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So it's come to this Dakka. I've been getting pretty comfortable playing and painting my Chaos Marines lately and I've been feeling the need to expand.

First choice is Tau. It's the army I almost started with when I first started playing. I think it's a good thing I didn't though. The pros of this army are that I already like them. I love how they look. I could try out new painting techniques with them. Cons, might be harder to break myself of the assault mentality. I might suck at painting that slightly weathered damage effect I seem to be loving so much lately.

Second is Chaos Demons. I like the idea of all of them deep striking and it could give me some fun conversion stuff to do. I was thinking of Nurgle guys converted from that metal chaos sorcerer as the leader and a group of zombies bursting out of the ground and walking as the rest of the Nurgle fellows. Beyond that though I feel that the cool look of the Nurgle guys will be lost in a see of normal looking Bloodletters, Demon princes of different flavors and whatever HQs I decide to throw in.

As of right now I'm leaning a little more toward Tau. But I'd like to talk about the army idea I had for each too and see if it is actually plausible.

With Demons I wanted to do 3 or 4 small 5 or 6 man units of the Nurgle troops with icons. Then 3 DPs, probably Tzeentch, Slaanesh and a Nurgle one. After that large units of bloodeletters and maybe some flamers. It'd like to set my waves up so that the DPs all come in first and then the Nurgle guys with icons are on the unfavored wave. So if I don't get the wave I want, I can just set up to make that wave more effective. Does this sound like a good idea? This idea alone is what makes me love the idea of Chaos Demons.

For Tau I wanted to do a few units of firewarriros in transports then just a ton of crisis and stealth suits. I love the look of the Crisis suits and the stealth suits and the JSJ tactic is really cool in my head. Beyond that maybe a broadside or whatever has that big Str 10 AP 1 railgun. The HQs would probably also be in crisis suits too. Oh yeah, tons of shield drones for the suits.

So Dakka help me decide what to further waste my money on.



Edit: Added multiple poles

Tau, dont ask why, im just biased as a friend of mine is collecting tau and he has some daemons but they dont look as cool. And who doesnt love the failsafe detenator?

PS, you should add a pole

Squig_herder wrote:PS, you should add a pole

Like this?

No, definitely more like this:

Another vote for the Greater Good here. Hold off on the Chaos Daemons and take a total change of pace with shooty JSJ suits. I loved the look of the Crisis suits, which is what got me into Tau in the first place. Oh and Railguns come on Broadsides and on Hammerheads. The Hammerhead one has a lower S submunition mode that uses large blast and is good for thinning out large squads before you suits blast them to oblivion. Plus if you like the Devilfish Platform, the Hammerhead is relatively easy to turn into a magnetic upgrade

Tau are less competitive and play more like a modern army using combined arms tactics rather than H2H.

Demons seem to be good for lots of magic powers and variations, I don't know a lot about them to be honest.

I like both, but I'd personally hold off on CD until they get more kits...

Sidstyler wrote:I like both, but I'd personally hold off on CD until they get more kits...

Funny you should mention liking both. I do too to be honest.

So I bought both codex tonight. Read through both. When I was hanging out and painting at my FLGS I realized I have 3 Demon Prince models and the stuff to make some heralds right now. All I'd have to buy are some flamers, a box of zombies to convert to Plaguebearers (Don't like the look of the metal ones), and some Blood letters. So I bought that codex and the list I run out of it will kind of be an all flavors type of for fun thing. I think it will do pretty well too. Just have to learn how to play them.

With the Tau codex I am slightly more perplexed. There is simply a lot of stuff in it I haven't seen before. But when I bought the codex I met a guy who bought a bunch of Tau but has ended up not playing them so he's going to sell me a lot of stuff for pennies on the dollar. So I've already hit a windfall there. Apparently the stuff is mostly crisis suits too so I've got some luck in spades.

Talking to some other people they tell me running the max number of crisis suits is dumb. They've been telling me to run around 6 and stealth suits for marker lights. But oh well, I'll brain storm on tau more in the morning.

Hahah, you added a pole.

I'd say Tau, simply because I think Daemons are blasphemy against how awesome CSM used to be.

