Your Tau Commander has two shield drones and is in an assault with some Imperial Guard.  Can the Imperial Guard target the Tau Commander separately, or can the shield drones take the hits for him?

There are a few issues here, so let’s get the relevant rules clear first:-

Retinues (Main Rulebook pg 48):-

Some Codex books allow you to field characters together with a special unit that they cannot leave during the game (which is normally called a ‘retinue’, ‘bodyguard’ or similar). Where this is the case, the character counts as an upgrade character until all of the other members of this unit are killed, at which point it starts counting as an independent character and it will do so for the rest of the game.

ICs and Assaults (Main Rulebook pg 49):-

If a unit that has been joined by an independent character assaults into close combat, the character assaults too, as it is part of the unit. When the attacks are resolved, however, independent characters are always treated as a separate single-model unit.

Tau Drones (Codex:Tau Empire) are listed as Wargear, and are not expressly stated to be a Retinue or a Bodyguard.

Going back to our example, the Commander is an IC. As his drones are not a retinue or a bodyguard, it seems that in an assault he is treated as a “separate single-model unit”.  If so, he can be targeted by the Imperial Guard models separately from his drones.  But that is not the whole story.

Many armies have their Hammer Units, from Seer Councils and Thunderhammer Termies to Nob Bikers and Thunderwolf Cavalry. They combine the twin aspects of fire magnets and unit crushers. They present such a potent threat that the enemy is forced to deal with them, usually fatally ceding the initiative in the battle in the process.

The one thing all these Hammer Units have in common, of course, is close combat ability. Some of them are reasonable in the shooting phase, but getting off the charge is what they are all about. Naturally, Tau have nothing to offer in that regard, so let’s not even bother trying. Our Hammer is not swung, it is thrown.

This is a unit I have mentioned a few times before; the five man Crisis Team. It looks a little like this:-

Shas’el, MP, PR, MT, HWDC, HWTL, 2x Shield Drones, bonding knife
Shas’el, MP, PR, DC, HWMT, HWTL, 2x Shield Drones
Shas’ui Team Ldr, MP, PR, MT, HWDC, 2x Shield Drones
2 x Shas’ui MP, PR, MT

Five crisis suits, six drones and 16 wounds. Five missile pods and five plasma rifles, with a mixed BS of 3/4. Able to shoot at 4 targets at the same time thanks to the Target Locks. All this for 475 points. That’s a lot of points, but Fireknives are expensive, and so are those shield drones.

So, what do you do with them? The first thing you need to do is work out where the markerlights are coming from. Markerlights get more and more powerful based on the value of the shooting of the unit they are benefiting. As you can see, there is possibly no unit in the Tau codex that can put out better shooting than this (I would mention a maxed-out Stealth unit with 12 Gun Drones, and 3 Broadsides with PR and HWMT as possible contenders). A couple of markerlight hits and every shot is at BS5. If you can remove cover saves as well, that is practically a kill-button for any enemy unit, excluding tanks. With 20 shots maximum you can take on hordes with ease.

A unit of 8 pathfinders will give you 4 markerlight hits on average per Turn. Use 2 to boost BS and the other 2 to reduce cover saves to 6+. Other markerlight options are available, but none quite so effective as pathfinders. I know a lot of players have trouble keeping them alive, but with the five man Crisis team on the table, in my experience your opponent will pay the pathfinders little attention. Especially if you play your crisis team aggressively, and advance with them to rapid fire range. Which is what these guys are for, but more on that in a bit.

At >24″ you will be targeting Monstrous Creatures and Transports. Below 24″ is where the fun begins and where you start wiping units off the board.

A few key points to remember:-

1. Keep the unit spread out when battlecannons, basilisks or demolishers are on the table. Large AP2/3 blasts are nasty, but with 6 4+ inv saves in the unit, you might only lose two or three shield drones to a direct hit. Remember, your drones are part of the unit and must maintain coherency with the unit, but not with the model who is controlling them. You can string your shield drones out behind the unit in a long tail if you like, or out to either side. This only becomes an issue if you want to detach a character from the unit and his drones are 15″ away! Think ahead!

