My Tau themed IG Army

[Ubik_Lives]

Well, after battling with my old digital camera, I've finally worked out how to get it to take some decent pictures of the guys I am working on, although the picture quality does leave a little to be desired.

The theme for my army can be found in the following link. Nothing has really changed from that list, although I am thinking of replacing the Hellhound with a couple of Rhinos for the grenade launcher stormtroopers.
Link to my list

So now onto the models. Most of the Spyre suits aren't being changed. I figure they look good the way they are, and haven't come up with any ideas for how to make them better (These are their models on the GW online store: Here. The only one I wasn't happy with was the Patriach. He's basically my commander, so I want him to look good, and the fatman, kneeless, woodstove look of the current model just didn't do it for me. I'm no master converter, but I think I've managed to come out with a decent replacement.
Frontish View
Front View
Side View
Rear View

The deep striking Stormtroopers were fairly simple conversions. Grav chutes, elbow pad, and a Tau sholder pad. Nothing that special.
A couple of them

The Grenadiers were a little bit more complex. Tau sholder and leg pads, elbow and knee pads, a reworked gun, and some Forgeworld parts didn't make for easy or quick conversions. Still, I think they turned out well. It probably would have been cheaper to just use Karskins like for the other Stormtroopers, but they were originally guys with carapace armour.
A few of them

My combat medics were fairly simple. Three of them are just standard models that haven't been changed (bar removing Imperial icons). There are a couple of medic drones, that were just drones with Wraith arms, and some doodads for the Apothecary's backpack.
Group Photo

And everyone needs a heroic squad to kill that vital squad and capture that object just before the game ends. Unfortuantly, it's not this squad because their transport keeps getting blown up in my own deployment zone. But if that didn't happen, then maybe that would be this squad. Their weapons are modelled after the SAS weapons in Battlefield 2: Special Forces. I was playing that game a little too much when I started making these guys.
Anti-tank, Assault, and Special Forces
Support and Engineer
Medic and Sniper

And their ride is mostly complete. It needs some doodads and for the edges to be smoothed out, but it's basically done. I'll make two more up for the other two Chimeras.
Side Shot
Frontish Shot
Down the barrel shot

Well that's all I've done now. Unless I can think up some more conversions, or some for the Spyre suits, the infantry are almost done. I haven't started on the tanks yet, and am thinking up ways to make the Rhinos look modern. I'll have to start painting them up soon...can't put that off forever.

Feedback and ideas are very welcome!

[Dawn of the Dogs]

i like your BF2 inspired troops, the DAO-12 guy looks awesome!

[scrubout]

Please explain how you made the chimera turret. As much as I like my predator turret switches on my own two chimera, I can't help but feel they are a little too cliche and unfluffy to an extent...Just looking for new chimera turret methods that's all! Thanks.

It all looks wicked awesome too.

-peace out
scrubout

[firestorm40k]

Excellent! Really digging these conversions, especially how you've altered the Lasguns to make them look more like Assault Rifles. Cool stuff!

[Ubik_Lives]

Thanks for the comments guys. As for the chimera turret, that's a bit of a cheat. It's a combination of a predator turret (for the gun and hatch) and a Kitech 1/48 Bradley. The kit is pretty cheap but hard to find. Your best bet is eBay.

Once you have it, it takes a little cutting to get the gun in, and some green stuff work to fill in gaps, but it look fairly good for a four dollar tank.

[Inquisitor Konig]

i really love all converted guard armies. yours looks great and i cant waite to see some painted models!

[Epoch]

Ha, I love the bf2 guard. Awesome.

[Warboss Garfang]

The Bradley turreted Chimera is really good, combines the 40k universe and a current tank design quite nicely.

Also a big fan of most of your guns, although it does look like some of your greenstuff can be cleaned up, that's just nitpicking.

[asmodai_dark86]

I dont like the tank, but the rest...

I dont know. I really dont. I'll wait till i've seen a few more, then decide whether Ill wait to see them painted instead

[Ubik_Lives]

Well, I didn't get as much free time as I would have liked this week, but I have painted a quick tester model. I'm a little unsure about the paint scheme...any ideas to improve it would be appreciated.

