Charlie brings us a guest tactica on the T’au in 8th edition. Check the Tactics Corner for more great content.
Hi everyone! Charlie here with a new article about the T’au. Since the release of the T’au codex in March of this year, I’ve seen a lot of misconception and just plain wrong information about the T’au, their units, and their abilities. Whether you play T’au or play against them, it’s important to understand exactly what they can and can’t do. Through this article (and potentially others), we’ll give you the important details and some quick references to help make sure you’re “in the know.”
General information about T’au
Space commies, fish bros, try-hards, and drinkers of tears – T’au are known by many names. T’au are everyone’s favorite caste system-based fledgling empire who believe in the “Greater good”, a doctrine of putting the good of their empire above themselves completely. Throughout their existence on the tabletop, T’au have been privy to several of the games more annoying tactics like the Fish of Fury and Riptide Wing. Now with 8th edition, T’au (no longer “Tau”, check your un-approstrophied privileged at the door) have a whole new bag of tricks, relying mainly on their synergy and overwhelming firepower.
First up, though, let’s discuss the fact that T’au have Strength 5 (S5) weaponry literally everywhere. On their HQ, Troop, Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy Support, Fliers, and Lord of War – T’au has at least one S5 (or higher) option at every slot. In fact, it’s rare, as a T’au player, that I’m not wounding on at least 3’s. It makes a difference that T’au can wound everything below T10 (which is not often seen) fairly easily. Often overlooked, the fact that S5 is so prevalent is not something to ignore.
If it looks like a robot or vehicle (with a few exceptions) it has the <Fly> keyword, which comes in pretty handy in most strong T’au lists. Since the T’au are so middling in the fight phase and excel so much in the shooting phase, this is a key point. Against another shooty army like Astra Militarum, you can assault key units to either tie them up in combat or force them to fall back and forgo a round of shooting. Because so many of the T’au’s units have <Fly> however, this means that strategy won’t largely work. What are the exceptions? Broadsides and Stormsurges are both “robot-esque” yet neither have <Fly>. The Stormsurge, however, can still fall back and shoot, thanks to its Walking Battleship special ability.
While it may come a a surprise to some, T’au are widely a BS4+ army. This might seem a bit counterintuitive to have an army that focuses on shooting only hit 50% of the time, however there’s more to the story than meets the eye. T’au is all about finding the best synergies between units to get out every last ounce of benefit. While T’au naturally only hit on 4’s, they have tools to let them reroll 1’s, add 1 to hit, add 1 to wound, ignore cover, ignore the penalty to hit when moving a firing a heavy weapon or when advancing and firing an assault weapon, etc. etc. T’au have MANY tools at their disposal and really do have an answer for almost anything. Don’t let their BS4+ fool you.
Key Abilities
Master of War is an ability that all T’au Commanders have and is normally usable only once a game. Everything within 6″ of the Commander that activates this ability is affected with one of two special effects: Mont’ka or Kauyon. Mont’ka allows the units to advance and shoot as if they had not moved, while Kauyon restricts all movement within the area of effect, but lets those units reroll all to-hit rolls. My favorite use of Mont’ka involves using it within 6″ of a Tigershark Bomber so that it can fire all its Heavy weapons ignoring the penalty to hit due to moving, while Kauyon is just about seeing how many Riptides, Firewarriors, and Broadsides you can get within 6″ of a Commander for all those juicy rerolls.
Saviour Protocols will be called OP by those who don’t understand it and very strong by those who do. It’s effectively a method of shielding <Battlesuits> and <Infantry> from damage by passing wounds to nearby drones and is depicted in the flow chart below.
Here’s an example: let’s say that our enemy is shooting a las cannon at one of our Riptides with a group of drones within 3″ of the Riptide (a necessary condition to use Savior Protocols). The las cannon would have to roll to hit and the roll to wound against the toughness of the Riptide (T7). If the las cannon passed both those rolls, then we would have to roll a 2 or higher in order to be able to use Savior Protocols. If that roll is failed, then our Riptide would have to roll to save as normal, and so on and so forth. However, if we passed the Savior Protocol roll with a 2 or higher, then that wound gets instantly transferred to the nearby drone unit. No damage is rolled (even though the las cannon does D6 damage) because a byproduct of using Savior Protocols is that it is converted to a single mortal wound. Lucky for the T’au, Shield Drones have a 5+++ “feel no pain” that lets them ignore even this mortal wound on a 5 or higher. What this means is that a las cannon that normally hits on 3’s that shoots at a Riptide with nearby drones will only manage to successfully wound the Riptide a little less than 5% of the time.
Remember when we talked about how melee is one of the T’au’s biggest shortcomings? Luckily (or unluckily, depending on which side of the table you are), T’au have a couple of tricks up their sleeves when it comes to mitigating this weakness. The first being an ability on nearly all of the T’au units called “For the Greater Good”. This allows all units with this ability and within 6″ of the target of the declared charge to fire overwatch as if they were the target of the charge . The caveat is that if a unit uses this ability, they will be unable to fire overwatch at all for the remainder of the phase. This combined with certain abilities that let overwatch hit on 5’s instead of 6’s or in some case even reroll missed overwatch hits can provide what is essentially a second shooting phase. Another tool at the T’au players disposal is Photon Grenades, which are carried by many infantry units (coincidentally that don’t have <Fly>). A D6 grenade that if it hits an Infantry unit during overwatch, will cause that unit to suffer a -1 to hit in the ensuing fight phase – not groundbreaking but definitely helpful.
