Waking Dead

Well, I’m all packed and ready to go. Apart from a minor rebasing panic and the constant worry that we’ve overlooked something and our army will somehow be illegal, I think we’re in pretty good shape for the tourney. The army currently enjoying their pre-battle meal and ritual branding in my kit box is:

Witch Hunters
1x Inquisitor Lord w/ Auspex, Psychic Hood, Retinue
- 2x Gun Servitors w/ Heavy Bolters
- 1x Gun Servitor w/ Multi-Melta
3x Inquisitorial Stormtroopers w/ Hellguns
- 2x Inquisitorial Stormtroopers w/ Plasma Guns
2x Exorcists

Tau Empire
6x Fire Warriors
3x Stealth Suits
1x Crisis Suit w/ Burst Cannon, Missile Pod, Targeting Array, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
2x Piranhas
1x Hammerhead Gunship w/ Rail Gun, Smart Missile System, Target Lock

Overall its two 500 point forces that combined must make a legal 1000 point force. We’ll suffer a -1 Leadership penalty for any of the teammate’s units within 6″ because we are distrustful allies, but this shouldn’t be a massive problem. The Tau force has nothing less than S5 weaponry, with the Hammerhead packing a 72″ S10 AP1 cannon, plus an independently firing Smart Missile System (24″ S5 AP5) that doesn’t require LOS. Stealth Suits are also incredibly nasty as they can jump forward 6″ to be within firing range, let loose a barrage of shots, then jump back 6″ to put them out of the enemy’s range!

The Witch Hunters (which I’ll be playing) are there mainly for the Exorcists, each one firing D6 S8 AP1 missiles up to 48″. True, you can end up firing only one missile from each, but at maximum that’s twelve S8 AP1 shots hitting the enemy! The Stormtroopers are mainly there to fill in the required Troop slot, but Plasma Guns can do some damage – mainly to yourself. The Lord has a pretty solid Retinue, although being Heavy weapons they can’t move and fire. What I normally do is plonk them as far forward into cover as I can and wait it out. The Multi-Melta can be devastating against vehicles, but a 24″ range means not getting to shoot it until maybe turn three.

And that’s it really; we’ve tweaked and tweaked this army, far more than we did last year, and in fact completely changed the Tau force on Wednesday night. We’ve had no practice games with this new army, so we’re basically just going to wing it. No guts, no glory eh?