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Hi guys,

I am trying to start an apoc tau army. At the moment I have ...

1 tau commander

9 crisis suits

3 stealth suits

48 fire warriors

5 hammer heads/devil fish

2 tetras

I am planning on getting a tiger shark ax 10 soon
please point me as to where I should go next

reilly

try getting some hazard suits they can be quite devastating when taken in a formation

Going straight to the big games. You are probably going to want at least one Orca for APoc Datasheets.

2k points manta. done

An AX10 flanked by 2 Barracudas would look awesome.

There's a decent Formation that needs a Skyray + 2+ Hammerheads I believe.

Otherwise... It's Apoc, Broadsides / Hammerheads / whatever you feel like.

If you have £1000 and a year handy, a Manta would be amazing (and I would love to get one, one day.... one day!)

alright, i'm planning to run as many rail guns as i can. I want at least 10 hammerheads

The thing to remember, is that you're often still going to be limited by points. Often it's around 3000 pts per player.

10 kitted out hammerheads and an AX10 will be well over 2000pts alone.

That said, 10 Hammerheads, an AX10 or 2 and 2-4 Barracudas, would look spectacular.

if you want alot of railguns go for broadsides they are cheaper individually for a tl railgun the only disadvantage is they are less mobile and cant use submunition

also i would go for some baracudas they are the basic tau flier so i would run a couple of them and whatever else

yes, but they cost alot more than hammer heads irl

Furthermore, as well as being pricier moneywise (though you can easily convert them up cheaper - and if you want I'll dig up links / give advice on alternate Broadside stuff. ) - 3 kitted out Broadsides easily cost as much or more than a Broadside (although it is 3 shots instead of 1, but no Large blast)...

But in an Apoc game, a game which is MUCH bigger, with massive distances, where a 72" range isn't guaranteed to be in range within the first 2 turns, the mobility of the Hammerhead is superior to the bonus shots of the Broadsides.

that would be great thank you

how many tetras do you think i should get

also are there any worth while formations?

 ReillyP wrote:
1 tau commander

9 crisis suits

I'd go an even split of BC/MP and PR/MP, FireStorms and FireKnives respectively, each with 'Vre upgrade (for Precision Shot), Target Array, hwMT and 2 Shield Drones. BSFs not so much, as Apoc games are always played in such close range.

 ReillyP wrote:
3 stealth suits

Not even worth taking, really. Go for the FB upgrade, 'Vre for Precision Shot. Use 'Focus Fire' when applicable.

 ReillyP wrote:
48 fire warriors

I'd simply run 4 units of 6. No upgrades.

 ReillyP wrote:
5 hammer heads/devil fish

There is an Apoc formation for railheads. It's buried in my 40k stuff somewhere, but you ought to find it on the 'Net easily enough.

 ReillyP wrote:
2 tetras

Always yummy good.

 ReillyP wrote:
I am planning on getting a tiger shark ax 10 soon
please point me as to where I should go next reilly

You are sorely missing Broadsides. The Twin Link will help with Flier non-sense. Equip each as the XV8s, 'Vre for Precision Shot (nice to put a STR 10 shot on the enemy warlord, who is gonna die from ID), and the 2 Shield Drones.

Other than whatever ForgeWorld fun is offered, and your budget, I'd blanket the table with XV88s, Railheads and XV8s.

a good formation is the hazard suit formation i dont have my apoc 2 book on me but i know it is pretty good

i was going to take as many, armoured interdiction cadre, mirage long range infiltration and destruction phaxlanx as possible and i will take path finder search and destory for marklights plus night hunter, rapid insertion AND farstirkes for objectives.

also what would be an easy colour scheme for these guys?

white with red/blue/any color stripes and black clothy areas between the armour plates on fire warriors

 ReillyP wrote:
also what would be an easy colour scheme for these guys?

There's several existing schemes of course:

And I'm personally a fan of Bork'an. (Or most apart from T'au and D'yanoi tbh) and you can ultimately choose what you like - I know a guy with Tau that have bright pink armour, neon green highlights and neon blue cloth.

But of frankly, whatever you choose, for this many, that large things - the biggest thing I'd recommend is get an airbrush w/ compressor.
This will ensure fast, smooth painting of the massive surfaces.

alright so in the past few days i got 10 suits, 3x12 of firewarriors, and 6 hammer heads.
I'm getting there

The Hammerhead formation let's you place a d3+1 markerlight token on ANY enemy within LOS of the command tank. Minimum formation is 3+ hammerhead/skyray.

