Improving My Tau, One Step at a Time

     
Well, to start things off on a side note, Grey Knights are here!! And oh my, I think I love these guys! That Dreadknight is pretty cool too!

Anyways, back on my train of thought (no Grey Knights here, please!). Tau. I love the Tau because of their models, fluff, and playstyle. But there is a problem; Right now, Tau stink pretty badly. Sure, I still manage to win with them, but that is more due to superior tactics. And they are getting increasingly harder to play with. SO, as my opponents evolve into harder, more difficult to beat roles with increasingly better army lists, I find myself constantly thinking about ways to change my tactics to outsmart my opponents.
So far, I am finding some increasingly more common things coming to my mind, which I will start listing below:

1) Tanks! My recent tournament showed me just how valuable to my playstyle Tau tanks are. The way I use tanks (most commonly Devilfish, vut I use all tanks for this) is as as a sort of mobile LOS blocker for my Battlesuits. Using the standard Tau Jum-Shoot-Jump (JSJ) tactic with my battlesuits, I tend to use their assault phase move to try and get them behind a Disruption Podded tank, so they won't be shot at the following turn.

2)JSJ. I am increasingly using this to hide my Battlesuits rather than to make them a tasty bait to follow after. I'm finding that Battlesuits perform very well using this tactic mixed with my mobile terrain pieces (tanks).

3) Long range firepower. I'm finding that I am taking less and less the plasma rifle and other battlesuit weapons in favor of the lovely, all around goodness of the Missile Pod. with 36 inch range, I tend to sit my army back, wait for the enemy to approach, then shoot off to one side to keep that long range between me and my opponents.

What do these three tactics mean? They mean I am increasingly needing a more mobile firebase that is long range enough to keep the enemy away, and powerful enough for my opponents to shoot at it rather than my Broadsides. I will be going over some of the more inticrate details of what this means army list wise later on, as soon as I collect my thoughts into an organized pile. Stay tuned for more Tau tactics!