The Dark Kin of Commorragh

So a couple weeks ago at 'Ard Boyz I bought a local player's Dark Eldar, and with the few squads I had already I now have a Dark Eldar army. Alot of the things he had are kinda meh in the current codex (scourges, hellions, mandrakes, etc) but if rumors are to be believed a new codex soon 1 or 2 of the units should be usable or even good. But until then I have a reasonable raiding force. At my disposal I've got around 70 warriors (with various Hvy's and sybarites) 13 wyches, 8 incubi, various HQ's, 5 raiders, 2 ravagers (could be 3) and a Talos. I got my first game in with them a week ago Sunday against Razorback Blood Angels with an inducted 20 girl squad of SoB's. The mission was kill points spearhead, he went first, I lost 7-2 but had damaged the crap out of all of his vehicles. It was more of a learning experience than anything, I did enjoy the game though and look forward to hopefully 2 this Sunday. I've decided on a paint scheme for my army, Its predominantly blue progressing towards white the further up the chain of command (pics below) with special things within units (Sybarites, Hvy's) getting one piece of armor painted lighter than their squad. I'm using silver for most of the metallics except on the white/light blue guys where I found gold looks nicer. The only 100% finished model here is the wych the other two just had their fronts painted fully so I could get an idea for the color scheme. The dark blue on the warriors will only be on them and grotesques if I ever use them, being that their lowest rung. The lighter blue on the warriors will be the most common color in the army, with idividual armor pieces picked out depending on wargear/status. The HQ's will be predominantly white with some blues on the trim, Probably some cool freehand stuff in blue too like on my archons jetbike. I'm still undecided on the vehicles They will probably match their squad I'll make one lighter in case I decide to use an HQ with retinue and use it for the wyches when I don't. I'm really looking forward to the big triangle panels on the fronts of the vehicles for freehand space. Well below is my chosen scheme and a side view of my bike archon conversion, like I said only the wych is completed the others are WIP but I figured it'd be good to get some pics up maybe get some feedback.

'Ard Boyz Results, Lamenter's Banner, and Tervigon part 3!!!

Sorry for the delay, I've had a bunch of things interfering with writing posts this week, but after much delay are the results of Sunday's tournament for me. Round one I played against the Tau list that ended up getting first it got a little ugly for me and he won 3-1 in the end for a major victory. Game 2 was against a Necron player; it was a fun game but there was nothing the skeleton robots could do against the superhuman zombies I got a massacre phasing him out. Game 3 was against the Space wolf player that ended up making 2nd, he beat me by 2 kp (21-23 I believe) for a minor victory. I ended up 6th or 7th out of 13, but I think if I had done slightly better in either the first or third games I think I could have made top 3. Overall it was a good time, if a little draining though playing 3 2500 point games in a row. I accomplished my goal of doing better than I did in the practice tournament. As far as individual units go the Defilers held up amazingly well over the 3 games, were even clutch in two of the games, much to my amazement. The three demon squads did their job, at 2000+ I would definitely run them again but not at lower point values. Hopefully by 'Ard Boyz next year I'll be rocking Dark Eldar (and maybe even a new codex) and I'll do even better.

Now back to the Tervigon!

Now that you have your belly sacs covered in greenstuff making them smooth you're ready to start detailing. You're going to want to plan out the order of the lines in between the sacs much in the same way you planned the last step:



















The lines are the lines in between the bubbles, the red ones one the outside are last as they'll take a few sessions. The dotted lines are the other side of the bubble they go through. I started with the black lines; rolling a sausage (2Y:1B) of greenstuff about 5-7mm diameter up to maybe 1cm in between the bigger bulges the length of the line your following. Push it in the with your fingers then take your tools with hooks and points and pull at the sides of the sausages up the bubbles in a a combination of straight pulls and curved ones, keep them pretty close together. Try not to get into repeating patterns as it will look more natural if you don't. Continue this both sides of each sausage the entire length of them. After you finish with the hard tools you want to pull out the cone shaped colour shaper (or whatever soft blending tool you have) and smooth out the curves around the little "slime lines" so it looks as though the connector piece you just put in is part of the two bubbles instead of on top of them. When you are onto the second and third steps when you get the line your working on to intersect a finished one just blend it into the existing detail.




























