Are Tau an automatic loss?

Laughingcarp wrote:

Yeah overwatch is a big problem with the assault plan.
A bigger problem, in my experience, is again the Farsight bomb. With Vectored Retro Thrusters, they can just Hit and Run out of combat on your turn then shoot you to death, and shoot you AGAIN when you charge the next time.

Farsight bomb troubles? Try the meadusa bomb! Escalation is always the way to solve armed conflicts! Just ask batman!

Laughingcarp wrote:

Yeah overwatch is a big problem with the assault plan.
A bigger problem, in my experience, is again the Farsight bomb. With Vectored Retro Thrusters, they can just Hit and Run out of combat on your turn then shoot you to death, and shoot you AGAIN when you charge the next time.

You still have high I.

I don't think Tau are an automatic loss, but they are pretty much a direct counter to our army with so many long-range, high-powered, ignore cover shots.

In order of worst matchups, I would put Mechdar in front of Tau, followed by IG. Everyone else we can handle a little better, but those 3 are always going to be tough for us.

Anytime I hear how hard it is to deal with Tau I'm reminded of a great post on Wasted Knights, which details the Fire Dragon recruitment process, and I celebrate the fact that we can ally them in.

If you need a good laugh make sure to read Sorrowshard's ancient but excellent "Retro Review: Fire Dragons".

In all seriousness, the Threat of Farsight Bombs seems overblown. The formation is typically very expensive, leaving the Tau army with glaring weaknesses in terms of troop count and thus capturing potential. Most units in a Farsight Bomb will land outside of cover meaning they are more than likely not going to wholly in cover. Focus fire them down and you've effectively knocked out a lot of killing potential right there.

As for hunting Pathfinders and Marker Drones, the Coven book has given us a great tool to deal with them in the form of the Scalpel Formation. By Deepstriking 2 Squads of Wracks with their Venoms in turn 1, possibly equipped with Liquifiers and most definitely with Chain snares, we can be applying very direct stress and pressure to those elements. Granted, they will surely die, but not before either buying you some time or killing off a few Markerlights.

To be honest I never find Tau hard. Yes those SMS and missile pods are annoying but the fact remains that they are static and we can do a lot of things to negate those advantages.

Yes we lost the nightshields but webway portals are the new black. Not to mention that pathfinders and marker drones are still flimsy enough.

Nonetheless what I always find important in a tau vs dark wldar match is to play to the mission at all cost. Patience is key to to hold bak. This is not to disss the dark eldar way of war, but in this case, therr is a need to be very cunning.

A webway portal with the talos/chronis/haemocules unit with the upgrade that adds +1 to FnP rolls right down in front of some broadsides etc would probably cause him to sweat!

Tau is to DE, what DE are to tyranids. That being said I agree with the last post... I think that Taloi squads might be a good choice against them. They are tough enough to take overwatch and shooty enough to hurt them as they lumber into range. I actually love the new Taloi I think they could really help as mega-meatshields ala the Wraithknight.... which Tau really need to deal with because they can mulch in CC.

Having aun'Va does notstop the fear bomb from working but everything within 12" is stubborn - rerolls - so their is no penalty. Or am I reading the rules wrong ( I do not think so).

Tau overwatch is my issue! Do they have to call which units are support overwatching before the assault or can they call one unit at the time, thus seeing if more fire is needed?

Coordinated charge sounds like the solution there - charge three different units in and the supporting units are going to be too busy firing their own overwatch (so grot units on the flanks, as they're more likely to soak up fire, more fragile stuff in the centre)

If your opponent is not mindful of the positioning of his units sometimes concentrated fire onto key targets can seperate segments of a tau army to prevent supporting fire. Things like riptides, large fire warrior units, kroot blobs, tanks, etc. can hold that 6 inch range. Isolate units and surgically pick off the outliers, not to mention everything else people have suggested

@Egorey, Stubborn doesn't help them. Stubborn only affects Morale and Pinning, whereas our LD modifiers affect LD tests. A Morale test is a subset of leadership tests, not a leadership test in and of itself.
So even with Stubborn Tau are definitely subject to our fear bomb.

