This is a guide for playing the T'au faction in Warhammer 40,000 Gladius - Relics of War. It will discuss how to grow the T'au economy efficiently at any stages of the game, some army compositions you can go for at different stages of the game, what technologies to prioritize and, lastly, some strategies on how to use various units and how to equip your heroes.

I have played mostly against ultra hard difficulty AI and have not tried PvP yet. The build order presented in this guide will be focusing on developing a strong economy and reaching the endgame quickly. Some of the advice in here may still be relevant in a PvP matchup, but since this build has not been tried in this context, adjustments to it would certainly be necessary.

The T'au is a young faction in the Warhammer 40K universe. Technologically, they are reasonably advanced and progressing quickly. Their empire is small, but expanding. They have a strong preference for ranged combat and use drones and battlesuits for warfare. This is well represented in Warhammer 40,000 Gladius - Relics of War.

In the game, the faction overview for T'au describes the following traits for them:

• Utopia: Each new type of building (with a population assigned) in a city increases loyalty (by 1, 2 with the tier 10 “In Diversity, Unity” technology), each duplicate building (with a population assigned) decreases loyalty (by 1).
  
  This is perhaps the most unique feature of the T'au faction and dramatically affects how T'au grow their economy. I will cover this topic in great detail later in the guide. I have added clarifications to the Utopia rule in ( ) since it is such an important mechanic.
  
  
• Convert Auxiliary: Convert T’au auxiliaries to your side.
  
  This is a powerful mechanic that allows you to convert Kroot Hounds and Vespid Stingwings to your side. It is very useful in the early game, allowing you to supplement infantry production from your cities, speeding up exploration and potentially saving your starting infantry if it inadvertently runs into too many enemies during exploration. The influence cost is reasonable making it a great ability. It can be used anywhere on the map which can potentially help an ally.
  
  
• For The Greater Good: Use your diplomatic influence to crush enemy unit morale.
  
  I find the influence cost of this ability to be high for what it does. I almost never use it, but it can be situationally useful. The Influence cost is much lower when used on damaged units. So it can be used on a unit at low life to provide you that little bit of damage to finish off a target that is just out of reach of an attack.
  
  
• Subvert City: Undermine the power and authority of enemy cities to reduce their loyalty.
  
  I find the influence cost of this ability to be too high for what it does. I almost never use it.
  
  
• Tidewall Shieldline: Cities and outposts reflect incoming ranged damage.
  
  Great for defense ! Just having troops standing in your city will grant them this buff !
  
  
• Supporting Fire: Increased overwatch damage against enemy units next to other friendly units.
  
  Consider not firing with some units to have higher overwatch damage ? This can help against melee units since they have to move next to friendly units.
  
  
• Markerlight: Mark enemy units for a more damaging attack.
  
  Reduces Ranged Damage Reduction and grants +1 accuracy, but consumes an action. Its main use is to make units in cover, like forest or ruins, vulnerable. It can also be useful when a weak unit buffs the damage of a stronger unit.
  
  
• Bonding Knife Ritual: Sacrifice individual gain to restore unit morale for the betterment of the Empire as a whole.
  
  A fallback ability that can be used on infantry to restore morale before attacking. The cooldown is long, but it can get you out of a dicey situation. Losing morale is the first step to losing your army and this ability can really help to secure a kill that will help restore global morale.
  
  
• Drones: Miracles of T’au technology that provide offensive, defensive and tactical support.
  
  There are a lot of them, with lots of abilities, but Builder Drones and Gun Drones are certainly the most important.
  
  
• Trade Goods: Purchase resources and even proselytise population.
  
  I don't like Trade Goods technologies that much because it costs twice the amount of influence of what you trade for. Why spend precious research time on a tool that is inefficient and unnecessary compared to building the correct resource production buildings ? Proselytise Population is great though and can help you grow your cities abnormally fast in combination with extra Foundry buildings, or catch up if your population did not keep up with building construction.
  
  
• Support Systems: Install support systems on battlesuits. Each battlesuit only has a limited number of support system slots.
  
  These are more late game upgrades to customize your battlesuits army to adapt to different situations. These upgrades cost Influence, but are worth it if the unit survives with them for a while.

There are many map settings that you can play with to alter the pace of the game, but also how early in your technological development you will encounter enemy factions. This will affect how early you will need troops to stand your ground against an enemy faction, which will affect how early you should introduce troop production in your build order.

In the early game, all factions, except Space Marines, desperately need to found additional cities to grow their economy faster. Seizing more territory is also crucial to grow your economy by capturing encampments and for map control. Each extra city applies a -6 Loyalty penalty to all cities in your faction empire. At the same time, your cities are growing and each additional population applies -1 Loyalty. In Gladius, the early game is a struggle to develop your empire and economy while maintaining enough Loyalty in your cities. Every negative Loyalty point reduces yields and production in a city by 2% (caped at 50% penalty at -25 Loyalty). Cities with low Loyalty have laughable yields when accounting for their buildings' upkeeps and construct buildings slower, which means that it will take them more time just to construct the necessary buildings to restore their Loyalty to 0 before they can start developing at a normal pace again. You should prepare established cities in advance in your empire to take the Loyalty hit coming with the foundation of a new city.

Note that every positive point of Loyalty increases yields and production in a city by 1% (there is no cap !). I won't delve into the maths behind this, but as a rule of thumb, once a city reaches a raw production of 50 (about 5 resources production building + city center), you should try to maintain its Loyalty between -5 and 0 at all times before adding more resource production buildings. Once a city reaches a raw production of 100 (15 resources production building + city center), you should start to increase Loyalty above 0 proportionally to the raw production in excess of 100. To keep it very simple, this means that, once a city reaches that point, every time you add a production or population building, you also add a Loyalty building in that large city. This makes it easier to keep track of.

Aside from city economy growth, capturing and holding outposts as quickly and as long as possible is another crucial aspect of building a strong economy in this game. For this reason, it can be better to prioritize getting troops to capture outposts than to actually make more resource production buildings (plus, you need an army to survive and win anyway).