Where ANY means fliers as well, without the need of hitting them with 6. Flood them with seeker missiles

Mirage long range formation is maybe nastier, every FRIENDLY fully within 12' from the command devilfish gets stealth USR. Plus, Devilfish within the formation have marker drones and every 3 markerlights token on a single enemy can be swapped to get the strategic resource which allow ANY FRIENDLY unit to hit the aforementioned enemy at 2+ for the shooting phase.

Be aware that such big chunk of tanks calls for D-strenght bombardment, which ignore cover saves (d-pod + jink + stealth become useless).

Tigershark is really funny to play, just beware of Necron Pylons which can and will ruin your day.
I like to use an AX 1-0 with two Barracudas and four Remoras.

Also remarkable is the Drone Net strategic resource (apoc reloaded manual), every turn you simply place ml token on a 24' range radius from a chosen point in the map. you choose that point and it can be placed everywhere every turn. Enjoy free ml tokens

There are two more nice formations involving Firewarriors + Devilfishes. One lets you have fast skimmers Devilfishes and the other lets you redeploy them once every movement phase quite wherever on the map. Can't be too close to the enemy if I remind correctly, but this applies to the Devilfishes, troops can disembark and grab/contest objective.

There is a formation already mentioned which allows you do deepstrike up to two units of broadsides + crisis teams, you can attach shas'el with slow and purposeful to the broadsides so you can start shooting once landed.

You also could take a unit of stealth suits (or Shadowsun) and attach a hugeload of shas'els.

hey guys i have about 5 more hammer heads coming in the next few days is that enough

I'm starting to paint now and im going to order ea tigershark soon

So, you are on 15 Railheads at the moment? that on its own should remove whatever it is pointed at, including that Titan your friend just pulled out of his arse.

But, I think you need some D-Strength guns in your army, which I think can only be found on Mantas, please correct me if I am wrong.

Manta's and Tigershark AX-10's

Ok, just checking.

 IHateNids wrote:
So, you are on 15 Railheads at the moment? that on its own should remove whatever it is pointed at, including that Titan your friend just pulled out of his arse.

But, I think you need some D-Strength guns in your army, which I think can only be found on Mantas, please correct me if I am wrong.

I had something like 20 railguns on the board last big apoc game I attended.

Reaver Titan and two baneblades disassembled in one turn.

Then I got the attention of 2 (two, zwei, deux, due, dos) f g vortex missiles and some slowed amount of D-strenght blasts.

Thinking about it, I run them all in really cheek to cheek formation to (ab)use the stealth field provided by the devilfishes mirage formation which provided to be useless against such rage. Guess I kinda deserved it anyway lol.

 Swissivy wrote:

IHateNids wrote:Stuff

I had something like 20 railguns on the board last big apoc game I attended.

Reaver Titan and two baneblades disassembled in one turn.
Then I got the attention of 2 (two, zwei, deux, due, dos) f g vortex missiles and some slowed amount of D-strenght blasts.

Thinking about it, I run them all in really cheek to cheek formation to (ab)use the stealth field provided by the devilfishes mirage formation which provided to be useless against such rage. Guess I kinda deserved it anyway lol.

Brilliant, i wish I couldve seen that guys face. Thats what 3000 points gone to 2000 ish?

Broadsides, lots and lots of broadsides. Titans don't like seeing Broadsides on the table. Take em in small squads pick up around 10 and stick 2 each in a unit.

 IHateNids wrote:

 Swissivy wrote:

IHateNids wrote:Stuff

I had something like 20 railguns on the board last big apoc game I attended.

Reaver Titan and two baneblades disassembled in one turn.
Then I got the attention of 2 (two, zwei, deux, due, dos) f g vortex missiles and some slowed amount of D-strenght blasts.

Thinking about it, I run them all in really cheek to cheek formation to (ab)use the stealth field provided by the devilfishes mirage formation which provided to be useless against such rage. Guess I kinda deserved it anyway lol.

Brilliant, i wish I couldve seen that guys face. Thats what 3000 points gone to 2000 ish?

around 2500 points worth of superheavies gone.
It was my glorious moment.... then well I got thanked the vortex way.

That's why it is nice to have flying D-strenght Railguns on the Tigershark, no D-strenght blasts and no vortex can harm you.
5 Vendettas can and will harm you badly though.... lol

The only problem I see so far is anti-flyer. Other than that, it looks great so far.

he has a flyer of his own.