Tools for Tau

I have been fighting Tau a lot lately. It's rough on the eastern fringe right now. Here are some tools that I have noted from games:
1. good use of night shields will negate a lot of tau shooting.
2. dark lances are great at doubling out suits (use poison shots to strip drones first).
3. flicker fields are invulnerable saves that negate a third of incoming shots.
4. Massed reavers will eat fire warrior and kroot squads.
5. Massed poison weapons are great at taking out riptides.

What other tools do we have? any thoughts? (and don't say wave serpents)

Enhanced Aethersails perhaps? Once we get a unit into CC, it'll be safe from shooting AND will eat Tau alive. Of course, getting there without being slaughtered in Overwatch is another matter, but at least you'll be able to have those transports cross the table faster.

Except the fact that we die miserably from explosions
Against tau, i believe dancing around a bit might help, target priority would be the best tool i imagine.

I agree that aethersails could work if used late in the game. If you try an alpha strike with them you're gonna get blasted. Once you're within 30" of their gun line the volume of fire will delete anything in one turn. Even if you do survive, you'll just hit the kroot screens and die the following turn. An alpha strike frontal assault is madness... pure madness. We have to be more crafty than that. Shoot them for three turns, then aethersail up to the objectives... could work. I'll give it a try.

What else?

Have you ever considered Eldar Corsair Allies?

The Corsair prince have the Night fighting missile/Voidlance kinda blast/ some other template strike that you can fire of. Imagine two rounds of night fighting, that should upset any tau player a little bit.

Eldar Hornets with two pulse lasers are pretty sweet. They cost 125 Pts. each, but they fire of 4x str8 AP2 shots at 48" Range. They Also have the scout special rule which can really surprise someone. Of course the ravager is a bit cheaper and have lance weapons, but are only 36 inches range.

You could also choose different weapons for the Hornets like scatter lasers, but then i guess you might as well take War Walkers.

Farseers are cool, cast guide on Hornet Squadrons and you basically have twin linked pulse lasers.
Divination psykers are quite nice if you get the ignore cover save power since they like to sit behind an aegis defence line.

Without taking allies, what about the Talos? i know it's not the most reliable unit, but it's tough as hell and can smash things up nicely.

If you could get a Talos into assault range, charge with it first; make them shoot overwatch at a T7 FNP beast. Or maybe Grots. Then follow up with a second assault unit. I think the Tau make us have to pay even more attention to coordination between our units. If the Tau form in a gunline (no Devilfish) like one guy here (albeit with 2 Riptides), it might be possible to use our speed to focus on one flank or another. This is all theoretical, b/c I haven't faced New Tau with my DE yet, but many of the armies I've seen in the field at my local store seem to be a bit troop light in order to squeeze in Riptides, Hammerheads, Broadsides, and Pathfinders. They may be vulnerable to loss of objectives. Granted this doesn't matter if they table you (which new Tau seem to do an awful lot these days), but if the game ends soon enough. I won a game vs Tau recently playing Space Marines, but only because on what ended up being the last turn, my immobilized Land Speeder put 2 frags and a heavy bolter into the fire warriors camped on the objective, forcing them to flee and changing what was 1 point behind (First Blood) into 2 points ahead. Had we gone on another turn, they probably would have rallied and returned to the objective.

Depends what the Tau army is. I laugh at gunline armies just because they're super reliant on their HQ and can be largely neutralized by Night Shields. Farsight Enclave, on the other hand, can be extremely problematic unless for an entirely different reason: mobility.

Against a gunline, Haemonculi with melee units are a Godsend. Aside from Feel No Pain, you can separate and assault different elements of the army with each Haemonculus. This breakdowns their overwatch capabilities through target saturation. It is, however, an extreme liability in Purge the Alien.

Phantasmal Grenade Launchers are extremely important for Wyches and Incubi b/c of defensive grenades (and assault in the case of Incubi).

I also like the idea of Dark Reapers and an Icarus. Exarch with Fast Shot allows you to threaten a good number of enemies, gives you a multishot/Instant Death answer to Deep Striking Crisis Suits. The Dark Reapers themselves are pretty good against anything but heavy vehicles.

Blasts are always good against gunline Tau (read: Razorwing Jetfighter with Flicker Field).

Irakunar Thrax wrote:

The Corsair prince have the Night fighting missile/Voidlance kinda blast/ some other template strike that you can fire of. Imagine two rounds of night fighting, that should upset any tau player a little bit.

All battle suits have night vision, vehicles can get night vision for next to nothing and even fire warriors can get night vision if they take a squad leader. Ethereals get night vision for 5pts. Remember all you need is one model in a unit with night vision and the whole unit has night vision.

Mushkilla wrote:

Irakunar Thrax wrote:

The Corsair prince have the Night fighting missile/Voidlance kinda blast/ some other template strike that you can fire of. Imagine two rounds of night fighting, that should upset any tau player a little bit.

All battle suits have night vision, vehicles can get night vision for next to nothing and even fire warriors can get night vision if they take a squad leader. Ethereals get night vision for 5pts. Remember all you need is one model in a unit with night vision and the whole unit has night vision.

Call me crazy but am I imagining things? There was a bit about Ignore Cover, Blind, Interceptor/Skyfire, and something else. I also recall something about Tau being unable to see beyond "the gunline" so we could be good until they escape their terrible, terrible Tau tunnel vision.

