A Tale of VIII Painters - Ray Part 4: Crimson Hunter

Painting vehicles is, I find, a challenging task; getting a consistent finish over large textured surfaces and (since most vehicles benefit from being constructed and painted in sections) ensuring the colours look the same for each part (especially when blending or mixing comes into play) is difficult. As a result, when I end up buying vehicles I try to get them painted in as few sessions as possible.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Barry - Dark Eldar Part 2

Ambition is a good thing, right?  It can drive us forward, motivate us, help us reach goals we wouldn’t normally try for.  However, you can be overly ambitious and should sit back and take a heavy draw on the cigarette of realistic expectations once in a while.*

So, what did I say in my first piece?  I’ll finish my Reavers, one Venom and at least make a start on my first Raider.  Riiiiiiiight.  If I’d actually taken a drag of that ciggy I’d have revised that pretty quickly.

So, what did I get done last month?  Well, I managed to finish my Reavers and their riders, so not even close to my expectations.  Oh well.

Tau Players - What Can Forgeworld Do For You? [Part 2]

The first half of my review of the new Tau units in Imperial Armour 3 2nd Edition was on the whole favourable - choices like the Remora or Barracuda were strong additions to the army while the variant Hammerheads and the Tetra provided alternatives to the norm, subtly different but often no less powerful.

The remaining options are perhaps "weaker" but interesting flavour choices that may well have a place in a themed army.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Ray Part 3: Dire Avengers, Assemble

Initially I hadn't planned to include any Dire Avengers, or indeed Aspect Warriors of any sort, in my Eldar army. I like the concept behind them (Eldar picking a job they like, like shooting missile launchers or being a ninja, and getting really good at it) but some of the models are a mite ropey and on the whole they didn't fit my bike-focused plan.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Simian - Part Three

Progress!

When I last put up a piece on the pathfinders, I was debating camouflage. Despite the advice to just leave them as is I didn't start this challenge to take the easy route, I wanted to stretch myself and my abilities and learn more about painting techniques. Therefore I went for it with the camouflage.

Firstly I brought the cloaks down a bit by using a fairly heavy agrax earthshade wash all over them. Letting it pool in the recesses.

Falling Back Into the Hobby

Firstly let me just say its all Aidan's fault, well maybe partly James's, but mainly Aidan.


These men are to blame.

Battlefield Birmingham Combat Comrades - A casual gamer in a tournament

This weekend I took part in the Battlefield Birmingham Combat Comrades tournament. It was a doubles tournament at 1800 points with 900 being allocated to each player with a combined FOC. Myself along with a friend of mine from the Redditch gaming club decided to take part, taking his Blood Angels and my Dark Angels.

Female Farseer Conversion

From my own experience of trawling the web for a nice easy way to make a Female 40K Eldar Farseer, I know that there’s no shortage of people out there looking for ideas or inspiration.

Unfortunately, until recently, most of the suggested ways to build your very own lady psyker have involved a great deal of green stuff work, or resulted in something that didn't really look like a Farseer. Suggestions such as putting a Farseer head on to a Howling Banshee body and green stuffing on a cloak for instance, might sort of work to portray your intent, but I've never felt like they really look the part.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Ray Part 2: The First Jetbike

The time has come for me to begin painting this month's main attraction, the Eldar; I've added enough red, brass and cream trim to my Barracuda for the moment and Forgeworld haven't sent the new cockpit yet so it sits on my shelf waiting to be completed.

Basing basics. And some advanced things.

OK, as my first real contribution I will be going through some basic and advanced basing techniques with supporting pictures where I am able. I will go through this step by step, by the end you should be able to produce a cohesive look to your models with a few more advanced techniques for centerpiece models. I will assume that the reader has no prior knowledge of basing.



Man'o War Demolition Corps on snowy 'tundra' bases

A Tale of VIII Painters - Simian - Part 2

So, yellow.....that's not a fun colour to paint! I know I wanted to challenge myself with this but I'm not sure I thought it through all the way. Why did I not go for a simple scheme that didn't involve yellow? Either way, I've made my bed and I'm damn well going to a smooth yellow finish on their helms.

Going back a couple of steps, in part one I'd just finished stippling the armour with the two blues and lightening the Helms and face masks ready for the yellows.

