Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Inspiration from Film: District Nine

I'm guessing I'm not the only Tau-enthusiast that cheered during the final action scene of the recent District Nine film, when Vickus dons the alien power-armor to protect his alien friend. The battlesuit was so slick and deadly. It's movements, while agile and dynamic, were heavy and powerful. This is exactly how I envision a Tau Battlesuit to move and fight in the universe of the 41st Millennium. Just look at this beauty!



One thing I'd like to point out is the dark color scheme that has been off set, albeit subtly, by the orange and white markings and the paint, chipped away to reveal the metal underneath. Were I to ever create a second Tau army, I would definitely draw heavily from this film and color scheme.


If you're having trouble getting the motivation to assemble and paint your models, I highly recommended renting or purchasing this movie to get you pumped up to paint and convert all your Tau models. To be completely honest with you all, I assembled and converted Old Shatter Hands the day after seeing the first Transformers movie in theaters. Such is the power of film to inspire!


*Images copywright Sony Pictures, taken without permission. This website is in no form endorsed by Sony Pictures.

17 comments:

NockerGeek said...

Such a fantastic movie, and I think you're spot-on: that is how a Crisis Suit would move and fight.

Now we just need a gravity gun... :)

UltraLemming said...

And the armor to deflect the amount of firepower that thing absorbed in the movie...
Now that is what we need! :D

Flekkzo said...

I am sure Old Shatter Hands is quite happy that you didn't make him look like Optimus Prime:)

That said, that scheme is awsome, but I would go with a very dark military like green instead of black, but with orange strips, but I'd change the white to a quite light blue.

Damn. I want to buy a suit and paint now, and I am lagging behind bad (real life getting in the way, grr!). That is how much your excitement rubs off:)

Tim said...

Hahahaha! I am sure Old Shatter is happy that he isn't painted blue and red thats true! :P

Flekkzo said...

Don't forget chrome. Lots of Optimus Prime chrome goodness:)

Which plastic Tau kit do you think is the nicest/coolest to paint? Just curious for the future:)

Grajo said...

hehe, when I whatching this movie and this battlesuit appeared i told a friend "This is what tau should look like".

Seems I´m not the only one that thinks this way :D

Pearlygates said...

The colour scheme was alot like Adam's old Tau army he had. Especially with the orange stripes!

Haven't seen the film yet, but I sure want to!

Unknown said...

I thought District 9 was a brilliant film. I must preorder it on DVD.

I liked the dark military colours for the Prawn tech. Something I'm thinking of using on my next Tau army.

Tim said...

Flekkzo, I think the coolest plastic kit, if we're not talking about anything other coolness, is the Tau Stealth Team. The Crisis Suits need a lot of customization to get looking cool but the stealth team is top-notch.

Pete W said...

I definitely agree with the battlesuit in the film giving a terrifying concept of what a crisis suit could do. Also, remember that intense thudding energy machine gun it had? To me that just screams burst cannon.

Now just imagine if it had jump jets.

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Flekkzo said...

I will definitly take a look at those guys. Should paint the rest of my IFs first, but I am pretty sure I will want to paint something completely different after that. Looks like the Tau can use quite a lot of different cool colorschemes after all.

Firewasp said...

Almost makes me want to do some conversion work.
How hard can it be...?

Pearlygates said...

I'd like to see The Tau have a much larger version of the crisis suit (tank size) sort of twice the size of a dreadnought.
one that's armed with twin-linked Ion Cannons and Rail Guns. Though it'll probably be classed as a 'Super-Heavy'.

I've seen a conversion of a Titan-sized crisis suit; I think it was in the gallery section on the Advanced Tau Tictica blog.

Widthofacircle said...

That in my mind what an XV9 should have been like, and it would kind of fill the holes present in my opinion in the 4th Ed Tau list.
XV9 wise, The arm joins are very similar as are the leg joins so for conversion I'd start there!
Personally I love the film, and want to see battlesuits become that powerful, or have the squad size increased...

Pete W said...

@Xanadu.

I've heard that in early playtesting they had crisis suit squads going up to 5 in size but found that it became too powerful, especially with the different wargear options.

This becomes even more powerful in 5th edition with wound allocation. It's easy enough to make 5 different wound units (plus drones) by putting two HQs with a 3 XV8 team and mixing up wargear.

There is a thread at ATT (http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=12838&sid=b3e9030615091da2e3ecfb81089c0b7b) that deals with making a 5 suit team using two HQs.

Widthofacircle said...

@ Pete W

I suppose you are right, a 5 man helios would destroy anything given a chance, and it would be a nightmare to keep track of wounding. At least make the suits cheaper though!

I have read the ATT thread, thanks, was interesting but I keep my Shas'O with a bodyguard and use my suicide 'el as a DSing lone wolf - always pops at least one tank :D.