Problem Astartes? Starting Tau

So in the summer of 2014 I decided to jump into 40k. With fantasy dieing in my group of friends, 9^th edition rumours bringing me down and utter let down that was End times: Khaine I thought it was time to give the younger brother of fantasy a go.

Army wise I was drawn towards Elder, Tau, Space marine, Nids and Imperial Guard (Or whatever they are called now) Elder despite being awesome and cool would be just another elf army. I play high elves and playing another elite, specialist, magic/physic reliant army would just be boring. The units seemed very rigid with little customisation and built to a specific purpose rather than the ability to multi task. I could be wrong! But that’s what I through from a first glance.

Space marines despite being cool seemed boring as well again another elite army plus everyone and their mums play them. Guard and Nids are also popular in my area, I have had a brief run with the Guard before and got bored of lumbering tanks, tons of infantry and just throwing pie plates a cross the table. Nids I couldn’t deal with painting hordes and going monster heavy would get expensive. Also evil armies are not usually my thing.

So Tau it is! I know its the power army with Elder at the moment but I love the models specially the battle suits and the jump shoot jump style of play and versatility really drew me. Having the ability to kit battle suits out with tons of combinations was a huge draw. Going Farsight enclaves would also reduce the amount of models and painting I would need to do.

I decided to jump in at the deep end, no looking for lists on-line, tips or tactics and only briefly reading the 40k rules. I aimed to paint build and play to 1000 points and expand to 2000 only once I actually painted the bastards.

HQ

Commander Farsight

O'Vesa + 2 Shielded missile drones

Troops

2x Units of 3 Crises suits – Two with burst cannons and twin-linked plasma rifles, One with a burst cannon, plasma rifle and drone controller. 2X Marker drones 1x Shield drones 3x Gun drones

Fast Attack

4 x Pathfinders – one rail rifle

I've built the list to combat marines, hordes and Nids that seem to be everywhere. The crises suits give me tons of mobility to dictate movement and to play jumpy shooty with the enemy burst cannons give me a silly number of shots and plasma rifles give me the anti armour. Due to their decent strength, monsters and light vehicles shouldn't last to long. I think the weapon combo works really well quality and quantity on one suit. Marker drones to guide in Riptide shots or the other unit of suits, gun drones for wounds and fire-power and shield drone to chuck out front against something that worries me.

Pathfinders in the centre marking up the biggest threats and a rail rifle for any problems on the way.

O'Vesa! Ion cannon for armour, hordes and any big threat. With the Earth Caste Pilot Array I plan to be overcharging that cannon every round sitting in midfield giving fire support to my crises suits. Its long range should allow me to dominate the field of fire and keep the enemy troops focussed on it or diving for cover.

Farsight I mostly took for his warlord trait, checking him with a crises suit in reserve allows me a pin point strike anywhere I like. His plasma rifle, shield generator and decent close combat ability are a great plus and if a tank is being a pain he can drop in and destroy it.

The plan for this army is to keep mobile and focus down targets and use jump shoot jump to prevent my enemy getting a bead on my units. O'Vesa will sit centre back missile drones in front as extra wounds and dishing out pie plates or direct fire on key units. Pathfinders to scout move tag first turn to get the most out of my shooting. One crises team will head for an objective or harry an enemy unit. The other with Farsight will sit in reserve allowing me to strike weak or dangerous targets, land on an enemies objective or just force them put units aside preparation for their arrival.

Problems I see is lack of numbers and wounds. Not to much anti tank fire power and relying on lucky marker hits to tag flyers for me. My suits are optimised for attacking at 12 inches for burst cannon range and rapid fire plasma rifles, if I don’t get a decent jet pack move it could be bad times for the unit. But daring jumps will be so fun! Marker light wise I'm not worried each unit carries two marker drones, I have pathfinders and burst cannons and twin-linked plasmas do not rely on marker hits as much. Leaving them to be used for the riptide or stripping cover saves,

Sorry for the long bind fart! But much keen for 40k and blogging again.

Pete

Host of the Eternity King - Core

With my enthusiasm for End Times: Khaine building I have been thinking on what units and characters I would pull together from all the elven army books to build a list from. As a High Elf player I am very excited about core choices or the core tax! For me the only units I like from the High Elf core is Silver Helms and Reavers, now finally it seems I can get hold of effective shooting and block infantry.

