DE versus Tau

lol, nice enfernux!
i guess the simple principle to lining up against a new army is to look at its "stereotype"
tau's is a shooty avoidance army, which means they are cack at CC and want to avoid it. your jetbikers will generally destroy a firewarrior unit in CC, especially if you take a champ with v.blade.
i'd use a couple of decent size jbikers, blade vane 1st turn and charge in the 2nd. charge into stuff like suits and broadsides to stop them shooting and use your blasters/lances to take out their main battle tanks.
your raiders/venoms should find the heat taken off them when two units of jetbikes start massacring their backfield and you should be able to engage with your main units, though you will still take losses on the way in.

just use your brutal speed and they'll fold, they're only good when they can shoot at you, and they cant shoot in CC :-)

csjarrat wrote:

i guess the simple principle to lining up against a new army is to look at its "stereotype"

sadly at a tourney, you cant change your list so if you prep for shooties with assault only, then compared to an assault army, you will have troubles...well...ok i dont i took Thors advices very-very carefully, combined with tons of vid-batreps and a lot of reading and playing.
DE! Fellow archons, haemonculy, dreaded assasins *look behind his back for a moment* When there is a mission type, forget it. If you dont table him by turn3, and he doesnt table you till turn4, then go for the objectives! Before that: draw fist blood, have a unite in the opponents dep zone, get first blood, and if it isnt in a hammernator armor, kill the warlord!

but all in all, any army has to be strategised differently vs shooting, vs assault and balanced lists. There is no unbeatable army, as long as you dont have the dice gods against you

In response to the dedicated transport thing - it can never be scoring in itself. Even if there are firewarriors embarked on it, it is still not scoring (nor is it contesting in any situation).

First thought about rushing the Tau is using a Raider full of Grotesques and just sail them to within inches of the gun line (perhaps placing it sideways to block line of sight of his gunline). Meanwhile, trail 2 or 3 other raiders just behind it and let him go to town on them. Grotesques do not mind the explosion much and do not mind sitting in a 5+ crater with a 5+ FnP. Point is, it will take several tau units to deal with the grotesques and take a lot of fire off of the other raiders with assault behind them. All it takes is any of our units to get into CC with them and they be in serious trouble.

Same goes for the wwp lists except they will still get a full turn of shooting in (and overwatch) before you are allowed to charge but you will still get a full turn of shooting before hand.

From my minimum exposure to Tau I too say to not try and outshoot them, that is their game and our game is to assault the shooters and shoot the assaulters. Gotta be charging y'all.

Grumpy Kwi wrote:

From my minimum exposure to Tau I too say to not try and outshoot them, that is their game and our game is to assault the shooters and shoot the assaulters. Gotta be charging y'all.

And whatever you do, don't let the Tau player choose the table or set out all of the terrain.

I play Tau a lot. A lot a lot. Guy I play will also do what you experianced, castle up and keep as far away as possible. Best way I get around it is by having 3 squads of wyches in raider, 3 venoms with blasterborn, talos and 12 x Reavers. Because he is crowded in one place you should be able to dominate the board (+ your manouverability). Deep strike the venoms (as dangerously as possible) into front lines and take down main AT units (Broadsides, Hammerheads etc) Meanwhile drop a webway portal in the middle and release the Talos- now that destroys tau big time. Reavers use bladevanes and caltrops on firewarriors beffore assaulting next turn. Raiders scoot along the edges and should take minuimum fire allowing the wyches to cause problems.
I think an undisputable fact when playing Tau is don't try and stand up to there shooting and play nasty. If you have first turn and can get that alpha strike you should have no problems, if you don't have first turn, and there is little LoS blocking scenery best to full reserve in my experiance.

@Grub: you cant full reserve.

