#riptide battlesuit

[absolute-matter]

Riptide battlesuit etude

[thesixthchaosgod]

After months of work and procrastinating, I've finished my Riptides! Could work on them more but the Kroot boxset was my made up deadline (walking home with that boxset as I'm typing hèhè).

Quite happy with the jumping pose even though it could be a bit better, pleased either way and just happy to see it done!

This absolute beast is my favorite though! It's definitely my T'au propaganda piece, what else can I really say lol

Absolute units!

For the Greater Good!!!

[aspiring-bl-writer]

Flash Fiction: T'au Empire vs Tyranids

Hello! This piece is set during the invasion of the T'au Empire by Hive Fleet Gorgon around 899.M41. I find the contrast of these two species interesting: both are hierarchical and aggressive, but the T'au embody a futuristic optimism while the Tyranids are biological predators driven by an unthinking imperative to consume. (And, yeah, a Riptide battlesuit flanked by Broadsides against a Hive Tyrant is just badass.)

It was over twenty feet tall, akin in size to a Hammerhead gunship, the hover-tanks of the T’au military. Yet while a Hammerhead epitomized T’au science and innovation, the creature was organic, a commixture of biology’s most vicious and lethal inventions. Its body was covered in a chitinous carapace over an insectoid exoskeleton, its tubular head primarily made up of rows of fangs. Around it roamed swarms of lesser monsters, smaller in scale but just as gruesome and deadly. They skittered around the talons of their colossal master, armed with razor-sharp claws of their own. Shas’O Ka’eldi had seen those scything blades tear through her T’au kindred, military and civilian alike.

“The size of it…” The voice belonged to Shas’ui Kais, the newest of the pilots within the detachment of XV88 Broadside Battlesuits Ka’eldi now led. There were six of them, ten feet tall weapons platforms in the form of walking war machines, wielding heavy rail rifles capable of firing high-velocity rounds that could penetrate the thickest defenses. Ka’eldi herself wore the XV104 Riptide, twice as tall as the Broadside, yet just as swift as the smaller model, with an even larger and more formidable arsenal: a heavy burst cannon, twin-linked smart missile systems, and a state-of-the-art shield generator. Around the entire squad darted shielded missile drones, each guided by advanced AI.

All of them were veterans, warriors of renown drawn from the proud T’au Fire Caste, but none of them had fought anything like Hive Fleet Gorgon. It had come from a place of nightmares, consuming all bio-mass in its path as it ravaged across the empire. These Tyranids were even more adaptative than the T’au, their physiology evolving in real-time response to the weapons they faced, each new brood possessing a range of new resistances. The T’au had reacted in kind, using a variety of ammunition and weapons, including equipment long antiquated to the empire, but new to the endless horde of voracious invaders. The Tyranids did not slow in their alterations but had to create a large number of the more plentiful but less intelligent broods, as the larger Tyranids—believed to direct and organize the swarm—took longer to form and mature. Eliminate them, it was theorized, and the swarms would revert to purely feral behavior.

“Fire!” Ka’eldi shouted to the others. Inside her suit the flickering data broadcast in bright neon colors reflected against her pale azure skin. Outside her armor the sky filled with projectiles and precision missiles that blew apart the multitude of minor Tyranids. The titanic over-fiend, wounded, let out a psychic scream that left Ka’eldi stunned. Her mind soon cleared, however, and before long, the giant Tyranid lay dead at her feet.

Ka’eldi watched as the surviving swarm fell into instinctual flight, fleeing before the T’au forces, even the mobile drones that hounded them with far more agility than the battle-suits could achieve. Only now did she allow herself some taste of hope.

[pappycat89]

Bought, built and painted a Tau Riptide Battlesuit because i am a nerd that loves mecha and thought it looked really cool. The paint scheme started as a test on one of its drones, then i liked it enough to keep it. I also might have bought more tau so now i have a second small army because im a weenie

[orioniscoolification]

My submission for my league's February painting comp, and my first time really experimenting with dry brushing. Both me and the lad who owns it are quite happy with how it turned out.

[thesixthchaosgod]

Still need to highlight the arms and do the gold bits but I couldn't resist taking this picture already.

For the Greater Good!

[absolute-matter]

Riptide battlesuit

[thesixthchaosgod]

Started work on something... Bigger, 2 of em in fact. (yea I'm finally gonna finish the jumping Riptide I been putting it off for too long but that's gonna change)

If I come near exhaustion I'll just finish these up to refresh myself, they're already nearly done anyway so easy going.

Join the T'au Empire so you never have to paint the same thing over and over for your army ;)