Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

Been a little surreal with the wild weather that we have been having in Sydney, have had two large gum trees come down on the property, one of which narrowly missing our house. So I will have a busy weekend wielding a chainsaw, practicing my zombie slaying skills and hopefully not removing any of my limbs. Which is further motivation to get my head down and paint up a storm this week. I picked up my box of Gnoblars and the outstanding Maneater and have been furiously (or at least attempting to be furious) applying paint in an attempt to knock off the remains of the Ogre Kingdoms army and below is my current progress.


Here we see the second (and last; hurrah) unit of Gnoblars that really help to bulk out the army and raise the break point of the army with their little banners. As you may notice they are a reverse of the previous units for easy identification.


As with the previous unit the unit fillers stand pride of place out front sandwiching the command group between them. As a whole unit there are enough crazy poses and things going on to cover for my slightly shoddy paint work. I am glad these guys are done, but am glad I included them in the army as I think I needed the practice on painting large units in one go.


And the final picture in this update the Red Gnoblars facing off against the Blue Gnoblars. I am interested to see how I am supposed to utilize such rubbish troops in a game (especially if I run up against those blenders pretending to be Chaos Warriors). I think they will be tarpits and distractions at best and hopefully allow my smaller more powerful units to run around unnoticed.

So it is a small update, but with great significance as it leaves me with a single ogre to paint to finish off the army and I am happy to say he is well past 75% painted so another good evening (and with the weather the way it is I have a good chance) of painting I feel I could have him done before Friday. Wish me luck and the next update may very well include a full army shot or too.

Thanks for stopping by and reading.

Hi again (most unlike me to be posting so close together).

First of all I just noticed that my blog here has reached 10 pages and I would like to thank all of you for stopping by and putting up with my ranting among the semi legible pictures. But enough chat and onto........

I realized I was a lot closer to finishing the last Maneater than I thought and managed to knock him out before stopping for a little boxing training. So without further adieu, here he is:


I really enjoyed painting this guy and after the Gnoblars he was a blessing. In fact he is the first finecast model that I have ever bought new (I have picked up a few second hand) and I found it a fairly easy material to clean up and assemble. I guess I got lucky with him compared to some of the horror stories I have heard about the material.


I tried to make him pretty flamboyant with lots of different colors and larger than life patterns. I think he still comes together pretty well and I have thus far decided that the Ogre Maneater models are the most fun I have had with a tabletop model.


And here he is with his cronies (all armed with a brace of Ogre Pistols) ready for some fighting.

And obviously with this unit finished off I am finished the Ogres! I am realy happy with how this army has turned out. My painting and converting skills have come a long way over these 10 pages. So below I present The Wondrous Caravan of the Traveller and his Maneaters.


It is really hard to get a whole army in one shot. But I figure it gives a nice demonstration of the variety of units and the crazy difference in sizes of the models.


A closer photo of the left flank.


The Middle.


And the right. I can't wait to get them onto the tabletop and see how they play compared to the Obsidian Knightly Order (Empire Knights army). Unfortunately the wild weather we have had in Sydney has so far bought down three very large gum trees on our property which I will need to deal with this weekend meaning I am not going to be able to get to the games club this weekend.


Here are the motley crew who run the show in the Caravan. My Tyrant, Bruiser Standard Bearer and Firebelly. I am hoping big things from these guys when it comes to smashing a few enemy characters to mush.


The Core units of the army. I feel I may be a little light on with actual Ogres. But I stuck with my theme. Hopefully the Gnoblars are worth something on the table, but at almost no points per model each I have my doubts.


My favorite part of the army, the Special Units. It is very points intensive and not many models. But I figure they are capable of dealing with a huge assortment of different enemies, plus they look awesome so I don't really care. Plus I think the Gorger and Tyrant is one of the best themed parts of any of my armies.


And last, but by no means least the Rare Units. The two scrap launchers and the crazy menagerie of Gnoblars hanging off of them. I feel that I will need to learn quickly how to get the best out of them since they are a strange hybrid of chariot and warmachine.

So there you have it. Another army down and I am really happy with how they came together. But no rest for me as I will be swiftly moving onto the next army. Although I have been cheating and have already been painting the next army as I waited for the ogres to come in. My next update will feature the first of 7 planned Eldar armies. Although with the new codex release I may need to tweak point values, but this army will be based around the Ulthwe style of play with lots of Psykers and Guardians.

