Skål's Dark Pirate Raiders

 Another OWAC in the books. Let us take a moment and toast all of those that took this challenge on and over came all of their personal obstacles. Each of us face challenges throughout the year and at times we forget that we need to spend a little me time as well.

This month I had a little bit of time and really wanted to get a little more painted up, so I knocked out 10 Banshees/Wych's to add a little more variety to my force.

This OWAC I had a goal to make a playable Dark Eldar army for 3rd edition but also make sure that I could fit my miniature selections into a Eldar Pirate army for 2nd edition. 

I also wanted to to add a few missing elements to my Eldar army. Wraithguard and Dire Avengers have been on my list to paint for a while now and being able to finally play them is awesome.

The Incubi and the Talos are going to be beasts on the table for the Dark Eldar and will be fun to field in a Eldar Pirate force. I am excited to drop the Talos on the table as a Dreadnought/Wraithlord.

I had this vision for how I wanted to do my Hellions. I really wanted a Green Goblin vibe to them. They needed to have that dirty smoke plume holding them up instead of the clear flight stand. My buddy Brian (you are the man) printed these off and I am super stoaked with the way that they came out.

Points wise I kept it basic. I matched up the Dark Eldar models with how I would use them in a 2nd edition Eldar Pirate army. The break down is below to include points as well as what I would use them as.

• Archon/Farseer: 170
• Warlock: 51
• 10 Dire Avengers: 220
• 10 Wraithguard: 350
• 10 Incubi/Striking Scorpion's : 260
• Talos/Dreadnought: 160
• 5 Hellion's/Warp Spiders: 205
• 10 Wyches/Howling Banshees: 270
• Grand total: 1686

Till next OWAC I will leave you with a toast

“Here’s to a long life and a merry one. A quick death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer and another one.”

Skål

ZeroTwentythree's Post-OWAC5 Undead Wrap-up Post (2,089 pts)

Post-Challenge Wrap Up

"Season of the Liche"

Mighty, Bright Winged, Slightly-Off, Lord of Undead, ZeroTwentythree, with his Mighty, Slightly-Off Undead Army

Based on this year's Intro Post, one would have thought I was planning to paint a pretty straight forward undead force. A fast-attack "wing" for my always growing undead army. But here we are. Things don't always end where they were planned at the start. I'm not going to say that's necessarily a bad thing. I had a lot of fun with this army challenge.

All of these photos are larger than I usually post, click/tap to enlarge.

Full army glamour shot

Full army glamour shot

 

The Liche, dismounted, treating Candyman, Phil the Spectre, Sexy Wraith, and other friends to some soup & salad at his henge cafe, The Slab & Ditch.

Step 1: Soup & salad. Step 2: skeletons.

This wasn't even supposed to be part of my challenge army, and it's not exactly old, but it fits the fast attack & death from above themes well!

Cavalry. This is probably where things first went awry.

We come with PEACE

My own version of the Plague Cart emerging from the Field of Bones, re-animated OWAC-ers in tow.

CAW!

The Liche sets out from his swank and freshly redecorated tumulus accompanied by The Overlord, Assistant Overlord, The 'Nurp, and Rainbow Death

Aside from the substitutions, a lot of the "extras" were... well, extra. I didn't plan on painting a large portion of this, or any of the terrain. So this was a very ad-lib army. The core remains the same: liche, infantry regiment, two small cavalry regiments, a plageue cart, and carrion. And much of that was on the table from the start. It just took a weird twist. Of those, only the cavalry figures were swapped out. So here's the grand total, re-calculated from scratch because somewhere along the way I screwed up the book-keeping.

Army Totals

 

The Liche (lv.15) w/undead horse, pistol.................................... 247 pts 

Candyman - Undead Hero (lv. 10) w/Army Standard, lt. armour........... 150 pts

Overlord (lv. 5 necromancer)........ 60 pts 

Assistant Overlord (lv. 5 necromancer).....   60 pts

25 Skeletons with light armour, shield, spear, musician, standard....... 378 pts
6 Death Riders w/Lances, Shields....... 138 pts
6 Death Riders w/Lances, Shields....... 138 pts
3 Carrion........................................................ 135 pts

1 Plague Cart....... 100 pts
1 Nightmare Legion with light armour, shield, spear....... 14 pts

Phil the Spectre.....................................................200 pts.

