Well, this will be a little awkward for some. It is awkward for me. It involves God, me and not telling the truth.
Basically I have an apology to be made, and it comes from plagiarism. I have passed of other's experiences as my own. Here is the story:
I was sitting down at my macbook, as I am now, day dreaming about the Hordes faction called Minions, but more specifically the Gator faction. Checking out the minis, looking for advice, seeing what people had done on Google Images, the whole shebang.
I am a Christian, and one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for our sins and that He paid the price we had to pay - which would have meant we'd go to Hell otherwise. To access what Jesus has done for us, like any offered gift, we have to reach out and take it. By doing so, accepting Jesus as Lord and Saviour, we are reconciled to God and become friends with God. Why am I saying this?
As I was enjoying my day dreamings about the Gatormen, I felt this massive conviction from the Holy Spirit [who is also God] about what I had done with dispensing Tau advice. Is the advice I have given wrong? Not as far as I can tell. The problem is that I had passed off other's experiences as my own as I spoke authoritatively about the Tau.
I had played, versus myself, with the Tau when they had first came out. Loved them. The next Codex was very much much like the first one instead of a major overhaul like we've seen with C:GK or C:Newcrons. When dudes such as Stelek, Abuse Puppy, Old Shatter Hands and Kirby had written up ideas and tacticas about Tau, I thought "yeah, this is right and the way to do it" and in conjunction with my own limited experiences, had extrapolated and theoryhammered these things out and they seemed correct to me.
But when I spoke to my online friends, I didn't caveat that this was the case - that I was lacking in experience of these things personally. I haven't actually played against anyone other than me with my Tau [who were my brother's minis anyway] and didn't even have Piranhas despite advocating their use as move-blockers. For this, I truly apologise.
Nowadays, I do have Kroot galore, Broadsides, Crisis Suits, Piranhas and a Hammerhead, in addition to my brother's Tau forces. I have used the move-block technique with my Templar Speeders. But the problem is, I was passing on the advice as my own. That is deception and not what I want to be involved in. I even got into arguments with guys on how best to use Tau, arguing for quite awhile with my theoryhammer against their empirical experience. *face palm*
When I was convicted about this last night, I tried to dismiss it or justify it. "But it is all correct." or "but that one game I played against Tau, the dude agreed with all my theoryhammer." or "but this is really awkward." But I have found that I cannot brush off such conviction easily, and so here I am, acknowledging my failing.
Hopefully this rampant plagiarism hasn't been de rigueur for me with regards to my other Tactical talk, though I have done the same thing with MM Bunkers -> talking about them as though I had experience at personally using them, when I had not. Thankfully I have actually used them subsequently and agree with what I had already mused on and been convinced about by other players.
Again, I apologise.
For those who have any comments about this, feel free to post, whatever it is you want to say.
And of course, any future theoryhammer or passing on other's experiences will be something I need to 'put in the footnotes' so to speak.
Sincerely, Marshal Wilhelm.