The biggest threat from Tau is found in farsight enclaves, but it isn't the farsight bomb. It is simply troops slots full of crisis suits:

Note that a Tau player can take:
(2) x 3 broadsides c/w SMS & HYMP (smart missiles, 30" range, S5, ignores cover, doesn't need los; high-yeild-missile-pod, 36" range, (4) S7)
(3) x 3 crisis suits c/w double MP and EWO (missile pods, 36" 2 shots each (4 per model) S7).


... so thats 24 TL s7 shots and 36 "straight" s7 shots, all at 36inch range.

This is less than 1,000 points. The threat comes from every single suit having interceptor, so they're able to unload all that S7 into our deepstriking units, AND the mobile stuff (crisis suits) all having JSJ means they can walk up 6" into range, shoot, and jump back out such that to draw retaliatory fire, our units are now in range of the static broadsides.

Each of these units is fully capable of removing one of our AV10 skimmers from the board if properly supplied with markerlights. So what does that mean? Well, above I've listed about 1000 points spread across (5) units. Each of those units can easily remove a skimmer with 2 markerlights, but most Tau forces wont bring enough markerlights to bear to fully supply their forces that can use them. Here's some math (pertianing only to the TL:HYMP broadsides, since they're our "worst case")

(3) TL:HYMP (12 TL, S7 shots...)
Ignores cover: expect to lose 6 hullpoints, 98.7% to lose 3 or more
Jink 4+: expect to lose 3 hullpoints, 60.9% chance to lose 3 or more
Jink 3+: expect to lose 2 hullpoints, 32.2% chance to lose 3 or more


Based on this, fighting tau is definitely an exercise in restraint & target priority:
1) Target markerlights when safe (unless on drones or tetras markerlights are static, prioritize drones / tetras over pathfinders since pathfinders can't move & shoot).
2) Target crisis suits: they're only slightly less scary than broadsides when it comes to damage output, but they're more mobile, capable of JSJ to draw you into the range of other guns.
3) Target broadsides.
4) Riptides, unless armed with ion cannon, are a trap. Don't bother shooting them unless there isn't anything else available.

Most Tau forces are very light on actual units with an AV (except those darned AV10 tetras). so if I'm able to stick to the 4 rules above I find they're not bad..... even when I've faced them on planet bowling-ball type tables @ tournaments..

As others have stated, MechDar is far worse for us to deal with since you're looking at all that ignores cover shooting, that can't be easily suppressed and banks on being sported on 12-15 AV12 hullpoints.... something DE will struggle with forever now that we don't have haywire wyches.

Spot on. Which is why I prefer to not not deepstrike stuff, perhaps a webway portal talos/chronos thing now. Bunch stuff together and keep it together. If he wants objectives he has to move. He will have spread out his army no doubt. So if he wants to utilise everything, he has to make an effort to come to you.

If 1 is good bring 2. If 2 is great bring 3.

We will always take losses with Tau, so we take more stuff for them to deal with in one space. We lose a raider there should be another one. Its what you can take out as you go down! Its tough, but it can be done. It took me ages back in 5th and 6th to stand up to mech guard sporting 3 punishers, 3 valkyries, hydra flak tanks, hellhounds etc. It was horrible for about 4/5 games. Then I figured out how to deal with it. Perseverance and thinking outside of the box!

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1) Target markerlights when safe (unless on drones or tetras markerlights are static, prioritize drones / tetras over pathfinders since pathfinders can't move & shoot).
2) Target crisis suits: they're only slightly less scary than broadsides when it comes to damage output, but they're more mobile, capable of JSJ to draw you into the range of other guns.
3) Target broadsides.
4) Riptides, unless armed with ion cannon, are a trap. Don't bother shooting them unless there isn't anything else available.

