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Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






So 8th is here and it's breathed new life into my desire to paint Tau. The Robot Monster Mash isn't a thing anymore and maybe gunline Tau and/or Mech Tau can live again. Importantly, drones offer cheap dakka, so gotta get more drones!

The biggest problem I was facing was matching my old grey color. Black Cap Codex Grey was replaced with White Cap Codex Grey, which didn't match and pretty much made progress impossible. I considered starting over, but it turns out the latest Dawnstone paint from GW is a really, really good match for the old Black Cap Codex Grey. Even better, it comes in Air format.



The drone on the left is the old paint method - grey carefully painted smooth over black, leaving black in recesses. It's also varnished and a little dusty. The new drone (right) was done with an airbrush over black primer, then the recesses were carefully washed. The new method is a bit lower on contrast - the highlights help - but the important difference is how long it takes.

The old method was probably 3 hours of just painting from a primed miniature. Slow going! The new method, I managed to assemble, base, prime and paint 4 gun drones and a drone turret in about 7 hours (a long session for me). I'm more about progress than perfection these days, so the new method is a good'n. For vehicles I'll probably blackline the major panel details rather than wash, but being able to crank these suckers out at the improved rates is well worth the small contrast loss. In terms of just painting, it's probably less than 1 hour per drone.



All 4 drones (no varnish or basing green yet) plus the drone turret. Most of my old Tau stuff (5th edition) is up on my Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/52990657@N04/albums/72157625200990956. I'll probably have to re-create at least some of my Crisis Suits, given how they've changed. I've got lots of old, unpainted stuff to fiddle with, including 20+ old gun drones to swarm around the table with.




This message was edited 16 times. Last update was at 2022/01/31 17:11:47


   
Made in ie
Sureshot Kroot Hunter





Ireland

Hey man, love the colour scheme. The orange and blue details really pop on the grey. Can't wait to see it on a bigger suit

Link to my haphazardly updated blog: Boundless's sub-par conversion projects


 
   
Made in gb
Unhealthy Competition With Other Legions




Nottingham / Sheffield

Nice to see some angry little discs.

I've found that airbrushing the major colours in gives me so much more time to work on the details.
I also think the wash into the recesses looks a lot neater than trying to blackline everything.

Your highlights are much more crisp on the new drone than the old though.

Keep up the good work

Project Log
Neronoxx wrote:
...for the love of god can we drop the flipping jokes?
They might go over peoples heads....
 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






DaemonJellybaby wrote:
Nice to see some angry little discs.

I've found that airbrushing the major colours in gives me so much more time to work on the details.
I also think the wash into the recesses looks a lot neater than trying to blackline everything.

Your highlights are much more crisp on the new drone than the old though.

Keep up the good work


Thanks for the responses! The old drone wasn't actually blacklined per se; each panel was painted individually. Time consuming as hell! Actual blacklining might have been quicker, though also more difficult in some hard to reach places like Crisis Suits have. I think the highlights on the new drone are in a lighter grey than before (Vajello Ghost Grey is very near-white).

I'm considering priming in grey going forward as well. Dawnstone Air doesn't cover black super well, probably because it's a layer paint not a base paint, and I don't need the black crevices anymore anyways. Still testing the new paint scheme on some Fire Warriors before I try new primer, though.

   
Made in gb
Pious Palatine






Good start. Looking forward to seeing more

EDC
   
Made in us
Focused Fire Warrior




Cincinnati

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Much love for this scheme and your skill!
   
Made in gb
Unhealthy Competition With Other Legions




Nottingham / Sheffield

I've found that almost all airbrush-specific paints have pretty poor coverage straight on black, but are near-perfect with three or so coats.
Depending upon the temperature, you can finish the first coat for a batch then cycle through the models to do all three coats in one sitting.

Project Log
Neronoxx wrote:
...for the love of god can we drop the flipping jokes?
They might go over peoples heads....
 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






Big push to get ready for the weekend, so I put together my Commander model with ALL THE FUSIONS. I tried a light grey primer, but Dawnstone went over that too lightly and had to go back to a black undercoat. Thankfully airbrush coats are thin!

My old crisis suits used a similar palette, though for this model I used a black wash on the 'machinery' rather than a solid coat of black. This was a wash in the true sense of the word, a thinned down Abaddon Black, followed by some Dawnstone highlights. Then my traditional Tau scheme of grey armor, blue command elements (my Fire Warrior Shas'ui and Shas'vre have blue helmets, and green fusion effects. Overall it's a stark monochrome broken up by bright paint elements and lots of edge highlights. Happily, it's maybe 5 hours of painting after basecoating with the airbrush, which is a massive improvement over the old Crisis suits, even though this is a much bigger model.






