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Is a Tau force of 1500 - 2000 made up mostly of mecha suits (non infantry) viable? In other words, no Fire Warriors or Kroot/Aliens of any kind?

You'd need to use the Farsight Enclaves supplement for Troops.

Currently you can make such a list with the Farsight Enclaves supplement, and yes it can be pretty viable, depending on the actual list and tactics.

That being said, Tau are getting a new codex this month, and we don't know how things will be changed. We know that we're getting a Decurion-style "formation of formations" list building option a la Eldar and Necrons. There's a chance of more ways to build all battlesuit armies, so hang tight for those.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
Currently you can make such a list with the Farsight Enclaves supplement, and yes it can be pretty viable, depending on the actual list and tactics.

That being said, Tau are getting a new codex this month, and we don't know how things will be changed. We know that we're getting a Decurion-style "formation of formations" list building option a la Eldar and Necrons. There's a chance of more ways to build all battlesuit armies, so hang tight for those.

There is actually no indication of this at all. Yes, we are agetting a new codex and on the GW site there are package deals for formations that (presumably) will be in the codex, but there haven't been any indications of any sort of 'Decurion-esque' formations at all. We don't even know what the rules are for the two formations that we have packages available for.

I don't discount the possibility, but stating it as fact, when there have been no leaks or verifiable rumors of any kind about that style of formation, is a disservice.

You could also run your list as "unbound" and take whatever you want. Otherwise, the Farsight Enclaves detachment allows you to run Crisis suits as troops at the expense of the Signature Wargear in the main codex.

Not that the replacement Signature systems are bad.
A Riptide with the Earth Caste Pilot Array and Heavy Burst Cannon can be worth it.

A full suit army is quite fun to play, but the low model count can hurt sometimes. Suits are still only T4, so they still die quite easily.

I just hope there is a nice formation for suits in the upcoming codex so I don't need to go unbound. I really dislike the farsight signature systems, except for the earth caste pilot array.