Ramblings, air brushing, new models, painting, and the Torrent of Fire Invitational!

Hey blogosphere!

So I have continued to work on my beast pack project and I also spent some time and whipped up a freshly painted tau commander for my tau-seer-star I so commonly play. I have spent the last few weeks trying to get the hang of using this airbrush a bit (I have a badger patriot 105) and now that I have the right kinds of paints I am getting some nice even coats. Even though I am in no way even good at airbrushing yet I am quite capable of using it to get some very nice and even base coats and primary colors thrown down. I also found that it does a nice job of getting a bit heavier wash on the models without nearly as much splotchyness I was getting when I applied washes heavily by hand. Pictures!!

New Tau commander with double fusion guns! (Ya he looks just like the old one..but I think this new paint job looks much better. He is now not so crazy dark and the base blue was airbrushed on for that nice even look which is just so difficult with a brush. I would show a compare contrast...but I already have the old guy sitting in purple power getting stripped.

So these guys...This is the beast pack I will be using, as I mentioned before the dogs all come from puppetswar.com (his models are nice, little to no bubbles etc, but he takes FOREVER to ship..but on the plus side he sent me a bunch of extra models which I am assuming are an apology of sorts for the VERY delayed shipping) The razorwing flocks are actually flying rippers from forge world and then of course my stand-ins for now as beast masters are just hellions. Oh and then there is this guy....

Yes sir...that is just a tiny bit of free hand attempt on the shield...I want to do something else with the dinosaur hide..it just seems to be missing something...

He may be used as Baron Sathonyx when I use the beast pack since I like that he gives me that same primal feel the dogs do...but I really like my other baron on the sky board so this guy may just be a book shelf model.

So first coat of paint on the dogs looks like this...

And the first test model of a dog looks like...

I did the red base, some metallic details on the chains, off white teeth and claws, a solid black wash to darken up the whole paint and dull that overly bright red, and then an eggshell dry brush over the skin. Is is amazing? no...but I think I am pretty happy with it. Ill toss up some pictures when they are all done and FYI that first one will probably be either redone or at the least cleaned up as I got a bit sloppy while trying to figure out how to paint these guys.

Oh so for the razor wings I tried something but it doesn't show up in the pictures so they might get redone as well...

Basically I was trying to keep them dark and creepy looking but unfortunately...they are a bit too dark. I started with black, heavily dry brushed (honestly almost a wet brush) on purple and then did an actual dry brush of some off white, then usual red tongue, white teeth, and some blue eyes. I think perhaps if I change the eyes to something more drastic that might help or who knows after I finish up the dogs I may just redo the razor wing flocks...I only have the two flocks so it wouldn't be a big deal.

Hmm soo...other news..

I have been messing around with another deathstar type army as ANOTHER side project. I have been playing a farsight bodyguard team which is fun to play. Its made even more fun because I happened to have 6 battle suits so I was able to actually pull this together with complete WYSIWG models...so the list!

Farsight

Shadowsun

x6 body guards (x4 w/ double plasma rifle and target lock and x2 gun drone, x1 w/ double fusion gun and target lock and x2 gun drone, x1 w/ pure-tide, multi spectrum sensor suite, command and control, iridium armor, hit and run, drone controller and x2 shield drone) 

Riptide w/ ion accelerator and early warning

sky ray w/ black sun filter, smart missiles

sky ray w/ black sun filter, smart missiles

hammerhead w/ long-strike, black-sun filter, smart missiles, sensor spines, sub munition rounds

2x10 kroot w/ kroot hound

Eldar allies:

Farseer w/ bike, shard of anaris, runes of warding

1x3 windrider jetbike

Total: 1848

This is honestly a pretty terrible list, low scoring, fairly easy to kill death star from massed fire and poor positioning...but when it works...it works well. I prefer shadow-sun as the warlord as the 3d6 assault phase jumps are fun and honestly due to enemy riptides I feel that deep striking is most of the time a poor choice, however if we continue to see tau disappearing then my mind may change on that subject. Anyway if I remember to take pictures next time I play Ill post up a battle report..I have been playing lots I just never remember to take pictures....

Lastly...Torrent of Fire Invitational is this weekend and I am a bit nervous. Check it out here: http://www.torrentoffire.com/tof_inv a

This event is pre-bracketed so you can actually look and see all the possible people I might play..needless to say if I make it past the O'vesa star list...which to anyone who knows me knows I loath after a fiasco of a game against one in round one of the NOVA invitational last year...but even if I make it past that I have a gauntlet of potential and likely games against names such as Tony Kopach and Nick Nannavati. In any case I suppose we will have to wait and see how the event goes I just hope I am not the one guy who goes 0-5!

Also since all of our lists are available I'll toss up my ToF Invite army list:

Eldrad

Farseer w/ shard, warding, witnessing, bike

x9 warlocks w/ 2 spears, x9 bikes

3x3 windrider bike squads

1x3 dark reapers w/ exarch, night vision, fast shot, x3 starshot missiles

Bastion w/ quad gun

Tau Allies:

Buff Commander w/ x2 fusion guns, target lock, vectored retro, puretide, multi-spectrum, iridium armor

1x10 kroot w/ kroot hound

riptide w/ fusion blaster, ion accelerator, early warning, velocity tracker

Sky ray missile gunship w/ blacksun filter, sensor spines

Regards,

Farseer Tsarith