What to do against TAU!

[Angelofblades]

Honestly, the best way I've found to deal with tau is to have adequate Los blocking terrain. Unfortunately, not everyone has a large enough piece of Los blocking terrain. I'm talking high enough to hide a leman Russ behind and long enough to hide 2 chimeras back to back.

No amount of tactic or strategy works against an army that has just about every counter in the book.

Opponent has cover saves?
Use marker lights
Opponent has fliers?
Twin linked and sky fire shots
Opponent has armor/MCs?
Tank hunters / monster hunters
Opponent has hordes?
Large blast high S low AP + ton of high S shots

It's really sad, but true. Want to survive against Tau? Don't let them shoot you and the only way you do that is to have enough Los blocking terrain.

6e is the shooting army's edition and Tau have lots of chances to shoot from interceptor to overwatch, medium to long range shots, while at the same time everyone is scrambling for every bit of cover they can get, Tau just laugh and deny, while claiming cover themselves.

[Pendragon38]

With your Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots maxed and only one and a half Troops choices you might run into a bit of trouble there mate.
Troops are scoring and that is all the more important in 6th ed.
It's not going to take much to kill those Scouts and then your left with only a single Tactical Squad.
In an objective game I would ignore the rest of your army and make hitting those squads my focus.
Also, how do you take/hold more than one objective? I wouldn't rely on those scouts if I were you.
You'd at least be better off with two Tactical Squads, but three would be better.

Just some friendly advice.

Thanks for the advice. But how would I catch my fish! I love to use them as bait and saying here fishy fishy fishy. Oh and I haven't lost to a tau player yet with this list simple because I can out range him with the TFCs.

[chicop76]

Even with terrain blocking line of sight it's not a big deadly for tau

My smart missiles do not need line of sight and my broadsides can fire barrage shots as well and do not need line of sight. Also you can move around and infiltrate in terrain which also cuts back on the line of sight issue. Another bonus is having scout. Even more so if you have a scout transport.

However the only time i see it make a huge difference is when i am being out ranged. i played against daemons with a wall that was 2ft long 5" tall in the middle of the board and still wasted them. i moved around the wall and simply fell back while i was shooting. infiltrating kroot really helped and stopped the hound rush since scouts can't be with 12" of another model.

[Angelofblades]

Even with terrain blocking line of sight it's not a big deadly for tau

My smart missiles do not need line of sight and my broadsides can fire barrage shots as well and do not need line of sight. Also you can move around and infiltrate in terrain which also cuts back on the line of sight issue. Another bonus is having scout. Even more so if you have a scout transport.

However the only time i see it make a huge difference is when i am being out ranged. i played against daemons with a wall that was 2ft long 5" tall in the middle of the board and still wasted them. i moved around the wall and simply fell back while i was shooting. infiltrating kroot really helped and stopped the hound rush since scouts can't be with 12" of another model.

I currently play Eldar. My wave serpents would rather take those S5 Smart Missile barrage than those S7 high yield missile shots.

Also infiltrate means very little since you can ensure units that attempt to infiltrate are force to at max distance.

The only unit that of any worth that has scout are pathfinders, iirc, you cannot disembark as part of a scout move.

[Prince Nuada]

Do not forget that even Str 5 can glance AV11 on 6's and AV10 of 5's.

On the subject of out-ranging Tau: do not assume that Tau are inclined to sit back at maximum range. We can/will close to bring the foe under as much fire as possible. You might attempt to out-range us but it won't be for long and you will certainly struggle to out-maneuver us.

[JxKxR]

Sternguard and Pedro are good against Tau.

[chicop76]

I currently play Eldar. My wave serpents would rather take those S5 Smart Missile barrage than those S7 high yield missile shots.

Also infiltrate means very little since you can ensure units that attempt to infiltrate are force to at max distance.

The only unit that of any worth that has scout are pathfinders, iirc, you cannot disembark as part of a scout move.

Funny you brought up that army. The first time I faced the new Eldar I had that type of situtation and still destroyed them.

The problem I seen is riptides can easily take out wave serpents with strenght 9 ap 2 ordance barrage shots if the Tau player goes first which means no cover saves. The sad part is you can possibly take out multiple vehicles.

Another issue I seen is Kroot sniper rifles can glance death serpents as well. Also Krootox can get clear line of sight shots as well.

Also pathfinders is not the only unit that can scout. Firewarriors can too with Darkstrider. Also if you keep allies in mind you can infiltrate with any Tau unit as well, example would be the scorpions pheonix lord.

I would say my 2 tournament games I lost due to line of sight terrain. However after that experance and having even worst los problem in the 2nd tournament I won all my games still. Here is a hint, you can move.

That being said the problem I seen with Eldar was once I grounded the fire dragons serpent or the wraith guard serpent the army simply didn't have enough shooting to be a theat against Tau's durable units. Once they position themselves to shoot at Tau their serpents got glance death, or the passengers got blasted off the board. The only thing I seen was a real issue is the fact Eldar can out manuver me, or easily get to objectives. Besides that I am more scared of Necrons which are more annoying.

Also not to mention I can outflank/ deepstrike half my army rather easily. Love rear hitting serpents.

Still Tau have enough weapons to deal with los issues more than most other armies do. If Tau can shoot you and you can't shoot them back it is an issue. 2 Riptides do plenty of damage and I can imagine if you run 3 of them.

Yeah the smart missles can't take out serpents, but they can easily kill most of your troops, even dire avengers feel the twin linked ignore cover sting of the missiles. Right now I have 18 smart missile shots which can kill guardians no problem. All I got to say wound on 2s. Riptides crack the shell, smart missles eat the meat.

[chicop76]

Do not forget that even Str 5 can glance AV11 on 6's and AV10 of 5's.

On the subject of out-ranging Tau: do not assume that Tau are inclined to sit back at maximum range. We can/will close to bring the foe under as much fire as possible. You might attempt to out-range us but it won't be for long and you will certainly struggle to out-maneuver us.

Yeah the unit it hurt the most is your high yield missile sides. You move 6" and can run d6", honestly half the reaon I use grace with my ethereal a lot. It's not a real issue with fire warriors. It's an issues with pathfinders and broadsides, it means taking those units out of cover, and means ap 2 weapons will get the sides out of cover and your patfinders die rather quick out of cover. Depending on what you are facing it can actually help the other army more if you move up out in the open.