It was only a matter of time before I gave in but it was bound to happen. Every so often, I end up going for the exact opposite of my current force.

From Tau to Necrons. From Necrons to Nids. and now this.



A few months back I bought the codex in case some tricky player in our gaming community would go down the path of quick death and darkness. From what I'd been hearing and reading, Dark Eldar, with all their poisoned and crazy high initiative seemed like they would be the slayers of the Swarm and I wanted to be informed.

Well, that day has yet to show itself so I took the plunge. Running with my current stock of models, the list is likely to be something like this for just below 1250 points.

1x Haemonculus Ancient | Power Weapon, WWP, Liquifier
5x Trueborn | 3x Blaster, 2x Dark Lance
in Venom | Splinter Cannon
5x Trueborn
10x Kabalites | Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Sybarite, Power Weapon
in Raider | Shock Prow, Splinter racks, Night Shields.
5x Wyches | Hydra Gauntlets, Haywire grenades; Hekatrix with grenade launcher, agoniser.
3x Reavers | Heat lance, Grav talon, Arena champion, Power weapon.



Stay tuned.





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A quick progress report after 4 measly hours.

As many others have said before, GW raised the bar by several notches when they released the Dark Eldar range.

The tolerances on the Reaver jet bikes alone are enough to make me hope there is a re-tooling of the Tau Piranha kits. I've never been a major advocate of GW's quality control when it comes to their kits (because I've seen how clean Gundam HG kits can be at half the price) but the 8 pieces that compose the Reaver fit so perfectly it's hard to work on these models and not actually feel like GW actually cares about the quality of the models they produce.

Venoms are very much at the same level of crispness. Flash is minimal to say the least. Tolerances once again are just amazing, especially when looking at how well the trophy racks match the back of the passenger nacelle. Compared to the haphazard fit of Wave Serpents, the new Viper umm... Venom kits just seem to fall together by themselves. Granted, there's probably 13 years of new technology that separates the tooling of the 2 kits but damn!

All in all, other than looking positively tiny compared to any Tyranid unit, the simple act of assembling the Dark Eldar kits has quelled any type of buyer's remorse in my mind.

So here's where this new project stands so far



Stay tuned for more.

Pretty models, looking forward to seeing what you've got up your sleeves, especially interested in seeing you convert something thats humanoid! Thus far i've only seen you do 'Nids. On that note...

Why haven't i seen your Necrons and Tau?! What else have you got squirreled away for that matter? Not cool man.
Haha! Seriously though get them up in the Showcase or something so we can all stare at them.

So what are you planning for these guys? Conversions? Kit bashing? Crisp paint scheme? What's the hip-haps?

Ok so the list has changed a bit as I've done a trade. Falcon kit for 5 Incubi and 1 Archon, which will be the conversion. Not quite sure what I'll with him yet but a Huskblade seems to be a given. These gentlemen will form one squad and will take my lone Raider.

The revised list reflects these new additions and a new total of 1500pts.

1x Archon | Huskblade, WWP, Phanstasm launcher; (joined to following squad)
5x Incubi | Klaivex, demi-klaives, murderous onslaught ; in Raider | Shock Prow, Flicker field.

5x Trueborn | 3x Blaster, 2x Dark Lance; in Venom | Splinter Cannon
5x Trueborn | 3x Blaster, 2x Dark Lance; in Venom | Splinter Cannon

1x Haemonculus | Huskblade, Liquifier (joined to following squad)
10x Kabalites | Blaster, Dark lance, Sybarite, Power Weapon; on foot.

5x Wyches | Hydra Gauntlets, Haywire grenades; Hekatrix with grenade launcher, agoniser. (waiting for Webway)
3x Reavers | Heat lance, Grav talon, Arena champion, Power weapon.
1xTalos | Chain flails, extra CC weapon, TL Heat lance.

So what are you planning for these guys? Conversions? Kit bashing? Crisp paint scheme? What's the hip-haps?

Conversions? Check. Step one will be to splice up a cool looking Archon. Step 2, nothing major, merely magnetising a Talos,
Kit Bashing? Check. In 6 words: Grotesques, Ebay, Rat Ogres, Talos bits.
Crisp paint scheme? Not sure yet but for some odd reason my brain keeps on going to high gloss latex... probably doesn't help that, for the theme I'm aiming for every model, except for Wracks and Grotesques, every model will be female. Think Sisters of Battle does bondage... Speaking of which, does anyone have Daemonette torsos to trade? I have an "idea" for Wracks.

Also on the painting front, I fired up the airbrush last night and actually put paint to models. High gloss black isn't just good for pants, it's great on vehicles too.

Epic, sounds like a great project log has been born. I have some plastic deamonettes on sprue. I hope those Nid's got a look in with the airbrush! Your silence on my Tau/Necron comment is intriguing...

My Tau and Necron are in their respective boxes, awaiting more paint, yet still sated from their score of victories. Especially the Necrons.

I might just take them out of hibernation and do a quick out of topic showcase, just for you Casey.

And did I read that correctly? You have Daemonettes on sprue? Hmm, sounds like we have found a token of exchange for some genestealers...


As a great source of inspiration, in case few of you don't know about this blog yet, go check out Rant in E Minor. Not only does it features great unit reviews and tactics, loaded with insight and humour, but the painting...

A showcase would be lovely haha. I'll be checking out that blog asap!

Had the first 2 games with the new Kabal on the weekend, leading to 2 victories against Chaos Marines.

Working on a Battle Report (illustrated) but in the meantime here is a summary of the discoveries and highlights.

The Good.
1. Reavers. The 3 crazy bikers were the stars of the 2nd game. In total they shook one 1 rhino, immobilised another, killed a Havoc squad and took the last 2 wounds out of Demon Prince... without taking a single wound themselves! They are that good.
2. Trueborn in Venoms. So. Much. Shooting. Fragile? Yes, but so fast that if you move properly, your properly will rarely have a chance to shoot at them while you shoot at your leisure.
3. Liquifiers. Fun and effective with the random AP.
4. Agonisers. Expensive but oh so worth it when they work. Too bad my drug sucked all throughout both games so I didn't have the magic +1 to Strength.
5. Talos with extra CC weapon, liquifiers and Heat Lances. They're a great swiss-army can opener and janitor.
6. Charging into a squad on the first turn, with Incubi and an Archon, without turbo-boosting. Priceless.

The Bad
Huskblades. Total gak for the price if your drug rolls don't pan out. Agonisers or Venom blades are better by a long shot, especially if you're facing Eternal Warriors. Yes, they are so bad they warrant their own category. No really, that's the only bad thing I've found with this list thus far when not a list designed to blow up vehicles.

The Ugly
1. Reavers. When you deploy them inappropriately they just vanish. poof! gone! At least the squad is only 128 points.
2. Liquifiers. Ineffective with the random AP.
3. Talos. With no invul and only 3 wounds, make sure your gimp blimp doesn't fisted, otherwise, in spite of his number of attacks, he'll be the sub not the dom.
4. Lances. Good god they miss often! Granted my Dice rools sucked at times but when it takes 10 lance shots to down 1 Rhino... Lances really need AP1 or S9 or something.

That's it for now, time to get back to actually building models.

Stay Tuned for more.

The models are progressing and the army is starting to take shape, slowly but surely.

Arriving from ebay are 4 Rat Ogres (for the Grotesque conversions) and 1 Chronos Body to make a 2nd beast from the left over bitz of the one Talos box.

For what I intended to be a short break from cleaning up Wyches, I figured it was high time to get to work on the Haemonculus.

I'd checked the model in his blister at the store and it seemed to fine in spite of the amount of flash. Banking on what I'd heard and read thus far, cleaning the new material is very easy.

Initial reaction: 7/10 for quality. Things were about to change.






Starting to remove the flash, I'm happy to report that it is in fact, very easy to cut. Due to the material's properties, sometimes the clippers would make this very satisfying clicking sound as they cut resin vents very cleanly away, leaving a much cleaning cut than on plastic. It's as though the resin snaps from the shearing action rather than being actually cut. Once the tiny vents were cut away I run into my first snag. Some of the mounting tabs for the resin were so thick that the clippers couldn't go all the way through so I had to switch to the razor saw. The backpack and the model's round base were the main areas of concern.

Speaking of the base, once the model was taken off the sprue I had the pleasure to notice just how much flash was included on the model. I also spotted some nice bubbles. The small ones along the bottom edge of the coat weren't a big deal but the ones on the arms will definitely need some filing and filling.

2nd reaction: 6/10.



Turning the model over I then got to see the seams running along the model's coat and the other side of the lower spine. Especially on the spine, the amount of flash and the thickness of the seam makes it really hard to clean up the model without obliterating some detail. On one of the arms and on the liquifier, the amount of flash due to the seams positioning was so bad it was just easier to file down some of the detail rather than try to clean up around the tiny protrusions. The backpack, due to a casting mishap of some horrible proportion, barely fits in the back slot. I'll have to fill about 1mm all around that part to make fit with the model.

3rd reaction: 4/10.



Time spent cleaning thus far: 1 hour, 45 minutes... And there's still some filing and reconstruction to do. On the upside, crazy glue really sets up super fast on this resin. Like, 2 seconds fast. Also, if these horribly flashed up seams were on a metal model, I would have needed to fish out some dental burrs and the slow speed dremel. So in a sense it seems as though designers can be a bit bolder with where they place seams now considering they're easier to clean. With the Finecost resin I'm fine with just some needles. FYI, scraping seams with a knife does not yield smooth results so stick to using files.

So in closing, in spite of the claims that this new resin is some kind of magic material that dramatically eases modeling and conversion potential, I'd say Finecost minis are just as finicky as metal ever was. You will need more than just a pair of snips and an knife to clean them up if you want good looking results. Considering the price hike, why wouldn't you? And while the amount of flash is easy to clean, there's so much more of it compared to metal minis that you'll more than likely end up spending even more time cleaning your models if you want them to look good.

Final reaction: 6/10 (A passing grade but I'm not impressed).

More details as work progresses.

That pretty much matches what I got out of my box of Wracks recently, baring missing detail on the faces of two of them, and a freakish casting incident piece of plastic that apparently ended up inside the mold and bisected one of the models front from back from the shoulders up. Imagine that flash cleaning but with a box of five models rather than just one though!

Sounds like you too got a bad batch of casts.

With your conversion skills I'm surprised you didn't make your own Wracks. I've been seeing great results from Skaven plague monks, some GS and the spiky bits from the Talos kits. I'm thinking of using Daemonettes to build my own female Wracks just so I don't have to deal with Finecost.

After a problem with some small bending and breaking off the Incubi, I'm very leary of getting resin from GW. How are the finicky spikes holding up on the Wracks so far?

finecast is no improvement IMO.. my sterngaurds are only half of what they are supposed to be..

In that case I guess GW's marketing was right. Finecost will be a boon for converters... If only because you don't have a choice but to do massive cleaning, restoration and GS work just to get your models to a paintable level.

This type of thing is fine by me but, looking back to my sculpting skills and attention to detail when I first started off (with Rogue Trader in the 80's), I'm thinking that the average young teen starting off in this hobby is being faced by a steep learning curve just to put minis on the table. Metal models were easier to deal with mostly because there was just so much less cleaning involved. Anyone else feel the same?

Man, finecast is such a bummer. I'm going to be picking up 2 Haemys and 4 boxes of wracks this week and I'm totally going to open them up at the store until I have 22 high quality figures.

I think the holes along the jacket's edge are suposed to be there. I think it might be like the holes that were in the skin before it was flayed and used as a cape.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440231a&prodId=prod1190038a

The cost alone puts me off.

Personally, I'm using Plague Vermin as Wracks and Dryads as Haemonculus's (and grotesques) I mean... for the cost of 1 squad of 10 finecast wracks, I get 40 converted ones, and for the cost of 3 Finecast haemys, I get 6 haemonculi with additions of a few choice bits and 6 grotesques... ( or even if you don't like dryad as grots you still get 6 haems) for real quality what I'd do these days is grab a Talos kit or two and use the bts from there. either way - for a little work for 6 haems, 6 grots and 60 wracks you save... just over £300 (end rant)

Look forward to seeing the results here.

@ Begel: You may be right and at least those bubbles are hidden underneath the cape. What I'm reallly not liking are the bubbles on the sleeves and the vials on the arm. Maybe I've grown to be picky but I'm of the opinion that when I have to spend more time cleaning and repairing 1 Haemonculus that I spent on 1 tyrant, 1 lictor and 3 hive guard, something's not right with the casting process.

@ Sedai: Good call. With the Haemies, even if you can see part of the figure, make sure to check out both sides, that's how I got screwed with my model.

@ Ovion:For the Grots my plan is very close to what you describe.

Buy 2 talos kits (45$ each), 1 Talos body (14$) and 4 rat ogres from ebay (16$). After some conversions, 3 Talos, 4 Grots for a grand total of... 120$ rather than 218$

The biggest problem I've having thus far isn't with the flesh freaks in the army, it's in trying to find people with which to trade bits. My post in the swap shop has garnered no responses thus far so that's putting my plans of an all female army on hold for the time being.

Right now I'm looking to trade:
21 male kabbalite torsos
4 Scourge bat wings

And I need to somehow obtain:
2 haywire blasters
3 blasters

Anyone have any leads?

I might have some haywire blasters from the scourges set and also some you could convert from the talos.

Send me a pm if you want

Dark_Gear wrote:Sounds like you too got a bad batch of casts.

With your conversion skills I'm surprised you didn't make your own Wracks. I've been seeing great results from Skaven plague monks, some GS and the spiky bits from the Talos kits. I'm thinking of using Daemonettes to build my own female Wracks just so I don't have to deal with Finecost.

After a problem with some small bending and breaking off the Incubi, I'm very leary of getting resin from GW. How are the finicky spikes holding up on the Wracks so far?

Well, I'm not using the Wracks as Wracks, I'm using as Drudge Slaves for my Cryx. The slave figs are just too fugly for me to justify using them, where as the Wracks pretty much look like a MUCH cooler version of them if you leave their humps off. Jes' Dark Eldar sculpts are Amazing and this is my third use of them I've found for my Cryx.

Since I'm not using the humps, I've not had a problem with any "spikes" on the Wracks, but the weapons on three of them broke off of their hands and had to be reattached. The resin is Really soft and flimsy, not a fan of it so far.

The resin is Really soft and flimsy, not a fan of it so far.

That about sums up my sentiments as well. I'd rather spend a bit more and get ForgeWorld or a lot less and get plastic.

Just found these online:
http://www.darkartstore.darkartminiatures.com/categories/BRUTAL-/True-Human-Gladiators/
They might be useful, man.

Not bad, but not as good as the Wracks. Despite my dislike so far of the Finecast, it's worth putting up with to get Jes' sculpts. I think I'd rather they were still metal though, the metal Mandrakes are solid.

Yeh i agree completely. Most of the DE range is to beautiful not to perceiver with.

GW's legal department would kill me for this but, I wonder how much it would cost to hire a jeweler to cast and pour some cleaned-up resin wracks into pewter? For my own personal use of course...

It's been a good week and a half of modeling and army is definitely starting to look more completed every day. Here's where it stands so far.



Empty bases represent what still needs to be assembled which includes:

5 more trueborn
10 kabbalites
6 Scourges
1 Haemonculus (partially finished)
1 Archon (partially finished)

I've finally come up with the core idea behind the theme of an all female army. As the name implies, and as befits the Dark Eldar's fighting style, these girls are a twisted version of Norse Valkyries, swooping in from the skies to pluck their prey from the field. As the figure heads of this theme, Scourges have been added to the list and I've decided to go for the feathered wings now, rather than the bat wings.



First, it's a stronger visual reference to the theme.
Second, It means I only to trade for 4 wings rather than 6, which might be easier to do.

As the picture shows too, I've used some leftover Wych heads to make them more recognisable as women rather than beaked freaks.

Next up are the Hekatrixes (or Hekatrii...). Due to their strength of 3 and my crappy luck with combat drugs, the Agoniser seemed like a safer bet for increased wounds. The one on the right is a conversion based on the Venom's Wyches.



Building upon the Agonising Women theme, my Reaver's Arena Champion was given the proper upgrades and, following some judicious arm splicing, was posed as though she's using the whip to rope in victims at high speeds.



