[Tau Tactics] Fish of Fury Formation

[Ikarus]

[Tau Tactics] Fish of Fury Formation
August 30th, 2007
By Ikarus


**Advanced section coming soon**

**Real Life Picture Simulation of FoF coming soon**



Introduction

The Fish of Fury (FoF) is a special tactical formation utilized by almost all mechanized Tau armies and some hybrid Tau armies that have mobile vehicles/transports. This tactic is meant to be both an offensive strike or a countermeasure to close combat, because Tau clearly are not the best at it.


What is the 'Fish of Fury'?

The Fish of Fury maximizes the rules of being a skimmer. Basically if an enemy unit is aproaching you can drive your devilfish loaded with fire warriors up to the enemy. The Devilfish should be in front and acts as the 'buffer' between the Enemy squad and the Fire Warrior Squad. The Fire Warriors must disembark and be deployed 12'' away from the enemy, and then start rapid firing their pulse rifles.

This means that the enemy cannot walk under your devilfish (because it is a vehicle/unit and the rule stands - you cannot pass through an enemy unit). But you can definetly shoot and be shot at back. If deployed right, the Enemy unit will require two turns to reach your Fire Warrior Squad. At this point, you either shot them up really bad to the point where they are crippled or you just didn't cut through them - in this case just load up back on the fish and run!


Summary -

• -Bring Devilfish with the rear of the Devilfish roughly 11'' away from the enemy.
• -Disembark Fire Warriors
• -Rapid Fire Pulse Rifles @ 12'' or 18'' Carbine (keeps you out of bolter range)

• -Enemies cannot walk underneath vehicles
• -Enemies cannot be closer than 1'' of your units/vehicles
• -It roughly takes 2 turns to go around a devilfish to assault the units
• -If they get that close, load up in the Dfish and drive away.

Types of Fish of Fury and Requirements -

Single Fish of Fury - (Uncommon - but if situation permits, use it.)

*Picture coming soon*

1x Devilfish w/ FireWarriors
This one is risky as it does not cover a decent amount of space to prevent the enemy from assaulting you. But if circumstances arises and you can pull this off, then try it out!


Dual Fish of Fury - (Most Common and Highly Suggested)

2x Devilfish
2x Fire Warrior Squads

or

2x Any Vehicle (Devilfish, Skyray, or Hammerhead)
2x+ FireBase Unit (Drones, Suits, Fire Warriors, etc.)








Tactical Commentary -

Again the Fish of Fury is both an offensive tactical maneuver or a defensive one. Here is information on both ways the FoF can be used.

Offensive - Show them real fury!

If you spot an enemy flank or line that appears to be coming slowly at you and then you can take this to your advantage by driving up to your enemies and perform the FoF 'V'* Formation. Your Fire Warrior Squads should disembark at the inside side hatches. With this position, the enemy must go all the way around the V formation and try to assault you. Do keep in mind that they can definetly shoot you back, and if they are a shooty army, do not pull this off. You are just going to end up getting running squads in the end.

Once you Disembark - Rapid fire the pulse rifles or stand back a bit with your pulse carbines and pin them. Watch as your opponent cringes at the thought of 24 str. 5 shots per full man fire warrior squad!


GREEN LINE - Notates your Fire Warriors Shooting back
BLUE LINE - Notates the Enemies Movement Choices

After the first round of shooting -

If you do not kill what you shot at, then you are able to still wait another turn before you get assaulted. If you know for a fact that you can totally wipe out the oncoming unit, then rapid fire them. If you cannot kill them - load back up in your devilfish and drive away.


* V Formation comes from the Two devilfishes which forms an upside down V.



Defensive - The hidden fury.

Now the Fish of Fury tactic is not only for offensive strikes. In fact it is even more better at being a defensive line for your army. Because Tau are poor in close combat, we have to do whatever it takes to stop that from happening. If you see enemy units that attempt to come up to you and assault you in a turn or two. Pull up the FoF V Formation once again and force your opponents to go around the block. This will greatly buy you more time as it allows you to shoot your enemies and make them move an extra turn or so.

