Dealing with 58+ S7 shots at 36" range [1850]

[CoffeeGrunt]

It is more doable in this edition, but I see why I don't run into it. I'm a CSM player and have access to Dirge caster. I rarely fear Overwatch. For this tactic to work on me it would key on eliminating my vehicles entirely before I act and that would just draw a lot of fire away from my more dangerous units. I'll have to suggest this list for experimentation to some of my Tau opponents though and see how they fare with it.

It isn't blindly charging up the field, you have to be wary of units that can put the hurt down and prioritise them. The Missile Pod team with Commander is effectively a self-sufficient unit intended to wreck 3 Transports per turn. Against stuff like Rhinos it's more than capable of that, and say, a Defiler or Soul Grinder rocks up, they can concentrate their S7 fire with re-rolls and Ignores Cover to wear it down fairly sharpish. The Riptides and Railhead can also fire in support.

It's all about pressure and target priority, knocking your opponent just off-balance enough that they're on the back foot, and few people expect that from Tau, so I've ended up with opponents hiding in the middle of their deployment from the Tau advance. It's not perfect and can fail against a very aggressive opponent, and was a much better 6th list due to holding all the Troops in Outflank and therefore out of anti-Infantry fire until they come on and can do something.

[clever handle]

Then there is the unit of Swooping hawks, each with haywire grenades.

they deepstrike, throw one grenade & are shot / assaulted off the board. They're not scary. If they're deployed, they still need to get into close combat with a high value target which means they're inside a range band for counter attack.

The 5 shots of BS4 melta from the Fire Dragons +2 Shots of BS5 from the exarch.

again, these guys need to come to you to be effective & that's the difference. They're not showing up & popping your tank the turn they hit the board, you have at least one turn to deal with these units before they're a threat as they're not deepstriking into effective range. This is a big difference and certainly isn't arbitrary.

Then there are the bright lances...

yup. As I said, they work - when they work, but suffer from "single shot" syndrome - I'm not trying to be dismissive here, but this is simply a fact. The crimson hunter has good first-strike potential & can be very effective at busting armor from range.

The distinctions you are drawing are arbitrary. If Tau are going Missile Pod Spam like you described then they are sacrificing their melta output for this capability.

They're not sacrificing melta output. Please refer to the posted armylist on the first page of this discussion. The list in question brings the aforementioned missiles on (3) units of suits and (2) units of broadsides. It also brings (3) solo suits c/w double fusion which function just the same as termicide units, and with all of this we still have around 650 points to add drones, riptides, etc.

Again I reitterate: your only intent seems to be to dismiss, arbitrarily, any legitimate attempt to address your initial question.

I don't feel I am. Maybe you do. If thats the way you feel then why are you bothering to continue this discussion? If you feel its fruitless & yet continue to engage, that speaks volumes about you doesn't it? Do you feel that the two proposed ideas I've shot down have merit? did you review the legitimate mathhammer from my post above in response to Caitsidhe where I pointed out specifically why these proposed lists were flawed as ideas? Do you find fault in my argument? If so please point it out, rather than saying I'm dismissing these ideas out of hand - I'm giving what I feel to be legitimate reasons for dismissing them & to date nobody has countered with an effective argument. Based on your inability to actually refute my arguments I would suggest that you are the one who is being arbitrarily dismissive.

The difficulties you are describing are completely common to the 6th-7th edition meta.

[/quote]

and that's why I'm looking for tips buddy. I've run a very successful Chaos Space marines list that has managed to do very well against the most common heavy hitter lists but this particular force has left me stumped. Tau, Eldar, flying circus, space marines of any type, you name it I've managed to do well. This particular Farsight Enclaves force is problematic.

[xsquidz]

What about a unit of 3 war walkers with dual bright lances? Outflank and then come in to wreck the Tau face. Good vs. vehicles and vs. T4 units with multiple wounds.

[clever handle]

I think that keeping the warwalkers on the table would be a better bet. You can keep outside of the 36" missile range by using battle-focus to jump in and out of range after shooting, and with a farseer to buff them with fortune you can greatly increase the survivability of those AV10 2HP walkers.

