Tau: Vespid Stingwings

Vespid. The very name sends shudders of fear through my opponents.

Wait...did I say "fear"? I meant "laughter".

Yeah, probably the worst option in the Tau codex, the Vespid are slightly over-priced, slightly under-powered, and very out-classed by the other Fast Attack options in the codex. Sure, you could use Vespid as a rapid reaction force, but with Tau, if your enemy is that close, you're already boned. You could use them as a suicidal unit to threaten your enemy, but against MEQ they'll get shot to pieces before doing much damage, and against GEQ they'll get swamped. In the handful of games where I have run Vespid they have not done well by any definition of the word.

They look good, though, and were fairly easy to paint. Since they're metal, the poses are limited. If GW upgraded their rules and released plastics, they might actually sell. Anyway, the metals were assembled and primed Armory White. I didn't bother with a base coat, but did add a few blue splotches around the figures. After that I just washed the figures with light washes of Asurmen Blue and even lighter Thraka Green and Badab Black. I did a very light and quick drybrush of Skull White. Claws were painted with Fortress Grey and washed with Badab Black at the roots. Another quick drybrush of Skull White picked out the edges.

Tausept Ocher came to the rescue for the neutron blasters, torso armor, and communion helm. Highlights came from Bleached Bone. The crystals in the blasters were left primed, then washed with Thraka Green and given a Skull White highlights along the edges. The leader's wing bling and gold bosses on the blasters got the standard Tau gold treatment.

Bases were medium and light ballast with a few chips of styrene sheet. The figures were molded with "something" under their feet, so I had to replicate that on the ground work for the bases.