Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Tau

This is the 7th Edition tactics. 6th edition can be found here. The 8th Edition is out. Nomenclature note: "MSU" means Multiple Small Units.

This should be your face playing Tau.

Why Play Tau

Because you want to win? Because you're a weeaboo? When you start a Tau army, you know others are going to hate you, be it because you're bringing a plasma gun to a knife fight, thrashing their best guys with Gundam-style battle suits, or abusing the ever-loving shit out of cheap-and-effective long-range missile strikes and widely-available infiltration and cover-save-raping. You may win battles, but that is not your goal as a Tau player: you play Tau to drink your enemies' tears.

With 7th edition favoring shooting, Tau, with their focus on shooting and nothing else, are at their peak. In the competition for the title of the cheesiest power faction in the game, they now fall behind Eldar (and possibly certain Space Marine lists with their free transports and Librarian Conclaves), and that's about it. You still have all the rules to fit the crunch changes: widely available ignore cover against the bullshit 3+/2+ cover saves everyone throws around, some of the best anti-air in the game against flying cheese, excellent mobility to hunt objectives in Maelstrom missions, and monstrous creatures in every slot but Troops to capitalize on their effectiveness in a current edition. About the only thing you don't have is anti-psychic defense, but with the reduction of warp charge effectiveness in 7th edition it's no longer such a huge problem.

That's not to say you can just park your gunline, back it up with power units end expect it to mow down everything thrown at it - that's the Guard and Necron way. Nor should you plan on the power of a Death Star unit, or insanely potent characters to lead you to victory. With Tau you need to support even your power units in order for them to earn their points and carefully pick key targets to be eliminated one by one, since the new codex really emphasizes the unity and synergy of your forces. Additionally, the force-multipliers that are available to the Tau are most useful when understood and employed well.

In summary, Tau are a Powergamer army. Not only do you have delicious cheese combos, but all other armies' cheese could be hard countered by you to the ground. Mass flyers? Velocity Trackers on everything! All terminator army? Eat plasma/ion interceptor shots! Heavily covered gunline? Ignore cover with markerlights! Nidzilla/Wraitharmy? Cheap snipers will drown them in poisoned wounds! Mass heavy mech? Fusion blaster drops and EMP grenades everywhere! Hordes of light vehicles? Oh boy, our basic guns are S5 and their jink saves won't help them if markerlighted! Deep striking dedicated melee units with Feel No Pain? Counterfire Defense Systems and Early Warning Overrides will help you make short work of them! There is no way one can out-cheese (or win against, barring extremely bad luck) properly prepared Tau. You can't do all of this with one army, but if you want to ruin the day of some local game club cheesemonger Tau are definitely your army.

Tau Special Rules

• Bonding Knife Ritual: A unit with this upgrade has Heroic Morale, allowing them to always test to regroup on their unmodified Leadership (so niche-case completely unlike Stubborn, as testing to regroup does not modify Leadership and is not affected by Stubborn). Is it that useful? Not really. It is a super situational upgrade, even though it is cheap. But it fits nicely on battle suit squads with drones, as the increased squad size can mean being below 25% is a possibility, and it costs even less for those squads because drones don't take it. Spending 3 points to make sure your last suit doesn't have to roll snake eyes to regroup is worth it. Note that if you're running a Farsight army, this is mandatory.
• Supporting Fire: A unit with this special rule can Overwatch if a friendly unit within 6" is being charged. Note that a unit can still only Overwatch once per phase. This is absolutely vital; it can stave off assault by a turn or more. It can be especially devastating when combined with copious amounts of Markerlights, which according to Pinpoint, do benefit during Overwatch. It allows your infantry (and some battle suits) to become a "wall of pikemen". If you keep the units tight together, the enemy charge may not break, but it will be much more painful for them if to try it, and they will be likely to lose a few models just closing the distance. The survivors will still kick your blue ass though, so do not count on it unless you have a truly massive blob of supporting fire goodness; best options are flamers, burst cannons and plasma rifles, and drones with their twin-linked carbines. Keep in mind a unit does not need to have this rule to receive supporting fire, only to give it. This is especially hilarious when combined with 30 man Kroot squads stretched out from table edge to table edge, allowing for units 30 inches from the assaulting squad to auto-hit with flamers. If enemy complains, flip to Wall of Death and prance about.
• Markerlights:Technically Wargear, but important enough to cover here. As any defender of the Tau'va worth their salt Markerlights are what turn a rambling mob of shooty morons into a synergistic army of hard cheddar. The delivery system for these little babies has stayed the same: Pathfinders, Tetras, Marker Drones & Skyrays (amongst other niche units). What makes this great is that markerlight hits can't be saved. Not even by cover. Their uses have been ever more streamlined, leaving you with the most beneficial uses:
  • Pinpoint: Spend 1 marker for +1 BS with no limit; Pinpoint even applies to Snapshots and Overwatch.
  • Seeker: Spend 1 marker to fire a Seeker missile at BS5 which ignores line of sight and cover. The missile must be fired by the unit spending the token and at the same target that the rest of the unit is firing at, but doesn't count against the number of weapons it can fire. Many armies like to hide support HQs in cover. Tyranid Warriors behind gaunts? IG Command squad behind an Aegis line? Mark them (cover wont prevent this) and suddenly a missile IDs that commander, throwing his troops in disarray. That's Mont'Ka for you.
  • Destroyer: Spend 1 marker to fire a Destroyer Missile at strength D. This is how you make Stormsurges nightmarish.
  • Scour: Spend 2 markers to give the entire firing unit Ignores Cover against the marked target. In all better than before seeing as it used to take on average three markerlight points to completely negate someone's cover save. This sees good use against skimmers that can use a jink save, since jinking confers a 4+ cover save. Since you can't save against markerlights, a jinking enemy has no chance to make use of their jink ability.
• Fire Team: GW's reason for you to shell out cash for the new expensive models and it's a decent reason, too. A unit with this rule that has three monstrous creatures or vehicles gains +1 BS. Combine it with Coordinated Firepower to get BS5 even before using markerlights. This makes a team of Hammerheads dangerous in their own right and reduces needed markerlight support. You can even do this with freakin' Stormsurges. Unfortunately they don't have the special rule on their profile so no 3 BS4 surges in one unit. Three Ghostkeels in an Optimized Stealth Cadre will be your independent hunters of the night, making your opponents cry delicious tears.

Warlord Traits

Tau WTs are heavily geared towards Battlesuit commanders, but the best are available for all - sadly, those are One Use only. If your warlord rolls a Tau WT they can't use, they'll just reroll it, Battleforged or not (though you should be). This is most noticeable with Ethereals.

1. Precision of the Skilled Hunter: Enemies can't use Look Out, Sir! when shot at by your Warlord. Useful for sniping the enemy Warlord if he is a coward and a fewl and hides in a METAL BAW- I mean, if he hides in a unit.
2. Through Unity, Devastation: For one shooting phase, all Tau within 12" reroll To Hit rolls of 1 — Particularly useful if you're deploying as a nice castled-up gun line. Can stack to ludicrous levels if you combine it with Markerlights (which you should), formations and Ethereal or/and Cadre Fireblades +1 shot to pulse rifles/carbines for true devastation®. Note that in 7th edition, there now exists a WT in the base rulebook (Target Priority from the Command Traits table) that provides the exact same benefit but is not single-use, meaning this trait just became far less special.
   1. Extremely useful, provided the situation involves lots of Gets Hot weapons. Want your Riptide to fire its Nova-charged Heavy Burst Cannon without killing itself, while you overcharge all nearby Ion weapons at the same time? Well now is the time. Maybe it is worth the risk, roll for Target Priority, good luck! Anything targeted by this combination is dead, dead, dead, and you run no real risk to yourself by doing it. Some cheesemonger who concentrates all their points in some kind of super-unit will explode with rage when hit by this. Make your standard-issue Tau tear collection cup handy before doing it.
3. A Ghost Who Walks Among Us: The Warlord and his unit move 3D6" with their Jet Packs. It makes them much less likely to suffer a snake-eyed fail of a thrust move. Commander Shadowsun gets this trait by default if taken as your warlord.
4. Exemplar of the Selfless Cause: Once per game, all units that have gone to ground stand back up and act normally. This means you can weather a turn of enemy shooting, then stand right back up and shoot him in the face; needless to say, this is one of the better Warlord Traits. If you took bucket loads of Battle suits it has less use for you, but then you'd be rolling Farsight Enclaves' WTs instead. Aun'Do and Aun'Va get this trait by default if taken as your warlord.
5. Predator of the Skies: For one shooting phase, your Warlord and his squad get Skyfire - which you might already have from a Velocity Tracker or Coldstar, but you do have Ideal Mission Commander...right? It's not that bad if your Warlord's unit has Markerlights, tho.
6. Through Boldness, Victory: Your Warlord and his unit don't scatter on Deep Strike. If you're planning to do a Commander-bomb, this is the one you should fervently hope/pray for. Commander Farsight gets this trait by default (if taken as your warlord), and can deepstrike with NINE Crisis/Bodyguard suits, all their drones, a second Commander with drones if you're feeling saucy, and with guaranteed no-mishap. Hell, cut on some Crisis, add a Riptide and some Broadsides and that's a Retaliation Cadre with no scatter. Screw tear cups, you'll need tear pools.

• X: The Assassin: O'Ra'lai has Preferred Enemy (Independent Characters). As of the latest BRB FAQ, Preferred Enemy on any model in the target unit grants Preferred Enemy against the entire unit.

Fighter Aces

The new Death From the Skies (from Shield of Baal: Leviathan) gives you the ability to bolster flyers with a special rule, all of them inferior to the ones in the previous one, but at least it got cheaper. For 35 points, you can roll a D3 and give a Flyer or FMC (FGC are up to debate though, but J.H.C., BS 6 Coldstars) a special bonus. Not available on the Y'Vahra because of that one rule it has.

1. Targeting Array: +1 BS. Could be useful for rationing Markerlights if you're going economical with them, or to hit a target beyond your markerlights. Near useless on a Coldstar Commander (his weapon is already BS5 Twin-linked, and BS6 Missile pod isn't a huge step up from BS5), a Sunshark will benefit more of it.
2. Stealth Shielding: All cover is improved by +1 to a 3+ Cover Save. Expect to spam this to keep them running. Might save you from a Slay the Warlord, sucks if you got it on a flyer with Disruption Pods.
3. Marker Plane: Add D3 Markerlight tokens to a single target within 12" of your Fighter Ace. Rejoice as you give your troops an opening to kill with. Approaches the previous version's effectiveness when the Ace has other sources of Markerlights, like a Sunshark, and it's useful when your Coldstar swoops, as he leaves his drones behind.

Tactical Objectives

• 11. The Lure: Pretty simple: Win 1 VP for destroying an enemy unit that charged during the last turn. If you do it three times, you win D3 VP
• 12. Patient Hunter: 1 VP for eliminating an enemy in your Deployment Zone.
• 13. Ambush: Real easy here. You win a VP for either eliminating an enemy unit or if they fail morale. If you get three units to do either or both, you win D3 VP.
• 14. Multiple Distractions: This one requires a bit of setup. The only way you can achieve this (and win 1 VP) is if you get an enemy unit within 12" of one table edge while getting another within 12" of the opposite table edge. Having mobile firepower helps with this, as do Kroot.
• 15. Feigned Withdrawal: This one's a little risky; to win this, you need to destroy an enemy within 9" of your units and outside of his Deployment Zone. Alternately, this one is a freebie if your opponent scatters poorly.
• 16. The Greater Good: This requires attention. You only win D3 VP for taking over an objective controlled by the enemy. If you repeat this three times, you get D3+3 VP, and you win an additional VP if you suffer no casualties during this turn. To maximize this, you need to prioritize what you can use to take these points immediately.

Arsenal of Expansion

Battlesuit Ranged Weaponry

These are chosen for Crisis suits, including the Commander and his Bodyguards. Differently from the previous Codex, Cyclic Ion Blaster and Airbursting Fragmentation Projector aren't experimental weapons anymore.

Note: You can make a weapon Twin-linked for some extra points and it will take up a second hard point (same as last codex), or you can take multiples of the same weapon at the base cost for each. Example: You could take a Plasma Rifle for 15 points, Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle for 20 points, or two individual Plasma Rifles for 30 points (15 points each). Nowadays people usually just take two of the same non-twinlinked weapons, trading versatility for efficiency, but loading a suit with two different guns so it could deal with a higher variety of threats is still a valid tactic.

• Flamer: Good old reliable and cheap. If you have points and hard-points to spare, stick them on. They are a good deterrent for weaker units trying to tie up Battlesuits; a twin-linked flamer, with its re-rolling to-wound goodness, is amongst the best systems you could have for overwatch, costing less than all other guns and leaving a hand free to fire another weapon. Expecting lots of close encounters with infantry trying to engage in melee? You take a flamer.
• Burst Cannon: Like a Tyranid Deathspitter but with one extra shot. Good for dealing with light infantry, and when combined with a flamer it's awesome at tackling hordes. However, you get lots of S5 AP5 shots elsewhere, and combined with drones and the new higher squad size, its main advantage, high rate of fire, isn't a need as before. But it's quite cheap and perfect for small squads: 3 Crisis with 6 gun drones can easily glance most transports to death while remaining excellent against infantry, all of that for less than 200 pts. Most vehicles have rear AV10, so with good positioning they won't even need the gun drones. Drop in, remove 3-6 HP or murder 16 GEQs, a very troll-worthy tactic. And it's even better with markerlights - owing to its high rate of fire this weapon will be more likely to come into its own with other wargear made to take maximum advantage of it. So, if you are going to take them, consider putting two of them as non-twin-linked weapons on a Crisis to chug out eight shots per turn, and indulge your Gatling fetish, you sick bastard. Enjoy the look on your opponent's face when your three suits drop THAT many dice, or watch enemy Orks go green(er) with envy at the absolutely XBOX HUEG amount of dakka you put out.
  • If you're gonna go Farsight Crisiswing, outfitting a team with double Burst Cannons (and gun drones for a taste) can be perfect at clearing hordes, like Conscripts, or cheap and fast tarpit units like DE beasts or Chaos Spaw...WAIT, NO I DIDN'T MEAN-AJRSPLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL
• Airbursting Fragmentation Projector: The only Barrage weapon in the codex, the AFP slings flamer-equivalent (including Ignores Cover) pie plates at 18" range. This weapon was pretty iffy in the 6E book when you could only have one: even where it was good, it was too vulnerable and too likely to be anywhere but where it's needed. Now that you can take more than one, it actually has some merit. It costs as much as three flamers, but doesn't need line of sight. Useful against the same classes of target that you'd use flamers on, now from a much more comfortable distance. Cannot be twin-linked, but you can take two per suit, just remember Blast weapons cannot overwatch. All in all not bad, but you're generally not hurting for ways to ferret GEQs out of cover, and using a Multi-spectrum takes away its main advantage over other weapons.
• Cyclic Ion Blaster: A cross between a Burst cannon and a Missile pod, this is a 18" range, 3 shot S7 weapon in normal mode, and becomes a + 1S Blast when overcharged, the only downside of that being the chance to burn your little weeaboo fingers, and you can't twin-link it to avoid it. It's an extremely versatile weapon, in fact, having only one less shot but 2 more Str gives the Burst cannons insecurity issues, being better at dealing with vehicles without compromising lots of anti-infantry power, unlike missiles, with the AP4 that will make IG officers cry (more). While S8 will ID the unlucky MEQ, you're still better using the normal mode against AV13, volume of fire compensating the reduced strength. Its only real problems are power armored enemies, cover campers and AV14, but that's a job reserved for more specialized guns. If you like to put 2 different weapons on a suit to make it good against a wide variety of targets, at least one of those weapons should be a CIB. Great with an EWO.
• Fusion Blaster: 6" extra to the range might not seem like a lot, but it is. This makes deep striking and cracking open the soft caramel center of vehicles all that much easier. Properly measured, it puts you on average 16" away from the vehicle that you just exploded at the end of your assault phase, making charges from units left to defend them far less likely. Also, don't forget that AP1 is still AP1 - Fusion Blasters have an important secondary role IDing Terminators (Suck on that, Paladins), high-toughness units and MC/GCs. Low shot volume hurts, but markerlights can compensate.
• Missile Pod: More like Autocannons, really. The longest ranged weapon your battle suit can have, it's excellent for sniping walkers, light vehicles and the odd monstrous critter or two (ones with low armor saves, to be exact). Due to the low output of shots, however, Battlesuits equipped with these should avoid firing at larger-sized squads unless they have no better option.
• Plasma Rifle: Before the inclusion of the Riptide, this was the Tau's only source of reliable AP2 weaponry. The new codex has not stopped their usefulness. They have good range, don't get hot, enough Str to wound marines on a 2+ and are Rapid-fire. If you find yourself fighting a lot of marines, necrons, jetbikes and monstrous creatures (which you WOULD in a current meta) a full squad of double-plasma suits is just the right tool to bring it down, with a bit of markerlight support to cut though cover saves.

Support Systems

These can be taken by nearly all battle suit variants, albeit to varying degrees; Broadsides and Stealth suits, for instance, can only take one. Items marked as "(standard issue)" come with all Battlesuits, do not need to be purchased, and do not count against a suit's support system limit. They are included just for the sake of completeness.

• Advanced Targeting System: Allows an equipped model to use the Precision Shot Special Rule. Consider equipping them with this plus a burst cannon and a cyclonic ion blaster to maximize the odds of sniping special weapons and characters from enemy units as a kind of tactical-level Mont'ka maneuver. Remember this CAN be taken on Broadsides for even more trolltastic sniping fun.
• Blacksun Filter (standard issue): Tau night vision, it grants the Night Vision special rule (obviously) and immunity to Blind, which is nice, since Blind become more common nowadays and could seriously fuck your I2 everything up. Unlike certain options (like searchlights) available to other forces, this does not give away its user's position at night, but doesn't illuminate the target for the rest of your army, like those options do. But because a unit only needs one model with the rule, if you brought multiple Commanders/Battlesuited characters you could attach them to some fire warriors until the dawn. Once a separate option, this now comes as standard issue equipment built into all Tau Battlesuits for free and without occupying a hardpoint.
• Counterfire Defense System: Increases a model's Overwatch fire from the normal BS1 shot for snap-fire to BS2. For my money and hardpoints I'd rather bring a Flamer - you'd get more hits and wounds in most cases. Or save some space and have Markerlights do the work, which can improve snapshots beyond BS2. It's a personal choice though, can be useful if you decide to go TEQ hunting with some plasma rifles. Also a good choice if you feel like investing in support systems on your Stealth suits. Keep in mind they don't change BS of Drones. Also if you like playing chess and having all your pieces in the right place at the right time, you can keep Supporting Fire crisis suits close to essential units but just out of assault range. Don't forget to put forward veiled insults and subtle taunts to force that poor idiot who plays orcs to charge your gunline, despite having three crisis suits with Counterfire Defense Systems and two Burst Cannons each right there.
• Drone Controller: Formerly necessary for a unit to use drones, that functionality has become built-in. This new little bad boy works to enhance the drone's function, meaning the drones in your unit use the same BS as the bearer, making Markerlight hits that much easier to get. If your squad is taking any sizable amounts of drones (unless they are all shield drones) then think of including this as it will make up its point quickly.
• DS8 Tactical Support Turret: New support that only Fire Warriors (both Strike and Breacher Teams) can use. It can be deployed in a turn where the team stands still. It acts as an extra gun (actually either a missile pod or a smart missile system) for all intents and purposes, but it's immobile. However, in the event that nobody's nearby enough to blast or enemies are too close, it can be recalled to be deployed elsewhere.
• Early Warning Override: Battlesuit aimbot program, providing Interceptor. While your first thought would be to combine it with a Velocity Tracker, it's too expensive to be effective against anything save absolute cheesemongering (i.e. all-air lists). Instead use the Interceptor rule for what it was designed: to shoot down reserves at the end of THEIR movement phase. Do not forget to bring your tearcup when your Riptide blows apart tightly packed teleporting Terminators or drop-podded Sternquards with single Ion accelerator blast. A decent option, all things considered. Great with a Cyclic Ion Blaster.
• Multi-tracker (standard issue): Sensors and targeting systems which allow a unit to manage the fire power of two weapons simultaneously, like a Battlesuited John Woo action hero. Once a separate hardpoint-filling option, its popularity (bordering on ubiquity) has made it a now standard issue piece of equipment built into every battle suit, so comes free with the unit and does not occupy a hardpoint.

  Note: Recent FAQ confirmed that it does work on Overwatch. The 3-year skub war over this issue is finally over.

• Positional Relay: This allows outflankers in reserve in your army move in from the same board edge as the bearer provided he is within 6" of it, including your opponent's edge. Used correctly this could allow you control of most of the board. However there isn't much need for lots of these in your army - setup for Kroot Konga line, anyone?. Expect to use it more often on larger point games. Note that this piece of gear also comes as standard with the Recon drones that can accompany Pathfinder squads, so weigh that in consideration for this if you are already taking them.
• Shield Generator: Another that remains unchanged. It grants you a 4+ invulnerable save. Basically it's a one upped version of the Stimulant injector. Combine the pair and add shield drones for a model that just simply refuses to die.
• Stimulant injector: Again another item that is no longer one per army. This will give the equipped model Feel no Pain. It's not cheap and it's even costlier on Riptides/Ghostkeel, but it prevents a wound on a 5+ that is only denied by Instant Death. Get it if you have the points and the unit in question is likely to see a lot of fire and needs the endurance, like the aforementioned Riptides so they don't kill themselves.
• Target Lock: Allows the model to fire at a different target from the rest of the unit. This tool, while cheap, is often over-used. More often than not the one extra weapon does not make the difference. The only real time its effectiveness comes into play is when used in conjunction with fusion-blaster wielding, deep striking, jihad shouting, suicide squads. Deploy them onto the back armoured line of a foe and watch him cry. Remember to have your china tear cup at the ready. You can't use this to shoot at units emerging from a wrecked transport because you must declare targets prior to rolling any dice. Alternatively, it works really nice with Marker drones, whose markerlights are no longer Networked.
• Vectored Retro-thrusters: No longer one per army, this gives the model both Fleet and Hit & Run. Useful if you get bogged down in combat and need to redeploy quickly. The only downside is a poor I means that you won't always pull out in time, unless you have Drones with you (which are I4 for some reason) or stick it in a Farsight Bomb (Farsight is I5). Vespids have I6, but not only they already have H&R, why are you sticking around with them?. Would be great for Broadsides, Ghostkeels and Riptides stuck in CC, but they can't buy this. Note: You only need 1 suit with this system in order to give the entire unit the benefits of Hit & Run, but you need to give this to everyone in the unit if you want to gain the benefits of Fleet. Because you wont be running or assaulting with Battlesuits, you don't care about Fleet, so take only one. Still, positioning is key so the model carrying doesn't get killed before running away.
• Velocity Tracker: Another new toy. This thing allows a model to choose on a turn-by-turn basis whether it wants to use the Skyfire rule or not (so it can be fire at fliers one turn and ground units the next with no penalty to either). Slapping these on Broadsides may be everyone's first move but they don't do too badly on Crisis suits, Ghostkeels or Riptides (especially with the HBC) either. Combine with Early Warning Override to give flier heavy lists an early bus ticket home.

Signature Systems

Basically, these are the equivalent to the artifacts/relics of other books. They can be taken by the Commander, his Bodyguards, or Crisis Shas'vres, but it's a bad idea for the latter because these take up hardpoint space with him, unlike with the previous two (meaning you could be a complete retard and stuff all of them on one single Shas'O if you wanted). Only one of each can be taken per army.

