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I started a thread a while back in prepartion of a conversion I was planning to turn a crisis enforcer suit into Commander Farsight.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/581663.page

Since I've decided to make a small ally force of the models, I figured that a P&M blog thread would be more appropriate. Since I posted in the original thread, I've tweaked my Farsight model a bit. The prominence of the hip/groin was bothering me a bit so I changed the pose to decrease the angle on that leg. I also added an honor blade to his right hip. I don't think that I'll shorten the sword nor add the cloth bits either for the moment.



To accompany him as the smallest possible ally force I planned to include the mandatory 3 man crisis team. Two suits will be standard fireknife patterns (plasma rifle, missle pod) along with counterfire systems. The leader for the squad is a bit more up in the air. Initially, I had a shas'vre upgrade version of the buffmander that has been popular for a while (puretide engram, multispectrum sensor, and command node) but I wasn't too keen on putting that many points on one 2 wound model. Alternately, I thought about replacing one system with a much cheaper vectored retrothruster. The idea of having one model out of four never able to fire though turned me off a bit as did the relative lack of modelling options.

Since I've got some time before I get the rest of my models, I decided to try yet another pose and loadout. I decided to try an model a young Commander Brightsword (twin linked fusion blasters and blades) as a budding shas'vre under Farsight. More than a decade ago, I picked up from the GW bits shop a bunch of old farsight swords to use for another conversion that never ended up happening. I thought I might test fit two of those swords to a running pose enforcer suit along with some spare long barrelled fusion guns that I also had. Here is the result with the normal "sword in hand" conversion.



The arms and weapons are blue tac'ed to test out the pose and I'd use a normal left arm instead of the metal one I'm using to test fit. The rules for the model have the fusion guns doubling as str8 ap1 close combat weapons which I'm modelling as the swords instead. The other version that I came up with has the sword under the forearms like a bayonet or underslung wolverine claw. In the final version, I'd trim the sword down to the main blade with just the tiny nub sticking out into the weapon groove under the arm.



I think I like the swords in the hand (I'll end up using the proper enforcer hands in the final versions of both) over the underarm blades but I'm not married to it. Ideas?

Just a quick update... I finished work on my Subcommander Brightsword conversion. I decided to go with the original swords in the hands as opposed to the underarm blades as I couldn't the angles to look quite right when I was posing the model with blue tac. Since in my fluff for this small ally force Brightsword is still the latest budding young subcommander ready to pick up the mantle of Brightsword in the Farsight Enclaves, I plan on making the model the Shas'vre leader of the crisis suit squad with twin linked fusion guns and fusion blades. I gave Farsight two shoulder pads whereas the Subcommander will instead just get a single one to denote his rank. I plan for the two rank and file crisis suits to have no shoulder pads but that is obviously dependent on the final looks of the models.

Just a quick update... I finished my first of two normal suits today. This one is just a regular crisis suit with the fireknife (plasma/missile) loadout plus counterfire defense system. I reposed his left leg to be alot straighter to vary the pose up a bit and gave him a variant missile pod using Heavy Gear vehicle bits that I had.



The final suit in the four pack of my tiny farsight force will have the same loadout but a different pose that I'm still planning. I have to say that I'm struggling a bit to figure out how to pose the last guy with the same identical finecast kit. My current idea is to use a flight base and have him in the normal leaning back pose on the box but with the flight stand possibly keeping him up in the air (instead of being tethered to the ground).

I tweaked the model a bit last night as well. From the pictured above angle, the right hip looks good but from the front is a bit pigeon toed. I decided to cut and turn the right leg at the hip. Since it was previously a relatively flat joint, I had to build a ball joint out of green stuff after turning the leg. Here you can see the model along with more from my existing Tau army. I decided to finally convert one crisis suit back to a commander but this time of the "buff" variety. Along for the ride with him are two new converted markerlight drones as well. The pic also shows the size and proportion difference between the resin and plastic kits.

I finished up the assembling the rest of the crisis suits for the Farsight Ally force this past week. I started by tweaking the weapon loadout of the last model I built. In my older Tau force, all the crisis suits are modeled with plasma rifles and missile launchers. The combo was an effective take all comers loadout with the previous codex's rules and visually evoked the Heavy Gear robot style as well that I'm a fan of. With the current rules (both codex and game rules), it's much better to specialize against a particular target. I do like the double gun(slinger) look as well so visually I'm ok with the change and if I ever do field the squad then they'll now be able to take on heavily armored infantry a bit better. Here is the redone loadout standard crisis suit from above along with the new one that I assembled this week. For the final model I decided to use the standard pose for the torso and legs but gave him a bit more of an active pose above the waist to contrast with the relaxed look of last week's model.



