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).