Now when you get to the outside of the sacs your going to use a slightly different placing method, roll your sausage and place it around the outside of the sac, but roll tiny balls about the width of the ribs, and place them on top of the sausage on each rib. On the sac side your going to do the same thing as you did in between them sacs. On the rib side your going to want to use your pointiest tool maybe even an exacto blade tip and pull the sausage up in between the ribs and push it into the gap (don't be too thick) but on the ribs (where the extra bits of greenstuff are) pull them way up (1 cm or so) the ribs in very close straight lines. Take the chisel tip colour shaper and smooth the lines into the ribs as necessary. You should have something that looks like this:





































Now at the very back and front of the beast its sinewy "muscle" stuff instead of ribs, this is a mixture of the technique you use to detail the ribs and sacs just try to follow the existing lines into where you connect it to the sac. On the front you might have to put a wedge of putty into the top of the ribs so its a steady incline from the neck sinew and the sac on the chest. Here's what you should have by the end of this step:








































Next installment of the Tervigon conversion will be end of it with the final detailing. We will be putting veins on the sacs, cleaning up other small details, and putting all other finishing touches on it.

Finally here's pictures of the Lamenter's banner I did for one of the local player's. This is one the standard space marine chapter banner, with the freehand on the front coming from a description he gave me. I've been doing freehand on my rhinos and larger things like that but this was the smallest one I've done yet, but honestly the hardest part had to have been the checkers on the back of it. Note to self NEVER start an army with a predominant checker pattern in their scheme.









































Well now that I'm back online and able to write I'll have a ton of content coming about my Dark Eldar (WOOHOO!!!!)and will have the conclusion of the Tervigon within a week.

'Ard Boyz Tomorrow!

Well tomorrow is 'Ard Boyz, and I think I'm ready for it. After much mulling it over I made some list changes, hopefully for the better. I think (hope) I'm rounded enough for the missions, but I'll be happy with anything better than I got at the practice tournament a couple weeks ago (1 major victory, 1 minor loss, and 1 massacre against me). I'm also getting a Dark Eldar army tomorrow off of a local player so even if I don't win in the tournament I still kinda win. The list is as follows with the major changes being one less chosen squad, 2 more lesser demon squads, and giving the prince lash, so we'll see how it goes.

HQ
Demon Prince(110); ---155
Wings, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash of Submission

Elite
6 Chosen(18); ---193
5 Meltaguns, Rhino

6 Terminators(30); ---250
Chainfist/Combi-melta; Chainfist/Combi-plasma; Powerfist/Combi-melta; Power Weapon/Combi-melta; Power Weapon/Combi-melta; Power Weapon/Combi-plasma

Troops
7 Plague Marines(23); ---271
Aspiring Champion w/ Powerfist/Combi-melta; 2 Meltaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague Marines(23); ---271
Aspiring Champion w/ Powerfist/Combi-melta; 2 Meltaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague Marines(23); ---281
Aspiring Champion w/ Powerfist/Combi-plasma; 2 Plasmaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague Marines(23); ---281
Aspiring Champion w/ Powerfist/Combi-plasma; 2 Plasmaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Lesser Demons(13); ---91

7 Lesser Demons(13); ---91

7 Lesser Demons(13); ---91

Heavy Support
3 Obliterators(75); ---225

Defiler(150); ---150
Reaper Autocannon & Twin Linked Heavy Flamer

Defiler(150); ---150
Reaper Autocannon & +1 Close Combat Weapon
Total - 2500

I will post an update on how I did on Monday, will also be a report on the status of my new Dark Eldar army, and I will have pics of the Lamenter's chapter banner I finished up

Converting a Tervigon Part 2

It's time for more gribbly stuff! The next step in the Tervigon conversion is to cover the Mighty Putty lumps with thin sheets of Greenstuff. You want to use a mixture with more yellow than blue (actually in my experience you should almost always use a mixture like that) so it sticks nicely to the surface. Alternately you could put a small drop of super glue on the top of the lump to hold the Green Stuff on, and a 50/50 mix will work as well, but I prefer the first method. You only want to cover 2 lumps at a time to avoid prints or kinks. The diagram below shows how I did it to avoid this, just do both A's at the same time, same with B's, etc.





















