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So i have tau. About 4 years now. Thinking of repainting them and whatever but why should i continue playing them?

I got a few orks/wolves/tyranid but i can't seem to stay on one army long enough to make a large enough one to play except tau.

So whats so good about tau that i should stick with them?

Because, eventually, Tau will get an update, and with the current trend of codexes they will eat everythings face.
If you don't want to play Tau atm, that doesn't mean they have to go away. Just retire them from active duty for the time being whilst you work on another army, then break'em out again whenever.

Indeed.
My hope is that when Tau get an update (sometime after Dark Eldar and Necrons im gonna guess), they will be the undisputed lords of ranged combat, and maybe some of the FW units (like the XV-9) will be intergrated into the codex.

Wyvern wrote:Indeed.
My hope is that when Tau get an update (sometime after Dark Eldar and Necrons im gonna guess)

And Marines.

Because the Tau are as much awesome as awesome could possibly awesome, in awesome.

Also, railguns.

The best thing about my Tau is that they traded away and became a Necron army.

Dashofpepper wrote:The best thing about my Tau is that they traded away and became a Necron army.

My Tau resent that comment.

So, the problem with tau right now is that their specialty has always been long range firepower. The problem, of course, is that long range firepower is obsolete in 5th ed. You therefore have an entire army geared towards something that conflicts with what you need for victory. Not to say you can never win with tau, but they're definitely not a first tier army anymore for exactly this reason.

That said, if they're the army that you keep coming back to, that probably means something. There is something to the tau ethos, style, models or tactics that appeals to you instinctually. Your soul is telling you to play tau, and every time you try something else, you ultimately get bored and come back to tau. I can't think of a better reason than this.

That's not to say you can't learn to love a new army as much as you like tau at the moment. The real question is if you have the time and devotion to make this happen. If you don't, then stick with what you like.

That's not entirely correct, Ailaros. Their dual-specialty is long-range firepower and mobility.

While shoving yourself into a table corner and trading shots all day isn't going to win you any games, combine that long-range killing power with the inherent mobility of Crisis Suits, Devilfish, Hammerheads, and Piranhas, and you do have a winning combination.

Still not first tier, I grant you, but the Tau have a bit more versatility than just "sit back and shoot."

Yes, against other sit-and shoot or mobile long range shooty armies (specifically tau and both stripes of eldar for the latter, and idiots for the former), tau can have some success. If an opponent rushes a tau player, they have little choice but to repel into a little ball like oil from water. Shutting down tau mobility isn't all that hard, because they have to keep running away, lest they find themselves in close combat, and there is only SO much board they can retreat into.

The mobility is only there in so much as it supports the long range shooting - namely to keep the shooting at long range. If your opponent has any mobility, they will be able to close range, and the tau mobility starts to fail them.

Except that every single Tau vehicle is a skimmer.

Tau never run out of board to retreat to, since it's extremely hard to cut them off - if they want to, they can just fly over yonder impassible terrain and force whatever's chasing them to go around it. A bad Tau player might not plan his route of retreat well, and therefore get cut off in a corner or between two encroaching units, but played properly, Tau mobility is not to be underestimated.

nor should it be overestimated. It's not like skimmers give free retreat. Eventually, against a good opponent paths of retreat are going to involve things like flying over meltagunners or close combat units which will then be in range of wherever you land. I mean, if you're 12" away from a meltagunner, and your only line of retreat is to fly 24" over them, you still end up 12" away from a meltagunner.

The only REAL escape artists in 40k are units which can teleport a la veil of darkness, or swooping hawks. Tau do not have these and thus are stuck within the bounds of regular mobility, regardless of if they're on the top end or not.

Plus, tau can't be highly mobile and shoot long range guns at the same time, so they're still losing out on the main purpose to their army, even when they're trying to prevent catastrophe.

They only need to be highly mobile in case of emergency. They can still move 12" and fire one weapon, as long as they're armed with multi-trackers, and they should be.

But no, I'm not saying they have a free "get out of shitfan range" card, just that a good Tau player understands how to use Tau mobility to his advantage. And I don't think we're arguing about two idiots playing, here.

Ailaros wrote:So, the problem with tau right now is that their specialty has always been long range firepower. The problem, of course, is that long range firepower is obsolete in 5th ed. You therefore have an entire army geared towards something that conflicts with what you need for victory. Not to say you can never win with tau, but they're definitely not a first tier army anymore for exactly this reason.

That said, if they're the army that you keep coming back to, that probably means something. There is something to the tau ethos, style, models or tactics that appeals to you instinctually. Your soul is telling you to play tau, and every time you try something else, you ultimately get bored and come back to tau. I can't think of a better reason than this.

That's not to say you can't learn to love a new army as much as you like tau at the moment. The real question is if you have the time and devotion to make this happen. If you don't, then stick with what you like.

Very well put. I support this. Its why Ive only had 3 armies the last decade.

