Thursday 24 January 2013

Review and My Plans for 2013


It’s been a good year for us here at Apostates Anonymous.

Bede and I started this blog to document our first foray into the 40k competitive scene, since then we’ve had just over 19,000 page views and written exactly 100 posts. Considering we were hoping to average one post a week I’m really pleased with what we’ve accomplished.

Over the course of the year we both had success individually and as a team and whereas I can’t speak for Bede my level of 40k play has improved considerably.

Part way through the year Embrace Your Inner Geek (EYIB) was brought on board to provide a different view point and cover armies that Bede and Myself knew little about (namely Tau). EYIB has provided excellent content throughout the year and at a rate that far outstrips my own. If you’re reading this article but haven’t read his Tau in 6th series you should. I consider it required reading for any budding Tau general. The dice gods rewarded him with his first best general at Games of War this past December and let’s hope they continue with a new Tau codex this year.

Part way through the year Bede had to put 40k on the back burner to focus on his studies but will hopefully making his triumphant return in March this year.

As for myself the latter half of the year saw me branch out into two other games: Warmachine and Malifaux. I haven’t really written about either game, but I’m still actively playing both systems so expect more content in the future.

With regards to Warmachine I’ve picked up the Legion of Everblight faction. I really liked the models and the fast, glass cannon nature of the play style. I haven’t begun to play Warmachine competitively yet but once I have a better feel for the game I’ll probably start entering local events.

40k wise I’m still playing my Dark Eldar predominantly but they are being pushed out a little bit in favour of the other systems. I think they are still competitive but I’m struggling to find a build I’m really happy with. I feel I’m almost on the cusp of solving it but I don’t have the time to play as much as I’d like to anymore.

I’ve been thinking about getting a new 40k army for a while but nothing really took my fancy. I was looking forward to starting a Night Lords army but I was a little disappointed with the new Chaos codex with regards to everyone’s favourite terror troops (Warp Talons, really!?) so they went out the window. There is light at the end of the tunnel however, after playing them at blog wars I’ve settled upon Nids. They are completely different to both my Dark Eldar and Blood Angels in terms of play style but are still nice and aggressive. Throw in some big monsters and biomancy shenanigans and I’m sold. I’m in the process of building up the army but expect more info on it in the future.

I’ve also began running my own Warhammer 40k tournaments at my local store, Games of War. I’m hoping to run one, 2 day tourney, every quarter with maybe a doubles event or 2 thrown in for good measure. The next tourney will be 2nd-3rd March. Check the Games of War website for details.

That brings us to Malifaux. Out of the three systems I play Malifaux is by far my favourite. Unfortunately there is little to no Malifaux player base in the North East. In fact I believe I know most of the people with models personally. In terms of regular players there’s only myself and a good friend of mine named John who play on a regular basis.

This would be a good time to mention the yearly project. Last year was dedicated to playing competitive 40k as much as possible. There’s not much of a competitive 40k scene in the north east so Bede and I decided to travel around the country to test our mettle against new and highly skilled opponents in as many different locations as possible. On the whole this worked pretty well and we got to meet some great new people along the way. A shout out here should go to the guys from Sons of Sanguinius for helping us on our way. Cheers lads, it was appreciated. The year has however ended so a new project is needed.

After much deliberation I’ve decided that this year will be the year of Malifaux. I’m taking it upon myself (along with my assistant John!) to raise and develop a Malifaux player base here in the north east. I’ve had the opportunity to get in far more games than usual over the last couple of months due to working in Cardiff and therefore being able to spend my evenings at the fabulous Firestorm Games. This has helped fill in some of the gaps in my rules knowledge left over from when John and I were teaching each other the game.

As luck would have it there is a Malifaux event happening in York 3rd Feb that we’ve signed ourselves up for and in a strange coincidence on the same day we decided to dedicate ourselves to getting other people playing this amazing game, a random member of the public, interested in Malifaux asked if people played the game at our club. It’s…almost….like…………fate.  