And last but not least, the Trueborn squad with their default loadout. As I figured they'd need more visibility than the average Warrior, I chose to give them the dome helmets. This is another bunch of bitz I'll need to get somehow as I need another 6 to complete the 2 squads.

So there you have it.

Comments, critique, feedback?

Looks good to me so far, and I like the theme. Have you considered your paint scheme yet?

You've been very busy! The army is making great progress and i really love the twisted Valkyrie theme! Looking forward to seeing lots of paint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S. I found this thread via google.
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=93923

Great find and thanks for that. <Runs off to PM a fellow trader and DE collector>.

Things are progressing slowly as I've been busy with work and totally engrossed in Deus Ex. It is <em>the</em> must-have game of the year if you're into smart first person games rather than meathead shooters. A big shout out to Casey for the quick trade. My female wracks have showed up in the form of daemonettes. Time to break out the bonesaw and mush up some GS.

Glad to here you got my goody bag! Can't wait to see what you do with the deamonettes. I'm chopping up a Hive Tyrant right now! Big greenstuff work, it's not really looking like the original model any more. Can't wait to get the base built with a few of those building parts.

No new pictures but some progress on the list front.

Faced some foot marines for 1500 points today. I know... I was surprised too.

My list this time was for testing the efficiency of Wyches, the survivability of large warrior squads & the validity of 3 man reaver squads.

1 Haemonculus, Agoniser and Liquifier. joined to
5 wyches, Hydra gauntlet, Hekatrix w/ agoniser. heywire grenades
Raider, dark lance, flicker field, shock prow

6 wyches, impaler and shardnet, hekatrix with agoniser, haywire grenades
Raider, dark lance, flicker field, shock prow

20 warriors, 2 dark lances

2x 5 trueborn, 3 blasters 2 dark lances.
venon, night shield flicker field.

2x 3 reaver, heat lance, cluster caltrops, arena champion, agoniser.

5 Scourges, 2 haywire blasters.

My opponent had (as far as I can remember)

1 souped-up Captain
1 terminator Librarian
1 techmarine with a thunderfire cannon

2 Typhoon equipped land speeders

1 Ironclad Dreadnought with 2 CC weapons and 2 HK missiles

10 tactical marines, heavy bolter, sergeant with goodies

10 sternguard

10 scout snipers

Didn't win deployment and didn't steal initiative so I ended going second. For some odd reason my opponent didn't deploy his sternguard in cover. He basically deployed them in the open, ready to run towards the central piece of terrain, a large landing pad. All of his characters were in cover however, close to each other with the dread providing extra support.

Due to cover, and bad rolls on his part, only 1 Raider was blown up but everyone survived. 5 Warriors from 20 died to the thunderfire cannon but that was it.

To try and minimise what his characters and the cannon could do, I shoved the last raider 12 inches forward, disembarked the wyches and multi charged into them. Extra cheery on top of the sundae, combat drugs gave me +1 attacks. Yup, that means assuming they all get there in one piece, my 6 wyches would lay down 25 attacks on the charge, without a single pain token. Although it was just a suicide tarpit move on my behalf, I would soon learn 2 turns hence that it was the best move I could have done. Short story: 6 wyches wiped out all 3 characters, also silencing the cannon, and they were thus able to consilidate into the nearby typhoon, immobilising it and destroying a weapon, while only losing 2 of their own. That same squad would then bound over towards the dreadnought that was engaged by the other Wych squad. Yup, a measly 112 points of wyches either killed or tied up roughly 50% of my opponent's list over the course of this game. 212 if you count that it took a 2nd squad of wyches to tie up the dreadnought long enough for the 1st squad to lay into him.

In his second turn the Marines took out my last raider, killed 3 more warriors and the 2 reaver squads, but other than that, the core of the army (the trueborn) were totally ignored. Although I was sad to see them die, the reavers did their part by making the sternguard stop their advance towards the piece of terrain, thereby buying one more turn of very effective shooting for the trueborn. Still, dragon fire bolts are a painful lesson, especially when 9 strenguard double-tap and then ignore cover...

In return I killed 8 marines, 1 scout and immobolised one land speeder, prepping it for an assault in the following turn.

Turn 3 was the turning point because the CC phase was resolved at last, highly in favour of the Wyches. The shooting didn't do much either as only 2 more kabbalites were killed and 1 venom shaken.

Fast forward to the bottom of turn 4. Scouts have been run off the board, all marines have been poisoned or lanced to death. All that remains is one immobilised dreadnought with 1 arm destroyed and 2 immobilised land speeders with nobody in their firing arcs. I still have 10 trueborne, 11 warriors with 2 lances, 2 venoms totally 3 splinter cannons, 4 scourges with 2 haywire blasters and 7 wyches playing cat and mouse with an ironclad. We both agree that it's over and my Dark Eldar have their first succesful real space raid against (non-chaos) marines.

MVP of the show: Wyches. If you're facing people mech and/or dreadnoughts, take haywire grenades, don't look back. You will not be disappointed, except if you face GK's and their damn unstunnable psychic vehicles.

Runner-up: Trueborn. When your opponent is generous enough to foot slog infantry towards you, do yourself a favour and go on a barrel fishing expedition. Make sure to get night shields too, just to see your opponent's smile vanish when you remind him he can't double tap or melta a venom from 11 inches away.

Hard lesson of the game. Reavers and their turbo-boost move are tricky to use properly. Don't do it right, they die. Quickly. Do it right and they can be the MVP as I saw a few weeks back. Basically, more pratice required.

Final summary. Short of getting more raiders, or some ravagers, or a large unit of hellions, it seems that a large unit of warriors to bait the enemy while the trueborn and wyches do the heavy-lifting seems to be effective thus far. At least if I'm not facing Guard. I'm certain I don't want to face mech guard until I get those hellions...

Thanks for reading. Feel free to send questions my way if you have any.

looking good, I enjoy your thoughts on the games you've been playing. I also do DE and find wyches extremely effective. What kind of paint scheme have you got going on?

No paint scheme yet as I'm still building. Thankfully, all my opponents are very accomodating in regards to proxies while I gather up the force. Things do get a bit confusing at the FLGS when new gamers walk by and wonder why Tau and Dark Eldar are facing Space Marines...

As it stands I'm torn between 2 approaches to painting my battle babes. The first being the very clean yet traditional scheme, as inspired by Sorrowshard and his gorgeous work.. The second direction is something more stunning and vibrant, as seen in Mechanicum Jon's great thread. The vibrant route has some definite appeal.

I'm really loving the first scheme the the other one is brilliant to. Luckily for me I have most of the models I use. Have you considered using harlequins? I know there not everyone's cup of tea but I really like them and find there rather good for drawing fire, the amount of times I've had an opponent try and fire at them then not be in range because of the shadow seers power is glorious

Dark Harlequins would definitely be a neat unit to add in but I wonder how effective they would be without Doom & Guide in comparison to Wyches and their lower points cost. From your experience would you say the cost premium of Harlequins works in their favour or would I be better off going with a 3rd unit of Trueborn or 1 unit unit of Incubi instead?

In my experience Harlequins are great fun.

To be effective at all they must contain a shadowseer, and popping them into a transport would help them I think, but I generally footslogged.

But either way - Shadowseer makes them relatively hardy to shooting at range, and they'll generally down most units they come into contact with in CC.

I personally would take the Harlequins over the Incubi, but the incubi are closer to an assassin squad anyway.

Looks great so far. I'm in love with the idea of an all female army. I played around with that idea for my own DE army, but sadly left it behind. Instead, I just sport all female HQ. [:

Keep up the work! Can't wait to see more.

From what I've heard incubi work better (though I've never used them myself) but harlequins are slot more fun to use, you definitely need a shadow seer like ovion said. And as a bonus they look great on the field. The can definitely hold there own on a game if had them rip through anything from terminators to grey knights to even marneus calgar. In my opinion you don't see harlequins nearly enough.

Oh and always use harlequins kisses rending for 4pnts each is great.

On a thought (and something I fully intend to try now being my quins don't see enough field time with my Coven) is try dropping them through a webway portal.

At that point they would unlikely need the shadowseers Veil of Tears (though the model looks cool so prolly use it anyway :3) as they would be coming straight out of the portal and into combat.

But either way:
7 Harlequins
+ 6 H.Kiss
+ 2 Fusion Pistol
^ Death Jester
^ Shadowseer
^ Troupe Master
+ Power Weapon
230

That's not a bad number that'll put out a lot of hurt.
Ok, so you can make it 220 by dropping the Death Jester but the models so cool and I like it

I'm actually really diggin that idea but can you give the shadowseer and death jester harlequins kisses?

When I asked in-store, I was told so long as you buy the kisses before buying the upgrade, you should be ok.

Until I'm told otherwise by a faq I'm going with that

But ultimately, I feel 7 is a 'magic number' for a simple reason - 1x Box Harlequin Troupe + 1x Shadowseer +1x Death Jester = this squad.

Yeah fair enough I usual run 8 but that's just my personal thing. I'm hoping to get some finecast ones when they come out

It would be quite poetic to bring Harlequins into my latest army considering I ran 20 of them back in the days of Rogue Trader, back when Death Jesters could carry lascannons and you could take 2 per squad...

As much as I suck at math, I think just I will definitely have to try and run some numbers to compare 4 squads at a rough comparative points cost.

Squad 1: The Harlequin squad you describe.
Squad 2: Incubi
Squad 3: Bloodbrides (as elites)
Squad 4: Wyches (as troops)

Armed only with my Excel army list calculator I can only the points cost for Incubi and Wyches but this what I can see for some rough squad configs.

The incubi squad would be the following at 265 points.
9 Incubi
1 Klaivex, Murderous Assault, Demiklaives.

From personal experience, this squad is overkill. I've personally been running Incubi in 5's and Marines just vanish. The only unit in the game that works better than Incubi for ripping MEQs IMHO is sword/lash Tyranid Warriors but they are much more expensive. Ideally you want to run about 6 or 7 Incubi so you don't kill off the squad you're fighting until your opponent's CC phase. With 10 incubi, you'll rape anything in 1 CC phase which means you'll die to torrent of fire on the following turn.
Basically we're looking at 10W with a 3+ save and roughly 31+ attacks (potentially 62 if you roll all 6's due to Murderous Charge) on the charge at S4 that ignore armour.

The normal Wych squad would consist of the following at 270points.
16 Wyches, 3 shardnets and impalers.
1 Hekatrix, agoniser, Phantasm Grenade Launcher.
Haywire Grenades to all.

Just looking at my last game, where 11 Wyches practically cleaned up 1 Land Speeeder, 1 iron clad, 1 Captain, 1 Librarian and 1 Techmarine while only losing 3 of their own, I just imagine what 17 of the blood thirsty wenches couldn't take down. By reducing the squad size to 15 I could bring their cost down to 265 and give a blast pistol to the Hekatrix for some extra anti-vehicle/MEQ/TEQ potential.
In this case we're looking at 17W with a 4++ save, 49 attacks at S3 and 3 attacks that would on 4+ and ignore armour.

I don't know how many attack Harlequins have but considering they only have a 5++ save, even if it's not just in CC, does their stealth field and rending rules take them anywhere near the potential of the 2 above mentioned squads? I don't know but it's a really good question. Has anyone either run the numbers or just run these squads to help with some feedback as this seems like the comparison to be considering now.

Looking forward to see where we end up with this.

My (limited) experience is that wyches don't die, but they don't really kill anything either. When they get into combat, the whole s3 thing doesn't really net very many wounds, but they don't take any in return. They're great against vehicles, though.
Bloodbrides are just slightly better wyches who can get more wych weapons. I love running 9 of them with shardnets as a bodyguard for an archon with a clonefield(or Urien, but that's another topic). I find that Incubi have the opposite problem that wyches do. They kill things, and they kill them dead. Of course, they can get stranded out in the middle of nowhere, and just get shot to death.
I've never run harlequins, but the models are so damn pretty, I feel that I need to give them a try. When I do, I'll let you know.

Personally I don't rate Bloodbrides if they could take more than one agoniser I would love them but other wise no. The wyches and Incubi in almost all respect are better than Harlequins, but like it has been said I think Harlequins are more fun to play with and have great models to boot. They each get 4 rending attacks on the charge (Troupe Master with 5 he can also take a power weapon for free) at initiative 6, they also have Furious Charge aswell as Hit and Run. The unit that I normally take is

8 Harlequins - 144pnts
6 Harlequins kisses - 24pnts
Shadow Seer - 30pnts
Troupe Master w/ Power Weapon - 20pnts
Total = 214pnts

In review thats
24 Strength 4 Rending attacks on Charge
4 Strenght 4 Attacks on Charge
5 Strength 4 Power Weapon Attacks on Charge

All at Initiative 7

Good god time flies when it's busy at work.

Harlequins remind of Tau Stealth teams. On paper they don't look so hot but then you put them on the board against horde armies and they just shine thanks to their spotting shenanigans and the volume of shots they can put out. Some call them "fluffy" but they still have their uses, unlike Pyrovores.

For now I'll stick to my Wyches, since I have the models assembled and ready to go, but thanks to you Mandrake I'll be keeping an eye out for some cheap Harlequins. At 1500 points there's no way I'll squeeze them in but at 2k and up...

Speaking of 1500points, seeing as how it was my birthday today, I treated myself to an army upgrade, a Ravager and a new all-comers list.

HQ
1 Haemon | naked (he's just a token carrier)

Elites
2 of the following:
5 trueborn | 2 DL, 3 Blasters aboard...
1 Venom | Splinter Cannon

Troops
10 Kabalites | 1 Sybarite, 1 Blaster, 1 Dark Lance

7 Wyches | Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix, PGL, Agoniser, haywire grenades
1 Raider | Dark Lance, Night shield, flicker field

7 Wyches | Shardnet and Impaler, Hekatrix, PGL, Agoniser, haywire grenades
1 Raider | Dark Lance, Night shield, flicker field

Fast Attack
5 Scourges | 2 haywire blasters

6 Reavers | 2 Heat lances, 2 Cluster caltrops, 1 arena champion

Support
1 Ravager | 3 Dark Lances, Night shield, flicker field

Based on past experience, the Trueborne are not to be trifled with. Some people have advocated to drop the 3 blasters as they don't work with the Lance range but thus far, seeing as how Marines are so common, the blasters work too well once the foe closes in for the "easy" kill. Most of the dying has mostly been done by Marines so why change a winning combo? Once tactic which has been advocated that I will follow however is the use of 10 man kabalite squads on foot. Seeing as how these units only have 1 DL, they tend to be ignored because the lone lance seems like nothing to worry about even though we've all heard the stories of the lone las-cannon popping a Land Raider on the first turn. Hey, it could happen.

As for the Ravager, we'll just see how it fares on the weekend when it faces Chaos Marines. It'll be interesting.

Stay tuned.

As always, it's been a busy couple weeks what with trying to balance work, gaming and prepping 2 armies for an upcoming tournament in November. In light of my Dark Eldar's track record against IG, and seeing as how there are already 3 confirmed IG players registered for the tournament, it seems that Nids will be a safer bet. This will be a quick update as I'm at work, slaving away on some progress pics while on lunch.

First, a glimpse at the chaotic zone that was my project table last Friday.



You'll notice a new addition to the vehicle roster: a Ravager. It seemed like a good at the time but after 3 games it saddens to say that the 3 Dark Glances are performing exactly as planned — poorly. The Ravager is more effective at scaring units with it's reputation than it is as silencing them with its guns.

The plan for the weekend was to finally magnetise the whole fleet of flyers to their bases, along with their sails and weapons in order to facilitate storage.

In regards to the pilot of the Raiders, I was wondering how to magnetise them to the floor of the Raider until I reliased that one of my favourite beers actually comes in steel cans, not aluminium. Why is this cool? Because now that I've found a good and cheap source of steel that is as thin as human hair, magnetising small objects to bases just got a lot simpler. Case in point, the following picture ...



Once the thin strips of steel foil are cut and glued to the model's foot, all that left to do is drill a hole for the small magnet. Installation can be a bit tricky but there's a neat you can use to make the task of holding a tiny magnet in place while CA Glue dries. By filing down the head of an oval head pin till it's flat, you have a perfect a stable and thin applicator that can squeeze into tight places.



