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Hi, this is my first post, then forgive me for my mistakes or in the case this kind of post has already been answered, but i need help with my tau army. I bought a tau battleforce, but now i don't know what to buy to make it a real army(1500 point). Cuold you please help me?

Hi, welcome!

Well, I don't necessarily have an answer to your question My tau consist of:

1 Ethereal
48 Fire Warriors with pulse rifles
6 Fire Warriors with pulse carbines

Crisis Suit Commander and 2 Bodyguards
6 Crisis Suits
6 Stealth Suits

Devilfish with 8 Pathfinders
3 Pirahnas

Hammerhead
3 Broadsides

And some drones scattered around, of course . That comes out to about 2500 points. Most people would have more devilfish and no pirahnas from what I've seen.

I would say you should get another crisis suit, a box of 3 more stealth suits, and some more fire warriors next.

Oh wait you might as well get the Tau Battleforce box AGAIN, and you'll get all of that plus more kroot, drones, and a devilfish

So I'd get:

1) Another Tau Battleforce
2) Heavy Support! If you want tanks, get the Sky Ray box so that you get all of the pieces to make either a Sky Ray or a Hammerhead . If you want more suits, get Broadsides!

Hope this helps

Here's what I would buy;

1 Commander Crisis Suit
2 More Crisis Suits, you could buy three of these and not the commander suit but you save $5. Your decision.
1 Stealth Team
2 Boxes of Fire Warriors
2 Devilfish
1 Hammerhead

This will give you about 1500 points worth of stuff to play. How I put it together at added up to 1473pts so you've got some room to add some stuff, 3 more Kroot will bring it to 1494.

I agree with Gojira... to that end.

Buy another battleforce that means you get:
1 Crisis Suit, equivalent of box of FW, 1 Devilfish and 3 more stealthsuits. Plus who knows you may find a use for more kroot.

I like pathfinders but FW models with carbines can make great substitutes.

I also would recommend the Broadsides. They are superior AT to the hammerheads and - properly configured - they can split fire and address two landraiders or other pains if necessary.

The very first battle report of tau way back in 2000 if i remember correctly had an ethereal, 3 x 3 crisis suits, and 2 x 3 broadsides and 2 x 12 fire warriors. Very simplistic.

The last time I faced an IG army I ran

Shas'O commander
2 x 3 crisis suits

2 x 12 fire warriors, each in tricked out devilfish
2 x 1 Hammerheads
1 x 2 broadsides with sheild drones & ASS

1 x 8 pathfinders with a tricked out devilfish

Everything that could have SMS's had them, and the guard army really couldn't compete, at the end of the game I had lost all my firewarriors, half my pathfinders, and he had.

I'm thinking 3 troop choices, the 3rd one being a min squad of kroot hiding in a forest, going to ground every turn and never dying until flamed or assaulted.

That should give you some ideas on where to proceed

Do you want:

The least expensive army?
A moderately priced and moderately effective army?
The best army you can buy, regardless of cost?

For a moderately prices and moderately effective army, I'd go with:

Commander Box set $30 US
Two battleforces $90 US each
Two Skyray $40 US (Skyray comes with the hammerhead sprue, so you can build either out of it)

The battleforces are a bargain. You want firewarriors, crisis suits, and devilfish. For the price of those three things, you get Kroot and Stealth Suits extra. Hard to pass up.

So, this would give you:

Commander 100pt-ish
Two Crisis Suits 110pt-ish
Stealth Suit team 200pt-ish
12 Kroot 85-ish
12 Kroot 85-ish
12 Firewarriors in a Devilfish 220-ish
12 Firewarriors in a Devilfish 220-ish
Hammerhead 170-ish
Hammerhead 170-ish

This is about 1400 points (depending upon what equipment you give units). You could pick up another Crisis Suit box and add more gear to a few things to get to 1500 points. It's probably an 'ok' list. It'll win some games and lose some games. You could also drop some Kroot and Firewarriors, get a third battleforce, and assemble some of the FWs as Pathfinders (just give them all carbines).

The army you should buy should really reflect your playing style. if you want to be in the back shooting people pulse rifle, maker lights and board sides are the way to go.
If you like to get in the face blast them to hell then run away fire warriors with pulse carbines and in devil fishes are the way to go. also take stealth suits with marker and shield drones.

thank you very much! The army its perfect Could you please help me for my friends too? They both bought an imperial guard and a tyranid battleforce and now dont know how to get more points Thanks

Join my coalition against stealth suits :p

I must say, never really had my stealths get there monees back.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Stealth Suits. They're T3, W1, and are the same FOC as Crisis Suits (which aren't that many more points even with weapons). But, they come in the Batteforce and aren't -horrible-. They can do good things, and I think the to field them is either as a very expensive Stealth Marker Team (Leader with Markerlight and a bunch of markerdrones) or bare-bones cheap. If you can dance around at the limit of the BC range, they can stick around for awhile. If they're not a huge threat, people ignore them, and the 18 S5 AP5 shots can widdle down units.

They way to use stealth suits is to have a marker drone and a shield drone with them keep them so the back unit is just in range of the unit you want to fire and blast the crap out of them and then jump back even father so that even the fastest moving of units cant charge them. And unless you are firing at terminators which wont get you in assault any ways you will destroy that unit.

And as for you're friend Well your guard friend should wait for the new codex to come out before he really buys any more but if he really wants to buy more units he should buy troops he'll need allot of them like 100 dudes should be how many he fields in ever game.

And as for you tyraind friend you would have to tell me what kind of army he wants. does he want a lot of monasteries creature does he want a shooty list or does he want close combat.

My cousin just started a Tau army as well using the Battleforce as a starting point. I picked up another Crisis suit, A Hammerhead and a Broadside. Its a little bit light on the troops considering they are the ones that get objectives, but for a straight brawl its not that bad. I'd recommend another squad of 12 firewarriors as well