Holy Crap! Where Did All The Time Go?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ok, I'm now sat here with a fair ammount of stuff to get painted before the Mayhem tournament.....which is the 10th and 11th of April.....which is just over a week away.....and I'm on a training course this week and away in Wales all through the Bank Holiday weekend!!!! Eeeep!!!!!!!!

What I need to get painted is as follows:

6 x Fire Warriors
2 x Devil Fish
6 x Gun Drones
2 x Broadsides
3 x Crisis Suits

Now to be honest that shouldn't pose too much of an issue as I've now finished with my last employer and had allready decided I was going to take a bit of a break before hitting the streets properly job hunting (it was a voluntary redundancy and the payout was.....significant). But that said I have had time off in the past where I wanted to spend getting all of my dudes painted up and still didn't manage it so we'll have to see.

I'd also like to get an additional 12 Fire Warriors painted as 12 of the ones I've done at the moment are dipped and I've kindof moved away from that for the rest of my army at the mo. Would be nice to show up with a completely uniformly painted Cadre.

Tau vs IG - TAU WIN!!!!!

Yes thats right, last night we had the lastest round in our little league and I managed to pull a fairly comprehensive win off against Rick (Von Muller). The evening was only slightly mared by the fact that I decided to drop about a third of my army on the floor (at night flying stands are quite hard to see and the sound of them cracking underfoot is like shattering glass!) and the fact that I had opted not to do a battle report for once...go figure, sod's law working at it's finest!

The battle was Capture and Control with a Spearhead setup. I maintained the first turn despite Rick trying to seize the initiative and the first couple of turns mostly consisted of bits of Vendetta Gunships falling from the sky for the loss of a couple of shield drones (Rick had tried to gamble on getting the first turn and scout moved them accross on my flank - this was an extremely costly gamble). The battle consisted of pretty much just a running gun battle which is the type of fight the Tau just love and despite things looking a bit more promising for Rick in the middle of the battle Rick decided to concede at the end of my turn 5 as he had no way to capture or contest either of the objectives at that stage.

All in all it was a very good game and it did seem like the dice were firmly on my side for this one. Although I'm still last in our league I can now almost smell 3rd place. As I haven't been able to do a full battle report for this I thought this might make up for things slightly:

The fires from the ruined human tanks and transports lit the evening sky with a dull glow, several Fire Warriors moved amongst the wreckage looking for survivors. Whilst it was doubtful any of them would accept the Greater Good it was still necessary to offer the humans the chance for enlightenment.

Shas'El Yu’kka had dismounted from his crisis suit, today had been a good day for the Greater Good and he wished to remember every sight and smell of the battle field that his Cadre had decimated the human forces on personally, rather than through the dull measurements of his suits sensors.

He cast his eye across his Cadre, the losses incurred in the engagement had been light, amazingly so considering the last few engagements they had been part of but it seemed that now the tide of this campaign may be changing.

As he surveyed the battle field the wind shifted, and Yu’kka caught, just for a moment, the sound of a savage drum beat in the distance. A grim smile crossed his lips, the humans had fallen easily so how hard could scattering a few greenskins be……

As you may be able to guess from that my next league game is going to be against Neil's Ork's. Should be.....interesting!!

Looking to the Next Month

The next game in our friendly league will be next Thursday, I'm pretty much going to be running the same list as I did last time with a couple of minor tweeks - mainly this will involve dropping the Stealsuits for Pathfinders and then seeing how things stand with points. My aim to get cracked on with painting has failed abysmally up to press, although I have managed to get the other 3 Crisis Suits magnetised and some basing material on in preparation for undercoating.

The League Game will be one of the last times I get to test drive my list before the Mayhem tournament in mid April so I pretty much need to be happy with what I'm running so I know what I've gotta get painted by then. That said I'm not overly concerned about getting stuff painted in time as I finish with my current employer at the end of this month and have decided to take a few weeks to myself before jumping at something else (the joys of a nice fat redundancy package!).

Magnetizing: Crisis Suit Commander

Now I magnetize all of my crisis suits using 3x1 mm round rare earth magnets as standard, this means that I can switch my lists between different suit configs without having to buy lots of suits that are equipped differently.

My thoughts recently turned to the Crisis Suit Commander box, now this box contains everything that the standard Crisis Suit box does with the addition of a few bits of lead wargear and 2 lead Commander heads. I realised that if I magnetised these heads and the head sockets of the suits that I could run my suits as either a Commander or as a normal Crisis Suit. The below is a quick breakdown of how I went about this, hope you find it useful.

I firstly assembled the main body of the Crisis Suit, including the arms, and allowed the polystyrene cement to set. Now, I've seen some guides that recommend drilling out the holes for the magnets before assembling the suit but I find it easier to do it this way.



