You can find our standard guide to playing T’au – Start Competing: Tau Empire Tactics here. It’s not up-to-date at the moment, as new rules have just been released. I prefer this one instead. No explanation needed really. Try and keep it a surprise until you get the chance to kill a valuable unit. Be careful, it’s expensive. Noted best T’au player Richard Siegler wrote a fantastic piece on the new T’au rules for us, which you can find here. Fusion Grenades and EMP Grenades are here, and both are pretty nasty. The former cost a whopping 4 EP, making that grenadier operative incredibly valuable, and can just put out an insane amount of damage while EMP grenades gain Lethal X, where X is the target’s unmodified Save characteristics, making them particularly nasty against Custodes (though note that they only do 2/3 damage). The only drone that’s almost always bad. It’s a drone that slows opposing charges if your opponent moves within range of the grav-tokens. If an opponent doesn’t respect it, you can fly it into strange places to score recon tac ops. That said, I’ve taken one in a championship game and I won that game, so there’s that.

The Marker Drone has a High-intensity Markerlight, getting you two markerlights for one. Pair this with a MARKSMAN or WEAPON EXPERT PATHFINDER with a Target Analysis Optic, and a single Markerlight action turns one key Pathfinder into an all-out assassin. The big boy drone with all the fun abilities. This drone has 12 wounds, a heavy gun, and of course the Analyse (1 AP) action . Additionally as a little bonus, it gives you a Recon selection during scouting phase in addition to your actual scouting choice, which is one way you can guarantee the extra dash move for your Grenadier in the scenario we mentioned above. This is your standard operative, but with good use of Markerlights (see above) and the Pulse Accelerator Drone to boost its already good Pulse Carbine, it can provide some great shooting. Note, however, that many of your special operatives also have Pulse Carbines in addition to the rest of their loadout. Blooded Pathfinder (1 allowed per Kill Team) This is your Leader, so you have to bring him in your Kill Team, but he’s also a decent fighter with a 3+ Ballistic Skill and a Bonding Knife that’s actually not a terrible melee weapon, which is a big deal in a Pathfinder Kill Team. He is also responsible for declaring Arts of War (see above), and has the Holographic Readout ability which lets him give a nearby non-Drone friendly operative a -1 to Action Point cost for performing a mission action once per battle. Shas’la Pathfinder (12 allowed per Kill Team)Drone Controller Pathfinders are essential to any team running heavy drone support. Their Drone Scout ability lets them deploy a single drone outside of your drop zone (and the opponent’s), and their Control Drone unique action lets you spend 1 AP to either immediately activate a drone and cause it to lose some of its AI rules (letting it take cover, getting +1 APL, and letting it move objectives), or alternatively perform a free Dash or Shoot action if you’ve already activated the drone. While most Compendium kill teams are pretty straightforward, Hunter Cadre Kill Teams actually get some special rules and abilities to work with. Namely, drones and markerlights. Markerlights

Plain pathfinders: I keep one in case I have 6pts leftover and I need a comms model that isn’t a Gunner. T’au teams have a large number of drone options to choose from. Drones generally have 6″ movement, a 4+ save, and 7 wounds. Grenades have the Indirect rule, allowing you to target a Concealed enemy. The ASSAULT GRENADIER PATHFINDER is great for this, as they come with multiple grenades for free and can use them all twice. This operative has the Medic! ability which can revive an incapacitated nearby friendly operative once per Turning Point (with 1 Wound remaining, but useful nonetheless) and the Medikit Unique Action that heals a nearby friendly operative up to 6 Wounds unless it has been revived in the same Turning Point. Keep this close to those of your operatives most likely to get into combat or to be targeted by enemy shooting. Transpectral Interference Pathfinder (1 allowed per Kill Team) Reliant Support: Each time you would use the Supporting Fire Tactical Ploy and select this operative, that Tactical Ploy costs 0 CP for that use.

