Benmannens Dark Eldar

Retro Mandrakes

So I've been playing with a lot of the least attractive choices in the Dark Eldar codex, and I figured I would give Mandrakes a try again.

And to my surprise they have been awesome. They do need to start with a Haemonculus for the shooting attack to be activated from the beginning. But it's awesome to Outflank them. With all that S4 AP4 shooting and 5+ inv & FnP they are a serious threat, especially with a Heami with a Liquifier Gun.

They have been my MVPs in every game they have been in!

Here they are, my first unit of ten:

Retro twin Sybarites

The old metal Sybarites are a little bit too "HQ" looking but I guess even Sybarites would be quite stylish... And they look like they are equipped with some kind of poisonous weapon which is perfect for representing my Venom Blade equipped Sybarites.

What's on Benmannens desk right now: Retro Hellions conversion

Hellions seem a lot better in 6th ed. And the Baron is a great deal so I decided to collect a bunch of old ugly Green Goblin Hellions. It was trickier and more expensive than I thought. They were so bad in the old codex that few played them, and it didn't help that they were considered butt-ugly. If someone used them they ususally had a small unit of five or so. Which means noone actually had a lot of them, they must have been one of the worst selling models in the Dark Eldar range.

They can be found on ebay but go for a lot more than they should... I got my hands on about 16 of them, and started to glue them together. And painted up a test model. It was REALLY uninspiring. They look very similar and the hair is just too much. Ever for a circus army like mine.

So I went back to the old fluff and tried with Wyches glued on instead. It actually looks good! They cannot use Hellglaives though. They are too oversized for them. It looks strange, so I'll just keep them as is and hope nooone objects.

And the Baron is in the works. I've got an old Sybarite that might do the job.

The Soul Reaver

Don't know if you have heard about of this one, but it's a new adventure module for the 40k role playing game.

I don't play it and have no idea how the system works, but figured it would be a fun read. Or at least have some nice illustrations for inspiration.

WIP Retro Venom

I haven't posted in ages. Life came in between again but I am slowly getting back to production mode again.

I've given up the list restriction I had for the Retro list. It would be fun to add the new stuff but still try to build it all with only old pieces.

The first one is a Venom. I had an old Raven Strike Fighter with too many layers of paint on it. It's front got sacrificed, same with a built Vyper. Did a head swap on the pilot and magnetsed 3 Warriors on it.

2 will have Splinter Cannons to represent the Venoms Splinter Cannons and the third one is to represent a Warrior unit embarked.

Retro Beastmasters and Warp Beasts (Khymerae)

Here's a couple of pictures of my first completely finished unit for the Retro Kabal. I've actually started to like the old stuff more and more. The range got a lot of charm. Even the pig looking Warp Beasts...

I only had one spare Skyboard, but it was actually better to put one on foot, now they don't look identical... I wish there were more Beastmaster models. I'll have todo as everyone else and use a Wyche.

It's begun!

So I have started the retro project I mentioned in the previous post.

I was hesitant at fist, and had to try a test model first. It came out great. Dark and not at all as I remembered the warriors... It's nice and skinny, the helmet is big but not comically big (but close). I added a simple lightning effect to the eyes that sold it to me. This could actually become a cool army. Or at least in my eyes :)

Basing would be crucial. I had to come up with a cool basing concept. I have armies with rocky bases, green grass, dead grass, brown grass, snow and mud. So I had to stay away from those... I had a bunch of yellow grass, and thought that some of the new Vampire Counts skeleton plastics could be used for basing. Just stick some skeleton parts on the base and flock it with yellow grass. That turned out after a few attempts to be a great contrast color to the dark paint job of the mini.

My local gaming group had a flea market recently and I got some great deals at it. The old Dark Eldar is not even worth anything as scrap metal :) So for very little money I got between 2000 and 3000ps of minis! I even purchased 5 Hellions, and those are a bit rare. They were so crappy and expensive to buy that few had more than 5 or 6 of them. I got 3 more off an Ebay auction the other day so I'm up to 8 at least, so they are fieldable...

I've painted up 10 Warriors and 3 Wracks, and I have to say that I have really started to like them. I appreciate they inbred, decadent, dark and horrific feel of the sculpting. The do, much more than the current range, feel like a race thats is dying, stuck in old ways, with old technology, dying because they are killing themselves.

So I'll keep working on it. The list is not very competitive but could be fun to field. It's a quite standard list with a little bit of everything. Probably not enough vehicles and anti-tank but it's got some.

A new (old) possible project

I saw a really old army being played at a tournament last year. Some guy who just didn't care to upgrade to the latest collection of minis, and I don't think it was because he liked the old stuff better, the whole army was badly painted and quite banged up. He was a gamer, not a painter...

