I think the reports of Tau's demise in in
v5 tournaments has been greatly exaggerated.
Can Tau win a 5th edition tournament? Absolutely. Will it require more player skill and some favorable match-ups compared to other armies out there? Definitely.
The reason for this is that I think Tau can fairly easily score a 'minor' win, it is rather more difficult (though not impossible) for them to get the maximum amount of points in the current
GT scoring system for a number of reasons I'll discuss below.
For the Las Vegas
GT, I ended up going 3-2 with the Tau, with one of those "wins" being a Kill Point draw that I won on
VPs, one 'minor' loss and one major loss. I faced two of the Toledo players, with my first game going against the Vegas champ from last year Mike (not going to try to butcher his last name). My minor loss was against Greg Sparks who ended up doing pretty well overall in the tournament (no surprise) and my major loss was against a 189 model drop Guard army who also won the roll to force me to go first (and happened to unfortunately be a seize ground mission).
I still consider myself a Tau noob, having only played a little more than a dozen games with the army. So even though I played some quality opponents and armies I know that there are several tactical errors I made in many of my games that either cost me the win (with Greg) or cost me a bigger win. Its only with the drop
IG game that I really feel like I had almost no control of the outcome of that game.
Before I go into more detail, I have to say that it is pretty ludicrous to discuss "all
v5 tournaments" because not all tournaments are created equal. How a tournament sets its mission objectives and battle point scoring can radically alter an army's ability to perform successfully.
But let's just focus on the
GT scoring for this year that essentially uses the rulebook missions, heavily rewards domination for mission objectives and yet also rewards close victories.
Every mission also has 3 bonus points that are earned by accomplishing a couple of secondary objectives like killing the Enemy Commander, having more units alive at the end of the game, killing the opponent's highest point unit, etc.
To get the maximum amount of points for each game you obviously need to accomplish these secondary objectives as well as getting a major victory, which is done by dominating the core mission objectives.
Full points in Annihilation is accomplished by scoring more than double the Kill Points your opponent does.
Full points in Capture & Control is accomplished by securing both objectives on the table.
Full points in Seize Ground is to control more than two of the table objectives (
IIRC) than your opponent does.
In Annihilation while Tau do tend to have small vulnerable units, they also have really durable vehicles and if they have any mounted units they can keep them inside their Devilfish for most of the game to prevent them being killed. I generally feel like Tau can score minor wins in Annihilation pretty easily if they have a semi-mechanized army and there are some woods on the table for their Kroot to hide in. Where Tau struggle in annihilation is the fact that they lack the ability to go hunt down any enemy units that decide to hide out the game in order to deny
VPs, although a healthy dose of Smart Missile Systems can mitigate this issue a bit.
Tau also tend to have more Kill Points available than many 'strong' Kill Point armies like big-mob Orks. That means even if you decimate the Orks you'll probably not get more than double their Kill Points unless you totally wipe them out. In conclusion I think Tau can win most Annihilation games against most armies but they will often struggle to reach the 'double'
KP mark.
In my LVGT games, I played a Space Wolf player in my second game and I did manage to double his Kill Points and score a major win. In my final game, I played an Ork player in Dawn of War who got the first turn and had two big mobs of Stormboyz coming on from the board edge as well as two big mobs (one Shoota one Choppa) starting halfway on the table. All these mobs were threatening from turn 2 onwards so it was a real challenge to wittle him down and end tying him in Kill Points. I was two Stormboyz away from wiping out one more unit and securing a win (although I did still win on Victory Points).
Capture & Control is the hardest mission for Tau to win big because it is nearly impossible for them to go out and capture your opponent's objective unless they make a major mistake or you wipe them out completely. That means you essentially have to play for the mission objective draw and win on Victory Points. Against most opponents it should be fairly routine to hold your objective and blow away whatever the enemy sends your way. Of course, this kind of
VP 'win' is exactly what makes it challenging to win the overall tournament with a Tau army.
At the LVGT, my one C&C game was against Greg Sparks and his
CSM army. He decided to make me go first and he held his entire army in reserve, outflanking with his two Chosen units in Rhinos to come get my objective. I made some horrible deployment mistakes and when the game ended on turn 5 (only 3 real turns of the game) I wasn't in the proper position to stop him from contesting my objective. If I had been in position from the start, I think I could have dispatched his flankers and then won the game on
VPs.
Seize Ground can definitely be won by the Tau most of the time. Their general mobility and the ability to keep their scoring units safe inside a transport (or in a forest for Kroot) is a powerful tool. Although again, it is hard to get the full victory as capturing objectives near the opponent's board edge can be challenging unless the area of the board is completely cleared.
In my first game against Mike's dual-lash Chaos army, I was able to squeak out very lucky win when his last squad (that was holding two objectives) failed its Ld10 morale check and run away. With that said, I don't think I played very well to maximize my ability to win the game and I could have done a much better job capturing what objectives were left and made a play to contest the objectives he had. Again, I think that comes back to my inexperience with Tau that leads me to play a bit passive at times. I think if I had played better I could have ensured a victory (or at least an objective tie) regardless of whether he passed that morale check or not.
My other Seize Ground was against the drop Guard army and like I've said several times, I really don't think I ever had a chance. *Perhaps* if I had gotten to go second I could have kept everything off the table and forced him to drop some units onto the table for me to destroy, but even then it would have been a tough game. As it happened, he dropped dozens of units on the second turn and only had *one* bad scatter which caused one of his Sentinels to be deployed by me. All the crucial elements in his army either landed on target or scattered a really favorable direction including both of his dual flamer special weapon units that promptly cooked two of my Kroot units out of a forest in one round.
