Ke'lshan Sept

Painting Background: This was my second army after necrons, and I was still in my painting diapers. The painting is quite basic as I was more focused on crisp lines. I've since learned to paint better highlights and lenses which are evident in the newest additions to the cadre; the crisis suits and skyray respectively.

Future Plans: When we eventually have a new codex, I'll jump right back to finishing off the models I have. There's a handful of crisis suits that arn't painted, I think 4 or 5 and an Aun'va et al that I think I could do some justice to. I also have an additional 1/2 finished tetra conversion sitting on my desk with a years dust on it.

Note on Colour Scheme: I looked through the tau codex and the Sept I chose is apparently very xenophobic so I thought that fit my complete lack of all other helper races. I figured the colour scheme would be waived as their competent commander would likely outfit them differently for different theatres. I don't write fluff so that's the best I can think up, sorry guys

This army is no longer mine as I sold it in December of 2010.

Be'Gel'Yon Mechanized Cadre

Commanding Officer: Shas'El Ke'lshan Kunas'Lasa
Founded: 984.M41 (By order of Aun'O Ke'lshan Sho'ka)
Founding Planet: Ke'lshan
Current Shas Personnel: 102
Current Location: Perdus Rift (unknown, 999.M41)
Current Mission: Actively seeking and engaging ork threats

Cadre Breakdown:

Personnel - 1 Shas'El, 25 Shas'Ui (including pilots), 66 Shas'La, 10 Shas'La'Kais, 10 Dras'La: 112 Total
Kor'Vesa - 1 DX-6 Remora Drone Fighter, 1 DX-34 Marker Drone, 16 DX-36 Gun Drones, 4 DX-39 Shield Drones : 22 Total
Battlesuits - 2 XV-88s, 9 XV-8: 11 Total
Vehicles - 2 Devilfish Transports, 2 Hammerhead Gunships, 1 Skyray, 4 Piranha Light Skimmers, 2 Tetra Scout Speeders: 11 Total

HQ:
Shas'El Ke'lshan Kunas'Lasa:



Ethereal Honourguard (activated for visiting ethereals):



Elites:
XV-8 Crisis Suits - Firestorm variants:


Troops:
Firewarriors:



Warfish


Dras-la: (Kroot Counts-as)
After serving four years as a Shas'La, a fire caste member takes his first Trial By Fire. If he survives, he is honoured by recieving crisis armour. However, with the increasing amount of conflict on the rim of the Empire, those who would not naturally survive the ordeal are now given medical attention to prevent their deaths. These tau are branded as Dras'La or "unworthy warriors" and given the task of reclaiming their honour. Deployed behind enemy lines weeks or months before a forseen conflict in little more than ceremonial armour and ramshackle outdated tau weaponry, these Dras'La are forced to fend for food and perfect their combat skills. Those who survive the months of harsh conditions begin to embrace their physical prowess and survival insticts making them far more adept at jungle warfare than their bretheren, ready to strike at the command of their Cadre in hopes of surviving battle and earning a second chance to undergo the Trial.



Fast Attack:
Winged Firewarriors (Vespid Counts-as):
With the earth castes advent of a smaller more lightweight jump pack capable of supporting the full weight of a warrior and his weapon without requiring a battlesuit full of support systems, some members of the firecaste have begun to be funneled into a new training regime. Those fire caste members found to have above average motor reflexes become Shas'La'Kais and are given these new prototype jump packs. These packs lessen the fatigue of battle on the troops allowing them to carry larger weapons, the plasma blaster, capable of tearing through enemy armour with ease. The rapid movement ability of this pack can be very disorienting to inexperienced Tau, so an experienced jump pilot, or B'Eldi, can be placed in command of the squadron conveying his excelent battlefield leadership to his men.



Pathfinders (Plastic):



Pathfinder Devilfish


Pirhanas:




Tetra Speeder


Heavy Support
XV-88 Broadsides

These were inspired by the DoW broadsides, seemingly struggling to support the massive load.

Railhead Command Tank


Ionhead


SkyRay Missile Tank:


Remora Stealth Fighter Tutorial Coming some day


Objective Marker:
Pirhana light skimmers are often used to ferry VIPs around a planet quickly, however accidents do happen despite the best of foresight. Accompanied by his most trusted honourguard, this Aun'O is now taking shelter in the wreckage of his craft. The shas'ui, life-pledged to protect the ethereal, stands ever vigilant while they await rescue





Old Photos (To be updated)

Shadowsun Counts-as:




Counts-as Farsight:

This is some pretty well done stuff, Shas'Saal. I like your paint scheme, especially the simple application of the camo scheme. Great work on the O'Kais conversion, too. Since I was kid I've been huge fan of A-10s, so the fangs on your devilfish are a real treat to see. I'll definitely remember that when I get a flyer. My favorite part has to be your Vespid counts as though. From the unique jetpacks to the guns (from Piranha fusion blasters, right?), those are some great conversions. Out of curiosity though, why is their scheme different than everything else? Is it an elite kinda thing, or just to set them apart on the table?

