ScrapDar

So, I have a plan.

Build an Eldar army from scrap/spare/found/cheap bits.  I'll build the ramshackle nature of the final thing into its own fluff: scattered orphans of a dozen destroyed worlds, joined together under the command of a new, young and frighteningly powerful farseer (Eldrad with a new name, natch) - you get the idea.

So far, I have:

• 10 guardians.  I've got some spare Wraithlord weapons and intend to have them all magnetised so I can swap them in and out. I'm building a weapon platform for the guardian squad.
• 1 warlock to hand around with the guardians casting embolden if necessary. Half built from odd bits of bodies.
• 5 striking scorpions with exarch including home-made biting blade.  The blade is a bit bulky looking, but very spiky.  I quite like it, but will have to see how it looks painted. 
• 1 Wraithlord.  It's the head/body/legs of an old Eldar dreadnought (something I wanted since I was a kid) with modern wraithlord arms and weapons.  I may see if I can get hold of some of the epic titans for parts or other bits.  I'm pleased with how this is going.
• 7 rangers with sniper rifles.  These are actually made from wingless metal swooping hawks.  I chopped off the end of the guns and built long sniper rifle-like bits for them from thin aluminium and copper pipe.  I'm quite pleased with how these look so far. I intend to make cloaks for them if I can.  I was thinking about building a light framework of clear plastic (from packaging)  and draping thin material over it and then painting it with thin PVA.  I need to experiment.
• Eldrad character.  Pretty much a complete metal model that just needs something doing to the staff.

This is all just what I can knock together with the odd piles of stuff I have from ebay and the rare individual bargain to be found there.

I'm aiming to start with around a 1000 point list.  The only thing I haven't really got a start on but want for the list is a small squad of warp spiders for general harassment while the wraithlord and rangers shoot stuff and the striking scorpions fight things that get too close to the guardians.   

If the list gets bigger, I really want a squad of 10 wraithguard so that they're troops and add their own warlock so they don't go blind randomly. I love the idea of wraithguard troops.  I might also like to increase the ranger and guardian squad size.

Photos will be coming soon...

Odd characters and sporadic progress

Progress on anything has been slow lately. Too much real-life stuff happening.

Sam and I played a 40K game against someone in the GW shop in Wolverhampton as part of their beginner tutorial sessions.  It was very useful to have a human being on hand who knows the rules inside-out. We'll be trying to do that again some time.

My daughter, Emma, decided she wants to get in on the painting so I've built her a marine with a rocket-launcher.  He'll be our first plain Chaos Space Marine.  I need a few more to make a unit.  Something scoring but more durable than the cultists.  Damned cultists.  They die so quickly I think I should have modelled them all horizontal.

And while the bits box was open, I also built Sam a new Ravenwing biker to add to his unit of 3.  He has lots of guns.

And, finally, I found a hope for the shot-gun-cultist-leader's head that I removed a while back.  I now have a traitorous guardsman (cultist) with a grenade and a knife.  I wanted to get him to look like he's just about to lob the grenade while in the middle of fighting with his knife.  I think it sort-of worked, too.

I also built a dead/dying Eldar holding a metal pipe to sit against a barrier we've been building.  And a genestealer head to sit on the floor next to him.

And, finally, I have build and basecoated Lilith and a Mature Nephilim for Malifaux.  I have yet to play a game, but once the Lilith starter crew is done I will proxy in some other crew and play a game by myself to get used to the rules.  The fluff is great, though.

Terrain progress (28m)

 Sam and I played a game of 40k last week.  We really need to get moving on the terrain.  The coffee-jar lids stacked up will make good sci-fi towers, I think, when they're glued and painted to look like cement.  And the yeast tin should make a good oil tank.  We have a bit of fence/barrier that needs finishing.  And some cone shaped things that need to be painted too.  Lots of stuff, none finished.  I'm trying to avoid the typical ruined gothic manufactoria that seem to litter the 40k universe.

Helbrute and Kranon nearly done

I keep finding little bits to touch up or tweak, but I'm pretty much as done as my skill will allow.  I'm quite pleased as long as I don't look at any of the Golden Demon winners again.

Painting large batches

I bought 40 Zidhe from 15mm.co.uk before Christmas.  The idea was to be able to play the Terminus scenarios from Barking Ironss (see my previous post for links). It actually calls for 60 enemies in one case, but knowing how soul-crushingly laborious  it could be to see that many, I thought I'd use some of the (already painted) chaos cultists I have from the Dark Vengeance box set.  OK, they'll be enormous giants, but it would do for a while.

I've been painting the Zidhe in batches. Each one has slight colour-scheme changes to cut down the repetition slightly when they're all together, but nothing major.  I'm on the last batch:

For the low, low price of £1

Stores that sell things for £1 (or 99p, or even 98p) are everywhere these days. I'm addicted to them, fascinated by them and generally pleased and disappointed in equal measure.

Recently, I bought a big bag of National Trust bird food for £1.  WIN!
I bought two rubber-foam-stuff kneeling pads for 99p. WIN! (these will soon become hills for the tabletop),
And I also bought a set of craft knives, in a box, for 99p.  EPIC WIN!  Oh, wait:

OK, maybe that wasn't such a good buy. That goes on the pile with the tripod that breaks under the weight of a (smallish) camera and the pliers that only open half a centimetre, the jaws of which don't quite fit together properly.

So, it's about 50:50 win/loss. But if you got odds like that at a casino, I'd maybe start gambling there, too.

Progress!

OK, so first an experiment.  The big (for 15mm) gun from Rebel Minis has been painted with Vallejo silver (I love the Vallejo metallics) and then gloss-varnished.  It will later be painted with beiges, greens and black which, when dry, can be scratched off to show the metal underneath.  Hopefully.

Also, some progress with the Helbrute and Kranon has been made tonight.  Before (high-contrast -- I thought it looked good):

After:

The metal is still bright, but that will be toned down with some artist inks next.  There are plenty of places that the bronze has run onto the black, too.  This is partly because of the very liquid nature of the Vallejo metallics and partly because I never seem to be able to clean my brush when using these paints and don't want to ruin a £4 fine paintbrush. I'll touch the black up later.  It's actually dark blue-grey but I will touch up with black, which should make a nice dark edge.