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Oke so I finally decided wich game to play and with what faction but now i'm trying to figure out how to get everything going.

I have bought the rules and the tau codex and read them so now it's time I get looking into what I should buy to learn to play the game.
I have found alot of blogs and youtube clips showing how to start but alot seem outdated and don't really go into the points and so on.
I'm looking into starting at about 500 points since I don't know what types of army I will be mainly fighting. ( so some small skirmishing to get a feel of how to play would be nice )
Since tau are supposed to be extremely mobile I want to exploit that the most so i'm looking into a fast moving army.
From what I was able to find people playing tau seem to be fielding farsight enclaves alot; I don't have that codex supplement but since the GW store seems to be out of stock i'm wondering if a new one is planned or the old one is just been sold alot.
I did find one blog giving a general lead into buying stuff for a tau army wich of course starts with the battleforce.
What my main question is about that is if I would prefer a more mobile army would farsight enclave be a better choice and would the battleforce be a waste then or still a good buy.
I will be getting an hq wich most likely will be farsight in case I go enclaves just not sure what to get in case a generic tau army would be a better choice to start with.

First of all welcome to the greater good!!!

If you want a mobile tau army then definitely go farsight enclave (FE). It basically lets you make crisis suits as troops! As for HQ, farsight is not really that good except if you go with the Farsight Bomb. Since you are still a beginner I would stay away from the Farsight Bomb. A generic tau army might be better for such a low point game (500). But once you hit 1000+ I would definitely switch to FE. Who does not love suits all around!!!

A quick example of a mobile generic tau army.
Ethereal
11 FW
12 FW
DF with D-Pod and Sensor
DF with D-Pod and Sensor
Solo suit with TL-FB

Total 499 pts

Hope this helps! If you want more example builds just let me know.

Farsight can get a bit pricey for small games, but can be fun.

I don't have my book on me right now, but I remember the jist of my list
I had a commander with two missile pods and target lock joining a Troop unit of Crisis suits. Two with dual Missile pods and a third with dual plasma and target lock.
Two solo suits with missile pod/fusion blasters
and a Skyray.

Pretty mobile and versatile.
It's a bit over $200 dollars but it's fun for a lot of scenarios

I used to play Tau, but quit about a year ago.

The first choice you have to make is Tau Empire versus Farsight Enclave. With the Tau Empire, you get access to arguably better wargear as well as allies such as Kroot (Vespids too, but I have yet to see anyone field them.) and the HQ unit Etheral (which provides some unique benefits). By playing Farsight Enclave you get different wargear, lose the ability to have Empire units like kroot - but you gain the ability to field Crisis Suits as a troop choice.

The battleforce (new one) has a good mix of units you need for the rapid and hard-hitting force you sound like you'd like. The piranha can be quite fearsome, and stealth suits in cover are arguably superior to crisis suits on a point-per-point basis. I would advise taking some Fire Warriors as a core as they're cheap (12 points I think?), have the best standard weapon in the game (S5, massive range) and can cascade their market lights with drones (a more advanced tactics - you'll learn more about it later.)

The core tactics to taking battlesuits as troop is using the thrust move in the assault phase to "Jump-Shoot-Jump," which means you move in the movement phase, shoot at a target in range, then use the (2d6?) thrust move to hide behind terrain or move away from assaulting troops. Even though they're multiple wounds, moderate toughness, and a 3+ save the basic crisis suit still has a ballistic skill of 3. This means you'll only be hitting 50% of the time. You will need to include markerlights from Skyrays, markerlight drones, pathfinders etc. This will help you not only remove cover but increase your BS.

I'd recommend starting with the battleforce and buying an additional box of crisis troops and a crisis commander. This will give you two very versatile units that can be equipped in a wide variety of ways, plus a group of fire warriors that can hold objectives, and stealth suits to scout. You'll have to see how you play as a Tau player though after that. Some like to play very defensive and hide in cover and try and shoot people off the table, while others use crisis/stealth suits to try and form a more offensive core - or someone inbetween (i.e. waiting for your opponent to make a mistake then capitalizing).

Yeah I have been playing with one of those army list builders ( since I haven't fully mastered the rules that program slaps me on the fingers when I mess up :p ) and when I first looked at it it would seem that farsight enclave would be easier to do with the battleforce box then a standard tau army since I could use the full squad of FW and the crisis suits as troop choices, have a small stealth team to supplement it and have a single piranha. I would just need to figure out wich HQ would fit that best (with generic tau I would have to split up the fire warriors into groups of 6)

but i'm not sure the rest of the battlebox with a HQ would be able to win anything without aditional units and a bigger point game ( I don't play to win but constantly getting beaten does tend to make people a bit down )

Ofc getting the codex ( wich could be hard since it seems to be out of stock atm in my local shop as well as on the GW store) would mean an extra investment but that wouldn't be a problem if that means I can get to work with a nice and verry mobile version of the tau.