Conclusion
T’au armies have answers to just about every situation that an enemy army can put them in. They excel in utilizing synergy to make average units good and require more finesse in 8th edition than compared to previous editions (I’m looking at you: Riptide Wing and Jump, Shoot, Jump), which I think makes for a great and fun challenge. If you’re just starting to get into T’au (or someone else in your gaming group is, so you need to know what you’ll be up against), I hope this gave you a very general feel for what T’au can do. Make sure all these points factor into your strategy and tactics whether you fight for the T’au’va or against it.
If this interested you, make sure to check back often for more T’au content and information. Also check out 40kDiceRolls.blog for a more mathematical look into the T’au.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Was kind of expecting more than an explanation of how abilities work. But I digress, let me add to what’s been said here, Savior drones is very well explained and should help others understand it.
To those wanting to play tau, S5 Guns means your infantry can hurt knights on a 5+ typically, and if you’re using the tau sept for your guys and get a wound off, this means you can hurt a knight on a 4+ with focused fire strat. If you are using through unity devastation trait you’re also removing 1 point of armor off the armor save on a 5+… This actually makes your firewarriors incredibly effective against literally every target on the planet.
This is of course one of the obvious synergies, but shouldn’t be over looked also do not forget Firewarriors are 7 points apiece.
Hi Kevin, Thanks for the reply. I would love to go into more detail on many of the finer point of the T’au army, if this initial article is well-enough received. That’s a great point about S5 guns and like you said, just one of the many, many synergies that good T’au players need to be aware of.
I think you might have been pretty late entrant for a “here’s a basic primer” type article. This will be ironic considering what I’ve already said, but don’t wait for feedback just write the whole thing up and do it. Don’t wait for reception and feedback, just do the articles and do it completely.
This article really glosses over some of the major shortcomings T’au face –
1) No way to counter ranged -1 to hit penalties. No, most armies do not lack a way to deal with this because most armies have effective assault units. So the army-wide -1 to hit abilities hurt T’au statistically more than any other faction.
2) No way to negate psychic powers
3) No easy way to deal with melee characters that can hide behind screens (looking at you custodes) until they reach your gunline and wreak face. – other factions can bring their own melee beat-sticks to combat this.
So in short, saying that “T’au armies have answers to just about every situation that an enemy army can put them in” just simply isn’t true. My experience of T’au has always been that they are a powerful army with some glaring weaknesses that can be easily exploited by a smart opponent.
Also, using JSJ required far more finesse than the fly keyword. JSJ tested your ability to balance weapon range with your opponents assault range, it was an active tool you had to be experienced with to use really well beyond simply jumping behind cover.
This article really glosses over some of the major shortcomings T’au face –
1) No way to counter ranged -1 to hit penalties. No, most armies do not lack a way to deal with this because most armies have effective assault units. So the army-wide -1 to hit abilities hurt T’au statistically more than any other faction.
2) No way to negate psychic powers
3) No easy way to deal with melee characters that can hide behind screens (looking at you custodes) until they reach your gunline and wreak face. – other factions can bring their own melee beat-sticks to combat this.
So in short, saying that “T’au armies have answers to just about every situation that an enemy army can put them in” just simply isn’t true. My experience of T’au has always been that they are a powerful army with some glaring weaknesses that can be easily exploited by a smart opponent (which is certainly not true of every faction).
Also, using JSJ required far more finesse than the fly keyword. JSJ tested your ability to balance weapon range with your opponents assault range, it was an active tool you had to be experienced with to use really well beyond simply jumping behind cover.
Hi Ethan, Thanks for the reply. Yep! This was just meant to be an initial and hihg-level look at the T’au forces. There are MANY more points to cover. A few responses to your points:
1) Most of these negative modifiers revolve around being outside of 12″ or something similar. T’au have great mobility and long gone are the days that a good T’au player can hope to win with just a static gun line list. There needs to be components of the list that can get within that 12″ bubble and pop key targets. Breachers in Devilfish springs to mind.
2) Yep! The best defense are Sniper Drones, which are situational but effective in the right situation.
3) See Sniper Drones above as some sort of answer. Mobility and focus firing to clear screens when necessary have to be another. You make it sound like T’au can’t deal with certain situations at all, when that’s just not true, nor are the few situations that the deal with poorly devastating.
JSJ was an unfair advantage that made the game not fun for anyone it was used against. The game is better off without it.
Fair enough, it’s a good write up so far, but T’au are definitely less straight-forward than most people think.
1) True, but T’au still bites at CQB, so the faction as a whole can’t fight for long at that range – if you’re within 12″ you’re within assault range.
2) Unless taken in large groups, sniper drones are only effective against low T, and poor save models… which is great against IG psykers… however….
3) Really not against melee beat-sticks or astartes pskyers with power armour. Having three sniper drones spend an entire game plinking a few wounds off of one librarian is hardly what I’d call effective.
None of these things are an issue in casual games without min/maxed lists, but you have to balance a faction based on the competitive scene, not the casual one. And in most competitive scenes people do bring things like custodes shield captains on jetbikes, alaitoc anything with spammed conceal etc… match ups that T’au just don’t really have the tools to deal with.
And I completely disagree regarding JSJ, T’au almost instantly lost any unit caught in melee, so that was the trade-off, you could dance in-and-out of assault range, risking getting caught. Saying that something was unfair simply because you personally didn’t like it isn’t a valid reason for cutting it out of the game. I personally think Reainimation Protocols/disgusting resilience and allying in friendly detachments give unfair advantages to the factions that have them, but we both know none of that is going to change.
I’ve played T’au since 4th ed, and JSJ was the best rule they had, it made them fun and dynamic. I really don’t enjoy playing T’au in their current incarnation, as they feel more like a manga IG gunline by comparison.
Sniper Drones are bonkers powerful. The only time my entire Bulgryn unit has been shot off the table in 1 round of shotting was because of two units of Sniper Drones putting 13 mortal wounds on them. With the +1 to wound strat and all of the buffs they can get, the Drones are savage. I am including 18 in my list.