If you try to outflank them you're hoping to come on in a good spot, if you end up on the wrong side the Tau player will get a chance to fire interceptor at you before you can throw up fortune - a RR5++ is better than a 5++

@Coffeegrunt
you hit the nail on the head. My chaos has been running (2) maulerfiends, (2) rhino squads, juggerlord + spawn + bikes, in addition to support options including obliterators. Everything is, in theory, designed to be mobile, fast & aggressively in your face with (6) relatively durable and very quick, separate threats - each threat can tear a battlesuit unit apart if it manages to get there and if all goes according to plan the first wave assault - maulerfiends + Bikes + spawn hit turn 2, after the rhino squads have disembarked to soften up the enemy with two salvos of rapidfire. They can then charge into any combat turn 3, or continue to rapidfire. The problem I'm having is that the volume of firepower I'm walking into is more than capable of destroying both fiends and crippling at least one of those units on foot as soon as I step into range. Broadsides target the bikes & spawn since their SMS are useless against the AV12 fiends; the suits then address those beasts. With proper target priority, threats are mitigated wholely & efficiently. Target priority is one of the arts of 40K, really any table top wargame.

[xsquidz]

I think that keeping the warwalkers on the table would be a better bet. You can keep outside of the 36" missile range by using battle-focus to jump in and out of range after shooting, and with a farseer to buff them with fortune you can greatly increase the survivability of those AV10 2HP walkers.

If you try to outflank them you're hoping to come on in a good spot, if you end up on the wrong side the Tau player will get a chance to fire interceptor at you before you can throw up fortune - a RR5++ is better than a 5++

Yep depends on the game and the setup, plus who is going first. If I am going first I almost always leave them on the table to not lose a turn of their firepower. Plus you can hide them in a ruin for a better 4+ cover save and still try to fortune them or yeah, just move behind the cover after firing.

[40kGamer]

So to drop pods (the only idea I've "shot down") - you drop (4) pods turn one and with that bring 40 marines. Lose 15 - more than 25% of what you've brought.

At 1850 I would most likely be dropping 5-6 pods turn 1 and the bulk of the army. Atm Wolves do this even better than marines but we'll see how it goes after their new codex drops.

[Neophyte2012]

It is very relevant and we both know you read it to the end. To quote The Princess Bride, "we are men of action; lies do not become us."



Who needs Drop Pods with CSM? I do it with Obliterators and Termicide Units. Obliterators are the best buy because they can manifest the correct weapon for the job whether you are liquidating Fire Warriors in cover or nuking Armour, or vaporizing suits. Termicide units are still useful, although not as necessary with 7th Edition list building options. It is easy to get more and more Obliterators and be Battle Forged with Combined Arms detachments.



We agree; the Dreadclaw is a POS. Why you would even assume I was talking about one baffles me. Nothing prevents me from also taking an Allied Detachment of Marines (I can say they are recently Fallen) and put them in a standard Drop Pod. I don't think you really understand how wide your current 7th Edition options are. There is no limit on your options except that which you decide to apply.



In 6th and now 7th Edition the gun is king. You better well adapt and wrap your mind around that fact. The Tau and Eldar are really good with them. However, since I regularly play lists like the one you are talking about, you can't pull my leg. Playing on Tau terms is letting them shoot the crud out of you while you try to close or foolishly trying to wing a long range gun battle with them (unless you are also Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, or Imperial Guard). Dropping on them and popping them, concentrating your fire on key targets to ensure important kills (in this case the Crisis Suits) will give you the results that you want. I know because that is what I'm forced to do. The fact that you don't want to accept it isn't really my problem and it is certainly not your opponent's problem.



First we count up how many units he has with Interceptor (and remember that if he uses it those weapons will not be firing again on his turn). Then we look at the Ballistic Skill, Cover, and how many of those weapons ignore it. Then you look at just how many of your units are coming in at the same time preventing him from being able to engage them all. The Tau player will not be able to kill everyone or even badly hurt everyone. The option will be to concentrate on one unit or spread it around. Doing so will, more often than not, mean less accurate shooting than what they would have gotten with the Marker Lights on their own turn. Doesn't that sound better? Wouldn't you rather get shot up by that junk when they don't get to use Marker Lights, and then have them unable to fire on their following turn? You don't see how that is better for you?

You created this thread under the "guise" of wanting to get suggestions on how to handle it. It is clear that wasn't really your intention. You want to argue about how broken this list is and how unfair it is in fact. You should have been honest about it. We can smell this sort of thing you know. The moment someone starts discarding every suggesting they get it becomes clear you had your mind made up from the start and your real purpose was different than you said. That isn't cool.




Then don't. That is your solution. I'm sure he wont' miss you. If you are right, perhaps he won't get any games. I doubt that though. If that were a viable option you and your buddies whom you claim are all frustrated and angry would have already done it. If you don't want to play it because you refuse to make the changes you need to play it effectively, just don't... but be honest enough with yourself to admit it is you that is "crying off" as the Gunslinger would say.



