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What box sets would make for the best purchases with a roughly 2000 point list of Tau? I'm figuring a good start might be to get a box or two of the start collecting kits, maybe one of the other web bundles like the ghostkeel one.

I do not wish to run super competitive lists with 3 riptides and what not as I mostly play with friends. Thinking more along the lines of a well balanced mix of battlesuits, strike teams, vehicles and maybe a single riptide.

The starter box has the best cost-effective ratio. Start there.

I'd start with 2 starter boxes
3 broadsides
1riptides
2 ghostkeels
2 boxes of pathfinders
2 boxes of stealth suits

Then consider buying
+2 riptide
+1/2 Stormsurge
Cadre Fire blade

Then prepare to have tons of fun.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'd start with 2 starter boxes
3 broadsides
1riptides
2 ghostkeels
2 boxes of pathfinders
2 boxes of stealth suits

Then consider buying
+2 riptide
+1/2 Stormsurge
Cadre Fire blade

Then prepare to have tons of fun.

Convert your own fireblades. You want a commander, I would only grab a single ghost keal at first and instead take a second riptide.

I'd also take a devilfish and the tank kit. Get a hammerhead with a converted long strike, and a skyray, with the option of two devilfish. I'd consider nabbing 1-3 extra broadsides down the road because broadsides are great.

I'd priorotize this for making drones 1: make custom drones that come with that set alone until you've at least 1-2 sets of custom drones. 2: make a 1:1 ratio of marker drones to gun drones until you've at least 20 marker drones. If you've more than 20 marker drones and 20 gun drones, only male gun drones on the off chance you ever set up a drone factory.

Buy 3 start collecting boxes.

thats
2 squads of 10 Strike Team FW
2 Squads of 5 Breacher Team FW
Make sure to model 1 in 5 models without a helmet so you can have shas'uis

Also gives you 9 crisis suits. Nowadays you're best off using two of the same guns per suit and running specialized kill teams. Dual Fusion or Dual Plasma or Dual Missiles

Then Get:

1 commander
1 Riptide
2 boxes of stealth suits
1 box of pathfinders
1 Ghost Keel
3 Broadsides

next round of purchases
1 Fireblade
2 Devilfish
1 Skyray
20 kroot

Followed by
2 Stormsurge
2 Riptide
2 Ghostkeels

Units you can fool around with once you get used to things
Vespid
Hammerhead
Piranha
Sniper Drones


Model all the drones you get, aside from 2 for breacher team guardian drones and ripide and ghostkeel drones as Marker Drones.

Purchasing all of this gives you the ability run a wide variety of formations.
16 Marker Drones - enough for the Drone net formation - Amazing
A full Retailiation Cadre - 1 commander, 1 riptide, 3 unis of CS suits, 1 unit of broadsides
A full Optimized Stealth Cadre - one of the best formations in the game - 1 ghostkeel, 2 stealh suits
Can also run a hunter cadre
Ethereal honor guard
Ranged Support Cadre
Firebase Support Cadre
Rapid Insertion Force



Automatically Appended Next Post:
disregard the codex fliers

FW Units

Fast Attack riptide - godlike
Heavy riptide - not good enough for cost
Remoras - not sure of them don't have any
Barracuda fighters - may be the best in the game.
XV9 Hazard suits - over costed, short range, but T5

Magnetize your suits, that way you can change the weapons without having to have a separate model for each loadout.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
What box sets would make for the best purchases with a roughly 2000 point list of Tau? I'm figuring a good start might be to get a box or two of the start collecting kits, maybe one of the other web bundles like the ghostkeel one.

I do not wish to run super competitive lists with 3 riptides and what not as I mostly play with friends. Thinking more along the lines of a well balanced mix of battlesuits, strike teams, vehicles and maybe a single riptide.

Of course you don't want to run 3 riptides!


Run 5 instead 3 isn't enough!


But seriously thanks for not going for cheese.

I'd suggest you make 3 fusion suits, 3 plasma suits and 3 cyclic ion blaster suits. I would disregard missile suits unless you plan on running a buff commander. Broadsides are better missile platforms.

Plasma are good for high armor infantry, melta guys are good at popping tanks, and cyclic blasters are good at deleting hoards of guardsmen and at glancing vehicles. Ion blasters effectively out perform burst cannons and missile pods IMO. Flamers and air bursting fragment peojectors are good too, but Tau are swimming in anti hoard tools, so I don't see the need for these investments unless your meta is hoard heavy.

Thanks for all the info! I like it all except the 3 riptide thing. I've seen just how good those things are and being that I only play with a small group of friends at most semi-competitively, I think 1 should suffice among all the rest of the firepower.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
Thanks for all the info! I like it all except the 3 riptide thing. I've seen just how good those things are and being that I only play with a small group of friends at most semi-competitively, I think 1 should suffice among all the rest of the firepower.

I sometimes run 2 tides in 2000 point games, but typically yeah, 1 is fine. I'd suggest also investing in cadre fireblades, as they double the effectiveness of fire warrior groups for 60 points as apposed to 108 points. Their bs 5 markerlight with split fire is nice too. I've ran army where my only lights came from 2 skyrays and 2 fireblades because on average about 5 of those should hit each round. I do suggest though that you have a fireblade or skyray (maybe drone spotters) if you've pathfinders. The 1-2 high bs lights will reliably go off, and can be used to buff your pathfinder's own BS so they don't miss 1/2 the time.

Just prepare yourself for unjust hate, likely from opponents before you even see your first model down. A good portion of the community will be absolutley toxic to you just for playing tau.

Given the option of Tau or Eldar, I think I'll take the lesser of two evils

I am so saddened that there are no recommendations to buy Kroot :(

I guess thats part of the reason I sold 90% of my Tau army. It was 3rd edition. When Tau was 'better'.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
Thanks for all the info! I like it all except the 3 riptide thing. I've seen just how good those things are and being that I only play with a small group of friends at most semi-competitively, I think 1 should suffice among all the rest of the firepower.

Riptides are more anchor units than firebases. You can get by with 1 riptide but 2 riptides is the minimum I run. Tau need deep strike protection - riptides are a perfect source for it. You don't have to take the riptide wing and the 3rd riptide it requires does limit you big time in what else you can field. Tau are exceptionally powerful BUT are probably the hardest army to build lists with because they require a lot of things work together to really function - once you figure it out though you will be tearing people up.

Longstrike is a fun unit too. I almost always take him to tone down my list a little bit but he usually ends up destroying far more than his points and providing a huge amount of suspenseful dice rolls. Try him out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SickSix wrote:
I am so saddened that there are no recommendations to buy Kroot :(

I guess thats part of the reason I sold 90% of my Tau army. It was 3rd edition. When Tau was 'better'.

I don't have any kroot in my tau. I don't feel like I miss them ether.

How do you guys recommend running drones? Which ones and how many for each unit?