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So, I got a few armies, I'm currently working a bit on my new Tyranids, And I'm plotting and planning for my marines while I wait for a new Space Wolf codex. But my thoughts and heart keeps returning to my first army, The Tau.. I love my Tau.. I love their fluff, I love their models, Sure they arent quite as fun to play as my Necrons, but I love them more anyway.. The problem is, My friends absolutely hate facing them, Naming them as the single most boring army to face.. And that makes it less fun for me to play them.. So please, Can people give me ideas of how to make Tau more fun to face?

I have already decided to run my broadsides as old classic railgun broadsides as the Missilesides are just too strong. And I am planning to not use missile pods on my crisis suits as I used to use only 2 missile pods per suit and no other weapons. Dont know what else to put on the suits though.. And I need to change up my tactics and move arround more, Not stand still so much.. What units in the Tau codex are fun to face? Dont need to be super strong or anything, just fun.

Take different things like Vespids. Don't take the best option all the time sometimes take the second best. Most importantly in my opinion is don't make a gunline army. Move around. You have so much Jet infantry so you may as well use it.

I run Farsight and the biggest complaints I've gotten are Riptides.

From what you said about your local playing group is that they aren't very competitive or very strong players. That is fine, if opponents don't have strong lists or solid tactic it can be very difficult to pick apart a Tau gunline. Even then, they are one of the stronger Codices(Although they'll drop a notch or two in 7th).

I would suggest running a varied list, try out Stealth Suits and varied Crisis loadouts. Try some Fish'O'Fury with Ethereals and Firewarriors in Devilfish. Try the occasional Rail or Ionhead. I think Devilfish would be a good bet for you as it makes the army more mobile, actually better for Maelstrom, and is much less static.

Another option, is help educate your opponents as to the weaknesses of the Tau and teach them how to exploit them.

I definitely a tournament focused player and don't get in many casual games, so my advice is limited by that. I'd still recommend Fish'O'Fury as the fun dynamic way to field Tau.

I was thinking of taking Vespids, And Stealth Suits, Mayhaps getting the Farsight Enclaves book and using more suits, And Piranhas, For a more mobile army. But.. I dont know how to equip my suits.. I normaly give them all 2 missile pods and thats it.. But I'm trying to cut down on missile pods.. Mebbes a unit with Plasma and Fusion Blasters? And a unit with Flamers and something else..? To cover the bases for most kinds of armies without hitting one too hard..

Merellin wrote:
I was thinking of taking Vespids, And Stealth Suits, Mayhaps getting the Farsight Enclaves book and using more suits, And Piranhas, For a more mobile army. But.. I dont know how to equip my suits.. I normaly give them all 2 missile pods and thats it.. But I'm trying to cut down on missile pods.. Mebbes a unit with Plasma and Fusion Blasters? And a unit with Flamers and something else..? To cover the bases for most kinds of armies without hitting one too hard..

Here is a rundown of the suits I own for my FE

Farsight
Iridium Commander modeled with Onager and Shield
Dual MissilePod Commander
3xDual Burst Cannon
3xDual Plasma
3xDual MissilePods
3xTLMissilePods
4xDual Fusion
1xDual Flamer

2xHBC Riptide
1xIA Riptide

I absolutely love running Dual Burst Cannon Suits with a full compliment of Gun Drones. Nothing like 36 shots to say hello.


If you are running an Gunline Tau army, try a more mobile suits based army but be careful with Riptides as I've found they get a lot hate. A lot warranted a lot not. Or try mounting up in Devilfish and playing a more mechanized Tau with Pirahnas and Rail/IonHeads and Skyrays.

I only got a single riptide, And I refuse to get any more. And for suits, I was thinking, Maybe, A Commander with 2 Bodyguards, All three armed with one Fusion Blaster and one Plasma Rifle. And one group of 3 crisis suits in Elite, All three armed with One Flamer and one or two Burst Cannons. Then one full team of Stealth suits, and a single riptide. Then in troops, 2-3 units of Fire Warriors (But try to have them move arround, Mayhaps give them transports.), And 3 units of Kroot (As big as possible)

Then for Fast attack, 1 full unit of Piranhas with Fusion Blasters, and one 10 man unit of vespids, Plus a flyer (So no pathfinders). And in Heavy Support a Sniper Drone Team, And.. A single Hammerhead, And maybe 3 Railsides..

Does that seem like a fun and not too strong army?

Merellin wrote:So please, Can people give me ideas of how to make Tau more fun to face?

Don't run them as a gunline.

You don't need to include random units or not take certain upgrades, and "educating" your opponent to handle gunlines more easily won't make them any less boring to play against. Nor will just throwing in a squad of kroot or spamming MSM fix the problem.

You need to design an army that exists to take the offensive, and then build it in a way that punishes yourself for playing defensively. Some tau players will swear until they're blue in the face that it's possible to run non-gunline tau. It's time to prove them right. For a start, you could build an army that actually uses the movement phase, like bringing firewarriors in devilfish, piranhas, and stuff with flamers, for example.

Guard have had this same problem over the years, but have also had the same kinds of solutions. While "the" way to play guard was the infamous leafblower, where people would line up their parking lot and then make farting noises while rolling dice, I ran power blobs. My whole time in 6th ed was devoted to playing the army in such a way where it didn't get trapped in a gunline.

It will take a little creativity, especially with tau, but it can be done. Actually play the game differently and you will really get a different response from the people you're playing with.

