Cycles

My friends and I have always run through cycles of interest. Basically it has always been some combination of Martial Arts, Magic Cards, Video Games, DnD, and Warhammer (fantasy and 40K.

I have gotten back heavily into jiujitsu and, with Blizzcon this past weekend, video games.

40K is a lot of fun and it will be cool to see what the Dark Eldar bring to the matches. Hopefully I will get some more battle reports up, but my own interest in blogging about 40K Tau has waned, which pretty much happens from time to time.


Anyone have stuff they want to see a Tau blogger blog about? because I am out of ideas currently.

-Krox

Maybe I will get to play Warhammer again...

Sorry I have been busy.
-Rock Climbing
-Getting Ready for the Midwest Submission hunt
-Playing Disgaea 3 and trying to do all the stuff i want to do before the next one comes out
-Almost Painting Warhammer Fantasy models



So there ya go at least I put up some content, although it is not really warhammer related.

New Dark Eldar from Games Day look awesome. I don't have any links off hand, just go to Bell of Lost Souls or Warseer, they got tons.

-Krox

(Also playing against Chaos tonight if I can figure out where I put my Flip Camera after rock climbing I will record and post that battle.)

Too zombie for battle reports

Alrighty, I have my last wedding of the summer to go to tomorrow, and I have been sitting in in-service meetings all day today and all day yesterday. Battle reports will start back up next week. My brain is wrecked from having someone read a packet for 16 hours that I could have read in 1.

ZombieKrox

Holy Crap Whiskey and 40k is smart

http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/08/running-your-own-nova-why-battle-points.html

That's the link to his thoughts on a tournament scoring system Suffice to say I had never thought about it that hard, but after reading it he makes some solid points. CHECK IT OUT!

OSH, NOCKER, AL, Rathstar, Gredus and any other Tau bloggers

Wouldn't it be awesome to try to have a Tau blog tournament? Where all the Tau bloggers try to get together and have a tournament with only Tau? No worries about using a codex slightly behind the power curve and everyone is familiar with the army being used. Yeah it might be kind of silly, yeah it might be logistically impossible, but it still would be a fun community building experience.

I just want to get a feel for where everyone is at. Maybe it would not be possible to get us all in one spot for a weekend, but it may be possible to get some matches down individually, then we could put together some sort of macro blog post.

Out of all the different warhammer races that have blogs the only race that I have seen more bloggers than Tau is SM. Maybe if we had this little community building experience we could have a greater voice overall and actually influence the future of Tau in the 40K world.

Just looking at the back and forth of Kauyon and Mont'ka (which I was mostly not a part of due to playing too many video games and getting my classroom ready for the beginning of a new school year) I really feel that we could have a lot of fun trying to do something like this. Let me know what ya think.

-Krox

I have gone InSaNe!!!!

Alrighty, some list building things, and some assault questions that tie into it. I have decided to be insane and build lists for fun. Tau can win with a mono Tau build and that is competitive. I have not been to a lot of super competitive arenas so maybe I can get away with doing silly stuff maybe I will just get completely crushed.





One of my list ideas was to go back to a seeker missile style list, but instead of doing it in a sane way, just going crazy with 3 skyrays and full pathfinders.
the supporting units would be three units of death-rains and three squads of fire warriors who get to dork around in the pathfinder's devilfish (which have sensor spines by the way, been having lots of fun with sensor spines)

Yeah I don't have a lot of plasma but I can get rid of a good chunk of my opponent's army with 24 seeker missiles and 30 markerlights. Having 6 tanks is nothing to sneeze at. IG, BA and DE can easily have more but with disruption pods and sensor spines tau vehicles are always a PITA for opponents.

An obvious drawback is that if I start losing the pieces of my puzzle my ability to get those seeker missiles into my opponet's forces lowers rapidly, a problem I discovered with my original seeker list army.




Answers to the questions in the video provide some reinforement on my second army idea. A nearly complete infiltrating list.

Death rain commander
1 squad of FW
3x6 stealthsuits with targeting arrays, team leader as TL and a FB
3x10 Kroot
3x3 Broadsides

Would I get crushed? Probably, would it be fun to play? Yes. I think so anyway. It's an all foot list which I have never done, and it is pretty suicidal, but it doesn't have to be.

I will be posting some battle reports with these lists soon. I have been pretty busy going to weddings playing video games and hanging out with people I haven't seen in a while, but soon enough I will get back to the (at least)1 battle report a week schedule.

-Krox

Kauyon vs Mont'Ka

Apparently everyone is debating this now, and I have been playing Disgaea 3.


Basically what it comes down to is that there are alpha strike lists, and run away+ speed bump lists. Alpha strike lists generally have a lot of fire power with Broadsides, Crisis teams, even my crazy seeker list I use sometimes is definitely an "Alpha Strike" style list.

Then there are the runaway speed bump lists, with kroot speed bumps and lots of transports, no static anything (sniper drones, broadsides) everything is always moving and staying away until the perfect time to strike happens.

It is fun to discuss theory and all the nerdie "what ifs?" Basically it comes down to this: Tau don't have any tricks that have not been seen and people are looking through their codeces to try to figure out some weird new thing to exploit. Yes you could spam Vespid or take 7 firewarrior squads in devilfish (one with the Ethereal) and you opponent would be confused, but it's not gonna be a crazy "OMG I discovered a new Tau strat!"

Instead of cementing your brain meats into one play style or another, cement your opponent's brain meat into the style you want to play against.


This past weekend I was in a tournament at Phoenix games here in Minneapolis. It was a very fun tournament and there is always a crowd of diverse players. I did not take my camera because it seems impolite to take time to record during a match where you have a limited amount of time to play.

The TO used the Adepticon mission scenarios for the different matches and it was a lot of fun. My first game I played against another Tau player, my first time fighting against Tau. He couldn't have been more than 11 and was super spazzy. He brought a Farsight list and his list was not valid. Instead of just disqualifying him I helped him re-work his list before the match. I did not take him very seriously and I lost the match, mostly because I did not deploy as well as I should have and did not put much thought into tactics because I didn't give my opponent enough credit. (It was still a really fun game because the kids commentary was hilarious)

My point being, your demeanor and attitude can change how your opponent will play the game. Psychology wars are the last tricks Tau have to play.

Saying that you are killing blow or patient hunter just locks you in to a mindset that prevents you from adapting to the changing battlefield. It is good to have an organization process for list building but maybe you should make sure your list can do both. I am still working on that last one in my list building, but I am having a lot of fun doing it and that's what matters. (That and playing Disgaea 3)

P.S.

My other 2 opponents were Grey Knights and Dark Eldar who I won against. The grey knights tried to play the sit back and shoot game, and the Dark Eldar player only managed to kill 2 crisis suits with his 28 dark lances, not because I had awesome skills, but because he couldn't roll to hit or to wound 80% of the time.

-Krox

Dastardly Tricks!

I practice boxing in real life. It's a lot of fun and it is all about precision of movement. Well I had a good boxing point in this match, however it was boxing of a different type.

Another game versus my venerable CSM opponent. This time it was seize ground (3) and dawn of war.

I liked my deployment and being able to go second in this type of scenario is always a plus, it was DOW so an alpha strike didn't really matter. I deployed with a 2 firebase strategy in mind (there ya go Pavonis). Jimmy and I fight a ton of games against each other and we are getting to some pretty serious knowledge of each other's armies as well as our respective play styles. You would think that would create blander and blander games. However it seems like we are always coming up with new weird things to try out even though our army lists stay generally the same (with mine being more mercurial than his). Check it out, it was a fun game.

Scissors Beats Paper

Well have fun watching my shortest battle report ever. 1850 versus FNP assault marines.
You really don't need to watch the video to see what happens, but the marine players will find it funny.

I thought, maybe I will castle up with kroot surrounding my stuff then some fire warriors then some juicy bits in the center. To top it all off it was kill points and spearhead. Jawesome.