2. Have some way of marking whose drones are whose. This is important if you either want to detach a character or you lose someone with a drone controller – which drones are lost? Temporary markings on the base should suffice. Note there is a school of thought that says that one crisis suit’s drones are not the same (for the purposes of wound allocation) as another crisis suit’s drones. It is a tenuous argument – make it at your peril!

3. This unit is going to take all the enemy fire your opponent can bring to bear. With six shield drones, T4 and 3+ saves and only two identical, multi-wound models this unit can take a lot of enemy fire before losing any actual firepower. A squad of ten marines rapid firing their bolters will cause 5 wounds, and you will be unlucky to lose two shield drones. Give the wounds to crisis suits to save and you won’t lose anyone. What does this mean? Be aggressive. You don’t need this unit to survive, after all – like any Hammer Unit, its job is to go out and draw fire and die gloriously for the Greater Good. Just don’t get them assaulted on Turn 2. You can also draw fire from this unit by bringing the kinds of unit every opponent fears – railguns and fusion piranha, but you probably have them in your army already.

4. Charge! Five crisis suits and six drones on the charge will wipe out one or two remnants of just about any enemy unit. Be very careful where and when you do this, of course, but bear it in mind as an option when you have almost, but not quite, killed that unit of marines.

5. Mobile cover. Having something to hide behind is crucial, even with this unit. Handily, if your six shield drones hide behind a Devilfish, the whole unit gets a cover save, so bring some support along. Keep it moving >6″ per Turn so that it can only be hit on a 6 in close combat, although any enemy unit within that kind of range should be eating rapid fire from both the crisis suits and the Fire Warriors disembarking from the Fish.

6. Placement. There are certain things no-one expects, like the Inquisition or aggressive Tau, and the only way to use this unit is aggressively. Place them forward and as centrally as possible. Give them the maximum threat radius you can. When you advance, try and overwhelm the enemy locally and block other sections of the enemy army from reaching your suits – piranha are ideal roadblocks for this, as are infiltrating Kroot. If you can roll up the enemy along his lines, from left to right (or vice versa) you will know joy, young Fio’la.

Here you can see (on the extreme left) a unit of four crisis suits with four shield drones remaining moving up on the Space Marine’s right flank. They have taken care of an assault unit and the enemy HQ, and are in the process of wiping out the Scouts. The other Imperial forces can do little but await the inevitable rapid-firing that is to come (and, indeed, so it proved as the game progressed).

7. Shot selection. Against 3+ or better saves, you might be better off not firing the missile pods, due to wound allocation rules. If you think (based on range, cover, armour and BS) that you will cause wounds equal to or greater than the number of models in the target unit, then DO NOT fire both your plasma rifles and your missile pods. As soon as your opponent can wrap-around the wounds he will stack those AP2 shots on single models with one wound apiece, thus wasting one AP2 shot for every extra AP4 shot you sent his way. And he will be making a 3+ save against those AP4 shots, you will need three of those for every one AP2 shot you lost due to stacking. Fireknives don’t put out enough missile pod shots to make that calculation work, so think in advance – “do I want to fire all my weapons, or just the AP 2 ones?”

Options. This is only the basic five man team, and there are plenty of options available:-

A. Swap out the shield drones for gun drones. You lose your invulnerable saves, but you brought that Devilfish for those cover saves, yes? You also lose your majority T4, which is not so cute. Drop to five gun drones to get it back. The gun drones will benefit from markerlight hits as well, making the unit slightly more killy but slightly less hard.