But it was very inspiring to see the old stuff being fielded. As a buddy said when I told him about my project, great, why not paint up the ugliest range GW has ever produced... Something along those lines.

You have probably guessed what I'm about to do. I've dug through all my bitz boxes and have found a lot of old stuff. I probably have about half an army, 8-900ps or so. All I need are a couple quick purchases and I'm ready to go.

So how can I make i different from my current army? And why would you do it?

Well a challenge would be to create an army list ONLY using troops that existed in the old codex. So no Trueborn, no Bloodbrides, no cronos and so on. If I use beasts, I can on field Khymerae, they are the closest unit type in the new codex. Wracks are Grotesques.

Before I commit to this I'm going to build a few Warriors and paint them. Basing will be very important, since one of the rules will be that I cannot convert them at all! They all have to be stock and in the exact poses GW cast them.

I was thinking of making skeleton bases. Skeleton parts in mud, and some simple flock. Jungle theme was one idea, and that might contrast well to the b&w color scheme I will go with. Maybe I'll try them both.

So here we go. Time to bring out the stuff GW made in the previous millennia :)

Cronos Parasite Engine x 2

The twins are ready for some testgaming. I suspect they are as most things, a lot better in multiples. I've tried to field a single Cronos and it did not do as well as a Talos. So I'll give them a serious try. I might throw in a third one or add a Talos to soak up some damage with and keep the heat off the twins...

Angry Hornet list v1.0

I painted up a bunch of Scourges and Hellions a while back and tried them a little but not enough. I liked them both but didn't really had a list built to take advantage of them properly.

The Baron has always performed well, he is quite cheap and adds a fun element to the army. I haven't tried a Haemonculus Ancient yet. 30p more for some increased stats and also make the Casket of Flensing a nice choice for him. BS5 will make it a lot more reliable, as random as it already is.

So a list all on foot is the plan. A web way portal is always nice to mess with your opponents mind and plans, the Baron will let me decide who goes first about 70% of the times and I really have to give the Cronos Pain Engine one more serious go. It performed quite bad the last times I have tried it. So to really know I have to use 2 of them. 2 regular Talos is probably better and I can find points to upgrade them to that later, but distributing Pain Token to this army will be a great thing. But as often is, what looks good on paper sucks on the battlefield :)

The list has a decent scoring that includes a large unit of Warriors that will take the centerfield and soak up lots of antiinfantry shooting... Hopefully.

I will start playtesting it soon and post the results. I only need to build one more Cronos, the rest is all done already :)

This is the force:

1750p Angry Hornet v1.0

HQ

Baron Sathonyx

Haemonculus Ancient
Webway Portal, Casket of Flensing, Venom Blade

TROOPS

16 Hellions
Helliarch

6 Hellions
Helliarch

20 Warriors
Sybarite w Venom Blade
1 Blaster, 2 Splinter Cannons

6 Warriors
1 Blaster

6 Warriors
1 Blaster

FAST ATTACK

9 Reavers
Arena Champion w Venom Blade
3 Heatlances

6 Scourges
Solarite
2 Haywire Blasters

6 Scourges
Solarite
2 Haywire Blasters

HEAVY SUPPORT

Cronos Parasite Engine
Spirit Vortex

Cronos Parasite Engine
Spirit Vortex

Army total: 1748

Asdruabel Vect's Dais of Destruction

It's finally finished. A dark simple paint job as usual. The crew is bald, and Vect has as mentioned below a wig on... I'm a bit tempted right now to paint up a retro army.

Only old ugly Hellions, warriors and a bunch of Raiders. The old Grotesques were quite hideous too so they might qualify.

Anyway, here it is. The Dark Lances and Vect are magnetized. And you might ask, where are the slave girls... I decided not to add them, I just couldn't paint them in a fitting manner, I might try again with a monochrome paint job...

Who has the biggest wig in the universe?

Here's Asdrubael Vect finished. And does he have an impressive wig. That's gotta be the biggest hairdo in the 40k universe!

The Dais of Destruction is next. If I don't finish my new Voidraven Bomber :)

Tantalus and Reaper first outing

Ok, the title is no entirely true, I have tried the Reaper before but this was my first use of the Tantalus...

I played a list I'm considering for a tournament in April. And I want to use all the wacky/rare stuff in the Codex to confuse my opponents. Basically maximising the chance of them not having a clue of how to deal with the stuff I play with.

So the list has 2 cheap Archons, both with blasters one with shadowfield and one with a portal! Its got 2 (!) Court of the Archons, some wyches in raiders, warriors in splinterracks raiders and jetbikes. The portal is there mostly to mess with my opponent and is nice to have in Dawn of War missions...

