I was kind of sad when you said that Tau were a bottom rung army... ='(
They really aren't. Just like any army they have weakness and bad units like anyone else(yes, I'm looking at you Aun'Va). The thing is though is that Tau can be very, very effective at what they do best, being mobile and shooting. They have amazing firepower, arguably the best best transport in the game, and excellent tactic based wargear. I don't know if too many players know about the Advanced Tau Tactica forum but the amazing group on there has shown me how to be very optimistic about our little blue men and their Frisbees of death.
Ko'vash Tau'va!!
khanaris
· 4 months ago
If they aren't a bottom rung army, it is pretty tough to say who is...
Tau can still be very competitive, but you will have to work hard for it, every game. You have to exploit opportunities, because the Tau army list lost much of its ability to behave proactively. Necrons and Dark Eldar, old as they are, can still play the game on their own terms and force the enemy to react instead. Most of the newer books can take units and tactics that control the flow of the game just by being there. Tau have to react to what the enemy is doing turn-by-turn. The army is still fairly good at that, but very little in the list is as threatening in 5th as it was in 4th. Mobility is really the saving grace, because otherwise a Tau take-all-comers list will be outshot by any decent list that can't beat it to death in close combat with flanking units.
NeilBrimelow
· 4 months ago
The Tau are a shooty army that got totally emasculated by the new IG codex. All of the tricks you used to be able to use against most armies are useless now. I would go farther and say that the Tau are the most difficult army to run effectively now.
With IG codex, 1500 points you can field 250 models with enough firepower to take on most armies.
If you are playing 2,000 points, just add 500 points of fast attack, heavies, whatever, and you got a tough army to crack.
Tau's point values need to go down for the next codex update.
khanaris
· 4 months ago
Either that or the rules for some of the weapons need to change. Imperial Guard should be the best on quantity, but not on quality. That was never their niche. You can't make Tau like the Guard by making them as numerous.
Josef_N
· 4 months ago
I haven't had a chance to run them yet, but what about a Stealth Marker team. Pretty much three XV-25s, two with drone controllers and two maker drones, a team leader with target array, markerlight, and a hard-wired drone controller with two marker drones. While it comes in about 300 points, where a Pathfinder team with Warfish comes in at about 220, you get added ranged protection for your markers, plus they count as jump infantry, and as such are relentless. Now, you have 7 mobile, night-shrouded markers, one hitting on a 3+.
Ashes42
· 4 months ago
Since when are jump infantry relentless? Models with het packs have the relentless special rule, but not all jump infantry, and remember jet packs only move 6" in the movement phase. Now Bikes on the other hand, are all relentless, but that's not what you were mentioning.
Josef_N
· 4 months ago
Sorry, wrong words there. But, yes, they are still mobile markerlights, only able to move 6" in the movement phase, and another 6" in the assault. Still, a lot more versatile than Pathfinders.
P'Shar's Rifles
· 4 months ago
My mates and I who run Tau are finding them to be just fine in 5th ed.
You've got some good suggestions in the comment boxes below:
- Outflanking kroot w/ hounds - Hiding suits behind skimmers. - Stealth Markerlight Teams. - Not wasting your HQ suits by suiciding them for a slim chance of killing AV14. - Short skimmer bases (seriously, TLOS is from the eyes of the model, if your firer isn't lying down on his base, he's not going to see crsis suit ankles under that tank).
I might add the following:
- At least one broadside team with shield drones for more (and more accurate) railgun shots that can't be silenced with a single glancing hit from an anti-tank gun. Markerlights give you more bang for the buck on broadsides, too. - Provide other soft targets if you want your pathfinders to live. If everything else is in tanks, all of the opponent's anti-infantry is going to swing their way. - Consider Shadowsun. A friend of mine has had great luck with her as a way to swing the leadership game a bit more in his favor, and she's rather killy if you have something like a land raider rolling into your back field because you just couldn't kill it fast enough. - Tweak your crisis team load-outs so that all the models are "unique" for wound allocation purposes. Three suits w/ two shield drones where you can spread the wounds around can soak a surprising amount of damage.
There are lots of good ways to keep Tau competitive, we're all just tossing out minor list or tactical changes, but they don't work in isolation. The Tau are, most of all, about synergy in tactics and unit capabilities. If you have that synergy, they're a force to be reckoned with. If you don't, the Tau just plink and run until we're cornered or chewed up. None of our units are at full effectiveness without the support of others, with the possible exception of outflanking kroot with hounds, who can seriously ruin your opponent's day, and can soak a surprising number of wounds before they cease to be a threat. We just don't have any units that are "game winners" on their own.
Good luck bringing your Tau into 5th ed effectiveness, I think you'll find that we got some boosts in the new rules interactions. You've no doubt already discovered how much safer Fire Warriors are in their Fish than they used to be (don't forget your disruption pods).
Best, P'Shar
Darius
· 4 months ago
I agree in part with the article, but I think it was a little too narrow (it didn't cover the whole army, which can be quite diverse due to auxiliaries), and underestimated certain units (Crisis).
First off, this idea of 'suicide' HQ suits is pure nonsense. They have the best BS in the entire army, it's a waste to send them after tanks with fusion blasters. Piranha do the same thing, they're tougher against small arms, faster and they drop free Gun Drones to annoy people after they die.
Crisis are still very much usable, but I find that Elite Crisis teams are no longer worth it. Their BS3 and crap Leadership (I've had them run off table after the shield drones die) mean even in the Firestorm config (BC+MP+MT), they're not performing that well. Nowadays, I take Firestorm Shas'vre bodyguards with targeting arrays (hard-wiring the multi-tracker), and take a Shas'El and a Shas'O to accompany them. AFP+twin-MP on the Shas'El, PR+CIB+Pos Relay on the Shas'O. Everyone has BS4 or higher (and thus I don't need to waste markers on their BS), plus they are Ld9/10 due to the HQ suit leading the team. Both problems solved, without resorting to Shadowsun or Pathfinders.
A unit which the article completely ignored was Stealth teams. In my experience, Stealth suits aren't suited to killing things (basic Firestorms can do the 'dakka' thing just as well, and have greater reach+flexibility due to MP), but they're great as substitute Pathfinders. A build I favour (mainly in larger games however)
XV25 Team Leader w/markerlight, TA, BK, hard-wired target lock 2 x XV25 Shas'ui w/DC+2 x marker drones (245 points)
Pricy for a support unit, but they offer jetpack movement, Stealth fields (which make them pretty much untargetable at 42"-36"), Relentless (so you can fire markerlights on the move, making JSJ tactics possible), and they leave Fast Attack slots free for Vespid or fusion Piranha (I never take squadrons).
Troops-wise, the article was correct in that mechanised Fire Warriors are the only real way to field them, they are just too fragile and slow otherwise. However, it's important to mention Kroot, because they make up for the low numbers of Tau and close-combat weaknesses (somewhat). For about the same as a mechanised team;
20 x Kroot w/kroot rifles, 10 x Kroot Hounds (200 points)
They can infest objectives like IG do with their Combined Infantry squads, or they can Infiltrate to screw up enemy Scout/Infiltration options, or they can Outflank to bum-rush enemy objectives in the backfield. While fragile, they are a significant threat to most enemy infantry, and draw fire off your Crisis. A very versatile unit, and it really comes into it's own against other horde armies (where you can tie down or maul the horde, before the Devilfish teams swoop in to finish off the remnants). Charge in, remove Hounds as casualties after their attacks have been resolved (woot for I5), then lay into the enemy with your I3 Carnivores.
Fast Attack choices are pretty limited to Vespid and fusion Piranha, with the former being really only useful in smaller games. Vespid offer an anti-3+ save unit basically, allowing you to bypass enemy armour and wound fairly reliably. What trips them up is BS3 (solvable with markerlights, but like Elite Crisis its annoying) and cover saves (again, markerlights help, but it still costs you kills). Mind do fairly well, but they almost always die. Fusion Piranha never fail to earn their points back (in terms of enemy fire drawn onto them/battle tanks killed), and they cost about 1/2 what a railgun-armed Hammerhand does. Slap on a disruption pod (a 4+ cover save to any shooting outside 12"), and they can become a real headache for your opponent.
Heavy Support is dominated by the two traditional choices; Railheads or XV88 teams. Sniper Drone teams are interesting, but not that competitive. The former is fast, flexible (the submunition blast is excellent against against most infantry, especially when markerlights strip away cover saves for weaker squads), and can withstand a lot of enemy attention (AV13+disruption pod is a pain to deal with). I think 2 is mandatory in any army, 3 is nice but can lack the ROF to break open AV13/14 targets consistently. The latter is slower, but can fit more railguns into a single Heavy slot, and they can be used as bait to enemy assault units. I find two Railheads and whatever Piranha I take in FA to be sufficent anti-tank in smaller games, but at 1,750 or higher, an XV88 team is great as the 3rd Heavy Support choice.
darkwynn
· 4 months ago
I would expand more on the army but only have so much room to cover.
These are just the sort of things that pop out to me.
I've been playing Tau in 5th edition and you're right, it's not easy. But fireknife suits still have their place.
Instead of an attacking unit, battlesuits are now a counter unit which you hide behind your Tank Wall, which you use to Jump Shoot Jump from behind.
Basically, use the tanks as mobile cover.
What you're doing with the circling Tank Wall seems standard for Tau in 5th edition. Having the Battlesuit behind the Tank Wall makes the tanks less appealing as a target, because when the enemy get close, the suits come and spank 'em.
For markerlights the Skyray is best and it's mobile and durable with armour 13. Then you just carefully use its markerlights to either boost your Broadsides or fireknife team to make those kills certain.
If your tanks are on hover bases, like they should be, I can shoot battlesuit ankles until they die. As Darkwynn said, tlos.
Also, two plugs for your blog in one post? Nice.
raptor1313
· 4 months ago
Battlesuit ankles? Depends on how tall the base is, and where exactly your guy is. If it's coming from straight ahead, at infantry level? Possibly. What makes you think I'm going to keep Suits that close to you if at all possible? Most troops getting out of transports (..since they're the only ones getting close) have a 12" range, which isn't enough. And, if the Crisis Suits are still there, they should be able to light up the troops.
If you're shooting something like a tank? I don't think it's going to necessarily see it.
