Monday, May 4, 2015

Necrons Vs Tau

So quite a few people at my store play Tau. Not surprising, they're a popular army and have cool giant robots and stuff. Tau are a fun matchup for us, as a heavy shooting army with some big durable things as well as cheap, small guys, so there's no real one answer if they build a well rounded force. However, they do have downsides that you can exploit. After the break, let's take a look at stomping those little blue men under our metallic feet.



Withering Firepower

Tau are probably the first or second best army in the game when it comes to just pure shooting. Now that the Eldar have massed Scatter Lasers and D weaponry, they might have overtaken our vaguely Communist enemies, but the Tau have been shooting strong for quite some time. To deal with this, you're going to need to do your best to match their damage output while also weathering the firepower that will be coming your way.

The Tau arsenal has a lot of long range firepower. Even their basic guns are 30" Rapid Fire, which handily puts them at a longer range bracket than all but a few of our guns. The guns on their basic Troops are S5, making them as strong as Immortals but longer range and cheaper than Warriors.

Suits vs Fishy Dudes

There are two types of Tau things you'll be facing: Suits and Infantry (and Drones, but that's something completely different). Suits vary from Battlesuits to Broadsides to Riptides, and all of them are fairly durable with good saves and higher toughnesses. Infantry, on the other hand, are about as squishy as they come, generally T5 with only 4+ or 5+. You'll likely see a good mix depending on the Tau player you go against.

For suit armies, you obviously want to bring big guns. Sure, you can whittle down the Riptide with Warriors and Immortals, but you're realistically going to want to throw Heavy Destroyers and Nightbringer at it. Broadsides, Commanders, and Riptides are all in 2+ armor, so taking them down is going to be a bit of a test, not to mention that they're going to be pummeling you with firepower the whole time.

Infantry is much easier for us to deal with. We're not short on amount of fire unless you go too heavy on Destroyers and Elite options, and Assault units like Wraiths or Flayed Ones have easily enough attacks to tear through Fire Warriors in a matter of moments.

The main issue with Infantry is that they're going to be camping behind ruins or maybe even an Aegis Defense Line. While the Suits and Riptides might sneak out into the middle of the map to get objectives or into better firing positions, those Pathfinders and Fire Warriors are going to be plonked somewhere where they're always going to get a cover save and will probably be hard to reach with your Assaulty dudes.

Fish Fry

So what units are good in this matchup? Well, unsurprisingly, most Assault units are good. A big Flayed One blob will tear apart anything in the Tau army short of Riptides, and even that they can wear down through sheer number of attacks. Troops and Battlesuits don't stand nearly as much of a chance. Wraiths are much of the same, with the added benefit of being slightly more survivable against the high strength/low AP shooting of the Tau.

Lychguard are actually a bit of a poor choice. They're best in the midfield, where they can challenge and kill anything that moves up. Tau rarely move up, and the things they move up with are mobile and durable Jet Pack infantry. Reaching things with the Lychguard can be difficult here, but anything they reach will be reduced to fillets.

Also, be careful Assaulting where multiple units are nearby, as they can Overwatch for one another.

You can easily return shooting with shooting in this matchup. Thanks to RP, we're the best army at just slogging forward under the barrage fire from the Tau, and then once we get in range to shoot back we can put some serious hurt on their much squishier units. Massed Troops will take the midfield and shoot back at any gunline in their range, which should turn out better for the Necrons on average.

Against gunline Tau, having mobility is very nice. Veil of Darkness or Obyron to jump up a unit into their face can be devastating and give the rest of your army time to do what they need to do. Wraiths moving up quick here are also great.

A big hitter for you in this matchup is the Catacomb Command Barge. I'm not a huge fan of it, but against Tau it's great. They have lots of S5 shooting, which he can just ignore, which means he's just going to charge in, ignoring all the shooting, and cut through all of the gunlines with his fast chassis. Just be wary of any anti-tank guns that you'll have to take on the Overlord, and particularly ask if any enemy unit is equipped with EMP grenades, which will kill your Barge in a matter of seconds.

A force with Wraiths and massed Troops seems pretty good. Lead it with a CCB and maybe include some Infiltrating Flayed Ones to screen for the rest of your army.

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to here your thoughts on the CCB. I use it almost exclusively as my lord in the Decurion. The points cost alone makes it viable without including its speed, choice of target, and re roll 1's on RP mobility. To take a regular overlord with a 5 pax group of lychguard is more expensive and less mobile.

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    1. I'll probably do a new post on it, as I actually have a lot to say about my love/hate relationship with the thing.

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