This is the last expansion:

https://boardgamegeek.com/article/22792095#22792095

Commander, preparations for have started for incorporating the inhabitants of this cluster into the fold. So far, predictably, the Eldar and Human planets have resisted our peaceful overtures, and the application of force will be required to show them the error of their ways -- for the Greater Good, of course. There are also several planets that are, unfortunately, overrun by the greenskins or servants of the Warp Gods. These lost causes will need to be eliminated to ensure the safety of all, in time. For now, you have your preliminary objectives. The ethereals have determined that once they have been achieved, consolidating our hold on this cluster will naturally follow. Good luck, commander!

fire warriors…..2/1/2 fragile-ish but very shooty.

battlesuit.........3/3/2 shooty and solid

hammerhead...4/4/2 big gun tank.

supremacy.......4/5/3 big gun titan.

protector cruiser...3/1/2 very shooty fragile cruiser.

custodian carrier...5/4/3 same again but much bigger

STARTING TROOPS: (using Chaos figures)

3 fire warriors

2 battlesuits

1 factory

6 materials

HOME SYSTEM:

side 12A having 1 reinforcement and 1 cache

side 12B having 1 forge and 1 cache .

The Tau have not mastered deep warp travel. Their ships ply only the edges of the warp and travel significantly slower than their opponents. Thus the Tau have only 4 ships available, reflecting the reduced speed at which they can spread through the cluster. Poor strategic mobility and excellent tactical mobility is situation for the Tau.

With only 4 ships, and no starter ship, you should be trying to make as many land bridges as possible during setup, both to aid your difficulties with strategic movement and also to capitalize on several tactical tricks the Tau can pull that rely on, or are greatly enhanced by, adjacent planet placement. You should probably also try to set up long term strongholds in two locations rather than just one -- your starting ground forces are strong with two cadres of battlesuits, and your ability to defend with tactical tricks is excellent, so you shouldnt fear being overrun. Rather your opponents should fear you as you cant afford to sit in your own backyard and build up. There simply wont be enough time. Advance quickly over land bridges and build ships to support further advances, ASAP.

You get a cache token either way, so your asset choice at setup is forge/reinforcement. While both are useful, the Tau dont have a burning need for either - cache tokes are where its at for the Tau, with their ‘technologists’ strategy upgrade. So probably just take the one that looks like it will be hardest to find elsewhere. One thing that might slightly favour the forge token is that you could pull the code of fire tactic early - a forge token allows you to decrease the CL of an upgrade card which could be very handy indeed.

Faction ability / unit composition:

DOMINATE ABILITY: Adaptable Tactics: After this order, you may swap out one card pair in your combat deck for a different pair of the same command level, for free.

“Know thy enemy” is good advice for any faction, but it is particularly apt for the Tau as they have many combat cards that are situationally very effective at confounding enemy abilities, or taking advantage of certain tactical situations, but are otherwise pretty average in terms of icons and temporary tokens. Luckily, a Tau trait is adaptability - changing your tactics to suit your enemy - and their dominate ability allows them to do just that. So you should be continuously anticipating likely situations and opponents as you plan your orders, and trying to get that dominate order in beforehand so that you are likely to pull cards that will work well.

Tau units are pretty tough, but their defining characteristics are mobility and powerful ranged attacks. To simulate long ranged combat and mobility, they get a lot of dice, and the combat card icons lean towards defence, and the temporary tokens offered by those cards lean towards offence. The theory being their mobility is a continuous defensive advantage for the duration of the combat, but their attacks are fast, transitory and targeted - then they melt away again. Hit and move, hit and move.

So even though your warriors and cruisers have only 1HP, the number of dice they throw and the shield icons they play enhances their survivability quite a bit. The Tau philosophy is simply - ‘dont get hit’!

Morale-wise the Tau are more than happy to run away from a losing fight, so that they can counter-attack hard. Battles of attrition and grinding out morale wins are not their idea of warfare, so there are hardly any morale icons or uses for morale dice in their deck. For some other factions, morale dice are used as indicators of random tactical opportunities. Not so for the Tau - tactical opportunities should be explicitly planned, not something to be left to chance.

So while you dont have any advantages in manufacturing great numbers of troops, nor getting them from system to system in a hurry, the Tau are formidable because they upgrade quickly and are able to preserve their troops better than any other faction - as long as you have organized paths to retreat. A good Tau commander always makes sure there is a back door, so use your small fleet wisely to closely support the advance (and retreat!) of your ground troops and dont get sucked into chasing down enemy fleets or using your precious few ships as static void defences.

While the best form of defence is attack, the best form of Tau defence may be counter-attack.