Your T’au Have the Firepower. Here’s How to Build the Battle Plan.
You picked T’au for the battlesuits, the railguns, and the promise of devastating shooting. Then a Space Marine army walked through your first volley, took the middle of the table, and started charging.
Now your impressive guns are fighting for breathing room. You’re losing objectives. And you’re wondering whether you bought the wrong models—or whether there’s something about this army you haven’t figured out yet.
T’au can reward careful positioning and coordinated firepower, but those strengths need an army built to support them. Every unit needs a job, including the units that barely shoot anything.
Let’s build toward a 1,000-point T’au army designed to challenge tough, aggressive Ultramarines, then explain how its pieces work together. You’ll have a clear reason for every model you add—and a plan for what to do when those Marines start moving toward you.
The philosophy: make their advance cost them
A tough Marine army wants to put you under pressure. It wants you retreating from objectives, dividing your fire between several threats, and committing valuable units before you’re ready.
Your answer is to control which fights happen next.
Give a dangerous unit an inexpensive screen to charge. Make a tank expose itself to reach a useful firing position. Concentrate your best shooting on the threat that matters now. Keep a mobile scoring unit available while your opponent’s expensive infantry are occupied elsewhere.
That is the foundation of this army: reliable damage, room to maneuver, and units that turn surviving into scoring.
You don’t need to destroy every Ultramarine. You need to remove the units that prevent you from winning the mission.
The build: a role for every unit
This roster combines an Enforcer-led plasma team, a Riptide, and two different anti-armour threats with units dedicated to support and objectives.
Points and rules note: The values below total 1,000 using the official points version retrieved when this guide was drafted. They are a provisional planning baseline. Check the current Warhammer 40,000 app or Munitorum Field Manual for unit costs, weapon upgrades, detachment costs, and legal selections before building your final roster.
Unit | Suggested configuration | Planning points | Primary role |
Warlord; plasma-focused weapons; Plasma Accelerator Rifle enhancement | 100 | Leads and strengthens the Fireknife team | |
3 Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits | Two plasma rifles per suit | 100 | Remove elite infantry |
3 Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits | Fusion blasters | 125 | Threaten heavy armour from another angle |
Riptide Battlesuit | Ion accelerator | 200 | Mobile anti-elite firepower |
Hammerhead Gunship | Railgun and seeker missiles | 140 | Long-range anti-armour pressure |
5 Stealth Battlesuits | Two fusion blasters and homing beacon | 100 | Observe and support positioning |
10 Kroot Carnivores | Standard equipment | 65 | Screen valuable units and work objectives |
5 Vespid Stingwings | Neutron blasters | 70 | Mobile mission scoring |
Total | 1,000 |
The planning total includes the listed Commander enhancement and ion accelerator upgrade. Complete the remaining weapons, drones, and support options against the current datasheets.
The intended detachment combination is Experimental Prototype Cadre and Advanced Acquisition Cadre, subject to their current Detachment Point costs. The first supports the Commander’s attached battlesuit unit; the second provides tools for your Stealth suits. The unit roles below explain the army’s broader plan even if an update requires adjusting the roster.
Your plasma team: remove the infantry that won’t go away
The Enforcer Commander joins the Fireknives. Together, they give you a focused tool for elite infantry—the kind of models that survive lighter weapons and keep holding an important objective.
Their first question each turn is: “Which infantry unit needs to stop being a problem?”
Choose a target, arrange support, and commit enough shooting to finish the job. Leaving several dangerous units slightly wounded can still leave your opponent with several effective units next turn.
Keep the plasma team concealed until a useful engagement develops. Their mobility helps them find an angle, but moving forward should earn a clear payoff: eliminating a threat, clearing an objective, or protecting another important unit.
Treat the Enforcer as part of this shooting team. A battlesuit Commander still needs a plan for what happens after the enemy survives.
Your Riptide: keep pressure on the midfield
The ion Riptide gives the army another platform for threatening elite infantry. That matters because the Fireknives cannot cover every lane or answer every Marine unit at once.
Position it where it can influence an important objective while supporting the rest of your army. An isolated Riptide can attract concentrated attention; a Riptide supported by plasma, observers, and a screen makes approaching that area a more expensive decision.
Durability gives you options. It does not make standing in every enemy firing lane a good trade.
Hammerhead and Sunforge: make armour respect two directions
A tank-heavy opponent can overwhelm an army that has only one credible answer to vehicles. Lose that answer early and the rest of the game becomes much harder.
This build brings two different tools.
The Hammerhead provides long-range anti-armour pressure. Give it a useful lane and consider where it can reposition as the battle develops. A railgun can produce a dramatic result, but build your decisions around the possibility that a crucial shot fails.
