Trueborn / Blasterborn Squad 1

This is going to be brief at first (may come back and edit it later) because I should have been asleep two hours ago. My adrenalight supply is running low, damn sleep. Anywho this is one of my three trueborn/blasterborn squads. First off you'll notice that one of them looks like an incubi! Well that's correct. I used three incubi bodies and heads and gave them custom blaster variants for several reasons. I love the models, love them with a deep, raging passion. Unfortunately the first box of incubi I bought was made of so much fail. The Klaive sprue was FUBAR hardcore. Not only was the alignment wrong to the point where the fingers were completely displaced, the bottom of the whole blades and arms looked they had been chewed on by pixies. To the point where many of the fists look like chunks of resin with vague finger shapes. But more on this in a later post! It also stemmed from me not wanting to shell out the cash for a whole warrior box just to use three of the guys. I remember the old line of models came with blaster wielding incubi and thought why not? Even came up with a bit of fluff to back it up, my Archon formerly being of a temple, saying eff this for one reason or another and bringing a few guys with him to start a Kabal.

Now you may also be wondering about the huge dissimilarity among the blasters. I did this for two reasons. One because I don't want to have to pay between 60$ and 80$ for all the blasters I would need. The other is the description of the Trueborn. From their description I imagined spoiled noblemen. The reason they have the best is because they can afford it! So why should they all have the same? If I were a Trueborn (Hey, I can dream) I wouldn't want the same as everybody else, mine would have to have this stock, that barrel, and that hanging skull. You get the idea. I'll elaborate more on this idea later as well.

All together I have Somewhere in the range of seventeen blasters and variants for my army. All cobbled together from two warrior sprues, two wych(bych), one scourge (Which was the source for five if I recall), and one ravager. Oh, and a reaver sprue.



Bear with me now because this one is one of the more different ones. Again, more in depth blaster conversion will be covered else where.

From left to right:

Mr. Incubi body: This guy is armed with the haywire blaster from the scourge kit, the tip and stabilizer cut off, the chains added from the ravager kit and tip from a blast pistol. And I gave him a shoulder spikey because everything needs spikes. I chose to get rid of the handle thing because it was a pain and I thought he would be cool holding something like that Rambo style.

Calm looking guy: (Okay this is where I sincerely apologize for my crappy cannon camera that want to fight with me) His is actually pretty simple. Shredder with the ammunition pod replaced with a part of the stabilizer from the dark lance kit, tip replaced with blast pistol and given blade from warrior kit. Skull on shoulder spike added from ravager kit. Do I really need to explain the back thingy? Oh, and standard helmet.

Clipped dark lance dude: This guy has... A clipped dark lance! I like the simplicity of this conversion while it still looking good. It comes across, bigger, thicker, and just plain meaner. The little tassels at the end were replaced with the pair of hanging skulls from the ravager kit. Face-cloth head from wych kit. I also added an extra sheathed knife at his belt.

Mr. Longrifle thingy. Okay this guy was quite the challenge but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. My reasoning behind this monstrosity getting away as a blaster is because I kind of see it like a DE big game hunting rifle. Big game like space marines. And for stuff like that a little darklight never hurts. Now it started with the free floating splinter rifle from the raider/ravager kit cut just at the beginning of the barrel, then I took one of the clipped dark lance barrels and attached it. Snipped the little end nub thing and a little bit of the iron sights to fit on a blast pistol end and added the blade fins from leftovers from the reaver kit. Standard head, pointing arm from the scourge kit, over the shoulder knife and sheathed splinter rifle from ravager kit, and lastly the arm holding the gun up is a reaver throttle hand modified onto what used to be a splinter pistol hand from the wych kit.

Each Blasterborn squad is just as varied as this one. Each one will get a post like this when I find a way to take better pictures as well as breakdown of the various blasters I've made. I kept them all pretty simple because green stuff is not one of my strong suits.

