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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!