Xenith's Xenos - Eldar, Necrons and Orks

[Majkhel]

I would throw my coin for the orange or black scheme for the Aeldari :)
Perhaps it would help you to decide weather you want a warmer or more cool look? Cause black definitely cools the overall feel, while orange heats it up.

[Xenith]

Not helping! 

 

I'm still quite torn. I think it's down to those two though. I might dig out my already painted guardians and repaint some of the purple as black to see how it looks. 

[Xenith]

I got to work on my Red Gobbo on Friday, and he's here after 2 evenings of work. I'm pretty happy. He's all contrast bar the skin and metallics. Really fun model to paint, and just in time for XMas. I just need to highlight the skin and finish the lenses on the goggles.

My actual Christmas list.

Copy of the box art done with neat Blood Angels Red Contrast.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Xenith

[StratoKhan]

Good job, very neat and tidy paint job so far. List is cool! You getting teef for Xmas?

Some of the letters are a little messy but at that size... don’t know if I could do them as good as that.

 

How did you do the baubles?

[Xenith]

Yea, I messed up a couple, but seeing as the gobbo is semi-literate, it's not like he can tell. The baubles were actually a base of liberator gold, with Blood Angels Red and Warp Lightning Green contrast over the top, I think they look ace. I'd maybe try stormhost silver next time, but I'd heard good things about red contrast over gold. 

[StratoKhan]

They have that perfect satin-like shine that some Christmas baubles have, I really like them.

Thanks for sharing the combo.

[Xenith]

So I pulled out everything I painted in 2020, and it was a fair amount!

As you can see, they're mostly the Scions of Sanguinius, but with a good amount of Nids... in models terms. In points, it's maybe <500...but also some ork and Eldar.

This was mainly mopping up gifts from previous years, but the Eldar test schemes worked well, and I'd like to spend some of 2020 getting my craftworld to a tabletop ready 1500pts. I think I currently have maybe 1000pts fully painted. I'd at least like to finish off all my Grav Tanks.

[Xenith]

So my gaming group has a Blood Angels, 2x Tyranid, Space Marines, someone has just started Thousand Sons, and as I play BA, Nids and TS, I'm thinking things may get 'samey'. I'm thinking of wheeling my Eldar out, and show them the meaning of pain. I love Eldar models. I think even more than classic SM models, and I had the goal of collecting them all, usually through ebay lots. This means I got a lot of doubles, and having more free time atm, I decided to get some out, start offloading my copies, and reorganise my Eldar into a playable army, and finally finish painting those aspect warriors.

My OG Eldar Guardian collection. I want to strip them, but the paint scheme is Saim Hann, and a lot of love went into it. I'm loathe to destroy such work without a clear path to emulate it in my new scheme.

3rd gen Dark Reapers, and OG Scorpions, meaning I have a squad of each generation now. Both need stripping.

Harlies I picked up a while ago, need some weapons replacing and pinning to bases.

As you can see when I started Eldar in 4th, I had a Harlequin obsession. Loved the models, but they were also great on the table, so I tried to get as many as possible to have unique units. I ended up with a lot of spares, now not needed because of the plastics. 'm going to keep one of each sculpt (top row), then sell the rest off.

[Majkhel]

Good luck on your journey, Xenith!
I also happen to have had a small force of the Eldar at one point in time. That old Scorpions are still fun and Reapers have always been simply awesome  (Maugan Ra is my personal all-times favourite Eldar sculpt I think) 

[Xenith]

Time to play with some Rogue Trader Eldar! Eldar were a pain to paint for me, having lots of texture and bright colours. I'm hoping contrast paints will be the solution to all my problems, so I've undercoated a Swooping Hawk, a Striking Scorpion and a Howling Banshee to test out some contrast versions of classic schemes. First, the Swooping Hawk.

Grey seer undercoat

One coat of Aethermantic Blue

Second Coat of Aethermantic, one coat of Warp Lightning on the wings, Apothecary white on the helm and wings, averland then iyanden on the sash, wraithbone then skeleton horde on the gun. Grey seer extreme highlight on top surface of armour plates.

