Purple and Spiky - A Dark Eldar project log

[Hadriel Caine]

This is my fourth project log on warseer. I have been neglecting my Vampires this Christmas. all I need to do is take some photos... but I have been distracted. My mate and I have been playing a LOT of Gorkamorka (a little remembered game of Orks and driving from 1990s); Mike has decided, for the first time in years, to collect a 40k army - the Orks.

This means, obviously , that I need a new army, honest.

It struck me that I always go for vanilla armies... Dark Angels for years, Chaos mortals and Vampire counts.

I've always wanted to do something a bit rarer and more evil than the DA or my Guard...

Dark Eldar then are the perfect choice!

EDIT// 22/12/2010: To save you looking for the new Dark Eldar stuff its from pp10, check out pp8 too for an extra cool Archon on Jetbike

Enough Rambling you want pictures I'm sure:



well... that took ages to figure out as photbucket won't let me copy and paste IMG links for some reason.



Anyway back OT. Mike traded me some Ork Boyz for some Dark Eldar warriors he had lying around from 3rd Edition and I picked up some more in Sheffield today from Wargames Emporium (2nd hand place), unfortunately they didn't have any BFG (which is what I went in for - sorry MajorTom) but there we are!

I bought the 2nd Ed codex too.

On my desk currently are 31 Dark Eldar Warriors, all assembled half kind of undercoated and based. The warrior above with the splinter cannon took 2 hours to paint, I don't think the picture really does him justice tbh. there is a lot of blending and contrast IRL. especially on the purple and the ammo hopper on the gun.

Also the base is less flatly coloured IRL. might give it a Badab black wash however to make it pop. I will add static grass when I get back to uni at the weekend... stupid 260 miles and lack of GS etc.

A lot of the minis have heads from High Elves, Dark Elves, Eldar and Wood Elves to mix it up a bit and I am using spiky bitz and knives from the Kroot Carnivore box in some places too.

Basically I'm hoping to do a 2500 point army with lots of head and weapon swap conversions to hopefully conteract the age of the minis. I will be using some WHFB Dark Elf bitz from the new range and maybe even use alternative models such as Kroot as Wyches or something as I don't like the models...

any thoughts? what is tactically good in a Dark Eldar army? I have no idea having just picked up the models and a rather old 'dex.

suggestions for conversions?

C&C welcomed as ever

cheers

Adam

[salarath]

>< *facepalm* o man, not again Adam, think of the tanks! will somebody please think of the tanks!

Get them all painted up and il be excited to give you a game mate. Get some raiders too, they're snazzy/crucial to you winning games.

Ive got some wytches lying about somewhere... but you don't like those, so should i bring what dark elf stuff i have to pimp your guys out?

Tactically, dark eldar suffer from being extra squishy while rather expensive compared to stuff like orks.

As said, you need to get hold of some raiders (at least 3) to propell your units to objectives and combat as fast as possible. As for units, leave stuff like mandrakes at home, they simply arent worth their points value. Same with the jumpack heavy infantry unit imo-simply too expensive. What i have found (to my cost, so lord knows why i'm telling you this!) is a fast raider based army. The general, as you can see, is one of the most powerful and underpriced badasses in the game, i think only an avatar has a higher weaponskill in the whole game. Alongside, you want to take incubi-basically they turn space marines into swiss cheese with their power weapons. Wytches are cool too, as is the talos and the warp beast pack-they seemed to make a mess of my marines as well if i remember. with stuff like this, you have a very solid (and fast) combat punch to deal crippling damage to many armies in the first or second turn! Use warriors in either raiders or large squads to capture objectives and support your assault troops-4 splinter cannons in a squad should not be underestimated!

hope that helps
Sal

[Arkaedin]

Nice to see a new Dark eldar player! I'm thinking of starting them up as soon as the new 'dex comes out. Their fluff is just too damn cool

[Hadriel Caine]

Thanks for the responses guys!

@ Arkaedin - they are indeed a very cool army. bit out dated models wise but I'm going to try to get around that somehow...

@ Salarath - cheers for the comments man... you're not exactly one to talk when it comes to starting lots of armies. what u got now for 40k? Iron Warriors, Tau, Eldar, Orks. and fantasy; Chaos Mortals, Vampires, Orcs and Goblins. and thats in the year and a bit ive known you lol.

Anyway am selling most of the tanks. so there!

I had a productive evening, watched Independence Day and then Buffalo Soldiers (on DVD) I also painted up another 4 Dark Eldar Warriors and finished the bases on the 5 so far (minus yellow-y static grass which I'll get next week)

here they are:



favourite warrior from today:



mixing palette:stella cap



all of today's acquisitions:



I have discovered that Dark Eldar splinter rifles look better with the flash suppressors/ barrel ends from Kroot Carnivore long rifles, as evinced above, thoughts?

I really want to get my hands on some Green Stuff now. Been browsing through the fantasy Dark Elf range... got a plan for my Archon.

keep checking back

Adam

p.s. finally updated my vampires too (see sig)

[AventineCrusader]

That's awesome, I thought I was the only one who used beer caps as palettes!

[Hadriel Caine]

heh, well now you know you're not the only crazy one.

Hit a painting block today which is annoying. need to organise them into squads and write an army list I reckon.

also would it be a good plan to do my warrior units in different colours?

I'm thinking 10 in purple armour, 10 in red (as on my Blood Knights, see sig), 10 in Dark Green and the command unit in Bone.

thoughts?