Purple Nurple Lv. 5 Hero w/ Undead Horse w/H. Arm., Shield, Barding............ 48 pts

Rainbow Death - Lv. 5 Hero w/ Undead Horse w/:. Arm, Shield, Lance (shhhh... they think they're a unicorn & noble rider).. 45 pts

Sexy Wraith.............. 150 pts

Dragon.............     0 pts
Undead Hero (lv. 10) w/ lt. armour, shield.......................... 58 pts

Undead Hero (lv. 10) w/undead horse, lt. armour, shield... 68 pts

Wight.................................................................................    100 pts

Henge w/stone circle, soup, salad....................................    unlimited skeletons

Total........................ 2,089 pts

A fun project! It's really going to be hard to switch gears (and mindsets) to something different. I could probably stretch this out into a "part two" next year. Or I could switch back to a more serious undead contingent. I still have all the original cavalry I had planned to paint, after all. Maybe a return to sci-fi/40k? I suppose there are any number of options...

...skrtch..skrtch...skrtch...

...hiding in the shadows.

Lissanne's Rainbow Warriors- Rank & File #4 (460 pts) I can drive my very own Tank!

 

Well, my gallery show in April probably put a halt to me doing the proposed land raider during this OWAC (not to mention banners), so please accept this humble deodorant grav tank in its place as my Oldschool offering of the month. I had this lovely translucent deodorant container sitting about for years- I coated the inside blue and it looks killer, like it was airbrushed.  Here is the Grav tank Azure Sky.  

 

I got through 7 of the terminators from the Space Hulk list, and sort of burnt out. But here are 7 more Wonderbolters.  I will do the last necessary terminator in Wild Card month (already started actually) and the big extravagance, and who knows what else?  Time will tell.  I tend to paint till the last week on Wild Card.month

Zipp Storm and Misty Fly

Fire Streak and Sun Chaser,  with the assault cannons

Star Hunter, Ribbon Sweet and Silver Zoom

 So I switched to a squad of space marines I will need for the 12 squad challenge I am doing elsewhere. I got through 7, but for the other 3 I have to order more sisters heads, and they won't get here in time.  These are Stratus' Skyrangers, but the Stratus figure will have to come after this OWAC.

Sky Stinger, Angel Wings, Pink Pony, Sunburst

Mountain Haze, Sunbeam, Wildfire (with the Flamer)

And I retouched and rebased 3 of my previously done Rainbow Warriors, but they don't count for points

High Winds, Mane Moon, Cloud Kicker

So, this month:

7 Wonderbolters terminators 42 pt each  294pts
   Extra weapons- flamer, chainfist, 2 assault cannons- 55pts
7 Stratus Skyrangers space marines- 15 pts each  105 pts
    Flamer- 6 pts
3 retouched/based older terminators 0 pts
Grav tank  0 pts (because it's not in 3rd edition,it's just cool)

Total 460 pts

The obligatory I found these marines picture prepainted.

 And all of this month's figures!

  

And I found out my army does function as it's supposed to... off the tabletop.  I met my friend's child for the first time, visiting my house along with my friend.   He has now chosen to be a young man, and just finished his first year of college.   He saw my Rainbow Warriors, and excitedly said "Are those Gay Space Marines?".  I answered, " Yes, they are!"  then, "Would you like to learn to play Warhammer?"  "Yes" he said.  He will return to college in the fall,  and the ranks of 40K players grows.

Lissanne's Rainbow Warriors- Three is the Magic Number (200 pts) Leader month

 

 

This month, I decided to do my command figures, in order to get some sort of buffer back.  THEN I got a great opportunity to have a solo gallery show in a widely seen gallery.  The condition being it is open when I sit there.  Fortunately, despite a heavy workload, my plans didn't completely fall apart.  And as there can't be really extravagant basing either, since these are for Space Hulk, that helped too.

In my initial blog post, I pointed out I am working from a very specific list of terminators for a series of Space Hulk games.  In the list, there are 2 different command figures, a Librarian and a Chaplain., These figures don't pair to make a command squad in 3rd, but I decided to do them both in my command month. In addition, I decided to do a (non-list) Hero, Rainbow Dash.  Gotta have Rainbow Dash!

Years ago, dissatisfied with the tiny terminators,  I sculpted my own body for my Khorne terminators.  Terminators were supposed to be midway between Marines and Dreadnoughts, and the wearer sits inside them.  So large.   I used doggie juggernaut heads for Khorne, and they look wonderful and scary. So scary, that when I fielded them, even the Space Wolves found something else to do on the far side of the board.  Ah well...

But I have a few bodies I cast still laying about. So, proud hero Rainbow Dash.  I had a spare pair of Exarch wings I bought off the bits man many moons ago, perfect for this!  Add a unicorn head, and a bolter I cast from an unreleased metal giant bolter I got from GW, & here is my scratchbuilt offering of the month.