• Command and Control Node: A 4th ed piece of tech that was killed off in the switch to 5th ed when Target Priority tests went the way of the dodo. Back from the dead and clocking in at 15pts, it makes all of a unit's weapons Twin-linked at the cost of giving up the bearer's own shooting. If you put this on your Commander you'll miss out on his sweet BS5, but at least it will be on your longer lasting model. Using this and Multi-spectrum Sensor Suite on a gigantic Farsight bodyguard squad kicks total ass.
• Failsafe Detonator S5 Large Blast on death. Useful as a last 1 fingered salute to anyone assaulting you and not much more. Still, it's just 10 pts, you might as well put it on units you don't expect to survive the battle, like those Rambo Crisis suits, but by no means an auto-include.
• XV-8-02 Iridium Battlesuit: Adds 1 Toughness and gives a 2+ save. Don't waste this on a Crisis Shas'vre, save it for the Commander (your warlord if there isn't an Ethereal present). If you're absolutely desperate to have a bodyguard protect your 'o rather than having him tough it out himself, you should still use the Iridium and other defensive boosts on your Tankmander, while attaching a bodyguard and drones so the drones and 'vre(s) can take the fatal wounds with auto-pass LO, S.
• Multi-spectrum Sensor Suite: Like Command and control, you forgo shooting with this model in place of giving the model's unit's ranged weapons the Ignores Cover special rule. Take it on your Commander with the Command and Control Node, because if you're doing something else with it, you're probably wrong (see above regarding Crisis Shas'vre).
• Neuroweb System Jammer: At 2pts this little gadget is an auto-include. At the start of your enemy's shooting phase the bearer selects 1 enemy unit within 12" to have its weapons get hot until the end of the next turn. Even if you never use it it can still be funny to watch your foe create a wide area of space around the bearer.
  • Note: This thing is hilarious against wimpy Gue'La, who become 3 times more likely to kill themselves than kill you, conscripts faring even worse. Eg: A Guardsman squad gets in rapid fire range for 'First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire' (40 shots). You'll lose 1 Crisis...while they'll lose 4.44 guardsmen and need to take a Morale check in their own shooting phase.
• Onager Gauntlet: Aka the Donkey Punch. The first close combat weapon for a battle suit. Shame there is only 1 and it only gives 1 S10 AP1 attack, but it's dirt cheap. It can be useful for opening tin cans or crumpling lower key characters in challenges. Just watch out however as you're still Tau and 1 attack that you may miss with isn't all that when you're T4 with a 3+ save, much less against power swords. On the other hand, HIDDEN POWER FIST! Note that unlike similar weapons it does not strike at I1 should come as a surprise to anyone expecting a Tau commander to go down immediately in close combat to a monstrous creature without a good chance of taking the thing with them. Half the time you're still hitting last because of I3, though. But it can save him from those nasty marine powerfists, which would ID him, and keeps you from having to "our weapons are useless" against walkers. Still, the main reason you're buying this is because a) You ran out of space for Fusion blasters, b) You really want to model a mighty fist on your Tau snowflake, don't you?
• Puretide Engram Neurochip: Select one of five special rules (Counter-Attack, Furious Charge, Monster Hunter, Stubborn, or Tank Hunter) at the start of Movement. The bearer has it until the next turn. The only ones of note are Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter, which will benefit the entire unit (make him join Railgun Broadsides for pure win), maybe Stubborn too if CC is unavoidable, but the 2 others are close combat related and only affect the bearer and therefore nigh useless. Also consigns your pilot to life as a robotic tool of the Empire, but hey, Greater Good.
• Repulsor Impact Field: Another (anti-)assault gadget. It's like a flechette discharger for Battlesuits. It won't make an enemy unit think twice about hitting you though, but D6 I10 hits might score you a wound before your opponent strikes. Bear in mind it hits each unit that successfully charged at them, not models touching the suit, so keep the wielder out of reach deep inside the unit. A unit that has at least one VRT, drones and the Repulsor field is a unit your enemy may charge at, possibly hurting itself, and then he needs to get into combat all over again. Those casualties will slowly add up, just like your unit's price tag. Better yet when the enemy tries to tie up with Farsight's I5. And taking flamers/Counterfire for overwatch just adds insult to injury.
• XV-81 Prototype (Forge World): Once limited to Commanders, it is now available to all able to take Signature Wargear...so, mostly still commanders. The Model becomes Extremely Bulky, but in return, gains a Smart Missile System. Limits you to taking a maximum of two other weapon options, but who the fuck takes TL weapons on a Commander anyway? Does not stop you from spending your full four choices on support systems (though you still shouldn't put all the systems on one suit, for you'd lose everything should the model die). Plus, 25 points isn't too much to ask for this nice piece of equipment. Great with Early Warning Override: you could fire Interceptor shots and still use two other weapons the next turn. Or grab a just-in-case flamer along the weapon you really want to use - a veritable swiss army suit. Still, 2 more pts and you'd have yet another Crisis with flamer, so unless you planned for a Farsight bomb and run out of yet moar Crisis to deepstrike with, it's a little too much.
• XV-84 Prototype (Forge World): Also once limited to Commanders, the XV-84 contains a Networked Markerlight and a Target Lock. While it lets you support a low BS unit, the XV-84 would probably see its best use in a Farsight Bomb, giving them their own dedicated markerlight support - pretty much the only thing they needed. At 20 points, the suit is a relatively cheap addition to any force.

Drones

Only Drones that can be taken by more than one unit entry are discussed here. The rest will be discussed in their related entry, like the now Broadside-exclusive MV8 Missile drone. All drones discussed now cost 12pts (with the exception of Shielded Missile Drones, which cost 25pts each) and are all Jetpack Infantry. This is a big decrease for the marker drone, a minor decrease for the shield and a minor increase for the gun drone.

• MV1 Gun Drone: With the Pulse carbine being Twin-Linked Assault 2 and drone controller giving the drones the same BS as the bearer it has made them a much more usable option for some extra firepower.
• MV36 Guardian Drone: Exclusive to Fire Warriors. More unit friendly than the Shield Drone, it only gives itself a 5++ save, but the attached unit gets a 6++. It only really shines with the Breachers' Field Amplifier Relay (becomes 5++), but it can help your Strike teams when facing lots of blast weapons.
• MV4 Shield Drone: It's a drone-mounted Shield generator, and it's actually cheaper and more effective to boot. As in cheaper than the support system version by 13pts, and if it fails, you merely lost a drone. It gives multi-wound characters a second chance at outlasting any scary S8 weapons that would insta-kill them. Even if not attached to Commanders it still makes a decent addition to any unit that can take it. Unless you have other plans or points are too tight, you cannot go wrong attaching a pair of these to Crisis suits, as they are tough enough to weather some anti-infantry fire, but not so robust that they can easily survive anti-armor weapons. The Shield drones will let them do so, at least long enough to neutralize the threat to them. If these are the only drones you take, then there is no need for a drone controller. A full Crisis team can take six of them without using up any support slots at all. Expect to cry when a Wyvern says "Hi!", tho.
• MV7 Marker Drone: A staple of many Tau armies has just seen a massive points decrease! Watch as markerlights rain down as heavy as the tears of your fallen enemy. 16 pts has been taken off the tab and it benefits greatly from improved BS granted by having a Drone controller in the unit. The downside that not many players have noticed yet is the loss of Networked markerlight, meaning you better have two units firing at the same target and maybe some Pathfinders too, if everyone is going to benefit from those lovely markerlight hits. Goes very well with Target Lock, tho.
• MV84 Shielded Missile Drone: A cross between a Missile Drone and a Shield Drone (hence the 8-4), combining the strengths of both types. Only Riptides and their variants can use them, but on the bright side they also have T6, so they don't reduce majority Toughness while still helping your battle suit to tank Grav shots.

Vehicle Battle Systems

• Advanced Targeting System: It gives "To Hit" Rolls of 6 Precision shot. A trollworthy thing if your Rail Gun can insta-gib an enemy HQ hidden within meatshields (2+ LoS says "not likely", but hey, a chance is a chance), but there are plenty of snipers in the codex that are better suited for that role. Doesn't make it any less hilarious though. Still, because most of vehicular firepower comes as Blast weapons or from drones, it might not see much use.
• Automated Repair System: On a 6 it repairs a Weapon destroyed or Immobilized result. It's cheap and could give you back what you once thought lost. Use if you have points to spare.
• Blacksun Filter: While these come as standard on Battlesuits, they still have to be paid for by vehicles. It lets you ignore Night Fighting and Blind effects. As it's so cheap, it's hardly points wasted even if you don't ever get to use it. Remember vehicles are not affected by Blind anyway.
• Decoy Launchers: 4+ invul to glancing or penetrating hits caused by the Interceptor rule. By far the best use of this is on the flyers. Makes those nasty quad guns seem like a bad dream. Sadly it has little other use.
• Disruption Pod: It gives a +1 to your cover save, so it effectively acts like Stealth while still being stackable with it. Not as brokenly powerful as before, but still pretty damn good. 3+ in 7th in the open is great. Detach your drones and put them between your tank and your enemy and then yeah, 4+ cover without the disadvantages of Jink. Always buy it for your tanks, never for aircraft, unless you expect jinking a lot (which you don't unless you brought buckets of markerlights).
• Flechette Discharger: Fires a number of S4 hits equal to the number of folk in contact with it. Scares lightly armoured grenadiers (meltabomb vets, wyches and swooping hawks comes in mind), but MEQs don't give a shit about it.
• Point Defense Targeting relay: The S5 and below weapons can overwatch. Gives the vehicle Supporting Fire as well. Autotake on Devilfish (only if you grab SMS), and reasonable on Tanks if your local meta uses assault units. Perfect for Tetras and Sky Rays, if close to your units.
• Sensor Spines: Gives Move through Cover. Another case by case one. Useful for hiding tanks in cover, especially with Disruption pods, but almost worthless on fast skimmers and definitely worthless on flyers. Since Skimmers ignore Vertical Move Distance, use them to go from ruin cover camping to ruin assault range kiting in 3". If it fits, it sits!

Unit Analysis

HQ

• Ethereal: Ethereals used to be a bad joke for the Tau army along with Vespids (the Fast Attack bad joke). They provided marginal benefit coupled with a serious drawback leading to much regicidal humor. So it came upon the Hamster to improve this rather terrible selection and so he made an attempt: instead of a meager benefit, all friendly units from this codex with a model within a foot of an Ethereal must use his sweet Leadership 10 for Fear, Morale, Pinning and Regroup checks; in addition to this the Ethereal can grant all friendly non-vehicle Tau units one of four abilities at the start of each movement phase: Stubborn, FnP 6+, Snap Shots after running or a bonus shot for Pulse weapons against anything less than half-range away (except for Pulse bombs, Drivers, Blastcannons and Submunitions). The only downside for Ethereals now is that killing the Ethereal awards an extra Victory point and undoes whatever power was being used at the time. Can also take a beacon for fairly cheap, presumably so you can launch Multiple Simultaneous Devastating Defensive Deep Strikes to rescue him. If you fear for his mobility, you can also purchase a Hover Drone, letting them ignore Difficult and Dangerous Terrain while remaining Infantry.
  • To summarize, they became Badass. Not only is the Ethereal a force multiplier of the first order with his Storm of Fire Invocation, but he bestows a 12" Ld 10 Stubborn bubble, excellent for when you want your thin Orange Line to hold rather than break, effectively turning the Tau into one of the bravest armies in 40k.
  • The real selling point of Ethereals however is precisely that - their selling point. At 50 points, unless you're running an almost completely Battlesuited army you should be seriously asking yourself why you shouldn't be taking an Ethereal, and even in those armies, the FnP and ability to fire Snapshots while running (which of course can be augmented by markerlights) is well worth it.
  • Needless to say with a glorious W2, T3 and a 5+ for 50 points, you can expect your Ethereal to be the prime target of the Marbos, snipers, CC infantry and units with "Precision" anything in their description. Place at the back of large Fire warrior squads, amongst large numbers of similarly large squads for maximum survivability and boosting, while your faster dudes pop that nasty artillery.

• Battlesuit Commander: An excellent unit if kitted out properly. The versatility of the battle suit chassis means you can equip him however you need to be most effective, and being the Commander, all special issue equipment is available to him (see Armoury for setup tips). The Generic Commander is however the most expensive generic HQ Choice in the Codex, clocking in at 85 points before wargear. He is equipped with XV-8-05 Enforcer Armor, the "Standard" Commander armor (the one with fingers), and comes with a total of 4 hardpoints for your mounting pleasure (and Signature systems don't count!). You could try and put all the Support and Signature systems you can think of (he IS your most durable model, after all) and surround it with Bodyguard ablative wounds, who autopass LOS rolls, but you'd be losing on his sweet BS5. Then again, if the unit is taking Gun or Marker drones, he should be the one with the Drone Controller to give them BS5.
  • XV86 Coldstar Armor: A hefty points upgrade, it leaves your Commander in the middle of the road between a Jump unit and a FMC. Flying Monstrous Creature type (thus vulnerable to those Monster Hunter formations) but without the best stuff like Smash, Fear or Vector Strike, and gets a Missile pod and the exclusive High-output Burst cannon (Assault 6 Twin-linked). Best of all, he can still buy two Support systems and drones, but his weapons are restricted to the ones mentioned and he can't get Signature systems, so no Iridium for him. But the suit's best boons are all the advantages Swooping brings with it, meaning he can't be tied up in melee and they'll need Skyfire to shoot him down. That's right, you now have a jinking commander; he's nigh untouchable now. The opponent brought melee squads and plasma guns hoping to catch your Commander? They'll never hit him. Pesky flyers bothering your dudes? Sweep and get on their level, you have enough dakka on your own. And you will be on your own; swooping means leaving everyone behind, even his drones (but they catch up with him when gliding). Take all the measures you need to avoid being hit when swooping, because getting wounded while enjoying the cloud's-eye-view means he takes a Ground test, which has ~28% chance of inflicting Instant Death to your T4 frame, so a Shield generator is almost mandatory, although considering most AA fire is S7 AP4 a Stim injector could prevent the wound to begin with. The second most common anti-air, however, is S8-9 AP3-1. So bring both shield and stims.

• Cadre Fireblade: At first glance, the Cadre Fireblade looks pretty crappy, especially compared to everything else. He's 10 points more than an Ethereal but can only really buff a single Fire Warrior squad (or Pathfinder squad, if you're so inclined), with a markerlight, Split Fire, and Volley Fire (which grants an extra shot to everybody with Pulse Rifles and Carbines so long as they stand still). A little disappointing, right? Actually, not really, at least in an allied detachment. Although the Ethereal is much improved, he's still somewhat of a risk if you field him, especially in an allied detachment, as you give up an extra Victory Point if he's killed (and, given how weedy the Tau are, that's not very hard). Also, his abilities only affect Tau, which isn't very useful in an allied detachment. The Fireblade, on the other hand, will almost always be useful (at least for your one compulsory unit of Troops) and will never be a liability. Also, Volley Fire is up to the entire range of the guns, not just half range like the Ethereal, so it's perfect to use with a castled up army and with your new forts, especially when combined with his Split fire - his Fire Warriors can defend that Tidewall with Volley fire while he shoots the Railgun at some valuable targets with his sweet BS5. Or he could throw a Photon grenade at another unit. Lastly, he comes with a Markerlight to support two squads at once, so you can chain markerlights. All in all, you'll probably usually want an Ethereal in your main detachment, but in an allied detachment, a Fireblade is probably the better choice for a "cheap" HQ. This might be an edge case, but hey, at least he has some use, unlike certain other units.
  • Since nothing prevents you from adding more Fireblades to a Fire warrior team (specially in 7th Unbound lists) for each Fireblade you add, there is one more shot for the ENTIRE team (and to the other Fireblades too!). 10 fireblades with 10 Fire warriors throw 11 shots each at 30 inches (total 220 shots, with half at BS 5). MORE DAKKA for the greater good. This isn't very useful for normal games, but in Apocalypse you can have a squad of 12 Fire Warriors and 10 Fireblades are putting out 11 shots EACH at max range, 12 at half, for a total of 242 shots at max range, of which 110 are at BS5. In Apocalypse games 600 points worth of HQ is small change. The amount of fire out of the squad is normally only seen from massed Guard firing lines, but is coming from a total of 22 models that is only 708 points (which is one Titan or a couple Baneblades). You can live the dream of all 40k players and erase a squad of Ultramarines every turn. In normal games, the best use of a combined Fireblade squad is to have a surviving Fireblade join another squad after his first is wiped out, making it as if you still have the same amount of dakka as before.

Special Characters

• Aun'Va, Master of the Undying Spirit: The popestick got a huge buff! Roll equal to or over a weapon's AP to ignore wounds? That is an auto-pass against AP1, so enemy railguns/death rays/tachyon arrows/meltas can eat shit and die. And since it technically doesn't count as a save, even fucking Destroyer weapons are ignored! However, you can't roll against AP- so Tesla will still ruin your day (You only have a 5+ normal armour save) and it has no effect on models that ignore armour but have no AP value (leaving him entirely without a save), a Culexus Assassin for example will fuck him up royally (just like in the fluff). Only 100pts? Vetock, you are a god. OK, so the bodyguards are still meh but they're better than they used to be. 5+ saves combined with the Paradox's harder-you-hit-it-harder-it-is "fuck you save" gives the whole unit a variable amount of protection. He also gets 2 Ethereal bubble abilities per turn, which either give Stubborn, FnP(6+), +1 pulse weapon shot in half range or snap shots after running. His massive, multiple buffs are just awesome. He also provides a table wide re-roll for any morale checks, anything in Tau codex. That shit is money. Unfortunately, he is ridiculously vulnerable, not being able to join a unit because of his lack of IC, not to mention the fact that he can't get a transport. The best he can do is cower behind a building or a METAL BOX to block LOS and pray to Tau'va nobody gets around the corner.

• Aun'Shi: Brought back from 3rd edition into 6th. Shi is essentially a close combat HQ, albeit a modest one, in an otherwise shooty army (i.e.: he's a blue Kroot-pope). Costs twice as much than a regular Honor Blade Ethereal, but at least he comes with a better saving throw: a 4+ invul save to boot. Always use Patient hunter in CC, because re-rollable 4++ is hilarious. Being WS5 I5 he could do alright dueling sgts, but the fact that he can melee doesn't mean he should - he still gives a VP by getting killed, he just dies a little slower. He is basically an Ethereal with the weaknesses removed for the price of yet another one - so make good use of those elemental invocations - but beware of anyone with strength 6 or over, because you'll be insta-killed if you botch it.

• Aun'Do (Burning Dawn): Ethereal with Honour Blade, Homing Beacon, and a Hover Drone. Although it isn't listed in his wargear, the 5+ armor save in his statline indicates he comes with Recon Armor as well. He costs 5 points more than a similarly equipped generic Ethereal. For that 5 points, you lose the ability to purchase drones or a blacksun filter, gain an extra wound, gain Fearless in place of Stubborn, and should you choose to make him your warlord you gain a guaranteed Exemplar of the Selfless Cause warlord trait. He's also only able to slot into one formation, Infiltration Cadre Burning Dawn. Since a purchased drone would give you an extra wound anyway, you get to decide if Fearless and a guaranteed warlord trait beat an Etheral with two pieces of wargear and a drone that could be taken in another formation.

• O'Shovah (Commander Farsight): The l33t renegade commander of the Fire Caste, Farsight is odd in the fact that he's specced for assault in an army meant for shooting. His Dawn Blade is very nice and got one hell of an upgrade to what is essentially a Necron Warscythe (AP2 Armourbane). Due to changes to Crisis teams, his bodyguard is no longer exclusive to him and they are forced to take a slot, but it is still a devastating tactic to deepstrike with up to NINE bodyguards, especially with his "no scatter" WT, negating one of the difficulties of deepstriking such a large unit. Preferred enemy is quite useful against Orks, although given Tau are near top-tier and Orks are somewhere slightly above unplayable, it's pretty much kicking a dead horse.
  • He has lost some of his appeal, now that "Farsight bombs" aren't exclusive to him - arguably a normal Commander could do it better because Signature systems can be placed on him to make them immune to precision fire, and you can reroll undesirable traits/get beacons for no scatter. Still, you could take him for what he is: your WS5 AP2 I5 melee response against anyone expecting easy melee from the Tau...lol JK, you still need to bring Battlesuits because he can't do it alone and Farsight bomb is pretty much the only viable tactic with him - that's not a bad thing by all means, that is one hell of a tactic and no-scatter is glorious, so it has its own section HERE.
  • But I can't field that many Crisis suits. Good grief, he has an army of his own, so go read Farsight Enclaves and see if it *puts on Blacksun filter* suits your style.

• O'Shaserra (Commander Shadowsun): Commander Tsundere herself, she wears an experimental next-gen XV-22 stealth Battlesuit, which gives her a 3+/5++ save, and she has Shrouded and Stealth (duh) as well as two non-TL Fusion Blasters that can fire at different targets, great for cover-camping and jump-shoot-jump close-range tank killing, which in turn makes her much better on dense battlefields than in open ones (like Cities of Death), where she can put some hate on vehicles while being all but invulnerable to return fire...if they ever get line of sight on her because of her 3D6" Jump move (when she's the warlord). If she joins a Stealth suit squad they'll act as bodyguards, auto-passing Look Out, Sir! rolls, great for preventing instant-death (which is pretty common when you are T3). And on top of that she can buy buffed shield drones (3++) and a Command-link drone to let a unit within 12" re-roll to hit rolls of 1.
  • Let us reiterate what her Command-link drone does: Any one unit within 12" of the drone gets to re-roll any 1s on its to-hit roll. And she can do this every turn. Hilarious when a drone does it as well as a Warlord Trait, right? ALWAYS BUY IT. You know how that Riptide's Nova-charged Heavy burst cannon is almost as dangerous to itself as the enemy? Not anymore under Shadowsun's drone gaze. Just think about how much dakka you can (relatively) safely put out from the two of them on a continual basis...
  • Attaching Mrs. Tsundere to a Stealth team may be everybody's first thought, but she does damn fine with just any kind of Battlesuit squad. Because Stealth and Shrouded is conferred to the entire unit by her presence, Shield generators and Shield drones become sort of redundant due to 4+ cover save in the open and 2+ in any terrain (unless facing artillery), so that's some (hard)points you can use for other things. But Stealth teams are her bodyguards. Crisis teams are better damage sponges thanks to their T4 and 2W, never mind they have more hardpoints and dakka. You could take proper Bodyguards, but you'd be taking them because Signature systems are a great addition to a Shadowbomb. After all, isn't passing Look Out Sir! rolls on a 2+ good enough already? And with her 3D6" move, where Farsight makes CC more manageable, she outright makes it never happen. Note that she cannot join Riptides and share the hax. Yeah, that would've been too cheap.
  • In fact, the Stealth + Shroud + Command drone combo is great for almost any of your squads (Sniper Kroots now don't need any cover, Pathfinders reroll some markerlights, etc.)...but not placing her in a Jetpack squad is kind of a waste.

• El'Myamoto (Sub-commander Darkstrider): The second Tau commander to piss off the Ethereal elites, Darkstrider is a powered up Pathfinder - he fights on foot, so he can only join Firewarriors and Pathfinders. His selling point is his Structural Analyzer, which lowers the Toughness his target for him and his unit (and it counts for Instant Death) which works best with Railrifle equipped Pathfinders. Can be very troll-y. See that crazy powerful Paladin or Meganob? A single Pathfinder in this guy's squad just sniped him. Also works on T5 (Nob bikers, Ogryns, Thunderwolf, Harpies, Daemon Prince, etc.) with Ion Rifles in overcharge. Furthermore, he allows his unit to consolidate D6" in any direction immediately after firing their overwatch and BEFORE the charging unit rolls for charge distance. Stick him in a Pathfinder squad with a Grav Inhibitor drone and they become one slippery unit.
  • Because he has Scout and Outflank he does great with Breachers in a Devilfish, easily getting them into range to wreak havoc, while he gets a 6++ (you ARE taking the drone right?), meaning those point blank Pulse blasters now ID those pesky Nids and Astartes characters, all at sweet AP3. U MAD? Just be prepared for the assault, cause their weapons are so short ranged that his consolidation move will not get you out of charge range.

• O'R'myr (Commander Longknife) (FW - IA3, 2°E): Dread Pirate R'myr, who inherited the name from four previous commanders, is a decent suit that seems to want to be charged. With a Double-barreled Plasma rifle (Assault 2 Twin-linked with 24" range) and a Target Lock, he looks built to take down heavy infantry / monstrous creatures without needing to get into Rapid fire range like others (so his squad should have missiles). His Signature Wargear is the XV89-02 Battlesuit, which contains a Flechette launcher that nicks the attacker for a S3 hit at I10. Depending on how you interpret the word 'any,' the flechette launcher may not be one use anymore. His enhanced shield generator has a 4++ against shooting attacks and a 3++ against close combat. His flechette discharger is a nasty surprise for swarm armies thinking they have just trapped the expensive tau HQ unit in CC...and they kinda have, because even guardsmen have a decent chance to survive S3 AP- flechettes, so put him in a squad that also has a Repulsor Impact field and other assault trinkets so their effects stack. A good choice, especially against Imperial Guard due to Preferred Enemy against them. If you want a Commander with double plasma, you'd be out of your mind not to take him: R'myr is cheaper than a similar Commander by 20 pts, but is using the equivalent of 5 hardpoints, his shield is better, allows for Repulsor Field stacking and thus can do his job both at close and long range.

• O'Ra'lai (Commander O'Rly) (FW - IA3, 2°E): O'Rly is a monster of a unit; he is your Commissar Yarrick, your Failbaddon, your Mephiston, your Swarmlord, your Ghazghkull, with BS5, T5, I4, and the power of the XV-9 Battlesuit. The main difference he has compared with the above heroes is that he is primarily a ranged fighter whereas most uber-HQ characters tend to be close combat oriented. O'Rly's main strength is his versatility, allowing him to be effective against almost everything in the game because of his access to four different ammo types for his Experimental Pulse Sub-Munitions Rifle, though every munition except for his default has Gets Hot!. Keep him away from TEQs though, as none of his shots get better than AP3. Against MEQ's, blobs, cover-campers and Tank armies, however, you've got yourself a certifiable nightmare of a tau, with access to Ignore Cover, Haywire or huge-area Rending on one weapon depending on the specific ammo used. Of note is O'Rly's ability to make vehicles melt, with the choice of BS5 Haywire shots at 24", or 36" S9 AP3 shots, allowing him to decimate anything with an AV (although he can't make anything explode). Oh, and all of his weapon profiles are Assault 2, thus going from "Baby's First Lascannon" to "What the fuck, he has an assault 2 Lascannon?!". A real nightmare to just about any army, he's now the best HQ unit the Tau have.
  • His marker drones are T4, which means you're losing that awesome T5 bonus until one of them dies. He USED to be able to join guys, but the special rule 'Lone Warrior' prevents him from joining units, despite being an IC. However, he can leave his drone unit and let him be majority toughness 5 while you get 2 markerlight drones for free, though they drop from BS 5 to BS 2 without his drone controller, but at least they have blacksun filters of their own.
  • He can take as much pain as he can dish out, as his shield upgrades to a 3+ invuln save if shot at from farther away than 12". Having four T5 wounds, 3+/3-4++ saves, defensive grenades, I4, Hit & Run, and JSJ, he is an absolute bastard to kill without S10 or Instant death weapons.
  • His Warlord Trait, The Assassin, gives him Preferred Enemy (Independent Characters). This does translate into Preferred Enemy against the unit an Independent Character is attached to.

