Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm dead set on getting an army together by the end of the year but I'm still stuck on deciding between IG, Tau, and Eldar; I love IG and Tau because they absolutely epitomize massed heavy firepower (and I'm not a big fan of fighting with swords in the 41st millennium), while Eldar have some of my favorite models and fluff. Now i love Tau fluff and their style of hit and run fighting from afar, but I constantly hear that they're very hard to play right as they suck in cc, and being 40k that's kind of necessary. I don't necessarily want to win at all costs, but i don't really want to lose all the time either...

PS: I'd also rather not make a "mecha-tau" list cus those things are damn expensive per model

Kroot are rather handy. Not for close combat (they are a "mop-up" unit more than anything else) but because they're cheap points-wise and can bog up the map and make it very difficult if not outright impossible for stuff to Deep Strike or Outflank to your heavy support elements.

Tau vehicles are *very* resilient to long-range shooting, but are very vulnerable to melta weapons. So being able to slow the enemy and block his ability to get within stabbing distance, is critical.

u could paly tau without kroot, a friend of mine does it effectivly. ive herd bad things about vespid from my tau friends but i dont know alot about unit my self.

A Commander Farsight army (with no alien mercs at all) could do very well against Ork armies, as they must rely upon Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits en masse, and bringing alot of templates to mop up armies based off of a horde theme. You'd have problems with your heavy options, as Farsight does limit the other options your army could of had.

I dare say that the only effective tau list is one without vespid...

I play Tau without Kroot or Vespids.

My philosophy / priorities go like this:

1. HQ (generally Shas'o with airburst frag launcher and flamer or cyclic ion blaster)

2. 2 x 6 Firewarriors

3. A squad of broadside battlesuits.

4. A second squad of broadside battlesuits

5. A team of crisis suits (Helios or Deathrain)

6. Pathfinder squad

From here...really depends on the point level. Maybe devilfish for the firewarriors, more suits; I try to not mix mechanized and gunline Tau.

Dashofpepper wrote:I play Tau without Kroot or Vespids.

My philosophy / priorities go like this:

1. HQ (generally Shas'o with airburst frag launcher and flamer or cyclic ion blaster)

2. 2 x 6 Firewarriors

3. A squad of broadside battlesuits.

4. A second squad of broadside battlesuits

5. A team of crisis suits (Helios or Deathrain)

6. Pathfinder squad

From here...really depends on the point level. Maybe devilfish for the firewarriors, more suits; I try to not mix mechanized and gunline Tau.

No fish of fury?

Fish of Fury == Dead Firewarriors. You want to keep them in their tin can when they're close to the enemy.

Kroot are definitely not a necessity. I run one squad, and the big upside to Kroot is that they are a cheap troop choice for the Tau. LD7 and no save means that they'll run easily, and unless you're guarding an objective in forest terrain, they're pretty vulnerable overall.

From my experience fighting against tau, vespid are really bad, and kroot are good, but not necessary. I would follow Dash of Pepper's advice, though I have seen lots of crisis suits with plasma/fusion deep striking used to excellent effect, both against myself and others. (I don't know the fancy, xenos names for such heresy). Combined with pathfinders and firewarriors who ride in the pathfinder's fish, and then some broadsides and maybe a rail/ion hammer head, that seems to work well.

Perhaps you could model up "scout tau" to represent Kroot if you don't like the idea of them? Perhaps as light tau penal auxiliaries, wired up with chem injectors for Str4, or with mechanical augmetics, and give them just different looking guns and knives. Kind of like British troops using American Indian auxiliaries in the French and Indian war. Same species, but different tech levels/styles of fighting. Could make for a neat conversion.

You certainly miss some deep strike/outflank protection, and mild counter-assault by not including the kroot.

I would say that kroot-less tau are sub-optimal, but by a small enough margin that it isn't a big deal.

However i don't think I'd embark on a financial undertaking without having my options open to me. For all we know, the new tau codex could come out in 18 months with kroot becoming the most powerful troop unit in 40k.

If alien allies were a sticking point for you and your aesthetic, I would advise that you look to another codex. There is nothing wrong with IG. They are amzing right now. You can build three or four different 'types' of list using a lot of the same models, and they are going to continue to be good until at least 6th edition.

Without Kroot you have no effective defense against scouts or other first turn charge/close range melta units. I think at least 1 squad is mandatory for that defense alone, especially with Baal preds or valks or deff koptas or scout bikers or or or or. . . you get the point.

They are on their own not a great unit (much like many things in the Tau codex) but as a support unit they keep many much more expensive and important things out of CC and shooting which for a bare 70 point investment will always make them worth it.

Their gun isn't bad and in cover on an objective they become resilient enough to most shooting for me.

Vespid are bad. Never take them.

Pure Tau with all the new Forgeworld models! WOOT!

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/New_Stuff/TAU-BATTLESUIT-COMMANDER-SHAS-O-RALAI-WITH-DRONES.html

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/New_Stuff

I can see the necessity of them for cc defense, this is 40k after all, but god...i really hate the models, stupid space chickens. And as to what Shep said; the guard are awesome, especially vostroyan models, but they're just below Spess Mehreens on the list of what everybody plays. At my local millenium store if you're not playing SM you're probably playing guard (or CSM). I want a unique army that isn't played as much, know what i mean?

And holy crap the new FW models are awesome

Retribution wrote:I can see the necessity of them for cc defense, this is 40k after all, but god...i really hate the models, stupid space chickens. And as to what Shep said; the guard are awesome, especially vostroyan models, but they're just below Spess Mehreens on the list of what everybody plays. At my local millenium store if you're not playing SM you're probably playing guard (or CSM). I want a unique army that isn't played as much, know what i mean?

And holy crap the new FW models are awesome

When you whip out the vostroyan army or any FW IG army, I'm pretty sure you get a free pass from just about everyone. The models look soo cool and they are different enough from cadians that it feels fresh to them.

Elysians <3
Krieg <3
Price ;(

I play Tau without kroot sometimes - if you use a purely mech tau list (ie all suits/transports/tanks) then they can be unneccessary - you basically rely on your mobility to keep you out of combat (kinda sucks against spead freak armies though...)

As everyone said, no vespid. Kroot can be good, but can also be useless. Because of how weak their armour is, it is quite possible that your enemy will target them while most of their army moves up, and in the two turns it takes to close the gap, they are dead and gone.

If kroot had access to FoF, I would probably consider them vital to a Tau player. As they don't have FoF, they don't do much but be cheap. 10 kroot, 5 kroot hounds for a hundred points I think, that really speaks for itself.

Mechanized Tau, have next to no place for Kroot. Go in that direction if you'd like to skip them. Suits and Tanks make for a pretty fun army.

Yea, i think i'm just gonna go with Eldar, i love the Greek aesthetic of their models / fluff, and they are more competitive...

Ha ha - wise choice - that's what I did too!

Volkov wrote:I dare say that the only effective tau list is one without vespid...

And the Space Pope. 205 points of a bad Catch-22 situation.