The Noctis Aeterna falls away before the Dawnstar

[Commander Dawnstar]

Greetings friends and comrades in the Tau'va (and any curious Gue'la passing through).

 

A little history:

 

The Tau first caught my interest way back in Third Edition in the period after I had finally broken free of the Astartes' clutches and started paying attention to the Xenos races. It's difficult for me to recall exactly why they struck a chord with me, but I think it's very possible that I was taken in by the way they were presented as a “good” and progressive race who embodied the sort of collective idealism that had long been ground into the dust by all the terrible things the Imperium had faced over its long existence. They were new (in-universe and out), fresh and really seemed to have a flavour all of their own.

 

I essentially sat out 40k through mid-Fourth all the way through to Seventh Edition, and even though I had a lot of other choices available to me I still ended up deciding to pick up the Tau again when I started making an effort to get back into the game. It took me a long time to warm up to some of the changes in the interim (necessary Grimdark, Riptides and the like) but in the end I seemed to be ready to get back to spreading the Greater Good. Then I picked a colour scheme beyond my ability (clean white) and ended up sidelining my Tau for around two years while I worked on other projects instead.

 

With the arrival of a new Edition and new Xenos boards on B&C, now seems as good a time as ever to pick things back up again.

 

About the army:

 

My Tau contingent represents the Cadre under the command of one Shas'O Ksi'm'yen Ol'shas'ka, or Commander Dawnstar to those of you more partial to Low Gothic. While I certainly had put together some background for her in the dim and distant past, I feel that the new Edition is reason enough to consider re-framing my ideas to better fit the new storytelling opportunities in the aftermath of the Great Rift's arrival on the scene. As such I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail on anything at this early stage.

 

All you really need to know about Dawnstar for now is that she's a Mont'ka specialist who prefers to lead from the front, gun-blazing – quite Vior'lan and probably one of those who still puts Farsight on a pedestal. Naturally this means that she's not always regarded so highly in a Sept where Kauyon is king and subtlety is prized. She's a capable and inspirational figure but a bit of an outsider in the upper levels of the Shas'ar'tol.

 

So what am I looking to achieve here?

 

In due course I'm hoping to decide a new colour scheme for my army, get my (not inconsiderable) backlog of models painted/repainted in that scheme, and both sort out my army's fluff and produce a list that feels thematically appropriate for it.

 

Right now my army stands at (in general terms and not including Drones):

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  One Crisis Commander

  
  
  
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  Thirteen Crisis Suits (One of whom will probably also become a Commander)

  
  
  
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  Two Riptides

  
  
  
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  One Ghostkeel

  
  
  
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  Eleven Stealth Suits

  
  
  
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  Twenty Four Strike Team Fire Warriors

  
  
  
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  Ten Breacher Team Fire Warriors

  
  
  
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  One Devilfish

  
  
  
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  Seventeen Pathfinders

  
  
  
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  One Piranha

  
  
  
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  Three Broadside Suits

  
  
  
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  Two Hammerheads (one of which can represent Longstrike)

  
  
  

I went somewhat back and forth during 7th over plans to make a stealth-centric force led by Shadowsun, and the dominance of the Buffmander did a lot to keep Dawnstar out of the picture. Now that a shooty Commander is very much the order of the day, I feel it's only fair that I go back to my original plans and Dawnstar gets her moment in the sun.

 

The Colour Scheme

 

I'm hardly the most talented painter. Most of the work I've done since getting back into the hobby has been on my Iron Warriors, and painting dark metals and golds is fairly straightforward. Edge highlighting tends to get the better of me and I literally only just started making real use of recess shading in the last fortnight, so needless to say I'm not looking for a colour scheme which is particularly over-ambitious. I'm looking for something simple, bold and that isn't going to need a colossal amount of work to get decent results out of.

 

The best example of my previous scheme would be this model – essentially all the greys.

