Dark Eldar Venom WIP

When the new Dark Eldar book landed I decided it was time to resurrect the army and start painting it. After a bit of testing I revised my old colour scheme and I started to paint one of my Venoms. Here are some pics of the little thing so far:

I'm probably going to paint the two gem-like thingy above the engine in gold too to add a bit more of the colour on the model

Here is it as seen from below. This is actually an older pic, the sections of the upper hull on the nose are painted in gold too, like they are on the upper surface

There is still a lot to do: paint the weapons, the pilot and the crew (I'm not sure about how many there are going to be), more work on the edge highlight on the green hull, the various trophies and so long and a whole lot of things to fix and clean up... I'm also going to try and put some tribal markings on the hull if I can manage to do that without ruining the whole thing ...

C&C really appreciated!

Hobby vows - February 2013

As you may have read, I did not complete all my vows for January. I probably put too many things on my to-do list and too many of them where basically the same thing done over and over (four almost identical vehicles)

For this reason I decided to go easy on myself for this month. So, here we go with the new vows

PRIMARY VOWS

A bit of change could do me well at the moment so I want to switch focus from my Dark Eldar to my Khorne army. For this reason I want to complete the Chaos Lord I started last month and start working on his Terminator buddies

SECONDARY VOWS

As a secondary goal I'd like to complete at least one of the two Ravagers I was working on in January

BONUS VOWS

No bonus vows this time around :)



Not too much planned, so lets hope I could get them done this time :)

Hobby vows - January 2013 - UPDATE!

With January gone, it's time to draw conclusions on my vows... and it's not looking good. At all

I may have set the bar too high or I could be a little burn out at the moment

PRIMARY VOWS

My primary objective was to build two Dark Eldar Raiders and two Ravagers

One Ravagers is almost complete, I only need to put on the external hull decorations and hanging crew men

All the weapons and weapons turrets are magnetised for gaming and painting purpose. I also put magnets on the sails and the trophies for ease of transportation.

To add a bit of variety I raised the connection points of the trophies here and there in different places on each hulls. I did the same for the other Ravagers and the two Raiders

The other Ravager and the Raiders are a little behind, with work to be done on the crew and the trophies. I also need to do some greenstuff work to conceal the magnets here and there

SECONDARY VOWS

My secondary goal was to came up with a painting scheme for my vehicles: I played around with various ideas but I still have to decide witch way to go

BONUS VOWS

I actually did some good work for my bonus objective, building a Chaos Terminator Lord. Here he is:

I've not yet decided about his weapons: I like the look of the twin lighting claws and the chain fist so I'll probably magnetise his arms

CONCLUSIONS

I think that working on four vehicles at the same time was a bit too much. A little boring too I think :)

The Archon's dilemma: Huskblade, Agonizer or Venom Blade ?

What is the most efficient way for my Archon to kill his foes?

What is the cheapest way to do it?

Those are the questions that are bothering me lately and so I finally decided to find out. Let's play a round of MathHammer!

THE BAD GUY

Uhm that must be the Archon I guess...

You may known the guy, very good Weapon Skill, low Strength and Resistance, awesome Initiative

I'm going to check out how statistically good he is against the, uhm, other guys, using the following weapons with or without Furious Charge:

• a plain Power Sword
• the Venom Blade
• an Agonizer
• the Huskblade
• the Huskblade with an active Soul Trap

THE OTHER GUYS

I will testing out the various Archon configurations against the following stereotypes:

MEQ: your standard Space Marine TEQ: a Terminator (no Storm Shield) ORK: Greenskins! GEQ: an Imperial Guardsmen ELD: the good ones

WS T As Inv Sv MEQ 4 4 3+ TEQ 4 4 2+ 5+ ORK 4 4 6+ GEQ 3 3 5+ ELD 4 3 4+

THE CHARGE OF THE ARCHON!

