Winning by Losing

Let's talk a little about losing. You know that feeling (and don't give me that stupid record at the bottom of your forum post that says your 50-1, we all know that's BS).

There is no one out there that hasn't lost, and if you haven't lost a decent amount in the past, your friends need to step up.

Now, saying that, when normally playing a game, I prefer to lose.

Sounds crazy, but it's true. When I win I walk away with a smile, knowing that my worldview is correct, I am the greatest! When I lose, everything is falling apart, my list is awful, it must be reworked, it must be changed, I must play with weapon options, uses, troll the internet to find new uses for units etc...

Basically losing makes me dive deeper into the hobby then winning does. When I win, I shrug and go back to painting, when I lose I take a hard look at my list and my tactics and try to understand why I lost, what I did wrong, and how I can fix it.

You just learn more my losing then you do by winning.

When you lose your game next time, talk to your opponent about it, find out two things. First, what could you have done differently to win the game. Did you set up wrong, deploy wrong, not use an ability (forget an ability). It may be that one single dice roll (or bad luck) is what killed your game, but generally I find that luck in 40K tends to average out. Last Wednesday I failed about 1/2 of my armor saves for my marines all game, but but my opponent hit my rhino one round with three Railguns and rolled 3 "1"s to penetrate.

Blame your dice last, blame yourself first. Responsibility for losing game rests on us.

If you come to the conclusion that there is nothing you could have done to win the game, then take a hard look at your list. Don't change things in your list radically each week if you can help it. Skill with a list is partially the list (if you take 33 vespid, not even God can save you) but once you have a good solid tournament ready list, learning how to play it in a myriad of circumstances is what helps you win games. Concerned against one of those Net lists? Get a friend to proxy it and play 10 games against it. You still may lose to it, but will know your best changes, and where the list is weak. Do the same for a null deployment 'Nid army, wolf cavalry (Goatboy style) list, or anything you believe you will have problems with.

I have been prepping for BoLScon for about six months now. I've been struggling with my marines, week after week and month after month. I've finally gotten to the point where I consider myself 'competent' with them. I'm playing as many games as I can these days with them with the same 'core' of the army. I'm now winning more finally, but actually feel that I am learning less, and it's sad a little.

So enjoy your losses my friends, because you can take away more that makes you a better player and tactician from that then you ever can from a game where you simply table your opponent.

The Storm Part 1

I finished putting the base coats on the storm and also the scouts in the storm on Wednesday. I generally base coat over black with Tallaran Flesh (which I am nearly out of), and also the adeptus battlegrey mix that I use (50% with black)

Anyway, I thought it applicable to talk about the Landspeeder Storm today, since I run it every time that I play my marines even semi-competitively. I love it, in fact, I would say it is my favorite part of the new codex.

When I was in California and rumaging through the Space Marine codex I took a good look at all of the new things that were added, and was really impressed with the storm. At the time all my friends were down on the scouts because of their WS/BS 3 and their cost, the common conception was that they should be cheaper, which may be true actually, but is immaterial to the conversation at hand.

The Storm has two things going for it, open topped and Scout. Those two things make it godlike as a transport. First, let's talk about what NOT to do with the storm.



But they are blisteringly fast.

I buy five scouts with a sergeant with a power fist/combi-melta/meltabombs on him. If I go first, I gamble no one will seize and I scout forward (24 inches) to within 12 inches of whatever I want, and then disembark, move, shoot and assault. Someone have a landraider on the table with Vulkan and thunderhammers? A melta gun at 6 and then another meltabomb hit have a good chance of at least stopping it. Someone have a squad of broadsides or hammerheads? It hasn't moved yet so you get meltabombs and 4 krak grenades on the back (with no decoy launchers)? vehicle squadron? Ohhh Boy, the hits are distributed around! Even Chimera's too close together, you get to blow up multiple of them often.

It's a suicide squad of 165 points or so. And it can CHANGE the game. Last time I was at tournament I scouted up and immobilized a landraider someone had positioned on it's side. Ragnar and all his friends had to try and footslog for the rest of the game.

If you are going second, unless you can scout it to some place where you know that it will be completely outside of LOS, do not start it on the table, outflank it. You have a 21 inch charge off the sides when you out flank after all (12 inches+3 for disembark+6 for assault). Now, I realize that scouts are not making anyone freak in hand to hand, they aren't thunder hammer/storm shield terminators. But the benefit is that they get to choose who they attack. Outflanking 21 inch charges let you pick the battle. They often hunt heavy support options to me, Devestator squads, any vehicles, Lootas, tau crisis suits, eldar of any kind.

Now, there are two armies I have fought that I find they actually operate very poorly against. The first are tyranids. In general the tyranids present quite a little problem for my scouts, as most people can beat them in HTH. But, they are a fast skimmer transport holding a scoring choice. Even in these games they can be tactically amazing, zipping around to control or contest something later in the game. In addition, with the Cerebus launchers, if they even kill one more then the enemy, then you can force a -3 morale check. Unless you are marines, that means you probably will break off the table.

Now, let's talk about armament. It comes with a heavy bolter, and if you don't have any other points, that is fine, but that isn't very good. I have seen people put multi-melta's on their vehicles, but all in all, I simply think that a 4+ to hit with the scouts isn't worth it. We both know it will never hit anything. If you have vulcan, ignore that and take the multi-melta.

I take the heavy flamer, and here is why. Often I will want to assault a vehicle, and people that have played against scouts will screen things they don't want me to get to. Kroot do this for tau, guardsmen or blob squads, things like this. I don't trust scouts to shoot... but I trust them to flame. It completely ellimates the ballistic skill downgrade.

I have seen people take five basic scouts and throw them in the storm. Don't, unless you plan on using it for just scoring options, or to throw krak grenades on something. The sergeant has a BS of 4, so the entire mechanism is almost a delivery system for him and his friends. It's worth the updgrades you put on him in my opinion.

I have a tournament on Sunday, and I will report back at that time about the results from the storm as a explanation of tactics then.

The Ethereal

First off, I know he sucks.

I have decided for the 40K Radio Motivational Challenge [January] to paint one of my two ethereals that I own. Why do I own two ethereals you may (and should) ask? Well, I own the old Aun'shi model from 3.0, and have the limited edition one that came with the 4.0 box. I had the 3.0 limited edition that crossed his arms, but I sold that army.

I am not painting the Ethereal with any real thought as to running him. I am interested in painting him for completeness. I've had the model since 2005... it's about time.

Now, in honesty, let's talk about the Ethereal.

ETHEREAL

With Toughness 3 and no save they are generally fire magnets on the table, especially since they force your entire army to make a morale check. Sticking them with a group of fire warriors or upgraded fire warriors is also not useful, as I think everyone can agree that a fire warrior squad in the open is going to get wiped off the face of the earth.

His ability to make his squad Fearless is an attractive option, meaning that if you attach him to broadsides then there will be no chance of that bad morale roll which makes them walk (slowly) off the table. However, a couple of str 6 shots and the ethereal can be forced to make an individual save, killing him instantly, so this is a no go.

Sadly, in 3rd Edition I actually used the Ethereal a great deal. I ran a hybrid gun line, and the ability to control morale in hand to hand was quite a benefit. Oddly enough they made his rule not as good (It went from All Tau on the Table, to All Tau in Line of Sight) in the 2nd Tau Codex in 4th edition, but then the system himself upgraded the rule for 5th edition with the true LOS rule. At this point it is fairly difficult NOT to see him.

For 50pts he has quite a remarkable rule, however at the same time, his downside is SO powerful as to make him unusable. One can only hope that in the next iteration of the Tau Codex we see a change in him. What are some idea to fix him. What do you think? Here are some thoughts of my own:

• First, make him (like Guard) able to use his rule from a Transport. This simple change, and the survivability of Tau Vehicles would give the Ethereal the possibility of living long enough to be worth it.
• Give him a series of squad upgrades, rather like an Inquisitor or a Command Squad. Tau Air Caste, Tau Water Caste and Tau Earth Caste advisors. Perhaps even aliens (Niccassar perhaps).
• Let him have the ability to purchase some type of suit. There are several pictures of Ethereal with flight packs of some type. Let it upgrade his toughness to 4. This way the high amount of str 6 shots that come in wouldn't instant kill him, and instead would do a wound. That is not so bad. It should also give him an armor save.
• Perhaps allow him to purchase several types of abilities, as opposed to the one he has.

Well that is it. I will take some (probably poor) pictures after I finish him and post them up here tomorrow.