Guns don't kill people, Markerlights do.

Tau. I know i'm a little late to the party on this one but I'm really obsessed with the little blue space commies.

I've been playing Tau for years, I even managed to get myself known as 'Tau guy' at my local club... down to the fact that nobody had ever seen another Tau player before. I quite like carving myself a niche in the local meta so I welcomed the chance to try and spank people with what was seen as a pretty underpowered codex. This led to weeks of feverish optimising and playtesting until I was using a list I was happy enough to use week after week after week after week and at tournaments. I found that I was so 'happy' with the list that I couldn't stop using it. I tried to re-write a list from scratch which ended up being exactly the same list, point for point.The old dex didn't leave much room for variety, I'd squeezed out every drip from an already skinny and two dimensional army book. For the sake of my own sanity and with a heavy heart I shelved the Tau and went back to being a Space Wolf douchebag.





With news of the new dex  I got rather overexcited. In scenes akin to some kind of drug relapse I got my old minis out and began using again, once more shooting pure Kauyon through my veins. Reading through the new dex like a scholar pouring over an ancient tome I began to formulate and plot and plan. Internet orders were made, delivery dates were counted down and opponents were challenged. Once more the Tau would go to war, but this time it would be different!

...Then none of my packages arrived. I waited almost 2 months, emailing the retailer repeatedly to no avail. I had to play the people I had been threatening with the wrath of riptides with the same bloody list that had driven me away from the Tau in the first place. RAGE QUIT.

Anyway. The actual point of this post is to announce that over the next few months I want to evaluate and asses the Tau dex. I have my new stuff, I have a head full of new ideas and tactics and a keyboard. Not the musical variety of keyboard, the kind of keyboard that plugs into an interweb machine and allows me to spout bile anonymously on the internet. Although I can play the keyboard...




Here's my list of the pros and cons of the new dex in MASSIVELY BROAD strokes:


Pros

• Shooting. This book is brimming with the best guns in the game, laugh at your imperial opponents with their second rate armaments!
• Mobility. Tau can move around well, skimmers and jetpacks are great for being able to get around the table without being funnelled by terrain.
• Flexibility. A Tau army does a great job of being customisable enough to deal with most battlefield situations.

Cons

• Close combat vulnerability. Tau still can't do close combat. Even a bog standard close combat unit from another dex will wreak havoc through your lines if left unchecked.
• Stormtrooper syndrome. Without markerlight support most Tau units have trouble reliably hitting a barn door at 6 paces. 
• Expensive troops. The cost of allowing firewarriors to cruise around the board in the luxury and safety of their own Devilfish soon gets pricey.

On the surface of it it seems that our overlords in Nottingham haven't shifted much focus on what Tau are good or bad at - they still rock massive gats (or guns to you and me), they still suck in hand to hand and their units still need some form of synergy to work effectively. My goal is to deconstruct the dex, get the best out of the pros and limit the cons, all in brain-fart web form.

ENJOY!

Something, something, something, you haven't written a post in two years...

The title sums it up, I've been away doing stuff.

Not the sort of stuff where you emigrate, not the sort of stuff where you have a new child, not even the sort of stuff where you suddenly decide you hate 40k. I've been doing the same stuff I've been doing for the past 29 years. If anything I've been playing more 40k than ever before due to joining a club -  ensuring I get a regular dose of weekly plastic crack (without the annoyance of having to clear my own tables away).

So why have I left it almost two years without a post? Well, for one I'm a lazy bastard. Secondly, 6th edition came along and changed everything - I was suddenly floundering in a sea of overwatch and random charge distances and not being able to charge off an outflank (my Wolf Scouts are now working in Burger King). Thirdly, on joining the club I've had a bit more of an outlet for my feverish 40k based mind-guffs. After such a long time I've decided that these mind-guffs need more space to breathe...

I'm back, all full of gusto and bluster and rude words, ready to once again talk a lot of balls about the hobby that takes up pretty much all of my spare time (and a lot of my 'making tea' time at work). So, you may ask, what am I actually going to try and squeeze into this tiny slab of internet that I call my own*? The usual cathartic, self-aggrandising free therapy that everyone puts up! Oh yeah and batreps, tactica, musings and pictures of minis**.

Please enjoy this symbolic picture of Magical Trevor being back and having a new trick...






*  Dear Google, please don't strike me down.
**Apologies in advance for any loss of vision caused by my painting, yes it really is that bad.

War were declared!

