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Title says it all. Are ninja tau the only way to go or gunline or what? I'm quite farmiliar with their rules, but I cant see any awesome army lists other than crysis heavy jumping out in front of me. There isn't a lot of synergy in the tau codex. Not obvious anyway...

There are a couple of ways to play Tau, but really, if you want to win, you gotta play to their strengths.

That is to say, Battlesuits up to your eyeballs, and Devilfish for every unit of Fire Warriors.

Markerlights are also integral to Tau victory.

My Tau list is at home, but lemme see if I can reproduce it from memory so you can see what I'm talking about.

Shas'O w/ TL Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, 2 Shield Drones, Bonding Knife

3 Crisis Suits w/ Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multi-Tracker
Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife

3 Crisis Suits w/ Missile Pod, Burst Cannon, Multi-Tracker
Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife

3 Crisis Suits w/ Missile Pod, Burst Cannon, Multi-Tracker
Team Leader w/ Bonding Knife

10 Fire Warriors
Devilfish w/ SMS, Multi-Tracker, Targeting Array, Disruption Pods

10 Fire Warriors
Devilfish w/ SMS, Multi-Tracker, Targeting Array, Disruption Pods

10 Fire Warriors

10 Fire Warriors

5 Pathfinders
Devilfish w/ SMS, Multi-Tracker, Targeting Array, Disruption Pods

5 Pathfinders
Devilfish w/ SMS, Multi-Tracker, Targeting Array, Disruption Pods

3 Piranhas w/ Fusion Blasters, Flechette Dischargers, Disruption Pods, Targeting Arrays

Hammerhead w/ Railgun, Multi-Tracker, Disruption Pods

Hammerhead w/ Ion Cannon, Multi-Tracker, Disruption Pods

2 Broadsides, 1 w/ Targeting Array
Team Leader w/ HW Target Lock, Targeting Array, Bonding Knife

Comes out to 2500 points.

I may have put Target Locks on those Hammerheads, I honestly can't remember.

I may also downgrade the Shas'O to a Shas'el w/ Targeting Array, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, HW Multi-Tracker, HW Drone Controller, and 2 Shield Drones, but only if I can find a way to move enough points around to also give him two Crisis Suit bodyguards.

Basically, I have the Pathfinders for mass markerlights, four scoring units of 10 models each, each with a Devilfish (the PF D'fish go to the two remaining FW squads), and more Crisis Suits than you can shake a stick at.

I tend not to fill up on bread, and go straight for the good stuff and get as much as possible.

That being:
fireknife 'El w/ shield drones
3x3 fireknives w/shield drones
2x5 pathfinders w/fishes
2x6 fire warriors
2x3 broadsides w/TA, drones
1 Railhead

Its pretty durable (except for pathfinders), and very hard hitting. Its also pretty flexible (fireknives have many good uses, and broads/hammerhead have alternative weapons good against armour and horde). It also has markerlight redundancy, so you can lose a squad of pathfinders and still markerlight somewhat, or if you still have both, you can light up a target, kill it, and light up a second one. Markerlights themselves are also pretty flexible, available for use for whichever squad needs it. The list can also split up fire into basically 9 different targets (El, 1 per XV8 squad, target locks on broad leaders, and hammerhead), or can focus fire to take advantage of markerlights (El joins XV8's, broads don't split fire), using tokens to their optimum value depending on the situation.

This is by no means the consensus list, though. (hell, I haven't even asked to get it CCed, because I don't care that much. I love my list.) IT does have one big weakness though. It sucks at dawn of war because of the heavy non-troops choices with no way to move and fire. I could give A.S.S. to broads, but dont really like lowering my BS. Also, its high in kill points. I should adjust to give my fishes SMS at least, soon.

I prefer the gun line approach with sneaky crisis battle suits.

There is nothing like someone going all in with their army against your gun line, and when you have them where you want, you drop the Crisis battle-suits and catch them from both sides.

Ninja Tau are horrible.

Asking for "consensus" is just asking for the most mediocre advice you can get. Probably only 20% of the people who post know WTF they're talking about, and those 20% aren't necessarily the loudest voices in the room.

