DE vs. the new Tau

Well, since the codex have been slipping out from all directions and the new ruls and stats are being discussed I thought it appropiate for us to do the same.

There is alot of shooting coming out of that book (well it is Tau ). I heard that 12 fire warriors with ethereal and fireblade can fire 48 S5 AP5 shoots in one volley. How do we get around that?

And they seem to be able to co-overwatch....so, what's your thoughts?

Let the tactica begin!

I think it's a little early to get into this without the actual codex having been released, so let's keep the speculation to a minimum, please. I am also going to park this over in the 'Tactics' section. Gob.

Well, first of all, forget assaulting them! Regular overwatch is already bad for us, but multiple units? Potentially at BS2? With so many high strength shots? Nuh-uh I ain't charging them any more. At least not alone. Isolate a weak unit and group hug until dead.

Tau are evil.

Tau are going to be beast for a while with the dual-tripple overwatch (from what my tau playing buddy has explained to me that if you charge a unit, that unit and up to two units within 6-12" he wasnt sure can fire overwatch on a charging unit). That is a lot of shots to deal with and throw saves against. Not really sure what I would try against them at the moment.

Here's the question. If multiple units overwatch one target, do all units count as having overwatched or does the additional firepower only count against the unit who had a charge declared against them? If the former, then no big deal. Also, lets say that 3 units are in overwatch range. If unit prime is charged, do they all have to choose to overwatch or not simultaneously? For example: unit prime is charged and chooses to overwatch, but units sec and tert don't. The charge is successful, and unit prime is now engaged. A second unit charges unit prime. Do sec and tert now get to overwatch? If this is the case then this is indeed trouble. If not, then I don't see it being that much of an issue. I'll throw my sacrificial Haem at them to soak overwatch same as always. He's born to die, so what do I care if he dies from one overwatch volley or three? And, if they've already all wasted their overwatch on the unit/model charging unit prime, that leaves sec and tert open to assault without the possibility of overwatch.

Fireblades seem interesting cheap (same price as an archon without any gear). comes with a BS5 markerlight, split fire and any unit of fire warriors he is with that didn't move in the movement phase get an extra shot with their pulse weapons. As suspected they sacrifice mobility for fire power. But 36 shots at 15" is intimidating to say the least, and 24 at 30" is awesome (it's like rapid fire without needing to be close). I wonder if that means they get 36 shots for overwatch!? He can also take two drones.

Drones, shas'ui's and most characters can take two drones, this includes missile pod drones. That mean fire warrior squads can effectively come with two missile pods (four if you join them with a fireblade). The drones are still BS2 but it does give fire warriors some light AT, more bad news for our transports. That being said I'm not sure how much missile pod drones cost (the other drones choices include, carbines, shield and markerlight). Not sure if they have access to the special drones seen in the path finder box (one increases pulse weapon range, the other reduces charge distance).

Markerlights are still heavy weapons, and units can't benefit from their own markerlight tokens (so no using a shas'ui to boost it's own squads shooting). Each marker light hit leaves a token next to the target, the tokens can be expended to: give +1BS (1 token per BS increase), Ignore cover (2 tokens), guide a seeker missile (1 token).

Fusion Blasters are now 18" S8 AP1 melta making them better than meltguns, won't really bother us seeing as our transports are made of paper anyway.

Burst cannons are now Assault 4 (so an extra shot).

Pulse carbines are now Assault 2 (so an extra shot).

Broaadsides seems like fantastic AA now that they have access to skyfire, on the other hand they are only equipped with twinlinked heavy rail rifles S8 AP1 (which makes more sense as the one on the hammer head is twice the size, and is rightfully S10).

Fire warriors are 1pt cheaper and come with defensive grenades, with the shared over watch, stealth against the pre assault volley (giving them a 3+ cover save behind a defence line in a ruin) and negating the extra attack from charging they seem to be a lot more resilient to assault.

Pathfinders only have a 5+ armour save now, but don't need to take a devil fish. I expect wee could see 2-3 squads of pathfinders per army as marker lights are important and Tau AA is in the form of broadsides and not their flyers. Either way the pathfinders seem like easy reaver pain token fodder.

TACTICS: At a glance

I think if you are going to assault tau you are better off multi-assaulting, you will lose the attack because of their defensive grenades anyway so why not multi assault? Units can still only over watch once per assault phase. Like Tony said if you charge the primary unit and it's supporting unit you will take the same overwatch as you would have if you charge only the primary unit, and seeing as you lose your extra attack anyway what's there to lose? Curious to see how this works with flamer crisis. A squad of twinlinked flamer suits could baby sit 2-3 firewarriors squads and unleash fiery death on anyone who charges them. Interesting to say the least (looks like another synergy heavy codex).

