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So how would one play Tau against Dark Eldar? How do you deal with lots vehicles? Webway portal? Taloses?
Here is what i would do against webway portal (Wich my Deldar friend uses comonly and extencevly). I am thinking no Railguns scince s10 is wasted against AV10. Instead Skyrays, scince you can get all six missiles one one turn and stop that Raider before he gets too close. You will propably want to bunker upp in the corners and screen with Kroots. Try to make two identical corners so, if he decides to go for the left corner, the left corner might die, but your right corner will be intact and you will be able to shoot him as he comes for theleft. Maby use Fire Warriors as EMP comandos to stop ravegers, or reserv them so they might survive and hold an objective. For crisis suits i would use either Deathrain with Flamer or Heatwave whit MP. In both cases you get a Flamer and a MP and so you can shoot light vehicles (Raiders) and Flame whyches and then jump behinde a Kroot screen. But what do you think?

you shouldn't tailor just to win. tell us what your usual list consists of with the points and how you usually play. what are your XV8's loaded out with, what all comers list do you run?

Tactics not Tailoring

Well,im not just looking for how i would win over a specific opponent, i would want more general tactics wich any Tau player could benefit from

Bubblewrap with kroot, give yourself time to shootem all down

As a DE player I would say the best tools available are your ability to split fire with units that can easily blast Raiders/Venoms from the sky.

Your biggest weakness is our speed and assault capability.

The general advice of bubblewrap isn't a bad one - definitely if the opponent has Wyches you'd want to deploy far back and do something to keep him back from assaulting your vehicles/Suits.

Other than that your next best defense is having a fair pile of vehicles to hide in and also having enough shooting power to down his air force quicker than he can shred your army - which isn't easy but is doable.

DE are a tough matchup for Tau - I'm always happy when I get to fight Tau because I consider it an 'easy' fight.

Well, the taus are more and more taking the Necrons place. I am hoping for a new codex soon or this might get uglier.

Take Disruption pods and a positional relay. you'll die to lots of wyches. you could take flachett's they may help. I would mech up VS DE, abd always move 12". it helps if you have multi trackers on your vehicles. massed BC fire could be effective but i would say missile pods would be your greatest ally. str 10 is a little overkill but if it needs to die it will with ap 1 plus opened topped. essentially you need a 3+ to mess it up.

@Abyssel i agree with you on most points, but you have to remember the speed whith wich the DE moves- it almost negates our puny 12-inch movement.

1 st rule of fighter eldar - THEY ARE BALLS TO THE WALLS FAST

now understanding the way they move is the key kroot wrapping will help but only if you can deploy properly and going mech heavy helps limit their ability to grab you into assault.

if memory serves basicly the DE can move and with his troops fleeting assault they can cover around 4 feet of space one trick i use in adition to flachettes is to block the transports movement with my own essenially useing devil fish and piranhas to stund the movement of the transport denying them movement enough to get my suits so when they assault the vehicle its wastes there turn kill a good amount on my vehicle flachettes then my troops pop out lay waste.

especially with the strengths and weakness by comparision your going to have to shove somthing into the meat grinder its different things depending on what you fight with DE i give them vechicles haywire grenades are not terriably reliable and scince the discharger hit DE armor wich is crap - no doge

then the rest of your forces will elemitnate them the trick to to block there trasnports movement it blunts the assault and the troops cant effeciantly get to you. web way ports back up and shoot them as they stream out at range and blast them its just really tricky to block with cause i say it but with all the factors of how they deploy and terrian but ive found pirahna blocking just rapes them and if they ignore the piranaha it just to something with troops and pop it once there on foot i just keep shifting and shooting if any tanks or transports are left they dance out of range and shoot them give them expendable units and does to their crappy armor you dont need expensive loadouts to kill them either last time i fought our local DE i kroot wrapped heavy in cover he slaughtered them but was bunched up cause he couldnt get close then here came the templates and BC fire chewing them up.

the key its placement and having blockers then eating the forces that just ate you blockers small kroot squads in large lines block even two DE squads at a time remember pile in after the first swings of combat then rail guns etc shoot the trasports not unloaded i put them in groups of two with the target lock cause penitraiting their armor is cake and killing the damn thing is a glorious 3+

MrTau wrote:@Abyssel i agree with you on most points, but you have to remember the speed whith wich the DE moves- it almost negates our puny 12-inch movement.

Yes granted they'll catch you eventually but you see...with 12" vehicle movement that need 6's to hit you. Rare chance they can do anything to you in CC vs vehicles, the flachetts also insure some of the wyches will die if they ram into your railheads with flachetts. makes them think twice about it. besides im sure the wyches will be going after things of foot like your suits. bubble wrap with kroot or keep the suits behind vehicles. when the vehicles move 12" and the suits move 6" they fire what they need to, i ALWAYS equip my suits with missile pods and something else, usually plasma. It helps because they can deal with a multitude of threats, the MP's let me be 36" away and vs DE vehicles with enough firepower they will go down. then in the assault hide behind the tanks. wyches come close rapid with plasma. hope to god if you nut to butt your suits to the tanks then the wyches will have to fall into the tanks and there comes the flachetts. I always take shield drones, never leave home without. If you need to guy a small FW squad and bubble the broadsides, they have to assault your FW's first, gives you some extra time.

Stay mobile. They'll catch you but when they do make it hell for them to actually hit you. If a wyche squad does come out of those transports, blast them away with plasma and submunitions.

If they really need to die and its a lone unit then role up a devilfish and unload the warriors into them. I usually keep my DF's with the FW's in reserve and bring in what I need when I need it.