Once the magnet has been put in place just use a piece of spree or plasticard to wipe the excess glue and voila, nice flush mounted magnet in your Raider's floorboards just waiting for a model.



Stay tuned for more pics and a 1500-point Battle Report, this time vs. Orks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Overdue Progress Report| part 2 of 2

First off, here's the current state of the table, following the mad dash for magnets that was the weekend. All I will say is: so. much. filing.



Second, after some extra purchases and much building, here's the current state of the kabal.



You'll notice there are only 3 big flyers for now, 1 Ravager and 2 Raiders.



Staying true to my preference for hybrid lists, as exemplified by how I typically run Nids, the list I'm currently considering for 1750 points will feature a mix of big flyers (Raiders and Ravagers, small flyers (Venoms), jet bikes, jump troops and foot troops, rather than go for the more typical Venom MSU spam that is so prevalent in net lists these days. Due to the (seemingly high arbitrary) dollar cost of Ravagers, I'm loathe to field more than 2 at this time. Also, seeing as how many TO's seem to frown upon 3 similar Support choices, I might just save some coin by grabbing a Razorwing instead. My chief concern with a Razorwing is it's size as I doubt it could be magnetised and packed away as neatly as 3 Raider chasis.



A neat trick to keep in mind when packing away Raiders is that, in spite of the spiky bits on the bottom, once the crew, the sails and the rudder are removed, the top of the vessel is actually quite flat and sturdy. All one needs to do is get small enough magnets and a matching drill bit.



The balljoint on the bottom is just perfect for magnets as well.



A small trick regarding the difference between Raider and Ravager sails. To make you always place the sails on the right vessel, invert the magnetic for each ship so that your Ravage sails will only snap on to another Ravager.



You could also use the same trick with the front gun turret if, for some reason, you were using a disentegrator instead of a Dark Glance on a specific ship.



As for the rear blade, save your magnets and cut out the middle axle.

Well there you have it, that's where the Kabal stands thus far. Over the next 6 weeks I'm looking forward to getting another 15 Hellions to fill out the current squad. Also, a Baroness will rise from the Bitz Bin to take charge of the flying rabble .

Stay tuned and I hope this inspires

Whoa lots of progress! I haven't answered your personal message as i'm a bit busy moderating another forum and i'm waiting on some tools arriving that i bought online.

BTW:
Those parts that you sent me in the trade have not turned up.
The original date you gave me was the 22nd August, you said you would post them on that day.
On the 2nd of September you said you had posted them one the 1st because you had been busy.
It is now the 04 of October.
Don't want be an arse but, is there something you need to tell me?

Other than a bonesaw, what tools did you order?

In regards to the crucial question of shipment:

I sincerely apologise for whatever is going on but the bitz were sent however I think the post office (on my end) screwed. According to MadCowCrazy over on Heresy-Online, he hasn't received the bitz I sent either. Both of you should have received your packages by now.

Sadly I didn't send the parcels via certified mail so I can't track them. I'll go to the Post Office on my lunch today to see what recourse I might have, if any, and will let you as soon as I find out.

At worst, i.e. if my bitz are lost, I'll just ship yours back, via certified mail this time.

*** Update about mailing from Canada ***

So here's the scoop!

The following should serve as a big heads-up to anyone who intends on trades bitz internationally.

If you send packages overseas make sure you <strong>do <em>not</em> send via ground</strong>. According to the very helpful Canada Post Rep behind the counter, ground shipping to Europe is expected to take 6-8 <strong>weeks</strong>. What. The. Hell?! I mean really, they must be using donkeys to carry mail because Canada Post excels at making their customers look like an ass.

To make things even more interesting, Canada Post won't even begin looking for a "missing" package until it's been in transit for 6 to 8 weeks.

If I'd known it was going to take that long (I should have asked) I would have spent the extra money for air mail.

So at this time, all I can say is I'm sorry it's taking this long but the bitz should be there in another 2-4 weeks, which should hopefully be around the same you get the tools you ordered online.

No problem mate, i'm sorry i was a bit of an a-hole in my last post but you've gotta check, right?
Thanks for the update, and i'll tell you as soon as something turns up, mate.
As for what tools i ordered... Well;
Jewelers Saw + Blades
50 Rare Earth Magnets
Colour Shapers
Bits for my Pin Vice
36" of Kneadite
Diamond Needle Files
Tamiya Extra Thin
and a Digital Camera
Haha quite a list, i'm just waiting on the saw and blades to arrive.

@ Casey: Here's hoping the bitz show up less than 3 weeks. Maybe the container ship will catch a good wave and get there faster. Keep me updated. As for your list of tools, damn! You're really gearing yourself up. Can't wait to see what you come up with once you put tools to plastic.

After a whole lot of sorting, scraping, filing and gluing, there's finally noticeable progress.



What you're looking at is the remainder of 40 Kabalite Warriors assembled into distinctive squads and ready for paint. Over the course of this building phase I learned something really cool about GW's planning of the sprues. When looking at all the iconography that's built into the sprues, we've been given plenty of ways to differentiate squads and give them a distinctive and coherent appearance. In specific terms, this means that you can build your squads to have a unified look, whether it's the shape of the helmets, the number of bones on the loin cloths, the style of bayonet blades or the shoulder pad decorations.

Based on the availability of options for appearance, a design style guide was devised for all the squads. First the leader and the heavy weapon warriors would have different helmets and shoulder decorations than the rest of the squad. Second, the amount of bones on the loin cloths is to be read as a rank marking, namely, more bones, more experience. Heavy weapons teams are typically veterans so they usually 2 bones or more. Third, bayonets and shoulder pads are unique to each squad.

Here's what this looks like in practice. First up, Scythe Squad.



The downward direction of the blade is echoed in the helmets of the squad.

Next up is Tooth Squad.



The defining element here are the serrated blades on the shoulders and bayonets.

Thirdly is Twisted Dagger squad.



This squad is unique is that it actually has a female trueborn for a squad leader, which was built with a mix of Raider crew and Kabbalite bits. All trueborne are females in this Kabal. Defning elements here are the smooth blades of the bayonets, the spiked helms and shoulder pads.

And finally, the fourth Trueborne squad.



As Trueborn, this squad is composed solely of women. Sticking true to the 40k theme that badasses never wear helmets, I figured it was time to break away from the domed helmets. I need to get some Wyches in order to get that 5th head as right now all I've got is copies of these 4—not cool.

So there you have it.Seeing as how this is a long weekend, I'm hoping to actually start getting some paint on these guys before the next bitz order comes in.

Items of note to look forward to:

a metal Urien Rakarth (after my experience with a Failcast Haemonculus and 5 brittle Incubii, I refuse to buy any GW resin. It's Forge World only for me.)
reaver bodies so I can round out the squad with 2 female riders
domed helmets to finish the Trueborn squads
more vestigial arms to start work on the female wracks.
but best of all, a fresh box of Wyches.

This last one needs to be discussed a bit because it highlights just how good GW's customer service is. When I bought my last battleforce box it was missing the Wyche sprues so I called GW. Within 10 minutes I was off the phone and there was a UPS tracking number in my inbox informing me that an order was incoming. Sure it sucks that the box was missing but the resolution was quick and painless.

Stay tuned

Quite some forward planning! I'll be remembering this once I eventually start my DE...

It turns developing extreme part-sorting OCD with my LEGO when I was 5 would benefit me in the end.

Just a quick post for now as there's much work to do. Here then is the current State of the Table(tm).




*** Short update ***

It was a short but productive painting session. Here is the new State of the Table(tm).



Total painting tally:

1 Ravager with crew.
2 Raiders with crew.
1 Venom (no crew).
1 Talos with 4 weapon options.
8 Scourges.
2 Reaver jetbikes sans riders.

Next phase:

17 Wyches.
6 Reaver riders.
40 Kabbalite Warriors.

Stay tuned (there will actually be some colour soon)

Stay Tuned.

Looking good - Can't wait to see some colour on them

Thanks. I'm really looking forward to finally having a fully painted list.

As an Eldar player and painter, I always take great joy in seeing work being made on our alternate dark-side. Really loving your attention to detail in regards to the planning and magnetising of your army. I will be subscribing to this thread! Cannot wait to see what they come out looking like when painted.

Thanks for the subscription.

Due to the amount of poisoned weapons available to the Dark Eldar, the paint scheme will borrow heavily from a Nurgle scheme. Expect to see a lot of yellowish greens, ochres, plenty of brass and pallid skin. It should make a nice contrast to the usual all black schemes that are typically used.

Major credit goes to Mechanicum Jon for inspiring me to consider the use of colour for Dark Eldar.

Just when I was just about to finally fully paint an army, GW has to release Necrons! Let's just hope I have enough time to paint it all in 2 weeks time or else my DE are done for.

A short update for this evening.

First, a look at my inspiration and thus what I'm aiming for.



No your eyes aren't deceiving you, that's Jabba the Hut's luxury barge. Seeing as how my planned Nid paint scheme is quite dark, I figured I should try my hand at something more bright and colourful. Considering the Wyches and Hellions definitely look like they were heavily inspired by the Mad Max universe, a desert theme seemed quite appropriate. How more appropriate is it then to reference one of the original open topped flyers in the desert?

In so doing I dropped the original idea of going for a nurgle inspired green-tinged paint scheme. There will still be lots of brass but now the other colours will be in the reds to yellow range, with either blues or greens as the accent for controls, gems and vials. Much turquoise on the brass for contrast and weathering.

Moving on, here then is the new State of the Table.



It's a freaking mess in the whole room now, what with tubes and bottles of paint, pigments and solvents all over the place. The airbrush compressor is propped up on the couch so it won't piss off the downstairs neighbours too much.

On top of the high gloss black undercoat I've layered on a Tamiya Hull Red as a base for the Brass. The hulls and some armour plate have been painted with a fitting coat of desert yellow. I was going to work on the sails this evening but I noticed just today that my masking fluid is all dried up so they will have to wait until I can buy some. There's no way in hell I'm painting large flat panels such as the sails with a bristle brush as it'll take 2 hours to paint one instead of one hour to paint all three.

Here's where the Raiders are thus far.



For now my main goal is to just try and finish these vehicles before the Necron Dex drops as I have a very strong feeling that I'll be going back to my old favourite, assuming Matt Ward didn't gimp them too hard. Another reason why I really want to up the ante painting wise with the Dark Eldar vehicles is that I know their lives will be quite short on the table so they might as well be stunning for the short time they're on the field. Let's face it, sooner rather than later, Raiders and Ravagers will end up just like Jabba's Barge anyways, namely:



Good thing it, too, was open-topped

Stay tuned.

It's been a productive couple weeks.

What I was needing to complete my squads finally arrived.



With the Trueborn, Scourges and Wyches finally having the right number of female torsos and the proper weapon loadouts, it's time to add some texture to the bases the easy way, thanks to some Liquitex resin sand gel medium. Took barely 45 minutes to cover 70 bases, and there's plenty left for the vehicle bases later on.



Instead of 3 Ravagers, I opted to go for 2 Razorwings for my army. First, they just look that much more menacing. Second, they're just so much easier to assemble and paint than the fiddly Ravager. I also picked up a third Venom to make sure everyone in the list which didn't already move 12" has a transport.



Regarding their weapons loadout, I'll be sticking with the standard missiles. Since they're already going to wound most models on a 2+ anyways, why spend even more points? Just in case I change my mind down the road, I found these tiny magnets that will help swapping out the loadout.



After basing everything, it was time to bring the airbrush and get to task. Next weekend is the first of 2 tournaments I'm hoping to attend this month and It's going to be pretty tight to try and get some colour on everything by then. At least now, the list is figured out and everything is base-coated. Here's hoping I can find the time to finish it all.



Stay tuned.

Looking goooood!

Where did you get your magnets from? I can't find a good retailer for tiny magnets.

@ Foxtale: The magnets were purchased from YourGoGames for the measly sum of 12.99 $CAN. The ones that will be used to magnetise the Monoscythe missiles are 1/32 high and wide, just perfect for super small objects. Either Dan or James will be more than happy to help you out.

Thanks Dark_Gear! That helps me loads.

Found an online source for magnets, KJ Magnets. These guys have a wide selection and appear to ship worldwide.

Just a quick update on the State of the Table series.



In the foreground is my base colour for the vehicles and troop armour, Tamiya Desert Yellow. I'm hoping to cover all the troops and the 2 new vehicles this evening. Tomorrow I've got a day off which means 18 hour painting day. That should put a good dent in my painting list for the the upcoming tournaments.

Speaking of tournaments, I also received some great news today. I'm no longer on the waiting to join Foodhammer 40k at the end of the month! Here's hoping I do Dark Eldar justice as one of 24 players for this 2-day fundraiser event.

Stay tuned.

It's been a productive week. Though there's still much to do before the 2nd tournament of the month, here's the new State of the Table



The plan is to get wake nice and early so I can finish the first coat of red on the Wyches and possibly brush on some bronze paint before the event tomorrow.

And to think 2 weeks ago the only models that had 2 colours of paint were 5 Vehicles...

Tournament 1 has come to pass and it's been a great one. Credit goes to Your Go Games for providing good tables, great judges, awesome prizes and an amazing ambiance all day.

What made it even better was getting my first tournament win with the Dark Eldar, after a 3-0 streak totaling 24vs11 KP's throughout the day.

There were 5 4x4 tables in total for a decent turn-out of 10 players, including my nemesis from the last 40k tournament, a great Catachans player named Jesse. Sadly, I didn't get to play against him this time around but I did get somewhat of a rematch in the sense that my last match was once again against IG and also went on to turn 6. To get there however, I had to fight 2 other opponents, Blood Angels on game 1 and the New Necrons on game 2.

Game 1
First match was modified spearhead, capture and control. 5 objectives in total, 1 in the middle, 1 in the center of each quarter.
Terrain on this board seemed a bit iffy in that there were 3 large LOS blockers but very little in terms of in cover in between. You were either blocked or in plan sight.

Thanks to the Baron I won initiative and decided to go first as I'd never faced Blood Angels before.

My opponent's list seemed somewhat sparse for 1750 but who knows, maybe that's normal for Blood Angels.

HQ Tooled Librarian w/ Terminators in a Land Raider (so my first target)
1 Squad of Terminators joined by a Sanguinary Priest (on foot)
2 Tactical Squads | 1 of them split in 5's with 5 embarked on a Rhino
1 Dreadnought
1 Whirlwind

I deployed in cover yet still somewhat aggressively as I really wanted to try and shut down the vehicles asap. As luck would have it, my opponent stole the initiative...

The Rhino and the Landraider zoom up as much as possible while the rest of the army foots in forward, going for the middle. The Whirlwind kills 3 Kabalite Warriors, they pass morale and hold the objective. The Dreadnought pens my Ravager twice, both are ignored by flicker fields. This would become a running theme throughout the day. FYI, anyone who tells you not to take both both fields and shields, ignore them. I must've made about 20 save because of the filcker fields and the shields, well, I'll discuss that when I get to Necrons.

I'm feeling good about only losing 3 Kabalites in the opening but I don't let that get to me. I shuffle things around a bit, inching the Scourges forward to their range but everything else hovers at 32-35 range. My first priority is the impending Land Raider. It gets immobilised. Next target is one of the Marine squads on foot next to the objective. I let loose with 2 missiles from the Razorwings and score 16 hits. Thanks to FNP from the nearby Priest, only 2 bite it. So my 3rd target is the Terminators and the Priest. 4 Missiles and 13 Dark lances, 4 Terminators and 1 priest is dead, leaving one Terminator. I then went back to shooting the other squad. 6 of them to Splinter Cannon fire but they still don't run. Not bad for turn 1.

Turn 2. a Baal Predator outflanks right behind all of my vehicles. Thankfully, it only manages to stop one of my Razors from shooting. His Terminators get out of the Land Raider, I don't why as I have nothing at all anywhere near them. At least they are contesting the middle objective now... The whirlwind kills off 2 more 2 Kabalites but they're fine. The Dreadnought shoots one of the planes, it can't shoot next turn. His Rhino keeps on snuggles up to an objective and he now holds 2 while contesting 1.

