Tau lists "not competitive?"

[Malachi]

Hi everyone,

I've read lately on a few different blogs and such of people almost completely dismissing the entire Tau army saying things like, "They're not competitive" or "they only have one competitive build." In my gaming group we have a guy who often plays Tau and he has been quite successful, so I'm not sure where this is coming from. He uses a combination of Broadsides and Hammerheads, with support from Crisis Suits and Pathfinders providing lots of Markerlights. The ML negate the cover of whatever he wants to shoot, and then the S10 AP1 guns do the rest. I play Space Wolves and my mech is generally blasted off the table by Turn 2.

The things I read lead me to believe that Tau are easily swept aside, but that hasn't been my experience. What am I missing?

[Foosh]

I don't think that it is Tau are not competitive by any means, I played them for a little over a year and was able to play them rather competitively. I think the issue is both lack of choices, in all the new codices there are so many options of incredible things to take that are balanced and good at everything. Whereas in the Tau codex you can only retreat so far before you find a table edge. Also, my main reason I stopped playing them, aside from finding the army I originally wanted to play, was that to win you pretty much had to have a perfect game. All-in-all I just got tired of the headaches and lack of fun haha.

[Quade_C]

Sadly I have to agree. Tau need to bubble wrap their units, then sacrifice them, and then keep falling back. If you have a bad round or two of shooting you will die against any close combat army. Rail guns and crisis suits are great for shooting but a the Tau army dies when your dice go against you.

[Lerra]

Here's the thing with Tau - it's very specialized. If everyone was a perfect general who made no tactical errors, Tau would demolish some armies and be demolished by others (like playing rock/paper/scissors), and probably have a win rate just below .500. Tau just doesn't have the tools to deal with certain types of armies, regardless of generalship. But a lot of armies just can't deal with well-played Tau, either.

In the real world, that means that people don't bring Tau to tournaments because the chance is too high that you'll run into an army that counters Tau and be knocked out of the tournament. But some people still bring Tau and Tau still occasionally wins tournaments.

In casual play, Tau does fine, as long as there is a decent general behind the army. A lot of people think very poorly of Tau because it's hard to play, and new players who play Tau get destroyed by new players who picked up almost any other army. Tau is very unforgiving (kind of like most Eldar lists).

A lot of the local Tau players are at .600 to .750, mostly because of better generalship. They still don't win very many local tournaments, though, because the other top players in the area tend to be good counters to Tau, and they are constantly playing those players for first place and losing.

[Malachi]

So what are the common counters to Tau? I have tried the "all out charge forward" and it doesn't seem to work well. Maybe my Tau player just rolls consistently well.

[Lerra]

It depends a bit on the Tau list, but here's some that I've seen:

Space wolf scouts that arrive behind the Tau player. Or, vanilla space marine scouts in a Land Speeder Storm that can get the first-turn assault. I saw one squad of 5 scouts kill 800 points of Tau in one game.

Drop Pod marines, or anything that is tough against shooting and shows up on your front door suddenly. Tau needs to wipe them out in one turn or be assaulted. Also works for gaunts in spore pods, deep striking terminators in large numbers (aka Deathwing), Chaos Daemons with Fateweaver and Bloodcrushers, or Shrike with infiltrating marines/terminators.

Multiple Land Raiders filled with assaulty guys. Tau needs to stop all of the land raiders on turn 1 or 2, and that's hard even with railguns.

Leafblower Imp Guard, or chimera-spam Guard. Tau excels at killing vehicles but they just can't deal with an army that shoots better than they do, plus the hordes of chimeras will tank shock the low-Ld Tau off the table.

Anything that makes Tau take leadership tests. For Blood Angels, Fear the Darkness means a bad day for Tau. Tau have no defense against psychic powers.

Horde in general. Horde infantry Imp Guard is especially mean, because most Tau armies don't have the firepower to kill 150+ guardsmen with support, and the Guardsmen often have more/better shots than the Tau anyway. Horde orks and horde marines are tough fights, too.

Valkyries/Vendettas loaded with guys who have heavy flamers will destroy a whole squad of Pathfinders on turn 1 because of scout.

[eagleboy7259]

-Devilfish and Piranha's giving up additional kill points because of gun drone teams

-Troop choices that stink in assault because of 5th edition rules either because they're garbage in assault to begin with and their low I2 means they get swallowed up when they flee or their armor is so poor they lose assaults by large margins and take moral tests that they have little hope of passing.

