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.

.

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

.

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

.

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.

.

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.

.

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...

.

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.


.

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.