DE Razorwing progress

I decided during football on Sunday to do some mass assembly line painting of my Dark Eldar vehicles.  I'm tackling all at once 2 ravagers, 4 venoms and a razorwing.  About half way through the day I switched gears and focused a little more on the Razorwing.  Here's where it stands right now.  I've put the base gold and silver down, but haven't finished the cockpit, missiles, or guns.  As my other vehicles go, I brought more gold into the model due to it's "elite" status, and glossed it up like the rest of my vehicles.

Here's the assembly line in all it's glory.  I'm going to finish up this Razorwing then try to tackle all of the venoms at once...

After a lot of thought last night, the thought of just doing unit spam isn't as fun for either me or my opponent.  Plus I'm looking for a little more variety in painting.  The whole net list / spam is effective, but I think I can accomplish my goals of a fun list that still can pack some punch.  Here's my latest on what I'm going to do for my 1850 list.  All venoms have 2 splinter cannons.

HQ: Archon with huskblade, soul trap, shadowfield, drugs (rides with the wytches)
HQ: minimum archon's court in a venom (1 of everything and 2 medusa) will be mainly a shooty light assault element.
HQ: Haemonculus
Elite: 3 trueborn with 2 dark lances in venom
Elite: 3 trueborn with 2 dark lances (they walk)
Troop: 7 wytches with haywire grenades, hekatrix with venom blade in raider with aethersails. 
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in venom
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in venom
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in venom
Troop: 3 wracks in Raider
Troop: 3 wracks (they walk and use the trueborn venom)
Fast: 4 Beastmasters, 5 Khymerea, 6 razorwings
Heavy: Ravager with flickerfield
Heavy: Ravager with flickerfield
Heavy: Razorwing with cannon upgrade... can't remember if I put flickerfield on it or not.

Should be a little more fun to paint.  I still have elements of assault and shooting.  I'm curious to see how the mini-court performs. 

Dark Eldar Beast Progress (1)

As I work on assembly of the beast pack, I knocked out my counts-as Khymerea.  I absolutely love the chaos warhounds (as seen by my fenrisian wolf articles) and this gave me a chance to paint them unadulterated.  I initially thought they needed pinchers or some sort of extra tentacles, but I think they fit the role nicely without any extra bits.

I'm going to try to assemble some of the flying ripper swarms as counts-as razorwing flocks.  Hopefully they won't look too tyranidish but I think they do the best representation of how I see that model.

Here's where I'm at with the 1k list for Adepticon Team Tournament.  I also had the chance to assemble my succubus and hekatrix.. 

My teammates have been hard at work on the display board.  We're doing two 4 man dark eldar teams and have a pretty aggressive table to work on.  Check out the progress here.

I think I have a working idea on what I'm going to start with for an 1850 list.  I'm sure it'll change between now and Adepticon once I get some  practice games in but here's where it stands:

HQ: Haemonculus
Elite: 3 Trueborn with 2 dark lances in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Elite: 3 Trueborn with 2 dark lances in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 8 Wytches with hekatrix with venom blade, hydra gauntlets, all with haywire grenades in Raider with flickerfield
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 5 warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Fast: 4 Beastmasters, 5 Khymerea, 6 Razorwing Flocks
Fast: 4 Beastmasters, 5 Khymerea, 6 Razorwing Flocks
Heavy: Ravager with flickerfield
Heavy: Ravager with flickerfield
Heavy: Razorwing Jet with splinter cannon upgrade and flickerfield

I'm debating if I go with two wytch squads and one beast pack or vice versa.

Lots to paint!

Tomb Kings: Test Model

I think this may be the first army I've ever done where the painting may take the same amount of time as assembly... definitely an easy tabletop scheme.  It's not going to win me any awards but it'll be quick and get an army on the table fast.

I think I'm going to go with the "typical" Tomb Kings colors out of the book of the Turquoise and Red.

Painting was done with a bone colored primer.  I then did a heavy wash of devlan mud, then drybrushed bleached bone followed by white.

Red was a foundation red, mud wash then foundation red midtone and a little bit of highlights with Blood Red.

