# How to beat the T'au



## Frodo (Nov 13, 2007)

I collect T'au and just wanted to know how other people would go about defeating them. assume a fairly static army with several mobile elements.


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## obsidian492 (Nov 14, 2007)

Well close combat is the obvious tactic. WS 2 ... please! The problem is getting into close combat fast enough to avoid extended time in range of the nasty guns.


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

Not that big of a problem for most armies unfortunately. But yea, cc is the Tau weakness from hell and anything that does cc well is going to chew a Tau army to pieces if it gets there.


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## Red Robe (Nov 18, 2007)

Static is never a good idea..granted you have to have a few units glued down(Broadsides)..but FW's..put them in a fish and let the frowns begin!

CC is the Tau bane...add some Kroot and you make people change their tactics..

I have actually held out in CC with FW's..which gives you time to rush some firepower to the area(or Kroot if nearby)..Bonding Knife is key..HOLD THE LINE!

Photon grenades take away the charge bonus of your attackers..but as I said before..KROOT..they are great counter-assault troops.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Stuff that Tau don't like:

Basilisks.
Hormagaunts.
Raider witches.
Shooty carnifexes in buildings.
5 man squads with lascannons (which are dull but a few of these really make life hard for the hammerheads).
Disruption of any kind. Tau have weak LD and rely on moevment and use of cover. Things like fury of the ancients can make a mess of JSJ sometimes. Fear of the darkness, lash, a word in your ear and so on all spoil things for Tau.


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## Logain_85 (Nov 27, 2007)

Playing as nids ive found that the best way is to pick your targets and approach tactically.

Use units with a really good charge range, like hormogaunts or cavalry to take out crisis suits, and the heavier stuff like tanks against the infantry. Tanks dont have alot to worry if they get charged by tau infantry, unlike if it was someone else, its the broadside suits ive found are the killers.


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## Orcus (Nov 25, 2007)

Right, so how do I get my bezerkers in CC with them? How effective are Defilers against them?


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

I can't see berserkers getting into JSJ Tau ever. Maybe with lash to help.

Defilers can be dangerous to Tau if they get off a good battlecannon shot. They are very fragile though in an environment with railguns and mass missile pods.


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## Frodo (Nov 13, 2007)

Ive never fought against beserkers or defilers but i find thats what normally chews me up. its kinda 2 different armies focusing on 2 different units (t'au shooting works best when concentrated)


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## wolf. (Nov 10, 2007)

this thread is now permanantely stuck in my memory till next friday


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## Alexander_67 (May 5, 2007)

The tau are frail. As the orks would say they break easy. Up close and personal they are no match for much of anything. Its the getting there thats the trouble without getting full of holes. 

I've not used my Sisters on tau as of yet but i used my chaos and i can tell you, defilers do OK, nothing to write home about but they can mash a squad of fire warriors per turn and thats good. I find my independent characters did the best out of my army. They marched up the field with units in tow and the troops take the hit but the lord and scorcerer make it to combat and pretty much crushed whatever they touched. 

With my sisters i'd probably charge the field in transports. Deep strike my assassin amidst whatever squad i dont like the most and tie them up/kill them to help my advance. Use orbital strike to mush any tau utalising cover. If my excorcist is still alive its lots of missiles into vehicles and leave the crisis suits alone till i've whittle down the warriors. Their invun save annoys me.


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## Frodo (Nov 13, 2007)

wolf. said:


> this thread is now permanantely stuck in my memory till next friday


 lol u should already know that about T'au

crisis suits arent invulnerable. just normal 3+


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

I'll use snipers to cause pinning on them, my Fury of the Ancients as said before as well as Fear of Darkness, Bikes to rush them JSJ suits, as well as attack bikes to mow down FW squads. My assualt squads can keep them suits on the move and potentially deny them simple JSJ tactics makeing them work very hard to avoid combat. Devastator squads can be devastating to the JSJ tactic as well as its nearly impossible to jump out of range of 48 and 60 inches. In general I avoid taking vehicles around Tau other than drop pods. Dropping behind their lines near a static defense point disrupts them.

