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Hi,
I have just gotten back in to 40k, and I was wondering if someone could make me a basic army list to start with.Preferably something that can be made by expanding on a Battleforce.
I will be playing against Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks.
Cheers!

-Wierdoom

Well, you have all the firewarrior's you'll ever need at this point

I would suggest buying Hammerheads for two reasons:

1) You need them
2) If you're not playing "as" Hammerhead, you can use it for another DF.

Buy another battleforce, keep enough of the FW as your 1+, turn the rest into 2 squads of 6 Pathfinders (give the 2 devilfish here) and take the two units of Kroot as your Troops.

You'll need to buy 1 more Suit, but this will give you just about 1k pts pending options.

Thanks for your help! Do you think I should add any hounds to the Kroot squad, though?

Hounds make kroot good

I'll add a couple then. However, why does everyone use only 6 FW? It doesn't seem like they'd be very useful in that number.

People take FW in 6 because they suck, but you have to take them, they at a 1+ choice with squad size of 6-12.

I just came from a tournament. Where everything I played against were either SM or MEQ. I won 2 game tied final game. Still was high in points.

When you face Marines you need to think 2 things for victory. Take away assault, and Make them take a lot of saves. I cannot stress the importance of multiple suits. Fireknives(Plasma+misslepod+multitracker with 2 shield drones on leader) set up is expensive, but essential. The amount of fire power you can puke out from 3 squads of fireknives is outstanding. The trick is to always have marklights and use them for the suits. Get them all to BS 5 and if you have a lot of counters take a cover save away for instapoping whole squads of Marines. Also, remember Jump shoot Jump. Prevents return fire.

Marklights really are essential. See Tau have the benifite of high str weapons. So manytimes you can be rolling to wound on 2s on marines. If you are rolling on 2s to hits also. You have a chance of getting 80 percent or more of your shots to wound.

Firewarriors are nice, but they get cut down and end up being a waist. If you want to use them to prevent Marines from getting to you for assaults, then use Kroot. They are cheaper and can last a lot longer in CC. Throw in some kroot hounds, and then infiltrate them into a objective. They will last a while and take some people with them. Dont forget if they are facing a large onslaught you can have them go to ground for a 2+save in woods or jungle, and remember if they are assaulted they go first because being in cover. So Sexy! So kroot shoudl be your troops IMO.

Another way to take Assaults away is to use drones from Devilfish or piranhas. The vehicles themselves can have flechette discharger which will kill tons of horde army models, and your opponent will be in difficult and dangerous terrain if it blows up. Now you might be thinking thats a waist of a vehicle, but its not. In some cases it will cost less than what a unit will be, and you wont use a scoring unit just to prevent assualt.

Now on to the making your opponent take multiple saves. The key here is high str weapons. You can do this with SMS from Broadsides, but you might want to use them for railguns if armor is visible. Hammerheads are great for this str 6 submunittion. Last tournament made a guy rolle something like 46 saves with 3 hammerheads on a commands squad. All but like 2 died. Then he got 12 SMS shots, and that was just the hammerheads. Hammerheads are also the quick fix for all horde armys too. Another good way to do this is after you kill a bunch with the plasma rifles on the suits you follow it up with the misslepods. Sure to kill like 2 or 3 per squad of suits.

After a few turns of this Your opponents will have a very few tanks and probably only one chewed up space marine squad.

Finally Tau are the best at shooting. Protect that. Have every move keep that in mind. If a units is 18 inches away its too close. Also watch for Jump pack units and jump infantry. Dont expect to win combat. In fact be ready to lose those units if they are in combat. Honestly the best thing that can happen at that points is they fall back and regroup. I.E bondingknife. The only thing i like being in combat is my drones and my fast skimmer when the opponets is hitting on 6 and wounding on 6s. A side note, I killed 24 of 30 Ork boys in one turn from flechette discharger and had no glancing hits. That was from a piranha.

For the Greater Good!

Kroot do indeed need love too.

Yes, need hounds too. They hit at I 5 and have the same stats as a kroot.

Good times.

