Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Tau (section)

====Fast Attack====

* '''[[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 - in fact, they're hands down your best Fast Attack option. Not only are they a cheap source of Markerlights ''which they can use '''after moving''''' (just never Advance with them and you'll be fine. '''INCLUDING WITH MONT'KA!''' It does NOT let you do actions while moving!!! Don't misunderstand it like I did!), their special weapons are much better than last edition. The Rail Rifle is now a diet Lascannon with worse Strength but better AP. If you expect them to be on the move a lot, you'll want the Ion Rifles. They are Heavy 2 regardless of profile, but the lack of variable shots means they're far more reliable than before. These will profit from their own unit's Markerlights, and you genuinely want them shooting their special weapons if they brought them - they're ''very'' effective, and will reliably put out so many Markerlights you don't mind losing 1 to the unit's own shooting. Their armour is very bad, likely due to the lack of a manly [[pauldron|pauldron]], so they should stay in cover. 
**Don't forget to ''always'' take a Pulse Accelerator Drone for AP-1 Carbines and a Recon Drone for being a gun drone but better while also being a good damage sink.  2 shield drones and a grav-inhibitor drones are also great takes, just not as mandatory.
**They can and in practice always will take a grenade launcher, which has two profiles: 20" Assault 1 S6 AP-1 D3 or 20” Assault 1 S3 AP0 D1, if a non-{{W40kKeyword|TITANIC}} {{W40kKeyword|VEHICLE}} is hit, it halves its remaining wounds for degrading purposes until the start of your next shooting phase.  The degradation mode is surprisingly effective if there's a target you ''don't'' want to murder yet - this unit makes so many markerlight tokens it's not a big sacrifice to throw one away on supporting this grenade, and if it goes through you'll force the target down 1 degradation step while putting your actual murder elsewhere.  Nonetheless, a lot of the time you'll just use the murder mode to add more damage to whatever you wanted dead.
**Pathfinders can easily utilize a jump-shoot-jump with the Recon Sweep stratagem. Use it to put a markerlight on a big scary thing, then move behind LOS blocking terrain, and let the Railsides do the rest.
**'''[[Tau_Drones#Pulse_Accelerator_Drone|MV-31 Pulse Accelerator Drone]]''': Improves the AP of all Pulse weapons in the unit by 1.  Auto-include, as you're stuck with shitty Pulse Carbines instead of the Pulse Rifles you'd be radically better with.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Grav-Inhibitor_Drone|MV-33 Grav-inhibitor Drone]]''': -2 to charge rolls targeting this unit.  Pretty damn great.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Recon_Drone|MB3 Recon Drone]]''': W3 and equipped with a Burst Cannon (which, remember, means functionally 3 Pulse Carbines to a Gun Drone's 2), this lets the entire unit ignore Light Cover when it attacks a target within 18".  Absolutely clutch for the Wounds, because the Pulse Accelerator Drone and the Drone Controller the unit can take for free encourage you to take Gun Drones, so the Recon Drone is your most efficient way to pack more Wounds into the unit if you're not taking Shield Drones.  The gun usually makes the unit ''worse'' at murder per point, simply because if you remotely care about that you'll take options that make the Burst Cannon a comparative waste of points, like a Pulse Accelerator Drone or special weapons.
** You can have up to five drones in the unit: two tactical, one inhibitor, one accelerator, and one recon.
* '''[[Piranha|TX4 Piranhas]]''': Zippy, decently priced, can be armed for anti-horde or anti-heavy. Fills the same harassment role it always has, but is no longer the essentially "free drones" platform it was in previous editions.  Each one carries 2 gun drones, so that's 4 Pulse Carbines per Piranha, and a main gun. Both of its main gun options are bespoke versions that are better than the Crisis baseline versions.  The Piranha Burst Cannon is an automatic pass, as it's an S6 Burst Cannon - every other vehicle in your army, including a Devilfish, that can carry a Burst Cannon carries an Assault 8 AP-1 version of this, so it's more of an insult than anything else.  The Piranha Fusion Blaster is much more interesting, as it deals +2D relative to a normal one (so D1d6+2 at 18", D1d6+4 at half), but it's still genuinely pointless because both Pathfinders and Vespid (if you're keen on the Deep Strike) will outshoot it against everything in the game.
* '''[[Tetra]]s<sup>Forge World</sup>''': With the February 2022 Errata, the Tetra has made something of a comeback. Though it can't automatically hit with markerlights, it can roll 3d6 to determine if a token lands, making it considerably more reliable. With all the changes to how they work, you're going to want this to join with a unit that's going to make a lot of shooting so that they can benefit from these more frequent markerlights.
