The Horror

Do you see this?

This is the result of about three years of painting.

Ohhh, I´m a perfectly normal painting pot.

This pot, which is a cut-off plastic glass, has seen more minis than any of my brushes, it has seen raven guard guys, green tau, turquoise tau, colour testing for orks and eldar (lots), some eventually painted non-40k mini... and some other things I cannot remember right now.

But some time ago, a friend took a look at it and started to scratch it with his fingernail, for almost an hour of this shadowrun roleplaying afternoon he tried to take apart the paint, and finally... he succeeded.

Whoarghhh!!

Hehehe, it seems like a breach of the warp or something similar, indeed, you can suppose the gold patches are the very fabric of hope, or fear or something, but nope, they are the aquilas, rosarius, and some other stuff of my first Raven Guard painted mini... a Chaplain with Jumpack.

Here you can take a look at it with my current WIP, a 10 man squad of raven guard scouts.

This guy is there so you can measure how much dry paint was in the pot at the moment of the removal.

The grays are from raven guard and tau highlights, the reds are from raven guard shoulderpads and tabards and tau´s eyes, turquoise are from the plasma guns of the raven guard, yellow is... well, I don´t know what minis are yellows from...

Oh, and by the way... it smells a lot like fresh paint :D

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TAU: Apocalypse Battlesuits.

Guys with big guns: XV88 apocalypse suits.

They are what everyone see what they dream of heavy support, indeed, if you search heavy support somewhere an apoc suit will be the photo of the entry.

Today, zoanthropes are hardly trying to reach this level, but apocs are still the pinnacle of the long range high raw power weaponery.

And the best is that if you spend 10 points in upgrades for each member of the squad... They move and shoot!!

They are good, far way better when markerlighted, but I´m going to let the crisis suits be my warhorse, while the apoc will be used when needed, so I think I will usually field one of two of them, but in separate units and made them leaders so they can choose equipment to maximize their performance.

Also, with the time I want to order to forgeworld 3 apocs with plasma rifles, but I´m waiting until every Raven Guard thing is released and then, I will make the super-miniatures-FW-order :D

What I expect from them: Long range shooting, as well as good survivability, because I will usually field them with shield drones.
Apart from this I will need them to create some lanes of fire to prevent enemy things running wild along the battlefield as well as make my fellow opponents think uncomfortably about those big twin linked 2+ armored guns.


Here they are, the leader (white plated one) and a fella (another fella needed).

Ta-ta-ta-ta CONGA!

Maybe you haven´t noticed it due to my horribly took photos, but one shoulder weapon is pointing directly front, and the other one is pointing in the direction the apoc helmet is looking at, so one weapon points front and the weapon in the side the armor is looking points wherever it looks... I see it as logic and I think it is a nice detail.

This is the side of this guys I want to be in the battlefield.

Notice the red lines of energy in the vent of the backpack of the apocs, I´m very proud of them.

I think in this photo you can appreciate the whole shoulder-mounted weapon thing

Your opinions, as ever will be welcome, guys.

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TAU: Hammerheads/Skyrays

I know what you are thinking: "Whoa, lots of troops but none of the other".

Yep, but this is gonna change in this post, because today I´ll show you one of my heavy supports, well one type, because there are three which are different and the same at a time.

In this post: Hammerheads/Skyrays

More than just one?

Yep.

When I was thinking about my then future Tau army, I felt the need of some hard-hitting long-ranged but highly mobile units.

The first thing that came to my mind were the apoc suits, but they aren´t definitely "highly mobile", "slightly mobile"... maybe, so I picked up the same weapon but instead of being controlled by a guy, controlled by a crew... and mounted over a devilfish frame, of course.

(Get out of the shock, guys, I´ll use apoc suits too :D )

So I was going to order a hammerhead, when a friend told me "Are you going to magnetize it?".
Hmmm I don´t really like to magnetize my minis, but in this case there is a better approaching (IMO) to the one-frame-various-weapons trouble... to buy a skyray and order a hammerhead upgrade, so, I´ll get the skyray turret and the hammerhead turret twice (one for railgun the other for the ion cannon, so I´m not in need of magnetize anything... more expensive, yes, but I think it does the trick better (and you can have every defensive weapon option, don´t have the need to choose which one to assemble).

What I expect from the tanky things: Well, as obvious what I expect is a lot of mobile dakka, combined with some more dakka and sometimes armored dakka, which, in case you haven´t noticed, is a cube armored and mobile dakka :D, not as many dakka as with apoc suits but mobile and armored...
The skyray should be more a support unit and a mobile markerlight station instead of raw dakka (it doesn´t have the potential to be pure dakka but a firebase best friend instead.
And also they can act as a mobile screen of cover for the suit guys as well as for any other tank in a conga-line style of movement.

Oh, and as you should have noticed the title says HammerheadS/SkyrayS... yep, I ordered three of them... and painted them at the same time.