Front
Side
Other Side
Rear

[El Jefe]

Needs a little bit of highlighting on the armour and helmet if you ask me. The respirator needs a bit more shading as well, to bring out the detail. Other than that, looks pretty good, the camo in particular is very simple yet effective. You might want to consider adding a third color to it, or perhaps changing the color of the gun, just to break things up a little.

[Ubik_Lives]

Well I'm not all that great at highlighting, but I'll give it a try. I think I'll do the guns in black as well. I'm going to do the special weapons in black so they'll blend in more this way.

[Serpine]

I'm extremely fond of your medic drones myself. Shame Tau don't have medics: I could just imagine one of those fussing around a Fire Warrior unit...

[Ubik_Lives]

Well, I'm not sure if many people are still following how I'm going, but one more post for luck.

My first Grenadiers squad is now painted up, bar the Spyre's face. I need some pink paint rather than trying to make some out of red and white.

The Squad
Another Squad Pic
Special Weapons and Spyre
Regular Troopers

[Ubik_Lives]

I know this thread died out a while back, but I thought I'd drag it back up for those few people who did comment. I've actually finished my army now (barring a varnish), so I thought I'd show the changes that were made between now and then. I won't run you through each individual squad and model, because many look the same as they did then, only with bases. But here goes:



And here we see the new bases. I've gone for Epicast bases, with a mix of regular, urban, ash wastes, and a few cobblestone on certain squads.





Special weapons were redone to give them a more Tau feel to them. Most were pretty easy swaps, with the grenade launcher missile pods being the only ones that I really had to think about when designing the conversion.

[Darkseer]

That's given me a great idea.

fire warrior bodies with forgeworld gasmasked cadian heads.

[Ubik_Lives]

Now what would a Tau army be without some drones? I made up four of these energy stubber guys to tag along with the scout squads and deep strikers. They just count as a regular storm trooper, but I thought it would help with the Tau feel.



My big commander got an upgrade! Now sporting a larger helmet and arms, he's a bit more impressive on the battlefield. He should be a fairly large target for enemy characters, however I'm not sure if that's a good thing, since he's just a one wound Brother-Captain.
Side View
Rear View
Size Comparison with a regular trooper

[Ubik_Lives]

But wait I hear you say, if my commander is bigger, surely his parner in crime must be as well! After all the Inquisitor wasn't that big to start off with, and she was supposed to act as a diversionary character to the Brother-Captain who could actually kill things. Indeed she has!



She now sports Lightning Claws, Aritificer Armour, and has a Digital Weapon drone following her around. She's not quite as beefy as the Brother-Captain, but still looks fairly important. Also her nickname has changed from Ninja Chick to Samus. My Brother Captain is still Fatman though, in honour of the Patriach model he is based on.
Side View

[Ubik_Lives]

To people with 56k modems, I apologise. But the show must go on, and I'm a bit too lazy to go back to photobucket and redo these pictures. Anyway, once I'm done, that'll be it for this thread, barring any nice comments you want to write me. Considering it's taken me half a year to make this army, nice comments will be very much appreciated.

Now the scout squads were originally in Rhinos, which displaced the Hellhound and something I've forgotten. Ah yes, the Grey Knights. These were then replaced by a couple of Sharpshooting Anti-Tank Teams. They don't have carapace armour since they are essentially field artillery, and don't have the heavier gear or weapons that the regular troops get.




Again with some more drones to tie the army back to the whole Tau theme that apparently didn't come off very well the first time. They have some Lasgun Drones to ward off enemies, and Marker Drones to help with their aim. Also they have Railguns on Drone bases. I think people should get the Tau theme now.
Another Pic
And Another
One more

[Ubik_Lives]

Some may remember the Bradley that was being worked on before. Well they've been painted up.



It's no longer as visible that half of the Chimera is plasticard and greenstuff. Well, it is, but now it's under paint. People who didn't like the design before probably won't like it now, but I think it works. They still don't yell out Tau to people, but I just couldn't really make that work. Tau don't have tracked vehicles, so I just made the vehicles as modern looking as I could.

Side Shot
Rear Shot