Warhammer 40k: TABLETOP MINIATURES

[Ravir]

I succumbed to the insanity of my friends in the local 40k group, and started a Tau army.  Why Tau?  Umm... it has snipers and mechs.  Duh.  That, and my friends all play Space Marines or Imperial Guard, so I figured I'd do something different.  The really sad news is that I got stuck out on-sight on a job for 3 days with no access to my main development rig, so I sat there with a laptop w/ Visual Studio while waiting on clients half the time and actually built a codexer program to let me build my armies with automatic point calculations, special rules notes, and equipment controls.  I over-geeked a bit.  Oh well.  Next time I see those dirty Space Marines, they shall fear my shooty things and stomper bots!

[Stahlseele]

Shooty and Stompy is Orky, not Tauy ^^
Otherwise, why not upload that somewhere?
Many people would probably like something like that.

[Ravir]

Shooty and Stompy 'cause of the Battlesuits.  Hooray for mini-mechs.  I need to be more aggressive with my Battlesuit Commander.  I got him loaded up with 2+ armor saves, Invulnerable Saves, and weapons that make things go away in a hurry, so I need to keep him in the fight more.  As for the custom app, I'm cautious about posting it online since Games Workshop could likely have me shot for giving away a free codex.  I'm probably going to re-build it in a more user-friendly and non-specific design, as well as tools for building a database for it, and then I should be free to let it loose as a general "build your own data" application that just happens to be usable for something like 40k.

Oh, and I got my first victory in a 750pt battle tonight.  Yay.  Now back to work on Flash 'till next Wednesday.

[death_grin]

I played TAU for a few years.  Along with IG and SM at various Times.  Tau are by far te most fun to play as well as to convert.  I think they offer a greater variety of tactics then most other races do (aside from eldar.)

[DarkRavin]

I play Eldar and Dark Eldar.   I hate my Dark Eldar, I love my Path finder army     Lets see your tau army get me 

[Ravir]

I play Eldar and Dark Eldar.   I hate my Dark Eldar, I love my Path finder army     Lets see your tau army get me 

*deploys 2 Hammerhead tanks with railguns*

[SeniorBiscuit]

Oh ive been there, if you actually COMPLETELY paint and base a legal army totalling 2000 points or more than youve made it farther than like 90% of people who have called themselves warhammer gamers.

Stay away from apocalypse its silliness, your going to have the most fun with smaller games, with plenty of terrain and table space to maneuver and fire. Too many people set up these big armies on little game boards and just blast away at each other. Might as well throw marbles at your lovingly painted armies.

I played quite a few armies in my day, only one I ever finished was my marines. I repainted\rebuilt the army like 3 times in around 5 years and did a better job each time. I always loved imperial guard but people who complete a well painted IG army are few and far between.

Im actually looking at fantasy these days (I got over a period of my life where I thought I was just too damn cool for the things i enjoy) and I hear on a casual level fantasy offers more tactical complexity.

Only thing I ever got good at is painting. Ive been painting for around 8 years, but I paint like a squad of something, get bored and move to something else.

[Stahlseele]

Which makes you more or less the perfect Battle-Tech Painter, as most Combat units are Lance-Size which is about Squad Size ^^

[SeniorBiscuit]

yeah ive been painting battletech minis for the last few months, (I painted some many years ago)

have about a company of crucis lancers vs a company of house lu sann (liao warrior house) troops done. Mechs are easy to paint too!

Tau should be fun to paint though ravir, master the clean use of GWs excellent new inks, and always thin your paints! thin thin thin!

Have you thought of a scheme? That can greatly change what techniques are adivseable.

you should post some pics as you make progress too!

[Stahlseele]

OK, just to make sure none of you get anything done in the next time anymore:
http://tsoalr.com/?p=1

[Ravir]

I've been playing around with this tool, doesn't let you do details but is ok for overall scheme previews:
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/fwp.php

Here's a general idea of what I'm thinking:
http://bolterandchainsword.com/fws.php?bp=194A07&hdl=289600&hdr=000000&viso=194A07&eyt=05DAFF&eyb=FF0303&er=4BEB10&ca=194A07&nk=194A07&ch=1E570A&chd=07454A&abs=1E540A&bt=40B017&cod=184A05&ull=359E0E&lk=3FBA13&lll=36A80C&llld=194A07&lft=194A07&url=3ECC0A&rk=2C8A0A&lrl=2A8F06&rft=194A07&slt=48E310&srt=4DC920&sri=FFE208&slv=FFFFFF&lla=259603&lh=000000&rla=259603&rh=000000&sept=FF0000&gunc=000000&gunh=1DB502&gund=196AA8&rb=041C03&stra=000000&bg=FFEDED&

Can't decide if I wanna go pitch black for the soft armor, or with a really dark green.  Either way, I'll probably dry-brush those parts with a slightly greener shade so it's not all flat black, give it some depth.  For the green pieces, I think a sort of digital camo pattern of 3 shades of green + black for the tactical look, with some striking "tech lines" in some nuclear fusion-powered awesome bright green, i.e. a little bit of Tron + The Matrix, if I get confident enough to pull it off.  The black gun parts will be shiny shiny, the "composite material" green parts will be matte finish.  I'm sure I'll get some "oh man nobody would fight looking like that, you can't hide with glowing green pinstripes, n00b!" to which I'd replay "hey asshole, it's plastic alien army men on a picnic table, and my stealth field generator rules don't mention paint requirements.  Pimpin > Camo."  :p

