# tyranids vs tau, HELP!!



## the angry buddah

ok so my problem is that my brother collects tau and i collect tyranids and nine times out of ten he abliterates my army before i get to knock a single unit off. plus putting descent shooting tyranids on the board cost sooo many points.
does anyone one have any suggestions??


----------



## AVATAR OF DEATH

when I played against Tau I had a massive amount of troops. can't remember what they are called tho. I just ran at them. he decided to attack the masses but to no avail. I managed to to take out his fast attack units with my big guns that stoped him flanking me. but I did loss a few models. However by the time I got in cc I had the game in the bag. Could u post your list so we can see what you are running. Then i might be able to help you more. hope this can help :grin:


----------



## the angry buddah

umm i have a winged hive tyrand with bone sword, lash whip and scything talons and mind blast. carnifex with scything talons, enhanced sences and a barbed strangler, three warriors with venom cannon, death spiter and barbed strangler, a ravener with all scything talons, brood lord with rending claws and scything talons, a squad of genestealers with rending claws, one squad of genestealers with scything talons and rending claws, a squad of homogaunts with scything talons, a squad of guants with flesh borer's and a squad of gaunts with devourers and a zoanthrope with warp field and warp blast


----------



## deafhobbit

First, nid shooting isn't that expensive. A few examples

Template Warriors - Warrior + Toxin Sacs + Death Spitter + Scything Talons = 31 points. While Extended Carapace and Enhanced Senses can be nice on these guys, they are far from essential. Groups of 4-6 of these can kill mass infantry like no other and are a threat to elites too. For five more points, you can make one of them carry a barbed strangler and get some pinning in the mix too. 

Dakkafex - Carnifex + 2x TL Devourer + Enhanced Senses = 113 points. 8 twin linked living ammo BS 3 S6 shots with range 18 is scary. The guy is tough, not that expensive, and can be taken as an elite choice. A similar setup on a tyrant can yield 12 twin linked living ammo BS 4 S5 shots, but requires toxin Sacs. One of the best nid units overall, period. 

Boomfex - Carnifex + Barbed Strangler + Scything Talons = 113 points. Barbed strangler, at S8 pinning large blast with a 36" range is deadly to Tau. He will make mincemeat out of Fire Warriors from turn one, and is pretty hard to kill. Also, 4 S9 attacks on the charge let him finish off enemy vehicles pretty well. A great Elite choice fex.

Gunfex - Carnifex + Venom Canon + Barbed Strangler + Enhanced Senses = 148 points. Venom canons can't penetrate vechicles, but at S10 they can do a damn good jop preventing them from shooting. S8 barbed Stranglers can help with this, while also doing damage to infantry. This guy can only be taken as a heavy support choice, but he can prevent those pesky hammerheads from shooting till you're carnifexes and renders get into CC and finish them off.

A few additional tips. 

Against Tau, you can't afford NOT to have a decent amount of shooting in your army. A decent Tau player can use his mobility to keep out of reach of a purely CC force and weaken it the whole time. Have a mix of shooty units to ensure you can hurt him every turn, and cc units to keep him moving. A perfect example of how to do this involves paring a dakkafex and a CC unit. Once you get in close, the enemy has to choose between either running out of rapid fire range and not being able to shoot to avoid being charged next turn, or unloading on the CC unit and getting pounded by the dakkafex next turn. A mixed force can keep him off balance, and prevent him from shooting as much as he otherwise would. Given their low BS, Tau rely heavily on quantity of fire, and by running a mixed force you can limit that. 

Don't forget cover saves. Cheap old spinegaunts can create a wall that gives things behind them a 4+ cover save, letting your cc units get all up in his grill.

While they aren't useful against most armies, hormogaunts can rock tau. Leap lets them get into CC pretty quickly, and once there they can really deliver a world of hurt to low toughness, low WS models like tau.

Likewise, a CC flyrant could be a huge asset to you're army. He can quickly advance across the board and utterly murder tau in CC. Give it a try sometime.