I disagree with this as a set priority sheet.  It's way more complex than this in an actual game.

If you don't mind, I'd like to piggyback on what you said and expand on this subject in particular..

For me, I think like this:
-Shoot anything that's not in cover or is limited in cover that does not have jet pack movement and is in max range.  If I see a Riptide in the open, it's going to get focused until it's dead.  Anything that's T4 with multiple wounds is fair game, because these consists of Broadsides and Crisis Suits both of which is capable of outrageous amounts of long-range damage and both can be put down by a high-volume of lances and saturated Venom shots.

-The importance of lances in the Tau matchup is gigantic.  You MUST have a good amount of lances to offer any threat to the opposing Tau player.  Why?  Because they threaten everything in their army with ID, thus getting around the fact they have 2+ armor and multiple wounds.  Riptides only have their invulnerable saves vs. lances as well, so if you can bring a healthy amount of lances to bear, you will threaten him as much as he threatens you.  Equal threat is extremely important because you need to able to present difficult decisions for your opponents.  A lot of people tend to think one way with the Dark Eldar matchup, and that's the fact they have a crap ton of Ignore Cover and a lot of S7 twin-linked missiles that open up our boats.  You need to be able to think on the side of the Tau player as well, as if I open with 36 Poisoned Shots, 12 Lances, and as I get closer, the number of lances and poison increase by 2x-3x with every 12" I move, this poses a gigantic threat to Broadsides, Crisis Suits and Riptides.  The Tau player is not the only one swinging lead in a game.  I'd like to quote Gunnery SGT Hartman on the subject of war faces. "You don't scare me; WORK ON IT!"  You're frak Dark Eldar, and your list better scare me or it's a POS and it's probably going to fail. I keep saying this in other threads, but when life throws you lemons, throw more dark lances back.

-Which brings me back to why I don't like to use that table that was presented above.  For me, it's a game about numbers, and about how many shots I can make at said unit, and how many wounds I will force, and what he's saving on.  I will shoot poison and lances into a Riptide until its dead because a 1W Riptide is just as powerful as a full-health one in terms of shooting.  I will focus fire into 4+ ruins with my lances if I'm going to force ID on Broads and Suits.  I will shoot poison at the Quad-gun so my Razorwings can come with more confidence.  I will force saves on 2+ AS units just to force saves because he will fail some of them.  It's all about which targets are available, what your chances are at killing them, and whether or not you have enough bang for your buck to make an impression.  If your opponent has nothing to fear, it will be a turkey shoot.  If you can present crap that makes him think twice and maybe even deploy too defensively, you can isolate and destroy elements of his army piecemeal.  You have to think of it like this:  The more units you can kill on his side, the less damage will come back to you.  A lancer is 60 points, a single T4 2W Broadside costs more.  This is a game about points and if you kill enough of the expensive stuff while keeping yours intact, you will be ahead.  Then once you get ahead, you stay ahead because as Dark Eldar, you need to control the tempo of the game and play on the offensive.  A Dark Eldar player who stays still is dead in the water.  Why?  Because our damage is done in layers, from different range bands.  In my list that has 3 gunboats, 3 Venoms, and 3 Ravagers, you open with 12 lances at 36" and 36 poisoned shots, you get within 18" of the enemy and you give them +6 more Dark Lances and some bullshit Rapid Fire poisoned shots.  You get within 12" and all of your dudes inside are Rapid Firing poisoned shots, half of which are twin-linked because of Splinter Racks.  By now, I have reserves bringing me 8 more lances, and a bunch of S6 templates.  Mathematically, this means more dice you will roll, more shots you will make, more wounds you will inflict, and more saves he has to take.  He will fail those saves, you just need to make him take them.  A lot of them: And the only way you're going to make him take a lot of them is if you play aggressive.

