Weekly General Q&A Thread: March 10, 2021

For the love of god, Admech. They're at least an army where even if you build a shooty list, you're not going to still have options if you get into melee, and have several viable ways to play them.

Tau have a reputation for being "easy to play" as, the way GW has designed them, you really only participate in the Movement phase and the Shooting phase. While that SOUNDS great, it's actually a MAJOR drawback.

While that means you can teach someone how to play Tau in about 3 minutes, that's ALSO why Tau waver between "obnoxiously overpowered" (like they were in 8th edition) to "well, thanks for the win" (like they are currently) depending on how the core rules of the game change.

Tau have absolutely no units that are good at taking and holding objectives, of which the 9th edition rules put an emphasis of 50% of your score, and due to how their army structure works, they almost always give up easy secondaries (the other half of the score that is selected by the player).

There is also a persistent problem with Tau players (in my experience) in that because they tend to only learn the movement/shooting rules, they often have NO IDEA how the other phases work, and get annoyed when someone uses advanced tactics on them in those phases, because they literally have no idea those tactics exist. To be frank, their "trying to keep the game simple" hurts them as they don't understand what opponents are doing until it is too late, and they can't fathom tactics that would solve problems that don't involve shooting.

As another anecdote: every time I've gotten into melee with tau before the 3rd battle round, in both 8th and 9th edition, the Tau player has always conceeded, because their entire playstyle is reliant on shooting, and if you get things in melee range if them they lose the vast majority of that potency.

Admech are a MUCH more balanced army that can support many more varied playstyles, with having first turn mobility with the Sulfurhounds/Syberys Raiders/Pteraxi, the ability to take and hold objectives with difficult-to-remove Kataphrons and Electropriests, and having plenty of options for devastating firepower

Right now.Tau aren't in a good place, and the design philosophy for their codex has kept backing them into the corner of "shoots good, sucks at everything else" for so many years that it has become a detriment, to the point that even when tau IS good, it's only with a VERY specific list with no chance at variation.

If you're worried about painting, there are many, MANY youtube tutorials on how to make cool and distinctive paint jobs for Admech that look cool but don't mean you're spending 6 hours per model.

The build&paint sets are designed for people painting Ultramarines. I suggest you decide on a color scheme and buy the colors one by one. You can use the Citadel Color app as a guide for what paints are used with each color. As for start collecting boxes, look into splitting the 9th edition starting sets with someone, they're very good in terms of saving money. The Blood Angels Combat Patrol box is also good.

Sounds good. What accessories would you recommend? I’ve seen nuln oil brought up often as well as base decorations.

Unless you're playing in one of the very few tournaments that care about that, your painting scheme has no bearing on what rules you use. Just keep it consistent for the army.

Will do. Thanks for the reply.

buy a small fishing tackle box (or toolbox). Ideally metal.

Put in just the paint and brushes you need at the moment, plus a few minis you're working on.

When you want to paint, all you need to do is haul out your toolbox, open it up, fill up the water cup and begin.

When you're finished, pack everything away, stick the minis to the top of the toolbox to dry (since you magnetised the base) and you're done

edit: Jazza built a hobby toolbox out of a fake treasure chest, and ended up liking miniature painting so much it took over his entire workshop, so there's that.

Thank you! Ill look into it!

I mean, this kinda sounds like you need a dedicated painting station/desk that you can leave stuff out on. When you say "no space" do you mean you physically have no space for a dedicated hobby table? If you don't, would having a tray you could leave stuff on, and just pick up and put in a closet fix the problem?

I dont have a dedicated desk, but i will try your tip!

Most units with the AIRCRAFT keyword specifically have rules that deal with pivoting either before, during, or after the movement. There is no "general" rule as it is handled differently by different factions and sometimes even different aircraft within a faction

As an example, all Space Marine AIRCRAFT have the SUPERSONIC rule that allows for up to a 90 degree pivot that doesn't count towards the total movement, before it then must move in a straight line.

Eldar fliers have a different rule that allows a pivot before and after the straight line movement, while the Admech ones can actually pivot DURING the straight line.

Each AIRCRAFT will say on its own specific datasheet how pivoting/when it can pivot works for it

The link is in the sidebar.

I may be blind? I can't find it

The Khaki is fantastic, as is the entire purple line in model color. Be aware the model color paint is a little thicker than GW and needs to be stirred instead of shaken.

Thanks for the recommendations and for the tip! I'm going to try using mixer balls.

Yes, as per the 'select targets' section of fight phase rules; "Attacks made by models in units that made a charge move this turn can only target enemy units that their unit declared a charge against, or that performed a Heroic Intervention this turn".

As always, charging units fight first before moving on to alternating the rest of the units.

Before you resolve any attacks, you must first select the target unit(s) for all of the attacks. Attacks made by models in units that made a charge move this turn can only target enemy units that their unit declared a charge against, or that performed a Heroic Intervention this turn.

No, it doesn't currently have rules for use in Kill Team. If you head over to the official Kill team website it has a handy explore factions section where you can see all the models currently available to use in each faction.

Thanks, I didn't know things had to be approved for use in kill team!