I gotta go with Darkseer here. Crisis Suits are the swiss army weapon in the Tau codex. You get S5ish off your Fire Warriors and vehicle weapons, and you get Rail Guns for popping vehicles. Crisis Suits are your gap-fillers. If nothing else, the missile pods are handy. I don't think Fire Warriors themselves are actually that handy, since it's more S5 shots that need marerlights and support to do the damage.
Additionally, I don't really think much of deep-striking suicide commanders with short-range weapons. Honestly, flamers and fusion guns benefit from careful placement; flamers want to cover the most they can and the fusion gun really gets the most benefit within 6". Deep Strike is ANYTHING but precision; I've done enough Daemons and Deathwing to have learned that much. A single re-roll with the scatter just boosts you to around a 50% chance of the 'hit', and the rest of it's all about what the scatter gives you. Deviation on 2d6 averages 7", which is more than enough to spoil flamer and fusion gun shots. It's also more than enough on average to slam you into something you didn't want to hit. I just don't think it's a reliable-enough delivery system, and I don't think most armies have a problem briefly shooting a 2-3 wound guy to death when he's T4 with a 3+ save.
I think ~8 Pathfinders is probably solid; more and you dilute the effectiveness of the army, and fewer are easier to run off the table. I agree that their Devilfish is better used for housing Fire Warriors, but in general I think Fire Warriors belong in a transport and being scoring rather than being on the table and getting dead.
I'm surprised there's no mention for Kroot, either. Kroot are an inexpensive solution to stupid tricks like Vendetta/Valk melta-vet alpha strikes. Sure, they're not going to hold out well when targeted, but the point is to deny the enemy the ability to even PLACE the meltaguns w/in 12", as they tend to, y'know, circumvent the Tau gear that gives you a 4+ save vs. shooting.
veritechpilot01
· 4 months ago
Suits still have their role. I still run the 3 with pods and plasma. I use them ideally to pop off termies or light vehicles (Sentinels, Land Speeders, Vyper Jetbikes) It is ideal to upgrade the leader with a drone controller and add one or 2 shield drones or you will find these expensive trios easy cannon fodder.
Shockingly the one unit many discredit or overlook for Tau (even those who play them) are Gun Drone squads. Jump Infantry with Pulse carbines and BS 2 saldy. I fly them around and pin those pesky close hand units charging up at you.
I usually go with for a 1850 pt list 2x 12 man firewarrior squads and 2x 20 man Kroot squads. I outflank with the Kroot or infiltrate to acquire and hold objectives rather then pay for a transport or walk up the fire warriors.
Just a few things I've learned for Tau in 5th edition.
Flashman
· 4 months ago
They don't need to be, the Tau tanks come with little feet so you can land 'them' and cover up your battlesuits ankles.
Lerra
· 4 months ago
Are you sure about that? Don't you have to use the base it was supplied with?
Darkseer
· 4 months ago
Sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound like I was 'pimpin' my blog. It's just got everything I do in detail and examples in battle reports. It would be a mission to type all of that out again here.
As others have stated, you don't need to put the tanks on flying bases. They have little feet :)
Alternatively, raise your Battlesuits up on flying bases as you're still covered.
The only Rule Of Thumb is that you can takes things on and off flying bases throughout the game. You have to start with one or the other.
kauyon_la
· 4 months ago
Yes they do have those little feet which do absolutely nothing positive in 5th edition. I the skimmer section of the Main Rulebook it states that Skimmers MUST be mounted on bases since they are flying around and what-not. Landing Gear doesn't even change that nowadays.
Having the Battlesuits mounted on the stands does alleviate that though but more often then not you should have you suits a little closer to the enemy unless you are just running them as Deathrains.
Flashman
· 4 months ago
I keep clicking like instead of reply *rolls eyes*
The flying base can be as low if not lower than the feet, if you only use the clear transparent flying base and the smallest plastic rod, but TBH the flying base thing works both ways. I can put my Firewarriors behind their Devilfish and rapid fire through it 4th edition style.
The Tau tanks come with a landing gear rule which allows them to land, so there is no need for them to use the flying stand. There's also the issue of breaking the flying stands, if a Tau player were to break them and couldn't use a flying stand are you really gonna be the prick who tells him he cant'?
Darkseer
· 4 months ago
Cheers for replying to that Flashman. Do you have a Tau blog too?
Flashman
· 4 months ago
UUughhh! Hit that like button again :/ Not that I don't like your reply but that's the third time in a row I've done that.
Anyway... I do have a blog it's not army dedicated and I'm not really advertising it as it's nothing special and I don't update it regularly, so it's not so good to read, but if you're interested it's at http://the_flashman.webs.com/
Let me know what you think.
Anonannoyed
· 4 months ago
RTFM. When you activate Landing Gear you no longer count as a skimmer. Doesn't matter what the skimmer rules say at that point.
synchronicity
· 4 months ago
Actually, that rule about Flying Base size no longer exists (just check the skimmer page), you can put them on whatever size of rod you want. It was more of a moot point in 4th anyways, because I acquired some of my skimmers in a megaforce and battleforce, which came with all sorts of different sized rods, so you could still model them low to the ground on the bases they came with.
If you model your skimmers with the shortest rod, they have barely enough room to stay floating, even with landing gear modeled on. Nothing can see what's behind the skimmer by trying to look under!
sinsynn
· 4 months ago
Awesome blog. Highly recommended. Darkwynn should DEFINATELY study up there before writing about the Tau again.
Fallen
· 4 months ago
Any thoughts on Farsight lists? I am really hoping something gets done to bring Crisis suits back in the next go round of the codex because i have 18 of em just collecting dust now.
crunchyjuice
· 4 months ago
i have 30 something.................... and, like the dumbass i am, half are armed with things like twinlinked burst cannons.
slxiii
· 4 months ago
good thoughts, however i think the author underestimates the power of crisis suits. fire warriors give you s5 weapons hammerheads and broadsides give you s10 weapons crisis suits have everything in between, including meltas Fire knives suck, there's no two ways about it. They're expensive, they don't have a singular purpose, and they are pretty fragile. A guy at my store runs squads of TL plasma and shield gens, I usually run TL fusion blasters and mpods or something similar. I can get about 3 suits for each of his two, I get a weapon to close the range with, the unit can kill any tank in the game within 2 turns of shooting max, and if they don't deploy tanks then i can hunt transports or s4 models with multiple wounds.
theMadness
· 4 months ago
Heh, funny, they used the tau symbol I designed for the Lexicanum.
I think the Lexicanum should deserve some publicity in return at least.
Anon
· 4 months ago
You're kidding, right? That's the main tau symbol designed by....GW.
Not by you for the Lexicanum.
theMadness
· 4 months ago
Yes but that version was drown by me with Photoshop using guidelines from the GW version.
If you check the name it's 100px-Tau_Sept_Symbol.png the 100px is a prefix mediawiki adds when it creates the downsized thumbs.
Now go and check on the lexicanum for the name File:Tau Sept Symbol.png and see what comes up.
F
· 4 months ago
Congratulations... you drew a circle within a circle and then put a line down the middle.
flummer
· 4 months ago
This guy ^, gets a capital D for Douchebag.
...
· 4 months ago
Not only that, but he made his version of a symbol that Games Workshop almost wholesale ripped off from the somewhat obscure game series that Bungie made before Halo. Look up the Marathon trilogy sometime and tell me that the Tau symbol doesn't look like an homage to the Pfhor and their client races.
In case anyone wants to pull the timeline game, Marathon had run its full course before the first published material for the Tau. The first game was in 1994, second in 1995, and the third in 1996. Tau were first published in 2001, at least as far as I can find.
manton
· 4 months ago
And the winner is... (drumroll please) The Tokyo Fire Department! that's right all of these people have ripped the symbol off from the tokyo fire department, which i think is kinda neat seing as it's the fire caste symbol and all.
Sathos
· 4 months ago
Yes! these people deserve full credit for having zero creativity of their own and bonus points for their abilities in google image search lol
theMadness
· 4 months ago
I know it's not a Michelangelo and I don't pretend it to be, but for some reason instead of drawing their own, they took the one I drew.
I just made a silly comment with a side of shameless plug, and you're going all qq over me.
Millennium Badger
· 2 weeks ago
I discovered the Lexicanum a couple of days ago, and it is excellent!
Slate_Blank
· 4 months ago
I guess I'm going to disagree as I find that Tau are still very effective. I only run one 6 man fire warrior squad (minimum needed) and use the pathfinder's devilfish to keep them safe. I use kroot (with hounds) to form a buffer around my base point and to keep deepstriking/outflanking units at bay. Then I start markerlighting and using my (maxed out elites) battlesuits to pour out the pain.
Mobility is certainly key in 5th, but with broadsides and Hammerheads I'm able to shoot vehicles and templates from across the field and force you to come to me. The Tau battlesuit missle pod is one of the best transport destoying weapons in the game and I generally find that I am quite able to wipe the field with Tau on a regular basis.
Doubled seer council or Nob bikes give me the most trouble, but I still hold my own. Dual (or more) LR space marines are not an issue...
Myu
· 4 months ago
I run something similar, though I prefer to put my fire warriors in a devilish.
Damon
· 4 months ago
THIS is what works, and works *brilliantly*. Run like Slate_Blank has it, Tau are one of the most potent armies on the table.
Nobody's mentioned the piranha yet, though, which is odd. Piranhas are *critical* -- just like Kroot -- at creating "buffer zones". Zoom a pair right into the enemy's grill and block their movement. Either they deal with the cheap paper airplanes -- and you pound them while they do so -- or they take the long way 'round them (if such a route is even available) and then the melta guns on those paper airplanes punish them for their ignorance. It's a win-win situation however you slice it.
Every truly potent Tau list I've seen since 4th edition makes at least modest use of Piranhas in this fashion. (And I do, too. It works!)
themike
· 4 months ago
I'll have to disagree on the pathfinder bit. Yes, they are expensive but you forgot to mention the rail rifles. Kill almost anything and they can have 3 of them.
crunchyjuice
· 4 months ago
nahhh they are too hard to set up, along with the marker lights if you want high power guns go for the crisis youre not going to save points, but they are a lot more effective. if you intend on boosting youre fw tho, then simply get more fw
Titan
· 4 months ago
I play against Tau a lot. One in three people at my LGS run Tau.
