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: Neil the Devourer; Hive Fleet Lindwyrm Month 2

Hi all it's Neil here with a look at my second month's progress on our 9th edition 40k group project.  This months aim was to get any outstanding models from the 50 power initial list built and to get at least 25 power painted ready for battle.  For me, I had ended month 1 with 22 power's worth of models painted up already though I was still 17 power down on having built my planned 50 power.  The only model I had left to paint at the beginning of the month was my Tyrannofex so this made its way from the spawning pools to the painting table.

Xenos on Crusade: Tim's Drukhari month 1 - Eager to Flay

We left off last month with the Kabal of the Shattered Lung gathering their allies and poised to set out on their crusade. This month I'm pleased to report good progress on the Kabal and Wych Cult elements, while the Haemonculus Covens sit tight for now, scheming and exulting at their relative strength following the recently revealed and truly baffling points changes across the faction. Here's the main fruits of this month:

Path To Glory Month 2-3 - Slaves to Sigmar

We left off at the end of January with me ushering in my first slaves to darkness models, the Lord on Karkadrak along with 10 Chaos Warriors and 3 Chaos Knights. Though fun to paint (love the rhino-meets-crocodile vibe), I played three games with the fuller army (in greyor basecoated plastic) and just wasn't feeling it. They didn't play like I wanted them to, apart from the Lord on the Rhino once equipped with the -3 rend Runeblade from Malign Sorcery, who (credit to him!) was a true monster. But there  was a change of plan...

In particular, the core chaos warriors and knights didn't have that much offensive bite, the army seemed heavily reliant on its marauders pulling off long charges from deep strike to win the objective / board control game, coupled with the ridiculously powerful slapping down of full hit and wound re-rolls on tank units to do the killing (Warshrines and Sorceror Lords had a lot to answer for...). I may have won the games I played, but would have preferred to just play as Nurgle like I usually do - even though their book may be ageing, it has some more nuanced and cool tactical options.

In addition, being the hobby butterfly we all are, I found myself emerging from the cocoon of this abortive project to nestle on the varied Spring flowers of Adeptus Titanicus (new starter set, great game system, great demo game with Neil), Necromunda (our club gang war has kicked up again recently, and I've painted my Delaque to kick up some fuss across Chem Ridge) and 40k (getting my marines to their full competitive glory, as the first actually fully painted (almost, anyway) 40k army I am able to take to events. I'll try to give these guys the photographic coverage they deserve in periodic "What I've Been Up To" posts.

So, after our group rallied around a prospective AoS doubles event (once COVID-19 lets up), I decided to jump ship - my Slaves are great models and can still do good work in a Nurgle and - eventually - a Khorne army, but I wanted to try to revive my failing enthusiasm and #Bash Some Backlog (thanks Matt) by painting some of the extensive Stormcast Eternals I've amassed by buying multiple copies of the first and second edition starter sets and ruthlessly cutting up and converting (which I really enjoy) to get a unique and cheap army.

For the doubles event, we have 1,000 points each, and I'll be allying with Neil's Seraphon (the successors to the notorious "Neil's Eels" Idoneth list of the doubles we attended in Autumn 2018).

My list will probably be:

Lord Arcanum on Dracoline
3 Evocators on Dracolines
3 Evocators on Dracolines
5 Sequitors
5 Sequitors
coming to a round 1,000 points.

 I'd ideally like more of a mix of mobile units, but once I'd added one set of Thundercats + Thundercatboss and the mandatory selection of what's sadly, I think, the only really decent core unit SCE have, I had 260 points left - not enough to buy anything meaningful alongside my usual favourite unit, the Vanguard Palladors (180pts), as SCE heroes start at 100 points. So I went with even more cats!

At the Autumn 2018 doubles, I was partnered with James, and to everyone's surprise we came second out of 80 odd teams with 5 wins (mostly because Nurgle and Nighthaunt were the new hotness back then and we struck lucky not facing any hugely horrible lists or super skilled players!). So, easy record to beat, right? The only way is up, apart from down.

