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Who are the "best" allies to take. I know it is a matter of playing style, but I am a new player and so have not established a playing style, so I am just asking for your opinions. Thanks in advance!

Indeed it does.

Necrons and GKs compliment Tau well. Both add solid bodies and can help minimize CC and flyer liability

It says it in the subject—Tau

Well for starters you should figure out how you like to play, what your general army list will be then see if you even need allies.

If you want allies for allies sake then its whatever you want other than nids

Eldar.

Eldrad/ farseer for prescience, and jetbike guardians for troops that can zoom onto objectives in the 5th/ 6th turn, something tau severely lack.

I've found that Orks work well as a Tau ally. Throw out a big, nasty CC unit for the enemy to fight, and your Tau will rarely take significant casualties, allowing them to keep up the pressure on opponents.

I know they're pricey, but I've found that having a unit of Nob bikers as a fast-moving CC threat is quite the boon for Tau.

Eldar. Eldrad shuts down all those nasty psychic powers. plus he gets to roll on divination powers so very beneficial to a shooty army. i really like TL with firing overwatch at full BS.

I'd say Necrons or Orks. What you'd be taking in allies is beefy stuff. Orks will drown them in bodies, necrons just get back up. Both can compliment shooting well, I put a bunch of immortals and an Overlord in a ghost ark for allies.

Another good ally choice would be IG actually. you've got the opportunity for 200 guys in the allies FOC, and taking an astropath in the CCS allows you to have a better farsight bomb.

I say Space Marines. In Drop Pods. If you want to keep it small, you can take all your compulsory selections in a single Deep Striking unit, and just build up from there. The pods allow you to place your business behind enemy lines, which can really help to delay your opponent's advance towards your considerably more fragile Tau. Since they're Battle Brothers, they can even benefit from each other's wargear or special rules (wording permitting). I've run a couple of hybrid Salamander/Tau lists and had some decent success with them.

Ork's, they are like, kroot on steriod's, and give you a buffer unit for your shooting. Nothing quite like a pair of 30 man boy'z squad's to get in the way of the enemy's approach. Give them shoota's, and just sit them there, joining in the fancy tau-dakka, and smacking up anyone who comes too close to your gunline.

Thx

I quite like taking my Space Wolves with my Tau. They add a bit of character and bring some much need choppy to the Tau stat lines