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Pfft. Use them as a advance fire layer. By using the sniper.....thats right, your using them as normal kroot*Snicker*

Pretty much. If their Initiative was any better or if they had access to frag grenades, you could use them as Hormagaunts on the cheap, since they'd hit simultaneously with the vast majority of troops. As it stands through, charging them into cover or into I4+ enemies is pretty much begging for a slaughter of your Kroot. With no save or a 6+ save, they're just going to die before they get thier attacks in. Mostly they're there to push back dangerous infiltrators and provide area denial, since Kroot are a pain to dislodge with shooting, and actually have a decent gun for thier price.

Initiative is the stat that governs who gets to strike first in close combat. normal Initiative for a Guardsman or human-equivalent reaction speed is 3, Space Marines, Eldar and lots of aliens are all inhumanly fast with an Initiative of 4 or better. Tau and Necrons are slower with mostly 2's. This means that if the Kroot assault some Space Marines, they'll hit, and the Space Marines, being faster, will get thier attacks off before the Kroot can land a blow. Since Kroot aren't particularly tough or armored, it means that a good deal of Kroot will die, and the Kroot will have an uphill battle to try and do more wounds to the Marines than they took themselves, especially since Kroot rely on weight of attacks rather than quality of attacks to win combats.

You're right (unless you're playing a 3 or more way game, and the units in the melee aren't your own) firing into a melee is verboten. I'm not sure where you got the idea that it's a well-used/valid strategy or anything.

Somebody told me the new tau codex, calls for the army to be played completley different, is this true?

what new codex? the one thats out or is there one coming out...or a brand new one

I am the only person in my town that collects Tau... neutral
I have barely seen ANY one collecting Tau when I go to GW. sweatdrop I am a golden fish in a baren wasteland.

The Tau Empire codex is a brand new codex, just came out a couple months ago. That's the 'new' codex we're talking about. The previous codex was the Tau's first codex, from 3rd edition, and was merely titled Codex: Tau.

As for the frquency of Tau players... Well prior to the new codex, I was one of 3 regular Tau players. Now, the local store has picked up four more Tau players since the new codex. Tau are fairly popular in my area, almost appoaching Space Marine or Necron popularity.