One last method you might want to try is the Godfex gambit. Tool out a CC carnifex with every upgrade imaginable, including all the defensive ones, and put it at the head of your charge. If it makes it to CC, it can cause a lot of damage, but with 5 wounds, 7 toughness, a 2+ save, and regeneration it's going to take a hell of a lot of firepower to bring down. Ideally, it either acts as a fire magnet that draws enough shots to let you're other units reach close range with less damage, or it survives and quickly earns it's points back as it eats its way through an entire army.

EDIT - On you're flyrant. If you can, rip that lashwhip and bonesword off the thing. I know it looks cool, but honestly it's horrible and wildly overpriced. A second set of talons is cheaper and much better. Also, replace warp blast with warp field, given the amount of fire flyrants can draw a 2+ save is essential, and the 6+ invuln it gives WILL save you at least once.

A standard CC flyrant looks like this

Hive Tyrant with Both Adrenal Glands, Flesh Hooks, Implant Attack, Toxin Miasma, Wings, 2x Scything Talons, and warp field - 219 points

This is a good one for a generalist list. Against Tau, you can probably scrap both ag's and toxic miasma from the list, giving you a lean, mean 194 point killing machine.

FURTHER EDIT - You can only have one Venom Cannon or Barbed Strangler in a warrior squad, i don't know why you have 3 VC warriors. Honestly, VC warriors really aren't worth it, even with toxin sacs they're only at S7 with 2 shots and bs 3, which isn't worth the cost. See my point on shooty warriors above.


----------



## Justicar Auarilius

deafhobbit said almost everything i would have..

The only thing i felt he left out was that i noticed you said you have two squads of genestealers. To me you might as well just get a crap load of gargoyels or hormaguants, i believe they are both cheaper than stearlers. because tau arent marines and you will probably never get a chance to use rending claws on anything that couldnt have been taken out with normal ones. 

Like wise, if your gonna give the flyrant a go, give him a bodyguard of fly-warriors or two broods of gargoyles. it will keep the tau crisis suits occupied and probably a good portion of his firewarriors while ur gaunts get in range


----------



## deafhobbit

I'm not sure about gargoyles and flying warriors, in my opinion they have even less general utility than hormogaunts. I feel kind of icky advising someone use hormogaunts since they are WAY to expensive in comparison to a lot of other races CC troops (specifically Orks), but Tau are one of the rare enemies where they can be useful. Just watch out for synapse, that 12" charge will often mean you just leaped right into the land of 5 leadership, which isn't a fun place to be.


----------



## Justicar Auarilius

ahh good point about the hormagaunt ld. But then again we can just go back to flying tyrant. All you need to do i fly him to where the hormaguants will end up at the end of the turn. That shouldnt be that hard to do.


----------



## Ahala

What kind of list does your brother have?


----------



## Katie Drake

I think that in general you can help yourself by taking more Monstrous Creatures and less of the little guys. Tau armies excel at mowing down large numbers of cheap, lightly armored infantry, so change it up on him. Take at least three Carnifexes and a Hive Tyrant, preferably more (depending on the points total that you're playing). Kit the 'Fexes out to shoot and the Tyrant to fight in combat and laugh as the Tau desperately try to find enough plasma rifles to kill all of your Monstrous Creatures.

To keep your little 'uns alive longer, do what you can to stay in cover as you rush his lines. Spinegaunts can run ahead of your more expensive troops as has been previously mentioned to provide cover for things like Termagants and even Genestealers.

Hope this helps!

Katie D


----------



## the angry buddah

ok well my brothers tau list usually consists of, two hammerheads either 24 or 36 fire warriors, a squad of gun drones, sniper team, a squad of vespids, a squad of crisis suits and a squad of stealth crisis suits.


----------



## Someguy

The trick vs Tau is really to get something, anything, in CC with them. Then the game is over. Exception: treat kroot in cover with care and do not charge them with hormagaunts.

