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Hello,

I do not have a Tau list for you guys and I do not know how to play Tau (except for the part about staying far away from chargers!).

My buddy plays Tau and has been performing very poorly. I'd like to help him, but I'm worried making a list on Battlescribe might not be the best way to do so. What are some general do's and don't's with regards to Tau this edition? Would anyone be willing to make an efficient and balanced 1,000 point list for me to bring to him? He's got plenty of miniatures to use. I don't really know what to advise him, but I'm sure that there is plenty of room for improvement as far as his lists go.

For starters, he uses a lot of Hammerheads and I'm wondering if they are still the top dogs like they used to be like 2 editions ago.

Thanks! (friendly reminder that the context of this army is 1,000 point friendly matches).

Generally Tau are going to be out performed by just about any other army with a codex, and will have to fight fairly hard against most remaining index armies.

The lack of any real decent Stratagems and very lack luster relics and warlord traits is very apparent. The pricing of a lot of tau units is also very high for what you get.
The sept traits are about the only saving graces but there are only 2 or 3 that are worth looking at. (Bor'kan, T'au, viorla) the army also lacks the mobility it once had, outside of maybe 2 units, which makes positioning very important.

the restrictiveness of unit options and the point costs of certain units is beyond horrid. crisis suits are very mediocre for their point costs and require you to take shield drones which can be singled out and killed rather easily leaving your overpriced suits in the open.
Broadsides are about the best heavy weapon platform in the army, even then the point costs for HYMP is still a bit too high. Riptides aren't in anyway what they once were, which is fine, but they are essentially cost prohibitive.

stealth suits are hands down the best unit in the book IMO, the -1 to hit at all times is amazing as is their deployment gimmick

Tau have no defensive abilities or "trump cards" outside of 'For the Greater Good' to prevent being assaulted. The army plays in one phase of the game only and participates very poorly in most match ups. generally any other army Tau face will be able to out shoot them. range, strength, dmg are meaningless if you cant hit, and with most facitons having at least one army trait with a -1 to hit ability it really shows.
Lack of a "forewarning" style stratagem is a big loss as well. If you want the ability you are required to take the wargear option which takes up a hard point on every model you want to have it on, AND is subpar in comparison to similar abilities.

The most success i have been having is by spamming firewarriors backed by cadre fireblades and accelerator drones, even then you will lose out to just about any competent melee army or a AM or space marine gunline.
Hammerheads can perform well with the Ion gun option backed up by longstrike. however longstrike is susceptible to being singled out and killed and hammerheads are decently costed as well if not on the higher side of pricing, though the rail gun option is not as attractive as it once was.

essentially just be prepared to lose the majority of your games.

Perhaps he could watch some battle reports? Even if they commit a mistake here and there, they try to use lists that have a theme or at least work.

For macro-tips, I'd say to stay away from Crisis suits. Riptides are the new hotness, as Coldstar Commanders with 4x Fusion Blasters (Vi'orla). T'au, Sa'cea or Bork'an Firewarriors firing squads, supported by Cadre Fireblades and Ethereals, are quite nice.
Ion Hammerheads are quite good as well.

I'd say the best place to ask these sort or questions would be the Tau Tactics thread in the Dakka Tactics subform, or on the ATT (Advanced Tau Tactica) forums.

 Kharneth wrote:
Hello,

I do not have a Tau list for you guys and I do not know how to play Tau (except for the part about staying far away from chargers!).

My buddy plays Tau and has been performing very poorly. I'd like to help him, but I'm worried making a list on Battlescribe might not be the best way to do so. What are some general do's and don't's with regards to Tau this edition? Would anyone be willing to make an efficient and balanced 1,000 point list for me to bring to him? He's got plenty of miniatures to use. I don't really know what to advise him, but I'm sure that there is plenty of room for improvement as far as his lists go.

For starters, he uses a lot of Hammerheads and I'm wondering if they are still the top dogs like they used to be like 2 editions ago.

Thanks! (friendly reminder that the context of this army is 1,000 point friendly matches).

