Ways for Tau to compensate for bad close combat abilities

Just thought I'd drop this for you Tau players to help avoiding that dreaded third phase! From the tau experts over at TauOnline.

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Question

Tau suck at close combat, no great revelation there. This is the only real flaw of the Tau list (They all have to have one.) But this is a really big flaw. If Tau lose a battle is can almost always (Either directly or indirectly) be put down to being bad at assault.

Unfortunately for Tau players, assault is also a really big part of the game. Probably the biggest (I don't think this should be the case but hey, that's my opinion). All the above rises a really big question for Tau players; what to do about assault.
Answer

Unfortunately there is no easy answer (Why is life like that?!). There is three Broad ways of dealing with assault for Tau players. A lot of people will argue one answer to the bitter end, but the truth is that each one is more appropriate for different situations. The three solutions are: avoid it by shooting, avoid it by moving, and let Kroot handle it.

Lets start with avoid it by shooting. Tau suck at assault, but they are really good at shooting. So good in-fact that you may entirely destroy your opponent before he gets the chance to assault, or weaken your opponent to the point that even Tau can win an assault. To do this you must get as much Fire power as possible and as many shots as possible. I prefer to get the cheapest HQ possible (Ethereal or shas'el) and as many Fire warriors as possible then use Broad side battle suits to provide anti tank cover then use either crisis or stealth suits to provide mobile support.

This works because with a cheaper HQ I can afford more fire power, the Fire Warriors (read above) (at least four twelve man teams) are excellent at taking out enemy units that would provide the bulk of enemy attacks in combat and thus are the most dangerous thing to your forces. The Broad Sides are a must because Tau can very easily find them selves with out effective anti tank support (at which point you have lost). Finally the Crisis or stealth suits are there because something will always go wrong, and they provide you with more options once it does.

The use of a speed bump can also be effective, but isn't very fluffy. Avoiding assault by shooting is best vs. fast assault armies or large armies e.g. Dark Eldar, Eldar, Nids, or Orks. It is also effective against Marines.

You can also in some circumstances avoid assault by out manoeuvring your opponent. An army that would use this tactic would be made up of units that are either mounted in devilfish or are equipped with jet packs. The HQ will almost certainly be a crisis suit either with body guards or embedded in another unit.

Elites will heavily in such a list because they are very mobile with a fair amount of fire power. Troops should be Fire warriors half of which will have carbines, as carbines work best with the devilfish that they will also be mounted in. Your heavy support will probably be Hammerheads rather then board side battle suits, as Broad sides have to remain stationary to be effective. This tactic is best against small but slow armies e.g. marines.

If Kroot are going to be effective in combat you either have lots of them and/or you had to seek it out. GW tends to say that Kroot are the assault element of the tau army. This is to a point true, because they are better at it then Tau, but that doesn't mean they're good. Kroot have a poor stat line and no save, this means that they will generally strike last and have little staying power. In their favor they are cheep and they get 3 attacks on the charge.

So if you are going to use Kroot in an assault you are either going up against rival Tau or guard. Kroot are best when used in great numbers so that their lack of staying power is negated. Thus an army that is intended for this tactic will comprise primarily of Kroot and little else. This tactic is best used against Armies that aren't that good at combat e.g. guard.

I read this article from this guy. One of the reason that when I decided to "ahem" RE-build my Tau Empire, I wanted to be fast and strike hard....so I could run like the wind if needed too.....HA!~

yeah, the tauonline guys have their heads on pretty straight. They also have frequent posters that are top 10 GT Tau players.

In the other gaming group the usual Tau player (not Bruce) brings this up when we are generally talking about the advantages and disadvantages of certain armies. This usually comes up because I can honestly say I think Tau are one of the most balanced armies out there (though they can be broken, as all armies can). We then go on to compare subtle weaknesses (too lazy to think right now) and blaring weaknesses (Tau in cc). Just saying.

I wouldn't say they are balanced in the sense that they are good at everything in some way.

But as far as it being hard to make them broken etc I would agree with you except for mecah tau... which are pretty broken.

Not saying they are good in every way, just that...well, I don't really know what I mean by balanced.

I think I feel along the same lines as you, I feel that they are pretty balanced, even if they are overly shooty. Something about that means they can't be broken as easily or something...

if we wanted "balance", we would all be playing some kind of SM army.....

just my 2 cents....yes.....everything can be broken...but not much

Yeah, I think it has to do with the fact that they were designed to be a totally shooty army that they are generally balanced when played like that. Brokeness usually comes about by min/maxing something that was not originally intended. With Tau, maxing shooty was designed to be balanced. They only get brokenish if you max out vehicles.

Similarly Nids get broken when you max out shooty fexs and a flyrant, not at all what was expected with playtesting. And Eldar with impossible to destroy harlie transporters with St8 AP2 weapons plus shurikens.