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Hi peeps

I have just finished off my 1000pts of Tau and have played 5 or 6 games with them. Against players who know what they are doing I suffer greatly. I have a very balanced army list with 4 crisis and 2 broadsides backed up by pathfinders, kroot(10 kroot hounds included) and a squad of firewarriors.

Am I doing something wrong? or is it just Tau are fairly uncompetative?

I struggle most at objective games as I am very reluctant to leave cover due to Tau's low leadership and crumbly armour.

Cheers

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2008/09/my-tau-empire/

A Tau list type that works well in the current game, with links to notes about how to play it (check especially the linked battle report with pictures).

Thats a nice list for 2000pts. But its 1000pts I am interested in(if I had the cash to invest in a 2000pts army then i wouldve picked imperial guard)

The list scales down.

At 1000 points you take

1 Commander Shas'el (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)
2 Crisis Battlesuit (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)
2 Crisis Battlesuit (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)
2 Crisis Battlesuit (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)

6 Fire Warrior (Pulse Rifle x6)

10 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Add Kroot Hounds; Kroot Rifle x10)
7 Kroot Hounds

10 Kroot Carnivore Squad (Add Kroot Hounds; Kroot Rifle x10)
4 Kroot Hounds

2 Piranha Light Skimmer (Fusion Blaster x2; Gun Drones x4; Disruption Pod x1; Targeting Array x2)
2 Gun Drones (Twin Linked Pulse Carbines)

2 Piranha Light Skimmer (Burst Cannon x1; Fusion Blaster x1; Gun Drones x4; Targeting Array x1)
2 Gun Drones (Twin Linked Pulse Carbines)





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But it's not so much about what you put in your list--that's just the starting place. It's also knowing how to play the list using a defense-in-depth. Even a good list won't win games unless one understands how to use it.

I guess Ive only been playing for a month so i need more practice.

Is moving fire warriors forward in a Devil fish a good idea or leave the point capturing to the kroot?

Capture the point with Kroot and use the FWs still mounted in the Devilfish to hold or contest it. They are faster and less vulnerable to most things than Kroot.

The 1,000 point list suggested above should do pretty well against mechanized armies but it is weak against hordes.

It has to be admitted that Tau are currently one of the two weakest armies in the game.

Cheers guys, I am definately going to stop at 1000pts, at least I have an army ready if they revamp the codex in the future. Not sure what the next army will be, might wait for Grey Knights.

An investment in a Warhammer 40k army is never a bad investment.

If concerned it may not stand up to newer, shinier armies, you can always wait for a codex update, honing your skills in the meantime to get the feel of a Tau army.

If a monetary waste, you could always trade the army's equivalent cost for another force on a trade website.

Tau are fairly uncompetitive. They will lose to things like space wolves and blood angels. However, they are still playable, and can be a fun army.

I would not recommend the list that flavious posted. It does not have enough long range anti tank. The Piranhas will kill a tank and then get destroyed, leaving you with missile pods which just do not get the job done. I recommend more broadsides. Skyrays can also work. Hammerheads only have one shot, and always seem to miss when you need it. I would keep one Piranha, just for mobility.

I would also skip the kroot hounds. Kroot will lose in assault. Their lack of armor does them in.

If you look around you will find the main tau list archetypes. I like ninja tau with all of the deep striking. It is a blast. There is mech tau with lots of fishes. Pinning tau with markerlights. The most boring and ineffective gunline tau.

TLOS nerfed suits hard. I always hear people say how awesome are Tau but I always see them getting blown away at tournies.

If you drop all the plasma from the suits (it's short-ranged and overpriced anyway) and leave them with twinlinked missiles, that frees up enough points to put in some broadside suits for long-range antitank. Take out transports when theyr'e further away, and you have more time to shoot the guys as they approach.

Also the hounds aren't there to fight--the kroot aren't supposed to get stuck in assault. The purpose of the kroot units is to block/interdict things that are getting too close to your firebase. The hounds are there because they take up just as much space as a kroot, but are cheaper.

Space Elf - That's not brilliant advice if I'm being brutal. That 1000 Point list is pretty hard against most things aside from maybe a full company of AV14 tanks. It's also knowing how to play it, Tau are not a forgiving army and you will get smashed to pieces if you just charge in like a loony.

Kroot are one of the best units Tau can field! They are NOT used as an assault unit. They are used as a speed bump or "annoyance" unit. Stick them in cover near an objective or infiltrate them as close as possible to force your enemy back. Squads of 10 with 5 Hounds (I5 too so will go first against most normal units) for 100 points are cheap. They are good screening other units providing assault barriers and cover saves to units behind. Spread them 2" and look in delight as Deepstriking armies cannot get behind your Kroot Castle wall!!!