If he's using Railheads, then he's doing it wrong. Ionheads are beastly and one of the better units in the Tau arsenal. He'll also want to pick up a Coldstar commander for sure. My preferred strat is to equip them with QFB, hold them back turn 1 to Kauyon (in this case to mainly buff the Ionheads), then turn 2 zip up 40" and deep strike some shield drones next to him, and QFB Delete Button something. Make sure to buff with markerlights, sept trait or warlord trait so they don't have -1 for advancing, and buff with a re-roll 1s markerlight.

He should also make sure he has enough markerlights to support the railheads, and make liberal use of the D3+1 strat for markerlights.

Hmm... thanks guys!

That's so disappointing about the battle suits, I bought him 3! He was thinking about trying the Ion Cannons anyway, so maybe I'll see what those are like.

I'll give you a long rundown of some meta units:
Coldstars are worth their weight in gold. The only real drawback to them besides their monetary cost, is that they cannot take Cyclic Ion Blasters. One of the worst parts about the Tau Codex is how rigid certain parts of list building has become. Every Tau list has at least one coldstar with 4x Fusion, and most run the maximum amount of Commanders they can. At 1k he should have 2. Shield drones are very strong for protecting big suits or expensive suits, while marker drones are a popular choice since they are more durable than pathfinders and shoot just as accurately with a drone controller. (arguably better since they can move and shoot) Gun drones are overcosted trash and usually only work as a deep strike gimmick with an xv9 or a crisis team. Firesight marksmen are one of the best markerlight platforms since they are characters, bs3, and low pt cost. Fire warriors are strong for their cost and work well with cadre fireblades for mass s5 shots and the fireblade's bs2+ markerlight. One of the fireblades is usually the warlord with Through Unity, Devastation and a Puretide Engram Neurochip relic. Riptides are good again, but at 1k they cost roughly a third to half your list by the time you are done adding in drones and markerlight support. Hammerheads desperately want Longstrike and Ion is the only way to go. Everything I said about riptides/hammerheads costing too much applies double for Crisis Suits. They burn through drones faster than anything else, have terrible range, and their weapons are costed as if they only went on Commanders. They were the posterchild of everything wrong with the Tau Index and they went effectively unchanged. Finally, Sept choice is pretty much Tau or Borkan for better overwatch or increased rapidfire/heavy range. Viorla and Sacea are also decent, but they tend to be more specialized lists to take full advantage of Sept traits.
So tldr; Coldstars are mandatory. Markerlights should be equipped on characters. Fire Warriors and Shield Drones are meat and potatoes good. Tau Sept is good against charging, has Focus Fire, and 90% of the named characters. Borkan has increased range across the board for pretty much every weapon that matters besides Crisis Suit assault weapons. Crisis Suits are bad.

 Kharneth wrote:
Hello,

I do not have a Tau list for you guys and I do not know how to play Tau (except for the part about staying far away from chargers!).

My buddy plays Tau and has been performing very poorly. I'd like to help him, but I'm worried making a list on Battlescribe might not be the best way to do so. What are some general do's and don't's with regards to Tau this edition? Would anyone be willing to make an efficient and balanced 1,000 point list for me to bring to him? He's got plenty of miniatures to use. I don't really know what to advise him, but I'm sure that there is plenty of room for improvement as far as his lists go.

For starters, he uses a lot of Hammerheads and I'm wondering if they are still the top dogs like they used to be like 2 editions ago.

Hammerhead hasn't been good since 5th edition. Particularly true for Railhead, Ionhead is slightly less awful.

 Kharneth wrote:
Hmm... thanks guys!

That's so disappointing about the battle suits, I bought him 3! He was thinking about trying the Ion Cannons anyway, so maybe I'll see what those are like.

Crisis Suits are in a bad place for sure. He should proxy them as Commanders.

Okay, Tau are actually pretty decent. Some things:

1. Y'varha is amazing.
2. Commanders are still amazing.
3. Drones are amazing.
4. Hammerheads are still good. I see people run them competitively. I wouldn't run more than 1. Maybe not at all at 1000 points.

I see people do well with Tau all the time.

^ Tau are actually pretty good.

Struggle for the same reason pure guard does. -1 to hit shenanigans really hurt them.

I get around it by only running options that hit on 2's.
Ionheads with longstrike
Commanders
Skyrays
and a tripple batallion with firewarriors. For boats of command points.

