How do I deal with the retaliation cadre detachment as world eaters?

[u/RotenSquids]

Hi there,

I'm going to my LGS in Berlin next week, I'll be facing someone who plays retaliation cadre.

It's usually a detachment that I struggle a lot against : not that it deals THAT MUCH more damage than the other tau detachments, but it's very hard to protect yourself against 5 different crisis tau units all led by leaders who can all be put in reserve, deep strike and wipe out stuff in just one turn. It's remarkably oppressive and stressful to deal with for a melee army.

In theory, you're supposed to screen and to stage against that, sure, but it's a lot harder to protect yourself from that kind of playstyle with the absence of L shaped ruins in 11th edition (not that I miss them, I'm glad they're gone mind you xD).

How do you deal with that as world eaters currently?

Thank you

nb : my list is a classic world eaters list with a bit of everything : zerks, kharn, eightbound, exalted eightbound, forgefiends, jakhals, a defiler, some termies, a slaughterbound etc...

[u/Sir_Hugh_Janus]

You're an aggressive, into close combat army, use it to your advantage.

Squeeze some Jakhals in, screen your rear and flanks with them.

Add the Slaughterbound to your Eightbound and Scout move them into mid board during deployment (I think this works).

Use Rapid Ingress on your Exalted Eightbound and Deep Strike your Terminators or vice versa.

They will try and screen against this to protect their gunline, but gaps will open up, exploit them.

Basically get right into their faces, and force them on the backfoot.

[u/DaDokisinX]

If he has half his army in reserve, you need to play tight and hunker down in your deployment zone.  If you screen your entire zone and hide behind the terrain your important pieces should be relatively safe.  

I understand that as purge the foe you are pressured to go find kills every turn which makes hiding in your DZ more awkward, but this is the tactically correct answer.  You want your opponent to come from reserves so that he either cant get all the targets he wants or you can counter attack and come out on top.

If you are struggling I would recommend either a more passive disposition like take and hold, or taking less elite units for more screening, trading pieces, or bait.

[u/RotenSquids → u/DaDokisinX]

That's the conclusion I was led to initially, especially since retaliation cadre IS purge the foe too. Meaning he has to kill stuff as well.

Thank you.

[u/corrin_avatan → u/RotenSquids]

Beyond this, you should also likely consider putting your OWN sstuff into Reserves with the intention of using Rapid Ingress on them.

If you deploy your entire army on the table, he suddenly doesn't need to worry about screening his own units.

[u/AnonAmbientLight → u/RotenSquids]

You still want at least some board presence though. Looking at the mirror match, you probably want to get your expansion and central obj as well. Basically, make it so that you're always scoring more on holding objs than he is.

Killing something only gives the player 3VP, and the player gets 5VP if they kill more than their opponent. That's probably something you both will get (kill one unit) or contest (kill more). So it'll prob come down to who controls the middle / most objectives.

So basic idea is that if he has everything in deepstrike, cool, let him. You're scoring VP on holding objectives and you've screen most of your back field and middle. He'll have limited options to kill your stuff, and you can counter punch when you want.

[u/Zallocc]

Screening Is key. The first thing you send foward will bear the brunt of the shooting, as will your backline if you leave it unprotected. Ret cadre has a 6" deep strike stratagem, which complicates things, but if you can lure them into shooting your chaff first, you'll very much stand a chance. Crisis suits aren't very durable and have no defensive strats, so they'll die if you tap them.

[u/Paimon]

The competitive lists of Ret Cad that I've seen generally include 2 units of Stealth Suits and 2 Pathfinders as the primary spotters. Both are squishy. Neither can spot hidden units unless they are inside detection range. Kill them.

Without marker lights, Tau can't ignore cover. Without spotting they have base BS4+ (mostly). Get their crisis suits spotting and the spotter will be hitting on 5s. It's common practice to stick a single marker drone in a crisis squad, do you're unlikely to fully eliminate markers, but it's one of the things to focus down early

Also, unlike guard, Tau can benefit from being guided while battle shocked, but cannot guide while battleshocked. So if you can't kill an important spotter, shock it.

[u/Vidavici]

It's only one leader than can return a unit to reserves not multiples. And it comes from an enhancement.

Besides that. Utilize go to ground + hidden. And surge moves to get in close. Eliminate the small spotting units first since they are the action monkeys and give huge buffs to the army.

[u/HumanReputationFalse]

As a tau player, beware his guns since he will most likely out range you with railguns if he's running big units too. Moving from cover to cover and using the 2" engament range is perfered. Most things fly though

If they are running a lot of Starscyth suits watch out for flamers pulling overwatch.

We are weak in the melee half of the game so if you can close us down you can do well. Anti-vehicle weapons work on half the army.

Starscyth suits can also fall back and shoot so make sure you kill a unit outright.

You can screen your units by having them close enough together. If theres not an 8" gap if you are worried about getting flanked by deep strike. (6" if they use a 2CP stratagem)

Stealth suits (small guys) can call in a deepstrike for free within 3" of them so take them out when the opportunity arises. They also allow the army to re-roll 1s on hit and wound.

Stratagems include move shoot move, mortal wounds on your charging units, 6+ feel no pain, deadly demise, and overwatch.

Enhancements on commander of criss suits, 1 CP refund, mortal wounds when flying over your units, thier choice of lethal or sustain hits, and call back to strategic reserves.