Magnetising wratihblades and updating old metal wraithguard

Hi chaps,

I bought a box of wraithblades last weekend and used them as the basis for a general round of wraith upgrades. I had 3 main objectives:

1. updating my 10 old metal wraithguard to be on 40mm bases

2. magnetising half the 10 metal wraithguard to carry either d-scythes or wraithcannons

3. magnetising the 5 new wraithblades for both CC loadouts. 

 

Firstly, I took the old wraithguard off their bases. They were all basecoated so I decided I would need to paint the bases fully before sticking them on. I had 10 40mm bases spare from putting terminators on scenic bases so this was fine. I made the bases in the same style as all my eldar ones. This involves a thin layer of greenstuff which is flattened and smoothed using water and a flat smooth surface to press it against. In this case I use my painting desk which is glass. Once that is done, I take a craft knife and score geometric shapes into the base, which give it a craftworld floor appearance. Occasionally I will cut a larger furrow out of the base for variety. I then paint a celestra grey base, eshin grey in the recesses, another layer of celestra grey and finally highlight around the edges with 50:50 celestra grey and whitescar.

 

For the old wraithguard conversion, I decided the best way to do things was simply to chop the ends off of the old wraithcannons and do the same with the new parts, using 3mmx0.5m disc magnets to connect the two. Simple and effective. 

For the wraithblades, I asssembled the figure with the right arm attached. I then magnetised both right weapons at the wrist, placing one 2x1.5 rod magnet deep into the forearm and the others on the hands (to mimic the ribbed armour cut off). This was done so 1/3 of the magnet was inside the hand, 1/3 exposed , which had the small stub of ribbed armour cut off. and the other 1/3 plugs into the forearm attaching to the deep magnet (more stability)The left arms were both assembled and magnetised at the left shoulder, again burying the magnet deep into the shoulder so the arm-mounted magnet would plug in.

A size comparison of old and new can be seen below.There is an appreciable difference between the two, but as only my wraithblades are the new kind I put this down to the blades being a heavier, more combat orientated chassis.

Female Farseer Elenwe conversion finished!

Hi guys,

Finally finished Elenwe yesterday and very pleased with the result. As per usual the photos aren't that great (I've included flash and natural photos for comparison) and so I'm steering towards investing in a light tent. Hopefully the pics are good enough to convey all the important details though. Conversion points of note are the head, forearms, chest (greenstuff sculpt on female DE torso) and a last minute addition of some orbital runes flying around her. Cheers.

Building an Exodite army from the new Eldar Codex

Anyone else old enough to remember these?

Hi folks,

No, this is not another project of mine although it's defintely one I would love to do. Grazer mentioned that after winning the raffle for an Eldar Codex at BW5 he'd love to do an Exodite army. This got me to thinking how exactly you would go about building one, both in terms of what units you would use from the codex and how you would represent them on the battlefield. For those unfamiliar, Exodites are Eldar who fled before the fall and live in agricultural societies in the far reaches of the galaxy.

Units

My understanding of Exodites is this. They have pretty much the same technology as CWE except they're a bit more backward. In terms of allegiances with the craftworlds, Biel-Tan often ally with them and Outcasts (mainly Alaitoc) often live amongst them. As an overall army theme then, this makes me think that a Biel-Tan list with a few supporting Exodite units is one option, the other being either a full on Exodite army or one with a few rangers thrown in for fun. As I play Alaitoc, I'll consider the latter. Also worth mentioning is that harlequins also frequent their worlds.

So we can use pretty much everything a regular army does, but they're less advanced in terms of tech. They have an infinity circuit (world spirit), worldsingers (bonesinger equivalents), dragon knights (more on them later) and Eldar Knights clans (again, more later). Also it should be noted that the artwork depicts many different types of dino-beasts, not just the velociraptor types. 

