What's a personal website without *Tau* pictures?
Nothing at all, I say.
Contents:
Ethereal with Honour blade
GASP... Unpaintity!!!.
What's a personal website without *Tau* pictures?
Nothing at all, I say.
GASP... Unpaintity!!!.
Though I thought I was finished with Ethereals some time ago a very nice chap I met at a GW auction, (who actually outbid me for a bag of Tau bits) gave me the ethereal fig we see here on the left for free (If you're reading this, thanks Brendan :D), at the time it was in poor shape missing a hand weapon, but after some careful conversion, an Aun'shi arm and some sculpting help from Mandy an honour blade wielding Ethereal was born, I've since painted the model but it is an identical twin to the painted fig you see here so there's no real point in showing it finished.
Few more angles on the same
On the topic of getting characters for nothing, or at least next to nothing this mini I cobbled together at an Ultimate Character Challenge at the Feb 2004 Grand Tournament in Richmond Canada (that's a southern suburb of Vancouver for you out of towners). The entry fee was a mere $5 CDN and for that I got my pick of a large pile of bits and plastic sprues, I eventually used a crisis suit and a spare gun drone, what you see before you was painted then assembled in a mere four hour period (a personal record). The gun drone was less fortunate receiving only primer and an after thought of a silver dry brush and is to this day still waiting in my army case for a full paint job.
Tau fanatics have already recognized an uncanny resemblance between this figure and the commander of the Farsight enclave. That's intentional, I've since dismantled much of this model (head and left arm) and added mail ordered O'shovah bits, all told I think I paid less that $15 Canadian for my largest special character. That's more than a 50% discount. Saving cash on highly priced figures is one of the most fun parts of the hobby in my humble opinion.
This is one of my more creative projects, inspired by a desire to model representatives from other Tau Castes. Fio'vre Kais Agala is a rather eccentric Earth caste worker who sneaks into battle magnetically clamped to the underbelly of Devilfishes and Hammerheads. He can then hijack the gun drones of the carrier vehicle and go about living out his dream as a fire caste hero. I've never used him in an actual battle, and likely never will but I've worked out statistics for him and may post them eventually. (once I figure out how to make PDFs )
Not much of a conversion but this is a message which needs to be spread to anyone considering playing Tau:
NEVER EVER GLUE ANY NON-MANDATORY ITEM TO ANY MODEL BIGGER THAN A STEALTH SUIT
There are any number of bits of info available on the web on the topic of modularization, I've got a decent swath of advice here but I'm sure you can find other methods of accomplishing this same thing elsewhere.
More modular mountings
Modular battlesuits are quite easy compared to Tau vehicles, I've done every single one of my eleven battlesuits (7 crisis, 3 broadsides and O�shovah)using nothing more than friction and gravity fitted weapon systems. For Crisis suits simply do not glue on any of the weapon mounts... period. Carry the painted weapons around in a separate foam case of some persuasion and pop the weapons on before each battle.
Broadsides require a little more innovation. I've taken the railguns down onto the arms to free up the higher weapon mounts for plasma rifles or smart missiles, the SMS arms have been hacked off leaving only the pods themselves which have then been given a pin near the front so that they can be securely balanced atop the broadside's shoulders. Small holes have been drilled at the end of the grooves to provide an anchor point for thee pins. For extra balance I cut the flamer fuel cells from the crisis sprue in half diagonally and these portions have been glued beside the groove on the interior portion of the shoulder to provide a level surface to better balance these heavy pewter pieces.
I've had no end of trouble with the heavier arms bending, twisting, and outright falling off, Anyone planning to do this very handy conversion should do the following things:
I've heard it often said that a Crisis Shas'o or Shas'el really requires a decent conversion job to make it stand out, As it was before my Shas'o was merely a Shas'ui with a dark red sensor set/head. Being that I had a few spare bits left over from O'shovah I decided to gamble on a few of my precious Tau bits and see what came of it.
The conversion consists of four modifications on a standard crisis suit,
These alterations are in keeping with how the suit would actually be capable of posing were it articulated in all the places implied by the model. Overall crisis suits as displayed by the models are hardly flexible at all. The Tau concept art is quite different in this regard, take for example the Crisis suit on P 7 of the Codex when jumping out of an Orca. The aim of this conversion was to create something interesting and dynamic without making it seem out of place in a standard Tau force, not violating design of the crisis suit. As always with my crisis suits I don�t glue on the weapons, which press fit nicely.
Well that�s about it for infantry conversions, if you feel so inclined I�d suggest you check out the vehicle conversion page here.