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*puts up Flame shield*

okay So I know it's not very fluffy, but the basic backstory is a group of border line heretical space marines (not unlike the soul drinkers) defect to the tau empire (of course becoming Excommunicate traitorus), and that's about it. Mostly it's because marines painted up like tau are going to be cool. And also offer some cool modeling advice.

Special weapons Marines are going to be easy enough, replace:

Multi-meltas: Shoulder mounted fusion guns
Plasma guns: Shoulder Mounted Plasma guns
Flamers:Tau Flamers
Heavy Bolters: Burst cannons
Lascannons (infantry): Beffed up Backpacks attached to Rail Rifles
Missile launcher: Tau Missile Pods

Bikers: converted SM Bikes

Vehicles will have lascannons replace with Broadside railguns. Other than that most of the stuff stays the same.

Why shoulder mount? Just have them hand held & it will look a lot less awkward.

I happen to agree with Dorian on this one. Shoulder-mounted weapons on Marines will look extremely awkward, seeing as Marines are about half the mass of your average Crisis Suit. Make them handheld and do a few conversions with Marine weapons (heavy bolters spring to mind) to give them handles and other handy things for handheld handholding.

You could simply do things like:

Replace the forward half of a heavy bolter (in front of the top handle) with the front half of a burst cannon.
Modify the Tau flamer with Space Marine flamer stock, but keep the Tau flamer barrel and fuel tank.
Plasma rifle's easy, just add grip and hey presto, handheld Tau plasma rifle.
Fusion gun's just as easy, add a grip and you're done.
As for lascannons, why not a lascannon backpack with its hoses and such flowing into said rail rifle?

Handheld weapons are the way to go.

well I was thinking about the assault squad back packs to mount them as they have a flat top to mount them to.

As for lascannons, why not a lascannon backpack with its hoses and such flowing into said rail rifle?

I forgot the lascan marine backpack already comes with the tubing needed. That'll make it much easier.

You could but I still feel it would look incredibly awkward on a marine. Tau crisis weapons are slightly bigger than marine ones.

In the end they're your models do what you will but look at the old shoulder mounted heavy weapons:

These look awkward as it is and I feel it would be the thing you achieve if not done carefully.

Tau wouldn't trust killing machines that swore loyalty to the Emperor.
Just paint your loyal Space Marines in sand or city camo and be happy.

Kroothawk wrote:Tau wouldn't trust killing machines that swore loyalty to the Emperor.
Just paint your loyal Space Marines in sand or city camo and be happy.

He did say the idea wasn't fluffy.

Don't quash his creativity just because you don't want his Tau Marines in "your" universe.

@ OP

Don't listen to the naysayers, you're always going to have fluff-fascists who won't accept outside-the-box thinking of any sort. These are the kinds of people who will boo and hiss at my Broadsides with railguns attached to their arms, not their shoulders.

I'm a big fan of anything that flies in the face of what an army is "supposed" to be.

GW designed the hobby to encourage creativity.

Take this idea and run with it!

Oh, and post pictures when you have some conversions done. I wanna see what you end up doing with this.

It'll be a while yet, as I don't have the money to start the project, i'm just brainstorming. Besides one look at my guard and you will see several tau weapons and even an xv8 arm added as a powerfist.

Nice.

Well if you need any more help brainstorming don't hesitate to ask here. I'm subscribed to this thread, and happy to help out.

hey anyideas are nice, and modding the space marine stuff to look tau like handles and stuff might work, like cutting off a meltaguns barrel and adding a fusion blasters.

Unfortunately most fusion blasters are quite a bit larger than most meltaguns. A multi-melta might work, though, maybe with a Piranha fusion blaster (which, if I remember correctly, is smaller than a battlesuit fusion blaster). I need to go and actually look at some of my Marines and some of my Tau. Give me until tonight and I'll jot down some good conversion ideas for you and post them here.

When somebody has an idea like this and refers to a less than good series of novels (Soul Drinkers) it's hard not to think of it as a less than good idea. Tau and Marines really don't have meshing aesthetics, and they won't look good together. As Kroothawk said, just paint your Marines brown and be happy.

