Bad advice?

Unfortunately due to work commitments, I haven't have much time for anything hobby related recently. I did manage to get a re-match against my mate for the last game of escalation and managed to have a relatively decisive victory, although the scenario was in my favour from the start so kudos to Ginge for agreeing to a rematch (we will have a slightly more balanced game next time :-P).

Which brings me onto the topic for this post. While I was down that way I popped into the local gamesworkshop to pick a few bits up,  naturally the guy working there started talking to me, asking what armies I collected etc. When I mentioned I play Tau, he started asking me what I thought of them. I responded saying that they can be quite good with a few tricks but could do with a new codex.

Saying I mainly played a battlesuit army with as many suits as I have, small squads of firewarriors, pathfinders and hammerheads. I was told that this was my problem, at this point I wasn't even aware I had a problem, I was advised that I should really take less crisis suits and broadsides, and more firewarriors and drone squadrons. Stating that one of the regulars at their shop filled up on stealth suits with firewarrior support.

At this point I wondered if the local Tau players had ever won any games, or were just considered the baby seals of the store. Is this the advice that employees are giving out to people who they think are struggling to win games?

I don't considered myself a WAAC player in the slightest, slightly competitive in so much as I play to win, or stop the other guy from winning if my dice fail me :-P. But I have enjoyed some measure of success using my standard army list against most of the newer codexes. I've beaten, and lost to, Guard, tabled Blood Angels a couple of times. Given I rarely get the opportunity to play I think my win/draw/lose ratio has been pretty favourable. However were I struggling and getting frustrated at the 'poor' performance of my Tau would his advice of helped at all?

No, firewarriors are one of the weakest units in the Tau codex, drones are on the same footing. Better advice could be found at places like 3++ is the new black or many other sources of solid tactical advice on playing the game. Stacking up on the weaker units of an army is a sure way to lose, sure you can get more feet on the ground, but they are more likely to be running away at the first sign of trouble instead of inflicting damage on the opponent.

In a Tau army, crisis suits and broadsides are the heavy hitters, missile pods, plasma guns and railguns the tools of their trade. Cram as many of these in as you can and always remember the dead can't claim objectives. That would be my advice at any rate :-P

Book Review: The First Heretic

The First Heretic is the latest novel in the long running Horus Heresy series of books written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. The book explores the history of the Word Bearers legion, starting with the Emperors castigation of them for worshipping him as a god and ending with them preparing to assault the Ultramarines at Calth. 

Over the course of the book the information about the origin of the Primarchs and the events leading to their dispersal throughout the galaxy is explained in more detail. There is a lot more background information on the nature of chaos and the enmity between the Word Bearers and the Ultramarines. 

The book describes the fall of Lorgar from the Emperor and his turn to chaos. As he seeks to find something to worship, you get to see the fallibility of the primarch as the ultimate architects of his, and the legions, downfall is revealed. 

Overall, this book is fantastic and certainly one of the better books of the Horus Heresy series so far. 

5/5 - Awesome must read for fans of the series. 

Black Library

Black Library have just started to offer free Ebooks. Which I think is absolutely brilliant. There are current 3 for free click here for the ebooks.
If you go to the amazon site, you can download a free e-reader software PC software here. All you need to do is download the .mobi version of the ebooks from the black library website and open them from your download file.

Thanks to Black Library for providing this content. Remember to check the site every friday for another free ebook.

Escalation 2010 Armies

I managed to get a few photos of the armies present at escalation this year. so thought I'd put up a few photos of them.

An actual chaos army!

Chaos wolves!

Orkies with a rather nice trike mounted warboss

Space wolves!

 

Zombie horde army. (My round 1 opponent)

Tyranids

Although I think one of the best armies present was the Eldar army, shown below. Looks awesome, the judges must have thought likewise as well as it won best painted.

Escalation 2010

I took my Tau to escalation 2010. Their first competitive outing. I didn't do quite as well as I hoped, but not as bad as I feared. coming 11th out of 24th with 1 win, 2 draws and a 1 loss in four games. Some of the missions were a little odd. With strange deployments and/or reserve units, certainly wasn't friendly for armies relying on firepower.

Game 1:

This was fought using the night fighting mission from the battle missions book. With the table split into four triangles diagonally across the table. Rolling for random deployment of units within the triangles. Mission was objectives with three objectives positioned towards the center of the battlefield, night fighting rules all the time.

