How awesome does this look!!!

Video of the space marine game, coming out on an Xbox 360 near you soon, (not want a 360 yet Ginge :-P

Blog wars army list 2011

So here is my army list for Blog Wars 2011 with about 47 hrs to go before the deadline.
This army has had absolutely no play testing. Nor has it been designed to face any particular army. It's just been a case of hashing my ASMOH list to fit O'Shovah in and moving points around till I hit 1750.

My plan is to not die too horribly. Although I would have liked to have added kroot and piranhas to the list. I don't have any built or painted. With working on my Tyranids I wouldn't have time to build or paint them regardless.

O'Shovah (170)
Bodyguard, plasmagun, missile pod, multi-tracker, hardwired drone controller 2x shield drones (102)
Bodyguard, plasmagun, missile pod, multi-tracker (72)

Shas'El, fusion gun, missile pod, positional relay, Hard wired target lock, hard wired drone controller 1x shield drone 1x gun drone (119)

3x Crisis Suits (211)
Plasma gun, missile pod multitrackers
Leader with hardwired drone controller and 2 gun drones

3x Crisis suits (179)
2x Burst cannon, 3x missile pod, 1x fusion gun, multitrackers
Leader with hardwired drone controller and 2 gun drones

6 firewarriors (60)
6 firewarriors (60)
6 firewarriors (60)
9 firewarriors (90)

6x Pathfinders (72)
Devilfish, disruption pod (85)

Broadsides (305)
Advanced stabilisation system
-Leader, plasma, hardwired drone controller 2x shield drones, hard wired target lock, hard wire multi-tracker
-Broadside with ASS and plasma
-Broadside with ASS SMS

Hammerhead (165)
Railgun, burst cannons, disruption pod and multi-tracker.

Sent from my iPhone

Tyranid prime conversion

Apologies for the crappy iPhone photo but here is a photo of my tyranid prime conversion for tale of 8 gamers.

Blog wars army list part 1

Given my recent kicking at the ASMOH tournament. I'm still of the opinion that my Tau army list needs revisiting. However the following army list isn't much changed list mainly due to the fact that I won't have the models to update my army with for quite some time yet alone have them painted. So I have instead made a couple of little tweaks here and there as it were.
Blog wars requires that your army include a special character, although for Tau they have stated that you don't necessarily have to take one, I thought it beat to take one, saves any arguments later also keeps my army to the same sort of theme as others then. Although the Tau codex doesnt have any givens when it comes to special characters such as marbo (boy does that guy get around, seen in every guard list this side of catchan) So let's look at the contenders.
First up. Farsight.
pros:
Everyone who can access the armoury gets free bonding knifes. Saving a total of 15 points off my army list. Woot.
Preferred enemy against the entire ork player that's gonna be there.
Has a plasma rifle,
Dawn blade giving better chance of punching through vehicles in combat and might scare a lonely marine squad that has no powerfists or melta guns in.
Cons:
Ludicrously expensive for what he brings to the table.
Takes away loads from the table when you actually pay the points for him. Total restriction on available unit choices.
You get confused into thinking he is a combat monster just because he has a power weapon. He isn't.

So Farsight, is pretty bad to be honest. Totally restricting your force options while giving precious little in return.

Shadowsun
Has fusion guns and the ability to target them at 2 different units a turn. Unfortunately being short ranged weapons this generally means that you need to get close to the enemy to use them. The command link drone is nice. Allowing units within 18" to use her leadership for morale and pinning checks. The stealth field is a nice benefit. However, most enemies are going to be closing on you pretty quickly and won't matter past the first two turns of the game. That's pretty much where the good stuff ends. Now for the bad. 175 points!! Not and independent character till her drones expire, but given she's toughness 3 a lucky burst of fire from an assault cannon could do for her entire unit. Surprising high odds (around 10%). So she wouldn't last much beyond the last drone regardless.

So too much for what she can do. A suicide crisis with twinlinked fusion and a targeting array could accomplish the same for far less points.

And finally Aun'Va plus guard.
Pros:
Erm. Well I guess he could die. And your entire army passes it's low morale checks, gains furious charge and preferred enemy (improbable)
Cons: 205 points, please I could nearly have another 3 broadsides for that.
No shooting ability
Sucks in combat.
He dies your army runs away. (probable)
No real use apart from to help your opponent.