It doesn't matter how many models on the table you have if you can alpha strike one unit with your entire army and that one unit doesn't die. Here's what shot
Shadowsun
2x 3 Crisis with fusion and plasma
2x 2 Broadsides team leader in each unit had twin linked plasma
10 Kroot (Only 6 were in range though)
Hammerhead Submunitions
2x 6 firewarriors
10 markerlights from pathfinders

so I guess my WHOLE army did not shoot at them, I was missing 1 unit of 6 firewarriors.

Have fun with the steel drums.



My tactic to "kill everything" worked awesome

Also did not know you can multi-charge through one unit to get to a unit behind it. So when he charged my kroot he was also able to multi-charge my firewarriors right behind the kroot.

Stay mobile! Maybe I should go back to my all mech list with no broadsides :(

Drones as Monsterous Creatures

I always loved the Marvel comic book series "What If". The basic premise is that they took familiar characters and changed one thing like , "What if Norrin Radd never became a herald of Galactus?", then they had a little story exploring that possibility. I have some time before work so this is just gonna be a none fancy post, although i do intend to start making some words hyperlink, I think that is neat. So here is a what if for the Tau codex.

What if:
Drones didn't count against morale check casualties?

Drones were wargear?

Krootox were monsterous creatures?

The Kroot Shaper offered something other than a +6 armor save

The Ethereal was useful?

A Shas'el or Shas'O could be outfitted in an XV9, XV22, or XV88?

Pathfinders were a troop choice?

Firewarriors could equip jetpacks?

There was a flying transport for Crisis Teams?

a Sniper Drone team could be purchased as an auxiliary for a Firewarrior team?

Neutron blasters were assault 2?

Drones could explode?

Feel free to add your own What if ideas.

-Krox

I LOST A FOLLOWER!?!?

I used to have 26 now I have 25. :( NOOOOOOoooooo!!!!!!!!

Well I guess that's just the way life is. A lot of Tau blogs have seemed to slow down and coalesce on the same few ideas.

Pretty sure there is not going to be a Tau FAQ

Pretty sure that when the Tau codex does come out in early 2012 that it will be awesome, then 3 months later a FAQ will come that will basically be a rules rewrite so that Space Marine players can again trounce Tau. Maybe I am just cynical after reading the new Tyranid FAQ. I mean, I hate the bugs but they don't deserve what GW did to them.

I can't wait to have my Grandkids ask me, " Grandpa what was Spacemarines like when you were my age?"

"Well believe it or not when I was your age it was called Warhammer 40,000. Instead of having 26 Marine Codeces and 1 codex Xenos, there were only 6 Space Marine codeces and 6 Alien codeces that actually had their own fluff and different species instead of just random stuff that grouped together to get slaughtered by Space Marines."

"Weird, Grandpa, why do you still play Dungeons and Dragons 3.5?"

"Because it's awesome."

Yes I know, it is battle report crazy day

POsting three battle reports in the same day!?! Yup, That's why I made a blog. Everybody can talk tactics, but few people can witness someone actively not using tactics!!! I kid, I thought this game went fairly well given how annoying Eldrad is.



Had I realized that Eldrad did NOT have eternal warrior I may have done more shooting at his unit, really though I wanted to get rid of all the wave serpents first. The Night Spinner was annoying. He kept it out of sight so had to roll the full 2D6" scatter, but each time it HIT dead on :P I thought nothing of it and proceeded to fail all of my dangerous terrain tests :P :P. Oh well If it would have ended on 5 I would have won, I had to settle for a tie instead.

Attacked by Bugs again

Here is an 1850 game I played recently versus bugs. Another reminder that maybe I should just mech up.




At least no Doom this time, but still it is hard to run away from shrikes. Besides Shadowsun I have been toying with the idea of taking a budget EL then maxing out on firewarriors with devilfish, pathfinders in devilfish and an ethreal with an honorguard. Not seriously thinking I can win, but it would just be funny to put a ton of tanks on the table. More tanks would have helped me a lot in this match.

Maybe in the next Codex Crisis suits will get some type of fast transport?

Tau with Hit and run is not as cool as it sounds

Alrighty! another battle missions battle report, this time "Fighting Withdrawl" Which is one of the Tau missions. Basically it sets it up as an objective mission with a decent advantage given to the Tau via deployment. Plus I get Hit and Run!!!(sarcasm, hit and run with I 2 is not super cool.)



What's gonna happen next!?!?!?!?!?!?



That was a fun game, and I guess Hit and Run did help in the end, a little bit.

Been poking around with Shadowsun for a while, she is fun to use. I have her in there mostly for her leadership bubble.

Tau Close Combat Madness

Another Battle mission battle report for all you viewers out there. This was "Ambush!" out of the Necron themed battle missions. Basically the defender deploys along the center column of the table and the attacker can deploy on either side at least 12" from the center line.

It was a kill point mission and I was the defender. I was playing a KP mission where Chaos was within assault range on the first turn. If only I could seize the initiative.



I think my firewarriors and pathfinders have been practicing jiujitsu (the BEST martial art :P). I am liking shield drones a lot. Also the giant line of kroot was a lot more useful than outflanking kroot, even though they are dead now.



Chaos sorceror got a little greedy and pwned himself. I got damn lucky with some saves. Go pathfinders on the far side, taking out bikers in CC to avenge their fallen devilfish!?!?!

Alrighty Pavonis looks like I am riding a wave of entropy, time to average out against your army next!

-Krox

For the OLD ONES!!!...err I mean the greater good.

This is a Warhammer Fantasy post, so if you don't have any interest in that this post will not be interesting.







Alrighty if you are still reading here we go.

I started playing WFB back in the long long ago. When Nagash had a silly hat, chaos dwarves were still around, and wood elves and bretonnia were new armies.

Lizardmen were my first army and always my favorite. In grade school I was known as "The dinosaur kid". What's not to love about a bunch of giant dinosaurs and their magic wielding masters?

Now I am the kind of person that picks one army out of a game system and just uses that to the exclusion of all others. I have a wagon firmly hitched to both Tau and Lizardmen. Tau have had some good times and have been through some rough times. I think they are still pretty good, and playing Tau has improved my tactical brain by quite a bit.

With Lizardmen it is interesting to see how much raw power is there, especially in 8th edition. I haven't really played WFB since my tactical epiphany (read: doing something besides just running all your stuff at their stuff and see which dies first)

I will probably be starting a Lizardmen blog. Now that I know how to actually paint there is a lot I want to go back and get done. I guess this post is about the fact that I will still be playing 40K and still posting Tau battle reports, but if anyone has any interest at all in fantasy and wants to hitch a ride with the dinos, or just fantasy in general, there will be a blog here for you. Now all I have to do is come up with a name...

-Krox

DAWN RAID Kroot outshoot the rest of my army

Still trying to figure out how to be more tactical. I think I may need to rely more on FW in devilfish to take points versus outflanking kroot. Going to do some more experimenting with infiltrating kroot, instead of out flanking.




Deep striking suits got too close. Also probably should not have clumped my Broadside teams together.
Kroot got a little silly this game.



how many troop choices do you guys use? (Tau players) Do you have a ratio of points to amount of troops? or you always take X number of troops?

Holy Back log batman!

My blog has been a little neglected as of late. Have some battle reports!!!!



In my experience, reserving everything has a good chance to not come in right away. Blood Angels have a better chance with the re-roll to come in, but only guys with jetpacks have that...

Dooms List Battle Report

Alrighty Dooms, nice list.



First, the battle.

I hate Dawn of War and wouldn't ya know it, we rolled up Dawn of War for this scenario. My opponent won the roll off, and since it was an objective mission he opted to concede first turn to me. Black Sun filters helped out quite a bit. Even though 1 squad of Broadsides couldn't shoot the turn it came on, I still managed to make a dent in my opponent's strategy from the get go.

I used the terrain to my advantage and initially deployed far forward to give me a safe bubble to operate within. I had the capacity to solidly hold 2 objectives, but because of the amount of success I had in the first 3 turns I got aggressive and proceeded with a plan to try and take all three. The plan did not work, but I still came up with a tie.