The army is still predominantly BS3 and seems to sacrifice mobility for fire power (marker lights are heavy weapons, fireblade needs to not move to get extra shots, etc). Put them under pressure and they will move meaning they can only snapfire their markerlights in most cases (reducing their bonus to BS and preventing them from ignoring cover) and will as a result reduce their damage output.

Like last edition take out the pathfinders!

Was considering a small Tau force as allies. Maybe a couple of Broadsides, some Pathfinders, some Fire Warriors and a Fireblade. Will wait to get a look at the Codex before making my mind up.

My preferred FLGS is currently offering to buy any old GW models at £x/kilo. I have a ton (possibly literally) of old models sitting in cupboards at home so they may go to funding a new army!

The new Tau have less s10 shooting than before, but they get loads of more medium strenght (7- shooting, making them brutal against armies with low to medium armour vehicles (ie. us, and really any army with av12 or less as their common vehicles).

With now access to several blast weapon and more markerlight sources, Tau will also be a beast when it comes to killing things in cover as now they'll need only 2 token of markerlight to get the "ignore cover" rule.

Our infantry and our reavers won't like this

Though the most reliable way for tau to get markerlights are pathfinders, and they present squishy targets that are easy pain tokens. Not to mention all markerlights are on BS3 models except for the BS5 fireblade (and he can't buff his own unit with it).

I don't see markerlights being a problem for reavers as the reavers will almost always be able to bladvane the pathfinders into oblivion when they come in from reserve and get a nice easy pain token at the same time. Giving them FNP against all that lovely S7 shooting and ensuring their cover save can't be ignored.

Nine reavers bladvaning on average will kill 8 pathfinders. I doubt we will see squads bigger than the minimum squad size. Far more likely to see several small squads of pathfinders. On average 6 pathfinders will score 3 markerlight hits a turn.

Hit them hard hit them fast. What I like is that the new codex encourages more infantry units and doesn't really encourage a mechanised army, the devil fish didn't get a price drop and is still 80pts so I don't see mechanised armies being too popular especially now that disruption pods are not as good. Fire warriors are going to be more popular with the fireblade, pathfinders don't need a develfish transport so are more likely to be taken, etc. These are easy pain tokens. Broadsides/crisis are T4 and vulnerable to blasters/lances. Riptide have a toughness value so are going to fall to mass splinter fire. I think that the new Tau codex will be easier for us to beat than the old one, mainly because it encourages infantry and suits, and dark eldar excel against both.

Ow and grotesque have a lot less to fear against tau, now that only the hammer head has access to a S10 rail gun.

Even better is that broadsides sound like amazing AA and will hopefully shift the meta away from flyers, which can only be good for us.

Some things as I had a chance to see the German codex already:

It IS possible to markerlight your own unit. You need a special device called "networked markerlight" in order to do so, which is only accessible to HQ I believe (couldn't take notes, so bear with me).

Defensive grenades and markerlight effects are as described, making them more resilient to assault. The new force org definitely encourages a shift away from mech and S10 guns (only available on hammerhead, next closest ist beefed up riptide shot which I'll get to later). We'll see a lot more medium strength shooting though.

From the first looks I still think tau will play with minimal core if possible, since suits get all the awesome, but are horrendously expensive in terms of $$. Their basic guns are strong against us, but not super powerful against marines, albeit wounding on 3s. I suspect you'll want to use markerlights on the suits which turns them into super powered up lawn-mowers. FWs did get buffed though so that's more of a personal opinion of me.

The shared overwatch rule has a big flaw, at least in the current German wording (we had a debate with the store owner about the rule, hence I got to see part of the dex). Basically it says this:

If a unit is charged other units that are not charged but are within 6" of the attacked unit may fire overwatch at the attacker. Any unit may still only fire overwatch ONCE. There is nothing that says supporting units can't fire overwatch if the attacked unit is already locked in close combat, so that might work if the unit didn't fire overwatch before.

The big deal is this: It doesn't say "unit within 6" of the attacked unit" but "models inside a unit within 6". This means the amout of fire we receive is far far less as expected unless the FWs are densely packed together.

It is worth noting though that all infantry AND suits have that rule.

As for BS2 overwatch I didn't get to know anything specific, it's either some sort of special rule I didn't get to see, an upgrade for a squad or it is possible to save markerlights for your opponent's turn to use them on overwatch - this last bit is just speculation though as I didn't get to see the rule.

I don't know if the multiple overwatch will be all that bad.
1) it's limited range so the units have to be bunched up.
2) they will likely be firing through the unit you are charging in addition to any other cover you may have already placed your self in, possibly blocking line of sight or at the very least giving cover
3) you can still only over watch once per turn, and they have to decide at the time of you declaring a charge against one unit, so if you have a unit in a position to charge the auxilary unit (the second unit that may or may not choose to overwatch) your opponent will have to make some hard choices on whether or not to use that secondary overwatch on the current charger (knowing that they will be giving you cover and possibly not all shooters )

I see the Tau "Corner defence" being popular. Caslte in a corner being an aegis line have some pathfinders behind the line with a recon drone within 6" of the board edge closest to you. Now you can ensure your outflanking reserves can come in from either your table edge the side table edge, or your opponents.