T’au are very strong right now as things like Sniper Drones, Ionheads, Firewarriors, Riptides, etc. are excellent. Just look to recent tournament results to see that played out.
I do agree though, though that they can be pretty static right now. Crisis Suits are too expensive I think, and some of their units are not as appealing when compared to the efficient choices so you see fairly similar lists which is always a bit annoying. However, generally speaking T’au are quite strong right now.
I’ve had no problem finding room for 9 sniper drones in my regular lists (T’au love CP and a Brigade is super easy to fill with things I’d like to take anyway). What is is finding its way into your list apart from the 18 Sniper Drones? 😀
I have been running all infantry but after playing against Ionheads in a tournament, they’re so amazingly good I find myself wanting to include some!
Previously though, loads of Friewarriors, Breachers, Sniper Drones, character support and Kroot for screening duty. I have a ton of bodies in the list.
I’m working towards my all infantry list myself. Nothing but firewarriors/breachers/kroot with cadres/ethereals as far as the eye can see, a couple dozen sniper drones and commanders with fusions of course for them hard targets.
I absolutely agree with your point that T’au are often NOT straightforward, which is why I think people will benefit from this discussion.
1) I’m of the opinion that T’au need to be in the 24″ to 12″ band to really be effective with so many of their guns being either 18″ range or gaining an extra shot due to being rapid fire at around ~15″. Of course you have the several 72″ or 60″ guns, but you’re never going to be able to keep that range up for long and there are widely used and effective weapons that are in the band I mentioned.
2) True, Sniper Drones have their limits and are situational, but with no way to deny psychic power, this is the best plan B. Your point was that T’au had no options, mine was that they had at least limited ones.
3) No T’au can’t beat Custodes at the melee game, but they do have tools for keeping Custodes from getting in (For The Greater Good), mitigating their damage (Photon Grenades and screening stealth suits native -1 to hit), and then retaliating (many units having or another way to fall back and still shoot. It’s not a simple answer, but to your first point, T’au aren’t as straightforward as people think.
T’au have placed decently and won a few recent events. That takes a little more than luck and requires good players and effective tools at their disposal.
I actually loved JSJ. It created a scenario where my opponent had no counter-play to my shooting him and then being unable to take any return fire or damage, plus gave me tons of free movement on virtually every unit.
I see your sentiment shared about JSJ and the state of T’au in a lot of people who have played since 3rd and 4th editions. I feel that T’au have shifted in their intended play style and a lot of long-time players are having a hard time adjusting. Regardless, I appreciate you taking the time to detail all this as I hope this sort of discussion with help new and old players alike.
1) Fair argument. However, a lot of those short ranged weapons are on suits, which had JSJ. So from a game design perspective it made sense to design a series of units with short ranged weapons and unique mobility. Both features needed the other, so it made sense back then and doesn’t as much now, so T’au suits are now in this weird place where they _need_ to be at short range to be effective, but don’t want to be because of lack of assault capability.
2) In a competitive scene “limited options” can be very similar to “no options”. Reece’s Bulgryn example is a compelling one, but that requires a big unit of sniper drones, a DC, marksmen and some very hot rolling to pull off. If sniper drones were really all that effective, I would expect to see them far more often at tournaments.
3) I have a lot of beef with the FTGG rule, as in my experience it is highly overrated by itself. However, the T’au sept rule changes that completely and in that scenario FTGG becomes a viable charge deterrent. I’ll concede that with the T’au sept you have a point, and I’d say the y’vahra is another useful tool in that regard.
The point about T’au at tournaments is a good one, and I’d say the key to victory for a T’au player now is in plugging or avoiding those weaknesses. However I’d be interested in seeing the match ups leading to each victory, as my tournament experience has been that there are just some match ups T’au can’t really handle or at the very least seriously struggle against.
Yeah, I’m not gonna lie that me and plenty of other local vets have been pretty unhappy about the changes. It doesn’t help that the “my-faction-is-powerful-but-no-fun-any-more” argument is an odd one to make, and usually met with claims of whining and saltiness.
1) Yes, T’au do need to be in that range band. But they lack the mobility and melee proficiency to get there and stay there comfortably.
2) Sniper drones are not a plan B vs psykers, they’re a plan D at best. Coldstars loaded up with fusion blasters are better snipers.
3) T’au don’t even beat tactical marines at the melee game, and FTGG doesn’t help all that much. Hitting on 6s is not a plan for success, and not everyone will be running T’au sept.
One major weakness of T’au units are that they seem to be priced as if they had full markerlight benefits at all times, and then still have to pay to bring along enough markerlights in the rest of the army. Compared to armies with psyker buffs its rather frustrating. You don’t see eldar units, for example, being priced as if they had guide, misfortune, lightning reflexes, etc etc, all active at the same time.
For reasons known only to the rules writers Photon Grenades do not work on bikers of any kind. Only on infantry.
They only work on Infantry models because otherwise you have the lone Fire Warriors tossing a grenades onto an Imperator Titan and somehow causing the whole thing to go haywire. And it’s not like Tau are alone in that restriction, almost all other similar weapons have the same limitation.
well… some -1 are related to distance, but now u will face often lists with lot of Nurgle and they have Pb with a natural -1 to be hit and use miasma of pestilence for further -1 if needed and distance matter nothing, i recently played a nurgle demon/Dg list and Tau had lot of troubles handling it, lot of bodies inv saves+fnp everywhere and lot of -1 to hit.
This is where markerlights (Sa’cea strategem will help get the first on there, followed by Sa’cea marksmen) will help, along with things that auto-hit like flamers. Not saying T’au will dominate the matchup, but again, they have some tools at their disposal.
