Painting thru it all...

And thus the entirety of my Tau's vehicle compliment (currently anyways) is complete!

Still making progress, despite the fact that my grandfather passed away unexpectedly last week in the wee hours of Thursday morning. He was a truly amazing man, and I can't even hope to sum him up in a few words on this page. 

Luckily I was able to take my grandmother to see him for a bit the evening before he passed and there was no indication that he was at his end. Meaning it was quick, if not instant. Like myself and My Beloved Wolfy, Ma and Granddaddy's last words (after 74 years) were 'I love you' along with a kiss goodnight. 

That's the best way to go if there is such a thing. 

This little bunch finishes out my pulse rifle equipped strike team and the hogziliary squads. 

As for my Tau, this week was mostly repaints. Those being the two former Fem Fa'Tau breachers, one last Hogziliary, as well as a fire warrior that I previously thought would need to be converted into a breacher (until I realized that I had miscounted and found myself  short one fire warrior for the pulse rifle squad). 

It almost looks all green, with the grey areas practically invisible under all that grime.

I also painted the piranha's two gun drones. Taking a bit of a break from the infantry, I then went on to completely repaint the also former Fem Fa'Tau vehicle. I'm sure that I never finished painting it originally as I was bouncing back and forth between it as well as a Hammerhead and Devilfish, not a recommended technique.

I always have a hellova time inking vehicles. The wash leaves dark splotches all over, and the model looks just plain awful afterwards. Thus the heavy dry brushing of grime which hides all sins. 

All were in the same half painted state when I gave up on them, never to return (certainly wasn't the easiest of color schemes to paint either). Now it only has six colors in total. As such  progressed quite a bit on it in a very short time and managed to finish it up yesterday morning, prior to leaving for granddaddy's funeral.

It camouflages quite nicely with my deck (which is in dire need of  being re-stained).

As before with the loss of my stepfather many years ago, more recently My Beloved Wolfy, Hoss, and now Granddaddy, painting minis is an excellent way to tune out the world for a little bit of a happy respite. That said, after the initial tears of this past week, yesterday's viewing and internment ceremony at the Mountain Home National Cemetery for Granddaddy (nobody can make it thru the playing of Taps with a dry eye), the day very much ended as a celebration of life!

The vulnerable underbelly. 

Reaching the halfway point for a second time...

 o/

I love the look on this guy's face! Dunno what his little tri-corder thingy is telling him, but it's clearly not what he was wanting to read...

Whilst I've yet to physically peruse the new Tau codex, Battlescribe has updated and between that and reading the Goonhammer review linked in my last post, I needed to restructure my little army. 

That's what it is! He's just been notified that he's being saddled with five gue'vesa who just flunked their pathfinder qualifications. 

Strike, Breacher and Pathfinder teams all now come in at 10 models apiece. Thus the Gue'vesa Pathfinders from my last post will be folded in with the five carbine equipped fire warriors that I painted this week to meet the new squad size. 

Beware of Swine lurking in the underbrush.

I'll have to repaint my original Hogzillary (the only camouflaged member of the Fem Fa'Tau) as well as two Fem Fa'Tau breachers which will be taken (reluctantly) out of retirement and repainted. That still left me with only eight breachers, so I scrounged thru my bitz box and ordered what few parts that I didn't have to be able to assemble the last two needed to bring me up to 10. 

To justify the shipping costs which equaled the price of the bitz needed, I also ordered the MIA guardian drone bit to stick on an as yet unassembled gun drone (must've given mine to Hoss by mistake), as well as another support turret allowing the Fem Fa'Tau to keep theirs. 

The shas'ui used to be the Fem Fa'Tau's Darkstrider proxy. In homage to her past career, her hair ties were painted pink. 

Of course this leaves me bereft of Pathfinders, thus I ordered a squad of those (after checking and failing to find any in the local FLGSs). Previously I just used carbine equipped fire warriors sans-pauldrons as pathfinders, so this will be the first I've ever had both this particular kit and a recon drone! 

