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There are a lot of minor races mentioned in the 40k background material but few rarely get much attention. Rather than have a go at one of the existing races I figured I'd have a bash at making my own original minor race as a bit of fun and see if I can make them into an army along with rules.

The Tarrassi

So to get the ball rolling here is the main trooper for the race, a Tarrassi Shrine Warrior. The idea is that they were in a fairly remote region of space on the edge of the southern galactic rim and whilst not capable of warp travel they had mastered interstellar travel and had spread to several planets in systems neighbouring their home world.
Their home world of Dra'varn was covered almost entirely with water with the amphibious Tarrassi living in vast under water cities that stretched around the sea beds of the great oceans.
When the fleet of the Imperial Talons chapter arrived on the edge of the system the Tarrassi despatched an envoy vessel to greet them only to witness it's destruction. With no real war fleet to protect them the smaller trade vessels proved to be easy targets for the Imperial warships and put up little defence.
Upon making orbit the fleet began to reign destruction down on the major population centres to little effect, eventually deploying modified boarding torpedoes to transport assault squads directly into the heart of the cities whilst terminators made their way across the sea beds protected by their Land Raider transports to attack the thermal generators that drew power from the mantle of the planet for the limited defences of the Tarrassi.
Having never faced such a ferocious and xenophobic race as the Astartes the Tarrissi put up a valiant yet futile defence of their cities. The Shrine Warriors chose to stand their ground in order to allow the transport vessels to evacuate the civilian population, a gesture that was to prove futile as the strike cruisers hunted and destroyed the escaping vessels with ease.

With in the space of a month with their defences shattered and their thermal reactors going critical the bottom of the oceans began to splinter and and crack as the planet began to tear itself apart. As the Astartes withdrew their forces to a safe distance the planet atmosphere erupted into fire scorching what little land existed clean of life and boiling the oceans in a matter of days. Had it not been for the colonies then the the race would have been extinguished there and then, it was on this day that the Tarrassi learned to both fear and despise the forces of the Imperium.

Tarrassi Shrine Warrior





This first model is basically something that I have been putting together out of left over bits from other sculpts that I have been working on and hasn't really had much planning to be honest and I still need to add some detailing and shaping to his main halberd weapon which will also function as a ranged weapon.
I'm thinking maybe have it as a heavy 1 strength six or seven weapon weapon with a wrist mounted pistol type weapon for short ranged attacks with something along the lines of an Ogryn profile. Might increase the leadership and give him a 4+ save but I'll worry about that later.
The rough idea initially is to have Shrine Warriors as all rounders with the force lacking in the areas of specialist troops. What I may do is put together a small confederation of lesser races that have come together for mutual protection or just have them supported by robots or machines designed to strengthen their weaknesses. I may make the head separate so that I can make a bare head that I can swap with the helmet.

Wow. That's suprisingly good. Really good. Keep it up!

really cool looking model, as it is 1:00 in the morning i couldn´t concentrate enough to read your fluff about your race, will do that the next day...
what model did you use for base? i like your sculpt.

what paint scheme do you thought up with it? waht other plans do you have?
really looking forward to some new concepts in this downtrodden modelsphere^^...

godd work , greetings vik

That is really cool looking so far. The only thing is I think the rifle looks a little....out of place, kindda bulky or something, not too sure what exactly. Ill be watching this one for sure. Are they going to be a bigger sized race? That mini looks terminator sized

Nice Fluff, stunning model.
The Feet remind me of Tau, though...

My first thought was "wow, monstrous creatures as standard troopers... but nothing like Tyranids".
Do NOT mix various races into one army list.... we already have this with Tau,Kroot,Vespid...
Add Amphibic Vehicles.
I would like to see an army in "deathwing-style & beefed up Tyranid-Warriors": Few multi-wound "almost" monstrous creatures with balanced melee/ranged skills.

