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Rules wise, we want to tighten it up a bit, pick an actual edition with our own changes, and put them in writing. While we play friendly games just fine, Taros is likely to be a bit more competitive and I certainly would enjoy that. Plus, like most old time players, I'm always musing over the "Perfect Edition" (for me anyway).
Right now we're looking at 5th edition, 2008:
My rules wish list - spoilered as they are not really Modeling, per se.
Spoiler:
Pg 16 - the decision to run is made during the movement phase. Units moving through terrain may make the decision to run after they see what they roll on their difficult terrain check.
Pg 16 - I loath true line of sight. Area terrain blocks line of sight (not that there will be much of that on Taros) as long as it is as tall as the models in the unit. Units in Area terrain can see and be seen through 6" of it.
Pg 26 - Instant death. I've always felt this is a little too "all or nothing". I prefer "When a model with multiple wounds is takes a wounding hit from a powerful weapon and fails its save, there is a chance it may be fatal. Roll to a die for each point of the weapon's strength exceeds the model's toughness. For every "6" rolled, an additional wound is scored. No saves are taken against these wounds. This would be rough on demon princes and carnifexes, but we won't see many of those on Taros. Or we can give them Eternal Warrior.
P 27 Pistols. "A model may fire a pistol in the close combat phase in place of its normal attacks. However, on a roll of 1 it hits its own unit".
P 30 Blasts. I prefer the Privateer Press blasts with numbered directions around the edge.
Shooting Generally: A grenade throw should be included.
P 31 Sniper weapons. The obvious use of Sniper weapons is to pick off characters, special weapons, etc. Add "Sniper weapons may choose to fire at -1 ballistic skill. If they do so, every to hit roll of 6 is allocated to the model of the firing players choice. Roll to wound and armor saves separately for these shots."
P 35 - Defender Reactions: I prefer some form of overwatch, but not the "hit on 6" business that seems to take a ton of dice rolling for little effect. Some form of "you can set overwatch, but taking a pinning test or moral test (pass or fail) negates it. Takes some thinking though.
P 36. Although the strike first/second dynamic had its points, it always caused some oddities. Replace paragraph 2 with: "Being in cover does not provide as much protection against assault as it does shooting, but it is better than nothing. When models assault into cover, they subtract 1 from their rolls to hit.
Assault Grenades negate the -1 penalty to hit when assaulting into cover.
Well, that is enough for tonight! Now some painting.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hmmm - got carried away there. I can't help it, I am a horrible rules tinker. Really, we should stick to just the most critical changes, those that are important for tau vs imperial guard.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/02/05 12:24:10
Rather than start my own thread I'll sort of hijack this one, as this is for the Taros campaign.
Col Helstrom being a fan of downright sneaky and dirty tactics turned to the Engineseers for advice on making the most effective smoke screens for the imperials on maneuver. The result was the Helsmoker.
Using captured supplies and local light duty trucks the Helsmokers used a special blend of promethium and other detergents the resultant smog was so think it was capable of interfering with even the Tau auspex systems.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hm....needs more tubes.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/07 19:09:24
The Tau had, as was their custom, payed little heed to the rituals and customs of their auxiliaries. Unknown to them, a cancer had begun to spread among them, a taint with its roots in the first Taros War.
The seed of this bitter fruit was Shas'o R'myr.
R'myr had led the first defense of Taros as supreme commander and won a masterful victory. His war would be a template for many other successful campaigns. Yet it would also destroy him. For the victory had come at a price - in the final stages of the war, the imperial Operation Deathblow had resulted in the death of the Etherial Aun'vre under R'myr's direct protection. He was exonerated, yet even so his career was doomed, and for him, the shame would never fade. He drifted from command to command, generally sinking lower and becoming primarily a commander of Auxiliaries. In time he preferred their company to their that of tau, living, eating and... ...worshipping alongside of them. For in the dark places of himself and the galaxy, R'myr had found... ...something. He returned to Taros, joined the Rinn Va, and prepared for his last war.
Here's my current R'myr figure. Not all that thrilled with it, but we will see.
Discipline was a continual headache on Armket. Unlike during the first Taros Campaign, several of the regiments mustered were second rate, with all the attendant problems. Rivalries and boredom led to all sorts of lapses. The commissariat struggled to maintain order. Would the regiments "shake down" when they were embarked for Taros, or would there be long term problems? Provisoner Dree fretted endlessly, but his primary concern was the supply train that had failed so thoroughly in the first war.
