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I'm wondering what the current meta game think is on tau armies. KPs, outflanking, and cover saves really seem to bone them along with daemon armies and what looks to be some really powerful IG stuff coming soon. So what do the Tau generals on the forum use to counter all these new threats?

I ask because I've started purchasing a new Tau force. Although I'm not really planning on going to any gladiators or 'ard boyz in the near future, I'd like to know what the basic fundamentals of Tau list construction are.

Right now I'm thinking it probably has to be something along these lines:

-At least 6 railguns as alot of the top-tier lists throw a ton of priority targets at you quickly.
-Probably 2 squads of pathfinders for markerlight support
-2 squads to FWs to use the finder fishes
-fish o fury is dead. firewarriors as marker support?
-2+ largish squads of kroot to charge block, provide bodies, and provide deep strike defense by forcing daemons and such to land farther away. OTOH, small squads are probably nice to die quickly and expose the enemy to shooting
-missile pods, flamers, and fusion are in. Flamers for cover, missiles for rhino/chimeras, and fusion for land raider/nob/oblit popping.
-plasma rifles aren't as cool as they used to be.
-monat suits, piranhas, and small squads are easy kps
- true LOS makes JSJ more problematic. Making stealth suits more viable?

Ninja Tau seems cool, but frankly, it strikes me as an experienced commander's strategy. To the layman's eye, it seems you need a firm grasp of exactly what each unit is capable of to pull it off.

In vague generalities, the vision of my army is something like

Shas'el w/ 2 bodyguards - probably aggressively equipped to go tank/TEQ hunting
3 Deathrain suits w/flamers and marker drones
2x6 stealth suits w/ fusion blaster?
2x8 FW w/ 'ui and bonding knife
3x10 Kroot or 2x15 kroot
2x6 Pathfinders w/ fishes
2x3 broadsides (maybe splurging and putting plasma rifles here as rifles combined with railguns make nice termie killers.
1 Railhead to add mobile railgun and submunition

am I way off or on the right track? I'd also really love some feedback on the big problems facing Tau in today's meta game and how (or if) you overcome them.

Can I be frank? (Frank Stallone would be my preference)

As a newish Tau player and an oldish guard player, and a really active competitive minded 40k player, I've got tons of thoughts on this.

As far as playing conventional tau against a 'hard guard' list. I imagine it to feel like you are playing with 1500 points against their 1750. Turn one will consist of a single shield drone getting killed from a broadside team and then them getting hit with a weaken resolve. A hydra battery can keep a hammerhead shaken all game until it finally blows off the railgun, or until the veterans and CCS get into melta range of it.

But that is just guard...

Lash/oblits seems pretty hard to face down with conventional tau, rail guns would fare pretty well for as long as they could stay alive, but with 9 deep striking multi-meltas, how long is that?

horde orks seem pretty impossible as well. My first game at the vegas GT with my ork army was against a tau player that new orks were good, and he built an army specifically to beat horde orks. He played as best he could, and I got a 20-0 massacre. I'm not bragging here. My ork list was really an auto-pilot design.

You can beat space marines with conventional tau, that is good. Sisters of battle seem pretty tough to face if they can get their exorcists on your suits.


My guard list would certainly fear a tau army that focused on unconventional deployment (ninja tau basically) Certain trouble tanks can get spot killed by DSing suits, outflanking kroot can glance the hell out of stationary rear armor 10 tanks, and stealth suits would perform well outflanking with fusion guns. IG mechanized deployments are shallow and wide, stealth teams coming on the flanks would be out of visibility for the majority of the IG army after they arrived. Devilfish would be toast, but not before they move into position, hopefully sticking around to screen LOS to firewarriors and pathfinders.

I'm of the opinion that ninja tau gives you the best chance of winning hard core competitive games. But it isn't some sort of monster list that is unbeatable. It isn't really all that hard to play if that is whats holding you back, and its really fun to learn.

If you were going to run conventional tau without a pos relay, the only real change i'd make from what you can find here on dakka is that broadsides might just be too vulnerable to weaken resolve to include anymore. I don't think 3 railheads is enough anti-tank, so that would mean including something else, preferably a vehicle. Maybe a 3-4 piranha fusion team would be called for. Be sure to include flechettes on them.

