35310
Post by: the_scotsman
I don't end up playing much tau (thank god) because all but two people in my club have quit playing them out of sheer embarrassment, but every time I do I leave with a disgusted taste in my mouth and I can't figure out what I could have done differently.
This last game I did as well as I ever have and it still felt like I was playing a guy who had a 4000+ point list. I was playing Harlequins against full mech Tau and I had no scatter drop melta, drop haywire, and two units of haywire bikes and the only thing I managed to kill were the two Riptides (aka the only models in his entire list I could hurt with psychic powers) and spent the rest of the time stuck in hour-long shooting phases removing my models from the board.
So what are you supposed to do against a list that just parks in cover on their board edge for infinite 3+ cover saves on their AV13 tanks and fires at you from 30" away until you're tabled? You can't shoot them, maybe you'll manage to take off one 120 point tank the entire game, which means deep striking is pointless even if he doesn't have interceptor Riptides, you can't get into melee because nothing survives the fullisade of ignores cover bs that flies across the table at you every turn, and you can't play for the game because he just sits there and secured three objectives all game so he either wins by objectives or wins by tabling you.
How do you play AGAINST tau? By that I mean not "oh just build your list specifically to kill tau with a million ignores cover guns and three imperial knights to just rip them to pieces" I mean what do you do when you have your normal list and you come up against a Tau list?
27797
Post by: Wolfblade
Coming from a "traditional" (aka force org chart), instead of a pure mech army (assuming he was playing unbound?):
Fast moving assault troops: Either deepstriking, infil, etc. Anything to tie up shooting, or deny it (i.e. blocking LoS)
Better shooting: While some will argue this, the new skitarii rangers (for example) can really go toe to toe with tau firewarriors, and probably come out ahead. Obviously, this isn't the best way to go, but have some good shooting to go with your fast melee. Unless you're doing a full deepstrike army, then they'll just be focused down very quickly.
If he's doing a full cheese all vehicle army, then just play to counter him honestly. Get Lascannons/whatever anti tank you have to fight back.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
 Wolfblade wrote:Coming from a "traditional" (aka force org chart), instead of a pure mech army (assuming he was playing unbound?):
Fast moving assault troops: Either deepstriking, infil, etc. Anything to tie up shooting, or deny it (i.e. blocking LoS)
Better shooting: While some will argue this, the new skitarii rangers (for example) can really go toe to toe with tau firewarriors, and probably come out ahead. Obviously, this isn't the best way to go, but have some good shooting to go with your fast melee. Unless you're doing a full deepstrike army, then they'll just be focused down very quickly.
If he's doing a full cheese all vehicle army, then just play to counter him honestly. Get Lascannons/whatever anti tank you have to fight back.
His list was 2x Riptides 2x Devilfish 2x skyrays long strike and 2 squads of melta drop crisis suits.
Any fast troops he'd just pummel with ignore cover rockets until their transport is dead, or drown in AP2 blasts. Any deep striker needs to weather 2 AP2 large blasts. Skiitari can fight fire warriors, but not S6 AP4 large blasts.
2+ knights kill them. An invisible 12" move Death Star kills them. AV14 might stand a chance until the meltas drop. Serpentspam just barely out-cheeses them.
But if I don't have my own cheese list to put up? Everything in the tau Dex except for a handful of really obvious REALLY bad units just wins by default against everything that's not a super top tier WAAC list.
79132
Post by: fallinq
Wolfblade wrote:Coming from a "traditional" (aka force org chart), instead of a pure mech army (assuming he was playing unbound?):
Fast moving assault troops: Either deepstriking, infil, etc. Anything to tie up shooting, or deny it (i.e. blocking LoS)
Better shooting: While some will argue this, the new skitarii rangers (for example) can really go toe to toe with tau firewarriors, and probably come out ahead. Obviously, this isn't the best way to go, but have some good shooting to go with your fast melee. Unless you're doing a full deepstrike army, then they'll just be focused down very quickly.
If he's doing a full cheese all vehicle army, then just play to counter him honestly. Get Lascannons/whatever anti tank you have to fight back.
A lot of good suggestions here. I just beat a Tau player yesterday in a slightly-over-1000 point game doing pretty much exactly this. He was fairly new, mind you, but because of that we tended to give him very favorable rulings when it came to interpreting the rules, including letting him change some equipment after the battle started when he'd made a goof up. And I've beaten more experienced Tau players this way as well, mind you.
Bum rush with fast assault units in large numbers, while hanging back with a gunline and pummeling him. Leman Russes Battle Cannons, Lascannons, and other long range, high strength or large blast template weapons can go toe to toe with Tau stuff. Also, keep units in cover while they're approaching. Cover is doubly important with Tau, is is proper target prioritization. FMC's, jump infantry, and cavalry are all good for closing fast, grabbing the Tau player by the belt buckle, and not letting go until a large portion of their army is dead.
Tau can be a pain in the butt to fight, but they're very beatable, and Necrons and Eldar are a good deal worse.
75775
Post by: Rismonite
Alcohol
At least you'll forget it.
Prioritize markerlight Generators. Bring only lascannon and drop melta. Redesign your list to saturate threats and then a. Stop playing on tables without terrain. Go pick through tourney missions and play games like that.
87095
Post by: Lord Commissar
I play in a relatively competitive meta. Lots of players fly to GT's etc.
I cant say I have lost to Tau in quite a while. Been at least a year and I play relatively often.
They simply arent that good, once you assault them. Wraiths, Any Daemon unit, Wraithknight, Knight, etc. Their game is over.
27797
Post by: Wolfblade
the_scotsman wrote: Wolfblade wrote:Coming from a "traditional" (aka force org chart), instead of a pure mech army (assuming he was playing unbound?):
Fast moving assault troops: Either deepstriking, infil, etc. Anything to tie up shooting, or deny it (i.e. blocking LoS)
Better shooting: While some will argue this, the new skitarii rangers (for example) can really go toe to toe with tau firewarriors, and probably come out ahead. Obviously, this isn't the best way to go, but have some good shooting to go with your fast melee. Unless you're doing a full deepstrike army, then they'll just be focused down very quickly.
If he's doing a full cheese all vehicle army, then just play to counter him honestly. Get Lascannons/whatever anti tank you have to fight back.
His list was 2x Riptides 2x Devilfish 2x skyrays long strike and 2 squads of melta drop crisis suits.
Any fast troops he'd just pummel with ignore cover rockets until their transport is dead, or drown in AP2 blasts. Any deep striker needs to weather 2 AP2 large blasts. Skiitari can fight fire warriors, but not S6 AP4 large blasts.
2+ knights kill them. An invisible 12" move Death Star kills them. AV14 might stand a chance until the meltas drop. Serpentspam just barely out-cheeses them.
But if I don't have my own cheese list to put up? Everything in the tau Dex except for a handful of really obvious REALLY bad units just wins by default against everything that's not a super top tier WAAC list.
What are you playing vs him? Some general advice is either AP2/Force weapons to instagib the riptides, snipers/ranged AP2 to kill the riptides + vehicles. Priority is Riptides, Crisis, Skyrays, then devilfish + whatever is in them. Best bet might even to take allied guard with a shadow sword. That should scare the pants off him, AND eliminate everything it hits (along with being super durable, I don't think he can kill it first turn unless he's VERY lucky. I'm talking, a lot of 6s on the armor pens from the sky rays, etc)
And Deepstriking. My worst fear is honestly blood angels DoA. I lose a turn of shooting, he deploys super close to me, and with some lucky reserve rolls, it can drop a lot of high priority targets very quickly onto the field (multiple units of deathcompany, etc)
83175
Post by: pinecone77
Well, I don't play Eldar, but a couple of things come to mind...1) Eldar are complaining about Tau?  Now to how to make it more challenging/fun. Play maelstrom, gunlines can't do didly in maelstrom, he will have to maneuver. . Also you're playing Harliquins, how the heck is he shooting you at long range? Use some Shadow Seers.
I suspect you may be targeting the wrong units in terms of order if the "only thing" you kill is Riptides...you need to kill Marker Lights, then the next easiest thing, etc. You may well Never target the Riptides because the game ends before you do. 
In some ways you two are perfect counters to each other, you have one of the best CC armies, and he has a shooting expert force. Maybe try mixing things up...Deep strike and kill his Sky Rays..? or something else other than slogging into a fire storm.
You guys should also add some Blocks LOS terrain to make maneuver a worthwhile enterprise.
Good luck! 
68803
Post by: Thariinye
A lot of people have already posted good stuff --
Play Maelstrom (or ITC, or anything that prevents gunlines) -- Tau are not especially good at holding objectives, and it forces them away from a static gunline.
Leadership Attacks & Psychic Powers -- Riptides are not fearless (iirc), and you are Eldar. You can Psychic Shriek/Terrify/Horrify them and anything else that isn't mech. Getting into melee with the Riptides also works. This is even more so if you're Harlequins -- you have that mask that lowers enemy leadership. Ally in Iyanden if you want and throw a bunch of Spiritseers and Wraithguard/Wraithblades around.
Use stuff that's hardy against Tau Firepower -- Tau long range is dominated by S5-S7, AP4 or worse, shooting. Unless they take Plasma/Melta drop suits, but that's close-ranged shots. That means 3+ saves and/or T6+ can help against Tau, because it forces them to throw away their drop suits or dedicate railguns/markerlighted Riptides to that target.
Fast Assault -- Anything that can get into CC with Tau by turn 2 will do well.
Imperial Knights -- others have said why they are good against Tau.
Line-of-Sight Blocking Terrain -- while it doesn't stop smart missiles, that's not a significant portion of Tau's shooting. Make sure that there's enough terrain on the table to prevent easy sight lines. This is NOT just cover, it's LOSB.
Know what to target -- Markerlight units should die quickly, and they're not hard to kill. If you feel you can't engage the Riptides, don't engage them. They don't do that much damage without marker light support, and you kill the Pathfinders as fast as you can. If they're running an Ethereal, Kill the Ethereal.
The reason Tau can be tough is that they play the game a bit differently than many other codices, but every codex has something that they can use against them, and TAC lists need to have some game plan against Tau and gunlines in general. Mauler fiends, Thunderwolves, Grav-bikers, are examples of units that can do work.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
I wasn't running Eldar, I was running Harlequins with DE allies-I have fought double hive-tyrant lists, triple knight lists, invisible Tigurius-star grav cent lists, and Serpentspam at least reasonably. My list is to some extent stuck (because fkin harlequins...) but nothing in it has a worthwhile answer to "I set up my figures on the board edge sitting on 3 maelstrom objectives and you will be tabled in 3 turns. I will never have to do anything in any phase except shooting"
The amount of terrain doesn't matter-you don't get cover saves. Bumrush doesn't matter-he can and will kill whatever's fast. Deep strike is useless-shooting does nothing to him and he gets to blow you away before you get to assault even if the Riptides die.
I mean, seriously? You recommend I bring Lascannons? It takes TWENTY-SEVEN Lascannon shots to down ONE tau tank. A 2k list can easily take three and two transports that are the same thing minus a main gun.
So let's see, my list is 16 las predators? Oh, with, this is seventh. I just need to go buy two 120$ imperial knights so I can play against one of the basic armies.
27797
Post by: Wolfblade
the_scotsman wrote:I wasn't running Eldar, I was running Harlequins with DE allies-I have fought double hive-tyrant lists, triple knight lists, invisible Tigurius-star grav cent lists, and Serpentspam at least reasonably. My list is to some extent stuck (because fkin harlequins...) but nothing in it has a worthwhile answer to "I set up my figures on the board edge sitting on 3 maelstrom objectives and you will be tabled in 3 turns. I will never have to do anything in any phase except shooting"
The amount of terrain doesn't matter-you don't get cover saves. Bumrush doesn't matter-he can and will kill whatever's fast. Deep strike is useless-shooting does nothing to him and he gets to blow you away before you get to assault even if the Riptides die.
I mean, seriously? You recommend I bring Lascannons? It takes TWENTY-SEVEN Lascannon shots to down ONE tau tank. A 2k list can easily take three and two transports that are the same thing minus a main gun.
So let's see, my list is 16 las predators? Oh, with, this is seventh. I just need to go buy two 120$ imperial knights so I can play against one of the basic armies.
See, I disagree here, Tau is far from OP. Good? Sure. Maybe even great. But their weakness is that they suck in melee. You get anything into melee with them, it's all over for that squad. Your best bet is either saturating the field with very high toughness models (i.e. wraith stuff), or lots of high AV stuff. Or getting a better alpha strike off, which is really hard to do vs tau.
And if he's playing unbound, then so should you. (Unless he was running a Farsight enclave/bodyguards there, that's an unbound list)
Do you have his exact list? I could give you much better advice if you have it.
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
Something like:
Longstrike in hammerhead
2x drop melta suit squads one of which had a commander with half a dozen special rules. Every single model could splitfire.
2x skyrays with markerlights
2x IA riptides
2x Devilfish with fire warrior squads inside.
I have Harlequins and DARK Eldar. Don't have access to fast and high toughness, just either/or, and not from the Harlequins. My main anti-tank units are haywire, vs MCs I rely on psychic powers and a splinterboat which has worked well so far and worked well this game (both riptides were dropped turn one by a psychic shriek and mirror of minds). For everything else, I simply couldn't get around the 3+ cover saves that literally every vehicle had. I had 6x haywire blasts on my bikes, scourges dropping with haywire blasters, a drop squad with 3x meltas and a haywire grenade. Melee was a non-possibility after turn 1 he just bulled through the invuln save on one of my transports and used seeker missiles for the other two. The drop troops simply died on arrival after he just laughed away their shooting with his slowed 3+ saves on everything for 15 points a pop.
It's just fething frustrating losing to somebody who doesnt even have to play anything but one phase of the entire game. He didn't move a single model the whole time, just put things down on the board and shot. Nothing made it past the halfway line on the board, and he could just sit there securing 3/6 objectives so he just steadily soaked up points.
Maybe Tau was added to the game so GW could break into the lucrative 5 year old market. Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, do you know how hard it is to find LOS blocking terrain? I don't have a 2-foot wall in my terrain collection, I've got buildings, and if the Tau can see one square inch of your model through the windows, welp, just need them 3+s to hit on the markerlights and then you might as well be standing in an open field  doesn't matter if you have stealth or shrouded or night fight (lolblacksunfiltersoneverything) we get super good cover saves all the time and you don't get gak.
