DE versus Tau

Strip: as by google

főnév
szalag	tape, strip, ribbon, band, fillet, riband
sáv	acid, band, bar, strip, lane, stripe
leszállósáv	strip
ige
levetkőzik	undress, strip, unclothe
szalagokra vág	strip
levetkőztet	disrobe, strip, unclothe, undress, unrobe, denude

peal, deprive, those are what you need here

@Mushkilla:

Alas, I have no idea what kind of list the Tau player uses. It's the first time I play against him.

But I have a feeling most Tau armies look the same. Big skimming tanks at the back, advancing Fire Warriors at the front. If I remembered correctly he doesn't use Kroot. So no outflanking chickenheads.

I'll make sure to try to bladevane his Pathfinders asap (or any other markerlight toting units). I'll attach a heamy at deployment and detach him in the 1st turn for the PT. Can't remember if a heamy in that same turn can then embark in a Raider and have that transport go flatout that same turn? I'll look up the rules when I get home after work. Would be nice if he can help out in CC.

I see you back up my thoughts about the Baron. The only thing that worries me is DSing into a ruïn. Even though I can reroll dangerous terrain tests I'm too scared I'll loose too many Hellions. Or is this not the case?

I wanna bring Wyches to handle the CC (standard Plasma). I'll also give them Haywires, so they can handle vehicles aswell.

p.s.: And if I'm in charge of this thread somehow (I doubt it), no more posts about the meaning of the word 'strip' please.

I wouldn't bother starting the reavers with a pain token, they should get one from killing something. You are better off given the wyches a pain token.

Some Tau players don't even bother with markerlights as the pathfinders are not the most survivable of units. So you might not have to deal with them.

Deepstriking should not be a problem, the chance of loosing a hellion (with the baron) to difficult terrain is slightly less then 2%.

PS: I fear for your Kabal Efernux, you are too predictable. I knew you would look up that word (I should have put a blackhole in your dictionary). What do you do when you take a gun to pieces bit by bit?

Deep striking the Hellions with the Baron could be a real thorn in the Tau's side. May I advise dropping them in as close to his broadsides (If he has any, yet to play any Tau who hasn't got some) as possible. If you can do this and keep out of LoS from anything else you could cause some real damage. Because Tau get sick wound allocation on shield drones etc and great saves I find that on crisis suits your morelikly to kill them from saturation fire and a blob of hellions unleashing first turn into something that expensive could put the odds in your favour, plus if they survive and shoot back there is only like 6 shots coming back to you in a 3 man squad with smart missiles at BS3.
I've been tempted to run the Duke with Tau and try and Deep strike in as many gunboats and blastervenoms as possible with wyches behind. Should put pressure on him to shoot the gunboats and forget about the wyches!
Best of luck though tlronin, would like to hear the result, you should find though that your razorwing will be very survivable (im yet to use one) but if I'm right (please feel free to correct me if not) flyers like that can only be hit on a 6? Considering nothing has the special rule to bring down fliers yet?

@Grub:

Flyers can only be brought down at full BS by other flyers currently, so that is correct.

As for DSing the Hellions near broadsides, sounds like a plan. I'll just view the situation though and DS them where I have a maximum potential of hitting him without being hit back.

DSing with the Duke has been on my mind since the new codex came out. Still have to pull it off once. But I think it got a little nerf now with the new reserves rules.

Well, whatever happens, I'll post here how things went.

DS'ing ravagers near his vehicles could be good too. They can reach you turn one anyway.

If your vehicles are moving upfield, and markerlights are a concern, then having targets in the backfield turn 2 could hurt him. Not being able to disembark after DS is a real nerf now, hopefully our open topped transports will allow that soon ( but i doubt it ) But 5 man blasterborn squads or 4 and a haemy that blow up a devilfish / hammerhead and then soak pathfinder fire up may work as well, especially if 2 venoms plus 2 embarked squads, 10 blasters at BS1 granted but you should hit once or twice; risky though. If he ignores them, they will constantly pound his backfield, if he shoots them, the wyches are incoming. Just a thought!