. When compared to the newer codexes Tau seem to be overcosted, without much deference from some of the stronger builds.

Without any psychic defences, low leadership, and the changes to TLOS in 5th edition Tau can have a very hard time. Tau can do alright when tailored against an army, however, the problem is that in most tournaments you are required to play the same list in each game.

Suddenly my gunline has no real defence from the duel lash or I don't have enough kroot to deal with a few units of outflanking genestealers. Maybe my suits have the wrong equipment or I took broadsides and am now facing an ork horde.

Tau have no real answer for elite hand to hand. Also, with the ability to charge a number of enemy units I've seen half my army get beaten in combat in the 2nd or third turn thanks to Bikers, jetbikes, or fleeting nids.


I think Shep hit the nail on the head. Playing Tau right now feels like playing a 1500 point list against a 1750 point list.

In general, I would recommend at a pair of pirhana, and 3 railheads if you want to use tau in a staight up fight. pirhana can screen for your list, but due to horde orks and IG hydras (in that order), you will need flechettes and d-pods on them. This will draw fire away from your railheads, who can then take out straggle tanks, or put down pie plates, as necessary.

Okay, so ninja tau can be at least semi-viable. So what to include in a ninja tau list? Since broadsides don't seem like that great a deal, I assume it's something like

3 railheads
shas'el w/pos relay (bodyguard?)
stealthsuits
crisis teams
lots of kroot
pathfinders
1 squad of fire warriors

Am I on the right track here?

I saw Tau are not bad, but asugradinwa said they are overcosted now. It is really not the base costs it is the upgrade costs that you have to take that pile on. Also Vespids really suck hehe. If you use some forge world stuff theyn are really effective though.

Don't knock the broadsides. I use them in my Ninja Tau as the squad with the Positional relay(Thanks for explaining the Ninja Tau Shep, As you see I added my own twist). I join in an Ethereal to make them fearless and sheildrone the heck out of them. Then I screen with a unit of fire warriors.

This build works very well and seems to pull the entire enemy army into that area to try and kill the tough squad. The players I've played against can't seem to help it. They head towards the broadsides where ever they are castled and this leaves them exposed to my reserves as they come in.

The only downside I've noted with ninja Tau is that it means the game must go to turn 5 to win. This seems like a no brainer unless you get that guy for your opponent. The guy who feels like he will lose to this build so he plays really slow. In tourny's with their time limits this can be a problem.

Played an ork player who moved his mob so slow that we only got to the middle of turn 2 in a two hour game. I was very polite, quietly mentioned this to the people running the tourny and nothing. They called it a draw. I was still polite but you could have fried an egg on my forehead at that point. About an hour after this, one of the organizers overheard him say that he did it on purpose. They awarded me the win at that point but if he had kept his mouth shut he'd still have a draw. Keep in mind this was a local tourny run somewhat loosely. It is still a drawback in my eyes.

@Shep- Again, thank you for introducing me to this tactic. It is going to help keep the Tau fun for another year or two. Just have to not try to be Ninja around the IG fleet officer.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:Am I on the right track here?

Yep.

focusedfire wrote:...I join in an Ethereal to make them fearless and sheildrone the heck out of them.

NICE! I hate you now! Just when i was all set up to weaken resolve you off the table you figure out a great spot to stick an ethereal and screw me up! haha, that's tech Focused. really tech.

focusedfire wrote:@Shep- Again, thank you for introducing me to this tactic. It is going to help keep the Tau fun for another year or two. Just have to not try to be Ninja around the IG fleet officer.

You are welcome, and the fleet officer really doesn't have any effect on the reserves rolls. I guess if you wanted to turn the relay off on turn 4 you might not get as many guys. He screws with outflanking by dropping you getting what you want from 66% to 44% not really a big deal. You were probably playing expecting to not flank the side you wanted if you are a realist like me

And I hate to post about another website on a dakka post, but I've been getting a lot of credit lately for talking about ninja tau. I'm glad myself and a couple other guys on dakka were able to get the word out, but credit must be paid to GoneFishin' over on tau-online.org As far as I can tell he was the first guy to really start posting about it.

