Anyone know the deal with the new Tau army? I think it's supposed to be some super-tech group. I'm just wondering how they fit in.

To me, I'd just as soon bring back the squats . . . but it's just me.

I don't think Necrons went over too well.

------------------
Minister of Spanking

"I AM the lyrical Jesse James."

Okay, this is a "for what it's worth", but I spent some of the weekend fighting the Tau, and it went okay.

Basically, they shoot . . . and shoot well . . . with hard-hitting guns. Oh, and they have good armor, too. Basically, they seem to be space marines with bigger guns, same armor, but don't fight well in hand to hand. For once, the Guard actually charged across the board, but I was hampered by the "move only 6 inches" rule . . . ugh. And, although chimeras would have been nice, they have hand weapons that penetrate the armor. Ugh once more.

They WEREN'T unbeatable, though . . . and they don't like battle cannons going off into their squads. Whirlwinds and basilisks seem to be the best things to use on them. I'm going to try some mortars, too, but that whole 3+ save makes them freaking useless most of the time against most players.

Time will tell if they're unbalanced. I don't have a good feel for them, yet. I want to see how they handle the other armies first. The guy I played with said he slaughtered everyone at a recent tournament he was at. Granted, he always slaughters everyone at every tournament (just ask him!) . . . even when he loses! LOL!

Actually, he's a good player. He's played about every army, so he knows his way around.

Anyway, that's the head's up on the Tau so far . . . as if anyone was actually reading this! LOL!

------------------
Minister of Spanking

"I AM the lyrical Jesse James."

hah, come on now, I am reading this :-)

I haven't played 40K since the new rules came out, let alone since a year or more before then.

It was always fun being orcs, cause you need to get creative to destroy a good marine army. (and pray for some luck :P)

With that said....bring on these new batards, the orcs cna take em. :-)

------------------
Manu Narayan

Actually, I LOVE the ORKS! Mainly, when they played it was either some schuckalupus who always lost or some sneaky bastage who usually won.

From what I understand and have seen, the Orks got pretty screwed. They don't shoot NEARLY as well, and a lot of their cool weapons got changed to be more "normal". On the upside, they're pretty vicious in hand to hand, and, in numbers, not even the Space Marines can stand.

The new rules take some getting used to. Hand to hand is bloody evil . . . period. Basically, you can get into hand to hand with a single model and wipe out the entire squad he's with. See, now, hand to hand hits carry over into the rest of the squad i.e. do 10 wounds to a singel model, and the SQUAD takes ten wounds regardless of how close they are to the individual combat. HOWEVER, they DON'T get to swing back.

So, what you can do is to put 3 rough hand to hand guys attacking ONE model of the other team's squad. You hit the guy say 11 times and do 7 wounds. Well, that guy and 6 of his buds are now dead . . . and that's it. There's no swing back if you kill them first. It can get pretty lethal in a heartbeat. Also, the squad that "loses" hand to hand takes a break test. If they fail, they run 2d6. The opposition can give chase and, if they roll higher, the running squad is taken off the board. For example, I had a squad of 4 Ogryns charge a single space marine. I hit him once and he hit me one. He saved and I didn't . . . and one Ogryn took ONE wound (each has 3). So, I rolled my leadership and failed . . . they ran. He caught me and mowed down all 4 automatically. Kind of hokey . . .

Also, MOST of the game's "flavor" is gone. Everyone still has cool weapons with great "color", but the effects are all the same. What I'm saying is that each race has special weapons with weird effects DESCRIBED, but, in reality, the "Death Spinner" is, in effect, a simple flamer. A shotgun, though colorful, is simply a lasgun in combat. All the color is gone.

Basically, the game has been "dumbed down" for kids. I HATE to say that, but it's true. They claim the games are faster, but I see no difference between 2 people that KNOW both sets of rules.

The new rules are okay, though. I mean, one cool thing is that since all the weapons are so generic now, I can have a free hand to customize the models. I mean, in the 2nd Gen rules certain weapons couldn't be carried by certain troops, and now, that's about kaput. I can have IG guys carrying pistols, shotguns, rifles, lasguns . . . whatever . . . because, in effect, they're all about the same. Cool for modeling . . . boring for the game.

------------------
Minister of Spanking

"I AM the lyrical Jesse James."

Thats interesting...

The new h2h rules seem cool and lame at the same time. I think it gives some power back to the orks...as I said in the earlier rules, you basically had ot pray to win.