-All the best units compete for Heavy Support and Elites slots leaving the army with a lot of ineffective "filler" units at higher points levels.

-The benefits granted by jetpacks are basically negated because of the Run and Fleet special rules. The number of Beasts and Calvary units running around in the game has increased dramatically since the Tau Empire Codex was introduced

-Usually limited numbers of true anti-tank popping weapons (usually 4-6 railguns and a handful of fireknife crisis suits)


Mech Tau still remains a pretty decent list with disruption pods granting cover saves to all of the tanks. You just have to remember to upgrade all the Devilfish to smart missile systems and to equip and use crisis suit teams effectively.

[BlindGunn]

<sigh> Sadly, when I first bought Tau, it was because they were so different from my Space Wolves. Wanted to go to "shooty" vs another "melee" army.

In 3rd & 4th Edition, I could go out with 4-6 large squads of Firewarriors and expect them to do reasonably well. I even beat Assault Marines in HtH in desperation attacks. Everything supported the Firewarriors by taking out things they couldn't. And everything was useful (yes, even the Drone Squads!).

I have to agree with others, the 5th Edition rules made it so Firewarriors don't have sufficient "shooty" time to reduce the assaults before they impact. As a result of Firewarriors low inititive and the leadership roll, they will more likely to flee and be destroyed. Before, I had usually outnumbered the attacking unit, had a chance of passing Leadership and staying in the fight a turn or two OR at least run far enough away that I could rally again. This let me move things around to revenge my sacrificed units. Not many things survived three 12-man squads of Firewarriors double-tapping...

Now, most Tau armies have minimum number of minimum-sized Firewarrior squads, usually mounted in a Devilfish, just to fulfill Org Chart requirements. They grab or contest objectives - that's about it. The work has to be done by the Heavies and Elites now. There's a few mixes that work better than others, but depends on who you play and how many points your games are. 2-3 Hammer Heads are good for low point-games, but larger armies tend to go for more squads of 3 Broadsides and lots of Crisis suits to deal with the large amount of armour out there.

I still like to take my large Firewarrior Squads, but I'm stubborn and don't play that competitively anymore.

Or at least, that's what I tell everyone... :D

[jorz192]

Thunderwolves with storm shields, drop pods, the wolf scouts will work as well.

Tanks will get blown away so don't really bother taking them.

And for space wolves Njal Stormcaller against Tau can be deadly.

[eagleboy7259]

Tanks will get blown away so don't really bother taking them.


How do you figure that? The hammerhead is a reasonably priced tank, it boasts better armor than a predator, mutli-trackers give it the ability to move its full 12" and still shoot, and disruption pods grant it a 4+ cover save so long as the enemy isn't within 12" which is quite do-able. On top of that the new blast rules make it so the railgun can straight blow away units with the large blast template.

If you're smart, you'll start the dang thing in reserve (along with probably the rest of your army) and take a commander with that fleet beacon homer thing to help with reserves. Hammerheads are dang good tanks.

Reserving protects you from the majority of the nastiness that will come its way - drop pod dreadnoughts & melta units, alpha strike guard, etc.

[SonicPara]

How do you figure that? The hammerhead is a reasonably priced tank, it boasts better armor than a predator, mutli-trackers give it the ability to move its full 12" and still shoot, and disruption pods grant it a 4+ cover save so long as the enemy isn't within 12" which is quite do-able. On top of that the new blast rules make it so the railgun can straight blow away units with the large blast template.

If you're smart, you'll start the dang thing in reserve (along with probably the rest of your army) and take a commander with that fleet beacon homer thing to help with reserves. Hammerheads are dang good tanks.

Reserving protects you from the majority of the nastiness that will come its way - drop pod dreadnoughts & melta units, alpha strike guard, etc.

He was advising how to fight Tau with Space Wolves...

I just picked up the Tau and while I find them severely limiting compared to my Marines, I can still win games with them. The Tau are just less forgiving and greatly misunderstood. Yes the Tau do their damage in the shooting phase but the way you win is by dominating the movement phase. Make use of Jump-Shoot-Jump, Multi-Trackers, and Advanced Stabilization Systems. Apply pressure with Piranha units or flanking Hammerheads. I know she isn't popular but I take Shadowsun in my force to make a Ld10 firebase but I find that her dual fusion blasters are invaluable against drop-pod assaults as well as things like outflanking Vendettas.

Tau are very capable but most of the copypasta lists and tactics out there don't take full advantage of their strengths. Remember, look to dominate the movement phase. Succeeding here will open up your enemy for death by shooting.