27797
Post by: Wolfblade
the_scotsman wrote:Something like:
Longstrike in hammerhead
2x drop melta suit squads one of which had a commander with half a dozen special rules. Every single model could splitfire.
2x skyrays with markerlights
2x IA riptides
2x Devilfish with fire warrior squads inside.
I have Harlequins and DARK Eldar. Don't have access to fast and high toughness, just either/or, and not from the Harlequins. My main anti-tank units are haywire, vs MCs I rely on psychic powers and a splinterboat which has worked well so far and worked well this game (both riptides were dropped turn one by a psychic shriek and mirror of minds). For everything else, I simply couldn't get around the 3+ cover saves that literally every vehicle had. I had 6x haywire blasts on my bikes, scourges dropping with haywire blasters, a drop squad with 3x meltas and a haywire grenade. Melee was a non-possibility after turn 1 he just bulled through the invuln save on one of my transports and used seeker missiles for the other two. The drop troops simply died on arrival after he just laughed away their shooting with his slowed 3+ saves on everything for 15 points a pop.
It's just fething frustrating losing to somebody who doesnt even have to play anything but one phase of the entire game. He didn't move a single model the whole time, just put things down on the board and shot. Nothing made it past the halfway line on the board, and he could just sit there securing 3/6 objectives so he just steadily soaked up points.
Maybe Tau was added to the game so GW could break into the lucrative 5 year old market.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, do you know how hard it is to find LOS blocking terrain? I don't have a 2-foot wall in my terrain collection, I've got buildings, and if the Tau can see one square inch of your model through the windows, welp, just need them 3+s to hit on the markerlights and then you might as well be standing in an open field doesn't matter if you have stealth or shrouded or night fight (lolblacksunfiltersoneverything) we get super good cover saves all the time and you don't get gak.
Yeah, that sounds pretty brutal vs nonwraithdar dar. It's pretty tailored to killing dar actually imo. Skyrays have a lot of anti light vehicle power, while being vehicles themselves, and DE/Harlies are very cqc, so that helps them a ton. Which IA riptides are they? The largeblast one, or the flamer one? (might be thinking of the FW ones tho). They're called the XV109 (the flamer one) and the XV107 (large blast one), both being different than the "stock" riptide.
Also, if he can only see a small portion of your model, then IIRC, the rules say you get a better cover save, or something. I'd need to recheck that though.
Anyways, With whatcha got, your best would be bikes if ya got them, turboboost them as far as ya can, and assault with them just to tie up the riptides, and if you can, give them poisoned weapons/High strength/rending/instadeath/whatever, and more or less put them out of action. While those are doin that, maybe a ravager or whatever form of heavy weapons you have could try and focus down the skyrays, assuming they can be seen. And for crisis suits, slam a even just a warrior squad into them and you'll prolly get some decent results. Even better results if you give them a decent melee weapon.
But at the end of the day, I'm inclined to say he tailored that list, at least somewhat, to take eldar down. Your low saves and AV means skyrays can reliably shoot down anything, or pick off a tougher squad, riptides also can do it, but are actually better off with the heavy burst cannon than the ion accel, as only incubi have a 3+ iirc, meaning everything else that gets shot by them is BONED. It'll even kill most eldar vehicles decently (S6/AP4, heavy 8, or heavy 12 gets hot! with novacharge).
The only reason I would say it's not tailored completely is the crisis squads with meltas (they'd be better off with plas or missile pods), and the riptides since I don't know what kind of weapon they have (ion/HBC, or if it's one of the variants from FW)
edit: How was he getting 3+ cover saves on his vehicles? Disruption pods only ever add +1, so unless he was behind some massive cover for his tanks.
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Post by: Silverthorne
Smashfether and a storm shield gravity gun command squad with an attached librarian can pretty much solo a tau army if he went light on kroot and fire warriors. Without a balancing infantry section to flush out volume of fire command squad on bikes tend to roll up the entire tau battleline in a hurry. Bikers in general are more or less a hard counter for tau. Once the melta combat squads slag the sky rays the command squad becomes effectively invulnerable and will eat a riptide or tank per turn from 2 onwards
35241
Post by: HawaiiMatt
I like going up against tau.
With a limit of 2 formations/detachments,
I run 12 fast attack.
5 units of bikes, 5 beast packs, and 2 scourge.
It's all about target saturation. Try and marker like 12 different units. You just can't marker enough in time.
2/3rds of his firepower is over-kill, and half my units hit his lines.
BTW, armor of misery + tormentor grenade launcher is pretty good against Tau. They don't like taking Ld tests at -2, which ignore saves of any kind.
67872
Post by: ALEXisAWESOME
I also play Dark Harlies, and they will always have trouble against Eldar/Tau/Necrons mech because our best weaponry (haywire Blasters, Heat Lances) don't ignore cover.
Something I'd recommend is using Beta Strike. Almost everything important in a Dark Harlie army can Deepstrike or come from reserve with a massive 36'' move. You deepstrike down, with several threatening units, he will have trouble dealing with them. A great example is the Dark Artisan formation, I've been using it to great effect against Tau. T7 3+/4++ re-rolling 1's on FNP is very, very hard for Tau to take down. They just can't. If you place your objectives within striking distance of each other, you can have great board control with this unit. They also have a 12'' -1 Ld debuff, very useful for Quins.
Something you just have to try is Phantasm Grenade Launchers on your Raiders. Mask of Secrets + Coven formation means each Raider has a very potent chance to nuke an entire Riptide.
In my supposed Beta Strike i personally fit in an Autarch but you could have a unit of Harlequins with a Shadowseer behind an Aegis defense line with a comms relay, they'd be invincible with Veil of Tears up. Nothing will want to get close enough to scare them.
If you send me your list i could see what i could suggest in detail.
58881
Post by: Filch
You think tau is hard, have you fought necron decurion?
79132
Post by: fallinq
First, I just wanted to point out to the OP that just because his very-specific list is very good against your very-specific list, and you're willing to change very little in your list, doesn't make all Tau OP against everything. So please calm down.
Now, I'm not very up on the newest edition of Dark Eldar, and am totally unfamiliar with the Harlies, but you said you can't change much about your Harlequins anyway, so I'm going to focus on the DEldar. Talos may actually be useful here, being fairly fast, fairly tough, and deadly up close. Incubi in Raiders could be useful for closing on his suits and engaging them in CC. Incubi are brutal in CC and Tau suits are mediocre at best. Incubi also have a 3+ save, making them some of the most well protected units in a DE/Harlie army. You complained a lot about marker lights, but he really doesn't have that many. His two Skyrays can light up a max of two units per turn, and then if he uses marker lights on his fire warriors, that's four units, but he has to get his fire warriors out in the open for that, which leaves them very vulnerable. Fire Warriors are easy to kill. Just about anything you point at them is gonna do some damage. He takes a lot of vehicles, so load up on Dark Lances. You might also want to look into DE flyers. I'm not that familiar with them, but they could potentially be very useful.
Why is his cover save 3+ on all his vehicles? Is that an equipment upgrade? If he's getting cover saves from jinking, he should be snap-firing all his weapons the next turn, meaning he needs 6's to hit. Basically, I don't know how he could possibly be getting 3+ cover on all his vehicles without taking a shooting penalty. You might want to brush up on Tau rules and make sure he's playing fairly.
86805
Post by: Drasius
If he's deploying in ruins and buying disruption pods, then they get the 4+ from the ruin improved to a 3+ by the D-Pods without jinking. They can even move in and out with no checks if they buy sensor spines for, like, 5 points IIRC.
At the end of the day, yes, you've been doing quite well against others probably due to haywire being silly strong vs vehicles and DE being brutal like nothing else vs MC's. If your list can stomp face, why shouldn't you have a hard counter?
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
 fallinq wrote:First, I just wanted to point out to the OP that just because his very-specific list is very good against your very-specific list, and you're willing to change very little in your list, doesn't make all Tau OP against everything. So please calm down.
Now, I'm not very up on the newest edition of Dark Eldar, and am totally unfamiliar with the Harlies, but you said you can't change much about your Harlequins anyway, so I'm going to focus on the DEldar. Talos may actually be useful here, being fairly fast, fairly tough, and deadly up close. Incubi in Raiders could be useful for closing on his suits and engaging them in CC. Incubi are brutal in CC and Tau suits are mediocre at best. Incubi also have a 3+ save, making them some of the most well protected units in a DE/Harlie army. You complained a lot about marker lights, but he really doesn't have that many. His two Skyrays can light up a max of two units per turn, and then if he uses marker lights on his fire warriors, that's four units, but he has to get his fire warriors out in the open for that, which leaves them very vulnerable. Fire Warriors are easy to kill. Just about anything you point at them is gonna do some damage. He takes a lot of vehicles, so load up on Dark Lances. You might also want to look into DE flyers. I'm not that familiar with them, but they could potentially be very useful.
Why is his cover save 3+ on all his vehicles? Is that an equipment upgrade? If he's getting cover saves from jinking, he should be snap-firing all his weapons the next turn, meaning he needs 6's to hit. Basically, I don't know how he could possibly be getting 3+ cover on all his vehicles without taking a shooting penalty. You might want to brush up on Tau rules and make sure he's playing fairly.
I'm not "unwilling" to change up my list, have you seen the harlequin CAD? This is the flexible one:
3 mandatory troops choices. No optional ones.
2 mandatory FA choices. Choice of FA transports or bikers
1 mandatory HS choice.
And then you can have 7 elites (the three solo models are elites).
There's really not much you CAN change if you wanna play harlequins.
79132
Post by: fallinq
the_scotsman wrote: fallinq wrote:First, I just wanted to point out to the OP that just because his very-specific list is very good against your very-specific list, and you're willing to change very little in your list, doesn't make all Tau OP against everything. So please calm down.
Now, I'm not very up on the newest edition of Dark Eldar, and am totally unfamiliar with the Harlies, but you said you can't change much about your Harlequins anyway, so I'm going to focus on the DEldar. Talos may actually be useful here, being fairly fast, fairly tough, and deadly up close. Incubi in Raiders could be useful for closing on his suits and engaging them in CC. Incubi are brutal in CC and Tau suits are mediocre at best. Incubi also have a 3+ save, making them some of the most well protected units in a DE/Harlie army. You complained a lot about marker lights, but he really doesn't have that many. His two Skyrays can light up a max of two units per turn, and then if he uses marker lights on his fire warriors, that's four units, but he has to get his fire warriors out in the open for that, which leaves them very vulnerable. Fire Warriors are easy to kill. Just about anything you point at them is gonna do some damage. He takes a lot of vehicles, so load up on Dark Lances. You might also want to look into DE flyers. I'm not that familiar with them, but they could potentially be very useful.
Why is his cover save 3+ on all his vehicles? Is that an equipment upgrade? If he's getting cover saves from jinking, he should be snap-firing all his weapons the next turn, meaning he needs 6's to hit. Basically, I don't know how he could possibly be getting 3+ cover on all his vehicles without taking a shooting penalty. You might want to brush up on Tau rules and make sure he's playing fairly.
I'm not "unwilling" to change up my list, have you seen the harlequin CAD? This is the flexible one:
3 mandatory troops choices. No optional ones.
2 mandatory FA choices. Choice of FA transports or bikers
1 mandatory HS choice.
And then you can have 7 elites (the three solo models are elites).
There's really not much you CAN change if you wanna play harlequins.
Then try Unbound.
47877
Post by: Jefffar
Terrain.
Make sure there is lots of LoS blocking terrain that lets your army get closer without weathering as much firepower.
Synchronized assaults. Except for Longstrike, each Tau unit can only fire Overwatch once per turn weather it's to protect themselves or as part of supporting fire. So time your assaults so that you can jump on him with more than one unit a turn. Yeah he might wipe out one of the units, but the others will still get the jump on him.
Also the list I'm seeing he has like 4 markerlights plus possibly some drones in some of the other units. He should only be able to ignore cover for one or two shots a shooting phase that way.
27797
Post by: Wolfblade
fallinq wrote:the_scotsman wrote: fallinq wrote:First, I just wanted to point out to the OP that just because his very-specific list is very good against your very-specific list, and you're willing to change very little in your list, doesn't make all Tau OP against everything. So please calm down.
Now, I'm not very up on the newest edition of Dark Eldar, and am totally unfamiliar with the Harlies, but you said you can't change much about your Harlequins anyway, so I'm going to focus on the DEldar. Talos may actually be useful here, being fairly fast, fairly tough, and deadly up close. Incubi in Raiders could be useful for closing on his suits and engaging them in CC. Incubi are brutal in CC and Tau suits are mediocre at best. Incubi also have a 3+ save, making them some of the most well protected units in a DE/Harlie army. You complained a lot about marker lights, but he really doesn't have that many. His two Skyrays can light up a max of two units per turn, and then if he uses marker lights on his fire warriors, that's four units, but he has to get his fire warriors out in the open for that, which leaves them very vulnerable. Fire Warriors are easy to kill. Just about anything you point at them is gonna do some damage. He takes a lot of vehicles, so load up on Dark Lances. You might also want to look into DE flyers. I'm not that familiar with them, but they could potentially be very useful.
Why is his cover save 3+ on all his vehicles? Is that an equipment upgrade? If he's getting cover saves from jinking, he should be snap-firing all his weapons the next turn, meaning he needs 6's to hit. Basically, I don't know how he could possibly be getting 3+ cover on all his vehicles without taking a shooting penalty. You might want to brush up on Tau rules and make sure he's playing fairly.
I'm not "unwilling" to change up my list, have you seen the harlequin CAD? This is the flexible one:
3 mandatory troops choices. No optional ones.
2 mandatory FA choices. Choice of FA transports or bikers
1 mandatory HS choice.
And then you can have 7 elites (the three solo models are elites).
There's really not much you CAN change if you wanna play harlequins.
Then try Unbound.
