Glue and Paint: Tau Empire I

I thought I'd chronicle some work I'm doing on an army I've been collecting for the past decade or so.  Which happens to be Tau Empire.

First of all, collecting models for a decade leads to a very large build-up of models.  Since I never really ever finish painting an army, this also means there are a lot of unfinished models.

The run-down of models goes something like this (and not all of them are assembled):

• Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit
• Commander in Crisis Enforcer Battlesuit
• Commander Farsight
• Commander Longknife/Shas'O R'Myr (Forgeworld) 
• Commander Shadowsun with MV52 Shield Drones and Command Link Drone
• Commander in XV81 Crisis Battlesuit
• Fire Warriors x60
• Kroot x31
• Kroot Hound
• Kroot Shaper
• Longstrike upgrade
• Pathfinders x10
• TX4 Piranha with 2 Gun Drones
• TX4 Piranha with 2 Gun Drones (Forge World) 
• TY7 Devilfish with 2 Gun Drones
• XV104 Riptide Battlesuit 
• XV15 Stealth Battlesuit x3
• XV25 Stealth Battlesuit x3
• XV88 Broadside Battlesuit with 2 Missile Drones (2013)
• XV88 Broadside Battlesuit (Classic) x2
• XV88-2 Broadside Battlesuit (Forge World) x3
• XV8 Crisis Battlesuit (2015) x3
• XV8 Crisis Battlesuit (Classic) x9 
• XV95 Ghostkeel with 2 Stealth Drones
• An uncounted number of various drones.

Right now I've been spending time trying to get things assembled and based.  I'm going to go to the considerable hassle of putting magnets in all the models that have many options, which primarily means all the battlesuits.  I need to figure out some way of modeling markerlights for all the Fire Warrior squad leaders as well.  Longstrike is useless to me at the moment because he's an upgrade for a Hammerhead; I don't have any.

One of the challenges involved is that a friend of mine gave me a shoebox full of Tau things.  This included about 24 Fire Warriors in various states; meaning missing helmet antenna, shoulder pads, and backpacks.  Antenna and shoulder pads are easy to replace.  I've already figured out how to make antenna out of sheets of plastic, as much of a pain it is.  The shoulder pads are slightly more problematic since most of my Fire Warriors sport the standard Tau Empire logo on their shoulder pads and the only shoulder pads I can order in quantity are the Farsight Enclave ones, but ultimately I figured that the Farsight Enclaves probably mix-and-match their equipment.  The backpacks are a large problem, and I don't feel like scratch-building them.  So I'll have to dig around my pile of parts to see if there's anything appropriate.

Tonight was spent doing bases.  I still have all the kroot to stick basing material on, which will probably occupy tomorrow evening's activities.  I also have a lot of seam removal and gap filling to do with many of my Fire Warriors and Kroot.

Anyway, let's end with a picture of the currently assembled and based horde.