Those railguns look great, you have integrated them even better! *makes a mini note to get some*

After countless years, endless generations and more battles then I care to count, I'm back!

40k and I had a falling out for a bit, he stole my girlfriend, I totaled his car. He got drunk and threw up on my shoes, I gave him a black eye. Needless to say angry words were exchanged.

But we're all over that and back to being friends, not as close as we were (his fascination with making up special rules and giving Necrons weapons made by an 1890s inventor kinda worries me) but close enough that I'm willing to restart this project. The promise of a new tau codex may have also talked me into forgiving him for the stealing of my girlfriend, though it turned out later she was kinda a *BAD WORD DELETED* and dumped him for a football player with tattoos everywhere so we'll call it even.

Haven't made much progress, got a couple turrets that I've been putting on top of my devil fishies to use them as chimeras. I also have a handful of guardsmen armed with pulse rifles now. Not much painting has been done, and I'm kinda poor right now (mindless grumbling about college costs, increased GW costs, etc) so it might be a while till I get the ball rolling on this project again. Just wanted everyone to know that I am back, I am NOT dead and the Imperial Tau shall move forward!

man your lines about 40k and stealing your girlfriend and stuff made me laugh so hard.
i'm sorry but it was awesomely put.

welcome back and enjoy the stay.

Well, it's taken me longer then I thought to make another post here, but here's my update.

I've taken to playing guard in a double force org list with 4 or 5 demolishers. I typically either bring Blood Angels or Tau as allies.

With blood angels I tend to bring only a Librarian and a small Death Company for use as assault punishment. They assault in with a squad of assault marines, my 5 attacks each on the charge, strength 5 normal or strength 6 power-axe death company marines chew them to bits. The librarian takes either divination for support or telepathy for psychic scream powers.

But, the reason everyone is here, is the TAU!

With Tau I bring a small squad of firewarriors in a devilfish, with the newest faq the fish get either a 3 or 2+ cover save so long as they move, and they can fire everything after moving 12" so equip them as War Fish. For a total of 7 str 5 shots at BS 4 from an armor 12, high cover save transport. Other then a commander, a basic one with missile pod and plasma rifle, I also take a kitted out Hammerhead. a 2+ cover save on an armor 13 skimmer with a str 10 ap 1 shot.... Not to mention the 6 str 5 shots out of the burst cannons...

Not sure which works better, still not a huge fan of where the majority of the Tau codex is right now. I love firewarriors, but taking two squads of them with fishes just... isn't really practical in terms of points cost. For the same price I can bring another demolisher and a half. One squad comes in handy as a quick response 'make a ton of str 5 saves'... and I can take a hammerhead which is never a bad thing. The death company absolutely destroys anything it touches, and tough 4, with a 3+ save and feel-no-pain keeps them going through most things. But, other then the librarian and it's divination primaris power, they don't provide much in the way of support and/or ranged fire power.

Still playing around with it, got a full squad of tau-guard now (guardsmen with pulse rifles) and a half squad of pathfinder guard (snipers with 'pulse snipers') Not all a painted, and with 18 credits of school not sure how much I'll get down. But I'll try to get a picture of what I have up tomorrow. No promises though!

Looking forward to it, screenshot or it didnt happen

I missed your initial return post, definitely made me chuckle - fun way to get back into the fray

- Tael.

So I got into kinda painting frenzy, and have been highlighting the living daylights out of my hammerhead and one of my sentinel-sides. Finally got around to taking pictures of them, both only half finished with the highlighting. Anyways, like normal I'll start off with the normal and work into the crazier to try and ease the insanity.

Here's the hammerhead, most of the green highlighting is done, only the gun and turret is done with the red highlighting. But I like how it's coming.


My fire guard, not a great shot, but they are all assembled and primed, and the yellow energy stuff is done but that's about it.


And finally the sentinel side, only partly green highlighted, no red yet but I think it's looking good.