Maybe an hour tops inc drying time. Will paint the rest of the unit in the same way.

[Sky Potato]

They look great! Im very interested in seeing how the rest of your Aspect Warriors turn out after being painted with contrast paints, I’ve got some Eldar in my painting queue.

[Xenith]

I got my Eldar out of Storage as I want to scratch my 9th ed Xenos itch. They'll make a nice change of pace, the local group has a range of armies, but no Eldar. They'll soon learn the way of pain.

As I've said before, I love Eldar models, and hoard them. I have 4 assembled falcon chassis, then opening up my storage box I found these. turrets are in the box. One is a warp hunter, the other a nightspinner, which amazingly you get pretty much a full nightspinner kit with the warp hunter, then one old school metal prism. The other 3 will be magnetised between falcons and wave serpents. I believe I actually have another chassis from the Wake the Dead box somewhere else in storage. Love me some skimmer.

I also got another unit of Genestealers done last week:

Bases rimmed and into the cabinet!

They look great! Im very interested in seeing how the rest of your Aspect Warriors turn out after being painted with contrast paints, I’ve got some Eldar in my painting queue.

Thanks! They should be good - the banshee will probably turn out like my deathwing terminator:

That's just skeleton horde over wraithbone. Unsure how I'll do the fire dragon yet, I need to get a pot of gryph hound orange, but Blood Angels red might make a great colour for them!

[Majkhel]

About the Fire Dragons - BA Red contrast will make them red, but if you undercoat them with yellow... It might be interesting. I think Vallejo had a nice yellow spray can . Alternatively gold spray perhaps? You'd have to to test it first though :P

[Xenith]

The yellow undercoat is a good idea - I need some averland anyway for some sector mechanicus terrain, might as well put it to work on the fragons!

[Xenith]

Been a while since I updated this log!

I got a game in with my Tyranids, number 4 of a Crusade campaign.

I got in my third game in the Crusade last night, and my 5th game ever with Tyranids, and I'm still having great fun - it's nice to be able to throw units away to try and clog up the opponent's objective game.

This game I was back up against the custodes in a 39PL game, 14 more than the last 25PL one - and he brought some new tricks.

The army was:

Shield captain

Saggitarans

5 sisters

Culexus assassin (!)

5 Allarus terms

My force was:

Neuro - catalyst, smite

3 hive guard

20 gaunts

10 devilgants

Lictor

Tyrannofex with Acid

10 genestealers

The mission was The Ritual, I wont the roll off and elected to be the attacker in an attempt to neutralise the shield captain, thinking that I could overwhelm them on objectives.

Poor positioing on my part saw the genestealers get shot in turn 1 taking them down to 3 models, eveyrhting else pushed forwards. The saggitarans with their flat D3 beams are pretty nasty, and took down the TFex after it melted the sisters.

Hive guard killed a saggitaran before being mulched by the Allarus who DS in my DZ turn 2, as I foolishly double moved the TFex to threaten the saggitarans leaving a small window for them to appear. The Culexus appeared behind my lines and basically chased the Neuro around, he didnt kill much ,and I got him to 1w by the end of the game, which was disappointing.

Tyrant: Artificer devs, instictive Killer, scytals, regen wounds adaptation, smite, scream, cata

Neuro - cata, smite, +1 power

Horms - enhanced resistance

Terms - devs

Lictor - fleet of claw +1 move, advance, charge

Hive guard - enhanced resistance, Obsec

Gargoyles - borers

TFex - regen, acid spray

So my first few units have begun to gain ranks and get traits, and the Hormagaunts and Tyrannofex are 1 game away from levelling up also. The Hive Guard got Obsec and shoot+perform actions without failing - it was either that or +1 to hit and wound characters - maye that would be better actually? I can still choose until they play their next game.

The TFex will likely get a weapon enhancement, the bio acid is great, but struggling to get through good armour saves, while any of the enhancements will be amazing on it (+6" range, +1D, +1S, -1AP).

