Finished the first Ravenor book

I just finished up the first Ravenor book on my trip to Dallas.

Really enjoyed it. A completely different vibe from Abnetts “Gaunts Ghost” series. But I actually enjoyed it because it felt a lot more like Eisenhorn which was my first experience with Abnett.

Particularly glad that I read the short story “Let the Galaxy Burn” book because it gives the backstory of Patience. Definitely makes you appreciate her character more in the series.

I”ll be getting back to painting and modeling after this week and BlizzCon. Toooo much to do between now and then!

1850 Night

Got another couple of games in on Friday here at the abode.

First game was against Dave’s (non-velveeta) Chaos Marine list.

The game was simple kill points and table edge deployment. I won the first turn roll and decided to go first.

I deployed in a tight wedge waiting to see if the marines would load one side of the field or spread out and also of course to keep the Seer Council shielded from attacks before they turbo out to their objective.

Well..Chaos truly prevailed and STOLE turn 1 putting me into a tight position to start the game off with.

On the first turn not much ensued. There was a ton of high power weps bearing down on the Wave Serpents but their shields held pretty damn well from the rain of fire.

Bottom of turn 1 I fanned out Serpents and boosted the Seer Council towards the left flank of the Chaos Army targeting the Twin Link Pred where I figured I would roll along the back line and take out the Vindicator after I popped the Pred.

Turn 2 had marines deploying from their Rhino on the left flank and the Pred ended up immobilizing one of the DA Wave Serpents..but the bright lance was still intact and I really had no aspirations of charging into a marine unit in cover with my DA’s…even with Bladestorm.

I made a tactical error during my phase as I decided to go for the kill on the marine squad that had just deployed from their Rhino. My thinking was to get their number down substantially before the next turn where they could rapid fire my council and possibly down 1 or 2 while I was popping tanks. I arced up and dropped 4 devastator templates on the unit and hit with the singing spears and witchblade remaining. I think I killed maybe 2 of them even with all of those hits (FORGETTING TO DOOM…big mistake). I then assaulted and to make a long story short..this marine squad kept my unit tangled up for a good 3 more turns. FINALLY on Turn 5 they broke loose by killing off the remaining marines but I had lost 2 of the squad at this point and had armor raining down upon me the other part.

And boy could I have used some help with popping armor. Turns 3-5 saw one of my fire prisms getting popped and then 2 wave serpents EXPLODING. Now when they exploded…they took out a total of 14 of my Dire Avengers. Yes..the explosions killed 14 of the DA’s alone. It was a marvelous combination of amazing damage rolls and horrrrible save rolls on my part.

I did manage to get another Wave Serpent whos TL Scatter Laser was popped to the other table edge to drop their Scorpions off to take care of a Sonic Marine squadron which was somewhat gratifying.

Demon prince lashed my pathfinders on turn 3 and proceeded to kill them in a rather nonchalant fashion.

In the end though..Turn 5 turned the game for me where I was behind. But a good shot from a Fire Prism popped his Defiler and wiped his Sonic Marine squad with the Scorps + the Seer Council finally finished off the other marine squadron that had tied them up for 4 turns. Which flopped the game in my favor.

I ended up eeking out a win at game end. But more importantly I learned a few tactics to live by with Eldar.

1. If you don’t have 8+ warlocks in your seer council. Don’t engage with squadrons if you got tanks you can pop. Yeah they can bolter fire you to death if they get good shots in..BUT you simply will NOT have the CC ability to take them down (since Singing Spears and Witchblades aren’t power weps).

1A. Don’t forget to cast DOOM for 3 freaking turns. Ugh. (That might have helped kill the marine squad a bit faster…lol).

2. Daemon Prince is just pure evil.

3. Scorps do well against non melee marines. The number of attacks really packs a punch and with a scorp claw in the group they give you options. I still love the ‘Shees..but I think I’m sticking with Scorps for now.

Game 2 was Eldar vs. Space Nuns.

