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A tau commander can quite happily sit with a mandatory firewarrior squad, with some missile pods, positional relay and a Knife.

Another 6man firewarrior team can jump into a pathfinder devilfish while the pathfinders path find & do other useful things,

Some kroot warriors to round off your troops selections,

2x2 TL-fusion + flamer crisis suits can provide good anti-tank support. With re-roll to scatter (within LOS to fish, easily attainable) and 2+ reserve rolls your game could look somthing like this;

1st turn: Pew pew

2nd turn: Bring in one crisis suit squad on a 2+ and have a very good chance to annhilate a vehicle.

3rd turn: Read turn 2

4th turn: Bring in all the kroot (and any very unlikely failed-to-deploy suits) and gun for the objective/tasty backfield troops (= if you included hounds..)

... Doesnt that sound very awesome & useful? Am I missing anything integral here? What do yee think? If you want to look at an army that tries to utilize this for some referance (1500pts) then look to my profile, most recent tau musing.

You've just discovered Ninja Tau.

Yep, we have another ninja. One of the tau's few "viable" tactics left is to use their masterful control of reserves to bring in units on command. The only problem with this is you could be easily tabled, as one manditory FW squad, and a couple suits isn't very tough, nor will it survive through much fire.

Ninja Tau indeed, and its a one-time tactic that *may* win you a game by accident or surprise. It won't work twice, and probably not even once.

In reality, you're going to run into a few things:

1. You're feeding your 1500 point army to your enemy, one squad at a time. Its like lying out a 7 course dinner, and you're being very helpful about it.

2. Your commander WILL die. He'll be shot to death, or charged, assaulted, and killed. If you play against me, or if you play against...pretty much any mechanized list, you can be sure that's going to happen on turn 2, turn 3 at the latest.

3. IG have fleet commanders. That 2+ is now a 4+.

4. See #1 mostly.

Dashofpepper wrote:Ninja Tau indeed, and its a one-time tactic that *may* win you a game by accident or surprise. It won't work twice, and probably not even once.

In reality, you're going to run into a few things:

1. You're feeding your 1500 point army to your enemy, one squad at a time. Its like lying out a 7 course dinner, and you're being very helpful about it.

2. Your commander WILL die. He'll be shot to death, or charged, assaulted, and killed. If you play against me, or if you play against...pretty much any mechanized list, you can be sure that's going to happen on turn 2, turn 3 at the latest.

3. IG have fleet commanders. That 2+ is now a 4+.

4. See #1 mostly.

I welcome point number 3 if I'm playing Ninja Tau. My objective is to keep my units off the table as long as possible to deny you the chance to shoot at them and for them to come on in full force at a time of my choosing. The later in the game, the better. The squads I "feed" you are squads that are not important to my overall plan (like minimum size Gun Drone Squadrons) or ones like Kroot that can outflank and hide, and force you to divide your attention. This also assumes that two fleet commanders are present; I've yet to run into that or run it myself, but my LGS is very small, so the big changes in the metagame take awhile to trickle down. However, everything that stayed off due to the Master of the Fleet automatically comes on in Turn 5, which, in an Annihilation scenario, is perfect for the Tau player.

The Shas'O isn't meant to live forever; if he lives until the Tau player's Turn 3, he's accomplished his mission. With Iridium Armor, two shield drones, and smart placement, he can stay alive long enough to accomplish the goal of keeping the balance of your force off the board until Turn 4 or Turn 5, when it's meant to arrive. Granted, mechanized lists make life very hard for your Shield'O, but if you JSJ around a piece of cover, preferably one that blocks line of sight, you can keep him alive long enough. If the Shield'O does go on or before Turn 2, Ninja Tau falls apart very quickly.

I personally don't play Ninja Tau because it's designed to deny killpoints. It does this very well and the strategy excels in Annihilation. Where Ninja Tau comes up short in is Take and Hold scenarios. You either have to zip Devilfish full of Fire Warriors or Outflank Kroot back there to get it, or just deep-strike some suits onto it to contest it. I don't much care for relying on good dice rolls for the deep-strike, nor do I trust my opponent to just wave at the passing Devilfish as it flies towards his objective. Basically, too many things have to go just right in Ninja Tau for it to be successful, and my luck isn't the best there ever was.

