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Can't beat a good glass of apple juice!

Really awesome to see you've organised your paints and bits, I'm currently working out of a box myself for my paints but I've started buying nuts and bolts boxes to separate out all of my bits.

Eldrad looks awesome and the wet blending looks to be a good job. I like the touch of yellow on the model, very classic Ulthwe!

Your Farseer and Wraithlord are looking sweet too, really good job!

Love 'em. Eldrad's cape looks good, thickness or not. Can't wait to see what's next.

Thank you Meer_Cat, Theo, Tyranid Horde and Youwashock! Really appreciate it.

Got a few ideas for Warlock kitbashes, so I will get more training with wet blending whilst painting their black robes.

Had a gaming day today.
First played a 1000pts game once again at our FLGS and later in the evening teached the basics of Necromunda to another friend.

This time I brought a bit more mechanized list. Even though I won the last game against the same opponent (the relatively new hobbyist), I decided to give him a bit more challenge.
Also he had a lot of anti tank, so I would not say that the list was "too good" by any means.

Ulthwé strike force ready to drive the mon-keigh back!


Forces of the Imperial Guard preparing their heavy firepower before proceeding to clear the ruins of possible threats.


Wave serpents stalk in the ruins of an Imperial city ready to lay fire on the advancing enemy.


The enemy forces halted to form a gunline, forcing the Eldar to move closer.
Crimson Hunter Exarch ready to swoop in to provide covering fire for the advancing strike force. And to avenge a fallen transport taken down by multiple lascannon and battlecannon shots, rendering it to small pieces.
The pilot was however able to keep the skimmer in control before crushing to the side of a building, leaving the troops inside unharmed.


After disembarking from the wrecked Wave Serpent, the Dire Avenger face heavy resistance. Luckily the Warlock that accompanied them provided protective powers to minimize casualties.
Heavy enemy fire forced the Farseer to call upon the reserves from the skies and webway.


Eagles dived from the sky landing on a ruined building to gain control of the flank. Using their grenade packs and lasblasters, they managed to destroy a flanking infantry squad.
Even though taking a few casualties from heavy bolter fire, the Exarch proceeded to impale the surviving Comissar in close combat, who had executed the last two guardsmen.


A Cadian missile launcher team preparing to repel the swift attack of the Eldar. Even though they managed to hit the quickly moving target, the armor was too tough preventing critical damage.


Enraged by heavy casualties to the both Guardian units, the Farseer ignored all reason and charged trough the roaring flames of the Cadian flame throwers.
Protected by the ancient runic armor, she was able to leap trough with lightning emitting from her hands, scorching the remaining guardsmen.
Focusing all the psychic potential she possessed, the Farseer weakened the opposing Primaris Psyker before ending his life by running the spear trough him.



By the end of round 6, I controlled two objectives whilst the opponent had only one. I also had the first blood (Crimson Hunter two shotting a sentinel) and line breaker.
We had a great time and my opponent fared really well. After popping the first Wave Serpent with only three Lascannons and a Leman Russ, I thought this would be over pretty quickly. If I'm playing him again soon, I might try a different army for some variety.


Later in the evening, I hosted a tutorial game of Necromunda to another friend of mine. She was keen on trying it, as I mentioned the game whilst talking about different board games.
As we were playing in a local pub, it was too dark to take any pictures. The rules were understood quickly (I had to do some recap as this was just my 5th game or so) and the game went on very well. She mentioned that it would be great to try it again, so hopefully I can get a new wargamer into the fold!


Wanted to give a small teaser regarding what is currently happening on my hobby table:


Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this small story time. Not going to write about every game I play, but I think it's fun enough to post picture or two from the fighting once in a while.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
During the last year I have been painting mostly my Ulthwe army, while sidetracking to Krieg and Necromunda once in a while.
I have finally managed to finish an army, that contains most of the models I will usually use on the tabletop. While painting them has been joy (with a few exceptions), I require something different to do for a while (as mentioned earlier).