Last week saw my Iybraesil warhost out in all it's 1.5k glory and I have to say I was very impressed with the results. This is what I used:

1 Farseer - Doom, Guide, Fortune, Runes of Witnessing and Spirit Stones
10 Dire Avengers - Exarch with additional catapults and Bladestorm
1 Wave Serpent - Twin linked missile launchers and star engines, carrying the Dire Avengers.
10 Guardians - Eldar missile launcher, Warlock, Conceal
1 Wraithlord - Shuriken cannon and missile launcher
7 Warp Spiders - Exarch with additional deathspinner
6 Swooping Hawks - Exarch with Skyleap and hawks talon
5 Dark Reapers - Exarch with Crack Shot and Tempest Launcher
3 Vypers - Eldar missile launchers


I had rather big concerns about my army having almost no close combat clout, my wraithlord being the only weapon in my army capable of killing anything up close and even then with only 2 attacks. It seemed that manouvreability was going to have to be my biggest weapon especially seeing as in both games I was facing huge close combat orientated opponents; Dave's massive boyz dominated ork horde and Rob's band of blood hungry World Eaters - a charge off either of them in the middle of my line would be very costly.

Without getting too specific into the details of each game I've chosen to discuss my two favourite units from the night; my Reapers and my Spiders.

Essentially in both games I set my Reapers up as a base of fire to work from, they were the anchor around which all my crazy fast troops would work. I was dubious about using such a points heavy unit that in all fairness seems to be weaker now that the rules for cover saves have been buffed in 5th. Thankfully I managed to set them up in a tall building in my game against the Orks - massive range, massive field of fire, could see over pretty much all of the terrain - they delivered big. The tempest launcher with crack shot was a gift from Khaine himself, boyz falling across the table in their advance towards me. The reaper launchers also suprisingly took a heavy toll on the Orks due to some wicked jammy rolls on my part - without cover to hinder them they were reaping way above the odds each turn. Against the World Eaters this squad was massively instrumental in some seriously focussed first turn shooting against a massive hammer unit of berzerkers with a juggernaught mounted lord - the rest of the game however they had less to shoot at before falling to a brutal charge by a deep striking unit of chaos terminators.

 

My spiders were without doubt the stars of the night. They were iconic in second edition (the last edition I'd used them in before 5th) and I couldn't help but feel I'd bigged them up a little too much in my mind. Again they delivered. Against the Orks they seemed to throw out massive amounts of webby death before being able to jump out of charge range. Helped by doom and usually by guide they were instrumental in taking down not only boyz but limiting the effects of some of the 6 killa kanz that were lumbering across the board towards me (as well as sometimes soaking up some fire - MEQ is very handy). The ability to break cover, batter a unit with s6 firepower then warp back behind cover is awesome, I want more! Against the World Eaters these guys laid down a decent amount of pain, again they contributed to the turn one fussilade against the berzerkers but really stepped up when my Wave Serpent was immobilised, leaving my avengers to walk half the length of the board in order to contest Rob's objective. My favourite moment was my spiders jumping over a blocking squad of possessed to spray the beleagered chaos marine behind - I was set up to assault the remaining couple of marines (in some heroic spidery action) only for my Swooping hawks to seal the deal, clearing the objective.

As both games were capture and control they both stunk of draws from turn one - indeed against the Orks I'd spent so much time trying to get my vypers to stop killa kanz and kommandos reaching my guardians and denying me my objective I didnt have time to zoom them up the table to attempt a contest til turn five. They went flat out, weathered a turn of shooting and an assault only for the game to end with them around 18 inches away, vexxing!

The game vs Chaos, although it started well for me turned into a bit of a footslogfest for my eldar. My objective being held by guardians and reapers was cleared by a very well landed deep strike by a chaos lord and his terminator bodyguard. Landing in heavy flamer range sealed the deal of half the guardians on the point. I managed to whittle the squad down to 3 members but it wasn't enough, both my squads ended up eating dirt in assault the next turn. My frontal attack was blunted by a single pesky possessed marine that refused to die in assault with my avengers and farseer leaving neither of us with any troops on an objective. Then came possibly the rudest streak of luck ever:

-In turn 6 my wraithlord managed to kill the chaos lord without taking a wound causing the remaining terminator to lose combat by one. It failed it's no retreat armour save.

-At the other end of the board even after forgetting to doom the last possessed marine in combat with my avengers it finally fell to a couple of well placed hits from my Exarch.

-My spiders unleashed everything they had on a previously damaged rhino, wrecking it in a slew of immobilised and weapon destroyed results.

-My Hawks charged into a predator with haywire grenades and managed to wreck it.

The battlefield was clear of the agents of Khorne, a (lucky) victory for the Eldar!

Iybraesil are here.

It's been quite a while since my last post. With uni, my old job stressing me out and getting to grips with my new (better) job I've neglected this blog like it was some kind of flea ridden elderly relative. Empires have risen and fallen, Rupert Murdoch has gone from dick to dick with no friends and Finecast has appeared in all of it's wallet-spanking goodness.

Well heres to my latest project, the warhost of craftworld Iybraesil.

