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Tau is a great army, the codex is certainly showing its age and needs to be replaced, but that is about the only problem I can think of.

I'd imagine when the new codex comes out Tau is going to be top tier. Considering Tau already have insane weaponry with insane range, even a slight buff/cost reduction is going to throw them into an amazing bracket.

Going off of the previous post, you then have to deny them the assault phase. With no assault phase, Tau then should outmatch the opponent. The way to do this is use screens and cut down their mobility. The army's best weapon is the missile pod. Its great for killing rhinos and killing troops. Kroot should bubble wrap the army, protecting your firepower units from getting charged for a turn. If you have two bubble wraps, then you have two turns of survival. It almost seems like a shield generator in star wars. They even provide cover saves for those inside!

This strategy won me third place at 'ard boyz round 1, with all my kroot dying but army surviving each game.

Anyway, Tau can still do well, but there are only a few options for competitive play. My other main problem with the codex is no good special characters. Farsight is a cool character, but I would only use him if he didn't hurt my army so badly.

Well tau are good at shooting and horrible in melee

I dont think their codex is all that bad, though IMHO i think they need more fluff, and need to update some of their HQs (Space pope) but my friend plays tau and some times stomps my ork army into dust, they require alittle more stragety on the board 'cus your trying to avoid assault infintray (jet packers and what not), and players have to put some time into planning their army list (from what i hear, they have lots of upgrades). But i think they are fine, i might even play them for my next army

Jayden63 wrote: threads like this will continue to populate the internets.

There's the Tau's real problem aside from other key points made by other Dakkanauts who know what they're talking about.

Pretty much goes like this.
1.Player asks for advice

2.Group of people who make claims that they know how to play Tau give advice going which way and that, mostly making copy-pasta quality remarks lacking explanation, or put points entirely based off of meta-related experience.

3.Group members that are still in the thread argues about whose advice makes them the all time space god of space hindu utilitarion anime robot fish people

4.Arguements descends into fluff related points and utter stupid

5.Thread locks

6. Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Kilkrazy wrote:Problems with Tau in 5th edition

Rubbish at melee.

Rubbish Leadership.

Rubbish at space magic – no offence, no defence.

Shooting though good, suffers in 5th edition from Run moves and increased amount of cover.

Only one good character.

Few good special rules.

Too reliant on a few decent units, not enough variety to provide different viable builds.

The basic Troops can’t have any support weapons.

In general all units are too expensive compared to newer codexes. It’s often only 1p or 5p per model, but it adds up.

Not only run moves but the average distance between standard troops is 18" in 2/3rds of the scenarios in 5th ed whereas in 4th ed. I think it was 100% 24" separation. 6 inches closer on average plus running makes them lose at least one fire phase that an army in 4th edition used to have. Now add the overbalance towards CC (morale -1 per casualty difference whereas firepower checks are unmodified - they are just qualified for - e.g. a Tau uni fires at a chas marine unit and kills 6. The chaos marine having suffered at least 25% casualties, is forced to making a morale test against his leadership of 10. The tau player is charged in the subsequent phase and suffers the same 6 kills as the CSM to none for the remaining Tau. The tau now has to make a morale test at -6 or needs to roll a 2 to pass his leadership.

Cool and decisive HTH but it makes for a total waste of the point values imposed on Tau because in pre 5th edition, they kind of rocked.

yea tau has good battle suits i think

DAaddict wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Problems with Tau in 5th edition

Rubbish at melee.

Rubbish Leadership.

Rubbish at space magic – no offence, no defence.

Shooting though good, suffers in 5th edition from Run moves and increased amount of cover.

Only one good character.

Few good special rules.

Too reliant on a few decent units, not enough variety to provide different viable builds.

The basic Troops can’t have any support weapons.

In general all units are too expensive compared to newer codexes. It’s often only 1p or 5p per model, but it adds up.