The problem with Markerlights as a solution for penalties to hit is that Markerlights themselves need to roll to hit, and you need five of them. So if you’re trying to shoot down that Hemlock Wraithfighter with -2 or -3 to hit, you chances of accumulating the necessary Markerlights (even with using both of the two stratagems) are not great.
Tau really needed a way to negate penalties, as they suffer very badly without it, but at the end of the day that becomes more of a matchup issues than a power level issue.
I have found making your Marker Light strategy revolve around Cadre Fireblades and Firesight Marksemen works really well. Being BS2+ and 3+ respectively makes them quite reliable. I mean, -3 to hit screws everyone over but that is pretty rare.
-3 to hit will happen at _least_ once per shooting phase against a good Craftworlds army. It’s not really that rare.
Yeah, but you don’t shoot that one =)
Sometimes you _have_ to shoot at that one, because it is important to winning the game. Also, since they activate the stratagem reactively, you will always shoot at that one at least once, whether you like it or not.
I play both Eldar and Tau as primary armies, Reece. I do actually know how this game works.
Lol, I am not implying otherwise, I know you’ve got a great handle on the game. I’m just saying you won’t be fighting through a -3 to hit very frequently. That is a rare circumstance generally speaking.
Yeah, it’s mostly just gonna be -2s to hit. Which, for the Fireblade and Marksman, still mean that you aren’t going to successfully get those 5 ML tokens that you need. 3 Marksmen = 1 hit, 3 Fireblades = ~1.5 hits, and even if you pop off the stratagem that still leaves you short of netting 5 hits on the target, at least on average.
You’re forgetting about Sa’cea reroll and stratagem, the stratagem only requires line of sight, no rolling required. Or just use their native reroll, so that even a negative 2 to hit results in a 75% chance to hit for the Cadre Fire Blade (50% because effective BS4+, then another 25% when he misses but rerolls but then hits half the time) THEN use uplinked markerlights to change that 1 into 1 + D3 (using reroll stratagem to reroll the D3 if necessary. Yes you’re using all your tools at your disposal, but that’s what T’au is all about – knowing when to use all the tools at your disposal, against the right target, at the right time.
Your point about Sa’cea is a good one Charlie, but in that situation you’re potentially burning 3cp to counter something an Eldar player can have on virtually any unit in their army, just by taking a specific craftworld and having a warlock cast conceal. The sa’cea “counter” doesn’t scale well at all, and you can only realistically do that to 1-2 units per turn.
A T3 character is a problem you say? Sounds like a job for Sniper Drones then 😛
I get your point, but let’s be realistic. With games not going out regularly to T5 or T6, and with how lethal everything is, you only often need one or two good turns to outscore your opponent. That’s definitely something that’s within the realm of possibility for what T’au can do and what T’au can bring to the table.
Haha, you’ve definitely got me there, killing a warlock is a perfect job for a min sized sniper team.
But I’m still not convinced that Tau really have the tools to handle the hit penalties. Empirically, the games I’ve struggled the most with in terms of firepower are the ones against alaitoc, ravenguard etc
>Yes you’re using all your tools at your disposal, but that’s what T’au is all about
The problem is that you’re using all of the tools at your disposal _in order to be able to hit a single target at half the normal penalties_. Let’s be clear here: even after you have jumped through all those hoops and shot your six Markerlight sources at a target and triggered two stratagems, you are still hitting the Eldar on 5s. That is still an extremely bad place to be for a shooting army.
That’s one of my biggest gripes with Tau, is that the support is usually concentrated into characters (for markerlights) if you want it to stay around and be reliable.
Units of markerlight drones or pathfinders are just low hanging fruit for your army to be neutered through.
To be effective with it, requires a larger commitment to it than it probably should take compared to other armies. Markerlights themselves should ignore penalties to hit.
Eh. I can’t speak to Marker Drones, but Pathfinders are fantastic- 40pts for five guys is a bargain and the enemy HAS to get rid of them, which means they’re not shooting firepower units (Strike Teams, etc.)
Most armies don’t even have access to +1 to hit, so Tau getting that makes them rather unique- and their units are mostly priced (and given weapon stats) for BS4+, so when you’re BS3+ or 2+ you can absolutely devastate things. Markerlights are very comparable (and in many cases superior) to the various “reroll 1s” auras that other factions can get. It’s really only against Craftworlds, who can stack multiple to-hit penalties, that it becomes problematic.
> 1) No way to counter ranged -1 to hit penalties.
Sure we do! Markerlights!. There’s not many armies that have the ability to boost their +hit. We also have several units that allow us to re-roll to great effect. If we’re being fair here, this is a problem that every faction faces, yet we are better equipped than most.
> No, most armies do not lack a way to deal with this because most armies have effective assault units.
That’s not really a counter, is it? Even more so now that deepstrike is turn 2, you’ll likely not get many units within range to charge or get units in charge. I’ve also never heard of a good counter to -1 to hit armies being melee.
> 2) No way to negate psychic powers
This is not as big as a concern as you’d think. There’s a great many armies that don’t even have psykers in their list when they have access to them. Even still, you’re not likely going to make a defensive impact on the psychic phase unless you’re already a psychic heavy army like Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, or Eldar.
On top of this, you’re probably not likely to cancel out an opponent’s psychic spell anyway so this point is typically overblown.
> 3) No easy way to deal with melee characters that can hide behind screens (looking at you custodes) until they reach your gunline and wreak face. – other factions can bring their own melee beat-sticks to combat this.
Plenty of ways to doing this actually. If you’re going up against a heavy melee army or an army you feel has beat sticks you have two possible starting positions:
You can castle up to magnify your overwatch and synergy.
OR
You can spread out your forces, forcing your opponent to choose which group he attacks.
