Choosing an Eldar Craftworld

Ello folks,

Over the last few months I've been working very, very slowly on an Eldar army that I bought second hand. I've been repairing broken bits, assembling what was still in boxes and converting some other bits and bobs with them.

I'm still not quite ready to paint them yet, however... I've not settled on a particular Craftworld choice and don't really have any ideas of my own when it comes to paint schemes.

I would prefer them to be a different primary colour to my other armies, since I don't really want to be painting something that's the same as another army. I'd like them to be visually different where possible... Anyway, here goes...

Biel-Tan

I like the idea of a white armoured army, however painting a lot of things Green is putting me off. After 10k of Orks, helping out painting more Orks and then a Dark Angels army - anything that is green is a turn off.

However, I am swayed by the white armour, but would need to find a quick way of painting white over a black undercoat. As I'm stuck in my ways and don't like to base white.

Saim-Hann

I don't particularly like the fluff of Saim-Hann, however I do think their Guardians and red armour are the nicest looking variant in the Eldar codex.

However... the prospect of painting more red, after a ton of Ork vehicles and a Khorne Daemon army really puts me off. Plus, it's a very vibrant red, which I don't think I'm committed to doing nicely.

Alatoic

Now, I do like this craftworld. Partly because it uses Yellow in the scheme and I've very rarely painted using yellow. However, the downside is that the primary colour is the mottled blue, which is pretty similar to my Dark Eldar army.

I also like the fluff of the heavy emphasis on Rangers / Pathfinders for this Craftworld as well.

Iyanden

The reverse of Alatoic, this one. Again, Yellow is a colour I've not used very much while painting. But the thought of using a white base here puts me off. It's a very warm yellow that I don't think I would be able to achieve without a lot of work.

The other downside to this Craftworld is that Sanguinus has based his Eldar corsairs around the Iyanden craftworld, led by Prince Yriel, and I like to avoid clashing of armies and fluff between the gaming group where possible.

Ulthwe

Ulthwe is quite a popular craftworld, due to Eldrad, high number of Psykers and it's quick and easy paint scheme. So far there's at least 1 Ulthwe army that comes to the club, with the possibility of a second.

I originally painted some Guardians last Summer in an Ulthwe scheme and quite enjoyed it, but I'm thinking that the vehicles will look pretty boring. It's quick and easy on the infantry, but I doubt the massive amount of black will look nice on the tanks and walkers.

Yme-Loc

These guys looked pretty cool in the Codex and I've seen a few armies knocking around online. Personally, I prefer the Red sections to be more Orange in colour, as that's a colour I've also not used a lot in my time painting.

The only downside to this is that my Squat and Imperial Guard armies are both primarily Grey. So it'd be very Grey vehicles and armour plates again.

Altansar

Again, these guys are primarily Red coloured, which is a bit iffy - especially as I've said before with vehicles. However, I like the background of this craftworld, they appear out of the Eye of Terror after dissappearing and are treated with suspicion.

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So what do you guys think? So far I'm most tempted by Yme-Loc, but each day I keep getting drawn to do a Biel-Tan army in a "dirty white" style and focus on white on the vehicles, rather than heavy on the Green.

Any other craftworlds or cool paint schemes you can show me to inspire Craftworld Mystery?

SB

Road to Warrington - The way home!

So I did promise a couple of battle reports, but the games were so close I forgot to take any pictures. Now that the Northern Warlords GT is over, I thought I would go through what happened for me, and what I ended up thinking about the tournament.

To begin with I got everything painted to the minimum three colours and based, all that I have remaining is the lightning detail. I also plan to do a bit of freehand painting some Skulls and squad Icons on the back of the Rhino's to distinguish each squad.

So here is my painted army on the whole after the fourth game of the tournament.

My tournament didn't go quite as planned, I was expecting to lose the majority of games, as I am only an average player, and I was taking a "sub-optimal" Chaos Marines list. In my first game, I got really unlucky as was drawn against a "leafblower" list with the Spearhead deployment. It ended up with me being completely wiped out, I didn't even manage a single Victory Point, let alone a Kill Point. So that put me at the bottom, with a 20-0 loss and -1750 Kill points.

My Dreadnought (best painted model so far) and a glimpse of my Terminators and Possessed

So, in my second game I thought, this should be closer, and a more fun game, but boy I was wrong, I faced an almost Identical list, but with one less Vendetta and two less Hydra's. This time it was Dawn of War, and I thought I stood a chance, all I needed was for my Missile Launcher to hit a few times and it looked good with the first shot blowing up one Vendetta. But he then shot his remaining shots at my Vindicators blowing them both up through their smoke. This left me struggling and although I managed to get around 500 kill points, it ended up with a 20-0 loss again!!!