As predicted the Exorcists completely wailed on me from turn 1. I truly believe these are possibly the WORST tank to face with an Eldar Army using Wave Serpents. You get no benefit really from the shields AND they have the potential to throw up a serious number of shots against you. There’s no other tank in the game that can do this.

That being said my Serpents really got pounded early on and by Turn 3 I had basically lost all ability except for my Seer Council and 1 Prism to pop tanks.

The mistake I made was targeting the Land Raider on Turn 1 and wasting all of my shots trying to pop it so I could take out the Inquisitor with Psi-Hood inside. Those shots would have been MUCH better served popping Rhinos since this was a KP mission (again)  and I could have exposed Sisters and pie plated linked blasts from the Prisms to devastate them.

Instead I was forced by Turn 3 to charge the Seer Council up the middle in a hammer maneuver to try and start popping Exorcists. This also immediately drew attention because the killing power of the Seers is so high..they drew a CONSIDERABLE amount of fire as they closed. Their saves keeping them alive (and also keeping shots from popping exposed troops that would have been KP’s.) All in all they survived some serious shots at them..even two squads of Sisters rapid firing and flamers. They got whittled down to just the Farseer remaining by Turn 5 but they had kept other units from getting killed…so all in all not a bad exchange.

I do have to say the Immolator from the Sisters was DAMN impressive as well. The melta shots wailing on a Serpent and it kept me from being able to swing around the left flank with a prism to get easy shots on Rhinos.

I ended up eeking out a win here again despite my armor once again being depleted.

The upside of the Eldar army in a kill point mission is I have so few of them that even if I’m getting wailed on..if I manage to get shots off and focus on units I can stay even or slightly ahead since most armies have more KP’s in them than mine does.

Was a really fun night. Looking forward to finishing up the army so I can field a fully painted one. Hopefully I can get that done by maybe end of September?

Striking Scorpion Scheme Model

Ok so here’s the Striking Scorpion scheme model that I’ve been working on.

The way I approach painting squads is I take a pretty long time working on an individual mini figuring out the paint scheme I want to go with and getting different blends and effects working.

I’m actually going to log the process for the Striking Scorp in a later post (probably this week) as a reference for myself but also just to show people how I approach painting (if anyone is even remotely interested). My style is basically using accented highlights to make really dramatic color range blends. This actually works really well with Eldar since they are a “colorful” race and have armor that works really well with edged armor highlights. I’m not so sure if it will translate to the Red Scorpion Marine army I’ll be working on next..but we’ll see!

First off…I mentioned a few posts ago I use a wet palette when painting. Here’s a pic of my wet palette JUST after finishing this Scorp model. You can see the bajillion colors I use. The scary part is most of those colors are actually individual store bought colors..with about 4 mixes in there when I didn’t have the color I was really looking for. I honestly think I’d waste about 10X the amount of paint if I didn’t use the wet palette AND the consistency of color from troop to troop would be a nightmare. Especially for Eldar who use brigther colors where differences are easier to spot.

Lots and lots of colorz!

And here’s the Striking Scorp himself. I went with a brighter scheme but stayed with the standard Aspect colors with a variation for the Sindar orange (versus straight yellows) and the pipings in orange as well (like my Dire Avengers and every other model has that wears them).

Front View - I went with darker weapons highlighted in the Aspect colors. I like this and think I'll use it going forward. The chainsword actually has kinda a cool depth of field effect in this as well.

Here's the back view. I went subtle with the changes on the rear armor (except the "spines"). And I went with a dark red to dark orange scheme with the Scorp dreads.

Here's a side shot looking across so you can get an idea of the chainsword. Originally I had brass "teeth" in the chainsword. But decided this would be impractical and I actually wanted to go "non-metallic" with this. This looks less blingy and more practical.

Here's an upper 3/4 shot that shows some of the top down detail.

I just liked this shot so I included it. (And yeah thats Vallejo game color in the background..hehe)

I’ll throw up a step by step as I paint the rest of the squad and Exarch over the next week or so.

