Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Tau (section)

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* '''[[Pathfinder_Team|Pathfinders]]''': Now cost considerably less than what they used to, you're going be getting a lot more use out of these guys. Not only are they a cheap source of Markerlights, their special weapons are actually great now. The Ion Rifle being very cost-efficient (and almost impossible to overheat, with a single Markerlight hit on your target granting re-rolls on 1s), while only having AP 1, is still a Plasma gun that will hurt like hell when it successfully wounds. The Rail Rifle packs a real punch, at the more expensive price granting S6 and rending for D3 damage, and the cheapest source of mortal wounds for your army()effectively sniper rifles but unable to target characters. Regardless, both will profit from their own unit's Markerlights, but you can also shoot them at another target if you so desire. Also, their armour now actually works against small arms fire, despite their lack of even one manly [[pauldron|pauldron]], so they won't instantly melt when caught out of cover. Markerlights are still Heavy weapons, so movement remains a concern. They also have Photon Grenades that do no damage, but any Hit {{W40kKeyword|INFANTRY}} unit suffers a -1 To Hit until the end of turn. Toss one during Overwatch and hope you get lucky.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Pulse_Accelerator_Drone|MV-31 Pulse Accelerator Drone]]''': Increases the max range of your pulse rifle/carbine/pistols. No longer attached to the Pathfinder squad, so you can take and then leave behind with your gunline. Can take 2 per unit, and an auto include if you are running a gunline. Only affects {{W40kKeyword|INFANTRY}}, so won't help gun drones.
*** Consider throwing in a Recon drone as it forms one unit with the PA-drones and provides cheap ablative wounds for the vital buff for your Fire Warriors, as they can easily be singled out otherwise.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Grav-Inhibitor_Drone|MV-33 Grav-inhibitor Drone]]''': Makes it more difficult to charge your guys. Cheap, but random effectiveness and competes with slots with the Pulse Accelerator drone. They can also just shoot the drone before the charge phase, so hide it behind terrain (which is highly effective as the charge hindering effect still works even behind LoS blocking terrain) or throw in a recon drone for cheap ablative wounds. It goes without saying that a 1d3 reduction to charge range is massive when it comes to preventing first turn charges, which several armies such as Tyranids can effectively spam and many scout move units can pull off as well, as they often have to be placed more than 9" away from you and results in a high likelihood of the charge failing, which becomes almost certainty with a grav-inhibitor drone.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Recon_Drone|MB3 Recon Drone]]''': A burst cannon on a drone chassis, that lets nearby Pathfinders ignore cover saves, for slightly more points than a burst cannon. If you have any rail rifle or ion gun pathfinders, keep this near them. Doesn't suffer the targeting limitations of gun drones. Consider taking it if you have the points. Does not conflict with the other two drones slots and has two wounds while costing 4 points less than two regular drones with the same toughness and number of wounds, so great for adding extra ablative wounds to the strong but squishy grav-inhibitor and PA-drones which form a unit with the recon drone after deployment. The recon drone also has 2 wounds and savior protocols, so it can tank 2 shots for your battlesuits.
** The datasheet indicates the unit can take two tactical drones along with the three special drones; remember that in case you want more ablative wounds on your buffs. You can have up to five drones in that unit: two tactical, two in any combination of grav/PAC, and one recon.

* '''[[Piranha|TX4 Piranhas]]''': Zippy, decently priced, can be armed for anti infantry or vehicle, and the drones use the model's BS while attached. Fills the same harassment role it always has, but is no longer the essentially "free drones" platform it was in 7th. Basically shoves a 3 man stealth suit team, into a vehicle chassis for increased movement at lowered durability, at a lower cost. Only consider putting the Burst Cannon on if you're really short on points or facing a particularly horde heavy opposition. True, you may have better anti-tank options in your arsenal, but remember; A Piranha is a harasser first and foremost, your job is to ''weaken'' tanks, not destroy them. And while you might have some better anti-tank you have a '''lot''' more better anti-infantry options. The Seeker missiles are often a good investment too.
** Pro-tip: If you are against Custodes, use these as skirmishers. You can use them to mess with their jetbikes, and possibly charge them to give your suits more time to tear them apart.

* '''[[Tetra]] Scout Speeder Team (Forge World)''': Has a High Intensity Markerlight, that grants 3 Markerlight counters on a hit. Still suffers a -1 to hit when it moves. As is, faster but less efficient Markerlight application than Pathfinders. An odd rules choice, as you want 3 Markerlight tokens already on the target to fire without penalty which then wastes a Markerlight token by taking you to 6. Should have been 2 MLs from the HIM, and then a secondary Markerlight weapon.
** Alternate Take: These little bastards are infinitely better at the singular task of efficient markerlight delivery. While a Pathfinder squad has the multi-role of being a heavy weapons squad and support unit for other units, these guys are designed to a) Deliver markerlights and b) Survive. They are cheap, fast and can deep strike. They have a low profile allowing for easy cover, and their marker lights seem inefficient at first, but a single hit will deliver re-rolls on 1's, cover negation and seeker/destroyer accuracy.  If you need the final two, spend a CP and get d3+1 to finish the job. Suggested that you take between 2 and 4 of these guys, and keep them in cover!

* '''[[Piranha#Piranha_TX-42|TX-42 Piranha Light Skimmer]] (Forge World)''': Comes with your choice of two of: Fusion Blasters, Missile Pods, Plasma Rifles, or Rail Rifles. The guns are quasi-twin-linked, forcing you to fire them both at the same target. Due to the cost of the unit, at first glance the best option seems to be the Rail Rifles, giving you a 16" movement and 30" range, with two Rapid Fire 2, S6 AP-4 D1d3 guns that deal a mortal wound on a wound roll of 6+. Yet another unit that is a better sniper than our Sniper Drones!

