Gentlemen and possibly Ladies,
Please correct me if I am wrong. I can see no discussion separate from the list specifics dedicated to Tau doctrine. I am not talking about 'fluff', but a look at what our individual visions for the operation of Tau armies. I ask that no specific game statistics be mentioned. I ask that you take the time to envision the operations of the Tau consistent with existing 'history', tradition and our understanding of the Tau mind, so to speak.
With a doctrine hammered out ( I have no doubts that much hammering must and will be done), you can then move to a point where we determine which "club in the bag" will get us where we want to go. Simply, once doctrine is established then the units themselves are more easily fitted in to that doctrine.
Much discussion of synergies of action has been made, I will observe that the entire Epic game is about synergies. On the modern battle field that synergy is called combined arms action. Epic teaches the concept of combined arms in a very effective way.
Honda has rightly said streamlining is the best step toward settling a list, I agree. We can avoid some problems of special rules etc. by letting the basic game mechanics cover what they must and determining how the Tau live in those mechanics.

All right then! Come at me with that banana....

Bear

I see the Tau as a ranged shooting army, preferring to avoid close Engagements wherever possible unless the odds overwhelmingly favour the Tau.

I see the Tau using technology to win their battles, whether that be Drones or Markerlights or plane-borne TK weapons, etc.

The Tau clearly don't use Titans, but instead use air power to neutralise enemy War Engines, and don't generally have equivilent War Engines of their own (bar the Manta).

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Welcome to the forums by the way!

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i agree w/ the above except for the close in fighting. if an assault in epic is the same as a game of 40k then the tau should be great at firefights.
as far as actual firepower goes, they should be less shots but more accurate then other armies.
and of course very mobile.

OK, lets discuss operational concepts. My ideas for Tau are more along the line of armored cavalry operation. First, mobility is the one defining characteristic. Secondly the ability to bring force to bear decisive firepower at range. A complete integration of all arms in 'organic formations'.
In  action the armored cavalry operates as a screen, blocking force, recon. They are best in ambush, pursuits and confusing the enemy. High mobility allows concentration of local superiority and decisive action, then retiring to strike again. Cavalry does not 'take ground' it maneuvers to strike at exposed weaknesses. To supply heavy hitting power air strikes figure highly and are in close cooperation with the cav, whether to help blast a hole, isolate a section or cover a retreat.
This means infantry mounted in fast moving vehicles 1/3 of the force. Armored assets(tanks), in the proportion of of about 1/3 of the force and air mobile assets for vertical envelopment the remaining 1/3.
In our discussion this means fire warriors in devil fish, hammer heads, and a substitute for modern aviation companies. The first 2 are already in the list, the third is a bit more problematic. Piranha and Tetras fill the bill for attack helos and obs platforms respectively, the transport units are a bit problematic and I have some particular ideas but will set them aside for now. The air power assets are also already available.
With operational concepts in mind we can adjust units to fit tasks and over all army.

Any other ideas?

Bear

A Hi-Tech Mobile Combined Arms force with no artillery heavily supported by Air Power ... They use ranged weapons and airstikes not close combat ...  

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

I see them like armored (gepanzerte) PanzerGrenadiers (the guys in halftracks).  They use their vehicles for mobility and to enhance their ability to bring the fight to the enemy, forcing the enemy to fight when he is disadvantaged.  

Tau do not like the violence of melee, they're not physically or psychologically suited for it, but they are very good at firefights and longer-ranged combat.

Instead of artillery (ie, weapons that use the BM mechanic), they use precision fire to neutralize threats, particularly air support.

They don't really use War Engines like the other races do, but the Manta is a close cousin.  I keep going back and forth as to whether a Scorpfish should be a baby Titan or an Orca bomber.

The biggest thing about the Tau is that they are vastly greater than the sum of the units on the table when they are used correctly.  If you can catch them in close combat, they should pop like an overfilled balloon, but they should be very dangerous at 'Engage' ranges (assuming that the Engage action represents a game of 40k).

[Edit]
Even more than the Astartes, Tau use a very fluid army structure.  A 'Cadre' has battlesuits, infantry, and vehicles, could have some attached aircraft and alien Aux, and *has more than one way of deploying*.

Think of it like the German Kampfgruppe:  a specific combination of units brought together under one commander and operating as a single entity on the battlefield.  There may be several different maneuver subunits inside the Cadre, but the Cadre as a group is a fluid thing, adopting whatever form is necessary for the coming mission.

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"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

My experience is with "modern" armored cavalry, not Gross Deutschland. But we do agree on
mobile doctrine. The only problem with a WWII model of operation is the air aspect and mobility aspects are very limited in that model.
I am experimenting with some different modifiers for marker lights and will report as I get results.
Saddle up!....
Bear

As I said, they are the most modern force in the G/W 40K Universe.  The rest are generally just different variations of Hi-tech WWII.  Save maybe for the Eldar, who used to be the Hi-tech force ...  But I think the Tau should be able to handle those nancy-boys ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Copied from the E&C thread:

The Tau army should work like the intricate Japanese multiple-maneuver-unit strategies of years past.

Your army flows around the hard rocks of the opponent's line, and wears away at the weak points.  Only when the entire enemy's army has had it's soft, supporting rock worn away do the Tau hit a hard rock to push it over into the flow and to it's destruction.

Tau are more maneuverable than almost anyone else, they use this to achieve local superiority and shatter that point, then flow to the next point of attack.

Have you ever watched two people fence?  The feint, parry-and-riposte, always in motion along angles to the opponent is the best way to describe how the Tau should work (that's how I could make my 40k Tau work, but Epic hasn't been like that).

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"For the Lion and the Emperor!"

That sounds a lot more like the way Eldar fight in EPIC than Tau.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Tau aren't more maneuverable than everyone else, they're just more maneuverable than the Imperial Guard.

Eldar still hold the crown as more maneuverable than any other army.

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I believe what Tau are is the most flexible army when it comes to their "doctrine".

According to the flavour text they have no rigid organization of forces, but put together ad hoc formations to accomplish specific tasks; taking an almost "extreme" combined arms approach, even at the platoon and company level.  The current Tau lists don't really allow for this, with fairly large, fixed formations with limited upgrades.  The current lists attempt to display this "synergy" on an army level instead, with a push to require a mix of formation types to get things done.

I've proposed a more "mix-and-match" approach in the past, but it hasn't been picked up.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I have been spitballing some options as regards formation flexibility with my gaming buddies, but won't be posting them yet as I regard such a move as being part of a 'stage 2' of my proposal, 'stage 1' being getting the initial proposal balanced.

Suffice it to say I think formation flexibility should be re-introduced cautiously, and with a suitably high points cost to account for the inevitable performance enhancement that results from increased flexibility (especially those upgrades which allow Markerlights to be added to formations).

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So having lots of formations which look like Wh40k armies?  

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Or at least have the possibility of looking like some of the "real" Cadres that are shown in the various sourcebooks.

Would still mean the current "mono-type" formations could be created; I believe those are called "Optimized" Cadres, such as the "Optimized Stealth Group" which consists only of Stealth Suits.

While the "Standard Hunter Cadre" mixes Fire Warriors, various Battlesuits, Tanks, and even Auxilia in a single "formation" or the "Rapid Instertion Force" which is just Crisis Suits "led" by a Stealth Team.

Personally, I quite like the "flexibility" approach for Tau.  Yes, it's much tougher to balance, but it's more true to the Tau "doctrine".

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?