Tau sept is the only option.

Also Tripple storm surge is pretty strong too.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Kharneth wrote:
Hmm... thanks guys!

That's so disappointing about the battle suits, I bought him 3! He was thinking about trying the Ion Cannons anyway, so maybe I'll see what those are like.

Crisis Suits are in a bad place for sure. He should proxy them as Commanders.

You don't have to proxy them at all, there's a regular Crisis Commander data sheet. He has one less wound (and costs 4 pts less because of it), but can take Iridium Armor. But I think most folks won't have a problem with proxy XV8's as XV85's.

 Xenomancers wrote:
^ Tau are actually pretty good.

Struggle for the same reason pure guard does. -1 to hit shenanigans really hurt them.

I get around it by only running options that hit on 2's.
Ionheads with longstrike
Commanders
Skyrays
and a tripple batallion with firewarriors. For boats of command points.

Tau sept is the only option.

Also Tripple storm surge is pretty strong too.

Why skyrays?

2+ to hit marker lights against fly targets - I only ever take 1. It does really well. I use it for a lot of things really.

Dump missles and use for character protection on forward commanders later in the game. Charge units. Really reliable 5 marker lights on target combo. Cadre hits a target on a 2+ - skyray follows up with 2 shots at bs2+ (if they fly) reroll 1's - then the marker light stratagem. With minus 1's to hit involved it becomes lets reliable but with bs 3 and bs 4 markers those becomes almost worthless.

How many marker lights is a good number to shoot for in a 1k point list?

As many as you can get.

 Kharneth wrote:
How many marker lights is a good number to shoot for in a 1k point list?

At 1K I think you are better off ignoring marker lights. Outside of the ones you get on cadre fireblades. If points permit - you can take 1 per fire warriors unit.

At 1k I think a good tau list is rolling with 2 battalions.

Longstrike
Commander
3x5 firewarriors

Commander
Cadre
3x5 Firewarriors

Then I think you can do 2 Ionheads

 Kharneth wrote:
How many marker lights is a good number to shoot for in a 1k point list?

Really depends on composition. If you're going Longstrike + Ion Hammerheads, you don't need too many - the re-roll for 1 ML is quite strong, and at 1000 points you don't have room for a ton of them. You can bury ML in Strike Teams as well, especially if you feel that Strike Teams are a unit tax (i.e. minimum 5 man squad there only to camp objectives and be ignored otherwise) - at least you get a ML out of them, and if you shoot your Cadre Fireblade(s) and Firesight Marksmen first, they can benefit from those ML to buff their 4+ BS to 4+ with a re-roll.

OTOH, you could look into the Tidewall Droneport with a Firesight Marksman giving the 4 ML drones a BS3+. Good if you have another unit that needs some protection from gunfire, like Pathfinders with Ion Rifles and a couple extra MLs.

Tidewall Droneport with Marker Drones and Auxillary Detachment Sa'cea Firesight Marksman is godly.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Tidewall Droneport with Marker Drones and Auxillary Detachment Sa'cea Firesight Marksman is godly.

Not for Organized Events, however.

 John Prins wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Tidewall Droneport with Marker Drones and Auxillary Detachment Sa'cea Firesight Marksman is godly.

Not for Organized Events, however.

How so? If anything it's great at organised events. Most competitive T'au lists aren't taking 3 battalions anyway, and if you're taking the Sa'cea Vanguard for the 3 Marksmen then you don't need the Aux.

I think Tau are in a good place, although they can be a bit all or nothing based on matchup and who gets the first turn, which I think is going to undermine their tournament winning ability. Arguably this has always been the case with Tau.

Fire warriors are very solid as a base. I think a lot of people who don't like Tau are not taking enough. With Tau 5+ overwatch and Fireblade you have great shooting, great overwatch (Greater good or otherwise) and you can mob up on objectives. As a rule people won't want to shoot your fire warriors until more scary elements of your army are dead.

Its probably bad to have hard and fast rules - but if 20/25% of your army isn't in fire warriors I'd really be interested to know why. In 1000 points I'd take 30. In 2000 points 60 or so.

