[Semo]

Yeah, well they do get there!

I have a serious problem with close combat. My friends play chaos, space marines and witch hunters and i guess they got fed up being shot down by my tau army. So lately they all field fast attacks with power weapons, deep strike terminators and rush there infantry towards me. Oh and don't forget the chaos demon! I cant say i blame them but now my poor tau army is getting chopped to pieces!

So what would be the best way to counter there assaults?

I was thinking about a Shs'O with a bodyguard and shield drones, but that would be vary expensive to lose in close combat. Would Vectored retro-thrusters be worth it?

Off course Kroot come to mind! I have 20 kroot, 1 shaper, 4 houds and 1 rider but what would be the best set up for them? 2x 10 or one big squad? Infiltrate and try to assault the enemy ASP or wait in the woods?

And last but not least i have 8 Vespids. I love these guys but my friend hate them and they attract heavy fire when i deploy them. The ap3 is just to dangerous for the space marines and chaos. Most of the time they don't live vary long.

So please help a fellow tau player out. How can i stop those assaulting marines and flaming bwitches!

[FrisbeeForLunch]

My experience:
Basic kroot, lots of them = riflemen and line unit
Kroot + Hounds, lots of them = attack unit
Fire warriors = line unit, if you give them a fish then can jump away when the enemy get too close
Crisis suits (Missile pods, some plasma, Burst cannons) = line unit that can jump away
Pathfinders = force them to ground with markerlights and co-ordinate this with other pinning weapons (carbine FWS)

Hope that helps.

[1337green1]

My answer would vary greatly depending on your list and play-style.

Post up your list if you can and how you like to play and then I can give detailed advice.

For the most part my counter-assault forces are a combination of Kroot and "False" Kauyon.

In Cities of Death, where I play a majority of my games, I find that the "False" Kauyon method works well, as there is a mad rush to try and occupy the buildings and come into CC with your opponent.

By "False" Kauyon I mean offering up an absence of bait to the enemy. This took me about a year to get right, and I started to get it once I stoped thinking so hard about it.

Basically you set a trap up, I like using Kroot for the pounce, and then where you would place the bait, youl leave that area open. People find themselves heading to your trap due to many reasons. Maybe the terrain funnels them there, maybe it looks like a "weak" spot from your firepower. Maybe aggressive players have a need to spring the trap. Point is, they race their assault units in, and you swoop down and obliterate them with most of your army in shooting.

In fact when I recently came against a unit of Nob Bikers (!#@^ Orks, and their cheese!) The player fell for this trick and I was able to take them out in two turns, only losing one unit to CC.

Use mobility and control the pace of the battle. Everything else will fall into place.

(Edit: Spelling sorry.)

[Cogsley]

The best way too avoid a fast assault army is not be static use transports, multitrackers and warfish are very good for this and suits to take away the line they are rushing towards get longer range weapons like missile pods and railguns and hammer away at them. Since they have no line to rush into they will either focus on one target which case you can move everything else away while shooting them up letting that unit lead them on a merry chase while blasting what ever has the best chance to catch him. The other thing they might try is spreading out and catching your units which means they are spread out focus on whoever failed to find cover and nuke them.

[USAFTACP]

I think your best bet would be to get angry at your friends for tailoring a list specifically to beat you.

[hardcore]

if you are always being assaulted start taking photon grenades that way they lose their extra attacks, and use squads of six fire warriors (minimum) and 20 kroot (since kroot get twice as many assault attacks) start buying hounds (since they two assaults at initiative 5) by the box. and deploy in a mixed grouping: in coherency have your fire warrior models spread out their maximum 2" and your kroot in coherency spread out their maximum 2" so that you have a solid line of troops with a mixture of tau and kroot so that when your line is hit at any point you get the benefit of both the photon grenades and the kroot's extra attacks and the hounds can distribute themselves to any point.
as diagrammed below:

direction of attack
|
\/
x x x x x x
||0||0||0||0||
||0||0||0||0||

x= hounds
0=Tau Fire Warriors
|=Kroot

[knightperson]

Photon grenades are actually a bad idea in 5th. Against anything but charging Necron warriors, the Fire Warriors are going to break even with them. What the grenades might do is make them hold in your opponents turn, making them still in combat during your turn, so you can't shoot at the unit that assaulted them! They WILL break the next round, and the assaulting unit will then charge another unit and "roll up the flank" like they used to do in 4th edition.

