Firewarriors Second Squad

This is another squad of Firewarriors I put through the dip. They were recovered from a trade day at GW. The assembly on them was horrible. I think I got a total of 15 in the trade and a dozen survived cleanup enough to be redone.Of those 3 had carbines so they will likely be turned into Pathfinders, if I ever get around to working on them. Always remember, friends don't let friends poorly assemble models.

Dip vs Tabletop Painting

I have been getting a few questions about the dipped minis and how they look compared to the minis I normally paint. The differences were not as much as I would have thought. Even before brightening up the new dipped ones were pretty close. Can you tell the difference?

At normal tabletop distances there isn't any. At 1 foot still none. At 3-6 inches there are little things, extra shadows and weaker highlights but nothing that would make them as bad. More like painting when tired or like the tenth fig in a row. Overall I am going to call my dipping test a success. This means I need to get those other troops assembled and with any luck the main force will be done in the next month or two. Now I need to find a way to speed up painting the white pieces of my army. I have 3 or 4 more Devilfish, 6 more piranha and a at least a dozen battlesuits. Looks like I am going to have to get to experimenting.  

You must stay on the path.

Pathfinders are one of the more cool and odd units in 40k. They are probly the most specilized thing in the game. They are scouts thats whole purpose is to make other units better. If you play Tau will will need several. So here are 3 new ones I am trying to finish up. These are done the same as the Kroot I did earlier. They are dipped only at this state. I will be adding the rest of the detail shortly. The extra pouches are from Forgeworld Elysian Equipment Pack. They turned out really well and I will likely be adding them to some of the other troops.

I also heard an interesting rumor that has me thinking back to one of my earlier post. Here is the rumor 

Assault Skimmer

Something between size of piranha and hammerhead, fast skimmer open topped, assault on disembark.

It's assault after a flat out move, and has the "drop troops along path" option similar to the storm raven"

This would be a sorely needed addition to the Tau and would be the perfect Pathfinder transport. Looks like I need to dig this project back out and start working on some new plans for this one. This is going to be a very good and long year for projects if this rumor pans out.

Birdmen hatching from the ooze

I held off for as long as I could but I have never been one to like painting troops. Tanks, drones, battle suits, terrain, single minis, no problem. More than 5 of the same thing and my hands shut down. It is just too boring to have to paint the same fig over and over and over again. Since I need at least 36 Firewarriors, 40 Kroot and 12 Kroot hounds, I needed some way to speed things up. It was time to try dipping minis.

First up in the bath for me are the Kroot. Kroot have a love/hate relationship in Tau circles. You love the fact that they can actually survive in close combat but hate the fact that they almost never get there. They are a speedbump on good days and a waste of point when the dice are cold. Either way you can't find out their worth in your army until you have some. The eggs have finally hatched. This is the first 6 of 12. The other 6 were still drying while the pictures were being taken. They will hit the booth eventually.

For this first set I when with the black stain/varnish dip. The mix is 2 parts stain to 3 parts mineral spirits. The base paint is Krylon Periwinke which is a dead on match for GW Shadow Grey. This is great because touchu ps require no color matching. This speeds things up heavily. The rest of the colors are about 1 or 2 shades lighter than I would normally use. This  worked out pretty well for me.