Looking really nice, can't wait to see where this goes.

those looks awesome

now that i ´ve read your fluff all i can say please complete this awsome model^^
i like the tragic underdog story of ther apparent destruction. it shows what kind of race humans are and i think since this cruelty to foreigners is their day to day life style the deserve to be erased by nids or orcs one day.
your model reminds me of something i must have seen in an animated series or possibly a comic book but i can´t tell for sure...
this is truly a model i would love to have a small force of on my own... but since i have alot on my hands to do for the time being i am happy to follow your development in this goodlooking new race.

good luck with your work, vik

cool fluff and i like the look of your shrine warrior, the only thing that sticks out for me is that the halberd thing is too bulky, looks like it needs making thinner more elegant looking imo. cant wait to see more

Your fluff is amazing, it really tells the other side of the story of conquest. I would tend to agree with Motorhead45 not to create another Tau style army as advanced weaponry really doesn't correlate with your fluff well.

Again I agree that multi wounds would be a good way to compensate for lack of specialised troops and wargear. Another route would be to modify the fluff slightly to allow adaptation to a craftworld Eldar list, ie different aspects or echelons with the Shine warriors number.

On the modelling side of things the sculpt is looking very good, the weapon in my opinion could be a little more slender, but only fractionally. In regards to the removable/swappable helmet I would stay clear for the time being, the fluff accounts for it well.

Cheers guys.

Lennysmash: Yeah I thought it'd make a pleasant change to do an army of underdogs given their size and I definitely don't want to create another Tau style army. I totally agree with you there mate, multi-wound is probably the best route to go as it's always tempting to give something like this 2+ invulnerable saves, assault four plasma guns that don't over heat, etc, but I think the key is to tone it all down. I was seriously tempted with adding FNP at one point.
The eldar list idea is quite a good one as it'd give me a solid starting point.
I'll have to play around with the weapon a bit, I like the bulk but it does seem a little too thick probably because I was concerned about how to get the resin to flow into the area when I get around to casting him so I can make the rest of the army.
I do have some ideas for bare headed models but it's more of a need to visualise them in the flesh beyond the armour so I know who they are if that makes any sense?

Viktor von Domm: Totally agree with you there mate. I think it's fairly easy to create the all conquering, singing tales of their glory for generations to come style army and I thought it'd make a nice change to have a race that has taken a kicking and not really recovered. There is a sort of innocence behind the story with the Tarrassi welcoming the Imperium with open arms as friends only to get absolutely obliterated in return.
Not sure what I'll do paint scheme wise, maybe quite bold colours once I get one finished I'll post up a test colour scheme. The model itself is completely sculpted from scratch over a wire frame armature. I may have to knock up a dolly for it to speed things up if I make other similar sized Tassarri models.

motorhead1945: Yeah definitely trying to avoid Tau influences where ever possible. The feet to be honest were a bit of a cop out, I tried a couple of different variations but settled for a hoof sort of look in the end. I tried clawed bare feet but it made them look too aggressive, I think if I 'd sat down and planned this guy from scratch I may have come up with something more original looking but as I was just adding bits as I was working on other stuff he kind of evolved this way.
We seem to be on the same page as far as the army list is concerned. I was initially toying around with adding other races but only so that I could have a bash at making some more races. As I progressed this seemed more like you say the Tau and put me off a bit.
I think the best route to go would be to have less armoured models filling in other roles but as slight lesser variations of the Shrine Warrior to give the look of the army some variety. I want to avoid giving one two close combat weapons as an assault squad or giving them a heavier weapon to make a heavy support squad as that will make the concept of the Shrine Warriors redundant. The idea I have is that the Shrine Warriors is that they are the Astartes of their race, basically by their racial standards seriously hard elite troops that are used to fending off the creatures that threaten their cities. I was thinking that because they are completely unprepared for the sheer ferocity and hatred of the Imperial attack they were totally unprepared and caught off guard. I can see the idea of having space vessels that are dedicated to war being a totally alien concept to them.
As a rough outline I'm thinking having them with an incredibly long life span with a slow reproductive cycle to those that are left are experienced but they have never had to replace loses from a protracted war.

Vehicle wise it's a little trickier but it'd make sense to give them something limited to deal with heavier armoured leviathan type creatures of their home world. Amphibious skimmers would make sense but may swing them back to the likes of the Tau. I was toying with large domesticated creatures but that may make them a little too much like the Kroot.

