Finished - Tau Flyer

I kinda wanted the theme from Air Wolf to play when the post opened, but I have no desire to be that annoying. 

I bought this mini 3 weeks ago off eBay for $45 including shipping. I assembled most of it in a week and painted it in two. I am still working on some of the bits like the turrets, but they are minor things. The real challenge was getting the its to line up so I could make both of the two kits. 

GW has been making two-fer kits for a while now. The first one I remember was the Necron Ghost Ark/Doomsday Ark kit but there was doubtless one before that. In the early days, it was pretty clear that they started with one mini and then added a bit or two and turned something around to make the other kit. These days it is harder to tell. GW still goes way out of their way to make it really hard to make both kits regardless of how many magnets you use. 

For example, the Razorshark Fighter comes with a very nasty Qual Ion turret. You use the same bits to make the turret as to make the Interceptor drones on the other kit. It is really frustrating. Since I do not plan to use Ion Rifles in any of my Pathfinder, I found a nifty way of converting them to the drones weapons. The bad news is that there are only three Ion Rifles in the Pathfinder box so I'll still need to find one to finish the bomber. 

I've used it in a game and it is lethal. The Ion turret fires a S 7 large template in overcharged mode. In its first turn, it killed a Predator, a Long Fang and a Techmarine manning the Thunderfire Cannon. Now I know that this is not to be expected every time, but the ability to put a S 7 large template almost anywhere on the board and follow it up with two S 7 shots from the Missile Pod and potentially 2 Seeker Missiles is brutal. 

Defending it is pretty hard. The man guy I play with, Keith, often brings a Quad Gun. That thing had a hard time taking down the Razorshark. If the plane Jinks, it gets a 5+ cover save but with a Disruption Pod, that save gets bumped up to a 4+. If it moves Flat Out that is a 3+ save! The really hard thing is taking out that Quad Gun before the flyer makes it on the board. I tried shooting my Quad Gun at it for 3 turns and never took a single wound off. All 4 shots often hit and half wounded but Keith just kept making those 3+ saves. Really, I should have landed some Riptide Ion Accelerator templates on it. 

I am super pleased both with how the model turned out and how it performs on the table top. I may run 2 in larger games but following the Warrior's Code, Flyers should never make up more than 20% of your forces.