 It has taken literally bloody ages for me to put together this rag-tag band of feisty female fighters. Most of this army was salvaged from my bits box, some of it was bought (for cheaps) off ebay, in fact the only two boxfresh units I actually spent coin on were the Wraithlord and the Swooping Hawks. So far this is what's been painted, I intend to base everything in one go so the apparent pools of brown mush my models seem to be standing in will disappear soon.

I also have this little lot left to paint:

Looks like I'm winning on the painting front for a change!

I'll be trying to keep posting my progress with this army (incoming converted gunship style vyper shots) as well as picking up with adding more content to my Space Wolf army (Bjorn conversion ahoy!).

Stay frosty people!

Iybraesil Incoming

Ever since I was about 15 I've had a small and mostly neglected cache of Eldar models kicking around. Back in second edition I used to use a handful of guardians, Maugan Ra and a Vyper as random allies to my regular Space Wolves army. Yes, 15 year olds do strange things.

Ever since I started playing 40k again in the dying days of the 4th edition I have not so secretly coveted my regular opponent Bean's Eldar force. Grav tanks, jet bikes and highly specialised infantry mixed in with all kinds of psychic goodness appeal to the finesse player in me... less space wolf foot charges, more graceful and thought out combat-ballet. So it was that I dusted off all the old models I'd somehow collected over the years before hitting ebay and buying up some pretty cheap lots of newer models, more for my love of their fluff and style than with any hopes of building up a smackdown throwing ooobar army.

Then I bought some Wolf Guard and a rhino... so much for Eldar.

But after a few weeks of not being arsed to paint said Wolf Guard and rhino while playing Dawn of War 2 and loving all the Eldar shenanigans I'm back on the pointy eared band-wagon and work has begun in earnest. My first model was finished last night, a Warp Spider exarch - he'll get his mugshot up later - then I'm going to try and endeavor to post my progress as often as possible.

HOT POINTY EARED WENCHES IN SKIN TIGHT BODY ARMOUR HO

Rei  xxx

The World's Smallest Violin

40k night comes around but once a week at the moment, usually meaning a game a week for all involved with someone else rotating in for two games. Last night it was my turn for two games and boy what mixed emotions were felt.

First up I played annihilation and was faced with a rather dangerous looking crimson fists list packing:

-the usual hammer drop pod full of sternguard 
-venerable dread [plasma cannon and heavy flamer]
-5 sniper scouts [with missile launcher]
-vindicator
-mechanised tactical squad with a librarian [illegally riding in the rhino i might add :P]

While I had:

2x 8 grey hunters [melta gun, wolf guard with power fist and combi melta]
2x rhinos
10x skyclaws [power fist, wulfen]
Rune Priest [Jaws, living lightning]
Wolf Priest [Jump pack, wolf tooth]
Wolf scouts x5 [meltagun, wolf guard with powerfist and combi melta],


I decided to attempt to nullify the usual infantry holocaust of the sternguard drop pod by keeping all of my non-mechanised infantry off-table, leaving the two rhinos full of grey hunters and a rune priest to take on the sternguard after they'd totalled my transports. This ultimately worked pretty well after only losing one rhino and the grey hunters managed to shoot down a few sternguard before mopping them up in close combat. Besides a few decent shots from the crimson fist gunline taking a steady toll on the grey hunters the early parts of the game were looking decent for me. I got pretty lucky finishing off the sternguard with one grey hunter pack in rob's turn, consolidating six inches towards his vindicator before hoofing it another six inches to within melta range. I managed one glance off two melta shots but thankfully rolled a 6 so it ended up being a wreck.... my lucky streak would soon run out.

As my skyclaws had jumped far enough into the field to make sure the vindicator was taken down they were left open to be driven at by the rhino full of tactical marines with an avenger wielding librarian. Needless to say much face melting was done leaving only the wulfen and the wolf priest standing. That was my hammer unit wrecked in one fell swoop so rather than try to take the tacticals down in combat i decided to risk a jump into nearby ruins to take on the far less numerous sniper scouts. The duo performed very well, killing all of the scouts but unfortunately the wulfen went down, leaving the wolf priest to mill around afterwards, unable to hurt the venerable dread, too scared to attempt charging the tactical marines and librarian with only one wound left and it seems massively incapable of planting a decent krak grenade onto the back of a rhino.

My wolf scouts came on hoping to add their fire to the nearby grey hunters and rune priest shooting at the tacticals. After a decent round of shooting i left them to follow the rhino, hoping to melta it down for one easy kill point.... weapon destroyed from two meltas, on the back, on a rhino and within melta range. Not so good.

