Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have never played against tau, or read their codex. I hear they suck at close combat.


I know they use kroot for their CC needs, but do tau themselves suck?

Tau suck at CC.

Kroot are so so at best.

Shooting is their supposed strong point, though they generally get outshone by SM like everyone else..

They are better with 6th ed, as their skimmers now get Jink saves, and they DO have those shiny Railcannons, but the Tau plan is always to kill you before you get close.

Kroot are junk, what you do is get yourself some Space Wolf or Deathwing allies. Thats the way to go.

Tau are horrible in CC, that's a given.

But keep in mind that counting on that too much MIGHT ruin your day, as their HQ are actually decent at it (and a few actually surprisingly good) and a set of not-so-good rolls can let even a mere shas'o take down a khorne chaos lord.

Newsflash...small blue aliens suck at close combat...will the universe ever be the same.!!

Yes they are the worst faction overall at CC, always been that way, and hopefully always will, its one of the reasons I chose them to collect.

I have always found the adled idea of running at a enemy with a sharp thing, while they shoot holes in you, silly , but thats just me (old soldier bias and all ).

Having said that I play up how hopeless my Tau are in CC, and encourage my opponent to discard caution and try at every end to make it to CC...

so in short yes they suck in CC, and its actually cool that they do. (not every faction needs to do everything great I enjoy the challenge. )

Drones and Stealth suits can hold their own in close combat... I've seen a drone squad wipe out terminators...

WS2 I2

a close combat unit has not these things.

Well my friend makes his FW seem like CC specialist.... So it depends on your opponent

In my opinion. Yeah, they do. But who needs A pointy stick when you have godlike fire power?

 Squat Kid wrote:
Drones and Stealth suits can hold their own in close combat... I've seen a drone squad wipe out terminators...

The amount of luck that this required is grated then tht time a dreadknight with his flamer-thingy got a template on 10 of my kroot, and managed to kill only 4.

I never saw Kroot as the CC answer, a mate of mine that plays Tau always used them to swamp my other friends and I. He'll hide in cover and charge out grab on and wait for us to carve our way through before blasting us into swiss cheese with his rail cannons and all that good stuff.

Yes, they do. That's why you see so few assault-y Tau armies...

*sigh*

Tau are to CC what Orks (bar a few exceptions) are to shooting.

We have kroot but they cant really hold much in CC. If I use them, its either to infiltrate, or as a meat shield for FW/crisis suits.

Im working on some rules for some Tarellian Dog Soldiers Im making for friendly games, to give the Tau an actual good CC unit. Im hoping something like that happens in the next codex, whenever that might be.

 HerbaciousT wrote:
Tau are to CC what Orks (bar a few exceptions) are to shooting.

I can't even remember when did I last face an Ork army what didn't shoot me into pieces... Or engaged me in close-combat with anything other than Nob Bikers...

Overall, the Tau has the same close-combat capabilities of the IG, as the worse WS/I is nicely counterbalanced by better armour and guns (for Overwatch/softening up).

Grey Templar wrote:WS2 I2

a close combat unit has not these things.

Orks have i2.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:

I have always found the adled idea of running at a enemy with a sharp thing, while they shoot holes in you, silly , but thats just me (old soldier bias and all ).

I though so too but them a forum poster told that the point of hitech isn't shooting but the best way to penetrate armor. Sometimes using a sharp stick is the best way to penetrate armor.

HerbaciousT wrote:Tau are to CC what Orks (bar a few exceptions) are to shooting.

Wouldn't that make tau pretty good at cc? I mean most units in ork dex are shooty units and the rest are either referred as shooty units or have decent shootyness.

I have started to use challenges with my Tau battlesuit characters as squads that used to wipe me out now sometimes lose. For example charge in and challenge the Ork Nob. I4 means we hit first, 5A’s at WS4 and STG5 means we have a decent chance to win. Stick a shield gen on with 2+ armor and although pricey you get do well at CC.

It's survivable, I'll agree. 2+ armor, 4+ shield gen, and throw in FNP will make it difficult to get wounds through.

The problem though is getting hits back. If its anything more than a sergeant then you're going to have a hard time getting anything through. That and you're looking at around 90 points for a commander with all three of those upgrades not counting weapons. Making it about 130 for one model that can survive a combat.

Pottsey wrote:
I have started to use challenges with my Tau battlesuit characters as squads that used to wipe me out now sometimes lose. For example charge in and challenge the Ork Nob. I4 means we hit first, 5A’s at WS4 and STG5 means we have a decent chance to win. Stick a shield gen on with 2+ armor and although pricey you get do well at CC.

