TheTrans

Isn't all 40k pretty much 'counts as' now anyway given wargear hardly matters? Just say the models are X unit, and as long as it's clear and standard across the army, who cares?

I think the problem is though it is a Heavy Support choice and is therefore, functionally useless, and the place where it could 'shine' (In the same way a polished turd would) as a Heavy Support choice (that being ZM) it isn't allowed to be used in as its 'Cavalry' for whatever stupid reason. Again, not sure if the rules writers are actively hostile toward non-marine players, or are just that incompetent they don't really know their own rules... and 2 years in, I'm still not sure what is worse, but its terrible for all of us either way.

Ok...every BS4 Lascannon vs every BS3 lascannon then mate, there you go.. Also..cavalry...can we take them in ZM where they are most needed.

Any else love paying 20 points for a single lascannon shot hitting on 4s... meanwhile the contemptor/castra pays 20pts for 2 shots hitting on 2s... how's the balance yeah?

Just a shame the rules for it are a hot garbage fire.

I think Melee should be absolutely devastating and decisive in 40k... if I've just dealth with 2-3 turns of getting slapped in the face by a gunline, I'd want my army to absolutely chew through the enemy.

Just fleshing out the first model which is gonna do double duty as both 30k Deathguard, that are becoming slightly nurgly, but not yet fully (at least that they are aware of) down the warp route, but are yet still suffering from an unknown infection, no doubt contracted from those exo-planar xenoforms that have been popping up, and also some Rabble Rousers leading a 3rd ed Lost and the Damned army. So going forward, especially from the Astartes front, I’m going to have a fun time trying to balance gritty ‘realistic’ 30k against the 3ed vibes of plaguemarines and chaos in general. I’ll be staying away from the almost caricature level that we’ve seen with the current DG releases though. So I’ve got 7 Marines built, as well as two characters so far, the main character being this fella, Vitay Decarg (bonus points for getting the blatant weapon rip off reference). On closer inspection you can probably see he has a bit of the old ‘distended belly’ action going on which to me is very 3rd ed. I imagine these fleshy parts only start happening if the marines cop significant/mortal wounds..and instead of dying, these wounds rupture forward or something, apothecaries at the time with more pressing issues would say its a malfunction with the Larraman's Organ, if you’re still combat operable, we’ll deal with it when we’re not fighting a civil war, go away. So with this guy, while have the gut, I’ve kept pretty dame on anything overly choosy, we have some sigils here or there, as well as some unfortunately positioned heads etc, but by and large, chaos is there, but not right in your face…. Except for the zombies.. I had to make a little helmet bearer (will just count as a 'zombie' in the squad with him) as he had no room left on his belt for his helmet. I just wanted to note here, I think with the addition of the 'banner' from the lord discordants back, it really gets those Codex Eye of Terror vibes of a lot of the Lost and the Damned art. Of course the zombies. I don't think your legally, or morally allowed to run a Nurgle Lost and the Damned army without the plague zombies. 30k-Zombie fluff is yet to be fleshed out, but it will be something very warp-based, but the Death Guard that are dealing with it will copium it away as something else. Anyway, more fluff and minis to come, just thought I’d pop some pics up of a project I’m actually pretty pumped for! So I've got an event coming up at the end of January, and while I'll be taking the Tattered Prince and the Forces of the CVGP along for 2k Cent and 3k AoD games, I thought I'd make myself a challenge of getting this 'small' project done. Broadly Speaking it will be using the fan rules for Army of Dark Compliance in HH2.0, but using everything else as legimate rules and restricitons (All marines will be used as Iron Hands in gorgon armour, to get easy access to FnP, Heavy and -1 St to shooting). 2x Death Guard Characters (2x Centurion Heralds in Gorgon Armour, with Thunder Hammers and Cyber Familiars) 7x Death Guard Marines (7x Gorgon Terminators w/ Combi Bolters and Power Axes) 40x Plague Zombies (2x 20 Milita Levy Squads w/ Laspistol and CC Weapons, when the heralds go in here, they turn fearless, gain Fear (1) and the Medicaes go in these squads for a 6+ FnP, zombies baby!!). 3x Nurgle Apostate Preachers (3x Milita Medicae) 5x Plague Ogryns. (5x Militia Ogryns). So a bit to do, but most of the marines are at the undercoat state, and I've just printed up a plate of 20 odd zombies, many being mixed up zombies + nu-cadian STLs to make my life easier in the short term! Wish me luck gang!

Ok, so I printed some of the XV15s out over the weekend, had a few little failures here and there (stemming form the drill holes I 'pre cut' into the 3d files feet, but we got enough to have a play!) So this is just a quick show of what I envision them to look like, I've added a small 'half cape' or something, not only does this hide the, serviceable, yet NQR butts, but gives them an air of being slightly higher up than the normal Fire Warrios (as these are the elites, just not in XV8s) as well as an excellent place to place their gear (as I imagine these guys operate more like how a space marine does in regards to the armour being a second skin, as opposed to a 'pilotable battlesuit) and would need stuff while fighting in the field, easily accessible. Also allows one to add some 'direction' to the model. I'm not sure if these will be camo coloured, or just standard 'material' colour. Just a shot showing them from a different angle, I've attached a few lift points on these guys as well, on the heavier pieces that I imagine would need to be lowered into place as they are getting into their armour. A shot from the back, not showing off a whole heap, except gear location, as said above I imagine they'd need access to stuff while fighting. Cheeky scale line up, I'm glad I've enlarged them over the older sculpts as the XV85 based XV8 is huuuge (much like the original art)! While significantly larger than a fire warrior, I feel I've nailed the helmet size well as I think that is like the 'core' of making these look like a large power armoured suit, I imagine the left hand is just an armature and the FW's hand is within the wrist controlling it remotely sort of vibes, probably similar with the foot also. Hope you guys like them, as always, lay it on me if you have any thoughts or ideas that would make these guys look better! The 3rd ed book, just has some absolutely stellar bits of art mate, and I find back in the 3rd ed days, the black and white art somehow added more like 'breadth' to the universe which sounds odd haha. Oh man a full Stealthsuit Cadre would be amazing! I don't mind the XV25 also mate, but too me its sort of leaning more toward a small battlesuit, as opposed to essentially power armour. Fair cop on the ERA mate, it certainly detraccts from a lot of tau tau clean lines etc, but I'm a sucker for military clutter haha. Do it mate, get some sweet T'au action going! Cheers mate, yeah gives the turret vibes as I really don't think the Broadsides are particularly agile or limber or can move with any alacrity. Yeah having a 3d printer and some rudiementy 3d hacking skills certainly helps with some parts of projects, espcially for 'mechanical' or square stuff, that I need to repeat a few of!

