Nah, my point was that Tau can't count on enemy factions on not getting in range, cause they have a lot of ways to get in range
My favorite way to counter Tau in DoW 1 was to use jumpers or other units that can just be deepstriked and tie them up in melee
You played against some spectacularly shitty Tau then. They make up for shitty melee with great spotters (those invisible scouts) and incredible mobility on the units where it counts the most. (Scouts, heavy power armour troopers, et cetera.)
Space Marines never gave me trouble as the Tau. Neither did Chaos. Their jet pack range was less than that of my total firing range, so as long as I had spotters (which what Tau does not have spotters?) I was always able to wipe out even their fastest troops before they could reach me. No, they never gave me issues.
Orks did.
Those little green fucktards are endless and if they're left alone in the early game, they'll get to such a grotesque point where they can just keep pumping out more, super-heavy soldiers pretty much indefinitely. Because the Tau have no real melee (unless you
seriously count the joke that is the entirety of the Kroot race), they can't push the front line against endless waves of green. The Tau also have some pretty shit early game, because it takes them a while to build up the core mass of soldiers and supports necessary to make them dangerous.
As an added bonus, their heaviest infantry have the equivalent armour rating of vehicles, which Tau weapons are less effective against.
Eldar can also fuck up Tau pretty hard, since Tau spotters
are not detectors. You can walk straight into the middle of an Eldar clusterfuck and not know it.
Heck, I'd even wager the Imperial Army can if they can get enough artillery going, and properly predict where the core of the Tau army is going. The Imperium also have some pretty decent late game range, so while they can't quite toe-to-toe the Tau, given artillery support, they can actually win by cheating the contest via demoralizing all of the Tau.
