Tossing the Tau Zerg swarm into the meat grinder once more...

 o/

My Hogzilaries valiantly taking the objective!

We got in a sorta game last weekend. The usual four player free-for-all, though we ought to have played a 2v2 game given the late start. But whatever, here's a few pics in lieu of a proper battle report as we only managed 2 turns and I only took a handful. 

See, Zerg swarm. Just like I said. Not pictured is my newly purchased, fully painted Forgeworld Remora drone. Turn 1 it strafed Rob's Thousand Sons, surprisingly killing two due to atrocious rolls on his part. I had hoped to wing over and do the same to Mike's Deathwing who would no doubt blow it out of the sky, BUT...Rob had psykers. So instead it died to psychic mortal wound Spam, because that's apparently all his psykers do.

For whatever reason, the first two turns of every game, the Swine invariably advance 10-12" per turn.

Cameron, a Necromunda veteran who crossed the Rubicon divide. Not only he was fielding a fully painted Smurf army, but a slightly off color one that perfectly matched his hoodie (totally not planned, or so he insisted...). Cameron, Neverness and I ought to team up for a Smurfs vs everybody game!

Not only were my Swine the first to reach the central objective in turn two, but they even wounded a Thousand Son with a shotgun blast to the back! The T-Sons had been teleported across the board by one of Rob's psykers, which is what brought them (barely) into range.

The only glimpse I have of Mike's Deathwing in my pics. 

That shotgun wound was not appreciated, and the Hogzilaries were incinerated into bacon in short order. Here we see the Muppets who are about to suffer the same fate.  

Perhaps it was a good thing that we only played 2 turns, as I had already taken 30-40 casualties! That's not a sustainable number of losses if one intends to reach the end of turn 5! 

That said, the highlight of the game for me was when my Breachers vaporized a unit of Smurf Aggressors in one volley, though not before the fuckers had already wiped out 2 units of my own!

Doubt I'll make it to game night this week though, so will have to entertain you with painted minis next week I guess.

The Tau Muppet Auxilaries enter the fray

"Kids, today's letter is "G'. 'G' is for the Greater Good..."

Or rather they would have last weekend, but everyone else bailed ceding whatever planet we would have been fighting for to the Tau Empire with nary a shot fired. 

Scraping for enough points to bring my Dal'yth Tau list up to 1k., I rediscovered these Muppet Auxiliaries (I dropped the 'f' in their name, thus they are simply the: Jaloo) in a recently unearthed box from the move. 

No doubt there are educational PSAs continually scrolling by on their packs' little screens

Like my Hogziliaries, I'll be fielding these critters as another counts as strike team. With downgraded stats of course. Their strength and toughness has been reduced to a 2, though they'll not be doubled out by bolter fire thanks to their guardian drone. Their pistols and smaller carbine-esque guns have been reduced to strength 3, whereas the longer guns are stock Tau Pulse rifles. 

I experimented with this little bot's paint by forgoing primer and applying yellow contrast directly to the bare metal in hopes of making a metallic yellow. However on the finished mini, the 'metallic' torso just looks duller than the head and bottom. Experiment result: FAILURE.

Clearly the Jaloo's antigrav technology isn't as advanced as that of the Tau, meaning it only keeps this top heavy little drone upright, and still needing its little legs to move around. Thus I reduced it's speed to the squad standard of 6", and removed the Fly ability.

These painted up quite easily thanks to the yellow contrast paint. By the time I finish their squad I'll no doubt have painting yellow technique perfected and will be ready to start on my squad of ANGRY MARINES!! Mwuhahaha!

In a fit of stubborn nostalgia, rather than wear appropriate camo as the rest of their allied Tau brethren do, the Jaloo insist on only wearing colors that would blend in on their home worlds (prior to being devoured by the Nids). 

Disappointed by this, the Tau have simply vowed to keep them out of the vanguard so as not to give away any positions. Once battle is joined, Fire Caste commanders are resigned to the obvious conclusion that the Jaloo will inadvertently draw fire due to their ridiculous, brightly colored uniforms. 

Ultimately, it's all For the Greater Good, and thus is accepted.

The entire squad on the workbench.

Tau Muppet Auxiliaries-Built and ready for action!

However Shas'Wut aside, paint has yet to be acquired...

Yeah they're not much to look at right now, especially as photographing bare metal, or minis primed with light colors wash out terribly due to the glare from the flash.

As you can see, I finally got my Tau Muppet Auxiliary Kill Team assembled. I got them a little over a week or so ago, but I had to wait to get some non-slotta bases for them prior to assembly. The slotta bases they come with leave a lot to be desired, and the tiny little tabs under their spindly little feet were best just removed altogether in my opinion. 

For those who are wondering just what the hell these are, you can refer back to my earlier fluff post on how these fit into the 40k universe (well, according to me anyways). 

I specifically requested that they all
be wearing helmets.

It took awhile to get my order set up as I placed a special order for these. As they're just 'toys' with no sense of urgency attached, I took my time and waited for Anthony at Zombiesmith (who apologized profusely when he admitted he forgot about my order), to get it all together. No worries though, despite being a small company their customer service has always been first rate, and I knew from prior special orders that such oversights on their part usually results in freebees, discounts or in this case: both!

These muppets on the other hand have kinda ugly helmets (as is
seen on the base of the one in front), so I left them bare headed.

As such I got a trio of technicians and a robot as freebees! These will be perfect for use as scenario objectives for my Muppet Kill Team. They're serve as Earth Caste Muppets and their accompanying 'drone' who presumably have wandered into harm's way and are in need of an extraction.

As for the robot, whilst there are several available, this one in particular is nowhere to be found on the Zombiesmith website. When I inquired about it, Antony just replied with a cryptic: The robots are coming... Woot! An advance release mini! I did use a slotta base for it as it's feet were so tiny I was afraid they'd snap off when removing the tab. 