Piranha again are one of the most undervalued units we can field. They are great at providing mobile cover screens and also using their Drones as great back field annoyance. Give it a DP (as if you wouldn't give any of your tanks a DP) and turbo boost it up the table. Your opponent will just look a bit weird at you like "wtf is he doing with Tau and being aggressive" let him shoot those and that will keep your most important units, the Crisis suits and Broadsides alive for another turn.

All in all we are very under powered for a "shooty" army but what we do well is being mobile enough to react to most threats and put pinpoint firepower where you need it.

Can't wait for a bloody Codex update though ;-)

I remember playing Tau a few days after they were released in 3rd ed. They were super broken and now I laugh at those people who invested in Tau just to have their army get nerfed to the point people are quitting Tau and losing their money. There's more to the game than winning.

OP: If you enjoy your army, you didn't waste your money. I met a guy on the weekend who plays Tau while loudly whining about how he can't win. He won a game while whining.

I am a 'nid player and always will be, even if they become the weakest army in the game. Right now they have never been better in the history of the game. Things go up and down.

On a sidenote, I have played exactly 2 games against Tau. Once in 3rd, once in 4th. I got tabled both times.

You can always play in a multiplayer game, 2 on 2 or 3 on 3. Your partners can help you overcome your weaknesses.

Kroot are also very easy killpoints and they typically fold in one round of assault. To me they are another problem unit. Tau really need a new codex.

Cheers for the advice, ive never used a Pirahna before so I might consider swapping a Broadside for a DP fusion blaster one.

I have alot of issues vs Drop pod armies, they always come in and melt my devilfish and negate my mobility(i have a knack for failing armour saves).

I use 10 kroot hounds as they can turn the tide in assault(30 I5 attacks on the charge) rather than relying on I3 kroot. My issue is using them effectively. When I outflank them they turn up in the wrong place, when I infiltrate them they get burnt to pieces by flamers, when I deploy them normally they run off the board due to shoddy LD.
Help?

Im not really whining as such, I just want some advice on tactics so I can enjoy playing them. A close competative game is far more important to me than tabling somebody!

I play against a Tau player fairly regularly and I agree with the others that they are indeed, not a very competitive army on the face of it, they desperately need a new Codex as, for an army that's supposed to be all-out shooty, they aren't that great at it.

However, with a bit of practice, it is possible to make a decent list and win with them, it's taken my friend about 6 months (although he doesn't get to play that often) to get the hang of them and he's getting better all the time.

I guess playing Tau with their current Codex is always going to mostly be a labour of love.

WIB has hit it on the head.

The most bizarre stat that I have never managed to get my head around is...

Our ELITE Crisis suits are BS3...really never understood that

I play tau as my main army, and win often. There are a few things to keep in mind as tau, but the first is the need to stay mobile. I dislike pathfinders for this reason and tend to use a two steath teams with marker drones when I need markerlights.

The following is my general start for my 1500 point list for tau:

One commander with bodyguards and fusion plasma,
plus one xv8 team with TL missile pods and flamers,
two units of 3 stealth suits with two marker drones and 4 gun drones,
two units of FW with tl and bonding

Beyond that, add what you think you need. I tend to use two single hammerheads and a squad of three broadsides for my heavy slots, I have a single piranha that I bring on occasion with some seeker missiles. I might add another team of three Xv8's, ect ect.

You need to play smart and not just gunline the enemy though, keep moving with what can and force your opponent to come towards you with their forces. Setup firelanes during deployment and focus down units before moving to the next target.

As a general rule to run the units I have shown:

You use your missile pod suits for anti transports, MC and light vehicle with the ability to deal with hordes that show up, with their flamers
The HQ is your anti-hammer unit, killing TEQ, MEQ and deep striking vehicles dead.
You stealth suits should infiltrate on the sides of your army and provide markerlight support on targets since their stealth field makes it incredibly hard to shoot them. Watch for outflankers though.
Your fire warriors can either hold a position on the table for various reasons or be held in reserve.

Deathbysoup wrote:
I have alot of issues vs Drop pod armies, they always come in and melt my devilfish and negate my mobility(i have a knack for failing armour saves).

I use 10 kroot hounds as they can turn the tide in assault(30 I5 attacks on the charge) rather than relying on I3 kroot. My issue is using them effectively. When I outflank them they turn up in the wrong place, when I infiltrate them they get burnt to pieces by flamers, when I deploy them normally they run off the board due to shoddy LD.
Help?

Look at this picture from the deployment phase of a Tau army versus a daemon army:

https://picasaweb.google.com/andrewesutton/DemonsVsTau?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPZz5OWg-67_AE&feat=directlink#5355191900434307010

The red zone shows the area where it's possible for the enemy daemon units to drop. The kroot are spread out & set up in front of all the vehicles to force the daemons to deepstrike further away (outside of melta range if it were marines instead of daemons). This is sometimes called "bubblewrapping." It's one of the best ways to deploy kroot, especially when your enemy is deepstriking or podding.