Its a gimic; and imo not that good of one to use often. If you face mech you have to many vehicles to kill off, and if you bring most of your army in late its too hard to take objectives back (as tau don't have an assult phase, or at least much of one).

Give it a go, it might work for you but once somebody figures out what your doing it doesn't work very well.

Well, then I look foward to seeing this list at 'Ard Boyz.

Hey hey..

Im talking about two squads of two crisis suits @ 98pts a squad. Im also on about Kroot squads, who will do better from the later turns anyway.

Talking about bringing in stuff piecemeal? The kroot will generally outflank always anyways & that will keep them alive longer & both squads will probably come in from turns 4-5 at the same time.

Those suits will be pew-pewing a tank. Over turns 2 & 3 two tanks will die.

IG officers effect reserve rolls. This is wargear, im pretty sure its different.

As for the mandatory squad of firewarriors, Ive gone for 12 with a markerlight aswell as another 6 to jump into a pathfinder devilfish. Although you could easily not bother with the 12 firewarriors & keep the commander on his own (with a few more shields/iridum armor bits) or with a bodyguard/elite team.

But in terms for this to work, all you need is about 500pts worth of army, 200pts worth will be reliably doing thier job during the 2nd and 3rd turns and the other 200pts should reliably doing thier job during the 4th & 5th turns (as they wont have been gunned down by an unlucky early reserve roll). The tau commander is really quite cheap & he gives that firearrior squad what theyve always wanted, somthing to help pop transports - Although probably points could be made for a HW-target lock.

I dont thinks thats piecemeal or gimicy.

Edit: This is more thoery & speculation rather than implimentation; but my friend does play a tau army & this is for his sake as ill suggest this specifically to him if it seems sound.. so thanks for the feedback. As for 'Ard boyz, its a few thousand mile away from me in the UK

At 1000pts, ninja tau are a pain in the backside. At anything higher than that they tend to be very underwhelming as almost every opponent you play can counter you in some way.

A mech army will just stick together in one big lump and go after your commander, a horde army will fill the board making your deep strike tricky if not dangerous.You might do quite well against footslogging marines/IG/SoB, but if you play the same opponent more than once they'll wise up.

Don't get me wrong, this is a very fun way to play with Tau - which i seem to recall is the main point of this hobby. Don't expect to win tournaments with it though.

*shakes his head wonderingly*

I'm sure its fun to theorize ninja tau and all, and how they *could* perform in an optimal world. Honestly though, I would really like to see these in a game.

If you want to theory hammer, lets roll with that for a minute. Lets pretend that we're in an 'Ard Boyz game and that you won the roll to go first. Scenario 1. I'm going to heavily weigh statistics in YOUR favor.

Turn1a: Your commander can't see me because of nightfight. He sits...somewhere in your deployment zone.
Turn 1b: My army scuttles forward, probably can't see your commander either. Two trukks split off towards each table edge.

Turn2a: You roll for a crisis team and get 2 suits. TL fusion, you deep strike near enough to me, I'll give you a free pass at no mishaps or dangerous terrain. You unload on one of my tanks. 50% chance of hitting with each with rerolls...hard to mathhammer this one out. Lets say that you get two hits this time (we'll even statistics turn 3). You get two shots at one my tanks, probably AV10. You get through both (not rolling any 1s!). I get a 4+ cover save for one of many possible reasons; lets pick a KFF. My 50% chance to get cover makes one of your shots miss, and the remaining one has a 50% chance to do anything meaningful to my tank. All in all, you have a statistically 15% chance of immobilizing or better on a single tank. 85% chance that you did nothing this turn; lets presume its true.

Turn 2b: Your 98 point crisis suit team dies. Trust me. They do. I roll for reserves, 50% chance I get them...lets presume not. Lets even say that despite my assault range, I can't assault your commander and his firewarriors yet, but you can bet that they just got shot up and took a few losses. My trukks on each table edge disembark their passengers, who start spreading out along the table edge.