I tried the list vs an Eldar army with a seer council on foot with a bit of everything in it... It was a bloody match in the end with him keeping a few models alive in too many units claiming him the victory.

The Reaper survived the game, it missed 3 out of 6 shots... So unreliable as it's always been. It's too much of a gamble to fire the focussed shot but if you hit it really pays off. I think if you do play with it you should have 2 of them. The Tantalus got immobilized turn 2 but it's cannons did ok. Not worth the points as expected but a lot of fun to deploy. It got smashed to pieces by a Seer Council that should have been wiped out but my dice had other plans... Everything else got destroyed.

Not the most exciting list to be honest. Too many points in fun stuff, and too many vehicles. But I'll try it at least one more time vs. some Marines...

Beer at a recent Tournament

I went to the tournament a couple of weeks ago. I ended up bringing the double portal list with just a single Raider.

I figured since everyone brings tons of anti-tank I would simply just deny that and only use ground troops on foot. Hellions kinda count.

Playtesting showed that it actually did quite well even though in a comped tournament would considered a very soft list and in this one which is basically uncomped was laughed at :)

Which is good. My opponents struggled to get to grips with my list and underestimated it a bit. Also 2 of my opponents had barely played against Dark Eldar before and that of course was a big deal.

There were 7 Blood Angels armies and I got to face 4 of them! Mephiston twice... Usually Mephiston is not that much of a problem for Dark Eldar, some poison shots, a coupleof lances and then polish him of with an Agonizer, but with my list he could do whatever he wanted. Over two games I think he killed 5 Taloses and a couple of units...

I realizes quite quick that BA are a fairly good matchup for DE. They have a fast aggressive army and so do I. They fight well but I have more troops and good enough close combat units. It all comes down to my 3 Jetbikes with their Heatlance. They came out of a portal and popped a Landraider in two games. And that was crucial. I beat 3 of the BA lists, and lost against the one that sat back and played defensively. Hellions were awesome against them, lots of poison Dakka and good close combat as long as there were about 10 Hellions left with the Baron.

I only had 1 slightly boring match I would say and that was against a dull Tyranid List. It was basically only 3 big swarms of Genestealers, a couple of Big Guys and some of those anti-tank-you-get-no-cover fellas. We hit each other round 2, and then sat and rolled dice for 5 turns and he came out on top. No tactics, not much manouvering. I got to choose the fights though but it didn't help.

I had one fun match against the new Necrons. I like the new Codex, they have a lot of toys. He had 3 monoliths and a couple of troops/HQ skimmers. And a lot of crypteks with a S8 shot... Those are great on large numbers, and still fairly cheap. I got lucky, came out with my Jetbikes, blew up a large transport with 10 ish necrons in it with a Cryptek, assaulted them, WON the combat and ran them down! Not bad for 78p! My opponent then kept rolling insanely bad the entire game. Worst dice ever, so a bad matchup turned into a fluke win.

Great tournament overall. It was nice with a staffed well stocked bar and 6 games over the three day weekend did not feel like it was too much... Maybe the beer helped.

My MVPs were the Jetbikes and my trio of Talos. They rampaged through the BA armies I faced. They smashed monoliths and Genestealers left and right. For only 115p they do wonders. The list felt well balanced. I had a bunch of different units, some doubled or tripled if they were essential, but others I only had one of but since I stock them exactly where I need them thanks to the portals, they were enough.

I had a couple of matches where basically the outcome depended on if the heatlance would hit or not. One shot,if I missed they would die and I would not have much more that could do the same damage to a vehicle. I hit every time.

And yes, that's a HUGE Red Bull can. Great combo with beer :)

What's on Benmannens desk right now: Kheradruakh

So what HQ is never ever used by a sane Dark Eldar Archon (if there is such a thing)?

Kheradruakh the Decapitator.

Expensive, fragile, NOT and Independent Character and so on. Lots of crappy special rules and fights so-so. Seems like he would never be worth his points especially since he is not allowed to join any units.

So of course I have to try him out. I got me another Urien Rakarth mini and stuck 4 arms on him. Done. Almost done. In the illustration in the DE Codex he is sitting on a pile of sculls so I got a Micro Arts base for him.

Now. Done. Just gotta paint him. Updates will follow.

Portals vs Space Wolves

Got another practice game in today. I'm starting to get comfortable with the list. An interesting Space Wolves list was on the plate... 3 Rhinos, 2 Predators, Wolf Lord w 3 Wolfie buddies, 9 Missile launchers. All vehicles has troops in them. And a Wolf Priest with some dakka spells. I played the same list as usual but took out the Clawed Fiend and a Harlequin to be able to fit a small unit of 3 Reaves with a Heatlance.

