Tarellains? 40k

[LukeDraconis]

Hey everyone,

I was browsing through some 40k lore, don't have an army yet as I'm working on my Seraphon, when I came across a minor xeno race known as the Tarellians.

They are a race of reptilian mercenaries that almost got completely wiped out between the Imperium of Man exterminatus-ing their home planet with virus-bombs and the Tyranids devouring one of their other major planets. The few that are left side with the Tau and aid them in conflicts, especially against the Imperium of Man and the Tyranids as they have a burning eternal hatred for them.

My question is why haven't GW done anything with them? Yeah they are a minor race and the Kroot would sooner get a spot but I mean how awesome would it be to have lizardmen in space?! THAT would really get me into 40k because that exact same reason got me into AoS, I love reptile-themed races and clearly other people do as well case in point the Seraphon!

Not only that but it has been very hard finding conversions of them I've seen a few here and there, some of them looking super cool, but when I go to the page of those conversions it doesn't say how they did it or even the models they used for it.

This was basically just a small rant of me whining about the lack of models for such a cool concept, and maybe once I'm happy with my Seraphon army I'll try and figure out how to convert some models to make a Tarellian army because I would absolutely play Warhammer 40k in a heartbeat with them as my army since most of the other factions that are supposed to be the "good guys" are still huge assholes: the Imperium of Man being religious fanatics and super xenophobic (I don't think they even tried to contact the Tarellians before immeidately trying to destroy them upon finding them), the Eldar being massive narcissists and looking down at all other races, and the Tau forcing breeding restrictions or even sometimes banning it for certain species or castes within their society (and supposedly lobotomizing and/or sterilizing those who refuse to follow the Greater Good...Though the Imperium of Man does the same with their Imperial Truth).

TL;DR GW please make Tarellian units (or better yet armies!) so I can have space lizard in 40k and space lizards in AoS <3

 

[Crowsfoot]

Hey everyone,

I was browsing through some 40k lore, don't have an army yet as I'm working on my Seraphon, when I came across a minor xeno race known as the Tarellians.

They are a race of reptilian mercenaries that almost got completely wiped out between the Imperium of Man exterminatus-ing their home planet with virus-bombs and the Tyranids devouring one of their other major planets. The few that are left side with the Tau and aid them in conflicts, especially against the Imperium of Man and the Tyranids as they have a burning eternal hatred for them.

My question is why haven't GW done anything with them? Yeah they are a minor race and the Kroot would sooner get a spot but I mean how awesome would it be to have lizardmen in space?! THAT would really get me into 40k because that exact same reason got me into AoS, I love reptile-themed races and clearly other people do as well case in point the Seraphon!

Not only that but it has been very hard finding conversions of them I've seen a few here and there, some of them looking super cool, but when I go to the page of those conversions it doesn't say how they did it or even the models they used for it.

This was basically just a small rant of me whining about the lack of models for such a cool concept, and maybe once I'm happy with my Seraphon army I'll try and figure out how to convert some models to make a Tarellian army because I would absolutely play Warhammer 40k in a heartbeat with them as my army since most of the other factions that are supposed to be the "good guys" are still huge assholes: the Imperium of Man being religious fanatics and super xenophobic (I don't think they even tried to contact the Tarellians before immeidately trying to destroy them upon finding them), the Eldar being massive narcissists and looking down at all other races, and the Tau forcing breeding restrictions or even sometimes banning it for certain species or castes within their society (and supposedly lobotomizing and/or sterilizing those who refuse to follow the Greater Good...Though the Imperium of Man does the same with their Imperial Truth).

TL;DR GW please make Tarellian units (or better yet armies!) so I can have space lizard in 40k and space lizards in AoS <3

If you have the pics of the conversions put them up someone may know what models were used

 

[LukeDraconis]

Hey Crowsfoot!

Thanks for the reply. And yeah I'll post them now! I like the two unpainted ones the most as I think they blend they Tau armor in really well. Though the red painted model might be a more drastic approach, I just wouldn't have the celestite club since it seem out of place. The last image is just a picture of what they look like.

If I did do the conversions I'd want them to be more melee combat orientated, though that's not to say they can't shoot, rather than the Tau's shoot and run tactics. Just feels more in character with their fluff.

 

[Aginor]

Haha, those are really cool.
Looks like a regular Saurus Warriors with some Tau weapons and that's pretty much it.

I also read about that race and once I have started my Tau army (next year most likely) I also wanted to make some conversions.
My approach would be the other way round though:
Some Tau lore I read says that the other races fighting along the Tau get access to parts of their technology, even the (lesser) suits. So I would probably have tried just using some spare Saurus/Skink heads on top of Tau bodies and see how it would look.

 

[LukeDraconis]

Hey Aginor!

Yeah they do look like that, I figured I'd use the Saurus model as a base and modify off of that.

While I like your idea, mostly because it's way easier, there's a few difficult things that go along with that. For instance a tail would have to be added on to the Tau unit, if you wanted a model or two with the helmet the standard issue one doesn't seem to fit that well given the Tarellains head size and shape, if you wanted to shoe off more of their reptilian traits it would be difficult as most of them are under the armor. But honestly that doesn't matter as long as your happy with it in the end...Well that and you bring honor and glory to the space lizards.

I'm gonna continue to try and dig for more pics or references, there's gotta be the perfect one out there somewhere.

 

[Aginor]

Hey Aginor!

Yeah they do look like that, I figured I'd use the Saurus model as a base and modify off of that.

While I like your idea, mostly because it's way easier, there's a few difficult things that go along with that. For instance a tail would have to be added on to the Tau unit, if you wanted a model or two with the helmet the standard issue one doesn't seem to fit that well given the Tarellains head size and shape, if you wanted to shoe off more of their reptilian traits it would be difficult as most of them are under the armor. But honestly that doesn't matter as long as your happy with it in the end...Well that and you bring honor and glory to the space lizards.

I'm gonna continue to try and dig for more pics or references, there's gotta be the perfect one out there somewhere.

Good point with the tails. I somehow thought of Cardassians and ignored those.

 

[PurpleandGold]

Honestly I would just convert tau with saurus warrior heads and saurus warriors with laser guns and play them as counts as tau or counts as kroon. You could probably play a carnosaur with the krootox laser cannon on it. Maybe try and find some robotic looking dinosaurs to use as mechs

 

[Warden]

I have heard of these guys acting as tau auxillaries before, but I haven't seen any in person. I doubt GW would ever consider them as anything more than a fluff footnote however...

That being said, I have seen Lizardmen being used as a proxy-force by Kenton Kilgore over at the website Fighting Tigers of Veda (a GREAT fluff resource for anyone wanting to expand into the 40K universe) as his Kurindians, which are lizardmen models using tyrannid rules to fight in the 41st millenium. Lots of neat stuff, including a Godzilla model that I believe is a counts-as tyrannid titan.





FUN FACT: Tarellians are also an alien race that appeared in Star Trek TNG in the episode "Haven." Alien race that looked liked humans fleeing bio-wars that infected their alien race and caused the destruction of their planet. They then travelled the galaxy as space-gypsies who were hunted to the brink of extinction.