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Well, I spent this weekend doing a bit of a redux of all my old models after the weathering on my Outcasts, everyone else was looking a little...pristine which just won't do. It'll probably be completely unnoticeable in pictures, but they look much improved in the wraithbone, so to speak

Warning, this will probably be a bit image-heavy...















I also found some time to go and do a little touch-up on my Corsairs. Again, probably not really noticeable but a little weathering on the reds and golds, some deeper washes on the coats and some drybrushing and a heavy nuln oil wash on the feathers.














My two squads of Reavers are up next for a little weathering then my Malevolents, and there's another two squads, another Baron and 5 Balestrikes awaiting paint. If they don't have rules as of 8th I don't really care. The 7th Corsair codex was a masterpiece, so I'll just keep going on as if it's coming back...

I also had the idea to try the technique for weathering (basically the same as a rough drybrushed edge-highlight, but using a darker colour rather than a lighter one, and working upwards) with Blood for the Blood God on my Dark Eldar. I was originally thinking that it might be too much blood...but then I thought this is the Dark Eldar we're talking about. 'Too much blood' probably doesn't register anywhere near their concerns...
























Last, but by no means least, are my exodites again, just a little weathering to make the bone look a little older and the cloth a little dirtier. Reminded me just how damn proud of these I am it's also given me a little inspiration of how to move forward with these guys as a warband a little, so expect a couple more updates in future!

The extra weathering really helped add some depth to the models dude, I'd be very happy with the results. The blood use on your DE is a great choice, I normally fear about using too much blood as well but for DE it just seems to fit so perfectly. I especially like the archon in this fashion, the amount of blood and how it was applied coupled with the pose he's in really makes it look like he's standing out there literally being rained on in blood and soaking it all in, feeling his old body being invigorated by the spilled life-fluids of his foes. It's a very emotive model that greatly captures the running themes of the DE. He's by far my favourite for most improved model with these touch ups.

Thanks dude! I'm really glad you like them

I'm with you on the Archon being the one who's come out on top out of the whole exercise. I'm beyond chuffed with how he came out

I always imagine his model being in the middle of a deep inhale in the midst of the carnage, savouring the metallic tang of blood in his jaded olfactory nerves.

It actually stemmed from my own experience (in a non-psychopathic way, I promise...). I've got two main loves in my life, scifi (of which 40k is at the fore) and cars (primarily of the classic variety). The first time I went to Goodwood Festival of Speed I walked through the gates, heard the distant roar of 60s race engines, smelt the tang of uncatalysed race fuel blowing on the breeze and just drank it all in for a moment thinking 'yes...this is a place that I belong'.

That's how I imagine Dark Eldar feel amidst the carnage of a battlefield, and what I wanted to bring across with my Archon's model

That's an impressive body of work. Just a ton of cool models.

That description perfectly suits the DE on savouring the carnage. You truly are a wordsmith of exquisite skill.

Thanks Youwashock eventually I suppose I'll be able to make an army out of them

I'm glad you think so I_F I do try

Last update from the spate of hobbying I did on the weekend. Improved Thaegr with the same trick I used on the Hedge-Witch Maegwen of replacing the Glade Guard lower legs with Guardian legs to get him the proper height. It's also had the happy coincidence of fixing his pose slightly. Previously from some angles it looked like he was overbalancing and about to fall backwards, but not any more

Sadly, it's also come along with a demotion. He's no longer an Exodite Lord, but a warrior in Raodruin's retinue. However, that's freed me up somewhat to do some more exodite warriors to a similar level as him so expect some soon

Thaegr, Hart-Thorn, Son of Kurnous. Hound of the Hunt.




The great horned xeno looked down upon the emperor's faithful. Its form looked familiar enough to pass for human under the vastly expanded meaning used in the 41st millennium. It was the eyes that gave it away. No human had eyes like that. Staring into them, the guard realised just how alien the Eldar truly were.




"Long have we tolerated your presence in this place," the merciless creature toned. "Hunting your kind has proved remarkably enjoyable sport through the years. However, yet again your ignorance has provided the conduit for the Plaguefather to access our worlds. Regrettably, our sport must come to an end. Your presence here has outlived its entertainment."




I've also come up with a little fluff for Raodruin, playing on the idea of him being a Soul Drinker (a forgotten Eldar practice of consuming the souls of murder victims to replenish your vitality and increase your power), and a little of the ideas I've had for what precisely happens when you murder a race's warp-gods.



