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I know a large part of it stems from balancing but if you read their fluff, they are at least as good at CC as humans, they study and practice martial arts constantly as part of their mantra.
Although it also says they find the whole thing abhorrent admittedly.
So why aren't they imperial guard average?

Imperial Guardsmen are in the peak of human physical fitness and well-versed and experienced in brutal hand-to-hand combat, Tau do space yoga and avoid close combat if at all possible.

Probably because of the "finding it abhorrent" part. A lot of people can practice martial arts but actually hitting someone else is quite another thing.

Or maybe the MA training is more ceremonial than actually useful in a real fight. Very few actually have full contact sparring, and even there they have rules to follow. You often also get more points for doing some impressive manuever in such arts. Triple-spin kicks look damn nice at MA demonstration shows but trying one when someone's punching your face doesn't really help a lot.

IG tend to hold their ground when being charged and will duke it out if necessary (or face being shot for retreating).

Tau on the other hand do not see falling back as cowardice/weakness. The Tau know they are better at shooting then CC so they avoid it when possible - it doesn't matter if they are the same strength and size as a human.... they just don't get enough practice in CC to be comparable.

Also the fact that while they may train a lot, they are still just a fish-man. That's like me training my carp for its whole life how to do martial arts, then complaining when it can't beat up a six year old. (Totally not reducio-ad-absurdum-ing anything...)

I don't imagine them as just flailing their limbs and shouting in CC, rather that their CC training is pretty ritualistic and rigid, thus not containing much in the way of practical advice.

Tau are, slightly, physically weaker than humans. They realize they are not made for close quarter fighting compared to other species.

Being fragile, it is their natural instinct to be as far from their enemy as possible. even another Tau. Maybe they have a more vulnerable body compared to humans(not as strong a ribcage or skull protecting the squishy bits) so that even another Tau could easily damage another.

This would give a preference for ranged combat.

Tau are also I2 in the game. This means they have much slower reflexes than other races, on par with orks. Even a human can move with astonishing speed and dexterity, an Eldar would be impossible to track.


So, a combination of biological vulnerability along with sub-standard melee training all results in Tau being ws2.

Tau have poor reflexes [WS/I] in close combat and I also heard that they find it disonerable.

Also there's no point to get in CC if it means you can't shoot the enemy .

I've always viewed that whenever a Tau manages to kill anything in melee its because he accidentally discharged his weapon at point blank range, not because he was able to punch his opponent dead.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Imperial Guardsmen are in the peak of human physical fitness and well-versed and experienced in brutal hand-to-hand combat, Tau do space yoga and avoid close combat if at all possible.

This, and

 Grey Templar wrote:
I've always viewed that whenever a Tau manages to kill anything in melee its because he accidentally discharged his weapon at point blank range, not because he was able to punch his opponent dead.

This! I'm a huge Tau fan but these two things basically nail it down for me.

Practicing martial arts can come in many forms() from just repeating forms until you are blue in the face (lol ) to being hit by bamboo to toughen you up or actually fighting one another as training.

The Tau, i bet, do not practice actually hitting each other because they dont want anyone suffering injuries. Which is why i always picture it as a Tau member dodging a strike and pulling the trigger rather than whacking someone with his rifle or stabbing him with a bonding knife.

my 2 cents

Martial arts training is probably nothing compared to the intense training that Space Marines, Aspect Warriors, Wyches, Incubi, Khornate Daemons and the other CC adept soldiers receive. Even Orks beating the snot out of each other constantly put them in better fighting shape than Tau.

Haha trying to get rules to completely reflect an armies fluff is funny. I mean an Ork nob, supposedly tough as nails, has the same toughness and wounds as a Grey Knight Assassin, which is a human. Also tau shouldn't complain about combat since they are one of the armies in sixth that contributes to the over-all disfranchising of most assault armies.

 Wilytank wrote:
Martial arts training is probably nothing compared to the intense training that Space Marines, Aspect Warriors, Wyches, Incubi, Khornate Daemons and the other CC adept soldiers receive. Even Orks beating the snot out of each other constantly put them in better fighting shape than Tau.

To be fair, the OP isn't askng why they're not as good as dedicated melee units - just why they're below average. So you should instead be reeling off units like Guardsmen, Termagants, Cultists, Guardians, etc.

