_Saracen defects to the Farsight Enclaves

[_Saracen]

Been getting back into the hobby after basically being absent all of 9th Edition and the tail end of 8th. I've played several games, one with my Admech and the rest with my Grey Knights, and I was left feeling a little wary to continue playing either of those factions in their current state. Admech feels like nothing works well together and I don't seem to be a good enough player to make the Grey Knight teleport shenanigans work, so I have been tossing around a few ideas for a new faction to bring to 10th edition games and I finally settled on the Tau!

Also, one reason I  picked Tau was because I like kitbashing / converting a lot. The idea of having lots of auxiliaries mixed in to my Tau force is exciting and I'm especially looking forward to making heavy use of Gue'Vesa infantry. I digitally smashed together some arm and weapon files I own to put together a few different Earth Caste experimental Heavy Pulse Carbines for the slightly beefier humans to lug around in their service to the Enclaves as Breachers. Along side them are my first attempts at painting the FSE color scheme.
 

[Orion]

The red is looking really good! Make sure you get a Devilfish and paint it up like that  

[Pearson73]

Aye you've got the colour down nicely. Cool plan for the bashes and mixed force.

[_Saracen]

Thanks! And I am definitely going to have to get a few Devilfish before this is done. I've been trying hard to get the deep, more-purple red that some of the art shows. I've never been very good at highlighting but I've been working a lot at it and it seems to be working pretty well using pink for the sharp edges. I haven't been brave enough to do a partial step up for the lines yet, though

 

Nearly done with my first squad of Crisis suits. They're a lot harder to paint than I expected. I assumed they'd sort of feel like vehicles but they really feel like much much more complicated troops that take longer to coat. 

[Evil Eye]

Lovely red, and those Crisis suits are looking fantastic! I really like the guns on them.

[_Saracen]

Thanks! I really am happy with how the red has been turning out.

 

I'm trying to take my time and get things right with this army, so not a whole lot of updates to share of fully 'completed' models. I do want to be in the habit of working on this regularly, though, so here is what I've been doing this last week:

 

I have mostly finished working on my pathfinders squad. Its been rough trying to work on them because I keep coming back to them and feeling like I don't have more to do, but they still feel totally unfinished.

 

 

I started the base coats on two HQ's: An alt sculpt of a Cadre Fireblade and a commander I built with an Onager gauntlet I found on Cults.

 

I also spent some time figuring out my basing scheme, which is going to be a sort of arid, yellowy-brown ground with tufts and rocks.

Edited October 16, 2023 by _Saracen

[_Saracen]

No new painted models to share, but I did get a 1000 game in against our very own Tyriks. I put the list at the end of the post. Didn't records all the objectives unfortunately but still wanted to give a recap to keep my motivation up to continue working on my army.

 

Battle Recap

We pulled opposing corners deployment and he deployed his army behind a large ruin. He had a large block of 20 warriors with an overlord attached and a Reanimator in support, a block of 3 Heavy Destroyers with a destroyer lord,  10 Tesla immortals,  a canoptek tomb sentinel, and a small unit of scarabs.

 

I tried to use my Kroot's scout move to make a break for a no mans land objective but got caught in the open before they made cover and all but 2 were felled along with one of their faithful hounds by a blistering volley of gauss fire from his warrior block. My only other loss was one Broadside that fell to fire from the three Heavy Destroyers hiding in some ruins. On my turn, my commander and his retinue of battlesuits advanced forward and managed to decimate the entire unit of warriors and put a few wounds onto the attached Warlord. The retinue then used Strike and Fade to dash out of range of his Immortals. The remaining broadside struck true with his rail rifle and took down his Reanimator. The few remaining kroot auxiliaries charged the Tomb Sentinel that had slithered onto the objective that they were moving towards and scratched the paint while making it onto the objective with their charge move. 

 

His next turn, his heavy destroyers killed the remaining broadside while his immortals moved up into range of my pathfinders and managed to get more hits from Sustained Hits going off than he rolled initially. This cleared out the pathfinders, leaving me only with my strike squad moving towards the other no mans land objective in the opposite quadrant from where the kroot continued their scrap with the Tomb sentinel (who whittled the auxiliary forces down to three hounds), a single broadside, and my commander and his retinue. The heavy destroyers aimed for the remaining broadside and took him off of my home objective with a brutal volley. 

