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Topic says it all. Not interested in krootox or vehicles, i like the big stompy robots. Got a stealth suit box and that's it so far.

XV 25 or XV 95?

Riptides. Love em. Stormsurges gotta rain on the enemies parade somehow. Or maybe you want something more tried and tested in the Crisis spam. We got some good deals on Ghostkeel formations all new and great on the able top for stomping and shooting the enemies of the greater good here at Gamgee's Tau Emporium.

What can I do to get you stomping people in a Ta'unar today?

But seriously all of those are good and you can't go wrong. Welcome to the Greater Good.

The Kauyon\Mont'ka campaign books. If you got the new codex already, sorry.

3 Riptides, 3 Ghostkeels, and as many Getting Started Tau boxes as you can afford. get 30 markerlights and convert the firewarriors into pathfinders.

For maximum cheese you want marker drones with a commander and drone controller.

Though the Mont'ka formation that has broadsides and pathfinders might also suffice.

i like the big stompy robots

Nope you are in the wrong army, sell tau now and buy into Imperial Knights, orks, eldar or perhaps even grey knights. Tau armies are not stompy at all.


If you like big SHOOTY robots that are really bad at stomping stuff then go ahead and buy those tau models that look big and shooty.
Really it is just that simple with tau. If it is big and looks shooty it is good. Suits are good, riptides are good, even the big lord of war thingy is good. Just remember to buy the codex and find a way to supply marker lights and you will be fine

That is technically true.

I'd say work out how you want to go with it and if it's suit heavy definitely look at crisis suits since they'll be your back bone.

While Tau are a lot more about mobility and shooting, competitive players have had good success running one to two Stormsurges and blasting away at stuff before charging into a unit and using their stomp ability to clear things out. I mean with two Stormsurges you get 2D3 of rather power template melee attacks.

The Ghostkeel isn't awful at combat either and the Optimised Stealth Cadre would make good use of those Stealth Suits.

So far I've got 2 of the starting boxes, 6 stealth suits, a ghostkeel and a stormsurge. guess its time to grab some riptides or broadsides and I should be ok.

Try to find a Retribution(or Retaliation?) Cadre boxed set. It consists of a buttload of Crisis Suits, a Commander, Riptide, and a couple of Broadsides.

It's a boatload of suits at a discount.

Honestly the Start Collecting Tau box is just awesome if you're looking for suits. It's 10$ more than three suits alone but includes a 50$ fire warrior kit an Ethereal.

Also I'm totally going Tau Mech army with a ret cad, piranhas, and OSC.

roddo wrote:
So far I've got 2 of the starting boxes, 6 stealth suits, a ghostkeel and a stormsurge. guess its time to grab some riptides or broadsides and I should be ok.

A commander as well.

I would say grab a fish or two. They are a bit over costed but they are skimmers and good LOS blockers.

Nah the fish are use impaired. Way too costly compared to everything else. Not the worst thing you can take, but far from the best.

I've seen some reports of breechers in a fish frying units but haven't run against it in person yet.

So have I and nothing about that combo has swept the major tournaments.

Assuming one is looking for the best vintage of cheese.

I'm with Gamgee on this, the Fish is just too expensive for the Breachers to really be high tier. That being said, even if they are, the issue is that the Breachers are very niche in use, so a new player with a mountain of backlog probably shouldn't invest into that combination unless they really want to, because while it can be effective, it doesn't offer as much of a base for the army as say Crisis Suits or Riptides.

ok so far this is what I've got, and I'm gonna need to sell a bit more to be able to buy anything else.
tau commander
2x starter sets
12x crisis suits
stormsurge
ghostkeel
2x broadsides
should have the money for a retaliation cadre by tomorrow, although I'm not sure If I'd be better off picking up some riptides and maybe a ghostkeel instead of grabbing more crisis suits

I'd say you have enough crisis for the retaliation already. I'd say maybe look at stealth and ghostkeel for the optimised stealth cadre if it interests you.

oh yeah have 6 stealth suits also. so probably grabbing a pair of riptides and a ghostkeel.

New friends after you played played Tau against your old ones..

Congrat. This is the right army at the right time.
I'd start with the starter set which gives you a big discount.

are there any third parties that make drones?