Troops

• Fire Warrior Strike Squad: Yes, they have the best basic infantry gun in the game. Yes, they will go down like a tower made of tissue paper if properly targeted or assaulted. For the new book, their price gets dropped to a much more workable 9 pts/model, so it just got a lot easier to buy a squad with a Devilfish; however, larger squads are going to be more difficult to squeeze into cover, but if they fit in a fish, you got it made. The price break does let you spend a little more on the Tau's new toys elsewhere though. Devilfish give Fire Warriors much needed mobility, and safety from assault. After all, the second ANYTHING gets into close combat with a Fire Warrior squad, the Fire Warriors will lose. Even if it's other Fire Warriors or even fucking Grots and Rippers. With abysmal WS and mediocre BS, if these guys are firing, use markerlights to up their hit chances, although other units may make better use of the markerlight tokens. Speaking of their weapons, their pulse rifles rapid fire on 15" and can glance light vehicles to death, or blast them to oblivion with EMP-grenades, and photon grenades allows them to blind enemies so they actually stand half a chance in combat. They also have Supporting Fire, they're quite the bargain now. Please note that only one model can throw an EMP-grenade and only one can use their grenade in melee(thanks to new FAQ rules). You can blind and EMP bitch-slap walkers to death, or murder enemy vehicles.
  • When Shas'Ui takes markerlight for his rifle, he also gets a free Target lock. This allows you to chain markerlights between fire warrior squads by using the markerlight on the target of the next fire warrior unit. This may also be useful to man fortification gun emplacements without forcing all his squad wasting their shots on something they can't hurt, which is very useful.

• Fire Warrior Breacher Squad: A squad of Fire Warriors specialized for close-quarters firing with their new Pulse Blasters (Which sadly don't benefit from the Fireblade, but fortunately they still benefit from an Ethereal). Their guns are just the thing to break marines up-close, and they do so for cheaper than a Fire Warrior squad! Vespids would do the same job better and safer, being faster, tougher and having MUCH more comfortable range, but they cost twice as much, for eventually half the firepower. Also important to remember the entire squad can get a 5++ Invulnerable save for 22 Points (Shas'Ui (10) + the new MV36 Guardian Drone (12), and all models in the squad have the new Field Amplifier Relay) allowing them a measure of survivability against anything, so it could be possible (with some lucky rolling) for this squad to survive far longer than normal against the normal anti-Tau weapons.
  • Lacking assault transports (or decent range in their shotguns), this squad WILL be on the receiving end of a charge if you're careless with them. Moreso than other Tau units, you want them to have a Devilfish, with Disruption Pods at a premium for superior Jink saves. Depending on the rest of your army, you can either use them for area denial or backfield disruption; in this second role, they combo remarkably well with Darkstrider, who gets them in, helps them kill, then bails them out of being charged.
  • One thing to remember is that the strength of the Pulse Breacher depends on how far away the target unit is away from the Tau with said Pulse Breachers, and how this interacts with 7th ed. The weapon still maintains a maximum range of 15", but the end result is that unlike a flamer, you could theoretically flank an enemy unit, and reap the benefit of the maximized profile inflicting casualties up to the maximum range. You still have to check on a 'per-model' basis which Breachers are within 5" of the enemy unit despite firing the weapon 'in the same batch'.

• Kroot Carnivores: Disregard what fluff says - Kroot are NOT assault infantry. Yes, they have WS4, so what? They can not assault after shooting, their saves are weak and they lost their S4 and extra attack from the rifle for no fucking reason (while remaining super-strong in fluff), and AP5 melee looks like a fucking joke in all-marine metagame. Instead look at their gun. It's a fucking bolter just with AP6, which don't matter a lot, cause most of the infantry in the game is either Sv4+ or better, or constantly in cover. Spend the extra point per model (for a total of 7 each) for Sniper Rounds, and you get the cheapest sniper squad in the game. A 20 strong squad hidden in a forest taking out Characters hidden in squad. This is more deadly against certain armies than other, but it's rather troll worthy at any rate. The only downside is the shortish range of the Kroot Rifle. Still, 140pts for 20 Sniper shots it's not that much of downside. And speaking about cover, these guys have Stealth (Forest) for 4+ save (even better if they're Ironbark). What you get is a fairly cheap, hard to shoot down from cover and hard to kill in CC area denial unit that shoot bolters or even sniper rifles, and can deploy anywhere on the field, messing with opponents pathing and deepstriking and keeping his forces away from your fragile gunline until they all die. In addition to regular Kroot, you can field the following Kroot subspecies:
  • Kroot Hounds: Space Chickens in a dog form. Because the Kroot lost much of their close combat power and became infiltrating snipers, the I5 and extra attacks on these doggies won't help you much. If you plan to outflank instead of infiltrate, take one for acute senses.
  • Krootox Riders: At 25 pts, you get a space chicken Silverback with a big Kroot Gun on its back with the rider. Having an S7 rapid fire gun that can shoot up to 48" is nice to have, along with two S6 melee attacks up close and two wounds. For the new book, Krootox riders no longer prevent your squad from infiltrating, which means you can now have an absurdly strong gun line infiltrating right where your opponent doesn't want it that can actually hold out in combat!
  • Shaper: The boss of the Carnivore Squad. These Kroot have three wounds, +2A and +1LD. Oh, and he costs three times more than a Kroot for the upgrade. It's worth taking if you want the six extra S3 hits, which can help a bit. Still not great to take on anything except for Orks, Tyranids, and Daemons, so only take him if you plan on going up against other horde armies.
  • An alternative look on these green lizard/chicken mercs is to dish em' out in front of a Firewarrior dakka line so your fragile little Fire Warriors won't die when the Kroot are getting the objectives (which is helped by them having infiltrate) . Even though on paper the idea seems flimsy you don't want to know how many games I've won because of my Kroot holding objectives and the Fire Warriors behind them peppering anything that comes near them to molten mush. Enemy claims cover from intervening models? Markerlight them.

• Gue'Vesa (FW - IA3, 2nd E): Shooty Gue'vesa troops, so far the only human auxiliaries you can field in 6th ed. They cost the same as Conscripts and 6 guys, with potential upgrades for another 5 guys, a sarge, and grenades (12 total). They are equipped with Lasguns and Flak, and get their shit kicked in by any Imperial army because of "Death To Traitors". Best used to garrison things. They are only allowed in specified Taros Campaign missions, but don't fret: they suck anyway. Take Fire warriors instead, especially since these guys have no Supporting Fire.

• Drone Sentry Turret (FW - IA3, 2nd): A group of up to four 11/11/11 immobile vehicles with TL burst cannons that can be upgraded to TL missile pods, TL fusion blasters, or TL plasma rifles. They have access to the vehicle battle systems and can be upgraded to have deep strike for 10 points each. Not an exceptional unit, but not a bad choice by any standard (they are cheap and immune to bolters). They do not count as a compulsory troop choice, but can still score and even secure objectives, and if placed in heavy cover with Disruption pods, they're going to hold that point like forever. If you keep the Burst cannons consider giving them Point defense targeting relay because TL and 4 shots is going to hit stuff.

Dedicated Transports

• TY7 Devilfish Troop Carrier: These allow your Fire Warriors to be exactly where you need them to be. With AV12 in the front, the ability to gain a 3+ cover save with ease through the Disruption Pod wargear, think of this as the iron-clad, greased up eggshell that you need to crack to get to the delicious omelette inside. With the new codex, drones that detach from vehicles never count as a kill point. For ten points, you can replace the gun drones with a twin-linked smart missile system (although good luck finding the model parts for it), which got a serious buff in 6th Edition from its previous stats, allowing the Devilfish to add some cost-effective (line-of-sight ignoring / cover negating!) fire support. These are almost necessary for a good army although they do cost 80 fucking points!. With 7th edition, the viability compared to the SMS does get a boost though, in the form of the Coordinated Firepower special rule from the hunter contingent. A single devilfish, with gun drones and a fire warrior/pathfinder squad inside, is 3 units for the purposes of Coordinated Firepower, giving you an effective fire-team without dipping into other sources. This can be useful when your list is hungry for marker-lights, as it gives them a bit of independence. (note: Devilfish are not allowed to carry models with the bulky special rule, so stealth suits en route to a dispute must shoot-and-scoot and can't commute.)

Elite

• XV8 Crisis Battlesuit:God's First Gift To Tau. Your mainstay, these guys will fill up your elites slots. Crisis suits are famous for the Jump-Shoot-Jump tactic - moving out of cover, shooting, and jumping back into cover, denying return fire and annoying the enemy, an excellent tactic. They have 3 hardpoints which they can fill with any combination of weapons or systems you want, but filling all 3 isn't mandatory. Typically a Crisis suit will have two weapons and a support system, but the occasional third weapon to be competent against a variety of targets isn't unheard of. Or you could twin-link a weapon, there's your third slot (it may be a good idea to mount TL pair on one hardpoint to make it more WYSIWYG). It only helps that Crisis suits (and other large suits) come with Multitracker and Blacksun filters pre-installed so you can choose that extra system you've always wanted. Probably one of the most passed-by improvements, yet comforting additions to 6th; Shas'Vre come in at Leadership 9, meaning if you lose a couple of expendable wounds (for instance in the form of bin lids) you don't panic, forget you're in a huge powered gundam wing and run off the board! However, you should be painfully aware that Crisis suits are T4, which means they suffer heavily from rocket sniping. If you value your suits, take at least two drones to absorb the inevitable S8 AP3 shot. Everything in the damn game has some version of a "fuck your Crisis suit" weapon. As all drones have the same price, consider carefully what type you want for your Crisis suits:
  • Shield drones are just ablative wounds, that are slightly better at being ablative wounds. 4++ could help them to survive twice as long against heavy fire, but against AP5 or higher they would go down as fast as other drone type, as they lost their 3+/2+ mimicked armor save from previous codex, and you cannot allocate only those wounds you want on them. Take them if you expect the enemy to pack a lot of S8 and/or low AP weaponry.
  • Gun drones are not only T4 Sv4+ cold expendable wounds for your Crisis suits, but also TL pulse carbines, which pack considerable firepower in 7e, and may even pin shit if you get lucky (don't count on it, though). BS2 is not a big problem, as with twinlink they have 55% chance of hitting something (think of it as BS 3.5) without markerlight support. With a suit equipped with a drone controller, they become BS3, and with a Commander with drone controller, BS5. Being twin-linked, they tend to deal more hits on overwatch or when snapfiring at flyers/fmc's. Definitely worth it when combined with infantry hunting Crisis teams (flamers, burstcannons), and even on more heavily armed teams could be fine if combined with target locks (they are fairly cheap after all). Group of 3-5 gun drones on targetlocked team could reliably blow AV10 vehicles, or those with AV10 on the rear (read: almost all of them) with some smart maneuvering, and with some luck could even glance to death AV11. If you're planning to jump around heavy cover or include Shassera to your Crisis team, Gun drones would benefit from 4+ cover (or up to 2+ with Shassera in cover), becoming as survivable as Shield drones, while retaining their firepower. Overall the best option.
  • Marker drones are tricky ones. BS2 with no twinlink or networking seems useless, but they are designed to CHAIN markerlights when focus firing a target - you're spending 2 markerlight tokens to give your Crisis team awesome BS5, and 2-3 marker drones at BS4 could reliably regain those tokens to be used on the next Crisis team and so on. Or you could use Target locks like with Gun drones - They're longer-lasting, faster Pathfinders that can keep up with your Crisis suits for just 1 more point, plus the very convenient Drone controller (a serious consideration for the Enclaves, actually). Aside from it, they could be used as emergency markerlight source if your main markers was destroyed or tied, and of course, as ablative wounds, like all other drones.
  • One unexpected result of 6th ed was the Rambo Crisis Squads (aka Monats). With Crisis suits now costing 22 points, it's now a perfectly viable option to take your Cheap as Chips naked Crisis squad (or naked plus flamer) and use them for GLORIOUS COMBAT. Why? Because 3 Crisis suits naked costs 66 points! If one was to compare them with Assault Marines, you're looking at higher Str, more base attacks, double wounds for about the same price, at the expense of lower In, WS, and lack of Hammer of Wrath. Still, unless you have the misfortune of fighting Grey Knights or Daemons you're going to hit most things on a 4+ anyway. In effect you have a unreasonably durable tarpit unit on a super budget, best used against assault threats to your fire warriors (needless to say, anything with a large quantity of power weapons is to be avoided, but that marine squad? Fuck yeah). Of course, given the fact that you're expending an entire precious elite choice won't sit well with many. Unless you play Enclaves, where you won't care. You might be tempted to whack a Shas'vre in there and add lots of CC items, but the main value of this squad is exactly how cheap it is. Do not forget, your Crisis suits have 2 base attacks and S5 - charging AV-10 rear tanks with your Crises could be a good move. Tying up shooty squads with poor melee (Centurions, Devastators, Fire Dragons, etc.) is also an option if you have retro thrusters, as it ties them up AND allows your Crisis suits to escape enemy fire and then jump right out melee at the end of his turn and then vaporize the poor fuckers. Just make sure their characters have no power weapons. Use careful positioning to allocate the few wounds you're taking to the drones.
  • Another fun tactic for crisis suits. Take 3 in a squad, give them all 2 fusion blasters (156 pts). 6 melta shots is completely overkill for removing a tank squadron from the table, especially at AP1! So why not give one vectored retro thrusters to avoid being locked in combat for too long. This platform is perfect for turning super heavies into swiss cheese and entire tank formations into tatters. Oh and if you have the spare points target lock wouldn't go amiss on the other 2 suits.
• Crisis Bodyguard: Crisis Suits that can auto-pass Look Out Sir! for their Commander. Now they're forced to eat a FOC slot, but you can have up to 9 per squad. They have Shas'vre stats and cost: Ld9 and an extra attack (although they shouldn't be in melee to begin with), at the price of being 10 points more expensive than the regular Crisis Team. But their best characteristic is that Signature Systems don't use a hardpoint. Take them if you want, but their place is alongside a Commander.
• XV25 Stealth Suits: First, the good bits: they have 3+ armour saves, a burst cannon, stealth, shrouded and they can infiltrate. Now the bad: their BS is average to the rest of the army but their biggest weakness comes in comparison to other entries in the Elites section - they're not as tough or versatile as Crisis or Riptide Suits. Arguably, Kroot do the whole infiltration/sniper thingie better now but Stealth Suits have an ace in the hole: they can take a homing beacon. You're taking a shitload of suits, right? You know they deepstrike, right? Oh sure, Pathfinders can take beacons, but they need several turns to get in position, by which time it's already too late and you've lost the advantage. With their myriad of deployment options (Infiltrate, Outflank or Deepstrike themselves), you can get your deepstrikers striking deep (see what I did there) into enemy territory, safely and FAST. Everything else is just icing on top of the cake, from their fusion blaster per every three models to the marker light/target lock the Shas'vre can take (worthwhile to take because, unlike other Battlesuit teams, you only get up to 2 Drones per squad, and you'd end up with a very fragile Shas'vre if you try to use a Drone Controller instead of Stims or the Shield). Build this squad in a way it can survive long enough to guide your deep-strikers to their destiny. Just don't overspend on upgrades, though. Stealths are T3 so a lot of things deny FNP, and have a 4+ cover save on the open, making the shield generator a redundancy (letting power swords reach them is Failing, don't Fail). They can play jump-shoot-jump shenanigans even better than Crisis Suits, courtesy of their smaller model bases and 2+ cover save in, y'know, cover.
  • Stealth Team Shadowtide (Burning Dawn): Three Stealth suits, one with Fusion Blaster, and a Marker Drone. They benefit from Supporting Fire, Infiltrate, and Precision Shots, plus the Bonding Knife Ritual.
• XV104 Riptide: Devil's gift to Tau. Designed to troll. It's a Jetpack monstrous creature with a big statline (S/T6, 5 wounds, 2+/5++) to accompany its big guns: the mother of all Gatlings, the Heavy Burst Cannon (eight S6 shots) or the anti-everything Ion Accelerator (S7 Heavy 3 or S8 large blast overcharge, all that at AP2). Because that's not enough dakka, it also has a secondary twin-linked gun. It's also one of the few sources of Shielded Missile Drones, which are awesome. Even with terrible, Tau trademark WS/I2 it still can, and will, smash tanks in close combat if needed. Then there's its Nova Reactor, which can give it a special power at the beginning of movement on a 3+, but on 1 or 2 you lose a wound with no saves allowed (you can still FNP). Nova reactor bonuses are nice and sexy and they are:
  • A 3++ save: Ideal when you're in the sight of multiple anti-tank guns with no cover or BLOS to jump behind.
  • A 4D6" thrust move: Grants you a mobility only matched by flyers, FMCs and teleporting Dreadknights, great for jumping out of melee range. Invaluable for scoring or denying key objectives early in the game.
  • Firing its secondary weapons twice, without sacrificing main gun shooting: This isn't mere additional same-type dakka (e.g.: SMS complementing HBC), but allows a Riptide with different kinds of guns to be competent against anything. Eg: normally it'd make no sense to grab a Fusion blaster alongside a HBC, 1 shot never being enough to reliably take on tanks. But 2 shots are worth considering.
  • Unlocking alternate main weapon profile:
    • Heavy Burst Cannon becomes Heavy 12 with Rending: Great for annihilating infantry without power armor or medium vehicles. Gets hot may seem dangerous, but it isn't - you have 2+ armor to save against it.
    • Ion Accelerator overcharge becomes S9 Ordnance: Your response against heavy armour, it has a chance to pop that Land Raider open from safe distance like a railgun, although with only a +1 for damage results compared to the railgun's +2.
  • While cool and deadly, remember they rely heavily on markerlight support - Heavy Burst Cannon really shines when most of its dakka actually hits the target, and ion blasts are much more effective when they ignore cover and don't scatter much. You'd think Riptides melt with poisoned shots, but thanks to its 2+ save it takes 90 BS4 poison shots to take down one Riptide, even more if it has FnP. In that time, the rest of your army can work unhindered. What we're saying is, don't worry about it, 4+ poison ain't all that hot shit. However, anything that can fight back in melee is going to either tarpit the Riptide till the end of the game or rip it to shreds, and you cannot take VRTs to jump out of melee. Speaking of Support systems, they can take two. Stims for that Nova charge abuse, Advanced targeting to snipe low special weapons with a huge Gatling gun, EWO to punish deepstrikers with AP2 large blasts, etc., you name it.
  • Do note, as awesome as Riptides are, they are a bit too powerful for their cost. Take one, they'll get mad. Take two, how could you. Take three, you're officially That Guy. Consider yourself warned. This includes FW Riptide variants! With the new codex, Riptides can be taken in squads of 3 and they now have the Fire Team rule, making them BS 4 when taken in 3s, because GW wants all your monies. Have they gone too far? Is this madness? And then there's the Riptide wing formation...I guess 2015 was the Year of That Guy.
• XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuits: What a Riptide is to a Crisis suit, the Ghostkeel is to Stealth suits - a durable and shooty jet pack monster. Much like the Stealth team it's evolved from it has Stealth and Shrouded, but the way it gains these rules is a bit schizophrenic. You see, the Ghostkeel Suit only has Stealth by default, but its drones grant stealth to all models in their squad, and Shrouded to all that already have Stealth. While technically only the suits gain Shrouded, that rule affects all models in a squad, so the drones too gain 4+ cover in the open. The obvious downside of this convoluted web of rules is that a Ghostkeel that loses all of its drones would lose a good chunk of its survivability as well, making it the odd Battlesuit that wants to tank shots for its drones. Unlike its smaller brethren, it can't infiltrate (you'd need some sort of tactical genius for that), but instead gets the Fire Team rule, which grants it BS 4 when there are 3 suits in the squad.
  • The Electrowarfare suite that the XV-95 carries in the left hand further adds to its stealthiness, doubling cover bonuses from Stealth/Shrouded for pretty much guaranteed 2+ cover against all dakka from outside 12" range, but the way it's worded makes only the suits to get this bonus. Furthermore, once per game the Ghostkeel can pretty much auto-blind one enemy unit that fires at it, forcing it to only fire snap-shots, so launching an alpha-strike against it isn't an option, especially with Blast & Template weapons which won't get to fire at all. To further this squad's survivability, the drones lower their average save to 4+, meaning the grav-weapons those marine players tend to spam out of their asses nowadays aren't nearly as effective against it. It's not like the XV95 is particularly squishy that it needs all those defensive measures so desperately, with four T5 Sv3+ wounds and two T5 Sv4+ drones it's more than capable of taking the fire even from cover-ignoring weapons. On the offense in packs a set of twin-linked flamers, burst cannons or fusion blasters on it's shoulders and either a Fusion Collider (fusion gun with small blast) or an Ion Raker (24" 6-shot Ion Rifle with a large blast overcharge). Seeing as both main guns are either anti-tank or anti-light vehicle/medium infantry, blasters are the preferable shoulder weapons, although if you find yourself constantly fighting Orks and DE, flamers would ruin their day. Not enough stuff? Good, because they can take up to 2 Support systems. EWO to double fuck deep strikers (both primaries are blast), Advanced targeting coupled with Burst cannons and Ion Rakers to snipe special weapons, or Stims so it truly never, ever dies. Never give it a Shield, it's too expensive.
  • Durability-wise, the Ghostkeel is even more resistant to long-range shooting with big anti-tank guns than the Riptide (with the slight exception of suffering ID from S10 or Destroyer shots) thanks to its ridiculous cover save shenanigans, however it's four times more vulnerable than a Riptide against bolters and gauss flayers up close, and considerably easier to kill in assault. Accordingly, when combined with its short weapons range, it tends to attract rather less rage than the Riptide does, while still scratching that "big durable robot" itch. Watch out, though, these guys graduate to full-on cheesy BS when taken on formations, especially the Optimized Stealth cadre.

Fast Attack

• Pathfinders: A unit of Pathfinders can't go wrong. One of two good sources for markerlights, and very cost-effective for the number of markerlights you get. These guys put out a large amount of markerlight support every turn, useful for everyone else. They are also Scouts, quite useful to outflank or get into position. Beware though, their armor save is only 5+ (made for recon rather than gun lines) which means that they are particularly vulnerable to things like bolters if caught in the open, so camp these guys in cover while shooting markerlights so the enemies can't do the same. They can optionally take Devilfish, but those are no longer compulsory to take with them like they were in earlier editions. Up to three models can take Ion and Rail rifles, but only do this if you have an additional markerlight source. Don't be faked out by the special weapons - the Rail rifle is for busting heavy infantry and MCs (S6 is marginal on vehicles even with AP1), while the Ion rifle is for bunging holes in light to medium armor (think of it as baby's first autocannon, but you can have three). They have several options:
  • Special Drones: These drones can only be taken by Pathfinder squads, and only one of each can be taken but they don't count against the two drone limit for the leader's drones.
    • MB3 Recon Drone: Expensive, but it gives the unit a burst cannon which is always nice, and, more importantly, incorporates both a Homing beacon and Positional relay, so worth taking if you have deep-striking reserves. As a bonus, it does not take up any extra space when being transported by a Devilfish, and can employ its reserve-guiding equipment while embarked.
    • MV33 Grav-inhibitor Drone: Slows down any charging foe, reducing assault moves by D3. Great for giving the unit a little more time to get the hell out of dodge if your enemy really wants to commit to eliminating them (and let's face it, if they do you have successfully trolled them into doing so from markerlight-related rage.) While it's good on smaller maps and games, anything past 1250 pts and they will probably be shot to pieces with large blast templates and cover ignoring weapons to kill them ASAP, making this drone a less than stellar selection.
    • MV31 Pulse Accelerator Drone: This boosts all pulse weapon fire from the unit to extend its range by 6". This effectively means that those pulse carbines your Pathfinders are carrying go from 18" Assault 2 weapons to 24" Assault 2 weapons, potentially out dakkaing line Fire Warriors. Unfortunately, burst cannons are not classified as pulse weapons any longer, so the range on the Recon Drone is not increased. While your Pathfinders should be more about dropping marker tokens than shooting up the enemy, you can really make the enemy pay for trying to take them down with this.
  • Team Leader: For another 10 points you can upgrade one member to a Shas'ui. The primary benefit of this is to provide better Ld so your spotters don't run away, add a few more equipment options such as a blacksun filter for one more point that the whole unit can use (which is not as essential as it used to be as Markerlights only have a range of 36" and ignore all saves and hence don't care about Night Fighting), and bring along two extra drones from the standard drone list. Be aware that filling up the entire squad with pathfinders, special drones, and two regular drones will put them above capacity for riding in a Devilfish.
  • Pathfinder Team Aurora (Burning Dawn): 10 Pathfinders with the three pathfinder-exclusive drones. The sarge and 6 others own Carbines, one gets an Ion Rifle and the last two get a Rail Rifle. The Shas'Ui Ignores cover and gets Relentless while the team benefits from the Bonding Knife Ritual.

