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Hi everyone !
It's holidays for me and I have absolutely no plans or obligations. Even my girlfriend is leaving me alone for 5 weeks while she trips around Europe.

So, I'm going to get PAINTING!! Its amazing for me. I'm 'that guy' who has been playing for 5+ years but hasn't finished painting anything, ever (actually, I did finish 2 units of silver helms back in 03...)

So, here's what is in front of me to paint:



Plus a few second-hand or eBay purchases: it comes to:
72 Fire Warriors
12 XV15 Stealth Suits
18 XV25 Stealth Suits - will be converted to represent Vespids.
9(?) Crisis Suits
3 Sniper Teams
3 Broadsides
3 Hammerheads
7 Devilfish
3 Piranhas
The theme for the army is break-away Tau from the N'Dras planet. (True story: when I started the army with the first Tau codex, I made up my own N'Dras symbol. When the Tau Empire codex appears, they read my mind!! Anything you want included in the next codex?) The aim is to have at least one unit of everything, except for an Ethereal, preferably 2 or 3 units. Eventually it will all also be Mechanized.
Because of their break away from the Tau Empire, they don't like displaying the Tau symbol on their shoulders and as such, every single model will need to be converted so they have a N'Dras symbol. All my Crisis suits will be magnetized and converted to look more akin to the Forge World suits - integrated arms, swept-back helmets. All tanks will be magetized and switchable between DF and HH... assembling everything is going to be quite a bit of work.



~90 Kroot (haven't counted them all yet, ebay purchaes). These will be the start of a Kroot mercenary list. Starting with just some Kroot for now, will sculpt and cast my own Vulture wings and Knarlocs when I get that far.



12 Chaos Warriors + Lord + BSB (Inquisitor Coteaz is making a blasphemous guest appearance as the BSB )


1 Balrog + Gandalf diorama. I owe this to my dad so I'll be painting this to my absolute best.

Now, I know I'm not capable of getting that done even in 5 weeks of holidays. But, you guys are here to make sure that I don't just quit!! (please)

I have actually nearly finished one unit of Firewarriors, and one unit of Kroot: Here's the colour schemes I'll be painting. The Tau will be based with a snow theme, the Kroot in an Australian bush style. I did think about keeping the Kroot with the same bases for continuity, but the snow i decided didn't fit with the greens and browns. The Tau are done in regal blue, highlighted up to ice blue- squad markings etc will be done in White. Undersuits are painted black with thin codex grey highlights, then given a glaze of boltgun metal. Everyone in the future wears shiny metallic clothing!




And my Chaos Warrior scheme for good measure. I didn't intend for him to come out so close to the GW scheme, and normally I steer away from GW 'sanctioned' schemes, but I'm very happy with the effect so I don't think i'll change it.



I'm still learning how to take pics; all the models are actually a lot lighter than the appear. The Chaos Warriors' base is grey and his boots are brown. All part of the learning experience - watch my photography develop with time as well!

Also in the sights for these holidays: Making a customized carry case for my entire army, and building some awesome terrain to match them.

Wish me luck!!

Sweet Jebus that's a lot of stuff!

Good luck sir, I can't wait to see more of your army's progress.

Also really interested to see how you convert your suits. I've always been a fan of the forgeworld suits, but just too damn expensive to pickup a whole bunch.

Lead the way!

Really like the blue tau firewarrior, its just shine.

Over and out Avach

That is a really solid job on the Chaos Warrior I really like it.

On that note you couldnt PM me a tute on your color recipe etc, if its not too much trouble.