The Tau Take To The Battlefield With New KV128 Stormsurge
October 3, 2015 by brennon
The Tau are back in force and leading the charge for Warhammer 40,000 this Autumn. Games Workshop have put together the rather deadly KV128 Stormsurge Battlesuit. See what you think of this new weapon of mass destruction for The Greater Good...
Bringing Guns To Bear
The style of this Stormsurge Walker is very in keeping with the aesthetic that we've seen developing from Forge World for some of the bigger walkers. It is armed to the teeth with more weapons on it than armour plating I think.
The Stormsurge is manned by two crew members which makes sense considering the amount of guns it has.
The Stormsurge is armed to the teeth as you'll see in a moment but it has been dubbed the 'Titan-Killer' of the Tau Empire. Do you think this will be taking down those gigantic targets with ease?
Target Sighted
In terms of weapon options it has a choice of quite a few. You have two missile pod assemblies, a pulse driver cannon, a pulse ARC cannon, two ballistic burst cannons, two airbust frag projectors and twin-linked flamers.
What will you be giving the Stormsurge when it comes to weapon options? Or, will you be tweaking the kit to make it magnetised and therefore adaptive to every situation.
I know a lot of different people who have taken up the Tau Empire cause this year and they will be very happy with this.
Will you be picking this Battlesuit up for your games of Warhammer 40,000?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below...
"The Stormsurge is manned by two crew members which makes sense considering the amount of guns it has..."
Wow…so much swag. But the silly level is over 9000. No buy.
If I were in an open-topped cockpit next to the vent from that massive gun, I’d keep my helmet on.
…WHAT? I DIDN’T HEAR YOU!
HE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT HE HAS A MASSIVE GRIN FOR DARK HELMET! I THINK HE’S A SPACEBALLS FAN!!!
Is it me or does it look like its squatting about to take a dump?
Impressive model, but with some impressive detailing, but I’m not a huge fan of the pose or look. It just looks…..off.
Fortunately, the Sprues and Glue article from the current White Dwarf magazine demonstrates that the kit’s legs are poseable, and it is quite possible to construct the kit in a far more upright stance if that is what you prefer. Squats and other calisthenics are optional.
this looks plain awesome, I cant think of anything negative to say about it 😀
How about the rules or the price? The rules justify the cost. Nice though,
£90
Looks like its squatting out a turd.
And I should point out I like it, just not fond of the turd squatting stance…
Good news then – the legs are poseable. The version of the kit in the Sprue’s and Glue article I mentioned upthread really does look very different as a result. Scatological implications need not be drawn from the pose if you construct the model with a more upright stance.
It is a nice model, but I would’ve liked to of seen a different approach on the leg design for this one, rather than an awkwardly posed set of riptide legs.
I’d probably add a second pair of legs, and repose them all, turning it into a quadruped.
Might be an interesting conversion project for next year.
Leaving aside the hefty price tag, I like the styling of this model – it fits in extremely well with the existing Tau ranges from both GW and Forge World. While one could very easily make jokes about so many guns being an overcompensation for something, this is hardly a new or unreasonable look when it comes to anime inspired mecha, and it also reflects the Tau fluff well. Their entire way of war is very technology dependent, and relies heavily on holding the technical high ground when it comes to ranged engagement. It makes sense that the Tau would… Read more »
yes.
The AX-1-0 or the new Ta’unar is the main anti super heavy weapons.
Of course, if you arm your Stormsuge with a Plasma Blast Cannon, and your opponent obliging moves their Super Heavy unit toward your Ballistic suit, you could deploy your stabilsiers and fire at it each turn as it advances, peppering it with first strength 9 and later strength 10 blast markers, rendered more accurate with marker lights, which should soften it up nicely alongside Destroyer missiles. When it get within 22″, but before it can charge, you retract the stabilsers, have the Stormsurge move forward to within 10″ of the target, light the target up with enough marker lights to… Read more »
I really like the video on the GW home page that looks like a Tau technical briefing on the Stormsurge, complete with scrolling Tau script and a rotating image that highlights and focuses on certain aspects of the suit’s design. It reminds me of several sci fi movie scenes, with Iron Man immediately springing to mind as a possible inspiration. I hope to see more nifty things like this in the future. Perhaps my ‘Nids might get a Magos Biologis Hololith analysis of any new and particularly impressive kits in their next release (I am keeping my tentacles and talons… Read more »
Like it, and despite the eyebrows that might rise at the price i think it’s not too bad for £70.
Except its £90 not £70…
It’s £70 from most third party stores.
Shhh…. Keep quiet about that or GW will knock it back to direct only to claw that extra £20 quid off people who go third party 😉
i like it and shall buy 4 of them.
It’s what you expect big Tau walker to be but without arms. It gives me nice BT vibe so that’s bonus to me. If I played Tau I would buy one of these.
I do not play Tau, so would not buy it regardless, but I think the model is awesome! Problem is the price, which I personally find very hard to justify, especially since I recently purchased the new BA Fallschirmjagers, Panzergrenadiers and a box of British commandos, for which I paid 80£. That’s 80£ for 85 miniatures, free shipment, plenty of options, great quality…blah,blah,blah…just to say, nice plastic miniature at gold prices!
This is the struggle for gw, and why i think the message has been collectors not gamers blah blah blah. For the price of a gw army, you could have a full size dropzone, bolt action, battlegroup, kings of war armies, and still have money left over for some skirmish games.
Sorry looks like it fell in some glue, then fell in a bitz box.
Is it me or does it look like its about to take a d*mp?!
I think the servers in it’s legs are struggling with the amount of stuff on it’s top…….it’s gets so far across the battle field before it stops and says “I’ve got to sit down a minute to catch my breath”
Looking good. Looking forward to the other races attached to the Tau. This one has s looking mean. Maybe we can dream and see some dwarves ally. 🙂 I mean, fluff wise, they exist with the Tau
It would be nice to see what the Demiurg and the Nicassar actually look like. They might offer some missing tactical options to a Tau army, staying power and psykers respectively.
this looks brilliant but not for me.
So this is a nice kit i must say, if only the ruleset could evolve along with model quality.
Tau are what got me interested in 40K when they first came out. But I’m not so sure about the recent ‘bigger is better’ philosophy. The Riptide looked just about right, but I feel this machine is a little (or a lot) over the top.
I like this model. The open cockpit is all kinds of dumb though, and the pooping position needs to be fixed.
But no way is it worth 90£. They must have smoked some seriously funny plants.
Sad point being, that I was mega hyped for Tau. Now less so.
I’m a Tau player and i’m gonna skip that one, i’d rather go with the other suits… Plus the price, ouch!
I bet he’s a blast a firework contests!
I am struggling with this one. On one hand I wants it on the other it’s open cockpit (???) and tiny little ankle joints are kind of jarring to me and ruin the effect. I’ll probably end up passing on it and seeing what the other Tau releases look like in the next few weeks. I’ll be using them as proxies in non 40k games anyways so the rules don’t mean anything to me.
At least it isn’t Khorne! 😀
LOL…so no skulls this time…LOL
Something is very wrong…
Nothing wrong with the price though…well, at least to GW standards…damn
I meant something is very wrong due to the lack of skulls 😉
Hmm I think if it had four legs, or arms it would look great. as it is it looks like its too top heavy to be a stable weapons platform. it it had arms it could at least use them to shift its center of gravity.
A 3 legged Stormsurge would have been cool an unique.