I find flechette dischargers are quite useful against horde orks when they get stuck on some Pirahnas. Wiping out around half a mob of Orks is fun!

Broadsides cannot get the positional relay.

It looks as if you are right Olanari. This is quite irritating, but right. I'll have to change my right up on Ninja Tau. Thank you for catching that. Makes me feel really dumb but thanks, It is how one learns sometimes.

Your commander loadout can help tons by the way

My favorate 2 wargear items are the airburst frag projector and the failsafe detonator! With any form of template weapon, if your hitting at least 6 targets, you should wound at least 1 regardless of enemy saves (unless his toughness is higher than 6 ;3)

Also... Can't go wrong with disruption pods, stick them on anything you got armored (if only you could place them on your suits lol). Don't forget the awsomeness of multi-trackers (can shoot as if a fast tank meaning 12" and shoot your main weapon) and target locks (Can fire weapons at different sqauds eg - Railgun from hammerhead wipes out a tank, then using target lock to fire burst cannons/SMS's at another closer target) on tanks too, very handy

If your into ninja tau tactics, you could try a pathfinder sqaud with their devilfish armed with a marker beacon (Reroll scatter die within line of sight). If it survives upto turn 5, then it will make sure your "ninja's" don't have any mishaps ;p


yes... i'm most likely a noob with these common tactics so go ahead and flame *preps a shield drone*

5ed mechanics has a strong bias to melee.

IG is the first true shooty army written for 5ed, and it looks like GW is trying to help shooty armies compete (ironic that Orks probably had the best shooty army before the new IG).

Tau are suffering and are in real need now of a new codex (almost as badly as IG needed it). Tau can still win games, but they are at a disadvantage. In addition, I can not see them standing much of a chance against a hard IG list. Between the Choir, Colossus/Griffion, All the AV14, Tau will find themselves easily outgunned and unable to take out IGs armor.

Your not wrong their BoxANT. 5th edition gives out cover saves like never before and ur equipment is WAY overpriced for what it can do. Take crisis suits for a example... Great units, just insanely costly for their abilities.

A terminator is about 35-45 points, right? that's a 2+ armor save, a 5+ invun save, storm bolter and a melee weapon, most likely power fists. For that price, i could only get sadly a 25-35 point crisis suit with NO gear and a 3+ armor save. Throw 20 pts away for a plasma rifle, throw 12 for a missile pod.

That's 52-62 points gone just so he can go toe to toe with a terminator... oh wait, you have to take 1 more item which will most likely be a multi-tracker for 5 losy points, that comes to 57-67 points.

So in total, for the 57-67 average price range, we get a 3+ armor save jump infanty with 2 wounds, 2 powerful range attacks and 12" total movement.... at a lost of completely fethed melee abilities. Oh yea.. not to forget that the BS of a crisis suit is 3 (not including targeting array for the team leader) so a 50-50 chance of your range attacks hitting (unless augmented with markerlight power )

On the other hand, we got our terminator friend with 4 everything (other than wounds and attacks) giving him a 66% chance to hit our crisis suit buddy and storm bolters giving him assault 2.... and with a power fist.. pretty much one-hit OK's the suit.. toughness 4 sucks.... and power weapons are crappy! Grrrr >.> Sqaud sizes don't help at all.. but then again the tau really don't use or have numbers.

If only i had a copy of imperial armor issue 3 with the heavy weapon drones... *cries* Also.. i saw models from a GW open day with tau crisis suits weilding power blades of some sort... please hoping they don't add that in the codex unless it's farsight suits only...

Shep wrote: ...Turn one will consist of a single shield drone getting killed from a broadside team and then them getting hit with a weaken resolve...

Broadside teams vastly outrange Psyker squads & can eat alot of fire with 4+ invunerables.

Shep wrote: ...A hydra battery can keep a hammerhead shaken all game...

Just untrue. A hammerhead, properly equipped, is vastly more mobile than a hydra battery & vs front armor you will only shake it per full volley 0.75 of the time. Thats not a surety. Oh wait, I forgot to add in the cover save. The hydra's only remove cover saves from vehicles travelling flat-out & bikers turboboosting. So thats 0.375 every turn of full shooting. & point wise full Hydra battery > any type of hammerhead

Shep wrote:stealth suits would perform well outflanking with fusion guns. IG mechanized deployments are shallow and wide, stealth teams coming on the flanks would be out of visibility for the majority of the IG army after they arrived.