Third game, should have been easy then, I was still on zero points, and I got drawn against a Blood Angels, jump pack list. Great! I have two Vindicators that love to munch Marines, unfortunatly those two Vindicators missed four times over two turns, the Missile Launcher couldn't hit the Storm Raven (so far he had hit two things in three games). The game should have ended in a draw, but due to some miss-information, I gave the game away for a 14-6 loss. My opponent was gracious and offered a draw, but I didn't mind as I had enjoyed the game, and let him keep his win.

My Chaos Lord with Daemon weapon, being followed by his possessed retinue.

So, in my fourth game, I was put against a Space Wolf player from Aus, this guy had missed the first day due to illness. He had four Thunderwolves, and a Lord on a Thunderwolf, along with 15 Missile Launchers. I managed to kill his Thunderwolves (first time I had fought them) due to some bad rolling on my opponents behalf, It ended 15-5 loss because I couldn't get rid of the last couple of men in each squad.

Fifth game I got put against a judge as my opponent hadn't shown up, he had Daemons and I thought it would be an easy game, but this guy could Roll 5+'s like his life depended on it. I just couldn't compete with his good rolling and ended up getting flattened, though my Possessed and Lord killed 17 and a half Fiends of Slaanesh. So I was quite happy, so once again that's a 20-0 loss.

My Possessed Champion whipping the Possessed forwards being closely followed by the Terminators.

Last game, I faced an Ultramarine player with Cassius and Khan. He outflanked with Khan and 10 bikes, and his Land Raider with Cassius and some Termies, thankfully the Land Raider turned up on his side of the board. Khan managed to kill all but one Possessed and my Chaos Lord, and he and his squad then got swamped by two units of Chaos Marines, and my Lord rolled a 6 for his Daemon weapon! If the game had ended on turn 5 it would have been a high win to me, but due to the game continuing until turn 7, it ended in a complete draw of 10-10.

So all in all, there was around 15-16 Grey Knight Players, 6-7 Guard Players, 4-5 Blood Angels, and various other armies, including at least two Lash Prince, obliterator spam Chaos lists. I went away from the first day disappointed and quite bored with the game, thankfully the people I played day two were much more fun and it felt more like a game rather than just me turning up and putting my models away.

The guy I played third game (where I gave the game away) had apparently gone and spoken to the judges about what had happened and nominated me for best sportsman, which I was amazed at as I was just there to have fun. So, I would like to that Gareth Massey for that, and am glad to say I won best sportsman and so didn't leave empty handed. I ended up third from last in the tournament with 21 points.

My trophy!!!

I would also like to add that Pete, one of our newer players to the club (not the game) got nominated for best painted, but unfortunatly lost out to a Chaos Marine player that had done ALOT of brilliant freehand work, even on individual models aswell as the vehicles. I believe Angryman got a few pictures of this guys work, but still. Congratulations to Pete for getting into the top 4 of 52 armies!

Road to Warrington Pt:3

As promised here are a few more pictures of my "finished" models. I have now got around half of the army painted up and am hoping to take a few more pictures tonight to showcase the army/models and to go with my battle report.
First up are my mass armour, there are two Vindicator's, three Rhino's and a Dreadnought all sat ready to cause pain. I have painted two of the Rhino's and both Vindicator's over the weekend, though they are still awaiting the Lightning Detailing, and a bit of weathering (I got some weathering powder from Forge World with the third Rhino's doors). The third Rhino isn't painted because I didn't get the doors until Sunday, but that will be high on my list of what's left to do!

Here is a close up of my burning skulls on one of my Vindicator's, I thought it would be a good "fear" causer to see your fellows thrown onto a blazing fire on the back of a big gun. It also gave me a reason to have a go at painting fire (which didn't work out too well). Instead of working up to the tips I worked down to the fire, but a quick wash of Baal Red blended the paints together and gave it a passable look.

My tin of 46 guys, not really a good transport system, but it works, and they are so crammed in they barely move! I have 18 painted Night Lords, with 12 men undercoated and ready. My main problem is that I don't get my remaining 10 Night Lord Heads and Shoulder Pads, until Friday, which means, that some men are currently only half built!!! I am planning on just painting them up and then painting the heads and shoulder pads separately and gluing them on last minute (on the day if need be)

Nothing has been based yet as that is my last thing to do, the week running up to the tournament. I hope to get 10 men based a day, easy to do I hope!

