This is the first of who knows how many blogs on the tau. Today, I want to talk about tau tactics. At the lgs the tau are rather numerous compared to other places I have lived but you see two main play styles. The two main tactics you usually see are either fully mechanized or heavy on battle suits. At my LGS you see a pretty even split on these two tactics.
Let’s look at the first option. With the fully mechanized you usually see three Hamerheads, a few crisis suits (most notably the required crisis suit commander) and fire warriors deployed in devilfish or Kroot. Locally, I have also seen a few players use piranha as well. With this list a large part of successfully using it relies on the use of your hammerheads. There is one player here who is amazing at it and easily overpowers even mechanized IG players. Which with the newer codexes of other races is very hard because of there more mechanized manner and higher amounts of anti-mech weaponry. To successfully use this you need to be really good at utilizing the terrain. If your not you are toast.
With the second approach the person usually maximizes on crisis suits, often with farsight leading, and broadsides or hammerheads. Often I see kroot used with this tactic as there infiltration skills become very handy. In a list like this you often see 15+crisis suits. However, once again if the player isn’t well versed in the use of these units they fail horribly. This list has however suffered massively in 5th edition. It could dominate well in the last edition but mainly just pisses off the people who have it now. This is mainly due to the cost of the units compared to there effectiveness. This is slightly better with the use of forge world battle suits and rules.
Myself I use a completely different approach. My normal 1500 point list is as bellow.
HQ
Shas’el 82pts
missle pod
Fusion blaster
Hard-wired Blacksun filter
multi-tracker
Elites
Stealth team 172pts
6 men
6 target array
Shas’vre
Bonding Knife
Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
2 Fusion blaster
Troops
Fire warrior team 1 116pts
8men
Shas’ui
Photon Grenades
Bonding Knife
Hard-wired Blackson Filter
Marklight gun
Fire warrior team 2 116pts
8men
Shas’ui
Photon Grenades
Bonding Knife
Hard-wired Blackson Filter
Marklight gun
Fast Attack
Pathfinder Team 1 212pts
8men
Shas’ui
Photon Grenades
Bonding Knife
Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
Devilfish
1 Seeker missle
Pathfinder Team 2 212pts
8men
Shas’ui
Photon Grenades
Bonding Knife
Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
Devilfish
1 Seeker missle
Heavy
Broadside Battlesuit team1 213pts
2men
leader
2 target array
Hard-wired Drone controller
2 Shield drones
Hard-wired multi-tracker
Hard-wired Blacksun filter
Hard-wired Target Lock
Bonding Knife
Broadside Battlesuit team2 213pts
2men
leader
2 target array
Hard-wired Drone controller
2 Shield drones
Hard-wired multi-tracker
Hard-wired Blacksun filter
Hard-wired Target Lock
Bonding Knife
Sniper drone team 160pts
2 teams
Total= 1496pts
Overall this list handles rather well. It relies heavily on a wall of fire with bonuses from the pathfinders marklights. Thus it basically runs as a gun line. The gun line works rather well for tau for a long list of reasons the least of which being there overall weapons range.
I mainly use the Stealth team for harassing though in one instance they had amazing luck and vaporized a blood thirster and then most of a squad of demons who then killed all but 2 in hand to hand and ultimately those two won and went on to supported the rest in killing off orcs (was a crazy four way game).
The main advantage to this army is it annihilates very well but suffers horribly in hand to hand. This is in my opinion partly due to the lack of options for any real power weapons. This has only ever really been a problem with my good friend the English Pillock as his Tyranid army and luck is astounding. Against the majority of the other players (marines) I usually table them or pull a draw.
Some of my choices, such as the blacksun filters, are just because of the frequency that I play certain types of games, mainly dawn of war games. The Bonding knifes are the single most important piece of wargear and anyone that doesn’t buy them for everyone is an idiot. With the ability to always regroup as long as the bearer is alive for a messily 5points, it has saved me on more then one occasion. The target locks and multi trackers are nice but cost a big hunk of points but they are worth it. With the target locks I can fire on two or more units (useful for mech) and the multi trackers make killing infantry much easier since I can fire both of my weapon systems. Target arrays are even better but in general I use the marklights to boost my BS.
The snipers are nice for there range and often make players focus on them instead of my pathfinders. They also pack a rather decent punch for only 80points. I also often use them to screen my pathfinders or broadsides since they don’t block LOS for them but due for the enemy.
Many people are surprised I only use photon grenades and honestly I find I need nothing else because I’m not rushing my guys in to hand to hand. And they cost a bunch if you want booth (4pts a model). Were photon are 1pt a model. People are often also often surprised that I only run broadsides in squads of two. This is mainly due to the point cost and the slight decrease in effectiveness at 3 models without costly upgrades. Unless it's a much larger game there just is no point, I can take more fire warriors, stealth teams, sniper teams, and a guard for the commander that work better points trade off wise.
Usually only in games 2500pts or bigger will I add my 3rd member to the Broadside teams. And for me running my Tau as a entrenched gun line style more guns are always better. However, in the future I am considering another stealth team, especially in bigger games. And of course more fire warriors and pathfinders. The only real downside to the pathfinders is the mandatory need to purchase a devilfish.
And that’s that more to come in the future next blog will probably look at the use of tau in spearhead.
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