While browsing, I have seen many comments stating that T'au have a great early game with Utopia, but that they have trouble maintaining good Loyalty when cities become too large because of Utopia. It is time to break this myth and share how to avoid Loyalty problems at different stages of the game with T'au.

Utopia grants T'au a phenomenal Loyalty boost at a time at which you desperately need to settle additional cities. T'au can have up to 14 different buildings in their city. So as long as a city makes different buildings, its population Loyalty penalty is mostly canceled by Utopia in the early game. For this reason, T'au should aim for making one building of every kind in their cities during their early development. The City Center and Loyalty building provide T'au cities with an extra +12 spare Loyalty during the early game that can be put to good use by constructing two new cities as soon as possible. T'au has the unique ability compared to other factions to maintain three cities at 0 Loyalty early game with the construction of a single Loyalty building in each of these cities.

Note that making Builder Drones slows down the development of the city making them. This can make T'au more vulnerable in the early game. Your first city should be the one making the two or three first Builder Drones you will require to build your second and third cities and support your army. By slowing down the development of your first city, you let your second and third city catch up to it and stall the development of your first city, which extends the period of time during which Utopia acts as a benefit for that city.

Once you built your three cities and they reached a population above 10, you will be confronted with the penalizing side of Utopia. As you add new copies of buildings already present in cities, the advantage provided by Utopia will rapidly fade away and eventually become a penalty to your economy’s growth in the late game. This will happen approximately during the mid game, but earlier in your first city. Note that once you built every relevant different buildings in a city, Utopia applies the same -1 penalty for any new building, no matter what it is or how many copies are present in your city, which means it is totally fine to start specializing your city at that stage (like you would do with any other faction). Stopping construction of new buildings and capping population in your cities or letting your Loyalty go down are not solutions I would advise to address the Utopia Loyalty problem.

You have three other available options to maintain or increase Loyalty in your city.

The first one is to keep constructing Loyalty buildings in all of your cities. This is usually what other factions have to do. Every time a city grows by 6 population, it will require roughly one habitation module, one Loyalty building, one Food building and one Power building, just to sustain its growth, which leaves three population free (habitation module do not require a population) for actually growing the city and your economy. Because of Utopia, T'au gets a worse deal using this approach since they will need two Loyalty buildings instead of one, to compensate for Utopia, which leaves only two population free for actually growing your city for every block of 6 population. This is really bad and should only be used to maintain Loyalty close to 0 in your cities during the mid game, while the other better options are not yet available.

The second option to boost your Loyalty at the end of the mid game is to research the Tier 10 technology “In Diversity, Unity”. It is an absolute must and is usually the first technology I research when reaching Tier 10. This technology gives a very sudden boost to your economy and allows you to build one or two extra cities if you expect the game to keep going for a while. This second option is only a one shot boost to your cities’ Loyalty though, it is not a sustainable solution to the problem caused by Utopia in the late game.

The third and best option is to train Cadre Fireblade heroes in the late game.

How many Cadre Fireblade heroes do you need to make ?

Yes

Just keep training Cadre Fireblade heroes until the game ends ! How many can you find in this screenshot ?

Cadre Fireblade Unity level 6 ability is amongst the best hero abilities in the game. +6 Loyalty to every city in your empire is a very impactful boost. And you can stack it. And you will stack it. Your cities can always use more Loyalty since it increases all yields and production from their buildings. The more times you stack this passive buff, the more troops you can sustain, the faster your cities will build themselves and the faster they will build new troops without requiring to make many copies of a unit production building.

So, as soon as you can start recruiting heroes that starts at level 6 (or even before that if you have extra Influence that you can invest in the Forbidden Knowledge item, to level them to 6), you should get started on training a herd of Cadre Fireblade that grants you this passive Loyalty buff multiple times. This action will shift gear for your empire's economic growth. At Extremely Fast speed, you can recruit level 6 heroes as soon as turn 30, turn 60 for Very Fast speed, turn 90 for Fast speed, turn 120 for Normal speed, turn 180 for Slow speed, turn 240 for Very Slow speed and turn 360 for Extremely Slow speed. Equip each Cadre Fireblade with a Tantalising Icon to turn their upkeep into -1.5 Food and +5 Influence instead of -1.5 Food and -3 Influence. This is very important because you will keep needing more Influence to recruit more Cadre Fireblade. If you look at the upkeep of the Cadre Fireblade with a Tantalising Icon, it is kind of similar to a weaker Influence building that consumes food, but requires no population, which is great ! Each new hero costs N times the hero base cost, where N is the number of instances of this hero you have trained or are training, but their upkeep remains fixed. So if you lost two Cadre Fireblade during a game, have 10 Cadre Fireblade on the battlefield and one Cadre Fireblade already in training, training the 14th Cadre Fireblade of this game will cost you 12 times the unit's base cost since two of them have died. Training that many heroes of the same kind becomes very expensive, but this is absolutely fine since each new Cadre Fireblade keeps improving your economy. If you make enough Food, Ore and Influence per turn in your cities, buffed in Loyalty by all the previous Cadre Fireblade, you will quickly accumulate the ressources to train the next Cadre Fireblade of your herd.

This solves T'au's Utopia problem in the late game and this is the most important advice provided in this guide. Have a bunch of cities to maximize the number of cities that will benefit from stacked Unity Loyalty passive buffs. Make a single Loyalty building in these cities and focus their efforts on producing more resources in them, especially more Influence in the late game. The fact that T'au cities do not waste time building more than usually a single Loyalty building also contributes to a faster economic growth compared to what other factions can achieve. Train as many level 6+ Cadre Fireblade heroes equipped with Tantalising Icon as you can afford, until the game ends. That's the secret. If you put the strategy to mass produce Cadre Fireblade into application for your late game, at some point you can have cities that exceed 100 Loyalty and experience what it feels like to play with an Impossible advantage over your opponents.

What it looks like to play with an Impossible advantage at Very Fast speed. Look at these resource yields. Look at the city’s Loyalty. Look at the 41th Cadre Fireblade's training cost !