Having those Marines close to my home turf can't be allowed so I divert part of my force towards this new flank, moving one my Trueborn Venoms through a building, and it's immobilised! Thankfully I'm pointing in the right direction so I still get to unload everything into the Squad. 3 of 5 die to Blasters and Splinter fire, yet they hold. I turbo-boost both planes all the way into his zone in order to shoot at his Whirlwind, it needs to die. In the meantime, all Lances are focused on the Terminators and the splinter Cannons are aimed at the foot marines. Two more squads die but the central termie squad still lives. Due to a bad gamble on my part, I now have a Trueborn Venom within charge range next turn. I wasn't counting on him passing that many 5++ saves.

Turn 3, The Trueborn Venom bites it to Assault Cannon fire and the Terminators charge in. They win combat but I manage to get away. Elsewhere, one of my turbo-boosting planes explodes due to Dreadnought fire. The Whirlwind shoots at my Ravager sniping from a building top and immobilises it. Thankfully it's pointing in the right direction so I'll still able to shoot at stuff next turn.

The sole surviving trueborne stays put and offers himself up a sacrificial speed bump, but at least he takes down one more terminator with his blaster. The Kabbalite Venom and the Wych Raider bypass that whole area as their goal is to claim objectives on the other side of the Terminators which are clawing their way through the boards equator. On the way there they take some pot shots, finishing off 1 more Terminator and killing 2 more Marines. The Razorwing shoots at the Whirlwind but misses. The Marines closes to my deployment zone get gibbed and their rhino is immobilised. The Ravager shoots at the Baal and prevents it from shooting again and the Baron, who was joined to the Scourges, veers off on his own to go tank hunting.

Turn 4 sees very little happening for my opponent as he's either outranged or can't shoot at all. The lone Trueborne dies to assault cannon fire and the Terminators charge into the Scouges. They don't survive.

To claim revenge the Baron, The Baron chages the Baal and wrecks it. The surviving plane aims at the sole troop choice in a building, wiping it out.

Turn 5. I Turbo my wyches onto one objective, turbo the Troop Venom onto another objective and manage to wipe out the Terminator and the Librarian with some lances. 3 oojectives claimed vs. 1 contested by Bloodied Angels for solid win.

In summary, Dark Lances are not anti-tank, they're anti-terminator weapons. Ignore the Dreadnoughts (unless they were podded into your face) and the Whirlwinds to your heart's content while focusing on the foot sloggers and you're golden.

Game 2

Opponent's list

1 Monolith
1 Destroyer Lord, 5 Wraith
10 scarab bases
1 CC tooled Ctan (scary!!!)
20 warriors
10 immortals
5 destroyers, 2 of which are heavies

Going against the new Necrons I was a bit nervous as I both own and love my Necrons. On the upside, I knew I totally outranged my opponent's list so the usual target priority remained. First, shoot the Monolith. Second, If you're in range, shoot the Destroyers. Third, if they're getting close, shoot the C'tan and the scarabs.

Game was pitched battle with 2 objectives on the center-line of the map, 18 inches apart, sitting on bridges.

Winning initiative I decided to go first, opponent didn't try to seize. Right out of the gate I came in just close to have splinter cannons and lances in range. First shot explodes the Monolith, 6 inch blast, hitting 6 destroyers, 5 immortals and 5 warriors. 3 of each die. I unleash the pie plates into the scarabs wiping them all out. Lances are unleashed into the Lord and the Wraiths, 2 die and the Lord is down to 1 wound. The Ctan takes 1 wound.

From this point it went downhill really quickly for my opponent. by the end he had 2 KP's and I'd tabled him in the top of turn 5.

Summary
Necrons may have good strong guns but Dark Eldar lance spam, which is pretty much a requirement in the current meta due to 5th ed being "box spam", are just have too much range on Necrons. In my opponent's defence, he didn't have the time to build any of the new models on time for the Tournament. Having now had the chance to look at the Codex, I'd say it would have quite different if he had. The Wyches and the Razorwings performed really well this game. For one, although the Wyches did die by turn 4, they basically camped out in a building while drawing tons of fire and focusing attention on that corner on the map while the rest of my army just ripped all things to shreds. Razorwings single-handedly obliterated all the scarabs and the C'tan and lived on to assist with multiple other kills. Well worth the points. Speaking of things that are well worth the points, Night shields kept all my flyers this game. At 24 inch range, Necron foot units are hard-pressed to get anywhere near flyers if they don't have transports to help with the chase. On the off chance that they do, Flicker Fields also work beautifully. Seriously, take both on as many vehicles as you can if your play style consists of trying to shoot from near-max range all the time.

I'll write up game 3 tomorrow. Time to get some sleep after a good long day.

Looking forward to seeing more painting progress!

Nice batreps! What did you think of the new 'cron codex?

At first glance, it seems powerful yet not cheesy as the medium range of their guns balances out their output. The C'tan shards, with all their upgrades can be tooled to be absolute monsters in CC. Sadly for them a 4++ save doesn't really hold against 20-ish Lances. The scarabs are now also absolutely beastly, should they ever get close to your vehicles. Expect to see a lot multiple charges. I also predict that armies will start carrying a lot more template weapons from now on, in order to counter the swarms. The fact that WBB rolls are 5+ instead of 4+ isn't as bad as one would think considering that it always works now. Monoliths seem to have the potential to cause a lot more damage than before but it suffers from the same issues as before regarding speed. The loss of Living Metal definitely made my life easier considering I have 13 Dark lances in my list. I have 7 Blasters as well but those were basically just used as anti-infantry guns along with the 9 Splinter Cannons throughout most of my games. Doesn't matter if Immortals or Warriors are in cover, that's just too many saves to have to take while you're sitting out of range. If my opponent had used the "Night Fight Lord" I'm pretty sure that round would have gone quite differently.

Verdict on Necrons: Using mostly old units with the new rules, they are as slow and short ranged as before. We'll really see them start to shine when the new vehicles start being used as they provide the speed and the hitting power that the codex really need to be able to deal with Mech Armies. I also think that in spite of receiving some decent CC options, the better Necron army builds will probably be the ones that focus exclusively on shooting, just like Dark Eldar.

Sounds about good to me. I've suffered through too many years of a horrendously underpowered codex. It'll be nice to dust of my favorite soulless automatons so that they may once again step forth into the galaxy to continue their red harvest

I hear ya! After what happened to the last Nid Codex, and considering how GK's just seemed tailor-made to rape DE, I was expecting Necrons to suffer the same treatment. Now, having had a chance to read some passages, I'm both surprised and happy to see that Necrons aren't only balanced against Xenos, they seem to be balanced against the Imperial Codices as well.

Kinda makes me wish I hadn't sworn to finish painting my DE before I'd buy any more models. Who knows, may be I'll get lucky and the 2nd wave will release just when I'm about done.

But to be honest, I never really felt the Necrons were underpowered. This might something to do with the fact that I would typically run 2 Monoliths, 10 Destroyers, 2 heavy Destroyers, 2 Lords and Immortals as my bog standard... Necrons did however feel like they had very limited options if they wanted any chance of ever being competitive, I'll give you that.

Any ideas on what you plan on running?

Dark_Gear wrote:
Any ideas on what you plan on running?

I don't really know, frankly. I haven't gotten a read through of the codex in yet, but I think i'll probably try to work out a foot list. I run my DE as a fast, fragile shooty mech army, so an ultra-durable footslogging horde would offer a very nice change of pace. Of course, I'd also really like to see how the new stuff in the codex plays on the table.

@ Prime: Looking at the new and improved Wraiths, i can see them being a great foundation for a fast foot list for Necrons. At 2 wounds each now, rending and with optional lash whips, they can actually work as a fast CC unit. I've yet to fully read the codex myself but speedy options seem to have popped up all the place now. I'll be reading it over by the end of the week so I'll do my best to cover the options at that point, providing a pseudo-review of the list.

Back on the Dark Eldar front, here's the new State of the Table as of November 9th. Currently working on the Ravager.



As I'm normally ready 20-30 minutes before I have to leave for work in the morning, I've started to get some painting in. The current priority is to finish blocking off all the colours and thus get everything ready for brass coats, weathering, washing and highlighting.

All the venoms have been touched up.



Both Raiders are done too, although I still have to work on the crew.



I tried using oil paints for the sails but I'm thinking I'll strip that off and airbrush them instead. I'm liking the red but I'm just not happy with how it looks. Once you've seen how smooth gradients can be with an airbrush it's just painful, tedious and annoying as hell to try to match any other way, especially when trying to get a smooth coat on a large flat surface. On the plus side, I think all this recent time is starting to have a positive effect on me as I had a painting dream last night. It was so real I could actually feel the variations in viscosity of the paint as I was brushing it on.

What do you all think, does the red need to be redone? I'm also considering of going with deep purple sails to act as a complement to the yellow of the vehicles.

In the end, I think I just really need to read the codex. Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up this weekend, and maybe even get a game in. I'll tell you how it goes (provided it actually happens...)

Dark_Gear wrote:
On the plus side, I think all this recent time is starting to have a positive effect on me as I had a painting dream last night. It was so real I could actually feel the variations in viscosity of the paint as I was brushing it on.

I've never had a painting dream, but I have drempt of sculpting plague marines. They then became full-size and I had to fight them with my dremel tool (I think).

Anyways, it may be the pictures, but the panels of the vehicles look a little flat. They might benefit from a wash in the crevices in order to bring the plates out a little more. I think that the red looks nice, but purple would be cool too. The choice of color is really up to you, as I think both would turn out nice. Regardless of color, it would be good to see it on other parts of the model instead of just on the sail, because it looks a tad isolated now. Overall though, the boats look really cool. Are you going to do any freehand on them?

I've never had a painting dream, but I have drempt of sculpting plague marines. They then became full-size and I had to fight them with my dremel tool (I think).

Sculpting dreams, oh how crazy those dreams were when I was sculpting the Nids. There was one in particular which was very much like yours about Plague Marine. I was shaping a Harpy and at some it leapt to life, growing in size and proceeded to then go destroy a city. The whole dream felt like Cloverfield. Hence why the bases on the Monstrous Creatures are all about ruined cities.

Regarding the raiders, I agree, they are totally flat for now. My goal is to give them a very weathered desert look, inspired by a German SDKFZ222 painted by the amazing crew at Massive Voodoo. Not quite sure on the freehand yet as I've never done freehand yet. Heck, this is currently the most painting I've ever done on an army since 1989... God that number looks small now.

I'd just go for the freehand. The raiders provide a very nice surface for big runes and the like, and what better time to try it out?

The raiders provide a very nice surface for big runes and the like, and what better time to try it out?

Too true. I may as well just bite the bullet and take the plunge into freehand if I'm ever going to improve my painting skills.


Some quick Necrons news. I've picked up the codex at long last and started converting my old army list spreadsheet to the new units and points costs. Looking at running the old Necrons with the new book, the points costs have dropped significantly. A typical list from the previous codex looked something like this at 2000points.

1 Destroyer Lord - Res Orb
8 Destroyers
2 Heavy Destroyers
1 Lord - Res Orb, Veil
6 Immortals
2x10 Warriors
6 Scarabs
2 Monoliths

That force would now cost me 1597points, opening some extra options. Having noticed first hand how easily Monoliths die now with their loss of Living Metal, I doubt I'd run 2 now. Similarly, the nerf of the Destroyer's range down to 24" makes them almost useless as there are just too many 36" guns that will bring them down in first round shooting. Running 2 squads of 3 Heavy Destroyers sounds good until you realise you're still paying 60 points for 3 single models that can no longer turbo-boost. If a Triarch Stalker puts a beacon on a unit the Heavy destroyers might not be too bad but even then, effectiveness remains to be seen. Wraiths on the other hand finally seem like potential, point cost and performance are now in perfect harmony. I'll be dusting them off soon enough.

That's it for now, I'll post my further analysis as ideas keep coming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alrighty, the spreadsheet is done except for a few units that I just can't ever myself use, namely the Tomb Blades and Praetorians.

By me reckoning, 5th edition has 2 types of CC units, hard-hitters or harassers. Terminators are an example of the first, whereas Wyches are an example of the second. Harassers are what I would consider to be disposable tar-pit units in that you field them to buy time for your core force to organise a solid response to the enemy. If harassers survive at this task, that's all fine and good but they are expected to die most of the time. Any unit that costs 40 points before upgrades yet only strikes on I2 does not fit in either category as it's neither effective nor disposable, therefore it's never going to be used.

Using my own Dark Eldar list as a litmus test for a prospective Necron list I've come up with the following as a first draft.

Orikan the Diviner | Command Barge

C'tan Shard | Writhing Worldscape
2 Stalkers

2x 5 Warriors | Night Scythe
2x 5 Immortals | Night Scythe

1 Doomsday Ark
2 Doom Scythes

The first thing you might notice is that I'm using 4 Night Scythes. This is based on the assumption that the 2nd Wave won't be out until January so it buys me more time to work on painting the Dark Eldar The other idea behind that choice revolves around that decision comes down to weapon loadout. A twin-linked Tesla Destructor vehicle is cheaper than an Ark, thereby maximising the damage potential of the Necron ships once they actually get in range, which is rather short for such a powerful gun.

The Doom scythes are there to act as first turn distractions and 2nd turn heavy-hitters, hopefully allowing the far-away Doomsday Ark to work it's magic.

The walkers are there to march forward and support the C'tan as it makes moving around a PITA for everyone thanks to the combo provided by the Diviner's special rules.

I might change my mind on the walkers after some proxying but I'm thinking that their guns will be quite effective once they get close. It remains to be seen whether they actually have the ruggedness to survive the walk forward...

In case some of you are interested, here's a link to the google Docs army list I've been working on.

Stay tuned for more.

Nice painting and the blending is flawless, can't wait to see more!

@ Wiffmas: Thanks. I'm thoroughly in love with airbrushing when it comes to painting large flat surfaces. So fast and so smooth it's just torture to go back to using bristles. Expect to see some more painting progress in the coming weeks.

So I woke up this Saturday and I had a really crazy idea. Why not turn one of my terrain boards into a display. If you recall the last image from the previous page of this plog, it's not exactly a new idea but what is new this time around is that I'm going to incorporate some of the bases for the flyers into the display board.

A quick session with some foam and the hot wire cutter produced this...



At this point I had to leave to grab some groceries and another idea struck as I was passing a hardware store. I've always been a fan of weighing down models, especially the all-plastic ones, as they're just so light and easy to knock over or move accidentally. Lead pellets are my method of choice but this time I figured I'd go for washers. They're a bit more expensive but, should I choose to magnetise a whole army, it will be a lot easier to do so if it already has metal bases. So I ended up buying 55 washers and gluing them to all the infantry as soon as I got home.

Following that I spent the next few hours with some foam blocks and some white glue to start building up the space for an army. A wire brush was then used to soften up the contours of the terrain until I ended with this...



After a solid half-hour of vacuuming, it was to reach for acrylic soft modeling paste, some dried beach sand and a sprinkling of ballast.



In total, 3 vehicles were given the full-bore treatment of being embedded into the base.



The other vehicles will have some detail added to their bases but nothing as extensive.

This little side project took longer than expected but I'm happy with the results considering it was built from scratch in 2 days. If I can finish both this board and my army on time for the tournament in 13 days I'll definitely be in the runnings for best painted.

Stay tuned.

Really cool idea with the flyer bases. How are you going to paint the display board?

For the display board I'll be reinforcing the desert theme of the army by going with a rough desert landscape, think Afghanistan or North African theatre of WW2.

Therefore, a lot beiges and browns, some small dark rocks scattered about and possibly some low scrub brush if I have time.

This is the first time I ever attempt such an undertaking so every step of the way is a learning experience and I'm not even sure I can pull this off as I still have to the army as well. We'll see how it goes.

Can't wait to see the board painted, it looks epic so far!

I realized that I'd been following your thread for a while now in "lurker" mode and hadn't even realized it was your tip on Raider tail fins I was using.

The tips you posted on storing Dark Eldar vehicles are brilliant! I wish I had done all mine that way! I actually did manage to use your method for trimming the "tail fin pole" on my third Ravager and it worked great. It's really much easier to prime and paint the tail fin separately and then just slot it in.

The desert scheme works great and I can't wait to see the board finished!