Since the start of the New Year we’ve gone from only 2 regular Malifaux players to 6. Hopefully that will continue. I’m going to apply for Henchmen status after the event in February and with any luck should be running Malifaux events in the summer.

As you can probably gather from the above, expect a lot more Malifaux related content on this blog. I think I made a mistake not documenting my first forays into Warmachine and I don’t want to make that mistake with Malifaux. I’ll try to put up regular lessons learnt and new strategies I’ve discovered and had inflicted upon me. I’m also planning to do something which for whatever reason has not really happened on Apostates Anonymous and that’s put up pictures of my own models. I think there are a few pictures of my Dark Eldar knocking about but that’s it. I’ve got a lot of my Malifuax painted now so when I start talking about the different models I use, I’ll make sure to add a picture of my own miniature instead of grabbing something suitable from the net.

On behalf of all of us here at Apostates Anonymous thanks for visiting our little corner of the web over the past 12 months and I hope you’ve found our articles useful.

If you have a topic, army list etc that you’d like us to cover drop me a line at gregpiskosz@hotmail.co.uk and one of us will get back to you.

Sir#67  

 

Monday 21 January 2013

Caledonian Uprising 2013


Back from Cally. Great weekend (even with all the snow!) My aim for the weekend was to do better than last year (2-0-4), and better than at the GT Heat (2-0-4).

Usual format, brief Bat reps and an overview.

Points were 1850, 5 games with primary and secondary objectives scoring slightly differently. It’s the qualifier for the Scottish ETC team – top 4 scots qualify automatically, the rest are picked by the captain.

Game 1

Game one was the scouring and vanguard strike. Up against grey knights. Coteaz, 2 strike squads, 3 dakka dreads, 5 razorbacks with psybolt ammo (3 of them with 3 man henchman squads), aegis with quad gun and 10 terminators. It was a very “5th edition” list. My 5th edition Tau list (6 Broadsides, loads of missile pods) would have ripped it apart, my “new” 6th edition list, not so much. It’s still a good counter, but not the hard counter it would have been in 5th.

I got first turn, and gave it to him. I wanted to see whether he was going to deep strike his terminators so I knew whether to set up a deep strike defense or not. He deployed everything behind his Aegis. That meant I was able to deploy in a more open formation, giving me more flexibility of movement. So I set up as far away as possible, hiding the Tetras behind a building, and getting the Hammer Heads out of range of his Preds. I gambled on him simply advancing his termies across the table (what else was he going to do with them and their 24” range!), so I reserved the Firewarriors in their fish, hoping that they would come in turn 2, hop our, and dakka down the termies.

Well, everything went to plan. The Railguns killed the armour, the Plasma Cannons killed the strike squads, the Tetras refused to die (must have passed about 20 2+ saves on them!)  and the fire warriors came on, jumped out and (with marker light support) blew away 6 terminators in one round of shooting. The remaining termis promptly failed their leadership tests and ran for it. While they rallied next turn, it stalled their advance, and I was able to kill them all before they got anywhere near my gun line.

A 19 – 1 win to me.

Game 2

As always, the problem with winning your first game is that you are then on the top tables! Next was a combination of the relic and Emperors will. I was up against an odd army of Eldar and Dark Eldar. Farseer on a bike with a 7 man seer council, two 9 man squads of reaver jet bikes, 2 squads of 3 guardian jet bikes, a Phoneix bomber and a jet wing fighter, and some foot sloggers who where just there to camp the home objective.

I was at bit at a loss to know what to do against this army. It’s so fast I didn’t think I could stop him snatching the Relic. And he could “lurk” at the other end of the board until turn 5 and then snatch it. Hmmm…!

So I decided that there was very little prospect of me getting his objective, and that getting and keeping the Relic was pretty impossible. The plan (such as it was) was to deploy everything in range of the relic, try and get first blood, hold my own objective, and kill anything that goes anywhere near the relic.

