Xenos on Crusade: James' Craftworld Eldar - The Finale

And so here we are, at last, the end of 2020. It's been a long and oftentimes sad and melancholic year, but I felt it important to focus on some of the positives that have come out of it all. 

For me, one of those things is my recently completed Craftworld Eldar army. If you've been keeping up with all my posts, you'll know this is an army I've been working on as part of a big group project between all of my fellow writers, the Xenos on Crusade. When we started off, my ultimate goal was simply to have a painted Eldar collection; the project was something to give me the impetus to finally start collecting an army I'd always loved. 

So with this final post, I'll be going over the final set of models I painted in November and December and giving my final thoughts on the army and where I'll be looking to take it in the future. The picture below is a spoiler for everything I've painted, so no more delaying,  let's get into it!

Xenos on Crusade: James' Craftworld Eldar - Part 4

It's been a while, huh.

Hobby burnout hit me rather hard last month, and as a result, I made very little progress on my models. Rather than ship out a half-hearted post detailing my hobby failings, I figured I'd wait and get a few more models completed for the Craftworld. 

As I mentioned, September was a real struggle for me in terms of hobby. I started on the Wraithblades with the best of intentions, but very quickly I found myself losing all impetus and decided the best approach was to take a break, reset, and come back when I felt the desire to paint again. It took about a month, but once the hobby drive was there I cracked back on, and now, two months from my last post, what have I managed to get done in that time frame?

Xenos on Crusade: James' Craftworld Eldar - Part 3

Well, this one's a bit behind schedule, isn't it?

Month 3 of our Xenos Crusade has come and gone, and for me, that meant a sizeable increase to my Craftworlds force (well, relative to how tiny it started). Over the month, I managed to complete another squad of Wraithguard, a Wraithlord to provide some much-needed fire support, and a Farseer to offer some additional psychic support to my Spiritseer.

In addition to the painting, I also managed to get my first games of Warhammer in around 6 months! This was a very welcome thing, as I'd very much been feeling the grip of a hobby burnout as a result of not getting to use my models. A man can only paint for so long before he needs to roll some dice. So then, please read on to have a gander at my recently completed models, as well as some quick write-ups on how my first few games went (small teaser - not very well).

Xenos on Crusade - Tim's Drukhari Month 2: Emboldened by Bloodshed

Hi all it's Tim here, with the next instalment in my Drukhari crusade.

Progress so far

After the massive burst of energy for the first month and a half, my sadistic space elves have had to retreat back to the shadows as a burst of enthusiasm for painting space marines took over with the launch of New 40k and Indomitus.

However, they are still on track, with the last remaining element of my starting force taking on the mantle of agony (/ base coats of paint) and needing tidy up and working to a proper finish. This month I:

1. painted a few more kabalite warriors with splinter rifles to get 2 properly equipped squads
2. basecoated my Wracks (converted from crypt ghouls with creepy harlequin masks to go with my converted Grotesques, and adding worrying  prosthetics)
3. magnetised my 6 Talos and laid down the base coat on the first one to join my Crusade
4. converted some Sslyth with a covens like flavour from spare parts lying around - these creepy bodyguards have been gifted to Archon Orfeon by his Coven allies, and
5. painted up a fair bit of my Haemonculus, Kaizin; and
6. finished off some pre-Crusade Drukhari painting, in the form of a Razorwing Jetfighter.

Here are the results - I don't have a lightbox for proper background, but I do have a book full of pictures of volcanoes: so that is what my Drukhari will have!

Xenos on Crusade: James' Craftworld Eldar - Part 2

Why hello there reader,

Well, last weekend was certainly an eventful one, wasn't it? 

The release of Indomitus and 9th ed Warhammer 40,000 was a big moment for the hobby, and I know both myself and my fellow warlords felt the excitement keenly. However, being the only one out of our group not to buy a copy of Indomitus certainly left me feeling a bit deflated. What can I say, all these new Marines and especially the Necrons had me very tempted to start another new force! 

Fortunately, the Ai'elethra (or the Path for any Mon'Keigh reading) has allowed me to resist temptation and continue on with my Craftworlders. For Month 2 we were tasked with painting up a full 25PL, ready to begin playing our first Crusade games as and when we are free to roll our dice with abandon. Having only managed to paint 11PL last month with my one completed unit of Wraithguard I'd have to get through a chunk of models to make that target. Unfortunately, as I'll go into, life had other plans for my hobby time.

Xenos on Crusade: James' Craftworld Eldar - Part 1

Hey there everyone,

Welcome to the first in a series of monthly posts where I'll go about detailing my progress on the latest in our groups series of hobby escapades - a Xenos centred Tale of Five Gamers

That's right! We're back with another Tale and this time it's all about the wonderful Other of the 41st millennium; those pesky, pesky Xenos.

Inspired by the impending release of 9th edition 40k and all the wonderful new rules it will bring we've each committed to collecting a new army of Xenos warriors. In my case, this means restarting an old love the Craftworld Eldar. 

We outlined the forces each of us will be bringing to the table in this post, but to summarise we'll be bringing armies from the Craftworlds, Drukhari, Necrons, Tyranids and Tau. Quite a collection if I do say so. Our goal is to each have 50PL ready by the end of August. For June however, the goal was to simply paint at least one unit of our fledgeling collection. 

So how did I do?

Xenos on Crusade: Introductions and Kick Off

What a great time for hobby, eh? 

Games Workshop's announcement of 9th Edition 40k has come as a very welcome burst of excitement in these difficult times, and reignited the passion and interest in 40k for all our Warlords. 

There's so much great stuff coming out on Warhammer Community right now for the new Edition it really is shaping up to be the best edition of Warhammer 40k to date!

One of the new ways of playing that has really piqued our interest is the Crusade system. For those not following the community page, Crusade is a new narrative way of playing that will see your force evolve over consecutive battles. Not only does your force increase in strength from game to game (via points/power rewards that allow you to bring more to the table), your individual units are able to earn honours (bonus rules/stats) and battle scars (negative rules/stats) for the acts they commit on the tabletop. 

This RPG-style evolution of a force doesn't only sound like a great way of playing normally... but the perfect set-up for another Tale of Five Gamers!