   
Made in nz
Dakka Veteran





Do ya think he has enough fusions there?
Lookin a little light...

Love the colour scheme, its really crisp and eye catching.
Look forward to seeing some others units in it!

Any krootses planned? I like me some kroots

   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






PossumCraft wrote:
Any krootses planned? I like me some kroots


Maybe. I like Kroot, but this edition seems to continue the tend of making Kroot a poor option. Peak Kroot was 5th edition. They only seem good for pre-emptive countercharges (rapid fire + charge), since they can't occupy woods with a decent cover save anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
More Drones! I'm getting more comfortable with the new painting method. I also came upon the idea of discerning drone squads by which side their antennae are on, at least for gun drones. It also looks better on vehicles when the drone on either side has an antenna in a symmetrical position (Piranha or Devilfish). I'll probably shoot for at least 2 squads of 8 gun drones, though 3 teams of 6 drones is also attractive. Their leadership is low so having squads of 12 seems like asking for trouble with Morale tests.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/01 03:22:13


   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






So after some futzing around I finally got some Firewarriors painted using the new method.



It's only half a squad, but it's a start. Not the best picture, as I really should break out my lightbox and do it up proper so you can see the shading on the legs, but my gamespace is a mess right now.

The other half squad was sort of half painted in the old method and I'm debating just painting over or trying to finish them as is, not really sure. I did, however, decide I needed some other models, so I busted out some old sprues and got creative.



Firesight Marksman conversions. Now, I'm not sure how good these guys will be, but given they're characters and have a 2+ save in cover, they're BS3+ Markerlights that aren't easy to kill. I have an actual proper version, but don't particularly like it, and hate the sniper drones, which fall apart with a passing breeze no matter how I glue them together, so I may end up converting some sniper drones too from plastics. I used the Devilfish spotter's binoculars and a pulse carbine bottom to represent the markerlight portion, and an old Multitracker to act as a relay and camo field projector, robbing some pulse pistols from a modern Firewarriors sprue. And I threw them on a 40mm base because that's what the actual GW model is on, and the crouching legs always overcrowd the small bases anyways.

While they cost as much as 3 Markerlight drones, they're hard to kill and can cheaply fill Elite slots if that's required. Mostly I did it because having actual spotter models is cool.



And some Cadre Fireblades. The GW model looks fat and costs way too much. I put them on 30mm bases to make them stand out a bit more, again used the bottom of a pulse carbine to make markerlight add-ons to the pulse rifle, and robbed the bonding knife off of three sources (Commander, Crisis, Fire Warrior sprues). Mostly they'll be differentiated by their paint job. A hand-held scanner presumably to make the nearby fire warrior shooting more effective (and I love the scanner bit).


   
Made in gb
Pious Palatine






Ooo you've been busy!

Really liking how the Tau Commander turned out, however I have been on the receiving end of quad fusion commander and I didn't like that very much!

EDC
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






So I cleaned up my workspace a bit to get my lightbox up so I could post some better pictures.

First, the Commander front and back images.




Next, Gun Drones and Strike Team:




And finally, the completed Cadre Fireblade conversions:



Lots more color on these guys. For Strike Teams I paint the helmet blue and have a bonding knife, for these guys I painted on a lot of extra blue to make them more obvious on the table.

And a picture of your average Tau firebase supported by a Fireblade (a bit too much light on this pic, ah well):




This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/10 20:45:42


   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

Did you magnetize that Commander? Because you might want to be able to try out other weapon loadouts. Your Tau look pretty nice so far, by the way!

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/1/23, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~15000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Adeptus Custodes: ~1900 | Imperial Knights: ~2000 | Sisters of Battle: ~3500 | Leagues of Votann: ~1200 | Tyranids: ~2600 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2023: 40 | Total models painted in 2024: 7 | Current main painting project: Dark Angels
 Mr_Rose wrote:
Who doesn’t love crazy mutant squawk-puppies? Eh? Nobody, that’s who.
 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






 ZergSmasher wrote:
Did you magnetize that Commander? Because you might want to be able to try out other weapon loadouts. Your Tau look pretty nice so far, by the way!


