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Don't discount Tyranid shooting. Everyone mentions 'Nid assault prowess, and rightly so since even at the basic troop level you have options of rending, fleet everywhere, and 12" assault ranges. However, at the 1500+ point level you can bring in truly frightening shooting abilities.

Barbed Strangler shots from a carnifex are STR8, large blast. My Nidzilla lists drop eight of those per turn (two from Tyrants). Or if you prefer number of shots, go double twin-linked devourer on the Elite Carnifexes or a Flying Tyrant. For a fex, it means 8 twin-linked, STR6 shots that reroll wounds. For a flying fex, it means 12 such shots at S5 to harass flanks.

You seem to be duly impressed with Tau firepower, though. They are definitely no slouch about bringing huge amounts of weaponry to the field, I'm just personally not a big fan of stand-and-shoot tactics. One thing to be wary of, though, is the fragility of the Tau models. S8 large templates lay waste to suit teams pretty quickly.

That works too thats what I did for my first 4 Devilfish/40 FW's so saved me about 100 dollars total. Unfortunately there is no bargin methods of buying Hamerheads or Broadsides.

Those are good points...

My main enemy is Guard, so I'm thinking that the Tau can match or even surpass their firepower, and Fire Warriors have superior guns to guardsmen. Also, guards hate CC just as much as Tau, so there is little chance of getting assaulted.

I'm still in the planning phase, even though I'm talking about what I could buy for Tau. I'm gonna read through the Codexes for both Tau and Tyranids and make my choice from that.

Kirbinator wrote:Don't discount Tyranid shooting. Everyone mentions 'Nid assault prowess, and rightly so since even at the basic troop level you have options of rending, fleet everywhere, and 12" assault ranges. However, at the 1500+ point level you can bring in truly frightening shooting abilities.

Barbed Strangler shots from a carnifex are STR8, large blast. My Nidzilla lists drop eight of those per turn (two from Tyrants). Or if you prefer number of shots, go double twin-linked devourer on the Elite Carnifexes or a Flying Tyrant. For a fex, it means 8 twin-linked, STR6 shots that reroll wounds. For a flying fex, it means 12 such shots at S5 to harass flanks.

You seem to be duly impressed with Tau firepower, though. They are definitely no slouch about bringing huge amounts of weaponry to the field, I'm just personally not a big fan of stand-and-shoot tactics. One thing to be wary of, though, is the fragility of the Tau models. S8 large templates lay waste to suit teams pretty quickly.

He is absolutely right one of the guys who plays at my local store runs a similar army, though if you go too shooty with nids you have no hope against 14 armor with out a somewhat melee based Carnifex or Hive tyrant. A well balanced Nid build is great too. One thing nids lack in thier weapons though is AP there is not a single Nid ranged weapon under 4AP. But if you do a balanced nid buil a couple shooty fexes and a buch of genestealers for melee and a flying twin scything talons Hive tyran you are in serious buisness.

However, both hive tyrants and carnifexes die very very quick to strength 8+ ap 2 and under shots. But Nids are alot more balanced they are decent in shooting and strong to very strong in melee. Tau are Very strong in shooting and well pretty well worthless in melee lol. Which is rather funny that my avatar is a Tau samurai since thats an oxymoron for a Tau.

Haha, yeah. Tau suck at CC, I know. Except for my friend telling me he heard about how Kharn the Betrayer and 5 Khorne guys charged a squad of Fire Warriors. Kharn ended up rolling 5 1's, and killed all his allies. Then the Fire Warriors beat him to death. It made me laugh.

But if I do play Tau, I plan on having my Fire Warriors in or near Devilfish at all times so I can avoid CC as much as possible.

Well in our discussion I built 12 FW's and a Devil fish =)





However, this does not count the previous 8 hours it took for me to clean all the mold lines off these s

And this is a Broadside I forgot about, he isn't done yet I need to magnatize his arms yet so I can interchange his weapons. The rail gun is sitting in front of him for scale.

If you want to escape cliche, go for DH. If you really want to get creative, go for a pure GK force. They are amazingly fun to play.

Nids? Too many models to paint.
Tau have some flavor but their cc capabilities are crap. In the new ed, you might play only 5 rounds (3+ for a 6th round...), this might not be enough for a shooty army.

wuestenfux wrote:Nids? Too many models to paint.
Tau have some flavor but their cc capabilities are crap. In the new ed, you might play only 5 rounds (3+ for a 6th round...), this might not be enough for a shooty army.

Tau Usually have a similar model count to nids unless they are doing a massive gaunt rush build. But for time I don't find it too bad it just helps if you plan your turn out on your opponents turn do your moving and rolling fast as long as you know your units pretty well this is easy. Of all the things working against "shooty" in 5ed time really isn't it =P cover saves are -__- but markerlights help against that. But as has been reiterated a ton, CC devastates Tau period.