My opponent for this mission was using a plague zombie army, I watched as horror as he positioned 83 zombies around the objectives in the middle of the table. For those that don't know, the zombies are toughness 3 feel no pain, S4 and fearless. So they can take a beating and not go anywhere. 

Over the course of 6 turns I managed to drop about 50 of the zombies without losing a single model. However he held two of the objectives with his larger remaining horde of zombies. On turn 6 with a well positioned charge into his larger group of zombies I managed to drag them off the objective ending the game in a draw. 

My opponent in this round was the same opponent I faced in the first round of the winds of war tournament earlier on in the year. This was an enjoyable game against a great opponent. However I didn't lose a single model in this round which was nice.

Game 2:

This was a spearhead deployment, kill point mission. My army was designed for fighting marines. So I was delighted to be fighting a space marine army. 

This mission went quiet well for me, I made a few mistakes which cost me my Shas'O to a melta gun totting biker. The game ended on turn 7 with me wiping out the last remaining marines on my opponents side. 

This game ended in a victory and 1000 VPs for the Tau. My opponent was a little new to his army and could probably have done with being a little more forceful in approaching my army. However he was a great person to play against.

Game 3: 

Spearhead deployment again. with a slight twist, you are only allowed to deploy fast attack choices. Leaving me with a squad of pathfinders and their devilfish. When I found out my assigned table I noticed it was largely open. Which I thought would be nice, until I realised I drew an imperial guard player. uh uh. The game was 3 objectives, one in the center of the table and 1 in the center of the unoccupied table quarters.

My opponent deployed a vendetta against my pathfinders. With the rest of my army held in reserve and the guard player having the -1 to my reserves roll, I didn't hold much hope of winning or evening drawing this mission. The game went quite quickly, with most of my reserves turning up then being taken out by the guard player, or failing a morale check and running off the table. Worst of all, I took a wound on each of my broadsides and managed to failed 2 of 3 armour saves and both invulnerable saves on my shield drones. Leaving most of my army at the mercy of the guard battle tanks. My remaining railguns failed to penetrate any of the guard armour, although I managed to cripple enough of his chimeras to prevent him reaching the center objective, and had four firewarriors hiding on mine.

Game resulted in a draw, but I was grateful the game ended on turn 6. 

Game 4:

I ended up playing against Ginge in this game, on the same table I played on game 3. It was a kill point mission against orks. A nice open battlefield and a good deployment for me.

Unfortunately I messed up on some of the tactics of this game, a few small changes could have won me this game. moving my firewarriors up towards his bikes to restrict his movement and get off a round of rapid fire at his bikes. I also could have moved around a little more effectively to keep out of the orks reach. Unfortunately I was tripping over my own deployment. Strung out across the back of the battlefield with limited space to move around. The dice also abandoned me on this game as well, Making up for the good luck in games 1 and 2 with bad luck in 3 and 4. With 3 penetrating hits on his battle wagons with railguns (open topped) I consecutively rolled 3 ones. Ginge had some quite good luck with his lootas as well, destroying 2 of my tanks in short order. However, not one to blame luck, Ginge played well and deserved the win in this round.

Result, Loss. 10 kill points to 9.

Things I would change:

Most of the missions are assault army friendly rather then firepower friendly. Be nice to have a better mix. Some of the deployment types were awful. In Ginges first game, his opponent conceded after Ginge won the roll to seize the initiative. He had deployed his boyz, literally surrounding his opponents rhinos and his opponent thought that there was no point playing beyond this point.

I would have changed my tactics in the last game, I should have won that one, and am now spoiling for a rematch :-P. 

I would have made slight changes to my army list. A piranha squadron or 2 would have been quite useful.

All in all an entertaining day playing warhammer though. Thanks to the people at Bracknell Forest Gamers for an entertaining day though.

Escalation 2010: Army list

Next month I shall be attending escalation at Braknell Forest Gamers. This one day tournament has four games with a twist compared to a normal tournament. Basically the first game is combat patrol, 500 points. The combat patrol rules prevent anything with more then two wounds, anything with a 2+ save or anything with a combined armour value greater then 33. After the first round each subsequent round adds 500 points to your army. Although these points can only be used to buy new units not add to existing ones.
My proposed army list is the following:
Round 1
-3x fireknife crisis suits. Team leader, bonded, hard wired black sun filter, 2x gun drones.
-3x firestorm crisis suits. Team leader, bonded, HWBSF, 2x gun drones.
-8 firewarriors. Team leader bonded. EMP grenade on leader.

