WIP: 2,000 pt Tau Army - January Recap

No major progress in January, but lots of loose ends tied up. Details after the jump

I knew going into january that my focus would shift to the new Tyranid releases. It's my main army, and frankly, after months of grinding away on Tau models, I was ready for a change.

However, I did manage to finish a few odds and ends, and start the next units I would be working on once I returned to the greater good.

First, I worked towards completing my Hammerhead, including longstrike. The skyray was complete, but it took me a little experimenting to figure out how I was going to make both cannons swappable. I ended up magnetizing the post and the base. (seen below) I used two magnets each to make sure that the cannon didn't spin or flop.

I completed longstrike as well. Here's a shot of the body in progress. He's usually depicted wearing a white battle suit, but as my entire army is white, and longstrike is supposed to serve as a focal point on the model, I decided to paint him a dark grey with lighter grey edging. The entire model came out pretty well given that it's finecast (uhg). I'll post pictures in a showcase another day.

Next, I started on two new units. I've seen deet use an ethereal to great advantage during games, so I thought I'd make my own. I HATE finecast, so I decided to follow a tutorial on advanced Tau tactica that uses a warhammer fantasy wizard and spare Tau head. I found it tricky to dremel out the neck to adjust for the larger scale Tau noggin, but I think it will work. I trimmed down the extra gizmos on the staff to make it look almost identical to the picture of the honor blade in the codex.

I also started my first crisis team. I got six suits with the two battleforces I bought, and felt it was time to build them. I knew this kit was dated, but damn, these things suck. From a design standpoint, they're incredibly ugly. They look like high school interpretations of early 80's japanese anime mecha design. Boxy and awful. On top of that, on a technical level, they are a total failure. Next to zero poseablility unless you hack the model apart for extensive conversion.

The molds are also obviously very old, because the part lines and flash on these things are some of the worst I've seen. It is absolutely unbelievable that GW did not introduce a new model for this unit when the Tau relaunched last April.

I pressed on though, intent to build an HQ and his bodyguard. I began with the bodyguard, building them to be flanking "twins" of sorts - mirror images of each other. I chopped the legs and arms, and reposed them.

Even with all the effort, the pose is still pretty stagnant. Because they're bodyguards, I wanted to beef up the build to make it look a little tougher. I added stealth shoulder pads to the arms, and used plasticard tube to create an additional collar guard around the neck. I also chopped off the neck posts so the heads would sit closer to the torso. I also magnetized the weapon hard points so I could change the loadouts.

Once I sprayed them black, they started to come together.

That's it for January. Not a lot of progress, but progress none-the-less.

-trip

Are you working on a large army project? Building smaller, but much needed units? Share below.