The Dawnwater's Edge station was the crown Jewel of Taros - its hope for the future and the anchor of its economy under the Tau. Its beanstalk cables joined Taros and space, heaven and Earth. The Imperial primary battle plan relied on capturing it intact. The Tau were ill prepared and faced with a terrible quandry as the imperial ships raced for the station - destroy it or try to hold? In the end they tried to hold, a perhaps fatal mistake. Everyone who could fight did, aside from personnel too valuable to risk.
Perhaps the most unlikely defenders of the station were the Gauthi. A newly discovered species, they had only recently invented the steam engine, though they had also largely eliminated war from their planet - not a particularly wise move as it turned out. A delegation of several hundred Gauthi were onboard Dawnwater's edge when the imperium struck, and they were pressed into service for the greater good. The Tau simply hoped they might slow the Imperium down, and this they did. Given pulse rifles with the trigger guards torn off, or even lengths of sharpened pipe, they fought with surprising tenacity. They were descended from ambush predators, and their physiology was well suited to defensive fire fights. They were also strong, courageous and surprisingly hard to kill. Most of the Gauthi died on Dawnwater's edge, but at least one later fought on the surface as part of a pathfinder team.
Gauthi defending a makeshift strong point:
Not bad for the conversion of six monopose prepaints, if do say so myself.
Gauthi pathfinder:
Gauthi stats:
WS 2 BS 2 S 4, T 3, I 2, W 1, Ld 9 6+ armor.
Stubborn, Feel no Pain (5+). Gauthi may fire ranged weapons while pinned or gone to ground, but may not move or assault. Gauthi with spears always strike first in the first round of close combat.
Well, I'm sure if you think about it they'll come to mind. : )
Tau Prowler Drone:
The Rinn'va made heavy use of stealthed markerlight platforms, ideally linked with dynamic entry units who would appear suddenly and a launch a devastating markerlight guided attack. In an effort to field as many of these platforms as possible they put into action a number of experimental designs. The prowler was large, wasteful of resources, and limited in its drone intelligence, but none the less saw frequent use.
Thanks - one of my earliest "creative" pieces. Scratch built around a old headphone. It is fairly large - those are devilfish engines on the top and pulse rifles on the bottom. It was meant to represent the forge world tetra. I'll do some better shots with the whole army that will show the scale better at some point.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Now the second to last Xenos Auxiliary - The Kif.
The Kif are thoroughly nasty pieces of work. Nocturnal liquivores, they strongly prefer to consume only living prey and have two sets of teeth, one for puncturing and another for pulping to extract further nutrients. They have, as far as the water caste has been able to determine, no moral code whatsoever, and no motivation beyond personal power over others and survival. It could, charitably, be said that their sadism and greed are simply extensions of this simple survival drive. None the less, the Water Caste of the Rinn'va were able to extract some benefit from interactions with them, though it always required the most careful negotiations. Attempting to get a Kif to do anything is almost impossible - unless you are another Kif. The Kif Hakkitt (overlords) were more than happy to supply mercenaries in exchange for trade goods. The tau were more than willing to expend them in the defense of Taros. The mercenaries themselves went along - until the calculous of survival shifted. The Kif were skillful, vicious, resourceful fighters... ...until they weren't.
Kif
WS 3, BS 3, S 3, T 3, A2 W1 I 4, ld 10, Save 6+
Stealth, Infiltrate, Stubborn, Fleet, Acute Senses, Hit and run, Tank Hunters.
All Kiff attacks (close combat or shooting) will wound on a 6 even if the toughness of the target would normally prevent them from wounding.
A Kif squad is immediately removed from the table (counts as destroyed) if:
They are outnumbered 3 to 1 by enemy models within 12"
They are below half strength and an enemy unit is within 12".
A kiff unit can never be shot at or assaulted by more than one enemy unit per turn - they are just too slippery for that.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/03/02 02:16:55
The last Xenos ally I'm not really sure about - a race of terrible, alien crystal entities housed in flying war machines which spawn hordes of doll sized maniquins. They'd be a chaos breed who were actually laying the ground work for the mutiny. On the other hand, I think they might be too big a departure from the hard, military sci fi we've been going for with Taros -
The Shaltari! I think they look amazing even in 40K games, or at least the big fliers do. Not sure about including the infantry, but I've always thought a tiny, high tech soldier would be deadly. Sure they're only armed with laspistols, but they can fit through a hole a foot high....
