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Tau Mech Tactics? (new to Tau)

957 views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  Rikimaru 
#1 ·
I’m looking at making a 1500pt Mechanised Tau army cause I always like a different type of game play for each of my armies Chaos provides heavy infantry, Guard provide swarm game play so I’m now interested in an all armoured army and skimmers survive longer than normal tanks, most people suggest Eldar but I prefer Tau.

So I like some hints about tactics and layout for a 1500pts ‘very competitive’ Tau Mech Army as my local gaming club is fierce! I also have a few questions…

Question 1.
Should I go for Tanks like 2 Hammerheads, 1 Skyray and 3 Separate Piranhas with 1 Seeker Missile each and support them with mounted fire warriors.
Or
Should I rely on massed ‘Fishes of Fury’ (Mounted Fire Warrior Squads) with Tanks supporting them?

Question 2.
What vehicle upgrades do you suggest for Tau Tanks apart from the Decoy Launchers which is a must?

Question 3.
Does Tau process anyway to nullify escalation rules and get the tanks on to the board quicker?

Any help from experienced players would be useful :D
 
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#2 ·
For 1500pts lists, you will be using up around 550pts in your Commander (probably a Shas'el Fireknife+) and two 12-man Troops units in DF, so to answer your three questions with this in mind:

1. Two Hammerheads: yes, with Railgun/SMS/MT/TL/DL: nets you 360pts. Forget the Piranhas and the Skyray at this level.

2. Multitracker and Target Lock for Hamerhead, with DP a close runner. Multitracker and (Target Array) on the DF, with SMS if you have the points spare, Gun Drones if you're needing the points elsewhere.

3. No. Even the Pathfinders have to leave their DF behind.

Ok, so you're interested in the FoF tactic, but you also need some medium-range fire support, so consider what configurations of Crisis Battlesuit you want to take. The commonest "best" all-rounder is considered to be the Fireknife (MP/PR/MT), taken as 2-man unit with T-Ldr upgrade with Target Array. This costs 139pts. A second unit worth looking into is the Deathrain (TLMP/TA), again as a 2-man unit with T-Ldr taking HWTL (although it's best to concentrate all the firepower from this unit into one enemy target, it is useful to have the opportunity to pick off a separate light vehicle when the chance presents itself). This unit costs 116pts.

So you have a 97pt Commander, 2x120pt Fire Warrior units in 2x120pt Warfish (MT/DL/TA/SMS), a total of 255pts in Crisis Suits and 360pts in Hammerheads, giving you a total of 1192pts. You need some Markerlights in this list, so consider a unit of 8 PFs in a Warfish (or you can go basic DF with just DL) costing you a further 216pts (181 with basic DF). You have 92pts left which is sufficient for a 6-man Fire Warrior team with 'Ui upgrade taking a Markerlight and HWTL for 85pts. Introduces another ML into the army plus gives you a small firebase for holding Table Quarters. Or you could have 13 Kroot.

Hope some of this was helpful.

E.
 
#3 ·
I’m looking at making a 1500pt Mechanised Tau army cause I always like a different type of game play for each of my armies Chaos provides heavy infantry, Guard provide swarm game play so I’m now interested in an all armoured army and skimmers survive longer than normal tanks, most people suggest Eldar but I prefer Tau.

So I like some hints about tactics and layout for a 1500pts ‘very competitive’ Tau Mech Army as my local gaming club is fierce! I also have a few questions…

Question 1.
Should I go for Tanks like 2 Hammerheads, 1 Skyray and 3 Separate Piranhas with 1 Seeker Missile each and support them with mounted fire warriors.
Or
Should I rely on massed ‘Fishes of Fury’ (Mounted Fire Warrior Squads) with Tanks supporting them?

Question 2.
What vehicle upgrades do you suggest for Tau Tanks apart from the Decoy Launchers which is a must?

Question 3.
Does Tau process anyway to nullify escalation rules and get the tanks on to the board quicker?

Any help from experienced players would be useful :D
Q1: A must have in a mech army is at least one hammerhead. Always try and go for two, and if you can fit a Skyray in itd be a really nice fire support. Dont worry about pirhannas. IMO they arent all they are cracked up to be. For the amount of points they are, they die rather easy. You need to have two troops choices, so youll need at least two mounted firewarrior squads. Most people usually have two.

