Eldrad Ulthran

Finished painting Eldrad Ulthran. Really fun model with many small gems and details. Some parts of the model was painted several times in different colors before I could decide on a scheme I liked.
I should probably add some runes (transfers or freehand) to the cloak, sometime...
Overall, I'm very pleased with how he turned out!

Eldrad Ulthran, front

Eldrad Ulthran, back

Finished models

Painting of my Eldar army is progressing, although slowly ;)

So far I have finished (including bases!) one Striking Scorpion, one Howling Banshee (OOP) and one Wave Serpent. From now on I will try to prioritize my painting the models in my updated army list for 6th edition. First out will be a bunch of Jet Bikes and Fire Prisms, but as they are in their boxes right now, it will probably take some time before they are finished. 

Striking Scorpion with Scorpion Chainsword and Shuriken Pistol

Howling Banshee (OOP) with Power Sword and Shuriken Pistol

Wave Serpent in Biel-Tan Craftworld colors

Building a portable gaming board, part 4

 This is part four, here is part three.

Prior to a small friendly tournament in the beginning of June, I finished my gaming board.
I applied a couple of layers of earth/mud brown color with a sponge and large flat brush (using dry brushing strokes, but with quite a lot of paint in the brush)

Tools!

Work in progress

After three layers of increasingly brighter brown

Table ready for tournament!

 I'm quite satisfied with the result, although some lessons were learnt:

• Don't glue the MDF boards and styrofoam together until you are finished with painting
• Work with the whole gaming board all the time, don't do one MDF board at a time, the texture on the three boards will turn out very differently if you do.
• Apply paint in random patterns/circles. Don't work from one edge to another (if you mix new paint at some point, you will have a noticeable change in color on the board)
• Don't use wet sand
• Don't mix glue and sand. Apply glue and then sand. 
• You might not want that last layer of highlight color all over the board... :)

Building a portable gaming board, part 3

This is part three, here is part two.

I was not entirely happy with the resulting texture of my sand+glue mix, so I started to experiment a bit with plaster, glue and dry sand. In short I added some spots of filler to make the board a bit more even, and also to create a greater variation in the texture of the surface. I then applied watered down PVA glue over the board and added dry sand to improve the texture.

PVA glue/water mix + dry sand = love?

Satisfied with the texture I moved on to painting the boards. Starting with a base coat of black acrylic paint.

Three boards require lots of paint...

All three boards base colored.

Texture close-up

As the watered down black paint didn't cover exactly as well as I have hoped for, I might add a second layer of black before moving on to dry brushing.

My 1500p Eldar list

We have a friendly 40k tournament coming up in a few weeks. In preparation for this awesome event I'm pondering how to build a good 1500 point army able to take on a wide range of foes.

This is my current best thinking, although I would like to have at least one additional Wave Serpent and War Walker (models I currently don't own...)
The Dire Avengers will be riding in the Falcons, together with Eldrad. Scorpions will infiltrate and the Harlies will hopefully be able to run wherever they are needed without getting shot to pieces (with the aid of the Shadowseer's Veil of Tears).

Eldar (1500pts)

1500pt Eldar 4th Ed (2006) Enhanced Roster (Standard)

Selections:

HQ (210pts)

• Eldrad Ulthran (210pts)

Elites (514pts)

• Fire Dragons (185pts)
  5x Fire Dragon
  • Wave Serpent
    Twin-Linked Missile Launcher, Twin-Linked Shuriken Catapults
• Harlequin Troupe (186pts)
  2x Fusion Pistol, 6x Harlequin, 2x Harlequin's Kiss
  • Shadowseer
    Harlequin's Kiss
  • Troupe Master
    Harlequin's Kiss
• Striking Scorpions (143pts)
  6x Striking Scorpion
  • Exarch
    Scorpion Chainsword and Scorpion Claw, Shadowstrike

Troops (251pts)

