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.

Just getting into 40k with my friends. We've played a few games with more experienced people on lended models, but now we're getting our own armies. I'd like to start with Tau - a kind gentlemen at the store gave me a box of ten fire warriors and an ethereal (though I've heard they really suck) to get started with, but obviously I need more. I kind of want to do gunline tau, if that's possible, and I really only need enough for 500-1000 point games. What would you gentlefolks at Dakka recommend starting with?

My (hopeful) budget is around $150. I'd like to stay under that if at all possible. ><

I would start with a crisis suit commander, bodyguard, and two units of firewarriors. From there I'd branch out to get devil fish transports and then load up on crisis suits. They're basically what your army does.

Warriors / Suites / Broadsides

Crisis suits, Fire Warriors, Broadside suits, Pathfinders, and Hammerheads are the best units in the Tau Codex. Ensure you have enough Markerlights to boost your units to BS 4 or 5, keep the railguns firing, and hit targets of opportunity with your Battlesuits and Fire Warriors.

Crisis suits.
Broadsides
1 Firewarrior
1 Kroot.

Crisis suits because you need them. Same for firewarriors.
Broadside to kill any transport at range. Kroot give you better firepower than firewarriors and can stand up better in HTH than firewarriors.

So, with my budget, would it be a good idea to get, say, the battle force + A broadside?

Kroot are ridiculous don't buy those guys.

Kroot are billed as your 'assault infantry'. I would treat them in the same way an ork player would treat a shoota boy has a 'special weapon squad.'

Yes they assault better than almost anything in your army, but its still absolutely horrible compared to other army's assault troops.

Kroot have their place in a crafty veteran tau player's list, but for someone just starting out, they're far to difficult to use to be worth your money at this point.

Kroot's biggest use are for abusing their fieldcraft/infiltration. Tau is all about keeping the other guy away from you while you blow him to bits. You can use kroot to bubblewrap, prevent infiltration (by infiltrating them yourself), and abuse woods terrain. All in all, they are difficult to use because they are so poor in an assault.

Tau are a pretty expensive army to collect because they need lots of suits. You get your two teams of firewarriors (and some devilfish), then the rest of your money will be going to buy as many suits as possible.

Yikes, this is a little intimidating to hear. :c Maybe I should just go with Chaos like I was originally going to. :s

In all seriousness, Tau do seem really neat - I love their aesthetic, and general 'feel,' but I'm a little nervous if they're going to be super expensive and not be super-great anyway. ><

I love the tau, but if you're starting 40k you should probably pick one of the stronger armies first.

Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Wolves or Necrons

Just to get the feel of things

Tau are a very nasty army and still quite competitive.

However, they have an old dex and suffers from only a few viable builds with most of their units being rubbish. Hence why suits are your bread and butter.

Each battlesuit is roughly 25 USD, and you'll need 3 per unit. You'll probably be running at least 6-8 in any given game. In all honesty, thats not to much more expensive than any 'competitive' other unit (las/plas razorback + unit, etc). It just seems more expensive because you don't just buy one and say 'well thats enough for now.."

I don't really like any of those "good" armies, though, and I don't want to blow $200 on something I feel "meh" about, at best.

Space Wolves are the only thing that could be cool - Space Vikings! - but the minis just feel like Ultramarines with beards to me, blegh.

Vaelidaar wrote:Yikes, this is a little intimidating to hear. :c Maybe I should just go with Chaos like I was originally going to. :s

In all seriousness, Tau do seem really neat - I love their aesthetic, and general 'feel,' but I'm a little nervous if they're going to be super expensive and not be super-great anyway. ><

They're a little old but still a fine army. They're also due for a new codex soon so everything could get shaken up. Crisis suits will always be their strength. If you just have to have a competitive edge the forge world crisis suits are extremely powerful.

Goresaw wrote:Tau are a very nasty army and still quite competitive.

However, they have an old dex and suffers from only a few viable builds with most of their units being rubbish. Hence why suits are your bread and butter.

Each battlesuit is roughly 25 USD, and you'll need 3 per unit. You'll probably be running at least 6-8 in any given game. In all honesty, thats not to much more expensive than any 'competitive' other unit (las/plas razorback + unit, etc). It just seems more expensive because you don't just buy one and say 'well thats enough for now.."

6-8 in a 500-1000 pt list?

I would have though, if you include broadsides already, you'll barely get above 3 crisis suits.

I'd say three Crisis Suits (including commander) and one or two Broadsides.

Most people I've seen play (at low point games that you're talking about) don't use broadsides. They either bring a hammerhead, or more suits. Suits are more than adequate for dealing with everything up to AV 14 (especially when the jerk deep strikes a sacrificial suit or two behind my battlewagons and then markerlights them...). If your local meta has lots of landraiders/monoliths in low point games, you might want to adjust accordingly.

From my experience (ending up on the wrong end of broadsides way to many times), they are very powerful, but they are very immobile. The Hammerhead has less firepower, but the mobility the Tau need to deal with other agile armies.

the battle force is a great start for smaller battles, add a squad of crisis suits to it and you should be good for most games in the 500 point area.

