Red and black leopard spots

I have recently acquired an Eldar army. Not just any Eldar though! They're an old force packed with conversions, and frankly mind blowing old school paintjobs. This army would be one of those where I intend to keep the paintjobs. Infact, I bought them specifically because of those paintjobs. The schemes change a bit, the two major parts are a funky black and red leopard scheme with lots of blending to whites and yellows, and the other is a vibrant orange scheme. Some units and single minis have different schemes, but the majority are in one of those schemes.

These Wraithlords were mostly in pieces and needed some small paint fixes, but the work was fairly minor.

These are examples of the second scheme. The one in the middle was WIP (though mostly done) which I finished, the other two were in that condition when I got them.

The guy I bought them from was selling them on behalf of someone else who had bought them in an estate sale. The seller said he suspected it was an army passed from father to son or older brother to younger brother based on the paintjobs, but didn't know more about their origin. My plan is to restore them to the best of my ability and then run them as Ynnari along with some Dark Eldar and Harlequins (mostly newer stuff) I've also gotten. The ultimate aim is to actually expand the army after that, altough if I'm being honest the prospect is pretty daunting. It's definately worth it though. Same goes for fixing the army.

Some of the minis before any restoration.

Minis and bits.

More minis. Note the Exodite Knight conversions.

This will be an awesome project, and I'm very pleased about aquiring these.

Turn Signals On A Land Raider

This is just a quick post for anyone who might've missed the recent return of a 40k classic (or, gasp, did not know of it back in the day). Nothing to do with my own hobby stuff. Think of it as a public service announcement. I'm of course talking about TSOALR. That's right,  after nearly a decade it started again last month and is back (and I'm loving that GW legal is represented by a Lizardman)!

For those of you unfamiliar with this modern masterpiece, it's a humorous 40K webcomic from the 00's following the misfortunes of the crew of and the land raider Super Jackhammer Carrier Tank (Jack to friends) Kren, Frep and Harkon, of "The Emperor's Pointy Sticks" chapter. By far the best GW related development of this year in my opinion. Here is a link to the new strips hosted on the Warhammer Community site, and here is a link to the classic ones hosted by the author on the original site.

Poke 'Em Inna Eye!

Canned Failure

Everything doesn't always have to be perfect (I hope). The subject today is failure (Ooh, dramatic!). I’m sure everyone has at some point encountered failures in their hobbies or other things that bring them joy. I certainly have. With miniatures, the options are usually limited to starting over, accepting a result you’re not all too happy with (and taking it as a learning experience) or just leaving the project (I’m fairly certain there isn’t many a wargamer or miniature painter around without some projects “in progress” for n years at any given time). The mini I’m using as an example falls into the latter two categories.

When I started 40k again a couple of years ago the game was nearing the end of it’s 7^th edition (I missed about half of the 5^th edition and the whole 6^th, in addition to the start of the 7^th). I started again with Space Marines and chose Iron Hands chapter tactics (a moment of silence for the loss all Iron Hands players suffered when the edition changed) because they were cool, and allowed for a heavily mechanized force. With this in mind, I decided to convert a biker Techmarine for the army. It took a lot of effort and multitude of bits (besides the plastic space marine bike and biker used as main part of the mini, it includes 2^nd edition techmarine backpack and parts from the 3^rd or 4^th edition Iron Warriors upgrade kit, Rogue Trader Rhino, 4^th edition space marine captain and Forgeworld Titan Techpriest). The end result, in my opinion, looked great. I consider it the best conversion I’ve done so far (that’s pretty much the reason I decided to write this actually, since the paintjob is anything but). Alas, the ruinous powers were a foot when it came time to paint it. I don’t know what went wrong, but the primer came out all goopy and splattered, looking horrible and obscuring detail (this being one of only two such incidents I’ve had up to date – rotten luck that had to happen to this particular mini). I tried to fix the issue, but couldn’t find a way to strip the mini without having to start over and likely get some replacement bits (besides plastic, there’s also resin, metal and green stuff in the mini), so in my frustration I abandoned the project. Flash forward to last week (two years or so). I decided I’d try once more. Unfortunately the problem persisted, so I decided to cut my losses and get it on the table. End result is less than ideal (it looks horrible), but atleast it’s useable in games now (as long as you don't look at it too closely, that is). Maybe I'll make another version some time in the future and marvel at the evolution between them.