Sounds good if you can pull it off, I'm always up for smothing "off the wall"

Did see the same idea done over on the bolterandchainsword. I'll try and find the thread for you to give you ideas. (not posted to belittle your idea, I do like it)

Brother SRM wrote:When somebody has an idea like this and refers to a less than good series of novels (Soul Drinkers) it's hard not to think of it as a less than good idea. Tau and Marines really don't have meshing aesthetics, and they won't look good together. As Kroothawk said, just paint your Marines brown and be happy.

Got the feeling he was talking about the chapter of Space Marines, not the novels. (Given as an example of "heretical space marines")

Could be wrong.

yeah, just an example

Heres the thread, looking back at it, some pretty good ideas.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=167450&st=0&start=0

How's this for tau marines

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/131349-.html

I think it's really awesome. fluff wise I don't like the idea because if the tau had marines they wouldn't have the little empire they do, I think they should be able to conquer ground themselves. But who cares if you can have models like this.

Remember they don't need to be painted muddy brown, there are plenty different colored septs that look good on Space Marines

Marines would only leave thier sacred bolters for new weapons if they were..... oh, wait, they are pretty much heretics. - Problem solved.

Love the idea through and through.

Simply the basis of heretics would work alone since they have no real loyalty to the golden man.

Could even be stolen weapons as they are more effective.


Weapon wise i like the ideas, but again, dont go shoulder mounted.
I agree with the statements for this previously mentioned.


So, any ideas on how the actual marine its self will be changed?

Just thinking here;


The little head-set from the tau heads would fit well on the side of a marine head.

Kroot would make some good scouts in said army.

the tau shield generators would make nice storm/combat shields.



List of things goes on, but i love the idea.

The headset idea is a good one, and how about swapping the Marine's left shoulderpad for a Tau shoulderpad?

Oh, and give all of them jump packs and they can totally "Counts As" Battlesuits! They already got the 3+ armor save. Give'em targeting arrays to justify BS4, jump packs for jet packs, Battlesuit weapons modified to be handheld (which I'll figure out for you a bit later), Battlesuit helmet antennae... the possibilities are endless!

Edit: Oh, and Missile Pods on the opposite side of the jump pack from the Targeting Array for the second weapon system!

My god, man, I'm going to have to come up with some Taumarines myself! My head is reeling with conversion possibilities!

Edit edit: You bastard, you've done it now.

I just got the most brilliant idea.

Guardsmen (Catachans) with Fire Warrior bits for Gue'vesa auxiliaries, Counts As Fire Warriors. Space Marines with the above conversions for Astartes auxiliaries, Counts As Crisis Battlesuits. You can essentially make an entire Tau army out of Humans.

And I am going to do exactly that. This is totally my next project.

You bastard!

For the big guns that would be hard for them to be hand mounted, and as said earlier, shoulder mounted looks horrible(sadly) on marines. Perhaps you could do a shoulder mounted version by using a "robotic arm" style weapon, like the techmarine w/o the servo harness? He would need some type of eye-visor/targetor, even if it's just a little square hanging down in front of the eye if it's a helmetless marine. Cool idea though. Won't fly with the fluff nazis, but I look forward to your creativity.

I know I'm gonna get flamed as a troll here...but I suggest going with Tau mixed with traitorous Imperial Guard-I hate both armies, so leave my space marines alone. Haha. Good luck with the conversions, but SaintHazard knows what happened the last time tau and space marines (blood angels to be specific) were "combined"-his tau couldn't sit down for the debriefing. Hehehe...

timetowaste85 wrote:I know I'm gonna get flamed as a troll here...but I suggest going with Tau mixed with traitorous Imperial Guard-I hate both armies, so leave my space marines alone. Haha. Good luck with the conversions, but SaintHazard knows what happened the last time tau and space marines (blood angels to be specific) were "combined"-his tau couldn't sit down for the debriefing. Hehehe...