Secondly the list.
I have noticed that a lot of my lists are heavily dependent on multiple units needing to survive to pull off alpha strikes. In the case of my seeker army list I needed the pathfinders and multiple tanks alive to make sure I can launch 15 missiles in a turn. This in turn required aggressive pathfinder deployment to effectively get good angles on the targets I wanted.

In my sniper drone list I have relegated myself to a lot less movement with my heavy firepower. While I can set up strong firing lanes I will have problems against a quickly closing force.

My sniper drone list has more anti-marine but this is has more anti-tank and it is 250 points cheaper.

I like it a lot Dooms, thanks for posting it. The upcoming Phoenix games tourney I am gonna be using my sniper drone list since that is what I have painted but it looks like I will have to paint up 2 more broadsides to run your list. In an 1850 game I think I would add shield drones to the 2nd squad of crisis and a squad of kroot. In a 2000 point game I would add Shadowsun for the leadership bubble.

Any thoughts, comments?

-Krox

An amazingly fun game

1850 point game on Saturday versus a different CSM player. An extremely entertaining game with lots of stuff happening on both sides. In hindsight I probably should have been more aggressive in this one (ironic) but I just came off of a game where I was too aggressive so I erred on the side of caution. Markerlights FTW win, but the Kroot get MVP for taking out 3 tanks!




I am pretty sure I just have to think more during my games. These battle reports are pretty good for me to look at and remember what I need to work on better. Apparently I am actually not that good, but I am getting better.

-Krox

1000pt Tau vs SM

I was a little too aggressive with my movement on my main tank and with my suit squads and killer Carl took advantage of that. At this point in my day I was wondering if buying my video camera to record battle reports cursed me to never win again! (Or maybe I should actually think about what I am doing) Good game dude!



Thoughts:
In dawn of war can SM squads combat squad so they can be in four separate squads for DOW? (even though you can only have 2 troop choices and an HQ)

I hate Dawn of War

Saw the Best looking bionicle Mawloc...ever.

Krox

Finished Army Pictures

Finally got the video uploaded. I suck at taking pictures so have fun. Go to a tournament I am at in real life if you actually want to see them in some proper lighting.

Enjoy the awesome music!



I'll be at Misty Mountain in Burnsville on the 12th of June, and then in Phoenix games in Wayazata on the last Saturday of June.

-Krox

(That's right, 2 video posts)

CSM vs Tau Again

Because I am posting every single game I play.



Is there any other blog that has more video battle reports than me? Let me know so I know how many more I need to do to start competing with them.

-Krox

ANOTHER quick update

My army is DONE. That's right it is done, all painted up, no clue what I am gonna do now, probably just give up 40K forever and go on to play yu-gi-oh cards. EXODIA!!!!!


Seriously though, never thought I would ever see my Tau army painted. I thought "maybe if I win the lottery I will get a Blue Table commission" But I never thought I would get it done, much less in three weeks!

I have been working 9 hour days 5 days a week, still finding time for the DnD campaign and hanging out with wife and friends, getting my Tau butt kicked three weeks in a row by a professional football player, trying to learn new characters at SSFIV, and completing an ECRS-R for accreditation. The Army Painter system is pretty much solely responsible, so I am gonna have to credit this army to Graydoom who actually told me about this idea and for the store owner of Phoenix games for telling Graydoom initially, and then explaining and demonstrating the process to me.

Its like a Nerd Final Exam!

-Krox

(and now I can focus on battle reports! and improving my game)

Fortune Favors the Bold! Unless you need the game to end on turn 5

KluweNids again versus my Tau, this time at 1500.






The game was really fun and there was a lot of crazy stuff that happened. In the end it came down to going for the draw, or going for the win. I decided to go for the win and needed it to end on turn 5!!! Excitement and a lot of fun. Sorry for posting this so late I have been busy getting my army finished up for next Saturday.

-Krox

Quick Update

Need to post the video of battle versus nids

Finishing up painting the rest of my army this week for the tournament on Saturday. I will hopefully post the vid tonight when I am procrastinating doing the painting.

-Krox

Painted Models add +1 to hit, right?

Check it out!!



This was a lot of fun to do, and I am really happy with the results.


@Drathmere: Whatcha think?

-Krox

1 is the loneliest number, unless you are trying to make saves.

Oofta, well I asked for it and I got it, a rematch against Kluwe's nids, and The Doom Of Malantai, which I have renamed to, "The Doom of Kroxitau".

1500 versus drop pod Space Wolves

Played a game today against JTaylor, of http://peaksofasaheim.blogspot.com. He brought his 1500 points of Space Wolves in drop pods and I cut down my 2000pt list to 1500. We rolled up a Dawn of war and capture and control.

I really wanted to choose the board side on this one so I could take advantage of some key terrain. I won the roll off and away we went. With DoW I ended up just having my HQ on at first, but it didn't really matter since the SW were coming on in DP anyways. If he would have had first turn it would have been really easy for him to muck up where I wanted my army to deploy and isolate my commander.

I deployed away from my objective but I had some units that could still fire at targets who decided to drop in next to my objective. Initially the firewarriors and kroot were in reserve and everything else walked on.







With my deployment I needed to make a bubble to keep my crisis suits safe, I used the devilfish and the hammerhead along with the terrain to give me a nice buffer zone, leaving a pocket open in case he felt daring.

I felt that the Sniper Drones had a positive effect in this game with their range and STR/AP. My deployment helped me to force my opponent to make some tough choices on where to commit his pods. I did not feel as pressured as I did in the recent BA game. For the most part I managed to stay out of assaults, except for the one at the end that caught the sniper drone team and caused the tie! Although I did get lucky with the Devilfish on the other side surviving a lot of hits to contest the SW objective. All in all it was a very fun game!

I think JTaylor said he would post his list so you all could see what he had. My list was as follows:

Deathrain HQ
2x 10 Kroot
1x 6 FW
3x Crisis Coalition teams
1x 6 Pathfinders in a devilfish
1x 2 Broadsides w/2 shield drones
1x Railhead
2x Sniper Teams


-Krox

New List Versus Daemon Drop 2000 points

Here is the Vid. I had to make it a two-parter because I was getting distracted as well as the fact that I spent more time trying to get dramatic game moments, but I think all those failed, and the crazy moments happened off camera.

Quick Update

Played my army versus Daemon Drop Dual lash CSM, it was kill point and spear head. I will post the game tomorrow probably, it is a two-parter video!
Here is my list

Death rain El
3x coalition crisis teams each consisting of 1 deathrain, 1 helios, 1 fireknife
2x 10 kroot
1x 6 FW
2x Pathfinders (1 has 7, the other 8, Dpods and 2 seekers on each fish)
1x 2 piranha vanilla with dpods and 4 seekers
2 Broadsides with 2 shield drones, TL
1 Railhead
3 Sniper Drone teams

I will use this army in ten battle reports before I change anything. Mostly testing out the validity of sniper drone teams.

-Krox

Army Progess plus New list

Two things. First after my ten game review I have decided that my army list at all levels needs to be re-evaluated. Second I am not frustrated with painting! (at least not currently.)

Guns don't kill people, Blood Angels kill people.

Played a very fun, albeit tense, game today versus Pavonis. The deployment was pitched and the scenario was capture and control. I was given first turn and chose the table side I wanted. All the BA assault squads were deep striking in, so I puffed out and made it very difficult to deep strike in anywhere good.

First battle versus nids 2000

I got to play my first game against nids today and it was a lot of fun. My opponent was Chris Kluwe and he really brought a solid list to the table. I have to admit I was kind of underestimating him going in to the fight, but I should have thought about it a little harder, that's what I get!

Spear head Battle report response to NockerGeek

Alrighty Nocker Geek here is a battle report about your spear head and null/ deployment versus alpha strike dilemma.

It's not drop pod, and it's not BA or SW so it was not as crazy hard a battle as it could have been, but even against chaos, they were deployed super close and I went second, Chaos that close with first turn required careful deployment as well as a little bit of luck. Luckily it was objective and not Kill points.




I am not super type-y right now because I just had a root canal, but ask some questions or anything and I will respond, my brain just doesn't want to create information by itself right now.


