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I've only really ever run Screamer Star and Flying Circus, but as a Daemon player I tend to find that Tau in general just kinda sit back and fire what ever they have, and my Daemons just tend to disappear.

I'm not saying the codex is weak, we have some of the best units in the game in terms of survivability. I am however saying, that the lack of any armor save and solely relying on things like 5++ on Hounds, is crippling. Now I get that I'll be flamed for this, but lets put our pointers down and actually think about why this is bad. Firstly, I recently bought a crap load of Hounds and Seekers. I would LOVE to use them effectively in a 1500-2k game but the inevitable lack of armor save essentially makes them useless because of high Tau fire rates. I played a game recently running 40 Hounds and a single Riptide over the course of 2 turns each, took out a whole squad of these things. I was in good cover (4+) but that doesn't matter because of Markerlights. I know the general rule for Tau is take out their Markerlights first, and that's what I essentially did with Pink Horrors destroying 2 Tetras (FW Piranha Equivilent model with Markerlights) But that didn't really seem to matter to my opponent since he had a Rhivanna (Riptide Equivilent model from FW with a bunch of point and die rules)

Essentially this big baddie shoots a bunch of Blasts and anything underneath it gets hit a bunch depending on the unit type. Now I lost about 16 hounds due to not having an armor save. Rolling 36 Wounds and basically saving 4 after that shooting phase.

What can I do aside from insist we play with LoS blocking terrain (Which my opponent HATES using. Actually I think my friend is considering quitting all together because of this... He likes having his pot shots) I know Terrain makes all the difference and I use this to my advantage as much as I can. Hiding out of LoS whenever possible. But these freakin things can jump move, shoot, then move again v_v" Who the hell play tested that?! Not to mention it falls under the rules for MCs... I don't know why... I would consider my Soul Grinders to be more MC like than a giant mechanical Gundam. Yet he is T6 and cannot be instantly killed by a lucky "Penetrating hit" v_v"

That is some relly bad luck losing that many hounds - or possibly a deployment/movement error.

I have played the new Tau several times now with Daemons - I ran 1 units of 18 Seekers and 2 units of 18 hounds.

In both games I hit the Tau lines before they could make an appreciable dent in my army and once you get into assault, Tau are hitting those units on 5's.

If you are struggling running across the board - then you want to take away some shooting phases from him. With relatively static Tau armies. You can force him to move into poor positions in order to grab objectives and punish him for it OR he will stay put and you throw away your assault units on Turns 3-5 and just win on objectives.

For Seekers and hounds that means taking advantage of outflank to punish broad deployment fronts, and ideally refusing a flank.

The Grimoire helps here a lot as well - use it on the hounds/seekers/screamers. You can fly Fateweaver off the board that turn to avoid exposing him without Grimoire protection.

Remember, you can skirt around the board edges for a while and remain out of range for most of his small arms fire. A few lucky hits with the Warp Storm can also really ruin his day.

Deal with Riptides by tarpitting them with hounds or let a few seekers rend the thing out. You really only need to get 6 or 7 into CC with it to win - or even better tie it into a multiassault and just sweep the thing.

Also, check the rules on Rhivanna - I seem to recall it losing some of the movement advantages enjoyed by other Riptides in exchange for its annoying wound doubling rules.

You should have some LOS blocking terrain on the board - your opponent might hate it becuase he cannot just sit back but it makes for a way more interesting game. In the end he will get more out of it.

Your opponent hating using LoS blocking terrain is probably the worst part. That's like you insisting that you play a city fight game. It's not fair.

I know I'm going to have to insist that we play with more Terrain. Right now we play with roughly 6 forests 4 hills about 1ft long and 3" high and 2 Ruins (GW Made) on our 6 squad Board... Not much as you can see.

I'm currently building more hills so we have about 15 of them. I want to get more Ruins and random Terrain Buildings and Walls.

He sees LoS blocking as a form of essentially creeping. Which is exactly what it's supposed to be like. If I just sit there and take his shots to the face it's not really fun for me. If he sits there and actually has to move his Tides and Fire Warriors around (God forbid the 6" they have to sidestep) It's like the end of the world for him. lol By his logic, I might as well just sit there and count how many turns it will take for my models to disappear =/

Not just More terrain. You need fine los-blocking terrain in the middle of the map. Basically, you can place terrain wherever you need. He hates using terrain - means he likes to sit back throwing dice at you without much thought and effortlessly winning games. Tau can use terrain for their advantage either. Sometimes even more than assaulty armies. And much easier.

Is getting belakor for invisibility an option?