After you get the sheet of Green Stuff pulled over the lumps you want to take a flat wide tool (I use the tool shaped like a hook on one side, and a flat round handle on the other) and gently roll it back and forth over the Green Stuff until you get a nice round surface with no folds or lines in it. Generally the more gentlry and evenly you roll it, the less flat spots you'll end up with. Make sure to constantly lubricate your tools, water works good, as do water based "personal lubricants", try to avoid anything oil based as it will require cleaning later, personally (as sick as it sounds) I use good old saliva for my tools, as i think it works best, and who doesn't want to give a model a little tongue ;) . Try to keep it as bulbous as possible and remember how gravity would make it hang in relation to where the model stands. Don't worry too much about the spaces in between the lumps, you can push excess Green Stuff there and remove it if it's too thick, or if it's not just leave it, it will be detailed over later.


Now after about 3 days of working the Green Stuff over the lumps and it curing it should something look like this:

















































At this point you could begin detailing in between the sacs (but we're going to save that for next time) or you could detail the bursted (or bursting) sacs. For this you'll want to place globs of Greenstuff over the Mighty Putty frame, a little thicker than what you used on the sacs. Then go at it with pointy tool, I use the hook shaped tool, the pointy ended tool, and an actual exacto knife for this. Start making lines in it from the base (near the ribs) towards the ends, thicker at first then thinner as you go. Poke it, pull at it, even not clean/lubricate your tools as often so the Green Stuff sticks to them more. You don't want a uniform set of lines like hair but wavy, disorganized lines so it has a leathery appearance. When you're pulling at it pull it over the edges and down (remember your center of gravity in relation to how your beastie is standing) so it hangs freely and loosely. After all this you should have something that looks sort of like this:
































Next time we will be detailing in between the sacs and at their bases stretching them up on to the ribs, and into the neck/tail sinew. Only two parts left 'til you have a finished Tervigon ready to birth gaunts all over your opponents corpses. Until then have fun!

Some ideas for the future

I was running some errands today and I had a great idea to get new people to this blog and involved here. In a few weeks or when we get to 25 followers (not counting the three of us) I'm going to start giving some stuff away! First up will be a freehand space marine chapter banner, I'm thinking Blood Angels because it would be fun to paint one, but that may change before then. I've also started making some scenic bases which I'm going to get a hold of a friend and get cast in resin when I'm done and I'll give away a set of those after as well. The bases will probably be at a higher number of followers maybe 40 or 50 if we ever get that many. I'm thinking the format I'll use for the giveaways will be like what Santa Cruz Warhammer does where they announce the give away, then have people comment on the post, and those who comment are eligible for the giveaway, this way if it's something you don't want or need you're not gonna get random crap sent to you. Giveaways will probably only be for continental US residents as I'm not trying to pay a crap ton in international shipping. Any thoughts or other ideas would be appreciated!

'Ard Boyz Practice Follow-up

Well yesterday I played in an 'Ard Boyz parctice tournament, there were only 7 people but it was a good time. I got 6th (...) with a major victory, a minor loss and got massacred, but it was kind of due to wonky missions too. The missions were last year's 'Ard Boyz missions. All three of my games were close and exciting, and overall it was a good time.

The first game I played against a SW list with a couple rhinos, a LR with 16 bloodclaws in it, a couple dreads one in pod, a twin las razorback, 2 long fang units, njal and a couple more priests. It was a close battle going back and forth til the end, in which he beat me like 9 kp-13 or so, but I had two objectives to his one. Awesomeness award goes to the lesser demons for dropping on the center objective on top of a bastion and holding it the whole game with 2 left by the end of it. A courtmarshall gets issued to the 7 terminators for getting scared and running when a rhino tank shocked them and were promptly shot off the board, stupid termis. It was a fun game, but I think if my opponent had his Twolves done it would've went better for him.

The second game I played against Deathwing, ended in a minor loss but he really worked for it and earned it. He was using 2 LR's, a total of 6 terminator squads, Belial, a couple speeders. a bike squad, and an attack bike. He went first, on my first turn I killed 4/5 termis in a squad, and 4/6 bikers. But in the end I just couldn't contend with all those assault terminators. He won 18 kp-14kp. Mvp award again goes to the lesser demons for killing the attack bike, a couple terminators, and in the end I had 1 lesser demon fighting a powerfist marine for 2 full game turns mano-a-mano before the game ended with them both alive. This was a close game where he really worked and earned the victory he got.


