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Hi y'all

i don't know where to post this else.. so here it goes..
I am playing with the forces of the imperium (SM and IG) for a while and I thought maybe its time to invest in some Xeno units..
I did some resaerch on all the races and first i thought nids would be the next one and i bought some hormagaunts but they took to much time to paint..
so no nids for now.. orks? nah maybe later dark eldar? cool but not enough and expensive at the local store.. eldar? never ever! cron? nowp.. chaos? plans for the far future..

so i didn't know what to do untill i reread the WD wich introduced the Tau.. and that are the guys i have chosen.. i got a kickass painting sheme and an unfailable way to get it good and quickley done..

so we are (at last) getting to the armylist part of this topic..
i dont expect people trying to convince me to do other races or ask for the painting part, i will make a wip thread soon..

I would like to hear what you Tau player advise to definetly include in my army.. what's a good core etc..
i am aming on a 1500 pts for starters i would like to include a skyray because i definetly like the look if it..
maybe a list based around two of them?

feel free to post whatever can help me..

thx JDV.

I'd be interest in hearing your quick paint scheme for tau!!!

As far as your 1.5 list, you will want plenty of crisis suits with the most popular configuration being the Plasma Rifle Missile Pod.

For core army on tau you are going to look at 2-3 squads of fire warriors mounted in tanks. These guys outside just die too easily. Kroot can be a good option for protection or protecting an objective that is inside cover. After this look at taking 2-3 units of crisis suits, probably with missile pods and plasma rifles. You can change the load out somewhat depending on who plays in your area.

I recommend broadsides over the hammerhead as well. Unless you want the hammerhead there for the pie plate as anti infantry.

As the other have already said, You will need lots of crisis suits and fire warriors. =)

if you REALLY want to use skyray sure but you need markerlights, and people will say to you that skyray is one thing that you should never take but if you are like me and love one model dont care and use that until you find perfect way to use it and crisis suits i like using them with twin missile pod.

Okay, I've seen some interesting lists built around skyrays.

They usually include two full units of pathfinders, skryays (surprise!), and the some devilfish and piranhas with a bunch of seeker missiles.

The actual list would look like this:

Commander (with whatever you want to give him)

2 units of 6 fire warriors - 120 pts
2 units of 8 pathfinders - 192 pts.
2 devilfish w/ SMS/TA/MT/D-pods/2 Seekers each - 280
1 unit of 5 Piranhas w/ Fusion Blasters/2 seekers each - 425
3 Skyrays w/ d-pods/BCs/TA - 435

That comes out to 1452.

I have never played a list like this, and I've never seen it played, and so I can't tell you how well it does in the real world.

i really REALLY want at least one skyray in my armyi also want a kroot squad just for the fun of painting them (die hard painter)

i know absolutly nothing about tau yet i still need a codex

as an HQ i thought of an ethreal bcuz i like its looks and i will also include a shadowsun also bcuz i like her

so fire warriors w transports and suits right?
that's it?

@niallkissick: if someone could tell me how those other guys make threads about their armies, i think they make blogs? (is that what a blog is? dont know what blog actually means )
i can make one for Tau vehicles (skyray etc) veery simple and effective but i didn't made it up by myself..

anyway thx already f the replies (expecting even more ) srr for the bad english..

Most people will discourage you from using ethereals. I personally have played an ethereal in my Tau army, and he works best when put into a kroot squad. The kroots hide him from shooting and the ethereal makes the Kroot fearless.

As for skyrays: You need a lot of markerlights to really pull it off. Seeker Missiles are great. GW is not very clear on the rules description, but eg. in the ETC tanks don't get cover saves from any terrain when being shot at by seekers. Seekers also hit on a 2+ which is nice. You just need to work yourself into side armour (deploy one skyray in each corner) to take out those heavier tanks (like predators). The reason why it requires a lot of markerlights to pull it off is that with bs3 you need 2 markerlights for each seeker missile fired. So to fire off 3 full skyrays on t1 you would need 36 markerlights.

I really see skyrays good at alpha striking and shooting a crap load of accurate missiles in the first few turns.

I would discourage you from using both etherials and shadowsun.

Etherials can make your whole army run off of the table, and shadowsun is overpriced. For shadowsun's price, you could get 4 Crisis Suits w/ TL Fusion Blasters.

aha so a comander in crisis suit then.. alright good for me..
and a bit more about the markerlights.. where do they come with?? a single unit?? or upgrades?

They can come from both.

Pathfinders come with markerlights.

Many units can get marker drones, and sometimes unit leaders can get markerlights.

Good news, the skyray box set comes with everything you need to make either a skyray or a hammerhead, a little creative magnet usage can go a long way...

