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Hi there folks,

I decided to kick things off with the two most recently completed models from my Tau collection. In the army's fluff, there was a miscommunication between the Water Caste administrators and the Earth Caste engineers. As a result, the Fire Caste warriors ended up having their wargear prepared for forest and jungle environments. However the fire warriors subsequently finding themselves fighting on a mostly urbanized war zone. I painted the models using a basic forest camo scheme, then I did the bases in urban grey with assorted debris and rocks lying about.

I couldn't resist adding a Riptide to the army. I liked everything about the new model, but when the Wraithknight came out I felt a bit slighted in the height of the model. I ended up mounting the Riptide so that it's standing on a pair of rocks (fresh from the Rocky Mountains!). I thought it bumped the height up nicely and it also showcased the balance and maneuverability of the massive suit.





My newest addition is Commander Shadowsun. I liked her fluff ever since she debuted, and I've definitely enjoyed how she's been developed in the most recent edition. She also holds the distinction of being the first finecast model I've ever worked with. Until now I've only ever worked with plastic or pewter. The mold seemed alright, but there was a great deal of flash that needed to be removed. Thankfully none of the removal revealed smaller gaps. I did find that some of her antennae were bent, but I managed to straighten them out by running the part under hot water and flexing it into shape. The rabbit ears on the accompanying shield drones were also horribly bent, and my attempts to fix them just didn't work out. I plan to convert a new pair (since they're experimental drones after all) using assorted Tau bitz I have in the leftovers box.






I'll do my best to ensure the next series of photos are taken with better back drops and lighting.

August was consumed by this Eldar project that I put together. My original Eldar army was an Ulthwe army that I sold off in various pieces except for the parts I really loved. I ended up keeping a Seer Council including Eldrad Ulthran, a Wraithlord, a squad of Howling Banshees and a Wave Serpent. When the new Eldar codex came out I didn't want to rebuild the army. I also didn't think that those three items would fetch a very good price if I sold them off on their own. I'm not a pro painter, after all. I found a solution when I was combing through my leftover models and found a plethora of Wood Elf models that weren't being used. As a result, I put together and painted an army I call Reclaimers of the Lost Craftworld.

The story starts with Eldrad Ulthran's future scrying determining a terrible loss of Eldar lives would occur without spirit stones to house the wayward souls. This in turn would give the Great Enemy a surplus of power with which to torment the Eldar. Eldrad was able to determine that the loss would occur because of the ultimate destruction of a Craftworld thought lost in the original Fall. In order to find this lost craftworld, Eldrad turned to the Seer Council of Alaitoc. They agreed with the master seer's vision of the future, and using their knowledge of the webway the small excursion set forth. Accompanying the Seers was a small bodyguard of Howling Banshees and a Wraithlord imbued with the spirit stone of a pathfinder.




Between the ancient pathfinder's knowledge and the Seer Council's divinations the party navigated the webway to the core of the galaxy. After braving the perils of the rupturing and fragmented pathways the Eldar emerged from a ruined and barely functioning portal upon the Lost Craftworld. They found the craftworld in a dire state. The spires and pathways were all shattered and overgrown with wraithbone creeper vines and red flora. It was not long before the Seers made contact with the local Eldar, immediately confronted by gate watchers. Not unlike the Alaitoc Rangers, these gate watchers told the seers of the need to watch the webway portal for the immersion of daemons. Rather than the expected blight of the Great Enemy though, the gate watchers explained they were more commonly beset by the plague-ridden servants of Nurgle. The gate watchers quickly arranged for a meeting with the Seers of the Lost Craftworld, and there was much rejoicing as the splintered race grew closer together.





Together, the Seers were able to combine their might and determine that while the Lost Craftworld was stable for now, eventually its systems would decay beyond their current state. While it was capable of defying the immense strains of gravity in the core for the moment, eventually the Lost Craftworld would plunge into one of the black holes within the core and become lost. Alaitoc offered their cousins a refuge, and the Eldar of the Lost Craftworld began to depart their ancestral home. Eldrad and the Seers also offered to evacuate the craftworld's infinity circuit, only to find that it had been broken and nearly consumed by wraithbone tendrils worming across its surface. The source of this strange corruption lead to the craftworld's shrine of Khaine.



Needing to understand why the Avatar of Khaine would act in such a way, the ritual of the Young King was performed and the shrine was opened. Instead of the fiery titan of the Avatar of Khaine, the figure that emerged was far more incandescent and beautiful. A shard of the lost Eldar pantheon resided within the Lost Craftworld representing the doomed Goddess of Life, Isha. This Avatar said nothing, ignoring the Seers interrogations and spreading luminous blue wings. The Avatar led its people to the webway gate and passed through it. The Avatar vanished within the webway, but the Eldar returned to Alaitoc without incident. To this dark day, the Avatar of Isha has been thought lost to whatever fate befell the true goddess.