Stay tuned and thanks very much for reading.

Damn fine work, are a really strong pace. Excellent

Be sure to take extra care with that chainsaw, those things can mess you up. I highly recommend chainsaw chaps if you've got 'em.

Well know rest for me and the plan, I may be wielding a chainsaw this weekend (Thanks for the cautionary words Grim and I certainly was rocking the chaps), but I can still plan out my next army. Now as I said I will eventually do 7 Eldar armies in total. This comes from they were my first and for a long time only 40k army so I have a bucket load of them, but want to organize them into actual functioning armies and so I will divide them into different themed armies. Although I will paint them all the same (which is good as I have a lot of stuff painted already) so I can use them as a larger force if I ever needed to.

To theme each army I am borrowing from an older Eldar concept that each of the Craftworlds had different temperaments and their armies were organised along different lines. So I plan to use the old concepts of the Black Guardians of Ulthwe (Psykers and Guardians), the Swordwind of Biel Tan (the Avatar and all Aspects), the Outcasts of Alaitoc (Rangers), Wild Riders of Saim Hann (Jetbikes), Ghost Warriors of Iyanden (Wraithguard and Wraithlords) and then the other two would be using the Forgeworld Aspects the Shadow Spectres and a few of the vehicles like Hornets and the final one would be a Corsair based force again using Forgeworld Models.

But the first one will be based on the Ulthwe concept so a lot of Psykers and nothing but Guardians and Guardian crewed vehicles. Please note thought that I did this list with the 6th edition Codex so it will be updated to bring it in line with the new 7th edition Codex as soon as I get a chance to see a copy of it. But I will still maintain the same overall concept.

2,000 Point Warhammer 40,000 Eldar Army (Based on the Ulthwe Concept) - The Guiding Light of Yarn Le’ath

Farseer Druiadha the Living Ancient - Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing Singing Spear
Farseer Myandear, Bearer of the Keys - Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing
Battle Mystics of Yarn Le’ath - Warlock Council consisting of 10 Warlocks, 5 with Singing Spears

Fury of the Asuryan - 12 Storm Guardians, 2 with Fusion Guns, 2 with Power Swords
The Black Guardians - 12 Storm Guardians, 2 with Flamers, 2 with Power Swords
Citizens of Yarn Le’ath - 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Shuriken Cannon
Defenders of the Crystal Gardens - 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Star Cannon
Final Stand of the Eldar - 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Bright Lance
The Stoic Few - 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Eldar Missile Launcher

Fangs of the Guardians - 3 Vypers with Eldar Missile Launchers with Plasma and Starshot Missiles

Wings of the Gods - Falcon with Starcannon and Holo-Fields
Messenger of the Gods - Falcon with Scatter Laser and Vectored Engines
Nature’s Malevolence - 3 Vaul’s Wrath Support Weapons with Vibro Cannons

Total List = 1,997 Points - 86 on Foot, 5 Vehicles, 3 Artillery

I will soon be showing off the models I already have painted (which consists of all of the Guardians and both Farseers) which although they were already painted I went over them again repairing any paint chips or dodgey paint work as they were painted many, many (read 15 years+) ago and I was a lot weaker with the paint brushes then.

Thanks for reading.

There's nothing like seeing a completely painted army, and your Ogres certainly look great all together.

I love the striped pants on the Ogre special character. I can never get stripes to work right.

Good luck with all those Eldar!

#jealous

Seriously great looking army. I love me some ogres, and it's been a real pleasure to see you build and paint your way through them.

I look forward to seeing the Eldar start to emerge, but I also feel a little sad that the Ogres are done...

Thank you all for the comments. It's really appreciated.

But no time to waste and I am on to the first of my Eldar armies. As previously stated they are based on the "Black Guardian" setup of the Ulthwe Craftworld with lots of Psykers and Guardians. A couple of things to note, this list is currently written from the 6th edition Codex and will likely change to accommodate points changes and any nifty formations that are now available, but I will endeavor to keep it as close to the list in my previous post as possible.

Before I post any photos I would like to post a couple of disclaimers. These models were painted many moons ago and I have simply fixed any damage to the model and paintwork as well as freshen them a little with a new application of washes where appropriate. Also, I want to make it known that i had my paint scheme (purple and green) back in the days of the very first Eldar Codex. Games Workshop copied me.

