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Having had a bit of a play building up banks on these this morning, I need to create a new base plate that has some raised sides where I'll be building up against as it is hard to get a decent join that looks right otherwise.

Anyway. Focus on the next week and half needs to be my Genestealer cult for Necromunda as we're having a campaign weekend. It looks like I started to batch paint a load a while back so I need to see what I am missing.

It turns out that when I was building cultists last year I was building for fun and not effectiveness... I need to look at what I actually need for an effective hive cult. It certainly isn't an aberrant with a rock saw, however scary a concept that is! I may need to sacrifice some of my lovely plastic Krieg to get some lasguns that look nice on the hybrid bodies as the Cadian arms suck big time and I think I need 5 :/




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Just spent some time re writing the cult and I suspect I may not be ever so popular running 2 aberrants and an infiltrating webber in the starting gang... shame

On top of that, *everyone*, including the aberrants, have hazard suits as I know at least two of the gangs are likely to be tooling up with flamers (cawdor) and I suspect the Chaos cult and Van Saar are eyeing up some rad phage weaponry to try and take down the rock saw aberrant I was (jokingly) threatening them with

Not really had much chance to do any painting, but a quick update on the weekend of Necromunda and the success/failures of the cult so far in the campaign...

We're playing the chaos rising thing and, thanks to the stalwart Genestealer cult winning some of the early games Order remained in ascendence until just before the MEEEEeeeeeet! scenario.

I started off with the largest gang, despite none of my mooks being all that cheap to hire. I started with a magus with mind control and a familiar, one infiltrating grenade launcher with familiar, one infiltrating webber with familiar, 2 knife toting aberrants and 6 basic neophytes with lasguns. Also in the campaign were Van Saar, Goliath, Cawdor and Orlocks (representing chaos!)

When rolling off for terrain I somehow ended up with three locations that could all generate money *and* free neophytes; which meant that each round I was generating an average of about 120 credits and 3 new armed neophytes! This quickly put me well out in front for gang rating/stash. At the end of the weekend, just before everything goes to hell in the campaign cycle, the cult was sitting pretty at 22 gang members (12 neophytes, 4 aberrants, 4 hybrids and 1 magus), plus an Ambot and a rogue doc, and a gang rating 500 higher than the next gang and almost double the rating of the Cawdor.

The downside to having a gang that has more than doubled in size for free (thanks to the settlements) is that it is really hard to not just end up with a group of green neophytes with lasguns going up against the full Goliath gang when rolling for random gang members... and all that xp is now spread across the gang so no-one has actually levelled up yet. The upside is that I have at least 6 neophytes I can eat before I have to start worrying about losing champions when we run out of food in the next phase of the campaign, whereas everyone else will have to resort to eating valuable people far far sooner

We're looking to continue in January, with the challenge for everyone to have finished painting their gangs by then.

Well it's good to hear you're having fu AND have starvation covered

No real hobby updates as I've been setting up my nice new office in the garden so I can separate work from hobby.

Just stopping by to say happy christmas to you all and may santa bring you the toys you wanted!

Christmas has given my brain a chance to unwind a bit and, unfortunately, it has unleashed hobby desires on me that are currently incompatible with all the current projects that are running... bloomin typical!

The first was inspired by a surprise parcel from The Outpost. It seemed I'd been entered into a mystery Christmas prize draw... and won! In the box were some sets of dice, some magnetic bases... and the Kharadron set form the Broken Realms book that has a bunch of the flying dorfs. Already having some in the spares box from a necromunda conversion a few years back got me pondering the concept of doing something with them. The dwarves don't really interest, but the flying grot pirates did. There are some fantastic conversions out there that have just added some grot bits to the dwarves, and the idea of flying, squig powered boats sounds cool. Unfortunately the images that my head conjures up isn't compatible with those... so thankfully that plan is going in the sell pile when we're back from the in-laws. Anyone after any Karadron balloon boys?

Idea 2, however, just *won't* leave my head. All these Eldar rumours, and some conversations with a new colleague about old 40k armies, is making me want to do a Ynnari force as the idea of an eldar force combining bits of all the other options is neat. Given that I don't actually play 40k, and already have that Tallarn force that I can't be arsed to complete... this seems like a dumb idea made even worse by the fact that they are currently not all that viable and who knows what will happen with the new codex.

For this one it feels like a possible win-win if I just build things slowly and convert the living hell out of it all. Dammit. I wanted this post to talk me *out* of starting this, but all it seems to have done it talk me *into* doing it instead...

None of this is helping with the painting backlog, or the painting challenge that I'm currently part of... or the impending 7TV weekend in about 5 weeks that needs another table building *and* a cast painting... :/

After a sleepless knight spent trawling Pinterest, I now have a fairly good idea of what I want these guys to look at. This morning I realised I also have some scourge, harlequin and wytch sprues in the bitz drawer of shame (or awe, depending who you talk to) to start fiddling with an idea or two with minimal outlay.