B. Adjust your weapons loadout. This unit cannot take on tanks. If you want it to, give one of them a fusion blaster. This would be one of those rare instances where you might want to give the Team Leader three weapons: MP, PR and FB. He can only fire two, and usually one of them is wasted points, but in this case it takes a unit you know will be in the thick of it and give it some bite against armour. This unit can also do better against hordes – you might want to give the team leader an AFP, for example. That sits well with the range this unit will operate at. If the unit is too expensive, drop the plasma for burst cannons. Markerlighted Firestorms en masse will wipe units from the table.

C. Boost your defences. Stim Injector is a good use of the points, and boosts the number of wounds you can put on a shas’el before you risk losing him entirely. Iridium Armour is a different proposition, however. Although it gives you a massive survivability boost (with your shield drones it gives you 3 2+ saves, letting you run around in front of Leman Russes at will) your assault move is reduced to D6. You never realise how much you value that assault move until you roll a 1! On the other hand, keeping your drones in cover and sporting 2+ saves means you won’t often need to JSJ at all.

D. Boost your independant shooting. I don’t put targeting arrays on my commanders since the plan is for them to benefit from the markerlights – I just saved 20 points. However, if you find that you are using the Target Lock a lot, you might want to boost the commanders to BS5, either with a targeting array or by making them a shas’o. The ‘o gets an extra wound, so giving him the stim injector becomes a more sensible proposition. After that, you might as well give him iridium armour, too. He’ll last the game

I have run these guys a few times, and while not as flexible as, say, three separate teams of Crisis Suits, once my opponents realised what they could do they devoted an inordinate amount of effort to wiping them out. In one case, my opponent fired a squadron of three basilisks at these guys on Turns 1 and 2. I lost a couple of shield drones and he gave up trying to hurt them with anything. I grinned and tore into his troops

Have any of you tried this yet? Any other potential Hammer Units for Tau? Let me know.

These are a Forgeworld unit (rules available in Imperial Armour 3) and, unusually for such a mobile force as the Tau, are completely immobile. I have used them in a few games, so here are some tips on how to get the best out of them.

What Are They?

They are drone-controlled pop-up turrets that are deployed by aircraft. As such, they are a quick-response point-defence unit for the Tau, able to hold strategically important locations rather than waste Fire Warriors on static garrison duty.

In game terms they are immobile vehicles, with all-round AV12. They are Heavy Support, and come in units of 1-4 Turrets with a variety of weapon options and some interesting deployment rules.

As usual with Tau, they are not a substitute in terms of pure effectiveness for a Hammerhead or some Broadsides, so fielding them is not an exercise in competitive play. They are pretty pricey, too, but their appeal is in their very unusual nature and the flexibility of uses to which they can be put.

Weapons

All weapons are twin-linked at the usual drone BS. Bear in mind this makes them slightly better than a Fire Warrior’s BS. They come with burst cannons, but can take plasma rifles, missile pods or fusion blasters as upgrades. The whole team does not have to take the same weapons loadout.

Which weapon or weapons you pick depends on their role. If they are going to stay at range, say perhaps lined up just in front of your Hammerheads, then missile pods are ideal. Four twin-linked missile pods that can benefit from Markerlight hits are nothing to be sneered at, and can free up your Crisis suits for duties other than light vehicle/ Monstrous Creature hunting. If you are going to be aggressive with them, then the more short-range weapons are an option, bearing in mind the problem of mobility. You will get to use your fusion blasters exactly once – after that no enemy will willingly come within 12″ of your turrets (unless they have to). Or you could try and hold the mid-table with them, and for that the medium range of burst cannons or plasma rifles might be better suited.

Upgrades

Not many, but they are the right ones for the job. You can (and should) get the disruption pod for the cover save or you could take a shield generator. You cannot, it seems, take both on one turret. The cheapest loadout would be two disruption pods on a team of four Turrets. 10 points gets the whole unit a cover save at >12″. Essential if you are planning on keeping them in your backfield. If you are going to play more aggressively then a couple of shield generators might be in order, although with aggressive play you can count on being hit with melta weapons at 2D6 range, meltabombs and powerfists, against which a single 4+ inv save won’t do much to stop multiple penetrating hits.