• TX4 Piranha: Extremely light and cheap Open-topped Fast Skimmers. They come with two attached Gun drones and a Burst cannon, which can be swapped for a Fusion gun for anti-armour harassment. They're so cheap and pack so much dakka that they're your best source of S5 fire, costing 8.29 points per hit as opposed to Carbine Fire Warrior's 9, while being more resilient (T7 2W equivalent, plus two T4 wounds from the drones when detached) and much more maneuverable (up to 30"). Front AV11 and a squad size of up to 5 (the biggest vehicle squad in the codex) renders them immune to bolters and they'd serve as a rather nice wall to block LOS and assaults, being as disposable as a Rhino (but being cheap dakka you'd be better off protecting them instead). Oh, and they can carry two seeker missiles - hunting TEQs is the only thing they don't excel at.
  • Fun fact: The majority of the cost of a Piranha is made up by Drones, with the actual skimmer costing a mere 12 pts (that's 6pts per S5 shot). Thus, for 200 points you can get five Piranhas in a squadron and detach a squad of 10 gun drones. This gives you a 140 point Gun Drone Squad (that doesn't take up a Fast Attack slot or count for kill points) and a 60 point squad of 5 11AV Front skimmers with Burst Cannons. There are many reasons to detach the drones: place the drones in front of Piranhas with Disruption pods for 4+++ without needing to Jink, and the drones are vulnerable to template weapons because the Piranha is open-topped anyway. Also you could attach a Drone Controller Commander to the Gun drones to maximize the point return, equip the Piranhas with Fusion blasters and go separate ways to fulfill different roles. That's maybe the best use ever for a Fast Attack slot.
  • Tireless Hunter (Burning Dawn): Fusion Blaster Piranha that gets Supporting Fire (but that doesn't pass to the Drones) and +1 BS. For five more points, that's neat.

• Drone Squad: Up to 12 drones in any combination you want of Shield, Marker or Gun drones. What's the deal with them? A few Shield drones could protect the rest of the squad, but keep in mind all drones die the same to bolters while costing the same - maybe you'd want more shooting drones instead. Marker/Gun drones are more combat capable versions of Pathfinders/Strike teams: they have +1T (and better save compared to Pathfinders), +2I, can move and fire markerlights/have TL carbines which patches their BS2, and are Jetpack infantry (Deepstrike & JSJ), their enhanced mobility kinda patching their lack of special toys those squads can bring. Now add a Drone controller BS5 Commander and they'll be worth being 3-5 pts more expensive than Pathfinders/Strike teams. Consider attaching a Buffmander, 12 BS5 TL JSJ Markerlights will be noticed, the same as Cover-ignoring Pinning S5 against GEQs. Or you could use marker tokens from other sources to boost their BS. Be warned, though, a unit composed entirely of drones cannot score, not to mention their higher cost will be felt.
  • If you want no more than 10 Gun drones and you have the points to spare, better take them from a Piranha squad.

• AX3 Razorshark Strike Fighter: (Attack Flyer) One of two new aircraft for Tau, sporting average aircraft stats (11/10/10 3HP) a quad ion gun. Normally, it shoots at S7 AP4 at 30" and is assault 4, but because it's an ion weapon, it can be overcharged (for the price of Gets Hot) turning it into an S8 AP4 Large Blast! Even funnier, the gun is mounted on a turret to the rear, meaning that any deep-striking aircraft that thought they could get the jump on it will be thoroughly surprised, - upgrade the burst cannon to a missile pod for even more 360 degree fire arc fun.

• AX39 Sunshark Bomber: (Bomber) The other new aircraft with similar stats to the above, but trades the quad cannon for blowing pulse bubbles (S5 AP5 Large Blast) onto unsuspecting targets below every turn unless you roll a 1, in which case your bomber can no longer produce bombs. It also comes with the networked markerlight for lasing targets and a pair of interceptor drones to fuck up enemy aircraft.
  • Comparing the Sunshark to the Razorshark, the Interceptor drones are arguably better completely worthless and here's why: the drones' Ion Rifles are Rapid Fire, meaning that you have to choose between having half the range or shots of the quad gun. Their Twin-Linked is offset by the drones only being BS2. They have the turbo-boost rule but they're not Flyers, meaning a single bolter drill will make short work of them if you detatch them. "But what about the blast mode," I hear you ask? 7th Ed changed the Skyfire rule so that Interceptor no longer lets them target ground units normally. Now, recall that you can't fire Blast weapons as Snap Shots. Now recall that Blasts can't target flying units- so you can't use the blast mode at all. Add the facts that the Razorshark's ground attack weapon is better and it's actually cheaper and the Sunshark becomes truly pointless.
  • Being a bomber hurts with Death From the Skies. Overall, you're better off with a Forge World flier for air superiority or... any of a number of choices for anti-flier, anti-tank, or anti-infantry rolls.

• Vespid Stingwings: Once the other bad joke of the codex, Vespids have been buffed. As with the fusion blaster, 6 extra inches on their Neutron blaster will put you at a much more comfortable distance, namely out of assault distance. With a new 4+ Sv on top of T4, they've become on par with Space Marine scouts for survivability. As they now have Move Through Cover, Stealth in ruins, and Hit & Run at I6, they can jump out, kill MEQs, and escape in the assault, pretty much becoming the nightmare bugs of anything without terminator armour. Vespids jump around in groups of four to twelve, but they're only Ld6 so a Strain Leader (Ld9) is almost mandatory. Overall, a dedicated MEQ killer - do notice they're cheaper than Crisis suits (18 pts vs 35), if a little less resilient, less flexible and with less dakka. Could be seen as "made in china" Crisis suits, they still get the job done. No effect vs. TEQs, though, so watch out.

Forge World

• XV-9 Hazard Team (FW - IA3, 2nd): God's Second Gift To Tau. Kinda. These tough-framed bruisers contain experimental weaponry meant to excel in close range, but their price is so high you could get similar results from simply buying 2 equivalent Crisis suits, especially when using other than the default weapons, and 7E favours MSU. What makes them stand out however is their defensive grenades, which may save their skin if you roll badly on the thrust move after closing in. T5 helps them survive in Rapid Fire range and prevents the usual missile sniping, as well as making Stims all the more useful, and their VRTs plus higher-than-Tau-average I3 will get them out of melee if the enemy manages to close in (but take drones for I4). Being veterans of close range they also come base with Bonding knife and WS3...hooray. Not to mention they'll free Elite choices to use for anything other than Crisis suits (unless you play Enclaves). No option for Team Leader Ld9 tho. The downside is that greatness is expensive and you will feel it, especially since buying a Support System is mandatory. They look really, really fucking awesome and they make vehicle light armies (Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Orks, and Chaos Daemons) weep. Their weapons include:
  • Burst Cannons: The base loadout. Four on one suit means eight twin-linked shots, which lessens the need for markerlights. This is the only setup that is cheaper than 2 equivalent Crisis suits (if only due to the VRT). Two of them in a team will seriously mess up any ground unit out there, from Marines to Tyranids. Plus, Burst Cannons are fragging bad-ass, feel free to give into your gatling fetish, you sick fuck. Grab one Drone Controller and go to town.
  • Phased Ion Gun: Baby's First Assault Cannon but without the Gatling barrel arrangement, with S4 AP4 and Rending. Previously it was nearly the only way to get Rending as Tau, but with new codex you get Riptides and shitton of sniper rifles. Unlike must other Ion weapons this one lacks an overcharge profile, along with any reason to use them - Burst cannons are better for forcing tonns of saves, and if you're looking to get lucky and rend, better take Fusion Cascades.
  • Fusion Cascade: The Fusion Cascade is the go-to weapon for heavy infantry hunting. Favouring rate of fire over raw strenght, this melta weapon is only S6 but it's Assault D3, which makes it behave more like a plasma rifle, as you'll need a bit of luck to penetrate high AV even with melta rules and AP1. Especially because Cascades didn't recieve the +6" range boost regular Fusion Blaster got, so those VRTs might be used more than what you are comfortable with. Still, they can decimate terminators and light vehicles alike. And best of all, it's not plasma, so you can tell Matt Ward and his Plasma Syphon to stuff it, which is great because it's one of your best ways to eliminate a threat that would otherwise render three quarters of your weaponry unable to shoot for shit. Because it ignores armour saves this is actually the weapon that synergyzes the most with Advanced Targeting or Counterfire. Generally your best bet as it's effective against everything. Then again, for the same price you could get 2 Crisis suits with dual Plasma guns, and remember only 1 suit needs the VRT.
  • Pulse Submunition Rifle: With longer range and higher S but ultimately lower AP than an Airburst projector, the so called "shotgun" is also an excellent anti-horde weapon that ignores cover. A unit of 3 XV-9s equipped with 2 submunition rifles each can drop 6 pie-plates on the table every turn from 24" away (their longest ranged weapon), which will absolutely devastate Ork and Tyranid blobs. However, this setup is very expensive at 20 points per rifle (you could bring a team of 2 Crisis suits with an AFP each plus another one with a flamer for the price of one dual PSR XV9), and is not very reliable against MEQs (though you can still force them to throw tons of saves). Nowadays, with the sheer amount of templates available to the Tau army, PSRs are nearing obsolescence. However, they are more cost-efficient than twin-linked burst cannons if you can average 5 models under each template. The only exception is GEQs outside of cover (but seriously, when does that happen?), which require 7 models under each blast template (because even guardsmen get their saves).

Consider what an Iridium Commander with a command and control node, a multi-spectrum sensor suit or both can do for a team of three XV9's.

• XV-109 Y'vahra Battlesuit (Forge World): Prepare. For. Tears. The Tau's second Riptide variant, this one rocking the fragile speedster trope; spotting one fewer Wound, and much less comfortable range for increased mobility and higher accuracy, it is the XV9 of the Riptide Trio. It is armed with a two-shot S6 AP2 flamer with half-torrent (6" instead of 12") and gets hot (never use the weakened one-shot AP3 variant; you have a 2+ save against gets hot), and a 12" S8 AP3 3-shot Ionic discharge cannon with blind and an extra haywire strike for each hit dealt. As you can see, it is designed to seriously wreck on the front lines. It is able to mulch any infantry up to and including terminators and one-shot land raiders, but only at close range. This means the risk of close combat. But, just like Hazard suits, it has built-in retro-thrusters, and can use its drone's initiative of 4 to reliably activate them. If you're afraid of rapid firing plasma or melta, don't be. It has a 4++ against shots from 12" or less. Ballistic skill 4 is essential given that so many other units are heavily markerlight reliant. Oh, and this thing can fly like a FMC, except without vector strikes and only once per two turns - you can use it to gain better mobility, avoid close combat, or shoot the shit out of enemy flyers. When it flies or deep strikes it can also use flechette pods to kinda-bomb a unit in 6" with D6 shredding bolter shots - nothing great to talk about, but it doesn't take off your shooting attacks and doesn't affect your targeting. And of course it has its own version of Nova reactor results which are:
  • 3++ in close combat only, which is meh, since you're gonna avoid CC anyway and have a lot of tools tailored exactly for that purpose.
  • Extra D3 shots for Ionic cannon, which is brutal against AV13-14 vehicles with your extra haywire strikes
  • Escaping to reserves, which is mostly useful for escaping danger in turns you have no flying mode, or jumping out of assault in case you've failed Hit and Run test.
  • Jink while walking/4+ cover while flying - not really that useful, considering your 5++/4++, and the downsides of jinking.

You can select any two support systems from the book (note how the FSE upgrades are specifically mentioned as a no-go, pretty much forcing FW to admit that FSE players will use this bad boy), but there really are only two choices that you should ever take: Stimulant injector and Velocity Tracker.

NOTE: Forge World has chimed in on the issue of drones and the FMC move. If you take the drones you CAN NOT make your 'swoop' move, you sacrifice mobility for durability.

• Mounted Great Knarloc Herd (FW - IA3, 2nd): If you have a fast attack slot open and need a massive distraction, take 3 of these. These are your new distraction Carnifex. For 85 points each, you have a WS4, S6, T5, W5, monstrous creature with Stealth (Forests) and fleet, but have the downsides of being only I3, Ld7, and a paltry Orkish save of 6+. Don't give them guns, they're not there to shoot, they're there to smash stuff.

• Goaded Great Knarloc (FW - IA3, 2nd): A singular version of the Knarloc Herd that has a chance of going crazy and killing its own units. Just skip it, and go for the Herd.

• Knarloc Riders (FW - IA3, 2nd): I want to like these guys, I really do, because come on, they're freaking birdmen riding fucking dinosaurs! These guys beat Canoptek wraiths, when they charge. They're also able to move 12, re-roll charge distance and then get hammer of wrath, something jump troops cannot do, and are 2 wounds now with T4. They're basically here for a distraction. Problem with Knarlok riders is not that they are bad, but almost any other FA choice is flat-out better. Anything that kills Orks (read: everything) will kill these faster, if only because there is less of them, somehow. Unfortunately, Forge World has stopped selling these Knarloc models as there was not enough demand for them, the only way to get them is from other retailers such as eBay.

• Barracuda Air Superiority Fighter (Forge World): (Strike-Fighter)(FW Flyers) A pants-wettingly terrifying air superiority fighter that packs raw, balls-out, firepower in a maneuverable package. It is the original Barracuda, relinquishing the customizations of its newer counter-part in exchange for 45 pts. Comes stock with two jink-ignoring Burst Cannons, an Ion Cannon, a TL Missile Pod and up to four Seeker Missiles. As it is the original configuration, it is still able to over-charge it's Ion Cannon and drop wonderful MEQ killing plates on all the good boys of the imperium. It is BS4 but lacks the strafing run rule. This flyer was a beast, but has given its throne to a new generation. Sadly, it's kinda fragile at AV 11|11|10 and 2HP, but its survivability is improved by Agile (3+ Jink save). Then, you give it a disruption pod for 15 pts, and chuckle at that 2+ jink. It's a great way to drop some nasty, high-strength dakka on ground and air targets. Was once a strong contender for best fighter in the game, but now leaves that title to the AX-5-2. It has absurd firepower that dwarfs the other Tau flyers (and indeed, most other races' flyers too) while remaining cheaper.

• DX-6 Remora Drone Fighters (FW - IA3, 2nd): These souped-up, more accurate, flying Heavy Gun Drones take on the battle roles of Skyrays, Heavy Gun Drones and Coldstars, all at the same time! Remoras come with Twin-linked Long-barrelled Burst Cannons (36" Heavy 6), two Seeker Missiles and a networked Markerlight. And to top it off they have Shrouded for a permanent 5+ cover save with 2+ on Jink. It can't take Vehicle systems, but they can hover and also Deep strike. While individual Barracudas have undeniably better dakka, Remoras are versatile, cheaper and can be taken as a squad of 1-5 (you'd need 3 of them to out dakka a Barracuda tho). Want to troll your enemy? 6's to hit and a 2+ cover save just to hit a light AV10 flyer that can take on bigger flyers should cause a lot of rage. Meanwhile, you can drop his flyers out of the sky with a punishing battery of seeker missiles and when he's out of flyers, start markerlighting ground targets to help out the rest of your army.

• Piranha TX-42 (FW - IA3, 2nd): Unlike the original Piranha, this is utter overcosted crap. It has an extra point of side armor but costs double than a regular Piranha. The price is supposedly balanced by having a TL Fusion blaster and access to weapon options like TL missile pods, TL plasma rifle or TL rail rifle, but it loses the Gun drones so it actually costs about 3 times more than a regular Piranha. You'd think they can hunt different enemies depending on the loadout, but no, they're only decent at hunting TEQs and medium vehicles. 6th edition buffed Rail rifles and Fusion blasters a lot, but if you really want those weapons better bring Pathfinders, and everybody knows Red Crisis suits go faster.

• Tetras (FW - IA3, 2nd): These light vehicles are to Piranhas what Pathfinders are to Fire warriors. They are Fast Skimmers with AV10 all around and 2HP, but Open-topped means every shot could be their last, and they only pack a TL Pulse rifle for self defense. Focused on scouting instead of main combat, their primary weapon is a Heavy 2 TL Markerlight and come with a Homing Beacon and Scout. Moving 42" first turn (Scout 12" + move 12" + Flat out 18") means that beacon is perfectly positioned for a Battlesuit drop on turn 2, who needs Farsight? You'd think Pathfinders are the best source of markerlight, right? WRONG. Tetras cost 23 pts per markerhit while Pathfinders cost 22, but Tetras have a HUGE mobility advantage (their markerlights being effectively 48" range and can fire ono the move) as well as being effectively Toughness 6, albeit ultimately they're more fragile than Pathfinders by virtue of suffering more against low AP weapons. Pathfinders get more toys and pack more firepower, but it's not like Tetras don't get any: you can give them dispods and sensor spines for 3+ cover in ruins/jink (they're smaller than Piranhas), and zoom around hiding from enemy anti-tank fire LoS - just like any other marker unit it is a priority target for your enemy and will attract a lot of fire. Alternatively you can just leave them bare bones and add extra models into the squadron instead of spending extra points on upgrades (which are proportionally more expensive when compared to the Tetra's base cost).

Heavy Support

• TX7 Hammerhead Gunship: God's Third Gift To Tau. The railgun is your best friend, and this one retains its 72" S10 AP1 goodness. It's mounted on a durable chassis (only a few standard skimmers with better armour) and comes with a higher BS than your average Tau (up to 5 if you take 3 due to Fire Team; you can do that now). Plus with disruption pods you get 4+/3+ cover (unless you're stupid enough to park it in the open) making the Hammerhead much more durable to dedicated anti-tank equipment. Take one. Hell, take three. With its ability to make vehicles its bitch with its bullet-mode, and its ability to mincemeat infantry with its large blast shotgun-mode, a hammerhead will RARELY disappoint...provided you take the railgun option. Its options are as follows:
  • Railgun: Yes. Standard mode is a S10 AP1 (it will knock out vehicles on a 5+ if it penetrates, opened-topped go out on a 4+), and can be upgraded with a S6 AP4 blast template for just 5 pts. Powerful, versatile, and rightly referred to by a variety of profane monikers by non-Tau players, it is the most popular Hammerhead primary weapon choice with good reason.
  • Ion Cannon: An Autocannon with another shot and better AP. It's no railgun, but it does have some new tricks up its sleeve to make it worth it especially against MEQs. Specifically, it's an ion weapon, which means it can be overcharged to an S8 AP3 Large Blast that gets hot; this effectively turns it into a discount Leman Russ, though Markerlight support lets it strip cover from targets.
  • Secondary Weapons: Your choice of two gun drones, a twin-linked smart missile system or a twin-linked burst cannon, all free. Yes, you read that right, a TL burst cannon, not two burst cannons. So obviously, skip that one. Your choice on the other options, though - the gun drones can (being passengers) shoot at a different target or fire Overwatch, or get out to harass or foil a charge, while the SMS has superior range, superior accuracy and ignores cover.
    • La'Sha'ng (Gunner Longstrike): Joining the burgeoning crowd of tank aces started by Antaro Chronus and Knight Commander Pask, and then trolling them silly because he's actually worth it! Shas'la T'au Sha'ng is a nifty upgrade for a Hammerhead gunship, blessing it with BS5 (up to 6 if in a Fire Team), preferred enemy IG, Tank Hunter, a blacksun filter and the ability to overwatch or deliver Supporting Fire. He can also overwatch multiple times per phase against different eligible charging enemies. Considering that he also has the Supporting Fire special rule like infantry and most Battlesuits, that can actually be a whole lot of potential targets, each of which he can Overwatch on behalf of as often as the enemy attacks them. Consider flanking his Hammerhead with infantry to better take advantage of this, offering the protection of his tank fire to them while they keep the melta-bomb bearing enemy troops off of him. Just remember that you cannot Snap Fire anything which has a blast template, so sadly no sub-munitions Overwatching for him. Stick to his secondary weapons for most Overwatch targets, or use the solid railgun shot against a charging monstrous creature (if it even lives long enough to get that close.) Also, consider using him with an ion cannon. He only needs one markerlight (or wing men) to avoid overheating when he overcharges, provides best output for overwatching with 3 S7 AP3 shots along with secondary weapons, and can still wreck the hell out of light armor. Oh, and did we mention he headshotted a titan?
  • Forge World brings several new weapons options to the Hammerhead Gunship:
    • 2 Long-Barrelled Burst Cannons: Since the update hit, it's now become a full-blown flak cannon with 12 shots, but weaker strength, shorter range, and the possibility to clip flyers. Post codex, you have Broadsides to do this job now. However, this weapon beats rail sub and ion cannon when it comes to facing down hordes of light infantry; guardsmen, guardians, Kablite warriors and Ork boys get wounded on 2s and 3s with no armour saves. With the right support, 10-12 models can die in a single shooting phase. Throw in Longstrike for even more fun! Also consider the Point defense targeting relay. Anyone wishing to charge a unit with this monster nearby will have to suffer 16 shots of overwatch from just this tank. Markerlight the target beforehand to end the assault before it starts. Or just don't buy this at all.
      • Please Note: as these are bought as a set of two, how one would fire the system is a matter of debate. Some would find it completely acceptable to count the two weapons as a single weapon system, thus being able to fire both as one weapon system after moving at combat speed, while others may punch the rules and declare they are two unrelated weapons and thus cannot be fired together. The latter will probably be common where your forces are wrecking the opponent and they need every out they can get, but as a general house rule it should be completely acceptable to count the two systems as a single system that just fires twice at the same unit.
    • 2 TL Missile Pods: Cheaper on Crisis Suits, but will come with a velocity tracker - basically turns your Hammerhead into very expensive and slightly more accurate Hydra flakk tank / Missileside. Just take a Missileside squad instead.
    • 2 Fusion Cannons: This option had a bad rap for a while. However, the proliferation of TEQs briefly gave this gun its time in the sun (a twin-linked blast S8 AP1 melta does have its place, especially when facing down lots of deep-striking TEQs, vehicles, etc.). Unfortunately, now you have the Riptide to deal with that kinda shit, so the Fusion Cannon is back to being dubious once again. Also, thanks to the fact that if you move your tank, you can only fire 1 blast weapon, so don't take this. At all.
    • 2 Plasma Cannons: A go-to gun for facing down TEQs/MEQs/Monstrous Creatures and flyers. Now that the new codex is out, you have other options for anti-MEQ and anti-aircraft. Ion Cannon is better against the former and Broadsides are better against the latter. Might still have some use against MCs, although... it does pump out 4 S7 AP2 at 48".

• XV107 R'Varna: Forge World's most beautiful creation to date. A riptide which exchanges its Jet Pack status for a better statline (+1T +1W) and inbuilt flechette discharger (so it cannot be tarpitted). It also comes equipped with two Pulse Submunitions Cannons. These guns are S6 AP4 Large Blast, with a Cluster Fire special rule. Cluster Fire lets the weapons get a higher strength and inflict more hits when you fire at larger models. This means it can potentially put out 6 (or 12 if you nova-charge) OC'd Ion rifle equivalent hits against an enemy MC per turn. You'll no longer have to worry about fighting MCs and Artillery because of this beautiful son of a bitch (actually, not as effective as it was with the changes of 7E, AP4 renders it about as useful as two hammerheads with Pulse submunitions, albeit hitting more on the blasts... but still only AP4. Gotta love party fouls). Also has a different Nova Reactor with an ability to increase invuln save to 3++, detonate a haywire "bomb", fire the cannons twice(at the cost of not firing next turn!) or give the unit Fleet and a 2D6 run. Can equip with a Positional Relay and Stimulant Injector (which CANNOT be used in a failed Nova Charge), and can purchase Shielded Missile Drones to protect you. Being a FW model, they charge you more than is even remotely reasonable for it i.e. 'only' £70.
  • WARNING: Forge World has not released any sort of official document or FAQ stating that it cannot be used in the Farsight Enclaves army. Until they do, enjoy your Battlesuit extravaganza. However, Considering the old rules are still available online, and until they are published in a copy of IA, nothing is official, you could still potentially be a douche and run the old rules for this brute. If you really want to be that guy, though, never over-charge it. Ever. You prick.
  • Please note: Pulse Submunition Cannons are UNAFFECTED by the Ethereal ability Storm of Fire (so not stupidly broken).