Here's the whole army on display.




Some closer shots of the Wood Elf Glade Guard. They could be used as Guardians or Dire Avengers. I remember reading about enemies with 'ceremonial bows' in one of the Horus Heresy books (I think it was Horus Rising) and I thought that if humans could do it, surely Eldar can do the same. I didn't like how there were no bow strings on the bows, so I put them in by drilling through the drawing hands where necessary, and then tying a piece of black thread to the top end of the bow. I'm not great with knots, so a dab of super glue on the top and bottom keeps the strings nice and taut. The arrows are made of lengths of paper clip.




If you're going to run Guardians, you're going to want to have Heavy Weapons Platforms in the squad. But with no weapons bitz left over and no way to purchase the platforms individually any more, I decided to convert these substitutes. I thought that since the Lost Craftworld already had a primal look on account of the Wood Elf figures, I thought their heavy weapons would be unique and primal as well. As such, the complex weapon systems have been constructed into these simple looking devices, giving them a magical mystique. I imagine that they're controlled by certain musical tones, which the attending Guardians can do through their wraith-horns.

Very nice work you have there, I especially like the camo Tau.

Thanks for the compliments! I do plan to post more Tau once I have the time.

In the mean time, here's a project from a long way back. A buddy of mine and I teamed up in order to paint an All Cavalry Bretonnian Army back in the 7th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy. He painted a great deal of the Knights of the Realm, five of the Mounted Yeomen, six grail knights, six questing knights, a converted Bretonnian Lord, and King Louen Leonceour on Hippogryph. I handled the Knights Errant, the rest of the Knights of the Realm, the Pegasus Knights, two mages, two nobles, and a battle standard bearer. Unfortunately he got New Army-itis and ended up bailing on the project before finishing the questing knights and lords. Nonetheless, I managed to complete my half and assemble an army that I really enjoyed playing at tourneys.

Alas, 8th Edition killed my enjoyment of Fantasy, and I never felt the need to finish the army. As this is the finished Showcase, I won't show close ups of the unfinished minis. You can see them lurking in the back of some of the group shots though, and hopefully the quality of the upfront minis makes that alright.






My Bretonnian Lord made using the Green Knight model. I thought it was a great model, but I wasn't so thrilled with the Green Knight's special rules. I seem to recall giving him the excellent rerollable armor, as well as the Virtue that allowed him to Killing Blow monstrous creatures. I only remember it working one time though. It was when he was challenged by a Great Unclean One of Nurgle. I can still imagine his bellow as he spurred his warhorse into the tremendous expanse of plague ridden flesh and the gasp of horror that arose from his army as he was seemingly engulfed by a massive tide of filth and hidden from sight. Then the scene of him exploding from the pustulent abomination, sending its corpulent flesh raining across the land while he shone with the holy power of the Lady of the Lake, and seemed far cleaner than when he had plunged in.


I have mixed feelings about this model. I love the design on the banner and the dynamic pose of the model. I absolutely hate that it's a huge chunk of pewter on the end of a thin pewter rod. I kept having to bend the banner into an upright position, and every time I do I can feel the pewter get one step closer to snapping.


I wanted a Noble to go in the Knights Errant unit to act as a moderating force for their Impulsiveness. I thought that a woman would be the best moderating force for that, and while I had two Mages already, I didn't think they would do well in a unit of Knights Errant. So I built this entirely plastic knight as a stand in. She's built using the typical Bretonnian Warhorse for a mount. The legs, arms and lance come from the Empire Command Sprue, and the Shield is a standard Bretonnian Knights of the Realm shield. The torso is a Dark Elf Female Spear-elf torso with the shoulder pads cut down, and the head is a Wood Elf Glade Guard head. I remember giving her the Killing Blow lance and having her dishing out challenges whenever she was in combat.


I hate having doubles of character models in my army (unless my army fluff says they're twins, but I haven't had to fall back on that yet.). Fortunately this was back when you could Mail Order classic models, so I ordered an old Bretonnian Mage which you can see on the left. I really enjoyed the huge poofy hat she was wearing, and I couldn't see her in anything but pink. It was also my first attempt doing make up on faces.


I thought the older model has a bit more of a crone-ish face than the newer Mage model does, so I'd usually give her an extra magic level if I had the points to spare.


The mighty Grail Knights. I remember these guys charging a much larger unit of Knights of Chaos, breaking their backs and making them humble before running them down. Some atrocious dice rolling on the part of the Chaos Knights helped matters.


The Mounted Yeomen. I imagined that they were favored peasants hired on by my Bretonnian lord, so I painted my five in a similar red to the Lord's red to represent their allegiance. The other five were painted in the more randomized fashion by my friend, so I just said they were outsourced peasantry.