In this first scenario our Archon is charging his enemies without Furious Charge

With a whopping 6 attacks he SHOULD inflict the following unsaved wounds. I'm listing the weapons from the cheapest to the most expensive one

	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.11	0.56	2.78	2.59	1.94
Power Sword	1.33	0.22	1.33	2.00	2.00
Agonizer	2.00	0.33	2.00	2.00	2.00
Huskblade	1.33	0.89	1.33	2.00	2.00
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.33	2.22	3.33	3.33	3.33

I highlighted the best result against each enemy type, keeping the Huskblade / Soul Trap combo aside as this will probably be always the best performing one but we could not take the activation of the Soul Trap for granted

Against MEQ all the special weapons perform adequately: the 50/50 chance of wounding of the Agonizer out-perform the low strength of the Huskblade and the cheap Venom Blade is not too far behind the Power Sword or Huskblade

TEQ are a a hard nut to crack as expected and the awesome AP of the Huskblade give the best results here but the cheaper Venom Blade is a close second

A low armour save foe is the ideal playmate of the Venom  Blade and the higher his Toughness, the better the results. The Agonizer is doing well to against T4

Against your standard Eldar the Power Sword look like the best compromise between wounds and points

WHAT ABOUT FURIOUS CHARGE?

With two Pain Tokens under his belt, the Archon get a nice boost:

	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.30	0.65	3.24	2.59	1.94
Power Sword	2.00	0.33	2.00	2.67	2.67
Agonizer	2.00	0.33	2.00	2.00	2.00
Huskblade	2.00	1.33	2.00	2.67	2.67
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.33	2.22	3.33	3.33	3.33

The nice surprise here is the Power Sword that perform mostly as good as the more expensive Huskblade, TEQ being the only exception. But charging TEQ is not a good strategy in my opinion anyway...

If you plan to field your Archon with an Haemonculi and some big, ugly Grotesques and points are tight, you could take a Power Sword and the much needed Phantasm Grenade Launcher for around the same points of the Huskblade

Against high Toughness / low Save enemies the Venom Blade is still the best choice

THE DRUG LORD

Combat Drugs are one of the upgrades available to the Archon. They are not that expensive but I wonder if they are needed at all!

1) HYPEX

A boost to the Run move that will not help much our Archon for the following reasons:

• our Archon will probably ride in a Venom or a Rider most of the time
• if he Run, he can no longer charge thanks to the changes to Fleet in 6th edition
• his damage output is not modified in any way

2) SERPENTIN

+1 WS: the standard Archon is already hit back on a 5+ by WS3 enemies and this bonus is not enough to gave him the same benefit while fighting WS4 units so still not much help here

His damage output is not changed

3) GRAVE LOTUS

+1 S: we start to see some improvements but Agonizers are not effected

without Furious Charge	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.30	0.65	3.24	2.59	1.94
Power Sword	2.00	0.33	2.00	2.67	2.67
Agonizer	2.00	0.33	2.00	2.00	2.00
Huskblade	2.00	1.33	2.00	2.67	2.67
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.33	2.22	3.33	3.33	3.33

with Furious Charge	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.30	0.65	3.24	2.59	1.94
Power Sword	2.67	0.44	2.67	3.33	3.33
Agonizer	2.00	0.33	2.00	2.00	2.00
Huskblade	2.67	1.78	2.67	3.33	3.33
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.33	2.22	3.33	3.33	3.33

4) PAINBRINGER

Re-roll failed to-wound rolls: this is always a good thing especially when our Archon must relay only on his base strength to wound his enemies. Not so much if you fight with a Venom Blade

without Furious Charge	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.30	0.65	3.24	2.59	1.94
Power Sword	2.22	0.37	2.22	3.00	3.00
Agonizer	3.00	0.50	3.00	3.00	3.00
Huskblade	2.22	1.48	2.22	3.00	3.00
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.89	2.59	3.89	3.89	3.89

with Furious Charge	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.30	0.65	3.24	2.59	1.94
Power Sword	3.00	0.50	3.00	3.56	3.56
Agonizer	3.00	0.50	3.00	3.00	3.00
Huskblade	3.00	2.00	3.00	3.56	3.56
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.89	2.59	3.89	3.89	3.89

