The Tau codex is arguably the best codex GW has printed to date. A-yup. That’s a hell of a statement, and one I intend to try and back up as I go through my review. I say this not because Tau are one of my favorite races in 40K but because I think that the book does so many things right and so very few things wrong that it’s hard to argue otherwise. Its model release was, in some ways, a bit underwhelming- we didn’t get the much-hoped for new Crisis kit nor all that many actual new units (two middling flyers and the Riptide.) The new fluff is good but hardly groundbreaking, as it still tells us next to nothing about the other Tau castes, Tau society, etc.

But where the book does succeed is in its rules, providing one of the most balanced and useable books to this day; there are essentially no true “dud” units, save maybe for a single named HQ, and almost everything in the book can reasonably be included in a competitive list in some way or another. This speaks very well to the internal balance of the book and although it’s hard to say with certainty, it doesn’t look like it will sit in any kind of overwhelming position compared to other published codices, either.



Moreover, the abundant presence of AA and multiple effective ally builds for the codex mean that it serves as a good counter to some of the more depressing realities of life in 6th edition, namely the overwhelming dominance of flyers. While not enough to reign in the problem on their own, Tau at least do not further contribute to the problem while bringing tools for a wide variety of other armies to deal with it if they so choose.

This isn’t to say the book has perfect internal balance- its airplanes are on the weak side, as are a few other units, and more than a few of the options are either must-takes or blatantly inferior, but on the whole the book is very good about giving you a wide variety of setups and builds to choose from, whether you want a mechanized force with tough tanks, a foot army full of battlesuits, or something else entirely. Even the CSM book had more limited builds and options and could only boast of being “dudless” in its HQ slot; Tau can make this claim across the whole of the book and has a much stronger argument for it to boot. No slot is useless or likely to remain empty in a majority of lists; and likewise, no slot is a guaranteed “always fill up” sort of thing, either. Options are available across many different units in many different ways, offering a general solutions to list-building problems virtually however they may please- and ones that often align well with the fluff, I might add.

The best part about all of this is that it really didn’t involve all that many changes to the units as they previously existed- in fact, none of the units were majorly rewritten, although some of them did gain some pretty significant upgrades (such as the Ethereal.) Whatever they did before, they still do essentially the same thing, but now they do it in such a way that the whole army works together to achieve its aims. Tau are a synergetic army that rely on mutual support- or support from allies- to achieve its goals, exactly as it should. There is no obvious “take 3x of these, dummy” unit in the book- indeed, taking three different units in a slot is not just possible but often times preferable. GW has finally written a book that actually fits with their own fluff very accurately. That is something that is genuinely shocking and new.

But enough superlatives- this is going to be the start of my Tau codex review, and it will likely be one of the longest installments, not because this article will be particularly long itself but because I intend to change the format so that later articles will be much shorter than before. I’ll be talking about units on an individual basis, breaking away from the “one or two articles per slot” format I’ve previously used for a number of reasons. The main one is selfish- it’s easier for me to write them in bits and pieces and I have a lot to do right now in my actual life. The second is practical- single articles allow more focused discussion on things, both by me and by commenters. The third is for the readers’ benefit- more numerous and shorter articles may be easier to digest and reinforce the core points of what I’m driving at. That doesn’t mean, of course, than I’m going to ignore the interplay of different units and factors, of course- I’ll do my best to talk about that sort of thing as we go along and, indeed, there will probably be several articles that don’t talk about any specific units at all, but rather discuss rules, strategies, or equipment instead. Tau have a lot of options open to them, but that also means you have to think carefully about how you will use those options.

So what are the Tau all about, anyways?

That’s easy- Tau are a shooting book. They are, in fact, the most dedicated shooting book to date; unlike IG, Necrons, etc, they have essentially zero close combat options of any worth available to them, so if you want that sort of thing you need to bring in allies. And, more specifically, they are a book about quality of shooting rather than quantity, most notably through the use of Markerlights, which allow them to increase their fire quality on any given unit should they need it. We’ll talk about Markerlights later- they get at LEAST one whole article to themselves- but suffice to say for now that their ability to selectively boost their firepower where it is most needed is absolutely critical to the army and cannot be underestimated. Tau also bring a lot of medium-strength weapons of various types, with even their weakest guns clocking in at S5 or so, and have a sub-theme of mobility, with all of their vehicles being skimmers and their other units often having some kind of speed upgrades.

Of course, all of this comes with downsides as well- Tau are not only utterly awful at close combat, they tend to have a bit weaker morale than most other armies (Ld7/8 being the standard, with a +1 for the optional sarge upgrade) and have a limited number of ways to mitigate this. They also come with BS3 as standard for virtually everything, meaning they are reliant on Markerlights to improve their otherwise-lackluster shooting performance. They also have very different kinds of upgrades and immunities than Imperial armies get- there is no “Extra Armor” equivalent, for example, nor do their sergeants get access to superior gear melee or shooting options. Their basic squads do not come with any heavy weapons and many of their effects (including warlord traits) are one-shot. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, their troops are very fragile and can struggle to cross the field in order to score objectives, which is a MAJOR limiter in a game that is largely about objectives.

Format

Before diving into the reviews of units proper I’m going to spend a few articles talking about major subjects of import- Markerlights and how they affect the army, Supporting Fire, and Tau and allies (both as and with.) I’ll then go through in the usual fashion, starting HQs, then Troops, then the rest of the slots, and discuss each of the pieces of the puzzle, with some occasional pauses to take note of particular decision points or considerations. With any luck I’ll be able to finish an article every ~3 days in this format, although I make no guarantees, as I have a lot of painting and other work to do this coming month. If there are particular subjects that you would like to see touched on other than the obvious ones, you can bring them up in the comments section and if I think they’re relevant enough they may get articles of their own.

I really like the Tau army and I’m very happy to see its current state in the game of 40K; I can only hope that Mr. Vetock manages to make another hit like this with his next book, as between him and Ward (and hopefully without Cruddace dragging things down) they can really get the game on new legs. Would that more books were written like it.