Notice that the other advantage of kroot hounds is that they have bigger bases, so you can cover more area with them. But you don't want too many hounds because you need the kroot to die/break/fall back immediately after being assaulted, so you can shoot the guys who assaulted them in the ensuing turn. If your kroot/hound unit holds out for one phase and then dies in the following combat phase, the enemy immediately gets to charge toward your suits without you getting a chance to shoot them.

Never outflank kroot, always deploy them as a screen. That's the advantage of being able to infiltrate. If you have a turn or two before the enemy arrives, you can join your commander suit to the kroot unit for the first couple of turns to keep them from running off (just make sure he leaves the unit before they get crunched). They are there to sacrifice themselves and slow the enemy, giving your suits more time to kill stuff.

In fact, you might want to flip through all the pictures in that gallery for Andrew Sutton's tips on Tau deployment vs. deepstrikers.

Tau are by no means uncompetitive. They are hard to play, and they play differently from almost all other armies.

Tau have two kinds of units...the ones that shoot and the ones that die. Tau concentrate almost all of their fire power in their heavy support, elites and HQ's. Troops and fast attack are just there to buy your suits more turns of shooting.

My response to drop pod armies is to hold my entire army in reserve. Half of his pods drop and then his troops are not very mobile. Turn two your army starts to arrive unscathed. You still have to contend with his other pods but it is do able.

I stand by my previous advice of needing more long range anti tank. IG tanks, Stormravens, and Battlewagons are a real problem if you only have strength 7 guns. I would not drop the plasma from the crisis suits with all of the feel no pain that is going around. I would drop three of the four piranhas to get three broadsides.

gr1m_dan wrote:WIB has hit it on the head.

The most bizarre stat that I have never managed to get my head around is...

Our ELITE Crisis suits are BS3...really never understood that

Eldar tanks, with the most advanced fire-control technology in the galaxy, are BS3...

To op...for objective missions, Tau needs two things. Devilfish for scoring, and something fast, like Piranha, for contesting.

I've always felt that lower points games suit Tau well. Battlesuits are flexible, cost-effective and configurable and at 1000 points, not all opponents have tools to quickly deal with Tau heavy units (Broadsides and/or Hammerheads). At 1000 points I wouldn't take Sky Ray. I do like Ionhead though, I think's it is very good for low points games. Pathfinders are bit so-so at low points games. OTOH, the Fish you likely have to take anyway.

Others gave solid advice about dealing with deep strikers. However, don't castle up too tight. Because if something goes wrong, enemy may get multi-assaults or surround you, and then you have no escape. Tau are mobile, but they are not fast: tanks can't move flat-out, suits can only move 6" in regular moving phase.

It would be great if you somehow got the enemy to split up his forces, because then you can shift your focus of fire and eliminate his army piecemeal. Try to bait your enemy if possible, with deployment or with infiltrators.

I agree with Flavius on all points. Tau are a tricky army to use, but if you know how to, are competitive.

Another good resource is:
http://tauofwar.blogspot.com/

I played against him with my Chaos at the Conflict GT and he should have beaten me. He made one significant error which, combined with some good dice luck for me, allowed me to get the win. But he's a good player and fantastic painted with a lot of good advance. He also posted an article on tactics for low-points games just about a week and a half ago.

Part of me wants to say yes, but I think I might be biased because every player I've played against whos played Tau has been a total D-bag.
The other part of me says no, but that because Tau were really designed for play in a different era of the game, and their special rules show it (wow wargear that lets you pass target priority checks!) So in turn, there is a much stiffer learning curve to them.

Tau of war is very good. Also http://www.advancedtautactica.com/ is great!

gr1m_dan wrote:Our ELITE Crisis suits are BS3...really never understood that

Space marine Elite Veterans are bs 4 just like all other spacemarines...Hell the only marine with less is the newest of new recruits...

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As with the Tau bit. Tau is a more difficult army to play. Its about positioning and luring the opponents and slowing down the enemy. You need to slow the enemy so that they don't slaughter your guys in close combat.. because they will. Luring people to fire at one thing and not at your other things, or baiting them with a killpoint kroot unit so they don't charge into your firewarriors... baiting with a hammerhead in order to keep your broadsides alive... etc. This works best against people who don't READ the tau codex or know much about them... but can work with others. Tau also can be super mobile. Jetpacks are ridiculous. Especially with units that can fire heavy weaponry.

I've been looking at buying up a 1500pt tau army at sometime in the future. I plan to use mainly firewarriors, broadsuits, drones, hammerheads/devilfish, and maybe a few piranhas. I don't like kroot. I just don't... I'm sure they're useful but I just don't like them. I like the firewarriors because they have the best troop-infantry rapid fire weapon.