[Commander Vimes]

I play Tau competitively and win more than 50% of my games, mostly through superior generalship and surprise. I've been playing them through all of fourth edition and through all of fifth so I know every single little trick that can be pulled with them and how to respond to pretty much any opponent.

The real problem is that often the only response is to curl up and die. There are several popular armies in the tournament scene that Tau simply auto-lose to. All jump pack Blood Angels simply have too many fast moving feel no pain bodies for the Tau to deal with. Drop pod Space Wolves with Jaws of the World Wolf can destroy half a Tau army the turn they drop.

Tau also lack massacre potential to get the maximum battle points needed to win large tournaments. We're a lot better in a win/loss format.

I like playing my Tau, if only because they make a great spoiler army against someone building a list to beat the metagame. The fact that Tau still wreck mechanized marines, that aren't Blood Angels, gives me a fighting chance. I typically finish in the top 10% of large 40-50 man tournaments, and have won some smaller ones.

[blackarmchair]

I actually wrote an article about making Tau competitive in 5th edition on my blog.

Check it out!

http://perilsoftheblog.blogspot.com/

[Lockark]

If a Tau army is played right, it will beat any other army in the game. The problem is knowing how to play them right.

There very unforgiving, but as long as you don't mess up you can dominate a game.

[blackarmchair]

If a Tau army is played right, it will beat any other army in the game. The problem is knowing how to play them right.

There very unforgiving, but as long as you don't mess up you can dominate a game.

Well I think the issue is a bit more complex than that. Even a strong player (heck a perfect player) cannot mitigate some of the inherit weaknesses in Codex: Tau (as well as in other older books) simply because the game has changed.

This book was written for a different edition, there's wargear that's no longer applicable and - in reality - there are units that are either not costed correctly or downright worthless at any cost.

For example, I posted a battle report on my blog between my good friend JP's Tau and another friend's Tyranids. While it is true that JP is not a perfect player and that his list has some sticking points that can be critiqued; what he brought and what he did is fairly standard for Tau. There was literally no way he could have beaten the army he went up against. JP didn't only get outplayed (although to be fair he did, his opponent is a VERY highly-skilled player) if they had switched sides and played the Tau still would have lost.

The good news is, what the Tau has that DOES still work, works. Like so many others, Tau are just stuck to one or two builds; sad but true.

I'd wager to say there are some armies that Tau have literally almost no chance to defeat. While that can be said of any armylist I think there are only a few codecies that simply cannot handle some of the common lists in the meta out there.

[gcsmith]

The main problem with tau is its a shooting army with little to no mobility on the whole. with transports that offer 2kp and are too expensive, and the only good choices compete too much. They also have little cc support in an edition where cc is garunteed.

Also the only semi competative lists require £12.50 per model units.

[Huge_eldar]

A good friend of mine plays tau, and his list is very solid. In our gaming circle we all agree, tau are competative but suffer very badly from old codex syndrome. In a system where every codex that comes out cheapens the cost of units, they are suffering badly from over priced, low selection units. Yeah FW may be ok in price but suits are too much, maybe even sides too. Also 2 troop choices? That cannot work now a days.

I personally believe any DOA BA list or any list with a lot of fnp will beat tau every time. I play a nurgle style CSM list and he has a very difficult time and its not that competitive lol

[Uncle Nutsy]

One of the first armies I played in 40k, and still do, is Tau.

so much cool stuff about them.

But I agree that Tau simply does not have the torrent of fire to deal with armies in fifth edition. Sure they work great against anything mechanized because they just wreck house. but to deal with say an army of a mass of Necron warriors at 1000 pts or less just can't be done. You can either melt them with fusion, blast them to bits with your other high strength weaponry, but even then with their WBB feature they are survivable to the point where a good number can reach your lines... and then they wreck you.

Tau simply doesn't have the mobility, speed or weight of fire to deal with speedy FNP armies or Necrons effectively anymore. Sure you can try and pin them but with high leadership of a lot of armies, this means you're donating a lot of markerlights to just that one purpose.

[Da Gargoyle]

Tau don't sound all that different to Eldar in that if you make a mistake or roll a bad round of dice you cop a hiding. Eldar are extremely specialised with limited ranged fire power and any assault capability limited to Elites which compete with anti armour for the slot.

