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So I let the updates (and painting) slip as per usual, but no big deal, progress has been slow but steady.

For this round of Eldar (Aeldari, Space Elves, whatever) I am doing a polar opposite to my previous Eldar army that was a Ulthwe theme (Guardians and Psyker) although in my own Craftworld scheme. This time I am doing a Biel-Tan inspired Swordwind (So all aspect warriors). Now Eldar was my first love when it came to 40k and I have an EXTENSIVE collection of older metal models hiding under a layer of dust and neglect, so I am going to slowly dust them off and give them the love they deserve.

To that end first up is a squad of Fire Dragons, nothing like dumping them next to a tank and watching it burn. I can't exactly remember when these were painted, but I think I was still in school so it would be around 25 years ago at least they got their first coat of paint...



A tad garish and lacking any real defining highlighting details. Now a note on colour choices. I want to give each Aspect it's own identity, but I will try to include my Craftworld colours in a subtle way to tie them to the other Eldar army. So I will try to sneak a little green and purple on them where I can.


And this is where they have ended up...a lot brighter and bolder.


I was a tad disappointed that I didn't have a Fire Pike Exarch, but kind of reason if something can stand up to 9 Fire Dragons one Fire Pike isn't going to tip the balance and a Flamer is a nice deterrent from getting charged.


I think the clean up has gone reasonably well, they have a sort of 80's/90's cartoonish element that I am finding kind of endearing.


The green is a bit strange on the Yellow, but I think it links nicely into the Craftworld colours so I won't be changing it yet.

I am debating whether to paint a Wave Serpent (or three! The only non-Aspect part of the Army) or continue with another Aspect, Howling Banshee's perhaps?

Thanks for reading.

Well I am at it again, never seem to have the time to drop by and update this. But progress has been slow and I have been busy. The major painting achievements have been to paint the inside of the house. My Wife decided she needed a change and five rooms a corridor and three feature walls later it is done. Happy Wife and then I got some piece and quiet to get some small scale painting done.

First of all I have continued with the Eldar and managed to knock off the unit of Howling Banshees. This is what they looked like before I started the revamping process...



Not sure what I was going for all those years ago, but they never quite looked finished. I do like the Purple hair and Green tabards as the tie in to the Craftworld colours so that was going to remain.

And this is how they ended up:


Not totally happy with how the blades ended up, I used an ink and should have thinned it more as it really ended up pooling in a much rougher way than I had anticipated.


But much happier with the armour and think the purple and green work well as a whole.


I quite like this version of the Howling Banshees, but I never liked how 'heavy' the Exarch looks compared to her squad.


A shot of the Banshees and Dragons, I think they are quite 'traditional' Aspect schemes and pop nicely.

Next up is a squad of Dire Avengers, in all the years I have collected my Eldar, I have never actually painted a squad of these guys, I always just relied on massed Guardians, but this army will be getting two squads of them. So no before pictures for these guys, but I will be sticking to the blue and white as is traditional. Thinking green guns and purple mohawks to tie into the Craftworld though...

The other painting progress is I have FINALLY finished the Spartan Assault Tank for the Death Guard I have been doing for a friend. It is the last model of the army (I will get an army shot when I get a moment) and has been sitting collecting dust for far too long, so I pulled my proverbial finger out and finished it off.


It's a massive model and I tried to add some gribbly elements to tie it into the modern 40k Deathguard Aesthetic.


A lot of parts were donated from the extra bits from the Mortarion kit.


It's a pity you can't actually jam a Terminator in here.....


All the doors and weapons are movable still (hence why that side door has a gap...)


It's dirty, it's grimy and thank god it is finished.


Originally I had a resin version of this tank to do and it's what kicked the motivation out of me as the kit was absolutely terrible. It was taking so much effort to assemble it and when I heard a plastic version was on the way I spoke to my mate and we shelved the resin one, waiting for the plastic. I had sculpted a lot of the detail onto the resin one already so I got the chisel out and carved them off and transferred them onto the plastic.


Everyone needs tentacles.


The three vehicles of the army, a Plaguecrawler, Spartan and humble Rhino.