Fighting a marine army, the orks can't do much with a bolt pistol against marine armor saves, can't do much against tanks...so you resort to orks that can carry heavy weps. Those are expensive and malfunction VERY easily...

Making h2h more deadly, it gives the orks and edge SOMEWHERE again...

The cool thing I liked...Nobz in power armor. At 45pts (old rules) a model, they were costs, but they had a 4+auto save and a 2+ (modified) save...Give em eavy weps and your good to go.



------------------
Manu Narayan

Yeah, see, the Orks don't malfunction, anymore . . . weird, but true. So, what you can do against marines is field a ton of "big shootas" and hope for good dice rolls. Also, and this is BIG for Orks and IG, you can shoot THROUGH your own troops i.e. a groop behind your boyz can shoot marines on the other side of another group of boyz as if it were a clear shot . . . pretty evil, huh?

And now, the "armor screw". Now, armor is WAY more valuable than before. Basically, instead of having modifiers, weapons have an AP value. It either works against the armor or it doesn't. So, if you fire a bolter (AP 5) against a Marine (armor value 3), the marine gets the FULL save i.e. nothing happens on a 3+. The days of mowing marines down with twin heavy bolters are OVER as hb's have an AP of 4). Orks have zilch for armor, so bolters go right through. Same, pretty much, for the guard. Lasguns and autoguns, however, have NO AP vaule so everyone gets a save . . . damn it.

Armored troops (Marines, Tau, Sisters, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons, Chaos) are a PISSER to shoot up. HOWEVER, here's a cool one: power weapons ignore ALL armor . . . period, so a power sword goes right through marine armor. This makes jumping a 5 man marine squad with a 10 man IG squad (lead by a vet sarge with a power sword and a preacher with a powerfist) a VERY viable option.

Oh, another neat thing. A weapon with a power double the target's toughness is an "instant kill" i.e. no taking wounds. Yer juz ded.

And ALL the characters got slammed i.e. there is no all-mighty hero wading across rivers of blood with the sword of eternal whupazz and the armor of adamantium. Basically, unless you're Commissar Yarrick, you eat a lascannon, it's yo' butt. Sit down and take a powder.

And, as you speak of tanks, they've become better and worse. Big tank weapons are now called ordnance weapons, and they do some NASTY damage. However, you can only fire one if you fire NOTHING else AND you don't move. So, the Leman Russ battle tank may fire EITHER the battle cannon OR it's lascannon, 2 heavy bolters, and a storm bolter. You can't go apeshit crazy, anymore, and go off shooting everything. Now, perhaps even MORE of a screw, you CAN'T select multiple targets with a vehicle i.e. you can't heavy bolter a squad of marines while your lascannon hits the dreadnaught. I do NOT understand this rule . . . at all . . . but, it stands.

Now, the COOL thing they've done is instead of slaughtering troops inside an APC, they get a DECENT chance of living EVEN IF their Rhino or Chimera is smoked. It's not NEARLY as chancy to send a 50 point rhino across the board all out. Eh . . . what the hey?

I'm still getting used to some of the other things now. Basically, I'm finding that the Imperial Guard can hold onto about any piece of turf, but you can FORGET a serious attack. Basically, everyone else has h2h troops that hold you up for rounds EVEN IF you manage to win.

Space Marines can do about anything DEPENDING on the army selected. Selection is CRITICAL for them. Same for the Orks.

Eldar and tyranids attack . . . and attack WELL, but they can't sustain the roar of the Emperor's guns for long. Well, *sigh* the Nids can . . . IF they have biovores. So far, biovores have hurt me more than ANY weapon ANYONE has . . . period . . . except MAYBE some Chaos troops that you need a strength 5 weapon JUST to wound (lasguns, bolters, etc are COMPLETELY ineffective). Sux for the guard.

------------------
Minister of Spanking

"I AM the lyrical Jesse James."

