TAU: Fire warriors first squad

Here they are, my first squad of little shooty guys.

This time, when I started my new tau army, I tried to do things as they should be done (IMO, of course), so I painted first of all, the two Troops squads I was going to use: one FW squad and one Kroot squad, both of them full as they come out of the box, so 12-man troop squads.

I know FW´s are commonly used as 6-man squads in a devilfish (I suppose I will be using them this way sometimes), but I wanted to paint them all and leave no mini for later, cause my lazyness will make me forget ´em, that is the way I´m painting my non-vehicle-minis in a paint-a-squad-at-a-time way.

I´ve armed them with the classic pulse rifle instead of the carbines because I´m not going to use them mainly for attack but for not-so-static-defense and in the case I´ll attack with them, they will be properly fitted inside their devilfish and dropped for rapid fire shooting or running from cover to cover behind the real attack-oriented units of the army.
Despite this, one carbine squad will be assembled and painted when i find the time to do it.

What I expect from them: A medium range unit, capable of deliver a good punch to most infantry (Str 5, 75 cm (30') range weapons able to rapid fire when in the proper range... yay), which combined with the markerlight of the leader should be a good and point per point reliable unit.
Also, as I plan to field ´em in their assigned Devilfish, I expect them to be a mobile firebase, able to claim objectives as soon (or, according to Fritz, as later) as they have to.

Here is my first squad.

The leader and a pair of fellas, they still need some markings, that I will paint on them when I think about what markings I will be using for my army (I want some kind of army unique Tau markings).

Another fella showing us his best face and the tau symbol :D

Differences between a fella and the leader (white shoulder pad and white helmet plate).

Of course, as ever... comments and critics (as well as tactics and opinions) are more than welcome.

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4 Pages of the new warhammer book revealed

Hey, look at what came in the newsletter about 5 minutes ago...

Yep, they are four pages of (what i suppose is) the big book for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Well presented, with huge photos of great quality and, I hope, lots of fluff inside, this book looks like a good buy... indeed I think i´ll buy this book despite we don´t play WHFB :D .

It seems the quality of GW´s books is increasing a lot at a surprisingly high speed, and apart from this... Have you seen those Dark Elves ships? And the High Elf Scenery?... impressive.

The last thing to know is what WHFB players will think about the new rules...

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More Raven Guard goodies from FW

Yeah, that´s all right and everything, but i really need standard (not veteran) shoulderpads and terminator shoulderpads...

Oh, and if you click in the new RAVEN GUARD MKIIB LAND RAIDER you can see in the description... : "A complete resin and plastic kit of the MK2B Pre-Heresy style Land Raider with Red Scorpions chapter specific doors."... i don´t know what to think :D




It´s me or it is just a regular TH gunship with some raven guard logos in it??

TAU.

As I told you in one of my first posts here, my main army was a Tau army, until the wardrobe incident tear them to pieces (well, not the "I can glue ´em again" kind of pieces) and decided to start a Space Marine army, but I was reluctant to not assemble a tau army, so in November of last year I ordered to GW a huge box of Tau, not the things I will never ever use, only the things

I think I will be using one game after another.


So I ordered:


3 Battleforce boxes
6 crisis suits boxes
O´Shovah
A comander box
A XV25 stealth suits box
3 skyray boxes
3 hammerhead turret sprues


Apart from these I found some forgeworld goodies of my old Tau army, so I got:


.- 3 Full fire warrior squads.
.- 3 Devilfish
.- 3 12-man kroot squads
.- 3 Hammerhead (each one with an interchangeable ion cannon turret, railgun turret and missile whatever turret and every configuration of drones/support weapons)
.- 9 XV-8 Crisis suits
.- 1 Standard Commander
.- 12 XV-25 stealth suits.
.- 8 kroot hounds (from my previous incarnation of the army).
.- 3 forgeworld XV-88 Apocalipsis battlesuits.
.- 1 Forgeworld commander (XV-9 I think)
.- 2 Ankhor prok (games day e-bay bought kroot shaper wich will be used as ethereals... in case ethereals become boosted in next codex :D )
.- 4 Markerlight drones.
.- Some defense drones
.- 3 Bazillion of gun drones.
.- O´shovah


And I have to search old tau boxes yet...

So, as you can see it will be a XV-8/XV-25 heavy tau army (need some piranhas, i think).

I´ve painted lots of tau at the moment, and here you got some sneak peeks, but I promise I will be posting better photos and from distinct angles.

One final thing to say: these are old photos, at the moment I got much more things painted and assembled (at the end of the post you got an excel sheet screenshot of my tau army progress), and my current WIP are about 16 gun drones and 2 markerlight drones...


Family photo:


My little troop guys:

Plasma rifle/missile launcher/multitracker XV-8´s (the white shouldered one is the boss):

WIP (then, i´ve finished ´em at the moment of this post) FW Apocalipsis battlesuits:

My face-tattooed kroots (better pics in next posts):

First team of Stealth suits (white shoulderpad one is the boss once again):

3 Finished ion cannons and a sky ray turret wip (at the moment I took the photos):

And my commander, a forgeworld mini with minor conversion of the weapons (post pending):

And my progress table (green squares are finished steps):

Comments and feedback are welcome.


