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I pretty much always take first turn if I'm offered it. Tau really need that one turn of hitting as hard as they can before the other army gets moving. Transports need to be stopped in their deployment zones. I usually go for stunned/immobilized results and then move on. Wether it be popping transports or just getting a few battlecannons blown off can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Funny, I normally give away the first turn. It allows for my army to have the last objective rush without getting assaulted in return.

I think whether you go first or second is dependent upon your personal style. Are you an aggressive alpha strike type or more of a patient counter-puncher?

When it comes to decisions like this play according to your personal style. Personaly, I like counter-punching while I manuever for that decisive strike.

I lean toward playing second with marines but with Tau I always want that alpha strike first turn.

It helps alot agains armies that we don't have a defense against.

A very good example is Seer Council. Taking a first turn with that is good because they will either put their seer council back away or try to leave LOS which thankfully keeps them a good bit away.

It also stops the fortune , turboboosting, etc... which out of LOS is null because of SMS which works to a degree.

Against Orks its good against Nobs , Against Marines its good against Transports such as the landraider.


The point of that is to make it so you have more maneuvreability than the opponent.

Im trying to work on a 2000 point list after not playing my tau in about 6 months.

what i have been running was a single commander fusion blaster missle pod as a sacrifice single shot, 2 squads of pathfinders, 2 full up firewarriors in devilfish 2 full squads of firewarriors to steal the pathfinders devilfish, 2 hammerheads and 2 broadsides.

i have a few steathsuits and a 2 crisis suits (maybe 3 if i push it...) to add and a unit of kroot to add (although its only 12 strong, may need to get a few more kroot) and i can build up 5 pirhanas perhaps not to mention i could swap out for a sky ray or ion cannon or whatnot although really?! sky rays can be good but they need a list designed for them, and im always dubios of an ion cannon over a rail gun for the second HH.

does anyone have any thoughts? im basically working out the list now at work.

@Fizzywig-Don't want this to become a list thread. There is another forum for such. I will examine what your proposing and offer up tactical concepts.

First a quick critique of your original:
Was there other stuff that you used to run? List seems light for 2000pts. Looks like a 1750 list that is a little heavy on wargear.
HMM..Going off of what you posted, it looks as if you used to run a purest Tau army with no alien allies. Looks as if your weren't really running Crisis Suits either.

You have a good Mech build but the PFs and Broadsides stick out a bit in this list. If you are intent upon keeping these units then you might want to keep a wall o' bodies in front of these units and have them castle in a corner. This might let your markers and broadsides survive long enough to do their job while the Mech aspect of your army uses its mobility to hit the objectives.

It is up to you as to what or if you are using for the wall of bodies. If you use the Kroot you will definitely need more of them if your leaving them out in the open. If you are planning on just loading them in a Devilfish then 10-12 is ok. Don't forget about opportunities to out flank.

The wall of bodies might allow you to drop one of the devilfish in favor of some extra crisis suits. If so the running your commander with one and then the other two as a team can work really well with mech mobility.
If you still have points left over then the stealth suits would be a nice addition but you may find the pianahas a bit more suitable or comfortable with your play-style.

From here on it is a matter of personal prefference.


Funny you mentioned the Ion Cannon. Have been kicking around the idea of 2-3 Ionheads(A broadside unit if onlt 2 Ionheads), 1 Piranha squadron of 5 (all melta? Don't know yet.), 2 PF squads with 5 markers and 3 rail rifles each, 2 FW squads to pick up the PFs dev fish, another Fw team and a kroot squad or 2 kroot squads depending on if broadsides are taken, 2 "suicide" Crisis fusion/flamer teams, and commander(Airburst?, Plasma?, or melta? Posi relay? Maybe).

The thinking is that this is a build that would be a strong Anti-meq build that could go up against rhino rush and Speeder Spam. It could still handle a LR spam build as well as lash. The Ion heads should be just as effective against the Eldar if not more so.

Hoardes might be the real problem but the RoF(Rate of Fire) from the Ion heads Should chew through most squads fairly quickly. Units mauled by the Ion cannons then get tagged by the rail rifles and markers to force pinning checks. If all else fails then there should still be enough mobility to push for late game ties by contesting objectives.