For all of you who come here to see the Eldar army grow: I'm not done with them. Far from it. I have a ton of models in different kind of states of completion which I will finish at some point. Some of them were donations from a friend of mine (you can read all about that in page 2) while others were gathered over my earlier hobby years. Most of all, these guys will see the tabletop more often from now on!
The space elves will most definitely return! Be it Eldar or their dark brethren.

Enough of jibber jabber and let's proceed to the matter at hand.
After receiving the playmat I ordered a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a few group shots from the whole army. I thought displaying them would be a great way to wrap up this project.

Just as a sidenote for all you metalheads out there:
I get a lot of inspiration from music and most of my armies have some sort of "theme music" when I paint or play with them. I wanted to share a couple a song which captures the feeling of this army in my opinion.




"Sons of winter and stars! Rise! Rise!
Fly with us through the darkness
Sons of winter and stars! Rise! Rise!
And we shall embrace the stars
And we shall open the doors of time"













"From sorrow and pain I find my strength
The more pain I feel, the more I see
Now I'm watching my life flowing in the dark
Like streams of fear running through my heart
And it's wearing me down until I'm gone
Soon I'll join the endless whirls of stars"













"We are the Sons of Winter and Stars
We’ve come from a far beyond time
Forever the fire burns in our hearts
Our world shall never die
In the arms of the wind we ride till dawn
As the waves of the ocean grind so strong
We wander in the stars until we’re gone
Our fate is sealed by eternal sun"




The lightning conditions were far from optimal, so sorry about that.
There are some small things to do of course, like the cockpits seen on the vehicles. Those I will fix when I get an airbrush. They will be good targets to practice some gradients.
But all in all I'm very happy that I can finally cross a large project off my list.

I want to thank all you guys once more for all the support so far. It really keeps me going!

The next progress update might take some time, as I'm gone for the next couple of weekends. But stay tuned, I won't disappear this time!

Eldrad's cloak is really nice. Good job on the gems too. Love the blade.

Those army shots look fantastic, your paint scheme is lovely and it looks great to see a full army of it. That must have taken a lot of work. I enjoy the battle report photos too, very characterful and well chosen.

Congrats on the win. Your army looks absolutely beautiful on the table.

Cracking looking army and you've taken some lovely shots of the battlefield in your battle report.

Really nice take on the Ulthwe scheme and I'm always a fan of mechanised Eldar.

Thank you all!
Took a decent chunk of time to finish these, glad you guys like them!

Not an actual progress update yet, but just another teaser.
One of my next projects will be related to this guy:


Been working with it a bit, but I will update you guys when I have something to actually show.
More to come later!

Is it wrong since the leg is mangled to hope it’s a scenic piece for striking scorpions, dark reapers or an avatar?

 Theophony wrote:
Is it wrong since the leg is mangled to hope it’s a scenic piece for striking scorpions, dark reapers or an avatar?

Not quite, but I can say this thing is even more mangled right now. It was an excellent candidate for the current project given the state it was in when I acquired it from a friend.

Update time. Did not take as long as I thought, as a few things got cancelled and I managed to get some hobby stuff done instead.

So, as I said I wanted to do something different. Well this is very different alright.

The next project will be rebooting my Waaagh! to the 8th edition.
Orks were the first army I started back in the day (more story on the first post) and I have collected something like 6000pts of them so far.
Luckily most of the relevant models have been painted, so no need to repaint the whole army.
I'm trying to fight the urge to do that, as all of the models were painted years ago. Even though I like to think that I have improved a lot since, I want to preserve the older models.
Some small mistakes and / or broken models will be fixed though.

For this project, I will be doing a headcount of all the models I have (more on this later), compile a few lists and paint the models required for those lists.
Some of the old models are in pretty bad shape, due to the fact that my young self was a fool and did not store them properly.
I will need to find a way to store and transport all my orky models: either in Feldherr cases or custom boxes with soft foam.

The Feldherr order arrived, so I have some foam cutting to do for the Eldar and Dark Eldar models, but all the orky stuff is so large that I need to order bigger foam trays.

Before doing the actual headcount etc. I will be completing a Dread mob.
I have always loved the Deff Dread. The model is just plain awesome and the idea of a huge metal box hulking accross the battlefield is just so orky.

