Dark Eldar - Proxies Painted - Boarding Actions

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Warhammer 40,000 - I’ve been playing with the same group of guys for 20+ years it’s really amazing when you think about it that we still get together once a week to play with miniatures until late in the evening. I imagine most groups have a guy that loves to play but just doesn’t have the time, skill or what have you to get an army together and keeps bringing the same(ish) force he’s been using for 20+ years. It’s still mostly gray plastic or metal, probably missing some parts and every game starts with explaining what is standing in for what this week. It’s just a thing with an expensive time consuming hobby like this.

Well last year (probably right around the time I stopped posting regularly on this Blog) my wife and kids got me a 3D printer. I had been reluctant to get one because it seems like a time consuming hobby that would eat into my already limited time. Well I was right about the time eating but it opened up a whole new world of getting crazy idea for an army or project and quickly cranking things out for a really reasonable cost.

After years of playing against a headless gray army of mismashed Dark Eldar I was inspired to help my friend out. We were playing boarding actions at the time and it seemed pretty reasonable to crank out a 500 point force in a weekend. I dug around and found some reasonable proxy models for a Dark Eldar force and started printing.

After the printing and assembling was done I sorted out a simple three color scheme that would be easy for him to replicate if he wanted to continue with the force. I primed them dark grey and did a heavy dry brush of pallid flesh which gave me a nice base to use contrast paint and metallics to get them battle ready.

At the next game night he was very happy to have a nicely painted force for our boarding action campaign.

Kill Team - Vespid Stingwings

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Warhammer 40,000 - Killteam is a game I really enjoyed in the first edition. I haven’t had a chance to try the new edition yet but many of the teams keep crossing my painting table and I’m starting to think I need to check it out.

Vespids were a cool addition to the Tau line ages ago but they never had very good models. The metal ones were very flat and ugly looking, well this Killteam has really upped the anti with a set of very nice sculpts. I really enjoyed painting these in the traditional color scheme.

I haven’t looked at the 40k rules for the stingwings but I’m sure if they are any good I’ll be seeing more of these models on my table soon.

Knight Falls

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Warhammer 40,000 - This Imperial Knight is part of a Space Marine army with a custom color scheme. I’ve painted some Armigers that go with this and they are usually played as allies to a Gravis themed force.

The Lion Returns

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Warhammer 40,000 – The Lion came back at the end of 9th Edition during the Arks of Omen books, he didn’t make a huge splash at the time and in 10th Edition his rules are pretty solid in the index so it’s odd you don’t hear more about him. With Dark Angels set to get a full tenth edition codex soon he may make a bigger splash soon.

Thousand Sons - Additions

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Warhammer 40,000 - It seems a 40k army is never truly complete. As is evidenced by this Thousand Sons force.

Leagues of Votan - Playable Again?

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Warhammer 40,000 - Leagues of Votan were in a weird place with the initial Index10th Edition release. However the recent updates and balance data slate seems to have moved them into a playable state.

Tenth Edition Additions - CSM and Space Marines

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Warhamer 40,000 - Now that tenth edition is actually here and evolving as a system many players are looking to add some units to their existing forces. Terminators and Inceptors are solid choices to bring a bit more survivability to a force.

Ork-tober 2023

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Warhammer 40,000 - Happy Ork-tober! I painted these earlier this year but have been seriously behind in posting here with my various projects. This project was a pretty simple paint scheme to make some dirty rusty Orks. I used a variety of contrast paints to give them varied skin tones and to block in the base colors before rusting everything up to make it look grimey.

Arks of Omen - Boarding Actions

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Warhammer 40,000 - Boarding Actions are really fun small scale games that take most of the rules bloat out of Warhammer 40,000. Rules as written you have to use a very specific set of terrain with fixed layouts and your force is extremely limited in what you can take.

Our group has been playing Crusade for a little over a year now and were excited to incorporate Boarding Actions into our weekly games. Of course because there was not a specific supplement printed to address Boarding Actions and Crusade we had to make things up on the fly.

What we decided was to allow any of our existing units from the crusade roster with their upgrades so long as they were “legal” in boarding actions. Using the Crusade Points give your opponents extra CP to start has been pretty good in balancing the forces. We also set the game limit at 25PL with a +/- of 2PL to allow for some flexibility with the roster so you can easily pivot between boarding actions and normal games each week.

Since many of our games are 3-4 players I set up the table with two decks. The decks are connected by ladders and stairs that function using the “Open Hatch” Action. With the ladders the action results in you “Embarking” on the ladder and you can disembark at the end of your next movement phase. So far it has worked really well keeping everyone involved in the fight.

The other change we made is that instead of buying a new terrain set we’re using the Deadbolt’s Derelict from Death Ray Designs. As long as the layouts are balanced it seems to work out making unique layouts for each game.

Horus Heresy - Ultramarines

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Warhammer 30,000 – It’s pretty amazing that Horus Heresy is now in plastic, the kits are really nice and so much easier to work with than the resin versions (real or knock-off). I imagine I’m going to be putting many of these boxes together in the future but for right now this is a simple scheme that matches up with an existing Ultramarines force.

Chaos Furies

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Warhammer 40,000 – For years the ugliest models in Games Workshops line up were the metal Chaos Furies. While they were always a good choice for a fast moving flying unit the models were just terrible and ugly. Thankfully they’ve recently rectified that with a nice plastic kit. While I still prefer some third party sculpts of harpies this new models are decent.

Tyranids - Rising Stars?

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Warhammer 40,000 – Tyranids might be on the rise again with the Genestealer Cults getting a new release. These Gaunts were painted to match an existing force.

A pretty basic paint job bone, light green with a wash to shade an tie the colors together.

First and Only - Gaunt's Ghosts

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Warhammer 40,000 – Gaunt’s Ghosts hold a spot near and dear to many people’s hearts so when they came out in plastic I assumed I’d be seeing them on my table. These were really fun to paint up and the camo was way less complicated than I assumed it would be. By using contrast paint over the green base it was pretty simple to add the patterns.

Iron Hands Successor Chapter - More Marines

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Warhammer 40,000 – This Iron Hands Successor Chapter just keeps growing. Just when I think I’ve painted the last of it my client finds a few more marines that he needs done to match. Which is great since I love this color scheme and it’s relatively simple to keep unified over the course of several batches.

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Sisters of Battle - Old and New (Plus Crusaders)

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Warhammer 40,000 – Some old metal models are just to cool to leave behind. This project has several classics mixed with some new plastic models. Saint Celestine, the Gemini and a whole lot of Crusaders.

3D Printed Praetor - Imperial Guard

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Warhammer 40,000 – 3D printing continues to impress me, while I don’t think I can find the time to devote to learning to do it and the patience to tweak design files, I am impressed when others do it. This giant missile launching tank is a filament print that looks very similar to the Praetor resin kit.

I painted this to match the Death Korp force I’ve painted components for. The simple camo scheme looks great on this large model and helps to hide the fine lines from the filament print.

Deathwing – Dark Angels Additions

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Warhammer 40,000 – I love the bone color of Dark Angels terminators, the look of a mixed fully painted force on the table is impressive with any faction but with the Dark Angels it’s particularly cool because of the stark contrast between the first, second and battle companies.

Dark Angels and Deathwatch

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Warhammer 40,000 – This batch of models add a few more models to the substantial Dark Angel and Deathwatch force I’ve been painting off and on for sometime.

Included is the new Primaris Chaplain on BIke, this is probably my favorite model from the last batch of releases.

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