WIP Dark Eldar (various)

As always, lots of clean up still to do on all of these.  I'm not pleased with the Agonizers.  I tried layering instead of my usual technique of wet blending.  I did this because I was painting them all in a batch and wet blending demands a little more individual attention.  I think I'll stick to wet blending on power weapons from now on. The transition of layering is just too abrupt without glazing.  I'll probably add more coats of wash to see if I can fix it.

Marvel at the terrible color transition!

Lastly, I was going over my Wracks and I spotted an unfortunate miscast on one of their ankles.

I called GW up and they sent me another box so I can't be too angry about it.  I'm going to try to green stuff the ankle back into passable form.  Net result:  I just got five free Wracks.

So thats a full squad of ten most likely.  Although, I am playing with the idea of two squads of five in Venoms.  The problem is, Wracks aren't my first choice for claiming objectives.  The lack of grenades being their biggest problem in my mind.  I'm thinking a squad of ten to hold rear objectives is their best use for me.  Now, a tough decision.  Acothyst with Hex Rifle or Acothyst with splinter pistol/venom blade.  I do like the cheaper combo.  I was originally going with the SP/VB combo so that I could use the Hex Rifle bit on my next Haemonculus, but seeing as I have two now its back as a possibility.

Haemonculus #2 WIP 2

I did a little more work tonight.  The stitching looks a lot better in person, but by looking at the pictures I'll have to clean it up tomorrow.  The metallics need to be highlighted.  The grey highlight on the apron will need one more highlight of a lighter grey because its looking too flat right now.

I also started prepping the Wracks.  Whilst doing so I noticed one of them was missing about a two millimeter chunk out of the right ankle.  I phoned GW up and they're sending me out another box of Wracks.  GW's customer service is second to none.  I've had them do this for me before when I bought a Lightning Claw Wolf Guard and it showed up without a backpack in the blister.  Hopefully, I'll be able to green stuff the ankle and then I'll have ten Wracks instead of only five.  Overall, I'm pleased with Finecast.  Once GW gets its quality control issues down I think people will forget all about metals.  That is, if the internet can get over its nerd rage and move on with their lives.  Hey, if I(being someone that has actually spent money on Finecast as opposed to the thousands of others out there raging against it without ever having spent a dime) can hobby along without hissing and spitting then so can everyone else.  Fear is the mind killer.

Haemonculus #2 WIP

Did a little work on my finecast Haemy so I figured I'd post a few pics.  I think I screwed his head up a bit.  Well, a couple screw ups.  I based the Haemy's skin with Tallarn Flesh along with the skin cloak when I should have used Astronomicon Grey or Dheneb Stone.  Then I over compensated with Rotting Flesh and then Dead White.  So...its thick and generally crappy looking, but oh well.  I like how everything else is coming out so I doubt I'll strip it.  At least, not until I feel that my skills have gone up a level.

On an unrelated note, I'm currently watching Event Horizon.  Good movie.  I get some weird looks when I say this, but...I think its the closest we'll ever get to a good 40K movie.  You just have to use your imagination a little bit.  Think of the Event Horizon as a Rogue Trader ship lost in the warp for a while.  Not that big of a stretch since I think Paul W.S. Anderson used 40K as a bit of "inspiration" when he wrote it.  He is a Brit after all.

Dark Eldar Carnival of Flesh Haul (pic heavy)

Didn't direct order the Grotesques, as I do not like the unit, and although the Razorwing looks great for a reasonable price I prefer the Void Raven.  I'll be waiting for that rather than converting a VR out of the RW.  Very pleased with these models.  You can see the Finecast has excessive flash, but most of it is thin enough to peel off with your fingers.  The material is soft like resin, but not nearly as brittle.

Thoughts on Dark Eldar psychic defense

We have none. Thanks for reading folks!

Seriously though, it makes perfect sense that an army of Eldar that hunt Eldar and hate psykers would lack almost any response to psykers.

We actually have two avenues to tackle psykers. One wargear item and one HQ.

First, we have Lady Malys. She makes any unit she is a part of immune to psychic abilities. This has rather limited applications in game, but it is...something.

Second, we have the Crucible of Malediction. It's limited to Haemonculae and you may only have one per army. What does it do you ask?

Once per game, during the shooting phase, a Haemy may opt to use this in place of his normal shooting attacks. Every psyker within 3d6 must pass a leadership test or be removed from play with no saves.

Big deal right? Most Psykers are LD 8-10. Here's my thought. I may be pulling this directly out of my ass, but...Grey Knights.

They're ALL psykers. Even their vehicles. Imagine forcing everything within 18" to roll individual tests. I haven't tried this on an opponent yet as it seems rather beardy, but I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Am I being stupid or is there something to this? We desperately need something because the latest FAQ made it a lot easier for GKs to insta-kill us.(like they needed help)

Bone Field Bases Review Part Deux

Here's a completed base as an example.  The Incubi is not completed.  I still need to clean up a lot of the stuff on him and finish the gems.

