[mace]

New! - Part 2 - A brief look at the different play styles and their associated armies

Thanks to: RJay, Zedd, Diablo and FireWarrior[AoD] For Their Contributions.
Also thanks to Rogen for his correction with regards to grenades.

This guide should be used in conjunction with This Guide (from Games Workshop) and precedes "Hints on Starting a Tau Army"

--> obviously you've decided to start playing Warhammer 40k, but where to go after that?

Step 1: Intro to Warhammer 40k
go to your local gw store, tell them you want to get into the hobby, and you interested in doing a painting tutorial (free i hope). you get taught how to assemble the models, and paint them. if possible maybe see if they can get u a fire warrior instead of a space marine for the intro model. (note: here in Australia its free to do this initial course, and you get to keep the free model =D)
Even if the Tau aren't for you, keep reading and you might get some useful hints for whatever army your planning on starting.a
Also take a look at the Warhammer 40k Section of the GW website and the rulebook, so you have an idea of what your getting into.
Ask your local GW if you can have a go at playing with Tau (or another army) before you buy, this way you have fun right from the start, and don't get bored by the assembly/painting sections

Step 2: Codex
The first thing you'll need is the Tau codex. a rulebook at this stage is suggested it will help you understand the stats etc, but not necessary. read through it a bit, see what your interested in, and get inspiration for a paint scheme, if you have any questions, start a thread on the Forums. Be Sure to read This Page on what other members have said about every unit/weapon/piece of equipment in the codex (Except for Commander Farsight and Aun'shi)

Step 3: What to buy
My suggestion is to get a Tau Battleforce, as it has everything you need for a basic army. Although it appears to be expensive, it is only approximately 3/4 of the cost of buying each component separately, a massive saving when it comes to this hobby.

You'll also need:
- access to some sort of side cutters (doesn't have to be official citadel ones, side/flush cutters from electrical stores will do) *
- to buy plastic glue from your local gw store *
- to buy paints, a paint set should be fine, and maybe a few extra paints depending on your colour scheme that you have in mind. *

* if you ask nicely your local gw store might let you borrow theirs =P

Step 4: Assembly

Have a look at the assembly guide that came with the battleforce. Then read the rest of this guide.

Fire Warriors

References: Guide to Assembling Plastic Models - Tau Fire Warriors are assembled in pretty much the same way.

a) First thing to do is to get a fire warrior sprue. Each sprue makes 4 fire warriors. Note that the weapons and arms come in matched pairs.



Cut out the pairs of arms, place them aside in groups. Cut out everything else and place them in a pile.

b) Ever used a file before?
you should've if you've done the intro painting course. but anyway, go to your local gw store and borrow theres and ask if you need any help. note: don't over do filing, or else you'll end up with legless firewarriors, and that cant be good ><

c) Now to the assembly. Hopefully with reference to the included assembly guide with the battleforce, you can work out which parts are what. In case you cant, I've included pics:
[table]
[tr][td][/td][td]< Back Pack And Body[/td][td][/td][td]< Helmeted Head (Top Left), Tau Head (Bottom Left), Shoulder Pad (Right)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td]< Legs[/td][td][/td][td]< Pulse Rifle[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td]< Pulse Carbine[/td][td][/td][td]< Arms:
<Top: Sensor

< Bottom: Grenade[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td]< Top: Bonding Knife

< Bottom: Grenade Package[/td]
[td][/td][td]< Various Aerials[/td][/tr]
[/table]

Now, its best to assemble the fire warriors in parts, namely:
- Backpack and body - these are the same for every model, easy to put together
- Legs/Base - choose one leg not to use, glue the rest onto the bases
- Helmets and Aerials

Once you've done this, place them together, but don't glue them yet. hopefully you can decide for yourself which arm goes where.. but basically.. the ones which have the gun pointed horizontally would be best with the legs with the model taking a step forward or crouched on the ground, whereas the arms with the gun in the air and the arm bent, go with the legs with the model running forward.

When you're satisfied with the placement of the weapons, glue the body section onto the legs, then glue the arms on, and finally the head.
Grenades can also be attacked around the belt area as can the bonding knife (this could go on the backpack).
Note on grenades: It is argueable whether or not to use these, but at this stage, I suggest you don't use them. They are useful on more 'frontline' type roles, such as pathfinders or squads in devilfishes that are going to get really close to the enemy, and so if you need them, you can add them to later squads. The Grenade pack is representative of either photons and/or emp grenades.

Kroot

Pretty much similar to Fire warrior construction, so i won't go into that here. Each sprue again makes 4 models, however each sprue only has 4 legs, so no deciding on which one to use. A few things to note, there is only one way the body section can attach onto the legs, and if one doesn't fit with the other, try another one. Keep in mind that the quills on the back of the head restrict head positioning on some models.. and Lastly, don't put too much on the front chest of the kroot, it gets a bit hard to paint.

Crisis Suits

Use This Guide as a graphical guide to constructing battlesuits. One Point to keep in mind - do not glue in the weapons!!! the reason for this is that you are not stuck with a certain weapon configuration, and at this stage, that could prove a big disadvantage in future games without gaming experience. it also allows you to switch weapons to have different configurations depending on what army your going against.

This Animation Covers a few configurations, although i suggest having a look at the Unit Specific Tactics section for crisis suit configurations.

Drones

Pretty simple, construct in parts, ie, glue aerial to the top dome, glue the two carbines onto the middle thingy, and once both sections are dry, glue them together. The only decision you have to make is what angle to have the guns and which side to put the aerial on.

Step 5: Painting

This is where this guide comes to an end, what you do here is really up to you..

Undercoat your Models - with either chaos black or skull white, depending on whether the colour scheme you plan to use is dark or bright respectively.

After that, let your colourful imagination run wild and have fun gaming

Oh yeah, and it would be good to base your models, do this by painting the base a colour that suits your army's background/battle environment and apply sand/flock and paint that with the appropriate colours.

Conclusion
Hopefully this guide has been useful to someone, and if your reading this, join the forums if you haven't already
a few suggestions.. with the Fire warriors.. it might be better to equip them all with pulse rifles and no grenades (unless you intend the squad to be mobile). The reason for this is that you get the full range of the best standard troop weapon in the whole game, with relatively low cost (Take Advantage of this!!), and the option to rapid fire if the need comes, rather then have the range of some models limited and the inability to rapid fire.. after all, its best for the tau to kill an enemy before they reach your lines, and if that happens, photon grenades will prove pretty useless.
There is also a Tactica Tau Page from the GW Website.. might be useful in thinking about what to get next. On that note, I suggest the following (rather, I myself want the following):
- A few more squads of Fire Warriors
- Stealth Suits
- Broadsides
- Hammerhead
- Another squad of kroot

References
Getting Started with Tau Guide (GW)
"Hints on Starting a Tau Army"
Guide to Assembling Plastic Models (GW)Assembling Tau Battlesuits (GW)
Battlesuit Armoury (GW)
Unit Specific Tactics
GW Online Store - Tau (GW)
Tactica Tau (GW)

Note: All Links to GW are to the Australian site. If you live in another country, replace the 'oz' at the start with the appropriate code ('uk' for UK, 'ca' for Canada, 'us' for US etc)