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Hello all,
I would like to get ome advice on how to deal with mech tau with my poor deprived foot slogging tau, now I normally do pretty well with my Eldar but during my first game at our Tourney  this saturday I got my but handed to me horribly.  Now I believe alot of it was bad luck, and a mistake I amde early on but it seems that I keep getting thrashed by this Mech Tau player.

We had Compostion scores. 

His List is roughly
Shovah
Shas O with CIB, Burst Cannon, Iridium Armor, Stimulant Injector
2 x 2 Crisis suits with a couple death rains, and a fire knife
6 stealth suits with 2 fusion blasters and targetting arrays
2 x 12 fire warrios with Pulse Rifles and Devilfish
2 x 12 Fire Warriors with Pulkse carbines and Devil Fish
2 Broadsides with a shield drone, each

I think thats about it, but I could be missing another fire warrior devil fiah. 


My list is as follows
Eldrad
Farseer with Fortune, Doom, Mind War
2 x 6 Striking Scorpions with Exarch fully skilled
2 x 10 Dire Avengers with Exarch Shimmer Shield, Fully skilled
3 x 6 Rangers with Pathfinder upgraded
2 x 6 Swooping Hawks with Exarch, Fully Skilled
2 War Walkers with Star Cannons/Starcannons
2 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers/Scatter Lasers

Here are my other Models
1 x Wave Serpent
1 x Falcon
15 or so Wraith Guard, (Using Skinny Guard Models from Starship Troopers)
2 more War Walkers
4 Shining Spears 1 may be used as an Autarch with Laser Lance
4 Guardian Jet Bikes, 1 may be used as a Warlock on Jet Bike or Farsseer on jet bike
5 Dark Reapers exarch with Eldar Missile Launcher
2 Warlocks on foot
I will spend no more than another 90 bucks on this army, to damn much already spent lol

My mistakes had to do with the mission which did not allow infiltrate, and 2 troops could be deployed, instead of deploying my pathfinders first I deployed my dire avengers, because I forgot they couldn't infiltrate in this mission. 

I play an eldar list and usually do ok vs most armies. (marines hate the AP love)

THe problem I see with your list vs a mech list is you have tones of points wrapped up in multiple aspect warrior squads, lots of rangers and non-long-range troops(avengers).

No Guardians??? wow ... ok ... hers what I would take from your figure list against a mech force(any mot just tau).

How do you normally deal with any army that has armor?

General advice : use your falcon and waveserpent to the fullest advantage! Even if you use them to zomm two units 24" hide behind cover and be close enough to disrupt their battle lines, its worth it. Even if they do nothing else. Getting a squad of scorpians(I usually go 7 + exarch) into your enemy's deployment zone really makes them re-adjust what they thought they were gonna do. Against tau dire avengers in theri deployment zone could be pretty messy too.

Warwalkers against an army with lots of heavy weapons(pretty much all mech forces) and tau esp.(30' s5 weapons that can pop them .. ouch). Points better spent elsewhere. In this case consider dark reapers. They can survive most of the tau shooting a little longer(espescially if deployed in cover). and can pump out shots into troops and specials alike, usually negating save(except on broadsides).

Here is the general list I would field, I don't have any points values in front of me so you may need to tweak a little bit:

Autarch on bike w lance+banshee mask
Shining spears
dire avenger squad + waveserpent(tw BL to hunt tanks if it lives)
Dire avenger squad on foot(give them a warlock with conceal if they can take warlocks)
falcon scatter laser, sh cannon, stones, holofield
striking scorps + exarch(to hitch a ride in the falcon)
striking scorpians (to infiltrate if possible)
all of your rangers
Guardia bike squad(make sure a shurikan cannon is in there)

This should be right around 1500 pts.

You had :

12 long range s6 shots(that were not going to last long against tau long range heavy weapons fire)


You now have: (and its all split up now so toau shooting agains one unit won't take all yoru firepower)
8 long range s5 shots
8 long range s6 shots
4 long range s8 shots(all but one of which are ap2, one of which is re-rollable and counts pesky 13 and 14 armor values as 12).

Plus you have more mobility, the dire avengers might get close enough to shoot something, the scorps will cause the enemy to divide their focus(and deply to shoot the infiltated ones letting you rush up and enter HTH), the bikes can perform flanking shots on vehicles and rush to engage the pesky fire warriers wherever they may roam, you get the picture.

If you want to add to your list a wraithlord is useful in many circumstances and bs 4 Brightlances and rocket launchers are uber happy tank killers, plus they can advance along side your avengers and help with enemy tough HTH troops. Warp spiders would also give you the mobility of jump troops, and can take on vehicles and troops alike(and are much better than hawks IMO).


My list is 30 guardians with scatter lasers, two wraithlords, farseer with guide and doom, autarch on bike, 8 scorps, 8 spiders, wave serpent + storm guardians, falcon. I win tournies that are marine heavy every time with this list, and do pretty decent verses most armies with a 50+% win rate or better(horde armies like feral orks, CC like Korne, Shooty 6 dread marine lists etc.) and I almost never get wiped out ... worst I usually get is a draw or a marginal loss. Guard lists usually offer the most problems because they usually have so many anti infantry weapons like (to be read Pie Plates that never seem to miss my units).

Anyway,hopefully some of my rambling might help a little.

Take vibrocannons you can hit both the squad behind the fish and the fish itself. Also very nice for targeting some quivering HQs.

I like the Vibrocannons alot unfortnately the Heavy Support slot has alot of very good choices and 1 "must-have" choice so you dont see too much of the vibrocannon.

I've used vibrocannons against a couple of mech Tau armies. They are very effective--for the first turn (or game). For example, I've taken out a hidden hammerhead with a single shot in turn one.

Once the Tau player understands what they actually do and how effective they are, though, he will go way out of his way to take them out as quickly as possible. Smart missiles are probably the most effective against vibrocannons, and one volley will usually finish the battery off.