And here is the whole ally force made up of Commander Enforcer suits. I think there is enough variability in the poses to make the squad look dynamic enough and not just carbon copies of each other. I'd struggle to find a way to add another model from the same core model without copying one of the other poses though. Game rules-wise, this ally force consists of Commander Farsight and a troops Crisis suit squad with one upgraded to a shas'vre with the fusion blades signature system.



The next step is thinking about how to paint them. This will be my third successive project on the blog that, if not continued, would add to my hobby pile of (unpainted) shame so I'm definitely completing something before moving onto anything new. Since I've been having fun modelling the Tau, I'll probably continue working on them as well. My original Tau force is painted up in a WW2 US army green scheme with the corresponding white star decals. I'm not sure if I should continue it with these models or come up with something new but related. The standard Farsight color scheme is a deep red with some grey trim.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-WW/Tau-Empire-Commander-Farsight;jsessionid=D8898E0F359A1EC304DF646D3E479C1D?_requestid=7254049

If I went with that, I'd go with a "russian" decal style with red stars instead of the white to signify the "ally" status and the more martial stance of the Farsight enclaves as well as the "communists in space" stereotype that the tau in general evoke at first glance. Alternately, I could continue the motif a bit further by doing a WW2 Russian brown base color instead. Alternately, I could research a USMC scheme to contrast my US Army one for my main Tau force. I admit that I'm fairly ignorant about WW2 USMC schemes beyond watching some John Wayne movies as a kid and vaguely remembering a patchy camo. Over the weekend, I'll try and look up a few more options but feel free to comment if you have any ideas in the meantime.

"as well as the "communists in space" stereotype that the tau in general evoke at first glance"

please, PLEASE don't promote that stereotype any further.

I realize it's not truely accurate but it is an incredibly common first glance assumption about them which is why I mentioned it since it segways into two of my possible paint schemes and labelled it appropriately.

I went to a swap meet a few weeks back at a local store and traded for a Tau lot that included some Forgeworld 40k Tau Broadsides. When checking out the parts for the first time this week (beyond just making sure they were all there before), I did a quick test fit of the shoulder pads of one of the broadsides on my Tau crisis suit models. I do rather like the results. The bare shoulders were in a way a necessity for two reasons previously as I didn't have enough after doubling up for my Farsight model and I also needed a way to distinguish the various ranks visually. Unfortunately I only have a single pair of shoulder pads (the second broadside was missing them) but I did some mspaint magic to show how doubled pairs would look below:



I do rather like how they look with them on. It seems like the shoulders blend visually with the thigh armor as well as give it a bit more of a samurai anime look as well. I've contacted Forgeworld to see if I could buy extra but assuming that won't be the case (I've never heard of them selling bits) I've gone in the meantime with one pad each on the left shoulder as with the original model. I had to sculpt a tau symbol to place on the 2nd flat shoulder pad. Now, the normal suits will have the smaller pad, the squad commander will have the larger pad, and the army commander will have the pair of larger pads. I hope to take some pics tomorrow of the modifications as I'm currently waiting for my first attempt at modelling with milliput to set.

I also did some more research that confirmed my suspicions about USMC paint schemes including starting a thread here in the WW2 historical subforum. It seems like the only variations were on the company level applied in the field and that the tanks left the factories in the same olive drab color as US Army vehicles. I really don't see myself applying a camo pattern to these suits as I already have on in my normal Tau army to distinguish the "scouts" (the pathfinders and their various derivatives with markerlights). I leaning at this point to just continuing my existing paint scheme but the original Farsight Red (with Russian decals) is still an option as is a weathered winter camo look.

Here is a lower down shot of the completed models. I used Milliput to make a second tau symbol for the bare shoulder pad and I filled in the empty lip on the other shoulder pad with milliput. I also used some liquid greed stuff to plug the casting holes in the finecast.







The home made tau symbol had some imperfections in the edge so the green smudge you see on the edge is my attempt to rebuild it after casting it. It looks like I won't be getting additional shoulder pads for purchase so this is the final loadout and they're pretty much ready for priming at this point.

