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Been playing tau for about 8 months now, my first army and im slowly building my collection up to start entering tournaments.

Tau at the moment are considered 'top tier' but i never see them win anything major. I always see on forums on how 'op' they are but with no backup to prove it unless ive been looking in the wrong place. We do have some silly units like riptide wings, dual surges in ict format but with the psychic phase been so dominant we no have defence against it and most games relying on objective securing.

The lists i see usually have a riptide wing with no other units or 1 supremecy suit with minimum cad when certain tournament formats allowed it.

Is that the case or am i missing something?

Expect to see the firestream wing make a return appearance in lists....now that GW faq says they can do their thing every turn.

What you're hearing is players who run an army that has no real answer to the units you mentioned. Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Orkz and Dark Eldar come to mind, they simply can't make it to the Tau to even damage them before getting shot off the board.
Other high tier armies like Space Marines, Deathstar and to a lesser extent Eldar take the fight to their opponents and can sometimes be put down by the same low tier armies who can't even reach the Tau.

Tau are only considered top tier by people who have no idea what they're talking about (most things the internet says follows this law). Just ignore most "common knowledge" on forums.
They're upper mid tier at best. The real problem with Tau is that their games aren't fun. Either they wipe the enemy with little to no interaction from the other player, or they get unsatisfactorally curbstomped.

Personally, I have never fought enjoyed fighting against Tau. I can never touch them with my assault heavy Dark Eldar list, it just doesn't happen.

But I do love fighting against Eldar with my Dark Eldar, even the most intense lists, its always a nice, and winnable challenge.

Tau just feels like I'm smashing my head against a wall.

Tau in current meta (IMO):
Boring to play against casually
Doesn't do that well competitively

Worst of both worlds. At least Orks are fun to play against casually, even if they don't smash it in tournaments.

Tau generally make to the top 10 or 15, but very rarely to the top 3 or 5. Marines and Eldar are just flat out better.
However, I'm not complaining.

I believe Tau don't place top at tournaments is because they miss out on 2 of the games phases: Psychic phase and the Assault phase this is why tau do so much better when paired with an army that can do these eldar can give pysker coverage and some lists I've seen have grey knights (dreadknights really) and tau which means that army can contribute to that phase of the game. Tau inherent weakness of no pyskers is huge in an edition where armies that rely on pyskers are prevalent and sure a culexus could fill that gap but majority of players now know how to work around that

I agree with them missing important phases of the game. Even allying in sisters of silence/culexus can be worked around.

Just going to try and get some tournament experience and go from there. I may not do well but always room for list/player improvement.