Not only run moves but the average distance between standard troops is 18" in 2/3rds of the scenarios in 5th ed whereas in 4th ed. I think it was 100% 24" separation. 6 inches closer on average plus running makes them lose at least one fire phase that an army in 4th edition used to have. Now add the overbalance towards CC (morale -1 per casualty difference whereas firepower checks are unmodified - they are just qualified for - e.g. a Tau uni fires at a chas marine unit and kills 6. The chaos marine having suffered at least 25% casualties, is forced to making a morale test against his leadership of 10. The tau player is charged in the subsequent phase and suffers the same 6 kills as the CSM to none for the remaining Tau. The tau now has to make a morale test at -6 or needs to roll a 2 to pass his leadership.

Cool and decisive HTH but it makes for a total waste of the point values imposed on Tau because in pre 5th edition, they kind of rocked.

Yeah the Dex has wrinkles and shes getting older. I'd imagine longer range on suit weapons would counter the issues, we will have to see though.

The suit weapon range is OK when combined with mobility.

The suits should be a bit cheaper and/or better and have a few more available -- i.e. increase the unit size to 1-4 (Tau use base 8 so this is fluffy).

Idiots think they're Commies when they are clearly Confucians.

Kilkrazy wrote:The suit weapon range is OK when combined with mobility.

The suits should be a bit cheaper and/or better and have a few more available -- i.e. increase the unit size to 1-4 (Tau use base 8 so this is fluffy).

Agree and disagree...

I like the idea of cap increase and price reductions, these are common across the board for new dexes.

As for weapon range, yeah it certainly is OK, but as a Tau player I want more range. I think a total lack of viable CC warrants it. Given the insane focus on assault in the new codexes I would certainly love to see a buff to Tau shooting. We pretty much have two turns in a three turn round. Not counting our sneaky assualt/bunny hopping.

Aside from the intentional assault weakness, Tau have by far the worst standard troops in the game.

A) Fire Warriors have horrible leadership, with virtually no way to upgrade it. Combined with low initiative, when they lose assaults even by a small margin, they still break almost every time and get swept almost every time. A single 20-point space marine model can easily charge and kill an entire squad of maxed-out fire warriors with only slightly favorable rolls.
B) Fire Warriors don't have any weaponry upgrades, and their transports shoot the exact same weaponry as Fire Warriors. S5 AP5 is obviously better than bolters and lasguns, but aside from the terribly expensive and also ineffective EMP grenades, no troop in a Tau army can crack a vehicle.
C) Devilfish are more expensive than any other transport in the game, and even though they are one of the tougher ones, they can't get AV, anti-elite, or anti-horde weapons.

Tau troops have basically no ability to kill anything except for footslogging troops, and even then, they can't put out enough volume to kill a horde.

Crisis suits are decent, but no better or more efficient than other multi-wound elites. With shorter range than your Fire Warrior gunline and your railguns, they have to be in front of everything else, unless the enemy is already in close range. They are your only real choice to bring special weapons to the table, but it would be nice to have the option of attaching the plasma and melta guns to normal squads instead of high-point death machines.

The only actually GOOD things Tau have going are in the heavy support - Hammerheads are some of the best tanks in the game, and Broadsides are the best AV units in ithe game, both of which also have incredible range.

They aint human.... Or atleast thats what my firendly neighborhood inquisitor keeps telling me...

But seriously when i played them there shooting wasnt nearly as good as it was made out to be and if you fail to shoot them you will quickly die in CC.

I might just be my experience, but my tau actually seem to kill more people in melee then in range. Probably because i don't have too many of the big guns yet.

What CC units are you using, and what other armies are you facing that die to your pillow-fighting skills?

tetrisphreak wrote:What CC units are you using, and what other armies are you facing that die to your pillow-fighting skills?

A fair amount might just be that we are still learning the rules.

I am fighting chaos SM. He takes the mark of nergle so it basically have to roll 4s to hit and damage with rifles. Then in melee, I still roll 4s to hit. Only now I attack in his and my turn.

My battlesuit took out a squad of demon thingys in melee. (We where actually rolling my armor and inv saves.) Then I had a lone drone kill two of them in melee.

