I recently stumbled upon another blog that just blew me away in how he paints his Dark Eldar. It's really making me rethink my choice of going with this army as a "fast paint" rather then taking my time like I do on armies like my Imperial Suns. I digress...
Please check out Rant in E Minor. His Trueborn are absolutely stunning. If this doesn't make you want to get into Dark Eldar strictly for the models, you have a problem.
Needless to say, I'll be following this blog on a regular basis.
This Saturday I've decided to scrap the whole crazy idea of taking foot Templar and go a little easier on myself and do a balanced Vanilla Marine force. 1,500 just works so much better with that. Hopefully by the next AWC tournament I'll have the Dark Eldar ready to at least make a decent showing.
I'm playing in a local tournament this weekend at 1,500 points (so used to 1,750 and 1,850) and I figured I would try something and dust off an old army. Now that the Templar have gotten a little boost with the FAQ, my assault terminators are even more nasty. Only if I had more storm shields painted up! I thought it might be fun to do an all infantry list. I'm going to get a practice game in tonight, we'll see how it goes.
Here's the crazy list I'm thinking about bringing at 1,500 points.
HQ: Emperor's Champion with the all-so-fun preffered enemy vow
HQ: Chaplain with bolt pistol & melta-bombs with 3 cenobite servitors
HQ: Chaplain with bolt pistol & melta-bombs with 3 cenobite servitors
Elite: 10 assault terminators with 7 twin claws, 3 TH/SS. All with furious charge (wish I had more TH/SS)
Troop: 10 initiates with BP/CCW, one melta, one powerfist. 10 neophytes with BP/CCW
Troop: 6 initiates with BP/CCW, one melta, one powerfist. 4 neophytes with BP/CCW, drop pod.
Troop: 5 initiates with bolters, one lascannon
Troop: 5 initiates with bolters, one lascannon
This could be a huge disaster, but it should be fun. The two giant infantry blobs put my opponent in a situation, the minute they take one casualty the chaplain with the servitors allow a d6" with reroll +3" move towards any unit (chaplain allows unit to go towards any enemy, not just the closest). With the addition of the run rule, they should be able to zip accross the board pretty fast.
I'm not seeing a ton of long range infantry firepower outside of guard and venom dark eldar, and we surprisingly don't have a ton of that in our area.
The infantry blob and the terminator squad straight up murder hordes - orks and tyranids don't stand a chance. I'd get killed against an extreme mobile list like SM bikes and will be extremely frustrated against the eldar air-cav. Unfortunately the two lascannons are hamstrung with the "shoot the closest" rule, and since I'm not bringing a commander, I'll need a roll of a 7 or less to shoot things far out.
I need to figure out on the drop pod rule for Templars. I think they still start coming in on turn 2, and not automatic on turn 1 like normal marines. I thought it might help out a little to get an additional squad out at hard to reach parts of the table.
My big choice may be to say screw the two lascannon squads and put another infantry blob on the table. I could probably field an additional 20 man squad by tweaking some things and have the emperor's champion lead it.
Either way, it'll be a good change of pace to bring this list.
Yesterday I worked some on a few wyches and picked up the new venom kit at the Chicago Battle Bunker. I have to say, that this venom kit is pretty sweet. It went together without any problems and has been painting up easily. To make things simple, I detached the riders and gunner from the venom for priming and ease of painting.
The great thing about the kit is that there are multiple options to make additional vehicles unique. The railing around the back side has two different options, and I like the fact there are two different canopies. My only downside is that I'll more then likely be running warriors or trueborn in my venoms. I'll have to use the raider crew on the next venom I make and swap out these wyches for the raider. I think they're almost a perfect swap.
I decided to tackle the venom first and that was how far I got tonight. I finished up the hull and underside, and have yet to do the banner poles, guns, and the driver. I put a clear coat on the hull to keep from smudging and giving it that extra gloss for the armor. The whole time I was painting it I kept thinking of the spaceship from Naboo on the Star Wars movies! I'm really looking forward to painting the dark eldar flyer!
Tomorrow I should be able to knock out the crew and the finishing touches on the venom. Very nice model, I love it.
