Warhammer Tau

Top 5 Tau Battlesuit Conversions

2012-01-23T19:00:00.041Z

Check out the top 5 Tau battlesuit conversions before you start chopping up your battle suits and see what kind of ideas you can use for your own Tau army.

It was too difficult to order the best Tau battle suit conversions from 1 to 5, so we'll start with the most influential conversion and take it from there.

Tael Battlesuit
Tael's battlesuit conversions are what inspired so many of us to start converting our Crisis and Broadside battlesuits in the first place.

It all started with an alternative head design which has almost become the standard alternative head for everyone's battlesuit conversions.

Meanwhile the addition of knee pads, chest armour and extra details carefully cut from Space Marine and Tau weapons, accessories and vehicle parts make this an incredible neat and detailed conversion which stands apart boldly from the regular Crisis Battlesuit kit. In the multi-tracker on the left shoulder pad has been subtly modified.

Old Shatter Hands
Like myself, Old Shatter Hands has taken inspiration from Tael's work and developed the designs further.

In this case, his Fire Knife Commander "Old Shatter Hands" has hands made from Space Marine power fists, additional leg armour from Space Marine lascannon shields and a missile pod which is actually a Space Marine hunter-killer missile.

Tau and Space Marine technology seems to work together exceptionally well when it comes to Tau battlesuit conversions. Although it's surprising that more people haven't emulated the use of Power Fists for battlesuit hands or the hunter-killer missile as a substitute for missile pods.

Of course, if you have friends who collect Space Marines, now is a good time to ask them for all those hunter-kill missiles they will probably never use!

Tau Sniper Suit
Created by Fil Dunn of the 'Eavy Metal team, this Tau sniper suit Broadside conversion inspired many people to place a single railgun in the hands of their Broadside battlesuits. Or to attempt the conversion at least, which is a lot harder than it looks!

The crouching legs were mostly scratch built with plasticard and plastic piping. Meanwhile the railgun is made from a single metal railgun with a shield generator stuck on the side and a modified plasma rifle stuck on top as a scope, along with some extra details for good measure.

The shoulders, head and other small details haven't been adopted by our community of battlesuit converters, but Fil was very brave to attempt something so different from the norm. However, his later conversions tended to stick more closely to the typical Tau technological aesthetics.

Tau Titan
Another of Fil Dunn's creations, this is actually the second Tau titan he created using parts from Tau Piranhas, Hammerheads and a Stealth Suit torso for the head!

You can play 'spot the conversion parts' all day with this one, from the Ion Cannon fuel cells for knees to the Hammerhead Targeting Array positioned above the twin linked rail guns.

While this conversion has also been imitated, you'd have to be very brave or skilled to attempt this one.

Iridium Armour Battlesuit
Bulked out with plasticard to create iridium armour for a 2+ save, this battlesuit conversion features an Imperial Guard Autocannon under slung beneath the right arm and an under slung Cyclic Ion Blaster made from a trimmed down Hammerhead Burst Cannon with replaced barrels and two ammo magazines from Space Marine Assault Cannons.

However, the real wonder of this conversion is how plasticard has been used (as well as Fire Warrior shoulder pads for knee pads) to lightly bulk up the regular Crisis battlesuit shape into something far more imposing.

The tiny rivets, indents and vents also prove plenty of detail to an otherwise flat and featureless surface, making the battlesuit resemble the mecha from Robotech or Armored Core.

Unfortunately, I don't know who made this one.

CONCLUSION
Hopefully seeing these top 5 Tau battlesuit conversions has given you plenty of ideas for your own Tau Crisis suits and Broadsides.

If there's one thing I've always loved about this hobby is how you can borrow ideas from other people, put your own slant on things and quite often they will borrow those ideas right back!

Not sure where to start with your own conversions? Then read my Tau Battlesuit Conversion Tutorial, which should make things easy for you.

Shut Up and Paint! 4

2012-01-22T20:00:00.020Z

16 Chaos Havocs completed this weekend! The Iron Warriors army is rapidly nearing completion.

I can't wait to get these guys done so I can start work on Super Dungeon Explore and then make a start on the Tau.

Seeing as the new Tau army seems to be quite a way off, now seems like a great time to get everything else done.

Also, with 6th edition round the corner and a rumoured Tau Codex, everything could change dramatically for the Tau Empire, which is why I'm hesitant to write out any army lists or tactics. Because if I do, I'll probably have to rewrite it all anyway.

Either way, lots of people seem to be getting their Tau armies ready for a new Codex.

6 Chaos Obliterators and an Iron Warriors Warsmith is all that stands between me and completing 2,000pts of Iron Warriors. Okay, I've still got to dip them all in the Quick Shade, flock them, lightly drybrush the flock grey and then spray varnish them. But I'm entitled to my little victories.

For the record, James loves the way I paint pink on my chaos plasma guns insisting that I could make an Noise Marine army look amazing. Considering it's only Warlock Purple with Bleached Bone mixed in for the highlight, I have to agree that it's quite striking. But for now I'll stick with my army of chaos Plasma/Melta madness and mugging!

Stay tuned for photos of the painted Warsmith and Obliterators, then the whole army fully painted, dipped, flocked and varnished! I'll be sure to post up the army list then as well.

Tau Battle Reports

2012-01-22T14:44:00.004Z

I've just finished working on a new layout for Tau battle reports.

Now can you browse the Warhammer Tau blog for battle reports against each army type under the BATTLES tab on the sidebar.

So if you click on the link for Space Marines VS Tau, you'll get all of the Tau battle reports against all the different varieties of Space Marine.

If you click on the Tyranids VS Tau link, you'll see all the Tau battle reports against the Tyranid swarms.

It's only a small thing, but I'm really pleased I've managed to tweak the way that Blogspot displays labels to make it work. Please bear with me while I go through and map all the battle reports to each relevant section.

In the meantime, stay tuned for new Tau battle reports!

Return to CARNAGE

2012-01-19T19:00:00.000Z

Long before the blogosphere, long before Warseer, there was Portent and there was CARNAGE.

What started as the first Portent tournaments quickly grew in reputation to become CARNAGE, representing all that was good and pure about a wargaming weekend away.

This was in the days when Games Workshop's official Grand Tournament was the brutal blood bath that the regular tournament scene has since become.

But back then a tournament wasn't about winning games. Oh no, it was about going out, having a good time with a big crowd of guys and getting absolutely wasted around Nottingham before staggering in (late!) for your first game on the following morning.

Maybe your army list was thrown together that morning? More likely, your army was hastily built in the early hours of Saturday morning, having been up drinking all night. You were docked massive amounts of points for this, but nobody cared.

Ah yes, such glorious days...which may yet come again. For CARNAGE has returned, bringing with it the sweet promise of drunken loutishness and playing Warhammer 40K quite simply for the love of playing Warhammer 40K.

It's been years since the last CARNAGE tournament and I have countless fond memories from each and every one of them...which kind of blurr into one drunken, dice filled haze.

The year I won 3rd place with my Deathwing. The year my Deathwing got ripped apart by Genestealers. The year my Space Crusade Chaos Marines army kicked some serious arse. And of course, the year my Tau took a thrashing, only to come back in the following year and claw their way up into the top 10 with superior tactics. After all, that's what playing Tau is all about.

Unfortunately, I don't expect my Tau hunter cadre to be ready by March, so it's up to those poor Iron Warriors to take up the slack and duke it out for a chance at ever lasting glory -or die a screaming death!

Oh well, it is only a laugh.

40K 6th Edition - Ready Your Railguns!

2012-01-18T20:00:00.000Z

The latest batch of 6th edition rumours insist that the recent leaks were all true...or relatively true.

But while Warhammer Tau (your source for all things tactically Tau) is stubbornly sitting on the fence, there is no denying that a new rule set is right around the corner.

We're still hoping for a new Tau Codex -and why shouldn't we get one soon when only the Eldar and Tau remain on the list of xenos races?

But in the meantime Tau generals seem to be doing just fine by ignoring the objectives and blowing our enemies to atoms with high strength firepower.

The classic strategy of popping all the transports before gunning down the guys inside seems to be working well, provided all your points are spent on Battlesuits and Broadsides, but not on Troops.

Either way, having your Tau hunter cadre built (perhaps painted) and ready to roll for the new edition could catch a lot of players off guard. After all, we can safely assume that we'll be fighting some colour of Space Marines, which allows us to tailor our forces quite perfectly.

As for the 6th edition rule set itself, it's really too early to speculate on how the Tau are going to play. And I feel that's the case with every army whenever a new edition comes out.

It took everyone a while to realise that 5th edition favoured mechanised armies so heavily. For the first 6 months battlefields were absolutely swarming with troops instead.

So it will be interesting to see what this new 'intensely tactical' 6th edition brings. But however the game may change, in the long term it always seems to benefit the players who have 2 armies in their collection - 1 for close combat and 1 for shooting.

Space Wolves are my close combat army. Tau are my shooting army. And I don't know about you, but 6th edition makes me feel very shooty today!

Warhammer 40K Good Value for Money?

2012-01-16T19:00:00.022Z

No really, Warhammer 40K does offer good value for money. Despite the price hikes, despite the units becoming cheaper and us all having to buy more as a result, other 'normal' hobbies are surprisingly more expensive!

This article started off as trying to justify the cost of my little plastic men with their little plastic guns to my girlfriend. However, I soon discovered that Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K really is quite an affordable hobby compared to video games or even going to the gym!

40K vs Video Games
Just take video games for example: We know that a new game costs around £40. But how long does it take you to blitz through that game? How often will you go back to that game and play through it again? Not to mention that you need to spend over £200 on a games console in the first place.

So by comparison how much do we spend on a Warhammer 40K unit? About £20 to £40. And it will take us a whole weekend to build and paint said unit, much like it will take us a whole weekend to finish a video game.

But how often do you play your games again once you've completed them? And unlike video games, Warhammer 40K units can be added together to build an army and be used simultaneously while video games cannot.

So in the short term a Warhammer 40K purchase provides equal 'hobby time' as a video game. However in the long term, a Warhammer 40K purchase will provide more 'hobby time' as you continue to play games.

Collectively, a Warhammer 40K army of say, 2,000 points will set you back in the region of £400. A games console and 5 games will come to the same amount. But will those 5 games last you longer than 5 weekends, perhaps 10? If one of them is Call Of Duty, then yes, it will have a better long term return. But you're more likely to play the Warhammer 40K army over and over for a much longer period of time.

40K vs Gym Membership
Alternatively for something a little more active, let's compare Warhammer 40K to my new gym membership. I got myself a Gold membership for just £444 (I get a special rate for being a local resident) and bought a new pair of running shoes for £70 so I don't mash my feet. So that's £514.

Because this is a one-year investment, much like a Warhammer 40K army, it's difficult to count up the 'hobby hours'. But while I could spend an hour a day at the gym, I could easily spend an hour a day building and painting my army, and up to 3 hours a week playing a game.

So in terms to 'hobby time' for your money, a 40K army would actually be a lot better. And this is probably the cheapest gym membership I've ever seen.

CONCLUSION
Sure, £40 is a heck of a lot of money for some of the bigger Warhammer 40K tanks and it can be tough to justify the costs for our man-toys. But when you measure the value of these kits in terms of 'hobby time', then Warhammer 40K and tabletop wargames in general become a surprisingly cost effective way to make the most of our free time.

I mean, why burn out your retinas playing video games or get fit by going to the gym when you can build, paint and play with little plastic dudes for potentially less?

Okay, we should all get some exercise to stop us from looking like a sack of potatoes, but you get the idea.

Shut Up and Paint! 3

2012-01-15T19:00:00.012Z

Iron Warriors Plasma Chosen Squad 1 is done! I managed to finish off these guys in 3 hours flat, which is pretty good going, if I do say so myself.

Strangely enough, the plasma guns were actually quicker to paint than the bolt guns. I opted to go for the pinky/purple glowy Chaos power cell effect, rather than the usual blue Imperial one.

Yes, it does look a bit gaudy next to the black and yellow hazard stripes. But I think this will look better once they've been dipped and shaded.

I'm actually starting to like this army now that it's all coming together. Of course, I haven't played any more games with it, so it might suck on the tabletop. But either way, I'll be taking it to Blog Wars 3 and Open War while I'm working on my Tau.

Finishing 1 squad a week feels good and based on this, I have about 3-4 weeks of painting left.

I have another Iron Warriors Plasma Chosen Squad, a Melta Havoc Squad, 6 Obliterators and 1 Warsmith to go.

They all need to be dipped, flocked and varnished. Then they're done.

In the meantime, James is keen to get a game in with his Necrons soon and has asked if he can play my Iron Warriors. So it will be interesting to see if melta/plasma spam can deal with the latest Codex.

If I'm honest, I don't have great hopes for the Iron Warriors, because they're a very blunt and bland army. Take out their transports and they're pretty screwed. But isn't that the way with all Space Marine armies right now?

Why You Can Never Quit Warhammer 40K

2012-01-09T19:00:00.072Z

There's a simple reason why you can never quit Warhammer 40K, because deep down you love it.

You love the feeling of finishing that stunning character model, unleashing that new unit on your friends or simply rocking up for a game and getting your fully painted army out to battle across stunning terrain.

So no matter how you may bitch and moan about the prices, the latest overpowered army or the screaming kids (and the screaming Games Workshop staff!), Warhammer 40K really is a fantastic hobby.

Fun Gameplay
How many other games give you so much variety in the missions? By randomising the 3 mission types and 3 deployment types we get 9 possible games. And let's not forget that the strategies for the deployment of each army can totally change the game as well.

So while some armies will always have to close with you as quickly as possible, other armies can choose to castle in the corners, arrive from reserve, make a feint or simply claim the objectives then sit and wait.

Personally, this is something I've always loved about Warhammer 40k, because it's not just the mission which dictates how the game will play it's also a combination of your army, your opponent's army and how both of your choose to deploy and what strategies you adopt. And unlike Warhammer Fantasy, you don't always have to commit to your starting strategy.

Loads of Armies
Few other games have quite so many armies to choose from or with such a wide range of units. Space Marines, Chaos, Imperial Guard, Tau, Eldar, Tyranids, Dark Eldar and Necrons are just a few of the armies which spring to mind.

There have been tournaments I've attended where I've been drawn against a different army every game. Sure, a lot of them were different types of Space Marines or even Chaos Marines. But when you don't field a 3+ save army yourself, it makes it very easy to tailor your force to deal with those 'popular' threats!

But whatever appeals to your imagination or playing style, there is a Warhammer 40K army that does it perfectly from swarms of screeching aliens to elite armies of chainsword wielding maniacs or simply loads of tanks, artillery, aircraft and battlesuits to blast your enemies apart from a distance. And with more units than ever being included in each new Codex the creative freedom in crafting our armies is greater than ever.

Plenty of Tournaments
Because Warhammer 40K is without a doubt the most popular tabletop wargame in the world, it is incredibly easy to find someone to play against or to find a tournament to attend.

I have always attended tournaments and made friends from there. The tournament scene seems to be where the cool gamers are, while the local games clubs seem to harbour more of the mutants and misfits. Don't get me wrong, I've met some awesome people at games clubs and some horrifying people at tournaments. It's just that the tournament scene seems to be populated by more sociable, hard working, every day folk.

So the best way to make new gaming buddies and have a good time is definitely to attend some tournaments. You will also get to see a stunning array of armies, including some of the most exquisite miniature painting and jaw dropping conversions that will have you 'borrowing' countless cool ideas for your army.

CONCLUSION
I feel it's time we did away with all the negativity. Yes, the Grey Knights Codex ruined 5th edition, but no doubt 6th edition will address the balance and bring all of the races on to a level playing field once again.

After all, what wargame was ever balanced? The only time I can think of a game being balanced was when I played one of the top tier armies!

But the point I wanted to make is that we all love Warhammer 40K for a wide range of reasons. And just because the rules keep changing isn't going to stop us from feeling passionate about our armies or enjoying a good game with some great people and a couple of fully painted armies on some stunning terrain.

Thanks for reading and on keeping gaming!

Shut Up and Paint! 2

2012-01-08T19:00:00.001Z

Today I spent a good 5 hours painting up another Iron Warriors squad. Only 24 Chaos Marines, 6 Obliterators and a Warsmith to go until I'm done. Then I'll have 2,000pts complete.

I bought this army with the intention of painting it quickly just to play games while I worked on my other armies, but it's still taking a long time. It needs dipping and flocking after all this too.

Obviously, I'm not really stretching myself in terms of painting ability. This army was intended to be quickly painted purely for playing after all.

However, this has been a great opportunity to practice my freehand and perfectly paint black and yellow chevrons. That will put me in good practice for painting Orange strips on my Tau and perhaps some new camouflage patterns too.

The painting war goes on...

Games Workshop Reveals 40% Increase in Profits

2012-01-06T19:47:00.021Z

Yesterday Games Workshop revealed that its global half-year profits were up by 40%, reaching £9.5million.

Partly this was from selling the rights to THQ for the Space Marine game for a cool £2.6 million.

The other 6.9 million was no doubt generated by Grey Knights, Dark Eldar, Necrons and the now discrete price hikes.

But fair play to Games Workshop, because unlike so many other businesses, they got it right with a business model that works and product that people can't get enough of...even though they may bitch about it.

Let's not get delusional though, because their recent success is mostly owed to Space Marines. Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Grey Knights. Although I have been told that Dark Eldar was actually their second best selling range after Grey Knights.

The other part of their success is the 'extreme' make overs for each army, where every new Codex is just so incredibly over the top that the fans cannot resist.

After all, everyone from the newest newbie to the most ardent fan boy collectively roared in outright disgust at how overpowered the Grey Knights Codex was...before they rushed out to buy the Codex, the army and the goddamned T-shirt!

And now each and everyone of us eagerly awaits for our army to receive the 'Matt Ward treatment', ready to sacrifice what sanity our background resembles in exchange for our little plastic dudes to be made awesome too.

Eat Railgun - BOOM!!

2012-01-04T21:00:00.002Z

If there's one thing that makes the Tau Empire awesome it's the railgun.

Able to fly through a tank like a hot Frisbee through butter, the railgun is a range 72", Strength 10, AP 1 beauty of a weapon.

"Say, that's a nice Land Raider you've got there." - BOOM!

And that's the real beauty about it, you don't need to risk getting your face torn off by getting up close with a melta gun in order to take out the Armour 14 tanks of the game.

In fact, I had one spectacular game where my 3 railgins (2 on Broadsides, 1 on a Hammerhead) took out 3 of Marc's Ork Battlewagons on Turn 1. And I was firing at their front armour.

Cover Save Woes
In 5th edition the cover save really ruined the railgun for a lot of people. Suddenly Tau armies were only nailing enemy tanks half of the time because of 4+ cover saves.

However, that could all change with 6th edition. Apparently cover saves are down to 5+ and tanks are easier to hit too, due to being large targets.

So while we can only get a few railguns in an army right now, the railgun is still the most incredible gun in the game.

Draw a Line and Die!
If the new Tau Codex rumour about the Hammerhead railgun hitting everything in a straight line is true, then it will be a very happy day for Tau players indeed.

It would certainly encourage a very different mechanic for the army by rewarding strategies that focus on laying down lanes of overlapping fire with the mobility to strategically redeploy as required.

So just remember that the railgun is the biggest gun in the game -and for a good reason! Be sure to let your enemies know about it.

What Are Your New Year Resolutions?

2012-01-02T19:00:00.036Z

It's time for wargaming new year resolutions again. And I don't know about you, but 2011 was a real non-event of a year.

I think that the Grey Knights Codex killed Warhammer 40K for a lot of people. Blood Angels definitely didn't help and as for the Imperial Guard blasting everybody off the board with a 'leaf blower' list, the game just hasn't been much fun.

But finally, the Necrons awoke and everyone's interest in the hobby seems to have returned, because there's a new army that isn't a different colour of Space Marine.

It also means that Tau, Chaos and Eldar aren't far away from receiving a new Codex as well. Albeit in a year or so.

So with wargaming on the rise, Warhammer 40k 6th edition on the way and hopefully a huge tournament network (TableTop Nation) that's easily accessible, 2012 could be a great year for gamers.

This brings me on the the first of my New Year resolutions...

Attend More Tournaments & Play More Games
Last year I attended 2 tournaments and didn't have the best experience at either of them.

However, having seen the Throne Of Skulls tournaments and other fun group get togethers, I'm looking forward to playing more fun tournaments rather than all out competitive tournaments.

I also haven't been playing any 40K regularly with James, Marc, Luke or anyone else for that matter. So wargaming has been really restricted to simply building and painting stuff, which is a shame.

So for 2012 I intend to attend a tournament of some kind every other month. I miss the socialising, I miss the weekends away and most of all I miss playing lots of games against a variety of opponents and armies.

Build Two Armies
If there's one thing I have always suffered from when playing Warhammer 40K, it's my attention span.

Typically I will play an army for 2 years before getting fed up with it in some way. The most common reason is because the game has moved on, leaving my beautiful army behind or in need of a huge update.

Tempted by new shiny stuff, I tend to sell what I had and start a new army and the cycle begins again.

But I'm getting too old for this nonsense. I'm nearly 30, have a fantastic job, girlfriend, house, car and need to focus my attentions on other things. Real life things.

So after some lengthy input from James and Marc, I have decided to settle on Tau Empire as my Warhammer 40K army and High Elves as my Warhammer Fantasy army.

These are the two main systems that everybody plays and I'm not really bothered by the other games out there. So I can happily get on with the hobby and just play some games for fun with these two. That gives me plenty to paint too!

It's a tough thing to stick to, because there are always new armies and new temptations, but as I'm getting older I find that I just have less and less time for hobbies. So I mustn't waste it.

Speaking of which...

Better Time Management
I waste so much of my time idly surfing the internet. Worst of all, I seem to get so easily distracted that I can spend half an hour on here and only then realise that I came on here with something important that I intended to do. If only I could remember what it was...

So anyway, my time needs to be focussed and better spent on building and painting my armies. So I have set up an iGoogle page as my home page with all the feeds from the most important websites in my life.

This way I can just scan the feeds and see if anything interesting catches my eye. When I'm done I can just turn off the computer and walk away.

So What Are Your New Year Resolutions?

Shut Up and Paint!

2012-01-02T10:00:00.013Z

Sometimes the best way to get things done is to just knuckle down and paint.

Today I have been mostly painting my Iron Warriors, because I just want to get the army finished.

I blitzed through all 6 Rhinos and 16 Chaos Marines, which is pretty good going. They're still a way from being finished because I chose to invest in Army Painter to get the army done quick and easy, but it doesn't really seem to be any faster.

I just need to paint the basic colours on 32 more Chaos Marines, 6 plastic Obliterator conversions and the Warsmith and they're ready for dipping, flocking and varnishing. Then I can chuck them all in a carry case and sell them when the new Chaos Legions Codex comes out.

But the point I'm trying to make is that the only way you will ever finish an army is by dedicating some time to it. That could be an hour an evening, a Sunday morning or even a whole weekend.

So get the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy DVD Boxed Set on the telly, sit down and paint those little plastic dudes. It's the only way they'll ever get done.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have the rest of my Iron Warriors to finish, a horde of Super Dungeon Explore Kobolds to paint, all the Super Dungeon Explore heroes, 2,000pts of High Elves still in their boxes...and of course, 4 Tau Empire Battle Forces.

It's a tough hobby, but somebody's gotta do it!

Super Dungeon Explore 8-Bit Demo Game

2012-01-01T18:00:00.064Z

I ran an 8-Bit Demo game of Super Dungeon Explore for James and Luke to get used to the basics of the game before moving on to the proper 16-Bit, Super and Ultimate levels of the game.

James took the Paladin (because it looks like him!) while Luke took the Dwarf and they began hacking their way through through the basic game.

The guys really got into the swing of things quite quickly and started having fun unleashing all manner of special attacks, swapping potions, picking up Loot and equipping Treasure.

We had a fantastic time playing the basic 8-Bit game, but it still took some serious preparation on my part. So I recommend that you do the same if you're introducing people to Super Dungeon Explore for the first time. They'll get bored sitting around for 2 hours while you're reading the rulebook otherwise!

8-Bit Demo Game Preparation
I spent a good hour or two reading through the rulebook very thoroughly while having everything laid out in front of me.

Some parts of the rulebook aren't very clear -especially where certain counters have been changed during the production of the game. But once you grasp the basics, it's plain sailing from there. However, some of the rules require a little common sense based on other rules in the game.

So for example, the Dwarf's "Cleave" attack is performed just a regular attack, but it took us a while to work this out and make sure that's exactly how it was intended.

However, once you've read through the rulebook a couple of times, the summary at the back makes a lot of sense, as does the glossary of status effects on the opposite page.

But essentially the game is a like Disgaea, Hero Quest and Gauntlet thrown into a blender. If you've played any games in the Disgaea series on the Playstation, then the area effect attacks and 'mobbing up' will be familiar to you.

However, this is where you may need to be lenient as the Dark Consul (aka: dungeon master), because you can quickly obliterate anyone who is unfamiliar with this sort of game. Having played Disgaea for years, I was quickly able to identify how to use the various dungeon denizens and minions to maximum potential. But that wouldn't have made for a very enjoyable game for the other players.

Once you've played through one game then all of the rules should make sense for any future games.

Playing a Super Dungeon Explore 8-Bit Demo Game
My two players were brilliant and got straight into the action without hesitating. Luke really relished his role the the stubborn, hard-as-nails Dwarf with a "great cleavage" as Luke put it whenever his Dwarf unleashed his "Cleave" attack.

Meanwhile James excelled as the Paladin, dishing out plenty of punishment while healing himself and Luke's Dwarf to the point where they were practically invincible.

Well, they were invincible until the Paladin was surrounded by Kobold Gougers who pokes at him with their pointy sticks using their Mob special rule to inflict lots of damage!

However, it was at this point that I realised I needed to tone down my typically ruthless tactics to give the heroes a chance of actually winning the game. My players wouldn't come back for more if I slaughtered them mercilessly and they wouldn't stay interested if I made it too easy for them either.

Because Luke and James had chosen melee characters, I made sure that I only spawned melee minions. Tempted as I was to form a shield wall with Kobold Ironscales and batter the heroes from a distance with 4 Kobold Flingers, it wouldn't have made the game much fun or helped Luke and James get to grips with the game mechanics.

