WargameExclusive's "Totally NOT Tau" Models

I know I posted yesterday about playing a Necron Kill Team, but I think I'm going to start a background project building out a Tau Empire Kill Team also.  Why, you ask?  Because of this guy...

Seriously...  this is the most tough looking Tau dude I've ever seen.  His name is probably Shas'vre Ba'dass or something similar.  They label him as "Squad Leader Ghost".  He's obviously supposed to be a Stealth Shas'vre.  It's a $20 model, which seems totally reasonable for something with this level of detail to act as the Leader for a kill team.

There were a couple of other pretty solid options on the site...  which I'm going to link to before I forget.  They have a regular website AND an eBay store...  the latter being how I've bought from them in the past.  eBay just makes everything easier.

https://wargameexclusive.com/

http://stores.ebay.com/warex-store

This one looks to be a Tau Empire themed Culexus Assassin.  I've thought about running a Culexus in the past, but wanted to stick to the Tau theme.  This will work amazingly well.

They also have some bikes that would work well as Eldar bike stand-ins.

I'll probably put an order in once I decide on a Kill Teams list.  The site has a ton of other really cool looking models from a variety of factions.  They have some pretty amazing looking Adepta Sororitas and Adeptus Mechanicus models that I'd love to own.

Christmas Updates - Gundam and Tyranids

So, Christmas has come and more or less gone.  As per normal, I didn't get anything hobby related.  I don't think most people have any real understanding of how I spend my free time, so I tend to get jackets and socks and things like that.  I'm appreciative.  Everyone needs jackets and socks.  Sometimes, you'd just rather have a robot.

To whit, I bought myself a couple of Christmas gifts that I'll be using to do some conversions.  First up is a Gundam model.  This thing is fully pose-able and I haven't decided on a pose yet.  I'm thinking it might end up as a Ghostkeel, but I need to do some work.  I want to build a Tau themed should pad like the Fire Warriors have, and also some better weaponry.  I'm torn on the head.  It looks pretty much like a Drone, so I might leave it as is, but with some antennas.

Next up is my new army for the new year.  This will probably be my big project for 2016.  I know the Tyranid Codex is terrible right now, but there is a rumor that it will be updated in early 2016.  I'm going to start off with some staple units that I'll most likely be able to use in any army list.  The first box I'm working on is some Termagants.  I'll be doing Devourers on these guys.  It's an Assault 3, S4, AP- weapon with a medium range.  I've gone up against these before and they do well on sheer weight of fire.  The box also comes with seven small Rippers that I can use to make Ripper Swarms.  In addition to the seven, I just won an eBay auction for nine complete bases of them.  I think the 9 bases have something like 28 individual Rippers.  I'll probably crack them apart, dress up the bases and put two Rippers on each base.  That'll give me a potential for 17 bases.  From what I understand, Ripper Swarms with the Deep Strike option are the gold standard for Troops choices in a Maelstrom game.

As you can see, the assembly line is beginning!

More to come sooner than later.  I'm going to try to get back into the swing of posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Tau Empire XV95 Ghostkeel Counts-As (Infinity Hulkbuster Iron Man)

I've been wanting to get myself a Ghostkeel so that I can run the Optimized Stealth Cadre Formation.  With it being this close to Christmas, though, I can't really justify spending much money on myself.  I happened upon a posting where somebody had spray painted one of the below models silver and was using it as some sort of Necron C'tan counts-as.  I thought to myself...  this is exactly what I need.

The model is a Hulkbuster Suit Iron Man for a Disney video game called Infinity.  You set the model on top of a little platform and then you can use them in game.  The model cost me 14 USD at a store where I had some store credit.  In other words, sort of free!

Step one was to cut off the base.  I want this model to blend in as much as possible with my existing army.  Consistent basing is a really good way to make this happen.  Cutting through that much vinyl dulled several razor knives and cut up my fingers pretty good.  But...  success!

Thankfully, the bottom of his feet will not be visible!

Once the annoying vinyl base was stripped off, I glued him, along with some cork, onto a flying base.  This official Ghostkeel comes with a 105mm oval base.  This guy is on a 120mm oval base, so he's a little bigger.  I doubt anyone will notice or complain.  It'll just make him a bigger target.

