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I had a friendly game tonight against demons with my tau. Now neither of us fielded any flyers but with that being said at 1500pts he had me outnumbered almost 3-1 and the beasts for the demons are absolutely absurd. I had a riptide, 36 fire warriors, 10 pathfinders, 6 stealth suits, a crisis suit commander with 2 body guards, cadre fireblade, and an aegis with quad-gun.

Turn 2 I was locked in assaults, not much I could do, and unfortunately with the demon units being dirt cheap I could not put enough fire into any unit to cause any significant damage. The fact they are fearless (basically) at range makes it feel like any damage I do deal is worthless and it is near impossible to take out a full unit.

My major issues were his huge unit sizes, their survivability, and the fact the beasts he was using had multiple wounds, there were pissloads of them, and at 2 or more wounds each I just couldn't slow them down.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We are going to be starting a campaign soon and if every game against demons is going to be this one sided I might just opt out of the battles.

The beasts you're referring to are Khorne Flesh Hounds. They're one of the scariest things in that book. What kind of units was he running other than the Flesh Hounds?

Most Daemon lists typically don't have much shooting. If he's relying on assault, you could use some effective bubble wrap.

120 points gets you 20 Kroot. Not only does it give you an extra 20 bolters, but they'll buy you an entire extra turn of shooting with your whole army. Shoot at long range. He has to charge the giant blob of Kroot...overwatch with your entire army. Then rapid fire with your entire army...then overwatch any survivors a second time.

The other option, which isn't great, would be to just tarpit his unit with your Riptide. Charge him into the biggest unit and sit there all game. They can still potentially run you down, but a full sized unit of 20 Flesh Hounds will only deal one wound every two turns.

Siphen wrote:
The beasts you're referring to are Khorne Flesh Hounds. They're one of the scariest things in that book. What kind of units was he running other than the Flesh Hounds?

Most Daemon lists typically don't have much shooting. If he's relying on assault, you could use some effective bubble wrap.

120 points gets you 20 Kroot. Not only does it give you an extra 20 bolters, but they'll buy you an entire extra turn of shooting with your whole army. Shoot at long range. He has to charge the giant blob of Kroot...overwatch with your entire army. Then rapid fire with your entire army...then overwatch any survivors a second time.

The other option, which isn't great, would be to just tarpit his unit with your Riptide. Charge him into the biggest unit and sit there all game. They can still potentially run you down, but a full sized unit of 20 Flesh Hounds will only deal one wound every two turns.

He ran a list using a little of everything, one unit of the flesh dudes (14) , one unit of screamers (8), one unit of seekers (not sure how many it was), one unit of the nurgle beasts, one unit of the "I have 3d6 insane psychic shots" fellows, 20 blood letters (think I got that name right), and another unit of nurgle infantry things. Sorry that is not very precise, didn't get a read on some things for a few reasons: 1) not familiar with daemons 2) I was frustrated with just pulling models off the table.

From my end I play to win but I also play models/units I like and unfortunately I am not a huge fan of kroot, aesthetically. In our match my riptide did indeed get assaulted by the khorn guys and had them held up, but 220pts of my army were stuck there because of that (admittedly my bounce move was only a roll of a 5 so I couldn't get away during my previous turn). My major problem is the fact the beasts have so much mobility and his scoring units (some nurgle infantry) are so resilient that I just couldn't do much. Finally every match I've played against the psychic shooting unit of death has screwed me royally. He has some upgrade who also casts it so I am usually taking around 24-30 shots per round from that single unit every game and for the point cost of that unit it is dirt cheap for what it does. Actually to be honest, everything he fielded seemed very low in point costs for what they do. Firewarriors are cheap, but when a 14 man khorn riders unit (at 16pts each) of doom costs less than my 2 units of fire warriors and can do what these do I have to wonder.

Siphen wrote:
The beasts you're referring to are Khorne Flesh Hounds. They're one of the scariest things in that book. What kind of units was he running other than the Flesh Hounds?

Most Daemon lists typically don't have much shooting. If he's relying on assault, you could use some effective bubble wrap.

120 points gets you 20 Kroot. Not only does it give you an extra 20 bolters, but they'll buy you an entire extra turn of shooting with your whole army. Shoot at long range. He has to charge the giant blob of Kroot...overwatch with your entire army. Then rapid fire with your entire army...then overwatch any survivors a second time.

The other option, which isn't great, would be to just tarpit his unit with your Riptide. Charge him into the biggest unit and sit there all game. They can still potentially run you down, but a full sized unit of 20 Flesh Hounds will only deal one wound every two turns.

JY2's pinkstar list would like to disagree with you on Demon shooting.... haha

Riptide is great for Tarpitting Hounds, unless he gets a multi charge, then he's going to sweep it. It's not going to do a very good job tarpitting Demonettes though, so pick your poison. Essentially, every unit in the Demon codex excels at one task, learn your enemy and counter his hyper specific tools with your own tools. Also, a good demon unit will abuse the Grimoire. When it goes off, shoot at OTHER units. Tau, of almost all Armies, can do this. If he has a Lord of Change in your face popping a 2++ invuln, just ignore him for that turn. Also, it's important to remember, the unit WITH the grimoire, cannot take advantage of it. If you can remove him, you severely weaken the Demon Army.