I won the roll off to go first thanks to the Baron. Picked sides and deplyed 2 units of Harlequins. He deployed everything. I moved up a little bit and dropped both portals. He ran in with his Wolf Lord and slaugthered a unit of Harlequins and the Haemonculus... I think I put a single wound on the unit... Next turn the Baron and Hellions showed up.

Luckily.

Otherwise they would probably have beaten up my entire army.

26 poison shots from them and some other support dakka later there was a single wolf rider left with single wound... And was beat down by the Hellions. They got their precious Pain Token. No Talos showed up unfortunately.

(this was just after the Hellions had finished his Wolf cavalry)

The Baron and his posse passed a buuuunch of 3+ covers + FnP and went in circles on the field assaulting and even used their Hit and Run ability... So did a rampaging Harlequin Unit. The two last Taloses finally showed up turn 4 and that was the last nail in the coffin.

Losing the Wolf Lord and his 3 buddies turn 2 was a big blow and the army never really recovered. I mangaded to use my speed and the portals to the max, even the latest additon (Reavers) was great.

The list feels quite good. Reliable for being an all-reserve list... And I have enough redundancy that crappy reserve rolls don't hurt too much.

I have noticed that my Raider usually survives! Nightshields have actually protected it in serveral games. Especially vs Orcs with short range shooting. It staying alive is a good testament of my army putting on a lot of pressure. I'm used to having all of my vehicles destroyed byt turn 4 or so... So this is a nice change :)

The Talos were MVPs again. Warriors do nothing but grab objectives. Hellions with the Baron were awesome. They actually work in larger numbers. I could use 3-4 more but can't find the points.

Duke Sliscus finished

I keep working on my Trueborn army, and the current version is led by the Duke.

I was tempted to green stuff a morning robe in him, holding a White Russian, but went with a more serious approach :)

It's a simple conversion based on a Scourge model, hydra gauntlets, a Venom Blade and a head from some sprue.

The Duke Sliscus ready for battlefield action:

3 Grotesques

Just wanted to show what the finished Grotesques I posted about earlier looks like. I tried different color schemes but as usual fell for a black & white look.

I found 2 new shades of grey that I have never used before: Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey and Stonewall Grey. Cold grey has a bit of dry earth to it and it was perfect. That together with my favorites Black Grey, Dark Grey and GWs Black Wash nailed it. I also gloss varnished those small red tubes on their backs.

Old school Haemonculus

I don't really have any good Haemonculus models. I've made 3-4 converted from the old style Mandrakes... I've got a couple of the old Urien Rakarth, that I might alter and make a trio, ur use this one as a Haemonculus Ancient, if not used as Urien.

Very little was altered. I just shaved his head :) The whole mini was painted in about one hour.

Tantalus WIP

Just a quick pic of a the Tantalus that I just glued together. I basically put the whole thing together as delivered. The only non-kit part is the head of the driver, I stuck a Hellion head on him.

I didn't add any warriors hanging off the sides, I liked the look of the small single driver of this behemoth. it's BIG. It's hard to tell in the picture but you can see the driver att the back...

The 60mm base it's supposed to have looks tiny under it.

The kit itself was the hardest to put together of all Forgeworld products I've bought so far. Not that it was complicated but the pieces were quite warped and I had to heat them up and adjust about a third of the pieces. I had problems with the crew area and the brass parts. The fit seemed a bit off, but worked out in the end.

It just struck me that I will have to make a new huuuuuge crater for it. Probably the size of 3 or 4 Raider craters. 

Can't wait to try it out in a game!

Venom markers/coasters

I made 3 coasters for my Venom :)

It's been a bit hard lately keeping track of what is mounted in the three Venoms I field with my Harlequins. I keep disembarking end embarking, so I came up with the coasters/markers you see below. I just numbered my Venoms and made copies of a Venom illustration, numbered it, and glued it to some card stock.

Basically I just stick whatever is mounted in the venom on the coaster, and put one of the minis at the back of the actual Venom... so far it's kept the confusion to a minimum.

What's been keeping me busy lately: Codex Harlequins

I've been quiet for a while, and there's a reason :)

I've been working on a new 40k project that isn't really something for my Dark Eldar blog, but I have decided to share it with you here anyways :) It's using a lot of Dark Eldar minis so I figured it is somewhat appropriate. I hope you have seen lots of the Harlequin inspiried conversions and units below.

But to take it from the start, it started with me wanting to expand my Dark Eldar army with a unit I had never fielded before: Harlequins, as they are an Elite choice and quite pricey I decided to get a bunch of them :) It sucked, you can read more about it in posts below. They end up costing around 300p for a unit of 10 if you tool them to the max. I scaled it down to an almost barebone unit of five for around 100p and that made them awesome point for point.