Sadly the only Deff Dread I have has seen the tabletop only two or three times. This is due to the fact that it had some problems surviving.
This has changed since the 8th arrived, as they are a lot more durable and they don't cost a ton. What I'm thinking is: deepstrike three of them into the enemy lines!

I'm aware that this is still not a "competitive" unit, but I want to give it a shot. I also have ~10 Killa Kans to accompany them.

Just as a short note: I'm thinking of doing three list at first. One will be purely Speed Freaks (a lot of bikes, vehicles and everything that moves quickly), second will be full of dreads and kans (as stompy as possible)
and the third will be a more competitive kind of list. I'm not sure yet that what I want for the competitive one, but I will need it for all those more competitive games I play sometimes.

First Dread is the one I bought and painted years ago (very old image from the gallery).
I actually won a small painting contest ~7-8 years ago in a hobby expo with this one


I don't have the base anymore, as it got torn off at some point and lost during the half a dozen times I've moved since. The Dread is also a bit mangled, so that will need to be fixed.

The second one was a impulse purchase a couple of weeks ago.
Nothing special here. This time though, I decided to magnetize the arms so the saws would not get torn and transporting would be a lot easier.





And the third one being the project I've been teasing in the last post: A conversion from Space Marine Dreadnought that the orks have looted for proper usage.
I acquired it from a friend who is selling his Space Wolves (for another army) and I could not pass the opportunity.

It was once again time to take out the hobby knife, saw and clippers and get to work.

First cut the legs and shortened the lower hull a bit.


Added some Killa Kan piston legs.


Sawed the face off and bolted some orky bits on it.




I wanted to use one of the original arms from the dread, so that got upgraded with a Killa Kan drill.


The backside got upgraded too. Orks need a bigger space to fit a better and louder engine:




The dread conversion will also take part in the unofficial Dakka painting competition this month. This is just to motivate me to actually finish the model.

After I'm done building these, I might keep on building some stuff. I want to keep on building things until I start to feel the urge to paint again, so it would not feel like a chore.
Don't get me wrong, I love to paint. It's just that I've been painting Eldar for so long, that I'm trying to avoid something like "hobby burn out". It has happened before and that's not something that should happen.

Some of the older orky stuff I have done can be seen in my gallery (link in the signature).

Thanks for checking out and tell me what you think!
Waaagh!

Love the army shot and the pics from the game. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with for your converted dread.

Cheers King Thor!

Did some more work on the dread.

More pictures, less talk for a change:

I cut some bolts from plasticard. The pen is there for size comparison.


Glued the bolts on to get some texture on the top plate of the engine bay.
Also added an access hatch and some exhaust pipes.


I wanted to preserve the hole where a rokkit (pliers) had penetrated the dread. Some ripped off hoses hanging. They were no use anyway..


Some wiring made from greenstuff just to cover a messy area. This would not be visible when the model is on the table, but I'd know.


Finally finished all the close combat weapons. This fellow will be fully kitted for close quarters stomping.
Used two Killa Kan arms, grabbing klaw from the trukk and the original arm from the Dreadnought.






That's all folks!
I think I will do some cleaning up with a file and glue the thing to a base later today.

That Orkified dread looks brilliant, really awesome use of bits and looting damaged models is the best way to bring something back to the board! Especially like the hanging wires from the rokkit impact, adds a lot.

Keep it up!

Thanks, glad you like it!

Quick update before going away for the weekend.

Managed to finish the Dread and primed it.









The new Dreads are magnetized, so it's easier to store them.
Sadly I did not magnetize the third one back in the day. Same with 10 Killa Kans that I have.
It's a nightmare trying to store or transport them. Need to figure out a way...

I also have an idea for Deffkilla Wartrike conversion. But first, I will finish these guys.
So next time, some painting!

Battlefoam 4" Pluck Trays should work for both Kans and Dredds.

Magnetize their base and then wrap one side of a 2x4 in sheet metal. Walk into the store wielding said 2x4 and challenge people to a game .

I've always thought magnetized bases did offer some great storage possibilities. Great dread, though not much of the space marine is showing!

I really like how your looted dread matches up in size with the GW dreads.