Also, spread out. I know Tau like to castle up and overwatch, but if the Demon player throws 20 Hounds into you with a 3++ or 2++, he doesn't care how much overwatch you do, he's going to multi assault and tarpit or sweep half your Army. It's even worse if he's running multiple assault hordes, Hounds swallowing overwatch followed by Seekers.

Another key point, do not underestimate his speed, and plan accordingly. This goes hand in hand with spreading out, but give him speed bumps. His Army is fast, almost unbelievably so. Plan for that. My Demon list runs Hounds, and they absolutely can get a turn 1 charge if you don't see it coming.

Lastly, a small point, but if he is running Fateweaver, don't be afraid to assault him (assuming you get him on the ground). He's not a Lord of Change or a Bloodthirster. A Kroot squad can tarpit Fateweaver all game. This is doubly effective, because Fateweaver WILL be his Warlord, and he's going to have to use the Grimoire on him to prevent you from getting slay the warlord.

Edit: You could also allie in a farseer with Runes of Warding. That's pretty much game over against a lot of Demon lists.

Those Horrors with all those shots: did you remember to for Deny the Witch? Did he remember that he still had to hit with all of those shots?
An average of 4D6 is 14, then he hits with 7 and that's implied that you failed your Deny the Witch and he of course passed his Psychic test.

Chaospling wrote:
Those Horrors with all those shots: did you remember to for Deny the Witch? Did he remember that he still had to hit with all of those shots?
An average of 4D6 is 14, then he hits with 7 and that's implied that you failed your Deny the Witch and he of course passed his Psychic test.

Dude averages in the teens with his 4d6 roll and then has prescience up, so he hits with way more than 7 on average (from what I've dealt with at least). And the dude with the unit casts it as well, so two casts a turn, loads of shots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

anonymou5 wrote:

Siphen wrote:
The beasts you're referring to are Khorne Flesh Hounds. They're one of the scariest things in that book. What kind of units was he running other than the Flesh Hounds?

Most Daemon lists typically don't have much shooting. If he's relying on assault, you could use some effective bubble wrap.

120 points gets you 20 Kroot. Not only does it give you an extra 20 bolters, but they'll buy you an entire extra turn of shooting with your whole army. Shoot at long range. He has to charge the giant blob of Kroot...overwatch with your entire army. Then rapid fire with your entire army...then overwatch any survivors a second time.

The other option, which isn't great, would be to just tarpit his unit with your Riptide. Charge him into the biggest unit and sit there all game. They can still potentially run you down, but a full sized unit of 20 Flesh Hounds will only deal one wound every two turns.

JY2's pinkstar list would like to disagree with you on Demon shooting.... haha

Riptide is great for Tarpitting Hounds, unless he gets a multi charge, then he's going to sweep it. It's not going to do a very good job tarpitting Demonettes though, so pick your poison. Essentially, every unit in the Demon codex excels at one task, learn your enemy and counter his hyper specific tools with your own tools. Also, a good demon unit will abuse the Grimoire. When it goes off, shoot at OTHER units. Tau, of almost all Armies, can do this. If he has a Lord of Change in your face popping a 2++ invuln, just ignore him for that turn. Also, it's important to remember, the unit WITH the grimoire, cannot take advantage of it. If you can remove him, you severely weaken the Demon Army.

Also, spread out. I know Tau like to castle up and overwatch, but if the Demon player throws 20 Hounds into you with a 3++ or 2++, he doesn't care how much overwatch you do, he's going to multi assault and tarpit or sweep half your Army. It's even worse if he's running multiple assault hordes, Hounds swallowing overwatch followed by Seekers.

Another key point, do not underestimate his speed, and plan accordingly. This goes hand in hand with spreading out, but give him speed bumps. His Army is fast, almost unbelievably so. Plan for that. My Demon list runs Hounds, and they absolutely can get a turn 1 charge if you don't see it coming.

Lastly, a small point, but if he is running Fateweaver, don't be afraid to assault him (assuming you get him on the ground). He's not a Lord of Change or a Bloodthirster. A Kroot squad can tarpit Fateweaver all game. This is doubly effective, because Fateweaver WILL be his Warlord, and he's going to have to use the Grimoire on him to prevent you from getting slay the warlord.

Edit: You could also allie in a farseer with Runes of Warding. That's pretty much game over against a lot of Demon lists.

As stated in my previous post I essentially don't like kroot, but to make it a little more clear, I don't own kroot. I do own space marines and imperial guard. Marines are battle brothers and have some melee options, but point for point I think terminators would still crumble under the weight of most of the daemon assaults. 5 wounds worth of terminators versus 40 wounds worth of hounds?

Familiarizing yourself with the unit always helps.

Hounds: S8 blast can really hurt.

Plague bearers: Removing cover can help take out the Nurgle objective holders.

Pink horrors: They only have a 24" range and are kinda slow, how are they getting to you? Also 3d6 is averaging 10 shots,5hit, 4 wounds even with out cover. they are not doing much.

I think you have a HQ that can give out stubborn.

All else fails a few tanks would really help.

deviant cadaver wrote:
Familiarizing yourself with the unit always helps.