 

In my turn, the retinue again jumped forward into the center and laid his Heavy Destroyers and their Destroyer Lord low with another massive pile of dice, with only one taking wounds from their Hazardous arms. The strike squad hightailed it back to my objective and killed an immortal or two from afar after providing my Crisis suits and their leader with observation assistance. In a final attempt to eek out a little more advantage, my retinue charged his overlord near the central objective and gave me my first taste of true Tau close combat, yielding, of course, no real damage.

 

On his third turn, he moved his immortals forward and attempted to kill off my strike squad but only managed to kill 4, prompting us to agree to end the battle. 

 

Concluding Thoughts

I was pleased to see the Crisis suits were as effective as I hoped, though I did feel a bit bad about how much mobile firepower they brought in a 1000 point match. We usually try to keep things from being too min-maxy and so I may bring just three suits next time. I really like Kroot but I can't really see a whole lot of use for them without bringing either very few to sit on back field objectives or lots of carnivores and Krootox riders to throw a lot of bodies at an assaulting army. Kroot Hounds feel like they don't really have any role except for maybe being annoying or giving a 30 point unit to fill out a list.

 

 

T’au Empire

Incursion (1000 points)

Kauyon

 

CHARACTERS

 

Cadre Fireblade (40 points)

  • 1x Close combat weapon

    1x Fireblade pulse rifle

 

Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit (125 points)

  • Warlord

  • 1x Battlesuit fists

    2x Cyclic ion blaster

    1x Missile pod

    1x Shield Generator

  • Enhancement: Exemplar of the Kauyon

 

Kroot Shaper (40 points)

  • 1x Kroot rifle

    1x Shaper’s ritual blade

 

BATTLELINE

 

Strike Team (80 points)

  • 1x Support turret missile system

  • 1x Fire Warrior Shas’ui

    • 1x Close combat weapon

      1x Guardian Drone

      1x Gun Drone

      1x Pulse pistol

      1x Pulse rifle

  • 9x Fire Warrior

    • 9x Close combat weapon

      9x Pulse pistol

      9x Pulse rifle

 

OTHER DATASHEETS

 

Broadside Battlesuits (180 points)

  • 1x Broadside Shas’vre

    • 1x Crushing bulk

      1x Heavy rail rifle

      1x Twin Plasma Rifle

      1x Seeker Missile

  • 1x Broadside Shas’ui

    • 1x Crushing bulk

      1x Heavy rail rifle

      2x Shield Drone

      1x Seeker Missile

      1x Twin Plasma Rifle

 

Crisis Battlesuits (360 points)

  • 1x Crisis Shas’vre

    • 1x Battlesuit fists

      2x Cyclic ion blaster

      1x Missile pod

      2x Shield Drone

      1x Shield Generator

  • 5x Crisis Shas’ui

    • 5x Battlesuit fists

      10x Cyclic ion blaster

      5x Missile pod

      10x Shield Drone

      5x Shield Generator

 

Kroot Carnivores (55 points)

  • 10x Kroot Carnivore

    • 10x Kroot rifle

 

Kroot Hounds (30 points)

  • 4x Kroot Hound

    • 4x Ripping fangs

 

Pathfinder Team (90 points)

  • 1x Pathfinder Shas’ui

    • 1x Close combat weapon

      1x Gun Drone

      1x Marker Drone

      1x Pulse carbine

      1x Pulse pistol

      1x Recon Drone

      1x Semi-automatic grenade launcher

  • 9x Pathfinder

    • 9x Close combat weapon

      6x Pulse carbine

      9x Pulse pistol

      3x Rail rifle

 

The Final Melee

Edited October 22, 2023 by _Saracen

[Tyriks]

I just needed to put more thought into my list. I've just been grabbing cool looking stuff off the shelf until I hit the points limit, which I gotta quit doing

 

[_Saracen]

Gearing up for another 1000 point game and I wanted to try more infantry, so I've been slowly working on two squads of breachers, my converted Cadians and their true blue Tau brothers. They are still in the early stages but I did make some good progress on my Gue'Vesa's Fireblade. Thought it would be fun to use Minka Lesk since she has a blade and the conversion would be straightforward. The rock also helps her stand out a bit more alongside the Cadian based Gue'Vesa.

