Il-Kaithe Starcannon Team

 o/

The starcannon and now both of it's gunners are complete.

According to the fluff, the Guardians of Il-Kaithe have fairly close ties with their Dark Eldar brethren, and are known to use similar squad markings. Well, I don't have any Dark Eldar decals and hand painting unit makings is out of the question for my painting skills. So what other options are there? 

As you can see, Dark Eldar bits were the answer!  

I think the blast shield's banner translates to: Eat at Joe's. 

While not a Dark Eldar decal, this one was still suitably spiky.

I'm rather pleased with how the power core's glow came out.

The Dark Eldar Raider trophy poles work rather well I think. 

Most of the rest of the squad have Dark Eldar bayonets on their shuriken catapults, which like the trophy poles, blend quite well with the Craftworld sculpts. The bits I ordered didn't have enough bayonets for the whole squad which is fine. There always has to be at least a few Eldar on the straight and narrow.

I like that both gunner's have the same type of helmet.

The discarded Guardian helm, half buried on his base is visibly damaged, likely having lead to it's removal.

The gunners likewise don't have any blades on their catapults, though I would imagine that one of them could grab the polearm without the skulls were the situation to become up close and personal! 

Gorillas? or Guerillas?

 o/

This week's diversion...

Fittingly, the squad leader Joe Kaero's armor is more impressive looking (though not anymore effective).

These guys were hard to photograph as they blend well with both the siding of my house, and as you can see the mulch around it.

Their color scheme came out looking good, and was fairly simple.

These minis came from the 2nd Star Schlock Kickstarter which delivered 5 months ahead of schedule (that does actually happen sometimes). Clearly these were modeled after the 1960s-70s Planet of the Apes movies. Sadly, there was no Charlton Heston mini to oppose them. 

What, would you have preferred a pineapple grenade instead? 

Unlike most all running pose mins, this guy has a good contact with his base, and didn't need a strategically place rock or bit on his base for added support.

I really liked these minis when they arrived last week and so I painted them up this past weekend. Star Schlock is a retro styled miniature game, who's rules I know nothing about. Oh by the way, if anyone out there is RPGing Star Trek the Original Series, they have some minis on their site that would be excellent stand-ins for an away team!

I used this screen grab above as a painting guide, and I think these guys came out pretty well as a result.

So what to do with these guys, right? Well, Being armed with rifles, They would work as Iggies, except that there are only (5) of them. After looking thru my indexes, I settled on the Inquisitorial Henchmen datacard, as 2 wound Guardsmen with 3 melee attacks apiece sounded pretty good. I switched out their 'firearms' which are -1 AP bolt pistols for the simple autoguns that these models carry. 

Move over Hogzillaries, the Apes have arrived!

I made these primates an unaligned unit and for unit comp (as Henchmen come is all sorts of weird combos) I opted to go with the base of four grunts & a Jokaero added in to reach five models. Since they are all identically equipped, I discarded all of the Jokaero abilities (and now you know why the leader mini in the 2nd pic was named Joe Kaero). It works, and they clock in at 60 points currently. Don't know if I'll ever use them, but they now have stats and a legal points allotment in the event that I do. 

In the Grim Darkness of the future, there is a Joker inspired Craftworld

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Hey, what's under that shelving unit over there?

While boxing up my office in preparations to move to South Carolina, I discovered a bitz baggie containing an Eldar Guardian minus his arms under some shelves. I tossed said baggie in the nearest box and promptly forgot about it until I found it a week or two later during the unpacking of my hobby stuff. 

The yellow & red lights on his catapult indicate that he's running low on ammo.

Lacking any Eldar bitz to replace his arms (or rather, not willing to wade thru the bitz box to try and find a matching pair of arms, if any), I ordered another set along with some other odds and ends to justify the shipping cost. I had to fill in the armpit joints with greenstuff, as all of the new Guardian arms are flat where they join the torso rather than a ball socket as it was on the old models.

Mold lines, yeah we got 'em!

When it came to picking a color scheme, there was really no question: Craftworld Il-Kaithe. My favorite color has always been purple, with green a close second. As you can see, Il-Kaithe's color scheme is just the opposite: green with purple trim. 

You know, like the Joker.

Though I believe the resemblance ends there (or not). A quick perusal of their fluff indicates that the Eldar of Il-Kaithe play well and often with the Dark Eldar, So like the Joker, they too are buddies with the bad guys!

Buns of steel!

(and armor of cardboard)

I found a squad of 9 guardian defenders that needed a little love, a warlock as well as some parts to effect repairs. Collectively, that all came to about half of their original retail their price on eBay (yes, I ought to have been buying Tau, but whatever). I'll see if I can make it through painting these before I lose interest in the Eldar (again). In the event that I do keep them, I would say that the likely pace of expansion up to an army would be glacial at best. 

