The Kroot (and Vespid) Issue

Now, I have always made a decision with my Tau that I will not field Kroot or Vespid units - this is for one reason and one reason alone.....

.....they're ugly!!!

Well, I suppose that should be prefaced with "In my opinion..." but you get the idea. One of the things I really love about the Tau is the look of the army and I just feel that those two unit types just don't fit within the "aesthetic" feel that I want to convey.

Now, that's a fairly simple choice I hear you all say, if you don't like something don't buy it but the sticking point is now coming in that I'm looking at entering into the world of tournament play and I'm worried that I might be shooting myself in the foot a bit.

Vespid's I'm fairly comfortable with not having but when it comes to Kroot I do start to wonder - for a start they're cheaper than Fire Warrior's and some of the little tricks they can do may come in handy. I need to have a proper look at them when I get home as up until now I've pretty much glazed over when I've gotten to their section of the codex but I'm starting to lean more towards having them and just trying not to look at the damn things!!!

Progress Update

So another weekend rapidly draws to a close and I have shockingly actually managed to get some work done on my Tau. In total we have another Devilfish and 6 Firewarriors painted and 4 Pathfinders prepped for painting.







Ok, for the Pathfinder's what I've done is converted some spare bit's I had lying around from Fire Warrior leftovers and Hammerhead crew, I'm using the bonding knife from the Firewarrior sprues on the end of the Pulse Carbines to represent a markerlight node. I'm tempted to paint them with a slightly different style to the Firewarriors to mark them out as different at a glance but as yet I'm undecided on exactly what I'm going to do.



The current aim is to get a 1000 point list painted and ready that will form the core of my army, I can then work on scalling that up to 1500 points and beyond!

The list I have in mind will contain the following models:

2 x Devil Fish (Painted!)
12 x Fire Warriors (Painted!)
1 x Hammerhead (Painted!)
4 x Crisis Suits (Not Painted)
4 x Pathfinders (Not Painted)
4 x Shield Drones (Not Painted)

The only stumbling blocks I have at the moment are that I'm one Crisis Suit short (trip to GW tomorrow on lunch break methinks!) and that I idealy want to magnetise my suits before I start painting them but I'm waiting on the magnets just now - all being well they should be here by the end of the week though so once I have em in my grubby little mits I should be able to rock on!

Battle Report: Tau Vs Imperial Guard

Ok, I’ll be telling this mostly from the Tau point of view and as it’s my first attempt at a battle report I apologise in advance if I’ve missed anything out. This was my first game in our league, I was facing off against Von Muller's Imperial Guard and we were fielding 1000 point armies.

Forces: Imperial Guard
Company Commander with Vox Caster and Las Cannon detachment.
Platoon Command mounted in Chimera with 3 Flamers and Vox Caster.
Infantry Platoon comprising Commissar and 3 Infantry Squads
Veteran Squad mounted in Chimera’s with a Las Cannon and 2 x Plasma Gun detachments
Veteran Squad mounted in Chimera’s with a Las Cannon and 3 x Melta Gun detachments
Leman Russ Demolisher
Basalisk

Forces: Tau
Crisis Suit Commander with 2 man bodyguard and 2 shield drones
2 x 6 man Fire Warrior teams mounted in Devilfish with Disruption Pods, SMS and Multitracker
2 man Broadside Team with 2 Shield Drones
Hammerhead with Disruption Pod and Multitracker


Mission: Seize Ground
Deployment: Dawn of War

We were playing for a total of 5 objectives marked on the following picture in red dots and we both opted not to have anything deployed at the start of the battle.



Commander Von Muller had the initiative and moved his entire battle force into play, he positioned his basilisk screened by his Infantry Platoon on his left flank, his Company Command and 2 Chimera’s carrying the Veteran squads on his right flank and had his remaining Chimera carrying his Platoon Command and the Demolisher in the centre. He moved his infantry forwards to secure the first objective and advanced his mechanised elements forwards also.



The Tau proceeded onto the field leaving the Devil Fish carrying the Fire Warriors in reserve. The broadsides occupied the cover on my left flank whilst the Commander, not wishing to risk moving at speed into the terrain, moved into position behind cover on the right – this would shortly prove to be costly. The Hammerhead moved into the centre of the deployment zone to attempt to lay some fire down but due to the persistent darkness was unable to acquire a firing solution.



The Chimera’s carrying the Veteran Squads began their advance down the Imperals right hand flank laying down fire on the Broadsides supported by the Company Commanders Las Cannon, however the Broadsides superior armour and position in cover meant they were able to shrug this fire off for no effect. The Broadsides and Hammerhead then returned fire upon the Chimera’s immobilising them both but not before they achieved an advanced enough position to secure the second objective for the Imperials.