In my previous combat patrol games, the missile pods were amazing, plenty of light armour to target. In order to balance this against armies that will consist of lots of infantry I have taken firestorm configured suits rather then deathrain. In further rounds, I will have pathfinders to compensate for the loss of twinlinked. The firewarriors make my one compulsory troops. The EMP grenades and filters are there mainly to fill up the points. Although given BFGs love of nightfighting (as shown at winds of war) they will probably come in handy.

Round 2.
For round 2 a standard force organisation chart has to be filled in and the combat patrol restrictions are dropped.
-10 firewarriors, leader with bonding knife.
-shas'el, fireknife, hard wired Target lock.
- 3x broadside. 1 SMS and target lock, 1 plasma and multitracker, leader with plasma multitracker 2 shield drones target lock BSF.

The broadsides help to give this list a lot of extra punch. I'm expecting quite a few marines players with rhino spam. So the target locks enable me to threaten three vehicles a turn. The shas'el can either join the firewarriors to help them hold or go with the other fireknifes. The target lock allowing full use of firepower in either scenario. The firewarriors are my second troop choice. Although they yet a lot of hate on the internets, I quite like firewarriors.

Round 3:
- railhead, burst cannons, dpod, multitracker, flechettes, target lock.
-2 x fireknife, leader bonded, 2 gun drones.
- 5 pathfinders, rail rifle, devilfish, dpod, flechettes.

Perhaps a little too much kit on the railhead, but once again, to fill up the points. A couple more fireknife suits mainly as an escort for my shas el. And pathfinders. If you only get once chance to hit the enemy, make sure it counts.

Round 4:
-railhead, as round 3
-pathfinders as round 3 devilfish, dpod SMS.
-6 x firewarriors devilfish dpod.
Railhead to fill up the last heavy slot. Another troops choice, just to have a fast(ish) moving unit with the potential to score one objective while contesting another.
More pathfinders just for fun.

Any thoughts on the list?

Battle Report: Tau Vs Blood Angels

Battle report: Tau Vs Blood angels (rematch)

Playing against the same Blood Angel army as my previous battles, I’m actually getting quite bored of playing this guy. I think nobody else really wants to play him, so by the time I get there everyone else already has games. Nothing personal, but a bit of variety in opponents would be nice.

BA List:

Dante

Sanguinor

5 Sanguinary Guard

5 Sanguinary Guard

1 Priest with jump pack.

10 deathcompany in a landraider

Librarian dreadnought

Baal Predator TLAC

My list:

Farsight 3x fireknife retinue

3 x Fireknifes

7 Firewarriors

7 Firewarriors

7 Firewarriors in devilfish

8 pathfinders in devilfish

3 XV9 with 2x Phased Ion Guns each

3 broadsides

Railhead

Mission was kill points (my 13 to his 9)

Set-up was pitched battle type.

The board was limited to a 4’ x 4’ as is normal for my local GW. However the middle of the board was bisected with a fortress of Redemption severely limiting my shooting into his deployment area and giving him a safe route to advance into my table half. There was another building in the centre of my deployment area and a little bit of cover in the far back right hand corner. Another building was along the left hand side of the battlefield in line with the fortress of Redemption limiting the width of the space left to just big enough to drive a land raider through.

I won the roll for table sides and first turn. I picked the side which the fortress was furthest from giving me a nice open killing field for any assault marines that decided to jump over the building. I choose to go first.

Looking at the terrain set-up his army would be pretty safe from my first shooting phase as the fortress blocked all line of sight. Once they were past the fortress I would have one shooting phase to cripple his army before they would be in combat. To this end I deployed my entire army as a shooting gallery at the back of my deployment area. Leaving me little manoeuvring capability but the chance to bring my maximum guns on my enemy on the second turn. From left to right my deployment was, Pathfinder fish, empty, XV9s behind, hammerhead hiding crisis suits, firewarriors in front of the center building, pathfinders in the top of the building, farsight and guard ready to go left or right, broadsides with a skirmish line of firewarriors to grant them a cover save, finally the other firewarriors loaded into their devilfish on the far right flank.

My opponent, as expected, deployed his landraider near the gap on the left (my left) his assault squads behind the fortress of redemption. With the librarian dread and predator on the far right, strangely enough out in the open in front of my broadsides, all of his units were as far forward as possible.

My opponent tried to seize the initiative and failed.

