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Very Most Revered Aun'El Ethereal Caste Nobles
Three
nagging, complaining and haughty ruling Ethereal Caste nobles are
bad enough. When they are all disgraced nobles and have been sent
into exile as 'Observers' of every little thing you do, they become a
force such that you prefer having the Eldar shoot at you. Poor
Commander WarmRain.
Aun'El
First Snow (Aun O'Aloh) and Aun'El Autumn Sun(Aun Fio'Shas'ka
- front two in photo above) are basically the Tau equivalent
of Bill and Ted, or perhaps Bob and Doug (or Beavis and Butthead),
only spoiled rotten by wealth and power. Inseparable, the two refuse
to do anything unless they are there together. This is usually
trouble, primarily because, having been introduced to ancient martial
arts films by the Gui'la programmer that developed the 'Real
Personality' system used on the Vas'Quez Drones, First Snow and
Autumn Sun want to be kung fu stars.
This
would be OK if they could fight, or more accurately defend, which
they utterly cannot. To say they have glass jaws is to ignore the
quivering tapioca that actually form their lower lips. These two go
down faster than an Imperial Space Marine in a monastery cloister.
As
long as WarmRain keeps them plied with liquid rations and crates of
old movies from nearby Terran colonies, they aren't so bad. Mostly.
About
the Miniatures:
The
only customization is the base, which is actually two bases
superglued on top of each other to form a mound, then much rock and
celluclay was used to form a sandswept surface.
The blue flame patterns on the robes of Autumn Sun (right, photo)
were tricky to paint. Great effort was made to make the gems and
globes look translucent.
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About
the Army Card:
I am
still trying to figure out why having an Aun is actually good for
anything. They are fun to paint, more so than any other figure in the
Tau army, and they are cheap at 50 points, but you can only have two
at a time, and despite looking like bruisers, it would be insane to
let them fight, as they have no armor save at all. Worse, of they
die, then there is a strong chance that most or all of the entire Tau
army will just pack up and leave.
If
only they were allowed to use those fancy weapons, and one could
field a squad of them, all with decent cover saves, it might just
give the Tau something truly cool to use... kung fu monks in effect. Alas.
The
Preferred Enemy status given to the part of the army that does not
run away after an Aun casualty would be great, except that the Tau
are generally weak and unable to fight in close combat with anything
stronger than their own zippers.
Fearlessness
is a double edged sword; it is not such a good idea for useless
fighters to fail to run away if hit, on the other hand the irony of
making incompetent melee fighters fearless is hilariously useless.
The
only saving grace is being able to re-roll morale; allowing a second
chance to make your troops run screaming like little girls, something
they actually should be doing, fairly regularly.
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