No targeting array, sadly. The twin-linking does a better job, however, and it’s free.

(You will need the Imperial Armour 3 FAQ, since the book itself omitted both options)

Deployment

This is where the intruiging part of the Sentry Turrets comes in. You can either start with the unit on the table in the normal fashion or keep them in reserve. For +1 point per turret you can choose the deep strike them, although it is arguable that the 5th edition rulebook gives you this for free. Page 94 states that any immobile unit held in reserve automatically deploys by deep strike ! Note that this also applies to Dawn of War games – you have no option but to deep strike your turrets in that game mode but – heh! – you can do so on Turn 1 if you don’t place the unit in reserve. Immobile AV12 vehicles dropping out of the sky on Turn 1 – where have I heard that before?

If you start with the unit on the table, the turrets function as a single unit for the remainder of the game. They are a vehicle squadron, which means 4″ coherency and all the usual squadron rules. If you deep strike them, however, the turrets become independant of one another and must be deep striked seperately, with each turret forming a single unit from them on. This lets you place them wherever you like, one by one, on the table, rolling for scatter each time. The Marker Beacon on the Pathfinder’s Devilfish will come in handy, here, although remember the Devilfish must start the Turn on the table in order to use the beacon.

The turrets don’t Mishap, by the way. Codex overrides rulebook, and IA:3 contains specific rules for turrets. They cause Glancing Hits if they land on vehicles (or if you land them on vehicles deliberately) and are destroyed automatically if they scatter into impassable terrain or off the table.

Choosing how you deploy them is key. If they are a single unit, then all the turrets in the unit will benefit from a single markerlight hit, but the unit will be vulnerable to the squadron rules. If they deep strike, each is a single unit, but are no longer subject to the squadron rules.

Markerlight Targeting

The deployment trick par excellence, and something that I really hope the next Tau Codex expands upon. This little trick allows you to place a deep-striking turret anywhere that a model with a markerlight can see – and it will not scatter! The only restriction is that model with the markerlight cannot move, so the model must begin the Turn on the table and has to stay still in the Movement Phase.

This means that with a unit of 8 pathfinders you could use 4 to target locations for the turrets, and in the shooting phase the other 4 pathfinders can shoot as normal.

It is worth noting that drone sensor towers are troops, so in Dawn of War you can start with a unit of these on the table, and use their merkerlights to bring your turrets in.

Also worth noting that an XV-84 with a markerlight and two marker drones can also start on the table in DoW as an HQ choice. The Relentless rule means the XV-84 and its drones count as stationery when firing heavy weapons, so can move normally and still target locations for the turrets to land on.

Durability

AV12 means the turrets can ignore small arms fire and heavy bolters. Anything more than that, however, will quickly wreck them. Not only do they count as open-topped if they fired last Turn, but as a squadron any damage result of “Immobilised” means they are wrecked. Those disruption pods are essential.

Tactica

Given all these unusual rules, there are some pretty cool things you can do with a unit of drone sentry turrets:-

1. Capture and Control. Place the team of turrets around your home objective, one at each point of the compass. You can position them so that no enemy model can get to within 3″ of the objective without destroying the turrets. Remember that a wrecked vehicle counts as both difficult and dangerous terrain! Put your objective well back and in the open, with clear lines of fire, and make sure your turrets (or at least two of them) have disruption pods. Equip them with missile pods and take out enemy transports while keeping your objective secure. Giving one a fusion blaster will annoy deep striking dreadnoughts no end, without seriously denting your long-range firepower.

2. Capture and Control 2. Keep your turrets in reserve and get some markerlights on the table. When your turrets arrive from reserve, deep strike them each within 3″ of the enemy objective (if possible). The enemy will need to destroy all four of them individually to stop them contesting the objective. Plasma rifles are a good choice for this, or burst cannons, to help wipe out the enemy troops defending the home objective. If you make one a fusion blaster, you will discourage walkers from trying to close combat you.

