Arming for Aftermath- The Poisoned Claw Returns

[Archon No'ki]

Well here we go, the first log of the new project.

I have been out of the hobby for over a year now but the other day when I was sitting at home with nothing to do I remembered all the good times I'd had with the game and maybe it was time to get back into it. I searched through my cupboard and quickly I found my old army case holding a large amount of Dark Eldar. I had thought about starting a new Space Marine army, especially with the new DA plastics and plastic Devs, however once I set eyes on my beloved Dark Eldar once again I was sold. Once an Archon always an Archon.

However, there was one problem. The standard of them. General painting wise they were ok, but they lacked detail and the bases were in a word, terrible. So it was time to do something about that. After a quick trip into Cambridge to gather supplies and get a new painting light. (Day light lamps are definetly the way to go with painting and modeling, the lighting in my room is dire but with this lamp I'm free to paint any when I wish.) Amoung the supplies were a few paints that I knew I needed and basing materials.

I know that when I paint I'm not too slow, but I procrastinate. So I set myself a target to get a legal 500pt army up and ready and finished to a new higher standard by the end of March. I'm also planning on going to the next Dark Stars Campaign Weekend in May so 500pts a month and I'll be ready for it. Then of course I discovered Aftermath was back, and that just increased my resolve to get back to painting.

So now without too much more rambling on my behalf on with the pictures.



This is an example of a warrior before I started the project. Most them are similar or worse.

My first port of call was to get a Raider Squad up and completed. As of yet I havn't got a group shot of this ten man squad however I do have some examples.


Baldy Dave the Warrior. The Armies mascot (named after the old manger of the GW I started to play in. Tactically he is useful as well, regular opponents know my love of Dave and will target his squad instead of choosing tactically better units).


A simple Splinter Cannon wielding warrior. With a bit of added rubble on the base.


Sybarite Deschain

Obviously the most obvious changes and upgrades have been the bases which look 100 times better, and suit my home board much better. (It was starting to bug me that my board is a city and my warriors were running around with grass on their bases.)

The skin tones on Deschain and Dave have both been redone and although still a little too tanned I'm happy with them. Whilst I'm on Deschain his trophey rack has also been reworked and both heads look reasonably life like, more than they did before.

Across unit apart from the bases the main changes have been the addition of eyes which has really helped to bring them to life. And also the detailing on the guns adding the green to the compression chambers and trying to create that look of glass. I feel they have come out quite well and I'm proud of them.

Well thats it for the first update. Next on this list is Archon No'ki herself (and I might get a complete unit shot for you). Comments advice is always welcome. Until next time, have a good sin.

[Archon No'ki]

A quick update tonight whilst I work on a few other things. My lord is now mostly finished and only requires a few little touch ups where the paint has chipped in the past. Unfortunetly I dont have the paint needed so that will have to wait until I can get in Cambridge again. However here is a quick picture so you can see what she's like atm...



As you can see the cloak needs a few touch ups as does the hair. However I've added some more depth to her amour and weapons. Although you cant see it here her pistol has been redone in the same way as the warriors weapons.

No group photo yet, Im waiting until I finish the next piece I'm working on. Then I'll give you one, I promise. And as always, comments are very welcome.

[Cerus]

the basses look a hell of a lot better now, and always prefered city/rubble/sandy bases to grass, they just look so much better imo and grass gets overdone.

they are looking good after the touch up, a lot better than my DE ever were lol. Looks like an army that will look good together ++ want raider squad pics

[Archon No'ki]

No pictures with this update as the piece I'm currently working on is taking longer than I expected. Oh well, should be finished later today.

