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That's a really nice orange on the helmet

I think the elder get started box looks less fun than many of the other get started boxes. Having said that it does offer a very competitive bundle (rules-wise and $). If you're looking to never touch ground it's a great place to start adding units too.

Good to have you back Z. I expect to see you update your blog once you finish unpacking!

That little line of gems does call out for something. I might do them in yellow. With the exception of stock colors I use throughout my army (blue hoses, silver guns, green lenses, red ribbons) I want to the dragons in flame colors. So red/orange/yellow.

I chose an old pot of orange for these guys. RT-era old. I found they generally have good coverage, better then the mid range hex pots that make up most of my collection. I do have a couple other pots of orange though, and even an orange ink I might put to use.

I get that the Eldar get started box is a lot less fun then the other ones. I’ve never recommend it to an actual player just getting started. (unless he had his heart set on Eldar, and even then I’d suggest he try to find the old battleforce) But I’m pretty much as far from a new player as they get. For me, it’s a question of what does my army need, what do I want, and what can I afford.

While my color scheme might drift a little from the official craftworld, I claim to hail from Saim-Hann. The whole windrider host thing. Getting mud on your boots is for lesser species. I’d like to be able to claim that most of my army is on bikes, but they cost peanuts in game, and big bucks IRL. Right now when I paint what I’ve got, I’ll have 9 basic guys on bikes, and 3 characters. I do have one more old bike still on sprue I could do something with. That is the bare minimum for the formation, which I feel is a decent benchmark. More bikes are always better.

I’ve been lusting after a fire prism for a long time. So seeing it in a discount box is very tempting. Plus it fills a role in the army. In general, I feel light on AV firepower.

But if not the start collecting box, what else? And I’m not just speaking hypothetically here, but an honest question. What to add? Because once I start adding restrictions, the list of units gets small, fast.

Needs to either be floating, or in a transport.
Can’t be finecast. After the rangers and fire dragons, I’m steering clear of the stuff.
No allies, or Forge World. Unless I can get the full official rules for free. Nothing against them, but I spend enough on codexes as it is.
Needs to add something useful to my army.
Can’t break the bank. (another strike against FW here)
I’d rather not field dirty fielding them.

A unit of wraithguard in a WS is an option, although comes close on my last point. A third Falcon is tempting, for squadron tricks. I’d rather get something new though. “Another <fill in blank>” while often useful, is not sexy or fun. If I was going to get another of something, a WS would be at the top of the list. Just so I could mech up another guardian squad. It would basically add double it’s points to my army, because I already have a squad for inside.

If I wanted to lift my self-imposed ban on e-bay, I could try to grab an old metal wraithguard or warp spider. One more of each would allow me to field legal squads. Although to be honest, I’d rather trade the 4 metal WG I have for a new plastic box then get another of the old guys. Not the best models. But to venture down that road, I’d have to set up a PayPal account, and open up pandora’s box.

And then there is the overall budget question. How much do I want to spend on Eldar vs. Marines? How much do I want to save for hypothetical future releases? I’m even struggling to keep my “guilt-free” money actually guilt free. The responsible side of me wants to fold it into my savings to help deal with the future. But I do need to keep myself sane and happy, so right now I’m keeping it earmarked for hobby stuff.

Hope everyone’s weekends are going well.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

A little blurry, but should get the point across.

I think he’s almost done. I should probably do some grey highlighting on the black armor. At least on the high/sharp points like the shoulder armor. But once I get some feedback, I’ll start working on his mates.

Until then I’ll putter away at the librarian. Also started a spare brightlance, as I tend to use a lot in lists.

Or more probably, I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon doing yardwork and then drinking gin until the aches subside.

OK, slightly better picture. And I decided to do some light highlights in grey on the black armor.

As usual, the ultra zoom pics can bite me. Looks much better at tabletop distances.

Put the base orange down on the next two guys.

Looks great, Nev. The grey highlights really help define the armour.

 Zambro wrote:
Looks great, Nev. The grey highlights really help define the armour.

Yup. I’m not normally a fan of edge highlighting, but it needed something. If I get really motivated, I’ll do some heat stress/weathering on the barrel. Although who knows if fancy Eldar materials deform like that.