• Dire Avengers (60pts)
  5x Dire Avenger
• Dire Avengers (72pts)
  6x Dire Avenger
• Guardian Jetbikes (119pts)
  3x Jetbike
  • Warlock (jetbike)
    Embolden, Singing Spear

Fast Attack (120pts)

• Vyper Squadron (60pts)
  • Vyper
    Shuriken Cannon, Shuriken Cannon
• Vyper Squadron (60pts)
  • Vyper
    Shuriken Cannon, Shuriken Cannon

Heavy Support (405pts)

• Falcon (175pts)
  Holo-fields, Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon
• Falcon (175pts)
  Holo-fields, Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon
• War Walker Squadron (55pts)
  • War Walker
    Missile Launcher, Shuriken Cannon

Profile Summary:

• Name	Unit Type	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	Save	Pg
  Dire Avenger	Infantry	4	4	3	3	1	5	1	9	4+
  Eldrad Ulthuan	Infantry	5	5	3	4	3	5	1	10	3++
  Fire Dragon	Infantry	4	4	3	3	1	5	1	9	4+
  Guardian Jetbike	Jetbike	3	3	3	3 (4)	1	4	1	8	3+
  Harlequin	Infantry	5	4	3	3	1	6	2	9	5++
  Scorpion Exarch	Infantry	5	5	3 (4)	3	1	6	3	9	3+
  Shadowseer	Infantry	5	4	3	3	1	6	2	9	5++
  Striking Scorpion	Infantry	4	4	3 (4)	3	1	5	2/3	9	3+
  Troupe Master	Infantry	5	4	3	3	1	6	3	10	5++
  Warlock Jetbike	Jetbike	4	4	3	3 (4)	1	5	2	8	3+/4++

• Name	BS	Front	Side	Rear	Type	Pg
  Falcon	3	12	12	10	Tank, Skimmer, Fast, Transport: 6
  Vyper	3	10	10	10	Skimmer, Fast, Open Topped
  Wave Serpent	3	12	12	10	Tank, Fast, Skimmer, Transport: 12

• Name	WS	BS	S	Front	Side	Rear	I	A	Pg
  War Walker			5	10	1	1	4	2

• Name	Range	Strength	AP	Type	Pg
  Avenger Catapult	18"	4	5	Assault 2
  Eldar Missile Launcher - Krak	48"	8	3	Heavy 1
  Eldar Missile Launcher - Plasma	48"	4	6	Heavy 1, Blast, Pinning
  Fusion Gun	12"	8	1	Assault 1, Melta
  Fusion Pistol	6"	8	1	Pistol, Melta
  Pulse Laser	48"	8	2	Heavy 2
  Scatter Laser	36"	6	6	Heavy 4
  Scorpion's Claw	12"	4	5	Assault 2, Power Fist
  Shuriken Cannon	24"	6	5	Assault 3
  Shuriken Catapult	12"	4	5	Assault 2
  Shuriken Pistol	12"	4	5	Pistol

Created with BattleScribe

Building a portable gaming board, part 2

This is part two, here is part one.

After some texture experiments I decided to apply a mix of sand and glue to my portable gaming board.

1 part PVA glue and 5 parts (wet) sand were mixed and applied to the surface of each gaming board. If the sand would have been dry, adding water would have been necessary. 

I used approximately 7-8 dl glue for all three boards.

I used a large brush to apply the mix onto the surface, and a roller to even the mixture on the board. 

Yummy!

One board done.

One improvement I came to think of during the work process is that I probably should have placed all three boards side by side when applying sand, to get a more seamless appearance. Although, it should be quite easy to fix with a thin second layer of sand on the edges.

Caution! Brushes and rollers involved in this process will not be usable for painting afterwards. 

