquifier guns vs firewarriors while you charge them. Use nightshields to minimize his rapid-fire effectiveness when moving your raiders up to assault. (you cant really avoid him shooting your raiders with pulse rifles, but you can avoid the dreaded double-tap firing.)


If the enemy took pathfinders, KILL THEM ASAP. Bladevane them, charge them, shoot splinter cannons, WHATEVER. Those markerlights remove our biggest advantages and make the enemies shooting EXTREMELY effective (Broadsides shooting at our raiders with BS 5, Twin-linked, Auto-penetrating railguns? That ignore cover saves? and have AP1 and 72 inch range? NO THANK YOU.) On the plus side, seeing more then 1 squad of pathfinders is really, REALLY rare, and they are usually on foot since markerlights are heavy weapons, meaning you dont have to crack their transport first.

Also remember to go for the "Slay the Warlord" objective if you have it. Those darklances will instant death the commander easily. "Linebreaker" synergizes well with us zooming towards them as fast as possible.
"First blood" is a tossup, whoever gets first turn will probably get this, as railguns and darklances are both amazing against the opposing army.


While tau got buffed alot, they also got one key nerf. If i remember correctly, tau broadside sargents lost the abilty to fire at a separate target then the rest of the squad he is attached too (i think the wargear piece was called a "target lock" or something, it got FAQ'd to be useless).. Meaning at most, his 3 squads of broadsides can remove 3 raiders per turn (instead of the old 6). If you take at least 6 raiders (which you should be doing anyway since you have to get your troops around somehow), then at least 3 of them should survive to deliver the combat-troops.

As for kroot, pump them full of splinter fire, or sweeping advance them. Poor leadership, toughness, and lack of saving throws make them terrible. Kinda like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWh3k-BQrbc&feature=related

Good tips grandlordzero, two minor points.

grandlordzero wrote:

(if they took shield drones, use reavers to bladevane the squads first and remove the shield drones, THEN shoot them with lances.)

As it stands with bladevanes you either randomise the hits. Or if you use the chaos daemon official update as precedence you resolve them like "slashing attack". Use the final position of the reavers for wound allocation. So they would kill the suits before they kill the drones.

grandlordzero wrote:

and are vulnerable to sweeping advance.

Not as vulnerable as they were, drones are I4 and in 6th you use the highest initiative value in the unit for the purpose of sweeping advance.

well, even with an archon, they would have to roll 5 if you roll a 1

My friend doesn't believe in broadsides. He used them for the rail guns, and realized that railgun suits w/ reroll are better.

I can handle the drones once my turn rolls back around. It's the first shooting when they DS that hurts. After that, I have taken them down with 5 man warrior squads.

Interestingly enough, I can handle any normal Tau threats. I can knock out firewarriors at a distance, ruin suits with high str ap2 shot, and shoot down his fish given enough time to handle them. I even managed to deny his kroot cover by putting venoms close to any and all forest terrain.

I do however like the idea of using shatterfields. Even the thought of one in 6 not getting wounded saddens me.

and where in their options can suits other than broadsides take railguns? That is only an option for broadsides, for they come with it stock.

I've only played tau a few times, but in my experience the best way to beat tau is to get in there face as soon as possible, make them mad! Kill there suits kill there HQs get in deep for some easy pain tokens xP