Turn 1

Tau:

I moved the devilfish on the left forward, ready to plug the hole the landraider was going to come through in turn 2. my suits on the left shuffled forward trying to get missile pod shots on dantes unit next to the landraider. Farsights squad shuffled forward to get in a position to rapid fire any assault marines that crossed the fortress and intercept the dread if need be.

The pathfinders on the building lit up the landraider with a staggering 6 markerlights. The hammerhead targeted the landraider using a markerlight and missed, the broadsides split their fire between the three vehicles, got to love target locks, I missed the baal predator, failed to penetrate the librarian dreadnought, however in an epic display of shooting prowess my third broadside used the remaining makerlights to up the BS by 2 and -3 from the raiders cover save, the heavy armour proved no match for the railgun and the tank exploded killing one of the embarked deathcompany.

Minor shuffling of suits in the assault phase in preparation for the make or break turn.

Blood Angels:

The dreadnought failed wings of sanguineous, so moved normally his assault marines jumped over the fortress and ran forward into my killing ground making sure they would be in assault range next turn. The deathcompany started the long march towards m left flank.

The baal predator shot at farsights squad putting a wound on one of my suits

Tau 1KP / BA 0

Turn 2

Tau: This would be it, make or break for my army, either I blasted his army to shreds or it would rip me apart next turn.

My suits positioned themselves into rapid fire range of his 2 sanguinary guard squads, Hopefully I could expose Dante to the tender mercy of my railheads railgun. The sanguinor would have to wait till the following turn. I markerlight dantes squad getting 4 hits. I applied 2 of these to the XV9s whose fire reduced the sanguinary guard to cinders (8 rending hits, ouch). The railhead took aim at Dante, missing him, but putting a wound on him with it’s burst cannons. My firewarrior squad in the building rapid fired their pulse rifles at him, stripping him of another wound. Using my last 2 markerlight hits I open fire with the fireknifes, getting 6 plasma wounds and 5 missile pod wounds on him. My opponent passed all his invulnerable saves yet failed two armour saves, killing Dante.

Towards the centre on the field farsight and friends opened fire on the remaining sanguinary guard squad, felling four of them with rapid fire plasma guns. The remaining guard and priest were killed by the devilfish and firewarriors in front of the broadsides.

The broadsides split their fire between the dread and the predator failing to damage either.

My fireknifes shuffled behind the XV9s who formed a line in front of them, to try and bait the sanguinor into charging them instead.

Blood Angels:

Everything (left) continued its advance forward the dread getting wings and landing next to Farsight the baal advance at combat speed trailing behind the dread. The sanguinor positioned to charge my XV9, as I wanted. The death company continued their advance towards my lines. Slowly.

Shooting consisted of the baal firing on the broadsides who lost two drones and narrowly passed their morale check.

The dread charged farsight, killing a shield drone, however farsight fluffed his attacks, failed his moral check and got run down for his trouble. The sanguinor charged the XV9s killing 2 shield drones but taking a wound, I passed my morale check and sacrificed the remaining drones to pass hit and run. Leaving the sanguinor on his own facing a wall of fire next turn.

Tau 5 KP / BA 1 KP

Turn3

Tau:

With a large portion of the dead, I concentrated on the remaining units, the firewarriors moved round the back of the dreadnought the hammerhead positioned to fire at whatever all units depending on what survived. The devilfish on the right moved to the side of baal predator.

I makerlighted the sanguinor giving 2 hits. The firewarriors in the centre fired on him causing no wounds, the fireknifes stripped him of two wounds and he was finished off by the XV9 suits, the Devilfish on the right fired at the predator causing no damage, the firewarriors on the right fired into the back of the dreadnought, wrecking it. With no other targets the broadsides wrecked the baal predator. The hammerhead fired submunitions at the deathcompany. Killing 2.

I forgo to move my devilfish on the left in this round virtually guaranteeing its destruction by the death company.

Blood angels:

The death company charged the devilfish losing one of their number to flechettes but wrecking the fish.

Tau 8 KP / BA 2

Tau:

Markerlighted the death company, killed them with rapid fire plasma guns.

Game.Set.Match

Tau 9 PK / BA 2 KP (tabled)

Thoughts: I don’t think I could have done much better in this game, I only made a few minor mistakes, forgetting to move the devilfish on turn 3, wound allocation on the broadsides would have prevented them having to take a moral check. Most of the mistakes were made by my opponent. Given the terrain set-up he could have spent the first turn moving right up to the fortress and then jumped over it in turn 2, this would have allowed him to fire his guns without needing to run. Or with the baal predator surviving the first turn, moved that flatout to create cover for the guard when they jumped over the building. Also his army list includes some of the hardest hitting units from the BA codex, but not many bodies. Plasma rifles kill Sanguinary Guard as readily as normal marines, making my weapons far more effective in kill / points ratio. A fact I took full advantage of.