Dark_Kindred wrote:

Call me crazy but am I imagining things? There was a bit about Ignore Cover, Blind, Interceptor/Skyfire, and something else. I also recall something about Tau being unable to see beyond "the gunline" so we could be good until they escape their terrible, terrible Tau tunnel vision.

You're not crazy.

I just thought it was a bit too negative and wouldn't really help anyone beat tau. So moved it to this thread. As it had a long discussion about how Tau are terrible game design despite having reasonable internal balance.

Mushkilla wrote:

Dark_Kindred wrote:

Call me crazy but am I imagining things? There was a bit about Ignore Cover, Blind, Interceptor/Skyfire, and something else. I also recall something about Tau being unable to see beyond "the gunline" so we could be good until they escape their terrible, terrible Tau tunnel vision.

You're not crazy.

I just thought it was a bit too negative and wouldn't really help anyone beat tau. So moved it to this thread. As it had a long discussion about how Tau are terrible game design despite having reasonable internal balance.

Just making sure because I was literally quoting/responding to that post as it was being changed. In short, the deal is that my Tau pal and I are teaming up for an 1850s double tournament. He's taking Farsight Enclave and I am afraid--not so much because Farsight Enclave is especially good but because he has escaped the cave and may now share the light with his ilk...

In the spirit of GW game design I'm just hopping gravaton weapons counter Tau so hard they fall off the meta. They at least look to countering suit heavy armies.

Might consider a Chronos if you consider a Talos. 100pts for a large blast and a flame template and you can even use it to soak up overwatch.

I tried three talos coming out of a gate. I managed to get the gate open about 12" away from the tau flank... all three Talos came out of the portal in on turn three and by tau turn four all three were wiped out... They were a huge distraction that kept his guns away from my wracks so my they could grab objectives so not a huge loss. Two of the talos got monster stomped by a riptide! ouch!

Hmmmm. I was hoping the Talos would last a bit better than that. Darn.

Mushkilla wrote:

In the spirit of GW game design I'm just hopping gravaton weapons counter Tau so hard they fall off the meta. They at least look to countering suit heavy armies.

Tau Errata
Tau are immune to grav weapons.

@Malevolent-Storm. The Talos should start with a pain token. That would make a huge difference. It makes no sense that wracks and grotesques start with one, but talos don't. I think a talos could get the drop on a riptide. I just didn't in that game.

On another note, I saw that the smart missile system only has a range of 30", while the high yield missile pod is 36". Some of my tau opponents had assumed that they both were 36". That could make a big difference since you get cover saves from the missile pods and smart missiles combined with night shields will easily be out of range. Keep that in mind my Trueborn kin. RB

Could you deploy a Haemi with the Talos and then in your first move have the Haemi run to another unit or does the fact the Talos is a MC prevent this? I really should know that without having to look it up.

Malevolent-Storm wrote:

Could you deploy a Haemi with the Talos and then in your first move have the Haemi run to another unit or does the fact the Talos is a MC prevent this?  I really should know that without having to look it up.

Sadly, the Talos cannot join or be joined by another unit.

Tools for Tau... ok...


#1 LOS blocking terrain - Beg, buy, borrow, build or steal it but u'll need it on the table to deploy your skimmers behind to avoid the devastating tau alpha strike if they get first turn. Nightshields will help with this.


#2 Long range AI - Marker lights need to die ASAP, we NEED cover. Also good for stripping drones from suits.


#3 HQ with Grotesque bodyguard - Hide then turbo up to flank gunlines. Very tough fire magnets, great in CC.


#4 Beastmasters - 15 to 20 Khymera with a jetbike farseer if using allies. Very very tough, great for eating overwatch and still making it into CC.


#5 Reavers - A unit of 9. Turbo them up to flank gunline bladevaning some marker light unit in the process. Can take return fire well if they have their cover save and preferably FNP.


#6 Wracks - Flank with large units in Raiders and/or small units in Venoms. Troops with many Liquifiers, tau hate Liquifiers. Quite tough when in cover like their destroyed transport.
#3, 4, 5, and 6 support each other for saturation.


#7 Huskblade and Soultrap Archon - Excellent vs Suits.

I've been using small units of Hellions with the Baron lately. I'm finding they work really, really well against Tau. If only 3 Hellions get the charge on Firewarriors they will typically win combat. When I get down to 1-2 Hellions left in each squad they pull Overwatch for the more intact units. Or I can bounce them back and hide until it is time to snatch an objective. Thankfully Tau Troops are some of their softest units, and perform terribly in CC both statwise and Ld.

False Son wrote:

I've been using small units of Hellions with the Baron lately.  I'm finding they work really, really well against Tau.  If only 3 Hellions get the charge on Firewarriors they will typically win combat.  When I get down to 1-2 Hellions left in each squad they pull Overwatch for the more intact units.  Or I can bounce them back and hide until it is time to snatch an objective.  Thankfully Tau Troops are some of their softest units, and perform terribly in CC both statwise and Ld.

What are you running as far as squad sizes and upgrades on the Hellions?

5-6 straight up, no upgrades.

I used to run two squads of six and found them to be super versatile.

Yeah. Though they do run into problems against IG, razorspam wolves and combat squading SMs. Basically anything that can drown me in MSUs.