DE vs. the new Tau

But I mean let's face it: the top tier armies right now are Grey Knights, Imperial Guard and Necrons, the last two with major flyer spam. So most tau lists are going to be gearing up to wipe those off the map. That means riptides, missilesides, lots of fire warriors and ionheads. So the tau lists we need to work around are the ones being formulated to fight the most powerful armies, not the ones being geared towards DE (of which there will be few).

Their firepower is still devastating and we have to admit that even armies not designed to face us specifically are still rather nasty against us as when they are in range they outgun us completely.

Night Shields are wonderful and I absolutely agree they should be taken, but we can't expect for them to be of much use to us without units that can occupy the Tau and keep them from moving up into range.

Yes! Both great insights guys and thats the direction im trying to head. We are a rogue army that doesnt dictate any meta and because of that we are free to address these armies without fear of the reverse.

Grots, beastpacks, night shields. Thats where im focusing.

Being rogue is kinda dicey.

I'd dedicated a massive amount of time and effort in my TCG career to playing rogue and trying to win in the deck / list building phase. And sometimes it works. A lot of the time it doesn't.

The trouble is, once you tailor to beat the top two or three armies, you often get dragged down by the folks who play random stuff in the lower tiers of the tourny. Basically, it's rare for you to encounter those two lists you've been gearing up to fight until the later rounds of a tournament.

This means that you need to be able to account for that random kid who brought Blood Angels, or that old grognard who has been playing pretty much the same ork list twice a week for 14 years.

I see where your coming from Sybarite and if your speaking of MTG I can relate, Im a legacy player myself. What I mean is people probably wont be tooling up to handle dark eldar regardless of whether we are prepared to deal with them.

Now locally people are going to adjust here and there to deal with what they commonly see, in my case my group is small enough that my playstyle effects what my opponent brings and the reverse is also true to an extent, although the major determining factor is and probably always will be meq.

Well, i should mention that there isn't a way to field "loads of skyrays, hammerheads and missilesides" - they're in same slot. This also applies to Riptides/Crisis teams (latter can be taken as bodyguards, but that's paying 30 extra points for same).

So long-ranged Tau firepower isn't THAT nasty, but you can see configurations like 3 skyrays/3 riptides. Which is no doubt nasty, and if you don't have any LoS blocking terrain on table, probably there isn't a point in playing the game - result is already known.

Luckily for us, people are really not keen on the skyray. Most lists don't even run them, and the one's that do hardly feature more than one. Riptides are pretty common, but Riptide Spam is hardly so. There is a lot of Ionheads and Missilesides going around however.

You will see a lot of people with 2/1 or 1/2 Ionhead/Missileside Heavy Support and 1/2 Riptide/Crisis Elites, as these are the most powerful and versatile units in their slots, despite the merits of several other units.

@Hijallo If they are running three Skyrays/3 Riptides, you'd best hope their a gentle lover because one of those CAN ignore cover AND LoS, and thus are very punishing on our army. As I mentioned however spam of one or the other is a pretty negligible concern for us at this point unless the meta shifts drastically.

Got in my first game against the new Tau today.

General Tactics:
--> Kill off markerlight teams early. Or swarm one of them with many options.

--> Kroot are pretty awesome at threatening large areas of the board for cheap. So blocking off sections of the table edge can keep your objectives safe from chickens.

--> Hammerheads without submunitions are really, really vulnerable to infantry, especially when unsupported. Or only supported by one or two Broadsides. If you take one the one or two infantry units they're using you can avoid overwatch problems.

--> Even Kroot are pretty bad in assault. Mostly.

--> Don't get greedy with your multicharges. Though 9 Wyches will handily trump a drone unit, they might not trump drones, and Firewarriors, and Shadowsun.

Got tabled in six turns in a friendly 2k game against my friend's Tau. He had the usual cast of suspects with the exception of any Kroot. I was playing a list that included a Urien/Archon/Super Grot Deathstar unit. I don't normally field these kinds of uber units but as I said it was just for fun. I even included a WWP.

I thought it be pretty cool to see Reavers, Hellions, a Cronos, and a Talos come out of a WWP right next to the Archon, Urien and his super Grots. They all came in turn two and after two or three turns of shooting I didn't have anything left from those units.

I made a few tactical blunders which contributed to the loss such as taking on 4/5 of his army rather than the 1/5 on the other side of the board, keeping my Warrior units too far back, and not knowing when to forego a round of shooting prior to a charge. I killed too many and couldn't reach the one model left. Hopefully I'll learn from them. Anyhow the game was a veritable Pickett's or Light Brigade Charge. Take your pick. Out of all those units only the Hellions made it into cc. They finished off the lone survivor of a Crisis Team and then ate it charging a Fire Warrior team the following turn.

