New Projects

I need a project to try to take my mind off several unpalatable facts:
1. My contract ends in two weeks and after that I've got nothing
2. I'm 49 in 4 weeks
3. My wife's employer will pay me a salary for 4 months as a sort of apology for making me relocate to the middle of nowhere and away from my job.
4. I've been in borderline personality disorder relapse for over two years

My son is into Warhammer 40,000 and I like the modelling side of this (although not so much the nerd-tactic gaming side, no sir)

I found a Tau vehicle in the codex called a Drone Harbinger that I'd not heard of before.  It's based on the Devilfish APC but has a simplified hatch and an enlarged cargo section with more doors.  It's cool in game too because it produces many many drones which rock in combat.

I'm thinking I'd like to make an add-on module with all the features of a Harbinger, that I can magnetise and then add to either of my son's existing devilfish hulls to make the vehicle without having to keep it that way.  Tau empire tanks are all modular so with the generous use of neodymium mini magnets you can turn just about any vehicle into just about any other by adding and removing parts.

My first task is to gather the extra parts I'll need.  I think a spare hull rear plate, a couple of light gun drones with plasma carbines, three Devilfish assault doors and maybe a new rear hatch.  The Harbinger has two smaller drone deployment hatches in the rear plate, instead of one large troop ramp.

Usually easy to obtain from eBay but listings are a little scarce at the moment, and I object to paying shipping from the USA that is four times the asking price of the part.  The other sections I'll try to model with sheet styrene or possibly green stuff or similar.  Probably both.

Another ongoing project is to make some human warriors for the Tau army, called "Gue'vesa" in the game.  These are basically humans soldiers that have defected to the Tau.  I don't think they're especially spectacular in battle but since we have the Vespers and the Kroot already to fight alongside the Tau, I'd like to complete the set.

The Tau have other allied races but these are the only ones to participate in ground combat, apart from perhaps the Demiurg, kind of WH40K versions of dwarfs, which have been loosely associated with Squats, a discontinued minor race from the metal miniatures days that no longer appear in the codex.

There are some rumours circulating that a race similar to the Squats may be added to the game in the near future with a codex and everything, but since the Harlequins are so big right now I'm not holding my breath.

You make Gue'vesa by combining parts of human Imperial Guard Cadians and Tau Fire Warriors.  There is an on-line "recipe" for this conversion already (at http://warhammer-tau-army.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/alien-allies-for-tau-guevesa.html) so it should just be a better of doing it and not screwing up too much.  I have pretty much gathered all the required bits for this project.

Here is an image of the Gue'vesa from the site above. I don't expect mine to turn out this good.

I'll blog updates on both projects, with pictures, as and when I make progress.

Laters....