Some Greater Good Additions

Some new adds for my Tau collection.

Here are a couple of models for a faction for which I have not painted for quite a while...some 40k Tau! There is a Broadside battlesuit, two drones - all GW models - and a "Greater Good Deep Strike Veteran Big Shas" from Wargames Exclusive.

Earlier this fall ByronM was kind enough to host several folks for a "FriendsCon" - a group of players who love GW's 40k setting, so much so that as a group we ignore the things we don't like about the 8th edition of the rules and just play for kicks.  Curt brought out his Sisters of Battle, and at the time had shared with us how jazzed he had been to work on those figures again, as the Sisters had been a force he collected "back in the day".  Ah - the power of nostalgia!

When assembling my own FriendsCon force, I was moved to go back into an old collection as well - my Tau! I built and painted nearly all of my Tau forces back when they were originally released (around 2000 or so?) - so many of my Tau models are almost all 20 years old! The Tau were one of the first real attempts I had made at a "serious" 40k collection - a complete force, with attention to painting etc. etc. that was a big deal for me back then. I had loved how the red and white painting combo had come out, and even though we got carved to bits on the table, they generally looked great while getting blasted/obliterated/tabled. 

But time moves on, and my hobby interests moved all over the place (as you can see at the side of this blog!).  And at several points, I vowed I would sell my Tau forces, and I tried to on several occasions - but a sale never worked out. So I still had all of these models for FriendsCon. With Byron's help, I sort-of-figured-out-a-bit of the Tau's 8th Edition codex, dusted off the models after pulling them out of storage, and hit the table with them. And you know what? It was super fun! A sign from the Hobby Gods that these models must stay in my collection - and be improved...hence these models!

And wow...have the Tau ever changed! The models available from GW for the Tau range today are really something. New suits. New drones. New versions of suits. Wow!  My amazing wife even got one of them for me for Christmas in 2018...one of the new Broadside suits, so in October I put that model together and got out the red paint!

XV88 Broadside Suit

XV88 Broadside battlesuit.  That huge frigging rail gun sure fits with the 40k vibe!

This isn't new to any Tau gamer out there, of course, but wow, it was new to me. The early version of the XV88 Broadside suits was essentially a basic XV8 Crisis suit with some additional metal bits. This newer one is larger, is bigger - and WAY cooler!

Old and new...the model on the right was painted back in 1999!!!

Prepare for GREATER GOOD TIMES!

The Broadside Suits are very much an anti-tank/anti-heavy-armour weapon (as you might guess!). In 40k's 8th Edition, these sorts of weapons are much less effective against vehicles than they used to be.  But wow, the vision of the rail gun as a huge frigging rifle is SO neat. I love it.

Fantastic detail on the back...you can see the Smart Missile pods on the right shoulder.

The sculpting/design of this model is super cool...what a great re-visioning of the XV88

This suit is also sporting some "smart" missiles.  I recall back in the days of the Third Edition that the Smart Missiles were kind of useless, but they seem much more effective now. In fact, you can build this new Broadside to be armed with nothing but missiles...but I just think the rail gun is too cool, so I didn't do that. 

Shield drone on the left, marker drone on the right.

Markerlight drone...so cool! We didn't have these back in 3rd edition...

Shield drone...for an old salt like me, very cool to see these as fully plastic models...back in the day you needed to get metal parts to convert a gun drone to a shield drone.

You also get drones - it's the Tau after all! There are so many more types of drones now...I went with a shield drone and a markerlight drone, just to experiment building them and painting them.

Deep Strike Veteran Shas

A cigar? Is that greater good for your health?

This is a resin model from "Wargames Exclusive", purveyors of very interesting alternate 40K figures.  Their "Greater Good" range has some really interesting figures.  The "Gunslinger" - a character model I painted back in 2016 - is also from "Wargames Exclusive.  These figures are very cool. This grumpy-looking character "Shas" is very interesting, not your typical cool, smooth eco-urbanite Tau Fire Warrior, is he?