Q2: On the hammerhead multitrackers are a must. You need to keep your tanks moving to survive. Target locks are useful upgrades if you have the spare points also. On devilfishes (providing you have the points) go for the 'Warfish' instead. Targetting array, multitracker, decoys and the Smart Missile System. Adds quite a bit of extra firepower to your army. Always try to max out your firewarriors in these squads.

Q3: The answer is simple...No

Round out the rest with Battlesuits and youll be sweet :D I recommend investing in some Fireknives, youll need some anti MEQ in there. Two two man teams are great if you can fit them in. Also consider some deathrains, or even helios for some anti tank.
 
#4 ·
Okay to answer severeal of your questions. IMO the skyray isnt that great of a tank, in 1500 it wouldnt really occupy any niches any of your other units coultn do better. 2 hammerheads is a must, railgun/sms/tl/ta/mt/dl comes out to 180 and is the best configuration.

FoF is a vital part of the mech tau strategy. You want to maximize fire power on individual units. My favorite set up is a 12 man team, without any upgrades. in a warfish, which is a devilfish with sms, decoy, ta, multitracker. The whole unit runs about 240. But what that gives you is 31 strength 5 shots on the turn you pop out. The warfish is also a devestating gun boat as well. With sms you dont even have to expose yourself to shoot. Sit behind trees and buildings and plink away at the incoming enemy. Then when they get close enough, run out and FoF. 2 units of those and the 2 hammerheads will run you 840. Now you have nearly 700 points to play with.

For the HQ slot, imo the best commander is a s shas'el w/ missilepod, plasma, ta, multitracker. The set up runs you 97 points, and porvides you with an independant character that can shred light vehicles and all types of infantry. The fireknife configuration of crisis suit is the best in a mech list. It fills the all important role of medium strength firepower, and brings the most volume to the table. One of my favorite set ups is to run 5 fire knife suits, 2 'els as previously described and 3 teamleading loners with the same set up. This is a very powerful set up. It allows you to place 5 individual units in different places. They are very easy to maneuver. And you can split your fire on to seperate units if you need to. Not too mention, if the enemy ever does get to assault range...feed him a 77 point suit. The concentrate your fire on it the next turn. That way you dont lose a 200+ point squad to one assaulter. All five suits cost 425, which is a bargain considering the survivability and damage out put they can bring. Total this costs 1265.

This would leave you 235 points. This leaves you tons of options. You could go for another FW team, or perhaps the piranhas. I prefer them in bigger point games but 3 piranhas, with fusion, and a target array (all in seperate squads) can be pretty good armor killers if you run them up the side. All three cost 210. What i will usually opt for is a pathfinder team. I used to not like them, but once you play around with them the power of marker lights is exceptional. You can use it to deny cover saves from your ap 2 plasma or your hammerhead blasts. Nothing like pie-plating a bunch of eldar pathfinders and stripping all their cover saves against a hammerhead blast. Its quite good fun. Not too mention you can bring along another warfish, which provides not only excellent fire, but it also has the positional rely for missions where it is appropriate to deep strike your suits. I usually make it an 8 man squad with a shas'ui and bonding knife for 111 points and another warfish for 120. That pretty much fills the 1500. By no means am i telling you you need to buy this stuff, i am just explaining some of the units i use and why i take them in my 1500 points list which i have great success with. Hope you dont mind the long read and to answer your last question...pray to the dice gods lol.
 