Anyway. Keep this up and that 4000 points is gonna be well worth the time it takes.

Vespids: Honestly, I was out of town when I began sculpting them (crisis Fusion blasters, the pirhana ones were slightly smaller, but good call), and I didn't have a codex, so I forgot they didn't deepstrike. Regardless, I imagined them flying through the sky, not hiding in the trees, so a sky-blend camo suited them better I thought. Not to mention, I've been playing some 6000/side apoc games and having 3000 points of tau all green looks dull, not a problem in small games, but in big ones, well you get the idea.

Therefore, I may be painting some of my suits blue as well. I also painted a hammerhead for a friend I play with, in the spacewolf grey as well, and if he ever paints his army (yeah right) he'll be following the same ink drop scheme and our armies will blend together nicely.

Another bit on the blue scheme; when they're beside my pathfinders (you can't tell from the picture) you can clearly see the same camo application despite the different colours. The scab red w/ blood red highlight also bleeds them together (no pun intended), and when I get around to basing them, it will also give continuity to the army.

A10: I couldn't agree with you more, I loved the game A10 on my old tandy1000 and looked up some pictures of teeth before I started painting. The next 3 fish I paint (months away I'm sure) will also have teeth.

Someday I may convert some jungle firewarriors (counts as kroot) because I really dislike the kroot model. If anyone wants to trade 30 kroot for 30 firewarriors, let me know

Great looking army, the paint scheme reminds me of 'Action Forces' Z Force' (a range of action figures and fore runner to GI Joe in the early 80's). I always liked the Green and black combo with a flash of red back then and it translates well to the Tau.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks, you can't see it in the pictures really, but my FW squads, and pilots of pirhanas use the red to mark ranks, in short, the more red segments on your shoulder armour, the more respect you deserve.

Neat camo!

I really like the teeth bit on the D-fish. I love airplanes (I know most about WWII) and when I saw the teeth I thought that was awesome!

So I was looking through my garbage bits and pieces of cut up stealth suits I've had left over from other mods, and decided to make a shadowsun model.

I wasn't sure on the exact proportions of the model, but I assumed from pictures, it was a little larger than a fire warrior (basically a stealthsuit am I correct?) so I used the x25 torso and figured that would size properly. If I'm wrong let me know. But I'm happy I saved 40 bucks and made the squad out of scraps.

Front:


Back: Jet pack inspired( blatently stolen from) the guy who made the shirtless shadowsun from greenstuff (amazing work btw)




I have a lot of cleaning up to do on the model once the glue dries, from smoothing edges, removing flashing, and cleaning off excess glue.

A10 was a great game!

I have to second Mont'sha-the teeth on the Dfish is a nice touch. Very sharp. Nicely done.

"Winged Firewarriors"

With the earth castes advent of a smaller more lightweight jump pack capable of supporting the full weight of a warrior and his weapon without requiring a battlesuit full of support systems, some members of the firecaste have begun to be funneled into a new training regime. Those fire caste members found to have above average motor reflexes become Shas'La'Kais and are given these new prototype jump packs. These packs lessen the fatigue of battle on the troops allowing them to carry larger weapons, the plasma blaster, capable of tearing through enemy armour with ease. The rapid movement ability of this pack can be very disorienting to inexperienced Tau, so an experienced jump pilot, or B'Eldi, can be placed in command of the squadron conveying his excelent battlefield leadership to his men.

Finally finished my vespid squad, nothing new to see but the lot of them posing:


Here are some WIP suits I've modeled. I blatently stole the jump pack idea from Doran'suam on this forum, thanks for the idea. I really like the look of stealth suit legs on crisis suits. . .


If you guessed I wouldn't like kroot models from the fact I don't like vespid, then you're bang on. With the up coming 5e changes I see kroot becoming more valuable however the models irk me. They're far too tall and lanky and just look cartoony. Anyways, some fluff:

Fallen-Firewarriors:
After serving four years as a Shas'La, a fire caste member takes his first Trial By Fire. If he survives, he is honoured by recieving crisis armour. However, with the increasing amount of conflict on the rim of the Empire, those who would not naturally survive the ordeal are now given medical attention to prevent their deaths. These tau are branded as Dras'La or "unworthy warriors" and given the task of reclaiming their honour. Deployed behind enemy lines weeks or months before a forseen conflict in little more than ceremonial armour and ramshackle outdated tau weaponry, these Dras'La are forced to fend for food and perfect their combat skills. Those who survive the months of harsh conditions begin to embrace their physical prowess and survival insticts making them far more adept at jungle warfare than their bretheren, ready to strike at the command of their Cadre in hopes of surviving battle and earning a second chance to undergo the Trial.

