Topic: Space Wolves vs. Tau

[Elcrispo]

Could somebody give me some tips to defeat my friends tau army. he has a few boardsides and lots of firewarriors and is planning to get a devilfish .

[SeriousCallersOnly]

I play vanilla rather than SW, but should be similar. You'll take a lot of damage getting to the tau before you can assault. The tau players I play against tend to stay on the backline, popping up with suits and hiding again. The best way I found was to use pods, infiltrating CC scouts and jump packs. Don't bother with armour, those railguns will pop your vehicles before you get a shot. I stick with devs and landspeeder MMs for anti-armour.

[Xadh00m]

Which unit have you got to put in your army?`If you tell us what you have to work with, I'm sure there are several people on this board that can give you quite a few gems on army composition and tactical play.

But as a note in general, don't try to outshoot them. Get in Close combat. Use excessive force on smaller parts of his army, wilst keeping out of LOS from the relatively static Fire Warriors and completely static Broadsides.

--
Xadhoom

[Sheepz]

Use your Longfangs to outrange his firewarriors and pop his suits. With split fire, you can get away with 2 Lascannons and 2 Heavy Bolters. Scouts coming on from his board edge will put a dent in his plans, if only to save you a round of shooting. Use big units of Blood Claws and or Grey Hunters. If you have Rhinos, kit them with smokes and additional armour and hug any cover you can. Bikers would also be a boon, if you have any.

[SeriousCallersOnly]

If he knows what he's doing and always uses his bounce move on the suits to get back into cover, you won'tt get a shot in from the long fangs. You'll be best assaulting them with power weapons. Use the fangs on the tanks, go after the broadsides with your scouts.

[Sheepz]

Broadsides have no bounce, so he can nuke them with Lascannons pretty easily, unless they wanna hide or not fire effectively.

[Xadh00m]

Broadsides have no bounce, so he can nuke them with Lascannons pretty easily, unless they wanna hide or not fire effectively.

Well, if the Tau player loads up with two Shield Drones and buy Shield Generators for the suits, I find Lascannons to be less than satisfactory in taking them out.

If your opponent have a lot of Fire Warriors, get a Whirlwind (or two  )

--
Xadhoom

[Squirrelloid]

If you weren't Space Wolves, i'd say Drop Pod and Librarian with Fear of Darkness - watch half his army desert him!  Thats what you get for deploying on your table edge.

Really, drop pods are the best solution. If not drop pods, focus on men - get lots of rhino squads and bikers, hug cover, and try to get into h2h as fast as possible.

Also try to focus your deployment on one side of the table, that should either make him deploy some units farther forward, or not get all his shooting at you.

If he can open up with everything all the time, you need more cover on that board.  Use 25% cover - that should cut down how much LoS he has.

[Wuestenfux]

Against Tau, a standard force with Rhinos and Assault squads covered by Preds can get the job done.
Generally, good units vs. Tau are
1. Fast cc oriented squads: Assault squads and Biker squads.
2. Tactical Marine squads mounted in Rhinos or Drop Pods.
3. Squads giving cover fire: Preds, Whirlwinds, Devastators w/ heavy bolters.

A good tactics against a very shooty army is target saturation, i.e., to present enough targets so that it can't take down everything in one or two rounds.

[SeriousCallersOnly]

Again with the broadsides - he'll get a save against anything but las, plas or melta, and if he's got any sense, he'll deploy in hard cover and stay there - i.e. a 4+ against any shooting. If he has a pair of broadsides plus shield drones, you're taking a lot of las shots to do him. Assault with scouts or pods is the only way to deliver a save negating weapon fast enough. Do they have W2 too? make that a fist. If your mate gets a hammerhead, don't bother with any expensive armour at all.

[Lanfeix]

the shield drones arnt that hard! use a mass fire to knock off the drones to less than half and then use the lascannons to kill.

I wouldent bother with any armour vechiles (except drop pods) is it just suicide even for a land radier. rhinos can be glanced form the frount by pluse fire.

and of course the simple way to win kill the etheral (not hard with scout who come on from the wrong side of the table)

if he getting a devil fish he probley getting pathfinders, if these things are on the feild say good bye to the cover save.

[Elcrispo]

I've got a battleforce and he is getting aun'shi to try to counter my blood claws in combat.
What HQ do you say would be best?

[Wuestenfux]

I've got a battleforce and he is getting aun'shi to try to counter my blood claws in combat.
What HQ do you say would be best?

A Wolf Lord w/ belt of russ, frost blade, bolt pistol, ... on a bike is very nasty in cc.
The same holds for a Rune Priest. Let him transport by a Rhino squad.
Not to forget a venerable Dread.
However, HQ's usually don't win games.