Ultimately, the same problem you describe here is also a problem for everyone else. In fact, most lists don’t even bother with snipers to counter this issue, so it’s not like it’s terribly OP.
> Also, using JSJ required far more finesse than the fly keyword. JSJ tested your ability to balance weapon range with your opponents assault range, it was an active tool you had to be experienced with to use really well beyond simply jumping behind cover.
Let’s be honest here. The only thing you needed to learn with JSJ is that the averages of dice rolls will often bite you in the ass. That and not getting a good roll often meant that your suits were toast in the following shooting phase, even if you did the proper set up.
The Fly keyword gives the suits hit and run, and with their higher toughness, extra wounds, and generally decent saves, you can survive a round of combat more than likely.
Excellently stayed, thanks!
1) Yeah but most factions are natively BS 3+ anyway, so they don’t need the +1 boost the same way Tau do. And markerlights are hard to get on the target if it’s already got -1 or -2 to hit (yes, I know what the counter argument is but you can only use the uplinked m-light strat once per turn).
2) My point is that the vast majority of -1 penalties don’t apply to melee, so you can naturally overcome some of those penalties by having part of your army dedicated to assault. T’au don’t have that option.
I also wouldn’t underestimate the ability to occasionally deny those clutch psychic abilities like the ones that launch whole units across the table or seize control of your unit – those are game-changing powers if pulled off at the right moment, and T’au don’t even have a chance at stopping them short of killing the psyker.
3) Deployment can mitigate some problems true. However castling in my experience has lost me games to objectives, and branching out makes your units easier to pick off because you can’t make the most of overwatch/FTGG/T’au sept ability. I disagree that other factions have the same problem – if you can counter an enemy melee character with yours, it can save the squishier elements of your army.
JSJ) But that was part of the skill – being able to judge how far you could move and not get screwed over by dice. I think people’s under-appreciation of JSJ comes from them not having mastered it. I’ll freely admit it took me the best part of 2-3 years to get really good at using JSJ. And sure if the dice REALLY screwed you over you might be toast, but that’s still better than having to sit in range of an assault that will still like-as-not delete your unit (in fairness my local meta tends towards fast melee builds).
Markerlights are not a counter to to-hit penalties because T’au need markerlights just to get up to par with every other army’s shooting. Everyone keeps trying to talk up markerlights and acts like T’au will have all 5 markerlights on every unit they shoot at all the time.
Do you understand what the actual benefits of 5 markerlights are? 5 markerlights means bs3+ rerolling 1s and ignoring cover against a single unit. A. Single. Unit. So the same as space marines in range of a captain, chaos in range of a lord, or eldar in range of an autarch. Except without the fact that said character is often a mobile, durable threat on its own. And the T’au player had to dedicate 1-3 cp and probably 3-4 units to the task of getting those 5 markerlight hits in the first place.
The expectation that you will get 5MLs on a target is often overstated, yes. But on the other hand, if you _do_ get those five hits, you’re usually shooting way, way harder than other factions. Look at the HBC Riptide- no other faction gets a multi-damage high-strength weapon with eighteen shots (not to mention the eight backup shots) for that kind of price; Tau are built around BS4+, and when they can improve beyond that they become extremely strong.
Usually all you need is one ML hit on each target you’re looking to kill this turn; I rarely go for more. Knowing how to distribute your firepower is how you win games as Tau, and that includes your Markerlights.
(Also, most factions pay 70-100 pts for their reroll character, more if they have kitted them for combat. Tau pay 25pts for a Markerlight character, which compares pretty favorably overall.)
Knights?
A Knight costs much, much more than a Riptide (between 150 and 200pts, depending on loadout) and actually puts out worse firepower in most situations, as they have no access to rerolls or other bonuses. There are obviously other advantages on the Knight’s end, but if we’re comparing shooting profiles available to them I think the Riptide indisputably comes out ahead, and shooting harder than a superheavy makes Tau look pretty good I would say.
how much is an armiger with dual auto cannons? supposedly they are 163pts base? 60inch range, 3d3 shots, str 7 ap -1 3damage and ignores penalties for moving and firing…. and BS 3+… Not that I have the book, but it seems like this is super comprable when you factor two of them, the range, the BS and any house abilities on it which I would assume you would look at fnp 6+ or the re-roll to hits of 1 if nearest target ones…
All of which to me looks pretty good compared to a riptides bs 4+, auto take a wound heavy 16 -1ap 2dmg weapon (or if we’re talking ATS on it, -2ap) that gun and sms clocks the whole riptide in at 280pts…
The Armiger, possibly? It gets 4d3 shots total at BS3+ (so averaging ~6 hits) and with S7 AP-1 Dmg3 it’s not a horrible profile, but it by no means is the machinegun that a Riptide is with eighteen AP-2 shots. But, of course, the Armiger is cheaper, so that should be no surprise.
I think you’re focusing on BS4+ too much- ballistic skill doesn’t really matter, generally speaking (though when you start encountering armies with penalties to hit it does- but that’s a different matter; we’re talking raw firepower.) What is important is the number of hits you’re getting on average, and what kind of tools you have to increase that- and the Riptide averages more wounds that most any model of comparable cost _and_ benefits enormously from any kinds of buffs you can give to it.
I’d be interested to see a points per wound comparison, because just off the cuff the arimger seems the better choice for multi wound things, or at least on par.
starting off at BS 3, if you’re using the right house getting re-rolls of 1 seems strictly better than bs 4 and requires other elements…
Hmm. Assuming no other buffs (which probably hurts the Riptide more, since it has access to a lot more of those for cheaper) and assuming the numbers I have heard are correct (163 for Armiger), against some typical targets:
Armiger:
GEQ: .022 pts per wound
MEQ: .0109 pts per wound
Rhino: .0245 pts per wound
Riptide:
GEQ: .0347 pts per wound
MEQ: .0190 pts per wound
Rhino: .0166 pts per wound
So yeah, as you would expect the Armiger is better against tanks (because of S7 and Dmg3), but the Riptide is better against anything smaller- and by a pretty huge margin, as well.