With no small amount of difficulty these days, Raodruin called up one of the souls of his victims from the hazy miasma swirling within him. Old, clouded, befuddled thing. One of his earliest hunts. Before the Fall, even. From what his own ruminating thought processes could decipher, the ancient murdered soul had once been somewhat of an expert in the matters of warp-Gods. Not that its word could be trusted. It was older than he was, and had experienced the slow gradual decline into general confusion that afflicted all stored souls of the Eldar.

From what he could understand of the incoherant ramblings, the hooks that bound warp-Gods to their mortals appeared to travel in both directions. Warp-Gods were reflections of the beings which created them, but they also embodied aspects of them. Remove one, and the hooks would leave ragged wounds in the consciousness of a race. They knew. Apparently the Eldar had tried it a few times on some of the vermin-species. It was amusing, in a way. Like breaking a wheel off a clockwork toy so it could only spin in circles.

Raodruin thought he could hazily remember himself, if remember was even the right word. He wasn't sure how many of his memories were his own and how many were the accreted thoughts of his victims bleeding through into his consciousness. The moment his Gods died, so had parts of his soul and the soul of every other Eldar in perpetuity. It had been horrendously painful on a level only a soul could feel. Yet, it was impossible to quantify what had been lost. In what way they were broken. Conspicuous only in its comparative absence. It was as if you were a spider, and some higher being had removed all but three of your legs. You hadn't the capacity to understand what had happened, nor the slightest possibility of regaining what was lost. All you knew is that you were struggling to escape, unstable and skittering desperately away. That's what the Eldar were now. Three-legged spiders scrabbling around among the other insects of the galaxy. There were Eldar for generations who had never even known they were missing something. Never known what might and majesty their collective soul was lacking.

Ynnead, however, proved intriguing. Could it be possible to replace what most could not see was missing? Did Raodruin even want whatever this...dead god...offered to plug the gap? Provided that was even the mechanism by which it functioned. On that matter the poor faded soul was no use whatsoever. Either that or he wasn't able to comprehend what it was saying with his own addled mind.

The guardian legs work great on him, the pose is dynamic and coupled with that axe it makes an elder model, usually thin and nimble, look dominating and larger than he probably is. A very cool trick to the eye I'd say.

Thanks dude I suppose it's a similar trick to Hoplites' head crests, giving them more visual bulk and making them larger than they appear. The horns, axe, shoulderpads and swarm of bugs probably serve that purpose

Worth remembering for future modelling projects!

Great stuff again Ynead, but that Talos conversion is creepy. Keep it coming, love your work.

Fantastic conversions Ynneadwraith. The background stories are a nice touch as well.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks a ton guys

Glad you like the Talos considering they're creepy to start with i'm very pleased!

Glad you like the fluff tok Cap

I originally planned to get my Storm Guardians painted, but the exodite bug's bitten me again...



Nuadhuin, Wrothspear, Son of Kurnous. Hound of the Hunt.





All Eldar, by dint of their heightened experience of the world, are vulnerable to the harrowing effects of warfare. The warriors of each eldar fragment must deal with this each time they descend into battle. Through meditative training and psychological dissociation, the Craftworld Eldar construct a 'War Mask' that can be donned and shed at will. The Dark Eldar revel in the slaughter, and need no protection. The Exodites, through wild rituals and psychotropic drugs descend into an animalistic state, embodying the feral predators that stalk their worlds. Their battles aren't fought like the careful orchestras of tacticians, or the grinding stalemates of attrition. Theirs is a feral fury, and a cunning borne of intelligent minds put to predatory purposes.





Once to awaken the wolves of Kurnous
Twice to sharpen the blade
Thrice to hearken the hunt to us
Where bloody murder be made



I've also come up with a bit of an idea for a 500pt (490pt) army for these (with models doing double-duty as INQ28 warbands and a 40k army). These Hounds of the Hunt will be counts-as Striking Scorpions. Raodruin will be a counts-as Visarch. Then I've got two squads of Hunters/Kabalites with Blasters, a squad of Howling Banshees and two Clawed Fiends (wait 'til you see what I've done for them!).

Might take a while if each model is as heavily converted as these guys, but 500pts isn't a terribly lofty goal so hopefully not too long

Very impressive work. I think for DE, too much blood is like too much dakka for orks. Something that can be strived for, but never achieved.

Love all the little fluff snippets. They really help bring everything to life.

That pose is perfect for him, it really does look like he's mid throw on that spear. Another great job dude.

Thanks guys!

I'm with you Nev it's like too many skulls for Khornates I'm starting to run out of fluff snippets for exodites :S better write some more!

