Editing Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics/Tau (section)

===Vehicles===

All vehicles you have have {{W40Kkeyword|fly}} unless stated otherwise.

* '''Hammerhead Gunship:''' We now have the stats for the famed little Tau gunboat: it's quick (M10"), it's tough (T10 Sv3+ W14) and it's tanky with its OC3. The Railgun is neat and can deal a shitload of wounds at S20 AP-5 or gods forbid, convert them all to mortal wounds on a lucky wound roll. Trick is, that weapon has the Heavy USR too, so it hits on 3s if you don't move. If you insist on moving this tank (which makes sense, considering how fast it is and its OC stat), well, you've finally got an excuse to take the Ion Cannon: 60" BS4+ Ad6+3 Blast shots on either a standard (S7 AP-1 D2) or Hazardous overcharge profile (S8 AP-2 D3).
** Consider this; with the Kauyon Detachment, all ranged weapons gain '''Sustained Fire 1''' after the third turn, and when Guided, it becomes '''Sustained Fire 2''' - including this one.
*'''Piranhas:''' M14 T7 Sv4+ W7 Ld7+ OC2 with '''Scouts 9"''', very fast, much wow. Those drones attached to it apparently provide a special rule that forces an enemy unit within 12" of them at the end of its move to take a battleshock test. Aside from that, they get a special accelerator burst cannon with better AP (by 1) which can be traded for a better fusion blaster that has Melta 4 - that's hot! And if that's not enough, they can strap a pair of seekers onto their ride. You may be tempted to consider them over Crisis suits, wherein these are sturdier (higher T and W, worse Sv), faster, and can take out vehicles and light infantry with ease; where they struggle is with heavier infantry.
**Really, at their ridiculously low cost, these guys will pump more burst anti-tank firepower than anything else we have for their points.  The big question will be if you want to run them individually as a suicidal harassing unit or in groups of three to pick off infantry after blowing their seeker missile load. Note that doing so requires Seeker Missile spam - Crisis fusion is actually far more efficient if that's ll you're after, even including a Coldstar for M12.
*'''Skyray Gunship:''' What's better than infinite seeker missiles? How about getting to shoot three of them at a time? How about mounting them in place of the gun on a Hammerhead? If that's not enough, how about re-rolling all hits against Flyers? How about re-rolling one hit or one wound roll against anything else with any weapon you shoot? Yeah, it doesn't have the raw power of a rail gun but seeker missiles ain't no joke; you don't need a marker light for them anymore but that certainly wouldn't hurt... well, it wouldn't hurt ''you''. Whatever's being shot at though, that's a different story.
*'''Remora Stealth Drones<sup>IA</sup>:''' Naturally, they get ''Stealth'' for a measure of protection and ''Infiltrators'' to pop in from anywhere. On top of this, it has the ability to slide 6" after someone arrives within 9" of it, guaranteeing that it'll reach some measure of cover. It's equipped with an improved S6 AP-1 twin Burst Cannon, which it'll need as that's its primary armament. The missile is better-suited for blowing up a tank, but it's got only one missile, so you need to guarantee that it can make a hit.
*'''Tetras<sup>IA</sup>:''' A heavy bike at T7 W7 with a 3+ save. It's not very much in combat, but using it as an Observer for FtGG lets the Guided Unit re-roll all hits, making it excellent support.

====Dedicated Transports====
*'''Devilfish:''' The venerable Devilfish has been through so many iterations over the years but it remains as the premier Tau transport. If you need to get a squad somewhere real fast, this is your transport and now they have a special rule where you can disembark and shoot as if you've just made normal move.

====Walkers====
Notice that most Tau battlesuits have gained the Vehicle keyword so they are now vulnerable to anything with rules that affect vehicles.  The exceptions are Stealth Suits and by extension Shadowsun.