I like it

Very nice fluff , your a writer alright!! your green stuff skills are very impressive a mate, also like your cadian ig type guy next to him. have you thought about writing up a few stories and posting them in the fiction section , doesnt get many hits but i bet your stories prove popular. the tarrasi got owned by the xenomorphic imperium. love to see a come back story and a bit of rightfull vengence!!! oh yeh!
regards

A nice start, stick with it, (unless i've missed it) any plans for what they count as yet? would be interested to know!

Keep going!!

Colour scheme-wise why don't you play around with an aquatic palette, hawk turquoise and the like. Maybe even offer a little homage to DC's aquaman .

Cool creature looks like a cross between a tau and a big daddy. With regards to feet what about something elephant like? Or perhaps a four pointed symetrical arrangement like a Dreadnought foot, i don't think something like that has been done. Not sure 'bout the whole waterbased thing i think they would have flippers and the like if they lived underwater. As for face i personally would avoid a Kilowog style face go more with obese abe sapien.

just had a thought , you could make your actual race really tall and skinny and thease suits are just , like diving bell suits huge and clunky!

looks amazing I love the model!!!!

Cheers guys.

neil101: Cheers mate, I may add a few bits of story in the log as I go. I had considered that they could be tall and thin actually because as like you say it could be mostly armour that allows them to move about in a waterless or air rich environment. Not sure what to do the actual creatures in the suit like just yet, been batting a few ideas about from everything from squids to reptiles at the moment. I was thinking about something completely alien for the face but will play around and see what I can come up with.

Perkustin: Yeah the dread foot idea would be pretty unique to be honest, I'll play around with that idea and see how it goes. As they're amphibious I could probably get away with maybe a humanoid with gills and smallish fins that are concealed by the suit so it shouldn't be too much of a problem in regards to them being water dwellers.

Lennysmash: Yeah that's a cool idea mate, I'll have to play around a bit and see what works. Maybe a marble or mottled effect in those colours might be nice.

Tortured-Robot: I'm planning on making them a unique race so they'll have their own codex and rules. Hopefully I won't go too crazy with them though.

subscribed keep it up

Subscribing, looking forward to seeing how this develops, looks promising. A great start, stick with it

It looks amasing so far Doghouse. Maybe you could give them webbed feet and hands i don't think that has been done before. Keep up the good work.

hi again doghouse.

i have a few suggestions as i read again the whole thread:

i strongly support your idea to go boldly where now one has gone colorwise before:
this is an aquatic lifeform so you have to imagine that when they use colors they have to make them to compete with murky dephts of deep water. so i recommend to you use brilliant colors instead of the suggested aquatic colors like green and turquoise. instead use red and yellow in striking stripes. i imagine this elite warriors to be proud of their position in this culture and tehrefore they would dress with elite taste in clothing...
also i suggest you rethink that idea of the fragile alien in a big suit. why not do a big alien? with a very thin suit? they are living in deep sea, the pressure was there before they developed suits, so they had to live there without them suits...^^
also i think about sea-cows, they are big and heavy at land but beautiful in the sea and can swim with grace...maybe the suits are for landdwelling instead for deep sea pressure...

big living trasport might work, but i would suggest you use more artificial means of support.
the abdomen and shoulders show a striking pattern of stripes of armor. i really like that look. now imagine a vessel as shown in episode I of the new starwars films. the one where quigon and obiwan use to get to naboo city. and now take this vessel and armor it in your used style as discribed above. would look tremendous.

a further thought of mine was about weapons and warfare. this is a very (former) peaceful race. the lived in deep sea and there thy for sure commnunicated. they built a complex society which thought them to get along peacful with strangers... i would imagine that they would perhaps use a form of communications like our whales or something like that. not quite understandable by human standards, which might get them the doubt of telepathy and thus getting them the undeserved wraith of the imoerial angst. that lead to their genocide...
speaking of this quasi telepathy you could base a complete set of warfare based on that. like skriptors or other examples of magical orientated characters you could give the Tarrassi more magical abilities and thus holding the model count relativly small. big hitters .

pheew... that was a bit more of my two cents...^^

have fun doing your race, cheers vik

Nice fluff, nice concept, nice mini

Subscribed!