Basically the Defensive way to use the FoF tactic is same as the offensive way except you are not initiating the FoF directly to your enemy. You use it as a countermeasure to prevent close combat by:

• Slowing them down - make them spend more turns on the movement phase.
• Potentially cutting the assault units down by pulse blasting them.

Tips, Tricks and a little bit of information:



Tau Fire Warrior Weaponry Loadouts -

Pulse Rifle -

The Pulse Rifle is the most common weapon used in the Tau arsenal. Most people use this as they like the 12'' rapid firing range which can be devastating. The only issue with this gun is - the enemies can fire back. Otherwise it is a very very strong gun that can obliterate enemies in a single volley.

Pulse Carbine -

The Pulse Carbine is sometimes an underrated weapon - due to its single shot. But it should not be! The Pulse Carbine has 18'' inches of shooting range and this can prevent you from being shot at and also has a chance of pinning! Again though, the drawback is that you can't get as many shots in to kill or pin, but this weapon is definetly useful to FoF regardless because half the time you can't shoot your Enemy via FoF due to the lack of 12'' range.


Suggested Fire Warrior Loadouts

~X Fire Warriors - 50% Pulse Rifles - 50% Pulse Carbines

This can even out the volley by providing you close ranged shots with the frontline, but also allows the backline of the Firebase to still shoot with its 18'' range. It also allows even amount of pinning chances and kills.

~X Fire Warriors - 70-90% Pulse Rifles - 10-30% Pulse Carbines

This is for those who want to go all out on the rapid fire shots and have a few well placed carbine shots that can 'potentially' pin.

~X Fire Warriors - 100% Pulse Rifles

Pretty much enough said. Maximized rapid fire.

~X Fire Warriors - 100% Carbines

This can work out pretty well actually. It allows a lot of chances to pin, but then again you are missing some shots that could have been.




Vehicle Upgrades - **Insert Tau Vehicle Upgrades Tactica link here**

Flechette Dischargers - When you deploy your Fish of Fury there is only a few choices that the opponent can make. Go around the fish or assault the fish. Flechette Dischargers are excellent upgrades on your leading Devilfishes to punch the enemy back and even possibly killing them!

Disruption pods - **Insert Disruption pod Tactica link here**

The disruption pod is very useful to the FoF. It allows you to count any shot that is 12''+ away to be obscured - this means that you do not always have to move more than 6'' to get some skimmer protection and potentially die from immobilization!

Multi Tracker -

The multi tracker will only work for the 1st round we move our 12'' Dfish forward and shoot the shots out at full output.

Targetting Array -

This can be nice to get you some well placed shots in with your Devilfish. Not exactly required, but a nice addition if you have the points.

The Warfish - **Insert Warfish Tactica link here**

The Warfish is the unofficial Devilfish Variant that makes it a powerful tank and still a transport. The Warfish is a Devilfish with Smart Missile System upgrades and occasionally Targetting Array to guide the shots in. This does mean that the Warfishfish get 7 STR 5 shots which can be devastating combine with the full shooting army of Tau! You can even hide this sucker behind terrain and give em hell at 24''.





Gun Drone Shielding - **Insert Gun Drone Tactica link here**

Essentially the gun drones on your Devilfishes do not count as any points! This means that for the Fish of Fury, you can put this unit inside the FoF V formation or even outside. If you put the Gun Drones inside, they act as another Fire Warrior shooting carbines.



GREEN LINE - Simulate The a Turn of movement for the Enemies.
PURPLE LINE - Notates the 2nd turn of the enemy.
Blue LINE - Notates the 3rd turn of the enemy.

As you can see you just wasted the enemies time half of the game already~!