GameNight Post Mortem

Well one thing is for certain.

Mech Eldar are definitely better than foot slogging (duh!). The time and cash investment into the Seer Council on Jetbikes was well worth the effort as they came up big against the Orcs, Marines, and Chaos Heathens in the 3 games of the night.

Here’s a brief summary of the games I played.

First Game

Eldar vs. Orcs.

My list was exactly as above. The orc list contained a biker nob group (with IC guy..I think a generic warboss) 2 battlewagons and some trucks. As well as 3 Koptas. Everything was mechanized and even though we were all mech the game went pretty slow at first…LOTS of orcs to move (AND I was playing a new army configuration so figuring out the strategy was taking a bit longer).

The Seer Council got to prove its worth right off the bat with the Jon charging his orcs straight towards them. At this point I had no idea how they’d hold up against the Nobz. Well…they did pretty darn good.

The shooting round was actually pretty lame with no results. 4 destructor templates a singing spear and a witch blade basically did nothing. Jon rolled very well on his saves. The assault turn however went MUCH differently. The Warlocks and Farseer wiped the Nobs off their bikes (with the help of some very unlucky save rolls AND the fact that the nobz didn’t have cybork in them). This would have gone a lot differently had the rolls not been so good for me on the saves..BUT…I think the Council can definitely hold up even against the uber Orc trump card. Especially considering their saves and against the greenskins they are always going to go first with Enhance up. One thing that is bothersome though is that the Singing Spears aren’t power weps..so armor is always going to be in play here..but with 2’s to wound on the SS and WB…it kinda makes up for it. That being said…I’ll be using these guys to take on Nobz as a last resort. I still think hitting them from far away is a MUCH better option when playing Eldar.

After the first turn I managed to pop one of the trucks with some Sluggaz in it and effectively negated this squad for the rest of the game. The Battlewagons REFUSED to pop until one fell to a Fire Prism linked shot on Turn 4. The other Battlewagon harassed me the entire game..but the Council basically became a bullet magnet and with the help of wonderous Orc shooting and amazing Fortuned saves on the council 3 of the council were still up in Turn 5 when thankfully the game ended giving me the win. Another turn and it might have gone differently. But the Eldar eeked out a 5th edition win against orcs…which I mark as a significant victory for the space elves. As this was seize ground I ended up winning with 2 captured points to 1. If a turn 6 had happened I think it would have ended in a draw as I could have contested one with the Seer Council turbo boosting over. Thankfully it ended on 5.

There was also a PHENOMINALLY crappy rolling effort on my part for a double squad Bladestorm from two DA units. I think out of 66 shots I killed 3. Yeah…math hammer that one out. It = shitty rolling.

2nd game was against a standard marine army. It effectively was a tank battle. My fire prisms popped a Tri-Las razorback on Turn 1 thankfully eliminating that threat but a standard Land Raider harassed my Wave Serpents the entire game with my bright lances coming up short for 4 rounds. Turn 1 I lost one of my fire prisms..and every turn after that ended up having a weapon destroyed on the Fire Prists. Once the lances were gone my tank busting was effectively limited (at least against LR’s) so I  decided to leave them alone and brought my seer council out on the right flank to eliminate the charging rhinos. They council easily popped a rhino and a template blast from the remaining prism did some clean up of the remaining guys (after a rather unfortunate explosion (for the marines that is)). This game went very fast and I didn’t deploy a single troop unit from the tanks as it was. Once again it ended on 5 and as this came down to points I won with 4 points to 1 (fire prism).
Last game was Chaos Marines. Dual Lash love. And this is why I love my Wave Serpents so much. Being in the tanks let me maneuver without much worry and I screened the Seer Council with the Wave Serpents keeping the closest Demon Prince from being able to LoS and lash them. But even then I wasn’t OVERLY worried since I did have Runes of Warding on the farseer…so the Prince doesn’t overly scare me anymore WITH the Council. Still…risky if I didn’t get him tied in to CC. The sheer volume of high STR hits from both range and CC really took a toll on the demon prince. I decided to test my Striking Scorpions against Plague Marines and yeah…I don’t like Plague Marines very much. Despite the volume of hits at Str 4 the Scorps were throwing out I just wasn’t downing many per turn outside of the Exarchs claw (thank god I took it in the list). They were’nt hitting back very hard either…and the Scorpions 3+ armor saves are a HUGE factor in their value. So they did what I wanted them to do…tie up a troop choice and survive. Against T4 models (standard marines) I think they’d fare a LOT better..and I do think I prefer these guys to the Banshees. The STR4 hits from the blades are just awesome for Eldar….we have very little CC that hits harder than 3.