It didn’t really work! The problem was the phonix bomber. My opponent had explained what it did, but I didn’t really listen well enough. It’s missiles decimated the orks and the Fire warriors, and the reavers did the rest. In the end I was lucky. I eventually killed the seer council, and the reavers, and the guardian jet bikes broke and ran off the board. So in the end, nobody had the relic, he held his home objective, and I managed to pass enough leadership tests on orks and fire warriors to hang on to my own objective with one remaining ork! So a loss, but not a huge one. Think it was 17 – 3.

Lesson learned – do not get fire warriors out of their fish until absolutely necessary! They are just too fragile to start on the board.

Game 3

Kill points against Guard with space wolves. He had Company Command Squad, Platoon Command Squad, Primaris Psyker, 50 man blob with Axes and melta bombs, 3 Vendettas, 2 Rune priests, 2 squads of grey hunters with Wolf Guard and a Hyperion Missile Battery. He rolled on divination and got the power which grants a 4+ invulnerable save!

Hmmmm….. my list really has no answer to Vendettas and a blob squad with a 4++. So the plan was to kill everything else and ignore the Vendettas and the blob.

And that’s what I did….. but he killed 2 units more than I did. I made one huge mistake which lost me the game.  I hadn’t clocked that the blob had melta bombs, and I got a Hammerhead and a Devilfish too close. He assaulted both and killed them (small conciliation was that I killed a bunch of guardsman in the explosion!)

Lesson learned – blobs are even more terrifying than I thought, and I really need something in the list that will deal with AV12 flyers and guard blobs. The difficulty is what!

Game 4

Eldar and dark elder again. Eldrad, 10 Wraithguard, Harlies with a shadowseer, the Baron and 2 Venoms with kabalite warriors, 3 squads of Guardian Jet Bikes and 9 (9!) war walkers. Mission was Crusade with 5 objectives, Dawn of War.

On paper I should win this one. He has nothing that can damage my Hammerheads at range, and he can only glance the Devilfish. As long as I keep away from the Wraithguard and the Harlies, and kill the bikes and the Warriors it should be good. I’m a little concerned about the weight of fire the War Walkers can put out, but not really. My main concern is the Barron tanking wounds for the Wraithguard on his 2++. However, the TO ruled that fortune doesn’t effect the Baron, so it’s not too bad.

He gets first turn and takes it. He sets up Eldrad, the Wraithguard, the Hariles and both Venoms and leaves everything else in reserve (just realised he had too much in reserve, ah well!). Oddly, he does not set up the Baron to tank wounds. The Walkers are outflanking. I set up the Broadsides in the middle behind the aegis, surrounded by orks. Everything else is on my left. I thought about lining  that board edge with infiltrating  to Kroot stop him coming on there, However, he had that covered by his 2 venoms which would have toasted the Kroot, so instead I put the Hammerheads there, with a plan to move them up the board edge and outflank the Kroot, hoping they would come in on that edge to block the rest of it.

I then seized the initiative! So taking advantage of the Wraithguard not being fortuned, I pour everything into them in that first turn, killing 6 of them. A good start. In his turn 1 nothing really happens, I think his venoms kill some orks. My turn 2 one squad of Kroot come on, but come on on the wrong side! They are isolated way over on the right, so I bring them on, on my side of the table and hide them. I move up the Fire Warrior’s ‘Fish. The plan is to strip the Harlies cover with the Tetras, and blow them away with rapid firing, pulse rifles next turn.  I kill 2 more Wraithguard, but my shots are then stalled by Eldrad’s re-rollable 3++. I think I take a hull point of a Venom, the Broadsides failing miserably to kill paper aeroplanes!

In his Turn 2 all the War Walkers come on. One squad comes on, on the right, and 2 on the left. He keeps his bikes of with his warlord trait (the one that allows you to re-roll reserves). And then disaster, he opens up with everything on the Broadsides, kills 2 Drones and they fail a leadership test and run off the board, giving him first blood and kill the warlord….bugger!

It was a bit of a blow! I was beginning to feel I had this one in the bag, but without the Broadsides it was going to be tricky, and giving up first blood and kill the warlord was a disaster! But, I swallowed hard, sucked it up, and pressed on with the plan!

