[SMRCommander]

My Marine army is almost done, and I was thinking of trying out the new Tau. I was wondering if anybody could give me some tips of starting them out, and links and such to good tactics. Thanks in advanced!

[khanaris]

Huh. Finally succumbed to the dark side, have you? Welcome to the Greater Good!

The first thing you need to understand about the Tau is that there are many different ways to play them. The units and tactics that go into fielding a Static gunline can be very different from those that go into a Mech air cavalry army. This is all pretty well-described in the Important Topics section.

Tau do not have as much flexibility as Marines when it comes to HQ selection. Your first choice is a Commander in a Crisis suit, period. It is worth using magnets or pins when building this model, because you are going to want to experiment with the vast array of wargear and weapons he can be equipped with. Because our HQ units are not all that impressive in close-combat, they need to be equipped with the right combination of upgrades to fulfill their role on the battlefield.

Troops are also pretty simple. Basically, you are choosing between static Fire Warriors, mounted Fire Warriors, and Kroot. Kroot are a great way to protect the flanks of a firebase, and also a good way to take the pressure off of mounted Fire Warriors when they deploy. Your Elites will generally fill the same roll, with Crisis suits also being excellent (and fast) multi-purpose units.

Aside from that, I would just pick up something that looks interesting. Experimenting with the various Heavy Support and Fast Attack choices available to us should give you a sense of where you want to take the army.

[cheeseman]

good choice! ;D

nothins better than experience but basicly tau are based on the idea of highly mobile fire bases and thus are able to not only relocate quickly but lay down impressive fire and have descent saves. start off with a couple units of fire warriors amd a fish. get a suit for your commander.

have fun playin a great army!

[Vash113]

There are tons of good intros and tacticas to read in the important sticky but if you dont want to read through all that Ill give a short summary here:

There are 3 main styles of Tau, they are Static, Hybrid and Mechanized. There are myriad different play styles within those but those are the 3 basic forms from which the rest branch off. Now the first extreme Static:

Static: Most of a static army is a large firebase of infantry that simply puts out the greatest volume of fire it possibly can to down incoming enemies before they can get close enough to get into HtH and normally incorporate such units as: Static Firewarriors, Sniper Drone Teams, Broadside Battlesuits, Kroot, and Crisis suits for mobility. The main identifier of these armies is that most of their units will remain stationary through most of the game to fire either heavy weapons or fire at full range.

Now the other extreme:

Mechanized: Also known as mechanized air cavalry these armies are very fast and rely on speed rather than sheer firepower to localize their power on a specific target at a time. These armies generally field more of these units: Hammerhead Gunships, Piranha's, Crisis suits, stealth suits, Mounted Firewarriors, Vespid Stingwings and gun drones. The main identifier of these armies are that generally all units can move 12" or more a turn.

Then we have the balance:

Hybrid: This is the balanced approach incorporating both the highly mobile elements of mechanized armies and the firebases of static armies. These armies make use of all types of units in balance to have mobile elements for capturing objectives, flanking and pulling off other strategies aswell as the sheer firepower in their static elements to lay down approaching enemies with high volume of gunfire.

So to start I would suggest the battleforce or two and an additional Hammerhead and Commander Box. That will give you the basics of a mechanized army actually though you could use one of the fish for pathfinders you can work out what you want your army to be and test out different styles and builds from there.

Oh and welcome to the Tau!

[MechTau]

"Air Cavalry" ... never heard that before. I always thought like Offensive Mobile Firepower or PWNAGE, maybe even "Trout of Slapping"

Meh. I'd say to go mech or loose to a decent assault list.

[SMRCommander]

Good stuff! I'm ordering the codex today or tom., btw. Also, is the important stickies updated for the new dex?

[MechTau]

Nothing really changed. We just got some new things to play with. All the old stuff got better, but now we have various alternatives.

[The Mothman]

http://forums.tauonline.org/index.php?topic=23208.0

Everything You Need to Know about Tau.

Welcome, good to see some one filling the tau ranks, as I take my leave.

[ollie]

we have nice elites and very good weapons,plus cool allies(vespid,kroot) but we don't have as much 'flexibility'as marines choice-wise.remember though,painted well,tau look fantastic on the battlefield

[mace]

The most important link of all - the Important Topics Sticky. Plenty of info all throughout there.

As for physically starting the army - the first thing you'll definately need is the codex of course, and IMO, the battleforce - the best place to start (and the best value too!).

Just straight out of the box, that gives you 500 Points worth to play with.

I posted a short while ago on starting off with the Battleforce, the post was here.

From there onwards, you can basically go in any direction you want, in terms of playstyle. Suggested expansion would be just to look through the model range and codex, pick out units and models you like, and just add them in, building up your army around them. Though if you're going for that serious competitive edge, perhaps going in the direction of Mech Tau would be best.. but it's up to you.

There's plenty of reading material around, just have a look through it.