Recent activity

Unfortunately due to ongoing stuff at work my recent activity has been fairly limited. Mainly due to lots of overtime. Which is nice because I want a new TV soon. :P
I have managed to make a start on painting Farsight, but given the speed of my painting, slow, I wouldn't expect to have him finished before the end of the month. I did manage to get two games in against my friends imperial guard the other week. Suffice to say I lost both games. Partially due to bad planning on my part, concentrated more on trying to kill his hidden hydras rather then achieve he mission objectives. Poor rolling for morale and fall back didn't help much. Also marbo was a royal pain in the broadside.
Generally though I was outplayed by Ginge. I just couldn't get past his cover, even with pathfinder support. Although I did make about 80% of my disruption pod saves.
Highlight of the games include the following:
-Farsights bodyguard taking 3 wounds rolling triple 2. Third time I've managed this feat.
-XV9 suits losing 3 shield drones to rapid fire lasguns! Failing their morale check and falling back 16" off the table by 1" grr.
-Broadsides being wiped to a single man and a drone by marbo.
-broadside firing plasma gun at marbo who passes his gone to ground save, broadside follows up by charging marbo (stupid stupid). Who kills a drone, broadside is then swept leaving marbo no longer pinned (stupid).
I think a rematch might be in order. This time with me actually concentrating on the game.

Wound allocation:bols up?

I've just been reading an article on bols about wound allocation. This seems to be in the same vein as the authors previous article about true line of sight. I'm not quite sure what to make of these articles. It seems like they are purposefully trying to stir up responses from the community.

Having looked at the example he gives he is an extremely lucky player. Every plasma gun shot hits and wounds? Awesome. 6 wounds from lssguns? Amazing. I wouldn't expect that many from a full squad of 10 on first rank, second rank order, Rapid fire range. The space marines with the lasgun wounds are likely to to lose 2 of their number. Moving on.

Considering 5th edition has been out a while now. I'm at a loss as to how this is plaguing the game.

However, lets have a look at the authors complaints about the system, as well as some of the commenters complaints.

- Squad can potentially survive by taking more incoming fire. 

- 'wasted' wounds. Wounds that get allocated to models that have already recieved a killing wound. 

- multi wound units with unique wargear.

I think this covers the vast majority of peoples issues. So what would be the best way round this? There is no real one solution that can cover every issue by itself. So in order to satisfy the complaints I prepose the following: 

Wounds are allocated in order of increasing AP, starting at ignores armour then 1, finishing at -. 

That deals with the first issue. I doubt very much that the bols author will be complaing about his missed lasgun wounds.

If a model has more then 1 wound it must be allocated the number of wounds equal to its wounds characteristic before wounds can be allocated to the next model. For example, a 5 man space marine squad (1 wound each) with attached chaplain (2 wounds). Takes 3 AP 2 wounds and 6 AP 5 wounds. The space marine player may elect to allocate the 3 AP 2 wounds to the normal marines, 2 AP 5 wounds to the two remaining, as yet unwounded marines. Then 2 AP 5 wounds must be allocated to the chaplain before cycling the 2 remaining wounds back round. 

This helps rectify the second point about wasted wounds. As each model has to take their fill of wounds rather then 1 each. However in order to keep things fair:

When a unit with multi wound models takes wounds from a weapon that causes instant death, each model can only be allocated 1 instant death wound before wounds are allocated to the next model. Instant death wounds are to be applied to unwounded models if possible. For example, a unit of 6 ork nobz, T4 2 wounds, has one model previously wounded. The Orks take 3 wounds from missile launchers, 2 AP 2 wounds and 7 AP 5 wounds. The AP 2 has to be applied to the wounded Ork. The missile launchers have to be applied to un wounded Orks where possible. 4 of the AP 5 shots will be needed to fill out the wounds on the Orks that still need to be allocated wounds (to meet their wounds characteristic) before the final 3 AP 5 wounds can be allocated in the second cycle of wound allocations. Note, in the event of a unit containing a model of 2+ wounds when the majority of the squad has one wound, or an independent/upgrade character is in the unit. There is no requirement for the model or character, with two wounds to be allocated the instant death shot. This is to prevent unscrupulous players that may take advantage of wound allocation rules from 'sniping' characters in squads with missile launchers.