Hounds: S8 blast can really hurt.

Plague bearers: Removing cover can help take out the Nurgle objective holders.

Pink horrors: They only have a 24" range and are kinda slow, how are they getting to you? Also 3d6 is averaging 10 shots,5hit, 4 wounds even with out cover. they are not doing much.

I think you have a HQ that can give out stubborn.

All else fails a few tanks would really help.

With a 12 inch deployment and a move they have range on most of the board if the deployment is along the long edge, so they haven't had too many problems getting to me. And as I said, he runs prescience (spelling maybe?) and re-rolls some of the mess. All I know is the dude that casts it in the unit and the unit itself unleash a large volley of shots at me every time I face them.

As for the beasts, unfortunately str 8 blasts are few and far between and the one I had missed during this match. In addition to this I only own one ion equipped blast model, the Riptide, my two hammerheads were built with the railgun pre-6th edition. Sub-munitions isn't bad for mass infantry, but certainly isn't str 8.

If you're ok with using allies, I think an Ironclad Dreadnought (or two) with a heavy flamer (or two) would wreck his list. By the sounds of it, only his Screamers could hurt it.
Flesh Hounds, Seekers, Beasts of Nurgle, Pink Horrors, Bloodletters are all helpless against an AV 13 walker. Even Screamers need to roll an 8 on 2d6 just to glance, and you're insta-killing them with strength 10.

This is very stupid question, but are you sure you're bringing the same points amount as him? The things you mentioned don't even come close to 1500 points, unless you're tossing 200+ points of upgrades on your crisis suits.

use guard as allies. A nice big squishy unit of 50 guardsmen for 300 points is hard to miss. you cud use them as a shield and if you join them all up into one massive squad and give them first rank fire second rank fire then thats 150 shots at 12 inch range or 100 shots at 24 inch range. most things will bow under that amount of fire power and then you get to overwatch!! however you could also take a leman russ. im sure that will deal with the nurgle infantry very well. str8 ap 3. bye bye nurgle.

Siphen wrote:
If you're ok with using allies, I think an Ironclad Dreadnought (or two) with a heavy flamer (or two) would wreck his list. By the sounds of it, only his Screamers could hurt it.
Flesh Hounds, Seekers, Beasts of Nurgle, Pink Horrors, Bloodletters are all helpless against an AV 13 walker. Even Screamers need to roll an 8 on 2d6 just to glance, and you're insta-killing them with strength 10.

This is very stupid question, but are you sure you're bringing the same points amount as him? The things you mentioned don't even come close to 1500 points, unless you're tossing 200+ points of upgrades on your crisis suits.

He did ask the same thing in regards to points, I was about 40 or so points down as I miscalculated Fireblade (wrote him down as 100 pts instead of 60, Space Marine HQ thought process). However that 40 pts really wouldn't have changed the outcome.

The crisis suits together were less than 200 with upgrades, dual plasma rifles and shield gens that was it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 madmanjohn92 wrote:
use guard as allies. A nice big squishy unit of 50 guardsmen for 300 points is hard to miss. you cud use them as a shield and if you join them all up into one massive squad and give them first rank fire second rank fire then thats 150 shots at 12 inch range or 100 shots at 24 inch range. most things will bow under that amount of fire power and then you get to overwatch!! however you could also take a leman russ. im sure that will deal with the nurgle infantry very well. str8 ap 3. bye bye nurgle.

While I have guard I don't have that many guard. I don't like the idea of spending forever and a day painting hordes, unfortunately I find myself compelled to paint my models to a very high standard (even if I don't want to, cannot help it) so 50 guardsmen would take me too long to paint realistically.

Don't bother with Fireblades. You might have won if you had used an Ethereal, not even joking on that one. When FW unload 3 rapidfire shots, even those hounds will die. 50 FW + ethereal is 500 points, a very solid core to any 1500-2k army. Ld10, potential stubborn bubble... Ethereals are miles ahead of Fireblades. Or, if you want to get tricky, use Darkstrider. -1T on those hounds can get pretty nasty in a full FW squad rapidfiring with markerlights.

Consider taking suits with dual missile pod instead of dual plasma. They gain safety at 36", and a point of strength, plus one more shot at range - all great buffs against daemons. Use them to try sniping at the grimoire, or killing the biggest secondary threat.

He doesn't want to get tied up with the riptide. Get in his face with it. He'll tie most enemies up all game - even if he's not shooting, taking a full hound unit out of the picture is a great trade for you.

Also, shield generators on Crisis suits... too expensive. Especially against daemons, you gain practically nothing from it. Save the points, buy a flamer or target lock.

uberjoras wrote:
Don't bother with Fireblades. You might have won if you had used an Ethereal, not even joking on that one. When FW unload 3 rapidfire shots, even those hounds will die. 50 FW + ethereal is 500 points, a very solid core to any 1500-2k army. Ld10, potential stubborn bubble... Ethereals are miles ahead of Fireblades. Or, if you want to get tricky, use Darkstrider. -1T on those hounds can get pretty nasty in a full FW squad rapidfiring with markerlights.

Consider taking suits with dual missile pod instead of dual plasma. They gain safety at 36", and a point of strength, plus one more shot at range - all great buffs against daemons. Use them to try sniping at the grimoire, or killing the biggest secondary threat.