Turn3a: You roll for a crisis team and get 2 suits. TL fusion, you deep strike near enough to me, I'll give you a free pass at no mishaps or dangerous terrain. You unload on one of my tanks. 50% chance of hitting with each with rerolls...hard to mathhammer this one out. Lets say that you get two hits this time (we'll even statistics turn 3). You get two shots at one my tanks, probably AV10. You get through both (not rolling any 1s!). I get a 4+ cover save for one of many possible reasons; lets pick a KFF. My 50% chance to get cover makes one of your shots miss, and the remaining one has a 50% chance to do anything meaningful to my tank. All in all, you have a statistically 15% chance of immobilizing or better on a single tank. 85% chance that you did nothing this turn....however, lets presume that you actually got through and I lost something. Well done!

Turn3b: Your crisis team dies. Lots of dakka, plenty of AP3 dakka....they aren't living. My reserves roll comes through, and Snikrot and kommandos come on, spreading across the back table edge and one corner in 2" coherency. Ghazghkull assaults your commander and insta-kills him; I'm sure that seven STR10 powerklaw attacks are enough to get the job done. My boyz on each table edge spread the rest of the way out, while the trukks that they disembarked from anchor the line. The rest of my army fills in the corner that the kommandos can't get to, and spreads out 6" into the table from your back table edge, so that if you have hammerheads or devilfish in reserve, they can't deploy onto the table without being within an 1" of me.


At this point, the game is over, and I haven't really had to do much work. Your commander is dead, so you roll for turn 4 reserves as normal. 2+ to get stuff out. All your kroot instantly die because they cannot deploy onto the table. If one of your suit teams went for a side to open a gap...I'd have a second one help fill it. You can't deploy onto the back table edge because there's nowhere for you to come out without breaking the deployment rules, and the game ends.

There's literally no other way for this game to go, except for me to ignore the table edges, just focus on killing what you brought out, then set up to assault your kroot when they come out. Lets say that you *DID* get two turns of killing vehicles (statistically unlikely) and I've got two units on the ground...they're going to go to ground when I kill your commander (in cover) so that they have 3+ cover saves from any shooting your kroot do, and then they're going to assault, or waaaugh! and assault, or all sorts of things.


I don't really know how else to say it. Ninja tau is a *really* dumb idea. Try it if you like, and like I said....I pray and hope to see you in 'Ard Boyz. In tournament play, I'm happy to play against an inept player with a horrible list.

You want a Tau list that is going to own at 'Ard Boyz? Start with 6 broadsides in two teams, a hard-wired target lock on each team leader, and add 3 sniper teams or a railhead for a third heavy support. Your HQs and elites: Fusion blasters + plasma guns. An elite team in the back with TL missile pods so that your broadsides don't have to be wasted on light vehicles. airburst and a flamer (or cyclic ion cannon) on a shas'el somewhere, add blacksun filters where you can because of two games having nightfight in round 1. Firewarrior squads of 12 each starting in terrain, give them two markerlight drones, handheld markerlights on the shas'ui....static gunline.

In this mechanized environment, the Tau gunline has been revitalized. You have enough firewarriors to incinerate anything that even looks at you within 30" and your broadsides can take down a potential 4 tanks per turn. The elite suits up front with fusion/plasma can take down marines, terminators, vehicles, or anything else...shield drones go a long way to keeping these guys alive. With a Tau gunline, you don't NEED to worry about going to take the enemy objectives. Pinned units can't hold objectives, and you have plenty of pinning ability between snipers and markerlights, and all you have to do is sit on your own objectives and kill the enemy troop choices. There's no hiding them in a land raider...you have enough broadsides to laugh those off.

And if they plop a 20 man squad of something on an objective that you need to uproot? Drop all your markerlights on it, take their leadership down by 9, and run them off the board. I realize this is long enough to be a rant at this point but seriously; Tau have PLENTY of viable tactics. I have some phenomenal Tau players around where I live, and I fancy myself a pretty damned good Tau player too. A static gunline can EASILY destroy pretty much any armylist except for outflanking tyranid genestealers, and now that mechanized is the way to go, people are shifting away from those outflanking genestealer lists.