Ork nobs usually have a pk. That means they have 4 ap 2 attacks on charge which will instakill you. You don't do anything with 2+ save or fnp.

I've been on both ends of the scale.
Best: Crisis Suit killing a Nugle DP in combat with full wounds. It made 20++ saves.
Worst: 6 Stealth suits losing to 9 grots in combat...

I had an HQ finish off a Necron lord in CC. I've had a regular suit kill off two assault marines that took three rounds of combat without causing or taking any wounds. But these are rare occasions.

The problem with suits is that they will almost always take a wound. They will generally fail to deliver any back. This means that Tau are pretty likely to fail combat, and then Get swept up because I2, or run off the board because 3d6".

Please don't evade the profanity filter. It's there for a reason. -Mannahnin

The Tau Philosophy on fighting is to kill things at range, so naturally their equipment, and training is a reflection of that.

WS2 is probably an indication that they haven't undergone any formal close quaters training, and WS2 is what i would imagine an untrained human to have, so while they could certainly hold thair own in a barfight (with humans) even impeial guardsmen will generally be better in close combat than they are.
In terms of battlefield equipment, despite their low initiative and weapon skill, they just about have the edge on guardsmen thanks to their 4+ save, but the real thing that holds them back is the lack of power weapons (outside of farsight, that is) and so they don't have the ability to reliably crack open armour.

They aren't as much of a pushover as people would expect, its not a case of, 'get anything into close combat with the tau and win' battlesuits of all flavours are quite resilient and have a fairly decent number of attacks, and only really fall over when dedicated assault units get at them. and firewarriors will get beaten up quite handily by vanilla tactical marines, but then so will guardsmen.

What it comes down to is the fact that they lack power weapons, and saying that individually on the tabletop they will beat a guardman in a punch up isn't really much to boast about

But Guard also have access to bigger numbers. So guard get to hit first, hit more, and then the Tau are getting less attacks back after casualties. Tau have generally worse leadership and will generally fail leadership checks.

Crisis suits can only really hold better because of S5 attacks and each having 2 wounds. But any unit with a powersword can deal a lot of hurt to them. They have LD8 base so nothing really special there. Can still get swept up easily and have a great chance of running off the board. Also add in that any drones count for morale checks really hurts them.

Tau are from the school of thought where every advantage comes with a disadvantage. Firewarriors can't get special weapons because their main weapon is high strength. They had good shooting and gave them the disadvantage where they are terrible at CC.

One thing that I hope changes is that Kroot get some special close combat weapons. I know that Tau don't know much about CC, but they can understand technology. They upgraded the Kroot rifles to shoot better bullets, but couldn't give them powerfields of some kind? Kroot are laughably terrible. They have I3 on a unit that's intended to charge and no armor on T3. They take so many wounds that they will probably never win combat and then get swept up.

and I really want to stress this part out. The Tau developed a little floating robot that only really understands how to point and shoot. It has a higher Initiative than the Tau's main CC troops.

But really, I think Tau's biggest weakness in CC is that they have a hard time winning or drawing in CC. T3, low I, and no power weapons makes it really hard from the beginning.

Here's a little anecdote for you:

I kick my 9 Berzerkers with SC and PS out of their land raider and send them charging at a squad of 12 fire warriors.

The next turn we have 0 Berzerkers and a very happy Tau player.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Here's a little anecdote for you:

I kick my 9 Berzerkers with SC and PS out of their land raider and send them charging at a squad of 12 fire warriors.

The next turn we have 0 Berzerkers and a very happy Tau player.

What.

No.

I've never seen so many 1s . . .

 TheCaptain wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Here's a little anecdote for you:

I kick my 9 Berzerkers with SC and PS out of their land raider and send them charging at a squad of 12 fire warriors.

The next turn we have 0 Berzerkers and a very happy Tau player.

What.

No.

This kind of stuff does happen. I've had 10 FW beat T-Wolves in CC, and over the course of 3 wounds only my wolf lord survived with 1 wound left. Rolling abysmally though.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I had an HQ finish off a Necron lord in CC. I've had a regular suit kill off two assault marines that took three rounds of combat without causing or taking any wounds. But these are rare occasions.

The problem with suits is that they will almost always take a wound. They will generally fail to deliver any back. This means that Tau are pretty likely to fail combat, and then Get swept up because I2, or run off the board because 3d6".

Crisis suits only fall back 2d6, same reason they can only move 6" in the movement phase, they're not the same as jump pack units.

Tau are the worst CC codex in 40k, it dosent mean they can't, they just can't do it well within expectation.

My friend's brother plays Tau, and as long as he can get enough kills before my Ork mob gets close they can stand the fight. But once Da boyz get stuck in, and there is enough of them it's not much of a battle.