The Vleast War

This is a campaign I've written, similar to Forgeworlds Imperial Armour series, to describe the background to both my Tau and Tyranids.

I've got more to write including some unit rules and missions but for now, here's the fluff!

Enjoy!

https://www.box.com/s/yglbpirw19od01lue3dr

Survival!

One of my favourite parts about warhammer is making up rules and special scenarios. Hense the other day my friend and I spent a good several hours inventing and perfecting a crazy survival styled warhammer mission. It is incredibly fun to create and tweak the rules and the game type itself is good with each casualty being important and conflict exciting. Using Tyranids was really fun and I loved watching the Tau battlesuits flying about.

The basic rules were that the defender had double turns which was great fun, their models were all independent, the Tyranids appeared every turn and the waves become larger and larger until eventually Tyranid Primes and Ravenors and such appear. Here are some pictures of the Tau fighting off the Tyranids horde.

Local Tournament with Tau

So my Tau have had the first every games in a local 600 point tournament. I arrived with my Tyranids and very limited Tau and rolled to see which to take as my Tyranids would steam roll to local players (it was my School League list) or my fun Tau. It turned out the dice gods liked Tau that day so they had a list thrown together and played. This was the list made of all my fully painted Tau so it is not optimal in the slightest but it was fun.

HQ - Shas'el, Airbursting Fragmentation Projector, Shield Generator, Positional Relay, Shield Drone, Gun Drone, Stimulant Injector - 140

Elites - Shas'ui, Team Leader, Fusion Blaster, Plasma Rifle, Targeting Array, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker, Shield Drone, Gun Drone - 102

Troops - 6 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui, Markerlight, Carbines, 2 Gun Drones, EMP Grenades - 118

- 10 Fire Warriors, Shas'ui, Markerlight, 2 Gun Drones, Rifles, Hard-Wired Target Lock - 145

Fast Attack - Piranha, Fusion Blaster, Flechettes Dischargers, 2 Seeker Missiles - 95

= 600

Drone Invasion

Continuing my Tau army is proving to be much more fun than expected seeing as I loved painting over 15 drones this last week. Thanks to the lovely advice from the folks at both Advanced Tau Tactica and The Tyranid Hive I have decided upon, not only a colour scheme, but also the ratio of the colours on the models which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Here are the results of a week of toiling.

I'm not sure what the last drone will be used as, maybe a shield drone or marker drone. Either way I just love the sight of all those drones and can't wait to get more!

Tau Painting: Piranha and Crisis Suits

I have finally got around to finishing my Crisis suits and rather quickly finished a new Piranha which I have converted to look more like an aircraft as I dislike the big wide front of the original design. I also painted a Fire Warrior up in the new scheme to see how it would look. It turned out well so I think I will need to buy myself some more boxes...

Shas'el

Sawfish Completed!

After a weekend of hard work painting I have finally finished my favourite converted model I own! 

Red lenses! It is drone controlled.

Boot marks on the seats...

Barracuda

I finally plucked up the courage to take a brush to my Barracuda model and trust myself to not make a mess of it. This is the first painted model of my Tau Cadre so sets the colour scheme which I think has turned out well.

I love the camouflage aspect of the Tau so picked a colour scheme that looked stealthy. My Cadre being on a very harsh, stormy and rainy world I decided to go with grey.

Sawfish Conversion: Wing Decision

So I have started work on my own version of the fan-invented 'Sawfish'. Based on a Piranha, I am just making up how to make it as I go along. But now I have become stuck on a vital decision; the wings.

I am split between mounting the wings on the front of the vehicle where they are out of the way of the passengers, provide protection towards the passengers also, means the Gun Drones are further forward,breaks up the front section and keeps with the original idea and Piranha more.

However, the disadvantages are that it would block the passengers LoS from within (for a fluff point) and it also the wings would have to be very angled which looks rather odd, but not too odd so as to completely throw the idea.

Another Finished Tau Army List

Ok so here's what I think is my best army list and what I will get. It has blockers, tank suppressors, reliable tank killing, semi-mobility, semi-durability, anti-MeQ, anti-horde, pinning and markerlights.

Old but funny.....

HQ 
Shas'el Fal'shia Taal Doran'sha'is
 Plasma Rifle
 Missile Pod
 Positional Relay
 Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
 2 Shield Drones
= 132

Further Tau List Tweaking

I have again changed my mind. Sorry about the erratic-ness but I will eventually find any army list which suits me and I think I may have found the skeleton of it.