Bretonnian Knights. The Knights Errant are on the Left, and the Knights of the Realm are on the right. The Knights Errant are either helmless, since the plastic bretonnian heads seem rather youthful, or lack the distinctive helmet crests of the other knights. We used a variety of water transfers to try and increase the diversity while also varying the colors of the heraldry. In addition to the Bretonnian Knight Water Transfers, we also used extra Space Marine and Chaos Space Marine water transfers.


The rest of the Knights of the Realm, with the Pegasus Knights in the background. I didn't get any clear shots of the Pegasus Knights because I painted them first out of the whole army. I settled on a yellow and black color scheme based on the US Air Cavalry heraldry. Of course, this was back when painting yellow was a tremendous pain to do, and going over it with black was a recipe for disaster. I managed to get as far as the bar across the shield, but after that turned into a debacle the thought of freehanding a horse on top of it all was just anathema. So I moved on to the rest of the project and didn't paint any yellow heraldry until later on, when the Foundation paints first hit.

I hoped you enjoyed the Bretonnians. I have a few extra shots of the unfinished models in my gallery. I'm particularly pleased with a Bretonnian Lord that was converted out of Archaon. Alas, I never had the inclination to paint such a glorious model, but maybe some day I will. Like if the Bretonnians get a new army book.

Mate thats very, very cool

Thanks very much for the compliment!

Today I decided to share the neighbors of Bretonnia. My Wood Elves!

This is the fourth fantasy army I had painted (the Bretonnians were the fifth). At this point I had completed two flavors of High Elves, one standard army and one army that was based off the Storm of Chaos Seaguard List. I had also completed an Ogre Kingdoms army. Then the new Wood Elf models were released and I absolutely adored them. I had a grand old time with the army essentials, and I got to try out all the different units available until I settled on something that I enjoyed playing.



The whole army on Parade in decisively Not Forested Area.



From front to back: A Wood Elf Mage (because of his unique hair style, staff, and the orange spite he's toting around, I call him the Pumpkin Mage), A Waywatcher Lord, a Squad of Waywatchers, a Squad of 10 Glade Riders lead by a Wood Elf Noble on a Battle Stag.



A unit of Eternal Guard, a unit of Wardancers, and two units of Glade Guard in the back. When I had started the army I had wanted Eternal Guard right from the start. I had built an army around a solid core of Eternal Guard right from the beginning. But because of GW's old release week by week philosophy, the Eternal Guard were coming out three weeks after the initial army and army book release. I ended up converting my own plastic Eternal Guard using the legs from Dark Elf Spearmen, along with torsos, arms, weapons, and heads from the Glade Guard and Glade Rider sprues. I can only assume that these were stored somewhere else that was not with the army, since I'm positive I would never sell them. But alas, they weren't present or accounted for during the army photo.



The forest spirit contingent of the army: Dryads, my converted Treeman, the Treekin, and the Wild Riders of Kurnous. More on the Treeman in a few moments.



A closer look at the Wild Riders and Treekin.



The command contingent of the army. From left to right: Waywatcher Lord, Pumpkin Mage, Hawkstag Lord, War dog, Orion: The King in the Woods, War dog, Wardancer Lord, Charging Altered Lord, and Branchwraith Drycha.




Some close ups on the assorted commanders.






This was actually the last model that I needed to paint for this army. The King in the Woods has slept through the entire lifespan of the army and hasn't actually taken to the battlefield with them before. I liked the model and the fluff around him. I even bought the classic Ariel model to complete the line (although now she's in the Eldar army above, obviously). Yet I only got around to painting the King over August. I'm not sure why that is, but now that he's done I'm happy with how he turned out. But while he's an awesome model that's quite distinctive, I don't consider him the centerpiece in the army.







That centerpiece honor goes to the Treeman. Out of all of the released models, I liked the Treeman the least. It looked more like a pile of logs than something cohesive with the cool looking Dryads. But the stats on the model were amazing, and I had a great deal of fun playing with it. Every army should have a monstrous creature this good at the core. It wasn't until much later on, after watching the original Evil Dead, that I had an idea on how to spice up that pile of logs.

The fluff said that Treemen were powerful tree spirits that were bound to a particularly ancient tree. I thought that I'd represent a 'growing' Treeman, by showing it in the process of absorbing the smaller and less powerful tree spirits. You could already see Tree Spites all over the base and legs of the model, and they already seemed like they were a part of the model simply by casting. After rooting through my left over Dryad bitz, I was able to produce four more Dryads that I attached to the Treeman. I also used a variety of the left over hands, roots, leaves, and branches to 'restrain' the dryads and show how they were starting to grow together into the mass of the Treeman. I'm delighted by how it's turned out.