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So my son has saved up some cash to buy his first army and he wants Tau, up till now he has been using my armies. In nearly twenty years of playing 40k I've never ever played Tau so I know next to nothing about them. I know he wants a battle suit heavy army and we normally play at 2000 points so what should he get that will be a reasonably strong list? It'll be up against most things other than Necrons and Dark Eldar.

Id get the tau suppliment as with it you can make an entire battlesuit army (bit in there make them count as troops) but could get expncive for the models (at £40 i think for 3)

You'll probably want some Crisis Suits as they can be used in a wide range of purposes.
One or two hammerheads also have many different purposes. You can also remove the Turret and just use it as a Devilfish. You can also use the extra Sky Ray attachment on a normal Devilfish.
Broadsides will do decently well in almost any situation.
You might want a Riptide just for the "cool" factor, and they can eat up a decent chunk of points so their co$t / point value isn't too bad.
A Ethereal might be useful as it's the only thing that's harder to proxy (Every other Character looks like something else).

Some people don't use Kroot so you can get by without them if you want. You could also only use the Farsight Supplement and forgo both Kroot and Fire Warriors.
Stay away from Vespid Stingwings as I've never seen them be useful.
Sniper drones are expensive and aren't always useful. If you're trying to save money definitely stay away from them.
Most things come with Drones so you probably wont need to buy any extra drones.
I've heard that both Tau Flyers are bad.

Other than that everything else is more or less OK. The Tau are a very synergistic team, so as long as you have the right combinations almost anything can be good; the Vespids being the exception.

Looky Likey wrote:
So my son has saved up some cash to buy his first army and he wants Tau, up till now he has been using my armies. In nearly twenty years of playing 40k I've never ever played Tau so I know next to nothing about them. I know he wants a battle suit heavy army and we normally play at 2000 points so what should he get that will be a reasonably strong list? It'll be up against most things other than Necrons and Dark Eldar.

Pretty much want the Farsight supplement, farsight as HQ, then run your suits as Troops, possibly taking regular Tau as allies (Supplement special rule) to get some extra Broadsides or Riptides. This is also a good place to take a Mark'O for fast durable markerlight unit.

"It'll be up against most things other than Necrons and Dark Eldar. "

Sounds like you may need a bunch of broadsides with HYMP

but as suggested probably get the Farsight conclave book as it opens up crisis suits as troops.