-Krox

Army Progress

Well, I just finished a post about my army painting progress and what I wanted my blog to be about, but blogger said I could not post it because I had an exclamation point and a question mark next to each other in the post title.

When I fixed that, it just started to bug out and my video got wonky. So I am redoing the whole dang thing, but the muse has left me so I just have the video:



Basically it just said, "I like doing battle reports and I will stop procrastinating the upload of my tournament etiquette videos. Also I need to practice painting more but it will be a long road so I am just going to go ahead and paint my army to the best of my ability and try not to get too frustrated"

-Krox

Tau beat down again!

Always remember, when you build your army, you have a plan of how it's played. Don't deviate from that because you will get stomped.

Although every one of my friend's bright lances were completely impotent.








My army relies on the alpha strike, meaning every unit is on the table and hopefully I can go first to wreck some things. This scenario was dawn of war and I decided to be a little weird and reserve everything (because i must be damaged) just to see what would happen. Outflanking pathfinders is retarded, deep striking suits means they can't get to cover before they are shot, and reserving the big guns means (obviously) they don't come in until turn 4.

Lesson Learned

-Krox

Doubles Tournament Shennanigans! A.K.A. Dice>Tactics

Alrighty here we go!

The doubles tournament was at Misty Mountain down in Burnsville MN. It was a 3 round tournament that had an odd number of teams, so 1 team each round had a bye. I like the tables at Tower better but Misty Mountain was not nearly as claustrophobic. This will be a long post, so gird yourselves, maybe go get a snack, maybe I am just exaggerating and your attention span is much longer than mine and you will be fine, but I vote for a snack.

Quick update

Doubles Tournament:
Got blasted out of the water both games and was forced with a bye for 1 game which kinda sucked. First game played against 2 kids, 1 was nice but did not know how to measure. The second had problems knowing the rules of his army. We lost because we got diced and were too polite. Jimmy can corroborate.

If your opponent wants to concede let him.

Played a fun game today versus Doc RailGun. It was 1750 kill points pitched battle and he was running with blood angels. He had 5 razorbacks with TL lascannons with 5 man assault squads in each(1 power weapon guy, one melta guy) 2 baal preds, 2 predators that have all the lascannons on them and a demolisher gun tank. oh, and a librarian, but the librarian didn't do too much and a whirlwind.

Eldar rules

do eldar jetbikes have hit and run? I don't think they do but played a game tonight where the dude was pretty sure they did.( he used hit and run with his seer council to stop from getting tar pitted by kroot) It was a laid back game and we were pressed for time so I was like, "alrighty"

Weird Tau things

Drones don't have to be deployed with their "transports" and are jet pack equipped troops. So you could argue that your piranha squadron comes in as normal, but the drones are deep striking in.

I don't know what the usefulness of that is, but you can do that; technically.

Also, you can put krootox in devilfish. Krootox take up 2 infantry slots so the only way they can hop in at the beginning of the game is if you have 10 kroot and 1 krootox. Why you would do that I don't know, but you can.

Enjoy those fun little snippets while prepare for

Doc Railgun's Blood Angels on Sat (1750 battle report to be posted on Sunday)

and The Misty Mountain doubles tournament with my CSM buddy Sarafanknight. I am playing a practice game Thursday that will be interesting, if anyone wants to see THAT battle report let me know and I will try to get it posted Thursday night. (warning there will be a lot of proxies on the other team)

-Krox

Tau Vs. Kharn and the World Eaters 1750

Played a good game at Tower today versus a really nice guy fielding some World Eaters. My list is permanently on the side board of my blog, he was nice enough to IM me his army list:

1750 Tau Vs CSM

Tau List

Shas' El
CIB, MP, PR HWMT, SI

2x 3 Deathrains

2x 8 Pathfinders (fish have Dpods and 2 seeker missiles)

3x 10 Kroot

6 Firewarriors

2 Piranhas 4 seeker missiles

Railhead, MT, TL, 2 Seekers, Dpod

Skyray, TA, Dpod

2 Broadsides with Ass

CSM

Daemon Prince, Wings, MoS, Lash

Sorcerer, Wings, MoS, Lash, MeltaB

5 Plague Marines, 2x Meltagun, Icon, Rhino

5 Chosen, 5x Meltaguns

5 Bikers, 2x Meltaguns, Icon of Nurgle

5 Havocs, 4x Meltaguns, Champ with Combi-Melta

7x 5 Lesser Daemons

"And now I realized I'm a cheater because I only have one squad of troops because the Lesser Daemons don't count towards the FOC troop requirement" - Jimmy








My other buddy has the battle missions book so we rolled up a spear head with kill points. With so many melta guns in the CSM I was kind of worried, but it turns out the alternate title to this battle report could have been "Melta-Fail" It was improbable that the meltas would fail as often as they did, but it happens. The seeker alpha strike is giving me a lot of room to manuever, plus it's nice to take out a big chunk of your opponent's army before they get to use it. Lash is still scary though and I really wanted to shut down the psychic stuff as fast as I could.
Let me know if there are any other questions or stuff you want to know about the battle, probably post some more this weekend maybe.

-Krox

How to post a video Battle Report

1. Get a digital video camera.
I got a Flip video camera. It is really affordable, idiot proof, and the software that is built into it helps you edit and upload your videos fairly easily. Of course you could use an old school camera but that is a lot more work, so for the purposes of this guide, I would say "how to post a video battle report from a digital camera"

2. Record a video.
In January I went to a tournament at Tower Games in Minneapolis. It was a lot of fun, and I recorded all of my games using the Flip. I thought I would post them up and wahoo it would be sweet! Well, I am a procrastinator, but also I had no format for how I was going to narrate the video and I didn't have time to do most of the recording because the game time was limited. I had one of my friends record the video but since there were two of us playing games, we didn't get a solid feel for what was going on. Which leads me to my next point.

3. Plan ahead! What part of each turn are you going to take video, who is going to do it, and how long each set should be.
Generally I would say take one after both sides have deployed, then at the end of each player's turn. It takes about 30 seconds to go over all the units on the table quickly and what has died. You can spend more time on any crazy things that have happened, or you can spend less time on a turn if it was super boring (like your Eldar friend's army was all in reserve on the first turn). Generally, it is good theatrics if you record the dice roll at the end of turn 5 to see if the game goes on or not, recap the basics and predict how future turns would have went if the game had not ended (or play out the following turns if they happen).



If your Battle Report looks like the one above, it won't make any sense to anyone viewing it (also I think i edited it wrong and there is a time traveling dreadnought in there that grows his arms back). I will post an actual report from a fake battle later after I mow the lawn and stuff, but right now I am procrastinating mowing the lawn by doing this :)

Make sure that the recorder person knows what they are supposed to do and make sure you have enough time to actually spend recording pieces of the battle. In a tournament setting I would recommend having a dedicated "videographer" because you will be spending too much time on tactics, moving guys around and rolling dice. In a more relaxed setting you can take the time to explain your tactics or thoughts as the battle develops.

(Yes this is all still part of step 3: Plan ahead) When you are speaking think about what you are saying before you say it, filling up the audio with "ummm" uhhh" and "like" makes you sound retarded. It is still stuff that I work on, but it is a good thing to keep in mind, and to keep the flow of the battle report smooth.

Hopefully I can follow my own rules and post up some more sensible battle reports, I really like watching battle vids, and I hope I can post some good ones.

-Krox

Seeker Missiles! (go big or go HOME!)

in prep for the 1750 tournament coming up I have been working on some different ideas. Namely, missile spam. Now this list isn't as crazy as you could go with seeker missiles, but it has enough for 2 turns of alpha striking with 12 pathfinders and a skyray.

Shas'El MP, CIB, PR with a hard wired multi-tracker

2 groups of 3 deathrains

2x 6 FW
3x 10 Kroot
2x 6 pathfinders
2 Piranhas
Skyray
Railhead
2 Broadsides

My current list above.

All vehicles have a D-pod (the P squad only has 1) and each vehicle other than the skyray has 2 seekers on it. This equals 16 seeker missiles, and 14 markerlights.