Magnetic trays could be the way to go, I've seen more and more of them crop up and it seems to suit armies with pointy bits like Dark Eldar.

Thank you for the suggestions! I think a magnetized tray / container will be the way to go!
Need to order some more magnets and start tinkering.

Kestral: Thanks! At first I thought about keeping it looking more like the original, but I got a bit carried away. The mek inside me kept yelling "not enough gubbins!"


Wall of text incoming:

I've been doing some painting for a few hours over the last two days.
Before going to that, I wanted to take the time to display some of my orky collections from the past years.

I did a little headcount on all the Orks. Long story short, the collection is somewhat the following:

- 120 boyz (51 shoota boyz, 60 slugga boyz, 9 heavy weapons)
- ~15 gretchin and a runtherd
- 18 Nobz with various different weapons. Mostly power klaws due to them being awesome in the previous editions.
- 12 Tankbustas (few old metal models, rest converted / normal rokkit boys)
- 18 Lootas (10 of them are magnetized to work as burnas too)
- 2x Bik Mek with Kustom Force Field (one converted)
- Bik Mek with Shokk Attack Gun
- Ghazkull Thraka
- Warboss from the Assault on Black Reach starter set
- Boss Snikkrot
- Mad Dokk
- 3 Deff Dreads
- 12 Killa Kans (2 unassembled)
- 3 Battlewagons
- 2 Trukks
- Looted Wagon
- 2 Dakkajets
- 17 Warbikers (some of them are actually Nobz)
- Half assembled Stompa

This translates to something like ~5000 points not including any upgrades or specific wargear.
So the "playable" number is somewhere between 5500-6000 points.

~70% of these are somewhat painted. Sadly I noticed that there are many models that have once again been left half finished.
I have also been pretty lazy with basing, as many have only black bases or some random sand glued to them. ~20% have a decent base on them.

Why did I do this calculation then?
Well mostly so that I can get a good grasp on what my next goals are. I'm going to approach this the same way I did with my Eldar a year ago:
Paint and finish a playable force. Yes, I have enough painted models to field on to board, easily. But there are a couple of lists I want to field that would have unpainted models.
I also need to adjust my earlier lists to better fit the new edition.

I took some quick pictures from some of the older models. I added spoiler tags for them, so if you are interested you can check them out!

First up a groupshot of my vehicles. It's a really bad picture, so the paintjob is not really visible. Half of the bikers are unpainted.
Some of these models can bee seen close in the gallery.


We are going pretty far away with this one. This guy came with the Assault on Black Reach box set.
I think it's been like 8-10 years since I painted him.


One of my earlier conversions: Warbiker with a flag. Made the pole from a wooden coctail stick. The transfer on the flag is clearly visible.


I think this guy was made somewhere between 5th or 6th edition.
I wanted to field a Kan Wall list with two Kustom Force Fields. Never actually finished the list as kans got way worse due to hull points.
Did not even remember I had made this guy. Really surprised me as I went trough the collection


A couple of magnetized lootas. Nothing special here, just wanted to show the shape some of these models are.
The weapons are just basecoated and the bases are just too rushed.



The next one actually made me smile as I rediscovered it. The glorious Looted Wagon!
I never finished the one displayed on the first page of this thread. It is still sitting in my "trash pile" in the same condition.
Instead I decided to make one out of a third edition Whirlwind I found on sale many many years ago.
Here I had discovered plasticard and used it to make the "flames" in the front. The turret is still unfinished.


Sadly there are no more rules for the looted wagon. Hopefully they will release them later like in previous editions.
Until then, I will use it as a trukk without the turret.

Lastly, a half finished kitbash. I'm not actually sure what this guy was supposed to be. Maybe a painboy on bike or something.
I'm thinking of either making him a Deffkilla Wartrike or Bik Mek on a bike. Leaning towards the second one as I'm tempted to making it look like a "maintenance vehicle" with a ton of spare parts on the back.


I will go even further back when I'm starting to finish all the unpainted boyz.


So, finally to the actual progress.
I started to paint the Dreads. Decided to begin with the original kit first, just to get my orky vibe going. After that, I will continue the kitbashed Dread.

