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I love mecha, I love Tau, and I love the idea of a beefier suit for the hoofed fishmen. However, I do not love the idea of paying $85 for a two-sprue, 4" or 5" model that, in my opinion, is pretty darned ugly. As a solution, I took the $21 High Grade 1/144 Gundam Virtue, built a Tau head out of a XV-8 head, Sky Ray armor panel, and vehicle aileron, and dressed things up with Tau decals and a color scheme that fits my XV-8s; here was the outcome:





The decals on the legs spell "303" for thematic reasons (army is Ghost in the Shell themed and my suits are scaling takes on the 303 Armsuit) and "Ion" as it is armed with a "counts-as" for that weapon. Other text decals do not have an intended translation and are simply supposed to look like warning signs as they are placed at the skirt thrusters and the retractable backpack cannons, areas that would benefit from having a warning label when being tinkered with before/after a fight.

The idea behind the weapons are that the backpack mounted cannons are where the Heavy 3 firing profile come from while the Large Blast is the standard from the huge weapon and the Ordnance Large Blast is when he utilizes the connection the weapon has to the energy system in the chest. This is actually how the Gundam Virtue functions in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 so, for people that know the show and recognize the suit, it is especially fitting. The model also has built-in, opening shield generators. I have taken the leg-mounted ones and glued them open to represent the Riptide's always-on 5++; again, this is how the Gundam Virtue functions in the show as well.

Anyways, not really looking for praise or feedback (but if you got something to say don't let me stop you), just showing how alternate models can fill the very expensive role of the GW Riptide kit. Whether it succeeds or not is a matter of opinion but personally, as someone that thinks the Riptide is very ugly, I'm very happy with the way this thing came out.


Have any of you guys come up with not-Riptide models?

We've got a thread on ideas for them here...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/519461.page

The OP explicitly stated on page 2 that they were not discussing using alternate models for a Riptide but instead they were just interested in building mecha models.

Because of that, I figured a thread meant to discuss actually using alternate models as Riptides and sharing said models would be necessary so as to avoid flooding the other thread with off-topic discussion.