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  I'm not sure they make these any more, as they've been superseded by the XV25 (though GW's site still lists the XV15 for sale).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.

Model T is for Tau

Fairly productive modelling week.  Not quite as productive as I'd hoped to be, but better than some weeks I've had.  Throwing together some XV8 Deathrain variants and additional XV88s (to be used in future 1,000 point battles vs. amrbean as well as the upcoming escalation league at one of the local comic/game stores) and a Sniper Drone Team because A) Sniper Drones look awesome despite being fucky metal minis and 2) I need more AP3 shots to punch through that god damn SM 3+ armor save.

SDTs are a waste of a Heavy Support slot in "real" army lists, but for only 240 points I can get nine STR7 AP3 shots at BS3 (BS4 if the drone controller hits with his networked markerlight) and only use a single Heavy Support choice.  That's good heavy infantry killing right there and in a pinch workable as anti-light armor.  Plus, I mean, they look awesome.

The SDT even comes with Stealth Field Generators.  See?  Hard to get a solid lock on 'em, right?

Why not post more pics?  Doesn't cost me anything ('cept sleep).

Please ignore the hokey right stabilizer fin on the central drone there.  A kustom modela I ain't, and that's just a piece of sprue I attacked with an Xacto and a butane grill/candle-lighter.  Games Workshop sent me a whole replacement SDT box, but this is the original kit.

I'm hoping that an eventual Codex refresh does something to make SDTs a better competitive choice, because, I mean, look at them.  They're badass!

'Eavy Metal

Working with metal models fucking sucks.  Getting the aerials to stay in place while the glue set was a several-minute-long, hand-cramping affair with plenty of do-overs and glued fingers and cursing.

Obviously this is the the Sniper Drone Team that was missing one of the stabilizer fins.  The replacement box actually arrived yesterday (with all parts!) but I didn't feel like snipping and trimming last night.  The rail rifle + stabilizer setup on the right is the one that was missing a stabilizer (duh?).  I wound up taking a piece of sprue, trimming it a bit too much (it's shorter than it should be), heating it with a butane handheld grill-lighter/firestarter thing, and bending it into almost the right angle.  It doesn't look good, but after it's primed it shouldn't look terribly godawful, either.