No, I did not magnetize the commander. I think Crisis Suits are poor candidates for magnetizing, simply because even 2mm magnets are a hair too big for the slots and this forces you to do some tab and plate cutting I really don't like from an aesthetic sense - IOW, I want to keep my tabs and slots intact, but any magnet small enough to allow this is to small to effectively hold the guns in place through play and handling.

I've magnetized Tyranids MCs and an Eldar Wave Serpent's guns before, as well as a Tau Hammerhead (Ion Cannon/Railgun swap), so I've got some experience with it. Unless I can completely hide the magnets, though, I'd rather not do it. Aesthetics > Budget, at least in this case.

For the 4 Fusion Commander, I'm not too concerned. I think it's got great utility, either deep striking or performing line defense vs transports or MCs, and if I have to paint up another one, it's less of a deal now with the faster paint scheme I'm using. Actual Crisis Suit Teams might be a different story, but right now there are some fairly obvious load outs that are going to dominate. In practical terms, 2 Missile + ATS or Triple Plasma or Triple Flamer seem best. 2 CIB + ATS would be great if you could get CIBs without lots of conversion, exorbitant GW bits or 3rd party bits. For now I'm concentrating on HQs and numbers (FW/Drones/maybe Kroot) and getting a few big pieces on the table rather than worrying about Crisis loadouts too much.

   
Made in gb
Pious Palatine






Looking good dude. Nice work on the fire base.

EDC
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






And, rounding out my HQ choices (for now, anyways), an Ethereal on hoverboard.



I tried a few things on this model. First, the blue skin was done with a watered down blue paint as a wash to let the grey basecoat show through. Then a bit of drybrushing of Dawnstone grey, followed by a blue actual wash to cut down dustyness and any brush marks. I'm not totally happy with it, but it does come out kind of unnaturally creepy, given how generally featureless the ethereals are. Add in some black wash around the beady red eyes and he ended up kind of sinister. I continued the use of the black wash on the skirt, but the shading doesn't show well in photography.


I think the model kind of has crazy big feet, though, compared to a Fire Warrior. I'm not a huge fan of how GW portrays the Ethereal models, though. A breastplate is not enough protection on the battlefields of year 40,000, nor is a pointy stick a worthy weapon (give them a pulse pistol or something, GW, geez).

Anyways, now I have 5 HQ units, which should be enough for a while.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/08 00:00:09


   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






In a Trayzn pokeball

Love your work John, keep it up. I might have to steal some of it, hope you don't mind.

Edit: the ethereals have no proper weapons or armour to speak of is because they aren't soldiers, they're political leaders there to inspire the troops, not actually partake in the fighting, and the rules represent that. You keep them behind the fire warriors to provide boosts, but you never run them into combat. Unless you're Aun'Shi, in which case you give no s and go in honour blades swinging.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/07 23:39:51


 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The hobby is actually hating GW.
 iGuy91 wrote:
You love the T-Rex. Its both a hero and a Villain in the first two movies. It is the "king" of dinosaurs. Its the best. You love your T-rex.
Then comes along the frakking Spinosaurus who kills the T-rex, and the movie says "LOVE THIS NOW! HE IS BETTER" But...in your heart, you love the T-rex, who shouldn't have lost to no stupid Spinosaurus. So you hate the movie. And refuse to love the Spinosaurus because it is a hamfisted attempt at taking what you loved, making it TREX +++ and trying to sell you it.
 Elbows wrote:
You know what's better than a psychic phase? A psychic phase which asks customers to buy more miniatures...
the_scotsman wrote:
Dae think the company behind such names as deathwatch death guard deathskullz death marks death korps deathleaper death jester might be bad at naming?
 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Love your work John, keep it up. I might have to steal some of it, hope you don't mind.


Thanks. If you want to know what paints I'm using in what order, I'm happy to share.

Edit: the ethereals have no proper weapons or armour to speak of is because they aren't soldiers, they're political leaders there to inspire the troops, not actually partake in the fighting, and the rules represent that. You keep them behind the fire warriors to provide boosts, but you never run them into combat. Unless you're Aun'Shi, in which case you give no s and go in honour blades swinging.


Yeah, I know, it's just I hate the dumb way they go about things. The Ethereals are definitely on the battlefield to inspire the troops, but that's no reason to not wear a helmet. At least Aun'shi wears a force field generator. I guess I should be happy they at least have a breastplate now, and at least the armored collar is good while running away from the enemy.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/08 00:00:31


   
Made in ie
Sureshot Kroot Hunter





Ireland

I really don't like ethereals as models but I think those colours are really good on them. The blue is a really nice contrast to the grey armour.