This should hopefully solve the major issues that have cropped up on wound allocation. As you can see it is an extremely simple system that should take virtually no time during gaming. 

Either that, or don't bother firing the lasguns as well.

Battle report: Tau Vs Blood angels

I finally got the opportunity to head to my local GW last night for a quick game of 40K. I ended up arriving just after 20:00 meaning there was only one table left and one opponent who wasn’t matched up to anyone. This was the same Blood Angels player I played last time. He was determined to get me back for the last time we played, game ended in a draw but was heavily one sided in my favour an extra turn would have seen is army wiped out.

Note, this post my contain a few rants about my opponents conduct throughout the game. You’ll understand why as you read it.

My army list was written towards 1500 points (actually 1511 as written), Given that my opponent wanted to play 2000 points, I upped my list to just over 1900 by adding some rail rifles to the pathfinders and putting in a squad of basic XV9 battlesuits plus 4 shield drones. This isn’t really fluffy in a Farsight list but what the hey. So it’s my 1900 points Vs his 2000.

My List:

Farsight

Bodyguard: 3x XV8, 3xPlasma, 3x targeting array, HW Drone controller 2x shield drones

3 x XV8, 3x TL missile pods, 3x Burst cannons, Team leader with HW Drone controller 2x Gun drones

7 firewarriors, Shas’ui (Squad x 3)

5 pathfinders, rail rifle (squad x 2)

Devilfish (flechettes, Dis pod)

3x XV9 (3 x DC, 4 x shield drone)

2x Broadside, team leader, 2 x plasma, 2 x multitracker, HWDC 2 x shield drones.

Hammerhead, Railgun, burst cannons, MT, DP, Flechette

His List:

(From memory)

Dante

Sanguinor

6x Sanguinary guard, banner, melta pistols (squad x2)

Priest with jump pack

Death company x10, 2x power weapons 2x thunder hammers.

Baal Predator TLAC, heavy bolter sponsons

Landraider

Deployment and Mission:

We rolled for deployment and mission type. I won the roll for deployment; mission was spearhead one objective in each deployment zone.

Rant 1: During deployment I was getting my army out of my case, despite the fact that I got first turn he wanted to deploy first (getting first turn) while I placed my army. He got annoyed when I said no.

Rant 2: At my local GW the standard table size is 4’x4’, he started arguing that this enabled him to deploy within 6” of the centre rather then 12” in the rulebook. Obviously being as this meant he would be able to get into combat much quicker I refused. Obvious advantage to his army. To end the argument after about 5 minutes I relented and let him deploy 9” from the centre.

Rant 3: Before deploying his army he rolled for and got steal the initiative. I couldn’t even be bothered to argue at this point. Told him it wouldn’t matter because I was going to table him anyway :-P.

Shockingly, he deployed as close to as feasibly possible.

Turn 1:

The blood angels took to the skies and landed 12” closer to me. The landraider started moving between two buildings. All the sanguinary guard were within 12” of the priest for the feel no pain. The baal predator advanced slowly peppering my normal battlesuits with assault cannon and heavy bolter fire killing the two drones and causing a wound on one of the battlesuits. The storm bolter on the libby dreadnought killed two pathfinders in one squad. The guard and associated characters ran forward. The landraider shot at my hammerhead but failed to penetrate.

I moved the devilfish to block off his landraiders advance between two buildings, mwhahaha. This would hopefully hold up his death company for a couple of turns allowing me to deal with his army in two parts. Farsight and friends jumped out from behind the building with the intention of hitting Dante and co with plasma death.

My return firing wasn’t as effective as I would have liked. The 2+ save combined with the priests feel no pain mean that the sanguinary guard and Dante survived 12 wounds from the XV9s burst cannons, the firewarriors shooting at them (I left two units in reserve), two shots from the rail rifles. Gun drones, burst cannons. All without taking taking a single casualty. Farsight and friends opened up killing 3 of the sanguinary guard with their plasma rifles, broadsides followed up by taking out the last two guard and putting a wound on Dante. My deathrains (kinda) shot at the dreadnought shaking it.

Rant 4: After taking 3 wounds on the remaining 3 models in Dantes squad my opponent went to put 2 wounds on Dante without taking a wound on one of the guard. I pointed out that he had to take a wound on each model before putting a second wound on Dante. After I explained it to him calmly, then pointed out the rule in the rulebook, then got the store manager to reiterated it to him. He spent a few minutes complaining about it and saying how he has always played it like that before finally grumbling and accepting it.

