Tau from the ground up.

So, this is the post I promised about some fundamental changes to my Tau list. It’s a long one, so I’ll split it into 2 or 3 installments. The First installment will deal with some thoughts on list design generally. The second with some thoughts on the various units in the Tau Codex that can provide what you need in a list and the third will try and draw it all together.

It’s going to be quite interesting, as I’m not sure where the analysis is going to end – I have a few ideas, but nothing is set in stone. So, I’m going to start from scratch, throw away all preconceptions, and try and redesign it from the ground up.

OK – first a few ground rules. Firstly, I am no expert. I’ve only been playing for a couple of years, I’ve only been playing Tau for a year, and I still feal I’m on a pretty steep learning curve. So take this for what it is, a pretty average player trying to think through a list making process.

Second, this will not be a fluffy list, or a themed list. It is a list designed to win competitive games at tournaments. As a result it has to be an “all comers” list.

Throne of Skulls Battle Reports

So here they are 5 brief battle reports.

Game 1

Against Demons. Kugath, Great Unclean One, Nurgle Demon Prince, Pink horrors X2, 1 squad of blood letters, one squad of fiends, a squad of flamers, a squad of screamers and 3 Blood Crushers. Capture and control, pitched battle. I was given first turn.

So, a dilemma. Demons deep strike half their army first turn. One way to deal with them is to reserve everything, wait for them to deep strike and then shoot them dead from range. Now that kinda works in kill point games. You just stay away and kill stuff. It also works in seize ground with a few objectives – you hope they drop on all of them and kill them bit by bit. However, in capture and control it’s tricky, cause they can drop on both objectives, and with stuff as hard to kill as Kugath (T6, 4+, 4++ with feel no pain and 6 wounds!) I couldn’t be sure I could blow them away if I come on piece by piece.

Embrace Your Inner Geek at Throne of Skulls

Got back from my 3^rd Throne of Skulls yesterday. I had a blast. Warhammer World is nerdvana! It’s just so cool. I know this makes me sound like a silly teenager, but it’s just how I feel. And having so many people there, enjoying what you enjoy is pretty special.

During my first game, towards the end, there was a moment when I looked up from the table and across the gaming hall to see over a hundred guys having fun. Many of them will have problems and worries and “real life” issues that keep them awake at night, but right there, right then, it was all forgotten - while they did something so utterly, utterly silly and pointless as playing toy soldiers.

It was a beautiful thing!

So any way, how did I do? Well I won 2, lost 2 and drew one – i.e. exactly the same record as my last 2 Throne of Skulls! Bugger! To top it off, I missed out on top Tau general based on soft scores (again!). On battle points I scored 7 and the closest Tau general scored 6. But when you took into account “best game” votes I lost 9 – 8.

Ah well….. next time! I’ll be back in April (maybe with a new Codex!).

So I’ve been thinking about what I’ll write about. I don’t think I’ll do detailed battle reports. Brief summaries I think. But I’ll do 4 posts

1. Brief battle reports.
2. A review of my list and some fundamental changes I think I’m going to make.
3. What I would like to see in the new Tau Codex, and
4. Some thoughts on soft scoring in tournaments (!)

EYIG

Throne of Skulls.

Myself and my good friend Billy have just arrived at our travelodge in Nottingham after having a good look around Warhammer world and registering for tomorrow.

Both our lists are in. Billy's taking his double dread Grey Knights. This is two Dreadknights with personal teleporters and incinerators, generally scouting, backed up by your usual Grey Knight goodies.

I'm letting my Dark Eldar out to play. Giving the Baron his 1st competitive run. Not had to many practice games with him though so we'll see how this pans out.

Meeting up with Geek tomorrow. Frantically painting my army in our hotel room tonight. If anyone else is in the travelodge by the airport feel free to drop me a comment or email and join the madness.

I'll put the list I'm using in with each battle report.

Stay classy

Sir#67

Caledonian Summary

So a summary and thoughts about the tourney as a whole, my list and its performance.

First of all I had a blast. I enjoyed all my game and all my opponents were great. The one thing that I’m uncertain about is the “soft scoring” i.e. the points for getting your list in, for painting and for “sportsmanship”. There is a debate about this on the warhammer forum http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=91729&sid=4d0c855e58f70a72974047ae67fb994d&start=750. 