Infiltrating stealth teams are just better all round. Even more so vs an armie that can modify reserve rolls & deploy so much stuff. With JSJ'in they can blare away with burst cannons then move back to 24" where its quite likely for any given section of shooting to simply be wasted. With mechenised bits, it may take longer to do but moving up into 12" range, firing melta, then moving back to 18" is still not bad concidering the volume of fire is lower with mechenised lists.

I think Ionheads in tandem with a team of maxed out railsuits will work well as there are going to be more vehicles on the field. Oh & 4bs 4 burst cannons will put just over 2 glancing/penning hits on AV10.

Superscope wrote:
A terminator is about 35-45 points, right? that's a 2+ armor save, a 5+ invun save, storm bolter and a melee weapon, most likely power fists. For that price, i could only get sadly a 25-35 point crisis suit with NO gear and a 3+ armor save. Throw 20 pts away for a plasma rifle, throw 12 for a missile pod.

That's 52-62 points gone just so he can go toe to toe with a terminator... oh wait, you have to take 1 more item which will most likely be a multi-tracker for 5 losy points, that comes to 57-67 points.

So in total, for the 57-67 average price range, we get a 3+ armor save jump infanty with 2 wounds, 2 powerful range attacks and 12" total movement.... at a lost of completely fethed melee abilities. Oh yea.. not to forget that the BS of a crisis suit is 3 (not including targeting array for the team leader) so a 50-50 chance of your range attacks hitting (unless augmented with markerlight power )

This was not an issue in 4th, but its a big one in 5th. Crisis suits are the backbone of any Tau army, and they are crap compared to terminators for 150% the price.

Liquidwulfe wrote:
This was not an issue in 4th, but its a big one in 5th. Crisis suits are the backbone of any Tau army, and they are crap compared to terminators for 150% the price.

Surely its " Firewarriors are the backbone of any Tau army"

Tau can still work quite well, though it is really noticeable how little people use them nowadays. Compared to last years UK GT in 4th ed, where they were quite a few tau armies, there were only about three at the final this year. I managed to qualify with them but got a bit bored of playing them.

The way I found to use them in 5th ed was to use a 'tesco car park'. At least three tanks with the crisis behind, floating around in a flanking manevour shooting the biggest threat. It does suffer with 5 turns, why they had to lower random game length to that i don't understand.

Personally I still favour the fireknife setup with 3 in a squad but make sure one of them is a deathrain. So i end up with a team leader with BS4 fireknife, one guy with BS3 fireknife and a BS3 deathrain. Throw in a couple of shield drones and its quite survivable (although >200pts). Then a commander with AFP (as people love orks and kroot in woods), couple of railheads, some broadsides, a squad of pathfinders and a couple of squads of kroot and that's 1500pts.

KPs isn't that bad. I have 10 in that list which ive found is about average and they're fairly hard to kill (4+ save on all the tanks, suits hide etc). Cover isn't a problem as you have pathfinders and the AFP and a lot of shots elsewhere. The only real problem I have is claiming objectives with the random game length. Kroot don't survive too long to protracted combats and FW don't do jack.

I've never really tried ninja tau though. To be honest I'd rather play at least 5 turns with my whole army than having it all turn up on for a couple of turns.

Razerous wrote:Broadside teams vastly outrange Psyker squads & can eat alot of fire with 4+ invunerables

If only tables weren't 48" wide. rages beyond 48" are for theory hammer only. I can move my chimera up from 12" deployment 6", and fire the weaken resolve 36" for a reach of 54". If you were farther than that, I can move my chimera 12" spin around, get out 2.75" and fire 36" for a total reach from my table edge of 62.75". I'll let you make all of your saves except one on a drone. As soon as that one drone from a 2 man 2 drone team dies, your unit is testing morale on a 2 LD.