But once the Heroes had gotten their hands on some awesome Loot cards, they began butchering their way through the rapidly spawning Kobolds before taking out the Spawning Points and then cutting down 'Rex' the Kobold Ogre Mini-Boss.

By this time the Dwarf had a Green Dice is his attacks and seriously wounded Rex, before the Paladin came in and finished him off with a coup de gras!

CONCLUSION
Luke and James loved how powerful their characters were becoming with every kill and as The Dark Consul, I had plenty of minions to throw at them or strategically combine to create difficult obstacles in their path.

After the game, Luke and James has a very good understanding of the rules and were keen to read about the 16-Bit and SUPER game levels as well as the different Heroes available.

Having played just 1 game, suddenly all the rules made perfect sense to all of us. We could clearly see what made each Hero special and since then everyone has been eager to try out the Claw Tribe Barbarian in our next game. She seems like wonderful killing machine thanks to Rage and Backlash.

However, the Hero of choice for any party is always the Paladin. His healing is just too good to leave home without.

In the meantime, stay tuned for some more games of Super Dungeon Explore - and next time I'll take some pictures too!

Have you got your copy of Super Dungeon Explore yet? If not, get it cheap online from Wayland Games before stocks sell out again.

This is the best board game I've played in years. Yes, it's even better than Space Hulk!

Sex, Lies and Tau Rumours

2011-12-31T11:00:00.000Z

I think we can safely say that no one knows anything about the new Tau Codex.

The rumours have been flying thick and fast lately with regards to the 'uber suit' and 'sniper suit' which Fil Dunn from the 'Eavy Metal team made conversions of years ago.

In fact, all the rumours seem to be wish listing combined the latest new army trends with a dash of common sense for what the Tau army really needs. So essentially it's a case of 'throw enough shit and something will stick' with regards to the rumours people are throwing out. Based on trends and common sense it's inevitable that someone will guess right with regards to new units or rules changes.

But whatever happens, it's safe to say that the Tau Empire will receive an exaggeration of their background to make them larger than life, with new units and rules to reflect that.

The obvious choice would to go down the anime mecha route and have all kinds of crazy battle suits, sky fortresses and anything else you can imagine from Macross/Robotech. Throw in some subjugated alien races for good measure and you're good to go.

With the new Games Workshop Iron Curtain in place, there really is no chance of any information leaks until the imminent release of the new Tau army. Like many of you, I just wish we knew when the Tau are coming. But with almost every other army ticked off the list, we know it has to be soon.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue building my army and wait to see if there is a Tau preview on the back of the January White Dwarf. And even then I'll still be holding my breath to see if there is a Tau Empire release in February.

Just Make Pulse Weapons Strength 6

2011-12-30T18:00:00.000Z

I managed to catch up for a wargaming chat down the pub with James and Luke to discuss the new Necron Codex and the forthcoming Tau Codex which is currently rumoured for release in February.

Anyway, we got talking about the things which define each army. In the case of the Tau it's Strength 5 basic weapons, Blacksun Filters, Markerlights and Rail Guns.

But then James pointed out that most of the guns in the Necron Codex are now Strength 5. So what does that leave Tau with, bearing in mind that Strength 5 was one of their biggest army benefits.

"Well, why not put pulse weapons up to Strength 6?" Luke suggested. "Then the Tau might actually be able to kill something. Their weapons are 'plasma based' after all."

We debated it at length and it seemed to address a lot of the issues with the current Tau Codex while keeping the Tau 'army identity' as it were.

James also suggested that Burst Cannons should have their range increased from 18" to 24", because then they would be worth taking. He also added that it would make Stealth Suits actually function in their role without getting into range to shoot, jumping back, but still getting spotted for being within 21"-24" and killed.

Anyway, we can't wait for the new Tau Codex in February if the rumours are true. There's definitely going to be a lot of change to bring them back in line with the current set of armies out there.

Why Board Games Are Brilliant!

2011-12-25T18:00:00.000Z

Ever since Space Hulk, I've found a real appreciation for miniature board games.

A good board game (with miniatures of course) comes straight out of the box and is ready to play after some assembly.

You rarely, if ever, have to worry about the rules changing and you get a small selection of models to paint -if you really want to.

But ultimately, board games seem to offer everything that I love about wargaming. You get an engaging setting, a range of challenging missions and two sides to take turns playing.

Best of all, there are no taboos about playing with unpainted miniatures, so you can get straight into a game.

Meanwhile, when you do finally sit down to paint your miniatures, it's not quite so intense as having to paint an entire army.

Space Hulk, Super Dungeon Explore or even Dread Fleet are all great examples of miniature board games that give you a variety of detailed models to paint in a range of colour schemes.

For me, this makes the painting much more fun than painting a whole army because I have less models to paint, but each model is quite unique, so I can paint them differently.

This seems to break the contents of each board game down into bite sized chunks for painting rather than feeling like I have to paint 100 identical miniatures all in one monstrous session.

Speaking of which, we will be playing Zombies!!! between Christmas and New Year. And the great thing about this game is that even your less geeky relatives will want to play it too thanks to pop culture.

Last time even Mum and Dad were happily gunning down hordes of the undead, believing it to be some form of socially accepted (and encouraged) norm after having watched Shaun Of The Dead and The Walking Dead. It's amazing what pop culture can do!

In the end it was a close run between Mum and Dad.

Dad was blasting zombies apart by the dozen as was only 1 kill away from winning the game with the prestigious "Zombie Killer Of The Week" award.

Meanwhile Mum was fighting her way through the zombie packed landing pad and finally managed to climb aboard the helicopter and escape to safety, winning the game.

So how did you get into wargames?

I ask, because for many people around my age Space Crusade and Hero Quest opened the door into the wider world of miniature games.

I remember one of the older kids in my street had Hero Quest and a year later he got Space Crusade as well. Because I spent a lot of time playing my Turrican 2 on my Commodore 64, Space Crusade really appealed to me.

A few years later, I walked into Games Workshop in the newly opened Lakeside Thurrock shopping centre and bought the 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 game with all my saved up pocket money. Good times!

Board games seem like a great way to bring people into the hobby. They're great fun, much more affordable than an army and best of all, your relatives don't mind buying them for you and will sometimes ask to play them too!

What Are You Building Over Christmas?

2011-12-19T19:00:00.000Z

Ah, Christmas!

A time for festivities, family, good will to all men... and a few blessed days off work to frantically build and paint your little plastic dudes with their little plastic guns!

But it really is the perfect time for this sort of thing, isn't it? Because it's cold outside, there isn't much to do out there, business has pretty much closed down for the festive period and all you do is spend your time with friends and family. Which is even better if those friends happen to be gaming buddies.

So I'm planning to spend my time at James's place, or he and Marc can come to mine, we'll stick either all the Lord Of The Rings, ALIENS or Predator films on the telly and glue and paint to our heart's content.

And because New Year's Eve has been so ghastly, expensive and utterly disappointing in recent years, the guys are coming over for an evening of food, drink and games. Most likely Space Hulk, Zombies!!! and Super Dungeon Explore before finishing off with some terrible horror movies. You know, the kind that are SO BAD that they go full circle and somehow become GOOD.

Anyway, while there's no way that I'm getting through all 4 of these Tau Battle Forces, I'll do my best to get 1 of them done. I'm going to have to spend some serious time on my army if I want it to be ready in time for the next Tau Codex.

But in the meantime, what's going to be on your painting desk for Christmas?

Why I Won't Be Playing Warmachine

2011-12-14T21:00:00.000Z

Warmachine has been around for 10 years now, which is scary considering I played it when it first came out.

I even demonstrated it at Kensington Olympia the following year and was badly paid in free figures.

Then 'Escalation', the first Warmachine expansion, was released and this great little game changed forever before quickly being dubbed 'Infantry-Machine' by the online community.

Since then I've dipped my toe back into Warmachine a couple of times. Most recently I picked up the new Khador book, Khador starter box and the new sculpt of The Butcher Of Khardov -my favourite Warcaster.

Lack of Opponents
Worst of all, I can only really play against James, who openly admitted that while he wanted to do Cygnar, he chose Cryx because he wants to win. Yeah...fun...

Don't get me wrong, James is like a brother to me, which could explain why he's such a close friend, while at other times I want to rip his arms off and beat him to death with them.

But he is competitive by nature. Very competitive. And anything that starts out as fun will quickly turn into a serious competition. I can't let him 'just win' of course. So perhaps I'm just as bad?

Anyway, the other side of this competitive coin is that his model building and painting standards are considerably lower than mine. He'll blitz through a whole unit in a day, base coating it black, painting the bare minimum colours, flock it with grey flock and consider it finished -Hence why he chose Cryx. But I just can't bring myself to do that.

So he always wins any kind of 'escalation' based army building. And if we're only playing each other, his army will somehow 'evolve' to specifically obliterate mine.

The reason we'll only be playing each other is because our nearest decent gaming club is too far away to get to and runs at inconvenient times. So the only other source of opponents is to attend some Warmachine tournaments, which are few and far between.

Lack of Range
Did I mention how badly I suck at this game?

This is because I can't guess ranges to save my life, which is a problem when the longest ranged gun in the game is about 12" and the slightest difference in 1" or 2" can make or break a game.

The juggling of unit activations, spells, lasting effects and focus didn't make this too enjoyable for me either. To an extent, I like to relax when playing games and trying to juggle all this was a bit too taxing after a long day at the office.

You see, this is why I quickly discarded the traditionally 'magical' Warcasters in favour of The Butcher. The man is simplicity itself! He has simple spells, thinks simple and fights simple. He may be as subtle as a sledgehammer, but playing him worked well for a while.

Lack of Time
This is the main factor, because I only have so much time to dedicate to building and painting models. Typically Warhammer 40K always comes first.

Warhammer 40K is also our main game, so it always takes priority.
Similarly, if I buy stuff to build and paint, it's usually 40K.
If we want to have a wargaming weekend away, it's always 40K.

And that's the great thing about playing Warhammer 40K, because it's convenient and everybody plays it. So it's easy to buy tournament tickets or simply rock up at Warhammer World for a day of games and we always bump into people we know there.

Warmachine on the other hand, I feel needs more of an investment in time to really plan an army. It also seems like a great effort to organise a game that we're not very familiar with and it always takes ages to set up and play.

CONCLUSION
Not that I'm wanting to put anyone off Warmachine (or Hordes), but for me it will never expand beyond the start box games simply due to the limited time I have to invest in my hobby.

It's just more productive to invest that time in the games which are easily accessible to so many, creating a much wider pool of opponents. And that's Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy.

As for board games like Space Hulk, Zombies!!! and Super Dungeon Explore, they're equally convenient, because they don't need painting straight away, there aren't as many models and there are no army lists to build. They're also a much smaller investment in both time and money.

I guess these are all the reasons that I like board games so much...but that's for another blog post.

So have you tried Warmachine or Hordes yet and how did you find it?

Blog Wars 3

2011-12-13T20:00:00.001Z

Blog Wars 3 has been announced for the 2nd of June. Everybody needs goals to work towards and I've decided that mine will be Blog War 3!

That gives me 5 months (and a bit) to build a Tau army, refine my tactics and make sure that Venerable doesn't win it again with another of his dirty cut n' paste army lists from the internet.

What manner of beast would bring such filth to a 'friendly' tournament, I ask you?

That said, a the new Tau Codex could be out in February if the rumours are true and that could change everything.

Now all we need is a little plasma...and a lot of luck!

TableTop Nation

2011-12-11T00:00:00.025Z

TableTop Nation seems to be a new tournament network created by Beasts Of War and Wayland Games which not only promotes their own brands, but also includes manufacturers and local gaming stores.

And that's the interesting part, because little gaming shops and hobby stores could get involved, expand their area of outreach and national awareness.

The best way to do this would be to get a reputation for running really good tournaments for particular games and offering those little extras that other tournaments tend to lack -like good food!

Will there be other features on TableTop Nation like a store finder for particular games, ratings for each store and a tournaments calendar? Who knows! But I'm sure that the wargaming community can ask for these functions.

As I'm planning to run my first tournament in 2012 with a twist, I'm very much looking forward to what this new network has to offer.

Black Templars...Then Tau?

2011-12-08T19:00:00.002Z

It's Black Templars first, then Tau in the line of new Codex books apparently. The rumour mill seems to have settled on this pretty firmly now.

Ironically, this comes just after my rather ranty post about being sick of playing with and against Spess Mehreens. So black sprays cans at the ready, because yet another army of snorting, grunting, testosterone fuelled meat heads in armour are about to come storming across your tabletop!

Word has it that the Black Templars will be awesome in close combat (as you'd expect), that they will be cheaper so that players can field hordes of them and that they'll have the old Pre Heresy Thunder Rhino as their 'special transport' which means assaults out of Open-Topped vehicles. There was also talk of a Chaplain Dreadnought and another 'big kit' which is the way Games Workshop are talking all the armies nowadays.

Their focus is to try and make all the Space Marine armies as different as possible. Fair play to them.

But What About The Tau?
The good news is that apparently Eldar have been pushed waaaay back, leaving room for 1 xenos race amongst the menagerie of Marines -the Tau Empire.

So while we cannot expect to be the 1st Codex of 2012, we should get a Codex IN 2012. Probably the same October release slot as the Necrons.

The other bit of good news, although some of you may disagree, is that Robin Cruddace (who wrote Codex Imperial Guard) may be working on the next Tau Empire book. Or it could be Matt Ward bringing his unique brand of madness to the Tau Empire instead.

Considering how good the strategic coordination and Orders system of the Imperial Guard was, I'd be happy for Cruddace to produce the Tau Codex. After all, we really do need all those Markerlights, hard wired and networked upgrades to be cost effective and function somehow.

If Ward gets his hands on it, at least we'll get a very different kind of army from all the others and probably a huge range of battlesuits to choose from too.

Tau Rumours
No doubt you will have noticed that I haven't mentioned many Tau rumours. This is because a lot of what's currently being discussed was mentioned years ago and sounds a lot more like wish listing. Or people simply suggesting good ideas and hoping that they're right when the time comes.

So until we get close to their release date, the blog will be pretty quiet on the Tau rumour front. This is because nothing feels particularly solid right now, while the Black Templar rumours are being confirmed from a wide range of reliable sources.

But one thing is for certain -the Tau Empire will be back very soon, and we'll be ready!

Anyone Else Sick of Playing Space Marines?

2011-12-07T20:00:00.076Z

Are you sick of playing WITH space marines or AGAINST space marines?

Because I've got to admit that after playing Space Wolves for 2 years it was seriously doing my head in.

Ironically, when I first got my Space Wolves, James warned me that they were a bit of a 'gimmick' army and at the time I didn't really get what he meant. I thought he was describing how they get into their Metal Boxes and drive straight into the enemy guns, get out, launch a massive spaz attack and proceed to punch things in a berserk frenzy.

Then Blood Angels came out. James said they were a gimmick army too. They did the same kind of thing, but with Feel No Pain, which made them harder to kill with shooting.

Then Grey Knights came out and James said they were a ....no wait, he said they were outright disgusting! Then he said they were a gimmick army, because the whole force revolved around the success of 1 gun - the Psycannon.

So What Is a Gimmick Army?
According to James, a gimmick army is a force which relies upon 1 thing to succeed in the game. A bit of a gimmick or one-trick-pony you might say.

Grey Knights Psycannon spam, every Blood Angels army running Mephiston and Assault Terminators with Sanguinary Priests, every Space Wolves army running 3 packs of Long Fangs. These are gimmicks.

But what happens when Rending gets toned down in the rules? Or when Feel No Pain gets changed to tiers of resistance to injury? Or when the missile launcher simply isn't effective against tanks any more? Maybe the meta game will simply move on? Then these armies will need to use the other options in their Codex books to be effective.

And They Shall Know No Armour Save
Speaking from experience of playing with Space Wolves, I soon discovered that even my best strategies required me to take a round of fire to the face from the enemy.

Sometimes my Metal Boxes made it across the table. Sometimes they exploded. And when they did, the Grey Hunters inside got pounded by every single gun under the sun. Sometimes they died screaming, sometimes everything seemed to bounce off them.

But considering that a Space Marine army relies primarily on passing an above average amount of its armour saves and cover saves, perhaps it's not the most tactical thing around?

Another Kind of Gimmick
Behold, my Iron Warriors army! Armed to the eyeballs with plasma guns, melta guns, combi-weapons and Obliterators with more plasma, melta, lascannons and all riding in Metal Boxes (with combi-weapons!) this is a gimmick army too.

In fact, I really should finish painting it, dip it, flock it, varnish it and then probably sell it in time for Codex Chaos Legions to be released. Then James can tell me what a fool I was for selling it, because Chaos Legions are the new wicked sick! Or something like that.

Truth is, I got bored playing it. All I ever did was drive towards enemy in Metal Boxes, pop smoke. Drive towards enemy in Metal Boxes. Get out, shoot, charge, punch things, pass armour saves. Obliterators Deepstrike and shoot some stuff. Win/lose.

So What's The Solution?
Despite his pointing gimmicky finger, James is a Space Marine player at heart. He may have Dark Angels, but he plays the regular Space Marine Codex and fields a pure Deathwing or Ravenwing army to mix things up a bit from time to time.

However, his forces are always incredibly balanced, very versatile and able to take on any threat. Sure, he may not massacre his opponents, but he's never in a situation where he's likely to be massacred like some meta game rock/paper/scissors style armies.

While his army is nice and varied, I personally can't stand playing with it. It does nothing for me strategically and relies on your ability to nail enemy tanks with lucky lascannon shots and to pass most of your armour saves.

Although it's not quite so bad to play against once you accept that James only fails 1 in 6 armour saves opposed to 1 in 3, which is statistically correct.

I guess, this is what separates Space Marine players from non-Space Marine players. Because James (gawd bless 'im) has a wonderfully inane belief that his troops should be able to shrug off torrents of enemy fire and that even if he were facing a completely identical Space Marine army (in a different colour), that it's only common sense that his Space Marines would obviously be far better at everything.

Real life statistics don't even begin to enter into this.

More sickening still is the fact that this belief seems to work for him. He constantly beats the odds, quite literally, during the first 3 Turns of the game. Although we've since learned that the longer a game goes on, the faster his luck runs out.

6th Edition On The Way
Hitting tanks on a 2+ and 5+ cover saves could totally change the Warhammer 40K game get again, almost bringing it back to 4th edition when line of sight blocking was rife and whole armies could be wiped out by Turn 3.

Of course the Space Marines will get a brand new Codex, but with more AP3 guns in the game than ever before, how will they cope with a reduced cover save and will the mentality of simply passing lots of armour saves continue to pay off? Only time will tell.

Flog It and Move On

2011-12-05T20:00:00.048Z

I have a lot of wargames stuff in my cupboard. Stuff I will never get round to building, painting or even finishing. So I plan to sell it all off and move on to something better!

Let's see, there's a 2,000pts Iron Warriors army in various stages of being painted. It's okay to play, but it's a bit repetitive because it revolves around driving about in metal boxes. I'm probably going to sit down one weekend, blitz through these and keep them for a little bit before putting them on eBay once my Tau are ready.

There's a big box of Ork stuff n various states. There's about 11 Orks I painted before I realised that they each took far too long to paint for a horde army. This is all going on eBay. Although I'm tempted to keep the 11 Orks for blog photos. My Tau do need something for target practice after all!

Then there's the 28mm Rogue Trader and entourage (5 models) which cost me £50 in beautiful character models for an Inquisitor campaign that we never played. Because the models aren't fom well known manufacturers, these could be very difficult to sell. So we shall see.

I also have some spare Space Hulk Terminators, but I'm definitely hanging on to them!

There's a Necromunda Orlock gang which has never played a game because we don't really play Necromunda...unless I sell off my gang - in which case Luke then announces a fresh new campaign! So they're my insurance that we won't start Necromunda again.

Finally, I have the Warmachine Khador starter box and The Butcher of Khadov. I'm not sure how I feel about these right now, because James is the only person I know who plays Warmachine...and we don't really play much. I'm certainly not keen to expand my Warmachine collection because of this.

The Strong Second Hand Market
You can bitch about eBay and Paypal all you like, but they made selling our wargames miniatures on worth while. Before that you'd get a third of the value or desperately try to flog it for a pittance at your local car boot sale. Instead we get to pitch our second hand products to our target audience. So while I would have gotten next to nothing for all this, I can not sell it to the right demographic, make a bit of money back and fund my next project.

And If You Think That's Bad...
...then you should meet my new friend Steve. He's a fantastic chap, but he admitted to having about £10,000 worth of wargames miniatures stored up in his loft from the past 10+ years of buying, yet never building anything.

This is the man who proudly owns 2 Marienburg Landships from Forgeworld. Oh yeah!

So I suggested he do the same. "Flog it and move on".
Then I suggested he flog it and pay a good painting service to build and paint a huge army for him. Because with all that cash he could certainly afford it and he doesn't really enjoy painting anyway.

So What's the Moral of This Blog Post?
As wargamers we buy a lot of little plastic dudes with little plastic guns. Some times we buy on impulse, sometimes we buy too much. Sometimes we quite simply change our minds or decide that we don't like how something looks, how something plays or we have a better idea.

But the true moral of this story is that you can sell your unwanted stuff on eBay, making money back for yourself, but most importantly, you're making your unwanted miniatures available to other gamers for a fraction of the regular retail price. Because that way it benefits everyone in the hobby.

More Super Dungeon Explore

2011-12-04T10:00:00.002Z

This week I have been mostly assembling Super Dungeon Explore miniatures and having had a horrendous time with the Druid's Bear form, I didn't have much fun with the rest of the models so far either.

In fact, I'm surprised that no one else has complained about them. Or perhaps I've simply received a bad batch?

Either way, the trimming has continued with not a single piece fitting together properly.

Meanwhile, nasty joins are fairly common and I will be going back over these with green stuff and file once everything is assembled.

But once assembled, the models are truly delightful! They've all got loads of character and as for the game itself, I really cannot wait to play it with a few friends over Christmas. I may even do some Super Dungeon Explore battle reports for you all.

But in the meantime, it's back to building. Although I cannot wait to paint these in bright anime colours! I may even steal some character colour schemes from the classic Record Of Lodoss Wars.

Super Dungeon Explore Druid & Bear

2011-12-01T20:00:00.001Z

Super Dungeon Explore really should come with an assembly guide! First I made the DeepRoot Druid and Bear and I've got to say that it's a lot tougher than it looks.

These models are absolutely covered in flash and to make things worse, the parts are small, rather fragile looking and it's difficult to tell exactly where they fit on the models.

So by comparison, the druid was a piece of cake to put together. All he needed was a quick clean with a sharp knife and to glue the fur cloak on to his back. I'll trim the edges again with a knife once it's dried.

The bear however, took me well over half an hour to clean and assemble, because he comes covered in flash, especially around some of the chain detail and his head doesn't fit on properly!

After completely cleaning the two parts I tried getting the head on, but found a huge gap either at the front of the mouth or at the back of the neck.

First of all I trimmed around the 'stumpy bit' that slots down. However, when that only made a minor improvement, I realised that the 'stumpy bit' was far too wide to fit fully down into the slot, so I chopped the bottom off using a pair of crude Power Scissors. They actually use these in hospitals to cut people's clothes off!

The head then fitted on perfectly and I glued it into place. Although there is a seriously noticeable joining line (and slight gap) around the mouth and along the back of the tongue.

I never thought I'd say it, but this looks like a job for that new Liquid Green Stuff, because there's no way I'd be able to get some into that gap without making a mess of the model otherwise.

Now to start on the other characters. But I think it's going to be a while before I play any games of Super Dungeon Explore when the models take this much effort to put together.

Still, it'll be amazing when they're all built and beautifully painted, just like the fully painted Space Hulk set that I love so much.

Stay tuned for more ranting as I assemble the rest of the box.

Why You Should Get the Tau Battleforce Right Now

2011-11-28T18:00:00.020Z

I was adding up all the units of the Tau Battleforce to see how much of a saving it gives you. And I discovered that the individual contents come to £91!

I've taken this opportunity to stock up on these at £48 each from Wayland Games before GW makes them unavailable. I just ordered 4 and saved myself £43 per box. So that's £172 I just saved, which I will of course spend further down the line.

But will the Crisis battlesuit get replaced with a new model? At this price I don't care too much, because I just made a huge saving and the other models in the box will certainly be carried forward.

I also bought a copy of Super Dungeon Explore while I was at it. I mean, why not? I'll no doubt post a review of it in time once I've played a couple of games with it.

I'm really looking forward to building and painting my Tau army again!

Anvil Industry Bases

2011-11-23T19:00:00.006Z

Joel from Anvil Industry has given me a bag of bases to test with my Tau Firewarriors. But what's special about these resin bases is that they're made from what Joel calls 'heavy resin' and they have a textured dome on the underside.

This gives the models a much lower centre of gravity and lots of grip which stops them from falling over when you place them on uneven terrain.

Check out the video. It's quite remarkable! When I visited him at Anvil Industry we managed to get one model to stand on terrain at a 50 degree angle. Very impressive stuff. Why has no one thought of this before?

I should also mention that the Anvil Industry bases are quite cheap and have just the right amount of detail for building and painting a whole army. So you can easily glue models on to them and paint them up without worrying about the models looking right or being drowned in all the detail crammed on to the base.

I'd better get cracking on some Firewarriors and get these all painted up!

Tau Concept Art

2011-11-21T19:00:00.032Z

This Tau concept art has been kicking around since 2005, but then so have many of the concept sketches for the new Necron units that we're only just beginner to see now.

So I thought it would be interesting to look back at a lot of the sketches and ideas from way back to the 4th edition Tau Empire Codex publication and get an idea of what we can expect from the 6th edition Tau Empire army.

Now you may remember the Vespid Stingwing sketches which were leaked online for a short time. These designs, as well as the new XV25 Stealth Suit and Commander Shadowsun were created by Roberto Cirillo.

In fact, elements of his Tau Battlesuit concepts have been used by Forgeworld in the creation of their XV9 Battlesuits and weapons.

Technology
I've often wondered which kind of direction the general Tau 'style' would be taken in and based on the more recent Forgeworld Battlesuits, I can imagine something far more alien and high tech, moving away from the boxy 80's anime mecha shapes and producing something more sleek and advanced.