3. Vehicle Pen. Keep your turrets in reserve, equip a Crisis Suit with a positional relay and get some markerlights on the table. When your turrets arrive from reserve on Turn 2, deep strike them around an enemy non-skimmer vehicle (such as a landraider), one on each side. Equip your turrets with a couple of fusion blasters and the other two with something else. The two fusion blasters should take care of the enemy vehicle, and the other two turrets can either shoot at any passengers or hit other targets as needed. The fusion blaster turrets will likely not get another target for the rest of the game. If you fail to destroy the enemy vehicle, the vehicle cannot Ram its way out (max S5 hit even with AV14) and the passengers cannot disembark since you are blocking the exits.

4. Grenade! Keep your turrets in reserve. Markerlights are useful but not essential. When your turrets arrive from reserve, deep strike them each into the enemy’s backfield, aiming for side or rear shots on armour. Watch the ensuing panic!

5. Defensive Line. Start your turrets on the table, positioning them 3″ apart so that no enemy model can pass between two of them without initiating an assault. Hide behind them for cover saves on your other units.

6. Road Block. Deploy the turrets as far forward as possible to block enemy transports and force them to go around. Make full use of available terrain and your maximum 4″ coherency. You can cover 24″ of table this way.

7. Fusion Fence. If the enemy tanks are lined up along their own table edge, deep strike your turrets (armed with fusion blasters) 6″ in front of the enemy armour. The enemy cannot move out of 6″ range on the next Turn, meaning he has to wipe out your turrets or face another Turn of melta fire.

Models

I love the look of these models – they were among the first Tau FW models I owned. That might have something to do with them being turrets, however, as I love the idea of models that are almost terrain in their own right.

Stupidly, FW don’t let you buy a turret with all the various weapon options, nor do they let you buy the weapon options by themselves. If you need to choose, I recommend buying the missile pod ones. However, you can simply make use of some unused Crisis Suit weapons instead. I magnetised the turret weapon points, and can swap the missile pods out for anything else I fancy. The one at the back in the picture above is sporting some plasma rifles, for example.

Hope you enjoyed this, and that it has tempted you to try these models out in a game soon. Being stumpy little turrets, proxying them is of course pretty easy.

Finished apart from the varnish, that is. I am now out of Testor’s Dullcote, and cannot find a supplier in the UK who is quoting less than 6 weeks to restock

But in the meantime here are finished Heavy Gun Drones I promised.

The first time I ever applied decals was to my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. I added the “I” to the shoulder pads, and watched in horror as the 2d shapes utterly failed to dry flat on a 3d surface. Trying to stick them down was fruitless and cutting them made it even worse. I swore a vow – topography had failed me for the last time!

Much toil and internet followed until I discovered Microsol and Microset. Opinion seemed divided over the best one to use and the best way to use them so I placed my order, rolled two dice and entered the difficult terrain of experimentation.

The bottles are cheap and, unless you plan on drinking the stuff (warning: do not drink the stuff), will last you for ages. £5 plus postage gets you both bottles here.

So what do they do? They both describe themselves as “setting solutions for decals”. Both soften the decals as well, one more than the other. In fact, Microsol acts a bit like an acid and dissolves the carrier the decal image is printed on. Don’t worry – I’ve never had it dissolve anything else, eg. paint. It is intended for use on models, after all. It does actually contain an acid similar to vinegar. Some modellers have tried using vinegar as a cheap substitute for Microsol and if you like uncontrolled yellowing of your model, vinegar is the choice for you. If you think of Microset as the glue (it SETs the decal in place) and Microsol as the agent to disSOLve the decals, you won’t go far wrong.

I found that the best solution was to use both at once and, to demonstrate this, I picked out a couple of Forgeworld Heavy Gun Drones I bought off Ebay for a song a while back. A basic paint job hid the fact that they were probably recasts. That, or Forgeworld were having a real off day with the burst cannons. Who cares? – onto the pics!