This ^ try unbound if all else fails. Should free up points in a lot of areas, and by the looks of it, he's already playing unbound with 4 elites (assuming non FW riptides, and both of those crisis suit teams are 3 models before the commander)
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Post by: the_scotsman
2 Riptides, 1 crisis bodyguard team, 1 crisis team...I think that's three elites.
Unbound is an option, but doesn't really get me much. I guess I could swap out the skyweavers for slightly more cost-efficient Reaver jetbikes from the DE, and drop the craptastic voidweaver, maybe calling it a venom, but I have never seen someone run unbound where I play. It's not really kosher.
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Post by: Wolfblade
the_scotsman wrote:2 Riptides, 1 crisis bodyguard team, 1 crisis team...I think that's three elites.
Unbound is an option, but doesn't really get me much. I guess I could swap out the skyweavers for slightly more cost-efficient Reaver jetbikes from the DE, and drop the craptastic voidweaver, maybe calling it a venom, but I have never seen someone run unbound where I play. It's not really kosher.
This is one of the few cases I'd say it's fine, he's pretty much tailor built a list for anti eldar (not perfectly, but pretty close). I really doubt this list would be effective outside of something similar. Throwing it vs an IG army with tanks, or really anything with more than a few big dangerous tanks (i.e. a couple land raiders with some assaulty stuff, or a droppod/deepstrike/infil/bike/mech based army). Normally I'd say follow the force org chart, just because unbound is normally for cheesing even worse than normal. And yeah, he's following the force org chart, with what he's brought.
You can drop one or two of the harly troops for another DE unit/vehicle to saturate the board and hopefully get some more shots off at his tanks. Same with fast attack stuff, if DE stuff is cheaper/more effective, obvious choice there. Really unbound all comes down to whether or not it's a friendly game, and how others feel about unbound. Honestly I don't know enough about the harly book to say whether or not their good allies for DE, but I don't think they make up for DE's shortcomings (weak/fragile units, mostly short range iirc)
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Post by: Vaeleria
That's actually a pretty weak Tau list. Not much markerlights coming from that, the Riptides suck without support. Only real thread is the Commander-Team for it's rules.
As many have pointed out, fast units are good, but....you have acess to one of the quickest and easiest ways to kill off those big Suits, The Mask of Secrets + the Dark Eldar Armor...then add a little bit of Telepathy and they go down..if not, shoot a grenade at them. As for the vehicles, just two of them are really dangerous, the skyrays. They shine most when working with other parts of a Tau army though, either rob that from them, or rob the tanks to drastically weaken other units.
Harlies and DE alike have some good ways to deal with tanks, try haywire-scourges for example. Add some nasty little haywire-grenade throwing and they're doomed. The Hero's Path is a sneaky formation that should do you good service against Tau. Three characters, all capable of shredding tanks and infantry alike, with stealth and shrouded along with an Invul...okay, not as good against the missile system, but once they have jinked it's easy, especially when the skyrays have to jink.
You should concentrate on those at first, ignore the riptides as they're just fatal when having markerlights around. After that you can rip his commander team, as those guys will kill a tank or two (no way around that), but after that they're chargable, the morale-debuff + shriek works wonders here, or even better, if you manage to kill a member of them with a Death Jester, let them run into your open arms.
It's not that his army is strong, it's rather that you should try new ways of playing your own, as there are almost no matches that can't be won...unless you're fighting against a hard counter for your own list (and even then a loss isn't necessarily the outcome).
In my region, Tau are considered strong, but not top of the food chain...there are bigger fish out there. Try fighting an Adepta Sororita Army and you'll see that Tau are rather nice to fight against Eldar, regardless if clown, Sinister or Ascetic ;3
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Post by: HawaiiMatt
Here's the type of list that I'm going to run:
2x Real Space Raider Detachments
Archon, Webway portal
1 Court of the Archon, Lhaeamen
4x 5 warriors, blaster
5x3 Reaver Jetbikes, cluster caltrops
5x5 beast pack, 1 beastmaster +4 khymerae each
2x5 Scourage, 4 haywire blasters each
3x3 Incubi, each in venoms (no upgrades)
3x3 mandrakes
Harliquins:
Cast of Players
5 Troupe (all with kiss)
1 Death Jester
1 Shadowseer (level 2)
Just under 1850.
The idea is to just bum rush and take the hits.
Mandrakes, Incubi, reavers and beast packs all threaten a turn 2 charge. That's 16 units that he's got to deal with, ASAP. You just can't kill them all, some of them are going to make it into combat.
Archon joins the harliquins and comes down bringing help where it is needed. Shadowseer tries to keep the unit alive by limiting shooting at them.
4x Warriors get largely ignored, due to all the other threats.
Seriously, MSU will crush that tau build, he's only got a handful of units and just can't target enough of the enemy.
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Post by: Massaen
With veil of tears and riding crescendo, there is no reason other than bad luck to not be charging the tau with the quinns. You are completely immune to his guns outside of 24" and almost the same at 18-24". Attach a shadow seer to the haywire bikes and enjoy his frustration at not being able to kill them! I would be running 4-6 shadow seers all with veil to really put pressure on him to engage you. Adding SS to scourge units also works well
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Post by: Alcibiades
Believe it or not, Tau are inefficient at shooting without some kind of force multiplier (markerlights, cadre fireblades, etherials). Point for point, for instance (assuming they can get out of the 24"-30" zone of course), Guardsmen with lasguns will outshoot Fire Warriors. This isn't melee, mind you, this is shooting.
It's almost eerily as if somebody designed them that way on purpose... 
From which it follows that you destroy the force multipliers if possible as early as you can.
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Post by: EmpNortonII
Back in the day, in old WH, there were four phases of the game.
Movement
Shooting
Melee
Magic (Psychic)
Popular theory held that you had to win at least two of these phases to win a game.
While games don't always translate well, I'm a fan of Lizardmen. Lizardmen, like Tau, were an army that always loses two of these against almost any opponent. Unlike Tau, their strong points were magic and melee. Lizardmen are the anti-Tau... but like Tau, they were pretty much set to lose two parts of a four-part game.
You are currently winning half the game. You're just losing the other half hard enough to lose. Think about it.
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Post by: DaPino
First off, I have to say I tend to agree with OP on one thing. It's hard to hacefun playing against Tau.
It's not so much that it's hard to deal with them as it is that Tau just reduce the tactical aspect of the game by a pretty large margin.
Because they can get AP 2 on just about any unit worth fielding, armor saves become something you don't evem bother with when making a list.
You can't outmanoeuvre what isn't manoeuvering and that's really all I have to say about that.
Markerlights, boy do I hate them. Because of them, any cover that does not block LOS gets reduced to a hindrance as opposed to a strategic asset that poses both advantage and disadvantage to both players. It works almost exclusively to the benefit of Tau players. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there was any sort of counterplay or downside to them except for "go stand where they can't see you". Supposedly, them being heavy counts as being a downside but their range is big enough that they don't have to bother moving unless you can block LOS.
In tournaments it's even worse. They are not played on a zone mortalis, quite the opposite actually, so even that blocking LOS is stripped away from you as an option.
"Having to work around that" is not adding strategy to the game as I've heard some people claim. Guess what, if you strip several layers of strategy and then "add" 1, that still leaves you with reduced tactical layers.
Tau are like campers with a wall hack aiming down the only corridor that can acces them. The only "strategy" you can relibablely use is not going through the corridor. There might be one crate in that corridor he can't shoot through but I wouldn't consider it a reliable wau to deal with him.
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Post by: gmaleron
Here we go again and the worst part is that the Tau player didn't even take a "Power List" as people call it, the Fish of Fury approach has been around since the Tau have been and has always been decent, also I am somewhat confused by the OP's comments, you cant have an objective within 12 inches of the board so how was he getting his objectives while "sitting on the edge of the table"? If you don't have anything designed to get in close to shooty ARMIES because its not just Tau that can pull it off then you might want to change some things up in your list so this doesn't happen again. And a few other things:
-The Tau are NOT OP, seriously people stop complaining about it, since 7th they have severely dropped in power.
-Markerlights have been around since the start of the Tau and they are something that makes the Tau unique. Also guess what almost every army has something that ignores cover and access to something that others don't, except IoM armies they have everything. However I do agree that going back to "a Marker Light to remove a single point of cover" approach wouldn't be the end of the world. But if you guys are really having issue taking out a T3 or 4 Model with a 4+ save at best then maybe something needs to change, there are more ways to handle them then just "stand out of line of sight" if you look around the tactica.
-Not all Tau players run Gunlines, in fact the vast majority I have seen utilize their mobility in either Vehicles or Suits to the best of their ability and in fact Gunlines STRUGGLE in this edition more often then not.
-Yes we have access to AP2 Weaponry but so do Space Marines, IG ect. The argument can not be made soley for the Tau.
-Funny you say how its worse in Tournaments when I don't believe Tau has ever won one of the bigger ones since 7th's inception?
The point im trying to make is instead of coping out saying "Tau are just OP" maybe look around other threads and such before hand to get some tactical ideas? I know that myself and other Tau players who often play other armies have posted lots of tactics, ideas ect. on here. I don't know much about the Harlequins but if you have Dark Eldar in your army why not take advantage of the masses of Dark Lances you can get? Not only would it knock all their armor down to 12 and give you some reliable anti-tank but would also keep fire off of your Harlequins. Wyches in Raiders with Haywire or anything with Haywire for that matter is great against Mech lists in general.
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Post by: DaPino
 gmaleron wrote:Here we go again and the worst part is that the Tau player didn't even take a "Power List" as people call it, the Fish of Fury approach has been around since the Tau have been and has always been decent, also I am somewhat confused by the OP's comments, you cant have an objective within 12 inches of the board so how was he getting his objectives while "sitting on the edge of the table"? If you don't have anything designed to get in close to shooty ARMIES because its not just Tau that can pull it off then you might want to change some things up in your list so this doesn't happen again. And a few other things:
-The Tau are NOT OP, seriously people stop complaining about it, since 7th they have severely dropped in power.
-Markerlights have been around since the start of the Tau and they are something that makes the Tau unique. Also guess what almost every army has something that ignores cover and access to something that others don't, except IoM armies they have everything. However I do agree that going back to "a Marker Light to remove a single point of cover" approach wouldn't be the end of the world. But if you guys are really having issue taking out a T3 or 4 Model with a 4+ save at best then maybe something needs to change, there are more ways to handle them then just "stand out of line of sight" if you look around the tactica.
-Not all Tau players run Gunlines, in fact the vast majority I have seen utilize their mobility in either Vehicles or Suits to the best of their ability and in fact Gunlines STRUGGLE in this edition more often then not.
-Yes we have access to AP2 Weaponry but so do Space Marines, IG ect. The argument can not be made soley for the Tau.
-Funny you say how its worse in Tournaments when I don't believe Tau has ever won one of the bigger ones since 7th's inception?
The point im trying to make is instead of coping out saying "Tau are just OP" maybe look around other threads and such before hand to get some tactical ideas? I know that myself and other Tau players who often play other armies have posted lots of tactics, ideas ect. on here. I don't know much about the Harlequins but if you have Dark Eldar in your army why not take advantage of the masses of Dark Lances you can get? Not only would it knock all their armor down to 12 and give you some reliable anti-tank but would also keep fire off of your Harlequins. Wyches in Raiders with Haywire or anything with Haywire for that matter is great against Mech lists in general.
It's not about "having X or Y", it's about being able to put X on every unit you own and being able to give Y to any weapon.
Yes I might have A weapon with ignores cover but I sure as hell don't have the possibility to give every single weapon in my army ignores cover, especially not Str 7/8 AP2 large blasts.
They might not be OP but they sure as hell are boring to play against and require very little skill to actually command. A Tau player once let me play his army to 'truely show me that Tau weren't as easy as I made them out to be'. Let's just say it didn't turn out as he had planned.
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Post by: angelofvengeance
I've found aircraft to be quite effective vs Tau (Mainly cause my buddy has just started Tau and doesn't really have anything in the way of AA. Muahahaha)
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Post by: DaPino
 angelofvengeance wrote:I've found aircraft to be quite effective vs Tau (Mainly cause my buddy has just started Tau and doesn't really have anything in the way of AA. Muahahaha)
Until he figures he can give just about any model skyfire and interceptor for 25 points.
Enjoy that riptide shredding your plane before being able to do as much as shoot once.
Again, not saying it's OP, just just annoying as feth.
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Post by: Dracoknight
I would like to put in a note that doesnt seem to be answered:
You can take a team of 2 crisis suits as a part of the bodyguard squad that DOESNT count towards the force org chart.
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Post by: gmaleron
DaPino wrote:It's not about "having X or Y", it's about being able to put X on every unit you own and being able to give Y to any weapon.
Yes I might have A weapon with ignores cover but I sure as hell don't have the possibility to give every single weapon in my army ignores cover, especially not Str 7/8 AP2 large blasts.
They might not be OP but they sure as hell are boring to play against and require very little skill to actually command. A Tau player once let me play his army to 'truely show me that Tau weren't as easy as I made them out to be'. Let's just say it didn't turn out as he had planned.
You fail to take into account that you have to pay a good number of points in order to do that on T3 or 4 models with either a 5+ or 4+ save, if you really are having issues taking them out then there is a lot more wrong with your list. And that is your opinion that they are boring to play against and your completely wrong that they don't take skill to play. Its GUNLINES as a whole that have little to no tactical ability don't make it just the Tau.
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Post by: ArbitorIan
I play tau sometimes, and one of the annoying things I find is people with a longer range than me. The vast majority of tau shooting only really works well at around 36". The firepower at that range is colossal, but over 36" I have very little, and I really don't want to be the one moving TOWARDS the enemy!
If you can build a list with a longer range than that, stay more than 36" away, and have some decent, fast counterattack units it's becomes quite scary for the tau player.
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Post by: Vaeleria
Well, as many said before, gunlines are rather struggling than winning easily in the new edition, be that because of maelstorm where they truly suck, or because the game's style changed into a quicker - less "shoot and nothing else" - way.
And the problem that it's not fun to play against Tau is rather silly, any stand-and-shoot list is boring to play against, not just Tau.
Now you can try to solve that with more range, yay, what was that again, boring?...or by other means. To find those is an elementary part of tactic development anda thing that is quite fun to me, trying new concepts on the field and have them work is a reward not only of good dice, but also planning, understanding what your army and your enemy's is capable of and then finding the right blade that pierces the enemy's defenses.
