Tau - Urban Defence Force

Hello again, as a follow up to my last post I will now explain my plans for my new army, the Tau. As the title would indicate I have decided to create an Urban Defence Force who, fluff wise, would be deployed into cities as either a defence force or, if necessary, an assault force. My reason behind this decison is simple; I have always liked the aesthetics of the Tua models and the release of the new Codex coupled with the starter bundle has finally convinced me to build an army.
 

I will be using the contents of the 'Start Collecting! Tau' box set as the starting point for the army. This is due to the great value of the box set as I explained in one of my previous posts. From this point I intend to expand to a small force of 500 points for the moment, using the contents of the box set as the formation it comes with as well as a small unbound detachment to round it up to 500 points.

This army will most likely not be competitive in the slightest as I've not the faintest idea how to effectively play Tau aside from markerlight/Riptide spam. When I build armies I nearly always just include units that I like the look of the most, whether this is due to their fluff or just because they look amazing (rule of cool triumphs all!). I have decided to base my army around the idea of them being deployed to defend/assault an urban area. This is partly due to a couple of videos put out by the official Games Workshop YouTube channel, Warhammer TV, as part of their advent calender. As my painting talents aren't the best I will be using these tutorials to help as the basis for my armys colour scheme.

This is the Urban Camo Scheme I will be using with some variations. I plan to break up the camo pattern more rather than there being so much grey base visible.

The first is how to paint Urban Tank Camo and the scheme they use is one I like the look of immensely and so I plan for it to be the primary paint scheme for my force. I've yet to decide on the colour of the Sept markings or that of the secondary colours of the model. I think I will test out a variation of the colour scheme on a single model and then work out the rest of the colours from there.

Urban Tank Camo Scheme - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzWFNOZSjC0

The second video is how to create a pretty cool looking urban base so I will, once again, be using a variation of it for my models.

Urban Base - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdLETvgf1DM


Army List - 500 points

Ethereal Honour Guard Formation

HQ - 55 points

Ethereal - 50 pts base - Total: 55 pts

• Hover Drone - 5 pts

Elites - 151 points 

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits - 22 pts base - Total: 151 pts

• Two additional Crisis Shas'ui, x2 Twin-linked Plasma Rifle, x2 Flamer - 94 pts
• Crisis Shas'vre, Twin-linked Plasma Rifle, Flamer - 57 pts

 Troops - 210 points

Strike Team - 45 pts base - Total: 110 pts

• Five additional Fire Warriors - 9 pts/model
• Shas'ui - 10 pts
• DS8 Tactical Support Turret, Smart Missile System - 10 pts

Dedicated Transport - TY7 Devilfish - 80 pts base - Total: 100 pts

• Sensor Spines, Disruption Pod - 20 pts

Unbound

Heavy Support - 84 points

XV88 Broadside Battlesuits - 65 pts base - Total: 84 pts

• Shas'vre - 10 pts
• Twin-linked High-yield Missile Pod - Free
• Seeker Missile - 8 pts
• Bonding Knife Ritual - 1 pts 

Tactics

As this is such a small army there is only so much I can say about tactics as I don't really have many models to play with!

I plan to have the Ethereal join the Strike Squad to protect him and so that they can benefit from his Invocation of the Elements special rule and who will then all ride in the Devilfish to protect them and give them some mobility. Ideally they will deploy on the board with Devilfish nearby and maybe shielding one flank, their Pulse Rifles and Tactical Support Turret creating a 30" fire zone around the unit. The Sensor Spines on the Devilfish will hopefully allow it to move about the board much more freely as the risk of being imbolbilsed will be greatly reduced while the Disruption Pod will add the the vehicles survivabilty since it will hopefully be in cover most of the time anyway.

The Crisis Suits are outfitted as Heavy Infantry killers with their Plasma Rifles as well as their Flamers providing some defence against assaults as well as a way of dealing with weaker units. Their mobility will be used to engage targets of opportunity as well as to react to sudden changes in the battle.

Finally the Broadside has made it into the 500 points list as I absolutely love the model. In game terms he will hopefully be able to provide heavy fire support as well as draw fire allowing my Crisis suits and Strike Team to close with their targets. I hopefully will magnetise the primary weapon (if its possible i haven't see the model in person) so that I can change the Twin-linked High-yield Missile Pod out for a Twin-linked Heavy Rail Rifle if my opponent is packing something that just needs to die.


In all I hope that the Tau will prove to be a fun army to play and one that I will expand upon frequently. I will also be creating the background for the Sept I will be playing as as well as the units themselves. I'll probably create multiple blog posts in regards to this as I develop it.

Well that about wraps up this post, I will update you on the progress of this army once I have assembled the starter set and started painting, until then; For the Greater Good!