There are a couple of tricks that do work still. The main one is being able to eyeball the magical 18 inch range. Ignoring Difficult Terrain rolls, 18 inches is the maximum range for move-run-assault as well as move-rapid_fire. Whenever possible, make sure that your opponent is the first one to move into that range, then you move up and rapid fire. If it's outside of 18 inches, then either hold still and single-tap the pulse rifles, or move back and don't fire.

The classic fish-of-fury tactic, where the devilfish provide a moving wall that you shoot under, is still viable against anything but jump infantry, but it's tricky to do well.

The other one is a layered approach. Have several smallish gunlines, and expect that they will be taken out one by one, but each enemy unit that kills one of yours will be rapid-fired into little pieces by the rest.

[Semo]

First i like to thank you all for the great tips and tricks!

Originally Posted by 1337green1

My answer would vary greatly depending on your list and play-style.

Post up your list if you can and how you like to play and then I can give detailed advice.

I don't have a fixed list that i use because we always make a new map for each game. Also it depends on who i'm playing, chaos, witches or space marines. Sometimes tyranids. But in general i always field 1 shas'O with bodyguard and 1 shas'vre. 12 pulse rifles, warfish, hammerhead and 2 broadsides.

Originally Posted by USAFTACP

I think your best bet would be to get angry at your friends for tailoring a list specifically to beat you.

Wouldn't you edit you list if you kept losing?

Originally Posted by hardcore

as diagrammed below:

direction of attack
|
\/
x x x x x x
||0||0||0||0||
||0||0||0||0||

x= hounds
0=Tau Fire Warriors
|=Kroot

This could work if there is room but i have one question about it. If this setup would get charged who would they attack? In my opinion the attacker can chose witch squad to attack and go for the kroot so they don't lose there charge bonus.

Originally Posted by knightperson

Photon grenades are actually a bad idea in 5th. Against anything but charging Necron warriors, the Fire Warriors are going to break even with them. What the grenades might do is make them hold in your opponents turn, making them still in combat during your turn, so you can't shoot at the unit that assaulted them! They WILL break the next round, and the assaulting unit will then charge another unit and "roll up the flank" like they used to do in 4th edition.

There are a couple of tricks that do work still. The main one is being able to eyeball the magical 18 inch range. Ignoring Difficult Terrain rolls, 18 inches is the maximum range for move-run-assault as well as move-rapid_fire. Whenever possible, make sure that your opponent is the first one to move into that range, then you move up and rapid fire. If it's outside of 18 inches, then either hold still and single-tap the pulse rifles, or move back and don't fire.

The classic fish-of-fury tactic, where the devilfish provide a moving wall that you shoot under, is still viable against anything but jump infantry, but it's tricky to do well.

The other one is a layered approach. Have several smallish gunlines, and expect that they will be taken out one by one, but each enemy unit that kills one of yours will be rapid-fired into little pieces by the rest.

For some reason i dont fail my test that often. The warriors mostly just die instead of running off to fight another day.
The layered approach could work but is also vary dangerous! A chaos lord on a bike could round up a small group with ease and charge the next unit in his next turn. Trust me its pretty hard to kill that lord in 1 round.

[USAFTACP]

Wouldn't you edit you list if you kept losing?

There's a difference between editing a list and tailoring one. From what it sounded like in your post it seemed as though they took that force specifically to fight a your Tau army.

[xShaperx]

Deny assaults by destroying transports early in the game, pinning units in place, or making them decide between assaulting your fire warriors or trying to catch your battlesuits.

Don't be afraid to block with your vehicles, buying time for your infantry to fall back.

The best tactic to avoid assaults would be
1)don't gunline. you're gonna get trounced.
2)buy some kroot to outflank or cause problems elsewhere, or act as a buffer
3)don't spend so many points on toys, always go for throwing more dice down

Sometimes assault is unavoidable, in which case you need to see when and where its going to happen at least 1 turn in advance, allowing you time to reposition or weaken the assaulting unit with concentrated fire.

Mobile and Ninja Tau are very hard to lock into assault on a grand scale, sure you might catch a unit, but thats the game