I got my hands on some old Harlequin Jetbikes and stuck new plastic Reaver riders on them, and my force started to look a bit themed :)

But it ended there, I had an idea of painting up some raiders checkered and making a Talos of the old harlequin Wraithlord... And then all of a sudden I read about the inofficial fan-created Harlequin list.

You can find the PDF linked in the first post here:

http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=54897.0]http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=54897.0

Anyway, I read it and loved it. It didn't seem overpowered, had lots of conversion opportunities and I had basically half the army already done! Forgeworld had just released the very cool little Eldar skimmer called Hornet, I ordered one of those. The codex is based on Gavs old Citadel Journal list and so it kept Venoms as transports, from his list, which was a simple purchase, straight from the GW DE range :)

The Solitaire is a must piece, and an old GW classic, mentioned in the current codexes, I made him with parts mostly from Scourges and Wyches.

The paintjob is quite simple. Black and white themed, with some details of red and blue. Mimes have rainbow haircolors, Harlequins have random single colored head pieces.

I'm adding some more Mimes and Death Jesters, am working on them at the moment.

Here's an overview of the force. It's about 30 Harlequins supported by all kinds of goodies :)

That's the Mockingbird in the foreground:

The Solitaire:

Great Harlequin:

Two Shadowseers:

Master Mime:

Mimes:

Harlequins (with Warlock in the foreground):

Death Jesters with Shrieker Cannons:

Mocking Bird:

Venoms:

Harlequin Jetbikes:

Harlequin Spiritwalkers:

That's it so far, you might have seen a lot of of these before below but some stuff is new. As mentioned I am adding more and more. I think the Master Mime has to be left at home, he just doesn't pull his weight.

I am having a lot of fun with the list, am 1-2 in games so far. A good win and two huge losses, but all were fun games. The list is a lot of fun to field and quite challenging to win with. You have a fragile tiny army that packs a lot of punch but struggle a bit with vehicles.

Borlänge Smackdown 2011 1750p tournament list

So another tournament is coming up in a couple of weeks. This is probably this summers only tournament for me, there are quite a few in Sweden this summer for some reason, but this one seemed like fun. It's quite small, 24 or 26 players, they use a komp minimum with no benefits of having a softer army except looking manly when deploying :)

So I'm going to try a fairly simple list. Feels very traditional. Lots of boats and troops, backed up by a Voidraven Bomber and 2 Talos. I am playtesting a new type of Archon (for me), the Djin Blade + Blaster combo. Just got me a Finecast mini and build me a quick Archon with just that setup...

Anyways, here's the list, I'm playtesting it tomorrow night vs a Tau list, so that could be quite a challenge:

1750P BORLÄNGE SMACKDOWN v1

Archon
Blaster
Djin Blade
Shadowfield
Combat Drugs

Haemonculus
Hexrifle

3 Wracks
Venom w Extra Splinter Cannon

3 Wracks
Venom w Extra Splinter Cannon

10 Warriors
Splinter Cannon & Blaster
Raider w Flickerfield

10 Warriors
Splinter Cannon & Blaster
Raider w Flickerfield

8 Wyches
Haywire grenades
Hekatrix w Agonizer
Raider w Flickerfield

8 Wyches
Haywire grenades
Hekatrix w Agonizer
Raider w Flickerfield

4 Reavers
1 Heat Lance
Arena Champ w nVenom Blade

3 Reavers
1 Heat Lance 12

1 Voidraven Bomber
2 Necrotoxin Missiles
Flickerfield

1 Talos
Chainflails & Twinlinked Haywire Blasters

1 Talos 100
Chainflails & Twinlinked Haywire Blasters

Army Total 1750
RT komp 49

8 Pain Tokens (torture style)

Just finished the Pain Tokens mentioned in the previous post... Based them in the same style as my army and moved on to sticking riders on those Harlie Reavers.

What's on Benmannens desk right now: 5 Harlequin Reavers and 8 Pain Tokens

Just a WIP update. I got my hands on 5 more of the good old Harelquin Jetbikes, bringing my total up to 8... I've been trying out 2 units of 4 and it's been pretty good.

I've been trying to come up with a good Pain Token solution and I just realized I had a easy way of making them. An old raider was equipped with Trophy Racks, made out of Warhammer Flagellants and a lone Kroot... I just cut them off and stuck them on small bases, and voila. 8 Pain Token!

1500 War on Hope campaign list

I might play in a campaign soon. It's been really long since I participated in one, and it's usually me that organizes them, but it's hard to keep peoples interest... This one seems promising, quite a few participants and I don't know most of them which will be nice. New opponents, and new lists to face.

