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

===Army Building===

====Starter Armies====
* ''1k Balanced Army'' - While not particularly competitive, it will get you a good core of useful units that you can expand on as you become more experienced. While Crisis suits are currently less than ideal, they can be easily used as proxies for Commanders if needed
** '''Tau Combat Patrol''': Start collecting is a phenomenal box, but you are likely to get scammed when going on a hunt for the now defunct box. The Combat patrol, while pretty good, isn't the autotake like the previous box was. It's the same except the Crisis suits are exchanged for a Ghost keel and a Stealthsuit squad. Which is ''cool'' I guess but heavily stealth themed and, due to the current rules for these models, isn't as good as a trio of Crisis would be. Don't be deterred however as they are all playable, cool looking, and plastic models which some factions are not lucky enough to have.
** '''Hammerhead''': Gets you an armored vehicle to dish out some damage. Build it as a Longstrike and use the spare turret with...
** '''Stealth Suits''': 2 boxes of these gives you two durable units capable of dealing with Hordes and giving you some board control to deny deep strikes and slow charges.

====General Advice====
* Use Drones.
* Synergy is your friend. All your units should be supporting one another for... the greater good. 
* Your units are confusing to non-Tau and are [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|hard to react properly against]]. Rotate threats well to keep your more powerful units safe.
* Avoid dedicated melee units like the plague.
* You have no way to Deny the Witch unless you have the FSE relic. Psykers will be a problem. Using Kroot and/or Shield Drones as screens against Smite will help a little, but won't protect you from Warpgate shenanigans or similar.
* Don't go into melee to kill the enemy, but to survive. Against most shooty armies it is safer in close combat than it is the open getting fired on. Most Tau units have a preferred range of under 18" so can get a bit closer and charge an enemy gunline and tie them up. Best on suits that can tank overwatch.
* Your larger suits are vulnerable to smite and lascannon spam. Keep them mobile, shielded, and away from characters (with a cordon of anti-drop guards if a deep-striking sorcerer seems likely).
* USE FUCKING DRONES!
* Markerlights are always, '''ALWAYS''' helpful. Use marker drones and/or Pathfinders to get them out there.
* If you are playing FSE, remain aggressive and remember that you have some decent melee options of your own, and nothing throws off your enemy more than charging with an Onager Gauntler/Thermoneutronic commander and/or Farsight. The enemy should never feel safe from any of your shooting units.
* Focus your fire. A lot of 9th edition is focused on synergy and mobility, so be sure to knock out synergy units with your superior firepower. 
* If you are upset with the 1 commander suit per detachment, remember you can take a cheap vanguard or auxiliary detachment to shoehorn in a second commander (who can then take a slotless unit of Crisis bodyguards, if you want). 
* Did we mention '''USE DRONES'''?

====Tactics====
Tau are now the mobile army they should be with their focus on combined arms still not having been completely erased by battlesuits yet. Your units generally don't have preferred targets, but they have targets they do not want to target if you catch my drift.

With the exception of FSE, the general gameplan is to use your good movement and good range to bob and weave in and out of sight lines of dangerous units using stratagems and innate abilities while staying as far away from your opponents as humanly (tauishly?) possible. In order to keep your enemy on their toes, ensure that you are '''''cycling your threats.''''' What this means is that you should constantly be switching out the main issue your enemy is facing and make them spread their forces out. For example: you kill something with your hammerhead's railgun which causes your enemy to focus down on your Hammerhead and hopefully not killing it. Now that your enemies forces are spread out on the table dealing with different threats, you deep strike your Crisis in order to attack their vital unit which leads to them putting resources to attacking the Crisis suits which opens up a path for your troops to enter and operate. This strategy is useful for all armies, but is especially potent with the Tau's combined arms style of combat.

A specific early game tactic that helps with this is the current iteration of the [[Fish of Fury|Fish of Fury]]: A Devilfish stuffed with Breachers with the Mont'ka premove. You send Devilfish to the midboard and, with the Combat Disembarkation strategem, disembark the Breachers to shoot a volley of pulse blasts into your desired enemy. In addition to being pretty powerful, it also creates a speed bump and distraction for your opponent. Do they deal with that current threat or do they target something they see as more vital to kill? Try your absolute best to create situations similar to this.

(this is not done help is appreciated)

[[Category: Warhammer 40000 Tactics (9E)]]
[[Category: Tau]]
{{Warhammer_40k_Tactics}}