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I don't like playing Tau because all they do is sit in a corner, and shoot. They practically skip the movement phase, and they avoid the charge and fight phases like the plague. Its....just boring to play against them...

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I didn’t like Tau because of their visual aesthetics, and they were made just to get anime battletech lovers into the game.
White tiger zord, morph into Voltron’s butthole!

Or something like that.

I agree. The bad thing about this whole affair is that the original anime mechs look much better than the stuff GW tries to peddle to it´s customers. That´s the reason why I don´t have a single Tau model in my collection. And just to complete this post: Necron models are hideous too.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I didn’t like Tau because of their visual aesthetics, and they were made just to get anime battletech lovers into the game.
White tiger zord, morph into Voltron’s butthole!

Or something like that.

I agree. The bad thing about this whole affair is that the original anime mechs look much better than the stuff GW tries to peddle to it´s customers. That´s the reason why I don´t have a single Tau model in my collection. And just to complete this post: Necron models are hideous too.

I just see variety as a good thing to be honest. Not everything will be to everyone's taste. I happen to think the battlesuits look pretty sweet generally.

Well, I personally hate them for being the utter antithesis of my beloved Orks. They're sleek, high tech, and suck at melee, which makes them the lowest scum in Ork eyes.

Unpopular opinion mode, go!

Tau are in fact, very popular. They're the best selling xenos faction locally and I believe (but can not prove) that extends outward given how rapidly their new tentpole releases sold out at launch compared to others - and the fact that they updated the existing crisis suit kit before working on the more desperately needy chaos, orks, or SoB ranges.

And why shouldn't they be? They have a distinct look with large flat panels, a background and disposition that's refreshingly positive for the setting (but not, despite claims, incompatible with the setting), and represent the concept of a sci-fi future war army in a way the Imperium can't.

They scratch an itch the other factions can't.

And ultimately that's all that matters. Questions of balance are ephemeral (proof: Tau are pretty bad right now), questions of plot relevance are up to GW (and as of Warzone Damocles the argument that they'd be wiped out if the Imperium just tried has been rejected), and questions of player fractional loyalty are wierd and sad (the Imperium does not actually exist, this is all just a game.)

Unpopular opinion mode, stop!

CrimsonComedian wrote:
Well, I personally hate them for being the utter antithesis of my beloved Orks. They're sleek, high tech, and suck at melee, which makes them the lowest scum in Ork eyes.

You're just jealous that they have more dakka

 IronBrand wrote:

CrimsonComedian wrote:
Well, I personally hate them for being the utter antithesis of my beloved Orks. They're sleek, high tech, and suck at melee, which makes them the lowest scum in Ork eyes.

You're just jealous that they have more dakka

Tau have weird unorky shooting. They aren't loud or flashy. It isn't proper Dakka.

I don't like tau cause:

Ugly models.
Seems fishy.
Anime is a tired genre.
Kroot are dumb.
Ascetically they are not pleasing.
The greater good?
Drone Markerlights what?
Have they ever been good?

Tau are one of the better armies in the game. I rank them above Guard.

Their volume of shooting is amazing, their stratagems are great and they can use a ton of them thanks to dirt cheap troop squads and cheap HQs. The change to seeker missiles being D6 in the codex was also huge.

But it certainly isn't fun to play against them, I can't imagine it being fun to play them. You put your models down, and people can either bust your gunline or not.

Oh, there's also the fact that admitting to be a Tau player seems to draw an inordinate amount of hate/bile.

 Marmatag wrote:
Tau are one of the better armies in the game. I rank them above Guard.

Their volume of shooting is amazing, their stratagems are great and they can use a ton of them thanks to dirt cheap troop squads and cheap HQs. The change to seeker missiles being D6 in the codex was also huge.

But it certainly isn't fun to play against them, I can't imagine it being fun to play them. You put your models down, and people can either bust your gunline or not.

