Lord Vraesque Archon of the Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Here is my almost complete archon.  I like how he is coming along.  Everything but the eyes.  I have done them about three times, and each time destroy my facial highlighting.   Still struggling with lighting.  It is amazing how a black silk background changes the lighting compared to the green paper background.

New Space Wolves and Tyranid Models

These great pictures are from Warseer and also at Faet 212 
He has listings of prices and everything. 

Wow. these pics are great.  Love the models.  I have been itching to bring the space wolves and Tyranids out of the closet, and now it looks like I have a reason to.  That Tervigon is Massive!Check out how big he is next to that Trygon!  Awesome.

 

The Tyrant looks a lot like the last one.  Now I don't have to throw away my Swarmlord.  Don't think I will buy this guy, unless I need another Tyrant.

 This is what I would like my Space Wolf army to look like.  Lots of wild wolves running amidst the power armored vikings.  I think Arjac is the guy with the round shield and little gold anvil on top of his armor, standing right under the Swarmlord, or Seniore of the swarm.  There is the cyberwolf right in front.

 

This guy looks great too.  "Say hello to my little friend."

 

Great looking wolves.  I like the large upper bodies and thinner waists.  They look very wolfy and not so much like a giant squirrel.  I like the servo leg.  Need 6 of them.

 

Gorgeous

 

Fenrisian wolves rock!  No more chaos warhound wannabees.

 

I almost like this gun better.Is that a third gun on the upper small picture? 

 

Harpy looks great too(Actually is the winged hive tyrant).  Not too big, not too small. The only problem I have with the model is, where are the other two weapon arms supposed to go?  The wings are in the upper arm spots, leaving nowhere to put his other weapons.  WTH  (What the Heck, for us non-swearers) 

 

This momma rocks too!  I love the curved back, looks a lot like the forge world monstrosity.  Need one or two more of these. Should be Mamasita of the swarm. 

Amazing new Thunderwolf sculpts

Raging heroes have come out with some great new Cyberworlves. Cyberwolves Wow.  I want eight of them.

They have a dark eldar looking model that would make an awesome archon.  Asharah

Dark Eldar Grotesques WIP part two

Here are some shots of how I made the backpacks.

First, I got some cheap nails from Home Depot, cut the heads off for magnetizing something, and use the nail for pinning.

 Here is the Grotesque with a greenstuffed head, and two nails in his back for support of the backpack.  This is so that it doesn't fall off.  I could just see myself building and painting these suckers up, and then one fall off of the table, and the backpack would drop off.  So the nail will stop that.

Next I built up hot glue around the nails.  This will later be covered with green stuff for shaping and painting.

 This guy's backpack is all greenstuff.  I took the hook out of his right hand and gave him another tentacle. I added some parts off of a gargoyle, smaller fish hook with blood angel head, and adjusted his stance to make him more level.

 I traded his sword for an axe made from a raider rudder.  I think it looks a little more brutal, and less sophisticated.

More hooks and chains.

 This guy actually has a sweet shield instead of the spear since I took this picture.

Part one Grotesques WIP 1

I made a vow to myself to not take anymore sloppy pictures.  My new background is a printout from an internet picture of a backdrop.  Now I just need to find where to get a real, cloth backdrop for some good pics.  A tripod really helps too.

Dark Eldar Grotesque Conversions - Work in Progress

I got the original idea from Eye of Terror at this post Grotesques. 
These are a lot of fun to make.  I tried to think about what I would least like to get attacked with, and came up with these weapons.  I got the idea for the first guy from the latest Sherlock Holmes movie.  Great movie.  Hooks = Ouch.

This guy is my least favorite, and will probably get a change. 

Here is the aberation with a scissor-hand.  It is magnetized in case I want to switch out his weapon.  

 I like the way this guy turned out.  He will have a wych braid of hair out the back.

 For the liquifier grotesque, I wanted it to look like he had a great vat of disgusting stuff on his back that he was spraying out of the liquifier.  I may put enemy parts out the top of it, as though he is blending them up and spraying them on his foe.

 

 And a family shot with the half-painted wrack cousins for scale.

 They still need some work.  All of their heads are held on with plasti-tac, and I am debating on making a meat backpack for them.  I kinda like them the way they are, but like what Lucky 5 did over at eye of terror.  Thanks again to lucky for sharing the idea.  He is the mastermind behind these guys.

Talos WIP part 2

 

Here is my magnetized, assembled Talos.  The lighting isn't the best. I magnetized both arms with large magnets at the shoulders, and smaller magnets in the elbow.  The tail is magnetized, and so is the gun on the forearm.  I made the custom chain flails with the hook close combat weapon, 2 chains from a venom, and two chains from the raider sprue.  I think the hook weapon looks good with all the chains and hooks.  The gun mount came to me after I tried to mount it on the top of the carapace, on a tail tentacle, and a couple of other failure locations.  The arm looks pretty cool.  Just need to green stuff the hole on the top of the guns.

 You can see I mounted the talos top bony, injector thing on the underside of his legs.  Looks a lot like a spur on a fighting rooster.  May name him Foghorn Leghorn.

