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barnowl wrote:

 Jstncloud wrote:


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.

That is why like the Etheral more. Fireblade gives on unit that stands still and extra shot at 30". The ethereal gives every pulse unit with in 12" an extra shoot at 9", 15" or 24", depending on the weapon, even if they move.

From the suggestions in the thread this is one I have considered (getting an Ethereal will not break the bank) which is essentially exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to tweak what I owned to achieve some level of competitiveness without having to dish out a load of cash (which I don't have). I think I can swing the $15 or so to get an Ethereal next time I am at my GW store (which won't be any time soon, it is an hour away :( )

Oh is that what hoods do now? Well in any case as pretty much all of a daemon armies's shooting will be psyker based anything you can do to mitigate psykers is good.

 Kain wrote:
Oh is that what hoods do now? Well in any case as pretty much all of a daemon armies's shooting will be psyker based anything you can do to mitigate psykers is good.

In 5th ed they just gave you a chance to cancel a power I believe (Space Wolves having the insane one) but yeah, they work as I described (otherwise I'd just ally a libby immediately and call it a day).

 Jstncloud wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Oh is that what hoods do now? Well in any case as pretty much all of a daemon armies's shooting will be psyker based anything you can do to mitigate psykers is good.

In 5th ed they just gave you a chance to cancel a power I believe (Space Wolves having the insane one) but yeah, they work as I described (otherwise I'd just ally a libby immediately and call it a day).

Well, Libbies aren't terribly expensive and they can bring in some nifty psychic powers so the Hood is an added bonus. And since as far as I know, the Daemon book is extremely short on non-psychic shooting, being able to "lolnope" their shots altogether is still a nice buffer to have. Still not quite as troll tastic as a Farseer with runes though as pretty much the entire psyker force of the enemy army rapidly perils itself to death.

But ultimately the main advice against daemons is to make them roll a lot of dice. They really, really don't like having to roll a lot of dice because they already have so much left to chance and as a rule have terrible saves. Don't worry about spamming bad AP weapons, it's not like you can find many Daemons with armor saves worth a damn anyway and most of the vehicles Daemons have are pretty fragile anyway.

So pick weapons that can make someone roll a lot of saves with good strength. So take your suits and load them with flamers, cannons, and ion weapons, missiles are a maybe, fusion cannons should be reserved for popping multiwound daemons that you can't just zap with a charged ion shot for some reason. Also, remember to castle up, Daemons, like Tyranids, absolutely hate having to assault through cover as it makes all the points they pay for a good initiative meaningless and pretty much nothing you'd want to be in assault anyway has grenades.

Also, if you have assaulty/counter assaulty allies, remember that most tzeentchian daemons crumple like paper in assault, for their price Horrors for example, are one of the few things *worse* than Firewarriors in close combat on a point to point basis. Slaanesh units also disintegrate if they cannot attack first due to them being extremely fragile, either beat them in initiative (pretty hard to do) or make them assault into decent enough at assault allied bricks behind cover where their fragility means they kill themselves off before doing anything of note.

Seekers for example, should be made to eat pulse rifle shots (which they are very, very bad at taking), and then have to assault through cover, through overwatch that kills more of them, and then get slammed by a counter assault unit that rips their paper butts apart. Daemonettes are similarly fragile, they are no tougher than guardsmen, they just actually get their saves against most shooting. Make them eat dakka, mitigate their initiative, slam them with counterassaults.

Really most daemon units are zippy glass cannons who can do a lot of hurt and go pretty fast but are terrible at taking it, or are mighty glaciers who are painfully slow and can be comfortably kept away by simply walking, deal good damage, and very tough, their weakness is being ignored in favor of targeting their squishier brethren. Prioritize the glass cannons first, they do not like being attacked, and they will die quickly. Once the threat of the fast units is dealt with, you can clear off the slower ones at your leisure. Keep an eye out for them, but don't worry too much about them until you are comfortably safe from rapid assaults.

Once the faster khornate and slaaneshi units are gone, the tzeentchilist and nurglite units should be dealt with in that order. Tzeentch has good saves, but mediocre toughness and as a rule are rubbish in assault.

Objective camping plaguebearers should be dealt with by ion blasting and heavy usage of fire to get past their cover saves and subject them to instant death.

 Kain wrote:

 Jstncloud wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Oh is that what hoods do now? Well in any case as pretty much all of a daemon armies's shooting will be psyker based anything you can do to mitigate psykers is good.