Cool view of the "jump pack"...

Shas with friend, the mysterious "Gunslinger"...

A cigar-chomping drop veteran? Hey, why not? He sure looks cool, and could serve as a "Cadre Fireblade" or something while on the gaming table.

Thanks for visiting!

New Year's Game - Horus Heresy Siege of Terra!

We usually host a lunch and big game on New Year's Day each year. However, this year the schedules didn't quite work out for January 1, so we postponed the game until January 7.

Many of the Conscripts and their significant others were able to make it out for the lunch, a delicious roast pork loin with vegetables and salad prepared by the amazing Pam (in apron). After stuffing ourselves silly with food, we (eventually) retired downstairs to Conscript HQ where the terrain had been laid out for the game - a Horus Heresy extravaganza using the 40K 8th edition rules and the excellent codex material from the forums at http://heresy30k.invisionzone.com/login/

I further amortized the trench terrain by laying out an 8'x4' table for the Loyalists to defend. The board was 30K'd up a bit with slurm tanks, billboards, statuary, a comms mast, and some Gothic looking ruins, not to mention a bit of Conscript trademark scatter terrain...

Terra would be defended by Conscript Mike's excellent looking Imperial Fists...

...supported by Conscript Greg's superb Solar Auxilia.

"God Box 2.0" makes an appearance, along with the Solar Auxilia commander "Marshall Facecane".

Nasty Imperial Fists Terminator squad "supporting the front line" behind a slurm tanks :-)

First wave of Iron Warriors and World Eaters attackers roll on. The Traitor objectives were the tanks at centre left, the comms mast on the ridge, and the statue column at centre top.

There's not a ton that you might consider "broken" in 30K but if anything comes close, it's the Iron Warriors Siege Tyrants at top left...

Racks spit out two krak missiles (or 2d6 frag missiles!!) PER MODEL per shooting phase... that's a ton of hurt heading downrange.

Defending Terra all day really works up a thirst! Fortunately there are ample tanks around to feed the Slurm machine.

Iron Warriors reinforcements arrive, in the form of a large tactical squad and Leviathan Siege Dreadnought (ooooh yeah!)

Massive traitor firepower facing off against the newly arrived Imperial Fists Land Raider Armoured Proteus (top right).

Warriors hop out of their Rhinos ready to assault the trenches.

But then... oh crap... Imperial Knight arrives.

It's great fun to take off the top of the ridge and play in the tunnels underneath. Infil-traitors under the bunkers!

Loyalist Sicaran is taking fire as a Traitor Rhino moves to block off the tunnel entrance.

A good view of Mike's Contemptor and Land Raider.
 

Iron Warriors approaching the trenches. Solar Auxilia are tougher than they look, especially when overcharging their lasrifles.

Siege Tyrants look right at home, don't they?

Iron Warriors have taken the frontline trench!

Terminators scramble to interdict the Traitor Marines in the tunnels. Sadly they would fail their charge roll with a double 1 - not the only charge that was failed that afternoon either!

Sadly for the Traitors their assault just stalled as time was called. It has to be admitted that we seldom actually finish one of these huge game, but they sure are cool to look at! Lots of stuff blew up, and I think the game pointed out to both Mike and me what we need to do with our respective forces. Mike came out with a bit over 100 power levels and I think he realized that he needs more BIG GUNZ :-)

The Iron Warriors, on the other hand, can muster close to 200 power levels and lots of big guns, but I think I need to paint some more boots. Most of my points are tied up in the 10-man Siege Tyrant squad (44 power levels by itself!) and the Typhon represents 26 or 27 as well.

Anyway I think we all had a fun time having lunch with friends, and playing with some amazing toys on some beautiful terrain, and isn't that what this hobby is all about! So thanks to everybody for coming out, to Greg and Mike for bringing their toys, and to Conscript Frederick for taking some great pictures!