-Everyone says shoot Markerlights first, and I agree with this.  However, you shouldn't tunnel vision into where the Drones are or where the Pathfinders are if there are better targets to nab.  See point #1, it's all about opportunity and how much damage you can inflict at the crap that matters:  Namely heavy weapons and what he has to shoot back with.  And this is impossible to tell without seeing the deployment, mission and army lists, so general advice like the ones above will just give steer players in the wrong direction.  This might be shocking for some, but newer players literally do what they're told.  So my advice for aspiring Dark Eldar players is:  Be aggressive, kill what you have the best chance at killing, and prioritize your targets based on how much damage they can inflict on you next turn.  Don't tunnel vision, concentrate on killing threats before the mission objective, because as long as you are able to kill the crap that's killing your crap, you will be ahead in the game.

Speaking of Tau, I have a game vs. them tomorrow.  I will write it up in the same fashion as my tactical battle report format.

@ Hero, this is why its called target priority & not "target this stuff in this order always and never deviate" (or some other, more eloquent title=P). Absolutely what you state is true regarding pouncing on any unit without a coversave - especially if it is a multiwound battlesuit. But how often does that happen? How often do you find broadsides deployed out of cover?

Understanding that unit of broadsides will kill your vehicle if you allow it to ignore cover is huge - so is understanding that same unit will probably kill you, even if you jink, without nightshields. Why? Because if you get all three guns on a ravager in range to kill a unit of broadsides, you're now CLOSER than 36" because of the 1.5" setback on the side sponsons. Get 3 lances in range, hit w/ 2 and 1 makes its way through cover. So you've exposed your 130pt lance-boat and removed 1 battlesuit; lets assume you go for buck & put all 3 ravagers in range.... you're now in threat range and have wiped out one unit - Tau player still has 4+ viable threats, each capable of downing our fragile ships on their own.

Theory-hammer is great and all, but since everything is very match dependent: terrain, actual armylists, mission, deployment, etc. That all we can discuss is rules of thumb

That's not what I said, what I said was that DE should be opportunists rather than following a unit priority chart.  Your unit priority should be anything that you have the opportunity to kill, through math and with good tactics.

I don't care if Broadsides are in cover.  You hit on 3s, wound them on 2s with Lances and every cover save they fail, they instantly die.  Neutralizing threats and killing enemy units so they can't harm you in return is the name of the game.  It was easier before with inherent Jink, 5+ Flickers and Night Shields reducing 6" from all their guns, forcing stationary units to move, but this is lost and we have to settle for it.

There is no theory-hammer being applied here, it's the age-old rule for all Dark Eldar players who want a more precise game:  Inflict as much damage as you can while denying damage in return.  This can be done with positioning so you can maximize on cover, or done via killing enemy unit so they can't shoot you back.  Almost all the time, it's a combination of both.

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@ Hero, this is why its called target priority & not "target this stuff in this order always and never deviate" (or some other, more eloquent title=P).

I don't care what you call it, I'm telling you that as soon as you start making lists, newer players will think that's the way to play. It's not, because like I mentioned in my post, the game is more complex than that.

I've seen people prioritise 'anything that you have the opportunity to kill, through math and with good tactics'. Problem is, those newer players you talk about get over excited about that type of thing and start plugging away at the big suit thing because they can see it and they think it's scary. Truth is, if you take away its marker lights, the Riptide is about as scary as my dirty socks. Now I'm not saying you should pile shots into markerlights if there aren't better targets (Crisis Teams, Broadsides), but that's the whole point about target priority, it gives you an idea of what's going to hurt your opponent the most and helps you to make those decisions in games.