Now to add on a big Ion weapon and a couple of Fusion Blasters, along with some other Tau bits and bobs.  I also used some wooden furniture discs to give that rounded Tau look in a couple of places.

In the next two phots, you can see that he's imposing, but definitely fits in with the rest of the army.  The aesthetic is a little off, but I think a paint job will go a long way towards covering that up.  I'm still looking for a small Tau logo that I can shave off of something else and put on him somewhere...  likely on his shoulder pad.

I can't wait to get a little paint on this guy.  I'm hoping that the weather holds up and I can get him primed and painted this weekend.

New Tau Models Spotted!!!

I'm so excited!  It looks like new models for my primary army are coming out soon.  This probably also means that Tau Empire is getting a new codex.

Looks like the first new model is a Riptide chassis variant just bristling with ranged weaponry.  This is basically going to make Broadsides look like babies.  The White Dwarf cover farther below seems to indicate that this is a 'KV128 Stormsurge'.  The legs look more or less like standard Riptide legs, so I'm assuming this is a Riptide box with an extra sprue added.

Next up is the 'XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit'.  It looks amazing.  It's clearly some sort of stealth variant and is equipped with ion weapon of some sort as well as shoulder mounted twin-linked fusion blasters.  I'm guessing that it's an advance unit designed to put the hurt on armor and monstrous creatures.

You'll also not that the Fire Warriors are clearly wearing new helmets and look generally crisper.  The Drones floating by the Fire Warriors are also clearly new.

Last up is a copy of the White Dwarf intended to be released on October 10th, featuring the XV95, but referencing the KV128.  If I had to guess, the October 7th issue will feature the KV128.  October 17th will probably have the Fire Warriors and maybe the Codex.  Past that, I have no guesses as to what is coming out.

I'm super excited.  Time to start saving money.

New Custom Tau Models from WargameExclusive

This makes me sooooooo happy to be seeing 3rd party Tau Empire models.  I'll need to save up a couple of bucks since these aren't exactly cheap, but they will be mine eventually.  I'm not completely sold on all the sculpts, but it'll be super nice to have something unique but that perfectly fits the aesthetic.

These come from the good folks at WargameExclusive.com.

I'm guessing the pistol models would be good Pathfinders.  The sword model would be a good counts-as Ethereal.  The last is obviously a Fire Warrior or Fireblade.  It's hard to tell, but she's holding an Inquisition necklace.

Tau Empire KX-139 Ta'unar Supremacy Armour

OMFG...  I need one of these for the Greater Good.

Forgeworld showed this bad boy off during their recent Open Day.  It's marked as a KX-139 Ta'unar Supremacy Armour.  Looks like it's loaded with 3 giant guns of some variety, arm mounted triple ion cannons of some sort and burst cannons/missile pods on the torso.  This thing looks like a beast.  I might have to save up for this guy.

Here are a ton of pics I found from various sources online.  I can't wait to see the rules.

300 (+1) Posts!

Somehow I missed that I've posted more than 300 times.  This is actually my 301st post, which is quite a milestone for me.  I've tried to get a blog going in the past, but have never been able to stick to it.  I'm pretty proud of myself.

In other personal accomplishment news, I walked 13.1 miles over the course of the day.  No all at once, but not bad for someone whose knees were so bad it hurt to walk over a mile a couple of years ago.  I feel like I could go right back out there and walk some more.  Haha!  Good times.

In hobby news, I've been going through and photographing all the things I've painted over the years.  Some are better than others, but I'll probably start putting the pictures up here on this blog once or twice a week.  I'll start off with a couple of Tau Empire Crisis Suit models.  One is painted up as a dual fusion Commander.  The three suits have a ton of magnetized weapons to choose from.  Their arms are all magnetized.  They're also all equipped with multi-trackers (the antenna thing on their left shoulders) and target locks (the thing on their right shoulders).  These guys are part of a seven suit block and intended to act as Farsight's Bodyguards.  The target locks let them fire at whichever target they want instead of the unit's target.  I generally equip three with plasma rifles, two with missile pods and 1 with a set of fusion blasters.  The seventh is equipped as a Ravensuit...  which is to say, it has no weapons, but has all the Signature Systems that buff the rest of the unit.

