Faeit 212 taken down

Just a quick post to let everyone know that Faeit 212 has been taken down by google over a dmca takedown notice by GW: here.

Apparently, there were a couple of scans of the not-yet-released White Dwarf with High Elf pictures on the site, which resulted in the takedown of a post on his blog. It is currently unclear if the fact that the entire blog is offline is also a result of this.

Natfka himself has posted a short video response to the problems of his blog.

Stay tuned for updates!

Next batch of Tau

Where we left off on saturday

This is where I left off on saturday. The armor, undersuit and mechanical components were done.
All of this, excluding airbrushed black basecoat, took me about 40 minutes.

Let's see what happened after that...

WTF? - Dark Angels Deathwing Terminators

Tactical
These guys benefit from the fact that they can take a mixture of ranged and close combat weaponry. Don't take them as purely close combat terminators with thunder hammers (you're not taking lightning claws, right?), you have Deathwing Knights for that, instead, take 1 in 3 as a Thunderhammer wielding Storm Shield. Add an assault cannon for mid-field duties or a cyclone missile launcher for back-field objective sitting.
(4 with storm bolters, sarge with power weapon, 3 power fists, 1 thunderhammer/storm shield + cyclone: 250p)

Troops
Better yet, take Belial or Azrael and field these guys as Troops. Plonk a squad on every objective in your deployment zone and watch your opponent squirm. Remember, these guys have split fire, so you can shoot the Cyclone at a vehicle while unloading the Storm Bolters on some infantry.
(Belial, 2x Tactical Terminator squad: 690p)

Deathwing Assault Bomb
Take Belial and a squad of 10 Terminators. Get 3 thunder hammer/storm shield guys for protection against low AP weapons. Add in 2 assault cannons.
Use Deathwing Assault and Belial's Tactical Precision rule to deep strike where needed most. Obliterate something with Vengeful Strike rerolls the turn you drop in.
Subsequent turns, you can use the split fire rule to shoot one storm bolter at the target you want to assault and point a barrage of storm bolter and assault cannon fire in the direction of another. Bloodbath guaranteed!
(Belial + 10 terminators, 2 assault cannons, 3 TH/SS: 685p)

Conclusion
Last couple of battles, I took the Deathwing Assault bomb (with squad sizes ranging from 6 to 10) and they haven't failed me yet. I really like the raw hitting and staying power of this unit. It is however a bit of an "eggs in one basket" thing in battles of 1500 points.

How do you use your Deathwing dudes?

Weekend Thoughts - Hobby time and Kroot

The weekend has come and gone again. For some people, it was filled with hobby goodness and tales of glorious victories or ignominious defeats on the tabletop battlefields...

For me? Not so much.

Tau Progress - now with picture!

While waiting for a World of Tanks update to install, I did some more painting on the next batch of Tau.

Tau progress

Hi there and welcome to a small post about my progress.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to take any pictures so this will be a text update only.

Just wanted to let you know that I started painting on the next batch of Tau models: 2 firewarriors, a gun drone and a stealth suit. The reason I do a mix of miniatures is to keep things fresh... try painting 5 space marines in a batch... it gets tedious.

The undercoat was already done so i could immediately start with the highlighting and tinting of the armor. The highlights took me about 15 minutes and the violet coloring of the armor took about 30 minutes for the 2 coats of wash. That was fast! Especially since I still needed to figure out what parts of the stealth suit needed to be violet.

Afterwards, I just played some World of Tanks since the wash needed to dry anyway...

Next stage is doing the undersuit using Sepia wash (VGC, as always) and the mechanical parts need to be dulled down from their drybrush highlight, so they get a thinned down black wash. After that, it's detailing work...

I'll try to get some pictures up this weekend.

How fast is your paintjob?

First Tau 100% done

You know the drill... this is were we left off...