He doesn't want to get tied up with the riptide. Get in his face with it. He'll tie most enemies up all game - even if he's not shooting, taking a full hound unit out of the picture is a great trade for you.

Also, shield generators on Crisis suits... too expensive. Especially against daemons, you gain practically nothing from it. Save the points, buy a flamer or target lock.

Ugh, hate the way ethereals look, though my group doesn't have a problem with proxies so my ethereal might just be a different model all together, at 50 pts the buffs he gives are nice. That being said I only own 36 Firewarriors, trying to keep my model count on the lower side due to the fact my job right now is commission painting and getting to my own stuff is hard enough. I think that even with 3 full units that the ethereal might still be useful though.

As for the crisis suits, do you think the feel no pain would be a good alternative to the shield generators? Running dual plasma because the range isn't bad but my crisis suit commander's effective threat range is 18 inches, so this gives me some shots while I move into position and makes my optimal threat range around 12 inches (for max shots) and then bounce away.

As a tau tactic in general - focus firing on one unit until it is dead before moving to the next. Focus on the fastest units first, if they're threatening your scoring units. Otherwise get rid of enemy scoring units.

Daemons have a 5++ save so plasma is really inefficient compared to burst cannons. Missile pods are good all-round choices due to their high strength and range.

Also consider going full mech tau with an ethereal -- the storm of fire buff affects gun drones and when it's time to deal a killing blow you can disembark fire warriors for a true mont'ka strike.

 tetrisphreak wrote:
As a tau tactic in general - focus firing on one unit until it is dead before moving to the next. Focus on the fastest units first, if they're threatening your scoring units. Otherwise get rid of enemy scoring units.

Daemons have a 5++ save so plasma is really inefficient compared to burst cannons. Missile pods are good all-round choices due to their high strength and range.

Also consider going full mech tau with an ethereal -- the storm of fire buff affects gun drones and when it's time to deal a killing blow you can disembark fire warriors for a true mont'ka strike.

The hounds deploy at 12, move 12, run d6 (reroll) this puts them over halfway to my half of the table on turn 1. Turn 2, I get assaulted. Even with my 3 squads firing at him (with what I had at the time) 36 FW,36 Shots, 18 hits, 12 wounds, after his saves that puts me at around 8 wounds or 4 hounds down. The remaining 10 hounds are more than enough to take my forces out. The other issue I have is, even if I do above average against that 'one' unit, he still have screamers and seekers, which both move pretty damn quick as well. Backing them up was a unit of the nurgle beast fellows. Their was simply too many wounds in my face and no way to knock down any of the units enough to cripple them. If the daemons had to take ranged moral tests that'd help, but as it stands even if I nuked one of these beasts units he would have had 2-3 assaulting me on turn 2.

As for trying to kill something until it is dead, I tried, the seekers were the closest target and had the best chance of making an assault roll against me, I nuked them down to 4 models (not ideal with the fire tau puts out either) and they still managed to get to me. Having this many beasts forces me to choose which unit takes the weight of fire, but as it stood no one unit was really a better target than another because they all moved super fast and taking out one still meant the others had a chance of getting to me.

My only melee option I can think of is using my Space Marines as an ally, however in our campaign we won't be using allies for awhile, so I need to figure out how to beat these beasts while we grow.

 Jstncloud wrote:

He ran a list using a little of everything, one unit of the flesh dudes (14) , one unit of screamers (8), one unit of seekers (not sure how many it was), one unit of the nurgle beasts, one unit of the "I have 3d6 insane psychic shots" fellows, 20 blood letters (think I got that name right), and another unit of nurgle infantry things. Sorry that is not very precise, didn't get a read on some things for a few reasons: 1) not familiar with daemons 2) I was frustrated with just pulling models off the table.

From my end I play to win but I also play models/units I like and unfortunately I am not a huge fan of kroot, aesthetically. In our match my riptide did indeed get assaulted by the khorn guys and had them held up, but 220pts of my army were stuck there because of that (admittedly my bounce move was only a roll of a 5 so I couldn't get away during my previous turn). My major problem is the fact the beasts have so much mobility and his scoring units (some nurgle infantry) are so resilient that I just couldn't do much. Finally every match I've played against the psychic shooting unit of death has screwed me royally. He has some upgrade who also casts it so I am usually taking around 24-30 shots per round from that single unit every game and for the point cost of that unit it is dirt cheap for what it does. Actually to be honest, everything he fielded seemed very low in point costs for what they do. Firewarriors are cheap, but when a 14 man khorn riders unit (at 16pts each) of doom costs less than my 2 units of fire warriors and can do what these do I have to wonder.