I think it's just that I never kill anything at range. One maybe two guys before they get into melee.

So, it's pretty much been summed up: Old codex, Sucky CC, and average (at best) shooting for a shooting based army.

I agree that firewarriors needs a good rebuffing. Hell, if they even made the pulse rifle an Assault Weapon, I'd be happy. Anything to make up for the piss-poor rifle butt attack that they often have to dish out when assaulted. Crisis are a bit pricey, reductions there would be great. Something I personally would LOVE to see would be carrying 2 of the same weapons systems, as opposed to twin-linking them. Crisis Bombs with 2 Plasma rifles would do something fierce to almost anything it deepstruck into. As for Tanks, just nerf the price. Or make em fast. Something I can't gripe about is how cheap some of those vehicle upgrades are. But overall, I love playing Tau. It's rewarding when you win, and a challenge to overcome when defeated.

Oh, and Markerlight rules NEED to be redone...

Crisis Suits suffer a lot from being only T4 in a game where S8 AP3/2/1 comes as standard with a lot of armies. If a battlecannon template lands on your Crisis unit, then you have got to expect to lose it, unless it scatters so far that you can take what wounds it causes on your drones.

Space Wolves are one of the worst match-ups, purely because they can (and do) field 15 missile launcher heavy supports, of which 9 missiles can hit 3 squads, and 6 can hit another 3; all in all, unless you're on a cover-heavy board or are excellent at making 4+ saves on shield drones, you're going to lose Crisis Suits before you can do anything.

Markerlights also need to be made more... accessible. Pathfinders are almost necessary, and fight for FA slots with 'Ranas, but can only target 1 squad at a time. Fire Warrior markerlights are heavy weapons, and so you're sacrificing manoeuvrability for 1 markerlight that has a 50% to miss. Stealth Suits are reliable markerlight deployment systems, being Relentless (although they're the only battlesuit that is) and conferring that onto the drones, but they're expensive, and battle for a place with Crisis Suits.

An average team of 3 Stealth Suits with maximum markers costs 290pts for 7 Markerlights (2 drones per Suit + and extra one for the Shas'vre), whereas a Pathfinder unit can give you 8 markerlights for 181pts (inc. Devilfish with disruption pods) but cannot move and fire them.

If markerlights could be fired at different targets from the rest of the squad, it'd go a long way to making them more viable, but seeing as a squad of 8 pathfinders will only hit with 4 markerlights on average, expending 2-3 to reduce or negate cover, and expending 1-2 to increase BS of firing squads, it means that any counter expended on your fire warriors, aren't going onto your crisis suits, broadsides, or hammerheads.

Fire Warriors can be good at shooting with markerlights, but first cover needs to be reduced, and the important units need help with their shots first, often leaving Fire Warriors with no counters left to expend.

Avatar 720 wrote:Crisis Suits suffer a lot from being only T4 in a game where S8 AP3/2/1 comes as standard with a lot of armies. If a battlecannon template lands on your Crisis unit, then you have got to expect to lose it, unless it scatters so far that you can take what wounds it causes on your drones.

Space Wolves are one of the worst match-ups, purely because they can (and do) field 15 missile launcher heavy supports, of which 9 missiles can hit 3 squads, and 6 can hit another 3; all in all, unless you're on a cover-heavy board or are excellent at making 4+ saves on shield drones, you're going to lose Crisis Suits before you can do anything.

Markerlights also need to be made more... accessible. Pathfinders are almost necessary, and fight for FA slots with 'Ranas, but can only target 1 squad at a time. Fire Warrior markerlights are heavy weapons, and so you're sacrificing manoeuvrability for 1 markerlight that has a 50% to miss. Stealth Suits are reliable markerlight deployment systems, being Relentless (although they're the only battlesuit that is) and conferring that onto the drones, but they're expensive, and battle for a place with Crisis Suits.

