Well, that was an eye opener!! Just had my behind handed to me by Mark W 's speed freeks in a tabletop battle. Had to concede at the beginning of turn two after letting by Crisis BTS get intermingled with some pathfinders and assaulted into oblivion... schoolboy error!

The good: crisis suits in an orca with markerlight support, barracudas on cap

The bad: overstretching with Tau, assault in general and intermingling formations!!

I only have myself to blame, but next time I'm considering dropping two of the crisis suits, four should really be enough to make a dent with the right support. Also getting an extra recon formation, and when will I learn that for Tau the game really starts on turn two!!!

Any pointers on handling a lightning fast assault force with Tau gratefully received.

Right, I'm off to cry myself to sleep!!

Move forwards turn one, Stand back and overwatch turn two, long range sniping and close range pounding wins the day for me.
And take just enough markerlights, and keep them Alive, somehow ..

_________________
Let there be code.

Speed Freakz are a tough matchup. Not unbeatable for Tau, but if you're opponent is good it's going to be an uphill battle. For a practical tip, I have a little 5cm ruler that I use to quickly check every formation is sufficiently spaced to not allow intermingling - if you let them catch you like that you're going to have a very quick, painful game

What does your army list look like Alf O'Mega?

Ok, so we were playing 2000 points - for that game it was:

Mech fire warriors, bonded
Foot fire warriors, bonded
Railgun armoured support with skyray
Recon, 3 and 3
Crisis battlesuit cadre + 2, shas'o
Pathfinders plus piranha
Orca
Barracuda

If I play him again I'm going to mechanise the foot fire warriors, drop two crisis suits and the piranha from the pathfinders and take another recon formation. I'd be tempted to drop the hammerheads in favour of some broadsides just because they'd be so hard to kill. But if they ever got caught off of overwatch it wouldn't be pretty! They'd have to play it quite Zulu, and not shoot until they can see the whites of their eyes!

The orca was on there because I haven't used fliers yet - I am still that green! That said, crisis suits do seem quite lethal, and if you could drop them off turn one, fire, move and fire in turn two and get picked up again to start over on turn three that sounds like it could be good?!

I was far too cavalier with my formations, throwing them in too close too early. I guess it had been a long day but against these guys it made for a very short game!

I took such a beating I'm really hoping to get a rematch just to see if I can put up any more of a fight...

The first thing I would find space for if I used your list would be a second recon formation. Having a double layer of scout screens is invaluable against opponents like Orks, plus they offer great marker light utility.
I'd probably add only 1 piranha to each in order to take as many tetras as possible, and the piranha's job would be just to have the option of putting a BM on an armoured formation.

You could use the Orca to drop off Crisis on turn 1, then have it leave and come back in near your pathfinders on turn 2, have them embark and then drop them on turn 3. Assuming the egg-carton that is the Orca survives, that gets you maximum bang from your buck.

And if all else fails.... try Vior'la Tau so you can add some Riptides
http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/ ... 23&t=24822

ok, so at least I'm not too far off a reasonable list - that's good. So I've iterated through three lists, possibly settling on the third:

Armoured support, Railguns + Skyray
Recon
Recon
Pathfinders
Barracuda
Orca
Mech Fire Warriors, Bonded
Foot Fire Warriors, Bonded
Crisis, Shas'O

Slightly concerned about an easily breakable BTS in the Crisis suits, and Broadsides upfield on overwatch are surely too good to leave out - so:

Broadsides
Recon
Recon
Barracuda
Orca
Mech Fire Warriors + Fire Warriors
Foot Fire Warriors
Crisis + 2, Shas'O

Not sure I'm happy about losing the skyray - I was facing two squads of three fightas, which leads to:

Broadsides
Recon
Recon
Barracuda
Orca
Mech Fire Warriors + Skyray
Foot Fire Warriors + Gun Drones
Crisis + 2, Shas'O

Theoretically I should be able to set up the broadsides and Fire Warriors on overwatch somewhere just short of half way to avoid first turn assaults and do some damage. The beefy crisis cadre should be able to put out some hurt when it lands and stand a chance of surviving to be picked up at the end of turn two. I'd rather have the Fire Warriors bonded but I'm not sure I can find the points for it.

Anyway, I think this list might give him more problems. Any c+c welcome...

I would advised against have your BTS and supreme commander be the same formation, it paints a really big target mark on them. And I have found that cirsis suits, even though they have a good save, are to fragile to make a good BTS.

I think a cirsis formation that stays at four suits, Shas'O and 2 gun drones (to make it harder to brake) is good, that's 375 points. I usually add a 6 hammerhead + skyray formation for 400 pts to make that my BTS.

Doh! Why didn't I think of that?! Because I'm a dufus, that's why. Very good point, frees up some valuable points as well and leaves me with something like:

Armour Support, Railgun +2
Skyray
Recon
Recon
Barracuda
Orca
Mech Fire Warriors
SkyRay
Fire Warriors
Gun Drones
Crisis Suits, Shas'O
Gun Drones

I'm quite looking forward to trying this out now!! Thanks for all the input people...

[Edit] One other thing that came up in the game, can markerlights be used against aircraft, it doesn't say they can't and the only requirement is range and LOF so I would suspect they can. We weren't sure though so we just diced for it.

It can't be used against air craft I'm affraid. As per the tornament pack under Tau technology it says



But they can of course be used against landed aircraft

Cool, that's a shame - it's how the dice went anyway!

Just posting this for completeness...

So I managed to get in a rematch against a similar Speed Freeks list and took Borka's advice of swapping the BTS to a bumped up Hammerhead formation and added in an extra Recon formation and I had some success!! Managed a 3-1 win in the third turn, would have been about 3/4-0 if you could win in the second.

I had a couple of bits of good luck - like scoring 4 out of 5 firefight hits with the Hammerheads against his BTS!! Regardless of that though it felt a lot more like making my own luck and weighing the odds in my favour throughout this time, better support, *no* intermingling and really punishing formations where I could really paid off. Tau can really do a lot of damage when they're given a chance. Being able to pick up the Crisis Battlesuits second turn and drop them off again on the third also proved invaluable.

I also managed my first victory against Space Marines so I think I'm starting to get my head around this force now.

Many thanks to those who offered advice on this thread and others, I really feel like I can put up a decent fight now!!