Lesson 12: Always include a funny photo....

Contradictory to what I was saying yesterday I have decided to go entirely foot-slogging. No tanks what-so-ever as if I included one or two they would be mowed down in seconds. However as I have so frequently been fretting about is all those missile launchers and lascannons will now be turned on my crisis suits and broadsides. I think they can survive it if I keep to cover and learn to use JSJ effectively. It was always going to be a learning experience anyway.

Tau Army List Trouble

I've kind of hit a wall in my Tau army list building. I was adamant for the last few months to have a really fluffy army and try not to copy other Tau players and just make a Mech Tau army. But after much experimenting I have decided that my efforts were all in vain; it is impossible to make a non-mech competitive Tau list.

So with that decided I am now back to where I started with my Tau about 3 months ago, the Missile Mania list. This involves lots of crisis suits all with Twin-Linked Missile Pods. About 12 suits will do. I think that 24, S7, AP4, 36" range, Twin-Linked shots will take care of most other mech armies and MCs.

But what else to include and how do I still keep this army adherent to my fluff? Well I'm still working on the fluff but tell me what you think of the army list so far.

My Own Experimental Tau Sawfish Rules

Here's some more new experimental rules I made for the Sawfish, a fast redeployment vehicle of the Tau. I 'borrowed' the idea from LordDirk from this thread on ATT and was inspired by Null's conversion here, again on ATT.

Sawfish: Lightly Armoured Troop Carrier                                                                           70 Points

The Sawfish has only been in use for a short number of years but has quickly gained a wide use across many Cadres and battlefields. Although it was originally developed as an alternate transport for small Pathfinder squads, as its small size, incredible speed and open design make it perfect for scout missions, many Fire Warrior squads have taken to using it in lieu of the larger and slower Devilfish. Due to its open troop compartment the troops inside can make rapid deployments and also fire during transit (although this is discouraged by instructors and more sensible Shas’ui).   

However this does make the Sawfish, especially its passengers, very susceptible to enemy fire as there is no external armour to protect them. The Fio Caste have noticed this and begun to add a number of counter measures; incorporated shield generators in place of gun drones; disruption pods; decoy launchers; complex A.I controlled evasive manoeuvres and magnetic harnesses (these were added after several incidents involving troops losing their hold and falling to their doom).  

As the Sawfish becomes more widely employed many deployment techniques have been specifically developed for it. One technique was first used during especially fast raids as the Sawfish deploys its troops by swooping low to the ground and letting the fearless warriors make a controlled leap to the ground. Several other methods are widely used from primitive fast ropes to small, disposable jetpacks.

My Own Experimental XV7 Mobisuit Rules

I have decided that my Tau army which I am in the process of developing will be my fluff army with lots of cool, pointless units and if my opponents let me a few units of my own. The first of these 'experimental' rules are the for my own battlesuit varient, the XV7 Mobisuits.

XV7 Series Mobisuits

As enemy armies begin to more heavily rely on fast tanks and transported troops, the Tau have had to adapt. The newest of the Fio Caste’s suit technology, the XV7 mobisuits, have been developed to face the quick-changing pace of modern battle. They meet these demands by incorporating advanced thrusters packs; lighter, iridium plate shielding; dynamic targeting and sensory equipment and the still powerful weapons of more traditional XV8 Crisis suits.

All of the current XV7 mobisuits are still in development stages but are predicted to soon be deployed in the most agile of combat zones.

Special Rules:

The XV7s have all the same rules as the XV8s and a few additional special rules described here:

-          Option – The XV7 Battlesuit is a free option to any Crisis suit which swaps their XV8 Crisis suit with an XV7 Mobisuit.

-          Advanced Thrusters – Due to their enhanced mobility and smaller size, VX7s are easier to manoeuvre in confined spaces. They may always reroll failed dangerous terrain tests and when making a run move they roll 3D6 and choose the highest result. They may also make their usual assault phase jetpack move after deepstriking.

-          Reduced Power Capacity – Due to the small size of the battlesuit their power capacity is limited and can only sustain a couple of systems. An XV7 may only ever have two weapon/support systems but can still use hard-wired systems. This may be a single twin-linked weapon, two separate weapons, a weapon and a support system or two support systems.

-          Transport – XV7s can only be transported by vehicles capable of transporting XV8s although they only take up the space of 3 Fire Warriors.