Aside from Stelek and Dashofpepper, most people who play well and do well in tournaments don't bother to give advice at all.

The best way to find a Tau list that works for you is to play your own list, and think very critically about it after every game. Even in games you win you will find that some of your units did not perform the tasks you needed them to, and you may need to re-think those choices.

for me its about balanced lists, you never know if ur playing hordes or meq unless preplanned and at that point you build to ur enemies weaknesses.
my army looks like this:
people often say where are ur kroot but never been keen on kroot unless you know you have a wooded board
build ur list on what you like in the army and go from there, no point having an army thats competative if you dont like the units in it (i.e kroot for me)

From my experience tau really need bubblewrap units ie. a unit of 12-16 kroot that you string out around your army to die against the first enemy to assault them, and buy another round of shooting for your suits. All for the greater good of course.

If you think you need a good deal of anti fantry, 6 Stealthsuits and some drones is an excellent unit as long as they dont get bashed too much. Other than that, get missile/plasma crisis suits (or if you can get FW, some XV9's)

Stealth suits are bad units. 30 points for a single T3 wound is a bad deal, and when you couple that with short ranged weapons (so they can't make the best use of their stealth field), they just aren't worth it. The fact that they are an Elite slot just adds insult to injury.

Willydstyle is right. Stealthsuits are awful.

Fill up those Elites slots with Crisis Suits in a configuration of your choice.

FireKnife is the configuration I see most often (Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multi-Tracker), but in my opinion there are situations where volume of fire is more important, so I run one FireKnife unit (to hunt MEqs) and two FireStorm units (Missile Pod, Burst Cannon, Multi-Tracker). Allows me to hang back an extra 6" and pump out an extra shot, which helps immensely against 1) units with an assault range of 18", such as bikes and jump infantry, and 2) larger, squishier units that don't require plasma to drop.

The bottom line regarding Stealthsuits is that whatever they can do, Crisis Suits can do better and cheaper. Not to mention they've got one extra wound each.

Really, it all boils down to buying some damn Tau, putting them down on the tabletop, and seeing how they work for you. Analyze, post-battle, each unit and what it did or did not fail to accomplish, and trim your list accordingly.

Lots of people are going to throw suggestions regarding "the best Tau list" at you, but I personally openly admit that my list is not your standard tournament Tau internet list. I use my list because I know it, I rarely make mistakes with it, and it's powerful enough to accomplish what I want to accomplish against just about any enemy.

I am by no means the best (Even saying Decent is pushing it.) Tau Player, so any advice I can give from my experiance does no good. Luckily, I am on Advanced Tau Tactica, so I can give Advice from their Experence instead.

Three ways to run Tau are:

Static Tau: Gunline
Hybrid Tau: Mix of Static and Mech
Mech Tau: Fish of Fury!

Most Tau players ( That I've seen from Battle Reports on Dakka/ATT and Games on Vassal) play Hybrid but lean towards one style or the other. There may be people that play Tau with No Tanks whatsoever( never seen it but they are prolly out there) and there are people that Do the Heavy Mech lists with a Cheap Shas'el, but most people run some sort of Hybrid. Piranhas are great for contesting Objectives and are ok for blocking your Important units from CC. Kroot are great Bubblewrap or they can be used to outflank and try to annoy the opponent. Broadsides are one of, if not the best, AT units. Hammerheads are great for Taking out hordes( with the Template weapon). Stealthsuits are horrid. Pathfinders are really good, but you can put Drone Controllers on some squads and use markerdrones if that works better. Crisis Suits can be used to fill out many roles and are best to be geared to try and fill in any Gaps you have in your army.

I run a TL flamer squad that DS to deal with light Infantry, a Plasma Rifle/Missle Pod squad for Heavy Infantry, and a Burst Cannon/ Missle Pod squad because they are nice.

Like alot of people have said though, Buy some Tau, throw them on the board, see what you like. You might think Stealthsuits are the greatest thing ever and run 3 squads of them or you might (For some Unholy reason) Think Aun'Va is the greatest thing since the Railgun.

Edit: I am Iur'Tae'Mont and I approve of Ninja Crisis Suits with Gunline Tau.