The rearmed Sub-Commander Firestorm

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For The Greater Good!

Following the debacle of my last game (see previous post), I'm looking for ways to up-gun my Tau. This is however hampered by the fact that our house in Tennessee hasn't sold yet leaving us with two homes to pay for, meaning no new toys can be bought. 

I paint grime so well, that you can't tell that the missile pods and sensor aren't original equipment.

First up, was to rearm Sub-Commandeer Firestorm as mentioned previously. Gone are the flamer and much maligned airbursting fragmentation launcher. Now she's armed with a pair of missile pods, while retaining the weapon support system & shield generator. Whilst not the most potent weapons that she could wield, they are the longest ranged turning her into a light fire support unit. 

The recon drone's flight stand was primed, so I flocked the base and hid the post in some foliage.

While not hers specifically, I also painted up a pair of shield drones. These will be added to my drone pool to be passed out to whomever. They're basically free floating ablative wounds. 

 I believe the decal translates to: BRRRRT!

I also assembled and painted up the pathfinders' Recon drone. This would not have helped at all in my prior game as it would have died right along with the shas'ui on turn one like most of the rest of the pathfinders (unless the shas'ui had had a shield drone...). Regardless, it is a cool mini and I'm not sure as to why I never assembled it before. 

Next up, I guess I need to build the Broadside that's been in the shrink-wrap for the past year or two...

Tau vs. Demiurg battle report

When shipments of ores from the Appalachian Subsector came to an inexplicable halt, Water and Merchant caste delegates were dispatched via the next available transport to ascertain the problem. When those envoys also failed to return, the Tau sent a Merchant class cruiser instead, with yet more Merchant and Water caste envoys, as well as Sub-commander Firestorm and her 2nd line cadre along to renegotiate with some fire power if necessary.

Upon locating the wayward Demiurg, the Tau envoys retransmitted the signed and oath-bound contracts to their wayward contractors from orbit. The responding transmissions were garbled, but it sounded as though the Demiurg claimed to not be who the Tau thought they were, claiming instead to be the Wu-Tang or some such nonsense. At a loss, the envoys dispatched Commander Firestorm and her warriors to seek 'clarification' via excessive firepower, to ensure that the Demiurg would once again make good on their ore shipments... 

750 point game, 6 objectives, worth 1 VP per objective controlled, no we didn't bother with the scenario cards and their paragraphs of often confusing text and apparent need to over-complicate the game by passing out  VPs by the bucket load (seriously GW, WTF?).

750 point of Tau = 64 models (plus a few drones)

Rob's Demiurg.

The battlefield. The star wars terrain's rounded edges works well for the Tau I think.

I was taken by surprise by the reality that we've been playing infiltrators wrong in that they don't have to wait till last to deploy which caused me immediate issues as it put his Yeagers in charge range on turn 1! (Rob went first by the way.)

His Thunderkyn on the other side of the board all but erased the pathfinders in one volley, leaving just a lone rail rifle gunner! The railgunner would kill one in return for what little that was worth. 

The Breachers were reduced by half by the Bike squad with a few Hogzilliaries going down as well. The Hogs would soon fall to the Yeager charge giving Rob 3 additional CPs which isn't a whole lot of fun when on turn one you just used the lone CP you had for overwatch. I've never been a fan of the CP farming game mechanic either (although, that was much worse in 9th).

Ignore the Muppet Auxiliaries which didn't take part in this debacle. After doing so, everything else in that tray died on turn 1, before I even got to go! 64 models doesn't mean shit when you lose 40% of your force before you even get to make a shot. Yes I was (am) salty. 

The game was already lost in the stereotypical of 40K 'blown off of the table on turn 1 scenario', as I effectively had about 500 points left to fight off 750 which was already in a better tactical position that controlled multiple objectives. I killed a handful of his models but nothing like the losses I had suffered. Nonetheless, I pressed on...

The cornered Breachers getting ready for a forlorn suicide charge. Ya know the Tau's buddy system for bonus' doesn't work when the nearby units are wiped out. 

Luckily, I took the Mont'ka, allowing all weapons to assault for the first three turns as well as lethal hits (which i forgot about 2-3 volleys in...). Of course GW took all the AP off of my basic guns (thanks for that). The battle shocked Pathfinder was squandering my still single CP to miss with the rail rifle though could at least still guide the other two squads. Luckily Strike teams Suppressive fire rule negates the Judgement token bonuses somewhat. 

