This Cadre Brought to You by finestaut

A couple weeks ago finestaut SM'd me and offered to send me a few Tau odds'n'ends he wasn't using.  Between the initial offer and actually mailing the box, he changed his mind about Tau and told me he was sending whatever he could cram into the box.  It arrived today, and he managed to cram a whole lot of awesomeness into a pretty small package.

Tau confetti.

That's not "some Tau," that's a whole fucking cadre!

Tabletop muster.

Gun drones, in a little need of some depot repair.

More Crisis suits!  Have I mentioned how much I love Crisis suits?  I love Crisis suits!

Mmm...Sniper Drones...they're so pretty...

Pathfinders!  I don't have any of these yet.  Well, I mean, now I do, but before today I didn't.  My first Fast Attack unit.

Same Pathfinders, worshiping at the Church of the Foot of XV88 like every Tau should.

XV15 Stealthsuits.  I'm not sure they make these any more, as they've been superseded by the XV25 (though GW's site still lists the XV15 for sale).  Mechanically I believe they're functionally identical to XV25s.

Ethereal and weird little drones of a type that only ever seem to accompany Ethereals.  Banish your fears...we act as one.

A Shaper!  And fucking Kroot Hounds!  Awesomesauce.  Now I'm going to have to buy more Kroot Hounds.

That's a lot of Fire Warriors!  29, in fact.  More than I had in the first place!  I wish I'd taken a closeup of the dude in the blue; he totally looks like he's chilling with a frosty stein in hand.

finestaut, you are a Shacker among Shackers, and I thank you profusely for your generosity.  I don't know when I'll ever play a game that will let me field that many Fire Warriors, but the XV8s, Kroot Hounds, and Pathfinders are extremely useful to me.  In the semi-fluffy games amrbean and I are playing I'm certain that Sniper Drone Team will be fielded, too; it's my third one, now, and the Tau FOC just so happens to let you take 3 SDTs as a single Heavy Support slot.

That'll Do, Pig

Well, they ain't exactly pretty, but they'll do.  Here's my first squad, all duded up in their gloppy-white armor.

Further painting is on hold until I get a new brush.  The one I used on these guys never actually came to a point, which made being precise (and I use that term both relatively and loosely) a stone bitch.  Right now I'm thinking of ordering this Reaper set of 3.  They're not the bestest brushes on the market, but the price is right and I've already sunk so damn much into my cadre that I'm cautious of further nickel'n'dimeing.  Given that shipping from just about anywhere is going to amount to a significant portion of the cost of the brushes in the first place, even that minor of a purchase is on hold for now.

So, next up is assembly of the Sniper Drone team, two XV8 Crisis Battlesuits, and two XV88 Broadside Battlesuits I bought a few weeks ago.  I'd forgotten that there were two XV88s.  Since I already paid for them, that was a pleasant surprise of a reminder!

Assembly Line

I tried a little assembly-line painting last night, and either I'm doing it wrong or it just doesn't work that well with how fiddly Tau are.  The 5 additional helmets you see down there took me a good hour+ to complete and I don't really feel a sense of accomplishment for it.  I'd probably have rather spent the time getting a single model further along.  That said, I'm going to continue trying the assembly-line method for at least these 5 guys (burgers anyone?) and see if it picks up any when I'm painting something aside from helmets.  But I doubt it.

Hmmm...echelon formation doesn't really work with a macro lens.

Not Too Shabby

I got my first Fire Warrior to probably 75-85% complete.  I could spend forever trying to make him perfect, or I could move on to the other 23 waiting in line.  This guy will get a few more dabs of color here and there and a little bit of a Badab Black Wash in at least a few places, but I'm effectively done with him.

For reference, I'm trying for an effect that's an amalgamation of a Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper and Hikaru Ichijo's Skull 11 from Macross: Do You Remember Love?  I had the brilliant inspiration last night that I should do my (soon to be) 4 XV8 Crisis Battlesuits in Roy/Hikaru/Max/Milia colors.

The lines aren't particularly clean, but WTFever, it's my first one and I'm proud of it.

It kinda looks better in the pictures than in person; the blue and red kneepads and the green optics pop out much better due to the harshness of the flash.

Our model: Skull 11 VF-1 Valkyrie, piloted by one Chu-i Hikaru Ichijo.  Assuming I spelled his rank correctly.  I've got better (read: much more expensive) toy-versions in the attic, but this one is 3-year-old-proof.

And So It Begins

Painting.

Not sure I'll ever be good at it.  Not sure I'm patient enough to ever be passable at it.  Not sure whether or not I enjoy it.  Not ready to give up on it quite yet, though.

I did give up on trying to thin the paint with water on the big piece of tile on the left there.  I couldn't get get a good consistency, and it was drying out real fast.  (That turned out to be a problem in general; I eventually had to close the pot between each dip into it for more paint.)  What I wound up doing was simply wetting the brush, giving it a light dab on the paper towel, then getting some paint directly out of the pot and going at it.  I guess in theory I'm diluting the paint still in the pot by doing so, but whatever, it's such a miniscule amount of water.

This is a Fire Warrior that's been primed black and given a bit of an undercoat in Astronomican Grey (a Citadel Foundation), with an eventual topcoat to be done in white.  I need a brighter light to help with determining what's supposed to be an armor panel and what's cloth; I'm positive I missed some armor.  I'm kind of aiming for an Imperial Stormtrooper-esque look (white armor, black cloth/seams), which is not at all original.  Oh well.  I plan on gussying it up a bit with the colors from the Macross: Do You Remember Love? version of Hikaru Ichijo's VF-1 Valkyrie (the red one, not Fokker's yellow one; sorry for the random link, but those were the best images I could find quickly).  The eye-lenses will be green.

(I guess captions go below pictures.)  Ready to begin.  Hello, Shack!

Still getting used to this whole macro lens thing.  Need a flat-topped thingy to blu-tack the model onto.

Not sure what I'm going to do with the backpack.  I mean, god damn, the lines and dots there are tiny.

I'm undecided on whether or not to keep the seams on the helmet visible.

Don't know what I want to do with the gun.  Trying out a few patches of (what will eventually be) white in an asymmetrical pattern.

I am Fire Warrior.  Rawr.