Heya gang, Nothing overly exciting to report at the moment sorry, just been whacking away at a devilfish and some Fire Warriors, so nothing overly awe inspiring yet. Trawling the interwebs though and looking at some old XV15 stealthsuits (which were always gonna be a part of the army) I spotted some of this really cool art: Which got me thinking, like it looks, in that picture at the very least, that they are using the XV15 as frontline combat armour, as opposed to flittering around the edges, which got the fluff writing juices going. So once I've got a model sorted and printed I'll give you the big lot of fluff, but in short, I'm gonna run 2 XV15 on a single 40mm base as an 'Ersatz Crisis' suit, so 6 all up for a single unit of 3 crisis suits. They'll all just be running twin-linked burst cannons and a drone controller, except for the Shas'vre who will have a missle launcher/plasma gun with a multi tracker and target lock. Fluff wise, broadly speaking, it will be due to being a backwater colony, they hadn't yet been equipped with XV25s, but had instead been sent a metric flip-tonne of the semi-decomissioned XV15s, and given that with the ERA armour on the crisis suits, the pilots weren't dying at the same rate of the suits being destroyed, they had a posse of highly trained, battle hardened XV8 pilots with no armour.. so why not strip out the stealth sub-systems of the xv15 suits, allow them to carry a bit more weight/power a larger single weapon and have them pair off into teams to act as ersatz crisis teams? Now obviously the old XV15s are hard to come by, but also I found they where quite smalll, and I realise that the tau power armour is meant to be almost suit like, I wanted them a little beefier. Anyway, cue a week of tinkering with some files I found on cults 3d (Shout out to Possi), the files Possi made are fantastic renditions of the original models, but weren't quite thicc enough for me (and factoring the 'upscaling' that has occured using XV85 suits as basic XV8 suits. So after much cutting and changing bits out I didn't like, I give you the XV15 builder. I've added some battlesuit weapons in a similar configuration as the XV15's burst cannon, as well as the option to place a battlesuit hard wired subsystem on the backpack. Which has then allowed me to create a variety of poses: Basic shoot and scooter More steadied firing Dude one of the 'Shas'vre Base' he will have a bare head (helmet on belt) as well as a multi-tracker on his backpack, the other fella on his base will have the XV15 missile launcher. Anyway, these bad boys are, as we speak, sitting in the 3d printer awaiting my return home for a clean, prime and then a 'detail pass', I'll try and get some pics up next week! I think you're spot on mate, its weird how that sort of changes isn't and you've nailed the issue quite succinctly, all the battlesuits, even the riptides etc have weapons polted onto arms, as you said, mech like, but the holding the railgun like a rifle, doesn't make as much sense, or at the very least takes away that a broadside is nominally a static weapon emplacement that can...wander around a little bit if it has too, it has no strategic maneuverability. Where as old mate rifle-chest guy, gives more of a titanfall vibe, which is fine if thats what you're looking for, but isn't, to me at least, in line with that original tau vibes. (Incentally, just after the above ranting and raving about the XV15s I feel the gun-arm infantry man suits fine for power armour as they are just that, power armoured infantry as opposed to mech suits.) Balance on it isn't too bad, as there is a rock and a hucking fuge bit of GS/Milliput on the bottom, centres a lot of weight down there. I'd say the normal suits are more liable to fall over! Glad to hear it mate, yeah something about the shoulder guns just works! Thanks mate, yeah I want that real battletech vibe of these things get damaged and part swap outs are quite common. I like to imagine in this earlier epoch that the suits are more like a tank to the pilot than I don't know, a beloved pet? Like, when you actually listen to memoirs of tank crews from WW2, like yes they would name their tanks and :cuss:, but like if one got knocked out, or destroyed or something (outside of friends and other crew dying) they'd just await another one to appear from the requisition pool and jump in it. I like to think these early crisis pilots are just like that. Oh my suit got nuked, but we have a spare, well inload my specific mind-map to its ai and plug me in!

I feel if you want to use any of the superheavies at not be put massivley out, just 'counts as' a fellblade/falchion at this point?

I give it a week before people are saying that yes they aren't an allied detachment, but they are picked from the same book and are all nominally mechanicum. Just needed to say "Knight/Titan detachments only count as mechanicum for the ally matrix and may be taken within an army that has mechanicum as a primary and/or allied detachment".

So, Mechanicum now, officially can't ally with a knight house or a titan legion... seems legit. All the non-marine (in the sense of they aren't actual marine vehicles, so a legion baneblade, although legion, isn't a marine vehicle perse) are all still atrocious, so people are better off just using a Falchion or Fellblade with "insert best super-heavy benefiting LA rule here" legion rules to proxy any of their non-marine super heavies? We waited what feels like a year for what, at absolute best, is a very bare-bare minimum... and at worst, an after thought to act like heresy is supported properly to make people feel like LI will get updated and looked after.