The third game I played against vanilla marines. It was awicked close and riveting game,in the end he had 1 objective to my 0, after I took one of his but had no troops to claim it, and was inches(but outside by a few) from contesting the other. He also beat me by 1 kp 12-13, so getting massacred (by 1 obj/1kp) kinda sent things awry for me. Kinda feels like he shoulda got a major or minor victory but oh well what can you do. He was using Lysander, a Libby with might/vortex, 3 tac squads in drop pods, 2 venerable dreads in pods. a land reaider with assault termis (and Lys), a squad of deepstriking assault termis, an assault squad, and a scout squad with cloaks plus lysanders ability for a combined 2+ cover save. This was by far my favorite game of the day, even with the massacre against me. The mvp award gets split on this match between the oblits for killing the land raider, 6 terminators and 2 of Lysanders wounds with shooting, and in the end killed Lysander (as he killed all three of them) in one big powerfist group hug; and the lesser demons (again) for killing half the assault squad, and then and making it about 5 inches from the one objective he had at the end before dying providing cover for some plague marines who also almost made it to the objective the turn the game ended.

So after my first experience playing at 2500 was fun and I learned a bit. The defilers didn't fare as badly as I thought they would with one surviving til the end in 2 out of 3 games and totally earning their points back in the one I lost both. The demon prince also rocked house in the 2 out of 3 games i used him. the 2nd game he just hid out of range to avoid giving the terminators 5 more kp's. Both of these units I expected to die by turn 1 or 2 from anti tank fire, but were more resilient than I expected. In a response to the original list thread Will suggested using more demons, more oblits (which I wish I had, but don't), buffing the chosen and getting a lash or 2 in. I'm unsure on the lash thing, it would've helped a bit today, but at the real event I expect at least double the number of people (if not more) and much harder lists, lash doesn't do crap to mech but with BA/SW the way they are right now it might just work out. For the real tournament I think I will use more lesser demons next time maybe 20 or 30 total, their cheap enough. Buffing up my chosen squads sounds like a good idea, so they can take a hit or 2 before they lose meltaguns. If I can work the points maybe put some combi weapons on the rhinos or maybe lash but that's going to take some mulling over though I could use the prince and I have a sorceror. In conclusion it was a great day if a little draining playing 40k for like 8 hours and I can't wait to do it again in two weeks against a larger playerbase. The turnout should be good because our store is running it on Sunday instead of Saturday, so people nearby who didn't make it in on saturday at other locations will come here.The next Tervigon post is done except for the pictures, so expect that in a day or so.

'Ard Boyz Practice List

So our FLGS is having an 'Ard Boyz practice tournament this weekend that I'm going to be playing in, and it got me thinking about what I'm going to do. It will be good for me because other than a few Apoc. games I haven't played anything over 2000 points. I'm not sure what the scenarios will be but I've made a decently well rounded list with the models that I've got. Some of the things in the list I don't think are going to work out that great (ie. Defilers) @ 2500, and I dont have 4 more Obliterators to replace them, but I think I've come up with a use for them. The plan is as follows: The Defilers and Demon Prince are there to soak up a portion of first turn fire so the marines can get to their objectives(be it actual objectives, or their respective kill assignments), the chosen outflank in to melta the heck out of the board edges or force the opponent to clump up in the middle. The Terminators will deepstrike and probably cause another vehicle casualty then have strong enough numbers to withstand a turn of enemy fire and go kill something else next turn. Oblits will usually start on the board to provide fire support, but could deepstrike if the situation calls for it. All the troop units have icons to provide deepstrike accuracy and the lesser demon pack is for a rear objective holder and then the marines could move on. Now optimally i would be using 4 more Obliterators instead of the Defilers and pump up the chosen squads up another guy or two and an Icon of Chaos Glory and drop the lesser demons, but you work with what you've got, blasted real life expenses. Here's the list:

