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)

Painting Update

Following Drathmere's advice I changed how I am painting my firewarriors, and so far it seems to be going well. They are looking better and it is encouraging so it is getting a little bit easier to get motivated to paint. Hopefully I will have some time so I can put up some pictures by Sat.

Army List review Part 1 Pos'El

Here is the first piece in my "army list review". Primarily, this is going to be a grouping of posts that focus on my army list selections, why they are in there and how I use them. I will start with the HQ of the FOC and just work my way down.

A Pos'el is a Shas'el with the positional relay, and generally some long range firepower. For me he is equipped with a shield drone, iridium armor, and twin-linked missile pods.

This guy is less useful in single shot games, where you just bring 1 list and play 1 game. I like to use him versus armies that have a lot of deep strikers themselves, and so if I know I am going to be playing against something like that I will definitely take him. In a tournament setting where you have to take the same list against multiple opponents I will always take him because he radically alters how I can use my army from game to game. This means that I will alter my strategy based on who and what I am going up against.

Against speedy armies: Generally against fast speedy armies I will deploy almost all of my army to the field. I need to have all the guns ready to shoot those last turn objective contenders early on and really need to be a bully about making sure I can control the battlefield. The positional relay is generally used only once to bring in the suicide suit right where I need it to take out a key transport or piece of armor. The other squads of suits just use the tanks as mobile cover. Examples: ravenwing, jetbike eldar.

Against Mech armies: Against mechanized i deploy most of my army, except for the suits, which will be brought down (hopefully no 1's) once a turn closer to cover than to enemy troops. Unless it's the suicide suit NEVER drop suits closer than 18" to the enemy, ya there is scatter, but it is better to drop them somewhere they can get to cover than somewhere to shoot (remember their assault phase move!), because generally they are not going to be able to eliminate all threats to themselves when they deepstrike in. This way your enemy has to spend resources hunting your suits down and hopefully splitting up his army a little bit while you use the rest of your army to support your suits on the other side of the battlefield. This can mean shooting with HH or FW squads, but generally the support comes from the fact that the enemy is less likely to cover an efficient space if they are trying to go after those shiny crisis suits that just dropped in, so you can get better positons with your tanks and pathfinders.
Examples: Mechdar, Rhinotime, IG, Taumech

Annihilation missions (and assault first turn armies and Drop pod armies, but the KP thing is important to note as well)
I have like...21 kill points in my army i think (give or take a few) Kill point missions are tough on Tau because of the whole drones count as a kill point so a single piranha counts as 2 KP. In this situation i reserve EVERYTHING, except the Pos'el. Each turn i bring in one unit (or even better roll a 1 and bring in nothing) I will bring in the piranhas first, and put them somewhere that is out of the way, but within 24 inches of a good position, then I bring in a Hammer Head, then turn after that the pathfinders in their devilfish (their re-roll scatter is nice for the suits when everything comes in on turn 5). Trying to keep things coming in as far away from the enemy as possible. If i am going second hooray for me, if I am going first, I still have the same tactics it is just riskier. Hopefully I have been able to keep my Pos'el out of sight and hiding, maybe taking some potshots at transports or speeders. With the Pos'el I only have to bring in 1 unit a turn, so this is basic KP denial. I try to bring in everything on one turn and do as much damage as possible, remember you only need one more point than the enemy to win. (this tactic is most enjoyable when you are going second)

The Pos'El allows me to take a look at what kind of person my opponent is, what type of army they are using, and then based on tactical insight and intuition I can completely change how my army works from one game to the next. Sometime I guess completely wrong and deploy my army when I should have reserved but I have gotten pretty good at figuring out the best way to do this, and it makes an insane amount of difference in KP missions.

Next up will by the Superknives with the christmas commander!

-Kroxitau

Army List

Here i the army list I am taking to an upcoming tournament. It is 2,000 points, I normally play 1500 so some of my choices are little different than what I normally take (mostly just added more upgrades and shiny bits)

Shas'el with twin-linked Missile pod, iridium armor, and positional relay, and shield drone

Shas'el with twin linked plasma rifle and a shield gen ( i got the O'Rymr model for Christmas, normally i would have plasma rifle and cyclic ion blaster but the tournament is strictly WYSIWYG so there ya go) He also has stimulant injectors.

2 Bodyguard- twin-linked PR and a MP as well as HWMT (these are called superknives)

Unit of 3 Fireknives

1 suicide suit with twin-linked fusion blasters

A crisis team that has Superknife team leader and another guy with FB and MP with MT

Two units of 10 firewariors in devilfish with disruption pods

A fire warrior unit of ten with no upgrades or transport

6 pathfinders with their devilfish

2 piranhas with burst cannons and seeker missile

2 kitted out rail heads

a unit of (usually outflanking) 10 kroot.

I promised that I would post my army list at this time, but I am not at my own computer and don't have all my photos, I will post a "unit goal" item later when I get home.