On the other hand Tau were my first army. I learned alot about using them and trying very hard to make every thing work together. First thing I learned was FW are good but against 3+ AS armies they dont have enough firepower in a single squad to cause enough casualties. So for every squad I had of FWs I brought a second one. Two squads worth of Str 5 firepower can slow a lot of armies down. But I usually had a total of FOUR FW squads working in tandem. One or two squads would move while the other two would provide covering fire. Devilfish are the ulitmate backup support as well. Nothing beats having a troop transport with enough fire power to drop your oppponents transports and light scout vehicles. Kroot are nothing more than an annoyance... well placed Kroot on the other hand can be like area terrain denial.. but people rarely let you put "Woods" on a board if they know your bringing Kroot. For the most part there are better tactics without Kroot but they do have their place... just not in my armies. Hammerheads are great.. give them the upgrade that allows them to shoot as a fast vehicle and you can annoy any ones armor with the best of them.. with the ION cannon you become a marine killer from hell. Broadsides are good but only in numbers and best served with shield drones to absorb long range armor piercing firepower. Stealthsuits work great in tandem with Crisis suits. I usually field mine right in front of my crisis suits. Most people have a hard time picking which they want to shoot at.. they usually end up choosing the stealth suits as they are closer and then their forced to roll to try and see them.

Key ideas with Tau... stay mobile.. have a backup for every squad on the board.. and always count on your armies weakness... its the biggest weakness in the entire 40K universe.


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## darklightknight448 (Nov 9, 2007)

Tau have the close-combat skill of an empty can unless they have Farsight.
One army good against Tau is, therefore, close combat.


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## Orcus (Nov 25, 2007)

darklightknight448 said:


> Tau have the close-combat skill of an empty can unless they have Farsight.
> One army good against Tau is, therefore, close combat.


Neat, I have around 5k of Black Legion geared for CC. Just gotta find a way to get close before getting shot fulla holes. Deep Striking Termies and Oblits?


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

Hehehe, go ahead, deep strike in front of my Tau. Do it, go on, do it!! :so_happy:


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## Skrie (Oct 26, 2007)

i'm building a 2000 pt blood angels army, and I haven't heard much in the way of how to use them to beat tau. Since we're assault oriented, I assume we just overwhelm them with lotsa assault rines?


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## marcch (Apr 1, 2008)

*How to beat Tau*

Close combat will beat Tau everytime, believe me I know. I've been playing Tau for a few years now. They were my first, and still favorite army. Little dudes with reallly big guns. 

I use basic crisis suits with twin linked weapons, shield drones, team leader for leadership, bonding knife, and shield drone needs. Save the shield generator for your Shas'O as you need to keep points down in order to take specialized crisis teams ( usually 2 per team) Fusion blasters and plasma rifles are great MEQ and HQ killers. Burst cannon for lighter guys such as guard and gaunts. Keep a unit of gun drones in front of them for forcing target priority tests, pinning tests, and blocking close combat (a must). Keep the suits moving and in cover if possible. Use the assault move to back away from anything heavy and remember to shoot at something until it is dead. Even a SM scout left standing can ruin your day.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

Tau weaknesses are melee (as said), morale, and they also have trouble with terminators. The only thing in the tau arsenal that's good at killing termies is plasma rifles (fusion blasters kind of suck and are short ranged while railguns are almost too expensive to waste shooting terminators). Mass fire isn't efficient enough against large terminator squads.

Deep striking units whether it be with drop pod or whatever will mess with tau a great deal, especially if they're terminators, there are a lot of them, there are ind. characters attached, and there are multiple squads. With my tau I can take down an entire big retinue of terminators but I usually don't manage to get the character attached to them. That character then rapes a big hole in my line.


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## CypherVII (Apr 2, 2008)

what about in smaller games like 1000 and 750 pts games i mean not gonna see that much heavy support and things like chaos dreds with there "going nuts" can get f you up ( i would know -_-)


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Teleporting Terminator Librarian next to the Tau Commander/Ethereal's Bodyguard, with full Terminator Command Squad, with 2 Assault Cannons. Rip into the Squad with firepower, finishing with a Fear of Darkness. Other than that, hug cover while legging as fast as possible to the Tau lines.


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## d'hargetezan (Mar 1, 2008)

Tau will destroy a fair portion of my army in the first two turns, but once that is over, they are done. CC will bring swift death to all Tau within a few turns, as such I have never lost to the Tau. Try not to let that happen to you.


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## CypherVII (Apr 2, 2008)

> as such I have never lost to the Tau


who have you been vsing .....


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## CaptainBailean (Feb 20, 2008)

Skrie said:


> i'm building a 2000 pt blood angels army, and I haven't heard much in the way of how to use them to beat tau. Since we're assault oriented, I assume we just overwhelm them with lotsa assault rines?