Razerous wrote:Just untrue. A hammerhead, properly equipped, is vastly more mobile than a hydra battery & vs front armor you will only shake it per full volley 0.75 of the time. Thats not a surety. Oh wait, I forgot to add in the cover save. The hydra's only remove cover saves from vehicles travelling flat-out & bikers turboboosting. So thats 0.375 every turn of full shooting. & point wise full Hydra battery > any type of hammerhead

Hydras get 9 hits, around one and a half sixes, you fail your cover, you aren't shooting. But the point is pretty moot. I'll just put my hydras on your devilfish, and I'll take my own cover saves on the hammerhead. Once it poistions itself for side shots, I'll thrust out a CCS, 'bring it down' = dead hammerhead. Its a single BS4 shot pre turn. My 12 tank mech army can weather that as it picks off the rest of the tau army.

I'm not saying the Tau codex can't put fear into new guard. I'm just saying that lining up across from them with a tau gunline (mechanized or not) is just suicide, your long range fire power is overcosted or too vulnerable to IG tricks.

However, tau have a ridiculous amount of alternate deployment units, and positional relay protects you from most of the fleet officers penalty. He'll only affect the outflank roll. And he'll only take a 66% chance down to 44%.

The closer you can reliably get with fusion blasters to his key units, and the later in the game your troops show up, the better off you are. pos relay is the best way to do those things.

I think asugradinwa hit the major weakness of the list on the head - no psyker defense, especially since in 5th edition the psyker abilities are pretty decent for the most part.

Perhaps next edition will see the integration of a new race of pariahs to help them out. You can definitely make a friendly/competitive list, but I don't think you can really do a "my life depends on winning this game" list.

Shep and Olanari-How does this sound,

I join the Positional relay equipped Shas'el and the ethereal to a team of two broadsides and then shield drone the Heck out of them?

Same effect as before but with a little more tactical flexibility. I would of course equip the Shas'el with Iridium armour. Maybe make the rest of the load out Plas, Miss, Hw Target lock, HW Drone controller, along with the positional relay.

I think this would make for a decent Ninja Tau lead unit along with a screen of something to help keep them out of HtH for an extra turn.

IMHO, I think Ninja Tau will be the best way of dealing with the new IG from the Tau armies veiwpoint and this style build may keep them close to competitive.

How do you see this holding up in 5th ed?


Edited for sentence structure

Tau can be a fun army to play. An optimal Tau list will lose to other optimal lists. An optimal Tau list can still win a lot of games.

I think Broadsides + Ethereal + Shield Drones, 2 Hammerheads, 2 Pathfinder units (6-8) strong, and Crisis Suits with Missile Pods, Plasma, and Multi-trackers are the best core of the army. Add a Commander with Airburst Frag Projector, and some firewarriors. With firewarriors, either go all out, get a 10-12 strong unit to hide in a fish until ready to jump out and blast someone, or just get 6 of them and have them never leave the fish (and then get some kroot for your other troop choice).

I think the best way to combat IG is a hammerhead or broadsides walking on turns 2, 3, and 4 then an objective grab.IG almost certain can cover all objectives so you just cover all objectives with broadsides and hammerhead, then kill the guardsmen on one objective and capture it for the win.

Don't bother with ethereals, if they have psykers deal with them with the hammerhead first. Oh and the command squad. I think bodyguards are the way to go with ninja tau, makes the unit very tough to kill and has plenty of firepower.

focusedfire wrote:Shep and Olanari-How does this sound,

I join the Positional relay equipped Shas'el and the ethereal to a team of two broadsides and then shield drone the Heck out of them?

Same effect as before but with a little more tactical flexibility. I would of course equip the Shas'el with Iridium armour. Maybe make the rest of the load out Plas, Miss, Hw Target lock, HW Drone controller, along with the positional relay.

I think this would make for a decent Ninja Tau lead unit along with a screen of something to help keep them out of HtH for an extra turn.

IMHO, I think Ninja Tau will be the best way of dealing with the new IG from the Tau armies veiwpoint and this style build may keep them close to competitive.

How do you see this holding up in 5th ed?

I think you're on the right track. Certainly weaken resolve proof, and long range shooting proof, from any army. As long as you are keenly aware where the lash is, and you either screen for charges or draw assaulters into a side charge by outflanking kroot, then it should live for a long long time.


Alternately, a deathrain bodyguard and a cheap pos relay battery like onlainari suggested might be alright as well, easier to take out, weaken resolve bait, but not 350 points
I'm going to try it Focused... I'll let you know how it works out. and keep these good tau ideas coming!