Tau armies are scary as they're able to adapt to nearly any enviorment, armies that have a build going good against any kind of enemy are scary, but not unbeatable. They're a tough cookie, no doubt, but looking at the Harlequins' dex and the options they have...I fear them more honestly.
Tried to play Troupes with Fusion Pistols? Deep-Striking them next to the targets you want to annihilate? Yes, interceptor let's him fire at you, if he can get a line of sight..and no markerlights in there. So just let the vehicle jink, then rip him apart....this works against tanks and suits alike, adding a shadowseer makes it even easier, Shriek one unit, then puliverize the other, even if the shriek isn't enough to finish them in one go, a highly reduced unit's effectiveness drops rapidly, especially if you consider force multipliers, as they're easily wasted on a single model.
Just my 2 cents on that.
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Post by: Martel732
That being said, it's still a shooting edition. Pure shooting still works quite often because a crippled list can't secure objectives well.
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Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
the_scotsman wrote: Wolfblade wrote:Coming from a "traditional" (aka force org chart), instead of a pure mech army (assuming he was playing unbound?):
Fast moving assault troops: Either deepstriking, infil, etc. Anything to tie up shooting, or deny it (i.e. blocking LoS)
Better shooting: While some will argue this, the new skitarii rangers (for example) can really go toe to toe with tau firewarriors, and probably come out ahead. Obviously, this isn't the best way to go, but have some good shooting to go with your fast melee. Unless you're doing a full deepstrike army, then they'll just be focused down very quickly.
If he's doing a full cheese all vehicle army, then just play to counter him honestly. Get Lascannons/whatever anti tank you have to fight back.
His list was 2x Riptides 2x Devilfish 2x skyrays long strike and 2 squads of melta drop crisis suits.
Any fast troops he'd just pummel with ignore cover rockets until their transport is dead, or drown in AP2 blasts. Any deep striker needs to weather 2 AP2 large blasts. Skiitari can fight fire warriors, but not S6 AP4 large blasts.
2+ knights kill them. An invisible 12" move Death Star kills them. AV14 might stand a chance until the meltas drop. Serpentspam just barely out-cheeses them.
But if I don't have my own cheese list to put up? Everything in the tau Dex except for a handful of really obvious REALLY bad units just wins by default against everything that's not a super top tier WAAC list.
You were playing Harlequin, your shadowseers for foot troops should not have allowed him to shoot at ANYTHING they're rolling with from beyond 24". Everything in the army has a 5+ invul save, and your bikes/ vehicles have a 4+ invul save instead of jinking once per game. They are insanely fast, so he should have one turn to try and drop them. If he has no line of sight he can't shoot, with the exception of smart missiles, and these aren't going to drop a single bike on average. Unless your table was totally open, and you didn't spend turn one turboboosting into his face, I don't actually see how you could have lost.
Edit, there is no way he is sitting on those objectives all at once. They must be 6" from board edge, 12" from each other, you take turns placing them one at a time, you place them before you determine what deployment type you have, then you roll off to see which side you want to deploy on. For him to be able to do what you said, he would have to place all of his objectives on a long table edge, the roll up dawn of war deployment, then win the rolloff to see where he deployed, then spread his "gun line" of a few vehicles and suits over a two foot area but somehow all in cover while you failed every cover save and feel no pain slowly driving towards him over complaetly open ground.
This is starting to seem a bit silly, I don't think your loss had anything to do with his list or army. He either cheated, or you both need to get in more games of 7th. (I never thought I would say this)
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Post by: throwoff
There are several ways to counter Tau, although the list you played against is top level high powered cheese.
I play my Marines against Tau regularly and find the trick is to ignore Riptides, go after their troops, get onto objectives and make them move their stuff to counter you.
I sometimes use my brothers Tau army myself and yes it is Cheese running a buffmander in a squad of suits, parking a Hammerhead in the corner taking S10 shots at anything you fancy while my Riptide bounces around and so on but enough times I have had it beaten by clever players who nuke my markerlights turn one, even if they have to fire every gun they have at them and then force me to relocate as they rush out a nick every objective on the table.
Tau work when they are set up to work, you break the formation, pull them into the open...
3+ saves on crisis suits won't last..
4+ Firewarriors and 5+ pathfinders? hell even Lasguns can sort them out en mass.
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Post by: Martel732
If you don't have a gravstar, you pretty much have to ignore the Riptides. Because you are wasting your fire otherwise.
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Post by: the_scotsman
gmaleron wrote:Wyches in Raiders with Haywire or anything with Haywire for that matter is great against Mech lists in general.
Ok, as to the first part right there...
You just made every Dark Eldar player cry. It must be fun to have an army that can take options and upgrades
And additionally, my list had:
2x 3 bikes each with a haywire small blast
scourges with 4x Haywire
no scatter deep strike with 3x melta 1x haywire grenade
So I had myself plenty of dang haywire.
The way we set up the board there were several ruined buildings in and around the board area. He set his three objectives up 12" from his board edge one on one side, one in the middle, one on the other side, all in the ruined buildings. He sat one tank in each ruin, with the Devilfish out in the open (they would just jink if shot at and he knew they were not priority). So he was within the control range of 3 objectives, 2 of which had objective secured troops. The riptides were in the open. He got first turn, I deployed the best I could behind ruins, but there was no way to hide the ENTIRETY of my tank behind a ruin that had windows. So two starweavers got markerlit and blown up, and the third jinked one nova charged ion accelerator but failed to jink longstrike's shot and exploded. One troupe died to the other riptide (still haven't gone yet, so no "OMG y you didnt veil??"). Only things left in transports are splinterboats that can't do anything because he has no infantry, just tanks.
Then in my psychic phase, I took out the only two things on his side of the board with leadership values, the Riptides. I got one Veil up, failed the other one. Tried to shoot with haywire bikes, 6 shots failed to connect due to scatter and 3+ cover from the ruins the parking lot was parked in.
Turn 2, his deep strikers came in, instant deathed the bikes with melta and I had almost nothing left on the board. My deep strikers come in, again 3+ cover makes absolutely nothing happen. I chip one HP off of longstrike. His turn 3 he finished tabling me. Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, I like how everyone here is assuming he had infantry troops somewhere I could get to... why bother with that when you can just buy an AV12 transport with 3+ jink to keep them safe while you secure objectives with them?
2 min squads of troops and that's all you really have to take. Anything else is just for markerlights, and the only tanks that are really reliant on those you can just take them networked... Automatically Appended Next Post:  Vaeleria wrote:
Tried to play Troupes with Fusion Pistols? Deep-Striking them next to the targets you want to annihilate? Yes, interceptor let's him fire at you, if he can get a line of sight..and no markerlights in there. So just let the vehicle jink, then rip him apart....this works against tanks and suits alike, adding a shadowseer makes it even easier, Shriek one unit, then puliverize the other, even if the shriek isn't enough to finish them in one go, a highly reduced unit's effectiveness drops rapidly, especially if you consider force multipliers, as they're easily wasted on a single model.
Just my 2 cents on that.
Yeah, by the time they came in everything else was dead. he jinked one tank, saved all three melta pens and then on his turn just blew them up with a longstrike pie plate and SMSes.
I dunno why you're afraid of harlequins. A pure melee army with 24pt T3 models with 5+ saves... ooh, scary. Let alone the fact that I have to ally in DE to even deep strike those meltas, there's no native deep strike in the Harlequins dex.
No native anything really. No alternate deployment, no anti-air, no vehicles with higher than 10 AV HP2, no models with higher than T3, no saves better than 3+, no models worth taking as warlord that get warlord traits, no interceptor, no weapons with range higher than 24", one model with more than 2 wounds... It's like if Orks only had trukks, boyz, warbosses and deffbuggies.
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Post by: HawaiiMatt
the_scotsman wrote: gmaleron wrote:Wyches in Raiders with Haywire or anything with Haywire for that matter is great against Mech lists in general.
Ok, as to the first part right there...
You just made every Dark Eldar player cry. It must be fun to have an army that can take options and upgrades
And additionally, my list had:
2x 3 bikes each with a haywire small blast
scourges with 4x Haywire
no scatter deep strike with 3x melta 1x haywire grenade
So I had myself plenty of dang haywire.
Sky Weavers are T5 and don't get ID by melta, and do get the 5+ invul save.
Don't shoot with bikes, CHARGE!!! I wanted to make the shooting work on jet bikes, but the reality is, you pretty much want to be jinking and only shoot if its free, or something you can snap fire.
If you feel that you must take harliquin jetbikes ( DE ones are better and cheaper), then take the glaives.
8 S5 attacks on the charge is going to do more than haywire.
It's 130 points for 2 hayware/glaive Skyweavers.
63 points gets you D6 S6 rending HoW, 2 S4 rending HoW, and 9 S3 attacks (which might get combat drugs for S4, and will get furious charge on turn 4).
At close to half the cost, the Reaver wych bikes are massively better.
-Matt
84790
Post by: zerosignal
Harlequins kinda suck.
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
the_scotsman wrote: gmaleron wrote:Wyches in Raiders with Haywire or anything with Haywire for that matter is great against Mech lists in general.
Ok, as to the first part right there...
You just made every Dark Eldar player cry. It must be fun to have an army that can take options and upgrades
And additionally, my list had:
2x 3 bikes each with a haywire small blast
scourges with 4x Haywire
no scatter deep strike with 3x melta 1x haywire grenade
So I had myself plenty of dang haywire.
The way we set up the board there were several ruined buildings in and around the board area. He set his three objectives up 12" from his board edge one on one side, one in the middle, one on the other side, all in the ruined buildings. He sat one tank in each ruin, with the Devilfish out in the open (they would just jink if shot at and he knew they were not priority). So he was within the control range of 3 objectives, 2 of which had objective secured troops. The riptides were in the open. He got first turn, I deployed the best I could behind ruins, but there was no way to hide the ENTIRETY of my tank behind a ruin that had windows. So two starweavers got markerlit and blown up, and the third jinked one nova charged ion accelerator but failed to jink longstrike's shot and exploded. One troupe died to the other riptide (still haven't gone yet, so no "OMG y you didnt veil??"). Only things left in transports are splinterboats that can't do anything because he has no infantry, just tanks.
Then in my psychic phase, I took out the only two things on his side of the board with leadership values, the Riptides. I got one Veil up, failed the other one. Tried to shoot with haywire bikes, 6 shots failed to connect due to scatter and 3+ cover from the ruins the parking lot was parked in.
Turn 2, his deep strikers came in, instant deathed the bikes with melta and I had almost nothing left on the board. My deep strikers come in, again 3+ cover makes absolutely nothing happen. I chip one HP off of longstrike. His turn 3 he finished tabling me.
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Also, I like how everyone here is assuming he had infantry troops somewhere I could get to... why bother with that when you can just buy an AV12 transport with 3+ jink to keep them safe while you secure objectives with them?
2 min squads of troops and that's all you really have to take. Anything else is just for markerlights, and the only tanks that are really reliant on those you can just take them networked...
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Vaeleria wrote:
Tried to play Troupes with Fusion Pistols? Deep-Striking them next to the targets you want to annihilate? Yes, interceptor let's him fire at you, if he can get a line of sight..and no markerlights in there. So just let the vehicle jink, then rip him apart....this works against tanks and suits alike, adding a shadowseer makes it even easier, Shriek one unit, then puliverize the other, even if the shriek isn't enough to finish them in one go, a highly reduced unit's effectiveness drops rapidly, especially if you consider force multipliers, as they're easily wasted on a single model.
Just my 2 cents on that.
Yeah, by the time they came in everything else was dead. he jinked one tank, saved all three melta pens and then on his turn just blew them up with a longstrike pie plate and SMSes.
I dunno why you're afraid of harlequins. A pure melee army with 24pt T3 models with 5+ saves... ooh, scary. Let alone the fact that I have to ally in DE to even deep strike those meltas, there's no native deep strike in the Harlequins dex.
No native anything really. No alternate deployment, no anti-air, no vehicles with higher than 10 AV HP2, no models with higher than T3, no saves better than 3+, no models worth taking as warlord that get warlord traits, no interceptor, no weapons with range higher than 24", one model with more than 2 wounds... It's like if Orks only had trukks, boyz, warbosses and deffbuggies.
What you are missing is he DIDN'T HAVE A BOARD EDGE WHEN YOU WERE PLACING OBJECTIVES!!!
Deployment type and determining edges are both done after you have placed objectives. Your bikes and skimmers have a stock 5+ invul save, and a one use 4+ invul save they can use instead of jinking. So his marker lights didn't mean diddly. You have options for deployment, 4 traits on the light table will give you options, and the heroes path let's you infiltrate a trio of serious threats into the midfield with stealth and shrouded (which would give you a 2+ cover save to help with your survivability issues)
Your lack of knowledge in the Harlequin codex doesn't make the tau harder to beat, it just means you need to play more games with them.
94103
Post by: Yarium
I don't tend to enjoy playing against Tau, but that's only because I don't enjoy that style of play. There's not wrong with their style of play, and I don't think they're overpowered, just that they've always felt like big wimps :-P. I do very much respect players that use them though, because they know that jumping in and out of range is a very strong way to play. I'm just sad when all my stuff is dead by the time I'm really able to start engaging them on my turns.
And that's why I so often failed. I engaged the Tau on their terms. It's a fight you won't often win unless you're just OP yourself. I'm excited to play against Tau with the Harlequins, because of Veil of Tears! With that power and a few other useful ones, I'll be able to stay back on my own objectives and force them to come closer. Remember, Veil of Tears even works against Smart Missiles! With Harlequins you can do your own "jump in and out" dance. In fact - you should be able to do it better. Also, with their Initiative 2, and your access to Eldar friends and Psychic Powers, try to get lots of Blind tests on them. I'm sure that without too much difficulty you'll be able to force nearly their whole army to always be snap firing - and THAT works very well for you ;-)
Good luck!
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
 HawaiiMatt wrote:the_scotsman wrote: gmaleron wrote:Wyches in Raiders with Haywire or anything with Haywire for that matter is great against Mech lists in general.