Whups, the above values should be _wounds per point_, not points per wound. Kinda an important distinction there.
Hey Charlie, as an Adeptus Astartes player, this was a great read to get familiar with T’au (notice the apostrophe, in a quick learner ?) and their key abilities. I’ll definitely stay tuned for more insight.
Can the greater good ability be used for units already locked in combat, so that nearby who are not locked still shoot? Also, do the saviour protocols only work in the shooting phase, or in the fight phase too?
Since your selling the synergy aspect so hard, I’d like to see more about the deadly combos that T’au have in their arsenal.
Well done! You’re an honorary gua’la (T’au word for human helper).
For The Greater Good is pretty cool. If a unit with that ability is within 6″ of a unit being charged, you can use that ability. The charged unit doesn’t even have to be T’au (this came up in a recent doubles tournament that I attended and I got to fire overwatch when my Ork ally got charged). The catch is that if the unit uses this ability, they can’t fire overwatch AT ALL for the rest of the turn – not even if they themselves are the ones charged. However, if the unit is locked in combat (within 1″ of an enemy) they can’t use For The Greater Good, due to the rules of Overwatch stating as much and For The Greater Good lets the unit shoot Overwatch as if it had been the unit targeted in the assault.
Savior Protocols always work, no matter what phase. If the drones are within 3″ of the or that is wounded, then Savior Protocols can be used.
You got it! By the end, you’ll know how to command or dissect a T’au force.
Ah, I see I wasn’t very clear. If the unit I’m charging is already locked in combat, can other nearby units still use for the greater good to fire overwatch?
I understand now, thanks for clarifying. I’d rule “yes” because there’s no stipulation on the rules of FTGG that state that the target cannot already be in combat, just that 1) it is charged and 2) it is within 6″ of a unit with this ability. Hope that helps.
FTGG states “as if they were the unit charged” if they are not locked, they can overwatch (or under other effects that stipulate inability to overwatch)
You can’t cover everything in these articles, but I’ll mention this for the readers.
T’au suck in melee, this is true. However, T’au should pick and choose their melee battles when possible as well.
This means purposefully charging the enemy with your suits or troops to get them into combat. I especially like doing this against vehicles. I’ll give you a situation.
I had infiltrated a group of stealth suits mid field during deployment. They were shooting and harassing my opponent’s deployment zone and troops from cover. Stealth suits are amazing for this job.
By my turn two I had a plan in mind for this particular group. I moved them out of cover towards my opponent’s board edge. I had been shooting at some guardsmen and a hydra with these stealth suits. Doing some damage, but the hydra was tearing up my other units on the field.
I positioned my stealth suits close enough so that I could get them into charge range. Luckily his troops were close enough to his hydra so that I could charge the guardsmen, and then pile into the hydra as well.
I got a very high charge roll which gave me plenty of room for maneuvering. His guardsman squad was already pretty low in count, so his overwatch had little effect. I was able to position myself close enough so that I could pile into his hyrda in the fight phase.
Of course his hydra got to attack my suits in melee, but I didn’t much care about that since guard vehicles (most vehicles really) generally suck in combat. The benefit was that hydra wasn’t getting a turn of shooting.
That means the hydra’s main gun. The Heavy 8 S7 AP-1 D2 (+1 hit against units with Fly) wasn’t going to shoot on his turn.
So don’t immediately write off T’au in the fight phase. You can pull of things like this more often than you think.
The biggest problem people are overlooking when it comes to custodes vs tau, we don’t have many options to handle them period. Once they are in melee it’s a war of dice and luck. They have strat called concussion grenades that really throws a wrench in anything they tau can do to them aside from kill them BEFORE they get there, which isn’t exactly an option against smart Custodes. This is why Custodes are the new deathstar like army, versatile enough to handle most opponents and durable enough to do do work.
Concussion Grenades can only shut down one unit and can only target an infantry unit, so it’s not typically a big deal for Tau.
And, in my experience, Tau actually have an amusing advantage against armies like Custodes that are extremely good at melee- namely, that they already suck so much at close combat that many of the advantages of a Custodes army are irrelevant. Custodes will blend a Strike Team in a single turn easily- but so will almost anything else from another faction (e.g. five assault marines) and that unit will cost drastically less. Custodes pay to be the best fighters, but Tau don’t care how good you are at fighting ’cause everyone is better than them anyways, so those points are basically wasted on them.
Again, Sniper Drones and Ionheads.
My Shield-Captain got nuked in one turn by one unit of them.
Ionheads too, doing a flat 3 damage and at AP-2 (which is the best you’re get against them with their 4++) drop them quickly. I know my Custodes forces didn’t do too much against the T’au I faced. My Shield Captain managed to ace one Ionhead before getting waxed.
> My Shield-Captain got nuked in one turn by one unit of them.
Yeah, and I had a pair of shield drones almost finish off Lysander in melee once, doesn’t mean shield drones are some amazing melee unit.
I get you but it wasn’t flukey dice. Like, that is an expected result. He hit me with enough Mortal Wounds to just wipe him with the +1 to wound strat.
So he rolled at least six 5+ to wound from the shooting of one unit. Meaning he had somewhere in the ballpark of 18 to-wound rolls (going on averages), or did in fact have very good dice.
Yeah, he popped his r-roll aura and had +1 to hit on me. It was not abnormal.