Over the next few turns I managed to squeak out the narrowest of wins. Highlights were one squad of Firewarriors jumping out their ‘Fish, and killing 2 War Walkers, getting charged next turn by the remaining Walker, and killing it with Overwatch! The other squad of fire warriors getting charged by the Baron, blowing away his Shadow Field with Overwatch, and then slapping him down in the ensuing combat!  And finally, a pack of Kroot holding up a squad of jet bikes long enough in assault, so they could not snatch an objective

When the smoke settled, I held 2 objectives and he held one. However, because he had slay the warlord, first blood and line breaker, we drew on tournament points 10 each. However because I also had line breaker (gun drones FTW) I won on 6th ed VPs 7 -6. The very (very) narrowest of wins.

Lessons learned – don’t panic! But also – I wonder if it is worth that extra 25pts for the Shas’o and his leadership 10!

Game 5

Big guns never tire, hammer and anvil, against Space Marines. Captain on a bike with a squad of scoring bikes, 3 pods, one with a tac squad and 2 with Ironclads, 2 more tac squads (one in a Rhino) and 2 Thunderfire cannons.

Hmmm… when I saw his list and the mission I knew I would have to try quite hard to lose this one (or be very unlucky!). I gave him first turn, so I had last turn to grab some objectives, and set up the 30 orks to bubble wrap my gun line.

He podded in one ‘clad and one tac squad, and killed some orks. In my turn I killed the tac squad and immobilised the ‘clad.

In his turn 2 the second ‘clad came in and managed to immobilise one of my Hammerheads (a very risky deep strike right on the edge of the board which I did not think he would go for!). His scout squad outflanked on my side, and ran into a ruin, and his bikes moved up. He killed some more orks. In my turn 2 I killed the ‘clad, and most of the bikes. The small squad of orks and one of the Kroot squads came in and failed to kill the scout squad (it went to ground in a ruin for a 2+ cover save).

In his turn 3 he killed some more orks, and a shield drone. The remaining bikes failed their charge on a pack of Kroot. In my turn I moved up both ‘fish heading for the central objective. I killed the remaining bikes, but not the captain. The Kroot charged the scout squad and wiped them out.

In his turn his quad gun fired at one of my ‘fish, he rolled a 6 to pen, I rolled a 1 to failed my 2+ cover save, and he then rolled a 6 to blow it up. He then smacked the Fire warriors with the Thunder fire cannons and the survivors ran…..! A blow, but not a disaster as the other fish moved up to reach the objective in my turn. His captain also charged a pack of Kroot, wiping them out, but he was not able to consolidate into cover. In my turn 4 I killed his captain and the remaining devilfish moved onto the 2nd objective, with the Firewarriors ready to hop out and claim it in turn 5. At that point we were running out of time, and we agreed turn 5 would be the last turn.

In his turn five I had an anxious moment. He killed enough shield drones to force a leadership test on my Broadsides who were holding the home objective…but they passed this time! In my turn 5 I claimed the middle objective, and finally killed a Thunderfire cannon for an extra point!

A 16-4 win to me!

This game was closer than I thought it was going to be – the problem were the Thunderfire cannons. I just could not risk getting my Firewarriors out their fish as they would have been pounded by the cannons. Without their fire power, it was trickier putting down the captain (with his artificer armour) than it would have been if they could have simply torrented him away.

So, I went 3-0-2 and ended up with 55 tournament points, enough for best Tau general. I also came 23rd out of 87. Very pleased with that. Sadly however, I was not in the top 4 Scottish players (think I came 5th or 6th, but not sure) so didn’t qualify for the ETC team…..!

List analysis

This list performed much better than at the GT, but it still has problems.

The reason for improved performance is partly greater experience in playing the list. I played a much more fluid game, and really only castled up in game 5, to counter the podding Dreads. I still made mistakes of course (deploying the Firewarriors out their fish in game 2, allowing the melta bomb wielding blob squad to assault my vehicles in game 3), but I had more comprehensive plans for all my games than at the GT.