I found last night an example of a Tau army done up in the weathered winter style pattern I mentioned using above (but without the soviet decals of course). I'm really glad I found it because I never would have thought that it would look in practice so different from what I thought it would in theory. The painter did a really good job completing the scheme but I in the end think that grizzled look is where I'd want to take my Tau now that I've seen it done. I've decided to go with the US WW2 style mentioned earlier but I plan to embellish these models with more decals as well as USMC markings instead of the US army cavalry ones the main force has. Things like cockpit markings, danger and radiation warnings, flags, etc. I plan on making the suits a mix of tank and airplane style decals with the olive drab base color and some edge highlighting.

It took me a while to get the first layer of paint on but slow and steady work over the last two weeks has finally gotten my first hobby project of 2015 (yeah, I know...I'm really late!) close to completion. Here is my Commander Farsight conversion along with a full squad of crisis suits to keep him company (as well as make a legal 40k Ally force). You may notice that the squad commander with the twin shoulder/jet pack weapons lost her swords since the last post. Unfortunately, they were too fragile and pieces broke off twice while painting. Despite partially pinning them (only partially due to some small pommel sizes), parts were knocked off both while holding the mini for painting as well as when the model fell over after a painting table bump. Mechanically, I can still use the same in game upgrade I planned but I will miss the visual flair the twin swords provided. I went with the traditional US WW2 green khaki color along with some gunmetal and brass trim. For the shoulder and leg color accents, I tried to evoke a bit of the D-Day landing stripes you see on WW2 aircraft to break up all that green.



I just finished the bases prior to posting this so the models are currently drying. The next step would be a quick gloss coat and then the decal work begins. I'm frankly not sure how far to go with the decals. I'm definitely adding the US white star decals and a US flag from the Flames of War decals below to match both the theme and my existing related Tau army but I'm waffling as to how much more to add.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=316

I'm considering adding the red and white triple stars to the Commander Farsight model to show his "general" rank status but I'm not sure about the rest. The same FOW decal pack has alot of nose art style names that I'd like to customize each suit with. For instance, they have a "Blood n' Guts" decal that I could put on my commander ala Patton. I'm not sure where to put that though (the forearms like a tatoo, the "butt" as that side is pretty sparse on detail, the top of the jet packs, etc). The side chest is obscured too much to make it worth it frequently and the head is too small so those two options are out. I also have another decal pack that has a ton of warning markers on it that I'm thinking about using.



Placing the radioactive marker on the powerplant between the jet pack thrusters is one idea as are putting the danger and warning symbols on the jet packs and weapons (along with the rescue possibly on the chest). These decals are not precut so they're quite fiddly to work with and very easy to screw up which is one thing going against them. The other thing is that I'm worried about making the model appear too busy like it belongs in NASCAR. Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated. Probably tomorrow I'll start on the decals that I absolutely know I'll use and where so I should have another update on these models later in the week. As always, thanks for reading!

It was probably meant to be about the swords, if you read the fluff and look at the upgrade, the fusion blade is an upgrade from twin linked fusion, not an actual sword like farsight. I made my fusion blade out of riptide/broadside bit that can attach 2 guns at close proximity, attaching to the shoulder or arm acting like a fusion torch.

Yeah, that's why I said it wouldn't matter mechanically and that they were just there for visual flair. I thought they were a nice addition to signify one of the few close combat oriented Tau models at a glance but as you said it just wasn't so. The fusion guns I used were long barrelled version from a spare turret I turned into a aegis line gun and had the spare bits from so they'll still look unique compared to just two normal ones up top.

Well, I now have a legal Farsight ally force painted up! I decided not to go too crazy with the decals (at the cost of about a half dozen or so that I applied and then took off) and just used the FOW decals as the colored ones made the model too busy. I went with the white stars on the shoulder, chest, and back (in descending size order) as well as a few spots of text including some pilot nicknames on the forearms of each suit. Additionally, I put a flag on the left shoulder to go with the theme. I tried out designation numbers on the left chest for all as well as the white stars on a red bar for Farsight but they just seemed out of place. Without further talk about stickers on my soldiers, here's the pic:



As usual, you can click on the link to go to the dakka gallery to zoom in as needed. Sorry about the white balance being off but I tried using the dakka autocorrect feature for that after uploading and it turned the suits way too dark green.

The next step for the force is to add in another (big) fig that I got in trade a little while back... a Y'Vahra!

