Thank you for the kind comments everyone! It's much appreciated!

Cheers
Shadowblade

I must say that I agree with you on your point about the cloth, I was never a fan of having 30 different colors on clothing that didn't matter much since it dittracts from the armor of the model which of course is what matters most. I see a lot of Tau players trying to paint their clothing like leather, but then I have to wonder...Tau are one of the most advanced races in 40k and they wear leather clothing in all weather conditions? The point is, Tau have probably come up with plenty of solutions to keep their clothing made from lightweight materials while having the ability to keep the wearer from overheating due to color, or freezing due to the thickness of the material. Color it whatever you want, I'm just saying the armor is where it's all at in my honest opinion, the cloth just helps accentuate the effect.

I also agree that the bricks on your models do take a little attention away from the fire warrior on it, and I probably would wash it with badab black or devlan mud or something but it looks just good as is.

Lastly the broadside, it's very cool. I see you tried to add a energy beam effect on the railguns too which I like, though you may want to try highlighting (probably a 50/50 ice blue and skull white and then just skull white on the sharpest corners) a little further around the outer edges of the front of the barrel to give it a little more glow. All in all it's a solid looking cadre, keep working on them!

Well well well.
It has finally come to this: Everything I have of Tau has been painted
Just in time for the tournament of tomorrow: The Grand Belgian Open.

Some pics of the army as it is:





Some pics of how the units are distributed for tomorrow's tournament:


2 Stealth suit teams become 1 big one and 1 fire warrior team gets cut in 2 and becomes 2 pathfinder teams with each their own transport (these transports will head towards the fire warriors ASAP when deployed).

I'll try to take as many pics possible of tomorrow matches and try to make some nice battle reports

Cheers
Shadowblade

They look great mate!

And good luck!

ooh, what a shame I couldn't come! Would have loved to see that :'(
I sincerely hope you will photograph every single army out there and tell us how it went
Good luck there (although a little late)!
Kern

EDIT: just skimmed trough your entire post, and in fact, I think I've already seen your army! Even more, I think I played the very same marine player you played, I recognize those green objective markers as well sadly our team won, but due to a wrong point counting, we were called off 6'th (those french guys still have to send us the price xD). My team was Tau, orks (the orange grot revolution army) and the light blue ultramarines that won the painting price
What gaming club are you from?

Oh man, it is always great to see a completed army. I like the way the color scheme looks when every model is laid out like that. Makes sure to take pictures at the tournament! Hope it goes well for you!

Thanks for the good luck wishes, but alas I didn't play that well (or my list didn't have the level of cheese expected on these kinds of tournaments). Luckily for me, I don't really care about the outcome from the games as long as I had fun (and went a bit crazy now and then)

@ Kern: My gaming club is the 'Albion'

Gonna write down some short Battle Reports now. If some things don't make sense, then I'm sorry. It's getting late and I'm tired of gaming today

Battle 1; versus Eldar (Table Quarters - 5 Objectives on the table + some tie breakers based on Victory Points)
He brought: Avatar of Khaine, Eldrad, squad of guardians, squad of jetbikes, squad of Dire Avengers in Wave serpent, Squad of Fire Dragons in Wave Serpent, (EVIL) Dark Reapers, Rangers, Fire Prism, 3 War Walkers.
He deployed (table quarters) first and put most of his squads behind a big piece of terrain. I got the high ground with nice firing lanes.
T1: apparently he can shoot with his Dark reaper Exarch without line of sight... Okay... Then S5 (?) AP3 (?)... Then no cover saves allowed and pinning... EY 1 Squad Fire Warriors loses 25% of it's members and starts running of table. Jetbikes and War Walkers move a bit get LOS and shoot (also had some Fortune or Guide that helped them) kill some more of my guys and then jet pack back behind terrain. One of my Devilfishes is Immobilised; another weapon destroyed and stunned. I try to retaliate, but not much I can do without putting myself too much in the open.

Following turns are much of the same: I'm losing guys each turn, while he rerolls his failed armor saves and makes them all
My Gun Drones and HQ have some fun with the Dire Avengers in Close Combat, while the jetbikes are enjoying some barbecued Kroot.
I'm keeping my eye out for the objectives as the game is getting to an end.

My last turn (turn 4, yes yes turn 4: we played at ease and were having fun... well at least I was ): He had the middle objective with his guardians and Rangers and one in a table quarter with his jet bikers; Objective in his own table quarter was not taken, another one was being contested by the combat between my Gun Drones + HQ and the Dire Avengers (Tau were winning!) and I had the last one. My Stealth Suits then joined the fray, deepstriking close to the Jet bikes and unleashing hell. Hell can be twisted by the ways of the aether though and thanks to fortune several kills were denied. However, the shooting had made a wide enough hole for one of my Stealths to close in and contest the objective. And thus the end result was: 2 contested, 1 for each side taken and 1 left behind.
Then the tie breaker objectives were implemented: he had killed 700ish points of me and I a meagre 68 (he even killed one of his own with a stray shot!). He also got some more points for have 5 or more KP.

Outcome: Losing Draw

All in all a very fun game. First time playing against Eldar with Tau and I was impressed with their longrange fire power. It rivals our own in some way and had the benefits of psychic powers. The Fearless caused by the Avatar was also a thorn in my eye sometimes.

