The Greater Good faces some of its toughest battles on the tables of 10th Edition, so the Ethereals have sent their strongest soldier to show you how to outsmart and outgun the foe. If you hadn’t already guessed, today Art of War’s Richard Siegler joins us to provide a Faction Focus for the T’au Empire.
Why Should You Play This Faction?
Do you like powerful sci-fi battlesuits? Do you like mobility? Long term calculations and planning? Patiently waiting for the killing blow?
Tau in 10th Edition is an army that can choose between a control playstyle that baits opponents into difficult positions before delivering a killing blow or one that focuses on maximizing damage with as many efficient guns as possible to overwhelm armies that spend hundreds of points on mission playing tools and units.
This article is going to focus on the former as the Tau Index has some of the best control options in 10th Edition and it’s a rewarding playstyle which will challenge you to improve at many fundamental Warhammer skills such as long term planning, precise positioning, forcing opponents into positions where they could more easily make mistakes, careful resource management, how to effectively delay and slow down the pace of a game to put yourself in a winning position.
Tau is not a top 5 Index in 10th Edition, but it is an index that can compete with better armies through experience and player skill.
What Are the Must-Have Units to Start This Faction?
The T’au have a narrow selection of very efficient units which can be built around to allow the army to “punch up” against stronger forces. There are some options to consider beyond these in more casual games, but right now any serious competitive army will need to build around these concepts and combinations.
Crisis Battlesuits
Your go-to damage dealers. Take a bunch of cyclic ion blasters, add lots of Shields Drones to up their durability to respectable levels, and blow your opponent to pieces. Stacking buffs on these is how you unleash your full damage potential.
Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit
Coldstars make your Crisis Teams way more mobile, allowing you to bring that pain to where it’s needed. They also add even more firepower to a unit you’re already going to stack buffs on.
Tetras
These provide a winning combination of durable infiltrating hull that can play for objectives or cause disruption alongside handing out full hit re-rolls. These help the army operate at maximum effectiveness, and they’re very cheap.
Piranhas
Another cheap, speedy hull that can be used to secure positions or act as an Observer early on. They also add a bit of alpha strike potential with seeker missiles.
Ghostkeels
A fantastic all-rounder, far tougher than almost any other Lone Operative and armed with some very dangerous weapon options, making it extremely good at causing problems and racking up points on a flank.
Other excellent choices
Stealth Battlesuits
Cheap and versatile, able to offer both force multiplication, a free use of Rapid Ingress, or just solid early objective play.
Aun’Va
Doesn’t really play like an Ethereal should, as the buff he hands out is fairly meaningless, but acts as an incredibly durable Lone Operative to park on an objective.
Firesight Team
Yet another Infiltrating Lone Operative (helping the army potentially reach critical mass of them to build around), and able to occasionally snipe out a key Character.
Commander Farsight
A strong output boost for a Crisis team, and gives them a bit of melee counterpunch to draw on in an emergency.
Broadsides
Just a relatively attractively priced all-rounder, and the 4+ Feel No Pain against Mortals is great in the metagame.
Ethereal
Extra command points never go amiss.
How Does This Faction Secure Objectives?
This is the tricky part of playing Tau. Tau lack the type of durable units that primary dominant armies such as Custodes, Dark Angels, Necrons or others have access to. Very few Tau units are durable enough to survive against dedicated firepower.
So you have two options:
- My preference is to use Ghostkeels or Aun’va on midfield objectives to force enemy damage dealers to get within 12″ to kill them. If they don’t then I either get primary or they contest the objective with higher amounts of OC which I then kill and reduce the amounts of units they will have late game. Or they send enough damage to kill your lone operative on the objective and you then kill part of their damage dealing core while still having your key units alive (usually a 6x Crisis Battlesuit unit does the killing so it can strike and fade to safety and not risk you losing any units).
- Or instead of controlling primary you simply contest or deny your opponent primary points by throwing enough OC onto the objective or by killing them off it.
Sometimes you will switch between both options as needed depending on what the game demands.
How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Hordes?
Utterly eviscerates them. If the meta shifts towards hordes, Tau will be benefit significantly as a 6x Crisis Battlesuit Team with 3x Cyclic Ion Blasters per model led by a Coldstar Commander (moves 12″ can advance flat 6″ and shoot thanks to the Assault keyword and then Strike and Fades 12″ back behind a wall) with Exemplar of the Kauyon and the Tetra or Stealthsuit observing buff dominates horde units. If you are not running this unit, the strongest combo in the Tau Index, then yes Tau will likely struggle against hordes as most of their firepower does have the volume to do serious damage to horde units. Blast as a keyword is not as prevalent as other indexes.
*Note if the horde in question is toughness 3, airburst fragmentation launchers would be useful again.
How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Tanks and Monsters?
