So this is a list I've pulled together using minis I currently have. Sadly I don't have any air caste units as yet or Piranhas/Tetras. please critique and feel free to add subtract from this force, I can always proxy.

Farsight 2000p Starter, 2000 POINTS
Tau Third Phase Expansion (6.6 / NetEA Tournament Pack 2013)
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FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [375]
6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish, 2 Pathfinders, 1 Devilfish, Bonded Team, 2 Gun Drone units

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [375]
6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish, Bonded Team, 2 Pathfinders, 1 Devilfish, 2 Gun Drone units

CRISIS BATTLESUIT CADRE [375]
4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuit, 2 Gun Drone units, Shas'o

CRISIS BATTLESUIT CADRE [300]
4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuit, Shas'el, 2 Gun Drone units

ARMOUR SUPPORT GROUP [200]
4 Hammerhead gunship

KROOT KINDRED [175]
Kroot Master Shaper, 9 Kroot Warriors

PATHFINDER GROUP [200]
4 Pathfinders, 2 Devilfish

The main issue I can see is having three formations as the BTS. Seeing as ideally you don't want your supreme commander in the BTS, the quickest fix would be to drop the Gun Drones from one of the Fire Warrior cadres and replace the pathfinder upgrade in the the other with a Fire Warrior with Devlilfish upgrade maing it your BTS. This would give your BTS a body count of 17, which isn't bad and 7 activations at 2000 points is perfectly respectable.

You might find the crisis suits struggle without and Orca to deploy them, wishing you had more markerlights and that the minimum Armour support group breaks as soon as it's looked at sternly but it'll get you started at least.

One thing I find with Tau, which is quite similar to 40k actually, is that in the end you often find you get more use out of extra bodies rather than upgraded formations. After playing with it a bit you might want to try dropping the bonded teams and gun drone upgrades which would give you 100 points towards another activation. I haven't used Kroot myself either so I'm interested to see how they do for you.

Just my 2c...

Thanks Alf,

My supreme commander is currently the Shas 'o in the first battlesuit unit, I planned to pair the battlesuit units with the fire warrior units to enable coordinated fire. I hadn't given much thought to BTS (noob mistake), though I'm happy to make changes as you suggest. My blitz was going to be covered by my xv-88s, until I swapped them out, maybe the hammerheads or Kroot will have to cover.

How about this:
CRISIS BATTLESUIT CADRE [350]
4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuit, Shas'o (Supreme Commander)

CRISIS BATTLESUIT CADRE [300]
4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuit, Shas'el, 2 Gun Drone units

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [375] (BTS)
6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish, 2 Gun Drone units, Skyray, Bonded Team

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [350]
6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish, Skyray, 2 Gun Drone units

ARMOUR SUPPORT GROUP [250]
5 Hammerhead gunship

KROOT KINDRED [175]
Kroot Master Shaper, 9 Kroot Warriors

PATHFINDER GROUP [200]
4 Pathfinders, 2 Devilfish

without an orca to fly them around, you'd probably be better off with fewer crisis suits.... one formation should be enough, I'd go with the first list and shunt a few points around to make one the BTS, mech firewarriors are awesome, I'd choose them over crisis suits nine times out of ten

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What about this then:
CRISIS BATTLESUIT CADRE [350]
4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuit, Shas'o (supreme Commander)

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [450] (BTS)
6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish, Skyray, Bonded Team, 2 Pathfinders, 1 Devilfish

FIRE WARRIOR CADRE [425]
6 Fire Warriors, 3 Devilfish, Skyray, 2 Pathfinders, 1 Devilfish

ARMOUR SUPPORT GROUP [200]
4 Hammerhead gunship

KROOT KINDRED [175]
Kroot Master Shaper, 9 Kroot Warriors

PATHFINDER GROUP [200]
4 Pathfinders, 2 Devilfish

PATHFINDER GROUP [200]
4 Pathfinders, 2 Devilfish

Quick question, would one of my pathfinders make a decent blitz protector, or not?

did not the gun drones slow down the devilfish?

I'm not sure what your asking here? I have removed the gun drones in my latest list. I think gun drones would be best with suits (they share the same speed).

sorry, i saw only the first list....

Good point Rastamann. I could swap one Pathfinder team for 8 Firewarriors and drop bonded team from the first group to make up the points.

As a related question, which Tau unit would make the best blitz protection?

You could think of it the other way round, like what could push someone off your blitz. So that could be a guided missile strike followed up by getting hit by crisis suits for example, or maybe a markerlight supported pop up attack from a large armour support group.

Tau aren't great at straight up defending, they're more about counter attacking and applying lots of force in one spot with coordinated fire. Short of something like broadsides on overwatch, or a maxed out mech fire warrior cadre, on overwatch, lots of Tau units will fold pretty quickly if they get engaged by specialists.

After a game or two you'll get the idea, probably the hard way! I know I did!

Thank guys for blitz advice, I like the broadsides idea, mainly because I like broadsides. So long as their is a good view from the blitz to do some damage, other than defending and I can afford them.