Coldstars are good - but yeah, I think too many people make all or nothing plays. Jumping on a key target sounds great - and sometimes works but you have a good chance of hurting a model with 10+ wounds but not killing it, and then being mowed down very cheaply. Range 18" isn't that restrictive. I therefore think its best to try and keep something between the commanders and the enemy and bide your time. Ion blaster commanders are very solid too - but again I think 18" range upsets people, because there is that risk of doing nothing special turn 1 (and never really getting at their back line).

Added to this: Riptides are good. Ionheads with Longstrike are good. Stormsurge are solid. Ghostshroud and stealth suits are reasonable enough in their way. Yvarha are great. I think my fantasy about making Piranhas work is probably doomed to failure, alongside Breachers & regular suits but otherwise its a pretty solid list of options.

On marker lights I am in the school of less is more. Cheaply getting reroll 1s on 3-4 units that you intend to kill that turn is great - bordering on vital. Stacking lots to get that +1 to hit is nice but I am not convinced its all that efficient unless you hit that 3 on the stratagem. If you have to spend 100~ points getting 5 marker lights, you need to put in 300+ points worth of shooting on that target to get a benefit, assuming no overkill.

In a lot of situations its more flexible to just have that that 100 points of more shooting units. Drones or pathfinders are a pretty obvious target. I mean your opponent has to shoot something - and neither are terrible units defensively - but I think its easy to end up chasing the stone even if it is against Eldar and that +1 to hit really helps.

You will have turns of bad dice - I don't know what the probability is, but you will end up at 4 lights and having put all that investment in without the tick over. Its all probability - sometimes you will have terrible turns of shooting too - but its not the same.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 John Prins wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Tidewall Droneport with Marker Drones and Auxillary Detachment Sa'cea Firesight Marksman is godly.

Not for Organized Events, however.

How so? If anything it's great at organised events. Most competitive T'au lists aren't taking 3 battalions anyway, and if you're taking the Sa'cea Vanguard for the 3 Marksmen then you don't need the Aux.

The fact that you immediately found a superior option proves my point - especially if you want to use Sa'cea more broadly with other units in the Vanguard, like Pathfinders or Sniper Drones.

Skyrays aren’t bad, I’d suggest running one or two. They will almost always break even, and then become good markerlight/roadblock/suicide objective units

die toten hosen wrote:
Generally Tau are going to be out performed by just about any other army with a codex, and will have to fight fairly hard against most remaining index armies.

The lack of any real decent Stratagems and very lack luster relics and warlord traits is very apparent. The pricing of a lot of tau units is also very high for what you get.
The sept traits are about the only saving graces but there are only 2 or 3 that are worth looking at. (Bor'kan, T'au, viorla) the army also lacks the mobility it once had, outside of maybe 2 units, which makes positioning very important.

the restrictiveness of unit options and the point costs of certain units is beyond horrid. crisis suits are very mediocre for their point costs and require you to take shield drones which can be singled out and killed rather easily leaving your overpriced suits in the open.
Broadsides are about the best heavy weapon platform in the army, even then the point costs for HYMP is still a bit too high. Riptides aren't in anyway what they once were, which is fine, but they are essentially cost prohibitive.

stealth suits are hands down the best unit in the book IMO, the -1 to hit at all times is amazing as is their deployment gimmick

Tau have no defensive abilities or "trump cards" outside of 'For the Greater Good' to prevent being assaulted. The army plays in one phase of the game only and participates very poorly in most match ups. generally any other army Tau face will be able to out shoot them. range, strength, dmg are meaningless if you cant hit, and with most facitons having at least one army trait with a -1 to hit ability it really shows.
Lack of a "forewarning" style stratagem is a big loss as well. If you want the ability you are required to take the wargear option which takes up a hard point on every model you want to have it on, AND is subpar in comparison to similar abilities.

The most success i have been having is by spamming firewarriors backed by cadre fireblades and accelerator drones, even then you will lose out to just about any competent melee army or a AM or space marine gunline.
Hammerheads can perform well with the Ion gun option backed up by longstrike. however longstrike is susceptible to being singled out and killed and hammerheads are decently costed as well if not on the higher side of pricing, though the rail gun option is not as attractive as it once was.

essentially just be prepared to lose the majority of your games.

