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Tau will do that at small points values, and assuming the Space marines don't have a Heavy bolter or three. However, get into games of 1500 points or more and you will start struggling. Tau just don't have enough AP3 to mulch entire armies of Marines.



Not to be an elitest p***k or anything, but wow that name makes no goddamn sense. According to it, he's a commander of the Ethereal caste, while at the same time being an Earth caste with no rank, and a lowest ranked human that's skillful. Or at least I assume that last word in his names is supposes to be "Kais."

Not really. What have the Tau got that will punch 3+ Armor? Ion Cannon, Seeker Missiles, Plasma Rifles, Rail Gun, Fusion Gun. Rail Rifles will do it too, but they aren't technically in the codex. Now lets go over these one by one.

Ion Cannon. Best Anti-Marine weapon the Tau have. Three shots a pop, it's to Marines what the Heavy Bolter is to Tau. Unfortunately it's only place is on a tank which generally will mount a Railgun instead, because the Railgun is more flexible. Plus, you can only take 3, tops. That's 9 Marines a turn at best, probably more like 6.

Seeker missiles. Using these against Marines is just silly. They're a one shot missile that costs 10 points, and requires at least one unit of Pathfinders to be really effective. These are better uses to bust up vehicles, where they can actually stand a chance of earning thier points back. That's assuming you use them in the first place. I've never gotten much milage out of them myself.

Plasma Rifles. Mainstay of Crisis Suit equipment, it's nice, and you can have up to 15 of them in your army. However, each of those suits can get himself insta-killed by lascannon, battle cannon, krak missiles etc. With that many suits on the board, it's going to be difficult to have free terrain pieces to hop about and avoid counter-fire. Not only that but fielding this many Plasma Rilfes is expensive, both cash and points wise. Also, getting this many plasma rifles precludes you getting an Ethereal, or depending on your Commander's IC status to protect him on the battlefield. This also prevents you from taking Stealth Suits, and requires you to bond your squads of Crisis. Plus, you'll need to twin link those Plasma Rifles to hit with any reliability.

Fusion Blaster - Paired up with the Plasma Rifle, you can get off three shots that all punch Marine armor and the Fusion insta-kills marines. The downside is a 12" range that you will struggle to use without being assaulted. This is better used to kill vehicles, and Plasma is better off just twin linking than adding this on.

Railgun - S10, AP1. the Tank-killer par excellence. However, with one shot per turn, extremely inefficient for killing off Marines. The Tank mounted submunition can kill Marines with about the same efficiency of an Ion cannon, provided you can get 10 marines or so under the template as it doesn't punch Marine armor.

Rail Rifles. They're a mixed bag. They're S6 and can cause pinning, but they'll be firing at whatever the unit of Pathfinders is shooting at, unless you bought the Target Lock interface, in which case they get hot. They also suffer from BS3 and a cap of 3 per unit, so in a unit with two Rifles, only one will hit, on average. Markerlighting for a Burst Cannon gets about the same results as a pair of Rail Rifles, and is cheaper.

Hail of fire: This is the Guard strategy for dealing with heavy armor; "He can't make ALL his saves!" The problem is that Tau are almost universally BS3. You can't hit often enough, and don't have as many models on the table as Guardsmen. Marines can cut down opponends with bolter fire because with 12 marines firing, 8 will hit. With 12 Fire Warriors firing, 6 will hit. A two man difference doesn't seem like much on a squad level, but look at an entire army, and the Marines are better at hails of fire than Tau. Tau don't have the numbers to make up for thier lack of low AP the way Imp Guard does, and they don't have the skill to make up for thier lack of numbers the way Marines do. That's what hurts them against MEQs. Against Eldar infantry, Guard and the little 'nids, almost every shot that hits is a kill, or a wound on the rare multi-wound models at that level. Against Marines and Necrons, we can't hit enough to make them fail saves, and can't deny armor to ensure each shot is a kill.

Looking at all of this it's possible to shred Marines, but you have to have a specifically constucted list, with no railguns and lots of plasma toting Crisis Suits. this leaves you unable to deal with Land Raiders and Monoliths, or horde based armies like Guard and Tyranids. And personally, I hate to have to use an army that is purpose built to kill an opponent. I should stand a fighting chance with a generalist list, which is very difficult playing against Marines, and near impossible against Necrons.