Are you going to keep everything clean? It might be cool to add a few chips and scratches for a sandblasted look. Although that might just be my urge to weather everything talking .

LOL, you honour me by saying so Jon! Really happy that my tips are helpful since that's why I put them there. Considering how much inspiration you've given me with your thread, I'd say we're about even by now. hehehe

Weathering is definitely in the wings for my army as well. I was a weathering nut before even reading. Seeing how well it looks when done well on the Dark Eldar just confirmed that I had to go that route. For the time being I'm still at the colour blocking phase. There's still so much to do and it's really hard to fight the urge to just rush ahead and completely finish one model rather than do everything in phases.

As an extra hint of how much I love weathering in general, you should google images of a European graphic novel illustrator called "Enki Bilal". Been reading his work since my teens and it's just amazing stuff. It's hasn't at all compared to other drawing styles.

*edit*

Here's a few weathering sketches I did when I got home, as a teaser for what I have in mind for the vehicles. Yes, very well aged and sand blasted. Damn I wish I could find some weathering pigments in Vancouver rather than having to order them online.



Enjoy.

Nice sketches. The weathering should look really cool.

Thanks Prime. I can hardly wait to get the army done. Weathering with oils is going to be so much fun.

And not on an odd bit of news, having recently taken a crash course in php in order to complete a project for work, I've decided that I'll push the skills <em>a bit</em> further and design an online army list calculator for php. The goal is to have something hosted from a private server (so I won't to deal with GW IP Police) yet isn't as clunky as Excel and that will run on mobile and desktop computers. Between this and painting I'm thinking my marriage is in for some seriously choppy seas ahead... Wish me luck.

I've always thought that oil weathering looks the best, though I've never seen it on dark eldar.

Though I'm not as familiar with php as I'd like, a list calculator seems feasible. If you need anyone to test it...

I've already got it going in excel as mentioned in one of my earlier posts, you can find it here on Google Docs.

When it comes to painting it's just amazing how many options are available. Whether you're looking at ink washes, airbrush washes, oil washes, pigments, dunking, the hairspray technique or salt weathering; there are just so many techniques that it's really hard to find enough time to try them all and test which one is best for any given situation. Hence why I love this hobby, learning never stops. Speaking of which, it's really too bad I forgot about the salt technique before starting to paint the Raiders and Venoms. With their large flat areas and the desert theme, the pitted effect would have been awesome. Eh well, next project I guess.

For a great series of videos on weathering go check out MassiveVoodoo on youtube. Amazing work.

Salt weathering would look pretty cool on DE vehicles, but of course, oil should turn out well, too.
Thanks for the link. I was thinking about using salt on the new necron vehicles, and it should prove helpful.

I am lovin that paint scheme, it just looks so natural and crisp too. Please paint more.

Following our personal messages and preempting your imminent return:



Thought that would provide some inspiration, it reminded me of your army. It's from GMM studio's year in review, link provided.

Nice find.

I've taken a good gaming holiday while work was crazy busy in December as well dealing with a bit of hobby burn-out.

Ideas are starting to come back as I took the Nids out of their 4 month slumber. For me at least, nothing brings the joy back in gaming more than playing a large game against another skilled player who's friendly yet pulls no punches. After being my main point of focus, it's the Dark Eldar's turn to go into hibernation for a bit as I work on a new year's' resolution to finally finish all my Nid conversions and also paint them all to at least a basic table-top level.

Depending on how things go, I might be posting some quick updates on the Dark Eldar but for the most part, this thread will be dormant until June.

See you in the Spawning Vats

Things that make me go hmm...

Duke Sliscus + 3 Trueborn with 2 Splinter Cannons + Venom with Splinter Cannon = Gun Boat?

Duke Sliscus + 6 Trueborn with 2 Splinter Cannons & 4 Blasters + Raider with Splinter Racks and Disentegrator = "Watch where you point that thing"

I was so looking forward to posting an update following a new purchase but as GW & failcast would have it, I will have to wait for replacement to arrive.

Isabelle Von Carlstein was to be the foundation for a Duchess conversion yet her feet are so miscast that there is barely 1.5 millimeters of resin holder her in place.

As for the Wracks, only 1 of them would qualify as being of expected quality.

The other 4 all have major issues with the casting of their feet. Of those four, three would need to have their helmets rebuilt with GS.

I'll post pictures as soon as I get home.

As much as I don't want to wait 3 months to get good models, I'm afraid it might take 3 or 4 boxes before I have enough quality models. Let's just hope that doesn't happen as that would be weeks of GS surgery...

Dang, there definitely needs to be a push towards solving the casting issues. Good luck with the replacements!

It appears GW hear your wishes Casey. Found this post on Faet 212 this morning:

I still hear this complaint every once in awhile. Finecast models having issues with bubbles. While my experience thus far with finecast has been great, a bad bubble on the model can be devastating.

Apparently there is an email that was sent out to GW stores regarding finecast model issues. Personally it should be an email sent out to all retailers that carry their product line.

Here is the letter.

via The Decapitator
So Games Workshop have sent an email around to all of their stores notifying them that;

".....there has been a higher number of the new Citadel Finecast miniatures due to be released that have a bubble in a vital point or have cast thinner than they should have done."

It goes on to say, especially in relation to Finecast models in boxes as opposed to Clampacks;

"Can you check these models with your customers as you sell them to ensure they are happy with their purchase and offer modelling tips for cleaning up flash/mould lines and filling bubbles. If any of the products are not to the customers satisfaction, please give them a new one as usual."

So, in theory, if you are picking up any of the new Finecast models this weekend then the GW employee should ask you if you want to open the box/clampack before you pay to check for defects. Bit if they don't, make sure you tell them that you want to do this as a precaution!

To be fair, I've never had a problem with any GW's letting me check models before I buy them, or replacing them if it's a problem not picked up until later. But if you are ever buying Finecast, and this weekend in particular, make sure you open your boxes ASAP to inspect them as to not create disappointment.

While I want to applaud GW for taking this extra step to minimise the amount of replacement Finecast models they need to mail out via customer support, inspecting a model at the store is not that simple.

Based on my last experience of buying a box of 5 wracks and Isabella Von Carlstein I can attest to the fact that a cursory inspection isn't enough. Isabella comes in a clamshell so it was fairly easy to inspect her through the packaging. What I did not notice due to the amount of flashing was that her heel is practically gone. This defect was only revealed once the model was at home and cleaned up.

The Wracks are an entirely different story. Upon opening the box, lost in a sea of flash, lay what appeared to be 5 horrible models. After inspecting each at home under proper lighting, that number changed to 2 horrible models, 2 fixable models and 1 good model.

After making phone call to GW to get replacements sent out I proceeded to start cleaning them up as much as I could. While removing the flash I came to realise that the good models was in fact excellent, having one minor seams to take care of. It was like cleaning a metal model, minimal work require, just a few chimneys and all areas were smooth as can be.

The horror that was revealed on the other models was just astounding. Arm sockets weren't hollow due to silicone breaking off on previous pours. Vision slits on helmets are obstructed or missing. Many flat areas of the models have a very rough texture as though the resin was pulled from the mold prematurely. In some cases entire sections of the model are missing and thus needing reconstruction due to excessive bubbles. These include heels, hands, dagger hilts, fingers, chains, edges of helmets, vials, etc...

So as interesting to read that GW is taking a more proactive step to ensure that customers get a pristine model before they walk out of the store, in my experience at least, only the most glaring issues such as misaligned seams were obvious straight out of the box. A lot of crippling bubble issues only show themselves after a bit of cleaning, which typically happens once you've left the store.

As a final note, I did notice that models that come on the round sprue rather than the rectangular framed sprue appear to be cleaner. I can't confirm this but I'm thinking that the round framed sprue are based on newer molds. Therefore, next time you buy finecast models, if you see it's not on a round framed sprue, leave it there unless you don't mind dealing with major issues.

It's good news but not ground breaking are even a solution. The possible change in molds you have picked up on however, could be a windfall of joy for the community. I hope the case is that they are at least trying to tweak the molds to get better results, even if we have to go through a few more attempts. Our children's children will reap the benefits of resin over metal, well they would if it wasn't for the fact they will be able to just print their own by then.
I agree that checking the model in store doesn't really mean your going to see a lot of the mistakes that might be glaringly obvious at home under a good lamp. We are probably going to have to put up with faults for the time being.

Exactly. Putting up with the faults until GW gets the manufacturing process ironed out is all we have to do. While it's unfortunate that Finecast is still not as fine as it could be, at least there is a visible difference between the first production run and the latest casts.

On the gaming front, I did manage to get a practice game in with the likeliest Dark Eldar list that will be brought to a local tournament.

Haemonculus | Venom blade, Liquifier
Wracks x4 |
Venom | Splinter cannon, Nights shields

Wracks x5 | Liquifier, Acothyst, Scissor hand
Venom | Splinter cannon, Nights shields

[Trueborne x5 | Dark lance x2, Blaster x3 & Venom | Splinter cannon, Nights shields] x2

Trueborne x5 | Dark lance x2

Kabalite Warriors x5 | Blaster
Raider | Dark Lance, Flicker Field, Night shields

Ravager | Dark Lance x3, Flicker Field, Night shields

[Razorwing fighter | Splinter cannon, Dark Lance x2, Flicker Field, Night shields] x2

For this first practice game I was facing a friend who's won Best General at tournaments before. He's known for running Green Tidal Waves of Boys and using interesting tactics.

Mission and Deployment were Auto-tie and Night Fight.

Expecting a hard-hitting Green Tide on-board trucks and knowing how Dark Lances have a habit on not really doing much I placed my objective in the far opposite corner from his objective and concentrated 90% ofl my army in that area. Only the 2 squads of Wracks with Venoms were sent forward to act as a speedbump.

The plan worked fairly well in that he never got more than 14 inches away from my objective. Sadly, I couldn't dislodge his max-sized squad of Gretchin who were camping in cover so the game ended up being a tie for objectives but a win via KP's for the Dark Eldar. We both had fun with this test game but he did one grumble which I took as a complement:

"I fear this list more than I fear Imperial Guard. There's just too so much shooting!"

Here's hoping this list can face various flavours of Marines successfully.

Tired of waiting for my replacement Finecast models, I went out and purchased a Llamaen for a quick conversion. For the first time in my experience, the casting was actually fine and I actually felt bad about chopping up the model. When Finecast is done well, it actually is very impressive to witness what level of detail will come out from the model. Needless to say, any qualms about slicing into resin went out the window when the bonesaw and the bitz bin came out.

Inspired by none other than our local Dark Eldar Master Haemonculus, Mechanicum John, it was time for his female haemonculus to get a well-deserved tribute, which I posted on my Tumblr, Dark Machinations.





Stay tuned.

Cool haemonculus. It will be interesting to see your take on it compared to Jon's. Also, in regards to your list, how do you like scissor hand compared to an agonizer on the wrack squad?

J

Thanks Prime.

With the Agoniser, there has been just too many times where 4s just don't show up at all. Though statistically unlikely, there's even been game where no wounds at all happen in 3 charges. So while the Scissorhand can be saved, the extra attack and the easier wounding has been doing better thus far, especially when the Wracks have 2 pain tokens because then they also get to re-roll wounds on the charge.

Agonisers never get that luxury even though, for the point cost, it really feels like they should have been a poisoned 4+ power weapon.


It's also why I no longer equip the Haemonculus with Agonisers and give them Venom Blades instead. Cheaper, deadlier and can re-roll wounds on the charge.

She looks awesome mate, glad you got a nice model to work on! Did she come on a round sprue or do you think it was a coincidence last time?

Round sprue. So it seems the theory is confirmed.

Excellent news!

So now the trick is to track down all the square sprues so we can get a few more free replacements while the miscasts are still out there. The more unscrupulous among us could probably sell those at a premium on Ebay just because the buyer is guaranteed to get at least double his models...

Hey nice theme! what setup are you runing for your airbrush... I've been in the market and finally think I will break down and try one. I have a homedepot, large air compressor can I use it with any airbrush or do I need a special compressor?

Thanks Corsair. The theme is still a work in progress but at least it's getting there, unlike my poor Nids.

As for the airbrush setup, I splurged about 4 years ago while I could still use my student discount for art supplies and bought an Iwata Eclipse HP-CH airbrush, a braided 12 foot hose and a Studio Series Power Jet Lite 2x for about 500$. Like I said, I splurged. By the same token, the both components have performed flawlessly since day one.

Now as to using large compressor, I can't see why you shouldn't as long as you have the following three components attached to it. They are:

An air tank | So you don't go deaf from having a large compressor going off every few seconds if not constantly.

A moisture trap | to catch water from escaping the tank and thus ruining your work.

A pressure regulator | To control the air pressure reaching your airbrush from the tank

The other thing to consider is your airbrush. While the sky is the limit when it comes to price and features, there are only 2 features which an absolute must. As long as you get a dual-action airbrush with a gravity-feed you'll be good for a while. Personally, I'd spend a bit more money on your first airbrush so you don't need to go out and buy a 2nd one once you "grow into" airbrush and realise why some of the other features that are offered on the high-end models are actually worthwhile. The reason I bought the Eclipse HP-CH is because it has both a pressure micro-air adjustment valve at the front and a movement lockout screw in the back of the airbrush. In plain english these two options allow you to fine-tune the air pressure coming out of your airbrush without having to fiddle with the compressor or tank's regulator. Basically, you spend less time adjusting and more time painting due to less hassles with air pressure and paint mixture.

If you haven't done so already, I'd also check out Eggroll's Blood Angels for a good description of compressor setup.

Feel free to ask me any other questions you might have regarding an airbrush setup.

And now in Dark Eldar news—My replacement finecast models have arrived today and I can confirm that the round sprue casts are indeed repositioned models and also much cleaner than the square sprued casts. One of the 3 Wracks I've assembled thus needed less than 10 minutes from start to finish. Flash and mould lines are minimal, the surface texture is smooth and the details are as good as the original advertising claimed it would be. It pains me to chop them up for conversions but they do look that good. So word to the wise, if you can see the frame of the model you're about to purchase and you don't want to order a replacement model from GW's excellent customer service, make sure it's on the round cross-sectioned rather than the rectangular cross-sectioned sprue frame and your bubble issues will be dramatically less.

Pictures once the squad and their leader is complete.

This is curious, because while in store yesterday I was looking at getting a Lelith Hesprax model to convert into a character (and got distracted by a game, completely forgetting to purchase her! maybe should go back in briefly today...) and the round sprue one was a joke, distorted, the spear on her base bent horribly, flash meaning would have to resculpt her hair and some of her clothing, chunks of flash on the chin and sword meant they'd need carving out of the resin... it was the worst FC model I've seen in person.

While as far as I could tell, the square sprued one was almost flawless, at least from what I could see in the clamshell.

Just to muddy the waters again I'm afraid..

as far as I could tell, the square sprued one was almost flawless, at least from what I could see in the clamshell.

Thanks for that great bit of news Ovion. I was starting to worry that GW's "sponsor an army" program was coming to an end due to their improved quality control.

For those of you who haven't heard about this program, it's what I jokingly call GW's Customer Service approach to solving issues with FineCast whereby you get to exercise your right, as the purchaser of a luxury commodity, to get proper value for your dollar. In the case of FineCast, it means that until the models in whatever blister or box is 100% bubble free , it is reasonable of you to expect a replacement box, even if you have the modeling skills to repair whatever is wrong with the models.

I actually went back and bought her.
She's sat in her pack next to me...
I'll open her up and put pictures in my P&M Blog after I finish sorting this big ol' bag of bits I recieved in the post this morning into my bitz boxes .

We'll see how good she actually is.

It'll be interesting to see what you with that model. Your conversions are always interesting. The toaster and kettle are classics.

As for my wracks, the replacement box was mostly flawless. Only the special sprue had issues. After 2 boxes I've yet to receive a well cast Scissorhand The 5 Wracks all came together with very minimal cleaning and a very small weapon repair job. As that left me 2 models short for a second squad I had to start on the dreaded task of rebuilding some of the Fubar Wracks from my initial purchase. In some cases the fine details were so thin and miscast that filing them off was easier than trying to resculpt them.

