Resurrection Time

No one probably reads this any more. Been gone for a long time, because there wasn't any Tau stuff to talk about, but along with a bunch of other Tau bloggers I am back online for more video battle reports with this new Codex.

Currently putting together a Riptide and dusting off/ touching up the rest of my army.

More to come...

Test post from phone

New rumors via Bell of Lost Souls

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/04/40k-rumors-tau-you-read-that-right.html

There is the link, if i was more tech savvy I would have done something clever.


Looks pretty interesting. Summary of Rumors:

Troop choice entirely dependent on the chosen HQ (I.E. Crisis suit Commander= Crisis suit troops)

1 Markerlight shot fires all of the missiles off of a vehicle.

Skyrays don't run out of missiles, but shoot 6 at 1 target.

There are more but those are the ones that popped out at me (oh yeah and crisis teams consisting of 5 models of 3 wounds each.

After Grey knights it will probably be Necrons, then Black Templars, then maybe Tau? who knows. Crossing my fingers.


-Krox

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?