I do believe ethereals can now be fielded with FE ( seem to have read something like that in another post somewhere) but didn't know kroot weren't allowed ( although they seem to be something for a bigger point army anyways )

I'll look into the extra crisis and commander option as well to see what that would give me

I found kroot to be useful for lower point games, because they were cheaper than fire warriors and although shorter ranged, for 1 point you can give them sniper rounds so they're effective against high-toughness units. You can also give them one kroot hound and you get to outflank which is useful since as far as I recall that's the only Tau unit that can do so.

Oh, also learn to magnetize - it'll definitely save you money in the long-run.

Once I decide where to start that's the next thing i'm looking into how and what to magnetize and where to get everything to do it

been skimming around but does anybody know if the farsight enclaves book is actually going to become available again cause i'm no fan of digital editions ( especially not the ones that cost as much as a printed one)

Mostly it depends on the type of army you want to be fielding. A mobile Tau army is gonna be a bit on the expensive side points-wise, as it's gonna rely on either Crisis Suits or Devilfish. The main attraction of the Farsight Enclaves supplement is that it makes Crisis Suits troops. If you got into Tau because you like battlesuits or mecha in general, it's a godsend. If not, it's mostly a matter preference. The battleforce is not a bad place to start at all. At a lower points level, like 500 points, you will be a bit limited in terms of what you can field. Crisis suits are highly mobile, but can quickly turn into a bit of a points sink, as can Fire Warriors with Devilfish. If you like suits, go with Farsight. If not, Fire Warriors in Devilfish will not steer your wrong. As for HQs, I highly recommend a Battlesuit Commander. It will be your most useful and versatile HQ choice by far, as you can customize it however you wish. It is a bit pricely for lower point levels, but if you are willing to pay for it, the Commander will earn his worth.

If I was you I would consider get the battle force, a box of pathfinders and an Ethereal or suit commander.

At 500 points your options are limited but you could probably get something like (FE)

Ethereal 50
Firewarriors (12 no shas'ui, pulse rifles) 120
Crisis suits (2 + Shas'vre) ~142 (dependent on loadout)
Pathfinders (4 or 5) 44 or 55
Stealth team (2 + Shas'vre) ~110 (dependent on options)
Phirana w/ burst 40 or w/fusion 50

Chop and change the wargear a little and you have around 500 points.

It would be a good place to start for a smaller amount of money and gives you options.

HQ - ethereal
You have a good anti-infantry unit - FW (boosted by ethereal)
A source of marker lights - pathfinders
An alpha strike unit - stealth team
A mobile tank hunter or aggravater - piranha
And something to fill in what ever role - crisis

I would advise TL or dual missile pods as they can do everything or plasma for elite killing. TL = less reliance on markers and cheaper, dual = more shots, less independent.

I'm not a fan of mixing crisis weapons because i like things to have definitive purpose, others like to mix. That's up to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At 500 points I wouldn't necessarily go with the suit commander. He's pricy at that level, but is a good option in general.

I'm not good with suit commanders (for no good reason) because I can never optimise them. 4 hardware slots isn't enough.

 Parity wrote:
I used to play Tau, but quit about a year ago.

The first choice you have to make is Tau Empire versus Farsight Enclave. With the Tau Empire, you get access to arguably better wargear as well as allies such as Kroot (Vespids too, but I have yet to see anyone field them.) and the HQ unit Etheral (which provides some unique benefits). By playing Farsight Enclave you get different wargear, lose the ability to have Empire units like kroot - but you gain the ability to field Crisis Suits as a troop choice.

The battleforce (new one) has a good mix of units you need for the rapid and hard-hitting force you sound like you'd like. The piranha can be quite fearsome, and stealth suits in cover are arguably superior to crisis suits on a point-per-point basis. I would advise taking some Fire Warriors as a core as they're cheap (12 points I think?), have the best standard weapon in the game (S5, massive range) and can cascade their market lights with drones (a more advanced tactics - you'll learn more about it later.)

The core tactics to taking battlesuits as troop is using the thrust move in the assault phase to "Jump-Shoot-Jump," which means you move in the movement phase, shoot at a target in range, then use the (2d6?) thrust move to hide behind terrain or move away from assaulting troops. Even though they're multiple wounds, moderate toughness, and a 3+ save the basic crisis suit still has a ballistic skill of 3. This means you'll only be hitting 50% of the time. You will need to include markerlights from Skyrays, markerlight drones, pathfinders etc. This will help you not only remove cover but increase your BS.