SaintHazard wrote:Except that every single Tau vehicle is a skimmer.

Tau never run out of board to retreat to, since it's extremely hard to cut them off - if they want to, they can just fly over yonder impassible terrain and force whatever's chasing them to go around it. A bad Tau player might not plan his route of retreat well, and therefore get cut off in a corner or between two encroaching units, but played properly, Tau mobility is not to be underestimated.

There won't always be extremely favorable terrain for you to take advantage of. Also, I don't find 12" moves to be nearly mobile enough for my tastes. As a tau player, I rely more on trying to make sure theres nothing left to corner me, because everything is dead/destroyed. I don't rely much on my devilfishes, nor my hammerhead (its cursed by the dice gods, so I only take one). My crisis suits just hop around a little, doing their own thing, and are the closest thing I to mobile in my army.

Tau are more about firepower and firepower defense (shield drones, disruption pods, decent front armour), and I think even the multi-tracker on vehicles is mainly there for defense against assault (hit on 6s).

ssREV wrote:There won't always be extremely favorable terrain for you to take advantage of. Also, I don't find 12" moves to be nearly mobile enough for my tastes. As a tau player, I rely more on trying to make sure theres nothing left to corner me, because everything is dead/destroyed. I don't rely much on my devilfishes, nor my hammerhead (its cursed by the dice gods, so I only take one). My crisis suits just hop around a little, doing their own thing, and are the closest thing I to mobile in my army.

Tau are more about firepower and firepower defense (shield drones, disruption pods, decent front armour), and I think even the multi-tracker on vehicles is mainly there for defense against assault (hit on 6s).

Um. What?

First of all, Devilfish and Crisis suits are the two units that make up the core of any Tau army. Not relying on your Devilfish is not utilizing your Devilfish. Now this part is subjective so far, but...

...your take on multi-trackers is just wrong, unless I'm misinterpreting it. A vehicle with a multi-tracker counts as a fast vehicle for the purposes of firing its weapons only. It doesn't magically make it a fast vehicle. Now if you're moving more than 6", then yes, you can only be hit on a 6, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with multi-trackers.

Unless you were saying that it allows you to move 12" and still fire, indirectly affecting units trying to assault?

Ailaros wrote:Your soul is telling you to play tau, and every time you try something else, you ultimately get bored and come back to tau.

In other words, you are a xeno-loving traitor and there is no place for you in the light of the Emepror.

Manchu wrote:

Ailaros wrote:Your soul is telling you to play tau, and every time you try something else, you ultimately get bored and come back to tau.

In other words, you are a xeno-loving traitor and there is no place for you in the light of the Emepror.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Let me rephrase my earlier comment.

"That's not to say you can't learn to love a new army as much as you like tau at the moment. The real question is if you have the time and devotion to make this happen. "

Should be read:

"You must learn to serve the god-emperor with all your heart and might. The real question is if you have the time and devotion to quit being a xeno scum and toe the line for the one true god, you numbnuts!"

Ailaros wrote:"You must learn to serve the god-emperor with all your heart and might. The real question is if you have the time and devotion to quit being a xeno scum and toe the line for the one true god, you numbnuts!"

This is esepcially funny as OP's tone has a "I like Tau--what's wrong with me?" feel.

I play Tau because I think their playstyle is very interesting. Unlike a lot of armies you can't pre plan the game, to play and win you need to react to each situation as it occurs. Unlike tyranids or Orks you can't go into the game with the intention to rush into combat and win (simplified a bit), and unlike IG you can't just sit back and shoot (simplified again).

They really aren't as useless as everyone says. Once you play them a bit and work out whatworks for you, you will win a good number of games. Sure Tau have the problem that they rely on ranged firepower when you need to get close and grab objectives, but we excel at focus firing units. I haven't found it difficult to blast units off an objective in the last few turns of a game, by this time you should have taken out a lot of units.

Don't underestimate speed. Warfish aren't bad, not great but they are fast and get a reasonable number of shots. In my experience Crisis suits are very hard to catch. Against a horde army it can be difficult to keep away but against other armies t isn't hard to just keep jumping around them, just don't let yoursefl get stuck against a table edge.

There is no better reason to play an army than that you love it even when it loses. I have been playing Eldar since the Rogue Trader days. When they relased the army list in White Dwarf 127 with the Aspect Warriors and all that, it was a big game changer to me. When the Dark Eldar were released, it was like coming home, Eldar the way I remembred them. I have always lost more games than I have won, regardless of my army. But I always come back to my Eldar. So when I came back to the game after a ten-year break, I started up a new Eldar army. Because win or lose, I knew I would love it. And today, I played it for the first time, just 750 points, and I won

So if you love your Tau, play your Tau. And if they don't win as often as you would like, so what? Is it about winning and losing, or having fun?

Because you could buy discount Tau from me

Thanks guys XD. Interesting comments but i think i will stick with them. I'm going to give them a new paint job and continue building them up!

Score one for the Greater Good.