They call themselves ....The Tau

The army so far

The Tau force above is the progress of Enza. As a newer additon to the hobby world they decided that they were less keen on the initial attempt they made at Fire Warriors based off of the blue/grey guys from the codex and having watched Tron Legacy decided that the shiny nature and high tech feel would lend themselves well to Tron style Tau.

Each section of force organisation has its own colour and you can see in the fire warriors and the Kroot that the troops are signified by an ice blue colour, the Kroot sporting it on the rifle bandages.

Elite choices sport a red colour for their markings and the Stealth team team displayed below usually seem to be the star performers in games they are involved with. They have even managed a couple of close combat wins but certainly not against my Dark Eldar Incubi, that was someone else honest.

Fast attack choices get a nice bright yellow which looks very strong on the drones that have been done so far. Both Vespid and Pathfinders are being looked at as a next addition and the yellow I'm sure will either look strong on a Devilfish and there is a lot of decision making going on for vespid skin colour to go with the yellow (current choice is the grey/blue and purple of the Daemon Prince skin)

This leaves us with Heavy support and my personal favourite model for the force, the Skyray. The tank has also had the rain gun and ion cannon painted to change to a Hammerhead. I love the way the engines have achieved their glow and earlier in the blog is a stage guide to how this was done. It has certainly been interesting to watch a newer hobbyist set their own ideas and make use of the How to paint book and the 'eavy metal masterclass book to gain ideas and thoughts on techniques.

The Tau have all been painted with the new Citadel colours and Enza was advised to make use of the glazes over the models to link and intensify the colours. What are people thoughts on this as it is one area that is still uncertain on.

The basing uses the texture paints and I think works well for the uniform look of the army. Next to add apart from the fast attack options is the HQ section but the purple attempted colour Enza isn't pleased with so anyone with tips for a nice bright purple that would work with the black give a comment with ideas.

Oh drat...

This month's achievements so far...buy and building (kinda).

• Painting - not even picked up a brush
• Playing - not rolled one dice
• Basing - not a chance

Oops...not too many days left to do anything about it.
Surely, there should be some dispensation for getting married, having a honeymoon and other such stuff??

- Enza -

Battle report Two - 3 players

Wednesday September 12th - 600 points - Tyranids (Wiggy) vs Black Consuls (SM - Phil) and Tau (D)

So here goes with the another battle report from the 'Tale of a Few.' We had decided to play the 'Battle Recon' mission from near the end of the main rulebook again as it is a nice straight forward mission for the smaller points value. I'm writing this way too long after the game so apologies for the lack of detail

The table was set up as shown




The Army

Black Consul - Codex Space Marines
Pedro Kantor
5 Sternguard - 2 combi-melta
10 Tactical Marines - Power sword, Flamer, Missile Launcher (one squad)

Tau
Commander - Plasma, cyclic and multi tracker
10 Fire warriors

Tyranids
Tyranid Prime - Pair Boneswords, Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
3 Tyranid Warriors - Scything Talons, Rending Claws
10 Termagants
10 Termagants
13 Hormagaunts - Toxin Sacs
6 Raveners - Rending claws

The armies were set up as shown. The Marine/Tau alliance set up first, the Tyranids then positioned as best they could with the Raveners in reserve as I wanted to threaten hi back field quickly. The Warlord traits rolled up gave the alliance something that wasn't used (can't think it) where as I rolled up conquer of cities which gave me stealth in ruins and move through cover in ruins too....very good for this game.

Turn 1
Tactical squad advanced towards wood, Kantor to the building and the Commander followed them. Fire Warriors hung back near the hill and as nothing was in range everything ran forwards a bit.
The Tyranid turn was equally easy as they all advanced forward towards the building nearest to them apart from a Gaunt group going upwards.

 Nothing - VP 0-0

Turn 2
Marines advance into the woods and roll it up as a 3+ cover save. Kantor and the Commander hug the building as they advance. The tactical squad open fire on the Warriors but cover saves keep them from being wounded. The Fire Warriors open up on the 'gaunts nearest them but again cover stops them. Tired of all these cover saves the Sternguard make use of the dragon fire shells to kill 3 Hormagaunts.
The unpainted Termagaunts hold the objective in the building nearest to them and the rest of the force advances, no Raveners show up.

Two objectives each- VP 4-4

Turn 3
Tactical advance to the front edge of the wood. Kantor holds ground to call down his orbital strike causing 2 wounds on the Warriors in the ruins, followed by 2 more wounds from the Tau commander. Fire Warriors open up on the Hormagaunts and focus on those in the open managing to kill 7 of them.
The Raveners appear and advance into the ruins near Kantor with the Hormagaunts jumping up behind them. The rest of the force advances.
Raveners kill 3 stergaurd through shooting but the Tyranid Warriors fail a huge 10 inch charge.

One objective alliance, Two objectives Tyranids- VP 2-4

Turn 4
Fire Warriors advance to try and bring themselves into rapid fire range, Sternguard only manage to stumble an inch towards the Raveners. The tactical squad open up on the Tyranid Warriors who go to ground and only suffer one wound (I've since found out that as Synapse creatures Warriors are fearless and therefore can't go to ground) The Fire warriors concentrate on the Raveners inflicting 4 wounds another wound is added from the commander but but rolls mean that no more are caused by the sternguard who were hoping to charge.
Raveners advance with the Hormagaunts, with the termagants closing range too. The Raveners leap onto the sternguard and kill the 2 remaining guys but loose 2 of their number to a wounded Kantor and are unfortunately out of synapse range so flee. The few hormagaunts charge the Fire Warriors and lose a couple on the way in to overwatch but win a much closer than expected combat and run down the survivors.

