Summing up 2015 and hopes for 2016

Good grief i have been slipping up as of lately.

So, this is my (highly delayed) summing up of 2015.

High points

This is one of the highpoints. Sad? maybe, but these reavers got first blood on turn 1 and put the fear of Dark eldar in a Tau player.

• I finally finished up my first army (only five years in, y.a.y.) my Kabal of the hope betrayed are finally painted up to 2500 points worth. And i have also based almost all of it. Which i, unfortunately have no pictures of. 
• I found a functional set-up for my dark eldars. I have a good set up with my haemonculus formations working as high toughness shock troops. The Master artisan with a webway portal and a scalpel formation does wonders, particularly against LD vulnerable armies. 
• I got my hands on the last additions that i needed. These are (to date) unfinished and unassembled. But i have a good idea on where i can add them. Of particular note are two Sslyth for my court of the archon. 
• I finally decided on a 30K legion, that i want to play. 
• I got a good number of games in with my Dark eldar. And a semi-regular thing against my friends Tau army. 
• I "adopted"" an additional army from my friend who didn't have the space, nor the time for it. 
• family stuff. ALL OF IT. 

I have to say that triple lance ravagers are one of the actual tips i got from the internet that is never disappointing.

Shout Outs

+ The games workshops customer service, no seriously. I lodged two complaints this year, and both were handled quickly, and diligently to my full satisfaction,one, a delay of delivery. i was reimbursed with vouchers to soften the blow of the delay. Which i promptly spent and then some at the GW webstore, Well played Customer service. The second one concerned the fact that i had not received a correct amount of bases, it turned out i had in fact received the correct amount (in my defence it was for nurglings, so go figure) but they still sent additional ones. I like to rag on Geedubs as much as the next roller (i play DE) but hot diggity dee if the customer service ain't great. 

+ i found a podcast i liked, which kept me going throughout my December painting spree. 

http://age-of-darkness-podcast.blogspot.se/ 

I like their mix of casual and serious approach to 30k, and i think they have a great chemistry between them when it comes to discussing both the crunch and fluff aspect of 30k 

+ i feel that i have improved as a painter. I'll gladly admit that this is a a subject experience, but i have attempted  new techniques, and i have particularly gotten over my fear of painting skin tones. Which is usefull as i have started a new army that requires a lot of skin. 

+oh shit i am linking people a lot for work i am incapable of reproducing. But moving on, trying to break my BOLS (bell of lost souls) addiction, since the amount of reposting and clickbaiting is getting strenous even for somebody who browses free online newspapers. But the following site sure has great on the floor reporting for all things 30k heresy related. "Battle bunnies" 

low points

-i adopted another army! oh shit son what the hell are you doing? You have a family now. This is your sixth army. 

- i finally decided on a 30k legion army. Because apparently i DO HATE MONEY. 

- I caved and got the haemonculus codex and covens units for my army. better than Craftworld eldar, but still a cop out. 

So here we have some of VIP's. The venoms are scalpel squadros. And the talos,chronos and Haemon with a sniper rifle are my artisan formation. Not really a "ozymandias moment a lá shelley" but still capable of smashing face. 

So there you have it. 2015 in retrospective 

so what are my 2016 goals? 

• tying up my two new armies 
• finishing 2000 pts of horus heresy 30K. 
• getting a game, or two in with that army. 
• CUT DOWN ON MY damn spending, seriously i need a fricking intervention. 

Getting in deeper on new stuff in my other posts tho' 

happy new year! 

Basing done easy, done right.

I got some positive feedback on the basing of my Talos and Venom (the HQ one) and i really cannot claim any credit for it, i started experimenting in buying bases and the best one so far are probably the skull bases that i have for my wannabe succubus and the "wrack" i built from spares to get nine.

Black cat bases in demonstration. If interested, check it out

I've bought a couple of bases from black cat, and they probably have the best bases for skulls, there are different sizes, randomization and as far as i have experienced no mold slips.

