Upgrading Older / Converted Models?

Morning all,

Had a bit of a productive afternoon on Sunday in terms of painting. I managed to get 6 Incubi, a Hellion and a Baron Sathonyx conversion done, ready for black wash. I also got 2 Bretonnian Damsels almost done, just a few details left to do on them before the wash stage - then base everything.

I had hoped to have some done to share on here, but instead, I'll ramble about what's going on with my Dark Eldar army at the moment.

I've come up with a dilemma at the moment, where I've bought my first Citadel Finecast models (Incubi) and found that a whole world of new minis have opened up to me. The problem being, that I'd originally made all my Haemonculi coven Dark Eldar bits and bobs out of Skaven things. So Plague Monks were Wracks, Haemonculi were Warlocks and Warlords and Grotesques were Rat Ogres.

Now I'm looking at whether it's worth me spending cash to update the models to the actual Finecast models. The Skaven stuff does the job on the battlefield, but they don't look like they match with the other Dark Eldar range that I have.

So it begs the question - should I swap to the Finecast / Newer released equivalents?

 

My Grotesques are Rat Ogres. No conversions, just painted in a similar method to the Dark Eldar armour and such.I've got 6 of them, along with possibly 2 more from an Island of Blood set that I *could* use. My problem with buying Grotesques in Finecast is the cost and unit size. It's not too bad to buy 3 / 4 of them in a Raider with a Haemonculus, but even still, that's £50 -£60 for a single unit without the transport. I might see about converting these guys out of Ogre Bulls instead and use the Rat Ogres as my Clawed Fiends.

Wracks, I'm much more likely to swap to Finecast with. In my current list, I'm using a unit of 3 in a Venom and simply deploy them in the most LOS obscuring terrain I can, then have them sat there for the game. If I'm only taking the one unit, then I could easily buy a box, then have the bits spare for if the unit needs expanding with another generic Wrack and the options on an Acothyst.

Chances are, these guys will be getting updated to Finecast pretty soon.

Haemonculi are another likely contender for me to go to Finecast. I do like the models and the problem I'm finding at the moment with my current Skaven-culi is they're all the same model, same pose and same weapons, meaning that it's hard to keep track of which is which in terms of shattershard and other upgrades. I could do with having a proper look at the Haemonculi blister pack to see what options there are in terms of weaponry and arcane wargear.

The idea would be that I have one with a Shattershard and a Venom Blade who hops in the Wrack's transport and then zooms off to snipe some characters, and a second one that can go with an Incubi squad to boost them with Feel No Pain - although I'm not sure on upgrades for that fella.

This is my Urien Rat-karth, who's a Skaven Warlord from Island of Blood. Originally I chose him, so that his trophy rack on his back made him stand out, but I ended up cutting it off because it was too Skaven-y and in the way all the time.

Going back to my Haemonculi issue before, I was debating buying the actual Rakarth model (same price as a Haemonculi Finecast) and using him as my variant Haemonculi, so it's obvious which is which.

I don't really want to use him in lists, as to do a proper Haemonculi coven army, it'd cost me a ton and really, that's the only way I can imagine I would use him. Even then, I'd probably rather take 6 basic Haemonculi and assign them out to other squads, giving a guaranteed 6 pain tokens off the bat.

What do you guys think? Do you ever look back at converted models from the past, in a time before the model it represented had existed, or as a cheaper alternative, then think about upgrading them to the newer models?

I'm normally in the camp that thinks "Why spend money on things I technically already own, when I could use that money to buy new stuff which I don't have?" (i.e. Razorwings and Talos) But over the past few weeks, I've been thinking about this, not only for my Dark Eldar, but also my Chaos Daemons.

The aim being, that if I retire the Skaven aspect of my Dark Eldar, I'll bring them back as my Chaos Daemon Nurgle army.

Comments are, as always, welcome. And any ideas you guys have!

Peace,
SB