40k Dark Eldar - Quite a bit of progress!

Hope all our stateside readers had a safe and happy 4th of July, and for everyone else, I hope that your Monday was tolerable! Had a three day weekend which meant I had some extra hobby time, and ended up being rather productive - finished off the Wyches, got darn near the finish line with the Warrior's Raider, and got some build time in as well. Woo!

The Wyches got a little further touch up, the bases were finished and flocked, and they're more or less good to go! A couple of the eyes are still a little wonky when blown up to 400% size but they don't look quite so odd in person. Can always justify it as "the combat drugs are kicking in, maaaaaan..." Hah!

 

Got stuck in on the Warrior's Raider as well, rather near the finish line. Took it up to the first sealant pass so I could lay in a couple waterslide transfers on the sail and banner, but think that it needs some tribal linework on the hull to break it up a little. The Warrior's Raider was always going to be rather unadorned compared to the Wyches' and Archon's Raiders, but this is a little TOO spartan I think. More to come on that one!

While I was about it I rewarded myself with a little build time and got the unit of Scourges built. These hadn't been released yet by the time I'd sold my previous Dark Eldar army, but I knew that they were a must-buy for this project - they're my favorite sculpts of the line and I am really looking forward to painting them up!

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe - Complete!

After far too much procrastination, I'm happy to say the Kabal of the Crimson Woe is finally finished!

I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out - it's a nice little raiding force that exemplifies the Dark Eldar's swift and merciless way of war.

  

Here's a series of pics that are a bit more zoomed in. The entire army can start the game either in transports or lurking in reserve.

 

The last things awaiting paint were the various transports for the army. First up, the Crimson King's Raider. For the two Archons I went with dual sails to represent the Enhanced Aethersails upgrades and to help them stand out as the HQ transports.

 

The second Raider belongs to Duke Harkanet the Golden, and his Incubi bodyguard. As their armor is all heavily gold, I figured their transport should be similarly themed.

 

Next up is the custom Venom I'd built when the codex first came out. It transports the Kabalite Trueborn into battle.

 

Finally are the two Raiders for the Wyches and Warriors. These tow are significantly less blinged out to represent the lower caste of the troops they transport.

All in all I'm quite relieved to be done with the army - while I enjoyed the different play style the Dark Eldar bring to the table, I can't say that they particularly suit my disposition. I much prefer the sledgehammer of the Guard! I'll be putting them up on the auction block in due course, once I get one last game in with them. I always enjoy playing a game with a completely-painted army!

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year!

Adeptus Custodes Terminators

Not a huge amount of forward progress on the Dark Eldar of late, I've been working on batch painting four Raiders and a Venom all at the same time. That's been more than a little tedious, so I decided to take a break from the red and gold paint scheme and instead paint something... gold... and red. Argh.

I'd picked up these Custodes Terminators years and years ago and they have patiently waited in the Closet of Doom until the recent release of the new Grey Knights. After reading through the codex, I figured that they would be well-represented on the tabletop as a unit of Paladins, and set about building them accordingly utilizing a mix of the GK Terminator arms, and the arms that came with the Custodes originally.

 

As there isn't really a 'Sergeant' for the unit, I went with a slightly-more-ornate Nemesis Force Halberd for one of the models.

Though it's not nearly as powerful as the almighty Psycannon, the artwork for the Custodes clearly shows them carrying a flame lance, so I've included one in the unit as a counts-as Incinerator.

  

Rounding out the unit are three more NFH-armed terminators. Unfortunately all of the main bodies for the Custodes are identical, so I tried to utilize the varied arm poses to try and get them to look a bit more individual. As I have no plans to run a GK army, these models will be going on eBay this coming weekend...

As mentioned earlier, I'm in the midst of batch painting all the transports for the Dark Eldar, and snapped a quick picture of them while I was about it. Still a ways to go, but at least all the main colors have been blocked in!

The Cabal of the Crimson Woe, Part 4 - Webway Portal and Raiders Primed

The army build continues apace, and an unseasonably warm day Sunday allowed me to get a fair number of miniatures primered, which was rather nice! I snapped a couple pictures as well - the infantry ended up being essentially uninteresting looking blobs of black, but there the vehicles and suchlike show enough detail to warrant a post...

I wasn't overly excited about GW's webway portal - I was really hoping for an actual scenery piece, rather than a repainted vortex template. That being the case, I banged out a quick version of my own using several remainder raider rudders (say that five times fast!). My intent is to mount a translucent globe of some sort in the middle to represent the portal itself 'hovering' in midair, but as yet I haven't found anything ideal to use... Perhaps a large marble of some kind?

That done, I turned my attentions to the Raiders. I really like the new model and I'm well pleased with the amount of options and extras GW has included. I decided that the relative worth and wealth of the Dark Eldar would be reflected in their transports. The low-born Warriors for example would have a raider almost devoid of decoration:

  

The Wyches Raider would have a bit more decoration, as well as some WYSIWYG wargear for them - Chainsnares and Grisly Trophies. This also helps remind me to actually use those rules on the tabletop!

 

The last two Raiders would belong to the pair of Archons in the army - The second-in-command, Duke Harkanet leads a unit of Incubi and I decided that their Raider would have Enhanced Aethersails, and used both of the different sails from the Raider kit to represent it. I was rather pleased with the end result, it gives it just a bit more piratical flair!

 

Last up is the personal transport of the leader of the Crimson Woe, the Crimson King himself. His Raider needed to be a suitably more ostentatious vessel than even that of Duke Harkanet, and so I dug into the Ravager frames for a Shock Ram, two altogether different paired sails and the thornbar spikes. I also used some bits from the Fantasy Skeletons kit to represent some different Grisly Trophies from those on the previous two Raiders.

 

I'm quite looking forward to painting these, though I'm debating exactly how. I'm afraid that the techniques I'm trying on the infantry may not scale up to vehicles well, but I guess I'll just have to give it a go and see how it turns out!