Here is what I learned:
In 5th, Tau vehicles are quite tough if you give them a Disruption Pod (which makes them obscured; ie, 4+ cover save). Sensor Spines are also amazing, as they allow you to park in terrain without difficult terrain tests.
Also, Battlesuits are just as tough as Nob Bikers. With a full squad of three you give them all shield generators and hard-wired drone controllers (all together taking two of each drone for the unit as a whole). Then you give them different guns. After that, just use the wound allocation rules to your advantage while punishing the enemy with near impunity. Doing so gives your opponent two options, either ignore them (which doesn't work) or focus on destroying them, leaving the rest of the Tau army to pick off the other guy's dudes at their leisure. The best option available is to tie them up with close combat, they may not get many kills, but neither will their opponent, leaving them deadlocked.
How many armies can spare a hard hitting close combat unit to tie up a monster like that; especially with all of the other ripe targets out there.
Running nob-biker battlesuits is even nastier with Farsight, I've seen a him and two bodyguards rip into a unit of lighting claw terminators and run them down without loosing a single model.
zysac
· 4 months ago
Honestly Bigred..... have you even played tau before you write this?
Anonannoyed
· 4 months ago
Bigred didn't write the article... but the author is probably playing to his local metagame where you get laughed at if you don't spam your heavy slots. It's like they get bonus points for writing "x3" at Battleforge.
zysac
· 4 months ago
Opps, my problem with the article is not with the spamming of heavy slots... as you pretty much have to with tau....
my problem is with every piece of advice he wrote...
HQs as scuicide suits and crisis suits losing potancy.... wrong.... wrong wrong wrong.... seriously crisis suits are the bread and butter of tau thank you and with markerlights they of all out units come the closest of being able to wipe out pretty much any infanty. and i personally find that oponents seek out my Fireknife commander with a vengance.... proving once and for all hes more than usefull....
massive fw's in devilfish- still doesnt work.... warriors as lovely as their guns are... still cant do massive casulaties to marines... that hasnt changed with editions... your looking at maybe 2 dead marines from a full rapid fire squad that no longer has teh protection of the old Fish of Fury....
pathfinders being expencive.... at 96 points essentially for an 8 man unit... thats cheap... especially when your using the manitory fish to ferry around your warriors. hell with the new transport rules you can have 2 squads of 4 and ues the two fish to ferry around your two warrior units.... pathfinders are THE CHEAPEST source of markerlight hits in the tau codex...
And the main tactic mentioned is moving all yoru tanks around in a giant block of skimmers... doesnt work as every army now has melta,las spam galore and if you set yourself up liek that your gunna lose especially once things get suddenly close (were your disruption pods dont work) via ourflanking, drop pods and deepstriking.
darkwynn
· 4 months ago
Crisis suits were the bread and butter of Tau in 4th edition and the filled the gaps for that army.
Now with TLOS you can't really hide them and enemys can gun them down even if they have 3+ saves.
Pathfinders as being the biggest central point of your army? What happens when they get shot up and die then? You are boned?
They are a static group that can't move and can't hide reliable.
And with a block are you going to just scatter your 8 tanks to random points of the table so they can divide and conquer you much easier?
zysac
· 4 months ago
DUDE, HIDE THEM BEHIND YOUR TANKS.... i figure that was at least obvious.....
pathfinders are essential for the first few turns.... and face it... if the enamy is really spending time ferreting your pathfinders out of cover than good for him... as they are dirt cheap, not scoring, and do no damage on their own and just saved your other stuff from alot of shots.
i personally have been using a stealth marker team however in place of the pathfinders.
The block'O'Tanks only works against pod armies. otherwise your really just boxing yoruself in and cannot fully bring your own weapons to bear, especially once a tank or two of yours drops. you need to be flexable and fluid as tau... not a wall you need to create entire quarters of the board were your oponent is afraid to go near (i have always been very sucessful at this)
you NEED to Spead out while sticking together, far enough apart to give yoruself options, Close enough to deny deepstriking and outflanking potential... its a careful balance.
and all this talk about "being trapped in 4th edition" what has really changed?
TLoS mech armies didnt take so much of a hit because we hide behind our tanks
Cover... MARKERLIGHTS...oh wait... you dont liek those do you?
Marines: eat people for dinner at the age of twelve by yelling "BOOM".... they have always done this its nothing new... its why half of all armies are marines or the latest released codex
Scoring units: wait.... yoru spending MORE points on less but bigger units of em, without increasing their overall usefullness or survivability?
BIG QUESTION, do you actually win games when you "play" tau?.... do you actually play tau? I think the philosophy of taking random marine players and assigning them "less popular" armies to write tacticas for them is kind of flawed. and Very misleading to new players
sinsynn
· 4 months ago
Darkwynn have you ever heard of drones? A Shas'el or 'O with 2 bodyguards can have up to 9 T4/3+ Sv ablative wounds with shield drones, as well as a 4+ invulnerable save. Pathfinders are a great distraction unit, since they're not scoring. Put 'em in a corner- their Markerlights reach out to 36 inches- way far out of the way, and watch your opponent waste time/energy/resources hunting them down. Many Tau players rely on them to draw heat away from their scoring troops/suits. For some reason, our opponents suffer a disproportionate amount of hostility towards them ;) Crisis suits are STILL the bread and butter of the Tau army. Please refer to the many, many Tau blogs and websites for a tactica. Even rapid firing Firewarriors only kill 2 MEQ's in a shooting phase. And if the enemy is that close, that's 8 marines that are going to stab your troops with chainswords very soon. You'd need to fish of fury (that's the name of the tactic your refering to) 5 or so Devilfish to knock out a tactical squad of marines. Is that your plan? Maybe you should re-think the Crisis suits..... My 2 Fireknife Shas'el HQ's really, really kill things, and my Elite Deathrains (TL missile pods/Targeting Arrays/Team leader w/drone controller+2 gundrones/Target Lock) wipe transports off the board very quickly. Since none of them are troops/scoring, they can be sacrificed for the greater good after leading the enemy on a merry chase. At the same time, my tricked out Devilfish are lining up late game power moves, and my tanks are there to assist. Also, if your going to 'suicide deep strike'- use elite suits. Don't waste HQ's. And think about the team of 3 w/drones. Carefully placed (use the Pathfinder's D'fish homer), they can kill a vehicle and (hopefully) be hiiden behind the wreck. With target locks, they can kill 2 when they drop. Don't drop on Landraiders. Concentrated railgun fire from 3 Hammerheads or a team of Broadsides should kill them at a distance, stranding the very bad men inside. I get upset if I haven't killed a Landraider by turn 2 with my Broadsides. A 3 man elite team of Crisis suits can withstand a ridiculous amount of shooting and still hop away. I've had a whole army shoot at mine many times, and I usually either lose both drones (no Ld check! Whoot!) or limp away with 2 suits to cause more trouble. One suit w/no drones is a waste. Especially if it's a Shas'el or 'O. I know your an excellent 40k player, and I believe you when you say your an expert with your Black Templars. How about writing Tacticas for them, since they're an underappreciated gem of an army in 5th? I wouldn't recommend the Tau for a new player until they get a new book. And I'm sure the learning curve has been rough for you, hasn't it? Out of curiosity, how many games with the Tau have you played? What's your record?
Flashman
· 4 months ago
Dammit... I hit that like button again!
Darkwynn, I think you've made a valiant effort at a Tau tactica and your right the truth is Tau are a difficult army to play in 5th but you're showing how inexperianced you are with them by some of your declarations. I mean yeah battlesuits cannot avoid return fire but with shield drones and because of wound allocation they can suck up a lot of fire before going down. In the mean time they'll be laying down a punishing salvo of fire for your opponent to deal with.
As for Pathfinders your right, an experienced opponent will target them but as others have said you can either use this to your advantage and expect a disproportionate amount of fire to be wasted against them. Or you can try using a Shas'O shield wall to protect them. A simple Shas'O with Iridium Armour (2+), Stimulant Injectors for feel no pain and two Shield drones (who benefit from his 2+ armour save and 4 toughness) will offer them some decent protection as they suck up the first three wounds against the unit.
There are tricks to playing Tau and I think if you were serious about learning how to use them you could do worse than having a poke around the internets and seeing what experianced Tau commanders are doing to survive in 5th.
Tau'va!
sinsynn
· 4 months ago
Doesn't matter who wrote this since it's so wrong.
Forhekset
· 4 months ago
Tau battlesuits have the best wargear selection in the game.
Should never underestimate the power of markerlights, especially networked ones. The drones are expensive, but being able to buff your shooting, degrade cover and attempt to force pinning when you can is awesome.
I think they generally arn't thought of as very good because they have a very unique playstyle and people just don't know how to use them.
Krizstompofer
· 4 months ago
Great write-up. Thought it hit on everything I've come to believe about building a Tau list. Only thing I would add is that I think taking minimal Firewarriors, maybe six per Devilfish, is the way to go. Piranhas with melta are also really important - saves your Hammerheads from having to waste Rail shots on frakkin Chimeras. Piranhas fill that niche roll of mid-level tank busting the Tau otherwise lack and their 24" turbo boost means they can easily deny objectives in the last turn or two.
