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KY'VASH RECON CADRE HAMMERHEAD & SKYRAY GUNSHIPS TX7 'Hammerhead' & TX78 'Skyray' Gunships While the propaganda arms of both the Imperium of Man and T'au Empire focus largely on the ever-expanding Battlesuit variants, in many theatres the core of T'au armour is instead made up of Devilfish-hulled hover-tanks such as the Hammerhead and Skyray, the former a dedicated tank-hunter, the latter a more general-purpose artillery platform. Marked with the same camo pattern as the rest of the Recon Cadre, the armoured vehicles of Ky'Vash are primarily ambush predators, hull-down and electronically baffled from auspex. Fiendishly effective main weapons are supported by a series of anti-infantry weapons driven by integrated drone systems, or manually operated by the secondary pilot. The minor technological limitations of the Sept have done little to reduce the combat effectiveness of these platforms, which has earned them a fearsome reputation among their foes within the volume. I've actually already painted a Hammerhead for this army, but these two are new! Well... Kinda new. Picked up assembled and base coated, these second-hand hulls needed quite a bit of work to get them ready, but the end result is adequate, I think, even if I do still need to futz around with the drones, all four of which were snapped apart when I got them. Also, I wasn't able to magnetise them the same way my other tanks have been, but that's OK! Because they were less than half the cost of getting the tanks otherwise. One does what one can. Now that I've finished with my Call to Arms for 2025 - more on that latter - I'm getting back into both painting things other than space marines AND updating my blog! Yay! Watch this space.

2024 - YEAR IN REVIEW KY'VASH RECON CADRE A whole lot of Tau. So, my first Call to Arms was productive! Pictured here are all the Tau I painted in 2024, all but the pathfinders and sniper teams being painted during CtA 2024. That's 1,550 points, and 63 models, including the first tanks I've painted since returning to the hobby in 2020. I'm quite happy with them. While most of these models have shown up on the B&C either elsewhere in my blog or on the CtA, I've pulled out a few that photographed nicely when I got them all out. Shas'El Ay'Va and her Breachers. Tabletop gaming is about infantry. Much about with tanks and walkers if you must - I've done a little - but it always comes back to some poor, doomed idiots with rifles. This army was designed infantry first, with a scheme I wanted to see on Pathfinders and Fire Warriors, which was later adapted for the bigger guns. 20 fire warriors, 10 pathfinders, three characters, and three sniper teams, and I think they look pretty OK. Painting Tau faces is interesting, though I've not entirely sold on doing their eyes in white. Shas'Els Ay'Va and Yr'Anto. Not a lot of conversion in this army. It was more about the scheme, but ultimately, I am a creature of habit, and that habit is kitbashing. It's mostly been kept to these two, and the snipers, at least for now. I have plans for some weird battlesuits some time in the future, but for now it's these 5. The big guns. Battlesuits and tanks. As fun as it would have been to just rattle off endless waves of pulse-rifle infantry I did want to try out something new. Shas'O Vioraan with his nifty little drone shield, and all the magnets I could find to future-proof these idiots for when they bring back points costs. Wahey. That Hammerhead was fun, too, and put in some WORK in the first game of our 2025 Crusade, of which I'll be posting soon. The camo pattern isn't QUITE as effective on the suits, but it works OK. I do like how the yellow pops on the missile racks and other weapons. I'm quite proud of how these all came together, and have already painted a pair of new models - tokens, but extra ones - in 2025!