 

 

I'd really like to get away from that scheme because my other armies include Grey Knights, Iron Warriors, Ad Mech (in grey, as seen in my avatar), Order of the Sacred Rose (white with black robes) and Black Templars. Needless to say a little colour wouldn't go amiss among all that greyscale and gold. I've messed around with the Fire Warrior Painter a bit lately but can't say I've found anything that immediately leapt out at me, so any suggestions or general words of encouragement you can offer me would be very welcome indeed.

 

So yeah ... this is my first time making one of these ongoing logs. Hopefully I'll be able to get things rolling before too too long and not disappoint you all too much

 

[Remus Ventanus.]

Awesome write up, I look forward to more pictures!

 

For the greater good

[Filius]

Great Name for a Commander! I'm kinda jealous.

 

And: That's already quite an Army you have there. Thirteen Crisis Suits! I'd love to see a Photograph of them on a Battlefield.

 

Regarding the Colour-Choice: I'm a Child of the 2nd Edition when it comes to colour, so I personally love to see bright colours. But recently thanks to the most amazing Stormcast Eternal of the Immortal Tribunal by Bruticus of Exprofundis, I kinda changed my mind: Having most of the Mini in a more or less grimdark Base-Colour and then adding one or two Details in a really striking Contras Colour seems extremely impressive to me.

 

So … if I were to give you a suggestion, I'd say: Keep the Greys and "just" add a stiking Contrast Colour to it. Maybe red, maybe yellow (Kel'Shan) but maybe even something blue-greenish (Au'Tall, Bork'An or Tol'Kun). I bought the "How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: Tau Empire 2013 Edition" iBook especially for Inspirations on colour schemes, which has 5 Variants for Pathfinders and 9 for Strike Teams and some look really cool.

[Commander Dawnstar]

To be honest with you, I only came up with that name yesterday in light of name changes being available on this board, Until then she had been Brightstar, hence my username, as I was being a bit too rigidly bound by the words I had direct translations of. Dawnstar sounds a lot better and still fits the same connotations and origins I had in mind for the original honorific, and I can always just write "Brightstar" off as being a dodgy Imperial translation.

 

That's an interesting thought. I had begun a little experimentation with this scheme, but I'll certainly look into a less radical shift and see if I can find a high contrast secondary colour that I think goes well. Now that I'm actually willing to mess around with recess shades, and Tau models certainly aren't the worst to try and get some edge highlighting on, I certainly might be able to add a bit more depth to the grey while backing it up with some strong contrast. Thanks for the suggestion

 

Edit: That Kel'shan example is very striking. Something like this maybe?

Edited June 20, 2017 by Brightstar

[Commander Dawnstar]

And: That's already quite an Army you have there. Thirteen Crisis Suits! I'd love to see a Photograph of them on a Battlefield.

 

While I can't offer you that right now, here's a (less than wonderful) shot of my personal favourite:

 

 

 

[Filius]

Ah, yellow! I looove bright Colours!

But I'm still looking foward to a Family-Photo of all of them.

 

And on a Sidenote: Either you have really big hands or the Crisis Suits are smaller than I thought. I've got the get one in my Hands soon.

[Commander Dawnstar]

I've been messing around with colours quite a bit these last few days without a huge amount of joy. Colours aren't exactly my strong suit and neither is transposing an idea from a rough image to the finished product, so something like this is really quite difficult for me. Nonetheless these are probably the better concepts I've come up with thus far:

 

 

Edit: Aww, they all went nicely onto one line in the preview :(

Edited June 21, 2017 by Brightstar

[Triszin]

could you forward the stencil/image/site your using for the color testing?

[Commander Dawnstar]

Here you go.

[Commander Dawnstar]

Okay, so tomorrow I plan to pick up some necessary hobby supplies and then I'm going to go on to producing some test scheme models. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to stealing some ideas and techniques from Duncan 'Two Thin Coats' Rhodes himself, but I still haven't decided which scheme I prefer. Hopefully seeing things in the flesh will make that decision a little easier.

