Tau: Best Way to Deal with AV13+ Spam?

[The Man They Call Jayne]

Something else I might suggest is Seekers. LOTS of them. 2 on every vehicle and 1 on every Broadside. Markerlights are going to be EVERYWHERE now, probably more than you can use in a turn reliably. Use the seekers against anything you can. A couple of Piranhas can get side or even rear armour with a bit of luck. They are 2 points cheaper now, make use of them.

[Carrelio]

Lance isn't broken on an S8 weapon... it would make them as efficient as they used to be against AV14, without increasing their new level of effectiveness against AV12 and below. I've done the math, I know how to price a piece of wargear... and I find your lack of faith disturbing.
But, since it's clear to me that you are all highly evasive to house rules, and are certain the new rules have us covered, I won't bring the point up again (though I do entirely intend to do it).

Back to the point at hand though... I'm still not convinced about the army's anti-tank ability.  I should also point out, I am not posting this to whine about the changes. I don't like them, that's a fact. But I've been playing warhammer for 14 years, and Tau for 8 of them; I want to do everything I can to make sure my army doesn't suck. So lets get back to finding a way to stop the bulk of 10+ AV13+ vehicles by turn 2-3.

The problems I have seen so far are that we've lost our mobility, meaning stopping enemies before they reach our lines is more important than ever... and a decrease of weapons capable to do it.  Is there a way of cost effectively and efficiently dealing with AV13+ in the Tau list?  The numbers I have crunched say no.

Edit: seekers are about as efficient at taking down vehicles as broadsides... I'll have to run the numbers on that.

[KCKitsune]

Maybe GW will see that and give us armor bane for our railguns.

I've said this in 2 other threads, I'll say it again here. S10 AP1 weapons do not need a boost!! I don't care whether it's Armour Bane, Tank Hunter, Lance, whatever, it is not needed on the single most powerful weapon in the game. And no, Rail Rifles don't need Armour Bane either. (either version)

Sorry I mean our heavy rail rifles.

I agree that the hammerhead railgun doesn't need any boost what so ever.

[Narric]

One thing this thread confuses me with, mostly because I've been away from gaming for a while...

WHICH ARMY THAT GW HAS RELEASED, CAN TAKE AV13 VEHICLES IN A SPAMMY WAY?!

I know Black Templars can take Land Raiders as Dedicated Transports, and A couple other SM Codexi, but what else can take AV13/14 en masse?

[The Man They Call Jayne]

IG can. and Necrons are AV13 untill you actually damage them arent they?

[Carrelio]

Edit: beat me to it.

Blood Angels can also do it surprisingly well... though people mostly dropped them in my area after the Grey Knights were released.

[Narric]

So its all pretty much anti-Imperial+Necrons tactics?

Surely just plonking two or three units of Broadsides and a Cataclism suit would fulfill such a need, leaving the reast of the Elites, Troops and FA, free to personal Preference.

The Cataclism would probably attract most enemy weapons, and the Broadsides wil take the rest after that.

To deal with everything thats lower then AV13, then I'd probably just take a full complement of Sniper Drone Team(s). Suitably converted of course.

Then ofcourse there is the oiption of just EMP/Haywire Grenading these targets to death with Fire Warriors and Pathfinders (and any other units that can take them).

[Waaaghpower]

Orks can take 8 battlewagons if we want to. 7, if we give them all 5+ cover from a big mek. Of course those are AV12 on the sides, but the fronts are still 14.

[The Man They Call Jayne]

Sniper Drones can glance AV12 if you get really lucky,

[Carrelio]

So its all pretty much anti-Imperial+Necrons tactics?

Surely just plonking two or three units of Broadsides and a Cataclism suit would fulfill such a need, leaving the reast of the Elites, Troops and FA, free to personal Preference.

The Cataclism would probably attract most enemy weapons, and the Broadsides wil take the rest after that.

To deal with everything thats lower then AV13, then I'd probably just take a full complement of Sniper Drone Team(s). Suitably converted of course.

Then ofcourse there is the oiption of just EMP/Haywire Grenading these targets to death with Fire Warriors and Pathfinders (and any other units that can take them).

The broadside heavy rail rifle has a 6.25% chance of exploding a vehicle with AV13. They do however have a 25% chance of taking a hull point (or 12.5% against AV14)... with the smart missile pods that's a 50% chance of glancing AV13 and 12.5% chance of glancing AV14.  However this puts the unit points per point of damage at 130 points per hull point against AV13, and 520 points per hullpoint against AV14 (looks really big... wonder if my math didn't go wrong at some point... can't spot the error though). It's not exactly cost effective.

