Tournament list - Farsight Enclaves and Space Wolves - 1850pts

I have not been posting much lately, as all my time is taken up with commissions and job searches.  I will be posting pics of 7 more Nurgle bikes in the next few days, all that's left on them is basing.

But anyway, I'm here to discuss the latest incarnation of my Tau and Space Wolves army list made for a tournament next month, The Guardian Cup.

Here is the list:

Primary Detachment: Codex: Farsight Enclaves
HQ: Ethereal

Troop: 3x XV8 Crisis Suits.  6x Burst cannon, 3x Early Warning, 3x Bonding Knife Ritual, 3x Marker Drone
Troop: 3x XV8 Crisis Suits, 6x Plasma Gun, 2x Early Warning, 1x Vectored Retro-Thruster, 3x BKR, 3x Marker Drone
Troop: 3x XV8 Crisis Suits, 6x Missile Pod, 3x Early Warning, 3x BKR

Fast: 6x Pathfinder, Shas'ui, 6x BKR

Heavy: 2x XV88 Broadsides, 2x HYMP, 2x Velocity Tracker, 2x BKR
Heavy: 3x XV88 Broadsides, 2x HYMP, 2x Early Warning, 2x BKR

Allied Detachment: Codex: Space Wolves
HQ: Rune Priest, Runic armor (JoWW, Living Lightning)
HQ: Wolf Lord, Thunderwolf mount, Saga of the Warrior Born, Wolf Tooth Talisman, Storm Shield, Power Fist, Runic Armor

Troop: 10x Grey Hunter, 2x Meltagun

Fast: 2x Thunderwolf Cavalry, 2x Storm Shield

Heavy: 6x Long Fangs, 5x Missile Launcher

I've played 3 games so far with this list, and I have to say I'm pretty darn happy with it.  The only thing is two of those games have had a Land Raider in it, and I really don't have a lot to deal with that in this list, but I don't want to add in Fusion Blasters anywhere either..so I guess I'll have to live with the Thunderwolf Lord and the two meltaguns.

Probably the first thing that sticks out is the Ethereal.  He really is the lynchpin of the Tau, as the bubble of LD10 and whatever element I use are almost required to make the detachment effective.  Zephyr's Grace is probably the most powerful of the 4, basically giving the Tau the equivalent of Battle Focus. Sure they are snapshots but with markerlights..who cares.  Plus being able to move, run, shoot and then jet pack means the suits are fast and still effective!  However this means I'm also much more hesitant to deep strike the crisis suits..after all they are my scoring units.  And if I keep everything together I have a better chance at a decent amount of supporting fire should something get close.

The Thunderwolves are great fun, for sure.  I always send them strait into the thick of things, as they are a great disruption unit. As one of my opponents said, he had to turn his whole army to deal with 3 models..and that really isn't an exaggeration.  If there is a piece of LoS blocking terrain in the middle, even better as they can hide the first turn and then run up right into my opponent's backfield.  The Wolf Lord isn't afraid of anything..swarmlord, wraithknights, blood thirster, etc, etc. Challenge? Sure go for it. The only time he has really failed is when going toe-to-toe with Abbadon.  After rolling a 1 with the demon weapon he still got 2 wounds..with two wounds left.  Roll stormshield saves...a pair of 2's. Great.  Well Abby was then out in the open and sucked 12 BS6 plasma gun shots the next turn..hehe.

For the Rune Priest, I keep thinking about taking Njal instead. The primary purpose of the Priest is of course, the runic weapon.  The 4+ no you don't get Iron Arm is absolutely fantastic against Demons (especially FMC's) and Njal is only better at doing that. Plus the extra storm table thing is just icing on the cake. But at 130 points more it's hard to make room.

Since my army likes to keep things at a distance, I've decided to discourage the deep striking and outflanking that could really ruin my day with a whole crapton of interceptor.  One game, 5 Chaos Terminators deep struck right in my backfield, only to perish before getting a single shot off after two broadsides and 24 burst cannon shots.  Just having the interceptor can alter the way an opponent plays..especially flyers. Sure I don't have skyfire on the interceptor but I can put out enough shots to knock down most flyers..and even more so if I roll Echos of the Grandmaster on the warlord table and take Tank Hunter.

