Each race have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Each army must utilize the most effective Warhammer 40k Tactics available to them, if they want to be successful.

Now let’s talk about something everyone really fears: The Hammerhead. It has a Railgun, which can easily pull down a Land Raider or Monolith in one or two turns. It is the most powerful “Non Blast” weapon, with Strength 10 and Armor piercing 1. It can make a hole the size of a fridge through nearly anything. And if you are dealing with hordes, use the submunition. It isn’t nearly as strong, however it has a large blast and can take down many weaker units, such as Ork Boyz and gaunts.

The most common mistake for Tau players is to spread their fire power along their entire front instead of focusing on a unit per unit basis. Let’s take this for example: 12 Firewarriors shooting at a 10 Marine squad. On average, you will hit with 6, wound with 4-5, and about one or two fall. Then maybe next turn you will kill another one or two, then next turn you rapid fire, killing about 2-4. Maybe a panic check, but they probably will pass it, and then get into combat and kill your Firewarriors no problem.

Now let’s take two 12 man firewarriors, and their Devilfish Transports. The Devilfish crank out 3 shots each, probably killing 0-1 marines each. The drones may kill one between the two, and already force a pinning check. Now the Firewarriors let loss their shots, using the same statistics as above, they kill about 2-4. This is already 7 marines, forcing a pinning check. If they pass, you get another round to kill them, which probably won’t be a problem.

You may think “But these are 24 firewarriors, and two devilfish! But now you have one less Marine Squad to deal with, and the other part of your army dealt with another Marine squad, and maybe the Broadsides or Hammerheads took care of that Land Raider or predator. This leaves very little to deal with, and you should easily be able to take down the rest of the army in this manner.

Finally, we have two more significant tactics to talk about. First one: You know how your battlesuits have that lovely “jet-pack” which allows you to move in the assault phase? Well let’s do it this way: You are in cover, and now it is your turn. You jump out of the cover, and let all hell loose with your powerful guns. Now if you were to stay out of cover, you would easily have been killed. But if you take advantage of the jet-packs, you can jump back into cover, and now voila – your suit is just toughened up, no additional cost!

And finally the fish of fury, which is kind of dead because of the newer rules, however still may work if used properly. The basic tactic is to put firewarriors into Devilfish, and then fly them around the field. When you see a juicy target, jump those firewarriors out, and blast away. Then next turn, you jump back in and fly away from the unit that was about to attack you in combat. Can’t tell you how annoying that is if you use if properly!

Well as you can see, each army has totally different playing styles. However keep in mind this is just a basic guide to get you started, this is not a “Be all end all” rule you must always follow. If it works for you, it works for you, and don’t let me ruin your day! Warhammer is all about experimenting with army lists and tactics, so while you may be losing all your models today, some day you will start to win and then you can’t be defeated!

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