Now what should you do with all these Cadre Fireblade units ? They represent a large investment of resources and are part of the backbone sustaining your economy. A few of them should be geared properly (defensively) and sent near the frontline to buff your army. Most of them could stay behind near your cities. They can defend them with overwatch, drones and snipe ability if you need to, or you can hide 6 of them inside each of your cities if you fear for their survival. Unless you want to use them to snipe at 5 distance from your army's backline ! With a few Broadside battlesuits always in overwatch to protect them, that might be a viable option to explore.

Lastly, don't hesitate to make one or two Cadre Fireblade early in the game that you gear up and try to level up through combat within your army. They will be of great assistance to your troops and will boost your economic development if you reach level 6 with them before level 6 heroes can be recruited by default. Also do not hesitate to slip in extra Ethereal and Commanders in your armies once you start producing a lot of Influence per turn. Both can be of great assistance to your army in battle !

Ultra Hard AI economy growth (red, yellow and blue) looks like a joke compared to Normal T'au economy growth (purple) once T'au reaches late game and applies this strategy. Notice how a Normal economy growth struggles in the first half of the game compared to Ultra Hard AI economy growth though.

Big disclaimer before I start. The build I decided to showcase here completely skips vehicles and air units. Now, I do not think vehicles are useless or bad. Devilfish transports can be a great addition to transport, support and protect your heroes and infantry and Hammerhead tanks can also be very powerful in numbers during the mid game. T'au strategy can even revolve around closing the game early with Hammerhead Gunship tanks. The reason why I skipped vehicles and air units is that they require a separate track of upgrades which either slows down your progression towards end game technologies or force you to skip other important upgrades for your infantry, heroes and monstrous battlesuits. Additionally, vehicles do not synergize very much with T'au heroes compared to infantry and monstrous battlesuits.

*** Essential technology
** Important technology
* Nice addition
If the technology is not mentioned in a tier, it is not a priority to research for this guide.

• Hero Building *** (T'au heroes have really powerful support abilities once you understand them and you must construct additional Cadre Fireblade)
  
• Bonding Knife Ritual ** (Restore a unit’s morale before attacking with it, which is very useful if things go wrong)

As I mentioned, the Vehicle building is skipped in this guide, but if you want to go for a build that will include vehicles, especially Hammerhead tanks at Tier 5, research this instead of Bonding Knife Ritual, but I think the Crisis Center offers a comparable alternative route with more synergies that reaches the late game faster.

• Gun Drones *** (An absolute must, you will find so many uses for these expendable units)
  
• Habitation modules *** (You must construct larger cities)
  
• Ethereal *** (Great support hero that mostly mass buff and mass heal, you should delay this research later though, at least after Builder Drones)

Pathfinders are skipped mostly because I have not playtested them enough. They cost as much as a Crisis Battlesuit and I am not convinced yet they are worth as much.

• Builder Drones *** (You must construct additional cities, can heal any T'au unit or city by 8 each turn, can terraform)
  
• Loyalty Building *** (You must support additional cities, you must maintain city Loyalty)
  
• Commander *** (Very powerful hero unit that provides army wide buffs on a short cooldown and can take down just about anything, including cities, when geared and supported properly. Quickly add one and eventually two Commanders to your initial army once you have enough influence to gear them. Research this technology at about the same time you start constructing your hero production building in a city)

The TY7 Devilfish is nice if you decided to include vehicles to your build, but like I said, this slows down your progress to endgame technologies.

• XV8 Crisis Battlesuits *** (A stronger infantry to replace Fire Warriors)
  
• Dissemination (tier 2 cities) *** (You must construct larger cities)
  
• Better Weapons ** (More damage to Gun drones, Piranha, Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Stealth Battlesuits, Cadre Fireblade, Ghostkeel, Riptide, Stormsurge, City. Research this one later when you have a sizeable army to take full advantage of it)

The Foundry building is situational. It is not very useful at Extremely Fast or Very Fast game speed. I have not tried it at slower game speeds yet, but I guess it could be useful in these conditions. If you build a second Foundry in your city, population growth will not keep up with Foundry building production. Either you will have to disable one Foundry occasionally in your city or you will need to frequently spend influence to artificially grow your city population with Proselytise. In theory, this is great ! But note that if you grow your city too fast, you also run into the Utopia Loyalty problem earlier during the game which is a problem before you can reliably train level 6 Cadre Fireblade. For this reason and because it slows your progression to endgame techs, the Foundry technology is not recommended in early cities in this guide.

• Extra Infantry Armor *** (Affects All Infantries, Drones, Heroes and Monstrous Battlesuits)
  
• Crisis Center *** (Necessary to train endgame units like XV104 Riptide Battlesuits and KV128 Stormsurge, also allows to train XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit as a substitute to TX7 Hammerhead Gunship, until you can make Riptide Battlesuits)
  
• Proselytise ** (Allows you to buy one population per turn in a city at the cost of Influence. Research this technology later if you run into city population growth issues. If you decide to build extra Foundry in your cities, this technology will be mandatory)

The TX7 Hammerhead Gunship is a great vehicle, but is not included in this guide. Again it slows down the progression to endgame technologies. This guide suggests building a Crisis Center to get a few Ghostkeel Battlesuits instead (that have the same cost as the Hammerhead) and that will eventually be replaced by Riptide Battlesuits and ultimately Stormsurge.

• XV25 Stealth Battlesuits *** (Do not be fooled by the 6 hitpoints of this infantry unit, it can take a lot of ranged hits in a city or encampment and can be healed fully on every turn by a Builder Drone. It can also deal significant damage with its melta weapon and has Infiltrate. Keep in mind that it is very fragile to melee attacks though!)
  