I'm pleased with how it came out.  The blood level is a bit low, but I'm refining my process.

The Good:  The bases made by Secret Weapons Miniatures are sculpted very well in my opinioin.  Easy to paint and look great when finished.  Note: you don't have to fill them in with blood.  They are perfectly fine when painted normally, but I prefer them this way because of my army theme.  The resin is soft and easy to work with.  IE Drilling, Pinning, Cutting  Pricing is very fair in my opinion.

The Bad:  They're light.  This poses a problem with metal minis and minis that aren't completely centered.

As you can see, this Scourge is mounted on a rock as part of its sculpt.  This meant few of the bases could actually be used without scraping out some of those lovely bones.  It also meant that I had to find a proper open area on the base to pin the mini.  In this case, the rear of the base.  The weight of the resin was a major problem.  I solved it by drilling three holes and gluing shotgun pellets into them as a counter weight at the front of the base.  Any material can be used as a counter weight.  Its not hard to do, but it is an extra hurdle.

The bases are slightly too small to comfortably fit a model that doesn't have its legs ramrod straight below its body.  I'm sure you could tell this from the first pictures.  Some filing/cutting has to be done in order to fit one or more of the feet over the edges of the base.

Final Verdict:  I love them.  Minor frustrations aside, these are great bases for certain armies.  A pro painter could put out even higher quality than I did above.  I've got thirty 25mm bases and five 40mm bases to deck out a good sized portion of my Dark Eldar.  Once complete, I've already got a display board theme all mapped out.  Blood Orgy!!

Definitely worth the very reasonable price that Secret Weapons is asking.

I'll be putting up a tutorial on how to get the blood effect within the next couple days.

Some Dark Eldar Vehicle magnetization

Currently magnetizing my new Venom and a Ravager I've had sitting on the shelf.  I'm not 100% satisfied with the Venom splinter cannon.  Its sitting a little too high because of the space needed for the magnet and the really flimsy tab that they put onto the turret in the first place.  I still have to trim down the green stuff though so we'll see how it ends up.  The underslung splinter cannon/twin linked splinter rifle mounts will be a snap though.

The Ravager was kind of a nightmare because of huge gaps between the bottom and the sides.  Filled those with green stuff.  Put magnets on the sponson mounts to allow for me to run it as Raider when needed.  I'm currently working out how I'm going to mount magnets on the side guns because they're rather flimsy as well.  Its so much easier to magnetize Marine vehicles.  Ugh, the Talos/Cronos is going to be just as bothersome.  Oh well, I love the versatility of magnets so its just something to adapt too.

Time to buy more green stuff too!

Rune Priest Kitbash

One of the best things to happen to Space Marine players this year was the release of plastic Grey Knights in Terminator armor and Power armor.  Finally, we have plastic psychic hoods to play with.  Until now we've resorted to cutting up shoulder pads and converting our own with inconsistent snippets of art work as reference material.  The All Father has seen fit to shine his light down upon the faithful.  Its unfortunate that it came in the form of the vile Grey Knights, slayers of Daemons and the Imperium's heroes alike.  C'est la vie, non?

Pics!  I'm still playing with my choice of heads.  I'm leaning towards using the head seen in these pics, but I have not dismissed using a helm head.  I've got a Maxmini Steam Knight helm that I'm very tempted to use for this model.  The legs seem very bare to me, but I'm not quite sure what I could add to them to make them more wolfy without just dangling more wolf tails from them.  I have some brass etched from Forgeworld, but they're poorly sized for ordinary power armor models.


Pieces used in this model include:  Grey Knight torso, Grey Knight Ward Staff, Grey Knight head,  Assault Marine legs, Mk 5 shoulder pad, Space Wolf Pack pistol, Space Wolf Pack shoulder pad, and a power plant back pack from the Space Wolf upgrade sprue sold directly from GW's website(great stuff on this sprue).

And...because I'm in love with my latest purchases.

So I picked up a Venom, a box of Scourges, and a Talos/Cronos kit.  Look forward to these in the near future.  I'm currently magnetizing the Venom and a Ravager.  I'm going to try magnetizing the Talos/Cronos so I can field either/or...not sure whether it'll be successful or not, but we shall see.  I'll be reviewing the Scourges and the Talos/Cronos in the near future.  So far, I'm in love with my Scourges.  My favorite new models without a doubt.  I am, however, disappointed in the sprue.  They only include one of each weapon type.  To field a ten man unit with four Haywire Blasters I either; need to buy four boxes or buy bitz.  Guess which way I'll be going about it?  GW put out a beautiful box of models and then snuck in a little "screw you" to remind us that they love their customers.  Its as if they don't realize how much money they lose from packing decisions like this.

Also, expect the second part of my Secret Weapons Bone Field review to drop this weekend.  I'm been dragging ass on finishing my example, but its done now.  All thats left is to upload the pics.