Your basic guardian is low on strength, toughness, WS & BS, (Particularly the BS, no one believes them). They get incredibly exspensive to improve the profiles with specialised troops which means small forces. My scary dark reapers cost 207 points for a 4 efl sqd + exarch with tempest and crack shot.

What you need is to create killing fields. A kroot mob or sting wing flahes in front of your termies, shoot for casualties and take an assault. The other guy wins and stands flat footed in front of your 3 fire warrior sqds. Of course I don't know tau but I do this with my storm guardians and scorpions.

One other interesting point, is that 5th ed makes it harder to kill with cover saves and the new damage chart for vehicles. And I think it is a little over balanced towards assault so you need to stutter an assault in open ground. Deep strike is the hassle, I never see people scatter.

[jorz192]

How do you figure that? The hammerhead is a reasonably priced tank, it boasts better armor than a predator, mutli-trackers give it the ability to move its full 12" and still shoot, and disruption pods grant it a 4+ cover save so long as the enemy isn't within 12" which is quite do-able. On top of that the new blast rules make it so the railgun can straight blow away units with the large blast template.

If you're smart, you'll start the dang thing in reserve (along with probably the rest of your army) and take a commander with that fleet beacon homer thing to help with reserves. Hammerheads are dang good tanks.

Reserving protects you from the majority of the nastiness that will come its way - drop pod dreadnoughts & melta units, alpha strike guard, etc.


I meant the Space Wolves shouldn't take tanks. Sorry about the confusion.

[blackarmchair]

Tau don't sound all that different to Eldar.

I agree totally, they're A LOT like Eldar.

They're blue Eldar who trade farseers and close-combat ability for metal pole cannons and gundams...for the greater good.

[w7west]

I would say Tau and Eldar are about equal in power per point cost. They are capable of doing some really nice moves once you get practiced with them. The only problem is that the other gunline armies (and even non gunline armies lolwolfs bloodangels) are better at shooting than tau. This would be fine except for that these other races have much more than just shooting to bring to the table, where as tau collapses as soon as anything hits their lines.


If you like tau I would say go ahead its a fun army to play with and blowing things up with rapid fire firewarriors is great.

[Uncle Nutsy]

another fun thing i've discovered with tau is they really shine when you play the vertical game. Sit your tanks atop of ruins, place your broadsides up on precipices that are almost impossible for the opponent to get to, run your piranhas around just outside of their heavy guns and you can have the opponent dividing his forces in into small pieces to try and catch you while you play ring around the rosie. :D

[BlindGunn]

Kind of curious - how are you guys running your Piranhas these days?

I used to run a group of 3-4 with Burst Guns as a Drone Squad Taxi service and Stealth Warrior Substitute before the Great Mech Army Invasions of 5th Edition. I still consider it from time to time.

Anyone still running them this way?

How large a squad do you run with Meltas?

[Lerra]

I'll run a lone Piranha with melta. It's cheap and it makes for a nice blocking unit in a pinch.

I much prefer the Forgeworld Piranha rules and I'll use those whenever I can.

[Fishboy]

I started with Tau a little over a year ago, and have played them solidly until just last week, when I finally started fielding a nid force. Here's what I've found, I'm curious if anyone has a similar thought.

Try this, instead of bringing all-comer lists, announce ahead of time what armies you're each going to bring to the fight. I've found that when I know what I'm facing, I've been able to build lists that were capable of dealing with just about anything out there. I've been least successful against Space Wolves, but those were my earliest games, and I look forward to trying them again now that I've got more experience under my belt. But going in with each of us knowing what the other will bring, I've been competitive against orks, Blood Angels, nids, Eldar, and even IG. I didn't win every one, but none was a blow out, and usually came down to needing to make some rolls right at the end. (Like needing a run roll high enough to contest an objective right at the end of a game.)

The place where I've failed to really shine is in bringing an all-comers list. By the time I've accounted for the different types of forces I'm likely to face, I find that I need to get lucky in the first couple of turns, or I suffer the loss of a critical capability in that particular fight. Even if I pull out a draw, I've been fighting on my heels the entire game, and there's nothing I hate more in a fight than never having the chance to go on the offensive.

So yeah, if you're looking for competitive in a tournament setting, I think that Tau probably aren't the army to play right now. But if you're looking for fun games with friends, there's no reason not to play them.

[gcsmith]

Tau require heavy terrain boards to win, if terrain is sparse, u will struggle, terrain is a tau friend since it elevates u, and ur grav vehicles can stay up above. Also since u negate cover with marker lights u win :)