Finding a use for spare parts: DX-01 Autonomous Warrior Suit

[Marshal van Trapp]

So, when I first set out to rebuild my Tau Empire, i knew i wanted to do something along the lines of a set of "firewarrior" replacements, not just to make use of all those spare parts, but because I believe the tau, with their extensive knowledge of AI and the use of Engrams, would want to build Autonomous soldiers to keep their citizens safe.

 

To that end I have crafted the first prototype for just one such AI construct. May I present the WIP of my DX-01 Autonomous Warrior Suit:

 

 

Still want to sculpt on some very tau armor plates and perhaps clean up the neck joint a bit. Also I plan to attach a pulse blaster to that marker drone part to make him a proper breached. The Skitarri legs were just begging to be used for something like this!

 

The idea behind these guys is they are Firewarrior sized battlesuits piloted not by the firecaste, but by engrams of fire warriors (I have some fluff I'll share eventually once it's all finished)

[Brother Dallo]

That's a really cool idea.

 

Are you planning on using these guys as a Kill Team or a full blown 40k army?

 

Dallo

[Panzer]

So you kinda re-invented the wheel by re-creating what's pretty much a Gun Drone lol

[Doghouse]

I think this would be a really good theme for radical Earth Caste members. 

[Emicus]

You do you :)

 

But I'm with Panzer on this, they've already made drones. Perhaps spare parts could make 'ramshackle' drones? Stranded tau, an earth caste guy with too much junk, too much time and not enough friends.. And sounds in the night?

 

Surely strapping bits together works.. Grav here.. Sensor here.. Gun here... Tau version of tape and wire.. Aint pretty but soon he won't be afraid at night anymore!

 

For the greater good!

[Marshal van Trapp]

So the idea is these are more advanced AI than drones, more akin to Ob'lotai 9-0 than a typical gun drone. These are supposed to be prototypes, rushed out for field testing by a small breakaway faction of bork'an engineers whose ideas for creating a race of machine men to replace firewarriors.

These particular Earth Caste engineers stumbled upon skitarii, more machine then man, and thought if the imperium could create a programmable man-machine, why couldn't the tau use engrams to create what amounts to soldiers who are robotic clones?

[Mendi Warrior]

It is a cool idea. If you have old sprues of tau warriors you probably have lots of extra legs remaining (iirc 5 pair of legs and only 4 torsos per sprue). I think they might be a good fit as well. I like the shoulder pad used as back torso, wondering how good this would fit on the front, inverted (if the back is 6 then the front would be 9, profile view).

[Marshal van Trapp]

i can see that the head looks a bit out of place, i saw the bit and thought it would look good but it us just way too massive. playing around with a breacher head on it now, although im not too certain on whether i actually like that look or not... The extra shoulder pad on the front totally makes it look better, although at this venture im starting to question whether i should have just stuck a modified pulse blaster on a drone and called it a day...

 

as for the legs, i do plan yo sculpt some firewarrior stlye armor onto the thighs and backside, which honestly would be the same as just cutting off the firewarrior feet and replacing them with the skitarii ones no?

 

this is the current state of it, looking better but still not quite there...

 

At this point I may cut the sensor suite off the marker drone part to use as a head, give it some spare guardsman/skitarri torsos, and just slap regular Breacher arms on them, would look sufficiently techy without looking too too much like a bunch of spare parts slapped together

[Mendi Warrior]

I liked the head but you are right, it was a tad too big. The breacher head is kind of more "regular". I see your point in being unsure about it.

 

For the extra shoulder pad on the front have you tried putting it upside down? The part protecting the neck on the back would protect its crotch.

 

The right arm with the weapon seems smaller than the left arm, if this were my miniature I probably would try to make it bulkier. Double-barreled gun? I would also try to have it a bit higher than it is now.

 

I am thinking maybe targeting a bulkier model might be the answer. But then the legs would look a bit skinny, adding armour plates like the one on the fire warriors legs or XV-8 suits would help bulk them up but do you need the skitarii legs then?

 

What I do when I can't find a direct answer or inspiration is to put the model aside for a couple of hours or days, revisiting it regularly while looking at pics on the web, in the books and on bits websites (without limitations).

[Marshal van Trapp]

That what I've been doing, fiddled with it last night after some feedback but I'm going to set it aside for now, I think I might do a test fit of the skitarii body/legs with the FW arms and the marker drone sensor head. If that looks good to me I'll more than likely find something to tau up the skitarii body and remove the big Cape/cloak pieces.

[MithrilForge]

Well Apart from other naysayers about reinventing the wheel etc   i think it's an awesome idea   these are your models and if you want to make an "Advanced Drone" then go for it !!

 

your core idea is great but i guess as you experiment with parts and fine tune it'll all come together  

 

if the breacher head didn't work i was going to suggest the ad mech dome heads from the sicarian infiltrators... ?  and also the sicarians arm joints might help with attaching the rifles/weapos to the torso perhaps?

