Tau Pathfinder

I had actually planned to paint a lot this month. Well I did not really turn that into reality so far. This is the only thing I got done. So let me present you my Pathfinders for my 40K Tau.

As the name indicates these are the scouts in a Tau force and rely more on stealth than on armor for protection. I wanted their uniforms to represent this. So while my Firewarriors wore simple black “clothing” with olive green armor, I wanted these to be camouflaged. As such I Painted their clothing in blurry shades of green and brown to represent camp clothing on their part. Once done I felt I should rather have home for a more hard edged camp, but I was in no mood to go back and start anew. I had always planned to go for a very hard edged camp for their armor and that is what I did. Olive green base (although a different shade than with the Firewarriors) with brown splinter camp edged in sand. Really happy with that (although it does not really come out on the photos). I kept the weapons black. I know this is not the best for camouflage, but I wanted the strong contrast this provides. Now the only thin missing were the red optics lenses and the blue lenses for the lasers. I did the Railrifles in blue as well to represent the energy used in them. And that is about it. I had originally bought metal Pathfinders, but really liked the new plastic ones so I bought another team of those as well. So right now there are two teams. the first one mainly in plastic, the second one in metal. I know there are too many Railrifles and Pulse Rifles in there, but I wanted the option to choose either, so I simply did more.

Tau Pathfinder Team #1

Tau Pathfinder Team #2

As you will notice, there are no drones here yet… I shall paint those once I takle all the other drones as well!

And to round things off… some closeup´s of some of my favorite minis of the lot:

Tau Pathfinder Shas’ui

Tau Pathfinder

Tau Pathfinder

 

Off to Crisis and my timetable for the next few months

Now the time has come to hit the road and head off to Antwerp, to actually play the game I have been preparing for ages. Hope to see many of you tomorrow, so to those of you who are going to be there, please drop by and say hello! (I will be at table 4a15.)

But there is a football (soccer to the American readers) saying here in Germany “nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel” which can literally translated (taking into account the gaming jargon) “once you are done with a game, you need to prepare for the next one”. So what are my plans for the upcoming weeks, months and year?

Well I shall have a lot of free time coming up in November (I will have compensatory time off for the next five weeks), and shall not touch a single Napoleonic mini for the rest of the year, since I feel I need a change of theme. So up next I shall move to something different.

Up first I will paint the Tau for Warhammer 40K. Now this is somewhat bittersweet. As some of the long time readers will know I decided to get into 40K sometime in 2012 and after long deliberations decided to go with Tau. But by now, I have really lost interest in the topic (not Tau per se, but 40K in general). So I actually doubt, I shall ever play with them. So why am I going to paint them anyway? Well looking at the prices one can expect for an unpainted 40K army, I would be loosing a lot of money, so that way I hope to at least break even. Plus I can really use the money in the near future!

Tau XV 25 Shas´vre with fusion blaster

I really hope to finish them soon, for there is one SciFi project I am really eager to start and that is Warzone Resurrection. Now I played both the first and second editions of the game and loved it. So I was eager to hop on board when Prodos Games launched their Kickstarter this year and pledged big time. So big my pledge will most likely be one of the last to ship (I am on a pledge level where everything will be shipped in one go and there are a few items that are still in production). So I just hope I will finish the Tau before my huge parcel arrives, since I would instantly drop the Tau to get the first faction or two painted!

But with the end of the year approaching, it will also be time for the next installment of the Analogue Hobbies Challange. Now part of the rules, all the entries have to be historical, so I shall shift my painting back to the real world in late December. This should fit in nicely with what I have in mind for Crisis 2014. 2014 being the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, I want to tackle just that. It will either be the landings themselves, or the battles by the British vs. the SS (Caen area, Carpiquet…). Now my minis for the former consist of about as dozen infantry and the later are rather a nucleous force at best and partially themed for the Ardennes anyway. So that should give me a chance to build those forces. If there is still time left during the Challange (which I doubt) I will also tackle some early war German tanks and 1939 Poles… let’s see!

British WWII Snipers

And afterwards? All of you who have been following this blog for some time now will know that short term plans only are not my thing! Same for next year. Obviously Crisis 2015 looms on the horizon (what are two years right) as well and with it the inevitable bicentennial of Waterloo. Now I shall rather go for something small this time (whatever small means in Napoleonic terms). I will be able to do with less painting this time on account of the minis painted so far, but will still be a lot to do. So I hold no illusions, that I will have to start painting for it sometime in 2014 and for those of you who follow this blog for my Napoleonic minis… well you can expect new ones throughout the year.
And then there is terrain. Except for the river and Napoleonic era buildings for the village of Möckern I did this year (pictures coming in November as well), I really neglected that field. So and I have a nice number of 4Ground buildings, the inner city ruins from the Commision Figurines Kickstarter and Bolt Actions Pegasus bridge lying around, plus I will need to do some hedges / low Bocage (like that found in the Caen area).
In addition I will have to finish those Tau (if I do not do so next month), put some more work into Warzone.
And if there still is some time left I would like to make a dent in the lead pile for my modern minis.