- That unit of Pink Horrors + Lv3 Tzherald w/Exalted Locus of Conjuration is running a minimum of 312pts. More likely it's clocking in around the 325-340pts range due to added Rewards and perhaps an Instrument and/or Iridescent Horror to protect the Herald from unwanted challenges... For those pts, that unit better be able to lay some serious hurt! But then, you can still Deny the Witch 16% of the time, so yes, while it's really, really good shooting, it's not exactly the most reliable either.
To combat those Horrors, throw some multi-wound T4/3+ saves and/or some 2+ saves their way. Horrors suck balls against 2+ saves in general and will typically start giving out some free FnP to T4+ units.
To that end, your suits excel at countering these guys... Stealth Suits will out-shoot the Horrors in a one-on-one firefight, while Crisis Suits with Flamers will make an absolute mess of those T3 Pinkies.
Worst comes to worst, charge the damn things! Outside of random Gifts and a one-shot Blasted Standard, Horrors cannot preform Overwatch reactions. (and the Blasted Standard requires the unit to have an actual shooting attack, that has to physically cause at least one hit in order to activate!) Your suits can get in there, whittle the unit down, then finish them off in assaults. (don't get too worried by the threat of S2 Blue Horror auto-attacks, as long as you have a 3+ save they won't really amount to anything worth mentioning...)

- Bloodcrushers, Flamers, Fiends, Flesh Hounds & Screamers are all T4. Bring on the S8+ which again, your battlesuits have easy access to in order to Instant Death them as much as possible.
If he's not running Plaguedrones, then you can still gain the upper hand with your garenteed jump-shoot-jump tactics. (Plaguedrones have the same basic movement gimmick as your Crisis Teams!) Don't spam the plasma & S7 like you'd normally do vs MEQ's or Guard because it's simply playing right into the Daemons' strengths - namely our ability to soak-up heinous amounts of small to medium arms fire and still hit like a freight train.
Bring the Flamers, Fusion Blasters, Burst Cannons and the like. As many shots at S4-S6 as possible and your S8+ will ruin a Daemon's day.

- Plaguebearers resilience is based solely around their Heralds & their Shrouded special rule. Bring those Marker Lights and strip that cover down as much as possible and/or hit them with cover-ignoring weapons like Templates of all flavours.

- Bubble wrap your infantry in order to stop those Beasts from multi-assaulting. Yes, you'll have to sacrifice the front unit, but now you have a juicy target sitting right within rapid fire range of multiple units of your own.
You can even use your vehicles as speed bumps if need be... Throw them out there even if to only slow down the approaching gribblies. If the Daemon player ignores them, then you can still shoot him in the back. If those Drones are capable of still coming off the vehicle, then again, use them as a cheap speed bump to buy yourself more shooting phases.

- Cavalry, (so Bloodcrushers & Seekers), cannot move up levels in Ruins. While those Beasts can still climb up to the upper levels, those Cavalry units are all but useless if you start hiding your infantry on the second floor and up in any Ruins.
This is doubly critical of those Flesh Hound units, since it's quite popular for a Daemon player to run a mounted Herald of Khorne with either their Greater or Exalted Locus ability! If they do so, then the dogs have to leave their Herald behind to case you up through those upper levels, meaning they won't be nearly as brutal to face in combat. (No Rage or Hatred can really neuter the Flesh Hounds' damage output, plus it removes any potential for the unit to contain ap2 attacks!)



Tau is a good match-up for Daemons, especially due the complete lack of anti-Psychic abilities/defenses, but there's still plenty of nasty tricks for you to pull and it's by no means a true uphill struggle.

Don't forget that Tau rapid fire at 15". If he's charging you on turn 2, then you're rapid firing against him on turn 1.
With markerlights and the Fireblade, your FW are putting out 87 shots at BS 4 or 5. That's enough to wipe out any of his units, including the Flesh Hounds.

I can't stress how nasty dual flamer crisis suits are against Daemons. You can get 6 flamers for under 100 points. Not only do they eat their troops alive, but 6d3 overwatch hits can scare off any weakened unit (killing 2 full Screamers/Flesh Hounds or 5-6 Seekers/Bloodletters).

Siphen wrote:
Don't forget that Tau rapid fire at 15". If he's charging you on turn 2, then you're rapid firing against him on turn 1.
With markerlights and the Fireblade, your FW are putting out 87 shots at BS 4 or 5. That's enough to wipe out any of his units, including the Flesh Hounds.

I can't stress how nasty dual flamer crisis suits are against Daemons. You can get 6 flamers for under 100 points. Not only do they eat their troops alive, but 6d3 overwatch hits can scare off any weakened unit (killing 2 full Screamers/Flesh Hounds or 5-6 Seekers/Bloodletters).

Not exactly, on turn 2 he gets to move 12 and then assault, he can stay outside of rapid fire range (and did with most of my models). The only way I could have had full rapid was to get closer, which would have increased his odds of getting into melee with me, and give the fact he can move 12 even if I had knocked off even 1 more model he'd have still gotten to me.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jstncloud wrote:

He ran a list using a little of everything, one unit of the flesh dudes (14) , one unit of screamers (8), one unit of seekers (not sure how many it was), one unit of the nurgle beasts, one unit of the "I have 3d6 insane psychic shots" fellows, 20 blood letters (think I got that name right), and another unit of nurgle infantry things. Sorry that is not very precise, didn't get a read on some things for a few reasons: 1) not familiar with daemons 2) I was frustrated with just pulling models off the table.