So last night, I got a little bit more work done and I can finally say my first Tau are completely, 100% done. I'm happy :D

WTF? - Tau Pathfinders

Cheap markerlights
Pathfinders are the easiest way to get large amounts of markerlights in your army for a relatively low price. Each and every one of them has one by default, in addition to a pulse carbine, mind you.
(6 dudes with markerlights: 66p)

Medium range firepower
They have the option of taking some prototype drones and the one that really shines for me is the pulse accelerator drone. +6" on pulse weaponry. Those carbines just went from 18" to 24" range, making them strictly better than Storm Bolters (S5 to S4).
(10 dudes + pulse accelerator: 125p)

Hunters
Give them some upgraded weaponry in the form of ion or rail rifles and they can even ruin vehicles in the side or rear, instakill Nid warriors or raveners, hurt high T targets or heavy infantry.
(4 dudes with 3 ion rifles: 74p)

All round
Add in Darkstrider and your pulse rifles suddenly are (effectively) S6, making them wound MCs on 4s and marines on 2s... not bad if you ask me, but this does get expensive if you take some more options in the form of pulse-accelerator and/or special rifles.
(10 dudes + darkstrider: 210p)

Conclusion
I would probably field:
A cheap markerlight squad + a hunter squad.
OR
An all round squad fully kitted out.

Thoughts? Experiences?

WTF? - Intro

Allow me to introduce a new post series: WTF?

It's short for "What to field?"... did you think it was something else?

After reading the new Tau Empire Codex and reading some people's 'review' of the units online, I wanted to give you all my opinion about what units and combinations can be fielded. This will not be limited to Tau only.

In no way is this a complete guide, nor is it guaranteed to give you an unbeatable unit or army. This is purely meant for me to voice my opinion on different units and how I might be fielding them...

These will be presented in the NanoPosttm format. Concise and to the point.

Expect some of these posts to show up soon!

Tau advancement (in painting)

Shas'la S'mik in all his singular glory... but see those shy dudes at the back?

Welcome back dear readers!
Today, we will review the progress we have made in our painting session of yesterday... admittedly, the painting session wasn't long because World of Tanks beckoned me to get some xp...

But...

Weekend thoughts - New releases and Cosplay

Hobby-wise, not much happened this weekend. It seems that a new iteration of the Eldar is soon to be upon us but since I don't have a regular Eldar opponent, it's not that big of a deal.

Join up for the Greater Good - Part 3: New Stuff

As a follow-up to my previous Tau army-building post, where I outlined what I have model-wise and how the army would work using the new Codex, this post contains what I would add to it to bring it up to 1500 pts and (of course) make it better... theoretically.

Concept Tau Firewarrior - Part 3: basing + Rant

This is where we left off...

Welcome to the final part of my Shas'la S'mik painting concept.

Yesterday, I had a PPP (Peer Pressure Painting) session with a friend of mine who just started the hobby and bought the limited edition Dark Vengeance (in Dutch... Duistere Wraak) box.
He had no idea where to start painting his models, so he needed me to give him some pointers.

I didn't have the chance to do much, but I did manage do try my hand at a desert base for S'mik.

Concept Tau Firewarrior - Part 2

This is where we left off...

I continued work on Shas'la S'mik yesterday, taking into account the suggestions made by EllisW in the comments of the previous post.

Join up for the Greater Good - Part 2: into 6th edition!

After reading the new Codex cover to cover and reading some opinions online, this is what I came up with to bring my current collection of Tau miniatures onto the 6th edition 40k tabletop.

Beware: none of this is playtested!

In a previous post I outlined my collection of Tau minis. This is a condensed version of that list:

• 1 XV8 Commander
• 1 XV8 Crisis suit
• 3 Stealth suits
• 12 Fire warriors
• 12 Kroot
• 1 Devilfish
• 1 Hammerhead
• 2 Broadsides
• Assortment of drones, mostly of the gun variant

Concept Tau Firewarrior

With the arrival of the new Codex Tau Empire, my (creative) juices started flowing and I just needed to have a new color scheme. The current color scheme is too red for my tastes and the only completely painted model in the army is (unfortunately) my hammerhead... What's the best way to get paint off of a tank?

So in this post, I will show you what I have in mind for my Tau.

Codex Tau Empire - First thoughts (style, fluff, pictures)

This was the first weekend with some actually nice weather, so life got in the way of the hobby. The garden needed some TLC, the pond was in need of a good spring cleaning and we had to find out if the BBQ still worked.

... and if the new Palm beer is any good... it is!

I did however, get some reading done, although not as much as I had hoped. These are my first thoughts about the stuff I have seen in the codex.

Nanopost - Tau Codex

Just a quick post to let everyone know I got my copy of Codex Tau Empire in the mail today... *I am a happy camper*.

Now I can start fiddling with options to get my old Tau army onto the 6th edition battlefield and what's even better... deciding what to get next :D

For the Greater Good!