About the airplane: sure it can only be hit on 6s, but Tau can have a lot of twin-linked missiles, and all they need is one or two hits. I would expect it to go down, hopefully after causing the Tau some grief. If it crashes down on them, it might take out a few more of them as well, but be careful it doesn't crash down on you.

About deep striking venoms and raiders: I've tried it, and I don't think it was a good idea. You start the first turn at a disadvantage, and by the time they arrive you'll have suffered casualties already, so you're still at a disadvantage. If you're going to rush them with everything then do it from Turn 1, because you can't take your time against Tau.

Darkgreen Pirate wrote:

they will constantly pound his backfield

You're getting me excited

Tau versus Dark Eldar is a tougher matchup. I saw it on a neighboring at Sunday’s tourney; there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as Venoms exploded into flames. They do have the advantage of taking a pretty severe toll on Dark Eldar vehicles. However, you can still outmaneuver them, refuse flanks, and hug cover/make cover/screen. I’d probably treat them exactly like Necrons, get into CC and let the limbs fly.

Yeah we all agree: "Get into CC". It's the 'getting there' part that worries me.

Thursday I'll be doing something I never did before. I'll be going flat out (perhaps with aether sails) like a filthy Ork with everything I got. I'll be strategic about terrain deployment (just don't like doing that don't know why). And I'll see what survives a turn of shooting to hit him in CC at turn 2.

I'll let you guys know friday what happened.

Please let us get some battlereports against Tau that results in massive blue fish people death! I am looking forward to hear how these strategies will play out

and remember to jump on the table when you win and go: SOULS FOR COMMORRAGH!

@Both:

Absolutely!

I played a really shooty Grey Knights list today, probably more shooty then a Tau list to be honest. I used similar tactics then I do against TAU, so hopefully it will be helpful (Battle report is in my Signature).

There are alot of good advice here One in my gaming group is playing tau and since 6th came out. He tabels me by turn 3....same can be said about my other opponent playing shooty smurfs

My list consists of:
Succubus with agoniser and blast pistol
9 wyches with razorflails and heka with VB
-These ride in a raider with NS

2x10 warriors. each have blaster and SC

3 reavers with HL

That's all I have at the moment. My tau opponent have 2x12 warriors, 12 kroot, 1 rail-suit, 1 commander in suit with suit-bodyguard (armed with plasma). Everything exept the kroot have NV....so no protection for me...
My warriors always die before the get the chance to fire a single shot and my reavers struggle to get a good position to kill the rail-suit. My wychboat then have to handle about 24 S5 AP5 shots and 12 S4 AP6 shots
Last time, I failed my charge by 3 inches only to see my succubus and wyches get flayed by 22 double-tapping fire warriors
So? I obviously lack transports for my warriors but at the moment there is no cash to fix that Any idea how to get those pesky souls to commora?
I had some good dice rolling once. I got my charge of at the smurfs. In two assault-phases, 20 marines were butchered

DE: 4, Tau: 1 *Gets up on the table and shouts: SOULS FOR COMMORRAGH!"

In all honesty guys, it was a close one. I decided on the following list (which I normally NEVER play and was really insecure about)...

List:

HQ:
- Baron Sathonyx

Troops:
- Wyches x5 (Hekatrix + PGL + Powerweapon, Haywires x5)
--> In a Raider (Darklance + Aethersails + Flickerfield)

- Wyches x5 (Hekatrix + PGL + Powerweapon, Haywires x5)
--> In a Raider (Dark lance + Flickerfield) *couldn't afford another Aethersail unfortunatly

- Wyches x5 ( Haywires x5)
--> In a Venom (Splinter Cannon)

- Wyches x5 ( Haywires x5)
--> In a Venom (Splinter Cannon)

- Kabalite Warriors x5 ( Blaster x1)
--> In a Venom (Splinter Cannon)

Fast attack:
- Hellion x9

- Reavers x6 (Heatlance x2, Cluster Caltrops x2)

