Assault on the Tau! ( 1k points )

lately, a tau adversary continues to goad my small kabal.
he has offered up a juicy target for a real space raid.
a wonderful opportunity to collect a few more tau souls for the count.
however... his new kick is to fight on progressively smaller point value games...
he has seated himself firmly on a 1k match... i dont think i have EVER played such a small match
i am know for putting raiders and sometimes venom/razorwing down my opponent's throat but lately the tau have found their Disruption pods 4+cover to be my BANE.
NEVER have i landed so many DL wounds and seen nothing for it.
his Seeker missiles have an uncanny ability to shatter my buzz during the fight.
any thoughts on redundancy of strategy at this restricting point value that will simplify the slaughter of tau units?
besides parking a raider under 12" and letting a DL rip. ^.^

I would personally think that at 1000 DE would have a marked advantage over Tau.

How about you provide us your list and his list (or thereabouts) if you want specific advice.

My general advice is that DE can almost outshoot Tau, and can certainly out assault them. I'd build a Warrior centric army with 1-2 small Wych squads all in vehicles and just roll up, shoot apart his mech, and assault him to death.

if you are doing a traditional Venom spam list, you can definately outshoot them in 1k

If you are running a more traditional force in DE sense, then while you might not be able to outshoot tau, you can put enough pressure on them, while beating his Suits in assault no problem.

Tau isnt really a hard fight unless your playing a WWP list (btw... I highly suggest not doing that )

Never underestimate the shooting of an army whose basic weaponry can PENETRATE our vehicles; and at our own range or better (even with Night shields, Pulse rifle range = Splinter rifle range). Add to that a frustratingly mobile heavy weapons base, and superheavy firepower that will autopen raiders. In a 1k game the Tau player can easily field enough missiles and railguns to demech you in turn 1, and have drones to eat lance-hits on the suits.

I'm not saying you won't win, but it won't be a roflstompfaceroll unless the tau player isn't very good.

@fenris - as someone who has played good Tau armies I kind of feel you're overstating what they do. They're basically Space Wolves with fewer units on the board and vastly inferior assault capability. I've had some tough Tau matches before due to specific scenarios or board setups - but on the whole they have serious issues dealing with DE.

It's a matter of perspective I guess; having played them, I know their, let's say maximum capabilies? In 1k points I'd be surprised to see fewer than 4 Crisis suits and a pair of Broadsides. That's a lot of hurt.

Could you explain the SW reference? I don't see it.

fenrisnorth wrote:

Could you explain the SW reference? I don't see it.

Longfang missle spam.

Their missles are weaker than general missles, they have really only two auto-pen (hammerhead and broadsides) which the first can be killed with one hit (and also miss with its one shot) and the latter can be tied up in combat, then you have FF.

Pretty much at 1k your looking at 2 squads of FW in a devilfish, 2~3 crisis teams, a hammerhead, and a squad of broadsides. That is not alot of AT to de-mech 4~5 venoms and 3 Ravagers. Tau is an ok army, but there is a reason they are sorely lacking in the competitive fields

That being said nothing is more infuriating than a compitent tau player. I know... I have two of them at my LGS, and I loathe chasing down crisis suits

^^^
This, mostly.

Broadsides are scary only because of split fire - if they lacked split fire...meh.
The solution to Broadsides is to assault them, because they fail at life.

What else does that? Oh! SW Long Fang spam, and they do it *much* cheaper, and are actually capable of kicking a bit of butt in assault on top of it (not much more, but hey, every bit helps).

When you add in everything else Wolves do - like Razorspam, paired with units inside their vehicles that can shoot down skimmers - you basically have all the problems Tau bring to the table. Except the Wolves are also dangerous when you assault them, so you can't just lob 5 Warriors at a problem and hope it goes away like you can with Tau.

I've fought Tau, I respect Tau, heck, if I didn't find their models ugly I'd probably play Tau because I like the way their army works. All that said - I don't see them as omgwtflolbbq of a problem at 1000 points. Especially vs. a decent DE build.