I next applied a Blue wash to the armour to try to make it stand out more and painted the helms and face masks with Ulthuan grey to bring them closer to grey before I applied the Casandora Yellow wash. the results of this wash are below. I also painted the weapons with Ulthuan grey to get them ready for the Ushabti Bone. This is the first time I've really bothered doing transition colours and I have to says its been very beneficial, especially working from a black undercoat as I always do.

Idle Musings of a Casual Gamer on the New Eldar Codex.

So, where to start. Firstly let me set out a couple of things, I've not played using Eldar before and I've barely played against them. What you must be thinking now is why the hell should I bother with this post? Well what you'll get is my point of view completely uninfluenced by the previous editions of the Eldar codex, it might not count for much but it is just that, my opinion. The way I'm going to do this is I'm going to pull out a few units and explain why this codex has really got me so interested in creating an Eldar force.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Anthony - Exodites Part 1

Eldar are the first, and so far only, army that I've ever really collected, starting way back in the '90s before taking a break from wargaming that lasted roughly 15 years. Currently I have around 2500pts of mostly painted Craftworld Eldar that have barely seen a tabletop battlefield in the intervening time, so what a great time this would be to finish them! Of course, we already have two great Eldar blogs on this site already, so for my Tale I've decided to do something my younger self dreamed of, but which my older self's disposable income can finally afford: Exodites.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Ray Slows Down With Fast Eldar

Being as I am the sort of person who likes 40k flavour but also completely ignores it when designing armies should it get in the way, the idea behind Saim-Hann Eldar seemed cool (Celtic influenced Wicker-Man style cult Eldar bikers who think if it doesn't have an engine it's not worth taking) but I wanted to make it my own thing.

So I decided to make an army based on the Saim-Hann theme, tentatively called Craftworld Saim-Hradh in keeping with the general "pick a festival or season from Gaelic religion" thing the Eldar have going for them in naming terms. It's going to have the same general "rules" of building a themed army (lots of bikers, lots of tanks and other fast units) but with a tiny bit of flexibility, mostly because there's too many cool Eldar models I want to own like Wraithguard, Rangers and Harlequins.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Barry - Dark Eldar

Ok, those who read my initial post will know I'm effectively the n00b of the group.  A bit of a historic background in wargaming but completely new to 40k.  My choice to go with Dark Eldar was based purely on the fact I thought they looked good, with no research in to their background or effectiveness on the field.  I started with the battleforce and have been adding bits on here and there as I go.  I took a similar approach with my initial assembling and painting.  Not really working with a particular list in mind, just going with what I thought looked good.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Irregular Joe - Lord of The Night

 The Flesh is Weak!

Somehow, I knew I'd leave it all unfinished. Some deep, intrinsic knowledge that regardless of time, effort, and money spent, my passion for the background, the sheer coolness of it all, it would all fall by the wayside.

I talk, of course, of my Iron Hands army. 

Tau Players - What Can Forgeworld Do For You? [Part 1]

The recent update to 6th edition of Imperial Armour 3 brought with it new rules for Forgeworld's range of Tau and Kroot units, promising changes to rules in order to make them usable under the new codex. Many of the changes were simple bookkeeping ones such as the addition of Supporting Fire, revision of Markerlights and weapons like Fusion Blasters, Pulse Carbines and Burst Cannons but these have had severe effects on the function of some models. This article will consider a number of units in their new guise against the core Tau codex.

A Tale of VIII Painters - Simian - Part 1

Eldar, the very thought of doing an Eldar army fills me with dread. All the different colours, all the patterns. the requirement for a delicate touch (being colour-blind and a ham-fisted is not a good thing!). But that's exactly why I want to do them, no only are they one of the most beautiful armies with some of the best models but also because I know they'll be a challenge for me. I can paint power armour, I know that, I have an entire Dark angels force of probably 7000 points all painted. So with that in mind Eldar are my challenge.

The Illic model was the first one in the codex that caught my eye and so was the first one i bought, there is also something very iconic about the Avatar of Khaine, though the idea of painting such a detailed model worries me. However I didn't sign up to this to worry about my abilities, I signed up to improve and stretch my painting abilities. I've assembled a small 750-1000 point force with a couple of options for the HQ choice with the plan of using them as an Allied contingent.

What I have: