Start A Revolution

In a world... 

Where Tabletop Games are dominated by ugly CAD models... and shitty metaplots... 

When your tabletop characters and armies are no longer your own...

ONE MAN.... will take a stand... 

And say NO MORE to modern GW... 

THIS SUMMER...

From the creator of Symphonic/Folk metal elves... 

Comes a sequel seven years in the making... 

And so it begins - my return to 40k. I always knew this day would come.

You may not know it from reading this blog, but the Tau in Warhammer 40,000 were the first ever tabletop army I properly started. Since then they have always been one of my favourite factions in Battlefleet Gothic, but since around 2010 or so I've neglected the army in favour of building up the Tau fleet in Battlefleet Gothic that I've posted about on here. The last few years, when my tabletop capacities have really taken off, were focused on Battlfleet Gothic and Warhammer Fantasy (don't I have the best luck when it comes to picking tabletop games?), leaving 40k to languish on the back-burner.

This all changed a few days ago when I started on a long-awaited massive rearmament program to totally modernise my ground-sloggers.

To start with, let's go back a bit and take a look at where it all started, with this guy.

A metal XV15 Stealthsuit Shas'vre (plus his faithful gun drone) - and the first Warhammer 40,000 model I ever owned and painted, when I was 8 years old.

This wasn't the first tabletop model I owned and painted. I had been collecting Lord of The Rings models in the form of the old Lord of The Rings Battle Strategy Game magazine series by DeAgsostini, (what a fantastic stroke of brilliance that was), but those were only ever meant to be a stepping stone to 40k, something to practice on until I got to the models I was really after.

Thus, I consider this to be the official start of my journey into 40k and tabletop games. He came from my first ever trip to a GW store, which in those days was conveniently located just downstairs from my optometrist at the time. I had been doing some research beforehand (read: spending hours on the GW and Forgeworld webpages ogling all the gorgeous Tau models displayed on there and ravenously devouring every scrap of information about the Tau I could find on there), so I already had a good idea of what my first model was going to be, the one GW kit (not Forgeworld) that had so far captured my admiration and imagination more than any other - a Hammerhead Gunship. Extrapolating from Forgeworld (which I did not know at the time was a separate subsidiary of GW and not usually stocked in stores), back when Forgeworld still listed normal GW kits on its website, I initially assumed that the Hammerhead would be a relatively small model no larger than a Rhino, and with a cost of around $25. You can perhaps then imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was in fact a massive $72 beast of a kit, which put it squarely in birthday and Christmas gift territory. This disappointed me somewhat, especially when my plan B - a Broadside Battlesuit - also proved to be out of financial reach at $55, but that was quickly forgotten as I started my first introductory game of 40k, commanding 6 Firewarriors against 3 Chaos Space Marines. It was a quick victory as I ended up shooting one or two to death and then beating the remainder in close combat with zero casualties sustained (I still have lingering suspicions that the staff member opposing me might have fudged the results somewhat to get me more enthusiastic about it), and then ended up walking out of the store with the models posted above after being allowed to get "One little thing" from the shelf of blister packs. My primitive childhood reasoning for choosing them was simple - I loved the Firewarriors (remember the Fire Warrior artwork that first got me interested in the Tau), so naturally when I saw a Firewarrior with a Gatling gun I picked him. I was wild with excitement when I got home and actually read the label on the blister pack to find that I was in fact now the proud owner of a Tau Stealthsuit - a Firewarrior with a Gatling gun, a jetpack, a robot sidekick AND he can turn invisible? Hell Yes! Even now I'm still very fond of Stealth Teams.

In addition to the Stealthsuit, I also went home with a Citadel Paint set, which went on to serve me well for over a decade - in fact I still use some of the paints from it to this very day. The Stealtsuit went through several changes in colour scheme over the years. You can see the colour scheme he was originally painted with on the gun drone, and it was a crude attempt to recreate the Fire Warrior cover artwork that was so compelling - my child logic was that I wanted an army of troops just like the one on the Fire Warrior cover, and that one was wearing yellow armour, and I had a pot of Sunburst Yellow from the paint set, so naturally I should paint my new models yellow, with some red optics. I then spent the next two nights lavishing Sunburst yellow on the two models until I was satisfied with the coverage. The end result can be best described as a pair of mostly yellow blobs, but I was still very happy with the results. This continued to be how the Stealtsuit looked until one day after school I suddenly thought to myself "You know what would look really cool? A gold Tau army! Think about it, an entire army of high-tech Tau in solid gold! Gold is cool and high-tech, and lots of cool ancient cultures had gold everywhere, and they looked cool, so I should make my Tau GOLD!"

It never occurred to me at the time that this would have resulted in my army all looking like C-3PO, so I rushed home and immediately painted all the Tau models I had at the time (3 of them) in a full coat of Shining Gold over a Mithril Silver base. I eventually converted most of them back to what would become the colour scheme I settled on, but this guy remained gold for a bit longer before I finally decided to get serious and painted him in the crude attempt to recreate the GW studio stealthsuits that you see today.

The Drone was lost down the back of the desk I did my hobby work on back then, and so was spared the many colour scheme revisions I made. I no longer remember whether the orangeish-tanish splotches were an attempt to paint over the yellow areas with Vomit Brown, or if I just put so much Sunburst Yellow on it that it ended up looking that way. There was originally a second pulse carbine on it, but that has since been lost to time along with the flying stand that I foolishly decided to glue it onto. Working without any kind of assembly instructions, I was confused about which way to stick the antenna on - I had faint memories of seeing it pointing backwards on the back of a Firewarrior box, but then seeing the artwork on page 60 of the Tau codex (which included a gun drone with the jetpack exhaust facing forwards and the antenna away from it) threw me off, causing me to end up gluing the antenna on the wrong way. You will be glad to know that I did not make the same mistake again.

At some point in the past the other antenna on the Stealthsuit's jetpack broke off. I think I might still have it somewhere, but never attempted to glue it back on again.

Now, let's come back to the present and see what 13-14 years of experience and progress (like learning to actually layer colours) can do. 