So I decided to start the new list based on some fluff, and try out the new units GW just released minis for. Also I want it to be led by a Succubus, since I rarely use those and then of course throw in some drug-using units. I went for a alternate weapon choice for the Succubus, just Razorflails, I figured he-she would only go for infantry and vs Marines she would do about as many wounds as with an Agonizer, maybe a little bit less but enough. I like keeping her cheap and I have a great idea for a Succubus conversion that would look great with Razorflails... So I have to keep her with that. I might after playtesting add a Powerweapon or an Agonizer, but she is keeping the Razorflails :)

A Haemonculus will be needed for a "free" Pain Token, and he will act as an advisor to the Succubus. I also want to try out a 7 strong Scourges Unit, a Cronos and my favorite flyer, the Voidraven Bomber.

The campaign starts at 1500p and can reach 1650 if you conquer territories that confer extra points. I built a 1500p and a 1750p so I can practice the list in regular 1750p games, they are quite similar.

So I'll work on some background fluff, the campaign requires a little bit of writing, and I'll get back to you about it.

Here's the 1500p list, for you that use the RT comp system, it scores really high (well) at 67.5(!!), the 1750 scores 58.5.

HQ

Succubus
Razorflails 10
Haywire Grenades 5
Total 80

Haemonculus 50
Liquifier Gun 10
Total 60

ELITES

5 Harlequins 90
4 Harlequins Kiss 16
Total 106

TROOPS

3 Wracks 30

Venom 55
Extra Splinter Cannon 10
Total 65

3 Wracks 30

Venom 55
Extra Splinter Cannon 10
Total 65

10 Warriors 90
Splinter Cannon 10
Blaster 15
Total 115

Raider 60
w Flickerfield 10
Total 70

8 Wyches 80
Hekatrix 10
Agonizer 20
Total 110

Raider 60
w Flickerfield 10
Total 70

FAST ATTACK

7 Scourges 154
Solarite 10
2 Haywire Blasters 20
Total 184

4 Reavers 44
1 Heat Lance 12
Arena Champ 10
Venom Blade 5
Total 115

4 Reavers 44
1 Heat Lance 12
Arena Champ 10
Venom Blade 5
Total 115

HEAVY SUPPORT

1 Voidraven Bomber 145
2 Necrotoxin MIssiles 20
Flickerfield 10
Total 175

1 Cronos 80
Spirit Vortex 20
Spirit Probe 10
Total 110

Army Total 1500
Komp 67.5

Here's a pic of the Scourges halfway through painting, and the Voidraven Bomber in the background. I made a correct flying base for it, it looks really tall but that's how it's supposed to be.

10 Mandrakes (cast in resin)

Here's my first unit of 10 Mandrakes, some of the first units to be cast in Resin of the Dark Eldar range. There's been a lot of talk about miscasts, and my batch suffers from it a bit too. The feet were almost all deformed. And small clumps had gathered around small detailing. Nothing major but enough to be a problem if you invest a lot in the new resin stuff. I'm so used to perfectly cast Forgeworld stuff that this seem a bit sloppy.

But it's a huge improvement from metal, I've said it before and will say it again. I won't miss the metal. It's so much easier to work with and it's not as fragile as some seem to think it is. I like the switch to resin.

Anyway, here's the first unit and I might add another soon.

Cronos Parasite Engine

A couple of crappy shots of my newly painted Cronos Parasite Engine. It does look better in real life.

I like how it came out, the vials was hard to paint. I painted them all blood red, bit it didn't look good so I mixed it up with some puss looking fluids. And topped it off with a racing stripe. :)

I'm going to test it in a couple of games over the next few weeks for evaluation, I have made a list that should benefit a lot from it.

What's on Benmannens desk right now: Finecast Mandrakes

So what else is quite bad in the Dark Eldar army?

I tried Hellions, they sucked a bit if you rely on them even the slightest. But the models are great and I won't give up on them yet.

Next up were Harlequins, next weekend is the LinCon tournament, so I shouldn't hand out the verdict not quite just yet, but so far they have been a very expensive investment.

I have a small unit of the old Mandrakes, I tried a small unit in a game or two, aaaaaaand they sucked. So hey, there's my next project! A Mandrakes army! The new models look like they are on their way to a Misfits concert. I saw potential in them if I just could swap out their heads, but them being cast in metal stopped me.

So what happened last weekend, the Stockholm store packed up eeeeeverything in metal and shipped it back to england and filled up the shelves with beautiful resin cast minis instead. It's a big improvement if you ask me. Converting and adjusting will be done in minutes. No more pinning, no more wearing out clippers or breaking saw blades. Nicely done Games Workshop. But you will give us cancer... But hey it's worth it :)

So I got me 2 boxes of Finecast Mandrakes and clipped the heads off, I ebayed a bunch of plastic Daemonette heads a while back for a Slaanesh Chaos Space Marines project, and stuck those on them. Fit perfectly. I boiled some water and stuck them minis in and adjusted the limbs a bit. I'm not sold on the flaming left arms, but I decided to keep them, I might paint them in a subtle way to blend in discretely.