So I actually got in a game yesterday. (Don’t look at me like that, I’m allowed!) Down at the new place, Flipside games. 45 minute drive, but good people. Played a guy who is just getting into Necrons. 1,850, purge.

Here’s the pack pic. This is the full 2k list I brought (but wrote a 1,850 at home that used most of it) No dread, and only 1 of the pods were used.


Gladius, with a demi-co and a 1st co. TF.

Deployment. The devs take up position in the ruins, rhinos like up to move out. He seizes initiative. This is bad for me. Mostly for my devs. He rolls up and focuses fire on them, gaining first blood. As my list was a little light on AV fire, this is a fairly major blow. Especially now (after the game) that I’ve played enough Necrons to realize that ghost arcs must die.

On my turn I drop the SG behind the walker thing, combat squad out, melta it to death, and roast some warriors in their open topped transports with the HF side of the squad. On the other side of the table I put some wounds on the wraiths, kill one of the bike things, but otherwise don’t get much done.

This is where the chopping gets started. I think this is turn 2, before his assault phase.


The wraiths/bugs are about to plow into that poor tac squad, who will hold on until finally pulled down on the last turn. Who’s tarpitting who here? The rest of the squads start their shooting, which kills a few guys, but not many. Slow but steady casualties is the name of the game for most of this fight. The big issue was he kept getting back up!.

He had some sort of HQ deathstar that in hindsight I should have left alone. 2 named characters in a squad of T5, 2+, 3++ guys. Don’t think I killed any of them. Even when the Vanguards plowed in. He did take some time killing the vanguard off, so there was that.

I charged the middle warrior squad with one of my tacs, but rather then the clean, definitive resolution to the problem, it degenerated into a slap fest. I didn’t manage to get into CC with the other one, so just ended up shooting it more.

At some point my terminators came in, off to the side where the spider was. They finished putting it down, and then erased a immortal squad that had arrived in another flyer. Eventually the deathstar broke free, worked it’s way over, and killed them.

When the game ended at the end of 5, I had a handful of tacs left, 2 rhinos, the pod an a speeder with 1 HP left. I had managed to kill one of his arcs, the walker thing, a squad of deathmarks and immortals, maybe the tomb blades (I forget). I think the final tally was something like 5-8, Necron victory.

Fresh paint report!
2 c-melta sternguard: These guys did good. They joined their 2 previously painted brothers in a combat squad, and popped that stalker thing. I still can’t claim to enjoy suicide sternguard drops, but they were the alpha strike I needed.
BaC tac squad 1 (blades): plasma gunner killed himself on a gets hot roll after a couple shots. Didn’t accomplish much with their shooting (but were trying for some rough targets, wraiths and deathstars) even with a power sword sarge, just ended up in a slap fight with the warriors. They didn’t cover themselves in glory, but they held the line. About what I expect from tactical squads overall.
BaC tac squad 2 (pistols): Good shooting into the warrior squad on the far side. Shame he kept both making his saves, resurrection rolls, and getting rebuilt by the arc. Tried to make a short charge though cover at one point that they failed. Just went back to shooting after that. Much the same as the other tac. They did OK-ish.
CTDA Captain: He did good for himself. Soaked up 2/3rds of his wounds before having to LOS them to his escort. And he ate a LOT of fire before getting stuck in CC. 2+, 4++ (re-rolling ones on invuls) is pretty tough. I liked the paired weapons. Just used the claw, as I was either mulching troops, or wanted to get my hits in before I2 when the lichguard were swinging.
Vanguard: Not sure if there was any actual new paint here, although some of the weapons might have been out for the first time. 2 axe/ss, 2 sword/pistol, 3 basic, LC/SS sarge. I might move the shields to the basic guys and run them as pure wound sponges. Letting the axe men keep their pistols would give them more attacks. Still not sure how to dole out gear to these guys.

I like the demi-co, but it’s much better in objective games. I just felt that I didn’t have a whole lot of firepower. It might just be that the Necrons took what I was putting out with a shrug. The lack of AV was telling. I think I might have been better off deploying my devs behind a rhino, out of LOS, rather then in a ruins. But those ghost arcs were rebuilding 2-4 guys total each turn, which was almost the rate I was killing them. At the end of the game, I still had 5? ObSec units alive. So if that was part of the victory conditions, I think I might have been able to pull a win. But the mission were we playing didn’t mater.