My advice would be to go for hormagaunts as most of your troops and some carnies to shake his hammerheads. Removing a carnifex with venom cannon and barbed strangler from a building is a real pain for Tau, and it does a good job of preventing the incoming fire (though less good now that tau vehicles *always* get a 4+ save).

Essentially you want to reduce his firing while you charge in. Obviously, don't try to out shoot him.


----------



## Bobgenrut

I think that if you utilise cover more seeing as though you are not slowed by it your casualties will be severly reduced.

Target the Battlesuits with your Genstelers the rendering attacks and sheer quantety of attacks could see them mowed down in one turn.

Try and get several units into combat at one time, so that when one unit finishs in combat it won't be shot to bits by squads standing and waiting.

I wouldn't worry about getting heaps of men into combat, even 6 gaunts could seal the fate of a fire warrior squad.


----------



## Ahala

Yeah. I'd definitely get more Carnifex's 2 with venom cannon and a barbed strangler, w/enhanced senses, keep those hammerheads out of the fight.
try getting hormaguants into cc with his fire warriors, they wont survive long and thats alot of fire warriors dead.

send either a carni with a barbed strangler at his crisis suits, or genestealers with or without the broodlord,
Genestealers with scuttlers outflanking to finish his nasty tanks off.


----------



## Tharamil

deep strike you units, im not sure if its deep striking but something like that build a carnifex wall and run up the feild behind them, you dont even need to have your carnifexe's living by the end, a couply of squads of nyds could easily take out tau in cc


----------



## Zambo

I would definately advise using shooty Carnis they are the only way to quickly stop those tanks tearing up ur army. Also definatly advise flanking ur stealers that way he has to avoid setting up anything valuable along the edges of the table allowing u to concerntrait ur attack along the center of the table.

The best way to combat crisis suits is to lock them in combat with anything especialy stealers their rending attacks will bring down the crisis suits quite quickly.


----------



## Spot The Grot

Lots of dakka fex's and tyrants . Put tyrant gurad on tyrants. Tau tend to have a hard time against 2+-3+ saves . Their anti MEQ guns are expensive and rare against tyranids as they will only counter the big stuff not the little stuff. For example , a plasma rifle is limited to battle suits and even then they are only BS3. Railguns are only one shot. 

Out flanking genestealers are a very good.

Why don't you post the list you use on the army list part on the forum? That way we can help tailor it to be more anti tau.


----------



## bigRED-liberator

SWARM HIM

you have too many expensive things and no waves of guants to support them.
Numbers is the best advantage any 'nid or ork army has over others- tau are good in the shooting phase but they're never gonna wipe out 100 guants in the 2 turns it takes them to get into combat with their fleet rule.

Also I love tyranid warriors but one of their greatest uses is their synapse ability over hoards of gaunt- that's what you pay the points for.


----------



## Greatdevourer

The only other bit of advice I can give is not to let him set up the terrain by himself. Tau players want the line of site and will give you a sparce playing field to have it. Get the cover and run with it. And if you expect kroots in cover, then go with flesh hooks.


----------



## imm0rtal reaper

It's already been noted but you can't go wrong with a mob of hormaguants. I've seen these bad eggs get into combat 1st turn plenty of times. You can mob the fire warriors with the hormaguants, they will do a good amount of damage to the FWs, but they will also stop them shooting things 
Then you can use your nasties to kill everything else


----------



## Duci

yes tau are very bad in combat but dont think a very small unit of gaunts will kill them 
if they are in cover they will be going first 
and many a time have my firewarriors beat down a space marine commander in combat


----------



## Grim Jaw

Seconded the point about setting up the terrain; place one piece at a time, alternating between the two of you, so you don't end up having to run across 24" of open ground to assault him in buildings.


----------



## Trandoshanjake

I don't know where the idea of "Gunfexes can keep a railhead out of the fight" came from, but railguns outrange everything in the 'nid armory, in addition to hitting harder.

(Oh and tell your brother he is bad for taking gun drones and vespids)


----------

