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Hi all. Getting into 40k. I was a long time epic 40k player so I'm familiar with the fluff. Finally making the jump into warhammer for some stress relief from work. I'm torn between tau and chaos marines. Love the fluff and models on both so it kinda comes down to how they play. Are either of these considered cheesy? If I go c:csm ill probably do a slaanesh all over with noise marines troops and marks of slaanesh on some other units for theme. Or a khorne themed. I like the idea of mostly one chaos god alignment. How would that play? How are tau suits, are they the mainstay of tau? Less important concern, but which would be cheaper $ in general to collect? Thanks for any guidance.

FYI, Chaos is usually abbreviated as C:CSM. C:SM is Codex:Space Marines (Vanilla loyalists).

First, welcome to Dakka.

Both armies can be cheesy, but don't need to be. They both have 6th ed codexes, so are in a good place at the moment. Do you want to sit back and shoot or mix it up a bit?

I can't speak for the specifics of either army, being an Ultramarine player myself. From the heretical screams I overhear from the traitor legions, I'm not sure how effective mono-god armies these days. With the only assault transport being a LR, getting the khorne marines to CC might be rougher then it has been in the past. I don't hear much about slaanesh. Hopefully some veteran of the long war will be here shortly with better advice, if not just start sacrificing cultist until the dark gods start answering your questions. Or put an extra "C" in the title so you are not luring loyalists in here...

Tau are still a one trick pony: sitting back and shooting you off the table. There are a bunch of ways for them to do that, and I'm not sure what's hot these days. The latest codex to drop, so there is a bunch of chatter about them.

As for price, chaos is part of the starter box, so you should be able to pick up those units for a lot less then normal on e-bay/swaps/etc. Besides that, it really depends on how you build your army.

Thank you Nevelon. I fixed the abbreviation, glad you pointed that out.

I do kinda like having the option to melee if I want to and it looks like you can build more beastly HQs with chaos but man I love the tau models and suits. Why do they both have to be so cool.

I just checked my rulebook, and it looks like chaos marines and tau are allies of convenience. So while not battle brothers, you should be able to field an ally force without too many issues.

So buy both! Start with one as a main force, and then work up an ally contingent. Mix and match. Thus is the joy of 6th edition.

would go for tau personaly I have a choas army but never got on well with them. Reason for taking tau over choas is they can be battle brothers with eldar which is next out in the new codex list

And more importantly there is just to many space marines in 40k

But Orks is best

The Tau Riptide is AWESOME!!

My son and I have been prepping for the Bugeater GT and he is running 3 in his list and it just STOMPS!!!!

I am running vanilla marines and his list is over the top!

Tau can be shooty or Close combat now... the riptide just slays stuff!!

Tau are not what I would call a beginner army, they are complicated rules wise, and need a lot of synergy between units.

Marine codex's tend to play more directly, and if you like CSM's brand of marineyness, i'd say go for them before tau

As stated before Tau are based on synergy of units. At the same time though the Chaos Space marine codex has a lot of unit selections and special upgrades that work towards synergy. The two armies play completely different and so I would spend some time researching them to see which play style you are more at home with.

Chaos is way to expensive in unit cost. You can do more with tau.

Noooooooooooo........

It was always CSM. CSM means Chaos Space Marines. C:SM was something invented by clueless people who didn't realise that space marines already HAD an acronym.

As for which to take, tau are cheesier than CSM because they straight-up ignore more rules. Meanwhile, if you don't take a helldrake, there really isn't anything to complain about with the CSM codex.

They're also going to be cheaper as well, as you can focus more on things like terminators, and can make their troops pretty expensive as well if you want. That and the fact that the current 40k starter set has CSM minis in it means that you can get certain CSM models for pretty cheap (especially cultists, for example).

CSM are also more interesting to play with and against, as they use more of the game - both infantry and vehicles, both shooting and assault, and plenty of movement. Tau, on the other hand, will bias you towards playing a gunline, where you don't move or assault, you just plonk down your minis and roll dice without giving it much more thought.

I own 6k CSM and about the same in Tau. They play way different (obviously). I like the new Tau quite a bit, but 2 of my pals have really like the new Dex, so I've let them run my stuff and I've gone back to rotating between my UM and my WordBearers. Playing CSM almost feels like trolling... right now, for me, the CSM codex is the stronger and certainly the cheaper to run.

I feel no shame in running 2 heldrakes, 2 defilers, 2 squads of spawn, 4 cultists, and two JuggerLords (we play 2k lists).

I then mix in combi melta nurgle terminators or nurgle bikers with meltas (sometimes squeezing in an Aegis with a Quad). So far its ran like a charm. 60 some models, but 40 of which are cultists (crazy cheap) and I use Chaos Warhammer Warhounds as spawn (pretty cheap), that's 50 of the models for about $50. Only needing to go out an buy 11 models of any real cost.