However, the list was also improved. The biggest change was the quad gun and fewer orks. The quad gun was OK, but is laughable against AV12 flyers. Fewer Orks was a big improvement. The 30 “man” mob was ideal for bubble wrapping when needed, and was much more manageable than the 2 30 man mobs I took to the GT. Interestingly, one change made a big difference – the sensor spines on the D’fish. I put them there as an afterthought really, but when you don’t need to worry about terrain, it makes deploying the Firewarriors so much easier.

The other thing was that the Firewarriors worked much better this tournament. In game one they blew away a 6 terminators, in game 3 they blew away a pack of Grey Hunters, and in Game 5 they killed the War Walkers (and the Baron in assault – although that was a bit of a fluke!). They are still very vulnerable once thet are out their ‘fish (Game 2 and Game 5, where they stayed in their ‘fish almost the whole game for fear of the 2 T’fire Cannons). But if you get your timing and your positioning right, they’re OK (still not great, but OK).

Having said that, I was kinda lucky in my match ups. I didn’t play Wraith Spam Necrons, nor flamer/screamer spam demons. Against Demons I think I might stand a chance, providing I managed to get the ork bubble wrap right. Not sure what I would have done against Wraith Spam however.   

I also have no answer to AV12 flyers, nor really to a guard blob.

Further thought required.

EYIG

Goals for 2013


I wanted to post this up earlier, but time got away from me. I want to try and formulate some goals for the year.

I have 3 main hobby goals for the year. First, finish off my Codex Marines drop pod list. It’s nearly done, but I want to add some space wolf allies. I’m not going to use space wolf models. The primary detachment uses the Forge World MkIII Iron Armour. I’m thinking I might use the Cataphracti Termi armour for the TDA Wolf Guard, and perhaps a different mark of power armour for the Grey Hunters. The primary of the army is painted blue as its primary colour, with silver as secondary, using red and gold as tertiary colours (“home brew chapter, “Knights Errant”, using Templar iconography). I’m thinking of doing the “Space Wolf “ detachment with silver as their primary colour, blue as secondary, and keep the 2 tertiary colours. If anybody objects I can make up some fluffy nonsense about them being veterans from the first company or other such bollocks.

Secondly, the non-club are thinking about running the Istavan III campaign from the Horus Hersey Betrayal Book over a few months towards the end of the year. So I see a Horus Hersey army in my future!

Finally, I want to build the most cheesy, hard core and down right filthy Tau army using the (fingers crossed) new codex. I plan to sell my existing army and start from new, with new models and a new colour scheme.

As for gaming, well here I’m not so sure. Last year I played in a lot of tournaments – lost track, but it was over ten 2 days events and a bunch of one day events (begs the question really of why I’m not better at them, but let’s leave that for now!). I will again try and get to as many tournaments as possible this year (although perhaps not as many as last year). I enjoy the intensity, the competition and (usually) the people. But a focus on list optimisation, tactics and  tournaments leads to a very one dimensional experience of the hobby. This year I think I want try to broaden that out.

So in terms of “goals” for the year I would like to go to at least six 2 day tournaments. I’ve already been to Cally, and Little Geek and I are going to Throne of Skulls in March (first year Little Geek is old enough to go). I’ll go to the WPS Club challenge with the “non–club” in May and I want to go to Rapid Fire in the Autumn. If the GT runs with qualifying heats again I’ll go to one of them. Other than that I ‘ll try and get to one or 2 of the Games of War tourni’s run by Sir#67, and a couple of the Chaos of the Warp tournis run here locally. Might also try and hit a couple more Throne of Skulls events.  I reckon I can persuade Mrs Geek to let me away for one weekend per month (the trick is taking Little Geek with me so it’s a “father son” thing, rather than just me playing toy soldiers!).

But I would like to do other things.

The non club has now run 3 gaming days, each of which has attracted 12 people, they have all been great fun. While we run a swiss paring system, and there is a trophy for the “winner” it’s a long way from a tournament. People are encouraged to bring different armies for each game, and you agree with you opponent each game which rule book mission you want to play. There is no “list submission” and most people don’t even come with a written list. A relaxed “event” where you play people you don’t play very often.