I spent the majority of the game trying to knock off Oblits and keep on my objectives. At the end of turn 6 we rolled a turn 7 but ended up calling the game since it was damn late by this time. A really enjoyable game though because I was able to use this as time to really figure out some new troop choices and tactics.

I got over a lot of fears during these games…the Seer Council truly is a hammer in my army now capable of dealing a swift and decisive blow wherever needed..or at the VERY least…suck up a ton of firepower and survive (if I roll halfway decent).

Can’t wait for the next game night!

I also started painting up my Striking Scorpions tonight..or rather started doing my prototype model. In keeping with my scheme of being “bright” the scorps are going for a lighter set of colors with green and some orange to yellow accents (to keep with Craftworld Sindar colors). I’ll throw up a picture once the prototype one is done. I’m liking the look so far.

Lots and lots got done this week…

So I’ve probably put more work into my Eldar army the past 10 days than I have in the past year…seriously.

That being said. It’s late and my fingers are coated in about 400 layers of crazy glue

(CRAZY SIDE STORY…holy crap does crazy glue and kicker BURN like a mother f-er when it gets on your skin. I seriously have like a 2nd degree chemical burn on one of my fingers…it felt like I had napalm on my hand…)

so no pictures for THIS entry..but I’ll snap some of the new stuff in action at our game day tomorrow.
The list is finalized. I’m taking a gamble with a couple things..but I like my choices. Here it is:

Eldar Fareer on Jetbike (Doom / Guide) (Singing Spear / Runes of Warding / Spirit Stones / Runes of Witnessing)

Warlock Seer Council (5 Warlocks on Jetbikes 4 with Singing Spears and Destructor / 1 With With Blade and Enchance)

10 Dire Avengers including 1 Exarch with Bladestorm + 2 Dire Avenger Shuriken Catapults + Dedicated Wave Serpent (Twin Linked Bright Lances)

10 Dire Avengers including 1 Exarch with Bladestorm + 2 Dire Avenger Shurken Catapults + Dedicated Wave Serpent (Twin Linked Bright Lances)

10 Striking Scorpions including 1 Exarch with Scorpion Claw + DedicateD Wave Serpent (Twin Linked Scatter Laser)

6 Pathfinders

Fire Prism (Holo Fields / Spirit Stones)

Fire Prism (Holo Fields / Spirit Stones)

Works out to exactly 1850 pts.

Basically with this list I have several options for destroying armor. I also have virtually no foot sloggers which since 5th edition has been my bane. I’m taking advantage of the fact that the Eldar have the best transport in the game for survivability and have equipped the DA holders with tank busting Bright Lances.

The Scorps are a bit of a gamble..but I want a CC answer and I’ve always thought Scorpions if deployed correctly and not having to run across the board with their massive amount of attacks could be a quick skirmish squad to either decimate or thin out other CC ranks. I originally had Banshees in the list..but this isn’t a  list based on razor edge or scalpel tactics..it’s based on quick movement and brute force attacking.

The fire prisms of course are great because of their ability to drop plates on the field and also link up for AP2 blasts nuking MEQ squadrons.