There are two main inspiration points for this.
1) The Visarch armour looks really nice, so I want to take the idea of his back vanes (and the ones on the Incubi) and do something similar on the rest of the troops, especially the wraithlord/wraithguard instead of their straight ones. De-spiking the dark eldar armour a bit should produce something similar-ish with some little tweaks for something that could be DE or Aeldari infantry. Fur collars on things would look pretty cool too IMO

2) I've seen a few conversions of the Lumineth Stonemage as a Farseer, which just looks amazing... so I want to do something similar to that...

I want to build this so that if Ynnari turn out to still not be a playable thing, that's ok. I can still legitimately play any of the other Eldar options, but have it all converted/modified in some way.

You know me... this will not be a thing in about 3 weeks time... so consider it a random brain dump for now

Long time no lurk, works really turned my game off, so apologies.

DON’T BUILD AN AELDARI ARMY!

There, I did my best .

Build AELDARI/ YNNARI Kill teams . They might be a gateway drug to an AELDARI force, but you can convert to your hearts content, lavish all sorts of attention on them and if the army book comes out and you had fun and want to continue, then do.

They just showed off the rangers and jetbikes, but we know an avatar is coming, and new rumors of a killteam Eldar vs admech, which has some pictures with what looks like a new seer and ranger style with those type back vents you are talking about. So if you build some kill teams now you’ll be ready and if the new models inspire you...even better. If not, you have had fun making a kill team.

Sorry for not pushing you away from spending money .

That is basically the idea, just building bits and pieces to try out ideas and if I like something, bulk it out to a minimum size squad. Starting with the dark eldar options also removes the need to worry so much about the craftworld book

I won't comment specifically as I'm sure I'll just be a bad influence . Looking forward to whatever you choose to pursue - I'm sure you will do it justice. My hobby time has disappeared as I grapple with an overdue migration - so I'll have to live vicariously through you for the time being - no pressure!

You? A bad influence? Heaven forbid!

The suggestion to start with kill team is a good idea. The codex and kill team books have been ordered so I can at least start planning. That will force me to look at the plage carnival in the mean time... Hopefully

I had a dig through the sprue drawers and found Eldrad, 2 sets of Harlequins, a death jester, a set of Wytches and a set of scourges... so that's a nice start to the bitz pile. The Drukhari patrol box is in the post and a trip to our local games shop have added these to it as well:



I figured grabbing the Eldar start collecting made sense, given the new codex coming they would likely remove this one and replace it with something slightly less appealing.

The Namarti reavers are going to be the base for some wytches and the witch elves will be the base for some harlequins. The wytches are likely to become more Kabalites... or scourges. Who knows

I had a bit of a play with the Namarti and wytch parts this afternoon. The arms work really nicely on the bodies without any additional work. The heads require some fiddling as both have necks on, so you end up with giraffes if you don't trim one (or better, both) down quite a lot. Some of the spare belt bits from the DE kits have helped add a little bit of sci-fi to the body



The back has a hole in that the quiver should plug into. I need to work out something to go over that as well as make things look a *little* more dark eldar.

Cool start.

Yep, that’ll be a nice start. Also good job grabbing the start collecting as it will most likely become a combat patrol for more money and be something useless.

 Theophony wrote:
Yep, that’ll be a nice start. Also good job grabbing the start collecting as it will most likely become a combat patrol for more money and be something useless.

That was my fear, yes. I am currently trying to decide if I want to grab some of the guardians too, in case they follow the ork boy route and go monopose. I just want the weapons and arms, but those cost almost as much as the box from blitz sites


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I had a bit of a play with the witch elf and harlequin parts this morning and have the first attempt at a new style Harlequin for the Ynnari



There's still clean-up to do around one of the arm joints and likely some greenstuff, but not bad. I'm still undecided about the head too. The Witch elf heads/hair don't look harlequin enough. The Sisters of Slaughter heads look too demonic, even for Harlequins following the god of death... The harlequin heads currently look the most relevant, but I'm not sure they make the silhouette different enough?

I did a slight repose of Eldrad using some harlequin legs in order to give him a bit more motion. I may also add some magic effects around the upturned hand...



I've also started work on the LoER Crossings hexes. I started by making a new hex tile with two sides to bank filler up against. Turns out the sides aren't *quite* tall enough, but it may be ok once I've put the grassy topping on



The plan here is to build a river (as previously discussed) with two alternative crossing options. One as some banked sides and a stony path through some shallows. The other... a stony bridge

That bridge is great. Print or purchase?

The bridge is a print. Can’t remember where it came from though


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I did a bit more work on the actual crossing bit of the river this afternoon, including some *actual* foam! Next time, when there's a bit less pressure from other deadlines I hope to do a lot more with foam, given that I bought a proper tabletop foam cutter a few months back...

