Converting Your Own Ethereal

With the changes to Ethereal rules in the 6th edition Tau update, there have come significant changes to how Tau play.
Well perhaps they haven't changed the play all that much, but it has created a much stronger "Castle" tactic, than was previously possible.

Since Ethereals look like they've got some fun new rules and could be worth it in the right circumstances, I decided that I'd like to have one. However, I had a problem: I didn't like any of GW's ethereal models. Not because they look bad (though some do), but because they all come in finecast/metal and are nigh impossible to convert. So I turned to alternative methods.

There are three steps I used in transforming a human model into an Ethereal.

#1 Model Selection

When looking for a potential Ethereal stand-in, there are certain things you should look for. Obviously, it is your army, so you can use whatever models you want as long as your opponents are ok with it, but to get a somewhat accurate counts-as, you need to keep these things in mind:

• Ethereals have no armour save. The model shouldn't have much armour on it, and if it does it really shouldn't be doing much in the way of protection.
• Ethereals are the noble ruling class of the Tau. Their demeanor and stance should reflect a leadership role or at the very lease a "holy" or "mysterious" look.
• Can this work? A simple question, but hard to answer. You must take into account your skills as a hobbyist, the model's potential, and what you expect for the end result. 
• And above all...

#2 Anatomy

Tau have 4 fingers on each hand, no ears, and no noses. In their forehead is a sort of "slot" and they have oddly shaped hoofs instead of feet. Most of these alterations are easy to accomplish.

• Cut/shave/file away the model's little fingers
• Cut/shave/file away the model's ears and nose
• Either replace the model's feet with some spare Tau ones, or model the hoofs with greenstuff
• Cut the forehead slot/indent. or replace the head.

When performing the last action, keep this in mind. A major distinguishing feature of a female tau is her forehead indent. Here is a rough example of the difference.

 

Just take a look at Shadowsun and compare her to any other helmetless Tau and you'll get the idea. Most Tau players have some extra heads lying around from their Firewarrior/Pathfinder kits. This would be the ideal time to use them.

 

#3 Equipment

Ethereals carry either an Honor Blade or Equalizers. Both are pretty much useless as weapons in the hands of an ethereal, but they are a distinguishing feature of the model. Give your Ethereal a spear of some sort, preferably one with a broad single edged blade that mimics the existing Tau models GW has put out.

Have a look through your bits box, especially the new plastic Pathfinder bits. You'd be surprised what you can find that will really add something to your model.

Though not required, getting the Tau symbol onto the model somewhere can go a long way. If possible model a pendant on, or even a simple transfer symbol put onto the back of the Ethereal's robe.

In some cases, the bits that you put on will be sufficiently marked to give the model a Tau feel. Less is more, so don't cover your Ethereal in symbols, one or two should be sufficient to convey your intentions.

 

Tada! Your model has transformed into a Tau Ethereal. Granted, the hardest part is the Anatomy, but once you get past that the model should do the rest. That is why it is so important to select a model that will accept the alterations well, rather than just grabbing the first mini you see and getting to work chopping it up.

 

Example

Here is my own Tau ethereal. She was only just put together last night, so I have not named her or written any backstory for her. But she should be fun to put on the table!

 

I had a stroke of luck at a citywide yard sale one weekend, and found a chap who used to own a model store and still had a significant amount of Reaper singles to get rid of. I grabbed this female elf sorceress-ish type character for $3.

 

I know that Ethereals don't actually carry pulse pistols, but it serves the purpose of Tau-ifying my model, giving a combat feel, and giving that sword hand something to hold.

 

 

 Here she is after the first pass. I replaced the elf ear with a Tau comms antenna, since there needed to be something holding her hair back. The spear blade used to be her sword blade, in hindsight I probably should have just made one from scratch. Perhaps I still will, it will be a quick switch.

 Here she is on some cork to raise her up and maker her more of a heroic figure.

 And a picture from the back after I made some alterations to the spear and shoulder sleeves. The armour plate over the shoulder sleeve is about half of a Stealth suit shoulder pad. It gets the Tau symbol onto the model, adds some iconic armour plating, and covers up the Medieval looking sleeves.

 And here she is from the front. I got lucky with this model because the hair makes covers up any forehead indent, and the robe mostly covers the feet so I didn't have to do much modeling in those departments.

The spear could definitely use  some refining though.

 

I may not be able to use this model in a Games Workshop store, but I honestly doubt I'll use her that much. I really made her because I felt that no Tau army would be complete without an Ethereal somewhere in the ranks.

After I get the rest of my boys in order perhaps I'll revisit this mini and giver her a proper Honor Blade.