Rereading the Tau naming conventions, we're both wrong. It makes a little sense, but it doesn't mean what you're saying. Tau naming conventions go Which means his name labels him as an Ethereal Commander from Earth, with the personal labels of skillful and human. After hearing the crock about being a halfbreed Tau/human though, I'm going to stand by my assertion that his character still makes no sense, without even the cursory nods to science that most sci-fi gives.

And the purpose of this post was...what? A silly "My bike is better than yours!" statement? Seriously, I don't fear Grey Knights at all with my Tau. I would prefer to play Grey Knights than Vanilla Marines. Because the prohibitive points cost on the GK means you can't put as many bodies on the table as a regular Marine company can, so I'm not to worried about stretching out my AP 2 and 3 weapons, and can actually force saves against the smaller units. Plus, as a Tau player, I have very few high points single units that I have to worry about being Force-weaponed. Grey Knights are not as big a problem as Vanilla or Chaos Marines, and not even close to being the problem that Necrons are.

Ah, and addendum to my AP3 discussion then. Sorry, I've just been irritated at a rather abrasive poster on another 40k forum and a new arsehole at my local gaming location and it's got me on a hair trigger here

Double the firepower? Stop me if I'm wrong, but only with psycannon, right? Stormbolters are only range 12"? I haven't fought Grey Knights all that much. I've only played two games, but I squashed them pretty good both times. The large units of regular Marines gave me some trouble, but the Termies and HQ band were less than troublesome.

And I really don't bring too many Crisis to the table. When I bought my army off of Ebay, I got 4, and I've never added more. While I'm finding that I might like more, I'm waiting for the new codex and the fixed Crisis sprues, as I'd like to finally make some standin/kneeling suits rather than being forced to make them float because of thier weak ankles. I generally have 3 suits with AP 2 or better weapons on the table, and the rest of my anti-Marine firepower is in my tanks and Pathfinders. I generally have trouble with two armies. Necrons being the worst and Marines being second. And Marines aren't all that bad, so long as they don't have too much in the way of infantry. All or mostly infantry Marine companies are the ones I have trouble with, I'm on more equal footing with those that take a good number of vehicles.

Im thinking of making a mobile Tau army. Fire Warriors mounted in Devilfish become Fast attack. Crisis suits become troops. So it would be a army to test later in life. After the new codex

It's fine, I re-read my post above, and was very close to deleting it...untill however I found that I could not. Most of what made that post sound so stupid was the cockiness in my overly creative descriptions I over used to get my point threw. Sorry about that.

Anyway, the psycannon actually is pretty much a heavy bolter, just with the ability to punch invunerable saves, and it's +1 strength.
The stormbolters however, have these stats:
Range: 24" S:4 AP:5 Assault 2.
So not only can it let off an extra shot, the assault keeps them firing even whilst progressing forward (which I'm sure you knew) that space marines rapid fire bolters, do not.

Any way, I find it very interesting that you don't bring many crisis suits. Any other tau player I have ever communed with, and my friend who I play very often, are very set upon filling thier army out with the max amount of Crisis suits and broadsides that they can possibly have. Now, with the you easily taking the terminators...I'm actually pretty surprised...especially with only 4 Crisis Suits. I have recently found a very nice deal on Ebay, including the sum of 15 Terminators, adding to my previous 5 that gives me 20. Although my friend has the maximum amount of crisis suits you can have leaving one HQ slot available...he still seems to have a really hard time taking them down..and it is seemingly impossible with his carbines. Especially If I land a succesive Deep Strike. And with you lack of crisis suits....would you mind explaining, heh, I'm not sure if you knew but less than 10 crisis suits in a 1500+ point game seems to be a rarity amongst tau players?

(By the way any DaemonHunter players...I would not suggest the 20 terminators move, although It normally does put me out on top, It does not look so good for the stories I like to write at the conclusions of my games. Plus, it's quite pricey and although workable. Not the best.)