


It was also one of the more limited codexes in that edition, with many of the faction’s iconic units being mediocre to outright bad. Those with memories of 8th edition Tau will probably remember that the promise of the fluff didn’t exactly end up being fulfilled on the table, with competitive Tau being possibly the most obnoxious example of the castled-up gunline approach – take your biggest guns, stick them all in a pile together with as many auras overlapping as possible, and roll dice until your opponent either goes away or manages to kill all your stuff. In a universe full of Lord of the Rings analogues fighting with swords, they’re powered by science and a rational desire not to be within chopping range of the other creepy weirdos in the galaxy.


Instead the Tau fight with powerful, long-ranged guns, utilising graceful anti-grav transports and tanks as well as piloted battlesuits, stuffed full of sleek future tech. Nobody’s interested in performing the Sacred Rites of Initiation to power up a piece of barely-understood technology, and nobody is diving into melee swinging a gigantic power fist (well, ok, nearly nobody – we’ll talk about relics later). As implied in our introduction, Tau bring together two archetypes with a lot of appeal – units with an anime sensibility, and a style that is, for want of a better word, more “realistic” than most others in 40k.
