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Well I ordered a couple of those ammo chains anyway.

I like the idea of the Fire Warrior conversions. I have a box of those guys so I could make a squad of 6 Pathfinders and add the rest to my other Fire Warriors to create a couple of 8-man squads of those chaps.

Yay Broadsides. Those guys are epic, even though they like to destroy my precious precious tanks.

Can't go wrong with S10 AP1 :p heheh. I think that's right?

Yup. Nothing can beat those railguns at destroying vehicles. Show us when you've got them on.

Excuse the photo for now, but here's the Stingwings.



The guns aren't highlighted yet and theres some detail to do, but I'm calling them playable for the time being.

I'll work on my broadsides next!

Here's how the Broadside is looking. I need to try and pop a bit of green into the hole in the back ventilation fan (which was sent as a freebie in a bag of miscasts with the ammo belts I ordered) and theres a few other bits to clean up. And I went a bit sloppy on the plastic glue here and there but hopefully that won't show too much.

Went for plasma rifles, because I don't have enough missile pods free to create Smart Missile Systems.

Railguns. Me gusta.

The ventilation fan is a good idea too.

So you own any of the metal parts for broadsides other than the guns themselfs? Just thinking that your model lacks the bit that covers up the jet pack.

I dont have any of the parts. I asked about the jetpack earlier in the thread and people didnt seem to think it was a biggie. They're pretty obviously broadsides. I suppose I could try to find some conversion bits that'd do the trick.

Hi Phil, interesting to see your background story is the same as mine. Used to collect GW as a kid, stopped, have now got back in to it and am loving Tau too! Mine aren't red though. Loving the blog though, your cadre is coming along great.

Regarding the broadside, you could just get the metal broadside vent cover from a bits shop like here:

http://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/xv88-engine-cooler-unit-p-1043.html

Although that's out of stock currently, how annoying. Not terribly expensive though. However, if you do get the proper metal bits, be warned that they don't always fit properly and it may require greenstuffing to hide the unsightly gaps that may result. At least that was the one experience I had with my broadside. :(

Anyway, will be keeping track of this blog. Maybe I shall do my own similar one to help motivate my own painting (I usually can't be bothered.)

Yeah I did look for a few of those but didnt find any in stock anywhere.

I'm wondering if I can just use some kind of textured plasticard to knock something together. I'm sure theres some cool stuff out there.

So here's the Broadside and a couple of ordinary suits freshly primed. Well, mostly primed. My can of Army Painter Pure Red ran out before I could get in from a low angle so there's quite a lot of unprimed grey on the underside of these chaps and in tighter gaps, so I'll probably wait til my new can arrives before I try painting them. I could brush prime them I guess, but I prefer the finish with a spray.

I've actually got one more primed-not-painted battlesuit in a box too, so I'll do the four of them together. I think I'll have some Scab Red detail work on the broadside to help it really stand out as different from the others.

I didn't manage to get the railguns on the broadside quite even, they're at slightly different angles, but I'm gonna play that off as them in motion, moving to aim at a target.

When Broadsides eventually go Plastic/Resin I'd like to see them look even more bulky, preferably a different body than the current battlesuit standard one. I think the Broadsides should look even more like they're weighted to prevent the Railguns blasting them back a mile.

Sweet, some more Tau with a healthy red on them! Lets see how they turn out!

Perfect color for our space communist of 40k keep up the good work!

I love that inky look on the tau, it gives the armor depth and badassery!

Looking good, I'm mobile it's very hard to read everything, but how many points are you shooting for ? Just started building my own Tau army. Going from space wolves this is a completely different army. I love the sleek tech. Lines offered by this army, plus who wouldn't love twin-linked railguns 10ap1. Blew up a killa kan first shot of the game against a green tide.

Thanks guys!



For the curious, here's the full army of assembled minis. Most are fully painted, apart from the primed-only battlesuits, broadside, Kroot hounds and shaper. There's also about 6 unprimed Drones there.

As for points, I've not been so focussed on how many I'm aiming for. I just wanted to collect an army that looked good! So if I end up with enough that I can vary my army play style depending on foe and points level, I'll be happy. Very quickly working out what's on the table now though... (tell me if I'm working these points out wrong, I need to learn!)