How about this:

Shas'el - Plasma Rifle, TL Fusion Blaster, HW Multi-Tracker, Stim Injector - 103

Crisis Suit - TL Missile Pod, Flamer - 47
Crisis Suit - Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multi-Tracker - 62
Stealth Suits (3) - 90

Fire Warriors (12) - Shas'ui w/Bonding Knife - 220
Devilfish - Disruption Pod
Kroot (12) - 84
Kroot (12) - 84

Hammerhead - Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod - 155
Hammerhead - Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod - 155

1000

You would need 2 more Crisis Suits, a second box of Kroot and 2 Hammerheads.

And no marker lights, which is what you DO need to make those Hammerheads so freaking deadly.

With what you get in 2 battalions let me suggest the following:

HQ - 189pts
Shas'el w- Plasma/Missle, HW Multi-tracker, target lock, bonding knife
Crisis Suit Guard w- Plasma/Missle, HW Multi Tracker, drone controller and 2 gun drones.

Troops - 60pts
6 Firewarriors (to be placed in the Pathfinders DF for cap/contest objectives at the end of the game ONLY)

Troops - 216pts
12 Kroot w/4 Hounds (x2) - infiltrate them on/near/close to objectives and go to ground asap if in trouble.

Fast Attack - 364pts
2 units of 5 pathfinders with 'ui/bonding knife (just in case)
DF w/Disruption Pod and Multi-tracker

Heavy - 170pts
Hammer Head - Railgun, SMS, Disruption Pod, Black Sun filter

That's 999 points worth in two battle force boxes and the purchase of 1 hammerhead/8 hounds.

With the DF you are using, it get's the extra ability to allow you to re-roll your Deep Striking Units. If you so chose, the crisis suits can deep strike and can be highly effective since if you don't get them where you want, you still have the option of running instead of shooting - but with 2 Plasma Rifle/Missile Pods and the extra wounds of the drones, you will probably hit/kill whatever light armor/infantry you end up next to.

You can get up to 6 marker lights for each pathfinder squad (provided you hit with them) to help the Hammer head break it's target/lower cover saves/increase the BS.

It really depends on how competitive you want to be.

If you want to be competitive go for hammerheads (great anti-horde) and hard-hitting fusion/plasma suits (first rate MEQ killers). Though fitting both into 1k is difficult, esp. including markerlight support...

2 railheads, burst cannons, DPs, multitrackers (330)
commander ('el) fusion/plasma/mt/targetting array(97)
6 fire warriors in a fish + DP (145)
3 suits, fusion/plasma/mt (186)
8 pathfiners w shasui, bonded (111)
16 kroot + 2 hounds (132)
(993)

You can convert fire warriors into pathfinders easily, so no new models needed there. However I think you get only one suit in the battleforce. You need another 3 (EBAY!) plus the two hammerheads and a couple of hounds. There may be someone on dakka who can help you out - I've had some excellent trades with people on here.

If you just want a fun tau force get another 3 stealth suits and run a full team of 6 with 2 marker drones .. however this is a 250pt unit! Maybe add a single broadside for anti-tank as well.. you see how people end up spending £$£$£!?

Weirdoom:

There are different philosophies for playing Tau. At this point in 40k, they are probably not a beginner army. I've written volumes over time on Tau, tactics for them, army compositions, and think you should read this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/229095.page

Read the comments, the stuff I wrote so that I don't have to repeat it all here, and hopefully you'll learn something.

Personally, I play pure Tau. I don't use Kroot or Vespids, I play pure Tau, and most of the time use a static gunline which I've found to be ridiculously successful. The mistake that Tau players most often make is in mixing army styles. For example, I rarely take hammerheads in a static gunline; that's a team of broadside suits I'm not getting which are infinitely better tank killers, and I have mob control elsewhere in my army. I don't ever take Kroot. Every Kroot model is that many points less that I have of firepower to pour into the enemy. I *win* with Tau because my firepower is simply overwhelming, has a multitude of markerlights to affect cover saves, and has blended armaments to make sure I have an answer for everything...a couple of flamers and an airbursting frag launcher in case I fight outflanking Tyranids or Orks, Fusion/plasma suits to deal with terminators and MEQs, Sniper teams and pathfinders to cause as many pinning checks as possible....

There's different types of Tau armies to build. Find the one you like, and master it.

Thanks so much for all of your help guys!
Dash - I read that thread, and found it to be quite helpful. Thanks!
I have decided to go up to 1500 points so I have a bit more to play with. I took some elements from other people's army list, and came up with this. It would be great if I could get some feedback on it.