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Tau-XV109-Y-Vahra-Battlesuit?_requestid=7255253

My plan is to convert it to be usable as both a Y'vahra as well as a normal riptide for when opponents aren't keen on using forgeworld rules (especially trial ones like the Y'Vahra currently has). I'll have to make another left arm as I plan on using the right one for the normal riptide ion accelerator., I'll also probably try to convert the head into something a bit more proportional to the model. The FW variant doesn't have as bad of a tiny head issue as the normal riptide but it still looks off IMO. I'll hopefully start construction of the models today so might have an update on the next addition sometime late this week.

I've been working on my Riptide Y'Vahra conversion for a few evenings and this is what I've come up with so far.





I had to create the head from scratch using left over and broken star wars, transformers, and 40k Imperial/Tau/Chaos bits to give it a bit more heft compared to the original. It's a bit too big IMO but I still prefer it to the Thrud the Barbarian tiny head the original model came with. The arm was similarly created and I'm happy with the final effect there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to successfully magnetize it to allow fast switching of the normal riptide arm with the Y'Vahra variant weapon. I figured I'd probably be playing the "normal" riptide more often and wanted the suit to look like a bigger upsized version of the smaller one so opted to glue that arm on.

One thing I'm definitely not happy about is my scratch built shoulder pad. It just seems both too busy there as well as out of place. I've since taken it off and repositioned it both higher up on the shoulder as well as reversed (so the short face/angle is pointing toward the elbow instead) and it does look better but I'm still not happy with the result. I'll be trying to pick up some armor bits on ebay to test out a few other looks but for now both the shoulders are bare.

Not a whole heck of a lot to report other than fixing the shoulder pad. I took off my homemade one and it took a month but I finally got my bits in the mail. I tried out the broadside thigh pads as well as the shoulderpad and both were too small unfortunately. I ended up going ironically with the standard riptide one instead on the left shoulder with a bit of tweaking and primed the model. I'll be working on the paintscheme next which will be very similar to the ones further up in this thread.



By the end of the week, I hope to have a finished Y'vahra/RIptide.

I really like the double-handed sword guy. Nice work.

Thanks! I have some qualms about how certain parts of the others have turned out (like the leg pose of the YVahra above) but I'm really happy with him. My Commander Farsight conversion turned out better than I had hoped a year ago in the thread linked in the first post.

Just a quick update (a few days delayed). I've worked slowly but steadily on the Riptide conversion and have gotten the painting done. The pic below (with a few more varied figs for scale) was actually taken while waiting for the flock and glue to dry so the base is a bit cleaner than indicated. Since the pic, I've overcoated the mini and have started putting on the decals.



One idea I've been toying around with is if/how to make the shielded missile drones. Initially, I had planned on skipping them but while working on the model this evening I came up with what might be a cool idea. I magnetized the little wings on the back of the thrusters as the resin there is very thin and if the model fell over or was bumped they'd break and be irreparable. My idea is to make slightly smaller shielded missile drones and "mount" them on the spot instead of the wings for when I plan on using them in game. The drones will be docked with the Riptide for added speed in the fluff until they deploy similar to how the drones are on devilfish. Ideas?

Still no decision on what I'm doing (if anything) for the drones but I did finish the Riptide's decals and snapped a picture. It was still a bit glossy in the pic so I decided to do another flat coat after this picture was taken. Not visible in the pic are the "wings" I put from a large Imperial aquila (but not the body or head) on each of the wings on the thrusters.

This stuff is incredible. Your style is pretty remarkable. How do you justify these guys in fluff?

Thanks for the compliment. To be honest, the fluff takes second fiddle to the rule of cool for me with figs (although I try my hardest to build/play WYSIWIG whenever possible to avoid confusion). The start of my Tau army was from a painted purchase I made early in 5th edition from a guy in the army who painted up his Tau in an army paint scheme. My attraction to the force was actually because the scheme was close (but not exactly the same) as my Cadian IG force and I thought it would be cool to use them together in bigger battles.

I've more than doubled the force since but carried on the same theme (but adjusted it slightly from a modern US army cavalry force to WW2 army). I tried to carry on the visual style of a fire warrior single shoulder pad on each crisis suit with variations for size based on rank. Additionally, I gave my Farsight model two pads to give him a slightly more "samurai" armor feel to go along with the sword. I fully admit that it's a mishmash of Tau, WW2 US army, and samurai themes but I'm happy with the results here. I did a few much less ambitious additions to the army (variant broadsides and crisis suits) in the past but this is a small "dream" tau force for me similar to how my (yet to be finished) truescale deathwatch marine team were.