The pathfinders…well. They are a troop choice. And hard to kill in cover. So someones either going to have to dedicate a squad of cover negating somethings or artillery or whatever to taking them out. They also have the potential of rocking AP1 shots 33% of the time. Which isn’t bad for their points value. Move through cover also is nice so they can fleet to objectives or flanking positions.

And …the Seer Council. Massively powerful with a lot of potential death in it. I need to learn to play these guys and figure out tactics with them so that’s what this weekend is really all about for me.

I think the Scorps are a bit of a risk (I mentioned above) and probably would be better off with some Fire Dragons..but I feel I’ve got enough tank busting that CC is important..plus the scorps can wail on vehicles as well. And the Seer Council is a total risk…tons of potential..for killing..or a quick /swift loss of a ton of points in my army. They are QUITE survivable though. So we shall see.

I got a lot done on the army side this week as I mentioned above.

All in all..

1 Dire Avenger Squad painted…still need to work on the exarch.

1 Wave Serpent Built

3 Wave Serpents FULLY magnetized. Turrets / Guns / Etc. I’m happy with this! + They are all base coated with shading from airbrush.

2 Fire Prisms re-magnetized. Fixed the old magnets so now everything is nice and tight in place.

5 Seer council Warlocks converted + their jetbikes base coated with airbrush + a Farseer on Jetbike converted as well…(and base coated jetbike with airbrush). I also found an awesome set of bases for these..so no more wobbly round bases. Really happy with the ones I found at GK that are supposed to be used for some WWI airplane game (I think).

And I finished up my first squad of DA’s exarch.

So the army is shaping up. Over the next few weeks I hope to get this list (or a variant of it) fully painted. At the very least get the tanks done because honestly in 5th edition with Marines and IG (AND ORCS) out there. If you aren’t mechanized…you are pretty much TOAST playing Eldar.

I’ll miss my Dark Reapers for sure. But I think I’ve added some serious adaptability and survivability in their stead.

Looking forward to playing tomorrow!

There HAS been progress…

So I’ve finished up the DA exarch banner and all. I’ll throw up a picture tonight of the finished model. Didn’t get a chance to take pics last night after I finished him.
The Seer Council on Jetbikes has been a MUCH LARGER task than I originally imagined. As well as MUCH MORE costly than I had originally imagined as well.

So far the model tally is this:

7 Warlocks (yes 7..for 5 heads…don’t ask)

1 Farseer

3 Shining Spears (bikes and bodies)

3 Jetbike Guardians including a classic full leather coat 3rd edition era conehead.

1 Extra Jetbike (destroyed while trying to convert)

1 Box of Wood Elf Glade Riders (for cloaks and some weapon work)

Lots of odds and ends from DA sprus and even some extra Fire Prism / Falcon parts
And lots and lots and lots of modeling clay.

All of that for 6 models total (5 Warlocks on Jetbikes and 1 Farseer…who will most likely be Eldrad in most lists)

Only 1 more guy to finish up tonight for conversion and then I get to paint them.

Again I’ll throw up some pictures tonight after I’ve primed the council. They look god awful now with a mixture of semi-primed mini / plastic parts / and gray (I don’t use green) modelling clay. But when primed everything is sanded down so they should come out looking pretty decent (crossing fingers).

After that I need to finish up the Farseer from down below painting wise and then get cracking on my other squad of DA’s and my two unpainted Wave Serpents…eep…airbrushing time again.

Almost done with Exarch..finally…and new brushes..

Alright the DA exarch is almost done…and Farseer is getting close. Didn’t get to paint as much this week as I’d like..but hopefully this weekend!

Also ordered a new set of the Raphael 8404’s. The old ones are in pretty good shape but the 6/0 lost its tip. I use it for fine lining so needed placing. Figured I’d just order a whole set of 3/0 – 4/0 – 5/0 and of course a 6/0. Absolutely the best mini-painting brushes EVER!