Heavy support:

- Ravager (Darklance x3)

- Ravager (Dark lance x3)

- Razorwing (TL splinterrifle + Disintegrators x2 + Monoscythes x4)

= 1500 pts

Thoughts behind this list:
Keep in mind I had no idea what the opponent has. I wanted to play 'target saturation' with Tau to give them as many targets as possible. He can't kill everything is the idea. And anything that stays alive after Tau's 1st turn of shooting (which is their most important shooting turn) is dangerous. Plus, overwatch with firewarriors is brutal in 6th. So even if I get into CC I need something clever. So I decided to rather throw 2 squads of 5 Wyches on the same unit instead of 1 squad of 8 to 10 wyches on the same unit. This makes sure you álways have 5 intact Wyches in CC. I got Reavers to kill things at turn 1, breaking morale and have him make rash descisions perhaps. He hás to kill them, or else they'll kill more in turn 2, turn 3, and so on... The Hellions would be 'flying keep' (you have this expression in English right?). I would DS them where needed, in the end it's a game about objectives, right? They could kill outflanking kroot, or DSing Stealth suits or whatever. I kitted out the Ravagers for the much needed AT (was dangerously low on that this game... it's a risk i took). The Razorwing was totally kitted out AI, so I could kill suits (always thought they had AV but they have T lol so when I learned this i kitted out my Razorwing for AI).
p.s.: I still bought flickerfields so I could land my Venoms/Raiders in ruïns and leave unscathed by the way.

Quick summary of how the game went.
We rolled 6 for mission (that Relic mission... yes!), we rolled 3 for vanguard deployment (crap! means more open space). I rolled 6 for Combat Drugs (oh my dark muses hear my tortured slaves sing!). BUT when i rolled for terrain I rolled almost for all sections a 1, except for 1 section!!! At his side in the middle he could place 2 pieces. The tactics with Tau begin with Terrain people, pay attention --> He got to place first. He placed a big ruïn in his middle section (good boy, the more cover I have when I'm in your deployment zone). First thing I did was grab the biggest 3+ coversave piece of terrain i could find and place it in my own middle section (this saved me the game cause the relic was right at it's edge!). He placed a trench in the same middle section on his side. He was going to castle op ofcourse, but the more cover I had on his deployment zone the better.
HECK... I'll even help the guy. So I placed another ruïn in his deployment zone in the left corner (which I could reach after flatout). Suddenly he realized he could place stuff on my deploymentzone too and put a tiny small piece of crater in my right corner (leaving open space for his 'tanks' I presumed and i was right). So I quickly placed a big Ruïn in my left corner. He placed a piece of area terrain in his right corner (for his broadsides i presumed and i was correct again). We were done with terrain and realize how much thought went in to that.

I rolled to begin (didn't even need the Baron's powers). We also rolled night fight (which he didn't care about because of upgrades ggrr...). We unfortunatly could do no more than 3 turns due to time. Nevertheless I deployed everything out of sight as much as possible because it hapenned to me a lot of times the opponent seized initiative! Very strange! He didn't seize initiative this time ofcourse, so i could've deployed even more agressive...

The turns now then.

Turn 1 Dark Eldar:

Movement. Reavers move 12" towards 2 lonely suits in the far left corner. The rest was too dangerous to bladevane because they were all covering eachother. Later he said he deployed like this on purpose and hopes I would forget the 2 suits in the far left corner ... Smart man. Unfortunatly for him I like to prey on the weak, so I always kill the stuff that leaves the flock I moved the Venom with Warriors 12" towards the same corner for either backup or some nasty shooting in turn 2. I moved the Raiders/Venoms with Wyches 12" forward towards the middle section of the board with a squad of firewarriors, a squad of pathfinders and 2 more suits. The Ravagers poked their prowes around the corner of the fort in the middle so they could should the 'tanks' on the right flank.