Sorry the focus isn't that great, took the pictures on my new phone, still getting used to it.

Any thoughts?

I'm really liking it. At first I was worried at the initial pictures that showed such a cluster of bits, but now seeing it painted- the Sentinals look the part.

Wolf- You might have to add a third option from highly supplied true converts of Gue'vesa vs. ragtag recently converted to what Arc'Aroth seems to have done looks like fully-integrated Imperial Tau level technology.

ps: Those Vespid conversions will always be awesome.

So quick update, finished highlighting the cockpit of one of my sentinel sides... well, still got some green touching up to do but other than that...



In any case, school has been interfering with my whole tau thing... so not much progress... Might do a battlereport for my game tomorrow, but I only have like 8 tau models in the army so...

I'm mainly killing time till the new tau codex. But the whole school thing is very important too... almost as important as the greater good.

And thanks for the praise, hopefully I'll get more done in a few weeks but... no promises.

So once again I have grown irritable with a lack of new tau models, and my interest in working on my Tau guard army has started to wane again. I know, that didn't take long

However, in order to keep myself entertained and to work on my modeling while I wait ANOTHER two years for a new Tau codex I figured I might as well work on another army. And, earlier today, I had a brilliant idea. I was kinda thinking of doing space wolves, with a double force org, 6 lone wolves and a bunch of those wolves FROM SPACE (the actual dog ones) and thunderwolf calv. However, that list is kinda bad, and one of my friends asked the question: what would happen if a bunch of tyranids ate your list?

Well.... That gave me an idea!

Wolf-a-nids!

Or

Tyr-a-wolves!

In any case, it would be a wolf themed bug's list. the 'fluff' behind it would be that a bunch of thunderwolves were eaten by the hive and the hive then produced this army. The mainstay of the list would be 3 or 4 Tev-i-wolves... or Wolf-i-gons.... Basically large, fat wolves that continously spawn smaller Termi-wolves. My Hive Wolf would be a big, mean looking wolf with wings and talons coming out of its shoulders. I'd have several Carni-wolves, which are big, hunch backed wolves with hurricane bolters on their sides (shut up I like 'fexes). Now, here is the hard part:

It can NOT be anthropomorphic wolves.

I'm trying to make it look like large space wolves that are coming to eat your world, not a furry army. I already have a number of ideas.

For one, my termi-wolves would be the hounds of khorne, possibly with either bolters or spine fists sticking out of their chest. Larger warrior wolves would be either the two headed hounds or large wolf like warbeasts from circle (hordes). The hard part is the monsterous creatures. I don't know of any models for GW or privateer press... and no idea where to look past that. If anyone has any ideas feel free to share. I was gonna glance over paulson's games website cause I know he sells some 'thunderwolves' counts-as. But I don't know if they would be big enough...

Anyone have any ideas? Thoughts? Or should I stop being such a furry and go back to painting my sentinal sides?

Well, I tried to come up with a way to use sentinels in this new idea of mine, however it just didn't work. Combined with 6th edition killing off my close combat sentinels I'm almost starting to think that GW doesn't like my favorite unit!

So I got started on my wolf-a-nids. I do have a short little fluff thing for them, just to explain why i have bugs the look like wolves and not bugs. And, simply put, the one thing space wolves love fighting are the tyranids. The hive fleet, however, constantly found the experience less than enjoyable and started the creation of a brood modified specifically to fight the drunkard space vikings. It also decided to use more psychological warfare then before, in that it realized the one thing Space Wolves revered more then a dreadnought mounted keg was wolves.. well and russ but it couldn't exactly have a couple hundred russ look alikes running around the battle field. Therefore it created the Wolf-a-nids! These tyranids, almost unchanged internally (other then increased liver size) were changed externally to resemble the animal that the Space wolves would find hardest to attack and slaughter: the wolf.

