Commander Truestrike's Fi'rios Expedition Cadre (Part 1)

In October I took my Tau army to the Harvester of Souls in Spokane Valley Washington. It was a ton of fun. The game store there is amazing with a dedicated Warhammer room, decked out with wall paintings dedicated to the grimdark future. If you ever find yourself near Spokane Valley, I recommend you give the Gamer's Haven a visit.

That's me, in the red.

Overall I took 9th place out of 36. I only won 2 out of my 5 games I played, but a good portion of your score goes toward the painting, presentation, sportsmanship, and people voting favorite opponents and favorite armies. I loved this format because it encouraged good sportsmanship over minmaxing a game and being a rules lawyer. Even with those 3 losses, all of my opponents were good sportsmen and a blast to play with. Fortunately I didn't see any of the ugly side of a tournament scene most people complain about.

About my army:

My Tau were Truestrike's Fi'rios Expedition Cadre. Commander Truestrike (Shas'o Fi'rios Kono're) is my own character that I love to forge a story with for every game, and this is the 1850 point single Combined Arms Detachment he took with him to the Harvester of Souls.

We had to submit our armies on a display board for overall appearance, and while I like tradittional sand, I went with a not so traditional color. I have an obsession with Mars, so I did go for a red martian sands basing. Overall I think it turned out well. The entire appearance as a whole just popped.

This is Commander Truestrike. Here he is attached to a unit of 3 Crisis suits all with missile pods (Those little rail rifle things are counts-as missile pods). He is a buff build, so he does no shooting. Just gives plenty of awesome bonuses to whoever he is attached to, like twin-linked everything and ignores cover. In his right arm is a counts-as Onager Gauntlet, but I made it from some stolen Necron tech from a previous story campaign.

These are 2 6-man fire warrior squads. Their job was objective camping and a way to bring in 2 Devilfish trooper carriers, both of which proved to be excellent objective takers and defense themselves. The shield wall was my counts-as Aegis Defense Line and Comms Relay.

This is my Fusion Blaster squad. Their entire role was for tank hunting. Depending on the type of enemy, I would either attach my Commander to these guys or my missile pod guys. If I was facing a lot of tanks and heavy armor, my Commander would be attached here when they dropped in. If I was facing a horde army or a lot of light vehicles, then my Commander would be where he was pictured. It worked out pretty well for a lot of situations.

More on next post.