Tau and Guard happens in the fluff - it's not much of a stretch and can make for a cool army. Gue'vasa I think they're called.

timetowaste85 wrote:I know I'm gonna get flamed as a troll here...but I suggest going with Tau mixed with traitorous Imperial Guard-I hate both armies, so leave my space marines alone. Haha. Good luck with the conversions, but SaintHazard knows what happened the last time tau and space marines (blood angels to be specific) were "combined"-his tau couldn't sit down for the debriefing. Hehehe...

Shas'la Ukos was never the same after that.

Get it!

I dont think it is a horrible idea at all, god knows I have seen some terrible ideas...

*froths at mouth*

Heresy!

SaintHazard wrote:The headset idea is a good one, and how about swapping the Marine's left shoulderpad for a Tau shoulderpad?

Oh, and give all of them jump packs and they can totally "Counts As" Battlesuits! They already got the 3+ armor save. Give'em targeting arrays to justify BS4, jump packs for jet packs, Battlesuit weapons modified to be handheld (which I'll figure out for you a bit later), Battlesuit helmet antennae... the possibilities are endless!

Edit: Oh, and Missile Pods on the opposite side of the jump pack from the Targeting Array for the second weapon system!

My god, man, I'm going to have to come up with some Taumarines myself! My head is reeling with conversion possibilities!

Edit edit: You bastard, you've done it now.

I just got the most brilliant idea.

Guardsmen (Catachans) with Fire Warrior bits for Gue'vesa auxiliaries, Counts As Fire Warriors. Space Marines with the above conversions for Astartes auxiliaries, Counts As Crisis Battlesuits. You can essentially make an entire Tau army out of Humans.

And I am going to do exactly that. This is totally my next project.

You bastard!

I guess I shouldn't tell you of my guardsmen converted with fire warrior torsos and arms with pulse rifles to be snipers....

The Dornian Heresy Ultramarines over on B&C is a great example of fluff for Tau Marines and even if you don't want to use that just use what you are doing. As far as fluff wise I think it is fluff as there are chapters that go renegade (not chaos) that act as mercenaries. Plus the Tau woulden't have a problem letting them worship the Emperor (if they still did though Space Marines don't really worship the Emperor they honour him as the greatest warrior of all time) as they let the humans within their empire (Gue'vesa) to worship the Emperor.

In the end they are your miniatures and you can do whatever you want with them

Let's agree that you can physically glue on Tau parts, tentacles and Mickey Mouse ears to a Space marine miniature.
Let's also agree that all is not fluffy and many people will hate such conversions. Okay?

Yeah sorry but I won't agree to that. Sure not everyones going to like it but that's the way things are with everything.

well if you want to get technical about fluff and uptight about fluff, There are Rouge Non chaos space marine chapters. Okay this is fine. Rouge chapters are invariably going to be hunted down, but news takes a great amount of time to travel to anyone of any real intergalactic power in the imperium.

We have established that A) There are rouge space marines, B) These rouge Space marines CAN exist for a period of time. Albeit there is only a very small chance of this happening. Well Say something like maybe... .5%

Now we know rouge elements have no allegiance, we also know that elements with no allegiance can join whatever they want, if they so want to. Joining the tau empire is a "choice" at least it's a real choice for something like the space marines, so we will give them a 50% chance of joining if they know about the tau. Now the tau don't exit everywhere for these small percentage of rouge chapters to join. That's only about lets say 25% of the galaxy (that knows about the tau) Ultima segmentum basically.

Now with this we have proven that there CAN in fact be a tau alligned space marine "chapter"

Now aside from taking the "galaxy to be infinate and therefore anything that CAN happen has at least once approach" we can actually do the math

If we assume the percent of rouge space marine squads to be .5%, the chance of encountering the tau to be 25%, and the chance of joining them to be 50% we get an approxamate percent of .06% Now we have 1000 Known chapters of those we get .6 of a chapter or roughly 60% that of the original 1000 (second or is it third founding) chapters one is with the tau, factor in that there are many more that we don't know about, that brings us to a conservative esitmate of about 1-2 chapters maybe more.

Will they be Heretical? You betcha! will they be hunted down by the imperium? Yes, Like the dogs they are.

I hope this quells the nay-sayers a bit.