Either way, I'll probably be using very little GW product, other than the primer (which I hear is awesome sauce), their Scorpion Green for the super highlights, and maybe the really bright yellow to embellish the details on my shoulder pieces, for which I'll be using an awesome-looking uber-shiny gold from Formula P3, which is 1/2 the price of GW but fully mixable.  I'm already paying GW $30 for TWO SPRUES OF PLASTIC that make up a Crisis suit, I just can't bring myself to pay over $3 for 1/4 oz. paint pots when on the other side of the store is Formula P3, which is great stuff, for a little bit less AND get 1/2 oz instead of 1/4.  Hell, they wanted $15 for the "uber leet" exacto knife!  I can only justify their plastic crack pricing to a point.  Hehe, there's apparently an uprising at the moment 'cause they're raising the pricing AGAIN on some new line, so for one type of troop you end up paying 4x as much per model as the other troops that are the same amount of plastic and the same amount of detail.  Oh well, time to raid eBay again.

I've got enough to field a decent 1500pt army, actually with all my stealth suits prob enough for 2000pt, but not enough to really field a flexible array of armies of that size to account for different races of opponents.  Once I fill out my Tau, I may look at building two other usable 750pt armies of Space Marines and either Tyranid, Necron or Eldar, just so I'll have some choices available if I get the chance to sucker in other friends who haven't (or can't) invested the $$$$$$$$$$$ for themselves.

As for Warhammer Fantasy, most of the guys at the local game shop say that it's even slower than 40k.  I'm not up for anything that's slower than 40k.  If I want to do that, I'll play Titan or Twilight Imperium.

[Ravir]

Here's my first attempt on a "paint-test dummy".  Poor little Tau never knew what hit him.  Played with a couple different techniques and contrasts.  Probably doomed him to a brake fluid bath for a "paint reboot" at some point in the future.

  You can see on his right knee the overall armor effect I'm aiming at, a multi-tone green design, with extreme bright green inking in some places for a sort of "Tron" effect.  The ink got a little loose on that knee, but hey, that thing's tiny and it was my first try.  I haven't decided on what to do with the shoulder emblem, other that putting it inside a gold shield.  The gold bottom half of the sphere for the gun turned out well, also trying to decide what I want to do for the top half.  The top rail on the gun was intended to be a sharp solid bright green, but I didn't properly layer the base colors first, so it turned out crappy, then I used deep green ink over it for an interesting effect that I might use on other pieces as a "burnt green metal", but not sure I want it there on the gun.  I do, however, like the effect I managed to get by thinning my bright green into an ink and filling the detail lines on the pulse rifle.  I still have some tweaking to do on this one before I start over on the next one.  I want to add color to his chestplate, belt, codpiece, and neck, but haven't decided on which shade of green or if I want to leave the chestpiece/codpiece black for the sharp contrast of the "green lantern" circle in his chest.   The effort as a whole needs to go up a couple notches on the vibrance scale, but I over-estimated the brightness of the initial base, so it came out darker all over instead of a deep green base and brighter armor.  The contrast is nice but I think I prefer a more colorful scheme. 

Lessons learned:
  1.  Lay the primer on a bit thicker
  2.  Don't be afraid of foundation paint, it'll darken (a lot) when it dries
  3.  Work on dry-brushing more to give more depth to the soft armor
  4.  Layer the shades of green better to build up the brightness

[Stahlseele]

Dunno what your Problem is, looks good enough O.o
Well, as good as a Tau in Jadefalcon Colours can look ^^

[Askis]

The green on the gun's top rail reminds me of Necrons :>
Still, looking quite good, especially for a first attempt

[SeniorBiscuit]

Thats very very good for a first mini, my first mini was a space marine, and he was solid red with a black gun and black eyes!

I was pretty young at the time.

Youve got good brush control as your mini looks ok close up, but I want to say your over complicating things, especially since your new.

Id say pick two tones of green, one for armor one for cloth parts (a little brighter than youd want on your finished model) then use the GW inks to bring out the detail. The new GW inks are fantastic, they dry Matte and are worth every penny, they do darken your model a little bit so basecoat with a light color. You can follow the ink up with a drybrush of lighter greens. Then pick out some panels here and there with your complementing colors.

Basecoat-wash-drybrush is the classic technique for making a color pop on an individual model, and after like 4 years of messing with advanced techniques like layering, blendinging, and feathering, I returned to the old wash and highlight to for painting units of models.

Another thing. Your ideas of using the bright greens to create the effect of light or glow coming from the armor... Good idea, but lighting effects with paint is something you do NOT want to try to wrap your head around. Ive been painting for 8 years and I still stay away from it! Its crazyness!!!

Here are two clan mechs painted up with the good ol base-wash-highlight routine, using all GW paints. Picked out a couple panels and did the cockpits, all done! Easy and effective, and good for making sure all your troops are the same shade.



You can see all the detail, they look nice on the table, and they took me very little time to paint. Its ALL about the inks!!!!!

Also yeah GW tools are overpriced, however I tend to use GW and Vallejo paints. Both are pricey, but I prefer them.

Whatever the case use water to thin your paints to a milk like consitency!

Also basing, its worth the extra effort. Glue sand down (I do before priming) paint and highlight, then invest in a tub of static grass. Its like $8 but itll last you multiple armies.