Even taking my goofs into consideration I still have to say I've learned to hate SMS. If I wasn't losing my cover saves to them I was losing my FNP rolls to something else. It was a rare moment when one of my units got to roll both. And as noted already by Mush Supporting Fire is almost like having a second shooting phase each turn. Definitely robbed my Hellions of another round of cc.

Has anyone played around with using torment grenade launchers on a raider against tau, turbo-boosting a raider forward to drop their leadership before applying splinter cannon fire to force a morale check seems as though it might be helpful?

I've thought of the TGLs for my grotesque's raider (5 pts spare). Haven't tried it yet but seems pretty handy at times although hit or miss if an ethereal is around.

In my last game the Raider transporting my Urien/Archon/Super Grot unit had AS, CS, and TGL. Had the Raider survived long enough for the TGL to come into effect it probably would have been useful. Then again maybe not, my friend is canny enough to simply go to ground and not have to worry about his units failing modified LD tests and falling back. The Archon should have been in another unit. I should have kept the Raider carrying the Grot-Star unit in cover until the WWP could deliver reinforcements. This would have prevented a free turn of shooting at my disembarked Grots.

Hmmm dont have my rulebook handy but im pretty sure GtG no longer confers any benefit other than +1 cover so that wouldnt save him.

A unit can still flee even if it's gone to ground.

Oops. Thanks guys. Plain as day in the rulebook. Well that will see us playing this differently. I'm not quite sure what led us to play this rule so incorrectly. Go figure.

Probably a last edition hangover when it conferred fearless.. it happens.

The change actually made TGLs a consideration if you have 5 pts leftover and have already sprung for VB, AES what have you. Boosting right into a gunline with a combat element + TGL then lighting their line up with venoms for -1 LD moral checks on multiple units isnt half bad, hell blood angels have been known to do similar with fear the darkness. One bad fallback or more would be pretty painful.

I played a 2000 pt game last night against them. I was a little overwhelmed to say the least at first. I had first turn and he stole the initiative. Luckily I always set up as if I'm going second anyway. Anywho, first turn was pretty brutal. However, I came around towards the end as I figured out his key element in his army was fire warriors all equipped with marker lights. I brought a list that was really designed for tank hunting and heavy armor armies. I had 2 wych squads with haywire, WORKED GREAT as a harassment squad in a venom. Just to tie up a unit from marker lighting. This would allow my wracks and grotesques to move in for some kills. My lessons learned.... Keep splinter born squads on venoms ( 3 shardcarbines, and 2 cannons) and keep wych squads, totally unupgraded if you like, and keep high toughness grots and wracks. They worked really well for me in keeping them alive on those horrible 3 squad over watches!!!! Lol was ridiculous. Also, if you're into tailoring lists, my scourges worked really well against them. 2 heat lances and shardcarbines kill the big new guy really easily. Can't remember it's name but its their new model. This was my first game against them. They aren't as scary as everyone makes them out to be. This could be lack of exp on my oppenents side however. Grots worked swimmingly for me, as they always do. Game was a draw on purge the alien. WAS A BLOOD BATH THO!!!!! Lol was awesome.

GorlanVance wrote:

But I mean let's face it: the top tier armies right now are Grey Knights, Imperial Guard and Necrons, the last two with major flyer spam. So most tau lists are going to be gearing up to wipe those off the map. That means riptides, missilesides, lots of fire warriors and ionheads. So the tau lists we need to work around are the ones being formulated to fight the most powerful armies, not the ones being geared towards DE (of which there will be few).

Agree. rip tides and ion heads are VERY expensive and our lances / blasters can do a good job against them .. fire warriors are easy , venoms with 2SC and night shields , shoot retreat , shoot retreat . Then clean up whats left with your assault troops ( Wracks / Incubi and even Warriors are better than Wyches vs Tau) . Use your movement to stay away from there beasts and ignore them,

Would this be a decent strat:

Raider with 4 grots, 1 haem and 1 archon move 12" to middle of map
Flat out 18" to be 6" in the tau's lines.

The tau blow up the raider (as they should)
- The force doesn't take damage from the explosion (except maybe the archon) due to high toughness and feel no pain
- The tau forces then shoot up the grotesques with low str weapons and feel no pain
- This also means they don't have time to set up lots of marker lights on other things
- The rest of my force moves in closer turn 1, setting up for a charge turn 2

Turn 2 rolls around, if any of the grotesques and hq's are alive great! if not the whole rest of my force charges in...