Ok, as to the first part right there...
You just made every Dark Eldar player cry. It must be fun to have an army that can take options and upgrades
And additionally, my list had:
2x 3 bikes each with a haywire small blast
scourges with 4x Haywire
no scatter deep strike with 3x melta 1x haywire grenade
So I had myself plenty of dang haywire.
Sky Weavers are T5 and don't get ID by melta, and do get the 5+ invul save.
Don't shoot with bikes, CHARGE!!! I wanted to make the shooting work on jet bikes, but the reality is, you pretty much want to be jinking and only shoot if its free, or something you can snap fire.
If you feel that you must take harliquin jetbikes ( DE ones are better and cheaper), then take the glaives.
8 S5 attacks on the charge is going to do more than haywire.
It's 130 points for 2 hayware/glaive Skyweavers.
63 points gets you D6 S6 rending HoW, 2 S4 rending HoW, and 9 S3 attacks (which might get combat drugs for S4, and will get furious charge on turn 4).
At close to half the cost, the Reaver wych bikes are massively better.
-Matt
Bet you a shiny dime they're T4. Got my codex right here. I took the 5+ invuln on one squad, and the 4+ on the other. He'd dropped a riptide blast on one the turn before forcing me to waste the invuln saving them. Automatically Appended Next Post:  Yarium wrote:I don't tend to enjoy playing against Tau, but that's only because I don't enjoy that style of play. There's not wrong with their style of play, and I don't think they're overpowered, just that they've always felt like big wimps :-P. I do very much respect players that use them though, because they know that jumping in and out of range is a very strong way to play. I'm just sad when all my stuff is dead by the time I'm really able to start engaging them on my turns.
And that's why I so often failed. I engaged the Tau on their terms. It's a fight you won't often win unless you're just OP yourself. I'm excited to play against Tau with the Harlequins, because of Veil of Tears! With that power and a few other useful ones, I'll be able to stay back on my own objectives and force them to come closer. Remember, Veil of Tears even works against Smart Missiles! With Harlequins you can do your own "jump in and out" dance. In fact - you should be able to do it better. Also, with their Initiative 2, and your access to Eldar friends and Psychic Powers, try to get lots of Blind tests on them. I'm sure that without too much difficulty you'll be able to force nearly their whole army to always be snap firing - and THAT works very well for you ;-)
Good luck!
That's great, but
A) Veil of tears does NOT work in starweavers. You know. The things you need for your troops to have a snowflake's chance in hell of closing the gap between you and a tau tank.
B) Veil of tears is a power you have to get off, and not have denied on every single squad every single turn for this to work at all, otherwise he'll just blow away whatever squad didn't get it off.
C) He can sit 18" away at his leisure and just try and try all day until he gets a nine, then a troupe is gone. Or he can just ignore your footslogging melee infantry until they're close enough that he can pop in a little ways and wipe them, and use his early turns to blow away anything else you've got.
All in all, veil of tears is just the "wait til' you get unlucky" game. It's an extremely unreliable buff and with each shadowseer bringing at best two dice, odds are you'll be failing one per turn trying to keep it up on three troupes.
94739
Post by: Vaeleria
If there's not a single vector to aim from into a ruin that means his Line of sight is rather obstructed, too. Important for the markerlights on the Skyrays.
If it's that necessary, then keep one troupe hidden by a shadow-seer, or just the infiltrators and let the rest deep strike. Target overload is a thing that should be possible...
Devilfishs only have the SMS going for them, other than that they're rather averagy with tankyness.
Also...that list isn't a hardcore list..it's actually pretty weak. You can't see why I'm afraid of Harlies?...Quick units, high BS and WS along with Ini above most average troops, the ability to tailor each unit for their designated target to make it an almost sure kill...yeah, right, nothing to fear there.
Riptides are rather bad without marklights, as is Longshot (if not the worst tank they have, but that's a general hammerhead problem).
I tend to believe that there are no useless units, nor that there are things one can't beat. But Eldar in general are not an easy army, every mistake is severly punished. Minimizing that problem should help you out a lot more than building a list that is tailored to beat his..
There's more than one way to win this game after all, picking the right is what can determine a victory or loss even before the game started...
35310
Post by: the_scotsman
OK next time I'll just take Heroes Path! That'll let me infiltrate with stealth and shrouded golly gosh that'll really help
against...
against the tau.
oh, right. It'd really help against any other gunline except tau, because tau.
94739
Post by: Vaeleria
What you might should try is the normal minimum-sized detachment of harlies, aka 3 Troups in cars. 2 Units Bikes and a voidweaver. Add the Heroes path two times and 2 Shadowseers in the primary detachment..roll with all of them on telepathy and then go shred him.
Boosting up into his deployment zone should be a piece of cake, so you have 3 Troupes, 2 Biker Units, 2 Solitairs and 2 Death Jesters at your hands to dispose of his stuff. With a bit of luck you might even roll neat powers, getting 2-3 off should be easy with 8+d6 charges...invisible Solitair?..or Shrouding all of your vulnerable units, forcing him to spend all of his markerlights to ignore cover to get a descent hit in...just overload his armies capabilities...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and even if you doN't win, having him sweat because there are 11 units close to or even within his deployment zone should get you some fun out of it.
68803
Post by: Thariinye
the_scotsman wrote:OK next time I'll just take Heroes Path! That'll let me infiltrate with stealth and shrouded golly gosh that'll really help
against...
against the tau.
oh, right. It'd really help against any other gunline except tau, because tau.
......
B) Veil of tears is a power you have to get off, and not have denied on every single squad every single turn for this to work at all, otherwise he'll just blow away whatever squad didn't get it off.
Tau has to expend two Markerlight hits to be able to ignore cover against those three models. If you're playing Harlequins and DE, you're running semi- MSU already. The Tau list you showed can't afford to spend Markerlight hits willy nilly to do Ignores Cover, because they have to use two for every shooting attack to do that, and then they need to use them to make their BS a reasonable value, for each attack. Yes, if you throw your threats at them one at a time on open ground, a whole Tau gunline will destroy your army. So don't do that. If you present a Tau gunline with many targets that all need Ignores Cover, Tau cannot deal with them all at once.
Devilfish aren't very good -- they have the survivability of a Wave Serpent without its shield for comparable points cost (much closer to it than to a Rhino), except the Devilfish's firepower is S5 instead of the Wave Serpents S6-7, and vastly lower in range. Most Tau armies that I know don't even use them, or Fire Warriors. They use Kroot exclusively for bubble-wrap on their Broadsides and Riptides, that is if they're not using allies. Tau are not competitively OP -- they're a reasonably strong army that provides a good shooting backbone as an ally. They've not been OP since 7th Edition came around and destroyed O'vesa-star.
As to the veil of tears -- The army you're playing against, unless they ally, has zero psykers. They get d6 Dispel dice. You get d6 + 2 * Shadowseers dice. Veil of Tears is a blessing. At most, Tau should be able to Deny one of your powers, nowhere close to all of them, unless you're not throwing enough dice at the appropriate powers. If it's denied on one squad, you're okay with that, because the rest of the fast army gets to close in and assault in the next turn or so. If only one of your squads is in position to be shot at, throw more dice at that veil of tears.
It looks like you got a bit unlucky in your game, but it also seems like you're not playing with enough good LoS blocking terrain. Ruins with windows on the first floor don't count as LoS blocking.
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
Also, your "slow foot sloggers" are moving 6" running d6" refilling bad runs, then next turn moving 6", running d6"rerollable then charging 2d6"rerollable that is not slow in any sense of the word. Try two spirit seers on foot with a large squad of players, then an empty dedicated transport for them running up one side alongside the other transports full of harlis and darkeldar and overwhelm an entire flank. Ha cannot kill them all because his army is small and spread across two feet of table.
Also, as a side note. Everyone is giving you serious and sound advice on how to crush the tau with your list. You have spent the entire conversation telling them they are wrong because the tau are magically unbeatable. Try playing more games and listening to the people in the TACTICS thread you came to complain to. If all you wanted to do was cry about how your game turned out, you could have down it in general discussion.
Let people help, you wanted them to, didn't you?
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Post by: Martel732
"Also, your "slow foot sloggers" are moving 6" running d6" refilling bad runs, then next turn moving 6", running d6"rerollable then charging 2d6"rerollable that is not slow in any sense of the word."
Yes, that's slow. Tau will eat pretty much any foot sloggers on the table.
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
Except with the setup in showed earlier you would only need to get the VoT power off once, but you would have 7-12 dice to do it with.
Those foot sloggers are in range for charges turn two. Show me another INFANTRY unit that can do that. The tau are in no way an overpowered codex. Somehow, despite all odds, the guy he played had all the right tools, in all the right places, with perfectly placed objectives he happened to have in his deployment zone before he knew where that would be, and then also got first turn. With the units the op had, he should have been able to take his entire army to one flank in a single turn. Negating most of the rediculous bonus his opponent had at deployment.
As I said, the lists are both good, he had the ability to deal with EVERYTHING his opponent had without needing some miracle of dice or brilliant tactics. He simply lost. There is no reason to come to a tactics thread and ask people how to beat something, then tell everyone they are wrong when they do. Play more, and use the advice given when you do. Because it was indeed asked for.
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Post by: Martel732
I understand all that, but many lists have to play flawlessly to handle the Tau. That's hard for me to do after playing since 1994. Tau are very unforgiving to play against and it does get tedious.
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Post by: Durandal
Why aren't you using Shadowseers with Telepathy and the Mask of Secrets?
Zoom within 12 of a riptide and cast terrify or dominate. The riptide is rolling LD on 7 at best, and 5 if you have a raider nearby and choose terrify. Watch it whiff the morale check and since it is in the back table edge even a small fall back roll puts it off the board.
A shadow seer at LVL 2 with the mask is 95 points. A barebones Riptide is twice that much. You can easily have the seer ride in a Raider with some splinter warriors who can take care of any fire warriors trying to bubble wrap.
The devilfish and tanks get glanced on a 2+ from all the haywire you have. You can easily move 12 and get shots at any forward deployed fish and strip one hull point for every two shots.
If you neuter the riptides and a fish in the first round then the rest rapidly loses it's effectiveness.
61618
Post by: Desubot
How to beat tau?
Lots and LOTS of LOS blocking Terrain.
Fast moving units that can duck in and out of LOS
Barrage weapons with ignore cover to punk Marker lights.
Then run up and punch em
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
With harlequin and dark eldar, yes, Tau are unforgiving. But with these two armies, so is everyone else. They will be outnumbered and out gunned by everyone out there besides grey knights, and have distinct disadvantages. But they also have answers to their own issues. I feel the dark eldar may have been the weak link in this army. They were relying on deep strike, so there were less targets on the board. When the op saw the list, he should have gone for multiple threat overload.
I run my harlis with path of heroes and a masque detachment, then roll on the light table. I run at least three death jesters and fish for the option to give them infiltrate. Those + the vehicles and jetbikes give the opponent something else to shoot as the rest of the army advances. That is a good place to start tactically, imo
11860
Post by: Martel732
 Desubot wrote:How to beat tau?
Lots and LOTS of LOS blocking Terrain.
Fast moving units that can duck in and out of LOS
Barrage weapons with ignore cover to punk Marker lights.
Then run up and punch em
And if you don't have the LOS blocking terrain? What then? An army should be fair on any table. Remember that there is no terrain standard in 7th.
61618
Post by: Desubot
Martel732 wrote: Desubot wrote:How to beat tau?
Lots and LOTS of LOS blocking Terrain.
Fast moving units that can duck in and out of LOS
Barrage weapons with ignore cover to punk Marker lights.
Then run up and punch em
And if you don't have the LOS blocking terrain? What then? An army should be fair on any table. Remember that there is no terrain standard in 7th.
Make more since there is no terrain standard.
11860
Post by: Martel732
Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
87291
Post by: jreilly89
Desubot wrote:Martel732 wrote: Desubot wrote:How to beat tau?
Lots and LOTS of LOS blocking Terrain.
Fast moving units that can duck in and out of LOS
Barrage weapons with ignore cover to punk Marker lights.
Then run up and punch em
And if you don't have the LOS blocking terrain? What then? An army should be fair on any table. Remember that there is no terrain standard in 7th.
Make more since there is no terrain standard.
Yep. Most people play with at least 1/3 of the table having terrain. I've rarely seen people want to stand at two ends of an open battlefield and shoot at each other.
61618
Post by: Desubot
Martel732 wrote:Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
You need new opponents.
Most opponents i play want MORE terrain as it allows for interesting dynamics.
79194
Post by: Co'tor Shas
Seriously, city and jungle boards. Keep in mind, I play tau (always have), and I love heavy terrain boards.
11860
Post by: Martel732
Desubot wrote:Martel732 wrote:Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
You need new opponents.
Most opponents i play want MORE terrain as it allows for interesting dynamics.
That's a non-trivial problem.
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
Terrain doesn't slow down games because terrain, it only slows them down because the movement pause is then necessary to win.
My tables are pretty heavy with terrain, and if cost is an issue, the Terrain Tutor on YouTube is an awesome source of quick and dirty options that can really change a game.
61618
Post by: Desubot
Martel732 wrote: Desubot wrote:Martel732 wrote:Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
You need new opponents.
Most opponents i play want MORE terrain as it allows for interesting dynamics.
That's a non-trivial problem.
Well not much can be done when you are stuck in the endless vortex of WAACS with endless WS, WK, IKs and other things that have Wraith or knights in it eh?
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
With new eldar on the horizon, that list of problems may well change
11860
Post by: Martel732
I have zero faith after the Necrons. The Eldar will probably get better!
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
Played the new necrons a couple times, not really understanding where the hype is comming from.
New necrons don't have any option for psyckers, so no extra shooting, and no magic buffs to scatter around. So, they increased survivability a little to compensate. To be honest, I was getting tired of utilizing loopholes to shut the last codex down. Started to feel a bit cheesy...
42234
Post by: iddy00711
If you want to beat Tau buy 3 s. pylons and then ally in 3 eldar hornets. Alternatively just buy 9 eldar hornets.