An average team of 3 Stealth Suits with maximum markers costs 290pts for 7 Markerlights (2 drones per Suit + and extra one for the Shas'vre), whereas a Pathfinder unit can give you 8 markerlights for 181pts (inc. Devilfish with disruption pods) but cannot move and fire them.

If markerlights could be fired at different targets from the rest of the squad, it'd go a long way to making them more viable, but seeing as a squad of 8 pathfinders will only hit with 4 markerlights on average, expending 2-3 to reduce or negate cover, and expending 1-2 to increase BS of firing squads, it means that any counter expended on your fire warriors, aren't going onto your crisis suits, broadsides, or hammerheads.

Fire Warriors can be good at shooting with markerlights, but first cover needs to be reduced, and the important units need help with their shots first, often leaving Fire Warriors with no counters left to expend.

Crisis Suits and Broadsides could be buffed up to either Monstrous Creatures or Walkers, but keep the JSJ effect. Obviously the points would have to increase, unless they made them the equivalent of IG Sentinels. Tau need some heavy hitters to draw fire.

Pulse Rifles definitely need a tweak, and yeah, making them assault 2 would go a bit towards making them better. Really, giving them any reason to be outside a no-fire-points Devilfish would be an improvement. They should give them the option to upgrade their Shas'ui to a Battle Suit instead if just a crappy sergeant. That even lets them keep the fluff of "Fire Warriors don't carry heavy weapons."

Likewise, a geart change would be if they merged the Devilfish and Hammerhead platforms, so you could upgrade the transports to carry Railhead turrets, or at least Ion Cannons, and have a decent weapon on your transports.

The only change necessary to stealth suits would be to give them a weapon with enough range that their cloaking field actually matters.

Tau suffer from being built very closely to 4E's rules, specifically LoS, Skimmer rules, Terrain and Transport rules. In 4E Skimmers were stupid tough (and nigh immune to CC) and didn't block LoS. Coupled with the fact that Crisis Suits could jet out from behind Area Terrain which, without TrueLoS, completely blocked all LoS and then jump back behind it after shooting, meant that Tau could effectively shoot an enemy down without worrying about return fire. Additionally, anything that wasn't a skimmer in 4E was a cardboard box, and the transport rules were ridiculously harsh, making stuff like Rhinos (very powerful force multipliers against Tau) rolling coffins good really only for moving cover.

So basically, the core rules they relied on for survival changed radically the opposite direction, and their opponents vehicle got significantly more difficult to kill.

Thus, yeah, they're a little awkward. Not as bad as say, 4E IG, current Necrons or the like, but not great either, when they used to be a top tier tournament army.

Kilkrazy wrote:Rubbish at space magic – no offence, no defence.

This is, however, something I don't think should be fixed. They're not a psychic race, arguably outside of Ethereals. Psychic defense in 40k is generally a form of psychic power as well. There's no fluff reason for them to have either offense or defense with psychics.

There's nothing "wrong" with Tau they are the epitome of a shooting army without fielding the massive numbers required by IG. In 4ed skimmers that didnt go boom when immobilised was clutch. They were written in and for 4ed rules with no look to 5ed. now on the cusp of 6 they are showing thier age.
You can still win with a Tau army though: pathfinders,battle suits and hammerheads carry the day.
I am genuinely interested to see when and what an update will do for Tau. IMHO they need to come before BT but hopefully after 6ed (which means waiting until after a new C:SM)

-Loki- wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Rubbish at space magic – no offence, no defence.

This is, however, something I don't think should be fixed. They're not a psychic race, arguably outside of Ethereals. Psychic defense in 40k is generally a form of psychic power as well. There's no fluff reason for them to have either offense or defense with psychics.

A defense could easily be worked into fluff. After encountering Imperial Guard Battle Psykers they've adopted some kind of weak psychic dampening device for instance.

Like the anti-Force orangutan thing in the Star Wars books?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The GK already have a space monkey

Harriticus wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Rubbish at space magic – no offence, no defence.

