Right, after laptop failure, classes, sorting out my flat and life generally getting in the way: my first proper post on ATT.

I haven't had much of a chance to write up a full fluff report on my cadre, but I've got some ideas that I might try out, I'll post that up later on.

My cadre is based on a snow world, so the armour is white with a dark grey under-armour, with different colours to indicate the different ranks:
Shas'las wear plain white, Shas'Uis have grey plates on their shoulder pads and occasionally on their helmets, Shas'vres have grey-blue markings (I use shadow grey for this), Shas'Els and Shas'Os will most likely be red, although I'm not sure about this and I will explain why in a second.

I have a small team of crisis suits to act as my command squad, one with blue markings the other two with grey. This throws my ranking system out of whack a little, and while its not actually that important, it bugs the hell out of me personally . So I have decided to buy a forge world crisis suit (most likely the XV-89) in the near future to act as my commander, and use the other squad as a normal crisis team.

I can't decide how I'm going to paint the suit, and i'm starting to veer away from the white armour, mostly because it's a total pain to do and also because I would like to see a bit more diversity among my army in terms of colour. I'm now thinking of painting my new commander a different colour entirely, but one which still fits in with the main army itself (in the same way that shadowsuns white armour fits in to a T'au sept colour scheme...sort of) and I may use this scheme with the new batch of fire warriors I have just recieved from ebay, which are all undercoated black (and also all of their backpacks are upside down ). Any suggestions for a suitable colour scheme would be great, but I am very partial to grey (because I am a rather boring person).

Anyway, heres a few select pictures of some of my models, I apologise unreservedly for the photo lighting, and I must say that the models do look a bit better painted in real life (although that might just be me).

Comments and critique are very welcome.


My ethereal caste member, probably my most recently painted model, but I must say this photo doesn't really do him justice, I'll post up a better photo as soon as I can get to grips with taking decent photos...


One of the aformentioned suits, not too happy with the highlighting but it's still one of my favourite models from my army. Don't ask why it has three weapon systems, I thought it was cool at the time, and on the upside it does offer a good bit of versatility in terms of firepower.


Fire warrior Shas'ui with bonding knife, carbine and whatever else I could throw on really, though I think he turned out ok.


My kroot shaper and some of my few painted kroot, the red is actually warpaint, not blood.
Again, I'm not sure if I've done justice to the kroot in terms of the photo quality, but once I've got some decent snaps I'll post them up for all to see.



I'm now working on building some stealth suits, which will have white armour, similar to the ones found in a certain article in white dwarf (the same one as the diorama with the suit painted up to look transparent), I don't have a link right now, but if you've seen the article in question you will know what I mean.

Thanks very much for looking, I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

[EDIT: some spelling/grammar corrections.]

Hey Samurai_Aly!

I gotta say I'm not a big fan of black and white colour schemes, but I LOVE THIS!!!! I've also really like the markings you put on your Kroot! Very tribal looking.

Now your colour conundrum; I'd be careful when saying grey is a boring colour. There are loads of great looking grey cadre's floating around here. (they will get you ) . And personally I like the grey idea.....
Yeah, you better watch what you say about gray armies.... my finger is hovering over the Manta strike button. -Wolfs16

I'll definitely be back to check your progress out!

- null

Thanks Null! I was actually trying to make a joke about my grey personality, I guess that didn't come across very well.

At any rate, you are correct in saying that there are some great looking cadres which use grey colour schemes, and It's definitely something that I think would look good on my commander as a centrepiece: a good contrast while keeping in line with the snow theme.

Thanks again, it means a lot to me to get some feedback, especially some positive feedback

Shadowsun fits in to the standard T'au colours because her sept markings match the Fire Warriors' armour. Maybe having red as a main colour and white as sept markings would be enough to tie him to your current force - though it's fairly obvious if he has the same basing scheme and painting style, it'd be made more obvious if the entire force had red sept markings/lenses, or some element of red on every model. Or you could just go with white armour and nominate some plates to be red, which would tie in very easily.
The problem is that diversity can sometimes exclude cohesiveness - but I don't think this will be the case with the above two options.