AdMech Skitarii Ranger Test Model + Tau Fun Times

I painted up a quick Ranger test model.  Nothing too terribly fancy, but I think the scheme matches well with the Onager.  Next up, I'll need to paint his nine buddies.

I also went to the grocery store a couple of days ago and say a little Cinco de Mayo display selling all sorts of "Mexican Party" accessories.  One of them was a bag of plastic shot glasses in various colors.  I thought to myself, "Self, these could come in handy.  They're two bucks.  Buy them."  I'm so glad I did.  Check this out...  perfect fit!

My new plan is to try to get my hands on some Tyranid Rippers or similar, paint them up and somehow suspend them inside the green sections.  I think these will end up looking like amazing "Tau Specimen Jar" objectives.

More to come!!!

Tau Drone Turrets Completed

I did a little more work on the Drone turrets and they're basically done.  I still need to work out some sort of gun mount to go in between the base and the drone top, but they're playable at this stage.  I'll just have to tell my opponent what sort of gun they're being fielded as.

I'll try to set up a portion of the army with these on a nice display and take some photos this weekend.

And this sucks.  See this thing...

Everybody knows what this is.  That's right, it's a cat toy...  for my cat to knock on the floor.  And for me to step on.  If you're curious...  yes.  These will go completely through a foot without breaking.  Sigh.  Fun times.  On a completely unrelated note, if you're going to call your mom and ask her how to get blood out of carpet, you need to preface the story with "I'm OK".

Tau Empire Drone Turrets/Sentry Towers WIP

I have a quick update today with ACTUAL HOBBY CONTENT (TM)!

I did a little work on those Tau Empire Drone Turrets I duped a while back.  They'll most likely see action as either objective markers, random scatter terrain, Drone Turrets or Drone Sentry Towers.  In any case, I think I'll get a lot of use out of these things.

The blue tubes are actually "party shot glasses" from the local dollar store.  It's amazing what you can find that goes well into terrain.  The blue tubes won't be glued in, which will make these more flexible AND easier to transport and store.

You can see three more Drone Turrets in the background.  They're mostly painted, but still have highlighting and detailing to be done.  I think I'll need to make up a couple more if I'm going to use these as objective markers.  The discs on the top can be flipped over with numbers on the bottom to represent the various markers.

In other news, the Maelstrom's Edge Kickstarter is up to 29,040 USD.  The first stretch goal is at 30k, so I'm expecting that we'll see it at some point tomorrow.  The momentum has certainly slowed down, but that's normal for a Kickstarter campaign this long.

Ongoing Project - Codex: Unbound

I know I've posted a little about using the Staples Arc Junior notebook system to keep track of army list entries and army lists for the armies I play.  I've decided to expand the idea a little and turn the book into a full blown "Codex: Unbound".  The idea is to eventually have ALL of the army list entries in the entire game in one large notebook.  I have an iPad and I've purchased almost all of the various rule books in ePub format, but having to navigate back and forth can be very tedious and time consuming.

The main draw of the iPad is that it takes up a small volume of space.  You can carry everything you need with you very easily.  The ease of use just isn't there.  eBook readers and iPads are absolutely fantastic for reading pretty much any book that isn't a reference book.  Flipping back and forth between sections can be a pain.  Gaming rule books are basically reference books.

I'll be using the notebook I've already been working on and adding in new army list entries as I'm able to complete them.  I've finished Orks, Harlequins, Imperial Knights, Tau and Necrons.  I've started working on the Skitarii units based on what has been released so far in White Dwarf mags 61 and 62.  As a reminder, the page size is only 5.5" x 8.5".  It's basically a regular letter size sheet of paper cut in half.

In other news, an acquaintance with access to a 3D printer printed out a copy of my Tau Empire themed Aegis Defense Line. These aren't going up for sale or anything EVER, but it's cool to see something in real life.  The printer resolution isn't fantastic, but it's a solid proof of concept.  The plan is to buy a printer for myself at some point in the next couple of years, but I want to make sure I get one that is going to be high enough quality.

The weird looking "H" shaped object was intended to be an ion looking weapon.  I never actually finished it.