• Better Weapons ** (More damage to Pathfinders, Broadside Battlesuits, Devilfish, Hammerhead Gunship, Commander)
  
• Seeker Missile ** (This technology is worth researching after unlocking XV88 Broadside Battlesuits or most vehicles)

• XV104 Riptide Battlesuits *** (This unit has versatile abilities to adapt to many situations and it can deal and take a lot of damage. Try to bring an Ethereal hero and Builder Drones to heal and support them)
  
• Blacksun Filter ** (Increased vision to Pathfinders, Stealth Battlesuits, Broadside Battlesuits, Ethereal, Commander, All monstrous suits, All vehicles, All air units)
  
• Vectored Retro Thruster * (Increased movement upgrade to battlesuits. Research this one later to speed up your Stormsurge)

• XV88 Broadside Battlesuits *** (The endgame T'au infantry. It is tough enough and deals good damage after moving, deals devastating damage when standing still and deals absolutely devastating damage when standing still next to a Cadre Fireblade. Add some seeker missiles on them for even more firepower)
  
• Better Weapons *** (More damage to All seeker missiles, Crisis Battlesuits, Broadside Battlesuits, Sky Ray Gunship, Sun Shark, Commander, Ghostkeel, Riptide, Stormsurge, City)
  
• Stimulant Injector ** (Even more resistance is great for battlesuit survivability! But it will also cost you Influence to apply. Research this technology after finishing your two Tier 10 technologies)
  
• Hammer of Wrath ** (Periodically buff monstrous battlesuits damage. Research this technology after finishing your two Tier 10 technologies)

• Foundations (tier 3 cities) *** (You must construct larger cities)
  
• Advanced Targeting System ** (Even more accuracy is great for battlesuits ! But it will also cost you Influence to apply)

• In Diversity, Unity *** (Provides up to an additional +14 Loyalty to your cities (up to +12 for this build) depending how many different buildings you made in them. This technology will provide a significant boost to your economy)
  
• KV128 Stormsurge *** (The strongest T'au unit. Extremely tough and hits extremely hard with a long range, especially when standing still. Try to bring an Ethereal hero and Builder Drones to heal and support them)

If your economy is doing great, research Stormsurge first to start producing them faster. Otherwise, research In Diversity, Unity first.

And that is it. This is a strong and quick path to reach the endgame while focusing on infantry, heroes and monstrous battlesuits. Slip your Ethereal, Commander and tier 4 weapon upgrade research when you feel they would be useful rather than going straight to tier 10 technologies. Those are cheap technologies, so they do not delay you by much. Higher tier technologies that were skipped can be researched after finishing the two technologies in tier 10.

First city

• Research (get to builder Drone ASAP)
  
• Food (stockpile food to train infantry)
  
• Infantry Building (Recruit envoys allows you to delay Infantry production a little)
  
• Builder Drone (to build your second city)
  
• Ore (to accumulate enough Ore to build your third city and sustain unit production)
  
• Builder Drone (to build your third city or to support and heal your army)
  
• Hero Building (to recruit your first Cadre Fireblade and Commander)
  
• Builder Drone (to support and heal your army or to build your third city if it has not been done)
  
• Loyalty (to maintain Loyalty near 0, try to finish this building in your two first city before building the third city)
  
• Population (allows your city to grow past 7 population)
  
• Energy (the need for energy will be felt after the Loyalty and Population buildings)
  
• Crisis Center (to start introducing endgame units into your army composition)
  
• Influence (do not neglect producing influence, you can always use influence on faction abilities or more heroes)

At this point, you have your 12 first main buildings in your first city. You can start duplicating resource or unit production buildings in your city once it reaches this stage. Also take note that the construction of Builder Drones slows the development of your cities compared to other factions which makes those drones extremely precious units. The optimal build order for your first city will change depending on the terrain and outposts it has access to, so don't hesitate to adjust the build order suggested here to your situation. Watch your upkeep and adapt !

Second and third city

They should be focusing first on getting more Food, Infantry production and their Loyalty building. Then they should focus on balancing and improving your economy. It is important to build a large army fast to prepare for the first encounter with your opponent, but also to clear neutral and capture as many outposts as possible as quickly as possible. Securing and holding 3 new outposts is basically equivalent to gaining a “free” production building at no cost. This helps you snowball in the early game and is another key element to developing a strong economy in this game.

It is very important that one of your three first cities is next to a Jokaero Encampment. That city should make the building to train hero units rather soon. This is very important because you need to equip your hero units to reduce their Influence upkeep, to improve their strength, to improve their resistance and sometimes to improve their mobility. Having them spawn on or next to the Jokaero Encampment ensures you can equip and send a hero to battle quickly after training it. Additionally, once that city has built its 12 different districts, it can start specializing into mass-constructing Influence buildings on +20% tiles to sustain the training of your herd of Cadre Fireblades in addition to covering all of your other Influence costs.

Cadre Fireblade is a hero unit with mediocre damage on its own, but amazing utility for adjacent infantries, heroes and drones. It has a low health and a base armor of 6 that can be brought up to 10 with upgrades and items.

I have already covered extensively the Cadre Fireblade level 6 passive Unity ability. Take it ASAP when leveling up your hero.

The Volley Fire passive ability is perhaps the next best ability on this hero. Any infantry, drone, or hero unit that has not moved and stands next to the Cadre Fireblade gets a +25% up to +75% buff to its number of attacks. This means the Cadre Fireblade can almost double the damage of units that are standing still just by standing there next to them. The buff also applies to the hero itself if you do not move it before shooting or sniping. Or you could instead decide to move him next to other infantry that have not moved in order to buff two different groups of units that have not moved during a single turn. This can make it quite painful to attack into a T'au defensive position with overwatch that includes a well positioned Cadre Fireblade. Also note that a drone unit that just spawned counts as not having moved when it is summoned which means it can immediately benefit from Volley Fire.

The Break Composure ability is a 1 turn buff applied to the Cadre Fireblade and all infantry units, drones and heroes surrounding it, that adds 2 up to 6 morale damage to their attacks. This can rapidly break enemy morale without requiring to secure a kill and gives a lot of added value to weak attacks like those of the Cadre Fireblade and of drones. Once a target is demoralized, you can finish it more easily with units that punch harder to keep spreading morale losses in the armies opposing you. This skill works on structures and cities as well. This active buff is a free action and has a 3 turns cooldown.