So do I have my work cut out for the next fourteen months? Not really, right! 😛

 

Warhammer 40K Tau Stealth Suit team

After having completed another large unit for my Napoleonic Prussians (I will post pictures of those tomorrow) I treated myself to another small unit for the Tau Cadre I am working on. This time it is Stealth suits.

Now the fluff says that the stealth suits have stealth field generators that virtually turn them invisible like a cloaking device on Star Trek. Somewhere on the internet on the internet I saw pictures where someone had painted his to make them look like they were in the process of de-cloaking and I wanted to copy that. So part of the suit is in their regular black paint job look with orange Sept markings, while another part still shows the mottled greens from the environment projected by the stealth field. both parts are separated by a blue ripple to where everything is de-cloaking. Hope the effect turned out fine!

Tau XV 25 Shas´vre with fusion blaster

Tau XV 25 suit with burst cannon

Tau Stealth suit with burst cannon

I know the fluff says that if the sensor vanes are painted in Sept colors, the model is a Shas´ui. But I simply liked the looks of the sensor vanes painted in orange in the new codex, so the whole of the team got them, along with some more orange over the suit to show their allegiance. After all I already said that my NCO´s and Officers are going to be marked by parts of their uniform or suit being picked up in tan (or a flame pattern) instead… so I am sticking with that!

Tau Stealth Suit Team

 

Tau Firewarrior Teams

So with the exception of a few SAGA minis and a lone Samurai all I painted this past year was Napoleonics. Given the fact that I made very good progress this year, I decided to treat myself to a short diversion. Now some of you might remember that I gave you the choice to decide what I would paint over the Christmas period… either Byzantines for SAGA or Tau for Warhammer. The poll went in favour of the Byzantines and so they were painted. None the less I still want to get the Tau painted this year, so I felt they would be good for a break and so I painted my three Firewarrior teams up.

Two of them were bought used off eBay. I knew they could be counted as primed at best when I bought them, but had I known how poor some people seem to be at removing flesh or at using less than half a bucket of glue per mini, I would rather have bought them new for more. Anyway, after a lot dismantling and cleaning they were fit for a paint job. As some might remember from my musing last year. I did not want these to get the average orange tan colour that most Tau seem to be painted, but rather want to give them a woodlands look. Now these are my basic grunts so I chose a very simple uniform for them to signal just that. So it was black overalls (highlighted dark grey) and olive-green body armour for them. Quiet simple and still effective camo. The optics, both on their helmets and weapons as well as the markerlights were painted in red with reflections, the lenses on their lasers as well as the energy cells on the same and the grenades in blue.The weapons were painted in a very dark gun-metal grey (housemix).

Tau Firewarrior Team 1
(armed with carbines)

The first team, the one armed with Carbines, is the largest at twelve men, while the two armed with rifles are smaller at ten. I would have prefered to arm them all with rifles, but there are not enough in a box to arm them all that way (and my eBay purchases contained a mix as well) so I had to do with some carbines. Since these will be closest to the enemy and shall therefore most likely take the most punishment (= losses) I felt they should also be the strongest.

Tau Firewarrior Team 1

The biggest gripes I had with these minis is that there were not enough heads with helmets. I felt that bare heads did not make too much sense. The helmets clearly contain some good optics, so why deprive yourself of that? Also they are most likely to provide protection against fire and toxins, so again why go without? In the end I bought some separate helmets from eBay in the US and equipped them all with helmets. Same will go for the tankers when I get around to those!

Tau Firewarrior Team 3

Now I decided to have a squad leader and a deputy. In modern military terms a Sergeant and a Corporal. The Warhammer Universe does not seem to know such a redundancy in the chain of command, But I wanted it anyway. My initial idea had been for the Sergeants to have the complete shoulder armour and helmet in a tan colour and the Corporals only partially in tan, to set them apart. For the Corporals I stuck with this, although I broke with my idea to do them all the same. Now one of them has just edged his helmet, the other has partially edged his helmet in more fluid form while the third just has lines running over the helmet.

Tau Firewarrior Shas’ui (Corporals)

Now when I started with the Sergeants, I did not like the looks. And I wanted something even more special. Since these troops are called Firewarriors I went for a fire pattern to their helmets and shoulder armour. I left the rest of the armour in green to show that they had adorned their standard issue armour with flames after rising through the ranks. Their national colours were painted in the same firy colours as well, while the rest of the unit had them in subdued in tan.

Tau Firewarrior Shas’ui (Sergeants)

I retrospect I liked them a lot and am a bit sorry that I did not go for flaming armour instead of green on all minis. But I was in no mood to repaint them all. After all this was only going to be a quick and basic paint job after all.

Coincidently I have seen that GW announced an overhaul to the Tau just today and that this also includes a veteran Firewarrior wearing different armour. I guess I will get myself one of those minis and paint him completely in a flame pattern.