STARTING A T'AU ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: WHAT TO BUY FIRST
The T'au Empire is one of the friendliest armies you can start in 11th edition — clean silhouettes to paint, a shooting-first playstyle that's easy to reason about, and a range where almost every early purchase stays useful for years. Here's a sensible buying order that gets you from an empty desk to a playable 1,000-point force without wasted boxes.
Buy order one: a Combat Patrol or Start Collecting-style box
Whatever the current starter bundle looks like, it almost always beats buying its contents separately. You'll typically get a commander or characters, a core of Fire Warriors, and some supporting suits or drones — the skeleton of every T'au list. If you can only buy one thing this month, buy this.
Buy order two: battlesuits
Crisis Battlesuits are the icon of the faction for a reason. A unit of three gives you mobile firepower, endless magnetising and kit-bashing potential, and one of the most enjoyable painting canvases in the range. They're also where your list starts to feel like your list — loadout choices matter.
Recommended: Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits
Buy order three: a hammer unit
Every young T'au collection eventually wants one big centrepiece that ends arguments. For most collectors that's a Riptide or a Hammerhead gunship. Pick whichever model you'd rather paint — at this stage of a collection, enthusiasm is worth more than optimisation.
Recommended: Riptide Battlesuit
Recommended: Hammerhead Gunship
What to skip at first
- A second box of basic infantry before you've built the first one. The pile of shame is real.
- Single-use specialists. They're great later, once the core of the army exists.
- Anything you're buying only because a tournament list said so — points change, paint jobs don't.
Track it as you go
However you buy, log each box when it arrives and mark its build state honestly — unbuilt counts as unbuilt. Watching the built-and-painted share climb is the single best motivator for actually finishing an army instead of accumulating one.
For the full rules, detachments, and unit roster, see the T'au Empire faction page under Data.