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So I picked up a Tau battlebox yesterday and the codex. From what I understand, the battlebox has to potential to give me a 500 point army right out the gate but I'm looking to expand out to 1,000 fairly quickly, as that's the point total my usual group plays at.

It's looking like I should definitely get another full squad of Fire Warriors next but how about expanding into Heavy Support, Fast Attack and Elites? I definitely want a Hammerhead ASAP and I do want to pick up a Riptide but maybe not right away (unless it's that worth it). How about HQ-wise, what a good choice? I see Farsight used fairly often but I know I can build a Crisis Suit Command from the Battlebox as well.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Riptide is definitely worth it. In game its great and most opponents focus on it all game. From a modelling perspective, its a very well tooled kit that assembles well and offers the ability for different poses, weapons, etc. Use magnets!

Hammerhead is great too; but its a sad day when it misses its railgun shot!

Maybe some pathfinders for markerlight support?

Tau can go multiple ways, and a Riptide technically suits any of them unless you want to avoid the meta. Never a bad buy, just gotta know how to use it right. The default BS3 makes it not as powerful as people believe it to be, so its pretty easy to just be wasted points without marker support or good positioning with the blast templates (scatter 8", still hit something so dont care lol)

One thing i will say that bumped my tau play a lot - dont ignore firewarrior numbers. Even if you want a gunline that shoots several hammerheads, riptides, and sniper drones dont skimp the firewarrior numbers. i bring 40-50 in a 1250-2000pt list, and you'd be amazed what they can pull off.

Pathfinders are excellent marker support, as theyre the cheapest form of it and with proper placing dont have to move much so the Heavy factor isnt an issue. I bring 16 usually, two groups of 8. Some people absolutely love pathfinder special weapons, i find them to be awesome upgrades in a bad position so not worth it IMO.

Skyrays and hammerheads are both excellent vehicles, and the kit lets you make both so if you decide you dont like hammerheads after all, just swap the turret out. Technically i have 3 of these lol though i rarely field all 3.

Now for HQs. Commanders and Ethereals are about all youre going to bring, ever. Farsight is total crap unless youre doing the "Farsight Bomb" which is him + his body guards + max drones and usually + Shadowsun deepstriking without scattering to plaster things. Very expensive, very risky, but very potent if it works.
Commanders can be kitted out to fit any bill. Theyre BS5 so they dont need marker support, can take any number of special upgrades to become a "Buffmander" to make a unit crazy scary in shooting, and they can buff drones to be BS5 (not missile drones btw) with a drone controller. Personally i dislike the official Commander model, so i use two different forgeworld crisis suits instead. Think it came out to 5-10 USD more expensive but look way better.
Ethereals provide insane amounts of buffs for the cost, but theyre risky. Very squishy boss guy that awards another victory point if killed that is usually attached to firewarriors, which arent that hard to wipe off the board. Take him if you have a LOT of firewarriors and an open HQ slot, and keep him in the back/be mindful which unit has the most firewarriors to swap him to if need be. I like to stick him with broadsides for zephyr's grace boons so they can run up the board with the firewarriors (zephyr's grace = may run and fire snaps same turn. Only the extra shots fired perk wont affect broadsides)

TLDR: Dont buy farsight as hes only good in one singular tactic, crisis suit teams on their own are still excellent, riptides arent mandatory, buy more firewarriors and commanders.

I do plan to get at least one more full squad of Fire Warriors for my 2nd troop choice and Pathfinders seem like a good buy for the FA slot.

Is it worth while to get a Piranha squad? I've heard I can convert my BB Devilfish into one and that a squad of 2-3 isn't a bad choice.

Also, what's a good load out for a Commander? I was looking at a Cyclic ion blaster and 2x Burst Cannon with Vectored retro-thrusters and a Shield Drone.

If you are not forgeworld shy, I'd advise tetras over pathfinders.
Far more expensive $ wise, but much cooler looking, and do a better job for anything except a gunline.

And yes, firewarrior in masses ARE useful, I play enclaves but still have about two dozen finding their way into my lists.


Piranhas are nice, but not very useful in classic TE, only in enclaves where the S5AP5 spam the provide is actually needed (classic TE gets it in troops anyway)
No way to convert the devilfish to one, the size is WAY off. a phirana is about half it's size, even less.
You CAN however make it into a hammerhead/skyray with ease, you just need a handful of parts.