• XV88 Broadside Battlesuits: God's Fourth Gift To Tau. Broadsides got taken down a peg in the new codex, with their railgun variant hitting at a decent S8 (still AP1, though; this still makes them mostly ineffective in their previous role of an AV14 killer, since they can only glance now, and that only on a 6) and only at 60". In addition to their old options, they get new options like the ability to skyfire or replace their downgraded railguns with a fucking ton of missiles (including a seeker missile). If you have target locks on the broadsides, you can fire at different targets, possibly giving two different vehicles a serious glance-to-death headache, and turn those scary monstrous creatures into pink (or green) mist. Along with the change in rules, broadsides have a new plastic kit that has them holding their twin-linked heavy railrifle like a rifle, as well as bits for their new twin-linked high-yield missile system (the one that replaces their twin-linked heavy railrifle). Arguably, Broadsides needed this nerfing in order to open up the board for the other options in Heavy Support. The main thing to consider when choosing missiles or rail rifles is range. 60" is still pretty much table wide while the missiles are only 36". Missilesides will need to either be deployed farther forward or wait in the rear, but which ever you choose remember that Broadsides are infantry and will only snap-fire if they move.
  • Look to the skies! These guys are also excellent AA units and are great as an ally unit for armies that lack reliable AA. Misslesides with VT run through AV11 flyer's (with 1 broadside averaging 2 glancing hits per shooting phase) and they don't do too badly against the AV12's either taking 1 hull point per shooting phase per broadside. Railsides aren't bad against flyers either - AP1 means a decent chance of FOOM!. Although, if you take the command variant from the Farsight Enclaves and attach him to a Darkstrider unit, you suddenly have a nice amount of twinlinked insta-death at your disposal.
  • Sniperside Alas, redundant in 7th. The Advanced Targeting System only grants regular Precision Shots, and proper positioning can help you kill the correct models.
• Drone Sniper Team: This entry has seriously been retooled in the latest Codex. They no longer have rail rifles, just beefed up pulse rifles, but these new Longshot Pulse Rifles get Sniper (which includes precision shots on to hit of 6) and a 48" range now. Also, their new gun is a pulse weapon so it's effected by Storm of Fire. If the spotter dies, the drones get reduced from BS 5 to BS 2, though in 7th edition you can hide him behind a drone line AND you can now take three spotters per squad! They used to take up a Heavy Support choice that was usually better filled with something else but now they can lay down a devastating salvo of accurate, potentially AP2 dakka with wounds that you may choose how to allocate. Though, despite being pulse weapon longshots still count as S4 against vehicles like any sniper rifle, so do not expect to threaten tanks with them. Note that the Firesight spotter is BS5 and comes with a markerlight. While they max out at three spotters per team, those three markerlights are nothing to sneer at, as each one of them is almost guaranteed several tokens per shooting phase. Keep in mind that while the spotter is standard infantry, the drones are called out specifically as jet pack infantry, which means that they can use the jump-shoot-jump trick to pop in and out of cover, so long as they end their move in unit cohesion with the spotter they should be fine. If your opponent protests, show them the unit description in the Codex saying that they do just that. That said, they will still be going at the speed of the spotter, so consider using a spare Devilfish to get them where they need to be. Drones do not have the bulky rule so a full team can fit in a fish. A neat little trick is to set a single spotter up on a ledge where he'd probably get insta-gibbed by the opponent and let your XV8-05 commander take over the drones when the spotter bites it, thereby giving your longshots the ability to JSJ while keeping BS5.
  • Another tactic: These guys weapons are pulse, meaning they are affected by the Ethereal's Storm of fire ability. 9 drones, 2 spotters and an Ethereal clock in at just over 200pts and they have a nasty bit of fire power backing them. Why an Ethereal? They're better suited to be in a spot where they can boost the most possible units, and they benefit from the unit's Stealth rule. While they'll have to move about a lot after the first few turns, position them right and you've got rapid fire plus SoF for a total of 27 shots at 24"; 27 absurdly accurate and potentially rending shots, or 9 shots to protect the Ethereal from Vasily Zaytsev-wannabe's. Remember: the Fireblade's Volley Fire rule doesn't affect them.

• Skyray Missile Gunship: At first glance it looks like a Hammerhead with its gun replaced with six seeker missiles. "Meh", you say, "I can bring my missiles on any vehicle". Point is that those six missiles don't matter. Sure, they are useful, but as I said, you can get them without the Skyray. The things that matter are two tiny gizmos on its hull - a set of two markerlights and velocity tracker. Think of it like a 67 point upgrade that could give any of your units skyfire on BS2 or hopefully BS3, that also have 6 seeker missiles attached to it. The moment you've landed at least one markerlight token on the enemy flyer/FMC in range of your pathfinders or marker drones it's pretty much dead - spotter units would turn those 1-2 markers into 4-7 and then you just finish the poor fucker with whatever seems more appropriate - from railgun slug to the face, to fusion guns on your Battlesuits or Piranhas, to just the hail of pulse shots in case it's an AV10 flyer. Against one of the AV10/11 flyers you can just boost the Skyray's own BS with his markerlights (they're networked BTW), and then swipe it with as many missiles as you feel appropriate - if you spend all six you are gonna blow the enemy unit out of the sky almost guaranteed. And since most flyers cost 100+ pts. your Skyray just paid for himself, and still can keep doing his air spotter duty. Hell, you can even land a few glances or force an FMC to crush with your SMSs. Unfortunately, Skyrays have to compete with almighty Broadsides, Hammerheads, and R'Varnas, which are much more point-efficient, but if you have a free HS slot and points taking one would hardly hurt your army. However, if you choose to run an unbound list, you can mix 'n match skyrays with everything else. Have fun. Note: with the new codex, Skyrays can take squads of 3, and get the Fire Team rule, so more Seekers, more Markerlight hits, and more impact.
  • Secondary Weapons: Same as the Hammerhead, and the same considerations apply - skip the weird TL burst cannon and go for the SMS or gun drones, depending on what you need.

• Heavy Gun Drones (Forge World): They're Gun Drone Squads, if slightly more accurate - yet somehow made worse courtesy of them devouring a Heavy Support choice. You don't want to waste one of these all-too-valuable slots on twin-linked fucking burst cannons when your army has dozens of ways to get these onto the table. Their air mobility and markerlight options are still not worth it. Avoid.
  • Although you could attach a commander with drone controller to a six drone squad with marker lights and a burst cannon. 6 marker lights at BS5 and 24 strength 5 burst cannon hits at BS5. Sadly, you can't do both in the same turn.
  • Also this limits your ability to split your marker light hits between various units. If you decide to take these guys at all go for the TL Burst cannon and make them a bubble wrap unit or a nuisance.

• Barracuda AX-5-2 Multi-role Fighter (Forge World) (Experimental Rules): (Strike-Fighter)(FW Flyers) A pants-wettingly terrifying air superiority fighter that packs raw, balls-out, firepower in a maneuverable package. It has a ton of options now to let you kit it out for whatever role you want; thus the name. Comes stock with two jink-ignoring Long-Barrelled Burst Cannons, a Barracuda Heavy Burst Cannon, a TL Missile Pod and, up to four Seeker Missiles. It can swap the Heavy Burst Cannon for an Ion Cannon for free, which is a bit of a no-brainer. Sadly it can no longer overcharge, so no more throwing pie plates around. But to compensate for that, the two jink-ignoring Burst Cannons can be exchanged for jink-ignoring cyclic ion blasters! The main gun can also be upgraded to a swiftstrike railgun which is a short-range(36") railgun on a flyer platform so range shouldn't really be a problem. It is BS4 and has strafing run, so BS5 against ground units! This flyer is a beast. Sadly, it's kinda fragile at AV 11|11|10 and 3HP, but its survivability is improved by Agile (3+ Jink save). Then, give it the dispersion pod upgrade for 15pts, and enjoy your 2+ jink save. it specifically states it cant be improved past 3+. Additionally, it has a 6++ against penetrating hits, and a 5++ against glances. It's a great way to drop high-strength dakka on ground and air targets. Thanks to the experimental update by forgeworld, the Barracuda is STILL the best flier available to the Tau, and a strong contender for the deadliest flier in standard 40k. It has absurd firepower that dwarfs the other Tau flyers (and most other races' flyers too) while remaining cheaper for what it brings.

The best thing about this new Barracuda? it now takes up a heavy support slot and you are STILL ALLOWED TO USE THE OLD BARRACUDA so you can take up to SIX of these fuckers (3 old ones, 3 new ones), bring some markerlights to abuse the disgusting amount of seeker missiles you can bring with this

Lords of War

• KV128 Stormsurge: Or Kevin to his friends, the new bad-boy to advertise the new Tau Codex. You may as well just roll to hit and then not bother rolling to wound, the target will be deader than dead. Something of note is the fuckhuge Pulse Blastcannon which acts like an Imperium Conversion Beamer on Tau Hax, 2 shots whose strength depends on the range, 1-10" nets you two Destroyer shots (for a total of 4 per turn when anchored, before factoring in Markerlights), 11-20" is S10 AP3 Blasts, and 21-30" is S9 AP5 Large Blasts. Also comes with a missile pod which shoots 4D6 Smart Missile rockets per turn. Additionally, you get 4 Destroyer Missiles, which on paper are a little disappointing, in that they're 60" range, AP 1 Hunter-killer Missiles, but with the addition of Markerlights, they can live up to their name by graduating to Strength D on a 1:1 basis. It can take 3(?!?) support systems, albeit with a few upcharges (50 points for a Shield Generator, for example). Target Lock It's a gargantuan, why does it need Target Lock?, Velocity Tracker, and Early Warning Override could make a Stormsurge royally fuck shit up in the anti-air sector, given its Cluster Rockets. It can also deploy stabilizing anchors in the shooting phase, giving up the option to move in exchange for doubling its ability to shoot in the next shooting phase. Oh, also did we mention you can fucking squadron this shit? 3 Lords of War in 1 slot may not be the smartest idea, given how many points these bastards eat, but it's there. Anything that could potentially take these things down will obviously get shot to shit before coming close. This is not however the thing you should take countering the big cheesy Wraithknights and Imperial Knights, given D-shots are too short-ranged/limited and dependent on outside support to rely upon, but rather a centerpiece big artillery platform you arrange your gunline around. Also, Stormsurges are the only suit in the army vulnerable to Blind and affected by Night Fighting, due to not even having access to Blacksun Filters.
  • A few notes: Although the KV128 is a GC, it cannot Stomp with its anchors deployed, and it's only T6/3+ - watch the fuck out for Tyranid or Daemon big melee monsters. Because of this, the Shield Generator, while expensive, is almost a must-buy. Weapon choice is largely dictated by how aggressive you want to play. A single storm surge might want a single S10 AP2 Ordnance pie-plate the Pulse Driver brings when parked in the back of your deployment zone. After turn 1 you could be putting out 2 pie-plates thanks to planting your anchors. A pair of storm surges will probably want to push forward dumping out multiple high strength pie plates or D shots from the pulse blast cannon and possibly even charging in assault. Don't forget that since it's a GC, you don't have to fire each gun at the same target - pulse-shred whatever looks meanest, then fire the rack of missiles at those Assault Marines trying to knock out your suits!
    • New FAQ here confirms that if an anchored SS is tank shocked it is immediately destroyed outright, which is a bit rubbish as surely it would have a chance of inflicting some damage to the vehicle ramming into it. Except it can make a Death or Glory attack, allowing it to do just that.

• KX139 Ta'unar Supremacy Battlesuit (Forge World): Forge World cooked up a weird bit of fluff, and then rolled out with this behemoth idol to the Greater Good. It has the staples of a GC (S9, T9, 10 wounds, Ld9), and a middling BS of 4. To make it more awesome, it receives the Vigilance Defense System which allows it to overwatch with its 2 smart missile pods and twin-linked burst cannons at BS2. The cheese only goes up from here: A 2+ Armor and a 5+ Invuln (Which ups to 4+ against dakka) from a shield generator that can half the damage done on a 6 in the Destroyer Table (Though it has to shut down, and you lose the invuln save, till your next turn). It also has two arm cannons, each with a choice between a Heavy 5x Multi-Melta or an Ion Cannon that either fires Heavy 6 - S7 AP3 or Heavy 3 - S9 AP2. But all that is nothing compared to the massive guns that are hoisted onto its back. Currently, there are 3 back-guns available:

1. The Pulse Ordinance Multi-Driver either fires a S:D AP:2 Massive Blast or a S8 AP3 Apocalyptic Barrage that Pins and Ignores Cover, both with incredible range. This weapon is the middle-of-the-road choice, allowing for you to fight GC/SH and up to heavy infantry between its two profiles. Remember that D hits apply to models, not units, and you will be golden.
2. The Nexus Meteor Missile System fires an Apocalyptic Mega-blast, S10/7/5 , AP 1/4/5, with Ordinance and Blind. More focused on carving huge holes in your opponent’s gun lines and clearing out hordes, the N.M.M.S. is clearly superior for inflicting damage against high body counts and armies with low initiative scores. Infantry = liquid.
3. The Heavy Rail Cannon Array is actually two weapons: one is a mega-railgun which fires D-strength AP1 small blasts up to 120" and, if fired at a superheavy or a gargantuan creature, rolls two dice for D-strength effect picking highest; the second is a multiple-launch mortar throwing 4 S:6 AP4 Pinning Apoc Barrages up to 36". The ideal choice for dealing with superheavies, and the mortar means it can still threaten infantry as well. As an added bonus, it can fire both of the array's weapons in a single turn.

Anything it fights, it will find a way to break something, even if it's your army and bank, as it costs 600 Points and 250 Quid ($350 USD for those that use pounds solely to weigh things ($500 CAD for the U.S.'s upstairs MAPLES neighbour.))

• A few things of note: The Ta'unar competes with the Stormsurge for the slot of 'best suit-based lord of war' well, being cheaper than two Stormsurges but not having the same firepower. It is a balance between firepower and survivability. The Stormsurge having access to D missiles, double shooting phases and support systems while the Ta'unar actually has a respectable toughness, wound count and armor save. The final choice is yours but in most cases the Ta'unar is actually a better choice due to its mobility, survivability and flexibility. Be carefully in picking your arm weapons; against any tank, armor or titan using army the fusion eradicators are your best bet, while monstrous creatures, infantry armies and gargantuan creatures should be met with tri-axis ion. You will need anti-air support to deal with enemy fliers and flying monstrous/gargantuan creatures.
• First Rule of Supremacy: If the enemy has a D causing LOW on the table, kill that first. If there is no D-strength attack, or, more specifically, nothing that is trying/able to contest/kill the Supremacy Armour, your duty is to liquefy infantry. Kill the D any way you can, BUT DO NOT GET CAUGHT ON A DISTRACTION UNIT, HOPING FOR A D-STRENGTH SIX. There are many units that will require a 6 for you to deal with, and it can be better to play for the certainty of [murdering infantry rather than lucky rolls. Secondary weapons should be used carefully, you are quite limited in their use compared to other titans, and focused on things that can lock you up in CC, or killing other GCs.

• Manta: The bastard child of a Thunderhawk and a Titan, this small spaceship is just as capable an attack craft as it is a heavy transport. This thing carries an absolutely goofy number of guns and can spew out a retarded amount of dice. Sixteen Long-barrelled Burst Cannons (who now fire 6 shots, meaning this thing fires 96 S5 AP5 36" shots), three Long-barrelled Ion Cannons, two Heavy Railgun (destroyer weapon and AP1 like a standard railgun in slug-mode, so it auto-penetrates/wounds and destroys vehicles 2+, not to mention the submunition mode that throws out large blasts with the strength and AP values of an Ion Cannon, and deviate less than usual by virtue of being drone-controlled), a Missile Pod, a Seeker Missile Battery (10 missiles), and a Networked Markerlight turret ensure that anything it's shooting at will not live to see the next turn. And there's the little benefit that for a Titan equivalent, it's damned fast. Oh, and it can carry a metric fuckton of Tau; 48 Fire Warriors, 8 Battlesuits, 2 Devilfish (and any models in them DON'T count towards total models in the Manta's cargo), 2 Hammerheads, 6 Gun Drones, and 1 Ethereal. Just one of these can damned near carry an entire normal 40k game's worth of Tau ground units! Unfortunately, for the price of the Manta model, you could just as easily buy a decent used car. (PROTIP: Buy a Smart Car, paint it ochre, and use it as both a vehicle and a proxy. Or proxy it with your converted army case.) If you can afford one and don't know how to use it, try asking either your butler or the two burly Armenians who just came over to break both your legs. One other drawback: unlike other flying vehicles in Apocalypse, ground attackers without AA or pintle mounts use their normal BS rather than needing a 6 to hit because of how fuck-huge it is (blasts and templates still can't fire at Manta). Though it does have a 4+ invul save due to its energy shield, remember an enemy still needs to deplete its structure points to destroy it like a ground-based super-heavy vehicle. In the most recent update the manta has BS4, 13/12/11 armor, 30HP, a transport capacity of 200 (up to 4 vehicles counting as 30 each, and bulky, very bulky, and extremely bulky as normal) and the ability to spew out more dakka at 2,000 points than most armies.

• Tiger Shark: This thing can shit out fourteen gun drones and carries an impressive armament of a twin-linked Ion Cannon, TL Missile Pod, and two Burst Cannons, making it the death of anything without a 2+ armour save/a lucky invulnerable save/Land Raider-equivalent armour (especially since flyers always hit the side armour of ground vehicles!).
  • AX-1-0: A version of the Tiger Shark meant to really bring the hate to super-heavy vehicles, swapping out drone racks and ion cannons for twin-linked Heavy Railguns. Put on a trollface as your opponent realizes just how terrifying Railguns are on a flyer platform (answer? Very, especially since the ones on this Tiger Shark variant are just as capable as those on a Manta).
    • As a fluff note, the AX-1-0 was originally made as a counter to Imperial Titans. Titans take decades and lots of resources to build, while the AX-1-0 uses existing parts from the Tiger Shark with weapons normally installed on Mantas, thereby minimizing fabrication time and material cost, giving the Tau an extremely cost-effective anti-titan punch. You know that the Earth Caste engineering team that came up with it said, "Problem, Magos?" Few things are more satisfying than watching the look on your enemy's face when you blow up his Reaver Titan or Heirophant with a fraction of its cost in AX-1-0s, that go on to tear his other super-heavies a new one. An SHF with a D-strength weapon, the AX-1-0 is the ONLY (that made it down to scale, there's plenty of star-busters both in AE and BFG) D-weapon in the game (with AP1 no less) that can hit other flyers at full Ballistic Skill (the Wraithknight can snap-fire, but what's that for?). 660 pts. is a goddamn bargain for a thing with 6 hull points and a 110" range that can one-hit anything up to a Reaver Titan PLUS a networked markerlight (because TL BS5 is way better than TL BS4) and doesn't give a shit if its target is flying or not. This unit was once one of top ten apex predators of the whole game, and is still quite devastating though more obscure and costly than other contenders (there's lot of them, but the cake still goes to IG's fuck-you missile, with all bigger-than-monolith Necron units and Primarchs coming shortly after). However they're far from being anywhere near invulnerable as their players like to think, and even marines now got more unpleasant AA-tanks, not even mentioning the fighters that were around since before Tigersharks themselves, so you shouldn't be surprised when your precious rail-rape will be shot down like a fish in the barrel if your opponent brought delicious buffed-up heavy-AA or wanted to unleash skyrape too. Yet it is quite nice source of D-railguns, so bring some if you feeling titans or other superheavies approaching.
  • AX-2-2: A rather weird unit that carries two Remora Stealth Drone fighters that have two long barreled burst cannons and seeker missiles.

• Orca Dropship: Used to be that if you had the money and points to afford a Manta, you wouldn't bother with this one; with it out of production, now you have an excuse to just use a shoebox as a proxy. While still a super-heavy flyer, its transport capacity is only a quarter of the Manta's (it can't even carry vehicles), and it is only lightly armed with Seeker Missiles, a Missile Pod and a twin-linked Burst Cannon turret. Needless to say, the Orca dropship doesn't do any justice to its namesake (which is an apex marine predator in real life). It did get +1 front and side armour, +1 BS, a built in disruption pod and blacksun filter, an the ability that allows 4 units to disembark at the same time, and long-barreled burst cannon's new buff to 6 shots greatly helps. Also in big apoc floor matches a very mobile flying cheap transport with a transport captivity of 57 is nothing to sneezed at. Also if you want to be an asshole, remember that you can transport up to 11 broadsides or (more usually) three teams of 3 with drones.

On a side note, this dropship first appeared in the Fire Warrior 40k FPS and Tau vehicle units in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm arrive at vehicle production buildings via Orca.

Another View: The Orca and the Manta have two entirely different roles on the battlefield. Specifically, the Orca isn't a 2000 point army by itself. The Orca is designed to support an army as a Lord of War, capable of surviving on the battle field while deploying it's cargo of suits/drones/troops. With the advantages of the flyer rules, it's +1 to cover saves and it's damn good armor and hull points, it is remarkably reliable as a transport. The most important facet of this vehicle is that it can transport Battlesuits, and more importantly, jet pack infantry. This includes Hazard suits.

I am sure you are wondering "what difference does that make? I can deep strike my jet pack infantry!"

Consider this: The greatest weakness of drop-fusion squads is that they tend to get the shit shot out of them. A lot. They can't move after deep striking so you are sacrificing your units in hopes that they destroy their target. You are also risking mishaps if you don't have a homing beacon. With the Orca, you get to move, shoot and thrust move, which pretty much assures you can get your guys into cover before they get shot by the entire enemy army.

Consider also that the vehicle can move -and- deploy it's cargo without worrying about dangerous terrain checks for the guys inside, Unlike the Valkyrie. You can also load it with a metric fuckton of fire warriors, pathfinders, Kroot, broadsides and drones.

It is a 400 point mini, more if you take other upgrades, and looks a bit like a shoebox, but as things continue to grow in size and scope, this point cost (roughly the same as a knight titan with FAR more versatility and resilience), it becomes a dead-killy option.

• Area Denial Node (White Dwarf UK 336): Only technically a Super Heavy choice, this is the Big-Daddy version of the Drone Turret, coming in at 175 with a BS3, All AV 12, 2 Structure points, & A Twin-Linked Railgun (R 180", S:10, AP1, Heavy 1), Submunition Rounds (R 72", S:6, AP4, Heavy 1, Large Blast), and a Special Rule that means if 2 of these thing hit the same target with Solid-Shot Rounds they gain the Titan-Killer USR.

• These are fairly old rules, so consider tripling the Hull Points, and altering Titan-Killer to increasing the Weapons Strength to D, and giving it the option to take a Velocity Tracker or a Emergency Warning Override if actually using it in a game, but it is still fully legal, and offers a fun modeling opportunity.

Fortifications

More general tactics in using fortifications are here. These are notes specific to Tau common playstyles:

• Aegis Defense Line: Can be useful or useless, depending on how you plan to use it. The anti-air emplacements are much less useful to you than most other armies, since you have so much AA already, though it's your only viable anti-air interceptor. That being said, it's still a nice piece of cover for your Fire Warrior gunline and dispoded tanks to cower behind and because you control where it goes it is cover your fire warriors will always have. If you're running a highly-mobile force, you'll probably find an ADL less than useless. If you're going to commander-bomb the enemy, for 20 points more, the comms relay will allow you to reroll reserve results, which might save your entire game. Something else to consider - park you riptide on your fire warrior firing line next to an ammunition dump. Have fun rerolling those ones that otherwise might kill you!

• Vengeance Weapon Battery: If you don't like taking a risk that might end up blowing your tank up with poor rolling, or you just like a sturdy Battle Cannon mounted on a reliable AV14 building chassis, then the Vengeance weapon battery is your go-to fortifications. It's cheap, it's hardy, and it can take either a Punisher Gatling Cannon (20 shots FTW) or it can be armed with a fearsome battle cannon for +10 points, adding another large blast ap3 weapon on your side that doesn't suffer much from the disappointing bs2 the Weapon battery is cursed with due to being a blast weapon. All in all, if you need a little extra kick, the VWB is hard to disappoint.

• Skyshield Landing Pad: Very big and you can probably fit your entire army on top of it. The 4++ it gives units on top (when the sides are up) means you can put your fire warriors and broadsides up there and not have to worry about things that ignore cover *cough*deathstrike missiles*cough*. When the sides are down, you can deep strike units onto it without them scattering - sort of useless given that if you are deep striking you are probably trying to insert a commander bomb behind an enemy tank, In which case you would have Farsight.

• Plasma Obliterator: Think of this as Ethereal-approved static artillery and being Massive Blast really useful for preventing overrun by hordes or MSUs. Expensive though.

• Imperial Bastion: It's big. It has 4 heavy bolters but you cannot really fit much at the top, and even less so when you add a gun emplacement. A decent crows nest for a sniper drone team or rail/ion rifle pathfinder team, but past that, it's an expensive piece of cover.

• Fortress of Redemption: Expensive, expensive, expensive. But like the rest of your army, the range of the weapons is crazy high. (96" missiles). You can also give it a gun with both skyfire and interceptor, but your Broadsides and Riptides should be taking care of that. The building only has one entrance, so be careful about getting it blown apart. On the other hand, it'll give some trouble to your enemies trying to pull you into an assault. You're also going to need about 300 points freed up just bring in a fully kitted out FoR. Imagine the Battle for Helm's Deep, and you're not too far off.

• Void Shield Generator: Let me break it down for you - you have broadsides. Wouldn't it be nice to stick them behind a nice, thick slab of AV12 from which they can still shoot out? 50pts. Scratch-build your own Tau-ish looking one. Troll the world, drink neckbeard tears.

• Vortex Missile Aquila Strongpoint: More useful in Farsight full-suit army as vortex blast is not really an issue with your mobility, and you're Tau, don't ever think about getting into melee/being less than 6" away from enemies.

• Macro-Cannon Aquila Strongpoint: The almighty D although not as sorely needed for Tau is always welcome (especially being in blast form, luxury in Tau army), and perfect as Kauyon bait. Do consider if you're going against Wraithwall armies.