I've already addressed this but no, that isn't the case. You have been getting suggestions. You just don't like them and clearly never really had an interest in getting them. I think you expected all of us to be more sympathetic. I'm sure some of us are, but a lot of us (who play against the same kinds of armies) are not. We know there is no issue. As to saying you aren't interested in trashing the player, that is also false. You are trashing him in very polite words. You keep saying he si violating the "gentleman's contract" as YOU define it. That means you are saying he is no gentleman. He is the beast. He is "that" guy. Saying it nicely doesn't change the meaning of your inference and all of us damn well know it.



I mentioned Drop Pods (and still think they are the best option via allies if you don't have them innate) but my key words were DROP & POP. How you manage this is your own affair but their are lots of tools out there. It is the biggest weakness Tau armies have. I prefer not to grow up. Peter Pan has always been my idol.

I am relatively new to the game and haven't played against Tau yet so bear with me if I made any mistakes.
I am concerning the same problem of overwhelming interceptor fire form the cheap as chips Tau EWO as I run my marines list consisting Droppod Liberian joined Sterngaurds or Inroclad Dreadnoughts, and StormRaven and Vindictors.
If the Riptide or two is the only unit arming EWO, my idear landed 9.1 inch away from them and using the Droppods themself to block the Riptdes' LOS by keeping the doors of the Pod facing Riptide shut, since the Codex does not state that "all" hatch must be blown open. So even with Target Lock, I don't believe the Riptide could blown the Pod with fusion and then IA the marines behind, as it is technically shooting the two weapons at the same time, after surviving the Interceptor, I would try to shoot at his other units (hammerhead, fire warriors, XV-88, etc).
If the Tau player is crazy enough to arm more than three battlesuit units (including XV-8s and/or XV-88s and/or Riptides ) with EWO, I would probablily try to place terrains to create choke points, and Drop most of the Pods empty to block the choke points as well as LOS, then foot slog or ride in Rhino through cover to get close to him.
I am a new player so I honestly hope the verteran players in this Forum could offer some comments to my thought. I also looking forward we could discuss tactical problems together

[clever handle]

you must open all the doors on the drop pod. They are considered to provide intervening model cover but not totally block line of site - whether you've made your drop pods with doors that open or with doors glued shut, they are assumed for gaming purposes to have opened completely. Due to this, the tactics you're suggesting are, unfortunately not valid.

If you're going with 'pods (or any type of deepstriking) against an interceptor heavy army - which may also include grey knights - you really need to overwhelm the army with threats. Either by dropping multiple units at a time - however, as I pointed out above you can reasonably expect to lose 15-20 marines against this type of tooled up list - so you're needing to rely upon some good saves, or hope you're necessary models don't get ganked before they shoot; OR by keeping strong threats on the table, ready to move into range T2 to capitalize on the impaired shooting as a result of overwatch - for loyalists this means bikes, or land raiders full of assault elements I believe.

[Caitsidhe]

@Coffeegrunt
you hit the nail on the head. My chaos has been running (2) maulerfiends, (2) rhino squads, juggerlord + spawn + bikes, in addition to support options including obliterators. Everything is, in theory, designed to be mobile, fast & aggressively in your face with (6) relatively durable and very quick, separate threats - each threat can tear a battlesuit unit apart if it manages to get there and if all goes according to plan the first wave assault - maulerfiends + Bikes + spawn hit turn 2, after the rhino squads have disembarked to soften up the enemy with two salvos of rapidfire. They can then charge into any combat turn 3, or continue to rapidfire. The problem I'm having is that the volume of firepower I'm walking into is more than capable of destroying both fiends and crippling at least one of those units on foot as soon as I step into range. Broadsides target the bikes & spawn since their SMS are useless against the AV12 fiends; the suits then address those beasts. With proper target priority, threats are mitigated wholely & efficiently. Target priority is one of the arts of 40K, really any table top wargame.

No wonder you are getting tabled. That is an absolutely AWFUL list. Don't blame your opponent for your own choices.

[clever handle]

thanks for your continued, amazing and insightful contributions. Maybe instead of being a douche, try to offer something helpful. Continuing to fail to do so only gives everyone the impression you're a troll with no ability to contribute meaningfully to the discussion.

Lets look at what's in that list:

obliterators? strong.
bikes? strong.
juggerlord? strong.
spawn? strong.
CSM in rhinos? well, they're not marines, but you need troops & cultists aren't worth the 50 points.
Maulerfiends? questionable, but cheap & effective threats when you can get them there. Strong against everything except walkers, MC's (faster than all these things too, so avoid them) & this Tau list.

Anyways. Looking forward to your next riveting contribution.