Adam

[salarath]

Honestly mate the purple looks really very cool, i recomend keeping it as your kabal colour, simply because its so well done. Maybe have your general/incubi unit with bits of the cool red colour scheme on shoulderpads or whatever? Keep going mate, il help you with an army list if you like

[Hadriel Caine]

You're probably right mate but I'm doing some test schemes for alts anyway. will post them when they are completed. Going to write an army list tonight at Mike's, will post it here for crit later on!

any other opinions on the purple?

Adam

[AtmanAbecedarian]

Dark Elar are a tricky army to play. The usual tactic is to mount everything in Dark Lancing Raiders and attack through a webway portal.
Another one I heard from the owner of a local hobbyshop uses the current editions deployment rules in conjunction with the Nightmare Doll. I'm not all to familiar with the current rules, but somehow the Nightmare Doll allows you to get the first turn in most any situation. That being said, the tactic used in this case involves three Ravagers armed to the teeth with Lances. 9 first turn lance shots pretty much burries the units that pose the greatest threat to a DE force. From there your raider mounted warriors, wyches, etc can clean up the supportless infantry units.
Diggin the paintjob, can't wait to see more progress.

[Hadriel Caine]

cheers AtmanAbecedarian! will be thinking hard about what I want in the army when I'm back at uni this weekend.

progress for today? red and bone colour schemes tested







I really like how the bone has come out but don't think I took enough time over the red. I won't use chestnut ink on it again...
I think I might use Bone armour on the pilots for my Raiders etc as I wanted to do shiny black armour and Bone would complement this IMO.
I might do a unit of guys in red too. but thats it, all else will be purpley.

unless anyone thinks this is a bad idea?

Adam

[AtmanAbecedarian]

I dig the bone look actually. IMO it would be cool to combine the two schemes, bone armor with purple helmets. Either way, the color is lookin schweet.

[salarath]

Both colourschemes look really cool mate, good work! I think the idea of crew for the raiders being different is a nice idea-keep the red for a special unit, maybe your general or wytches perhaps. As Atman expressed, dark eldar are a rather unforgiving army tactically-you have to know what you're doing. Because of this, i recommend a couple games proxying while you try out stuff in the army book and find combos you like-nothing more depressing than buying and painting something to never actually use it.

[Hadriel Caine]

I dig the bone look actually.

Thanks very much, I'm quite proud of it myself.

Ah now I have a plan for wyches Sal. Gonna convert them out of Kroot. Yep combat specialist aliens for an alien army. Basically because I can't stand the Wych models and I have some Kroot lying around.

I have plenty of Warriors at my disposal (about 50) so am free to play around a bit.

Helped Mike to paint up some of his Orks last night and they look NIIICE will grab a couple of pics later on.

cheers

Adam

[precinctomega]

All this, and you're getting into BFG? Good man!

R.

[Hadriel Caine]

yep, MajorTom (who I believe you haven't met as I can't convince him to trek up for the IGT... YET) and I have been thinking about getting fleets for a while. Upon arriving home my mate James from school (who dropped out of the hobby like a fool some years ago) announced his interest in BFG, as did Machelor (Mike) and George was interested too! so hopefully we'll play a fair bit.

I seem to recall mention of an inter specialist games GT too!

OT I'm rationalising my collection by making usable armies (warbands, fleets etc) and selling everything else.

thoughts on converting kroot to have pistols and knives?

Adam

[AtmanAbecedarian]

Kroot for Wyches?? Interesting. I suppose I need to ask, do you want them to look like DE or do you want them to count as wyches? I like the idea of DE taking Kroot Mercs and outfitting them with all kinds of nasty what-nots. If thats your plan then I approve!
Otherwise...there is a lot more converting on your horizon.

[Hadriel Caine]

Yeh, not a fan of the Wych models so I'm just using Kroot AS wyches. nothing too crazy conversion wise except for wysiwyg weapons.

I really like the idea of kroot and think Dark Eldar might use mercs...

Adam

[salarath]

the kroot sound cool-i always thought the idea of mercenary kroot was a cool idea, as is their background of absorbing the DNA of what they eat-its an opportunity for you to really go to town on some whackyasonlyadamcuniscando converting-i expect pics soon!

Sal

edit: painted some of my eldar rangers today, and realised we're both painting purple eldar...

[AtmanAbecedarian]

Yeh, not a fan of the Wych models so I'm just using Kroot AS wyches. nothing too crazy conversion wise except for wysiwyg weapons.

I really like the idea of kroot and think Dark Eldar might use mercs...

Adam

Well, the DE are a rather underpopulated race in contrast to many others in the 40K universe. Its more than reasonable to assume that an Archon would realize the need for auxilary units to aid his own personal agenda, and Kroot are definately the quintessential merc of choice. Those two factors alone give this idea a great deal of substance. Not to mention the third (and most important) factor: it exudes palpable awsomeness.

[Hadriel Caine]

Those are really cool Warriors. I still dont get what people dont like about them.

Me either mate, apart from the sculpting quality on the bare heads... which is ok but not as good as the new fantasy elves (hence theft!). The actual models are great.

I have found that adding a couple of modern things to them helps though, like the flash suppressor from the kroot rifle on splinter rifles and I'm going to put some of the kroot accessories on them too, like knives, little pistols etc.

To be honest the flat areas and spikes have been refreshing to paint after years of painting Inquisitor models with more detail than you can shake a stick at... just as PrecinctOmega about my tendancy to use the kitchen sink approach in Inquisitor. that or follow the link in my sig!

think I'll sit down and paint up a Kroot actually...

thanks very much again AtmanAbecedarian.

cheers

Adam