Turquoise was washed with mud, reapplied then a little bit of ice blue highlights.

The gold parts were dwarf bronze with a mud wash, reapplied bronze then a little extreme highlights with chainmail.

I'm disapointed with the bases.  I tried the Galeforce 9 magnet bases and the sides continued to crumble when I trimmed them.  Honestly it looks pretty sloppy.  I bought three packs of them, so it looks like I'm stuck with them.  Usually I would just apply a rare earth magnet underneath a base.  If I paint some tomb guard, I don't want my elite troops looking like this so I may just scrap these bases.

Either way, I broke one of my long standing traditions and painted the rim of the base brown instead of black.  This is the first time I've done this in over 10 years.  I just felt that black was too much contrast with what's going on and might detract from the model.

I've assembled and primed 8 chariots, 2 war sphinx, 1 necrosphinx, 10 horsemen, 5 horse archers, a priest, 3 snake riders and 3 stalkers.  I'll be priming any of the constructs in black and anything that's a skeleton in bone.  Speed is the key with this army!

Hobby Focus: Projects through Adepticon 2012

As usual, it gets to about this time of year and I realize that Adepticon is not far away.  I basically have about 6 months to get all of the projects I want done in time while not getting too bored on one thing.  I've decided to narrow it down to 4 big projects.

1. DARK ELDAR
 
This is my biggest project.  Here are some of the things I want to accomplish.

- 1,000 list for the Team Tournament.  Easy.  I'm almost there already.  Key is to get tons of practice games in and be able to switch it up if I find I like one portion more then others

- 1,850 list in for the 40k Championship.  This is the tricky one.  I want it to work based off of lots of experience getting games in.  This means I need to get this flushed out in some form in the next couple of months

- Display board for the team tournament.  We have some really cool things kicking around.  I'll start updating our team progress.

- Display board for the singles tournament.  This is my marquee event.  I always spend a lot of time making a cool themed base.  I have an idea to make a floating pleasure barge straight out of Return of the Jedi.  I'll either have it hovering over a gladiatorial pit or the monster from Star Wars that they dumped prisoners into (sarloc or something like that). 

2. TOMB KINGS
 
I really would like to get back into Warhammer Fantasy.  It's probably been 10 plus years since I've gotten serious games in.  I figured  an easy army to paint up fast would be something with lots of skeletons.  Go figure I want to do tons of big beasts.

- 2,500 points is my target on an army size to start with.  I figure this will be a good core.  When it comes down to it I really just want to paint a ton of options to try out fun things

- This is mainly to have fun.  Part of what really consumes me in 40k is always tweaking and fine tuning.  Honestly in Warhammer I just want to have fun and play some games.  Since I don't know how to maximize my points I want to enjoy that "innocence"  and take some fun and not-so-optimized units.

3. UNCHARTED SEAS
 
My buddy Jeff and I thought it would be fun to get some naval battle games in and something that isn't Games Workshop.  We got some great deals on the old line of miniatures that are getting refreshed so we didn't have to shell out a ton of cash.

- Paint up 2 or 3 fleets.  This seems pretty easy since I flew through my first few miniatures.  I think for this game system I'm going to go more tabletop and not spend a ton of time on each miniature.  The only exception might be the Human Imperial fleet where I may throw some of my "sun" icons that I love to do.  It would be nice to have some freehand work.

- Make some cool terrain and fun sea boards.  For me this is just as much about having a fun visual game as it is to play something new.

- Get a group of at least 4 people that we can get some semi-regular games in.  I'll be putting my recruiting hat on and try to push some product!

4. PIRATES!
 
I think my friend Dan and I will still be doing the Adepticon Warhammer Doubles tournament and we'll both be rocking a pirate theme.  I need to start getting some practice games in so I'm not completely clueless, but this will be a fun diversion.

- Make a solid 1k list.  I really don't have many intentions on flushing this army out beyond the team tournament but who knows.

- Tons of themed terrain, display board stuff and props.  We're going for team theme and will be stocked full of rum!  Really the goal is to have fun and break up Adepticon from having 3 solid days of 40k.  Last year just was a little too much.