What I am gonna do with this list is pick one thing I don't want to deal with, and blast the bejeezus out of it. I am tempted to run 2 skyrays, but right now i think i would rather have the mobile railgun.

The whole basis of the army is that the suits, pathfinders and tanks all shoot at 1 thing until it is dead. with 36" ranges on both the markerlights and missile pods they should all be able to shoot the same thing.

I see the shooting phase going like this:

Pick a unit, for the sake of argument let's say there are 5 plague marines in a rhino with a sorcerer who has lash.

First shoot at the transport with one squad of death rains, if they fail to pop it use the second squad, if that fails, broadsides, then hammerhead.

Once it is open, marker light the squad up and shoot as many seekers as possible, assuming average rolls it will be about 7 between the two pathfinder units and the skyray. let's say 6 missiles connect, S8 is insta kill for plaguemarines (they are T5 but for the purposes of instakill they are T4 which means no FNP) and with AP3, see ya later bye marines. Let's then say that the sorcerer passed his invul save, well you still have your HQ to shoot with as well as the 2 broadsides.

Ideally you will blow up that target sooner with less firepower, but even if it takes everything in your army, you still don't have to worry about those plague marines or that sorceror, thus completely changing how your opponent is viewing the game.

A lot of the time people want to go second because they get the last say. With this army going first is most beneficial because you want to deny your opponent the ability to use key items that his or her army is probably based around. (lash, fortune, hive commander, other psychic powers, orders, etc)

Removing that "fun feature" will be a psychological victory and force your opponent to react to the fact that they are starting the game with 325 points less than they thought they were (in the example of the plague marines with sor in rhino)

Also they don't get to rely on their "trick"

Obviously deployment changes based on whether you are going first or second, but due to the pathfinder's scout move you can still get to the best spot after your enemy has deployed so that both pathfinder units can shoot at the same target.

The main change for me in this list (besides the missile crazyness) is that I don't take any fireknives and I have 3 units of 10 kroot total. I used to never take kroot, but they are pretty cheap, can outflank, and have good charge stats (well, good enough to tie up oblits anyway) Plus they are a troop choice which means in 66% of the games my opponent HAS to pay attention to them. With 5 troop choices in 1750 I should be able to get some good positioning for holding objectives.

I am kind of sad about the fireknives, but they always get me into trouble. I think it is the mentality of "well I paid 20 points for the dang gun I better get as many shots out of it as i can" so instead of safely using them i used them very aggressively and they ended up dying around turn 3 or 4 on a regular basis. When I started using Deathrains I found that they lasted until at least turn 4 and most of the time until the match was over. They hit more often at a higher strength and a farther range, I think that i will have to run deathrains for a while until GW makes them assault 2 in the 5th edition tau codex (come on R'myr, share your gun tech with all your normal troopers, they have been working so hard!)

More updates to come on how the missiles are working out.

-Krox

Tau help desk

http://tauofwar.blogspot.com/

i can't turn the link into a word because i don't have magic Tron powers, or because i refuse to read the instructions.

Anywho...

It's up, go there and ask some questions. If you don't know what questions to ask try these:

How do I effectively use Vespid?

How do flechette dischargers work in a squadron of piranhas?

Why is Shas'O Rymr so awesome?

Why is a Baal Predator cheaper than an Ionhead?

What are are the suit configuration Monikers?

Is it worth 130 points to take a unit of 10 Kroot with 10 kroot hounds?



P.S. I can answer the last one, YES if you convert the kroot hounds yourself, I do not like the look of the current models because there are not a lot of variety, but you can indeed get some green stuff and change them up to look super cool, preferably eating marine scout arms!

-krox

Skyray vs Railhead! (in the context of my 1750 pt army from a previous post

The debate: should I take a Skyray or a 2nd Railhead in my current 1750 list? I am pretty much 85% decided that I am going to take a Skyray, but I would like to open it up to discussion and will also drop by in other blogs to see what people have to say. Here is my brief opinion:

Skyrays have 2 BS 4 markerlights on a mobile FA 13 platform that has cover saves against anything greater than 12" away and it is a skimmer.

I do have a lot of markerlights in my list, but then again I want to be using markerlights every single turn.

I think a Skyray will be able to support my army by making it shoot better, where as a Railhead supports an army by taking a lot of fire and every couple of turns blowing up a tank.

I already have 1 Railhead, and 2 broadsides in my heavy support FOC. I never leave home without a Railhead. I am just saying i think it can be beneficial to my army to have extra markerlights so that I can def kill at least 1 enemy unit each turn.

With good deployment and proper postioning anything that I am shooting at will not have a cover save and the units I am shooting with will all be BS 5. That is the idea anyways.

with 15 marker lights (13 at BS 3 and 2 at BS 4) I should be able to accomplish that.

(maybe this post should be should I take 2 boradsides or 1 railhead?)

-krox

1750 pt army for tournament in nov

El- twin-linked MP, BSF, FNP, 2 marker drones Shield Gen

2x 6 FW
2x 6 Pathfinders DP on the fish

Railhead
Skyray
2 Broadsides with AS

2 Piranhas with FB and 1 DP

3 TLFB SG crisis suits
3 fireknives
2 TLPR SG suits

Basically use the markerlights to negate cover saves, and if there is any left over bump up BS. Primary targets are transports and fast moving things.

Broadsides try to pull units towards them and away from objectives/cover/ pathfinders.
Piranhas to contest points.
Suits to blow up marines since everyone plays marines or CSM in my area.

Army has to be painted so it will be good motivation since i am a super procrastinator when it comes to painting, that is also why I am only taking 2 squads of FW and no kroot.

I will be posting practice games versus nids and blood angels and prolly some other armies too. I expect to face a lot of blood angels in the tournament though.

New Tau Codex Leak!

Alrighty I happen to have a copy of the 5th edition Tau codex that will be out in the summer of 2011. To prove it I scanned the cover of the book so you can see by the caliber of the cover art, that I am indeed telling the truth.
This is a super leaked copy so don't tell anyone!!! So here's some of the changes and what is in the new codex!!!!!!!!!!



HQ
15 point cost reduction to both Shas'El and Shas'O, however Shas 'O can take XV-9 or XV 25 armor at an increased cost.

Ethereal
Priced the same
New rule " Blind to the Warp" Basically Ethereal and any unit within 18" of the Ethereal are immune to psychic effects that are not damaging attacks . (So Bolt of Change or Destructor would still affect the Tau units, but Doom, or Lash of Torment would not)
Can also be upgraded to take an envoy:

Fire Caste Envoy: basically a team of 12 Firewarriors with BS4 and advanced pulse rifles that are 24" assault 2 pinning

Earth Caste Envoy: Ethereal is followed by a retinue of 4 mining drones. The mining drones can be detached and deployed to create an area of difficult terrain. Treat this as a ordinance barrage attack for the purposes of determining where it hits in a 18" range, roll to scatter. The effect causes no real damage as the drone uses a seismic destabilization device to cause a ground disturbance that is difficult terrain for troops and dangerous terrain for vehicles. (but not skimmers)

Water Caste Envoy: The ethereal is followed by 2 Water Caste ambassadors. Each time an enemy has a chance to roll for a reserve coming in on a deep strike or outflank you can declare you are using th water caste's "passive resistance" ability. You roll a dice and your opponent rolls a dice for each enemy reserve coming in via either deep strike or outflanking. For each roll off you win, you may place that unit. You may place deep striking units anywhere on the table but must be at least 6" away from any table edge. For outflankers you choose what side they come in on. You must have at least one water caste ambassador alive to use this ability.

Air Caste Envoy: The ethereal is followed by a command and control drone. The drone is attached to Advanced air caste aerospace computer relay satellites. While the drone is alive, any tank in the Tau army equipped with a command and control node relay can make one shooting attack against deep strikers. Each unit may only be targeted once and each tank can only target one deep striking unit.

Elites
Crisis and stealth suits are ten points cheaper
weapon systems prices remain the same
Marker drone cost reduced to 20 pts.
A team leader of XV-8s can be upgraded to take iridium armor, or a SMS, or a marker light.