I also have a distraction I may paint as for Christmas I got the Battletech: A Game of Armoured Combat with its 8 Battlemechs, I am thinking of dividing them into two Lances and painting them for two different Houses. Anyone have any thoughts of schemes?

Thanks for reading.

It has been far, far too long since I popped through and made some rambling comments with some random pictures to accompany them. So I managed to motivate myself to wander in and time to throw some randomness around....

I have been plodding along with painting, nowhere near as much as I would have liked. But life has gotten very busy and I have been allowing computers to suck up too much of my free time.

First up in the finished pile is some Dire Avengers for the Eldar army that is currently in progress.


I have gone with a pretty traditional scheme of blue and white, although the Craftworld colours of green and purple have made themselves known just so you don't forget where these noble warriors hail from.


I didn't have a suitable weapon (or shimmershield) for the Exarch, so a short rummage in the bits box and a few odd pieces of metal and I have a passable setup, probably not as useful as other Exarch options, but due to the short range of Shuriken weapons it is likely they will end up in combat eventually.


I have another squad of Avengers in this army and I am debating reversing the colour scheme to differentiate the squads, but I am also wary since there is already so much colour in the army that it could be even more distracting and all that white could be horrible.


Glad to have finished them, hope to have the Dark Reapers finished very soon (I did only need to paint 2 from bare metal and clean up the other 5 so hope to have another update soon).


Onto something more random, my first attempt at a Battlemech. I call this Catapult 'The Bumblebee' I wanted to play around with painting it slightly differently to the standard base/shade/highlight, it looks a little rougher in the close ups than it does in the hand, but overall quite happy with the result.


I tossed around painting the 2 lances that I have (from the starter box) in two different schemes. But I have always liked the idea of a Mechwarrior mercenary company after my love affair with Mech Commander so have settled on the idea to paint each mech as a unique scheme to show the Mercenary's are not really unified in their efforts.


I started with very little plan for this model, apart from the initial thoughts of yelllow and he kind of developed from there. Not as much black as I was originally intending, but I figure there is enough to provide details.


I figure that the ostentatious paint job doesn't matter as the victims of the Catapult rarely actually get a look at it before they are bombarded by a hail of missiles. Next up I think I will do the locust, but can't decide if I should do it green or brown...

Thanks for reading.

Seems I have more to show (or at least a tiny bit).

The next addition to the Eldar army is a unit of Dark Reapers. Now I must confess that five of these models were painted many, many years ago (in excess of fifteen I would guess). So I needed to try my best to match another two to the rest of the unit as I am still all these years later quite taken with the paint scheme of these guys.


The two "new" recruits are the two with no 'rocks' on their bases, they are on the far left and right in this picture. They aren't perfect reproductions, but they are close.


Funny note, the new Reaper on the right I had the body, but no launcher, so with a bit of greenstuff I made a mould off the other launcher and then used a bit of polyester resin to cast a replacement for the missing one. It holds up to scrutiny pretty well, but up close the detail is a tiny bit 'soft'.


Of all the variations of the Dark Reapers that have been available, I think these are definitely the ones I like the most. I just think they embody the sinister and dark aspect of the Dark Reapers backstory better than a lot of the other options.


You can see how old these models are as I haven't washed the dust that they have accumulated off of them, it is very obvious in this photo from the back.

My next squad for the Eldar is my all time most used Aspect, Striking Scorpions. I remember back in the day they would almost be the first unit I would include in an army (may have been that they for a long time were the only Aspect I owned). It got so bad for my regular Imperial Guard opponent he asked me to take a break from the Scorpions. I have yet to decide if I will do a total repaint, modify the existing scheme or just do some paint repair and call it a day. I may take a photo of where they are currently at and see what peoples opinion is.

Thanks for reading.

Love the Aeldari! Fantastic work.

That Spartan is awesome. And excellent work on the battletech stuff. Beautiful detail and quality all round bud.

Thanks for dropping a comment Camkierhi, it is a weight off to have finally finished the Spartan (and therefore my friends Death Guard).

So I have been working on my Striking Scorpions.  Was agonising over whether to just clean up the damaged paint or do a different scheme.  Went with trying to improve what I had and ended up pretty much destroying the original paint.  It once was a black and orange scheme (I figured the many years ago it was painted that I wanted to stay away from the traditional green Scorpion theme as the Craftworld's main colour is green).  But I think since my painting skills have improve enough they won't just look like a Guardian with a sword.