• Tidewall: Brand new cheese for 7E, Three Tau component fortifications of your very own. Mostly defence line, it mostly can't be exploded and gives 4+ cover. And it moves... It can't move at all if an enemy (read: any non-Tau model, so keep your Eldar buddies off) is within 1" and it can't cross terrain, so watch out for enemies that bring their own. Also, it only moves during the Movement Phase at a sluggish 6", preempting the movement of the units manning the walls. Tau Units on any Tidewall count as stationary for shooting, regardless of whether or not the goddamned floor underneath them advances, and also get to reroll 1s on to-hit. Tidewall segments can be taken separately, attached as-you-like, or in specific arrangements with extra benefits. The attached and arranged versions need to stay lockstepped and are moved all at once. And because no Tau macroformations have a fortification slot, you need a detachment to take any Tidewalls. Also, surprise, some of the rules are standard Games fucking Workshop writing in that they leave some big fucking questions unanswered.
• Tidewall Shieldlines: Like an Aegis Line section, only better, in that any successful Cover save bounces back the shot on a 6, with an auto-wound/glance at the same AP. The whole "bounce back hits" is horribly worded, as if a Land Raider fires his heavy bolters and you roll a 6 THE LAND RAIDER TAKES A GLANCING HIT FROM A FUCKING HEAVY BOLTER. Because the Tidewall Field rule doesn't specify friendly or enemy models, shooting at an enemy within 1" risks bounce-back. A Shieldline is technically one shiny blue wall but it comes with a blank disc. Though maybe you don't have to use the blank disc, and the wall can apparently be legally attached to another shieldline's disc, attached to another Tidewall energy field with no discs involved, or a gunrig, or a drone port, or nothing. Ditch it and slim your mobile profile, or take it to stack more minis on free to-hit rerolls and stationary advancing.
• Tidewall Gunrigs: Come with a password-protected, twin-linked, Hammerhead-grade Railgun with all the fixins. The gun is technically an emplacement, which makes it the only destroyable part of the Tidewall. Only Tau models can shoot it, so even if the thing gets taken from you, they can't turn it against you. You could throw Darkstrider on, use his ability to lower T6 units to T5, and ID them with the S10 gun.
• Tidewall Droneports: *A disc which gives you 4 drones of any combination that your basic infantry could take, for 60 points. Which is a damned fine deal. You just need one Tau model on it to activate the drones, which then behave like fucking drones.
• Tidewall Rampart: Consists of 2 (or more) Tidewall Shieldlines, 1-2 Tidewall Gunrigs, and 1-2 Tidewall Droneports. This arrangement comes with some nasty abilities and 2 serious drawbacks.
  • First the good: All of the basic Tidewall shit stays in play. However, models on Droneports or Gunrigs benefit from (or are penalized by) a Shieldline's reflective field if a Shieldline is between the section and an attacker. With proper placement, a model can technically benefit from both bounceback rules, so a single saved shot from a hurricane bolter can potentially glance its own Land Raider twice. If any one model on the Droneport (I nominate a Shield Drone) forgoes shooting, you can give your Railgun emplacements (or bigger stuff if you have Missilesides or the Stormsurge, etc. parked on the Gunrig) +1 BS, Monster Hunter, and Tank Hunter for the Phase (slightly more reason not to charge this thing, especially with Fexes or Dreads). It only counts as a single terrain piece.
  • Now the bad: Although they benefit from the special rules of the other Rampart sections, the Railguns and the Drones are vulnerable to enemy Shooting, particularly if the enemy has a lot of high strength (ideally 8+, but even a Heavy Flamer would cause problems), Ignore Cover weaponry, as would any unit camping out there. Also, if your opponent tasks a serious assault unit with taking it, you best float away, because those Tidewall Fields won't help much.
  • Bottom Line: Like the Void Shield Generator, and its upgrade, the Void Relay Network, the Tidewall works best when properly deployed and kept as far away from the enemy as possible.
• Tidewall Gunfort: Slap three Gunrigs together within 6" of each other. If someone fires from one gunrig, he can make every railgun fire at the user's BS. If they use Submunitions, the shot gains +1 Strength, and if there's Solid Ammo, it gains Armourbane. Again, Darkstrider.
• Tidwall Defense Network: 4 Gunlines form a square around either a Gunrig or a Droneport. All Tau inside it gain Stubborn and can activate the Gunrig/Dronefort attached to it. Bring this, and accept that nobody will ever kill you and thus hate you to death (except for Noise Marines, Vraksian Renegades, Hellhammers, LR Eradicators, etc.).

• Primus Redoubt: The hugest fortifications with AV15, however expensive as balls and may not suit your playstyle (especially crisiswing). Nobody sane will assault properly entrenched Tau army inside, what with supporting fire and spotter units you can put above.

• Remote Sensor Towers (Forge World): After being noticed for the bad-ass auto-take it was, Forge World majorly nerfed it. It's now 'Battlefield Debris' with BS2, T6, W2, and a 4+ save, it has a twin-linked markerlight, and allows '(...)a singe friendly unit selected from Codex: Tau Empire that is within 2" of any sensor tower in the unit may re-roll all failed To Hit rolls of a 1 and gain the Night Vision special rule...' Sadly, it's no longer an auto-take, but may get some use to help with a Riptide to stop it from killing itself. Then again any other fortification piece can take much cheaper ammunition dump upgrade which does exactly the same thing.(They still offer some unique hilarity. Attach Shadowsun to them and have them go to ground every round for a 2+ cover save. Shadowsun being able to give stealth+shrouded to a sensor tower that is 20" away from her is amazing.)

Supplements

Farsight Enclaves

Farsight's retinue is not enough for you? You want to fill the table with Battlesuits, because screw those puny Fire Warriors. Most importantly, you want to have an answer to melee besides him and Aun'Shi (who gives a VP when killed). This is the army for you, if you're hot-blooded enough to step away from the usual ways of Tau.

Farsight Enclaves' Special Rules

• Battlesuit Spearhead: The big draw of Farsight Enclaves, they treat Crisis Suits as Troops instead of Elites.
  • This is an awesome bonus, but don't be so quick to put all your points in Crisis - they still need markerlight support, and their antitank options expose them too much. What this rule really does is that it enables you to take Crisis without needing to buy chaff troops first, and allows you to better contest far away objectives, that's it. Oh, and it frees slots to better spam a ton of Riptides, Stealth teams and whatnot.
• Ork Hunters: Every model in a Farsight Enclaves detachment has Preferred Enemy (Orks), but only in close combat, because Farsight hates them that much. It's nice in case you do end up in close combat, but don't go rushing there: you're still Tau and you still suck at melee, and these are Orks we're talking about. Choppa is their specialty.
• Ta'lissera Bond: Remember the often-pointless Bonding Knife Ritual mentioned above? Yeah, every unit that can take it must take it. As discussed above, it's not all that useful (and is, in fact, absolutely pointless for three-man Crisis suit teams), but that's the price you must pay for Battlesuits in Troops.
• Signature Systems: Farsight Enclave detachments can take signature systems from both the normal Tau list, as well as the Farsight Enclaves list. The Tau Empire signature systems are excellent, whereas the Farsight Enclaves systems are...significantly less so.
• Farsight's Commander Team (The Eight): Instead of taking his regular 6th edition seven-man Crisis bodyguard team, you can take Farsight's Commander Team, made up of seven Unique Special Characters. The unit doesn't take up an HQ slot (which is nice, and regular Bodyguards now DO take an Elites slot) and each model has the Independent Character special rule, meaning they can join other units, lessening the advantage MSUs have over Deathstars. However, you must use their wargear as listed, but you don't have to take all of them (which would get as expensive as an army of its own (which they kinda are)). They'll be discussed in more detail below. It has since been FAQ'd so that you must have Farsight as your warlord if you want to take any of the remaining Seven. They're purchased as a single unit but all have Independent Character, so it's not clear whether they must be deployed together as a unit or if they can be deployed separately.
• Allies: Farsight Enclaves and Tau Empire are Battle Brothers. Yep, that's A LOT of Riptides.

Farsight Enclaves' Warlord Traits

Believe it or not, you have lots of options with this army besides "Farsight Bomb Erryday" (and more with its upcoming formations), although Crisis suits will remain a staple of your army regardless of strategy, and taking Farsight is always recommended, if not for his bomb then for his mate's Signature systems. Yes, you could get resourceful and get No-scatter from other sources (beacons) and have a warlord other than Farsight in order to get an even better bomb (leaving behind some of the Eight if you need to make ends meet), because ALL these traits work nice on such his squad. Thus, comments like "this would be great for a Bomb" should be placed in its section; this one is for general Enclave strategies.

1. The Way of the Short Blade: Schooled in Farsight's Battlesuit-fu, the warlord has WS5 unless you're BALD AND FOOLISH and he isn't equipped with a battlesuit, in which case this gets rerolled. What's better than Farsight? TWO Far sights! You bought Fusion Blades, didn't you? Add the gun of your choice and you can pretend he is a slower-but-shootier Farsight. Have him lead another front or add to the deathstar. You didn't bring Fusion blades? Then reroll it - that's why you should always be Battleforged.
2. Echoes of the Grand Master: A discount Puretide Engram, your warlord can pick ONE of the following: Counter-attack, Furious charge, Monster hunter, Tank hunter or Stubborn. As with the original Puretide Engram, the last three rules are better than the first two, especially Monster and Tank Hunters. While getting a true Engram isn't too difficult (Sha'vastos or Tau allies) it wont do you wrong to have it repeated.(just reroll it, you can now get the signature system and get all of them)
3. The Way of the Broken Sword: For one turn only your enemy has -1 to his reserve rolls. Not bad per se, but "Divide to Conquer" from the BRB's Strategic Table does the same thing all game long. That's a rather good table for Tau, actually, so if you really wanted to affect his reserves you'd be rolling for that instead.
4. The Fire Unquenchable: The warlord is Fearless and has a 6" Stubborn aura. You could combine this with the Ethereal bubble for Stubborn Ld 10 while freeing up his other powers.<-TRAITOR THE GREATER GOOD IS A LIE Or it could turn your Coldstar into a sort of 'morale dispenser', his 24" move letting him get to squads in need in short time.
5. Countercrisis: Crisis teams get +1 to their reserve rolls. Similar to #3, "Strategic Genius" provides not only a reserves reroll for your entire army (instead of only for Crisis), but also a +1 to Seize, stackable with the Mirrorcodex, so you'd rather be using that table.
6. Through Surety, Destruction: Your warlord and his unit gain Shred during one shooting phase. Combine it with Volley fire for true Destruction®. Using this with a Crisis team loaded up on Burst cannons and Gun drones will leave the enemy crying (as usual), and plasma rifles become TEQ woodchippers.

Farsight Enclaves' Signature Systems

• Earth Caste Pilot Array: Let the engineers have some action. Drops WS of the wielder to 1 (but what are you doing in close combat anyway? Oh right, Farsight list) but you get to re-roll ones for shooting (works with Gets Hot) and failed Nova charges, which is utterly confusing, since Riptides can't take this anymore and GW never answers emails (newest batch of FAQs have reinstated the ability for Riptides to take this item)(skub. It's not a FAQ, but a draft).
  • The other way to use this, although not nearly as awesome as on a Riptide, is to combine it with multiple Cyclic Ion Blasters. Double the Templates, half the risk, and meaner still if you add a Target Lock or Early Warning Override to flash-burn some Reinforcements, especially Daemons or Dropping Tempestus.

• Talisman of Arthas Moloch: Anti-daemonic Bling-Bling found in the same site as Dawn Blade, this makes stopping those warp-shenanigans much easier. The holder gets a 5++, and for all units within 12" the Deny the Witch roll is passed on a 2+ its 4+ not 2+, which is frankly fucking-A as the Tau don't have anything to help them against psykers.
• Seismic Fibrillator Node: One use only and not a drone. Roll at beginning of any player's turn, on 2+ open ground within 36" of the user (NOT his unit) becomes difficult terrain and difficult terrain becomes dangerous terrain for one turn, and continues at next turn in further rolls of 5+. Doesn't say your units aren't affected, so mind your steps too!
• Warscaper Drone: Counts as drone upgrade (retains any other gear and stats), grants Move Through Cover, Outflank and Acute Senses USR to attached unit, and enemy units within 12" of it who are also outside of their deployment zone treat Difficult terrain as Dangerous terrain. Combos well with Seismic Fibrillator.
• The Mirrorcodex: Farsight's torrented Codex Astartes copy, adds 1 to Seize the initiative, which is very convenient for your deepstrikers, Mr. Farsight Bomb. Also, at beginning of each turn, roll a D6 and you have the chance to win PE:SM, PE:SM&IG or PE:Everyone for bearer and any unit within 6". Sadly, it also has 50% chance of winning jack shit.
• Fusion Blades: Upgrade for a Commander with TL Fusion only. Turns your blowtorch gun into a fucking lightsaber, with Armourbane, Blind, S8 and AP1. The best part? It's NOT UNWIELDY, unlike similar weapons. Hidden Onager donkey punch? More like TAU MURDERSWORD. However, it can short out after the combat (meaning you have at least one guaranteed use), so a VRT is recommended and a second weapon almost mandatory (This signature system eats up two slots due to being an upgraded TL Weapon. Adding a second weapon eats up 3/4 of your commander's slots. Not recommended.) Don't be scared, the odds of that happening are the same of blinding the foe. The one who dares, wins, right?
  • Don't use it to merely "defend" yourself. Your Tau are as mad as hell, and they aren't going to take shit in melee anymore! Blow that Land Raider to pieces, jump away and slap-chop the poor fellers next turn. Challenge that Chapter Master, make him rue the day he thought he could let the Tau catch him up in melee. And the best thing is it works: Statistically your WS4 Commander, with 5 attacks on the charge, will land 1 wound on him even after his Iron Halo save, but S8 means that's all it takes to kiss his 4W goodbye. And he can't kill you because his four attacks translate into 0.66 wounds to you (you did bring a Shield generator, right?), and he'll be dead long before he can use his power fist. Not that it matters, because Fusion blades can blind and even with all his trinkets he just does 0.07 wounds more than you; he could be WS10 for all he want, it doesn't get better than 3+ in 7E baby.
    • Let's not get to far ahead of ourselves here - This strategy boils down to 'powerfist him at initiative', but what about the rest of the squad? You'll look like an idiot if you throw a Crisis squad at a lot of pissed off Fearless guys with a ton of AP3 attacks and 2+ saves, especially with your I2 and sucktastic AP- hitting only a third of the time. When hunting such a squad, keep doing what you do best: blast them with lots of plasma/fusion fire, and only engage in melee when the enemy is almost dead...if ever (eg: the Application of Force Tactical Objective). This gimmick merely allows you to powerfist a dude at initiative, not to outfight marines in CQC. Or just don't pick a fight with such a dangerous squad to begin with - regular tacticals or devastators are fine, with luck they die in your enemy's turn so you escaped shooting and are free to engage other things. Now that makes more sense doesn't it?
  • Because Farsight Enclaves can now take Tau Empire Signature systems with no restrictions (where does it say that?(Right here)) other than 1 per army, your Fusion Blade Commander can have Iridium Armor while sticking Repulsor Impact Field and Onegar Gauntlet on a buddy.
  • You could do it like this guy and model it in such a way everybody is scared of that Tau with the fucking flaming sword.

Farsight Enclaves' Tactical Objectives

11. Targets of Opportunity

Pick up to 3 enemy units at the beginning of your turn and gain 1VP for each one completely destroyed by the end of your turn (any phase), but you only get the VPs it you destroyed ALL of them, so don't overextend. Combines well with "Killing Blow".

12. Rapid Strike

1VP for completely destroying a enemy unit with something you just brought from reserve.

13. Decisive Blow

1VP if you control twice as many objective markers than your opponent (or 2 if he controls nothing). I hope you're not trying to outnumber IG or even regular Tau.

14. Concentration of Fire

1VP if the first enemy unit you shoot at is completely destroyed at the end of the phase. D3 for destroying the first two units, D3+3 for destroying the first 3 units, so focus fire until they are killed, and then move on to the next one.

15. Application of Force

1VP if two (or more) of your units charge the enemy. D3 VPs if you actually manage to destroy them at the end of the phase. Charge at weakened units, duh.

16. Avoid the Killing Strike

1 VP at the end of any of your turns (except the first one) if none of your units were completely destroyed by the enemy in his previous turn.

The Eight

Tired of regular Bodyguards, Farsight got himself a squad of Commanders, who are all Independent Characters. So, you lose auto-pass LoS!, but you don't want to anymore, and the squad becomes decent in melee, each with 4 attacks and WS4. But most importantly, they brought regular Tau Signature systems before defecting to the Enclaves, and combine them with the your army's systems - Signature System palooza! They're a way to get more ICs than normal Tau, which you can (arguably) second to other squads instead of forming an XBOX HUEG deathstar. However, despite being named they aren't really unique

Note: The Signature Systems rule states that only one of each Signature System may be taken per army, and this rule does apply to Eight (Tau FAQ specifically mentions that). Because ALL Eight are Independent Characters, it's not clear whether you have to start them as one unit or can second them during deployment to other units.

• Commander Farsight: As seen in Codex:Tau, the only difference being that in this army he can take some or all seven samurais, costing exactly 1494 points - an army on its own (which actually happens in a mission). Because his bonus to the unit are just the means of entry and his I5 melee prowess, you might want to put him in the front, just behind the drones.
• Commander Brightsword: The seventh lunatic to bear this title (the first was killed by a squad from the 13th Penal Legion on an assassination mission). Has a Crisis suit with twin-linked fusion blasters (with fusion blades), advanced targeting systems, and a shield drone you don't want to use as an ablative wound, because it comes with the Warscraper upgrade. This feller is made to ID characters and explode vehicles, but little else..
• Commander Bravestorm: A charred out husk kept alive by his crisis suit, sound familiar? In possession of the only surviving Onager gauntlet. To have a better chance of using it he's also clad in Iridium armour with a stim injector and a shield generator, and for dakka he has a plasma rifle, flamer and two gun drones.
• Shas'o Arra'kon: Farsight's would-be-successor in his absence, canonically the only one in the tall fine cast Commander suit, equipped with a plasma rifle, cyclic ionic blaster, airbursting fragmentation projector (both not "one per detachment" anymore), a Repulsor impact field, two gun drones, and counter fire defense systems. Adding dakka and overwatch to the team, you'd do best to keep him at the center of the formation, relatively unexposed.
• Shas'o Sha'vastos: Had some slight problems adjusting to the prototype engram nanochip, is better now. Has a crisis suit with a plasma rifle, flamer, shield generator, vectored retro thrusters, two gun drones, and said Puretide engram chip. Due to the chip he's the one who will dictate what the squad is going to do, instead of Farsight and Arra'kon. Try to be the one charging in order to provide O'vesa and Brightsword with Tank Hunters, instead of having to put Counter Strike on himself.
• Sub-commander Torchstar: Vior'lan defector and youngest of the Eight, relieves her unrequited feelings for Farsight with her second love: FIRE. Pilots a Crisis suit with two flamers, target lock, multi-spectrum sensor suite, a neuroweb system jammer, drone controller and two marker drones. You will move her back and forth, alternating between providing Ignores cover and torching stuff depending on the situation.
• Broadside Shas'vre Ob'lotai 9-0: A Broadside piloted by an AI, nice. The only non-Commander model, he's an IC Missileside Shas'vre with twin-linked high yield missile pods, twin linked smart missile pods, a seeker missile, velocity tracker and two missile drones, somehow still has the bonding knife ritual despite being a machine. Lacking Relentless, he's the odd ranged character in a close ranged squad that has to keep on the move. Crisis with Missiles and VTs may give better anti-air support to the unit. Completely indistinguishable from a Broadside Shas'vre, you could attach him to a unit of Missilesides to achieve a ludicrous amount of dakka and use their markerlight tokens, or have him near Railsides, his VT screening the skies for them.
• Honour-Shas'vre O'vesa: An earth-caste scientist in a Riptide. Comes with an Ion accelerator, twin-linked fusion blasters, shielded missile drones, an earth caste piloting array, early warning override, and stim injector. Fun fact: Unlike the other seven, he's actually cheaper than his equivalent.

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Formations

Hunter Contingent

That's right, TAU DECURION!

• Bonuses: Aside from the usual WT re-roll, you get the ability to pour on the firepower! The Coordinated Firepower rule means you can have multiple units firing at the same time on the same target as if they were one unit, optimizing markerlight use up to mega-cheese levels, and if three or more units get involved, everyone gets +1 BS, stacking with all the bonuses to BS your army has (so BS6 Hammerheads before markerlights). TREMBLE IN FEAR AND VENERATION OF THE GREATER GOOD!
  • Has been FAQed here so that the only shared benefit to shooting across multiple units is markerlights, so you can't share buffmander benefits and so on across the entire army.
    • If you are the one pitted AGAINST this formation, don't despair - MSU spamming makes it more difficult for the Hunter contingent to bring its full firepower to bear. Even with jetpacks they can't be everywhere at once, which is further worsened by their LACK of OS (hello Demi-Companies!).

Core (1+)

• Hunter Cadre: A Battlesuit Commander and an optional Fireblade and Bodyguard gets to join 3-6 teams of Fire Warriors (either kind) or Kroot, 1-3 squads of Crisis suits, Stealth suits, Riptides, or Ghostkeels, 1-3 squads of Pathfinders, Drones, Piranhas, or Vespids, and 1-3 squads of Broadsides, Hammerheads, Stormsurges, or Sniper Drones. Units from this Formation may use Supporting Fire to assist other units from the same Formation within 12" rather than the usual 6". Furthermore, the Ambushes and Feints ability means that any units from this Formation within 12" of the same Formation's Battlesuit Commander or Fireblade may make a free Run or Flat-Out move before Shooting in this phase.
  • Summary: This formation gives some interesting bonuses, though with the higher Troop tax and loss of Objective Secured, you must think carefully whether it's worth running this over a CAD. The extra range for Supporting Fire is nice to have, but super-situational, especially if you come across another shooty army or one that can deny your Overwatch. The extra pre-game movement is more helpful though, granting Tau extra mobility, and allowing them to reposition based on their own shooting results. The humble Tau Piranha in particular becomes a surprisingly comedic Melta vector.
  • Note how you can use this to run with your infantry while remaining stationary in the movement phase, meaning you can still benefit from Cadre Fireblades ability Volley Fire. Enjoy your now moving Wall of Death.

Command (0-1 per Core)

• Contingent Headquarters: A bonus Battlesuit Commander (or Shadowsun) get 1-2 squads of Bodyguards and can call in an optional Ethereal (named or not). There's no other bonus to this. (Notice how the only way to take an Ethereal, without taking a separate CAD and adding two more troop choices to the 3 already required in the Hunter Cadre, is to own two Commanders. Gotta sell the new Commander model somehow I guess since every Tau player already had one).

Auxiliary (1-10 per Core)

• Retaliation Cadre: AKA Farsight Bomb 2, electric boogaloo. One Commander, 3 units of Crisis Suits, 1 unit of Broadsides, and 1 Riptide combine to gain Relentless and auto Deep-strike on turn two if you choose, adding +1 BS the turn they arrive. With the changes to Crisis and Riptide squad sizes this can mean up to 27 Crisis suits and 3 Riptides dropping in. Along with the Commander and the Broadsides that is 31 suits. Not that you will play this many outside of Apocalypse, but remember they don't need to be full units. Defeat the traitor Farsight at his own game!
• Read that again: Deepstriking Relentless Broadsides. Their only problem was they couldn't move and fire in the same turn and this formation fixes that. Try to get that 'Coordinated Fire' bonus so their exclusive Missile drones get the benefits without needing an attached Buffmander for themselves. The FAQ clarified that this doesn't work anymore.
• Heavy Retribution Cadre: A Ghostkeel joins two unit of Stormsurges for dat new cheese. Acting as a spotter, if the enemy is within 12" of the Ghostkeel, the Stormsurges can re-roll to hit it. If at least two units of this formation attack the same enemy unit, the afflicted unit now can't run/flat-out and can only charge at half his distance. So yeah, they can't melee these Tau, they can't outshoot them - they can only cry. Just in case you needed more reasons to field those Taubaddons.
• Infiltration Cadre: Three Pathfinder teams join two Stealth suit squads and a Piranha unit as an alpha strike. If any unit here is destroyed, then everything you have in reserves automatically arrives - sacrifice one for the Greater Good?. If you lay three markerlights on an enemy you also get a Seeker missile to automatically hit them as well, absolutely free.
• Optimized Stealth Cadre: An evolution of the old Optimized Stealth Group. A Ghostkeel alongside 2 Stealth Teams. Any Stealthsuits within 6" of the Ghostkeel gain +1 BS, get Ignores Cover, and AUTOMATICALLY HIT THE REAR ARMOR OF ANY VEHICLE. So yeah, they run independent of Markerlights, feel free to give them to someone else. Buh-bye, Leman Russes. Seeya Doomsday Ark! Amazing against GEQ (that includes Tau too) when the Stealth teams bring Gun Drones, a Controller, Fusion guns and Target Locks. The drones' Pulse Carbines WILL pin down those guardsmen now their AP5 shots ignore cover, and the fusion gun will poke their supporting armour's behinds blowing them sky high, as dirty as it sounds, without taking the Ghostkeel into account. That's 414 pts minimum, but it counters more than its cost on enemies in a single turn. Shame on you, Gue'La.
• Firebase Support Cadre: A Riptide unit along with 2 Broadside teams. Very good way to beef out your tau with lots of fire support and a BIG distraction. These are even cheesier than their 6E iteration because they can all combine their fire, with an even better (see below) "resolving their shots as if they were one unit" trick than above, on top of also getting Tank Hunter and Monster Hunter when they do so. Everything within range will DIE.
• Specifically, when the Hunter Cadre's Coordinated Firepower rule was errataed in the FAQ, the same FAQ conspicuously did not errata the Firebase Support Cadre. As a result, it has the original wording, which means all of the units fire as if one giant unit, so any unit-wide buff in any unit is shared by all of them. That means you can e.g. attach a Buffmander to either Broadside team to propagate those benefits not only to the other Broadside team, but also to the Riptides.
• Armoured Interdiction Cadre: 3 Hammerhead units alongside a Skyray unit. At the start of any Shooting Phase you can select one point on the board. The formation rerolls failed hits when shooting at anything within 6" of that point. Technically it also affects flyers.
  • This formation breathes extra life into the Ion Cannon by granting extra insurance against bad scatters and Gets Hot, turning it into a budget Leman Russ that outperforms in the areas that count.
• Air Caste Support Cadre: 2 Razorshark units along with a Sunshark unit. Everyone now ignores Crew Shaken/Stunned on a 2+ and they all restore a HP on a 6.
• Allied Advance Cadre: 4 Kroot packs join 2 Vespids gangs. Vespids gain Infiltrate and Stealth (Forests), and any Kroot within 12" of them replace Stealth with Shrouded while simultaneously gaining +1 BS, stackable with Coordinated Firepower. In addition, the formation gets Supporting Fire when assisting any member of their formation.
• Drone Network: One unit of drones. And that's it, no bonus rules. Useful to make meets end and to achieve Coordinated Firepower's +1 BS easier. Not actually a Formation.

