Editing Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Tau (section)

==Allies==

Yes, Tau ''can'' ally with pretty much everybody, including themselves and except Tyranids, who continue to get no love.

===Battle Brothers===

'''Farsight Enclaves/Tau Empire:''' Yep, you can actually ally a "standard" Tau Empire list with a Farsight Enclaves list. This means four Riptides (five counting O'vesa). This means nigh-on broken. This means you WILL do this. on 2,000+ point games that's 9 available riptides. Use the Fire Cadre data slate for an extra to bring that number up to 10. Do you count R'varna riptides? That's 6 more. Enjoy throwing 16 mechagodzillas down your enemies throat.

'''Craftworld Eldar:''' With all this BS3 all around Farseer with Guide and Prescience is golden, especially when casting on markerlight squads. You can put him on jetbike, and troll his way into Crisis team (he's T4 and can do JSJ after all). As space elf codex get pretty brutal update, pretty much everything eldary could be useful - even cheap guardian squad to sit on your objective and man your quad-gun with BS4, if the Farseer is the only thing you want. Also, for extra cheese value, you can take a squad of wraithguard with Shadowsun and Spiritser, so that they can hold objectives, melt tanks, have a 4+ cover in the open, and give Shadowsun T6 due to majority toughness (534 points). U mad, bro? Sadly, they couldn't infiltrate even with Shassera (althought to be fair some tournmemnts do play it that she can infiltrate them, make sure to check with the TO), but this unit still destroys anything in 12 inches, has majority T6 and will have a 2+ cover in terrain, you'll just have to footslog/outflank to get them where you need them. 

'''Eldar Corsairs (Forge World):''' You need the Prince. Think about it. Deepstriking your Broadsides? Your Hammerheads? A Corsair Eldar Warp Hunter, or even the FUCKING WRAITHGUARD? And he can trigger Night Fight, pin the shit out of a blob before the even get running, or fuck up tanks hiding at the edge of the board. Your troll skill just went over nine thousand. SCREW THAT, get Irillyth (got a nice buff in FW FAQ), re-rolling night fight? Giving preferred enemy EVERYTHING to all other shadow spectre squads and also giving them SCOUT?!? Your enemy wants to hit your gun line? He should prepare to take it up the you know where with spectres that have preferred enemy, your enemy wants to chase down 4+ cover (doesn't stack with stealth nor shrouded, requires you to have made a jet thrust move on the turn preceding otherwise bumped down to 5+) all day with jet packs? Be my guest. Cry some more! Irillyth basically gives you the infantry equivalent of battlesuits, use the suits as your tanks and the spectres as the infantry screening them. Not to mention that Irillyth gets what is essentially a 3 shot plasma rifle that somehow acts like a quasi markerlight for spectres except boosting S or lowering AP (although you can only fire one shot at the S and AP, does make for a squad that can tank hunt nicely). His spear also butchers TEQ's (although first turn of assault, *hint* hit and run *hint*. Downsides? Really REALLY expensive, a single corsair costs more then a naked battlesuit, so if your running this you should consider doing little more then flooding the battlefield with battlesuit troops (Enclave) and pathfinder teams with perhaps a skyray for AA. Five battlesuit squads backed up by three corsair squads, while night fighting? You may not win nor even be competitive, but it will be an entertaining game.

'''Space Marines:''' Even meeting basic requirements on the force organisation chart can be downright useful, a librarian can provide some much needed anti psyker ability, whilst sniper scouts can do what kroot do in a somewhat more survivable (albeit more expensive) package. Plus it's just another excuse to plug GW' cash cow; TEH SPESS MEHREENS!!!! The librarian becomes even more valuable if you want to run a Farsight blob, because you gain the chance to take Gate of Infinity, which means your blob can deepstrike 24" away every turn without scattering thanks to Farsight's warlord trait, and no scatter means no chance of the gate specific perils occurring. Deepstrike your librarian behind cover, with the suits sticking out, shoot a nearby unit to dust and then jetpack into safety and repeat every turn. While it does get stupidly expensive, your crisis suits and Warlord gain the potential to be literally untouchable.

Does anyone else find it odd that the two double-page art pieces show Tau fighting against Eldar (inside the front and back covers) and Space Marines?

===Allies of Convenience===

'''Blood Angels:''' Sanguinius with his Shield take care of his little friends, especially Stealth Suits who achieve a +2 cover on the open! Beware of flamers though. Yes, you are thinking that "you can not cast psy powers on allies of convenience, only on battle brothers" and desiring to delete this, but wait a moment because Shield of Sanguinius is cast on the Librarian and affect any unit within 6" the Librarian. Hooray for loophole abuse!  

'''Chaos Space Marines:''' Spiky gue'la could provide you a lot of choppy guys to screen you gunline or even kill/tarpit some troublesome enemy squads. Khornate cultists are MUCH better then forgeworld worker gangs for a cheap choppy tarpit, but if you want more, [[Fabius Bile|Fabulous]] khornate marines would wreck some shit. For more dakka, plasmachosen and dinobots would dish out a lot of white-hot plasma on medium range, and deepstriking termicide squad could melta some tanks like fusion commander bomb, but unlike commander they would at least force a lot of fire to their 2+ armored asses before they die. Do note, that you cannot ninja cult squads into troops in allied detachment.