While my scouts were failing to blast the rhino down my heroic full 8 man grey hunters squad with a wolf guard decided that enough was enough from the upstart librarian and his meagre tactical squad. After gunning a couple of them down with bolt pistols they charged into close combat, attempting to either wipe out the crimson fists or at least pin them, blocking any escape route to the rhino. Battle cries on their lips astartes met astartes with sharpened steel and the crimson fist tactical squad was overcome by sheer space wolf brutality. In my mind. The reality: I missed with about 60 percent of my attacks then only caused 5 wounds which were all saved. The tactical squad retaliated but failed to cause any damage. My power fist missed on all three swings. The only combatant to kill anything was the librarian who decapitated a single grey hunter. It was this kill that won the game as my grey hunters failed their leadership test with a woeful roll of 11 before being cut down in a sweeping advance by the tacticals. With my biggest squad gone i was left with a rune priest with 3 grey hunters in a rhino, my wolf priest milling around some ruins and four wolf scouts.

Next turn the combined fire of the dreadnought, the librarian using smite and the tactical squad killed off my wolf priest and flame grilled my scouts. My lonely remaining rhino reversed slowly into my corner, the rune priest ineffectively casting living lightning at the venerable dread while praying that the plasma cannon wouldnt melt the tank.

Final score:

Space Wolves: 4 kill points
Crimson Fists: 5 kill points

Dice karma be damned

Pack Focus: Dreadnought -Mjolnir

I've pretty much always tried to incorporate a dreadnought into any marine list I take, not because they're particularly effective, they're just very cool in regards to models and fluff. For those of you not long enough in the tooth to remember this model it was originally the Bjorn the Felhanded model from waaay back in second edition. I'm not cheeky enough to use him as Bjorn now though, that particular walking coffin is going to take an extra special modelling project....


Fluff

Mjolnir was elevated to the sarcophagus after a particularly brutal battle during the First Armageddon War. While attempting to evacuate an overcrowded hab-block in Infernus Hive Mjolnir's small force of Space Wolves was ambushed by a large daemon force materialising amidst the panicked citizens. The screaming bloodletters ran amock through the crowd, butchering all within reach of their blood-wet blades, their carnage twisting the boundaries of the immaterium, threatening to open a rift through which more unspeakable monstrosities could pour through. Without hesitation Mjolnir's pack made their way through the fleeing crowds, the Grey Hunters towering above the terrified hivers, sending bolt after bolt into their crimson assailants, battle cries on their lips. Close combat was met, the overwhelming numbers of daemons pushing at the embattled Grey Hunters with animal frenzy. Seeing his pack brothers fall Mjolnir whispered a death oath, breaking from his brother's tight formation in an attempt to pull the daemons away. Knife and pistol in hand he slammed into the beasts, skewering daemon-flesh and blasting apart leering faces. The mass of unnatural beings buckled, their assault losing momentum but it was too late for Mjolnir, surrounded by crazed red beings, covered in thick black warp-blood he fell to his knees, a daemon weapon protruding from his chest. By the time reinforcements arrived it was clear that Mjolnir's final stand had carried the day, his selfless actions giving his pack time to regroup and the refugees to reach safety. His body recovered, his brothers bore him to a Wolf Priest for last rites and seed reclamation but it seemed a trace of life still remained within his broken shell. A testament to his ferocity, his resistance to chaos-forged weapons and his pure stubbornness in not dying it was deemed that his saga was not yet done. Handed over to the techpriests he was interred into a dreadnought sarcophagus, becoming an engine of war for centuries to come.

Tactics

There are only really two ways I roll Mjolnir out:

Drop pod shenanigans! Does exactly what it says on the tin (pod). Since I only have one drop pod at the moment he's coming down my first turn every game in the enemy deployment zone just to cause some havoc. Generally pods are used to deploy a heavily armed one shot killing machine units like sternguard or grey hunters, melta weapons carving out tanks like they're over-ripe pumpkins. Now this is great in theory but a lot of people are getting wise to the old drop pod anti tank bomb meaning that when my grey hunters do get out with their microwave guns theres nothing there for them to take out before they get shot/assaulted/bagged by the entire enemy army. The beauty of the dread is that he's almost completely expendable, he lands, if he gets to take a few shots great, if not then he can stomp around for a bit making my enemy back off in the fear of their weedy regular troops having to take on a massive opponent they cant harm on the front armour in close combat the turn after he arrives. If he gets taken out by shooting that's also usually a lot of shots soaked up that would generally be sowing havoc with my advancing army.

Hold the line! With this tactic my dread is generally spearheading a footslogging advance into enemy lines, drawing the heavy fire off more valuable units like long fangs, wolf guard or any rhinos that I might be using. Having a dread in the middle of your advance is also pretty good for deterring enemy assault troops attempting to break into your grey hunters. Throwing the dreadnought into an ongoing combat can often break the back of the enemy assault, even if your grey hunters flee he'll be there taking names, allowing your boys to regroup and get back into the fight.