So enough of my ranting, onto some pretty pictures:


I have spread the choice of Heavy Weapons out among the Guardian Defenders, this way I hope I can cover almost anything that may come up on the battlefield.


As can be seen since all of the Guardians are identical I have painted a different symbol on the heads of each squad so I can easily identify them during games. It also is how I know which gun goes where.


I am hoping that the departure from a usual Eldar army is going to be refreshing to any opponent I come up against. But then again I keep looking at all of those Shuriken Catapults and maybe I won't ingratiate myself into the good books.


I am also hoping that I have so many bodies that I can soak up some casualties here and there. Especially as I am going to have a Warlock accompany every squad to provide some Psychic support.


I made my Storm Guardians a long time ago when GW still did specials and the like. At the time they didn't have Storm Guardian models and they offered a mail order special where you could get the metal arms from the Dire Avenger Exarch in sets of 10 to make Storm Guardians so I bought up big.


I plan to have Power Swords and Special Weapons in each squad, I converted something to represent flamers and fusion guns and painted the swords different to represent the power swords.


Close up of a few Guardians showing off the Special Weapon conversions and Power Sword, plus a Defender up close.


And a wide shot of all six Guardian squads. I think they look pretty good en masse. Hope all that Shurien fire can tear a hole in almost any enemy.


This was my first ever Farseer model painted and he is now going to stand in pride of place at the head of this army yet again. I remember the good old days when he would use Mind War with abandon and my regular Imperial Guard opponent really did get sick of its ability to pick out individuals.


Here is a basic conversion of Eldrad to be a standard Farseer (as you may of guessed I don't like to use Special Characters as I prefer to try and inject a little personality into my own. But I still like to use their models from time to time.


And the final pic of the update is the two Farseers standing together. I hope they will be able to keep the Guardians alive and kicking serious butt with all of their psychic shenanigans.

The next part will be the Warlocks. Although I have been led to believe I may need to rejig the way I intergrate the Warlocks into the army, but that won't stop me starting to repair their paint work or actually paint a few of them. Hope to get my hands on the new Codex in the nearish future so I can update my list. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Thanks for reading.

Damn, nice turn over So these were mostly repair/retouch? But still. Definitely moving your goal along!

Yeah mostly repair/retouch. I chose to do this army next as its a bit of a cheats way to get things moving on the project. I figure I just can't go past an army I already have half painted.

As someone currently trying for green and purple, its good to know it looks good with a whole army painted up. Nice stuff!

I think it works quite well. But I don't think that dark purple and dark green work anywhere near as well together. I tried it as a scheme for some dark Eldar and it just looked too drab and muddy. So I settled on what used to be scorpion green as my base green and warlock purple (no idea what they are called now sorry).

Your Eldar are looking really nice, the army is building up quite nicely.

That turnover tho. That's ridiculous brah! Nice looking army as well.

But I thought you said this was gonna be ulthwé?

I may have mentioned Ulthwe. But I perhaps should have clarified, the theme is ripping off the Ulthwe army build of old. But it will be painted in my own craft world scheme. Sorry for the confusion (plus I am over painting black at the moment).

With another wet weekend I was somewhat restricted from finishing off my chainsawing and yard work, so I set in to get some hobby time. Unfortunately my beautiful wife had other ideas and I did get through a stack of tasks, but none of them were of the hobby variety. I was rescued on Saturday night and went around to a mate's place to do some hobby work in relative peace. So please see below my efforts for this weekend. Again, these were largely repair and modification work than a full blown paint job.


These are my Vauls Support Battery rocking Vibro Cannons. I previously didn't have bases for them, so I decided I really should have something and then decided that I needed to have them floating a little bit so that made the whole process a little bit more fiddly.


The process is pretty simple. I grabbed some spare acrylic rod and drilled a pretty big hole in the bottom of each gun and glued them in place once the paint had been repaired. I am pretty happy with them, they aren't really high in the air, but they have a definite sense of being airborne.


I kept the scheme pretty much the same as it was before. With my much improved painting skills I probably would have blended the barrel a bit, but I am looking to punch this army out as quickly as I can, so no major changes are likely to occur until I reach the models in the army that I haven't painted yet.


The faithful crew of the guns. I am pretty sure the new plastic support weapons have a crew member in a seat at the rear of the gun and I was tempted to cut some of the crew from their bases and glue them standing on the side of the gun. But I think I actually prefer them roaming loose behind the guns.

