How did this play out? Well it starts with some dumb luck, fortuitous timing, GW's new accelerated release policy, some good friends in the know, and some hard earned experience in dealing with new releases...
As some of you may remember I traded away my old Tau army with grand intentions of a new color scheme and better conversions on my crisis suits. Bartertown was my friend as I was trading the DE and excess SM for an army that many folks no longer played.
I shortly thereafter received very early indications from those aforementioned friends that a new Tau codex would definitely be dropped in early 2013. So I went back to Bartertown with a vengeance, my strategy to maximize trading value was fivefold -
1. Pick up plastics on sprue (betting that GW wouldn't update a plastic kit)
2. Models that were weak in the old codex - Ethereals, Sniper Drones and Pathfinders (once folks found the tetra)
3. Assuming that battlesuits and drones would still be relevant.
4. Thinking that the ever present broadside would be nerfed.
5. And good old dumb luck, not one of the trades I tried to make for Vespids worked out.
The strategy paid off and I found myself the proud owner of some 4000 pts worth of Tau that I acquired for about 45% of retail value (trading always goes in your favor when you are trading newer for older...).
At this point I was going to start building, but here GW's new release policy helped me out. My favorite GW armies have always been DA and Tau. So when GW decided to release both relatively close to another I put the Tau project on hold as I waited to complete my DA.
I also was painfully reminded to wait on buying the new shiny. Looking at the gorgeous Dark talon model that was billed as an air superiority fighter I decided I needed two so I could match up with the ludicrous flyer armies that kept popping up. Anyone that has read the DA rules can tell you what a horrendous mistake that was. I had acquired two overpriced flyers that worked better better as a mobile ground assault platforms in a codex that already contained all the mobile ground assault I needed. Never again would I buy a new model before reading the codex.
So now outside of converting up an Azrael and stripping a Sammael model I am done. Time to start the Tau...
I still need to buy some of the new plastics, which for the first time I waited on, and will talk about that in Part II when I start to dissect the codex.