I'm not saying to use this build, it is an example of a volume of fire mech to mech hybrid build that focuses upon getting as many shots as possible while maintaining mobility. From there it is a matter of manuevering for side shots and getting your meltas into place for effective shots.

How you deploy such a build depends upon the army your facing and whos is going first.

BTW, If their are Land speeders on the table with the Assault cannons and or Multi-meltas either keep the Piranhas in reserve or make sure they are over 48" away. If he is deepstriking them then its up to you to decide.

Hope something in their helps

I've found from my humble tau experience that broadsides aren't worth it.

However, 2 units of 3 fusion piranhas are.

My typical tau army has:

2 units of crisis suits with TL missile pods and flamers
2 Hammer heads basics with rail guns, burst cannons, disruption pods, and multi trackers.
2 units of 3 fusion piranhas.

This gives me 6 units that are fairly decent at killing tanks and armor... AND they can multi-task and kill of small horde units. the 6 flamers, sub-munitions, and gun drones from the piranhas seems to be fairly effective at both roles.

If your meta game area is more tank heavy you can add some AT crisis suits... if its more horde, aim for a 3rd hammer head...

Focusedfire and i I think both agree that Pirahna are so worth it its not even funny.

Point for point you have one of the best units in the game.

380 points for 5 fusion guns; disruption fields target locks.

THERES MORE

A five man pirahna gives you 10 gun drones here is the important part disembark these suckers

They are 13 points a piece so for

380 points you get 5 pirahnas and 10 gun drones more than you can actually purchase in a squadron.


So 13 points a piece you get actuallly 5 pirahnas and 10 gun drones.

Yes; it is two KP but it is a incredible value. If you subtract the value of your gun drones from the pirahna ; 130 points from 380 your getting a value of 250 for 5 pirahna or 50 points.

What happens when Tau fight Chaos Daemons? They start out deepstriking and just get into close combat. Outside of suicide tactics like the fail safe detonater and a bunch of kroot, tau just don't survive close combat.

fludit wrote:What happens when Tau fight Chaos Daemons? They start out deepstriking and just get into close combat. Outside of suicide tactics like the fail safe detonater and a bunch of kroot, tau just don't survive close combat.

being a chaos deamons player and a tau player I can tell you this... Use transports.

Deamons have a tough time dealing with transports that outrun them. Crisis suits can jump run jump to avoid being eaten. Bait them one way then shoot them from afar. Use transports to block assualing units. flechettes work wonders.

Yeah , if you are expecting to face Daemons Mechanize up which you should anyway. Leave the pathfinders off in reserve land outflanking as you don't want troops other than kroot on the board.

Castling against Daemons is a good tactic just pick one board side with your mechanized and then just blast away or move away.


Flechettes are good but really other than Greater Daemons and a few daemons with Rending Daemons have a hard time dealing with Mechanized.

Just a quick thought, I have always used warfish but more and more the points for a SMS is hurting me, has anyone considered dropping the drones off atleast one first turn, and joining to the drones with an HQ? Just something that popped into my head...

@gamesandwatch
Negatives-The HQ will have to be solo and nekid. When the drones die they will still give up the extra KP.

Positives- Saves points in two units. Will give another unit on table with pinning.

Works depending upon personal playstyle.


Am currently working on new slightly different write up.

It runs three Ion heads. Leaves the Tank Killing to the crisis suits. Will have a 5 piranha squadron, 2 Pathfinder units, 2 FW units, 1-2 kroot units,2 suicide fusion/flamer crisis, and a fusion/airburst commander.

This gives a decent level of redundancy. A lot of light vehicle/high toughness killing shots. Crisis provide LR or horde killing. Am working on if the Piranha will have burst or fusion.

The reason I'm looking at this type of builsd is because it leaves me with a lot of flexibilty in how I deploy and maneuvuer.

I agree with the Reasoning, I just hadnt ever heard it being done before. If the commander has drones, couldnt he still join the unit, and if so couldnt another commander join the unit as well?

If so, that would be a decent idea, or atleast, you could save on 2 devilfish, have 2 commanders join both sets of drones, and that would save overall. Just a continuous thought.

My questions are this:
Can the commander join the unit with drones?