This is the first of my revamped Tau army, a Firewarrior test model. The colour scheme I am going with is the same one I attempted to recreate when I first started a Tau army - the classic T'au desert camouflage scheme. This project is to be a homage to and celebration of the old Tau army I first fell in love with as much as it is a renovation and modernisation.

Thus, the process I used was almost exactly the same one described in Codex: Tau, substituting in newer colours for those no longer available. I had originally planned to follow the process as described to the letter, but eventually found out (as I had already discovered when building my Wood Elves) that even the older GW painting instructions are a lot like the cooking recipes my grandmother used to share - an accurate general set of instructions, but they don't tell you everything you need to know, missing out one or two key details that are on the 'Evy Metal examples. To compensate I added an extra stage of highlights - Ungor Flesh for the armour and Steel Legion Drab for the undersuit, and applied the same process used for the Battlesuit mechanical areas on the darker areas of the gun and backpack. The other final details were relatively straightforward, and this is one of the very few models I've ever painted that I'm genuinely happy with - I still have trouble believing that the highlights and jewelling on the helmet were done by my own hands.

All in all, I'd say I've come a long way since the days when yellow blobs roamed the earth. Now to see what I can do with a full army...

Autumn

 And now to begin this blog with what is fast becoming my favourite part of the tabletop hobby - reminiscing about old books.

 I actually got most of the above books for Christmas, but in typical me fashion I completely forgot about them when I came to write the last post. Once again, the nearby second-hand bookstore proved a goldmine, yielding two (well ok, 1.5 really) Warhammer 40,000 codexes and a 6th edition Warhammer Army Book.

The 3rd edition Codex: Eldar represents the first 'true' early 3rd edition codex in my possession (as opposed to the Tyranid codex, which is really closer to a 3.5 edition book in most regards), though not the first one I have encountered at that store - that title belongs to the 3rd edition Ork codex I was never able to get. Interestingly, the 3rd edition Eldar Codex was also the first codex outside of the 3rd edition Tau codex that I ever looked through, making it the second codex I ever looked through, ever.

At the time, I was very impressed by it, considering it a truly worthy gamebook that any Eldar player should be proud to use. It certainly seemed a lot larger and more comprehensive then, but overall my opinion about it hasn't changed, and it's probably my favourite Eldar book I've encountered so far. It still has what I think is one of the best cover art for a 40k codex, a piece that does a brilliant job of reflecting both the wondrous sprawling space fantasy epic and the more sinister and malevolent sides of the Craftworld Eldar, and the book itself is full of amazing artwork, including a number of suitably bizzare Blanche pieces (incidentally I've also noticed a lot of John Blanche artwork in the other early 3rd edition 40k books I've come across - it seems that there was a particular drive to promote that style of 40k at the time). There's also some fantastic background material (I think my favourite is a long speech from a captured Ranger that starts out praising Eldrad Ulthran but slowly devolves into a venomous screed against his/her human captors) and a colour section giving collecting advice and painting tips.

Early 3rd edition 40k books often get a bad reputation, with many people considering them too short and bare-bones ('pamphlets' is a common derogatory slur levelled their way), but really I honestly don't see what the problem is. Yes, the early 3rd edition 45-pagers are a little short, and I certainly wouldn't say no to more little short stories and what not (after all, my favourite 40k codexes, the 3.5 generation, are full of that stuff), but really they're small but perfectly formed, and I can't think of anything more that I'd really need from one. Maybe I'm not greedy?

Perhaps most importantly of all however, this book and its companion supplement managed to do something that no other book has ever done before - get me excited about starting an Eldar army. Reading through these two books finally made me 'click' and understand the appeal of the Eldar, in much the same way that the Witchhunters codex made me click and get the Imperium. If it were not for the current circumstances regarding 40k and GW, I know exactly what kind of Eldar army I'd build and would hardly be able to wait to get started on it. However, at present I will never end up building it, or any of the other 40k armies I had planned. GW (and pretty much the entire Tabletop industry, for that matter) just seems to be going in a direction I can't follow or enjoy.

Oh well, it's not like I would have been able to afford it at any rate.

I think I mentioned it before in an earlier post, but the supplement Codex: Craftworld Eldar was one of those 40k books I never really understood the purpose of when I first got into 40k - the Craftworld Eldar already had a codex, why do they need a second one? The answer only came years later through internet readings and a closer inspection. It provides some extra background information and hobby advice for Eldar players, as well as 5 variant army lists for major important Craftworlds (Iynaden, Saim-Hann, Alaitoc, Biel-Tan and Ulthwe), and is best viewed as an extension and part of the 3rd edition Eldar codex (funnily enough, if you were to combine the two you would get roughly the same page length as a 3.5 edition codex). What's most striking about it though, is the model photographs. The Craftworld supplement was clearly published at least a few years after the Eldar codex, as it shows the Eldar model range as it was during the later part of 3rd edition, when it had finished maturing into the 3rd edition model range that I remember. Gone are the 2nd edition Guardians, with their chain-mail undersuits. Gone are the 2nd edition Dark Reapers with their conical helmets. In their place are a new wave of Eldar models that would define the Eldar aesthetic for the rest of 40k's lifespan. The Eldar range at this point in time is probably my favourite, with a good blend of both old and 'new'. Indeed, most of my favourite Eldar models come from this period (with the rest coming slightly before).

This one came as a pleasant surprise to me. It is the 6th edition Lizardmen army book for Warhammer, and in very good condition. The Lizardmen have always been somewhat intriguing to me, and I flirted with the idea of starting with them in Warhammer from time to time, but ultimately settled on Wood Elves in the end. I still find them a fascinating part of Warhammer, and this book still has my curiosity piqued. It is the first Lizardmen army book I have been able to really get to grips with, but it certainly does not disappoint, especially with all the characterful 6th edition trimmings in it such as variant army lists for Southlands Lizardmen and the legendary Sacred Spawnings. Like other 6th edition books, I've found its magic item selection somewhat lacking, in that nothing really resonates with me like the magic items in the 6th edition Wood Elf and Bretonnian books, though like the other 6th edition books I've found the magic item selection is nonetheless perfectly serviceable. There's also a whole bunch of fun lore, including a schematic of a Temple City.

The crown jewel in the lineup, however, is this.