There seem to be almost insect like elements to Cirillo's designs, which would certainly set Tau technology apart from the other armies.

It would also unify the overall look and feel of the Tau and any other aliens inducted into the Tau Empire which are also rather insectoid in design.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the inclusion of many new Battlesuit types in the new Tau Empire Codex -especially now that Games Workshop are creating all kinds of new weapons and battlefield roles to keep each army as different as possible.

Allies of the Tau Empire
Cirillo came up with all kinds of alien designs from four-armed towering monsters to the Vespid, Centaurs with sci-fi crossbows and even these critters to the left.

While it's fun to have these extra units in the Tau Empire army, the focus should always be firmly on the Tau and their highly advanced technology. That is why people play the army and are drawn to the army in the first place.

Sure, I'd like a squad of Demiurg as much as the next guy. But only if they fulfil a role in the army that the Tau can't fill themselves. After all, why else would the Tau really want them in their Empire?

New Weapons
Necrons received all manner of new and exotic weapons in their new Codex and I expect the new Tau Empire to be exactly the same.

Oddly though, it seems that the Necrons got all manner of Strength 5 guns, which were one of the Tau's defining features as an army. They also received all manner of Tesla weaponry to go alongside their Gauss weapons.

With Tau pulse weaponry being based around plasma technology it will be interesting to see what's in store for the Tau. Especially when railguns and ion cannons are currently rare. Will we see more electromagnet weaponry? I'd bet that we do.

Although I can't help thinking I've seen some of these guns in District 9. Personally I'd give anything for my Tau to have the gun that fires a lightning bolt which instantly liquidises a target in a show of red water!

Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what we get. In the meantime I'm going to keep building up my army with units that I believe won't change, like Fire Warriors, Kroot, Stealth Suits and Tau tanks.

What Should I Buy for Tau Now?

2011-11-14T19:00:00.040Z

We're ready to start building Tau armies in time for the next Codex, but when so many models in the Dark Eldar and Necron ranges have been updated or phased out entirely, how can we know what we should buy for Tau?

I've sat down a put together a list of 'safe units' to build and paint while highlighting the units that I think will get a makeover, or might just get phased out altogether.

So if you're seriously thinking about building a core Tau force over the next couple of months, read on...

ELITES
Stealth Suits these will most probably stay the same.
Crisis Suits I believe will received a complete overhaul.

TROOPS
Fire Warriors will probably stay the same.
Devilfish - Yes will probably stay the same
Kroot will probably stay the same.
Kroot Ox will probably get moved to Finecast
Kroot Hounds will probably get moved to Finecast
Kroot Shapers will probably get moved to Finecast. I hope GW finally releases the Limited Edition Kroot Shaper holding the rifle above his head like a club. It was clearly so 'limited' that it was never released...

FAST ATTACK
Piranha will probably say the same. Here's hoping for the return of 3 in 1 boxed set.
Pathfinders I really hope get redone. Otherwise the existing models will be moved to Finecast.
Vespid Stingwings will likely be moved to Finecast

HEAVY SUPPORT
Hammerhead will probably stay the same
Skyray - Yes will probably stay the same
Broadside Suits I believe will received a complete overhaul.
Sniper Drone Teams will either get phased out or completely redone. The kit is metal and wouldn't be ideal for Finecast.

So What Am I Going to Get?
For now I will be steering clear of Crisis suits (as much as I love them) and focussing on building up a core force of Tau Firewarriors, Kroot Carnivores, Hammerheads and Devilfish transports. I might build some Stealth Suits to break it up too. But I'll hold off on Piranhas for the time being.

Otherwise everything else feels a bit 'off limits' at the moment. I've never been a fan of metal models, so if things like Kroot Hounds are coming in Finecast resin, I will be very happy.

I just plan to buy, build and paint what I can now...and then wait.

"That patient hunter gets the prey!"

Why You Should Love Your Army

2011-11-07T19:00:00.002Z

"You loved your Tau army." James said one evening, completely out of the blue.

It turns out that James had been seriously considering starting a Necrons army. But, he was torn over the morality of it all. Grey Knights had unleashed some serious cheese upon the game and having been penned by Matt Ward, the Necrons looked set to be the same.

But of course, James being James, he couldn't bring himself to play an army just for the sake of winning. He has to be enthralled in the story of the army. That's why he stuck with his Thousand Sons through thick and thin. That's why he always held an inane belief that his Space Marines were somehow so much better than other Space Marines, which still baffles me to this day. This is also why he sold his Eldar army a while back, because he just didn't get engrossed in their story or relate to any of the characters.

Where is the Love?
James continued telling me how I should never have sold my army and moved on to play other races, explaining "You liked playing them so much, that you didn't even care about 'being competitive' or if you lost."

And he's quite right. Although I spent a lot of time developing my own army list and a style of play that worked well for me rather than mimicking the tournament meta lists on the internet. So the competitive element was there. I wrote a really great post on why I love playing Tau a while back and in hindsight I should have stuck with the army for these reasons.

But only now that I'm tired of driving metal boxes across the board in a straight line, as fast as I can, and that I'm tired of ultra competitive 40K, have I realised my love for the hobby and what it means to create a completely unique army for yourself.

Finding the Love
I met James at the cafe for breakfast on Saturday. He was already there when I arrived; coffee in one hand, the new Necron Codex in the other and a greasy fried breakfast on the way.

"This is horrible!" he joyfully exclaimed as I sat down...and began reading all manner of nonsensical stuff from the new Necron Codex.

"So you're going to do Necrons?" I asked, feeling rather scornful at the sheer volume of disgusting rules he was reading out.

"I'm not sure," he answered. "I can't figure out a list yet and I want something that's characterful rather than just being all out competitive."

After a hearty fully English breakfast and a wander round Harlow town, we dropped into the local hobby shop so I could pick up a Warmachine starter box and took a look at the new Necron releases.

Tempted as he was, having read the new Necron Codex, James didn't buy anything. But when I remarked that the plastic Necron Overlord from the Command Barge boxed set reminded me of Skeletor, suddenly his interest for the new army was set in motion...

CONCLUSION
I think that we often need to see beyond what Games Workshop provide us with as the basis for an army. Some how we need to add our own inspirations and make an army our own. By including elements from years of playing Turrican, watching Transformers and various mecha anime shows, plus a little feudal Japan history and a Russian inspired military colour scheme (with orange stripes!) I got my Tau army -and they were brilliant!

What will James' Necrons be like? No doubt evil and maniacal if they're going to be led by Overlord Skeletor! I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to see what he comes up with. But most importantly, he needs to love building, painting and playing his army. Then it doesn't matter if you win or lose, because you're enjoying the game and the story of a game -And that's what this hobby is really all about!

In the meantime, I'm getting some funky urban bases for my first batch of Tau Fire Warriors. Then I'll be continuing with my original Tau colour scheme of military green with orange stripes. It's just one of the many things I loved about my Tau army.

The Pursuit of Happiness

2011-10-31T19:00:00.094Z

This is a bit of a personal post about the pursuit of happiness in life and the hobby.

Normally I keep this kind of stuff to myself, but I have quite a bit to get off my chest as well as announcing the proper return of the Warhammer Tau blog. So please bear with me, because this will end on a very positive note.

Speaking of positivity, the United States Declaration of Independence has a wonderful phrase in it, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and I really wish we had something similar here in the UK. But the point is that I don't feel I've had any of these for the past year.

Work
Work has been the main culprit. The job I loved ended suddenly and I took what I could for the next 6 months, which involved a lot of travel up North and staying on a little farm in the middle of the Cheshire countryside all week. So I didn't really get to see anyone or do anything during all that time.

Saturday was my only real day off because I was travelling from midday every Sunday, so I didn't get a whole lot of hobby time. I spent it doing my best to see friends and family instead. On the bright side, I enjoyed the job until my 6 months temporary contract ended.

Then, I landed what could have been my dream job, working for a big agency in Central London. However, what could have been an opportunity of a lifetime has turned into an absolute nightmare of 15 hour days and constructive grounds for dismissal. I tried to stick it out, hoping things would get better, but they only got worse. So much worse in fact that I was signed off by the doc for 2 weeks with work related stress (I thought it was a stomach bug!) and my family persuaded me to hand in my notice.

To top it all off, I have to give a 2 months notice period. But fortunately this has been effectively shortened by my 2 weeks sick and 1 week outstanding holiday. So that leaves me with 5 weeks left to work. But one thing's for sure, if they think I'm doing more than my proper 8 hour day, they can think again.

Competitive Play
While all this has been going on, writing the Space Wolves blog has been hard work this year. Playing in the few tournaments that James and I attended was hard work too. However, we did pick the toughest tournaments and trying to come in the top 5 again was rather ambitious.

I've often talked about James having a far more enjoyable tournament experience than myself because the mid-tables are his domain. Here he encounters all kinds of themed and beautiful armies.

Meanwhile I tend to claw my way to the top tables, then battle for all I'm worth against some of the ugliest armies to blight a gaming board.

It's just not as much fun and after having a wander around the hall at the recent Throne Of Skulls, I can see what kind of tournaments I'd rather be attending.

Ever since the GT we've only played a handful of games. 40K has really been lacking something of late and it's probably due to all the Space Marine armies. Or the simple fact that every half decent Space Wolves army is just Long Fangs backing up metal boxes full of Grey Hunters led by Rune Priests.

That said, we played a fantastic 6,000pts per side Dark Angels VS Space Wolves game with 6 players, which you'll see on the Space Wolves blog very soon!

But I'm definitely done playing the wolves and can't wait to return to the intensely tactical nature of the Tau Empire. The Tau are a truly unique force with a huge range of strategies which allow them to flow around the enemy like water and crash down upon them in a single wave focussed upon where they are weakest. And a brand new Codex in 2012 should make this possible once again.

Where I Am Now
Despite a rather dreadful year, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm currently interviewing for a job only half an hour from home which would be ideal and somehow I've found a wonderful girlfriend who is kind, supportive and doesn't seem to mind my hobby.

And of course, my favourite army in Warhammer 40K is soon to return!

I'm looking forward to getting the next 5 weeks out of the way, seeing friends, enjoying some home cooking, getting back into running and some kind of fitness regime. Plus I might even get around to painting some models, maybe even playing some games.

As for my Warhammer Tau blog, it probably won't be as in depth or as a serious as the Space Wolves blog. Instead I'm happy to mingle with the rest of the casual blogosphere, making the odd painting or conversion guide, tactica or batrep and generally immersing myself in what gives me pleasure in the hobby, but without the need for any kind of regularity or forward planning. This is meant to be fun after all!

Thanks for reading and I appreciate all your support -Adam

Tau in Q1 2012

2011-10-21T20:00:00.000+01:00

Rumour has it that Tau could be the next Warhammer 40K Codex to be released in Q1 of 2012...which isn't very far off at all!

We saw a new concept of battlesuit for Commander Farsight back in September 2009, along with a unit of Tau Pathfinders (sadly no photos available) which were some of the most highly detailed miniatures I'd seen in a long time.

So does this mean that Games Workshop been working on the Tau all this time? We had to wait YEARS for the plastic Daemon Prince kit to become available -and look at just how quickly the full Dark Eldar (and Necron) ranges have been created. I don't know about the Necrons, but in the Dark Eldar range, there is a massive amount of models.

Personally, I'm going to get ready for Tau some time in 2012 by building and painting all the units that I don't think will receive new models. So that's pretty much everything but the Crisis and Broadside battlesuits!

Then I'll be in a great position to build the new kits, including whatever new units become available. I'm hoping for many more battlesuit variants, as described in the Tau background from the 5th edition rulebook.

Start Building Your Tau Now!

2011-10-19T21:00:00.000+01:00

The time to start building Tau, Eldar or any other race in Warhammer 40K is right now. And I will explain why.

In part this relates to the Necron leak, which actually came from the printers that Games Workshop employs and has nothing to do with Beast of War or Wayland Games. They merely took an opportunity which has passed them by many times before and capitalised on it.

You may also remember the Grey Knights Codex being leaked on to the internet? This happened because Games Workshop was employing external games testers. Since the leaks, games testing has been brought back in house.

But wait! What kind of external games tester would 'okay' something as powerful as the Grey Knights Codex?

A Taste of Things to Come
Compare the Space Wolves, Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, Grey Knights and Dark Eldar Codex books and there is a clear trend. The armies are becoming far more individualistic with a diverse array of unit choices and weapons as well as unique rules.

So it's safe to say that once this new series of Codex books has spread to each race, no army will be quite the same.

Ironically, the lynch mob that gathered for Matt Ward following the Blood Angels and Grey Knights Codex books may soon herald him as the saviour of the game if this 'powerful' codex' trend is to continue, creating an equal playing field for all.

You may also be surprised to know that while the Grey Knights release was Games Workshop's biggest selling army ever, the Dark Eldar release was a close second. So the xenos races are still popular when they do get some attention from the games developers.

So What Does This All Mean for the Tau Empire?
Simply put, it means that when we do get a new Tau Codex, we can expect it to not only be awesome in terms of rules, tactics and weapons, but we can also expect a whole host of new units.

This is why I plan to start working on my Tau army right now. Then, by the time the new units are released, I can easily incorporate them into my existing army. And I will definitely magnetise all of the weapons on my Crisis and Broadside battlesuits this time!

40K 6th Edition: Rise of the Xenos

2011-10-04T03:00:00.000+01:00

James, Marc and I were chatting about the potential of Warhammer 40K 6th edition last night. Based on the rumours about strategic reserves, high speed vehicles being hard to hit, tanks being easy to hit and the overall toning down of cover saves, there would be some clear winners in the new rules.

Eldar, Dark Eldar and Tau were two armies which instantly sprang to mind due to their tactical flexibility and mobility. Charging forward screaming "SPESS MARHEENS!!" is getting old now. Even Marc is tired of his (frankly disgusting) Grey Knight Draigo Paladin army of doom.

The buzz about 6th edition seems to have died down lately, possibly as a result of GW tightening its grip on rumours and strategic leaks of information to whip the gaming community into a frenzy.

But let's consider for a moment what it would mean if cover saves were reduced to 5+ instead of 4+. Well for starters, we'd be able to kill things with shooting more effectively. Especially if they're tanks.

So right now a Land Raider packed full of Assault Terminators is sent speeding across the board. Everything bounces off it, misses or can't see it because of the smoke and terrain. Then the Terminators get out and every gun under the sun bounces off their armoured backsides and great big shields before they batter everything to death with enormous electrified hammers.

But what if you only need 2+ to hit that enormous monster of a tank?
What if the best cover save it can get is 5+?
Then the strategic arrival of a Hammerhead with a Rail Gun could easily take it out. Just like it was almost guaranteed to back in 4th edition.

Similarly, mobile armies could arrive from reserve, get the first shot in and nail an enemy tank just like that. That would dissuade army builds entirely of metal boxes that speed across the board.

In the meantime, we can only keep an eye out for the next edition and pray for something more tactical than the 'point-cost-efficiency' way of winning games...and a new Tau Codex of course!

Even though I've been playing Space Wolves for a few years now, I really miss my Tau.

New Tau Rumours

2010-12-30T13:00:00.000Z

The new Tau Codex is still a long way off, so take these with a pinch of salt.But if I'm honest, I can't wait for the Tau Empire's third sphere expansion.

New Heavy Support Platform
Basically immobile deep striked! heavy weapon and crew. Rail and Ion Cannon, and missile launcher are all obvious options here, but nothing solid with the rumor.

Assault Skimmer
Something between size of piranha and hammerhead, fast skimmer open topped, assault on disembark.

It's assault after a flat out move, and has the "drop troops along path" option similar to the storm raven.

New Drop Ship
Not the FW one, but something new. Holds a boatload of fire warriors, or a few battle suits.

New Battle Suits
Not sure if these are the "next gen" suits or just heavy suits redone with out metal bits.

Based on the recent GW Tau artwork, I'd expect a completely new look for the Tau Battlesuit. Something sleeker that in keeping with the latest FW models, the current Fire Warriors and Tau tanks.

I really miss playing my old Tau army. I think Tau Empire will be a nice alternative to playing Space Wolves and considering how far off the new Tau Codex is, I could well finish my Space Wolf army in time!

The Best of Warhammer Tau

2010-01-31T12:45:00.001Z

Warhammer Tau is on a brief hiatus until the release of the new Tau Warhammer 40K Codex. So in the meantime, here is the Best of Warhammer Tau from the past year.

Playing the Tau in Warhammer 40K for the past few years has been a real blast. I've laughed, I've cried and I've blown big gaping holes in things with railgun slugs.

And you've been here throughout my amazing journey, reading my weekly battle reports, sharing your thoughts and giving me encouragement to carry on when the chips are down.

But fear not, for Warhammer Tau shall return with a new layout, new interactive features and a new army built by yours truly.

Without further ado, it's time to look back on the history of Warhammer Tau and it's many highlights...

Back To The Start
One of the defining things about Warhammer Tau were my Tau Battlesuit conversions. Inspired by the great Tael of the Advanced Tau Tactica, I drew my ideas from many of his Tau Battlesuits, working my own thoughts into the mix to create something derivative, yet unique and with considerably less scratch building, greenstuff and plasticard. Tau Battlesuit conversions for the lazy if you will.

Fortunately most of the conversion parts needed were easy to acquire or came in the Tau Battlesuit boxed set already. All it took was an extra flamer tank, a section of chopped up Devilfish interior detail that wouldn't be missed and a pair of Fire Warrior shoulder pads for the knees. So long as you were happy to make Pathfinders out of the leftover Fire Warriors, nothing would be left to waste.

Originally my Tau Battlesuit conversion was intended for the army commanders, but drew so much attention that I was persuaded to convert the rest of my battlesuits in the same way.

Orange Stripes
Before Games Workshop released their range of Foundation paints, I had developed a fondness for Privateer Press (P3) Paints. I was also playing a lot of Dawn of War.

So one day, I kept hitting the 'random colour selection' until I saw a colourscheme I liked. Somehow military green, deep brown details and orange stripes seemed like a good idea! Soon enough I was painting painting Tau Fire Warriors and then had to apply my unusual new colour scheme to painting Tau tanks as well.

Favourite Games
Despite having played my Tau army for over 2 years solid, many of my favourite games are my more recent ones in the 5th edition of Warhammer 40K.

What really helped me to nail Tau tactics was the 2009 Carnage tournament, but the really memorable games came shortly afterwards when I began to employ the Tank Wall Tactics to greater effect.

ORKS VS TAU
One particularly memorable game in this instance was facing Simon Thorne's Ork Nobz Biker army. A truly horrible and very specialist army designed to speed towards the enemy, absorbing massive amounts of firepower and losing only a few models before ploughing into close combat. Obviously a problem for Tau with their lack of high strength, low AP weapons.

So, making the most of my fire power, I set up and opened fire upon the advancing Orks. How hard could it be to take down just 2 enemy units?

Well, I found out the hard way and soon my lines were overrun with Ork Nobz, ripping apart my tanks with power klaws before moving onto my Battlesuits.

So, the second time I played against Simon Thorne's Ork Nob Biker army a month or so later, my tactics had developed and I had a way to counter his army.

I'd accepted that it was improbable for the Tau to be able to actually hold on to objectives. It was far better to let the opponent move their forces to claim your objectives while you wheel round with the Tau Tank Wall to clean/contest their objectives instead.

So in this instance Simon took the bait and deployed to easily grab the left objective in my deployment zone, while I deployed on the opposite side, with the intention to gradually wheel round over the course of 5 turns and claim his objective.

There was a quote in the 3rd edition Tau Codex, which is about "Shortening your reach". But essentially what it means is that you will not always be able to engage the enemy at a distance, so you must be prepared to hammer them if they get up close.

The Tank Wall constantly wheeled around 12", firing off smart missiles into the Ork Nob Bikers, inflicting light damage while the heavy weapons on the army inflicted the casualties.

However, Si couldn't plough the Orks in because I was outside of his 18" attack range. If he did, he'd be out in the open for my whole army to move in and rapid fire one of his squads. So with really nowhere to go, he sat in the middle of the board, taking hits.

Through the course of the game, this resulted in the death of one Ork Nob Biker unit and Warboss, allowing the Tau to continue their wheeling Tank Wall manoeuvre and claim the Ork objective while the remaining (depleted) Ork Biker Nobz fell back to claim the Tau objective.

Yes, the game was still a draw, but it was the best I could do against his army.

TAU VS TYRANIDS
My greatest victory with the Tau army came against at the Grand Tournament itself, which wasn't bad considering how I expected to be overwhelmed by an endless tied of creatures.

This tactic is what I like to call the Bait & Reserve. You place your high firepower units which are quite resilient on one flank (out of charge range from any Outflanking units) to bait in the enemy army while inflicting as many casualties as possible. Meanwhile, you put the rest of your army into reserve and use it to reinforce your Bait or bring it on from the other flank to fire at the enemy army as it makes its way towards your Bait. By the end of the game nearly all of the Tyranids had been wiped out.

I'm interested to see how this would work against the new Tyranid Codex as Mawlocs and Trygons will test the Tau's short ranged firepower to its limit. But on the bright side, the countless turns I spent firing high strength weapons at Tyranid Warriors would now kill them outright.

TAU VS RAVENWING
Without a doubt the most close fought game of my life.Having played my Tau army many times, James had a good idea of how to beat me. He also knew that driving his very fast, hard hitting and incredibly tough to kill army straight down my throat was the surest way to secure victory. So that's what he did!

James won the roll off, placing his objective to the right, while I placed mine to the left. He placed Sammael in the centre of the board with a bike squad either side. The Land Speeders would arrive on Turn 1, while the 3 attack bikes and another bike squad were held in reserve.

He used his scout move to move the two bike squads 12" forward.
I wanted to mess his day up by seizing the initiative, but failed the roll.

In his first turn, his 3 Land Speeders turbo boosted down the left flank towards my objective. Sammael held position in the middle while the two bike squads turbo boosted to my board edge and spread out along it.

While the tactic had worked against Luke's foot slogging Tau, my mechanised army of skimmers and jet pack Tau Battlesuits could simply fly over the line of bikes...apart from the Broadsides who walked on to the objective on the left, meanwhile the rest of the Tau army arrived on the right, intent on capturing James' objective. He certainly didn't see that coming!

Firewarriors piled out of Devilfish as the entire Tau army opened fire on the two bike squads, wiping out one squad and reducing the other to 3 men.

James Charged two of the Firewarrior teams with the 3 remaining bikes, killed one of the twin linked flamer Battlesuits with Sammael's assault cannon while his bike squad in reserve arrived from the right flank along with 1 attack bike.

The attack bike used its multimelta on the Skyray, immobilising it, then charged it and suffered and wound from the flechette dischargers.

The bike squad failed to kill a Devilfish with their meltaguns, but charged it for good measure, shaking it so it couldn't shoot, but not after losing 2 of their number to its flechette dischargers. I like flechette dischargers!

The Tau Broadsides on my left objective were mercilessly gunned down the the three Landspeeders and another Attack Bike which outflanked.

On the far right, my Battlesuits jumped over the immobilised Skyray to deal some serious damage to the bike that had arrived.

With nearly all the bikes wiped out, but 1 Attack Bike which was sitting on my objective, the Tau army mobilised for the abandoned Ravenwing objective.

What then ensued was the gradual annihilation of both Land Speeders and Tau tanks, although the Tau smart missiles couldn't compare with the assault cannons of the Land Speeders. I also failed to wound with a railgun solid slug on the Attack Bike which was claiming my objective. This roll of a 1 completely swung the game.

By Turn 5, only the Tau Battlesuit command team, an immobilised Skyray and 6 Firewarriors were left (to claim the Ravenwing objective). All the other vehicles were smoking wrecks. Thankfully that's when the game ended. Turn 6 I would have been fine, but if the game had continued until Turn 7, I would have been wiped out.

THANK YOU
To round up The Best of Warhammer Tau, I'd like to thank you all for reading my blog, sharing your thoughts, lending your advice and supporting me on my journey with the Tau Empire army in the hobby of Warhammer 40K.

There's a lot of love for the Tau and I'm always inspired whenever someone comes up to talk to me about the army when I'm spending a day at Warhammer World with friends.

As most of you will know, I'm currently writing the Space Wolves blog with a few web buddies. But one thing that's really struck me is the difference in the audiences for the two blogs and in many ways, the two Warhammer 40K armies.

Without going into too much detail, I can definitely say that I prefer the Tau players, readers and bloggers. Maybe it's because we're smaller that we have to stick together? Maybe it's because we're forever thinking up ways to improve the basic Tau Battlesuit kit? Or perhaps it's simply because Space Wolves have always been one of the big armies and when everyone and his dog is doing a Space Wolves army, maybe a blog about them isn't so amazing.

Either way, thank you for all your support. You've made writing this blog a lot of fun and I can't wait for the day that a new Tau Empire Codex is released so that I can do it all over again.

Warhammer Tau Will Return!
You didn't think that was the end did you? Warhammer Tau will return when there's a new Tau Codex, which has been rumoured for 2011.

Judging by the current trend in Warhammer 40K army books and the funky Forgeworld rules, a lot of change is coming our way for the Tau Empire.

I for one expect more new weapons, lots more units, a stronger emphasis on Tau Battlesuit variants and both new Tau Battlesuit and Broadside Battlesuit plastic miniatures.

So until then, keep your ear to the ground for the new Tau Empire Codex and Warhammer Tau will be back to help lead the 4th Sphere Expansion.

Tau Colour Schemes

2010-01-16T08:52:00.001Z

Warhammer Tau will return, but first I need your help to pick a colour scheme for my Tau army.

I sadly sold my last Tau army because I simply couldn't paint it fast enough and alter my army to keep up with the constantly changing Warhammer 40K tournament game.

So, like my Space Wolves army, my Tau will need to be basecoated, washed and drybrushed. Painting painstakingly perfect highlights was far too time consuming. I don't think the orange stripes were a good idea either, but I really enjoyed painting those.

I've come up with 4 possible colour schemes.

There's a poll on the right for you to vote -->

I'll explain my thoughts behind each of the colour schemes and why I like them, what's good about them and what's potentially bad about them.