This week's batch. 

That said though, a few pathfinders in a not-painted-by-me color scheme are seen in the above linked support turret post. I'm thinking they came in via an eBay lot and summarily went off to Hoss. Honestly I don't recall ever seeing them till I went looking for that post. Most curious.

Anyways, despite painting another eight minis this week the sudden influx of new recruits means that I'm once again just reaching the halfway point in painting up all of my infantry (now clocking in at 72 models!). I'm still trying to crank thru all of the OD green troops before moving onto the Kroot. Odds are that once I stop painting all of the fire warriors and variations thereof, I won't want to go near this color scheme again for quite awhile!

I'm pretty sure that this is more than all of the minis that I painted during the entirety of the last year!

On to the next batch I go...

Tau Gue'vesa (Human Helpers) Pathfinders & more!

Happy Valen-Tau's day folks! 

I've designated this mini as squad Gue'vesa'ui sergeant since its my favorite mini out of the five.

I thought I'd share a bit more Tau love with my latest completed batch of minis. First up, my Heresy Labs KS Gue'vesa Pathfinder squad (looking back thru that KS's offerings, I ought to have gotten more than just five). They're really great models and if anything, even more detailed sculpts than the actual GW minis. 

The whole Pathfinders squad. 

From what I understand about the pathfinders in the new codex, using markerlights requires an action (of not moving) in the movement phase followed by hitting on a 3+ in the shooting phase...or something like that. 

Practicing retreating evasion tactics...

Thus far I've not bothered with the Actions game mechanic in my games of 40k, however markerlights are more or less the lynchpin that holds the Tau's ballistic onslaught together, so I'll have to figure it out! Otherwise I'm left with a mere 50/50 chance to hit under the best of circumstances for anyone other than an HQ model. 

Wait, why are the gue'vesa running towards us?

In addition to the pathfinders, I also completed another trio of Fire Warriors with Pulse Rifles. You can never have enough of these bread and butter troops in an army, and these bring my painted compliment of them up to 8 (with three more in progress). 

Empty Circles = Unpainted

Half Circles = Half Painted

Full Circles = Fully Painted

Speaking of, I tallied up all of my Tau minis, folding in all of the unpainted Fem Fa'Tau from that now defunct army (the handful painted Fem Fa'Tau have taken up residence in my display case). 

To better keep track of my progress, I created the painting chart above. Currently, I'm sitting at about the halfway point between painted & unpainted and all within a month's time! How's that for  Squaduary? 

Another view. 

As you can see, my force is all but bereft of vehicles and heavy weaponry. I had given a good chunk of the Fem Fa'Tau (including all of the tanks) to my buddy Hoss. He'd always flirted with starting a Tau army but couldn't afford the initial buy in. He was also as close of a friend to My Beloved Wolfy as he was myself, thus they were given to him after her passing. In the interim, not being too fond of the current Tau rules, he was just waiting for the new codex to drop before getting started.

Sadly, this past Thursday we laid him to rest as well. Still can't quite wrap my head around it really, don't think any of us can. I told My Beloved Wolfy to go and find Hoss, show him the ropes and for them to keep each other company. His family is looking to sell his gaming collection to raise funds to cover the funeral costs, so I'm hoping to buy back my tanks. I think I have enough infantry for now though. 

Edit: In reading the Goonhammer review of the new codex, I see that fire warriors and pathfinders now come in squads of 10. As such, the in-progress pulse carbine strike team will be moved into the pathfinders or else the Gue'vesa will be moved to the carbine squad (either way demoting the mini in the first pic to a mere grunt) and I'll just buy pathfinders later on. I'll also have to repaint a 1-off Hogzilary to bring that squad up to 10, and the in-progress pulse rifle fire warriors will join the breachers (also, I will have to scrounge a few more off of eBay). 