One objective alliance, Two objectives Tyranids- VP 2-4


The game stopped at this point due to time.

This month's achievement

Here they are....Commander and Stealth Suit Team (well two stealth suit teams)

I went for two small things to do so that I could actually achieve this whilst also getting ready for the wedding...now I best get back to doing that!!!

Photos aren't the best - I changed phones since my last post and it really is rubbish.  Never mind, maybe Wiggy will finally have some decent pictures now ;)

    

Excuses, excuses

Yes I've got loads as my friends will attest to. This time it's the wedding.

However, I've got my build and purchase points and played a game. Not sure if I'll find time to paint. Lots of printing, cutting, and gluing to do for the big day. Can that count? Don't think so.

The game was Tyranids vs Space Marines allied with Tau. We only managed to get to the end of turn four, but I can say I think Phil and I were losing. My love will post a battle report soon with my fabulous (or not) photos.

- Enza -

P.S. Naughty enjoyed the game too.

The results of a month's work...

Here they are...(no special computer effects added!  Just plain old phone camera with flash)

      

     

        

In terms of scoring....

• I have played one mini game about Mr Black Consul Man and won!  
• I've "built" all my purchases.  
• I have painted 2 separate entries on the force organisation chart
• ....so it's just bases to go.  I still have to think about that one.  Ages ago I was told that I HAD to base them so I got pebbles then eventually a textured paint from GW...however, I'm not sure how they look now compared to a Tron theme.  Need to decide before Friday though.  The pics above are just plain chaos black at the moment.

Right, I'm off.

- Enza -

Glowly goodness

Ok, so I have nearly finished the Hammerhead / Sky Ray...
Just got to decide if I want to base it and then decide on what I can paint fast before Friday so I can get the full two points for painting (even though it's over the monthly spend....apparently those are the rules!).

I spent a lot of time reading up how to do a glow effect and also speaking to the new manager in GW High Wycombe (hello Ben!).  In the end, I decided to take the engines on the Hammerhead and paint several coats of Ceramite White. [See pic to the right].

Not a bad job really.  It did take several coats but it does have fairly decent coverage.  I then used two blobs of Ceramite White and one blob of Warpstone Glow - the colour which I used for the highlight detail on the rest of the Hammerhead.  I then also added the Lahmian Medium.  Not sure exactly what it does but Ben suggested it and said the 'Eavy Metal team uses bucket loads of it - couldn't hurt.  I carefully painted this towards the middle, trying my best to still leave the deep recesses as white.  I want the glow to come from the engine so that darker colours will be further out and the whitest colour in the furthest in. [see right]

With the next layer I added just a touch more Warpstone Glow with Lahmian Medium and then I tried to make sure I didn't hit the edges to the back and sides.  I decided to do rectangles rather than circles like a traditional glow to try and keep the shape and glow natural.

The effect is what you see to the left. I have to say I am pretty pants at painting in neat lines...never was good at colouring in school either.  It does bug me as I am a perfectionist, but hey ho....what am I going to do!

I realised that this was perhaps a bit too dark from the first coat, so I decided to add a teenie tiny blob of white and more of the Lahmian Medium.  I then carefully repainted over the last coat plus a little bit more in-between the first colour and this last coat.  I think it gives a better effect. [see right]

Then following as before I simply kept adding small blobs of Warpstone Glow and Lahmian Medium gradually making smaller and smaller rectangles on the engines.

    

When I got to this point, I realised that the Warpstone Glow wouldn't give me enough darkness to put as the final point.  In all the glow effect bits and pieces, it usually says about using the smallest dab of white to really set it off.  As I am painting it backwards (i.e. light to dark), I thought I best do a dark spot too.  For this, I mixed a smidgen of Orkhide Shade and lots of Warpstone Glow with Lahmian Medium.  

This led to the final glow seen right here.

For my final thing, I wanted to use my glaze as I did across the rest of the Hammerhead - Waywatcher Green.  I think this is the final result.  Think...because I have to ask the other gamers what they think.

Anyway, enough from me.

- Enza - 

The end is nigh...

Well it is for the first month...I don't think many of us will be collecting the points for painting. It seems that there isn't enough time!

I have to admit that I'm not a very good hobbyist. I can go weeks without playing, building or painting and then it'll be a feverish week where I want to get some troops painted. So I'm finding it tough to consistently do it week to week.  

I already have some Tau but the large majority isn't painted so that's my main focus.  I decided to go for an "easy" colour scheme by using a Tron-like idea.  Below are some pics of what I've accomplished so far.  

Fire Warriors and Kroot

Marker drones, Stealth suits, and Gun drones

Engines and bits of weaponry for Hammerhead / Sky Ray

This month's project is finishing this off!!!

Signing off for now
- Enza -

Anticipation

So tonight's the night....the first official meeting of the gamers...  What to expect??


New rule book, new codexs, new toys.  Lots to build and paint.  The rules for the tale of (currently) 4 gamers will be agreed later.  Anyway, I'm off to cook a yummy Thai for everyone before we start  :D  Exciting stuff!

- Enza -

P.S.  Tau rule!!  At least for now....I plan to go slightly spacium canis lupus next time round.