www.jawaballsproductions.com Trying my hand at some Tau!



SO, I thought I would give a Firewarrior a shot. First of all, I am going to make a how to paint video for them, but also, I am looking for an army that is very different from BA. I have both an Iyanden and IG army in the works, but the Iyanden will NEVER be competitive, and the IG is on hold until new codex comes out, which will be soon, but I dont want to go paint a bunch of stuff only to never use it because the dex makes it suck. Painting this Firewarrior was fun, and it looks great, in my humble opinion. Since I like the first one, now to paint a whole squad. If I am happy with them, I might have just found my new army. Any one have any advice on a killer build? I need something that can compete. I dont have to win every game, but I cant be getting rolled. I have an image to uphold! :)

16 comments:

Akozz said...

Nice one. The only thing I don't like about Tau is that they have thoofs instead of feets

Jawaballs said...

Thanks man, I kinda like hoof feet. Makes me sorta think of Centaurs or Pan or whatever that little dude with the horns and flute is. Plus I like their Str 5 guns. I believe that they just dont get any effort put into them and there must be a way to make them a 5th edition contender...

MasterDarksol said...

@Akozz: Racist! ;)

@Jawaballs: Nicely done. Very clean. Bravo, Sir.

Jawaballs said...

Thanks Darksol! One flaw that my painting has, or strength, depending on which paint judge is judging, is that I am too painterly and messy. I have been trying to become more precise in my highlghts lately, while at the same time more free in my free hand. This Tau is a result of my attention to detail. :)

Doc Railgun said...

Nice mini, as usual.

There are a number of sites that have Tau advice, such as "Warhamer Tau" (http://warhammer-tau-army.blogspot.com/)

My experience with Tau is that they're really fragile (that is, they die alot if you sneeze in their general direction). We're supposed to be afraid of their shooting, but every time I've played against Tau it's been a slaughter for my side. Even their supposedly super-scary battlesuits can't even fight off basic Marines in close combat.

So, I dunno... mechanized seems the way to go. Basically what you're doing now - mount up scoring units, kill anything on enemy objectives.

Doc Railgun said...

Adam at Warhammer Tau writes: "Tau are a tough army to play and winning doesn't come easily, but they're still great fun and can really scare the heck out of your opponent when his squad vanishes from a single volley of fire."

That's how the Tau players I've faced feel when a whole Stealth Suit squad ends up within 24" of a Baal.

I'd say wait for the Guard Codex.

Jawaballs said...

Right Doc. I played Tau last week, and barely squeeked out a win. I bet if the guy had played a little more tactical, he could have beat me. For example, he deep striked a suit squad with Fusion guns right next to Dante, my Furioso and my speeder, he also ran a Devilfish up on them and unloaded 12 Firewarriors. Instead of shooting at Dante, he shot the suits at the Dread, killing it, and shot the firewarriors at the Speeder, killing it. Not a bad trade off for him, BUT, the suits should have fired on Dante, and if they dint kill him, then the FW do so too. The Fusions would have probably done the trick, leaving his FW to shoot at the speeder, then hop back into their transport and escape while the Furioso slaughters the suits, and is left all alone and harmless after. Instead, Dante killed the suits, the FW, the transport and then jumped up on some Broadside suits with Railguns and killed them! I think if I were playing the Tau against my Blood Angels, I would have won. So yah, its about tactics.

Jawaballs said...

Squads of terminators sweat when they find themselves within 24" of a Baal. They look down at their claws and wish they had Generic Storm Shields instead! But yes man, a Tau army would be a LOT of work to try to get wins. But still, I think tactics and the right list can get wins. I'm thinking a suit commander with long range guns. 2 pathinder squads, 3 FW squads in transports, 2 hammer head tanks for starters.

Doc Railgun said...

I imagine Tau are scarier at higher point totals... and I probably need different opponents.

I would love to play Guard, but I'd have to sell an army (like my jetbikes) to be able to.

Anonymous said...

There are some interesting thoughts around my parts regarding Tau, namely:
*Firewarriors MUST be mounted, and should almost NEVER get out.
*Take Broadsides over Hammerheads
*Take lots of Piranhas

I don't know if the guys preaching that have got it right or not, but in my only recent game against Tau, I stomped all over them. And that guy had hammerheads, not broadsides, no piranhas, and his firewarriors were not mounted.

Jawaballs said...

As I was thinking my list over, it occured to me, why take a Hammerhead, when I can take a squad of braodsides for about the same price, and give them all Railcannons. One wound vs 3!

Tim said...

Hammerheads fill a different role than broadsides. I take both. broadsides take out vehicles but hammerheads are for crowd control. I rarely use them to take out vehicles, monstrous creatures. One shot that isn't twinlinked, nah, i'd rather fire a large blast template, less chance of missing. This may seem controversal but there is now only one viable Tau army build since the release of 5th. Mech-tau. Gotta get all those troops squads in Fish and keep your whole army moving and shooting. It's fun too!

Jawaballs, if I can give you one pointer, and baring in mind you are a great painter, but I think you might want to thin down the paint some. I actually use a plastic painters palet to mix my paint. trust me, the results will show!

Wish I could get a game against you sometime Jawa, I'll show the power of the Tau Empire!

Jawaballs said...

I hear ya Old Shat I need to thin my paint more, however, in my defense, thsoe paints were OLD! I bought new paints for tau and the ones I am working on now are way better. But I do need to start thinning my paint a bit. Thanks for the tip!

Doc Railgun said...

That's been my limited experience... non-mounted Firewarriors die to any shooting.

I really like the Piranha models, and it seems like they fill the role of SM attack bikes - 65 points for a melta gun (not a multi-melta), and 2 18" BS2 S5 AP5 Pinning weapons.

Unfortunately, it's an open-topped skimmer with AV 11 10 10.

Ocid said...

While i can't give you any pointers in either beating tau or playing as them jawaballs.

Have you checked out tauonline.org

You'll find plenty of discussion about lists and strategies for playing as them. Considering having a small tau force as a side project using the AggroTau method talked about.

Keep up the good work dude.

Tim said...

Jawaballs, on Tau builds- my advice. Fire warrior squads should be 8 strong and in devilfish. Devilfish should have the disruption pod(4+ cover at all shots from 12 inches or farther away), mulittracker (gets to shoot as fast vehicle) and thats it. Don't be tempted by the smart missile system. with drones and a multitracker you can get five shots off while moving 12!

Crisis suits, you gotta have them, get plasma and missile pods. Or twinlinked missile pods and flamers. Hammerheads, must have as well, with railguns, forget the ion cannon. At least one unit of broadsides with slow and purposeful. You may want to get some pirahnas to help take out vehicles but they shouldn't be relied on too much as they are hard to keep alive.

A winner at GT last year had a Tau army with: 6x fire warriors. 3 hammerheads with railguns, 3 or so piranhas with fusion(melta), and 5 crisis suits all with plasma and missile pods. that was it. But that was 4th edition. Now you'd have to load them fishheads in a truck.

With tau, mobillity is the most important thing. You need to be able to escape from assaults but also bring lots of firepower to bear at certain points on the field throughout the game. unlike orks or necrons, there is no autopilot with Tau. You have to constantly be thinking and managing your distances. There are the one army with a fatal flaw. Once your opponents gets too close, its over.

Post a Comment