 Here are some changes I made to Brutus.  I gave him an extra tentacle arm, mounted the gun up high, and magnetized his arms a bit more. 

 I added a wrack close combat weapon on his left too.  Now to try a web way portal list.  2 Talos, reavers, scourges, big wyche squads, wracks, and probably some beasts.

1750 list and Dark Eldar Tactica thoughts

Our local group had a great tournament on Saturday.  I wasn't able to play the whole day, but came down as a fill in for one of the rounds my list was:

Asbrudel Vect

Haemonculus: Agonizer, liquifier gun
Haemonculus: 2 venom blades, liquifier gun
Haemonculus: 2 venom blades, liquifier gun

6 Wyches, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Raider w/ Flickerfield
6 Wyches, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Raider w/ Flickerfield
6 Wyches, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Raider w/ Flickerfield
5 Wracks Liquifier, Acothyst w/ Hexrifle Venom 2 Splinter Cannons
5 Wracks Liquifier, Acothyst w/ Hexrifle Venom 2 Splinter Cannons
5 Warriors Blaster, Venom 2 Splinter Cannons

Ravager 3 dark lances, w/ Flickerfield
Ravager 3 dark lances, w/ Flickerfield
Ravager 3 dark lances, w/ Flickerfield

One thing I like to do to make life simple, give EVERYONE flickerfields.  No need to try to remember who has 'em and who doesn't. 

The Tournament was set up well and was a lot of fun.  This was the list I made when I thought I could possibly make it.  Two out of three missions were objective bases, so I brought a lot of troops.  I ended up ruining a Tyranid player's day.  He had a good list, and was a good player, but I ended up winning 3 objectives held by me, and one contested. 

A few things I have learned about my list and Dark Eldar in general.  I have found that, in true Dark Eldar style,  you can play some mind games with the dark kin.

1.  WYCHES ROCK.   Fleet, combat drugs, 4+ invulnerable in CC, Feel no Pain (with the Haemy attached), plasma grenades, haywires and hekatrix,  these ladies are great.  They can take out armor with their grenades, and are great against everybody in CC.  I have found the only wyche weapon I really like is the shardnet and impaler.  I usually don't take them though, because I would rather have another wyche than the special weapon, and I like to shoot their splinter pistols on the way in, if needed.  I find I get more out of the pistol and an extra wyche, than the special weapons. The 4+ dodge save is Demoralizing for the opponent.  It says, "I don't care you have lightning claws, bone swords, etc., sorry you only killed 1 wyche."  Very Demoralizing.  The haywire grenades ruin a tank commander's day too.  Love the ladies. 

2.  Asbrudel Vect is pure mean with a side order of mean.  Also very demoralizing.  He has a very reliable way to get wounds back, his base stats are amazing, and wargear keeps him alive.  In this battle he took out a tervigon-prime combo, 5 genestealers and a hive guard.  He is a beast.

3.  Venom Raider combo.  I really like having Venoms full of less effective troops, and raiders with the more effective troops.  Usually opponents will focus on taking out the venoms because they put out so many shots.  Then your raiders are safe to do what you want with the real threat once the ravagers, venoms, and raiders have softened everyone up.  Then you can swoop in on turn 2-4 and take the objectives leaving the opponent with no one left to stop you.

4.  TROOPS, TROOPS, TROOPS.  Whenever I build a list, I try to fit in some Incubi, scourges, reavers, trueborn, etc, but always ask, "why take them, when I can take some awesome troops with the abilities to kill stuff AND claim objectives."  Its great to do a lot of flying around shooting stuff for turn 1 and 2, and then jump on the objectives with your intact skimmers full of troops.  Many times I have picked up a warrior, wrack or Wyche squad with a venom or raider, and turbo boosted over to an objective. ( I know you can't move flat out the turn you pick someone up, but 12" is still a pretty far move AFTER the troops move in to embark)

5.  Hexrifles are fun and demoralizing.  I know that they aren't reliable, but they are scary for your opponent.
They are also great that the Acothyst can carry it WITH his standard 2, 4+ poison weapons.  He doesn't have to replace anything, just carries it on a holster when not in use.  Its nice to be able to reach out and hurt someone from 36" inches away if your venom ride has gone down, or only moves 6".
Saturday I was very lucky, and my acothyst hit, rolled a rending 6 to wound, and his Trygon Prime was nice enough to roll a 6 for his wound test, turning into an awesome, crystal, Trygon statue.  My whole Dark Eldar army got a picture with it after the battle.  They are trying to tow it back to commoragh in one piece.  The Acothyst, of course, got the crystal head to stand on during battle.  Great shot Bro!

6. Skimmers rock.  Its also pretty intimidating to see 9 skimmers sitting across from you.  Many people came up to us as the game was starting and commented on all the skimmers.  Psychology does start to play a role, and people get into react mode, and forget their gameplan, leaving them open to your nefarious plans.

Dark Eldar are a lot of fun.  I love the new models, the new rules, and how they released everything so quickly.  GW did a great job on this army.  Now, LETS SEE THE VOIDRAVEN!