January 2006

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

So I’m not gonna lie to ya, I’ve known that the new Codex: Tau Empire has been coming out in March 2006 for a while now. I just didn’t say anything because I hadn’t seen it and I know you love surprises!

Pirahna and Devilfish	Pirahna and Devilfish	Vespids

I got a look at it this month and I also got my hands on some of the sample miniatures of the new releases. This is because I’ve been asked by Bryan Cook, Oz/NZ White Dwarf editor, to try out the new list and do up the minis to add to my army for a WD article. Well, I was going to wash my hair this month, but I suppose I can put that off…

First thing I did was went through the army list section and read it about 4 times. Then I took the army list that I used in my last game¹ and wrote it out using the new list². There were a few little points tweaks here and there but it turned out pretty much the same composition and points wise. So then I went crazy and wrote a list with everything that I’d like to take in a 2000pt tournament army, which ended up being about 2800pts. I then worked backwards, taking things out of the list until it matched up to miniatures I actually have and will be able to get painted by April and that would back each other up in a fight. In the end I settled on a list with the following:

• 1 Shas’el
• 1 unit of 3 Stealth suits
• 2 units of Crisis suits (1 of 3,1 of 2)
• 2 units of Firewarriors (1 of 12, 1 of 11)
• 2 units of Kroot (1 of 10, 1 of 10 including 2 Krootox & 8 Kroot hounds)
• 2 units of Pathfinders (1 of 7, 1 of 6, both with Devilfish)
• 1 Pirahna
• 1 Broadside
• 1 Sniper team
• 1 Hammerhead

88 miniatures (including drones) with a good mix of units and the best thing, I only had 24 minis left to paint, and none of them tanks, hooray! That is, except for the Devilfish and Pirahna that I finished this month. So I set up three games this month to try out the new list.

The first was with Tim Jackson and his Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines. We played an Alpha level Secure and Control and in the end, despite Tim only having 9 models left on the table and me having half my army, it was a draw as we controlled 1 objective each. Tim played well and I left my objective grab too late.

The second was against the beautiful (not very Chaosy to say, but they are) Word Bearer Chaos Space Marines of Jason Errington. We rolled up an Omega level Search and Destroy. In the end it was about 1700vps to the Tau and 850vps to the Word Bearers. I got my shooting phase working quite well ( I managed to totally wipe out his 10 man Havoc squad with 4 Heavy Bolters in the first turn!) and my big unit of Kroot sorted out 13 Bloodletters in close combat before they finally died.

Setup	Bloodletters and Kroot	Tactical Advice

The third and final game I had this month was against Marcelo Rouco and my Tau army³. “What the flamin’ heck?” I hear you say. Well, what better way to know your own armies weaknesses than by trying to exploit them in a game. So I thought it would be cool to play against my own army with a different army. Marcelo is an excellent tactical gamer and has been playing Tau for a while now. He played a couple of test games with the list before facing off against my Ultramarine army⁴ that I had taken to Liber Animus last year. We played an Alpha level Search and Destroy and it didn’t take much searching for Marcelo to destroy my marines. We only got 5 turns finished in the time we had but at that point he had 9 scoring units to my 4, so it’s pretty safe to give him a big win.

Setting up the firebase	Scouts Assault	Firebase attacked

Overall, the list kicked arse and I have pretty much locked it in as what I’ll be taking to the tourney. As for painting, I got the tanks done and did up the samples that Bryan gave me, which we’re a new Ethereal, 4 Vespid, a Sniper drone controller and 2 Sniper drones (they didn’t have the third one). All fantastic to paint and a welcome change to tanks and Fire Warrior type armour. So now everything is ready for next month’s photo shoot. Time to get that hair washed.

1. Something Old.
2. Something New.
3. Something Borrowed.
4. Something Blue.

Next Month: Watching you watching me watching you watching me watching….