Warhammer 40K, Path to Glory: Tau

So getting into the hobby as a teacher carries with it some responsibilities. Looking at the QTS book (Qualified Teacher Standards to the people who wisely avoided education), there are a number here we need to discuss.

Standard 1: Inspire pupils

It goes without saying that if you present someone with a gelatinous cube and call it a space marine, they won't take you or your hobby seriously. What you need is some awesomely painted and impressive models to get the neophytes engaged in the hobby.

Standard 3: Subject knowledge

If you present students with an army of elves and claim they are necrons, you are not going to get students to trust you know what you're talking about. Equally if you present a fluffy list of unbound Greater Demons, they won't believe you know how to play the game properly. You need a solid list, which equally displays good basics and also one or two bits of tactical brilliance, cheese, or as us older gamers used to call it, beardiness.

Standard 7: Manage behaviour

Sometimes you need to lay the smack down on that precocious kid with his net list of scatter bikes and Wraithguard.

In short, what you need is an army which will act as an 'End Boss' for the club members to beat. It should be the first thing they see in the club, and it should be impressive. The students need to look at it and go "Wow, cool!" followed shortly by "£$£%! that's powerful!" and then get in trouble for swearing.

The reason is to inspire, and demonstrate your knowledge of the game. They won't know at first what's good about it, or how you've made it, but they should be able to attempt to beat it. Over time, this army will teach them nuance and strategy, and they'll go on to greater things.

For this army, I've chosen Tau.

The Tau aren't individually amazing. With the exception of the Riptide, no one unit can really shine on it's own, and even then the Riptide only wins out because of it's absurd endurance. What the Tau teach their opponents is how to pick apart an army to make it fall. Which is a valuable skill for students.

Equally, crisis suits are impressive. To quote a student, "Sir those are going to look so sick when they're painted!" To be clear, I think he meant look good, not that they have the flu. Unlike marines, they have size, and unlike chaos, they're acceptable to show parents.

To somewhat tone down the power of the Tau and to maximise the 'sick' factor, I've gone for Farsight Enclaves. More battlesuits, and low model count, but all quite large and good looking. They fit the bill quite well, and with the exception of one unit, they are also quite beatable.

To fit the current School's League rules, I'll be keeping it at 450 points, which has been a bit of a squeeze for this army.

With the next post, I'll outline the army list I'm using.

Thanks for reading.

If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please visit and donate at my Patreon. Every Little helps!