Road to Warrington Pt:2

So as promised I am going to show you what I have done so far (and what I have left to do).

First up is my 10 men I have painted, they took me 45 minutes per man (need to speed up) I have yet to base or detail the men. They will all be based in a similar manner to the Dreadnought (as below), as for the detailing I may leave that until after the tournament, though I am aiming to get at least 50% of the models detailed before.

As you can see, they have they are not gold like the Night Lords in the Codex, as I prefered the Silver with the Idea of Moonlight. I also painted all the faces with skull plates, which I found out about in the Night Lords Novels. There is a mix of Chaos, and Vanilla Space Marine bits that helpt to make them look like scavengers, 10,000yrs is a long time to keep wearing the same armour and using the same weapons.

I am proudest of this model in my entire collection, it took me roughly 5 hours from undercoating to finish, though I was playing on FIFA at the same time. It is using the exact same colour as the men (I brewed up a batch that is ready for use on the rest of the army).

This is the basing I am planning on using with the rest of the army. It was just a base coat of Adeptus Battlegrey with a Devlan Mud wash. However, its the detailing I am proud of, I painted cracks onto the base, as this is a warzone, the pavement isn't going to be undamaged. I got a blood effect by mixing Scab Red with PVA glue, this gave it a chunky liquidy look which suited the purpose perfectly, and I will be repeating on other weapons and bases.

Here you can see the lightning effect I am planning on using on the rest of the army, this took very little time and produced a good effect (though my picture doesn't do it justice, if I say so myself) It is simply, Ice Blue with a Skull White topping. I used the same technique as the cracks on the base, which was start fat get thin, I then added various offshoots and painted the White slightly off centre to give it a moving and light effect.

Next up, two of the Rhino's still to be painted, there is still one more to be built, just waiting on some more Night Lords Doors. The hatch, guns, and gun turret hatches have not been glued down so they can be opened, removed, changed and so on as much as I want.

The remaining men to be painted (The terminators need to be built as those are old model I used as stand-ins) I have base-coated and put the silver trim on 9 of the men, ready to be finished at weekend.

And lastly, a VERY blurry shot of my Vindicator (on its side?) This has been undercoated and is ready for painting. There is a second Vindicator waiting to be built next to the Rhino.

So this weekend, among moving junk and keeping the room tidy, I am planning to get every model built (excluding the Rhino, and a few heads/shoulderpads I am waiting on) and to have my remaining 20 troops painted, and the two built Rhinos. That then will leave me with, 5 Terminators, 2 Vindicators, 9 Possessed, Rhino, and Chaos Lord to be painted the next weekend.

Bring on Warrington!

A look over the years

I thought that seeing as my Birthday is just a week away (no-one told me!) I would take a trip down memory lane and look at some of the models I have built and painted over the last six years.

My first army that I bought, built AND painted was my Eldar, before that was my Daemonhunters (but Suicide Badger painted them). With my Eldar I had an Idea for a Khainite (Khornate) Exodite army that had scavenged weapons and armour from battlefields. My list was weak as I didn't understand about having a mission for each unit properly, and having units which could fill multiple roles. Although I had a list which consisted of

The Avatar
12 Storm Guardians
12 Guardians
10 Pathfinders
6 Fire Dragons
10 Banshees
and a Fire Prism

with various other bits added on, I think I did well and tried to use ideas I had read and heard to adapt, but the problem was these ideas didn't fit my playstyle which I began to figure out as I got bored with my Eldar. Below is one of my "Conversion" attempts and one of the first models I painted, which was a Tau Devilfish turned Wave Serpent.


As you can see, it was just hacked at with a knife then painted black and red with a roughly painted Khorne symbol, not my best painting skills, but was a start.

I fumbled around with a couple of armies after 1-2 years of Eldar and decided I enjoyed Chaos, as the suited my playstyle of throw some men at the enemy and see what sticks. The problem was I had big ideas for my Chaos and I am still working on making them into a World Eater and Night Lord coalition with the beginnings on mutation showing on some models.