It's the never getting a shot at the crisis suits as they hammer you that most people had trouble with when I rolled them. Note I never said they were impossible or even top teir, more like a rabid Chihuahua, if you're not careful, you'll get bitten. It's a case of don't dismiss them, not OMGFEAR them. And Don't count on assaulting broadsides. If they have first turn, they'll slap down the Wyche's raiders, if they have second, they'll deploy kitty corner to them.

That having been said, GET OUT THERE AND BRING US BACK SOME BLUE SKINNED BASTARDS! I know you cn do it!

the fight took longer to arrive than anticipated, but the raid went better than expected.
i just had to try a voidraven bomber... monoscythe = slaugter on FW team. Imp misile = no commander unit ^.^ ( yes he actually failed it on a Shas'O!)
from there on it was clean up.
i dare say i now have a warm fuzzy spot in my heart for the voidraven. right next to the memories of the slaughter.

If you like the missiles I tend to suggest edging towards the Razorwing, it's overall a much more affordable way to get monoscythes, which are the true gem missiles anyway.

the question did come up. a "what if" to having had a shield drone.
instant death vs invulnerable save.
since the txt in the codex mentions taking the invuln as normal. does that mean u take the invuln over the actual toughness check or try and save after the fact? id imagine the former, but id like some fresh eyes on it.
plx and ty

If the shield drone is hardwired (giving the Commander the invul save) then he will take the Test, and if failed his invul save to save him. If the drone is just their in the squad (like what most do in regular Crisis Teams, then the drone would have to take a test (and then the invul if it failed) and the suit would take his test, and if failed would die.

basically it would all depend if he had it hardwired or not

the fight continued on this topic. it seems that since invulnerable saves are "saves" not stat checks the imp missile still forces the stat check and no save since it does not actually deal wounds.

I play Tau as my main army, and Dark Eldar as my second WIP army.

I'm no tournament player, nor do i like making competitive lists, but for 1k points. 'Foot sloging' them across the field or transporting them is rather ineffective. Best to deep strike into their front door if possible, bring the fight to them.

Do use a webway portal, it's something they'll be distracted with trying to take care.

(I feel a tad like a traitor now...)

I played Tau before I made the choice of switching to Dark Eldar. Honestly? Unless you're up against a revered and grizzled Tau veteran, there is little way he can conceivably defeat you. You're faster. You're more precise at shooting. You can put out far more shots. You can pack far more AT fire. Wyches will devastate just about anything Tau can offer in 1k points.

Just watch out for those Disruption Pods. 4+ cover when shot from further than 12" is a nasty little surprise to everyone, and that little Devilfish can theoretically rip our little paper boats to shreds with their humble Burst Cannon and two Gun Drones. Battlesuits should be either drowned in Wych daggers, splinter fire or armor penetrating weaponry. They're more mobile (and way more expensive) marines with poorer eyesight. This is something to remember - most of Tau army has BS of 3. They rely on markerlight support, so you should prioritize the stuff that can light up your fellows.

Tau right now have one of the few oldest codices in the game. Their current codex has so many relic rules from 4th ed it hurts to look at. It really isn't the best book in the game, and takes a very skilled player to compete with other races on equal footing. In other words, ripe for plunder for the dark kin.

One of my main opponents/friends plays Tau and he is very good with them. Its always a good fight and he knows what he needs to do against DE - keep his distance.....


You know, I agree with the disruption pods being a damn pain, infact couldn't agree more but then he shares the same frustration with our Turbo Boosting/Flickerfields.


Yes we can outshoot the Tau - its about getting your list right but you generally want to close the battle field gap as quick as possible. If you go 2nd ingame, and cover isn't available think about full reserve, as when you come on, you can turbo halfway up the board, making your own cover save, coz remember, Wyches charge a minimum 21" from Venoms/Raiders