Shooting. I thought I'd kill the 2 suits so I turboboost to the far left corner , but due to some unlucky diceroll 1 suit stayed up with 1 wound left. So I knew Id get flamed next turn. De Venom+Warriors went flatout towards same corner, behind the ruïn I placed so out of sight for everything he has (gggooo 6th edition terrain placement). The Venoms/Raiders with Wyches basically made flatout moves straight ahead to get deep in his deploymentzone in the middlesection. I was basically on top of his firewarriors and pathfinders. Whatever Wych would survive would assault them next turn. There was IMHO really no clever way. The terrain was too thinly put, so I couldn't go flatout and hide. So I risked it. The 2 Ravagers took 6 shots on the 'tank' with the biggest gun and only made 2 glancing hits. So he had 1 HP left.

Assault. None.

Turn 1 Tau:

Movement. Moved his tanks towards my Ravagers. Moved 2 suits so he could take shots at the Raiders (they contained the hekatrixes which I told him). That was it. Lol.

Shooting: Biggest mistake he made IMHO is to divide his shooting and take shots at my Ravagers + divide between more vehicles than 1. I think he should've focused all his fire on 1 Raider at a time. 'Cause now all he did was flame my Reavers and destroy that unit (ouch... but i think we played this wrong by having them fall back to his board edge... but I'm not going to dwell on this too long), but only 1 Raider was wrecked. He didn't have shots left for the Wyches that came out! He shot only with 10 firewarriors on those Wyches but he managed to only kill 1 due to FnP and stealth within 8" due to defensive grenades from the PGL. A Ravager was down to 1 HP. And that was it! Poor dice rolling on his part. A little luck on my part. A little poor target prioritisation on his part (granted that I did make this very difficult for him which i planned). 1st turn Tau shooting was gone... I felt awesome!

Assault. None. Lol. Suits climb up in ruïns, chickens!

Turn 2 DE:

Razorwing stays in reserve !@#%$#. Hellions come.

Movement. I decide to be a little b* and DS the Hellions to go babysit the Relic. I really don't like playing like this in friendly games, but... I wanted to beat those Tau man! Lol. DSing into the fort in the middle of the board near the edge failed. I scattered 8" to the middle of the board, out in the open. I'm a sad panda. I move the Venom+Warriors 6" to get a better shot at the remaining suit. I move both Wych-Venoms up in the Ruïns 6" to get closer to the pathfinders and the suits (no 1s on the dangerous terrain tests). I disembark their cargo's in the ruïns, spilling Wyches everywhere. They'll be in CC this gameturn. I move the remaining Wych Raider (wihout aethersails) even closer 6" and disembark the Wyches into the trench the chicken firewarriors are hiding in. Due to emergency disembarking the other Wyches are already in the trench basically. So they'll be in CC this gameturn. Ravagers go play the hide and seek game behind that huge fort in the middle from mainly the broadsides (who can't see the Ravagers the entire game by the way lol) but keep being in position to unleash dark energy onto the 'tanks' on the right flank.

Shooting. I wreck the tank with the biggest gun and leave the other 'tank' with 1 HP (go Ravagers!). The Hellions try to soften up the pathfinders (lol... no not really... they just cant shoot anything else) and manage to do nothing! The suit in the left corner is in rapid fire range and also in Blaster range. So i shoot 2 SCs + 4 rapid fire SRs + 1 Blaster for a total of 21 shots. Uhm... the suit dies! Revenge for the Reavers. 1 Venom can't see anything inside that ruïn, too bad. The other can see firewarriors and goes to soften them up. They lose 2. Wyches fire some pistols. Can't remember results.

Assault. Here comes the plan to assault firewarriors from both sides. 1 squad loses a wych, but the assault goes on. 1 squad comes into CC totally intact! Plan works. Goes without saying in CC I totally break the firewarriors and they throw 8" which is júst enough to run off the table (lol). Serves you right for castling up those Tau so close to your tableedge. Here I had a decision to make. I also wanted to assault the 2 suits due to retaliation activities. So I send 1 squad to pathfinders ans 1 to the suits. Overwatch from suits kill 2 wyches (ouch) and pathfinders kill none in overwatch (yeah!). Pathfinders get broken and run. The only pathfinder left, finds himself like 2" from his tableedge. Suits lose combat by 1 wound, but stay locked.

