Revisiting the Fem Fa’Tau

Icon of the Fem Fa-Tau

My Beloved Wolfy’s Fem Fa’Tau army has more or less been in stasis for a few years now. Small contingents of it have fought in a multitude of Kill Team games with considerable success, and I’ve made lists up for Shadow War though she’s yet to try that particular 40k variation out. No new minis have been purchased since before the 7th ed codex’s release, indeed the Fire Warrior ‘Pin-up’ Neverness gifted to her has been the army’s only recent addition. 

I asked a little ways back and she’s pretty much ‘done’ with 40k, preferring the smaller skirmish games instead. As such, I’ve been pondering the revamping her forces a bit. Mainly, I’ve been wanting to update her infantry by selling off the old metal minis in exchange for the newer ones. Primarily the pathfinders, stealth suits and possibly the old original broadsides. The tanks and piranha will stay as none of those models have changed aside from the astronomical inflation of their prices! Seriously, WTF GW?!

Then there’s the drone horde…funky pathfinder and Shadow Sun variants aside, all the rest can go as well w/o need for replacement as I know we have at least another half dozen still on the sprue. Its seems the little bastards breed like rabbits! 

She has 20+ Fire Warriors with pulse rifles, of which about half are painted in the colors of one of my old Tau armies. Thought I might just offload the painted ones with the minis listed above and just keep and paint the primed ones. I’d also like to get a new strike team box and split it between pulse carbine toting Fire Warriors and Breachers to give her some options for variation. 

Her crisis suits will stay unless she’d prefer the newer ones, as will Shadow Sun and the plastic stealth suits. The cadre fireblade (one of my favorites) is a keeper as well even though its worthless in KT, and of course the Kroot will stay. Mediocre as they are, they’re another of my favorite Tau units, and my looted Kroot crisis suit lets us field a Kroot only KT which is always fun!

The rock on the base helps stabilize this hideously off-balance mini.

I painted the above pathfinder as a ‘test mini’ based on her Fem Fa’Tau’s current color scheme. Its darker and grimier per my norm, and was done so after Neverness’ comment he made when he gave Wolfy the Pin-up mini he painted: ‘I was looking on his blog for inspiration and could only find one painted Tau, and the lazy fucker didn’t even bother with any kind of shading…’ (I'm paraphrasing but it was something to that effect). 

Guilty as charged...

She seemed happy with it, though I could try different color schemes if she’d prefer that instead. Paint jobs are often irrelevant on ebay unless they're very well done, so a rainbow assortment won't detract any from bid prices. Anyways, the Fem Fa’Tau will be sticking around and in numbers sufficient for a small army, but in the interim they ought to be making some more regular appearances on here as they go thru their updating.