HQ
Shas'o with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller + 2 Shield Drones - 142
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker - 144

Crisis Suit Team
2 Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, Multitracker - 124
1 Shas'vre Leader with Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller + 2 shield drones - 92

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team with Shas'ui and bonding knife - 225
(X3) Devilfish with Disruption Pod - 255

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multitracker and Disruption Pod - 165

3 man Broadside Team with advanced stabilization 160
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones - 90

I have 102 points to spend.

Black Antelope wrote:How about this:

Shas'el - Plasma Rifle, TL Fusion Blaster, HW Multi-Tracker, Stim Injector - 103

Crisis Suit - TL Missile Pod, Flamer - 47
Crisis Suit - Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multi-Tracker - 62
Stealth Suits (3) - 90

Fire Warriors (12) - Shas'ui w/Bonding Knife - 220
Devilfish - Disruption Pod
Kroot (12) - 84
Kroot (12) - 84

Hammerhead - Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod - 155
Hammerhead - Railgun, Burst Cannons, Disruption Pod - 155

1000

You would need 2 more Crisis Suits, a second box of Kroot and 2 Hammerheads.

Drop the stealths add kroot hounds and flechett dischargers.

You have the right thinking with the HQ, but I would just go Misslepod plasmarifle with tergetting array or shield generator. I have yet to use a fusion blaster successfully. To close of range. You never want to be inside 12" range. NEVER!
Unless you have some drones covering up for you. Drop the devilfish. I think you cant use them for kroot.
You also need to know they they only reason you will use your stim injector is if you fail an armorsave, and that is only on a roll of 2 or 1, because if you take a shot at an ap 1 or 2 you cant take the feel no pain roll, and if the str is high enough you lose your HQ out right. Just use shield drones.

As said get kroot hounds in both squads and put more kroot in them, Understand they have low leadership and no bonding knife. Use them to infiltrate into forward positions and go to ground if they are going to get shot to hell on first turn. Trust me full squad of kroot with kroothound are nasty in cover. Getting at a minimum of 3+cover and assaulting first. You will really frustrate the Space marine players when they lose combat time and time again.

Its just me but I really dont like FW. They never will win CC and rifle can only shoot at 12inches and move. Its like either go all FW or dont go any. Or at the most put 6 in a devilfish to capture objectives.

Flechete dischargers are pricesless. Say 30 ork boyz assault a piranha that moves flat out, First you get a 4+ wound on the whole squad, So on the law of averages thats 15 boys. Half the squad. if they werent fearless at that number they would break and run. Furthermore they are hitting on 6s and then glancing on 6s. I often will just send my piranhas out up against there lines, when fighting horde armys, because nonexperience players will assault it and lose half there guys and wont do any damage at all. Then next turn I pop one of there transports or tanks hitting at rear armor. Its like giving a vehicle a way to fight back in assaults.

On the hammerheads +1 for having 2 allthough you will want the SMS 4 shots str5 and they fire indirect so you can shoot without line of sight. This is so huge. If you dont have the points dont worrya bout it just remember Sms rock.

I would really center your army around getting as many crisis suits. I like to run at least 3 with a hq. so you can get 8 misslepods and 8 plasma rifles right before that termie squad assaults. You also need some shield drones. They are also pricesless. Use them when you wont be able to save against the wounds. I.e. High str low ap shots to the unit. go on the shield drones.

You could really chance fate and throw in some pathfinders and go a plasmarifle fusion blaster, or flamer with multitracker or twin linke fusion blaster with flamer squad deepstrike them 12 inches away. Pathfinder devilfish lets you reroll the scatter dice. So its possible, the problem is you are going to have to almost table everything within 12inches of you to survive.

Wierdoom wrote:Thanks so much for all of your help guys!
Dash - I read that thread, and found it to be quite helpful. Thanks!
I have decided to go up to 1500 points so I have a bit more to play with. I took some elements from other people's army list, and came up with this. It would be great if I could get some feedback on it.