Tau Colourscheme 1: District 9
I think we were all blown away by the battlesuit in District 9. What was more amazing was that it had orange stripes, much like my first Tau army. The colour is a dark grey military blue. Interestingly enough, Tael from The Advanced Tau Tactica has painted a number of Tau Firewarriors in a very similar colour scheme.

If I wanted to paint this army, I'd need to find a suitable base colour, mix my own highlight (probably the basecoat + Bleached Bone) and drybrush it on, then paint the stripes and other details later.

Darker coloured armies tend to look better drybrushed and I probably wouldn't need a wash for the extra shading.

Tau Colourscheme 2: Wee Men
Ever since the Wee Men blog painted this Hellhound, I've been a keen follower. He's currently doing a big batch of tanks where he spray undercoats them red, covers part of them in masking tape and sprays the rest beige for a camo effect, then applies Army Painter Medium, a kind of glaze that's like coating a model in Devlan Mud wash apparently. Once dry, then them gives them a quick drybrush highlight, painted the details and done. For someone like me who wishes they could do all their tanks in one big batch, this is very appealing. I'd have to do the same for my Battlesuits and Firewarriors, but I'd spray them beige, use Army Painter on them, then paint the red and other details afterwards.

I like the colour scheme, but the only thing putting me off is my lack of experience with Army Painter. I'll also need to borrow my parents garage as there's nowhere to do this messy stuff in my flat.

Tau Colourscheme 3: Dirty Desert
Don't be fooled, this is actually a very carefully painted model. But, there's a less careful way to achieve the same effect and that's with spray cans and washes. Back in 2006, when I used to write FIREBASE magazine, I sprayed up a Star Wars imperial shuttle for a scenario, then painted certain panels Scorched Brown, then painted the other small details and it looked surprisingly a lot like this Forgeworld Battlesuit.

This was achieved using 3 spray cans from Halfords. A brown, a beige and a lighter beige (like Bleached Bone. The brown was the basecoat, then the beige and lighter beige colours were carefully 'dusted' on from a distance.

The army would be extremely quick to paint if I went for this approach. I'd just have to use some washes to bring out certain details, like gaps in armour plates. I'd also be in big trouble if I made any serious mistakes in painting the details as it would be impossible to mimic the rough sprayed effect with a paintbrush.

Tau Colourscheme 4: Classic Warhammer Tau
Alternatively, I stick with my original colourscheme. The biggest problem with this is that painting the highlights carefully by hand took far too long. The other problem is that before the highlights the models looked very muddy due to my choice of colours. So naturally, I'm concerned that drybrushing won't pick out the details and make the paint scheme look very muddy indeed.

I think that this scheme is out of the question unless I paint everything neatly by hand, which caused problems as it took far, far too long. The long orange stripes really made the scheme work and these were incredibly time consuming to paint as well.

The Tyranid List to Beat

2010-01-12T17:56:00.001Z

The standard Tyranid tournament list has emerged!

The Tyranid Codex has only been publicly available for a few days and the final cut is quite different to the Tyranid rumours.

However, the army is still every bit as dangerous as many of us imagined, combining a sea of tiny creatures with terrifying monstrous creatures that aren't just a threat in themselves, but augment the abilities of the lesser creatures.

After complaining for a good half hour that the new Tyranid Codex was "a bit beige", here's the 1500 points army list that my friend and sometimes mentor (or tormentor) Neil Kerr came up with.

HQ
Alpha Warrior: Scything Talons, Boneswords, Toxin Sacs - 100
Alpha Warrior: Scything Talons, Boneswords, Toxin Sacs - 100

Elite
3 Hive Guard - 150

Troops
18 Termaguants - 90
18 Termaguants - 90

Tervigon: Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst - 195
Tervigon: Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst - 195

Heavy Support
Trygon Prime - 250
Mawloc - 165
Mawloc - 165

THOUGHTS
Neil's biggest concern for the new Tyranid army is the plethora of melta guns and other high strength, low AP weaponry that's abundant in 5th edition Warhammer 40K.

But, as the Tau seem to have a limited number of these, favouring lots of S5 basic weapons shots instead, I think the Tau might have a seriously problem, especially if all 3 of the burrowing monstrous creatures arrive on the same turn.

In fact, it's these three monstrosities which are going to cause the biggest threat until the Tervigons are taken are of.

The problem I see with this army is the Hormagaunts with Feel No Pain, the Tervigons with 6 wounds and all the burrowing monstrous creatures with 6 wounds each. Combined with a Toughness of 6 and a 3+ save, it's going to take all the firepower from my entire Tau army to bring one of those down in a single turn. Unfortunately, with 6 Turns in the game and presuming I don't take any casualties, claiming objectives will be out of the question.

I could be all arrogant and say "Ha! My Space Wolves will tear those foul xenos assunder", but this is my Tau blog and if the Tau can fight off Hive Fleet Gorgon in the new Tyranid Codex in a long campaign of biological evolution VS technical adaptation, then why can't they do so on the tabletop.

The Hive Fleet Gorgon campaign in the Tyranid Codex is well worth a read for any Tau player by the way.

So without melta guns and powerfists galore, what can the Tau do to put down this new threat? I keep finding myself looking at the more aggressive Tau armies people were fielding at the Grand Tournament in October, because it had more melta guns, plasma guns, railguns and markerlights, but only 2 Troops.

It's a tough time for the Tau and other armies in 5th edition who are still waiting for their Codex.

But anyone who's looked at Tyranid Codex will noticed some interesting new Tau Battlesuits illustrated fighting a Tyranid swarm.

The Tau Firewarriors also have two shoulder pads and the Tau domed buildings are far more organic looking in a similar style to Adrian Smith's illustration of Space Wolves battling the Tau.

Interesting...

Need More Plasma

2010-01-02T08:39:00.001Z

Happy New Year from Warhammer Tau! If there's one resolution any Tau army should make, it's for more plasma and more railguns too.

Since the seeing a lot of aggressive Tau armies at the Grand Tournament and building my Space Wolves army, it's clear to see how the Tau are being left behind in 5th edition due to their plethora of basic S5 guns and apparent lack of plasma gun, melta gun and lascannon equivalents.

Missile pods are cool, but they're not going to be destroying any tanks in a hurry without a little bit of luck.

So as I ponder a return to the Tau ahead of schedule, my sights are set on fielding more Battlesuits than before and more Broadsides too.

In particular, I will be arming my Broadsides with the Advanced Stabilisation System and twin linked plasma rifles.

Why the sudden move towards plasma?
Because I'm sick of outflanking space marines, deepstriking terminators and other nasty targets with a high armour save jumping straight down my throat.

Let's see how they cope with a unit of 3 Broadsides putting out 6 twin linked plasma shots followed by a charge!

I'm also going to give the plasma rifle/fusion blaster combo a try on 2 Battlesuit Command Teams as well. If supported by Pathfinders in a Devilfish, their Deepstrike should be safer...

Here's a rough army list:

plasma rifle/fusion blaster Battlesuits
plasma rifle/missile pod Battlesuits
twin linked missile pod, single flamer Battlesuits
firewarriors
kroot
pathfinders + devilfish
Broadsides
Broadsides

Thoughts
Overall, this provides better anti-tank and harder hitting units. The loss of massed basic weapons fire isn't going to have too much of an impact, because it never seemed to actually kill much anyway due to the poor AP.

40K Grand Tournament Day 2

2009-10-31T15:28:00.002Z

Day 2 of the Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament quickly got underway following a ridiculously late night in Nottingham's Rock City followed by another fine full english breakfast and a double Espresso to wake me up!

We walked to Warhammer World again, only to find that we had arrived a little late and had but moments to set up our armies, introduce ourselves to our opponents and start playing.

I found myself playing on the middle tables (usually where I'm happiest) and saw on listings that I was playing a chap called Shaun and his Ork army. But when I arrived, I found that he had brought Tyranids instead. LOTS of Tyranids.

Fortunately there was a lack of cover on the board, so my wealth of Strength 5, AP5 weapons should cause a bit dent in his swarm. I also noted a lack of long ranged fire power, which meant that my Tau tanks could be relatively safe.

40K Battle Report 4:
Game: Annihilation
Deployment: Spearhead
Opponent: Shaun, Tyranids

Hive Tyrant with warp field, venom cannon and 1 Tyrant Guard

Broodlord with feeder tendrils and 8 Genestealer Retinue

6 Tyranid Warriors with scything talons, devourers, barbed strangler
6 Tyranid Warriors with scything talons, devourers, barbed strangler

Carnifex with numerous twin linked devourers, enhanced senses
Carnifex with lots of choppy bits, toughness 7 and 2+ save

8 Genestealers
8 Genestealers

32 spinegaunts
32 spinegaunts

SET UP
I won the roll off and let Shaun choose his table quarter, set up first and go first. While I could have focussed on pouring as much fire power into him as possible in the first turn, I knew that clever deployment and use of reserves would be my friend in this mission.

He declared that his Broodlord and retinue would be in reserve, outflanking while the rest of his army set up within 12" of the centre, as far forward as possible.

My first priority would be to get rid of his high strength guns as these would be a threat to my tanks. After that, I'd fall back on my usual run and gun tactics with flechette dischargers on the tanks to inflict some extra damage for when he inevitably charged me.

So I set up the Broadsides, Hammerhead and Tau Battlesuit command team behind it (all just outside of 12" from the right board edge to avoid the Brood Lord and chums).

TURN 1
The Tyranid horde surged forward as one. Some shots were fired, they didn't do anything.

The Broadsides fired into the Tyranid Warriors to the left of the central building, killing one of them. Damn synapse rule! I'd forgotten about that.

The Battlesuit Command team jumped into the ruins, following behind the Hammerhead. The Tau Commander injured himself on the rocks (tsk!) and the squad opened fire on the advancing Dakka-Fex, inflicting only 2 wounds. The Hammerhead aimed its railgun at the monstrous creature...and missed. Not a great start!

TURN 2
The Brood Lord and his Genestealer retinue arrived. Shaun rolled a 6, so he could choose where 'Broody' and chums would arrive. He brought them on right behind the Tau Battlesuit command team and ran them to make sure the Battlesuits wouldn't be able to escape next turn.

The Tyranid army continued its advance. It had quickly become apparent just how much the swarm had been slowed by having to spread out in such a tiny deployment zone. With squads of creatures pushed to the back, the army had been dispersed into lots of little waves rather than a single wave that could crush my small Tau army.

The Dakka Fex opened fire on the Tau Battlesuit command team, inflicting a wound on one of the Commander's bodyguards and killing both shield drones. The squad held their ground thankfully.

The Tau phase began with 3 Devilfish transports arriving from reserve. With only one Outflanking unit to take care of, the Battlesuits, Broadsides and Hammerhead could fall back safely towards the table corner.

Safe from the majority of the Tyranid's guns, 2 Devilfish moves 6" on and their Firewarrior passengers disembarked, taking aim at the Brood Lord and its retinue.

Once the smoke cleared only the Brood Lord remained. I had hoped to kill him as well. Then I could focus the plasma rifles and missile pods of my Battlesuits at the approaching Dakka-Fex.

The Hammerhead took aim with its railgun and missed -again!

It was up to the Battlesuits who gunned down the Broodlord with no effort and jumped back behind the safety of the Hammerhead. Try and shoot me now Mr Dakka-Fex!

The Broadsides continued to fire at the Tyranid Warriors, wounding another (they had nothing else to shoot at).

Meanwhile on the left flank, the third Devilfish arrived and also began firing at the Tyranid Warriors from a safe distance. Then plan was to shoot at the tail of the swarm as it charged towards my main force on the right.

TURN 3
The Tyranid swarm continued to advance, ignoring the Devilfish on the left. The Hive Tyrant's venom cannon was out of range. The Dakka-Fex devourers were just out of range of the Tau Firewarriors it tried to get a bead on. Meanwhile the Tyranid warriors and Genestealers continued to surge forward. Next turn the Hammerhead would get charged and there was nothing I could do about it.

The Tau Battlesuits with twin linked flamers and single missile pods arrived from reserve and jumped behind the Devilfish on the left flank. The Skyray also arrived, taking up position on the left flank where all three units could continue to fire at the Tyranid Warriors -I want that Kill Point! But 2 of them remained.

The Tau Battlesuit command team finished off the Dakka-Fex while the Firewarriors embarked in their Devilfish transports advanced along the right flank, staying away from the swarm, firing their smart missiles at the Tyranid Warriors on the right of the building.

The Hammerhead flew over the trees and fired a solid slug into the Dakka-Fex, which combined with firepower from the Tau Battlesuit Command team finally finished off the brute. Once they were done, they then jumped over the woods behind the Hammerhead.

TURN 4
The Genestealers leapt upon the Hammerhead and immediately 4 of the 8 were torn apart by the flechette dischargers. Unable to land a single blow, they were in trouble.

The Tyranid warriors also charged in, but were only able to glance the vehicle, preventing it from firing next turn while losing one of their number to the flechette dischargers.

The rest of the Tyranid swarm rushed forward as before with the big stompy Carnifex getting dangerously close to the Broadsides along with the 32 strong gaunt swarm.

The Hive Tyrant and a nearby Genestealer swarm turned their attention to the two Tau tanks and Battlesuits peppering the back of the Tyranid army, inflicting a glancing hit on the Skyray which disabled one of its markerlights.

In the Tau turn lots of Tyranids were killed.

The Hammerhead flew away, the trio of Devilfish gunned down the remaining Genestealers and the Battlesuits blasted the Tyranid Warriors apart in a spectacular display of statistically accurate dice rolling. God bless Mathhammer when it actually works!

The Broadsides were in trouble. They knew it. So they trudged towards the spinegaunts, killing 4 with their smart missile systems before wading into close combat.

On the left flank the remaining 2 Tyranid warriors were killed and the very slow and ponderous Hive Tyrant ignored.

SUMMARY
On the right flank the Tyranids came to a halt due to their lack of synapse creatures, but not after the stompy Carnifex had killed the Broadsides in close combat and managed to catch a fleeing Devilfish transport and sent the Firewarrior team inside fleeing off the board.

On the left flank the remaining Genestealers were wiped out and the Hive Tyrant ignored some more.

Back on the right flank, the rest of the Tyranid army got mopped up in short order, leaving just a Carnifex and a Hive Tyrant at opposite ends of the board.

3 Kill Points to the Tyranids, 7 Kill Points to the Tau!

For me, this game ran like text book for the Tau. But that was thanks to eliminating his high strength weapons early on. I was surprised that he didn't have any leaping Tyranid Warriors or more Outflanking Genestealers or this game could have been really tough for me.

With my excellent win I was propelled up the tables to table 23, where I met Luke, a reader of Warhammer Tau and generally all round nice chap.

His army wasn't so friendly though, as I soon found out. Fortunately I'd had my arse handed to me on a silver platter during Friday's games, so I had an idea of what to expect from a Valkyrie heavy Imperial Guard army.

40K Battle Report 5:
Game: Capture & Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Opponent: Luke, Imperial Guard
Command Team with plasma guns
Valkyrie
Imperial Guard squad with melta guns
Valkyrie
Imperial Guard squad with melta guns
Valkyrie
Imperial Guard squad with flamers
Valkyrie
Imperial Guard squad with plasma guns
Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta

I'm a little hazy on Luke's army composition, but this was basically it. Against so many fast armour 12 vehicles all loaded up on heavy bolter, big explosion markers and lascannons I didn't fancy my chances. The fact that lots of little guys with melta guns would be jumping out of them made it even worse. Boy and to think I used to hate playing Ravenwing! This kind of army is the Tau's Nemesis because you can't outrun it, outshoot it or outfight it.

So, knowing that I was pretty screwed, it was time to play tactically. Very tactically.

SET UP
Luke won the roll off and made me go first. Ah well, I suppose that gives me less to think about 'tactically'.

The board was quite open, but for some trees around the middle, rocks at the side and one one side a large, square building.

I chose the side with the large square building because I had an idea, then placed my Objective in the trees in the centre of my deployment zone. Luke placed his objective top right, where I'd struggle to get it if I set up in the centre, which is generally expected of most Tau players.

Luke was fixated on my Broadsides. I knew that with his Outflanking Valkyries he could hit me from all sides, so it was wisest to hole up on one side, take the hits and see if I could go after his objective with faster units. Maybe I could hold him up long enough with all my sacrificial units to scrape a draw?

I placed the Broadsides behind the building (which I knew he REALLY REALLY wanted to kill!), a Skyray to the left and a Devilfish on top of the building itself.

This left nowhere for his Valkyries to move on 12" and disembark their troops within range of the Broadsides. It would also give me a little bit of breathing space and stop his Valkyries from zooming into key positions.

Meanwhile I placed the Battlesuits and Hammerhead in the centre on the objective to see if they could hold it until the bitter end while 2 Devilfish transports were held in reserve.

SUMMARY
I'm not going to do a turn by turn account of this game, because basically the plan worked...as well as it could. 4 Valkyries arrived on the right while the 3 Vendettas arrived on the left.

I took the hits and lost one of the tanks, but in doing so Luke had exposed his troops who were now vulnerable to the burst cannons and smart missiles of the Devilfish which had arrived from reserve. Hosing down his troops the Tanks began to push forwards, towards his objective. This caused a momentary distraction for the Vendettas to stop blowing up the Hammerhead and killed my Battlesuits, but the Tau tanks were stopped dead in their tracks.

The Broadsides shot at the Vendettas all game, blowing off lascannons once in a while (rubbish!).

The game ended on Turn 5 with Luke getting his command squad on to his objective (despite being forced to take 2 break tests.)

He also disembarked another squad into the trees next to my objective.

Perhaps I'm too much of a sport, because I pointed out that his unit was 1mm within 3" of my Objective and so they could contest it. Otherwise this would have been a quite stunning tactical draw for the Tau.

Oh well. That's the way it goes sometimes. But then, I'd rather play properly and lose by the skin of my teeth than lie through my teeth to win a game.

1-0 on Objectives to the Imperial Guard.

With that, it was down to my final game of the weekend. One look at this guy's army list and I knew what I didn't have a hope in hell of beating him. Hell, it was the last game of the last day. I was tired and I wanted to go home. But it's remarkable what a little luck can do for your game!

40K Battle Report 6:
Game: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Opponent: Gareth, Space Marines

Kayvann Shrike leading 5 assault marines with jump packs

10 Terminators with thunder hammer and storm shield

5 space marines in a razorback with twin linked lascannon

10 space marines with melta gun, powerfist and missile launcher in a rhino

3 Vindicators

Gareth's army was made up of numerous Space Marine chapters as a themed 'Crusade' army. But in truth I think he borrowed most of them to make a competitive tournament list with Shrike giving his terminators Fleet of Foot.

So my final game would be my least favourite mission where I'd have to wrestle objectives from Armour 13 vehicles and 10 Terminators with 3+ invulnerable saves.

At least it's Dawn of War - my favourite set up!

SET UP
I won the roll off, so I took the first turn, choosing the board edge with the least terrain so my tanks may cruise about without fear of crashing.

We rolled for Objectives, getting 3. It's a really disgusting thing to do when you get 3, but I can place 2 Objectives in my zone while my opponent is stuck with just 1 to place in his. Harsh, but screw it, I've had it done to me.

I placed the first Objective in the open, quite central. Gareth mimicked my placement, but put his Objective in some rocks. I placed the last Objective further left, also in the open. I figured that spreading out the objectives would be daft, because my army can't compete Unit to Unit, so a last term contesting rush might be in order.

I set up nothing. He sets up nothing. All my Battlesuits are Deep Striking (I don't care, it's the last game and I'm gonna lose!), he decides to Deep Strike Kayvaan Shrike and the Terminators as well. The game begins.

TURN 1
The Tau army rocks up, Broadsides take position on the hill on the right flank,

From right to left it's Devilfish, Skyray, Devilfish, Devilfish, Hammerhead. The tank armada cruises on 6". No need to rush, no one is going to get a shot off during Turn 1 (which is something more people need to just accept about Turn 1 of Dawn of War).

Gareth drives his tanks on to the right flank. Rhino with 10 space marines in on the far right, behind some woods, then 2 Vindicators, a Razorback with 5 space marine in behind his Objective, which is flanked by another Vindicator on the left. All tanks fire their smoke launchers.

TURN 2
It's daylight and the Tau can fire!
The Tau Battlesuit Command team arrives from reserve and Deepstrikes next the to Vindicator on the left, protecting the Razorback.

Markerlights from the Skyray light it up, the Hammerhead locks on and fires its railgun, the Battlesuits use the markerlights to reduce its cover save and maximise their chances to hit and when the dust clears...the tank has been immobilised and lost its Demolisher cannon. I suppose that's something.

The Broadsides slam railgun shots into the Vindicator advancing alongside the Rhino, stunning it for the turn so it cannot shoot. (Rubbish I know!)

Shrike and the Terminators don't arrive from reserve. In retaliation the Vindicator round the other side of the Razorback drives around and kills the entire Battlesuit Command Team in a single, well placed shot.

On the right flank, the Rhino with 10 space marine inside continues its advance through the woods.

TURN 3
The Tau Battlesuit team with twin flamers and single missile pods Deep Strikes into the clearing between 2 Vindicators a Rhino and a Razorback on the top right of the table. They fire their missile pods into the rear armour of the Vindicator that killed the other Battlesuits, glancing it and preventing it from firing for the turn. Phew!

The Tau tanks advance, pouring fire into the Space Marine vehicles, but having no effect.

The Broadsides fire at the Rhino driving through the woods, but only manage to blow off the storm bolter.

Gareth rolls for his reserves. Shrike doesn't arrive, but the 10 Terminators armed with thunder hammer and storm shield do!

He placed the sergeant in the clearing between the Broadsides and the Rhino in the woods. He rolls a 9" for the scatter and his enormous unit of 10 Terminators can't be placed without landing on the Rhino.

He rolls on the Mishap Table and gets a 3.
I get to place them wherever I like.
Far left hand corner please! That should keep them out of the fight for the rest of the game.

The Vindicator beside the Razorback can't do much, but turn to present its front armour to the Battlesuits. The Razorback takes a shot at the Battlesuits, but miraculously fails to wound one of them. The other Vindicator can't do anything either.

That leaves the Rhino with 10 space marines which drives up to an objective and disembarks its troops who fire their melta gun at a nearby Devilfish, but only succeed in glancing it (due to range) and prevent it from moving or firing next turn.

TURN 4
The Tau army descends on the 10 space marines, killing 6 of them with the 6 Firewarriors who disembarked from the stunned Devilfish causing most of the casualties.

Meanwhile the 2 Battlesuits shoot the nearby stationary Vindicator in the back with their missile pods and charge in for the killing blow. The explosion inflicts a wound on one of them.

In Gareth's turn, Shrike arrives from reserve and Deep Strikes behind the Hammerhead. I'd have said a little too close...but it's too late as Gareth scatters on to the back of the tank and rolls another 3 on the Mishap Table. Top left corner with the Terminators (who have been busy trudging forward all this time).

The Space Marines fire at the disembarked Firewarriors, killing 4 of them, but the squad passes its morale check.

The last active Vindicator kills the 2 Battlesuits with a well placed Demolisher cannon blast.

TURN 5
The Tau army advances as one, gunning down the remaining space marines in a hail of smart missiles while the Firewarrior squad re-embarks into their Devilfish to go claim an ojective. The two other Devilfish do the same while the Hammerhead speeds forward, hoping to contest the Space Marine Objective.

The Broadsides fire at the last Vindicator, but without any luck. The rest of the Tau army is content with its objectives.

I Gareth's turn the Terminators use their Fleet of Foot (thanks to Shrike) to charge the Hammerhead and begin smashing it to bits. But they are only able to stun and immobilise the vehicle after tearing off its railgun.

The game ends with 2 Objectives to the Tau and 0 to the Space Marines.

I think we all know that I won this game purely due to Gareth's bad luck. But it was nice to have an easier game for once!

FINAL THOUGHTS
Well, my army wasn't perfect, but I played well and there weren't any moments where I thought "Ah gawd, what did I do something stupid like that for!?"

My Tau army faced overwhelming odds, unstoppable armies and fought many losing battles. But they emerged from the weekend with a grand total of 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. I came 56th overall, just shy of qualifying and had I drawn with Luke I would have almost certainly have qualified for the final.

If I had plenty of time, I'd definitely drop all the flechette dischargers from my tanks, upgrade my twin flamer and single missile pod battlesuits to twin linked missile pods and swap my Skyray for another Hammerhead or second team of Broadsides.

But I've done well with what I have, played 6 very enjoyable games and confused the hell out of my opponents at the same time! What more could any Tau player ask for?

40K Grand Tournament Day 1

2009-10-30T07:29:00.001Z

Day 1 of the Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament.

After a night of drunken fun at The Pit & Pendulum (where Luke bought an inflatable pig!), we woke up the next day to a mighty fine cooked breakfast before walking through town and along the canal to Warhammer World for day 1 of the Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament.

Having sold my Tau army to a chap from Spain on Thursday, this would be their last tour of duty, so I had high expectations of them.

I've decided to take a break from this army, but I will build a new Tau force when the new Tau Empire Codex is released. My Battlesuits will definitely be magnetised the next time around too!

1500 points Tau army list for the 2009 Grand Tournament Heat 1
I made some last minute amendments to my army as I was 2pts over the limit.

Tau Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones, Stimm Injector (feel no pain) and Bonding Knife
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 Battlesuits with twin linked flamers and single missile pods

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

Hammerhead with Railgun, Burst Cannons, Targeting Array (comes as standard), Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

Skyray with Burst Cannons, Target Lock (comes as standard), Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

2 man Broadside Team with Advanced Stabilisation Systems.
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

40K Grand Tournament Battle Reports

We arrived a little late, so we quickly found our tables and met our first opponents. I had been drawn against a chap named Leonidas (cool name!) who spoke a little English. I was delighted to see a well painted Khorne Chaos army across the board from me, but never imagined just how wrong my first game would go.

40K Battle Report 1:
Game: Seize Ground (4 objectives)
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Opponent: Leonidas, World Eaters

Daemon Prince with Mark of Khorne and Wings

5 Terminators with 2 combi-plasma, 2 combi-melta, heavy flamer and chainfist
Chaos Land Raider with extra armour and bull dozer blade

7 Bezerkers +1 champion with icon and Power weapon
Chaos Land Raider with extra armour and bull dozer blade

7 Bezerkers +1 champion with icon and Power Fist
Chaos Rhino with extra armour

2 packs of 10 Summoned Damones

SET UP
We rolled for the number of objectives and ended up with 4. Then Leonidas won the roll off, opting to go first. He was clever with his objective placement so that almost all 4 were around the centre of the board.

