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Thanks to Garner Durant for the "Divided and Conquered or Overlapping Firepower" part of this and thanks to Auno Lissta for the "More Stats" part of this.
Disclaimer: I don't play Tau, but I have considered, played and beaten them more times then I can imagine.
When glancing at the Tau codex, the first thing you are more than likely to notice is their 30" range on basic weapons. This range will give you a major advantage against almost all armies you face.
However, a 12 man strong squad of Fire Warriors cannot stop a squad a 10 Space Marines from 30" away. They [Space Marines] will almost always shrug of the attrition and make it into close combat. Here are some rough statistics:
This brings me to my point. It is not that Tau rifles aren't powerful. Far from it. Pulse rifles have one of the highest basic strength in the game for infantry's guns. However, to take down Marines your tactics need to be a little more heavy handed. If you fired 3 troops of firewarriors, the results would have been much more spectacular:
I know what you're thinking. That 4 marines is hardly worth three squads shooting. But in two turns the squad is well below fighting strength. But to be able to mass this kind of fire power you have to overcome one of the biggest mistakes most Tau players make: Do not spread out your forces.
Otherwise you will not be able to overlap firepower needed to take out some of those tougher squads. Establishing a strong firebase will allow you to focus firepower against certain target until they fall. Keep Fire Warriors in tight formation and make sure not to overextend your Crisis suits, stealth teams and pathfinders, and it will be next to impossible to launch an assault against you.
However if you do find yourself in an assault, either mob the enemy assuming its the tattered remains of a tacticle squad, or get out of dodge and establish another firebase.
I'm Auno Lissta, in this part, I'm looking at the basic unit with average stats and figuring out, if a unit moves straight forward and there's no intervening terrain, and your unit takes no casualties, if you can kill it. This is just to give a rough idea of the sort of kill rate that you could expect from two Fire Warrior squads.
Unless otherwise noted, it takes the unit four turns to get across the table. Note that I'm rounding all stats down.
You hit six times, wound four and they make three, for the first three turns, amounting in three casualties in the first three turns and two in the turn that they reach our Pulse Rifle's rapid fire range. The Tactical Squads who this part targets (And their chaotic counter parts,) are some of the hardest units to kill.
Warriors have the same death rate as Space marines; however the WWB rule means that half the dead get back up.
They can generally reach your line, with fleet of foot rolls, in three turns. But as Eldar Guardians and Dark Eldar Warriors are weaker, and with a higher armour save, more die in a turn.
Like the above, only slower. Note however, the basic Joe Schmoe of the Guard (I.e. The Infantry platoons) probably won't advance into an assault with you.
As hormagaunts can reach your line in two turns, ignore the Carnifexes, at least with your Fire Warriors.
A Shoota Boyz armor save is high, but they have a Space Marine's Toughness.
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| Comment made by taugundrone on 18:20:23, 28 April 2008 |
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| thats right! never spread out your tau!if dat happens you can get flanked and your dead! |
| Comment made by insanetau on 11:37:34, 23 February 2008 |
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| i'd rather just find out these things myself than read this |
| Comment made by taugundrone on 17:59:59, 19 February 2008 |
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| Arnt pulse rifles rapid fire weapons? |
| Comment made by Nawaraven on 11:52:54, 31 January 2008 |
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| I think people are getting confused by what you have here. they are thinking what your saying is what will always happen. what he is saying is what most likely will happen, now we've all had it happen where we decimate and entire squad in 1 or 2 turns, but i'm pretty sure we've all had it where it seems like nothing will work. what he is saying is if the world was fair and even. What you should not overlook is his point! 1 group of FW is usually not enough. It is never overkill when going against SM and CSM. |
| Comment made by Bubgum on 11:54:42, 2 January 2008 |
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| Pulse rifles are rapid fire weapons, so wouldnt it be 12 fire warriors- 24 shots? 12 hit? and 8 wound? This would then cause the space marines to roll a morale check. If this is failed, they fall back, and reduces the chances of close combat. |
| Comment made by Kraut on 16:16:06, 8 August 2007 |
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| This tactica isn't right. This teaches me how to use static tau correctly... Now what about mech Tau? |
| Comment made by leadfoot352 on 06:00:04, 22 June 2007 |
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| I do hope that you relize that the numbers you are using are messed up. Tally the points and then ttry to make the squads even. 12 firewarriors actually stand a good chance to make a 7 man squad useless (less then three men) in only a few turns. The same applies to every number on that list (excluding necrons, but that's when you just mount your warriors and fish o'fury them). The points system is used to generate some semblence of balance in the games terms. Yes you can't do point for point when compareing guardsmen with Wraithlords, but when two units share a like role on the battlfield it is often best to compare them point for point. |
| Comment made by dunehunter on 09:51:07, 10 June 2007 |
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| He's talking about statistics here guys. We've all had times where the dice did something funny, but this is the average. And yes, on average, one squad of fire warriors aren't going to cut it against SMurfs. That's why you bring the rest of the army ;) |
| Comment made by XV8 Duruus on 20:20:28, 2 May 2007 |
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| now thank you for the advice but i would like to give some actual numbers and i DO play tau and by turn two i have killed around 6 space marines with one Fw squad and a marker drone |
| Comment made by ry on 02:03:17, 2 December 2006 |
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| very helpfull advice thanks |
| Comment made by thecatinthehat on 06:30:33, 16 October 2006 |
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| by all of that i mean engageing infantry |
| Comment made by thecatinthehat on 06:28:05, 16 October 2006 |
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| he's right about fire power with fire warriors alone as far as those stats go, law of averages considered. if you don't use kroot (look like mutant parrots, crap) or vespids (make them bugs, not bug-men) and useing a firewarrior fire base is deadly. support with sniper drones to hit any characters or support (3 drone teams are worth the slot and the points: 240 for 9 independant rail rifles and 3 markerlights) chuck in your ethereal to make 1 squad BS4. save your markerlights for the seeker missles and the rest of army whatever that may be (except bloody kroot and vespids) |
| Comment made by max256 on 09:27:41, 10 October 2006 |
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| I have to wonder about where you got these numbers. Also, were you considering forces of equal point value or equal number of models? It sounds like equal number of models, that is not always fair. |
| Comment made by dragoniccam on 17:24:02, 27 August 2006 |
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| u are totally wrong!!!!! my brother plays marines, and i wiped out an entire 10 man squad in a turn,using 2 firewarriors and 1 marker drone. |
| Comment made by israfel420 on 14:17:58, 27 August 2006 |
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| I like to use less Fire Warriors, and spread em out. I mass firepower for the "heavy handed" effect by using ultra mobile units like Piranha, Crisis, vespid, heads. |