So another weekend, another unit complete. I hope to keep this pace up whilst I am dealing with the pre-painted elements of the army, so the next goal are a stack of Warlocks who will either act as squad leaders to the Guardians or a unit to accompany the Farseers. Stay tuned and eventually I will get to some models that I don't already have painted and see what I can come up with for my color scheme.

Thanks for reading.

The space elves are looking really good. It's a very striking scheme. I should resurrect some of my own 40k armies, but the list-building part just puts me off.

They look really nice, great idea with bases makes them look like part of the unit.

Yep, looking good, solid progress moving forward.

Thanks for the comments. I do think a base is a nice, easy way to tie a group of models together. Worked wonders for the Ork army.

Fortunately I like list building. Not for the competitive side of things but I like coming up with a theme or story and building a list around that concept. Just need to find some like minded players more interested in the story than the result.....

Maybe you should make some lists up for me...

Based on my finished 40k figures as a core, and then some "buy this" to finish them off to however many points people play these days..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...and some 600-pt Combat-Patrol-ish lists.

I could have a go if you like. But let's just say my record of wins and losses probably speaks for itself how effective the armies I come up with are.....although I think they look good whilst losing.

My priority is much more based on bashing my 2nd and 3rd-edition era armies into some kind of workable modern shape. And then adding a few of the new shinies as appropriate within the theme (such as they are).

I'm even fine with some "illegal" stuff in there to fit theme and models, as they're going to be used for friendly games above all else.

I'll have a look at some stuff this weekend, hopefully. Maybe starting off with Imperial Guard. They'll always be Imperial Guard to me, dammit. Except when they're Imperial Army...

Love me the guard. I really enjoy massed tank formations. I haven't actually gotten my faithful imperial guardsmen into a game of 7th and with the changes to vehicle rules it may make them very strong......

Ok, no photos this post so feel free to skip over it if you prefer the pretty pictures......but for the rest of you, I have managed to sit down with a copy of the new Eldar Codex (Codex:Craftworld) and have modified my current army list to reflect the changes. Not much has changed, although I did drop the Vypers and added in a Hemlock Wraithfighter instead as I figured a Ulthwe style army would use something that has a Psychic pilot so I figured it fitted a bit better than the Vypers. I have also had to add Warlock's to each Guardian squad as that is how it is done now. But it does mean I ended up with three more Warlocks than the previous list.

So the 6 member Warlock Conclave is Mastery level 2 until it loses 3 members. Therefore the army has 2 Mastery Level 3's, a Mastery Level 2 and 7 Mastery Level 1 Psykers. I figure that this will be an absolute butt load of dice in the Psychic phase that should allow some shenanigans.

So please see the list below for my 7th edition version of my current painting project.

Farseer Druiadha, Living Ancient - Singing Spear
Farseer Myandear, Bearer of the Keys
Battle Mystics of Yarn Le’ath - Warlock Council consisting of 6 Warlocks, 3 with Singing Spears

Fury of the Asuryan – Warlock Leader Adreath, 12 Storm Guardians, 2 with Fusion Guns, 2 with Power Swords
The Black Guardians – Warlock Leader Siarain, 12 Storm Guardians, 2 with Flamers, 2 with Power Swords
Citizens of Yarn Le’ath – Warlock Leader Reantha, 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Shuriken Cannon
Defenders of the Crystal Gardens – Warlock Leader Huirien, 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Star Cannon
Final Stand of the Eldar – Warlock Leader Jorgamund with Singing Spear, 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Bright Lance
The Stoic Few – Warlock Leader Pursuiman, with Singing Spear, 11 Guardian Defenders, Heavy Weapon Platform with Eldar Missile Launcher

Sins of the Ancients - Hemlock Wraithfighter

Wings of the Gods - Falcon
Messenger of the Gods - Falcon with Scatter Laser
Nature’s Malevolence - 3 Vaul’s Wrath Support Weapons with Vibro Cannons, Warlock Leader Myan

Hi all, I have been a little silent on my own Blog, although I have made sure to be a persistent nuisance on other peoples. But I have kicked back into the painting groove and have a few pictures to update you all to where my Eldar are up to. Plus I have a concept to run by the readers to see if I should do something that has been wandering around the wilds of my mind recently. But first a little splash of color.......