(click for extreme closeups)

Step 0. I wanted some air bubbles for Step 3, so I didn’t do this bit, but you should. The surface of your model is not perfect, at least at the scale the decal is working on. It is full of imperfections, pits and microscopic ruts. All of these will do their damndest to make air bubbles under your decal. Air bubbles bad. The best way to avoid them (other than applying your decals in a vacuum – warning: do not apply your decals in a vacuum) is to make the model surface nice and flat and shiny. You could use gloss varnish in a pinch, but I prefer to use Future floor polish. It is available in the UK as Klear, made by Johnstons. Paint a thin coat of this on and let it dry – takes a few minutes. You are now much less likely to get air bubbles. Doesn’t that make you all warm inside? No? Don’t hate me because I care. Err, moving on.

Step 1. Paint on some Microset. Doesn’t matter if you use too much – it dries clear and matt. Soak up any excess with cotton buds or paper towel. Soften the decal in some warm water in the usual way (ie. around 20 seconds depending on the age of the decal – older ones need longer soak time), lift it out (I use a wide, flat brush) and slide it onto the model in the desired location. I hold the decal paper in one hand and use the same wide, flat brush to slide the decal off and onto the model. Use the broad tip of the brush to gently nudge the decal into the exact position you want. Gently. If any part of the decal is overhanging (as the edge of this one is) use your brush to tuck it under. The Microset will hold it in place.

You can already see the telltale glint of the decal carrier (the clear, shiny bit), defining the edges of the decal. Usually, this won’t go away and will plague you and your model for evermore, but we’re going to make it disappear with a step I brazenly call Step 2.

Step 2. You don’t need to wait for the previous step to dry – just go right ahead and apply a liberal amount of Microsol. Soak up any excess, but be careful not to touch the decal as you do so. Within a few minutes you will see it starting to look like this picture. The decal is starting to sag over the panel line and, if you look closely, you can see the decal itself starting to assume the same texture as the surface beneath. Wait for the decal to dry before sampling the vintage delights of Step 3.

Step 3. Even with Microsol turning the decal softer than pony-flavoured sunbeams, it won’t always be able to adhere to the exact contours of your model. That is why I put this decal over the panel line – Forgeworld always make them wide and deep and the decal won’t venture in there without some help. Once the Microsol from Step 2 is dry, take a scalpel or craft knife with a new blade (it must be razor sharp), and cut the decal. In this case I cut it along both sides of the panel line. You would also cut it where you see any air bubbles. I didn’t get any air bubbles this time (I was kind of hoping I would, so I could show you what to do!), but just slice right through them. Gently. Then apply some more Microsol.

I then took some watered down black paint and carefully ran the brush along the panel line again. Simple, but it looks good.

Step 4. Weathering. Unless you want your decal to look like it was painted on that morning take a needle file (you might find a rounded one works best) and very gently start scraping some wear and tear into the decal. It must be dry, or you will simply glom it into a horrible mess. Do as much or as little as you want, but beware of scraping away the paint underneath. A coat of Klear at Step 0 helps to protect your base layer of paint, here.

Step 5. Apply a coat of Klear over the decal and surrounding area. In this case I coated the whole top dome of the drone. Once it has dried, it will help to protect your decal and stop any further layers of paint or washes softening it or lifting it. You can now complete your model, and I will edit this post later to include a pic of the finished pair of Heavy Gun Drones. You will see that with the final coats of varnish, the decals are rendered completely invisible. Here is an example from another model of mine where I followed the same technique:-

I love my drones, I do , so here are some pics, including four Forgeworld Drone Sentry Turrets I completed recently. Click for extreme closeups:-

As models go, the shield drone is okay. It does the job, but I always thought it was a bit odd that the same shield drone that provided a 4+ armour save to a Pathfinder’ui would also provide a 3+ save to a Battlesuit and a 2+ save to a Broadside.