Pics of battle 1:





Battle 2; versus Dark Eldar (2 objectives in each players deployment zone. You had to try to get to the objectives on the other side while protecting your own)
He brought: Archon, 7 Jetbikes, 3 Ravagers, squad with beastmaster and chimera's, like 6 Raiders with guys in.
Yeah, so you guys can probably guess what happened: In his first turn everything comes up and ends its movement 6" or so away from my lines. I got 'lucky' with my reserve rolls. Practically everything comes in and deepstrikes in their mids, causing as much mayhem as possible. Killing all but 1 jetbiker and putting a big dent in the beastmasters pack. My Broadside died in the first turn due to massed Dark Lance firepower in his direction, so only my Hammerhead was getting shots of at those Raiders/Ravagers. I didn't kill one of them. Worst I got from penetration damage was a Immobilised result (after applying modifiers and such). Anyhow, I got pretty much tabled that match. Was fun though

Outcome: Massacred

This was my second game against Dark Eldar (first with Tau on my side). They hit hard and fast. I know I don't have much of antitank in my lists (I roll with what I have) but not being able to blow up 1 of his weak armored opentopped vehicles was a bit disappointing. Lovely opponent though, great guy, had a fun time

Pics of Battle 2:








Battle 3; versus Space Wolves (1 terrain feature was your command centre and you had to hold it while trying to keep the enemy out of your own table half + opponent's 2 most expensive units (except HQ) killed give you some nice points)
He brought: Wolf Lord + terminators in Drop Pod, grey hunters/blood claws and something else in rhino's, sky claws, thunderwolf cavalry (#3), Vindicator and Long Fangs.
I'm not gonna waste too much time on this: I knew I was somewhere down below on the classification (54th from the total of 64 players or so after the 2nd match), so winning this tourny was out of the question and the sight of his army just made me go wt*. I and my friends from my LGS and many others had did their best to put a completely painted army on the tables (it creates a total different air when everything is painted) while this player didn't have a completely glued army (check pics below for examples).
Anyway, in turn 1 his Drop pod lands next to my 'command centre' and starts wreaking havoc. I threw everything I had on his terminators and only killed one of them. My left flank was dead in my eyes after that, so I went crazy with my Gun Drones and Kroot to kill that wolf Lord. He had 1 little wound left and didn't want to die (36 attacks of my Kroot --> 0 wounds . I roll a bit bad on my Deepstriking units and got some mishaps. Stealth Suits showed my Broadside how to kill tanks by blowing up the Vindicator by infiltrating behind it and going crazy with Burst cannons. Broadside kills a rhino after that. Thunderwolf cavalry charges my HQ. After several turns each of the wolves had a wound and my HQ was dead. Next on the menu were my crisis and broadside.

Outcome: Crushing Defeat

I didn't take this last fight serious, but it was still fun, because I was doing crazy stuff
Pics of Battle 3:







Thoughts of the day:
1) Trying to translate all the english names from 40K to West-Flemish gives hilarious outcomes!
2) Railguns may be the most potent antitank weapons out there in the univers, but it doesn't garantee a kill/turn!
3) Assault armies capable of reaching your own shooty army in turn 1 hurt.
4) Keep fire warriors in Devilfishes as long as possible and only disembark when they are relatively safe and/or you know that you can kill a target with massed firepower.
5) Kroot = not that good unless you like barbecue...
6) Pathfinders... Markerlights are possible fun IF you can use them. In most matches today they died by turn 1 or 2 and dead tau don't activate markerlights I think
7) Armies seen most played today: Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, Tyranids, Orks and Imperial Guard.
8) I saw some nice Tau tables, but didn't get the chance to play on them

9) Unit of the day: Stealth Suits! I gave them all Targetting arrays (yes yes, expensive) but rolling 2 times 3+ (sometimes 2 times 2+) just feels so good. Also they did great in the first game objective contesting, 2nd game beastmaster killing and 3rd game Vindicator hunting.

Random pics from other armies on the field:






















Hoped you enjoyed the pics. If you have any questions: shoot away... Ugh, you there, lower your pulse rifle, I was speaking figuratively

Cheers
Shadowblade

Looks like you had some extreme fun, I'm sure I would have...though I'm not sure why the Wolves player was rolling a Wolf Lord where he would have been much better off with a Rune Priest. Otherwise you can't really help what else happened, dice gods are fickle.There was some very impressive paint schemes done (like that Eldar army), and I love the "Hello Kitty" banner on the DE Raider!

Got some more details about the tournament:
There were only 2 tau players present (me included).
My team (Albion) ended 10th from 12 teams present.

I ended up being 49th from the 60 players at the Grand Belgian Open.
(Only got a 13/20 for painting. A bit low in my opinion, but every judge has his own taste I guess.)

Some more pics are available here: http://albiongamers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=toernooi&action=display&thread=820&page=1

Something completely else now:
Since I have finished everything I have from my Tau and the new Tau stuff will be around in lets say 6 months or so, I won't be buying and thus painting new Tau units.
Would ATT be interested in seeing my ever-growing Ultramarines force and/or my slowly awakening Eldar Craftworld in the meantime? (I would make other threads for those off course).

Cheers
Shadowblade

Too bad you didn't do as good as you'd like at the tourney. But the pictures were good and it looked like a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing!

As for sharing your other armies, feel free! Just post them in the Enemies and Allies section. You should be good!

Funny,

I am the wolf player next to your table with the black t-shirt. 3 th last picture

I restarted with a TAU army ( it was my first 40k army/models ) and I like them more then my wolf army atm.