A productive week of painting.

 o/

Not bad for just one week!

Aside from working on my Inquisitor for Neverness' Enclave challenge, I've also been cranking out minis at an alarming rate (well, for me). No, no, I can assure you that the Ork Bomma is sadly not on this list, and as such hasn't been painted in anyway since my last post that mentioned it. 

The Fem Fa'Tau, v2.

First up, my 'retirement' of the Fem Fa'Tau naturally piqued my painting attentions. I don't want to revisit the prior paint scheme(s), other than to keep the color pink. No, the green test mini from my prior post won't be used for them either, My Beloved Wolfy loathed OD green, probably a holdover from being an 'army wife' in her prior marriage (that mini is instead 'guarding' my desk at work). 

Previously, her cloak was orange.

Instead I took my two Farsight Enclave Tau and added pink to their paint jobs. I'm thinking that'll work. It was quick and easy to paint originally, so they ought to paint up fairly easily. I did opt for the lots of grassy/flowery tufts for their bases though. The Cadre Fireblade not so much, but her base is sculpted. 

The armor plate worn by the one on the left was crafted from Smurf power armor. 

As an homage to the Fem Fa'Tau's original paint scheme, I've decided that the Kroot contingent shall be purple in color. We were both fond of the Kroot minis, despite the fact that they absolutely suck rules-wise. Hell, their piss poor rules offer the most likely chance of their survival in-game, as there are vastly more dangerous units to shoot at! Their bases follow the same method as their Fem Fa'Tau brethren.

They have a very WWI French look about them.

Lastly, I also painted three 'test models' for my forthcoming Astra Militarum Imperial Guard army. These are based the same as my baby squiggoth, so I guess they're Ork fighters...or at least have been shipped to an Ork infested warzone. 

Note the Squad emblems on the bottom of their coats, the wash
seems to puddle there, so may need to move those... 

These are Wargames Atlantic minis, which clock in at $35 for a box of 24 minis. I found 2 on sale, totaling $63 including shipping for 48 minis. To those I added these three that I already had for filling out a survey last year. Were I to have bought the same old, tired Cadians, 50 of them would have clocked in at approximately $150. Up your game GW! Not everybody wants just primaris space marines all of the time!

Anyways, they were painted fairly simply which is kinda required given that I normally can't paint more than FIVE of anything before I lose interest. Whilst individually they don't look all that impressive, hopefully a fully painted horde of them (pause for laughter at that notion) would...

My wife doesn't play very nice...

o/

This past Saturday, we finally got another game of Kill Team in, our first mini game in what seems like forever. I was fielding my Farsight Enclave Tau with human auxiliaries, My Beloved Wolfy had her Fem Fa'Tau with Kroot auxiliaries, and Bob had his Dark Angels. Neverness was supposed to play as well, but (as it turns out wisely) fled the field of battle in apparent terror before we even deployed.

One of my Fire Warriors in the old, soon-to-be-repainted color scheme and some auxiliaries coming up on a Dark Angel.

And um yeah...she kicked our asses.

The first shot of the game, her crisis suit turned my recently painted Cadre Fireblade (who was serving as a shas'ui) into a smoking crater and it just went down hill from there. With 1st blood out of the way, she then proceeded to kill both of our team leaders, all of our specialists, and break both of our forces as well. Leadership tests were quite hard on Bob despite his ATSKNF rerolls, and...well, Tau and leadership...you know how that went.

Emerging from that ruin on the right, you can see the Fem Fa'Tau breachers killing all before them despite not getting into 'magic range'.

All told, when Bob and I folded at the top of turn 6 with one model a piece, we didn't even bother with tallying up VPs, as I think they would have come out as Wolfy: all of 'em, and Bob and I: zilch.

Oh well, it was a fun game at least.

Farsight Enclave Cadre Fireblade

o/

We've had this mini for what seems like ages, but for whatever reason I all of a sudden wanted to paint it. This will be the commander of my small Farsight Enclave force, though odds are he'll likely serve as just a glorified Shas'Ui in Kill Team games. Unless of course I revert to the 6th ed codex in which case he'll get all of his Fireblade stats as the Fireblade was originally a squad leader upgrade.

This was a simple conversion, with the addition of a helmet and a hand swap showing him tossing a grenade rather than waving a sheathed blade around in the impotent fury as he was on the original sculpt.

In looking for a color for the cloak, it ended up with a rainbow of individual splashes of color on it until I decided on orange. Not quite sure why, perhaps because I use the color so rarely? Dunno, but I figured a Fireblade would want something a little less ostentatious given that he's only armored in Tau equivalent of carapace armor. In the red desert terrain of his force's bases, this doesn't stand out nearly as much as would on say, a green flocked one. 

This still needs to be clear-coated
but its too cold outside to do so.

Speaking of his base, the Tau debris is painted in the colors of My Beloved Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau army. The Fem Fa'Tau are commanded by none other than Commander Shadowsun who (it is rumored) has been charged with the task of taking out the renegade Commander Farsight. I have no intentions of getting the Farsight model given that this will be such a small force, but it easily justifies her Fem Fa'Tau and my Farsight Enclave forces fighting one another in games of Kill Team.

Tau update

o/

Notta whole lot of hobby time this week, so I'm working thru the backlog.

All they need now are some space marines to kill!

A little ways back I managed to assemble the remaining three Breachers and their attendant Guardian drone. I've never seen this squad type used and am curious to see how they fair in our games of Kill Team. The Guardian Drone confers a 5++ save to the squad which ought to (hopefully) compensate for the fact that their guns are most effective at point blank range.

The Gue'vesa Squad leader is the one on the left with the little critter who will mete out her 2 close combat attacks. 

This week I did manage at least to finish painting the first of my Farsight Enclave Fire Warriors. This is a repaint of one of my older minis which was painted in a time-consuming camouflage scheme of discontinued colors. This color scheme is much quicker to paint!

As small as the auxiliaries' guns are, I think I'll just use the same stats as the auxiliary carbines that they wield in 30k rather than the standard lasguns. I doubt any of my opponents will mind. 

He's painted to match my Grymn who will serve as Tau Auxiliaries (a.k.a.: cannon fodder) for my Kill Team. Its a simple color scheme that's easy to paint, and considering that the Fem Fa'Tau are led by Commander Shadowsun (who is tasked with bringing Farsight in), its easily justifiable to have our forces shooting at one another in a Kill Team game.