HQ
Shas'o with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller + 2 Shield Drones - 142
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker - 144

Crisis Suit Team
2 Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, Multitracker - 124
1 Shas'vre Leader with Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller + 2 shield drones - 92

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team with Shas'ui and bonding knife - 225
(X3) Devilfish with Disruption Pod - 255

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multitracker and Disruption Pod - 165

3 man Broadside Team with advanced stabilization 160
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones - 90

I have 102 points to spend.

I would drop those bodyguards and make them regular fireknives - you save 20 points. I'd also drop the shas'o down to a shas'el saving you another 25 points. So now you have 147 points to spend. With your firewarriors teams spending most of their time in devilfish, I would drop the shas'ui and bonding knives freeing up 45 more points. At this point, you have 192 points left to spend which could go into a second hammerhead, or 3 more plasma/missile/multitracker suits or even 3 deathrain suits and a third fireknife suit if you dropped a shield drone here or there.

NOTE: some of your points values were wrong (you forgot to pay for teamleader upgrades and such.

Your new list would look like this.
Shas'el- plasma/missile/mt/2 shield drones 107

3 Fireknife suits- plasma/missile/mt 186
3 Deathrain Suits- twin missile pods, flamers 141
3 Helios Suits- plasma/fusion/mt 186

3x6 Firewarriors- 180
3x Devilfish- disruption pod 255

Hammerhead- dp, mt, burst cannons 165
3 BASS- team leader with 2 shield drones, target lock 280

You have 4 more suits than you did before without giving up anything except a few invulnerable saves. I'm not a big fan of Helios (plasma/fusion) suits so if you wanted another hammerhead instead of suits I would drop those.

I like hounds too........but have you seen the price for just two.

Damn.
I suggest getting say... a box of WFB warhounds or something equivalent to represent them. Better cost per model.

I've seen some conversions from mixing Kroot and Hormagaunt/Termigaunt pieces.

A few notes of advice:

1. Drop the commander's bodyguards. They cost 10 points extra. Instead, make another elite unit and just have your Shas'o attach himself to them when the game starts, or whenever you want to.

2. Wound allocation magic is important. Each of your crisis suits should be equipped a little differently...here's a Helios (Terminator, MEQ, vehicle killer) configuration I like to use:
-Team leader, Plasma+Fusion, Drone Controller, Hard Wired Multi-tracker, 2x drones (consider gun drones...just consider it; not every suit team needs shield drones, and gun drones are nice for spreading wounds to).
-Suit #2: Plasma+Fusion, multi-tracker
-Suit #3: Twin-linked plasma, drone controller, Gun drone

3. The "Fireknife" configuration is Plasma+missile pod and is popular, if incredibly inefficient. Mixing a short range terminator/MEQ killer with a long range light vehicle killer is a terrible idea. People will argue with me until they're blue in the face on this one, but specializing your units is far more effective. Have a Deathrain team with twin-linked missile pods sitting in the back working over light transports while your hammerheads take down heavier stuff; or have a team of plasma/fusion suits screening up front, looking for MEQs and terminators to annihilate....but don't mix and match and try making a unit all-purpose.

4. You only have two heavy supports. Instead of a three man broadside team, consider taking 2x2 Broadside teams. If you're playing a static gunline you don't need advanced stabilization systems. Targeting arrays will make sure you hit stuff (I hate missing twin-linked shots), or multi-trackers will let you fire your smart missiles too. I equip my two suit teams with a hard wired target lock on the team leader so that my four suits can fire at four different targets every turn if I want.

5. Your hammerhead: Your army list has four vehicles.....3x devilfish and a hammerhead. You're creating a semi-mobile army list, and I'd tell you that you need to go static or mobile; mixing the two up doesn't work so well. Each of those vehicles is less firepower that you have to direct downrange. I don't really have a problem with foot-slogging firewarriors (in teams of 12); in an annihilation game you can sit tight and just kill stuff. In a Capture and control game you're going to pretty much auto-win; you'll sit your entire army on your objective while your enemy sends part of their army to come get yours. Your entire army will kill that part of their army, and then your entire army will either table them, or contest theirs by the end of the game. And in sieze ground, you have some control over where objectives get placed. I *always* attempt to put as many objectives as close together (12") as possible so that there's really only one place on the board to worry about. Whether you place more objectives or less than your opponent, YOU control grouping, and you can decide where the fight is going to be.

