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Hi all,

My local gaming club is having a league soon, and I've decided to try and take an army which goes against my powergaming instincts. I like Tau and I like Guard, but I want to see if it's possible to make a decent army from these without having a single vehicle - no Russes, no Hammerheads, no Vendettas, not even a Chimera.

What's more, I have budgetary constraints - I have a Tau Battleforce, two Broadsides, and enough Guard infantry. I can also only afford a single box set, up to around £25, to flesh this out - so Riptides are out of the question straight away.

My initial concerns are as follows:

- Without vehicles, it'll be tough to claim objectives in my opponent's half of the table. The only ways I can see of alleviating this are a large blob squad charging forward, an Al-Rahem platoon, or outflanking Kroot.

- Morale. I either need to abandon any pretense of my men being brave, or I need to invest a fair bit of my energy into keeping everyone happy.

- Bunching. Both Tau and Guard are good at close support and have a fair few force multipliers, but the drawback is that I need to keep my army together. Which really plays into the first issue.

So, I put it to you all - with the above restrictions, what (if anything) can you suggest?

For the records, my meta is quite casual - it's unlikely I'll face anyone with multiple flyers (of either variety) or much AV14, and we tend not to play spammy lists. That's part of the reason I've given myself those restrictions - where's the fun in smashing everyone just because I have two Vendettas?

Are you allying them together? Or just making 2 separate armies?

Tau can easily run without vehicles, just a pile of suits and kroot and a few broadsides make its super fun and easy. You will need to run 2 ethereals to boost leadership and to really get a nice force multiplier.

Footguard is another story altogether, the numbers are nice but you are squishy and will get mowed down. You also lack the one thing that makes guard great, firepower. Without bassies and russes you will lack the reach you need to really put a dent in your opponent. Commisars and regimental colors are mandatary

I think your box set should be the pathfinder Tau box. They reall need the marker light support, although your Crisis suit from the battle force could have marker drone for that use as well. How many points for your league? I could come up with something, I play a primarily infantry Tau list anyways, and am very familiar with using IG as allies.

I am allying them - leaning towards Tau being my primary and Guard my allied, as the Guard are likely to be more-or-less entirely Troops, the Tau warlord traits seem really good to me, and it allows me to split my two Broadsides.

It feels like a toss-up on whether I should take Pathfinders or Kroot. On the one hand, Pathfinders are a good force multiplier; on the other, Kroot are one of the few mobile scoring options available to me. Of course, I could also convert up Pathfinders using half Tau, half Guard parts.

The league is 1500 points.

Pathfinders give you markerlights for your Codex: Markerlights.

if you ally the guard you can still take the one troop slot and still make a very very beefy platoon. If you are taking a butt load of guard I would say take a minimum amount of markerlights, maybe 2 squads of 4 or one big squad, because half your army will not be able to take advantage of it. However, I still will reiterate that your army will very much be vulnerable to long range fire, so you will need to fusion up those suits most likely so that they can be effective anti tank. Also, a lord commisar as your HQ will prob be a good idea to keep your troops from breaking because almost your entire army will be dismally low Ld.

I say screw the single-minded strategy. Take kroot, Al'rahem, Creed, Penals, pathfinders, and Sgt.Harker. Outflank the hell out of the enemy.

With all the outflankers, it will not be a waste if one goes off the mark, just as long as at least half make it where they need to be.

Taking some sort of heavy weapon gunline in your DZ made up of guard HWS and some firewarrior support can allow pressure from your board edge that can knock out tanks while the reinforcements flood in from all over the place. Do not forget to take an astropath to re-roll where your outflankers come on from!

You won't have to worry about having chimeras for getting to their DZ objectives if you got outflankers that can get there just as well. If you want to be risky, take heavy weapons in the outflanking parties so that you can get a volley of fire as you come in, unleashing hell into side and rear armour. (Snapshots of course, but it is worth it and possible with enough guns and "Bring it down" from Al'rahem)