So what do you think?

Vleast, Campaign Setting

Recently I have been creating the background story and setting to my Tau army, The Or'esha. I want to also create a background story which ties in all of my friends' and I's armies.

The Armies
I needed to include most if not all of the armies my friends play so I can make a story for each game we play. So I need; Imperial Guard, Salamanders, Space Wolves, Saim-Hann Eldar, Tau (Mine and my friend's), Tyranids and possibly Imperial Fists.

The Setting, Vleast
First I need to know where it is in the galaxy. This was fairly easy as it needed to be on the edge of Tau space  and as close to the Salamanders home planet as possible. I also placed it close to the general area where Tyranid Fleets have been spotted so that kind of ties in my Tyranids, I can say they are a splinter fleet. Lastly the Eldar and Imperial Guard are everywhere so no need for any mapping there.

Click to enlarge image. It is marked by the red circle, bottom right.

Now the planet itself. I want to have the planet reflect my board and vice versa so it needs to have been owned by the Imperium and then have Tyranids invading as my pieces are Imperial buildings with Tyranid infestations. This also helped with the story.

The Motivation
Next it needs to have a reason for the armies to be fighting over it. This was difficult but I figured that stopping a Tyranid Fleet was adequate reason for any army to be fighting. So the idea is that the planet is rich in life and the Tyranids invading want all the biomass to rebuild their dwindling fleet but the 'good' forces like the Tau, Eldar, Imperial Guard and Salamanders are trying to stop them. They don't need to work together to do so but it will work.

The Taros Campaign: The Cool Tau Units

Today I am going to talk about one of my favourite Christmas gifts, The Taros Campaign. I will concentrate this post on my favourite of the 'new' Tau units. Also, if you haven't read any Imperial Armour books I would strong suggest getting one, or ten. Well not ten as they are expensive even by Forgeworld standards. 

So this book (all 317 pages of it) describes the Taros Campaign, a war between the Imperium and the Tau Empire, and all of the new forces and units used in that battle. There are some really cool rules - mostly detailing the slick new Tau forces - and the background is mind-blowingly amazing. It is all very Tau like which is nice (although it is written from an Imperial perspective) as Taros is a desert planet with wide open battlefields with no cover and water is a valuable commodity. The Tau test all of their experimental vehicles and crisis suits in this campaign so you get to see all the cool models in action along with all the nice rules for said models. There are also rules on how to use flyers and super-heavy tanks in your normal games which is awesome as the Tau's main strength is their advanced vehicles so getting to use Baracudas will make things...... fairer. 

Revised Tau 1500

This is my revised 1500 points Tau list. I wanted it to be mainly fun with lots of background as I just love the Tau technology, the suits, the ships, the tanks, the politics, the language, all of it. So this is meant more for fun and fluff than pure competitiveness.

The basic story is covered here. Because the army is entirely based around the crisis suit teams then thats where most of the points have gone and work gone into. The rest of the army just represents the Tau force the Or'esha is fighting beside. I have given each team a name in Tau and a little bit of a fluff idea. This means I can personalise each suit with cool conversions. Also here's where I found the Tau words and names. It is amazing.

However I don't want it to get hosed every time. So any opinions are appreciated.

Wednesday Wisdom 1

So for the first installment in my Wednesday Wisdom Weekly Post I found another just starting out weekly post topic by Gredus. These posts are all about connecting everyone in the 40K Blogsphere so everyone can help everyone else.

This week Gredus started off with an unusual Tau question about Battlesuit Multi-Trackers and Twin-linked Weapons.

So everyone check it out here!

Tau Background Fluff

Here's some more fluff I've been working on about my commander and his force:

Shas’el Doran’sha (Commander Smartwind) is a young and vibrant new commander of Fal’shia, a first sphere planet famed for its technological innovations. Like many from Fal’shia he has been described as incredibly forward thinking and ingenious, almost solving problems before they appear. In battle, he makes extensive use of new technologies such as the XV73 Battlesuits and his infamous Airbursting Fragmentation Projector which combined with his new strategies and ideas prove to be very deadly indeed.

XV71 'Hermes' Pattern Battlesuit

I have been working on the crisis suit again and have made some fluff. It's pretty self explanatory:

Crisis Suit Conversion Prototype

I just got a battlesuit to make into a prototype of what the rest of the suits will be like. Some things changed from my plan as I built but I think it turned out well.

Backpack:

Back view.