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Eh I was wondering are tau competitive or more of a fun playing army, are they worth playing even. I know there shooty but are they good at it. And what would be the average investment for a tau army. And lastly what are the usual tau army configurations

Tau are incredibly good at shooting things, particularly when they use railguns. Tau have better range than their equivalents, and they have the most annoying ability to move just into range, shoot, then thrust out of range again.

Hmmmm annoying I like that! Tell me more if you may

Tau will tear just about anyone apart in a hail of gunfire, but will be splattered if an infant child comes within five feet of them.
Typical formations consist of railguns. Lots of railguns.

Tau can be rather competitive in the right hands.
However, it will take practice, extensive knowledge of all your units and what they do, and advanced tactics.
Though the general rule is shoot the enemy and hope they die before reaching close combat, where most Tau evaporate.

That said, a lot of things about 6th made them easier and more effective, such as pre-measuring, overwatch, new rapid fire rules, hull points, changes to stealth suits, etc.

Hmmmm kool

Remember, though, Tau is the second oldest Codex out there, it's not going to be the strongest possible choice to make. It's playable, but it's far from stellar.

Well wont they get a new one eventually?

They probably will, rumour has it that it's sometime this or early next year, but in the mean time you'll be using the current Codex that, while not unplayable, is certainly a bit more challenging than playing something like a typical Necrons or Space Wolves list.

Hmmm and I'm a noob, and spent all my money on dark vengence, hop wing to trade for tau or orks


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Would someone ever do it

 xSPYXEx wrote:
but will be splattered if an infant child comes within five feet of them.

Well, it might just be my Tau, but in my last game I had 4 Fire Warriors hold 5 rounds of combat to 3 Dark Eldar Reavers. The final Fire Warrior fled and was cut down in the end, but not before slapping 2 Reavers to death. The same squad also took out a one wound Captain on the turn he charged, after he failed to wound a single blue spaceman. Granted, I am the type of player who will charge Orks if I'm in the lead (or already screwed ), so my soldiers do get plenty training in the fray.

Hmm kool lol, what would I have to invest for a decent starting army

Sounds like a friend I would always play against. HIs tau were stupidly effective in cc. 10 man assault squad charging firewarriors? Firewarriors win. 2 Gun Drones assault termi squad? Terminator dead. gak like this happened constantly. I had my fair share of weird occurences, such as my Tactical Sergeant holding out against a 2 firewarrior squads and a crisis team (this was an early match before we learned you couldn't stack models on top of models). The sergeant was literally under a mountain of tau. A glorious defeat.

Rumour has it that Tau are next after Daemons, a Q2 release. So nothing definitive to say about competitiveness right now.

Well my fw hold out to SW blood claws, 8 of them on the charge vs 6 FW. Dust clears and all claws slaughtered and just 2 of the FW slain. Those remaining we're then executed for rumoured alliance to the farsighted enclaves.

Ok awesome would anyone trade tau for dark vengence


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Jw

 Noob9405 wrote:
Ok awesome would anyone trade tau for dark vengence


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Jw

Head to the swap shop for that mate. There may well be someone. That or try ebay. You can get a fair bit of decent tau stuff on ebay, thats how I got a bulk of my force. That being said, a friend of mine is getting back into 40k so I am now selling him my 2.5k-3k of Tau as they were what he used to play. Id rather add another member to our gaming group than have a second army

Yeah I'm trying swap and shop and they locked it on me, anyway awesome wish I had people I knew who played

If you want to invest in some Tau I'd recommend ebay. You can get a lot of what you need there on the cheap. Tau have become way more competitive now than in 5th. They really only have one comp. build right now which is max crisis suits, lots of firewarriors, several tetras, and a couple hammerheads and or a broadside team. I'd recommend an aegis line too 50 pts. for 4+ cover. No brainer if you ask me. Markerlights are key to victory and that's where tetras come in. Run a good 3 at 1500 or 4 min. at 2k would be a good starting point. With Tau you must keep your distance, target priority is another key. What to take out and when. They are a more tactical army and can be difficult to play, but if you master them other armies are a cake walk. Best of luck!!