So, this army will require a lot of counts as units to pull off effectively. Here's how I would do it:

HQ - jetbike autarch (clan chief on dragon), spiritseer (worldsinger)

Troops - Alaitoc rangers, guardians, Guardian jetbikes (dragon riders)

Elite - Harlequins

Fast - Shining spears (dragon Knights)

Heavy - Wraithknights (counts as Eldar Knights)

Now this is a fairly conservative attempt at a list and there's much more room for expanding other units into this. Bear in mind, however, that these chaps don't follow the Eldar path and thus, unless you're doing some counts as or adding in say Biel-Tan elements, aspects are out

Modelling

Fairly simplistic view of things is this. Dark Eldar cold one knights are relatively cheap at £20 for 5 - using them as a basis add lots of eldar and shining spear torsos and away you go. There's potential to use the lizardmen stegadon (or just cheap plastic dinosaurs) as something too, though exactly what I'm not sure. Problem is, a wraithlord is a good fit, but in my case I'd want to fill that heavy section with Eldar Knights. 

Speaking of which, this is the heavy support section: Eldar Knights, pretty well represented by the Wraithknight. I estimate you could convert one of each of the classic knight types from 4 wriathknights. Hideously expensive, but would be awesome and would also be 800-900 points. Not to mention extremely cool. I saw an excellent conversion from war walkers and a wraithlord into a bright stallion. To be honest, this is probably almost as expensive as a wraithknight and significantly smaller so I'd go wraithknight every time. A fairly simple conversion to  fire gale using the suncannon/shield config, an extra pair of arms added to make a towering destroyer in the twin wraithcannon config, and a second suncannon loadout for the bright stallion using the extra torso and legs. Expensive, but would look incredible!

http://voidhunters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/building-eldar-bright-stallion.html

Well, there it is. A bit of wanton speculation for fun. I hope we see some Exodite armies springing up (hopefully Grazers in person at an upcoming Blog wars) as it's a great bit of fluff that should be exploited by hobbyists. Cheers.

Eldar project commences - WIP wraithknight and flyer base

Hi guys,

With Blog Wars 5 now behind us the Eldar worship can begin in earnest. It also looks as if I can break the curse of only being able to attend the odd numbered Blog Wars and attend Blog wars 6 later this year. If I'm breaking one tradition I may as well break another and take a non-marine army, thus I'm playing with building a balanced Alaitoc themed list.

As for the hobbying itself, here are the projects I'm currently working on:

Painting
I am hoping to paint up one of each Aspect warrior in the coming weeks as a showcase as well as finishing off the crimson hunter and Farseer Elenwe.

Basing
I am greenstuffing some 40mm bases to rebase my metal wraithguard and also making a scenic base for the Crimson hunter and Wraithknight. The hunters bases has a webway gate instead of a flying stem and the wraithknight needs some debris to make the base less bland.

Modelling
I'm nearly there with the wraithknight assembly and magnetising - basically all the weapon options are magnetised - no mean feat given the size of the parts. I am also magnetising the weapon options for the wraithblades and using the leftover shooting weapons to magnetise the tips of my metal wraithguard to swap out between d scythes and d cannons.

That's about it for now and should keep me more than busy for a few weeks while I dream up a list, at which point I can lay out the army and begin the painting process in earnest. Watch out for updates. Cheers.

Female farseer Elenwe of Alaitoc update - face done

Hi folks,

Spent a few minutes on Elenwe yesterday after the Blood Angels were finished. So far her face is done and I'm happy with how she looks. A little pale perhaps but still decent. Got a new camera recently and so I took some up close shots. Hopefully this time next week I can really sink my teeth into the Eldar project so expect more updates then. Cheers.

Alaitoc characters part three – female Autarch Keyleth conversion

Hi folks,

As promised here is the final part in the series. This part shows my Autarch Keyleth conversion, who for those of you not familiar with Dawn of War 2 is this delightful lady:

So she’s basically the swooping hawk wings Autarch, except the female version without the helm. I had a metal version of this model (which sadly the head is integrated into) and so that was the best starting point simply due to the fact that I’d still have to sculpt the straps and spirit stone on the chest regardless. I cut off the spirit stones and used greenstuff to sculpt the breasts. Once that was dry, I built up the spirit stone and straps as best I could.

