Custom Tau Aegis Defense Line

While an Aegis Defense Line (AGL) is a highly useful piece of equipment for a ranged-focus army such as Tau, the official model is anything but designed for the Greater Good, with its blocky form and ubiqitous aquilas. Since I had no intention of buying one and trying to mar it into a Tau shape, I decided to adapt a concept I had been shown on a Riptide suit, and use plastic bottles to represent a shield wall projected by a line of drones. To that end, I obtained some clear plastic bottles, and at least a day after removing the tonic water by gin-dilution, and some failed experiments on bottle chunks, I consulted a good friend (the ever-esteemed Mike VanSickle) on plastic forming, and settled on a process.

An Aegis line, as you may know from other sources, consists of eight pieces, four single wall sections, and four double wall sections. The height is a universal 4cm all down the line, and the singlet sections are 5cm in width, while the doublets have a 3cm wide low connecting wall between the two for a total of 13cm. I cut some pieces from a 2L tonic bottle, and was happy with the singlet sections in terms of curve per width and height, but getting the doublets to cooperate and form a mostly straight front while still having that section in the middle proved challenging. I considered a number of concepts, liking the idea best of having the two projected shields bleed into each other and form the low connector by overlap, but could not determine a solid way to achieve that look, until Mike clued me in.

The problem with making a doublet wall was that the plastic was strained into a cylinder, and that strain acted to roll the section up into a smaller curl. Trying to form this into two curls with a counter-curved wall between was implausible, as the force tended to deform the plastic back into the tight curl, as seen below (this is from a 1L bottle, not the 2L originally used for the singlet walls):

The breakthrough came as discussed from Mr. VanSickle's previous life, in that heating the plastic to a low warmth in a press-mold would re-form it permanently into a new shape. He had success before with two cardboard slices pinned with dowels, but as I had whole cardboard boxes to use and a dedication to thorough experimentation, I opted for a whole block of cardboard layers. I cut sections of cardboard something above 13cm wide (the width of the doublet wall, if you recall), deep enough to fully contain my wall's top-down footprint, and Elmer's-glued them into a block over 4cm high (again to encompass the wall and some wiggle to trim off). I then traced the wall's footprint on the top of the block, and Brother-Captain Mike was kind enough to jigsaw off the excess and along that line to the corresponding edges to cut the block into two pieces. I glued slices of 3x5 card to the faces along that cut line, to provide an even surface to press against the plastic, and let set. The result is seen below.

I then took my slices of plastic, muscled them into position along the mold, held them down with a heavy object (a tin full of dominoes, guessing about a pound) to ensure the press was flat, and the plastic wasn't pushing the two halves apart, and put it in the oven on the lowest heat (150F on mine), until lifting the weight slightly resulted in no separation at all of the mold (indicating the plastic was no long exerting a force to roll up and shove the mold apart to do so), approximately an hour (picture below).

Before taking the mold apart, it was allowed to cool, and looked like the following:

When the plastic cooled, it was removed, and checked to keep its shape despite some like bending, looking as follows:

After creating four of these doublet sections, the walls were cut down to the correct shape (more or less a sine wave) from front view, and the wall was physically complete (although no-where near done, and hardly playable). To mount the walls, pieces were cut from movement trays normally used for Warhammer Fantasy Battles to the correct width and deep enough for the next step (~4-5cm, up to you).

To create the emitters, drone tops and antennae were obtained from a bits shop, and glued together (just the tops were used, but an equal effect could be obtained by using more of the drones, and a full shield drone tilted to face the wall would be impressive), with a plan to connect some wires from the tip of the antenna to spots on the wall.

After some consultation and re-examining, I decided that my original plan would get in the way a lot and preclude putting suits behind the wall, with the drones where they're at. I fiddled with some other ideas, and considered using just antennae at the ends of the walls to make an electrofence-kind-of-thing like Pyzi suggested, but since that would double the costs of the project (can't just buy antennae, that I found) I settled on a slightly different motif. I popped off the antennae and moved them to the back of the drones, and cut a nock into the bottom of the wall, so it passed over the drone itself. Instead of having the shield emitter on the other side of the defenders, it would now be right up against the wall itself, presenting a much more compact footprint that could be more easily moved around, while still utilizing the same design scheme and parts list originally intended. Figure 8 shows a trial piece.

The bonuses of this form is that it's about a normal base thick, and the rectangle is easy to position. I didn't take the extra step to cut the front corners off, but that could be done for better shape if desired. Cutting the notch in the wall does leave some awkward gaps, but we'll figure that out later.

The populated areas of the Vai'hla Sept world are largely a rock scree, so the bases should reflect that. To build them, I obtained some white sand from Michael's. First I tried soaking some in various shades of dilute paint, but didn't have much luck and decided to just paint it. So, I used Liquid Nails wood glue liberally on the base, poured the sand over it, and let dry. I then hit the whole thing with a Krylon Matte Finish spray to seal it on, before painting the whole sand gray. Too much gray and it pools in the crevices, making for a sort of mossy consistency, so go fairly light but full coverage for rocks. Once dried, I hit it with a black wash, followed by a drybrush of a 2:1 gray:white mix, then a drybrush of 2:1 white:gray, and finally a light drybrush of white, and another coat of Matte Finish. The final result is in Figure 9.

The Vai'hla colors are ghost gray and teal, so the drone bases were painted in this manner. To attach the shield to the drone, I used a large bead of E6000 industrial glue along the bottom of the notch. This dried to a clear wavy layer that plugged the gaps and appears like the wall flows over the drone to the ground. A large bead on the tip of the emitter connects the emitter to the shield with a clear flowing cone, and the whole thing dries solid, though it is easy to flub positioning the glue properly. A glued wall section is shown in Figure 10.

I liked the basic wall look, but thought it could look more energetic. First I tried an ink, as it would give a translucent look, but it just ended up pooling the color into the edge of the brush stroke and drying into thick rings around fogged areas. I then tried a sharpie, which did cover the plastic well, and turned it colored, but went on too thick to see through, so I went with a wide brush of Vallejo Imperial Blue in swirls from the center, then drybrush of white concentrically from center, and a light blue over that to tint the white.Final results in figures 11-15.

    To complete the ensemble, I generally bring a quad gun or the cheaper icarus lascannon, and of course the stock versions won't do, so I made my own. I obtained the quad ion cannon turret bit from the razorshark flyer, and a heavy rail rifle from the broadsides, but needed something to mount them on. I decided to go with the turret pieces of the hammerhead/skyray kit. I could have bought just those bits, but got the whole box, snipped those out and still have a whole devilfish and some more bits for other projects. As to what the turret pieces would be on, I chose three legs, which I obtained from the crisis suit teams. I sawed off the top of the hip ball, and clipped out a section of the rail beneath the turret to glue them down. I then pared down the quad gun piece to fit in the turret, and added some extra bits I had for flavor. The rail rifle glued right on to the skyray turret, got its own legs in the same manner, and after painting, I had it all done.

Piece tally:

* 12 Drone tops
* Quad Cannon
* Rail Rifle
* Tank Turrets
* Assorted bits, plastic bottle, and movement trays

Glad to be done with this, and really pleased with the end result. Now to get it bloody!