That is, of course, a copy of the 3rd edition Warhammer 40,000 core rulebook. I thought I had lost my chance to own one forever when the copy in the Second Hand Bookstore vanished, but either they had a second copy brought in or the one I found was never bought at all and simply went into storage, because there it was when I walked in, nestled discretely amongst a shelf of sci fi and horror art books. It is a softcover, version, which lines up with what I have heard, as it would appear it never received a hardcover print run, unlike the later rulebooks that are its direct descendants. It is an open question as to whether this one came from a starter box or not - from what I have read it would appear that the 3rd edition core rules were never sold outside of the starter box, and yet I swear I can distantly recall seeing 3rd edition core rulebooks being sold on their own at multiple legitimate locations. It bears a strong resemblance to the 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy rulebook that is its direct contemporary, with a largely identical content layout and the same display of complete 2nd edition model ranges, with no sign of the glorious Silver Age models that would be destined to follow it.

The important thing though, is that it is the crucial piece I needed in order to play games of Warhammer 40,000 in one of my two favourite editions, the legendary 3.5 era. It seems that it is missing some later rules additions, the most egregious one to me being a total lack of access points on transport vehicles (they are essentially all open-topped for the purposes of disembarking passengers, regardless of how impossible it would be to exit them from a given direction), so I will likely have to hunt down some Chapter Approved annual collections as well for the full 3.5 experience, but it is a big step forward nonetheless. And in the meantime I still have the 4th edition core rules to use...

As well as all this fun with the best years of GW, I also painted up these Glade Guard for my Wood Elf army.

This is the fourth and final regiment of Glade Guard in the army, Forever Autumn, proving that I don't just shamelessly rip my unit names from Symphonic and Folk metal - I rip them from funkitronic 70's sci-fi rock operas too. Not only is it the last Glade Guard unit for the army, it's also the last core unit - all of the core choices in the main Wood Elf force I envisioned are now finished (always a good thing when building an army). It's also the last plastic kit for my Wood Elves - from here on out, everything left to do is in glorious, glorious metal.

It's been fun relaxing in the Enchanted Forrest and roaming the lands of fantasy this last month, but now I find myself looking up at the night sky again. War calls in the future, and I'm now gearing up for one of the big projects I have for this year (actually last year, but then 2016 happened). With the tabletop hobby crashing down in flames all around me, I'm going back to where it all began.


I have work to do...

The Great White Fleet

Finishing off the last of my Battlefleet Gothic Tau from yesteryear is this wave of Forgeworld attack craft models.

It turns out I actually bought more Barracudas then I thought I had. Originally my plan was to just cover the attack craft compliment of the two Hero class starships and maybe the orbitals, but upon further examination I found I actually had gained all the fighter stands my fleet would ever realistically need (Though there'd still be a shortage of Mantas).

This also marks the first appearance of blue trims in the fleet. As you can see if you dig back far enough in the thread, my plan with the fleet was to differentiate ship configurations by colour - ships in the standard configuration (Vash'ya for Explorers, Kel'shan for Merchants and so on) would get a red trim, while ships in a variant configuration (Bork'an for Explorers, Dal'yth for Merchants and so on) would bet a blue trim instead, and command elements like the flagship would have a green trim. Unfortunately the untimely demise of the Specialist Games meant that I was never able to get all the ships I wanted (for reference, the fleet I have now is about half the size of my initial vision), which means that there currently aren't any capital ships that are in any variant configurations, so everyone has red markings except for the flagship and its attached escorts. Like I said though, I actually picked up enough fighters to fill out the launch bays on the extra ships I never got, and I do plan on opportunistically expanding my fleet further with whatever comes my way on Ebay and other places, so I painted up a few blue squadrons just in case. I painted one squadron with a green trim too to represent my attack craft commander, B'Aloh.

And with it, my Tau fleet is more or less finished. 

It's still not fully done. There's a second Custodian I'll be painting at some point, and I have plans to make some celestial phenomena at some point. I also will be writing background stuff for every ship and escort squadron. But the bulk of the work is now done. 

Space has been great and all, but I think now I'm ready to come back to my enchanted forest for a bit now. That administrative work won't do itself you know. 

Merchant Madness

Ok GW, I take it back, I stand corrected. That is now three good things you have done recently. 

My local GW store was giving these away for free on... Wednesday (it would have been Boxing Day, but Christmas was on a Sunday and the store is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays) for free if you made a sufficiently large purchase. Apparently they were officially sent out from GW HQ itself and were presumably distributed to other GW stores as well as an officially sanctioned giveaway. It's a complementary bag of loose bits (y'know, just like the old White Dwarf subscription bonuses the Mail Order Trollz used to put together), and it is the most rock thing they have ever given away at a special occasion since the giffle bundles I've showcased before on here (which I estimate to have given me a rough total of 1000 pts of free Tau overall). The standout best inclusion in it by far is an almost-complete metal Daemonhunters Inquisitor (he's missing a hand and a base, but that's easy to solve), the very same one in fact that I've wanted for years for an Ordo Hereticus conversion I had planned. 

Other highlights include a classic metal Bestigor standard bearer (minus the standard top, but again it's not too difficult to fix) and a Lord of The Rings Easterling cavalryman (minus a horse), as well as the front of a Death Company Dreadnought. There's also a few Tau bits (I've identified a newer plasma rifle and missile pod, half a stealthsuit burst cannon and half a rail-rifle), some Skeleton parts, most of two Skinks (they're both missing shield arms) and some Eldar jetbike weapons, amongst other things. 

The purchase that got it was this. 

A brand new Crusade figure case to facilitate my grand plans of conquest for this year (they share more than a passing resemblance to my grand plans of conquest for last year, but 2016 ended up becoming a 'lost year' and so they never materialised). I also put a special order through, but that's still in the post. 

In the meantime, I've been working through the last few Tau ships still sitting in my build/paint backlog, starting with a pair of Merchant class starships. 