So what I will do today is look into the core choices how they compare, what they bring to the table and so on, of course its my opinion so take it all with a pinch of salt. First of its looking at the army rules.

Core Units

Spearman, Dreadspears, Bleakswords and Eternal Guard - Cheapest infantry we have got not much to say except its personal choice between the two prowess rules. Bleak swords put me off for a measly parry save you lose a rank (or two) of troops. No thanks. I find they make be cheap and cheerful but they always fall in the end, many times I have lost due to my spearman block crumbling opening up a flank or a hole.

Two points more expensive than the others but worth it big time! They fight in 3 ranks with Armour Piercing spears and are stubborn. So no more crumbling so easy and a punch through armour for us weak elves is awesome. Even better is the extra LD and WS. They are one hard spear unit and put the rest to shame only downside is getting them in the woods to make use of their rules. But with that stat line still king of the elven spearman.

Archers, Glade Guard and Darkshards - On to shooting. As a High Elf player I have always avoided fielding Archers S3 shooting is a big waste of time. Looking at our cousins we have the Guard and the Shards coming in at a couple points more. Again I think it is personal preference between the two.  Guards have range and an extra shooting rank (And another one on top in woods) Shards with multiple shots and gain light armour.

Still head scratching on this one but glade Guard are more likely to hit compared to the Shards despite their volume of shots. The Guard can also take magic arrows though expensive look to be very powerful on the right target.

Ellyrian Reavers and Dark Riders - The light cav ( I find the Glade Riders to be an anomaly which ill go into latter) Not much to say for our cheap chaff unit. Keep them cheap as always Dark Riders pulling ahead as the Reavers Martial Prowess is useless in such small numbers. Can take bows or hand crossbows  but we have better units to do the shooting.

Lothern Sea Guard and Corsairs - The Jack of all trades unit which seem to me to just to make core look more busy. Corsairs naked have a decent armour save of 4+ so basically Bleakswords, kitting them out with an extra hand weapon puts them same price as Witch Elves who are undeniably better even despite an armour save. Giving them hand crossbows turns them into heavily armoured shooting unit which suffer from short range. Lothern Sea Guard well as a spear unit they are eclipsed by Eternal guard (If equipped with a shield) yeh you may lose shooting but the many shooting combination between the three armies remedies that.

I would forget these guys they are out classed by other units.

Witch Elves and Dryads - The damage dealers of our core. First off they are both the same points. Witch Elves with two attacks an extra point of initiative, Frenzy and Poisoned attacks. So a stupid amount of stuff for a small price. Fragile but so deadly! And I think we will be seeing a lot of these among the armies. Dryads are close with two attacks, hatred , immune to psychology, 6+ ward and fear and T4. Sadly it is pretty obvious that dryads are pretty outclassed. Sure they are a bit tougher but they cant have a command squad vital for combat nor magic banners.

Silver Helms and Glade Riders - Silver Helms hold the title of heavy cav and cheap enough for decent size buses as well, shame they cant take a magic banner. Glade Riders are a bit strange, expensive fast cavalry so to expensive for chaff, to fragile for close combat. With Ambushers all I can see them being is a back field harrying unit. Still a lot of points for a pain in the arse.

So what I think we will be looking at in Khaine.

The Anvil - Eternal Guard
The Hammer - Witch Elves
Shooting - Darkshards or Glade guard
Chaff - Dark Riders
Heavy Cav - Silver Helms

Thats core done next in line Special choices and thats going to be one veeeeeery long post!.

- Pete

Thoughts - End Times: Khaine

So rumours have been filtering in the 3rd End times based around the elves called Khaine! As an elf player that makes me very happy its time for the good guys (and the dirty druchii) to get some lime light! So what can we expect from this release?

From Nagash and what we know so far of Glotkin we have -

A big kit for the big character of the books so Nagash and Glotkin.

Brand new characters on big mounts 3 options per box.

New units, Morghasts, Spirit hosts and blightkings.

Uniting multiple armies into one legion and stream lining rules.

So far between the two there is definitely a pattern, hopefully it carries on for Khaine! If so what will we be looking at?

First off rumours are that the dark elves will not be getting any new toys in this.

Well if it is Khaine the name of the book we should expect a big old Khaine centre piece model like the others. Some have been saying an avatar but if Nagash is now a god who is on the table top I wouldn't be surprised if we did get the god on the table.