sinsynn
· 4 months ago
First- Fireknives (the plural for fireknife?) still work great. Advance your vehicles 7 or so inches. Keep the suits behind.them. Suits jump out, kill stuff, jump back behind vehicles, where they will be protected from assault. The suits can easily keep up with the vehicles with a six inch move plus the six inch assault move. Assaulters will need sixes to hit the vehicle. Pretty simple. Second- If you look in the codex, you may notice that with a drone controller, you can attach something called SHIELD DRONES to your crisis suits. Or even gun drones with the new prvelence of cover saves. These will dramatically increase the life expectancy of your suits. Mine often survive entire games wound-free. Also, with fireknives, go with a Shas'el and bodyguards w/targeting arrays. Expensive, but worth every point. I bring 2 squads. I use the elite slots for a single squad of Deathrains (suits w/twin linked missile pods and targeting arrays. Pumping out 6 strength 7 missiles a turn, they MURDER transports.) All my suits are ballistic skill 4. They all have drones, although I use gun drones now since everything gets a cover save in 5th edition. Crisis suits carry the Tau's heavy weapons. We NEED them. Also, since they don't count as scoring, you can sacrifice them if needs be towards the end of the game (people HATE them, and can be distracted into wasting resources trying to kill them whilst your troops survive to claim objectives). Third- Why put 12 firewarriors in a Devilfish if their not gonna get out? Firewarriors are too squishy.They don't survive long on the battlefields of the 41st millenium. I bring 3 squads of 6 in Devilfish w/smart missiles, targetting array, multi-tracker and disruption pod for 180 points a team. An outflanking squad of 10 or so Kroot sometimes joins in, but their not absolutely required. They hug trees and hide in the back doin' their Rasta thing. I don't run Stealthsuits anymore. 18 inch range on their guns often leaves them too close to fast assaulters that can run now. And at 30 pts. each, Crisis suits are more effective for the points. Fireknives are out? 12 firewarriors that never get out of their 'fish? Deepstrike a solo HQ unit and give up a free killpoint? This is very, very poor Tau advice from someone who obviously does NOT play Tau as their primary army. It's a shame that the only Tau posts I've seen on BoLS- this and the Devilfish Tactica, have offered up such poor advice. I realize that the Tau have it rough now, and we need a new Codex update pretty badly, but I do okay and I'm not 'shelving' my Tau 'till the new book comes out. I have had to make changes, but, if anything, my tactics are sharper now than they were in 4th edition. Movement is key now. Sometimes I do run 3 Hammerheads, but lately I've been crushing mech lists with a squad of 3 Broadsides w/shield drones (they simply WILL NOT DIE when moved correctly. With the drones their ridiculously tough!) and Advanced Stabilizers (move AND shoot) and 2 Ionheads. Ionheads put out a LOT of shots with smartmissiles added- 3 strength 7 AP3 shots with 4 strength 5 AP5 shots.....good for transports that ail you! Since EVERYONE in my army exept the Broadsides (who's railguns are twin-linked) are Ballistic Skill 4, I don't NEED markerlights. If I want 'em, I bring a Skyray or two.... I usually run a 1750 or 1850 point list 'round my way, and I friggin' LOVE my Tau. I'm sorry to say that this article was actually pretty bad.......... There are a couple good Tau Blogs on the list here at BoLS, including Warhammer Tau. And I'm sure someone has mentioned Advance Tau Tactica. As a Tau player, I have to say that folks should refer to those sites and disregard this article entirely. Sorry, Darkwynn, but this is total fail.
the_killer23
· 4 months ago
What's the point of putting 12 FWs in a devilfish and never getting out? IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE FIREPOINTS!
Josiah
· 4 months ago
Scoring skimmer? o.O Seems to work pretty well for Mechdar, lol.
Also, can't you just put 6 in there and call it good?
sinsynn
· 4 months ago
yeah, 6 is legal, and more than that is pointless if their not getting out.
khanaris
· 4 months ago
It works for Eldar because their Skimmer transports are much faster and better protected than Tau transports. Tau transports certainly can score with a unit of Fire Warriors or Kroot in them, but if the enemy happens to be close to that objective your Disruption Pod is probably useless and you are relying on Armor 11 or 12. Devilfish don't have a very large threat range, so you have to sneak up on objectives rather than blitzing them like the Eldar or Dark Eldar.
It can work, but you can not rely on spamming it. A minimized unit of Fire Warriors in a Devilfish is not that cheap, and it is going to struggle to put much of a dent in anything.
darkwynn
· 4 months ago
Like I said they are still good at getting out and rapid firing into enemies if you double up on a unit.
6 you might as well keep them in there and just hunker down and do nothing. 12 at least gives you options depending on what you play.
Crevab
· 4 months ago
It's always interesting seeing how different players collide in Tactics discussions.
What Big Red has put up looks to be fairly standard advice you'll see across the net these days, yet some cry foul. I don't think it's a stretch to say that everyone plays and understands this game a little differently
sinsynn
· 4 months ago
I spend a lot of time on the Tau blogs and at Advanced Tau Tactica- I've actually posted quite a bit there. I've never seen anyone run 12 firewarriors in a Dfish for anything other than Fish of Fury (which doesn't work the same in 5th Ed. due to the new cover save rules), and if the Dfish is just used to hold down points (i.e.;the troopies never get out), then you run 6 (or 8 if your nervous about surviveability) to save point costs. That Darkwynn is recommending running 12 is just a glaring mistake from a Tau 'rookie', as well as the 'suicide' commander crisis suit idea. A 3 man Elite Crisis suit team, with twin linked fusion blasters and drone support was a common 4th edition tactic, and occasionally seen in 5th, But throwing away a Shas'el, wasting a HQ slot AND giving up a free kill point just isn't a good plan for a Tau player, period. At least a 3 man team w/drones has a chance to cause a couple turns of behind-the-lines mayhem before they die, and my HQ's don't get wasted to kill a tank (which I'd rather do with Railguns anyway- it's what their for, after all). Most of the advice in this article is just wrong, and I think most of the Tau players that are responding feel the same. I mean c'mon! "suits in general..can't protect themselves from the enemy..." it's like he never heard of drones, or thought to run his suits with the Dfish, where an enemy is forced to roll 6's to assault the 'fish, and is exposing them to next turn fire from the suits. The Tau require a different style now in 5th. Massed pulse rifles and gunlines get eaten by fast assault troops. And with the new run rule, they're ALL fast now. Keep your Tau mech, keep 'em mobile. When those fast assaulters or troop filled transports get far enough ahead of their backup in pursuit of you, pounce on 'em with the suits and tank backup, and then use the 'peek-a-boo' Tau method to start picking apart the rest. Sacrificing valuable troops is directly opposed to the fluff, even.
Crevab
· 4 months ago
Darkwynn says keep the Firewarriors in the fish, you say"Keep your Tau mech, keep 'em mobile." and note that he did say to pop the warriors out to rapidfire units that can be wiped out
A suicide shas el may not be the best idea, but a three man team with the same loadout, drones, and goal is ridiculous. They get shot up, assaulted, and swept in one or two turns of the assault phase.
darkwynn
· 4 months ago
Which has what I found out to happen a lot more Crevab.
Great you deep strike your suits to take out heavy Armour with those fusion guns. Well they were only bs 3 and if they do succeed they still die from enemy massing fire or that nasty unit getting out from that land raider and assaulting you.
Terrain is different at every store across the country but playing around the country I have noticed you will have a hard time hiding your suits from out flankers, drop pod units and very fast mobile armies.
I have noticed a lot of tau players still trapped in the 4th edition game and they might have great success but what happens when they go into another area or a bigger touranment? They get smoked and their armies can get picked apart very easily. I don't come out saying I am a master out tau which I am not( I can say it about Black Templar though!). The only person who can reasonably deserve to be called a master is Scott Simpson.
This article was designed to make people think and hopefully take on another view of Tau. See if it works and maybe give them insight to what works in 5th edition.
P'Shar's Rifles
· 4 months ago
Darkwynn, I sincerely hope that your comment that "folks are stuck in 4th edition" is not a dismissal of the advice you've received in response to your article from actual Tau players. Much of what has been posted here fits with my experience of 5th edition, though it only scratches the surface of Tau tactics, and I suspect you'd find lively tactical innovation happening for 5th ed on many of the more active Tau sites.
To say that this article was made "to make people think and hopefully take on another view of the Tau" sounds disturbingly like an excuse for the problems pointed out by those who have replied to you. The fundamental complaint here is that you did not, in the opinion of Tau veterans playing in 5th edition, give "insight into what works in 5th edition". Rather, there appears to be a strong feeling here that you did the opposite by listing tactics which are sub-optimal for a 5th edition Tau list.
I hope you'll get out and visit some of the more respected Tau sites for some solid 5th edition tactics and strategies and then revisit this topic. With your level of experience in the game, particularly as an adversary to Tau, I anticipate that you'll grasp the Tau way of war quickly and will bring new insights to those of us who have made them our primary faction.
Best, P'Shar
Bijyu
· 4 months ago
Two words...Ninja tau.
I find it a ton of fun to play but your opponents dont tend to think so. But it does make the game go buy much faster. Yay for speed gaming!
Travis
· 4 months ago
Tau I find are struggling a bit to keep up in the new edition because their tried-and-true gunline is having more expected of it. It now needs to take objectives, deploy in different ways, etc. In order to emphasize the flexibility of the mobile list, I occasionally employ the stealth-pathfinder method. This is a unit of stealth suits with all marker drones. Because the Jet Pack rule confers the Relentless USR, marker drones attached to jet infantry can fire their lights on the move. Compared to pathfinders, the lights all networked, they can all deep strike, have stealth, have better saves, more attack power, can infiltrate, and overall are either cheaper than 'finders and fish, or about the same, depending on numbers. That being said, you don't get the deep strike fish, but it's a worthy trade-off
Travis
· 4 months ago
whoops.. read before posting...:P
MadDogMike
· 4 months ago
One possibly helpful thing if you're willing to go Forgeworld is to grab Tetras for markerlights. They're Fast Attack vehicles so they don't take a Heavy slot (and can squadron up to four), come with disruption pods standard and can buy that all important BS4 upgrade, and they have a Scout move that unlike the Pathfinders won't screw up their ability to actually use their markerlights. They aren't that bad price-wise either, since you get two per pack you buy from FW. Not as durable as the Skyray and much weaker for actual offensive purposes, but if you want to save heavy slots for more railguns in your force they aren't too bad a choice, and they probably do about as well as Pathfinders for a Fast Attack slot (fewer markerlights, but a hell of a lot more mobile).
steck
· 4 months ago
First this is mostly a rant, i dont have anything really good to add to this. I hate my tau in 5th ed, in 4th ed I tried to do mobile a bit but fish were too expensive so I ended up with 2 fish and 2 hammerheads. Now 5th comes out and all my suits suck but the devilfish are more important. My tau can't wipe anything off the board unless I am lucky and the only tactic is to drop everything and move your fire warriors around the field hoping they dont get shot up. I hate this tactic and refuse to do it in a tournament because its not why I started my tau. I started them because they were different and because I could run a small block of static (1 FW, pahtfinders, broadsides) and then have the rest of my army supported by that group as it flys around/drops into the field.