Tau have several advantages over demons:

Mass close/mid range firepower, they are at their best, where you ideally want to be.
Missiles have good strength and number of shots, which are offset by their low ap values - this downside means nothingto daemons, with their 5++ saves vs everything.
supporting fire on overwatch
They have easy access to skyfire

To fight tau with daemons, or almost any other army for that matter, you have to play smart. Simply running straight at them is rarely the best strategy, they put out so many shots for their points that most units won't reach them.
Use cover, grimoire, & invisibility to cover vulnerable units as you advance.
Flickering fire those fire warriors. They shred Daemon princes, even on overwatch, so make sure you take some out before you get too close, particularly try to kill models that let the units be with 6 of each other when you charge.
Try Be'lakor. Everything becomes better for flying circus when you have be'lakor and 10 cultists as allies.
Use Soul grinders. Tau are not great at popping tanks. They have fusion guns and hammer heads. Fusion have to be close (not where they want to be vs daemons) and the hammerhead only has 1 shot per turn.

Soul Grinder with phlegm can help against fire warriors and kroot sniper blobs. I think CSM allies also might have something to offer here with some shooting options and the drake available.

@jakl277 I do have Be'Lakor, and I would actually like to run him in my Daemons. I'll probably try using him with them next time I play my Daemons, as I use him a lot in my Chaos Space Marine lists.

I have 2 Soul Grinders/Defilers (Semi converted with inter-changable top halves) But they aren't painted yet >.< lol

I was looking to do a flat out All Daemons List to see how they run with simple Fast Attack slots. I hear much success with them. Perhaps the point values were too low (1k) and simply fighting the 2 Riptide + Rhivanna was a little more like a kick in the balls since I'm not too used to running lists that aren't Flying Circus and Screamer Star. I played these lists to death, and wanted to try the rest of the dex.

I'll Definitely try out a grinder or two with Phlem and see how they do though!

Personally I prefer a slaanesh torrent loadout. I normally 1 run 2 of these, and then a khorne with phlegm cannon.

A proper Screamerstar pouring out 3x D6 S6 Ap4 Shots from each of its 4 Heralds at the back which most likely have ignores cover, absolutely evaporates Tau if you don't target the Riptides. Add that onto their 2++ Re-Rollable and they are your best bet. Throw in Be'lakor for Puppet Mastering his Skyray so you can just fire all of its seekers at his own stuff. Be'lakor also is a nice body guard for Kairos as he can give a Kairos a 2+ Re-Rollable Cover Save easily with area terrain. Leave your horrors in reserve and deepstrike them in. It's a 10 point upgrade for them not to scatter. This will mitigate them getting shot before they're in range. Take a Soulgrinder for it's S8 AP3 Large Blast to clear out Crysis Suits.

At 2K You can run:

HQ:

Be'lakor
Kairos Fateweaver
Herald of Tzeentch on Disc, Mastery Level 3, Locus of Conjuration
Herald of Tzeentch on Disc, Mastery Level 3, Grimoir
Herald of Tzeentch on Disc, Mastery Level 3, Portal Glyph
Herald of Tzeentch on Disc, Mastery Level 3

Troops:

Cultist x10
Horrors x10 + the thing that doesn't make them scatter
Horrors x10 + the thing that doesn't make them scatter

Fast Attack:

Screamers x9

Heavy Support:

Soulgrinder, Phlegm Bombardment, MoN
Soulgrinder, Phlegm Bombardment, MoN

An opponent who hates a specific type of terrain is seriously annoying. I played for a long time with an opponent who thought area terrain was dumb, and my daemons suffered horribly. Once we started using all types of terrain, area, ruins, LoS blocking. The games became much more well rounded. I started to beat him pretty badly after a little while.

I was usually facing a big fire warrior line behind ADL, pathfinders in ruins and around the deployment zone, a tank or two, and ususally some suits and a riptide.

I used a slaanesh torrent grinder to great effect. I deep struck right up next to his path finders and torched a full unit, also removing several nearby firewarriors from the game. I also dropped a few bundles of plaguebearers close by. My hounds would run up, usually being focused on, and my nurgle grinder behind cover would be shot at by tanks, markerlights and other fun stuff.

Games started to be really fun with him though. Tau seem to have trouble when targets start raining from the sky, and they can only ignore cover on so many units. I think target saturation is the way to go against tau.

Plus screamerstar is cheese of the worst quality.

Don't forget Skull Cannon of Khorne. S8 pie plates that ignore cover, AND count as assault grenades? Yes please.