The character and mounts is a hard one for us elves! I am assuming a character from each elven nation old or new I couldn't guess. High elf side of things they are saying Aenarion, Caledor the dragon tamer or even Imirk returning. Like the other kits I think we will be seeing a brand new monster for them to ride rather than anything existing in the lore.

New unit like above will probably something be completely random and not in the lore! Heres hoping for lion/dragon riders. Currently its been a swarm base and the rest monstrous infantry size which isn't really an elf thing but GW could surprise us!

And of course all the elven nations in one legion! Rules wise High elves and Dark elves losing hatred/valour of ages now that they are one. But an all encompassing rule? No clue. Undead got the undead rules streamlined so there was so difference between the two armies and gained the rule that stops the army crumbling when the general is lost which is huge! Glotkin rumours are some sort of magic phase altering thing that the demons have, I dont play them so I have no idea what that is.

Lastly lore wise it seems the elves are being little bickering humans to arrogant to deal with the doom on their door step im putting that down to bad writing as elves always seem to be written poorly by gw and black library. The old elf hater joke comes to mind.  Old characters rising current characters culled from the army like the other books.

However I have hope for the lore that will be coming in fingers crossed the story wont be focused on elves being grumpy teenagers!

Next time ill be looking at the core options opened up to a joint elf army!

- Pete

X-Wing - Getting Competitive

I have never been a big competitive player, in fact I have always avoided players who are, its just boring and to serious! When all I want to do is have a laugh gaming with some friends or a randomer at my local store or club.

However recently that's starting to change, competitiveness it slowly growing on me and the need to win to! I blame x-wing, I am really getting into the game my wallet hates me for it bit I am loving it and I am lucky to have a great place to game and plenty of friends who play it.

Im thinking its certain players who have bought this out in my specially my mate Harri who is the king of competitive gaming and has been awesome enough to impart his knowledge and really has got my flying better and builder better lists.

Recently we have had over a couple months a store tournie followed by an Epic doubles. The tournament is the one I want to look at. Roughly 16 players jumped in and we all played five. At the end of this I came fourth, 3pts off third and I had faced all three of the top players. So I had a hard match up!

My first attempt of a competitive scene.

I won 3/5 games. One of the losses was a terrible defeat I dropped one ship over all, my second was so so close and an utterly enjoyable game and two of my wins where flawless!

So over all I did pretty good for my first run I think my list was pretty solid and my flying was awful in the game I was ruined at and the rest I felt I kept getting better and better the more I played it.

I played the trust mini swarm with a phantom as a flanker and an interceptor squeezed in.

Howlrunner

2x Academy Pilots

1 x Sabre Squadron Pilot

Whisper - Veteran Instincts, Advanced Cloaking Device, Fire Control System 

99pts

Simply put. Everyone sits in the swarm and jousts while Whisper darts around acting as a second threat forcing the opposing player to choose between it and the swarm, either way I am happy. The Interceptor is in the swarm for extra punch and also another big target other than Howlrunner. Any thing to draw a bit of fire off poor Howlie!

So that was my list, It worked it was solid but for the next tournie on the way I looked at ways I could improve it. The big problem with my current list is that the Fire Control System on Whisper is a big waste. Whisper is moving about so much that there's usually a better target to be shot at rather than the target locked ship.

 To make more use out of it I have got to add Weapons Engineer which means losing the Interceptor and putting another Academy into the swarm. I am not a fan putting even more points into a costly ship! Even though it is a good one, its to fragile for when it goes wrong.

So with 2 points spare (well 3 but I am not giving up that initiative!) I thought what other problems I had during my games. Being a swarm I am usually getting shot first and a lot of the time that means I will be losing a ship.

So swam tactics for Howlrunner to be used on the Interceptor. Problem solved! Most of my ships should eb shooting first with Whisper at PS9 and Howlie and Sabre Squad at PS8. SO fingers crossed a ship goes down between the three or at least drop a decent amount of damage.

Howlrunner - Swarm Tactics

2x Academy Pilots

1 x Sabre Squadron Pilot

Whisper - Veteran Instincts, Advanced Cloaking Device

99pts


The min maxing has begun and I am loving it! Next play will be a rebel mini swarm Ethan and three B-Wings is the idea.

Thanks for reading my rambling essay.

- Pete