Just wanted to make a little blog entry about how I'm going to be starting a WH40K army.
I will be posting some pictures of my collection as it grows and as I begin to paint and get better at this hobby.
I decided on playing Tau because they look quite cool and I really like the idea of a strong firing line and mechanized units in crysis suits and battle suits.
If anybody else out there is into WH40K let me know I will take pictures of my haul sometime tonight or tomorrow.
I have just got 3 brushes, 7 paints, a primer, an ink wash along with a Tau battleforce to start me off.
I will still need to buy some more paints to paint up the Kroot but I'm hoping to have most of my basic troops done by the end of May in my free time.
I play and teach Warhammer 40K over the summer. I'm not very old (I'm 14, turning 15 in May :D) but I actually really enjoy it. I wish I had more time to get good at painting, but I have so many hobbies and other stuff to do I never get around to it. I'm a Space Marine player, but I played them back in 4th edition to start with. I'd love to start a new army (I was thinking Tyranids if I were to get a new one), but it's so expensive and cost inefficient to start a new one that I just stuck with what I have.
Good luck to you man, hope you enjoy it! It's a fun game, just find some people that you enjoy playing with and you'll have a great time :D
Ugh. Screw Tau. I used to play Nids a bit, but I got kind of pissed off when they released the new codex, put in all kinds of cool new units that shored up some weaknesses, and didn't make models for any of it.
Plus they kinda trashed stealers, and those were kinda my wrecking ball.
On April 22 2012 06:27 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: I play and teach Warhammer 40K over the summer. I'm not very old (I'm 14, turning 15 in May :D) but I actually really enjoy it. I wish I had more time to get good at painting, but I have so many hobbies and other stuff to do I never get around to it. I'm a Space Marine player, but I played them back in 4th edition to start with. I'd love to start a new army (I was thinking Tyranids if I were to get a new one), but it's so expensive and cost inefficient to start a new one that I just stuck with what I have.
Good luck to you man, hope you enjoy it! It's a fun game, just find some people that you enjoy playing with and you'll have a great time :D
I last played when i was your age, it was the tail end of the 3rd edition so now that its almost at 6th, Its easy to say its been a long while since I last tried this game out haha.
I used to be chaos marines, they were really good for me and my angsty teen years.
On April 22 2012 06:27 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: I play and teach Warhammer 40K over the summer. I'm not very old (I'm 14, turning 15 in May :D) but I actually really enjoy it. I wish I had more time to get good at painting, but I have so many hobbies and other stuff to do I never get around to it. I'm a Space Marine player, but I played them back in 4th edition to start with. I'd love to start a new army (I was thinking Tyranids if I were to get a new one), but it's so expensive and cost inefficient to start a new one that I just stuck with what I have.
Good luck to you man, hope you enjoy it! It's a fun game, just find some people that you enjoy playing with and you'll have a great time :D
I last played when i was your age, it was the tail end of the 3rd edition so now that its almost at 6th, Its easy to say its been a long while since I last tried this game out haha.
I used to be chaos marines, they were really good for me and my angsty teen years.
Yeah I know what you mean haha. The thing is, GW is an evil company D: They keep changing the codexes drastically and making me react to the way the new one has to be played. It's really annoying having to drop $50 on a tank because Marines can't be played with the mass tac squad style anymore.
W/e, I mostly play with a few friends just for fun, not really any competitiveness between us other than bragging rights :D
tau are the best! painting takes a lot of practice to get right, i recommend finding some videos on youtube to emulate to get your feet wet! I used this guy (in particular for his tau infantry [fire warriors]) and my models came out really well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9SU2tOAa1o here's the paint scheme I use
edit ~ i can post pictures if you would like, they came out really well (have a fire warrior squad, a crisis battle-suit, 3 stealth-suits and a devilfish!)
On April 22 2012 07:12 Endymion wrote: tau are the best! painting takes a lot of practice to get right, i recommend finding some videos on youtube to emulate to get your feet wet! I used this guy (in particular for his tau infantry [fire warriors]) and my models came out really well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9SU2tOAa1o here's the paint scheme I use
edit ~ i can post pictures if you would like, they came out really well (have a fire warrior squad, a crisis battle-suit, 3 stealth-suits and a devilfish!)
Its a little late in terms of money to buy the stuff he recommends I will listen though and watch.
I decided to go with the standard T'Au scept colour scheme. Though I do want to add one touch of my own as an homage to SC2 and my main race of Protoss.