Wow, haven't even thought about 40k in a long ass time. Hehe. It was a great game, kinda wish I still played. But like it was said above, the rules have gotten dumber. Have you noticed how all the games are getting dumber? Its cuz they gotta compete with the short-attention span king Nintendo and its likes. Not that I truly have anything against game consoles, but hey, they are another add-on to the idiot box, right?

the new rules sound quite strange and simplistic. I have not gotten back into 40k since 2nd edition. I really don't have the money to go and buy 6 dollar figurines...sigh. I always used the Space Wolves. The whole army used to be viscous in hand to hand combat (all squads had +1 ws) and the Blood Claws with jumpacks, melta bombs, and power swords were well worth the points, especially with the berserker charge (a calmed down version of frenzy). But from what I understand, they ripped the balls off the Space Wolves and basically made em just another space marine chapter. Its a shame too, they had color, they were the hand to hand chapter. Screw having a marine army that stands back and watches. Give me the old wolves, we're coming fast for ya' and you are going to see our teeth while doing it.

I probably will try out the new rules soon enough though, but I have also heard of a group called the Sisters of Battle. Are they a new army or just a special squad?

Yeah I liked the old third edition Warhammer and first edition Warhammer 40k books when they used to have all that trippy evil ink artwork, and there were TWO 300+ page Realm of Chaos books. Shit I have an issue of the Citadel Journal circa 1988 with a three page serial comic strip called Kaleb Daark where the hero sucks the souls of his enemies and offers blood sacrifices to his three eyed god! All rendered in inks complete with rape, blood drinking, and dismembered corpses skewerd on stakes! (along with stats for his model) You didnt see no damn Christians playing that shit back in the good ol days, they were too busy protesting it!

The Santa Monica Games Workshop store was run by crust punks straight outta England, all full of piercings with blue hair n shit. G.W. used to co release and distribute shit on a record label too (Earache) with grind and death metal bands like Bolt-thrower and Morbid Angel. Yo it was all about flaming pentagrams and sacrificing souls to the Emperor! My mom used to refuse to go in the store! heh heh. Sadly it closed in 94 i think it was.

I went to the Glendale store (esthb 2000) the other day and its staffed by nerds in GW polo shirts! They play like the ****ing wonders of nature sound track in the background instead of the death-core thrash of old.

2nd edition was fun to play but i missed the evil, underground, nerd metal, anarcho punk aspect of it. They jacked the prices for everything up about 100% in the mid-late ninties. Shit man they even stopped making the models out of POISONOUS LEAD (Yeah the good ole days when the miniatures could actually kill you!) SELL OUTS!!!

Oh well, atleast Natey remembers those days!


From Bolt Throwers GW release Realm of Chaos (a subtle critique of capitalist western society) :

Eternal War


"Through man's existance, from the start of time
The fight for survival is our only crime
Those in power, rotten to the core
The ongoing battle of the eternal war

What are you fighting for? Is it worth dying for?
You're held down by your chains, there's no-one but you to
blame

Fighting, destroying, following blind
Crushing, corrupting, enslaving mankind

What's now left - you can't believe
Oppression those in power, send to deceive
Slave to hatred, peace they deplore
Driven by despair, eternal war

Rebuild humanity to create a new society
For there's strength in unity which lies with you
Can't you see "

Yeah, my first exposure to 40k came when my brother played it back in, oh, damn, like '90? Must have been. But yeah, the figures just looked damned cool! And the best part about it was, they were plastic, and came around 20 for $30 bucks. They were all space marines, but hell if you couldn't make an army for around 50-60 bones. Shit, when I was playing Eldar, I spent around $30 bucks on my warwalker. No thank you. I spent enough money on MTG. Ugh, that was a gross game.

*sigh* My first miniature gaming (hehehehehe . . . I'm pitching underhanded, I know) was with Space Hulk. I fell in love. 40k was next . . .

My first army was Wolves followed by the guard. I even had a 2k point Sisters army before the bitch of Chaos (ex-wife) "convinced" me to sell my stuff. DAMN HER! I had, and I make no wild claims here, ove 50,000 points in the name of the Emperor. No poo-poo.

Luckily, after the great inquisition (my divorce), I got most of my stuff back . . . well, the core dawgs, anyway, and I'm about built back up to strength.

They REALLY cut the nuts off the wolves. I'm mega-pissed. But, they cut the nuts off of about everything to be honest. There are not great unkillable characters, anymore . . . which is cool. The Eldar still have a lot of annoying crap, but they no longer have the "I'm going to fly over you, drop a grenade, land, shoot you six times with a lascannon, then fly off the board so you can't shoot me . . . oh, and I have 4 squads of six of those guys."

Hand to hand is UGLY, but there are some twists to it that actually give the guard a decent fighting chance in hand to hand. As a matter of fact, I've got a squad of IG's that I'll put up against a battle pack of wolves ANYTIME, and it will simply come down to dice rolls.

