Johnny-One Eye Lieutenant John Covlello ASOCOM
Hi all Here is another model from Dust Tactics Allied Heroes Johnny-One Eye ASOCOM Spellscape Miniatures blog
Hi all Here is another model from Dust Tactics Allied Heroes Johnny-One Eye ASOCOM Spellscape Miniatures blog
Hi everyone, A bit over a week ago I heard the news over the blogosphere that Games Workshop was closing down its Specialist section on their site.
Battlefront has announced that it will take over distribution of Dust Tactics from Fantasy Flight Games. In what looks like an amicable parting of ways between Dust Studio and its distributor, Fantasy Flight Games, Dust will be moving over to Battlefront, the maker of Flames of War.
On Saturday I talked about the special character HQ options and for the most part my opinion was that they don’t offer enough over their standard version to make them worthwhile in competitive play. So what makes the standard options so great? Cadre Fireblade With an identical statline to Darkstrider but a better armour save, the cadre fireblades are already pretty good for their measly 60pt price tag. You still get a BS5 markerlight that can fire at a different target too thanks to the Split Fire rule. His Volley Fire makes him a perfect fit in a big unit of Fire Warriors too. Should you decide to keep things cheap and take a Fireblade and an Ethereal there’s the potential for one of your Fire Warrior teams to fire 4 shots each if they don’t move. Combine that with markerlights and there’s very little that can withstand that volume of fire. The drawback of course is that the unit has to stay still but depending on your play style that isn’t necessarily such a problem. Realistically though you’re going to want a Commander so you’ll have to choose between an Ethereal or Fireblade. The Ethereal may not do much as a model but the elemental powers have a bigger area of effect meaning a Fireblade will probably be second choice for most people
Continuing my seemingly relentless series of unit reviews we’re onto the much maligned Sky Ray. Let’s get something out of the way first, it’s by far and away my favourite Tau model and that includes the new Riptide. I never open my model cupboard without looking at it and smiling (OK that sounds wierd). For anyone who’s ever played EVE Online it makes me think of the Caldari Raven, not in looks but in how I picture it spamming missiles at enemies. Missiles are cool kids. Sadly for the humble Sky Ray, it’s been somewhat overshadowed by it’s brother with a bigger weapon. Essentially both are the same tank. Where the Hammerhead has a railgun (or ion cannon) the Sky Ray has 6 seekers, two networked markerlights (which are like gold dust now) and a velocity tracker.
As I mentioned in the Broadside post. The Hammerhead Gunship is now the only place you can find the iconic S10 AP1 railgun that defined the Tau army for the last couple of editions. The Heavy Support section of the Tau FOC is pretty hotly contested but most people are likely to take a couple of Broadside teams supported by a Hammerhead or Sky Ray. The Sniper Teams simply won’t get a look in I’m afraid. They’re not awful but the other choices are brilliant so they’ll lose out. The Hammerhead Gunship has come down in price quite dramatically, well the railgun variant has at least. The armour profile of 13/12/10 has been retained, as has BS4. Interestingly submunition rounds are now a 5pt upgrade for your railgun but I think they should be always taken as it gives the hammerhead some flexibility. The gun drones can now be swapped for a twin-linked burst cannon (rather than the two burst cannons previously, which doesn't make much difference) or a twin-linked SMS. Both upgrades are free and both put out 4 S5 shots.
This will be the first in a series of posts looking at the units in the new Tau codex. I’m starting off with a double talking about both of the flyers. The reason being that I’ve had three games with the new codex today against various opponents and it’s made me think about what the two different Tau flyer variants have to offer. Now I’m sure, like me, at first glance the fighter seems like the obvious choice right? Well I’m leaning toward the bomber actually so maybe I can convince you as well. First off, the two flyers are both 11/10/10 in terms of armour and are both BS3. These facts alone mean that neither of them are particularly brilliant when compared to some of the other flyers out there but nethertheless they’re our only choice if we want a flyer but don’t want allies. Remember some armies will still struggle even if they have a quad gun.
My decals ordered from Dom’s decal are finally here. Order the 15mm WW2 German markings and the SS division badge decal for my Dust Tactics miniatures. Intend to use the SS Division badge marking to differentiate the units. The decals were packed in a cardboard protected envelope when shipped, so the decals arrived in a perfect condition. Each sheet of decal was packed in a zipped bag as well, giving another protection. The symbols on the decal were layout in a most optimal design making full use of the decal paper size. I had not problem cutting out the decals and applying them (check out my earlier post on applying decals here ). They worked well just like any other good quality decals.