BA tactics vs. Tau: its a good idea to take the obvious choices, Death Company in a Rhino and A Veteran Assault squad, and take a dred or two, thier bullet magnets and will keep the fire off your infantryok long enough for them to get close enough to shoot, fire warriors drop like flies under hails of bolter fire and take a baal preditor, you can cut kroot to peices with thier twin linked rending assault cannons. also take a dev squad to take out hammerheads and sky rays. if you take termies drop em in as close as you can to thier crisis suits to eliminate the fire from that threat but not in a place where theyll be exposed to lots of FW pulse rifles, termies are tough but when your being shot by 20 FW even they'll die quick:ireful2:. maximize the effectiveness of your death company, you can massacre the enemy in one brutal assault but dont count on that always to happen, so have a back up plan, also, if your rhino gets blown up before it gets to thier line, count on them losing at least one marine. vet assault squads are superb for forcing your enemy out of a defensible possition like a bunker or building, shoot first, even if they have a 3+ cover save, then assault, chances are youll win the assault, then your enemy has to fall back and regroup. but like all SM thier not invincible, so its not a good idea to have them charge out over a long expanse of open terrain, keep them under cover as long as you can otherwise FW and crisis suits will butcher them



TAU tactics vs. BA: youll need a strong, solid line with lots of FW to hold back an all out assault by a BA player. You most likely wont kill every one of thier assault troops, especially if thier a vet assault squad or a Death Company w/ Chaplain in a rhino(always remember over charged engines let us move an extra 6" if we pass the roll) youll want to shoot as many transport vehicles and assault troops, wether thier vet or not before they get to your line, rhinos are weak so unless theres a bunch of them they shouldnt pose too much of a threat if you have some hammerheads and broadsides. Keep some kroot beind your FW lines in support if the enemy is getting too close for comfort and you can run them out in front of your line and intercept enemy assaulters, the infiltrators special ability they have is not important unless your playing cleanse or a simmilar scenario, so take max number of kroot ox riders and kroot hound, they are a pain even for a death company to deal with:threaten:. watch out for the baal preditor, it has a pair of twin linked assault cannons that can wreak havoc on any of your infantry, with its (i think at least) AP 4 rending attacks and either heavy flamers or heavy bolter sponsons. furiosos dreds can be hell for your heavy weapons so watch out for them, thier armor is OK so a few shots from a fusion blaster or a plasma rifle should be enough to incapacitate it. make the most of your cover, tau armor saves arent bad but thier not fantastic either and under a hail of fire a FW squad can be out of commision in one turn. back to the vet assault squads and death company, *they will be your biggest bane*, ive had a vet assault squad men with 7 wipe out an entire 12 man squad of FW in one turn, both shooting and assaulting, Death Company are almost worse, with thier new *rending attacks*, *furious char*ge and if they have a chaplian, *litanies of hate*, they will massacre a squad even if they have to chare over cover and you get the attack, thier tough bastards who get a 3+ armor save and if they fail that a 4+ save. chaplains make them even harder to deal with, at least 5 attacks with a power weapon can leave you in a world of hurt, especially since theyll go first against the majority of your army, leaving your squad all the more usless when the DC go after him.


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## Xaereth (Dec 14, 2007)

haha, I've never ever seen Death Company in a rhino. It doesn't seem to me like they would be super effective but... being as I've never seen it, I don't really know. It would be interesting to see.

I DO know that massed assault squads/veteran squads/guys in jump packs do wonders against tau, as do bikes. All it takes is a couple turbo-boosted attack bikes on turn one to do the job, either they all get shot and killed (but get a 3+ invulnerable save) and allow your jump troops to get into combat, or they get to charge turn 2 and tie up lots of tau units. T5 is hard for tau to counter in hand to hand, and if you can tie them up for more than 2 rounds of combat with your bikes, your jump marines can get into combat and the battle is won.


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## CaptainBailean (Feb 20, 2008)

i cant belive youve never seen DC with a rhino, its a fairly common pairing its all over the old BA dex


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## Xaereth (Dec 14, 2007)

eh, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have such a high-point assault-oriented squad hindered by not being able to move quickly and assault in the same turn, much less letting that squad's fate in the game be decided by the fate of one AV11 vehicle. If the rhino dies on turn 1 or 2, DC isn't going to do much. And if you roll a 1 on overcharged engines, wasted turn.

That being said, sorry for deviating the topic of the thread.


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## Skr121 (Oct 3, 2007)

One SM tactic that I have used in the past is a Lib with FoTD and a combi-melta and a 5-7 man command squad, 2 meltas, all in a drop pod. Drop pod them next to a Hammerhead, and use the hammerhead and the pod as cover. Fire all your melta guns at the hammerhead until it dies. No one can shoot under it any more. You've got cover long enough to get the charge. For a 1k game, its not cheap(nearing 300 pts), but if it works, it can really cause someone to have a bad day. 

