Updates 1/17 - chariot action

I thought I would post some more Work in Progress photos. I been pretty busy lately, so i haven't gotten as much painting done as I would have liked, but I did get some rough color put on. I figured I'd post these photos for Joe, and who ever else wants to see them, as the WiP is always pretty cool to check out. The first picture is my chariot crew from the finished chariot. These are the guys with the magnets, which I still think is super sweet. As you can possibly tell, I got them to stand up with the magnets, using a GW file.




The next photo is one of the second chariots cold ones. I have just put the first coat of orange paint on. Orange is a pain in the a$$ to put on over black, but my skills with painting over white are non-existant, so I do what I must. Since I leave the scales black, you can get a decent idea of how he will look eventually. The other fellow is a Reaper Bolt Thrower crew member. Yes, thats one of the old school guys. I am not sure why I am using them, but i had them, and I am. So one Reaper will have the new crew, and the otheer will have the "veteran" crew. Note: both Reapers will be the new style though, b/c its way sweet and old ones look dumb, in my opinion.



The final photo shows my painted chariot next to my unpainted one. As you can see, i have chosen on the new one to reverse the colors. So the first one I did, I used a dark brown for the wood areas. Then for the main metal areas I used chainmail highlighted with Mithril, and then old school gold for accents. On this one, I want to use the same brown, but make my main color gold, and use mithril silver for accents. Any thoughts? I think it will look ok. I am going for cohesive, yet distinct.

I am also very excited for the Vampire Counts books to get released in a little over a month. I am fairly certain they will be my next army, and so I should be in a good position to start them in June.

Works In Progress

alright, I am going to attempt to chronical my production of the Dark Elves, and my other minatures a bit better on here. Its just the hassle of getting the pics and loading them. Anyway, my Dark Elves have been a four year labor of love, though my obsession with WoW for two of those years means most the painting has been done in the last 12 months. At this point, I am making a lot of headway in the army. I really only have 4 completely untouched units to do, two of which you will see here. A chariot, a unit of 15 spearelves, a unit of witch elves, and some shades.

The unit to the left is my second chariot. Its been a LONG time since I painted my last one, but I think doing a war machine will be a nice change of pace from little elves, so I am excited to start on it. Also, I tried a technique to use rare earth magnents to attatche my charioteers to the chariot base, to make for easier storage and transport, and it worked like a charm, so I'm excited to repeat that process here.

The unit above is my third, and final block of spear elves. None of my three spear units have any command, their main job to be a rallying point, and a cheap provider of a +2 combat resolution. Despite that, they are a decent defensive unit, and make a decent offensive weapon when paired up with 5 dark riders to a flank. I usually paint these fellas in batches of five, and so you can see the first five are in a middle stage of constuction. a few highlights, some details here and their, and they will be good to go.

The unit to the left is my first chariot. As you can see, the chariot is painted, but the riders need to be painted now. These are the boys I got to stay on the chariot using magnets. Its a slick little trick inspired by Shawn O's magnetic standard top, and it is working awesome. Basically, these are the three things I'll be working on right now. polishing off some spear elves, and then breaking that up with my charioteers and my other chariot. This should be a good lot of things to paint up, as all three are fairly unique from each other, which should hold my interest.

Once these are done, I can start on the final two units... just in time for the Vampire Count release... or at least shortly after that... haha.

Battle Time

Well, my brother and me had to renew hostilities with our local gaming partners, to commemorate my brothers triumphant return from Rome. Since Joe is off being a seminarian, he no longer has an army of his own, and we were forced to borrow one from our competetion. After a lengthy discussion, he decided to field the vampire counts to join along side my Dark Elves, again this year. Joe brought a magic heavy 1500 point undead force led by a Necarch Lord and 3 necromancers. I brought my standard army, trimmed to 1500 points, and focus on my usual small combat unit style. Our only shooting was my 2 obigatory Reaper Bolt Throwers. We expected to face off against a combined Nurgle Chaos army and Skaven force, but instead turned up and found out we were playing 2 Chaos forces... so much for my flying terror causer. The 4x6 board lent itself well the chaos force. The 3000 point battle meant cramped quarters, and this allowed the chaos units to use their superior hand to hand combat prowess to gain an early advantage, that looked almost insermountable. The vampire magic phase was a complete dud, even included the scary miscast on the army general. The dark elves couldn't break out to use their speed to hit the choas flanks and he bolt throwers were completely ineffective, with the dice going stone cold on any rolls... truely the chaos gods must have been intervening. Things turned around from there though. Seeing the mounting desperation around them, the witch elves launched a frenzied assualt on the chaos slave giant, counting on their poisened barrage of attacks to see them through the giants toughness. This they did (after the giant flung the hag into the unit behind her, killing her and wasting her manbane), and a poor break test by the giant saw him break, only to be chased down and hacked up by the witch elves. This created a gap in the chaos line the elves were able to exploit, and they went pouring through. Both sides has some horrible luck (chariots failing to wound on charges, miscasts, and chaos warriors breaking to a terror causer on the last turn) but in the end, the speed of the dark elves, and the undead's ability to raise and repair units, proved too much for the choas hoarde. The Dark Elf & Vampire alliance triumphed again, missing a Solid Victory by only 31 points. In the end, it was a hard fought and fun game. Both sides had moments of horrid luck, and both sides had points at which it look as if they would run away with the game. Hopefully, the 5 hour extravaganza was enough to slate joe's thirst for Warhammer until the next time he can come home.

photo 1 - Joe, inspecting our battle lines.

photo 2 - DE chariot and skellies combine charge nurgle knights, only to get counter charged by the spawn. Notice the Plague Bearers in the back, enjoying the RinP fun of "Curse of Years"

photo 3 - Early on, the giant is about to die. The chaos knights near him have too many targets to charge. The Khorne Juggernaut engaged in the combat he'll be in the next 5 turns! Notice the croweded conditions of the Dark Elf & Vampire line, awaiting the full Chaos charge.