Tau!

Philip's ongoing interest in Warhammer 40K is rubbing off on his poor old father. I've had a soft spot for the Tau since seeing the launch of the range and the new Devilfish at Games Day many years ago, and now I have an excuse to indulge this particular interest. The Tau are going to be "daddy's army". I picked up a squad of Fire Warriors on Ebay last week - 12 plus ten Kroot for less than a tenner, and today the Fire Warriors are finished.

Simply Sopwiths (and interlopers!)

My latest arrival from Shapeways was waiting for me on Tuesday evening. I've just completed the first three models, all Sopwiths. The first two are a couple of Sopwith Camel "Comic" nightfighters. I've always wanted to do one of these since reading an Airfix magazine article about them back in the 1970s. The "Comic" had two lewis guns on overwing mountings rather than the Vickers' guns on the cowling (I believe to shield the pilot from the gun flash and help him keep his night vision)

"Comics" fought in drab schemes to reduce their visibility at night. I've seen two examples, one where the normal RFC roundels are smeared with black paint to make them less bright, the other where the white portions were overpainted with red or green, so I did one of each. the metal cowlings are also smeared with black paint, again to reduce their brightness. as a result the models have a rather scruffy look about them, but this seems in keeping with some photos I've seen of similar models in larger scales. they certainly look mean!

The third model is a Sopwith Baby seaplane fighter. This is a charming model, that sits nicely with the Short 184 seaplane that I finished a while back.

Finally, some Space Marines. Seriously. Philip has decided he wants to play 40K (many of his friends are also taking the plunge) and so he has bought himself the "Assault on Black Reach" starter set. he hasn't started painting them up yet, but his dive into GWism reminded me that I have a couple of boxes of the old "Space Crusade" game up in the loft, and there were quite a few assembled old style Space Marines up there that he could use as well. So they were brought down and just for fun I painted those up as well. Although being a boring realist I did them in OD rather than bright red or green or whatever. 

Don't expect too much more of this here, honest!