Warmonger Club 40K Tournament (19 Sept 2009): Overview

I brought my 1850 point Slann army (basically, converted Lizardmen-esque Tau Empire list), with the following configuration: 7 Crisis Suits (all with Missile Pod and Flamer), 2x2 Broadsides with Shield Drones, 5x12 Fire Warriors with Ld8, 2x8 Pathfinders with Fish

I learned a number of things in this tournament: first, that my Slann (Tau) list does exactly what I designed it to do: sacrifice throwaway units to keep opponents away from my gunline, and shred enemies quite handily. Second, that the 5th edition rules no longer allow me to do that and win the game. I nearly tabled two opponents, and still ended up losing because of objectives, and the lack-of-resilience of my Troops units. Plus, using my Troops as sacrificial throwaways didn’t help…

It looks like the Slann (Tau) will have to rather dramatically retool. I think I’ll be doing this as a long-term project over the next year or so, given the different time commitments I have, but having been pointed in several directions, I find that I’m convinced by the army construction advice given by Stelek at http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com

In short, to modify my existing philosophy somewhat, by relying more heavily on Elites and Heavies, and shifting the sizable chunk of Troops points to more effective sacrificial units (Kroot), and to aim to table or near-table opponents and simply nab objectives in the late game with minimal-sized Fire Warrior units who are lurking in Reserve at the start of the game (they would load into a Devilfish when they first show up).

In the meantime, I went 0-1-2 in the tournament (1 tie, 2 losses), and have some incentive to finish painting the list – at long last, after literally years – because I’m planning to attend another tournament in November ’09. I think I’ll play the same list there that I did here, and try out some table-top adjustments rather than army-list adjustments. I expect to get massacred, but it’ll continue to be a learning experience!