This is, however, something I don't think should be fixed. They're not a psychic race, arguably outside of Ethereals. Psychic defense in 40k is generally a form of psychic power as well. There's no fluff reason for them to have either offense or defense with psychics.

A defense could easily be worked into fluff. After encountering Imperial Guard Battle Psykers they've adopted some kind of weak psychic dampening device for instance.

Or they could just use their Nicassar allies. Who are a race of pyskers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AustonT wrote:Like the anti-Force orangutan thing in the Star Wars books?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The GK already have a space monkey

They should have given the tau the space monkey. >.> <.< >.>;

They should simply make the Tau warp-null like thier fluff suggests and make them pay heavily for it somehow. basically make psycic powers useless AGAINST them, but self buffing psychic powers like guide or sanguine sword would still work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would nerd all over the floor if the Tau fix either the emperor or the throne and develop a non immaterium warp engine. hurrah humanity is saved from chaos forever (or are they?)

nomotog wrote:Or they could just use their Nicassar allies. Who are a race of pyskers.

Psychics in 40k are very specific. You're not just 'psychic' and can do 'psychic things'. You have specific talents - someone who has the gift of far sight might not necessarily be able to do anything else. The Nicassar are specifically telekinetic, and only use their powers us act as engines for their ships. There's nothing currently in the fluff even suggesting they can use their powers as defense against offensive psychic attacks.

-Loki- wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Rubbish at space magic – no offence, no defence.

This is, however, something I don't think should be fixed. They're not a psychic race, arguably outside of Ethereals. Psychic defense in 40k is generally a form of psychic power as well. There's no fluff reason for them to have either offense or defense with psychics.

I agree.

It's just that if the army going to be rubbish at space magic, melee, and leadership, it needs to be much better at other things to compensate.

Tau have reasonable mobility, reasonable shooting (but BS3) -- some individual units are outstanding, but they are limited in numbers -- reasonable armour, and are fairly expensive.

The markerlights are where a big difference could be made, by lifting big chunks of the army to effectively BS5, but they are too expensive and limited with the amount of 4+ cover in the game now. (One markerlight used to eliminate a cover save entirely.)

Personally I think GW should just give up on balancing space magic and leadership. Just give the Tau an Ethereal who lifts the army to Ld10, and an anti-magic field like a Librarian's helmet.

You can tinker with equipment and points values a bit. The only solution to melee, though, is to give the Tau some chances to try and avoid melee by evading or shooting at chargers. This could be easily done with a couple of special rules or an Orders system.

... not seeing the problems most people are listing, myself.

Lack of CC ability? Fluffy and not an issue if you think about what you're doing...

Lack of BS4? Never stopped me from shooting apart armies before they reach CC

Low leadership? Sure, it can be an issue, but its not exactly the end of the world.

Fire Warriors suck? ... yeah, yeah they really do XD but even they have their uses.


So where are all the game-breaking issues here? I've won more games than I've lost with these guys. Sure I don't win every time, but no one should and yeah it's a challenge, but that doesn't mean the army is broken, surely?

Edit: oh and now that I think about it some of their options suck to the extreme (vespid, for example) but that happens to every army

Lack of BS4...did someone actually say that?
Shooty armies don't get BS4, hell SNIPERS fire at BS3 now(mostly)

I haven't had much trouble with winning games, but my gaming group is pretty casual so it's not that important, but I have noticed some limiting factors:: The old codex means most units are overcosted, there isn't that much choice in units to start with and it doesn't help when some of those choices are close to useless (vespids and ethereals, I'm looking at you), I haven't yet got many markerlights in my army so I find my fire warriors not performing well.

However the basic S5 on guns is good, railguns are great and disruption pods are god-like. On paper kroot don't seem that useful but can actually be used for many different scenarios (although a 6+ save without needing a kroot shaper would be nice in CC) and the devilfish is a sturdy, fast transport. Crisis suits always get their job done and although Jump-Shoot-Jump isn't as effective as in 4th edition it still annoys my opponents to no end.