79132
Post by: fallinq
Martel732 wrote:Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
Terrain is an integral part of the game. This is nothing new. Refusing to use it destroys whatever semblance of balance the game had, strips the game of most of its strategy, and shifts the balance so far in favor of shooting armies that it's not even funny. I've NEVER played in a meta where players refuse to use a decent amount of terrain. That is NOT a good gaming group. Wow is that stupid. They might as well remove armor, invul, FNP, and all other saves, because those slow down the game too. In fact, if they don't give a crap about playing the game right, why not just roll off on a D6, and whoever gets the highest result wins? All that other stuff just slows down the game! Also, it would be much more fair than playing an assault-based army against a shooty army without terrain.
87291
Post by: jreilly89
fallinq wrote:Martel732 wrote:Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
Terrain is an integral part of the game. This is nothing new. Refusing to use it destroys whatever semblance of balance the game had, strips the game of most of its strategy, and shifts the balance so far in favor of shooting armies that it's not even funny. I've NEVER played in a meta where players refuse to use a decent amount of terrain. That is NOT a good gaming group. Wow is that stupid. They might as well remove armor, invul, FNP, and all other saves, because those slow down the game too. In fact, if they don't give a crap about playing the game right, why not just roll off on a D6, and whoever gets the highest result wins? All that other stuff just slows down the game! Also, it would be much more fair than playing an assault-based army against a shooty army without terrain.
Seriously. If your opponent wants zero terrain, I would refuse to play him. That's an auto loss against Tau, no matter what your list is.
4298
Post by: Spellbound
Yeah, I'll vote for more terrain, too. It's actually not hard to create. Our local store went to a post supply company and bought the long cardboard poster tubes, cut them up and mounted them with some electrical boxes on some hardboard. Spray them metallic and base the board and you've got some industrial terrain that blocks LOS really well.
Also, how does he always have three objectives in such a tight little corner, in which he's able to hide for that 3+ cover save all the time? If he places one at the very limit of deployment, that is 6" from two different table edges, he can have another at 18" and 6", and another 18" and 6" in the other direction. Then another at the rectangular to that. But that's 4 objectives. In a mission where you've got 6 objectives, he's only able to place three of them. And you know what you can do if you get to place an objective first?
Stick it barely inside that inner-most corner. Bam, suddenly that entire corner is LOCKED down and no more objectives can go there. He'll have to try for another corner.
And know what? This is all before deployment TYPE and table side are rolled for. So if he's always deploying these three objectives there, then he's asking to get the short end of the stick and have to come to you.
Also, the riptides cannot ignore cover on their own. Get in a ruin and go to ground for a 3+ of your own for any footsloggers. Wait for his commander and melta suits to come down, then jump on them and kill them. Then go on about your business. Shouldn't have taken too many casualties by then.
Try deep striking your fragile vehicles, and deploying a few squads in ruins. Then go second. As long as you're not tabled by the end of turn ONE, you should be able to get some reserves in during your turn 2 and jump on his suits that have arrived.
77647
Post by: shadowfinder
I am sorry but I don't see how the tau list is scary in the lest. It has 4 marker lights that will miss half the time and one unit that gets Ignore cover.
Can sky rays split fire the missiles? I am not sure of the rules on them. They only have 6 missiles. Can shot what up to 2 or is it 4 a turn? Can fire at one target a turn.
Last time I cheeked black sun filters only work vs. Night fight. So stealth and shrouded work fine for most of the army?
Having terrain would help. but you should be right up in his grill by turn 2 easy.
As for his army getting 3+ cover saves... How?
Even if he is in terrain he has to be 25% obscured. otherwise he is jinxing. Hitting you on 6'.
How far away are you deep striking in on him?
I thought Dark Eldar didn't scatter when the came in that way? Getting a inch away from his tanks will stop him from dropping the Large blast from the riptides on you.
How do the Riptides ignore cover?? if the sky rays are using the ignore cover for their missiles???
11860
Post by: Martel732
fallinq wrote:Martel732 wrote:Most opponents I play with will refuse to use it because "it slows down the game".
Terrain is an integral part of the game. This is nothing new. Refusing to use it destroys whatever semblance of balance the game had, strips the game of most of its strategy, and shifts the balance so far in favor of shooting armies that it's not even funny. I've NEVER played in a meta where players refuse to use a decent amount of terrain. That is NOT a good gaming group. Wow is that stupid. They might as well remove armor, invul, FNP, and all other saves, because those slow down the game too. In fact, if they don't give a crap about playing the game right, why not just roll off on a D6, and whoever gets the highest result wins? All that other stuff just slows down the game! Also, it would be much more fair than playing an assault-based army against a shooty army without terrain.
We have a lot of terrain usually, just none of it blocks LOS. I get as much cover as I want. Too bad cover sucks for marines.
83653
Post by: Mavnas
Martel732 wrote:I have zero faith after the Necrons. The Eldar will probably get better!
You know what the real problem with the WS was? It could be assaulted and shots fired at it weren't all snapshots. Solution: Make it a flyer that starts in zoom mode on the table in turn 1.
86450
Post by: Alcibiades
Units are designed and costed based on the assumption of a certain amount of terrain. If you want to get rid of terrain, shooting units should have their costs increased by at least 50%.
70436
Post by: D6Damager
Play Maelstrom. It is the bane of all 'parking lot' style armies and forces movement to win. Even if you are taking casualties each turn, if you can grab your objective (which should be easy with Harlequins) you can still have a game.
72525
Post by: Vector Strike
 Co'tor Shas wrote:Seriously, city and jungle boards. Keep in mind, I play tau (always have), and I love heavy terrain boards.
I'm in the same boat, but my opponents are concerned that too much terrain will hinder melee advance.
What can I do 
71534
Post by: Bharring
Keep an eye on his markerlight situation.
If he has just enough, kill some MLs.
If he doesn't have enough, force his hand.
If he has too many, kill his few sources of dakka.
Use LOS-blocking where possible.
Cover helps most armies, too, as it takes MLs for most things to ignore it. Which is fewer MLs elsewhere.
Maelstrom should make gunlining you a lot harder.
For the big stuff (Riptides and other suits), focus. Better to kill 1 suit than a drone in each squad. The first four wounds on the Riptide do nothing.
For vehicles, force a jink, then move on. Two jinking Hammerheads are worse dakka than one dead and one untouched.
That seems to be a decent summary of fighting gunline Tau, right?
92977
Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
If you want line of sight blocking terrain, that won't impede movement much, but the fortress "keeps" from mage knight. They have a door on two opposite sides, and you can assault when exiting a building.
It would allow you to move 6" to the door, sit in the building for a turn, then deploy 6" out of the other side of a 6" building. Really allows some movement shenanigans, and makes that particular piece of terrain important. Plus side, they are cheap as all get out on EBay!
82151
Post by: Brennonjw
I've never had issue, also, seems like he was running a cheese list. Instead of blaming the army, why don't you actualy talk to you opponents and ask them what they think you should have done. Tau isn't this unstoppable army, they ONLY shoot good. plenty of ap3/4 on a fast unit, decent spacing, and running 2 5-man units instead of 1 10-man to deal with overwatch should balance against regular lists. when dealing with a player who loves his riptides, either a ton of shots or poison is the way to go.
63064
Post by: BoomWolf
Honestly, I cant say how bad you must have played if you say THAT list is OP, and that tau in general are OP (and even funnier to say its WORSE in turnies!)
For starters, its not even a good tau list. hardly any multipliers, 2 sets of 2 BS4 markerlights means that he can, on average, ignore cover for 1 riptide on 1 target per turn, and it takes two whole tanks shooting at it to get it done, if you think an ignores cover S8AP2 pieplate is too much for a combo that costs about 410 points before any other upgrade is too much, you got a problem.
Devilfish with fire warriors are HORRIBLE. they only work semi-effective with a ethreal inside, a unit that is VP bait. they are easily the worst transport in the game, filled with units that do not want to be transported to begin with.
Not to mention that fusion suits are meaningless against DE/quins. literally the WORST pick he could make, other than naked suits. these things have no targets to shoot at in your army, and they serve as under-preforming plasma guns.
As for the "tau are so OP in geneal" whine, tua has not won a single big turny from the moment 7th came out.
They have not even come in the TOP TEN of any turny lately.
You know what won LVO? nids. second place? SoT and BA.
Armies that "dakka wisdom" calls "unplayable bad"
So freaking sick and tiered of these threads.
Had you asked for actual tactical help, so be it. but you were given plenty of it, and you shrugged it all off as if none but you knows anything, and continued in your barrage of claims that any relation between them and reality is purely coincidental.
Halquins are not even a BAD matchup against tau! heck, even DE are not any more. all their LD shenanigans? tau are the most vulnerable army in the game to them! blocking long-range shooting? that's all tau DO. They care little for cover? you got invuls everywhere!
Seriously, youi have every tool you need, you just refuse to use any of them, or to adapt your tactics in the slightest. you are not looking for a game, you are looking for an easy win, and too bad-you are not getting one.
Had you bothered listening to any of the VAST number of advice given on this thread, you would have had a rather easy time fighting such a list, but you insist of being thick-headed.
And as such, you deserve no more advice, and I shall give none. despite knowing very well how to fight tau with DE/quinns (gave advice on it just the other day for a RL friend after we duked it out a few)
I advise the rest of you to do the same. this boy cannot be helped until he will be willing to accept help. currently he is only here to complain, not to learn.
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Post by: davethepak
Fascinating thread, but I have to agree with a lot of the advice here (the actual advice, not the "OMG!!").
Some say playing against tau are unforgiving - well guess what? Playing tau is incredibly unforgiving.
Their troops are t3 with a 4+ save (and those are the durable troops...). Kill them.
Kill the markerlights. - the rest of the army folds very badly without them. Riptides are laughable without marker support.
(note: the new xv109 riptides are a bit OP, ask your opponent to not play them until they get final rules).
Kill the crisis suits. Use the board, look at firing lanes.
Target priority is very important. In my last game against tau, he had two riptides - I just ignored them - and killed the markerlights first.
This pretty much neuters the riptides. Then, I manuvered ap2 weaopons near him - he used his reactors - and then they failed and took wounds (1/3 failure rate is brutal).
I was not even going to shoot them, I used melta to vaporize the poor t4 crisis suits.
Then I lured his firewarriors into the open, and slaughtered them. I baited him to waste his skyray' seekers on units I did not care about.
(tau players FREAK out when faced with an assault unless they are very disciplined). Once thier seekers were gone, and I killed the troops the skyrays were easy pickings for assault.
Are tau still strong? yes. the days of them being OP are gone, with the loss of battlebrother psykers.
Still having a problem? Ask one of the tau players in your area to swap with you - play them. You will realize just how painful bs3 is, and how incredibly important markers are.
Also, their lack of access to cheap buffs (psypower, fnp, etc.) without having to drop 200 points on a buff commander.
STUDY every game, think what could i have done better? where did something die? Where did I outrange him but get too close?
How many targets did I make him choose between? Tau actually have very few options for ap1 and 2 - their troops can't get anything like that, or any of their transports.
Learn them, kill them. Rinse, repeat.
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Post by: Co'tor Shas
Tau have always been interesting to play, many people hated it because of the steep learning curve, but I loved the 4th edition tau codex to bits (also literally in my case).
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Post by: The Shrike
Another "Waaaaa, Tau, Waaaaa" thread.
Please. As BoomWolf mentioned, Harlies+DE aren't even hard countered by Tau...but even if they were, wake up, this is 40k! It's an RPS game. I don't cry to my mommy when I get steamrolled by an invisible combat deathstar, GK+SM centstars or bullrush daemon armies with a combo of invis and grimoire. You know what I do? Laugh with my opponent as my squishy Tau commies get eaten by khornedogs.
You have two options, learn to play your army better, or play a different army. You'll earn no sympathy here if you refuse those options.
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Post by: jreilly89
 The Shrike wrote:Another "Waaaaa, Tau, Waaaaa" thread.
Please. As BoomWolf mentioned, Harlies+ DE aren't even hard countered by Tau...but even if they were, wake up, this is 40k! It's an RPS game. I don't cry to my mommy when I get steamrolled by an invisible combat deathstar, GK+ SM centstars or bullrush daemon armies with a combo of invis and grimoire. You know what I do? Laugh with my opponent as my squishy Tau commies get eaten by khornedogs.
You have two options, learn to play your army better, or play a different army. You'll earn no sympathy here if you refuse those options.
Great advice. /sarcasm
Some lists are plain unbeatable. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying that if you take no Anti-Tank against a mech army, you're going to lose. OP wanted some advice and people responded, no one's crying for their mommy here.
Besides, I'll take a "Waaaa, Tau, Waaaa" thread over "Waaaa, Belakor+Flying Circus" or "Waaaa, Wave Serpents" thread any day.
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Post by: pickled_heretic
Martel732 wrote:
And if you don't have the LOS blocking terrain? What then? An army should be fair on any table. Remember that there is no terrain standard in 7th.
That's literally impossible. Games are won and lost with terrain, it's impossible to make armies balanced on all terrain unless you make all the armies the same as well. To give you an example from another game, In competitive starcraft, maps would be imbalanced toward one race or another with a small change in position of one vespene geyser and would be outright banned or modified to accomodate for competitive play.
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Post by: Lord Blackscale
Tau will be easy with all the new Eldar rules. S-D all over the board? 100+ s6 shots on jetbikes? Where is your "Greater Good" now?
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Post by: Martel732
pickled_heretic wrote:Martel732 wrote:
And if you don't have the LOS blocking terrain? What then? An army should be fair on any table. Remember that there is no terrain standard in 7th.
That's literally impossible. Games are won and lost with terrain, it's impossible to make armies balanced on all terrain unless you make all the armies the same as well. To give you an example from another game, In competitive starcraft, maps would be imbalanced toward one race or another with a small change in position of one vespene geyser and would be outright banned or modified to accomodate for competitive play.
So that's an argument for totally standardized maps, which is the OPPOSITE of what GW has.
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Post by: pickled_heretic
Martel732 wrote:pickled_heretic wrote:Martel732 wrote:
And if you don't have the LOS blocking terrain? What then? An army should be fair on any table. Remember that there is no terrain standard in 7th.