Sadly I've still got a lot of river banks left to make as I ran out of polyfilla... once I've restocked, I can create the banks around the brickwork so that it looks like it's part of the river bank



While the polyfilla was drying, I started painting up some of the cast for the 7TV day. I'm going for... well. I think this sneak shot tells all really

One of my friends has been trying to convince me that I needed to buy a record player for my shiny new office. In order to do this he's bought/given me a few records over the Christmas period. Well, I finally caved and took delivery of one yesterday (thanks a bunch Aidan, I needed another collection like a hole in the head!)

Still. It means today I have spent it in my office listening to Gary Numan while making more Wyches... which seems somewhat appropriate!

Three with the basic pistol/knife combo


and one with the whippy sword and one with the chain thingy (technical I know... the books havn't turned up yet thanks to the bank holidays). I ended up having to use one of the blind Namarti heads as there aren't enough male-ish looking heads on the wych sprue, but it looks pretty good. I may try and give it a mohawk or something when the greenstuff finally comes out later in the week.



I still don't know what to do with the holes in their backs, so that's a *later* problem.

I am loving the really dynamic poses on these. They look really good with the wych weapons on... but makes me even more confused as to why these are the poses they chose for a unit of *archers!*

Poses look excellent and hope your loer exploits continue unabated!

More of a LoER update this morning thanks to the plaster finally curing. We now have a nice long stretch of riverbank. Some sections have had sand adding, the others need that adding tonight, along with some of the earth texture on top of the banks, but it runs quite nicely and includes the start of the shallows crossing too. Off to one side you can see the carnival tent slowly coming together; nearly ready for painting. It just needs some crates printing to add to the base



The main issue I've noticed with the rivers so far is that I forgot that the tiles don't sit flush with the risers all the time, so I need to add some boosters to the bottom of the river tiles to bump them up a little



Rather than bin the old river tiles that I'd done, I'm converting then into a wide road by sanding where the water would have been

The downside of working in a different room to all my painting stuff is that the painting and terrain progress is taking a massive hit. On the plus side, having all of the Drukhari bits out in the office gives me something fairly simple to fiddle with during meetings so those are making some progress

The Inkubi are a really nice kit, but were a little *too* spikey for what I envision a combined Ynnari force. They are supposed to be the Visarch's bodyguard, so the tall Drukhari helmets seemed to make a lot more fitting in this manner. I have decided not to put the back vanes on the standard Inkubi, just the boss so that he stands out a little more, but this left the others looking a little too much like kabalites, so I'm now hunting for loads of spare back banners to add to them instead



So, given that I'm using the Kabalite heads on the Inkubi... what's happening to the Kabalites? Well they are getting Scourge heads of course
They are using the backs from Shadow Warriors so that they look like really flashy Trueborn Kabalites and, like the Inkubi and Wyches, have had the blades and spikes trimmed off to make them a bit sleeker. Just to top it off and make them a bit more Visarch like, they are also going to get fur over the shoulder




Back on the terrain briefly before signing off for the night again... sand and stones have now been applied to all the river tiles so hopefully I can get some paint on all of these over the weekend (between doing house things like curtain rails and tidying... the curse of being a supposed adult )

I'm loving all the swapping. Really excellent and characterful without being... Too spikey

There's nearly enough for a kill team.. I just need a couple more of the Trueborn to be finished and then I can give some thought to what the colours need to be

Those Trueborn look especially fantastic!

Finally got a chance to do some painting for my 7TV Fantasy cast for February over the weekend. There's a lot of other models partly done, but these give a nice indicator of what's going on



These are from the Punga Ministures Plague carnival Blood Bowl team with some hands/weapons from leftover fantasy kits; mostly beastmen and Blightkings

Carnies , small hands, smell like Nurgle

I like the look you got from the head swaps on the D. Eldar. Still not bothering to get the new names down, they will always be Imperial Guard .

For back banners I know there are some 3d prints out there for Samurai, maybe just print them slightly larger.

Imperial Guard will *always* be Imperial Guard!

I do need to find some time to go through my sty collection and see what options I have already... I suspect lots.

Nice work on the pointy-ears, the fur on the landlords is a great touch.

Plague carnival looking good, and those are some lovely minis, glad I've not gone into the printing game as I would be swamped under a sea of resin.

Plague carnival is a sticky delight!

Thanks! I really really need to get a move on painting the carnival folk as it's only a few weeks away... the board isn't progressing fast enough either now I'm not working in the same room as the paints :/

I did manage to get a bit of paint onto some of the river tiles for LoER though... you need a river for a river crossing!



There's still a fair bit of work to do on these before they are finished, so I really need to prioritise the bridge part over these...

And the carnival folk/board over these as LoER's closing date is after the 7TV day. gah!