I want to run one of these every other month.

I mentioned the Istavan III campaign. This is only an embryonic idea I’ve been kicking about with a friend… but I got the Horus Heresy Betrayal Book for Christmas, and I love the Space Marine Legion Army List, love the models and the campaign looks interesting. So we’re talking about running the campaign over 4 days (one a month) in the Autumn to give people time to build their army. We’ll run them at the club, and hope to attract around 12 or so people for each day.   It will give everybody a chance to buy new models, create an interesting army, paint something new and build some terrain. And then have 4 interesting days of narrative gaming. As the complete “hobby package” it can’t really be beaten!

So these are my plans for the year.

What are yours

EYIG

Wednesday 16 January 2013

Cally List


So after all the fuss about podding marines, I’m back to playing Tau…and you know, I’m really looking forward to it! I guess I’m a Tau player at heart!

So, what am I taking? Well with not that long to think about it, I’m taking a very similar list to the one that got stomped at the GT.

If you remember the 2 big issues I had with this list were the Ork allies, and the Firewarriors. The Orks got in the way, and the Firewarriors were too fragile. I was thinking about other allies, and about swapping the Firewarriors for death rains. Well, because of the lack of time to change anything major, I’ve stuck with both, but tweaked it slightly. Here’s the list I submitted.

Shasel, Fusion Gun, Plasma Rifle, Advanced Stabilisation System, Multi Tracker, Target Lock

2 x 12 Fire warriors in a ‘Fish with DPods and Sensor Spines

2x10 Kroot

2 x Tetra, with Targeting Array, Sensor Spines.

2 x Hammer Head, Plasma Cannons, Burst Cannons, Multitracker, Disruption Pod, Black Sun Filter.

3x Broadsides, with Plasma Rifles and Multitrackers, Team leader with HW Target Lock, HW Black Sun Filter, 2 Shield Drones

Aegis with Quad Gun

Big Mek with KFF

30 Shoota Boyz

10 Shoota Boys

So the changes from the GT list are

Quad Gun to give me something that might worry FMC’s and Flyers. The Shasel goes with the Broadsides and mans the quad gun. The Multitracker and the Target Lock means he can shoot the Quad Gun at flyers using Interceptor, and the Broadsides can shoot at something else in my turn. The ASS means that the Broadsides get Slow and Purposeful so can move around and still fire.

I’ve cut down the boys from 2 big squads to one maxed out, and one smaller. Hopefully this will be more manageable.

Finally, I kept the Firewarriors. Partly this was “nostalgia”, I really want Firewarriors to work! However, without them I have no “torrent of fire” in my army, and with marker light support they are pretty good at that.

What I’m hoping is that I can get this to work more successfully with smarter play. I’ve been thinking about my GT games, and I’ve realised I played them very statically. I think I need to play a much more open and mobile game. I suspect what that means is splitting the ‘Fish and the Hammerheads away from the Broadsides to create 2 Fire bases, one more static (the Broadsides), protected by 30 orks, and the other much more mobile (the ‘Fish and the Hammerheads), supported by the Kroot and the smaller mob of orks.

I played a couple of games at the weekend, one against Biker marines, and the other against a Grey Knight army lead by Mordrak, with 2 Dreadknights and a bunch of terminators. In the first games I played a much more “open” game than I would usually play. I didn’t castle up, and spread my army out. It worked really well. Being able to pre measure really allows you to play with ranges much more than before. In the second game I castled up, to avoid getting Mordrak in my teeth too early. In retrospect, what I should have done is let him come in right in front of my broadsides and blown him away in one turn of shooting. This game didn’t go so well – all the old problems of orks getting in the way, and then holding too long in combat before breaking in my turn, allowing my opponent to consolidate and then move and assault in his turn. Having said that, it was a great game. In my turn 7 I had to table him to win. He had an inquisitor, and 5 terminators on the table. I had 1 hammer head my commander, a pack of Kroot and a squad of fire warriors left. I managed to kill everything barr one terminator, who was falling back. However, my opponent had the last turn, rallied his terminator and won with one model on the table!