FORWARD YOU FILTHY SWINE!

Harsh. Accurate, but still a bit harsh. 

This week I painted up my Dal'yth Tau's Cadre Fireblade & a squad of 8 'counts as' Strike Team Hogzilaries (yes, you pronounce that phonetically). The latter were cheap, 3D printed minis I got some ways back just because I found them amusing. With the simple addition of Tau pauldrons they blend in nicely looking like some sort of lesser known species that has been subsumed by the Tau empire. 

Their guns are of a blocky Tau-esque style, though they are a bit chunkier despite their puny dimensions compared to say pulse rifles and/or carbines. There were two doodads protruding far from the fronts of them which I trimmed down with varying levels of success (3D printed minis don't like to be converted it seems...).

With a barrel opening that large, it's almost like a blunderbuss!

I plan to use 'em as Standard 'FireWarriors' albeit it with vastly inferior weaponry, IG shotguns most likely. Points costs remain the same as is standard, chalked up once again to the price of proxies. Also of note are their inverted 25mm bases. These came with integral 20mm bases any any attempt to remove them resulted in broken legs. Gluing them on top of 25mm bases didn't look satisfactory to me, so instead I inverted the GW bases which works well enough if a bit odd in appearance. 

The one in front with pauldrons on both sides is the squad leader, which is called a Soo'ui! 

It isn't recorded (as far as the Imperium knows anyways) as to just when the Tau Empire took the small world of Scrofa into their possession. The indigenous Scrofan inhabitants (who collectively refer to themselves as just 'Hogs') were all too happy to provide troops to assist in the expansion of the Empire in exchange for improved technologies and security for their homeworld which had long been subjected to alien raids. 

Whilst the Tau's influence on the Hog's manufactured kit and weaponry are easy to see, they nonetheless stubbornly cling to their woefully inferior native weapons. This severely limits their battlefield utility, much to the Fire caste's collective annoyance. This 'issue' has mostly relegated them to 2nd line garrison and policing duties.

Indeed, some within the ranks of the Water caste have privately speculated that the insistence on fielding their weak armaments has little to do with pride. Rather by rendering themselves largely combat ineffective, they are instead successfully manipulating the Tau into limiting Scrofan casualties on far off deployments about which they care very little.

With only 4 fingers on their hands, how does a Tau flip off the Imperium? Asking for a friend...

As for the Cadre, he's stock aside from a hand swap. I bought him via eBay, missing his sheathed honor blade hand (for a 30% retail discount). I had this missing bit as I didn't use it on the Fem Fa'Tau's Cadre Fireblade. However after dry fitting it, I decided I still didn't like it. So I went with this hand instead. 

Showing off his pulse rifle with integral marker light.

I was pleased with the camo cloak even though in hindsight, it's not going to be too effective given how this army is based. 

The Cadre will serve as my army's 2nd in command after my as yet unassembled Crisis suit commander. He'll likely hang back with the Pathfinders and other rear area objective campers. As for the army as a whole, I have the XV8 commander backed up by 43 infantry models of various types. As they all currently stand, my army is half painted with another eight minis in progress! 

How now Green Tau?

10 out of 11, not bad for a week's painting! 

Aways back I posted where I'd repaired my (then) 1-off fire warrior whom had been decapitated by the office cleaning crew at work. I've always liked the color scheme, mainly as it was both simple and quick to paint. Skip to the present and after cranking out my Star Schlock KS troopers both relatively quickly and in a similar color scheme, I thought I'd see if I could do the same with some Tau. 

Close enough. Worst case, the desk jockey (on the right) will die first. I mean, previously he had been killed by an old lady armed with a feather duster. You know, typical Tau close combat stuff....

Using the aforementioned desk jockey fire warrior as a guide (albeit, without the entire base covered in grassy tufts), I started doing just that and quickly finished up a small squad of 6 breachers (sans drones at the moment), along with 4 strike team fire warriors to accompany the former desk jockey. 