I've celebrated the new project by finalising a colour scheme and painting up my first Sequitors - I just love these guys in gameplay, being super dependable and useful pieces who can either zip down into cover for a 3+ rerollable save and really hog those objectives, or start dishing out pain with the stormstrike maces. I'm pleased with how the colour scheme has worked out - hopefully my savage and noble but increasingly amnesiac stormhost, the Hounds of Azr, will really project an Ultramarines style heroism with that blue, black and gold.

Till next time!

Path to Glory 2020: The Noctis Elite - The Encroaching Darkness

So then Month 2 is done and I'll be honest it's been a slow one. The general melancholy that suffuses the air this time of year, combined with a bit of waning interest in Age of Sigmar within the group has meant that all of us didn't get too much done this month. I've forged on with the Bonereapers however and do have something to add, though not quite as much as I'd like. So what's been added to the legion?

Why more Mortek Guard of course!

The next 10 Mortek Guard

Path to Glory 2020: Indaril's Hunters - Part 2

As Indaril laid about her with her spear slaying the interlopers an enemy champion emerged from the melee. Finishing off her current foe, she turned to face this new threat beckoning them with her shield to challenge.  This champion was good and the fight was hard but it was Indaril who emerged victorious with her opponent's blood coating her spear.  As the dust settled on the fight, Indaril noticed new Sylvaneth warriors alongside her hunters, these tree revenants must have come from a household nearby who'd heard her song in the wind but she wouldn't question provenance as she had more enemies to slay.....

Hi all, its the end of month 2 for our path to glory so I thought I would share what I have added to my champion's warband.  Here are my tree revenants follower unit;

Mustering for Vigilus: Neil's Ultramarines, End of Month 2

February has been a very productive month painting wise for me, being able to get much more than just what I'd planned at the beginning of the month done.  So this month I managed to get 1 Primaris Captain, 2 Primaris Lieutenants, 10 Intercessors and 3 Aggressors painted. This greatly increases my Ultramarines force and give a good boost towards a 750 points doubles list so below are some pictures of the finished marines.

Mustering For Vigilus - James' Adeptus Custodes: End of Month 2

Hi guys,

Vigilus is in need so it's just as well our 2nd month is at an end and we can provide some much needed reinforcements. Or at least that's what I would be saying were it not for the fact I really haven't painted that much this month.

Mustering for Vigilus Month 2: Tim’s Primaris

Month 2 of the Vigilus muster is done, and I'm proud to present 7 more Dawnbringers reporting for duty. These are the heroic lieutenant, Ascanius Venator, and 6 Primaris reivers, hopefully to add to next month's Shadowspear release! I've also polished off the outstanding bit of painting on the Captain, Aeneas Herax, so I now have two characters, and these can double as a Watch Master (with custodian spear magnetised) and Watch Captain to allow experimenting playing as Deathwatch.

Ascanius Venator is a rising star among the Dawnbringers, currently operating under the command of Aeneas Herax. He was gifted with a finely crafted power sword by his commander in the Ultramarines  to recognise his distinguished service when operating as part of the Unnumbered Sons, which he bears keenly into battle - he is depicted drawing his power sword in the rather great Warhammer: Conquest lieutenant model (otherwise with its Ultrarines symbols filed down).

The Reiver models are wonderfully atmospheric, with a nice, dark, special ops vibe - I tried to reflect this with a darker colour scheme, eschewing the gold shoulder pauldrons of the rest of the marines I painted (it hardly seemed very stealthy) and painting the right pauldron an ominous black.

Mustering for Vigilus: Medge's Adeptus Mechanicus, End of Month 2

The war was not going well...

Tech Priest Dominos Viir was everywhere and nowhere, his consciousness spread thin across the noospheric web surrounding the hidden Mechanicum facility on Kaelec's Bane. By his calculation it had been 75.8624 solar cycles since the enemy <Designation: Worldclaimer, Haarken> had proclaimed the coming of the Arch-Heretic <Designation: Abaddon, Colloquial: "The Despoiler"> to Vigilus. In that time he had received input telemetry from 62,128 individual Skitarii from across Kealec Bane; the constant stream of information his shield against the hordes of the enemy <Designation: Black Legion>.