Also, why not just have the warrior elements of the race significantly larger than the civilian elements. As if the biggest and strongest of the species are chosen at birth to be warriors, whereas the rest are consigned to more domesticated lives; only joining the fight as a last resort.

S_P

Great fluff, original design and nice sculpt.

Subscribed!

Thanks guys.

Space_Potato: Yeah that's definitely a possibility. One thing that I'm considering is that because they aren't likely to be going on the offensive is making the objective markers small groups of civilians that the Shrine Warriors need to protect. If I do this route it I can make them slightly smaller, it'd also show what they look like without armour as well.

Viktor von Domm: I'm always open to suggestions mate.
I think I'm probably going to wait till I have a test model before settling on a paint scheme, might knock up sketches in the meantime though.
Now that I have some ideas I think that I need to start planning ahead as to what they should really look like in the suits, I think maybe something in between might work so have then big but fairly toned so that they look like they could fit in the armoured suits.

Yeah now you mention it something like that star wars might look really cool actually.

Some sort of sonar speech might work well, the vespid have to have a communications device in order to communicate with the tau because their speech is so alien so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume the same of these guys.
I'm not sure what to do in regards to psychics at the moment. I could see them having a mystical side I guess though that could be worked in.

oaktree: Yeah something like that may work, maybe residual fins as well. All depends on whether I go reptile, fish or mammal based for them I guess.

Something very big daddy'ish about it. So cool!

I love it, must have more.

Some ideas I had about expanding the Tarassi:

Perhaps the Tarrassi evolved in a similar way to most races, but had a strong evolutionary link to the Oceans of their Planet.
Early Civilisation evolved on land, technology developed to an advanced state and the Tarrassi became interested in the vastness of the void surrounding their world. Tarrassi scientists discover their position within the solar system, over the centuries they realise that they are more likely to suffer devastating planetary strikes from universal debris entering the galaxy (Large asteriods etc).
It is generally predicted that the best course of survival is to live below the Oceans or to develop Space technology on a gigantic scale. The Tarassi opt to go down the 'Simple' route of colossal ocean cities. As the first few Colossal cities are finished (enoughto house 30% of the Population sustainably) the world is struck by an Asteroid. The impact force scourges 90% of life from the surface of the planet, most aquatic species are left uneffected.
The ensuing winter that envolpes that Planet forces the remaining Tarassi to stay within their cities. As generations come to live in these hyper-sterile environments they become unable to venture on to the surface of their world without the protection of bio-suits... etc etc etc

Cheers guys.

Some nice suggestions there thanks mate.

I think the route they are going to take is rather than being forced under water by something like an asteroid strike it'll just be part of their natural evolution. The rough idea will be to make their development as painless as possible with very few hardships so when they are introduced to the grim dark races of the 40k universe they have absolutely no idea what has hit them and barely survive their first encounter with one of the races.
Up until that point they have had no contact with alien races and have remained isolated. So there probably was a certain amount of excitement when the Imperials were first spotted with much pomp and ceremony involved, basically a massive event in their history which they embraced enthusiastically only to be swept aside like a troublesome insect.
So without any real wars amongst themselves they have only really had to deal with natural death world type predators that lurk in the depths of their oceans and the idea of fighting another sentient race purely because they are different was an alien concept.
Had it been someone less hostile like perhaps the Tau or Eldar then things may have gone differently. The Tau would have probably convinced them to join the greater good and subjugated their world via political means or the Eldar would have limited their contact depending on what the future held for their race. As it was they met one of the bad boys on the block and are extremely distrustful of aliens as a result.

I've been playing around with vehicle ideas and have dug out an old concept that I made a few years ago that might be a nice starting point for the basis of a light tank.



What I'm thinking is either modify this design just slightly or go whole hog and add crew mounted on the outside in side pintle mounts. The idea behind it is an attack vehicle used to fend off armoured predators that crawl along their sea beds so mabye give it missile launchers along the sides rather than rely on energy weapons that might dissipate in water.
So basically it can drive along the sea bed and straight up onto land with maybe some sort of energy prow to part the water as it moves.

Looks cool, are you ever planning on casting a few for sale?