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Shas'O Vas'Quez Suam'Por Savon Mont'yr
Before
WarmRain (Suam'Por) became an experimental battlesuit commander, she
originally served as a Fire Caste test pilot for a Tau Battlesuit
Research and Development center. She was one of the many pilots that
helped test the first XV22 Battlesuits to be constructed; she is
special only in that she is one of the few that survived.
Although
she is the designated leader of the Vas'Quez 4 Pre-Colonial
Preliminary Hoofhold Expedition, she often finds herself at the
nagging mercies of her Lesser Caste
Noble Observer Etherial Cotillion - disgraced etherials that she has
been put in the position of babysitting while they are in exile.
Desperate to make something of her dubious opportunity, she is often
thwarted in her efforts to impress the Tau High Command because of
the many demands raised by her somewhat underqualified force.
While
she has become somewhat used to her Gui'la programmed "Real
Personality" A.I. subcommander, a shield drone that insists on
being referred to as 'Leftenant Raa'Bit', and which imagines itself
to be a bunny pooka from ancient Earth (the Etherial caste are always
trying to find ways for humans who have joined the Tau Empire to
integrate into Tau society...dammit), this is the least of her problems.
Her
Drone squads demand time to play or they won't fight, her Pathfinder
teams are both rail rifle nuts and refuse to even hold a markerlight,
and the Kroot squad assigned to her are surly because "There is
nothing to eat for Kroot on this planet... maybe Kroot eat Tau if Tau
not provide good meat?", and those damn Etherials she has to
babysit want to fight for her... hand to hand with the enemy.
Between
trying to be an effective warrior and playing the part of everyone's
(organic or not) mother, it's a hard life on the frontier.
But
WarmRain is both intrepid and cheerful; she gets to wear an advanced
experimental battlesuit, and she is in command. That's not a bad
start for a young and inexperienced Tau.
Unfortunately,
with the recent arrival of two new useless Etherials and the
Battlesuit Commander they brought to replace her, she hardly ever
gets to actually use her fancy, experimental suit... except for show.
At
least she likes to dress up.
About
the Miniature:
Commander
Warmrain
is based off of the Commander Shadowsun model. To make her, I first
carved down the rock pedestal at Shadowsun's feet, leaving only a
pillar connecting to her right foot. Then I attached the arms at a
new angle by doing a bit of filing mixed with generous amounts of
green stuff to create arms at the right angle. Shield Drone antennae
were used to give her tech 'wings' coming from her shoulders. I
removed her hair entirely and made new hair, long and flowing down
her back, entirely from green stuff. The Tau Symbol on her chest was
covered with green stuff to make an Omnipitor-like dome. I entirely
removed the weapon on her right hand and replaced it with an
Airburster, which was carved down to fit, with more green stuff.
Finally, a piece of sprue provided the targeting display on the top
of the Airburster. As for the Airburster itself, it came without any
gun holes, so I had to carve the front of the weapon entirely myself. |
About
the Army Card:
I
got the idea for having nice Army Cards
from playing Hasbro's minatures game 'Heroscape', which has
just lovely unit cards that have all the rules for a unit right there
on them.
With
my memory as bad as it is, I really needed something better than the
usual stat line and look things up in the book method employed by
most W40K players. So I worked out my own original army cards for the game.
These
Tau cards are tall and thin, with divisions that follow the style of
the Tau Empire symbol. I use color on the stats to help make
important things stand out; any extra wounds are even circled in red.
I kept forgetting that some units could take more hits than others.
I
choose to paint images of my miniatures, rather than use photographs,
because I felt it added to the overall feel of the cards as art as
well as tool.
I
print my cards out on shiny, heavy photo paper. They work quite well.
I
equipped WarmRain with the Airbursting Fragmentation Projector
because I wanted a weapon that could counter the Eldar habit of
laying down template weapons. I needed something like that myself,
and the Tau have no psychic abilities. WarmRain can lay down a single
large template of strength 4 damage with no saves allowed, and this
is death to any enemy with a toughness of four or less.
That
ST 8 melta fusion blast means that no vehicle is likely to survive
an encounter with her.
The
Multi-Tracker option was a no brainer; more shots means better for
the physically weak Tau, and this device permits total unloading of
all ordnance in one turn. Fairly sweet.
The
only downside is that she is mutually exclusive with my other suited
commander, Worthy Destiny. He also has an Airbursting Fragmentation
Projector, and you are only allowed one such weapon in an entire
army. So that means that these two can never work together on any
mission... but they can pose together in a nice picture of everyone
together, below. |