I will put up an original photo of the squad at some point so you can see if I have managed to improve them or whether I will regret to decision.  I have also taken the opportunity to convert the Exarch to the 8th edition weapons of Scorpion Claw and Biting Blade.

Seems I have done something I didn't think I would ever do and have begun looking into the amazing range of 3D stl files available for proxy models for the tabletop wargaming scene. With the large game Korocite is putting on I want to use it as motivation to get more of my second Guard army finished (especially as my birthday netted a super heavy tank for the army that will be built as a Stormlord). Initially I was set to just add the Stormlord, but I got to some googling and am really impressed by the scope of 3D sculpts available and with access to multiple 3D printers I decided to take the plunge and see what I can do.

Will see how the first lot go as I am printing some proxy tanks to use as a Hellhound and a Devil Dog, need to check the scale, but the detail seems very nice.

Have made some progress with the 3D printing of some proxy models. The first ones were the Devildog and Hellhound, am very impressed with the sculptors work and printed very easily with no fuss whatsoever.


So this will be my Hellhound, really blown away by the sculpt and print quality.


This is the Hellhound next to the chassis of the Hydra from army these models will be added to. Scale is almost perfect so very happy on that front.


Have a very contemporary feel to them, but I love the addition of a trailer to carry that volatile fuel, little impractical for the tabletop, but I like it too much not to include. I do plan to run a flexible hose from the tank to the turret, not sure what I will use yet, but figure it will look cool to have a fuel line. Especially when an enterprising ork climbs on board to cut the line.....


Made a bit of a mistake in my enthusiasm and glued the track guards in place....will make painting the tracks a bit of a pain in the backside, but oh well.


This one will be the Devildog (melta weapon variant of the Hellhound). I won't be using the trailer with this one as I figure that it doesn't use a liquid fuel for the guns so doesn't need an auxiliary tank.


The two new tanks side by side.


Next up is the model I plan to use as a Primaris Psyker (pseudo leader of the army). I am pretty happy with him, the blindfolded eyes is kind of creepy. Do think he needs a more ostentations staff, but we will see.


Since the army revolves around abhumans I will have a full 9 man unit of psykers. I have 3 of the GW ones (two are painted already). Pictured here are the first three 3D prints to go with the 3 official ones. This GW model was recently picked up and will undergo a repaint to join the others. I think the 3D prints fit the GW aesthetic very well. Will swap the arms around the torso's for the next three to make a little variation.

So I need to run a toothbrush over the prints as there is a little debris from me cleaning them up with the hobby knife, but I am very happy with how things have gone so far. On the printer at the moment are 5 Ratlings and once the print proves successful I will print the rest of them (plan to have 20 Ratlings in the army). Then I will get onto the Ogryn and Bullgryn proxies.

Thanks for reading.

Interesting to see the side-by-sides

Love the tanks. Psykers are interesting, although perhaps a touch too spindly for my interests (although weedy psyker mutants seems appropriate...)

Thanks for sharing

I think the weediness is more from the fact they are likely 28mm scale rather than the 28mm "heroic" scale that is GW's actual scale.

But I agree with you the weedy mutant psyker physique will hopefully make them stand out more against the regular guardsmen.

Very quick update, I am changing tack with my painting. With the next large scale game set for the end of August I really want to try and get my second (and last) Imperial Guard army finished to participate. I already have the Guardsman and Hydra finished (and they had a fine showing in the last big game valiantly being a speed bump for some Nurgle Terminators) and I want them to be joined by the rest of the army.

To that end, the Eldar are taking a break for the near future and the poor Striking Scorpions I was working on are going for a bath in a noxious chemical as I have really messed them up unfortunately. But I need a break from the pointy ears and I have started painting the Devildog and Hellhound and once I get some plastic glue I will begin assembly of the Stormlord.

I also go this guy off the painting table:


I believe this is a Locust, I am very fond of light Mech's in Mechwarrior and in a demo game I played against myself this guy nearly pulled off a win solo against an Awesome....who knew that heat was such a liability....


