Dark Eldar - Results

I would say that my 3-5th games with them at the local tournament were promising. I see problems with the list (obviously) but am contrained by a desire to paint what I have and a lack of models, although I will discuss what I think needs to change below.

I played Space Marines, Space Marines and Blood Angels.

My first game, I went first and my Wytches were caught out in the open with two bad fleet rolls (1 and a 2) and were unable to make HTH in turn 1. One squad was destroyed, but the other was able to get the job done. The incubi and lord made it to hth and did as expected, murdering bikes, and marines equally by the end of the game, and killing all the troop choices. The Archon killed a librarian in round 2 (you will see a theme here)

My second opponent went first, so I reserved my entire army. I was able to come on and get immediately into hth in round 2, with the incubi and the lord sweeping up a flank and killing everything. By the end of the game he had killed another librarian as well. The incubi finally were destroyed by thunderhammers after killed in excess of 20+ marines.

My last game is the only one that caused me real problems as I ran face first into 3 blood angel devestator squads with 12 missiles, an obvious problem, but one that I had a hart time countering. It was a mess to be honest, but a blood battle. The archon killed Memphiston and another librarian in that game, and quite a bit of other units died, however I was not aggressive enough, fearing blood angel HTH (wrongly) on turn 1. It would be interesting to play again, but this time to be more aggressive.

I definitely see a need for much more anti-infantry shooting. I see two easy places for this in the codex, that being in Venoms with their 12 poisoned shots or by running a jet fighter and taking the standard missile load out. For reasons due to survivability, the venoms appeal to me more. I made a test list up that had another 4 venoms, but I think I need to reshuffle.

I also was not impressed with the blast pistol, which will be coming out of all of the lists from now on. That is 60 pts I can better spend somewhere else. I liked the wytches with haywires quite a bit, and liked the hydra gauntlets, but was underwhelemed with the shardnets and impailers. I believe that they are best against units they never ended up being in hth with.

The Shock Prow + multiple torment grenade launchers + Aethersails worked well, allowing me to put a -3 roll on devestator squad and escort them off the table.

Dark Eldar - Test Model Day

I often ask my wife for her opinion about how I should paint an army.

I then generally ignore her. I don't do this in any contrarion sense of spite or anything so normal. I enjoy her opinion, but most of the armies that I have painted tend to be very... manly. Space Marines are a man's army (as manly as we can be while playing with plastic dolls that we name ourselves). My marines I wanted a split scheme and I had to deal with a Dark Angels pallet (Dark Green, Black, Bone and red highlights) and my tau I wanted to be a cityfight army (they are mixed light and dark greys, very WWII german).

My Dark Eldar however are a cross between insane super-villian and twisted dark fey. My wife is a energetic ball of lightning with a healthy dose of mescheveous glee thrown in. I've always thought that if she did play 40K, that Dark Eldar would be her army. So I am painting this army, according to my wife.

So of the models, I have airbrushed the dark purple on all of the Warriors, Wytches and my Archon. I've also darkened in some of the recesses.

Tonight I will take one lone wytch model and paint him up completely to make sure the scheme will work, but I feel confident. Here is how I am painting them.

Dark Eldar Armor
75% Liche Purple/25% chaos black mix. Base coat with airbrush
Make a light wash 5% chaos black, 5% Purple Glaze, 90 % water, put in the recess
Liche Purple, (watered down slightly, don't work with straight paint) on the highlights
Liche Purple 75%/Skull White25% Edge Highlights
Liche Purple 50%/Skull White 25% as a final Highlight

Instead of doing bronze or gold as the DE in the book are, I will be doing boltgun metal/chainmail/silver on these parts.

I will doing the GW directions in the last White Dwarf for the skin, so far it is an interesting skin tone, very palid, and skinny/gray. I will finish the model tonight and put him up tomorrow morning.