It is realy easy to make them look good too, black base colour, drybrush, and nuln oil. If desired, flock. All the allure of doing Undead skeletons, but for a higher purpose, or rather.....a BASE purpose :D


*ehum* I was pretty happy with my Grey knight terminators from a way back. As you are sometimes, but when i picked them up from their foamed suspension, i started finding faults, missed highlights, large areas that were not shaded, and so forth. I doubt i am the only one who has that issue, you focus on painting something, get at it, feel finished and when you look at it the next day it is not as good as you remember it. it might the fatigue meaning that you start missing details but i prefer to think of it as your sense of self preservation lulling you into a false sense of completion so as to get you do less meaningfull stuff, like eating or sleeping.

On to the pudding.

The base foundation for is Devlan mud, you could probably get the same material cheaper if you mixed dark mud colour with fine grained sand, but i have to say that as far as the GW technical range goes, this has been a real treat to work with. In the video you are advised to not use a brush, it will obviously wear down the brush, but it also means that you get less "whorls" that give a better visual impact. So using a cut up piece of sprue to spread it out really is better.

The dawnstone is what(in my opinion) really ties it together, and if you wanted more of a winter wonderland look, then simply using dawnstone, and white scar might work better, i tried the Praxeti white (again, because i simply had it available) and it worked out prety great, if you want a more "sandy" touch, then skip it.

The new Talos i recently painted, the basing scales pretty well for larger bases, and i will definetly use it for "dreadnight" sized modells.


I followed the Walkthrough from winters SEO. It really is a great channel with good batreps, and the walkthrough is in five easy steps and with a great return on your work investment.

The link for his scheme is below.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWOpNPZES1Y&list=WL&index=4

A venom worthy of a leader

As i have mentioned in previous posts i have always chosen to glue shut the cockpit of my venoms, paint them black and then use 'ardcoat to make them pop a bit.

The choice was utilitarian (could not be arsed to paint cockpit) by style (GLAS? on a SPACE worthy vessel) and by look (I just wanted to).

But on this, my third Venom i felt that it was time to stretch my wings a bit, emboldened by what i deemed to be a success on the wracks, i decided to try some new things. So on the new venom i wanted to

• have a vessel that immediately identified as for a HQ
• have a green HUD 
• paint the operator and inside of cockpit. 
• use 'ardcoat and technical highlighting to make it look a bit more swish. 
• actually base a flying base for a skimmer. 

The HUD was the easiest one, i used the Waywatcher green glaze and basically soaked the glase ( i have spares so i figured i'd test it) i saw a highly instructive youtuber reccommend Tamiya clear green, but as i didn't have any, and could not seem myself using it more than once or twice, i figured i'd give waywatcher a swang.

It worked out, but i do reccommend touching up with some nuln, and highlighting with some green, to define the features.

The operator and cockpit was easy enough, as long as i had the desired Daftpunk head available. 

The basing was done to my satisfaction (praise be to mordheim turf!) 

The 'ardcoat was the real killer, for some, naive, unspoken reason i thought two layers would do. Nope. I'm at five now, and i'm decently happy now. I also decided to do the "middle" and wings with some 'ardcoat. To give it some P-zass!

and this was the result. 

The red on the nose and body corresponds to the colour i did my new succubus in, while the greener on the back part matches the overall scheme of my kabal. I tried to come up with how to do a base that denoted some movement, but i resigned myself to the wateland one you can see. 

Still, i am pretty happy overall. 

Settling on a colour scheme for the wracks.

I have had very varying results when i actually go ahead and deploy my wracks. Probably becuase i tend to use them as a "hammer" unit, the kind that you gladly take advantage of, and for granted when you play Marines in general. The problem is that the Wracks might roll with T4, which is a rarity for the Dark eldar army, but the 6+ save, S3 and the straight lack of shooting (Except for two flamers or fleshbane guns per ten bodies) means that they will have a hard time surviving overwatch. And AP5 and Instant death will laugh at your measly save and Power from pain rolls. 

Still the Wrack's as a model is probably the only unit that has gotten a lot of my Non-40k playing friends to stop for a moment, hold it up and ask what is this guy's deal. I mean the variation on the kit is amazing. You have double arms, double heads, and a spine that grows over your head like antlers and gives you the drugs you need to beat shit to death. And i guess that 10pts a pop for two 4+ poisoned CC weapons, plain FnP and T4 is pretty ok. Particularly when you start shenanigans with Coven formation. 

still looks a bit Dark Eldarish somehow.

