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I used to play 40k as a secondary interest to Fantasy since second edition. I've had marines, dark eldar, necrons and nids.

With the new troops capturing rules necrons are out the window for me as a marine is about 14 points (given that frags and 15 pts of weapons are free)

Anyway, I've managed to sell my dark eldar and uncompleted salamander marines (totally pointless in terms of fluff since you can only take one flamer in a squad now.)

I was thinking of 're-investing' (not sure if 40k is an investment!!) that space and money into Tau whom I've always liked the idea of and I've got a nice colour scheme in my head for ages.

However I've yet to properly read the 40k rules.

Keep in mind that I've only peeked at the new 40k rules. I have no idea about metagame/what is currently cheesy*, and I know that you now **NEED** troops to capture things. (this also effectively neuters my necron warriors as they are 18pts per model leaving little room for killy stuff unless games have gone up in points value?)

(*to an extent...I know that drop podding 6 dreads on top of you and having 2 minimsed squads of sniper scouts for my core as my army is cheeseballery)

What is the generally friendly ration of HQ/E/T/FA/HS ?
It used to be 1/2/2/0/3 in terms of minimum troops and tonnes of HS and power weapon melee elite and shoot shoot shoot while elites stabbed you in the bum. Now its about troopers plebbing about to capture things. So is 3 units a good idea as a minimum ? What about transports are they totally useless like last edition ? if not what has changed to make them a decent choice?

Also the army I'm thinking of is Tau... in a nice red and beige colour scheme. (Don't assume that I'm going mech -boo hiss. I'm thinking of pathfinders + skyray and then having markerlights all over the place to try and tag and bag units rather than gurella plasma guns which was last edition tau... though there might be 1 or 2 units of suits (as opposed to 5 - 2HQ + 3 Elite = 15 suits?) including the leader as I want to have a tactically flexible army that can adapt to over come enemies rather than relying on gimmicks (see afore mentioned 6 drop pod dreads)

Assuming that the older units function the same (eg previous codex) what are the use of parhanas, skyrays (well I know it can mark stuff and throw rockets around corders in addition to seeker missiles) and drone sniper teams?
To me the Parhanas seem quite weak as they are open topped skimmers with a short ranged gun and don't seem to be good value for money.
[here i must point out that the spell checker thinks my misspelled parhana should be euthanasia - probably best to avoid!!]
Drone sniper teams - are they useful ?

If I get a commander and a battle box thingy I have 650 points give or take. That means that I'll need another 1350 to give a good 2000 pt selection however I do not wish to double any units until I have at least one of each.

I was thinking :

Battleforce + Commander - That gives me 650 points

Shas'la, Cyclic ion blaster, TL plasma rifle, ejection port, combat stims, hard wired multi tracker {anti marine}
XV8 Suit - Team Leader, Airburst Launcher, TL burst cannon multi tracker {anti troop/pleb}
3 Stealth suits - leader with marker drone
12 kroot
12 fire wariors - inc shas'ui, bonding knife and 2 gun drones
Devil fish with disruption pod.

to bring it to 1000 add:
6 path finders - 3 rail rifles, shas'ui bonded, target lock, 2 gun drones {rail rifles can tag one target, 2 MLs to another wiht gun drone pinning, and sepeate ML for seeker missiles if necessary}
Skyray w/ SMS, Disruption pod and targeting array

What would be commended next? I have 1HQ, 2E, 2T, 1FA 1HS

Should I get more troops - I imagine that I would need more fire warriors anyway?

I could spend about £80 more and I think I need some anti armour like broadsides or a TL fusion blaster/missile pod XV8 unit. If I did get another battle box then I have enough for about one or two more units - 2 broadsides, or a hammerhead or some vespids.
Would it be best to get a second battlebox which would give me lots of useful things? - like another stealth team, fire warriors, another XV8 to accompany the first one, drones - all of which are useable and the saving over buying each bit of it seperately works out about same cost as the 12 kroot anyway (might as well take em if its for free!) I could possibly use the extra bits from the skyray to convert the devilfish into a hammerhead (or just use it as a devil fish if it would be better). Although I'm not to plussed on the kroot to be honest although I guess they are cheap and can hold objectives as well as infiltrate. Plus they would look good in blue and red 2 battle boxes, leader, 6 pathfinders and a skyray equates to about 1575 assuming i take a squad of 8 gun drones as well.