5) ADRENALIGHT

+1 A: a bonus attack is always welcome!

without Furious Charge	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.30	0.65	3.24	3.02	2.27
Power Sword	1.56	0.26	1.56	2.33	2.33
Agonizer	2.33	0.39	2.33	2.33	2.33
Huskblade	1.56	1.04	1.56	2.33	2.33
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.89	2.59	3.89	3.89	3.89

with Furious Charge	MEQ	TEQ	ORK	GEQ	ELD
Venom Blade	1.51	0.76	3.78	3.02	2.27
Power Sword	2.33	0.39	2.33	3.11	3.11
Agonizer	2.33	0.39	2.33	2.33	2.33
Huskblade	2.33	1.56	2.33	3.11	3.11
Huskblade + Soul Trap	3.89	2.59	3.89	3.89	3.89

6) SPLINTERMIND

A free Pain Token: an improvement of the defence capabilities for the Archon and his units (Fell No Pain) that could also help to gain Furious Charge faster if there is a Pain Token already in the unit (Haemonculi and/or Grotesques)

SO, ARE COMBAT DRUGS NEEDED?

Of the six drugs only three increase the damage output of the Archon and a forth could do that too in some particular unit configurations. The remaining two drugs are totally wasted on him however

In the end, I think I would take Combat Drugs only if I have some points to spare after I have secured all the other units in the army list or if I will ever field Grotesques with my Archon

WHAT IS THE DEADLIEST OF THEM ALL?

There is no overall winner: it all came down on the role you want your Archon to perform.

You want to go hunt Terminators? I won't do that but if you so wish than take the Huskblade and Combat Drugs

MEQ Killer? Power Sword or Agonizer. The Venom Blade is not much worse if points are tight

Hordes anyone? Venom Blade

Are you a Kin slayer? Then a Power Sword or a Venom Blade are your tools


And now it's up to you! What do you guys think on the various special weapons and how do you field your Archon?

Hobby vows - January 2013

I started this blog as a way to keep me focused on my projects and the hobby and so far I'm having good results. As a next step in this direction I'm going to start to give me a set of goals, or vows, for each months dividing them in three categories:

• Primary vows: what I want to complete within the current month
• Secondary vows: what I should work on but do not have the same priority as a as primary vows
• Bonus vows: what I'd like to work on if I have the time

Primary vows should be the main focus of the month and should not be slowed down by the other two categories. Nothing bad will happen if I can not meet the deadlines but I still like to have them in place to keep things organised

That said, let's move on this month vows!

PRIMARY VOWS

1. Complete building and pre-paint steps of two Dark Eldar Ravagers
2. Complete building and pre-paint steps of two Dark Eldar Raiders

SECONDARY VOWS

1. Define a paint scheme for the vehicles of my Dark Eldar kabal 

BONUS VOWS

1. Build the Chaos Space Marines Terminator Lord for my Khorne / World Eaters collection

It's a bunch of stuff for me. Let's see what I could do by the end of the month!

Refined army list for my Dark Eldar Kabal

In the last few days I was thinking about my Dark Eldar army list and something was bothering me

The current 1500 points list I'm working on, building models and testing out colour schemes, is this one:


- Archon, Huskblade, Soul Trap, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Shadow Field @160pt
- 4x Incubi, Venom, 2x Splinter Cannons @153

- 10x Kabalite Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks @170

- 10x Kabalite Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks @170

- 5x Wyches, Haywire grenades, Venom, 2x Splinter Cannons @125

- 5x Wyches, Haywire grenades, Venom, 2x Splinter Cannons @125

- 8x Reavers Jetbikes, 2x Heat Lances, Arena Champion @210

- Ravager, 3x Dark Lances, Night Shields @115

- Ravager, 3x Dark Lances, Night Shields @115

- Razorwing Jetfighter, 2x Dark Lances, 4x Monoscythe missiles, Splinter Rifle, Flickerfield @155