Stealth suits use the stealth universal special rule as well as night fighting rules to be spotted.

There is also a new tau auxillary race that is some kind of centaur thing that no one will use.

Troops
Fire warriors cost the same but have the option that if NOT mounted in a devilfish they may take a unit of kroot hounds (max 5) as an attachment. The unit may not include any drones if it includes kroot hounds. If the Firewarriors lose combat and flee check to see if there are any remaining kroot hounds. If there are still kroot hounds present in the unit, the firewarriors will still flee, but the Kroot hounds will stay and fight, gaining the fearless special rule, preventing the firewarriors from being run down.

Kroot points cost remains unchanged. Units of kroot including krootox may not infiltrate, but may still outflank. Krootox now count as monstrous creatures. Their profile stays the same. A kroot shaper cost is increased to 30 pts, however he grants one of the following to the kroot he is assigned to : Feel No Pain, Furious Charge, or Preferred Enemy.

New Troop unit - XV-6 Alert
18 points per model, max 8 in a squad
same stats as a stealth suit except only 1 attack and I 2
Jet Pack infantry
+4 save
has 2 hard points that must be filled by
(2 weapons mounted will count as 1 twin linked weapon)

Advanced Pulse Rifle S 5 AP 5 24" range assault 2 pinning
Flamer
Advanced boosters ( adds + 1D6" to any move using the jet pack.When choosing to run in the shooting phase roll 3D6 and choose the highest)
Iridium Armor granting +3 armor save (cannot be taken with advanced boosters)
Drone Controller
Shield Generator

Devilfish reduced to 50 points
Disruption pod increased to 15 points
Devilfish can be equipped with atmospheric thrusters for 15 points which will allow them to Deep strike. When Deep striking with atmospheric thrusters roll only 1D6 when scattering.

Fast Attack
Piranha squadrons point cost reduced to 35 points per model
can take 2 networked markerlights instead of 2 gun drones for 30 points
Wording on flechette dischargers fixed so that each assaulter directing attacks against the piranha squadron takes wounds from each flechette discharger in the unit.
Can take atmospheric thrusters (see above)

Gun Drones reduced in cost to 8 points per model

Pathfinders the same but do not have to take a devil fish.

Vespid now have the hit and run rule, otherwise remain unchanged

XV-9 Hazard suits 60 points per model otherwise see IAA:2 for more details

Heavy Support
Broadsides now cost 55 pts per model, otherwise remain unchanged

Sniper Drone Teams still 0-1 but can take 3 as part of a single FOC slot. Points cost reduced to 40 per team.

Hammerhead base cost reduced to 60 points. Railgun reduced in cost to 40 points, Ion Cannon remains unchanged. New options being twin-linked fusion cannon, twin-linked plasma cannon, or twin-linked long barreled burst cannon.
Can be equipped with atmospheric thrusters or command and control node relay.

Skyray base cost reduced to 90 points.
There are new seeker ammo load outs for the skyray. Each skyray may only equip 1 type of seeker loadout

New seeker ammo load outs: Anti-Air Seekers. Causes all deep strikers during an enemy's turn to suffer a dangerous terrain test on the turn they arrive. 20 pts

Choking Smoke: these seekers are launched the same way a normal seeker is, but you target an area of ground, roll to see if you hit as normal for seeker missiles, if missed rolled 2D6 and scatter. The round creates an area of choking smoke the size of the large blast template that lasts until the beginning of the next Tau turn. The smoke blocks LOS and any non-vehicle unit trying to move through it treats it as difficult terrain. Any infantry unit starting their turn or moving through the smoke reduces their WS and I to 1 for the rest of their turn. 40 points

Marker Gel
These seekers explode into a gout of electro-reactive gel that adheres to any surface and is full of nanomachines that relay information to Tau targeting computers. For the rest of the game any Tau unit shooting at a unit that has been marker gel'd is treated as having BS 5. 25 points

Normal Seeker ammo 15 points

Can be equipped with atmoshperic thrusters. May only take a command and control node relay if equipped with a standard seeker missile rack.


New Heavy Support Choice
Kraken heavy skimmer tank
220 points
Equipped with target lock, advanced targeting array (BS 5) a hull mounted Heavy Rail Cannon and two turret mounted ion cannons. The Kraken may also take 2 twin-linked smart missile systems, or 4 gun drones.
Rail Cannon S 10 AP 1 72" Lance
When the rail cannon fires trace a line from its barrel to 72" or the end of the table, whichever is shorter. Roll to hit the first target in that line, if that target is a non vehicle unit, or a vehicle that the rail cannon has had a penetrating shot on, roll to hit the next target in line. Do this until the railcannon shot fails to penetrate a vehicle or there are no units left in the line. If the shot fails to hit a vehicle move on to the next one, the shot has not stopped, it just miraculously missed that particular target.
Cannot take atmospheric thrusters

Lots of new wargear stuff, but i don't want to get into too much trouble, but before I go there is a ruling in the book on drones attached to squads:

"Any drone under the influence of a drone controller does not count for the purposes of taking a morale test due to unit losses. Also drones are automatically destroyed when a vehicle is destroyed. Drones do not count as seperate from the vehicle they are mounted on unless they detach.(so drones do not give extra KP unless you decide to detach them) Drones that are attached to a unit always have the same unit type and armor save/ toughness as the unit they are attached too."

Well I am sure that this should get you all excited about the new codex!!!!!!

What should I write about since I think everyone does unit reviews and they are kind of played out

Alrighty I was going to go through all the units and why I use them and why they are in my army, but it got too episodic and EVERYBODY does that. Suffice to say I got bored of it and didn't want to do that. I did decide to drool over these though :



Those are some pretty cool suits with some pretty cool weapons. IAA2 has a lot of interesting bits in it, and hazard suits are why I think it would be a good buy.


Back to topic, what should I write about? I am not super tactics revolutionary like Fritz, I don't have mad painting skillz like jawaballs or drathmere, and it seems like there are already a lot of "every day weekend warrior" types of blogs. I need to find a niche, I could go the humor route, but I do like tactics, I guess I will just have to play more games, but don't ask me questions about Vespid, I am not a good enough warhammer player to get Vespid to work for me yet.

quick update

Probably not going to get to posting the practice vids tonight, however they are on my computer. Working on last minute gluing stuff together and hanging out with the wifey before I disappear into the realm of nerdom for a day.

Army List Review 5 : Pathfinders

Pathfinders are an intrinsic part of the psychology game in my army.

Generally, pathfinders make other units in your army perform better in the shooting phase. They also allow you to launch seeker missiles off of vehicles (even vehicles that have turbo-boosted).

They would be cheap, but they have to take a devilfish. Some people think this is a bummer and a deterrent to taking this unit, I really like devilfish and have no problem paying the extra cost.

So what do I do with pathfinders? A whole heck of a lot.

This unit, more than any other unit in my army, changes what it does depending on pretty much everything. Hammerheads are always gonna act scary, kroot always try to do some contesting in woods sillyness, piranhas are always going to push on the last turn and my suits are always going to be hide and seek harrassers. Pathfinders have to take into account, opponent's view of them, how mobile is my opponent's army, how high is their leadership, is my opponent looking to exploit cover, etc... I have been really tempted for a long time to use 2 units of pathfinders, but I haven't yet.

(I JUST made a new 2000 point list in army builder that had 2 pathfinder units, I don't think it is as effective for what I want to do at 1500 though... end of impulse army making segment. Army Builder is a rocktackular program by the way.)

Pathfinders should be in pretty much every tau army. In my opinion Tau need to focus down their threats and pathfinders with markerlights exemplify this tactic. Who cares if most of your units are BS 3, with markerlights all of your units can be BS 5 pretty quick.

Battle Report 1500 point Tau Vs. 1500 Lysander Marines

Every Tuesday night is open 40K at Universe games in Minneapolis, I haven't gone before because the parking is horrible, but I managed to find a good spot, and I had a buddy along to take pictures. (i cant wait to get the Flip for video battle reports) I decided to get a game in before the tournament on sat. I will play some more games on thursday.