#7 ·
Okay to answer severeal of your questions. IMO the skyray isnt that great of a tank, in 1500 it wouldnt really occupy any niches any of your other units coultn do better. 2 hammerheads is a must, railgun/sms/tl/ta/mt/dl comes out to 180 and is the best configuration.
The Skyray is a fantastic vehicle, it is not a tank so thinking of it in those terms is just pointless, the main use of the SR is as a highly mobile markerlight platform, it is the only unit in the Tau arsenal that can move and shoot with ML's (give it multi to allow the full 12" movement), it can ML two targets a turn and with TA is doing so at BS4, with the TA, multi and decoys it cost 155pts and for that you get 6 seekers as a bonus (and these can fire even if the vehicle is stunned if you have other ML's in the list).
I would always advise two HH and a Skyray in any list from and including 1500pts, mainly because the HH really benefit from the marker lights BS bonus.
Also the best fit for a Hammerhead is the basic 165 pts Burst cannons, Railgun, Multi and decoys, you do not need Target lock because you should NEVER be in range to use either SMS or BC, the SMS tends to encourage the player to get close to utilise it and its simply not worrth the risk of bringing the HH in range of the opponents weapons and losing the railgun (players will always take this 1st).
You should always aim to move as much as possible with a HH and to keep at maximum range to minimise the shooting it takes.
FoF is a vital part of the mech tau strategy. You want to maximize fire power on individual units. My favorite set up is a 12 man team, without any upgrades. in a warfish, which is a devilfish with sms, decoy, ta, multitracker. The whole unit runs about 240. But what that gives you is 31 strength 5 shots on the turn you pop out. The warfish is also a devestating gun boat as well. With sms you dont even have to expose yourself to shoot. Sit behind trees and buildings and plink away at the incoming enemy. Then when they get close enough, run out and FoF. 2 units of those and the 2 hammerheads will run you 840. Now you have nearly 700 points to play with.
Warfish is not a good idea for a FW squad, its a transport first and taking a DF with drones makes more sense, the drones can be dropped to provide an anti assault screen along with the DF and they also force target priority tests. If you want to take a Warfish limit it to the Pathfinder squad, the points it costs to upgrade the FW squads Devilfish are better spent elswhere and can make the difference between taking 1 HH or 2 in 1500tps lists
 
#5 ·
1.At least hammerhead is a must if just for the intimidation factor (they provide MUCH more than this let me tell you). Piranhas Function best in pairs. Fish of Fury is an amazing tactic and should be abused err i mean used as much as possible =). O and on another note i rather like Skyrays. the 2 extra markerlights never hurt (i play farsight enclave so markerlights are a rare commodity).

2. For Firewarrior Fish just use Decoy launchers. Targeting arrays are something to think about for all others. If you take pathfinders upgrade their Fish with Decoys targetting arrays and Smart missles. This is called a warfish and is great for harrasing units (pathfinders dont really need their fish as their markerlights have a long range).

3. Nope =/ All of our tanks suffer as bad as anyone elses




All in all Tau Tanks are In my opinion the single best tanks for the points cost the game of 40k has to offer. Hammerheads are rightly feared and we have one of if not the best transport for the cost in the game.
 
#10 ·
Easy to make up for the "lack of" defense vs. Assaults.... basically, you ensure that the target who would be assaulting, goes down. Rapid fire, seven shots from the Warfish (all more accurate than the Devilfish), a potential four to seven from the Warfish the previous turn (due to the multitracker), and then the random pot shots in from Crisis Suits or whatever you have free at the time. If there's not a unit to assault you, you don't have to worry about it.

You can also use the SMS while on the move - how often do you Fish of Fury? You have to move to the location, get out, shoot, and get back in - this will take three turns, minimum. (First turn, move, second turn disembark/shoot, third turn, get back in and move away). With the Warfish, even though you aren't Fish of Furying more often (it's the same), you get to shoot the entire time you're doing it when you're in range.

Like I said, Riki, it may not be the most viable option for you, but that doesn't mean it isn't the most viable option for someone else. I like it better and it always serves me better - it doesn't serve you as well, that's okay, I believe you and I think you should stick with your naked Devilfish. However, I don't think players who haven't tried them both should shy away from it, by all means they need to be testing them both out and finding the solution for themselves.

Anyways - many pardons to the OP for the offtopic discussion. :)



 
#11 ·
Its not of topic, its discussing the upgrades on vehicles (question 2), as to your point about always shooting, i have actually started to take multi on my DF but I should have mentioned this (I get so used to just saying standard DF, which we all know as DF with DL's), this means the BC and drones can all fire.
However I totally agree that neither your not my word should be taken at face value, play each option and then decide. The only thing I have against it is the cost and the fact is tied to the FW squad, I have nothing against Warfish as such indeed I like them and wholly recommend they be taken as a PF upgrade.
 
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