doomdreamer wrote:
I liked the Tau Battleforce - the Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits alone make up the value of the box. If you want to do something neat, use the Stealth Suits ( I like them but I put Commander Shadowsun with a group of 6). I think there is enough value in the box. You are right, the piranna is waste but you can use it to kit-bash.

Buy pathfinders. You will need them.

Spetulhu wrote:
Suits can be good with several setups depending on what else you have. Our local Tau player uses missile suits in his suit teams while the suit commander + bodyguards generally have more close-up weapons like plasma and flamers. They would be unable to deal with a Land Raider, yes. But the assault phase jump move is really good - if they see anything they can hurt in the shooting phase they take a shot, then get as far away as they can in the assault phase. I don't think my SoB have ever killed all his suits in a game.

Stealth suits are a bit marginal, but if you have a sneaky plan they can be used for a lot of things with the right equipment. They have a lot of options.

The Piranha is the same, really. Leave it with the Burst Cannon to harrass light infantry and generally irritate people, or give it a Fusion Blaster and melt tanks. It can also mount Seeker Missiles which is always good for Tau.

The one thing you'll note if you play casually like my mate - Tau troops are fragile and somewhat skittish. I'm actually yet to lose a game against him, with SoB that are severely outgunned and not much better than Tau in close combat. Annihilate his troops (Firewarriors, sometimes outflanking Kroot) and he can't take objectives anymore.

So you need to be able to put big hurt on enemies closing in, or else be able to evade them (like the suits do). Markerlights help a lot here, when you use them to help the right unit get a good shot. No use taking away cover saves for SoB if you're shooting them with AP4 guns, right? Use it for an AP3 gun or to give a lot of shots better chances to hit.

And increase your durability. Shield Drones (well, any drones) to soak up hits is not a bad idea. Especially not for your precious suit commander who is so busy buffing the rest of the army that he forgot to bring his own guns. ;-)

 Ailaros wrote:

Spoiler:

 GreyHamster wrote:
If your troop count feels low, Kroot are a strong choice. They're quite cheap for an infiltrating Sniper unit and can give you a lot of scoring wounds cheaply.

However, Tau generally don't have to focus on the objective game. Hold a couple on your side, shoot the other guy off of his. You don't need to hold all the objectives, just more.

 dementedwombat wrote:
The seeker missile is a weapon just like any other weapon on the vehicle, they don't need markerlight tokens to fire anymore!

That makes the sky ray amazing. If it doesn't move it can fire all the weapons it has available. This typically looks something like this:

1. find an aircraft or monstrous creature you really hate.

2 (optional). get a marker-light token on it from something else.

3. fire the networked marker-lights on the sky ray at the target, using the previous token to get BS 5.

4. They both should hit. If they do then you can ignore cover (for jinking or turbo boosting stuff, like I said this is optional. You can fire both markerlights at BS 4 and use one hit to make the next step BS 5)

5. fire all 6 seeker missiles at the target...

6. Smile and feel good on the inside as that target evaporates.

7. Use your hunk of vehicular bubble wrap as an expendable markerlight platform for the rest of its short and happy life.

 Lancer wrote:
Welcome to Tau.

First thing...magnets. I recommend kjmagnetics.com. I just recently ordered 250 magnets for $34 US. Took maybe 3 days to get my tiny magnets.

Now with your magnets, you can magnetize all of you weapons and hard points so you have unlimited customization / options.

I would recommend the battle force. The Stealth Suits and the Piranha are not optimal but are still good. And since you're not pro Riptide, these units fit right in to add some variety. Also, the Stealth Suit sprue contains 1 marker light drone.

Plan out how you want to build your drones now.

Skyray. Gives you 3 options. With proper modeling / use of magnets, you now have a Skyray, Ionhead, Railhead, or Devilfish in one kit.

I recommend 2 boxes of Kroot. That's 32 models and an easy 3 small squads.

I recommend 1 blister of hounds. They contain 4 dogs. You just need 1 per squad.

As a side note. The Broadside set contains 2 drones. It contains the options for either 2 missile drones, 1 marker light, 1 gun, and/or 1 shield. So choose wisely...plan your army drone builds now. Also, converting gun drones to marker light or shield is easy.

I'd recommend an Ethereal and a Fireblade Cadre...just adds options and are cheap HQs.

I know you don't want Riptides, but I recommend 1 hehe.

edit: misspellings...dranking beer