Okay, not really much to say here. But the guy is going to cripple your army far more the farsight does. While approaching land raider costs, space wolves get Logan grimnar, angels mephisto, tau? Get this guy? Come next codex I'd be expecting someone in a dreadknight esk battlesuit with 10 railguns. I think it would have been better if his wheel chair could shoot mega death lasers like the prophets from halo and he came free if you took a second squad of firewarriors. Might have been worth gluing together at that point.

So for my list I will be playing Farsight as my special character. Not because I think he's awesome. Mainly because I think he's the lesser of 3 evils. Although I do think my conversion is pretty awesome.

ASMOH: what went wrong

Edit: a quick hello to Rathstar who was also at asmoh as well and did rather well with his dark eldar. Was great to meet a fellow blogger and Tau enthusiast.
Well popular opinion is that you learn more from a defeat then from a victory. That being true, I learnt a lot from my games at the sad muppets society a small matter of honour tournament.
I can safely say that I did learn a lot. My games seemed to be pretty close but ultimately I couldn't get a victory in any of my games.

My first game was against an ork army. Mission was kill points, pitched battle deployment at 1250 points. First thing to say is that my opponent was a fantastic person to play against. However, the problem that I faced against his army were the low kill points in his force. Most of which involved killing large units of troops or hard to kill nob bikers to get kill points. The 3 relatively easy kill points his army had I got fairly easily. My bad rolling can to the fore in this game (as would be true throughout the tournament) however without meaning to make excuses for my game I could have played better. Having lost the roll for deployment. I should have placed the majority of my force opposite his bikers in a refused flank set up. Rather then mainly central. Admittedly this would have left me closer to his bikes they would have had to weather the storm against my entire force for two turns before being able to charge anything meaningful. My inexperience in facing nob bikers made me set up more centrally leaving me exposed to more of his army ultimately costing me the game.
Lesson learned- force the opponent to meet you on your terms. His bikers would have been a threat, but not with 5 vs my army.

My second game was against a null deployment tyranid force for capture and control. I made the mistake of bringing my army in on the first turn. His army arrived on the second turn, right next to mine. Although I took relatively few casualties from his shooting, my own shooting in the following turn was fairly poor. Meaning that his army could ravage mine with impunity. A could of mistakes that I made which could have given me a bit more of an opportunity to claw back a victory. If I had left my hammerhead off the board or more central in my force. Then I could have dropped a pie plate on the termagants holding his objective. Being as they were out of synapse range chances are they would have run for it off the board. As it was I ended the game on a loss as his termagants managed to get within 3" of my objective on their run move. By quarter of an inch. Curses.

Lesson learned: I don't have to deploy my army in this case it has done me more harm then good. I should have held the majority back for a counter attack. Maybe kept some of the pathfinders to come on first turn about 3ft from each other. Forcing him to separate his units to engage both of my units of pathfinders. Then as my army arrived in subsequent turns I could have dealt with whichever half of his force was the most dangerous.

My third game was against an outflanking scout army with a few thunderfire cannons and shrike to give the army fleet. With the majority of his army outflanking, their wasn't much to engage in the first couple of turns. I did eliminate the thunderfire cannons fairly quickly. But the rest of his army outflanked more or less straight into combat with my force, either tying me up or killing me. Both were just as bad as the other. The game ended with him managing to roll high enough on his fleet rolls for two units, 6 and 4 respectively, to get a 5th turn win, contesting my objective on a four and just getting within 3 inches of an objective. Given what was left of our armies at the end of turn 5 had we had a 6th turn I would have managed to finish off 2 of his squads, leaving me with the victory.
Lesson learned: in this game I should have been more aggressive. Despite my obvious disadvantages when he got close, had I been more aggressive I could have prevented him from tying my more important units up in combat.

My fourth and final game was pitched battle 6 objectives, against a blood angels player with 2 drop podding dreadnoughts and a couple of outflanking baals, etc. This game went alright, the only thing that really hampered my game was the inability to stop one of his ironclad dreadnoughts. With a few lucky difficult terrain rolls he made it into combat with my broadsides. From that point there was nothing I had to eliminate his dreadnought. Missile pod fire just pattered off it like a light summers rain. The game ended with both parties holding 2 objectives. He hadn't realised that one of my devilfish still had firewarriors in. Note if he had asked I would have told him, I hadn't realised he didn't know though.
Lessons learned. I need to increase my redundancy. Once my broadsides had been engaged by his iron clad in combat, my hammerheads having been taken out by his dreads when they first dropped.