Here are the first six and a bunch of bases getting ready for more. I'll probably build the full 30 of them.

Razorwing Flock

This must be one of the strangest (ugliest) units in Games Workshops Dark Eldar range. It's just too plain, everything else they release is quite nightmarish, but this is just too common looking. And expensive, for 12.25 USD you get 3 small birds only enough for one base.

There's been a bit of discussion on forums of how to build this unit using other minis, I think I found the best alternative. Forgeworld sells the Tyranid Ripper with Wings Swarms. They look great and cost 17 Pounds, which is a little more than 25 USD. The difference is that you get 9 minis, more than enough for 3 bases... So Forgeworlds alternative actually only cost 2/3 of GWs miniatures!

That must be a first!

And the sculpts are beautiful. I've painted up three of them and I love how the look in game.

This is what they look like:

Day one Game 2 and 3

It was a busy day one. Just as we finished our first game we had to move on to game two. It was now early evening and all of us had only had breakfast so far... I had a fancy snack gobbling down a whole bag of chips...

I played against a really nice orc player with an army at the same comp as me (12 out of 20). My dice were on fire and he was new to the Dark Eldar in action so I got to widdle down his numbers and then beat him up in close combat. Had a lucky first turn where I blew up his big dread and killed a bunch of boyz with my Venoms. He played quite defensively and I got to capitalize on that.

A Wyche champ survived alone fighting about 15 Boyz weathering a gazillion attacks with some nutty invo and feel no pain saves for 2 turns! I got a 16-4 win in the end. A fun opponent and a great "first" real tournament game. I don't play against orcs that often but one thing I have learned is that there will be lots of close combat and you do not want them to assault you. It's better to go in and hit them when they are only S3.

The last game for the day was against another fellow member of Rogue Trader, he fielded a nice Black Templar army with a little bit of everything. 2 units of Terminators in drop pods a large unit of Marines in a drop pod, 2 Rhinos, Emperors Champion, some bikes and the rest Marines basically. I've played his army before so I knew what to expect. He played quite defensively and rolled high scatters on his drop pods which allowed me to attack and isolate his units with beasts and Wyches. I killed off a few Terminators with shooting, assaulted the rest with Wyches and killed them. Enough numbers still kill them, and I shot down his Marshal. I almost wiped him out and got a 20-0 win.

So a pretty good day one after all. We went to an overpriced Indian restaurant, had some food and beer and then crashed.

Day two to follow.

Day one Game one

Tre train was delayed with 3 hours this morning. So we were 6 players stuck on a train risking to miss game one and basically loose all chances of getting a decent placement at the tournament.

We got hold of the organizers and they promised that if we were not more than an hour late we could play each other and at least score some points.

The train rolled in with a 15 minute window to their deadline. We jumped into cabs and actually got there in time.

Each game is 3.5h so there was plenty of time left in the first round even when we were 1h late.

I drew to play Marshal and his great looking wacky Tau army. Had not faced it before but I had a Tau army myself so I kinda know what they do. He won the roll for first turn. I deployed my portal raider in pretty good cover.

He still managed to blow it up turn one.

And then they failed their pinning test.

He then killed 2 out of the unit next turn and they failed their Morale test!!! Luckily they didn't run off the board. So a disastrous start, he also killed my Talos turn two... But I hung in there and managed to claw my way back into the game. I took out most of his Troops and got more objectives in the end. My better comp took it up to a 9.5-10.5 loss. I'm happy with that result after that start and it's never bad to get a drawish result game one.

It's on tomorrow!

Tomorrow is day one of GothCons 40k tournament. The Baron was fielded today for a last practice game against my buddy Hawks Space Marines.

It was a fun bloody mess and I had about a quarter if my army left in the end and he a little bit more, but the Comp difference brought it up to a small win in my favor.

So I only have a single 9-11 loss out of maybe 10 practice games and that to Hawks Eldar.

I have won every single roll to go first, many thanks to the Barons ablility. Which is a bit bad out of practice point of view I guess.

There are 125 players registered and my goal is to end at at least 25th place but Im shooting for the gold :)

BenmannenNoob for the win!

Wish me luck and check back here during Easter weekend. I'll try to post often.

Ravager pics

I found some old photos of what my Ravagers look like. The color is very off but at least you can see what the look like. Forgeworld used to sell a model called Razorwing, that they unfortunately don't cast anymore. I talked to them a couple of years ago about making more and they said that the molds were worn out and the ones that existed in stores were the last ones ever! I lived in LA back then and found one in the Battle Bunker store and had 2 previously so I do have 3 of them but that's it. They are quite rare on Ebay as well, I haven't seen one in a long time.

