Tau Helpers welcomes you to 6th edition

Since their humble beginnings in 3rd edition, the Tau have both dazzled and annoyed players with Jetpacks, Splitfire, and the much sought after Rail Gun.

In 3rd edition, the Tau would jump over obstacles unleash a volley of fire, then do something that was just madness, move in the assault phase without assaulting.  This was in addition to placing 72 inches worth of Strength 10 Tank killer on infantry with the armor save and toughness of a space marine terminator at double the wounds.  Oh yeah these guys have the option of being able to shoot multiple targets.  If that madness wasn't enough our basic troops wield a rifle that laughs at the imperial's silly boltgun.  By the way, our other troop type is pretty decent in close combat and can infiltrate, but their upgrades take up fast attack and heavy support slots, good thing no one will ever use the heavy support slot for anything but broadsides and Hammerheads.  This was an army you could find being played almost every time you walked into a Games Workshop.  The army was so popular that it paved the way for a First person shooter on Playstation 2 and an all  new army list featuring nothing but kroot that could be used in smaller detachments with other armies (Believe it or not, the allies system isn't new).

In 4th edition we took a temporary small hit, our pulse rifles can no longer fire at 15 inches, but  we can move and shoot twice at 12 inches, unfortunately, so could everyone else.  The Tau were so popular at this point that they were the featured army of Forgeworld's first narrative Imperial Armour.  But after a little while they were getting a new rulebook *hiss* (when an army that isn't spehz mareens is on top, the pessimist in me cries "A new rulebook?  Mega Nerf INCOMING!!!").  Although they got rid of one of my favorite rules ("Release the Hounds" caused an automatic strength 4 hit for each kroot hound in the unit on an enemy  unit that retreated in close combat and was not destroyed by sweeping advance), Kroot  hounds and Krootox had to pay for a 6+ save if they wanted it, bumped up the cost of the plasma rifle, and the stealth suits were just as visible at night as they were during the day, we saw a lot of welcomed change.  Welcome to the Glorious 3rd expansion:
Kroot hounds and krootox  no longer taking up additional force organization slots, cheaper crisis suits, experimental wargear, targetting arrays, the piranha and the skyray moved from the pages of Imperial Armour into the codex, flamers could now be twinlinked (no one really cared at the time), the vast empire had finally seen an ally other than the kroot (and the fanboy's often jeered at gue'vesa) in the form of the vespid, the ethereals could now take fire warriors on steroids, and new special characters (minus the close combat ethereal), and the Tau took on a new persona in the fluff.  Tau were no longer the good guys we saw in the 3rd edition codex.  I remember some fluff in 3rd edition that went something like this

Tau A: Look at the imperial barbarians, they still lumber across the ground, LOL
Tau B: Although we are super advanced and probably type everything if not tell a drone to type it for us, ill compare our Rail Guns hitting tanks to punching through paper (probably because paper is all we can punch through).
Tau A: The imperials don't realize our pathfinders have already moved away, they are shooting at nothing
Tau B: Wait, don't you mean stealth suits?
Tau A: No this battle is most likely happening before all our rules sets have been written in stone
Tau B: The humans would blow themselves up, how barbaric
Tau A: Gross! The kroot are eating them, I hope we can discourage that.

For those of you  that didn't know, kroot used to have to roll a check "Eaters of the Dead" which meant that if they failed they couldn't perform a sweeping advance, unless they included a shaper.  In older books the Imperial Guardsman could use suicide bombers, but now they can't.  Oh yeah, you can have a crisis suit blow itself up, in the name of the greater good.  Not to mention rumors of sterilizing humans, brainwashing other races, and assassinating O'Shova over and over again. The Tau were then referred to as "The Tau Empire".  Players were seen all over the place, which begged the question "Why do the least common soldiers of the imperium and one of the smallest armies in the 40k universe see the most table time?".

