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The IGAC has 2 doctrines. I cant remember the 1st one but the 2nd one lets you take a few more Seigers

Is there any mention of tau warriors being a first pick. A starter group of two tau warrior teams and an XV-8 commander was all i needed to start kicking a**. My brother is a follower of black templar marines, and he always lost to me because of my impressive firepower and his difficulty in ripping through tau armor, let alone trying to tackle a lone XV8 battlesuit armed with armor penetrating and long ranged weapons. Granted,my guys weren't as accurate at shooting, but both main trooper weapons required a 3+ to wound the enemy. (pulse vs marine, bolter vs tau) He couldn't get close to me for close quarters until he got his tanks, which was four months after we started. After four months, he already had twenty marines, a commander, a dreadnought, a landspeeder, and a destructor class predator. I had a command XV8 with drones, two Xv8 teams, twenty four firewarriors, six stealth suits, and four pathfinders with devilfish at that time. After that, all out tau vs marine fights started to get quite rough, with us barely having anything left to fight with by battles end.

I would like to point out that, through experience, in small battles the Tau seem to consistantly fare better, due mostly to the fact that Marines are not very mobile unless you've got the points to spend on transports or jump troops AFTER you met your cumpulsory choices. There are other factors too.

the real thing about the tau is that they fight as a single unit. when they focus their firepower against enemy infantly, the enemy will fall quickly. However, they don't perform as well if they are forced to split up their targets. also, I would recommend a full team of broadsides for a heavy choice with two hammerheads instead of three hammerheads, considering their long range firepower can fell a tank with ease if not pick off three enemy soldiers per turn. my xv88 units utilize shield generators as well, to help protect them from fools using lascannons and the like against them. with that kind of combo, they become quite hard to take out unless the enemy tries to blast them with everything they have. trust me on that, i've used them for nearly two and a half years, maybe three....

Tht's very true. Because SM are quite pricy points-wise, it is difficult to field everything you need with less than 1000 points and to be very effective. Marines are durable, I'll give them that, but against Tau weaponry and mobility, Marines need points to make them a mixed threat of range and melee that can close distance quickly. There are a lot of points of view on this.

I use a full team of stealth warriors equipped with a shield drone. Primarily, they have been useful in stalling light infantry, as they only need to get within 18 inches then back off after firing. their cloaks I must say are mildly effective against enemy forces, but that deteriorates when we get close enough to fire. So far, they have always bought me time against infantry, unless I deep strike them to slam a vehicle's rear armor or the enemy decides to annihilate the team. On a side note, a stealth suit assisted in eliminating the last of my brothers terminators in close quarters after losing the whole team and recieving melee support from a three man team of bonded fire warriors and my origional four pathfinders.

Normally, teh mixed armor rule would win out for the suits, but that would overrule another rule. with the Tau gun/shiled drones, they always intercept incoming shots before anyone from the team is hit. In this fashion, if someone uses an armor penetrating round against by team with a series of regular weapons, the drone would intercept a round of my choice while the others get hit. Although the drones will always try to intercept incoming rounds, it cannot intercept attacks that go after an individual target, namely an eldar mind war or a vindicar's exodus rifle. In this sense, the gun drones ignore the mixed armor rule.

As for close quarters, I just try to avoid it, especially against marines. Their combat ability in melee isn't as good, so they're more likely to miss a strike.