*'''Crisis Battlesuits:''' Effectively, these are Tau TEQ and they've kinda always been except now you can really spam shield drones and make these guys super tanky (2 shield drones each means that every crisis suit will now have 6 wounds to burn through). You're gonna want to build them be the ''guided'' unit rather than the unit doing the guiding not to mention replacing that silly burst cannon with something more substantial. Their weapon selection allows you to tool for any scenario, more of a jack of all trades unit that benefits from the leadership of a battlesuit commander.
*'''Ghostkeel Battlesuit:''' It has the rare Smoke keyword, but loses it when using its battlesuit support systems. You're gonna have to decide whether you want this thing to be taking out MEQs or Vehicles/Monsters: the Fusion Collider is for the latter while the Ion Raker is for the former. Next, decide whether to keep the twin flamer if you anticipate things closing the distance on you or switch to a twin fusion blaster for more/added tank-busting. The twin burst cannon is a bit of a waste as usual.
**10th is the era of ghostkeel.  With the awesome combo of Infiltrator/Stealth/Lone Op, high T and W, and a twice per game ability to reduce the damage of an attack to 0, these things can take an outward objective and stay there.  The Fusion Collider version can make a great suicidal tank hunter, especially when guided by a Stealth Team.  But you will likely be better served using the range of the Ion Raker at a distance and force your opponent to come to you to remove the large threat giving them the middle finger.
*'''Riptide Battlesuits:''' long gone are those stupid rules that made this thing rack up wounds on itself - clearly the Earth Caste has been busy improving the Riptide's nova reactor safety. Now all it does is once per battle, one of the suit's guns gets [DEVASTATING WOUNDS]; this might be an issue with GW's legendary proofreading blunders but unless it's FAQ'd, this would presumably apply to secondary weapons or even missile drones. The only question remains is why: why would you buff one of those weapons when you could buff its primary weapon, which is either the Heavy Burst Cannon (36" A12 BS4+ S6 AP-1 D2) or the Ion Accelerator (72" A6 BS4+ S7 AP-2 D3; Overcharge profile grants one better S, AP and D with the addition of the Hazardous USR). What you choose will depend on where your gaps are in your army, so if you don't have anything to take out MEQs (somehow), then you're taking the HBC. Otherwise, the Ion Accelerator can do most of the former's job and more.
*'''R'Varna Battlesuit<sup>IA</sup>:'''
*'''Y'Vahra Battlesuit<sup>IA</sup>:'''

=====Non-Fly=====

*'''Broadside Battlesuits:''' Tough as rocks now, thanks to their T6 Sv2+ W8 and a 4+++ against mortals. Their heavy rail rifles have an improved profile benefits from a higher S12, retaining their 2 shots (hurray, no twin-linked), AP-4, Dd6+1 and devastating wounds; what's changed on them is the inclusion of the Heavy keyword, making shots hit on 3s if they don't move, which they probably won't - and all without an observer unit! Or they can trade that for the high-yield missile pod, which gains twin-linked in this edition. Options got kinda wild too, forcing you to pick two (but no duplicates) of either twin smart missile system or plasma rifle, a seeker missile, or a battlesuit or weapon support system. From there, you get to choose drones for your lads and the shield drone is the obvious standout, but don't dismiss the marker or missile drones - the latter are exclusive to broadsides and riptides.
**The lack of an invulnerable save (or the shield drone to pass it onto in other editions) means these guys will be hot targets for melta shots.  Best fielded in pairs to pick off a light tank or monster each turn. 
======Titanic======
*'''Stormsurge:''' Critically, no longer deemed a battlesuit as it lacks that keyword. Cluster rockets make its two smart missile systems look like bottle rockets and yet it has both - and infinite destroyer missiles! Right, so the big gun: it starts with a pulse driver cannon (72" Ad6+3 BS4+ S12 AP-3 D3 [HEAVY, BLAST]), which is clearly a weapon made to raze harder targets at range. This can be replaced with a pulse blast cannon (Capable of either scattering some hits against TEQs or a focused shot for demolishing tanks), which seems designed to take out something like a Knight that got too close for your liking.
* '''[[KX139 Ta'Unar Supremacy Armour|Ta'unar Supremacy Armour]]<sup>IA</sup>:''' The biggest land unit the Tau can field, it has a rock-hard statline, pushing past a [[Imperial_Knight#Dominus_Knight_Castellan|Knight Castellan]] for durability, and a whole bunch of guns, although it's been bumped down to entirely BS4+ compared to a BS of 3+ in 9th. It has two arm weapons, a top-mounted weapons system and a fair amount of burst cannons/smart missile systems for light infantry. The arm weapons are a tri-axis ion cannon which will wipe out squads of MEQ in an instant and can be supercharged for those tougher TEQ units and a fusion eradicator to devour light vehicles with, although its range is relatively short. The top weapons are interesting, you get three options: first is three pulse ordnance drivers for 24 shots total with 60" S5 AP-1 D3 and ''[Anti-Infantry 2+]'' so it'll kill infantry dead, second is two nexus missile launchers which are an all-rounder for most things smaller than a Rhino with a rare S8 AP-3 D2 profile. Last is the heavy rail cannon array with 120" A2 S26 AP-5 [[Rape|D16]] with ''[Devastating Wounds]'' so you can point at everything smaller than a heavy tank and go "bye-bye" in a single hit, although only having 2 shots means you will definitely want to keep this thing guided and fed with re-rolls from a unit like stealth battlesuits, you're paying 685 points for this model in the first place so you might as well give it all you can. Because of the changes in the game in terms of durability, objectives and terrain and because it has a much more reasonable points cost, the Ta'unar might be genuinely good now.

