More Tau

This post has been a while in the making it we got here in the end. With my son collecting Tau we have started as we mean to go on and have been magnetising as much as we can. I have shown this in previous posts, however, this has been the biggest project to date. The Ghostkeel and stealth suits only required 11 and 6 magnets respectively, this project required 37 in total. One of the delays was figuring out how to magnetise all the different bits and retain the original look and feel but also because I ran out of magnets. I originally brought 25 magnets, figuring that would be enough to last a while but with this project that just wasn't enough. I went to reorder my the original magnets, only to find they had almost doubled in price, so I had to hunt around for different ones, which took me a while to decide on which ones to buy. Anyway, when we finally had the new magnets and some new drill bits we picked up from my father in-laws extensive collection and being significantly higher quality bits than I would have brought, made life a lot easier!

The actual models were fairly easy to drill and sort, however in the precess we have lost a fair bit of the detailing on the forearms. The original arms had indents with detailing inside, the new forearms as now flat and featureless. The backpack mounts are less obvious but not as clean as I would have liked.

One of the good things about the kit is that there is lots of options for both weapons and support systems. 

The only issue I found was that some of the weapons have a tendancy to droop a little on some of the arms, however, I think this might be solved with some refacing of the arms and weapons to level out the mating surfaces and give a better connection between the magnets. 

The weapon options.

Overall I'm quite pleased with how these turned out, and now they are sprayed up in blue primer ready for my son's to paint. This is then last unit to be painted in his current collection, so I'll have to see about getting a full army photo shoot soon.

Magnetising Tau

A while back I put a couple of posts about my son's necron army. Well, he has now moved away from the necron, which to be fair we only his because I didn't want them and they were the only non imperial army I had. Recently however, he has been exploring the universe via the wonders of YouTube and the likes and has settled on the Tau as his faction of choice. He has the codex and a number of models, however, as I'm buying them I suggested that maybe making his models as versatile as possible might be the best option, hence I have now spent several nights magnetising some of his models. 

Basic model ready for weapons

First up we have a stealth suit. This is only one of two that I will have to do but the other model hasn't been built yet. I had to actually buy me magnets for this one as the ones I had were to big, being 3mm wide. The new 2mm wide magnets are just the right size for this job and seem to work perfectly, providing enough force to hold the weapons in place.

With melta gun thing

With burst cannon.

The model and weapon might look a bit patchy, but that because they have been primed by my son, ready for painting. While these are nice models, the more time I spend around them the more I really don't like them, the shape and proportions of them just don't look right to me (more so that most 40k things anyway)

The next model I have been playing with is the Ghostkeel. Now, I haven't magnetised everything here and I haven't quite finished. The main body is still in two bits, the legs and body and while I did look at magnetising them, I decided to go for a pin down the centre, which you can see pointing up from the top of the legs. This was due to the fact that there was already a small locating lug and hole there already. I've increased the size of the pin so that it's more stable and the body won't fall off now.

Bare body

Now the fitting of these weapons did not go as smoothly as the stealth suits. I initially fitted a magnet to the bare arm and matching magnets in the weapons, however when I fitted the weapons they were very unstable and the ion blaster just fell off at the slightest movement. So I had to go back and fit a second magnet to the arm and weapons, which was a little bit tricky because I hadn't really left enough room for a second magnet and also because the second magnet kept wanting to migrate towards the first magnet. I did however manage to figure a way of getting the magnets to stay in place but it wasn't pretty and it still took several attempts to get right.

Fusion blaster big gun

Ion gun

To be honest, there still not perfect but they are now stable. The ion blaster, being the bigger of the two is still a little unstable and if you do knock it, even slightly, it will fall off. 

Another shot of the model, not actually sitting on its centre pin properly, you can see it's slightly lop sided.

Fusion gun and a more upright body

One of the nice details of the model, unfortunately the door has a habit of dropping open when you move the model, hopefully a coat or two of paint will provide enough friction to keep it closed 

I still have another stealth suit and the shoulder weapons of the Ghostkeel to do before magnets are finished, but so far so good.