First Contact: Tau

My second game was at around 750 points against a Tau opponent. It was a friendly match and we didn't follow all of the Eternal War rules. His HQ unit was Aun'Va. An observer pointed out that he wasn't a legal choice in games under 1500 points.but it was still a chance to see how things would turn out.

Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War
I won the roll and elected to deploy second. My opponent set up in a line so my troops were literally walking into a firing squad. My plan was to try and focus all of my units on the right flank and take out the HQ. The special rules for Aun'Va indicated that if he fell the remaining troops would have to take a morale check. It seemed to be the only hope as it was too late to switch in a Land Raider. I broke my units into combat squads so the heavies wouldn't have to move.

Turn 1
I had positioned Faustus in the front to absorb incoming shots with his +2 save. It worked in that he absorbed ~50 shots and only took 1 wound. Unfortunately I also lost by vet/sergeant with the power sword.
On my move the rocket launcher and plasma cannons took out 4 Tau while Faustus and company ran forward. I didn't get the melee elements of my tactical squads far enough up on this turn.

Turn 2
Faustus falls to the heavy sustained fire from the entire Tau line. After he fell most of the squad was wounded leaving only Vitus standing.
On my move I had an ultimate, lucky shot from the plasma canon: it missed and scattered right into Aun'Va! He failed to save and was instantly killed! It was great. Unfortunately, however, all of his units passed their morale checks.
Next, the sole surviving member of my HQ command squad, Brother Vitus, charged into the remains of Aun'Va's honor guard and killed 2 xenos causing a route. As they retreated he destroyed the remaining 25 units with his sweeping advance. Wow!

The remainder of the game I pushed forward and eliminated the stealth suit unit as my numbers fell.

Tau: 7 victory points including First Blood and Slay the Warlord
Ultramarines: 3 victory points including Slay the Warlord

Takeaways:
As I've read and now seen you need to move up and melee Tau as soon as possible. Transports, drop pods, and/or deep strike or fast attack would have helped a lot but was hard to get in at 750 points. I wonder if it would have been different if I had moved first and/or he had brought a legal HQ.

Story:
----

Aun'Va, Master of the Undying Spirit, proponent of the Greater Good, is a xeno abomination in the eyes of the Emperor. Purgation would not be straight forward commander. Our simulations indicate that their numbers make them quite formidable even if their stature and technology are less robust.
As weak as the xenos appear, our simulations also indicate that their will may not be assuredly broken with the loss of their spiritual leader Aun'Va in a direct assault. Indeed, the sight of their fallen leader is just as likely to inspire their troops to find some courage.
Primius, it is recommended we deploy assault squads and drop troops directly onto the enemy. At range they have hope thus a direct crushing blow from the fist of the Emperor is necessary to insure
victory.
ANALYSIS TECHMARINE GUSTOV ILODIES
COMPLETE 4043013.M42

Rogue Trader Speeders

I love the original Rogue Trader era Land Speeder. It was basically 2 space marines strapped to 2 giant engines buzzing across the battlefield. In the later versions of the model Games Workshop seemed to take the humor out of the design without adding anything to make it seem to fit in the "grim darkness" of the far future in an imperium that is in the dark ages of technology. The newer versions of the model look like flying shoes.

But the classic version is where it is at! These are some of the very first models I collected. One was also assembled a long time ago by my dad when we were working on them together and I had given him some of my collection for his army. I remember he actually used a torch to weld some of it together and it melted the seat and the engine a bit behind the pilot! Ha!

Later on when it was clear we wouldn't finish them that way I took that army back which is about half of my collection of marines. A few years ago I assembled the second speeder but left the riders off to make painting easier. I got as far as a base coat of blue which is where I picked them up here.

I wanted to go with a bit of a rougher look on the paint job because a) it would be easier b) it is really hard to find examples of good paint jobs for these on line and c) I thought it would give a good Rogue Trader black and white sketch feeling to them. I even found the exact art I was thinking of that inspired me. I think it was actually from one of the White Dwarf compilation books.

Anyway, I'm really happy with the freehand chapter symbols and the engines turned out better than I thought. Wasn't sure what to do with them but I came up with the look while working on the "lava" power swords. I also was happy with how the green computer display and gun camera lenses turned out. Finally I was a bit disappointed with how blue they ended up being so I tried to add a little gold into one of the searchlights? That is on the front. Maybe I'll come back and add more gold trim later but for now they are ready for games!

Painting Power Swords!

I'm pretty excited to show this one off, it was quite successful. This is the first power sword that I've done. Originally I was thinking I would make the blade look like it was very hot like an oven element. Then I was thinking I wanted something that looked like extreme heat on just the edges. Ultimately I went a different direction though because a) the hot blade just looks hot not like power and b) didn't see any good how-to examples.

I did a google image search to see what other folks were doing. Looks like a lot of people like a lightning style with either blues, purple, or sometimes green. I also found one in red that looked a little like lava or magma and I immediately liked it. Also, red is one of the secondary colors in my army so off I went trying to reproduce it.

First step I tried a new technique I found online called "glazing.". For this I took one part of the bright red color and about 3 or 4 parts of the blending medium plus some water and made a very thin glaze. Next I applied coat after coat to the blade first doing 100% of the blade, waiting for it to dry, then painting 95% etc. the goal was to make it look like an energy glow coming from the contact on the blade surface so each layer of paint would do the % for that layer around that point. It worked pretty well, had to put the model up to the lamp to get the paint to dry faster. Usually the slow dry from the blending medium is good, but here it was slowing me down a bit.

Next I freehand painted on the "lightning" starting first with dark red up to bright red, then orange, then then yellows, and finally a little white. The trick is to get thinner lines by orange and then start only doing spots in the most concentrated areas for the brightest colors. By the time you get to white which is really high energy it should just be a few dots.

I like how it turned out and am looking forward to doing a power axe the same way.

Found via Google Images and it appears to be from chestofcolors.com, used without permission.

Results after numerous layers of Blood Red glaze.  Each layer would extend from the little contact in the center of the blade by lesser and lesser amounts.

I'd hold the blade up to my lamp to speed up the drying process since I use a blending medium.

This is the first layer of the 'lightning' with Scab Red.  Used a thicker line which is important.

Next layer on the lightning with Blood Red.  I may have used Red Gore. Again the lines are thicker.

This layer is Blazing Orange, I started using a thinner line.  I could have graduated the lines better, but on my first try I ended up with just 2 thicknesses with the step here at orange.

It's starting to really come together, this was golden yellow.  The color is now applied only in the 'hot spots.'

Sunburst Yellow in even lesser quantities.

I did a layer that was a mix of Sunburst Yellow and Skull White in the very hottest spots.

I of course did the other side of the blade.  You can't quite see all of it due to the shadow but actually I think the lightning pattern was better on this side.

Finally I did some spots of pure Skull White since the mix was still too yellow.  It was literally only 3 or 4 spots.