Darkstrider
SWORD: what Darkstrider kills
Damage for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 60 pts kill ~6 pts in one activation.Typical unit: 47 per 100
Best against hordes, weakest against heavy vehicles and monsters
Into each enemy type
Units near it by SWORD
Across the game· units
SHIELD: how hard Darkstrider is to kill for its points
Toughness for its points
per 100 pts spent
Its 60 pts take ~79 pts of enemy units to kill.Typical unit: 305 per 100
Units near it by SHIELD
Across the game· units
What reviewers say
5 reviewers- Stops deep strikes nearby, flipping matchups 3 of 5
- Cheap guide that screens the backfield 3 of 5
- Competes with the Ethereal 1 of 5
- Weak in Kroot lists, and easy to kill 1 of 5
Compare
| Unit | Letter | SWORD | SHIELD | Lists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darkstrider60 pts | B | Bottom 2% | Bottom 1% | 66of 181 |
| Commander Farsight70 pts | A | Top 13% | Top 8% | 119of 181 |
| Commander Shadowsun100 pts | B | Top 45% | Bottom 20% | 33of 181 |
Leading a squad
| Solo | Leading | |
|---|---|---|
| SWORD | 10 | 87 |
| SHIELD | 132 | 221 |
Per 100 pts: on its own, then for it and the squad together.
How we got these numbers
What we ran
Darkstrider, 60 pts, with its datasheet's weapons, in Kauyon. On its own: no leader, no stratagems, no other units' auras. Counted as dice: the army rule and the detachment's rule.
SWORD
Enemy points it kills in one activation, per 100 pts of its own, against a mix of targets weighted like top tournament lists.
60 pts → kills ~6 pts → 10 per 100SHIELD
Enemy points it takes to kill it, per 100 pts of its own: the points of the cheapest units from top lists that kill it 80% of the time. It's per point, so a costly unit has to be much tougher to score the same.
~79 pts → 132 per 100Top and bottom %
Where each number ranks among the game's 930 units. How we score.
The letter
The average of 8 reviewers' newest T'au Empire tier lists: 6 Plus Plus Gaming (unit tier list, with its pinned comment) (13 Oct), Tau Tactics (meta watch of five top-cut lists from LVO and LGT) (4 Oct), Goonhammer / tabletopbattles.com (Competitive Innovations: 5 full post-dataslate winning lists and 16 summaries) (23 Oct), WednesdayNightWarhammer (State of the Empire, dataslate review; few units graded) (2 Oct), Puretide Program (WTC 2026 meta analysis: unit counts across the T'au lists) (6 Aug), Tawnis Tactics (Learn to Play Kroot: unit review inside Kroot Hunting Pack) (5 Sep), Invasive Wargaming (damage per point mathhammer after the July update) (28 Jul), Vanguard Tactics (competitive breakdown of the 1-DP detachments on preview rules; unit views inferred) (15 Jun). A reviewer who would rather not be counted: tell us.
Lists
181 public T'au Empire tournament lists, September – November 2026, from grimstat-corpus (CC BY 4.0). Also from Listhammer. Organisers and players: ask us and we'll take a list or an event down. Numbers run 2 Nov.