That is my rant about tau in 5th ed, I wish it were different but its not.
doomsday
· 4 months ago
hi guys this is my 1750 mech tau list i was using when the 5th edition is came up (with that list i have won a local tournament)...that tactica was the same with Darkwynn
HQ Commander shas’el : missile pod / plasma / multi tracker / targeting array 97pts
ELITE Team 1 : Crisis / fusion / missile-pod / multi tracker Crisis / fusion / missile pod / multi tracker / targeting array (Team leader) 123pts Team 2 : Crisis / missile pod / plasma / multi tracker Crisis / missile pod / plasma / multi tracker / targeting array (Team leader) 139pts
TROOPS Team 1 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod Team 2 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod Team 3 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod Team 4 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod 800pts
FAST ATTACK Piranha : fusion / targeting array / disruption pod / fusion 75pts
HEAVY SUPPORT Team 1 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker / target lock Team 2 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker / target lock Team 3 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker / target lock 495pts
the last 3 weeks i tested succesfully the following list (one draw against eldar and one win against blood angels) and i see that the markelights is nessesary at tau army ... so i desided to use that list :
HQ Commander shas’el : missile pod / plasma / multi tracker / targeting array Drone controller / shield drone 112pts
TROOPS Team 1 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod Team 2 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod Team 3 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife 515pts
FAST ATTACK Pathfinders : 7 pathfinders / shus ui / body knife / target lock / 3 rail rifle Devilfish – disruption pod 219pts Piranha : fusion / targeting array / disruption pod / fusion 75pts
HEAVY SUPPORT Team 1 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker / target lock / blacksun filter Team 2 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker / target lock / blacksun filter Team 3 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker / target lock / blacksun filter 510pts
TACTICA i see that the most players dont like the piranha but for me is nessesary to my army ... i keep it at reserve and it has given me many contests , or i use it like tankhunters if i play kill points ...the markelights did very good work and help me cut many covers and better BS ...the pathfinders' devilfish with the reroll to deep strikes is awesome ... also the blacksun filter to the hammerheads does very good work if you play the nightfight scenario ...the rail rifles and the crisis with the targeting array and the missile pods is perfect against the light vehicles ( most of the players in 5th edition use mech armies with many transpots // you leave tha railguns for the heavy vehicles) and plasma gives a good defence against everything is coming back to my lines ....also i gave to crisis shield drones because otherwise is a very easy kill point for str8 weapons ... the kamikazi crisis is obvious what it does ...the 10 firewarriors without devilfish ... i keep them at reserve and when they come take the pathfinders' devilfish and they stay back for my objectives and for defence ... so know i am thinking if it is better to take 15 pts from the H.H. black/filters , 92 pts from crisis team 3 and 55 pts from firewarriors team 3 ( to put out the shas ui with the knife and 3 models ) and use that pts for a team of 5 stealth suit with team leader target lock and fusion
...I am sorry for the big post ... cheers from Greece
Spronk
· 4 months ago
Why does the author think you have to use HQ suits as . . . ah . . ."suiciders?"
Why not a single elite suit or two? Just because he'd rather field stealth suits in those spots?
And in 5th, you can minimize costs if you shlep FW around in the fish you bought for PFs
gunnargunnar
· 3 months ago
Deny Tau. They didn't exist in the old fluff, and are ony a PR-army for the japaneese release of 40k. Other races did, even the Kroots were mentioned... (what a losy argument, but thats the fact...)
Well I dont like Tau for many reasons. They are not what 40k initally intended to be, a dark future with close encounters and mystic powers of the warp. They are based totaly on manga fiction, a popular toy and comic-concept for a lot of nerd fiction producers.
Ghost
· 2 months ago
my good friend let me tell you a tale of yore back in 3rd ed 40k
in these dark days there were two major strategies in pretty much exeption of all else, they where rhino rush and gunline, one was "mount up in vehicles and charge for combat", the other was 'try and get as many bassalisks and indirect templates on the table as possible" now back then you couldnt move and double rapid fire, you could assault after firing rapid fire and you couldnt fire after dissembarking
now background-wise the tau were supposed to be a new race to add some new flavour to the game, some guys who are actualy nice if not a bit nieve, gameplay wise they were designed to discourage these main strateges (which they did wonderfully, i can remember blowing up rhinos with crisis and pathfinder teams) and as for the not what 40k was intended to be, yeah 40k had drifted away from that idea of "gritty and gloomy and vast warp hell" but the tau made it better, wit that small dot of hope on the eastern fringes, things suddenly started looking a lot more gloomy in the imperium.
Quote: "If your tanks are on hover bases, like they should be, I can shoot battlesuit ankles until they die."
This made me lose a little faith in humanity.
kais86
· 1 month ago
TL flamers and missile pods are hilarious, cheap, and versatile. 130ish points for 3 TL flamers and they will kill most units in the game easily, and when they have nothing to light on fire they can hunt vehicles or units out of range with missiles.
One of my biggest complaints about the Tau army is how frail it is in the current edition, our units aren't big enough to be competitive, battlesuit squads will die the moment anyone targets them with something more than a popgun, firewarriors will run of the table is a pigeon farts near them. I still can't complain about Broadsides. The mighty railgun on the Hammerhead is too expensive now that it scatters, and as for solid shot, broadsides are tougher, more accurate, and because of the cost of the railgun almost cheaper. Stealthsuits are more expensive than they are worth, given that they only carry burst cannons and are even easier to kill than any other unit except the worthless vespid. Skyray's are, and always have been, overpriced. The devilfish is also too expensive given that the rhino is 35. Ethereals are still only good targets for the enemy, if their rule improved the Tau's strong point (that is shooting) it would be ok but I don't want to bring a unit onto the field who eats an HQ slot is 50 points and is only useful when it dies.
My next biggest complaint is how very un-elite the Tau elite units are, one would figure they would be better shots or have something more than just better gear and another attack. Their leadership also sucks, why in the name of the greater good is the highest leadership in the Tau Empire only an 8 until you get to the HQ? There is no explanation for this. Sure it's better than the guard, but the guard have leadership issues because they are expendable, Tau fire caste are not considered expendable and every one is important enough to some degree that they won't be thrown into battle like lemmings.
What they need is a new book, they aren't going to see one until probably 2011, so I'm just going to keep playing and learn how to deal with my crippled list as each new codex comes out.
All Comments
They really aren't. Just like any army they have weakness and bad units like anyone else(yes, I'm looking at you Aun'Va). The thing is though is that Tau can be very, very effective at what they do best, being mobile and shooting. They have amazing firepower, arguably the best best transport in the game, and excellent tactic based wargear. I don't know if too many players know about the Advanced Tau Tactica forum but the amazing group on there has shown me how to be very optimistic about our little blue men and their Frisbees of death.
Ko'vash Tau'va!!
Tau can still be very competitive, but you will have to work hard for it, every game. You have to exploit opportunities, because the Tau army list lost much of its ability to behave proactively. Necrons and Dark Eldar, old as they are, can still play the game on their own terms and force the enemy to react instead. Most of the newer books can take units and tactics that control the flow of the game just by being there. Tau have to react to what the enemy is doing turn-by-turn. The army is still fairly good at that, but very little in the list is as threatening in 5th as it was in 4th. Mobility is really the saving grace, because otherwise a Tau take-all-comers list will be outshot by any decent list that can't beat it to death in close combat with flanking units.
With IG codex, 1500 points you can field 250 models with enough firepower to take on most armies.
If you are playing 2,000 points, just add 500 points of fast attack, heavies, whatever, and you got a tough army to crack.
Tau's point values need to go down for the next codex update.
You've got some good suggestions in the comment boxes below:
- Outflanking kroot w/ hounds
- Hiding suits behind skimmers.
- Stealth Markerlight Teams.
- Not wasting your HQ suits by suiciding them for a slim chance of killing AV14.
- Short skimmer bases (seriously, TLOS is from the eyes of the model, if your firer isn't lying down on his base, he's not going to see crsis suit ankles under that tank).
I might add the following:
- At least one broadside team with shield drones for more (and more accurate) railgun shots that can't be silenced with a single glancing hit from an anti-tank gun. Markerlights give you more bang for the buck on broadsides, too.
- Provide other soft targets if you want your pathfinders to live. If everything else is in tanks, all of the opponent's anti-infantry is going to swing their way.
- Consider Shadowsun. A friend of mine has had great luck with her as a way to swing the leadership game a bit more in his favor, and she's rather killy if you have something like a land raider rolling into your back field because you just couldn't kill it fast enough.
- Tweak your crisis team load-outs so that all the models are "unique" for wound allocation purposes. Three suits w/ two shield drones where you can spread the wounds around can soak a surprising amount of damage.
There are lots of good ways to keep Tau competitive, we're all just tossing out minor list or tactical changes, but they don't work in isolation. The Tau are, most of all, about synergy in tactics and unit capabilities. If you have that synergy, they're a force to be reckoned with. If you don't, the Tau just plink and run until we're cornered or chewed up. None of our units are at full effectiveness without the support of others, with the possible exception of outflanking kroot with hounds, who can seriously ruin your opponent's day, and can soak a surprising number of wounds before they cease to be a threat. We just don't have any units that are "game winners" on their own.
Good luck bringing your Tau into 5th ed effectiveness, I think you'll find that we got some boosts in the new rules interactions. You've no doubt already discovered how much safer Fire Warriors are in their Fish than they used to be (don't forget your disruption pods).
Best,
P'Shar
First off, this idea of 'suicide' HQ suits is pure nonsense. They have the best BS in the entire army, it's a waste to send them after tanks with fusion blasters. Piranha do the same thing, they're tougher against small arms, faster and they drop free Gun Drones to annoy people after they die.
Crisis are still very much usable, but I find that Elite Crisis teams are no longer worth it. Their BS3 and crap Leadership (I've had them run off table after the shield drones die) mean even in the Firestorm config (BC+MP+MT), they're not performing that well.
Nowadays, I take Firestorm Shas'vre bodyguards with targeting arrays (hard-wiring the multi-tracker), and take a Shas'El and a Shas'O to accompany them. AFP+twin-MP on the Shas'El, PR+CIB+Pos Relay on the Shas'O. Everyone has BS4 or higher (and thus I don't need to waste markers on their BS), plus they are Ld9/10 due to the HQ suit leading the team. Both problems solved, without resorting to Shadowsun or Pathfinders.