HQ
Demon Prince; ---130
Wings

Elite
5 Chosen; ---175
5 Meltaguns, Rhino

5 Chosen; ---175
5 Meltaguns, Rhino

7 Terminators; ---330
Chainfist/Combimelta, Chainfist/Combiflamer, Powerfist/Heavy Flamer, Powerfist/Combimelta, Power Weapon/Combimelta, Power Weapon/Combiflamer,
Power Weapon/Combimelta/Icon of Tzeentch

Troops
7 Plague Marines; ---271
Asp. Champion w/ Powerfist/Combimelta, 2 Meltaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague Marines; ---271
Asp. Champion w/ Powerfist/Combimelta, 2 Meltaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague Marines; ---281
Asp. Champion w/ Powerfist/Combiplasma, 2 Plasmaguns, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague Marines; ---261
Asp. Champion w/ Powerfist/Combiflamer, 2 Flamers, Personal Icon, Rhino

6 Lesser Demons; ---78

Heavy Support
3 Obliterators; ---225

Defiler; ---150
Reaper Autocannon/Twin Linked Heavy Flamer

Defiler; ---150
Reaper Autocannon/+1 Close Combat Weapon

Total - 2497

I will post an update with thoughts on how I will adapt the list and what worked out and what didn't and what I'm going to do for the actual 'Ard Boyz tournament on Monday or Tuesday. Until then have fun blowin crap out of your opponents toy soldiers!

Introduction and some gribbly things

My name is Eric, I'm one of the co-authors of this page and also from the Binghamton NY area, most of my posts will probably be about modeling projects but I also really enjoy competitive play trying to attend around 1 tournament per month or so. I'm relatively new to the hobby only being in it for around 2 years or so (shortly after the start of fifth ed.) but I've really enjoyed and progressed at the modeling spectrum of the hobby, even if that is a bit difficult at times with a wife and 2 young children. My first and primary army is Chaos Space Marines with a nicely painted and converted Death Guard, and even an Emperor's Children warband started, but I also have 'Nids and just started Dark Eldar in the recent months. I've done a bit of freehand one the tops of my rhinos and I'm working on a banner for someone I know right now, but lately my real fascination has been sculpting, you can expect alot of sculpting and modeling posts from me at this point. A few of the sculpting projects I've done recently are a Chaos Spawn to Bloodbowl Rat Ogre conversion, a Tervigon out of a Carnifex, and one out of a Barbed Hierodule. Some of the projects I'm going to be working on now (and even including some pics of in this post) are turning a chaos spawn into a Slaaneshi demon prince, a Tervigon out of a Barbed Heirodule which will actually be my second so hopefully it will be better than the first, and a freehand Lamenter's chapter banner. After I finish these the projects I plan on showing are a Nurgle Plague Tower, a Tower of skulls, a Skaven Bloodbowl dugout, and maybe even get to painting some of my Emperor's Children. Hopefully I will get some battle reports in, maybe even from tournaments, about 50% of my games are casual and the other half come from doing multiple games in a day at an event, so who knows. This is my first experience blogging, so hopefully I can learn as much as I can teach through this. Now to get onto the actual exciting content: (slight disclaimer, My photo-fu skills are a little lacking compared to my painting/sculpting :-/ )

The first thing I learned about sculpting is having the right things for the job. I've gotten some colour shapers for blending, but my ghetto ass just hasn't sprang for metal sculpting tools and the ones I use I've made from the handles of disposable Xacto knives in various shapes useful to me. Here's what I use for all my sculpting projects:



Here are a few pictures of the first Hierodule->Tervigon conversion. I will be going over a step by step on how to achieve this over the next few posts:







Here are the initial stages of the Tervigon, I use Mighty Putty as a base or "filler" and then sculpt on top of, greenstuff is just too expensive to be wasting huge chunks of it that will just be covered later and detailed. To do this you just need to roll some Mighty Putty balls of various sizes and stick them into the ribs of the beast. On this one I'm doing a gaunt that just burst it's sac, on the last one I did a bursted sac, and one stretched and about to break. It's adding things like this that will really add character to your conversion later on:





The next post will deal with smoothing out the birthing sacs and adding a little detail to them with Greenstuff, stretching them up the ribs and connecting them to each other. Hopefully I will have the banner done by then as well to put pics up.