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Need Help from a Tau Vet!

796 views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  Otsego 
#1 ·
OK so here it is,


I had 1500 points of Tau but I dindt paint it so I sold the stuff... So now I want a really shooty army and of coarse it comes down to IG or Tau. I was wondering if I could get some advice on how to get the most shots out of 2000 points. I HATE kroot so please don't tell me to take them... I just am tired of losing to my bet friend who plays Nids and he is always getting to my line and destroying me no matter what army I play. Please help!
 
#2 ·
I don't us kroot either and i play my mates Nid's every couple of weeks. heres what i usually use:

I like using firewarriors. their basic gun will deny guants and basic stealers their save, so unless he roles with etended carapace your laughing. I always take my FW's with a devilfish for the awesome fish of fury. will enable you to screen your firewarriors from his Nid's while you rapid fire them to bits. I upgrade my Fish to have flechette dischargers since he is going to have to charge your fish and they can really help to whittle down the numbers. even a stealer will struggle hitting a fish that has moved over 6" in the movement phase. i take mine with burst cannons to give extra anti infantry firepower.

a hammerhead with railgun is a must with those amazing submunnitions which will take ou guants and stealers with ease. either take 2 of those or a railhead and an ionhead. with its 3 shoots a phase and decent strength and AP they can be pretty effective against Nid's too.
these weapons will be useful against his MC's too. as long as you can maintain LOS at a decent range these things wont get touched.

Stealth troopers are great. take em as a maxed out squad but with their short range you need to use your jump shoot jump into cover or over obsticales to stay out of charge range esp. since he will have fleet of claw. when you open up with them burst cannons though they will rip through guants and basic stealers no problem.

i usually run my HQ with Plasma and MP. I like to take STIM and VRT's just in case! Plus i like the idea of a HQ thats solid and can just jump out of combat if he gets caught. I never use it but I just think its a cool bit of fluff!!

I also take a squad of three XV8's with TLMP's. relly good for thining out hordes or taking down MC's. good range and when combined with JSJ pretty much never gonna get hit.

Sometimes i will take another squad of XV8's. they will usually have Plasma rifle and MP but sometimes plasma and Fusion blaster just for a change.

I've been toying with the idea of XV8's with TL flamers which will deepstrike into his lines but i've never had the balls to do it!!

Okay thats my run down. am at work so i don't have my lists so i can't give any point values.

just remember that cover is the freind of your suits and Fish of Fury and rapid fire is the friend of your warriors.
 
#4 ·
Excellent advice, let me add to it if I may...

I don't us kroot either and i play my mates Nid's every couple of weeks. heres what i usually use:
Kroot can save the rest of your army against enemy assaulters. Kroot hounds are as good as a hormagaunt and cost 1/2 the points. Don't use them if you don't want to, but they will eat up gaunts and hormagaunts and likely make their points back against any Tyranid troop.

I like using firewarriors. their basic gun will deny guants and basic stealers their save, so unless he roles with etended carapace your laughing. I always take my FW's with a devilfish for the awesome fish of fury. will enable you to screen your firewarriors from his Nid's while you rapid fire them to bits. I upgrade my Fish to have flechette dischargers since he is going to have to charge your fish and they can really help to whittle down the numbers.
Good advice though I would disagree with the usefulness of flechettes. Any good Nid player won't assault Tau vehicles or any skimmer for that matter, especially with gaunts and hormagaunts that can't even touch the armor.

even a stealer will struggle hitting a fish that has moved over 6" in the movement phase.
Just a clarification - hitting a skimmer (that is skimming, i.e. not landed) in close combat always requires a six whether the vehicle moved or not. This means it is usually not a good tactic for any opponent to assault your vehicles.

a hammerhead with railgun is a must with those amazing submunnitions which will take ou guants and stealers with ease. either take 2 of those or a railhead and an ionhead. with its 3 shoots a phase and decent strength and AP they can be pretty effective against Nid's too.
these weapons will be useful against his MC's too. as long as you can maintain LOS at a decent range these things wont get touched.
I would even argue it's worth it to take 2 railheads and 1 ionhead... That submunition round is amazing against enemy non-MEQ troops.

Stealth troopers are great. take em as a maxed out squad but with their short range you need to use your jump shoot jump into cover or over obsticales to stay out of charge range esp. since he will have fleet of claw. when you open up with them burst cannons though they will rip through guants and basic stealers no problem.
Stealth suits can be very good but remember that even with JSJ it can be difficult to keep them out of close combat depending on what units your enemy has nearby. Hormagaunts and Raveners are FAST.

I also take a squad of three XV8's with TLMP's. relly good for thining out hordes or taking down MC's. good range and when combined with JSJ pretty much never gonna get hit.
I would never say not to take Deathrains as they are obviously really really good, but not against MC's. If I were playing against Tau with my Tyranids, I would not fear Missile Pods at all with the MC's. A 2+ armor save is a tough nut to crack, and the occasional wound it may cause is no big deal. Use plasma and fusion for the MC's, or just massive amounts of Pulse Rifle/Burst cannon fire.

I've been toying with the idea of XV8's with TL flamers which will deepstrike into his lines but i've never had the balls to do it!!
I love it when opponents use deep-striking flamers against my Nids. A few die, and the rest get a good easy meal. Deployed flamers are even better because they almost never get a shot off since I can move and assault more than double their range.

Okay thats my run down. am at work so i don't have my lists so i can't give any point values.

just remember that cover is the freind of your suits and Fish of Fury and rapid fire is the friend of your warriors.
Good advice given my friend. You know your Tau. Rep added.
 