Turn 2 Onwards:
The blood angels moved onwards towards my lines taking heavy casualties from my plasma rifles. The other squad of sanguinary guard and the sanguinor died quickly enough. Dante fell to mass pulse rifle fire. However his vehicles survived lots of penetrating hits with nothing more then being stunned. 


Eventually the Librarian dreadnought took out the broadsides hiding in the building, but was taken out by a charge by farsight. The death company carried on eating through my units, which I fed to them to prevent them hitting my main line at the same time as the rest of his army. 


I was able to prevent his characters from charging into farsights unit by blocking his move with a squad of firewarriors. They were killed by the sanguinor though. Farsight managed to take out the sanguinor with plasma rifle fire, while dante was taken out by another squad of firewarriors rapid firing at him. 


On the last turn of the game all my opponent had left was his landraider, which blasted my squad of firewarriors holding my objective. Who failed all their cover saves, they did however roll high enough to fail their morale check and run far enough to fall back of the table. So at least I was rolling about average :-P. With my last scoring squad gone, I had to take out His landraider to table him and win the game with no broadsides and no fusion blasters....


Farsight leaped onto the building, the strange looking dreadnought was discarding the remains of his Broadside like a kid throwing away an unwanted toy. The dreadnought looked at Farsight, a strange energy playing across its weapons. It charged forward with surprising speed for such a clumsy looking Gue'la machine. Farsight was ready for it though. With a quick coded command to one of his guards, a shield drone flew forward to meet the dreadnoughts heavy combat fist. There was a burst of energy as the two energy fields collided the feedback wrecked the drone but was enough to deflect the dreadnoughts blow. Farsight ignited his thrusters in a controlled burst landing his suit expertly on top of the dreadnoughts sarcophagus. With two quick blows he disarmed the dreadnought the dawnblade cutting effortlessly through the machines thick armour a third blow went straight down into the machines main body killing the occupant. Farsight jumped from the top of the falling machine, a short burst from his suits jetpack bringing him to the ground the recoil compensator's in his legs absorbing the impact without difficultly. On his left his suits sensors detected a squad of black armoured marines butchering a squad of firewarriors, the plasma rifle on his shoulder combined with those of his squad making short work of them.
He looked ahead, sprinting towards the last of the Gue'la forces. The behemoth bearing down on the remains of his forces, a landraider. Farsight jinked to the side as the sponson mounted lascannons opened fire, the heavy beams of coherent light missing him by mere inches the heat scorching the paint from his armour. Feeding power to his jetpack he launched himself into the air, the landraiders heavy bolter stitching a line through the air behind him. Farsight landed behind the landraider swinging the dawnblade to the hilt in the machines power plant his suits servo motors straining, Farsight started to draw the blade down into the landraiders vital parts. The landraider exploded, the force blowing Farsight back 15 meters. 
Picking himself up from the ground, he scanned the surroundings no more Gue'la forces were nearby. The day belonged to the Tau.

WIP: Farsight build completed

Here is the final Farsight build. All that really remains to be completes is a little tidying up of the green stuff. I wanted this to look significantly different to a standard crisis suit. To this end I have given him double jointed legs, to give him a greater sense of agility, which isn't really conveyed by the standard GW farsight model. 

I moved the plasma rifle to a shoulder mount with a little bit of a standoff from a normal standard backpack mount, predator style. The back-pack was made from a space marine jump pack and standard Tau Jet pack. His shoulder pad has been bulked up to make it look a bit heavier armoured along with the front part of the suits body.His shield is made from a standard shield generator with four pulse rifles coming off it. The aim of the pulse rifles is too support a clear plastic 'force field' insert. But I don't want to add this till I have finished painting the model for obvious reasons.

Forge world rules: Shas O' R'alai

Forge world have now released the rules for their Tau XV9 Character, rules are available Here. There are some interesting elements which Forgeworld have written into the rules. The most notable of these are the ammo options for the pulse sub-munitions rifle. The Ionic cluster shot providing a nice 5" rending shots for use against marines, the sabot round for light anti tank duty (up to armour 13), the EMP round for armour 14 (additional chances for glancing), while the standard round provides 2x3" templates that ignore cover (this is different to the usual Pulse sub-munitions round in imperial armour apoc 2.