More Rainbow Dash

 The chaplain and the librarian are conversions so they have sister heads and weapons proper to that aforementioned Space Hulk list.  Also, I was given a bunch of weird paints for Xmas, one was called Mirror Black. So I decided to try for a mirror black chaplain.  I like to use my presents!  
So,Aspect of Luna unicorn of Death-Chaplain Midnight Strike.  

As for Mirror Black, read shiny shiny black.  And stinky.---meaning I turned out to be allergic to the paint.  So it took more time than I would have liked.  It looks nice, but I won't be using that paint again.
 
Lastly, Aspect of Celestia unicorn of Life-Librarian Dawn Wings.  I had decided to do this one in a NMchrome last year, as I have done 2d chrome many a time and wanted the practice on 3d objects.

 Well, I should have looked more closely at the figure, as not only is it heavily converted to fit my army list, but less than half of the fig is armor, and a lot of that is in shadow.  Still, I like the way it came out.

So....
Rainbow Dash hero
Chaplain Midnight Strike
Librarian Dawn Wings
 
Since they are individual command figures rather than a command squad, I'll just take the 200 pts for leader month and call it done.

Not sure if I will do my 4th Rank and File or Wild Card extravagance next month.  I have 3 terminators already done for R&F, but the rest of April is busy.  We will see.

Paul's High Elf Light Cavalry - Rank and File Month Two (165 pts)

February is my second 'Rank and File' month and also my second cavalry month. This time it is the light cavalry of the Ellyrian Reavers.

"In the time of Caledor, the Phoenix King called for brave young horsemen t ride the troubled land, for in those days all Ulthuan was in turmoil and the armies of Malekith roamed freely, destroying and slaying at will. Many answered his call, but the greatest in number by far came from Ellyrion, a land renowned for its fine horses and skilled riders. During the long and bitter war that ended in the Sundering these riders served Caledor well, travelling quickly and secretly across the land, taking messages and soliciting support from amongst the Elven lands, shadowing the enemy's forces, ambushing patrols, and intercepting raiders." 
High Elf Bestiary - Games Workshop

The first thing to say is how much I enjoyed painting these minis. I love the sculpts of these older versions of the Reavers but didn't expect to enjoy painting them as much as I did - that might be partly down to an ongoing choice about 'gems' on High Elf minis that I may discuss in a later post. I opted for a golden yellow and a bright blue, deliberately lighter than I've used in some of my existing units. 

The 'eagle eyed' among you (not even sorry :p ) will have noticed all five of these are actually the standard bearer sculpt. I'm not entirely sure how or why I ended up with 5 standard bearers, but the eagle topped banner poles add great character to the unit and I've taken the opportunity to add more foil streamers after being happy with how they looked on the Dragon Princes from last month.

I realised that, as with many High Elf sculpts, I'd painted a lot of detail that was going to end up covered by their shields, so I took a few pictures before adding the shields, and was in two minds as to whether I would, as I was quite happy with the paint jobs.

As with the Dragon Princes though, I really wanted to use some of the 4th Edition plastic HE shield designs to tie in with the character of the unit, and I'm glad I did.

So here's my output in points for month two:

5 x Ellyrian Reavers, with Bows, Spears, and Shields (33 pts each) - 165 pts

Total for the month: 165 pts
(a little under target of 200 pts per month, but on course in terms of numbers of minis, and still ahead on points on average over the two months)

I also rebased and touched up an existing unit of Sword Masters of Hoeth this month, finally getting round to adding a simple banner.

According to the High Elf Army book, the 'P' rune is named Ceyl and stands for 'Law, order, justice, passion, sword that draws blood.' The 'h' rune is named Lacoi and stands for 'Might, glory, fear of death.' Taken together I'm intending them to mean something along the lines of 'mighty swords of justice' which seems apt for a unit of Sword Masters.

I was just admiring my completed unit and going to put them back on the shelf when I realised I was one short...

The sneaky bastard musician had ended up lumped in with a unit of archers so cost me another few days of waiting for PVA and sand mix to dry in the middle of three back to back storms before I could get him finished. 

There always bloody one, isn't there!

Even that's not the unit completed as I've decided I want four more to make a unit of 20. Not sure I'll get those done before the end of the challenge, but we'll see. Anyway, here are the Reavers and Sword Masters together, getting ready to repel Dark Elf raiders in the late winter sun :) 

February was also the month I decided I was going to bite the bullet and try and build, paint or update my entire High Elf army this year. Yikes! So more second hand minis went in the dip and more hideous primary colour monopose spearmen got the flocking they've been so badly in need of since 1994.

Next month promises a big unit of Lion Warriors of Chrace and possibly some other stuff too. Bon courage to my fellow OWAC challengers, and thanks for reading! :)