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The Secret To Killing Primaris: New Tau Ion Enforcer

By Wesley Floyd | February 25th, 2020 | Categories: 40k News & Articles, Tactics, Tau

tau wal hor codex 8thWanna kill primaris marines? Well, it looks like the Tau have a secret weapon now. Check out the Ion Enforcer that’s perfect to tag along with Riptides.

Tau’s bread and butter right now are the uncontested burst cannon Riptides in a sea of Drones. In that same insanely popular list composition, we see a commander rocking four fusion blasters. Fusion is specifically great for tank hunting. However, if you’re going against something like Imperial Fist/Iron Hands Intercessor spam lists at your LGS, you might want to try out the Commander in an Enforcer suit with cyclic ion blasters.

The Secret To Killing Primaris: New Tau Ion Enforcer

Tau Sept wal horPrimaris are no doubt popping up in nearly every single Astartes list these days…Some more than others. And if you’re looking for a nearly-untargetable answer to Primaris for your Tau force, an Enforcer with cyclic ion blasters seems like a normally looked-over option that definitely serves this purpose.

The Enforcer Commander is essentially a Commander that has slightly tweaked wargear to something like the Coldstar. With that said, it’s movement is only 8″, but can pack some firepower nearly perfect for killing two-wound T4 bodies.

Tau walEnter the Enforcer Commander with three cyclic ion blasters and an Advanced Targeting System. We’ll get into the weapon specs in just a bit. But you’ll want to only run three guns so you have room to tack on an additional -1 AP to your guns (bringing them to -2AP).

So for the cyclic ion blasters, you get 3 shots with the assault profile at a normal S7 -1AP 1D. This is the profile you’ll never want to use with the ‘Mander so OVERCHARGE THAT BAD BOY. 

When you overcharge all three cyclic ion blasters, you’ll be able to pump out 9 shots at S8 -2AP (thanks to ATS) and doing D3 damage a pop. Sure, if you roll a 1 to hit, you take a mortal wound. But #1 you’re a Commander with a 2+ BS and if anything even has a single marker light on it, you’re re-rolling your 1’s anyway~ so who cares.

tau armyWith an 8″ movement on top of an 18″ range assault weapon, the Commander has a surprisingly big threat bubble that’ll be able to clear outbuildings that might have hunkered-down Primaris inside.

Overall, hitting on a 2+ and almost always wounding Primaris on a 2+ with a weapon that has a 66% chance of dealing at least two wounds isn’t too shabby. Especially when you consider the fact that he’s under 140 pts. 

As a disclaimer, we aren’t saying that this is the next meta stomper. But it’s definitely worth a try if you find yourself going up against brutal Primaris Intercessor spam lists.

What’s your answer to Primaris units? Do you have a Commander loadout that nobody else is running?

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About the Author: Wesley Floyd

Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.