GrahamGilchrist's Tau Farsight Cadre and scratchbuilt Orca Log

[sartarius]

just went through all the pages and my i say...your work is fantastic

im sooooo temptin to start tau thanks to you

[GrahamGilchrist]

More updates:

Base colour finished on the two commanders, just need silver details now to make them game-legal



Close-up of the farsight-equivalent commander:



The regular Shas'o:



The orange appears quite strong in the photos, but it is not that bad in real life :-) Plus, when I highlight it will tone it down an awful lot.
What do you think?

[Apologist]

Wow – Commander Shortsight looks awesome – that orange banding gives him a real presence.

The white guy looks good too, but I think I'd try to work a bit more orange on there. At the moment, the knee is the focal point. P'raps the T'au symbols and head could be orange?

[garinator]

heh I really like the color scheme. Reminds me of Rick Hunters Valkyrie at the start of Robotech!

[brambleten]

arent they already legal colours? they both have 3 colours on them

[GrahamGilchrist]

The white guy looks good too, but I think I'd try to work a bit more orange on there. At the moment, the knee is the focal point. P'raps the T'au symbols and head could be orange?

I hear you. I thought the exact same thing when I finished him. I will definitely do this in more detail after the event, although he doesn't actually have any T'au symbols on him
I think I'll add some orange bands to the legs and shoulder pads

heh I really like the color scheme. Reminds me of Rick Hunters Valkyrie at the start of Robotech!

Thanks. Never seen robotech unfotunately but I am reliably informed of it's coolness

arent they already legal colours? they both have 3 colours on them

Well, yes, I wasn't sure if black counted I'd like to pop the boltgun metal on before the event just as it gives the model a bit more definition.

[TheShadow3s]

Well about he orange, I think it supposed too look that strong.

Still these guys are the incarnation of awesome if you ask me, the lwhit suits looks like on of those fluff shas'O really nice look.

On the O'shovah one, Awesome with the orange, sets it on the same side as other models and still looks awesome. And if you'll paint the metal part it's going ot even more awesome.

Overall I'd rate the painting so far a 9/10, you really inspired me with both those suits.
If I'll get my hands on one of those FW suits I would most certainley paint it in between your both commanders (if it's ok with you though), ie the white suits with heavy orange markings.

[omricon]

thats a lot of painting in a short space of time!

[Comrade Wraith]

Just looked through the whole thread.

I'm speechless, your skill is beyond....skill...

The Orca is particularly awesome

[GrahamGilchrist]

Hi guys, just a quick update.
I am still working on this army. I took it to the Damocles Gulf event a couple of weeks ago, and managed to finish all the basecoats in time
I got 2 wins and 3 losses, so thats not too bad, especially considering it was a trial by fire and i had never played the army or used flyers before

Here is a photo of the whole army laid out at warhammer world:


More updates will be coming soon as I start to highlight and detail the whole army.

[GrahamGilchrist]

Plus some shots of the army in action:

[Slaaaaaanesh]

Very nice looking amry you have there, congrats. Did the GW staff have any issues with you using the orca at Warhammer world. If not I think I would bring down my scratchbuilt Tigershark.

[Light of the Emperor]

Very nice tau. It's been a pleasure following this log. Great colors, great execution and one fantastic orca!

[Dictator]

Awesome look army so far, could you explain the pictures and the outcomes of the battles depicted?
Thanks

[GrahamGilchrist]

Did the GW staff have any issues with you using the orca at Warhammer world. If not I think I would bring down my Tigershark.

No issues at all. It was a campaign weekend event organised by the Tempus Fugitives rather than GW events Campaign weekends encourage fun play and interesting models anyway, but this was an apocalypse game, so anything went really.

Awesome look army so far, could you explain the pictures and the outcomes of the battles depicted?

Well I'll try my best. The first photo was a 1000pts doubles game vs Orks where we got totally owned by them getting the first turn and driving all their trukks up to our lines and parking them sideways in front of our gunline thus blocking line of sight. (ork trukks always wreck). Luckily, having a crisis army, I was able to redeploy and this photo shows some of the Ork bikers being countercharged by my carbine wielding warriors and command unit.

The second photo is the apocalypse doubles game which our team won. That was a very fun and tactically interesting game. Here you can see the second to last turn as the deepstriking crisis suits have taken out most of the tanks and the Orca prepares to drop it's cargo onto an objective.

The last two photos are a game I had against Dark Angels where I was horribly killed by a power-weapon armed deathwatch unit which charged me first turn (12" infiltrate) and swept through my units. I also lost about 700pts unluckily deepstriking off the board!

Anyway, since this isn't a battle report thread, there will be more progress photos coming soon, I promise!

[Emi]

I haven't checked in here since you were just starting the orca and I'm seriously impressed, I love your comamander aswell. Can't want to see it all finished

[GrahamGilchrist]

Hey any updates?

By Thor's hammer; YES

This army got a bit sidelined as I had to work on some marines for another campaign weekend event in september where Tau were not permitted, but now that is over, I am back working on this army and hope to get it into a fully completed state.

As you saw on the rest of the log, I have completed the base coats on the whole army, but what it really needs now is some more details and highlights/blending. I am really pleased with how things are coming out, as I am taking my time with each miniature until it gets to a state I am happy with, rather than frantically trying to get stuff finished. So, expect to see a whole slew of crisis suit detail, plus the orca and the rest of it over the next few months.

By way of a return, here is what I have been working on recently, finishing the stealth team with the same electric lines indicating their active camouflage transition. It had been a while since I did the first one of these, so it took a bit of time to get the exact look back, with a couple of failed results.

I discovered the key to getting the moving transition look is:
1) Darker blue (I used regal) thick line ~1mm with thinner light blue (ice blue) and white lines wobbling slightly within that
2) There needs to be a small black line of armour beneath the electric line to provide contrast
3) a larger region of drybrushed dark brown (~ 2-3-mm) to begin the stealthed area. On a couple of models I didn't have this region big enough, with the stealth field merging straight into lighter tones, and it too me some time studying my original model to work out how I had achieved the effect.
4) drybrush/blend up the lighter highlights of bubonic/bronzed flesh/bleached bone

So here, I present to you, two members of Stealth Team Fior


The first member of team Fior is veteran fire warrior O'Kor. O'Kor has served under Commander Starblade since the second expansion, and was involved in much of the heavy fighting of the Damocles Crusade. During one of these engagements, the rest of O'Kor's unit was crushed by a space marine rhino of the Howling Griffons Chapter charging into their firing line emplacement. O'Kor distinguished himself by successfully planting a haywire grenade onto the tracks of the vehicle as it sped away, destroying the APC and causing it to flip over several times, killing several of the occupants. O'Kor was subsequently promoted for valour to Shas'Vre and has served in the cadre's stealth teams since.

[GrahamGilchrist]

The second stealth team member is Shas'ui M'Yen Ka.

As a fire warrior, M'yen always showed an aptitude for stealth activities. In several instances in his service record, his Shas'Ui noted M'Yen's propensity for creeping up on enemy squads, or remaining undetected in the undergrowth when the team was assigned to ambush actions. These abilities naturally earned him a place among the cadre's stealth teams, whose members tend to be more individualistic and introverted.

[Ganymene]

That stealth-disappearing-appearing effect is amazing.

Everything looks great so far.

Keep up the good work!

[Dictator]

Finally an update!!!
THe stealth suits look great!! Nice back story too.