If you put the Gun Drones outside, you can further 'block off' the enemy in two ways:

• Can be used an Assault 'Buffer' between the Devilfish and the unit. (Though the enemy could go around..)
• Can be used to slow down the enemy by allowing them to either shoot the unit (Which means when they kill it, they can't assault anything else) or assault it and consolidate but you can still shoot them on your turn.

Advanced Applications - COMING SOON.

Piranha of Fury - The Smaller Bite.

Combo of Fury - The Mass Fish of Fury

[experiment 626]

nice, simple and easy to follow layout!

the one thing that's still missing though is the one big weakness of the fish of fury; enemy deep strikers!

generally to ensure the enemy can't lap around your transports, most of your tau are huddled together as a rather tempting target for templates - namely flamers and heavy flamers! (and the odd hellhound inferno cannon)

i've sucessfully broken the FoF more than once by landing a single sentinel with heavy flamer behind the formation and roasting whole squads... granted many guard players really do neglect this valuable tactic of a 40-55pts throw-away unit, but still, i think it bares mention that there are a few units out there who will thrash you badly if you're not careful!

again though, overall a really great & informative article!
cheers!

[Templar Mikeel]

It would be a really good idea to list all the drawbacks and units that can ruin a tactic.

[Wakim]

I think it`s fairly obvious that having to fishies parked in front of your troops won`t save you from deep strikers...

But how about ordinance?

One last thing, would something similar work for eldar?

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by wakim

I think it`s fairly obvious that having to fishies parked in front of your troops won`t save you from deep strikers...

But how about ordinance?

One last thing, would something similar work for eldar?

eldar can use a very similar tactic with both wave serpents & falcons... (hell, even throw in a fire prisim on the flank for a very nasty varient!) the eldar version also out-ranges the tau FoF as dire avengers have those lovely 18" catapults!

cheers!

[Ikarus]

I will place more drawbacks and ways the FoF can be broken. (just got lazy near the end)

-Deep Strikers
-Assault - Jetpack troops
-Ordinance

Basically will put out info that - While FoF can make the shots through, doesnt mean your invincible to shots back.


But furthermore, thats where the advanced section comes in. To help prevent the FoF wall from breaking through some more nasty tricks i'm going to show.



As far as an Eldar Tactica - I can put that up too. Basically - Dire Avengers work best for em~ and can do this better.

[Warmaster Romulas]

THANKS IK
good stuff very useful for my new army

[Ikarus]

More to come, i just wrote that in an hour or two. Will show you ALL the nasty tricks you can do >.>.

[Masterwatts]

Great post shame I don't play Tau though! Could I copy this with Necrons using a Monolith? Also possible options were listed like deepstriking etc... but didn't see anyone suggest blowing the fish up as only got weak armour.

Cheers

Jeff

[Ikarus]

I will cover that, and also how to prevent some damage back.

Just give me the weekend =D

[Wakim]

Nobody talked about blowing the transport because it was lear as daylight :P

As far as i can see, this is a great tactic to keep your FW`s out of melee combat with footsoldiers

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by Masterwatts

Great post shame I don't play Tau though! Could I copy this with Necrons using a Monolith? Also possible options were listed like deepstriking etc... but didn't see anyone suggest blowing the fish up as only got weak armour.

Cheers

Jeff

as long as the monolith is a proper skimmer, you should be able to get away with it! (keep in mind that the monolith simply sits low on it's stand due to it's weight!)

blowing the devilfish out of the sky might seem like the easiest option, but it's alot harder in practice! like the eldar, the tau have a great range of protective vehicle upgrades that will protect their skimmers from ranged attacks...
if you have the option, take autocannons against the tau, (and skimmers in general!) two S7 shots/cannon is the best way to deal with these infuriating things. lascannons, rocket launchers and other single-shot weapons tend to be a waste because of all the wacky upgrades that will keep the devilfish afloat!

cheers!

[Ikarus]

I will be updating this article soon.

[minmaxticus]

Thanks, Ikky!

[themandalorian]

Do the gun drones get to shoot every turn along with the devilfish?