40k noob building an army, looking for suggestions!

Hi guys, I play alot of Warmachine but have only watched a couple games of 40k. As such I don't know much about the game except that I absolutely love the Tau Empire faction. Now I've heard from a lot of people that know 40k that Tau is about the worst faction to start out with as they are all ranged and have little to no melee capability. I, however, am dead set on playing tau and tau only. I love the challenge, I'm one of those people that start every single video game out on the hardest difficulty available. So my basic question is what units should I buy to make a good starting point for a tau army? I kinda guessed at least one troop of Firewarriors, but past that I have absolutely no idea. I don't even know the rules of the game. I did download a tau codex pdf but It's been little help on the actual game rules. Anyways any help at all would be much appreciated, and thanks in advance!

Congrats on choosing to start an army.

You are right, Tau are a bit tricky to play, but it sounds like you will enjoy the challenge.

For starters I would go with a box of Fire Warriors - I am pretty sure that you are required to have one in your army. I would suggest painting them up and settling on your paint scheme before buying anything else.

From there you can't go wrong with a Devil fish. It is the main transport for your army - if you build them with a bit of forethough you can also swap out turrets to make it your main battle tank so that is a bonus.

Tau have lots of neat units, but they almost suffer from a bit of what the Eldar suffer from - everything is highly specialized.

A few unit of Kroot are cheap and work great as a speed bump/counter charge unit. The Broadside and Crisis suits are both effective in game and are some of the coolest models in the entire GW range.

Other than this you will have to ask some more experienced Tau players. There are a few lurking around on here that will surely have some more advice for you.

I am a fan of the Tau Battleforce to start out with gives you a crisis suit, some stealth suits, fire warriors, devilfish and some kroot which is a good mix of stuff and a good little same force.

90% of the time, a battleforce is the best place to start.

Ask Bdix, he plays Tau.