And some painting stuff as well…(I said that last time I know)

I’m working on several projects at once painting wise right now. First off I have my first Dire Avenger squadrons Exarch that I remodeled and put dual DA Shuriken Catapults on since he’ll always be part of the Bladestorming unit. He previously had a Shimmer Shield and power weapon. That’s gone now. Then I have my Farseer that’s been a work in progress for quite some time now. I’ve been really trying some new techniques and color combos with him to give him a vibrant yet earthy look. I’m pretty happy with his robes and color (Grey and Orange..the color of Craftworld Sindar). I also have my 2nd Dire Avengers squad that’s almost all built up (just need to add accessories and do some detailing) and ready to get primed.

Here’s a little bit about each project.

First off I have the banner that’s going to go on my DA Exarchs back. Normally I avoid banners like the plague since freehand stuff isn’t really my forte…but I’m taking this challenge headon. I wanted something that was vibrant and stood out on the field while also showing the house Sindar piping of orange to yellow.

I got one side almost done..just need to clean up some edges and add probably another coat of paint for each transition. I redid this thing about 10 times to finally find a pattern I liked.

Needs some cleanup on the edging and another coat or two of color overall..but this is the general look.

And here's the raw "other side" of the banner. Just some subtle shading. I'm going to mirror the look from the other side.

And here’s the actual remodeled DA Exarch that the banner will go on. I need to work on his SC’s and general touchup all over him for edging and some blending.

I'm planning on using a Dark Grey for the guns with a blue edging to give them the appearance of actually being "part" of his arms somewhat.

And then there’s the ever ongoing project of my Farseer. He’s almost done though now. Just need to do his SP and finish his staff as well as his base and detailing all around.

I'm actually pretty happy with the effect I got on the robes here. Although I'm not sure if I could reproduce..haha.

And here's the front view. Lots of detailing needed on staff and touchup all around.

And then lastly here’s just a couple quick shots of the new DA’s I’m working on.

I went for a non-helmeted DA Exarch for this group. You so rarely get to see Eldar faces I figured I’d use the bits for this one.

Hoping I get a good flesh effect on the face of this guy..I think it will make or break the model.

I only include this guy because I was seeing if it was viable for a DA to actually USE the scopes on their weapon. It actually comes out as a pretty agressive stance.

I’ll throw up any progress I get done on Monday here as well after I work on some stuff! (Yay for long weekends!)

Lots of conversion work (and some painting)

So the conversion for the Seer Council on Jetbikes continues.

First off I gave up on the idea of using the wood elf glade riders as a base model since the legs just were’nt working out right and an early conversion attempt ended up pretty bad. So I’m now going the path of lesser resistance and using the guardian jetbike models as a base but doing some pretty extensive remodeling of the upper torsos. I’m adding a collar and a bunch of cloak material using the modeling clay. The base for the cloak is the wood elf glade rider cloak. I’ve also removed the arrows and spear below the cloak portion by filing them down and am using the former quiver as a scabbard of sorts for either a Singing Spear or Witch Blade. It actually looks great and is somewhat optimal as it would provide the Lock a quick way to grab their spear while flying with one hand. Here’s a few pics of the work so far…doesn’t look so hot since there’s a mix of based, non-based stuff and I haven’t done any sanding or filing yet of the new material..but these should clean up pretty good. I’m happy with the dynamic effect so far.

Early Shot of Warlock on Jetbike 1

And here’s a couple more from the sides.

Side shot. Really trying to get the feeling of motion.

You can see the spear coming off at an angle here.

Good shot of the Singing Spear "scabbard" or quiver.

And here’s a closeup of another change I’m making to the jetbikes.

In order to make them look different from the rest of the armies jetbikes (if I use any) I’m adding some wraithbone to the hoods of the jetbikes to give them a more warlock feel. So far this is just the spine. But I’ll add some ribs or other design. Each lock will have it’s own look.

Wraithbone spine on hood.

I’m going to throw up a post on the status of my Farseer (on foot) and Dire Avenger Exarch (and some regular foot trooper models) next.

Taste the rainbow

This just amuses me. Technically I should be offended as an Eldar player but MAN the 3rd edition book was..”colorful”.