In 5th ed they just gave you a chance to cancel a power I believe (Space Wolves having the insane one) but yeah, they work as I described (otherwise I'd just ally a libby immediately and call it a day).

Well, Libbies aren't terribly expensive and they can bring in some nifty psychic powers so the Hood is an added bonus. And since as far as I know, the Daemon book is extremely short on non-psychic shooting, being able to "lolnope" their shots altogether is still a nice buffer to have. Still not quite as troll tastic as a Farseer with runes though as pretty much the entire psyker force of the enemy army rapidly perils itself to death.

But ultimately the main advice against daemons is to make them roll a lot of dice. They really, really don't like having to roll a lot of dice because they already have so much left to chance and as a rule have terrible saves. Don't worry about spamming bad AP weapons, it's not like you can find many Daemons with armor saves worth a damn anyway and most of the vehicles Daemons have are pretty fragile anyway.

So pick weapons that can make someone roll a lot of saves with good strength. So take your suits and load them with flamers, cannons, and ion weapons, missiles are a maybe, fusion cannons should be reserved for popping multiwound daemons that you can't just zap with a charged ion shot for some reason. Also, remember to castle up, Daemons, like Tyranids, absolutely hate having to assault through cover as it makes all the points they pay for a good initiative meaningless and pretty much nothing you'd want to be in assault anyway has grenades.

Also, if you have assaulty/counter assaulty allies, remember that most tzeentchian daemons crumple like paper in assault, for their price Horrors for example, are one of the few things *worse* than Firewarriors in close combat on a point to point basis. Slaanesh units also disintegrate if they cannot attack first due to them being extremely fragile, either beat them in initiative (pretty hard to do) or make them assault into decent enough at assault allied bricks behind cover where their fragility means they kill themselves off before doing anything of note.

Seekers for example, should be made to eat pulse rifle shots (which they are very, very bad at taking), and then have to assault through cover, through overwatch that kills more of them, and then get slammed by a counter assault unit that rips their paper butts apart. Daemonettes are similarly fragile, they are no tougher than guardsmen, they just actually get their saves against most shooting. Make them eat dakka, mitigate their initiative, slam them with counterassaults.

Really most daemon units are zippy glass cannons who can do a lot of hurt and go pretty fast but are terrible at taking it, or are mighty glaciers who are painfully slow and can be comfortably kept away by simply walking, deal good damage, and very tough, their weakness is being ignored in favor of targeting their squishier brethren. Prioritize the glass cannons first, they do not like being attacked, and they will die quickly. Once the threat of the fast units is dealt with, you can clear off the slower ones at your leisure. Keep an eye out for them, but don't worry too much about them until you are comfortably safe from rapid assaults.

Once the faster khornate and slaaneshi units are gone, the tzeentchilist and nurglite units should be dealt with in that order. Tzeentch has good saves, but mediocre toughness and as a rule are rubbish in assault.

Objective camping plaguebearers should be dealt with by ion blasting and heavy usage of fire to get past their cover saves and subject them to instant death.

Arguable one of the best posts in this 3 page thread, you didn't bash my model choices you simply provided some information, thanks.

I posted a list a few comments back, would you mind taking a look and providing feedback?

I play daemons, and have used lists similar to what you saw. They -hate- dreadnoughts, if you have SM allies with one or more of those, then he will cry. Fleshhounds get charged by a dread, there is nothing they can do but die. Bloodletters? The same. He doesn't seem to have high strength shooting, or monstrous creatures, so dreadnought's will be hell for him.

If you don't have dread's, then all I can say is bring as much shooting as you can, don't rely on strong shooting, just get as much in as you can, and split yourself up into as small peices as you can, because if you pack everything into big unit's, he will chew through them. It doesnt matter what he assault's you with, as tau, you will lose in the assault, no matter if its 6 fire warriors or 12. So, if you have firewarriors, run them in squad's of 6, then at least he can only kill 6, then disengage from the combat, leaving you free to shoot him again. You don't want anything he charges to survive, so that he is left in the open in your turn for you to shoot some more.

So TLDR version

-Run minimum sized squad's as much as possible.

-Set up as far back as possible. He is fast enough to get into your gun's range by turn 1 no matter where you go, so might as well be as far back as possible.

-AP means nothing against daemons. Bring volume of fire, not strength of fire

- If you can find a way to have strength 8 shots, take some it, and instant kill his fleshhounds/any multiwound things other than beasts fo nurgle

-If you have them, ally in dreadnought's / any walker vehicles.

