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Is Tau out of the competitive sphere no matter what sort of list you come up with? It seems like every time I play a game against my friend with the updated Space Marines or Necrons I get destroyed by unkillable deathstar units that assault my front line and turn the game on me. I am considering not letting him take squads that cost more than 300 points next time he plays me because that is all he uses. We were also playing a high points value game as well so that wasn't good either but I just couldn't score enough points or defend myself against his units. Are there any good Tau lists anymore for the current meta?

Hmm i avtually play Tau and Field the firebase Support cadre, 3 riptides , 3 yvharas and some Crisis and wreck havoc on my opponents, also in small torunaments

Other than the FSC formation, tau are rarely seen in the competitive scene these days.

"Competitive Scene" != "the Current Meta".

OP--We don't play where you play. We can't answer this for you.

With Tau you can spam a lot of full strength units for dirt cheap. Against assault Deathstars you can create layers of Fire Warriors to screen against the enemy and force them to charge each unit one at a time (don't position to let them multi assault). Tau are often about sacrificing for the greater good and their supporting fire is entirely about that mechanic. Feeding 108 point Fire Warrior units that allow nearby units (congo line a few Fire Warriors to extend supporting fire range) to get a full round of snap shooting is quite powerful. Include an Ethereal in a Dfish and you have a LOT of pulse weapon fire. Kroot with stubborn aura can tarpit for a few turns against heavy hitting deathstars to buy your infantry time to distance themselves from the enemy. Buying time is a critical aspect of playing Tau that the 6th Edition playstyle didn't require (6th edition meta for Tau was shoot everything in LoS off the table then claim objectives on turn 4).

I think no. From what I've seen, Tau still do alright. I think they aren't the favorite of the GT winners right now because everyone knows all their tricks.

Fbsc with early warning all the way. ITC events now allow a single duplicate detachment. Double fbsc is brutal. (It might be the scariest thing on the field to my army.)

I'm kind of new, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I've been watching battle reports with Tau in them and it seems like they generally do ok and then things start to fall apart as they fail Nova Charging multiple times in a row and such. If not for those really bad chains of roles in many of the games I've watched, they'd probably have had a strong chance of winning against a wide variety of armies.

 Tinkrr wrote:
I'm kind of new, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I've been watching battle reports with Tau in them and it seems like they generally do ok and then things start to fall apart as they fail Nova Charging multiple times in a row and such. If not for those really bad chains of roles in many of the games I've watched, they'd probably have had a strong chance of winning against a wide variety of armies.

A hallmark of good tau players is that they don't nova charge their tides until they NEED to. I see many mediocre tau players half-kill their own tides just to try to get like...a 3++ when I'm not even planning on shooting it with good ap weapons, or the super thrust move when it's perfectly fine where it's standing.

If you mean broadly Tau/Farsight in any sort of combo then they have just fallen off in the last few months and are usually scraping by third and fourth place wins in the big tournaments. Still placing decently but no top 3 in a a fair amount of time now at least by modern 40k time.

They are still an extremely competitive army though when not played at the top level of play.

At the top level its mostly Farsight Enclaves with a Tau detachment.

Their new codex is due out in a few months if rumors are correct. It can range anywhere from a new dex + 2 small kits all the way up to 4 kits one of which could be terrain and a new missile themed Riptide.

I can't wait for our new dex. The rumors all paint it to a season of Tau. Now let's just hope they all come true or even half of them. Of all the rumors I hope the new XV8's and the new Riptide are accurate predictions.

The huge KX Supremacy Armor turned out to be true. Now there are reliable rumors of a FW super heavy tau tank.

They are alright, still have a lot of strength when played properly and can be fairly competative outside of gunlines.

Though with each new codex and release older codecies loose strength,generally speaking see codex eldar for one end and chaos space marines for the other.

I still can pull good wins out of games but any army that can move fast and can assault me turn one or two i generally lose or have to fight my way to a win more then usual.

 Vankraken wrote:
With Tau you can spam a lot of full strength units for dirt cheap. Against assault Deathstars you can create layers of Fire Warriors to screen against the enemy and force them to charge each unit one at a time (don't position to let them multi assault). Tau are often about sacrificing for the greater good and their supporting fire is entirely about that mechanic. Feeding 108 point Fire Warrior units that allow nearby units (congo line a few Fire Warriors to extend supporting fire range) to get a full round of snap shooting is quite powerful. Include an Ethereal in a Dfish and you have a LOT of pulse weapon fire. Kroot with stubborn aura can tarpit for a few turns against heavy hitting deathstars to buy your infantry time to distance themselves from the enemy. Buying time is a critical aspect of playing Tau that the 6th Edition playstyle didn't require (6th edition meta for Tau was shoot everything in LoS off the table then claim objectives on turn 4).

Oh yea I have seen that they can field a lot of cheap, high strength units such as sky rays and hammerheads. But my opponent just kept fielding indestructible, assault heavy, deathstar squads that would either be gray knight terminators with a libby casting sanctuary or a full squad of Necrons with a rez orb. Either way I have trouble taking out that ONE unit before it assaults my front line through waves of high strength, low ap shooting, and overwatch fire. I haven't thought of tying up the unit with stubborn units while my other units flee. I just keep them still so they don't need to snap fire. I'll try that next game.