I'm sure that the 'writing' on the flag is explaining where the rest of his armor is...

The strike team, with their soon to be 36" ranged pulse rifles.

The strike team's Shas'ui looks more like he's in his pajamas than he does ready for battle. He's is a non-standard fire warrior being the Devilfish crewman with added bits. I'm not sure how inspiring a leader he is having forgotten about half his kit, but whatever. 

Into the breach!

He works for now, and can be replaced if I ever get all of my Tau infantry painted up. Usually such a statement as that is a laughable notion, but then again I did paint 10 fire warriors in a week's time! Nominally, my list clocks in at just shy of 500 points. However with a new 'dex waiting in the wings, that's sure to change once Battlescribe updates. 

Black marines helmets from the Iron Hands? Raven Guard? Neverness' Death Watch? 

Also I'd like to clarify that these are NOT an extension of my late wife's Fem Fa'Tau army (a shame as I so LOVE that punny name!). My Beloved Wolfy was an ex-army wife, and as such had a serious dislike of OD green and anything resembling woodland camouflage. If I showed her a mini that I had painted in those colors, she'd usually tell me it was a good paint job, but she hated it at the same time because it was an ugly color scheme. 

If that's Tau propaganda on his flag, it's lost on everyone BUT the Tau.

I knew where her disdain was coming from, and that it wasn't directed at me. As such I won't sully her infamous Fem Fa'Tau's legacy with this color scheme. Instead, my army will hail from the Dal'yth Sept due to the large number of auxiliaries (both official and otherwise) in my list. Amusingly, the above linked Lexicanum page lists their principle uniform color as green and grey...heh, that was lucky!

Gue'vesa (aka: Humans for the Greater Good)

 o/

My Heresy Lab Kickstarter minis arrived this weekend, and I'm quite pleased with them. Hell, I wish I'd gotten more! This KS finished up in early December of last year, with an ETA of March/April of this one. Considering that (1) it's a Kickstarter and (2) Covid, it's a pleasant surprise that they were only delayed a few weeks. 

These came with 32mm bases, however my Tau infantry are all on 25mm bases. As such I had to scrounge up some 25mm bases, all of which had already been used previously. 

The casts are crisp, clean and of superior quality and came with only one complaint: one mini had an unfortunately located gate on the helm. It's removal took with it the raised helmet stripe his/her companions have.

The full squad.

These will serve as my Fem Fa'Tau garrison army's pathfinder squad (I say garrison as it's almost bereft of heavy weaponry). Armed almost entirely with small arms and accompanied by a lone Piranha, they're basically a force that was left behind to hold recently captured ground whilst the frontline continued to advance. 

This Xenos species is as-yet unknown to the Imperium. Whilst this rarely seen species (known to the Tau as the Aww-Zees) is of little threat to the Imperium (despite that this one appears to be carrying some sort of rail rifle), the fact that yet another species has thrown it's lot in with the Greater Good should be cause for alarm...

In total (now that these have arrived), the army clocks in at a little over 500pts. It's probably a pushover, though I'll still field it as-is at some point.

Tarellian Hog Soldiers

Yes, you read that correctly. 

No, 'Hog' is not a typo. 

Lurking deep in the wilds of the Appalachian Subsector...

Tarellian hog soldiers are sometimes employed as auxiliary forces of the Tau. Canon images are few and often conflicting. Likewise, inventing background for what is likely to be just a lone Tau auxiliary unit (not that I've never done that before) didn't really appeal to me at this time. Thus, they're Tarellians. 

Whilst the woodland camo does its job nicely...

These hired Swine will likely be deployed as Fire Warriors, only I was thinking of arming them with the humble lasgun, as their Tau-esque gun is a bit puny in comparison to actual Tau infantry weapons. 

...curiously the Fem Fa'Tau pauldron coloring blends in as well!