 Well there you have it.  I'll try and stay on target and focus on these above four goals. 

Test Painting: Cold One Skin for my Beastmasters

I'd like to get your thought on the cold one skin in progress.  Since my army has a lot of red and purples as accents, I don't want to add another color into the mix.  The goal is not to do a rainbow pattern beast squad.  What are your thoughts on this scheme?  Pretty basic, most animals always have lighter skin underneath.  I blend from the red into brown into dneb stone with a little white accent.  Finishing it off with a purple wash.

It may be hard to see what it will look like completed, but I would hate to finish the entire squad and then want to go back and change the flesh tones.

Uncharted Seas: First Fleet Done (Shroud Mages)

I just finished up the starter box (plus one extra ship) for the Uncharted Seas Shroud Mages and I have to say it was a fun departure from painting 28mm.  They painted up fairly fast and although I didn't spend a ton of time on detail, they get the point across.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the next generation of miniatures look like.

I didn't go with any color, but I did try to make the prow "ram" on the bigger ships bright gold.  It will be a lot of fun to do some islands and scale terrain.  I picked up this felt matt off of the warstore, my goal is to have all of these tables break down and store so I'm not going to go with anything permanent. 

Do you know any blogs that focus on Uncharted Seas?  The challenge of any game systems outside of GW is they don't quite have the huge following... or maybe I just need to dig them up.  Here's the fleet in detail. 

I also picked up the Imperial Humans fleet and I just ordered one of the Elf fleets.  Now I just need to find some players!

This weekend I plan on working on my cold one beast riders, and at least lock down on the color scheme for the beasts.

Custom DE Beastmasters (cold ones)

Now that NOVA is over, I can go back to focusing on my Dark Eldar.  In our team tournament lists we'll be bringing one pack of beasts.  I thought it might be nice to try something different for my pack masters.  I've always loved the Dark Elf Coldones, and thought it would be a perfect fit. 

I used some of the weapons off the wytch kit, but for the most part it consisted of arms & weapons from the raider crew, and the warrior box.  For awhile I debated on switching out the legs and torso, but I don't think the coldone knights are that much of a departure from regular dark eldar.  The scalemail on the legs of the rider are the farthest stretch.  Here's how they turned out.  They have a real exodite feel to them.

I'm debating on what colors to paint the coldone.  I'm a big advocate for limiting the color pallet in an army.  I do have some reds in the hair and plumes of the warriors/wytches so I think that might be the choice.  What are your thoughts about going with red scales?  Either one of two extremes for the flesh; black (or really dark red) or a light dneb stone-ish type color with blends into the red? 

I also have the hounds and flocks to consider, I'll be using chaos warhounds and flying rippers to represent each of those.  I need to make sure I bring out some purples to tie the main color (outside of silver) of the army together.  Choices, choices.  Color selection is such an important part.

It wouldn't be my hobby without some distractions!  At NOVA, my buddy Jeff and I picked up some Uncharted Seas models.  They were on sale due to the fact that the models are getting re-released.  I've always loved the look of naval combat and it will be something fun to change things up.  I can probably get a fleet painted in an evening.  I went with the Imperial Humans and Shroud Mages.  I have no clue how they play, but they look cool!  Do any of you play, and do you know of any enthusiast sites?

primed and ready to go!

The basement is almost done being remodeled after the storm.  I can finally get my workshop back in order!

NOVA: Recap (pretty pictures)

One of my favorite parts about any major tournament is looking at the great looking armies.  I'll let my pictures do the talking.  Unfortunatly the lighting was low and I couldn't get my hands to be steady enough on macro mode without a tripod so many of the pictures had to be deleted since they were overly fuzzy.

After taking the picture we were lucky enough to face off!  What a beautiful looking game.

It was great to see Dan over at 10 inch template.  The army turned out beautiful.

There were a ton of salamanders armies, one of the nicer ones pictured above.

I loved this display board, my favorite of the con.  I always thought it was a great idea to do a backdrop.

Ultramarine on Ultramarine.  Good thing they based their armies differently.

I wish I could have taken more shots!  Hope you enjoy.