Riptides make everything better.

 Gamgee wrote:
Riptides make everything better.

ORLY????

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Riptides make everything better.

ORLY????

In particular the 109 Y'vahrah. I've found it particularly useful against a lot of lists. It's a good compliment to my Riptide. I'm considering getting the other one, but I doubt that one will be as good as either of those two.

 Gamgee wrote:

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Riptides make everything better.

ORLY????

In particular the 109 Y'vahrah. I've found it particularly useful against a lot of lists. It's a good compliment to my Riptide. I'm considering getting the other one, but I doubt that one will be as good as either of those two.

Why not make a proxy and see for yourself?

Jaxler wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Riptides make everything better.

ORLY????

In particular the 109 Y'vahrah. I've found it particularly useful against a lot of lists. It's a good compliment to my Riptide. I'm considering getting the other one, but I doubt that one will be as good as either of those two.

Why not make a proxy and see for yourself?

I think I shall next time.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:


Oh yea I have seen that they can field a lot of cheap, high strength units such as sky rays and hammerheads. But my opponent just kept fielding indestructible, assault heavy, deathstar squads that would either be gray knight terminators with a libby casting sanctuary or a full squad of Necrons with a rez orb. Either way I have trouble taking out that ONE unit before it assaults my front line through waves of high strength, low ap shooting, and overwatch fire. I haven't thought of tying up the unit with stubborn units while my other units flee. I just keep them still so they don't need to snap fire. I'll try that next game.

But skyrays and hammerheads are not what he meant. The real dirt-cheap units that pour out high-strength shots are broadsides. Terminators melt when shot at by Broadsides because of the sheer amount of wounds dropped on them.

The only army I've been able to win with against Tau consistently are Necrons.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
updated Space Marines or Necrons

You are playing 40K. Your friends are playing 41K. It's like playing checkers vs chess.

Well I don't play with forgeworld and I don't think your spelling the name correctly either. I think its Y'varnha?

Also Terminators don't "melt" to HRR's or HYMP's, I probably kill like 2 at most with the HRR's and maybe 1 to HYMP's even with all their shots. Especially when he was casting sanctuary on them to get a 4+ invuln for a little bit more of the invincible deathstar stuff.

And Broadsides aren't cheap either, a full squad is pretty expensive. More expensive than sky rays and hammerheads.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
Well I don't play with forgeworld and I don't think your spelling the name correctly either. I think its Y'varnha?

Also Terminators don't "melt" to HRR's or HYMP's, I probably kill like 2 at most with the HRR's and maybe 1 to HYMP's even with all their shots. Especially when he was casting sanctuary on them to get a 4+ invuln for a little bit more of the invincible deathstar stuff.

And Broadsides aren't cheap either, a full squad is pretty expensive. More expensive than sky rays and hammerheads.

Why would anyone shoot HYMP's at terminators when they have IA's available?

Martel732 wrote:

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
Well I don't play with forgeworld and I don't think your spelling the name correctly either. I think its Y'varnha?

Also Terminators don't "melt" to HRR's or HYMP's, I probably kill like 2 at most with the HRR's and maybe 1 to HYMP's even with all their shots. Especially when he was casting sanctuary on them to get a 4+ invuln for a little bit more of the invincible deathstar stuff.

And Broadsides aren't cheap either, a full squad is pretty expensive. More expensive than sky rays and hammerheads.

Why would anyone shoot HYMP's at terminators when they have IA's available?

Why would anyone shoot at Terminators when there are Grav Centurions around?

See I can do it too

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:
Well I don't play with forgeworld and I don't think your spelling the name correctly either. I think its Y'varnha?

Also Terminators don't "melt" to HRR's or HYMP's, I probably kill like 2 at most with the HRR's and maybe 1 to HYMP's even with all their shots. Especially when he was casting sanctuary on them to get a 4+ invuln for a little bit more of the invincible deathstar stuff.

And Broadsides aren't cheap either, a full squad is pretty expensive. More expensive than sky rays and hammerheads.

Problem is you let them near you..

You got your wish.

Looks like we got incoming Tau codex. September time.

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/tau-new-commander-on-its-way.html

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/two-new-suits-for-tau.html

ETA 2 weeks fellow FW. Get ready to feast on the Gue'la and Gue'ron'sha tears.

 Gamgee wrote:
You got your wish.

Looks like we got incoming Tau codex. September time.

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/tau-new-commander-on-its-way.html

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/two-new-suits-for-tau.html

ETA 2 weeks fellow FW. Get ready to feast on the Gue'la and Gue'ron'sha tears.

 TheCadreofFi'rios wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
You got your wish.

Looks like we got incoming Tau codex. September time.

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/tau-new-commander-on-its-way.html

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/two-new-suits-for-tau.html

ETA 2 weeks fellow FW. Get ready to feast on the Gue'la and Gue'ron'sha tears.

 Gamgee wrote:
You got your wish.

Looks like we got incoming Tau codex. September time.

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/tau-new-commander-on-its-way.html

http://natfka.blogspot.ca/2015/08/two-new-suits-for-tau.html

ETA 2 weeks fellow FW. Get ready to feast on the Gue'la and Gue'ron'sha tears.

That soon, huh?
Might have to consider Tau as my next army, will see when it comes out.