The scalpel squadron is probably a good "minimum investment" you need two groups of wracks deployed in a Venom each. They Deep strike in on Turn one automatically. If they score first blood, you get D3 Victory points. I know i am late to the party, but if you are not playing Maelstrom, that is pretty good. The unseen point is also that, as Dark Eldar, you will probably be giving away First blood on a semi regular basis, so just denying that, while possible negating a slay the warlord that your opposite will score (if you do have a living HQ at the end of the game semi-regulary, PLEASE tell me how you do it). That is pretty wicked as far as i am concerned.

Still. Moving on. I couldn't really decide on what scheme i wanted, Gw's paint channel is the pink of raw muscle tissue exposed, or the pale'd gloom of a long abused tool that has gnarled skin that has paled whilst dwelling in the forgotten laboraties neath the hellish portcity of Commorragh. 

But i wanted to try something new, to stretch my proverbial legs. So i went ahead and tested out two Schemes, that first one, the Druchii violet shading, that has been paled a tad more, is consistent with what i use on the exposed skin of my other DE. But i also chose to try using the P3 Turqoise ink, and it gave a beautiful result. 

The Wracks i  painted were probably the first set of modells that i was very happy with, a simply astronomican grey watered down for skin, with the P3 ink, and then some highlighting on the torso, some null shading, and the some more P3. The silver on the bracers and the valve his chest blends in nicely in my opinion. 

The Purple ones wound out ok, but i was pretty set on the Turqoise scheme, yes, that wrack is using a human head for an IV stand, not to weird when you remember the post gothic "skull" fetisch that the empire has on a whole 

Following my instincts yielded a pretty good result with the turqoise, so i went ahead and did the "red" scheme that geedubs has on their youtube, but it just would not take properly i think one of the reasons is that i had a grey undercoat, and not rakarth flesh (which is paler) so in the end i did the same as above, but highlighed and drybrushed some khorne red (befitting my mood a the time) but it worked out pretty ok in my opinion. 

I did a few turns of 'ardcoat on the bracers and mask, and and in my opinion that made all the difference. 

Finally, a group shot with my newly painted Haemonculus, meaning that i now have one of EACH Hq selection, except the named ones, maybe Drazhar is next? getting me some o' dat sweeeeet 2+ save that i hear is all the rave for the lesser races. 

Chaining myself back to the painting station

So yeesh, it has been a godly time since i sat down and actually documented what i have been up to.

The reason is pretty much Two-fold.

New family situation, new Job. And, to be completely honest, a new sort of absurd obession with 30K. That recently resulted in me treated myself to about 500 bucks worth of Forge world. Damn, dem sicarians don't come cheap. But still, as my spirit animal advised

The thing about playing miniatures is that there is always an unspoken assumption that, no matter what system you game, you wish there was a higher quality of merchandise, even if it does cost a bit more. I suppose that equates to 40K being the cheaper mans choice, which is such a ludicrous statement that frost is forming in Dis as i write this.

Still, carrying on, when my package arrives i assume i will be so taken with it that i'll immediately buy an airbrush to give it the lavish attention it deserves.

As i left off, i was having some issues deciding on a point efficient HQ unit, playing against my buddies Tau, and against another mates Orks, i found that a cheap-o Succubus with the armour of misery and an archite Glaive in a group of incubi does alright. Just over a hundred points for AP2 and a 4+ 6++ (with the succubus getting a 4++ in CC) with the added benefit of a FnP roll on the turn that you (usually)get into combat.

But paying for a new modell was something of an aversion of mine, so i decided to simply kitbash one.

the end result was pretty satisfactory to me.

The body,arms and legs are all from spares you get from the venom kit. I rarely modell the "angry wyches hanging on the side of your ghetto-gunship" so i had a lot of little pieces to use. The Head is the much Coveted "daft punk" helmet you get for your reavers. The only difficulty is getting ENOUGH heads, as you usually want as much head as you can get from the reaver box......sorry, i couldn't resist.
The "archite glaive" is just a spare demiklaive that you get two from the Hellions sprue. I put it together with a custom Skull base that i give my Char's when i remember to and we're off to the races.

I'm thinking of doing some small "engravings" with a babybrush to show that it is the "armour of misery" but we will see when i get around to that.

Still, waste not want not. And that's a few bucks i can spend on some other inane part of the hobby :D