The Demolisher rumbled forwards but was unable to gain a firing solution against the Hammerhead due to extreme range. Roaring into life the Basilisk launched a shell across the ruins of the buildings and landed a direct hit upon the Tau Commander, as the smoke cleared he was still standing, however his bodyguards were not so fortunate.



Cursing himself for not occupying the cover whilst he had the chance and blinded by rage the Tau commander launched himself forwards hoping to avenge his fallen brothers only to fall victim to the combined fire of the Infantry platoon.



The Demolisher and Chimera carrying the Platoon Command drew into range of the Hammerhead and were able to acquire a firing solution through the haze of the disruption pods to force the Hammerhead to make a considerably less than graceful landing.

The two Tau Devilfish powered in from the rear, attempting to rapidly advance onto the some of the objectives however concentrated Imperial fire disabled the engines of the rear Devilfish and reduced the lead transport to a rapidly expanding cloud. The surviving Fire Warriors from the lead Devilfish, knowing that the capture of these objectives was vital to the Greater Good, attempted to advance onto the closest objective but were too badly shaken – knowing that they would get no further in their immobilised transport the remaining Fire Warrior team braved the imperial fire and moved across the open in support of their comrades.



The Basilisk then opened up again, it’s target the now immobile Hammerhead!



Cheers initially met the shot as the Tau sensors aboard the Hammerhead were able to determine the shot would land wide....which rapidly turned into cries of despair when the round deviated directly into the middle of the, now closely grouped, Fire Warriors!



The remaining Fire Warriors shakily proceeded to advance and capture the nearest objective, salvaging some small amount of pride. The Imperial’s, emboldened by the xeno carcases littering the battle field, focused their fire upon the Broadsides causing one to fall and destroying the accompanying shield drones – unable to stand under such onslaught the remaining pilot pulled his Broadside off of the battlefield.

As the remaining Fire Warriors prepared themselves to sell their lives dearly the call came in over the comms – the allotted time to secure this area had expired and they were ordered to withdraw and regroup with the main Tau battle force. Their comrades had given their lives....for nothing.

Conclusion
Well, this was the first occasion I had had to face off against Von Muller 1 on 1 with my Tau and I think my inexperience of the Imperial Guard cost me somewhat along with a few mistakes along the way but it was an enjoyable game and if nothing else I did learn a few lessons out there (like always take the risk and move my suits into cover!!!).

The Drums of War!!!

Last night myself and some friends kicked off a little friendly league that's going to run for the next few months. The players are myself fielding Tau, Brad fielding Space Wolves, Rick with his Imperial Guard, and Young Un with his Orks. The idea is that we are setting ourselves a target of getting our respective armies painted whilst still getting a few games in the bag – so points will be awarded for hitting certain painting targets as well as winning games. I’ll go into things in a bit more detail later but last night was the first time we got together so we went for a 1000 point list each and played 2 games, they were as follows:

Round 1 – Space Wolves Vs Orks, Tau Vs Imperial Guard

Round 2 – Space Wolves Vs Imperial Guard, Tau Vs Orks

After those matches the rankings are as follows

Ranking	Player	Race	Won	Lost	Drawn	Points
1	Brad (Bradimus Prime)	Space Wolves	2	0	0	20
2	Rick (Von Muller)	Imperial Guard	1	1	0	12
2	Youn Un (Cpt Machine)	Orks	1	1	0	12
4	Wierdo	Tau	0	2	0	4

Needless to say I need to seriously look at my list and my tactics!!!

First Completed Hammerhead

Right then, I've now gotten my first Hammerhead finished, picks are below but just a quick note about my painting ability.....it sucks :-D

I'm possibly being a little over critical there but I'm not the best painter in the world so for me it boils down to getting a clean, simple paint job that looks good on the table...from a distance lol

I also managed to get two of my converted SMS pods done for my only painted Devilfish so I've included a pic of that on the first piccy as well.

Smart Missile System

Ok, one issue that I currently have is that I want to run my Devilfish in a Warfish configuration but I really begrudge having to pay out extra pennies for the SMS Pods but this being GW it is something that we are all used to. So, I decided to solve my problem on my own - I have a load of Gun Drone spru's lying about and a few spare missile pod bits so a few minutes work with a file and a bit of glue and I have the following:-




Now they're not perfect but they do give me something that is fairly obvious at a glance to be an SMS.

Well that took a while!!

A bit of time since my last post but then progress on getting stuff painted pretty my ground to a halt for most of December - I found that going out allot and having cracked ribs (as a result of said going out) isn't all that conducive to getting things done!

But it's a new year and as the ribs have finally healed I decide to pull my finger out and last night finally got my stealth suits finished!



Now what I'm going to do with 15 Stealth Suits outside of Apocalypse I've no idea but at least it's another chunk of my figures done!