I'd also recommend trying vassal 40k as it will let you test out theories and ideas at your leisure for real world games. Vassal to me has been a good asset for gaining experience and trying out lists and theoryhammering in the online games.

TBH, I'm surprised no one has mentioned taking SM allies, with the specific purpose of taking Null Zone and Gate. Secondly, I would take a 10 man Tac squad with a Drop Pod (if available) and flamer/combi-flamer for the Pink horrors. Lastly, if you can find the points, take a TFC for the bolster defense and the different shooting options.

So given what you have this would be the list I suggest:

Tau Commander w/stuff to your liking
2 bodyguard
Etherial

Riptide (I am a huge fan of the HBC though)

12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors

8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles
8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles

Hammerhead Rail
Hammerhead Ion
one with Longstrike

SM Librarian w/ Terminator Armor

Tactical squad with Flamer/combi-flamer
Drop Pod

Tunderfire Cannon or ADL with Quad Gun (If this is the choice give the Riptide a Target Lock and have the Librarian Join)

Things to remember - Tau and C:SM are Battle Brothers so can ICs can join squads. And... that ICs can join Riptides as a squad.

SaganGree wrote:
TBH, I'm surprised no one has mentioned taking SM allies, with the specific purpose of taking Null Zone and Gate. Secondly, I would take a 10 man Tac squad with a Drop Pod (if available) and flamer/combi-flamer for the Pink horrors. Lastly, if you can find the points, take a TFC for the bolster defense and the different shooting options.

So given what you have this would be the list I suggest:

Tau Commander w/stuff to your liking
2 bodyguard
Etherial

Riptide (I am a huge fan of the HBC though)

12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors

8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles
8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles

Hammerhead Rail
Hammerhead Ion
one with Longstrike

SM Librarian w/ Terminator Armor

Tactical squad with Flamer/combi-flamer
Drop Pod

Tunderfire Cannon or ADL with Quad Gun (If this is the choice give the Riptide a Target Lock and have the Librarian Join)

Things to remember - Tau and C:SM are Battle Brothers so can ICs can join squads. And... that ICs can join Riptides as a squad.

I don't have any TFCs anymore, I do have 3 dakka predators (autocannons/hbs) and I have 2 Mortis Pattern contemptors (2 Kheres Assault cannons each) so those might be good additions as well. Also, perhaps I missed something, but what is an HBC?

 Jstncloud wrote:

SaganGree wrote:
TBH, I'm surprised no one has mentioned taking SM allies, with the specific purpose of taking Null Zone and Gate. Secondly, I would take a 10 man Tac squad with a Drop Pod (if available) and flamer/combi-flamer for the Pink horrors. Lastly, if you can find the points, take a TFC for the bolster defense and the different shooting options.

So given what you have this would be the list I suggest:

Tau Commander w/stuff to your liking
2 bodyguard
Etherial

Riptide (I am a huge fan of the HBC though)

12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors

8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles
8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles

Hammerhead Rail
Hammerhead Ion
one with Longstrike

SM Librarian w/ Terminator Armor

Tactical squad with Flamer/combi-flamer
Drop Pod

Tunderfire Cannon or ADL with Quad Gun (If this is the choice give the Riptide a Target Lock and have the Librarian Join)

Things to remember - Tau and C:SM are Battle Brothers so can ICs can join squads. And... that ICs can join Riptides as a squad.

I don't have any TFCs anymore, I do have 3 dakka predators (autocannons/hbs) and I have 2 Mortis Pattern contemptors (2 Kheres Assault cannons each) so those might be good additions as well. Also, perhaps I missed something, but what is an HBC?

I dabble with a Demons list (Flying circus plus hounds) and the second scariest unit in the game is a Mortis with Kheres. Hounds can't hurt it, and it has enough skyfirei dakka to seriously hurt the FMCs. (scariest being any farseer with Runes of Warding)

anonymou5 wrote:

 Jstncloud wrote:

SaganGree wrote:
TBH, I'm surprised no one has mentioned taking SM allies, with the specific purpose of taking Null Zone and Gate. Secondly, I would take a 10 man Tac squad with a Drop Pod (if available) and flamer/combi-flamer for the Pink horrors. Lastly, if you can find the points, take a TFC for the bolster defense and the different shooting options.

