A Relapse to Ruin

The ethereals have activated their brain-control devices that they implanted in me at birth, willing me to come back te the Tau Empire (all in the name of the Greater Good, of course). This article will signal my long-awaited return.

There is really one thing that I would like to discuss today. That is, different Tau army builds

Right now, the internet has it set that the Tau really only have one good army list build, the "One List to Rule Them All," so to speak. Mainly, maxing your number of Battlesuits, taking minimum Fire Warriors Squads, taking some kroot, a piranha or two, maybe some pathfinders, and Broadsides and Hammerheads with railguns. And really, this list doesn't do too well in objective matches, so every game is basically annihilation for Tau. Now, there are a few variations of this list, all belonging to different secret sects of the Tau Empire (I'm a member of one of them), that go for more mobile army lists, and some for more static weight of fire lists. Really, Mont'ka and Kauyon (Tau battle philosophies) to the extreme, with the "One List" being a sort of combination of the two.

I tend to be a fan of the Mont'ka Tau lists ( Speedy, mobile lists that run a sort of guerilla warfare) compared to the Kauyon Tau lists (static wait for the prey to take the bait then crush them with overwhelming firepower). But really, no Tau list is going to do too well in a competitive scene. This is due to one thing: what the Tau were meant for. In my opinion, in its current form, the Tau are meant to be anti-horde with some anti-tank thrown in. Really, the Tau's only good anti-tank weapon (the railgun) is on two units, with their only other true anti-tank weapon being a meltagun. So basically, for Anti-tank, the Tau must either get close (which is exactly what your opponent wants, or spend lots of points on railguns. However, everything in the Tau codex seems to be based primarily on anti-infantry. Fire Warriors have the best gun for taking out light infantry in the Pulse Rifle. we can have twin-linked flamers, our railguns on Hammerheads have a submunition round, and basically everything but Broadsides seems to be some form of anti-infantry. So basically, the current tank spam armies are what has destroyed the Tau. Throw in a little more anti-tank, and you'd have one of the best all around armies in the game in the Tau Empire.

A small rant, hopefully this helps you in some way, by showing just how one codex was ruined, and showing why these overpowered Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and (yes!) Dark Eldar are considered overpowered: They are balanced to take on anything. I think that 40k's current future path will be good for all the different armies, and I feel that by making these (internet) overpowered codices are really perfect codices in their organization.