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Hey guys. I was thinking of starting Tau once I have enough money.

What models should I get first/what do you think of Tau? Are they fun to play?

Crisis suits are a very important part of your tau force. They should definitely be an initial focus.

There are prolly a lot of other threads about this, also check the following;

Tauonline
secondsphere
advancedtautactica
(google them).

WHAT DO I GET:
Crisis suits; several.
The same model can be used for the HQ as well.
Firewarriors (about 12 to start).
Maybe some kroot (10).
A devilfish
a couple of broadsides (if you magnitize the railguns, they too can be used for crisis suits in a pinch).

The battleforce is a good starter.

ARE THEY FUN:
I LOVE my tau, they are my main army (also play necrons, nids, and gk...but have played many other armies).
Being an older codex, they are VERY challenging when fighting against 5th edition books (and some of the other 4th).
They are also not easy to play...perhaps the only more specialized army are the eldar. What does this mean?
Tau are not forgiving to mistakes, or bad dice.

I love them however. Lots of fun, and very unique.
Get the codex, read it, then proxy some games.
Find some local tau players in your area and talk to them.

For the Greater GOOD!!!

davethepak wrote:There are prolly a lot of other threads about this, also check the following;

Tauonline
secondsphere
advancedtautactica
(google them).

WHAT DO I GET:
Crisis suits; several.
The same model can be used for the HQ as well.
Firewarriors (about 12 to start).
Maybe some kroot (10).
A devilfish
a couple of broadsides (if you magnitize the railguns, they too can be used for crisis suits in a pinch).

The battleforce is a good starter.

ARE THEY FUN:
I LOVE my tau, they are my main army (also play necrons, nids, and gk...but have played many other armies).
Being an older codex, they are VERY challenging when fighting against 5th edition books (and some of the other 4th).
They are also not easy to play...perhaps the only more specialized army are the eldar. What does this mean?
Tau are not forgiving to mistakes, or bad dice.

I love them however. Lots of fun, and very unique.
Get the codex, read it, then proxy some games.
Find some local tau players in your area and talk to them.

For the Greater GOOD!!!

Thanks for the information! Hopefully I can gather up some money to get the battleforce (after I read through their rules and units and such)

Get magnets.. It only takes about $5 to get a set of magnets and they will let you modulate your suits. It's actually quite easy too.

Don't buy hammerhead boxes. You can just buy skyray boxes and you can have both.

Truthfully i would say wait for the new codex, you dont wanna get into the hobby and spend alot of money (to build good tau right now it requires alot of suits and suits are expensive) and then the new dex comes out and they arnt as useful anymore.

theman99808 wrote:Truthfully i would say wait for the new codex, you dont wanna get into the hobby and spend alot of money (to build good tau right now it requires alot of suits and suits are expensive) and then the new dex comes out and they arnt as useful anymore.

Any idea when it's being released? This was going to be a future question.

Its speculating, but I guess next year.

i would start them now actually because by the time they get a new codex (within i year i predict) they should hopefully rock like any other army that gets a new codex. battlesuits are awesome. check out some of my gallery images if you would like inspiration in livening some models up. your safe to buy models because i fell the only new models they will get will be brand new ones. i hear from a race only known in battle fleet gothic known as demiurg


Automatically Appended Next Post:
i thnk they are fun to play. pathfinder's marker lights are soooooo good. you will need a bunch of battle suits and some pathfinders, around 6 in a squad. for heavies i recommend broadsides. it really depends who you play. you will need devil fish and i am growing found of sky ray for anti tank and space marines, very good against death company sitting out in the open. for an hq i recommend this simple builtd:shas'el cyclic ion blaster, plasma rifle, targeting array, hard wired ,multi tracker. your choice if he needs a shield drone.

The new codex is coming but the following items won't be missed if you buy them:

2 battleforces, 1 tau commander, 3 broadsides.

After that, it's all up to you.

Stay away from Firewarriors. They suck. Badly. ( high price, suck in cc, not realy good at shooting since they have BS 3, no special weapons ).
Since you have to take at least one squad use the minimum number ( 6 ) and either buy them a Devilfish or use the Devilfish of your Pathfinder ( yay markerlights ) squad.
Unlike Firewarriors ( which suck ) Kroot are actually quite cheap and can be used as bubblewrap. Buy them and use them in large squads ( 13/17, use uneven numbers which help you to avoid that annoying leadership test for one more casualty ). Kroothounds help as well.

Your main firepower comes from your battlesuits ( crisis suits, broadside suits ) and your tanks ( unless you wish to take only broadsides ).
Broadsides, compared to the Hammerhead tank, offer more anti tank firepower while a Hammerhead's submunition allows it, besides his formidable anti tank firepower, to work as efficient infantry killer.
A compromise between tanks and broadsides might be wise.

Piranhas, although somewhat expensive, are a source of fast meltafire. They can be also used as bubblewrap. Pathfinder teams provide you with a sufficient amount of markerlights.

I personally started with 1 Battleforce and an extra box of firewarriors (yes i like them). Added 2 broadsides to it and bam its a 800pt army with several unit swaps in it. If I had more money I would have got more crisis suits and piranhas at the same time.

my rational was that I wanted 600 points. battleforce gives you 2 troops 1 HQ 1 elite and the fish. But I dont like to use kroot so I got more firewarriors. When upgrading to 800 points you need some dakka - so broadsides.

Everyone has covered basically what you need so theres no point in repeating. Just make sure to magnetize your suits on the arms/pack and weapons so you can easily remove and put weapons on. You'll regret it big time if you don't. Can't emphasize this enough.