My point being it is a dependable strategy
To kill a Shield Captain in one shooting phase on average dice, assuming a player activates both Focus Fire (3CP) and their Kauyon (which can only be done once per game). The Shield Captain can be assumed to be under the effect of the banner (-1 to hit) and the Perfect Creation warlord trait (5+ FNP), while the Drones benefit from a Firesight Marksman and Drone Controller:
17 Sniper Drones, netting 34 shots, 23 hits, 12 successful wounds (including 8 additional mortal wounds), ~2 failed armor saves, with ~6 failed FNP wounds.
Note that this is AFTER you have already dealt one wound to the model, meaning you would need another ~5 Sniper Drones (or some other significant unit) that is able to shoot at the unit to start with in order to open up the chain for Focus Fire. At 400pts, not counting the cost of the support units (Commander, Marksman, DC buddy), I would call that a pretty massive investment.
Eh, when do you ever see a Custodes army with a Custodes Warlord? it’s always a Company Commander for the 5+ CP recapture ability.
And you’re not shooting him when he’s -1 to hit as he is likely still behind screens at that point, and not targetable by Marker Lights.
You kill them when they come out to fight. Or you kill the banner bearer.
Until then you target other units as the Snipers kill pretty much anything.
>Eh, when do you ever see a Custodes army with a Custodes Warlord?
More often than you’d think, actually, especially with the changes to battalions.
Even without the -1 to hit, the numbers are pretty rough- you’re investing a HUGE amount of resources (stratagems, buff auras, once-per-game abilities) into things and ALSO spending those points on the Sniper Drones. I think you are wildly overestimating how likely it is to actually drop a Shield Captain with the kinds of firepower Tau lists are likely to bring, at least in a single shooting phase.
I’m not saying Sniper Drones aren’t good, but your result _was_ flukey dice. It was well outside the expected result for anything less than a huge mass of Sniper Drones- I’m guessing you brought more like ten of them than the twenty or thirty you might otherwise need?
I have actually never seen a Shield-Captain as the Warlord, but perhaps that is just my experience.
My opponent was rolling pretty average but with the +1 to hit and re-roll 1’s from markerlights, he was nuking my units every turn.
YMMV of course, but IMO Sniper Drones are a gem of a unit.
Yeah, you don’t have to preach to me about how good they are- I’ve taken them to tournaments many times already. They’re a great unit and one of the best anti-character tools Tau have available to them.
But, as the math above shows, they aren’t typically going to be able to down a Shield Captain in a single turn unless you dedicate a _massive_ chunk of your list to them. Even without the -1 to hit or the FNP trait, you are still looking at quite a lot of resources invested to down such a unit in a single turn- and if you are shooting Markerlights at that unit, as you say, you should be able to shoot other, more efficient guns at them as well (Hammerheads, Pathfinders, Broadsides, Riptides, Stormsurges, Strikes, Breachers, Commanders, etc, etc.)
Fair play, and I wasn’t trying to argue or anything, but IIRC, lol, the original debate point was that T’au lacked tools for Custodes and I don’t think that is the case. My Custodes got straight melted by T’au in short order, haha
Reece, having watched a lot of your batreps and seems I’ve noticed that you do tend to base a lot of your opinion of a unit on the most memorable thing you’ve seen them do – and I think you’re doing the same thing here. The problem is that those memorable moments like your bulgryn or custodes examples are often freak statistical anomalies, and you really can’t base you opinion of a unit on what it MIGHT do.
Fair critique, but in a game like this where we don’t play enough games to get a mathematical average, or throw enough dice to get a mathematical average, those experiences shape the game. I used to doggedly adhere to statistical averages when deciding if I liked a unit or not but the more I play, the more years under my belt, the more I realize that those units with a “puncher’s chance” to do something great can and do determine victory in events with as few rounds (from a statistical point of view) as we play.
If we all played in 100 round tournaments all the: time, throwing thousands of dice? Sure, I’d go with the average every opportunity. But, we don’t. And with fewer repetitions we get more opportunity for statistical variance, thus seeing units that can be “fluky” as good.
Puppy has articulated the point pretty clearly, and used math to back it up, that taking huge squads of sniper drones to counter melee characters isn’t reliable or sensible points-wise. So if an solution to a problem is that unfeasible… then it isn’t really a solution is it? Again, if mass sniper drones were that consistently effective at countering characters, you’d see it a lot more at tournaments.
Wait, what? Lol, OK. If you take theory over practical experience then I don’t know what to tell you, lol.
WHy don’t you try them out for yourself? They’re extremely good.
I’m not sure that line of reasoning is sound. It was several months after the release of the Eldar Codex before they started regularly placing at large tournaments. Using the argument of “well it can’t be true because it isn’t happening” is less than logical.
T’au have answers to a lot of problems. Not overwhelming or overpowered answers, but answers nonetheless. Against Custodes specifically (which is what the stemmed from), I think the best answer is to feed them MSU units that are spaced out, all while trying to utilize as many shooting phases (shooting and T’au sept Overwatch) as you can, all the while utilizing things like focused fire, -1AP warlord trait, and trying to play the war of attrition. Basically, use the weaknesses of an elite army against them.
I actually think that Tau have an advantage against a lot of Custodes armies overall, although of course it does depend on the specific builds in question. But, generally speak, Custodes have no way to negate Tau overwatch defenses, and the S5 guns help immensely against basic Custodes troopers. Moreover, against the jetbike spam that is pretty common these days, Tau have access to some very strong alpha strike tools (Seeker/Destroyer Missiles, Kauyon) that can effectively end the game before it begins.
Custodes can bring a lot of powerful characters, but the character protections stop being relevant once those first charges start going off- and they HAVE to charge in order to accomplish anything. A Riptide with one ML hit should very nearly kill a Shield Captain in a single volley- and it’s almost as dangerous on overwatch, where the character protections similarly don’t apply. Custodes play a very, very dangerous game when they are charging Tau, and as already mentioned their melee superiority is irrelevant in an army that loses melee combat to Guardsmen anyways.