That pose took a lot of farting about with a broom handle in real life! If you look at pictures of javelin throwers they're usually taking a run-up and look really odd, so I thought I'd go for a more graceful eldar-look for a spear throw. Turns out you can get a bit more power from a slow jog if you raise your knee and then rotate downwards so you sort of stamp into the ground as you throw (but your accuracy goes to pot a bit). Seems like it wouldn't be a problem for an eldar

Plus, it actually fit with the bits I had

Your dedication to the converting cause is amazing Ynneadwraith, doin that kinda work to get the pose right is exactly why your conversions come out with such believable personality.

Haha glad it's worth it must have looked more than a little strange to anyone looking on

They're Angvai I think, by the look of their banners. Belligerant warmongerers. In collusion with the cloners of the Dark Kin to bolster their forces, which has had a rather marked effect on their outlook. They maintain little of the reverance for Eldar life that other craftworlders hold. Why would you when you can just grow more? Be careful of them, cousin. Dangerous folk to associate with...or be within range of, come to think of it.







Deserters? If caught in the act they're shot on sight. Either that or sacrificed to wake the Avatar. Alas, there are enough of us who are…uneasy…with our treatment of our vat-born clones to mean that if we catch them after they've deserted it's a little less straight forwards. Usually, they're sent on suicide missions. Sometimes, if they come to us with something of value, they're pardoned, provided they continue to be useful. Either way, they have to prove that they are worth the life we have given them.







Yes, it's despicable, but what precisely would you have us do? Our world teetered on the brink. Unlike Iyanden, we weren't blessed with ranks upon ranks of wraith-shells with which to guard our survivors. Our pact with the Dark Kin has provided us with numbers, but numbers which are ill-suited to craftworld life. They must be forged anew in the crucible of war, taught stricture and discipline. Once they have proven themselves, they are granted citizenship, and all the safety the craftworld provides. The blood of a hundred thousand Eldar stains our hands, but a hundred thousand more survive because of us.





I suppose on some level they know that they are murderers. Why else would they adorn themselves with the bloody hand of Khaine?





Now I remember why I moved to painting models on a more individual basis! I'm just not cut out for batch-painting :S although saying that I'm dead proud of these guys that little bit of extra weathering really hits a sweet spot of what I was after with making Craftworlders look a little grittier than your usual clean-cut paint schemes (not that there's anything wrong with those mind, just not my style).

In a fit of masochism I've also decided to start naming my dudes on the back of their bases, purely because I really like the idea adds a great deal of immediately visible personality to a warband which for now I feel is worth the hand cramp!



It's also given me the opportunity to link in the fluff of my Outcasts with the Craftworld they were cast out from remember this bit of fluff?

Why did I desert? I'll tell you why. They didn't even give me a name. 'Warborn', is what they called me. One of thousands upon thousands, dragged from the vats of Commorragh, dressed in the uniform of Craftworld life and thrown into the meat-grinder of their pointless wars. I gave myself my name the day I deserted. Do you know what Ilgaith means? No longer faceless... - Ilgaith who Wanders

Well, I've followed that through



Next on the painting table is some more exodites which I can't wait to share. Got some rather creepy ideas for what just how grimdark the exodite world of Selesti has become...

Fantastic job on those storm guardians dude, the wych legs pair very nicely with the Guardian torsos. The weathering compliments your style very nicely. Kind of makes me want to start a small Corsair force...

Thanks dude!

I'd love to see your take on a Corsair force it's a lot easier than it seems to just mash Craftworld, Harlequin and Dark Eldar bits together and come out with something that looks really cool

While doing a Corsair force would be awesome I just simply don't have the time unfortunately. My poor DE force is barely getting finished at all right now and that project isn't where I want it to be yet.

Warborn - great metal band name or song name Totally robbing that

Great models again, and really like the fluff. Especially the way you have them broken up with pictures. Reads really well and a great narrative you've got going

More good stuff. Solid additions to the force and the lore.

Thanks guys!

@I_F Yeah I get the downsides of multiple projects especially when time's tight. Despite having 22 pages of project log and a pace that's actually surprised me a little I still don't have an even halfway functional army precisely because I'm doing about 8 at once managed to rationalise that one by saying that the 'project' itself is worldbuilding rather than army building

@Boundless Apparently I have a penchant for metal names 'buy Warborn now, the latest album by The Khaine's Ravens'

Should start a band if I had any ounce of musical talent

Glad you like the fluff too, and glad it's readable it's one of my favourite things about 40k, but even myself who loves it gets bogged down with some of the essays that people write. It's great for getting ideas crystallised, and I've done my fair share of War and Peace analogues, but it's not exactly a reader-friendly medium...

So I took a leaf out of the 40k codices themselves Show, don't tell. If you do tell, don't tell much. Give people a little flavour about what stuff's like and let them fill in the background with their own imaginations

Thanks Youwashock eventually there will be a 'force' for them to be part of

Selesti was once akin to any other maiden world, a lush and verdant paradise.