== 1498 points

The anti-tank (AT) section consist in:

• 10 Dark Lances
• 2 Heat Lances
• 10 Haywire grenades

In the anti-infantry (AI) section I have:

• 8 Splinter Cannons
• 15 Splinter Rifles
• 4 Monoscythe missiles
• 8/24 Bladevanes attacks
• various Splinter Pistols

For close-combat (CC) the Archon/Incubi pack:

• 8/12 S4 AP2 attacks
• 5/6 S3 AP2 Istant-death attacks that could be improved to S6

The Wyches and Reavers units could also help the Archon and his unit if necessity arise

The things that do not convince me are two:

1. I'm not sure if the Huskblade / Soul Trap combo is worth the points, starting at S3 and in a unit full of AP2 power weapons
2. I added the Arena Champion to the Reavers to boost their LD value, but I think that a 9th members and an extra Heat Lance would improve the list

I came up with this revised list (changes in italic):

- Archon, Venom Blade, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Shadow Field @120pt

- 4x Incubi, Venom, 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies @158

- 10x Kabalite Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks @170

- 10x Kabalite Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider, Dark Lance, Splinter Racks @170

- 5x Wyches, Haywire grenades, Venom, 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies @130

- 5x Wyches, Haywire grenades, Venom, 2x Splinter Cannons, Grisly Trophies @130

- 9x Reavers Jetbikes, 3x Heat Lances @234

- Ravager, 3x Dark Lances, Night Shields @115

- Ravager, 3x Dark Lances, Night Shields @115

- Razorwing Jetfighter, 2x Dark Lances, 4x Monoscythe missiles, Splinter Rifle, Flickerfield @155

== 1497 points

The split-up is roughly the same:

AT:

• 10 Dark Lances
• 3 Heat Lances
• 10 Haywire grenades

AI:

• 8 Splinter Cannons
• 15 Splinter Rifles
• 4 Monoscythe missiles
• 9/27 Bladevanes attacks
• various Splinter Pistols

For close-combat (CC) the Archon/Incubi pack:

• 8/12 S4 AP2 attacks
• 5/6 AP6 attacks that always wounds on a 2+

I swapped out the Huskblade / Soul Trap for a very cheap Venom Blade that overcome the S3 problem. I lose the AP2 but gain more raw wounds

The Reavers are now at full strenght with 9 jet-bikers and 3 Heat Lances.

I used the left over points to add Grisly Trophies to the Venoms: this could potentially help Reavers, Wyches and the Archon unit in case of a bad LD test roll.

I'm also wondering if converting one of the Ravagers to Disintegrators Cannons could help in my meta-game. I play against Marines (Ultra, Wolves, Blood Angels), Necrons, Orks and Tyranids. I don't want to put them on the Razorwing because I need it's Lances for dealing with (or trying to deal with) other flyers

EDIT:

Maybe I should replace the Razorwing with a Voidraven Bomber with Flickerfield but without missiles (same points cost) to get more anti-flyer punch. And what about an Agonizer for the Archon instead of the Venom Blade (and the Grisly Trophies on the three Venoms) ?

What you guys think about this new list?

Dark Eldar klaive colours test

Just a quick post to show a test colour scheme for my Incubi's klaives

What do you think?

Dark Eldar Incubus - quick update

Just a quick update tonight to show you guys the progresses on the Incubus. I painted the helm mask and the main chest plates white, following the same progression I used while paining my Aegis Defence Line but adding an additional highlighting step using Vallejo Game Color White Primer, a more brilliant white then Skull White

While the last layer of white was drying I did some touch up work on the armour and the green under suite. Thank I put down the base colours for the remaining parts of the helm (with Vallejo Liquid Gold Red Gold) and the first layer of colour on the horns (with Formula P3 Rucksack Tan)

Stay tuned for more updates!