This battle was 1500. I didn't take a pos'el, which is weird for me, but i decided to see how much i rely on it, through it's absence.





My list:
A variation on my 2000 point list:
Christmas Commander
2 Super Knives

1x3 Fireknives

1 Suicide Suit with twin linked fusion blasters
and a targeting array!!! ( which i totally forgot about grrr)

2 Devilfish with 6 firewarriors
disruption pods on those

1 10 person Kroot Squad

5 Pathfinders in a devilfish
Disruption pod

2 piranhas with 4 seeker missiles

2 rail heads with D-pods, multitrackers and burst cannons

His list

Lysander with Terminators max size
power fists and crazy lysander stuff

Another unit of terminators max size
whatever basic terminators have plus an assault cannon(i think)

2 units of marines in rhinos (however many the max can fit into a rhino)

two dreadnoughts with multi-meltas

and a vindicator tank with the demolisher cannon

Deployment was table side, seize objective, and there were 5 objectives.

He won the roll off and opted to go first, which was fine by me because it was an objective based mission.

The marine player I was up against was very nice and polite, there was a Tau player at a different table who saw that I was taking two piranhas and said I was stupid for taking piranhas, and there is no reason they should be in any army list due to the fact they are open topped, and have stupid weapons and BS and generally fail at everything. I told him those piranhas were going to win me the game, and he went over to his tau gun line army versus spore pod nids match up :P

My opponent had 2 units of terminators in reserve, I kept the devilfish, kroot, suits, and piranhas in reserve. I had the hammerheads out on the field, as well as the pathfinders.
I used my scout move to move the pathfinders up on the left side and deploy the drones for cover saves and the pathfinders behind the drones. In this picture you can see the one objective by his dread and rhinos on the near field, there is one more objective in the middle of the board that you can see and there are three objectives on the far side in a triangle formation all around 15 inches apart, one of which is hidden behind the round rock.


He went first and ran his dreadnaughts, moved up his rhinos and popped smoke with both. His vindicator took a shot at the hammerhead but I cover saved it.



On my first turn the lower hammerhead blew up the rhino (even though he popped smoke)
The other hammerhead got a weapon destroyed on the rhino trying to move up the far side with the dreadnaught. I wanted use use my Hammerhead on the near side to pull forces away from where I was concentrating my army, so that's why he was all by himself unsupported, I wanted to make sure he got a lot of attention. On the far side i was hoping to get some reserves in to slow down that dread.

His turn 2
Lysander comes down on his turn 2 but the other termies remain in reserve. My plan works out as Lysander comes down in front of the exploded rhino, his intended target looks to be the distracting lone hammerhead. His remaining rhino pulls back out of site near the point of the hidden objective triangle in the center. The Vindicator lets loose again, this time hitting but not glancing or penetrating at all. He runs at my pathfinder devilfish with the dread, trying to close for melee next turn. His marines opposite my distracting hammerhead just consolidate their position around the objective.

My Turn 2

Piranhas, Kroot, and both Devilfish pop on to the field. I really didn't want the devilfish coming on this early, and part of me was thinking "should have brought the positional relay", but oh well.
I wanted the Kroot to come on, on the pathfinder side of the map to hunker down on an objective, but they didn't. (In hindsight I should have placed an objective on some trees and sat the kroot in there infilitrating and going to ground for +2 cover) Instead the Kroot came on near enough to the exposed marines to assault. The two devilfish came in side by side next to the supporting hammerhead, and the piranhas turboboosted on getting parrallel with the dread.

In my shooting phase the distracting hammerhead put a wound on Lysander (and I totally forgot to move the hammer head, it was stationary which was a bonehead move, but it is still serving it's purpose as distraction.)

The supporting Hammerhead immobilizes the Vindicator, but the Vindicator is in a good spot so that's still ok for the marine player. The pathfinders light up the dread that is getting too close and I let loose with all 4 seeker missiles on the Piranhas. Dread goes down and there are no more threats to the pathfinders (point 1 why piranhas are awesome). Kroot lose half their numbers in the assault and break, but they are fast enough to run away, still being at half strength or above they have a chance to regroup and threaten the farside objective.

His turn 3
His other unit of terminators come down near my pathfinders. His exposed marines hang out by their objective, the remaining dread charges and the kroot stick around to fight. Lysander moves into charge range, and since I didn't move that stupid tank he easily kills it, however it explodes and I claim the life of 1 terminator. The terminators that came down near the pathfinders open fire and kill 2 of them.The remaining rhino hides, the vindicator shoots but cover saves protect again.

My Turn 3
This picture is a little screwy, because it is taken after his terminator unit that came down by pathfinders unit dies, very unfortunately.


In my turn all three crisis units come down. The suicide suit scatters closer to the rhino, but it will still be hitting side armor, the other 2 squads of suits scatter down just outside of rapid fire range, which is good, so I can't get assaulted when the rhino pops. The piranhas and two devilfish move up, the piranhas deploy their drones so that the Terminators are surrounded on all sides. The pathfinders light up the terminators and give the piranhas BS5 and reduce the leadership of the terminators by 1.

The piranhas, drones, devilfish, and hammerhead manage to kill 3 terminators (no firewarriors got out), forcing a morale check, the terminators roll 11 , and with nowhere to run, are killed because of the DRONES FROM THE PIRANHAS (there ya go buddy, that is point two why piranhas are awesome).

Even with twinlinked I failed to roll a 4 to hit the remaining rhino with my twin linked fusion, I CANNOT believe I forgot I had a targeting array on that thing, because it would have been popped, but nope, rolled a 3, then a 2 to hit. The Christmas commander with super knives as well as the other unit of fireknives also failed to pop the rhino, but they did manage to immobilize it. Kroot are still stuck in close comabt with a dread that cannot get a hit to save it's life.

His turn 4
Lysander runs towards my main force. Dread finally kills the kroot. And Vindicator manages to blow up one of my devilfish. None of the firewarriors die in the explosion, but 1 gun drone does.

My Turn 4
Piranhas turbo boost towards his exposed marines in order to contest their objective on turn 5. I have 1 score-fish on an objective, and one unit of firewarriors in a crater that Lysander is running straight towards. The pathfinders light up Lysander's unit and the firewarriors let loose, but outside of rapid fire range, they still manage to take down 2 terminators ( i think i missed one dying to burst cannon fire somewhere from the distracto hammer head), All of my suits fail to do anything to the rhino, so the suicide suit does what he does best and charges the rear armor and finally wrecks it.

His turn 5
Lysander barrels for my firewarriors, with his unit, easily killing them. He moves his troops from the recently popped rhino to hold the hidden objective point (hidden because you cannot see it, not because it is a secret). He takes some shots at my suits but the hq passes with the shield gen save versus a krak missile and their bolter fire bounces off as well. The remaining dread moves back to support the marines on his side.


My turn 5
Piranhas boost to contest his "safe" objective. Suicide suit fails to wound anythning from shooting but moves up to contest, fire knives and christmas commander do some more sucky shooting. Both his objectives he has are contested, I have 1 uncontested objective with scorefish, end of turn game ends on a 1. Tau win by 1!!! (Point 3 why piranhas are awesome)

Review:
As noted above there were a couple of things I could have remembered or done differently, but even with the crappy offensive rolling (except against the one terminator unit that fled from burst cannon fire) my tactics still rang true. I am tired now, I will reply to any comments or questions. This was a good run in prep for the tourney on sat.

Flip Video Camera

Hopefully the Flip video camera I ordered will get here in time for the weekend so I have it to record some battle reports of the tournament. We will see if all of my tactics are baloney or if it is actually effective against people that I don't normally play against.

Army List review 4: Piranhas

Alrighty, I really want to make an exploding fishwall army, but before I get any more piranhas, I need to know if there is any clarification on Flechette Dischargers. If I have 5 Piranhas, all with Flechette Dischargers, does that mean any assaulting unit takes 5D6 hits per dude?! I sure hope so...anyway on to the review of my army list.

