A Tale of Five Gamers - Chris' Complete 500pt Tau Force Round-Up

The third update in the 500 point challenge, a tad disappointing but included for completeness and to round things up a little.

===============================================

The Stormstrike Expansion Cadre

The Stormstrike Expansion Cadre History

With the third sphere expansion well under way, Commander Shadowsun has ordered her forces be split and sent in several directions to probe nearby Imperial worlds for weakness. At the vary tip of these fleets are the expansion cadres, small forces, little more than scouts and water caste bodyguards. Their role is to reconnoitre imperial worlds, assessing defences and where possible making contact with the more open minded planetary governors. Contact with enemy forces is kept to a minimum, with the cadre containing just a handful of firewarriors, pathfinders, and a contingent of crisis battlesuits. A long way from the inner Sept worlds, the forces must make do without the support of their allied races and heavy armour.


One such cadre pushed further in to Imperial space than most, and entered talks with a governor whose tithe was putting tremendous strain on his economy. Receiving intel that a neighbouring system may be negotiating with the xenos, the Inqusition despatched the fiercely loyal forces of the 29th Lignum Iugo Mechanized Regiment to eradicate the Tau and send a clear message to local systems. They struck quickly and the small Tau force made a desperate retreat, outnumbered, and outgunned by the superior force. The regiment landed a large amount of armour in the area with the intention of swiftly eliminating the Tau before they could extract.

The Shas’vre charged with the security of the force, made a risky move and led the other crisis suits back to the Orca dropships ahead of the main force, leaving them virtually defenceless. A single Orca then set course straight for the Guard detachment using the low cloud of the planet’s storms as cover. Making it directly above the force without being detected the Shas’Vre led the crisis teams in deadly vertical assault in to the heart of the enemy formation. The strike was a complete surprise and coupled with the cloud cover, the guard’s hydras didn’t even obtain a target lock before the Tau were among them. Landing atop the chimeras and battletanks, the suits ignited them with their fusion blasters whilst gun drones pinned heavy weapons teams. Using the burnt out husks of the tanks, the suits jumped from cover to cover, sewing confusion and death. Without any weapons to pierce the crisis armour, and the storm interfering with communication equipment, the 29th fell in to disarray and were slaughtered to a man. Not a single crisis suit was lost.

Earning the name Stormstrike, the Shas’vre was promoted to Commander, and has begun requisitioning further battlesuits to build a hunter cadre. Wherever Stormstrike is spotted, death from the skies is sure to follow. The extreme and deadly tactics have not gone unnoticed however, and an Ordo Xenos inquisitor has been despatched to end the threat. Requesting aid from the fearsome 1313th Lignum Iugo Expeditionary force, and with rumours of a Deathwatch kill team en-route, Commander Stormstrike will have plenty of opportunity to fight for the Greater Good.

Army List

The 500 point force was based off the following Army List (any Caveats or errors are explained at the end of this article) created to represent a similar force:

500 Point Challenge Images

Below are Images showing The Stormstrike Expansion Cadre at the outset of their expedition in to the Quintairn Sub-sector.

Some words from Millest on behalf of Chris

Hi All, unfortunately due to many unfortunate circumstances, some unavoidable and out of the control of Chris and some down to him himself, Chris hasn't been able to progress as well as he or we would have liked. Despite repeated pestering, offers of help and general rollockings Chris as you can see had issues. Still as this is the 500 point deadline I have included his work so far to demonstrate what has been accomplished. Chris assures me that the force will be finished soon (we shall see) and we will hopefully have pics of the completed force in time for our first battle report.
So once again he offers his apology as do I on his behalf. So as you can see whilst progress hasn't been amazing at least he has kept us updated!

===============================================

So folks, for what its worth and to wrap this stretch up that was Chris's update, thanks for sticking with it but apologies it wasn't finished in time.