DE vs. the new Tau

Well, i've played a game against Tau. Btw it was Vassal match, no one of my local game enivorement even plays Tau;

They are not as scary as it appears. Many will favor Riptides with Early Warning Override over Crisis teams, and what does it mean for us? It means - less autocannon-eqs (but, ofc, big blasts can devastate flocks of Razorwings; loadout of 10 Khymeras and 6 Flocks will be better). Disruption pod no more makes vehicle Shrouded, only +1 cover - but their vehicles except tanks are garbage. New Missile Broadsides are good btw, 12 S7 and 12 S5 missiles salvo will be a hard-hitting power, they can take Skyfire aswell - so one less reason to use dark eldar flyers, one more reason to save money.

With all markerlight scaryness, they don't come for free. You'll need Markerlight Drones and their controller, or Pathfinder team, and they both can be destroyed by ether focusing fire or throwing squad of 5 wyches who hardly will find suitable target for Haywire Grenades anyway.

But i love that Tau book and i hope Phil Kelly makes notes and coming Eldar book wouldn't be weaker or less gay (i'm using old meaning of word "gay") than Tau.

exsquared wrote:

...they will likely have as few fire warriors as they can get away with to max out on the suits etc...

I suppose it depends on the local mindset, but I doubt that. Troops with rapid fire weapons are super good. If they also happen to be S5 and 30" range, they're extra super good, and I expect Tau players will notice that too.

And overwatch from 36 fire warriors hurts; but if you implement large blasts, they should go into dispersed formation

I'm not saying we won't see loads of fire warriors because they are weak offensively, but rather because they don't strike me as being any good at actually sitting on an objective, unless they have one behind a defense line.
They have the tools to get first blood and slay the warlord VPs, and between their guns and easy ignores cover access they can probably keep enemies off of objectives.

Hijallo wrote:

And overwatch from 36 fire warriors hurts; but if you implement large blasts, they should go into dispersed formation

What do you mean?

Co-operative Overwatch is models within 6", not units. So, if you pack blasts, you force them to disperse, and few models can join in.
Or you annihilate packed units

That's true, blast weapons will be really strong against a Tau player that tries to abuse the overwatch rule. Even if you miss your target unit, you will probably hit something.

Expeirenced players probably would never pack FW close (unless thier goal is castle against all-drop army). Overwatch, even in such quantity, isn't really good. Any close combat unit capable of withstanding that kind of punishment probably will turn field of battle into field of slaughter when they get close - and closely packed squads of FW are easy, i mean - really easy pray for everyone. Even without blasts;

Looking forward to Eldar release, according to Hastings, that'll be next 40k codex. Probably there will be option to pump regular Farseer to ML3 and keep him on bike, then we could see interesting things (or may be author would allow Eldar psychic powers being cast on Dark Eldar, but looking at CSM and Daemons...). Markerlights are nearly as awesome as psychic powers, take it.

I haven't actually seen the book yet. I know there's tons of Skyfire, but how much Interceptor is there? I feel like Shatterfields will be on beast mode against Tau, especially since they negate all that AP save-not-a-save business.

Hijallo wrote:

(i'm using old meaning of word "gay")

Happy and frolicsome?

The huge amount of S7 is worrying, as well as Markerlights being able to ignore cover. (My poor Reavers and anything jinking) But at least they only last a turn so there shouldn't be too much overwatch shenanigans.

As with anything monstrous creature-y I think poison will give the Tau much grief.

I know a lot of the suits (all the suits?) have that thing that gives them BS2 on overwatch, but has anyone considered the possibility of throwing a Huskblade Archon at a Riptide? He might not even get there and almost definitely wouldn't survive the following round of shooting, but I think that single roll of 6 to wound with instant death would be worth it for the look on the Tau player's face.

And of course, with careful planning, I think that enough of our basic troops can mess Fire Warriors up for us not to worry toooooo much.

I'm pretty sure that Strength 3 can't wound toughness 7, but I don't have the book on hand.

Doable with Furious Charge or the right drug roll though.

As far as I can seen, the wording on the supporting fire is such that all models that are in a unit that is within 6'' of the charged unit and have the special rule can fire. It's worded a bit weirdly but that is probably because a) the unit may contain models without the rule (say, an allied character), and b) some Tau models have split fire so a single unit may fire at more than on charging unit (say, the Firewarriors firing at one unit and a character with split fire firing at another).

Got a game against Tau today. His list is somewhat surprising, but he has a lot of experience with Tau so I expect it to be effective.