A unit which the article completely ignored was Stealth teams. In my experience, Stealth suits aren't suited to killing things (basic Firestorms can do the 'dakka' thing just as well, and have greater reach+flexibility due to MP), but they're great as substitute Pathfinders. A build I favour (mainly in larger games however)
XV25 Team Leader w/markerlight, TA, BK, hard-wired target lock
2 x XV25 Shas'ui w/DC+2 x marker drones
(245 points)
Pricy for a support unit, but they offer jetpack movement, Stealth fields (which make them pretty much untargetable at 42"-36"), Relentless (so you can fire markerlights on the move, making JSJ tactics possible), and they leave Fast Attack slots free for Vespid or fusion Piranha (I never take squadrons).
Troops-wise, the article was correct in that mechanised Fire Warriors are the only real way to field them, they are just too fragile and slow otherwise. However, it's important to mention Kroot, because they make up for the low numbers of Tau and close-combat weaknesses (somewhat). For about the same as a mechanised team;
20 x Kroot w/kroot rifles, 10 x Kroot Hounds
(200 points)
They can infest objectives like IG do with their Combined Infantry squads, or they can Infiltrate to screw up enemy Scout/Infiltration options, or they can Outflank to bum-rush enemy objectives in the backfield. While fragile, they are a significant threat to most enemy infantry, and draw fire off your Crisis. A very versatile unit, and it really comes into it's own against other horde armies (where you can tie down or maul the horde, before the Devilfish teams swoop in to finish off the remnants). Charge in, remove Hounds as casualties after their attacks have been resolved (woot for I5), then lay into the enemy with your I3 Carnivores.
Fast Attack choices are pretty limited to Vespid and fusion Piranha, with the former being really only useful in smaller games.
Vespid offer an anti-3+ save unit basically, allowing you to bypass enemy armour and wound fairly reliably. What trips them up is BS3 (solvable with markerlights, but like Elite Crisis its annoying) and cover saves (again, markerlights help, but it still costs you kills). Mind do fairly well, but they almost always die.
Fusion Piranha never fail to earn their points back (in terms of enemy fire drawn onto them/battle tanks killed), and they cost about 1/2 what a railgun-armed Hammerhand does. Slap on a disruption pod (a 4+ cover save to any shooting outside 12"), and they can become a real headache for your opponent.
Heavy Support is dominated by the two traditional choices; Railheads or XV88 teams. Sniper Drone teams are interesting, but not that competitive.
The former is fast, flexible (the submunition blast is excellent against against most infantry, especially when markerlights strip away cover saves for weaker squads), and can withstand a lot of enemy attention (AV13+disruption pod is a pain to deal with). I think 2 is mandatory in any army, 3 is nice but can lack the ROF to break open AV13/14 targets consistently.
The latter is slower, but can fit more railguns into a single Heavy slot, and they can be used as bait to enemy assault units. I find two Railheads and whatever Piranha I take in FA to be sufficent anti-tank in smaller games, but at 1,750 or higher, an XV88 team is great as the 3rd Heavy Support choice.
These are just the sort of things that pop out to me.
Well, firstly I think you need to go read my Tau blog: http://warhammer-tau-army.blogspot.com/
I've been playing Tau in 5th edition and you're right, it's not easy. But fireknife suits still have their place.
Instead of an attacking unit, battlesuits are now a counter unit which you hide behind your Tank Wall, which you use to Jump Shoot Jump from behind.
Basically, use the tanks as mobile cover.
What you're doing with the circling Tank Wall seems standard for Tau in 5th edition. Having the Battlesuit behind the Tank Wall makes the tanks less appealing as a target, because when the enemy get close, the suits come and spank 'em.
For markerlights the Skyray is best and it's mobile and durable with armour 13.
Then you just carefully use its markerlights to either boost your Broadsides or fireknife team to make those kills certain.
For more tips on play Tau and WINNING in 5th edition, check out the blog: http://warhammer-tau-army.blogspot.com/
Cheers
Also, two plugs for your blog in one post? Nice.
If you're shooting something like a tank? I don't think it's going to necessarily see it.
I gotta go with Darkseer here. Crisis Suits are the swiss army weapon in the Tau codex. You get S5ish off your Fire Warriors and vehicle weapons, and you get Rail Guns for popping vehicles. Crisis Suits are your gap-fillers. If nothing else, the missile pods are handy. I don't think Fire Warriors themselves are actually that handy, since it's more S5 shots that need marerlights and support to do the damage.
Additionally, I don't really think much of deep-striking suicide commanders with short-range weapons. Honestly, flamers and fusion guns benefit from careful placement; flamers want to cover the most they can and the fusion gun really gets the most benefit within 6". Deep Strike is ANYTHING but precision; I've done enough Daemons and Deathwing to have learned that much. A single re-roll with the scatter just boosts you to around a 50% chance of the 'hit', and the rest of it's all about what the scatter gives you. Deviation on 2d6 averages 7", which is more than enough to spoil flamer and fusion gun shots. It's also more than enough on average to slam you into something you didn't want to hit. I just don't think it's a reliable-enough delivery system, and I don't think most armies have a problem briefly shooting a 2-3 wound guy to death when he's T4 with a 3+ save.
I think ~8 Pathfinders is probably solid; more and you dilute the effectiveness of the army, and fewer are easier to run off the table. I agree that their Devilfish is better used for housing Fire Warriors, but in general I think Fire Warriors belong in a transport and being scoring rather than being on the table and getting dead.
I'm surprised there's no mention for Kroot, either. Kroot are an inexpensive solution to stupid tricks like Vendetta/Valk melta-vet alpha strikes. Sure, they're not going to hold out well when targeted, but the point is to deny the enemy the ability to even PLACE the meltaguns w/in 12", as they tend to, y'know, circumvent the Tau gear that gives you a 4+ save vs. shooting.
Shockingly the one unit many discredit or overlook for Tau (even those who play them) are Gun Drone squads. Jump Infantry with Pulse carbines and BS 2 saldy. I fly them around and pin those pesky close hand units charging up at you.
I usually go with for a 1850 pt list 2x 12 man firewarrior squads and 2x 20 man Kroot squads. I outflank with the Kroot or infiltrate to acquire and hold objectives rather then pay for a transport or walk up the fire warriors.
Just a few things I've learned for Tau in 5th edition.
As others have stated, you don't need to put the tanks on flying bases. They have little feet :)
Alternatively, raise your Battlesuits up on flying bases as you're still covered.
The only Rule Of Thumb is that you can takes things on and off flying bases throughout the game. You have to start with one or the other.
Having the Battlesuits mounted on the stands does alleviate that though but more often then not you should have you suits a little closer to the enemy unless you are just running them as Deathrains.
The flying base can be as low if not lower than the feet, if you only use the clear transparent flying base and the smallest plastic rod, but TBH the flying base thing works both ways. I can put my Firewarriors behind their Devilfish and rapid fire through it 4th edition style.
The Tau tanks come with a landing gear rule which allows them to land, so there is no need for them to use the flying stand. There's also the issue of breaking the flying stands, if a Tau player were to break them and couldn't use a flying stand are you really gonna be the prick who tells him he cant'?
Do you have a Tau blog too?
Anyway... I do have a blog it's not army dedicated and I'm not really advertising it as it's nothing special and I don't update it regularly, so it's not so good to read, but if you're interested it's at http://the_flashman.webs.com/
Let me know what you think.
If you model your skimmers with the shortest rod, they have barely enough room to stay floating, even with landing gear modeled on. Nothing can see what's behind the skimmer by trying to look under!
Darkwynn should DEFINATELY study up there before writing about the Tau again.
fire warriors give you s5 weapons
hammerheads and broadsides give you s10 weapons
crisis suits have everything in between, including meltas
Fire knives suck, there's no two ways about it. They're expensive, they don't have a singular purpose, and they are pretty fragile. A guy at my store runs squads of TL plasma and shield gens, I usually run TL fusion blasters and mpods or something similar. I can get about 3 suits for each of his two, I get a weapon to close the range with, the unit can kill any tank in the game within 2 turns of shooting max, and if they don't deploy tanks then i can hunt transports or s4 models with multiple wounds.
I think the Lexicanum should deserve some publicity in return at least.
Not by you for the Lexicanum.
If you check the name it's 100px-Tau_Sept_Symbol.png the 100px is a prefix mediawiki adds when it creates the downsized thumbs.
Now go and check on the lexicanum for the name File:Tau Sept Symbol.png and see what comes up.
In case anyone wants to pull the timeline game, Marathon had run its full course before the first published material for the Tau. The first game was in 1994, second in 1995, and the third in 1996. Tau were first published in 2001, at least as far as I can find.
The Tokyo Fire Department!
that's right all of these people have ripped the symbol off from the tokyo fire department, which i think is kinda neat seing as it's the fire caste symbol and all.
I just made a silly comment with a side of shameless plug, and you're going all qq over me.
Mobility is certainly key in 5th, but with broadsides and Hammerheads I'm able to shoot vehicles and templates from across the field and force you to come to me. The Tau battlesuit missle pod is one of the best transport destoying weapons in the game and I generally find that I am quite able to wipe the field with Tau on a regular basis.
Doubled seer council or Nob bikes give me the most trouble, but I still hold my own. Dual (or more) LR space marines are not an issue...
Nobody's mentioned the piranha yet, though, which is odd. Piranhas are *critical* -- just like Kroot -- at creating "buffer zones". Zoom a pair right into the enemy's grill and block their movement. Either they deal with the cheap paper airplanes -- and you pound them while they do so -- or they take the long way 'round them (if such a route is even available) and then the melta guns on those paper airplanes punish them for their ignorance. It's a win-win situation however you slice it.
Every truly potent Tau list I've seen since 4th edition makes at least modest use of Piranhas in this fashion. (And I do, too. It works!)
they are too hard to set up, along with the marker lights
if you want high power guns go for the crisis
youre not going to save points, but they are a lot more effective. if you intend on boosting youre fw tho, then simply get more fw
Here is what I learned:
In 5th, Tau vehicles are quite tough if you give them a Disruption Pod (which makes them obscured; ie, 4+ cover save). Sensor Spines are also amazing, as they allow you to park in terrain without difficult terrain tests.
