# Tau vs Necron



## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Alright, now that both these armies have their codexes up and kitted for 6e, I'm interested to see how they fare against each other given how similar they are. 

Both are very firepower oriented with some excellent short range firepower and long range support. Both are limited in their cc ability. 

So as a tau player, how would you go about battling necrons? Likewise for necron players against tau, would you try to outshoot another shooty army or would you try to exploit their weaknesses in close combat? 

I haven't seen this on the tabletop yet so I'm curious and open to speculation, theories and even experience if you have any. :good:


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## Xabre (Dec 20, 2006)

They really are an interesting match up.

Tau has so much anti-air that they're probably the best suite for dealing with Necron Scythe-spam. between HYMP broadsides and Velocity trackers everywhere, air support really is NOT an issue.

Necrons have stronger close combat; a Destroyer Lord combined with a squad of Wraiths could theoretically tear an entire Tau army to paper... _if_ it can reach them. A Warscythe would even kneecap a Riptide or Farsight, I'm thinking.

So Necrons can capitalize on Tau's greatest weakness, but Tau can neutralize Necron's greatest strength. Hmm. Moving on...

In a pure shooting war, with some of the strongest units, no holds barred... I think I need to give the day to Necrons. The answer there is because Tau lost some of its 'big guns' with the nerfs to Broadsides. Alot of their fragile vehicles are sporting AV13, at least temporarily. Most people run Broadsides with Missiles for the volume, since the S9 guns are gone. That means that there's alot more issues with those S13 weapons. Yes, you can have Fusion bouncing around on your Suits, but Necrons have so much wonderful 24" firepower to handle a Crisis suit (tesla spam, gauss cannons). You'll need to depend on your Hammerheads to take out the heavy hitters, and there's more ways for Necrons to pop a tank.

At least, that's how I see it.


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## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

I actually played this matchup, Necron is very well kitted to take on Tau if you play it right. Deep-striking Wraiths will be the doom of all Tau backlines, they are really tough with a 3++. They have to turn their railguns around and pour everything into them which gives the rest of your army a lot of breathing room, and trust me, if you can get your deathball on their doorstep its over for them anyway, or they have to split fire against them and hope they take out enough wraiths that they don't just kill the whole army.

Tau have one major advantage that Necrons have limited responses to, and that is the quantity of high-power long-range weapons they have, railguns, to be specific. Necron vehicles are all enormous, and this makes them a nice, fat, hard-to-hide target for a railgun. Its a lot harder to keep your deathball in order when your arks are in danger of being all shot down by turn 2. You basically NEED something to keep those railguns occupied, and deep-striking Wraiths with a D-lord will do it. If they can't kill that unit by the time it gets to charge they lose, that unit will wipe their whole army out.

EDIT: Xabre pretty much said it all, basically if Tau can play keep-away long enough they will win, otherwise not so much. Also, I play the Necron Warrior+Arks Death Ball, instead of the flyerspam, so I guess that works in my favor since all that Tau Anti-Air has less to shoot at.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

So do you think other builds would work as well or worse? 

Like if I wanted to run a purely infantry force of necrons with large blocks of necron warriors and immortals bolstered by lords and crypteks, no armour support. How do you think that would fair? Because when I rebuild my necron list I was honestly considering that idea. XD


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## Xabre (Dec 20, 2006)

It's doable. Gauss certainly makes it feasible, and adding, for instance, some Stormteks for the haywire effect and some Plasmateks for their lances are all good anti-tank. However Range might be an issue; for instance, Tau can play a shooting game with you at 30", giving them a round to plaster you before you can return fire; a Fireblade would be messy. 

(we are still talking vs Tau, right?)


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## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

I don't see that as being especially favorable, Tau guns will negate armor saves and can hit you from really far away. If I had to predict what a Tau player would do, I would say they would just kite you and keep you in the 30-24" zone. You would have to spread out.

I'm a bit skeptical of straight infantry; It worked OK in 3rd, but even then, I had a monolith for the rerolls. In 6th it works much less due to Warriors not being as tough as they once were, with a 4+ armor save instead of a 3+ and WBB- err, RP getting sort of a nerf as well.


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## CattleBruiser (Sep 3, 2011)

Tau vs. necron av13 spam is my routine matchup. i have to say, going full footslogging is a bad idea. as a tau player im far more terrified of necron vehicles than of their infantry (even though i have fusion piranhas, broadsides, and railheads, i'll still normally ally in some fire dragons in a serpent). Once the vehicles die, however, the infantry drop like flies (mainly because tau can put out enough shots from far enough away to shred infantry)


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