He deployed his forces centrally with a Land Raider either side and the Rhino on the left flank. Bezerkers and Terminators were in their transports on the left while Bezerkers were in the Land Raider on the right with the Daemon Prince hidden behind it and the Daemon packs in reserve.

Due to the line of sight blocking terrain on the board, I was forced to place a Hammerhead on the far right flank, Broadsides in the middle (big mistake!), Battlesuit command team in the middle (another mistake!) and Skyray on the left flank.

TURN 1
The Khorne vehicles surged forward the full distance into the middle of the board, firing their smoke launchers.

All the Tau railguns hit home, but couldn't see past the smoke launchers as Leonidas passed all his 5+ cover saves.

TURN 2
The disembarking Terminatords and Khorne bezerkers were just (like 1mm) within charge range of the Broadsides and Battlesuits...who died spectacularly.

The Devilfish transports arrived, as did the Battlesuit team with twin flamers, sweeping around the sides of the board, firing as they went, but doing very little.

TURN 3
The Daemon Prince jumped on the Hammerhead and ripped off the railgun.
The Daemon packs arrived, deepstriking and running to claim 2 objectives while the Land Raiders continued to advance, parking on 2 more objectives so that they couldn't be contested due to the sheer size of the vehicles.

The Terminators made short work of 1 Devilfish while the Land Raiders took out the other with their lascannons, leaving the Tau Firewarriors dangerously exposed.

SUMMARY
While 1 Devilfish was able to contest an objective on the far left flank and the Hammerhead eventually made it round the the Khorne deployment zone to contest another objective, Leonidas had clearly claimed 2 objectives in my deployment zone with Bezerkers embarked inside his Land Raiders.

To make things worse I hadn't brought a single unit below half strength, but for his Daemon Prince who miraculously passed 18 armour saves in the last round.

Leonidas won with 2 objectives to 0 and over 1000 victory points.

Thoughts:
When I couldn't at least immobilise one of his Land Raiders I knew I was in big trouble. It was also unfortunate that my Battlesuits were literally millimetres within charge range.

I should have put the Broadsides on the far left flank while the Hammerhead was on the right, then done my usual sweeping around the sides tactic. Although I needed a 'juicy bone' in the middle to bait him in for that to work.

If I could get a 2nd turn of firing with the Broadsides, then maybe things wouldn't have been so bad. Then I could immobilise the Land Raiders and sweep round to his side of the board. The game would still probably end in a draw, but that's the way things go with the Tau right now.

A group of us were chatting about the game afterwards when Leonidas added:
"Oh, he was impotent."
*everyone laughs*
"That word doesn't translate very well" I said.
"Why?"
"Because in English 'impotent' means that you can't get an erection."
*embarrassed laughter*

We left our armies out for judging and then made our way into the cantine for some dinner before resuming the games.

40K Battle Report 2:
Game: Capture & Control
Deployment: Spearhead
Opponent: Luis, Dark Eldar

Archon with tons of wargear on a Jetbike with Shadowfield
Wych character with tons of wargear on a Jetbike
Big mob of Reaver Jetbikes
4 squads of 10 warriors with 2 Dark Lance
4 Raider transports with Dark Lance
3 Ravagers with Dark Lance and 2 Disintegrators

Just one look at Luis army and I knew my tanks were in trouble, my Battlesuits were in trouble and, well, that's a lot of AP2 guns.

Luis also didn't speak much English beyond the words 'Dark Lance', but had an English copy of his Codex to point at. This game was not only a lesson in tactics for me, but also international sign language!

SET UP
I won the roll off, choosing the most open corner (for my tanks to cruise around) with some woods and an impassable hab-dome terrain peice, which I placed my Objective behind.

Luis then placed his Objective in the opposite corner, in the far right corner behind another hab-dome. I wouldn't be going all the way over there for his objective.

So which his army much faster than mine and having more powerful guns than mine, I chose to defend my objective.

Dark Eldar are very fragile, so with the first turn, I set up everything on the board with my tank wall up front, Battlesuits behind and Broadsides in the far back corner. I kept a Devilfish with some Firewarriors in near my objective at all times.

Luis then deployed his Dark Eldar Warriors squads in the woods and ruins with their Dark Lances aimed at my tanks.

Meanwhile the Ravagers, Raiders and Jetbikes were held in reserve, just as expected.

SUMMARY
The Tau tank wall advanced, firing on the Dark Eldar Warriors in the nearby ruins, but killed very few. In return the Hammerhead and Skyray were both stunned by the Dark Lances and unable to move or shoot next turn.

The Tau continued shooting at the two squads in the ruins until they were wiped out. But by this time, one of the Ravagers and 2 of the Raiders had arrived from reserve and blew the Skyray apart.

The newly arrived Dark Eldar skimmers were in turn blasted apart by Battlesuit missile pods and railgun slugs from the Broadsides. Lots of explosions!

As the battle went on it looked as though the Tau had gained the upperhand with the light Dark Eldar skimmers arriving, inflicting minor damage and then exploding one by one...until the huge Dark Eldar Jetbike mob led by two characters arrived and began speeding down the left flank.

With nothing else important to shoot at, the entire Tau army turned their guns on the speeding vehicles, gradually gunning them down until only the Archon and a single Reaver Jetbiker remained...until they were gunned down in the following turn.

The game ended with each of us holding a single objective. While this battle went like textbook for the Tau, I simply couldn't risk moving away from my objective due to the sheer volume of firepower needed to take down all those Dark Eldar jetbikes in time.

40K Battle Report 3:
Game: Annihilation
Deployment: Dawn of War
Opponent: Iain, Imperial Guard

Command squad with lascannon
infantry platoon with command team with autocannon and three squads with autocannons
heavy weapons team with 3 mortars
veterans with 3 melta guns in a chimera
veterans with 3 plasma guns in a chimera (+ special character that allows rerolls)
Devildog
Leman Russ with 3 heavy bolters
Leman Russ with 3 heavy bolters
Leman Russ Demolisher with lascannon

My friend Luke had played Iain last year and commented on what a nice guy he was as well as the great game they had. Like myself, Iain fields a well rounded army that's played very tactically. This would be a very close fought game as our strategic minds met.

SET UP
I won the roll off and opted to go first. It's my belief that in the Dawn of War mission no one will get any shots off on the first turn. So whoever gets the first volley of fire in the 2nd turn will inflict the most initial damage.

I set up nothing and declared that my whole army would rock up on the first turn.
Smiling, Iain set up all of his infantry roughly 6" on from his table edge, then deployed a single squad further ahead in some woods.

TURN 1
The Tau army arrived and spread out 6" on along the deployment zone. The Broadsides took up position on the hill, ready to fire smart missiles into the Guardsmen in the woods. The 3 Devilfish with Firewarrior teams embarked set up around the centre, looking to fire at the same target. Meanwhile the Skyray and Hammerhead set up further to the left. The Battlesuits walked on in a position to jump back behind the Tau tanks.

The 3 Devilfish APCs and Broadside Battlesuits opened fire with their smart missile systems at the Imperial Guard squad in the woods, killing 5 of them, but they held their ground. Iain seemed quite horrified that smart missile systems do no require line of sight and ignore the effects of night fighting.

Meanwhile the Skyray was able to spot the Imperial Guard Veterans advancing in their Chimera on the left flank. Two markerlights hit home, which was used by the Hammerhead to spot the transport and reduce its cover save. However, the shot only succeeded in blowing off the tank's multilaser.

His tanks rolled onto the board, but were unable to see anything due to the Night Fighting conditions. The same goes for the rest of his infantry.

The Chimeras with veteran squads advance.

SUMMARY
While I could give a hazy turn by turn account of this game, not much really happened, but it was incredibly close!

The Chimera on the left disembarked it Veteran squad with 3 melta guns into the rocks because Iain didn't they'd make it that far.

He was right, because the next turn massed firepower wiped all by 2 of them out, but they blew up a Devilfish with a melta gun as they fell back (grr), then all the Firewarriors that tumbled out were hit by the Bane Wolf tank and killed outright.

The Chimera on the right drove up and the Veterans inside rapid fired their plasma guns (with re-rolls from a special character) into a nearby Devilfish. They did this for some turns until the Devilfish was immobilised, their Chimera exploded and in the final turns the Tau army hosed down the Veterans.

It was a very tense game because it took so much of my firepower to wittle down one of his squads and it took a lot of his anti-tank to take out one of the Devilfish, after which an ordnance shell or highly accurate Mortar fire would then take out the squad which had stumbled out of the tank wreckage.

Thank goodness I'd gotten the first turn, been lucky with my night fighting and made the most of my Smart Missile Systems to effectively get 2 Turns of shooting before the real fight started or I'd have struggled in this game.

The game ran until Turn 7. When the dust cleared I had 2 Battlesuits, 6 Firewarriors and 2 Broadsides remaining. Iain had 2 infantry squads, a mortar squad, a single Leman Russ and a Demolisher.

I won the game 8 Kill Points to 7.

I shook hands with Iain, having played one of my best and closes games of Warhammer 40K in years. Like myself, Iain is a guy with a well balanced army played as tactically as possible.

His deployment was excellent, even that one 'juicy bone' infantry unit to bait me in was well placed. As a result I went a little too far forward with one of the Devilfish, but it all worked out in the end.

So day 1 of the Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament came to an end with me having scored 1 Loss, 1 Draw and 1 Win. Not Bad!

Stay tuned for Part 2

Tau Grand Tournament Armies

2009-10-25T07:57:00.001Z

There are 7 Tau armies at the Grand Tournament. Quite an unusually high number it has to be said. But the interesting thing was how they were all completely different from my own Tau army.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get photographs of them all or learn their compositions, but there were some general trends that I spotted regarding troops, elites and heavy support choices. Perhaps we need a new Codex sooner than I had thought?

Here is the run down of what I saw.

Army 1: Green Tau with Orange stripes (
plasma rifle/missile pod command team
twin flamer, single missile pod battlesuits
3 Devilfish with Firewarriors squads
Skyray
Hammerhead
Broadsides

Notes:
Yes, this is my army. I had to include it for completeness. I'd gone for a combination of mechanised with Battlesuits. Mostly so my Battlesuits had some large tanks to hide behind. My main tactic was the Tau Tank Wall, which swings round the flank, firing as it goes, with the Battlesuits doing Jump-Shoot-Jump over and behind it. I finished 56th.

Army 2: Dark Green with Light Green details
plasma rifle/missile pod command team
extra commander with cyclic ion blaster and missile pod
burst cannon/missile pod battlesuits
Devilfish
3 Firewarriors
Kroot
Hammerhead
2 broadsides

Notes:
This was a really nice looking army. Shame to see it so far down the tables, but it seemed to be designed for 4th edition rather than 5th edition. While it had plenty of Broadsides the 2nd Battlesuit team only had burst cannons. I've tried this unit myself with unhappy results. Loved the guys broadside conversions.

Army 3: Black and Red

Notes:
I didn't get a good look at this army. But this was also quite far down the tables. Also seemed a throw back to 4th edition.

Army 4: Brown
twin linked missile pod Battlesuits
plasma rifle/fusion blaster Battlesuits
another team of Battlesuits (I think)
firewarriors
kroot
pathfinders + devilfish
2 broadsides
hammerhead

Notes:
I think it was this guy who managed to qualify for the final. Minimal troops, but plenty of railguns and his Battlesuits were armed with both fusion blaster and plasma rifle. I think he had 2 of these units and another unit with twin linked missile pods. He certainly suffered in the objective based missions but when it came to killing things, his 3 Battlesuit units would be able to deepstrike into enemy territory, take out tanks, monstrous creatures and heavily armoured targets with relative ease while the 5 railguns pounded targets from afar. Maybe its just my troops who die easily?

Army 5: Blue
twin linked missile pod Battlesuits
plasma rifle/fusion blaster Battlesuits
another team of Battlesuits (I think)
firewarriors
kroot
pathfinders + devilfish
2 broadsides
hammerhead

Notes:
At first glance this guys army was near the same as the Brown Tau, but he didn't do nearly as well. Then again, he did give his Tau Commander the Airbursting Fragmentation Projector.

Army 5: Pastel brown with red and green

Notes:
I didn't get a good look at this army, but from what I could see it was mostly mechanised with 3 Hammerheads for heavy support. It ended up quite far down the tables.

Army 6: camo green
2 Battlesuit command teams with plasma rifle/missile pod
stealth suits
3 firewarriors
hammerhead
2 broadsides

Notes:
This was my friend Luke's army. Not sure where he came in the tournament, although I know he didn't do great. Lost out on objective missions and generally got blasted apart for his troubles. Stealth suits were useless!

CONCLUSION
With the Brown Tau qualifying and my own force falling short of going through to the final (not that I wanted to), I think it demonstrates what kind of Tau army works well in 5th edition.

In fact, the Brown Tau seem downright nasty.
The Kroot can go hide in some woods to claim an objective (and go to ground).
The Firewarriors can get in the Pathfinder's Devilfish which in turn allows the Deepstriking Battlesuits to reroll their scatter. The Pathfinders light up targets for the Broadsides (and Battlesuits). Then the railguns, plasma rifles, fusion blasters and missile pods annihilate that unit and move on to the next one. The army is screwed when it comes to multiple objectives, but if it can kill everything, then who cares?

As for my army, I think sneakiness may have won out over brute force. My army isn't nearly as hard hitting, but it floats around, using the Tau Tank Wall to protect my troops and Battlesuits while dealing out minor damage here and there. But as you will find when I post my battle reports from the Grand Tournament, it doens't have that punch to clear someone off an objective.

Stay tuned for Warhammer 40K Throne of Skull Grand Tournament battle reports soon!

Grand Tournament Warm Up Friday

2009-10-23T18:51:00.001+01:00

Friday morning we drove to Warhammer World for a Grand Tournament warm up day. James and I stopped off for a McDonald's breakfast on the way, while Luke would meet us there later.

We arrived quite early, so with no one to challenge, we played each other.

Perhaps my recent break from playing 40K on a weekly basis has really helped, because it was during this game that I developed some new tactics which would go on the serve me well at the Grand Tournament. I went on to not only contest objectives, but capture them as well! But more on that later.

40K Battle Report:
Game: Capture & Control
Deployment: Dawn of War
Opponent: James Le Grys, Ravenwing

Having played my Tau army many times, James had a good idea of how to beat me. He also knew that driving his very fast, hard hitting and incredibly tough to kill army straight down my throat was the surest way to secure victory. So that's what he did!

James won the roll off, placing his objective to the right, while I placed mine to the left. He placed Sammael in the centre of the board with a bike squad either side. The Land Speeders would arrive on Turn 1, while the 3 attack bikes and another bike squad were held in reserve.

He used his scout move to move the two bike squads 12" forward.

I wanted to mess his day up by seizing the initiative, but failed the roll.

In his first turn, his 3 Land Speeders turbo boosted down the left flank towards my objective. Sammael held position in the middle while the two bike squads turbo boosted to my board edge and spread out along it.

While the tactic had worked against Luke's foot slogging Tau, my mechanised army of skimmers and jet pack Tau Battlesuits could simply fly over the line of bikes...apart from the Broadsides who walked on to the objective on the left, meanwhile the rest of the Tau army arrived on the right, intent on capturing James' objective. He certainly didn't see that coming!

Firewarriors piled out of Devilfish as the entire Tau army opened fire on the two bike squads, wiping out one squad and reducing the other to 3 men.

James Charged two of the Firewarrior teams with the 3 remaining bikes, killed one of the twin linked flamer Battlesuits with Sammael's assault cannon while his bike squad in reserve arrived from the right flank along with 1 attack bike.

The attack bike used its multimelta on the Skyray, immobilising it, then charged it and suffered and wound from the flechette dischargers.

The bike squad failed to kill a Devilfish with their meltaguns, but charged it for good measure, shaking it so it couldn't shoot, but not after losing 2 of their number to its flechette dischargers.

I like flechette dischargers!

The Tau Broadsides on my left objective were mercilessly gunned down the the three Landspeeders and another Attack Bike which outflanked.

On the far right, my Battlesuits jumped over the immobilising Skyray to deal some serious damage to the bike that had arrived.

With nearly all the bikes wiped out, but 1 Attack Bike which was sitting on my objective, the Tau army mobilised for the abandoned Ravenwing objective.

What then ensued was the gradual annihilation of both Land Speeders and Tau tanks, although the Tau smart missiles couldn't compare with the assault cannons of the Land Speeders.

By Turn 5, only the Tau Battlesuit command team, an immobilised Skyray and 6 Firewarriors were left (to claim the Ravenwing objective). All the other vehicles were smoking wrecks. Thankfully that's when the game ended. Turn 6 I would have been fine, but if the game had continued until Turn 7, I would have been wiped out.

40K Battle Report:
Game: Capture & Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Opponent: Simon Thorne, Orks

Simon Thorne and his mate Jon arrived shortly after we had started our game, so James played a game against Jon's Eldar while Simon challenged me to face his Ork biker army once again.

We rolled off and I won, giving Si the first turn. Si placed his counter on a hill in the centre of his deployment zone, while I placed mine to the right. He then set up his two units of Ork Biker Nobz with Painboyz and led by Warbosses on the right flank to claim his own objective and go for mine.

So I deployed away from my own objective, just off centre towards the left hand corner.

I set everything up to run and gun, sweeping around the flank, remaining out of charge range for as long as possible while baiting him in with units that might just be close enough for him to charge.

The gambit worked as he drove both units into the centre, then zoomed one unit away to the far right objective after they had taken half their wounds and would begin to take leadership tests.

So I threw a Hammerhead submunition round at him, inflicting another wound, causing him to take a Leadership test, which he failed. The Ork Nob with the boss pole smacked one of his mates to take the test again, but Si failed the roll again and they fled into the middle of the board, back into the range of my guns.

The remaining members of the squad were gunned down in short order after the Painboy was killed, which removed the unit's Feel No Pain ability.

The other Ork Biker mob had taken a few wounds during the game, so Simon used his 5th turn to zoom the Nob Bikers back to my objective while zooming a lone Ork Warboss to claim his own objective.

The Tau army surged forward, getting 1 Devilfish into range to contest before firing every gun they had at him. Finally, it was up to the Broadside's railguns and they took him out, ending the game in a draw.

It really goes to show how much better you can play if you know your opponent's army. Ironically, it didn't matter that I was a tactical genius, because the game still ended in a draw, but it's the best I could do in the situation.

Even so, my victory had depended entirely on Simon having to set up first and take the first turn.

After lunch, I played a game against a chap with an Imperial Guard army who had been admiring our armies earlier.

40K Battle Report:
Game: Annihilation
Deployment: Spearhead
Opponent: some guy, Imperial Guard

I'd seen the load out on Valkyries before, but this would be the first time that I'd actually faced them. This guy also had Al'Raheim, which meant Outflanking. Valkyries Outflank too and he had an Astropath in his army to add +1 to his reserve rolls. Nice!

He won the roll off with a 6 and made me go first.
I could either set up everything up and get shot or reserve everything and arrived just after his units. Then I could make the most of my close range guns and counter his much stronger army.

Turn 2, my Broadsides and a Devilfish arrived. His Turn 2, he rolled 3+ for every unit in his army. So much for my tactical planning.

With hundreds of guns bearing down on me, there was nothing I could do and every unit that arrived was wiped out in short order.

But I have to say that he was very lucky and consistently lucky. Everything seemed to hit, glance and immobilise. Or if it penetrated my tanks, they died straight away. I really didn't get a look in. Didn't even get a kill point.

Nevermind. It was just 'one of those games'. But playing against this army would put me in good practice for another army which I would face on Sunday.

So having played 3 games Luke arrived, so we promptly packed up and headed to our hotel before meeting up with some other friends at The Pit & Pendulum.

More battle reports from the Warhammer 40K Throne of Skulls Grand Tournament coming soon!

Saturday Night Gaming

2009-10-11T08:41:00.001+01:00

After a gig on Friday, Saturday was a night in with some Warhammer 40K and curry in anticipation for next week's Grand Tournament weekend.

In spectacular Luke-Style, Luke hadn't even finalised an army and left with 3 unopened Tau Battlesuit boxes to frantically bolster his force with just 6 days to go!

Between myself, Luke and James, we comfortably played 2 games within the time limit of 2 hours per game that we had set.

James VS Luke
James had his Dark Angels Ravenwing army as always, while Luke had minimised his troops in favour of more units focussed on killing things. Luckily for him, they rolled a Kill Point mission.

Luke won the roll to go set up and deploy, forcing James to set up his Ravenwing and take the first turn.

Following his recent Grand Tournament warm-up day with members of the FLAME ON! tournament team, James had some new ideas about playing his Ravenwing. Namely setting everything up (instead of outflanking) and swarming Luke's deployment zone on Turn 1.

However, this was a Spearhead game, so James could only set up in his table quarter.
Luke set up a lone Hammerhead in the opposite quarter and held the rest of his army in reserve with the Tau Battlesuits deepstriking in.

What ensued was James's faster units hunting down the Tau, unit by unit, while the Tau took a steady toll on the Ravenwing bikes and landspeeders.

Luke's two Tau Battlesuit command teams armed with plasma rifles, missile pods and Ballistic Skill 4 (hitting on 3+) were devastating, although the same couldn't be said of the Stealth Suits.

Luke has gone for a totally different approach to the Tau Empire in 5th edition 40K, which is to wipe out the enemy. He simply accepted that he will always struggle to claim or contest objectives. So his solution is to make things dead. And thinking about it, it's not a bad solution at all.

The game ended with 5 Kill Points to James and 7 Kill Points to Luke.

In between games we went across the road for a curry. As James and Luke were driving, it was up to me to drink their complimentary brandys in the curry house, so I was a little more 'confident' in playing a hot Tau on Tau game against Luke.

Adam VS Luke
While my Tau army revolves around tanks and battlesuits, Luke's army revolves around battlesuits and broadsides. I didn't favour my chances against 5 railguns, 4 of which were twin linked. I also didn't fancy the chances of my Battlesuits against his 6 Fireknife battlesuits all hitting on 3+.

We rolled the Annihilation Mission and Dawn of War set up. Usually my favourite combination, but then I realised I may have been better off in an objective grabbing mission.

The game began with some sneaky setting up on both our parts with the plethora of smart missile systems on my tanks wiping out one of Luke's firewarrior teams.

Luke's Stealth Suits deepstriked in front of my gunline and died horribly.
Luke's second Tau Battlesuit Command Team deepstriked next to my Broadsides, but I had already disembarked 12 Firewarriors inside the nearby building.

The Fireknife Battlesuits unleashed a volley of plasma fire and missiles at the Broadsides, but with some canny wound allocation, both Broadsides fought on with 1 wound remaining while only 1 shield drone was lost and they passed their moral check.
Next turn 24 shots from the Firewarriors took a terrible toll before the Broadsides charged in and finished off the last Fireknife Battlesuit.

Early in the game I passed an obscene number of 4+ disruption pod saves for my tanks. Surely testament to the power of alcohol consumption prior to a game?

But as the game drew on, Luke's railguns began to take their toll. I simply didn't have anything that could take out so many Broadsides, let alone close with them quickly. Fortunately the game ended on Turn 5, otherwise my immobilised tanks would have quickly become destroyed tanks.

3 Kill Points to Luke, 4 Kill Points to me.

We had some great games and a good curry. So not bad for a night in at all.

Next weekend will be a good one. Out on Friday, play games all Saturday, out on the Saturday night, drag ourselves to the final day of the tournament on Sunday, then pack up and come home. Back to work on Monday!

In the meantime, Luke has purchased 3 Tau Battlesuit boxes from me (they were just sitting in the cupboard) and will be amalgamating what points he has from his Stealth Suits and lone twin missile pod Battlesuit to see if he can make ANOTHER Fireknife Tau Battlesuit team from them.

If he can kill enough, I think Luke might do quite well with his Tau army at this year's Grand Tournament.

Final Grand Tournament Tau List

2009-10-02T17:55:00.000+01:00

It's time to settle on a Tau army list for the Grand Tournament.

Regular readers of Warhammer Tau have been very vocal when it comes to my army selection. Some think Kroot and Pathfinders are awesome, some love Piranhas and some prefer twin linked missile pods on their Tau Battlesuits rather than twin linked flamers.

But if there's one thing we all agreed upon, it's that the Tau army is struggling against the new army updates.

Not that I'm making any excuses when I get my arse kicked at the Grand Tournament. I'm not the greatest player in the world, but I give it a whirl. I'd probably be greater if I had a cheesier and more forgiving army though.

So my army for the GT has been built on experience and personal preference. For me Kroot die in droves, Piranhas are too expensive for what they do, Pathfinders are too static and even get me started on Vespid! So here is the 1500 points Tau army list I will be taking with me.

1500 points Tau army list for the 2009 Grand Tournament Heat 1

Tau Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 Battlesuits with twin linked flamers and single missile pods

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

Hammerhead with Railgun, Smart Missile System, Targeting Array (comes as standard), Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

Skyray with Smart Missile System, Target Lock (comes as standard), Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

2 man Broadside Team with Targeting Arrays
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

Thoughts
This is my 1500 points army until a new Tau Codex (whenever that may be). I can't squeeze anymore out of this army.

Yes, I still love my Skyray. Those markerlights are a god send when it comes to Lictors, taking out Battlewagons with Broadsides and making sure the Tau Battlesuit command team kills what it shoots at.

Twin linked flamer and single missile pod Tau Battlesuits have been a topic of much controversy lately. Twin linked missile pod is the way to go people say, but it only yields +1 hit on average while the single flamer is far less deadly.

It's a slight trade off between a tiny bit better at maybe glancing tanks or completely annihilating troops. I'll take the complete annihilation of troops thanks!

The Tau army struggles against hordes of armour 11-12 vehicles, so instead of worrying about them, let's just kill what comes out of the transports. That's what we're good at after all.

Tau Tournament Tactics
I'm going with the 1 tactic which consistently works. That's all the heavy support deployed safely at the back of the board while everything else comes on from reserve and counters threats...or just runs for its life.

All my victories have used this tactic and nearly all of my defeats have been when I've set up everything and lost the ability to react to my opponent's deployment.