Even compared to those. Tau wouldn't stack up. Their 'martial arts', as the very second post said, would be more akin to space yoga, not actual combat training. More of an excercise in discipline than actually learning to fight.

Guardsmen are again, as said by the same person, humans at the peak of their combat prowess, battle hardened through numerous campaigns, and actively engage in combat during those campaigns, then train properly when not on campaign. Cultists willingly attack in melee because they tend to not have much better for fighting - an enthusiastic fighter is going to have an advantage over an unenthusiastic fighter. Termatants, despite being near the bottom of the Tyranids combat bioform food chain, are still organisms designed to kill either with their gun or with their claws and teeth, whatever gets it done, driven forward by an uncaring hive mind. Guardians aren't professional soldiers, but they are very old and experienced, and probably have had trodden an aspect path for a while before returning to civilian life.

Tau just don't stack up to other races basic troops in melee training or even sheer enthusiasm or drive for fighting in melee. They're trained to shoot you first, shoot you again, and if you get too close, fall back and shoot you again.

Two words: game balance. Tau have to auto-die in combat because they're so good at shooting. In "reality" combat would rarely happen, and even if something got into chainsword range the surviving Tau would fall back and continue shooting instead of stubbornly fighting back until they are wiped out. But because GW for some reason wants melee fighting to be a big part of the game Tau get locked in combat and die.

Tau do fall back, they fall back a lot in fact.

I think that I remember an answer in that Xenology book (of dubious canon status, even mroeso than most continually conflicting GW products, so take it as you will).

They said that tau eyes are really not suited for depth perception or changing their focus particularly quickly. Apparently they developed from planes herbivores like cows or somesuch (makes sense with the hooves I guess) that are used to staring off into the distance in a wide arc all day. This also explains why they're BS3 when all they do is train to shoot. By themselves they'd be about BS 1.5, but their helmets fancy optics and their amazing training routine bring them up to human average

Those Tau really are the most worthless race in the galaxy who somehow managed to get their hands on some of the most destructive technology that isn't incredibly rare/misunderstood.

TableTopJosh wrote:
Haha trying to get rules to completely reflect an armies fluff is funny. I mean an Ork nob, supposedly tough as nails, has the same toughness and wounds as a Grey Knight Assassin, which is a human. Also tau shouldn't complain about combat since they are one of the armies in sixth that contributes to the over-all disfranchising of most assault armies.

You may as well compare a Grey Knight Assassin to a Grey Knight Terminator. The grey knight assassin would have more wounds than the terminator, who is supposed to be the most elite of the space marines.

I like to imagine that the Tau martial arts strongly resembles a honorable martial art, called Parkour.

 gnoise wrote:
I like to imagine that the Tau martial arts strongly resembles a honorable martial art, called Parkour.

Parkour is more movement-training/obstacle course than a martial art, imo.

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 gnoise wrote:
I like to imagine that the Tau martial arts strongly resembles a honorable martial art, called Parkour.

Parkour is more movement-training/obstacle course than a martial art, imo.

This is not an argument you want to get into with someone who does parkour (I know someone who does).

However, again, Tau Martial Arts would be less about the combat side of it and more about the discipline side of it.

My thoughts would align with some of the others that they don't actually practice hitting one another or if they do sticking to a rigid set of moves with each other. Combine that with the whole honor thing and they are at a disadvantage if you have ever been in a fight you know how allot of things you know how to do get thrown out the window real fast and it becomes improv something I think the tau might have issue with. On the honor side well if I am in a fight with a good friend ya sure I would not throw sand in his eyes or kick the family jewels but otherwise the goal is to go home and you use anything to give you the advantage that will make sure that happens.

TableTopJosh wrote:
Haha trying to get rules to completely reflect an armies fluff is funny. I mean an Ork nob, supposedly tough as nails, has the same toughness and wounds as a Grey Knight Assassin, which is a human. Also tau shouldn't complain about combat since they are one of the armies in sixth that contributes to the over-all disfranchising of most assault armies.

You got it wrong. Its not that the Nob is only as tough as this human, its that this superwell trained and disciplined human is as tough as a marine or Nob.

People think that Guardsmen are your every day human. No, the civilian level human would be something like a Grot but still T3 and probably not even WS2.

