Back to the hobby!

After the holidays break, and the back-to-real-life-work forced break, I'm back full time to the hobby!

In the last month I could work only for a couple of hours here and there on my Eldar so I could not do anything major, so no progress on the Hemlock for now :(

What little time I had I used to build two 5 men units of Wraithguards / Wraithblades, all magnetized so I could switch between the two as needed:

Behind the Wraiths you could also see a unit of Defender Guardians I'm also working on

In the last couple of day I started working on a new project for a gaming table a friend of mine is building and this is what the next blog post will be all about :)

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter progress 6

Work continues on the Hemlock! With the yellow sections completed I moved on the black / blue ones. The first order of business was to mask all the painted area to protect them. It took me almost two hours to apply the masking tape, following the many curves of the Hemlock hull.

With the masking tape in place, I proceeded to apply thin layer after thin layer of Vallejo Model Color German Grey

When the German Grey was dry I proceeded to paint the blue areas following the same progression I used on my Wraithknight

Finally, after the blue paint was dry, I unpacked the model!

There are a few spot in witch the masking failed to protect the yellow areas but nothing major.

Next up: highlighting black!

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter progress 5

Yellow complete! Here is the Hemlock after the final highlight steps ...

.. and after I washed it with the midtone yellow to unify all the blendings

Next up: black (kinda)!

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter progress 4

Hi guys,
I made some progress on the Hemlock yesterday and tonight. After masking the already painted sections I covered the model in white primer.

Tonight I started on the yellow section of the hull. I'm using the same recipe I used on my Wraithknight so the first layer was a mix of Vallejo Model Air Ochre and Wood.

Then it was time for Golden Yellow. Here is a "before and after" kind of picture of the two yellow layers:

With the second layer complete it was time to clean the airbrush before calling it for tonight

Tomorrow I should be able to complete the last two highlight steps of my yellow recipe.

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter progress 2

Hi guys, a quick update on the Hemlock Wraithfighter

All the bits are mould-line free, gap filled, greenstuffed and pinned! And now it's time for a bubble bath ;)

As you can see I'm keeping him in pieces as I'm going to paint it in stages like I did for the Wraithknight

First game with the new Eldar

Last night I played my first game with the new Eldar codex, a 1500 points game against Space Marines

My list was the following:

- Spiritseer
- 5x Wraithblades
- Wave Serpent, Scatter Laser, Shurinken Cannon, Spirit Stones, Holofields

- 5x Dire Avangers
- Falcon, Scatter Laser, Spirit Stones, Holofields

- 5x Dire Avangers

- Wave Serpent, Scatter Laser, Shurinken Cannon, Spirit Stones, Holofields

- 5x Rangers

- 8x Warp Spiders (in reserves)

- Fire Prism, Spirit Stones, Holofields

- Wraithknight, Suncannon

The mission was Purge the Alien with Dawn of War deployment. My opponent got first turn and played with two tactical squads (one in a ruin and one in a Rhino), Vulkan and 5 SS/TH Terminators in a Land Raider, a Master of the Forge, a Thunder Fire cannon and a Dreadnought (the one with AV13). He basically castled up in two ruins after he boosted their cover saves to 3+ with his Techmarine and Master of the Forge.

I deployed my Rangers in a ruin in the middle of my deployment area, the two Serpents behind a ruin on their left and the Falcon, Prism and Knight behind a ruin on the right. I failed to steal initiative.

In the first turn nothing major happened, he took a hull point from my Prism and one of the Serpent by glancing them. I took a wound from the Thunderfire cannon and the Master of the Forge and glanced his Dreadnought

He hid is Master of the Forge inside the ruin and then killed four of my Ranges with the Thunderfire in his second turn but the lone survivor passed his morale check. Also he put a glance on my Falcon but nothing else. Jink + Holofields is really really good! I focused on the Rhino and the Thunderfire while blasting the other tactical squad with the Serpent Shield from one of my transport killing a single Marine.

The real turning point of the game happened in turn three: he run the Rhino away and popped smokes and then fired the Cannon and the Dreadnought flamers against my Wraightknight but he could not wound him. He charged the Knight with the Dread but with I5 I went first and managed to put two pens on it and the AP2 bonus got me and explosion result.

My Spiders came in from reserves and I deep striked them near his Rhino. The Falcon finally exploded the Rhino and he rolled a 1" radius for the explosion blast. One of his marines died in the explosion and I finished the squad by firing at it first with the Wraightknight and then with the Spiders. I also moved my two Serpents flat-out toward the other ruins, planning to shoot everything at then in the next turn and then assault the survivors with the Wraithblades

We stopped the game there because he conceded at that point. His Land Raider was in my deployment zone and the whole of my force (except the lone Ranger) was in his so the final result was 5 to 1 victory points for me.

My impressions from this first game:

- Target Lock is awesome, don't leave home without a Scatter Laser

- Holofields are worth every penny (and they are cheaper now)

- The Suncannon is very good

- I never fired the Shuriken Cannons so maybe I could drop them

- The Falcon is not nearly as bad as we read on various forum

- The Lance shoot from the Prism look good on paper but you could not count on it at 100%

I'm basing this on a single game and my opponent played very defensively but.. so far Eldar looks good :)

Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter progress 1

Next on my work table is the new Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighter!

I got almost all the bit and pieces cleaned up and I also started to glue some of the bits together. I plan to pin the weapons of I could swap them for gaming purpose (I actually plan to field it as a Crimson Hunter for now)

As you can see from the picture I put a bunch of green stuff here and there, mostly behind the weapons mounts to extend the "pinned" area. I also made a little base for the flying stand so the model will not move too much

In the last couple of day I also finalised how I'm gonna paint it: here is a sneak peak of THE PLAN!

Eldar Wraithknight: it is DONE ! - UPDATED

It is done!!!

After 25 long days my Wraithknight is complete! And lucky me I got him 2 days before release ...

Today I worked on the base and on the highlights on the black areas. I also did some edge highlights on him and let me be honest: I used the Edge paints I bought some times ago and the worked like a charm!

Now I only need to put the last gloss / matte protective coat and then I can move on to the Hemlock!

UPDATE: Here are some better pictures on the BigBoy:

Eldar Wraithknight progress 11

What a dirty boy! In the last couple of days I completed the shading process by applying an oil wash on the model. I used a 1:2 mix of Ivory Black and Dioxazine Purple

Here is him after I cleaned up the mess I made with the wash:

Now I'm left with only a couple of highlights to touch up, complete the gems and finalise the base and then he is done!

Do you guys think I should put some edge highlights in there?