And then came 5th edition...  Needless to say the 3rd sphere saw a shift from glorious expansion to grinding up hill battle.  Tau players lost interest, and that really is no surprise.  The damage table for tanks was turned upside down onto our weapons in addition to giving anything with an armor value the ability to take a 4+ cover save.  We saw the rule  "run" take away the advantage of our pulse rifles.  Oh yeah it's no longer about killing its about putting troops on objectives.  Then came the new army books...  It's sad when the shootiest army gets beat on shooting then pummeled like a red headed step child.  If a narrative was written about the 3rd sphere, it would probably go something like this:
"The Tau were happily expanding then the Imperial Guard started churning out a greater quantity of tanks and infantryman refusing to give up any space.  The tyranids started invading in greater number eating all the Tau that stood in the way.  The Blood Angels seemed to go out of their way to beat the snot out of the Tau. The Necron were like "Forget the C'Tan we don't need Pariahs. Immortals seem to be more common, oh and we have transports". The Dark Eldar decided that the decade worth of soul searching was over and came back into the fray while injecting all the Tau with Poison before taking most as slaves.  The Daemonhunters said "you have made us angry for some reason, prepare to see less stormtroopers and a rediculous amount of Firepower.  By the way,our name is Grey Knights now"".
If that wasn't a hard enough kick in the shins, Kroot Mercenaries were reduced from an army to a footnote in apocalypse.  Tau players were strung along with the introduction of the XV-9. Those of you that were paying attention saw the forgeworld update towards the end of 5th and scurried around to get money for a pair of Tetras.


But those 4 long and painful years are now over, what seems to have been held under a greater amount of secrecy than most 1st world countries top secrets, was revealed.  6th edition has become a welcome change for most gamers of  the Tau Empire.  When the Tau first stepped onto the field back at the turn of the century, Games Workshop was hosting tournaments, independent retailers were hosting tournaments, and the game had just left the field of friendly narrative play to power gaming math hammer (which we seemed to do real well).  But for the most part we saw that power gamers among the Tau Empire all but evaporated as the Tau were not very tournament worthy when it came to the actual competition in 5th.  But for some reason Games Workshop took a really big hammer and smashed in all the skulls of all the people that wanted to host tournaments and screamed "NARRATIVE PLAYING!!!".  Which as a player that comforted himself with the idea of having a beautiful army and a cool back story I was like "I picked up DnD to help me keep playing this game, but now I can actually role the dice and win in more than just my head".  With price hikes, internet stores being discouraged, and private retailers being discouraged, I am buying the beautiful lie that GW wishes to return to its roots, but i'm still suspicious.  Another thing us Tau players will be able to experience that we never did before is overwatch. I know some of you that have been playing since 2nd edition are saying "Old News" but  this is something that us Tau players never got to use.  It was like all the heads of all the other warhammer armies got together and the Ultramarines were like "We saw these guys out on the eastern fringe and they are REALLY good at shooting.  But they all don't know that if someone gets charged they can still shoot back instead of crying like a little panzy because they hate close combat".  And then the Chaos Gods shouted "We have a really good idea.  Instead of showing them how to do this, we'll just agree to not shoot each other when someone else is charging"  To which the Tyranids, Orks, Imperial Guardsman, Eldar, and Dark Eldar all cheered "Agreed!"  And then Marneus Calgar was like "Oh yeah! Tell the necron when they wake up not to do it either".  And for over a decade everyone was laughing on the inside.  But then they got overconfident as they were cleaning Tau bodies off of their tank hulls.  Despite all the advantages we received, we lost one of out favorite niches, being able to split fire. Sadly the target lock on a battlesuit is like neon lights under a car, it looks cool but it serves no actual function in addition to being a waste of resources.

To those of you that are new, returning to, or have always been playing the Tau, Tau Helpers welcomes you to 6th edition.  May this edition be better than the last.  I hope you enjoy your stay here at Tau Helpers.