Yeah they seem really kool I want to master them

Don't bother with Tau. By the time you can build an army the new codex will be out and will probably change everything and make your army useless.

So negative Peregrine.

I say screw em and play Tau if you want to.
The rumour mill says a new book in 2-6 months, but you can start buying stuff up now, and you can get the codex on ebay for very little (mine cost me £4 and was in basically brand-new condition.)

But frankly, people gave me the same advice 'don't start Tau now, they'll be updated soon' and that was a year and a half or more ago now.

Ok sounds good

wfischer wrote:Tau are incredibly good at shooting things, particularly when they use railguns. Tau have better range than their equivalents, and they have the most annoying ability to move just into range, shoot, then thrust out of range again.

xSPYXEx wrote:Tau will tear just about anyone apart in a hail of gunfire, but will be splattered if an infant child comes within five feet of them.
Typical formations consist of railguns. Lots of railguns.

"lots" of railguns being 3 mounted on hammerheads, costinfg 500pts typically. maybe 4 if you squeeze in the relatively vulnerable broadsides. nice, but other factions can match, and exceed them quite easily. regarding JSJ, there are enough ways to counter it via infiltration, outflanking, or speeding vehicles that saying thay can jump out of range is a bit of a lie. mostly, they're medium range units with reasonable firepower. at best, they're slightly trickier to engage than troops that are on-foot, but a canny opponent can outpower them, outnumber them, outshoot them, and outmanoevre them. theyve fallen a long way from what they were in third.

*shrug* the answer is no. Not really.

Tau are not "incredily good" at shooting. they're no better at shooting than anybody else really. they have the best infantry gun in the game, but its in the hands of troops that are mediocre at best. so it balances them out to the point that they're OK. but they're no better at shooting than a marine with a boltgun (hitting on 4s, and wounding on 3s, versus hitting on 3s and wounding on 4s against MEQs) and cost a bomb for what is, in essense, 50% of the surviveability, none of the staying power or close combat ability, and shod-all options. then there are markerlights, which supposedly give them an advantage. but in my mind, this equates to spending 200pts on a unit that supports, in order to make another unit in the army do a job that it should be capable of doing in th first place. No, markerlights are a symptom of the overall weakness, and lack of power in the rest of the codex, and aside from terrible implementation in-game, i dont see any apparent "advantage" when you consider cost/power ratios.
tl; dr, they dont make tau "better". they dont give tau +1. they try to make them equal, but then you factor in that they cost X to make them "equal", and you realise now you're at -1 overall. which is basically true for the whole codex.

THe problem is tau deal with what is arguably the oldest codex in the game, bar eldar. a lot of their unit costs are out of whack, and a lot of their wargear is defunct. the codex posesses a bare few units that can be built into a somewhat decent force, but mainly at low points, as tau as an army do not scale well. the best tau stuff fits into the first 1000pts of an army. play above that and you're diluting the power with more and more mediocrity, whilst every one else in the game has the opposite. a lot of what made tau tau, and great back in the day has been steadily eroded over the span of 3 editions of the game, and passed on to everybody else as well.

long story short, tau dont do anything better than anybody else. In fact, its the other way around. tau have no niche. they give you nothing that you cant find in another faction. other factions equal them for ranged dakka, whether its up close or at a distance, they match, or very well exceed them in terms of manoeverability, and speed and whoop them silly in close combat and overall staying power.

Honestly? Wait for the new codex and see then where the ground lies.

Hmm now I don't know what I wanna do

The tau currently suffers from being left behind for too long, and as such getting weak.

It is, on the other hand, remarkably flexible with the few units that actually ARE worth a damn, can pull off some sweet tactics others can't and ASAIK the only codex capable of omegastrike lists.

at this time id suggest just having tau as allies

Hmmm

ffs, still making these threads... is there any army you havent asked for advice for?


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It gets to a point where you HAVE to make a decision... We cannot make it for you.

Sorry I want info from people who have played my bad, do you always have to say the same thing on my threads it gets to the point that anyone else would stop replying!