Starting a tau army

[LizardTau]

I'm starting a tau army. Now off hand I'm thinking about fire warriors, devil fish, crisis suits, broadsides and hammerheads.

Now do i NEED kroot or pathfinders or ethereal? I just off hand don't see the need, like OK kroot would be a good meat shield or help in close combat.

Is there anything else good I'm missing. And for weapons is it worth it to upgrade the broadsides from the smart missiles? and same with the hammer head? and what weapons should i put on my HQ and crisis suits so many weapons to choose from, i was thinking fusion blasters and the air-bursting fragmentation projectile or maybe flamers in case they get into close combat.

whats everyone think?

[Jack Shrapnel]

I know that Tommy doesn't use any kroot whatsoever.... and occasionally uses an etheral but only lately... so I think you can do just fine without them...

plus suits are cool... very anime....

[Tommy]

I can safely say you don't need kroot or etherals whatsoever. I've been pretty sucsessful with my tau using no kroot of any kind. Now recently i have been using an etheral, and ive found him to wokr out great to prevent one firewarrior from rolling double 1's to hold so i can't shoot the unit in combat with it . Now pathfinders are a diffrent story i LOVE them, use two squads every game, they are so useful, and handy. Now i have seen heavy suit lists and they usually do pretty well so i'd go for it...

[Mythweaver]

I think the chances of a dead ethereal scaring away all of your troops, far outway any usefulness he may otherwise have.

On paper at least, Kroot are an outstanding addition to an army.

I'm not a Tau player but I hang out with someone that does nothing but talk Tau.

[donimator]

I've played Tau for some time and somewhat agree with Tommy, that you don;t need Kroot, but they are handy, especially when you are getting the feel for the army.

Kroot are cheap. Tau's best option in melee. And have some good abilities (infiltrate) that you won't find in other units. However, they can't make use of markerlights (a core principle to built a Tau army around IMHO) and have weak armour. Personally, I like to pair a Kroot squad with a gun drone squad for a cheap flanking team. The gun drones can jump-shoot-jump to clear the way for Kroot firing and still provide them with a cover save.

Pathfinders are great - pricey, but great. I would go the rail rifle option for some of the warriors as it adds some concentrated firepower.

The hammerhead starts getting pricey pointwise when you go with smart missiles, as you also need a Target Lock to make effective use of the systems. I like them just with the burst cannons as the railgun is awesome on its own and I want to use the points elsewhere.

As for the Crisis suits, the common configs are the Deathtrain (twin-linked missile pods and a targeting array) and the Fireknife (plasma rifle, missile pod, multi-tracker). The Crisis suits still have a generally poor Weapon Skill and aren't well suited to melee. I like to play them in a Jump-shoot-Jump role as mid to long-range fire support.

As you start to build and play the Tau army, you will find a fit of the best units to match your tactics. You can always remod models after-the-fact if your concept changes.

Finally, I don't usually recommend websites, but I found the following helpful for forming some ideas of different unit configs and uses. Lots of information : advancedtautactica.com/

[Mythweaver]

I think that the fireknives are the best crisis configuration for the points. At least on paper.

[thesanityassassin]

Definately....most effectively multirole and ranged.

[trevor]

i played tau for about 4 years, had a normal tau army then a farsight 1n. some things that worked well for me were large xv8 command squads with missile pods, plasma rifles and sheild drones. haveing a few single model xv8 suit squads with twin linked fuision blasters that have the hit on 3 upgrade ( most effective in deepstrike, only 53 points!!!). i personaly didn't like pathfinders, to expensive, just give firewarrior squad leaders markerlights. That way you can target differnt stuff. hammerheads are realy good, work best with lots of upgrades like disruption pods. etherials are terrible, not worth takeing if they were free. kroot arnt good against armys with 3+ armour. broadsides work well in 1 man squads with sheild drones hit on 3 upgrade and no plasma, ( not worth the points).

[thesanityassassin]

Again with Kroot, they're best NOT used as assault troops unless you're fighting something very weak. Stick them in cover and shoot, going to ground if return fire comes. 2+ cover save on an objective in a 20 man unit? Yes please.

[Mythweaver]

I agree with that, very annoying unit to remove from cover.

[LizardTau]

ok thanks everyone. Gave me a lot to think about. I have some used ones coming how much is involved in taking weapons off and putting new ones on already painted armys and still making them look good. The ones i have coming have plasma rifles and burst cannons.

[shasodnarb]

Before building the list, I think it's important to decide how you want the army to broadly function and I think this is only possible once you decide what you personally feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the Tau.

I also think it's helpful to identify what you think it takes to be a generally successful 40K player.

I think deciding these things will make building the list much easier.

Until you do that then I'm unable answer your specific questions unless you want really biased answers.