New Wracks and Grotesques

 These pics showed up this morning at a bunch of sites.  I really like the Wracks.  I would love to run 20 of these guys with Haemonculus support.  They would have Feel No Pain, and Furious charge from the get go, with only strength 8 or above cancelling out the FNP.  I really like their funky backpacks, but will need some adjustments on their arms and skirt poses.  It looks like they are going to be resin, which will be great for converting.  I bet they are going to be spendy though.

Grotesques look great.  I like the heads, the body, and overall feel of them.  Looks like they need some work to get them looking a little different.  I can see the arms and legs getting repositioned to look more unique. Those hands look like they need a basketball in them.  "hey look guys, I can palm the ball!"  Great models though overall.   Its great to be a Dark Eldar at the moment.  Great looking models, fun codex with a lot of options, lots of toys.  The nice thing about a lot of options in a dex, is that people aren't always exactly sure what to do with all your options.  They have seen thunderwolves, grey hunters, mephiston, hive guard etc.  a million times and have their ways to deal with them.  Grotesques?  scourges?  Wracks?  What do they do?

Clearer Haemonculus picture

This morning, Natfka at natfka.blogspot.com posted this clearer picture of our new resin Haemonculus.  I like it.  Looks a little like a flying squirrel pose, but I like the different weapon options that can be added.  Take that tyranids, we Dark Eldar can have 6 limbs too!  It looks like he has a liquifier, venom blade, mindphase/flesh gaunlet, and a casket of flensing?  Or it could be a super soaker, large dog treat, 'We're number 1 foam finger, and a box of chocolates.  Either way, it looks like they are going to give us the options for all the different wargear so you can have a WYSIWYG HQ.    I want 6.  And 30 resin Wracks, and 6 resin grotesques.  Now where to get 9 dark lances after dropping the ravagers for 3 talos/chronos, and a webway haemonculi army.  Muhuhaahaaahaaaa.  

New Haemonculus Picture

Here is a clearer picture of the same model clearer haemonculus picture
So here is a new picture I found on Warseer.  The poster wrote, "New Dark Eldar resin miniature
from a picture taken by gw-fanworld.net's DeusExMachina of a poster at the GW store in Hamburg"
It looks like it is going to be a great looking model.

So it looks like the Haemonculi are on the way.  None too soon, I say.  I played a team game with 2500 pts per player over the weekend and LOVED my Haemonculi.  I had three regular Haemonculi.  Two with wych squads in raiders, and one in a warrior squad with a dark lance.  All three squads loved the addition of the haemonculi.  The warriors had a drop pod full of vanguard vets drop next to them, and only lost two due to some great feel no pain rolls, and the wychs had to open some rhinos themselves,(ravagers were busy with 2 vindicators) with their haywire grenades and only lost two to rapid fire bolters from the mon-keigh inside, again due to feel no pain.  Then they helped to clean up both squads.  I love the Haemonculi.  I believe wyches really need it, and anyone outside of a transport need it too.  I tried some casket of flensing, and shattershard to mixed results.  Venom blades are great, but I would like an agonizer on each too.  I love Hekatrixs with agonizers.
The reavers did really well.  I ran 2 squads of six with 2 heat lances each.  They are easy to get into the right spot.  My squad of ten scourges with 4 heat lances took down a storm raven, only to get eaten by mephiston inside.  I really hate that guy.  I am wondering if longer range weapons would be better for the scourges, or if they need something else.  They don't like close combat.

I am loving my dark eldar army.  They are so fun to play.

My 3000 points of space wolves are amazingly close to being done.  Play worthy at least.  I have had to put off a LOT of desire to paint/model dark eldar to get these guys done for a mega-battle.  Can't wait to get them done.  Then back to the dark kin.

New Dark Eldar

 

This morning was a bit like Christmas for me.  All the forums said today was the day for the advance order new dark eldar to go up.  They were right.  If you haven't seen them somewhere else, here they are Dark Eldar advance order 

  When I was finally able to see them, I am amazed.  I almost want to sell my Space Wolves or Tyranids to get a load of the new models.  ALMOST.  

I am excited that my previous venoms and scourges will look pretty close to the new models.  I really like the bird wings on the new models, but also love the bat wings as well.  I may buy a couple of boxes and mix them in with my other scourges.  I really like the chronos and talos pain engines too.  They look better than the picture in the codex, which was sweet.  I need a couple of those as well.  Also the jet fighter over at Naftka's site  razorwing-jetfighter-pics look awesome.