Anyways, here is the list that I can trying to complete before the end of March:

Dracon -108pts
Splinter Pistol
Agoniser
Shadow Field
Plasma Grenades

Raider Squad- 153pts
9 Warriors
1 With Splinter Cannon
1 Upgraded to Sybarite -
Splinter Pistol
Poisoned Blades
Trophy Rack
Raider

Warrior Squad- 100pts
10 Warriors
2 with Splinter Cannons

Wyches- 138pts
5 Wyches
Wych Weapons
1 Upgraded to Succubus
Splinter Pistol
Agoniser
Raider

Total- 499pts

Its a similar list to what I have run before with the addition of two Agonizers and a lack of a few warriors to make room for them. The Agonizers were added as the amount of times the Dark Lances have been shot off the Raiders I still wanted some way of dealing with enemy Armour.

So far I have completed the Dracon and the warriors for the Raider Squad. More to come soon.

[Archon No'ki]

To make up for the lack of pictures in the last update tonight I bring you an abundance of them. Since my last post I've been working on completing the raider squad with that vital part of it...a Raider.

As anybody who has collected Dark Eldar will know, Raiders do not fit on flying bases. They tend to fall off or fly at an angle somewhere over 45 degrees. So obviously my first port of call was to fix this problem. I have seen many weird and wonderful ways to do this, but I always find simplicity works best.

I grabbed a small drill from the shed and a collection of drill bits and sorted through them until I found one about the right size. (3.2 mm if anybody needs a reference.) With my drill in hand I took up the Raider and attacked the hole in the bottom where the stand fits.



By drilling this hole a little larger it allows the wider part of the flying base to fit snuggly meaning that Mr Raider now sits very nicely on his stand. After a quick test it was confirmed this worked and the drill bit was the right size so I quickly grabbed all of my Raiders and the Ravager to enlarge their holes as well. With this scary task finished (one slip and the model has a hole where it shouldn't) I moved onto the base it will sit on.

After some thinking I decided that I would model the base as best as I could. Clear flying bases are ok, but I feel they can look tacky. Of course I also want my army to look as uniform as possible so this means all based in the same manor. However a simple painted and flocked flying base would look a bit plain I felt so I thought I'd spend "a bit" of time modeling it. And here is a WIP shot of it after I had applied a couple of coats of black as a good base coat.



Pretty simple as modeled bases go, but it is my first attempt. I also don't like things looking too cluttered. I had planned a couple of bits of rubble and some tank traps but was afraid of over doing it so consigned myself to giving it a decent paint job. I think the painting of this base has the taken the longest of anything so far. But with that said I think it looks pretty good after all that work.




That barrel has three coats of Camo Green, dry brushed with chainmail and then given a good inking with flesh wash. I wasn't sure it would look that good until I finished and it surprised me. The tire was much simpler. Underneath all that flock is two layers of codex grey. Two coats because the first didnt cover too well. I know nobody will really see it but if your going for something go the whole way. And of course the normal brown trimming so it fits with all the other bases.

The final part of this bit of the project was the Raider itself. Luckily it didn't need too much doing to it. Just adding eyes and weapons detail to bring it into line with the warriors. Also as a personal thing I added a bit of detail to the displays on the Dark Lance and pilots controls.


Just showing the gun and the gunners eyes.

And a small thing which I'm really quite proud of, the display on the back of the Dark Lance.

So with the base and the Raider finished here's a quick picture of them together and demonstrating the fact that they actually now fit together. Followed by what I have promised you all, pictures of the complete Raider Squad, Hurray!





Haha, just noticed in that last picture it looks like one of the warriors is wearing a Space Marine helmet. ;D

So, what is next? Well a couple of things. Whilst I've been looking at the squad, Deschain in particular a question crossed my hind. "How the heck are those heads staying on that trophy rack?" I came up with a solution for that and once its done I'll post some pictures of Deschain again. Apart from that I wanted a break from warriors and so turned my attention to the Wyches from the Cult of Fury who owe No'ki a great debt. Now you may all bear witness to the shame that is my Wyches...




Without a doubt these are the worst painted models in my army and will take quite a bit of work, but I will bring them up to the same standard as the rest of the army and I've already started on them with trying to bring that skin to a more skin like tone.

Keep one eye on the shadows, I shall return again soon.

[Cerus]

looking good

really like what you done with the raider base, looks so much better than just having a clear base, just a suggestion but if you don't have a solution to the trophy rack for Deschain maybe borrow one off a chaos or ork sprue?