In the end I was very pleased to have finished the game with any models left (3 Pathfinders and an immobilized Hammerhead), I considered that a moral victory.
If I hadn't faced an army that could totally decimate me with no chance, If I hadn't made so many tactical mistakes and if I had focused a bit more on both the main objectives and the secondary objectives I really feel as though I could have scored quite a few extra battle points, despite facing some really good opponents with pretty solid armies. Overall that makes me easily satisfied enough to bring the army back to battle again in future tournaments and try to improve my performance.
So what does a Tau army have going for it in
v5?
1) It's vehicles are nearly indestructible from enemy shooting. Besides the
IG game, I lost only a single vehicle to shooting all tournament. The new damage table plus the save from disruption pods makes them absolute damage soaks. That means the enemy has to try to come to you in order to take your vehicles out in close combat. Which is where you spring your Firewarrior squads out of their vehicles and obliterate enemy units in a hail of pulse fire.
2) Smart Missile Systems are a life-saver. Their ability to bypass intervening units/cover is amazing against hordes and against any army they are a life-saver at weeding out those last few models in an enemy unit that may try to go hide somewhere. Besides, they really allow you to keep all your vehicles in one area of the board without worrying too much about them blocking
LOS to each other. You can create a vehicle "junkyard" and still pour shots anywhere you need them within 24".
3) Battlesuits soak up some a lot of firepower. By equipping your suits differently and giving them shield drones, Battlesuit units are much, much more durable than they used to be when they actually take fire. In my army, I included a Commander in the unit with the stimulant injector (feel no pain) and always dumped the extra wounds the squad took onto him so he could negate as many wounds as possible. People also complain about the inability to hide Battlesuits anymore, but the fact is, Devilfish/Hammerheads provide a perfect place to hide your suits behind to perform
JSJ manuevers, so there really isn't any reason your suits should be shot unless you get severly outflanked or you just have to get your suits somewhere you aren't moving a vehicle.
4) Small units of Kroot are fantastic. Every
GT table has a few forests, and that means Kroot are a must now for your Tau armies. Their pathetic
Ld makes them a lock to run when they lose combat (and sometimes when they take shooting morale checks) so that means it is essential to keep their points cost low per unit (I took 3 squds of 10).
Kroot give you so many options, including outflanking and infiltrate and when you do infiltrate them into a forest you know they'll be a pain to dislodge unless your opponent has template weapons and/or an assault unit with frag grenades in the vicinity. You can keep them in the forest shooting away and just wait to be charged with their 2 Attacks meaning that when they go down they'll usually take some opponents with them.
And the fact that they *do* run when beaten in combat means you rarely then have a situation where you don't have a target to shoot at. All-in-all Kroot were just amazingly versatile and I just wish I could have included a 4th squad of 10 but I had to drop it out to take some Pathfinders.
5) Airbursting Fragmentation Projector and Hammerhead Railgun submunition shots. Fantastic against hordes. I killed absolute droves of Orks with these weapons (and the AFP ignores cover saves too!) and if I had gotten to go first in that mission I think I would have completely decimated the Ork player instead of tying on Kill Points as I ended up doing.
Of course the Tau also have some serious disadvantages:
1) Morale. The bane of Tau in 5th edition, morale can make Tau very tricky to play although I still wouldn't sink to taking an Ethereal. You can mitigate some of this by keeping your Firewarriors in their Devilfish as long as possible but you're still going to have some games where your Crisis suits, Broadsides, Kroot and Pathfinders all high-tale it and you just have to live with that fact.
Both my Crisis suit teams and my Broadsides all had bonding just because once you take drones it is pretty easy to get under the 50% mark and I always want those units to have a chance to regroup.
2) Tau vehicles are very vulnerable to
CC. You definitely can help prevent them from being destroyed by keeping your distance when possible and when not possible 'springing the trap' by dumping out your firewarriors and trying to gun-down whatever enemy unit(s) are trying to assault you. I also think I made some mistakes by not moving my Devilfish over 6" in some cases where I was trying to eek out a few extra shots when I should have realized that moving more than 6" makes a Devilfish pretty hard to hit in
CC. All it takes is for the Powerfist model to miss with his attacks and you stand a really good chance of keeping your vehicle alive for another turn as all the S4 attacks from the regular guys are only going to glance your vehicle at best.
3) Tau just lack that really nasty, hard-as-nails expensive unit that can soak a bunch of fire and wipe out enemies in
CC and you really need a unit like that in a tournament to 'go get' your opponent's objective or to kill your opponent's commander/most expensive unit, etc. The lack of this unit really makes the Tau (at least how I play them) into an army that reacts to the opponent as opposed to dictating the game.
There may be some pretty wicked combos out there to turn Tau into a more offensive army, but my mind keeps gravitating towards the more reactionary tactics of shoot, shoot, shoot and then spring the trap.
In the end, I would never judge Tau based on a few tournaments. If a Tau player had managed to win first place would that automatically mean they are a great
v5 tournament army? Of course not.
Any given tournament is simply a collection of players matched up against particular opponents playing particular missions. Only time will tell how Tau as an army perform and even then there is always the opportunity for a great player and a great list to have the right match-ups to win a tournament.
So I say keep your heads high and keep fighting. I know I will.
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