Lastly, but not least, Cadre Fireblade has a Precise Shot ability that basically turns him into a sniper. +50% up to +150% to accuracy, damage and range turns the mosquito bite attack of the Cadre Fireblade into a long range punch in the face. To really maximize the damage, resist the urge of shooting on a turn you moved and use this ability while standing still to benefit from Volley Fire. The range can be up to 5 when the ability is maxed out which means you can really hit targets from afar. Cadre Fireblade also doubles his attacks at half range, which synergizes well with this high range. You might even consider equipping Sightless Helm, Concealed Weapon System, Omni-Scope and Entropic Locum to crank the damage of your snipe, the +% accuracy stacks on the items bonus. This attack has a 3 turns cooldown, so you could even make a squad of three Cadre Fireblade that reposition and swap this set of items with each other to snipe on every turn and prepare the next turn's snipe in advance without investing too much influence in these items.

As if this hero did not offer enough already, it has Markerlight (every turn) and Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown) abilities. Markerlight can be a particularly good alternative to the Cadre Fireblade's weak attack to mark targets with ranged damage reduction from cover.

Equip this hero with Tantalizing Icon to have it contribute to your influence output. Equip it with Scrolls of Magnus if you are still researching relevant technologies. Equip it with Zoat Hide Jerkin, Adamantium Weave Vest and Armaplas Bracers if you intend to protect your investment in this hero. The Forbidden Knowledge item can also be worth it to unlock level 6 Unity faster. Faolchu's Wing can also be fun on him, but it costs a lot.


Ethereal is a hero unit with mediocre damage, but great utility for adjacent infantries, heroes, drones and monstrous battlesuits. It has a low health and a base armor of 0 making him super fragile. All of its abilities apply an effect to itself and all surrounding units. Ethereals can also Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown).

Sense of Stone and Storm of Fire apply a +17% damage reduction and a +17% attacks to all surrounding units for 1 to 3 turns. These skills are free actions that you can use every turn, but once you use one, you can't use the other on the same turn.

Calm of Tides is an AoE heal that can heal 4 up to 12 Health to the Ethereal and all surrounding units. This is fantastic to maintain your army alive and in top shape. This ability consumes the unit action and has a 3 turns cooldown.

Zephyr's Grace is the Ethereal's level 6 ultimate ability. It grants an additional action to the Ethereal and all surrounding units. If the unit has already moved and used their action, they get an additional action, but if they have not moved and used any action, they can move once and use their two actions afterwards. This means you can grant your units a round of double attacks, which is usually devastating. This ability “consumes” the Ethereal's action, but gives one back, allowing the Ethereal to use Calm Tides or activate an item after using it. It has a 10 turns cooldown.

Equip this hero with Tantalizing Icon to have it contribute to your influence output. Equip it with Scrolls of Magnus if you are still researching relevant technologies . Equip it with Zoat Hide Jerkin for a bit of survivability, but do not bother with Adamantium Weave Vest and Armaplas Bracers since this hero starts with no armor. Faolchu's Wing is actually a must on this hero because of how fragile it is. During your turn, move in the middle of your units to renew their buff as a free action and then activate the wing item to move to safety in the backline. Try to use Calm of Tides AoE not too close to the front line since you won't be able to move back afterwards.

Commander is a hero unit with respectable base damage on its own and amazing utility for your army. It has a decent health and a base armor of 8 that can be brought up to 11 or 12 with upgrades and items. The Commander's abilities are called Metastrategies and all three of them are free actions that share a common cooldown, so each Commander can only use one at a time, but three commanders could apply all three to your army on the same turn. Metastrategies apply to all units within 3 tiles of the Commander (including itself) and initially have a 3 turns cooldown.

Killing Blow grants +25% up to +75% damage when attacking an enemy unit with less than 50% health remaining. So it is of no use to one shot a healthy target, but it can really help out to finish off very resistant targets that require multiple hits to take down. Cities and tanky units are good examples of targets against which you want to use this ability.

Patient Hunter grants +10% up to +30% ranged damage reduction to all friendly units. It is a very straightforward buff, but be careful of melee attacks (as always).

Circle of Blades grants +10% up to +30% bonus accuracy to a friendly unit targeting an enemy unit that is next to another of your friendly units. So you must move a friendly unit next to the target you want to take down in order to benefit from the buff. That can be a good job for drone units or Stealth battlesuits. This also means that, if you want to benefit from the buff with the unit you moved next to the enemy unit, you will need to move another friendly unit next to that enemy unit. Don't forget to keep bringing friendly units next to your next target as you start killing enemy units while this Metastrategy is active !

Thousand Daggers is the Commander's level 6 passive ability that lowers the cooldown on Metastrategies from 3 turns down to 2 turns. This means that, in theory, a squad of 6 level 6 Commanders can trigger all three maxed out Metastrategies on every turn for your army !

Equip this hero with Tantalizing Icon to have it contribute to your influence output. Equip it with at least Adamantium Weave Vest and maybe Armaplas Bracers if you intend to protect your investment in this hero. Most importantly, equip it with Sightless Helm, Concealed Weapon System, Omni-Scope and Entropic Locum to significantly crank up its damage. Install Stimulant Injector and Advanced Targeting System when available to finalize upgrading your Commander.

A fully geared Commander is tanky and can deal a lot of damage on its own. On top of that, it can benefit from its own Metastrategies, from the Cadre Fireblade Volley Fire, from the Cadre Fireblade Break Composure and from all Ethereal abilities to stack up impactful buffs for truly devastating attacks.

T'au can assemble a squad of heroes to take out a poorly defended city in roughly 3 turns. If you are really clever, bait the enemy army away from the city you intend to attack to maximize your chances of success !

In order to achieve this, you will need to have vision near the city you intend to strike down. You achieve that by sneaking a Kroot Hound or a Vespid Stingwings close to the city you intend to attack. You can also use battlesuits with Jet Packs or vehicles or air units to travel on water to reach the city you intend to attack.

Assemble a team of five heroes:

• Three level 5+ Commanders with Dimensional Key, Entropic Locum, Omni-Scope, Combat Stimulant, Concealed Weapon System, Sightless Helm (if you can afford), Adamantium Weave Vest (if you need to tank damage). Two of them with maxed Circle of Blades and one of them with maxed Killing Blow.
  
• One level 5+ Cadre Fireblade with Dimensional Key, Zoat Hide Jerkin, Adamantium Weave Vest and Armaplas Bracers. Volley Fire must be maxed out and Break Composure should have two or three points in it.
  