That's literally impossible. Games are won and lost with terrain, it's impossible to make armies balanced on all terrain unless you make all the armies the same as well. To give you an example from another game, In competitive starcraft, maps would be imbalanced toward one race or another with a small change in position of one vespene geyser and would be outright banned or modified to accomodate for competitive play.
So that's an argument for totally standardized maps, which is the OPPOSITE of what GW has.
It's not an argument for anything. It is what it is. Starcraft and Warhammer are both vastly different games but positioning is crucial in both cases and by extension so is the map and terrain. Without standard terrain, the best you can do in terms of balance is get a good approximation for what people commonly play on. I am not trying to prescribe anything, I am trying to say that what you prescribe is impossible.
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Post by: Martel732
Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
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Post by: Xenomancers
Torrent flamers. Ignore riptides - kill everything else.
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Post by: pickled_heretic
Martel732 wrote:Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
If LOS blocking terrain wouldn't be expected to be encountered in a typical game, there wouldn't be rules for it in the core rulebook.
You can beat Tau in the the terrain setup phase. It sounds really cheesy but following the rulebook for table setup and bringing terrain that benefits you and hinders your opponent is completely legal. If you and your opponent ever disagree about anything, just go to the rulebook. There are rules to set up terrain in a fair way. If your opponent doesn't bring or use terrain because he doesn't like it, then it's his loss that you'll be able to set up the table the way you want to.
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Post by: Martel732
pickled_heretic wrote:Martel732 wrote:Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
If LOS blocking terrain wouldn't be expected to be encountered in a typical game, there wouldn't be rules for it in the core rulebook.
You can beat Tau in the the terrain setup phase. It sounds really cheesy but following the rulebook for table setup and bringing terrain that benefits you and hinders your opponent is completely legal. If you and your opponent ever disagree about anything, just go to the rulebook. There are rules to set up terrain in a fair way. If your opponent doesn't bring or use terrain because he doesn't like it, then it's his loss that you'll be able to set up the table the way you want to.
I never cared enough to make my own terrain. LOS blocking terrain can actually be a hindrance against JSJ units anyway. It's an unfair uphill battle for non-tailored lists no matter what the board looks like.
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Post by: pickled_heretic
Martel732 wrote:I never cared enough to make my own terrain. LOS blocking terrain can actually be a hindrance against JSJ units anyway. It's an unfair uphill battle for non-tailored lists no matter what the board looks like.
I can definitely agree that terrain doesn't always work the way that you want it to.
Back to topic, Tau is a very bad matchup against a newer player. They are extremely punishing to play against. The thing is, for a tau army, there is really no such thing as a close game. They often completely table you while only losing a few models. Compared to playing against an ork player - even if you lose badly, you probably will have killed a good chunk of boys in the process.
The only thing I would recommend is to keep playing instead of giving up. For how much people complain about the rules, Warhammer 40000 is still a strategy game and the better strategist & tactician will usually win.
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Post by: HawaiiMatt
Martel732 wrote:
I never cared enough to make my own terrain. LOS blocking terrain can actually be a hindrance against JSJ units anyway. It's an unfair uphill battle for non-tailored lists no matter what the board looks like.
Less Crying, more listening.
-Matt
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Post by: the_scotsman
Hey all! First, an apology. I was a whiny ass bitch for several hours there. I did take a look at the match, and identified a few factors (failing 3 3++ saves in a row, failing a ld10 test at a critical moment, and failing a couple critical jinks as well as having initiative stolen) that contributed significantly to the loss, as well as the issue with terrain. With that in mind, I played a rematch with the same lists and same opponent and got very different results.
First thing, during terrain deployment I put a big friggin mountain in the middle of the board. Less than 6" radius and roughly round, but it massively improved things when it came to counterplay. I wound up going second this time and had much better options for deployment, and I was able to force him between targeting the (mostly useless) dark Eldar transports or moving out of protective cover to engage the real cc threats. Both marker light sources moved turn one out of cover, and on my turn I forced jinks on both of them. The dark Eldar succeeded in being massacred in the Harlequins' place, and I was able to get a troupe and the Solitaire into combat turn two.
I still lost (mostly due to Harlequins not getting obsec and those dang Devilfish being hard to catch and kill. I wasted all my good melee momentum killing the tanks) but at the very least the game continued long enough for it to end rather than just being an effortless tabling.
So despite plenty of complaining from my opponent about the mountain (he REEEEEAALLY didn't like the mountain) I think it was a much more balanced and interesting match.
Thank you, everyone who dealt with my bs earlier and have advice, and I sincerely apologize for the S: D fullisade of whining that occurred.
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Post by: Thariinye
It's great to hear that you got better results! Nasty losses can definitely get anyone in a bad mood. Good identification of the reasons for losses is a key part of becoming a better player.
I used to play in a store that used 4x4 boards to get more players playing, and we often put large terrain pieces in the direct center. Like in your case, it made gun-lines have to do significant work to position correctly and actually get their shots off.
IIRC NOVA puts a giant LoS Blocker in the center of all their tables to help achieve the same effect.
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Post by: crazyK
Good to hear you had a better game. I personally love terrain heavy boards with a lot of LoS blocking pieces.
the_scotsman wrote:Hey all! First, an apology. I was a whiny ass bitch for several hours there. I did take a look at the match, and identified a few factors (failing 3 3++ saves in a row, failing a ld10 test at a critical moment, and failing a couple critical jinks as well as having initiative stolen) that contributed significantly to the loss, as well as the issue with terrain. With that in mind, I played a rematch with the same lists and same opponent and got very different results.
First thing, during terrain deployment I put a big friggin mountain in the middle of the board. Less than 6" radius and roughly round, but it massively improved things when it came to counterplay. I wound up going second this time and had much better options for deployment, and I was able to force him between targeting the (mostly useless) dark Eldar transports or moving out of protective cover to engage the real cc threats. Both marker light sources moved turn one out of cover, and on my turn I forced jinks on both of them. The dark Eldar succeeded in being massacred in the Harlequins' place, and I was able to get a troupe and the Solitaire into combat turn two.
I still lost (mostly due to Harlequins not getting obsec and those dang Devilfish being hard to catch and kill. I wasted all my good melee momentum killing the tanks) but at the very least the game continued long enough for it to end rather than just being an effortless tabling.
So despite plenty of complaining from my opponent about the mountain (he REEEEEAALLY didn't like the mountain) I think it was a much more balanced and interesting match.
Thank you, everyone who dealt with my bs earlier and have advice, and I sincerely apologize for the S: D fullisade of whining that occurred.
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Post by: BoomWolf
Well, this is unexpected. usually people in your former stance don't man up and start doing stuff right.
Guess its my turn to try to help you out as far as I can than.
Mountain-nice move there. I guess he isn't used for terrain and used for shooting galleries, though luck for him. a tau army in an open plain is no challenge to play.
Taking out the skyrays was also a good call.
I would advise you to try round out your forces with some reavers with cluster calntrops, these things hit brutally in CC, ruining the day for most tanks with ease-and they are quite hard to catch (thrust moves to get more movement around, jinx for 3+ cover all day long)
They would have a rather easy time opening up devilfish and their likes, and massacuring the contents.
I have my doubts about the solitaire. did he really stand up for his cost there? it seems like a "cool yet impractical" pick.
Getting into melee is nice and all-but did he really do enough there to justify the orbital pricetag?
A full list of what you brought will make it easier to pick at it and discover the weaknesses of the list, and as such how to adress them.
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Post by: pickled_heretic
 BoomWolf wrote:Well, this is unexpected. usually people in your former stance don't man up and start doing stuff right.
Guess its my turn to try to help you out as far as I can than.
Mountain-nice move there. I guess he isn't used for terrain and used for shooting galleries, though luck for him. a tau army in an open plain is no challenge to play.
Taking out the skyrays was also a good call.
I would advise you to try round out your forces with some reavers with cluster calntrops, these things hit brutally in CC, ruining the day for most tanks with ease-and they are quite hard to catch (thrust moves to get more movement around, jinx for 3+ cover all day long)
They would have a rather easy time opening up devilfish and their likes, and massacuring the contents.
I have my doubts about the solitaire. did he really stand up for his cost there? it seems like a "cool yet impractical" pick.
Getting into melee is nice and all-but did he really do enough there to justify the orbital pricetag?
A full list of what you brought will make it easier to pick at it and discover the weaknesses of the list, and as such how to adress them.
Having played against it once, I can say that the solitaire has the potential to be really scary in melee. (and I play orks, so I know what is scary in melee). He gets more lethal and more mobile as the game progresses, which is usually when you need lethal, mobile stuff.
At his core he is a t3 model with a 3++ and ew so he is pretty flimsy to volume shooting and/or melee. But he has the mobility to stay completely concealed, strike in melee with 10 or more attacks with instant death & precision strike, and ap2 on a 6, and still hit and run out and find a hiding spot. All the special rules make him scary against riptides and crisis teams.
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Post by: jreilly89
the_scotsman wrote:Hey all! First, an apology. I was a whiny ass bitch for several hours there. I did take a look at the match, and identified a few factors (failing 3 3++ saves in a row, failing a ld10 test at a critical moment, and failing a couple critical jinks as well as having initiative stolen) that contributed significantly to the loss, as well as the issue with terrain. With that in mind, I played a rematch with the same lists and same opponent and got very different results.
First thing, during terrain deployment I put a big friggin mountain in the middle of the board. Less than 6" radius and roughly round, but it massively improved things when it came to counterplay. I wound up going second this time and had much better options for deployment, and I was able to force him between targeting the (mostly useless) dark Eldar transports or moving out of protective cover to engage the real cc threats. Both marker light sources moved turn one out of cover, and on my turn I forced jinks on both of them. The dark Eldar succeeded in being massacred in the Harlequins' place, and I was able to get a troupe and the Solitaire into combat turn two.
I still lost (mostly due to Harlequins not getting obsec and those dang Devilfish being hard to catch and kill. I wasted all my good melee momentum killing the tanks) but at the very least the game continued long enough for it to end rather than just being an effortless tabling.
So despite plenty of complaining from my opponent about the mountain (he REEEEEAALLY didn't like the mountain) I think it was a much more balanced and interesting match.
Thank you, everyone who dealt with my bs earlier and have advice, and I sincerely apologize for the S: D fullisade of whining that occurred.
Good to hear. Seriously, keep playing with more LoS terrain. It shouldn't be totally full, but 1/3 is a pretty decent rule to use. If he keeps whining, say "Hey, I don't like playing Tau on an open field. It's not fair." If he keeps whining, then I'd just not play him.
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Post by: the_scotsman
The biggest intangible strength of the solitaire is the combination of his ignoring terrain and being an itty bitty single 28mm model. He hides out of LOS like a mofo and he fights like almost a full Harlequin Troupe. With WS10 even though most people wound him on 2-3 they're hitting him on 5s mostly.
He's probably the most pressing reason to take Harlequins TBH. The rest of the army is basically a mildly useful cc unit, a good cheap spammable psyker and a terrible gunboat tax.
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Post by: Alcibiades
Martel732 wrote:Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
Why not? The existence of LOS blocking terrain is assumed in the points costs and design of the units to begin with. If you don't want to use it, either increase the cost of shooting units or decrease the cost of melee units.
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Post by: Lythrandire Biehrellian
I use the solitaire to keep people away from objectives. I run him in the path of heroes formation, and place him near a couple midfield objectives. Your opponent doesn't want to be near that, and wants the option for those objectives if they come up for maelstrom.
So, they attempt to compensate. He sometimes gets killed, but more often than not he absorbs double his points in shooting and is still scaring them out of he area. If I get lucky, the opponent does it again, and I get to slam him with the harlis afterwards 
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Post by: N.I.B.
the_scotsman wrote:I don't end up playing much tau (thank god) because all but two people in my club have quit playing them out of sheer embarrassment, but every time I do I leave with a disgusted taste in my mouth and I can't figure out what I could have done differently.
This last game I did as well as I ever have and it still felt like I was playing a guy who had a 4000+ point list. I was playing Harlequins against full mech Tau and I had no scatter drop melta, drop haywire, and two units of haywire bikes and the only thing I managed to kill were the two Riptides (aka the only models in his entire list I could hurt with psychic powers) and spent the rest of the time stuck in hour-long shooting phases removing my models from the board.
So what are you supposed to do against a list that just parks in cover on their board edge for infinite 3+ cover saves on their AV13 tanks and fires at you from 30" away until you're tabled?
Make sure you have enough terrain. And play (modified) Maelstrom.
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Post by: Martel732
Alcibiades wrote:Martel732 wrote:Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
Why not? The existence of LOS blocking terrain is assumed in the points costs and design of the units to begin with. If you don't want to use it, either increase the cost of shooting units or decrease the cost of melee units.
How do you know that? I don't think GW takes anything into account in the design of anything.
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Post by: Jefffar
Martel732 wrote:Alcibiades wrote:Martel732 wrote:Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
Why not? The existence of LOS blocking terrain is assumed in the points costs and design of the units to begin with. If you don't want to use it, either increase the cost of shooting units or decrease the cost of melee units.
How do you know that? I don't think GW takes anything into account in the design of anything.
Well if you check out those photos of the boards they play on, or re-read the sections of the rulebooks about terrain density and placement, it seems that in the GW office the vast majority of play includes a lot of terrain with some of the line of sight blocking type being on almost every table.
Seeing as they design the game, assign point values and similar based on their gaming experience, and that experience includes lots of line of sight blocking (and cover granting) terrain, then yes, the default set of assumptions they are going with include lone of sight blocking terrain.
That doesn't mean they are consciously aware of it, just that it is a part of their understanding of the game.
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Post by: zerosignal
"Seeing as they design the game, assign point values and similar based on their gaming experience"
ROTFL...
I think this process more likely involves a dartboard and a blindfold?
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Post by: the_scotsman
zerosignal wrote:"Seeing as they design the game, assign point values and similar based on their gaming experience"
ROTFL...
I think this process more likely involves a dartboard and a blindfold?
Ahem. You mean "accounts ledger and inventory backlog" right?
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Post by: syypher
shadowfinder wrote:I am sorry but I don't see how the tau list is scary in the lest. It has 4 marker lights that will miss half the time and one unit that gets Ignore cover.