Next step was to drill out the holes for the magnets. You will need to drill into the base of the neck on the head and into the socket where the head will sit on the Suit, this is important to try and avoid the suit looking like it has an elongated neck when compared to suits whose head is just glued straight into the socket. I use a fairly low power hand drill to do this and a 4mm drill bit it's important to stress that you need to be very careful at this point as mistakes can be....painful!




One of the trickiest parts of the process is gluing the magnets in place, as they will be attracted to anything metal most normal modelling tools, such as files, are out of the question so I just use a biro lid to hold the magnet in place until the super glue starts to take. The other issue is making sure the magnets are aligned correctly as it is very easy to glue all the magnets in place only to find they repel each other rather than attract each other! I usually colour the same side of my magnets in with a purple felt tip, it's very easy to see that they are aligned correctly as I ensure that the magnets on the suits are purple side facing out and the magnets on the wargear/heads are purple side facing inwards.




It is also bearing in mind that you need to leave enough time for the glue to dry before trying to see if the magnets are correctly glued in otherwise you may end up with the magnets flying out of the head and adhering to the still wet superglue in the socket! Once the glue has dried, and all being well, you should now have a suit which you can swap between being a commander or a normal crisis suit.




As the Crisis Suit Commander comes with 2 Commander Heads this means that you are able to get 2 Commanders out of 1 Commander and 1 Standard Crisis Suit box which saves a few pennies over buying 2 Commander box set's as they are about half again as much as the standard one.

League Battle Report: Space Wolves V’s Tau (Again!!)

Life seems to be throwing constant barriers in my way to get these done in a prompt fashion but I’ve finally managed to get this done.
As described in my previous post I found myself facing off against Brad's Space Wolves again for the first 1500 point league game. The forces assembled were as follows:

1500 Point Space Wolf List

Space Wolves: Task Force Jorgmundr

Ulf the Horrible, Rune Priest

5 Wolf Guard:
3 Combi Melta and Powerfist
(Each of these is attached to a Grey Hunter unit)
1 Frost Weapon (attached to scouts)
1 in Terminator Armour with Cyclone Missile Launcher (attached to long fangs)

Wolf Scouts Pack
5 x Wolf Scouts

Grey Hunters Pack:
9 Grey Hunters, Powerfist, Meltagun, Wolf Standard and Mark of Wulfen
Rhino APC transport

Grey Hunters Pack:
9 Grey Hunters, Powerfist, Meltagun, Wolf Standard and Mark of Wulfen
Rhino APC transport

Grey Hunters Pack:
8 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Wolf Standard and Mark of Wulfen
Rhino APC transport

Long Fangs Pack:
1 sergeant, 5 Long Fangs with Missile Launchers

Land Speeder Squadron:
1 Landspeeder Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher

Land Speeder Squadron:
1 Landspeeder Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher

Predator:
Twin Linked Lascannon and Las Cannon Sponsons


1500 Point Tau List

HQ
Crisis Suit Commander in Fireknife config with 2 x Shield Drones

Troops
6 x Fire Warriors in Devilfish with Multitracker, Disruption Pods and Gun Drones.
6 x Fire Warriors in Devilfish with Multitracker, Disruption Pods and Gun Drones.
6 x Fire Warriors in Devilfish with Multitracker, Disruption Pods and Gun Drones.

Elites
3 x Crisis Suits in Fireknife Config
3 x Crisis Suits in Deathtrain Config
3 x Stealthsuits, Team Leader with Markerlight, Drone Controller and 2 x Marker Drones

Heavy
2 x Broadside Suits with ASS, 2 x Shield Drones
1 x Hammerhead with Railgun, Multitracker, and Disruption Pods

Mission

We were playing Annihilation with Spearhead deployment. We rolled off and Brad got the choice of first turn.

Brad deployed his Long Fangs in a tower towards the far corner of his deployment to give them a commanding view of the battle field; his Rhinos were positioned as close to the centre of the table and his Predator was along his table edge close to his left flank. He announced he was holding 2 Landspeeders and his Wolf Scouts in reserve




I opted for a very similar deployment; my Broadsides were positioned in a crater towards the far corner of my deployment with the Commander attached to the Fireknife suits in cover towards the centre of the table with the Deathtrain suits hugging the edge of the cover at the opposite side to the commanders team. My Hammerhead was deployed on my table edge towards my left flank. I infiltrated the Steathsuits into the building that all of the crisis suits were using for cover to get an elevated position (the other units could not as it was too close to the centre point of the table for normal deployment).





Turn 1

After yet again failing to seize the initiative it was down to Brad to take the first turn. 2 of his Rhinos rumbled forwards and popped smoke to cover Ulf’s Rhino at the Rear whilst the Predator moved into the cover now vacated by the Rhinos.