Just. Stop.

So much of what you said here is wrong. You are right about Crisis being overpriced. Almost every dex has some overpriced stuff and Crisis is still on the better side of that ladder.
You were also right about Hammerheads being strong and Stealth Suits being better. And that's about where it stops.

Riptides are extremely powerful, one of the best units in the dex if not the best. HBC is ridiculous and is one of the things I think may actually be getting put up for a nerf within time.

We have the best overwatch in the game by a LARGE amount, and the bulk of our army can fall back and shoot for free, and even the ones that can't can be given means to do so like Darkstrider. We have some of the best screens in the game, while we don't do our damage in melee I'm not sure exactly what more tricks you think other non-Eldar competitors are loaded up with that we don't.

On that note - acting like all these armies are bringing -1 to shoot bubbles everywhere is just wrong. How many armies even have access to that, and how many are even taking those units? In fact, we ourselves have some the best -1 units in Stealth Suits and even Ghostkeels. We are also one of of the only armies that gets a counter to -1 bubbles, with markerlights.

Tau gunlines having a losing match up against SM gunlines is a joke. Statements like this just make it blatantly clear you aren't playing the army right. You didn't even mention Coldstar Commanders or Storm Surges or markers or other work horses in our book.


Tau has some bad match ups, but are one of the better armies in the game right now. That's just not my word or my experience speaking, it's also what every top tournament player I've heard speak on it say, including InControl, Sean Nayden, Nick Nanavati, and more. Posts like this are just the inevitable culture shock when a dex spends the past 6 years being horrendously overpowered and then falls back down to just good, and players who relied on it as a crutch finding out that a balanced match is actually challenging to win.

Tyel wrote:
I think Tau are in a good place, although they can be a bit all or nothing based on matchup and who gets the first turn, which I think is going to undermine their tournament winning ability. Arguably this has always been the case with Tau.

Fire warriors are very solid as a base. I think a lot of people who don't like Tau are not taking enough. With Tau 5+ overwatch and Fireblade you have great shooting, great overwatch (Greater good or otherwise) and you can mob up on objectives. As a rule people won't want to shoot your fire warriors until more scary elements of your army are dead.

Its probably bad to have hard and fast rules - but if 20/25% of your army isn't in fire warriors I'd really be interested to know why. In 1000 points I'd take 30. In 2000 points 60 or so.

Coldstars are good - but yeah, I think too many people make all or nothing plays. Jumping on a key target sounds great - and sometimes works but you have a good chance of hurting a model with 10+ wounds but not killing it, and then being mowed down very cheaply. Range 18" isn't that restrictive. I therefore think its best to try and keep something between the commanders and the enemy and bide your time. Ion blaster commanders are very solid too - but again I think 18" range upsets people, because there is that risk of doing nothing special turn 1 (and never really getting at their back line).

Added to this: Riptides are good. Ionheads with Longstrike are good. Stormsurge are solid. Ghostshroud and stealth suits are reasonable enough in their way. Yvarha are great. I think my fantasy about making Piranhas work is probably doomed to failure, alongside Breachers & regular suits but otherwise its a pretty solid list of options.

On marker lights I am in the school of less is more. Cheaply getting reroll 1s on 3-4 units that you intend to kill that turn is great - bordering on vital. Stacking lots to get that +1 to hit is nice but I am not convinced its all that efficient unless you hit that 3 on the stratagem. If you have to spend 100~ points getting 5 marker lights, you need to put in 300+ points worth of shooting on that target to get a benefit, assuming no overkill.

In a lot of situations its more flexible to just have that that 100 points of more shooting units. Drones or pathfinders are a pretty obvious target. I mean your opponent has to shoot something - and neither are terrible units defensively - but I think its easy to end up chasing the stone even if it is against Eldar and that +1 to hit really helps.

You will have turns of bad dice - I don't know what the probability is, but you will end up at 4 lights and having put all that investment in without the tick over. Its all probability - sometimes you will have terrible turns of shooting too - but its not the same.