Agree with Zagman. Go mobile mech tau and avoid getting Riptides, people hate those things in my experience. Try out something like this, it's not very competitive but it will be aggressive.

Mark'O with dual MP
Ethereal

12 FW in a DF
12 FW in a DF

3 x Crisi with dual FB
3 x Crisi with dual PR
3 x Crisi with dual MP

Squad of marker drones - Mark'o joins here
2 units of tetras - PF can replace them but tetras goes with the mobile theme better

9 sniper drone and 2 spotters in a DF with the Ethereal
2 x Skyray

Overall around 1750 pts. Very mobile, high risk high reward. Can handle a lot of different enemies in some degree-drop pod list will kill this list hahaha. Most importantly no RIPTIDES!!!

You don't need to focefuly avoid anything, just make sure you don't overdo it.

A single riptide? yea, that's cool.
3+ is where its frustrating, just as you would not want 3+ land raiders on the other side, or 5+ leman russes.


Keep a balanced list, without min-maxing things towards one way or another.

The models I currently own for my Tau are
6 Crisis Suits
38 Fire Warriors
8 Pathfinders
1 Devilfish
3 Broadsides
12 Gun Drones
26 Kroot
Aun'Shi
Aun'Va with his bodyguards
1 Piranha
1 Riptide

I have actualy been using Aun'va a bit and he aint bad in this codex (About a million times better then he was in the previous codex.. XD) Plus, It's fun bringing the space pope to battle.. XD

My tau are highly popular at my local club, it probably helps they are just allied to chaos and the crisis suits make heavy use of flame throwers.
But to get to my point, try unorthodox tactics, they can be very fun to play with and against!

Use variety.

Tau have so many solid options you shouldn't need to spam 3+ 'tides to make a good game of things. Have fun with odd ball combos that are not top tier. Sniper Drones, Devilfish outflanking with Darkstrider, deepstriking burst cannon suits with 6 drones, 20 Infiltrating Stealth & Shrouded Sniper kroot with Shadowsun...etc

Bring units no tau player normally would. Skyray's, devilfish, vespids, kroot and hounds. The krootox, heck bring Mr floaty ethereal on his magic chair.

Drone teams are a cool idea, sniper teams (pathfinders and sniper drones), you could also talk someone into forge world and bringing the knarloc!!

The big thing to make Tau less Static, is to avoid the gunline.

Run your Firewarriors in Devilfish. Or even use Kroot, and Vespid.

Don't run more then a single Riptide. But its job is going to be to play bullet magnet. I expect you'll need Railheads more then Ionheads in 7th ed.

The thing is, though, you still could run three riptides and do okay, it's just how you use them.

Making a gundam gunline that ignores night fight and hard-counters outflankers and deepstrikers and absurd overwatches, etc. is bad. If you run three riptides and every game try to get them into close combat by the end of turn 2, well, that would be a rather different story.

The same is true for other stuff as well. Firewarriors don't have to be taken in min-sized squads and hidden in cover. suits don't need to do the MSM hokey pokey. Just because you have the opportunity to behave badly doesn't mean you're forced to.

If I say I'm bringing a 10-vehicle mech guard army, my opponents might roll their eyes until they find out that 5 of them are hellhound variants and my entire army is going to be in their deployment zone by the end of my movement phase.

What you bring will help, but how you choose to play what you brought will help more.

Merellin wrote:
So, I got a few armies, I'm currently working a bit on my new Tyranids, And I'm plotting and planning for my marines while I wait for a new Space Wolf codex. But my thoughts and heart keeps returning to my first army, The Tau.. I love my Tau.. I love their fluff, I love their models, Sure they arent quite as fun to play as my Necrons, but I love them more anyway.. The problem is, My friends absolutely hate facing them, Naming them as the single most boring army to face.. And that makes it less fun for me to play them.. So please, Can people give me ideas of how to make Tau more fun to face?

I have already decided to run my broadsides as old classic railgun broadsides as the Missilesides are just too strong. And I am planning to not use missile pods on my crisis suits as I used to use only 2 missile pods per suit and no other weapons. Dont know what else to put on the suits though.. And I need to change up my tactics and move arround more, Not stand still so much.. What units in the Tau codex are fun to face? Dont need to be super strong or anything, just fun.

Scope my blog for the Tau posts. A fair number of them.

My personal favorites in the Tau codex are the ever mobile Pathfinders which I use like awesome sauce IG Vets basically. Hunters, not markerlight caddies. That'll switch things up for the opponent.

I think right behind those Pathfinders would be the Stealthsuits. I have been testing a Stealthsuit army recently and having quite a bit of fun with that.

Stingwings have always been hated on but I like them enough to own like 27.

Good luck on this. Hope you find a way to de-elevate the hate.

Run an army of nothing but kroot

Well, I dont own more then a single Riptide and I refuse to get more so it is impossible for me to use 3+ riptides, So thats no worry. I also tend to run 3 maxed units of Fire Warriors, And a single unit of 8 pathfinders.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mission success!

I just got home after playing Warhammer 40k with a friend, I ran my Tau for the first time in a long time, Sticking a unit of Fire Warriors in a Devilfish using classic heavy rail rifle broadsides, And no missiles on the suits and keeping more mobile. All in all, My friend had much fun playing against my tau for the first time since the 6'th edition book, And I had more fun then normal with them too!