Current State of the Army... Dark Eldar

Carrying on with my series of looking at what models I have completed for each of my armies, be that Chaos, Space Wolves or Dark Eldar, here we stand looking at the models I have completed for the Dark Eldar.

This army is going to have a strong Haemonculus feel to it eventually, with plenty of Talos Pain Engines, Grotesques, Scourges and Wracks being present in relatively large numbers and occasionally accompanied by other citizens of Comorragh .

So far this army have the following completed models - Urien Rakarth, Lelith Hesperax, Archon, 2 Grotesques, 5 Mandrakes, Beastmaster and Clawed Fiend.

2013 will see the Grotesques and Pain Engines expanded, alongside all other areas of the army.

Done, Done, On to the Next One

The blog has been a little slow recently and for that I wholeheartedly apologise. However I am now through the busy period of autumn and looking forward to events that I can chart through the blog.

First up is the completion of the mini-challenge I set myself to get some of my Dark Eldar completed by the end of October. The Clawed Fiend (pic to the right) marks the end of the challenge and the start of the painting up of some of the Chaos models I have in my collection at the moment.

So, enjoy a few more pictures of the Clawed Fiend who will accompany the Beastmaster whenever my Dark Eldar take to the field of battle.

 

And here is a shot of the completed group, with the Beastmaster, Clawed Fiend, Talos Pain Engine, Grotesques and Lelith Hesperax all complete:

Finally, where will we travel next in the Immaterium? I have the Chaos Helbrute sat on my painting table as I write, with Interrogator-Chaplain Seraphicus and Astorath the Grim waiting in the wings for a session with the paintbrush. With the blog I will also start looking at what painting and modelling techniques need to be improved for my entry into the Golden Demon 2013, and my search for hints and tips around the internet and other blogs to help me on my way. Exciting times lay ahead, I cannot wait to get started!

Lelith Hesperax

Another of the Dark Eldar completed now, with Lelith Hesperax the latest citizen of Commorragh to be completed.

Not much else to say, but I will be revisiting this model in the series of posts I am going to do that will look at areas I need to invest practice time for next years Golden Demon. Feel free to throw up any thoughts you guys have in relation to things that should really have been done better on her.

Anyway, here are the rest of the pictures:

Thanks for looking, hopefully the Clawed Fiend will be complete very shortly and shots of it will be up on here for anyone looking to see!

If Only Hoverboards Were Real...

Remember Back to the Future? All those hoverboards and how cool they were, how much you wanted them to really exist? I certainly do and I am still bitterly disappointed that time seems to be running out on that dream.

But fear not, I have finished the Beastmaster who gets to travel around on this flying board. Admittedly the board is more Green Goblin than Michael J Fox, but I am still dreaming of that damn board even at nearly 30 years of age.

There were points during the painting of this guy that I really felt like scrapping him. Not even strip him and start again, but chuck him in the bin and forget he even existed. The spray primer went on far to thick in certain areas (feet, engine, the cylinders on his leg, chain/board connector thing in his crotch) which I felt was overly ruining the model. However I pushed him on to see what result I could get from that point, and here are the results:

All comments welcome, so let me know any thoughts you have about this guy.

Getting Closer All the Time.

Another quick update on how I am getting along with this mini-challenge I gave myself. So far, so good it must be said. The Beastnasters board is complete, with the Beastmaster himself around 40% complete.
The Clawed Fiend needs layering up a fair way and is a long way from completion. When I get round to focussing on him though, it should not take too long for him to come together nicely.

Lelith is the last model in this update. All bases layers on and shading applied to the skin. Shall be focusing on completing her hair and skin before moving on to her armour and weapons.

The board is now complete and I am happy with how it turned out. Very happy with the edge highlighting as I have managed to keep the lines relatively smooth and straight to the actual edge of the board. Only slight disappointment is the engine block, which I think got a bit too much attention during the priming stage, and is one of my techniques I believe I will have to look at to improve all future models that I paint.

Anyway, please see below for a few more pictures of the progress made, I apologise for the bluriness on them, better pictures will be taken once the models are complete.



Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger... I Wish!

Completed now are the two Rat Ogre/Grotesque conversions I have done to add to my Dark Eldar forces.

These two were very simple to paint and only needed around 5 different colour areas to complete, which makes a change to normal!

They will be joining 3 standard GW issue Grotesques that I have at the moment, with an eye on another 5 to join them at some point. Having said that though, I've seen a unit of 6 of these guys and Urien Rakarth butcher their way through a Blood Angels army and only take two casualties, so I am not sure the full 10 man squad is entirely required.

Anyway, really pleased with how these guys have turned out (except for maybe that canister on metal hands shoulder) and now looking forward to finishing the other three models and taking a peek at how my painted Dark Eldar look together.

With all that done I will then be looking in to finding a new challenge for myself and I am thinking of something big, something I never considered myself until my wife and friends mentioned it to me.

I shall hopefully layout this challenge within the next week or so. Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks!

Grotesques - Pulling It Together

Quick update on the progress on the Grotesques.

Started these fellas on Friday and managed to get all the base layers on all areas on the same day. Pretty pleased with myself as I quite often find myself procrastinating majorly when I want to get something done.

Managed to stick with it this time though, these guys should be finished in the next couple of days, so the final update is very much incoming.

Spiky Bits, So Many Spiky Bits.

The first of my Talos Pain Engines is now complete. There are so many spiky bits on there! All in all though, an awesome model to paint and relatively quick to complete as well.

On the table top this guy will mainly be used as he looks now - chain flails, extra close combat weapon and twin-linked heat lances.

Next up are the two Grotesque conversions I posted up a couple of weeks back, which I am hoping will not take me too long and then its on to the Beastmaster/Clawed Fiend then Lelith.

Also have to base coat all remaining uncoated models before the cold weather starts setting in, so it is going to be a busy couple of weeks over here.

Anyway, here are the rest of the pictures of the Talos:

With those bottom two pictures I have tried to show the little detail of the flesh hooks I spoke about in my last post. Sick, twisted but brilliant detail to a model I like alot. Hope you enjoy the pictures, I will be back with new updates in the near future.

Talos Pain Engine - The Progress So Far

A couple of pictures of the Talos Pain Engine I am currently working on, who has also been, so far, a pretty fun model to paint.

I had never noticed before, but just under the carapace at the back of the model are four flesh hooks dangling down and hooking through the skin of the Talos. I love noticing little details like that, details you have never seen before, while painting up the models. Great stuff.

With a bit of luck, I am hoping to have this chap finished off toward the end of next week so I can spend the weekend with a pair of lovely Grotesques.

Here are the rest of the pictures -

On the Painting Table... Coming Up Soon (I Hope!)

A quick look ahead at what appears to be a very Dark Eldar orientated autumn period for me.

Starting with Talos Pain Engine I will also be aiming to completely paint the Beastmaster with Clawed Fiend, Lelith Hesperax and the two freshly converted Grotesques by the end of October.

Challenge accepted.

While, initially at least, it may not sound like too much of a challenge (6 models in just over 8 weeks), a lot of that time will either be spent in work or travelling around the country so I will have to pull my finger out to get as much done in the evenings as I can. I will also have to stop myself getting too involved in all the new Chaos gear coming out, well, after Saturday anyway, once I have been through Dark Vengeance and put all the new Chaos models together from it.

Here are the rest of the guys to be completed:

I will keep the blog updated with the progress I make as often as I can

Grotesque Conversions

Another quick post today to show you a couple of the Grotesques I have converted for my Dark Eldar army, having been inspired from what I have seen on other blogs and in general around the internet. It is also a much cheaper alternative than buying a new Grotesque each time I want to expand the unit.

Both of these two are from the Island of Blood Skaven Rat Ogre set, with the chap on the right just taking a mask from the Talos/Cronos kit, while the beast on the right gets a new hand, some armour and a mask from the same kit.

Very much looking forward to getting these guys (and the three other regular Grotesques) painted up through the rest of the year.