As for army composition. The only way to make a skyray effective is to have as many markerlights as possible, the most point cost effective way to do this is with pathfinders. You don't need LoS from the skyray to fire at targets so you can hide it behind terrain. The downside is that once you fire all your missiles, it's pretty much a useless vehicle. I never much cared for skyrays myself but hey, it's all personal choice.

You need the crisis suit HQ as others have mentioned and some firewarriors to satisfy your troop requirement. Take two squads of pathfinders and use their devilfish to transport the firewarriors later in the game. Something to keep in mind is that markerlights are heavy so you can't move and shoot with them which means pathfinders pretty much stay put the whole game.

Now, what do you need to buy.
Start with 2 Tau Battalion box sets. This will give you:
2 Crisis suits
2 Devilfish
24 firewarriors
24 kroot
4 Gun drones
and 6 stealth suits.

You can convert half of the firewarriors into pathfinders rather easily, just use the carbines instead of the pulse rifles and leave the shoulder pads off...

What you'll need to add.
Your skyray box.
Maybe later you'll want to add 2-3 broadsides and at least 6 or 7 more crisis suits.

Pathfinders should be your primary source. Skyrays have 2 markerlights built-in to them already. Other then that, Firewarriors can get markerlights, although they would rather be inside transports, and stealthsuits can be used as mobile markerlight platforms. How far were you thinking of going with the seeker missile theme?

EDIT: I agree with agnosto that 2 Tau battleforces is the best way to start.

I have given the 'how to start tau' advice a lot. What to buy:

Battle Force Box : 12 FWs, kroot, a Crisis Suit, Devilfish, Stealths (you won't use them until higher point games)
4 or 5 more Crisis Suits, including an HQ - find the internet RareEarthMagnet articles for putting on the weapons
2 SkyRay boxes - but run them as Railheads. I'm surprised at the amount of positive advice for SkyRays in absence of reference to the Railhead. The SkyRay is an okay tank; the Railhead is great, arguably the best in 40k.
Buy 2 more boxes of FWs - equip one set with Pulse Rifles; they will be Fire Warriors. Equip the second set with carbines, and call them Pathfinders. It is much cheaper than buying the blister packs of PFs.
3 Broadside models - buy the ForgeWorld. For the extra $10 or so, you get resin and *not* a plastic model with metal components that easily break the model. They look cooler and I've never had a break in the 5 years I've had them.

All that yields:
a. 3 scoring units (2 FW & 1 kroot)
b. the 5 to 6 Crisis Suits ... possibly the most you'll ever need. I've gone 4.5 years with only 6 suits, and a winning record 45-14-8, WLD in 4e.
c. 3 Heavy Choices - 2 Railheads and a B-side unit
d. MarkerLight support from a Pathfinder unit, and their DevilFish

Definitely enough to have fun at 1250 to 1500.

BTW: My 5e record is *not* so good: 5-6-5, WLD. An indicator that 5e *did* nerf tau ... just a little bit.

The best thing about the Skyray box is when you get it, the box comes with pices for all of the tau tanks. One scary thing I like about tau is the look on the other players face when you field like 11 to 20 battle suits(counting HQs, Crisis teams, and Broadside teams).

Also dont take the honour gquad that the Commaders can take, its not worth it.

with two Tau box sets i have a bit to much Kroot imo i don't really like them so i will only include one squad of them i'm going to by the skyray box and see if i can make the weps interchangable i am most of the time facing necrons -.-' so a hammerhead is welcome as he fields almost all the time two of THE best tanks in the 40k Universe so i need that S10 ap 1 wep

so far i got on my list

1 hq in crisis suit
1Fw squad
1 kroot squad
1pathfinders squad

1 skyray/hammerhead/whatever posibble
2 devilfish ( i guess f transport)

how much points is this yet and what should i add more??
a like the broadside models but they are rather expensive.. definetly the ones from forgeworld..
stealth suits aren't that good i heard from a friend who plays Tau

the colour scheme would be with green if you want to look what i am going for turn to page49 of WD issue 316
but maybe i'm gonna change the greens in blues.. but that something else..

That is about 750 points.

The broadsides are expensive. What I did is converted some weapons from my crisis suits into railguns, and then put the railguns on my crisis suits. I can show you how to do it if you want to save some money.

Joske De Veteraan wrote:how much points is this yet and what should i add more?

Given the solid-ish rumors of a new codex in Nov, there ought to be people beginning to unload the older codexes on ebay. Heck, I have an extra copy, but I'm betting it'd be less than practical to ship it to Europe from the 'States.