Guardsmen are still battle-weathered soldiers at peak non-modified body fitness. And theyre slightly bigger than Tau anyway, so that would explain the slight CC difference.

That, and balance. If Tau were even mediocre in CC (WS3 S3 1Atk per FW, or WS4 S5 2Atk per Crisis suit) and still as crazy as they are now with guns, they would be worse than the cheeseknights of old. Those stats maybe pretty low compared to other armies but gotta remember the journey before the assault is almost always in the tau's favor.

The way I have always looked at the Tau CC disparity in 40k is this..

the Tau are more like a modern Real world military..Combatives, while trained, and implemented in basic training and later allowed to be expanded on, is no where as important as shooting your enemy, CQB is all about shooting holes in your enemy, and not rolling around on the ground with them or trying to stick a knife in them.

So the Tau stats reflect this emphasis on training and doctrine, more so than some kind of physical inferiority, since Str and Toughness are the same for a basic FW and guardsman, its WS and Int that are differing, and again more of doctrine and training dis-parity in my opinion.

Modern soldiers in our world would struggle against Soldiers from older militaries from our history that stressed CC over shooting, I would not want to get in a knife fight with Roman legionnaire...., so I would shoot holes in him and move on.

The 40k Ig are made of soldiers from innumerable worlds and backgrounds, many primitive , CC would become a easy trainable skill for these levies, and seeing as the Imperium has a very disposable concept overall for their Infantry (at least in many of the regiments)..CC fits that attrition style warfare to a T, and not to mention about every foe (other than Tau) the Imperium fights all have CC specialist standard in their makeup..it again makes sense why the Average IG is better in Cc than a Tau firewarrior.

Although it is strange how surprisingly good Tau commanders become at CC, I guess they decide to practice a bit more after surviving the first couple years of combat.

So in sort in a setting where most races carry large hacking and stabby weapons, the Tau would rather not get close, and shoot those things, so they train and equip themselves as per this doctrine.

From a game design point of view, it provides an army with a number of strengths a weakness to keep them from being overpowering. It also allows them to keep the points cost per model down allowing for more models on the field which improves those strengths all the more.

Overall the design philosophy with the Tau has been to add a downside for every upside they are given. I suspect somewhere in early play testing Firewarriors had Guardsmen Stats and Battlesuits had Marine stats and the army was so horribly overpowered they had to scale it back. Even in the most recent codex you can tell where a models capabilities were scaled back after play testing. For example the Razorshark sounds like it has Vector Dancer based on the fluff text but it isn't in the rules.

From a fluff perspective, the Tau feel hand to hand combat is barbaric and abhorrent. As a result they have focused their training on fire and movement style tactics. This is why a Firewarrior has the hand to hand of an untrained human, while a guardsman, with what passes for basic training amount them, has superior hand to hand skills.

 Deadshot wrote:

TableTopJosh wrote:
Haha trying to get rules to completely reflect an armies fluff is funny. I mean an Ork nob, supposedly tough as nails, has the same toughness and wounds as a Grey Knight Assassin, which is a human. Also tau shouldn't complain about combat since they are one of the armies in sixth that contributes to the over-all disfranchising of most assault armies.

You got it wrong. Its not that the Nob is only as tough as this human, its that this superwell trained and disciplined human is as tough as a marine or Nob.

I would hesitate to call any of the Officio Assassinorum guys human anymore. They are heavily modified with gene therapies, drugs, and other stuff.

andrewm9 wrote:I would hesitate to call any of the Officio Assassinorum guys human anymore. They are heavily modified with gene therapies, drugs, and other stuff.

Given their stats they are on par with phoenix lords, shards of dead deities, and the like. I suspect your average human is represented by a statline of 2s and/or 3s, so your typical vindicare or callidus is a veritable god by comparison.

If you look at conscripts (average human male, underwent fitness training to make them battle-worthy, shown which way round to hold a lasgun), they are WS2 also. The T3 represents the fitness training. This is similar to tau in some respects, but tau are better (slightly) at shooting, because they train for that (and have to make up for physiological disadvantages, as pointed out).

Haha GK fluff is so dumb, seriously. The point is stats never truly reflect fluff, and are altered to balanced the mechanics of the game, unless your GKs and get two wounds on their terminators for some reason.

if anything alot of them need further nerfs in CC. farsight AP 2 at initiative. wth is that.