See, I've not used Tau yet in 8th. I've got a Farsight Battlesuit centric army from 5th and I'm getting the itch to use them a bit yet the impression I get from here (and other threads) is this weird paradox of Tau being unfun to play against yet Farsight and Crisis suits (a meat and potatoes core unit of Tau IMO) are trash. So which is it?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I didn’t like Tau because of their visual aesthetics, and they were made just to get anime battletech lovers into the game.
White tiger zord, morph into Voltron’s butthole!

Or something like that.

And Eldar weren't?

Eldar have just as much "Anime" design cues in them as Tau do.

not quite. I will say they take some anime ques in their vehicles, but most of their units derive from elves in fantasy settings. contrast that with all of the tau units (vehicles, suits and infantry) outside of kroot who borrow from anime. eldar probably would have borrowed more from anime in its design though if it were as big of a thing then the eldar were released.

Having played my friends Tau army a few times, I personally found them boring. Granted this was back in 7th but most of my units never moved/ nor did they need to. Only had assault go off with Kroot that was one sided, no pyskers and it was mostly roll dice, remove opponents models, rinse and repeat. I found it to be an army that didn't really interact with my opponent much especially with how easy it was to also strip cover saves away.

bibotot wrote:
I am getting the feeling this particular faction is very unpopluar. In fact, the reason they are so often played is because they were overpowered in 5th to 8th edition. The producers have made very little effort to publicize the Tau. Now, you can say the same thing to the Dark Eldar, but the Tau should be more marketable and appealing to the mass.

No Tau is featured in supplement campaign books like Valedor or Damnos.

Tau only has 1 shooter game and that one was bad. They appear in Dark Crusade, Soulstorm, Retribution Last Stand and Battlefleet Gothic Armada, but these games aim to feature as many factions as possible. There is no Tau in the campaign for both the latter games.

Very little mention of the Tau in the current lore such as Gathering Storm and Indomitus Crusade. We know they are planning another invasion after their Fourth Sphere went wrong, but we don't get much of what the remnant of their fleet are doing after being flung across the galaxy by the Warp storm. The Tau are quite close to Ultramar, so you would expect Papa Smurf to have a word with them over territorial disputes.

You What??
Tau are certainly one of the more popular races, as others have said, yes they have featured in campaign books, in fact they had two and were one of the few armies last edition to receive a codex supplement in the form of the farsight enclaves book. Tau had one game to themselves, that's one more game than nearly all the non imperial factions of 40k. There has been mention of them in the current lore but as their campaign was quite recent GW are of course going to give other stuff a turn in the spotlight, not to mention the huge lore upheaval that the all the latest events have caused and so GW are of course going to want to promote that as well given that's what is currently new. They are still popular, I'm sure they'll get their turn, be patient.

Tau are Xenos Imperial Guard.

That's all it comes down to - people don't like IG (because of their one-phase gameplay plan).

Add in GW's movement towards making them more Guardsman based *ahem* Firewarrior based, instead of their iconic Battlesuits... and you've got an army that's a Xenos copy+paste, and hardly fleshed out.

I, for one, like their take on the lore and brutality; and love their suits conceptually - but suits aren't a focus this edition...

fe40k wrote:
Tau are Xenos Imperial Guard.

That's all it comes down to - people don't like IG (because of their one-phase gameplay plan).

Add in GW's movement towards making them more Guardsman based *ahem* Firewarrior based, instead of their iconic Battlesuits... and you've got an army that's a Xenos copy+paste, and hardly fleshed out.

I, for one, like their take on the lore and brutality; and love their suits conceptually - but suits aren't a focus this edition...

The state of Crisis suits is very sad :(

Similar to Terminators basically.