I have 2 weeks until the Grand Tournament weekend on October the 17th, so I'd better get some more games in.

PS: If you see me or my army on the day, come over and say hi.
Please buy me a beer as well. I may need it.

New Tau Battlesuits Concept

2009-09-29T07:30:00.001+01:00

The Farsight concept miniature at Games Day UK has sparked a lot of interest online. Ironically, Farsight and the new Pathfinder sculpts were both at UK Games Day 2008, but relegated to a bottom level shelf which many missed. Had a friendly GW staffer (who wasn't hysterically happy!) not pointed me to it, I would have missed it like so many others.

It's a fantastic model, taking elements from a variety of anime mecha sources before mashing it all together into a very distinct Tau look. The shield, plasma rifle and sword are all incorporated in a style that mimics the number of Tau battlesuit conversions you see online.

While Farsight and the Pathfinders will never go into production (because they were test models), the Tau are beginning to have a distinct new look and development of aesthetics thanks to modellers and the efforts of Forgeworld who produce some very nice Battlesuits. Most notable of which is the new XV9.

Someone snapped a picture of the XV9 at Games Day all painted in a drab military scheme similar to the typical Tau colours.

Judging from these miniatures I think that this is the way the Tau army will be going in the future in terms of colourscheme and design.

The Tau battlesuit model is horribly outdated. The same goes for the Broadside battlesuit and both kits are incredibly weak at the ankles.

So while the future for the Tau Empire looks bright, for the meantime we will have to sit and wait and see what happens. But Games Workshop needs to do some proper army development for our blue-skinned race (a la Orks, Imperial Guard and Space Wolves) or they may as well let Forge World produce the new Tau Empire codex.

Railguns VS Battlewagons

2009-09-24T22:56:00.002+01:00

On Sunday Marc came round for some more games of Warhammer 40K. His Orks were back, but this time the Tau were ready for them. Well, as ready as they'd ever be.

As someone who does not believe in tailoring their army list to beat a particular opponent, I had developed my Tau force to better take on all comers.

The fact that I had twin linked missile pods for light armour and flechette dischargers on all my tanks is just a happy coincidence. Oh, and smart missile systems, which are essentiall for extra range and more shots on the move.

Only after making the upgrade did I realise that I could only fire 1 burst cannon and the railgun on my Hammerhead whilst moving.

We played 2 games because game 1 was over in about 15 minutes. I deployed only my long range anti-tank units and Marc set up opposite the Broadsides.

The Skyray moved into markerlight range, hit the Big Mek's Battlewagon with both markerlights, which were used to knock the 4+ cover save down to 6+ for the Broadsides, who (hitting on 3+ with rerolls) penetrating the Ork vehicle and blew it up.

With the side armour of Ghazghull's Battlewagon exposed, the Tau Hammerhead moved into sight, hitting it in the side armour with its railgun.

Marc failed his 4+ cover save and this Battlewagon was also destroyed.

Stranded in the corner Marc quite rightly conceded. But the second game was tougher!

Game 2

The strength and weakness of this Ork army is the Battlewagons. Unfortunately your first 2 turns will tell you how the game is going to go. If you can destroy the Big Mek's and Ghazghul's Battlewagons by turn 2, you're likely to win. If not, you're like to die -screaming!

This second game was Kill Points and Table Quarters. Marc set up as close as possible to the centre of the table, while I set up in my quarter as far back as possible.

Please note that I was VERY careful with my unit placement. I had to be over 42" away from him. This would give him Turn 1 to move 13" (red paint job) and in the following turn call Ghazghull's WAAAGH! for a total move, disembark, fleet and charge of 29". That would give me 2 turns of firing.

Well, I got my 2 Turns of firing. Thank god some of my reserves had shown up to fire their missile pods into the side of the Big Mek's Battlewagon, otherwise it would never have blown up!

My luck was atrocious, which meant it was time to see how the game would go if I COULDN'T blow up 2 Battlewagons in the first 2 turns.

Please note: I was a complete dufus and parked my Hammerhead on top of a building where it immobilised itself in the following turn.

By turn 3 I had managed to destroy two of the Battlewagons, but by then the Orks were into me and 1 Battlewagon was still operational. The Skyray had been torn out of the sky, Snikrot's Kommandos had outflanked from behind the Broadsides, dissecting them in short order before making their way to the immobilised Hammerhead. Although its flechette dischargers took a horrific toll on the Orks.

The Orks stranded on foot were gunned down by massed Tau firepower, but nothing substantial enough to wipe out the Big Mek's mob in a single turn. So it took 2 turns instead.

The Orks proceeded to chase the Tau around the edge of the board (in the usual Tau way) as Tau firepower did very little and the skimmers kept moving away. Thank god this game wasn't with multiple objectives!

The game ended on Turn 6. As always, I could have done with it ending on Turn 5, or continuing to Turn 7, but that's just sod's law.

Had I placed my Battlesuits a little better, I could have killed his trukk with another round of fire (instead of just immobilising it) and kept my Skyray and Hammerhead alive for another turn. But hey, we all make mistakes. I'll just have to learn from them.

Now to look forward to Marc unleashing his Ork Biker Nobz which he will be replacing Snikrot's Kommandos with. I'm short on firepower as it is, so that should prove interesting to say the least.

Marc killed: 1 Broadside Team, 1 Skyray, 1 Hammerhead and 1 squad of Tau Firewarriors
I killed: 2 Battlewagons, 1 Ork mob, 1 Big Mek
Result: Draw

CONCLUSION
A few mistakes on my part. Marc could have been more aggressive with his Battlewagon charge at the start of the game, but it made little difference.

God help me when Marc swaps Snikrot's Kommandos for Biker Nobz, because then I will be screwed. I'm sure I don't have the firepower to put them down as well, but we'll see.

Overall I'm pleased with how the Tau army played, even if I did waste a whole 15 minutes deploying 3 units while working out the attack range of Marc's army over 2 turns in relation to their position on the board. But the revised Tau army list works!

The anti tank units drew the Ork army in while the rest of the Tau army arrived from reserve on the opposite flank and fired missile pods into the side armour of the Battlewagons.

Flechette Dischargers didn't get to do much. Although 3 turns of firing the flechette dischargers into some Orks inflicted a lot of casualties, but the tank still got smacked by a power klaw and killed. I could drop them and get another Tau Battlesuit.

Now there's something to think about.

Tau XV-9 Hazard Battlesuit from Forgeworld

2009-09-24T17:40:00.002+01:00

New for the Tau is the XV-9 ‘Hazard’ Close Support Armour, an original battlesuit design intended to act as a powerful counter-attack unit and mobile weapons platform. A recent addition to the Tau arsenal created in response to heavy losses incurred during the bloodiest phases of the Third Sphere Expansion, the XV-9 is one of the most complex and advanced combat systems the Tau have ever put into wide production, requiring a veteran’s skills to master in combat in service of the greater good. Designed by Daren Parrwood, the XV-9 is larger than a standard crisis suit as you can see Here and looks sleekly lethal. This first version comes equipped with two twin-linked burst cannon.

We should have a limited supply of this model available at Games Day UK, and the model will go on general release later in the year.

Another advancement for the Tau Empire from Forgeworld.
Essentially this is another Tau Battlesuit with +1 toughness, 2 twin linked burst cannons and vectored retro thrusters (which nobody uses).

When I saw the thumbnail for this models on the Forgeworld Newsletter I squealed like a little girl. But then I had a closer look and I must say that I'm not that taken with it.

Thank god it's a Fast Attack choice though. Tau need all the fast attack choices they can get!

Having seen the previous Forgeworld Battlesuits and the new Farsight concept model (which will never be released) at last year's UK Games Day it seems like a serious technological redesign of the Tau may be on the cards in the far future.

We'll see what the future brings, but in the meantime, I'm not enthralled by this model -which is a shame. Although all Tau Battlesuits need toughness 5 if you ask me!

Broadside Swan Dive

2009-09-20T22:26:00.001+01:00

This evening my Forgeworld Broadside took a swan dive off the breakfast bar and into the ceramic kitchen floor.

There was a crash, an expletive and hasty assessment of the damage.

As you can see from the photo, gluing the leg armour to the fit definitely formed a strong hold -because the break goes across part of the leg armour.

I hate Tau Broadside models. Someone sneezes and they break and it's usually the ankles. The same goes for Battlesuits, but the later casts seem to have thicker or at least stronger ankles.

The right knee has also come unglued, so this is going to take some careful gluing to get a strong and secure hold again. But those ankles are going to be weaker than ever from here on in.

By the way, I played 2 games this evening. Won 1, Lost 1. More on those later.

Lower Standards = Faster Production

2009-09-20T06:38:00.001+01:00

I'm an incredibly fussy painter. This fact is of much amusement to my friends, because I can't resist hand painting icons, perfect orange stripes and other painstaking details.

Things get worse. Tau were meant to be my 'speed paint' army despite being the neatest of all my Warhammer 40k armies -ever! Who'd have thought that a base coat and a highlight, plus some orange stripes would be so time consuming?

It takes me 2 days to complete a Tau Battlesuit. It takes James 3 hours (at the most) to finish 10 Space Marines.

I've been reworking my army a lot recently and I have to confess that I dread adding new units, simply because it takes SO LONG for me to paint anything. Meanwhile James is dry brushing his Dark Angels and Marc is stippling his Orks (for a nice rust effect). They're both dirty painting methods, but the results are good and the production rate is quick!

Now that I've hopped back aboard the Space Wolves bandwagon with Big Jim, it's time to think about production speed. Not only for my new Space Wolves army, but for the Tau army too.

When we were at Warhammer World last weekend we saw some fantastic armies. Most of which had only been quickly painted. They were for the most part a basecoat, perhaps a wash and a drybrush. I looked closely at a few and thought "Hey, I could do that!" and without feeling any guilt from not giving my models the utmost attention to detail. Si Thorne's Ork Biker Nobz army was testament to a simple paint job being more effective than painstaking highlights that could only be seen right up close.

So when I saw these Tau Battlesuits on the new GW blog, I thought "Hey, I can do that!"

I like the simple Robotech inspired colourscheme, the relatively dirty look, all quickly achieved with dark grey washes over a white basecoat with some additional damage added with a bit of sponge. The cuts, holes and scrapes are also a nice feature. It's certainly not clean, but it does look good and best of all, it's quick!

Painting at speed is what's holding me back in the hobby. I can buy and build stuff at an impressive rate, but I can't paint it fast enough.

I'll have a chat to James (master of the drybrush) about painting my Tau (and Space Wolves) in a similar scheme. But essentially, it's time to swallow my pride and simply paint an army.

This means selling my current Tau army after the Grand Tournament and starting afresh. I plan to build my favourite 1500 points Tau army list first, then expand again from there.

So I'm going to be painting both Space Wolves AND Tau. Should be fun!

They'll Keep Fighting -And They'll Win!

2009-09-17T21:02:00.000+01:00

Okay, that's the ending slogan for the movie Starship Troopers, but the Tau are back, with another revised battle plan. They'll keep fighting -and they'll win!

James came over last night to play video games, but ended up talking about the Tau Codex and how to make a better army list -for 3 hours!!

He was just as horrified as Marc at how overpriced everything in the Tau codex is. But, James was far more positive, reminding me how I give his Ravenwing a run for his money and always manage to beat an opponent (eventually) through incredibly sneaky tactics. He's not wrong, however the most influential thing he had to say was "Just accept that you're going to die."

An interesting philosophy you might think. But what James means is: Don't worry about keeping everything alive, just play them to their utmost tactical potential.

So deploy the Broadsides in the corner and keep firing until an outflanking unit tears them apart if you have to avoid faster units coming down the middle. And most importantly -put everything that's not effective in the early turns of the game in Reserve. They can get killed later and hopefully react to the enemies actions.

As for revising my army list (again), my problems before came from not being happy fielding Kroot, Pathfinders or Piranhas. I don't care what other people say, they're too slow, too fragile and in the case of the Piranhas -far too expensive.

So I've gone back to my previous Tau army list and addressed which units are under performing and HOW they are failing to meet their survivability and kill quotas.

1500 points Tau army list

Tau Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile Pod
1 Leader with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile pod, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multitracker and Disruption Pod

Skyray with 2 Burst Cannons, Target Lock (comes as standard), Targeting Array, Multitracker and Disruption Pod

2 man Broadside Team with advanced stabilization
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

The Good
The best stuff in this army is the general 12" movement of all units (apart from the Broadsides), my reliable Tau Battlesuit Command team all armed with plasma rifle, missile pod and hitting on 3+. Expensive, but awesome.

Having a mechanised army really helps when it comes to the horrendous numbers of heavy bolters and other anti infantry weapons. Disruption pods are equally awesome.

The Bad
Units that let me down are the Broadsides unless they get help from the Skyray
The Skyray, because it seems to spend all its time (and markerlights) helping the Broadsides
The Tau Battlesuit team with twin linked flamers and missile pods

The Remedy
The Broadsides are easily fixed by losing Assisted Stabilisation Systems (slow & purposeful) and giving them Targeting Arrays (+1 BS). Then I can just park them on a hill and leave them to shoot. This way they don't need the expensive Skyray to help them every turn.

The Skyray is a tricky one. Everyone seems to rave about markerlights, but are they really that good? Well, yes they are when something absolutely has to die and a hard hitting unit can make the most of those markerlights to slot their target good and propper.

I think my Skyray tactics have been pretty poor when I could have been firing more seeker missiles. While I could pay 10 points more for another Hammerhead with a railgun (which is awfully tempting), 1 in 2 shots seems to get deflected by 4+ cover saves and with my 1 shot railgun, it's usually that 1 shot which gets ignored.

BUT, if I think of the Skyray Missile Turret at firing 2 Krak Missiles per turn (at range 36"), then it's suddenly a much more offensive tank. Might be worth giving it a smart missile system so that it can move 12" and fire ALL its weapons. Now there's an idea!

Finally, I come to the Tau Battlesuit team with twin linked flamers and missile pods. This unit either does nothing all game and then has a moment of glory with the flamers. Or they fire missile pods desperately and do nothing all game.

Twin linked missile pods and single flamers are slightly more expensive, but definitely a more reliable choice. I'd then be able to hit with a much higher percentage of shots and more likely destroy or at least immobilise more vehicles. The flamers are still there as a nice counter attack for troops huddled around one of my tanks.

Other failings of the army include not being able to deal with hordes of troops while the tanks get smacked out of the sky when they get charged, even when the attackers need 6+ to hit. But I also have a remedy for this!

NEW!
1500 points Tau army list

Tau Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 Battlesuits with twin linked missile pods and single flamers

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

Hammerhead with Railgun, Smart Missile System, Targeting Array (comes as standard), Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

Skyray with Smart Missile System, Target Lock (comes as standard), Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Flechette Discharger

2 man Broadside Team with Targeting Arrays
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

Changes Made
You will have probably noticed that I've given all my tanks flechette dischargers. These babies wound anything on 4+, regardless of toughness. You still get a save of course, but that's still very damaging to mobs of Orks, Nids and anything else charging my tanks. Usually it's softer units that are likely to charge them.

One of the biggest problems in my last game was a tank getting charged, because once it's been charged, it can be charged again and again due to its movement of 12". Foot slogging Orks need only move 6", then charge 6". Of course with flechette dischargers, a 16 strong mob would get wittled down to around 9 models after charging. No Ork player would want to do that 2 turns in succession. I doubt few Space Marine players would happily charge 10 marines at one of these tanks now! Either way, it greatly helps to wittle down enemy numbers.

Hopefully I can play some more games on Saturday.
Until then!

Orks VS Tau - Another Attempt

2009-09-16T18:38:00.001+01:00

Disheartened by my three dreadful games this weekend, I arranged another game against Marc's Orks, this time with a revised list.

I took a squad of Kroot to Outflank and either assault or run for an objective, some Pathfinders on recommendation from a few tourney players, a couple of piranhas for some much needed melta guns and a second Hammerhead in place of the Skyray. I also gave the Broadsides targeting arrays instead of Assisted Stabilisation Systems.

Game: Secure Ground (3 objectives)
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Players: Marc, Orks, VS Adam, Tau Empire

In the meantime, Marc had also modified his list, ditching the killa kans and deff dread in favour of Snikrot and 15 kommandos equipped with 2 burnas.

This unit would then be held in reserve and could come on from ANY board edge, preferably in the turn that Marc calls his WAAAGH! for maximum movement and close combat potential.

We rolled off. Marc chose his table edge, set up 2 counters in it, while I placed 1 counter in mine. He set up first and went first.

His deployment was pretty straightforward and would plow straight down the board, veering off in whatever direction took his fancy.

I also deployed centrally to make the most of my firepower for a single turn with the intention to then break off into two halves. I knew he could only come for one half of my army (or so the text book for his army implies).

However, due to the slow and fragile nature of my units, I wasn't convinced by this! But what the hell. I was also cautious to stay away from the board edges as best I could to avoid Snikrot and his Kommandos who could quite easily decimate Battlesuits and tanks alike with little effort.

The Orks sped toward the Tau gunline cheering wildly. The Tau formation began to break apart, blowing up the Trukk with the Battlesuits and destroying the Big Mek's Battlewagon with railguns.

In the following turn Ghazghull called his WAAAGH!! and the Orks surged forward. The Trukk mob slaughtered the Pathfinders, the Big Mek's mob charged the a Devilfish, but were only able to stun it.

Ghazghul jumped off his Battlewagon, then charged and killed all the Battlesuits before his Nobz retinue could get a look in.

The Ork Boyz in the last Battlewagon charged another Devilfish and destroyed it.

Seeing that all was lost, the Tau skimmers made for the Ork deployment zone, far away from the Orks!

The Hammerheads opened fire on the Battlewagons, along with the Broadsides, destroying one Battlewagon between them.

The Hammerheads used their target locks to combine their smart missile systems with that of the nearby Devilfish, killing a handful of Orks.

One of the Devilfish was too slow to get away and got charged by the Big Mek's mob again and was immobilised.

On the left flank, the Hammerhead was hit by a rokkit from the nearby Boyz squad, glanced and stunned, so it couldn't move or shoot.

Ghazghul killed all the Broadsides before his Nobz could get a look in yet again.

Snikrot didn't arrive from reserve.

After a few turns of stunned or immobile skimmers and brutal close combat, only a single Hammerhead and 6 Tau Firewarriors on foot were left, huddled around an objective in the Orks deployment zone.

The Big Mek's mob had been sent fleeing, as had Snikrot's after they had torn apart the Kroot in close combat after the alien mercenaries had Outflanked from reserve and run towards and objective.

With all the transports gone it was up to the Orks to make their way on foot towards the Tau firewarriors.

On Turn 5 the Tau Hammerhead sped towards the objective in the Tau deployment zone, hoping that the game would end. Then the Tau would scrape a victory by contesting the Ork held objective while Tau Firewarriors claimed an objective in the Ork deployment zone.

But the Hammerhead fell short and the game continued for another turn.

The Hammerhead was torn apart by Ghazghul while his Nobz squad who walked off on their own gunned down the Tau firewarriors from a distance, killing 3 of them and forcing a break test, which they failed, leaving the objective unclaimed.

Conclusion
In hindsight I should have spaced my forces out right from the start and begun running much earlier. I would simply have to accept that whatever Snikrot attacked when he and his Kommandos came on would die.

Then again, I'm still not fast enough to get away from all the Orks.
God help me when Marc swaps Snikrot and his Kommandos for some Nob Bikerz.

I had a chat with Marc after the game and he made some suggestions. Then I told him how much each of my units cost and his attitude changed.

"So they're like the Grey Knights," he said "overpriced for what they are and not very good under the new rules."

I'm going to give the Tau another whirl, this time I'm dropping the Pathfinders because they were useless, dropping the Piranhas because they're too expensive for a suicide squad, giving ALL my tanks flechette dischargers and have a 2-man Tau Battlesuit team with twin linked flamers and single missile pods.

I probably won't get another game in unil next weekend - so stay tuned!

40K Weekend at Warhammer World

2009-09-12T20:29:00.003+01:00

This weekend I have been mostly playing Warhammer 40K! Friday morning we all bundled into the car and drove up to Warhammer World, stopping off for a McDonald's breakfast along the way and a cup of coffee.

Friday was a relatively relaxed affair with just the three of us playing. Although we did bump into a few people who said they'd happily come for a game on Saturday.

First up, James wanted to test his semi-static Space Marine list against Marc's new Ork army (hastily glued together the night before).

Considering that both James and Marc made a few mistakes in their game, the Space Marines enjoyed a convincing win, drowning Ghazghul and chums in a torrent of plasma, melta and sniper rifle fire. Meanwhile mobs of Ork boyz were beaten down in close combat as the wave of Orks smashed apart on the rocks of James's army.

We broke for lunch at Bugman's bar before it was my turn to face the Orks with the might of the Tau Empire.

40K Battle Reports

Game: Capture & Control
Deployment: Dawn of War
Players: Marc, Orks, VS Adam, Tau Empire

Ghazghul Thrakka, 5 mega armoured nobz
Battlewagon with rokkit, grot riggers, death roller and red paint job

Big Mek with kustom force field
12 Orks: including Nob with powerklaw, rokkit
Battlewagon with rokkit, grot riggers, death roller and red paint job

12 Orks: including Nob with powerklaw, rokkit
Battlewagon with rokkit, grot riggers, death roller and red paint job

12 Orks: including Nob with powerklaw, rokkit
Trukk with rokkit, grot riggers, reinforced ram and red paint job

3 Killa Kanz with kustom mega blasters
1 Deff Dread with big shootas

I took my usual 1500 points tau army. The game started in favour of the Tau after baiting Ghazghul into the open in order to smash up the Skyray, which was a mere inch out of charge range! Unfortunately even the entire Tau army firing at Ghaz and chums couldn't wipe out the squad and the Skyray was charged, hit on a 6 and exploded. In the following turn the Battlesuit Command Team wiped out the rest of the squad with their plasma rifles and missile pods. Angered by this the Ork army charged forward as one towards the Tau tank line, which fell back firing.

It was at this point I discovered that I simply didn't have the anti-tank to deal with this army. 3 Battlewagons, 1 trukk, 3 killa kans and 1 dreadnought were too much for 6 missile pods and 3 railguns.

I continued to fall back, but not fast enough as he gained on me every turn. Calling a WAAAGH!, the Big Mek and his squad charged a Devilfish, hitting it on a 6 with a powerklaw (isn't it always the way) and destroying it. In retaliation, the Tau Battlesuit team with twin linked flamers stepped in and annihilated the entire squad. Later they did the same to a second Ork squad after another Devilfish had been torn out of the sky of course.

With almost all the Ork troops wiped out, surely I'd have nothing to worry about? WRONG! The Battlewagons advanced en masse, mowing down any surviving Fire Warriors, Tau Battlesuits and Broadsides with their Death Rollers.

The game ended with the Orks controlling 1 objective. Of the Tau, only the Hammerhead had survived.

With that, we packed up, walked to our hotel (the long way round), watched some TV, then walked back to Nottingham centre for a night at The Pit & Pendulum.

Saturday morning, we arrived back at Warhammer World to find the car park heaving and Bugman's bar overflowing with people. It turns out that a Horus Heresy era campaign weekend by the Tempus Fugitives was being run. So there were lots of awesome armies and conversions to see. Luckily Games Workshop only ever lets out half of their gaming hall, so we still had plenty of tables to play on.

A couple of guys I'd contacted previously and Glenn, who we'd bumped into the day before showed up for some games.

While James played a Sisters of Battle player with his Ravenwing and Marc unleashed his Orks against a Blood Angels player I'd been chatting to (whose friends hadn't bothered to show up!), I was set to play Simon Thorne and his Ork Nobz biker army.

I've known Si for a few years now through various tournaments. Our first game had been a tough one between Deathwing terminators and Tyranids. The game was so close, we'd always wanted to play another, but it never came about -until now!

Game: Capture & Control
Deployment: Dawn of War
Players: Si Thorne, Orks, VS Adam, Tau Empire

Warboss with power klaw, cybork body, bike
8 Ork Biker Nobz with varying junk for wound allocation and 6 power klaws + Painboy

Warboss with power klaw, cybork body, bike
8 Ork Biker Nobz with varying junk for wound allocation and 6 power klaws + Painboy

Yes, that's it!

Well, we knew how this game was going to go, so I set up to basically open fire with my entire army on one of his units and hopefully wipe it out.

Turn 1, everything fired on one of the squads, inflicting 6 wounds, but killing nothing.

I couldn't move fast enough to get away, so over the course of the game, he ate a few units each turn, I inflicted some wounds each turn until he had just 8 Ork biker nobz left. I could have got a draw on Turn 5, but overlooked how I could have sacrificed a unit. If the game had gone on another turn, then I certainly would I have lost anyway.

We took a quick break to look at many of the Heresy era armies on display. Most of the armies were basecoated, washed and drybrushed, but looked surprisingly good for it. Then again, I had been inspecting Simon's stunning Ork Biker Nobz army only to find that up close it was a very basic paint job. Looks great on the table top though! Certainly something to think about when it comes to painting my armies quickly.

My next opponent was Glenn More. I played Glenn at Carnage 2009 and we had a really close game. I wanted to play him ever since, so today was my chance. The tactics that had served me well before was to blow up his transports, then shoot the squishy stuff.

Game: Secure Ground
Deployment: Dawn of War
Players: Glenn More, Eldar VS Adam, Tau Empire

Eldar Avatar

Farseer with singing spear, fortune and doom
5 fire dragons + exarch with fire pike
wave serpent with twin linked star cannons, spirit stone

9 dire avengers + exarch with bladestorm
wave serpent with twin linked bright lance, spirit stone

3 jetbikes, shuriken cannon

3 jetbikes, shuriken cannon

1 Vyper jetbike with shuriken cannon and scater laser

1 Fire Prism with holofield and spirit stone

1 Wraithlord with wraithsword, flamers and bright lance

1 Wraithlord with flamers, bright lance and eldar missile launcher

I spent the first turn firing at the Eldar Avatar and managed to immobilise the waveserpent carrying the dire avengers with the Broadsides. After that I just struggled to kill anything. Missile pods and rail guns bounced harmlessly off eldar skimmers, while the plethora of smart missiles in my army had little to shoot at but an Avatar who had 'Fortune' case on him, so he took forever to die.

