The Tau

Yesterday, I was browsing bits on ebay (as one does), and came across a good deal for Tau legs.  That started me thinking about the "reserve army" of Tau I have.  I call it a reserve army, because it is still in boxes... most of those are still shrink wrapped.  (just like my Eldar, Dwarves, DOW, and enough marines to be a whole second army)

I have: Two of the old battleforce boxes [each has 3 battle suits, 12 kroot, 12 Tau, 10 drones, and a sprue of jungle trees], 2 more battle suits, 2 broadsides, 2 devil fish, 1 hammer head, and a couple of blisters of kroot hounds.  All bought on ebay long ago, for substantial discounts.

Crummy picture of an old Battleforce box



New box ($120, 1 battle suit, 12 kroot, 12 tau, 1 devilfish, 3 stealth suits, 7 drones) 

The funny thing is, that at current prices, just the battle suits alone would cost more than I paid for the battle forces, making the kroot and tau firewarriors "free".  ($24.5 each for a total of $73.5, and I paid $50-$60 for my battle forces) For that matter, the current battleforce is $120 US, which is roughly twice as much as I paid for the previous one.

Another interesting aspect of the Tau firewarrior sprue (the basic infantry of the Tau), is that it has 5 sets of legs, 5 heads, 6 guns, but only 4 torsos and shoulder pads.  So for the bitz buy of a torso, you can get a whole new figure, provided you are willing to forgo the shoulder pad... which the pathfinders do not have anyway.  Since I plan to have this army work for StarGrunt II as well, it makes sense for me to do that, as I want to have a couple of heavy weapons teams and officers, which would not fit into the normal 40k army list.

I am really curious to see what the army will be like when the new codex and models come out (rumored for early this year).  Aside from the now obligatory flyer and large stompy robot (or Kroot monster?), it would be nice if they had a pathfinder box...