And remember children, the Darklight at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming Ravager.

Painting Scheme

What follows is a small sample at my humble attempt to do justice to the glorious awesomeness that is the new Kabalite Warrior model of the DE line. I've only gotten about four of these guys fully painted, another six on their way there and another full squad primed (Not to mention two squads of wyches(byches)) and three trueborn squads awaiting priming and any last minute adjustments. Without further ado for your visual stimulating pleasures:

Oh, and lacking any kind of basing. Curse you near minimum wage job and food! Delicious food. Anyhoo that's the scheme I'm overall aiming for. Black/red with bronze metal accents and a dash of purple here and there. I really enjoyed the amount of love you can put into these models. I liked the GW website tutorial for the flayed skin crotch tabard thing so that's where that came from.

Armor plates/gun barrel/anything I want red: Base coat with Mechrite Red, edge highlight with Blood Red, wash gently with Badab black and finish it off with a wash of Baal Red to get that extra blend in.

Metal bitz: Base coat with Tin Bitz edge highlight or just highlight in general with Dwarf bronze and once again careful application of Badab black to give it a bit of a tarnished look.

Flayed skin: Base coat Tallarn Flesh, wash Ogryn Flesh, layer Tallarn Flesh, highlight Elf Flesh. (I really like the final look of it, gives it a nice 'I just got this a few minutes ago from something screaming' look)

Bone: Base coat Khemri Brown, Bleached Bone, Skull white.

Cloth/wires: Warlock Purple, Liche Purple.

For the little pouch he was on his utility belt was done with Khemri Brown and Bleached Bone, the grenades were done with a cap of the Tin/Dwarf and the cylinder with Boltgun Metal and Mithril Silver. A little of this on his chain and hook thing to give it a little more character and a little Codex Grey on the bits left black.

This scheme also matches the awesome black/red Chessex dice my wife got for me, and what's not awesome about that?

Now I recall someone somewhere saying that the new model release was awesome, but the daunting detail of the model would intimidate a lot of newcomers from ever actually painting anything. Indeed there are many many more batreps with half assembled, completely unpainted DE armies that I've personally seen. You know what, these models are a BLAST to paint! All the little details that at first seem daunting all come together to give the warrior an extra bit of life (or maybe doom would be more appropriate) into him/her.

I strongly encourage anyone new to DE not to worry about how they'll turn out. Just have fun! That's why you started playing with and painting toy soldiers right? Don't be afraid to dab a little paint on those evil space pirate elves.


That's all from me for now.

And remember children, when on the precipice of defeat flap your arms and think happy thoughts.

Into the Internet!

Well this is going to be fun. Here folks is going to be a painting/minor modeling/conversion/minor tactica kinda thing for Dark Eldar and more specifically my personal Kabal. (Insert maniacal laugh here)

I first started playing ten years ago when I was but a wee lad greedily coveting my first starter kit. That kit contained twenty Dark Eldar and ten Space Marines. A few botched models and much discouragement later I forwent the tabletop in favor of the Black Library books and the inevitable RTS Dawn of War. Much of my general disappointment with playing tabletop was the threat hanging over the DE that they would be phased out after third edition all together!

It was a dark time indeed and while thankfully dark gods willing they rose again, at the time it was a rather morbid outlook to see the fluff and dark heart warming characters fade out so my models went of the shelf to collect dust. And lo! The promised time is upon us! (At least that was my thought when I first glimpsed back into a GW store after so many years) And drooled over the new model line. Having since read the new codex cover to cover several times and having fallen head over heels back into that beautiful sin filled metropolis known as Commorragh.

Happily I can say that my painting skills have improved since being an over eager, very impatient eleven year old so some painting pictures may be posted. And also just a place to splurge out some of my DE longing so that my lovely (with the patience of an angel) wife won't have to suffer through it any more. But then again, she may be too busy with her Tyranids.

And remember children, Follow the Blighted Brick Road!