THE TAU RACE IS SELECTABLE AS A COMMANDER CHOICE FOR THE IMPERIAL GUARD.
Most tau are medium infantry. This means they are vulnerable to flamers, shuriken weapons, and other anti-infantry heavy weapons. Almost all tau units have very high damage output, long range, but weak health.
Pop cap is 500, and their infantry features both horde and more elite elements. This is also the most "Glass cannon" army.
It is essential for the tau army to always stay at range. Never let your enemy get to you in melee.
A lot of tau units are at once generalists but also more fragile than that of the other races.
They play a bit like Imperial guard, but with an even greater weakness towards melee combat and much better ranged firepower. Your troops are the most fragile in the game, but the individual damage output of a fire warrior squad is almost equal to Space marine squad, for a fraction of the cost.
If you can keep 4-8 squads of them alive, they will quickly erode the enemy.
Always use tanks or drones to screen your fire warriors and if possible keep them in cover. Pulse rifles and Burst cannons as well as your missiles deal plasma damage, which means increased armour penetration versus heavy infantry, heroes and vehicles. However all the dedicated anti-tank weapons are on Suits or tanks, which makes infantry very vulnerable to vehicles dedicated to taking them out.
Heroes:
Tau commander: Offensive ranged hero. Can take flamers, plasma guns, rapid fire short range plasma guns, fusion guns, or missile launchers. Can equip krak or frag missile pods and drones.
Units:
Tier1:
Fire warriors: Ranged unit with very good damage output. Effective against all types of infantry, but very fragile. Medium range. Can get shield drones, gun drones and take Rail Rifles.
Heavy weapons team: Fire warriors with a suppressing burst cannon, but can get a Fusion cannon to engage enemy walkers as they close in or a railgun to deal damage to most enemy types at range. Can take shield and gun drones.
Kroot mercenaries: Medium melee units. Can stealth, good for tieing up weaker melee units and ranged units like guardsmen, shoots or sluggas. Can't face powerful melee units like space marines or tyranid warriors in a fair fight.
Drones: Heavy infantry unit with medium damage output but has great resilience against ranged attacks*. Good for screening Fire warriors in tier 1-2. Medium range. Can take missile drones or rail rifle drones, shield drones and a marker drone that can mark an enemy squad for more damage.
Devilfish: Medium vehicle. Reinforces nearby troops. Equppied with a burst cannon and two gun drones, works pretty much like a Chimera. Can replace Burst cannon with Fusion or plasma cannon.
Pathfinders: Stealth fire warriors with less range but better rate of fire. Can take Rail rifles, shield drones and rail sniper drones. Built at the bunker.
Tier2:
Stealth suits: Stealthed troops with anti infantry burst cannons, can upgrade to fusion beams. Good at short range.
Crisis suits: Mobile light walker that can be kitted out to face a specific type of threat. Deals medium damage at medium range with its plasma gun. Armed with a variety of heavy weapons so it can be tailer for specific tasks, akin to the Sentinel. Can take Fusion gun, missile launcher or flamer.
Broadside suits: Medium walker with very heavy ranged firepower. Features long range and medium health, its only drawnback is its slow speed. Armed with railguns and plasma missiles, effective against anything that does not survive to shoot back too much. Has frag missile pods that fire automatically and can barrage an area.
Hammerhead battle tank: Heavy tank with a railgun and two plasma missile pods. Powerful against enemy vehicles, good against infantry.
Can equip Twin linked heavy burst cannons against light infantry, plasma cannons against heavy infantry, fusion cannons against vehicles, dual railguns as a generalist anti elite and vehicle, and missile battery for versatile artillery support.
Skyray tank: Long range artillery tank with two missile launchers. Can launch a rocket volley similar to the Manticore that has better but smaller area of effect.
Tier3:
Stealth Crisis variant: Same as crisis suit, but has a krak missile pod that fires automatically and can launch a krak volley and can stealth and has energy shields. Same upgrades.
Heavy Crisis variant: Same as crisis suit, but has twin guns and frag missile pods that can automatically shoot and barrage an area.
Riptide battlesuit: Heavier than the rest, the Riptide has a very powerful shield, frag missile pods that automatically fire and can saturate an area. Has a heavy triple krak missile pod and a heavy burst cannon, good against infantry.
Can replace the burst cannon with an Ion cannon, which is best against elite infantry, akin to a focused plasma cannon with smaller AOE but more damage.
Can replace the burst cannon with EMP cannon, a good anti-tank weapon that stuns enemy vehicles, best used to counter superheavy tanks and walkers.
Can replace burst cannon and krak missile pod with heavy rapid fire railguns to act as artillery support.
Stormsurge battlesuit: A very heavy battlesuit with a powerful shield, two plasma missile pods for knockback, two large cluster airburst missile pod for large aoe anti infantry damage, one anti tank missile pod on the shoulders and 2 heavy destroyer seeker missile pods for long range anti tank damage. These are very powerful but reload slowly. Has a Pulse Driver cannon that deals large damage to a small area at great range, and can replace it with a Pulse Blastcannon that deals very heavy damage to a single unit, effective against tanks. Limit 2.
Supremacy battlesuit: The heaviest battlesuit with a powerful shield, two large, long range quintuple fusion meltas that can be upgraded for triple Ion cannons (similar to plasma cannons on Imperials) to trade damage for better AOE and range. Has 2 plasma knockback and 2 anti tank missile pods. Starts with a Nexus missile long range aoe artillery, can replace it with a triple Pulse Driver Array that deals very heavy damage to a single enemy in a large area, or a Heavy Railcannon for very long range anti-tank duty and an airburst rapid fire heavy rocket pod.
Limit 1.
Tau weaponry:
Pulse rifles: Plasma weapons with long range and good damage. Effective against all infantry types.
Pulse carbines: Weaker, shorter ranged pulse rifles.
Burst cannons: Rapid fire suppression pulse weapons, good against infantry hordes.
Fusion guns: Good against everything, small AOE, but short range and long recharge. Best used against enemy superheavy infantry or melee vehicles or monsters. Short range.
Plasma cannons : Good against light infantry and vehicles, but best against super heavy and heavy infantry. Slow firing, but deals a huge area of effect damage. Long range.
Railgun: Small aoe, long range, long recharge time and very heavy damage. This is the anti-tank, anti-hero sniper weapon. Its low rate of fire doesnt make it much useful against infantry, but it can be used to snipe out small heavy infantry squads. Long range.
Plasma Missiles: Usually akin to eldar plasma missiles, but with lesser damage and area of effect but greater rate of fire. Long range.
* I know drones are not very durable, their durability in game is due to them being small and hard to hit, since dodge chance is bugged. Dodge seems to have a "evade X attacks in Y time" mechanic that makes it always evade slow, heavy attacks indefinately, making it totally broken. So I opted instead to give drones more health to stimulate them evading enemy fire.