New players are going to make mistakes, it's why experienced players tend to win more often, because they are better at making those decisions over what to target. I'd agree with the list posted earlier, but temper that by advising that a target priority is only ever a guide and you need to judge the likelihood of killing what you're shooting at. for example, pathfinders in a ruin vs Crisis suits in a crater. The pathfinders can go to ground for a 3+ cover save. The Crisis suits also have that 3+ against everything but your dissies/lances, but they're a higher value target (points). Lances therefore go into the crisis suits because a) they're instant death for them and b) you're not wasting valuable lance fire being saved by cover. Poison shots go into the pathfinders because a) each one you kill reduces the effectiveness of the entire enemy army and b) you're likely to have a lot more of them so cover is less of an issue.

I dunno, even as a newer player ages ago, I would still point across the table and ask "what does that unit do". Even if you have no idea what it did, your opponent telling you: "this shoots out a billion twin-linked S7 missiles per turn" has to make your hairs stand up.

Markerlights are overrated, they do absolutely nothing if you reduce the shooting capacity of the Tau to crap. Most markers I see these days come form jetpacking Drones moving in and out of LoS. I don't know any one playing Tau that still brings Pathfinders, as they're probably one of the most overpriced things in the book (compared to the Ignore Cover and removal options most armies have these days).

Not sure what the argument is here, and it's not very complicated tactics wise. Kill what can kill you before it kills you. Wasting shots at something that's a minimal threat is a waste of shots, even if it's vulnerable. A listing of priorities gets established in your head, even if not on paper. When you hear "this shoots out a billion twin-linked S7 missiles per turn," That unit moves up on the list.

And with Tau, the only chance you have is to try to minimize the damage they cause, before you can kill their major threats. Which is damn hard when you're stripped of all your saves and have to get into their range to cause damage. I was thinking Taloi in threes as well might be a good strategy, with a 4+ feel no pain they could soak up a lot of shooting, and if you're opponent ignores them they'll pay since Tau is such a static army.

5 Scouting Talos? A talos/chronos haemocules squad behind it. Supported by 2 units of Grots in raiders with Wracks in Venoms.

Ignore the cover saves now Mr.Tau. If I remortgage my house perhaps one day I will try this

However, as said before, lances are key. Now last edition, flickerfields were pretty damn effective. We lost it yes to get a better jink. True. But Venoms still get that 5++ and are pretty easy to hide out of LOS. Venom spam might be effective supported by Ravagers. Squads of warriors with blasters. Blasterborn in venoms, maybe even a dark lance toting squad of trueborn in the back field?

Does that not help even the tables? You have effectively old school jink which he cant negate. You have multiple threats to cause instant death.And some splintercannon hosing potential on top of that.

The problem is that you need to tailor your list to anti Tau to have an effect on them. In tournaments you don't have that option. Sure it can be done, since an venom spam/ravager lisr or coven list can have the tools to beat Tau but at is that possible with a tour-list. In other words : 3 Lance ravagers in tournament lists? I don't know.

Its true. A venom spam list with lots of blasters can probably be useful against a lot of armies. Besides, if you come across a tournament with Serpent Spam or Tau your going to have a bad time anyway. I'm not going to pretend to be a Tournament Vet. Since 7th came out I only play casual. But I'm sure you could still put up a good fight with a venom anti Tau list. Maybe drop a ravager for a Razorwing.
But I guess we are discussing how to beat Tau. Not how to have the most effective all-round Tournament list (30 mandrakes is the go to now right )

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

...the Riptide is about as scary as my dirty socks.

That actually sounds pretty scary!

SMS suck....hard. You can play so strategically sound and still loose because you are 29 inches away hidden in cover. In a TAC list you need to plan on three things: parking lot IG, Tau and Knights. Those are out toughest matchup...and serpent spam.

For me, I play with eldar allies, I love me some shadow council and psychic scream with either grotesques or wraith guard. That archon with phantasm and WWP with AoM will fold massive numbers of units the turn they come on with good placement.

Scourges and reavers are also good. The key is to saturate targets so that he has to make a choice. Once any unit gets into CC the wheels come off the bus. Play super aggressive and get in their face.