DE versus Tau

I've never played against Tau (I know weird huh), untill yesterday. It was a fun game with mates just trying to get the grips with 6th edition. BUT... I don't like to lose, haha... And the Tau player was kinda kicking my ass.

Next to the stuff that I did wrong which I know myself:
- like forgotting my NS the entire game
- shooting his devilfishes instead of other stuff (targetprioritisation tlronin?!?!)
- almost no terrain in the middlefield (there was just not much terrain at the location and he placed terrain so I couldn't put stuff in the middle )

How do you guys deal with Tau? 'Cause they are actually pretty annoying to be honest. 4+ armoursaves made that my 4 monoscythe missiles (my biggest and foremost plan to ruïn his day) only kill 4 models out of the 27 dice I was able to throw! He just stayed in his corner and his shooting phase lasted for hours! I couldn't get to him to get into CC despite my speed. If I would be stranded infront of his firewarriors he'd just shoot me to shreds. My plan was to keep my troops at my own objectives (because I couldn't get to him) and just try to shoot as many as I could from his own objectives.

Should I have done more with DSing or the WWP? Tell me... What are your experiences with Tau?

well...a map would help...but i just can picture you not being able to get close to him and still be in cover with a 30" flat out move.
Second it would help to know if you ran a gunboat/kabal, a cult, a coven or a hybrid army.

The basics vs tau: cc. They usually have ws2, you mostly have ws4, so even your warriors can beat'em in cc, they only have a better armor save.
If tau have a hammerhead: its either a failgun or vs us, cant do much harm for: failgun is a solid shot, s10 ap1, usually missing, or a submissive shot, s6 ap4 LB, that goes vs infantry. Stay in vehicles or in cc, or be shot.
If you can deal with marines, you can deal with tau. The difference: Tau is a japanese cyborg-robot themed army with lots of shooting, but with average skill. It hurts if it hits, but otherwise meh.

and it would help to know what points were you guys playing at

Answers to questions:

- We were playing 2000 points. I had 1000 pts DE and teamed up with a friend of mine who played Chaos Marines.

- Hybrid army. I had a gunboat and I had a raider full of wyches.

- As for the map. Try to imagine Realm of Chaos with only 1 building almost covering a 2' by 2' on the Tau's side in the middle. A hill on the Tau side at the left. And then a small forest on our side at the left, a small ruïn in the middle and a small LOS blocking building at the right.

My question to you:

Enfernux wrote:

but i just can picture you not being able to get close to him and still be in cover with a 30" flat out move.

Do you mean CAN or CAN'T (can't makes more sense to me in this context so I would like to reply to that).

---Reply to not going flatout---
When you move flat out forwards you can't shoot or do anything else at all. Then what?! He has a round of shooting with everything he got! Don't forget that even the humble Fire Warrior can glance a Ravager to a wreck (their guns are S5 range 30").
We had to deploy first. So I set my ravagers/raiders to the right. The smart bastard set everything up on the corner in the left. My only chance for flatout was going to the right side of that building in the middle. IF they'd survive a whole turn of Tau shooting it was STILL the question if I would reach any firewarriors since in 6th you can only move 6" with your Raider. And the closest warrior was on the left side of that building that almost covered his entire middle of his deploymentzone.

So... I decided to make the best use of our 1st turn and start shooting everything I could. Which was unfortunatly only a Devilfish and a smaller vehicle (worked kinda like a Landspeeder?). Then next turn I was a little closer, but still all I could assault was his other smaller vehicle with haywires and didn't know in 6th you didn't get a consolidation move after winning CC from a vehicle?? So my Wyches stranded in the open! Wanted to use those 3" to get into the building to claim cover after victory. Then maybe after that move on for next assault.

In retrospect I should've gone flatout to the far left and survive a turn of shooting with my NS out of range and then focus all my DL's on his tanks in the far left corner. But I still don't know how i could've gotten into CC with these chicken Tau! Only if I had used DS or had Hellions/beasts/Reavers in my WWP. It was just too much open space to cover. Even for DE.
---End reply to not going flatout---

sry, i wanted to say cant on that, forgot the "t"
who set up the map? For as i read, only the tau player had anything to do with it.
a 2k tau can make short work of 2 different armies, except if someone teams up with IG. Thats just nasty.
second: could you place a model on the 2*2 block? For if a skimmer can stand on it, even if it is impassable terrain, it can stand on it.

Yeah thought so, no worries.

You set up the map one after the other. You roll how much is allowed per 2' by 2' section. Plus the pieces of terrain must be set apart a couple of inches (I believe 6" to 12"). We rolled a D6 who was going to set up terrain first and he won that roll. By tactfully placing the biggest building we had on his side we were immediatly struggling by getting good pieces in the middle. I wanted more terrain, but I don't like whining about terrain if you lose.

I could've placed a model on the 'area terrain' of the building. That could've gotten be closer I'll admit. Yet also subjected to a lot of shooting with which 5+ coversaves are even not helpfull.