I already have the Forgeworld DX-4 technical drones, but they lack the sheer bulk implied by a 2+ save. Little floating toasters should not have a 2+ save in 40k.

Then I found this on Forgeworld’s website. It is a Tau Security Orbital from the Battle Fleet Gothic game. I’ve never played BFG, but you get two of these for £8.80, so I ordered them and painted them up (I see all the BFG stuff is “temporarily out of stock” at FW. I wonder what’s up).

In order to ensure that they looked the right scale I decided to use some decals.

I am following a fairly set path for painting my Tau stuff right now. Here’s how I did it:-

1. Usual soapy soak, wash and assembly common to all FW stuff. The resin gate on these things is – annoyingly – right on the smooth curve of the top dome. This has got to be the worst place FW could have put it. Even cutting it off as carefully as I could left an indented area on the top of the model. I could have filled this with greenstuff, but it would have taken ages to smooth it out exactly and I’m just not skilled enough to make it look seamless. So – battle damage it is.

I don’t like the stub at the bottom of the model, and prefer a clear flight rod. I snipped off the stub and drilled a 2mm hole in the centre of the lower dome. A normal GW flight rod fits in.

2. Prime with Plastikote black primer.

3. Paint top and lower domes with Vallejo Earth (GW Graveyard Earth). I watered this down 1:1 with tap water and a touch of washing up liquid. The washing up liquid is the best flow-aid improver I have found for the price! Four light coats is enough for coverage, allowing time to dry (5 mins) between coats.

Shield drones are usually white, but I didn’t think the top dome would look so good if I painted it all white. I tried painting some of the panels in white, but it didn’t work well. Eventually I went with the Vallejo Earth, reasoning that such large drones would warrant the regular army colour scheme.

4. Paint interior with Boltgun Metal. Again watered down 1:1 with a dab of washing up liquid. One coat does the job.

5. Add decals. Paint Microset onto the model. Soak decal for 20 secs and slide it off with a wide, flat brush onto the model. Position it with the brush – gently. If it tears or bunches up, take it off and use another one. One it is in position, apply a liberal amount of Microsol. Wait till it dries. Using a fine scalpel, cut any parts that have bubbles or are over panel lines in the model, or are just not lying flat. Then apply some more Microsol. Wait again till it dries, then using a rounded needle file, gently score and scratch some wear into the decal. Finally, paint the whole top dome with Future floor polish. This helps seal the decals in and stops the weathering layers from softening and lifting them.

Click on the picture at the top for a close up of the decals. Compared to simply using GW’s instructions, the combination of Microsol and Microset is nothing short of miraculous.

6. Weathering. I start with a wash (more like a filter) of black ink (Vallejo), watered down 6:1 with a little washing up liquid. This just darkens the tone of the surface areas, and also gathers in panel lines to shade them. Apply this to the whole model.

7. Apply a thin wash of Asurmen Blue to the metal areas.

8. Drybrush Shining Silver on the metal areas.

9. Paint the lights on the metal areas white and yellow.

10. Using black ink watered down in varying amounts, apply scores and scratches to the top and lower domes with flicks of a no.2 detail brush.

11. Apply MIG pigments. I used Black Smoke. Lots in the ‘damaged’ area of the top dome. Small amounts over each of the ink scratches to soften them and make them look like damage from shooting. A little around the edges, feathering towards the centre. Spray on MIG pigment fixer.

12. Paint lights on top dome.

13. Run the edge of a graphite pencil around the edges of the top and lower dome, to simulate exposed metal.

14. Apply gloss varnish and then Dullcote to knock off the shine. If anyone is any doubt about the quality of the new formulation Testor’s Dullcote, take a look at the finish on these. If anyone knows where you can get the stuff in stock in the UK right now, let me know!

15. Paint gloss varnish on the lights, and it’s done.

See below for a close up and a picture of my Forgeworld XV-88 with his brand new shield drones.