Gearing Up for Another Gaming Weekend

After going into hiding for a few weeks after a Hellacious beat-down at the hands of Evan, Ron, and both of them at the same time, I have come back just in time to prepare for Orks, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, and whatever other armies we can pull together for a battle royal.  Just as the post title suggests, I am staring down at a box of models that need assembly and painting, at a loss of where to start.  I have a few new models, a few models that need a good painting, and I have a few models that need LEDs.  Luckily I was given direction by Ron and Evan; I have decided to help with the Greater Good and assemble and paint all of my Tau models so we can have a mighty force.  Currently I have 3 Tau Crisis Suits, 2 Stealth Suits, a Sniper Drone Team, and a Group of Pathfinders.

My plan is to continue with having my Crisis Suits in a dark blue with light blue and White/Grey highlights to distinguish Rank and make them individual.  My Stealth Suits are going to be black with a light blue highlight similar to what Evan did with his Hive Tyrant.  I haven’t quite hashed out what I want to do with my Sniper Drone Team but I am leaning towards the Drone Controller being black with the Drones being light blue on the underside and dark blue on top.  Last but not least, are the Pathfinders.  Now with Pathfinders being the forward observers (basically they are the Scouts of the Tau army), I am leaning towards having them in a blue/white camo pattern.  

Drones and Pathfinders with a Crisis Suit in shambles

New in Box is always a good feeling

Two Stealth Suits that need some TLC

Now there is a reason to my pattern besides the fact that I love the color blue; Evan and I have talked about doing a combined Tau Army that has decided to liberate a planet that is mostly water.  We are going to have our vehicles look like sharks and other predators of the sea. 

I also want to have the Space Wolves hero Ragnar Blackmane finished.  As you can see, he is standing, he has some base coating, but he needs a lot of TLC just to get him to look like a true hero of the Space Wolves.  There are a multitude of reasons I want to bring him:  One is that he is awesome in the Space Wolves novels (which I highly suggest you read), two is that I have never played with him and I would love to see how he plays on the table, and the last reason is that I want to eventually have all of my Unique HQ choices built and painted.  Right now I have 3 of the 6 painted, 2 built but not painted, and 1 still on the sprue.  I want to have everyone up by September (but that’s for another post). 

Ragnar with a Rhino and Whirlwind

The last bit that I want to paint and have ready are my Blood Claws. I have 15 Blood Claws with 2 meltas that need some love.  They are all together, but very grey.  I have decided that they are going to have Lukas the Trickster and Ragnar, and they are going to be loaded into a Land Raider Crusader so they can have a solid ride to charge out and punch somebody straight in the face.  May be a suicide mission, may be a dumb strategy, but it may also lead to one of the greatest charges in history.

 

Wolves in various stages

I will post pictures in about a week of what I have gotten through, where I am with the models described above, and if I got distracted by anything else during this process.