Also, Battlesuits are just as tough as Nob Bikers. With a full squad of three you give them all shield generators and hard-wired drone controllers (all together taking two of each drone for the unit as a whole). Then you give them different guns. After that, just use the wound allocation rules to your advantage while punishing the enemy with near impunity. Doing so gives your opponent two options, either ignore them (which doesn't work) or focus on destroying them, leaving the rest of the Tau army to pick off the other guy's dudes at their leisure. The best option available is to tie them up with close combat, they may not get many kills, but neither will their opponent, leaving them deadlocked.
How many armies can spare a hard hitting close combat unit to tie up a monster like that; especially with all of the other ripe targets out there.
Running nob-biker battlesuits is even nastier with Farsight, I've seen a him and two bodyguards rip into a unit of lighting claw terminators and run them down without loosing a single model.
my problem is with every piece of advice he wrote...
HQs as scuicide suits and crisis suits losing potancy....
wrong.... wrong wrong wrong.... seriously crisis suits are the bread and butter of tau thank you and with markerlights they of all out units come the closest of being able to wipe out pretty much any infanty. and i personally find that oponents seek out my Fireknife commander with a vengance.... proving once and for all hes more than usefull....
massive fw's in devilfish- still doesnt work.... warriors as lovely as their guns are... still cant do massive casulaties to marines... that hasnt changed with editions... your looking at maybe 2 dead marines from a full rapid fire squad that no longer has teh protection of the old Fish of Fury....
pathfinders being expencive.... at 96 points essentially for an 8 man unit... thats cheap... especially when your using the manitory fish to ferry around your warriors. hell with the new transport rules you can have 2 squads of 4 and ues the two fish to ferry around your two warrior units....
pathfinders are THE CHEAPEST source of markerlight hits in the tau codex...
And the main tactic mentioned is moving all yoru tanks around in a giant block of skimmers... doesnt work as every army now has melta,las spam galore and if you set yourself up liek that your gunna lose especially once things get suddenly close (were your disruption pods dont work) via ourflanking, drop pods and deepstriking.
Now with TLOS you can't really hide them and enemys can gun them down even if they have 3+ saves.
Pathfinders as being the biggest central point of your army? What happens when they get shot up and die then? You are boned?
They are a static group that can't move and can't hide reliable.
And with a block are you going to just scatter your 8 tanks to random points of the table so they can divide and conquer you much easier?
pathfinders are essential for the first few turns.... and face it... if the enamy is really spending time ferreting your pathfinders out of cover than good for him... as they are dirt cheap, not scoring, and do no damage on their own and just saved your other stuff from alot of shots.
i personally have been using a stealth marker team however in place of the pathfinders.
The block'O'Tanks only works against pod armies. otherwise your really just boxing yoruself in and cannot fully bring your own weapons to bear, especially once a tank or two of yours drops. you need to be flexable and fluid as tau... not a wall
you need to create entire quarters of the board were your oponent is afraid to go near (i have always been very sucessful at this)
you NEED to Spead out while sticking together, far enough apart to give yoruself options, Close enough to deny deepstriking and outflanking potential... its a careful balance.
and all this talk about "being trapped in 4th edition" what has really changed?
TLoS mech armies didnt take so much of a hit because we hide behind our tanks
Cover... MARKERLIGHTS...oh wait... you dont liek those do you?
Marines: eat people for dinner at the age of twelve by yelling "BOOM".... they have always done this its nothing new... its why half of all armies are marines or the latest released codex
Scoring units: wait.... yoru spending MORE points on less but bigger units of em, without increasing their overall usefullness or survivability?
BIG QUESTION, do you actually win games when you "play" tau?.... do you actually play tau? I think the philosophy of taking random marine players and assigning them "less popular" armies to write tacticas for them is kind of flawed. and Very misleading to new players
Pathfinders are a great distraction unit, since they're not scoring. Put 'em in a corner- their Markerlights reach out to 36 inches- way far out of the way, and watch your opponent waste time/energy/resources hunting them down. Many Tau players rely on them to draw heat away from their scoring troops/suits. For some reason, our opponents suffer a disproportionate amount of hostility towards them ;)
Crisis suits are STILL the bread and butter of the Tau army. Please refer to the many, many Tau blogs and websites for a tactica. Even rapid firing Firewarriors only kill 2 MEQ's in a shooting phase. And if the enemy is that close, that's 8 marines that are going to stab your troops with chainswords very soon. You'd need to fish of fury (that's the name of the tactic your refering to) 5 or so Devilfish to knock out a tactical squad of marines. Is that your plan? Maybe you should re-think the Crisis suits..... My 2 Fireknife Shas'el HQ's really, really kill things, and my Elite Deathrains (TL missile pods/Targeting Arrays/Team leader w/drone controller+2 gundrones/Target Lock) wipe transports off the board very quickly. Since none of them are troops/scoring, they can be sacrificed for the greater good after leading the enemy on a merry chase. At the same time, my tricked out Devilfish are lining up late game power moves, and my tanks are there to assist.
Also, if your going to 'suicide deep strike'- use elite suits. Don't waste HQ's. And think about the team of 3 w/drones. Carefully placed (use the Pathfinder's D'fish homer), they can kill a vehicle and (hopefully) be hiiden behind the wreck. With target locks, they can kill 2 when they drop. Don't drop on Landraiders. Concentrated railgun fire from 3 Hammerheads or a team of Broadsides should kill them at a distance, stranding the very bad men inside. I get upset if I haven't killed a Landraider by turn 2 with my Broadsides. A 3 man elite team of Crisis suits can withstand a ridiculous amount of shooting and still hop away. I've had a whole army shoot at mine many times, and I usually either lose both drones (no Ld check! Whoot!) or limp away with 2 suits to cause more trouble. One suit w/no drones is a waste. Especially if it's a Shas'el or 'O.
I know your an excellent 40k player, and I believe you when you say your an expert with your Black Templars. How about writing Tacticas for them, since they're an underappreciated gem of an army in 5th?
I wouldn't recommend the Tau for a new player until they get a new book. And I'm sure the learning curve has been rough for you, hasn't it?
Out of curiosity, how many games with the Tau have you played? What's your record?
Darkwynn, I think you've made a valiant effort at a Tau tactica and your right the truth is Tau are a difficult army to play in 5th but you're showing how inexperianced you are with them by some of your declarations. I mean yeah battlesuits cannot avoid return fire but with shield drones and because of wound allocation they can suck up a lot of fire before going down. In the mean time they'll be laying down a punishing salvo of fire for your opponent to deal with.
As for Pathfinders your right, an experienced opponent will target them but as others have said you can either use this to your advantage and expect a disproportionate amount of fire to be wasted against them. Or you can try using a Shas'O shield wall to protect them. A simple Shas'O with Iridium Armour (2+), Stimulant Injectors for feel no pain and two Shield drones (who benefit from his 2+ armour save and 4 toughness) will offer them some decent protection as they suck up the first three wounds against the unit.
There are tricks to playing Tau and I think if you were serious about learning how to use them you could do worse than having a poke around the internets and seeing what experianced Tau commanders are doing to survive in 5th.
Tau'va!
Should never underestimate the power of markerlights, especially networked ones. The drones are expensive, but being able to buff your shooting, degrade cover and attempt to force pinning when you can is awesome.
I think they generally arn't thought of as very good because they have a very unique playstyle and people just don't know how to use them.
Fireknives (the plural for fireknife?) still work great. Advance your vehicles 7 or so inches. Keep the suits behind.them. Suits jump out, kill stuff, jump back behind vehicles, where they will be protected from assault. The suits can easily keep up with the vehicles with a six inch move plus the six inch assault move. Assaulters will need sixes to hit the vehicle. Pretty simple.
Second-
If you look in the codex, you may notice that with a drone controller, you can attach something called SHIELD DRONES to your crisis suits. Or even gun drones with the new prvelence of cover saves. These will dramatically increase the life expectancy of your suits. Mine often survive entire games wound-free. Also, with fireknives, go with a Shas'el and bodyguards w/targeting arrays. Expensive, but worth every point. I bring 2 squads. I use the elite slots for a single squad of Deathrains (suits w/twin linked missile pods and targeting arrays. Pumping out 6 strength 7 missiles a turn, they MURDER transports.) All my suits are ballistic skill 4. They all have drones, although I use gun drones now since everything gets a cover save in 5th edition. Crisis suits carry the Tau's heavy weapons. We NEED them. Also, since they don't count as scoring, you can sacrifice them if needs be towards the end of the game (people HATE them, and can be distracted into wasting resources trying to kill them whilst your troops survive to claim objectives).
Third-
Why put 12 firewarriors in a Devilfish if their not gonna get out? Firewarriors are too squishy.They don't survive long on the battlefields of the 41st millenium. I bring 3 squads of 6 in Devilfish w/smart missiles, targetting array, multi-tracker and disruption pod for 180 points a team. An outflanking squad of 10 or so Kroot sometimes joins in, but their not absolutely required. They hug trees and hide in the back doin' their Rasta thing.
I don't run Stealthsuits anymore. 18 inch range on their guns often leaves them too close to fast assaulters that can run now. And at 30 pts. each, Crisis suits are more effective for the points.
Fireknives are out? 12 firewarriors that never get out of their 'fish? Deepstrike a solo HQ unit and give up a free killpoint? This is very, very poor Tau advice from someone who obviously does NOT play Tau as their primary army. It's a shame that the only Tau posts I've seen on BoLS- this and the Devilfish Tactica, have offered up such poor advice.
I realize that the Tau have it rough now, and we need a new Codex update pretty badly, but I do okay and I'm not 'shelving' my Tau 'till the new book comes out. I have had to make changes, but, if anything, my tactics are sharper now than they were in 4th edition. Movement is key now.
Sometimes I do run 3 Hammerheads, but lately I've been crushing mech lists with a squad of 3 Broadsides w/shield drones (they simply WILL NOT DIE when moved correctly. With the drones their ridiculously tough!) and Advanced Stabilizers (move AND shoot) and 2 Ionheads. Ionheads put out a LOT of shots with smartmissiles added- 3 strength 7 AP3 shots with 4 strength 5 AP5 shots.....good for transports that ail you! Since EVERYONE in my army exept the Broadsides (who's railguns are twin-linked) are Ballistic Skill 4, I don't NEED markerlights. If I want 'em, I bring a Skyray or two....
I usually run a 1750 or 1850 point list 'round my way, and I friggin' LOVE my Tau.
I'm sorry to say that this article was actually pretty bad..........
