Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Tau Sept Colours

Following my acquisition of the new Codex for the Tau Empire last weekend I am again in the mood of playing Warhammer 40K and more importantly of painting further my Tau army.
I have some models I got second hand and I just got 12 Fire Warriors more and a Hammerhead with removable and magnetized parts which looks very nice, it is almost assembled and not even primed.
My idea so far is to keep the models which are well painted as I will not be able to do such a good job even if they are either in the usual Tau light brown or in a kind of camo pattern based on grey and green (five metal  Stealth suit models) and try to remove the paint from the others and choose a colour pattern myself. I am still not sure which colour combination I will prefer but for sure not Tau brown, maybe something like the urban colour schema that you can see in the new codex or in the White Dwarf issue 400.

However, one thing that is really important for the Tau, more that the colour schema of the armour is the Sept colour. This colour is present as geometric motives or lines on the armour and is common to all the Tau soldiers from a specific Sept, so it sounds like a good idea to have a list of the colour of each Sept so that you can know which one to use or to choose.

The new Codex includes the colours for some Septs but not for all of them, this is the list I was able to compile so far with the reference where to find the information, the names of the colours are Capitalized as on the source:

1st Sphere

  • T'au - White Scar (White Dwarf issue 400); old codex (2006), page 59, Skull White
  • Tau'n - new Codex (2013), page 87, dark grey
  • D'yanoi - new Codex (2013), page 89,bright blue; old codex (2006), page 59, Ice Blue 
  • Bork'an - Sotek Green (White Dwarf issue 400); old codex (2006), page 59, Hawk Turquoise
  • Dal'yth - no information available
  • Fal'shia - new Codex (2013), page 89, unnamed colour, looks pale yellow
  • Vior'la - old codex (2006), page 59, Blood Red 
  • Sa'cea - Troll slayer Orange (White Dwarf issue 400); old codex (2006), page 59, Fiery Orange 

2nd Sphere

  • Au'taal - new Codex (2013), page 89, bright green; old codex (2006), page 59, Scorpion Green (now Moot Green)
  • N'dras - Abbadon Black (White Dwarf issue 400)
  • Ke'lshan - new Codex (2013), page 89, yellow; old codex (2006), page 59, Golden Yellow
  • Elsy'eir - no information available
  • Tash'var - no information available
  • Vash'ya - new Codex (2013), page 89, unnamed colour, looks lila or pale purple
  • T'olku - new Codex (2013), page 89, unnamed colour, looks emerald green

3rd Sphere

  • Ksi'm'yen - no information available
  • Fi'rios - new Codex (2013), page 87, unnamed colour, looks very pale green-grey

Update:
from the link provided in the comments by anonymous:
Image