Turn 2 Tau:

Firewarriors come on.

Movement. Tanks which are left move towards Hellions. Some suits with drones and HQ move to Hellions. Thats it.

Shooting. I think he again makes the mistake of nog focussing his fire IMHO. He can't get his suits in range (18" apparantly) but he still shoots alot IMHO (broadsides I believe it was) at my poor Hellions and he kills 3 I think (which is not thát bad actually), they fall back 8". This was expected. But the other things (newly arrived firewarriors) he can shoot he fires into the leftover Wyches. He killes 1 squad. But 1 squad decided to fight on with 2 models left (lol). That remaining 'tank' thing shoots at Ravagers and IIRC he didn't do anything (jink save FTW).

Assault: His suits make more wounds on my wyches so they have to fall back. They run just 1" outside of the ruïn.

Turn 3 DE (final turn)

Razorwing comes from Reserves.

Movement. Razorwing moves straight ahead aligning himself with the suits (w/ HQ in it). Hellions go to the edge of the fort and within 3" of the relic. It's mine! And I claim a 2" coversave like a boss (no actually like a chicken but... oh well it's tactical or something). Warrior-Venom moves 6" so he's in range of the remaining suit in the ruïns. The 3rd Venom stays. The 2 leftover wyches move towards the firewarriors. The Ravagers peek just around the corner again to shoot his 2nd remaining 'tank' with 1 HP. The 5 Wyches try to move out of he ruïn (because they want to haywire a sensory tower).

Shooting: The Warrior-Venom kills 1 suit and leaves 1 wound on the other. The empty Venom kills the last suit. 3rd Venom takes shots at the broadsides and does nothing. Ravagers wreck 2nd tank. Rzorwing fires 2 disintegrator cannons and 2 monoscythes on the suits with HQ in them and only manage to kill a drone! The biggest thing that happened was that the monoscythe touched the devilfish aswell and manages to get a penetrating hit and actually wreck it. Lol.

Assault. 2 wyches try to assault firewarriors and get killed by overwatch. 5 wyches try to assault the sensory tower and miss it by 1".

Tau 3rd turn (final turn):

Movement. He gets his suits w/ HQ in range of Hellions. He advances his firewarriors forward.

Shooting. He shoots with his suits, broadsides ánd firewarriors at the Hellions and manages to kill only 1 Hellion and put 1 wound on the Baron due to 2+ coversaves and 5+ FnPs. Lol. I can understand he's terribly frustrated. Because I won now, 'cause of the stupid 3+ fortress and the Baron's Stealth.

Conclusions: I had some bad luck with terrain and DSing, but I had some good luck during Tau's 1st turn shooting. Overall I don't think we made bad descisions. I think he should've focussed his fire more. But then again, who knows what could happen. So it's really just talk in retrospect. I think i made good calls during terrain deployment and armylist building (small squads of 5), because 5 wyches is apparantly enough against Tau. Target saturation worked. I had enough AT (but was really on the edge). I really wished my Reavers would've lived longer. And I think this game would've been exciting untill the end of turn 5 (for a Draw that is, not a win).

*cough* Anybody had a chance to read the summary? It contains good info how to beat Tau IMHO.

Nice summary, good points about target saturation and looks like it would have been a close game had it carried on.

As for the reavers it goes without saying keep reavers away from flamers (they are great damage sponges until they meet a flamer). If I were you I would have considered turbo-boosting 15" or so away from the crisis without bladevaning anything this would have force him to fall back (threat of shooting/assault) or force him to concentrate a lot of fire on the reavers. If the reavers are ignored/survive it leaves you in a good position to bladevane/assault/shoot suits (or other targets) in such a way where you can put 15" between the suits and the reavers (this would prevent any chance of retaliation from the flamers). You don't have to bladevane all the time to be effective.

What list was the Tau player using?

Target saturation FTW w/ Tau.