There are a couple good Tau Blogs on the list here at BoLS, including Warhammer Tau. And I'm sure someone has mentioned Advance Tau Tactica. As a Tau player, I have to say that folks should refer to those sites and disregard this article entirely.
Sorry, Darkwynn, but this is total fail.
Also, can't you just put 6 in there and call it good?
It can work, but you can not rely on spamming it. A minimized unit of Fire Warriors in a Devilfish is not that cheap, and it is going to struggle to put much of a dent in anything.
6 you might as well keep them in there and just hunker down and do nothing. 12 at least gives you options depending on what you play.
What Big Red has put up looks to be fairly standard advice you'll see across the net these days, yet some cry foul. I don't think it's a stretch to say that everyone plays and understands this game a little differently
I've never seen anyone run 12 firewarriors in a Dfish for anything other than Fish of Fury (which doesn't work the same in 5th Ed. due to the new cover save rules), and if the Dfish is just used to hold down points (i.e.;the troopies never get out), then you run 6 (or 8 if your nervous about surviveability) to save point costs. That Darkwynn is recommending running 12 is just a glaring mistake from a Tau 'rookie', as well as the 'suicide' commander crisis suit idea.
A 3 man Elite Crisis suit team, with twin linked fusion blasters and drone support was a common 4th edition tactic, and occasionally seen in 5th, But throwing away a Shas'el, wasting a HQ slot AND giving up a free kill point just isn't a good plan for a Tau player, period. At least a 3 man team w/drones has a chance to cause a couple turns of behind-the-lines mayhem before they die, and my HQ's don't get wasted to kill a tank (which I'd rather do with Railguns anyway- it's what their for, after all).
Most of the advice in this article is just wrong, and I think most of the Tau players that are responding feel the same. I mean c'mon! "suits in general..can't protect themselves from the enemy..." it's like he never heard of drones, or thought to run his suits with the Dfish, where an enemy is forced to roll 6's to assault the 'fish, and is exposing them to next turn fire from the suits.
The Tau require a different style now in 5th. Massed pulse rifles and gunlines get eaten by fast assault troops. And with the new run rule, they're ALL fast now. Keep your Tau mech, keep 'em mobile. When those fast assaulters or troop filled transports get far enough ahead of their backup in pursuit of you, pounce on 'em with the suits and tank backup, and then use the 'peek-a-boo' Tau method to start picking apart the rest.
Sacrificing valuable troops is directly opposed to the fluff, even.
A suicide shas el may not be the best idea, but a three man team with the same loadout, drones, and goal is ridiculous. They get shot up, assaulted, and swept in one or two turns of the assault phase.
Great you deep strike your suits to take out heavy Armour with those fusion guns. Well they were only bs 3 and if they do succeed they still die from enemy massing fire or that nasty unit getting out from that land raider and assaulting you.
Terrain is different at every store across the country but playing around the country I have noticed you will have a hard time hiding your suits from out flankers, drop pod units and very fast mobile armies.
I have noticed a lot of tau players still trapped in the 4th edition game and they might have great success but what happens when they go into another area or a bigger touranment? They get smoked and their armies can get picked apart very easily. I don't come out saying I am a master out tau which I am not( I can say it about Black Templar though!). The only person who can reasonably deserve to be called a master is Scott Simpson.
This article was designed to make people think and hopefully take on another view of Tau. See if it works and maybe give them insight to what works in 5th edition.
To say that this article was made "to make people think and hopefully take on another view of the Tau" sounds disturbingly like an excuse for the problems pointed out by those who have replied to you. The fundamental complaint here is that you did not, in the opinion of Tau veterans playing in 5th edition, give "insight into what works in 5th edition". Rather, there appears to be a strong feeling here that you did the opposite by listing tactics which are sub-optimal for a 5th edition Tau list.
I hope you'll get out and visit some of the more respected Tau sites for some solid 5th edition tactics and strategies and then revisit this topic. With your level of experience in the game, particularly as an adversary to Tau, I anticipate that you'll grasp the Tau way of war quickly and will bring new insights to those of us who have made them our primary faction.
Best,
P'Shar
I find it a ton of fun to play but your opponents dont tend to think so. But it does make the game go buy much faster. Yay for speed gaming!
That is my rant about tau in 5th ed, I wish it were different but its not.
HQ
Commander shas’el : missile pod / plasma / multi tracker / targeting array
97pts
ELITE
Team 1 : Crisis / fusion / missile-pod / multi tracker
Crisis / fusion / missile pod / multi tracker / targeting array (Team leader)
123pts
Team 2 : Crisis / missile pod / plasma / multi tracker
Crisis / missile pod / plasma / multi tracker / targeting array (Team leader)
139pts
TROOPS
Team 1 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod
Team 2 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod
Team 3 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod
Team 4 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod
800pts
FAST ATTACK
Piranha : fusion / targeting array / disruption pod / fusion
75pts
HEAVY SUPPORT
Team 1 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker /
target lock
Team 2 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker /
target lock
Team 3 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker /
target lock
495pts
the last 3 weeks i tested succesfully the following list (one draw against eldar and one win against blood angels) and i see that the markelights is nessesary at tau army ... so i desided to use that list :
HQ
Commander shas’el : missile pod / plasma / multi tracker / targeting array
Drone controller / shield drone
112pts
ELITE
Team 1 : Kamikazi Crisis / fusion t.l. / targeting array
53pts
Team 2 : Crisis / missile pod / plasma / targeting array _
Crisis / missile pod / plasma / h.w. multi tracker / h.w. target lock
h.w. drone controller / targeting array (Team leader) / 2 shield drone
179pts
Team 3 : Crisis / fusion / plasma / targeting array / h.w. multi tracker
h.w. drone controller (team leader) / shield drone
92pts
TROOPS
Team 1 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod
Team 2 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife / Devilfish – disruption pod
Team 3 : 10 firewarriors / shas ui / body knife
515pts
FAST ATTACK
Pathfinders : 7 pathfinders / shus ui / body knife / target lock / 3 rail rifle
Devilfish – disruption pod
219pts
Piranha : fusion / targeting array / disruption pod / fusion
75pts
HEAVY SUPPORT
Team 1 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker /
target lock / blacksun filter
Team 2 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker /
target lock / blacksun filter
Team 3 : Hammerhead : railgun / burst cannon / disruption pod / multi tracker /
target lock / blacksun filter
510pts
TACTICA
i see that the most players dont like the piranha but for me is nessesary to my army ... i keep it at reserve and it has given me many contests , or i use it like tankhunters if i play kill points
...the markelights did very good work and help me cut many covers and better BS
...the pathfinders' devilfish with the reroll to deep strikes is awesome ... also the blacksun filter to the hammerheads does very good work if you play the nightfight scenario
...the rail rifles and the crisis with the targeting array and the missile pods is perfect against the light vehicles ( most of the players in 5th edition use mech armies with many transpots // you leave tha railguns for the heavy vehicles) and plasma gives a good defence against everything is coming back to my lines
....also i gave to crisis shield drones because otherwise is a very easy kill point for str8 weapons ... the kamikazi crisis is obvious what it does
...the 10 firewarriors without devilfish ... i keep them at reserve and when they come take the pathfinders' devilfish and they stay back for my objectives and for defence
... so know i am thinking if it is better to take 15 pts from the H.H. black/filters , 92 pts from crisis team 3 and 55 pts from firewarriors team 3 ( to put out the shas ui with the knife and 3 models ) and use that pts for a team of 5 stealth suit with team leader target lock and fusion
...I am sorry for the big post ... cheers from Greece
Why not a single elite suit or two? Just because he'd rather field stealth suits in those spots?
And in 5th, you can minimize costs if you shlep FW around in the fish you bought for PFs
(what a losy argument, but thats the fact...)
Well I dont like Tau for many reasons. They are not what 40k initally intended to be, a dark future with close encounters and mystic powers of the warp. They are based totaly on manga fiction, a popular toy and comic-concept for a lot of nerd fiction producers.
in these dark days there were two major strategies in pretty much exeption of all else, they where rhino rush and gunline, one was "mount up in vehicles and charge for combat", the other was 'try and get as many bassalisks and indirect templates on the table as possible" now back then you couldnt move and double rapid fire, you could assault after firing rapid fire and you couldnt fire after dissembarking
now background-wise the tau were supposed to be a new race to add some new flavour to the game, some guys who are actualy nice if not a bit nieve, gameplay wise they were designed to discourage these main strateges (which they did wonderfully, i can remember blowing up rhinos with crisis and pathfinder teams)
and as for the not what 40k was intended to be, yeah 40k had drifted away from that idea of "gritty and gloomy and vast warp hell" but the tau made it better, wit that small dot of hope on the eastern fringes, things suddenly started looking a lot more gloomy in the imperium.
http://advancedtautactica.com/viewforum.php?f=27
then re-writing your article.
This made me lose a little faith in humanity.
One of my biggest complaints about the Tau army is how frail it is in the current edition, our units aren't big enough to be competitive, battlesuit squads will die the moment anyone targets them with something more than a popgun, firewarriors will run of the table is a pigeon farts near them. I still can't complain about Broadsides. The mighty railgun on the Hammerhead is too expensive now that it scatters, and as for solid shot, broadsides are tougher, more accurate, and because of the cost of the railgun almost cheaper. Stealthsuits are more expensive than they are worth, given that they only carry burst cannons and are even easier to kill than any other unit except the worthless vespid. Skyray's are, and always have been, overpriced. The devilfish is also too expensive given that the rhino is 35. Ethereals are still only good targets for the enemy, if their rule improved the Tau's strong point (that is shooting) it would be ok but I don't want to bring a unit onto the field who eats an HQ slot is 50 points and is only useful when it dies.
My next biggest complaint is how very un-elite the Tau elite units are, one would figure they would be better shots or have something more than just better gear and another attack. Their leadership also sucks, why in the name of the greater good is the highest leadership in the Tau Empire only an 8 until you get to the HQ? There is no explanation for this. Sure it's better than the guard, but the guard have leadership issues because they are expendable, Tau fire caste are not considered expendable and every one is important enough to some degree that they won't be thrown into battle like lemmings.
What they need is a new book, they aren't going to see one until probably 2011, so I'm just going to keep playing and learn how to deal with my crippled list as each new codex comes out.