Ulf summoned the Jaws of the World Wolf which proceeded to see my Cadre ‘s commander disappear along with his shield drones into a chasm that promptly sealed itself back up….not a great start for me!
The long fangs unleashed a hail of missiles against the Hammerhead and although most of the shots were avoided thanks to the Disruption pods 1 did glance the engine nacelle immobilising the tank.

My turn kicked off with no small amount of panic, I’d already lost 1 kill point in the form of my commander and the Hammerhead was now a sitting duck if the Wolves manage to close with it.
I started by walking the Fireknife suits to the edge of the cover to allow them to maximise their fire and I jumped the Deathtrain suits into the open.



I started the firing by laying down some Marker lights on one of the smoke covered Rhino’s scoring 3 hits, the Deathtrain suits make use of the Marker support and are able to wreck the Rhino. The Hammerhead unloads a submuition round into the Spacewolves staggering out of the wreck managing to eliminate 1.



The Broadsides launched several Railgun rounds at the second Rhino that had popped smoke immobilising it, unfortunately the Fireknife suits were still badly shaken from the loss of their commander and were unable to capitalise on this and finish it off.



The Stealthsuits, Fireknifes and Deathtrains then attempted to put a little distance between themselves and the rapidly approaching marines by jumping away (even though I had 5 to roll a total of 8 dangerous terrain checks for the jump I passed the lot!!! Practically unheard of!)



Kill Points: Space Wolves 1, Tau 1

Turn 2

Moving into turn 2 things were running at an even keel, although a commander for a Rhino is a pretty unbalanced exchange it did at least mean I had a kill point and the Greyhunters that had staggered out last turn were pinned currently so I wouldn’t have to worry about them so much for a turn.
Brad rolled for his reserves and managed to bring on the lot, so 2 Landspeeders screamed in on his left flank and the scouts snuck onto the battlefield within spitting distance of my Broadsides!




Ulfs rhino advanced to the cover of the ruin in which my suits were hiding in and the predator rumbled out to get a line on the Hammerhead.



Although the Predator was able to lay down a ferocious barrage of fire against the Hammerhead the AI controlling the Disruption pods was able to turn all of the Predators fire away….it did however mean it didn’t notice the missile barrage coming in from the Long Fangs which managed to finish the job they started last turn and turned the Hammerhead into decorative scenery.



Both of the Landspeeders unleashed a ferocious torrent of fire against the Fireknife suits but they managed to avoid injury thanks to hiding behind a wall!
With a howl that chilled the blood of the assembled Tau the Scouts bounded into the cover the Broadsides were in and launched a ferocious assault. The Shield Drones flew across into the horde and were torn apart without even managing to make the Scouts break their stride. The scouts then hit the remaining Broadsides like a hurricane, killing 1 before he could even take a swing at his attackers and injuring the other, the surviving Broadside suit tried in vain to fight his way clear but was run down by the howling pack before he’d gone more than a few steps!



Back round to my turn again and things were looking a bit grim. I rolled for reserves and got 1 of the Fire Warrior squads coming on. I brought their devilfish in on my left flank to try and lay down some fire on the Grey Hunters which failed to shift any more of the pack.



The Stealthsuits drop 2 Markerlights onto Ulf’s Rhino and manage to destroy the Storm bolter on it. The Fireknifes open up on the other Rhino and manage to result in the crew being shaken.



The Deathtrains swoop in against the Scouts hoping to avenge their fallen comrades and unleash several waves of prometheuim and although they managed to engulf the entire unit in flames the entire pack emerged slightly singed but otherwise fine!



The Stealthsuits moved back into cover losing 1 of their number to a misjudged landing and were joined by the Fireknifes, the deathtrains moved to put a bit of distance between themselves and the Scouts.



Kill Points: Space Wolves 3, Tau 1

Turn 3

Muttering litanies to the Omnissiah taught to them by the adepts of Mars the crew of the immobilised Rhino struggled and finally managed to fire the engines back into life to the howls of appreciation from the Grey Hunter pack riding in the rear!
The Predator opened up on the Devilfish, the fire was mostly ineffective due to the disruption pods but the crew were shaken. The Grey hunter pack, having now recovered from being pinned against the wreck of the Rhino sprinted through the cover to get close enough to the Devilfish to negate the benefit of the disruption pods, combined fire from their Combimelta and Meltagun manage to Stun the crew but the Devilfish remained intact…mostly.



Ulf’s Rhino roared around the side of the cover and with a howl to the Allfather he led the pack of Grey Hunters out to finally get to grips with the enemy! Again calling on the Jaws of the World Wolf he managed to eliminate 2 of the Deathtrain suits, the lone survivor then faced the full fury of the Grey Hunters and disappeared under a storm of Bolter Rounds!