I don't remember if I've told this story or not on here, but there was originally only supposed to be one Merchant. Back in 2013 when the Specialist Games genocide began I quickly scrambled to rescue as many Battlefleet Gothic ships as I could. My top priority was to get at least one example of every Kor'vattra Tau ship made (the Kor'O'vesh ones from Forgeworld were valued targets of opportunity, but outside of the Emissaries were largely considered less important), and since I already owned one Merchant class starship I initially only planned a second one (to be my flagship) plus a blister of Orca gunships to accompany it. This, however, left me with a surplus two Orcas, since they came in blisters of four and the Merchant only has two gravitic hooks (and I already had enough Orcas for the other ships I owned), so I decided to quickly get another Merchant while I still could to make sure I would be able to transport the extra two into battle if needed. I first went to the UK GW page (the NZ/OZ page having largely run out of Battlefleet Gothic Tau by then) and placed an order, but a processing error meant that the order never showed up as being completed. Thinking that it had fallen through, I searched around for another Merchant class in stock and found one on the Japanese GW page, which I promptly ordered from. 

However, the UK Merchant order had in fact gone through and shipped, and so I ended up receiving it shortly after the Japanese Merchant arrived. I wondered what to do about it for a long time, but in the end there was only one real option - keep both of them! I'm never one to say no to more Battlefleet Gothic models*, especially if it's my favourite model in the entire game (which the Merchant is, in case you didn't know), so they both ended up finding a home in my fleet, though I now have two gravitic hooks without Orcas to go with them. 

Although if I happened to come into two more Explorer class starships and 8 more Orcas... 

While on the subject of Merchant class starships I also came up with some experimental homebrew rules for two alternate Merchant configurations. I've mentioned them before on ATT (and possibly on here as well) in the Merchant class background I wrote, but there are a whole slew of different Merchant class configurations besides the two listed in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada that I've come up with. These two in particular were originally conceived as a solution to a disconnect in the original Tau background in Battlefleet Gothic and 40k. The account of the Damocles Gulf Crusade, found in Codex: Tau, describes the Tau fleet in the Hydrass System as consisting of "Seven Tau warships of approximately cruiser displacement" and were apparently "Capable of launching powerful torpedo salvos at long range". It also describes them launching 'escorts' (attack craft really) from the capital ships. 

Now, on it's own this doesn't sound too out of the question, except that going by Battlefleet Gothic: Armada the only cruiser-sized ship the Tau Kor'vattra has that can launch torpedoes and attack craft is the Hero class starship, which wasn't invented until after the Damocles Gulf Crusade. The only cruiser-sized ship the Tau would have had available at the time this supposedly happened is the Merchant class, and the two configurations in the official Kor'vattra fleet list are both gunboats, without gravitic launchers or launch bays. The Bork'an configuration of the Explorer class starship can fire gravitic missiles (the Tau equivalent to torpedoes) as well as launch attack craft, but the Explorer class is most certainly not cruiser displacement - it's very definitely in the Battleship size range and it's hard to mistake it for a cruiser (seriously, the Explorer class is massive). The solution then, is simple - another two Merchant class configurations, perhaps older setups that were phased out after the Damocles Gulf Crusade. 

Thus, I present the Il'fannor T'au configuration and the Il'fannor Vash'ya configuration. 

Il'fannor (Merchant) Class Starship - T'au Configuration . . . . . . . 155 pts

Though almost unheard of in modern times, the T'au configuration of the Merchant class starship was once one of the most widespread and illustrious variants of the Merchant class starship, and promised to be the future of Tau naval combat. 

Towards the end of the 1st Sphere Expansion, the Tau Kor'ar'tol high admirality had begun to develop a better understanding of the space combat tactics employed by the Orks that were at the time the largest major power the Tau had encountered with frequency. Over the course of their many encounters with Ork ships and fleets, it was observed that the Greenskin craft were most dangerous at close ranges, a distance which their speed and tough front prow armour and shielding enabled them to reach with relative ease against the railcannon armed vessels which formed the bulk of Tau fleets at the time. Kor'Os and analysts theorised that the optimal solution for fighting Ork fleets would be to keep them at extreme range, where their offensive output would be reduced to sporadic torpedo and attack craft strikes. 

The Tau Earth Caste began a program of extensive research and development into new standoff weapons that would be able to engage the Orks at such extreme ranges, which culminated in the development of the first Tau gravitic missiles. While the Tau had made use of unguided missile weapons on warships in the past, the new larger missiles were able to perform sustained flight over far longer distances. Fired from a newly developed gravitic launcher, itself created by expanding the standard naval railcannon design to an immense size and linking the firing sequence to the ship's gravitic field, and equipped with the latest advanced drone guidance processors, the missiles were also able to reach extreme speeds and perform sophisticated course-corrections in flight to ensure a successful attack. Early testing against target drones and mockups of enemy warships proved highly promising, and initial field testing showed the new weapon system to be highly effective. 

Impressed with the results, the T'au Council of the Highest authorised the development and production of a new Il'fannor model armed with the gravitic launcher system. The end result featured two gravitic launchers to maximise both redundancy and tactical flexibilty by allowing the ship to attack multiple targets simultaneously. The new Il'fannor variant was readily adopted by the T'au Kor'ar'tol, and quickly spread to the fleets of other Septs as Tau analysts and the Tau admiralty predicted it would render all traditional gunnery-based space combat, and ships configured for it, obsolete. The T'au Il'fannor configuration quickly proved highly successful in fleet actions against the Orks during the tail end of the 1st Sphere Expansion, most notably in Por'O Dal'yth Kiv'rai's famous expedition to the Kroot Worlds and the Place of Union. For a while, it seemed as though the Kor'ar'tol's vision of space warfare dominated by standoff attacks with guided missiles would prove to be a reality. 

All this changed when the Tau encountered the Imperium of Man in strength for the first time. As the Damocles Gulf Crusade drove into Tau space, flotillas of T'au configuration Il'fannors suffered heavy losses. The lengthy reloading time for the gravitic launchers, combined with the immense speed of the Imperial Navy warships, meant that while the T'au configuration Il'fannors could initially inflict considerable damage, they were incapable of sustaining such attack power long enough to prevent the Imperial ships from entering close range, where their limited gunnery armament proved insufficient. Ultimately, the Tau had succeeded in creating a capital sized Cobra Destroyer, which lacked the speed and small profile of an escort torpedo-boat, and while this might have been good for a support ship, it made for a lacking mainline combat vessel. In light of the new developments the T'au configuration Il'fannor was largely phased out of service following the Damocles Gulf Crusade, especially as the more modern and capable Lar'shi and Kir'qath class starships began to circulate through the Tau Empire. Most were converted into other Merchant class configurations, and design features and data from the type would end up providing a major contribution to the development of the Bork'an configuration Gal'leath, but a few mothballed examples can still be found occasionally in Tau fleet reserves. 