Dark Eldar are the coolest models in the game.  Easy.

WIP Blood Claws

Here are some blood claws I have been working on.  They still need some work, but are coming along.  I had to take advantage of our one overcast day for the month, and snapped some quick pics.  As always, click on pic for an enlarged view.

Stylish blogger award

Checked my email this morning and Larry at paintyourtoys chose my blog for an award.  He said that my blog was "one of the better hobby blogs out there".  Thank you very much for the kudos.  I don't know if that is true or not, I just love modeling and painting and sharing ideas with anyone who cares to come by for a visit.

So here are the rules:

“The Stylish Blogger Award given from one blogger to another one might say, is like a pat on the back for a good job. It's definitely a viral, zombie-like spread of good will so it's too good to pass up.”

The rules;

Thank and link back to the person giving you the award
Share seven things about yourself
Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.


Seven things about myself:


1. I have been playing Warhammer 40k since 1989.  I have taken a few breaks here and there for school, marriage etc.
2.  I have 4 great kids.  The oldest is starting a Angels Sanguine army.
3.  I play bass guitar in a band.  Check it out at www.justbuckit.com. The band has actually paid for most of my hobby as of late.
4.  I started my blog so my brother in Iraq could see what I had been up to.  
5.  I am a Dentist.
6.  I would love to see the eldar in charge of the universe once again.  That would be a fun race to play, pre-fall eldar. No craftworlders, no exodites, no dark eldar, just the height of perfection eldar pre-Slaanesh.  Dark eldar feel the most like the original rogue trader eldar I played in high school.
7.  I am loving my airbrush.


1.fritz 40k is a blog I like to check for thinking about tactics and units in a different light.
2.captureandcontrol  Great battle reports here.
3.space-wolves-grey  Best resource for everything wolfy.
4.  samsonminis  I love his painting and airbrush work.
5. craftworldlansing Eldar tactics, lists and deep thoughts.  Both CW and Dark flavors.
6.mordian7th  Battle reports, painting, something for everyone.
7.awakeningynnead Eldar, Skaven, lists, modeling. great site.
8.rantineminor  Great looking blog.  I love his dark eldar painting and tactics.
9.fromthewarp  He does it all.  He got me started blogging.  I was super excited anytime I made the Tuesday top ten.  I believe it was twice.


I really like all the blogs that I follow.  I tried to pick some that haven't been awarded yet, and others that are just too good to pass up.  Thanks again Larry. 

Using Markers for shading and Dark lining

 

Here is a pic of the final shoulder pad that I shaded with the brown marker.  

Space Wolf shoulder pad before.

 

Shoulder pad with one single brown line around the edge.  Some people may just leave the pad like this, which looks good.

 

Extra ink for shading.

Next, I got a 10-0 brush damp with clean water and blurred the edges.  It takes a little work to get a smooth transition.  I also found that sometimes it was beneficial to leave a little bit of 'inky' water on the brush, and other times, I wanted to clean it and remove some more ink.  After I was done, I also used the marker again on the very edge to make sure it was nice and dark right at the edge.

 I also found that it worked well to add a dark line around the edges of tanks.  Paint is hard to get a constant line.  With a marker, you can get a very precise, even, dark line around the edges.

You can see where I did it on this rhino.

Another WIP rhino.  I found that the orange marker gave a good light brown color on top of the blue.  I tried the brown, and it looked too black.  I like the non waterproof markers, because then you can fix any spots where you go too crazy, and can blend if you like.  My wife has some permanent ones that I may have to 'borrow' for some tests.

Using markers for pack markings

Pack markings can go slowly, and get sloppy if you are tired of doing them.  I found a way to help. 

These pens are NOT waterproof, have .3 mm tips, and work great.  You can get them at Michael's art supply for about $12.

First, I put dots where I want to go with the lines.

 

Connect the dots.

 Then paint in the right spots.  Because these are NOT waterproof, they mix into the paint a little.  Not a big deal when you are painting the same color as the pen, but will mix in and blend if you use different colors.  That can be used to our benefit though, which will be the topic of my next post.  Shading with markers.

Here is the progress on the army.  So far so good.