Kroot are essentially a waste of points, unless you want to tar pit in close combat for a turn. T3 I3 almost guarantee that they're dead before they get to hit back a squad of MEQ. LD7 also means that you're gonna fall back, and probably get sweeping advanced. You're better off sticking your fire warriors in a Devilfish and running them around the table. Stealth suits are very good against horde armies, as well as light armor, so don't count those out, even though they're very expensive.

Kroot in woods, however, are the best use of points in the Tau army. If there are woods, kroot are the bomb. 3+ cover saves keeps them going forever. I have had kroot g2ground on an objective in woods, and a horde of dakka-carnifexes and like couldn't touch them. That was a thing of beauty.

Stealth suits are horrible against horde armies, imo.

If you want a good unit against horde, take crisis suits w/ TL Flamers, and then a random extra whatever. 31 points, only one more than a stealth suit, and they will pack way more punch against horde.

I wouldn't count stealth suits out right away necessarily, but I wouldn't use them unless if you have repeated success.

i think i will start witth the 750 pts list and i will make a blog of the painting and modelling progress
thx to ya alll for the info..

Joske Out.

Brothererekose wrote:

Joske De Veteraan wrote:how much points is this yet and what should i add more?

Given the solid-ish rumors of a new codex in Nov, there ought to be people beginning to unload the older codexes on ebay. Heck, I have an extra copy, but I'm betting it'd be less than practical to ship it to Europe from the 'States.

I have two copies by pure randomness I'd be happy to post mine as I'm in uk, bit easier than shipping US to EU!

@the bringer I'd love to see your railgun tutorial for normal crisis suits

niallkissick wrote:
@the bringer I'd love to see your railgun tutorial for normal crisis suits

Okay, I'll do that.

It costs a fusion blaster, but you don't lose any other weapons. I'll post it in a tutorial section when I get around to it. Hopefully within a day.

The Bringer wrote:

niallkissick wrote:
@the bringer I'd love to see your railgun tutorial for normal crisis suits

Okay, I'll do that.

It costs a fusion blaster, but you don't lose any other weapons. I'll post it in a tutorial section when I get around to it. Hopefully within a day.

Cool!!! I can't wait!!!

I've been playing tau for several years now and have tried out pretty much every unit in the codex in numerous army builds and I've come to the conclusion that my list, which I affectionately label 'suit n' kroot' is the way to go. I definitely agree that two tau battleboxes is the way to get a nice start on the army. Kroot should be your primary troop choice--fire warriors are awful. The only thing you use them for is conversion into pathfinders, which you don't use that often anyways. Stealthsuits also kinda suck, if only because they're really expensive for what they do and they take up an elite slot you should be using for crisis suits. However, the stealthsuits are great because they come in the battlebox and you can cannibalize the bitz for conversion work on your crisis suits and broadsides. After the battleboxes, if you really want a skyray, go for it. But I'm telling you now they're awful. But to each, his own. As for additional purchases, after the battleboxes you want to start buying crisis suits. Lots of them. I own 12 and that's how many I run in every list north of 1750. My 2500 'ard boyz list has 15. My fast attack choice usually falls to piranha--I run 4 at 1750 and 6 at 1850+. And for heavy support you really want to spring for broadsides.
I will also point out that the main reason I got into tau is not because they're good but because I like the model range and because I'm really into converting the suits. Before assembling the crisis suits I recommend surfing the net and looking at conversions for the suits, especially the broadsides. Or, if you're not into converting, spring for Forge World broadsides. Other than that, I hope you have fun playing tau! For the greater good!

niallkissick wrote:

The Bringer wrote:

niallkissick wrote:
@the bringer I'd love to see your railgun tutorial for normal crisis suits

Okay, I'll do that.

It costs a fusion blaster, but you don't lose any other weapons. I'll post it in a tutorial section when I get around to it. Hopefully within a day.

Cool!!! I can't wait!!!

Here is the link to the tutorial, its a shabby tutorial, but it works:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/340015.page

that tutorial rocks! really sweet.. i like the converted burst cannoons even more than the normal one's

Thanks, the burst cannons were a happy coincedance. I wanted to make something with the leftover scraps, and I put it together like that, I though it was sweet as well.

Knute wrote: My 2500 'ard boyz list has 15. My fast attack choice usually falls to piranha--I run 4 at 1750 and 6 at 1850+. And for heavy support you really want to spring for broadsides.

I agree with a lot of your advice, given for 2k lists and 'Ard Boyz tourneys.

I'd go 9 b-sides, the full load of suits, a couple Warfish, piranhas, PFs and loads of kroot.

But for smaller games, 1500 and south, the Railhead is the better choice to balance *with* XV88s.

Warfish? what's a warfish??