This first one had so many bubbles on its arm I opted to cut it off completely, replacing it with short stabbing blade that matched the left hand's weapon.



A bit of Green stuff to bulk up the shoulder and it was done. Total time spent cleaning and converting: 3.5 hours.



On the second one I felt like a surgeon. The lower third of the helmet had to resculpted due to a massive bubble, the armour plates had to filed down because the spikes were so badly cast and then I realised that there was a 1mm trench running right through the plates on the right hip so those had to be Green Stuffed. Most of the knife's handle was bubbled away so I cut the whole thing off and I've yet to glue a knife handle in it's stead.



The bottom of the left foot had to be rebuilt as about 50% was lost to bubbles. The chain and the surgical tools hanging from the belt on the left side were so badly chewed up I opted to file those completely to save time.



Total time spent cleaning and converting: 6 hours & counting.

I've got 2 more Wracks to rebuild after this but they're going to waiting a while in the bitz bin as they're in even worse shape than these last 2 so I'm looking at about 10 hours of sculpting for 2 Wracks. Heck, I can assemble a whole box of Genestealers in that amount of time...

Stay tuned for more.

Lovely jobs, mate. With a bit of skill all those free models could really fill out an army, can you legally sell your miscasts as miscasts? I think i might have to get myself a squad of finecast models just for the replacements!
I tried to 'like' them on your blog but i don't think it worked so i'll just tell you.

I can't attest to the legality of selling miscasts as miscasts, but it's quite morally slimy in any case.

Dark_Gear, the wracks look really good. If they were that bad before, they're definitely salvaged now. Funny that it never occurred to me to use the talos arms on them, but it works out quite nicely.

Even if it were legal to sell of the failcast models, I'd rather keep them and use them for sculpting practice.

Besides, It's a nice chance from working on the Nids. What's really bizarre is working on such tiny models after working almost exclusively on Monstrous Creatures since the start of the Nid Year Resolution. There's enough GS in the Tyrant's wings to fully cast 10 wracks!

@ Casey: Your comments are showing up but the likes are not showing up yet... odd.

@ Prime: Thanks for the complement. The vetigial limbs are just the perfect size for the Wracks. It's like GW designers planned it that way

Haha, yeh selling the miscasts would be really slimy. Buying finecast because you know your likely to end up with a batch of miscasts however is in the grey area, so rock on.

I think i 'liked' it but because i don't have an account it doesn't become a 'note.'

That's just it, GW should know better than to try to sell some of these models. Looking back upon the metal casts, I can count on one hand the amount of miscasts I've had over the years. Those years cover Rogue Trader so we're talking all 220 models spread across a Space Marine and an Eldar Army being metal, on top of all the Necrons, Tau and Nid models you can shake a stick at.

Fast forward to today. Out of 7 purchased finecast models I've had to return 6 and the one I didn't return still took me 3 times as long as metal to clean up. I'll take metal thank you very much for the casting quality thank you very much. Then again, I do like how paint doesn't seem to flake off as easily with resin. Quite the conundrum...

As for the blog, you comments do show up as a "note", it's only your "likes" that I don't see registering as such. Thanks for the comments by the way.

Metal is nice because you know you're going to get a cast that if not perfect, will take minimal time to clean up. The new resin stuff is great for conversions, painting, the whole nine yards. The only problem is...well...we already know

I've never had a miscast metal model and i inherited my cousins metals and they are all fine perfect too. The detail Finecast offers is mind blowing though, once they tame the casting issues they will be able to really exploit that with future sculpts.

With the blog, it asks me if i want to share the like on facebook and i decline, maybe i need to share it to make it come up as a note.

Leave it to GW for producing new models that just make you reach for the wallet and the conversion kit.

Just saw the soon to be released plastic Griffon for the new Imperial Army and I'm thinking there has to be a way to convert one of them into a suitably monstrous raider proxy for a Haemonculus and his posse of Wracks...

Not much else to mention on the painting front other than I made the mistake of challenging myself to not use the airbrush on the Wracks. 5 hours into painting and all I've got to show for my efforts is 2 base colours on 5 Wracks. Really not liking bristles... As relaxing as GS sculpting may be to me, painting is just a chore, which makes Mechanicum John's work even more astounding in my eyes now.

I know what you mean...
I'm going to be buying a Vampire Counts Coven Throne / Mortis Engine to convert into a raider / the Dais...

Mmhmm, a Mortis Dais... That would be awesome Ovion.

Nice find, that would certainly be a fun project.

I feel your pain on the painting front, i find it to be a chore most of the time. I'm going to invest in some nice new brushes to try and increase the level of enjoyment.

Speaking of GS. Have you has time to play with any recently?

I haven't done any more sculpting recently other than minimal work on the Wracks for a few seamless conversions and resin repairs.

Due to the 3 tournaments over the next 3 three months I've been mostly testing and tweaking the list, as well as trying out new combos.

One such combo was 2 squads of 5 Wracks with a Haemon, supported by a 4-man Grotesque squad and a Haemo, all in Raiders. Small, and maneuverable squads which come with a fancy 6 Liquifiers in total. Tried it against a 2500 Hybrid IG army and the results were quite frankly amazing. Grotesques in cover are just insane to whittle down while also being very deadly to parking lots thanks to multi-charges.

The results were so astounding that I then proceeded to spreadsheet the heck out of various Wrack setups and found them to be, on the initial assault at least, head and shoulders above Wyches. They get particularly nasty when both the Haemo and the Acothyst are sporting Venom Blades. I don't have the time to post all the numbers this time around but the nitty gritty details are that agaisnt t4 MEQs Wracks are 155% more effective than Wyches thanks to Furious Charge and their poisoned weapons. Like I said, something to think about.

The next phase of testing will be to determine whether that 6 man squad should be in a Disentegrator Riader or a Lance Raider as well as testing the gains of using 5 man squads in Venoms rather than the 6-man raider squads. The idea here is that a Venom's Splinter Cannons will typically kill 1-2 marines per turn, much like a Disentegrator. So while a disentegrator might seem about the same against Marines, when facing horde armies with t-shirt saves, the splinter cannon invariably comes out on top if the target is no longer in cover. This is something to keep in mind when trying to build a truly all-comers list.

Tonight I'll be firing up the airbrush to make more progress on the Wracks and Venom #4. I just don't have the patience to paint with bristles especially when you consider how much smoother the coats are with an airbrush... Pictures soon.

Stay tuned

Looking forward to pictures!

That army lists sounds like a load of fun and i bet it looks great on the table. Keep us informed.

Great Modeling, i have been thinking about a Dark Eldar army becausse of their awesome speed.

The speed of Dark Eldar is nothing compared to the torrent of wounds they can cause in a single. Very few lists can match them in that respect, though most surpass them in durability. Moral of the story: hit whoever you can as hard as you can before they slap you back and break your glass jaw. Wracks and Grotesques are unique in our Codex in that they can actually give and take almost in equal amounts.

After the frustration of trying to paint with bristles over the past 2 days, my goal this evening was to expunge that memory and fire up the ol' airbrush in order to make some actual progress on the various projects.

To give you an idea, it took me 5 hours to give 6 models 2 extra colours on top of the base coat and thus looking like this.



The colours were all blotchy, probably from thinning them down too much to be painting over a coat of gloss black so this is definitely not my proudest work.

Mixed and thinned a pot of Tamiya Desert Yellow and got to work. Within 90 minutes I'd managed to base coat 2 vehicles, smooth out the yellow on the 6 original models, apply the yellow on another 5 Wracks as well as base coat a squad of 5 Trueborn, thereby confirming my love for airbrushing.

Here then is the new State of the Table:



Please ignore the blue-tac'ed Tyrannofex kit conversion in the top-right corner of the image, that's a story for another post

Stay tuned

Can't ignore Tyrannofex! <claps excitedly and jumps on the spot like a little girl> Eeeee!


Anyway...
An airbrush is an investment i'd definitely like to make in the future. Not until i've mastered the bristles though.

You've made great progress, looking forward to seeing your next update.

@Casey: I'm just dreading bristle painting these days. After the last experiment where it took me so long to just apply base colours I'm thinking I really need some paint lessons. Heck, when it's easier for me to paint super fine details with an airbrush than with a 00 brush you know I'm doing something wrong.

Progress on the Dark Eldar has slowed to a crawl in the last few weeks due to Finecast models needing major reconstructive surgery, but there's still progress. Both of these Wracks have needed about 3 hours of cleanup each. There still needs to be some GS added in some areas such as their feet, their helmets as well scultpting a whole back spine from scratch for one of them.

Due to miscasts, both weapons had to be replaced as they were just too thin and whispy to even be repaired.Thankfully the Wyche sprues have plenty of bitz to go around offering a wealth of possibilities.

First up is the ball and chain Wrack. I love how it appears like he's casually swinging the weapon as he walks forward.



Next up is one of the Liquifier Wracks. This one needs to have his whole right foot resculpted, a large air bubble filled up underneath the front corner of the helmet as well as a few bubbles taken care of on the Liquifier itself. The helmet slits need to be resculpted too as they mostly filled in by resin due to failed casting. Overall he's coming along.



In order to fit the army's theme that males are the meat shields whereas females are the elite or the leaders, all HQ choices that aren't already women (except for Haemonculii) will be converted. Here then is Duchess Sliscus, still very much in progress. The head will be swapped out with a Succubus' once I get the model. When I saw this Vampire Counts model I just knew I'd have to make her fit in the list somehow as the armour and the dress were perfect for a Dutchess in battle regalia.



And then finally we have 2 new objective markers. When I saw these gnarly old trees for Warmachine Hordes I knew they'd be perfect. All they need is a few more Dark Eldar bitz and they'll fit right in.



That's it for now.

Stay tuned.

Oh man, i'm dreading ruining my models while painting them, gona knock out a test 'Nid soon 'cause my new paint's arrived. You are probably just out of practice once you've put some time in i'm sure you'll be back on form.

I really like the feel of those models, you have captured a sinister quality in them which gives them real character.

The colors you used are absolutely stunning. And the theme is fun. Glad I happened upon this thread =)

@Dorn: Thanks and welcome to the show. If you like conversions don't hesitate to check my Nid posts too

@Casey: Thanks for the vote of confidence. In all honesty it's hard to out of practice if you've never been in practice.

Ever since I bought the airbrush I've started enjoying painting for the first ever. if it weren't for that beautiful creation I would have contracted out my painting eons ago! Can't explain why but applying pigments with hair just does not compute, no matter what I try, but I'll keep trying until I figure it out. Barring that I'll fly to Belgium for a weekend and treat myself to a proper painting jam so I can knock my painter's block out, Mike Tyson Style, well you know, back when he wasn't all crazy and a great boxer.

In the meantime I'm hoping to grab a finer nozzle and needle for the airbrush so I can paint even finer details without having to revert to bristles. Just so I don't swear off the mammal follicle paint applicators entirely, I've also bought a new red sable brush, just in case it really was the brush and not the painter...

A word of warning, it appears my Tau might be coming out of the mothballs, seeing as Dark Eldar can only ally with 2 other armies and Nids can't pair up at all.

<Start short rant>
Here's why I despise rigid fluff, it leads to some wonky tournament limitations and prevents interesting pairings. Just think how nuts it could be to ally a Green Tide to a Zerg Swarm. Or shooty Nids covering the advance of a foot based flood of Chaos Berzerkers. Aah, the mind swims with possibilities but only in a world where fluff is dead or at the very least, doesn't prevent players from playing their game with their toys without obtuse restrictions. Who's to say the Imperium didn't find a way to synthesize Lictor pheromones in order to point a Nid swarm at a given foe? We'll never know, because according to the official GW allies list, some pairings just can not happen. Bullocks!
<End rant>

So I might just have to use my Tau...
.
More on that story as it unfolds

They're really not letting you pair with whatever army you want? I'd just tell the fluff to climb a tree and do what I wanted to

I've been toying with the idea of purchasing an airbrush, but I don't really feel the need to. Of course, with every little airbrush promotion I hear around here, I get a little closer to caving...

Some things simply don't work for us i guess, it can't be helped. I seem unable to play sports with require me to hit something with something else. Be it a bat, a club or a racquet, i'm useless. Maybe brush painting just isn't your thing.

Hopefully the new brush and nozzle iron things out for you somewhat.

Tau! Thats rather exciting my Tau are mid conversion, and in need of some TLC. Keep us updated!

I hear ya about the sports. The only sport where I ever managed to be able to hit something with something in my hand was fencing. But who knows, maybe it's because I was working retail back in those years. Being allowed to stab people is a great motivator for improved performance. So who knows, maybe my "thing" are tools that provide direct feedback. I'll keep you posted as to how the tweaked airbrush turns out.

@Prime: If the TO's had posted the allies limitations as soon as they announced the tourney my friend and I probably wouldn't have signed. As it stands the usual GW shenanigans are happening. Imperial armies can ally with pretty much everything, including some Xenos, whereas some Xenos armies can't ally at all, except with themselves... To make matters even more interesting, points totals are down to 1000 per ally and they share a Force Chart, which means you have to build your armies together in a way that you don't have more than 3 of any unit type, except for troops of course. It will be interesting to say the least.

Regarding airbrushing, your painting seems to be doing fine without one indeed. While definitely not a necessity, an airbrush is a great tool to help with painting large areas or smooth coats. Hard to live without one once you have one.

What type of airbrush do you have, because like you, I despise painting with a brush. I might actually do it with an airbrush.

Fencing you say? I've found myself to be inept at every sport I tried to pick up. Anything with a ball involved and I'm useless. But then (at the risk of sounding like an infomercial) I tried fencing, and haven't looked back. It is quite therapeutic to get to stab your friends, and even better to go after the people whom you do not like But on topic....

It really is a shame that they're boxing out certain armies, and there isn't much more to say about it, really. It's just a dumb call. What are you thinking about doing with the Tau?

@Prime: Agreed on the therapeutic aspects of fencing. Although I haven't picked up an epee in 8 years, I remember those years as being the most relaxed ones I'd ever had. :Sigh:

Spent a couple hours on the Wracks last night and I'm thinking I don't need the finer nozzle on the airbrush. When the paint mix and air pressure is just right I find I can paint the helmets or the knee pads just fine.

Speaking of which airbrush, Dorn, I splurged a few years backs and bought an Iwata Eclipse HP-CH. As long as you a dual-action gravity fed airbrush with a decent compressor hooked up to a water trap, you're good to go, keeping in mind that you get what you pay for. If you have any direct questions, just PM me and I'll be able to give you more precise advice.

Just like the vehicles, the Wracks received a Red Hull base coat where the brass will be applied. Both squads and the 2 new transports now have 3 colours and are ready for a tidying up of the colour blocking before I start painting brass and, hopefully soon, washes.








Received a new box of Wracks in the mail today, while it's the best looking batch yet, there's still bubbles and broken bitz...



...and the small issue of "extra flash"



Stay tuned

Oh my... Is all that grey. Is it. Flash? Oh no. <inserthorrifiedexpression>

Love the vibrancy of those colours even at this stage.

Next time you're down around San Francisco, PM me and you can come to the club

The wracks are coming along nicely. The yellow seems a bit too bright compared to the bronze and the flesh, but that'll tone out with some shading and washes.

Finecast is either really, really nice, or awful. A mate of mine picked up a commisar, and it was perfect. Flawless. My box of wracks resulted in two that were up to snuff, and three that I should have just put out of their misery. Still, several hours of filing, filling and greenstuffing cleans them up well enough. Looks like this batch should be alright, though. The broken pieces are to be expected and tend to be easy to fix (of course, I've jinxed it now...) and the flash isn't too bad. I'm not as full of vitriol as others are, but I think "OKcast" would be a better name.

Stay tuned

You know it

@Prime: Same goes for you if you come up to Vancouver.

The yellow will be toned down a bit once I add the highlight colour and some washes. Ever since the shoe mount flash died for my DSLR I've been taking all of my work in progress pics with an iphone and processing them with instagram so I can post to both my blog and dakka in one fell swoop. The grungy filters really work well for photographing wracks but really works a lot faster than importing all the raw files from the camera into my computer, processing and exporting jpgs for the Dakka gallery. From now on I'll only break out the DSLR for finished models.

