Heretical Thoughts: The Legend of the Purple Tau

Once again, the Tau of the Vior'La sept have proven themselves combat masters at the art of hand to hand. Over the past year since I have been running my Tau, they have defeated the following in close combat - mostly with drones:

Necron Lord

Space Marine Commander

Terminator Squad

Harald Deathwolf

The body count for these vicious hand to hand combatants continues to increase and our drones are especially adept at hand to hand combat. But why are they as good in hand to hand as this and of course, the most obvious question I hear - "Why are my Tau Purple?". Well read on and find out.

Tau are not normally hand to hand beasts, but lets take a look at the most common hand to hand combatants that I use - Gun Drones. Without going into actual stats, realize the drones have the same initiative as a Marine so we are attacking at the same time or better than most armies. Our strength and toughness is the same as a guard and the weapon skill is poor, but I have not hesitated to charge others with them. Also, I do not gang up a lot of drones. At best, I have 8 drones total onthe board so why have they been effective? It all has to do with timing. Prior to assaults, it never hurts to soak units with a lot of shooting to whittle them down. They will lose to a full guard mob or full terminator squad. However, when enough shooting has been applied, it is possible to drop individual models in hand to hand - of course dice rolling helps. I have been successful in lining up drone charges after about 2/3 of a unit in shooting. All of the models above, except Harald have been dropped by the drones as they were individual models. If they would have had squads attached, I would have lost. Its always about timing and when to charge and when not to charge, when to shoot and when not to shoot. Future articles will get into phase break down, but suffice it to say, my drones have become a terror for people and a running joke that people do not take for granted and are now being targeted instead of ignored.

Now, why are my Tau purple? Well, when I originally envisioned my Tau I was looking for them to be fighting on an alien jungle world where many of the plants have a purplish hue with the ground being similar. Therefore, the camo scheme would be in different shades of purple. However, the main reason is that my wife likes the color purple and that is easily the best way to start another army. If your significant other is asking about how much money you spend on your hobby, all you need to do is say "I was thinking about you and started to paint this army in your favorite color" Works every time, well for the 1 time I have tried it, it worked. I don't know that the Nurgle color would have went over as well.

Heretic

"Know this! What comes to pass is no longer war! It is endless sacrifice in His name. Blood for the Blood God . . . Let the Universe Drown in it!" - Crull, Warlord of the World Eaters

Heretical Thoughts: Tournament Etiquette, Part Three

So , our group finally had a chance to play in a tournament rather than run a tournament at Legions Games in Pittsburgh. Great tournament, that was eventually won by our own Harry the Deathwolf. Congratulations to him and soundly beating me in the last game. During the tournament yesterday, there were many things that I wanted to bring up and discuss as they really pertain to what we have been discussing.

1. It is ok to start with models off the table. After looking at your opponents list, try and determine what he is going to do prior to deploying. This is especially important if your opponent is going first and actually deploys on the table. Don't think about how you are going to deploy, watch how he deploys and try to determine what he is going to do then react with your deployment. If it means leaving models off the table to counter a later threat do it.

2. Though you may be losing, do not give up. There were a few instances of this yesterday where people called it on turn 4 and depending on how the scoring is going, it can cost points to the person you are playing by allowing them to not obtain all the bonus points which can be critical for actually winning events. I have seen enough draws and / or changes from massacres to major or even minor victories by a few different dice rolls.

3. When your opponent does not deploy anything on the table because of your list, don't think your list is what's keeping him off the table and think that you have already won the game. There are tactics involved with keeping models off the table and even many armies that work better by doing so.

4. Pay attention to the meta at the store you are going to play at. If it is a store you regularly play at, then keep in mind what most people play and build an all comers list. There will always be an army that you did not expect and sometimes pairings can influence the final standings because it ends up being the one army that you couldn't beat.

5. When playing your games, make sure you don't make a mistake. It is one thing to lose because of matchups and dice rolling, but to tactically make a mistake is a different thing entirely. I'm not talking about not realizing what a unit does in the opponents army, but more along the lines of forgetting to move something, shoot something, assault something or even shot selection. You must continue to focus while playing and keep in mind how to win the mission - not how to necessarily kill the opponent. Unless it is a victory point or kill point mission, all other missions involve doing something other than killing the opponent to actually win. Keep that in mind.

Overall, all of these items came up at some point in time yesterday as we played. Everyone seemed to have a great time and a big thanks to the Judge and the store for having the event and allowing us to play. The spread of armies was great as I do not believe out of the 29 people that played there were more than 3 of the same armies in the tournament. We hope to see everyone there for our next tournament on March 26th.

Death to the False Emperor

Heretic

Board updates - Its cold outside

Work on the board has slowed down a bit due to the freezing weather. However the lighting is nearly complete, water effects doesn't like to dry when its really cold so here it is. just some finishing touches and on to the next one.

Howl-etical ThoughtsTournament Etiquette: Part Two - What to Bring

Welcome to a special guest edition of Heretical Thoughts. Heretic has kindly allowed me to take over his column for the week and continue the discussion about Tournament Etiquette. In this week’s edition we’ll cover what you should bring along and FAQs.