• One level 6+ Ethereal with Dimensional Key, Zoat Hide Jerkin and Faolchu's Wing. Sense of Stone and Storm of Fire should have two points each and Zephyr's Grace must be unlocked.

Then proceed as follow:

• Turn 1: Jump and control. Teleport your squad of five heroes near the unsuspecting city. The Ethereal can activate its defense buff before or after teleporting. Spam Gun Drones everywhere with your heroes to immediately take control of the perimeter within the city since your heroes can't move after a jump.
  
• Enemy turn...
  
• Turn 2: Move in and demoralize. Activate the Cadre Fireblade Break Composure ability on Commanders, Cadre Fireblade and some gun drones. Activate your Ethereal's attack buff. Then move Commanders inside the city at 1 or 2 range from the city center. Leave a room in the middle of them for the other heroes to step in on the next turn (hold that spot with a Gun Drone). Activate your Accuracy buff from one Commander or Patient Hunter if you fear for your safety. Use your Combat Stimulants on your Commanders since the buff will last two turns. Fire on the city with units buffed with Break Composure to break the city's morale, attack with Commanders last since they can hit harder after the morale loss.
  
• Enemy turn...
  
• Turn 3: Go for the kill. Depending how large and experienced the city under attack is, you might be able to finish off the city this turn. Move Ethereal in the middle of the Commanders. Activate your Ethereal's attack buff, then Zephyr's Grace (ultimate ability) to grant +1 action to all units, then activate Faolchu's Wing to remove the Ethereal from the middle (if you don't have this item, move the gear to the Cadre Fireblade and disband the Ethereal with the extra action). Move the Cadre Fireblade in the middle to grant +75% Ranged Attacks to all 3 Commanders that remained immobile. Activate Accuracy and Damage buffs from the two remaining Commanders. Blast the city with 6 Commander multiplicatively buffed up attack actions that will deal obscene damage to the city, especially after passing the 50% life cap.

If you survive long enough with this hero squad, you can keep wreaking havoc in enemy lines or teleport back to another location once the keys are active again, but keep in mind that drones and Zephyr's Grace will be on cooldown.

While this is a very specific scenario, using very specific items, it provides a lot of great tips explaining how to use your heroes and combine their different abilities to get the most out of them. Considering the damage you can deal with such a small squad, imagine what you can achieve with these heroes when they are fully supported by a real army.

T'au infantry plays an important role in this faction and can be relevant at all stages of the game. It is the unit type that synergizes the most with T'au heroes, especially with Cadre Fireblade. All these units require Food and Ore to build and have an upkeep in Food.

Fire Warriors are basic infantry units that can deal a decent amount of ranged damage on their own. They are tough enough to withstand a few hits in the early game. They can use their Markerlight (every turn), Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown) and Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) abilities and some grenades if you research them. Note that they double their attacks when they stand right next to their target, so do not be afraid to move up close when you intend to go for a kill.

Pathfinders are like tactical Fire Warriors. They can deal a burst of damage at the cost of some health, but they are more fragile than Fire Warriors. They can use their Markerlight (every turn), Scout (3 turns cooldown), Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown) and Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) abilities and some grenades if you research them. They come with 3 different unique speciality drones that only they can deploy. It is relevant to note that their MB3 Recon Drones have twice the range and the attacks of standard MV1 Gun Drones. The problem with this unit is that it is fragile, has a high cost and upkeep and the technology to unlock them is already in a tier containing other mandatory technologies to research. All of this makes it hard to justify researching and making them when XV8 Crisis Battlesuits are not too far away in tier 4.

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits are much tankier and deal more damage than Fire Warriors. They only have the Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown) and Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) abilities, but they are equipped with Jet Packs allowing them to move quickly and stand on water or Wire Weed. They can host one support system upgrade once you unlock them. One of their attacks has a range of 2 tiles and the other has a range of 1 tile so do not be afraid to move up close when you intend to go for a kill.

XV25 Stealth Battlesuits have no Health, but they have a high armor and 50% ranged damage reduction from Stealth and Shrouded. This makes them extremely squishy to melee attacks, decently resistant to ranged attacks and extremely resistant to ranged attacks when standing on an outpost or defending your city tiles. Their melta Fusion Blaster can deal a devastating amount of damage to high armor targets and structures, especially with the help of Volley Fire from Cadre Fireblade. They are also equipped with Jet Packs and do not trigger overwatch attacks when moving. They also have access to Markerlight (every turn), Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown) and Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) abilities. They can host one support system upgrade once you unlock them. You must have a good knowledge of the game's units to know what this unit can go up against and what it should avoid. The fact that Stealth Battlesuits have so few Health offers the benefit that you can fully heal them in a single turn with an Ethereal or a Builder Drone, which makes them a frustrating target to take out if your opponent only has ranged units available.

Lastly, but not least, the XV88 Broadside Battlesuits are the final heavy hitting infantry of the T'au faction. They have a lot of armor and decent Health. They also have access to Seeker Missile (5 turns cooldown), Deploy Drones (10 turns cooldown) and Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) abilities. They can host one support system upgrade once you unlock them. They have a three tiles ranged attack with high damage, armor penetration and accuracy. They also have a two tiles ranged attack that requires no line of sight with decent damage, high number of attacks, low armor penetration and high accuracy. Their accuracy drops by half after moving for all attacks, including Seeker Missiles. Because of all of that, Broadside Battlesuits will do okay damage if they move, but they will deal twice more damage if they do not have to move to attack and they will deal 3.5 times more damage if a Cadre Fireblade with maxed Volley Fire stands next to them. Broadside Battlesuits can easily one shot a lot of targets when they gather those conditions, making it a very powerful unit to defend positions on the map or to slowly push back the opposing army by alternating between standing + shooting and moving + shooting. If you manage to bring these within a range of two next to a city with a Cadre Fireblade, they will melt down the city center on the next turn if they are not dealt with immediately, especially if you pull off the Zephyr's Grace trick I described in the city busting hero squad section.

You can use the action Convert Auxiliary to convert Kroot Hounds and Vespid Stingwings to your cause. So it is worth understanding how to use these troops at their best. They will be very useful in the early game, but will eventually be replaced by better troops. Note that converted auxiliaries units can be healed by a Builder Drone and have an upkeep in food (about one food per auxiliary per turn).