No third parties come to mind, but you can usually find them on eBay for 1-2$ a drone. You also get a ton of them in all of your kits.

If you need more of a specific none gun drone you can always convert them from bits. If you look at my p&m blog all my Marker drones are converted from a Crisis suit but and then cutting their gun into a new shape.

roddo wrote:
are there any third parties that make drones?

There are bits sites & ebay who sell drone (parts).

You could also make your own drones. Really it ins' that hard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: So what Thinkrr said

roddo wrote:
are there any third parties that make drones?

If I added up correctly the stuff you got so far you come out with 47 drones of your choice, so you shouldn't worry about that issue we had in the past, where we only got tons of gun drones and nothing else. Iirc there aren't any sets left which do not provide you with enough parts for every drone type.

Depends what you want to do,

3 start collecting boxes - give you:
- 30 fire warriors
- 9 crisis suits
- 3 ethereals
- 18 drones
-- with this you could play each box as a formation and depending on your game size you could play multiple formations.

If you want to run the hunter cadre, you need to fulfill the core and auxiliary requirements.
I would suggest adding -
Riptide
Ghostkeel
1 more box of Stealth suits
1 Commander
1 box of pathfinders
* a Cadre Fireblade
You also need some heavy support choice. - so broadsides or sniper teams or a stormsurge

Getting all of the above will cost upwards of $1000 USD. But you can field some fun stuff.

Core requires
1 commander
0-1 cadre FB - amazingly powerful combined fire synergy - if your fire warriors don't move they can all fire an extra shot - at the same target of course - but that's at full range!

Elite
3 teams of Crisis suits or 2 teams of CSuits and 1 riptide

Fast
2 5 man teams of pathfinders

Troops
3 10 man teams of firewarriors

Heavy*
1 broadside team
or 1 stormsurge
or 1 sniper team

then for your Auxiliary you can field:

Optimized Stealth Cadre
1 ghostkeel
2 teams of stealth suits

Fire base support cadre
1 riptide
2 broadside squads - minimum 1 broadside per squad

The new ethereal formation can also be run - pretty sure it is a standalone formation - which requires 3 ethereals

roddo wrote:
ok so far this is what I've got, and I'm gonna need to sell a bit more to be able to buy anything else.
tau commander
2x starter sets
12x crisis suits
stormsurge
ghostkeel
2x broadsides
should have the money for a retaliation cadre by tomorrow, although I'm not sure If I'd be better off picking up some riptides and maybe a ghostkeel instead of grabbing more crisis suits

I think some Riptides would be good. Also a single ghostkeel is largely ineffective. I found even two in a squad are midtier units and for the cost that hurts a lot. It's when they get in a formation and with 2+ of them they start to get a lot more viable as a unit from a competitive stance. One can never go wrong with Riptides thankfully. FW's two riptides are also great especially the Y'vahrah. The more all in on 95's you go the better and better they get until they can even be tournament viable with a few builds that are Ghostkeel heavy.

In all seriousness you want a battlesuit commander
It would also be good to consider using Farsight Enclaves, this allows you to field Battlesuit squads as troops

(quick list i made up, not sure how many points)
Farsight enclaves

HQ: Commander
Troops: 2x XV8 Battlesuits
Elites: XV8 Bodyguard
Fast Attack: XV9 'Hazard' Battlesuits
Heavy Support: XV107 R'varna Riptide

ALSO NEVER EVER FIELD MORE THAN 1 RIPTIDE UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING APOCALYPSE!
NO ONE WILL PLAY YOU IF YOU DO!

commander dante wrote:
In all seriousness you want a battlesuit commander
It would also be good to consider using Farsight Enclaves, this allows you to field Battlesuit squads as troops

(quick list i made up, not sure how many points)
Farsight enclaves

HQ: Commander
Troops: 2x XV8 Battlesuits
Elites: XV8 Bodyguard
Fast Attack: XV9 'Hazard' Battlesuits
Heavy Support: XV107 R'varna Riptide

ALSO NEVER EVER FIELD MORE THAN 1 RIPTIDE UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING APOCALYPSE!
NO ONE WILL PLAY YOU IF YOU DO!

I say field as many RIptides as you want. They made them squadable for a reason. I someday hope to have a Riptide army.