Next Saturday I'm playing in a 1,500 point tournament. I'm thinking of going a little old school and either bringing out my Black Templar or Tau. I'd be great to be able to get some practice games in with the Dark Eldar, but there is no way I'll be even close to getting anything ready, even if I crammed every night to get a three color minimum.
It's almost like I've been a drug addict, getting the itch to paint some miniatures and play some games! Today after doing some work around the house, I'm going to head on down the Chicago Battle Bunker and get my paint on!
It's crazy how addicting this stuff is and how taking almost a month off has been torture. I've fooled around with the Dark Eldar skin tone some and I've come to the conclusion I've put way too much contrast in the muscle tones so I'm going to strip out the purple wash step. Additionally, I want to seperate the skin from the purple armor so I'll use exclusively blue washes and keep them mild. Pictures to be posted tonight as I finish up some infantry
For once, I won't be traveling for work this week, so it's time to break out the brushes. I have a 1,500 point tournament next weekend that I'd love to bring my dark eldar to, but there is no way I'll even be close. I think the orks need some non-gladiator games under the collective belts.
I have to apologize for the lack of posting lately, the hobby has been on hold as I was working on the house and working extra to get ready for vacation. May will be a little break in logging my progress...I'm so clever with my picture I found. Internet points for me.
I'll be back at the end of May, look forward to some hobby madness as I:
- Tackle assembling and painting Dark Eldar
- Making a sweet diorama display board for the Dark Eldar
- Begin working on the Fantasy High Elves Sea Guard list for the team tournament
Hope everyone is have a great start to their summer and getting a little sun outside of the hobby! See you soon.
Every so often, I get a project I get really really excited about. This has to be it. I've decided that next year at Adepticon, I'm not going to do 3 days of 40k. A good friend of mine, Dan convinced me to team up for the fantasy team tournament. We have a pseudo-inside joke about sea monsters from years ago when the White Dwarf did a huge spread on boat battles and sea monsters. We lovingly named them M.F.S.M "Mother-Loving (changed for the kids) Sea Monsters" or when in the presence of kids "Most Friendly Sea Monsters". We've decided to make a team themed on sea monsters and pirates.
The vision of our lists is that I'll be running Lothern Sea Guard with an allied "Sea Monster" (I'll get to that later). My team mate, Dan will be running Empire with a pirate theme. The thought is that the High Elves are on the hunt for a sea monster that has been plaguing their trade routes, and they hired a mercenary pirate ship to aid them in the hunt. What the Empire doesn't know, is their ship was used as bait to lure the monster out.
Our display base will be two ships, the empire one being devoured by a giant sea monster and the high elf one trying to spear it down.
To make it even more epic, we're in the process of recruiting other 2 man teams that would like to fit the pirate theme. If we can get a few teams to participate, I'll make a giant sea table. A team could either bring ships to display their armies on or bring an island that they can plop down on the table (for the pirates to raid). It'd be great to do some progress shots on how everyone is doing.
Right now, my list will probably go this route:
- High Elf Noble on foot
- 14 Phoenix Guard - these will be individualistic models that will be the "Sea Monster Hunters" on a diorama base
- 25 Sea Guard
- Bolt Thrower
- Friendly Sea Monster (using the rules of the White Lion Chariot). I'm either going to model it like the Loch Ness Monster or have some sea beast with a high elf rider.
I have to say, I'm really getting excited about a vacation. In less then 2 weeks, the wife and I will be in Rome. We also booked stops in Florence and Venice. With the craziness of Adepticon and the flurry of hobby activity after, I really haven't given myself much time to recharge.
Part of what is making me so excited is all the historical sites. I'm not Catholic (my wife is), but one of the things I'm most excited about seeing is the Vatican. Since my Dark Eldar Wyches are in full swing, I hope to get some inspiration from the Coliseum. For any of you reading from Europe, I'd love to get some ideas on things to see that are off the beaten path.
This week will keep me busy with things around the house, I'm going to assemble the glass display cases I picked up from Ikea, and I need to finish unpacking all the extra boxes in the basement. My goal is to get a skin tutorial in before I leave and do a little more assembling of the raiders. I really hope the venom gets released this summer as rumored, it'll save me some time going into detail with a conversion.