#3 ·
Well, it's highly unlikely that changing your army will magically change your gaming fate when you play. Every 40K army has strengths and weaknesses, and that includes your friend's "unbeatable" Tyranids and the army/armies you field. Generally speaking, the army general that takes the greatest advantage of his army's strengths while minimizing his army's weaknesses will beat his opponent, no matter what they play. I would hazard, therefore, that the problem lies not with your army, but with your playing style and tactical approach. No matter what army you field, you need to employ a list that plays not only to your strengths as a tactician, but also the army's inherent strengths.

Depending on what you're currently playing, consider going to the appropriate forum here on LO and asking for help. Give the membership a general layout and tactical plan of your friend's nids, and the general layout and tactical plan of your army, and see what people say.

However, to answer your direct question, the 40K army that can field the most firepower per point is undeniably the Imperial Guard. If you want guns, Guns and more GUNS (not to mention some of the most points-efficient heavy armour in the game), then it's the IG you want. Just don't expect the IG to perform that well in assault, or be that mobile a force. Your games will largely be won or lost in the deployment phase.

The Tau are very "shooty", but largely out of necessity; they are utter crap in assault, the worst army in the game in assault, in fact. Even the IG will kick the crap out of us. People do still field "static" Tau armies, armies that don't invest many points in troop mechanization (akin to your average IG army), but it's one of the more difficult ways to play as the Tau troops are quite expensive when used in this fashion. You won't get nearly the body count nor weapons count of the IG, so even though your armour save is better and the weaponry employed is superior, the odds are not on your side to pull out a win. General consensus is that the Tau army is one that is best used as a largely (or even fully) mechanized, fast, mobile firepower army. One that can redeploy itself very quickly to any location on the battlefield. Such an army relies on creating a small space of local superiority and then annihilating its intended, isolated target(s) at that location. Then moving on and doing the same thing again. It is an opportunistic army, not necessarily aggressive or defensive. It preys upon poorly defended enemy units and/or enemy units that can be overwhelmed in a single turn through a single application of overwhelming force. However, if the Tau leave themselves vulnerable while attempting to pull of these actions, the army can fold frighteningly quickly.

Whatever you decide to do, army list composition ideas can be found in the army list subforums. Have a look-see there, and at comments, before asking people to build you a list from scratch.
 
#5 ·
Well, it's highly unlikely that changing your army will magically change your gaming fate when you play. Every 40K army has strengths and weaknesses, and that includes your friend's "unbeatable" Tyranids and the army/armies you field. Generally speaking, the army general that takes the greatest advantage of his army's strengths while minimizing his army's weaknesses will beat his opponent, no matter what they play. I would hazard, therefore, that the problem lies not with your army, but with your playing style and tactical approach. No matter what army you field, you need to employ a list that plays not only to your strengths as a tactician, but also the army's inherent strengths.

Depending on what you're currently playing, consider going to the appropriate forum here on LO and asking for help. Give the membership a general layout and tactical plan of your friend's nids, and the general layout and tactical plan of your army, and see what people say.

However, to answer your direct question, the 40K army that can field the most firepower per point is undeniably the Imperial Guard. If you want guns, Guns and more GUNS (not to mention some of the most points-efficient heavy armour in the game), then it's the IG you want. Just don't expect the IG to perform that well in assault, or be that mobile a force. Your games will largely be won or lost in the deployment phase.

The Tau are very "shooty", but largely out of necessity; they are utter crap in assault, the worst army in the game in assault, in fact. Even the IG will kick the crap out of us. People do still field "static" Tau armies, armies that don't invest many points in troop mechanization (akin to your average IG army), but it's one of the more difficult ways to play as the Tau troops are quite expensive when used in this fashion. You won't get nearly the body count nor weapons count of the IG, so even though your armour save is better and the weaponry employed is superior, the odds are not on your side to pull out a win. General consensus is that the Tau army is one that is best used as a largely (or even fully) mechanized, fast, mobile firepower army. One that can redeploy itself very quickly to any location on the battlefield. Such an army relies on creating a small space of local superiority and then annihilating its intended, isolated target(s) at that location. Then moving on and doing the same thing again. It is an opportunistic army, not necessarily aggressive or defensive. It preys upon poorly defended enemy units and/or enemy units that can be overwhelmed in a single turn through a single application of overwhelming force. However, if the Tau leave themselves vulnerable while attempting to pull of these actions, the army can fold frighteningly quickly.

Whatever you decide to do, army list composition ideas can be found in the army list subforums. Have a look-see there, and at comments, before asking people to build you a list from scratch.


If you re-read my first entry, you will see I did not ask for anyon to build me a list. I am purely here for ideas. Thanks for yours.
 
#11 ·
I should have been more specific. I meant to ask Amerikaner_1988 why he doesn't like kroot. Most people either like or dislike kroot, but he stated in his original post that he HATES kroot, thats pretty strong just curious why.

I would agree with you though xsickpeoplex, that I like Tau models, but don't really care for the look of the kroot and hounds models.

They do however add quit a bit to the overall performance of the Tau army. I try to balance my lists as much as possible and by adding kroot, it's just one more thing that can add to that balance. Including one or two squads of fairly static kroot to a list that is loaded pretty heavily on the move and shoot principle adds a new dimension.

Even with the addition of kroot, you (or I rather) am still pretty weak in CC. That weakness will never fly out the door, Tau will always be lacking in that respect, which is why I think adding kroot works fluff wise. The Tau know they suck in CC so why not get somebody to do it for them. Kroot w/hounds are a somewhat suicidal squad, throwing themselves at the enemy for the greater good and all you know, that's how I see and play them anyway. They are cheap, can infiltrate, they can help to keep enemy infiltrators back, and slowdown (if not outright destroy) some units for awhile which gives your other units a better chance at survival.

Well, that was longer than anticipated....just my $.02
 
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