It was another game of everything surging towards me, my units falling back, but not falling back fast enough (because they're slow!) and dying a slow death while being able to kill very little.

With my weapons ineffective and having no close combat potential, Glenn was free to zoom all his units right in my face, knowing that I could do nothing while his high strength weapons and superior mobility took my units apart.

In the meanwhile, James and Simon had been playing the toughest game of their lives as Ravenwing bikers and landspeeders clashed with Ork biker nobz. I wish I'd taken some photos! The game ended in a very close draw. Simon's nobz had simply sat on the objectives and weathered fire because they couldn't risk chasing after any of the Ravenwing units and abandoning the objective. But as Simon said, if one of his units hadn't broken and fled he would have won -testament to the sheer hardness (if bland nature) of his army list.

After this Simon went home to spend some time with his missus while Glenn joined us in Bugman's for a drink for a drink and a bite to eat. I went for the lasagne again to play it safe while Glenn ordered the chilli con carne. I wish I'd ordered the chilli too, because it was huge! James and Marc came back from their cigarette break and did the same. Somewhat disheartened by my three staggering defeats, I ordered the biggest slice of chocolate fudge cake you've ever seen.

Conclusion
Even though I was obliterated in all 3 games, I had a fantastic time meeting up with people and playing Warhammer 40K.

As for the Tau army, it's evident how much it struggles in 5th edition now that people know what 5th edition Warhammer 40K is all about. In fact, it's getting more like Warmachine where armies revolved around special characters, long ranged shooting does little and getting right in your opponent's face with short range, high strength attacks and hard close combat units will win your games.

Does this sound like the Tau to you? Well, no of course it doesn't.
But to address this change in the game, I've decided to give my army list a reshuffle, throw in more high strength, low AP guns and generally harder hitting stuff. The kroot are back too, so let's see how they do!

Warhammer World Weekend

2009-09-10T23:19:00.001+01:00

I'm off to Warhammer World for a weekend with a few friends to play Warhammer 40K. I'll be back in a few days with photos and battle reports.

The plan is to drive to Nottingham tomorrow morning, go play games in Warhammer World, drop our stuff off at the Travel Lodge and saunter into town. In Nottingham town centre we'll probably end up in The Pit & pendulum (because Rock City is rubbish on a Friday!) and stay until kicking out time, find a bar somewhere. Drink til they kick us out and then wander back to the hotel.

Saturday, we've arranged games of Warhammer 40K against some people we often see at tournaments. I'll be meeting up with Simon Thorne who boasts and beautiful Tyranid army, but is planning to unleash his latest Grand Tournament army upon my Tau army. His friend Matt (another Tau player) is also coming along...and probably someone else as well. I for one fear going up against Marc's new Ork army. But I'm sure it's nothing that railguns, markerlights and missile pods can't cure.

I expect to get 3-5 games of Warhammer 40K in this weekend. So stay tuned for photos, battle reports and shots of the Warhammer World museum.

I Eat Space Wolves For Breakfast!

2009-09-08T19:09:00.000+01:00

The Space Wolves will be here next month, but it seems that the Space Wolves Codex has already been spilled across the forums. So is the new Space Wolves army something to be concerned about for everyone else who isn't hopping on the Space Wolves bandwagon?

Whenever a new Codex comes out, the Warhammer 40K community seems to lose their minds for a little while...until they get a few games in and give the new army a kicking. The Orks were no different, the Imperial Guard were no different and few people really raised an eyebrow about the latest Space Marine Codex...apart from Vulkan Hestan.

Having read the new rules, I can confirm that the Space Wolves truly are close combat monsters and that they are more costly for all their wolf claws and special characters.

But wait a moment, if they're more expensive and only effective in close combat, that doesn't pose much of a threat for the Tau army does it?

When it comes to blasting apart Space Marines (which I'm particularly fond of), it's actually easier to wipe out a squad wearing power armour than a larger squad of cheaper troops in cover. So by that logic, if the Space Wolves army as a whole is going to be more expensive, that will mean LESS models to wipe out.

And as the Tau don't really do close combat (except against squishy things), the Space Wolves upgrades don't give them an advantage.

So for the Tau, it will be business as usual against the Space Wolves, albeit less long range firepower and probably more melta guns up close.

Pop the transports, kill the fast stuff, then shoot the troops at your leisure and speed away if things get too close.

In the meantime, I have 1 last Tau Battlesuit to paint before Friday. I'm really looking forward to Saturday at Warhammer World. I haven't played 40K in ages!

Space Hulk Week

2009-09-06T09:20:00.001+01:00

Space Hulk arrived on Tuesday. Since then I have been playing lots of Space Hulk. I've now played the first 4 Space Hulk missions as both space marines and genestealers and it's been a blast!

We've had fun with the door switches. A Genestealer with a door switch is a fantastic way to waste overwatch ammo...well, until the assault cannon blew a hole straight through the door, then shredded the Genestealer who was hammering the Open/Close button.

It soon become apparent that you need to destroy some of the doors, which makes the space marine with the chainfist invaluable. Similarly, the Genestealer player needs to use a variety of cunning ploys to stop himself from getting hosed down by storm bolters, set alight by the heavy flamer or simply smashed round the head by the thunder hammer. Yes, the space marine sergeant armed with thunder hammer and storm shield is a close combat monster!

In Space Hulk mission 2: 'Exterminate' we discovered just how good the thunder hammer sergeant was when a huge Genestealer swarm got into the central room which was being defended by all 5 terminators. When the space marines' guns jammed or they couldn't get any more overwatch shots, the sergeant decimated whatever was left in close combat in very short order. Suddenly there were only 3 blips left, so I sent him off down the corridor on his own, screaming "For The Emperoar!!" He killed 8 more Genestealers before the last one ripped him apart. Awesome.

Space Hulk is fantastically tactical in everyway for both the space marine player and the genestealer player. While it's nice to let the space marine player win so you can continue the narrative, the genestealer player has a tough time once the space marine player knows what they're doing. But there are even more tactics to exploit for the genestealer player.

Like all the games we play, they start out relaxed and friendly, but like Warhammer 40K, Space Hulk is going to escalate into something quite fun and competitive.

For anyone using the egg-timer, we suggest throwing it away. It's supposed to run for 3 minutes, but we timed it and only got 2.2 minutes. Also, we've played some fantastically tactical turns that have turned the tide of a battle which wouldn't be possible under the 3 minute time limit, simply because you wouldn't have time to get all your shots off.

Noise Marines Army

2009-08-31T21:43:00.000+01:00

A Noise Marines army on Warhammer Tau? Actually, I forgot to bring my Tau with me to James's place today, so I had to borrow his Chaos army for a game.

Now, as someone who was formerly a follower of the 'ruinous powers' prior to embracing the 'greater good' of the Tau Empire, I thought this would be a great way to try out the Noise marines army I'd had forming in my mind.

Unfortunately, James doesn't have the army I wanted, so I proxied it using miniatures from his currently shelved Thousand Sons army.

James took his usual 1500 points Space Marines army, while I took a relatively cut n' paste list of:

Daemon Prince: mark of Slaanesh, wings, lash of submission
Daemon Prince: mark of Slaanesh, wings, lash of submission

5 noise marines with sonic blasters, led by champion with powersword and doom siren
Rhino with extra armour

5 noise marines with sonic blasters, led by champion with powersword and doom siren
Rhino with extra armour

5 noise marines with sonic blasters, led by champion with powersword and doom siren
Rhino with extra armour

2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators

Thoughts on the Noise Marine Army:
As you can see, this army is really thrilling on paper -not!

In truth I wanted to take what I'm convinced is the only way to play Chaos competitively without Plague Marines. But if you want to be really cheesy, simply swap the Noise Marine squads for Plague Marines squads with 2 plasma guns and a champion with a powerfist.

Anyway, we played 2 games.
First game was disastrous for me as I hadn't really figured out the army and it made me realise how comfortable I've become playing my Tau.

Second game was disastrous for James (despite my terrible dice rolling), which led to a solid victory for the powers of Chaos. However, the army is incredibly boring to play, isn't quite as versatile as my usual Tau mechanised force and made me realised why I stopped playing Chaos Marines in the first place...other than the comical failure of armour saves.

While I've always loved the look and feel of Chaos (and cackling madly to myself), the force seems like a bit of a gimmick, a bit of a one-trick-pony -essentially not a 'real' army. Orks (for example) are a real army, because you can imagine picking a huge variety of things from the Codex and creating all manner of forces from hordes of boyz on foot to speed freaks, battle wagon krumpanies and the like.

I can't imagine anyone playing an Apocalypse game with a Chaos army due to the limit of viable units. Even then, I regard the Chaos space marines army as depicted in the 4th edition codex which revolves around the Traitor Legions from the Horus Heresy, not random chaos renegades. No chaos purist would ever contemplate mixing plague marines, bezerkers, noise marines and Thousand Sons in a single army. They'd murder each other before they even got to the enemy!

So while I continue to contemplate a second army to compliment my Tau, I'm sad to say the Chaos Marines shall not be it.

Although it was refreshing for James not to march his Space Marines straight down my throat, which is what usually happens when I'm playing Tau.

Tau Reinforcements

2009-08-31T12:47:00.000+01:00

Things have been quiet with Warhammer Tau of late. I haven't played much Warhammer 40K this summer due to one thing and another. But that's about to change. Especially when we have another weekend of Warhammer in Nottingham coming up. So with a campaign in the planning stages by yours truly, I've ordered a suitable amount of Tau reinforcements for my army.

I just typing this up while the washing is spinning, before I drive to James's for a spot of dinner and a game of Warhammer 40K on this fine and sunny British bank holiday Monday. Sadly no photos this time, as my camera battery has died and I appear to have lost the charger since moving into my apartment, which is a real bother.

Anyway, I've nearly finished painting my twin flamer/missile pod Tau Battlesuit squad. So with everything in my army case painted, it's time for the next wave of Tau reinforcements.

7 Tau Battlesuits
5 Tau Skyrays
Loads of Bits from The WarStore

In the meantime I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Space Hulk boxed set. I had a quick look at the box in my local gaming store and was very excited. So excited that I nearly told off the shop owner for not assembling the whole thing so we could play a game!

It sounds like the washing is finished. I'd best be off!

40K Scenery

2009-08-29T11:02:00.001+01:00

More 40K scenery! Things have been quite on the Warhammer 40K front of late due to life, the company I work for moving and Call of Duty: World at War. In fact, it was playing Resistance: Fall of Man that inspired me to purchase so much fine 40K scenery in the first place.

Fighting across a ruined landscape of shattered city buildings was a real blast and I feel the same about scenes from Call of Duty, especially when the Russians invade Berlin, surging forward through a network of interlinking ruins with wave upon wave of men.

I feel rather shallow at describing the excitement of these scenes when so many people fought and died in the second world war. But it is a rich tapestry from which to draw our inspirations in a war games hobby that involves little plastic men shooting at one another through the use of dice.

Anyway, enough philosophy, especially when we're likely to embark on a Stalingrad inspired 40K campaign.

The good news is that I've commissioned more 40K scenery to be made by Black Knight Studios from more ruined buildings.

Originally I was going to get some Tau Empire bastions made for Planetstrike, but soon realised that defending a ruined building was far more cinematic. I can then fortify it with wooden planks across the windows, barricades made from rubble and whatever battlefield debris my troopers find.

I think we're overdue for a proper 40K campaign along with a diverse mixture of terrain boards and 40K scenery to fight across. Typically, it's up to me to write and plan such things. So until I do, I think we'll all remain a little bored with our games of 40K.

However, the next big Broxbourne Wargamers Massive 40K day isn't far off. I'd better get those last two Tau Battlesuits painted!

Tau Apocalypse Art

2009-08-22T12:38:00.002+01:00

When it comes to Tau artwork, there's an illustration from Apocalypse and Planetstrike that I always find stirring.

Not because it's shows the Tau kicking arse against the monstrosity of the Tyranids, but from the classical perspective of an art critic.

It's very rare nowadays that anyone talks about Games Workshop artwork, unless it's fan art generated on the net. So as someone who studied Fine Art as part of their degree, I feel that the Games Workshop art studio has come on leaps and bounds in recent years by not only employing traditional media, but by utilising traditional methods of picture layout and construction.

I'm still struggling to acquire a full image of this Tau VS Tyranids artwork as it seems to be cropped in various places from a variety of sources.

There's a heck of a lot going on in this picture, but the real beauty of it isn't the attention to detail, the thousand Tau Battlesuits dropping out of the sky, the line of Tau Hammerhead gunships forming a battery line, the towering monstrous creatures or the Tau aircraft moving to intercept them. It's the sense of depth and dimension which creates an open space in the centre and to the right of the picture. This gives everything in the picture a perfect sense of scale while the Tau Battlesuit stood atop a fallen Carnifex gives us a great visual reference to measure the size of the varying figures throughout this piece.

Traditionally crafted art like this seems a far cry from the days of old which featured rather two-dimension efforts in a crisper comic book style and with the release of grander projects like Planetstrike and Apocalypse, Games Workshop is producing some fantastic art. I can't wait to see the illustrations inside the new Space Hulk rulebooks!

Painting Tau Battlesuits

2009-08-18T20:23:00.001+01:00

I've been painting Tau Battlesuits this weekend, which feels quite therapeutic, having not painted any of my Tau army for quite a while.

I've only done 1 of the 3 twin linked flamer Battlesuits which seem to have featured in countless battle reports for the past few months without every actually being painted. So with my second Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament on the way, I thought I'd better pull my finger out and get my Tau Battlesuits painted.

I'm very pleased with this one, because he's probably the cleanest of all my Tau Battlesuit conversions. He's also armed with a fantastic twin linked flamer conversion, which I 'borrowed' from the guy who runs the Advanced Tau Tactica forums.

I had to make a few moderations due to not having all of the same components or sheer laziness, but the essence of the design is there. Basically it's a plasma rifle block with the fuel line repositioned, a flamer fuel tank stuck on top and then the front of the Tau flamer with an extra nozzle stuck on the front. Finally a small rectangular chunk of plastic from the bottom of the pulse carbine handle fills out the bottom of the plasma rifle body, bringing it in line with the underlying support strut of the flamer.

For painting, I undercoated the gun in my usual Privateer Press Paint "Thornwood Green", applied the highlight (a Thornwood Green/Bleached Bone 70/30 mix), figured out which bits would look better in brown, then painted on two subtle orange stripes. Done!

I need to write up a Tau Battlesuit painting guide one day.

SPACE HULK

2009-08-17T08:59:00.002+01:00

Space Hulk is back and I'm very excited. I played Space Hulk to death after getting my hands on the Space Hulk point and click from Tearsdown.se which is sadly no longer available.

Space Hulk has been in the rumours for well over a year, so I was a little scheptical, but Space Hulk is finally here!

I've ordered my Space Hulk box this morning. I was tempted to get 2, then realised I was being a bit silly and bought just 1 instead.

Space Hulk Tactics

Having played the Space Hulk point and click game more than any sane person should, I've learned that Real Space Hulk tactics are very different to the 'obvioius tactics' normally employed.

Playing the Genestealers is relatively straightforward, unless the Space Marine player is incredibly lucky.

Playing the Space Marine terminators however, is a very tricky and tactical affair. Simply setting up 4 guys in a room, looking down each corridor is a recipe for disaster.

In Space Hulk, you not only have to create crossing lanes of fire, but get into the habit of getting your guys into position.

One example, is what I like to call Room Cross Fire.
You place 1 Space Marine in each corner of a room (if you have 5 guys, place the heavy flamer in the middle).

The Space Marine in the bottom right corner looks North, the Space Marine in the top right corner looks West, the Smace Marine in the top left corner looks South and the Space Marine in the bottom left corner looks East. Put them ALL on Overwatch and you've covered every angle with the firepower to put down ANYTHING that comes into the room, even if one of your guns jams.

That's all on Space Hulk for now until I get my box in the post. Then there might be a Space Hulk blog from me. Who knows?

Choosing a Tau Army

2009-08-12T18:42:00.001+01:00

For many people, choosing a Tau army isn't something on their minds. Rather, I get asked by a lot of people why on earth I chose Tau for my Warhammer 40K army.

Usually this is because they simply cannot find enthusiasm for the Tau Empire, it's look, feel or background. In fact, one guy told me how the Tau army was boring in every way. He explained how the army had no character, it was boring to play, boring to play against and just how much he disliked the models. Although he did remark on what a lovely job I'd done with the orange stripes.

So I thought that now was a good time to explain exactly why I play Tau, what makes the Tau so appealing not as a tactical force to play but as an army with a rich background and a strong theme.

Tau Background
Space communists. Most people believe that the Tau are communists in space with their Greater Good philosophy (how very democratic of them) with their miniature designs taking inspiration from the Ashigaru for their Firewarriors while Battlesuits are styled like Samurai and Stealth Suits are made to look like high tech ninja. Let's not forget that all their vehicles are named after a kind of fish and each caste is named after an element.

The comparison to the Japanese Feudal Period ends and we're plunged quite abruptly into the scattered tale of Games Workshop shoe-horning this new race into the Warhammer 40K universe.

In a nutshell, the Tau were discovered by an Adeptus Mechanicus explorer fleet, catalogued and forgotten. The Tau were busy fighting one another much like in the Japanese feudal period. But then the Ethereals appeared, united the Tau race and led them to work together and develop technology at a radical speed. The Imperium returned, came into conflict with the Tau and got their arses shot off.

The Xenology book (now out of print) explains how the Eldar genetically engineered the Ethereals to become leaders of the Tau, controlling them with their highly developed scent/musk glands reverse engineered from a Q'orl hive queen.

(For those not heavily into the unknown races of 40K, the Q'orl are insectoid wasp-like creatures with bionic implants.)

Then of course, we have Commander Farsight breaking away from the Tau Empire and forming his own enclave. This is a reference to Japanese history when Saigo Takamori's Samurai made their last stand against the Meiji government in the Battle of Shiroyama, which formed the historical basis for the movie The Last Samurai.

Other Influences
Like many of the armies in Warhammer 40K, the Tau draw on many other influences in the same way that Space Marines could be compared to medieval knights, that Tyranids take some elements of their design from Dinosaurs and how the Orks have been inspired by English football hooligans and Mad Max.

I think it's due to these types of cultural references that few people play Tau.
This is because few people fall into the right age category.

The real inspiration for the Tau comes from the late 80s and early 90s, which means that most 40K players are either too young or too old to truly appreciate the finer influences of the Tau Empire.

Turrican
Please note that this image is taken from Mega Turrican on the Sega Mega Drive. I couldn't get a good photo of the original Turrican on the Commodore 64.

Made in 1989, Turrican was developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts and ported to other systems later. Turrican was a ground breaking game and bearing in mind that I must have been about 6 years old when I played it, it had a big influence on me. The slogan on the back of the box read "Shoot or Die" and the electronic music by Chris Hülsbeck was just as ground breaking as the game itself.

In Turrican you control a lone warrior fighting hordes of mutant creatures and cybernetic monsters and were aided by an advanced suit equipped with powerful weapons.

Turrican was a platform game and a shooting game, which meant you jumped around a lot, shot things a lot and had to defeat some of the most ingenious Bosses every devised (or End-Of-Level-Guardians as they were then called).

Turrican II followed in 1991 and was every bit as amazing as its predecessor, but with more levels, a jet pack level, ever more ingenious Boss fights and some of the best video game music ever made. Chris Hülsbeck, who created the music for Turrican II is an inspiration to a large number of electronic and industrial musicians even today.

The Manga Video Boom
In the mid-90s Anime came to our shores in wave of VHS tapes released by Manga Entertainment with titles like The Guyver, Detonator Orgun, Cyber City Oedo 808 and AKIRA.

During a time in which the Sega Mega Drive dominated the video games industry, it was suddenly very clear where so many video game influences had come from, including many of the earlier Commodore 64 games, like Turrican.

A lot of people online dislike the Tau, claiming that they're too heavily influenced by modern anime. The irony is, that the Tau are heavily influenced by the early 90s anime, which is a far darker genre. After all, this is what the Japanese took from films like Robocop and ALIENS before mixing it with their own ideas and feeding it back to us.

However, there was a consistent theme running through anime, which was the empowerment of technology. The Guyver and Detonator Orgun for example, give us a protagonist with heroic intentions, but either due to their age, class or circumstances they find themselves weak and powerless. But then, they acquire a tank, giant robot or space fighter and are able to fight an alien menace, a mutant horde or an insane computer that's turned the populous into cybernetic zombies and save the day. Much like Turrican really.

Stylistically speaking, many of the Tau Battlesuits and vehicle designs hark back to even older anime, borrowing a number of aesthetic elements from Robotech, which began in 1985. I've watched parts of it, and while it's dated quite horribly, the robot designs are quite impressive and clearly show an early inspiration for the Tau Battlesuit.

CONCLUSION
As a guy in his late 20s, the Tau army fills me with visions of Saturday morning adventure cartoons, the video games I grew up playing, 80s-90s anime and feudal Japan. Throw in my own militaristic colourscheme and I've got an army that's rich in character, fun to play and tells a story with every battle.

I think that if you're building an army based purely on what Games Workshop gives you, then you won't get the most out of this hobby. You need to find your own inspiration for an army.

I'm not saying you should go crazy with conversions or over the top theming. But these are all great ideas to throw into the melting pot, even if they're not clearly represented on your models. Could you tell that all these ideas were incorporated into my army every time I play a game? Of course not. But that doesn't mean your inspirations can't be inside your head.

I hope that my article has thrown some light on the inspirations behind the Tau Empire (or my inspirations at least) and will encourage many more people to play them.

1500 Points Tau Army List

2009-08-11T20:10:00.000+01:00

Here's the 1500 points Tau army list I intend to take to this year's Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament.

Tau aren't one of the strongest tournament armies under 5th edition 40K, but they can give a good account of themselves and that's what I intend to do with them.

Last year I wasn't happy with my Tau, so I borrowed James's Deathwing army and had a blast, coming 1 position away from qualifying, which wasn't bad considering how badly I played.

This year, a lot more competitive players are attending Heat 1 of the 40K Grand Tournament, so things are expected to be a lot tougher.

All the same, I'll do my best with the Tau and pray for as many Annihilation missions as possible :)

1500 points Tau army list

Tau Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile Pod
1 Leader with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile pod, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Multitracker and Disruption Pod

Skyray with 2 Burst Cannons, Target Lock (comes as standard), Targeting Array, Multitracker and Disruption Pod

2 man Broadside Team with advanced stabilization
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

NOTE: some of my eagle eyed readers have pointed out that my usual list was 10 points over, having unintentionally added a bonding knife to the Broadside team and a Target Lock to the Hammerhead. Fortunately I haven't had to use either of these upgrades in any of my games!

ANOTHER NOTE: Please also note that the Tau Battlesuit team in this army photo are armed with missile pods and burst cannons. I'm currently painting the unit with missile pods and twin linked flamers.

ONE MORE NOTE: I'm sick of playing James's space marines, dark angels, deathwing and ravenwing. I need to get some games in against other opponents with different armies. Am currently pestering a Tyranid player from Essex for a game.

I need to do a lot of work on my Tau army. Not only does it need to triple in size, it needs a lot of Battlesuits, commander variants, troops and most importantly...Commander Farsight!

After the Grand Tournament, I'm contemplating fielding a similar army to this, but with another Hammerhead instead of the Broadsides and another Firewarrior team in a Devilfish instead of the twin linked flamer battlesuit team...or instead of the commander's bodyguard. There are plenty of options to play around with.

VIP Transport Conversion

2009-08-09T09:59:00.002+01:00

I saw this simple conversion over at the Advanced Tau Tactica this morning. Normally I'm not a fan of taking toys, sticking some 40K bits on and saying "Hey look, it's a 40K vehicle", but this one works rather well.

Basically, they've taken a Jedi fighter craft, stuck a fusion blaster, Tau aerial and shield generator on it and painted it in Tau colours.

Because we're planning some Apocalypse games and Planetstrike games integrated into a lengthy campaign of sorts, this got me thinking -what would an Ethereal cruise around in?

Obviously, a Devilfish full of his elite Firewarrior bodyguard would be the first choice for such an important official.

But let's say, it's an ambassador of the water caste or a valuable earth caste technician?

In the background it says that Piranha recon vehicles are used for scouting, fast attack and ferrying VIPs to key locations.

But I think I may have to 'borrow' this conversion as a better representation of a more 'civilian' Tau vehicle.

It's getting rather cold and lonely in the Tau 40K blogosphere lately with only Tau of War and The Hunter Cadre as comparable resources to read. So I'm finding myself frequenting the Advanced Tau Tactica more and more as a source of conversation and inspiration.

Space Marines VS Tau Battle Report 2

2009-08-08T07:37:00.001+01:00

This second Space Marines VS Tau Battle Report come from my new apartment. Please forgive the glowing Television screen. It's not the movie Poltergeist, it was infact Kerrang Radio playing on the telly.

Last time James's new Space Marine army gave the Tau a kicking. But this time the tables turned -and oh how they turned!

I always say it takes me 3 games against an army to truly defeat it and this Space Marine army is no exception. Many of you commented on the last battle report asking where his Land Speeders, terminators and attack bikes were. Truth be told, James doesn't need them to create an effect force when he favours sheer numbers of men in order to grab objectives.

Maybe one day he'll realise that his Dark Angels are still rather good, especially when combined with Outflanking Ravenwing squads? Time will tell.

Without further ramble -on to the battle report!

1500 Points 40K Battle Report:
Game: Seize Ground (4 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Opponent: James Le Grys, Space Marines

1500 Points Space Marine Army
Chapter Master with relic blade, storm bolter, hellfire rounds, orbital bombardment

Chaplain with jump pack and melta bombs
10 Assault Marines including sgt with powerfist

X3 Space Marine Tactical Squads
Sgt and 4 space marines, plasma gun
5 space marines, lascannon
Razorback with twin linked heavy bolters and extra armour

10 Sniper Scouts

Techmarine with Thunderfire Cannon

1500 Points Tau Army
Tau Shas’el with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile Pod
1 Leader with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile pod, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Target Lock, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, black sun filter

Skyray with 2 Burst Cannons, Target Lock, Targeting Array, Multitracker and Disruption Pod, black sun filter

2 man Broadside Team with advanced stabilization
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones, Bonding Knife

TERRAIN
Joel had come round that evening to check out my new apartment, so we let him set up the terrain. And he chose on some kind of whacky street-based set up. I was game, as was James and we rolled for Objectives, getting 4 in total.