I think your looking too much into my exact wording, what I mean is reserve everything you can get away with and keep the rest out of LoS. Essentially when playing a shooty army all reserve is, is a nifty way of blocking LoS.

and if i didnt go for exact wording, i wouldnt be able to play wh40k.
and anyway, i live in a country, where usage of words can mean the difference in a fine and the police saying sorry sir. AND me and my friends, we twist every word we can for our benefit, so when talking to each other, exact wording is key to say convincing the other to buy me a beer

the reason i cant do this on this forum: native language aint english, i only have a mid grade english language exam XD

Don't worry its fine mate, my Hungarian is pretty poor when it comes to determining beer money Im with you 100%!

teh603 wrote:

And whatever you do, don't let the Tau player choose the table or set out all of the terrain.

This is incredibly important to the point that terrain can lose you the game - as a wwp, terrain placement is one of the main ingredients to success.

Always participate in the terrain placement part of the game.

I am fairly new to dark eldar. And I get my behind handed to me when I play my friends Tau.
He only uses Tau units so I mostly face an army with 5 or 6 groups of 7 firewarriors. That makes him able to defend his entire line with S 5 weapons. His elite suits jumps out, missiles my skimmers to death (if his warriors havn't) and then his ion gun or rail gun takes care of the rest.

I think we got hurt a lot in 6. Especially with FnP. So now my eldar have a harder time surviving while he can now move and shoot me to pieces from a range 30.

I seriously don't know how to close enough to engage him in CC. Tau shooting WILL destroy our transport, and because of the new rules for vehicle damage then often explode on my. And that tends to kill most of the troops onboard.

Tau is simply my worst nightmare. I am getting utterly destroyed every time I meet them!

Guys, what do you think about Tau units from the Imperial Armour books?

My friend uses Tetras and commander R'alai and they are devastating. Without armour or toughness our only shield is cover (like moving flat-out, turboboosting or hiding behind that forest), and Tetras just kill this only hope with their markerlights. Maybe we just don't have enough terrain on our battlefield, but I can never hide all of my ships completely. And even if some broadside sees a tiny little piece of my Raider - well, it's definetly gonna burn. And half of my wyches will die. That's without mentioning this Overwatch rule - just because I never can reach them to assault!

Damn, that hurts. I definetly need more buildings.

Jehoel wrote:

Tau is simply my worst nightmare. I am getting utterly destroyed every time I meet them!

I find it incredibly annoying that bloody Tau, of all things, are now such a tough army for DE to beat. But it makes sense: they were designed as a shooty army back when close combat was king, and they needed powerful shooting to compensate. We are an incredibly fragile army that can no longer assault as quickly as we could.

The two problems with Tau are a) Every weapon they have is lethal against everything you have. Their humblest weapons will easily destroy your vehicles, and S5 AP5 means that every hit is a dead Dark Eldar, and b) those lethal shooting weapons have enough range to cover the entire table, so there's nowhere to hide from them.

I've had three games against them in 6th and I never managed to get the first turn, which I believe made a world of difference. Other than that, a few things we could do are first, forget our usual subtlety, set up everything as close as you can and charge in like orks. Second, use our tough guys as shock troops, such as Grotesques, Wracks, Talos, and Incubi. Even if they don't make it, at least they can give the wyches behind them a chance. And c) Air Support. Monoscythe missiles will love Tau. They'll probably kill the airplane, but the point is it will cost them.

It's just not an army I happen to have at the moment, having spent an awful lot of time on painting up wyches, hellions, and reavers, but oh well.

Recently played Tau in 6th. Got to be careful, I found that a full wych list in raiders, Archon w/huskblade, 3 squads of blasterborn in venoms, ravagers and 12 reavers very succsessful against them. Got first turn but got the warlord trait to choose nightfighting first turn. Deploymenty was long edges so was not going to get in close first turn. Turbo boosted everything (no cover on his side of the board) but still far enough to just be out of 24" once he moved. This is why skimmers are better now, 4+ cover save from boosting which gets improved by 2 due to night fighting, everything had a 2+ cover save so nothing was damaged. and the stuff that was closer did minimum damage due to Nightshields. then assaulted everything I could and shot up broadsides etc w/Dark glance. once those railguns are subdued Tau suffer from nightshields. Ended up losing an awful lot next turn but by 3rd turn (once the archon wiped out 3 crisis suits and 3 broadsides (huskblade is well worth the point cost!) He had almost been tabled. And once the 2 squads of reavers got in to assault nothing was left.

admittadly got first turn which is so important against Tau and Night fighting is essential for us now really. If that wasn't the case, I think we might have met our match! Got a feeling that they might update Tau/ re-do them entirley soon!