In game, they're a Farsight Enclaves force due to the militaristic theme and alternative paint schemes and markings. They've developed separately from the normal Tau and have deviated from the traditional societal norms to what you see above (whether from isolation from the Empire and from increased contact with humans without the guidance of ethereals).

Well, it's been a few months since my last update but I decided to put the project on hold for a bit as the Tau codex rumors started to gain steam this summer. The new codex came out and I've been trying to see how both my main Tau army and the small Farsight force I've chronicled here fit into the "new" book. My main army is large enough to give me a few options but the Farsight force needs more tweaking.

I initially planned to next add two Forgeworld remora drones next to the force but since FW has yet to update their rules but admittedly only been a few weeks. While the option to use a small Farsight ally force of my existing models still works for now, there are two problems. The first is that there are now rumors of a Farsight campaign book in a few weeks and also a redone enclaves subcodex in a few months. With GW now officially embracing the "decurion" onion layeres formation style of army building, the rules that make my small force legal are likely to go away. The second is that the new style of army building gives just too many freebie rules to ignore especially as any likely opponent will be using so.ething similar for free as well.

The easiest way currently of achieving the same effect (a small semi independent crisis suit force) is to turn them into a retribution force from the hunter contingent. In order to use that though, I need to acquire a broadside model. I have a forgeworld xv-88-2 but it just doesn't have the bulk necessary to accompany my enforcer suits so it'll have to be the current plastic. The best loadout currently is the missiletide suit but I neither like the look of that version nor does it fit into my theme of a small anti-elite armor force. Instead, I'll be using the currently unfashionable post-nerf railgun plasma rifle version. I'm also not a fan of that look but it has good conversion potential.


One of my two existing converted broadside squads

Because of the way the current plastic kit is laid out, the middle model is out as an inspiration. A popular and useful conversion now is to do something similar to the right and magnetize the railgun tip so that you can swap on the missiles for the other loadout.

http://thehammerofwrath.blogspot.com/2014/04/post-delayed-due-to-technical-issues.html

I like the options this affords and for a while (long before this codex came out) this was my top choice...until I found this!

http://www.advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?p=287759&sid=ff4a89d16b9ea3d96861f384bbd8d6ee

As you can see, it's similar in style to my previous squad entry on the left. I plan to make a few changes to both weapons and other parts (like adding hands!) but the overall bazooka look is what I'll go for. I've got some ideas about switching the railgun bazooka over to the other shoulder and having the second hand come over to stabilize it but I'll have to wait until I get a model to see if the idea is truly viable. Luckily, I have some extra broadside railgun bits including arms that I picked up for my riptide (namely the shoulder pad) that may expand the options.

Unfortunately, I had to take an unexpected break from my Tau project due to delays in getting my broadside but finally got it a few weeks ago and worked on it this weekend after recently finishing two HALO Fleet Battles fleets. I roughly followed my idea above with some tweaks of my own to customize it. Sorry about the pics below as I was taking them while working, snapping pics as I worked on the next step (as evidenced by the instructions and still wet glue!). While I did plan out and virtually measure twice, I had to improvise a bunch of changes on the fly.

Starting with the railgun, I test fitted it on the other shoulder but decided to keep it on the same side. It just looked better and was more reminiscent of an old RPG fav, the Rifts Glitterboy. I decided to keep its original orientation instead of flipping it like my inspiration above. I cut away the same large piece above (click his link to see his step by step photo) but decided not to use it as a grip. It would be too bulky since I planned on using spare leftover Enforcer hands on the model. I put on all but one of the original railgun bits (the sensor head scope) and filled in the remaining gaps on the other side where the other hand/arm would go with a spare Broadside "face" bit for the head (you get 5 or 6 with the kit). I'll probably put a small antenna on the back disc area on the outside face of the gun. I mounted the back of the railgun on the peg that attaches to the powerplant as well. Finally, for the grip, I decided o use the mounting rail for the seeker missile I wouldn't be using.





I knew I wasn't going to use the missile because I planned to use the bits for a conversion. I'm building a retaliation cadre in which the broadsides are both relentless and can deep strike, neither of which they normally do. So I made up some fluff that I'll post later about a new Broadside variant that trades sustained fire capability for additional maneuverability. To show this on the model, I decided to skip the cooling fan under the powerplant and mount the seeker missile bit there instead. You need to remove the tab above the back waist on the broadside and slightly trim the intake side of the missile booster engine but it fits as shown below fairly well with minimal fuss with the edge with the longer railing on the bottom.





