More DE HQs

Not started painting any of them yet, but I've been assembling Dark Eldar for ages and ages, it seems!
Anyway, most are standard so I won't bore you with pictures, but I have been messing with HQs.

Here's my first. She was originally meant to be an Archon, but she came out looking a lot more...nude than I was imagining to begin with. I think she'll make a pretty good succubus though.




I decided I needed an actual Archon still. At the moment she's just blu-tacked together so I can see how the pose etc looks. Thoughts? Not sure about her right arm either. Maybe a blast pistol?

Dark Eldar 3 games in

I managed to get a mighty 3 games in this week, to break in my new DE force. The good news is there was plenty of pain and despair inflicted. The bad news is that most of it was inflicted on me.

My army list was a bit of a hodge podge mix of things. Stuff I liked the look of from the miniature range (most of the first wave of releases), stuff I already owned (Harlequins, the forgeworld Pheonix Bomber) and a few things I wanted to try out (Lady Malys and a Haemonculus).
Here's what my 1500 list looked like.

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Lady Malys

Haemonculus
(Agoniser)

9 Wychs
(Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

9 Wychs
(Razorflails, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)


10 Warriors
(Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Sybarite with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

10 Warriors
(Blaster, Dark Lance)

6 Reavers
(2x Caltrops, 2 x Heat Lances)

Voidraven
(Flickerfield, 1 Shatter Missiles)

6 Harlequins
(Kisses, 2 fusion pistols, Shadowseer, Death Jester)

1494
-----------------------

First game was against craftworld Eldar, a guardian horde. With the exception of 3 warwalkers, everyone was on foot. This ended up being a fairly non dynamic battle, sadly. He was new to his army as well, so we both sort of kept our distance and slapped each other around a little before drawing with an objective each. I had set up for a bit of a first turn assault on his forces (using Malys' redeployment abilities), but got the initiative seized on me, which took the wind out of my sails a little. I did manage to run down a 15 man squad of guardians using only a single sybarite however, which was pretty entertaining.

Second game was up against Imperial Guard. A valk and a Vendetta, a bunch of Chimeras, a Manticore, a Deathstrike, and a single Russ. This time I think I made the mistake of heading in to a stand up fight, rather than engaging all of my forces against part of his. I really don't have the numbers to be able to commit a portion of it as a distraction. AV 12 was my bane this game, as it continues to be for my gaming career. Give me multiple Land Raiders over multiple Chimeras any day. I don't think I managed to crack open any of his transports. By the end of the game I had a single Reaver left (albeit the most bad-ass reaver in existence; throughout the game he survived numerous bolt and las shots, a straight up lascannon hit, and being set on fire numerous times). On the plus side however, I got the hang of a couple of tricks that will work for me in the future. One was using cover with my raiders. Whilst I was hit with a lot of fire power, I think I managed to claim a save from most of it (in which case I might be able to trim Flickerfields to free up some points in the future. Will need further investigation). The other was how to use my bikes. I deployed them behind cover out of sight of most of his army. First turn I moved forwards 12 to unleash my double heat lance on one of his fliers, before using my assault move to dodge back behind cover. Granted, the part of my plan that involved rolling more than a 2 with the hit dice apparently failed, but the movement part seemed solid. My Voidraven also got immobilised but still managed to nuke the russ and the manticore. I like the Voidraven. Maybe one day I'll get to drop the mine.

3rd game I went up against a (mostly) mechanised Tau force. 3 Hammerheads (2 with rail guns, 1 with an ion cannon), 2 Devilfish fire warrior squads, 2 on foot fire warrior squads, and a big pack of outflanking kroot. Oh, there was a commander and squad of suits in reserve as well but they didn't show up till the last turn, by which time I was mostly out for the count. The jetbikes did tons better this game. I kept them turbo boosting throughout most of it, decapitating a whole squad of fire warriors in one pass. You know that must have looked awesome on the battlefield. I kept the Voidraven in reserve again, which I think is a solid tactic. It protects the thing from unwarranted enemy attentions, plus I can bring it where it can do the most damage. My main foe this time was my horrible anti-armour. I think someone must have forgotten to change the batteries in the lances before the battle, because I failed to do anything more than a stun result to any of the vehicles.