As for commander loadout. yea, not really.
First, if you want a gunner commander, stick to 2 gun, preferably a matching pair, and no flamers/bursts (flamers waste BS5, and burst fire is easy to get cheap on other platforms)
The signature systems? they are insane. and you can take as many as you want. look them up, and dont be shy to spend 50ish points there, if you want to go the "support commander" path with no guns and just buffing his squad like hell.
And I advise always getting yourself the iridium armor paired with stimulate injector-a though commander is a good commander.
Also, there is no reason to take shield drones in the current codex, gun drones supply nearly the same defense, but gets guns to boot and the same cost.
Then there are the named commanders.
Farsight is only good in several specific deathstar builds (farsight bomb and ovesastar specifically), but quite poor outside of them.
Shadowsun is nice, and quite annoying to fight against, being sneaky tank hunter and all.
Forgeworld r'myr is just a jack of all trades.
Forgeworld ralai is probably the biggest glass hammer in the game.
Ethreals are a nice fit in gunline type armies, but the named ones are pretty bad.
As for fireblades and darkstrider...just do youself a favor and avoid, darkstrider costs way too much and fireblades are only useful in tiny games (500 points or so), or as cheap tau allies enablers.

Overall, if you want to learn all about tau, we got a site called "advance tau tactica", with tons of topics and articles that delve into every unit, strategy, trick, and treat our army can pull off, with or without forgeworld, plus a large group of tau experts that can answer any possible question, and help you tweak your lists, discuss spesific units, learn how to do conversions and anything else you can think of, I recommend any tau player to at least take a look there.

Newtype Zero wrote:
I do plan to get at least one more full squad of Fire Warriors for my 2nd troop choice and Pathfinders seem like a good buy for the FA slot.

Both are a good choice. You need more bodies for holding objectives, and markerlight support from the Pathfinders is a very important part of Tau play (getting two squads of Pathfinders is worth it). BoomWolf mentioned Tetras - I've played against them a few times, and they seem very good, but a lot of people are not very willing to play against Forgeworld models.

Is it worth while to get a Piranha squad? I've heard I can convert my BB Devilfish into one and that a squad of 2-3 isn't a bad choice.

Piranhas are so-so, I would focus on getting other stuff first.

Also, what's a good load out for a Commander? I was looking at a Cyclic ion blaster and 2x Burst Cannon with Vectored retro-thrusters and a Shield Drone.

Remember that crisis suits can only fire two weapons at a time.
One of the best ways to run the commander is to load him out with a bunch of signature systems that buff the unit he joins (Buffmander, or Toolkit Commander). You can do stuff like give Riptides Ignores Cover on their large blasts, or give a team of broadsides Tank Hunter. It's also worth giving him an Iridium Batlesuit and a Shield Generator, as these significantly improve his survivability.


So yeah, these are all good choices:
More Firewarriors
Crisis Suits
Broadsides
Hammerheads
Riptides (one is fine, though it's obnoxious in 1000 point games)

Also consider:
An Ethereal (if you get a lot of firewarriors, this will significantly buff them)
Pathfinders
Tetras
Skyrays (if you play against flyers, you need this)
Aegis Defense Line

I also advocate getting a Devilfish for your troops, if only because it makes your army so much more mobile, and opens up a realm of interesting play. But if you want to win at all costs, invest those points into more firepower (you don't need to hold objectives if you can just blow your opponent off the table).

Kroot are very good cheap scoring models.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Kroot are very good cheap scoring models.

Yep, I forgot about that option. Dirt-cheap troops who infiltrate and have reasonably good guns. If your FLGS has a lot of forest terrain, then consider them as they can get 2+ cover saves when they go to ground.

Kroot also offer a nice flexibility. Sometimes you can infiltrate or outflank them as well.

Ethereals make larger firebases of fire warriors quite solid.

Markerlight sources are very important to some lists, especially those that are heavy on riptides, Crisis teams, or Hammerheads. Pathfinders, skyrays, tetras (from Forgeworld) are all strong choices there.

