Hi Folks,

3 weeks have passed and died since the launch of CtA25 and I already have a significant progress on my pledge.

The first 2 weeks allowed me covering the painting of the Hand of the Archon and my kitbashed Archon. 1 unit per week, as per my usual painting rate when I am fully dedicated.

Yet these last days I progressed significatively shifting all my enlisted vehicles into the “painted” section of the list. Which raised my rhythm to 3 units in one week. Anecdotally I also managed adding (finishing the details and basing) two Trolls for my Night Goblin army for the Old World… But this last comment is out of topic.

The Venoms were already started during the second week, at least for the base colors applied on hull. Then came the panel lining and all the details. I have started working in parallel on the Raider. The key reason was bound to my objective of using Wyches from the Venoms as crew for the Raider. I therefore had to make some trials and tests in positioning to see if I maintained the plan or changed it back to setting the gladiatoresses (does this word exist?) on the platformed bikes instead.

Blank mounting looked OK and additional Wych crew beyond the gunner and the pilot was quite OK looking once positions defined. It closed the fate of the Raider and Venoms: the hoovering barge will be confirmed as a Wych club transport while the Venoms will receive Kabalite gunners and maybe extra crew hanging around. Yet in this latter case the extra members from the Raider’s kit are not exactly keen on being set on venoms, except at expense of cutting through the plastic which I preferred not to at the moment (I still have to deal with my cut finger and I do rather avoid playing with sharp edged tools at least for a few weeks, time to restore some dexterity…).

The Venoms were painted as per the scheme I used for my previous Drukhari vehicles (Incubi darkness base); it made the process faster as I did not have to spend time into selecting and testing a scheme. Prepainted parts were them smoothly assembled, et voilà:

Two Venoms, built using the two options for their silhouette. One received the hooked Kabalite on one side, plus skulls from the Raider’s sprue.

The Raider has finally been set into a bicolor scheme largely inspired by others’ work found on internet. The red prow has been highlighted with a blood/gore red to make it more aggressive. Wych crew has been customized to get mor characterful models on board. The ship mistress received a whip, while one of the Wych hanging around got a net, a good tool to capture hostages and victims to be sold as salves in the Dark City market places…

The Wyches themselves were painted trying to get close to a simple black and red color scheme as one of the examples proposed on the GW webstore.

I was looking for something different from my Kabalite blue/green without entering in too many details (I ran out of 000 and 0000 brushes). Black base dry brushed with Mechanicum grey makes the work, plus my usual red recipe on armored parts (Mephiston red, glazed with Flesh Tearers Red and a bright gore red for more marked than usual highlights). Leather (XV88+Agrax earthshade) and Wraithbone/Skeleton horde touches for the details.

I am quite happy by the end result even if assembly of the prepainted parts ended up being more complicated than what I experienced previously with my other Raider and Ravager. For some reason, parts were misaligned, and it left some gaps. Fortunately enough, this is visible only if the model is flipped heads over feet, so, in the end, it is not such a big deal…

So what is left in the vow? 10 Wyches and their Succubus. Black base has been applied overnight (No need of many visibilities for that part). With the scheme already tested and the limited number of steps required to reach the same result as on the crew of the raider, I may eventually be able to get it finished before Bastille Day. Or not. It will depend on the kid’s activities now that holidays have started.

Let’s see how much time I will need…