 

 

I hope this was helpful or inspirational to some people. Thanks for reading!  

Magnetizing a Crisis Suit

Few armies lend themselves to magnetization like the Tau. And fewer still can do it as cheaply or as easily.
Tau crisis suits are so incredibly versatile, that magnetizing them is almost mandatory. What will you do after you've glued on that multitracker or flamer? Counts-as models are always a little bit of an admission of defeat, because you wouldn't pay enough money to have all the correct models.
However, using magnets maintains your ability to switch out weapons/systems on your battlesuits, without forcing you to buy extra battlesuits or weapons. You can also use magnets to make your devilfish/hammerhead/skyray interchangeable. An excellent tutorial on magnetizing your vehicle chassis can be found here.
I will be focusing on the XV-8 battlesuit, but magnet techniques can be adapted to just about any model. The model I am using has the forgeworld battlesuit forearms and weapon mount, but the technique applies to regular battlesuit arms as well.

XV-8 Conversions

XV-8's to the Front!

XV-8's are an older model, at least 10 years old, but they will not be changed for the new Tau Codex. This is fine with me, as the aesthetics fit the Tau ideals and it was a very good foundation for converting. There weren't a whole lot of problems with them so why redo them?

New Cadre Members!

Cadre Fireblade

This guy was a blast to convert. All I needed were some pieces from both the firewarrior sprue and the new pathfinder sprue. A little extra kit and an elongated braid was all this guy needed to look like a total boss.

The leg pose was achieved by cutting the left leg off of a running pose and replacing the left leg of a standing pose.

The left arm is a regular extended firewarrior arm with the hand replaced with the pathfinder binocular hand holding the magnifier.

The chest piece center was carved out a bit and a firewarrior grenade arm's shoulder pad put in.

Finally, his braid is actually three firewarrior barehead braids glued together to extend the length and add rings.

Darkstrider

The picture isn't great, but there really isn't much to this conversion. It is all pathfinder pieces and a little green-stuff sash.

The left arm is a regular supporting arm put onto a pathfinder carbine.

The markerlight is attached to the gun in a slightly different manner.

In order to distinguish him more, I'll have to paint him more ostentatiously than my other pathfinders or firewarriors.

Magnetized XV-9

This was pretty simple to do. you bore out the inside of the shoulder pad where the elbow pin would normally go. There's just enough room for a 1/8" circular magnet to go in.

The elbow pin is cut off, making it a flat surface. Drill down just a little bit to give the magnet something to sit in and glue it in.

The tricky thing with magnets is that you really need to be sure that the positive sides match up with negative sides. Otherwise they won't stick together after you've superglued the magnets in. So check and double check!

Tada! fusion cascades or twin-linked burst cannons, as you please! I'm excited for the IA:3 2nd Ed to come out so the XV-9's will be awesome again!

A Sturdier Skimmer Stand

Those of us who have owned Warhammer 40k Vehicles that require a skimmer stand, have all experienced the horror of a broken stand. The slender acrylic rods that come with every skimmer, jetbike, drone, etc. are  notorious for snapping off at the neck and leaving plastic embedded in the model.

Converting Your Own "Eclipse Shield Generator"

This is a simple how-to for a counts-as Eclipse Shield Generator.

I needed a shield generator that had sufficient pizazz to pass for the Eclipse. Otherwise my Ralai counts-as would not be sufficiently kitted out. Here is how I made it.

Vespid Counts-as

I have just pulled and assembled the first three Vespid Counts-as. Minus their jump packs, which I have not finished duplicating.

The very first set.

There are some kinks I need to work out. One of the rifles was almost double thick due to lack of compression, and I broke an antenna while clipping the pieces out of the sprue.
Otherwise I think it's a pretty good start and it will only get better!

Now all I need is a shiny new codex that makes them worth fielding in large numbers!

A Growing Family

My family is growing, in so many ways. My daughter just turned 10 months old last week and time is flying by too fast. She'll be walking and talking in no time at all...sigh...
On the bright side, I've been starting her early on painting tutorials and miniwargaming battle reports. Ironically, the battle reports interest her the most; must be something about dice being rolled over and over.

My "other" family is also growing. Some recent success with resin casting has yielded more Tau Battlesuit goodness, and much more is on the horizon. I've run out of resin for my battlesuit molds, so those will have to take a break, but I still have plenty for my own micromark molds that I've been neglecting.

An early WIP pic for my Commander.

I tend to only buy models off the web, and generally that means my models are maltreated and in desperate need of some love. This week I took in a brand new baby from the 40k adoption agency that is Ebay.

Brand new sealed Skyray, obviously meant for me.