HQ
Fire Blade, marker drone

ELITES
3 Stealth Suits, Burst Cannon, advanced targeting
2 Stealth Suit, Fusion blasters, target lock
1 Shas'vre, Burst Cannon, Markerlight & Target Lock, advanced targeting, marker drone

3 Stealth Suits, Burst Cannon, advanced targeting
2 Stealth Suit, Fusion blasters, target lock
1 Shas'vre, Burst Cannon, Markerlight & Target Lock, advanced targeting, marker drone


TROOPS
12 Firewarriors
10 Kroot, precision ammo
3 Krootox
1 Kroot hound
10 Kroot, precision ammo
3 Krootox
1 Kroot hound
10 Kroot, precision ammo
3 Krootox
1 Kroot hound

FAST ATTACK
5 Marker drones
5 Marker drones

HEAVY
Hammer Head, Rail Gun, sub-munition twin linked smart missiles, disruption pod
Hammer Head, Rail Gun, sub-munition twin linked smart missiles, disruption pod

1500pts

I will post a report as soon as I can. Should be am interesting game, lots of markerlights spread out so it will be hard to get rid of all of them. And kroot are evil, stealth in forest (going to ground in forests for 2+ cover saves), the choice between regular rounds and 24" sniper rounds (heavy 1), infiltrate, and three auto cannons per squad (krootox) is going to make them a nightmare. If I played tau they would be my go too troops! Miles better than fire warriors. marker drone squadrons seem better than pahtfinders, T4, 4+ save, relentless and jump shoot jump will make them a lot more mobile and survivable (jump shoot jump behind a hammer head all day?), the only down side is they are BS2.

Sulphunet wrote:

That's true, blast weapons will be really strong against a Tau player that tries to abuse the overwatch rule. Even if you miss your target unit, you will probably hit something.

Is it worth taking an Fire Prism with one's Eldar Detachment so that they're forced to consider its threat in deployment and spread out? They're only the cost of a Ravager after all.

Take a nightspinner instead, it will cause them more problems and it's easier to keep safe (barrage), more accurate (twinlinked), and can snipe fireblades, ethereals and sniper drone team spotters (S6 barrage).

^ second this

I mean, Nightspinner.

Mushkilla wrote:

Take a nightspinner instead, it will cause them more problems and it's easier to keep safe (barrage), more accurate (twinlinked), and can snipe fireblades, ethereals and sniper drone team spotters (S6 barrage).

Yes I've heard they're good but a lot of my local gamers don't use FW stuff so I think there is something a little taboo about it. Outside Forgeworld things what would be good to take?

As far as I know. The Nightspinner has been officially integrated into the Eldar Codex. You can - and should - use it whenever you want.

Kinnay wrote:

As far as I know. The Nightspinner has been officially integrated into the Eldar Codex. You can - and should - use it whenever you want.

Oh yea, so it has. I've never seen anyone use those, only talk about them leading me to believe they're FW. Are they quite a lot better than Fire Prisms then?

S6 large blast, barrage, re-rolls to hit, rending, pinning and forces dangerous and difficult terrain on units that are hit when they next try to move. It's a really good barrage sniper, and can slow down large infantry blobs and deathstars. Not too bad against chimeras as barrage weapons always hit side arnour and you can normally hit at two chimera's if they are too close to each other with one large blast, thought it's main roll is anti-infantry.

EDIT: Had the game against the new Tau codex if anyone is interested (pictures as usual):

BR21: The Black Buzzards VS New Tau - 1500pts

Lol'ed pretty hard.

Board was Tau'ish as frak. Just big open field with small fields of cover, which can be devastated by MarkerLighted Railhead. If i read correct, that's what happened.

My expierence was far more sucessful, but that Tau didn't introduced many Kroot Autocannons. And i found that units of 10 dark eldar aren't really more survivable then units of 5. Probably more units of 5 (and NS'ed Venoms) are way to go. (Markerlight is only 30", and NS affects it. Being in 24" from dark eldar don't contribute tau survivability - they're as fragile as we are

I'm pretty sure Markerlights are 36" range. The board was loaded with cover, you would get a lot less in a tournament at least from what I have seen, hell it even had a massive LoS blocking tower in the middle!

The Kroot are the key to Tau. It's a whole different game with them.

Cheap infiltrating troops that can put pressure on your opponents objective, get a 4+ cover save in forests (2+ when they go to ground), have three move shoot auto cannons, the choice between regular and sniper ammo depending on the situation (making them rend and wound on 4+ when they need too), and best of all they benefit from marker lights. They can put a tone of early pressure on and those six S7 shots will always be hitting what they want to hit thanks to infiltrate and being able to move and shoot. With the 2+ cover save when going to ground it will be hard to shift them off objectives.

Kroot just seem miles better than fire warriors, and really help tau with the objective game and can secure the midfield really well.

As for venoms I don't think it would have changed much. The tau took out four vehicles on the first turn, with the stealth suits firing their burst cannons at the warriors and one of the hammer heads firing at the warriors. If I had been running venoms, there would not have been two blobs of warriors to target on foot, so the stealth teams would have been able to split fire on the venoms, 16 S5 hits should take out a venom, so that would have been six to seven dead vehicles on the first turn instead of four.

The real power of that list is being able to infiltrate within 18" with your mobile auto cannons, burst cannons and fusion blasters. The infiltration takes away the advantage of going second.

Ah, sorry, that's something wrong with my memory, Markerlights are indeed 36".

Nightshield should help us. Burst cannon is 18", infiltration is "no closer then 18"" or something similar. Key point they need to roll diff terrain really good, or their fusion blasters and burst cannons are out of range. But having loads of nightshields on many venoms can be really expensive. This also helps against missile pods, they're only 36" and with nightshield it's not that hard to outrange them.

Kroot gunz are evil, i'm really surprised why so many tau players overlooked it.

The reason the Krootox wasn't taken under the old book was because the Krootox removed Infiltrate from the unit and they had no armour with Toughness 3.