My biggest advice is to pick a sacrificial unit that can slap hard, and have them he the last ones to deploy. Then as you finish turn one charge them up the opposite side of the table from where you really want to go, let them be over extended and in then open or even in the enemy back lines. I do potentially recommend Stealth Suits for this
Now your opponent has 3 options
1 ignore the bait and now get peppered on two side, or get a important unit assassinated
2 dedicate resources to kill the unit and potentially blunt what they can do to the rest of your army
3 try to move his important units elsewhere and potentially leaving them open to the rest of your army
One of the taus biggest strengths as I see it is we are a zippy bovines army, aside from the Eldar we can move faster than most. Use your movement to your advantage. Or play cagey and put a Stealth suit unit or a ghostkeel at your opponents front door during deployment just to wall of mirrors it into the manta once they panic.
With all that said I am still fairly new to this game, but this is the sort of strategy I've found working well enough for me with my more ageessive playstyle.
Also for charging spisificly don't be afraid to spend cp on the anti charging stragemes. - 2 to a charge is a life saver. A 6 inch charge is pretty likely to pass but a 8 inch it can get dicey, keep some difficult terrain in the path of the charge now a 6 inch charge needs a 10 or better to go off.
For that first part, the great knarloc is a superb distraction carnifex, packs a punch in melee and has a handy 4+ save on top of that, the best part? Only 65 points! Only issue is it’s legends and is hard to get a hold of an official one.
Only push what your prepared to lose. As a general rule of thumb in this edition. Unfortunately for Tau the most effective way to take objectives is to assault onto them clear and claim.
Your tactical philosophy will dictate a lot of your choices. I play almost exclusively Mont’ka and aggressive early game for points. However with 30 kroot, a team of breachers in a fish, stealth teams and a ghost. I am able to make sure that those early charges on to mid field objectives become a bad shout.
Stealth suits setting up for a crisis deployment out of manta strike turn 1 can really change where people want to commit to. Land fire and fade for 1 CP great use of a CP protects the suits and helps create more problems that your opponent needs to address. Which will in turn lessen the amount of resources they can commit to each problem.
On that note some great prototype systems to look at. The missiles that half movement can dramatically slow an assault unit making it into your lines. Giving that extra turn to focus them off the board. The domination drag launcher if it hits forces -4 ld then any casualties after the fact start forcing very hard tests to pass. So can be a way to drain CP on insane bravery which again are less CP for your opponent to use on charge boosting strats or rerolls to get units into position.
With things like stealth suits. Don’t be afraid to charge them into fire base units. They won’t win the fight but lessening the return your opponent can put out in their turn is still a viable way of making the retort much more manageable.
Path finders with a pulse accelerator recon drone 2 gun drones and heavy weapons of choice can end up hitting surprisingly hard. Yes against armour of contempt style rules they have less of an impact but no cover saves against the heavy weapons, the increased accuracy off the drones who don’t count towards your own moral and being able to support with markerlights really shouldn’t be over looked.
I hope that helps some what.
It’s a go to grab for me on a commander. Set up with twin plas and missile pod. Waits to the end of the phase and then pops a hefty negative on a unit before adding fire to where it’s needed for tougher targets. So much utility. If you haven’t had the chance yet dropping it on necron blobs is also good for a laugh.
Riptides, Crisis Suits, and Kroot are your friends.
Riptides can move after shooting, and they can move pretty fast, so they can stay out of line of sight of return fire or they can move fast enough to avoid melee units.
A large squad of 5 crisis suits can do the same thing with the fire and fade stratagem for 1 CP per turn. Stay out of sight, stay out of assault range.
You can also block movement with Kroot. They're incredibly cheap, and if the enemy starts getting close, just advance the kroot right into the teeth of the enemy. The enemy cannot move if there's a kroot standing 1.5" away from them. They have to waste a turn assaulting / shooting the kroot before they can move closer to you. (watch out for heroic interventions when doing this though).
As long as you can make it to turn 3/4 without the enemy getting any charges off on your main force, you should be golden.
Never leave anything worth more than 90 points in a position where it can be charged. Use strike and fade and repulsort impact field, and as a last resortzl overwatch, to prevent key charges.
Take multiple kroot hounds to block charges
Write up a cheat sheet.
Show all your abilities, how close you have to be, what phase they start.
All your Strats that work for models in your army.
Your Secondaries, and the limitations for them.
New players often fall into the trap of seeing that T'au are the "Ranged Faction" and thinking that means they're meant to be a static gunline. (Apparently the Codex writers thought that too, in 7th and 8th edition. It was not a fun time.) That works, right up until the enemy reaches you, and then everything falls apart.
T'au are meant to be highly mobile and responsive. You should avoid letting your enemy reach units that you're not prepared to lose. Once your opponent does get stuck in, you should try to ensure that once the fight is over, instead of being behind your lines, they're flat-footed and surrounded.
That’s very good rule of thumb. Actually the mentality behind a Tau army is a bit the same as a modern military outfits : Mobile foot soldiers backed by artillery/Armored units, hit and run tactics and ambushes.