Space communism.... not even once

Tau are very popular, they have been easier to play than most faction for a long time, have a full plastic range, have been featured in several campaigns books (Damnos, the one in two books vs GI and Space Marines), they were mentionned in the fluff for 3rd expansion sphere, 4th AND 5th , against the Gorgon hive fleet, in a very short time...
That's way more than necrons, Deldars or orks I guess.
To my mind, they are the favourite xenos amry of GW

I don't want to attribute any stereotypes to Tau players because it's really hard to do on an accurate level. I've known one Tau main who only played them as his power army and only played WAAC lists. I knew one who always played them rain or shine and played a variety of lists including, but not limited to WAAC lists. Armies have all kinds. The only trend I have traditionally seen be consistent is younger people really liking them, but that is no reason to hate Tau.

Why I personally really don't like them goes back to their design philosophy. They shoot and that's it. I had one game where I showed up with my Primaris force and got DUMPSTERED T1 by a Tau list. I was Raven Guard and still got blown effectively blown off the board in one round of shooting in 1850 points to 2x stormsurge and 1x riptide and even THEN that is not the worst they could do. Of course my return fire was grossly ineffective because of shield drones so I ended up giving up in my own shooting phase lol. Now I completely realize my army was not on the same level of strength and it's not the first or last time I will get put in a trash can, but what made that game so boring and unfun for both sides was the design philosophy of Tau. DO note I am not saying all Tau games are like this. I am just using an example from my personal experience.

Tau shoot you and table you or you get in melee and butcher them. To say they literally play one phase of the game is only slightly exaggerating and that's the problem. It's not even a matter of if they are weak, balanced or OP because no matter what the majority of the time their games will always be the same game played over and over.

The Imperial Guard are also similar to this, but do have a few redeeming factors in that that they have a massive variety of options that do include some viable assault options and massive potential for allies or to be allied in to other Imperial forces. I don't like playing against the Tau, but I have no problem or stigma towards Tau players.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Tau are one of the better armies in the game. I rank them above Guard.

Their volume of shooting is amazing, their stratagems are great and they can use a ton of them thanks to dirt cheap troop squads and cheap HQs. The change to seeker missiles being D6 in the codex was also huge.

But it certainly isn't fun to play against them, I can't imagine it being fun to play them. You put your models down, and people can either bust your gunline or not.

See, I've not used Tau yet in 8th. I've got a Farsight Battlesuit centric army from 5th and I'm getting the itch to use them a bit yet the impression I get from here (and other threads) is this weird paradox of Tau being unfun to play against yet Farsight and Crisis suits (a meat and potatoes core unit of Tau IMO) are trash. So which is it?

Sadly a mix of both.
You got a tiny speck of great stuff (most HQ), good troops and riptides ain't half bad.

The entire rest of the codex however, including Farsight and crisis suits, ranges from barely playable to not even casual playable.


This leads to tau playable lists bring very repetitive even in casual play, and a such quickly get annoying.

-manga style doens't belong in 40k imo
-they rape pure CC lists because
a) they will deploy in large bubbles and "all in 6" can overwatch" in combo with
b) almost everything has fly so you made it in combat, they move out and shoot you in your face...
-annoying to play against (ignore cover, -1/2 to hit, rerolls everywhere,...)

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Tau are one of the better armies in the game. I rank them above Guard.

Their volume of shooting is amazing, their stratagems are great and they can use a ton of them thanks to dirt cheap troop squads and cheap HQs. The change to seeker missiles being D6 in the codex was also huge.

But it certainly isn't fun to play against them, I can't imagine it being fun to play them. You put your models down, and people can either bust your gunline or not.

See, I've not used Tau yet in 8th. I've got a Farsight Battlesuit centric army from 5th and I'm getting the itch to use them a bit yet the impression I get from here (and other threads) is this weird paradox of Tau being unfun to play against yet Farsight and Crisis suits (a meat and potatoes core unit of Tau IMO) are trash. So which is it?

Sadly a mix of both.
You got a tiny speck of great stuff (most HQ), good troops and riptides ain't half bad.