Il'fannor T'au Configuration 

TYPE/HITS     SPEED    TURNS    SHIELDS    ARMOUR     TURRETS

 Cruiser/4            15cm         45°               1                    5+                    2    

ARMAMENT                         RANGE/SPEED     FIREPOWER/STR       FIRE ARC

Prow railgun battery                          45cm                              2                    Front/Left/Right 

Port gravitic launcher                Speed: 20-40cm                     3                             Front 

Starboard gravitic launcher       Speed: 20-40cm                     3                             Front 

Notes: 

The T'au configuration Il'fannor may combine its two gravitic missile salvos into a single strength 6 salvo fired to the ship's front arc. Alternatively, it may fire two separate strength 3 salvos. If one of the gravitic launchers is damaged, the ship may only fire one strength 3 salvo until the damage is repaired. 

Later examples of the Il'fannor were produced with a drastically superior hull structure, constructed by methods only recently discovered by the Tau. Il'fannors of any configuration may therefore increase their hits from 4 to 6 at a cost of +15 points. 

Il'fannor (Merchant) Class Starship - Vash'ya Configuration . . . . . 155 pts 

The Vash'ya Il'fannor configuration is one of the oldest variants of Merchant class starship to have been employed by the Tau. It is heavily derived from the basic cargo freighter Il'fannor configuration, and was originally conceived as a medium sized colony transport. As conflict with the Orks became increasingly widespread and commonplace however, the Vash'ya configuration Il'fannor was pressed into military service, with its extensive cargo space re-purposed to support launch bays so the vessel could act as a light carrier for attack craft. Initially this was intended to provide a more economical alternative to the gargantuan Explorer class starships serving as fleet carriers, but the Vash'ya configuration Il'fannor ended up complimenting and serving alongside the venerable Gal'leath to ensure the Tau maintained space superiority amongst attack craft, which was proving to be one of the few areas where they had an advantage over the Greenskins. 

In addition to providing attack craft support in fleet actions, the Vash'ya configuration Il'fannor also proved useful outside of fleet actions. Its considerable cargo capacity and extensive support facilities allowed the Vash'ya configuration Il'fannor to act as a makeshift waystation for communications, repair and resupply purposes, and the variant was a vital link in the Tau command and control system until the Tau network of orbitals and waystations was strengthened and the Skether'qan class starship was introduced. 

A number of Vash'ya configuration Il'fannors were part of the Tau fleet that first encountered Imperial Navy vessels in the Hydrass system, and it was these ships that formed the rearguard while the Tau fleet disengaged, screening the other ships' escape with their Manta squadrons. The Vash'ya configuration Il'fannor would continue to serve the Kor'vattra for the rest of the Damocles Gulf Crusade, but mounting losses discouraged the Tau and the type was gradually phased out of service as the Lar'shi class starship  began production. Like its contemporary, the T'au configuration Il'fannor, a small handful of mothballed examples can still be found in Tau reserve fleets from time to time.  

Il'fannor Vash'ya Configuration

TYPE/HITS     SPEED    TURNS    SHIELDS    ARMOUR     TURRETS

 Cruiser/4            15cm         45°               1                    5+                    2    

ARMAMENT                         RANGE/SPEED     FIREPOWER/STR       FIRE ARC

Prow railgun battery                          45cm                              2                    Front/Left/Right 

Port launch bay                          Barracudas: 25cm         2 Squadrons                       - 

                                                   Mantas: 20cm

Starboard launch bay                 Barracudas: 25cm         2 Squadrons                       - 

                                                   Mantas: 20cm

Notes: 

Later examples of the Il'fannor were produced with a drastically superior hull structure, constructed by methods only recently discovered by the Tau. Il'fannors of any configuration may therefore increase their hits from 4 to 6 at a cost of +15 points. 

**** 

So there you have it, two alternate flavours of Merchant class starship for use in games of Battlefleet Gothic. If you have a Tau fleet and wish to use either of these then be sure to let me know how they perform, I am happy to accept feedback for my experimental rules writing. 

*Unless GW releases a wave of new 'Battlefleet Gothic' ships with obscene new designs. Then I probably will say no to them (but never to classic Battlefleet Gothic ships!).

ATT

++++Orbital repairs complete++++
++++Central computer and AI systems purged: zero foreign code detected++++
++++Internal reconstruction complete++++
++++Primary reactors powering up++++
++++Atmosphere levels: optimum++++
++++Gravity levels: optimum++++
++++Running final systems check. All systems functioning optimally++++
++++ATT orbital online++++

In case you've never heard of it before, Advanced Tau Tactica is an online discussion forum specifically focused on the Tau faction in Battlefleet Gothic (and Battlefleet Gothic's spinoff games like Warhammer 40,000) . It has an illustrious history of providing exceptional-quality content for Tau players, especially tactics advice, and several famous Tau tactics have had their start either there or on its immediate predecessor Mech Tau Tactica (such as the infamous Fish of Fury). Run by tabletop hobby extraordinaire Sebastian 'Tael' Stuart the site has a reputation for harsh order in some circles, but by and large is a fantastic place to go if you're a Tau player.

It also happens to be the very first internet forum (and indeed the very first internet communication website) that I ever joined, ever, when I was just 15 years old. I think it's been something of a heavy influence on my internet conduct.

The other thing to note about Advanced Tau Tactica is that the site has an extensive mythos within it, centred on the ATT orbital, an in-universe reflection of the forum. The ATT orbital has had a few different incarnations over the years (not entirely unlike just about everything else in Battlefleet Gothic's universe), but it is consistently an illustrious Tau military academy where some of the Tau Empire's best military minds gather to discuss and examine strategy and tactics, and learn from the masters. In other words it's sort of like a Top Gun program for Tau military forces. It's been subjected to a few attacks from other Battlefleet Gothic forces as well - you can see the details here (look for the threads listed as 'April [Date]', they should be stickied at the top).