And yes, if you want the serious version then just take out all the referances to the space wolves being drunkards, but where's the fun in that?

To that end I have chosen Warhounds of Chaos to serve as my gaunts. Partly because they are small enough to fit on 20mm bases (if only just), partly because they have little holes in their shoulders, normally for spikes, that are perfect for mounting fleshborers on. But mostly because they are the cheapest wolf-like model GW makes at $22 for 10. I ordered some gargoyal flesh borers from bitz barn and well... here are the results:


This is the starting point model, not the greatest angle, but I took it while waiting for the glue to dry.


This is with the flesh borer arm attatched, it will obscure his head abit, an will probably get in the way of painting, but this is just a proof of concept model so I'm not THAT worried. Besides, I'll have 150 of these when the army is done




And the finished product. I was a little worried when I thought up this army, but it turned out REMARKABLY gaunt like. I don't think anyone will be mistaking this model as anything but a termagaunt. Obviously it's not painted yet, but with some space-wolves grey and maybe some greenstuff fur climbing up the arms a little (haven't decided If i want to commit to that much greenstuff on that many models yet) but I like the way it turned out.

I also got a space wolf lord on thunderwolf to convert into my tyrant, but, as much as I like how the finecast models look, they are annoying to get together. It's still drying and I hope it holds this time. I might end up having to pin freaking everything. Honestly I would of preferred the oldschool plastic to this, if only because my glue seems to work on it better.

The other major models I'll have to make are Tervigons, but I haven't ordered those yet. I'm planning to use Rinox cav from forgeworld for all of my Tervigons and my 'fexes. Not sure how i want to do the tervigons yet, but the fexes will be basically the rinox, with paws (and horns intact, the 'fexes do have that on the charge special rule) and two hurricane bolters on it's sides. Why? because they are dakka fexes, with the brain-leech worms, and those are basiclly just hurricane bolters... only better. And because space wolves love their land raiders, which often come with hurricane bolters.

Anyways, tell me what ya think!

So I hate to double post in the same day... sorta, but instead of going to play some planetside 2 with my friends I continued to work on my wolves. Finally got the thunder tyrant together and assembled another few guants. I managed to avoid having to pin the entire thunder wolf together, but I did end up having to pin the left scything talon on, just used a tiny metal rod and an 8th inch of drilling in both the finecast and plastic of the talon. Now, my hive tyrant does have bonesword/lash whip instead of scything talons, but I will probably add some chains to the left talon, make it look like a chain-talon, and have the right one glow slightly, assuming I can manage the paint job. I do need to greenstuff a lot on the tyrant, but I haven't decided how much. I could cover the thing's entire back with greenstuff, give it something of a hunch back but fully incorporate the talons, or I could make them look like mutations just growing out of it's back with a little green-stuff that looks like fur... any thoughts would be helpful.




here is the unmodified wolf, the head is slightly off where it should be, but I think it looks good and it's nothing a little greenstuff can't fix.




Here's the first talon in, sorry about the quality of the first image, cellphone sometimes refuses to focus properly.



And, after half n hour of work, I managed to get the second talon on. Thankfully I only needed a small pin and it can't be seen, even without any green-stuffing.

I think it turned out pretty cool overall. The thing just LOOK menacing, defiantly what you would expect from a hive tyrant. Still have to find a place to mount a venom cannon, I'm thinking of putting it over the saddle. However, as I don't have a venom cannon to glue to it right now, it just spits venom XD

Anyways, I also took a couple 'ego' shots with the other gaunts. Enjoy!

Oh my jesus what

I love everything about this please carry on.

Update time!

Ok, so I haven't gotten much done in the way of modeling, but I do have some ideas/updates.