All of this matches what I've experienced with Tau in 8th. Really hate that Crisis suits are meh and how the markerlight table is basically all about getting 1 or 5 stacks while 2 through 4 are rather meh (ignore cover would be good if cover mechanics where improved) but most of the Tau roster is decently good which allows for some variety in gameplay. I will add that I had amazing results with Rail Rifle Pathfinders. Had 5 man units in devilfish and they would tear up heavily infantry/MCs that attempted to get in close. For actual markerlight sources I prefer to leave that to my characters in the form of Fire Blades and Marksmen as they can avoid getting focused and are fairly reliable at getting 1 markerlight on a target (not to mention Fire Blades making Fire Warriors dakka faster).

 Vankraken wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think Tau are in a good place, although they can be a bit all or nothing based on matchup and who gets the first turn, which I think is going to undermine their tournament winning ability. Arguably this has always been the case with Tau.

Fire warriors are very solid as a base. I think a lot of people who don't like Tau are not taking enough. With Tau 5+ overwatch and Fireblade you have great shooting, great overwatch (Greater good or otherwise) and you can mob up on objectives. As a rule people won't want to shoot your fire warriors until more scary elements of your army are dead.

Its probably bad to have hard and fast rules - but if 20/25% of your army isn't in fire warriors I'd really be interested to know why. In 1000 points I'd take 30. In 2000 points 60 or so.

Coldstars are good - but yeah, I think too many people make all or nothing plays. Jumping on a key target sounds great - and sometimes works but you have a good chance of hurting a model with 10+ wounds but not killing it, and then being mowed down very cheaply. Range 18" isn't that restrictive. I therefore think its best to try and keep something between the commanders and the enemy and bide your time. Ion blaster commanders are very solid too - but again I think 18" range upsets people, because there is that risk of doing nothing special turn 1 (and never really getting at their back line).

Added to this: Riptides are good. Ionheads with Longstrike are good. Stormsurge are solid. Ghostshroud and stealth suits are reasonable enough in their way. Yvarha are great. I think my fantasy about making Piranhas work is probably doomed to failure, alongside Breachers & regular suits but otherwise its a pretty solid list of options.

On marker lights I am in the school of less is more. Cheaply getting reroll 1s on 3-4 units that you intend to kill that turn is great - bordering on vital. Stacking lots to get that +1 to hit is nice but I am not convinced its all that efficient unless you hit that 3 on the stratagem. If you have to spend 100~ points getting 5 marker lights, you need to put in 300+ points worth of shooting on that target to get a benefit, assuming no overkill.

In a lot of situations its more flexible to just have that that 100 points of more shooting units. Drones or pathfinders are a pretty obvious target. I mean your opponent has to shoot something - and neither are terrible units defensively - but I think its easy to end up chasing the stone even if it is against Eldar and that +1 to hit really helps.

You will have turns of bad dice - I don't know what the probability is, but you will end up at 4 lights and having put all that investment in without the tick over. Its all probability - sometimes you will have terrible turns of shooting too - but its not the same.

All of this matches what I've experienced with Tau in 8th. Really hate that Crisis suits are meh and how the markerlight table is basically all about getting 1 or 5 stacks while 2 through 4 are rather meh (ignore cover would be good if cover mechanics where improved) but most of the Tau roster is decently good which allows for some variety in gameplay. I will add that I had amazing results with Rail Rifle Pathfinders. Had 5 man units in devilfish and they would tear up heavily infantry/MCs that attempted to get in close. For actual markerlight sources I prefer to leave that to my characters in the form of Fire Blades and Marksmen as they can avoid getting focused and are fairly reliable at getting 1 markerlight on a target (not to mention Fire Blades making Fire Warriors dakka faster).

Try a skyray for lights.

i think tau are extremely strong this edition depending on the mission. if you are hunting objectives and moving not so much, but sit and shoot I think only IG out perform.

in a 1.5k list my friend brings 2 x ionheads, riptide, ghostkeel, commander with 3x fusion, 4 squads of firewarriors, 2 squads of pathfinders and a ton of drones.

I play ig and death guard. my IG do well because my hvy weps are buried in infantry which he struggles with. against my death guard I always struggle due to lack of long range.

my advice, if you are playing friendly games, change to ionheads and add markerlights. sa'cea is great for the hit reroll. riptide and commander and a few drones with firewarriors for coolness.