#NewYearNewArmy

Games Workshop have been pushing #newyearnewarmy on Instagram, and I’ve been complying with my latest effort in 40k. Of course though, because it’s me and because I hate building kits where I have to follow instructions my effort this year is going to be a Slann army. Slann are the lizardmen or Seraphon (if you will) of 40k. They’re the descendants of the Old Ones, and I imagined the Tau Empire would probably pick some up and fold them in just like the Vespid Stingwings and the Kroot. So here’s where I started bashing together a Pathfinder kit and some Saurus Cavalry:

The heads on the lizardmen are the main issue with the conversion, they stick out pretty far and with short tau arms it can be hard to get a pose that looks natural. Imagine a T-Rex trying to hold an assault rifle and you get the idea. The rest of the build is fairly easy, the legs of the Tau are pretty suitable so I just chop a Saurus Warrior or Cavalry model off at the waist and glue it directly onto the Tau legs, then I add the Tau arms and Saurus head. I wanted tails so they’re just chopped off the Saurus kit and glued to the arse.

I’ve also been adding Seraphon parts to the mechanical elements of the Tau to make them more in keeping:

Here’s everything I currently have bar a few drones:

Painting wise I’m opting for something quick and effective, although they won’t win any awards up close. The majority of the model is mostly contrast paints and washes with little highlighting, but sticking to the old mantra of ‘faces and bases’ I’m making sure to properly highlight the crest on top of the head, and to pick out the eyes. The bases are going to be done with a few different flocks and edged with the classic goblin green.

I’ve also fully painted a squad of 10 Slann Kroot which are surprisingly hard to take pictures of. All the Kroot stuff is going to have red skin to make them distinct from the rest of the army but still in keeping as the cloth on all my firewarriors and pathfinders will also be red.

I always wonder if Games Workshop stuff is appropriate for this blog since I’ve focused mostly on budget gaming. I do think though that while the initial outlay of a 40k or Age of Sigmar army can be rather pricey, if you stuck to that same army and only bought new models when new stuff came out you could keep costs pretty low in the long run. I really love the look of my Slann Tau forces so far and if my willpower can hold out and I stick to being a Tau player for a full year it will be interesting to see at the end of 2021 how much money has actually been spent. Then after amassing a decent sized force how much money needs to be put into a single faction to keep it fighting fit?

So far for the Slann Tau I’ve bought 1 Seraphon Start Collecting Box, 1 Tau Start Collecting Box, 1 Tau Pathfinders Box and although the parts came from my bits box we’ll include 1 Kroot Carnivores Box and 1 Saurus Warriors Box.

That’s £187.50 so far… this experiment isn’t going to make me seriously consider my buying habits at all. Hopefully that initial spike will be the only big spike. I have to stress that this is also a converted army and so the cost is generally higher as your often buying two kits to get a single unit.