2017, 2017pts and 2 Tournaments

Hello friends!

I'm back! It's been a long time since the last post and much has happened in the time including buying and moving into our first house (a week before Christmas no less).

Hobby wise I haven't achieved much since the last post. I have yet to play test lists for Angel's Blade so expect that in the next couple of months.

I have picked up on my local GW's (actually Warhammer now) 'March to War' event they are running. Basically the premise is to build and paint 2017 points of a new army by March 2017. For this I am picking up the Space Wolves, taking the Start Collecting: Space Wolves box I won in the raffle at Double Trouble last year and adding to it. To begin with I have picked up the great value Ironclaw Strike Force box. Knowing my track record with getting things painted, this is going to be a mammoth task for me but definitely worth the effort. It is made all the more challenging by my next point.

Tournaments! I said to myself last year that I would like to hit a couple more tournaments this year if I could and my competitive (ish) season will kick off with Dave Weston's (Confessions of a 40K Addict) Birthday Bash event in February. I want to take my new Fenris boys to this and, weighing in at 1500 points, this means I am going to have to get most of my Wolves boxes built and painted, not by March, but by the middle of February! Nothing like an uphill struggle eh?

Following on from that we have the second installment of Alex's (From the Fang) Double Trouble tournament. Last years event was great fun so I can't wait to take it on again this year. Great format and a great way to meet other gamers. I may take Wolves to that as well but I'll see how I get on.

So that's it for now. I'll be posting again soon about my progress with the Space Wolves and also my blog goals for 2017 so please come back and check soon!

Double Trouble - The List and The Review

Hello dwellers of the internet!

The weekend just gone saw the first Double Trouble event as organised and run by Alex of From The Fang. This was also my first ever doubles tournament so I was looking forward to that but doubly so (see what I did there?) because it was an unusual (but excellent - more on that in a minute) format of random pairings.

Those of you who follow the blog know I have been preparing for this by writing roughly a billion lists for different armies but ultimately I settled on Tau.

Here is the list:-

Tau CAD - 750pts

HQ

Ethereal - 65pts
Hover Drone, Recon Armour, Honour Blade

Elites

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits - 139pts
Shas'vre - Twin-linked Fusion Blaster
2xShas'ui - Twin-linked Fusion Blaster
Bonding Knife Ritual

XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit - 196pts
Cyclic Ion Raker, Twin-linked Fusion Blaster, Stimulant Injector, Velocity Tracker, Bonding Knife Ritual, 2x Stealth Drone

Troops

Breacher Team - 140pts
5x Fire Warrior with Pulse Blasters
TY7 Devilfish with Disruption Pod

Breacher Team - 140pts
5x Fire Warrior with Pulse Blasters
TY7 Devilfish with Disruption Pod

Fast Attack

Pathfinder Team - 70pts
Shas'ui
4x Pathfinder with Pulse Carbine/Markerlight
Bonding Knife Ritual

This is quite a soft list for Tau but I figured it has good mobility, transports to keep my nasty blasters alive beyond a turn and some deep striking for precision (ha, chance would be a fine thing!) striking, not to mention the hard-to-kill Ghostkeel.

All in all though it didn't fare too badly in the face of lots of much stronger armies and even caught a few marine squads off guard (love those Pulse Blasters).

I'll hopefully try and do some sort of battle reports for my 3 games but they will be more narrative than anything as I didn't record a single detail.

The reason for this was because I was having too much fun! I was looking forward to this format anyway and it turned out to be everything I hoped. I got to play with or against 9 guys I had never had a game with before and every one of them a thoroughly good chap. We had some laughs at some ridiculous outcomes and that and nobody seemed to care when they lost everything (including me!). I've only been to 3 tournaments so far (all of them Alex's) but this was the most relaxed of them all. Just a fun day of gaming all round.

The painting competition was great again with the usual fantastic work on display (I didn't get a vote for mine but, in fairness, it wasn't finished and there was far better work on display so I don't mind) and the raffle was fantastic again. 5 Start Collecting sets and Deathwatch: Overkill were on offer. I managed to scoop myself a Start Collecting Space Wolves box which is excellent because I always fancied painting some Thunderwolf Cavalry. Now I have some!

Shout out to Luke, Tess and Dan who had to put up with being partnered with me and to Rob, Matt, Kai-Uwe, Owen, Peter and Tobias who had the pleasure of pummelling my little fish men throughout the day!

More to follow soon!

Painting Progress - XV95 Ghostkeel

Carrying on from the last post, I have moved over to painting the Ghostkeel for a little bit of a change.

The main colour for my Tau army is GW's own Sotek Green. I wanted something a little less vibrant for my stealth-related suits so after some deliberation I took the green down a step to Stegadon Scale Green for the Ghostkeel (and the actual stealth suits which are not part of my DT force). This has given the suits a slightly more stealthy green colour while still tying in with the rest of the Tau.

This will likely be the format for my posts for the next few weeks as I get my Tau painted up for Double Trouble. Next post will hopefully be the finished Ghostkeel!