Can sky rays split fire the missiles? I am not sure of the rules on them. They only have 6 missiles. Can shot what up to 2 or is it 4 a turn? Can fire at one target a turn.
Last time I cheeked black sun filters only work vs. Night fight. So stealth and shrouded work fine for most of the army?
Having terrain would help. but you should be right up in his grill by turn 2 easy.
As for his army getting 3+ cover saves... How?
Even if he is in terrain he has to be 25% obscured. otherwise he is jinxing. Hitting you on 6'.
How far away are you deep striking in on him?
I thought Dark Eldar didn't scatter when the came in that way? Getting a inch away from his tanks will stop him from dropping the Large blast from the riptides on you.
How do the Riptides ignore cover?? if the sky rays are using the ignore cover for their missiles???
This...
That list isn't even that scary. Apart from SMS he won't really be ignoring very much. And if the Riptides died T1/2 like you said, the rest of his list looks easy to dismantle once his missiles are gone. I don't get it.
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Post by: jakejackjake
DaPino wrote: gmaleron wrote:
It's not about "having X or Y", it's about being able to put X on every unit you own and being able to give Y to any weapon.
Yes I might have A weapon with ignores cover but I sure as hell don't have the possibility to give every single weapon in my army ignores cover, especially not Str 7/8 AP2 large blasts.
They might not be OP but they sure as hell are boring to play against and require very little skill to actually command. A Tau player once let me play his army to 'truely show me that Tau weren't as easy as I made them out to be'. Let's just say it didn't turn out as he had planned.
Space Marines are the only army who can have AP2 in every single unit they field
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Post by: Martel732
If only that meant something. It's not about AP 2 wounds usually, it's about quantity of forced saves. And in that arena, marines SUCK.
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Post by: Uzibat
I'm a Tau player myself & what I generally have trouble dealing with is FMC's & massed AV14 (Leman Russ heavy IG armies for example).
I have to admit that my local meta is very non-competitive & most games are played between close friends for fun alone. So I'm probably don't fit the stereotype of the "Tau powergamer".
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Post by: jakejackjake
Martel732 wrote:If only that meant something. It's not about AP 2 wounds usually, it's about quantity of forced saves. And in that arena, marines SUCK.
Not really if you cause 20 wounds with no saves it's a lot better than forcing 40 saves with a 4 up. Rhinos are 35 pts... if you can't find value in tacticals or scouts you're insane. I would say half the games I play are against a marine variant or something with marine allies. Their troops can be played well.
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Post by: Martel732
jakejackjake wrote:Martel732 wrote:If only that meant something. It's not about AP 2 wounds usually, it's about quantity of forced saves. And in that arena, marines SUCK.
Not really if you cause 20 wounds with no saves it's a lot better than forcing 40 saves with a 4 up
No it's statistically identical.
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Post by: jakejackjake
Martel732 wrote:jakejackjake wrote:Martel732 wrote:If only that meant something. It's not about AP 2 wounds usually, it's about quantity of forced saves. And in that arena, marines SUCK.
Not really if you cause 20 wounds with no saves it's a lot better than forcing 40 saves with a 4 up
No it's statistically identical.
You think I didn't know that when I said it? In the long run it is. In that one game though it's a world of difference. I used that example intentionally. If you don't understand what I mean that is fine but a consistent army is easier to build for than one that relies on more high(low) roles than the others. The variance guarantees the rolls to come in more violent swings. So you're more likely to dominate an army totally, but also more likely to get totally blown out. If you get blown out or tabled with Space Marines in any way you played bad or built a terrible list. They are a much more consistent army than all others.
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Post by: Martel732
Armies like Tau and Eldar can force so many 3+ saves that there are no violent swings over the course of a game. That's why they're so good and why Imperial firepower can't compete.
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Post by: Dakkamite
New to 7th, wondering how to fight Tau with Orks. Not too concerned about the most cringeworthy builds as I flat out refuse to face more than one Riptide or other such unit, just wondering what experienced players would recommend in our arsenal to take on the fish'eads
the_scotsman wrote:but nothing in it has a worthwhile answer to "I set up my figures on the board edge sitting on 3 maelstrom objectives and you will be tabled in 3 turns. I will never have to do anything in any phase except shooting"
Well theres your problem. Its like if you played some mission against Orks where the armies start 3" apart and cannot run away - its a terrible mission, so play something that forces the Tau to get off their asses and move around the table with something other than Riptides.
the_scotsman wrote:
Also, do you know how hard it is to find LOS blocking terrain? I don't have a 2-foot wall in my terrain collection, I've got buildings, and if the Tau can see one square inch of your model through the windows, welp, just need them 3+s to hit on the markerlights and then you might as well be standing in an open field doesn't matter if you have stealth or shrouded or night fight (lolblacksunfiltersoneverything) we get super good cover saves all the time and you don't get gak.
From my experience you Americans are generally real big on your " RAW", but its not hard to say "look, every expert player and tournament winner I've ever spoken to in the last three years has agreed that LoS blocking terrain is necessary to make this game not gak, especially against Tau. So lets just count these buildings as blocking LoS instead of being full of fething bullet holes" and if he has a tanty about it suggest he tries previously mentioned 3" moshpit mission
DaPino wrote:First off, I have to say I tend to agree with OP on one thing. It's hard to hacefun playing against Tau.
It's not so much that it's hard to deal with them as it is that Tau just reduce the tactical aspect of the game by a pretty large margin.
Because they can get AP 2 on just about any unit worth fielding, armor saves become something you don't evem bother with when making a list.
You can't outmanoeuvre what isn't manoeuvering and that's really all I have to say about that.
Markerlights, boy do I hate them. Because of them, any cover that does not block LOS gets reduced to a hindrance as opposed to a strategic asset that poses both advantage and disadvantage to both players. It works almost exclusively to the benefit of Tau players. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there was any sort of counterplay or downside to them except for "go stand where they can't see you". Supposedly, them being heavy counts as being a downside but their range is big enough that they don't have to bother moving unless you can block LOS.
In tournaments it's even worse. They are not played on a zone mortalis, quite the opposite actually, so even that blocking LOS is stripped away from you as an option.
"Having to work around that" is not adding strategy to the game as I've heard some people claim. Guess what, if you strip several layers of strategy and then "add" 1, that still leaves you with reduced tactical layers.
Tau are like campers with a wall hack aiming down the only corridor that can acces them. The only "strategy" you can relibablely use is not going through the corridor. There might be one crate in that corridor he can't shoot through but I wouldn't consider it a reliable wau to deal with him.
Seriously, you should come play Infinity, sounds like it would be right up your alleyway.
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Post by: Harukae
the_scotsman wrote:Something like:
Longstrike in hammerhead
2x drop melta suit squads one of which had a commander with half a dozen special rules. Every single model could splitfire.
2x skyrays with markerlights
2x IA riptides
2x Devilfish with fire warrior squads inside.
I have Harlequins and DARK Eldar. Don't have access to fast and high toughness, just either/or, and not from the Harlequins. My main anti-tank units are haywire, vs MCs I rely on psychic powers and a splinterboat which has worked well so far and worked well this game (both riptides were dropped turn one by a psychic shriek and mirror of minds). For everything else, I simply couldn't get around the 3+ cover saves that literally every vehicle had. I had 6x haywire blasts on my bikes, scourges dropping with haywire blasters, a drop squad with 3x meltas and a haywire grenade. Melee was a non-possibility after turn 1 he just bulled through the invuln save on one of my transports and used seeker missiles for the other two. The drop troops simply died on arrival after he just laughed away their shooting with his slowed 3+ saves on everything for 15 points a pop.
It's just fething frustrating losing to somebody who doesnt even have to play anything but one phase of the entire game. He didn't move a single model the whole time, just put things down on the board and shot. Nothing made it past the halfway line on the board, and he could just sit there securing 3/6 objectives so he just steadily soaked up points.
Maybe Tau was added to the game so GW could break into the lucrative 5 year old market.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, do you know how hard it is to find LOS blocking terrain? I don't have a 2-foot wall in my terrain collection, I've got buildings, and if the Tau can see one square inch of your model through the windows, welp, just need them 3+s to hit on the markerlights and then you might as well be standing in an open field doesn't matter if you have stealth or shrouded or night fight (lolblacksunfiltersoneverything) we get super good cover saves all the time and you don't get gak.
This honestly sounds like he went Farsight Enclaves, even if that weren't the case Tau are a hard counter to Eldar, Dark Eldar, and now Harlequins. This is an older tournament list for Tau and is just brutal for anyone really.
Close combat is the bane of existence for Tau, which both Harlequins and Dark Eldar do very well, but your biggest problem is that even your toughest units that aren't specifically craftworld are paper mache to anything except IG lasguns. You're best bet is to get close as quickly as possible and hit him hard in melee.
Riptides are also one of the biggest traps for anyone to go after immediately because his main powers isn't coming from them, it's coming from tanks, and those should be your first target. If he was saying that he was getting a 3+ cover then you need to point out that no matter the terrain unless it has a special rule that confers better, only gives a 5+ cover at best, which disruption pods boost to a 4+. I know that unfortunately Harlequins don't really have anything that can melee tanks to death, but that's where DE will pick up the slack for you. Pain Engines are strong enough to tear through any Tau tank, you just have to play them smart and move them through cover as best you can. Otherwise then that you'll be firing haywire at them with only a 50% chance to hit.
Now as for the Riptides, DE and psychic powers are the best way to get rid of them honestly so you're covered there. Commander and the Crisis Suit squads that drop in are tough, but get eat up by any focused fire so keep that in mind. Melta hurts, but they aren't so bad in comparison to the other side of the board.
Best thing to do is keep a cool head and keep trying.
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Post by: krodarklorr
I have fun against Tau easily. I ignore Riptides and destroy the rest of their armies, in the name of the Silent King.
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Post by: TheMisterBold
An easy answer fight fire with fire if he's gonna sit there on three objectives you sit in a place he can't see you on three objectives. Make him move, make him come to you then jump out and krump 'im! 
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Post by: gmaleron
 krodarklorr wrote:I have fun against Tau easily. I ignore Riptides and destroy the rest of their armies, in the name of the Silent King.
This, it always surprises me that people don't do this more often and its the best way I've found to deal with Riptide spam with my IG.
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Post by: zerosignal
Alternatively, shoot a bazillion shuriken cannons from eldar jetbikes at them, and watch them curl up and die under bladestorm...
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Post by: Alcibiades
Martel732 wrote:Alcibiades wrote:Martel732 wrote:Perhaps it is impossible, but it could certainly be better balanced than it is. I shouldn't NEED LOS blocking terrain to have a chance against Tau.
Why not? The existence of LOS blocking terrain is assumed in the points costs and design of the units to begin with. If you don't want to use it, either increase the cost of shooting units or decrease the cost of melee units.
How do you know that? I don't think GW takes anything into account in the design of anything.
Because it is a logical necessity that the physical objects that make up the game are part of the structure of the game, since it occupies space?
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Post by: Melevolence
The only Tau player in our group tends to bring only a single Riptide, though he does own more. Against one, I've found that ignoring it is the best answer. Virtually every game prior this epiphany, I'd do my best to kill it only to fail. Even sending a Green Tide after it, it took all my PKs to take it out (Some bad rolling on my part), and then all it did was serve to set me up for some punishment with dual flamer suits who cut down my ranks considerably.
After that, I tried just forgetting it existed. And that worked. It fires pot shots all day, but rarely makes up its points against my army. He spent an entire game trying to kill my M'Naught, with no success. Another game, he tried to break open my Blitz Brigade, only succeeding in popping a single wagon with the Riptide.
Just breeze by it like it doesn't exist, and rush everything else with as many bodies as I can. Even Tau shooting can't erase 100+ Boyz when they are in split up propa.
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Post by: gmaleron
Melevolence wrote:The only Tau player in our group tends to bring only a single Riptide, though he does own more. Against one, I've found that ignoring it is the best answer. Virtually every game prior this epiphany, I'd do my best to kill it only to fail. Even sending a Green Tide after it, it took all my PKs to take it out (Some bad rolling on my part), and then all it did was serve to set me up for some punishment with dual flamer suits who cut down my ranks considerably.
After that, I tried just forgetting it existed. And that worked. It fires pot shots all day, but rarely makes up its points against my army. He spent an entire game trying to kill my M'Naught, with no success. Another game, he tried to break open my Blitz Brigade, only succeeding in popping a single wagon with the Riptide.
Just breeze by it like it doesn't exist, and rush everything else with as many bodies as I can. Even Tau shooting can't erase 100+ Boyz when they are in split up propa.
The same goes for multiple Riptides as their fire output is not that amazing when your break it down, either x3 S7 shots or a large blast template that Gets Hot and in order for it to get more powerful has a 1/3 chance of hurting itself. With my IG I always ignore them and since they have x3 of them and a good chunk of points invested in them it means I have a lot less to kill to neuter the army, that and Riptides don't do so well against armor 14 tanks
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Post by: Melevolence
 gmaleron wrote:Melevolence wrote:The only Tau player in our group tends to bring only a single Riptide, though he does own more. Against one, I've found that ignoring it is the best answer. Virtually every game prior this epiphany, I'd do my best to kill it only to fail. Even sending a Green Tide after it, it took all my PKs to take it out (Some bad rolling on my part), and then all it did was serve to set me up for some punishment with dual flamer suits who cut down my ranks considerably.
After that, I tried just forgetting it existed. And that worked. It fires pot shots all day, but rarely makes up its points against my army. He spent an entire game trying to kill my M'Naught, with no success. Another game, he tried to break open my Blitz Brigade, only succeeding in popping a single wagon with the Riptide.
Just breeze by it like it doesn't exist, and rush everything else with as many bodies as I can. Even Tau shooting can't erase 100+ Boyz when they are in split up propa.
The same goes for multiple Riptides as their fire output is not that amazing when your break it down, either x3 S7 shots or a large blast template that Gets Hot and in order for it to get more powerful has a 1/3 chance of hurting itself. With my IG I always ignore them and since they have x3 of them and a good chunk of points invested in them it means I have a lot less to kill to neuter the army, that and Riptides don't do so well against armor 14 tanks
Or boatloads of Boys where their decent weapons are pretty much wasted points Cool as hell models though!
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