Concerning the Reavers, yeah... You are absolutely right ofcourse. I was so afraid of losing them that I wanted a 1st turn bladevane out of them. Result was that I lose them 1st turn. Lol. I'll try your suggestion next time.

Tau's list:

Tau:

HQ:
Firestorm Shas’el (TL mp, 2 shield drones, FNP): 121
Elite:
Deathrain-Flamer x2: 102
Deathrain-Flamer x2: 102
Firestorm x3: 150
Troops:
Firewarriors x11: 110
Firewarriors x11: 110
Sensor Tower: 40
Fast attack:
Pathfinders x8 + Devilfish: 186
Heavy support:
Hammerhead (Railgun): 185
Hammerhead (Ion Cannon) 145
Broadsides: 246

Total: 1497

He had quite a strong list, not to mention he had a sensor tower (twinlinked markerlight, positional relay, re-roll to hits and nightfight to a single unit within 6", AV 10 10 10) that thing is a bargain even if the only thing it does is take 2-3 lance hits that would have been directed at a hammerhead.

tlronin wrote:

Concerning the Reavers, yeah... You are absolutely right ofcourse. I was so afraid of losing them that I wanted a 1st turn bladevane out of them. Result was that I lose them 1st turn. Lol. I'll try your suggestion next time.

That's the main reason why I'm not the biggest fan of caltrops: they make you feel really bad when you don't bladevane. Also for 40 points more then two caltrops you get an extra lance, 2 more splinter rifles, 3 more wounds, extra combat ability and have similar bladevaning capabilities (average of 9 wounds against T4 compared to 9.83 with the caltrops). Honestly I don't think it makes sense to field caltrops on any squad that is smaller then 9.

Mushkilla wrote:

He had quite a strong list, not to mention he had a sensor tower (twinlinked markerlight, positional relay, re-roll to hits and nightfight to a single unit within 6", AV 10 10 10) that thing is a bargain even if the only thing it does is take 2-3 lance hits that would have been directed at a hammerhead.

So it isn't just me. It indeed felt like a very strong list with good synergy. Exactly for that last argument I decided during play to ignore the sensor tower with my Ravagers first but haywire it as soon as I had the chance (so after primary assault on firewarriors and pathfinders). I missed that assault by 1" (so would've destroyed it in turn 4 if this had gone on). I didn't want to miss a turn of Ravagers fireing on his tanks...

Mushkilla wrote:

tlronin wrote:

Concerning the Reavers, yeah... You are absolutely right ofcourse. I was so afraid of losing them that I wanted a 1st turn bladevane out of them. Result was that I lose them 1st turn. Lol. I'll try your suggestion next time.

That's the main reason why I'm not the biggest fan of caltrops: they make you feel really bad when you don't bladevane. Also for 40 points more then two caltrops you get an extra lance, 2 more splinter rifles, 3 more wounds, extra combat ability and have similar bladevaning capabilities (average of 9 wounds against T4 compared to 9.83 with the caltrops). Honestly I don't think it makes sense to field caltrops on any squad that is smaller then 9.

What you say makes sense. But somehow I just want caltrops. It kicks ass to hit so much (D6) with S6 auto hits. My plan for the next match was to expand the Reavers to a squad of 9. I want units to die or break morale when I bladevane them. I'll playtest some more with 9 reavers + 3 CCs and see what they do on the table.

Not saying caltrops are bad, they are very effective (killing 5 man marine squads and 2 man crisis teams reliably and getting early pain tokens) I just think they are not worth it unless you have 9 or more reavers (and 3 caltrops), anything less and you are better off investing in more reavers.

Yeah, agreed. 1 thing is certain though. When you tailor your armylist around them and it fits your playstyle, Reavers (with or without CCs) are awesome.

love the DS hellion tactic, unorthodox and risky but Fortes fortuna adiuvat they say. In your face with restraint is how it seemed to me, and well played at that. Take that fish/goat/men!

Out of curiosity; what were your Warlord powers, and what did you hope for?