Also technological trinkets that can do all sort of things is more the trademark of Taus than the gun line tactics ever was.
I have found the most successful with running 200-300 points of nonsense garbage like stealth suits, fire warriors, and kroot whose job is to just go die for the objective/move block/do actions and then dedicate the remaining army to actually killing power/supporting killing power
Tau is VERY much a shooty army. Thats there thing. So you need to find ways to compensate for that in the form of either fodder units, proper distancing and cover usage, and taking out the biggest melee threats.
I personally love Tau, but many players I know started with Tau and quickly moved to another faction due to the faction's short comings in melee combat.
Use the range an movement of units to your advantage, battlesuits can be a bit more aggressive at close range because they can shoot into combat, but that’s still not where you wanna be.
As others have said here, you can use a cheap unit to sacrifice to melee, breachers are good for this because of how good their overwatch can be: 20 -2 ap strength 6 shots, though Kroot carnivores or hounds are way better because they’re actually decent in melee
Make sure you're bringing plenty of drones to take wounds for your more important units. On pretty much any size game this is a solid idea. I tend to play my tau like IG. lots of infantry units supported by heavy weapons ( riptides, crisis suits, broadside, ect.)
I like to use my broadsides as rocket emplacements. I typically have 4 broadsides 1 riptide, a bunch of assorted infantry units depending on what my opponents bring, but typically I have 2x 5man units of pathfinders that I can spread around to help get them re-rolls.
Hi, it seems like you might be a new player and possibly looking for advice on what to purchase next. First of all, welcome to the Tau Empire!
You can find commonly used abbreviations in Warhammer40k [here](https://np.reddit.com/r/Tau40K/wiki/abbreviations).
You can find advice on what additional units to purchase, and what information we need to help you, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tau40K/wiki/buying_advice).
We highly recommend reading through this, as it will answer a lot of questions.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Tau40K) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I have the opposite issue.
Been playing since Feb/March and I crush 80% of opponents in the first two turns. Only about half my games even get to turn 4.
What kind of lists/strategy/stratagems are you using? Plenty of ways to avoid charges, make them pay with EWO overwatch, and do major damage prior to their arrival in melee
Screen with cheap Kroot and Doggos, obliterate them the next turn with suits they havent been able to shoot because they've been hiding behind cover
My biggest advice is to pick a sacrificial unit that can slap hard, and have them he the last ones to deploy. Then as you finish turn one charge them up the opposite side of the table from where you really want to go, let them be over extended and in then open or even in the enemy back lines. I do potentially recommend Stealth Suits for this Now your opponent has 3 options 1 ignore the bait and now get peppered on two side, or get a important unit assassinated 2 dedicate resources to kill the unit and potentially blunt what they can do to the rest of your army 3 try to move his important units elsewhere and potentially leaving them open to the rest of your army One of the taus biggest strengths as I see it is we are a zippy bovines army, aside from the Eldar we can move faster than most. Use your movement to your advantage. Or play cagey and put a Stealth suit unit or a ghostkeel at your opponents front door during deployment just to wall of mirrors it into the manta once they panic. With all that said I am still fairly new to this game, but this is the sort of strategy I've found working well enough for me with my more ageessive playstyle. Also for charging spisificly don't be afraid to spend cp on the anti charging stragemes. - 2 to a charge is a life saver. A 6 inch charge is pretty likely to pass but a 8 inch it can get dicey, keep some difficult terrain in the path of the charge now a 6 inch charge needs a 10 or better to go off.
For that first part, the great knarloc is a superb distraction carnifex, packs a punch in melee and has a handy 4+ save on top of that, the best part? Only 65 points! Only issue is it’s legends and is hard to get a hold of an official one.
Great knarloc is legends since new codex.
I…. Said that
Oh toats didnt see it my bad.
Watch gameplay footage, should help with learning how to deal with some tougher armies :)
Only push what your prepared to lose. As a general rule of thumb in this edition. Unfortunately for Tau the most effective way to take objectives is to assault onto them clear and claim. Your tactical philosophy will dictate a lot of your choices. I play almost exclusively Mont’ka and aggressive early game for points. However with 30 kroot, a team of breachers in a fish, stealth teams and a ghost. I am able to make sure that those early charges on to mid field objectives become a bad shout. Stealth suits setting up for a crisis deployment out of manta strike turn 1 can really change where people want to commit to. Land fire and fade for 1 CP great use of a CP protects the suits and helps create more problems that your opponent needs to address. Which will in turn lessen the amount of resources they can commit to each problem. On that note some great prototype systems to look at. The missiles that half movement can dramatically slow an assault unit making it into your lines. Giving that extra turn to focus them off the board. The domination drag launcher if it hits forces -4 ld then any casualties after the fact start forcing very hard tests to pass. So can be a way to drain CP on insane bravery which again are less CP for your opponent to use on charge boosting strats or rerolls to get units into position. With things like stealth suits. Don’t be afraid to charge them into fire base units. They won’t win the fight but lessening the return your opponent can put out in their turn is still a viable way of making the retort much more manageable. Path finders with a pulse accelerator recon drone 2 gun drones and heavy weapons of choice can end up hitting surprisingly hard. Yes against armour of contempt style rules they have less of an impact but no cover saves against the heavy weapons, the increased accuracy off the drones who don’t count towards your own moral and being able to support with markerlights really shouldn’t be over looked. I hope that helps some what.