These 3D printed minis came with integrated 20mm bases. I tried to remove said base on this mini and instead broke the little guy's legs in several places. After gluing him back together I tried placing the base atop  a 25mm base, and green stuffing around the edges to blend it all in, but didn't like the look of it. So instead I inverted the 25mm base, glued the integrated one inside of it, and green-stuffed in the resulting gap. It works I think, even if it looks a bit wonky. 

Also of note the shoulder guard (do the Tau call them pauldrons too?) is on the wrong side. Several of these minis have been mirror imaged, during the 3D printing process, so the pauldron will go on whichever side doesn't have the little shoulder epaulet. 

I have 10 of these little guys, and enough pauldrons to field 20 if I decide to get more at some point. I also have a lone different sculpted hog that could pass as an Ethereal-stand it. Just not sure if it would be best called a Divine Swine, or rather the Hog Father...

Downsizing 'da Groop

 lol, I'm sure that just by that title alone Neverness has a knot in the pit of his stomach, and perhaps rightly so.

It isn't news to anybody that I don't play near as often as I once did, which has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. Thus my pile o' shame is both considerable and taking up a lot of space. Granted I still have some extra of that following the passing of My Beloved Wolfy, but that said I could probably do something better with it were some of it not filled with a literal pile of plastic that I have little want to paint. As such, force reductions are well under way:

First up, the Spess Mahreenz. As y'all may recall, having just sold off all of my non-primaris Spess Mahreenz, Kushial blindsided me with the gift of a veritable horde of them! From that collection both the Astral Claws were reborn, and my Incandescent Coyotes came into being. However with the Coyotes clocking in at about 500 points, and the Astral Claws at about the same, I was still left with a Landraider and 30-odd marines. Not wanting to sell what was gifted to me, I passed those minis on to Neverness. 

My Silver Drakes clock in at about 1000 points, with maybe 1/10 of that painted. No plans to add to or reduce their numbers at this point in time. They're not too high on the list to get painted either...

Next up: Chaos. I mentioned just a few posts back that I sold the majority of  my chaos marines off, reducing them to a mere kill team. 

Then there's My Beloved Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau. By far my largest army (at the start of this paragraph anyways...), clocking in at a little over 1500 points of almost entirely unpainted minis (the original, paltry collection of painted Fem Fa'Tau minis Wolfy herself fielded are all in my display case). I didn't see meself doing much with these, and burned out after just a few painted up in a new scheme. Still, being hers, I didn't want to sell em, so what to do? Well, my buddy Hoss has flirted with Tau and 40k for years, but the astronomical cost of entry into the game has always kept him from making the jump. He was also one of My Wolfy's favorite folks. As such I have approx. 1K of Tau set aside to suck him into the financial hell that is 40k. The remainder are staying with me to all wear the Fem F'aTau's new colors...someday. 

The Exodites...barely clock in at 500 points, They're good as is. 

And lastly there's Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself. Recently they achieved something like 90+% painted status when 30 or so unpainted minis were sold to another local gamer. Riddled with sentimental favorites, they're all but impossible to sell off in their entirety. They are still fieldable as an army (albeit a small one) as their troops compliment has been reduced to a mere 10-strong slugga boy mob. 

Storage and transport of these little guys will be much easier as well!

That said, just days prior to the above mentioned sale, I purchased 48 new orks (pictured above)...in 15mm scale. Sure they may not be as detailed, nor have as much variety of models, but at the same time a *NEW* 500pt army cost me $50, of which a goodly portion of that was shipping from the UK. 

So...that's the current state of things around here. More minis are likely to go, just not sure what at this point. 

She's Back!!!

 o/

Well it took me a bit, but I finally repaired the ruined paint job of my Fem Fa'Tau Fire Warrior Shas'ui.  It didn't take too long actually, especially as half of the mini was fine as is, rather the delay was more psychological than anything. One thing of note that I don't think I mentioned originally is her helmet. It's a 3D printed variant produced by Onos Industries, I thought I had bought 10 but instead had only ordered 5. 

