Hello guys, so I just joined this amazing community today after buying the game.
I got a lot of experience with strategy games, been playing total war for a hell of a long time, been playing the multiplayer competitive and was in the top 10 best players for a long time. So i know how strategy games works, lot of time and practice, I dont expect to win my game in the begenning since I understand jack shit, but the best way to learn is ask people that know more.

So Ive played 4-5 games against the AI before joining the ranked games. I did 5 games, won 2 and lost 3 convincingly, one of my win, my fleet was obliterated and I just won with the points.

I am a huge warhammer 40k fan, I love the Tau Empire a lot and I was wondering does any experienced players have some tips on jow to play them ?

So who is the best Protector or Merchant ?

Are they considered good factions atm ?

What are their strenght and weaknesses

Do you have any strong fleet suggestion ?

Thx and all have an amazing day !

@dracklor

Going to post a short reply from someone who doesn't play multiplayer:

Protector and Merchant tend to be fairly close. Merchant might have a slight advantage in ship cost vs effectiveness.

They're pretty good. Not overpowered, but certainly not weak like some factions are.

Tau ships are all about pelting the absolute crap out of your enemy at range. They're none too quick, nor particularly durable, so if your opponent manages to get close - or worse, get behind - you're dead. Pick targets at range, and be prepared to scatter your fleet when someone closes the gap.

Making your own fleet is half the fun, but some general advice is to use auxiliaries intelligently. Kroot Warspheres are a super cheap option for what they can do, use them as a cheap shield for the fleet, and keep your snipers behind it. A better, but more expensive option, is the Demiurg Stronghold. Having that as the shield your main Tau ships fire behind makes for an incredible anvil, capable of going toe to toe with a surprising amount of ships on its own. Use it (And spam its numerous abilities) to tie up an enemy fleet while your glass cannons take out particular threats.

Tau is probably the easiest faction to play besides tyranids. You literally just click on the ships you want destroyed and watch your fleet shoot it to death. Once in a while you may want to send off some fighters or homing missiles. Besides that just keep your flagship alive or else everyone will mutiny quick. That's literally all there is to tau.

Merchant seems to be able to do carrier/air spam quite well with 24 squadrons in a maxed out 1v1 fleet. They seem a little one trick that way and don't have as much variety as Tau Protector but I've also played them far less than TP. Protector has a strong, long range, high crit chance focus going for them and more depth in ship variety. They have access to Kroot if you want to balance out the fleet with some CC meat shield and a good Fire Warrior passive to use if you go that way. The demiurge ships are surprisingly tanky and have lots of weapon variety, more skill shots.

Use Tau bonus escorts to keep up victory point capping pressure throughout the match and just more scouting map presence for your long guns. Their main weakness is to CC and loss of morale and so-so maneuverability so enemies that like to get in close can do well vs. them. Scouting, using things like stasis bomb, kiting and re-positioning early and just doing whatever you need to to keep the enemy at a distance is usually the plan.