* '''[[Piranha#Piranha_TX-42|TX-42 Piranha]]<sup>Forge World,Legends</sup>''': Comes with your choice of two of: Fusion Blasters, Missile Pods, Plasma Rifles, or Rail Rifles. 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. All drones have separate point costs being 8 for gun, 10 for marker and 12 for shield.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Gun_Drone|MV-1 Gun Drones]]''': At 8 points, this is the Tau Empire's somewhat more efficient source of [[Dakka|dakka]] after the change to Volley Fire. These synergise extremely well with a drone controller and Cadre Fireblade, resulting in 6 shots at 9" at BS5+. 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. Great meatshields for more important drones if you don't have the points for shield drones.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Shield_Drone|MV-4 Shield Drones]]''': 2 wounds with a 4++, GW has realized the utter Bullshit that these were and were bumped to a deserved 12 points. They can no longer serve as lascannon sponges like they did last edition, but now function much like storm shields for [[Space Marines|the special boys]]. No longer have the feel no pain though, so you won't be shrugging off mortals. They have no guns, but can hit on a 5+ in melee, though if you are in melee with them to begin with something has gone very wrong.
**Throw sense of stone on a crisis unit with added shield drones and gain some 4++/5+++ ablative wounds for the unit.
** '''[[Tau_Drones#Marker_Drone|MV-7 Marker Drones]]''': Way more valuable given the new codex. They retain their awful BS, but now it doesn't even matter because they automatically hit with markerlights like vehicles, so they'll pair great with Broadsides and Fire Warrior squads. Combine them into Pathfinder squads with the recon sweep stratagem and watch your opponent's dumbfounded face as your unit of Pathfinders with Marker drones auto marks their Shield Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike.
**Drones and non drone models in a unit can’t act together, either move and fire the drones or use the strat and fire the pathfinders, better yet, don’t take marker drones with pathfinders.
*'''[[Battlesuit#XV107_R.27varna_Battlesuit|XV-107 R'Varna Battlesuit]]<sup>Forge World</sup>''': A badly overcosted long-range [[MEQ]] and light vehicle killer. Like the Broadside, it gives up {{W40kKeyword|FLY}} in exchange for its gun and increased durability. Said gun is 60" Heavy 3d3(6) S6 AP-2 D2, Blast. But you have two of these guns! In the Command Phase it can deal itself a mortal wound (it's W15 and cripples its M8, A4, and BS4+) to choose one of the options below, but its cost is ''absurd'' - there's literally no reason to ever take this over the Y'Vahra, let alone an actually good option from the codex.
**Increase its gun(s) from 3d3 Blast to 9(18), i.e. you can hit any target as hard as if it had 11+ models in it.  Also increases from S6 to S7, which is generally useless.  If you do field a R'varna, this is compulsory to even attempt to make it worth its points, as at only 6 average shots fired (3 of which hit, 4 with a markerlight token), you'll barely kill anything.
**Increase from 2+/5++ to 2+/4++.
**Until your next Command Phase, in each Fight Phase, roll 1d6 for each enemy unit within 6": on a 4+, that unit suffers 1d3 mortal wounds (so each nearby unit suffers, on average, 1 mortal wound, with a lot of swinginess).
*'''[[Battlesuit#XV109_Y.27Vahra_Battlesuit|XV-109 Y'vahra Battlesuit]]<sup>Forge World</sup>''': A bizarrely close-range kamikaze unit, each of the Y'Vahra's guns has a different optimal target, so overall you get a unit whose favorite target is T4-5 with plenty of wounds, like Space Marine Gravis units, although even then it can't compete with the rest of your army.  It has 3 guns, the least useful of which is the Flechette Pod it borrowed from Shadowsun: 12" Assault 5 S3 AP0 D1, only useful for murdering GEQ, although not having a penalty to hit in melee is nice.  Its other two guns are what you care about, with base profiles you won't ever fire (see below).  The Ionic Discharge Cannon is 24" Heavy 6 S8 AP-1 D2, but you can't Overcharge it without permission (again, see below).  The Phased Plasma-Flamer is 12" Heavy 2d6(7) S6 AP-2 D1, automatically hits (which is why you generally won't even remember you have a Flechette Pod, even in melee).  In the Command Phase it can deal itself a mortal wound (it's W14 and cripples its M18, A4, and BS4+) to choose one of the options below to last until your next Command Phase, but you'll always choose the gun option because its output is worthless if you don't:
**The Ionic Discharge Cannon gains its overcharge profile like an Ion weapon should: it goes to S9 D3, and deals the shooter a mortal wound on an unmodified 1 to hit.  The saving grace is that unlike standard Ion, you only take 1 mortal no matter how many 1s you roll, so you can't deal yourself more than 2 mortal wounds total (1 from enabling the profile, 1 from shooting), and your total expected mortal wounds suffered is 1.67, because the Cannon will deal you slightly less than 2/3 of a mortal wound, on average.  The Phased Plasma Flamer also jumps from 2d6(7) shots to 3d6(10.5).  This ''does'' give you credible Overwatch potential, but not nearly as much as triple-flamer Crisis Suits (which as a reminder are 1/5 the cost of a Y'Vahra for 3d6+6(16.5) S4 shots and don't need to cut themselves to shoot properly). '''Far too expensive for what it does compared to codex options, do not take.'''
**Increase from 2+/5++ to 2+/4++.
**Until the start of your next Command phase, gain +12M (so normally 18->30) and it is eligible to shoot in a turn in which it Falls Back.