Another way to go is the tough command squad screened in a similar manner with the Ethereal joined. Then run a burst cannon targ arrayed stealth team in front to screen.

I just liked the broadsides for the sheer number of shots they can absorb and the heavy tank killing ability.

If your run the broadsides in a DoW scenario try your best to go second and then just deploy the Broadsides and one screening team. It's first turn so your not going to see much any way and this compensates for the lack of A.S.S.


Edit spelling

Start with 9 Broadside Battlesuits with railguns, add 9 Crisis Suits with plasma rifles, missile pods and multitrackers, add 8 Pathfinders in a devilfish with Burst cannon and smart Missiles, 2 of those. Add a unit of Kroot and a couple of small Firewarrior units.....

Have fun..... and you didn't even need the Hammerheads....

mikeguth wrote:Start with 9 Broadside Battlesuits with railguns, add 9 Crisis Suits with plasma rifles, missile pods and multitrackers, add 8 Pathfinders in a devilfish with Burst cannon and smart Missiles, 2 of those. Add a unit of Kroot and a couple of small Firewarrior units.....

Have fun..... and you didn't even need the Hammerheads....

That army is extremely costly points wise. Each Broadside you take is 80 points, so that's 720 points gone, crisis suits with that config are 62 pts a pop, 82 if you take a team leader + target array/bodyguards and 122 for a HQ with said items. If your taking 3 of them with targeting arrays then you would pay 536+122 pts as well.. that's 1378 gone in a flash. You havn't even taken troop requirements yet..

You would have some execllent firepower however, and with a large amount of anti-armor at the rear you should be safe... for the first few turns.

Horde armies are gunna love you.. hammerheads share a very good balance of direct and indirect firepower, while broadsides are for when you want someone killed. If you only take broadsides as heavy units, then your gunna get salughtered by a horde army... i can see it now

- enemy Outflank's/deep strike's on critical turn....
- locks broadside sqauds in CC
- other units take down what's out and about on the field.

It doesn't matter if the suits can defend themselves in CC or not. You've lost a large amount of firepower in one very quick assault.

That assumes that the Tau player was stupid enough to position his units close enough to a board edge that an Outflanker could actually assault them, or that the deep-striker can assault. As an aside, that's what Kroot are for, to create a screen against such assaulters. Also keep in mind that broadsides have SMS, and each squad pumps out 12 shots no LOS needed - not that that's a whole lot, but it's at least equal to two pie plates most of the time.

You're right, it's expensive. That's why the Troops only cost about 260 points, total - min FW @60, 2 Kroot/hound units @ about 100. Maybe an additional 100 if you want a devilfish. Add the HQ and pathfinders, that'll be about 1750-1850.

It is a nasty firepower list that you shouldn't dismiss out of hand, and one that will rock many armies. Beatable, sure, but not easily.

Shep wrote:
I'm not saying the Tau codex can't put fear into new guard. I'm just saying that lining up across from them with a tau gunline (mechanized or not) is just suicide, your long range fire power is overcosted or too vulnerable to IG tricks.

I'll say it. Tau have no chance what so ever vs. the new guard codex. Weaken resolve is just as broken as the old Fear the Darkness was against us. Hell, it's probably worse. FOD was only -2.


As for Ninja Tau. Once it becomes obvious what the tau player is doing, just dont go for the bait. Just trade long range shots until the soft underside comes in around turn 4-5. Then let them have it. The way to counter Ninja Tau is to protect yourself from DS suits. Right now its a decent gimic because its not what people expect. But it can be counter easily by just not loosing your cool, don't get drawn out of position and waiting for the hammer to come in then deal with it.

Jayden-It is not just the deep strikers. It is the tanks coming in with side armor shots and 2-3 squads coming in on the last turn or two rapid firing the scoring units off the board.

This build allows you to bring an overwhelming amount of firepower to bear upon the objectives that you really need.

That combined with deepstrikers challenging back objectves makes it difficult/almost impossible to bring enough firepower to bear upon enough of the squads to clear them out.

The Tau are fairly durable. Try wiping the entire army out in 1 turn.