From my end I play to win but I also play models/units I like and unfortunately I am not a huge fan of kroot, aesthetically. In our match my riptide did indeed get assaulted by the khorn guys and had them held up, but 220pts of my army were stuck there because of that (admittedly my bounce move was only a roll of a 5 so I couldn't get away during my previous turn). My major problem is the fact the beasts have so much mobility and his scoring units (some nurgle infantry) are so resilient that I just couldn't do much. Finally every match I've played against the psychic shooting unit of death has screwed me royally. He has some upgrade who also casts it so I am usually taking around 24-30 shots per round from that single unit every game and for the point cost of that unit it is dirt cheap for what it does. Actually to be honest, everything he fielded seemed very low in point costs for what they do. Firewarriors are cheap, but when a 14 man khorn riders unit (at 16pts each) of doom costs less than my 2 units of fire warriors and can do what these do I have to wonder.

- That unit of Pink Horrors + Lv3 Tzherald w/Exalted Locus of Conjuration is running a minimum of 312pts. More likely it's clocking in around the 325-340pts range due to added Rewards and perhaps an Instrument and/or Iridescent Horror to protect the Herald from unwanted challenges... For those pts, that unit better be able to lay some serious hurt! But then, you can still Deny the Witch 16% of the time, so yes, while it's really, really good shooting, it's not exactly the most reliable either.
To combat those Horrors, throw some multi-wound T4/3+ saves and/or some 2+ saves their way. Horrors suck balls against 2+ saves in general and will typically start giving out some free FnP to T4+ units.
To that end, your suits excel at countering these guys... Stealth Suits will out-shoot the Horrors in a one-on-one firefight, while Crisis Suits with Flamers will make an absolute mess of those T3 Pinkies.
Worst comes to worst, charge the damn things! Outside of random Gifts and a one-shot Blasted Standard, Horrors cannot preform Overwatch reactions. (and the Blasted Standard requires the unit to have an actual shooting attack, that has to physically cause at least one hit in order to activate!) Your suits can get in there, whittle the unit down, then finish them off in assaults. (don't get too worried by the threat of S2 Blue Horror auto-attacks, as long as you have a 3+ save they won't really amount to anything worth mentioning...)

- Bloodcrushers, Flamers, Fiends, Flesh Hounds & Screamers are all T4. Bring on the S8+ which again, your battlesuits have easy access to in order to Instant Death them as much as possible.
If he's not running Plaguedrones, then you can still gain the upper hand with your garenteed jump-shoot-jump tactics. (Plaguedrones have the same basic movement gimmick as your Crisis Teams!) Don't spam the plasma & S7 like you'd normally do vs MEQ's or Guard because it's simply playing right into the Daemons' strengths - namely our ability to soak-up heinous amounts of small to medium arms fire and still hit like a freight train.
Bring the Flamers, Fusion Blasters, Burst Cannons and the like. As many shots at S4-S6 as possible and your S8+ will ruin a Daemon's day.

- Plaguebearers resilience is based solely around their Heralds & their Shrouded special rule. Bring those Marker Lights and strip that cover down as much as possible and/or hit them with cover-ignoring weapons like Templates of all flavours.

- Bubble wrap your infantry in order to stop those Beasts from multi-assaulting. Yes, you'll have to sacrifice the front unit, but now you have a juicy target sitting right within rapid fire range of multiple units of your own.
You can even use your vehicles as speed bumps if need be... Throw them out there even if to only slow down the approaching gribblies. If the Daemon player ignores them, then you can still shoot him in the back. If those Drones are capable of still coming off the vehicle, then again, use them as a cheap speed bump to buy yourself more shooting phases.

- Cavalry, (so Bloodcrushers & Seekers), cannot move up levels in Ruins. While those Beasts can still climb up to the upper levels, those Cavalry units are all but useless if you start hiding your infantry on the second floor and up in any Ruins.
This is doubly critical of those Flesh Hound units, since it's quite popular for a Daemon player to run a mounted Herald of Khorne with either their Greater or Exalted Locus ability! If they do so, then the dogs have to leave their Herald behind to case you up through those upper levels, meaning they won't be nearly as brutal to face in combat. (No Rage or Hatred can really neuter the Flesh Hounds' damage output, plus it removes any potential for the unit to contain ap2 attacks!)



Tau is a good match-up for Daemons, especially due the complete lack of anti-Psychic abilities/defenses, but there's still plenty of nasty tricks for you to pull and it's by no means a true uphill struggle.

84% chance to not get negated by me is pretty reliable in my book. Even with the psychic test the benefits for this unit far outweigh the risks and I've hardly seen the psychic test failed.

While some of the information above is useful I still feel like the battle is an uphill one. At the beginning of the match just looking at his models I was outnumbered by about 3-1. Given the terrain setup he was able to block some los and still make reasonable movements to get into range of my stuff. Simply put, the daemons are so damn cheap it makes me want to cry.

Finally, I am trying to find a way to make an all-comers type of list that is not specifically tailored to daemons, something that will have an ok chance against them and anyone else, I don't want to build a list that will 100% rock the daemons and 100% lose to someone else, as it stands my current list did next to nothing.

Well, like I pointed out, the whole package costs the Daemon player upwards of 325-340pts. That damn well should be able to lay down some hurt!
Plus, the unit's real punch comes from the Herald himself... Kill him, and suddenly you've got over-costed, mediocre BS3 dudes with random shooting. Hardly something to get bent out of shape over.

