In melee, 12 Fire Warriors on the charge against marines if lucky enough to lose 3 before they swing, can kill 1 Marine. By comparison Fire Warrior Squad can kill the same, have better armor, better range and of course, they can use Markerlights, turning them into a far deadlier unit. At 140 points, you can have a unit that can hit and kill 1 2/3 Marines per round in shooting, 3 1/3 at short (and therefore deadly) range in the best of cases when shooting. It made what was a borderline unit that you always felt you needed for stunning and shaking backfield artillery to death or jumping 5 man LongFang units, to a nearly indefensible unit to take. The inability to charge from reserves, while it helped the Tau, also harmed their ONLY melee threat. Their mobility was of primary value over theie melee ability, but at least it was something.

On occassion the Kroot would rise to the occasion and on some even more rare occasions against Orcs, necrons, Tau and other very low INIT units, they would actually shine. Now this was fine as it pretty well stuck to the fluff. Of all the races, we are the only one that lacks a legitimate way to combat other armies in hand to hand. So you can imagine my excitement when I got to see the impact of having Space Marine and Eldar Battle Buddies in my force.Īs a Tau player, the kroot have been, literally, the only melee presence in the force. As you know, the author is a big fan of the Tau and I have been playing them for as long as I have played 40K.

Tau vs space marines