I think the sinister eyes suit the ethereals as they deep down at heart they are just greedy politicians

Link to my haphazardly updated blog: Boundless's sub-par conversion projects


 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






In a Trayzn pokeball

 John Prins wrote:
Thanks. If you want to know what paints I'm using in what order, I'm happy to share.


If you could that'd be great.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The hobby is actually hating GW.
 iGuy91 wrote:
You love the T-Rex. Its both a hero and a Villain in the first two movies. It is the "king" of dinosaurs. Its the best. You love your T-rex.
Then comes along the frakking Spinosaurus who kills the T-rex, and the movie says "LOVE THIS NOW! HE IS BETTER" But...in your heart, you love the T-rex, who shouldn't have lost to no stupid Spinosaurus. So you hate the movie. And refuse to love the Spinosaurus because it is a hamfisted attempt at taking what you loved, making it TREX +++ and trying to sell you it.
 Elbows wrote:
You know what's better than a psychic phase? A psychic phase which asks customers to buy more miniatures...
the_scotsman wrote:
Dae think the company behind such names as deathwatch death guard deathskullz death marks death korps deathleaper death jester might be bad at naming?
 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
 John Prins wrote:
Thanks. If you want to know what paints I'm using in what order, I'm happy to share.


If you could that'd be great.


Ok, so I prime using Vajello Black Primer, via airbrush. Afterwards, use a regular brush to touch up the deep crevices you might miss, because at the next stage you'll use the airbrush to basecoat, and anywhere you don't reach with that at least has black primer on it and you don't have to worry about it.

Basecoating is done with Citadel Dawnstone Air, via airbrush. Coat the entire model, but don't worry about deep crevices you can't get via airbrush. Free shading!. Everything else is done with a normal brush. Any corrections during painting are done with Citadel Dawnstone (non-Air). Apply only ONE coat of Dawnstone, as the black primer darkens it a bit, and multiple coats will make the armor successively lighter with each coat. If you want more shading, you can use this to your advantage with multiple coats successively lightening an area, but I don't bother.

Cloth or mechanical parts are done with thinned down (50/50) Citadel Abaddon Black, which allows natural shading via the Dawnstone showing through a bit, followed by a light drybrush of Citadel Dawnstone on edges/peaks. Solid black areas are just normal Abbadon Black consistency with a Dawnstone highlight.

Crevices in the armor are painted with Citadel Nuln Oil wash. Then hard edges are highlighted using Vajello Game Color Ghost Grey (a very light grey). Sept symbols were also painted in Ghost Grey.

Orange elements are started with Reaper MSP-HD Brilliant Red (this is a high density pigment paint, b/c Orange over Dawnstone doesn't work great). Then Citadel Troll Slayer Orange followed by Citadel Fire Dragon Bright. Leave the red visible in crevices, like on the pulse rifle's business end.

Blue elements are Vajello Game Color Heavy Blue, edge highlighted with Reaper MSP-HD Dragon Blue (this is fairly subtle as edge highlights go, but the colors work well together). If I need a stronger highlight I use Vajello Model Color Deep Sky Blue. If there's an armor crevice on a blue area, it's painted with a Abaddon Black that's been thinned down fairly heavily.

Green elements are Citadel Warpstone Glow followed by Citadel Moot Green. Army Painter Green wash on the fusion blaster vents.

Gold elements (so far only on Ethereal) are Vajello Model Color Goldbrown with a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone wash, touched up with the Goldbrown again afterwards.

Basing is painted with Citadel Rhinox Hide followed by a highlight of Vajello Game Color Beastly Brown.

That's it! Note that a lot of the color choices are based on what I had, rather than buying a ton of GW paints. There are good substitutes in the Citadel paint range, which is what I used in my original 5th edition army.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/08 15:44:32


   
Made in lt
Longtime Dakkanaut






Lovely clean paintjob

   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






More progress, Firesight Marksmen.





No sniper drones yet, but I don't see them as necessary to the use of Firesight Marksmen. A BS3+ Markerlight is pretty good, especially when it can get a 2+ armor save in cover. They can also fill up Elite slots in Battleforged armies very cheaply to squeeze a Command Point, or take up the last 24 points of an army. While I'm sure people will argue that 3 Markerlight Drones for the same points is better, these guys being characters makes them a lot harder to shoot.