I kept the paint scheme pretty simple, but stuck with the plan that this mercenary band allowed each Mech Warrior to personalise their Mech's.


I find it interesting that the purple has almost taken on a slight metallic hue which was not my original plan, but will experiment with more grey paint in the future.


The Banana Catapult and the Blueberry Locust ready for action. I like the idea of the Locust calling the shots for the Catapult tucked in behind a cliff.


I think the next Mech I do will be a spilt colour one, maybe red and white.


Also, for the Abhuman Guard army I am doing, the first batch of Ogryn, will be two squads of 5 Ogryns and a 10 man unit of Bullgryns, then the Stormlord has a nice choice of nasty surprises to carry.

Thanks for reading.

So I have made some progress on the Guard, although it seems pretty small.  The Stormlord is now basecoated and had its first wash.  Although the below picture doesn't show the wash (have been too lazy to take more photos of it).



It is a chunky beast as you can see it on the painting station next to the Hellhound and Devildog as well as the chassis of the Hydra sitting above it for moral support.  It needed to basecoats to get it smooth and even and a hell of a lot of wash to get a decent coverage.  

You can see the officer that you get to assemble with the Baneblade kit on the left and I felt it a shame to not include him, but since I already painted the officer that will be in command of this army I didn't know what to use him for, but decided to do a little switcharoo with the other Guard army and pull the Lord Commisar out of that army and move him into this army (makes sense since it is full to the brim of abhumans and psykers) and put this guy into the other army as a Senior Officer.  

Looking at the sheer size of the Stormlord compared to the smaller tanks makes it just silly in how big it is.  I am not a big fan of the four sponsons (too late now) especially as the rear Heavy Stubbers sit directly over the top of the rear sponsons.  But I guess the Omnissiah isn't concerned by practicality.

Thanks for reading.

Cool stuff, Archer. Really liking the Catapult and Locus mechs.

Thanks, trying to decide what Mech to paint next, definitely want to do either a two colour split down the middle or two colour in diagonal sections so that will likely make me choose one of the "square" Mechs I have.

For tanks that big undercoating IS a big step. Loving the work on the guard army, and your eldar aspect warriors are crisp. Keep it up!

Cheers, a mate did offer to lend me his air brush, a piece of kit I have always wondered if I should at to the repertoire, but just can't justify the cost. Although I should have splurged on a rattle can...

So progress is being made on the remaining tanks of the Guard army (there are only three of them left). And the massive hurdle of getting the base colour done is finished.


I think I have done a pretty reasonable job of matching what I had done previously, especially since it has been a while since I last did a few units for this army.


I have added the completed Hydra into the mix so I could compare my colours as I went. I also think the proxy Hellhound and Devildog aesthetically work quite well with the actual Guard vehicles.


Time to start what I expect to be a long process of detailing the tanks. Although the scheme is fairly simple, the Stormlord in particular just has so much going on it is likely going to be a pain. I am thinking of making use of some yellow and black hazard stripes on edges and hatches if I feel it needs a little extra something.


An aerial view to really show off the size of the Stormlord compared to the other tanks of the army, still not big enough to actually position 20 passengers on the firing deck,

Glad to have the base colour sorted out on all three tanks, using the big scenery brush helped a lot to get the drybrushing done in a reasonable time frame. I have doubts I will get the whole army finished for the big game, but at the very least I should have the armoured contingent in a position to make the table.

Thanks for reading.

Coming along nicely. I am bad about stopping a project in the middle and then having to come back and try to rematch colors. Always a fun time!

Honestly once painted the Hellhound and Devil dog fit in nicely and look closeeeee enough to the plastic kits. I happen to fall in the "color gradient among an army is okay, especially if it isn't parade ground crisp" Goodness knows my IG tanks suffer from GW's changing wash recipes...

I had written down the "recipe" I used when I did the Hydra and Guardsman for the last big game, knowing that I would be revisiting this colour scheme, but drybrushing can be so vastly different depending on how diligent I am at working the extra paint out.

It is interesting working with a uniform colour scheme for the Guard as the last Guard army almost every tank is different (even the Chimera have different patterns of the same colours).

Those russ stand-ins are gorgeous models

The amount of progress on this last page alone is outstanding mate.

