SHOWCASE: Tau fire warrior

Warhammer 40,000: Tau fire warrior

There have been a lot of new releases for the Tau in the last month or so. It's an army I like the look of but have never actively collected. I do, however, have a small number of models from their range. The model pictured above is a fire warrior; the Tau equivalent of a tactical squad. They make up the bulk of the Tau army and specialise, like most of the Tau race, in ranged warfare. My objective with this guy was to come up with a quick paint scheme that I could apply to the rest of the models (twelve in total) from the box he came in. It didn't need to be pretty; just easy to replicate.

For this paint job, I decided to use a very limited palette. I normally limit the number of colours I use for each model anyway to avoid them looking garish, but for this one, I was even more selective. There are two major colour tones: green for the armour and brown for the fatigues. This is accented with a vivid blue spot colour that I use on the lenses and power cells. I also repeated it on the base—a scenic addition from Micro Art Studios to which I have added a glowing light source effect with some careful airbrushing. This object source lighting (OSL) effect adds quite a nice contrast to the piece. The final few details were picked out in either black or white with some grey highlights for good measure.

When I first got my Tau models, I knew I didn't want to paint them in a bright colour scheme. Games Workshop's studio armies in ochre and white look very striking, but I wanted something a little more practical for the battlefield. Having originally considered red (before starting my Blood Angels), I eventually settled on green. I see this force as having been deployed in a largely forested environment and using camouflage to negotiate the terrain without being seen. The bases represent them having discovered a mysterious structure from some unknown ancient civilisation, replete with ominous power sources that seem to match the Tau's own technology. Now out of the wilderness, their camouflage is rendered useless and they are left vulnerable to enemy attack...

As I mentioned in my introduction, this model is from the old fire warriors set. I still have eleven more of his colleagues to paint before I consider anything else. Now I have a scheme that works, I'll work on those a few at a time until they're done. I quite enjoyed painting this guy though, so I wouldn't rule out picking up the new set at some point. I'll be good though. Let's face it: it'll still take me forever to get through these ones.