 

Good luck and i can't wait to see what else comes from your earth caste workshop  

 

Cheers, Mithril 

[Bryan Blaire]

As strange as it may seem, you could also consider just using a drone top for the "helmet" on these guys. You could always justify it as an Earth Caste retro-fit for a unit that was far from the ability to build the needed anti-grav stuff (maybe a 4th Sphere Expansion Sept?).

[MithrilForge]

As strange as it may seem, you could also consider just using a drone top for the "helmet" on these guys. 

 

How Japanese themed would that look eh   "Ronin" Class weaponized Bipedal drones! 

 

Cheers, Mithril

[Marshal van Trapp]

so i picked up some blue tack to help with the building process to allow me to test ideas without needed to commit to gluing them together.

 

started working on a new iteration and decided to ditch the weird "drone core" body for now, looking at using the skitarii bodies and honestly i am really liking the look of them, gives them a strange mysterious vibe to them:

 

not sure what to do about the left arms yet, what do you guys think?

[MithrilForge]

cool stuff but have you tried putting the 2 drone guns on the arm sockets  ....

 

Mithril

[Marshal van Trapp]

Not yet, but seeing as I'm trying to use them as Breachers I dont want them to have 2 guns

[Mendi Warrior]

Looks cool. I would maybe replace the Mechanicum symbol on the chest with the Tau one.

[Marshal van Trapp]

Looks cool. I would maybe replace the Mechanicum symbol on the chest with the Tau one.

That was actually the plan, going to carve the mechanicus cog off and put a spare tau empire symbol from the battlesuit antenna in its place

[Marshal van Trapp]

Finally wrote up the little fluff for explaining why these dudes were created (still not fully fleshed out but it's good enough to give you guys an idea)

 

An earth caste engineer was tasked with finding a way to replenish heavy losses with the technology at hand. After creating several successful drone variants, he found the housings required to sustain the anti grav flying was just too bulky to fit into the local typical firewarriors needed to go. He then set about creating bipedal automatons but the programming to teach them to walk and move as firewarriors did was just not feesable, so he found a way to incorporate Engrams into the drones to effectively make "clones" of a firewarrior shas'ui with synthetic bodies (think the clones from Star Wars mixed with the synthetic drone bodies).

Once the ethereal overseeing the project got wind of these creations, he wanted to see what they could do and ordered them into field testing immediately. Of the 10 prototypes created, all of them performed remarkably, the firewarriors whom adopted them into their squads affectionately named them kor'shas. However each of the 10 began developing their own unique personality, a "defect" that the Aun wanted stamped out. He ordered the earth caste engineer to wipe their personality and just create programmable slaves. This obviously angered both the engineer as well as the firewarriors whom now shared a bond with this kor'shas. And they refused to continue on the project under such conditions.

As such, the Aun in charge shut the project down, ordering the prototypes destroyed along with any research and designs the Fio had created. Instead of following their orders, the firewarrios, engineer, and prototypes disappeared after raising the workshop.

The official announcement was that a prototype weapon had malfunctioned and destroyed the workshop, killing the engineer who was working on it, but the Aun knew the truth. The engineer had sabotaged his research station to overload and cover his tracks, he and the few warriors loyal to him had fled to find a new home to hope to create something that could save the tau empire from the considerable casualties they were sure to continue suffering in their ill attempts to spread their empire.

 

After several years of hopping around they eventually ended up in the damocles gulf and were discovered by none other than commander farsight himself. After seeing the merit in these Kor'shas what they could mean for reinforcing his considerably small forces he gladly extended his welcome for these tempest tossed warriors and their brilliant creator. The engineer had finally found a home and he would continue working on what he believed to be the best way to save the tau from themselves.

[Mendi Warrior]

Sounds perfect, very nice project. I have the feeling that once you are fully satisfied with the design we'll see several of these 

[Bryan Blaire]

I’ll be honest, the coat material isn’t something I’d think would be seen on an advanced drone for the Tau. It just seems out of place to me, the use of the fabric seems somewhat frivolous even on a Tau AI unit. Have you considered simply using the abdomen of a Fire Warrior on the Skitarii legs?

 

Interested to see where you will end up taking this.

[Marshal van Trapp]

I’ll be honest, the coat material isn’t something I’d think would be seen on an advanced drone for the Tau. It just seems out of place to me, the use of the fabric seems somewhat frivolous even on a Tau AI unit. Have you considered simply using the abdomen of a Fire Warrior on the Skitarii legs?

 

Interested to see where you will end up taking this.

While I can agree with the idea of "why would the tau design a drone with a cloak?" I use the term prototype not as "this is the first iteration the tau made" but as "this is my first iteration of the final design"

 

The cloak will be tattered up a bit and look rugged. This "drone", which by my fluff is more of a synthetic clone than an advanced AI drone, used the cloak because it personally wanted the cloak. The fluff idea of these drones will be that they started off as fairly obedient servants, but as time went on they developed their own personality and diverged from the general teaching of the ethereal, hence why they ended up in a "splinter faction" allying itself with the FSE