No no. It did come across as being funny! I tried to make my reply funny too.... I guess that did not work !!

For your commander I think T'olku Ma'tyr has a good idea! You could go with black as the main colour and either white or grey markings. The black would kinda give the impression of power, IMHO.

- null

I like your white scheme a lot. I think you have pulled it off quite well. As far as painting your new commander gray like a centerpiece, I think that would work really good. Gray and white go well together, especially since your under-armor is also gray. And then you can pick out certain panels in white to really connect all the models.

That is a really cool ethereal. Might I ask where you got him/how you made him?

I also really like your kroot. I think the blue really fits in with the snow theme and the red warpaint look sweet.

Please don't, I like it here, and I like grey.

T'olku Ma'tyr, you're right about the sept markings, I may try red sept marks/plates, which would work with either combination of white or grey (or both together I guess) main armour. I think red for the main armour might be a bit much, I much prefer it as a detailing colour.

Thanks for the ideas guys, I should have more (and better) pictures at the weekend.

Hey STumpy, Thanks very much!

The ethereal is actually one of the older metal models that were originally released back in 2001 or whenever it was. My ethereal is one of two different models, the other is now classed as a limited edition collectors piece:

http://warhammer-tau-army.blogspot.com/2009/05/tau-ethereal.html

You can still get the collectors one on ebay, but it's incredibly expensive (usually £10-25 ), I was fortunate enough to pick up mine from ebay, unpainted for only £4.

Im a strong advocate of using ethereals in an army, not least because of their ability to field a full squad of fearless fire warrior marksmen (theres a mouthfull)

As for the kroot, im glad you liked them! They are actually painted codex grey with lighter grey highlights, then given a black wash to shade in certain areas. These aren't great pictures, but they do have a certain blue hue in real life, and they fit in well with the colour scheme of my FWs. My only regret is my shaper, but only because I got the version with a pulse rifle rather than a kroot rifle, which denies my shaper an extra attack. Other than that I'm quite proud of him.

Thanks very much for your comments guys, keep em' coming!

Very nice looking army Samurai! I especially like the warpaint on the Kroot. How did you achieve this?

Thanks Wolfs16!

The warpaint designs were painted with red gore, then highlighted with blood red. This is especially noticable on the second picture, with the face and leg designs. The smaller detailed warpaint was done with just blood red. The designs themselves aren't based on anything, with the exception of a T'au sept symbol painted onto the shapers mask, and I tried to make the markings on each individual unique.

I have still to paint the majority of my kroot warriors, so any suggestions for new warpaint designs would be great!

Just a quick update:



A shot of my main body of fire warriors. Ignore the christmas wrapping paper background, my landlord has some odd ideas about how to decorate the shelving in my flat.



Some WiP stuff now. These are three models from my latest batch of fire warriors that I purchased at a lovely discount from eBay. Some of them were already partially painted, which I was aware of, unfortunately I was not aware that he had glued on all the backpacks upside down. Theres so much of the stuff sticking the packs on that I would have to absoultely butcher the models in order to get them off, so I've decided to just leave them on. I'll say that they're some new advanced version that vents up the way to keep the soldiers boots on the ground

I've also given these guys some extra pouches, using cut down space marine ammo packs. I have also replaced the middle warriors pulse rifle with a carbine instead. They still need some work done before they are good to paint (mould lines are still present etc.) but look out for an update in the near future.



And last but by no means the least, my new stealth suit team. I've already used them in a couple of games, with mixed results, but the burst cannons can cut swathes through IG infantry, and their smaller profile and jet packs make them ideal for ambushing tanks in city fights.
I know that most people would say that their use is questionable, but I would disagree, I love these guys.
Suffice it to say that as soon as I get a new batch of paints then these guys will be first in line for a new paint job.