The head was removed at the same time as the spirit stone and would ultimately be replaced with a dark eldar wych head. I removed any dark eldar paraphernalia and added more hair as well as sculpting back on the helm detail with greenstuff – I was going to cut it off the old metal helm but it was too much effort for too little gain in the end so I just sculpted it instead. 

In terms of armament, I didn’t want her to be armed with the PW/pistol combo as she would be much more effective just packing a fusion blaster. I also decided to use the power weapon arm despite probably not running one, as it would still look cool and can be either a CCW or one of the armoury swords. The wings are iconic for this character, though I magnetised them to be interchangeable with a warp jump generator which for the same points is possibly better. (and allow relentless for the reaper launcher – interesting)

Only things that I'm a little disappointed with are the sheer quantity of hair and how shiny things look in the photos. The shinyness is due to the vaseline used on the greenstuff for a smooth finish and the hair is mainly due to trying to use the dark eldar head as much as possible. Other than that I'm thrilled with how she turned out and once my Space marine painting endeavours are done and dusted I dare say she’ll be one of the first on the painting desk.

Alaitoc characters part two – female Farseer Elenwe conversion

Hi Folks,

It's been a while since I've had a decent challenge in terms of converting a model. Magnetising between options is all good fun but requires more in the way of engineering than actual imagination. With the impending end of my Space Marine painting challenge for Blog Wars 5 and Eldar hopefully dominating my hobby schedule for the Farseerable future (see what I did there?), I looked for an Eldar conversion challenge. There was one which I has always wanted to tackle - converting a female farseer. I only have a Farseer with witchblade and so, using Farseer Elenwe (DoW2 retribution) as my muse, set to task. One plastic Farseer later and I set to actually putting together a brief for what I wanted to achieve. Here are some concept pics from google:

I wanted the farseer to be noticably female, in that although Eldar males are lithe compared to humans, there's a couple of glaringly obvious things that set male and apart. The curves of the hips are all but concealed by the robes solving that problem, but the flatness of the chest and concealed head bothered me and so both male chest and helmet had to go. The rune sculpted to the chest presented the most difficult challenge to me and so I had to make a choice: live with the flatness (DoW2 pictures show that the Eldar farseers aren't that well endowed, yet all the other female Eldar sculpts have noticably female upper torsos) or just go for it. I decided to go for it.

I cast the chest and then took a dark eldar female chest adding some green stuff to it before pressing it into the mold. Once I was happy with it, I left it to set. while it set, I cut the sleeve off the original chest and cut just above the sash to remove the upper chest all together. Once the cast was dry, I cut down the new chest and integrated it into the model, leaving a small gap below the rune and above the sash as Elenwe has some exposed midriff.

As for the head, I took a spare Dark Eldar head and used that as a starting point. This head had all the features I wanted - hair parting, topknot and neck brace, all of which, after a bit of trimming and greenstuff would look fairly similar to Elenwe. I also cut the rear crest off the farseer helm to add to the back of the DE head. Some hair and sculpting and replacing the topknot was all needed to make it look more like Elenwe. Finally, I trimmed down the forearms and wrapped some greenstuff around it, using some vaseline to give it a nice smooth finish like the forearm guards Elenwe has. Jewels were added using the some technique once the forearms were dry

A very brief splash of colour in Elenwe's DoW2 scheme just to make the model stand out a bit better.

Very pleased with how this turned out as I was disappointed with the lack of female farseer upon release. I hope to clean up a few areas of greenstuff before I finalise her but other than that she's done. I understand the popularity of them and so if anyone wants any more info please ask and I will be happy to assist. Next will be the final installment showing the other female conversion I've done. Cheers.