Whoever said that Ninja tau is one of the few viable tau strategies left...the only answer I can give you is that you're a bad player. Tau are freaking' awesome, as long as you play them well and keep them out of close combat.

Dashofpepper wrote:Whoever said that Ninja tau is one of the few viable tau strategies left...the only answer I can give you is that you're a bad player. Tau are freaking' awesome, as long as you play them well and keep them out of close combat.

Just for reference, the Positional Relay tactic was one way of surviving a Space Marine Drop Pod Spam list in 4th edition, since you could keep your army off the table a turn longer to let more drop pods come in with nothing to shoot at.

'Ard boys is 2500pt, that may well be other the workable threshold for the usefullness of one deep-striking crisis suit per turn. Depends, they would definetely be larger @ 2500 with target locks able to take on multiple units/vehicles.

Against a load of trucks, I'd pop them with my backfield anti-tank & use the two+ flamers on the boys that have to jump out. If I pop the KFF mek vehicle, flamer his squad & send it running - Brillaint. Those trucks are open topped and i've got plenty ap1 dakka... im quite confident I can do somthing useful.

Its all fair and well suggesting this, that and the other but it really doesnt apply to what you've just said.

You're competing against battlewagons in my case, not trukks....missile pods don't scare me.

This is all well and good to theorize all day long, but at the end of the day...I just hope to see you at 'Ard Boyz. I'd rather play ninja tau than mechanized IG.

Pre-conceptions & misconceptions is all I can say.

Dont knock ninja tau.. You think it sucks? Thats cool

It can cause you to tie in the 'ard boyz VERY VERY easily and then you lose the entire tournament :p

Ninja Tau simply fails vs the New Guard.

Human Horde is unstoppable by the squad trickle, and even in turn 5 when the "full" Tau force comes in, its extremely hard to kill enough Guardsmen to be on par (more so if the IG player forsees the Ninja Tau strat and goes for big blobs).

MechVets with the full chimera phalanx always sticks together for max power, so the Ninja Tau goal is sort off denied, the huge amount of meltas makes short work of suits and gak.

Aircalv denies the mobility edge of Tau and again, the Melta Packed Vets just destroy outright suits.

Exactly, its a thing of scalling.. but all im suggesting you do this with is with two suicide TL-fusion crisis suit squads & your objective capping kroot warriors. That isnt exactly an entire army. Also, properly equipped, crisis suits should be able to take on multiple vehicles & win; so there's scalability there.

But the entire army coming in from reserves? Pff...I wouldntve have suggested that in the first place :- Tau can shoot from turn 1, so why put everything in reserves?

Big blobs make effecient use of Order but they will also make effecient use of Markerlight hits, same goes for vehicle squadrens. Theres a ying to every yang. Also, str 5 eats T3 for breakfast. AP5 also kills 5+ save. What do the tau make frequent use of...?

Aircav gets shot down by ioncannons & railguns. Chimera phalanx'es should be creamed by multiple target locked suits (yes they pop smoke but yes I know that will be from the front row so I can simply deepstrike and target the second row). Meltaguns always hurt everything but, JSJ and some relatively decent assault-range weapons can deny those shots.

I dont think I like this idea of Ninja tau. Too full on.

I have 2 crisis teams in my list w/TL MP's and flamers. I use my broadsides and hammerheads for range and IF i need to burn a unit out of cover (damn eldar pathfinders/lootas/scouts) I will normally use the positional relay to make sure they come in and land where I need them to and then use the MP's for rear shots after I burn out the bad men. I don't like the idea of wasting suits at 2500. That is what your fusion/flamer suits are. A waste since you'll be trading 98pts maybe a vehicle.

Oh and Dash if he penetrates he has a 66% of blowing you up and a 5/6 chance of immobolizing (AP1 and Open Topped=+2 to my roll )