It Is Good To Be Back... With a Completed Archon

It has been a very hectic, and very warm, month for me which has seen me only able to get in a few more games of the new 6th edition, whilst also sporadically reading rumours and getting some painting down very, very slowly.

I have completed the Archon for my fledgling Dark Eldar force over the last month. I think the model itself was awesome, but painting him... I just did not feel the want to keep going back to him to finish him off. Unfortunately for me, I just cannot start something else while leaving another thing unfinished, so here we are with a finished Archon almost a month after starting him. It also did not help that my painting room has been so warm recently that my paints have started drying up pretty quickly after mixing them on my palette.





But hey-ho, there is much more to look forward to now than moaning about not wanting to paint one model and the temperature is a little too warm! There are new rumours out seemingly daily at the moment regarding the impending Chaos Marine Codex, models, Dark Angels, Starter Sets, release schedules for models for other armies. In short, there is a lot happening in the 40k world between now and the end of the year, hell, even next summer based on some rumours. It is going to be awesome.

Outside of the Chaos releases planned for this year, I am looking forward to pushing my Dark Eldar army on a bit. Now I have finished the Archon, I will be moving on to a Talos Pain Engine, converting a couple of Rat Ogres into Grotesques, generally aiming to get a completed Dark Eldar army to go alongside the Space Wolves I have already finished and the Chaos/Slaanesh Marines army I have in the pipeline.

As for the rumoured Chaos releases, the Hell Brutes and Chaos Cultists do sound and look very appealing as does the new Chaos Lord and Chosen Marines available in the Starter set, which will probably be worth a purchase for those items alone, never mind the rulebook (which I still need to get a copy of) and whatever else comes in the starter set.

So, very much to look forward to, it is just a shame that I only have one spare weekend between now and the start of October to get stuck in to all the upcoming new releases. At least I will have my weekday evenings!

Mandrakes Completed...Finally

My mini squad of Mandrakes are finally complete and ready to stalk the shadows for prey.

It will be interesting to see how the new rules will affect this unit, as in 5th Edition they did have a few problems. I shall have to look up what AP value the evil looking blade gets and hope that a combination of night-fighting first turn and the Mandrakes stealth will ensure they survive long enough in to turn two to get a sneaky assault on (also assuming they survive overwatch shots).

Work is still on going with the Archon I started alongside these guys, but for progress on him please take a quick look in the 'On the Painting Table' tab at the top of the page.

Coming Up Next In the Immaterium

With my latest crop of Space Wolves complete it is time to look forward to what I am going to be doing over the next couple of weeks, both in painting and gaming.

With the impending arrival of 6th Edition in 40k a lot of my attention in a couple of weeks time will be on learning the new system. From the rumours it sounds like a bit of a change from what I am used to, so I'll have to read up a lot on what is new in 40k. Aside from that I will hopefully get a few more games of 40k in before we say good bye to 5th Edition.

On the painting front I will be starting work on a couple of Dark Eldar units, namely the Archon and Mandrakes shown. I am starting off with these as I love the Mandrakes models (I know about them being a bit rubbish on the table top, but I will find a way to use them and make them awesome!) and the Archon model is pretty damn cool if you ask me (he is a badass on the table top though).

For the next week or so I will be working on the Kriel Stone Bearer unit for my Trollbloods force. These were kindly donated to me by a friend, so it is time I gave them some love and got them standing alongside my other completed Trollbloods.

As with the other Trollbloods I have painted these guys require only a small amount of differing colours, but are immensely detailed. I really enjoy painting the Privateer Press models, which is a good job as I still have a few more to paint after these four!

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope to update my progress in the coming days.

GW Price Rises - It's Conversion Time!

So, we have all seen the price rises now and have had time to digest them a bit. We all have our own thoughts on the matter, but this post is not about complaining about the price rises, but more about my aim to find convertible units to go in my Dark Eldar army that will work out being slightly more economical than going solely down the GW route.