Edited October 30, 2023 by _Saracen

[_Saracen]

Nearing completion on multiple units. Just have mistakes to fix up on a couple and some details on the carnivores to flesh out a bit more. I was putting off doing the basing work but a spilled pot of Snakebite Leather forced my brush! (The Ghostkeel is just there because I also based that because of the spill.)

 

 

I recently got one of those little pocket airbrush compressors from Amazon that a few YouTubers have been playing with and it actually ended up working pretty well for base coats. I ran out of battery before I could do more and then got distracted, but here are two hover tanks that I airbrushed.

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by _Saracen

[_Saracen]

Realized I hadn't updated with the "Finished" state for some of the units and with all the still unpainted stuff sitting on my desk I was feeling a bit overwhelmed so I decided to post the army so far to help with feeling like I'm actually making some headway.

 

 

So far it is as follows:

2 Fireblades

1 Kroot Shaper

10 Gue'Vesa Breachers

10 Pathfinders with Rail Rifles

20 Kroot Carnivores

8 Kroot Hounds

1 Krootox Rider

3 Crisis suits with 2x Cyclic Ion Blasters, Shield Generator, and Missile Pod

 

Feels like a lot of work for only around 650 points but I'm pretty proud of the product so far! 

[Kythnos]

It's really shaping up into a pretty cool looking army. Keep it up!

[_Saracen]

I seem to have a knack for painting units that I won't likely use in competitive lists, but progress is progress! Got rolling on these broadsides after I spent an annoying amount of time trying to figure out how to paint the rocket arms with the leader. Decided to just keep going and finish the other two. They're not "done done" but I'm going to save the highlighting until I get a few more suits to do

[_Saracen]

More slow progress. Adding the first of my three stealth teams: 

This squad is kitted out with all burst cannons but I probably will paint up some fusion blaster suits to swap in when I feel like it. Fusion, like Melta, seems like it got short changed in the edition update so I've been opting for volume of fire.

 

Next on the painting block are more breachers and my two Devilfish, the first of which is below. Any feedback on the white and other markings would be appreciated 

[Focslain]

Looking good man.

 

On the fusion blasters, having at least one in the squad isn't a bad idea. Gives you a nice hard hit for the tougher infantry or light vehicles. 

[_Saracen]

Next set of troops and suits done. I pledged these for this month and so they got bumped up ahead of my transports and stealth suits. 

 

These three Crisis suits fill out one full squad with 2x CIB, Missile Pod, and Shield generator. Crisis suits are just plain mean in the index and I've been doing my best not to rely on them too much, but I am glad I can field a full squad now. Up until now, my group has been playing 1K points a lot and 6 with the Cyclic Ion Blasters at that point level is basically a license to make the game not very fun for your opponent starting turn 1. 

 

I'm happy to finally have two units of regular fire warriors to field as well. I think I need to work more at using them for overwatch in the mid field. Sit them on an objective and then make any unit that moves towards them pay the price with 4+ Overwatch in the movement phase.

 

 

[Pearson73]

Love that Lesk conversion, she fits right in! Great seeing such smooth painting across the whole force, the red and white are really nicely done.

[The Pounder]

These look great @_Saracen! 
 

Always had a soft spot for Farsight Enclaves but I hate painting red!

[Focslain]

On 1/13/2024 at 11:41 AM, _Saracen said:

Next set of troops and suits done. I pledged these for this month and so they got bumped up ahead of my transports and stealth suits. 

 

These three Crisis suits fill out one full squad with 2x CIB, Missile Pod, and Shield generator. Crisis suits are just plain mean in the index and I've been doing my best not to rely on them too much, but I am glad I can field a full squad now. Up until now, my group has been playing 1K points a lot and 6 with the Cyclic Ion Blasters at that point level is basically a license to make the game not very fun for your opponent starting turn 1. 

 

I'm happy to finally have two units of regular fire warriors to field as well. I think I need to work more at using them for overwatch in the mid field. Sit them on an objective and then make any unit that moves towards them pay the price with 4+ Overwatch in the movement phase.

 Army looks good, also I use 2 strike teams in my 1K. One lead by a fireblade for the extra shots and the other by an ethereal for some extra durability.

You got a good force there. 

[MithrilForge]

WoW , Glad i found this topic, Your stuff looks great, love Farsight enclave 

I really dig your Gue'Vesa and Minka Lensk (sp?) never looked better .

All Those suits and Vehicles look awesome.

 

Cheers, M