I swapped out the wings (which look way too small in the pictures, they are much bigger in real life). My version has the front of an old style Raider as wings, other than that it's pretty much the same model. I have cut down the flying base rod so it's a low ridin' Ravager :) True Line of Sight...

What's on Benmannens desk right now?

10 more Hellions in the works!

I've got this old 4th ed Angry Hornets list that I like with 3 units of Reavers and 2 units of Hellions that might actually work with the new Codex. They are coming out of 2 portals under the command of Baron Sathonyx backep up by some Radiers and 2 Talos.

I only have 8 Hellions painted for my Dark Eldar army, this will bring up the total to 18 for 2 healthy units of 9 :)

And in the foreground is Lelith still waiting for the makeup artist to take her on. She is next in line.

On Benmannens desktop right now

The Expansion of the raiding expeditionary fleet continues. Which reminds me I should post pictures of my Dark Eldar Battlefleet Gothic fleet... Promise to do it soon...

Well, you have seen it before, it's my Voidraven Bomber. I posted about it a while ago, here are just a few more pictures of it. It will be my next painting project, after that 10-15 Hellions await glue and paint.

Talos (based on a ForgeWorld Blood Slaugtherer) finished

I finished the Talos, I do like it but it's something that is bugging me with it. It's not perfectly right, but good enough to play with... The paint job came out nice and dark. I guess it looks as tough as it is, so I'll play test it tomorrow vs some Orcs. I'll try to take some pics and post mid-game :)

The first 8 Hellions finished

The new Hellions are such awesome addition to the army, the old ones were so ugly you just could not put them on a gaming table. Out. Of. The. Question.

The new release is a huge improvement looking at the sculpts. Unfortunately they have not performed for me ruleswise, but I'll keep using them... I actually got 3 more boxes of them, so I can try a list with three big units :) But here are the first 8 finished. Same black and brown color scheme, but I added a racing stripe to the Hellboard and the Agonizer is painted blue for a change.

Almost no conversions except the bald heads of course :) I stuck them on brass rods as usual instead of the supplied transparent rods, there's BIG conversion for ya!

The Baron with new Friends v1

So I've played a couple of games with the Baron and Friends list, and boy do Hellion suck compared to everything else you can spend your points on. They just have no punch and less staying power. The loose big even with the Baron in the unit. But I just don't want to give up on the Baron yet. His +1 to go first have payed off in 3 games straight!

So I just made a mix of my 2 lists. I posted my Baron list on a forum to let the tournament organizers give me a preliminary comp, and they gave me low comp on it, so it doesn't matter really. I can play my tougher army anyway then. But I have to make it a bit more fun to play. So as mentioned, maybe a mix might do it. Here's an attempt at just that:

The Baron with new Friends v1.0

Baron Sathonyx

Haemonculus
Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun & Webway Portal

8 Wyches, Hekatrix w Agonizer
Raider w Flickerfield

7 Wyches, Hekatrix w Agonizer
Raider w Flickerfield

6 Warriors
Blaster
Raider w Flickerfield

5 Warriors
Blaster
Venom w extra Splinter cannon

6 Hellions
Helliarch w Venom Blade

4 Kabalite Trueborn
4 Blasters
Venom w extra Splinter cannon

2 Beastmasters
5 Khymerae
1 Razorwing Flock

2 Beastmasters
5 Khymerae
1 Razorwing Flock

2 Beastmasters
5 Khymerae
1 Razorwing Flock

Ravager w Flickerfield

Ravager w Flickerfield

Talos w Chainflails & Twinlinked Heatlance

Army total: 1750

A shot at making a new type of Talos

I made my two Talos I have a long time ago. I got my hands on some kind of Warmachine dread and stole parts off it and created a flying cable remote controlled Talos. I used a Incubi as "driver" and it felt pretty nice at the time, but now I'm really over them. Also they are a bit small, They are a bit cheesy gamewise since they are a lot easier to hide than the real GW Talos.

So I decided to try put a completely new type of Talos together based on the Forgeworld Blood Slaughterer. I have one painted up for my Chaos Rengegades army and it's an awesome model. BUT I wasn't sure if I could strip it down so it would fit on a monster base and still look as nice. Well I ordered one and glued this below together. I'll paint him up quick and try him out in a few games to see if I like the look of the new Talos, if I do like it I'll get 2 more...

Well first I'd like to show some pics of my current Talos, these shots are a bit old. I have actually removed the flying rod and stuck them on the base to be able to actually take use of cover :)

So this is what they look like:

And here are some shots of the new style. I wanted the Talos to look more like a tank. My old ones were much more fragile looking as you can see above. This one is more of a crazy beefy Gorilla.