Tau: How they play - Part Deux

Last Friday was the second battle I played with Tau since I rebooted my army. Last time I wrote a post pondering what I did wrong and/or could do better. So today, let's take a look at the lessons I learned and what can still use some improvement.


For that, I will take a look at the lessons I talked about in the last post-battle post: you can read that one here.

Lesson nr 1: Make better use of innate mobility

In the first battle, I didn't disengage in time, leading to half my army being slaughtered in close combat. This time, as soon as the Tyranid reserves plonked down in my deployment zone, my squads scattered all over the place, to force the opponent to make choices instead of being able to engage all my squads.

I didn't do this by using more devilfish, as I said in my first post, but rather by using the mobility afforded by battlesuits. So, lesson learned, let's move on.

Lesson nr 2: Don't stick all markerlights in one squad

One 10 man pathfinder squad and 2 markerlights in a 6 man (+1 drone) stealth squad. That was it for markerlights in my first list. This time around, I took a smaller stealth squad, reducing the threat level of the squad and thus reducing target priority for it. The same goes for the pathfinders, as I took 2 small squads of 5 men instead of one squad of 10. This worked out quite well, only losing one pathfinder squad during the battle and the stealth squad in the aftermath (at which point they did their job).

Lesson nr 3: Shoot often, shoot hard, shoot far

Instead of the 2 Firewarrior squads, I took 3, which increases the Troops count and adds another 10 pulse rifles to shoot with. In addition to this, I brought a Fireblade, to boost one of the Firewarrior squads with another shot, effectively doubling the squads effectiveness at long range. The Fireblade comes in at 60 points while the Crisis Commander was more than 3 times this cost. So basically, I could afford the Fireblade AND the entire extra Firewarrior squad out of the points cost of the Commander.

Losing the Crisis Commander also freed up a Crisis suit model (yeah, I build army lists partially based on what models I have available) so I added a (second) Crisis suit with two missile pods, doubling the amount of shots from that squad.

Instead of the Railgun on top of the Hammerhead, this time I opted for the Ion Cannon. This meant I lost my only S10 shot in the army, but I gained 3 S7 AP3 shots and a S8 AP3 large blast. Seeing as the S10 shot or lower powered submunition shot (S6 AP4 large blast) didn't do much last battle, I thought this could be worth it. Also, I added Longstrike to the Hammerhead, making it hit on twos!

The higher powered large blast and/or extra shots at S7 AP3 are great for shooting at bunched up heavy infantry and/or monstrous creatures. The efficacy can be compared to the Ion Accelerator on the Riptide, but at a much higher ballistic skill.

Lesson nr 4: Don't be afraid to bail out for The Greater Good

The Firewarrior squad that accompanied my Fireblade got shot up pretty bad in a certain turn and I promptly left the squad to join another Firewarrior squad, leaving a single Firewarrior to fend for himself the remainder of the battle. Also, because you can pre-measure all distances, you can keep your suits (stealth, riptide and crisis) at the ideal distance to be able to shoot the opponent without retaliation. Remember this and keep your distance.

I think I took my own advice to heart and I feel my army list and usage of the army were better for it. What do you think?