Kroot Hounds have a lot of mobility, even through forests and imperial ruins. They have Infiltrate so they do not trigger overwatch attacks. Their morale is easy to break however. Hide them in forest to protect them since it grants them increased ranged damage reduction. They only have a melee attack.

Vespid Stingwings have a lot of mobility as well, even through forests and imperial ruins. They have Jump and ignore the enemy’s zone of control which is great to surround an enemy unit. Their attack is ranged, but its range is only one tile.

These three oversized battlesuit units are endgame units made in the Crisis Center building. They do not benefit from Cadre Fireblade abilities, but Ethereals and Commanders can heal and buff them. Have them stand next to each other or next to a vehicle to gain +1 accuracy from Fire Team passive ability (except for Stormsurge). All these units require Ore and Energy to build and have an upkeep in Ore.

The XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit shares some similarities with the infantry Stealth Battlesuits. It has more Health, but relies a lot on ranged damage reduction to survive, which makes it rather fragile to melee attack, especially compared to a Hammerhead Gunship that would be unlocked at the same research tier and have the same cost and upkeep in resources. This unit has a Jet Pack and can move faster through cover. It has an aura of fear to demoralize, a Hammer of Wrath (3 turns cooldown), an Accuracy debuff (5 turns cooldown), a Deploy Stealth Drone (10 turns cooldown) and a Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) ability. Stealth Drone can grant a unit +33% ranged damage reduction. It can host two support system upgrades once you unlock them. Cycle its weapon depending if you are facing a squad or a single target. Build a few of those units if you really need them and switch to Riptide Battlesuits when they become available.

XV104 Riptide Battlesuit is much more resistant than the previous Ghostkeel Battlesuit. It also has more range and deals more damage. This unit has a Jet Pack and can move faster through cover. It has an aura of fear to demoralize, a Hammer of Wrath (3 turns cooldown), a Deploy Shielded Missile Drones (10 turns cooldown) and Bonding Knife Ritual (10 turns cooldown) ability. It also has three Nova abilities that share a 2 turns cooldown and cost an additional 10% max Health to activate. Nova shield provides a strong 50% invulnerable damage reduction for a turn, Nova Boost grants +2 movement for a turn and lastly, Nova Fire grants +67% attacks for a turn. Having an Ethereal around is useful to perform maintenance after using Nova abilities. All these abilities allow a Riptide battlesuit to adapt to various situations depending if it needs to tank damage, reposition quickly or deal more damage. It can host two support system upgrades once you unlock them. Cycle its weapon depending if you are facing a squad or a single target. Build these units until Stormsurges are available.

Lastly, the KV128 Stormsurge is by far the strongest T'au unit. It has high health, high armor and a Feel no Pain ability that can be further improved by the Stimulant Injector support system. It has an aura of fear to demoralize, a Hammer of Wrath (3 turns cooldown) ability, a Destroyer Missile (5 turns cooldown) and a Stomp (1 turn cooldown) attack. It can host three support system upgrades once you unlock them. I recommend Stimulant Injector, Advanced Targeting System and Vectored Retro-Thruster. This unit has no Jet Pack, but can move faster through cover. It is Fearless, so very hard to demoralize. It is packed with weaponry that can attack at a range of two or three tiles. If it attacks and has not moved during the turn, all its ranged attacks (so everything except Stomp attacks) are doubled. Be careful, using Stomp counts as moving for some reason, so if you do not intend to move your Stormsurge, always use the Destroyer missile and normal attack before Stomping nearby units. Just on its own, a Stormsurge deals an absurd amount of damage, especially when it has not moved. It is an ideal target for an Ethereal's Zephyr's Grace.

T'au have access to many Drone units that are usually deployed with a 5 or 10 turns cooldown, except for the Builder Drone that is a bit more special. All drones are considered as summoned units and will disband automatically after three turns, except for the Builder Drone. They can be used as utility or sacrificial troops for a great variety of tasks, but keep in mind that they do have a minor effect on nearby troops’ morale when they die (since most Drone unit are worth 1 XP at lvl 1, their death would affect nearby allied troops morale by -1 and nearby enemy troops’ morale by +1). Drones can benefit from all T'au heroes abilities. Most units generally have the choice to deploy either Gun Drones, Shield Drones or Marker Drones. But a few specialized units have different unique drones in their arsenal. I will not list them all because this guide is already long and there are many to cover. Here is some information on the most important ones.

The Gun Drones are the first that can be researched and are very important to scout ahead, allowing you to take better strategic decisions, and to improve the damage and survivability of your units. Its attacks can pin enemies, but keep in mind that it only has a range of 1.

The Shield Drones has no attack, but can grant a +17% invulnerable damage reduction to a nearby target. If you have trouble keeping key units or heroes alive, using this drone might be worth considering.

The Marker Drone has no attack, but it has the Markerlight ability to mark targets. This can be useful to remove the ranged damage reduction of units hiding in covers.

Like I said, the Builder Drone is a special one since it is not summoned by a unit and it does not expire. It needs to be built in a city and is a permanent unit. Its most important role is to found new cities for your empire. Its second most important role is to heal your units. Repair works on any T'au unit or city and can be used every turn to restore 8 health, which is a lot since most T'au units have low Health, especially infantry. This can greatly improve the speed at which your army progresses since you won't have to constantly wait multiple turns for your units to heal back up before moving onward again. Lastly, the builder drone can clear features on tiles. Make enough of them to build your new city and support your army, but be careful, this unit is extremely precious and should remain in the backline, away from danger, since making a new one slows down the development of your cities which has a direct impact on the growth of your economy.

Those were the four main and most important drones available with T'au. The others are found in specialized units as Deploy “specialized” Drones abilities.

Like I already said, I am not overwhelmed by T'au vehicles since they lack synergy with T'au heroes other than the Commander. All T'au vehicles are skimmers that can hover over water, but most of their upgrades are locked behind technologies that need to be researched. I will still try to describe these units a little here even if they are not the focus of this guide.