My painting style for Orks is more the likes of "quantity over quality". This means that I try to find a good way to make decent looking models to the tabletop as quickly as possible.
There are so many models in this army, that I'm trying to avoid painting every little detail that no one would even see. If I'm being honest, it's pretty hard for me not to paint every little piece of wire that can be found underneath the model
Some of my older models were painted a bit too "efficiently" though, as there are orks with unpainted teeth, belts and even weapons. Also, my earlier "secret" technique of painting red over boltgun metal to make it look "worn" was messy at best.
When painting this model and comparing it to the old Dread sitting in the table next to me, I was happy to notice some improvement.
The old dread was at the time the very best I could do (image can be found in the earlier posts). Now, I'm able to produce a lot better result in a much shorter time.
It actually felt pretty nice.


Only two pictures this time, but the progress can be seen anyhow.





Clear colors, with roughed up edges and some rusty parts.
When painting Orks, I'm doing the weathering very differently compared to my Krieg vehicles. On these models, I try to avoid rust on any "painted" surface.

Still need some more weathering and a few details.
Let me know what you think!
And thanks for reading.

Again, sorry for all the spelling errors.
I usually get carried away with writing at the late (early?) night hours before bed.

I love seeing your ork force, thanks for sharing it with us! This is quite a large force, it would be great if you could find someone to play apocalypse with. A lot of great stuff here, but my favorites are your conversions. I love that looted wagon, I hope rules come back for it too. I also really like your converted boy on that trakked bike. First thing I tohught when seeing him was painboy. I'm looking forward to seeing this progress, good luck.

I used to never understand how people could amass that many points of one army and the last body count on my Eldar was 5k as well so I don't even understand me now.

5k of Orks on the other hand... Phew that's a lot! Fair play to you for picking a way to paint that gets them looking good and being well painted, your dread is showing that already!

Can't beat a good looted wagon either, I'm a bit miffed they got did of them because they were the main draws to Orks for me.

Always nice to see an Ork project, especially with great conversion work such as your's!

Cheers guys!

Syro_: Glad you enjoyed my display, appreciate it! We are actually planning to play an apocalypse game based on the Armageddon. Actually we have been planning to play that for years now. Maybe some day.
I have heard some rumors that the new Chapter Approved would contain rules for the Looted Wagon! Glad you also liked all the conversions. They are the most fun to do, if a little time consuming.
Many ideas, so little time.

Tyranid Horde: I'm right with you there pal. When I started my army, I thought that it would never get this big. Things happened and suddenly it got out of hand.
I used to buy a lot of models back in the day, even if I did not have even started painting the ones I already got. Well, I won't make that mistake again, at least on the same scale.
The other armies (Eldar, Dark Eldar and Death Korps of Krieg) have stayed at the 2000pts range. For them I usually only buy models that I actually use in games.
That being said, Orks have so many different kind of lists I'd like to field, so it's nice to have "some" diversity.
The looted wagon was one of the main reasons I started orks, so it would be a bummer to see that go for good.


Pretty much done with the first Deff Dread.
Quick and dirty. Most of the checkers look absolutely horrible when observed up close, but Orks were never much of a painters anyway.









I left the base purposefully undone.
I got the idea of trying to use cork to make cooler bases. I've seen some amazing executions before, so I'd like to see what I can do with that stuff.

First iteration.


The stuff I acquired was a bit flimsy, but we'll see how it turns out!
A friend offered to donate me some of the stuff he has used before, so I will try that too.

I think they have rules for looted wagons in the new Chapter Approved but that's for open play only.

Your dread looks great, let me know how you get on with the cork, I've been meaning to pick up some at some point. Really like the yellowing of the tusks, it adds a lot!

Thanks! A bit sloppy here and there, but does the job alright.

Aww yes! Even if is in open play, I think I can field it in a game or two with my friends. Even if we play by the matched rules, we use the "rule of cool" most of the times.

Followed you on Instagram btw

A couple of days since the last update, but I've been progressing a little every day.

Firstly I managed to finish the cork base. It occurred to me that the material sucks paint like crazy. A couple of layers with a spray primer did the job.
Took a few repaints with different color combinations before I was happy with the result, but luckily as the material likes paint, thickness was not an issue.
When I was relatively happy with the result, I made a couple more.

