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Well, after about a month of debating, I am starting a Tau army then waiting until the rumored 8th edition time before I start my second. I want to avoid being cheesy with my Tau, so any advice on how to avoid that, let me know. My favorite units are Fire Warriors and Crisis suits, which seem like the backbone of the army anyway. Where should I start, is the start collecting box a good place? How about after that?

Get 2 start collectings and a commander and you've got a good CAD. A lot of money but it'd be a decent amount of points. Then you could expand into markerli- I mean pathfinders ( ) and broadsides/anything else you want. Most people's definition of cheese is the formations and riptides/stormsurges so I guess avoid those.

Yeah, starting any army is a lot of money. The cheap options are a CSM army using DV to make a fallen theme, or Betrayal at Calth for C:SM. Everything else is pouring money into a blender and hoping for the best. Thank you for the suggestions of where to start.

Tau struck out easy because everything in the Start Collecting! box is something useful (I said useful, not cheese!)

Also you can avoid getting a commander if:

1.) you don't use the Coldstar loadout
2.) don't mind your commander being slightly smaller

just convert up one of the suits from the second box and add the two extra suits to the first squad or field them as Crisis Bodyguards. Failing that, the Ethereal is still a worthy HQ choice. Just for the love of the four gods don't get him killed.

As others have said, a pair of start collecting boxes. That gets you enough firewarriors to be a threat with volume of str 5 fire and enough crisis to make a commander with 5 suits left over. Also means you've got what, ~10 drones as well?

Make the commander a Mark'O and stick him with the marker drones, 2 units of FW with the turret to camp objectives, 1 unit of 3 crisis with dual plasma to deal with TEQ, another unit of 2 (or 2 units of 1) crisis with dual fusion to pop vehicles.

177 - Commander, Irridium, 2x Missiles, Target Lock, Drone Controller, 2x Marker Drones
100 - 10x Fire warriors, Turret with SMS
100 - 10x Fire warriors, Turret with SMS
156 - 3x Crisis, 6x Plasma
52 - 1x Crisis, 2x Fusion
52 - 1x Crisis, 2x Fusion
56 - 4x Marker Drones

693

3 options for a relatively effective 750 point army out of 2 start collecting boxes.

1 - Stick an Etherial in one of the firewarriors
2 - Make another unit of gun drones
3 - Promote a FW from each squad to Shas'ui and hand out Markerlights and Target Locks to them and fill out points with a 3rd system on crisis suits (EWO or Counterfire are your best bets)

Alternate option;

200 - Commander, Irridium, MSSS, C&CN, PENChip, Shield, Stims
100 - 10x Fire warriors, Turret with SMS
100 - 10x Fire warriors, Turret with SMS
270 - 5x Crisis, 6 plasma, 4 Fusion, 2 Target Locks
70 - 5x Marker Drones

740

Commander goes with Crisis to hand out twin linked, ignores cover and you choice of Monster/tank hunter. Use the remaining 10 points for whatever. I'd suggest with advanced targetting on all 3 plasma crisis or EWO on 2 of the plasma crisis is you face deep strikers a lot.

Regardless of what you choose, learn to magnetise your crisis suits!

If you don't want to be cheesy, don't use the OSC and don't run more than 1 riptide. Probably stay away from stormsurges too unless your opponents are taking land raiders, gargantuans or superheavies too.

As for future purchases, you'll struggle to go wrong with a skyray, a riptide or broadsides (railguns look cool, but missiles are more effective), though the broadsides are very expensive per model, one of the priciest kits available on a $/point basis. If you want to run farsight (the model out of Tau Empire, not the FSE supplement) another start collecting is also an option along with his model.

When in doubt, you can always get a third Start Collecting! box. Good thing about tau is that their Start Collecting Box is good value and has some good units (unlike the Space Marine one, where all the units are of questionable use and little actual discount).

Also if you get creative with a knife you can probably turn those ethereals into more fire warriors or a Fireblade (there should be a few extra heads from the Fire Warriors you can use, then just say he lost his shoulder armor or something).

As others have said, a pair of start collecting boxes will get what you need. If you're looking to avoid cheese then I guess you should steer clear of Riptides/Stormsurges and maybe commanders (only if you equip them a certain way).

Other than that just get whatever you want I guess...

Frankly, I'd suggest the start collecting box or two as a good jumping off point, and I'd suggest getting some path finders too, or if you grab 2 boxes making the drones into all marker drones. You should have 16 from 2 boxes, which is enough for a drone net. I'd also suggest getting some broadsides or a retaliation cadre. That should give you more than enough of a force to make some quality lists. I'd also start patrolling ebay for some sick deals.

Tommy Gun Firewarriors
Make a single Firewarrior squad vomit more shots than your opponent's army. Works best if you have Farsight allies. Take Cadre Fireblades with two Gun Drones for all of your HQ slots and attach them to one unit of Firewarriors (make sure to take a Shas'ui with a Gun Drone as well) then place them in a fortification or heavy cover. Each Fireblade will add an extra shot to all of your Pulse Rifles and Carbines when they don't move, turning your S5 single shot gun at 30", into 4 shots with only 3 Fireblades. At 15" that single squad will be vomiting 115 S5 AP5 shots a turn, and if you add 1 more Fireblade with drones it spikes up to 156 shots. Throw some backfield artillery and objectives to draw them in and they won't know what hit them when you open your 5th dice box. Just don't expect this to work on round two.

Out Dakka Anything
The new codex reduces the costs of dang near EVERYTHING. In a 2,000 point battle, ten 12 man squads of Firewarriors, 6 FULL squads of suits with Plasma Dakka, the blueberry space Pope swinging his scepter around saying "Shoot them again!", and then whatever amount of dakka you want to take in whatever amounts allows you to fill something with enough pulse/plasma dakka to ensure it's dead. Be sure to bring your tearcups when facing large amounts of infantry, and even flyers wont be able to stand up to 1,200,000 pulse rifle shots a turn - Note: That's still not enough dakka.

 HCMistborn wrote:

Tommy Gun Firewarriors
Make a single Firewarrior squad vomit more shots than your opponent's army. Works best if you have Farsight allies. Take Cadre Fireblades with two Gun Drones for all of your HQ slots and attach them to one unit of Firewarriors (make sure to take a Shas'ui with a Gun Drone as well) then place them in a fortification or heavy cover. Each Fireblade will add an extra shot to all of your Pulse Rifles and Carbines when they don't move, turning your S5 single shot gun at 30", into 4 shots with only 3 Fireblades. At 15" that single squad will be vomiting 115 S5 AP5 shots a turn, and if you add 1 more Fireblade with drones it spikes up to 156 shots. Throw some backfield artillery and objectives to draw them in and they won't know what hit them when you open your 5th dice box. Just don't expect this to work on round two.

Out Dakka Anything
The new codex reduces the costs of dang near EVERYTHING. In a 2,000 point battle, ten 12 man squads of Firewarriors, 6 FULL squads of suits with Plasma Dakka, the blueberry space Pope swinging his scepter around saying "Shoot them again!", and then whatever amount of dakka you want to take in whatever amounts allows you to fill something with enough pulse/plasma dakka to ensure it's dead. Be sure to bring your tearcups when facing large amounts of infantry, and even flyers wont be able to stand up to 1,200,000 pulse rifle shots a turn - Note: That's still not enough dakka.

I thought special rules didn't stack.

You mean like the extra attack from rapid fire, and the extra attack from the Cadre? or do you mean the Cadre and the Ethereal?