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all right,

im thinking about starting 40k as the tau (i have the codex). I am having an amigo put me through the basics tomorrow or the next day, and i already play WHFB as the Wood Elves. what are the major differences between 40k and WHFB (other than the shapes of the bases). and any advice on the tau/40k would be helpful.

thank y'all,
-chase

Well the only advice is to play to the strength of the army you are playing, don't waste too much if any points on making your army ok at something they are terrible at. Tau are great shooting, and possibly the worst at combat. With the new missions being largely objective based, and only troops being scoring, I would make sure your bring enough fire warriors preferably in transports (to keep them safe and mobile). Tau also have railguns, which is S10 and has a very long range. Great vs high armor.

Broadsides and hammerheads are for breaking vehicles, and do it very well. Stealth suits can be really good, or they can be really bad. Depends on the general, and what you are facing. Crisis suites are really nice, but they tend to be points sinks, so don't go over board on upgrades.

Tau don't really have much in the way of bad units, but steer clear of vespids or kroot of any kind untill you get the hang of the game. They are very fragile, and aren't point efficient for what they do.

I don't play tau personally, but the army i played vs the most when I started out was tau. Don't ever let anything an opponent has get in base contact with anything you actually care about. Tau even lose close combat to grots on a point for point basis.

40k is often regarded as an "easier" version than fantasy, at least at my store.

There is no magic phase.

Leadership/psychology factors into the overall much less than in Fantasy.

Formations factor in much, much, much less than Fantasy.

Your phases are going to be pretty simple and straight forward: move, shoot, assault

You get to move everything independently of everything else as long as you maintain a squad coherency of 2".

I dont think in either our local gaming group, or at our local gaming store I've ever seen someone play the Tau. Would be interested to hear how your experience turns out!

Tau should be fine in the new edition. Play it.
Both systems are not that different. Movement, shooting, and assault. Casting spells is different. Combat resolution in the new 40k ed is somewhat similar to Fantasy. It even easier when you come from Fantasy than going the other way round.

The trick with Tau is that even though they're a shooting army, they are by no means a static gun-line army. You do that, you're going to get out-shot or assaulted. Tau requires a very fluid and mobile style of play, manouvering to better positions, concentrating fire, not shooting for a turn so you don't get shot back...Tau are very easy to learn (just shoot the guns), but difficult to master.

However, Tau have many things going for them:
1) Railguns are hands down the best ranged anti-tank weapon in the game
2) Crisis Suits are one of the most mobile and versitile units in the game, capable of handling almost any threat if tooled up right
3) Fire warriors, your basic troops, come with the best basic weapon in the game
4) Tau have the only weapon in the 40k game that can modify balistic skill *and* remove cover saves (markerlights)
5) Tau vehicles are some of the hardest to destroy at range. (decoy launchers + multi-trackers)

Ok. i just ordered the battleforce and the devilfish with fire warriors today. now i use the tau similarly to my wood elves yes? advance a bit to cover, shoot until they get fairly close, retreat and use the vehicles and XV88s for coverfire ya? thanks for all the responses so far, and i hope for more.

gracias,
-Chase

now i use the tau similarly to my wood elves yes?

Lol, Tau and Wood Elves. Keep the enemy at arm's length at all costs. Weaken his advance with your heavy guns and when he's close rapid fire him to death.

Everything skirmishes. Almost everything shoots.

Those are the two biggest differences.

Beyond that, placing models mid-field during the game (via Deep Strike, etc) is vastly more common. "Magic" is de-emphasized and moved to the shooting phase (well, Tigurius casting Fear of the Darkness would make any WHFB wizard blush, but otherwise...). Cover and terrain is more common and more important in the game (although this is really more of a quality of conventional table setups, and could be a regional thing, but the typical WHFB game I see played is done on a table with far less terrain than the typical 40k game -- of course, the amount of terrain I like on a 40k table would make FB largely unplayable).