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Well, I've played in more than one tourny with my 40K tau, and have logged more than one win with them in said events.
I also know what Tau force won down in TX not to long ago at a large event.
Winning tau forces for tourny's tend to be what's called a Hybrid force.
The 2-6 Troop Choices in a single force org chart tend to be the minimum of 2 units (fielded in disposable 6-man squads with no upgrades). Reasoning, the less troops you take, the more goodies you get - plane and simple. These were used for drawing the opponent out, and long 30" range mass S5 fire. Due to list constraints and points, you would see the basic troop allocations go up to 4 6-man squads on some occasions. So perhaps 2-4 6-man squads is better stated. But for 60 points each, it was no brainer to take 2 of these and move on to the good stuff. Some players took kroot, but the top spots never took more than a single unit.
The 2 HQ choices tend to have 2 Shas'O (not Shas'el) characters in either mona (by themselves with no retinue) or with drone controller and gun drones (historically speaking). Drones would only be taken for wounds... have the commander join an 8-drone unit, and now the commander has 10 junk wounds. Very effective. Once close, he had a massive amount of S5 fire to dump on the enemy. Both Crisis Commanders are Shas'o's for the obvious Ballistic Skill 5 (a rarity in the old tau army) and effective 2+ to hit with their weapons. Fireknife configuration Multi-Tracker (MT), Plasma Rifle(PR), and Missile Pod (MP) are the most common and dominating crisis load outs. The reason - the range, the Strength, number of shots, and low AP value. This is the best of all load outs for flexability of hunting infantry and vehicles.
The 3 Elite choices are 1 6-man stealth team and 2 units of 1-2 crisis each (never take 3 crisis in a 40K unit). It was common to see 2 crisis in a formation due to the 40K rules. You would usually see 1 crisis in a stand alone formation more than 2 also due to the 40K rules. All crisis are fireknife by design. Multiple shots from a single unit and as characters above - its the no brainer load out for flexability, efficiency, and effectiveness. This remains true in Empires codex. Its worth noting that some top players would go 2 units of stealths and 1 unit of crisis in the elite category due to the Characters already purchased. The stealth's ability to say "you can't shoot me if you can't see me" is so huge in 40K. Not only can the deep strike like the crisis and drones, but the stealth's ability to always be in cover when charged and to only be seen if you got close enough made them an uber annoyance and really hard to deal with for many opponents. Not to mention their mesmerizing array of shots when coupled with a MarkerLight or three was just sick (40K Marked targets are hit on a 2+ per weapon using a mark in the old rules - so each mark benefited 1 stealth or 3 shots to hit, took 6 marks to benefit all 6 guys and provide 18 2+ to hit) The new Empire rules make the Markerlight SOOOO much better... a SINGLE mark now provides a boost to the ENTIRE unit firing at the marked target... So, their presence in the tourny seen was always there, but will only get better.
Fast Attacks were always Tetras if FW products allowed and 1 formation of drones would fill out the third choice if the points permitted. The tetras were simple - mobile (HIGHLY mobile) marker lights. Something the old list really lacked. Prior to the tetra release or if FW products were not allowed, Fast Attack choices would tend to be 2 units of 8 drones for 96 points each and no third choice was taken. Its worth noting that the old Kroot Hounds counted as a Fast Attack even though they joined the Kroot unit once purchased and had to stay with them. Some players would buy 2-4 Kroot hounds to bold onto the old Kroot unit if a Kroot unit was taken, as it gave the Tau player a counter assault measure that admittingly works much better in 40K than epic.
Pathfinders (an old Fast Attack choice) were religated to non-tourny games by the tourny vets due to the Old MarkerLight rules, the required Devilfish purchase and 40Ks dedicated transport rules. However, when you did see PF's, they were always fielded in 4-man squads for efficiency, and 3 of those had rail-rifles. The new ML rules in 40K Empires codex may completely change the value of the Pathfinder in top player tourny games - time will tell.
The final category was the Heavy Support. It was very common to see either 3 Rail Heads, or 2 Rail Heads and a unit of broadsides. Ion-heads just were not used in 40K by the top tourny vets.
Cheers,
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Rob
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), but I've played tau quite a bit under the older rules.