Topic: How to play smart Tau

[AiR]

My friend recently have gotten a battle force box. We played teams for quite a while now, it's me(black templars) tau against necrons,dark eldar and tyranids. Every time we play I use myself as a shield to block his fire warriors so they won't die as easy. When people shoot the tau they have to shoot through me first.

This would be the plan, I go assault them and have some bolter marines stay back and try to shoot some nids down. The Tau would also be helping me shooting the guys down.

Everytime we play it seems to me like he isn't doing anything it seems like i'm doing it all and most of the time it's all about team work right? So I want to learn how the Tau play and try to work together with them.

He uses 2 squads of fire warriors 1 transport ship, 1 hammerhead. Next time we're gonna play more points and i think he's gonna take a broadside as an HQ, 1 squad of kroot 3 squads of fire warriors and 1 transport ship.

So would you please share your Tau knowledge with me , so I would know how to play better with him and I would try to teach him how to be a better player.

[EldarYoungBlood]

I have limited knowledge of the Tau, but i'll try my best. When i was looking through his codex-Tau, I read that the Tau use to forms of attack, one is to let the enemy come to them and do ambushes with kroot under cover. This tactic usually is used and involves the usage of the Tau long range ablity. The other tactic for the Tau is to go frontal with all there units but still keeping out of close combat. In this tactic it probably uses more battle suits and  A LOT of kroot.

Thats what i read, i dunno if it helps at all but, use it if you can.

[Tobab816]

nah, the offensive version doesn't use much Kroot at all.

It uses alot more Battlesuits, Hammerheads Gundrones, Pathfinders and Tau squads with devilfishes and as many Carbines as they can carry.

It doesn't use Kroot, Broadsides or Static Firewarrior squads because those are the slowest part of the Tau force.

[Lord of Fire]

For a tau army your friend dosent have many railguns... Mine (only around 700 points) has 3. Then the rest of the points I spent on Fire warriors, kroot and pathfinders.... And its sort of strange to have a transport  with no units worth transporting....lik e pathfinders of stealth suits. I dont know much in the way of tactics (i dont use my army that much) but i do know that you should try and take as many railguns as can fit on your list. And always take Broadsides over hammerheads UNLESS you are fighting all swarm armies.

[Tobab816]

Broadsides bad, Hammerheads good.

It's all about mobility. The hammerhead can remain at full mobility while still firing it's railgun....and it's sub-muntion blast is a killer.

The Broadsides....then you are back to the static fireline.

As for transporting. You are thinking in IG or spacemarine terms. In the Tau army ANYTHING is worth transporting. The basic firewarrior group has quite a punch in themselves. And equip them with 6 pulsecarbines and they can move and still fire quite well.

To add to that the devilfish is a powerful viechle in it's own right. Well armored and well armed. The burst cannon and two drones amounts to quite serious firepower for somethingthat is mainly a transport. Only the Waveserpent is more heavily armed among transports. Well, and perhaps the Razorback..but that has only half the transport capacity of the Devilfish.
To add to that. Add 15 points to the cost(Multi-tracker, Decoy launcher) and you have upgraded the viechle to be MUCH MUCH more resilient and deadly.

[MrMischief]

I play with 3 Krootox, 3 Broadsides and a hammer head, I plop my Broadsides at one corner of the table and my hammerhead at the other, i usally keep my broadsides in 1 spot the whole time, and they are fine. i move the hammerhead around and launch submunitions into groups of troops and picking off the occasianal Hive Tyrant or Land Raider. but to play smart tau u gotta keep yur fire warriors alive by putting them in cover, screening them with kroot, but u gotta make sure the enemy keeps their focus on other things like crisis suits or yur devilfish and drones.

[Master Archon]

Yeah in smaller battles like 1000 Points I am making a list that uses a Hammerhead over Broadsides, why?  Just like Tobab said, mobility.  A hammerhead can move up to 12" and broadsides it would take 2 turns to do it.  Also I find that the Multi-tracker + Hammerhead = Scared Opponent.  This allows the Hammerhead to move 12" fire the Railgun and only take glancing hits because it is a skimmer that moved over 6".(Is that the rule?)

[DeadSeraphim]

Broadsides would seem to become very important in Farsight armies, where you're limited to a single Hammerhead (and a single Broadside unit, also).  Fielding the Broadsides becomes the only way to get more than one Railgun.

