40k Tau, #Inq28-style

Maybe it's just that Tau don't lend themselves to grimdarkness, but they don't look to be so popular in the #Inq28 scene. Being on a roll with my two Eldar scratch builds I had a go at another scratch build project, a Tau with some drone companions.

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“INPOSITION”
On that direction, Fio’La D’yanoi Kap’pa set down his shield and huddled behind it. The shield’s internal gyromatrix kept it balanced perfectly upright, even as small fire pinged off it like raindrops. While he unpacked a round and opened his railgun ammunition chamber, the lantern drone hummed four yards above him, flicking its attention left and right as it assessed the field ahead and below them.
“HOSTILEPRESENTREMAINCOVER”
Kap'pa heeded this, staying down while he chambered the single round and fastened the gun barrel shut. He only had to remain here until his team made an opening for him. And that opening came. He heard the barking of Tau pulse rifles and the small arms fire on his shield died away, redirected.
“FIRETEAMPRESENT OPENING OPENING OPENING”
The lantern drone dipped down below the shield with him, and he, in one move, rose up over the shield’s edge, tipping the long barrel of his railgun from vertical to horizontal, resting it on the shield, where the gun’s gyromatrix kept it steady. His heavy augmented gauntlet interfaced his left hand with the gun and his helmet feed tapped into the two recon drones over the field. Having seen the hostile battlesuit only through the recon feed so far, he now saw it with his scope for the first time. Boxy, lurching, churning out shells in a most undisciplined manner. He knew the hostiles deployed their mortally wounded to pilot these battlesuits; a cruel and cynical tactic, he thought. Looking through his scope, synced directly to the gun barrel, he saw through the mechanical armour at the silhouette inside, just enough to see that it was amputated, frail. He felt some remorse at having to eliminate such a wretched being, but consoled himself that the hostiles were the ones putting one of their wounded in harm’s way. He quickly said a mantra for the life he was about to take.
“OPPORTUNITY”
With the remote trigger held in his right hand, he activated the gun barrel, which ignited with a muffled boom, slinging the single round of ammunition into the gun’s mag-tunnel, already moving at the speed he knew the hostiles’ bullets travelled, then the mag-tunnel picked up the shot, magnifying its trajectory with a powerful whipping sound that resounded all down the length of the gun barrel, accelerating the shot twofold with every amp-block it passed, and then the round left the muzzle and struck the dreadnought almost two kilometres distant within a fraction of a second, crumpling its armour where it struck, knocking it off-balance, turning the armour at the entry wound into shrapnel which tore through the other side still faster than the speed of sound, and suddenly the enemy battlesuit was a mess of torn metal lurching on two mechanical legs with a smear of debris across the land behind it, the trajectory of the bullet still visible in the air as a haze of superheated atmosphere.
“HIT SAFETOWITHDRAW”
Kap'pa dipped down behind his shield again and began to dismantle his gun.

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The basis of this model is a Primaris Marine backpack. That's right, the new truescale-ish Space Marines are so big that their backpacks can work as a human scale torso, and an armored one at that. The circular power unit on the Primaris backpack always looked more Tau-like than Space Marine to me. With the vents cut off, it makes a good set of Tau armor. I also had a couple Ruststalker heads left over from my Slaanesh marines way back when, and enough offcuts to make an armature for some limbs.

There's the Primaris backpack

I struggled to get the "hook" for a Tau model until I pinned down the model's body shape- an elongated neck with an upturned head, and two equipment items- a huge square shield and a very long railgun. I think these three elements are unique but in keeping with the Tau's look.

WIP: lots of green stuff

The shield and long gun made me think of Japanese "Ashigaru" troops so I looked up images of them for inspiration. Avoiding making a cheesy conical hat, the model got a flat circular one instead, helping with the "upturned" look of his head (making him look kinda like a Kappa).

Ashigaru from Wikipedia

My favourite part of the Tau armory is the broad shoulderpad they wear on their firing side. I wanted to incorporate this as another big flat surface. Among the dregs of my bitz box I had the cupola mount from a Rhino, which cut up nicely to make some flat surfaces with interesting details. With the curved negative space of the cupola plate I got some nice Tau-ish wings that were too big to stick on the gunner's body… so of course I had to build some drones too.

Tau Drones (the flying stands are made from paperclips)

First a little personal drone for the Tau footsoldier. It hovers above him and let's him know when it's safe to look over his shield. The other two are support drones that get their own bases. With no weaponry I guess they do reconnaissance and topometry and, at a pinch, fire off weak laser and EMP blasts. Looking at Asian military history again, early China invented kites and used them for reconnaissance and sometimes weaponised them by setting them on fire. So these drone modules are named Kites KM22 and KM32. The little personal drone is a Lantern KM03.

Tau drones painted

Personal "Lantern" drone

The next most tricky part was the long-gun. I started with a very long bit of sprue attached to some cut-up Space Marine bolters. It needed detail, so I added some "rigging" to look like a structural support for its ridiculous length (based on a suspension bridge, it also looks like a kappa's fishing rod). I used the same wire method as with my Ostlander archers (jewellery wire double-twisted) only it stands in for metal cable here. I pooled together all the "loop" bits I had left and used more sprue offcuts as bridging blocks. The part of the barrel nearest the hand is left relatively undetailed because it'll rest against the Tau's shoulder so will be hidden. The other end got some extra detail from left over bolter bits. Finally, every point of contact in this big fragile assembly is glued as much as possible.

A very very long gun

The gun from above

For painting I went with sand color clothing and white armor, taking great care to get the white surfaces as clean as possible by doing somewhere in the region of 5-6 thin coats of white.

I toyed with the idea of getting some transfer decals and cutting them up for clean-looking detail (I spent a lot of time looking for Airfix-style racecar or aircraft decals for an extra modern look) but just went freehand in the end. The shield markings are based on Korean square kites and are continued on the two Kite drones.

Freehand on the shield. I need a smaller brush or a steadier hand…

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That's my last scratch build for now, and I'm fully onboard with my Relic Lizardmen. I'm gonna post WIP pictures of them very soon.

Hek