So given what you have this would be the list I suggest:

Tau Commander w/stuff to your liking
2 bodyguard
Etherial

Riptide (I am a huge fan of the HBC though)

12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors

8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles
8 Pathfinders w/ 2 Ion Rifles

Hammerhead Rail
Hammerhead Ion
one with Longstrike

SM Librarian w/ Terminator Armor

Tactical squad with Flamer/combi-flamer
Drop Pod

Tunderfire Cannon or ADL with Quad Gun (If this is the choice give the Riptide a Target Lock and have the Librarian Join)

Things to remember - Tau and C:SM are Battle Brothers so can ICs can join squads. And... that ICs can join Riptides as a squad.

I don't have any TFCs anymore, I do have 3 dakka predators (autocannons/hbs) and I have 2 Mortis Pattern contemptors (2 Kheres Assault cannons each) so those might be good additions as well. Also, perhaps I missed something, but what is an HBC?

I dabble with a Demons list (Flying circus plus hounds) and the second scariest unit in the game is a Mortis with Kheres. Hounds can't hurt it, and it has enough skyfirei dakka to seriously hurt the FMCs. (scariest being any farseer with Runes of Warding)

I played against the Daemon player tonight and had a much closer game (won with line breaker). My list at 1500 pts had 36 firewarriors, 7 (might have been 8) pathfinders, an aegis defense line, Crisis suit commander (2/4/fnp) and two body guards (2x Burst Cannons/FNP each). For allies I ran a libby in terminator power armor with ss/power axe he also used powers from the codex (one of which makes all enemies reroll passed invuln saves within 24inches, this really ruined his day), 10 tactical marines in a drop pod (flamer, combi flamer, rocket launcher) and 2 contemptors (mortis with 2x kheres and standard with 2x CCW/H.Flamers). This list did much better than my previous although the SM's take up a huge amount of the points, they did essentially become a speedbump that the daemon guy had a hard time getting over.

I think with some list tweaking with that librarian and the power (Null Zone I believe is the name) will be really annoying for a daemon player.

Hmm, normally you can only take one of each FOC slot other then your mandatory slots for Allies. (Excluding HQ, only one of those ever)

Coyote81 wrote:
Hmm, normally you can only take one of each FOC slot other then your mandatory slots for Allies. (Excluding HQ, only one of those ever)

Mortis Contemptors really eat Daemons, Cyclone is almost mandatory on it. Not sure what the CC Contemptor is excellent for taking out the hordes. But your army was illegal because you can only have one HS slot in the allied contingent (1 HQ, 2 Troops, 1 of everything else) unless you were playing double FoC, in which you would need a second HQ and second troops choice.

Borderline list-tailoring, however. Heck, it was list-tailoring since you went out and got an allied libby with Null zone and tons of flamers... and you only managed to eke out a draw with linebreaker?

So, HBC is Heavy Burst Cannon.

Unless im mistaken the libby cant take a SS and poweraxe because poweraxes are a 2 handed weapon. Plus your list was illegal with too many allied heavies(unless they were a squadronbut idk as im not as familiar with SM).

I think your biggest problem is probably not enough fire power and the fact that you are trying to run a static gunline against an army that pretty much specializes in eating static gun lines. Pull some reserve shenanigans to throw him off so that he doesnt have to point one direction and destroy. Also maybe think about infiltrating stealth suits and harrassing right from the get go. Keep them away from his shooty guys and if you can make one of his units chase after the stealth suits then thats at least one more turn they arent smashing through your lines.

But honestly idk, demons seem like a somewhat tough match up for Tau if they dont just get a bunch of MCs. Hope i could help a little! Good luck! May the greater good prevail!

Wolfnid420 wrote:
So, HBC is Heavy Burst Cannon.

Unless im mistaken the libby cant take a SS and poweraxe because poweraxes are a 2 handed weapon. Plus your list was illegal with too many allied heavies(unless they were a squadronbut idk as im not as familiar with SM).

I think your biggest problem is probably not enough fire power and the fact that you are trying to run a static gunline against an army that pretty much specializes in eating static gun lines. Pull some reserve shenanigans to throw him off so that he doesnt have to point one direction and destroy. Also maybe think about infiltrating stealth suits and harrassing right from the get go. Keep them away from his shooty guys and if you can make one of his units chase after the stealth suits then thats at least one more turn they arent smashing through your lines.

But honestly idk, demons seem like a somewhat tough match up for Tau if they dont just get a bunch of MCs. Hope i could help a little! Good luck! May the greater good prevail!