This would give the above 1000 points PLUS duplicates of the firewarriors, kroot, stealth team and devilfish. And adding another suit to the XV8 unit gives 1574. I dont know how effective this would be. I've perceived a trend in warhammer fantasy that the best units are the pricey metal ones.... and the best armies are usually more expensive to buy. I dont know if 40k has gone that route. But there is no point shooting myself in the foot either by being cheap because that is a waste as well. However the 2 battle boxes gets 4 units of troops out there ready to go.

I do have Aun'Va - I got him at a games event for doing the photography. I could use one of his bodyguards as an ethereal and give him some drones... that's 50 pts.

Assuming that 2 battle boxes are the way to go (I think I've convinced my self while writing this) what would be the most efficient use of the remaining funds? 2 Broad sides to add some anti tank and a balancing 2nd HS ? That would be ~1700pts

I do have Aun'Va - I got him at a games event for doing the photography. I could use one of his bodyguards as an ethereal and give him some drones... that's 50 pts. Leaving me with 1750.. 250 shy of 2000 but still large enough.

I realise that most of this is very 'stream of consciousness' but its my logic of thinking about it and notification about any large wholes that I've missed would be appreciated as well as army building advice.

I say you will NEED more troops. Specificly Fire wariors.

You can't go wrong with a Railgun Hammerhead. I like broadsides, but only after I've already taken a hammerhead or two.

Essential units

Crisis Commander
Crisis Suits (Elites)
Fire Warriors
Kroot
Hammerhead/Railgun


Tau Optional Units

Broadsides (good anti-tank, lets the Railgun concentrate on lobbing blasts.)
Gun Drone Squadrons
Stealth Suits (not as good as they used to be)
Devilfish (can upgrade the weapons with SMS but they get expensive.)
Pathfinders
Stingray
Piranhas


Useless Units

Sniper Drones (overcosted and waste a heavy slot)
Vespids
Space Pope
Ethereals generally (some people like them)

All just my opinion.

I'd argue that at least one unit of Pathfinders is an essential unit in a 1500+ point force, simply due to the Markerlights & cover save reduction they provide. I'd also drop Gun Drone squads to useless.

Pathfinders scale well.

I wouldn't call Gun Drones useless but it was only a three point scale. They're better than Vespids, probably not as good as Stealth suits.

um, what's a stingray?

You'll have to bump that xv8 to a shas'vre to get an AFP. . .

Rail rifles are cool, but it sucks to have to drop to just 3 markerlights. . . if you've got an extra heavy support and you're set on rail rifle syou might want to consider sniper drones to carry them. . .

That way, you could put them well away from the fray and use them to screen pathfinders - the PFs get a coversave, but markerlights never grant the enemy a save when firing through cover.

I've never tried it, but it sounds ok.

cerberez wrote:um, what's a stingray?

Fireray? I can't remember the name. It's the tank with wings on its helmet and no big gun.

Kilkrazy wrote:

cerberez wrote:um, what's a stingray?

Fireray? I can't remember the name. It's the tank with wings on its helmet and no big gun.

I don't play Tau, but I believe that would be the Skyray.

That's right.

I knew it had ray in it somewhere.

Stingray sounded more Tauey because all their vehicles are named after fishes.

Space Pope

LOL ! I actually have him - I won him as a prize... lol ... I guess he is the pope of tau..

Anyway, after diggin them out with the intention of selling, I'm going to fix up my salamander marines by adding 2 tanks and vulkan and use them for the meanwhile. However where I'm moving in the UK has a large proportion of 40k players so a 2nd army might be useful. Also the salamander marines are now viable (I collected them when they were fluffy) and are a short ranged firepower army. I fear that tau will be the same only with the option of long range rather then the option of melee so I dont know if they would be redundant... that said I do like them. Though I think I may have to wait until I move over to the UK and see how things are.