Mechanized Tau In simplest terms, a Mech Tau army is a Cadre that can be dropped from a Manta. Any units that can’t infiltrate will be equipped with jet packs or have gravitic capabilities. The army consists of Crisis and Stealth Suits, Firewarriors in Devilfish, Pathfinders in Devilfish, Drones, Vespid and Hammerheads. Additionally, Kroot can be used as pre-positioned ground assets in addition to any available air support. Against stand back and shoot armies Mech Tau plays more aggressively right out of the gate. People don’t expect a Tau army to come zipping up and unload on their doorstep. Against aggressive armies, Mech Tau Cadres tend to give ground while using Battlesuits and Hammerheads to disable and destroy enemy mobile elements, simultaneously protecting their own soft Shas’la before pouncing back on the stragglers to clean up. But Devilfish are Expensive! In order to win a game of Warhammer you necessarily need to dominate certain phases. Some army lists are geared to completely dominate one phase, without any attention given to the others. They use their extreme advantage in that one phase to overwhelm their opponent thereby minimizing their disadvantages in the other phases. Fully Static Tau with maximum Firewarriors is one example of this. In this case you aim to dominate the shooting phase at the exclusion of movement and close combat. Alternatively, a more balanced army could try to be dominant in one phase while being competent enough in the others so as to not be completely overwhelmed. A Dark Eldar Raider-Wyche army is this type of list. They dominate the movement phase, while still being competent in both close combat and shooting. While they might not hold up against a dedicated close combat list, they can certainly minimize their losses in that phase through some of their special abilities. When designing an army, a general has the opportunity to choose which phases he/she wants to dominate. In general, the points are not available to design a list that dominates all phases of the game. Compromises must be made. If we consider the 3 primary phases to be movement, shooting and close combat, then it is clear that Mech Tau is aimed at dominating the movement phase with shooting being a close second. The novice Tau player will now be asking himself, “Why would any intelligent general choose to put points into dominating a phase that doesn’t kill anything?!” This is a valid point, the killing happens during the other two phases of the game. However, the reason dominating the movement phase is so effective, is that movement is the only phase of the game that doesn’t depend on chance. Any Black Templar player can roll a command squad up to a line of Firewarriors and whiff with all 83 attacks. True, it’s not very likely, but it can happen. A Devilfish that moves 12” in the movement phase always moves 12” in the movement phase, no matter how poorly you roll. Therefore, by choosing to invest points in mobility, an intelligent general will get value from their point investment 100% of the time. That is the advantage of dominating the movement phase, and that is the advantage of Mech Tau.