My 2nd Army: Orks or Tau

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**gmaleron**

Hello everyone, as I finish up my Elysian army I am already looking forward to starting my 2nd for 40k just so I can mix things up and add to the number of xeno players at my store. That and the fact that I will be able to spend around $500 this upcoming weekend thanks to working alot of hours of overtime.

Now the two lists I am considering are both fitting to my playstyle of being an aggressive type of player but at the same time enough variation between them and my Drop Troop IG where it would be a fun change of pace. Now the two lists I am considering are:

Tau "Farsight Bomb" List

-My variation of the Farsight bomb will be him and his full bodyguard, and I am thinking of running x2 with plasma, x2 with Missile Pods and x2 with fusion blasters and all with target locks. The last battlesuit will have the support system giving the unit twin linked, besides Farsight I will be adding a 2nd HQ because I love the model and on top of that will give me some more hitting power thanks to being BS5. (*Note if anyone has any better ideas and or variations of this I would love to hear it!*)

-Will consist of x2 Riptides, 3-4 squads of Fire Warriors of x12 and some pathfinders and 3 squads of x2 Broadsides with the missile spam build and either skyfire or interceptor on all three units. Idea behind this list is to gunline it with my fire warriors, pathfinders and broadsides while my Farsight unit will either start on the board to add to the weight of fire or deepstrike in and smack my opponent in the mouth.

Ork "Battleship" List

-Idea behind this list is that I will be running x3 Battlewagons each one loaded with x12 Lootas and x3 Meks per unit, giving each wagon alot of firepower and with the x3 meks per unit will give me a good 4+ chance to repair a hull point.

-With the remaining points I will be "bubble wrapping" the wagons with massive units of Shoota Boyz in either Trukks or ground pounding it to protect their weak side and rear armor as I move up the board.

-For my HQ choices I am thinking about running x2 Big Meks with kustom force fields to give my wagons even more protection against incoming fire, the wagons and the units surrounding it.

-For the rest of my list I am thinking of either some deff koptas or other units to support my wagons such as kans or bikes.

**Hashbeth**

I voted tau, however, it depends really on what you want.

Playstyle wise the Ork list is more similar to your play style, while the tau are going to be much more distance shooting than you're probably used to (assuming you do like a super crazy fluff-based elysians).

I'd recommend waiting and checking out Eldar, though, if it was me.

Of course I'd also recommend that you don't look as much on play style as you would fluff. Given that both those lists are pretty similar in ways to your current list, let fluff decide.

**lambsandlions**

Tau is very powerful right now, especially farsight bombs. Depending on the popularity of the farsight bomb their might be a big meta shift where people are ready to combat the bomb, but right now it is a very powerful strategy. Even if the farsight bomb starts seeing hate, crisis teams are still very good and it is not like the models will go to waste. Tau is weaker than necrons, IG and CSM but stronger than everything else. Also we just got a new codex so things are going to be the same for a while.

Orks are looking for a new update. What you buy now may not be good when the new codex comes out and you just don't know how good orks will end up being.

But overall, pick the army you like the game play and aesthetics of.

**Ailaros**

As for tau, I'll repeat the advice given to a person with the same dilemma with CSM recently:

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.

As for why orks in specific, I'll give you the best sales pitch I've ever heard for orks:

MrMoustaffa wrote:
So, I'm going to shock everyone here, and say that the army I picked with a more "mature" intent was orks.

That's right. Orks. And not the super serious, uber grimdark orks, I'm talking the wacky, da red wuns go fasta, the neva enuf dakka orks. And do you know why? Because they live in the crappiest universe imaginable. Everyone hates them. They have crummy technology, were abandoned by their own creators, and are essentially a slave race. Life didn't give them lemons, it gave them a sledgehammer to the face. And you know what they did with it? They took that mallet, made it more choppy, painted it red, and beat life's skull in with a brick, just because they could. They refuse to let life bring them down, and proceed to have time of their (short) lives. And why not? If all you'll ever see is war, why not enjoy it? These are the guys who literally flew straight into the gates of hell (the eye of terror) to find the greatest fights ever. and had a great time while doing it, even as hideous warp entities swarmed around them.