If so can multiple commanders join?

Things I have found out from my play.

Railguns are amazing for popping tanks. They are like melta guns that can hit you from anywhere on the board. You want enough to take out transports and vehicles, but not too many so that you can't take out troops. I find 2 broadsides and 2 hammerheads to be a very stable, cheap enough HS option for most armies.

Firewarriors suck. Take 6 and call it a day. Your troops should be kroot and hounds. Keep one in a woods and half the squad behind cover. Hello 2+ cover save.

Pirahnas (as stated before) are awesome for blocking movement and general harrassing.

Suits are for killing infantry. Pop transports with your railguns and then plasma, missle the troops to death.

gameandwatch wrote:
My questions are this:
Can the commander join the unit with drones?

If so can multiple commanders join?

Yes. But you have to do it in a certain order.

Tau commanders can join into a unit but have to do it in a certain order so they don't end up in a Multi character unit. See diagram

Commander A Commander B and Unit C

A+C+B= X a unit with both characters.

or with the new rules you can do

A+B= Y a Multi-character unit then Y can't join C as they are cause they would have to go in order(ACB).I know its weird but hey its 40k.

Maybe I wasnt clear enough:

Can the commander join the drone unit WITH himself having drones as well? As in commander with DC and 2 SD, join the 2 GD?

nothing stops you from that, the DF drones are a separate unit

Considering how weak Firewarriors are, how many would you field in a squad with a fish?

I've seen conflicting suggestions, some saying that 6-8 FW in fish is better and more economical than taking 10-12 FW in Fish.

Any comments???

Timmah wrote:Things I have found out from my play.

Railguns are amazing for popping tanks. They are like melta guns that can hit you from anywhere on the board.

Figured that out all by yourself eh?

The rest of your advice is legit though.

A fun tactic for long table edge battles is to set up 2 units of 2 broadsides in opposite corners of your deployment zone. You will then have fire lanes at just about everything on the board with very little room for hiding in cover unless you have a ton of LOS blocking terrain.

I also like having an Ionhead to back up by Broadsides but is also able to take out MC and punch through SM armor as well. An ion cannon is Instant death on the majority of things on the board and has a high enough rate of fire to cut down most monstrous creatures. On average you'll miss 1 of the 3 shots while the other 2 punch through. The only time this backfires is with 2+ amor save which is where the Railguns take over.

Hollismason wrote:Yes; it is two KP but it is a incredible value. If you subtract the value of your gun drones from the pirahna ; 130 points from 380 your getting a value of 250 for 5 pirahna or 50 points.

While I agree that Piranhas are a decent value, I am going to (kindly) debate your logic here with economics. It's true you can subtract out the cost of 12 point drones and call your Piranhas cheaper.

However, this is only true for people who originally intended to take a drone unit. Instead of taking a FA choice of drones, you can get them along with 5 fusion Piranhas. If we subtract out the Drones of a 70 point Piranha (Piranha, Fusion, TA), you are getting an 11/10/10 fast melta skimmer for 58 points! That's a great deal as far as the Tau Codex is concerned, no doubt.

But, that is only for people who originally intended to take a Drone unit. Let's say you just wanted the Melta Piranhas (probably the majority of Tau players). Too bad, you have to also include the cost of two Drones per skimmer because the codex forces you. For 5 Piranhas totaling at 350 points, that's 120 points I'm spending on a unit KP that I didn't want. If it were up to me, I would spend those 120 points elsewhere if given the chance, based on need.

You can apply the same theory to any item on sale in a store. Let's say you've worn through the buttocks on your favorite pair of jeans, and are in desperate need of a new pair. You walk into Old Navy and see they're having a summer sale on jeans, 25% off. You decide to buy a pair, as you were already in the market for a pair of jeans, and you save 25% rather than you normally would (because you were going to buy a pair no matter what). This is a good deal.

Now, let's say you walked into Old Navy without an agenda to buy jeans because you don't need any. You see the same pair of jeans for 25% off, and decide to buy them because they're on sale. This, however, is not a good deal, because you didn't need the jeans. You would have gone on to use that money instead for something you needed, like groceries.