Way back in 2013 when I was frantically scrambling to rescue as many Battlefleet Gothic models as possible I ordered a number of items from Forgeworld. One of them was an Air Caste Orbital City. I had always wanted to paint an Air Caste Orbital City as the ATT orbital (though originally it was only going to be one of multiple Air Caste Orbital Cities...), especially after Embrace Change, so when the Specialist Games started to get discontinued I made sure to pick one up along with the Forgeworld Tau ships I wanted so that I could at least salvage that minor dream. 

I wanted to keep it an absolute secret so that I could surprise everyone on there when the time was right. Exactly when that would be changed quite a lot. At first I planned to have it finished shortly after the Custodian (see April 2015's post for the details about that - Ed), but the university workload became too much and so I had to put on hold almost literally everything not related to university work in order to withstand the relentless avalanche of assignments. When I finished university and looked towards restoring my life there wasn't enough time for everything, and painting priority went to the Warhammer Fantasy models that I had started just before the big freeze. After they were finished my free time went towards rebuilding my shattered blogging activity, and so it wasn't until about a couple of months ago that painting on it could begin in earnest. Initially my plan was to finish it in time to reveal it just after Advanced Tau Tactica completed the major upgrade work that had been scheduled for this year, but that happened much sooner than I anticipated, and painting the model took far longer. The final deadline was Christmas, with the release scheduled for just afterwards (as I didn't want it being overshadowed by Yuletide festivities). After this painting went smoothly, and I was set to be right on schedule until some idiot D'yi decided it would be fun to drive a car into a transmission pole which knocked out the power to my neighbourhood for the rest of Christmas Eve. I painted like a man possessed, but in the end as dusk fell I ran out of available light with which to paint by, and so was forced into yet another delay, with the orbital finally being finished on Boxing Day. 

In hindsight (as you will see with the other pictures, and might possibly be already able to guess) it is easy to see why it took so long to paint. The Forgeworld designers weren't kidding when they called it an orbital city - the vast majority of the model is covered in an immensly detailed and intricately designed layout of a cityscape. The bottom piece even looks a lot like a Hive City spire if you turn it upside down. This makes for a fantastic rendition of a model (and also provides the best depiction I have seen of what a Tau city would look like from altitude), but also means that the bulk of the model is covered in a nightmarish twisting labyrinth of surfaces and edges that all need to be painted. If the Custodian was the painting equivalent of trench warfare, then this model was the painting equivalent of urban combat, and my work flow quickly devolved into a gruelling quagmire as I slowly painted it street by street, building by building, room by room, highlight line by highlight line. 

The dark mechanical 'city bits' of the orbital were painted the same way as the dark mechanical areas on the Custodian. After an undercoat of Abaddon Black I applied a heavy drybrush of a 50/50 mix of Abaddon Black and Dawnstone for a base colour. Originally I had planned to layer it like I had done on the Custodian, but that quickly proved to be horribly inefficient. A series of drybrushes provided the same effect much more quickly. The Layer Painters' Union was deeply angered at this decision, but was appeased by the assurance that they would still get the glory of working on the outer rim areas. Once the basecoat was down the 'city bits' were highlighted using Dawnstone, followed by a final highlight of Administratum Grey on the exposed areas. Veteran members might recognise this as the same method written in the original 3rd edition [i]Codex: Tau[/i] for painting the dark mechanical areas of Battlesuits, which is where I got the idea from after noticing the similarities between that and the colours used for the mechanical areas on the Forgeworld demonstration image of the Custodian. Finally, the lights were picked out with White Scar and Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

The outer rim areas were more experimental. I looked at several sources of inspiration for them, including the official ATT avatar artwork and the old forum colour scheme, but by far the main reference material I used was the old Thread Locked Mantas. After staring at them for some time and checking the Citadel colour range I worked out the best fits and some ideas of how to use them. I started on the lower concourse with a basecoat of Fenrisian Grey, followed by layers of drybrushing using a 50/50 mix of Fenrisian Grey and Celestra Grey and then highlighted with Celestra Grey. My original plan was to use blending to get a smooth transition between the colours so that the outside of the orbital would have a gradient effect, the required mastery of advanced Phased Blending technology proved to be beyond the grasp of my scientists at present, so I instead devised a solution using multiple successive drybrushes that I call a layered drybrush to achieve the effect. This process was repeated on the upper concourse, but using colours a tone lighter, so the basecoat was the same 50/50 Fenrisian Grey/Celestra Grey mix that was then given a layered drybrush of Celestra Grey and highlgihted with Ulthuan Grey. This was also done on the command deck, with a basecoat of Celestra Grey and a layered drybrush of Ulthuan Grey (also applied to the rim as edge highlights) and a final layered drybrush of a 50/50 mix of Ulthuan Grey and White Scar as a highlight on the apex. I was advised by Tael to look for a steely blue for the sept colour, and after cross-checking reference sources I decided the closest match was Thunderhawk Blue, which was used for the panel lines and sept markings. Once again, the lights were picked out with White Scar and Evil Sunz Scarlet. 

I also documented the model itself, as part of my A-Z archive of Battlefleet Gothic models. If you were to order an Air Caste Orbital City from Forgeworld, this would have been what you got. 

And the assembled model, ready for painting. 

Welcome to the ATT Orbital

STAGE 1: Orbital Power Core and Engineering 

- Primary orbital reactors 

- Orbital gravitic field generator 

- Main orbital engineering bay 

- Primary orbital engineering control centre

- Main Kor'vessa hangers 

- Primary capital ship docking facilities 

STAGE 2: Lower Concourse 

- Research and Development labs

- Experimental painting centres

- Experimental modelling workshops 

- Exemplar Galleries 

- Project log archives 

- Research and Development Resource article database 

- Library 

- Main habitat dormitories 

- Commerce sector 

- Recreation sector 

- Primary capital ship docking facilities 

- Primary outer rim launch-bays 

STAGE 3: Upper Concourse 

- ATT Fire Caste Academy campus

- ATT Air Caste Academy campus

- Academy article database

- Cadre building recruitment centre and supply depot 

- Tactica halls 

- Rules of Engagement conclave chamber 

- Field Experience archives 

- Internal battledomes 

- Fire Caste barracks 

- Enemy Units and Alternate Systems Intelligence centre 

- Secondary outer rim launch-bays

STAGE 4: Command Deck 

- Orbital control bridge 

- Orbital command centre 

- Orbital space traffic control centre

- Main orbital communications array 

- Orbital staff membership primers orientation centre 

- Orbital staff member profile database 

- Visitor help desk 

- Information desk 

Additional launch bays and hangers are scattered across the orbital's internal cityscapes. Not listed: Secure Ar'tol command centre. 

