My customized commander.

Here is a few shots of my commander, which eventually ended up being modeled as a "Centurion". note the custom target array on his left shoulder. Sorry if the shots aren't terrific, but I'm working on getting better at it. You can click on each picture for an enlarged image.

In the beginning stages. This is before adding green stuff and just trying out ideas:



Here he is roughly finished. I just blu tacked some weapons on him to get a feel for the stance. Green Stuff has been added on the chest to bulk him out a bit and fill in any gaps. I put a regular suit next to him to show off how much more dynamic and bulked out he is compared to a normal XV8:



And finally here he is in his finished "Centurion" build. The pictures unfortunately don't do him justice and the paint work doesn't look as subtle as it does in real life, but you can get the idea.



And from the back:




I don't know if I'll be excited or disapointed when they release a new commander model. I'm sure this fellow will still be in the rotation.

Week 2 "I forgot to take pictures"

Monthly Meet
My group had our first monthly meet for hobby. Just about everyone showed up and there was much painting, modeling and gaming to be had. I'm personally excited that we have most of our upcoming tourney planned out and everyone is on board. I'll be reporting frequently on this as I will be organizing said tournament. I hope someone buys me lunch sometime ;).

No photos you say?
I forgot to take pictures! I bought batteries for my camera and everything so this will be a much sparser post than I had planned. Apologies, but I'll have more pictures up here of basically everything soon enough.

To battle!
There were a few games going on. Kris's Eldar faced off against Orion's marines and from what I saw it was a fun game. Kris took the win by one point in an annihilation scenario. Apparently marines are difficult to kill.
I faced off against Orion's marines as well and had a fun game. He is a great guy to play with and a good sport. It was a pretty standard layout, 4 objectives with a pitched battle deployment. I ironed out the kinks in my list, gave my commander some protection and extra firepower in the form of gun drones and took some kroot and pathfinders, scaling back my suit choices to a single Fireknife (multi-tracker, plasma rifle and missile pod). I had a good starting position, being able to defend two objectives from cover, while the other two were in the open for my opponent to try and take. I took advantage of my kroot's infiltrate and had them infiltrate into the cover that one of the objectives was sitting in. The game went to seven turns and was a solid win for me. I had some luck in the beginning in taking out his dreadnought which was the biggest threat to my vehicles. My other good move was using my pirahna to block his assault marines from hitting my lines. The worst they did was eat my pathfinders, but it showed me the danger of letting the marines get close.

Best moment - seeing my commander lay down torrents of fire and vaporise space marines with AP1/AP2 goodness. The centurion build finally worked with gun drones attached.

Worst moment - Watching space marines shrug off impressive amounts of firepower. Then again, this is almost a "best moment" thing as well :).

Great time overall. Looking forward to the next meet.

Wauggghhhhhhhh!

Showdown against Mekboss.... something or other tonight. Originally planned on facing the space marines, but ended up playing Orks instead! Dawn of War, with each of us choosing an objective in our deployment zone. My opponent rolled first and deployed close up the line, but I seized the initiative! This worked out poorly for me in the end since the night fighting handicapped my impressive Tau guns.
Overall it was a hard fought game on both sides. It really looked like the Orks were going to handily walk away with a victory, but some last minute heroics on my part forced a draw.

Best moment(s) of the game - my phirana's gun drones were incredible. They detached, took out two of the Ork cannons, won two assaults (against gretchin ;) and killed an outflanking deffcopta. Those little guys were heroes.

Worst moment - my commander eating a rokkit on the first turn! I'm sensing a trend here.

Annihilation

Finally got around to playing my first annihilation game since 5th ed came out and I have to say it wasn't as terrible as I had imagined. We played a team game, 2 players to a side, each bringing 750 points to the table. I was worried at the start since we had a lot of kill points to give up, and our deployment was not advantageous, but it turned into a tight game. The game didn't run past the third turn, and my partner and I lost by one point. If the game had gone on I imagine it would have stayed close. Terrific game overall.

Best moment: My partner's shoota boyz out-shooting my crisis suits. Killed a fire dragon down to the exarch in one terrifying burst.

Worst moment: My commander eating a krak missile. I need to learn how to protect him.

Dice lore

Lately I've been reading a lot of strategies that I can use to improve my playing in 40k. I'm of the opinion that the more I know, the more I can bring to the table. Generally this sort of research involves spending time at Advanced Tau Tactica, which any Tau player worth his salt knows about, but I stumbled across a darker realm of 40k theory. Essentially, there are people out there that have developed strategies for fixing their dice rolls for 40k. If you're a fan of any popular 40k podcast, or read forums rabidly, you already know what I'm talking about. Proponents of this train of thought argue that the dice we typically use are not 100% random and the game was in fact designed around people who use dice rolling techniques. I think this is hogwash. 40k isn't a sport in which you develop some physical aptitude for fixing your dice, it's meant to be a fun game and more importantly, build community in this niche hobby. Sure it can get competitive in the realm of tourney's, but ultimately, good tactics will win out over dice every time. I've personally had dice crap out on me in games and still won due to good strategy.

However, if you are really worried about someone loading their rolls, or see them using casino dice (which although random, can be easily manipulated) I suggest you both use the same dice, or use dice shakers.

Week One

Hello there, and welcome to week one. I've been interested in starting a blog on my hobby escapades for some time and blogging in general, so I thought this would be a nice way to scratch that itch. In the near future expect to see updates (and photos) of my current Tau army in construction, reflections on the hobby in general and updates on the small warhammer 40k tourney I'm organizing amongst my friends. Stay tuned, and be sure to give me feedback to improve this space.