Since a new Tau codex is coming within the next month or so, I decided I better pick up one of these guys before GW replaces them. Apparently GW recalled a bunch of stuff from stores so that it can be replaced with new items. The Hammerhead was pulled out, but the Skyray was left. I'm thinking that GW is just going to add some new artwork to the Skyray box, mark it up, and call it a dual kit like they've been doing for other armies.

Bonus Hammerhead Weapons Sprue that Skyrays come with!

This new kit brings my Tau "School" up to 6 full vehicles, not counting the two piranhas. I can field 3 hammerheads, 2 skyrays, 6 devilfish and anything in between.

I fear that GW may try and turn the Tau into a gunline army, which is bad for me because I want to run a mechanized force. A mech force is more in line with Tau fluff, but tau have predominately been played as a gunline army because that was one of the only ways to be competitive with them. If GW embraces popular usage over existing fluff, then this new release may not be all that exciting for me.

No matter, they are going to buff the Skyray, and then I'll be able to field the tanks that were named for me (obviously)

Progress?

I have some pics of my work so far. I wanted to give most of the molds a try before I resort to modifying them. Any number of factors could affect my results compared to the original owner's, but I think it is most likely lack of experience and mold knowledge.
Someone who cast the molds would have a better idea of where its weaknesses are and whatnot. I'll just try to become as familiar as possible with the molds.



Still working on dealing with trapped air, some molds work better than others

This one has lots of issues. Air cavities, not mixing correctly, bad ratios etc.

Various pieces with some of the flash cleaned off. My better pulls so far

More to come!

Learning at the Speed of Resin

I have moved yet again. Our planned 2nd move went pretty smooth (it always helps when you don't have to drive 10 hours to the new place) and we're happy where we are now. The catch is that I had to give up my den. This is not a huge problem, it just means I will have to learn how to be more organized and clean up as I go, but I am still sad and yearn for the day when I can work in an uninhibited mess.

I am currently undergoing Resin Casting boot camp. The going is slow as I am largely self-teaching and learning by trial and error, plus my casting expert resides in the faraway land of England, so time delays make question and answer a long process.
When I have completed a cast worth showing, I will post some pictures. So far I have had marginal success with my Micromark practice mold, but failure whenever using SmoothOn 300 on some molds I purchased from said England caster.

My Practice mold. Waaaaay too much hardening component, hence all the bubbles

I am learning a ton in a short amount of time. I think I need to take a break until I can buy some small mixing cups that work better than the ones I have. Right now my two biggest problems are mixture ratios and holding the molds together at just the right pressure.

On an unrelated note, I managed the 1 hour drive to the gaming store on Saturday for a small warmup skirmish. My virgin Tau were stomped by some Mechanized Imperial Guard (beautifully modeled and painted Death Korps of Kreig). I'm not too worried about it, my list was far from ideal and I forgot so many rules it hardly counts as a game.


My newbies on the field. MVP goes to my big tank in the middle: Railgun FTW

I learned alot, both about playing as Tau and about playing in the local scene. Everywhere is different and a piece of terrain may be considered something else in another area.
For example, I didn't know this until halfway through the game, but that forest is LOS blocking and the gun pit/chimera wreck on the right was considered an AV13 bunker. It would have been more sporting for my opponent to have told me that when we deployed, but than again, I never asked so I deserved it.

Andy! What is happening on your end?







And So it Begins

January

Hey all. So back in summer 2012 I bought a MicroMark mold kit for my projects. Kinda pricey but I wanted to at least start out with some half-way decent product. I will (hopefully) be using this to make silicone molds and reproduce some of my more extensive conversions.

MicroMark Mold Starter Kit

The kit came with just about everything I needed. You have to make your own box to pour the silicone into, and LEGO's work great for that. Unfortunately, I left all mine in Moscow, ID and so I'm waiting for a package to arrive from back home with the essentials.

Modeling Tangent

Tau is still my primary army but I've stalled out on painting for now and the Vespids are waiting on LEGO's. To maintain forward momentum, I bought some custom weapons for my Imperial Guard ally contingent that I'm not even certain I will use. Regardless, I couldn't resist these beautiful SCAR's and M14 sniper rifles sized for 28 mm models. The torsos at the bottom are a Russian forgeworld copy of Cadian shock troops in hostile environment kit, side/front/back.

Chapterhouse Studios Weapons and some Forgeworld copies off of Ebay

My kitted out Guardsman next to a basic Cadian

I intend to give my troops lengthened skirts, imitating greatcoats. I'll have to sculpt those out of greenstuff. I'm also toying with the idea of altering their shoulder pads, or removing them altogether.  I intend for these guys to be mercenaries hired by my Tau contingent.