So you see, saving points on Piranhas by subtracting out the Drone cost is only applicable if you originally needed a Drone squad. Otherwise, you're wasting points on a unit you didn't want.

@Sychronicity-Ahh..., Just want to point out that the drones are 12pts ea. At two drones a piece it comes to 46 pts for the fusion piranha if it only costed 70pts originally.
The real bargain here is that you get a two for one in the fast attack slots, which leaves you with two slots still available for those precious pathfinders you might need.


This tactic is about taking the lemon that 5th ed handed the Tau and making lemonade. If your going to get penalized for KPs from drones on a vehicle the Piranhas at least let you make a squadron out of them to where your opponent will have to expend effort to get that KP.

Look at the points people spend to avoid this cheap KP on the Devilfish and the appeal becomes clearer. It also brings me to the one tactical point in your post that I humbly disagree with. The assumption of need over the opportunity to use. A player doesn't need any units beyond the basic one required to fill the FOC. But, I can't think of a Tau build that wouldn't be able to make use of a Deep Striking Gun drone unit.

I typically run a Static and Mobile Gun Line that ends up being a mix of Kauyon and Mont'Ka.

Early in the game, I play a static gun line, about 36 Fire Warriors with rifles sitting back in cover, blasting everything in sight. Each squad has a markerlight and if I can afford it, 1-2 marker drones. Supporting this are 2 Hammerheads, a team of 2 broadsides, then crisis and stealth suits. I usually run one full crisis team and commander, or a commander with full retinue, depends on how much heavy firepower i need. I also run a full stealthsuit squad, 2 fusion blasters, and 12 drones, mostly gun drones with a few marker drones. This provides mobility and strong standing army power.

Early game, the Fire warriors are primarily firing markerlights at troublesome vehicles, especially ones with blasts, or ones that can drop vehicles easily(leman russ demolishers and vanquishers are targets i drop fast) Then i use the hits to guide in railguns and if i need them, seeker missiles. The stealth and crisis suits hop around, take pot shots at enemy elites, and move toward an ambush point for anything that looks like it will advance quickly.

This gives me ample time to kill off enemy vehicles and lets the enemy move up, I'd much rather him do most of the walking than my Tau, it reduces the risk I take later. This is the main mix of Kauyon and Mont'ka, I'm allowing him to move up so I can get a better position, an at the same time delivering my hardest hitting stuff at the biggest threat my army has, vehicles.

Mid Game-- by this time, my opponent is usually halfway across the board and getting into my deployment. This is when my FW's move up, they advance and start laying waste to infantry at close range, with the support of the stealthsuits and a hammerhead or two's submunitions. Broadsides continue to blast vehicles, so will a hammerhead if they fail and i really need a vehicle taken out. My main mission here is to move up and secure a firing point mid field. I converge my troops and focus fire on one area and take it. this give his flanking and outflanking units less of an advantage over me.

By this point, I dominate about one half of the board, I've usually lost about 1/3 of my fire warriors. I usually leave one squad behind to cover the rest. This serves a dual purpose, One, they cover the advance, able to shoot at long range enemies, and two, it keeps flankers on track. If i completely abandon the spot the flankers were going to, they usually hit the main force, I use them to draw the flankers out, which will make this squad of FW's suffer big casualties usually, but that separates his flanking/outflankers and lets me have a stealth/crisis team double back and blast them, with support from the now stationary fire warriors that advanced, and whats left of the left behind squad.

Late game-- assuming that the tactics worked, i didnt get a string of bad luck or my opponent good luck, by this point most of his vehicles are dead and nearly all of his big infantry squads are gone too. Fire warriors soften up whats left and 12" moving suits and hammerheads hunt them down.


I have some kroot and piranha and am going to work on a strategy for them soon. I wouldnt take piranha in low points games due to the extra kill points from drones, but if i can afford 4-5 piranha, a squad of 8-10 gun drones would be nice.

The one major problem I see with an army style liek yours RedFloyd, is the same problem I see with nearly all Tau today, and its something we are all adapting to...and that thing is a pure deepstrike army.

In the case of the latter, your army is sitting there waiting for the first turn( assuming you go first) or has a rough time dealing with whats coming down or teleporting in as your army has lost its mobility in order to favor firepower.