Heya gang, cranking stuff out at the moment and just catching up with pictures. Currently working on the first batch of 10 firewarriors that have recently went for a swim in some simple green, rejigging these bad boys I reckon is harder than converting the bloody suits! Anyway, still working on the Commander, who will have some elements of the XV8 and XV88, will probably need some input on how to tart him up a little, while still keeping it within the fluff. Anyway, I've got the first XV88 up and done, would love your thoughts! (Don't mind his sensor pod, I need to attach the 'standard' aerials). So we have a front shot first up, I think in hindsight I'll just put his arms in a relaxed position. As you can see he has a heap more ERA on him compared to the XV8s, I figure the ERA is quite heavy, so as the Broadsides don't need to fly or anything, they'll be all good! The commander will have the same chest set up as the Broadside, to make him stand out compared to his XV8 bodyguard. Side shot, yes those are original, 20 odd year old railguns! I was concerned they would look to small on the larger commander chassis, but I think they came up ok! I've 3d printed the cooling vanes (found a great file on cults, that needed a little bit of editing) which sit relatively nicely on the backback and hopefully give those old school broadside vibes. This does a better job of showing off the little supports and feet. The feet are, I'm going to say castellax feet, that I think suited perfectly for the broadside feet, the little support pistons are from a 3d file of the Storm Surge that I edited a little bit to better fit the the XV8 legs. Finally the back, not a lot to see here, except maybe the wiring of the railguns. I king of like to imagine that septs/colonies are legit shipped out XV8 battlesuits, and are then shipped field modification kits to upgrade them into XV88s as needed, thusly the wiring and stuff from the railguns are just booping into already prepared ports sort of thing. This, especially given fluff now that the XV88 is a completly different chassis, but back with our 3rd hat on I think that makes sense. Also missing is his bug-out pack, which will have a pulse rifle, instead of carbine attached. As always lay the boot if you see something that needs fixing or would look better! Thanks mate, thought it gave more of a shieldy vibe to it! Was such a big suprise release! Fair cop mate, I'll see if I can jiggle it across! Thanks for the feedback! Thanks mate, yeah I find posing the battlesuits there is a very, very fine line between looking good and connected to reality and just floating doing nothing and sitting sort of weirdly! Yeah hopefully the gunmental will err more toward the realistic side! Cheers! Oh a mate legit sent me a video of like a big battle scene of these guys when I first started working on the tau, so there is no doubt some of that stuff rattling around in the old melon!

Heya gang, just got a little bit of fluff I whipped up yesterday, as well as the second crisis suit! So there is a little preamble about where the battle will be taking place, and obviously a lot of pre-loading about equipment scarcity and possibly a weird, not seen centerpiece vehicle rearing its ugly head later on in the project. Anyway I give you the second crisis bodguard for the Shas'el Kir'Quath N'Lan Again I've tried to replicate some existing art, I've opted to use a drone's top in place of a shield generator to attempt to get a bit more size to it akin to the reference picture. Again we see here the lift points, and ERA that will be 'standard' across any XV8(8) and Vehicle Chassis. Again I just need to say how much I love the commander kit, I find its proportions just 'work'. A shot of the back (those lines down the vents... grrr... But again another bug out kit/baggage for the suit pilot. I imagine, much like tankers during world war 2, that while their equipment is strapped to the outside, the pilots are more than aware it may just be shot off, but its worth the risk. Any way, that is guy number 1 nominally done. I'm currently working on Shas'el Kir'Quath N'Lan as we speak, he will be based off a few pieces of art, as opposed to the almost direct copies of his bodyguards. Yeah Nids and Tau in 3rd are major memory points for me mate! Thanks a heap mate! Come on man, come join the greater good ;). Thats certainly what I'm going for, I did a fair bit of inspiration googling and there is a heinous lack of gritty tau, 99% of what I see on the net is factory perfect guys with edge highlights haha. Thanks mate! Yeah there is definitely an element of 'back in my day' looking into 3rd..and like most units did a job.. as opposed to 5 units doing the same job and people just pick the best one at it. Thanks mate! Yeah I love trying to add a level of believability to the craziness that is 40k! I'm thinking I'll do the 'standard' tau colour scheme, but instead of the matt black for all the weapons parts, it will instead be a dark gunmental to sort of add a bit of realism. Here is a drone I've started doing a bit of playing around on. Yeah there was a charm to 3rd ed tau that I can't quite put my finger on mate! Oooh I really like that idea of handholds to get sort of carried along, thats a really interesting premise!! Thanks mate, the kit is fantastic and I feel kind of what they wanted Crisis suits to be from day dot! I may need to look into armoured troopers! I do love sisters! Thinking like Codex Witchhunters flavoured sisters? That new Inquisitorial Agents kill team is begging to be used as a henchmen mob in 3rd!