That, and I don't think that Daemons have enough unit selection to actually make for a good army.

Taus are utter junk, so if you wanna win dont play them.

Chrysaor686 wrote:

That, and I don't think that Daemons have enough unit selection to actually make for a good army.

I, sir, beg to differ. Codex daemons has MORE choices in the troops than tau, very specialized, that counts for a good back bone for an army, and dont let people dissuade you from daemons just because they DS in, because if Daemons all DSed at the same time, the enemy would most likely lose. And lets not Mention the plethora of HQs and an option of having 4 HQs.

I'd prefer you play daemons if you like the modelling opportunities related to it, you can literally pick almost any box set you want to count as troops when converted right. And daemons are just pure fun to play, i see the randomness as a flavor to the army rather than a flaw we have to overcome (from centurian)

Tau are terrible in 5e....so I voted Tau.

I need easier games for my Grey Knights....

Tau will get a new codex alooooooooong time before daemons.

Buy now, win later (and bask in the glory of those screaming wails of 'new Tau are broken!' 'codex creep sux' etc).

Of the two? Tau all the way.

Kallbrand wrote:Taus are utter junk, so if you wanna win dont play them.

They're weaker under 5th than many, but they're a long way from 'Utter Junk'

Tough decision, I play Tau and do not play Deamons so there is a bias there. One question, why not both?

Seriously, look at each armies positives.

Tau are still ok for not being optimized for 5th. I play against a lot of very talented players of all armies and I still have a better than 50% win ratio after 5th. I usually draw against my friends BT armies that he wins tournaments with. Still winning against ghazkull Orks, Tyranids, and so on. They are still a decent army and are rumored to be 1&1/2 to 2 years from their next codex. So its a good time to start picking them up on the cheap and slowly building a really nice army of the basics.

Deamons are very strong right now. You can also buy one army and play both fantasy and 40k if you buy both codices. Both armies have almost an equal ability to be converted but, I think the edge goes to the Deamons in this. You have a greater variety of troops but not weapons or army builds.

If your looking for something completely different and competive in the near future I'd say Tau. If your looking for immediate competivenss then the Deamons.

I played Tau for a while but I quit after a few games with the new book. They have a lot of interesting options but in the end, it seems it's always: Jump out cover, shoot, jump back behind cover, repeat.
Maybe I played them wrong, but I thought it was pretty boring. Awesome models though.

With Demons I have other issues. I always was the "one cult" kinda guy. I never liked the idea of an undivied Marine armies and with Demons, it seems even weirder.
Depending on what kind of Chaos ou play, they might be a cool addition for Apoc games though.

Anung Un Rama wrote:I played Tau for a while but I quit after a few games with the new book. They have a lot of interesting options but in the end, it seems it's always: Jump out cover, shoot, jump back behind cover, repeat.
Maybe I played them wrong, but I thought it was pretty boring. Awesome models though.

With Demons I have other issues. I always was the "one cult" kinda guy. I never liked the idea of an undivied Marine armies and with Demons, it seems even weirder.
Depending on what kind of Chaos ou play, they might be a cool addition for Apoc games though.

I'm definitely more of the pick and pair or skittles kind of guy. My Chaos Marines include a mark of every flavor except Tzeentch, but then again I do have a MoT DP but I just don't use it any more.

I play both Tau and Daemons. Both are fun, but honestly since you already have a chaos army, I'd recommend Tau. Having two, very distinct armies to paint is useful, as whey you're sick of painting the minutia of detail found on chaos models, you can switch to the simple forms of the Tau models.

Chaos Tau! Best of both worlds!

focusedfire wrote: You have a greater variety of troops but not weapons or army builds.

.

Uhm no, there are just as many if not more army builds for daemons than tau. Your "build" for tau is how you customize your crisis suits. Thats.About.It.

EDIT: or all mech/stand and shoot/hybrid tau? im counting 3 builds.

In all fairness Mech Tau got buffed in 5th edition.

For 5 pts per vehicle we get a 4+ cover save, nuff said

enmitee wrote:

focusedfire wrote: You have a greater variety of troops but not weapons or army builds.