The eclipse shield seems like a little bit of an oddity though. Counting as having a stealth field generator if you remain still that turn. However if you have joined a unit then the enemy could simply target the unit bypassing the shields bonus. The only way around this is to join a stealthsuit team. Or stay independent, which could prove disadvantageous if they manage to see you. 

WIP: farsight conversion

This is a quick photo of my current project. Commander farsight, hopefully have him finished at some point in the next few weeks.

Given that I like the background for this character, but hate the model, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to try my hand at kitbashing. Fingers crossed that it will turn out alright.

Spearhead Vs Bloodangels

Game Rules: Spearhead, Get into the oppositions deployment area.

Points: 2000

Opposition: Blood Angels

                        Dante

                        Tycho (not death company)

                        Standard Chaplain

                        2 squads of sanguinary guard

                        1 tactical squad

                        Baal Predator

                        Vindicator

                        Shadowsword super heavy battle tank

Note: The tables in my local GW are limited to 4’ x 4’ in size as opposed to the 6ft tables recommended for spearhead, this meant that the blood angel player would be in combat with me a turn earlier then would normally be the case for spearhead. It also meant that the long range of my broadsides and hammerheads would be redundant.

The blood angel player won the roll for deployment and elected to deploy his entire army on the table with the exception of the baal predator which would be outflanking.

I kept my battlesuits in reserve with the intention of deepstriking behind the blood angels advance. Note, during deployment I forgot that the shadowswords strength D weapon would make the hammerheads disruption pods as useful as a sheet of wet tissue paper.

Deployment diagram

Turn 1:

Before the start of the turn I rolled for the damage to his shadowsword  and rolled a 6 followed by a 3, losing a structure point my opponent made his primary weapon save for his volcano cannon though. The main blood angels  force raced forwards forgoing their shooting and running instead. The shadowsword opened up with its volcano cannon taking out one of the hammerheads, as expected, the heavy bolters on the side taking out two pathfinders.

Two squads of firewarriors embarked the devilfish, and moved a few inches to the side. The broadsides opened up on the shadowsword failing to penetrate its armour. The remaining hammerhead shook the vindicator preventing it from shooting next turn and the remaining squad of firewarriors took out a solitary sanguinary guard from the squad on the right flank.

Turn 2:

The blood angels continued to move forward as fast as possible, Dantes squad took out all but one of the remaining pathfinders causing the survivor to flee towards the table edge as fast as possible for the tau. The shadowsword attempted to hit the second hammerhead but scattered off the board. the squad of sanguinary guard on the right flank blew the burst cannon off the devilfish in front of them

BA Turn 2

The XV9 battlesuits dropped in behind the shadowsword destroying it with their fusion blasters losing one of their escorting drones. the hammer head missed the vindicator. The battlesuits turned their railguns and plasma rifles on dante and his squad taking out three of the sanguinary guard despite their cover. The devilfish deposited their firewarrior cargo within 12" of the other sanguinary guard squad, combining their fire with the devilfish and crisis suits missile pods to take out the guard.

Tau Turn 2

Turn 3:

The Baal predator turned up on the left flank blasting away at th broadsides bringing down one of the shield drones. Dante and friends charged the broadsides wiping them out to a man (Tau?). Tycho separated out from the tactical squad bringing the nearest devilfish down with his meltagun. The vindicator shook the remaining hammerhead.

BA Turn 3

The battlesuit commander and escorts turned up firing up the vindicator, blowing the demolisher cannon off it and shaking it. the other crisis suits killed Tycho. The squad of firewarriors next to the remaining devilfish embarked and started making a bee line for the enemies deployment area while one of the other firewarriors and drones from the devilfish fired on the tactical marines killing 3 of them. The firewarriors at the back killed to of Dantes guard.

Turns four and five:

Over the next two turns Dante managed to kill the firewarriors in combat, though it took him two rounds He followed up by taking out the crisis suits on the right flank. The Shas'O and Suits finally took out the vindicator while the predator survived about 6 penetrating hits (curse my tendency to roll ones on the penetrating hits table). meanwhile my devilfish (tank=scoring unit) and firewarriors moved to become scoring units in the enemies deployment area. The remaining firewarriors and XV9 battlesuits whittled the tactical squad down to one man and killed the chaplain.

Conclusion: I think I performed quite well in this battle. Had I remembered the D weapon rules at the start of the battle then I would have deployed the hammerheads on the right flank and moved them around to fire at the shadowsword, or used the sky drop style spearhead.