Ok, enough rambling about that. I've made a few tweaks based on what worked and what didn't. I've added in more manoeuvrability, and more lances. I've dropped the Haemonculus, too. The free pain token is nice, no doubt about that, but I think the lack of fleet hurts when I'm trying to get my wyches into the fight.

This is what my new 1500 looks like.

-----------------------
Archon
(Shadowfield, Agoniser)

Succubus
(Agoniser)

9 Wychs
(Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

9 Wychs
(Razorflails, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

10 Warriors
(Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Sybarite with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

10 Warriors
(Blaster, Dark Lance)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

6 Reavers
(2x Caltrops, 2 x Heat Lances)

Voidraven
(Flickerfield, 2 Shatter Missiles)

Ravager
(Flickerfield)

1496
-----------------------
As I said, more speed and more lances, which should help get the foe out of their transports, and get my wyches into the foe. I've also changed up the HQ a little. A fighty character with each squad should, I hope, give them the extra punch they need when I go up against more close combat orientated forces. I ripped through Guardsmen and Fire Warriors in close combat, but I suspect those Flesh Tearers that I sometimes fight may give me more of a fight. We shall see.


I'm mostly done with my epic quest of glueing grey plastic together, so hopefully I should be able to get some more painting posts up soon!

Sybarite Fashion; Winter collection

Just a quick post for you, I'll get something more substantial up over the weekend.

When assembling my Kabalite warrior squads, weapon choice was a bit of a problem. Internet group think can give me some ideas, but how do I know what load outs will suit me best? What do I arm my Sybarites with? Do I even want the Sybarite upgrade at all? Knowing what unit upgrades I can afford in my army list is problematic when I'm still figuring out what units I'll be using in the first place.

The answer was a bit of everything. I made sure both my Kabalite leaders were armed with Splinter Rifles so I can field them as fancy-looking-but-ultimately-regular-warriors. I also didn't want to waste any power swords or anything on them. Gotta ration out my bits for making cool characters. In the end I gave each a swinging chain blade from the Wych kit, which I think works as an agoniser if I have the points to spend.

Plus dudes loaded down with weapons look awesome.

Commissar Cosplay and Bolt Pistol auction

Earlier this year I went to the MCM expo in London. My GF was going in costume, so I decided to step up and make myself something to wear as well.
The obvious choice of course was an Imperial Guard Commissar (Alas, I lack the 8 foot physique and jutting jawbone to get away with dressing as an Ork).
Here are a few pictures. Beware, my horrific visage is incoming!




Anyway, I've been cleaning up and getting rid of a lot of the junk I love to accumulate, and have decided to put my modified Bolt Pistol up on ebay.

Auction is here
EBAY

Post Apocalyptic Pictures

Well, the last reactor has gone nuclear, the last plasma gun has cooled, and the last chainsword has been dislodged from the last head.
Had a great day yesterday, and our little 40k game was certainly apocalyptic.
Most importantly, my Phoenix got to shoot something (killed a mighty 8 chaos marines before we had to call time) and my Shadowsword got to kill something (mostly our own guardsmen when it exploded), so I was pleased!
Here are a few photos I took:

Overview of the Imperial side's forces all unpacked. You can see, from closest to furthest away, my Iron Hands, Raven Guard, a chunk of the Imperial Guard armour, the bastions, more Guard tanks, Tau, and right at the back are the Blood Angels.


We also had a few members of the Ultramarine first company.


Last but not least, Operation: Human Shield


Spies were sent to scout the enemy's forces, but only this blurry picture made it back to us


Both sides line up ready for the carnage


Things start badly for the Imperium. Orks and Chaos advance as our left flank vanishes under the initial fire storms. Our right flank remains smug under a shield generator. We also start the battle long trend of welcoming lovely chaps wearing terminator armour to view the rear armour of all our tanks. They are quite insistent that we show it to them, as they stroke their melta guns and cackle to themselves.


That's Wazdakka in the red, and that's a Vortex Grenade he's just thrown at us.

The battlefield clears out a bit after the middle stompa goes nuclear


Robo-Lysander and a sternguard squad, moments before they are mobbed by orks. When we finished the game at the end of turn 3, Lysander was still surrounded by baddies, swinging his thunderhammer at them.

