The Webways are Open! Dark Eldar Army Finished

Nick speaking,

Welcome back to the final part of my Challenge to paint just over two thousand points of Dark Eldar in a month without an airbrush! It took a lot of planning and an awful lot of painting, but the challenge is now complete, and I finally have a fully painted army ready to hit the table tops!

The final week saw me complete the bases, edge highlight the bone and orange areas and finish the skin and details of the Rat Grotesques. I would say on average I put in about five hours of painting each day of the Challenge. It's been great fun and I have really enjoyed seeing my Kazon Kabal come to life in such a short amount of time. I have to say I am very pleased with my work, but please feel free to let me know what you think of the army in the comments box below....

Read more ...

The Webways are Opening! #16 Painting the Army (Week 3)

Nick speaking,

Time for another update on my Challenge of painting my Entire Dark Eldar army in a month. Week three was the one that was going to bring the army to life, as it was the week I planned on doing the freehand and introducing another colour. I want to paint a bone colour on all the weapons and spikes, as I think this will compliment the scheme nicely. Having been inspired by the Kazon Order from Star Trek Voyager for this army, I went on the search for some Kazon symbols for the freehand work...

This was about all I could find, but it looked pretty cool to me, and a bit different to the usual Dark Eldar symbols people use. I started the free hand with a few light coats of Jokero Orange, and then went in with a couple of layers of Troll Slayer Orange and an Orange Wash. Overall I am very happy with the results and when coupled with my bone colour of Ushabti Bone with a Flesh Wash, the army is looking almost done!

Week four and the final week of the challenge will see me do the bases and add some extra detail to the army. Very happy how everything is looking, but still a good few hours left to go before it's finally finished!

Read more ...

The Webways are Opening! #15 Painting the Army (Week 2)

Nick speaking,

Welcome back to my challenge of painting my entire Dark Eldar army in one month! After a great start in week one where I got all the orange colours down. It was time to look at doing the hair and skin on my two thousand points Dark Eldar army. I already knew how I was going to paint the skin, light grey with a purple wash and then highlighting it back up with the grey, but I needed some inspiration for my hair colour, and some fluff for the army too!

As a massive Star Trek fan, the old styled Kabalite Warriors I have really remind me of the Kazon from Voyager, so I thought it would be fun to incorporate a bit of their fluff story into mine and paint my armies hair like one of their sects! I started with a base of dark green and washed it black, then I sponged on some brown and lighter green in a sort of stipple effect. Not exactly the same, but good enough for me. Once I had the scheme locked and loaded I spent the rest of the week painting that and finishing the skin on the whole army...

Week three is next, where I will be painting all the weapons and spikes in a bone colour, and hope to make a start on some freehand.

Read more ...

The Webways are Opening! #14 Painting the Army (Week 1)

Nick speaking,

Welcome to my challenge of painting my entire Dark Eldar army in one month! There is over two thousand points to paint and I don't own an airbrush, so the challenge is really on! After one weeks worth of painting of an average of five hours a day, my week one objective is all done. Dry brush the models and paint some spot armour plates with Orange. I based the plates with Jokaero Orange first before doing a couple of coats of the Troll Slayer to keep it all smooth. Finally, I gave everything a wash of Fuegan Orange, which took me seven hours by itself! Heres a few pictures of the work, before I have a chat about how the challenge went!

As you can see from the last picture, I broke the army down into four separate chunks, and that really helped me out. I was able to get one board out at a time, and just focus on that board as a target. The bite size painting stopped me looking at the whole army and being overwhelmed! Of course, this is just the start! In week two I aim to get all the skin and hair painted, which I feel like will be the most time consuming parts of the project!

Read more ...

The Webways are Opening! #14 Painting the Army

Nick speaking,

Well, I hope you have enjoyed following me build up my new Dark Eldar army. It's been a lot of fun getting it together, and all for only £50, thanks to some very generous people. Now though, the real hard work begins! To paint the entire force in one month!

Yes that's right, I want to complete this challenge with another challenge of my own, getting the army table top ready in four weeks! Of course, I won't be putting in ten/twelve hours a model like I do with my space wolves! The aim is to have a quick and easy paint scheme that will look good on the table and let me speed paint the army!

This is my first test paint scheme, all painted with Troll Slayer Orange! First I dry brushed over a black primer, then I painted the armour plates, and finally I washed it all with an orange wash. This will be my base for the whole army. Once done, I plan on going in with a bone colour on the weapons and pick out some of the details like the skin and hair.

Even with this easy paint scheme there will be a lot of work to undertake, but it's going to be a lot of fun. I have never painted an army this way before so it will be interesting to do, and I am really looking forward to it. Let the challenge commence!

Read more ...

The Webways are Opening! #13 The List

Nick speaking,

Time to make a Dark Eldar list using all the models I got for my phase one and two £25.00 Army Challenge. I know I don't have the most competitive units available to me, but having only spent fifty pound on this force, beggars can't be choosers.

The Archon will end up with the Bloodbrides to deep strike in as the rest of the army advances forward. The one unit of foot Warriors will probably reserve to walk onto any objectives in my backfield. To be fair, that's about it. Lots of play testing and fun to be had here for sure, but first, I need to get it all painted!

HQ
1x Archon/Husk Blade/Webway/Shadow Field/Haywire Grenade (165)

TROOPS
5x Wyches/1x Hyrda (55) 1x Venom/Splinter Cannon (65)
5x Wyches/1x Hyrda (55) 1x Venom/Splinter Cannon (65)
5x Wyches/1x Hyrda (55) 1x Venom/Splinter Cannon (65)
10x Kabalite Warriors/1x Splinter Cannon (95) 1x Raider/Dark Lance (60)
10x Kabalite Warriors/1x Splinter Cannon (95) 1x Raider/Dark Lance (60)
10x Kabalite Warriors/1x Splinter Cannon (95)

ELITES
15x Bloodbride Wyches/3x Pairs Hydra Gauntlets (210)

FAST
9x Scourges/4x Haywire Blasters (184)
5x Hellions (65)

HEAVY
1x Ravager/3x Dark Lances (70)
1x Ravager/3x Dark Lances (70)
1x Talos (120)

GROTESQUERIE FORMATIONS
1x Haemonoculus (70)
4x Grotesques (140)
4x Grotesques (140)

Points 1999

Read more ...

The Webways are Opening! #12 Phase Two Complete

Nick speaking,

Time to show off all the stuff that I managed to get for Phase Two of my £25.00 Army Challenge. Phase One was a huge success for me as I cobbled together twelve hundred points of Dark Eldar for my twenty five pound. Mainly thanks to some very generous donations and some good eBay buys. The original challenge was to get five hundred points with the first twenty five pound and then another five hundred points for Phase Two. Of course, as I smashed that in Phase One, I set my sights on eight hundred points for Phase Two to take me to a two thousand points for the entire challenge!

The Task was always going to be hard, but once again, thanks to some good eBay purchases and some very generous members of the community, I just managed to top my task and got about nine hundred points of spikey goodness for Phase Two! I feel very humbled by the good nature of my friends and have had a lot of excitement in my bidding on eBay to get the task complete and have a new army to paint and play. I will be posting my final 2k list very soon, but until then, here is a look at all the models I got for Phase Two of this Challenge...

Read more ...