Dark Eldar Painting Plan

Each time I paint an army, I try and learn some new tricks that I can (hopefully) use later. The last army I painted was marines and I did a lot of weathering on the army. However, I don't believe that Dark Eldar should be weathered, they probably spend more time cleaning their armor, then they ever do fighting, and when they do appear, they come right out of the city to fight. It's like going to a party for them, and I'm sure they are going to want to be at their best.

So, this time I want to try and learn how to paint an army that usually takes me a year, in six months, because I would like to kick my tournament attendance to twice a year, as opposed to once a year. I'm looking at going to the GT in Dallas in April, or perhaps to the Kalm Before the Waaagh once it has a fixed date this year... and bringing the DE to one or both.

Now, to assist me, I will be picking a non complicted color scheme, and trying to work that color scheme up to a great level. My marines ended up being a split scheme, which is great, and unusual, but hard as hell to pull off.

So, first off, instead of doing a unit by unit as I did with my marines, I am doing the entire army as follows: Infantry, then Vehicles. About 50+ infantry at the moment, then focus on the 8 vehicles I want for my base army (5 raiders and 3 ravagers).

The infantry at this time are put together, based and base coated.

Step One: Over the next week I will pick a base color and use my airbrush to spray them that color.

Step Two: Go in with a darker wash and get in the recess of the armor of all the models.

Step Three: Highlight with straight Liche Purple (my base color is Liche purple and chaos black I think)

Step Three: Highlight with Liche Purple+ Something else... not sure what

Step Four: Highlight the very edges where armor meets with the second color

At this point I would figure that 60% of the model is finished. I'm not sure how I am going to handle the metal and other non purple parts, as I have not made a decision on any symbols etc.. on the army. I can tell you that I like the GW markings and intend on using those.

A few questions for anyone that reads this:

1. Do you think the Wytch Raiders would bear the symbol of their Wytch Cult? If so, would I then have an army of different marks, and would that take away from the army effect?

2. Are Incubi rather like Aspect Warriors, and the black with white helmets are their trademark look? If not, what if I painted them in inverse colors from the rest of the army. I haven't made a decision about my accent color yet, but they would be that color with purple as the accent color.

Void Dragon Corsairs

So I am seriously considering starting a Dark Eldar army when they are released in a few months. I still have at least a thousand points of marines to paint (perhaps closer to 1500) but I can do those when I need a break.

And right now, I need a break from Marines!

Anyway, I am waiting for the codex before I pull any type of trigger about it. You can't say I haven't learned my lesson from the great Dark Angels debacle of 2008. (When I dropped the money for the codex and the army in one go... then read the codex and wanted to weep bitters tears of anquish)

At any rate I hear at the moment that the new Dark Eldar will cause me to "nerdgasm" and be amazing, and I expect since Phil "Glorious Eldar" Kelly is writing it... they won't suck.

My next problem is that... I really don't get behind masocistic slavers. Sorry, maybe it's the Southern in me, but slavery = not cool at all. Now.... they also are raiders and... dare I say... pirates... and that is something that I CAN get behind.

So whatever direction I choose to go with them, I am sure that they will be more raider/pirate themed like the Eldar Pirates of Rogue Trader then the True Kin of the Dark Eldar. I was doing a little research and stumbled upon a Forgeworld Model for the Void Dragon airplane, which is used by the Void Dragon Corsairs, a group of eldar pirates that work with Craftworld and Dark Eldar. They also have a bitching scheme (red dragon scales?! Sign me up!). In addition to working with Dark Eldar, I may be able to do enough conversions so that the army could work as either Dark Eldar for now, then perhaps later switch it over and work with Craftworld Eldar... depending on who has supplied their equipment recently.

I even had this idea for a board where the soldiers are playing cards and drinking rum, and maybe my Autarch/Dark Eldar leader has an eyepatch. Argggggg! Where's the Rum!

I've also considered doing a purple army as well, as I have never painted an army that color. Whatever I end up doing, I can promise you that I will make HEAVY use of my airbrush.

On a small note, I should be able to pick up my paint to finish my game room tonight and get it painted. I'll take some photo's of that.