====Aircraft====
Both aircraft sport a pair of seeker missiles and a twin-linked missile pod. Because aircraft.

*'''Razorshark Strike Fighter:''' Packs a lot of dakka - accelerator burst cannon for soft targets and the quad ion turret to blast the harder ones. Anything harder than that and you have those seeker missiles.
*'''Sun Shark Bomber:''' Significantly less shooty ion weapon and it loses the ABC for pulse bombs that are... well, they're kinda meh. How it works is you pick one enemy unit it moved over in the movement phase and on a 3+, it takes a mortal wound. Even with the mortal wounds dished out, the Razorshark plainly does more damage.
*'''Barracuda<sup>IA</sup>:'''
*'''Tiger Shark<sup>IA</sup>:'''
**'''AX-1-0 Tiger Shark<sup>IA</sup>:'''
=====Titanic=====
* '''[[Manta]]<sup>IA</sup>''': The giant plane, capable of carrying close to an entire army all on its own (200 {{W40kKeyword|Infantry}} or {{W40kKeyword|Tactical Drone}} models, 4 Devilfishes, Skyrays, or Hammerheads, and 8 {{W40kKeyword|Battlesuit}} models with 8 or fewer wounds). That giant plane, however, is a very CP-hungry beast as any stratagems used on it cost triple the listed amount. Of course, it's loaded to bear, with standouts being the monstrous '''STRENGTH 32''' Heavy Rail Cannon that brings titans to their knees and the Long-Barreled Burst Cannon Array, which can easily eradicate squads all on its own before it can let any units that disembark benefit from re-rolling to wound on a single unit it shot at.

====Fortifications====
*'''Tidewall Shieldline:''' Okay, so here's the deal: these things are transports that grant the benefit of cover for Fire Warriors in them. What's more is that unlike other fortifications, Tidewalls have a (small) movement value. So you basically have a moving piece of cover in which to load a strike team gunline - what's not to like? Strike team with a missile turret led by a Fireblade in a moving terrain piece? Hell yes! Even better, you can give it 5 more wounds by adding a defence platform, which also doubles its transport capacity - meaning you can transport a Strike team, Fireblade, Breacher team and an Ethereal.
*'''Tidewall Droneport:''' Same moving cover transport above, but instead of increased goon capacity you get a--ahem--let's call it a "weapon system" that shoots 8 pulse carbine shots at every single valid target available. It's the quantity over quality approach compared to the next entry.
*'''Tidewall Gunrig:''' trades the pew pew from the above for a big BANG! The supremacy railgun would be really cool if not for the fact that it's hitting on 5's. Yeah it's twin-linked but you only get one shot and that USR only activates if you hit! Might work if you count the transported unit as a separate guiding unit but even then, it's not much of an improvement. You'd be better off guiding a railgun on a Hammerhead because unlike the gun on the gunrig, it has the Heavy USR and a natural BS4+.

{{Warhammer 40k Tactics}}
[[Category: Warhammer 40000 Tactics (10E)]]