The general consensus seems to be mobility over the static fireline/layered defense strategy.  Just wondering how everyone would pull that off with the Farsight limitations.

[Callidus]

OK!! Use the Tau ambush tactic thingy. Instead of using Kroot to draw the enemy in, or battle suits, use space marines. There better armor and toughness, they should survive longer and won't be ripped to shreds if they do have to get into CC. The Tau take pulse rifles, Broadsides, Pathfinders and a Hammerhead. Maybe some Crisis to go with the SM and give them fire support, and also some drones, just because they so useful.
SM should take some fast, hard-hitting units (assualt squads in rhinos?) to draw out the enemy form hiding. The Tyranids usually have to come out and getcha anyways, but the Necrons and DE could happily sit out of range of your main attacks, and just shoot.
It would be too risky to do the other tactic, Because the DE and Tyranids would happily assualt you very quickly, and that would be a big mess of Tau body parts.

[Tobab816]

Yep.

Hammerhead + Multitracker = scared opponent

Hammerhead + multitracker + decoy launcher = very scared opponent

And a hammerhead with railgun+two burstcannons+decoy launcher+multitracker is but 165 points for a viechle that can smack some serious ass and take more beating than a Waveserpent. Not to mention that its the ONLY Blast weapon that the Taus got. And a seriously good blast weapon at that. Prone to taking out entire squads of enemies in one blast.

[ShasElCudha]

I have about 2000pt Tau force and actually play against Black Templar quite alot so I know quite a bit about both forces. Given the choice of units he is bringing to the table, there is not much more he can do but use you as a screen with his firewarriors. He probably won't get into enough trouble with an excellent close assault army like the Templars, therefore there is probably no reason to use his devilfish. I'd try to balance your troops 50% Templar 50% Tau, ditch the devilfish and get him to bring Crisis Suits and Stealth suits. If you get any missions where you can deepstrike, you can drop your terminators in and get him to drop his crisis team in then you can have a fun hunt in behind enemy lines. I would also suggest a combination of deepstriking terminators and gundrone squad. See if the gundrones can pin a unit down for a turn then knock' em dead with your terminators.
In my opinion a union of Tau and Templar would really compliment each other.

[Siege_TF]

I actually perfer my Hammerhead with an Ion Cannon. It's more likely to kill Marines, who are by far the most common army.

For crowd control (tyranids and orks) go for Stealthsuits; Jump in, crank off a bunch of shots, jump out, and laugh when they enemy can't spot them.

If you want tank poppers go for Broadsides, they may be static, but they are cheaper and their railguns are twinlinked. Give one a shield generator, and a hard-wired drone controller with a shield drone, and you've got some serious staying power, handy if there is no cover. But you have to promote that guy to team leader, which is basically an extra ten points.

[MonkeyGod]

I play battles with my SMurf friend all the time and ALWAYS does the same stupid Smurf tactic, charge ahead and killl stuff...so i just turn against him and shoot him down.

Any way lots of FW for the armys your playing against and lots of heavy support should do fine, mainly broadsides.

[franklin_d23]

  what i would do is have the hammerhead take out as many necrons as you can, and then the s.m. engage the dark eldar in cc while(if you do) have all the carbines in the firewarriors pin the nids and watch them suffer pulse rifles. once the SMurfs are done with the dark eldar,(optional)send the necs a present full of seeker missiles to take out the lord and others if they are still alive.then pick off the survivors at will.

[one_klump]

Yep.


And a hammerhead with railgun+two burstcannons+decoy launcher+multitracker is but 165 points for a viechle that can smack some serious ass and take more beating than a Waveserpent.

165 pts? You sure about about that? It sounds more like a little over 200 pts to me.

[Siege_TF]

Nope, I just checked and it's 165.

[ShasElCudha]

Maybe I'm chicken but I wouldn't take a Hammerhead vs. Necrons. No way never. I should say never again. I played 1500 versus them and got no use out of it. If any necron unit with a gauss weapon that hits on 6 will be rolling on the glancing table.

[Siege_TF]

I'm starting to think that hammerheads are just 'the obligitory tank'. It exists because everybody would be up in arms if the Tau only got transports for vehicles, which, IMO would suit the Tau better. No pun intended.  

[franklin_d23]

Next time we're gonna play more points and i think he's gonna take a broadside as an HQ,

     I'm sure you cannot take a broadside as an HQ, tell him to get a shas'O crisis