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I might be starting tau one day, admittedly watching Gundam I got inspiration for the battle suits, but I like the look of the battle suits anyway (and I was reading a web comic with tau in it). I was wondering if you people have any tips, like how they play, whats good and whats bad, and so on.

-Thanks in advance.

What web comic? Cause I'm interested in Tau too.

advancedtautactica.com

awesome website, these are the pros.

But i can tell you that mobile firepower is what tau are all about and you better play to that strength because they don't have many. Crisis teams are your best friend. Bring as many suits as you can. firewarriros should be taken in the minimum units of 6 and you should probably run 3 at 1500 points. You need to be able to claim objectives.

The trick is to shoot and then move out of fire so that your opponent cant return as he approaches move your forces away from his and keep shooting. make sure you put those upgrades on your ships so they can fly flat out and still shoot everything. be mobile is the biggest thing i can stress here, if he gets in combat with you your dead. I dont care how bad his warriors are, 2 termaguants almost defeated a full squad of my crisis suits.

http://eatatau.smackjeeves.com/comics/1186070/may-the-light-be-ii/
at the bottom of the image, a giant battle suit, who needs more inspiration then that.

The first page is here: http://eatatau.smackjeeves.com/comics/707924/000-eatatau/

DukeBadham wrote:http://eatatau.smackjeeves.com/comics/1186070/may-the-light-be-ii/
at the bottom of the image, a giant battle suit, who needs more inspiration then that.

The first page is here: http://eatatau.smackjeeves.com/comics/707924/000-eatatau/

Ah eatatau (eat a tau) is a nice commic. Plays a little fast and lose with cannon, but we are OK with that. The correcter in me wants to point out that it's actually more like tau recreation of SM terminator armor.

With the tau, you also want to look up so magnet guides. They are easily magnetized and you will regret it if you don't do them.

For the battle suits I imagine. with the lots of weapon options.
Also, when you combine tau and SM tech, you get some bad-ass machines

DukeBadham wrote:For the battle suits I imagine. with the lots of weapon options.
Also, when you combine tau and SM tech, you get some bad-ass machines

Suits and I also did it to my hammerhead/devilish/skyray. Some green stuff and magnets means I can deploy my tank in any configuration I want. Thats another thing. The skyray box has all the parts to build the hammerhead and it cost less some times.

Hammerheads, Broadside suits, and Crisis suits are the best options right now. Fire Warriors in Devilfishes are expensive but can do alright with markerlight support. Piranhas are cool but when you already have broadsides and hammerheads with railguns, the extra tank-hunting ability is a little unnecessary.

Brother SRM wrote:Hammerheads, Broadside suits, and Crisis suits are the best options right now. Fire Warriors in Devilfishes are expensive but can do alright with markerlight support. Piranhas are cool but when you already have broadsides and hammerheads with railguns, the extra tank-hunting ability is a little unnecessary.

I would argue that Piranhas are badly needed because the number of at shots in a tau army is actually pretty low, especialy when it comes to dealing with mechspam.

Piranhas serve as fast mobile cover more than tank hunting.

If you are playing tau, then invest in crisis suits....lots and lots of crisis suits.

I always roll with Plasma Rifle Missile Pod Targeting Array suits. PR is 24" rapid fire STR 6 AP 2, and all suits have relentless so rapid fire is full 24" 1 shot even when moving. Missile Pods are 36" Str 7 AP 4 Heavy 2 (I believe..)

Next investment is 3 Broadsides. These guys are your Anti Tank. Sash'o with Iridium Armor (2+ save) and the team leader and sash'o should all have 2 shield drones, giving you 4 Invuls in this unit.

2 Railhead's (Railgun Hammerheads) will give you a good mix of anti tank and anti horde.

Try to stay away from stealth suits, they seem awesome but in play they are to costly for what they do unless they are a dedicated markerlight unit (which gets expensive)

Any other questions just ask.

I had an idea, basically, have a unit of kroot, with hounds and all that, put them behind my fire warriors, and when my fire warriors get charged, charge with my kroot. Is that terrible, okay or any good.

DukeBadham wrote:I had an idea, basically, have a unit of kroot, with hounds and all that, put them behind my fire warriors, and when my fire warriors get charged, charge with my kroot. Is that terrible, okay or any good.

Why aren't your Fire Warriors in a Devilfish?
Also, Kroot suck pretty badly in CC (no PW, no armour save, terrible Ld, mediocre everything else) and will usually die unless it's Guardsmen that have charged you.

