I only got one test game in back before the board was shut down. Generally to make 'death incarnate' the Tau needed liberal use of 4+ to hit (3+ when twin linked) and special abilities like disrupt and Ignore Cover. The former gave the ability to hit after doubling into the target area (and less weapon systems, twin linking and combining helped here) and the latter meant even if you weren't killing you were breaking. Now even with this resilient stuff hung on to assault you, but at reduced effectiveness, that was the gamble replacing the assault gamble in other lists. And of course if you put up multiple threats at the same time (the synergy/combined arms bit) and used co-ord fire next turn you sustain and destroy even the toughest targets.

The primary focus for this were mechanised firewarriors. The firewarrior stats remain the same as they are fantastic infantry killers, especially when sustaining. The Devilfish though take full advantage of the burst cannon and gun drones to up their 15cm attack.

An example in play uses the following 'typical' formation - Firewarriors, Devilfish, skyray and drones (who get a boost to 15cm fire). The formation doubles in. Devilfish and drones at the fore. This has the added bonus that as skimmers the enemy has to 'waste' cc attacks against them before getting to the firewarriors behind. The formation gets the attacks from the firewarriors and the big mobile punch from the Devilfish. This should knock them for six, especially if you combine the attack with some crisis to hit any hard bits. Then when you sustain/advance with them now you are in the fray the sheer weight of fire from the firewarriors kills everything. If you want a less risky army the FW attack could become 1 shot on 3 or 4 to hit but this is less of a challenge I feel.

Throwing in GM's into the equation and you could go with 'only fire if target lit' but raise the to hit so they are better doubling weapons.

Crisis are re-tooled to be more of a threat to 'hard' targets. An analogy would be with land speeders (though obviously without the assault aspect). So MW, disrupt, whatever and the expectation of hit and run being used (so get in, fire, get out). An excellent MW 15cm shot and an ok 45cm shot would do it for me (and might even cost less than 250 points).

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The problem there (Your belief that upgunned GM's will be too powerful) is that the NetEA army list has more GMs available than a typical Tau army in the background / 40k.

This preponderence of GMs is almost solely due to the introduction of the Scorpionfish and the Stingray Guided Missile platforms.

As mainstay units, they have helped alter how the Tau operate as compared to the background, reinforcing the Tau as a long range stand-off force* like the Siegemasters, except with more of an ability to move away and hide.


Can anyone direct me to some good fluff/background material for the Tau? I've read the latest 40K Tau Codex. Is their anything more useful for this discussion? Any novels that help explain it all?

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In general yes, however...  

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

I agree with LiTS's overview.

For example I presume they ought to use medium-long range fire to soften up targets, transport to get into contact, Drones to defend themselves from assault, Hit-and-run to get out of contact etc. A much more 'combined arms' style operation.

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You've just removed the linchpins of most/many lists.

With such a prominence placed on Guided Missile platforms, lots of units that would be otherwise useful to the army are sidelined.

The Combined arms currently work quite fine, if people would play it.

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Fire Warriors, for a start, the supposed core of the Tau army.

With so many AP GMs available, their niche is replaced with a missile. You can use Crisis or Stealth Suits to take and hold objectives instead.

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Hena, do you agree with LiTS overview?

Once these principles are agreed, the roles of the various units like HH will fall into place - and yes it may be that this should operate best at medium-long ranges.  

However I think you may have missed the point about ML. Most Tau units carry both GMs and other LoS weapons. So without ML/GMs, the overall shooting effectiveness of the unit is reduced, not stopped altogether.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

The problems stem from one unit in your opinion. I don't agree; I believe the Scorpionfish and Stingray are such superlative killers that people will only ajust their lists slightly so that they can continue to build armies around them.

I believe that with Turrets removed people will simply field more mobile units with the markerlight Special Rule (Such as Tetras) so that they can continue to field their GM-themed armies.

Fire Warriors will remain absent from most 'all in one' Tau army list builds.

Are you then happy about the current list?

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So Hena, how do you see the tau working at:- Long range;,Medium range; Short range and Assault?

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Sir Hemry Newbolt