5 Vespid Stingwings plus Strain Leader - 102 pts
3 Crisis Battlesuit Shas'ui with Multitracker, Burst Rifle and Missile Pod - 150 pts
12 Fire Warriors with Pulse Rifles + Shas'la - 130 pts
8 Gun Drones - 96 pts
Tau Ethereal with Honour Blade - 60 pts
Devilfish - 80 pts
Piranha with Fusion Blaster - 65 pts
12 Kroot + Shaper + 2 Krootox Riders + 4 Kroot Hounds - 206 pts
3 Shas'ui XV8 Stealth Suits, one with Fusion Blaster and Bonding Knife, one with Drone Controller plus Marker Drone, one with Targeting Array - 137 pts

So that's roughly, give or take depending on extra options and load out... 1026 points assembled so far there. Would be easy enough to knock a few things out to make a 1000 point list.

With the other Battlesuits, Stealth Suits, Fire Warriors and Piranha I've got in boxes still, I think I can make it up to 1500 with what I've currently got.

I know they look cool but I would really take that ethereal out of the list.

Yeah, he's just there because I have him. I noticed I actually forgot one of the battlesuits, and the broadside, when totalling those points up. So I'm well over 1000 points even without the Ethereal.

Anyways, I had my order from Warmill turn up for the Portable Utility Pod, which came also with an Antenna Array. I've already Tau-i-fied the Antenna with a few bitz, but I've just slotted the pod together as is for now. It needs a bit of cleaning up on the edges here and there, there's some rough bits, but I think when these are painted up to suit my army they'll be really nice terrain pieces to play with.





For fifteen quid, the PUP kit is wonderful. And I love the smell of the freshly lasered wood <3

I'm a fan of the warmill myself. Don't have any of their kits yet, though.

I've started painting the Pod up with Blood Red. it looks really nice, the paint covers really well and goes on super smooth. I'll post a pic once its finished.

My other gap-filler stuff whilst I wait for my new can of red spray primer is a couple of classic late 80s or early 90s WHFB gobbos, and maybe starting on painting up some of the space marines or orks from the Black Reach box set.


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Well, I ended up going shopping today, and I bought:

An airbrush starter kit (just with compressed air in a can for now)
The Ork codex
A unit of Killa Kans

I figured I'm gonna run an Ork army as a secondary force. It should offset the stay-out-of-combat Tau quite nicely. Anyway, back to the Tau...



I figured I'd try use the airbrush to go over the black-coated Kroot Hounds and Shaper to give them a nice basecoat. It's not the best result, seeing how these are the first real models I've sprayed with an airbrush, but I'm pretty happy with them in that regard and can see this being a great way to work on my miniatures with a lot of single colour base. I need to touch up the hounds with a thin layer of green to just cover the black a little more here and there. But seeing how I always find the basecoating tedious work these guys were quire nice to do this way.

Finished the hounds and shaper Obviously not gonna win any awards but they look great in the unit.

Great. You even made it so you could compare the above picture!

Ha, that's just a happy accident! :p

I mentioned a while ago how I was going to collect Orks on the side. Well, I just started painting my first Ork model. Thought I'd start big, so I'm working on my Warboss from the Black Reach set. Here's progress so far:



I'm pretty happy with my skin shading on this one. Still plenty of cleanup to do but I'm really enjoying painting this chap. Orks are just... fun!

Orks? Awesome, welcome to the club! What clan will you be collecting?

I was thinking of an original clan idea.

Currently working along the idea of 'recykillaz'.

The way I see it, Orks are big on recycling. They're green, and they always scavenge a battlefield for usable tech and stuff after a big fight. So I was thinking creating an army with that kind of 'theme' to it. Perhaps I'll find a lighter green that contrasts enough with the Ork skin. I think it'd be fun to create an army with a theme like that. Maybe have a spin on the usual recycle logo with axes instead of arrow heads.

Or I might just make it a hodge-podge army of any Orks who happen to fancy a rumble.

Oh, I love themed armies! This is a great idea!

Well, for now, here's my painted Warboss. Pretty happy with how he came out. Enough to actually take a decent photo on a white background, even.



The base is supposed to be a tarmac road with yellow painted markings upon it. This will be the rough base theme to tie the army together, I think.

Looking good! I like the pants but the skin is a little dark in some places.....