I agree that the fire dragons and banshees are classic models and your paintjobs really complement the sculpts! I love the bright orange on the dragons, it's almost like a reverse ninja turtle. I quite like the blue power weapons for the banshees too, a nice pop of contrast.

The layering on the armour plates of these guys and the DAs is really lovely.

Those reapers are my favourite of the sculpts too. They capture the sturdiness of the aspect and most closely match with Maugan Ra. The Exarch in particular is a classic.

Love the colours on the battletech mechs, and the wall of steel is looking impressive in both Death Guard and Imperial Guard flavours.

Those 3D printed ogryns are mint - are you able to share where you got them from? I love how their faces match the old metal sculpts more than the newer, Ogor-looking models!

I don't see why I couldn't share where I got the sculpts (please correct me mods if I am wrong on this).

The Bullgryns I purchased the Sculpts from Cult 3D the sculptor has a HEAP of Guard proxies and I tossed up if I should go with his Ogryn proxies as well, but I decided they were a tad too armoured up for me so I went with the ones I found on MyMiniFactory. If you search for Ogryn or Bullgryn on either site they will come up.

I chose to use the unsupported files and let me slicer work out the support it wanted to use as I found the rafts on the presupported files far larger than what I was used to printing with.

So bit of an update on the painting front.  The previous Imperial Guard army was led by an Officer that I used a Commissar model to represent.  However, with this new army having so many abhumans it only makes sense that they should actually have a Commissar to make sure everything is above board.

So, I will use the Officer model that comes with the Baneblade kit to take over as the Commander of the previous Imperial Guard army and the Commissar will slide into this new army.  

And on that note:


The new and improved Specialist Murdoch, Company Commander of the 5th Armoured Detachment, 34/87th Tullarium Armoured on the left and Overseer Tobias Martinez attached to the 17th Tullarium Immovables on the right.


But what could that enormous track next to these two Imperial Officers be...?


That would be the 34/87th Tullarium Armoured 2nd Super Heavy, 1st Street Fighter Brigade “Ever Hungry”.  It is pretty much done for me.  Once I have finished the other two outstanding tanks (Hellhound and Devil Dog) I will come back and apply some transfers to all the tanks in one go, but as far as painting goes I feel I am done.


The Stormlord next to the Hydra that was completed some time last year.  I think I have matched the paint jobs pretty well.


I think this one gives a real sense of the scale of the Imperial superheavies vs the normal sized tanks.


I have even somehow managed to keep all the turrets with full mobility, although when I finally get around to varnishing it that may change.


I think they actually look better with only two side sponsons, but who can go past that much firepower.  The Heavy Stubbers sitting over the top of the rear sponsons bugs me a fair bit, bit what are you going to do?


The rear of the tank where the most detail is.  Quite enjoyed the shrine.


No way 20 soldiers could fit up on the firing deck, but at least enough to look busy.  I tried to tell a bit of a story with the tool boxes and loose las pistol.  I also tried a bit of oil "spatter" below the coils/cables/springs in the top left of the picture that I think worked pretty well.


The Megabolters I feel are a bit of an underwhelming main gun, when you compare how much plastic is in almost every other main gun, these seem a little puny.


40 passengers, one ladder...methinks it would be a slow procession to get on or off.  I did stick a ladder on the other side, even though it wasn't meant to be for some reason.  Hazard striped to add a little interest.


I only noticed it as I started to paint the Hellhound last night, that it has the same armour details as this kit (those silver bits above the tracks and the hinged armour plates).  I wonder if the sculptor of that 3D print used this as inspiration?


It is a giant hunk of plastic and trying to deploy the thing on a table will be a pain in the backside, let alone trying to move it around.


And to sum it all up some people to hitch a ride.  I think I also managed to match the armour of the crew to the guardsmen that have already been painted.  Probably needed to go heavier with the drybrush looking at this photo though.

Well there it is, the Stormlord is largely finished and I got a good amount of the initial detailing onto the Hellhound last night as well so hopefully the armoured contingent of this army will be finished soon.

Thanks for reading.

Love the headachey psyker amongst the shouting and sword-waving guardsmen

I hadn't actually considered the make up of my "crew" for that photo, but the poor psyker cowering in the middle of the other two yahoos works quite well.