Painting purple cloath

 

Just a quick update on my Dark Eldar test models: tonight I've painted the loincloth and the ribbons on the Incubus and I did it with purple of course! :)

The colours I used are:

• Vallejo Game Color Black (any black will do)
• GW Liche Purple (from the old range)
• GW Warlock Purple (from the old range)
• Vallejo Game Color Bonewhite (or GW Bleached Bone)
• GW Dechala Lilac (from the new GW Edge paints, see here for a review)

And this is a quick summary of the steps I followed:

1. Liche Purple base coat over black primer
2. Liche Purple mixed with black (1:1) in recessed areas
3. A 2:1:1 mix of Liche Purple, Warlock Purple and Bonewhite layered all over but avoiding the recessed areas
4. Three more layering steps like the previous one but with more Bonewhite added to the mix each time
5. A 2:1:1 mix of Liche Purple, Warlock Purple and Black washed all over (thin the paints to a wash consistency)
6. A 1:1:2 mix of Liche Purple, Warlock Purple and Bonewhite glazed on the top most areas
7. Dechala Lilac glazed on the very extreme edges of the cloth, with some of the previous mix blended in to smooth things where needed

Oh I almost forgot the obligatory messy palette pics!

The Kabal of the Golden Rose - colours scheme test models

Since the beginning of my journey in the dark alleys of Commorragh I decided that I will paint my Dark Eldar following a custom paint scheme because I don't like very much the "put hard-edge highlights everywhere" ones found in the Codex.

But I also liked since the beginning the fluff behind the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose as it is full of treachery, deception and state-of-the-art weapons, three things that a self-respected Dark Eldar live for!

To put two and two together I decided that my Kabal will be an elite portion of the Obsidian Rose, with more treachery, more deceptions, more state-of-the-art weapons and it's own colours scheme and today, after months of thinking this over, I started to paint three test models from my Kabal.

I decided to use two Whyces and one Incubus because in this models you could find most of the common elements present in other Dark Eldar models: armour, the Wych suit, skin and weapons that ranges from metal swords to pistols and rifles

When I designed my colour scheme I put down the following key points:

• the armour must be of a golden colour
• the under armour / Wytch suit must be dark, possibly a gradient from black to another colour; it must not be a single solid colour
• I wanted to use purple somewhere, because I like purple!

Starting from here I came up with a colour scheme based on green, yellow, purple and red

After assembling the three models and filling gaps and holes I primed them with Vallejo Acrylic - Polyurethane German Panzer Grey Primer using my airbrush. I used my new Iwata Revolution Mini HP-M2 that I reviewed here. I used German Panzer Grey instead of Black so I could actually shade it with a darker colour.

When the primer was dry I put down the green gradient on the suit:

I created the gradient using the following colours in succession:

• Formula P3 Coal Black from Privateer Press : it's a dark blue / green that work very well as first highlight for black
• Game Color Scurvy Green from Vallejo : one of the best green colours around (at least for me!) and one of the main colours of my scheme
• Game Color Jade Green from Vallejo : the mid tone green in the Scurvy / Jade / Foul green combination
• Game Color Foul Green from Vallejo

With the green pretty much done I started working on the gold parts. I used paints from the Vallejo Liquid Gold range: this are metallic paints that actually contains real metallic particles instead of the crystalline mika flakes found in the common acrylics metal paints. Because they contains metallic particles they use isopropyl alcohol instead of water to avoid rusting and so they should be thinned with isopropyl alcohol

The armour fist layer was done with a couple of thin coats of Red Gold witch, as the name imply, is a reddish gold:

I then highlighted it with thinned down Old Gold, a yellow-white gold:

Next, I put a mix of Old Gold and White Gold (guess what? an almost white gold!) in the more exposed areas:

Finally I used pure White Gold (thinned down of course) as an extreme highlight. You could see the end results (for now) in the following pictures: