Project Log: Superheavy Assault Walker

[Munkey Joe]

Ark covered a bit of stuff and he is spot on for the most part. doing "hide and seek" I stayed pretty mobile with my kit and was never in a spot longer than about 24-76 hours. I have some "minimalist" pictures of some of our hides from 2006 I think and if I do I'll email them to you.

2006-2007 I did alot of intel sniper missions, so less shooty and more info. this seems to me like the tau way. it might be of some use.

and as for "perimeters" I would have 2-3 drone shield hides, to act as sentry duty.... very tau-like. Less kit and more tech.... its screams tau to me.

[mangozac]

[mangozac]

OK guys I have slept on it and I keep changing mymind about the pouches and equipment. One minute I'm keen and it seems like a quick, easy job to do. The next minute I decide I've got too many projects on already - I don't want this to have too great an impact on the progress of my Centurion mecha.

I'll keep thinking about it and maybe do some sculpting tonight

[BlueRonin]

Personally, I'm not a fan. With Tau as high tech as they are, why cover them in pouches and ghillie suits? They have stealth suits for crying out loud!

Although I am a fan of your set-up, I just image the Tau operating with a slick equipment configuration, ready to fall back and get extracted by Devilfish if necessary.

[mangozac]

The Tau's technology level has always been a bit inconsistent. Yes, they do have a lot of quite high tech gear, but they are often depicted as being relatively similar to modern 1st world military. The confusion may however be born from the conversions and background created by hobbyists rather than official canon though.

To confirm, I'm definitely not doing the ghillie suit thing now, but do you have any suggestions of how to make the sniper and spotter more high tech within their dugout? Perhaps a small cloaking field generator? The problem is that if these guys have to be semi mobile it would be a bit too big and heavy to lug around something like that on top of their other supplies like food and ammunition...

The pouches and stuff have nothing to do with camouflage - if the Tau are going to be camping out in the position for a couple of days then they need to keep some supplies at hand.

[mangozac]

OK I bit the bullet and sat down with some greenstuff tonight. Actually it was about 70:30 greenstuff to Milliput - a good mix for this kind of stuff. It wasn't hard to get the sharper corners where I wanted.

So an hour's work netted me four different types of equipment pouch/pack. The four small ones are just generic; the larger one features an armour plate on it - I'll add some small side plates also once the putty has dried. I should probably add a carry strap to it as well - I'll sculpt that onto the back. The backs of the pouches will remain bare.

I'm pretty happy with the results - I forgot how nasty it is to sculpt such tiny bits! For example the buttons are all made from the tiniest ball of putty I could possibly make without having midget fingers yet they still could have been a little smaller! I found myself using my knife for a lot of the detail work.

Next I'll be making a few accessories out of styrene, including the perimeter scanners and technical equipment.

[Barn]

Looking really good Zac

[Arkangel]

They look really good Zac. See all that worrying over nothing It's a really good start and it'll help keep the interest in the project. If you have to wait for part of the SAW to set or for green to cure then this side part of the project is something you can visit whilst still 'technically' working on the same project.
I've found this, since I'm now waiting on bits and pieces to come via the post, and some more silicone for making the moulds for the ECM pods stuff. I will be posting some pics up over the weekend hopefully of my side project, which also happens to be ALL Zac's fault, although my laptop is still not fully 'servicable' so I'm prob gonna have to get the Tech Geeks to take a look at it

Anyway looks good mate keep on top of it!

[mangozac]

Thanks Dan, yeah you're right - I felt a lot better about it all when I took a step back and said "hey, this is my hobby. Who cares how long it takes so long as I'm having fun?!". Indeed there's always something else to do while waiting for putty o cure

I'm always in email contact with Seb (he did some freelance graphic work for my business too) and he has sent me through some great inspiration pictures which I'll be basing some of the technical bits off.

Go see the tech geeks and then you can share some more photos of your progress!

[Vaaish]

Those packs look pretty cool. I hear ya about working with tiny bits of greenstuff. I did one bit of adjustment for one of my epic models using it and nearly pulled my hair out in frustration at getting it to adhere without ruining the bit.

[mangozac]

Well after spending some more time pushing putty around over the weekend I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Decided to have a second attempt at the first pouch I did and it turned out much better.

You can see in this pic some of the new parts and completed original parts. The bag with the armour plate on it has been flipped over (it's mounted to the lone strip of styrene in the bottom row) and a strap system added to the back. The cylindrical shaped bit is supposed to be a water vapourator - it removes moisture from the air for drinking. Important when out in the field like this I think

I've also finished modifying the crouching pathfinder - he has a bit of sculpting for bits I had to file off when removing the original helmeted pathfinder head. Note that the pathfinder sculpts are at a smaller scale than the rest of the Tau, so the bare head is slightly too big IMO.

I also grabbed shots of the base plus the initial cut foam to form the hill. The base is just MDF and I'll be painting it black.

I've also decided that part of my accessory kit will be a new sniper rifle design. It'll be a big, beefy barrel with a large muzzle brake on the end

[Barn]

Looks tops

[Munkey Joe]

Yea man... Aces high! Looks real good bro!!

[Seb]

Nice... really coming along from that initial first photo of your ideas. I'm liking the pod with aerial piece

The sentry perimeter drones is a nifty idea. Not unlike the Culture series' Knife missile drones.

I'll be getting a chance this evening to sit down and scribble after a busier weekend than expected.

When these are ready, I can host them up in the alternate models index as a pointer without costings obviously, much like the Walker. Already started a new 'updated' thread to announce such things.

- Seb.

[mangozac]

Thanks Seb! Funny you mention the "pod with the aerial piece" - that's actually just a canister that is mounted to a bit of wire for ease of handling during sculpting

The proper scanner pods are yet to come.

Sticking some pics up on ATT would be great! I'm hoping to get them cast up and assembled into sprues in the coming weeks, however I'm then heading into a month of craziness so I wouldn't expect to be ready for production until late April.