Besides, I always wanted to use the binoculars from the Tau tank sprue. The idea here is that the markerlight (mounted on their upper arms) tracks with the binoculars, rather than being gun mounted. The backpack is generating his stealth field and providing strong uplink to any nearby sniper drones.

   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






And the last of my first big push to get Tau stuff done, the Sun Shark Bomber. And by 'push' I mean it, because I'm normally really slow on larger vehicles, so I really did rush this one.



Rather than use Nuln Oil wash in the crevices, a lot of the major armor plate separations were painted in thinned down Abbaddon Black. It was tricky but probably worth it, as I wanted strong definition on those major separations.





Of course, double missile launchers, because if you're throwing down that many points for a bomber, you might as well get more missiles. I'm still debating putting a few decals on it, as it's kind of plain as is, though it matches my Devilfish and Hammerhead in that respect.



And yes, I did (barely ) paint the interior bombs.



The drones were problematic. First, you have no idea how many coats of orange were needed to get it that solid. Second, the guns really lack any good place to put any color, which makes them a little bit plain, which is why I chose the orange disk in the first place. I glued the wings in place too. Most mobile parts on miniatures become annoying to deal with over time (a bit too loose or so tight you can't move them without risking breakage), especially once they're painted.




   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The Battle Barge Buffet Line

I like the grey paint scheme. Have you found the all fusion loadout to be helpful in this edition? I don't have any experiece with nuhammer.

We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
 
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






 warboss wrote:
I like the grey paint scheme. Have you found the all fusion loadout to be helpful in this edition? I don't have any experiece with nuhammer.


I honestly haven't had the chance yet. I got in a game to try stuff out, but that was before the Commander got painted.

I can't see it doing badly. Obviously you have to choose your targets, but it should be unloading 11-12 damage on a target every turn, more inside half range. Pretty good for under 200 points.

   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






Now something I was actually dreading painting, Tau Stealth suits. Honestly, I preferred the old version of the stealth suits, not the eggs-on-legs we have right now. I painted 3 of them way back, with some conversion work, but still wasn't happy, so this time around I decided to abandon a 'sneaky black' paint job for something closer to the rest of my army (grey armor plates, black mechanicals. Once I got into painting it, I decided to not use the light grey highlights and instead use green, for sort of a 'rim-lit' effect. I moved these guys to 32mm bases, because honestly they're bulky enough to warrant it.



With green lit areas acting as 'stealth generators', akin to the Firesight Marksmen I did above.



Shas'vre with Drone Controller to act as a drone herder. I kept the color palette limited, but I did add some blue for the team leader, just to keep the army consistent.



Again, the black areas were done as a thin black wash of Abbaddon Black, followed by a drybrush of the Dawnstone, same color as the armor plates, keeping it quick and not necessitating worrying about repainting armor plates.

I'm fairly happy with how these turned out, and I think the scheme would work equally well on a Ghostkeel. I'm also tempted to strip down my old (metal) stealth suits and paint them similar to this, because they really are cooler models. Maybe I'll put them on 32mm bases to keep them from tipping over too much.

   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






Pathfinders! The first half of the squad, anyways.



This is the first time I've done the new Tau infantry with exposed feet. I went with a slightly darker grey than the armor on the toes (I repainted my Ethereal's feet to match), but otherwise followed the same formula as my Ethereal for Tau skin. I wasn't really sure what the stuff in the back end of the Ion Rifle was supposed to be. Obviously it's some sort of power source, so I painted it gold-ish, because it was kind of a honeycomb structure. These guns run on bee power, right?

   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






In a Trayzn pokeball

I'm fairly sure they run on radioactive material and the pathfinders who use them have very short life spans. And why not use rail rifles? They're awesome, like the paint job.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The hobby is actually hating GW.
 iGuy91 wrote:
You love the T-Rex. Its both a hero and a Villain in the first two movies. It is the "king" of dinosaurs. Its the best. You love your T-rex.
Then comes along the frakking Spinosaurus who kills the T-rex, and the movie says "LOVE THIS NOW! HE IS BETTER" But...in your heart, you love the T-rex, who shouldn't have lost to no stupid Spinosaurus. So you hate the movie. And refuse to love the Spinosaurus because it is a hamfisted attempt at taking what you loved, making it TREX +++ and trying to sell you it.
 Elbows wrote:
You know what's better than a psychic phase? A psychic phase which asks customers to buy more miniatures...
the_scotsman wrote:
Dae think the company behind such names as deathwatch death guard deathskullz death marks death korps deathleaper death jester might be bad at naming?
 
   
 
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