Axes are one handed, they're just unwieldy.

Wolfnid420 wrote:
So, HBC is Heavy Burst Cannon.

Unless im mistaken the libby cant take a SS and poweraxe because poweraxes are a 2 handed weapon. Plus your list was illegal with too many allied heavies(unless they were a squadronbut idk as im not as familiar with SM).

I think your biggest problem is probably not enough fire power and the fact that you are trying to run a static gunline against an army that pretty much specializes in eating static gun lines. Pull some reserve shenanigans to throw him off so that he doesnt have to point one direction and destroy. Also maybe think about infiltrating stealth suits and harrassing right from the get go. Keep them away from his shooty guys and if you can make one of his units chase after the stealth suits then thats at least one more turn they arent smashing through your lines.

But honestly idk, demons seem like a somewhat tough match up for Tau if they dont just get a bunch of MCs. Hope i could help a little! Good luck! May the greater good prevail!

Contemtpors are Elites, Mortis Patterns are Heavy, my list was NOT illegal. Furthermore, if my librarian in terminator armor could not take an axe and shield (which he can btw) I'd argue how the heck terminators can take TH/SS at all. Page 43 of the rule book, might want to read over that, two handed weapons just prevent you from getting the bonus for 2 weapons in melee, it doesn't say you cannot have a shield or even 2 two-handed weapons (Which there are few times when the second point would ever happen).

As for the tactics, the Space Marines force the daemons to fight backwards due to the drop pod and the dreadnoughts were tough to crack and bought my gunlines several turns of firing without any real worry of taking damage in return. Also, early in the thread I noted that I use 6 stealth suits and was basically laughed at but I do field them (just didn't this match) however the daemon player just ignores them when I use them and runs right on by, he could not however ignore my Space Marines because I 'would' lock him up in assault to slow him down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

Coyote81 wrote:
Hmm, normally you can only take one of each FOC slot other then your mandatory slots for Allies. (Excluding HQ, only one of those ever)

Mortis Contemptors really eat Daemons, Cyclone is almost mandatory on it. Not sure what the CC Contemptor is excellent for taking out the hordes. But your army was illegal because you can only have one HS slot in the allied contingent (1 HQ, 2 Troops, 1 of everything else) unless you were playing double FoC, in which you would need a second HQ and second troops choice.

Borderline list-tailoring, however. Heck, it was list-tailoring since you went out and got an allied libby with Null zone and tons of flamers... and you only managed to eke out a draw with linebreaker?

My list was not illegal, and 2 flamers is hardly tons. As I noted early on in the thread I did not want to purchase more models so I used what I had, would it have not been worse to use allied eldar? At least I used models I owned. And in my defense, it isn't like he 'didn't' know what I was fielding and it isn't like he 'didn't' have deep strike in units with flamers and crap to try to nuke my Tau, because he did have those and did know what I was playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Coyote81 wrote:
Hmm, normally you can only take one of each FOC slot other then your mandatory slots for Allies. (Excluding HQ, only one of those ever)

3rd time is a charm, Contemptors are elites Mortis are heavies.

A plus one to lots of shooting over quality. Oh, and i dont know if you are or not, but remember photon grenades.

 EagleArk wrote:
A plus one to lots of shooting over quality. Oh, and i dont know if you are or not, but remember photon grenades.

The few times it has come up those have been useful, if I recall they are the defensive grenades. My opponent was kind enough to remind me when he assaulted my Tau during our game last week.

Yeah, defensive grenades, anything to stop them getting those extra attacks.

I betray the Dark Gods by helping you today as I am also a Daemon player but alright. The SSLP isn't all that good, sorry. It sounds like the daemon-player uses hordes of beasts/cavalry, and therefor wont have any long ranged shooting, other than horrors (and they max out at 24"). It also doesnt sound like he takes any FMC's (which are the most awesome thing in the codex in my opinion). I'd need to know what kind of list you were using but in order to hurt his fast-moving super-charge death units, I'd take a hammerhead with longstrike. He gives you a great overwatch from units hiding behind it, and they will likely charge him first as they will want to get him out of the way. Stick him in front of the unit you want to protect and just watch the fireworks go off.

However I only have experience playing against Tau, and haven't read the codex yet so I can only tell you the things that I fear most when playing against Tau.

Hope I could be of help.

He has fmcs just didn't field them that game. The fmcs can be brought down with lots of fire, haven't had as many problems with them as beasts.