I'm doing the accenting in a bright blue ^^ I got the inspiration from the following link:
The Bright blue accenting is very very cool. I already have a black ink wash so I can use that to add depth to the joints. Didn't get the brown wash, though it seems like it would be an awesome idea to give the army a weathered, dusty look
Also, I found a really really cool short tutorial on painting the older stealth suit models. The best part from this video isn't the dissipating cloak field effect they show (which is pretty cool) its actually a short "gem" effect done with paint.
I'm going to do it for all the eyes and optics on my units as it seems really dead simple
Exciting is a weird word to use, but its the one I will use to describe just having masses of infantry and artillery on the field.
Imperial vs Imperial is by far the most fun match up I think.
I had a game where we we both doing conscript flanks to try and kill artillery batteries (50 conscripts vs 3 artillery tanks) while Transport dropships and APC's were around the map trying to hold down flags. It was a super fun variation where any unit in a 6 inch radius of a flag will have +1 morale.
Damn I wish I had other people who play Imperial to play against. Nothing except Imperial vs Imperial is fun.
On April 22 2012 09:04 Th1rdEye wrote: Little known fact ... StarCraft was based off WarHammer :D
I knew it Eldar are closest to the Protoss in the Lore and concept, but I love the plated armor of the Tau, also the whole greater good thing is kinda cool
Their like Buddhists shooty Buddhists.
I just opened my kit and I didn't get enough flying base sticks. I got 7 flying bases for a total of 5 drones on the sprues and two flight base sticks. lol, damnit.
If you want bread and butter, get 2 hammerheads (with railguns) and 2-3 xv88's for your 3 heavy slots (this is gonna cost you like 200+ dollars to buy).
I wouldn't bother too much with stealths, unless you have the room, as xv8's are just more useful. When using xv8's, the most standard set ups is the plasma+missle pods+multitracker (or whatever it is that allows you to shoot multiple guns a turn).
Your HQ can be equipped basically the same way, except with the item that gives +1 ballistic skill. This makes him a 3 wound, 2+ shooting, ld 9, jsj (jump shoot jumping) monster with a rapid fire ap2 str 6 and assault 2 str 7 ap 4 weapons. This makes him good versus MEQ's (marine equivalents aka 2+/3+ armor guys like space marines, termies, necrons, battle sisters, occasionally other tau, etc) and good at popping light vehicles (especially against orkz and dark eldar). He'll also cost a total of 97 points, which is less than the minimum cost of a spacemarine HQ. Oh and never EVER bother grabbing the Shas'O version, just get the lesser Shas'el. Trust me, that +1 W and +1 Ld mean nothing.
Kroot are the most awesomest thing ever in terms of a meat wall. They are a crap ton of bodies for no price at all! Also, don't bother charging or moving forward aggressively unless you need to contest or are much much better in hand to hand, as your shooting is almost as effective but make them 3 times studier, as you can hide them in 4+ cover. It's hilarious taking 40 rapid fire shots at BS 3, Str 4 at the cost of 140 points.
I don't have any pathfinders, but i hear that they light up the field like crazy if you want to use a lot of marker lights.
In general, do not rely on your basic troops too much. They'll do awesome against other shooty armies that bring a lot of bodies, but once the heavy guns come out, the lack of heavy weapons on tau firewarriors make them a bit of a liability at times. Trying to shoot down anything thats more than or equal to 8 T is so dumb with firewarriors, cause you just pour 80 shots into them just to make 3 wounds, all of which are saved by the creatures 2+ save T.T. This is why you need your XV88's, XV8's and Hammerheads. Rail guns are trololol at str 10, AP 1. Also, use the hammerhead's rail gun vs masses of troops and the XV88's rail guns vs heavily armored units/vehicles.
All of this is not likely to make sense now, but come back and read at any time. It might be then :D. Also, don't just take my word, compare my strats and what not to others that you play with/on other sites.
EDIT: OH. Drones! Drones are a great asset, but only if you know what you're doing with them! You want to almost always take drones with your XV8s and XV88s. Their job isn't so much to get kills, but to soak up wounds, especially those that would instagib you (str 8+). You can have a max of two drones. You don't want to bother with marker drones for your XV suits, as they'll just soak up room (save them for the firewarrior squads). Additionally, you never ever want to have more gun drones than suits, because this will drop your majority toughness from 4 to 3, which is a huge nono. For this reason, I always only take 1 drone per suit, which is ideal. Shield drones are a different matter, since their toughness is based on the toughness of the majority toughness in the group. This means taht if there are more guys with T4 than with T3, the shield drones will likewise be T4. However, if a T4 dies and the T3 is the majority, the shield drones will downgrade in toughness. Similarly, these things give invul saves (yayay! except vs greyknights). The issue being if an invul save is ever failed, the drone is killed. Still better than losing your suit though.
