Regular Dakkanaut
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Oh know, OP asked what is wrong with Tau. Probably shouldn't have done that, because I just wrote a wall-o-text. Only for the brave of heart, here is my answer:
Ok, to answer the OPs initial question, there are a lot of problems with the Tau codex. A lot. Its a fun army to play, and great for casual games and more relaxed tournaments, but I wouldn't consider it competitive. Its too dated. Its got too many weaknesses. Against the new 5th edition codices, in the hands of experienced players who know their army, who know how the Tau work, and who know how to build lists properly, they will get crushed.
This has nothing to do with the Tau CC weakness. The Tau are supposed to be weak in CC. They were provided with tools to avoid CC. The problem is that the Tau are supposed to be a mobile, shooting army that isn't that mobile, isn't any better at shooting than many of the 5th edition codices out there and far, far worse at shooting than IG (who are arguably more mobile), and furthermore lacks the endurance to stand up to return fire. They also have a poor range of scoring troops and an incomplete set of ranged weapons, which means there are certain enemies they have an extremely difficult time killing at range, which is a problem as they can only kill things at range.
Among the problems they have are:
Scoring Units:
Tau have exactly to troops choices. Firewarriors and Kroot. Both perform the same role in combat, anti-light infantry. Neither have any access to any heavy weapons, special weapons, or power weapons. This means going heavy with troops, which is necessary given the frailty of both these choices, makes the Tau innately heavy on the anti-light infantry side and lacking harder hitting weapons, which forces the Tau to eschew other anti-infantry options available in the codex, and makes there scoring units powerless against many foes.
Among the two troops choices, Kroot are actually a rather solid guerrilla/harassment type troop, and superior to Firewarriors nearly every way(including in shooting, if the target is toughness 4 or less), while Firewarriors are utter rubbish, terrible at the task they specialize and even worse at everything else. The major problem is that Kroot just can't perform the scoring troops role alone. Infiltrate is fantastic for getting into position or for outflanking, they actually have a rather effective shooting attack, they are decent in CC, and they are numerous enough to survive a committed attack. However, they are Ld 7(Ld 8 with an rather expensive upgrade) and they lack armor of any kind. This means flamers, tank shocks and any assault in which the Kroot cannot inflict significant enemy casaulties will quickly remove them from an objective, as will a lucky enemy shotting phase which inflicts 25% casualties and causes them to break on there awful Ld 7/8. They are good, just not hardy enough to hold objectives in the face of committed enemy resistance.
Finally, we have our troops transport, the Devilfish. This is, for the points, arguably the worst transport in the game. And in a game environment where mech is king (and mech really means massed APCs, not heavy tanks), this is a huge liability. Costing over twice the price of a Rhino or half again the price of a Chimera before upgrades, the Devilfish is slow, lacks fireports, is equipped with pathetic weaponry, and benefits from no free equipment or special rules. Only armor 12 11 10 and the lucky break Tau received with disruption pods prevents this unit from being irredeemably horrible. Wise Tau players would be advised to avoid including these units in their list entirely. And yet, doing so means all scoring units are strictly foot mobile, and can only advance on objectives slowly, while most current codices have access to fast skimmer transports that can used for quick objective grabs (which is easy to execute against flimsy Tau scoring units).
So there you have, a major handicap in taking objectives, which in 2/3rds of the missions determines the victor. Oh, don't think it gets any better in kill points, but first, lets get to the Tau's true weakness.
Terrible Leadership:
Sure, every noob and their dog knows that Tau suck in CC. The thing is, unless you are using some utter BS like Snikrot, the Tau can be irritatingly good at avoiding it. A true pro knows their real weakness, unbelievably terrible leadership. Why attempt to corner some dancing Crisis Suit while it merrily grinds to troops to dust over multiple shooting phases, when often a couple stray bullets are enough to send them running for the hills?
Tau leadership problems stem from three sources: poor base leadership, max of 8 for anything not HQ, horrible options for correcting poor leadership, as Ethereals in particular will actually make things worse, and small unit sizes. The only sizable Tau units are the troops choices, virtually everything else comes in squad sizes of 8 or smaller. Crisis suits are 1-3 suits occasionally accompanied by 1-2 drones, as are Broadsides (additional drones can be taken, but aren't for a variety of reasons). Stealth suits come in squads of 3-6, pathfinders and gun drones in squads of 4-8, vehicle drones in squads of 2, sniper drones in squads of 4. Often a single casualty is enough to force an Ld check, if not, it will take all of two casualties. Against suits, small arms fire can be used to remove the drones and result in an Ld test. If drones aren't present, an unsaved str 8 wound will instant kill and suit and cause the same effect.