Dawn Blade Contingent (Mont'Ka)

This detachment is exclusive to Farsight Enclaves. Besides letting the Warlord trait re-roll, this detachment's main draw is Killing Blow: This lets you secretly mark a unit for death at the start of your opponent's turn, and during your subsequent turn you declare which unit was Marked. Anyone from this Detachment rerolls to wound/penetrate that target for the remainder of your turn (Note: This is **not** Shred/Tank Hunters, which is probably for the best considering how which could interact with Target Locks, Ion Accelerators, etc). So, while Kauyon hits more often, Mont'Ka hits harder (duh). This Detachment has a higher potential damage ceiling, which can be useful against Deathstars, but requires more support to truly take advantage of.

Core (1+)

• Hunter Cadre: As seen in Kauyon, yours is a little more expensive because mandatory Bonded Knife.
• Retaliation Cadre: Unlike Kauyon's, it's a Core choice here instead of Auxiliary, which is more manageable because it was too expensive to use this and Hunter cadre outside Apocalypse. Now your whole army can be an XBOX HUEG Farsight Bomb. Excellent.

Command (1)

• Contingent Headquarters: A generic Commander/Farsight grabs a generic Bodyguard. Notice you don't get Ethereals. Not much else to it.
• The Eight: Farsight brings with him his besties. Now they actually get extra rules instead of behaving like generic Commanders. They have Fearless, Preferred Enemy, Independent Character (Note O'vesa still can't hide into a unit per 7th Edition BRB FAQ, because he is a monster), can Supporting Fire themselves from 24" away and, as long as one lives, all friendly Tau Empire are Stubborn. BUT you have to take them all, which means you wont see them at all in games smaller than 2000 pts, and even then you wilk not take a lot of units along with them.

Auxiliary (1-10 per Core)

• Allied Advance Cadre: Another shared formation. Noteworthy in that you could take them to hold home objectives for rather cheap (384 pts bare bones, 444 decent, 1588 maxed) while the rest of your army Farsight-bombs the enemy. Quite doable in a 2000 pts game. Does not provide Objective Secured, so don't completely assume any objective they're holding will stay held.
• Firebase Support Cadre: The last of the shared formations, they allow you to manage the relatively few markerlights you have. They can finish what your Crisis team started, and it helps that you have a better Riptide.
• Counterstrike Cadre: A Pathfinder team and three units of Fire Warriors (either Strike or Breachers) all ride Devilfish. In exchange, all models reroll failed shots against any enemy unit within 3" of an Objective, and the Devilfish gain Fast on the first turn they are on the table (this includes reserves).
  • Notably, the Formation bonus applies to the Devilfish as well. If you're a fan of Devilfish and Seeker Missiles, you might as well use this Formation. The single turn of Fast allows them to move 12" and fire both missiles at normal BS, rerolling to-hit versus any target within 3" of an objective. Combined with the Dawn Blade's ability to enable rerolling armor penetration...
• Rapid Insertion Force: A Stealth team, 3 Crisis teams and a Riptide unit. The Stealth team has to start on the field while the rest of the formation stays in reserve. When they deep-strike within 6" of the Stealth suits, nothing scatters AND they get Twin-Linked for the turn. H-how lewd, Farsight-senpai... - Notice how several formations are differently-flavored Farsight bombs? Not like that is a bad thing, tho. This formation's benefit is riskier than the Retaliation Cadre, and the Stealth team will have a giant Distraction Carnifex target painted on it.
• Ranged Support Cadre: 3 units of Pathfinders and Broadsides make the single most cheese team out there. If the Broadsides use any markerlights fired by their Pathfinders, they count as double, so they'll always ignore cover. The Pathfinders also get Infiltrate and Shrouded, but lose the latter if they ever move or fire something that isn't a Markerlight. Well, at least the Broadsides can Supporting Fire for them at full range.
• Piranha Firestream Wing: Like that Apocalypse formation, these are your Four Horsemen (ay lmao). 4 UNITS of Piranhas, but one of them must go alone and acts as a spotter for the other 3 and nominates a unit within 36" visible to it (doesn't give up shooting). The formation gets +1BS and Tank Hunters against the marked unit. Now the turbo fondue: if any unit ends up within 6" of a Table Edge after movement, it can escape into Ongoing reserves and return with EVERYTHING REFILLED (including dead unit members). Which means they can (and should) spam all the drones and missiles they want. You may now proceed to hum Ride of the Valkyries, if put through a sci-fi filter. Whether it is awesome or just plain trolling depends on your point of view.
• Skysweep Missile Defense: A Devilfish takes command of 3 Skyrays. If the flyers get within 12" of the Fish, they can fire as many missiles they want and, while the Fish lives, everyone gains 5+ cover against anything shot by a flyer (so take Disruption pods, as usual). This brings a whole new definition to FISH OF FURY.
• Assigned Air Caste Asset: Grab a Sunshark or Razorshark. Nothing more to it.
• Air Superiority Cadre: Grab 3 Razorsharks. They all get +1 BS against flyers. On top of that, as long as one of them is still alive, they can drop D3 Markerlights on any unit they want, just like a Fighter Ace. To make this even worse, you can automatically arrive from reserves if you find any Flyers, Skimmers or Jetbikes. Y'know, just in case you didn't have ENOUGH answers against those sorts of things. Can still get options from SoD, so take this over a CAD/ASD-bought Razorshark Wing, if you've already got Reserve rolls on lock.
• Drone Net VX1-0: 4+ Drone Squads, controlled by Skynet herself. They all get Interceptor, Jink, Outflank, Precision Shot, and Split Fire. Also, as long as at least 2 squads remain on the field, all drones in your army gain +1 BS. Your Interceptor/EWO phase now has Marker support. Sorry to say, but the GW faq states that no unit can both jink and Go to Ground, so dreams of killer Roombas must now go the way of the dodo.

Dataslate Formations

• Ethereal Honour Guard (Start Collecting Tau pack): An Ethereal on a hoverdrone, a Crisis Team and a Strike Team, all in one box. This gives the other guys a bit of a free move if they're near the Ethereal - The unit can pick a single model in the unit to act as a Lynchpin and then have everyone regroup around him so that they're all 3" away from him (Unless it's a turret. The turret stays where it is). It's a pretty devious way to get some more range from the other units, or to pull one unit out of a melee.

• Infiltration Cadre Burning Dawn (Infiltration Cadre Burning Dawn Boxed Set): Aun'Do, Pathfinder Team Aurora, Stealth Team Shadowtide and the Tireless Hunter (All a box set) team up. Aun'Do gets one turn to pull two elements, everyone gets Shrouded and Scout (or Infiltrate if they have Scout before). All in all, not too bad a setup, but it is fragile.

• Tidewall Counterstrike Cadre (Web-Exclusive Bundle): In a blatant move to sell even more Tidewalls comes an exclusive formation along the lines of the Cohort Mechanicus and the Court of House Terryn. It's composed of a Strike Team, Pathfinders, and two Breacher Teams in a Tidewall filled with two Shieldlines, two Gunrigs and a Droneport to center on. The Breachers , when firing from the Shieldlines, get to boost the ranges on their weapons' profiles, so now you have a not-quite plasma gun from 10" away, which is much safer. The Strike Team re-rolls hits while on the Gunrigs or Droneport and the Pathfinders act as, well, Pathfinders, as the Tidewall can move up to 9" so long as it gets closer to them.

• Tau Firebase Support Cadre (Dataslate): The Tau Firebase Support Cadre is a Formation consisting of one Riptide and two FULL units of Broadsides. Each member of the formation has the Tank Hunters and Preferred Enemy (Space Marines) special rules. In return, your Space Marine enemies will get Hatred (Tau Firebase Support Cadre). This is fair enough really, and not much of a downside... If you're stupid enough to let Space Marines get into CC with your units, then you probably deserve to lose. Even with the 7E version around this formation is still very valid - Marines are the most common army and PE is better than Monster Hunters against them, who have none. Also, you don't need to fire at the same unit like the 7E formation, so it's valid against other armies as well. Keep in mind how versatile this formation is. You want all High-Yield Missile Pods and Interceptor on your Broadsides, and an Ion Cannon and Early Warning System on your Riptide? Good idea. You don't want to include Shas'vre in each Broadside team? No problem. You want lashings of Drones with every model? Sounds good! At the end of the day, this separate detachment will end up costing however much you decide to spend, but the bare minimum is 570 pts so it's not cheap. But it's a hell of a lot of potential firepower that your opponent has to face down the barrel of, with units you might have already planned on bringing. Flyer heavy opponents probably shit their pants just thinking about this formation.

• Kroot Hunting Pack (Apocalypse): 5 Kroot squads, kitted out however you like. This is a fluff formation, plain and simple. They only get Furious Charge and the ability to Outflank on any side they wish. Better than your average Kroot, they're beleaguered by the fact they're still just Kroot.

• Optimized Stealth Group (Apocalypse): 3+ Stealth Teams are needed. This formation has one nice rule and one meh rule. The nice thing is that their shots ignore cover. The meh thing is that if they infiltrate, they need to halve the distance they can set up from the enemy. Being Tau, the prospect of being closer to the enemy shouldn't be a good idea...but it does leave them in Melta range, even when Infiltration in line of sight. With the arrival of Ghostkeels this formation has lost most of its allure.

• Riptide Wing (Mont'ka): 3-9 Riptides. THAT GUY TEAM COMING UP!! Yeah, this is just being unfair. Not only can any Riptide within 6" of another re-roll failed Nova Reactor rolls, but they also get +1 BS when firing at something another Riptide already shot at, and once per battle they can shoot twice with each weapon in a turn they didn't move, which can be also combined with Ripple Fire to allow to each Riptide to fire the same weapon four times. Really, who'd want to play this and claim themselves fair?

• Ghostkeel Wing (Mont'ka): 3-9 Ghostkeels. They get +1 BS when firing at something another Ghostkeel already shot at, their drones have effect to every Tau within 12" from at least two of the formation's units and if they charge an enemy unit within 6" from another Ghostkeel, that unit can't Overwatch.

• Ethereal Council (Mont'ka): 3-7 Ethereals (Aun'Va and Aun'Shi can be part of the formation). As long as two of them are still alive, they're considered a single unit, the range for Failure isn't an Option is doubled, and they give all four the elemental buffs in the same turn.

Warzone Damocles

• Shadowsun's Firestrike Assault Hunter Cadre (Apocalypse): Shadowsun takes command of a grand total of: a Crisis Bodyguard team, 2 regular Crisis teams, 6 Fire Warriors with a Fish, 6 without, 2 Pathfinders with Fish, 2 Stealth teams, 2 Riptides, 3 Hammerheads, 3 Skyrays, and 4 Razorsharks. Really, this is just a convenient excuse to gather all this wanton firepower together, with a bonus of giving anyone within 24" of the commander Fearless and Preferred Enemy. If you really have that many models together (and you like running stuff like the Tyranids Living Tide) then rock on, you extremely rich GW slave.

• Piranha Fireteam Squadron (Apocalypse): 5 Piranhas. Only five, no more, no less. This is a surprise assault formation, plain and simple. They deploy as a team on the second turn, they can jump into reserves so long as they're all within 6" of a table edge and come back whenever fully restocked and restored. If you thought the Tau had enough cheese, there's this, an instant-revival that can make even Tyranids jelly.

• Ethereal Council (Apocalypse): So long as you get three Characters, you can choose between Aun'Va, Aun'Shi, and more than one plain Ethereal. Grouping this many squishy Tau together boosts their FiNaO range from 12" to 24", but if they're all removed, the enemy gets another VP for killing them all. In addition, they can all use one more elemental power just to coordinate the other side's ruination by control.

• Hunter Cadre (Apocalypse): In a smaller Shadowsun formation, a single generic Commander gets: a Bodyguard team, 2-6 regular Crisis teams, Broadsides, Piranhas, and Hammerheads, 1-3 Stealth, Pathfinder, regular Drone, and Sniper Drone teams, 1-3 Skyrays, 3+ Fire Warrior teams, and an option to take up to 3 Fireblades, Kroot, and Vespids each. This formation gifts a bit more to the team. First off, they grab Acute Senses. Then, they can start from reserves and then get out in the first turn. After that, they all get 12" range for their Supporting Fire, meaning that now it changed charging them from a stupid idea to a phenomenally suicidal idea. All for the Greater Good.

• Drone-net VX1-0 (Apocalypse): A real drone network. 12+ Gun, Marker, and/or Shield drones can take optional Sniper, Missile, Recon, Grav-inhibitor, and Pulse Accelerator Drones, all in groups of four or more. All this dronage grants them a grand total of...+1 to their BS. It's meant to be a distraction, and the Shields help on that, but if you're expecting them to survive, don't.

• Hammerhead Interdiction Cadre (Apocalypse): 3-5 Hammerheads put together (so that's +1 BS due to Fire Team). Now, you love Skyrays, ya hate their lack of Railguns. Watch this, so long as the lead vehicle hasn't been blown to bits, it can give your army D3+1 Markerlights to use for extra killing, because this is Tau.

• Paradox Squadron (Apocalypse): 3-5 Sunsharks in a team. When put in the Arrowhead pattern with 3+ pulse bombs, the lead bomber gets to make a Strength D AP1 Large Blast bombing run, with rolls of 1 on the D table instead restoring lost wounds/hull points. Really, this is more of a gamble than most would want, with a chance of either instantly wiping out an enemy or making them even tougher than before. Its only a 17% chance but still, run at your peril.

• Ranged Support Cadre (Apocalypse): 1-3 Pathfinders leading 3-6 Broadsides. By joining, the Pathfinders all get Infiltrate and Shrouded. However, if they ever fire something other than Markerlights or even move they lose it, making placement a priority. In addition, if the Broadsides use the Pathfinders' Markerlights, the value of the lights get doubled. Yes, this is about as cheese as everything else, because this gives them the ability to get +2 BS or ignore cover with all of ONE markerlight.

Games Supplements

Cities of Death

The Tau have a lot of good stuff for Cities of Death such as Fast Skimmers, short ranged high RoF weapons, lots of ignore cover, and other fun stuff. Take a Razorshark with Disruption Pod and Flechette Dischargers to take out those tough targets and a Skyray to deal with anything else. Darkstrider and a ton of Pathfinders with Rail rifles. They will hide in the buildings and snipe whilst Darkstrider lowers their Toughness down to Instant Death levels, to fuck up those Paladins. Fighting retreat is a good rule here as well. Whilst their Assault marines charge they can blast them to pieces. Drone sentry turrets (FW) come into play here as well. Give them Deep strike and put them in strategic locations around the board. They serve as blockades if the enemies get to close and if the squad of infiltrators is just out of reach. Use against scouts, Lootas, Eldar rangers, Obliterators and other Tau. Stealth suits and Commander Shadowsun get a special mention. Infiltrating and stealth + large buildings = models that just don't want to die. Pulse Carbines are very good for the cramped areas, and 24 18" S5 AP5 pinning shots can wipe out some squads in a single volley. SMSs are great here, and Vespids can actually do something in cities of death (12" movement, move through cover and stealth in ruins). Do not rely on pathfinders for markerlights - with LoS breaking buildings everywhere you'd be better with more mobile drones and Tetras.

Escalation

The Tau have access to the Manta Super-heavy Dropship (kind of ridiculous considering it costs as much as an entire army), the Orca Dropship (cheap, but not very useful in most games) , the Tiger Shark Fighter Bomber (not particularly amazing), and the Tiger Shark AX-1-0 (pretty much mandatory against super-heavies) in games of escalation.

Stronghold Assault

More stuff to hide behind. Amazing. I'm so excited.

Kill-Team

Tau may have a hard time in Kill-Team, especially if your strategy revolves around Markerlights, however you can take a basic team of 6 Fire-warriors, 3 Stealth Suits, and 4 Pathfinders, with 12 points left, or take a Team of 6 Fire-warriors, 4 Pathfinders, and 2 Piranha's with 22 points left for upgrades, and seeing as even the Tau's most basic troop weapon has a 1 in 3 chance of scoring a glancing hit against AV 10 and a 1 in 6 against AV 11, your greatest enemy will be your generally small Squad size, although Over-watch may be fun, especially with "Supporting Fire"

It is also possible to make a kill team out of Kroot and Stealth suits. The advantage here is that the whole kill team can infiltrate. 10 sniper rifles performs well regardless of what your opponent brings, krootox give great supporting fire, and the stealth team brings the leadership 'vre and a fusion blaster to take care of those people who can't resist bringing a vehicle. Your opponent's face when you infiltrate your whole team directly into be best cover is priceless.

The unofficial version allows you access to a single Broadside at 50 points and makes Pathfinders a Special choice, so Markerlights become more scarce but it's possible to make a more interesting, if smaller, team.

For a more in-depth look, this page may help, Kill-Team

Allies

Main point in bringing allied non-Greater Good adherents are distraction, assault beatsticks (what the Kroot are allegedly for) or psyker support. Remember, you only have D6 defense against psykers.

Battle Brothers

Farsight Enclaves/Tau Empire: Yep, you can actually ally a "standard" Tau Empire list with a Farsight Enclaves list. This means space for SIX Riptide SQUADS. And then there's O'vesa. This means nigh-on broken. This means you WILL do this. Using multiple CADs that's 18 available riptides. Use the Fire Cadre data slate for an extra to bring that number up to 19. Do you count R'varna riptides? That's 6 more. Y'vahra? Another 6. Enjoy throwing 31 mechagodzillas down your enemies throat. KX139's? MOAR!!!!!! The only problem with this is the fact that you will have no friends, very VERY fast. If taking 3 made you That guy, than taking 22 makes you That guy's That guy...

Oh, and enjoy not being able to afford anything in life and eventually having to take up residence in a cardboard box under a bridge because you blew all your money on 31 Riptides.

Allies of Convenience

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 croissants. And if you want to screen your gunline with close combat beatsticks, they get those too. In fact, that's probably the best use for Necron allies: tanky, choppy units that just won't die under the right circumstances - the very thing the Tau lack. Wraiths, Lychguard and Canoptek Spyders are all viable candidates, and a popular Taucron build is to bring a Canoptek Harvest for that extra side of cheesy cheese you know you love.

Eldar: Taudar isn't as cheesy as it used to be now that they're no longer Battle Brothers, but that's okay, because it still fucking rocks. Eldar provides you with psykers and sorely-needed DTW defenses in the form of warp dice. Aside from that, Wraithwall armies can be a good, mobile anchor and distraction, Windrider Jetbikes/Shining Spears or Swooping Hawks for fast objective grabbers, Howling Banshees, Wraithblades or Striking Scorpions for melee support and the dreaded Wave Serpents (still good though significantly nerfed in 7e) for pushing the gunline forward. Too bad you can't prescience your riptides anymore, but the prospect of fighting Hammerheads guarded by Serpents or, with the new codex, squadrons of Falcons, are still gloomy for your opponents. If long-range tank annihilation is your thing the Fire Prism is as good as the Hammerhead, and better in some cases, and the Wraithknight can be quite useful to break through attempts at locking down your Riptides. Harlequins could also be an interesting option to add some assault punch your troops are otherwise very much lacking, and given their predilection for wandering, are not necessarily unfluffy.

Desperate Allies

Chaos Space Marines: With the right build, Chaos Lords or Princes can occupy that guy's deathstar-HQs or even kill it outright. Nurgle Termies and Heldrake are durable bullet sponges that can perform independently from rest of your armies, and if you're feeling lucky, Thousand Sons. Other than that, skip the shooty parts as you have better options.

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.

Orks: Orks have been knocked down from Allies of Convenience into the second-worst slot for Allied armies in the game. The old strategy of joint shooty Tau and choppy Orks is not nearly as effective as it once was, especially with the nerfs to Assault in 7e. If you want to take Ork allies for whatever reason, consider taking a Big Mek with the Shokk Attack Gun and some Mek Guns - preferably the Kustom Mega-Kannon for more Plasma fire, the Traktor Kannon for more AA goodness or the Smasha Kannon for awesome anti-vehicle firepower - to keep them away from your units while ensuring that they can still contribute something to the fight thanks to considerable range. If anyone asks why Orks are fighting alongside Tau, point out that Tau take alien mercenaries and that Orks sometimes take mercenary work; if they ask about the Mek, say he was promised some Tau tech for his trouble.

The Forces of the Imperium:

• Space Marines: With the loss of Battle Brothers, you need to be creative in using Marines. Thankfully all-bikers from both Scars and Ravenwing can still work as they have great mobility and can be left alone for the most part. Assaulty armies like Templars and Sharkies are better as distraction, but don't bring too much as your primary advantage is still shooting. Landspeeders works like a better Piranha, pretty good for dealing with covered blobs if you don't want to commit your suits.
• Imperial Guard: If you want to bring all-suit army, IG's artilleries can be a great boon in dealing with things you'll have difficulty, like MSUs. IG blobs can also screen your gunline, but let them die first or stay away from assaults as you still need to shoot them. IG tanks are best used as distraction that's capable of wreaking havoc if left unchecked.
• Dark Angels: As stated above, go with Ravenwing. Deathwing Knights are also excellent anti-everything deathstar though needs careful deployment and lucky deepstrike. (you'll at best only bring one biker squad to help them, so it will be expensive tax but worth it if you know how to use)
• Space Wolves: Mostly the same uses as the vanilla above, save for a better flyer and are far better in assault.
• Blood Angels: Death Company with jump packs/Sanguinary Guard supporting your deep striking Crisis Suits for a deadly one-two punch down the board.. Plus Assault Squads on foot in front of your firing line to help hold the line when they do reach you, better than Kroot in every category but points cost. Want to bring a Dreadnought and an elite jump squad? Grab a Furioso Librarian Dreadnought and get a built in psyker and dreadnought and your elite jump squad while still maintaining a bound allied force. All with built in furious charge for extra punch. What's not to like about this combo except for having to remain six inches apart.
• Grey Knights: Primary use is psyker defenses and Purifiers, though Eldar are better by virtue of being Convenience. Paladins may work if you need tough units.
• Inquisition: Think of Inquisition as a toolbox that capable of filling any holes you need, packed in mobile Chimera or Valks. Though with downgrade to Desperate Allies, pay attention to movement phases.
• Sisters of Battle: Sisters excel at annihilating vehicles with Melta (Dominions) or rooting hordes out of cover (basic Sisters, Heavy Flamer Retributors). Tau are good at this too, but Crisis Suits are the unit of choice for both. Taking Sisters could let you free up some XV8s for other purposes, like hunting transports (missiles) or TEQs (plasma/fusion). Saint Celestine and Seraphim or Battle Conclaves could provide a reasonably good assault interceptor, too. Skip the Repentia, though - you need a Stormraven or a Land Raider to use them effectively.

Come The Apocalypse

Chaos Daemons Tzeentch warp-die spam may work and don't need to be close to your units to be effective, and Warpstorm table are non-issue. Needs playtesting though. Could be good however; on paper they have everything you need.