Not a bad grand finale for ATT's 10 year anniversary, if I might say so myself. Now then, time for a well-deserved break. There's still some Yuletide trifle left with my name on it...

On Metaplots, And Why They Must Die

ALRIGHT THAT'S IT!! 


I was going to try and continue being nice for a bit longer. I wanted to try and stay positive. I wanted to just focus on models and fun backstory, but my hand has been forced. They leave me no choice. So buckle up ladies and gentlemen, because for the remainder of this post it's going to be another wave of nothing but furious venom-filled scathing ranting from an angry tabletop hobbyist. Because there's something that's been going on in the tabletop industry for a while now, a repulsive loathsome cancer that eats away at my enjoyment year by year, month by month, and quite recently it's been kicked into overdrive in the once-great land of GW. All this week I've been bombarded with glowing praise from the official statements about it, how amazing it is, how fantastic it will be, how much of a great leap forward it is.

And honestly, I'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH IT!


In case you don't follow GW (and are probably better off for it), the latest big release for them have been a return of the glorious Juan Diaz early 2000s era Daemonette models that I've always loved. But the release they're really hyping up is a continuation of their new line of campaign supplements, this one called 'Wrath of Magnus'. It's accompanied by the usual swarm of garish soulless empty plastic abominations I never asked for or wanted that accompany a GW release nowdays, but the real problem, the real thing that has me literally so angry that I'm struggling to type coherently, is the book itself, and the thing that it represents the latest in a long line of. The book, you see, is a continuation of that horrifying plague known as the metaplot.

And it's destroying my enjoyment and interest in this hobby.

For those of you who don't know (and I was like that once), a metaplot is a single unifying story arc that links together across several different independent works and impacts on all of them. In other words, you have creative works X, Y and Z, each of which cover a different aspect of the same setting or internal universe. A metaplot will be a continuing narrative across all of them, with events from work X having an impact on work Y, which in turn provides revelations that affect work Z. It's most commonly associated with tabletop RPGs and wargames, where the independent works in question are sourcebooks and gamebooks for the tabletop game's fictional setting, and it became very popular in the 1990s after White Wolf achieved some success with their famous World of Darkness RPG series, starting with Vampire: The Masquerade. These RPGs were designed from the start with a central metaplot, and when they started making considerable amounts of money (by tabletop game standards at least) other manufacturers decided they wanted a piece of the action and started coming up with metaplots of their own. Today it's very common to find them in both RPGs and wargames covering fictional settings (such as Dystopian Wars, modern GW games and perhaps most famously Battletech).

Now, so far this probably sounds perfectly well and good, after all that's basically what happens in every traditional media from books to TV shows. And that's true. It's only when it's taken out of its native environment of traditional media that the metaplot becomes such a destructive invasive disease. The astronomical problem here, you see, is that tabletop games are in many ways very different to traditional media, as an audience interacts with them in very different ways.

Traditional media like books, TV shows, movies etc. is meant to be enjoyed passively. You sit down, read the book or watch the movie or TV show, and when you reach the end that's it, the story's finished. It's over. Oh sure some people theorise and discuss things and write their own stuff about it, but that's not really what the core intent is. You don't watch Star Wars to decide what you'd do if you were in charge of the Rebellion or that it really should have been Captain Phasma that stayed on to become the big badass antagonist for the new films, you watch it to watch the story of Star Wars (and then if you get really, really invested in it you can take things from there). At the heart of it, a creator is telling you a story, and you can take it or leave it.

Tabletop games, however, are a whole other thing entirely. Instead of passively consuming them, tabletop games require you, the audience, the player, the hobbyist, to enjoy them actively. You don't just sit there while a story unfolds in front of you, you actually get in there and actively engage with the setting (even if only on the absolute minimal level required). Because tabletop games require you to create something for them. Whether it's characters in an RPG or armies in a wargame, you are required to contribute something. YOU create the characters, YOU build the army, and you, yes YOU are in control of them. You effectively create your own small part of that setting, with which you can then interact with the rest of the universe. This is easily one of the greatest joys to be had in the tabletop hobby, and I'm always very disturbed and upset when I see few people pursuing it.

Unfortunately, this starts to crash and burn if the contributors are denied a sufficient amount of agency over what happens to their creations, and that's exactly what metaplots do. Because official top-down 'storyline advancing' metaplots don't affect just one part of the setting, they affect all of it, including the parts you created. Thus, an advancing metaplot forces new background material on your characters, armies and stories regardless of whether you actually wanted it or not. And because it's official and top down, there is no real way it can be effectively denied. If you don't want or agree with the new background, there is no way for your characters or army to stop it because its set in stone from on high by people who in all likelihood will never even hear about your own creations.

There's a quote on TVtropes in the examples listed under the 'Creator's Pet' trope amongst the examples found in Tabletop Wargames:

"That's the other thing: [White Wolf] hires people who want to tell stories. But, the only characters they have to tell stories about are the NPCs. So, they tell stories about the NPCs. 
Gods, I wanted to smack some of my fellow writers upside the head on some Vampire projects when they burbled on about the cool things they'd have Hardestadt do, or whoever. What were the *PCs* supposed to do?" - Dean Shomshak

Shomshak was talking about the World of Darkness and its metaplot, but the same principle applies to any tabletop game. Even the most compelling core background element of a tabletop setting is technically only ever supposed to be a backdrop for what the players are doing. As a result, if you make it all about the central metaplot and 'advancing the storyline', then I, the hobbyist and consumer of your product, can only be left saying "OK. Great. What's my army/fleet/characters supposed to do."

