10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (2024)

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.

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (1)

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?

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (2)

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

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (3)

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

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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

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (5)

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

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (6)

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

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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?

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (8)

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:

  1. 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).
  2. 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?

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (9)

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?

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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

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 atcontact@goonhammer.com.

Related

10th Edition Competitive Faction Focus: T’au Empire (2024)

FAQs

Are tau good 10th edition? ›

Overall, the new T'au Codex does a great job of bringing depth and variety to the army. Index T'au had strengths, but the Kauyon detachment forced players into stalling for the late game.

What is the detachment rule in Tau 10th edition? ›

Detachment Rule

Each time a T'au battlesuit model makes a ranged attack that targets a unit within 12″, it gains +1 strength. If the target is within 6″, the attack also gains +1 AP. Right off the bat, the detachment rule encourages aggressive play, or at least rewards your units against an aggressive opponent.

How much does Ghostkeel battlesuit points cost? ›

First of all, the Ghostkeel isn't cheap- 170 to 200pts is the usual price tag, which isn't all that much cheaper than a Riptide- and a Riptide has vastly better firepower as well as the range to use it.

What is the Arrokon protocol? ›

The Arro'kon Protocol (Battle Tactic) is a very nice option when confronted by hordes of enemies, bestowing the Sustained Hits 1 or Sustained Hits 2 ability on the selected unit when they target enemy units containing either 6-10 or 11+ models respectively.

What is the Tau army weak to? ›

Limited psyker potential: Unlike some other factions, the Tau possess very few individuals with psychic abilities. This makes them vulnerable to the warp-based powers and psychic abilities wielded by other factions.

Why don t the Tau use melee? ›

They are on average a little smaller than humans (although that's not the main reason, but it contributes). They see it as distasteful and prefer ranged combat. They don't train for it as much. But the primary reason is the way their eyes work.

Have Space Marines defected to Tau? ›

Not likely unfortunately. Space marines are born and trained only for war and battle much like orks which is why they have no lasting place in the tau empire and the greater good.

Have Space Marines joined Tau? ›

I think one of the reasons no space marines have joined the T'au are that they, first, have been indoctrinated into the Imperium and will not vere off from that concept.

What is the tallest Tau battlesuit? ›

XV104 Riptide is the pinnacle of the Earth caste's battlesuit development. It stands twice as tall as the XV8 Crisis suit, but its movements are more like those of its smaller cousins than the mechanical stiffness displayed by Imperial walkers with their crude servo-motors.

What is the smallest Tau battlesuit? ›

The XV15 Stealthsuit is the smallest of all the various Tau Battlesuit variants, and is designed for use in operations requiring a high degree of stealth.

How big is a tau ghostkeel? ›

Additional information
Weight0.22 kg
Dimensions22.5 × 15.5 × 4 cm
BrandGames Workshop
Short Code56-20
Commodity Code95030095
1 more row

What is the BEAST90 protocol? ›

The BEAST90 protocol replicated soccer match play in terms of time, movement patterns, physical demands (volume and intensity), distances, and mean and HRpeak values, as well as having an aerobic load similar to that observed during a soccer match.

What is the CoSIP protocol? ›

The CoSIP protocol is a constrained. version of the SIP protocol intended to minimize the amount of network traffic, and therefore energy consumption, targeted for IoT scenarios. A similar effort. in trying to minimize the amount of data in IoT and M2M applications is being.

What is the Galileosky protocol? ›

Galileosky protocol. Galileosky protocol supports bi-directional data exchange between the tracking device and the server. The data are transmitted via GPRS channel with the use of TCP/IP protocol.

How good are Tau weapons? ›

Nevertheless, T'au Plasma Rifles are still extremely effective against targets such as heavy infantry, and are able to melt even Ceramite with ease. The T'au Plasma Rifle can be considered the equivalent of an Imperial Plasma Gun.

What are the best Tau models? ›

Best Warhammer 40,000 T'au Empire Model Kits In 2024
  • Tau Empire Fire Warriors. Best Advanced Infantry Kit. ...
  • Tau Empire Commander Plastic Kit. Best Elite Command Unit. ...
  • Hammerhead Gunship. Best Aerial Dominance Unit. ...
  • XV88 Broadside Battlesuit. Best Long-Range Firepower Unit. ...
  • Tau Empire XV104 Riptide Battlesuit. ...
  • See More.

Is Tau a strong faction? ›

T'au are a powerful faction of gun-toting Xenos. Their Codex represents not just the T'au in their battlesuits, but also Kroot and Vespids as well.

Is Tau Empire good? ›

The Tau are often seen as being a 'good' race, but they are not. Granted, they might be the one race that is closest to what we percieve as 'good', but they show now mercy or pity towards those who disagree with their philosophy, & the 'choice' they give to other races is no real choice at all.

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