Return of the Tau

I sure am painting a lot of GW figures for a guy who's claiming to be "post GW."  I had last week off for Thanksgiving, but paradoxically didn't have much free time.  The time I had, I put into painting up more Tau.  Here are my Stealth Suits.

I would've had them done faster were it not for having to slop on three coats of Graveyard Earth paint.  Why are all my favorite colors so transparent?  Oh well, they are done now and ready to join the others in the big box.

When I said post-GW, I guess I mean I'm not buying into playing their games the way they want me to, or even using their figures for their games.  I played a solo game this weekend with 40K figures but using the 5150 Rules.  I really liked it.  I will probably do more of that.

Also, I'm not doing the "huge army" build up that GW wants me to do.  I plan on playing small, skirmish or scenario based games.  I'm not worried about force org charts or squad sizes (both which are designed to sell figures more than provide game balance).  I won't even touch Warhammer Fantasy, as that's just beyond ridiculous.

Well, that's probably the topic of another post.  In the meantime, I'll just keep painting whatever grabs me that day.

Sisters of Battle

Sisters of Battle is one of those armies that I always said I'd get around to doing.  I love the sculpts and love the fluff.  I just always had something else that took priority over starting on Sisters.

That was back in the day before Sisters were cast in pure gold.  These days I cannot afford to play in that rarefied strata of society, and plans of a Sisters of Battle army are long gone.  Even eBay sellers have gone mad with SoB greed.  Slop some paint on a single Sisters model, call it "pro painted", and then ask $20 for it; that seems to be the operating wisdom these days.

Were it not for the generosity of a friend, I would not be able to show you my new and tiny collection of Sisters.

These models were as fun to paint as I had expected them to be.  I went with the Order of the Ebon Chalice paint scheme, as given in the old Witch Hunter's codex.  (The codex was sadly my only step taken in building this army.  I think it's one of the best GW codices that I ever saw.)   There are 11 models total, not likely to grow much beyond that count.

I will use SoB in skirmish or scenario play 40K games.  I can add in an Inquisitor and some Imperial Guard to round out things.  Honestly, I'll probably draft them into service for other non-GW games.  I'm already thinking of other meanings for their iconography and gender bias.  I can shove them into some 5150:SA games.  I'll find a way to make use of them and have an excuse to get more of them.

However, I won't be buying Seraphim models.  At $14 per model, a "codex legal" squad costs $70.  That makes Seraphim the one of most expensive squad in 40K.  I really have better things to buy for that price than five models.

15mm Sci Fi

I've had this itch for a while, and decided to scratch it several weeks ago.  I've had my eye on these 15mm Sci Fi models from Rebel Minis.  The Earth Force models remind me very much of some small models I had as a kid.  I'm not sure what the size of those models were.  I had bought them for use in the Traveler RPG that I was in at the time.  But it was short lived and I was stuck with the minis.  Long gone, I thought I'd never see anything like them again.

Well, now I have a whole Earth Defense force that look just like them.  Here they are.

The picture color is a little off.  They are more of a terracotta color rather than the orange you see here.

It wouldn't be right if they didn't have someone to fight.  So I picked up another army from Rebel Minis, the Sahadeen.

The great thing about these two armies is that I have over 20 soldiers, two MG/Heavy Gun teams, and three specialist weapons for each army.  The grand total outlay was only $35 for two complete armies!  That's like two blisters of GW models.  Cost wise there's no comparison.

Few people in my regular gaming group play at this scale.  So I'll use these figures for solo games of 5150 from THW.  I think 15mm scale might be the perfect scale for solo games.  Since you need at least two forces,15mm is a lot cheaper and paints up quick.  Also play and storage space demands are reduced.

All I need is a few vehicles to spice up things.  While I probably won't invest heavily in this scale, it's a nice change of pace and worth keeping in mind for future projects.