The entire rest of the codex however, including Farsight and crisis suits, ranges from barely playable to not even casual playable.


This leads to tau playable lists bring very repetitive even in casual play, and a such quickly get annoying.

Repetitive is the name of the game for Tau, moreso than other factions they had some outliers that you were forced to play meanwhile the rest of the Codex, there to provide flavour to the army in a more casual environment is just not worth playing. This leads to the problem that each and every Tau army list seems identical.
Previous editions it was Crisis or bust, now it is HQ + gunline. Stuff like Kroot never seem to make the cut in lists, units that fundamentaly play diffrent. Frankly the same can be said about IG atm but atleast IG has an assult build with catachan and a gunline build.
In essence it is a problem of those armies that have really specialised in one field. Orks now also suffer from this since mekboy warbands (Kanz, gunz and lots of tanks ) are virtually non existent. Basically they face the same problem now, their diffrent playstyles suffered under the simplification of the ruleset which killed off a lot of variety. Tau just had that problem for longer and are decent enough to draw the ire of people, ergo they get a bad (sometimes deserved, sometimes not) reputation.

 wallygator wrote:
-manga style doens't belong in 40k imo
-they rape pure CC lists because
a) they will deploy in large bubbles and "all in 6" can overwatch" in combo with
b) almost everything has fly so you made it in combat, they move out and shoot you in your face...
-annoying to play against (ignore cover, -1/2 to hit, rerolls everywhere,...)

Seriously you when exclusively CC and don't have an overwatch mitigation strategy, you dereved to loose.
Appart from all of thier mandatory troops and most useful HQ choice.
Tau don't have a -1 to hit army trait and only 1 unit has the ability to be -2 to hit.
You think Tau have re-rolls good luck against the Gman parking lot.

This is also why people don't play Tau people love to hate them regardless of the truth.

pm713 wrote:

 IronBrand wrote:

CrimsonComedian wrote:
Well, I personally hate them for being the utter antithesis of my beloved Orks. They're sleek, high tech, and suck at melee, which makes them the lowest scum in Ork eyes.

You're just jealous that they have more dakka

Tau have weird unorky shooting. They aren't loud or flashy. It isn't proper Dakka.

No idea about flashy, but guass weapons are kinetic, and this means when they hit, they hit hard and that makes ton of sound, unless the target is made out of feathers.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Tau are one of the better armies in the game. I rank them above Guard.

Their volume of shooting is amazing, their stratagems are great and they can use a ton of them thanks to dirt cheap troop squads and cheap HQs. The change to seeker missiles being D6 in the codex was also huge.

But it certainly isn't fun to play against them, I can't imagine it being fun to play them. You put your models down, and people can either bust your gunline or not.

See, I've not used Tau yet in 8th. I've got a Farsight Battlesuit centric army from 5th and I'm getting the itch to use them a bit yet the impression I get from here (and other threads) is this weird paradox of Tau being unfun to play against yet Farsight and Crisis suits (a meat and potatoes core unit of Tau IMO) are trash. So which is it?

Sadly a mix of both.
You got a tiny speck of great stuff (most HQ), good troops and riptides ain't half bad.

The entire rest of the codex however, including Farsight and crisis suits, ranges from barely playable to not even casual playable.


This leads to tau playable lists bring very repetitive even in casual play, and a such quickly get annoying.

This isn't at all true.

HQs and troops are *fantastic* and you can easily field 3x Battalion if you wanted to do it.

And, you have numerous vehicles that are very solid when paired with a Longstrike.

Tau are in a great spot with a variety of builds that work at the competitive level.

 Marmatag wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Tau are one of the better armies in the game. I rank them above Guard.

Their volume of shooting is amazing, their stratagems are great and they can use a ton of them thanks to dirt cheap troop squads and cheap HQs. The change to seeker missiles being D6 in the codex was also huge.

But it certainly isn't fun to play against them, I can't imagine it being fun to play them. You put your models down, and people can either bust your gunline or not.

