Dark Eldar WIP Update

After the tournament here in Thailand, I sold my space wolves army to one of the guys I was up against. If you read my "The Choice" article, you will know that I did this because I am moving to LA in February. Before I got there, I wanted to decide on an army to play between the Tau and Dark Eldar, which I decided to do both but I will wait until the new codex of the Tau is released, I always wanted to play drunken space dwarfs.

This is an update on my WIP Dark Eldar. So far I only have a unit of Kabalite Warriors, Incubi, Haemonculus, Raider, and Razorwing. It is a small and slow collection because I need to wait until I move to get more.

My Haemonculi WIP

WIP Haemonculus

I have redone his Lab Coat already since this is a relatively old picture I took several weeks ago. I have not gotten the skin tone my army down yet and have been using his guy as my lab mouse to decide which scheme is better suited. So far there has only been failed experiments but I shall continue!

The skin tones that I have tried so far are:

1. Pure Skull white > wash with orgyn fresh > wash with thraka green

2. Bleach Bone > wash with watered down blue

Magnetized Heavy Weapon Choice

Magnetized Heavy Weapon

Dark Lance

Splinter Cannon

For me, I like to have as many options from a box as possible. In the Kabalite Warrior boxes, you will get at least 2 heavy weapon option which are a Dark Lance and a Splinter Cannon. I decided to magnetized them with magnets I got a long time ago when I was magnetizing my Wolf Guard terminators. The magnetizing was done using two 2mm magnets drilled in to the model's arm sockets. The weapon arms are too small to hold any decent size magnet so I simply cut out a piece of metal from a lid of a cookie box and super glued it in place for a quick and easy magnetizing job. The outcome is pretty good.

Incubi WIP

Incubi I

Incubi II

WIP

 My intention for these guys was to give them more love than my warriors because they are just cooler in terms of how they look. Yes, I did give them the same dry brush then edge high lighting treatment instead of blending the colors together. This is because I am not going to spend hours on hours blending the armor. I am not that skilled yet and plus, I did not have any delayer or whatever you call it around. So wet blending was out of the question. I may try to feather in the future though. I like how it looks on Tyranids' armor plates and may try it on my Talos when I get one.

Dark Eldar Theme Finalized

I have been pondering what colors I should use for my new Dark Eldar army and have been going back and forth from 3 options.

1. Red with Black

2. Blue with White

3. Black with Grey

After a while and some testing, I decided to go with my original army theme color which is option 1, red with black. Basically, I have always been attached to the colors Red and Black since I started 40k back in early 2000s when Tau were new and exciting. By using simple painting techniques I picked up then, I was able to paint a sample model. It is not 100% complete yet with minor details and parts still need painting however, the overall armor color is a go for me! 

Here is the test model I painted

I know it may not be the most unique or bind blowing theme for a dark eldar or any army in 40k nowadays. Plus I do know there are better ways then simply dry brushing the first layer of red and edge highlighting for the final layer! The question is this, do you want to blend 50+ models of troop choices!!!!? I say a big fat no. This effect is what I was going for in the first place. What i may do is to add additional shading in the recesses along the armor plates to create more of a contrast between them. We will see..

- Unboxing - Dark Eldar Incubi and Haemonculus

Incubi Unboxing

Haemonculus Unboxing

         Unfortunately, during the assembly of this miniature, I found many defects in the casting. I found bubbles, holes, and miscasts all over the place. However, comparing to what I have read on various forums and blogs, they are not as bad. Here are some examples,

Broken Sword Tip (Unfix-able, Need to sculpt on a new tip)

Miscast misaligned casting panels (Unfix-able, crying is the only solution)

Bubbles (Not a big deal)

Miscast misaligned casting panels (Unfix-able, crying is the only solution)

The choice.....

As you all may know, I have decided to move to the states and will be turning my back on the Emperor by passing on my space wolves. I am not going to quit wargamming (hell no) but I will be slowly collecting one army and I am planning to update my process here, on facedice, my youtube, and my blog.