Building a portable gaming board, part 1

Tonight I started building a portable gaming board, inspired by painter dad's approach. Instead of a gaming mat I'm using 4mm mdf to make it slightly more sturdy.
The styrofoam boards (3x 120x60cm) will be will be slightly smaller than the mdf boards, so I let the friendly guys at the lumberyard saw three pieces of mdf (1x 122x60cm and 2x 122x61,5cm). The 122x60 will be the center board, with no mdf outside the styrofoam on the longsides.

Applying glue

Gluing the styrofoam board to the mdf board

All three boards glued, applying some pressure ;)

At this point I haven't decided on a ground texture. Xenos world or jungle theme?

Paint and Assembly Night

Spent yesterday evening with the Warhammer Geeks painting and assembling miniatures. I finished some terrain (WIP post here) and made nice progress on my first Howling Banshee.

Home made terrain

Howling Banshee (weapons not finished)

Magnetizing War Walker Weapons

I have started magnetizing weapons for my war walker and falcon.

I bought these nifty rectangular (5 x 1.5 x 1mm) magnets from first4magnets.com for the war walker.

Eldar Missile Launcher before magnetizing

Using a scalpel, the protruding part that fits in the socket is removed

Make the new surface flat using a file

Attaching the magnet with super glue (I used the end of a drill to apply the magnet)

Leave i to dry

Voila!

The socket on the weapon mount had to be expanded a little to make it possible to fit the magnet. I used 2mm drill and a scalpel to accomplish this.

Make sure you get the polarity correct on all magnets you attach. If not, you might (as I did) need to remove some magnet to flip it.

DIY Lightbox

Created a lightbox for miniature photography, following this easy tutorial. The lamps on the sides are the cheapest I could find at IKEA (39 SEK each), the top lamp is my regular desk lamp. I'm quite happy how well it turned out for such a small effort invested!

The setup

Result of Striking Scorpion in lightbox. f/5.6, 1/5 sec, ISO100, 135mm

Battle Night

Last night Tyranids overrun Space Marines in a dawn of war annihilation game at my place. Not playing myself, I spent some time magnetizing weapons for my vehicles. Will put up progress pictures in another post.

Terrain, Ruin WIP

Started to experiment with some terrain modelling.

Base is 4mm MDF, the walls are pieces from a plasterboard. Not sure the plaster will be durable enough, but it was really quick to build something useful.

Painted with cheap acrylic paints. Brown for the ground  (will add flock on the ground), and three layers of different shades of gray on the stone pieces. The two lighter grays were sort of "wet" dry brushed, turned out ok and it was really fast.

Wraithlord and War Walker WIP

Wraithlord and War Walker WIP, been experimenting with shadows, layering and highlights. 

First Finished Striking Scorpion

Finished my first Striking Scorpion. This was a great learning experience for me, and I'm sure the rest of the squad will be much quicker. 

War Walker wip

Started painting my war walker in Biel-tan craftworld colors. So far only undercoat and base coating with Orkhide Shade, plus som minor wash details on the engine parts. 

Battle report 120318

Eldar vs. Space Marines in a 750pts seize ground match. Ended with a tactical draw, with some modifications to the rules on holding control points (of course my Farseer should be able to cap by himself? :-))
Great fun nonetheless!

Dire Avengers

Experimenting with the Dire Avenger's blue armour. Pretty happy with the result. Did a mordian blue base coat, highlight with 50/50 ice blue and mordian blue, then a washed out ice blue highlight. Finished with asurmen blue wash over the whole armour to tone down the highlights. Plan to add a thin highlight with ice blue to make it pop, but I need steadier hands...

Battle report: 120226, Eldar vs Space Marines

Sunday battle versus Andreas' Ultra Marines.
Had great fun playing my Wave Serpent and Howling Banshees for the first time. Managed also to pull of quite an awesome Singing Spear throw against a Rhino with my Farseer. Won the battle - can't wait for a rematch!

Biel-tan weapon platform

Paint job almost finished, some details left. Need to decide on basing for all units.

Biel-tan Guardian wip

White base coating, Asurmen Blue wash to define recesses. Needs white highlighting and green helmet + details.