Firstly I would like to say that I have no intention of playing in any tournaments and generally just play with friends in a very relaxed, anything goes, setting. Thanks to this it opens up the possibilities of using anything possible to represent the unit I want it to (Coke can as a Drop Pod anyone?). This also opens up the chances to create any unit can think of from anything available to the miniature wargaming community.

As part of my Dark Eldar army, I am hoping to expand my Grotesque unit from 3 Grots up to the 7 or 8 mark. Now, with the new price rise in effect that leaves me looking at around £80 spend on 5 models. It is really not something I would like to do, no matter how much I enjoy the hobby. The only other option is to create my own Grotesques from something else. But where do we start?

After a quick search I found an article over at Eye of Error which uses a unit from Hordes, a Legion of Everblight Warspears unit, to create their Grotesques using leftover bits from a Talos Pain Engine and the Warspears unit as well as a touch of greenstuff. All of this seems largely possible and has the added bonus of having my Grotesques in a couple of different positions, all for £27, which is a fair old saving and would also give me the number of Grotesques I want.

Having read through the article and looked into these Warspears units, I also took a look into other units available in the Hordes range. A friend also mentioned that I should look through the Warmachines Cryx stuff as well. Looking through the Cryx range I came across another unit called Cephalyx Slaver and Drudge Mind Slaves. To me they scream Haemonculus with 5 Wracks and save me a few quid on buying the official models.

All I need is to crack out the greenstuff and my bits box to see what I can use to create the monstrosities that my Haemonculi are to be blamed for. It has been a while since I lasted completed any serious amount of conversion work, but the uniqueness of converting these models for my Dark Eldar make the idea a very intriguing one for me.

As I progress with these ideas or if any other possible conversions spring to mind, I will update accordingly.

Urien Rakarth Painting Guide Part Two

Earlier in the week I posted about the painting tutorials I used in creating Urien Rakarth, using the guides as detailed in White Dwarf 379 July 2011. In this second and final part of the guides, I will be using the tutorials that can be found in White Dwarf 371 November 2010.

Starting with the armour, I decided to go along the same route as that of Kabalite armour and used the process on both his body/arm armour and the models hair. The tutorial is as follows:

1. Basecoat all required areas with Chaos Black.
2. An edge highlight (a thin line brushed onto all edges) was applied using a 1:1 mix of Dark Angels Green and Enchanted Blue.
3. Then build up the edge highlights using a 6:3:1 mix of Rotting Flesh, the mix from the last step and Scorpion Green.
4. A final highlight of pure Rotting Flesh was then applied to the most prominent edges.

The flesh of the face was completed by:

1. Basecoating the face with a 1:1 mix of Tallarn Flesh and Space Wolves Grey
2. Using equal parts of the previous mix with equal amounts of Dark Flesh, watering it down into a wash and applying it to the recesses.
3. Apply Devlan Mud into the most prominent depressions on the face.
4. Start building up the highlights, first using a 3:3:1 mix of Tallarn Flesh, Space Wolves Grey and Skull White.
5. The next level of highlights used the same mix with equal parts Skull White added. The eyes and teeth were also painted pure Skull White.
6. A Leviathan Purple Wash was brushed around the eyes and nose to add depth and pure Skull White was used as a final highlight.

The final part of this guide will look at the painting of the flayed skin tabbard that Urien Rakarth is wearing. Again the tutorial is from WD 371.

1. Basecoat the tabbard with Tallarn Flesh.
2. Shade the area with a 1:1 mix of Dark Flesh and Liche Purple that is thinned down and painted into the recesses.
3. The flayed skin was then given an initial highlight using pure Rotting Flesh.
4. Continue building up the highlight layers by using 1:1 mix of Rotting Flesh and Skull White.
5. Further highlight layers were applied by adding in more Skull White to the previous mix.
6. Finally, pure Skull White was used on the very extreme and prominent edges of the tabbard.

And there you now have the complete Urien Rakarth, painted as per WD instruction. I will most likely use these tutorials again when painting the rest of my fledgling Dark Eldar army, as the techniques and recipes I can see being similar across a whole range of the models I have to complete with only a few tweeks here and there to achieve certain looks I am looking for.

Thanks for reading.