Caledonian Bat Reps Day 2

Game 4

Refreshed after a good nights sleep I headed into my next game against a Chaos Marine army. His list was Kharn, a Demon Prince, 2 squads of plague marines in Rhinos, a squad of Khorne berzerkers in a Rhino, summoned lesser demons, a squad of 8 terminators, a squad of chosen, a greater demon and 3 Obliterators. On a side note his army looked amazing. It was nominated for best army, and was well worth that nomination.

Caledonian Bat Reps, Day 1.

Well, as predicted, I got my butt kicked at Caledonian! I played a Tau army, 2 Guard armies, one Dark Elder army a Chaos Marine army, and one “normal” Elder army. Strength of army list, and skill levels were way higher than at Throne of Skulls. But, I had a blast, and had (mostly) 6 excellent games against fun opponents. Won 2, lost 4.

The results are here http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=91729&start=750. I came 75^th out of 110. But interestingly, if you ignore sports scores (!), I was best Tau general. So that’s something at least.

I learned lots (and I’ll come back to that), but mostly I learned that if you are going to do detailed battle reports you need a camera and a note book (duh!). So my reports will be a bit “truncated”!

First up, to understand the reports you will need to look at the mission briefs here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ks0XYbXvHYxfrz7P1gkun0EgG-FlEAV1x_g8ORyw658/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1 . They’re a bit unusual, but they made for far more challenging games.

It's a Question of Style

This has come from a conversation between Bede and Myself last weekend.

You see, the thing is Bede has just got himself a shiny new Stormraven for his Grey Knights. Now with a Blood Angels army sitting at home I've got the option for a Stormraven myself, but I'd never use one and I've no idea why.

There's something about a large, expensive (in points) vehicle that immediaty makes me cringe. It's not just the Stormraven. In over a decade of gaming I've never owned a single Landraider or Terminator. I only used a special character for the first time last year. It was commander Dante in my DoA Blood Angels.

I know all the intellectual arguments for terminators/ravens/raiders. I've seen dual raider/raven lists do very well. I just can't bring myself to take the plunge and give them a go.

This had me wondering: what hang ups do other gamers have?

For example: I have a friend that doesn't like leaving home without Draigo, and can't conceive of an army without him. I know another player who's Imperial Guard army always has Marbo waiting in the wings, ready to blow himself up.

This kind of thinking obviously limits your list building style. As you can probably tell from the above I dislike rock lists. No matter what army/list I'm using it's pretty much guaranteed that I won't have too many points in one place.

Others may call this good list design, I call it narrow minded. Until you've given all the options at your disposal how can you be sure your list is good/right for you?

Eventually I'll ask to borrow Bede's raven or proxy some terminators and see what happens. You never know I might have an epiphany of sorts that changes my whole outlook on gaming.

Until then, I'll stick with what I know and try to find a reason for this strange aversion.

Stay classy

Sir#67

Grey Knights named HQ analysis.

So I thought I would start my first series of articles with the aspect of 40k I know most about. The Grey Knights.

I will work through the different force organisation chart slots, analysing the different units strengths, weaknesses, value for points and possible tactics for those units.

In this post I will start with the pure Grey Knights named character HQ slots and will analyse the generic Grey Knights and Inquisition elements in other posts.

Caledonian List

So here’s the list I’m taking to the Caledonian, 1850pts.

Introduction to Embrace Your Inner Geek

Gosh – the blogosphere! I’m honoured.

“Embrace Your Inner Geek” here by kind invitation of Bede. Not sure what I’m going to say, but as my handle ways – you gotta embrace it!

So, what am I going to write about? Don’t know really, but first an intro…..!

I’m what you might call a mature gamer! Most of you are probably young enough to be my kids! But hey, one of my pet theories is that anybody over the age of 7 who plays with toy soldiers, is a kid at heart anyway.

Married, three kids, job, mortgage blah, blah, blah. Oh and I’m an obsessive-compulsive 40k addict. Been playing for about 2 years. My son got me into it – it’s all his fault. So I now own an Eldar army, a codex marines army, 3 different types of blood angels army, a Black Templars army and a Tau army – Oh and they are all fully painted….! It’s a worry!