For one, my goal to have a 1000 point army ready for the team matches in tshft come january are hearby scrapped, not because I can't manage it, but because i have to be able to ally with my team members, and bugs ally with no one. Not even other bugs! So I can afford to go slowish for a bit. Our plan was to go death-leaper and gaunt spam with grey knights and their psyflemen/purifires. So if they even attempt to target knights with a psychic power they take -5 ld, then -d3 from death-leaper, and roll on 3d6 from shadows. But now I'm playing guard and we got a necrons player so it's looking like a mobile shooty army.

The good news, however, is that I have placed orders for another 48 fleshborers from hoards o bitz, a butt load of small bases from bitz barn and more warhounds of chaos from my LGS. The end of this should bring me up to around 60 gaunts, which was my target for the 1k list. I'll still need 2 tervigons, 1 or 2 dakka fexes and my hive/tyrant guard. But the gaunts are the big part of the army.

The one other thought is that I may want to move this to the project logs, while it does have modeling in it, i dunno if this has moved past 'look what i can make' to 'here is me working on a counts-as army.' I'll leave it up to the mods/randompeopleonthestreet, I'm fine with leaving it here, but... dunno, it might get more attention the the WIP forums XD

Edit/update:

I forgot, in my most recent LGS league I won the 'diplomatic victory' award, which gave me a gift certificate to the store. For those of you who are wondering, the diplomatic victory award is for the most even record. Out of 10 games I went 5/5/0, hard to get much more even then that!

More updates!

Having issues with paypal so chances of getting my horde o bits from horde o bits this month is.... well... low. Which is fine because between Christmas and my birthday in jan I should end up with plenty of money and should get a bunch of stuff for the army by February. In the meanwhile I have finished up what I have, I green stuffed the wolf tyrant and built all the gaunts.

Here's the wolf, with a close up on the green. Not the best green stuff I've ever done, but with copious amounts of paint it should look alright


This is the entire army so far, I ran out of small bases, and some of the wolves needed nickles under the base for weighting, but so far it looks pretty good.


Finally an ego shot, I think it looks cool.

I've been having second thoughts about my hive and tyrant guard. Fenrisian wolves are slightly larger but they only have a single contact point with the base on average, which may not be enough for the extra weight of armor and weapons. Anyone have any other thoughts?

When I looked at this it made me think of the huskies in "The Thing" (older version with Kurt Russel)

Poor little doggies getting eaten and absorbed by the alien gribbley.

Paulson!

First first off, thanks for the comments, that's basically what I'm going for. Tyranids tend to mutate the planets they are on rapidly, but you never really see that anywhere.

Also, is your site/minis back up? Looking at your wolf pack those might be perfect for my hive/tyrant guard. Just a question though, how big are they? Will they fit well on a 40mm base? Cause if they do I might be ordering 6 of them from you XD (4 hive guard, 2 tyrant guard)

Site is running again.

40mm bases will be too small. They fit on a bike bases (which are 50mm long) which are a tight fit but work well.

I include 60mm round bases with them as it gives them a lot more room, and it's what a lot of people were asking for over the cav bases.

Not to talk myself out of a sale but the wolves you have now are pretty dynamic and all charging or lunging. Mine are a bit more relaxed in pose so may not mix as smoothly with the army as thunderwolves might. Depends on how much you want them to stand out vs maintain a visual coherancy with the rest of the group.

Well, the hive/tyrant guard are a bit slower then the gaunts so I'm ok with it. Besides it's a more stable base for me to mount all the bits of armor and the like on.

Also 6 of your wolves are cheaper than 3 of the GW thunderwolves.

I can't remember what size of bases are used for the hive/tyrant guard... anyone know?

Hive Tyrants are on a 60mm dreadnaut size base. (same with carnifexes)

Hive Guard are on 40mm teminator bases.

Think those wolves would be big enough for fexes? they are a hell of a lot cheaper than the rinox cav I was gonna do, and probably easier to mod as well. But if they are too big for hive guard and tyrant guard.....

How tall and wide are they? I really wanna save money and since your wolves are cheaper than anything in GW....

Damnit work with me here paulson XD