Monday, April 25, 2011

A Strange Queen

Not much updates with my Flesh Tearers. Been busy painting other stuff. Namely Empress Messalina IV from Reaper Miniatures. She's from their Chronoscope range and a really neat model. She is sculpted by Mr Patrick Keith whose works i greatly admire. Check out his blog/site!

I also really appreciate the clever tie-in to the real Empress Valeria Messalina of ancient Rome who is famous for her scheming ways and court intrigue. She was also known for being a tad promiscuous, which caused her eventual death at the hands of her husband the Emperor Claudius. Well enough history...

The miniature has been an inspiration and temptation to start a Tau army. I think she has all the major features of the WH40K Tau race, specifically their Ethereals. She has the potential to spearhead a rather themed Tau army. She could be an Ethereal with much power over the Tau Empire's aliens, namely the Vespids and Kroot. Or she could be like the Roman Empress of her namesake with great influence over the Tau warrior caste who all fight to do her bidding and win her favor ;)


I like the floating chair idea. In alot of ways she reminded me of the Tau special character Aun'Va aka Master of the Undying Spirit. I painted the orb in her hand to be of the same colors as the energy swirls at the bottom of her base to link them. Also gave her some peacock inspired feathers.


Side view. I plan to paint the base the color of the Tau orange-brown scheme at a later date. Need to get the paint.


Other side view. She will represent a Tau Ethereal in the game. I have heard they are not too useful. But i'm all fluff over tactics hehe!


Back view. Still got some highlights and bases to finish up.


I also have the option of placing her on a bigger base. This way she could be a counts as Aun'Va if needed.


Rhino
Also simultaneously painting up a Rhino. It'll primarily be for my Flesh Tearers and will be the same color scheme as the Flesh Tearers in White Dwarf 376 April 2011. I felt the minimal red and largely back scheme works well as i can use the Rhino for a few ways.

It can be a Flesh Tearers Rhino as intended, or a Death Company Rhino or an Inquisition Rhino as they all share the same color scheme.


Just gave the interior the ubiquitous brush of Boltgun Metal paint and Badab Black wash.

I'm not gluing the top hatch on as i plan to paint the Flesh Tearer symbol on one side and leave the other side black or red so i can do a switch.

Have a super start to the week everyone :)

10 comments:

  1. Do you know Tau was my very 1st 40k army, even before chaos marines. I bought chaos marines models when I first started this hobby, but tau was my 1st army.

    I was attracted to the "robots" and the sleek firewarriors and gun ships.

    Anyway being a complete newbie to the game and consolidation into close combat rule, once some assault guys charge into 1 of my units = game over man. I quickly sold them off and expanded my chaos marines.

    BS 3 combo with my fluff powers, I was barely hitting anything with pulse rifles lol... (marker lights in 3rd edition was lame)

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  2. Cool manz! I didn't know your first army was the Tau :)

    I may still go for the blue fishes. I like the models more now. And its a change from Marine and Assaulty armies.

    The new combat rules makes me wanna field multiple smaller Fire warrior units. If one unit dies the others can try to avenge...hopefully ;)

    I still reading the Tau codex. Not too sure of the hard-wired rules yet haha!

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  3. I still like the tau playstyle but the crisis suits from GW too "blocky", doesnt match the sleek and high tech look of its counterpart the gunships and warriors. FW suits looks much better but very X

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  4. I checked out the Forgeworld Tau suits after u mentioned it, and they do really look much better. They have more curves and look more 'organic' to me.

    I think maybe thats why some people proxy with Gundam models hehe ;)

    I placed an order for the Tau just last night. No more Tomb Kings lol!

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  5. Can disclose how much you wack? 1 time jialet jialet? or multiple cluster bombs on the credit card?

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  6. Can can no probs haha! I wack almost $300 bucks on the Tau :)

    I bought the Tau Battleforce, 1x Commander in crisis suit box, 5x Crisis Suit boxes and 1 box of Vespid Stingwings.

    I have 1 box of Fire Warriors in S'pore which i got from 2 years ago. I think total maybe can make about 1K plus points ;)

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  7. The battleforce is a good buy, the best current Battleforce IMO. No skyray boxset? I heard the skyray boxset contains both the railgun and skyray turrets. Great buy.

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  8. Good to know man :) I always go for battleforce first when i start a new-ish army. I still got one more Stormraven to build and paint. I think i prefer painting troops to vehicles lol!

    I might get a Skyray in the future though. Looks good to have 2 cool lookin' vehicles in the army :)

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  9. Buying more than you can build I see... welcome to the club hahaha.

    I'm opposite you, I like painting or rather airbrushing vehicles. Painting highlights on troops make my hand cramp.

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  10. Lol! Yeah manz! I'm trying to finish the stuff i bought over here during the next 2 months. I'll prolly not be gettin' any more stuff.

    When i'm back to actual work in S'pore there may not be so much time to paint hehe!

    I really like your DC Drop Pod man. Its really well done! Maybe u can do an IG Mech army, lots of vehicles there ;)

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