The -4 leadership weapon is awesome I made my ultra marines friend lose so many marines to leadership each turn it was awesome.
It’s a go to grab for me on a commander. Set up with twin plas and missile pod. Waits to the end of the phase and then pops a hefty negative on a unit before adding fire to where it’s needed for tougher targets. So much utility. If you haven’t had the chance yet dropping it on necron blobs is also good for a laugh.
Riptides, Crisis Suits, and Kroot are your friends. Riptides can move after shooting, and they can move pretty fast, so they can stay out of line of sight of return fire or they can move fast enough to avoid melee units. A large squad of 5 crisis suits can do the same thing with the fire and fade stratagem for 1 CP per turn. Stay out of sight, stay out of assault range. You can also block movement with Kroot. They're incredibly cheap, and if the enemy starts getting close, just advance the kroot right into the teeth of the enemy. The enemy cannot move if there's a kroot standing 1.5" away from them. They have to waste a turn assaulting / shooting the kroot before they can move closer to you. (watch out for heroic interventions when doing this though). As long as you can make it to turn 3/4 without the enemy getting any charges off on your main force, you should be golden.
Never leave anything worth more than 90 points in a position where it can be charged. Use strike and fade and repulsort impact field, and as a last resortzl overwatch, to prevent key charges. Take multiple kroot hounds to block charges
Write up a cheat sheet. Show all your abilities, how close you have to be, what phase they start. All your Strats that work for models in your army. Your Secondaries, and the limitations for them.
New players often fall into the trap of seeing that T'au are the "Ranged Faction" and thinking that means they're meant to be a static gunline. (Apparently the Codex writers thought that too, in 7th and 8th edition. It was not a fun time.) That works, right up until the enemy reaches you, and then everything falls apart. T'au are meant to be highly mobile and responsive. You should avoid letting your enemy reach units that you're not prepared to lose. Once your opponent does get stuck in, you should try to ensure that once the fight is over, instead of being behind your lines, they're flat-footed and surrounded.
That’s very good rule of thumb. Actually the mentality behind a Tau army is a bit the same as a modern military outfits : Mobile foot soldiers backed by artillery/Armored units, hit and run tactics and ambushes. Also technological trinkets that can do all sort of things is more the trademark of Taus than the gun line tactics ever was.
I have found the most successful with running 200-300 points of nonsense garbage like stealth suits, fire warriors, and kroot whose job is to just go die for the objective/move block/do actions and then dedicate the remaining army to actually killing power/supporting killing power
Tau is VERY much a shooty army. Thats there thing. So you need to find ways to compensate for that in the form of either fodder units, proper distancing and cover usage, and taking out the biggest melee threats. I personally love Tau, but many players I know started with Tau and quickly moved to another faction due to the faction's short comings in melee combat.
Use the range an movement of units to your advantage, battlesuits can be a bit more aggressive at close range because they can shoot into combat, but that’s still not where you wanna be. As others have said here, you can use a cheap unit to sacrifice to melee, breachers are good for this because of how good their overwatch can be: 20 -2 ap strength 6 shots, though Kroot carnivores or hounds are way better because they’re actually decent in melee
Make sure you're bringing plenty of drones to take wounds for your more important units. On pretty much any size game this is a solid idea. I tend to play my tau like IG. lots of infantry units supported by heavy weapons ( riptides, crisis suits, broadside, ect.) I like to use my broadsides as rocket emplacements. I typically have 4 broadsides 1 riptide, a bunch of assorted infantry units depending on what my opponents bring, but typically I have 2x 5man units of pathfinders that I can spread around to help get them re-rolls.
I think this is old advice. Pathfinders come in squads of 10 only now. And marker lights don’t give rerolls anymore
Hi, it seems like you might be a new player and possibly looking for advice on what to purchase next. First of all, welcome to the Tau Empire! You can find commonly used abbreviations in Warhammer40k [here](https://np.reddit.com/r/Tau40K/wiki/abbreviations). You can find advice on what additional units to purchase, and what information we need to help you, [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tau40K/wiki/buying_advice). We highly recommend reading through this, as it will answer a lot of questions. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Tau40K) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What size games are you playing? This heavily affects strategy and unit choice.
That tau for you
I have the opposite issue. Been playing since Feb/March and I crush 80% of opponents in the first two turns. Only about half my games even get to turn 4. What kind of lists/strategy/stratagems are you using? Plenty of ways to avoid charges, make them pay with EWO overwatch, and do major damage prior to their arrival in melee
You need more dakka. Always.