A little change of scenery for this post only, folks. As some of you probably know, Spartan Games just announced the release of their Ottoman Empire Naval Battle Group .. thing for their Dystopian Wars game.
I was on Ebay looking for Emperor’s Children bits when I cam across these ace Kromlech shoulder guards: These shoulder guards are only £6 for 10; bargain. Kromlech also do some E.C helmets too – I have made a swift purchase of both of them. I then came across the top pro painted image; a Heldrake, unit of Warp Talons and Raptors, which both the latter are in units of 5. Excellent paint job I'll add, really makes them stand out, but what really did stand out was the price – £650.00! Here's the eBay link if you do not believe me:
Ask anyone what the biggest weakness of the Tau army is and they’re almost certainly going to say close combat. With the exception of a couple of units (Farsight and Aun’shi), every unit in the codex is pretty useless in combat. Fair enough crisis suits can have their moments but generally combat is something you want to avoid as a Tau player. This post will discuss some of the options available for keeping combat to a minimum and therefore allowing you to shoot for longer (which is what you want to do right?). Deployment Keeping Tau out of combat starts early. Deploy poorly and you could be losing units a lot earlier than you should. Pre-measurement is your friend here. Remember that most of your weaponry has decent range so there’s no need to deploy your forces very far forward at all. Most combat orientated armies are going to need to close range on you quickly so you needn’t worry about being out of range as it won’t stay that way for long.
Another ‘no spam’ army for you guys. I thought it would be nice to follow on from Chaos Daemons with Grey Knights. Don’t ask if this is any good though, it’s very elite! Grey Knights ‘No Spam’ – 2,000 points HQ Grand Master – nemesis halberd, rad grenades & psychotroke grenades Librarian – nemesis halberd, might of titan, sanctuary & the shrouding Troops 6 x Terminators – psycannon, 1 x nemesis daemon hammer, 1 x nemesis warding stave & 2 x nemesis halberds 6 x Terminators – psycannon, 1 x nemesis daemon hammer, 1 x nemesis warding stave & 2 x nemesis halberds 5 x Strike Squad – psycannon 5 x Strike Squad – psycannon Fast Attack Stormraven – twin-linked lascannon & twin-linked multi melta Stormraven – twin-linked lascannon & twin-linked multi melta Heavy Support Dreadknight – heavy incinerator Dreadknight – heavy incinerator Fortifications Aegis Defence Line – quad gun Total: 2 ,000 As mentioned at the start of the post, this is an elite army, so every loss is going to count. The idea is the Grand Master brings some extra abilities to the table such as scout the Terminators if you go second and this will allow for a turn 1 charge. Or make those Dreadknight troops if playing objective games.What about giving those Terminators counter-attack? Depending on how you use the G.M’s abilities depends upon deployment; really you want the Terminators on foot or you want to keep things hidden until they come in. What you could do is deploy the ADL forward and scout the Terminators behind it, sure they have 2+ armour but now they have 4+ cover as well. The G.M will give one unit psychos and rads while the Libby can protect both units with shrouding and stealth – that’s a 3+ cover behind the aegis now and any units trying to assault the Terminators will be taking dangerous terrain tests. The Dreadknights will have to deploy as far forward as they can to get into the battle quickly, hopefully they can be in the fight by turn 2, though turn 3 is realistic. Strike Knights just camp and lay down dakka
When I set out to build my Astral Claws, one of the most compelling aspects of the chapter’s story was their arc, starting as crusading chapter with a standard codex organization, their assignment as one of the Maelstrom Wardens chapters, transition to a primarily defensive role, and the eventual massive reorganization that the Tyrant himself oversaw upon ascension to Chapter Master. Lugft Huron Approves this post For those who are uninitiated, Lugft Huron, the last Chapter Master of the Astral Claws, committed what was regarded as a great heresy, completely reorganizing his chapter and expanding it far beyond the normal bounds of the Codex Astartes ( See my previous post for more information ). What I like about this is the fact that his deviations were massively and wildly successful, so much so that he achieved the nearly impossible task of passifying the Maelstrom region so effectively that the Black Templars were able to launch a crusade directly into warpspace. Choosing to play the Astral Claws, you only have a few bits of guidance on what exactly their forces would look like on the field. The Imperial Armour book does a great job of covering roughly 1/3 of the Astral Claws’ forces, the mixed Imperial Guard/Space Marine forces known as the Tyrant’s Legion. The structure of the “legion” is based around embedded Space Marines leading guardsmen. The equivalent of a Captain is a Legion Centurion, they serve the role of both a company captain and a commisar, punishing any Guardsmen that fail or flee. There is also a command detachment that serves a similar role to the Company Command Squad, but they don’t get orders and are more limited in their weapons selection. Plus, the Tyrant’s Legion doesn’t have Vendettas, not really sure why, so you can’t do the 4 x flamer drop move so popular in the I.G book
Got a request for a Necron no spam list, so here it goes. If you missed out on this whole spam saga then check this post out:
I have been hard at work trying to make some viable Chaos Daemons lists lately. As I mentioned in this post
This post is a bit respite from my coverage of all of the Tau units. I’ve covered markerlights in my post about Pathfinders but I’ve been wanting to talk about them in more depth so here goes. As with everything I write, it’s pretty wordy but hopefully I’ll cover the vast majority of the things to think about with markerlights. Let’s start by looking at how we can get them into our army. Bringing Light to the Darkness There’s a wide array of choices for getting markerlights into your Tau cadre. The most obvious of which is a unit or two of Pathfinders (11pts per model). As I say I’ve already covered them in detail here