This latest box Wracks is definitely the best one thus far but there's still some bubble issues happening. At least the special weapons sprue is usable this time around... What really puzzling is that after a year it still appears as though GW is not using a vibration table when they're pouring in the resin. Bubbles are consistently in the same locations and I've yet to see a perfect model, though they do seem to be getting better. At least the customer support is there and there's never any hesitation to send out replacements.

Just a quick update. Thanks to not having any games this weekend I was able to catch up on a "small" back burner squad—Grotesques.

First up is the I most wanted to do yet am the least pleased with. The arm just isn't doing it for me just yet. Comments?



Next up is another take on the sickle claw weapon. Better but still feels very static.



Some calculated cutting lead to a properly choppy Scissorhand Grot.



And last but by no means least, the Liquifier Grot. The wires need to adjusted ever so slightly so they flow a bit better but this one's my favourite thus far. While he's got a static pose it expresses his purpose quite nicely.



Comments and critique welcome as always.

Stay tuned.

I agree, the first two are quite static, however, I think they'll look fine as such. The first's arm seems off to me, too. The right is too big/long and I feel that the left is throwing off the pose. Maybe replace it with a bouquet of the little talos arms?
The second one is good, but perhaps shorten the wrist on the right arm so that the hand doesn't look so huge. The scissorhand is solid, and the liquifier is spot on, so nothing to add to those

Anyways, great job as usual.

You're quite right about the arm on the first one. it seemed out of proportion with every thing. The Talos Tentacle Bouquet would have been awesome if I had any more to splice in so I'll put the idea in the memory banks for now.

Instead, I whipped out the bone saw and got splicing with the main goal of changing the model's profile so it would look nothing like the other four and possibly a bit more "character" and "presence" to the big lug.

After 3 hours on the table and much dipping in the bitz bin, well, I'll just let the pictures do the talking...









I do believe we have a new contender for the Scissorhand model, and what with all the trophy chains, this one also looks more like a squad leader than the blade-fisted Grot.

C&C welcome as always.

Stay tuned.

Wow! The change is quite dramatic from what it was before. The only thing I can offer is that I'd put the hooks that are currently dangling in front of him behind him with the other hooks so that it recalls (more so) a cat o' nine tails. The modifications with the left arm really improve the whole look. He reminds me of those angler crabs with the one big claw and the little one

I still like blade-hands for the scissorhands, though. The bladehands look more like scissorhands to me, but I agree with you, the new guy certainly looks more like a leader.

Thanks Prime. Glad you like the revised claw, I'm thinking it's going to become a requirement from now on that all such claws get the same treatment as it just looks so much vicious than the normal build. It actually looks stronger than a power fist though more precise, as though Grotesques go out and clip the limbs off bugs (read Nids) in their spare time for fun.

With a bit of reflection, looking at the newest bruiser I think what makes him look more like a leader is that it's stance, compared to the other 3, is more grounded and centered, as though calmily surveying the field for the next victim. In one word: menace. In french, it literally means threat. So basically this new model looks like a leader because, unlike his squad mates, he doesn't need to posture, jeer or gesticulate to be threatening, by being calm amidst the chaos of the fray he's telegraphing his knowledge of the battle and that, as much as possible for a Space Flesh Golem, he's at peace with the carnage to come. Very much like Hannibal Lector's pulse never rose when he slew a guard in the Silence of the Lambs, I could easily imagine that a Grotesque would be, by it's very nature as a battle-bred conconction of hormones and flesh, would probably go about the business of war without batting an eye.

That's what happens after 6 years in Art School, you can analyse the underlying message of a miniature's body language without blinking... The odd thing I only learned how to analyse during that time, learning how to sculpt came afterwards.

Damn I love those Grotesques. What model is that body from? Rat Ogre? I'm using WHFB Ogres for mine and I wish I was using what you have here instead. Very cool!

Thanks Worldwarme. I'm using WHFB Rat Ogres from the big battle box. You can buy them for about $10 for the pair on Ebay, including the Skaven trainer.

Looking at the Ogres I can see the same conversion potential, especially with their armour and all the bitz that the boxes come with.

What really makes the difference with these conversions is the use of Talos bitz. They're a perfect match for the Rat Ogres' size and they help cut down on the amount of sculpting. Another key component is a jeweler's saw and needle files. If you cut the pieces "just right", file them ever so slightly and do a lot of dry fitting, you can pretty much combine all sorts of bitz and have need almost no GS to patch up gaps. Think of it as building your own lego as you go.

OK , thanks for the Rat Ogryn Tip. I'll look into that next time. Oh, and Yeah, The Talos bits ARE a Must. Already on it. Another fella on here showed me his Ogre/Grotesque conversions, using Talos and Chronos parts and I followed his example.

Again, Great stuff! Thanks!

If you need another source of inspiration, go check out the great chaps at:

http://www.tentakelgames.com/

Not only to they make killer conversions but, unlike me, they actually paint.

Awesome stuff, looking forward to seeing more.

Hey! Loving your stuff. I'm really interested in your weathering drawings. Any idea on what techniques you plan to use?

I also really like the display board! (i know it was a long time ago you showed it, but still....)

Work has been crazy but I finally got a chance to get some work in.

@ S'Jet: If you look in the early pages of my Nid thread I posted some other weathering pics over there, way back in the day. As for the weathering the vehicles, once all the base colours are blocked in, I'll be giving them a gloss coat and using oils and powders, which I finally found a local supplier for last weekend.

If you liked the previous terrain board, here's a new treat for you...



A new display board for a 1000 point team tournament!

In the background are the various acrylics that will be used to built up the terrain. Due to the army's theme, the goal is to create a desert landscape. Expect lots of sand, some scrub brush and a few gnarly trees.

For now I'm at the "Hurry up and wait" phase of the project while the first layer of molding paste settles.



Stay tuned.

Worked late again today but it worked in my favour. Once I got home ideas were swimming through my mind at breakneck speeds so I dove right into the project as though I never stopped working yesterday.

After finding some inspiring images of crackled river beds online, it was decided that the crackle paste would be put to use on this display board. I've never the stuff before so here's hoping it turns out alright as I really have no interest in sculpting a whole riverbed for a project that's due in 3 weekends.

At least the top two levels of the display are being treated with a material I'm used to working with by now so that took care of a lot of worries. Resin sand is the neatest thing since sliced bread in that it's easy to apply, easy to shape once applied, easy to rinse off if you apply too much and it has great adhesive properties so you can also use it to glue sand, rocks and twigs to a base without having to reach for anything else.

To make things even better, because of it's viscosity, you can apply it onto a display board while the models are on the board. You basically paint it on thick, going over the base of the models to make you get perfect coverage. Once done, just pull the model straight off the board and you have a perfect hole for the base. All you have to do is wipe the excess off the base's rim after pulling it up. The board itself needs no touch-ups.



Stay tuned.

Your duchess is looking beuitifull I hope you dont mind if I nick the idea? Im thinking of turning her into malys.

Feel free to steal the idea. God knows I've done the same countless times on Dakka. Wait until you see what I've got planned for the Baronness...

It's been forever and a day since my last update but there's a good reason— I hit a creative groove and didn't to slow down the progress by working on a post.

What sparked this was rediscovering a website that should be in everyone's bookmarks: Les Burley's Awesome Paintjob Wash Recipes.

Seeing as how I had a large bottle of matte medium in my supplies I figured it was high time I put it to use and devised my own mixtures in order to step up my painting. Turns out it was the single best hobby related decision I've taken next to buying an airbrush. Those of you who are familiar with my threads will know how much I hated painted with bristle brushes because I could just never get the paint to go on as easily as I could with an airbrush. Notice I said hated.

Upon getting the ink wash ingredients home and brewed up the first batch, there was still a half bottle of pre-mixed flo-aid and water left.



As I needed to do a few touch ups on the models I made the fateful decision to just dilute the paint in the bottle by about 1/3 with the flo-aid mixture. How something so simple can completely change the way one looks at painting is just astounding and I can't believe I didn't do this until last week. Go figure! So basically, it's like the door to better painting has finally unlocked and I'm actually more excited about painting than converting for the first time ever.

Thanks to this insight, all of the infantry models for the team tournament are now ready for washes, hightlighting and basing.

First up is the Haemonculus. Her Liquifier has finally been connected to her body with guitar wire.



Next up, one of her charges.



Both squads of Trueborne have also been finished up to the wash stage, which I'm hoping to get to this evening.

\



Colour-wise, it took a while to figure out the colour scheme for the army as I was still unsure what colour the tunic areas of the models would be. After trying many different hues, I decided on Nato Brown and Red Brown for accents to stick fairly close to a German desert camo scheme rather than a more colourful GW style scheme.

Another part of the army that got some attention was the Razorwings. Having recently played a game where not keeping track of which plane had fired its missiles caused some problems, I figure it was time to finally magnetise them. These particular magnets are 1/32 of an inch wide and required just the slightest amoount of drilling in order to fit.



While under the plane, another problem that needed fixing was the way the plane fit on the top of the. On a crowded table it's sometimes bothersome to reach for the bottom of the base in order to move the planes but at the same time, gluing the planes to their base just isn't a valiable option. It's time for more magnets.





And some creative use of sprues to affix said magnets into the plane. Notice the flush-mounted magnets on the missile pylons.



All of this magnetisation leads us to a model that not only seems more complete but is also a lot safer to move around on the table.



All finally, thanks to a new-found enjoyment of painting, I changed my mind about not painting all of the gems on the Razorwings. They're now going to be all brassed up and oxidized, so there will be some subtle turquoise and green streaks going down the wings, just like on the Venoms and Raiders.



That's it for now, hope you enjoyed the latest progress.

Stay tuned.

A quick update following some more painting. I'm beginning to understand how Mechanicum John can crank out the squads as quickly as he does now. Once you an established paint scheme and you have the workflow down pat from basecoat, to details, washes and then highlights, it all well, flows quite well. The process isn't quite there for me yet but I can see how it could be.

First up, a Kabalite Warrior. This one doesn't have any bronze yet as it was the first test model. Didn't really want to test the washes and sponge chipping on one of the final models.



He turned out well so one of the squads of Trueborn was given a wash.



Thus far, Les Burley's wash recipe has just been amazing. The viscosity and coverage is spot on. If any of you have been wondering whether or not to work with washes but never took the plunge yet, I strongly suggest you do as it makes shading a breeze. Even by being picky with the application, a squad of 5 took only 40 minutes. This time is bound to go down as I get more used to working with the washes.

It's working so well that I'll be buying some turquoise ink soon so I can make an oxidising wash for all the bronze in the army.

Stay tuned.

Woke up at 4:30 am this morning and couldn't stop thinking about painting and this coming Saturday's looming deadline to get the army completed. The best cure for such worries was to just get up and paint.

Within an hour of edge highlighting, one squad down and 2 more to go before I get to pigments and basing.



Blasterborn with beefy Scourge arms.





Blasterborn #2





Stay tuned

Early morning painting is the best! Especially if it's nerves that woke you up That said, it looks like you've had your coffee.The trueborn look really good. One thing though, I think that the stocks of the blasters should also be that lovely metal color, not the bone of the armor. Of course, what do I know?

Good luck on the deadline!

It was one of the first ever that I got up this early to paint and I agree, it was great. Totally was a shame I had to go to work as after an hour I was really getting into the painting groove.

I hear what you're saying about the stocks, but I'm going for a mostly polymer bodied G36 or SCAR. Who knew that beige could actually be sexy. Mostly, it was faster to paint but I might just revise the painting after the tournament has passed.

I have no idea how I'll finish everything on time other than keep telling myself: "tabletop quality, tabletop quality, etc...".

Really happy they're coming along so well considering what you're looking at is the first ever fully painted squad of models ever produced by yours truly. What with all the Nid conversions I've worked on, you could count the amount of models I've fully painted on a 6-fingered hand.

I know how it is to paint an army. I figure I've got about a month to get my DE done (we have so much in common!), and it's quite a deadline. You're on the right track, and you can do it! If that's your first squad, then the army should look great on the tabletop.

As for skipping work to paint, I would never do that. Ever

Lovely stuff, man! Glad to see you are getting some fun out of painting and the results are wonderful!

Your infantry looks really nice. Any idea what colour you're gunna do eyes? =)

As for skipping work to paint, I would never do that. Ever

Me neither. It just so happens that I tend to get sick right around the time of a painting deadline. No coincidence to see here folks.

@ Casey: Thanks, and believe me, I'm just surprised as you that I'm actually enjoying painting. It's only taken, oh, 24 years...

@ S'Jet: Thanks, coming from you that means a lot.

As for the eye colour, that's a really good question and also a great reminder because I actually hadn't realised I'd skipped them, mostly because Trueborn don't have eyes in my army.

Seeing as how I'm going for an analogic colour scheme, eyes and weapon scopes will be a orangy-reddish hue since my main colour is yellow and the other accent is turquoise. You can get a goo idea of the colours I'm aiming for by looking at this online colour scheme designer.

The Female haemonculus strayed from the scheme a little bit more towards the pink side because I wanted to differentiate her from the rank and file. Her colours are only shifted however so she's still close enough to the established scheme that she won't clash next to other models, unlike say, a Pink Noise Champion leading a squad of Berzerkers.

Minus the basing, which is going to be once all the models are finished, here's both finished squads, ready to snipe a vehicle.





Once these 2 were done, it wasn't time to rest however, instead, it was time to get to work on highlighting the flesh on the Wracks and burnish the brass.





Stay tuned.

Summer took a bite out of the hobby time budget but that's not to say there hasn't been any progress, just slow progress.

After sitting on an extra 15 Hellions since mid-spring, I finally tools to plastic in order to get them finished. While ferreting through the bitz I happily realised that I had a half-dozen Wyche torsos to sub into the squad.



Progress was good once everything was prepped.



One thing that's just awesome with Hellions (and Dark Eldar in general) in their silhouette. The spikes and sharp edges looks just sleek, fast and deadly. Case in point, this Helliarch.



Stay tuned for more.

Made some more progress on the Baroness Sathonix conversion.

After extending the blades, the skyboard was given 2 Venom splinter cannons as well as some Raider chains to balance out the proportions and also enhance the appearance of speed.



To simplify packing around these spiky little models, magnets were added to the base, the board and the Baroness so they could all be taken apart.



So there you have it, a quick and dirty conversion for the Baroness using bitz from 7 different kits.
Lilith Hesperax body
Succubus head and left arm
Hellion chain and board
Wyche pistol arm
Raider chains and keels
Venom splinter rifles







Enjoy!

Cool you're using Lelith. She looks great mounted on anything *cough*.... Try make sure the hair is aligned as backward facing as possible for the Illusion of speed!!

Nice Wrack. Shows off your Bronze. Turquoise wash looks ace.

Thanks S'Jet.

Soon I'll be playing with some pus green and red washes for a vehicle conversion. A FLGS is closing and they're liquidating all their Warhammer kits at 70%.

What do you get when you cross a: Haemonculus Ancient, a Raider and a Vampire Corpse Cart? I don't know yet either but I"ll let you know as soon as I have some pictures


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the answer to the previous riddle is:



A Dark Eldar Corpse Raider.

More pics as this project unfolds.

Made some progress on the Corpse Raider.

First, seeing as how this Raider has so more to carry, bigger sails were in order. The trick here was to cut the various parts using multiple passes with a sharp hobby knife rather than try to get the cut done in one pass and applying a lot of pressure. After some finishy filing to better match the edges, both sections were glued together.





Next step will be to fill in the gaps with Milliput and smooth out the transitions.

The nose turret was fully magnetised, both to the hull and for the weapon options. In order to make the gun pivot more stable I drilled out the Disentegrator in order to slide a small section of styrene tubing which was then drilled out to accept the tiny 1/16th magnets. Doing this also made it a lot easier to match the spacing just right. The tube was filed to the currect width and the magnets then just had to be flush mounted. Now I can swap out the Dark Lance for a Disentegrator and not worry about being stuck with only configuration.



The Raider pilot is based on the Corpse Cart rider because the robes really fit the twisted monster theme already. Modifications were minor though time consuming. For example, to make him stand a bit taller, the left foot was replaced by a Warrior leg section. Also, rather than use the Rider's selection of heads, I wanted to use something more Elvish looking so I filed down a male Wyche's head to fit inside the cowl. I'm still debating whether I'll turn this guy into a flegling Haemonculus by adding some limbs and a hump on his back.



