Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th 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.
** '''Start Collecting Tau''': Remains one of the most cost effective ways to build a balanced force. Gets you 3 crisis suits, while also getting 10 Fire Warriors and an Ethereal for essentially free. 
*** Whenever you are buying Crisis suits, you should be buying this box. It only costs $20 extra. Use spare Fire Warrior parts to turn any un-needed Ethereals into Cadre Fire Blades.
*** You can technically use the crisis suits as commanders. That is 3 HQs for the price of 1.
** '''Hammerhead''': Gets you an armoured vehicle to dish out some damage. Build it as a Longstrike and use the spare turret with...
** '''Optimised Pathfinder''': Gets you a handful of Pathfinder's to throw out Marker Lights, and a Devilfish that you can use with the above spare turret, to turn it into a second Hammerhead. '''*Update*''': This set is no longer in print unfortunately. The fish would probably be better used as a fish anyway, with some breachers in (see Breacher Team section above), as you only get the extra main weapon in a hammerhead kit and not a second actual turret/mount. You could build it as a skyray of course (why?), but you'll still lack the parts to fit burst cannon or missile sponsons and the correct sensor array on the chin mount.
** '''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.
* 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. Psykers will be a problem. Using Kroot and/or Shield Drones as screens against Smite will help a lot but won't protect you from Warpgate shenanigans or similar.
* Don't go in melee to kill the enemy, but to survive. Against most shooty armies it is safer in close combat than it is in 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 and FLY out to shoot.
* Your larger suits are vulnerable to smite spam and las 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 the Uplinked Markerlight strategem to give you bonuses if you don't have many in your army, use Fireblades and Marksmen for easy hits, Shove them in a droneport to have them hitting on 2's. Use them, Use them all.
* If you are playing FSE, remain aggressive and remember that you have some decent CC options of your own, and nothing throws off your enemy than charging with a Fusion Blade commander and/or Farsight. The enemy should never feel safe from any of your shooting units.
* Focus your fire. A lot of 8th edition is focused on synergy, 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. 
* Firesight Marksmen are worth their weight in gold. You don't even need the drones- <span style='color:blue;font-size:100%'> Drones are an essential part of the Tau'va war machine, and refusing to use them is a detriment to our effectiveness. Please report to the nearest Ethereal for a debriefing. </span>
* A Battalion costs less than 200 pts with 3x5 man strike teams, and 2 of Ethereal/Darkstrider/Cadre. Its one of the cheapest battalions that 8th ed has to offer and is not a push over. Basic battalions are also extremely flexible when comparing Septs; Sa'cea with minimum squads and an Ethereal is immune to unmodified moral checks as well as increasing ML accuracy (but pushes cost to slightly over 200 if you include MLs on each Strike Team), triple tapping at 18" with Bor'kan, High mobility castle with Vio'rla, 5+ overwatch screens as Tau... Every list, even at very low pt games should start with a battlion.
* You are limited to one Commander per detachment. You can minimise this limit by using multiple small detachments. Since Battalions are cheap and easy to make for Tau, you should at least have 2 in your list, this will give you a whopping 13 command points. If you can squeeze another one in there go for it, but if you can't just take one more detachment with smaller requirements. Do what you gotta do to field 3 commanders. 
* Did we mention '''USE DRONES'''?

====Tactics====
'''Farsight Bomb 3: The Revenge''': Take a unit of Crisis suits and put them in deep strike along with Farsight. If you want to use a homing beacon make sure to only use it for getting Farsight into charge Range. Equip the suits with 2 drones apiece, this part is not optional. Equip the Crisis suits with whatever is most effective against the target you expect to use them on (Burst Cannons for Hordes/GEQs, Cyclic Ion Blasters for MEQs and Fusion Blasters for TEQs and Vehicles), but make sure to leave one hardpoint free for a Drone Controller. Again, not optional. Then stack the following buffs; Drop zone Clear, 5 Markerlights, and have Farsight use Command and Control Node on the Suits. Now your Drones hit on 3's and the suits on 2's with rerollable 1's for both, and the Crisis suits reroll failed wounds. You can even mount Fusion Blasters on the Crisis suits for particularly nasty targets. Anything that survives the Volley will probably be easy pickings for Farsight's Dawn Blade. If you can get another Commander with Fusion Blades in range, so much the better. 
* Also note that the XV9s are also capable of Manta Striking and are significantly more cost effective as suits. You'll lose Drone support in exchange for better suits, but the trade off might be worth it especially if you go with the Double Burst Cannons.
* You can also deep strike another squad of gun drones to add additional dakka. Not enough, but a lot more than before. 
* With the new Psychic Awakening buffs, this got some extra flexibility. Use 1/2CP to make the suit squad Veterans, giving them a starting WS and BS of 4+ and 3+ respectively. If using Crisis Bodyguards have them charge in with Farsight,use Furious Assault (1CP) for a 3+ mortal wound for each suit within 1", then activate Sworn Bodyguards (1CP) for rerolling both failed hits and wounds.

'''Shadowsun's Fortress''': Take Shadowsun and set her in the middle of your castle for the double kauyon. This tactic is prefeably done with squad of three missilesides and as many riptides as can be placed around her. To optimise shooting be sure to place command and control node on the battlesuit unit that is shooting plus multi-spectrum sensor suite to remove cover. Though your marker lights should be doing that anyways.

'''Kroot Konga Line''': Yeah, you can still do this. If you're unfamiliar with this classic, you take squads of Kroot at their maximum size then space them out across the board so that they are within 6" of all your units. When the enemy charges your Kroot everything with the range to do so fires overwatch against them. Do this with the Tau sept to hit on 5's. 


'''Flex Rich List''': Buy a start collecting box, two more squads of fire warriors, Shadowsun, as many drones as you can get and a Ta'unar. Your list should be a Superheavy Aux, Battallion and if you can squeeze one in, one more detachment that gives CP. Surrounded your Nar with Fire Warriors and Drones, have Shadowsun camp nearby, pop Command and Control every turn and soak in the salt. At most you'll be rocking around 400 points to customise to your local meta. Take Flamer suits to ruin anyone's dreams of a charge. Take Stealth Suits to actually bother to try and objective grab. Or just be that guy and run a riptide or Yvahra at the exact same time and ruin anyone's chances of living past turn three. 

'''Special note: TAU IN MELEE''' A bit of misnomer is the idea that Tau are terrible in melee. They are terrible '''Offensively''' in melee, but defensively they will last. Suits with T5+ will last just fine against marines that don't have strength improving weapons, as wounding on 5s really stifles them. Armour saves on the Tau, especially the suits, are comparable to space marines. The Shield Generator is very impressive from an SM standpoint, as 4++ is usually limited to SM HQ units. So in melee, Tau will be fine defensively provided the opponent isn't overly focused on melee.
[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(8E)]]
[[Category:Tau]]
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