Say you are facing demons, if a soulgrinder teleports 6 inches in front of your gunline, you know that thing has an enormous CC range, and so you would focus on that. Now say 2 soulgrinders, a couple monstrous creatures and the deadly little unit known as flamers comes in, they are already on top of you, due to forward cover you have limited firing arcs on them, and if the opposing player is smart, he has put his units next to things unable to deal with them ( grinders and firewarriors, monstrous creatures and vehicles, or elites, etc).

what do you do with that now that you know you cant run, as you will be caught, and if you try to focus on one thing, you will lose out to another, and he still has half of his army waiting to come in... Same goes for podding marines.

In the advent of 5th edition, gunlines simply do not work any longer as now nearly every army has the mombility to get around and surround your force.

Stand and die, or fight and flight? Its your choice...

Yeh, full deepstrike and full outflank armies are a pain, i'm still working on tactics to use against them. Against a full deepstrike I try to keep my forces balance, trying to give myself the most flexibility, thats about all I can do. Against full outflank, i push toward the middle of the field, and the middle of my deployment zone, this gives me room between the flanks and me, and if he decides to bring something in on his table edge, away from it. I dont get much practice against either of these armies, my friends and most of the people who play at the hobby store i play at dont run lists like those too much. My IG friend tends to have a fair number of autocannon/missile sentinels outflanking, these were a pain at first but as long as the game is going my way I can move away from the edges a little so they can't melee my FW's(I learned fast that this is death incarnate for tau, chain meleeing through my infantry) and I try to move up a bit and use more area cover so that they cant get behind my guys using walls and hedges and such. Theres one guy who plays a Master of the Forge SM army with 3 or 4 ironclads and all his TAC squads in drop pods at the game store nearby, but I havent played that army of his yet, my nid playing friend beat him the other day with a mostly stealer swarm with a few MC's. He managed to keep his stealers away from the dreads and keep them on his TAC, and get his MC's(hive tyrant and one carnifex at least, maybe 2, cant remember) on the dreads.
I'm thinking of trying kroot out against the next outflank/deep strike army, i rarely use kroot, but it seems like they would be a good thing to screen the fire warriors and protect them from deep striking units. If i keep most of my forces in area terrain in about the same area of the board, spread out enough to protect from blasts and multiple assaults, 1 kroot squad per FW squad might be able to create a curtain with 2" coherency to keep anything from DSing near my main troops. The major flaw of this idea though is that most DS armies have really good melee units if built right, SM,Deamons mainly. Kroot of course are really fragile, i may have to try this out sometime, might work some.

Positional Relay helps against outflankers and deepstrikers.


That said there is no reason to never not take a 10 man kroot 10 man Hound squad in your army period.


Kroot are fantastic for dealing with all sorts of stuff.

Sorry if I missed the gun drone/piranha conversation, but I read something that focusedfire wrote that was a little confusing. A "deep-striking" gun drone unit? Is that do say that if you take a piranha, you can deploy it without the drones and hold them in reserve? If so, can you do that for a devilfish too?

Please tell me if I misunderstood you, and if I didn't, what rules loop allows you to do this.

It's a debatable tactic some people say you can some say you cannot. I don't think you can personally and don't play that way.


Focusedfire probably knows more about it.


Also, if you say Tau 3 times in a mirror Focusedfire shows up.

Hollismason wrote:

Also, if you say Tau 3 times in a mirror Focusedfire shows up.

True story hehe!!

I'm not sure about detaching the gun drones from vehicles while they are still in reserve. True that they are passengers and create a squadron when detached in battle but it is not a squadron until the drones detach. This unit is created IN BATTLE. I'm not sure if they discussed this in YMDC but if not it should be brought up.

Deathrains are amazing. Kroot for a suicide attack are great but lack staying power. If there was some way to give Kroot an armor save (and a 6+ save is not a save IMO). Kroot are only good in large numbers - very large numbers. Kroot are very fun to play as well.

The best way to play tau is to try a ton of different tactics and change things up once in a while. I want to build a Kroot Horde Army lead by XV8s but they problem is that it takes forever to model and I hate playing with models that are not painted. That and it costs 4 times as much as a normal army or so.