The Tx4 Piranha is a fast scout unit with low Health and low damage. It can have Seeker Missiles, Gun Drones and has access to Jink abilities.

The TY7 Devilfish is a transport unit with decent Health and armor. It can have Seeker Missiles, Gun Drones and has access to Jink abilities. It only has 4 movements and 4 cargo space which is not a lot for an army with battlesuits that usually take up 3 spots in a transport.

The TX7 hammerhead Gunship is a good tank unit with decent Health and armor. It can have Seeker Missiles and has access to Jink abilities. Have it stand next to another vehicle to gain +1 accuracy from Fire Team passive ability. It has a powerful 3 tiles ranged attack and a 2 tiles ranged attack. It is strong enough to win games if you rush an unsuspecting opponent with a group of them or to help withstand a rush with their long range and resistance. If you absolutely want to include them in this build, replace Bonding Knife Ritual with Fio'Xar Arsenal (vehicle building) and research Hammerhead Gunship in addition to the other tier 5 technologies. You will also have to build the vehicle production building in one of your cities, ideally before researching the Hammerhead Gunship technology. Try to escort your tanks with a Commander hero to at least benefit from Metastrategies buffs. Note that these tank units have a high Health which makes them difficult to repair quickly with Builder Drones compared to other infantry units.

Lastly, the TX78 Sky Ray Gunship is another tank with more health than the Hammerhead Gunship, but that deals less damage with its standard attack. It can launch Seeker Missiles twice and has access to Jink abilities. All enemy units targeted by this tank are considered as marked during the attack, which might be relevant on a map that offers a lot of cover to ranged attacks in the terrain.

T'au air units are unimpressive at best compared to the rest of their arsenal. They lack health, armor and damage to justify getting and building them. They have similar issues as the ground vehicles since they also don't synergize well with T'au heroes.

The AX3 Razorshark Strike Fighter is the worst of the two T'au air units. So let's just move on to the other one...

The AX39 Sun Shark Bomber costs and looks almost the same as the Razorshark, but it offers a few interesting advantages. It has a movement of 6, like the Razorshark. It has Seeker Missiles (5 turns cooldown), specialized Interceptor Drones (5 turns cooldown), a Pulse Bomb attack (3 turns cooldown) and Jink (3 turns cooldown) abilities. The Pulse Bomb attack deals massive damage to infantry units in general while the Interceptor Drones have a special attack that is very similar to the one of Pathfinders. Having this kind of glass cannon attack on an expendable and renewable drone with no upkeep is much more impactful than on a Pathfinder though. These two abilities present on the Sun Shark Bomber and absent from the Razorshark Strike Fighter makes the bomber much more useful in practice. All enemy units targeted by this bomber are considered as marked during the attack, which might be relevant on a map that offers a lot of cover to ranged attacks in the terrain.

The build order in this guide gives you some pointers on what to build in your first city, but what objectives should you pursue at different stages of the game to win ?

Focus on taking control of outposts to help your economy and gain vision and map control. Convert Auxiliaries to remove enemies of your path and increase your army size, which allows you to explore faster and snowball. Start training more infantry units if you have the resources to do so. Identify locations that would be best candidates for two new cities. You need at least one city with access to a Jokaero Encampment. A city placed on a choke point for units caused by the terrain features (water, cliffs, rivers, forest and imperial ruins) can provide you a really strong defensive position that will buy you enough time to eventually win the game if you are attacked early.

Ideally, your three first cities should be built by then. Try to wrap up the exploration phase. You could try killing the enemy unit that triggered first contact, but it might be safer to start regrouping your forces at a location that you can defend like terrain tiles with cover, outposts or inside your city. Expand the city where you might have to defend to create safer tiles for your units. Start to work towards recruiting your first heroes, a Cadre Fireblade to benefit from Volley Fire while defending and a Commander to have one “scary” unit.

As a frontline of combat draws itself on the map, it will be up to you to decide when is the correct time to attack and secure kills or fall back to a position that should be easier to defend. There is too much to cover on this topic and it is out of the scope of this guide. Use the information and tips I scattered in my unit descriptions. Be wary of overwatch attacks when advancing (send drones or tanky units first). Melee units should be a prime target to eliminate because some of your troops rely heavily on ranged damage reduction to survive. Go on water with hovering battlesuits when possible if it lets you avoid melee attacks and to exploit positions that are inaccessible to standard ground units.

If you reach the stages of the game at which you managed to train a few Broadside and Riptide Battlesuits, one or two Cadre Fireblade and one or two Commander, things are looking very good. You should have an easy time defending a position with these units. Train an Ethereal if it is not already done to mass heal your army when necessary. If your units traded well, you might already be on your way towards taking down an enemy city and securing victory at this stage !
Otherwise, the final stage will be to start training Stormsurge and train more Cadre Fireblade to grow your economy faster. If you expect this to be a long game, or if your cities are too far away from the frontline, consider founding some more cities to increase the growth rate of your economy or to train units closer to the frontline or to secure new defensive positions. The longer you can keep this up, the more troops you will be able to sustain, until your victory becomes inevitable due to an overwhelming economical advantage over any other faction, as I have shown in the last screenshot I included.

I tip my hat to you if you read the whole thing. I hope you can find some of the tips I gave useful to your games playing T'au or playing with T'au allies or even playing against them ! As you noticed, T'au units (heroes in particular) have a lot of abilities that must be taken into consideration to play them well and fully take advantage of the toolkit they offer. Deciding when and what to move and how to most harmoniously mix your heroes within your army has a huge impact on the amount of damage your army will be able to deal during a turn. “The city busting hero squad” I described and explained is certainly an extreme example of this.

I also hope that this guide highlights how unique the T'au economy is. That Utopia is an amazing advantage in the early game over other factions and that, even if it becomes a drawback in the mid game and late game, T'au has the tool already not only to mitigate this drawback, but to develop a truly unstoppable economy with many cities with ever increasing production and Loyalty. All that is required is not to neglect Influence production and aggressively train level 6+ Cadre Fireblades in the late game, until the end of the game.

Thank you for taking the time to read this guide. Your constructive comments and feedback are more than welcome if you want to share them.