Sniper drones are certainly over costed, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t good at what they do, just not super effecient, specifically compared to other armies (a la ratlings, vindicare, etc)
The fact that they require soo much support to make work well is annoying. in particular since things like drone controllers are only available for the bigger suits like riptides (who need those slots) and riptides (who arguably need them more, but you can find some areas to sacrifice in larger squads of em)
Any thing carrying a drone controller aside from a commander is typically reducing their own effectiveness, and if you’re running alot of sniper drones, you’ve now made that big target a bigger target.
The drones do have a -1 to hit against them which is fantastic, but that’s about it, they are certainly over costed by at least 4pts imo.
I think you’re overlooking several thing. You’re already going to be taking a Marksman to get them to BS4+. It’s not hard to get at least a single markerlight on something, even characters, so now they’re hitting 75% of the time with two shots at 24″, which is massive. Fitting a drone controller in is definitely more situational, but that also boosts their hitting percentage to 89%, which is pretty good and worth jumping through hoops for, situationally.
I’d love Sniper drones to be four points less, but I’ll be taking them at the current price, when the situation calls for it.
>so now they’re hitting 75% of the time ,
>but that also boosts their hitting percentage to 89%,
Uh… you might want to check the math on those, you’re off by a pretty enormous amount. BS4+ with one Markerlight is ~57% and BS3+ with one ML is ~73%.
That’ll teach me to comment before my morning coffee.
BS4+ with one Markerlight is ~57% and BS3+ with one ML is ~73%, but you could feasibly get one of their two shots @24″ to the stated ~75 and ~89% due to the inherent Sa’cea reroll (and that’s before the any markerlights). Since you normally want your marksmen to be Sa’cea for the reroll anyway and the Marksman > Sniper Drone combo doesn’t work across Sept-lines, it’s worth mentioning. Admittedly, my previous comment was pretty poorly-worded due to the aforementioned lack of caffeine.
And to be further clear, the 75% chance to hit is from a marksman and a Sa’cea drone, while the 89% chance to hit requires a marksman, drone controller, and Sa’cea reroll.
Custodes do not like Ion weapons in general. That shield captain with 2+/3++ does not like high strength multi-wound weapons coming in at a high volume of shot at AP -1 or better. It is almost the ideal weapon profile for the job, add in some dirt cheap Velocity Trackers and the most commonly seen jetbikes are in some trouble.
I would say that T’au have 3 sets of tools to deal with Custodes lists; Ion weapons, Velocity Trackers and FTGG especially in T’au sept.
I’m with Reece a bit when it comes to experience shaping my viewpoints vs statistical average. I still do the mathhammer but tend to gravitate towards units with upside – or the potential to land the “knock out”
Of course this attitude led to me playing far too many games with Ruststalkers, so maybe I need to rethink this 😉
Also, I still cant use the reply system correctly, so another strike against me.
Nice write up. I like the generally positive tone of the article. Every army has some issues it needs to deal with but knowing what you can do or your opponent wants to do is useful information. Not spending a lot of time focusing on the muck is a nicer read. Tau seem to me to have a lot in their kit. Maybe not dominating top tables good but definitely good at your FLGS.
I miss it but I think JSJ almost had to go in 8th. The mechanic initially was 6″ move when it was released and you could not equip two of the same gun on a crisis suit as they would only become twin linked. You also had AP and had to target the same unit with both your guns. So you are putting in your S7 AP4 shots into terminators so you can get your plasma in there too. Hardly efficient especially if the target was in cover. Further if you were tagged in combat with tacticals you would pretty much be condemned to a slow slap fight for the rest of the game. In that era JSJ was necessary so you could shoot in rapid fire and have a chance not get shut down for the rest of the game. Since you are allowed to triple/quadruple up on the same weapon, AP will always help against armor, and crisis can fly out of combat and still shoot major limiting factors that stopped crisis from being bonkers in previous editions were removed. Which is why crisis suits are so hard to balance IMO and why they increased in points so much. The relatively poor state of crisis suits I think has less to do with the loss of JSJ and more to do with a lot of other factors.
I’m always a sucker for Tau tactical articles and unit reviews so I would like to see more!
I’m nearly finished with the Craftworlds codex, at which point I will begin my review of the Tau codex- probably be 1-2 weeks before I start writing them, and when they come out will depend somewhat on when Reece et al want them scheduled for.
Thanks! I like to take the positive approach as to what an army CAN do, instead of focusing on what it CAN’T. We learn our own army’s rules but then forget that most people don’t buy the rules for other armies so don’t know the finer points to most of the rest of the game. T’au has the tools to win with some luck and be solidly strong without it.
There’s something about T’au players that draws those that are interested in the tactics, the mathhamer, and the overall strategy that it seems like other races don’t spend as much time on. I, too, and a sucker for those types of articles and ate up all the 7th edition FLG T’au coverage. Here’s hoping I’ll get a regular spot writing for FLG and can help meet some of the T’au coverage demand!
Great review! Tangentially related point: can GW please nerf the -1 to hit Craftworld trait/Chapter Tactic so that it only applies to infantry? Nothing is dumber/more annoying that supersonic jet fighter being “camouflaged” because Alaitoc has a bunch of rangers and they know how to hide in the woods good. So dumb.
they should nerf this in general, the idea that orks can’t hit some targets period is just bad design.
I agree, and I actually think that army wide hit penalties are bad design as they’re just too powerful an ability to get across a whole army for free. Giving it to Eldar, which have easy access to conceal makes even less sense.
Even if the weren’t removed from the game, expanding the range to 24″ or forcing a unit to be stationary in that phase in order to get the benefit would go a long way to fixing the issue.