Tau: Review

[Deciever]

Well. Now the Tau are out, and people have picked up a few probably. What do y'all think? Are they "so good!" or "no good!"? I personally don't think they really refkect the fledgling spirit of the Tau. But that's just fluff. What do you think?

[Phobos]

I would say that their capital ships barely compare to those of the Imperium, and that their escorts are cheap and ok-ishly powerful. Therefore I think the common tactic of Tau players would be a basic swarm of ships, which is rather cheesey, and not at all in character with the Tau.

[gundamfan]

The tau aren't too good by looks, because they don't fit the tau theme. THe tau are high tech, and their vehicles are very smooth. The ships should be smoothed out instead of being so dang boxy. The forgeworld ships, like the manta and orca, fit the theme perfectly. But not the BFG taus.

[Wadayamean]

Eeep Commander! Theres a large group of boxe-like objects heading towards us!

Well that settles it. Bring the ships up to full combat alert and prepare to kill those evil crates!

[gundamfan]

lol, first post on this thread in, like, 3 months! Were you bored so you just dug back through past threads?

[Thunder]

I played a game vs Taus.
I didn't play very well, but I can say their strength is they high capacity of the main battleship's launching bays.
This battleship is cheap and launches 8 ordnance!
Imagine 3 of them: 24 bombers!
So an easy tactics is remaining back and launching bombers at full capacity.
It is hard to deal with, especially if you have ships with the lowest armour value of 5 or less and with few turrets.
As the majority of the cruisers have 5 armour value and 2 turrets, 8 or 10 bombers are sufficient to destroy it "for free" that means without risking any cap ship.
Moreover Tau have the "Hero" class cruiser and the "Orca" escort ships.
Quite cheap and equipped with lances batteries.
The "hero" can fire 6 lances in the frontal arc of fire ar 30 cm: not bad!
I am studying a good fleet to play against tau both using space marines and imperial navy.
With imperials you have nova cannons and that can make the difference, but space marines are forced to rush into them suffering Orca's and Hero's lances fire.
So in my opinion a good fleet.

Bye.

[Atlen]

The Tau are a new entity to the Battlefleet Gothic Gaming Experience. Their primary battlesihp costs only 230 points plus the addition of 75 points for three Orca class gunships. This is a cheap ship armed with only six weapons batteries but it has an amazing amount of ordinance that it can launce, equal to that of an Emperor class Battleship minus the heavy weapons armorment. Using that as base the Tau are lightly armed with weapons batteries but have an array of torpedoes, bombers, and fighters that they can launch which will easily over-whelm most base-line imperial or chaos carries.

As i mentioned in an earlier post. what i have found to be the key to taking out a Tau fleet is forcing them to brace for impact. What i have found to be most effective in doing this is the inclusion of lance armed dauntless light cruisers. Packing a heavy lance armorment in the front and weapons batteries on the side almost capable of matching Tau heavy capitals, i think you might have found the counter foil to a large Tau fleet.

[Thunder]

Has the dauntless only one turret?
If yes I don't think it is the best way to respond to the Tau fleets.
I tried a 1000 point game with 3 dictator and 8 escorts (swords and firestorms).
We weren't able to finish the game but I was doing quite good.
The aircraft carriers are a good threat to the Orcas and the escorts can try to tail their battleships or to draw their swarm of bomber, in the meanwhile the dictator can try to get closer.
However there is not the ultimate solution.
I only think against Tau is worth enough to field aircraft carriers and escorts.

Bye.

[Atlen]

Good point Thunder, but i didn't mention that to be most effective ordinance is put into stacks of 4 or 8 meaning the dauntless can use its lances and broadside weapons to defend themselves. The prow lances also give the Dauntless alot of options that most prow torpedo armed Imperial Ships don't have. A good match-up would be 2 swords in base to base conatct to give the dauntless 3 turrets, increasing the ability to defend themselves.

[Thunder]

Great!
I have not read the rulebook enough deeply so far.
I didn't know escort that are touching another ship can give her more turrets.
I am going to find it on the rulebook.
this now is making me reconsider other options.
Thank you.

Bye.