Would this be a legitimate strategy against Tau?

In my league game yesterday, I got my blank pushed in by Tau, because my silly self is running an assault army. Now granted I had a pretty ineffectual first turn but regardless I proceeded to just lose troops to a ridiculous degree, so here's my question if this is a viable strategy.

Could I just flatout all my vehicles next to his troops? In hopes of catching them in explosions and ensuring my assault units get in range and have cover?

You could but in all honestly your troops are more likely to die in the explosions than he is, plus most of his army would be able to simply move away from the vehicles before shooting.

Some reason that didn't occur to me, although they would be moving through cover and at the mercy of the dice. Unfortunately that's the only thing I could think of. I lost first blood to overwatch, so... trying to think of how to approach this.

Playing DE vs a heavy shooting army like Tau it will be a minor miracle if you didn't lose first blood!

Yeah.....hard to Purge those bastards....

Grots, wracks and khymera. Problem solved. (Not literally, obviously need more than that) but that's what I build my lists around these days. 25 khymera is a little crazy to deal with.

I'm starting to go down that road.....drives me nuts sometimes not to be I5 and Fleet, though, but boy do Grots make Tau nervous.

Funny, grots were the first thing that popped into my head but I'm trying to avoid coven units. Beast pack then popped into my head so it's good we're all on the same page haha!

But even in the case of khymeras a 4++ doesn't sound like it would hold up to the weight of fire Tau produce.

If you move correctly you should be assaulting on turn 2. 12" move then an average of 4" run should put you in assault pretty quick. Not only that but it makes for an amazing distraction unit. It's only 360 pts for the beast masters and the khymera. Believe it or not, this build with eldar psychic powers is one of the top lists in the tourney scene right now. It's pretty resilient.

Two things to keep in mind when launching assaults, especially against Tau:

1. If at all possible assault FROM cover, even if it is cover that he is using. If your whyches have a PGL (which they should) and u can move out of your transport 6 inches into some cover, do so. This will give them a cover save against the overwatch with a +1 modifier from the PGL (if within 8 inches).
2. Target saturation. If you have had a haemi with the whyches to start (again you should for the pain token) separate him out on the move and leave the token on the whyches. Each tau unit can support fire, but still only overwatch once, so if they support a unit, they can't overwatch for themselves. charge with the haemi first and see if he wastes a squad of fire on him. He just might, and u might give up first blood, but that will soak a whole squad of shooting which he cant use again. If he doesn't, that haemi just tied up the squad he charged so they can't shoot. You want to pick a flank and charge it with multiple units to minimize the effect of his support fire.

Hope this helps.

Been thinking of something like that too deleted.
List I've been stewing over for awhile..

Baron 105
Succubus+vblade 70
Elite:
4 Grots+raider 200
Troops:
5wyches+grenades+hekatix+venomblade+venom+cannon=140

5wyches+grenades+hekatix+venomblade+venom+cannon=140

5wyches+grenades+hekatix+venomblade+venom+cannon=140

5wyches+grenades+hekatix+venomblade+venom+cannon=140

5wyches+grenades+hekatix+venomblade+venom+cannon=140

Fast Attack:
Beastmasters3bm+5Khymera+4flocks= 115

Talos+TWLG: 105

Talos+TWLG: 105

Chronos+vortex: 100

Spiritseer 70
8 wraithBlades

Same basic idea but I send the bullet sponges (mcs and wraithblades) up the center while I keep my wyches back to pew away in their venoms then turbo boost up a flank once the the big guys are in charge range. Not sure if it would work, but I really want to roll tau in assault, just for old times sake.. A bigger beast pack would probably serve me better then the blades, but they're a tough scoring unit and I'm a sucker for the models.   

Wyches wouldn't make it even close to assault when fighting tau. Theyd blow the tank before you get a chance, even IF you made it with half the unit left another half would be taken out with overwatch against tau. And I think you'd want some more khymera to protect those flocks. That's just me. I would forget the flocks all together though. 25 khymera = 100 attacks on the charge. Throw baron in for stealth, grenades, hit and run, and a +1 to deployment roll off. Makes the unit pretty nasty.