[Commander Dawnstar]

Concept model is as of yet unfinished (I hate edge highlights) but shows promise. It appears that my finalised scheme is probably going to be something in the vein of this:

 

 

It turns out that all this time I've been operating under the incorrect assumption that white was Ksi'm'yen's Sept Colour when it's actually something like Caliban Green. I think I must have misunderstood something talking about the colours of their dress uniform instead.

[Commander Dawnstar]

Unfortunately something of another non-progress update:

 

I'm going to be booking in a painting tutorial session at my GW next week, hopefully Monday or Tuesday, to try and get some help and advice on edge highlighting and perhaps learn some ways of achieving the results I want that are more within my current skillset. I'm not totally unsatisfied with how things are coming together but I feel that I could be making a better job of this.

[Commander Dawnstar]

Have a tremendously underwhelming WIP shot:

 

 

So a couple of points:

• The armour colour is considerably more blue than it looks here. It's the same sort of colour as GW's Space Wolves.
• I haven't yet decided how and where I'm going to apply secondary colours so things like the helmet haven't been cleaned up.
• I'm certainly going to clean up the recess shade a bit more in future and either go over or cover up what little edge highlights you can see here. They're actually far more visible here than I feel they are on the model itself. I actually really dislike taking pictures of stuff because I feel they make mistakes more apparent XD

This colour scheme is really quite a trip down memory lane for me because it's harkening back to Dawnstar's first appearance as a character. She was originally created as part of a little narrative thing Lord Blackwood and I did to bring my Tau and his Space Wolves together a couple of years back that ultimately led to the two becoming uneasy allies against the Tyranids. That all took place on an ice world, and naturally here I am now making an ice scheme for my Tau reboot.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Brightstar

[Kelborn]

We got a T'au color scheme generator? :O

 

I love this community! <3

[Commander Dawnstar]

I'm starting to feel like I might've been the wrong person to do something like this for the simple reason that I don't like taking pictures unless I feel an adequate amount of progress has been made XD

 

Yesterday I began the process of getting everything based up and currently have 38 infantry (Strikes, Breachers and Pathfinders), six Crisis Suits and three Broadsides done up in The Fang. That still leaves me with the last Strike Team, my Stealth Suits, the remaining Crisis Suits, my tanks and the big guys to go, but I'm hoping to have all of that finished by the end of the weekend. I've also got an order in for the necessary Russ Grey Air to see me through the next phase of the process and expect that by the weekend too, so it looks like I have something of a busy time ahead of me.

 

It's a little bit indulgent, but I decided to buy a new plastic Commander for Dawnstar. The one I currently have is the old finecast version and has a lot of ugly mouldlines and imperfections, so I'll likely reserve that for a Shas'el should I ever decide to go for a multi-Commander build. Personally I would prefer to keep this force at least a little bit fluffy rather than going all-in on just taking what works, but knowing me that sort of sentiment can only last for so long.

[Commander Dawnstar]

Historically speaking, one of the reasons I've struggled the most to keep logs like this is that close-up pictures of my miniatures always reveal all kinds of imperfections that totally take the wind out of my sails. I'm only working to what most might consider tabletop standard at best, and the closer look has a way of making things I'm pretty happy with suddenly look pretty awful. I actually had my prototype Fire Warrior finished up more than a week ago and decided against putting them up here purely because I found the photos so demoralising.

 

Anyway, here's your first look into how things are really coming along:

 

 

This particular miniature isn't truly finished but isn't all that far away. I still haven't decided how I'm going to apply the Sept colours, as green doesn't go overly well with this, or even if I'm going to think about changing Sept and taking the fluff revamp a step further. You can still see that there are a bunch of things that could be cleaned up or refined more than a little, but I'm not entirely sure how far I'll go with them. As I've said, I have absolutely no problems with how this model looks at middle-distance and with 40-ish infantry to get through (and my awful workrate) I don't think I can afford to be overly picky.