Still a fun game vs. a good opponent. And it’s been a long time since I faced the robot menace in battle, good for a change of pace.

Necrons are a tough go. Those ghost arcs need to be a top shooting priority or his warriors will just outlast you.

I really dislike facing necrons and ghost arks are the icing on the "you can't kill me" cake. Overall it sounds like a fun battle though. I like that Fire Dragon you did, the edge highlighting does help to give it some depth, as anooying as edge highlighting is it can pay off on the right models. Your SM looks great on the table btw, a great unified force.

I love seeing batreps with painted minis! Also, if I may ask, what's your blue recipe Nevelon? Curious Ultramarines minds want to know

Gitsplitta wrote:Necrons are a tough go. Those ghost arcs need to be a top shooting priority or his warriors will just outlast you.

Inevitable_Faith wrote:I really dislike facing necrons and ghost arks are the icing on the "you can't kill me" cake. Overall it sounds like a fun battle though. I like that Fire Dragon you did, the edge highlighting does help to give it some depth, as anooying as edge highlighting is it can pay off on the right models. Your SM looks great on the table btw, a great unified force.

I blame not fighting them very often. I can learn though. Just need to remember lessons from past games...

Eventually I’ll get into the habit of useing painting techniques that other, better, painters have been using for years. I’m not an early adopter, what can I say?

War Kitten wrote:I love seeing batreps with painted minis! Also, if I may ask, what's your blue recipe Nevelon? Curious Ultramarines minds want to know

What my recipe is depends on the era of the mini. As GW has changed paint formulas multiple times since I started painting. My early work is "Ultramarine Blue" with “Blue Ink” over it. The really old stuff is realistically weathered by 20 some odd years of sunlight and fading. Pretty much everything painted in the era of this blog is done with "Macragge Blue” with the same “Blue Ink” wash over it. More recently, my old pot of Blue Ink is getting very low. (Now that I think about it, I’m not sure that pot is the same formula as my early stuff) All of the 30k stuff is still based in Macragge Blue, but is washed with Drakenhoff Nightshade. Not quite the bright sapphire I’m used to. I’ve done some experiments with Guliman blue glaze, but nothing full scale yet.

Edit:
Little progress tonight. Almost done with the next two Fire Dragons. I probably should have taken some WIP pics. Oops. I also painted up a spare brightlance, and assembled modded and magnetized a weapon platform for the guardians.
Edit 2:
OK, snapped some quick pictures:




The melta gunner broke his wrist. The gun was being supported by the hose, so I glued it together again. Hopefully he’ll hold. He’s in line to be painted like the Fire Dragons. Will have to be a slightly different scheme, due to the different era of sculpt. Probably do orange tinted chainmail.

Weapon platform I could have magnetized to take it’s own guns more easily, but by raising up the side with GS, I can swap guns with the rest of the army. Worth it.

Next step for the dragons is to clean up the black and then highlight it with grey. Then I move on to the next two guys.

Those two fire dragons are looking good, the orange and black go well together. Interesting idea on how to magnetize the weapon platform, I've never thought of using GS in that way. I drill into my mounts and set the magnet in but I like your way here, it allows the weapons to adjust firing angle vertically which is thematically cool.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Those two fire dragons are looking good, the orange and black go well together. Interesting idea on how to magnetize the weapon platform, I've never thought of using GS in that way. I drill into my mounts and set the magnet in but I like your way here, it allows the weapons to adjust firing angle vertically which is thematically cool.

I just dabble in greenstuff sculpting. I has a few thoughts on how to tackle that job. The platform normally would slot guns into that rectangle on top. So the easy answer would be to sink a magnet into the middle of that, and one up into each of the guns. Or just rely on a push-fit to keep them in place. The issue with that would be those guns would only work with this platform. Not ideal. All of my guns are set up side-mount for tank use. The next thing that came to mind was to carve down into the mount. Take the whole rectangle sized socket out, probably to 5-6mm deep. Then drill in the side, place the magnet, and patch the drill hole. That’s a lot of carving, I’m going to mess it up, and it’s going to look sloppy in the end.

