Tau Fleet

[Loyalist]

Until now I've only played BFG with Imperial, Chaos and Space Marine fleets have recently collected a Tau fleet for a pending campaign game. So far I have:

3 Explorers (2 Mk. XXIII, 1 Mk. XXIV) with 9 Orcas. (I need to make a styrene Gravitic Launcher for the Mk. XXIV)
4 Heros (2 standard, 2 Tolku variants)
3 Merchants (2 standard, 1 Dal'yth variant) with 4 Orcas
5 Messengers
13 Defenders
4 Dhows (scratchbuilding a Nicassar Rig)
4 Orbitals with 4 Orcas

I've replaced all of the dorsal turrets on the capital ships, which they aren't supposed to have, with resin copies of turrets with the weapon barrels removed. This helped rectify the problem with some ebay-acquired models having missing or damaged turrets.

I'm wondering how to represent the  Strength 1 ion cannons on the Dal'yth Merchant Class. I have spare ion cannon turrets from the conversion of Hero Class cruisers to the Tolku variant. The options being considered are:

1) install all 4 ion cannons from a Hero and say they have only half the strength of a Hero's ion cannons
2) install single barrelled railgun turrets and modify the barrels to look like ion cannon barrels
3) install only 1 ion cannon turret per weapon battery and fill the other turret position with a resin turret without barrels

Suggestions are welcome.

[horizon]

That's a really nice fleet.

Would be cool to see them in GothiComp. hint hint

For the Merchant I would say install 1 Ion Cannon per slot. And make the other.. something else then a weapon.

[Loyalist]

Thanks Horizon - I took your advice. I did a test fit and the best looking arrangement for the ion cannons on the Merchant was one of the tall ion cannon turrets (from a Hero kit) in the forward hole of the weapons battery and a normal turret without gun barrels in the rear hole. It could represent a sensor dome.

The rail guns in the forward batteries are trained port and starboard and the taller ion cannon turrets in the aft batteries are trained forward.

I'd planned to paint one of the Adeptus Mechanicus light cruisers I've built from a Resin Addict kit and an Admech prow for Gothicomp but am running out of time.

I haven't decided on the colour scheme for the Tau fleet. It'll probably be Vior'la with greenish-grey hull, red panels and sept markings. That way they can be used to represent the Farsight Enclave too. Though the Farsight armour colours are reversed from Vior'la the ships wouldn't have been repainted!

[fracas]

Would love to see how you painted yours


Here is how I modeled mine:
http://warmancer.blogspot.com/2010/07/bfg-tau-gallery.html?m=1

[Loyalist]

I've seen your fleet before in searches for BFG Tau colours - very nice! I particularly like the Kroot Warsphere and that you painted the Nicassar Dhows to coordinate with the Tau vessels (which I plan to do).

I almost bought a Warsphere last week but the movement rules are so wonky it seemed the probability of it going where I wanted it to would be well below 50% and it would be a waste of 145 points.

[fracas]

The two merchants with only hooks pictured,
Are to be used with the dhows

There are updated rules for nicassar caravan/rig


The warsphere movement is wonky but with the option to have varying size spheres I bought a second and had planned to build a kroot fleet

[Loyalist]

I wondered what those Merchants were for. I see you have Dal'yth variants too.

My 2 standard Merchants are my Dhow carriers when the Dhows are to be used without Rigs or in a Caravan. I've seen the updated Dhow rules but am not keen on using the Caravan. It's pitifully slow.

I like the concept of the Kroot ship and may eventually buy or scratch build one.

[fracas]

How would you craft kroot spheres?

[Loyalist]

It would be difficult and they wouldn't look much like the SG model. I don't know if anyone makes styrene balls, but if so I'd use one  a little bigger the  the metal model, cut it in half and glue lots of styrene bits to it, and insert various diameters of styrene tubing to represent main engines and maneuvering thrusters. I'd blank off the open end of each hemisphere and build a connecting structure between them, again using styrene components (i.e. I-beams and more tubing of various sizes).

Adding surface detail is easy but time consuming. I have a now-OOP DLD 'Space Station 2000' used for BFG that had sparse detail so I added more than 100 small pieces of styrene in sizes and shapes similar to the details already on the model. The details were usually in 2 layers to give more of a 3d effect. (The 'SS 2000' also received Imperial lance turrets on the upper surfaces of the 4 quadrants and launch bays on the lower surfaces, plus Imperial antennae on top of the  the central module.)

[fracas]

yeah

i think it would be difficult to build something in style with the current sphere