How to use drones: Remember, they are a meat shield. They have no feelings, they won't mind Everytime you take a high that would kill your suit (either due to 1 wound left or instagib), you will want to take the wound on your drone instead, even though the save is 4+ rather than the suits 3+. This way, if you have 3 suits and 3 gun drones, you can basically take 3 wounds for free, including those that would instantly kill your suits, without having any affect on you. However, always bear in mind that losing a suit over a drone can push you in the wrong direction, thus making the group easier to kill. But if you an use it right, you'll be laughing off Str 10/AP 1 shots as they just wing your gun drones out of existence.
If you want a maximum kill group type of setting, grab 1 elite group of 3 XV8s with 4 gun drones and attach it to your HQ with 2 shield drones. This way you'll have a total of:
4 XV8s with heavy fire power that can make any player cry (minus biker nobs, warlock bikers and termy kill teams) with a 10 base wounds + 7 additional wounds from the drones, from which two of them can produce invul saves. If you equip all your XV8s differently, the opponent will essentially in a best case scenario have to drop 13 wounds off of that squad in order to kill even one suit. Either they'll tank a shit ton of shots or they'll live to see the end of 7 turns, so long as they don't sprint off the table after losing 3 drones T.T.
If anyone else is thinking of starting an army you could wait for the new boxset when 6th edition rules come out. You get the best value on your miniatures if you go halves with someone else on a couple of boxes.
Which is when I'll be starting my next army, don't really play any more but I still like collecting and painting.
I have a friend that uses the Grey Knights. He explains the rules and stuff to me while I help him paint (I just do the primer usually when I'm over). Might pick this up sometime later when I get some more cash.
On April 22 2012 09:04 Th1rdEye wrote: Little known fact ... StarCraft was based off WarHammer :D
I knew it Eldar are closest to the Protoss in the Lore and concept, but I love the plated armor of the Tau, also the whole greater good thing is kinda cool
Their like Buddhists shooty Buddhists.
I just opened my kit and I didn't get enough flying base sticks. I got 7 flying bases for a total of 5 drones on the sprues and two flight base sticks. lol, damnit.
Contact GW about that. They'll send you replacement sticks. They've always been good to their customers.
I used to play quite a bit, but stopped when I came to uni. Not enough time for it anymore. I do want to get back into it eventually.
I wish that the Dawn of War games could have been as good as the actual tabletop game. Why the hell hasn't someone made a video game that mimics the tabletop exactly so I can play this awesome game without dropping a hundred of dollars every few months.
On April 22 2012 09:04 Th1rdEye wrote: Little known fact ... StarCraft was based off WarHammer :D
I knew it Eldar are closest to the Protoss in the Lore and concept, but I love the plated armor of the Tau, also the whole greater good thing is kinda cool
Their like Buddhists shooty Buddhists.
I just opened my kit and I didn't get enough flying base sticks. I got 7 flying bases for a total of 5 drones on the sprues and two flight base sticks. lol, damnit.
Contact GW about that. They'll send you replacement sticks. They've always been good to their customers.
I used to play quite a bit, but stopped when I came to uni. Not enough time for it anymore. I do want to get back into it eventually.
Tyranid player here!
Yup, GW customer support is excellent. I had a semi-melted set of plastics at some point, for which they sent me two new boxes as 'compensation'.
Anyhow, I used to play almost weekly, still have 4k guard and 7k space marines lying around. I've been favoring necromunda and blood bowl recently tho, its easier to play with friends that aren't all that into it, and the games are much shorter. That said, 40k is awesome, altho the endless revisions get annoying at times.
On April 23 2012 00:36 PassiveAce wrote: I wish that the Dawn of War games could have been as good as the actual tabletop game. Why the hell hasn't someone made a video game that mimics the tabletop exactly so I can play this awesome game without dropping a hundred of dollars every few months.
I picked up blood bowl from steam for 4 euros a couple of months ago, and its a near exact replica of the table top game. Highly recommend it, for that price at least. And the dawn of war series was pretty good, first one in particular.
Many years ago I spent a ton of cash on WH40k. I "played" Dark Eldar, but I just bought tons of infantry/ships and painted them, never actually playing the game.
I've got some Tau! Haven't played them in ages but it was good fun. I went mech tau though so the list was all vehicles and suits. It's a little more competitive and also cooler for me since I don't like the static units very much. Keep us updated ^^
EPT
I will take pictures of my haul sometime tonight or tomorrow. 
I will listen though and watch. 
I can't wait to get back into it 
Though I did always lose 