Join up for the Greater Good - Part 1: Why?

The new Tau Empire Codex has been released and this has prompted me to reboot my Tau army.

This post details the current state of my Tau collection and how I got to this point, both with my force and with why I want to reboot them.

Hive Fleet Ozymandias

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

They're coming for you

Tau Empire models Part 3 - Bits and Bobs

Welcome back to the third part of this series: "What does Cheatah think about the new Tau models?"

Today, we will take a look at a couple of models that were left in the cold in the previous posts.

I couldn't find a relevant image, so I googled "bits and bobs" and found this:

Your friendly neighborhood squigs?

RE: Mechanicus Adeptus

Just a short reaction to Faeit 212's post today about the Adeptus Mechanicus.

See Natfka's original post here

As we can all see, GW is more and more trending towards bigger kits. Where before, they wanted us to buy more and more, now they want us to buy bigger and bigger (and more).

So I can really see this happening in the not-too-distant future, allowing you to buy a 1500p army using only a small amount of huge kits with a small amount of smaller kits to fill out the remaining points.

This way, the threshold for people starting yet another army is lowered. In my opinion, it's easier to convince someone to buy 3 large boxes of stuff than it is to convince them to buy 12 small boxes of stuff, even if it costs the same amount of money for the same amount of points in-game.

Will I be buying the XV104 Riptide for my Tau army that hasn't seen the tabletop for over 3 years? Probably, yes... even inspiring me to continue buying stuff to flesh out the army.

I see the same trend (albeit in a smaller scale) with my Dark Angels as well. I decided to start a Deathwing-focussed force, just because the amount of models needed to play is low (and I told myself and my significant other that the Deathwing is not a new army... noooo, it's part of my Dark Angels force... of course I will be fielding 20+ terminators in a DA army at 1500p...)

Concept "Legion of Rust" Chaos Marine - Part 2

Remember brother Smik?

This is how Smik looked after part 1

Just after this picture, I painted the base black, just to get an overall look at the model. What is missing, what is too much etc.

And then during the weekend I added some extra paint to brother Smik.

Tau Empire models Part 2 - New stuff

Welcome to part 2 of the "What does Cheatah think about the new Tau models" series. Today, I'll be spewing my thoughts on the completely new models that are released this weekend.

BTW: while typing up the previous post and seeing how great the new XV88 looked, I decided to order a copy of the new Tau codex for myself. That way I can start thinking about army builds and all the new possibilities for GW to shut up and take my money.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

My little friend

Nothing quite like starting off with a little in-joke: "Say hello to my little friend" was Cheatah's reaction when I showed him my converted Hive Tyrant (who's guns are, admittedly, a bit too large - the conversion works a lot better on the winged variant).

The second part of the joke, is of course that I too, am the "little friend," to Cheatah that is. So the post title sort of doubles as an instruction for you to say hello to me. Yes, I'm sure explaining my jokes makes them better!

Tau Empire models Part 1 - Remakes

The new Tau Empire codex and models are going to be released on saturday, so I thought I'd post some of my thoughts about the new models.

Disclaimer: This is just, like, my opinion man...

If you don't agree, feel free to let me know in the comments!

Concept "Legion of Rust" Chaos Marine

Whenever I start a new army or want to try a new color scheme, I paint a test-mini first. I'm sure a lot of people do this so that's nothing special.

We usually call this practice: "painting brother Smik", as seen in the superb webcomic Turn signals on a land raider. This webcomic had been running for a while, but was abandoned by it's creator somewhere in 2010 due to budget problems. While writing this blog-entry I went to check on the site again and seems he has posted a few new comics... I never would've found out if I hadn't started this blog, so hurray :D

Anyway, on with the order of the day...
So I painted a brother Smik for my "Legion of Rust" CSM and wasn't quite happy with it.

Meh... only picture I took of Brother Smik apparently

Nurgle marines army list

As the first post with actual content, I will give you a look into my latest brainchild: the concept army list I will be working towards with my new Nurgle Chaos marines: The Legion of Rust.

This will primarily be a fluffy list created to appease father Nurgle. This will allow me to call down the favor of His Mighty Pestilential One in any battles I will fight with this list.

I had some requirements since this is a Death Guard spinoff:
- As many footsloggers as possible
- Squad sizes of multiples of 7, the holy number of his Nurgleness
- If at all possible, an army consisting of 7 squads