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

Lance isn't broken on an S8 weapon... it would make them as efficient as they used to be against AV14, without increasing their new level of effectiveness against AV12 and below. I've done the math, I know how to price a piece of wargear... and I find your lack of faith disturbing.
But, since it's clear to me that you are all highly evasive to house rules, and are certain the new rules have us covered, I won't bring the point up again (though I do entirely intend to do it).

The thing is though, it's not just a S8 weapon. You'd have to factor in that said weapon can be fired at a boosted BS and that said weapon can ignore cover in certain circumstances, making it far more effective than options available to other races and therefore far more difficult to price. I know some will argue that additional cost is already covered by the cost of the markerlights, but I believe that to grant such a boost some additional cost should be conferred to the upgrade.

I personally have no issue with House Rules when done properly, I've tried writing them myself when my beloved Tyranids were nerfed into oblivion. The problem with House Rules is getting other people to accept you using them, which would only become a larger problem the more you won.

As for suggestions, I've already made 3 suggestions, of varying effectiveness. Another I'd make is Piranha with Fusion Blasters. Ok, they're not overly survivable, but they'll get in quickly enough to do the job, they're cheap enough to be expendable or can be upgraded to have a it more survivability and all importantly they have the manoeuvrability to get those side armour shots or force your opponent to retreat/turn his side to other units.

Another option which I had to wait until I actually saw the codex to mention, Shadowsun + Stealth team. Survivable enough to get close if they use terrain to their advantage, fairly costly, but with a minimum of 2 Fusion blasters at minimum plus enough burst cannon fire to put off a fair few units they can get the job done well enough and probably live to tell the tale.

[Scalphunta]

Why are we whining about what the enemy can field? The cataclysm suit will draw a lot of fire, but we can also dish it out. Modify your crisis suits to have fusion, run 2 teams of stealth with fusion, throw in 40 kroot, keep 2 Hammerheads, 1 Ion Head and the Cataclysm. That's a lot for them to worry about! The point is our suits should sway more to anti-tank to deal with AV13 Spam. The new items are not the cure-all but if you don't forget to have your army working together (in true Tau form), you should be good.

[Chicop76]

The only armies that can't run at least 3 armour 13 vehicles and higher are these 3. Tyranids and both eldar armies. Although Dark Eldar can get 1 vehicle that fits in said category.

Most other armies can at least field 3 or more. The human armies besides sisters and grey knights can field 6 or more of said vehicles.

I might spam 3 soul grinders now.

[Carrelio]

We're not whining about what the enemy can field; don't misinterpret.  I don't care if the other person can bring 30 land raiders full of Grey Knights riding flying hive tyrants to a 500 point game... So long as we have the tools to deal with them.  If we just look the other way and say our army is perfect, sure we feel warm and fuzzy, but we'll lose 100% of the time. The purpose isn't to whine but to find a real solution to real tactical issues in our army list.

Now that said... I understand where the rest of you are coming from.  Tau got a brand new codex; it's full of awesome new stuff.  We have nothing to complain about.  Maybe you are all correct and we are going to go out there and stomp all over AV13+.  Maybe I've missed something in the rules, given that my codex is currently a strung together series of spanish photos.  Whatever the case, it looks to me like everyone out there thinks the case is closed and Tau are going to do just fine... so I'll leave it there and won't pursue the issue any further here.

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

Although Dark Eldar can get 1 vehicle that fits in said category.

Most other armies can at least field 3 or more. The human armies besides sisters and grey knights can field 6 or more of said vehicles.

...no they can't. Dark Eldar highest armour is 11 unless you're referring to something from Forgeworld which, frankly, doesn't count as it's not legal without permission anyway.

As for "most" armies being able to spam AV13+, Marines can, but they're easily taken care of by getting around the sides. Chaos...from what I remember that's pretty much same as Marines. Flank and laugh. Orks I don't see enough of to judge accurately unfortunately so I don't know. Guard and Necrons can certainly, but they're both made of Cheddar stuffed with Brie and topped with Camembert.

So there's 3 armies which physically can't spam the kind of thing that this thread's addressing, another 2 who can very easily be dealt with by flanking (Vindicators especially), one I'm unsure of. Land Raider spam should mean that the culprit gets massacred as soon as he disembarks by Overwatch and then EMP greandes (there should be some of those lying around somewhere), so that just leaves Guard and Necrons, which as I've pointed out are insane anyway and everyone struggles with.