One for each Deff Dread and the smaller one is for Ghazkhull Thraka.


During the process of rebasing the Dreads, a small catastrophe happened:
I was carefully removing the converted dread from the old base, so I could glue it on top of the new one.
Everything was going fine as I tried to be very careful and cut the seam between the legs and the base small portion at a time, until my hand slipped a bit.

One of the leg joints snapped and in the process both of it's "feet" got torn off.


After a couple of minutes of cursing and regretting my actions I realized that there was a silver lining:
as the joint was so weak, this could have happened during transportation or even worse, during a game.

I strengthened the joints by pinning them and glued them back together.


Turned out just fine. There should be no weak joints anymore, so I can ease my mind a bit.

While doing the bases, I was a bit impatient when waiting for the paint to dry. At this point my table got a bit crowded as I started doing a couple of projects at the same time.
Firstly, I started painting the converted Dread a bit and also got he idea of finishing / repainting all my lootas.

It was actually not a good idea, as I felt that not much progress was done between jumping from one project to another.

Anyway, first the lootas:
As can be seen from the image, all the magnetized weapons were a bit mangled, so those had to be fixed.


Then I inspected all 18 of them to determine if they needed a repaint. Five of them were in decent condition so they could be fielded on the tabletop.
Other 13 were in pretty horrible and / or unfinished state. Had to start thinking of repainting all of those. This was not due to the fact that the older models were "badly painted" or anything like that.
I had painted a bunch of decent models back then. The fact to the matter is that these guys were done so lazily. Some were just basecoated with a tank brush or something, some did not have any of their clothes painted etc.
I've said this before, but if I had a time machine I would go back and slap my young self

I don't have any pictures from the actual progress regarding the Lootas, but I did try to find a way to paint them quickly.
I experimented quite a lot with different skin tones and color choices, so that they would look decent without that much effort.
If I would paint all the Ork infantry with the same quality as I try to do with Eldar, it would take too much time and I would be exhausted.

Lastly regarding the Dreads once again.
Trying to paint the converted one, it was hard for me to choose which panel would be painted with this or that color so I'm trying a different approach: finishing it by painting the arms one by one.
This model actually takes part in the unofficial dakka painting contest, so I'm trying my best to make it look the part.









In the last two images the model is in it's current state: Happily standing on top of a new base without mangled parts.

Also wanted to take one more shot from the latest finished Dread with the new base.


I think those cork bases make a difference.

I got the small photo studio from Ebay (Thanks for Tyranid Horde for the suggestion!) and used in the last couple of images.
Really makes photographing single models much easier, as I don't have to steal all the lights around the house.

Let me know what you think!
Feedback is always very valuable, especially regarding the looted dread.

Amazing progress on those Dreads! They're coming along really quickly and to a high standard! And the bases look good also, although I think the tufts would look better if they were on the soil and not on the concrete.

Lovely orks Ezki, I salute you for getting that many painted in a fashion that looks great.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I used to never understand how people could amass that many points of one army and the last body count on my Eldar was 5k as well so I don't even understand me now.

5k of Orks on the other hand... Phew that's a lot! Fair play to you for picking a way to paint that gets them looking good and being well painted, your dread is showing that already!

Can't beat a good looted wagon either, I'm a bit miffed they got did of them because they were the main draws to Orks for me.

Tell me about it. I just added my latest purchases into my listbuilder spreadsheet on the "calculate the points for the whole collection" tab, and my Eldar came out to nearly 9k. And because I paint so slow, only about 1650 of that is actually painted. Sigh. I simultaneously feel I should stop buying, and also that 10k is so close I may as well carry on!

I'm also irritated at the loss of looted wagons. Like you, I feel they're one of the most fun things about orks. But then, there's nothing stopping you building one anyway just for fun, and against any opponent worth playing they ought to allow it to count-as one of the allowable units.

I for sure would be more than happy to have an Ork player use their crazy looted wagons as whatever fits in the Codex.

Apologies if you already said, but how many points do your Eldar come to?