Fi'o Brightstar's Purifiers Cadre - WiP Tau hobby log

[Marshal van Trapp]

So a while ago I decided to get to work building up a tau force and I've finally gotten to the painting stages so I figured it was finally time to start showing them off.

 

First up I have the test scheme for my FSE vanguard detachment in the form of stealthsuits:

 

This is just a single coat of Blood Angel Red (the contrast paint) over a Krylon flat grey primer and honestly I think it looks phenomenal! I'm going to go back and drybrush over the entire area with a brighter red then paint the guns black and paint in details.

 

Eventually these guys will be joined by a 6 man crisis team, a ghostkeel and a fusion coldstar to makeup the vanguard.

 

Next up I have the stock troopers that makeup my army, the humble firewarrior:

These guys are also all contrast, a coat of apothecary white on the armor, SW grey on the fatigues, black on the guns and tallisar blue for the skin, although I did go back and put a second coat of apothecary white over the entire model to get the white a bit more cohesive it looks good to me and for a battle ready army.

 

That said the bulk of my army is going to be a T'au sept force and I made the mistake of painting their armor white when their sept marking is also white, so should I make their sept marking the traditional tau brown/orange or something else entirely?

 

Things still on my table in my to paint log:

 

-pathfinders

-Crisis suits

-Ghostkeel

-2 commanders

-ethreal on hover drone

-3 broadsides

-like 40 drones

[Bryan Blaire]

If you are going by the lore, then they would just have white armor for the environment with white sept markings - the inverted color markings denote a higher level in the Fire caste that Fire Warriors wouldn't attain.

 

That said, they are your models, and personally I would always do what makes you think they are more interesting and damn the fluff - you are going to spend a lot more time with them than any opponent, GW employee, or fluff/continuity author is going to, so do what makes you happy!

[Marshal van Trapp]

I was actually thinking about that, if I make their one off colored panel the traditional tau brown I think that could work for doing a white sept marking, otherwise it'll be really hard to paint the white markings on what is mostly a white surface

[Marshal van Trapp]

alrighty, the first part of my vow for ETL VII is done (until I go back to base them at least)

 

First up are my firewarriors:

I usually run them as 8 man teams but I've been trying out 5 mans now so I may try giving that a go now.

As for painting, I'm going to probably do one of the shoulder pad panels on each firewarrior in tau ochre to tie them all together in the tau sept scheme.

 

Next up my pathfinder team:

I think I'm going to go back and paint their one shoulder pad as the tau ochre color along with the odd panels on the fire warriors

 

And finally my FSE stealth suits are mostly done:

stealth suits actually need their stealth field effects but I'm going to do that at the same time as the basing to keep it consistent

 

As of right now these 4 squads are "done" up to my standard, considering my very limited time i was worried i was going to fail my ETL vow again this year but by the greater good contrast paints make this SOOOO much easier!

 

C&c is welcome as usual

[Marshal van Trapp]

Incoming, tau ethereal drone:



I feel that tau should NOT be putting their most important individuals in harm's way, as such I decided a drone projecting an image of the leading ethereal was more fitting. Not sure how well the "hologram" effect came out but it looks good enough for me!

[Marshal van Trapp]

Got one of my 3 broadsides done for ETL VII, should have the others done soon hopefully:
 

 

tried out some chipping/battlewear on this suit, i think it came out ok, i prefer the green plasma look to the traditional blue so i went with hexwraith to make a nice glowy effect and damn is it good! Even has some accidental OSL on the collar around the head cause i was messing painting the eye haha