I finally decided to do a Raven Guard army as I loved the idea in the 4th Edition Space Marine Codex, the problem being they had a new book, but I thought I would give it a try anyway. My biggest conversion was this Land Speeder Storm (about a month before they announced the official model)

There was very little special about it, I kept the conversions simple, swapping the Marine bodies for Scouts and adding some antennae along with a cluster of Guard grenade launchers for the Cerebus launcher. This was also my first use of 'Ard coat and the Decals, I would have painted the better but I only spent two weeks on them so the white didn't work properly (a lesson for when I started basing my World Eaters, and painting my brighter Space Wolves and Grey Knights)

Next I turned to Space Wolves which I had put off when I heard about the new Codex, I gave it a quick read through and spotting they kept the Scouts outflanking behind the enemy and Long Fangs splitting their shots I lept onto buying 1500pts for a tournament which was a month away. I opted for a Logan terminator army with fire support from one unit of Long Fangs with Grey Hunters in Rhinos to rush for objectives or hang back.

This was my attempt at making Logan Grimnar as I HATE the metal model, I did some mild conversions to make his Axe look like it could be used as a Hammer, and giving him a "wrist" mounted stormbolter, which was just put on the back of a power fist. This was my first attempt at Fur, and was very pleased my Idea worked of using bestial brown with my newfound love of Washes. I also managed to paint him bright colours without them looking spodgy and washed out. I have now adapted my list to use less terminators and more men on foot led my Ragnar (which I also converted)

My biggest conversion was my attempt at a Tyrannofex, I used a Carnifex and ALOT of greenstuff. It is probably one of my best conversions to date and when painted will hopefully look like it is supposed to belong in a Tyranid army.

Keeping with the Tyranids I think one of my best painted conversions/dioramas is my Parasite of Mortex clawing the face off a Salamander (to encourage Angryman to get painting his Salamanders). My Tyranids were painted to look rotten and sickly seeing as I loved the Venomthrope model and rules along with them being started just after my stag do when I felt very very ill. I used brown and green washes which made the models stand out and gave them some definition where my painting skills couldn't. The Salamander was also fun for me to paint, especially the power axe which I spent two hours on to get the red looking like it was rippling lava.

My most recent painting was my six man Deathwatch Kill Team. These guys represent the pinnacle of my painting abilities to date and if you compare them (and the Tyranid) with my Eldar you can see that in six years I have improved if not largely. I managed to layer the whites/parchment to give it a bright colour rather that a spodgey greyish black. I also used a similar method on the Lightning Claws as with the Salamanders Axe giving it a flahsing effect.

So, The point of this post (other than to make myself feel better that I have improved) was to say how we have all changed and advanced in certain areas. I no longer JUST take what models I think look cool, though that does play a big part. I have figured out how I enjoy playing and what my basic tactics usually are. I enjoy hitting the opponent hard and fast using short range firepower to assist my combat troops, while keeping a few heavy weapons at the back to keep my flanks safe, I also try to take at least one unit that can deep strike or outflank.

I now know with conversions sometimes the subtlest changes are the best, a weapon or head swap and repositioning of a model can make it a thousand times better than chopping and changing every last drop.

I have also learnt alot about painting, layering is important, building up the colours helps to get the shade you want. Most importantly, washes make a half decent paint job ten times better.

So, how far have you all come in the time you have been in this hobby, my six years have seen alot of money spent, but some good friends earned and tips and pointers learnt.

Demo Mini-Game - Deathwatch Kill Team

As you may have heard we are performing a demo game at Phalanx 2011 in St. Helens, there Suicide Badger and Sanguinius will be fighting it out in an epic Apocalypse game which made me think, what if someone wants to try the game out. Sure they can have a turn or roll a few dice as they pass by, but what if someone really wants to try it out and get involved, thats where my idea came from to provide a mini-game (hopefully I don't stand around with no-one joining in).

So the basic idea (as I don't have a fancy PDF ready yet) is the passerby controls six Deathwatch Marines (Sternguard) and has to kill the Ork Kommando Snikrot who is protected by a 20 sentries, this means that it is small and should be completed in half and hour to an hour. I have prepared Stat Cards for all the models involved to make the game flow smoothly and so I don't have to cart around a load of Codex's and the main rule book. If they kill Snikrot they get to choose one random Apocalypse Stratagem, if they kill him in combat they get two, if they fail then the Ork's get one.

The main reason for this post though, is to showcase the six Deathwatch Marines which I have been painting up, took me a while to be bothered painting them. I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality, my room and phone just dont cut it. First up is Sergeant Ghost, leader of Kill Team Kappa, armed with twin Lightning Claws keeping his iconic weapons from the Raven Guard.

The bit I am most proud of is the writing I put on his little scripts, the reason I am proud is because my writing skills are sub-par, but this particular one looked really good (for me). His other piece of parchment says Purge The Unclean, but I couldn't fit all of unclean on and it gets a bit squashed.