Questions and comments are welcome, thanks for reading!

No comments on the last post, I'm a little disappointed, but I shall not despair just yet.

I've painted up a couple of fire warriors for all to see, they still aren't quite finished yet, but I would quite like to get some feedback from all you lovely people.

They were painted using the same colour palette as my older fire warriors, (obviously just applied to different areas): Chaos Black, Codex Grey, Skull White, Fortress Grey, Red Gore, Blood Red, Dark Angels Green, Snot Green and Boltgun Metal (although I have to get a new pot of that).






As always, questions and comments are very wecome.

Thanks for reading!

That white and grey scheme really gives something to the models! It just looks right, a subtle air of uniformity, plain but well done!

Been working on a few things this week, but as most of you will no doubt know, real life can get in the way quite a bit. The loss of one's oven is not only really annoying, but can get incredibly irritating and expensive when you are forced to live off microwavable food for 3 weeks... But I digress.

The main thing I want to post up is what I have been working on for the last few days: my remodelled and repainted devilfish. I didn't post any pictures of it previously as I must admit it was in a rather poor state, but It's got a funky new paint job and a couple of tweaks to make it run better than ever, so now I'm no longer embarrassed to use it in a game

I started out by repainting the hull to better match my new fire warriors colour scheme, and to give it a bit more pizzaz as it was rather bland in plain white with a few sections painted in shadow grey. I have to thank my past self for putting this together with a minimal amount of glue, as I discovered that I could take the 'fish apart with no damage, enabling me to paint the interior and fix a couple of problems. Aside from some poorly placed/glued parts, the chin-mounted burst cannon had always moved very freely, to the point where it simply flopped around and was constantly pointed at the floor directly in front of it. A little bit of glue and a piece of sprue helped me to fix this:





So now the BC can still move around, but is kept reasonably level.

Next I started on painting the interior:





I put the whole thing back together again and here is the finished result:





In the background you can just about see a couple of the terrain pieces I'm working on, and I'll be putting up a full post about them once they are completed.

I've also thrown together a rudementary SMS system out of a couple of broken drones I had lying around, and some spare missile pods.



It's not as bulky as a conventional system (and not even the right orientation), as I only had two MPs. I like to think of it as the SMS 'lite' . If I get my hands on some spare crisis suit weapons then I'll bulk it out to look more like the proper thing, but for now it does the job.

Thanks for reading my rather lengthy post, as always C&C is very welcome.

Wow dude that Fish looks awesome. It's quite impressive, and I also like the Ethereal that you have a lot. Keep up the good work man.

Very nice update! I like the smooth painting on the 'fish and the detail inside looks great. I also love the progress of your Firewarriors; very nice paint job! Now all you need is to base those bad boys!

As for the SMS, do you have another Missile Pod you could attach to it? Pasting two MP's together would really give it a nice, chunky SMS look.

Looks great man! Very clean painting, I like the way you've done everything.

-Vesper

Thanks very much for the kind words!

Wolfs16 - The fire warriors aren't quite done being painted, just a few small details to do, then they'll be ready to base! As for the SMS, unfortunately those were the only two MPs I had spare. However, I have a friend who has an extensive collection of bits from various races, so I'll see if he has any that I could play him for.

Thanks again, I should have another post up next week sometime.

Well, so much for an update in a week...

I've been very busy with university the last few weeks, rushing to meet deadlines and whatnot, but I've made some time to do some painting and modelling, and even a little story writing (oooooh )

For now though, I shall present to you my newly painted* stealth suits!



I know that it's an unusual colour scheme for a stealth team, but I do like it.

Thanks for reading, C&C very welcome as usual!

*some details are yet to be painted, but they're 95% complete

Well that's the whole point of being able to actively camouflage your suit! You can proudly wear whatever armor colors you want since you can turn nearly invisible!

I personally love the scheme here, it definitely makes your Sept unique.