James won the roll off and made me go first.
I placed an objective in the 2nd building from the right in my table half. He mirrored the placement of this objective. I then placed my last objective in the building on my far right. He placed an objective in the 2nd building from the left in his table half.

With fairly dense terrain around the centre and 4 closely placed objectives to fight over, this could be a very interesting and hard fought game.

Tau Set Up

I kept everything off the board, but my Tau Battlesuit command team. They deployed as far forward as possible inside a building. If James Infiltrated his Sniper Scouts, as I knew he probably would, they'd get a face full of plasma and missile pods for their troubles.

James kept everything off the board, but put his Scouts into Reserve and they could be Outflanking. He'd probably try to charge one of my tanks and glance it when they arrived and I would have to bear this in mind for later. Similarly, any Battlesuit or Broadside teams would have to remain more than 12" away from the sides of the board. Their firepower is too precious for them to be tied up in close combat.

TURN 1
The Tau army cruised on to the board at top speed, taking positions behind the buildings. Skyray on the left, with the twin flamer Battlesuit team behind. Two Devilfish in the centre and one Devilfish and a Hammerhead on the right. Meanwhile the Broadside team waddled on 4" just behind them. Now to wait for the arrival of the Space Marines.

The Space Marine razorbacks took up position around the central building, firing their smoke launchers. The combat squads with lascannons ran behind them. On the left flank the Assault Squad led by the Chaplain jumped behind the nearest building, while the Techmarine with Thunderfirecannon trundled towards the building on the far left flank. No shooting, so it was over the Tau.

TURN 2
While going first in Dawn of War can put you at a disadvantage when it comes to deploying your army, you effectively get the first round of fire in, even if those does come during Turn 2. As I've found before, if you're trying to shoot in Turn 1 of Dawn of War, you will be disappointed.

So I took the opportunity to make the most of my first volley in Turn 2 by destroying one of the Razorbacks, blowing the turret off another and stunning another...but it had extra armour, so it didn't make much difference. I was quite unlucky with my rolls, but hey, I'm getting used to that.

The Space Marine Chapter Master stumbled out of his destroyed Razorback, along with the combat squad he had joined. Only 1 of them had died in the explosion. They passing their pinning test.

In response, James surged forward with his two remaining mobile razorbacks, disembarking one of the squads on the edge of the central building with the Assault Squad and Chaplain a few inches behind.

The combat squads with lascannons held their position and began firing on the Tau tanks, but either missed, failed to penetrate or their shots were deflected by the Tau disruption pods.

The disembarked combat squad, heavy bolters from one of the Razorbacks and the Thunderfire cannon ALL took aim at the Tau Battlesuit command team in the centre building, killing both drones and one of the Battlesuit bodyguards, but they passed their morale check and held their position.

Meanwhile the Chapter Master called in an orbital bombardment on the Tau Battlesuits with twin linked flamers, hitting and wounding 3 models. One shield drone was destroyed, the other saved and one of the Battlesuits was instantly killed. The squad passed its pinning test, failed its morale check and fell back towards the table edge.

The Sniper Scouts didn't arrive from Reserve.

TURN 3
To stem the advancing tide of space marines, The hammerhead immobilised the Razorback on the right flank, while the combined efforts of the Tau Battlesuit command team and the twin flamer battlesuits who rallied mere inches from the table edge destroyed the Razorback on the left.

The Broadsides managed to get the Thunderfire Cannon and its techmarine gunner within line of sight and destroyed the artillery peice, but the techmarine was very much alive. This would make things much easier for when my Tau Firewarriors would have to disembark en masse and put down the Assault Squad.

In James's turn, the Assault Squad jumped over the destroyed Razorback and ran to the edge of the Tau occupied building which housed one of the objectives.

With every other immediate threat eliminated, the Tau army was ready to pounce!

The Sniper Scouts didn't arrive from Reserve.
The combat squad with lascannon on the left flank began running for the objective on the left flank.

TURN 4
The Skyray moved in, the Tau Battlesuit command team moved in, the twin flamer battlesuit team jumped out from behind the Skyray, ready to jump back if need be while the Tau Battlesuit command team acted as bait to draw the Assault Squad into the range of the twin linked flamers next turn.

The Tau Broadsides turned for face their smart missile systems towards the Assault Squad, the Hammerhead hovered in a ruin, it's massive railgun ready to fire.

Finally, two of the Devilfish surged forward, disembarking their 6 man firewarrior teams from the rear hatch who rapid fired with their pulse rifles.

The Assault Squad was wiped out in an orgy of destruction, leaving only the Chaplain reduced to 1 wound and with a markerlight remaining on him. The Skyray fired off 1 seeker missile (have you noticed that I fire these a lot now?) and obliterated its target.

To make things worse for James, the Hammerhead and two Devilfish were still yet to fire, making short work of the combat squad next to the destroyed Razorback.

Robbed of his prize unit, James was now playing the defensive game...but that didn't stop one of his combat squads from charging one of the Devilfish on the right flank while the Sniper Scouts finally arrived and Outflanked from the right flank also before running towards the objective in the Hammerhead occupied building.

The combat squad with lascannon on the left flank continued running for the objective on the left flank.

TURN 5
The only threat to my objectives were the Sniper Scouts. They had to die! And so two Devilfish, one which disembarked its firewarriors and the Hammerhead decended upon the doomed Scouts. The Scouts were mercilessly wiped out.

Meanwhile the Broadsides and Skyray finished off the combat squad which had been left out in the open after foolishly charging one of the Tau Devilfish transports.

This left the last Devilfish to land on top of the objective in the central building, while firing its smart missile systems into the Chapter Master's squad. The Battlesuit teams also added their missile pods to the salvo, wiping out the entire squad, but for the Chapter Master. One of James's objectives was now unclaimed.

In retaliation, a lascannons from the stationary space marine combat squad fired at the Devilfish parked on the roof of the ruin, but one failed to hit and the other shot was saved by the vehicle's disruption pod.

Meanwhile the other combat squad ran towards the objective in the central building, only just managing to get within range to claim it.

The combat squad with lascannon on the left flank reached the objective on the left flank.

We played for 2 more Turns, which were uneventful. I couldn't push the attack without moving Devilfish off of my objectives and James lacked the firepower to inflict any serious damage.

CONCLUSION
A draw. Well, it didn't feel like a draw. But I think this simply shows how Tau struggle in an objective grabbing mission. I did everything right, defended well and prioritised the elimination of each threat.

I feel that James played rather recklessly with his Assault Squad and walked them all into my guns. Although it makes me appreciate the sheer volume of firepower the Tau can bring to bear, especially when you stop thinking about ignoring people's armour saves because you can simply drown them in weight of fire. Even James's consistently above average passing of armour saves couldn't save the Assault Squad, or the Chaplain.

The one thing James did say after this game was the he could have taken melta guns for his combat squads in Razorbacks -which is very true. But then he said he'd rather keep the plasma guns and not tailor his army to beating my list.

As for me, I've overcome my fear of the Thunderfire Cannon and Obrital Bombardment. There's nothing you can do about it for a turn, so you just have to take it on the chin and get on with it. But, spreading out your Battlesuit units minimises the damage Orbital Bombardment can inflict. I always wondered why James never hit my Broadsides with it, but it's because I deploy them with their shield drones in a line, he can only catch 2 models with the blast template. Guess which models I'm going to take those hits on? -The shield drones of course!

Turn 5 Tactics

2009-08-01T12:32:00.000+01:00

You have to plan for Turn 5. My last game ended on Turn 5 and I so desperately needed another turn to get to the objectives. Fritz from the Way of Saim Hann blog is forever winning his games because they end on Turn 5. Although I'm convinced he says "Anything but a one" when he rolls his dice.

I played James in my new apartment last night (battle report soon!) and kept my Turn 5 tactics in mind. Once again, we played Seize Ground, which I'm sick to death of. I'm longing for a nice, easy game of Annihilation, which the Tau seem to excel at.

He made me go first, which makes last turn objective grabbing a lot tougher. But, I kept in mind that I needed to have my objectives on Turn 5 regardless. And it worked. It worked so well in fact that we spent the 2 following turns (yes, we played until Turn 7) doing very little beyond taking pot shots at one another. Although in hindsight, I could have been far more gung ho and contested one of his objectives...which would have been risky. But instead I opted for shooting repeatedly at one of his squads, hoping I could whittle them down enough or make them break and abandon their objective.

So far, it's only the Seize and Control mission which gives me problems and I have to build Turn 5 tactics around grabbing those objectives. The other missions don't seem to bother the Tau at all.

In Capture & Control, you simply deploy your base marker slightly to the left or right of the centre, at the back of the board and defend it.

In Annihilation you're too busy killing to care. In fact, you'd rather have as many turn as possible! I certainly did when I was playing Glenn Moore's Eldar at Carnage 2009.

Stay tuned for the latest Tau VS Space Marines battle report!

Mum's Models

2009-08-01T07:59:00.001+01:00

There's good news and there's bad news.

GOOD NEWS
The good news is that Mum has finished her first batch of miniatures to paint and truth be told, she's pretty good.

I taught her to basecoat, drybrush on highlights, paint details and apply washes -all the basic techniques you'll need to make a good looking army quickly and easily.

All she needs is some practice and I reckon she could churn these models out at a decent rate.

To break her into painting models, I thought something big and chunky would be a good start. So I cobbled together a squad of terminators from my bitz box and Black Reach. To make the colourscheme interesting, but not too challenging, I thought that Crimson Fist termiantors would be a good start. nice, dark basecoat, a bright red fist to contrast and then all the usual details.

Once she'd painted the terminators to a good standard, I bought her a box of Orks to try out. Very different to the terminators and very detailed.

Ork colour schemes seem to be getting very complex again, so I went with the Evil Sunz scheme from Dawn of War. This is basically brown clothes, black boots, black belts and red armour. The colourscheme is simple, but it works very well. Although it took her a while to get used to spotting all the tiny detail like earings, lip piercings and fingerless gloves.

BAD NEWS
Sometimes I think my family's endeavours are cursed. Because on the very day that Mum put down her paintbrush and raised her arms in victory over the Orkish horde (of 11 blokes), it has been leaked that Games Workshop will be releasing pre-painted models much like At-43 to stand alongside their DIY miniatures in the coming months.

Obviously, this throws any notion of a model painting business into limbo when (as At-43 has proven) it's cheaper and more time effective to purchase prepainted miniatures.

There are 2 types of people in this hobby -those that paint their models and those that don't. That's a sweeping generalisation and encompasses many different types of gamer from the guy who enjoys the game, but can't paint, to the guy (like myself) who loves to paint, but can't find the time.

And I have to confess, that no matter how much I may love my Tau army, love the presence they have when they cruise on to the board and how I've truly made them mine with Battlesuit conversions and orange stripes, I would gladly pay for prepainted miniatures painted to At-43 standard.

So for now, Mum is looking for another source of income. Although now that Dad has a good job again, she may just play golf and get a dog :)

Tau VS Space Marines Battle Report

2009-07-23T20:43:00.001+01:00

Tired of his Dark Angels codex, James decided to give the new Space Marine codex a try in a battle report against my Tau.

The Space Marine Codex has a number of new toys James was keen to employ from sniper scouts with Rending sniper rifles to the Chapter Master with a relic blade and Orbital Bombardment as well as the Tech Marine with Thunderfire Cannon.

Meanwhile, I would rock up with my usual Tau list, fend them off and defeat James once again with superior tactics. Or at least, that's the plan!

1500 Points 40K Battle Report:
Game: Seize Ground (3 objectives)
Deployment: Spearhead
Opponent: James Le Grys, Space Marines

1500 Points Space Marine Army
Chapter Master with relic blade, storm bolter, hellfire rounds, orbital bombardment

Chaplain with jump pack and melta bombs
10 Assault Marines including sgt with powerfist

X3 Space Marine Tactical Squads
Sgt and 4 space marines, plasma gun
5 space marines, lascannon
Razorback with twin linked heavy bolters and extra armour

10 Sniper Scouts

Techmarine with Tunderfire Cannon

Space Marine Army Thoughts:
Let's go through the things I found scary in this Space Marine army. Orbital Bombardment was top of my list as it splatter a Battlesuit squad very easily. I was also cautious with regards to James's token Assault Squad led by Chaplain (or the 'Cheese Vicar' as Luke calls him). I wasn't too worried about much else.

1500 Points Tau Army
Tau Shas’el
Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Multitracker, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones
2 Bodyguards with Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hardwired Multitracker, Targeting Array

Tau Battlesuit Team
2 with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile Pod
1 Leader with Twin Linked Flamer, Missile pod, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones

(X3) 6 man Fire warrior Team
Devilfish with Smart Missile System, Targeting Array, Multitracker, Disruption Pod

Hammerhead with Railgun, 2 Burst Cannons, Target Lock, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, black sun filter

Skyray with 2 Burst Cannons, Target Lock, Targeting Array, Multitracker and Disruption Pod, black sun filter

2 man Broadside Team with advanced stabilization
Leader, Hardwired Drone Controller with 2 shield drones, Bonding Knife

Tau Army Thoughts:
James has played this army quite a few times now and truly loathes it. I expect the Thunderfire Cannon to hammer my Battlesuits. I expect Orbital Bombardment to hammer my Broadsides. I expect him to advanced half his army in Razorbacks while the other half provides supporting fire. It's the way James plays and so long as he doesn't rush me with everything, that's fine, because I can fend of the half of his army which he sends my way. On with the game!

SET UP
We rolled for counters, getting 3. I placed one in the open, approximately 18" on, slightly to the right of the centre. James placed a counter on the far left, on a hill, on the opposite side of the board. I placed another counter on the far right, out in the open.

James won the roll to go first and deployed his entire army on the side of the table with 2 counters. He placed the Thunderfire Cannon, Chapter Master in razorback with squad and a lascannon squad on the far left flank while 2 lascannon squads occupied a trench behind the rocks in the centre. Meanwhile Razorbacks and the Assault Squad led by the dread Cheese Vicar were ready to rush forward on Turn 1.

I didn't fancy getting blown away on Turn 1, so I deployed just my Tau Broadside team and Hammerhead on the far right, in the corner, so that I would be just out of range of his lascannons while my railguns would be in range! Everything else was in reserve.

James then deployed his Sniper Scouts across the table from my Broadsides on the right flank, in the cover of some woods.

I then rolled to Seize The Initiative and rolled a 6! Okay, that wasn't really supposed to happen.

TURN 1
The Tau Broadsides blew up the Razorback which the Assault squad was hiding behind while the railgun on the Hammerhead missed the other Razorback.

James began his advance. The Assault team jumped and ran behind the woods which were occupied by the Sniper Scouts.

The nearest operational Razorback sped towards the rocks in the centre, meanwhile the space marines from the destroyed Razorback ran alongside it, towards the rocks.

James's fire power could do little this turn, as I'd made sure he would be out of range (heh heh), but the Sniper Scouts unleashed a deadly volley at the Broadside Battlesuit team, scoring a trio of rending hits!

James revelled in his lucky rolling with his trademark "Ooh, that's horrible!" before I proceeded to pass an unhealthy number of armour saves, losing both Shield Drones. Fortunately my brave Broadsides held their ground and passed their pinning test.

TURN 2:
Concerned that I might bunch my army together too much and be Orbitally Bombarded into oblivion, I had decided to Deepstrike both of my Tau Battlesuit teams. This reckless tactic would prove to be my undoing as I Deep Striked the twin linked flamer Battlesuit team next to the Sniper Scouts and the Tau Battlesuit command team next to the Razorback which had driven up to the rocks in the centre. I continued to roll for my reserves, rolling a 4+ for EVERY unit in my army. Incredible!

The Tau armada of grav tanks moved on to the board. The ENTIRE army opened fire on the Razorback and the Space Marines which fell out of its burning hatches as it exploded. When the smoke cleared the Razorback was gone, but not a single Space Marine had been slain. I was now very worried and quite sickened at the sheer volume of armour saves James had just passed.

Meanwhile the twin linked flamer Battlesuits engulfed the woods containing the Sniper Scouts in flame, inflicting 20 wounds between them. James rolled for his 4+ armour saves and 3 Scouts died (and as I'm sure you know, statistically all 10 of them should have perished in flame!). With the Assault Squad around the corner, I knew that my Battlesuits were doomed. Their noble sacrifice was to eliminate the Sniper Scouts, but the attack had failed.

After a woefully ineffective turn, it was over to James...

The Sniper Scouts continued to fire at the Broadsides, to no effect.

The Assault Squad led by the Cheese Vicar tore the Tau Battlesuits to peices before finishing them off with strikes from the sergeant armed with a power fist.

Lascannons from the combat squads in the trench and on the hill blew a single burst cannon off the Skyray.

Meanwhile the Thunderfire Cannon unleashed a deadly barrage at the Tau Battlesuit Command Team, causing so many hits that the squad were unable to pass the sheer volume of armour saves and were wiped out.

With his primary targets for Orbital Bombardment eliminated, James fired at the Devilfish parked on an objective and Immobilised it.

TURN 3
The two combat squads which had occupied the rocks in the centre would soon be all over my 1 easy to claim objective and I was determined to wipe them out. The Devilfish moved forward 6" as one and disembarked the Fire Warriors within rapid firing range of the enemy.

Guided by markerlights from the Tau Skyray, the wall of guns opened fire, wiping out 9 of the 10 Space Marines from the two squads. I fired my first Seeker Missile from the Tau Skyray using a remaining markerlight, which killed the 1 remaining space marine.

The Hammerhead fired a Submunition round into the Assault Squad, killing 2 of them.
Meanwhile the Broadside Battlesuits targeted the Thunderfire Cannon on the hill, hoping to eliminate either the Tech Marine or the cannon itself to ensure the safety of the Tau Firewarriors who had disembarked from their transports.

The Tech Marine 'went to ground' and passed his cover save while the Thunderfire Cannon also passed its reguler cover save.

Under fire, James advanced the Assault Squad, led by the Chaplain into the guns of the Tau army while on the left flank, the Chapter Master riding in a Razorback advanced from behind the hill.

While his lascannons proved ineffective this turn, the Sniper Scouts were able to inflict a wound on one of the Tau Firewarrior squads who then failed their pinning test and would be unable to embark in their transport next turn.

TURN 4
With the Assault Squad rapidly closing, no other viable targets in range and an objective to fight for, the Firewarriors re-embarked into their transports and the Tau tank wall moved around to the right, firing everything it had at the approaching Assault Squad and Chaplain. This time James rolled average for his armour saves and the squad was wiped out, leaving just the Chaplain on 1 wound.

This turn James advanced the Razorback with his Chapter Master and a combat squad from behind the hill on the left flank, towards the Tau lines.

On the right flank the Chaplain fired his jump pack and landed safely inside the nearby dug-out before running a further 3 inches.

Lascannon fire from the trench and the hill on the left flank immobilised the Skyray.

The Sniper Scouts fired at the Broadsides, scoring 2 rending hits and inflicting a wound on both of them (thank heavens for 'leader' upgrades to help share the wounds!). Thankfully they passed their pinning test.

TURN 5
Realising that the game could end this turn, I surged my Tau tank armada forward, but it would certainly take another turn for me to reach the objective, but I could fire all my guns at the Sniper Scouts in the woods who were likely to contest the objective in the open. Torrents of smart missiles and a submunition round from the Hammerhead wittled the squad down to just 3 men, but they held their ground thanks to Leadership 10 from the Chapter Master.

The immobilised Skyray turned its turret to target the Chaplain in the dug-out with its markerlights, scoring a hit with both.

I used the first markerlight to improve the Broadsides Ballistic Skill. They both hit, but James passed both of his cover saves.

I fired the smart missiles on the immobilised Tau Devilfish, but it did nothing.

With little else I could do, I used my final markerlight to fire my second ever Seeker Missile, which hit, wounded and killed! I can see myself firing more of these things in the future.

In James's turn, the Chapter Master and combat squad continued to zoom along the left flank, disembarking and firing their plasma gun at the side armour of a Devilfish, immobilising it.

The lascannons in the trench immobilised another Devilfish which had advanced alongside the Hammerhead.

Meanwhile the Thunderfire Cannon wiped out the Tau Firewarriors who had been pinned in the previous turn and still huddled outside their immobilised transport.

On the right flank, the Sniper Scouts ran out from the woods to claim the objective in the open.

We rolled to see if the game continued.
James rolled a 1.
Victory to the Space Marines. 2 objectives to 1.

CONCLUSION
I haven't played for a while and it really shows in this battle report. Let's put aside the fact that James was OBSCENELY lucky with his armour saves and concentrate on my appalling tactics. James played very well, because his army is incredibly forgiving. Although I would have kept the Assault Squad hidden behind the woods on the right flank, ready to pounce on the objective at Turn 5, rather than risking the Sniper Scouts to do it who are more fragile.

Rolling to 'seize the initiative' was daft on my part as I'd planned for the 1st turn and really snookered myself. I really needed the 2nd turn to objective grab in the dying turns of the game.

Deep Striking the Battlesuits was a bad idea and I should have stuck to hiding them behind my tanks like I usually do.

Yes, Orbital Bombardment is scary. I've had the same experience with Artillery Strikes from the Imperial Guard. I think it's best to just play as you normally would and simply bite the bullet if and when a big explosion lands on you.

Because I Deep Striked my Tau Battlesuits, they weren't ideally placed, left vulnerable to blast weapons for being so tightly packed together and not to mention in clear line of sight!

I also could have used both Battlesuit squads more effectively in eliminating enemy transports.

At times I played too aggressively and other times too cautiously. James's gambit in throwing the Assault Squad forward played beautifully on my fears and I moved the minimum distance forward to shoot at him, when I should have surged forward with my tanks that turn, all guns blazing.

My only 'lucky' moment in the game was my entire army arriving on turn 2, which may have done more harm than good. In hindsight, I could have surprised James and fought for the objective on the left flank, which would have drawn some of his units away at the very least.

I was pleased with my tactical placement of objectives though and it goes to show how you should always do you best to spread objectives around and place them in the open when playing a mechanised Tau army.

I'm looking forward to playing this Space Marine army again. As I always say: "It takes 3 games to defeat an army properly."

Back Soon

2009-07-12T09:05:00.000+01:00

Warhammer Tau is going away for a few weeks as I move into my new apartment, move all my clothes, models and other junk in, establish internet connection and set up my painting table again. I also need a new PC, because this one is dying.

Most importantly of all, I now have a huge living room to play games in with an extendable dining room table and an enormous storage cupboard which is currently containing all my scenery, gaming boards, books and armies and isn't even 10% full!

It looks as though last week's post about my Necromunda gang has kicked Luke into starting up the Necromunda campaign again. So to declare my apartment officially habitable, we'll be playing our first game there this evening.

In other news: Mum is starting up her own 40K Painting Service!
My good ole' mum has decided that she needs a part time job with flexible hours to suit her. So, she asked me about painting 40K models as a part-time income. I was very sceptical about this at first, but humoured her and bought a box of Space Marine Terminators to paint.

She has spent the past week getting used to a quick painting method and has nearly finished the squad. While her first attempt wasn't so hot, her 4th terminator looks great and I can't wait to see what the 5th one looks like!

I went shopping in London yesterday and picked up a box of Ork Boyz for her, which was fun. I got asked by the hyperactive GW blue shirt "Hey mate! Are you starting an Ork army!?"
"Actually, they're for my mum."
I may say this in future to cast an immediate spell of 'silence' on GW staff. Hence why I rarely venture into a Games Workshop store and prefer to order online.

I've built a website for mum's painting service. But for now I'm going to get her a boxed set of each major race and show her painting methods for each one. Then James is going to show her tank building (because he's brilliant at it). Once she can build and paint a variety of tanks, infantry and monstrous creatures, we'll get her to do a 1500 points army as a trial-run, then base her commission prices on that.

It's quite exciting actually, and as someone who hates painting I can see myself employing my own mother to do the bits I can't stand!

That's all for now. See you in a few weeks!
-Adam

Necromunda Gang

2009-07-08T21:56:00.001+01:00

My new Necromunda gang is finished! Ironically, this comes after I sold my old Necromunda gang and on the very day the eBay auction ended, Luke announced "There shall be a NEW Necromunda campaign" after he quite spectacularly failed to keep the last one going. Cue James and Simon bursting into fits of laughter having told them earlier that day how much money I'd made from the eBay sale.

As Necromunda models are now stupidly expensive (nice one GW!), I decided to order some Space Marine Scouts and convert them into a Van Saar gang using Elysian Drop Troop heads from Forgeworld.

I've used my Tau colours to paint them, copying the Master Chief's colour scheme from Halo for something a bit different.

My new Necromunda gang are called The Plasmongers due to their hunger for all things plasma. Mostly just plasma guns. There are 5 plasma guns in total (I'm relying on the 'specialist' skill) plenty of shotguns, a juve to bite bullets and a Heavy armed with a heavy bolter.

I never expect to field them. In truth, I never expect for us to play Necromunda ever again because it turned into one massive cheese fest. Even when we had to work together to complete missions, there was so much back stabbing, double crossing and general cowardice that it was much harder than it needed to be.

Our competitive natures developed from playing Warhammer 40K really ruined Necromunda for us. Back in the day it was brilliant fun, even if Luke's Van Saar gang won every game. Come to think of it, it was Luke's Van Saar gang which started the cheese war and that damned Ballistic Skill 6 Ganger armed with a needle rifle and a scope. The the two Heavies with heavy bolter emerged and a leader with a plasma gun for anyone who got too close.

As much as I truly, in my heart, love Necromunda and have many great memories of shoot outs, bank robberies, running from the Adeptus Arbites and being eaten by zombies, you need someone to constantly bring balance to a campaign, keep things interesting and create a story. Unfortunately, we just don't have time now that we're all decorating houses, dating women, working our arses off in our careers and doing our best to fit in some games of Warhammer 40K, let alone actual paint our armies.

Maybe one day, Necromunda, the game we loved so dearly will return? But for now, these models were made to sit on a shelf and collect dust...