In 4th edition, there problems were ameliorated by the fact the small units could use their footprint to easily hide behind terrain. Thanks to TLOS, it is often impossible to hide units (especially on tourney tables, which often have inadequate terrain). Thus there is nothing besides a 4+ cover preventing an opponent with sufficient weapon range, shooting at each squad in turn just enough to inflict 25% casualties to force as many Ld test as possible each round. Your opponent need not actually kill your army, the terrible Tau Ld will have your army withdraw for them
This fact, combined with Tau's weakness in CC and the high Ld scores and fearless nature of most other armies make things particularly difficult. Because even a single model is often a CC threat to the Tau, the Tau must kill each an every enemy unit to the last man. However, it is often sufficient for the enemy to defeat a Tau unit by inflicting a single casualty.
Oh, its a good thing Tau still have good anti-mech going for them, because heaven help you if you let anything with the “Tank” rule near your forces, as you can easily watch two of your units run off the board do to a single tank shock. Usually avoidable, but some codex writer decided it was a good idea to let IG bring in excess of 10 vehicles to a normal point game. So good luck with that.
Kill Points:
A yes, the final 1/3rd of victory conditions, kill points. THE WORST RULE IN WARHAMMER 40K. We need to reinstate corporal punishment, and use it on the individual who came up with this rule. Its that bad. But I digress.
As bad as kill points are, they only get worse for Tau. The Tau lend them selves naturally to multiple small units, which can often be driven off the board by a single casualty. Tau will often be coordinating many relatively weak units against a single much stronger, much more expensive enemy unit. Say multiple crisis suit teams against a single terminator squad. Sense some mathematically illiterate at GW decided a 100 point pair of crisis suits, a 70 point kroot squad, and a 600 point terminator squad are all worth essentially the same, should a stray krak missile cause your suits to run off a board and a deepstriking flamer cook your kroot while you finish off his termies, you will be one kill point behind because you were only able to destroy 3 times as much of his army as he destroyed of yours. So essentially you and your opponent will be operating under two completely different sets of objectives, with your objectives being far harder to achieve and yielding less points than your opponent. So for this third type of objective, Tau are once again at a disadvantage.
I suppose I described kill points in general, but due to the nature of the Tau codex, your likely to always end up on the screwed end of this badly contrived mission. Kill points were designed by idiots, and Tau suffer for that.
Crisis Suits and Imperial Hand-me-Down Weapons:
As a race dedicated to strictly ranged combat that is impotent in CC, you think Tau would be equipped with better weapons, or at least weapons that are not inferior to, weapons found on more CC capable races. Now the Tau do have two signature weapons that are superior to their imperial counterparts: the pulse rifle, which is unfortunately equipped on a unit that is so terrible that you are mathematically better off using bolter equipped chickens instead, and the railgun, which is simply awesome and is still awesome despite all the codex creep that has come since. However, railguns cannot and should not be expected to deal with everything. It is here that we encounter the weapons that bridge the gap between the pulse rifle and the railgun. Unlike the railgun and pulse rifle, the weapons are typically inferior to there IoM counterparts, especially when compared to IoM weapon platforms that perform similar purposes.
Burst Cannons – Burst cannons are a poor mans heavy bolter, possessing only half the range and inferior AP to its imperial counterpart. As an assault class weapon, it does grant suits the benefit of firing on the move, while Imperial troops must remain stationary for the heavy bolter. However, it typically isn't used on suits as it performs that same function as the Tau troops choices. This leaves vehicles mounted versions, for which the assault classification is irrelevant, making the secondary weapon on all Tau tanks and the Devilfish wholly inferior to their Imperial counterparts. Worst however, is the Piranha burst cannon. Its Imperial counterpart is the Landspeeder, which mounts not a heavy bolter, but an assault cannon, utterly outclassing the Piranha with superior range, ROF, str, AP and rending. To add insult to injury, the Landspeeder can carry a second powerful weapon, while the Piranha is stuck with the useful, but comparatively weak, gun drones.
Fusion Blaster – Just another word for a meltagun. Found on Piranha, Stealth, and Crisis Suits. Appropriate for the Stealth Suits, but underpowered otherwise. While the large based, elite special and heavy weapon platforms that are the Crisis Suits can only take a stock meltagun, a basic Tactical Marine is capable of using the longer range multi-melta. Similarly, the Piranha is stuck with the short range infantry version while a whole range of imperial vehicles can take multi-meltas as primary or secondary weapons, including the Landspeeder, which can simultaneously carry a multi-melta and heavy flamer.