Why was he not running black sun filters (they give the whole unit night vision for a third of the price of a DE warrior)??!?!?!?

Mushkilla wrote:

Why was he not running black sun filters (they give the whole unit night vision for a third of the price of a DE warrior)??!?!?!?

true, its an extremely cheap nightfighting option.

My opponent and I allways end our games by talking how they went, what tactics we used, what went wrong, the functionality of the rules etc.

After our first 6. ed. combat he agreed that his army (Tau) had gotten better and Dark eldar had gotten worse. He is allways a good sport so we often talk strategies for our next encounter.

He said that the battlefield had changed for DE conserning Tau. We can no longer "take for granted" that we will be able to initiate a result, and consequently the playing style has to change somewhat.

He suggested a "running the gauntlet" alternative where the DE player puts everything on the line and chooses a round where he goes all in. Meaning that he will march as much as possible of his army down a singular path in a single round. Granted, there would be a lot of casualties, but the sheer target saturation would ensure that enough of your force would be alive the following round to make an effective charge.

Jehoel wrote:

He suggested a "running the gauntlet" alternative where the DE player puts everything on the line and chooses a round where he goes all in. Meaning that he will march as much as possible of his army down a singular path in a single round. Granted, there would be a lot of casualties, but the sheer target saturation would ensure that enough of your force would be alive the following round to make an effective charge.

That's what I meant by 'charge in like orks'. It's a very difficult way of thinking to get into though, at least for me. It seems completely counter to the Dark Eldar. But you should anyway.

Actually, could this be a case in which Mandrakes are actually a good choice? Wonder of wonders.

He did have dark sun filters on all his broadsides and suits but I was far too careful to just keep out of LoS or obscure targets!

Agree with all of the above though. Tau have definately got better and all of a sudden its very hard for us to effectivly and "safely" get into an assault, I'm thinking that tactics are going to massivly change for us!

completely counter? I have an assault army, and it works...mostly

Enfernux wrote:

completely counter? I have an assault army, and it works...mostly

Not what I meant Enf, I like assaults. What feels completely counter is to charge in recklessly with everything at once and just take the enemy fire, never mind the casualties. I think of us more as an army in control, charging where they're weak, avoiding where they're strong. The point we're making is that trying to be clever and out-manoeuvre the Tau seems to be futile. Best to just rush them and hope for the best, which is the counter-intuitive bit.

Having said that, since you have an assault army, how about a few pointers? As someone with a lot of wyches, I could certainly use a few.

I'm going against Tau again thursday (I'm challenging Tau players like crazy 'cause I like to punish myself as a true Dark Eldar ). And I love the fact that I've opened this thread. You guys had a lot of sensible stuff to say.

I've decided I'll go for 'target saturation' and 'going in like Orks'. I want to be in CC as fast as possible, relying on the improved coversaves in 6th. Plus terrain placement is now in the rules, so not in the hands of the Tau player. A small sidenote; Even though I asked for advice myself, please keep in mind that I play 40k since 3rd edition. So I know I have to look at an army's strength and weaknesses. Therefor I concluded myself to get into CC with the Tau. Just don't really know how to get there, that was my biggest issue. 'Cause it's like Barking Agatha said... Plunging in like Orks feels counter intuïtive, but it's my opinion now that with Tau it's the only way. Just responding to some comments I read, skimming through them just now.