The Landspeeders opened up on the Fireknife suits, their combined fire managing to kill one.



The Longfangs opened up on the Devilfish but their missiles bounced off the hull.

So again I was left smarting from the mauling I’d taken during my turn, I managed to get another Devilfish onto the table and moved it into support the first one. The Fire Warriors in the stunned Devilfish charged out and put some fire into the Grey Hunters managing to kill one.



The Stealthsuits and Fireknife’s move up to get some shots at the now mobile Rhino but only manage to shake the crew.



The Fireknifes attempt to jump back into cover but due to a disastrous roll on my part (snake eyes baby!) ended up with one dead and the last suit pilot injured.



Kill Points: Space Wolves 4, Tau 1

Turn 4

Continuing with the aggressive push on my position the Landspeeders swept forwards attempting to eliminate one of my Devilfish but their fire was less than effective. The Scouts burst out of cover heading for my last Fireknife, several bolter shells hit their target but the Crisis Suit managed to maintain integrity.



The Predator swung around and opened up on the other Devilfish, most of the hits glanced off but one penetrated the hull and set off a chain reaction within the fuel store! Four of the Fire Warriors inside managed to scramble clear before their transport tore itself apart.



Ulf and his Greyhunter pack had now closed with the Stealthuits rendering their Stealth Fields useless, the ensuing fire saw another suit fall.



The Longfangs split their fire sending 2 missiles at the still smouldering squad of Fire Warriors killing one of them and another 5 into the other Devilfish wrecking it.
With a howl the assembled mass of Space Wolves surged forwards eager to finish things. The scouts leapt into cover and hacked the Fireknife down and Ulf lead the charge into the Stealth Suit and Marker Drones. With a sickening crack heard across the battle field the pilot of the Stealthsuits skull was smashed to cinders courtesy of one of the Grey Hunters Powerfist.



The remaining Grey Hunter pack swept forwards into one of the remaining Fire Warrior Squads and the Gun Drones that had managed to survive the Deveilfish being wrecked. The fight was short and brutal, as one expects with the Sons of Russ! First the Gun Drones were smashed apart and then they turned their attentions onto the Fire Warriors, cutting all bar one of them down before they even managed to raise a hand in self defence. The last Fire Warrior attempted to make a break for freedom but the wolves ran him down!



At this stage I had 1 under strength unit of Fire Warriors left on the table and the last Fire Warrior unit and their Devil Fish sat in reserve…..I felt this would probably not be a strong enough force to grab the 10 kill points I would need for a draw so I opted to concede the game at this point!

Final Kill Points: Space Wolves 10, Tau 1

Conclusions

Well as per usual I had fun but still got a thorough kicking. Looking back I made 2 key mistakes that cost me badly:

1) Holding the Devilfish in reserve – not too sure what I was thinking here, in Kill Point games it really is key when playing Tau that you bring as much fire down as possible to thin your enemy out before they close with you, holding the Devil Fish in reserve meant I was short 18 Pulse Rifles, 3 Burst Cannons and 6 Twin Linked Plasma Carbines at the beginning of the game.

2) Getting pinned in my deployment zone – essentially I should have started moving everything out of my deployment zone as soon as the game started to keep Brads forces at distance, as things went I stood there like a pudding and let him roll me up.

Now I don’t want to take anything away from my opponent as Brad is a very good player and he knows his Space Wolves inside and out but he would have probably had a bit of a rougher time if I hadn’t made those mistakes….this was proven by the game we had last night that ended much closer (although I still lost it was a much more satisfying loss!) – the battle report for that should be appearing on Space Wolves Grey at some point in the next week so keep an eye on it for a slightly more pleasing result!

League Update

Last night saw us facing off in another game of our little friendly league. First step was to assess our relative successes at getting 1k points worth of figures painted by the end of Feb. Now myself, Bradimus Prime, and Neil all took 1k points of fully painted figures down to Vapnartak earlier this month so we all managed to rack up the bonus 10 points on offer so the only question was whether Von Muller had managed the same, had he risen to the challenge and managed to get 1k of figures painted to do battle against the filthy Xeno's scum in the Emperors name?!?!?!?!?!? In a word, no. Although he had gotten very close he was still a few figures short and the rules are very emphatic on the point (well, Brad was at any rate!). Next target is 1500 points painted by the end of March so as this seems to be the only way I can reliably pick up points in the league I best get cracking!!

So with that out of the way we rolled off to see who would face who with our newly upgraded battle forces. It ended up with Rick's IG attempting to stem Neil’s Greenskin tide and my Tau Cadre attempting to bring the Greater Good to Brad's Space Wolves....again....joy!

Battle report for my game will be up in the next few days but as I've updated the league table on top of the blog I think you may be able to work out how I fared!!!