[riburn3]

I just started my Tau army and I was wonder what everyone thinks I should buy next for my Army. I currently have the following:

The Fire warrior with Devilfish boxed set.(12 warriors and the fish)
1 box of kroots. (16 kroots)
1 Ethereal

I am kinda leaning towards buying that Tau battleforce box because you save a ton of money but I was wondering what everyone else thought I should do. What Elite/Fast Attack/Heavy Support unit does everyone reccomend after I get my core troops rollin.

[ShasOJeff]

Hammerhead is great. Buy a devilfish for every one of your fire warrior squads. Stealth suits are also great. I seem t obe one of the few people to appreciate the greatness of gun drone squadrons, so get them if you like.

[khanaris]

Take the time to look over the convertion threads about building Devilfish that can be converted into Hammerheads and vice versa. It lets you vary your army between a mobile and hybrid approach. Aside from that, you are going to need another squad of Fire Warriors at least. I would advise you to experiment with a few 500-1,000-point armies and post them in the Army Lists sub-section. That will help you get a better idea what kind of army you want to play. The large boxed sets do save you quite a bit, especially now that all of the individual sets went up in price.

[riburn3]

Yeah, I really want to center my army around fire warriors with Devilfish. I like the kroot simply because theyre pretty cheap pointwise so they can draw enemy attention and should they be ignored, they have the ability to do some damage. I like the hammerhead but should I buy the heavy crisis suits with the railguns or the hammerhead first? Oh yeah, I also like the gun drone squads so I plan on making one and testing out in a few battles. Im looking forward to trying the the army just because their tactics are so different from my blood angels. Too bad my friend I play with fields a really fast space wolves army...

[khanaris]

Gun Drone Squadrons just sort of happen, since you can't buy drones explicitly. As you buy more Fire Warriors and other infantry, drones just sort of arrive on their own. I would suggest picking up a Hammerhead before the Broadsides. Broadsides aren't a bad unit, but they take some practice to use correctly, and they normally supplement rather than replace the Hammerhead in a balanced list. Against assault armies, Broadsides can be very hard to protect and easy to avoid.

[TimberwolfCY]

I agree with everything Khanaris said so far. Hammerheads are indespensible, and keeping the weapons modular helps a lot with their versatility (versatile models and game rules, what more could one ask for?) Broadsides should come later, but not much- Hammerheads can't get the volume of fire that Broadsides can, nor hit as often. I'd strongly recommend checking out the Ion Cannon on the Hammerhead for a couple games, esp. aqainst marines; with a Markerlight, the Ion Cannon can be indispensible. I'd also recommend experimenting with Crisis and Stealth Suits; Fireknife config for the Crisis (Missle Pod, Plasma Rifle, Multitracker; I deploy my Crisis as single units and make one Shas'el and the other two Shas'vre, hardwiring the Multitracker and giiving them all Shield Generators: this precludes the use of a Target lock and makes them a lot harder to bring down; expensive, but worth it in my experience.

I'd recommend playing several games with friends and subing in minis/coins for the actual unit, and experiment with everything you have an interest in, that way you don't wind up wasting money (like I did) on units you won't ever use. Good luck.

[ShasOJeff]

Well, you could wait for Gun Drones to "happen", or you could order sixteen of them like I did ;D. Ordering them from the catalogue is a good idea if you want them fast, and at around $2 apiece they're dirt-cheap.

[riburn3]

Okay thanks for all the great tips guys, they will be helpful. Has anyone found that its been worth it to take kroot hounds? I sort of get the vibe from this site that the kroot aren't well liked.

[khanaris]

I think most of us like Kroot in general, especially in an otherwise mechanized army. Kroot hounds suffer a little from being metal models and thus expensive. I tend to think you are just better off with more regular Kroot, since Kroot can actually be pretty formidable in the shooting phase when used correctly.

[ShadowDeth]

I think you should purchase 24 gun drones. And then purchase 4 more to attach to your HQ's, which will then join 8 drone strong squads!

And THEN purchase another 6 drones to buy as wargear 2 a piece for your hammerheads!

Or better yet, Buy 18 heavy drones from forgeworld and field them as your three heavy choices.

Get to it.