Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Tau/Killteam

Basic Overview

Tau may have a hard time in Kill-Team, especially if your strategy revolves around Markerlights, however you can take a basic team of 6 Fire-warriors, 3 Stealth Suits, and 4 Pathfinders, with 12 points left, or take a Team of 6 Fire-warriors, 4 Pathfinders, and 2 Piranha's with 22 points left for upgrades, and seeing as even the Tau's most basic troop weapon has a 1 in 3 chance of scoring a glancing hit against AV 10 and a 1 in 6 against AV 11, your greatest enemy will be your generally small Squad size, although Over-watch may be fun, especially with "Supporting Fire"

The unofficial version allows you access to a single bare-bones Broadside at 50 points, lets you take Firesight Marksmen and Sniper Drones, and makes Pathfinders a Special choice so Markerlights become even scarcer, but it's more possible to make a more interesting, if smaller, team.

Official Units

Elites

XV-8 Crisis Suits

Why do you use Crisis Suits, you use them as cheap, customisable elites, that's why.

With the Basic Crisis Suit Model costing 22 Points, it is more than possible to take a squad of 3 for 66 points, and then stick double Flamers on each for an extra 30 points (96), and stick a Target lock on each for 5 points each (111 Points in total), while this may be more than half of your total points, you've now got 6 Flamer Templates that can be fired at completely different targets, essentially creating a literal "Field of Flames"

Or you could take a Single Suit (22), Make him a Crisis Shas'vre (32 Points), give him 2 Burst Cannons (52 Points), and another Target Lock (57 Points) for the ultimate storm of infantry killing Dakka.

However due to the lack of Squad based rules, avoid using the "Command and Control Node" or the "Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite" as these will just be deadweights, despite how useful they could be in this situation.

XV-15/25 Stealth Suits

Gonna go flat out, these are probably most survivable choice in the Official Tau Kill-Team, with a 3+ armour Save and a 4+ cover save.

Equipped with a Burst Cannon, and a Stealth Generator, the basic squad comes in a set of 3, for a cost of 90 points, and can take any choice of Support system from the list, it is entirely possible to equip all your stealth suits with Stimulant Injectors, creating a, fast moving, High Flying, incredibly tough unit that should be able to handle almost any immediate threat, however your sinking a lot of points into this, so your Kill-Team will be miniscule.

Unofficial Units

Specialist Models

XV-88 Broadside Shas'ui

A Heavy Support choice in Kill-Team, what madness is this?

For 50 points you get a very bare bones XV-88 Broadside, equipped with only a Twin-Linked Heavy Rail Rifle, or Twin-Linked High Yield Missile Pods, and you can pay 15 points for a Twin-Linked Smart Missile System or 20 Points for a Twin-Linked Plasma Rifle, with the option to take 2 Gun, Shield, Markerlight or Missile Drones, and grab any piece of equipment from the Battlesuit only list, the only thing it's missing from the Codex is the ability to take a single Seeker Missile.

On the Equipment side of things, both Weapons have their advantages, The Heavy Rail Rifle should be more than capable of Instant Killing most Special and Leader Models with one hit with its S:8, AP1, and unless there's cover in the way, it can cover the entire battleground with it's 60" range, while on the other hand the High Yield Missile Pods, should be more than capable of destroying anything given their sheer number of hits, however their S:7, AP4, Range 36" means that there may be some models who can shrug off the hits with their armour, or toughness, so it's a toss-up between one chance at an Instant Kill, or 4 Chances at a solid hit.

Given their choice of Sub-weapons, Smart-Missiles seem like a better choice over-all, with Kill-Teams unspoken focus on heavy terrain, and built up areas, the Homing and Ignores Cover properties of Smart-Missiles, make them a better fall-back than Plasma Rifles, who have a shorter range and less shots, but a greater hitting power, and armour piercing abilities, this choice will most likely come down to personal preference.

From the Armoury, I would recommend giving this either a Counterfire Defence System, especially if it's kitted out as a Missileside, a Stimulant Injector, and a Shield Generator, once you have the points for one, this model is going to take a lot of punishment, and you want it to survive all that damage and keep firing back. (If you can't afford a Shield Generator, getting either 1 or 2 Shield Drones should do the trick, and they don't count against your number of Special Models as long as the broadside buys them)

This model is possibly one of the most survivable choices in the game, with a 2+ armour save, and Toughness 4, there should be very few things that can put it down immediately, which is good because your opponent is going to target this model immediately. However, regardless of its survivability, it shouldn't be out on the front-lines; this models strength is it's Range and powerful shooting attacks, if it's getting bogged down in CQC then it can't use either of these, and it's not supporting your Core Units in the way it should be, making it 50+ points of dead weight.

Firesight Sniper Team

Another Heavy Support choice, holy hell and warp fire.

The Tau get to keep their Firesight Sniper Teams, and their Broadsides, making them the king of Snipers in Kill-Team games, and they can take far more of them than anyone else if you've got the points to spare.

On the board the Firesight Marksman only really has his Pulse Pistol or Markerlight to use for offence, but that's not why you bring this guy, you bring him for the Drones.

For 28 points, you get a Firesight Marksman with a Drone Controller, a Pulse Pistol, a Markerlight, and his Personal Sniper Drone. The Drone comes with a Jet-Pack, and a Long-shot Pulse Rifle, with the option to take up to 2 extra drones, for 15 points each.

In terms of equipment, the Marksman's Markerlight and Drone Controller are amazingly useful if positioned correctly, due to his BS of 5, position close to a unit of Marker Drones, or keep him close to a Broadside who has Missile Drones, and let your drones operate at peak efficiency, and this is the only method of getting BS 5 to any unit in the beginning of a campaign.

The Drones Long-shot Pulse Rifle is one of the best Sniper weapons in the game, coming in at AP5 with a Range of 48" and Rapid Fire, however they are dependant on the Marksman's BS so keep him out of sight, unless you need his Markerlight for support.

A strange quirk, is that both the Drones, and the Marksman have the special rule, non-learning, meaning that that while the Drones cannot take battle-honours, or improve their stats, neither can the Marksman, if you politely explain to whoever is your campaign opponent that this makes no sense, then they may allow you to advance the Marksman, but he cannot be advanced in the RAW.

Armoury

• Multi-Targeting Array:

• Kodachi: Basically a Power Sword, with a Weeaboo name, for the low, low price of 10 points

• Command Node:

• Extended Drone Controller:

• Hard-Wired Light Shield:

• XV05 Armour:

• Master of the Hunt:

• DNA Samples:

• Blood of the Stalker

• Specialist Hunter

• Vicious Strain

• Stabilised Jet

• Low-Weight Composite

• Coolant Injectors