Why do I do it … well there’s a question. Primarily I do it for the game – I love planning lists, I love the strategy, testing them out and kicking butt. Don’t get me wrong (to my surprise) I also enjoy painting, and I try really hard not to field an unpainted army, but I wouldn’t paint if there was no game.

And I love tournaments…. I’m not particularly good at them (yet!), but I love the intensity, I love the variety (people and armies), and I love that people are playing to win (I know this is a big topic, and I might come back to it, but I’m not a fan of “casual gaming” i.e. without regard to the rules or if people aren’t focused on the game). Last year I played in 6 two day tourneys and a similar number of one day tourneys (lost count!). What can I say, it’s an addiction…!

So I guess I’ll write about tactics, lists, tournaments and gaming generally. I probably wont write about painting, and I certainly wont write about fluff!

So first up – well, I’m going to the Caledonian Uprising next weekend and Throne of Skulls the weekend after, taking my Tau. Never been to Caledonian before. Was recommended as being “more competitive” than Throne of Skulls, so looking forward to getting my butt kicked!

The weekend after will be my 3^rd Throne of Skulls with my Tau. The last 2 I’ve won 2, lost 2 and drawn one. So pretty average. Looking to do better than that.

So, coming next – my List for Caledonian, and my thoughts on it, and maybe a little about Tau generally.

EYIG

Small 1250 battle report

I was in my local GW yesterday and had time to get a couple of games in. The first was against a good player who has just recently started necrons so he wanted to play with his WOP army. I've played this guy numerous times, usually with his daemons, and the games are always exciting. this is my first game against newcrons although I do know a lot of their abilities based on online reading.

Grey Knights codex review

I am currently working on a Grey Knights codex review.

It will include several posts looking at different force organisation slots, special characters will be separate as will wargear and equipment.

The purpose of this post is to ask if anybody has anything they'd particularly like me to focus on as part of this review?

If you have anything you'd like me to focus on or clarify with regards to the codex then I'd be happy to oblige.

There are numerous works in progress by the apostates anonymous team, so keep a look out for posts coming soon!

Falling Out of Love with Beast Masters

Hello Sir#67 here and today I'm going to talk about the staple of my Dark Eldar lists: The Beast Pack.

I've used at-least one beast pack in every Dark Eldar list I've ever ran, but lately I've started to become more and more disillusioned with them. Don't get me wrong, they are a great unit and I'll try and keep this article balanced before putting my two cents in at the end.

The Devil in the Detail ...... How to Transport Dark Eldar Vehicles

Sir#67 here again with what I hope will be a regular feature on Apostaes Anonymous: The Devil in the Detail.

This article series will focus on those essential but often overlooked aspects of our hobby.

The first installment of which will focus on how to get those beautiful Dark Eldar skimmers from your painting station to your local game store.

I'm going to use a standard GW tray as the example in this article though the same steps should yeild similar results on any KR or Battlefoam tray.

Paladin Tactics

I see a lot of people using paladins as solely combat units on the interwebs but is that the best use for them?

Tournament Calender 2012

Hello! Sir#67 here again with another quick post from a random location (this time it's a sewage works just outside of Newcastle).

Both Bede and myself are looking to get into the tourney scene this year and after a few quick checks on the Warhammer Forum, Warseer, and Dakka Dakka (shudders), we've entered the following:

28th-29th Jan, Throne of Skulls, Warhammer World (Sir#67 only)

25th-26th Feb, Games of War Spring Tourney, Seaham

3rd March, Throne of Blades, Stafford

28th-29th April, Rampage Heat 1, Bristol.

We'll both add to this list as the year progresses and naturally we aim to give you battle reports, other generic coverage.

Also we need to say a quick thanks to Venerable Brother from the Sons of Sanguinious blog for his excellent advice on the UK tourney scene.

Enjoy,

Sir#67

In the beginning....

Hello and welcome to Apostates Anonymous.

My name is Greg Piskosz and I shall be your host for this little introduction.

I'll try and keep it brief and hope that our articles give you a good idea of what we're about.

First up then: Who are we?