I'd recommend starting with the battleforce and buying an additional box of crisis troops and a crisis commander. This will give you two very versatile units that can be equipped in a wide variety of ways, plus a group of fire warriors that can hold objectives, and stealth suits to scout. You'll have to see how you play as a Tau player though after that. Some like to play very defensive and hide in cover and try and shoot people off the table, while others use crisis/stealth suits to try and form a more offensive core - or someone inbetween (i.e. waiting for your opponent to make a mistake then capitalizing).

You don't lose anything by taking FE except the ability to buy Empire wargear. Kroot, Vespids and even Ethereals are not restricted in the FE list. The only thing is that you MUST include at least one unit of 3x Crisis, and you have to take bonding ritual on anything that has the option to do so.

Well decided to go for a FE army and starting with a battle force with a couple of additions. ( the ones boniface suggested seems to be nice to get me started)

the other advices sure will come in handy once I move up to higher points games. Now I just need to get everything bought painted and played :p let the fun times begin

Malgior wrote:I have found alot of blogs and youtube clips showing how to start but alot seem outdated and don't really go into the points and so on.

This is actually something you have to be a little careful around. The internet is awash with people who want to win games of 40k as easily as it is possible to do so. They will always direct you towards the strongest, easiest to use units, and declare everything else is utter crap that you should feel a deep, penetrating sense of shame for even considering.

You also have the tau community in specific which likes to complain about its own codex more than usual. I swear the codex could contain a free win button, and there would be tau players saying their codex is underpowered because they still have to press that button themselves...

Malgior wrote:Since tau are supposed to be extremely mobile I want to exploit that the most so i'm looking into a fast moving army.
From what I was able to find people playing tau seem to be fielding farsight enclaves alot...
What my main question is about that is if I would prefer a more mobile army would farsight enclave be a better choice and would the battleforce be a waste then or still a good buy.

Sure, crisis suits en masse will work.

There is a bunch of other stuff, too, you just have to be willing to look past the aforementioned tau community to field them. You have things like piranhas, which are also fast, and you can put units in devilfish, which gain all the mobility benefits of skimmer transports. You also have vespid, and kroot can outflank. And you have stealth suits, and fliers.

You have a lot of options at your disposal, you just have to be willing to ignore people who insist that you not take them.

Once I get a hang of the game and the basic units I will be experimenting with the units available ( I like the bombers but have hardly seen then in lists) I just wanted to make sure that I first got the hang of a low point army before jumping the gun and getting in over my head.
Although I am looking forward to field a large army armed to the teeth ( or in this case helmets) with big guns and suits.

Well, you start small.

One of the things you might consider is playing a "regular" 500 point tau list for awhile. It will probably be better if you figure out how tau in general are supposed to be played before you try and tackle one of their variations, like a farside list.

Value for money wise I think the battle force is a good place to start, I know I got one extra of the old ones (with the devilfish instead of the piranha) but it also has a mix of units so you can play around a bit with different tactics. To be fair, if you're anything like most of us you'll be buying more stuff than you can build/paint in no time (or is that just me?).

The best thing to keep in mind though, no matter what do, just make sure you pick things because YOU like em, then you cant go wrong (even if the units are 'subpar').

Personally I really like the forgeworld stuff, so at one point I started getting the XV89's to use as XV8's just because they look so much better, and I also bought some XV-42's because I liked their look and twinlinked weapons (but as of yet have not build them ).

There are a lot of different tactics you can go for, which require different playstyles/units (Mark'O, Buffmander, gunlines with an ethereal, mechtau, Farsight bombs). Personally I dont like the stealthsuits as I prefer more crisis suits, but I really the kroot so I will be fielding some of them in my larger armies.

I'd say a good start is with a Commander. It's hands-down the best HQ unit we have at our disposal. 2 almost obligatory upgrades are Iridium suit (2+ armour save, T5) and Pen chip (gives a special rule per turn). Be sure to put him in a Crisis suit unit with either plasma or fusion blasters to make most of this HQ.

don't use shooty drones on any unit without drone controller - fire warriors, ethereal and pathfinders. BS2 is quite bad.

 Parity wrote:
You can also give them one kroot hound and you get to outflank which is useful since as far as I recall that's the only Tau unit that can do so.

Any unit with Darkstrider can outflank (scouts) and either kroot/stealth suits (shadowsun - infiltrate)

I don't have much to offer in the way of tactics as I am just starting tau as well. But I can second what everyone is saying about the battleforce. I just got one new in box for $90 from ebay. Even if you buy it from GW, it's one of the few boxes that actually gives you a good discount.