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

===HQ Units===
* '''[[Tau Commander]] in XV8 Armor:''' These are now one of the Tau Empire's most powerful models. Carrying an eye-watering four weapons at BS2+ with an incredibly cheap chassis, these are a major source of deep striking firepower. Note they can take up to two tactical drones if you wanted another way to get those onto the table. Not inept at close combat, though he's still not very good at it even with the Onager Gauntlet or Fusion Blades. If you do it right, you can Manta Strike your commander (take into account Homing Beacons if this is your plan), light up a heavy target with your weapons, and then charge to finish it off with an assault, although it's pretty difficult to pull this off, since Tau are not full of buffs to charge distance.
** The Codex limits you to taking only one Commander per detachment in Matched Play (as of The Greater Good, you can take 2 if using the Farsight Enclaves), as a relic of a time before the rule of 3 existed. This can make it hard on you if you want to mix septs in your army. On the bright side, they can upgrade to Iridium Armour without using a Signature System slot to do so, giving them a shiny 2+ armour save.
** Commander excels in two roles: Anti-armor with quad fusion blasters; anti-TEQ with triple cyclic blaster and ATS. Leave anti-infantry for other units and put your best guns to use with BS2+.
** They can't be spammed, but they usually run about 140 points, making their loss not as terrible as you would think.

* '''Commander in XV85 Enforcer Battlesuit:''' Same as the regular commander, but has 1 more wound instead of access to Iridium Armour. Only 4 points more than the standard Commander, so you may as well use him if you don't plan to give your Commander the Iridium Armour upgrade, saving you 6 points.

* '''Commander in XV81 Crisis Battlesuit (Forge World):''' commander in an XV85 Enforcer Battlesuit with a mandatory Smart Missile System weapon and only 2 remaining slots for Weapons/Support systems. A ok choice if you want a commander with a weapon that ignores cover and fine with him only to haveing fewer customization slots than usual.

* '''Commander in XV84 Crisis Battlesuit (Forge World):''' Another variant of the XV85 Enforcer Battlesuit. Automatically applies one Markerlight token per phase, as long as one of its shots hits the target; also has a built-in Target Lock System, although at 8 points more than a base Commander with Target Lock and can take two additional Weapons/systems, presumably the 8 points is paying for your auto-markerlight and extra wound. This is single-handedly the best unit in the codex to turn into a buffmander for markerlight drones. Use a missile pod for range (97.22% chance of a token at 36"), an airbursting fragmentation projector for applying markers to targets your buffmander can't see (99.73% at 18", vs 99.92% for a Burst Cannon), or a flamer to ''guarantee'' the first marker token (100% chance at 8"). Then use a drone controller on markerlight drones to markerlight up the same target at functionally BS 3.5+, racking up the markerlight hits to 5 (on average, you will need 8.57 drones to make this happen). Works absolutely great with a gunline as you can activate Kauyon and be effectively BS2.5+ on those markerlightss for when you desperately need them or just boost your gunline in general. If not taking drones, works great in a commander bomb to give your already BS2+ suits rerolls of ones. Hurt by the fact that it's now only 1 per army because FW isn't retarded enough to render all other Tau sources of marketlights useless.

* '''Commander in XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit:''' The Coldstar commander has Ludicrous Speed - Movement 20", and Advancing adds another 20" instead of D6" for a total of 40" movement. No longer restricted to specific loadouts (save for being unable to take a cyclic ion blaster, and can only take a high-output burst cannon in a pair with a missile pod), so feel free to use your four hardpoints however you want. GW for one suggests a quad-Fusion Blaster loadout for a super-speedy tank destroyer that can also be used to wipe out characters; it's fast enough to make sure a given character is targetable (provided they aren't bubble-wrapped too badly) and not very many things can take four Fusion Blaster shots and live. Alternatively, give him a drone controller and fly around with a squad of remoras; not super effective, but at least you will get to use those expensive FW models you bought.
** If you'd rather not use points for Target Lock, the Vior'la Sept Tenet is ideal for giving the Coldstar commander the ability to use his guns without any penalties from advancing.
** The note about close combat above also applies to the Coldstar, but more so, because the Coldstar can simply scoot into charge range of the enemy. Something to keep in mind for Enclave players, who can take advantage of the Fusion Blades to make the most of it.

* '''[[Ethereal]]:''' Two key abilities. First is a Leadership to Morale checks bubble (6") which applies to all {{W40kKeyword|TAU EMPIRE}} units. Second is a variable buff bubble selected once per player turn which only applies to {{W40kKeyword|TAU EMPIRE INFANTRY}} and {{W40kKeyword|BATTLESUITS}}. Secondary ability Buffs include a re-roll of 1s for stationary units, a 6+ FNP, -1 morale check modifier, or re-advances. Neither ability is Sept Specific, and Leadership is downright mandatory for large units of both Drones and Kroot (which they work very well with) and is helpful for larger strike squads. Their only wargear are melee weapons, which is unfortunate as neither of them are good and melee is the last place you want an Ethereal to be (unless they're Aun'Shi).
** Consider taking Aun'Shi or Aun'Va instead of a regular Ethereal if you want one and the points allow it. Both named Ethereals can do a better job than the vanilla versions since all those have on them is their hover drones (which are of questionable utility since they only add 2" worth of movement).

* '''[[Cadre Fireblade]]:''' Gives your {{W40kKeyword|<SEPT>}} Pulse Pistols, Pulse Carbines, and Pulse Rifles an extra shot. Unfortunately, multiple Fireblades do not stack, but that doesn't matter because a horde of MV1 Gun Drones firing 6 shots each (It's one extra shot with each weapon, and gun drones carry 2 pulse carbines) at 9" is a lot of dakka. Handy if you are running a mobile gun line. The big change this edition is that the Fireblade's Volley Fire, and the Ethereal's Storm of Fire have swapped movement priorities. Storm of Fire can't be used if you move, and Volley Fire works even if you do which is the opposite of 7th, which is... interesting.
** He's one of the best markerlight users in your army. He hits on twos and is a very hide-able character. You could also put him on a Droneport hooked up with 4x marker drones and now you're firing 5 markerlights that hit on 2+.

====Special Characters====
{{W40kKeyword|KE'LSHAN}} Sept has no rules, but it ''has'' got at least one person in it.
* '''[[Shas'O R'alai]] (Forge World):''' Appears to be a ranged monster-killing Commander, that can also throw a SINGLE Mortal Wound onto vehicles at close range. Equipped with Photon casters and a drone controller he can do a decent amount of damage at close to mid-range while still being difficult to charge due to Photon Casters reducing enemy charge range by 2". His Markerlight drones, able to stay with him without taking hit penalty but are for some reason WS3+ While he can re-roll failed hit rolls against {{W40kKeyword|CHARACTERS}}, [[Fail|he has no special rules bypassing the Character targeting restrictions]].
** RAW, the EMP rounds roll to see if any Mortal Wounds are inflicted to a {{W40kKeyword|VEHICLE}} on target, rather than on hit. This means you effectively have to make a second to hit roll after all your normal ones, just this time for the Mortal Wound, and you can only inflict one Mortal Wound no matter how many times you successfully shoot the target.