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O.K. so I know everyone has their army biases but I would love some honest feedback regarding the Tau. As a newcomer to the game I bought Black Reach and I have expanded my Space Marines force with additional units and vehicles. I am now looking to branch into a new race and I am deciding between Tau and Eldar.

I was told by a lot of vets to go for the army that I just naturally felt was the coolest and I believe it is the Tau. That being said, a bunch of guys at the local hobby shop today basically suggested that the Tau are broken due to a lack of close combat ability and that they'd be beat up by every other race. They said if I wanted an alien race to go for the Eldar instead- and I could live with that because I like the look of them too but just not just as much as the Tau.

I'd love some feedback on the Tau- are they truly a weak force or is this just a player bias being suggested to me?

Thanks ahead of time for any and all feedback!

Kroot masses say hi.

At just a point more than your regular Ork Boy you gain infiltration and some nasty things.

Go with what you want, Tau will get their moment to shine once they get their new codex in a couple of years.

Tau were my first army in 40k. I lost for a solid year or so before figuring out how to play them. Then I tried various playstyles and lists for another 4-5 months before settling on my current build.

There is a reason marines are popular - they are forgiving to play. you can screw up and in many situations be saved by high leadership or a good save or ATSKNF, etc. Tau are the opposite, and along with dark eldar and eldar, have a fairly high learning curve.

Here's the rub - In 5th ed, Tau do have more advantages than in the past, due to how powerful vehicles are in the metagame now. But there are still a notoriously difficult army, and they kind of fall short when pitted against serious comparative armies. your friends sorta are justified in their statements. Thing is, however, that eldar aren't exactly really easy to pick up either, from what I've heard...

as for "they'd be beat up by every other race", well, not exactly. If it's a semi-competitive environment, you could probably put together a list that could compete with them and even win more then 50% of the time, even if it takes you 10 games to figure out how to play it. The biggest issue is that at higher levels of play, tau tend to have a hard time getting people off objectives, since they lack an assault option. Also, the army (surprisingly) has little flexability in dedicated anti-tank (meaning killing av13 or higher) because all their railguns are tied up in big expensive heavy support choices, whereas many other armies can grab lascannons and such in troop choices, transports, etc. This forces a serious competitive tau army to either sink even more points into heavy support, or to take fusion guns on stuff, which is risky and doesn't even work that well (or at all) against a couple of armies (mech eldar and necrons, if you were curious.) They are, however, good at stopping massed av 10-11 via massed missile pod fire. av12 is kind of a toss-up, since the 2 most common sources of it are hard to kill vehicles (like wave serpents and devilfish) or things that pop up in lists with a lot of av14 nearby (like guard).

Basically, they can be a very fun and rewarding army to play, but picking tau is like picking alex as your main in street fighter 3 - you'll have a ton of bad matchups, and you can expect to lose a lot more than you win at first. but when you win...it's pretty sweet.

Mostly bias there. With enough strength 5 shootiness, you can cut hordes to managable size (gone, that is) and railguns can blow ownage sized holes through even the thickest armor.
It all takes finesse, much more so than picking up 120 dice and throwing them at the unit within charging distance.
It's a challenging army, but very rewarding when done just right.

YMMV, advice given worth exactly what you paid for it, no refunds.

Ok well if you like close combat then eldar is deffinantly a better choice they have some very good options, tau have almost next to 0 cc ability and kroot are not very good in cc compared to orks there is not comparison, because of there low toughness and low leadership they do not hold up to well at all unless its is under very favorable circumstances and even then I have seen the lose, break, and get caught and wiped out. Ok now tau are pretty good a ranged damage depending on what you field and not necisarily going to lose everygame, but you will have a tougher time against a veteran player with a solid list theres just not much you can do sometimes when 100 orks are breathing down you're neck and you only killed 20 of them, but if you like the look then go with tau, in the end you will want to stick with a army you like the feel of vs how competitive they are. Eldar are competitive but also tricky to master so dont count on going in with eldar and spanking people because you will learn that tougness and str 3 elves are very fragile and require finess, manuvering, and a crap ton of fire power to win the game.

I played against a Mech Fish army yesterday that was the first to tie my mechguard ever. Two hammerheads, three crisis suit teams, 2 pathfinder teams, 4 firewarriors all mounted in fish and a pair of broadsides. It's a pretty tough army. No doubt about it. If I win the ard boyz regional I might use that 2500 points to pick up some blue boyz. If I'm not greedy and pick sisters.

I own 2 Marine Armies, 1 Chaos Marine Army, a huge Ork Army, large IG army and a Tau army. Tau offer a much better mobility than Marines and better surviablity for they vehicles. Crisis Suits are great in dealing with large creatures, mech, and termies in close range shooting. My mech tau tore up a shooty nid list because of the DPods and burst cannons. I think Tau is a cooler army than Eldar (Plus I hate all the complex painting of Eldar.) But I would choose the army you would be more comfortable with.

Kroot Swarm is incredibly viable as well as annoying to play against.

20 Kroot + 10 hounds is 200 points. 6.66 a model. They have no save but they also infiltrate and can out flank.

I have to agree a kroot hoard is a great shock at first espcially when you out flank. But that trick will only work a few times in friendly games and only once in a tourny.

You're more likely to paint and stick with any army that you like. But, the Tau are more challenging than some other armies.

I hope this is the direction the OP wanted but..... For you Tau veterans out there what builds would you suggest for Tau at 1500 or 1750 points, just general types (mech with 3 HH's for example). This might help Gareson get a feel for what types of armies he could field with some success.

Foldalot wrote:I hope this is the direction the OP wanted but..... For you Tau veterans out there what builds would you suggest for Tau at 1500 or 1750 points, just general types (mech with 3 HH's for example). This might help Gareson get a feel for what types of armies he could field with some success.

I play in a flex list league so my lists change based on my opponent. My all comers 1500 list includes:
2 railheads
3 broadsides
3 piranhas
2 loaded fish
1 shas'el w/ TA
2 units of 2 fireknives

The guys at your hobby shop are kinda missing the point about them being poor in close-combat. The Tau shouldn't even be trying to be good in close-combat. Instead they are more about modern military tactics instead of just hitting your enemy over the head with a chainsword; they are all about ranged combat and relying heavily on various support choices laser-guidance (Markerlights).

Though ever since Andy Chambers left GW, there's apparently been an anti-Tau bias, as if GW don't like how the Tau aren't towing the line because of their gundam battlesuits and anti-close-combat ways; almost as if they'd eventurally abandon them like the Squat and Hrud.

I'd advise that you either go for the Tau's unique 'modern warfare' style or wait till the Dark Eldar come out in early 2010 when they're rumoured to have most of their models re-designed and hopefully with other improvements in their new codex.

Ignore everyone's advice. Go for the army that YOU like best and do it. If you feel you don't know enough about the different armies take a look at some games being played and get a feel for them before purchasing. Eldar and Tau are both specialist armies so whichever 1 you choose, don't be surprised if it takes a while to master them.

Uh oh, that sounded like advice...