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Hi folks, starting a Tau army, mainly cause of another hobby of mine, which is anime. :-) What would be a good start to getting minis to build a 2000pt army with, just to get on the board and be somewhat competitive, till I figure out my play style.

I know with 6th, things have changed which is why I am asking instead of searching old info.

Thanks for the help.

you want to start out with a shas'o or shas'el, 3 teams of fire warriors and either a hammerhead or a broadside team. then work up from there.

Railguns, you need loads of railguns. That means Broadsides and Hammerheads. Then you need as many crisis suits as you can get. With what points you have left over, get firewarriors.

A good start for a tau army would be:
1 commander
3 crisis suits
2 boxes of fire warriors
1-2 devilfish
1 hammerhead or broadside

At least that's how I would start it

A crisis HQ

Some markerlights, cheapest way right now is pathfinders, who's devilfish makes deep striking suits safer

At least one unit of broadsides

The rest is up to your playstyle. You can play lots of battlesuits, no battlesuits, tons of kroot/firewarriors, stealthsuits, piranhas, or use some forgeworld hammerhead upgrades, tetras and/or battlesuits.

threewolves wrote:Hi folks, starting a Tau army, mainly cause of another hobby of mine, which is anime. :-) What would be a good start to getting minis to build a 2000pt army with, just to get on the board and be somewhat competitive, till I figure out my play style.

I know with 6th, things have changed which is why I am asking instead of searching old info.

Thanks for the help.

A few questions:

Are you choosing Tau based completely on the "anime" look?

Playstyle with Tau is "Shoot, shoot, shoot, run from hand to hand combat at all costs. Is that what you're interested in?

Well my current army is necrons. I play a wraith/destroyer lord list, as well as a scythe fleet, with lots of warriors. Plus used to play space wolves. Was wanting to play a primarily shooty army also, but a friend has imperial guard, and actuallyntau is the one army we don't have out of all the armies me and my friends playor have played, so thought it would be a nice change of look on the table.

Take a Shas'o whith bodyguards,6 crysis suits , 3 steath suits , 24 fire wariors , 12 kroots,1 delfist, 1 hamerhead.
and try to avoind at all cost enemy come closer. i buyed Sniper team to kill 1-3 more

i think that is about 2000 points or less

good luck whith ur army mate, you did a good decision

The best way to start Tau imo is 2-3 Battleforces, then 1-2 Skyray kits, and 2-3 Broadsides.

That'll give you your commander, 1-2 Battlesuits, 24-36 Firewarriors, 24-36 Kroot, 6-9 Stealth Suits, 2-3 Devilfish, 1-2 Hammerheads ( with parts for ion / rail /skyray turrets ) and 2-3 broadsides.

This is a comfortable 1500pts, with 2k at a push.

Then get another battleforce and/or 4-6 more suits, and/or a couple of squads of 6-8 Pathfinders and you'll be fairly well set.

That'll be total of; Shas'el, 8 Battlesuits, 12 Stealth Suits, 48 Firewarriors, 48 Kroot, 12 Pathfinders, 4 Devilfish, 2 Hammerheads and 3 Broadsides (and around 50 drones.)
Which is a nice, solid collection to build decent take-all-comers lists from.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/465364.page

Some info in that thread might help you



Also Crisis Suit load out info
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/360480.page

Im more of a Broadside man then a Hammerheader.
Twinlinked, can have more then 1 per slot.

But I amn't realy up to speed with vehicles in 6th ed so I may be leading you astray....

mayfist wrote:Im more of a Broadside man then a Hammerheader.
Twinlinked, can have more then 1 per slot.

But I amn't realy up to speed with vehicles in 6th ed so I may be leading you astray....

In general vehicles are considered to be Nerfed

RailHead does have the duality of anti horde as well to anti vehicle/heavy

but I am with you, and I prefer Broadsides as well

I figured ground vehicules got nerfed but the hover type was the new it or something.

Or is it just real flyers that got it good ?