So the final choice was to build something up. I checked in my bits box for anything that might help, but nothing leapt out. I might have been able to do something with the spare gun shield, but wasn’t feeling it. So I just mixed up a blob of greenstuff and went to work. My goals were:

Get the magnet in facing the right way
Not leave fingerprints
Keep it smooth
Keep it symmetrical
Make it look good.

Once I finish my morning coffee, I’ll see how it looks after curing. Then I can chuck it into the prime box.

Glad to see you got a game in. I got a 40k game in last night (first one since being back). Some absolute BS with the deathwatch made it a bit of a chore for the first turn or two. It evened out and ended a 1:1 draw. I assume necrons are still one of the top teir armies out there?

Edge highlighting, games and GS sculpting... Who are you and what have you done with Nev?

"That..." (he says, pointing at the guardian with the melta gun standing near the weapon platform)... "is a very old miniature. Mk-1 eldar pirate from the RT days."

I'm impressed.

Zambro wrote:Glad to see you got a game in. I got a 40k game in last night (first one since being back). Some absolute BS with the deathwatch made it a bit of a chore for the first turn or two. It evened out and ended a 1:1 draw. I assume necrons are still one of the top teir armies out there?

Edge highlighting, games and GS sculpting... Who are you and what have you done with Nev?

I think Necrons are still up there. They are definitely strong. But neither of us were playing tournament level lists, so at the FLGS level balance is a little better. I’ve not seen DW on the actual table yet. One guy was assembling some down at the store. I think they will be very strong vs. other elite, low model count armies. They have some very nasty tricks and gear. But as a hyper-elite army, every casualty is going to be critical. And I don’t think they can waste time blowing chunks out of tac squads. Or an actual horde army.

I’m trying to think of the last time I did more then use GS just to fill gaps. I know I made some tentacles for nurgle conversions for my WHFB army, and a santa hat. I did a custom character mod for a friend for a HERO game. Took an old witchhunter and extended the rim on his hat and made his cape more bilious. Not the cleanest work, but some actual effort. I have done some minor edge highlighting on some newer things, but it’s generally rare and subtle.

Games have been rare lately. I’m almost afraid to go back through my blog to find the last one I played.

Gitsplitta wrote:"That..." (he says, pointing at the guardian with the melta gun standing near the weapon platform)... "is a very old miniature. Mk-1 eldar pirate from the RT days."

I'm impressed.

Yup, and one of the few that can be shoehorned into a modern list. I checked before glueing him onto the slottabase; his tab is dated ’87. I could paint him like a guardian and use him in a storm squad, but don’t have enough sword/pistol guys to back him up. So he gets to be a Fire Dragon.

I should clean up and prime the other RT chunks of lead, just to paint. But with their eclectic mix of gear, they are doomed to warm the shelf.

I hear ya Nev, having your weapons interchangeable between models is a great idea. In my collections I have a few models with the vertical slot mounts, war walkers, Wraithlord, Wraithknight, so I've sunk the magnets into those. Only my Vypers have a side mount so they're not compatible with the rest of my weapon mounts. All the same you have a great idea there, I'm looking forward to seeing it primed and how it looks as a unified piece.

What’s a weapon platform without men to shoot it?


So some guardians are ready to prime. Which if the weather holds, could be this afternoon.

Sooooo many fiddly bits. But done now. In parts to prime. While I could glue the heads on at this point, leaving them on the sprue should make them much easier to pain, as they will be the only red. Well, most of the red, there are still the ribbons. I cut one set of gun arms off the sprue, but left the other ones on (cleaning their mold lines was extra fun). This is one of those sets where there are matched sets of arms. A B C and D. I used the cut arm to get the placement of the supporting arm right, which I glued. Rather then having to carefully keep track of who’s arm goes with who, I can just match the cut one to the one still on the sprue. All the guys have the letter of their arm written under the base.

In the back is lurking another bit of RT lead. I tidied him up a bit. He was jealous of his melta gunner friend, and decided to try out for Dire Avenger exarch. Even though his tab clearly labels him as “Captain” And he’s a little over geared for the job. But if you are going off to war, why not pack two pistols, a power sword, bootknife and a digital weapon?