Thoughts?

Sure, thats pretty much what I do/aim to do every single game although I dropped the haemie from the squad. Works great although tau are one of the few armies that actually do wipe the unit although its a concerted effort involving marker lights and multiple units.

The explosion wont hurt the archon unless you choose to allocate to him though. Its your choice and the hits are against T5 majority so his T3 doesnt come into play (not even when down to 1 grot the haemie and archon due to tied majority 3/4/5 = you choose.. just fyi).

Lastly I would keep the grots super cheap. I keep dropping upgrades and now im down to 4 with aberration-vb. Honestly even the liquifier is extraneous and often screws them over...I still love it just sayin'.

Brom wrote:

Probably a last edition hangover when it conferred fearless.. it happens.

The change actually made TGLs a consideration if you have 5 pts leftover and have already sprung for VB, AES what have you. Boosting right into a gunline with a combat element + TGL then lighting their line up with venoms for -1 LD moral checks on multiple units isnt half bad, hell blood angels have been known to do similar with fear the darkness. One bad fallback or more would be pretty painful.

The Raider with TGL is great for things like this against any army that isn't Ld10 or Fearless. Not only can you give them -1 Ld, you can Flat Out behind them and set up Trapped! There are things you can do like wedging between units to disrupt the multi unit Overwatch. I've always wondered whether or not a Tank Shock would negate the additional shot gained from the Fireblade if it was a passed test. I'd need to look at the wording on the rules exactly. But yeah, TGL is great on Raiders.

Had another game against Tau, this time against a broadside missile spam list:

BR25: The Black Buzzards VS Tau Mass Broadsides - 1500pts

Balisong wrote:

Actually it really depends on the list. A smart Tau player facing us would load up on Broadsides, Skyrays, Hammerheads, Sniper Drones, Kroot, Sun Sharks, etc.

I think we will see the Broadsides a lot as well as the Hammerheads. Those do damage to us...

Disagree .. those are very expensive 3 Ravengers can take 3 of the table on turn 1. We can put more Strngth 8 AP 2 weapons on the table cheaper. Our stuff is fragile an SMS or even fire warrior will take it out S10 AP1 is wasted on us. Even worse in 1/2 the games its night .. Broadsides with SMS / High yield missile pods are much more dangerous. 130 points for 2 broad sides gets you 8 Strength 7 twin link and 8 strength 5 ignore cover and homing .. creating a completely denial zone... Yes night shields essential here as you can avoid them which means its essenital to have night shield sniping at 36 (+6) ..

If you cant contest the ranged fight then most of your transports wil be shot down , unless you can avoid it which needs terrain..

Steal initiative can be very usefull here.

What scares me is mass fire warriors supported by cheap suits ,with missile systems and cover avoiding shenanigens as well as S6 large blast on the hammerhead. The more big weapons they have the happier i am.

reihon wrote:

Would this be a decent strat:

Raider with 4 grots, 1 haem and 1 archon move 12" to middle of map
Flat out 18" to be 6" in the tau's lines.

The tau blow up the raider (as they should)
- The force doesn't take damage from the explosion (except maybe the archon) due to high toughness and feel no pain
- The tau forces then shoot up the grotesques with low str weapons and feel no pain
- This also means they don't have time to set up lots of marker lights on other things
- The rest of my force moves in closer turn 1, setting up for a charge turn 2

Turn 2 rolls around, if any of the grotesques and hq's are alive great! if not the whole rest of my force charges in...

Thoughts?

Probably 1/2 the games or more if they have initiative , Turn1 Tau go first .. blow up raider.. now you need to foot slog ..

Turn 1 rest of your army moves up

By end of turn 2 most vehicles you have are gone .. Grots move into range and now cop the heavy fire power from the whole army , rail guns instant kill grots. ( you dont get a save) .. They dont need marker light hammer heads are BS 4 or BS5 !

Against Tau death stars dont work , too much concentrated fire power . You need safety in numbers.

When you go first you move 8" past the middle of the map , tau stay on the base line . Again you will be foot slogging ( 12-20" depending on misiom_ more than likely after they hit you 24 or 48 strength 5 shots from 1 or 2 fire warrior units , they will then hit your death star with Kroot with the 4+ invul save which will keep you busy for 2 turns while they kill the rest of your army ..

For the 10th time double posting is against forum rules. Please STOP! Use the EDIT button in future. If you can't see the EDIT button because you are viewing the "mobile version" of the site, switch to the "normal version" and you will be able to edit posts. Thanks. - Mush