Here are all of the Warlocks that I will be using in my Ulthwe themed Eldar army. I had to change the list a little (as can be seen in my previous post) and that actually increased the number of these guys I needed. But it now works out that every squad (artillery included) will be led by one and then I have a squad of 6 running around making a nuisance of themselves (hopefully). I probably will have them riding in one of the Falcons to act as a mobile reserve. Not sure that it will actually work. But time will tell.


This is all of the Witchblade armed Warlocks. Half of these guys were already painted from my previous Eldar armies, but I did a few more coats of paint to repair damage and freshen the unsteady hands I once had. I also changed the blades on their weapons (the spears too) to be bone rather than the metallic green they once were, believe me they look 100% better. I think overall they work quite well, especially as a stark contrast to the primarily green of the Guardians.


And here are the Singing Spear wielding Warlocks. I have always been amazed at the difference in spears that GW has had on the Warlocks over the years. But then again I know back in the day they could have Force Rods and all other manner of weapons not just Witchblades and Singing Spears.


The final picture is showing off the conversions (standing next to the normal model) I have done in the squad. They are all simple weapon swaps but help to just break up the duplicates that I have. I am planning to use the Warlocks with the Yellow hair or horns as the individual squad (although I am one short of the 6 I need) so I may add a headdress or mowhawk to one of the other Warlocks to act as the final member of the squad. I will see how I feel.

I am really happy how these guys have turned out. They stand out really well among all the Guardians and are even quite different to the Farseers. I am now left with 2 Falcons and a Hemlock Wraithfighter (yet to purchase) to paint to complete this army. So I find my thoughts turning towards the next army on the block and this is where I would like some opinions on my current crazy thoughts.

So, I have already decided to do a Tomb Kings army. This much has already been decided and I have been gathering the required forces from eBay. The idea that I have been considering with this army is to attempt a 24 hour painting challenge. Yep, that's right. I am considering attempting to paint the entire 2,000 points in one 24 hour period.

Now I have specifically chosen this army as I figure it will be fairly easy to paint as most of it is bone and the army is a fairly simple one with none of the big beasties and a mix of Skeletons, Horsemen and Chariots. A couple of rules I have decided on in thinking it out is all assembly is to be done before hand and everything can be undercoated. Also, basing will not be included in the 24 hours (unless of course I am that good.....) and will be done at a later date. I was also thinking that I would keep a computer close during the process and update the blog every hour so if anyone is interested they can watch me slowly descend into madness as the hours tick by. Plus it will keep me focused as I have an hourly update to tap out.

So, what does everyone think of my chances and should I attempt it? It would certainly give my army collecting plan another massive kickstart as I would be an army up in a day. Sort of.

Oh and if anyone is interested my wife will be out of the country for work when I plan to do this so no irate wife to worry about. If i do go ahead with it I have 5 weeks to finish off the Eldar, collect, assemble and undercoat all of the Tomb Kings and get some quality sleep in advance of the event.

Damn... it sounds like madness but if it was going to work for any army it would be some kind of skeletons....

Are you planning to use a lot of dip/wash and drybrush techniques I guess?

I say go for it, if you think you can and are willing to try

That's totally mad. I think you would be better doing two 12 hours sessions otherwise tiredness will getter the better of you and you could (will) make mistakes.

Sounds like complete madness.

I think you should do it, of course.

Your eldar are looking sweet.

I especially like the conversions!!

The Eldar look great. They're coming along really strongly, and I also like the conversions you've done to vary their weapons.

I'm not so sure on the Undead Army paint plan though - on one hand it'd be great to get something done that fast, on the other hand, by hour 18 (or 20!) you'd be able to fit into your own Zombie Regiments (if you were playing VC, at least).

The other concern from my perspective at least is the cost of the army vs the finish you can get in such a tight timeframe. Figures aren't cheap, after all, and I'm sure there would be a bunch you'd rather spend more time on individually or as units.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. The paint plan would be to spray 2, maybe 3 different shades of bone/white/off white onto the models at different angles to do some instant shading. Then wash/dip the model to try and blend the spray together. I would repeat that for all of the bone on the entire army (apart from characters). Then interest would be added via finer details like clothing/armour and weapons/shields.

Azazelx and GiraffeX you are both probably right and sounding a lot like my conscience perched on my shoulder ;-) that a 24 hour stretch may be too much (especially if I want to try and maintain some level of quality).

Maybe I can set a different type of speed goal? I just see all this bone and think I should be able to smash them out.