Tyranids Nidzilla-list (needs playtesting). Another popular option is the "Hive Fleet Detachment" which has 1-3 HQs and a minimum of 3 Troops. Take three Flying Hive Tyrants (Wings upgrade) each equipped with 2x Twin-linked Devourers with Brainleech Worms and Electroshock Grubs as the HQ choices. Then take three Mucolid Spore Clusters as your troops since they're the cheapest option (15 points each). This combo is 765 points and is devastating when combined with Tau (generally ran with Farsight Enclaves for Crisis Suits, Riptides, and Skyrays). 3x FMCs; 6x Psychic dice; plenty of anti-air support; quick scoring; and flank maneuverability are among the benefits. Not recommended for friendly/casual games. Tear buckets don't come in this size at your FLGS. (Do the Tau's brainleech allies have the ability to mindjack tyranids? Because if so this could even happen in fluff.)

Building Your Army

7th Edition Tau codex is out!

Our recommendation is to:

• Learn the rules of WH40K. Spend a day, spend a week. Before you spend money on models, spend time with the rules. Whatever time you spend here, you will recoup in fun and understanding later on. This could be from knowing how exactly your synergy is achieved, instead of listening to a website for all your ideas, to better learning from a defeat. More-so now than ever, virtual access to the rules is possible. Almost all smartphones have access to some "WH40K Rules" app, which SHOULD allow you to take your rules with you and read up on them when you fancy. It is recommended, though, that you still read ALL rules pertaining to your army directly out of a 7E rule book or Codex. DO NOT TAKE THIS PAGE AS ANYTHING OTHER THAN SUGGESTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS.
• Next, consider what flavor of Tau you are interested in. Farsight enclave looking cool? Tau Empire looking like it will be more interesting? This answer will save you money while you gather your forces. Also, remember that the FSE is really only a bunch of red-painted Tau troops...
• Start your purchases with a pack or two of Crisis Suits, and some Fire Warriors (or, for that case, some Start Collecting! bundles; it has both at something like 30% discount. It just so good). A Crisis Suit can make for a Commander, and a Fire Warrior can make for a Cadre Fireblade
• Markerlights; forever your golden ticket to tears. Bring them and know them well.
• Mount all Fire Warriors in Devilfish. Fish of Fury may be dead, but your Fire Warriors still need the survivability. When modelling these, consider saving the bits to turn them into hammerheads. It will really help you out to have that flexibility within your forces.
• Start filling gaps in your support. Tau have a lot of really powerful shooting, and with the new codex there is a good reason to buy support for your gun line.
• Riptides. While all flavors get Fire Team, and thus can squad into groups of three, the solo riptide is still powerful and fun to have around. If you have the money for it, 2 riptides is a very safe number to have and field. 3 are, honestly, extremely destructive and should only be used if both players agree to a competitive game.
• You should now be able to go apeshit with battle suits. Now it is time to look at how you can improve. Maybe a named leader, or save up for some Forge World #Swag.
• Get in your local games shop and let all you find there know who is fighting for the Greater Good.

Helpful Hints and Fun Strategies

Rule number one. Never. FUCKING. EVER.

The Most Important Rule

Spoiler: It's not the "have fun" one, but if you don't follow it you can be sure as hell you won't have any. Do you like seeing squad after squad of Fire Warriors get slapped to death by Conscripts? No? Then keep them out of melee combat. Your army is WS2, so going against anything above WS3 feels like going against a fucking Bloodthirster. Everybody else will just drown you in bodies, and your I2 wont help at all. And those fucking Korpsmen will do both at the same time.

• DO keep in mind that melee is much less deadly in 7E. After all, even if they are WS10 no one can hit more than 66% of the time, and most units aren't S5 or have a 3+ save like your Crisis teams. While melee with dedicated CC squads or even buffed regular troops are still out of the question, Crisis-and-better Battlesuits can hold their own in a brawl against those regular troops, especially after you've mauled them in the shooting phase - punching a few wounded scout marines might be better than exposing yourself to their sniper shots, don't you think? And you have lots of trinkets to help in CC - Fire warriors with their carapace armor are just as good as Guardsmen, and while they hit first, you have Photon grenades, so they're always as good or better. And don't even get me started on FSE. Yes, spending a turn in melee IS wasteful, no doubt about that, but what I'm saying is Don't PANIC at the thought of melee, just avoid it on the grounds you have better things to do- Is that a power sword? RUN LIKE HELL.

Markerlights, we should talk about them
These things are force-multipliers, plain and simple. Without them, you will do at best "alright" but with them (properly used) you will be kicking ass left and right. For all the talk about the Tau being awesome at shooting, the truth is that they are merely "good" at it. They put out a lot less dakka than, say, the Orks or the Imperial Guard. However, what shooting the Tau do have is very powerful when it hits, but it only hits half the time on a typical roll. Markerlights are what allow them to hit almost all the time, marker units lighting up the target and letting another unit slam that target with very specific fire-for-effect. This means that markerlight-heavy units are almost always best used when paired with other units, as the markerlight-wielders need to be able to paint the target, and the other unit needs to be in range to hit them when they do. If that supporting unit is very long range and has good line of sight (like broadsides or a hammerhead) then the markerlight unit can push forward and select targets for destruction from beyond your enemy's ability to retaliate against them. In contrast, if the supporting unit is short ranged (by Tau standards, like crisis suits or fire warriors) than they need to stay near the markerlight unit to take advantage of them. Since most armies will only have one or maybe two good solid sources of markerlight support, it is important to know what it will be best directed against (see target prioritization below,) usually starting with enemy vehicles and then moving on to wiping out infantry, though it will vary depending on the foe and their strategy. Markerlights encourage you to focus fire on one target, wipe it out quickly, then move on to the next. Some units will put out more marker tokens than others, and you need to be careful about what you spend them for. Vehicle targets will have them spent boosting to-hit rolls and firing seeker missiles, infantry squads will also have to-hit rolls boosted paired with cover-denial if you can spring for it (the enemy will not be able to hide from the Tau's guns for long). If your enemy is smart, they will realize all of this and make things hell for your markerlight-wielding units as quickly as possible. If you are smart, you will use this to lure your foe into a Kauyon trap (more on that later.)

Target Prioritization
More important for Tau armies than it is for others. Indeed, in bygone editions the Tau had special equipment and options for circumventing target priority rules. Those rules may have been dropped, but the need to be selective remains. Certain targets need to be neutralized at the earliest possible turn, then the rest of the enemy can be defeated in detail after that. "The Way of the Broken sword", they call it. One hefty priority is when the enemy hides their infantry in metal boxes, THE COWARDS, THE FOOLS, YOU SHOULD TAKE AWAY THEIR METAL BAWKSES. The moment enemy infantry reaches your lines, you lose, and they do that faster in vehicles. Luckily for you, Tau have many ways of accomplishing their objectives, because the truly wise adapt. So you could destroy their vehicles from afar with markerlight-boosted railgun hits, or a missile massacre on the first turn, or drop Fusion guns/Riptides for devastating hit and run attacks, if you can manage it. The moment enemy infantry is forced to footslog across the tabletop, they lose, as infantry in the open are a turkey-shoot in the face of the Tau's superior firepower. Let Crisis suits take the fight to enemy infantry, whittling down heavy infantry with plasma and missiles or burning blobs to cinders with flamers and burst canons, while the railgun units finish off the remaining enemy vehicles. If they overwhelm you with enough bodies and vehicles to soak up all your dakka and still keep coming, then do not be afraid to give ground and fall back, drawing them further in and giving you a little more time to pour on the fire. Remember, the Tau value mobility and holding the line is secondary to the destruction of the enemy. After all, once the enemy is dead, the terrain is yours to claim without contest.

Mont'ka and Kauyon
The Tau Empire codex will describe two central in-lore strategies employed by the Tau, Mont'ka and Kauyon. Mont'ka, "The Death Blow", involves bringing the Tau's full force to bare on a linchpin target which when removed will compromise the enemy's entire strategy. Kauyon, "The Patient Hunter", involves luring the enemy to the Tau, where they can fall into one of the most deadly cross-fires Tau weaponry can produce. Dawn of War would have you believe that these two strategies are mutually exclusive, and the codex itself does little to suggest otherwise. However, the truth is that both strategies are two sides of the same coin, and that one strategy can be flipped over and turned into the other in an instant. The battlefield situation is fluid, and so to should be your strategy. Tau are an army ill-suited to getting stuck-in, so any offensive actions will halt just at the edge of the Tau's maximum range, and the Tau forces will fall back from an enemy counter-attack. In this way, the battle lines get pushed and pulled backward and forward across the course of a match. You might start with a Mont'ka strategy, sending in Crisis suits (possibly with deep strikes) to hit the enemy hard on a critical unit, or push a Hammerhead Gunship ahead of the line to clear its line of sight to a target. Both will do great damage, but such units in turn attract a lot of enemy attention, becoming a lure for Kauyon in the process. Take advantage of the enemy's distraction, and use the rest of your force to hit the enemy in a more vulnerable flank, or just position them to set up a cross fire they cannot escape from in time. Do not treat your units as expendable, but do weigh your risks and do not be afraid to take a risky path if the payoff will lead to victory. Exploit the range of your weapons and your mobility to get the enemy to break ranks in a gambit to reach you, pulling them into the open and cutting them down in equal measure, always ready to adjust your approach as the situation shifts.

The Farsight Bomb

You've seen us mention it every other paragraph, it has its own freaking subsection now. Back in 6E Farsight's defining characteristic was the fact he was the only one that could take a seven-strong Bodyguard unit, and his WT allows him to deepstrike them without scatter, so it felt like a "Deathstar to go". 7E means he can grab even moar suits, but it's not exclusive to him anymore, which opens several options for the Bomb, which are discussed here - these tactics can be seen as an addition to the original Farsight Bomb® or as alternatives to it. Note that, if you decide to use someone other than Farsight you NEED to secure No-scatter by any means necessary (beacons, usually), lest your Deathstar gets lost to a mishap, easy to get on such a big squad.

The Original Farsight Bomb®
Still haven't got the hang of it? It's Farsight no-scattering a Bodyguard unit into play. What sets them apart from other bombs is its reliability (which is a HUGE thing) and Farsight's I5 for Hit&Run tests. Even on Shadowsun bombs, when he's not the warlord, his Initiative is the fastest thing on the codex, just behind Vespids (but fuck'em), so he's always a welcomed addition.

• Now available in regular Crisis team flavor, and up to 28.5% more Crisis per bomb! YUM!

Buffmander Bomb
Put all the systems you need on a Commander (Buffmander), who will live forever because of the Bodyguards - something a regular Farsight Bomb cannot reliably do unless they bring yet another Commander. Grab all the Gun drones you can (to have ablative wounds and 4+ majority save, for those evil Grav guns) but don't grab any Airbursting projectors. Because of the Buffmander, this unit's shots have Ignore cover, reroll ones to hit, can fire against whatever is a better target, has tons of BS5 TL drones, and has melee protection in the form of a 12" Gets Hot bubble, D6 I10 hits to every charging unit and Hit&Run at I4. As for your ranged weapons, you could use Fusion Blasters with Target locks to hit armour, Plasma rifles (the better option) with Advanced Targeting to murder officers, Missile pods with Velocity trackers to provide AA coverage, and Ion Blasters with EWOs intercept those deepstrikers coming to stop you.

• You could run a budget version of the Bomb adding an Iridium suit and Shield generator to the Buffmander, and swapping the Bodyguards for a regular Crisis team. Passing LoS! on a 2+ is good enough, and he has 2+/4++ for any lucky shot. You only begin to save points after the 5th suit, tho.

Shadowbomb
Mrs. Tsundere is a great addition for any bomb, or can make a bomb of her own too. Her Stealth and Shrouded give everyone a 4+++ in the open, so Shield generators become redundant, and her John Woo pattern Fusion guns get along very well with any other Target locks the unit may have. Don't take her Command-link drone, a Command&Control node is cheaper, better bring two of her 3++ shield drones. Oh, how could I forget her best bonus: 3D6" THRUST MOVE as the warlord, which will be useful all nightmare long unlike Farsight's one-use WT. Forget about Flamers and Counterfire, you just won't be in melee. Hell, you might not even be on his visual anymore, and if you jumped into cover it turns into the veritable 2+++ Bullshit Barrier®.

Unit Usage

Burst Cannons Vs. Smart Missiles Vs. Gun Drones
Smart Missiles are better than Burst Cannons, period. The real question is now whether to take Gun Drones or Smart Missile Systems. Pinning, detachability and passenger firing status but BS2 vs Homing, Ignores cover and extra range, it all depends on your views on secondary armaments. If you think of them as a source of more dakka take SMS, but if you think of them as defensive guns so that you don't get swarmed then take the drones, their strategies when detached discussed more under the "ABCD" strategy.

Wall of Death
Piranhas are Fast Vehicles and possess AV 11 in their front armor. Even while this is akin to a death wish against S7, this makes them impervious to most handguns such as bolters and lasguns. One can use Piranhas as a mobile "wall" against squads of foot-slogging infantry. The infantry will be unable to pass through the Piranha squad, and the Piranhas can even fire with essential impunity. For added hilarity, do not forget your Flechette launchers. If used properly, Piranhas can even block enemy vehicles, by moving in a way said vehicle cannot turn or move without coming within 1" of it. The vehicle would have to move back, turn, and move out, avoiding the 1" proximity, disrupting their entire movement and possibly shooting phase. Just be careful when the vehicle shoots back. Oh what's that? Disruption pods give Stealth now? Stick these bad boys on your Piranha, and laugh as your opponent tries to get through a 3+ cover save as you flat-out right into his face. Or for even more hilarity, Seeker missiles. Now that Piranha doesn't even need to see those tanks to kill them.

The firing line
Take 1 full squad of fire warriors behind a ADL with a Cadre Fireblade and Darkstrider. Then one unit of pathfinders next to it. Then use Aun'va and a minimum squad of Kroots with sniper rifles as expendable bodies and as CQC punching bags if necessary. You'll have at 19"+ 26 S5 shots from the Fire Warriors squad, and a little closer Darkstrider and the drones add six Pinning shots, and the foe will have a -1 T so you wound marines on a 2+! Within 15" it's 44 S5 -1T to foe. Give those Pathfinders some Rail Rifles, if necessary let Darkstrider switch to them and instakill MEQ and TEQ with 4T. If you face a lot of T5, Ion rifles can give you instakill when overcharged. That is if you don't mind the gets hot on your Tau!

ABCD: Annoying Bullshit/Cover Drones
Crisis and, to a lesser extent, Stealth suits are famous for the Jump-Shoot-Jump tactic: the ability to jump out of cover, fire and jump back in, leading to endless annoyance for your opponent. But this also works in reverse, with the humble Gun Drone and, well, pretty much anything that can be obscured by them; the important thing being the drones must be from a separate unit instead of taken as upgrades by the bubble-wrapped unit. The ones that come "free" with vehicles such as the Devilfish can work, but the Piranhas' are better (the actual Piranhas costing less than its 2 Drones: 14+14+12), but a proper Drone team will last longer, although those DO grant a VP for their destruction. There are 2 variations of pretty much the same thing - putting some annoying drones in the way; both of them become useless when facing Ignores Cover, Blasts or enemy Jump Units.

• Mobile cover: aka Backwards Jump-Shoot-Jump. Keep them near the unit you want to protect, both of them fire and then you move the Drones in the assault phase to grant your squishy units free 5+ cover, which turns into a decent 4+ cover save in the open for your vehicles equipped with Disruption Pods, up to a 2+ Bullshit-Barrier for Stealth teams; great if you use this to get Jumping Fusion near enemy AV. Let's face it - you'd rather have those T4 4+ save Drones tank some hits than your valuable dudes with special weapons, even if Stealth teams are 3+/4+++. Incoming melta? Deploy ABCD ASAP, the more abbreviations the better.
• Drone wall: Properly placed (ie. abuse coherence), the same tactic can shield your dudes from charges with the added benefits of Supporting Fire and the fact that your enemy will probably kill those drones in his turn...so you can blow him to smithereens now that they have foolishly placed themselves within Rapid Fire range. This can achieve what Disruption pods can't - save you from meltabombs.

Just look at that grin on his face. An epic troll.

Kroot Konga Line
Place a big line of Kroot in front of your firing line, stretching all across the board. This keeps enemy units from assaulting you and you can abuse Supporting Fire by having your whole army overwatch a single unit. Add Markerlights and Counter Fire Defense Systems to drink your opponents tears. (This works because only the overwatching unit needs Supporting Fire, not the unit being charged.)

British Firing Line
If you've seen The Patriot, you'll know what this means. Basically, just push as many warriors out on the field with two pulse rifles Tau up in the front and put all of the carbines in the back. Camp like a bitch in terrain but make sure there is a bit of open ground. Exploit the Supporting Fire special rule ruthlessly. Send your Crisis suits out to kill any and all ordnance carrying enemies. Have Broadside suits camp in the back to pound the living shit out of any assaulting units using their Heavy Rail rifles, while said assaulting units are being chewed the fuck out of them. Laugh as you see said enemy cry as his precious troopers being chewed to bits by fire. As powerful as this is against an enemy who has to cross the tabletop, this strategy's main vulnerability is from enemies who can bypass the firing line altogether, either through Deep Strikes or Outflank maneuvers. You might want to hold a Crisis team back as a mobile reserve, jumping up and down the line to counter threats as they come up and lend extra fire power to prevent the line from collapsing.

Out Dakka Anything
The new codex reduces the costs of damn near EVERYTHING. This allows you to take more bodies than all the dead Sisters that the Grey Knights killed. In a 2,000 point battle, ten 12 man squads of Firewarriors, 6 FULL squads of suits with Plasma Dakka, the blueberry space Pope swinging his scepter around saying "Shoot them again!", and then whatever amount of dakka you want to take in whatever amounts allows you to fill something with enough pulse/plasma dakka to ensure it's dead. Be sure to bring your tearcups when facing large amounts of infantry, and even flyers wont be able to stand up to 1,200,000 pulse rifle shots a turn - Note: That's still not enough dakka..

The Bruiser Squad
Shadowsun with three XV9's, kitted out with whatever gun you want. Got an annoying MC that's SOMEHOW survived a hammerhead/R'Varna combo? An annoying distraction unit? Or maybe a little god squad tucked in the corner. This little unit is like your meched out Don Corleone and his crew.

The Gruesome Twosome
O'Ra'lai, Shadowsun and her Command-link drone. Float Ms. Tsundere behind Mr Big Bad Angry Tau Grandpa and use her drone to nominate him. If you thought re-rolling the Riptide's "Gets Hot!" was good, wait until you get a load of giving that gift to O'Ra'lai weapons. Yeah.

NEW Fish of Fury
Devilfish transports make excellent cover for Jetpack jumping Crisis Suits. Drive up the board with your suits immediately behind, jump out with your jetpacks, shoot the crap out of stuff, jump back behind the Devilfish with your Thrust move, stay hidden! Watch your opponent foam at the mouth as he can't see your suits behind your vehicle. Make sure you fit a disruption pod to the Devilfish... That'll probably ensure that they stick around for a while under heavy fire. Also, don't forget to fire the weapons that are on your 'fish.

Tommy Gun Firewarriors
Make a single Firewarrior squad vomit more shots than your opponent's army. Works best if you have Farsight allies. Take Cadre Fireblades with two Gun Drones for all of your HQ slots and attach them to one unit of Firewarriors (make sure to take a Shas'ui with a Gun Drone as well) then place them in a fortification or heavy cover. Each Fireblade will add an extra shot to all of your Pulse Rifles and Carbines when they don't move, turning your S5 single shot gun at 30", into 4 shots with only 3 Fireblades. At 15" that single squad will be vomiting 115 S5 AP5 shots a turn, and if you add 1 more Fireblade with drones it spikes up to 156 shots. Throw some backfield artillery and objectives to draw them in and they won't know what hit them when you open your 5th dice box. Just don't expect this to work on round two.

Those Fucking Stealth Suits and Tetras/Pathfinder Devilfish
This tactic only really works well with the Farsight Enclaves list, since Crisis suits no longer compete with Stealth Suits for the elite slot. Fill out a full team of six stealth suits in the following way: 5x Burst cannons with Counterfire, 1x Shas'vre (trust me, the LD boost helps) with a fusion blaster, marker light, target lock and VRT, two gun drones (total 270 points). Take a supporting team of Tetras or a Pathfinder squad with the recon drone and Devilfish. All of your troop crisis suits and elite hazard suits should be in reserve for deep strike. Combining the Scout move of the Pathfinders/tetra and the Infiltrate of the stealth suits creates several homing beacons that cannot be easily destroyed, so when the enemy finally thinks that they are about to crush your paltry army, in come the reinforcements perfectly placed to dump liquid troll on your enemies army.

Why that particular set up for the Stealth suits, you ask?

Consider this: A full stealth team totes the same firepower as a full squad of fire warriors double-tapping. That is 24 delicious shots of st5 ap5 hell that even TEQ's suffer from due to sheer volume of fire. Adding counterfire to that mix means that being assaulted becomes a troll heaven for you (this will wipe out entire squads expecting half the number of incoming hits). Now, to get some good tank busting power, we add a fusion blaster, a marker light and a target lock. Remember that these bastards are both relentless and have a multi-tracker, so the Shas'vre can shoot BOTH the marker light AND the fusion blaster...and all this cheese is BEFORE you add a subsystem. Give him VRT for hit-and-run that effects the whole squad. The gun drones? They replace the lost 4 shots by upgrading your Shas'vre, provide valuable ablative wounds... AND PROVIDE INITIATIVE 4 FOR HIT AND RUN! Combine all of this with Stealth, Shrouded, Deep Strike, Infiltrator, 3+ save majority and the ever important homing beacon. It is a huge amount of EXTREMELY effective special rules crammed into a very viable choice.

This DOES help if your commander rolled "counter-crisis" for his warlord trait too.

Riptide Limbo Contest
: Build your Riptides low and parallel to the ground (Try to make it look like they're at least flying backward while shooting weapons). Let your opponent giggle at the silly pose, then watch his laughter turn to tears when he realizes they can actually hide behind a devilfish this way.

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (10th Edition)

General Tactics	General Weapons Terrain
Imperium	Space Marines (Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Deathwatch, Space Wolves) Grey Knights
	Adeptus Mechanicus Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle
	Adeptus Custodes & Sisters of Silence Imperial Agents (Inquisition, Rogue Traders, etc.)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons World Eaters)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Chaos Titans
Eldar	Eldar (Craftworlds, Corsairs, Harlequins, Ynnari) Dark Eldar
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults
Votann	Leagues of Votann

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (9th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications Tactical Terrain Weapons Apocalypse
Imperium	Space Marines (Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Space Wolves) Grey Knights
	Adeptus Mechanicus Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle
	Adeptus Custodes & Sisters of Silence Inquisition Officio Assassinorum Rogue Traders
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons World Eaters)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Craftworld Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins Ynnari
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults
Votann	Leagues of Votann

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (8th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications Apocalypse
Imperium	Space Marines Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Talons of the Emperor (Custodes and Sisters of Silence) Adeptus Mechanicus
	Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters of Battle and minor factions) Adeptus Titanicus
	Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Inquisition Officio Assassinorum
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (7th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications
Imperium	Space Marines (Siege Assault Vanguard) Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Adeptus Custodes Cult Mechanicus Skitarii Adeptus Sororitas
	Imperial Knights Inquisition Officio Assassinorum
	Imperial Guard (Armoured Battlegroup Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade Death Korps of Krieg Siege Regiment Elysian Drop Troops D-99)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines Khorne Daemonkin Chaos Daemons Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins Corsairs
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks Ork Dred Mob
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (6th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications
Imperium	Space Marines Blood Angels Dark Angels Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Adeptus Sororitas Inquisition
	Imperial Guard (Armoured Battlegroup Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade Death Korps of Krieg Siege Regiment Elysian Drop Troops) Militarum Tempestus
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines Chaos Daemons Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Corsairs
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks Ork Dred Mob
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (All)

General Tactics	General (8th) Movement (8th 7th) Psychic (8th 7th 2nd) Fortifications (8th 7th) Tactical Terrain Apocalypse (8th)
Imperium (8th)	Space Marines (8th 7th 6th 5th 4th 3rd) Blood Angels (8th 7th) Dark Angels (8th 7th) Deathwatch (8th 7th) Grey Knights (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd, AKA Daemonhunters) Space Wolves (8th 7th 6th 5th)
	Talons of the Emperor (Custodes and Sisters of Silence) (8th 7th) Adeptus Mechanicus (8th 7th) Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters of Battle and minor factions) (8th 7th 6th 3rd, AKA Witch Hunters) Adeptus Titanicus (8th)
	Imperial Knights (8th 7th) Imperial Guard (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd) Inquisition (8th 7th 6th) Officio Assassinorum (8th 7th)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (8th 7th 6th 5th) Death Guard (8th) Khorne Daemonkin - 7th Edition Thousand Sons (8th) Chaos Daemons (8th 7th) Chaos Knights (8th) Renegades and Heretics (8th 7th 6th)
Eldar	Eldar (8th 7th 6th 5th) Dark Eldar (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd Revised) Harlequins (8th 7th)
Necrons	Necrons (8th 7th 6th 5th 4th)
Orks	Orks (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd) Ork Dred Mob - 7th edition (6th 5th) Ork Kult of Speed - 3rd edition Feral Orks - 3rd edition
Tau	Tau (8th 7th 6th 5th)
Tyranids	Tyranids (8th 7th 6th 5th) Genestealer Cults (8th 7th)

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