Counts-as Kroot:


It's really hot here today so I can't basecoat the kroot and start painting because the glue is having trouble drying, but I'll have pictures up once it's done.

I've applied 3 colours so far to the kroot, some dry brushed boltgun metal, some goblin green and catachan green. I'll have to get around to the more colourful aspects after Canada Day.

I finished painting up my kroot models, here's a few pictures of them. I think they're very unique and will stand out amongst the rest of my army's standard troops very easily. They all have various kroot bits attached to them and one is even holding up his trophies including an ork thigh.

WOWEE WOW WOW!

Very crafty, I like the jet pack fw's soooo much. Also, the kroot fw's are amazing. I love to model, but I couldn't dream of getting results like that. I would have to image that your squad looks very unified and coordinated on the field, seeing as how it is entirely tau...with one exception: the paint scheme. I don't mean to force my views on you, it is just that I so prefer a whole army to be painted the same so they look good together. I appreciate your logical use of camo though. I would love so cinamatic photoshop pictures of your force in battle.

Speaking of paint, isn't the ke'lshan sept supposed to be grey, black, and yellow?

All in all, AMAZING CONVERSIONS. Step by step or at least a list of parts used would be soooo helpful. Thanks.

I looked in the tau codex and the Sept is apparently very xenophobic so I thought that fit my complete lack of all other helper races I figured the colour scheme would be waived as their competent commanders would likely outfit them differently for different worlds.

Next time I have all my models out mayble I'll pose them all and take a picture, I'm just hesitant because all of my suits and firewarriors are grey at the moment. I suppose I can leave them out.

Parts for which set of models and I'll post one super quick. Man I'm cool sitting here reading forums on Friday night ><

I don't mean to impose w/ the pics, but it would be great to kill time by making some shots of those vespid fw's in the air or the kroot fw's hidden in a forest. Anyways, I like your attention to detail (i.e. xenophobia) though I must point out that if you wanted you could use kroot & vespid, as the ke'lshans don't trust newer aliens, though they do trust ones who have fought w/ the empire for some time.

I can understand the color difference, I was just...well...my bad. To each his own, and your own look great.

As for your cool factor, no one here is judging you, so why judge yourself?

Lol no just joking around because I posted that, and hit refresh you posted and I reposted, seemed so quick.

And as to the xenos... you can never trust them and their buggy eyes. . .

My newest addition, a broadside in which I changed up the legs, added stabilisation bars (2 per leg) some extra armor plating deserving of that 2+ save, and there you have it.

So after making my Tetras I was left with those fins on the side, and I thought to myself those look an awful lot like wings, on the remora craft, and since I wanted one in my apoc games, I figured I'd give it a shot. Here's what I came up with, hope you like it. I painted it to have an "active camo" sort of feel, blending in with the clouds.

Ya' know, your still making me feel bad.

Really, it looks great. You managed to get the seams very clean, so i applaud you. Also, not that I would steal the idea or anything, but could you at least write up a step by step for the remora, my curiosity is killing me and I can't quite tell how all of it was done, mainly the fusalge/body.

I am curious, do you know how big it is compared to the actuall remora? I can see that being a big deal nowadays with true l.o.s. and all.

Do you have any pics of your entire army online, I gotta see the whole thing together.

by all means, continue to shame my converting skillz,
Dennis

Great converting! I cant wait to see more conversions. I love the vespid 'counts as' models.
All I can say is, great job!

Thanks for the comments, it is fairly straight forward.
All I did was make a cylinder out of plasticard and attach a drone to each end. The tail is made from a crisis suit "fin" behind it's head, as is the air intake on the front (from a crisis engine) The targeting node is a crisis head, and on the back is some exaust from a crisis suit as well. The wings of course are filed down and from a pirhana, with some stealth suit guns added to the front of fusion blasters for the "long barreled" aspect. I put some multi trackers on the wing tips to add an airplane feel as well. The various other aspects of the body are simply bits from my bit box to break it up slightly and give a tau-ish apearance. Not pictured, but the underbody has some more plasticard pieces added for support and to give the spaced armor apearance of tau vehicles. Give it a shot and let me see!

Edit: I have to appologize, the two wingmounted intakes are from a gundam toy, so no getting those I'm affraid. The rest are all tau bits aside from the cylinder however. Goodluck!

If I'm not being clear let me know or ask a more precise question and I'll get back to you.

Sadly no whole army pictures yet as it shames me I've yet to paint a single troop squad and I don't think theres justice to my army if it doesn't at least look fieldable.

As for size, that doesn't matter. LOS is not blocked by planes in apocalypse. You simple adjust range to -12 and assume they're above the field. However, looking at it compared to the one in the book, they're VERY close to size compared to a firewarrior (shown to scale in the rulebook) So it shouldn't be an issue.