Vampire Raiders - Fire & Ice

Steve from Third Fate Creations just emailed me the latest WIP image of the second Vampire Raider - or twins, fire and ice. Both are around the 1/2 to 2/3rds complete mark, with detailing to go... which in itself is pretty impressive. The last of the trio is the Hunter variant, which will be the next surprise to hit the inbox (suspense indeed). On to the pretty pictures;

Updated - Purple crystalline pattern added to the wing plates;

And now at 95% complete...

And the twin... WIP

Also at 95%...

Note: both Raiders have the glow effect applied on the underside now and match closely.


Stay tuned for the third member of this trio of winged death...

Craftworld Dras'Volharr

After some back and forth design concepts with Steve, manipulation, twists and turns - A rune has been chosen to represent Craftworld Dras'Volharr. The Sun Dragon Phoenix, Eclipse and Sun combined to give meaning to the namesake - in Eldar, Dras'Volharr translates to Tempest of the Desert's Shadow.

It will be a couple of weeks before the stencils are sorted out, then the War Machines will be the first to get this new glyph added to their armour.

Planetscape progress...

Elliot from CustomTerrain.net has just updated me on the latest with the Planetscape. He has finished off most of the detailing work for the board, picked out a new colour set and completed the rune tiling - very happy indeed. So, a few happy snaps of the progress;

Jes Goodwin Jetbikes en mass

... Or "field of furious carrots", if you prefer.

Navin from PaintedFigs.com has come back with a shot of the 47/60 Jes Goodwin Jetbike resculpts. In short, that's quite a few twin linked shuriken catapults. The full compliment of Jetbikes and styles are more than I can count on both hands at this stage, from the Games Workshop variety, to custom sculpts and resculpts... of all shapes and sizes.

These new additions will certainly be quite interesting when I swing by the local GW store. The next tricky bit is finding a means of storing them all.

Note: The two shots below were WIP - gems have been coloured in etc beyond this.

Next up, Swooping Hawks!..

Vampire Raider WIP - More frightening than your Mother-in-Law

I'm not normally a Monday person, unless I have good news in my inbox. Ok, so I lie, this gem came in Sunday night, but i'm still excited about it the next day.

This is the first of two Vampire Raiders, twins of a sort, with a Vampire Hunter escort - to be flanked with a full compliment of 20 smaller aircraft (four of each type). I've included both Steve's WIP Vampire Raider and Matt's Phoenix Bomber to contrast the two styles. Good times for one and all - stay tuned as the remaining two join the fold.

UPDATED - Seriously, Steve does NOT mess about:

Steve's blog entry for this insane update can be viewed here.

Vampire Class Flyers docked at Steve's

Just had an update from Steve over at Third Fate Creations. Looks like he has been a busy lad (actually I kinda feel a little bad for him). Two of the three have undergone some heavy work build wise, with the third due to arrive at his place this week. Once the third Flyer (Vampire Raider) has been built, the painting begins. These are the first War Machines to undergo assembly and painting.

The next batch after these will be the Forge World Phantoms, followed closely by an Armorcast Warlock Battle Class Titan. Last of the batch will be the Revenants (the kids) and Towering Knight Destroyers.

Eldar Phoenix Bomber

Just had a couple of images drop into my inbox over the last 24 hours, each ramping up the excitement levels as the painting progression unfolds ;)

Matt from Above the Tabletop has been busy getting this one down right and approved before I send off the full batch of flyers (four of each type eventually - 20 total).

Stuff it, i'd normally write more, but really the picture speaks a thousand words.

The underbelly of the fuselage is all that's left, with a blue power generation glow from the wing tips and nose of the fuselage, and bone colouring etc. When these images hit the inbox, i'll append them to this post. EDIT: Underside shot now appended below;

PS: I've also had word from Steve in the US that the Super Heavy Flyers have arrived - stay tuned ;)

Rogue Trader Eldar Incoming!

Wondering what makes Dave squeal like a teenage Beatles fan? The following might just do it ;)

After hitting Bartertown, WargamerAU and CCM mailing lists, i'm slowly getting a decent sized Rogue Trader Eldar force assembled to fill in the story line for Craftworld Dras'Volharr.

Before I go any further, if anyone has batches of old Guardians to offload - please get in touch as I am actively looking to fill out these squads :)

To give you a snipet of information, the Warhost is sent to a former Maiden world, now desolate, to investigate a long lost Eldar Starport. If you're thinking "Hey, that sounds alot like the 8x6 table being built", you would be right.  An Ancient Bone Singer to repair a damaged Webway Portal, and Whiteseer of the Black Library to reactivate it, play significant roles in releasing the Rogue Trader era Eldar trapped in limbo, all due to the portal being damaged before reintegration occurs.

In short, a reunion of new and old Eldar ensues, providing a reason for all editions of Eldar to be displayed as a single unified force. You're probably saying "Screw the story, show me the goodies!", by now right? Well ok then...

 

Storing the Warhost

"The time had come, so Marvin went..." - Yep, with almost 1,800 Eldar miniatures coming back in batches, I had to seek out some foamy goodness to begin storing the buggers in. It's a good thing I waited to see Luke from The Sound of Machines before I did so.

About a month back when I began looking, Luke had flicked me a message saying "hold out on that thought, I know a guy, who knows a guy". Truly, Luke is Saul Goodman's day job alter ego. So I popped into where Luke gets his painting on, at The Combat Company.

Turns out these folks have some funky ModiFX transport cases that happened to suit my needs. Just to give them a whirl, I picked up two. These suckers are VERY rigid from a miniature shielding perspective and the outside pockets pack down well enough that you can stack 'em nicely

Given my immediate need to house a bucket load of infantry sized models, I nabbed two of the 6x1" foam tray kits, for 216 individual troop slots - although they come available in all sorts of height configurations. The packs set me back $100 each, Games Workshop's versions are respectively $165 for 240 slots.

 To give you an idea, so far i've stored the following in one case;

70x Dire Avengers (Exarchs have their banner poles - with a snip or two)
50x Warlocks (well 47, three are off being painted)
22x Jetbike Warlocks (off their bikes - they could have fit though)
30x Harlequins (all metal... mmmmmm)
12x Shadow Spectres (a little snipage required)

I can honestly say that i'll be buying more foam in the future as they pack a lot into a very small space comfortably. Note, i'm not affiliated with this lot in any way shape or form, I just believe in credit where its due for such a decent product :)

The fact that the owner has a bunch of Rogue Trader Eldar, that his significant other is painting up, just makes me like the place that much more.