Now I just need to get these guys painted up, along with everything else in my current paint queue, i.e.: the container, my Relictors (sorry Siph), and whatever else strays into view of my oh-so-short attention span.

WYSIWYG in Kill Team...

o/

In the Grim Darkness of Kill Team, Chaos Marines
once again come across as pretty bland...

Okay so, I originally made these guys to be 30k Blackshields in pariah armor with pariah bolters (i.e.: kinda shitty power armor and bolters). However after going in a different direction with my 30k army, these guys suddenly found themselves unemployed. Instead I'm thinking of just using them as chaos marines in Kill Team, but as recent turncoats like the Relictors, or the Avenging Sons' 3rd company, but their color scheme/theme really isn't my concern.

What is my concern is their weaponry. 

I like my forces to be as close to WYSIWYG as is possible (well, I do plan to run Tau 'Muppets' so there is often some ambiguity, but even their weapons are kinda obvious). So...do you think folks would be opposed to using these guys' weapons as the actual Necromunda Goliath stub cannons that they are, rather than the flavorless, generic bolters that virtually every fucking flavor of marine has? 

Stub cannons have no KT stats, however they're easily convertible to KT as: 18" range, Assault:1, S:5, D:1 AP:0 with no special rules. Point cost would be zero like most basic weapons, as Strength 5 aside, they're really kinda meh.

God I love this mini!

Another question would be my leader's Goliath Renderizer. I figure a powerfist would be obvious as it does look rather unwieldy, though a power maul/axe would probably be a better fit. However only the Deathwatch has access to those weapons. 

So, what do y'all think?

On a different note, My Beloved Wolfy has finally expressed interest in playing Kill Team. I was supposed to give her a demo game this past weekend, but real life being what it is, that didn't happen. So perhaps we'll give it another try one night this week instead. Curiously, she wants to play Chaos marines (but not the guys above) rather than her Fem Fa'Tau. 

She's complained many a time of her dismay at my selling off of my old chaos marines which was the first army she used. However she's taken a keen interest in the new chaos marines in the shadowspear box (well, all except for the obliterator). So there's a good chance we'll get that set. The chaos will all be 'hers', I'll probably just keep a chunk of the primaris marines, and we'll sell off the remainder to recoup some of the expense...or rather that's the plan at least, I guess we'll see...

Shas'wut?

o/

The muppet-Tau auxiliaries have not only their first painted mini, but their team leader whom I've dubbed Shas'wut? 

Here, check him out:

During training missions, the fusion blaster's ammo
canister is replaced with a silly string can!

Dead soul stones...they look
good on the mantle or so I hear.

Originally...I had thought to maybe use this mini as a Demiurg or...something. Well fuck it, Muppets come in all sorts of improbable shapes, sizes, and colors right? Right. 

Thus, rather than a Demiurg, this is just a short, round Jaloof muppet (doubt I'll much call 'em the Jaloof anymore as I only think 'em muppets) in a stealth suit which is obviously turned off since it bears no resemblance whatsoever from its surroundings...

Why didn't the citadel skulls
kit include Eldar Skulls?

After a few attempts, I gave up trying to come up with anything that looks exactly like a burst cannon or fusion blaster, however I was able to add two parts from the latter and figure that'll just have to do. In addition to the fusion blaster there's also a helmet mounted markerlight and possibly the only one that'll be in my team...dunno, will see I guess. 

I've not matte varnished this yet as its 20ish degrees (F) outside with snow flurries currently. Following that I'll add some 'ard coat to the markerlight's lens, the cold, dead soul stones on the base, and the visor on the helm. Speaking of...I made a hopefully not feeble attempt to replicate Dwartist's HUD effect on the visor. Not sure if it worked or not, certainly not as good as his, but not a too half-assed attempt I hope.

As with my Silver Drakes, I put together a customized Kill Team data sheet for both the mini above as well as my other muppet auxiliaries:

Point values will again remain the same as standard Tau. Really all that changes are a few minor handicaps to their stats to better reflect the models themselves, along with a few little bits of humor. 

Tau Muppet Auxiliaries

The peaceful Jaloof Confederation was located deep within the unexplored (by the Imperium) regions of the Eastern Fringe. They maintained cordial relations with their distant neighbors of the Tau Empire along with limited trade. Unfortunately the Jaloof were easy prey for the then strengthening Hive Fleet Gorgon, with only the smallest fraction of their population surviving the onslaught and destruction of their worlds. Escaping in a few small, ragged flotillas to Tau space. 

'...cry havoc and let slip the muppets of war!'

Indeed, some of the Tau Water caste have theorized that it was their Jaloof neighbors who had inadvertently lead the Hive fleet directly to the Tau, but they've not been held to blame and all accusations of such have been suppressed. Such are the ways of the Greater Good. Following the destruction of Gorgon, the scant few thousand Jaloof survivors left were resettled within the protective realm of the Tau Empire.

That's a lot of gear for those little legs to hold up...

Shattered psychologically and on the verge of extinction, the majority of the remaining Jaloof have found both their niche within the Empire, as well as a degree of mental solace in the production and distribution of wholesome, educational video-programming, with which they entertain the youth of the various Tau castes. A few somewhat unhinged individuals however, embittered by their losses have taken a different path and fight to defend the last dregs of their species, alongside the Tau's Fire caste warriors.

Looking down upon the remains of the infamous Hoominz ,
against whom their Tau allies have fought both with and against.

Possessed of a shockingly light build (enough to make an Eldar look rotund!), the Jaloof are a species ill suited for war. However their long legs aid them well in advancing (and retreating) quickly. As such, they're currently training with both Fire Warriors and Pathfinders, though they have yet to prove themselves in battle...