Syro_ wrote: Wow, I agree those do look really cool. What are you thinking of using for the infantry, models from Epic?
Actual Shaltari infantry would be about a foot high in 40K terms. I'd actually like to get their "Ronin" who are about double the size, but we'll see.
The ronin are the second row and would come up to about the waist of a 40K fig.
You're right about the menagerie part Captain - I worry it dilutes the "hard sci fi" nature of Taros, but each auxiliary will probably only appear once or twice in the campaign, so I guess it is OK. I kind of didn't realize how many auxiliaries I'd accumulated over the years. For example there are also these guys:
Growlers - basically Ogryns.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Probably something like:
WS 4, BS 2, S5 T4 W 3, I 4 A3 Ld 5, Save 6+
Fearless, Fleet, Reroll their run distance, take up 3 spaces on a Transport.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/03/03 20:28:01
We got in a practice game at 1000 points - a clash on some jungle world the Imperium studied to learn about the Rinn'va Sept.
Broke out my tau army and found that unlike some my stuff, they really had aged well. They still need some love here and there, and some bits were "tournament painted", so there is a fair amount of flat black for example. Still, as group I'm really fond of them.
I remember now that I tried to do my FW squads by activity - one squad is all pointing their pulse rifles, one is running, one is just standing around.
Very fond of this Shas'ui.
And Pathfinders! Love those guys.
Even more than I love Hammerheads, and that is saying something. So many happy memories.
Although I dislike miniatures games with counters that clutter the board (I don't even like to have dice on the table if I can avoid it - what is the point of going through so much time and effort to make the game look beautiful, and then dumping crap all over the set up?), I did enjoy making some tau markers.
Super good work- I've always liked Tau and have had to exercise as much control not to leap into them as I've had for exercising control about Bushido! How do you do the joins in the rifles and armor so neatly? Really nice!
"He fears his fate too much, or his desserts are small, who will not put it to a single touch; to win- or lose- it all."
Thanks! I used a variety of techniques for the armor joints over the years, with varying success - there are others with much cleaner lines than I. I tried flowing ink in using capillary action, black basecoat and then carefully painting up to the edge (the right brush really helps there), and drawing the line in with magic marker.
Nor mine, I don't think. Loved the first Codex. Second Codex (Tau Empire, the one I'm using for Taros) had great rules but lackluster, darker for the sake of darker fluff. After that it was all giant robots and sillieness I wasn't going spring for a $60 book full of.
Our battle was pretty brutal. The tau are just really good tank hunters who match up really well against guard in early editions. We'll need to give some thought to game balance I think.
Using the Ruins and Markerlights, the Hammerheads have the upper hand in the early exchanges.
Until the Vendetta roars on and blows one sky high. Alas, it was taken down by seeker missiles from the pathfinder's devil fish on its next pass. We used the Chapter Approved flyer rules, which are solid IMO.
The Tau tankhunters dropped in with fusion blasters, and though the guard hung on for another two turns, the tainted commander was able to put an end to things.
We're going to do an armored clash with experimental rules next.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I still have a few Tau experimental units to show -
The Kraken Gunship - a hybrid devilfish/hammerhead that carries 6 troops.
The Sea Horse MultiRole Drone Platform - kind of hard to explain and I still need to do some work on them.
The XV 45 Nighthaunt - a low end cut rate Ghostkeel. I have one painted though I think I will convert it a bit, and one more that I could finish.
Sureeye Monat Snipers.
I'm fighting the urge to build some kind of flyer and get a Ghostkeel. I did just buy a Pirhanna in a moment of weakness.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/03/09 00:50:07
Finished Forge World Elysian Army 
Finished Tau Sept Cadre 
Finished Ork Waaagh | 
Alaitoc Eldar Warhost 
Finished Order of Our Martyred Lady - Sisters of Battle 
Finished Necromundian Imperial Guard Regiment 
Something about it really appeals to me. Is it scratchbuilt? Also just how big is it?
