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A little backstory,

I've been collecting and playing 40k since the early 2000s. Since then I've dabbled in many different armies and taken extended breaks from the hobby. It seems as though most of my armies only ever get half built and are barely painted. Recently I've been selling off my collection with the goal to own 1-2 fully completed/modelled 40k armies and a single 30k army.

The Tau have been my favourite faction since the beginning so I thought it would be a great opportunity to get back into the hobby after my last break by building a Farsight enclave army. The timing is perfect as:

- their codex is fairly new
- the models to be used in my army are all new kits (old crisis suits bothered me immensly as they did not look like their depictions in the art)
- I actually managed to put together a list that meets my personal requirements requirements (the army fits into my KR case/backpack, uses only models I like, semi-competitive all comers)

For those curious, this is the 1850 point army that I will be basing my army build on (some equipments/drones may change over time or be dropped for smaller point games):

Dawn Blade Contingent

Retaliation Cadre

commander + 2x gun drone: 2x plasma rifle, shield generator, drone controller, iridium armour, neuroweb jammer
crisis(3) + 6x gun drone: 1x shas'vre /w 1x flamer, MSS, CCN, 2x shas'ui /w 2x plasma rifle, bonded
crisis(1): 1x shas'ui /w 2x fusion blaster, bonded
crisis(1): 1x shas'ui /w 2x fusion blaster, bonded
broadside(3) + 6x missile drone: 1x shas'vre /w HYMP, SMS, 2x shas'ui /w HYMP, SMS, bonded
riptide: ion accelerator, TL fusion blaster, bonded

Rapid Insertion Force

stealth suit(3): 1x shas'vre /w fusion blaster, homing beacon 2x shas'ui /w burst cannon, bonded
crisis(3) + 2x gun drone: 1x shas'vre /w 2x plasma rifle, 2x shas'ui /w 2x plasma rifle, bonded
crisis(1): 1x shas'ui /w 2x fusion blaster, bonded
crisis(1): 1x shas'ui /w 2x fusion blaster, bonded
riptide: ion accelerator, TL fusion blaster, bonded

Drone-net xv1-0

4x marker drone
4x marker drone
4x marker drone
4x marker drone


Painting plans: (subject to change/still undecided)

- prime black
- base dark brown (see based broadside - primary colour for joints on suits)
- dark red/red (suit armour will be probably consist of 2 main layers)
- orange (slight armour highlights)
- brown wash
- heads/symbols/shoulders will have white/cream colouring to denote rank
- heavy use of forgeworld weathering powders
- matte seal


My progress so far... I started assembling the army about a week and a half ago


Here is what I had assembled at the end of last week. The odd crisis suit is a conversion I attempted a few years ago on commander farsight. On the right are the 3 boxes of crisis suit (1 is just sprues) and the final broadside):




I've had this stealth team for about 13 years now. I stripped the poor paint job off them and sawed off the burst cannon on one of them to add the fusion blaster:




The broadside on the left was complete a few years ago when the new kit had just come out, the guy on the right I finished last week:




I had a really difficult time trying to decide on a pose for my commander. I ended up with this sort of "come at me bro" stance. The shield is from the commander farsight kit that I converted into a regular crisis suit:




Here is another shot of the commander next to one of my on-hold projects (forgeworld deathguard CSM with MK3 legs, arms, and powersupply):




I figured it would be easiest to assemble the new crisis suits by cutting out all the pieces, sanding down the rough parts/mold lines. The new kits are quite impressive compared to the old ones:




Army shot as of 09/25/2016. Finished one of the duo fusion blaster XV8s and the MSS/CCN/flamer XV8:




Just finished this suit tonight - decided to try mounting the weapons on the jet pack. Also started adding more marker drones (7/16 so far):

Great to see you redoubling your efforts, I have a similar history and am dedicated to completing my tau force 100 percent as well. Start a p&m blog and keep us posted!

Suks wrote:
Great to see you redoubling your efforts, I have a similar history and am dedicated to completing my tau force 100 percent as well. Start a p&m blog and keep us posted!

Woops - I fully intended this to be the beginning of the blog (asked a mod to move to the correct forum)

No worries, good luck with the army

Looks like a cool project. Many Tau to paint.

EDC

Tonight I finished prepping 3 crisis suits and 3 marker drones. Cleaning up the pieces takes twice as long as actually putting the model together :(





I only had enough time assemble one of my shav'vre and the 3 marker dones:

Nice, are you magnetising the weapon options?

EDC

 evildrcheese wrote:
Nice, are you magnetising the weapon options?

EDC

I'm not going to be magnetizing my suits for a few reason:

- I pose each suit with specific weapons in mind
- If I decide to change my weapon loadouts in the future then I can snap off the weapons relatively easily and add the new weapon
- Magnetizing is a huge undertaking and hasn't been worth it for me in the past. Also it drives me crazy when the weapons jiggle around a bit which they often do with the smaller magnets (despite their strength)


I'm hoping to get two more crisis suits completed tomorrow morning/afternoon. Still left on my to do list is:

- 3x crisis suits
- 6x marker drones
- 4x missile drones
- 1x broadside
- 2x riptide (I have to buy these)

Also I will be ordering all new KR multicase foam to store the army - I gave away my last batch of foam when I sold the old figures.

Finished these 2 crisis suits tonight:




Below is the army as it currently stands:

Today I don't have any new models complete, but my KR multicase foam arrived

My entire 1850 pt army will fit into the 2 cases below:




Here is a shot of the cases with the foam trays. The foam in the small case on the right will house 2 riptides:




Below is what it will look like when I'm out and about. The large case fits in the KR bag while the smaller case with the riptides will go into my Goruck GR1 backpack (with my laptop/kindle/tons of room for other stuff:

 gossipmeng wrote:

I had a really difficult time trying to decide on a pose for my commander. I ended up with this sort of "come at me bro" stance. The shield is from the commander farsight kit that I converted into a regular crisis suit:

I definitely like both the pose as well as the combo of bits. The bigger shield looks quite nice on the model as well. I'm a bit biased though both my commanders are double plasma/shield equipped as well.

Army is looking good altogether, and there's definitely something satisfying about getting everything loaded into a proper carry/transport system!

EDC

That's a great looking pose, and I can't wait to see some paint on these minis!