Custodes go first, photo after they shot the stealers.

Allarus teleport into a small gap on the left flank. The AP-3 and D2 boltguns made short work of everything.

Charged the gaunts in, and the unit got wiped by the captain and custodes. Next time I wont charge, it's basically free attacks for them.

I 'unending swarmed' the hormagaunts, and the custodes did the same again.

Between the -2 to cast from the culexus and the +1 to deny and a deny trait on the shield captain, my Neuro really struggled to get any powers off.

Tyrannofex before melting two of the custodes, with poor rolling. Return fire from the saggitarans knock most of the wounds off it.

The view from my dead pile

[space wolf]

Nice looking nids!

[deathspectersgt7]

Really like your nids. They look great.

[Slyen]

Really like your Tyranids! It also sounds like you had a lot of take aways from playing Custodes which is always a good thing.

 

Can’t wait to see what you have next.

[Xenith]

Thanks guys, yea, I think I thought I was doing better than I was in the game, those Custodes are really hard work and it underlined how I need to up my tactical game to shield against deepstrikes, and bait and delay tough units if I can't kill them. 

[Xenith]

Some progress on my Tyranids from the A Bug's Life challenge.

I need to think of a better way to consolidate my Xenos topics!

Cross posting from the Bug's Life topic, I got the biovores done - this was a quick job, and I'll go back and paint in a hole/orifice in the spore mine launchers soon.

As I started this a week into June, You have until Next Sunday 4th July to complete June's vows. You then have until Sunday 1st August to Complete, and new Vows from 2nd August.

If you've already completed your vow, then you can make your July Vows from 1st July, and have until Sunday 2nd August to post finished photos.

Completed! And not a moment too soon as I go on vacation Monday...

3 Biovores to reinforce my army and harass my Custodes opponent.

Moving on to my next vow, my attitude since I'm running the challenge is go big or go home. I also have a load of nids to paint, so I need to step up and try to meet the 10PL/Month challenge.

Leading from the front:

I, Xenith, Tyrant of Fleet Jabberwocky pledge to paint one Hive Tyrant and 20 Spore mines for a total of 15.6 Power Level before the second of July.

6.3 PL worth of spore mines to go with the biovores (and for a cheeky sporefield strat in my Crusade games), along with my Psyrant. Been wanting to get this guy done for a while, and really need him painted for my crusade army, so time pressure, GO!

And some progress on the Mines of Sporia!

Man I love contrast paints. I got these bad boys half done in my fleet colours during a couple of episodes of Parks & Rec, a mix of my custom Akhellian tone, neat Akhellian, neat magos purple, magos:medium (40/60), neat shyish purple, apoc white. The tentacles will be in the colours of my Hive Fleets soft parts, so a 50/50 Flesh Tearer red:Medium mix.

[Xenith]

Progress on my Psyrant!

Got some more work done on the tyrant and stuck the head on at least, just the base to do now!

[Torbenos]

It's always interesting to see conversions with the armies that do not lend themselves to it as easily. I quite like your tyrant, it makes for a striking silhouette. There is something a bit more sinister to it with this head, making it seem less of a angry monster and more something truly strange and alien.

[Xenith]

Thanks! I think it looks even more sinister with the completed darker base, making the bright carapace pop.

And my Psyrant (Psychic Hive Tyrant) dubbed "The Consuming Wraith" using the Blood of Baal name generator is complete. I'm super proud of this one, and it's probably my biggest tyranid conversion, and best paint job on them, so far.

Arms are magged as well so I'll eventually be able to change loadout, but I think the one it has now is effective.

[Monstra Sumus]

Reminds me of the sinister feeling you get watching Aliens for the first time when Ripley walks into the egg chamber and all you hear is heavy breathing as the camera pans up the absolute monster the Queen is.

 

11/10

[Xenith]

Massive compliment, thank you! I think the Alien Queen is one of the reasons why I love the Zoanthrope head so much.