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I'm going to be playing my first game soon and I have the Tau battleforce to start with which has 1 fire warrior squad, 1 kroot squad, a devil fish, a stealth suit team, a battlesuit and 4 drones. This comes up to a 500 pt army i believe, and while i'm not expecting to have some great big victory on my first game, I would like to know any cool tactics that would help me not sluaghtered!

Use the kroot as meat shields/fodder.

Keep them back and charge an enemy CC unit that is attempting to catch your other units. they should buy you enough time to escape with everyone else.


if someone does get caught, don't be a hero. Let them die so everyone else can live. use the time to escape.

When you're placing terrain get some forests out there. A kroot in a forest has space marine armor and bolters. Generally you'd only run 6 firewarriors in a D-fish and keep them loaded all game jut to capture objectives, however in this case id use the devilfish as cover for your firewarriros and just unload at the enemy, 1 markerlight makes these guys really dangerous. If an enemy gets to close pack up into the D-fish and get out of there. Your battlesuit will be your commander, id keep it simple and make him a fireknife. That should deal with anything you opponent brings in a 500 point game. Make sure to give your D-fish multi trackers. The most important thing to remember is that Tau is not a static gunline army. They move and shoot, JSJ, while a special ability for the battlesuits should be the mantra of your entire cadre.

A lot of people hate on stealth suits, but they are pretty good (if overpriced). Their special rules kinda rock, so don't be afraid to stick them out in the open. Outside of 24", they are really hard to hit. Plus they can really bring the hurt against hordes, since they throw out 9 str5 shots, and can JSJ (I feel like a lot of people forget that).

Grey Templar wrote:
Keep them back and charge an enemy CC unit that is attempting to catch your other units. they should buy you enough time to escape with everyone else.

No no no. Use them to get in the way and let the enemy charge you. So when you die and run away the enemy is caught in the open for the suits/warriors to shoot at.

If you assault them....you lose and they consolidate towards you and assault your suits/warriors in their phase.

Nungunz wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Keep them back and charge an enemy CC unit that is attempting to catch your other units. they should buy you enough time to escape with everyone else.

No no no. Use them to get in the way and let the enemy charge you. So when you die and run away the enemy is caught in the open for the suits/warriors to shoot at.

If you assault them....you lose and they consolidate towards you and assault your suits/warriors in their phase.

But be careful not to keep your Firewarriors too close; otherwise the enemy might just multi-assault around or between your Kroot into their real target.

DarkHound wrote:But be careful not to keep your Firewarriors too close; otherwise the enemy might just multi-assault around or between your Kroot into their real target.

Well that's what they get for not sitting in their devilfish where they belong.


Joking (or maybe not-joking) aside, this is a very good point.

King Crow wrote:I'm going to be playing my first game soon and I have the Tau battleforce to start with which has 1 fire warrior squad, 1 kroot squad, a devil fish, a stealth suit team, a battlesuit and 4 drones. This comes up to a 500 pt army i believe, and while i'm not expecting to have some great big victory on my first game, I would like to know any cool tactics that would help me not sluaghtered!

With just a battleforce there really isn't much depth to tactics. Play keep away however long you can and fire as much as you can. Specifics depend on opponent.

Don't be surprised if you get pasted the first few times you go out. Tau have plenty of strengths, unfortunately few of them are contained in the BF, nor can you afford the points cost at such low level.

That isn't to say the BF isn't a bad deal, other than the stealth suites you will be using everything in the box every game. Expanding from here is a matter of getting the good units now you have the min required. Good units are suits, broadsides/hammerheads, pathfinders (I would paint up your FWs nicer and call them PFs), more kroot and piranha.

notabot187 wrote:

King Crow wrote:I'm going to be playing my first game soon and I have the Tau battleforce to start with which has 1 fire warrior squad, 1 kroot squad, a devil fish, a stealth suit team, a battlesuit and 4 drones. This comes up to a 500 pt army i believe, and while i'm not expecting to have some great big victory on my first game, I would like to know any cool tactics that would help me not sluaghtered!

With just a battleforce there really isn't much depth to tactics. Play keep away however long you can and fire as much as you can. Specifics depend on opponent.

Don't be surprised if you get pasted the first few times you go out. Tau have plenty of strengths, unfortunately few of them are contained in the BF, nor can you afford the points cost at such low level.

That isn't to say the BF isn't a bad deal, other than the stealth suites you will be using everything in the box every game. Expanding from here is a matter of getting the good units now you have the min required. Good units are suits, broadsides/hammerheads, pathfinders (I would paint up your FWs nicer and call them PFs), more kroot and piranha.

I agree, the BF is really limiting the best of what the Tau have to offer. If you can get your steal suits in cover, don't throw them out to get torn up. Use your kroot to lure out the enemy. Then let your opponent get caught in the Tau crossfire. Shoot. Ensure the kroot tie up whatever threat is coming for your fire warriors. I hear people complain about Tau, but they still rock at shooting armies apart. The kroot are not to expensive but in your 500 point game, it will kind of sting if you just throw them into autofire range. When you do expand, you really can't go wrong with always fielding a Hammerhead. Pathfinders are amazing, and maker lights make things die in the shooting phase REAL fast. PF with rail rifle that had a marker light hit the target. Always awesome. Also in 1500 point games make sure to always have a solid 3 man battle suit squad. Cannot go wrong with battlesuits!

Well,you need MOAR BATHUL SEWTS! MOAR BROWDSIJDS AND MOAR DAKKA!

(i guess thats what boreal would say if he were tau)
Seriously though.
For HQ you need a 'el with TA to boost his.
in the Elite section you should have suits and lots off em. This is where you sink your points. I'm not a big fan off FK, i like my suits more specifick, but many are. Deathrain is also a popular config.
Troops usualy include 1-2 krootsquad for bubblewrap and 1-2 FW squads for objective grabing.
As for Fast attack you will want Pathfinders for markerlights and piraahas for blocking units.
In Heavy Support you want Broadsides and Hammerheads for S10 AP1.
That is what a "standard" Tau army looks like. Just look around the forums and you will cach it upp pretty quickly.

You might want to buy the Hammerhead upgrade for your D-fish. When deploying on a board without forest/ jungle terrain, deploy the two 6 man FW teams 24" apart, with the Kroot in between, and the HH behind the Kroot. This way the Kroot will act as a counter attack in the situation that the FW's get attacked and also can tarpit MC's rampaging toward your HH long enough for it to relocate. The single Crisis won't be all that effective, so work it in conjunction with the Stealths, hopping around with their jetpacks, blasting goons and generally slowing down and destroying enemies while your HH and FW's blow the rest away.

Why seperate the fire warriors into 2 squads? not that i disagree i'm just curious.

Because they will still put down the same amount of fire, and will be able to shoot at differennt targets. When taking fire, a 12 man FW squad will in most cases take enough fire to cause them to take Ld check, and they willprobably run away. Small squads don't have this problem, as they tend to just get wiped out (in addition, don't use the two small squads in anihilation). An example is this: a10 man psybolt ammo GK squad shoots your FW's, causing seven kills. If they shoot at a large FW unit they gain 7 kills and could then rout the others as a result, taking down more of your points. At a six man FW team, they are not only denied the seventh kill, but there is also a full strength team still alive.