I think in retrospect the biggest issue was my target prioritisation. Should've ignored the stupid empty devilfishes and go flatout to get in position my next turn. So i could take out his big shooty 'tanks' in the far left corner.

an emty devilfish, if not taken as a DT, is a troop choice and is scoring i believe

Well, it was taken as a DT, but he deployed the troops disembarked. Never knew you could do that.

If it's scoring it's obviously not stupid to shoot them btw. So if that's true you got a point there.

Hang on a minute, you say you were allied with CSM? Did you not use them as powered armoured cannon fodder?

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Hang on a minute, you say you were allied with CSM? Did you not use them as powered armoured cannon fodder?

Sure did. Adviced him to advance forward as much as possible while I tried to clean up Tau by shooting from afar. But alas we just couldn't get close enough to do some real damage.

tlronin wrote:

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Hang on a minute, you say you were allied with CSM? Did you not use them as powered armoured cannon fodder?

Sure did. Adviced him to advance forward as much as possible while I tried to clean up Tau by shooting from afar. But alas we just couldn't get close enough to do some real damage.

You should avoid fight your enemy on his terms.

Did your Chaos buddy have a mechanised or foot slogging army?

What about objectives?

Agreed.

Mechanised. They were all in tanks and he had a flying monstrous creature.

3 objectives on our deploymentzone and 3 on his. So we really needed to get one, because he was castled in.

I can see how it would have been difficult for you. No point us trying to out-shoot Tau though. I can't really suggest much else to try that you haven't already identified, except taking a few more balanced elements at army list stage, I can't see myself going to war without hellions under the new rules, and I try to take as many different units as I can to adapt to different situations. That's difficult at 1000 pts though!

@Burning_Eye: Even just for fun purposes I like taking different units, let alone tactical motives. But indeed at 1000 pts that's difficult (+ I really wanted my Razorwing in there lol).

Ravager with Night shields and disintegrators would have been a good option, 9 S5 shots at AP2 should make a mess of a bunch of fire warriors/battlesuits.

I forgot I brought my nightshields during the entire battle.

I'm such an idiot sometimes...

tlronin wrote:

I forgot I brought my nightshields during the entire battle.

I'm such an idiot sometimes...

It's normal, 6th ed is like a whole new game, we never used to use nightshields.

Ah we all do it at some point. First game with it I had I spent ages trying to find the rules for deep striking with jump infantry and gave up after about ten minutes, then discovered it in the section on jump infantry

@Mushkilla: True, I used FF in 5th.

@Burning_Eye: Well that's an odd place to put it in.

I play against Tau quite a bit and to some extent, they are like us.

They are an awesome alphastrike army. They can't take a love tap. Most of them are T3....

For the most part, its a war of attrition. Shoot every gun u have at their worst units like Hammerheads or Broadsides.
Beasts are awesome at CC, esp against those hiding in cover. Reavers too, as Bladevanes cut the hell out of Pathfinders. Dissies will vaporise Fire Warriors and Splinter weapons are king against (Outflanking) Kroot. I don't think they have any Skyfire weapons yet so feel free to run 2 or 3 Void Ravens

You have to be prepared to take some losses in the early stages, but be smart about them. Send empty Raiders up the table, sheilding your Ravagers. Reavers Turbo Boosting and landing infront of a couple of skimmers, earning a 3+.... Anything you can do to minimise the losses.

Target saturation is the key to survival when playing the Tau.

@1++ i can almost visualise warriors jumping out of their raider, taking up defensive positions, sending the raider in front of the ravagers with aether sails to cover them after they shot, if the raider survives - probably not - give it a mark, even if it doesnt survive the whole game!
next turn reavers will come darting out from behind the covering raider, cutting all FW to bitz, while the ravagers and the rest of the gunboats unleast a splinter volley capable of blasting the bejeezus out of even a c'tan god!

sorry, to active fantasy toggled on for a minute

@1++: Sounds good. Target saturation. The thing is, I'm a target denial kinda guy. So I'd rather deny you any decent shooting and be in CC in your face in turn 2 at most. That's why I failed with Tau I guess. Couldn't pull off my 'trick'.

^ I know what you mean, it hurts to deliberately put something up the middle of the table knowing you're going to lose it. Don't forget though, DE are not an assault army, they're a balanced one, wyches are not genestealers in close combat and will need the enemy units to be softened up first. On the bright side i think even a mob of gretchin could take fire warriors out in cc.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

On the bright side i think even a mob of gretchin could take fire warriors out in cc.

Unfortunately gretchins are hard to come by these days.. I'm not going to point any fingers... but... *cough* Alari Druith'sila *cough*

What can I say, she doesn't like picking on things her own size!

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Don't forget though, DE are not an assault army, they're a balanced one, wyches are not genestealers in close combat and will need the enemy units to be softened up first.

i use disintegrators to weaken enemies, wyches to tie'em down and incubi to mop'em up. Since revitalised, it works