* '''[[Tau_Drones|Tactical Drones]]''': Note this is also the datacard used for all other drones that deploy with, and then separate from, other Tau units. All drones can be allocated wounds that would otherwise hit any {{W40kKeyword|INFANTRY}} or {{W40kKeyword|BATTLESUIT}} within 3" thanks to '''Saviour Protocols'''. Note they cannot soak wounds for vehicles, even if they come with drones.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Gun_Drone|MV-1 Gun Drones]]''': At 10 points, this is the Tau Empire's somewhat more efficient source of [[Dakka|dakka]] after the change to Volly Fire. These synergise extremely well with a drone controller and Cadre Fireblade, resulting in 6 shots at 9" at BS4+. Even with the reduced ballistics skill compared to Fire Warriors and Pathfinders, they still do more wounds per point to most targets, with the only real disadvantage being they're [[Ork|dumb as a bag of rocks]], and can only fire at the closest enemy unit.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Shield_Drone|MV-4 Shield Drones]]''': These drones have a 4++/5+++, making them incredibly good at soaking damage. With the way saviour protocol functions you want a bunch of these around to absorb any high strength, high damage weapons aimed at your battlesuits. Lascannons will be completely useless against your army until these are dead, since they turn that D6 damage into a single Mortal Wound, then have a 33% chance to ignore it. Some lists are running 30-40 of these guys to do nothing but keep your army alive. Extremely frustrating to play against, so don't do that if you want to keep your friends.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Marker_Drone|MV-7 Marker Drones]]''': A bit more expensive than a Pathfinder, with a worse BS, but no penalty for moving and firing. Does not suffer the aiming restriction of the gun drones. Basically requires a drone-controller to be effective, which puts into question why you wouldn't just take cheaper pathfinders for markerlight duty and gun drones which massively benefit from drone controllers, resulting in disgusting amounts of firepower if you spam them.

* '''[[Battlesuit#XV109_Y.27Vahra_Battlesuit|XV-109 Y'vahra Battlesuit]] (Forge World)''': The '''Nova Reactor''' nerf the Riptide got still applies, but at least it doesn't have the same competition in the Elites slot as the Riptide. Also per FAQ it can take one of the rare magical Shield Drones in the army that can survive Saviour Protocols (in 1/3 cases). '''Escape Thrust''' allows it to remove itself from the battlefield and enter reserves at the start of you Movement phase, re-deploying anywhere more than 9" from an enemy at the end of your next Movement phase, so it misses an entire turn and one extra phase of movement which sucks ass. Give it ATS and target lock and go to town on any unit in the game. Infantry? 2d6 S6 Ap-2 (-3 with ATS) DAMAGE 3!! FUCK THOSE TERMINATORS AND THOSE CENTURIONS! Flamer that can overcharge to 3d6, which lasts into your opponents phase, 3d6 overwatch will fuck anything that's T6 or less, and will still threaten heavier units. Monsters/vehicles? Heavy 3 S8 Ap-3 D1 isn't the most glamorous thing but this is where nova reactor gets the most value. Heavy 3d3 S10 Ap-3 (-4 with ATS) D3 with mortal wounds on a 6 to wound will average 6 shots and will fuck up something badly. This is the Riptide variant with the best reactor buffs for guns, you already get a 4++ from 12" or less/melee so that reactor for 3++ in melee is pretty shit, so basically it's a choice of murder small targets or murder large targets. Dump this and keep in supporting fire range of stealthsuits/ghostkeels or give it a coldstar (Y'vahra is M18 and coldstar is M20) as a partner and enjoy your god tier  Sanic fast tag team. If you're feeling extra cunty take three and keep them in 6" range of each other, enjoy having literally nothing less than a knight charge you and survive, as your overwatch phase becomes 6d6 to 9d6 flamers on steroids.
** Bor'kan adds 6" to all heavy and rapid fire weapons, this model's weapons are all heavy oddly enough. Very Nice. Combine that with Target Lock and Multi Tracker and perhaps some marker lights and the Ion Discharge cannon becomes far more accurate. The investment is worth it considering how much more firepower you're unleashing, this is a model you want to at maximum possible efficiency. So get some technical drones to fix it when it no doubt gets shot at.
** Farsight Enclaves synergises pretty well with it too. Rerollable 1's to wound with the flamer really boost its killing potential since most of the threats you'll use it on will be wounded on a 2 or 3+ roll. Sure you have to be within 6" to actually get the benefits, but that's a situation you'll likely end up in given the range of the weapon.
** Note: While certainly powerful, Y'vahra are unfortunately a bit of a death star unit. True, it hits really hard but most savvy players will be aware of this and target it first. It's too big to hide from most unit's line of sight, and a good deal of artillery units can bypass that anyways. Toughness 7 can be overcome by a good amount of weaponry and a 5+ invuln save isn't going to help you very much. Once it's down you basically end up with a 400 odd point void in your army. Be cautious when you field this, and do your best to keep it in range of some kind of drones, or use technical drones in tandem with it. Use terrain to try and keep the LoS blocked and do try to go first. A good tactic is to use a Coldstar and declare Mont'ka to get it in range.
** A better tactic would be to surrounded the Y'Vahra with shield drones and use them to tank wounds for it. You'll shrug of all anti-tank weapons as on a 2+ that D 10 Valient Harpoon translates to a single mortal wound. 20 of these things and suddenly you have a 34 wound suit whose first 20 wounds can only be taken one at a time. Even if your opponent does the smart thing and targets the drones first they'll have to chew through a bunch of T4 4++ models which isn't as easy at it seems. Have the drones in a few small groups and this combo becomes even harder to deal with.