Notes on battle and observations:
- my army performed alright. Two narrow losses and one tight draw, all of which could have easily gone to a draw or victory on my point.
- vehicles were useless, as soon as they took one penetrating hit they dropped from the sky.
- Broadsides were great but could have done with two units of 2 rather then one of 3, should have dropped the plasma guns from them as well. But I took what I had available.
- Firewarriors really are useless, less then. Despite having the highest hit rate in my army (in the last two games they actually hit half the time which was better then my units that I rely on to do damage). They lack anything remotely threatening to anything or anyone. A meltagun or two in a unit would have made a difference against most armies. Forcing my opponents to risk getting close or choosing discretion over valour.
-devilfish are rubbish, yeah it may be one of the better surviving transports, but is it has no offensive capability, no firepoints (not that that's a real concern when firewarriors have no decent guns). I think it sums up the tau army perfectly, over priced and a lack of offensive capability.
-I think I may have to get more infantry in my army, be it battlesuits, kroot or maybe some lighter vehicles such as piranhas only to be used for blocking and contesting.

Army List for ASMOH 2011

As I will be attending ASMOH tomorrow, I thought I may as well post the army list that I will be taking. This army hasn’t had much play testing, however in the few games I have managed to play have chalked up a few wins for no losses. There are certain armies I think I will struggle against, mainly Space Wolves and Imperial Guard. This is due to space wolves being far better at shooting and combat, then my Tau, while also being more cost efficient. Imperial guard are better at shooting and can just fill the board with armour for very few points (comparatively), and while missile pods may be great for suppressing rhinos, they start to suffer against chimeras.

Anyway without further ado:

Initial 1250 points

Shas'El:

• Plasmarifle
• missile pod
• multi-tracker
• hardwired drone controller (2 x shield drones)
• hard wired target lock
• hard wired black sun filter
• bonding knife

= 130

3 x crisis suits, plasma rifle, missile pod, multitracker, team leader, bonded hard wired drone controller 2 x gundrones = 216

3 x crisis suits, twin linked missile pod, flamer, team leader, bonded, hard wired drone controller 2 x gun drones = 171

6 x firewarriors = 60

6 x firewarriors = 60

4 x pathfinders = 48

devilfish, disruption pod = 85

3 x broadsides, 2 x plasma rifles, A.S.S. x 3, team leader, bonded, hard wired multitracker, Hw target lock, HW drone controller with 2 x shield drones, HW black sun filter = 313

Hammerhead, railgun, burst cannons, multitracker, disruption pod = 165

  

Additional 500 points

Hammerhead, railgun, burst cannons, multitracker, disruption pod = 165

7 x firewarriors = 70

4 x pathfinders = 48

devilfish, disruption pod = 85

2 x crisis suit plasma gun and missile pod and multitracker = 124

ASMOH: Practice round 2

I had the opportunity to head down to my local Games Workshop again last night for another ASMOH practice game. I couldn’t get a game against the opponent that I wanted to play against (Grey Knights) due to the staff not making a note of my table booking. So I ended up playing a smaller game (1000 Points) against a newer player and his combined Chaos marine and Deamon list. So I trimmed a broadside and a hammerhead from my list to drop me to the 1000 points.

 

Not going to go into too much detail as the game was pretty painful to watch, suffice to say that over the course of the game my opponent hesitated too much over which direction he was taking his models, at first heading in one direction then the other. Ultimately leading to him only reaching a single squad of firewarriors, which I could have moved away but felt bad for him so let him take them out.

 

At the end of the game I had lost a gun drone and the squad of firewarriors for tabling him. This is probably one of the first times I have felt bad about winning a game. So I spent a few minutes after the game going through my opponents mistakes and trying to give him some hints and tips on how to beat me with his army. His crucial mistake was moving in one direction in his first turn and then doubling back. So I encouraged him to be more aggressive with his army, with his army as it stands he was never going to out shoot me, but he could sure as hell have given me a kicking in combat. Against my army he needed to ram his chaos marines down my Taus throat. Sure he’d have taken a few casualties on the way in, but he would have more then made up for it once he got there.