Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey Dakka, I've been toying around with getting a new Tau commander crisis suit to convert into a Farsight model as I don't particularly like the official one. In the past, I've seen online and even test fitted myself the Wraithlord sword onto both standard Tau crisis suits and the FW ones but the sword looked too big for my personal tastes. Does anyone have a conversion of that already done? I realize that is a stretch but I do hope that someone out there is a fellow Xenos player with both Tau and Eldar armies who has both a wraithlord (with sword) and a new Tau crisis commander model that they can post or link to a side by side pic of the two. Thanks in advance and *fingers crossed* hopefully the sword will be a better fit on the "true scale" crisis suit.

I can't comment on if the Wraithlord blade is the right size or not. I think it might be a little on the large side because the XV8 suits are significantly shorter than Wraithlords.

Wraithblade swords on the other hand seem like they'd be a better fit. If you know anyone who's bought the new Wraightguard/Wraithblade set, ask them if they've got the spare sword bits to test fit?

I suspect it'll be on the large size as well but I'm just not sure if it crosses the "acceptably large" line with the bigger commander suit. I did look into the wraithguard swords as well but they look a bit too small. I don't have the plastic versions but I put my metal versions next to crisis suits and the weapons didn't IMO look impressive enough to be a dawnblade Farsight weapon. If squads of crisis suits had some sort of a close combat option, they'd definitely be a great choice for that conversion.

My plan (assuming I find a pic of the stuff side by side) is to model the sword as a two handed weapon which should help a bit with the oversized look as well. I'm just not sure if making it a two handed katana style weapon PLUS the larger crisis suit commander model is enough to overcome the Final Fantasy look common with using the sword with older models one handed. This is the closest I've been able to come by combining various images from the dakka gallery (and trying to match the bases to the same scale). It's borderline acceptable for my purposes depending on the pose which is why I was hoping someone has a conversion already done or the two models (wraithlord and new crisis commander) in the same pic.

Well to be totally honest, that looks about right to me! Looks like that's the older Crisis suit kit which is a little shorter than the commander so it could be worth a shot.

You could probably get just the sword of a bits seller for relatively cheap. I imagine most people that build wraithlords go shooty with them, like wraithguard.

There was a historical kind of Japanese sword called a "nodachi" that was very long, typically longer than the man wielding it.

SRSFACE wrote:Well to be totally honest, that looks about right to me! Looks like that's the older Crisis suit kit which is a little shorter than the commander so it could be worth a shot.

You could probably get just the sword of a bits seller for relatively cheap. I imagine most people that build wraithlords go shooty with them, like wraithguard.

As an eldar player, I've already got an unbuilt wraithlord with a sword bit ready to go. I would say though that at least locally the sword was a very popular option and almost everyone had one modeled whether for aesthetics or the game mechanics last codex edition.

Kilkrazy wrote:There was a historical kind of Japanese sword called a "nodachi" that was very long, typically longer than the man wielding it.

Indeed! Thanks for reminding me of the name. I did recall it but not what it was called from (of all places) my old D&D 2e Ninja handbook... I never did get to play that character unfortunately...

The Dreadknight sword works pretty well:

While that is definitely impressive and imposing to enemy players, I'm going for a bit more understated look which is why I'm worried about the size of the blade. I did some GIMP editing of the file to test fit it with cut and pastes (and a few rotates).

It's a bit necothreadish but I've finally gotten an enforcer suit and plan to continue this conversion again. Ironically, shortly after I started this thread last year, someone else on dakka (coincidence?) decided to do such a thing. Since I was rebooting my interest in this conversion, I did another image search for inspiration and research and found the following:

[/img]

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/582050.page

I like how he posed it but wouldn't want to copy that though. I think it's size works held in a static pose like that but I'm thinking it may still be too big held in a combat pose in one hand. I'm not sure how I'd model the shield generator if held as a two handed weapon (as shown in my kitbash mspaint image above). Putting the shield generator on the hand would make it likely too busy and I'm not a fan of the putting it on the jump pack top. Maybe on the back of the model under the engine over the similary shaped circle?



http://twitchydroidpainting.blogspot.com/2014/11/tau-farisght-enclave-battlesuit.html

Just a quick update with what I did over the weekend. I'm still debating if I should use the cloth bits from the wraithlord kit on him to sub in for the ribbons. I'm not particularly a fan of the ribbons though as I prefer my Tau designs "practical" (at least as practical as a flying anime robot with a giant sword can get!). More pics from different angles as well as without the scenic display base are in my gallery here on dakka or at the blog link in my sig.

That looks frickin' cool!! Do it!

Rule of cool says yes, most definitely yes

Wow, thanks for the quick responses! Are you guys referring to adding the loincloth bits or just the conversion overall? In any case, thanks. The other option I was considering was adding the ceremonial bonding sword to his left hip as a nod to the dual sword typical samurai loadout.

The sword, looks very good. And looks to scale vs the suit

Space marines get great swords, why not the Tau:-)

Thanks, the scale is what I was worried about. I do wish that the tau had access to a simple power sword as a support weapon for suits, if only for shas'vre or bodyguards in the farsight supplement.

I did a little bit of work last night in test fitting the robes and cloth with blue tack. Personally, I think that the addition of the bits makes the mini seem too busy but I'd like some feedback on that.





And a quick scale pic next to regular suits, a forgeworld special character suit, and a smattering of infantry models. Click on the pic below to be taken to the dakka gallery for additional zooming in.

I did this conversion as well, and the sword looks plain better if you cut off the power ribs and the power field generating sphere and then pin the rest of the sword back to the handle, it saves you about half an inch of length and perfectly fixes the size issue with 2 small cuts. also you loose the eldar rune that is on there.

NickOnwezen wrote:
I did this conversion as well, and the sword looks plain better if you cut off the power ribs and the power field generating sphere and then pin the rest of the sword back to the handle, it saves you about half an inch of length and perfectly fixes the size issue with 2 small cuts. also you loose the eldar rune that is on there.

Can you post a pic of your conversion? I'm curious how the sword length looks. I might try photoshopping it as well. In any case, I actually like the generator and eldar runes as they reinforce the idea that it is ancient xenotech and not of tau origin. One thing that does bother me more and more as I look at it though is the position of the left leg... it's got a bit too much crotch/hip showing. I'm a bit afraid to repose it as finecast is quite brittle though but I may change the angle of the leg tonight. It looks fine from the side and top but there is a whole lot of ball joint showing in that straight on pic I posted above.

edit:

I did a quick photoshop (or technically mspaint) edit of the pic to see how the shorter length sword would look. I do agree that the length is better from that angle but I think it personally loses alot without the eldar dodads on it and becomes just a normal sword in a way. YMMV but it does give me food for thought.

I finished the hip repose and added the honor blade to his hip. I think for now that I'll keep the blade the unaltered length but I may change my mind in the future.



I also started work on the second member of this small ally force so I decided to start a P&M blog thread to cover the on going project at the link with future updates. The first member I'm working on is the shas'vre leader of the 3 man crisis suit squad. My current idea is turn that subcommander into a budding Brightsword with custom fusion blasters and blades.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/640997.page