Note the lavender once again poking out of the hole in the hatch just for Monkeychuka.

Oh well, the pulse carbine equipped Fire Warrior is the worst of the lot, so a minimum sized squad isn't much of an issue I guess. It does make it so that every Fire Warrior/Pathfinder/Breacher type has it's own unique helmet style to correspond with their specific gun type. 

Speaking of the Fem Fa'Tau, I've started work on my new crisis suit commander. Nothing too flashy as of yet, still just in the base coating phase. Not sure if I'll keep the flight stand or not. Whilst it would likely negate the fear of ankle breakage, it's position, despite my best efforts doesn't quite line up with the feet, meaning said ankles would always be under tension. 

Sorry Siph, but your boys ought not have gone looking for souvenirs in this neck of the woods... 

On the Spess Mahreen front, the Incandescent Coyotes Rhino has achieved the 'Woolly Bear' state. It's been easier going this time around now that I know what route I'm actually taking. Next step is onto the detailing. 

I guess two is a charm?

Lastly, Neverness and I played our annual Orks vs. Orks game at the FLGS last weekend. Just in case you missed it, you can find the battle report here. 

ARRRGH!!!

Just when ya think you were done, the gods of Chaos strike from out of the blue and ruin ensues...

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Picking up from my last post, there was another round of touch ups, followed by decals, inking, and finally adding a little tuft of lavender flowers poking up out of that hole in the turret just for Monkeychuka and I was done. All that was left was the clear coat. However I wasn't paying attention sadly and, whilst it was only for a split second before realizing my error, a split second is all that was needed to ruin this model (luckily it was only the one).

Yup, you've likely guessed it already, I grabbed the wrong can and instead of clear coat, I oh so briefly hit this finished mini with a blast of OD green primer! Sad Face. Raging at my stupidity, I ripped the (now) OD green flowers out and then disgustedly put the mini aside. I was in no mood for an immediate repaint (still haven't been). 

I tried to salvage the evening by applying decals to the razorback, but that also quickly descended into an exercise in fury and I just had to walk away from my hobby desk for the night. That said, Karma wasn't done delivering a good 'ol fuck you to me for no apparent reason (seriously, WTF? Hell I had to cover for somebody else all day in addition to doing my job!) as I then burnt my dinner, and the following take out was kinda meh too). 

So yeah, my Friday night SUCKED, how was yours? 

Haven't attempted to retry decals on the razorback yet either, though a 2nd squad of Coyotes have gotten their initial layer of contrast paint at the least. 

Squad 2 on approach.

The 'Orange Box' Nightmare Continues.

o/

The Florida Gator/Clemson Tiger jokes will commence in 3...2...1...

 ...when I last left off on my Incandescent Coyotes' Razorback nightmare, it looked well...hideous. However as promised in that post, it is indeed now predominantly black. 

No masking was applied to the rear ramp, I have something
special in mind for that end of the tank...

Utilizing the good ol' blue painter's tape, I masked off a broad center stripe and a small area on the front and then summarily reprimed it. 

What's that stupid old kids joke: What's Orange and black and runs you over? Something like that...

Cincinnati Bengals/Halloween jokes commencing in 3...2...1...

MUCH better me thinks. Since these pics were taken, I did some touchups to straighten out the edges along the masking, as well as another coat of orange contrast (most of said touch ups required white paint first). It looks alright I suppose, now will work on the detailing. Being a mostly black box, I don't think this tank will really come alive until I get to my favorite part: the dirtying/weathering stage. 

Touchups. Always more blasted touch ups to do...

Also, on the Fem Fa'Tau front, the support turret has been properly touched up, and one of the three WIP Shas'Uis is just about ready for decals and inking. I say just about as I noticed a few more touch ups are needed after seeing this close-up pic.  

:-/