Warhammer 40K: What The Heck Are They Going To Do With T’au?

Let’s talk about the issues with the T’au and how GW is going to address them.

With two books already released for the new edition, we can start to see where things are going and how the game is intended to be played at this point. We also know that we sit at the start of a new Codex cycle that plans to refresh and remake all the books. Of all the books coming out in the future, the T’au Empire is the one that interests me the most as they seem to be an army that fundamentally doesn’t work well in 9th Edition. Let’s take a look at why that is.

Broken and Ripped Off

Now even in 8th, T’au had some major issues. They were fundamentally a broken army, and here I mean broken, not OP. They didn’t work well. Yes, they had a winning build, but they had one winning build that no one, not even T’au players, liked. On top of that, they saw many of their mechanics stolen by Marines over time. Even though T’au won some events and had a larger role in the meta that many other armies, it was a dark time for them, and the army has been in real trouble. 9th has only made that worse.

A Game About Objectives

9th Edition is very much a game about objectives. The new missions, which are being used by pretty much everyone, focus heavily on pushing forward, taking, and then holding objectives. This is how you score primary objectives, and a large number of secondary objectives also feed off this. While it’s not the only way of scoring points, it is a primary way, and any army that can’t push forward to take ground is in real trouble.

Cue T’au. Out of any 9th Edition army, they are in the worst spot for this. Many of their units want to stay at long range. Even their few short-ranged units don’t actually want to get into assault. The most effective current T’au army, based on Riptides and Drones, has almost no close combat ability. This makes it harder for them to push the enemy off objectives and T’au to hold them in the face of assault units. Certainly, T’au can attempt to break the enemy with ranged attacks in the early and mid-game and then grab uncontested objectives later in the game, but this risks the enemy getting an early lead in points that the T’au can’t overcome.

Acting In All Phases

One of GW’s things seems to be pushing for 9th Edition is that armies should be able to act and do stuff in every phase of the game if they want to be good. We can see this design philosophy in both the missions and the new books. The Primaris Techmarine is a great example of this, as it is a unit that can be useful in every phase but the physic phase. You’ve also got units like Ghaz and the C’tan that can only take a certain number of wounds each phase. To have any chance of killing them in a reasonable time, you need to do damage in many phases. You can see many of these changes in the Necron book, which got a significant boost to the close combat component of that army, allowing it to be effective in more phases.

T’au are pretty much the worst army in the game for being useful in many phases. Right now, the only phase they are actually good in is the shooting phase. They are OK at doing things in the movement phase but really don’t have any particular tricks, nor are they a fast army. They have zero psychic power and effectively zero assault power. They can do some stuff in the enemy assault phase, but it’s not really great. They likely won’t do anything in their assault phase, and they don’t have any morale tricks. They, of course, as an 8th Codex, don’t have any command phase actions, but we can assume that at least will be fixed. Taken as a whole, they can’t do stuff in a lot of phases.

This leaves them in a rough spot. Consider fighting Ghaz or a C’tan with T’au. You can’t kill those targets before turn 4 if you do everything right, and allowing them to rampage unchecked for several turns will likely cost you the game. This disconnect from the game philosophy will likely only get worse. Even Necrons, who suffered from the same issues in the past, have gotten access to both good assault units and things that act in the psychic phase.

Something Needs To be Done

I don’t pretend to know what GW plans to do with T’au, but it seems like drastic change is needed. The T’au army is fundamentally out of whack because it seems the game is designed to be played. This is not a good thing, as the army already didn’t work, which has only made it worse. As a stand-alone Codex, they don’t even have the option of souping up with someone else to balance their issues. Hopefully, GW has a plan and will fix them, but I don’t know what the heck it is.

Let us know what you think they should do to fix T’au down in the comments!

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.