Cadre of Mesme Ukos Refresh

My three Riptides are finally getting an undercoat after 10 years of waiting. Turns out they released 10 years ago this month and I bought them fairly soon after release,  so happy 10th birthday to my battlesuits!

My new boarding patrol are also under the nozzle tonight, with less than a months wait! Lucky devils.

Photos to follow when they’re dry…

I’m the beginning. I started out with two squads of 6 firewarriors. I lovingly constructed my colour scheme of red gore and vomit brown. Decided I would alternate the cloth and armour per six, so one 6 would have red cloth & brown armour and the next brown cloth and red armour. Which was great. Until…. I got a huge box set of Tau with lots of new squads, meaning they now would be in squads of 12.

I ditched my alternating scheme for my own sanity and decided brown for the cloth and red for the armour. Squad marks on helmets & shoulder pads and team leaders to have blood red and Tau language on the shoulder pad.

Here are the Squads already finished from my last attempt at painting everyone, dusted and ready for the shelves.

Back in the mists of time I went to a Games Day. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and made a diorama for the Golden Demon contest. Just for fun rather than serious.

I created Mesme Ukos taking on my partners Guardsmen.

I replicated his army scheme for the Guard. Hid Ratling Snipers in the trees. The trees are twisty garden wire with Flock & lichen for foliage – inspired by the trees on my pathfinders.

The sniper shots have activated the Shield Drone.  I used a red resin portal for the shield effect.

I also hid a tortoise and lizard in the scene just for the cute factor.

The diorama will live in the display cabinets alongside the rest of my Tau.

Time to go home…

All of the finished models will be hanging out in the glass cabinets for now & fingers crossed, come back out again for the grand basing at the end of my project.

Yoda may say do or do not, there is no try, but I’m disagreeing with the old master and I’m going to try really hard to get to that final task.

My plastic risers were bought a very long time ago for the purpose of displaying my Tau so it’s time to put them to good use. First up are the Kroot on the multilevel risers – I love this shape, I may have to invest in another for the fire warrior squads.

Next are the drones – I’ve left space for aircraft to fly above them. The drones  for now can roomie with Ethereals, turret and Stealth Suits.

I’ve added better photos of my Ethereal’s to showcase the details I added to their outfits and bases, I especially love the little crashed drone on my ‘proxy’ Ethereal.

Then in go the sniper drone team, the pathfinders and their rides.

I have tried to get some close ups of their markings too.

Here come the Air Caste.

My original two ground crew have been joined by 3 more. I went with orange for the jumpsuits with blue armour. I tried to find the correct colours in my Tau paints but it seems I originally used two oranges, one of which is lost in the mists of time and an unknown shade of blue.

A quick rethink and I decide to redo the jumpsuits with the blazing orange that features on the pathfinders and after a couple of experiments (not pictured) with various Blues I settle on Hoeth Blue for the air caste.

Everyone ended up with new paint. One of my newer guys has a full face mask on so I tried out something new and went for a Jedi temple guard inspired pattern.