The biggest problem with the list is it is only medium range, with most of my shooting 36", and the most powerful shooting only 18-24".  Zephyr can mitigate that some, and I have the marker drones on the short range suits so they can at least do something if their guns are out of range. Plus having the drones means that grav guns wound those units on 4+ instead of 3+..hey it's something.  I found this especially problematic with the Hammer and Anvil deployment.  In the future I will need to be more aggressive with deployment and consider deep striking suits in that situation.

Right now, deployment is my weakest link in playing the list..making sure my bubble is effective, dealing with reserves and mostly having better anticipation of ranges.

So that just about closes out my thoughts on the list.  I have 1 battle report with the list up, and another ready for editing. Comments welcome as always.

Nurgle "winged" Demon Prince complete! (custom jump pack)

Wow did this guy come out great!  The jump pack engines are nice and rusty and one is connected by a nice and fleshy bit. The skin looks putrid, the armor dirty and everything else is just..gross!

The best part he didn't take long to paint at all, which was really surprising to me.  I thought I would be toughing this guy out for a while, but easily finished him in a day even with distractions such as picking kids up from school, cooking dinner and a football game.

Just hit him with varnish and pigments this morning to top it off, and good to go!


Anyway, pics.

Nurgle "winged" demon prince WiP (custom jump pack)

More commission work, in this case a finecast nurgle demon prince. The customer wanted it "winged" but with a jump pack instead.  A few plastic tubes and the jets from the Valkyrie wingtip engines later, this is what I came up with.  I really like how it came out. Just a bit of greenstuff work to do before it's ready to paint.

Enjoy the pics!  As always, comments are encouraged..

Nurgle Biker comission complete!

After a big push I finished all 9 bikes last night and hit them with varnish today.  Pretty happy with the progress I've made on my commissions. The only thing is I'm not getting very far with the Space Wolves but hey, I need the cash!

Anyway, pics:

Very happy with the results. Rust, pigments, layered up corruption, they look great. I didn't assemble these, and I asked how he did the corruption bits. It's greenstuff work that was done by using instant mold on the nurgle demon prince model to make press molds. Brilliant and easy! I'll have to remember that..

Also finished 7 more Imperial Fist bikers..with more to come.

I still have a lot of other work to do..I have an Angron and FW Abadon to assemble (just assembly) and a Nurgle demon prince to convert up with a massive jump pack and paint that as well.  Busy busy busy!

I can't get enough Star Trek Attack Wing.

So instead of going to bed, I've been up for the last hour or so watching Star Trek videos.  Not much to post about, still banging out the commissions for now.

All I have to say is I can't wait for the U.S.S. Defiant to come out for Star Trek Attack Wing. I don't care what I have to go without to buy it.

Same goes for the Future Enterprise from All Good Things..

I still plan on playing in the Dominion War event at my FLGS and they have some really cool prizes for the first 3 events (Feregi ship, Ba'Rel class bird of prey, and Nebula Class). I doubt I'll win one, and playing the same scenario 3 times in a day does not sound like much fun but I'll give it a go.

I plan on taking a Klingon fleet.  Cloaks are just too awesome, and you know at least 1 ship will have the advance weapon system :)

There is so much awesomeness in the Star Trek universe the possibilities for the game are insane.

Very much looking forward to future waves.

A busy week means not much to post about - also WiP Nurgle Bikers

Last week was hella busy for me, with multiple job interviews, school functions and a temp job taking up most of my time. Because of that I didn't get anywhere near as much hobby done as I wanted to.

I picked up a couple more commissions, 7 more Imperial Fist bikes and some Nurgle as well.  I've been trying to get them done. Good progress on the Fists, with a lot of the layering done.

The Nurgle has been fun to paint so far, but I've spent a lot of time looking at pictures online for inspiration.

Here is the work in progress I have so far on one of the riders:

The armor is done with several GW colors..base, wash, layer, dry and I'm really liking how the shoulderpad came out. 

Well this week should be all about getting this work done, baring any more outside work.

Blood Axe Dakkajets complete!

I finished my X-1 Dakkajet (finally) after many months of sitting in a bin. I also finished my stock dakkajet with weathering and a varnish.  Both look freaking awesome.

Not much else to say. Quick pics, then off to bed for football. Go Hawks!

They are very close in size to each other.  The width from wingtip to wingtip is the same, and the X-1 is about an inch longer. The X-1 is also more substantial with a bigger body.  I love how they came out.