The new rules are obviously simplified for the kids, BUT, much to their credit, at the local game store, the kids are piling in and buying the stuff up. And parents don't mind polo shirts NEARLY as bad as the over-pierced guys that used to be there. And mommy and daddy control the cash flow, so what would YOU do? :P

I DO miss the dark environment around all the armies. Even Chaos and genestealers seem warm and fuzzy now. There aren't as many skulls and bones on things now, and you don't see the cool things like "KILL KILL KILL" emblazoned on terminator armor.

The new models are DAMN expensive, but, alas, they freaking look great. And armies are now based on squads instead of fancy models, so, for almost all armies, you have big plastic boxed sets that are good deals. Basically, for my guard, I bought a battle squad (like $40 and had 20 guys, a sentinel, and a Leman Russ tank in it), a box of 20 guard ($25 and is completely poseable and modifiable plastics), some random guys for command (another $20) along with a heavy weapons group ($30 . . . that hurt for one squad). In all, I had a playable 1500 point army for about $120. It's not so bad. Now, they GIG you on vehicles and big models, but, the thing is, you can't really run a lot of them. The new rules are very strict about how much of what you can have . . . which IS good because you don't have to have specific models to win, you know?

But, they ARE expensive in metal. Man, the plastics are now what metals used to be, and metals are WAY out there. I THINK the deal is that the margin on plastic is actually better, AND there is less upkeep for molding plastic. Plus, the molds last longer and are higher production. It's a good business move, plus, heck, most of these kids don't know what an all metal army is, so they don't "miss" it like I do. Oh, and, for what it's worth, my REQUIRED army for 1000 points includes about 55 guys just to make up the core. I'm REQUIRED to have 4 squads of 10 and 3 squads of 5 (command). So, heck, that's a lot of lead to pack.

I'm going to play in a tourney this weekend, and there's supposedly a bunch of Tau fighting. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

This thread brings back memories.........

Originally posted by jonnyofthedead
This thread brings back memories.........

I'm still up in the air as to how I feel about the new system, but it's not that bad . . .

With regards to the Tau, from what I've read of them, their main weakness seems to be that they rely too much on coordination. It's kindof like when the Spanish armada attacked England while chaining all of their ships together, but were then destroyed when Francis Drake released those fireships into their midst and they couldn't separate from each other. I think the key is to concentrate on a few targets, rather than a large group, to disrupt their cohesiveness. Perhaps an army with good sniping or h2h abilities would be the best bet (Marines or Elder for the former, Orks for the latter). Anybody know how close I hit to the mark? Durden?

-Patrick

Pat . . . what I've found is that they're basically generic space marines with more powerful guns. Oh, and they DON'T handle hth very well, but they can ally with the Kroot who DO fight well.

The best thing I can tell you to do is shoot them with LOTS of guns since they don't get many models. Basically, against my Imperial Guard army, they DO kill everything they shoot, but hell, everyone does. For my guys, there's precious little difference between a bolt pistol and some of the Tau super-bad weaponry. Dead is dead. My recourse is to shoot them 30 or 40 times with junk (lasguns) hoping some get through. Usually, they do, and I can attrit them easily enough.

They DON'T handle htt AT ALL, and even their Codex says that the Tau would rather run away than stand and fight. They're survivors and not warriors.

I took a romping from them the first game out, and have sent them home every time since (and I was playing against experienced gamers). Actually, my guard has done will the last couple of months, and I think I've balanced out a good army that's still fun to play.

I don't really see a point to the Tau other than it's another army to sell models for (and damn they're selling!). I think the Necrons were more interesting, but they've about dropped them. MANY of us old guys still await the return of the Squats, but the guys at GW have more or less told us that's NEVER going to happen. Their word is that there is no "place" for them in the new system.

Eh, whatever, but I don't really see a place for the Tau. They can Ally with any of the Imperal forces, and, damn, that's sure what the Imperial needs . . . more armies to ally with. Let's see, there are Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Imperial Agents, Sisters of Battle, occasionally the Eldar, and now the Tau. I want to see some hard and fast rules for Chaos/Genestealer cultist armies. To me, you'd have tons of built in profits if you developed a system for models already in mass production especially considering that you'd be selling the models AND bits for modification.

But, what do I know?

Oh, want to see pix of my new penal legions?