Other highlights that I failed to get pictures of include:
Our disruptor beacon working like a champ and sending Abaddon, 5 terminators, several squads of obliterators and 2 demon princes off to the wrong side of the battlefield.
Alistair's colonel furiously punching an obliterator to death with his power fist before consolidating calmly into a bunker.
A combined outflanking force of Kroot and Grey Knights pouncing on a large group of Necrons.

Countdown to Apocalypse

I've been gearing up for a huge Apocalypse game on Sunday. It's looking like we'll have about 21,000 points on each side, plus super heavies (We're balancing the heavies separately after an incident last year involving too many stompas). Quite exciting as this will be my first Apocalypse game ever!
I'm bringing about 3k of Iron Hands, along with an Eldar reserves force (in case anyone doesn't show up and we need extra bodies to balance the sides).
My marines don't get much play time these days, because we have quite a hefty lot of Imperial players at our club. I'm not a big fan of same faction vs same faction fighting (unless it makes sense from a fluff perspective, which admittedly isn't terribly hard to justify in the 41st millennium). It's fine now and then, but with all the marines players at the club it's more fun to bring along one of my other forces on game night.

With that in mind, it'll be good to see them in action again. I believe we should have representatives from a few of the other major chapters, with Raven Guard, Blood Angels, Ultramarines as well as a contingent (Regiment? Detachment?) of the Mordian Iron Guard (oh, and some Tau and my aforementioned Craftworlders as well). On the opposing side we've got a massive amount of Orks, Chaos, and probably some Dark Eldar.

I managed to paint up a new dreadnought for the occasion. He has yet to be named. Any suggestions?


I also got around to assembling the Forge World Phoenix Bomber that I've had on my shelf for way too long. It has no paint so here's a dramatic silhouette shot so you can't see it properly.


I've got a few hours painting time left to try and get Fake Lysander finished, too. I want to see how many stompas he can hammer his way through.

Skaven unit fillers

I had an excellent idea to batch paint 20 clan rats at once. While I must admit that painting the final bits of their bases and ranking them up, finished, one by one at the end was very satisfying, I don't think I'll be doing it again. Working on that many at once sapped my will to paint a little, so in the end I think doing them in batches of 10 or maybe even 5 would get me through them a little better.

Anyways, my first 500 points is now fully painted! I will attempt to get a group shot of them when the lighting is better, but for now I'm moving on to assemble more of the little rats, including making some unit fillers to bulk out the clan rats a little.

The "holes" should look a little better with sand applied to the bases, I hope.

Postcards from Commorragh

Well, I got a big box of stuff through the mail today. Mmmm, lovely new pointed eared warriors to do my bidding. The codex is lovely, as are the kits. I'm just browsing through it and pondering what direction to go in at the moment. It's quite liberating to come to an army completely fresh, with no preconceptions about unit types or background!

For the miniatures, I'm going all plastic. Same as my Skaven. Harlequins don't count because I already own some, and Fighters/Bombers don't count because they're resin and, er, because I said so.

Anyway, I've got plans for various conversions.

Wracks from ghouls is fairly standard and I might make myself a unit, but will probably shy away from going too far in the direction of the homunculus. Mostly because the artwork in the book for the wracks and grotesques look cool, so I wanna see what GW comes out with in wave 2.

Homunculi themselves shouldn't be too tough. I made an evil science doctor type chaos space marine a while ago, and I think the same principles should work for the space elves.

I'll proxy one before I decide if it has a place in my army, but a talos counts as from a wraithlord kit seems like an idea that may not be horrible.

I fancy trying some incubi, but not sure how to go about making some. Warriors with modified hellion helglaves, maybe? Dark Elf Cold One knight heads, and some greenstuff cloaks? Hmmm. Something to think about.

For leaders and special characters, Lady Malys sounds fun. Whether I use her or a generic Archon remains to be seen, but she'll certainly be the inspiration behind the looks of my HQ. I'm thinking a spare demonette for the torso/upper legs, with a greenstuff cloak covering up the demonic side of things. Kind of regal looking. I've got some spare eldar guardian legs that can work for her boots/lower legs, and then should have plenty of spare heads/arms from the main kits. I shall have to make like the homunculi, and start putting bits together to see what works best.


Finally, reading through the unit description for the Court of the Archon, anyone else think Sslyth = Laer? Their physical description sounds about the same, and the whole falling prey to excess sounds about right too.