For scale, that is a 1/16th drill bit holding that head steady in the shot.



That's it for now,

Stay tuned for more.

Corpse raider is looking cool The pilot looks really cool, and I would totally go for more of a haemonculus look. Some limbs and a hump would help reinforce the fact that it's a coven raider to begin with.

Should be awesome when finished

You're right, the pilot needs to have a heightened "flesh shaper" look to him in order to fit in properly. I'll get to those changes later today while also working on the Gunner's back.

In the meantime, here's what the build is looking like so far, with all the magnetised bitz installed.



A bit of closer look at the gunner. Ever since he took up this new job, he hasn't been called "four eyes" by anyone.




A closer view of the right loading ramp and some of the new "recruits".



And then a closer view of the left side. The bottom edge of the corpse pile was finished off by adding a few extra dangling limbs.



Other than some GS on the Gunner, the pilot and the sails, the other I have to figure out is how to hang the torches and pot of flaming skulls which are included with the corpse cart.

This will definitely a fun yet challenging project to paint. There will be no questioning which HQ belongs to which Raider that's for sure.

C&C welcome as always.



Stay tuned.

Your project is amazing! I love it, keep it up man!

 Dark_Gear wrote:
The plan for the weekend was to finally magnetise the whole fleet of flyers to their bases, along with their sails and weapons in order to facilitate storage.

In regards to the pilot of the Raiders, I was wondering how to magnetise them to the floor of the Raider until I reliased that one of my favourite beers actually comes in steel cans, not aluminium. Why is this cool? Because now that I've found a good and cheap source of steel that is as thin as human hair, magnetising small objects to bases just got a lot simpler. Case in point, the following picture ...

Once the thin strips of steel foil are cut and glued to the model's foot, all that left to do is drill a hole for the small magnet. Installation can be a bit tricky but there's a neat you can use to make the task of holding a tiny magnet in place while CA Glue dries. By filing down the head of an oval head pin till it's flat, you have a perfect a stable and thin applicator that can squeeze into tight places.

Once the magnet has been put in place just use a piece of spree or plasticard to wipe the excess glue and voila, nice flush mounted magnet in your Raider's floorboards just waiting for a model.

So this is what you have been doing with your life lately

That is a nice trick for applying magnets I have to say. In regards to glueing steel to a models feet...why not just glue magnets to thier feet? Does a steel on magnet bond hold stronger than a magnet on magnet bond? Or is it due to cost? Beer can steel would be much cheaper than rare earth magnets.

So this is what you have been doing with your life lately

Beer, work and conversions... yeah that about sums it up. How've you been doing?

That is a nice trick for applying magnets I have to say. In regards to glueing steel to a models feet...why not just glue magnets to thier feet? Does a steel on magnet bond hold stronger than a magnet on magnet bond? Or is it due to cost? Beer can steel would be much cheaper than rare earth magnets.

Magnet on magnet bonds are definitely stronger than steel on magnet bonds. The main reason I was using the super thin steel at the time was that the magnets I had at the time were wider than the Raider crew's feet. The thin strips of steel were therefore just a workaround until I found some smaller magnets, such as the ones that were just recently used to magnetise Lilith to a Skyboard for my Sathonix conversion. These new magnets are small enough that they can flush mounted into the feet of most models, which opens a whole new level of possibilities.

It's a productive week.

Since last Friday, I snipped, cleaned up, assembled, gave 3 coats of paint and sponge-weathered a measly 40 kabalite warriors. While the paint was mixed and the airbrush was humming, another 15 kabalites, 10 Wyches, 1 Venom, 1 Raider and 2 Razorwing Fighters were brought up to the same painting level.

So basically, I went from this:



To this:



In just under 2 weeks.

Vehicles still need work but they're coming along as you can see from the Venoms:



The Raiders and the Ravager:



As well as the Razorwings:



As a little side project, I even built up this little Sybarite conversion using the Raider Crew bitz for a more dynamic and active model:



Stay tuned.

The more I see of your models the more I fall in love with that color scheme. It is nice to see some bright colors on Dark Eldar.
How easy is it to paint all of those models using an airbrush? I have been thinking of getting one for some time now, but I just don't know if it is worth the investment.

Thanks Dorn. Painting an army up with an airbrush is just a dream compared to using bristles. All the infantry models you see in the 2nd picture were given 3 different colours (pre-shade, base coat and highlight ) in about 6 or 7 hours. In that time I also touched up 6 jetbikes, 1 Raider, 1 Venom, 10 Wyches and 10 kabalites, so yes, an airbrush makes a world of difference.

I won't lie and see a good airbrush isn't an investment, but there are deals out there. The word investment is quite appropriate because an airbrush isn't just an expense. Your painting will defintely go to another level once you pick up an airbrush. It will never replace your bristle brushes but it's a very versatile tool nonetheless. Don't hesitate to PM me if you have any questions.

Last night I took a break from painting the kabalites and started painting the Corpse Raider. Along the way, it was also decided that I'd try my hand at salt weathering the Raider.

First step was to treat the whole model to a generous black coat.



Followed by a coat of Hull Red, mostly around the hull and areas that will be brassed up.



On top of this coat of paint I sprayed some Future to seal the areas that would be salted. Once that was dry, the model was sprayed with tap water with the airbrush so the salt would stick.



Don't worry about pouring it on thick.



Once the coat of Desert Yellow and Buff were done, the salt was removed with all old tooth brush. At this stage I realised that I should have probably used colder water or a thicker coat of Future as, in some areas, scrubbing removed more than just the salt and Desert Yellow, revealing the black basecoat. Thankfully, it was a happy accident as the scratches in the Red enhanced the look of the weathering.



After this first attempt I'd have to say that salting definitely gives a great appearance but on a model that has so many angled surfaces, such as a Raider, sponge weathering makes it easier to distribute the chips and flakes across the surface. With time and practice this might not be the case but for now, I think I'll be sticking to sponge weathering.

Stay tuned.

Love the weathering! I'd expect to need a tetanus shot after handling those raiders...

Nice weathering mate. I found it really fun painting batches like this with the AB. You can really smell the progress!

Thanks S'Jet. Totally know what you mean by the smell of progress. What I love even more, is the sound of progress, namely, ambient tracks competing with the rythmic purr of the airbrush compressor under my desk.

For your weathering, do you ever use oil washes or do you mostly stick to sponging and drybrushing?

I've never used oil's yet. It's on the to-try list =) It's mostly just the sponge weathering so far...

I'll be having a painting day this Saturday and will try oil washes on some of the models. I'll let you how it turns out.

Never got to the oil washes but I have had some good game in, which led to the following idea.

In getting acquainted with 6th Edition, I like to test out oddball options to see for myself, not internet opinions, hearsay or mathhammer, whether or not a given unit's rules really are horridly designed.

Based on the assumption that GW does in fact playtest their rules, a wild assumption I know, and seeing as how I find myself struggling with trying to protect my lines from being overrun by Marines at times, it became clear to me that there had to be a solution hidden somewhere within the pages of the Dark Eldar Codex.

Before discussing the Cronos, the lens through which I see 40K should be made clear.

Warhammer in 6th edition is, for all intents and purposes, a shooting game. Rifle barrels will win you many more games than rifle butts because it's the one method of killing enemies where they can't respond in anger right away. Case in point, overwatch has actually saved my hide many a times. Melee is a tool that buys time in order to reposition other units to shoot whatever escapes melee. Only Space Wolves don't fit this view, whereas Tyranids, contrary to popular belief, are still mostly a shooting army.

With that out of the way, one detail about shooting is that even when Marines are facing a list with 14 Splinter cannons and 42 Splinter rifles (or 126 shots at 24"), they still tend to survive quite well thanks to their armour save.

In order to really bring the hurt and make it count, one has to find a to nullify that armour save in order to reduce the torrent of fire required.

In an army where multiple units can be equipped wholesale with AP3 weapons without sacrificing shooting or survivavibility, such as Marines, things aren't too worrisome.

In the case of Dark Eldar however, the situation is quite different. You either choose unit that shoot well or assault well, with very few degrees in between.

Due to the changes to Agonisers, Feel no Pain, and Furious Charge, Wracks and Wyches are no longer the stalwart messengers of death they once were so we have to look elsewhere.

Incubi thankfully got their AP2 weapons back but they are somewhat victims of their success. If the squad is too small, it won't kill enough and they'll either stall or bounce. If the squad is too large, they'll wipe out their target in one round and then be stuck in the open, waiting to be misted the following turn. They also compete with Trueborne and Grotesques for an elite slot.

Blasters and Lances are effective at killing heavy infantry but they are expensive. Most importantly, as long as vehicles are in range, their first priority should not be infantry. After that however, feel free to hunt power armour to your heart's content.

Disentegrators work really well but they cost you a Dark Lance and can only be purchased on Raiders. I'll write a special article about Disentegrators as they are a bit of a sleeper upgrade...

The odd realisation then was that, next to a Ravager with 3 Disentegrators (9 shots), our best anti-infantry support option is in fact the Cronos. Let me explain.

For 100 points, you get a Monstrous Creature that is almost immune to small arms fire. It functions like an AV 10 Dreadnought except it also has Feel No Pain. Contrary to a Dreadnought, it can't be killed with 1 lucky shot on the Damage Table, so it's 3 Hull Points, uh, Wounds all have to be stripped in order to kill it, basically, it has Eternal Warrior.

With it's ability to pass around the pain tokens, any of your units get to have free upgrades, just as if they were Wracks or Grotesques favoured by Urien Rakarth.

With a Cronos supporting a squad of 20 Kabalites, a squishy corner quickly becomes much harder to move.

Notice that I keep calling the Cronos a support unit. Unlike a Marine Dreadnought, it can not work alone but it thrives in synergistic army builds.

Example 1:

In my latest game against a very aggressive Chaos Army, the Cronos helped to repel 30 Khorne Berkerkers, 1 Mauler Fiend, 1 Contemptor, 2 Hell Brutes and 3 Rhinos. It only killed 19 Marines and 1 Dreadnought out of the above total but because of absorbed so much shooting and distracted the enemy so well, the units behind it (5 Wracks, 1 Venom, 1 Raider w/10 Warriors, 1 Raider with 6 Trueborne, 2 Razorwings and 2 squads of 20 Warriors on foot) were able to do their jobs and take prizes.

When the dust settled, I'd lost one blob of 20 Warriors, a Venom and the 5 Wracks and all that Chaos had left was 2 Marines 4 inches away from my objective. The line held and it would not have happened without the Cronos.

Example 2:

When facing a very fast Ork list with 30 bikes, the Cronos served as the savior of my center and the anchor for a big mob of 20 orks that were teleported by a Wierdboy. The mob materialised within charge range of 3 different squads and 2 vehicles, which were the rock of my center line due to their sightlines and shooting potential. While it took 5 Wracks, the Cronos, a Venom and 20 Warriors, the mob was killed and 2 squads now had 3 extra pain tokens to play with.

The Cronos only lived long enough to take 4 more bikers after that short-lived victory before dying to return fire but literally gave FNP to 4 units in the process, giving my forces the slim edge I needed to survive that game.

In both cases, the Cronos most certainly did not act alone but it was a massive help. The amount of damage it inflicts with its various shooting attacks in one round easily surpass what a lone Venom or a Ravager Disentegrator can cause but what really sets it apart is the buffs it gives to nearby units.

Before I pass final judgement on this unit, I'll have to run more games as right now I'm thinking that my opponents weren't targetting the Cronos early enough as they didn't really know how much the Cronos could hurt. This might change in future games.

In summary results look promising so far.

Pros

Cheaper than a Ravager
Very tough to kill
Can't be instant killed like a Dreadnought
All of its weapons are AP3 or better, including the template.
Force Multiplier
2 Attacks at S10 that reroll penetration against vehicles on the charge.

Cons

Not as mobile as a Ravage
8" or 18" range guns is quite short
Needs to be supported to reach its full potential
Only 2 attacks base and Initiative 4.

Hope this helps you explore new ways of using your army. if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for the summary of DE in 6th. I've been casually working on a Dark Eldar army, and have been very tempted to pick up the Cronos/Talos models, but wasn't sure losing the Ravager slot was worth it. I think I'll give it a try.

It's a very fun model to build to. Contrary to the Hell Drake or Forge Fiend kits, the Talos kit does have a ton of extra bits on the sprues. By purchasing a torso and a pelvis for about 10$, you could also build both models.

Compared to the Cronos, which is all about anti-infantry, the Talos plays can play at easy as either anti-mech or anti-infantry. Sadly, its anti-infantry gun options are either AP5 or have only a 50% chance of being AP3 or better. If you've ever had entire games where the 50% chance to wound of an Agoniser never works for you, you'll understand why I prefer the Cronos' template weapon. Also, because the Talos is perceived as more of an anti-vehicle unit than the Cronos, it tends to get targeted more and thus accomplishes less than the Cronos.

Finally getting some painting done!

Here are just 3 of the first 10 man Kabalite squad, brassed up and ready for pigments.

The bases still need a bit of drybrushing and weeds but everything coming together.

Looking great!

Thanks!

 Dark_Gear wrote:

Where did you get the replacement arms?

Yeh nice work, dude!

@ Casey: Thanks! It's great to finally finish some models.

@ Fox: The replacement arms are vestigial limbs from the Talos kit. The proportions are perfect for Wracks.

Very nice and creative use of your bit box!

I want to see a painted version of the corpse-cart-raider; that model's awesome!

Up to my old tricks of working on more conversions rather than paint what already built.

This time around, it's Chimaeras for a Beast Pack. Rather than go for the tried and true substitute of the Vampire Counts wolves, I opted for Chaos Hounds.

Since I'm all out of 40mm bases but have no shortage of styrene, I broke out the dremel and spun my own bases. The whole process took about 4 hours over 2 days to go from drawing circles on plastic to final sanding on the 16 bases.



As the theme for the whole army is basically a desert raiding force, and seeing as how the Chimaeras are beasts that aren't slowed down by terrain, the ground on these bases is going to be rough borken ground, unlike the bases on the infantry models, which is more like level desert.

For the coarse ground, I broke some beer corks into good sized "rocks".

Quick Tip:

If you cut cork with a hobby knife, the surface of the cork will be very smooth and lack texture. A quick way to add texture to this very smooth cork is to use a very coarse metal file. This will create a finish that looks very much like a smooth rock, but at 28mm scale.

After an hour, basing was done and it was time to hurry up and wait while the resin sand cured.



Next step, drill in the pins and finalise placement once I fill in the gaps on the models with GS.

Stay tuned.

Was it worth making your own bases like that? Seems I may need to get myself a Dremel (for other spinning antics...)

Also - more conversions simply means you'll have models to paint after the current ones you need to paint (I find myself in the curious position of being unable to paint until I finish more modelling at the moment...)

 Arakasi wrote:
Was it worth making your own bases like that? Seems I may need to get myself a Dremel (for other spinning antics...)

Also - more conversions simply means you'll have models to paint after the current ones you need to paint (I find myself in the curious position of being unable to paint until I finish more modelling at the moment...)

For me, I'd say it was worth making my own bases, but that's mostly because I love to build things. Hence why I always have more models freshly converted than fully painted. Spinning bases is, by far, the best use of a dremel I've found so far.

And speaking of conversions, I still have to figure out what I'll be using for the Razorwing flocks, a model that won't be flying Ripper Swarms as I have no interest in paying (and waiting) for Forgeworld.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pinned and based the Chimaeras to their bases. They won't actually be glued to the bases until painted but at least I know where all of them will go once complete.



Also, I'm torn whether to get some hormogant claws to add to the Chimeras or leave them as is, looking a bit more "natural". Comments and ideas?

Enjoy.

Nice update, I'm rather unable to comment on whether to add claws or what to use instead of skyslashers as I don't know the fluff. What I will say is, make it your own.

I know how that is, converting more models rather than painting. Luckily I go through the very occasional wave of being very excited about painting which catches me up. I'm in the middle of one right now but I'm trying to put it off until I have an airbrush setup and some more models ready.

Oh and I fired you a short email, feel free to ignore it, I'll be sending you a longer one shortly!