The reacon drone is interesting to say the least, letting reserves come in from any table edge that it is within 6" of could be very powerful! You could even have one reacon done on each of your side table edges so your reserves can come in from 3 out of the four table edges. Only works with outflanking units, and the item that does it is the positional relay (the recon drone has one, and suits can get access to it as a support system)

30" pulse rifle against a 36" splinter cannon, I'm not worried if he gets 40 shots per model, cant hit me

DominicJ wrote:

30" pulse rifle against a 36" splinter cannon, I'm not worried if he gets 40 shots per model, cant hit me

He can still move 6" and shoot 30", and all his AT weapons will have range on your venoms. Also if fire warriors get access to the accelerator drone then their range becomes 36" (not sure if they get access to them though).

That's why night shield are so beautyful

RabbitMaster wrote:

That's why night shield are so beautyful

And he's shooting his pulse rifles at your transports when he has 60" range heavy rail rifles why? Not to mention the, mass S7 spam that the tau codex can put out!

Either way trying to outshoot Tau is unwise.

http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/tau-english-leaks.html

* Shadowsun - This girl is CRAZY! I think her defence comes to 3+/5++ natural then she can get 2 3++ shields for herself.....and she can join Stealth Teams with her Drones btw, and with improved Fusion Blasters (she has 2 of them, not twin-linked) she will probably be in A LOT of Tau Lists...

* Supporting Fire - Units 6" range and if they Support Fire, thats their Overwatch for that turn. Still annoys me tbh but not as bad as I suspected...

Well trying to out-shoot the Tau has always been unwise, there isn't really an army that can pull it off perfectly.

We do have to soften them up with Splinter Fire though, just like with any other army we face. Pour shots in and assault when you feel a little more safe.

The main difference is the multi-assault compared to the single assault. But like everyone else said, it is the best choice to multi-assault now.

I personally won't be scared of them until they start crushing me every game, IF that happens at all.

I dunno about it being necessary to always apply splinter fire to Tau. Firewarriors are one of those few units that Kabalites can take down in melee.

sgb69 wrote:

I dunno about it being necessary to always apply splinter fire to Tau. Firewarriors are one of those few units that Kabalites can take down in melee.

Yes, the problem will be getting into assault in the first place though. You're facing an horrendous amount of overwatch fire from the unit you charge and any other unit within 6" of them. Not to mention one of the drones reduced charge distance, you don't get bonus attack for assaulting etc etc.

Double beastpack!

Getting into asault is already difficult enough, has been since 6th edition for DE. Well, I'll deal Tau the usual way: Reavers, Razorwing jetfighters, lot's of blasts while I'll jink my life to objectives. Dark Eldars are all assault while TAU being mostly all defensive, so getting into objective is no problem, staying alive is...

It might be time to Drop Ravager off List and run 3 Razorwings or 2 razorwings and a Voidraven... Hmmm..

Still beast masters with razorwingflocks and khymeras are something not to overlook though.

thejamppa wrote:

It might be time to Drop Ravager off List and run 3 Razorwings or 2 razorwings and a Voidraven... Hmmm.

Tau seem to be pretty much the kings of AA and you want to bring more flyers?

Count Adhemar wrote:

thejamppa wrote:

It might be time to Drop Ravager off List and run 3 Razorwings or 2 razorwings and a Voidraven... Hmmm.

Tau seem to be pretty much the kings of AA and you want to bring more flyers?

Well, most TAU AA seem to cost extra for skyfire. AV10 vehicles still get shoot down so I might take heavy Alpha strike and take as many s6 blasts on their army as possible. Ravagers aren't much more safe av11 vs massed s5-8 weaponry.... Pathfinders get s7 blast rifles, massied ion weaponry.

With Flyers I can atleast unload my most payload before enemy can shoot back. After all they start reserve and when you get your flyers on table you get first shot with them. That means I can unload 2 lance shots and 2 missiles from each razorwing enemy AA or other nasty unit. I gotta see how dices roll. And take units that have potentially most damage to enemy unit are relatively safe. That translatesa flyers due flyer rules with combination of our lovely missiles.

P.S. King of AA, try playing CronAir or IG with 9 Vendettas then you know what king of AA is Also Current Dark Angels can spam Flakk's like nobody's business... So flyers go down anyway

This is what I think will be popular:

2 Crisis, 1 missile pod, drone controller, bonding, (still one hard point left for another weapon or support item)
4 Missile drones
- 140

Drone controllers let the drones use their owners BS. So this unit can put out 12 S7 AP4 shots at BS3 a turn, jump shoot jump, and has a range of 36", that ignore night fight. Pretty impressive.


Scrap that missile drones are not affected by drone controllers for some reason! Thankfully.