.

Uhm no, there are just as many if not more army builds for daemons than tau. Your "build" for tau is how you customize your crisis suits. Thats.About.It.

EDIT: or all mech/stand and shoot/hybrid tau? im counting 3 builds.

There are 3 definitive types maybe 4 but, then each has several styles which leads to the greater variety. Examples of which are:
Do you want to do a scouting force heavy on pirahnas, stealth suits, or kroot?
Do you want to run a main battle formation heavy on suits, tank, both, or infantry?
Do you want to base your army on the Mont 'ka or the Kaunyon philosophy?
Do you want to run a small specialist army or a kroot swarm army?
Is your army going to depend on marker lights or not?

This isn't evrything either. I still stand by my opinion that the Tau have a greater variety builds. They probably not as competitive as the deamons are at present but one army has a 5th ed codex while the other is probably 2 years away. Also, IMHO, you get good with the Tau now you'll decimate when they are updated.

The thing with deamons is that you can magnatize the bases and then swap out for some fantasy deamons fun as well.

^I actually had already suggested as much to the OP. I know that I have a Tau bias and stated as much as Tau are the army that I play but, I still think my post to the OP was fairly balanced.

focusedfire wrote:

enmitee wrote:

focusedfire wrote: You have a greater variety of troops but not weapons or army builds.

.

Uhm no, there are just as many if not more army builds for daemons than tau. Your "build" for tau is how you customize your crisis suits. Thats.About.It.

EDIT: or all mech/stand and shoot/hybrid tau? im counting 3 builds.

There are 3 definitive types maybe 4 but, then each has several styles which leads to the greater variety. Examples of which are:
Do you want to do a scouting force heavy on pirahnas, stealth suits, or kroot?
Do you want to run a main battle formation heavy on suits, tank, both, or infantry?
Do you want to base your army on the Mont 'ka or the Kaunyon philosophy?
Do you want to run a small specialist army or a kroot swarm army?
Is your army going to depend on marker lights or not?

This isn't evrything either. I still stand by my opinion that the Tau have a greater variety builds. They probably not as competitive as the deamons are at present but one army has a 5th ed codex while the other is probably 2 years away. Also, IMHO, you get good with the Tau now you'll decimate when they are updated.

That still boils down to 3 main builds. Mechanized, static, hybrid. The only difference afterward is if the build is optimized or not.

Actually, I can run a mech list that is optimized and has almost no suits in it or loaded with them.
I can run a scary list of 2 full squadrons of pirahnas behind 3 devilfish/firewarrior squads.
Or run the same firewarrior list with Railheads and suits.
You can build tau to use the marker lights or to run without them.
You can build a list of 4-5 squads of kroot and kroot ox's and kroot and kroot hounds and then back them up with your choice of suits, tanks, or broadsides.

Any of these lists with tweaking can be fairly tough unless somebody builds specifically for them. And there are still more builds that work for the Tau, these were just the first few I thought of.

There is a diffence in completely different lists and optimization.

edited for spelling

Blood letters with pulse rifles! we can call them pulse blades

Tau are so much cooler looking! And I just like the fact that they're not close combat, its pretty nice.

focusedfire wrote:Actually, I can run a mech list that is optimized and has almost no suits in it or loaded with them.
I can run a scary list of 2 full squadrons of pirahnas behind 3 devilfish/firewarrior squads.
Or run the same firewarrior list with Railheads and suits.
You can build tau to use the marker lights or to run without them.
You can build a list of 4-5 squads of kroot and kroot ox's and kroot and kroot hounds and then back them up with your choice of suits, tanks, or broadsides.

Any of these lists with tweaking can be fairly tough unless somebody builds specifically for them. And there are still more builds that work for the Tau, these were just the first few I thought of.

There is a diffence in completely different lists and optimization.

edited for spelling

The mech list will play similarly no matter if it has suits or not. Mech means mechanized for mobility, not Mech(a). The difference in the details is that it may or may not be the most optimized mechanized list. I can't say because I haven't played tau in 5th ed.

Using Kroot means it's a hybrid list as they cannot keep up with the rest of the mobile army.