Editing Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Kill Team(8E) Xenos (section)

===T'au Strategies===
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'''T'au Strategies:'''
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A lot of people view T'au as a faction that likes to hang back and dish out volley after volley of shots, but this is Kill Team baby. Think of the T'au as fat eldar who can't fight or run for shit and you'll have a slightly better time of shooting your opponents off the board.

Markerlights aren't so next to useless, but still shouldn't be used as often as they are in 40k proper. Consider using them when your opponent doesn't have much to do in the shooting phase to try and delete choice units off of the board; like their leaders, specialists, or units that are getting too close.

Their biggest strength comes from trying to shore up weaknesses by utilizing drones. Need more wounds? Take a shield drone! Need to spam bullets? Take a couple gun drones! The two most useless drones are the markerlight drone (with BS 5+, it's pretty much only hitting on 6's due to cover or long range) and grav-inhibitor drones (but only because they are kind of a niche use thing, too much of a unitasker).

Formations of units are probably your biggest thing to consider when playing T'au, because postioning for extra shots in overwatch and extra wounds from drones is really important to try and stay alive in the fight phase. Nothing sucks worse for a gaunt or guardsman to sit between your blueberry and a drone and pop both in the same combat step. So try to consider how you're going to position stuff to survive the fight phase as best as you possibly can. And remember that your little roombas can fly, so falling back and then spamming gunfire into the fool who charged you is pretty decent. Especially since you get to overwatch again!
You can also use the fact that Drones can fall back and still shoot to your advantage by charging a drone into a particularly scary model that has decent shooting capabilities but lacks the necessary oomph to get you in the fight phase. Then on the next movement phase, if they go first then they will fall back and be unable to shoot, you can then charge the same drone into them again to try and tie that potentially more expensive model up. But if you go first, then charge another drone into that model and fall back with your drone. Creating a 7 pt stunlock.

The Pathfinders are a really great investment. The standard unit is pretty weak, with their poor save, but make up for it by being cheap and still being able to wound most all things on a 3+ due to their S5 guns. The real reason to take them is to grab the Rail Rifles and the Recon Drone. 3 rail rifles can be devastating for your opponent to deal with and is coincidentally the number of specialists you can take (excluding your leader of course), so by al means make them all a sniper, a demo, and a comms specialist. If you aren't one to put your eggs in one basket, make the comms specialist a Sha'sui of some kind. Fire Warriors are a good choice for this, especially with the pulse rifle since you can choose to set down a turret and hunker down with your rail rifle bros and take pot shots at weaker units in range of rail rifles that you don't want to waste shots on. The recon drone is almost like giving your pathfinders a second comms specialist to play with, but just be sure that you use the bonus on a readied model since declaration of the bonus is at the start of the shooting phase and you don't want that guy to have to wait through a whole round of shooting before he gets a chance to shoot, because there'll be a good chance he'll be dead. The recon drone is also great because they have 2 wounds! Which translates to one of your models taking a free hit off of a multi-damage weapon- since it just turns the wound into a mortal wound and two whole wounds means you don't have to continue seeing if the drone dies or takes a flesh wound (somehow). So only use the recon drone's Savior Protocols to tank that one really devastating hit.

Speaking of Drones, their BS is shit so don't be afraid to fire at models behind cover and at long range. Any of your models (typically) will be shooting at 6's against those targets anyway, so quantity is its own quality here. If your drones have nothing better to do then just take potshots at some idiot that is bothering you but you don't necessarily want to waste better shots on (Like a rail rifle).

Stealth suits are big and scary and hard to hit, so consider making one of them your leader so that you can actually do something with him instead of hiding him to farm command points. With a retinue of drones, a Stealth suit can lead from the front and bring the fusion cannon to melt faces off of people. If you're doing so then remember that that is going to cost you in the points department as a single drone with a stealth suit/fusion cannon combo will cost you 32 points, but boy howdy are those points worth it for a mobile fortress of death. Just remember to try and keep some drones hidden so that your opponent doesn't take those out first and makes your leader a sitting duck. If you plan on taking stealth suits for any reason the burst cannon is probably the way to go for most match ups, but going up against factions with good saves necessitates the AP of the fusion cannon. Also remember that your stealth suit can fly, AND the Shas'Vre can get three good old fashioned T'au Punches in before running away like a coward and shooting you in the face. This can result in hilariously lucky kills in melee, but please don't make this your main strategy. This is more of a thing your opponent will be unpleasantly surprised by because they chose to charge a unit that you put in harms way. The combination of multiple wounds, flying and -1 to hit them makes them a little more hearty than one would think in Kill Team.

Last but not least is the humble Fire Warriors. If you plan on taking Pulse Carbines, then just down grade to a pathfinder. Otherwise, take the pulse rifle or shotgun. If you take both, then please find the room to get two turrets since they are both really good options to use. If you take the rifles then be sure to put the one with the turret drone in a well defended place that is hard to charge or at least protect it with the other guys. Just don't get stuck in the mentality of sitting still, the weapons are rapid fire and not heavy so you can still move and shoot. This means finding sight-lines and getting within 15" in order to double tap you enemies. If you plan on taking the shotguns then consider taking some shield drones with groups of them and wrecking ball your enemy with your silly distraction Breachers. If your opponent ignores the Breachers they'll get chewed up by shotgun fire. If they don't then you'll probably be able to save those wounds with your 4+ save. But Breachers are a high-risk, high-reward unit choice. Just don't forget those pulse pistols for both unit choices as they are totally free.

Please do not forget to throw away your drones to protect your better models, that's kind of what they were designed for. Just be sure that you aren't throwing them away for no reason. If you think you can reasonably make a save (due to cover or some bullshit making your save roll not complete horse shit) then don't throw it on the drone and risk losing the poor sucker.


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'''Counterplay:'''
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The T'au are paper thin and their saves suck. Any amount of AP is fairly devastating on you local space-fish-communist, but be sure to note which units have which saves, because AP-2 on a pathfinder spells and autofail on the little guy. Just be sure that your high priority targets don't have drones with them because otherwise your shots will just kill a drone (or maybe not if they have a shield drone). Try to force your opponent into moving their wounds to drones to kill them off by using multi wound weapons, or just outright shoot the drones out the sky before shooting your main target. This is when pumping you start pumping the main target with whatever gun fire or knives you're using.

Remember that they can fire overwatch for each other, but once they do so they can't fire overwatch for themselves. So if you're a melee faction with a trash unit that can take the first couple rounds of fire then I suggest sending those in first to try and bait the shots out. That or just stand behind full cover before leaping out and tearing their poor faces off. Just don't get too cocky and take on a whole blob of them, because there will be a small chance they get lucky and hit you with a t'au punch and that'd just be about the most embarrassing way to die. Piling into their on the ground units after each combat with some units behind ready to charge into them again is a good way to only get shot in overwatch, just try to remember that drones and stealth suits fly.



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