Right side

Left side

Underhive punks

As is perhaps obvious from the title of this post, it deals with Necromunda (Let's get you in the mood! Here is a playlist I've been compiling for Necromunda. I admit the two songs by The Clash might seem a bit out of place but I figured atleast some punk was practically required). I was very excited when GW decided to rerelease the game last year, Necromunda was the one Specialist Game I was waiting for the most. I originally discovered the game by accident, finding the Underhive rulebook (last edition of the old Necromunda, which was somewhat divisive) in a local games store and falling in love with the setting. I was never able to play the old incarnation as I wasn't able to convince my friends to take the plunge with me - fairly understandable to be fair, given that by then the minis were all direct only, our terrain collections lacking and the Necromunda cardboard terrain sets out of production. So, I was pretty happy (read: ecstatic) when the announcement for the rerelease came.While I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like yet (this will hopefully change in the near future as there is a campaign running in my FLGS), I have my gang of underhive scum hailing from House Escher - Suzy and the Slayers.

Suzy and the Slayers

 I went for the classic minis (great sculpts!) and a classic yellow colour scheme - none of those muted or drab colours for me, no siree! My plan is to paint one of each of the old sculpts (and some complimentary sculps like the Tanith Female Sniper and Last Chancers Warrior Woman) first and then start converting other weapon choices. The gals will of course all be named (some of the names are completely random, others have different inspirations). I just finished the latest addition a few days ago:

Rebecca, Ganger

And here's the rest of the gang. I apologise for the black bars on the pics, I was having some trouble transfering the pics from my phone. I may go back and revise them at a later date, but for now I feel they are sufficient.

Leader Suzy and Champions Helga and Rosa

Gangers Kasumi, Anja and Irina

Gangers Sophie, Lizzie and Eri

Juves April, May and June (would you believe me if I told you they were triplets?) and Fio

Lastly, Lizzie's backside. Ten points to you if you guess where the name comes from.

I told you I was subtle, didn't I!

Now, if I could only find the mini I bought to use as a Rogue Doc for the gang. She seems to have vanished into thin air.

Apocalyptic Weekend

Everyone knows those times when it seems everything you want to or need to do or are invited to seem to happen at the same time. This weekend in general, but especially yesterday has been one of those times for me. While fun, it can be a bit exhausting. On friday we played D&D for the first time after a pause that had somehow gone on for quite a while. It was a one-shot in which our characters had been hired to protect a local Baron's daughter and then had to rescue her from kidnappers and their employer, an unstable elven sorcerer going by "Paljasjalka" ("Bare foot" in english). I saw this as an opportunity to paint and use one specific mini I had been itching to use but which doesn't really fit into anything else, so I based my character on the mini and painted it earlier during the week.

Yosuzume - an Aarakocra Monk

I don't play any historicals, so I haven't really painted anything this small before. I have some 10 or 15mm (IIRC) samurai that I bought by mistake/deceptive photographing somewhere around, but so far I haven't really had any use for them.

Yesterday was the really hectic day though. One of my friends works at a video game company and she had invited me to attend an event they were holding for friends and family. The NDA was pretty strict so I'm hedging my bets and won't name the company or write more about it besides mentioning that it was cool, and I'm glad I was able to go despite having to leave early. The reason I had to leave early, was that there was a 40K Apocalypse game being run at my FLGS which recently moved into larger premises. I got there during the first turn and my forces (Beholders, some Assassins and a Knight) arrived at the start of the second turn, reinforcing Dark Angels, Imperial Guard and Tyranids. The other side had Orks (WAAAGH!) and Necrons.

Brutal corner of armor, artillery and lascannons. My whirlwind joined these and some of the frontline units were destoryed (that Knight included), but mostly this corner stayed the same for the duration of the game.

3rd turn

3rd turn. Those Lynchguards popped up from a Monolith that got destroyed and proceeded to wipe out my Terminator and Apothecary and badly wound the Dreadnought.

It turns out the Ork players had had most of their heavy stuff exploded before I arrived, so the game wasn't all that close (we won), but it was fun and everyone seemed to be having great time. One of the highlights for me was a Stompa charging (and squishing) my already wounded Callidus Assassin in a spectacular overkill.

"Uh oh"

After the game I had a sauna evening with some friends with sauna (how suprising), grilling, drinking and games on the agenda. We played Secrect Hitler (a consistent favourite), Captain Sonar (new game I'd gotten - the idea is that there's two competing submarines and each player has a distinct role - either Captain, First mate, Engineer or Radist) and Mario Party. Fun was had by all, altough I have to admit atleast I am paying for that fun today.