Commander O'Shenanigans (as I like to call it) features the Multispectrum Sensor Suite, Command and Control Node, Puretide Engram Neurochip, Iridium armor, and additional defensive/signature systems to taste. Vectored retrothrusters, shield generator, and stim injectors are all noteworthy options.

Outside of a single battlebox your going to need to flesh out your army more. The key things that need to be meet are
0. HQ (0 because you can't even play without). Fireblade is great for gunline firewarriors (really good in small number games), ethereal is great for groups of firewarriors, commander is great when working with crisis suits or broadsides (C&C, multi spec, puretide chip are nasty in a unit with a commander). Darkstrider is good for aggressive firewarriors in a devilfish (relive the fish of fury). The rest of the HQs i feel are for more advanced tactics which im not familiar enough with to comment on.
1. More troops - can't score points in objective games without troops, firewarriors are the all around good choice but kroot can be good (i wouldn't run kroot as one of the two minimal troop choices)
2. Heavy Support - Hammerheads work wonders for giving long range firepower and being reliable anti vehicle and anti mob. Broadsides are very very strong (personally i feel the model is overpriced money wise for what is suppose to be an up-gunned crisis suit) but lack the range of a Hammerhead
3. Markerlights - That is typically covered by pathfinders but you can also use marker drones (easy to custom build if you cut the drone pulse carbine to look like an antenna and attach one of the sensor box bits from a crisis suit set). Run marker drones as a drone squad (hitting on 5+), mixed in with your units (hard to efficiently mark things first before using your shots), or you can do what I did before i got pathfinders and run 6 with some missile pod crisis suits (same range, use a drone controler for 4+ hits). If your playing in a FW friendly community then i hear tetras are really good for markerlights but i haven't seen then in action.

The things you buy should be related to the general battle strategy your trying to play. A static gunline would want more overwhelming firepower but wouldn't worry as much about mobility (maybe keep some troops in reserve to capture points when the dust settles) while a mechanized force playing aggressively would most likely prefer mobile units that could keep up (hammerheads over broadsides in this case). Mixed strategies like hammer and anvil can utilize elements of each and incorporate them as well. Personally i started off with 2 battleforces and expanded with hammerheads and pathfinders plus more firewarriors. In the case of getting a Riptide they are really strong units and I would say they can cover some of the heavy support work in a smaller list (i think they serve a different purpose than heavy support in larger lists)

2-3 riptides , 3-4 broadsides , 20 kroot snipers with 2 kroot dogs , a buffmanders , a farseer on a jetbike , 3 jetbikes and coteaz to get divination . This will give you 2-3 re-rolls for your 2-3 riptides , so even if people kill your marker lights they will still be accurate . The jetbikes are also very nice as they give tau fast moving scoring units . The farseer and the buffmanders should join one of the riptides and his drones. This way you get a nice unit with t6 on all models , with +2 armor , FnP on some models and +2 look out sir rolls .
Kroot are very good tau troops , sniper rifles can help a lot with FMC and they are good to snipe grimore bearing heralds or scouting khorn heralds .

Abuse the Pathfinders' Scout redeploy! You can put them 6" of a nice spot of a ruin/building and after the enemy deploy, you can reposition them. Watch out for infiltrators, though (you cannot finish deploying within 12" of an enemy unit, when using Scouts rule)

Yes, kroot. People nark on them because theyre basically armor-less and short range/squishy. People, theyre 130pts (135 with a single hound) for TWENTY of them WITH snipers. And markerlights do assist them, as it says "from Codex: Tau Empire" so that includes kroot. Infiltrate them, give them a couple marker lights, watch whatever big bug you aimed those 20 sniper shots at just scream in agony as 17/18 hits turned into 2-4 Rends and 4-5 more armor saves on top of that lol. Yes they usually die very quick after that, but again its only 130/135pts to potentially wipe out a 250+ pt model lol.
EDIT: Not to mention, thats 20 wounds your opponent is shooting off the board so you dont get to snipe like that every turn. Be surprised how much your other things stay alive after tossing 20 wounds aside, and however many failed shots on top lol.

Grabbing the firebase formation box or whatever its called is a great addiction if you are intending to go competitive and piece that box together with the battleforce and you have a decent army that just needs some markerlights to begin taking the world by storm