Modding on the Cheap: Shield Drones and Vehicle Upgrade Bitz at little or no cost to you!

OK - as I was working on adding some bitz to my vehicles to represent my favorite upgrades (disruption pod, multi-tracker, and flechette dischargers) I began to look at various bits and went on a small spree of ordering to buy what I needed.

In the course of this spending spree I ended up looking a lot closer at some other kits I bought (such as Shadowsun) and did a proverbial facepalm: I could have saved so much time and money. Here's how:

What you will need:

• Any model that includes a shield drone or
• A Gun Drone Squad (four gun drones)
• A Shield Drone bit pack (four shield drones)

How this works:
First you make your shield drones. This is a simple process. You take the disc from the Gun Drone and then add the shield generator to the bottom of the drone and the metal aerials to the top of the drone. Repeat as needed. You will now be left with the following bits on the sprues:

• Two Pulse Carbines (with holes on the side)
• One aerial
• One connector bit

The pulse carbines can be cut in the groove between the "gun" and "grenade launcher" parts, and again flush behind the grenade launcher part, leaving you a small mostly rectangular piece with a small round nub on top. The two of these together can be attached to your vehicle to represent your flechette dischargers.

The aerial is a simple glue on top to represent the multi-tracker.

The connector bit gets the two side nubs nipped off as flush as you can. On the underside of the vehicles (where the flight stands go) is a hole just big enough for the nub to fit in. The flight stand for the vehicle then can slot in easily.

Granted the mods will not win you any prizes, but they're a cheap and effective way to get yourself WYSISYG compliant.

Building Blocks: Vehicles

I've been thinking a bit about army construction. The Tau are definitely an army that relies on synergy but there has to almost be a strong mnemonic method of army construction. So I've started looking at what I call "standard builds" I've seen in many army lists.

Vehicles very much lend themselves to this aspect.

Take for example the Devilfish as an objective grabber. Stock it's 80 points + 60 points of troops for 140. However I have seen very few army lists that leave it stock. Most commonly I see the disruption pod, multi-tracker, and quite potentially the flechette discharger. So then this "standard package" becomes about 165 points.

The same plan can be applied to other vehicles. My standard Piranha build is the fusion blaster upgrade, disruption pod, and flechette dischargers so about 80 points. That means a team will run me between 80 and 400 points.

So then how does this apply to you, the army list builder?

Simple: Sit down and look at your common vehicle configurations and make a nice sheet that you can reference. Give each configuration a name as we do with Crisis suits, their point values, and maybe notes on how they can work within your army. Then try and estimate how many points you want to devote to each core area. If, for example, you decide you want to devote 300 points to heavy support, you may find that your preferred Hammerhead configuration will fit in with two of your standard Broadside suits. That will tell you then if you want to up the point block there to fit an extra suit or 'head and if so, what other "block" will you have to pull from.

Shadowsun Thoughts

I've been thinking a bit about the pinup-girl of the tau, Commander Shadowsun. I - in theory - like her rule set but I see where she can be a big turnoff to most players. Her sculpt is cool and while my plan is to use the model as my own custom commander (gotta love magnets) I was wondering just how well can she play in 5e?

Comparisons to a Shas'o:
I guess the first stop on any thought train like this has to be a numbers crunch. Weapon and Ballistic Skills as well as her number of Attacks match the Shas'o, with her Strength, Toughness, and Wounds are lower though - technically from the command drone - she does somewhat match on wounds (more later). She does have a higher Initiative though. Both have leadership 10.

When we move to the suit though she starts to shine a bit more. She for one has some equipment that is not normally seen on the other suits: her command link drone which let's her share her leadership (and adding an extra wound that can be distributed) and her stealth features make her a lot more formidable. In all the points even out with her coming in slightly behind - though I do worry that she will fall behind without the ability to join other units or have body guards.

Update on my last post

OK I'm a bit of an idiot some days, but I was sleep deprived when I put that last post together. Here's my new bitz plan:

• Multi-Tracker - the big antenna that's included with the models :D
  
• Flechette Dischargers: Still the grenades
• Disruption Pod: Shield drone metal bit, hole filled in with green stuff.

Bitz for Vehicles

I've been thinking about just... well... HOW I'm going to represent all these accessories that I'm going to be slapping onto my vehicles and in all honesty: I'm NOT that creative.

So OK here's everything I plan on putting on my vehicles and the planned bitz for them:

• Multi-Tracker: Antenna from a Gun Drone
• Flechette Discharger: Grenades from Fire Warriors
• Disruption Pod: XV-8 Shield Generator?
  

The Holidays

Oh how the holidays were good to me. I netted:

1. One pack of pathfinders with rail rifles
2. One pack of standard pathfinders
   
3. One pathfinder shas'ui
4. The Codex (finally)
5. Citadel hand drill
6. Citadel files
7. A few paints & inks
8. many brushes
9. An XV-8 Crisis suit
10. And Commander Shadowsun :)
    

Update: Painting

I've recently made a change in my painting style (again). The process now looks a bit like this:

1. Separate all parts for a given model (or collection of models that all have the same parts)
2. Base coat with White or Black primer
3. Coat with ColorSafe Green or Black
4. Detail & Highlight
5. Assemble
   
6. Clear Coat
7. Base

Here's hoping this will make my life easier