# Brainstorming a Tau Titan- Advice wanted!



## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

Title explains it all, doesn't it? Titans are one of those things we've all wanted but never been willing to fork out the cash for. In the Tau's case, they don't even have any, but has that ever stopped people? Google it and see for yourself.

I really just want to undertake it for fun rather than apocalypse game purposes. With no actual miniature in existence *They don't even exist in fluff*, it's something that screams to me to make it whole.

The question is, how? I'm not concerned with creativity or visuals issues here, but construction. I've sculpted my hand out of clay and built a 3 foot long giant functioning mechanical pencil, so I'm not about to just go buy some anime robot kit and slap a few Tau emblems on it like some have done, but I'm not gonna buy 3 Hammerheads for bits either. It's not the design or the hurdles of building it that trouble me, but the method. The mix between custom, bits and kits.

Any advice?


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## Irish_13th (Feb 27, 2011)

My brother used to be a Tau player and he had the same idea, maybe you could do like a giant quadrapedal broadside battlesuit w/ a railgun gatling or something like that.


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## shaantitus (Aug 3, 2009)

This was made by fil dunn of heavy metal fame. Hope this provides some inspiration.


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## ghazghkull-killyork (Jun 15, 2008)

i would personally get 2-3 vehicles, and some plasticard and kit bash it all together. using the plasticard for the legs and anything else that wont quite fit. this way it will still have the very tau look about it while also being huge.


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

Something like the Halo Covenant Scarab.

4 legged huge monstrous big gun carrying deathdealer.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

I'd prefer more super heavy tanks/flyers (not to the extent of the Manta, perhaps, but somewhere along the scale of Big Fuck off Hammerhead/Skyray). Tau doesn't seem to fit the Titan ethos THAT well, due to existing numbers of Battlesuits.


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## dradcliffe09 (Sep 4, 2009)

If you want to sculpt your own custom parts, but keep the 'Tau look' in the design, I would study parts of existing large Tau vehicles and weapons. Notice how the radius of the curves and the size of the panels increases on the models as they get bigger. They don't look all chopped like ork gargants or blocky like imperial titans. Most Tau vehicles have those circular hatches placed at convenient locations for troops or drones. The plates on the vehicles also have rectangular niches cut out at certain intervals at each plate. These niches are usually packed with antennae, or camera lenses.


With that in mind, I would sketch out a few concepts for parts (I use sketchup, it's free) and play around with different designs before committing resources to the actual model.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

this links to large pictures of the finished warmonger tau titan phil dunn did, i really expect GW to release something like this the next time around for the codex
http://www.warmongergameday.com/2010/03/mini-of-week_14.html


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

Okay, thanks guys- we're on a good start. Vaz does bring up an interesting point, though. Admittedly I'd still want to go for a titan simply because the Tau have that theme of mechs going as it is.

Originally I thought about doing it like a walker/quadruped, but after seeing all the floating tanks, I don't see why they'd fall back on it.

I already came up with a somewhat goofy idea of basically mounting the upper half of a mech onto an Orca. I managed to make it look okay in sketches, but I don't think the same effect would work in reality.


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## Deneris (Jul 23, 2008)

And as another source of ideas, there's the "Man O' War" from Chapterhouse Studios:










Much too expensive by far, but might give you some ideas...


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

Well what I had certainly isn't as badass as THAT, but here's some halfassed sketch I did in 5 minutes or so to give you all an idea of what I thought of as a Tau 'titan' in the beginning. 











The whole idea isn't a sort of "titan" meant to try and thwart the Imperium at their own game, but several smaller, mobile mechs meant to bring much larger opponents down with the combination of battlesuit agility, firepower of a broadside and stealth(ish). I basically imagine two of them darting alongside city ruins, blasting a Warhound titan's legs out from behind with railguns held like bazookas or something.


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## Irish_13th (Feb 27, 2011)

Maybe you could combine the legs of the "Man O War" with the torso of the one shaantitus had kinda like a defiler with railguns and the gatling lasers


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

I would say their titans would be small, maybe twice the size of a battle suit, maybe a bit larger. The ones made from the broadside look cool but almost to large. I wanna say that there is a titan that tranforms into a broadside somewhere.


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## Irish_13th (Feb 27, 2011)

Broadside torso and up with the Man O War legs


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## Mortigar (Oct 5, 2010)

If your looking at knight sized titans how about using a piranha as the cockpit with vehicle weapons for arms, and defiler legs


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

Yeah, I was thinking on the smaller size. Tau really aren't ones for "My titan dick is bigger than yours" approach to might, so I could see them having multiple, smaller units *still large by basic 40k miniatures, but small by titans* dedicated to bringing down larger armor.

I'm not gonna go with a tri/quadruped look though because that just doesn't sit with Tau mobility, but I don't want it to look like an overgrown crisis suit either. I'll throw in some more concept sketches later. Let's just say I'm going for maybe around 6 inches or so at the moment. Something that looks like it could go toe-to-toe with a Trygon, except of course like all Tau things it'll probably blow at melee.


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## Akatsuki13 (May 9, 2010)

Technically, the Tau already a major super-heavy that is on par with the Titans and is the largest and the most expensive Forge World model, the Manta. Not only is it loaded down with some of the heaviest weaponry the Tau have but it also carries an entire Hunter Cadre worth of warriors, battlesuits and tanks. And it's also their bomber craft in naval engagements.

They also have a variant of the Tiger Shark, the AX-1-0, that is armed with heavy railguns and seeker missiles to deal with super-heavies and Titans. In fact, the AX-1-0 was developed solely to deal with Imperial Titans.

While I do applaud you for trying to come up with a Tau Titan, I don't believe that a big hulking Titan would fit the combat doctrines of the Tau. The Tau aren't ones for big armor formations like the Imperium, which Titans tend to be a part of. They prefer to hit fast and hit hard hence why their super-heavy is an aircraft. They could have a Titan-like mech or super-heavy battlesuit but it would be smaller than what the Imperials have. Probably as tall as a Warhound Titan but not as big all round. It would have some form of jumpjet or skimmer-jet type of equipment that would allow it to move rapidly for at least short bursts and its main armaments would be like the Manta and the AX-1-0, heavy railguns.


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## l33tninj4 (Aug 3, 2009)

Go for broke: get a 1/60 scale Gundam kit and add Tau bits.


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

Yeah, I'm kinda between a rock and a hard place with these fellows. I thought about taking the easy way out with the gundam miniatures, but I don't think my wallet could handle that. I might just heavily modify some broadsides.


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## Irish_13th (Feb 27, 2011)

what kind of Gundam models are you looking for?


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