What to Bring

First of all bring your army. I’ve never been at an event where someone forgot to bring their army but I’m sure it’s happened somewhere. That being said, we always bring extra armies and extra lists with us just in case someone does forget their army, doesn’t have enough points to play at the designated point total, or we have an odd number of players and need a ringer.
Now we’ll go over some of the less obvious articles you may want to bring with you to a tournament. You should always have dice, templates, a tape measure, a scatter die, a Warhammer 40K rulebook, and your codex. There are a couple of reasons why these items are important to have. First and foremost having all of these will allow you to focus on your games and enjoy the tournament. The event will be far more enjoyable if you don’t have to worry about where you’re going to get the scatter die for your teleporting terminators or who’s large blast template can you borrow for your battle cannon. The second reason to bring these items along is it makes the event run smoother. Sharing a tape measure with your opponent or looking for another player with the same army so that you can look something up in their codex takes time away from your game and can be distracting to all of those involved.
I’ve forgotten one or two of these things myself in the past. We all do it occasionally. The purpose of this articles is to help remind everyone of what you should have with you at a tournament. All of that being said, we often bring extra dice, templates, rulebooks, codices, FAQs, and anything else that we can think of.

FAQs

Don’t forget to check your armies FAQ. Games Workshop FAQS can be found here: Errata and FAQ Articles. Sometimes the changes are minor and won’t really affect you that much but sometimes Games Workshop makes major corrections like changing the effects of a Dark Angels storm shield to match the normal codex Space Marines storm shields.
The army books for Warhammer Fantasy Battle have been heavily modified with FAQS and it would be almost impossible to play WFB 8th Edition without consulting the FAQs. The recent changes made to all of the Space Marine Codices, Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook, along with the inclusion of the Night Spinner rules in for the Eldar in White Dwarf indicate that Games Workshop is willing to make major corrections/additions to the game rules without releasing a new book.

Howl-etical Thought for the Week:

"It takes a vast amount of self-control to be this dangerous"

Its all downhill from here

Some more pics.  If anyone has questions about how we did this and wants to learn more please e-mail me at astro-telepathica@atlanticbb.net

Heretical ThoughtsTournament Etiquette: Part One - Army Lists

So, the holidays are over and hopefully everyone had a good one. Now its back to the campaign and well "Blood for the Blood God". OK, now that that is out my system, I wanted to touch on something that as tournament orgainzers we have come across quite frequently. Prior to any tournament starting we obtain army lists and have to sort through them to make sure they are legal. In order to do this we use a variety of software, but most notable Army Builder by Wolf's Lair. We understand that most people do not want to use Army Builder to make theie lists, but there are many other options out there that can be used. Though Army Builder is good to use, it is $40 for a 2 installation license. Not everyone wants to spend their money on this, especially when that equates to a box and half of berzerkers. However, from a tournament organizer point of view, this can be an issue. When going to tournaments, you must have a copy of your army list whether it is our tournaments or others. Some things to keep in mind with regards to this are as follows:

• The list should include the total of the points for each unit
• Each unit should be clearly identified
• Abbreviations should not be used (All of us do not know what LRE/PS means - Leman Russ Exterminator with Plasma Sponsons in a guard list means)
• It should be legible
• 1 copy of the list for each round being played (for opponents), 1 for the judges and 1 for yourself - Therefore, for a 3 round tournament you should have 5 army lists.

We do not exclude anyone from entering our tournaments based on army lists for any of the reason above, but when organizers have to review 20+ army lists, it can slow down the start time of any tournament or in some cases, keep you from playing in a tournament. For our local tournaments, we will not keep you out playing in our tournaments, but the more we have to decipher, decode or ask questions about, the more time it takes to get started. So, that is the problem, but what is the solution?

You can buy Army Builder from Wolf's Lair which is an excellent program. You can also do a quick internet search for Army list programs that are free. There are a number of them out there. You can also just use MS Excel, which works wonders. An auto totalling spreadsheet works well - that is what I use for the most part. I also use the good old pen and paper method as there are times I just like to sit down and run through multiple options / lists at once and really no software easily allows this to be done.

If you need help in looking into any options, let one of us know as we use a variety of these programs. If you would like us to help build a spreadsheet that will auto total, let us know. We have some experience in doing so. If anyone has any other ideas as to how to generate army lists, please feel free to share.

Heretical Thought for the Week:

Let no good deed go unpunished

Let no evil deed go unrewarded

80% completion

Adding the Lava Effect

Flock and painting

Making the trees look natural is harder than i originally thought

Not actually glued down, what do folks think?

Skulls for the Skull Throne!

The other side...

Blood seeping up from underground effect...

Its getting there

Here goes, I'm a few days away from starting to put the water effects down.

This side is partially flocked now, more pictures coming soon

Skulls for the Skull Throne!!!

Heretical Thoughts on the Holidays

Just a quick post this time. Everyone here at Snake Eyes is wishing all the people out there a happy holiday season. Look for more information on upcoming events shortly and may the Chaos Gods fill your stockings with Skulls

Heretic

Road to Gamesday Update

That's one bright crystal

brighter than expected

Switches are going in nicely...