Vaul's wrath support battery: 3x Shadow Weaver

Hi guys!
I'm back from the holidays with a new project: a unit of Vaul's wrath support batteries I'm building for my Eldar army that it's currently in need of  a bit more of long range fire power to deal with infantry and light vehicles. For the moment I'm going with three Shadow Veawers but I've magnetised the gun so I could easily swap it out for one of the other options if the need arise

The model is very easy to assembly on the paper but doing so will make painting it an hellish job so I'm going to paint almost every single bits separately. I'm also using six stock Guardians as the gunners to add a bit of variety. Game-wise I will ignore the guy sitting on the gun piece itself as every support battery can field only two gunners

Here are all the bits ready to be primed: almost half of them will be primed in white while the other will get primed with German Panzer Grey as usual for my Iyanden colour scheme

And here are the primed bits:

I also started to work on the yellow sections.  This is were things start to be a little different from how I painted my Iyanden army so far. During the last month I did some experiments because I was not 100% satisfied by how my airbrush works keep turning out. They were always a bit chalky or dusty and not as bright as I wanted them

One of the things I tried out was to apply the first coat of colour (the base coat layer) with a brush instead that airbrushing it. Only after I achieved a nice solid coat of colour I went in with my airbrush to complete the job

Here is a example of what I'm talking about. In the first image you can see a couple of Wraithguards I painted as a test on the yellow before I painted my Wraithnight. On the second image you can see another Wraithguard I painted following my new method

So the first order of business was to put down this first layer of brushed on yellow. To get a more brighter base layer I'm starting for Vallejo Game Color Sun Yellow:

So far so good. Next up: working on the yellow with the airbrush

Games Workshop Digital era?

It look like that Games Workshop Digital division is leading the show for the current Christmas season, buffing up and supporting GW models offering with new downloadablecontent (DLC) available both for Apple iBooks and standard e-books readers

Joining force with The Black Library they have brought us the 2013 Digital Advent Calendar: not an original idea per se, but surely a serious effort to offer us new content and rules everyday

Personally, I bought the rules (or, as they call them, dataslates) for both Be'lakor (the 40K flavor, there is a Warhammer Fantasy Battle version) and the Tau Fireblade Support Cadre

I always loved the Be'lakor model and I bough him some times ago (you can find an unboxing here) and this new rules will allow me to field him, someday, along my other Chaos models. And from a gaming point of view, the rules are very good if not a bit pricey

The Firebase Support Cadre complement the box set by the same name that Games Workshop released in November, a box set for with you pay 6 Broadside Suits and get a Ripdite for free, something that it's quite astonishing by itself. And again, the rules are very good! If think we will see more of this guys on the table than before, if you could believe it

Today, on the 5th day of the Advent Calendar, they released the rules another box set they released in November: the Adeptus Astartes Storm Wing, a formation composed by a Storm Raven and two Storm Talons so it look like that they are really going to release rules for all the box sets and this if really making me exited about the Eldar one! :) I already own all the models included in that box set (a Wraithknight, two Wraithlords, fifteen Wraighguards / Wraithblades) so I can't wait to get some cool rules too and field the  Iyanden Ghost army I always wanted to play :D

But GW Digital efforts are not new. If you look up Games Workshop on the iBookstore you will find that there are already 169 digital product already available, ranging from Codices to Painting Guides, Rulebooks and expansions, both for Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Battles, most of witch are available as an e-book or in the enhanced iBooks version

You can see the complete offering here:

So, is GW Digital era really begun?

We are getting more content, more frequently and keeping it all together is starting to get a bit complicated. I will not be surprised at all if in the near future they came out with an App to aggregate all the digital content, at least for the ones related to game rules and army composition. Add in an army list builder it will sell like candies

I'm hoping for too much?

Tau Empire XV104 Riptide Battlesuit - completed!

And it's done!

Tau Empire XV104 Riptide Battlesuit - update 2

Just a quick update guys!

I reworked the white areas a bit after cleaning them up following the black lining of the armour panels and put down the base colour of the red surfaces with VMC Flat Red

Now on to highlighting!

Tau Empire XV104 Riptide Battlesuit - update 1

Hi guys!

A quick update on the Tau Riptide: work is almost complete on the main armour plates, just a couple of spots to fix up after the black pin-wash made a little mess here and there :)

I also put down to base colour for the metallic parts, an almost black metal colour with a small blue tint to it

The lover legs are going to stay black, not metallic colour there. I'm planning to highlight them with some warm colours to contrast the cool felling of the armour and to tie the model with the warm colours of the base

Tau allied detachment

Hi guys!

After the completion of the Imperial Ruin I started working on a Tau allied detachment for my Eldar army. I'm still working on the fine details of the army list but I'm pretty much sold on the following units:

• Tau Commander: it bring so much on the table as a support unit and I think it will work very well with a couple of Eldar units I've in mind
• XV104 Riptide Battlesuit: awesome firepower on highly-mobile MC that could tag-team with my Wraithknight
• Kroot Carnivore Squad: a solid troop choice (as far as a Tau can be) that can bring some shoots in late game turns or act as meat shield for a high-profile unit

Models-wise I'm currently painting the Riptide: here it is after the first layers of colours were applied. I did not like the puny little head that comes standard with the kit so I've built it a new one trying to achieve the same look of the XV-9 battlesuits from Forge World

Speaking of XV-9 battlesuits: Shas’o R’alai was gentle enough to drop in and act as my Tau Commander: 

I'm probably going to complete the Riptide before starting to paint the Commander but ... we will see :)

A gaming table Ruin - project complete!

And it's finally done!

A gaming table Ruin - part 7

In the last couple of days I completed the main work on the walls finally! I went back in with the airbrush to bring back colours in a couple of spot where they got dulled down a bit

Next I started on the details: I'm going for a oxidized copper look so I started with a base coat of Scorched Brown followed by VMA Copper mixed with a bit or red

Tomorrow: more copper!

A gaming table Ruin - part 6

Worked on the ruin again tonight, the walls on the back are now ready for the final shadows and highlights and, after those, times for details!

I also started to work on the front walls:

Are they a bit too dark?