This conversion pushes the torso a tiny but forward and I had to trim off and gap fill the raised bump on the broadside groin guard as well as it bumped against the center bottom chest armor when dry fitting.



Since I'm going with an anti-heavy infantry theme for this cadre, I chose the plasma guns as my secondary weapon option. I tried mounting it different ways on the arm but thought they all looked too busy. Instead, I decided to also mount it on the back. When I used the normal spacer piece the instructions said, the barrels looked too separated for my tastes and jutted out too far when in the "launch" vertical position I planned on using. I just trimmed them a bit on the inside face and mounted them directly onto the peg. It's style over function though as if they were to rotate forward to fire then they'd be blocked bybtge shoulder pad without the spacer piece. I suspect in fluff the earth caste has miniaturized an extension within the mounting to counteract this. Here is my initial blu tac mockup with most of the pieces.



I still wanted to show a support system on the model but I didn't like any of the existing ones on the left arm mounting so I tried tried using the remaining scope bit from the railgun. I decided that too was too bulky and latter kitbashed a custom piece. I used my leftover Yvahra Riptide head as it was squat and bulky enough that I thought it worked well with the broadside aesthetics. For the arms, I used two sets of left forearms and right shoulders to lengthen the limbs. The right railgun arm of the broadside was just too short and asymmetrical for my tastes and I had an extra from months ago when I ordered bits in my unsuccessful quest for alternate Riptide shoulder pads (detailed above). It was a win-win situation!

I'll be working on gluing this together later tonight and I've already got a few tweaks in mind as well.

I ended up gluing the various bits after my blu tac prototype above after making some additional changes and additions during the build.







Changes from my initial prototype include the new support system conversion on the left arm, the sensor head dog ears (the riptide head I'm using had a single unicorn antenna that I was initially going to use), a railgun grip guard in front of the hand, and dual fins on the calves to further accentuate the increased maneuverability of this broadside variant. My initial goals for this model were to model both the bazooka railgun (thanks again to Kael'yn for the initial proof of concept with the new kit!) as well as the booster nozzle that gives the model deep strike and relentless. There are still a few tweaks I'm planning on like adding a commander's honor blade (it is technically for a Farsight Retaliation Cadre after all) but for now the core conversion is done.

While thinking of the conversion, I ended up coming up with some fluff for the variant posted below.



XV-88S "Si'ts-Kree" High Maneuverability Broadside Variant

With the rapid pace of weapons development in the Third Sphere Expansion, the Fire Caste noticed an acute need for added firepower to accompany the more aggressive, long ranged, and fast paced use of Crisis Suits exemplified by the new Retaliation Cadre doctrine. In traditional Fire Caste doctrine, the broadside filled this role quite honorably but it lacked the manueverability necessary to support faster moving cadres once they deployed from their Orca transports. Additionally, the broadsides were almost completely immobile and unable to participate in extreme environments like underwater or in a vacuum. Recent advances like the Riptide and it's variants have addressed this need for greater mobile suit firepower somewhat but the availablility of this until recently secret and experimental suit is limited and mass production on the scale of crisis suits is cost prohibitive. It was decided by the Earth Caste under the direction of the Ethereals and the request of the Fire Caste to develop a high mobility version of the venerable broadside suit.

The highly efficient coolant system under the powerplant was removed and was miniaturized significantly despite maintaining 70% capacity. It was then placed within the suit torso and coupled with a moderate improvement in the powerplant. In its place, a single large thruster nozzle was placed capable of short intense burns along with some additional flight stability fins on the legs. With the thruster is not powerful enough to actually propel the Broadside in sustained atmospheric flight, it is capable of arresting the suit's fall when air dropped from a moving Orca as well as propelling the suit both underwater and in space at moderate speed. During normal operations, the improved powerplant and targeting software allow added mobility while simultaneously fully charging the railgun and plasma weaponry, previously not consistently possible without a devastating loss of accuracy. The smaller cooling system is less efficient admittedly and the suit does suffer in the traditional role of sustained full battlefield Hunter cadre support fire. It is however sufficient for the short but decisive engagements that Retaliation Cadres typically engage in.

It was decided to name the variant after an ungainly Kroot end evolution common to their homeworld. The Si'ts-Kree is an ungainly large flightless bird with an abnormally large beak and powerful bite. While technically flightless, it is capable of powerful jumps that allow it to reach perches high up in the tree canopies that would otherwise be impossible to reach for a creature of that size and bulk. It then typically drops down on the unsuspecting prey and kills it with its powerful beak.