Zhetsuken wrote:Well in our discussion I built 12 FW's and a Devil fish =)





However, this does not count the previous 8 hours it took for me to clean all the mold lines off these s

Wow, I'm really liking those models!

Tyranids have some pretty sweet models too Carnifexes look great and Winged Tyrants when done right look pretty badass, and Nid warriors look pretty cool too. GreyKnights have some nice terminator armor and power weapons as well.

Burning Star IV wrote:If you want to escape cliche, go for DH. If you really want to get creative, go for a pure GK force. They are amazingly fun to play.

And by "escape cliché, being creative, and amazingly fun" you instead mean "use the same low-man lists because the units cost too much, having the creativity to choose between two or three types of units (Terminators, Grey Knights, the end. Not to mention two HQ choices: one's a terminator, the other is an overpriced terminator), and the amazingly fun playstyle of being outnumbered 3:1 by any respectable army because your basic units cost at least 1.5x more than anyone else's except they don't get special weaponry to back it up. "But Grey Knights are S5 and can get good guns!" Yeah, and start out at 20 points with no upgrades (Which you have to take, by the way. I'm looking at you Mr. Overpriced Justicar). Let's compare that to a Sister of Battle coming in at a whopping 11 points. Same gun, same power armor, much better available upgrades, model choices, Faith abilities, etc.

But hey, at least DH Termies look pretty sweet, right? That way they look stylish when my basic squad of Genestealers rends them into the ground for a third of the cost.

Grey Knights have a place in 40k, it's called supporting Sisters of Battle. Much like the Daemon codex, it's best used to supplement the CSM. Can you make an all Grey Knight army? Yes. Will you be outnumbered and outgunned 98% of the time? Yes. Do you have substantial upgrades in survivability and weaponry to make up for the overwhelming numbers against you? No. There are armies that work like that: Nidzilla, Daemonzilla, etc. Relatively low model count, very high rate of survivability per model. One or two good Disintegrator blasts from your Ravagers/Raiders should tell you how good that 400 point squad of Terminators can be.

before you buy any models, buy the codex, come up with a quick armylist and post it on here.

its painful spending lots of money on models that turn out to be crap, its always a damger with a new army. luckily, were here to help.

dont think of FW as bread and butter, they are basically chaff that gets shot too easily. crisis suits are your bread and butter. they are harder and have better guns.

tau are quite good in the new edition, although they require a bit more finesse to play than before, but being an ex-DE player that shouldnt be a problem for you.

That's a good point Regwon.

Yeah, Dark Eldar are annoying to play properly, so I don't think I'll have too much trouble with Tau.

Regwon wrote:before you buy any models, buy the codex, come up with a quick armylist and post it on here.

its painful spending lots of money on models that turn out to be crap, its always a damger with a new army. luckily, were here to help.

dont think of FW as bread and butter, they are basically chaff that gets shot too easily. crisis suits are your bread and butter. they are harder and have better guns.

tau are quite good in the new edition, although they require a bit more finesse to play than before, but being an ex-DE player that shouldnt be a problem for you.

FW's are the bread and butter now with troops being the only scoring units so it is either FW's or Kroot/Vespid, shot too easily? let me guess you have your fire warriors out in the open and not with a devilfish. Crisi suits can be a major disapoint ment when they get hit with a strength 8+ weapon and get auto killed, when you loose a suit = 7-10 FW's depending on equipment that not a very good deal to me.

I do agree they take a different aproach now and alot of paying attention and doing your damndest to keep them out of trouble unless of course you want them in trouble and with the consolidation rules some times you do

He still needs to read all the codexes he was considering though Tyranid, Deamon Hunters, and Tau and figure out what he likes best, I like Tau but I personnaly hope he chooses and army that he likes best.

I am now the proud owner of 12 Fire Warriors, 2 Gun Drones and a Devilfish! I'm building 'em as we speak. Err, type.

I take it you must have liked the Tau Codex, well welcome to the Tau Empire where all are bettered through the efforts of the ndividual. You thought of a build yet or at the very least a paint scheme?

For a build I'll have to do more research. I was thinking either A) black (or grey), white and red or B) Green and yellow/orange.

Not 100% sure yet, though.

Thats color scheme will be interesting to see, There are some really effective Tau builds out there, good luck

Thanks

When I get a second Devilfish, another 12 Fire Warriors and an HQ of some sort, I'm gonna challenge my Guard player friend to a 500 pt "Tau test-out" match.

And I'll post some pictures when I get 'em all painted.

think its fair to say you're gone go for tau now ... but just wanted to say why's every one saying go daemon or witch hunter as it stands you can have an army with both in (and if you want guard) ... it is one of the joys of these guy