TrollPie wrote:Also, Kroot suck pretty badly in CC (no PW, no armour save, terrible Ld, mediocre everything else) and will usually die unless it's Guardsmen that have charged you.

Even then they lose to power blobs.

I haven't started my army yet, just wanted advice, thanks guys for your help

Kroot are good for bubble wraps, wrap your broadsides for an extra turn or two of shooting.

DukeBadham wrote:I had an idea, basically, have a unit of kroot, with hounds and all that, put them behind my fire warriors, and when my fire warriors get charged, charge with my kroot. Is that terrible, okay or any good.

You don't want your Fire Warriors getting charged in the first place. They'll probably get wiped in that first round of CC, which means either the dedicated assault unit is going to consolidate out of your charge range or is just going to be tough enough to kill you anyway.

If you have a unit thats getting charged while playing tau, you WANT them to die, or run.

Why? So you can shoot whatever charged them next turn.

I recently learned an ethereal allows you to re-roll all leadership tests. Even successful ones. I forced a unit to fail and run last game just to shoot the crap outta what killed me.

A few bottom lines with tau:

Always take battlesuits
Broadsides are your friends
Hammerheads serve excellent troop killy power
Keep moving
In higher point games, markerlights

As far as using kroot to counter attack, instead simple use the kroot to wall off your firewarriors and rapid fire your opponent, unless they are closing in with flamers, in which case charge if possible.

I have been testing my kroot recently and I've been using kroot hounds as wound sinks so I can keep a good 30 shots coming from the unit normally.

Broadsides are your friend.....
Hammerheads are great.....but often seem to miss.....
Crisis Suits are your best options....but their low numbers are a detriment....always Bond the squads.....Bond every Suit/FW unit that allows it.

My favorite Crisis squad is the Deathrain (TL Missile Pods with TA). People would say to give them Flamers for the Template but i like the almost guaranteed 6 St7 hits per turn. It is either 162pts or 167pts for the three suits.

In low point games, is the rail gun better then the ion cannon on a hammerhead, against space marines.
I do have some broadsides as well.

This one is much better:

http://heavyink.com/title/3418-Warhammer-40K-Fire-Honor

Were Tau get owned by Imperial Guard.

1) Shoot it
2) Shoot it again
3) If it gets close shoot it more
4) shoot while running away
5) if it aint dead, you are



I probably dont play to uber high standards, but I have been doing ok so far at my gaming club. I prefer a gun line because I like firewarrior models. My general rule for myself is focus fire and choose faster or close units over longer range units. Broadsides will take out most tanks for me, and afterwards the missiles arnt bad i guess.
I tend to use only one suit at low points and just kit it out with tonnes of low ap stuff for MEQs.

But really I just have a laugh cause man its good when firewarriors kill marine bikers with powerfists in close combat...

DukeBadham wrote:In low point games, is the rail gun better then the ion cannon on a hammerhead, against space marines.
I do have some broadsides as well.

While the ion cannon is pretty decent, the rail gun is just soooo much better. Honestly the only reason to take the ion cannon is if you want another high av target on the field but don't have the points for an ion cannon.

I don't agree that Kroot are terrible in close combat. They die really easily, yes, however on the charge they get a boat load of attacks, and they have WS4 and Str4, so they do fairly well when striking against most things. So against things that have lower armor saves, or units that pay a premium for power weapons, they can do fairly well. Of course you shouldn't expect to be winning all sorts of fights with kroot.

PraetorDave wrote:

DukeBadham wrote:In low point games, is the rail gun better then the ion cannon on a hammerhead, against space marines.
I do have some broadsides as well.

While the ion cannon is pretty decent, the rail gun is just soooo much better. Honestly the only reason to take the ion cannon is if you want another high av target on the field but don't have the points for an ion cannon.

I don't agree that Kroot are terrible in close combat. They die really easily, yes, however on the charge they get a boat load of attacks, and they have WS4 and Str4, so they do fairly well when striking against most things. So against things that have lower armor saves, or units that pay a premium for power weapons, they can do fairly well. Of course you shouldn't expect to be winning all sorts of fights with kroot.