I think I’m going to head down to the bench again. I’d like to put together an magnetize some arms to chuck in the prime box before this afternoon. Hopefully will get some more pics of primed stuff up this evening.

Edit:
And primed. I put shoulderpads on a power maul and SS from the DW box. Will be painted UM colors.

And just so I can post the same pic in a 4th thread:


Librarian done. I like the way he came out, particularly the axe.

The promised primed picture:


And some progress on the fire dragons:


Here are the 3 finished ones waiting to be based as a squad:


Hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Need to do some home improvement stuff, chat later!

Edit:
Another thing about that librarian: I changed up the blue on him. He’s still the macragge blue base, but with a guiliman blue glaze. Not quite as bright as my old blue ink, but closer then the drakenhoff nightshade got me. Eventually I might start doing my 40k stuff in it. I’ll keep the 30k stuff in the nightshade.

Looks like there is some sort of bug lurking around the Dakka gallery preventing me from getting pictures to you. But I finished the core 5 guys for the Fire Dragon squad, and got them all based up nice and pretty. Still have the old RT guy to add to the squad, but he’s optional. There is a certain charm in a 6 man squad in the back of a Flacon though.

Any thoughts on what you guys want to see painted next?

Edit: by attaching the pic directly to the post, it looks to be showing up.

Looking good, Nev. I like how the orange body suit and the black armour plates look.

Nicely contrasting fire dragons dude, They look great.

They turned out really well

Thanks guys. I think they look pretty sharp. I’m not a huge fan of the all one color dragons that are on GW’s website. By having the hard black armor over the orange bodysuit, I think it make a little more interest in the mini. Plus the black ties into the rest of the army. Which with aspect warriors is an issue.

Speaking of which, I think I might try my hand at a dire avenger next. A squad of DAs in a Falcon has been part of my Eldar list concept for a bit now. Getting them done would finish the core part of my army. And give me a 3rd squad of aspect warriors if I wanted to cheese it up with a formation.

The Fire Dragons look ace Nevelon. Simple but very effective colour scheme.

Cheers,

CB

And they're the colours of this forum! Dakka Dragons activate!

Heh, I guess they do sorta match the Dakka scheme.

So I put a coat of blue down on a DA last night. I went with “Caldor Sky” thinking it might be nice to have them in a different tone then my Ultras. Way too bright. So a few options here. I could use washes/glazes to tone it down. See how it looks with the nighshade over it. Or I could just bit the bullet and paint them similarly to my marines. Macragge base, with the guiliman glaze, like I just did the Lib. I think if I used the Caldor as an edge highlight, it should brighten them up significantly, without the overwhelming tone my test guy is sporting now.

The other big question I’m debating is if I should do the black armor plates like I did the Fire Dragons. So many color questions...

Helm - White (pretty set here)
Crest/helmet frill - Khorne Red (the same red I use for the bulk of the army, to help tie them in)
Bodysuit - ? (some form of blue)
Hard armor - ? (could just be the same as the bodysuit, black, or an alternate blue)
Tabards - ? White? Pale leather? Red?
Guns/grenades/etc - Black w/silver drybrush, army standard.
Eyes - Green metallic.

Thoughts/opinions? I’d rather not have to experiment and strip minis.

You could go with black hard armour, and keep it as a standard across the army. Would be a great way to get cohesion between the different aspect warriors.

The problem is that while it would tie in with the guardians/dragons, it would not be universal. My Hawks have a darker blue for their armor.

If it was an army-wide thing, I’d do it. But there is already one exception.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, some pics.



The DA just has a sloppy basecoat on. But is far to bright to fit in. Accent color, maybe. But not that much of that light.

Here are some of the blues I do:


All Macragge blue base. From the left: Guiliman glaze, Blue Ink, Drakenhoff Nightshade. (also, if you wondered where the BaC marines got their backpack designs from, it’s an old throwback)

The middle blue and white contrast is spot on.

Really digging the skull you added to that Librarian. I am still restoring one myself, along with a Pewter Dread.

Doing UM successors but, since those models were originally found in an attic, and in UM colors no less, they will have secondment heraldry out of respect so your blog is a help.

Lastly, the rune idea was good, I may have to try that.

Nice work on the Librarian, I really like how you've mostly used blues.

Fire Dragons look well too.

EDC