This is the strange question for Tau. As there are a few options for dedicated anti tank units, but the Index as a whole lacks the [ANTI-x] keyword.
The best options are the 6x model Crisis unit fully buffed as described above that can punch up into most targets thanks to sheer volume.
Another option is 3x Broadsides with Heavy Rail Rifles, Seeker Missiles/Twin Plasma and Missile Drones. They lack mobility but can come in from strategic reserves for a big damage play.
You could instead go for running 6 to 9 Piranhas with double Seeker missile and Fusion Blaster each. In Kauyon they are devastating.
Commander Farsight can also lead a Crisis unit with Cyclic that uses Steathsuits Homing Beacon and Rapid Ingress to arrive in a spot where they can move 10″ on your turn and end that move within 9″ of the enemy unit you want to kill to access the +1 to wound ability.
Sky Rays or Hammerheads are anti tank but are pricey for their output especially before Kauyon is active and lack the defense or access to Strike and Fade that the best option provides.
What Combos Should You Build Around?
- Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit with Exemplar of the Kauyon leading a unit of 6x Crisis Battlesuits with Cyclic Ion Blasters and Shield Generators (see above for an explanation on this unit).
- Two Crisis Battlesuit Cyclic bricks led by Coldstar Commanders. One with the Exemplar of the Kauyon Enhancement and the other with the Puretide Engram Neurochip Enhancement so you can bank CP and have a turn where both Crisis units get to Strike and Fade after dealing crippling damage.
- Lone Operative Objective control with multiple Ghostkeels and some combination of Shadowsun, Aun’Va or Firesight Teams.
Reading this you might ask: “Where are the Breachers and Devilfish, or Pathfinders, or the classic tanks?” And the truth is that this Index has a very narrow selection of efficient units and a specific playstyle that lets the army punch up against better Indexes. My advice comes from a place of wanting to do well at big tournaments, which the Tau list below is capable of, if I don’t make mistakes. If you are playing T’au at local RTTs or in friendly casual games you can run a much wider swath of T’au units like Breachers and Devilfish or Sky Ray Gunships and perform well with them.
Building a List
If you plan to play at a big event this is the list I recommend:
My updated tournament list
T’au Empire
CHARACTER
Aun’va (65 points)
- 1x Aun’va
- 1x Close combat weapon
- 2x Ethereal Guard
- 2x Supreme honour blade
Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit (140 points)
- Warlord
- 3x Cyclic ion blaster
- 1x Cyclic ion blaster
- 1x Marker Drone
- 1x Shield Drone
- Enhancement: Exemplar of the Kauyon
Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit (150 points)
- 3x Cyclic ion blaster
- 1x Cyclic ion blaster
- 1x Marker Drone
- 1x Shield Drone
- Enhancement: Puretide Engram Neurochip
OTHER DATASHEETS
Crisis Battlesuits (390 points)
- 1x Crisis Shas’vre
- 1x Cyclic ion blaster
- 2x Cyclic ion blaster
- 2x Shield Drone
- 1x Shield Generator
- 5x Crisis Shas’ui
- 5x Cyclic ion blaster
- 10x Cyclic ion blaster
- 10x Shield Drone
- 5x Shield Generator
Crisis Battlesuits (390 points)
- 1x Crisis Shas’vre
- 1x Cyclic ion blaster
- 2x Cyclic ion blaster
- 2x Shield Drone
- 1x Shield Generator
- 5x Crisis Shas’ui
- 5x Cyclic ion blaster
- 10x Cyclic ion blaster
- 10x Shield Drone
- 5x Shield Generator
Crisis Battlesuits (195 points)
- 1x Crisis Shas’vre
- 1x Cyclic ion blaster
- 2x Cyclic ion blaster
- 2x Shield Drone
- 1x Shield Generator
- 2x Crisis Shas’ui
- 2x Cyclic ion blaster
- 4x Cyclic ion blaster
- 4x Shield Drone
- 2x Shield Generator
Ghostkeel Battlesuit (170 points)
- 1x Battlesuit Support System
- 1x Fusion collider
- 1x Twin fusion blaster
Ghostkeel Battlesuit (170 points)
- 1x Battlesuit Support System
- 1x Fusion collider
- 1x Twin fusion blaster
Piranha (55 points)
- 1x Piranha fusion blaster
- 2x Seeker missile
Piranha (55 points)
- 1x Piranha fusion blaster
- 2x Seeker missile
Piranha (55 points)
- 1x Piranha fusion blaster
- 2x Seeker missile
Tetras (80 points)
Tetras (80 points)
1995pts
Wrap Up
Check out the Art of War 40k YouTube channel and our War Room subscription for more Tau Empire content along with many other videos designed to improve your play and provide you with a strong foundation to understand all facets of 10th Edition.
Thanks for joining us Richard, and do go and check out all of Art of War’s fantastic content. As always if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