I'm going through a lot in my life right now, and while I know I'm well off compared to most, i still have periods where i'm very down or depressed. But everytime I see my orks, I can't help but smile. If they can take the hellish nightmare world of grimdark 40K and turn it into the the journey of a lifetime, then I should have no trouble getting my own life on track.

Which adds to the other "mature" facet of the orks. Any ork can make a name for himself if he's willin to fight and win. Even ghazgkull himself was once one of da boys. And although he had a bit of help from da dok, he still had to fight his way to the top. Every nob, every warboss and warlord, was nothing more than an average ork boy when he started out. No other army or force in 40K works like this. A guardsman , no matter how well he fights, will never become a lord general. A necron warrior will never become a kryptek. Etc. But ork boys all have the potential to become one of the greatest warbosses the galaxy has ever seen. It's pretty inspiring to me at least. Of course, there are other things, but those two qualities drew me to orks more than any other.

MrMoustaffa wrote:
They're about as opposite of foot Guard as you can get. Remember, we're not talking about green tide, we're talking about warbiker mobs. May take a boyz mob or 2 in battlewagons, but that's about it. This had a very big selling point that I'm not sure you've considered yet. Look at your army case. I mean really look at it. Look at how big it is. Think about the effort it takes to lug that monster around, take it to the gamestore, take over a table and spend 20-30 minutes getting your army ready. We all know foot IG can be a pain in the arse to field, and can feel draining almost at the end of a day when you're tired and just want to go home and you realize you've gotta pack up all those little boogers again. Now, think about how many models it would take to field that biker horde army. As long as you're not taking 3 dakkajets, you could probably fit said 1500pt list in a shoebox. Think about that. You can unpack your army in like 5 minutes, and be deployed in a few minutes.

You can really go nuts with fluff with them. You can literally make them however you want. All that zaniness you love about orks? You can still do that. GW just had to tone them down because they were too awesome in the older codexes and were more awesome than space marines, but you can restore their glory. Think about all the awesome conversions you can do, with nothing to hold you back. Tradition, common sense, even logic itself can't stop you, it's a friggin ork army, they do as they please. They have devices that literally rip holes in the fabric of reality so they can teleport a one foot tall goblin inside you, you can do whatever you want.

With orks, they fight whoever they want whenever they want. Know how with your guard batreps you have to come up with some excuse as to why your loyal guardsmen are fighting space marines every game? Doesn't matter with orks. Heck, you can say they're intentionally invading a chapter's home world just because they feel like it. No more "well, how do I dance around the fact that I'm fighting space wolves this time?" I don't know how much that appeals to you, but it was kind of nice for me to not have to make up "justifications" of why my guardsmen seemed to go rogue 3 times a week

**Jimsolo**

Orks! Especially because I think you've got a fairly fresh take on them.

**Dakkamite**

I had that exact idea for an Ork list the other day. Maybe one of us inspired the other. Thinking of building battlewagons that look like 'land battleships' as well =P

To defend your fleet, I suggest a screen of cheap vehicles. They can give cover, and I'm also not certain as to if shooting through a unit of troops gives 4+ cover to your enormous battlewagons behind them ~ but vehicles certainly do, and they don't suffer leadership issues either.

Gun Trukks are a 45 point Trukk with a kannon. You can take 5 per Heavy slot, and add a rocket for 5 points, and when they die, their ramshackle and relatively large profile helps give you cover. You can literally make a wall of paper thin armour that either blocks LoS completely or gives 4+ cover, for pretty damn cheap. For another 5 points they can zoom around tank shocking things as well!

Alternatively, Warbuggies can actually find a use here. Wish their maximum squad size was higher though.

You probably won't need 2 KFF Meks. What I recommend here is that you ally in a Dread Mob Big Mek for the forcefield, or take a KFF Junka, and take a pair (or trio) of Mega Armoured characters (Mek for repair, boss for combat) and put one in each battlewagon. That way, your Lootas are Slow and Purposeful and fire at full BS if the Wagon moves slowly enough!

Overall though, the reason why I haven't gone ahead with the idea, and why you should possibly reconsider it too, is that a) battlewagons are *not* survivable, they kill 50% of their krew when they explode (which they will certainly do, every single game) and Lootas will be safer in area terrain and b) Lootas don't need to move up the field to get targets within range, as they are already long ranged as it is!