Flamer – Only the flamer is available to Tau. No heavy flamers exist in the codex. And once again, while the specialized Tau elites can only carry the most basic flamer, often available to basic troops of other codices for free, your IG vets, a basic troops choice, have the option of packing the much more effective heavy flamer. Oh, and they can even use the heavy variant on the move.
Plasma Rifle – Once again, our plasma rifle is weaker than its imperial counterpart, although at least this one enjoys the benefit of not overheating. At least a slight benefit is obtained by mounting on Crisis Suits though, as it can be fired at full range while on the move. Still, its another weapon that the IoM can mount on basic troops, and even in the same quantity thanks to IG vets, while specialized Tau troops are needed in our codex.
There are basically two ranged weapons that really suit our Crisis Suits, as a signature elite shooting unit of a dedicated shooting faction: missile pods and the airbursting fragmentation projector. All other weapons are essentially cheap upgrades IoM codices can easily take on their basic troop choices, and can often use without hampering their mobility, which mind you, is the whole reason the Crisis Suits are supposedly using these weapons instead of stock troops. Even more insulting, sometimes basic IoM troops can take weapons that are superior to the ones found on Crisis Suits, while IoM vehicles are always equipped with weapons superior to that of the Tau, save that one exception. For a faction that is supposed to be known for their superior weaponry, Tau have exactly one weapon that actually fits this description: the Railgun(although not exactly superior to any IoM counterpart, missile pods are a strong and serviceable weapon). That's it. Virtually every other weapon available to the take is just a copy of a IoM weapon, but usually mounted to a much heavier platform that would have superior weapons if it were a IoM unit.
The Firepower Gap:
Of course when the unit that was supposed to bridge the gap between Railguns and troop level weapons is really just carry basic meltaguns and flamers rather then genuine heavy weapons, Tau firepower is going to be deficient. Many common IoM weapons such as plasma cannons, missile launchers and battlecannons are unavailable in any form to the Tau, even in inferior packages, and the Tau really don't have many weapons unique to themselves outside of pulse rifles and railguns. Thus a firepower gap exist between the missile pod of str 7, the only decent Crisis Suit weapon outside of the ABFP, and the railgun of str 10. Often there are units too resilient to be taken down with str 7, but are either too numerous, or are instant death multi-wound models that require more shots that are available from the limited amount of railguns that can be taken. Units such a Nobz, TMC, FNP Marines and Greater Demons can fall into this category. A str 8 pieplate or high volume str 8 ap 3 is what is often required of these targets, although sometimes plasma will suffice, and the only options Tau have for that is a meltagun at point-blank range, or a gimmicky a problematic one-shot seeker missile. So while Tau are expected to kill things at range, some things are simply difficult to impossible to kill at range. A large FNP nob squad with complex wound allocation exploits is nearly impossible for the Tau to remove.
The Tau Army Wide Special Rule – Markerlights:
Most armies in 40k enjoy some army wide special rules: Orkz get mob rule and Waagh, Marines get ATSKNF and Tactics, IG get orders, DE get power from pain, Eldar just get plain awesome support pyschic powers. For many armies, these rules are absolutely free, and if not, come with an otherwise solid HQ choice. Tau get markerlights, which are powerful, arguably more powerful than most of the rules listed, save the Eldar powers. Unfortunately, they are not free. You have to pay for them, and you have to pay A LOT. There are essentially two variants: mobile markerlight drones that cost 60 points per marker hit, which are simply too expensive to field, or pathfinders. Pathfinders cost only 24 points per hit, but thanks to an archaic and outdated rule, must take a transport that ill suits them, as the heavy nature of markerlights prevents them from using it after disembarkation. Should they embark in a Devilfish for any reason, two turns of markerlight shooting will be lost. Suffice to say, the markerlights are cumbersome and awkward to employ in an army, while most other armies enjoy automatically or easily incorporated special rules.
Conclusion:
This is getting far too long so I am going to end it hear. Basically you have an army that is supposed to have excellent mobility and firepower at the cost of CC, but its mobility is hampered the lack of a good way to get troops to objectives, its firepower is crippled by the fact that the most of the armies weapons are inferior copies of IoM weapons save a few signature weapons, all while the army is being hampered by a poorly integrated army wide special rule, lackluster troops, kill point liabilities, and crippling leadership issues. Its expected to kill at range when it can effectively harm many common enemy units at range, and has limited options for winning based on mission objectives.
Mind you, I was discussing the good things in the codex. I never went into details about the bad options in the codex. In particular, photon grenades, krootox, ethereal and Aun'vi are so bad they are not just a waste of points, they will actively screw you!
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