And those Horrors tend to provide the bulk of the main daemonic shooting to boot... The only other 100% assured shooters in the entire army are;
- Bloodthirster with his mighty single-shot lash and it's whole whopping 12" range
- Lash of Despair available only to Slaanesh characters. (and is only Strength-User and non-rending to boot)
- Soul Grinders
- Skullcannons
- The pretty much unplayable Burning Chariot
- Warpstorm Table on results 5,6,8,9 and only then if the Daemon player can roll a 6!

Everything else that shoots is either psychic powers, or else comes from random rewards. If you think Horrors are too powerful, then you should start looking at your own list as there's obviously some added fat that can be trimmed to bring more guns to bear and/or better options you're not utilising.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Well, like I pointed out, the whole package costs the Daemon player upwards of 325-340pts. That damn well should be able to lay down some hurt!
Plus, the unit's real punch comes from the Herald himself... Kill him, and suddenly you've got over-costed, mediocre BS3 dudes with random shooting. Hardly something to get bent out of shape over.

And those Horrors tend to provide the bulk of the main daemonic shooting to boot... The only other 100% assured shooters in the entire army are;
- Bloodthirster with his mighty single-shot lash and it's whole whopping 12" range
- Lash of Despair available only to Slaanesh characters. (and is only Strength-User and non-rending to boot)
- Soul Grinders
- Skullcannons
- The pretty much unplayable Burning Chariot
- Warpstorm Table on results 5,6,8,9 and only then if the Daemon player can roll a 6!

Everything else that shoots is either psychic powers, or else comes from random rewards. If you think Horrors are too powerful, then you should start looking at your own list as there's obviously some added fat that can be trimmed to bring more guns to bear and/or better options you're not utilising.

So basically, what you are saying, just field nothing but fire warriors? My list had plenty of shooty elements (36 fire warriors, 10 pathfinders, crisis suit commander, 2 body guards, 8 stealth suits, riptide, aegis with quad, and a fireblade) but nothing that could lay down what that unit was laying down and unfortunately unless one gets precision shots (or the warlord trait) simply 'taking out awesome-character-whoever' is easier said than done when he is in the middle of the unit. I could drop the fireblade and that frees up 60 points, but I still don't think that would bring enough 'fat' trimming to field more pew-pew, not to mention he was giving me double shots at range 30 anyways.

8 stealth suits

I can see why you lost.

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

8 stealth suits

I can see why you lost.

Typo, 6 stealth suits. And if one unit of stealth suits was enough to lose against his list then there is no point in playing Tau. If the only way to 'win' is to simply spam 6 units of firewarriors with an ethereal behind an aegis then I am asking the wrong group of people for suggestions. I'd like to be able to play with a variety of units and stand a reasonable chance, not play the most boring list possible to win.

Spend ~120 points for farseer with runes of warding and a min jetbike squad for grabbing late objectives. We need psychic defense, and since you had none the daemons slaughtered you. Alternatively use a line of kroot to block assaults as already said.

Also, these numbers you keep throwing up seem really out of whack.

So you have 36 firewarriors. And a Cadre Fireblade. And an Aegis. But at range you're only getting 36 pulse rifle shots? One squad shouldn't be moving at all, that squad should have been 24 shots (26 if you include fireblade. More on that in a moment) due to the Fireblade's Add on the other two squads, you have 48 shots at 15.1-30". If they are 15" or less you have 36+48 shots for a total of 84 during your shooting phase. So.. unless you're missing something along the way your math is a bit fubar on your total shots and likely had an impact on your results.

Next, a very simple way to do this (if you're really dead set on not having Kroot. Which is a big mistake in the competitive side of things when against a demon army but heck let's ignore that) is to have a sacrificial lamb 6 man FW unit ahead of your other squads, within 6" of each unit. Spread out fully you can create something he really has to go through before getting to the rest of the group, and after you eat one squad to long range fire and full overwatch, you then get rapid fire on any survivors/any other squads that rushed up but couldn't get through to you since they had to assault through that squad.

Let's also talk about that Quad Gun. What were you doing with it? Didn't you have the squad that had Cadre Fireblade attached to it right next to it/along that Aegis so he could be firing that thing at BS5? No mention of that, and that gun should have been helping since it wasn't going to be worrying about air.

Asmodai is right, the stealth suits are a waste here. 8 suits dropped frees you a minimum of 240 points. Now 240 points can go into another Riptide and net you that 6man FW squad. OR you could bring a very nicely kitted out Crisis team and that FW squad, AND with leftover points a nice big gun drone squadron! Have your Commander take a drone controller and have him and his bodyguard join that gun drone squadron. Voila, craploads of pinning extra firepower and more supporting fire. And they're JSJ and should be making solid use of it.

<<edit: Just saw you change the 8 to a 6. That's still 180 points minimum, which gets you a little less but still gives you a wide number of options. Riptide.. nearly 3 Broadside group.. that Eldar allied group. FW Squad and Crisis team. Another FW Squad, Drone Squadron.. and a single Broadside.>>

I'm not even going to get into Allied support, which is really how you could answer this problem in a big way. A Farseer with appropriate wargear/abilities + a 3 guardian jetbike squad (reserve them for grabbing late game objectives) is going to change the entire outcome of this by denying tons of demon psychic abilities and (if you're really smart) giving rerolls to hit and to wound on your cadre fireblade squad (so rerolls on that big gun also!)

