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Hi! So i've decided to play sm and tau. As far as tau goes i've bought the battleforce (and codex) and I really don't now what to buy now, any suggestions are really apreciated thanks!

Broadside battlesuits, crisis suits, another devilfish, and a squad of pathfinders.

same as above minus the devilfish plus hammerheads

Buy the following

Skyray Box Set

Magnets


Congrats you can now make any Devilfish based Vehicle . The skyray includes all of the parts for the Devilfish, Skyray and Hammer head.


Invest in Kroot and Kroot hounds their probably the best unit in the codex and in low point games their low cost makes them invaluable.


You can buy a box of i believe Chaos Hounds and have all the hounds you want - the

I disagree that Kroot are the best unit in the Codex. They can be good. Points wise they are amazing. It's similar to an Ork horde in play - lots of models.

Broadsides are a definitive yes. Since there is heavy mechanization by almost everyone nowadays you have the ability to take away their mobility. No mobility = no assault for a few turns. In that time you waste them with all of your other guns.

Crisis suits and Broadsides should be your next purchases. Buying a second Battleforce is a good bet as well. Buy the SkyRay instead of the Hammerhead tank as well - it include all the sprues for all the tanks.

Crisis suits.
Make them in Fireknife (plasma rifle, missile pod, multitracker) and Deathrain (2 missile pods, targeting array) configuration, or better yet magnetize them so you can switch.

Broadsides.

Thanks a lot everyone! I was hoping broadsides would be a good choice, and I had no idea that the sky ray box set comes with the sprue for hammerhead that helps a lot. If I do get the box set wich version should I apply? The sky ray or the hammerhead (I was thinking the hammerhead because of there ability to use the big template instead of the concentrated blast I thought this could help with swarm armys while the concentrated blast I could save for those heavy support armys). Thanks again!

Just build the normal tank and leave the turret so you can switch it out when you feel like it. I use sticky tack for the turrent so that it can rotate and it fares just fine (and easier to store). Also either magnetize or use sticky tack to place the ion cannon/railgun on the hammerhead. It would suck to want to switch and you couldn't because you glued it in place. One again it makes storage much easier.

You have to figure out what what kind of army you are going to play.

Ninja Tau? Buy a Commander for his PR and some crisis suits.

Mech? Get some more Fish, FW squads, and do the skyray-magnets thing.

You might just want to go kroot spam, in which case you would need several kroot squads with hounds. BTW, trust me when I say Krootox suck.

And there's always Pirhana spam, but 15 pirhanas are expensive.

If you just wing it and get an army made from a little of everything, it will fail because tau don't work that way. Tau can't be played like space marines. This doesn't mean a Tau list shouldn't be built for all comers, it just needs to be decided exactly how the army will deal with said comers.

I did the same thing that the OP did when I first started colleting Tau. The battleforce is good in that you start with a pretty good force compared to other Battleforces. I'll tell you what I did.

I picked up another box of Firewarriors, 2 more Crisis suits, a Commander, and 2 broadsides to start.

It took me about 2-3 months to pick all these up, so if you're cash-strapped it might take you this long. If you really want to learn 5th edition, you can use the Crisis suit in the Battleforce as a commander.

Start off slow, that way you'll protect your pocketbook and after playing a few trial games, you'll find out what you need or even change your army if you don't want to play Tau anymore.

Personally, I would recommend picking up 2 more Crisis Suits, a Commander, and a Broadside or 2 as your next pics. Probably will be around $100 - $150 or so.

Later on, you probably want to get more Firewarriors. If you have a choice, I would DEFINITELY pick the Sky Ray box over the Hammerhead box if you can, cause it comes w/both sprues so you get 2 for 1 (sort of).

Good luck with the Tau Empire, man. Always glad to see another productive member who has chosen to accept the Greater Good.

This is all really good advice, I would only add that tau are very game to game oriented army, in that you need to know what your going to face and plan accordingly. Its not like with orks where i get my 120 boys across the field and charge them ftw. Crisis are a must at i would get 2 squads of path finders and if you can get some railguns for em. Hammerheads, the all powerful broadside. I will tell you this if you have the right set up you can annihilate some ork, and nids.

The latest Tau articles on GW have got me interested in firing up a small force (maybe 750-1k).

I love Firewarriors and want to use those a fair bit.

Question is:

My main opponents are

1) Chaos Space Marines based on Khorne (they drive up in rhinos and assault me) - I play against this the most
2) Salamanders Space Marines

Any recommendations on the best "theme" for my army strategically? I dont love the Kroot - can I avoid them and be effective?

My main oponent is probably orks I occasionaly play eldar and possibly IG...

Tau hybrid lists are still the best in my mind. If someone tilts their list to one side or another and spam things the Tau cannot handle it. Overall in balanced lists (which most friendly games normally are) Tau work very well and are fun to play. In the competitive environment the Tau suffer. Spamming one unit does not work good for them. I cannot stress this enough. Sure Kroot spam - you'll be wiped out by regular guns. Piranha Spam - I'm actually not sure about this. I can also never spell Piranha so I hate it.

Tau allow you to build amazing mechanized lists, Horde armies (Kroot and more Kroot), Firing gun lines, and hybrid lists. All of these are ways to go. I would say pick up some different things and play. Switching out different models along the way. You'll end up with an amazing force. If you know who you are going against you can gear up that way. Take the Examples below:

MEq Armies -
- Crisis Suits with Plasma Rifles
- Railguns (Overkill)
- Sniper drones
- Rail Rifles
- Cyclic Ion Blaster (With some luck)

Mechanized Armies
- Missile Pods (Anti-transports)
- Railguns
- Possibly Plasma (stretching it)
- Fusion Blaster

Horde Armies
- Burst Cannons
- Pulse Rifle
- Kroot Rifle
- Smart Missile System
- Flamers
- Airbursting Fragmentation Projector
- Cyclic Ion Blaster

Monsterous Creatures
- See Mechanized Armies List
- Anti-MEq weapons work fairly well against MCs too

Those are the basics.

Getting another Battleforce isn't a bad investment, especially since you can Direct Order the hammerhead sprue for $15 US to convert the Devilfish into a Hammerhead.

Also, I assembled Firewarriors with the carbines, no backpacks or shoulder pads, and all bald heads (from the FW sprue and the HH sprue), and they 'count as' Pathfinders.

You'll probably end up wanting some kroothounds and more crisis suits.

rogueeyes wrote:

...I can also never spell Piranha so I hate it.

Question is:

My main opponents are

1) Chaos Space Marines based on Khorne (they drive up in rhinos and assault me) - I play against this the most
2) Salamanders Space Marines

Any recommendations on the best "theme" for my army strategically? I dont love the Kroot - can I avoid them and be effective?

My thoughts...

1)Crisis suits w/plasma rifles and missile pods, or TW missile pods. Most definitely keep your firewarriors in a devilfish. What I do is have my Crisis Suits whittle down the Khornates will moving away from them. Best combo I've had is Missilepod/Plasma Rifle w/Multitracker. If you'd rather have your firewarriors stand and shoot, they'll get probably a turn or two of shooting before you get chopped up. That rapid fire range is deadly, but I'd rather shoot-embark-and redeploy. Broadsides and Hammerheads will chew rhino's. up.

2) Dunno. Never played against Salamanders.