Imagine back, 22 odd years ago, the drop of the initial Tau Codex back in the rose-tinted glory days of 3rd edition Warhammer 40k, there wasn't heinous rules bloat, there was expectations that you could convert models and XV8 crisis suits were the pinnacle of Tau technology. Jump forward to 2023, we've got Warhammer 40,000: Age of Sigmar edition, Tau have a bazillion different battlesuits and Kroot may as well not exist, hard pass. I give you a foray into 3rd edition as both myself and my local group go trudging through PDFs and old, dog-eared codexs. So I'm going to start quickly by apologising for rocking a Tau PLOG on B&C, upon a bit of research it seems there are a few within these hallowed halls and given, to me at least, B&C is the only true 40k forum that has survived, and even thrived, the huge paradigm shift that Facebook, Reddit and Discord brought to the hobby online world. But I digress, Mods if this thread isn't allowed, go take it out the back and put a pulse round through its head. Any way, 3rd edition, not that I played much of it back in the day, was my entry point into 40k and I fondly remember the release of the Tau codex! Not only that, my local gang have been gagging for some non-30k sci-fi warhams lately and 40k is not in a state that we think we'll have fun in. So much like our foray into WHFB 6th edition, we've picked a similar epoch for 40k, 3rd which had a wealth of extra army lists, fun stuff like the vehicle design rules as well as a coxed for every major race released in that edition. I opted to jump on into tau as I wanted something that, after years of being into 30k, wasn't human/imperial based! I always wanted to try out some Tau but never got around to it. This project is essentially going to try and be a modernisation of the 'classic' tau that we saw released in 3rd (and to a lesser extent 4th/Taros Campaign) before they jumped the sharks with the mecha-bent. This means I'll be limiting myself to essentially only XV8(8) and XV15 based battlesuits. Outside of this, I'll be putting my own, detailed, militarised nitty-gritty bent as a filter over the 3rd ed tau. Anyway, I'll touch on the first battlesuit I completed, this will be one of Shas'el Kir'Quath N'Lan's bodyguards, which I based heavily off the old Crisis Suit box art from 3rd. Here is a side by side. I'll be basing all of my XV8s and XV88s off off the fantastic new Tau Commander model, I think it 100% nails what the original XV8s looked like in the art, with another 15 years of minature development added to them! A truly fanastic kit (Except what monster puts a join point up all of the vents on the backpack) Here is a shot from the front, showing off a bracket of conversion work, while not major, I think nicely 'realises' the kit a bit. As you can see I've added lift points for all the major parts of the armour, as well as protective bar around the sensor pods 'eyes'. You'd also notice some hexagonal plates trapped around the front, I've chucked on some ERA just around the pilot area. There is more expanded fluff coming (as always) but in the very short, think of a small, backwater garrison force of Tau left to look after a fledgling colony, a small imperial force attacks, these guys are left doing whatever they can to hold back the tide. They find the myriad Krak Missiles the Imperium is throwing at them is taking a huge toll on their crisis suit teams, ergo a bit of locally produced and hastily applied ERA to at the very least lower pilot casualties. Finally a bit of extra detail on the back, again I really wanted to add a bit more of a 'lived it' vibe to this tau force, so its essentially a 'bug out' pack for if the Battlesuit is made combat inoperable, at least the pilot can bail out and try and fight his way back to his lines. Anyway, currently have a second bodyguard (and the Shas 'el himself) in the works as well as an XV88. As always please lay the boot with thoughs and ideas that can improve these guys and any cool, tidbits about the tau you can think of! Thanks in advance, Nick!