The frame: I tried to create a green line with the armour plates from the front to the back.

The x marks the places... where I hope they don´t get shoot.

The greater gooded side of the things.

The main weapons (x3).

This for each tank.

Close view of the ion cannon.

One for the railgun.

And another one for the skyray turret (markerlights pending).

A skyray with its turret.

The same from a more frontal point of view.

The same from the highest point of view :D

A very close detail of the cockpit.

The three frames parked near the cinema.

As ever, please, comment and argue :D

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TAU: Kroot first squad

And for today: my Kroot first squad.

They are ugly, they are cool, they are honorable, they are evolved carnivore birds and above all... They are cool naked honorable evolved carnivore-bird hunters!! How not to love ´em??

I think the kroot are one of the coolest troops not only of the Tau empire but of 40K as a whole, I like their fluff I like their appearance, I like their cousins, but I feel their rules are a bit worse than they should be.

For example... in 4th edition the ability to shoot double distance through a forest is ok, but in 5th... How this works? Since the true line of sight exists... hmmm.
They cannot fleet of foot... Why? (I know it is because they got the infiltration rule, but... it will be cool and probably overpowered)
And the greatest criticism is: They are some kind of gene-devourers, genes which they mix with their own to make ´em higher, stronger, more resillient, more agile, fast, cunning, more naked, cooler or whatever, then Why they are not any rules for upgrades for it?
I mean, it will be not so hard to make some rules to get them some gene-upgrades, indeed, this rules were there, in the 4th edition tyranid codex, but instead of calling them "Anihilating claws" "Impressive and overpowered Whatever Gland", "Reinforced filthy chitin" or whatever call them "Eldar Feeded" or "Space Marine Genes" or "Whatever genes-related upgrade", then you will get an impressive amount of ways to play and points-pay your kroots.

Apart from this, I consider them a great addittion to any tau army, and that´s come from his ability to seat down and remain hidden while looking cool and hunty :)

What do I expect from them?: In non-anihilation missions I will use them as objective claimers, sitting down in one objective and defending it against the odds.
In anihilation missions I´ll try to infiltrate them or outflank with them to attack the rear of my opponent, or to pin their units until the real killers arrive.

Why do I say this? Because the last time I saw them in the table 20 of them attacked a 4-man unit of Blood angels´ death company and get mopped out in a sweeping advance while they killed a single marine.
I had to say that this was the most lucky battle of my Blood Angels fella, but it is still impressive.
And of course I was kinda joking, I expect them to do a bit of havok in enemy lines... not much, but enough to disrupt some battle plans.

The question is... With or without hounds?

Hmmmmm.....


There is the first squad of kroots of my army, if you look close you´ll notice they all have tribal markings in their faces (and a WIP base too).

Three random guys for you to see.

A front view of the three guys.

And photos of the markings.

It´s strange, but the kroots look far way better in real life than in the pictures...

Comments and critibla bla bla, bla bla wellcome :D

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TAU: Devilfish for the first squad

The last day I posted my fire warriors squad today I show you their steed.

There is what I think is one of the best transports on the whole game, second only to the Eldar Wave Serpent and IG´s Valkirye (nop, I don´t think the monstruosity called "Stormraven gunship" is a transport, I prefer to think about it as a game designer´s bad day).

The Devilfish is a well armored, medium armed, well balanced piece of plaststeel (or whatever the tau use to build their tanks... greatergoodsteel? ... whatever), wich seems more than able to carry their package safe to the place they should be while shooting decently, as well as be a good cover for Crisis or Stealth suits in their advance, which is a way of cover I suppose the tau (if they come to exist) will not use, cause the engines are pointing directly backwards, just at the point where the suits are commonly hiding :D

The devilfish is a very anoying thing to play against, not only is well armored and can pack a little punch while dropping a furious bunch of blue-skinny-shooty guys in the middle of your forces, it can also ignore most terrain, block a lot of sight and drop a pair of gun drones, drones wich tend to be a strange annoyance cause they aren´t powerful enough to crush your army or to distract some forces onto them but they still can move quickly, force you to go to ground and reach objectives nulifying your hard-fighted claim.

What I expect from the devilfish: Effective, mobile and well armoured carrying for troups as well as become a huge sting in the mind of my opponents with his weapons and drones.
Also I think it will be used as a cover more often than it´s pilots will desire :D

And now the pics:

The Devilfish in all it´s gravitic glory (I think I will change the color of it´s nose from white to green, the white was here to add a little colour, but since I´ve painted my hammerhead only in green this white spot is not working visually for me)
The side of the Devilfish (as you can see it´s drones are still WIP, indeed, they are my current WIP with two 5-man units of Raven Guard Scouts).
And the back.
This is the spot I should change.

And a detail of the Optics.

Like the Fire Warriors it still lacks markings.

Comments and criticicism will be sincerely wellcome.

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