Never trust someone who calls an icon the thing that doesn't make you scatter

you can play the screamerstar but IMO that list is pretty much not fun for anyone involved and the truth is that one missed grimoire is likely death or if your troops come in turn 2/3 you are probably not going to win an objectives game. I also tend to think that particular Death Star unit just does not have the firepower to really deal with 2+ saves and using he assault phase to do it is a bad idea.

I would recommend checking out this blog.

http://daemons40k.blogspot.com/

I do occasional writing related to Chaos Marines, but the majority of it is about Daemons.

It sounds a lot like it is not fun for him unless the odds are really stacked in his favor. You may want to talk about evening the terrain or playing someone else.

That being said it sounds like he is stacking his list to handle your T3-4 5++. You could counter his tailoring. 3 Tzeench grinders with phlegm, maybe ally in a friends IG leaf blower list and let him worry about cover when you have the longer range. The GoTN realls helps too.

@ ThatEdGuy: I read that one, it does have some good advice Thanks for the writing,.

deviant cadaver wrote:
It sounds a lot like it is not fun for him unless the odds are really stacked in his favor. You may want to talk about evening the terrain or playing someone else.

That being said it sounds like he is stacking his list to handle your T3-4 5++. You could counter his tailoring. 3 Tzeench grinders with phlegm, maybe ally in a friends IG leaf blower list and let him worry about cover when you have the longer range. The GoTN realls helps too.

@ ThatEdGuy: I read that one, it does have some good advice Thanks for the writing,.

Why do so many people see to love Tzeentch-Grinders? I see a lot of people running them, but I always believed in taking either Nurgle Phlegm-Grinders to hang back in area cover, or Slaanesh Torrent-Grinders to rush forward and template them/assault. Am I missing something about Tzeentch on Soul Grinders?

I've got a fever, and the only solution is more Faceroll.

If I run a 3 grinder list (usually 2 slaanesh torrent and 1 phlegm), then the phlegm cannon grinder will usually be khorne, or perhaps tzeentch if I have 5 points to spare. If I pick nurgle for it in such a list then they will just target the other grinders first, so it doesn't add much to the army's overall survivability. I choose the other 2 because they are cheap and save some points.

Other than that, I really can't see why a tzeentch grinder would be picked over a slaanesh one (I don't really like the nurgle ones all that much).

 greg0985 wrote:

deviant cadaver wrote:
It sounds a lot like it is not fun for him unless the odds are really stacked in his favor. You may want to talk about evening the terrain or playing someone else.

That being said it sounds like he is stacking his list to handle your T3-4 5++. You could counter his tailoring. 3 Tzeench grinders with phlegm, maybe ally in a friends IG leaf blower list and let him worry about cover when you have the longer range. The GoTN realls helps too.

@ ThatEdGuy: I read that one, it does have some good advice Thanks for the writing,.

Why do so many people see to love Tzeentch-Grinders? I see a lot of people running them, but I always believed in taking either Nurgle Phlegm-Grinders to hang back in area cover, or Slaanesh Torrent-Grinders to rush forward and template them/assault. Am I missing something about Tzeentch on Soul Grinders?

I suggested it as an anti-tau option. If they are running a lot of marker lights Nurgle becomes less useful and if he is running a lot of slow moving mid range anti-infantry shooting he could sit back with Tzeench grinders. Slaanesh are really better at running forward. TAC I'd say Nurgle or Slaanesh.

deviant cadaver wrote:

 greg0985 wrote:

deviant cadaver wrote:
It sounds a lot like it is not fun for him unless the odds are really stacked in his favor. You may want to talk about evening the terrain or playing someone else.

That being said it sounds like he is stacking his list to handle your T3-4 5++. You could counter his tailoring. 3 Tzeench grinders with phlegm, maybe ally in a friends IG leaf blower list and let him worry about cover when you have the longer range. The GoTN realls helps too.

@ ThatEdGuy: I read that one, it does have some good advice Thanks for the writing,.

Why do so many people see to love Tzeentch-Grinders? I see a lot of people running them, but I always believed in taking either Nurgle Phlegm-Grinders to hang back in area cover, or Slaanesh Torrent-Grinders to rush forward and template them/assault. Am I missing something about Tzeentch on Soul Grinders?

I suggested it as an anti-tau option. If they are running a lot of marker lights Nurgle becomes less useful and if he is running a lot of slow moving mid range anti-infantry shooting he could sit back with Tzeench grinders. Slaanesh are really better at running forward. TAC I'd say Nurgle or Slaanesh.

Ahhhh, I forgot all the Ignores Cover available to tau (no tau players in my area), but I see now. The small increase in the invuln save from Tzeentch is better then nothing at all from Nurgle.