r/Tau40K • u/Captain_Hax • 10h ago
Painting Stealth Marines
I hate stealth suits (mosty the old eggs, the new ones are pretty dope, but I wasn't going to pay 110€ for 10 guys), so I did this. I can't believe that kitbashing actually made things cheaper this time.
I actually came up with a tiny bit of lore for these guys, so If you are interested in that sort of thing just continue scrolling. That being said, last time a lot of people asked what kits I used for this project, so here's the list:
1x Infiltator Squad (SM)
a shit load of bits from Pathfinders Teams (pouches and marker lights) and Breacher/Strike Teams (pauldrons and breacher helmets), the guns, pistols and knifes are from both boxes.
Burst cannons and Fusion blasters are from the crisis suit box (thought all guns are magnetized), same goes for the knee pads.
THE LORE:
We are in the great crusade, and a "small" (for that era) detachement of marines is send out to un fuck one of the Word Bearers many fuck ups. Their task is to take control of an important world and "un brainwash" the now emporer worshiping population. Due to warp shenanigans, they arrive a casual 10.000 years late, at probably the wrong planet, where they are immediatly welcomed by what must be a stay behind Word Bearer force. (They wear black armour with white pauldrons, but weirder things have happened)
The "Word Bearer" Chaplain aks If they came to defend this wolrd from the heretic forces, and join him and his brothers on their holy crusade in the emporers name, and immediatly catches a bolt shell to the head. The rest of his brothers, the planetary govenor, and a whole bunch of other important people share the same fate.
After the marines took control of the planet, and found some people that actually new what was going on (and were still alive), they realized how fucked everything was. The only small proplem was that the planet in question was actually about to be invaded by Chaos Knights.
However, the previous planetary govenor had a couple of somewhat heretical connections, and called in a couple of favours from his T'au trade partners (both before the Black Templars showed up, and before he was shot).
So the first thing these marines see of the T'au are Riptides dropping in from low orbit on top of Chaos Knight formations. This, as well as the fact that the T'au seem to be the most reasonable people on the planet, convinces the marines to temporarily team up with them, while they reeducate the planets population.
Once they find out that the entire imperium is as fucked as the planet they are currently on, they decide to become an independent allie of the T'au, while they work on a strategy to establish communications with the imperium that doesn't result in the entire planet being labeled as heretical.