So you take an Ionhead for when you cannot afford an Ionhead?


good natured nitpicking aside, I agree on the Railhead VS IonHead arguement. The Ion Cannon is good for MEQs, MCs, and Light Tanks. Tau have enough Weapons to deal with those on the Battlesuits. the Railhead is good against all tanks and Light Infantry, the important part being light Infantry. The Tau do not put out enough shots to deal with IG, Orkz, or Nid Swarm without the Railhead. We can take care of light vehicles, MEQ, TEQ, and MCs. We have very little for Light Infantry and Heavy Vehicles.

Thranriel wrote:1) Shoot it
2) Shoot it again
3) If it gets close shoot it more
4) shoot while running away
5) if it aint dead, you are



I probably dont play to uber high standards, but I have been doing ok so far at my gaming club. I prefer a gun line because I like firewarrior models. My general rule for myself is focus fire and choose faster or close units over longer range units. Broadsides will take out most tanks for me, and afterwards the missiles arnt bad i guess.
I tend to use only one suit at low points and just kit it out with tonnes of low ap stuff for MEQs.

But really I just have a laugh cause man its good when firewarriors kill marine bikers with powerfists in close combat...

For you maybe! *mutter mutter*

EDIT: On the serious side (got distracted by my bad fortune!) Having played as and played against Tau, I can say that they are a really good force to play with, they're manouverable, and they throw out horrendous amounts of firepower. The only downside is that they aren't great in combat, but Kroot go a long way to counter balance this.

Brother SRM wrote:

DukeBadham wrote:I had an idea, basically, have a unit of kroot, with hounds and all that, put them behind my fire warriors, and when my fire warriors get charged, charge with my kroot. Is that terrible, okay or any good.

You don't want your Fire Warriors getting charged in the first place. They'll probably get wiped in that first round of CC, which means either the dedicated assault unit is going to consolidate out of your charge range or is just going to be tough enough to kill you anyway.

Yeah, any Tau unit in combat is a lost cause.

its actually best to get all your unengaged units away while the combat is going on and the enemy is distracted so you can keep shooting them. Basically use the unit as a speed bump.


the only Tau unit that can actually win CC are the Crisis Suits, and then only against enemies that arn't carrying power weapons(especially fists) Str5 and 3+ armor can carry the day, but only so far.

Tau are amazing fun to play!

Some things to buy should include but are not limited too:

2 Shas'El/O
6 Crisis Battlesuits
12 Shield Drones
24 Firewarriors
3 Devilfish
6 Broadsides
1 Hammerhead
2 Piranhas
8 Pathfinders


Pretty much everything else is optional and heavily dependent on playstyle, tons of dudes will suggest Kroot/Hounds/Snipers etc and if used correctly all can be effective for different situations.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:Tau are amazing fun to play!

Some things to buy should include but are not limited too:

2 Shas'El/O
6 Crisis Battlesuits
12 Shield Drones
24 Firewarriors
3 Devilfish
6 Broadsides
1 Hammerhead
2 Piranhas
8 Pathfinders


Pretty much everything else is optional and heavily dependent on playstyle, tons of dudes will suggest Kroot/Hounds/Snipers etc and if used correctly all can be effective for different situations.

I wouldn't go that far. Most of those things are heavily dependent on playstyle, especially shield drones, piranha, and firewarriors. I only use 12 firewarriors at 1500, no shield drones, and no piranhas. Also why would you buy the pathfinders instead of just putting pulse carbines on firewarrior models. They are cheaper.
I would change your list to:
1 battleforce
1 HQ suit
5 crisis suits
1 skyray box
2 broadsides

Everything after THAT is dependent on playstyle and that will give you a decent force to put down to then really decide how you want to play.

If you're thinking of playing Tau the main staples in the army are:

1) Fire Warriors
2) Crisis Suits
3) Hammerheads
4) Broadsides

I personally do not field Broadsides because they're too slow and I'm a mech Tau Army.

There's also a few units that are actually worthwhile to field, just not en masse.

Pathfinders are probably the most worthwhile Fast attack in the Army currently with their markerlights, coupled with giving all your fire warriors Pulse Carbines in a Devilfish, the results are fantastic.

The poor Pulse Carbine is a rather unsung hero, unfortunately.

StormForged wrote:
The poor Pulse Carbine is a rather unsung hero, unfortunately.

That's because pinning so seldom works. Most units in the game are LD8, 9, or 10, or fearless altogether. If you could pin units with some reliability (thanks to marker lights) you could actually shut down a squad here and there. As is right now though, I'd take pulse rifles every time.