Other ideas is to go with the a reclusiarch with a jump pack, BP, FG, and MB (and I take a PP instead of a BP, but no one likes this except me) and 3 8man squads of jump packs. Have 3 min-maxed squads with LC and PG. All 3 squads should have 2 PlasPistols and one squad should have a Vt. Sg with a PF. That's 1000 points of pure "die, tau, die!"


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## CypherVII (Apr 2, 2008)

> One SM tactic that I have used in the past is a Lib with FoTD and a combi-melta and a 5-7 man command squad, 2 meltas, all in a drop pod. Drop pod them next to a Hammerhead, and use the hammerhead and the pod as cover. Fire all your melta guns at the hammerhead until it dies. No one can shoot under it any more. You've got cover long enough to get the charge. For a 1k game, its not cheap(nearing 300 pts), but if it works, it can really cause someone to have a bad day.


you better hope it works or else the hammer head will move otta the way and turn around and you will prob be in rapid fire range of 2 or more fire worriors squad and the last thing you want in a 1k game is 48 str 5 shots at ur comand squad plus hammer head


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## CaptainBailean (Feb 20, 2008)

that does not sound like a pleasant experience. utilize vespids too, thier kinda expensive, but thier AP 1 guns more than make up for that, ive lost nearly a whole marine squads to 4 vespids because of thier guns, thier initiative is good too but that is almost completly wasted by thier lack of a good WS


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

Space wolf scouts with their special deployment are the bane of tau when you add in a melta gun. For my eldar i try to get as many jetbikes and storm guardians as possible,aspects are too fragile and expensive to waste on tau guns


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## Changer of Ways (Jan 3, 2008)

A chaos Lash of Submission list with the right units can decimate a Tau army... even a mechanized or Farsight list.

I usually take a healthy number of obliterators in as many different squads as I can, so mechanized Tau usually has just as much to worry about in my shooting phase as I do in theirs. As long as you shake a vehicle, you can usually ignore it and shoot at other things with the rest of your ranged weapons. Crack open the transports and assault the squads inside. If there are no transports to fall back into, the job becomes easier.

Battlesuit lists are a little trickier, but the Lash (preferably two) comes in very handy here. That big bodyguard squad of Farsight's isn't going to last through a single turn if you concentrate your army on it after moving it into LOS/assault range.

Kroot are annoyances that (IMHO) are very worth their points when terrain is available in the right place(s). But my Lash lists are usually mechanized, so there really isn't a whole lot to worry about there. Take into account that a normal 10-man squad of any kind of marines can wipe out even a large unit of Kroot in one or two turns, and they loose their threat value.
I usually speed past them and deal with them last, when the real dangerous elements of the Tau army are destroyed.


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## happychopper (Apr 14, 2008)

well, I personly use anything fast atack, or heavy support, like a tusked carnifex! lol, I like them that way, their nasty!


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## Ljohnson (Apr 14, 2008)

Other mobile armies. Like the Ravenwing/ Deathwing formations can be brutal on TAU. They really can swarm around then hit you on the flanks as they teleport in Terminators. I've done this a few times to Tau players.


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## gabool (Apr 3, 2008)

I have found that a dev squad with 4 hvy bolters will decimate fire warriors with out fear of return fire if placed right. This works really well especially in smaller games. Just move up the cc part of your army under cover of the hvy bolter fire. With 4 hvy bolters you can take out a full fire warrior squad in a turn with good roles.


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## Commander Rambo (Apr 18, 2008)

Well, I have only lost once with my Tau and that was to 'Crons. Wraiths are bitches. They hide behind cover then next turn run out and charge your units jumping from to another. And scrabs, don't underestimate the little things.


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## PanzerPig (Apr 15, 2008)

if i was facing tau as eldar, i'd nearly alwyas utalise a unit of scorpians with karandras if possible, thn grab some shinging spears with autact to quickly rip up a flank, Falcons would be a must just as they can withstand a size-able portion of firepower and can transport some CC units into combat.


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## TAU4298 (Apr 20, 2008)

well when you're facing black templars with a chaplin on the table that has four units of 20 its not a good idea to shoot them cause the chance they'll charge an extra 6 in at you and watch out for the land raider crusaders those are the biggest threat when facing tau and the emperors champion is one not to take lightly also


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## Firenze (Feb 16, 2008)

I have had tau since... well for a long time and the only army I have lost to is the Space wolves because of one bugger of a Land Raider Crusader.


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## julio d (Apr 20, 2008)

Logain_85 said:


> Playing as nids ive found that the best way is to pick your targets and approach tactically.
> 
> Use units with a really good charge range, like hormogaunts or cavalry to take out crisis suits, and the heavier stuff like tanks against the infantry. Tanks dont have alot to worry if they get charged by tau infantry,.


Unless they have emp grenades...


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