I have had pretty good luck getting up in the face of a flank (granted I mostly only play 1000 pts). Turbo boosting with my raiders/venoms (into cover if possible) on the first turn plus the occasional night fight. They only have so much ignores cover, ignores night fight shooting to go around. Plus my whyches always have feel no pain so I don't loose too many should the boat explode. It usually just wrecks from tau smart missels anyway.

doomseer11b wrote:

Wyches wouldn't make it even close to assault when fighting tau.  Theyd blow the tank before you get a chance, even IF you made it with half the unit left another half would be taken out with overwatch against tau.  And I think you'd want some more khymera to protect those flocks. That's just me.  I would forget the flocks all together though.  25 khymera = 100 attacks on the charge.  Throw baron in for stealth, grenades, hit and run, and a +1 to deployment roll off.  Makes the unit pretty nasty.  

And that's exactly what happened. I charged through cover with a full squad of wyches and still got taken out by overwatch. It was brutal. But I definitely want to keep my list culty. So a beast pack may be the answer. Not sure about spamming 25 khymera though. Seems a little excessive lol. I also don't like the idea of all my other assault units just waiting around to get blown up. I should probablt read up on tau too, not entirely sure how their overwatch works. Maybe if I kill off the guys who can overwatch with splinter spam I can assault in peace.

Assault in peace, that's funny.

doomseer11b wrote:

Wyches wouldn't make it even close to assault when fighting tau.  Theyd blow the tank before you get a chance, even IF you made it with half the unit left another half would be taken out with overwatch against tau.  And I think you'd want some more khymera to protect those flocks. That's just me.  I would forget the flocks all together though.  25 khymera = 100 attacks on the charge.  Throw baron in for stealth, grenades, hit and run, and a +1 to deployment roll off.  Makes the unit pretty nasty.  

Most tau lists I have come up against have little to no shooting beyond 36". What will they be wrecking the venoms with if they stay outside of that range? deep striking crisis suits? I submit that they would be used against the three monstrous creatures or one of the three mini death stars. And you're right about half the wyches being killed in over watch, half the wyches from one squad that is. Assault one squad with two squads of wyches and they can only ever over watch one and the other gets through, which is the main virtue of the small squads. the Mcs are also their to soak up over watch. Sure, it's not that simple in practice but it's not impossible either. A 25 dog death star is just too cheesy for my area's tastes to be honest, I'd get kicked out if I showed up with that.   

I'll be honest, this is trying to adapt a principles I saw in a nid list that crushed a tau player in our area, not sure if it will work but want to give it a shot. Thanks for the feedback

Spamming khymera is as cheesy as spamming anything else.  The cheese, in which I refuse to play, is when you ally eldar. I get the idea of playing to a taste. However, our army runs off of bringing a lot of the same thing. It irritates me to hear people say oh that's cheesy. Yeah well our armor 10 doesn't hold up to anything. Our wyches die from vehicle explosions can easily be shot to death. So what, we have one resilient unit that's hard to deal with and all the sudden it's cheesy???? Throw a jetseer in there and it's cheesy

And that's exactly what happened. I charged through cover with a full squad of wyches and still got taken out by overwatch. It was brutal. But I definitely want to keep my list culty. So a beast pack may be the answer. Not sure about spamming 25 khymera though. Seems a little excessive lol. I also don't like the idea of all my other assault units just waiting around to get blown up. I should probablt read up on tau too, not entirely sure how their overwatch works. Maybe if I kill off the guys who can overwatch with splinter spam I can assault in peace. wrote:

Another thing to keep in mind with the target saturation idea, if you are assaulting from cover and see he got a massive amount of 6s for overwatch, just go to ground. It cancels the assault but the shots are spent so the next squad to assault wont have to deal with that fire. Ex. if you are in ruins and have the PGL at 8' you have 2+ save when going to ground. Remember that support fire only works if squads are six inches apart. Position your venoms and other splinter fire so when he removes the closest models they increase the gaps between units. The last time I assaulted a tau flank was with 9 whycshes with a haemi in a raider and 4 incubi with my huskblade archon with a venom. The tau gunline on the flank from left to right was 10 warriors a riptide and another ten warriors. I shot up the rightmost warrior squad with dual splinters from the venom taking them out of 6' from the riptide. I then sent the haemi alone at the leftmost warriors, they opened up and got four 6s so I went to ground and canceled the charge for the 3+ in ruins. He took a wound but lived. Next I charged the 9 whyches at the same warriors and the riptide support fired at them. They cover saved all the ion shot but the smart missiles killed two. The real target was the riptide who now couldn't overwatch because he used his to support the leftmost warriors, and the shot up warrior squad to the right was no longer in 6' so could do nothing. My archon immediately huskbladed him twice and he failed one invul save dropping the thing.