I have a small problem though, I'll not be playing an optimal list unfortunatly. Don't own all the models I want yet and I don't have everything painted of what I do own (I vowed to only play with painted models since the new models to force me to finish painting my army finally). But i'll make it as optimal as possible utilizing my:

- 2 Raiders (wished I had 1 more Raider),
- 3 Venoms (wished I had a couple more Venoms),
- 2 Ravagers (2 is just fine IMHO),
- 6 Reavers (w/ Cluster Caltrops + Heatlances) (wished I had more Reavers after reading Mushkilla's bat reps --. If you haven't yet go read them they are awesome),
- and my Razorwing (still am not convinced as I've said the monoscythes killed little... but it could've just been a bit of bad luck).

I'm on the fence about my 10 man strong Hellion squad. Should I use them or not? DSing them on turn 2 in his deployment zone, while he already has 2 raiders and 3 venoms to worry about, sounds awesome. But they can also be completely shot to hell... And that's an expensive joke!

To max out the target saturation i'll be using dirt poor HQ's like heamies (I own 3 and I feel like they are enough to kill Tau IMHO). I have a difficult descision regarding the Hellions, 'cause I'll also want the Baron in that squad then. The Baron is expensive. Bút, can give me the awesome 1st turn more reliable + makes them scoring + makes them more survivable and gives them an extra punch in CC .

Thoughts anyone?

@Agatha: i really cant say, but since i learned the overcharge - charging through a unite of yours to get 5+ +1 from PGL is nasty - i do it with wyches, then my incubi, the other wyches either pit an enemy squad or glance the bejeezus out of a vehiclemy razorwings unload their shatterfields on shas'la, disintegrators on xv8s and 88s, venom-warriors capture...that is basically all i do in 1.5k
i have written this in other places, but my list is like fire running on kerosene, hit hard, hit fast, hit with everything, hit everything you can. If dawn of war deployment? First turn is yummy, charge in with wyches and incu, chew through his unites to get to the stuff in the back, decimating the army along the way. The only time i dont do this is with terminators. First i sacrifice a wych unite to crack the landraider open, then avoid the termies all game - and with an in your face army, believe me, it isnt easy, unless you make sure to decimate a squad and leave before termies get there

back on topic: against tau, you could try a coven list or stick Vect in with incubi/brides - my vote is on incu, you know me
on how to get there...you will just have to sacrifice a raider to block TLOS, soften up with reavers - caltrops advised - and charge in like crasy, and in this case, i would advise squad leaders with pgl to help.

or you can alwayse try CWE

Optimal is not a problem, a lot of players forget that the list you play with is the one that you understand, it might not be a killer net list but at the end of the day the player and his understanding of his army is the more important then list integrity.

With Tau always remember to go for the eyes, they are a BS3 army as a whole and rely on their markerlights to be effective.

You will want to cluster caltrop whatever has the most markerlight as they can strip you cover save. This will most likely be pathfinders which the reavers will make short work of. You will not want to be coming in from reserve for this as those marker lights need to go down ASAP. This will help keep your flat out skimmers alive, and cause a great distraction. The reavers should have a 3+ cover save and FNP so they will tank a lot of fire.

I think you should go with the Baron and Hellions. Baron gives you a better chance of first turn against Tau which is great, but he also gives the unit stealth, a PGL and lets them re-roll dangerous terrain tests (remember they also get their armour save against this). I would deepstrike them aggressively into terrain ( a ruin will give them a 3+ and a 2+ at 8"), then shoot a unit you have softened up to pieces so that they get a pain token. They will now require a considerable amount of fire power to take out.

Another thing, Tau infantry really don't like plasma grenades.

Any idea on what sort of list your opponent uses?

a markerlight mark decreases your cover not removes it, so a 5up becomes a 6up if one counter is used to remove cover.

Enfernux wrote:

a markerlight mark decreases your cover not removes it, so a 5up becomes a 6up if one counter is used to remove cover.

Did I say remove? No, I said strips, like the layers of an onion. If your going to be pedantic at least read my post properly and stop assuming that no one knows the rules. It get's really old after a while.