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My first Land Raider

I decided a few weeks ago that it was time to start working on some tanks to transport my guys so I went to ebay and bought a cheap Land Raider to practice with it. I couldn't resist and bought a Dark Angels one, nothing more satisfying than turning a traitor LR into a loyal one! (some might disagree but we all know that the 1st Legion is worse than the Sons of Horus).

I used GW 's black prime and the usual Vallejo stuff (neutral grey, black grey wash, and then more neutral and sky grey dry brushing).

I like the results so I ordered a Redeemer upgrade sprue to finish it. Until it arrives I'm painting a Sky Claws squad that should be done (hopefully) in 10 days or so, and as always I'll post then as soon as I'm done with them.

New expansion: Spearhead.

See what came to the mail, in form of a newsletter, about 5 minutes ago:

Incoming! Spearhead

Gather your tanks and ready your lascannons – in June the pages of White Dwarf magazine and games-workshop.com join forces to bring you a whole new expansion for Warhammer 40,000: Spearhead.

Spearhead is a new way to play Warhammer 40,000 that enables you to unleash exciting tank battles and daring breakthrough missions on the table top, bringing the full mechanised fury of the 41st Millennium to bear in your games. June's White Dwarf will contain the main part of the supplement, including new rules, missions and plenty of inspirational hobby advice. Alongside this, games-workshop.com will feature additional material for registered members such as details for how to assemble your Spearhead formations along with even more painting, modelling and collecting tips.

As if a whole new Expansion wasn't exciting enough, it's going to be accompanied by a range of new miniatures including some stunning new plastic kits – more details of these kits, and the Spearhead Expansion, will follow in May's issue of White Dwarf and on games-workshop.com in due time.

As June's White Dwarf contains a new expansion, it promises to be very popular. Guarantee your copy by subscribing here today.

I bet the kits will be a thunderhawk gunship and BA´s Stormraven, and maybe some kind of eldar super-heavy tank (GW said they were working in this kind of eldar stuff, so...).


Stay tuned.

My Nemesis: Power Weapons

Well, more like my new Nemesis, the first one was painting faces but looks like most of my guys got a better gene-seed now and they are not strabic anymore. I have been tracking tutorials through many 40k forums but can't find anything that really fits the effect I want. I have some ideas (and voices) in my head but until I come up with a solution I have decided to not get stuck on this and keep on painting my termies.

So after all this yadda-yadda here you have 2 new Wolf Guards! (without power weapons :P)

Expect soon a post with my first Land Raider!

Drop pod and a bonus mini.

Raven guard is supposed to be the chapter wich have more thunderhawks and drop pods, and here is my first drop pod, with other waiting in the box.

It is the main transport for my sternguard unit, and the only one for my dreads :D

It will be better with some raven guard bits, but remember... they aren´t any official raven guard bits out there :D so... imperial aquilas.

A detail of the interior.

And a bonus miniature I painted about a year ago (I think this guy is the most colorful necron I´ve ever seen...)

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(Count as) Lysander and Assault termies.

And here is my Lysander version and some assault termies, wich I think will be infiltrated by Shrike.


First ... Lysander (the shield is still WIP, I have to add some seals).
I replaced the Fist of Dorn Corax, ´cause I don´t like the standard one, well, it is good for a crimson/imperial fist army, even for a ultramarine or iron hands army, but for a raven guard army ... nope.


Yep, I filed every symbols on the guy... hard work.

Here is the raven guard über-symbol and the Fist of Corax (a thunder hammer of the termies box).

And the termies, the first 5 with thunder hammers and storm shields.

Yep, they lack the right shoulderpad, this is because i´m waiting few months with the little hope of Forgeworld releasing some raven guard stuff.

Detail shot of the crux terminatus of my termies and the seargeant´s shield.

Here comes the lightning claws guys.

A shot of the 2 bosses.

And a group shot of them.

I painted 2 sarges because this way i can divide ´em or keep them as a 10 man unit, depending of the army list i build.

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Ravenwi... erm... ¿Ravenwheel?.

Today is the time for me to show the ravenwheel.

They, with some assault termies, were the units in what i was working the five weeks before christmas.

Fast and resillient, but still flexible and capable of a great punch they epitomise my idea of a space marine army, and since I discovered the biker Captain rule wich allows you to field units of 5 or more bikers as troops they are a must have (i pray for the day that a rule like this allows to field assault marine units as troops... blood angels codex release day I suppose *sigh*).


And here is the captain, pointing at his guys and yelling "You, count as troops right now".
As the ravenwing theme fits perfectly for a raven guard army I used lots of ravenwing bits in this guy, standart, robes, books, helm, bike´s wings and seals are from the ravenwing box, fist is a devastator one.

Hm... I have to improve my Raven-logo-freehanding skills, but I´m still proud.

The first unit of bikers, with two special weapons, a heavy bolter attack bike and a plasma pistol seargeant.

Here is the sarge with his pistol and my custom assault icon... I never liked the "official" one.

And the second bunch of guys, half of them are "beakies", including the seargeant (with a pow fist) and the multimelta attack bike driver.

And a shot of both units and the cap,

I think they will be my standard troops in my future games... in a very Way of Saim Hann style.

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