No longer.

The gifts of the Plaguefather had reaped their toll, and even after he had been expunged the exodites struggled to recover their shattered ecologies. Their last-ditch ploy to stem the foetid tide had collapsed their webway gates, dashing the hopes of outside aid. Desperate measures were taken to ensure their survival.



See those insects buzzing yonder? They are not flesh and blood, but little wraithbone constructs, flitting about like clockwork mayflies. Our ancestors sung them into being. Created to balance our stricken biome, to replace those vital functions that were lost, and to forge anew a world adapted to our desertified conditions.



In ancient days we were capable of giving life and intelligence almost an equal to our own. Those days have long since passed. These little clockwork constructs we can produce are little more than children's toys. They are not enough to maintain our world, or our people.

We rediscovered the great life-engines of our ancestors, lying dormant beneath the barren sands. We discovered that channelling our world-spirit through them would imbue them with life oncemore. We crafted new bodies for our departed souls, amalgams of flesh and wraithbone in reverance of our lost fauna. Upon death, we are reborn as the beasts of the wild, our minds shaped to suit.





So it is that we hunt our ancestors through our world. A despicable desecration of our dead, they say. They do not see the honour it brings the Horned God. For is not everything, even eldar, prey to something?



But the life-engines are fickle. We discovered their purpose was not to create a haven as we had once believed. Late we learnt that their purpose was to create a jewel to be viewed from afar, splendid in its ferocious beauty. It is not just prey that stalks our skeletal land. Predators lurk deep within its reaches. Rare is the eldar that can reach their minds now, so changed are they by the process.





Thought I'd have a go at a slightly different way of worldbuilding/showing new dudes I've made won't do it for everything, but offering little teasers of new models alongside fluff is definitely a fun way of telling a story here's the new models in a clearer set of pics

Thraoren, Huntfather, Son of Kurnous. Hound of the Hunt










Counts-as Striking Scorpion Exarch in 40k (I gather Biting Blades are in in 8th) or an exodite warrior in Inquisimunda/INQ28.

Exodite Hunters














Counts as Kabalite Warriors in 40k (needs a Blaster and a Sybarite seeing as they're free now), or ganger-equivalents for INQ28/Shadow War (if they ever release non-Wyches).

The Beast that was once Muirnuil








Counts-as Clawed Fiend in 40k (or Khymaerae/Ur-Ghul/Grotesque depending on how the mood takes me...)

And finally the Exodite Warhost of Selesti so far





Approaching an army! Just need to finish the squad of Hunters/Kabalite and add another, finish the squad of Hounds of the Hunt/Scorpions, do another Beast/Clawed Fiend and sort a squad of counts-as Howling Banshees

Hope you like the fluff too. I really wanted to turn up the grimdark with exodites but I was wondering how I might take it further than I already have. Inspired by the Thorne Moons stuff over on Iron Sleet where there's a whole ecology of twisted techno-biological humans, and the whole 'there are no wolves on Fenris' thing I thought 'what if Selesti is to all intents and purposes a dead world, or at least inches away from death, populated solely by Eldar and the weird clockwork wraithbone techno-biological creatures they've created in a desperate attempt to keep themselves alive?'. Things that blur the line between technological artefacts, biological beings and eldar themselves.

I'm currently weighing up whether there's any non-eldar life on Selesti at all. Whether the few animals left are treated with reverence and a source of status among the Lords of Selesti, or if basically everything is dead apart from the eldar and they've created (unintentionally twisted) techno-biological facsimiles to replace their ecosystem.

Another neat thought is that when they invade another planet they can effectively 'Selesti-form' it by setting up one of their life engines and a rudimentary infinity circuit. Even dead worlds would be fair game

Oh, it also means that every single one of them qualifies as a cannibal. Savage indeed...

Those things are adorable! Make some more!

Haha thanks man

I do plan on making a bit of a menagerie. They're really fun to make

I love those constructs. You have so many great ideas I need to steal...

Some fantastic fluff to accompany the new models, very unique and intriguing. I think you hit the nail on the head with the grimdark feel here, terrible living conditions, little to no hope of improvements, survival at any cost but just enough of a chance at a future to keep one moving forward to see what comes next. The force is growing very nicely too, great job.

Amazing as always. Just enough backstory. For some reason they remind me those little aliens from Men in Black that drink the coffee. They look mischievous!

All your stuff is great, but I think you need some heavy support. I think something like the Drycha Hamadreth might convert nicely into some sort of tank or heavy walker, just saying!