Hi all, more progress has been made on the latest Guard army. It is amazing what the motivation of the big game has had on my motivation. Deadline is the 31st of August; I don't need to get the whole army done as we probably have enough models to handle our needs, but if I get them done they will make it onto the table (to be more than likely fed to a Warhound Titan.....)

But enough talk and onto the pictures:


Up first is my proxy Hellhound. Really happy with this one and I think the trailer is a really cool addition. I had toyed with the idea of running a pipe from the trailer to the turret, but although there is a likely spot on the turret for the hose to connect to there isn't one on the trailer itself that makes sense. Any ideas?


You can see the transfers that I stole off the Baneblade transfer sheet, this guy is now "Iron Duke" with a serial number of 501812. I have added a few kill marks by the way of small skulls and figure the hellhound would rack them up faster than the other tanks that are more single target hunters.


It's a little hard to see, but I am really happy with the "pilot" light of the flame cannon. In fact, most of the lenses came up pretty well on this guy.


I tried to have the fuel having been spilt during refuelling, I figure anyone crazy enough to get in one of these wouldn't care about a bit of spilt prmethium.


Now the Devildog, less kill marks as I said as this guy is hunting enemy armour rather than masses of infantry. The tanks went very swiftly as the main part is the base colour and it was done a little while ago now.


This tank got the name "Nemesis" serial number 479816; hoping this guy can at least get close to the Titan and give it a scare. Perhaps it will be ignored as there will be a Shadowsword taking potshots at the Titan as well so I have a chance.


Since these are proxy models they lacked the iconography of the Imperium so I made sure to plaster the Eagles all over them, happy with how well some of the larger Aquila's fitted onto them.


I revisited the Hydra to add a few transfers to it too, now dubbed "Dauntless" serial number 2301 to bring it in line with the other tanks. I forgot how much I like using transfers, it was quite therapeutic sitting next to my 6 year old while he built his lego and I did the finishing touches to the tanks.


I also went back to the Stormlord and added some transfers, I was a little surprised how little flat space there is on the model and struggled to use any of the larger transfers. But I am happy with the results. Maybe the other superheavies have more room?


In my head each of the crew that are in the sponsons (my head cannon is one in each) gets to display their own "heraldry" on the outside of the sponson, so each one is different. The Stormlord also sports white and red kill markings.


The other side and other sponson heraldry, I was pleasantly surprised how well the white transfers show up, initially I was sticking to black thinking they would be the better choice and was surprised how obvious to the white ones are.


I really like the logo above the door to the interior, one last message of devotion to crew and passengers....


The group as a whole. Very happy with them and now more than half the army is painted, should have taken a shot with the Guardsmen that are already done, but that was too much effort for last night.


I do wonder how they would fair if I arrange them into a spearhead for the rest of the Imperial force in the big game and just drive them straight into the Deathguard lines on the day?

So I now have 10 Ogyns, 10 Bullgryns, 20 Ratlings, 7 Psykers and a Primaris left to paint for the army, think I can make it by the 31st of August? I have managed to get the Ogryns undercoated and the fatigues on them basecoated and washed.  So hopefully the motivation continues.

Thanks for reading.

Looking very good all together like that. Your proxies don't look out of place. Stormlord was always my fave Baneblade variant, they look so brutal.

Archer, hopefully you know already I love your work man. Beastman Army looks amazing. What a brutal horde! Great scheme too.

The Eldar refurb looks awesome, I regret selling off my old metals so much! I have bought a replacement army of old head and I WILL get round to them some day :O :O

Latest Guard look brilliant, get stuck in son!!

Thanks guys, appreciate your thoughts on things.

@Cap'n Facebeard I always like being able to throw a lot of dice when I play 40k and this tank just has a crazy amount of shots. Not sure the transport capacity is all that useful, but hey Bullgryn's need to ride in style.

@Ragsta Appreciate the words, I think the Beastmen are one of my favourites so far, I often find the hardest part of any army is working out a painting scheme which is why "set" army schemes like many Space Marine Chapters are less stressful. Will get back to the Eldar, but want to try and get the Guard done for this big game...just over a month to go.