Some things that might help you... If your going to use the kroot than follow what the others have said about it. If I was you I'd be utilizing the firepower of the warriors early on. I tend to play on 6x4 boards...so hiding on the edge of deployment means you can pretty much shoot to the beginning of their deployment.. Too good for me to ignore.. Devilfishing across the map near the end to take objectives is an alright choice... My strategy (I use with marines >.&gt I overwhelm them early with firepower and spread my units out across wide enough that they can't assault EVERYTHING. They have to choose what to head to. A major point in this game (that most people I run into don't really think about as much) is positioning. For tau thats a huge deal. Bait into a trap, have firepower in position, and stay out of range of opponent.

Thats my 2 cents though.

Kilkrazy wrote:It has to be admitted that Tau are currently one of the two weakest armies in the game.

This, is what YOU think, and it's definitely the worst advice you can give to the OP.

At OP: At a amateur or intermediate level of playing, Tau is a very tough army to use. So don't be surprised you lose often.

At higher level of playing (once you get really good with your Tau with LOTS of experience), you will find yourself winning most of the time, even against opponent's with the SAME experience level.
Majority will tell you Tau is one of the weakest codex, but that's because the majority are not playing Tau at a higher level. That being said, I m not pretending Tau is better than SW or IG. But it is definitely middle tier or close to tier 1.

Also, Tau cannot scale well at low level point games. So don't expect to do well at 1k point. You will ultimately have to scale up to at least 1750 points.

striderx wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:It has to be admitted that Tau are currently one of the two weakest armies in the game.

This, is what YOU think, and it's definitely the worst advice you can give to the OP.

At OP: At a amateur or intermediate level of playing, Tau is a very tough army to use. So don't be surprised you lose often.

At higher level of playing (once you get really good with your Tau with LOTS of experience), you will find yourself winning most of the time, even against opponent's with the SAME experience level.
Majority will tell you Tau is one of the weakest codex, but that's because the majority are not playing Tau at a higher level. That being said, I m not pretending Tau is better than SW or IG. But it is definitely middle tier or close to tier 1.

Also, Tau cannot scale well at low level point games. So don't expect to do well at 1k point. You will ultimately have to scale up to at least 1750 points.

Exactly, the tau are not a herp derp space marine army where you can just bum-rush your opponent or a "so-easy-a-monkey-could-do-it" guard army, you need to actually be playing, thinking and planning out your moves.

If a few of the newer, and more popular codexes are like playing checkers, tau is like playing chess, 3-d chess at that.

juraigamer wrote:If a few of the newer, and more popular codexes are like playing checkers, tau is like playing chess, 3-d chess at that.

An army that's harder to play doesn't mean it has more depth; it is just harder to play. Tau have a dramatically lower ceiling on their effectiveness, and a much higher relative skill requirement to get there. Saying stuff like quote is less useful than saying Tau aren't good, because the former is damn near a lie.

You've played 6 games, several of which were against regular players. 40k is a game that crushes new players, especially those who start with armies that are inherently single-minded. If you want to learn to play Tau really well, look at Stelek's blog. It just sounds like you don't have enough experience under your belt.

DarkHound wrote:

juraigamer wrote:If a few of the newer, and more popular codexes are like playing checkers, tau is like playing chess, 3-d chess at that.

An army that's harder to play doesn't mean it has more depth; it is just harder to play. Tau have a dramatically lower ceiling on their effectiveness, and a much higher relative skill requirement to get there.

I disagree with this part of your post. While their particular tactics and positioning are indeed challenging to learn, I don't think it's "much higher"; the top players of pretty much any army all learn that level of positioning and maneuver. And I disagree about the "dramatically" lower ceiling; Tau can reliably take apart some good armies, between AP1 railguns, Missile Pods to crack transports, Plasma and just wound saturation for marines, and Pathfinders to negate cover.


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DarkHound wrote:

juraigamer wrote:If a few of the newer, and more popular codexes are like playing checkers, tau is like playing chess, 3-d chess at that.

An army that's harder to play doesn't mean it has more depth; it is just harder to play. Tau have a dramatically lower ceiling on their effectiveness, and a much higher relative skill requirement to get there.

I disagree with this part of your post. While their particular tactics and positioning are indeed challenging to learn, I don't think it's "much higher"; the top players of pretty much any army all learn that level of positioning and maneuver. And I disagree about the "dramatically" lower ceiling; Tau can reliably take apart some good armies, between AP1 railguns and fusion, Missile Pods to crack transports, Plasma and just wound saturation for marines, kroot and pirhanas for movement interdiction, and Pathfinders to negate cover.