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Author Topic: Suggested Starting Purchases  (Read 1865 times)

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Offline starstrider

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Suggested Starting Purchases
« on: December 2, 2013, 08:05:14 PM »
So I'm thinking of starting up 40k again, and if I do I've decided it would probably be with the Tau. I was wondering what people thought would be a good place to start? I'm looking for an absolute bare-bones thing, as I may not play any games in forever. So I just want my 1 HQ/2 Troops, and I'll probably slowly paint them up.

The troops, I guess, are pretty easy. Two boxes of fire warriors. That's fine, I like the look of fire warriors a lot, and am happy to have them as troops.

The HQ I'm not sure about. I've looked at lists here, and lots seem to include both a commander and an ethereal at 1500+. I'm probably not going to get to 1500 for awhile, is one of the two particularly more relevant at low point levels (like if I were going to sneak in a 500 or 750 point game for fun at some point)? Looking around on GW's site, it looks like a fireblade is another option (though I haven't seen it in lists here, and I suspect there's probably a reason for that). Obviously I can't ask for protected info, and the codex is the other purchase I'd make with the above three, but can anyone sort of give a general run down on the various options Tau have for HQs without breaching copyright?

Any tips for how to set up the fire warriors as well, once I start gluing them together (assuming they have a few weapon/squad options... again, obviously I need to get the book too, so I'm just asking for general stuff rather than specifics)?

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Suggested Starting Purchases
« Reply #1 on: December 2, 2013, 09:15:17 PM »
Hello!

For an HQ at low point levels, I still think the commander is a pretty good buy. There is no rule that says you *need* to kit them out with tons of stuff and bump up the cost--you can field a very serviceable commander at 130 points or so. The Fireblade becomes handy in static firewarrior lists, and the Ethereal is generally useful everywhere (though I find, due to The Price of Failure, putting him on foot is asking for trouble), but they're both support HQs, and whether you need them or not at low point levels is questionable. Commanders are solid offensive HQs--the blow stuff up, they carry snazzy weapons, and so on. They also can get some modest support abilities, too.

I will point out that the Tau Battleforce is a pretty reasonable set of miniatures. That plus an extra box of FWs gives you a workable low-point list to start with. Piranha aren't the easiest unit to use, but I've found them to be invaluable. Stealths and Crisis Suits are very good, too.

Firewarriors have very few options to worry about. To begin, just give them all Rifles instead of Carbines--there aren't a lot of situations where the carbines are more useful than the rifles. I find buying the squad leader (Shas'ui) to be useful for the extra leadership and precision shots, but others aren't as keen. Paint one guy's helmet white and then you can just choose whether or not that means anything later if you want. 

Offline starstrider

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Re: Suggested Starting Purchases
« Reply #2 on: December 2, 2013, 09:28:57 PM »
Cool, thanks for the tips. I'll check out the battle force a bit as well.

I'll let this idea kick around in my head for another day or two to make sure I'm not suffering impulse-buy syndrome, and will go ahead and get started then I think!

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Suggested Starting Purchases
« Reply #3 on: December 3, 2013, 09:09:07 AM »
Cool, thanks for the tips. I'll check out the battle force a bit as well.

I'll let this idea kick around in my head for another day or two to make sure I'm not suffering impulse-buy syndrome, and will go ahead and get started then I think!

Keep in mind that, with the battleforce, you're going to be treating one of the three crisis suits as your commander. This is totally fine--most people do it that way to start.

Offline Shas'Oink

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Re: Suggested Starting Purchases
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2014, 02:06:08 AM »
Kate to the parade,  but just wanted to chime in say that wyddrs last comment is also a chief reason why the commander should probably be your first choice. Buy a regular xv8 crisis suit to represent the model, that way as your army grows and develops you can choose to use the model as a simple xv8 instead.

 


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