I like Piranhas and I think they are pretty cool. The turbo boost is nice and they can take Disruption pods, which mean even if I don't turbo boost they still get a cover save. In this army they are a distraction as well as last turn objective contester. I left them with burst cannons because i did not want to go tank hunting with these guys, that may change after the results of the upcoming tournament.

I also have a full loadout of seeker missiles on these 2 for silly pathfinder+turbo boosting fun. Just run up the line so that the piranhas are parallel with the side armor of any tanks and mark the tanks with the pathfinders. Boom! seekers hitting on side armor, or rear if you can get that far back. Since seekers can be fired regardless of what the Piranha moved, it's a nice quick way to deliver some anti-tank firepower.

In mission where kill points are not an issue the drones come in quite handy with corraling enemy troops or providing cover saves to Kroot or whoever else needs some help in the back lines.

In my current army list I do not have flechette dischargers because the ruling is kind of iffy. IF it is true that each assaulting model takes xD6 hits depending on the number of flechette dischargers then this will def be a part of my army at a 4 strong squadron, I would also upgrade them with targeting arrays and fusion blasters so they become more of an annoyance, and to shore up the fact I will be taking less suits to pay for their cost.

Piranhas are very fun, but they are definately a finesse unit that you can't use like a hammerhead, and are a little more tricky to keep safe than crisis suits, (especially if you are going tank hunting)


I don't field more than 2 right now but fielding 3 or 4 of these guys can shut down landraider assaults, and force the enemy to focus on blowing up these guys instead of going after other elements of your army. It is kind of a silly tactic, but if you are trying to make your opponent lose his cool and make bad decisions, there ya go.

Army List Review Part 3 Firewarriors! (and devilfish)

Well, I am not going through FOC in the order I thought, actually I am just going on down the line on my army list that I printed out, which I guess means, troops before suits, but then my Kroot are at the bottom of the list, so oh well.

Firewarriors! And Devilfish. Some people say the fish is over-costed others say firewarriors can't do anything. I say that , yea maybe the devilfish is a tad expensive, but then I look at the sillyness of the price of the disruption pod, I think that it is a good points cost for a tank that can act as mobile cover for the rest of my army, AND get a +4 cover save itself.

I usually field Fish in a scorefish config (no bells or whistles other than Disruption pod) However I take 10 fw instead of the usual 6 for a scorefish.

I play mech Tau all the way (one unit of kroot, outflanking is nice but I will get to that later) Generally I keep all of my FW in fish, some games they never see the light of day. Fire warriors have good range and you can set them up in a pretty formidable gunline with broadside and markerlight support, but with all the drop pods, mycetic spores, and super fast troops (hormagaunts!?!) a static position will be overrun in no time. In general I shouldn't let my FW out of the fish unless they are going to FoF leftovers. In reality I push these guys to their limits a lot, and sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it goes poorly.

For an aggressive general there are a couple things of note. A scorefish is a dual sided sword, and kind of a funny name, because in an annihilation mission, score fish are just that, a bunch of points for the enemy. They give up 1 more KP versus a standard transport of a different race because of drones. This is a bummer, and in most kill point missions my strat is KP denial so I reserve these guys and try to keep them off of the field using positional relay. I could field them with smart missile systems, but to make that worth it I would also slap on a targeting array and multi-tracker and that gets too expensive for me. Plus with defensive weapons classed at S4, I could only fire one weapon and I really want to keep moving.

So back to the KP thing, keep these guys reserved. In the other two mission types, drones are a ton of fun and if used right really help control the enemy's movement. General drone tactics include: getting your opponent to shoot at them, getting your opponent to assault them, sitting them on an abandonded objective, blocking a retaliation assault on a double FoF (i have done this more times than I should have but who can resist 40 S5 shots at a group of oblits!? gotta love those cover saves getting in...)

Since drones count as disembarking from an open-topped vehicle you could assault with them after a move, but a squad of 2 drones will die to anything so it is better to have the enemy waste their turn assaulting or shooting these guys. (Different story with piranha squadrons...)

The devilfish itself is a pretty big tank. Armor front of 12 will keep it alive but it's width is where the money is at, those big hips are perfect for hiding a squad of suits. Old Shatter Hands does this better than me with his "circling the wagon" which I am completely stealing now and having more success than what I was doing before.

In summary I use the drones to be as annoying as possible, the devilfish for mobile cover and to keep my firewarriors safe, and suits with cover.

Firewarriors, the way I use them, are super Mont'ka. Its all about the killing blow, but knowing where to strike is a key element. I still FoF, but it is less powerul, but using Mathhammer i can tell you this- you will kill 1.5 MeQ on average with a FoF that has 10 FW, in other words, don't FoF anything other than leftovers, and unless you have some drone coverage don't FoF assaulters. Pathfinders make this better, but it is still risky.

I like fire warriors, but I just can't seem to take advantage of that 30" range. I am all about the "no guts no glory" FoF, and I can't bring myself to have my army sit still long enough to fire 30" away.

Armylist Review part 2: Christmas Commander and the two superknives

I do not usually play 2000 point games so I generally play with a slimmer list. The next Tournament I am in is a 2000 point game so I needed to gain some weight. This is a pretty fat unit points wise, but it is a lot of fun, and I am pretty happy with the models. (Still need to get better at taking pictures so I can actually do these guys some justice!)

Superknives are bodyguards that have twin-linked plasma rifles, a missile pod, hardwired multi-trackers, and hard-wired blacksun filters. The Christmas commander is a suit that has stimulant injectors, twin-linked plasma, and a shield gen. Normally this HQ has a plasma rifle, Cyclic ion blaster and a targeting array with a hard wired multi-tracker and stim injectors. However I got Rymr for Christmas and I can't NOT use him, so he gets to be in the first tournament of the year and I will see how he does.

Basically, this unit is supposed to draw a lot of attention, depending on the enemy they will start on the field, or deep strike somewhere within 18" of a transport, or small unit of guys, (5-6) or somewhere close to cover and force a chase.

So far in the prepatory games I have played this unit has done decent and has given small terminator squads a run for their money. I just have to be careful to not get too aggressive with them, because they have gotten stuck in CC in a couple games because i couldn't resist getting into rapid fire range.

A thing to remember that if you are going against MeQ's with these guys you need to be careful about shooting plasma and missile pods. On a unit of 4 or 5 guys you generally don't want to shoot your missile pods if you got 3 or 4 hits on plasma. If you decide to shoot your missile pods you could end up wasting your plasma shots, here is an example:

4 terminators for some reason wandered to within rapid fire range of your super team. You light them up with pathfinders so you are hitting with plasma on rerollable 2 or betters! hooray for you!

you get 6 hits with plasma if all wound, all guys are praying on their +5 ward saves, however, if you shoot missiles too...

let's take the 6 hits with plasma, then lets say you roll, two 1's with the missiles so, only 4 missiles hit, that's 10 wounds total that your opponent can allocate. He allocates 3 plasma shots to 1 term, 3 plasma shots to the other term, and 2 missile shots to the other 2 remaining termies. Because you shot those missiles, your unit allowed the terminators to weather the storm a hell of a lot better, versus just shooting the plasma. This is mainly only a problem with fireknives, but can happen on other suits depending on your configuration.

The reason I did not just take fusion blasters instead of missile pods is that I don't want to be too close to the enemy, and I want these guys blowing up transports from far away.

Firewarrior painting and picture taking.

First off I am pretty happy with the results so far, but it is still taking forever, but that is probably just me. I am painting whole squads at a time and I am still on the first squad. This picture was taken after i just did the devlan mud wash on the armor and badab black wash on the cloth.









Here is another shot that is a little bit better. It is going good so far and I haven't even gotten to the detail work. It is taking a while and my ADD and painting are pretty close to being in all out war with each other, so I am taking a little break to post.

Any advice on how to get better photos? I need to figure out how to manually focus the camera, but it is my wife's and she is at a baby shower, I will ask her when she gets back, but if anyone has any other picture taking advice let me know. (camera is an olympus C-750)