However, I have always thought I would go back to my days as a member of Tau. They were the first army I seriously collected and painted. Even though I never got the chance to play a real game with them, they were very close to me until a misunderstanding that resulted in my tau seeing plastic bags and the lid of several trashcans  So now is the perfect opportunity for me to get back into the Tau. BUT they are running on a pretty outdated codex. I have been reading my way through and even create a list and my own play style for them yet the lack of anti heavy and their crazy point costs/model is just so WTF!! Making matter worsts, their new codex is rumored to be coming out next year. However, I am not going to wait for 6 freaking months to start collect an army. Unless their codex will be released in March, they are looking less and less viable to start collect. Just look at the necrons, the whole freaky book changed and old school necron players had to buy more units even if they had 4,000 points already!

So, while I was playing with my wolves, I had an idea that I would like to collect another army that didn't materialized. I was very interested in the dark elder just because they were annoying. Yes, fast units that has poison shots and close combat weapons with lance type long range support is categorized as annoying. Thinking about it, facing off with Boss AKA Bloodwing's IG, those lances and 24 turbo boost range would have come in handy. To be honest, I do have a grudge against the imperial guard. I don't understand how a tank that fires 5 plasma cannon per turn costs less than 3 Broadsides or a Land raider. So the Dark Elder will be a good option to succeed of my fallen wolf brothers! Plus they have weird or unique units like my wolves. SW had Thunder Wolves. DE has their clowns .

When it comes down to it though, I really need to choose only one. Collecting 2 at the same time is a viable option for sure BUT my girlfriend will probably kick me out if I did so . So help me choose my new army!

Tournament Aftermatch and the future

So I finished 5th in a 10 man tournament with the result of 2 wins and 1 loss. The reason I was not further up the board was that loss was so epic, so brutal, I only had one thunder wolf remaining on the board while he has 90% of his army intact. This is why you should never underestimate a 2,000 Point tournament when Imperial Guard role in with their tanks. Is it actually true that one tank that cost less than 150 points can dish out 5 Plasma Cannon plates per turn!?

So after the tournament I put my Space Wolves up for sale. Since I am moving to American in 2 months time, I don't see me being able to bring them along. The best thing for me right now is to simply sell everything and if you are living in Thailand, here is the link: Army Deal

After I move to the states, I am planning to start collect Tau. The reason behind this is simple. They were the first army I ever collected before my grandmother thought they were trash and threw them away when I went to Australia. Yes, that did really happen. Also, I am hearing some good rumors about them so far. The fact still reminds I won't be able to win a lot of matches with them until they get a hugh buff or at least a new codex to counter the likes of Mech armies. I was browsing through their current codex yesterday and found a lot of interesting things and rather shocking things at the same time.

So, this blog will be idle for a while just like my youtube page. I will still be contributing to the forums on miniwargaming and ficedicerolling though.

A week of Rush Painting

So I have recently entered into a tournament here in Thailand on the De 10th. All is good except I realized I still had a majority of my army left unpainted. I recently pledged on Miniwargaming to finished 20 Grey Hunters and 2 Rhinos by today, Dec 3rd.

I have done it!!! Here are some pictures.

GREY HUNTERS
PACK 1

PACK 2

RHINO 1

RHINO 2

I know they are not impressive or would WOW many. I intended them to only be tabletop quality. Hey, I had a week to paint them!

So now what I have left is only mt Thunder Wolf squad. I will post pictures on the WIP. I bet a lot of people will like them.

- Thining Down Paints -

 

So, I just started this blog to keep track of what I have been doing or will be doing. Here is one of my first videos that I posted to youtube a while back. I made this with the idea that people on line tend to answer higher level problems. However, the basic are ignored or judged to be common knowledge. So, to solve this I wanted to help out those who need that basic information.

Hope you guys found it helpful.