The Sunforge team creates a closer-range threat from another direction. Keep it protected until it has a worthwhile target and a realistic route into range. Starting on the table or arriving from reserves should depend on terrain, deployment, and the opponent’s screening.
Reserves are a positioning choice. A careful opponent can deny the arrival location you wanted, so identify alternatives before committing.
The ideal exchange removes something pivotal: a threatening vehicle, a transport that enables an assault, or an armoured unit controlling a key lane. If the Sunforge are likely to die afterward, the target needs to justify that cost.
Your Stealth suits: help the important shots land
New players often judge a unit by how much damage its own weapons produce. Stealth suits show why that misses part of the picture.
Their Observer support can improve the reliability of another unit’s shooting. That makes their position valuable: they need to see a useful target while staying protected enough to keep helping in later turns.
Their infiltrating deployment and homing beacon also create positioning options. Use those tools with a purpose. Deploying forward simply because you can may hand aggressive Marines an easy early target.
Before moving them, ask: “Which enemy unit do I want my main guns shooting, and where do these suits need to be to support that?”
Your Kroot: buy the shooting phase you need
The Carnivores have one of the most important jobs in this army: keeping an enemy charge from reaching something much more expensive.
Imagine an assault unit approaching your Fireknives. If it charges the Fireknives, you may lose a major source of damage. If it has to charge Kroot first, your shooting units may get another turn to respond.
That extra turn can decide the game.
Place the screen with the full enemy turn in mind. Account for movement, charges, pile-ins, and consolidation. Kroot standing immediately in front of your valuable models may allow the enemy to reach both.
They can also help with objectives when a screen is unnecessary. Their assignment should change with the board state; keep them where they create value.
Your Vespid: collect the points your guns cannot
The Vespid give you a mobile unit for mission work. They can reach places you would rather avoid sending your Commander or Riptide.
That frees your damage dealers to keep doing their jobs.
Before using Vespid for a tempting shooting opportunity, check what that choice costs you in scoring. A few casualties are rarely worth abandoning an achievable objective or mission task.
Plan arrival locations and movement around the mission’s timing and restrictions. Mobility is most valuable when you already know where you need to be.
The battle plan against aggressive Ultramarines
Deploy as though you will go second
Hide valuable units where practical. Establish supporting firing lanes and leave space to move around your own models. Avoid deploying your entire army on the back edge: you still need routes toward the objectives.
At 1,000 points, concentrate on a manageable part of the battlefield. Supporting the centre and one flank is often more productive than scattering units across every objective.
Identify what enables their attack
The biggest model is not automatically the best target.
A transport carrying dangerous assault infantry may be the immediate problem. So might a unit positioned to charge next turn, or a shooting platform that can remove your anti-tank pieces.
Ask: “If this unit survives, what does it let my opponent do?”
That question gives your target priority a practical purpose.
Coordinate before rolling dice
Decide which units need Observer support, which targets matter, and what your backup plan is if the first volley underperforms. Check the current For the Greater Good rules when sequencing those choices.
Concentrate fire where eliminating a unit changes the next turn. Avoid allocating so much shooting to one target that you waste the rest of your army’s opportunities.
Trade a little space for a better exchange
You may need to let Marines approach an objective before you can punish them effectively. The aim is to expose their attacking units while preserving your response.
Watch the score while doing this. Giving up ground for one turn can be sensible; giving up objectives indefinitely creates a deficit that even excellent shooting may not recover.
Move onto the opportunity you create
When a dangerous Marine unit dies, reassess the table. A previously unsafe objective may now be reachable. A firing lane may be open. Your Vespid or Kroot may have a scoring opportunity.
Removing the threat is the first step. Using the opening is how that damage helps you win.
Build an army you understand
You don’t have to learn every T’au unit at once. Start by understanding the jobs in this force:
Fireknives and Enforcer: eliminate elite infantry.
Riptide: support the midfield with anti-elite shooting.
Hammerhead: threaten armour at range.
Sunforge: threaten armour from a second angle.
Stealth suits: support reliable shooting and positioning.
Kroot: protect valuable units and help with objectives.
Vespid: turn mobility into mission points.
After each game, look beyond what killed the most models. Did your screen buy another turn? Did your observers have useful targets? Were your heavy weapons firing at the right threats? Did you have a unit available to score when an objective opened?
Those answers tell you what to practice—and what your army actually needs next.
Ready to put the plan on the table?
Your next T’au purchase can have a clear purpose. Add the battlesuits that handle elite infantry, the weapons that threaten heavy armour, or the support units that let your best models do their work.
Use this roster as your build checklist, confirm the current points, and shop Warhammer at Monkey Llama Games. Search for the units you need and check their current availability as you assemble your force.
Build your T’au army with a plan for every unit—and a reason to feel ready for your next battle.
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