So, Cally this weekend.

Monday 14 January 2013

Next Tournament


Happy New Year

A break from blogging over the festive period but back now.

When last we spoke (!) I was wondering whether to take podding marines or Tau to Cally. Well, I decided to take the marines.

The big issue was Lysander. While he’s a beat stick, and synergizes well with the Sternguard, he is 200pts. I was also wondering about the 3 “big” tournament builds in the UK at the moment – Wraith Wing Necrons, Demons and Biomancy Nids. Could I get more value from those 200 pts?

The obvious answer was to take a Librarian. Null Zone would make a difference against Nids and Demons. And that is what I thought, but I came up against an unexpected problem – I thought Vulcan was a captain and could therefore take a command squad….but he isn’t and he can’t. So if I drop Lysander I can’t take the command squad. In turn that means I don’t have anything scary to put in the 7th pod, meaning my “alpha strike” isn’t nearly as powerful i.e. of the 4 pods that come down first turn I have one with Vulcan and the Sternguard, 2 with Ironclads and one with ….. what?

Lots of head scratching ensued.

And then I thought “Space Wolves”! Now, I’ve never really been attracted to the codex – you know how it is, some codices appeal, other don’t, and Space Wolves has never appealed. But as allies…!

So after a long chat with my 2space wolf playing buddies I came up with a plan.

Librarian in TDA, Null Zone, Avenger

2 Tactical Squads with Plasma Guns and Multi Meltas in Pods

2x Ironclad Dreads, Twin Heavy Flamers, Assault Launchers, in Lucius Pattern Drop Pods

10 Sternguard, 6 combi Meltas

Rune Priest, Jaws, Living Lightening, Combi Plasma in TDA (goes in the Wolf Guard Pod),

5 TDA Wolf Guard with Combi Plasmas, in a pod (one of them goes with the Grey Hunters)

8 Grey Hunters with Mark of the Wolven, Plasma Gun and a Banner

So …. 4 pods come down first turn. Libby with the Sternguard, tanking wounds from anything with Interceptor and casting Null Zone to make Wraiths and Demons sweat. Two Iron Clads flaming infantry and/or charging stuff straight out the Lucius Pods, and a Rune Priest and 4 TDA wolf guard laying the plasma pain on the drop, with the Rune Priest sniping Tervigons with Jaws. The second wave includes the Grey Hunters to take forward objectives and support the first wave (Grey Hunters are soooo much better than Tac Squads!), with the Tac Squads coming in to snatch mid field objectives.

I really liked this list, and the great thing was that I could borrow all the space wolf stuff from my buddy, meaning that the only things I had to paint were 2 Lucius Pattern pods, and finish off 5 normal pods. So I sat back to enjoy the holidays and ordered the Lucius pattern pods. However, forge world let me down! One of the pods came with a bit missing. I called them and they said that it would take them 10 days to get the bit cast and out to me. This was about 2 weeks to go until the tournament. With list submission date looming I decided not to take the risk and submitted a very similar list to the one I played at the Games of War tourney i.e. Vulcan, Lysander, Command Squad, 2 Iron clads in normal pods, sternguard and 3 tac squads.

Unfortunately the models I used for that army were a mix and match from 2 different armies (i.e. 2 very different colour schemes). With painting scores at Cally I wanted to make sure the army was cohesive. So with 2 weeks to go before the tourney I had 4 pods to finish off, 3 to build and paint from scratch, a tac squad to paint, a command squad to paint and a Vulcan conversion to complete and paint. After a marathon weekend of building and painting (which almost involved a divorce!) I realised it was just not going to happen (line highlighting drop pods takes for ever!).

But the TO threw me a life line. He offered a “list amnesty”. He offered anybody who had submitted a list from the three most popular codices a chance to swap for an army less well represented. Codex Marines were one of the three, so I swapped to Tau.

So, after all that, I’m back playing a variation of the list that got stomped at the GT… sigh!

EYIG