Next up is Drake, he is a Salamander and he is still carrying a Heavy Flamer, which is actually a Grey Knight Incinerator, I used this as it has a little Inquisitorial icon on it, and its the only marine sized heavy flamer I could get my hands on.

This guy is nothing special, he is a standard Sternguard, nicknamed Borg because he is an Iron Hand (not that I had anything to convert him with, so he just looks normal).

Here is a veteran of veterans, I remember reading somewhere that the Ultramarines provide the largest number of candidates for the Deathwatch, this is because of their hatred and knowledge of the Tyranids, so here we have a Smurf reloding, no-one ever reloads...

Here is the Sternguard nicknamed Cypher, because he is a Dark Angel. This guy was my tester model, and originally all my models had capes, but once I painted this guy up I realised there were too many colours and the cape just drew away from the black making them look more like clowns than marines. I gave him a book just so that it looks like he is training to be a Chaplain, and to practice painting paper, it is currently blank, I will try to get something written in it, or just put some squiggly lines.

Lastly we have what was going to be a Exorsist, this was because of the Deathwatch short story I read in the Fear the Alien book, but then I realised the rest of the squad was too miss matched, so I left the link with Ghost. Now, this guy is nicknamed Artisan because of his Bolter, and he will be a Blood Angel, who are well known artists and sculptors.

Well there you have it, my six men that took me nearly three days to paint, and still need the chapter symbols putting on the shoulder pads, and writing in a book. I am also planning to continue with my Grey Knight overview next week (seeing as it has been a month since my last post)

Have Fun

Col.Straken

Painting Orks - Badger Style!

Morning all,

Upon request, I'm going to do a "How to paint Orks" article today. Basically, I've been asked how I paint my Orks and how I paint them so quickly. Included in this, I was given an Ork Warboss to paint up for a Demo Game in June, so I thought I would use him as a test bed and do step by step painting.

Step 1 - Undercoat Chaos Black

Step 2 - Drybrush all metal areas with Boltgun Metal

Step 3 - Paint Boots with Charadon Granite

Step 4 - Pants with Khemri Brown. (When I do large mobs of Boyz, I normally alternate the pants colour with Step 6)

Step 5 - Paint all the skin areas with Knarloc Green

Step 6 - Optional - Paint the Vest of the model with Adeptus Battlegrey (or Pants if alternating)

Step 7 - Straps, belts and such with Calthan Brown

Step 8 - Teeth and Skulls with Dheneb Stone

Step 9 - Power Cables with Ice Blue

Step 10 - Tongue, Hair and Eye lenses with Mechrite Red

Step 11 - Paint back over cloth vest and the draped bit with Chaos Black. Also paint some Tattoos on.

Step 12 - Paint checkerboards on black areas with Skull White.

Step 13 - Wash the entire model with Badab Black

Step 14 - Wait for wash to dry and base the model.

So there you go. Quick and dirty Orks. The Warboss in this guide took me just over an hour to paint, which the thing that took the longest were the checkerboard patterns I did on the Power Klaw and Shoota.

Any questions, drop me a comment and I'll do my best to answer it. Any feedback is also welcome!

Peace,
SB

[Painting] My first Night Lord!!!

Well after planning on starting Night Lords for the last well... 3 months or maybe more, I finally made a start on my first model, this is just a test model, but I was more than pleased with the paint scheme.

From the front you can see that I went for silver rather than gold. The traditional gold symbolises that ever night has a dawn. However I wanted something that was stand out but still matched the lightning, and in my opinion the silver symobolises that every night has some light (usually moonlight). A bit like the Night Lords are fighting for the light at the end of the tunnel.

This is a better shot of some of the lightning, which will be repainted as its too thick and obviously painted, but I need to get myself a white pen, or a much thinner brush. However for a first attempt at a proper detailing technique I was quite proud and hope to improve towards the end of the army.

Lastly this shows you the typical skull faceplate which I wanted to keep in the army and each will have some distinguishing feature by the end, at the moment this one is being kept plain as it has quite a daemonic look already.

So, all in all, I found it quite easy to paint this model in about half an hour, which is a long time for a basic bolter boy, but given a few more tries I think I can get these guys done a unit a day (the hour or two I get free). The hardest part is the lightning and the faces, but the overall look is worth the extra effort.

Have at it, let me know what you think of my first Night Lord, and hopefully within a week I can get the full squad painted up and a Rhino to go with them (but no promises)