Painting Update - Defiler

The Chaos Defiler is the largest model I have started painting since completing my Space Wolves Land Raider 18 months ago. I swore to myself I would never again paint large vehicles as 1) they take far too long to complete, 2) the length of time it takes to paint them makes it less than enjoyable to me and 3) I have always struggled to get large expanses of colour to look 'good' as it were.


However, the Defiler has made me think again about two of the three reservations I have. Its undoubtedly taking a long time to paint. I think that is more down to me than the size of the Defiler though, and through a combination of being easily distracted and only having an hour spare every couple of nights will lead to very slow progress at times.


This time though, the large vehicle is actually being very enjoyable and seeing the colours slowly starting to come together is very satisfying. Being patient with applying thinned down layers of paint over the armour plates has helped achieve a good, solid colour on the plates and is something I am very happy with.

 As you can see from the pictures, the Reaper Autocannon arm of the Defiler is complete as this was done first as the test piece for what I wanted to do with the rest of the model. The lower body should be completed very soon (with only the gold trim, recess washes and highlighting left to go) then its on to the upper body and the front arms/claws.

Expected completion you ask? I am aiming for end of February, assuming I can curb my Dark Eldar obsession for a few weeks.

Modelling Update

Having completed Urien Rakarth I failed utterly in containing my urge to start a Dark Eldar army. This has led to much of the last two weeks being spent putting together a few kits I have managed to get my hands on, resulting in a Talos Pain Engine and Scourges being assembled, with an Archon, Wyches and a Raider still to be completed.

Eventually I am looking to add more Wyches, Wracks, Raiders, Ravager and Grotesques to the collection to create an Haemonculus hybrid army, while also having some Mandrakes around (the models are awesome even if their usefulness on the table top is questionable). Should be fun and may take a while to get fully up and running.


 That is not all the modelling I have completed however. There is also another 5 man Wolf Guard in TDA squad completed and ready for priming. Using the Forgeworld kit, along with other bits, I really like how this squad looks when they are together, with my personal favourite being the Wolf Claw Terminator. I am hoping to use some grey primer on these guys so I can have these and the rest of my Wolves painted in rather speedily compared to normal.

As I am just starting out with Dark Eldar I have not had many thoughts about modelling opportunities with them, but I am sure some will come up in time. If anyone can point me in the direction of any blogs with DE conversions on it would be very greatly appreciated!

That is all my modelling complete for a short period of time. The next update will focus on the progress made with a Chaos Defiler for my Slaaneshi Army.

Urien Rakarth - The Ending

Many moons ago I had a poll up on this blog looking for a non-Space Wolves character for me to tackle. Urien Rakarth turned out to be that character. Finally I can now say that the challenge is complete. As a complete change to painting marines, I enjoyed it very much. I am hoping that all Dark Eldar are as fun and straight forward to paint as Mr Rakarth.

For the painting I tried to stick to the Dark Eldar painting guides that can be found in issues of White Dwarf. Unfortunately my scanner is broken, but I will post an update showing how close I got to the intended result once I have it fixed.

Now with various Dark Eldar units on their way to me and a whole Slaaneshi/Noise Marine Army to paint up and the remnants of my Space Wolves to finish, I have plenty of work on my plate and hope to keep the updates flowing as I progress with all three of the armies mentioned.

So without further ado, here are the few pictures I have taken of my completed Master Haemonculus.

Two Week Update

The last two weeks have been very busy, I have been gaming a fair bit and have also got a decent amount of painting completed.

On the 40k gaming front I have been involved in four games, using both my Space Wolves and Chaos Marines.

The Space Wolves have seen action against both Blood Angels (which resulted in my only victory), and against a combined Imperial Guard/Tyranid force which ended in a draw. Both games were great fun and very bloody with nothing out of the ordinary occurring.

My Chaos Space Marines also took part in two annihilation battles, the first against Grey Knights which resulted in an incredibly bloody draw in which I had a fully functioning Land Raider still functioning at the end against one Grand Master and a Razorback. Again it was a tremendous match up, which also saw me using a Defiler (which downed the GKs Storm Raven in turn 1 with its Reaper Autocannon) and Chaos Dreadnaught for the first time.

The second battle for my CSMs resulted in what can only be viewed as a complete massacre, the kind of which was not dished out by my marines, but by my Eldar opponent (who was also coincidentally the opponent in the Blood Angels and Grey Knights games). Sunday is obviously the day my dice gods put their feet up and took a break. To only take out 10 Fire Dragons and 3 Eldar craft (Wave Serpents and the like) in four rounds when I had Obliterators, Dreadnaught, Defiler, Land Raider and Abaddon on the table is failure on a level I had not even thought of before today. Oh well, next time I will revert to less heavy weaponry and focus more on increasing the quantity of fire the army can produce.

On the painting side of things, I have now got the main base on all the armour plates on the Defiler and just need to add a few more layers of colour to make the plates a solid colour. I have started focussing on the autocannon arm, putting a base of Dheneb Stone on to build up the edges of the armour plates to a gold colour. Hopefully next weeks update will have the autocannon arm complete and some progress on the body of the Defiler.

Much of the week has been spent completing Urien Rakarth. He is much closer to completion than shown, with only a few details on his face and armour to be highlighted now. I will post a complete update on Urien in the next couple if days.

I have also been working away on a terrain building/ruin. I will try and grab a few pictures to include in next weeks update, but the piece has been mounted on a thin piece of plyboard, with basing materials glued around. Hopefully I should get this sprayed black within the week then I can work on painting it up as well.

The only other ponderous thoughts I have had this week revolve around either building myself an Haemonculus Coven to follow on from Urien Rakarth, or further my experience in the wargaming worlds by expanding my horizons into Hordes and starting up a Trollblood warband there. Can't for the life of me decide which to follow though, all thoughts are very welcome!

Urien Rakarth - The Beginning.

In my splurge of activity over the Christmas/New Year period I finally got around to piecing together the metal version of Urien Rakarth, the narrow victor in the poll I had running on this blog a few months back. If you remember that then I salute you!

Outside of assembling Rakarth (which was a challenge in itself) I have also now based the Haemonculus and have sprayed him white, which leaves me to start on the paint job. I will be doing this alongside the painting of the Defiler I put together as well recently.

So far, my thoughts on the model of Urien can be summarised in the word argh! His little arms spent more time glued to my own fingers than anywhere else. Eventually, however, my persistence paid off and I had those limbs set in position. With hindsight, and also stated in another post of mine, I should have used a little bit of green stuff in each socket to help hold the arms in place.

I have also decided that I will be using Urien alongside the painting guide for Dark Eldar from a White Dwarf from last year. I will attempt to follow the painting guide in there, as written and instructed, so that we can see how closely the guides need to be followed to get their results.

In the next update I will let you all know what issues of White Dwarf I will be using, as well as detailing any progress made against the associated painting guide. I will also have more pictures to share with you all.