Thats beside the point sorry.

Back to the thread !
Even if the hammerhead can deal with infintry i still think broadsides are worth more.
Your fire warriors and devilfish and suits can gear up against hordes, and let the badboys in the back scare the crap out of any armour.

Broadsides just have a feel to them, a presence, a big shooty scary presence, that hammerheads don't give me.
Every time i field a hammerhead it just gets tagged as a primary target and gets the feth shot out of it.

Well thats my experience, but tau are not my main army.

mayfist wrote:
Every time i field a hammerhead it just gets tagged as a primary target and gets the feth shot out of it.

Well thats my experience, but tau are not my main army.

Tau is my main army and the same happens to me

However I used to see it as a good thing, Since we used to always have 4+ cover save on our Hammerhead it would often time withstand a ton of fire, basically a giant decoy

Tho with these new rules with their cover save nerfed to 5+ and only needed 3 glances to wreck it, it dies a lot faster than before and this decoy tactic isnt really worth it anymore

Talamare wrote:

mayfist wrote:
Every time i field a hammerhead it just gets tagged as a primary target and gets the feth shot out of it.

Well thats my experience, but tau are not my main army.

Tau is my main army and the same happens to me

However I used to see it as a good thing, Since we used to always have 4+ cover save on our Hammerhead it would often time withstand a ton of fire, basically a giant decoy

Tho with these new rules with their cover save nerfed to 5+ and only needed 3 glances to wreck it, it dies a lot faster than before and this decoy tactic isnt really worth it anymore

Glad to see i nailed the hammerhead then. ( i am clapping like a retarrded seal to my own pun... how sad )

The railguns. All of them.

In seriousness, what others have said is good. A few teams of firewarriors and some broadsides will do you well. One thing I will say is this; avoid using etherials until you know the army well. A dead one will hurt you more than the other army.

mayfist wrote:Im more of a Broadside man then a Hammerheader.
Twinlinked, can have more then 1 per slot.

But I amn't realy up to speed with vehicles in 6th ed so I may be leading you astray....

The best combination is 3 Broadsides and 2 Hammerheads.

Statiscally speaking, the Broadsides are 9 antitank shots and once the armour is gone,it's 9 overkill shots on troops.

2HH + 3BS is 5 railguns instead of 9, and vs troops is alwaysbetter vs troops because of the Hammerheads large blasts.
It's also cheaper in points.

I'll post the math / full explanation when not on my phone.

Thanks for the help folks, got I think a decent starter army on EBay, and can fill it out once I figure out what I really like to play with. Thanks again.

This is what I got, well hopefully got and not going to get ripped off. I hate buying from folks who dont have any sells, but he had a lot of pics of his stuff primed and stuff, so at least I paid with paypal.

But here is the list.

36 fire warriors, 12 kroot, 12 pathfinders, 15 drones, 5 crisis battle suits, 2 broad sides in boxes, 6 stealth suits, commander farsight, crisis battle suit commander, ethereal with honor blade, 2 hammer heads, sky ray. ( 2 ion cannons and a devil fish hatch included for hammer heads) No models have been painted but most are primed black and some are white. Bought an extra 12 Kroots from my local stores bin, for $12, just to fill out the kroots a bit.

You guys are horrible at suggestions: dude, you need Aun'Va. The guy is like magic. Fairy, magical pixie dust.



Also...ignore my evil second self: Aun'Va sucks hard.
I personally feel you need 3 units of 3 broadsides w/ shield drones, 3 units of 3 crisis suits w/ shield drones, 2HQ suits with shield drones and fire warriors. Broadsides kill tanks, crisis suits kill stronger troops w/ plasma related goodies, fire warriors kill weaker squads. Also, marker-drones on the fire warriors. I haven't ever played Tau, but my roommate does, and says he's used that list before and it's pretty gross. Good luck-it's a rough codex to play (due to age and limits) and I hate them, but I applaud you for starting up a weak army.