After that more fire warriors and some heavies like the broadsides and hammer head would be your next step.

Once you have those basics in start buying markerlight units. need them to be competitive.

at any stage more crisis suits and fire warriors are never a bad thing.

I haven't played to much but I think i'm trying to do something similar to what you're saying. Lot's of firewarriors and hammerheads with a crisis suit commander and bodyguard is waht i'm going for.

also i'd suggest if you can swing it to get a bunch of small magnets for your crisis suits.... it is incredibly handy to be able to swap out weapons for different opponents

they are relatively inexpensive, i ordered 100 1/8" x 1/32" round magnets online for about $24 CAD including shipping.

+1 to the post above. I didn't magnetize my crisis suit from the battleforce and now i'm trying to find a way to take his guns off so I can magnetize them, it's much easier to get it right the first time.

I agree with the battleforce and the crisis suits. I happen to have just started tau myself and thats what i did. havent regretted the decision. I've been playing 40k for about a year and a half and Eldar for that same ammount of time (they were my first 40k army).

I say the older books provide a better challenge for you than the new books, so even if youre new to 40k i suggest you pick the race you like the most (its also easier to paint the army when you like the models). Eldar will always be my no 1 race but im enjoying Tau and can say the learning curve is steeper than say space marines but certainly not more than Eldar. Anyways i digress, to start with tau, battleforce 2 or 3 more crisis suits, maybe another box of fire warriors (you can try the kroot, just throw them in a bush on the battlefield and they wont do too bad) and then a broadside or two when you have more monies. Good Luck!

King Crow wrote:+1 to the post above. I didn't magnetize my crisis suit from the battleforce and now i'm trying to find a way to take his guns off so I can magnetize them, it's much easier to get it right the first time.

the crisis suits i got were hand-me-downs from several years ago with liberal ammounts of glue applied to them, i just used an x-acto knife to work them loose. if you damage the mount or break off the tab inside the arm its not a huge deal as you will need to drill them out slightly anyway and will wind up cutting all the tabs off the weapons. that all being said i opened up my finger with the knife pretty hard too so be careful lol

A solid start is the Battlebox + Tau Commander Suit to start. Then expand to the BroadSide, second XV8, Piranha, Hammerhead. Probably in that order.

I recommend buy the Skyray kit instead of either the DevilFish or Hammerhead kit as it pretty much comes with everything you need to build any of the 3 for the same as a cost as a Hammerhead.

With the BattleBox+ commander I would field something like this at 750 points:

HQ:
1 Commander Shas'el w/ Plasma Rifle+ Airburst Fragmentation Projector+Shield Generator+hardwire Multi-tracker 110
1 Bodyguard Shas'vre w/ Missile Pod + Plasma Rifle+Targeting Array+hardwire Multi-tracker+Stimulant Injector 92

Elites:
1x 3 Stealth Team w/ Shas'ui Team Leader + Bonding knife +Target Lock+ Markerlight 137
Shas'ui+ Drone control + Markerlight drone
Shas'ui+Target lock+fusion blaster

Troops:
1x 12 Kroot Squad 84
1x 12 FireWarriors w/ Shas'ui+ Bond Knife + Photon Grenades + DevilFish w/Smart Missle system + Disrupt Pod+ Fletch Discharger + Multi Tracker 272

Fast Attack:
1x 4 gun drones 48

While it may not be an ideal list, it should be a good all-rounder and help you figure out how you want to play your Tau. You got Bubblewrap Kroot and Blocker Drones to slow done assaults. A Stealth team to act as mobile marker light support or rapid response Armor hunter with the Fusion Blaster. Their Target locks let you engage up to 3 different targets each turn. The DevilFIsh can keep you Firewarriors safe, provide rapid extraction/objective grabbing, or act as a close Anti-infantry fire support tank. The HQ is your hammer squad. Really though Tau are not going to be an assault army, so make use of the jetpack rule and move shoot move with to avoid assault.

lunarman wrote:I love the tau, but if you're starting 40k you should probably pick one of the stronger armies first.

Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Wolves or Necrons

Just to get the feel of things

This minus the Dark Eldar. I've seen newer players rage quit 40k when they realize that their "tanks" get blown up by bolters.

Shas'O'Siepher wrote:

King Crow wrote:+1 to the post above. I didn't magnetize my crisis suit from the battleforce and now i'm trying to find a way to take his guns off so I can magnetize them, it's much easier to get it right the first time.

the crisis suits i got were hand-me-downs from several years ago with liberal ammounts of glue applied to them, i just used an x-acto knife to work them loose. if you damage the mount or break off the tab inside the arm its not a huge deal as you will need to drill them out slightly anyway and will wind up cutting all the tabs off the weapons. that all being said i opened up my finger with the knife pretty hard too so be careful lol

Ahhh i'm sorry. it was probably worth it though. I just need to get a new knife and i think i can make it work.

was totally worth it, fingers heal

For 150, you can get a Battleforce and a codex, which is the way any army should be started