Let's look at some examples under the microscope shall we? Perhaps the biggest illustration of why this whole metaplot thing just does not work is the infamous 'End Times' series by GW (henceforth referred to as the ET series like it is almost everywhere else on this blog, for it does not deserve to be recognised by its full name). The ET series, as has been discussed on here before, was a series of narrative campaign books GW published for Warhammer Fantasy, and they ended up literally destroying the setting. Kislev, Bretonnia, Tilea, Estallia and several other factions were supposedly wiped out off-hand in single paragraphs, the Elves were thrown together in a fit of what certainly felt like blatant Dark Elf pandering and the forces of evil generally rampage across the entire Warhammer World. And if you wanted to stop any of this from happening? Y'know, like fantasy heroes are supposed to do? Well too bad! Instead you get to sit on the sidelines while the official named characters do everything because apparently they're the only ones that matter and the only ones allowed to have any interaction with the setting.

OK. Great. What are my armies and characters supposed to do?

A more recent GW example comes from the last two Warzone Damocles books, in which Aun'va supposedly died and the Damocles Gulf was allegedly set on fire. Ignoring the glaring contradictions of basic laws of physics that are horrendous even by 40k's standards. you really shouldn't be making those kinds of big sweeping changes in a way that leaves the hobbyists no room around them. I have a very sizeable Tau fleet (just over 2,500 pts by my estimate), some of which I've documented on this very blog. The backstory behind them has them around the Damocles Gulf right at the point when that event supposedly happens, and also has them fighting against the Imperium (mostly). And yet now it doesn't matter how many games of Battlefleet Gothic I play or how well I play them or how many Adeptus Mechanicus fleets I defeat or how many victory points I defeat them by, the Damocles Gulf is still always going to be ignited in GW's crazy made-up world. Which wouldn't be a problem if that world was the piece of silly fanfiction I'm making it out to be here, but it's the official company line, which means the bulk of the community will likely end up swallowing it. So according to GW, the Tau can't stop the Damocles Gulf from being blown up, no matter how many Exterminatus! scenarios I win against Imperial fleets. None of the official named characters did anything about it, so it happens, and that's that.

OK. Great. What are my fleets and characters supposed to do?

Also, what are my armies and characters supposed to do? I do play 40k too (well in theory at least).

And it's not just my armies. The new book GW's just released has a whole bunch of stuff happening between the Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Thousand Sons, and if you want to try and stop any of that? Too bad, as it has been written, so shall it be.

OK. Great. What are the armies and characters of the Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Thousand Sons players supposed to do?

GW isn't the only manufacturer that's guilty of this either. For a long time I flirted with getting into Dystopian Wars, a 15mm steampunk wargame produced by Spartan Games. But when I went to check up on where it was at I was put right off ever wanting to start into it, because any remaining models in the range that I do like would be thoroughly eclipsed by 'progressing storyline' that's taken the setting beyond it's starting point. Oh, you wanted to conquer the carribean or invade Russia (though you probably don't know much about world conquest if you did the latter)? Well fuck you! We've written about the official events in these fancy new books! Go and slavishly devote yourself to just passively eating up whatever we spoon feed you, your creations don't matter to us*! Heck, the enormous metaplot in Battletech is the single biggest factor AGAINST me getting into that system.

And that's another problem, developers just don't stop at one addition, they keep driving the metaplot until everywhere is covered. So it doesn't matter that your army and its related background happens thousands of light-years away from the events in a given GW campaign book, or a continent away from the latest Dystopian Wars metaplot antics, because that won't keep you safe forever. All it takes is one campaign book, one new piece of background material, one 'advancement to the storyline' to render all your carefully thought-out background effectively null and void in the wider community. And frankly, if that's what's going to happen, then why should I even bother with building my own army in the first place? And if the answer to that is 'you shouldn't' then what's the point of the tabletop hobby, and why should I care about it?

This isn't a new problem, but it wasn't this bad before. GW's global Eye of Terror global campaign promised big shakeups to the status quo, and while glorious it was almost certainly a mistake. But it at least allowed hobbyists to have some level of agency over the changes by allowing them to interact with the process - if you don't want side X to win at location Y, then you'd just have to win enough games and report those wins in to stop them there (well that's the basic concept at least. The actual system was somewhat more complicated). With these new campaign books? None of that. The things happen, rocks fall, everyone dies, and there's nothing you can do about it. And at the risk of sounding like an 80s action film character, I didn't sign on for that.

And it's a trivially easy thing to fix. All manufacturers would have to do is write in a little 1-page introduction piece at the start of every campaign book that clearly and explicitly states that all the background material contained within is just a hypothetical 'What if?' scenario and is only one potential outcome out of many, and encourages players to come up with whatever outcome suits them the best, and reinforce that message in every official statement about the campaign books, and there'd be no problem because then everyone would be free to decide for themselves whether to include the new background or not. And if they want to do a massive global campaign event, then they just have to think smaller. One planet, one city, one thing that's inconsequential in the grander scheme of things. Things like the Medusa V campaign or Imperial Armour Volume III: The Taros Campaign are the right idea, because even if you don't agree with the outcome it's just one small place that you can avoid. The Tau conquered Taros? That's OK, your army is light-years away engaged in its own equally important conflict, and who knows maybe it'll go there someday to try and retake it. Maybe it will, maybe it won't but it's up to you. And that's the important part that's missing at the moment. If it is there, then I don't think it's being rammed down the community's throat nearly enough.

All official background in a tabletop game is ever meant to do is be a starting point, something to give your games and characters and armies context. It should never be a prime mover - that's the job of YOU, the player and hobbyist.

All the official background should ever do is set the stage and provide some props and costumes. It should then be up to you to cast some actors, write a script and perform it. And the sooner manufacturers remember that, the better.

Right then. I fell better now that I've gotten that out of my system. My apologies you had to see me in that state, but I just couldn't take it any longer. I'll try and talk about something more positive next time, although for now I will state again just how delighted I am to see the 2000s era Juan Diaz Daemonette models come back, if only briefly.


*That may not be the intention they have, but it certainly feels like that to me.