[mabrothrax]

The raider's base is great, it makes the model look so much more solid,

Skin huh? I'd recommend throwing all pots of bronzed fesh out of a window. Awful colour.

When painting elves (and daemonettes) I use an elf flesh-bleached bone-skull white progression, with s white glazes (v thin) on large areas such as exposed thighs.

I often use, again very thin, a purple glaze on skin to make it look 'ill', it works really nicely on chaotic/evil models as it give a subtle look of menace.

[Arwarman]

Likeing the Raider and its base. Very nice model itself, the paint job does it justice. As mentioned above, I wouldn't use an ink atall. When doing skin (Usually on my Eldar) I use Bleached Bone with the tiniest bit of Tenticle Pink, building up to Skull white, I like my models with Pale skin.

They all look good to be honest. Well Done!

[Archon No'ki]

Cheers for all the feed back folks, it is greatly appreciated and its encouraging to hear that I must be doing something right. I'm also glad to hear that I definetly made the right choice with the Raiders base.

A quick picture less update tonight I'm afraid. Firstly, let it be known that the Wyches have stolen my sanity and dragged it kicking and screaming back to the dark city. (Believe me you should of heard the conversations I was having with my friends whilst I was painting this unit.) With this said however, they are progressing quite well, after about 5 coats of pallied flesh. The armour has been a nice surprise, but more on that tomorrow when I should have some pictures as well. Only a few things to do on them now:

1)Finish painting the skin. At the moment it lacks depth and I'm hoping to change that. Thanks for all the pointers of painting skin, its always been something I've struggled with so fingers crossed it may look half decent this time.

2)Paint the hair. Its still a lovely mat black at the moment, that should change tomorrow.

3)Apply a second coat to some areas of finer detail if required. Not 100% sure so I will look them over with fresh eyes in the morning.

4)Finally once all that is done I can base them. Huzzah!

Haha, and then once they're done it will be onto the second Raider.

[Archon No'ki]

And there was much rejoicing.

Yes folks, I have finally finished the Wyches. Hurray everybody! To be honest it look longer than expected, but then I was essentially starting them from scratch and I was trying to get a nice level of detail on the models. Another reason they took so long was that I had to go back and redo things that I didn't like a couple of times. Such as tattoos. Originally I wanted a few tattoos on the models, but after a couple of attempts I realised my freehand isn't quite good enough for that challenge yet. The hair as well was done a couple of times before I was happy with it. Anyways I'm sure you all remember what they looked like before (if you don't look a couple of posts up you lazy bum) so now onto the pictures.


Succubus Lokel


Generic Wych 1. At least one model in each squad must have something more than flock in its base and she gave the best chance. The poor unfortunate (or fortunate as he didn't get taken alive) is from my IG regiment, who coninsidently have the Preferred Enemy trait .


Wych Weapon Man



Not particularly great photos but I really enjoyed this guy. He has the most drug tubing on him, and I just really like his look.


This fella had the honor of being the first to be inked, as you can see it didn't go 100% to plan and he looks like he's spent time under a sun bed.




Now overall I am very happy with this unit. Although they didn't turn out quite the way I had planned I feel that is actually to their benefit. The armour was originally supposed to be black with white trim, it wasnt to be. Between tainted white paint and over heavy drybrushing the white edges did not work. However instead of trying again I saw some potenial in them, and after a light dry brush of Chainmail I feel they look very Gladiator like. Which in my opinion is how Wyches are supposed to look.

I used the same camo green on the guns as I did for the Warriors and also used camo green on the pipping for the combat drugs, that and the green hair have helped to tie them into the rest of my army whilst still maintaining their individuality.

Thats all for now, comments as always are very welcome. I will be away for the weekend, but when I get back it will be onto the Raider for these guys and gals.

[Arwarman]

Awesome. You pulled off the inking very well, I do like the many tubed one as you mentioned. You've done the hair well too, Looking forward to seeing the Raider!