See, I've not used Tau yet in 8th. I've got a Farsight Battlesuit centric army from 5th and I'm getting the itch to use them a bit yet the impression I get from here (and other threads) is this weird paradox of Tau being unfun to play against yet Farsight and Crisis suits (a meat and potatoes core unit of Tau IMO) are trash. So which is it?

Sadly a mix of both.
You got a tiny speck of great stuff (most HQ), good troops and riptides ain't half bad.

The entire rest of the codex however, including Farsight and crisis suits, ranges from barely playable to not even casual playable.


This leads to tau playable lists bring very repetitive even in casual play, and a such quickly get annoying.

This isn't at all true.

HQs and troops are *fantastic* and you can easily field 3x Battalion if you wanted to do it.

And, you have numerous vehicles that are very solid when paired with a Longstrike.

Tau are in a great spot with a variety of builds that work at the competitive level.

Eeer, what?
You say what I said is not at all true, then practically repeat my words that the HQs a d troops are good....

And for numerous vehicles supported by longstrike.
Lonstrike supports ONLY hammerheads, who once he is dead (no hard, he has no extra protection compared to any other hammerhead) are equivalent at best to the predator, who is hardly impressive itself.
Any other vehicle has no support in the entire codex, and is generally bad. So are most suits, planes, etc.

You have ONE decent unit per slot (with forgeworld one slot has amazingly 2 decent units) , except HQ who has several but the codex has a unique "only one per detachment" limitation on the type not meant for infantry gunline.
And he codex is filled to the brim with redundancy that do many options are effectively none existent as five other things have the exact same effect, and you need them anyway.

This tau codex is as cookie cutter as it gets. It's poorly written and is no fun to play with or against.
I got about 5k of tau, from a wide range of units. And every list ends up looking exactly the same.
My TS/tzeentch army is half the size at about 2.5k, yet it feels far fuller in options. And these ain't exactly big factions either.

Of course, this assumes your talking solely about a very competitive analysis.

I'm a huge fan of Kroot.
Being able to run lots of Carnivores is great!
The Rule of 2/3/4 has really screwed with my all Kroot list limiting me to 2 Shapers, 2 squads of Hounds, and 2 squad of Krootox. Since most games are 1,000 or less.

But you know what?
I'm still gonna play it!
Using an Etherial as HQ, with a Master Shaper counts as model, since Kroot are effected by the Etherial's abilities, it works, fluffwise.

Will I win games, probably not, but it'll fun and fluffy.

If your games are 1k or less, I'd try this beta rule:
"Dude, it's Kroot. Mind if I take third Shaper/Hound/Krootox".

 Blndmage wrote:
Of course, this assumes your talking solely about a very competitive analysis.

I'm a huge fan of Kroot.

I'd like Kroot a lot more if GW didn't nerf them further every edition.

One, their playstyle isn't very dynamic. Granted, it's more dynamic than a Gorillaman Gunline since Tau have interesting things like infiltrators and other little tricks, but it's by and large a gunline.

Two, their fluff and design has always struck me as kind of boring. I mean, what exactly are they from a fluff standpoint? Imperials are the "good" guys who resort to awful things just to keep going, Chaos is the corrupting force behind most of the horrible stuff in the universe, necrons are instigators of the old war that began all this crap and are an ancient threat, Eldar and Dark Eldar are the hypocritical fops who think they're all high-and-mighty despite the fact that they've screwed over the universe the most, orks are the genocidal, war-mongering, irredeemable race that somehow serves as this setting's comedic relief, and Tyrannids are the absolutely terrifying beings from another galaxy that are probably the biggest threat out there. The Tau though? They're just some random upstart race that has decent technology.

That, and their designs are utterly boring. They're basically skinny, blue humans piloting Mobile Suit Gundams. None of their robots even seem that menacing compared to the Imperium or especially the orks.