A Cover-ignoring area damage grenade that scores critical hits on a roll value equal to the Save characteristic of the target (so if the target has a 3+ Save, you score critical hits on 3s or more!). Fusion Grenade Shas’Ui Pathfinders are the leaders of Pathfinder kill teams, and the only model to get the Art of War ability to call a Mont’ka or Kauyon once per game. This leader comes with a mission discount in Holographic Readout, which once per battle gives a non-drone operative within ■ the ability to perform a mission action for one less AP . Since you’re always visible to yourself you can have the leader use it on themselves without issue. Fire Warriors (one with markerlight, one with pulse carbine), 3 Fire Warrior Breachers (one with markerlight), 3 Pathfinder Gunners (two with ion rifles and one with a rail rifle), 1 DS8 Tactical Support Turret (with missile pod) – combining weight of fire with numbers and a deadly variety of weaponry. The Communications Specialist has only one Unique Action to distinguish it from a regular Shas’la operative: Signal let’s you spend 1 Action Point to give a +1 to the Action Point Limit of another nearby friendly operative. That might not sound like much, but if you can get this operative into a position where it doesn’t have to move, it can Shoot and use Signal so that another nearby operative can do more in an activation. Weapons Expert Pathfinder (2 allowed per Kill Team) Taking an Fire Warrior & DS8 turret: was interesting and not needing LoS I can see being situationally very powerful: e.g. assassinate. Overall it’s more expensive than a rail rifle and only 1 point cheaper than a pair of gun drones. Put it in your roster but don’t always take it.

A game of Kill Team lasts about half an hour to 40 minutes, making it easy to squeeze into a lunch break or get several games in across an evening. Taking one of every organic specialist and gunner option will cover you up to 11 operatives. You then add all the relevant drone options which basically misses the Grav-Inhibitor, or you replace a Shas’la with the Grav-Inhibitor. However most people will point to the Shas’la and ask “why would you want a basic operative over a drone?” The answer is “when opponents are trying to avoid markerlights, or you want more models who can score tac ops,” that’s when. The humble Shas’la with a markerlight is honestly superior to any other team’s basic operative. Markerlights are a force amplifier for future activations, organic operatives provide the Bonded aura, and the basic gun still punches quite hard. Sometimes you just don’t need more drones eating up your ability to apply the markerlights on turn 1. GameplansOne year in we’ve seen several kill teams from the Compendium be replaced by teams in White Dwarf and other releases, though some Compendium teams are still out there and active. Among these are the Huntre Cadre, the T’au empire kill team from the Compendium. While another T’au kill team released in Chalnath last year – the Pathfinder kill team, the Huntre Cadre has some key differences in that it allows a greater variety of units, giving access to fire warriors and stealth suits. Hunter Cadre Kill Teams The three grenades it comes equipped with (EMP, fusion and photon grenades) are all very useful in different situations, so make sure to keep this operative alive until it can get to the most valuable targets among your opponent’s operatives. Medical Technician Pathfinder (1 allowed per Kill Team) Operatives with the Markerlight ability can use one Action Point to place a Markerlight on an enemy target. For each Markerlight a target has placed upon it, any Pathfinder operative gains a series of bonuses to shooting actions against that target. Markerlights are excellent for focusing fire on key targets that are difficult to take down, and using them is key to success with a Pathfinder Kill Team. Art of War Welcome to Kill Team 2.0! The new game is an exciting departure from 2018’s first edition and we’re here to cover every part of it. So whether you’re brand new to the game or a veteran Kill Team operative looking for a refresher or more in-depth tactics, we’ve got you covered. We’ll be covering everything about the game in the coming weeks, from the core rules and how they work to the Octarius expansion to how the game’s factions play in the new game. The only drone with a markerlight, and it applies 2 when it does, thanks to its inbuilt High Intensity Markerlight. Makes for a good mission doer when being controlled by a pilot. Mv31 Pulse Accelerator Drone

This structure does grant Hunter Cadres the option of being either a horde team, an elite team, or a mix of both. Unfortunately, this flexibility doesn’t provide as many interesting tactical choices as you might hope for, particularly if you’re not taking Pathfinders on your team or trying to avoid them. Drones If your tactical support turret can’t find targets where it is, use this stratagem to set it up somewhere else. Be careful, it’s expensive. Comes with a pulse carbine and markerlight. This operative’s Drone Scout ability allows you to forward deploy a drone on conceal, wholly within 6” of your deployment zone. This allows you to set up drones for mission actions, suicide runs, and savior protocol safe spots further afield. Controlling the drone gives you 3 major functions; you always chain activate a drone, but you have 3 very different effects. Like in Warhammer 40,000, T’au can support each other with overwatch fire, making charging them a terrifying prospect. Compared to the compendium teams, Pathfinder teams essentially get a whole new suite of Equipment to play with. Photon Grenades return here, but as everyone already has Markerlights and the Shas’Ui comes with a Holographic Readout built in, this team calls for all-new options.

T’au military strategy focuses around two main doctrines – Mont’ka, the Killing Blow, and Kauyon, the Patient Hunter – and the Shas’ui Pathfinder can use his Art of War ability to call on one of these for a powerful turn-long bonus.