While your firewarriors aren't going to advance into an objective and punch someone off of it in close combat, you can deploy according to where they are, set the stage for the fight. I tend to try grouping all the objectives in the middle of the table. I *want* my opponent to be in the middle of the table, in range of all my withering pulse rifle fire, preferably at rapid fire range. And if you're sitting 12" away while they sit on the objective, do you *really* think that they're going to abandon an objective that they own to come assault you? Pretty much nope.

Check out the other Tau thread at the top of the boards here; I just posted one of my 1850 gun lines and some tactical advice as well. Hope to see you melting faces soon. I'll tell you this; I win the vast majority of my games as Tau. With the ability to control the fight, and the ability to outrange and outshoot your opponent, a good army list and good tactical use of it will guarantee you almost any fight. Outflanking genestealers and deep striking necrons and demons are the only real annoyances, but they can be dealt with fairly easily as long as you deploy appropriately for them.

For example, if I play an Ork player who is using Snikrot, I deploy in a box in the center, against the back, and line the back edge with a squad of fire warriors at 2" apart to prevent rear ambushing. Against outflanking genestealers, its really fun. I deploy in a box in the rear center, use the first two turns to wtfpwn all the tyranids not in reserve with railguns, fusion, plasma, then watch where genestealers come out; I pick a side and move towards it killing everything on that side so that I can turn around and deal with the tyranids on the other side. If you have to feed a unit of firewarriors to the meatgrinder to preserve the rest of your army, so be it. Playing Tau is about tactical finesse, not brute force....except for the firepower you're pouring downrange.

Just one thing to say,

Dont by hammerheads! Buy Skyrays! They are the same cost as a hammerhead, and you get everything to make the skyray, hammerhead or devilfish.

With everyone's suggestions, this would be my new list:

HQ
Shas'el with TL Missile Pod, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller + 2 Shield Drones

Helios Crisis Suit Team
2 Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, Multitracker
Leader with HW Drone Controller + 2 Shield Drones

Deathrain Pair (Will attach to HQ)

12 man Fire warrior Team with Shas'ui and bonding knife

6 man Fire warrior Team + Devilfish with disruption pod

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multitracker and Disruption Pod.

(X2) 2 man Broadside Team with Targeting Array.
Leader with HW Drone controller + 2 gun drones

I have yet to calculate the point value. Could I get some feedback on this?

Broadsides with the Targetting array is pointless. Take the Advanced Stabilization System so you can move and shoot. Use shield Drones instead of gun drones. The 4++ save will last a lot longer than just a single extra wound. Gun Drones are basically worthless except for being a small annoyance to the enemy (Pinning Guants and Homoguants is my favorite).

The Shas'El is better off having something besides twin-linked missile pods. An AFP or a CIB works well. Pair this with a missile pod. Stim injectors if you have the points is quite nice for the commander as well since it will give FNP. Give him the targetting array and hard-wire the multitracker for BS5. Also having a multitraker with a twinlinked weapon does absolutely nothing. You can always fire a twin-linked weapon since it counts as one weapon for firing. Only if you have 2 different weapons do you need a multitracker.

The plasma/fusion combination is expensive. If you twin-link one of the weapons even more so.

An 8 man team of firewarrriors is much better than a 6 man team and more suvivorable. I normally take 2 teams of 10 with a shas'ui with a bonding knife. It has a good amount of shots and can be placed in cover easily.

On your hammerhead take a target lock. The Railgun will be able to take down tanks while the burst cannons take care of nearby infantry.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wierdoom wrote:With everyone's suggestions, this would be my new list:

HQ
Shas'el with TL Missile Pod, Multitracker, HW Drone Controller + 2 Shield Drones

Helios Crisis Suit Team
2 Plasma Rifle, Fusion Blaster, Multitracker
Leader with HW Drone Controller + 2 Shield Drones

Deathrain Pair (Will attach to HQ)

12 man Fire warrior Team with Shas'ui and bonding knife

6 man Fire warrior Team + Devilfish with disruption pod

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multitracker and Disruption Pod.

(X2) 2 man Broadside Team with Targeting Array.
Leader with HW Drone controller + 2 gun drones

I have yet to calculate the point value. Could I get some feedback on this?

This list should be 986 points if I understood it correctly.