[depthcharge12]

Looking good - very Sa'cea! I think you and I used the same color scheme but your soft armor is black rather than grey lol

 

I've been agonizing over sept stripes too because while orange is fitting, I'm not really climbing up Sa'cea's tree per se. Vash'ya has a nice scheme on the pathfinder box witha liche purple that is pretty nice actually. I think I might try it out and see, but sept colors are just so hard to figure out!

[Commander Dawnstar]

I didn't set out with the intention of Sa'cea, I just seem to have stripped away all of my secondary colour choices to the point that it's essentially what I'm left with XD

 

We do seem to have ended up with something vaguely similar, don't we? I'm even still considering using white, or at least something more around Celestra Grey, for my secondary colour, as you can see adding at least a little more colour variety to the pulse rifle there. It's particularly bizarre how that's happened given that we both set out with different Septs in mind.

 

Can I ask how you do your primary armour shade? I'm pretty sure we'll both be doing something different, but I'm curious to see how much we have in common there too.

 

I think I really need to revisit the highlights on my soft armour. The Eshin Grey really isn't popping and the few places it is (often ones where I got lazy and drybrushed rather than edging properly) look more like the black hasn't got great coverage than a deliberate choice. As much as I dislike taking them, I think one of the benefits of taking these pictures is that they tend to highlight some mistakes I might otherwise overlook. I hadn't even noticed that area of black under the gunsight until revisiting that picture.

 

 

[depthcharge12]

lol I did a base of Dark reaper then did thunderhawk blue for the armor. In hindsight, I should have just painted R'alai like that and the rest of the army differently. I have no clue though for septs, but I might try to paint my breachers and pathfinders in stegadon green like the Vash'ya sept.

[Commander Dawnstar]

That's very different then, yeah. Mine is the Space Wolf formula (Russ Grey over The Fang, with Fenrisian Grey highlights) only I give it a shade of a mixture from Forgeworld's guide to painting World Eaters (even parts Nuln Oil, Drakenhof Nightshade, Lahmian Medium and water) to darken things up just a little and make it easier to pick out the details with the recess shade and highlights. I'd imagine they'd look somewhat less similar side by side and the pictures are messing with the colours a bit.

 

So on a different note:

 

This isn't entirely down to the fact that I've been playing Mass Effect: Andromeda lately - I've been considering it for a while now - but I'm thinking about going with my force being a portion of the Fourth Sphere Expansion that was thrown across the galaxy by the Great Rift and is now having to carve out their own little home in unfamiliar space, presumably with no hope of ever reconnecting with the Empire. There's scope there to take things down a darker or more optimistic path, come into contact with a wider range of factions and even explain allies that might not make sense for a more traditional T'au force.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Commander Dawnstar

[Panzer]

Keep in mind that this is still not exactly Sa'Cea. It's just the kind of armor plate color GW shows us as example Sa'Cea forces often uses because of the many urban areas on Sa'Cea. The actual Sa'Cea color would be the orange Sept&rank markings. ;)

[Commander Dawnstar]

Oh, I know. My original prototype (not the model shown before) has their shoulder symbol in something approximating the green of Ksi'm'yen - I'm too cowardly to even think about attempting proper unit markings for the time being. It's more a matter of not being overtly fond of how the green looked on said test model and my original attachment to Ksi'm'yen coming from a narrative direction that I might be abandoning in this reboot. I don't have to go with Sa'cea, but I'll certainly consider it.

[depthcharge12]

Keep in mind that this is still not exactly Sa'Cea. It's just the kind of armor plate color GW shows us as example Sa'Cea forces often uses because of the many urban areas on Sa'Cea. The actual Sa'Cea color would be the orange Sept&rank markings. ;)

"...if a Sa'cea Shas paints his armor a different color in the middle of a forest, and no one is around to see it, is it still urban grey?"

 

:P

[Sister Alessia]

Love your colour scheme and back ground. It was a really interesting read, thank you! I think your far to hard on your self though, your fire warrior looks ace! Tau are deceptively hard to paint too.