Anyway.. that's my takeaway from reading this. If I may, also take the feedback from everyone and think about it before simply dismissing it. I'm sure you've had a frustrating match and are feeling like nothing's going to solve the problem you run into. But it's quite possible to overcome this problem with some better planning and perhaps some minor changes to your list. Right now it feels like every suggestion you're just quick to say how it won't do anything for you.

GreyDragoon wrote:
Also, these numbers you keep throwing up seem really out of whack.

So you have 36 firewarriors. And a Cadre Fireblade. And an Aegis. But at range you're only getting 36 pulse rifle shots? One squad shouldn't be moving at all, that squad should have been 24 shots (26 if you include fireblade. More on that in a moment) due to the Fireblade's Add on the other two squads, you have 48 shots at 15.1-30". If they are 15" or less you have 36+48 shots for a total of 84 during your shooting phase. So.. unless you're missing something along the way your math is a bit fubar on your total shots and likely had an impact on your results.

Next, a very simple way to do this (if you're really dead set on not having Kroot. Which is a big mistake in the competitive side of things when against a demon army but heck let's ignore that) is to have a sacrificial lamb 6 man FW unit ahead of your other squads, within 6" of each unit. Spread out fully you can create something he really has to go through before getting to the rest of the group, and after you eat one squad to long range fire and full overwatch, you then get rapid fire on any survivors/any other squads that rushed up but couldn't get through to you since they had to assault through that squad.

Let's also talk about that Quad Gun. What were you doing with it? Didn't you have the squad that had Cadre Fireblade attached to it right next to it/along that Aegis so he could be firing that thing at BS5? No mention of that, and that gun should have been helping since it wasn't going to be worrying about air.

Asmodai is right, the stealth suits are a waste here. 8 suits dropped frees you a minimum of 240 points. Now 240 points can go into another Riptide and net you that 6man FW squad. OR you could bring a very nicely kitted out Crisis team and that FW squad, AND with leftover points a nice big gun drone squadron! Have your Commander take a drone controller and have him and his bodyguard join that gun drone squadron. Voila, craploads of pinning extra firepower and more supporting fire. And they're JSJ and should be making solid use of it.

<<edit: Just saw you change the 8 to a 6. That's still 180 points minimum, which gets you a little less but still gives you a wide number of options. Riptide.. nearly 3 Broadside group.. that Eldar allied group. FW Squad and Crisis team. Another FW Squad, Drone Squadron.. and a single Broadside.>>

I'm not even going to get into Allied support, which is really how you could answer this problem in a big way. A Farseer with appropriate wargear/abilities + a 3 guardian jetbike squad (reserve them for grabbing late game objectives) is going to change the entire outcome of this by denying tons of demon psychic abilities and (if you're really smart) giving rerolls to hit and to wound on your cadre fireblade squad (so rerolls on that big gun also!)

Anyway.. that's my takeaway from reading this. If I may, also take the feedback from everyone and think about it before simply dismissing it. I'm sure you've had a frustrating match and are feeling like nothing's going to solve the problem you run into. But it's quite possible to overcome this problem with some better planning and perhaps some minor changes to your list. Right now it feels like every suggestion you're just quick to say how it won't do anything for you.

The shots from the firewarriors are not maxmimum (or were not in the fight) due to some of his positioning.

That being said my only ally option is Space Marines, don't own eldar (don't have the funds to purchase them right now). Would you have any suggestions for space marine ideas? The walker(s) seems like a good idea, just trying to take into consideration all options.

Edit: (mentioned guard but Space Marines are my 'painted' option).

1) get some fortification with stairs or place a multi level ruin on your side of the board.
2) deploy firewarriors on the second+ floor.
3) Laugh at beasts

HQ of the Librarian with the Psychic hood is my first thought. Anything that further imperils there regarding their perils of the warp roll (like Runes of Warding do for Eldar) would be most excellent.

Not a big SM player, anyone else here have some anti-demons/psychic suggestions when fielding Space Marines? The Librarian really is what stands out to me Jstn and something that could shore up your psychic defenses and have a potential impact. Also having some melee force weapon attacks when things get hairy couldn't hurt. And you can plop him down on the big gun and free up your fireblade to use his pulse rifle.

Sounds like someone needs to learn what a speedbump is.

Those demons are going to look real cool when they eat shooting, army-wide overwatch, shooting, and army-wide overwatch before they even get to attack their second unit...

 Ailaros wrote:
Sounds like someone needs to learn what a speedbump is.

Those demons are going to look real cool when they eat shooting, army-wide overwatch, shooting, and army-wide overwatch before they even get to attack their second unit...

Yes, again, a recap of what everyone else is saying but without any suggestions. I don't own kroot so my speed bump options are FWs or fielding SM allies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 King Pariah wrote:
1) get some fortification with stairs or place a multi level ruin on your side of the board.
2) deploy firewarriors on the second+ floor.
3) Laugh at beasts

I was kind of thinking of getting the skyshield platform with the walls up, think that'd be a good option?