Turn two and the Kroot arrived to run up and hose down the T:5 army with S:4 shooting for no effect. The do at least have sticky objectives or, as it shall forever now be known: They leave their bird poop on them and then leave, (we even used a white die to represent this).

The Piranha dropped in and along with being guided by the pathfinder (as well as the carbine squad) and using a strategem to give their carbines -1 AP, the Thunderkyn withered in the crossfire! Following that the Carbine squad charged the nearest unit of stunties. 

This highly unethical (to the Tau) scrum would occupy these two units for the rest of the game, with occasional models expiring, though both units would ultimately survive... 

Had they not charged, they would have found themselves surrounded by, and in the crossfire of 4 enemy units. Unethical or not, it was a highly prudent move. They probably also realized at this close  range that...'Hey, these aliens don't look like Demiurg! I mean, where are the Klingon foreheads?'

The Wu-Tang turned to hose down their new foe...

 Well the pioneers did. They Kroot fellback out of pistol and charge range of the Yaegers. Note the bird poop on the objective remains.

Kroot shooting managed to kill two pioneers who they then charged thru a hail of overwatch fire, followed by bikes heroically intervening. 

Up until this point, Commander Firestorm had only been successfully guiding her subordinates, and absorbing damage. Her weapons have been nerfed into oblivion by GW, meaning instead of the 9th ed beatstick that she used to be, she didn't kill anything in this game! Here she mistakenly strays into grenade launcher range of the Hearthguard and perishes. She only failed 2 out of 9 saves, but unfortunately she only had 2 wounds left.

The Cadre Fireblade assumed command and while his reduced squad continued to blaze away, he tried to confirm reports from the carbine team that their foes are not Demiurg...

Nope, definitely not Demiurg (told you this fight would never end).

It took I don't know how many editions, but my Kroot finally finished of an enemy unit in close combat! Well, the Shaper did, and as you can see by his two wounds tokens though, he didn't last long to savor this momentous milestone!

At this point, I was down to a handful of models who were vastly outnumbered, and VPs were 7-2 in Rob's favor (the pioneers even mopped up the bird shit), and the Tau initiated a hasty EVAC.

Upon learning for the beleaguered Cadre survivors that they had in fact attacked the Wu-Tang instead of the wayward Demiurg, the Tau's envoys transmitted a letter of apology along with a coupon book good for a few free meal deliveries from their local Earth-Caste Grubhub (Oh, and this is the 'Greater Good' by the way, where all the meals are free...). Then they broke orbit and hurriedly left the system.

*****

Well that was...awful, or at least turn 1 was. The rest of the game wasn't so bad even in spite the futility of it all. That said, I do have a few after action caveats: 

First up Rob has played this army extensively, and wading thru every level of Screech induced Cheesy Necron hell along the way. So he knows every trick in the Votann's book. Me on the other hand, this is my Tau's first outing in 10th ed., and a lot of the good things that my atypical army had in 9th ed. are no longer there (simpler not simple, right?). 

Yes. That glowy green kind of Necron hell...

Two notable examples are that all of my pulse weapons lost their -1 AP &  marker lights are ignores cover only. Sure there's no roll to hit and the Observer/guided/spotted mechanic is supposed to replace that, but it will take some practice to figure out how to use best. 

Ah, the good ol days. 

Then of course Commander Firestorm's experimental airbursting fragmentation projector which in 9th ed was S:4, AP-1, hit on 2's and you could have (2) of them. Now the (obsolete) airbursting fragmentation projector hits on a 3 (4 if firing indirect), is S:3, no AP and you can only have one of them. She also had the experimental thermalneutronic projector which was a sort of weird roll-to-hit flamer that doubled as a close combat weapon that rivaled Commander Farsight's dawn blade. Now, its just a flamer. 

Honestly, in 9th ed Firestorm propped up the army, charging anything that got into my lines, and while rarely winning said fights, she would tie enemy units up for several turns, inflicting heavy losses along the way. She can't do that anymore. 

For example, after charging and killing 4 plague marines, they fell back and in a desperate attempt to shoot her to death!

Firestorm is an obsolete Legends model (which is fine for a 2nd line army like mine), but her weapons need to be completely swapped out (stay tuned for my next post). For this game, I had already removed one projector leaving her with the other one, and a flamer. So equipped she's really only good at killing units like Grots, (ironically) Kroot, guardsmen, and other types of cannon fodder. Hardly a fitting role for a Commander of any stripe. 

I guess it will be back to the drawing board for my Tau in order to find a way forward. It was however good to see Rob & (briefly) Neverness. Especially as I'm not sure when I'll be back up in Tennessee for a game with either one of them.