'''Dark Angels:''' You cannot Ravenwing and Deathwing in allied detachment, and DA does not benefit from your beacons (<s>unless porta-rack is taken</s> Porta-racks let you use enemy teleport homers and locator beacons, but not homing beacons.), but they are cheaper than regular marines for gunline, albeit a bit worse in close combat. Also they are like the only army in 40k that could bring more plasma than you. Ravenwing knights rad-grenade launcher when combined with Darkstrider railfinder squad could make miracles.
Of course, Getting a Ravenwing Darkshroud is an extremely viable option, particularly when you sit it above a Bunker that is chock-a-block of Firewarriors. Giving them all free stealth for additional saving bonuses on top of the terrain is a bargain at 80 points. 

'''Grey Knights:''' Can be quite effective. Choppy Strike Squads can be a very effective screen for your squishy Tau. But they will take a decent toll on your points if you want a big enough wall. Alternatively, a Stormraven filled with Terminators can cause quite the stir for your unsuspecting foe, but again, this will cost you a VERY shiny penny.

'''Imperial Guard:''' This is your Gue'Vesa auxiliaries. They are shooty bastards much like your own army, but a bit slower, and can endure more beating (through numbers). Use them like cheap meat shields and moving cover, or place fucktons of tanks and heavy artillery to back up your gunline with even more firepower. That be said, you also could ally with all Forge World special IG lists - Elysians would give you a fuckton of flyers, Kriegers - meatshields that would HOLD THE FUCKING LINE, and Armoured Battlegroup - plethora of tanks, including horrible abomination of cheese what is BS4 Monster Slayer Co-axial Vanquisher of Doom.

'''Necrons:''' They are shooty cover campers, that lay waste on vehicles and die in close combat... just like you. Unlike you they have much more survivability in the open (as they are designed for close range firefights, instead of sniping across the board) pie plates of hate, lots and lots of battlefield cheating rules, some of which stacks perfectly with Tau (HOD with Solar Flare for your nightvision army? Yes, please!), and last but not least motherfucking flyer cheese <s>of scythes</s> croissants. And if you want to screen your gunline with close combat beatstick, they get one too.
*Before allying with Necrons be aware that many of your own models can do the same jobs for less. Fire Warriors shooting is more versatile than Necron Warriors shooting, though Necrons are better at assault with their higher WS, S and T combined with reanimation protocols; Fire Warriors can have Haywire grenades but their use is situational.  Missilesides will outperform Annihilation Barges while Hammerheads and Railsides will outdo Heavy Destroyers.  Monolith guns are not as good as Riptide guns though the Monolith is more survivable and has the portal, so for offence the Riptide, defense the Monolith. The best use for Necron allies is Triarch Stalkers, Doom Scythe and Wraithwing.

'''Orks:''' A maxed out squad with a warboss could give your opponent enough of a distraction to forget those 8 bajillion guns being pointed at them by little blue men and women. Orks can add more fun into the game, as having more meatshields or units with hilarious equipment (Big Mek with Shokk Atack Gun and a suicide Commander can make a fun setup) will make more major lulz throughout the game. Also, Farsight working with Orks. Using the Orks in basically the most obvious way possible (choppy meat shield) works fairly well too in an infantry-heavy army, because it keeps your Tau guys out of CC.

'''Space Wolves:''' Have some nice buffs and fluff to assist the Tau, such as completely bitchin' IC's that can bring a lot of strong units to the table, and can take cheaper assault marines than vanilla SM in the form of neophyte Bloodclaws that can work as a screen for your squishy Fire Warriors. Just remember that they have a tendency to rush into CC, robbing you of further shooting at the squad until either of them are dead.

===Desperate Allies===

'''Chaos Daemons:''' Daemons have little to offer that Eldar (Prescience/psykers) or CSM (CC beatstick) don't have. Though Bloodthirster and Plaguebearers horde can take attention away from your squishy blueberries, everyone fears your Riptide more than anything Daemons can offer.

'''Dark Eldar:''' Dark Eldar do have a couple of upsides - with the right build, they are so mobile that the One Eye Open rule won't be a factor if you play intelligently, and they're very good at dictating when combat occurs, a very good sacrificial defense for your squishy gunlines. On the other hand, a highly mobile Eldar build - such as Samhain - can use this tactic as well.

'''Sisters of Battle:''' These Sistas work wonders with the [[Tau|Greater Good]] in ways you can't possibly imagine. One Eye Open rule? That's fantastic! Good thing you won't give one shit about it! How do you like HQ's that come back from the dead and soak up fields of fire and make MEQs and Mobs shit bricks alike? I certainly do! Celestine's 2+ and 4++ flying gracefully up the field into hails of gunfire to allow your squishy blue men to shoot things is something that is INVALUABLE, also provides other sisters very high chance to pass their AoF (DON'T go footslog, always go Mech). Also, Women in [[Metal Boxes|METAL BAWXES]] with melta/flamers/RENDING HEAVY FLAMERS are certainly going to draw some attention. And with revamped Act of Faith, though it might be one use only (use Jacobus or Simulacrum). The pure amount of melta/flamers you can bring with the Sistas allows your suits to go all Plasma Dakka and Missile Dakka on everything else, and the problems with the Faith system in a large army are less important in reduced numbers.