Kabal of the Poison Void - WH+ Vampire Archon conversion

[Halandaar]

Splinter Cannon based on the corsair Shuriken Cannon looks nice, in general the Corsair parts add a lot to this unit. Consider the idea... borrowed 

[TrawlingCleaner]

Borrow away! I think I borrowed it from someone else too! 

[Pearson73]

Those Kabalites look ace, some really nice heads in there.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Cheers Pearson! They're just left overs from the Corsairs I made a couple of months ago, it's a really neat kit 

 

"Dracon Drayvn and the Hex-marked, a bodyguard squad for Mistress Salaine. Favoured amongst the Kabal they often carry exotic and modified weapons. Dracon Drayvn himself carries a Huskblade carved from a Void-Whale's tooth" 

 

 

This was a fun little side project for the army, that gives the army a bit more flavour. I'm a big fan of characters having "fixed" units they join, for example when I run Salaine, she'll always go with these guys. Huron goes with his Chosen or a Marine squad that I made specifically to be his bodyguards.

 

2023 was a pretty mad year for me for painting output, the Dark Eldar got a good look-in from me this year and I completed 42 models for them! (Although that's roughly 1/8th of the total I've painted this year)

 

2024 my aim is to "complete" army projects (are armies ever really finished?).

Currently all I have left in my Dark Eldar backlog are 15 more Wracks which is pretty great! They're nice and easy to paint so I can get through them pretty quick. In painting the new Venom it has made me realise the ol' fleet needs a bit of an update. Not a massive one!

 

But tidying them up a bit, blacking out the canopies and giving them some unique markings would go a long way. I have plans to update one of the Raiders to be Salaine's personal ride as I quite enjoyed that with the Hex-marked

 

Happy new year!

[Pearson73]

Looking even better painted up! I really like the sigils on the banner, I think it would look great added to the Venom's hull? Congrats on painting up all those models too!

[TrawlingCleaner]

On 12/31/2023 at 4:02 PM, Pearson73 said:

Looking even better painted up! I really like the sigils on the banner, I think it would look great added to the Venom's hull? Congrats on painting up all those models too!

 

That's a good shout I think, adding the hexagram to the hull would work well for the Venom and the Raider too. I need to add the Kabal's symbol to the banner too which would work well for the hull as well, add some more visual pop!

 

I decided to pimp the Raider out too, make it much more befitting of an Archon and her bodyguard 

 

 

Much better!

[Pearson73]

Love the warrior perched on the gang plank, they look so casual!

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thanks Pearson! She's just out here casually reaping Mon'Keigh souls for fun. Just day-to-day Drukhari stuff

[ThePenitentOne]

This is just excellent work- hat's off man!

 

I LOVE the Archon's fistful of Spirit Stones; I love the symmetry of the Venom the the two hangers-on; I love the long gun conversion so much that I didn't see the ocular augmetics until the second pic; I also love the sitting gunner, but for me he's somewhat eclipsed by the Medusa on the other side because she's such an unusual choice- it's nice to see a Medusa in an action scene.

 

Inspirational.  

[TrawlingCleaner]

On 1/10/2024 at 10:16 PM, ThePenitentOne said:

This is just excellent work- hat's off man!

 

I LOVE the Archon's fistful of Spirit Stones; I love the symmetry of the Venom the the two hangers-on; I love the long gun conversion so much that I didn't see the ocular augmetics until the second pic; I also love the sitting gunner, but for me he's somewhat eclipsed by the Medusa on the other side because she's such an unusual choice- it's nice to see a Medusa in an action scene.

 

Inspirational.  

 

Thank you Penitent, that's very kind!

The great thing about the Dark Eldar range is that it's so interchangable with it's own kits but also all the new range of Craftworld and Corsair kits too, they blend together really well! A Medusa "cyclopsing" off the side of a Raider is too cool not to include

[TrawlingCleaner]

Right then, back to the Skinless Himbos! Still very WIP but so far:

 

Still got to bring the skin up another shade and all of the rest of the gubbins need doing to but it's a good start!

[TrawlingCleaner]

I got all the way to the end, finished the models bar the bases and put them in the lightbox next to the previous 5 and realised

 

I've painted the skin wrong on the new 5

I think I used the wrong wash and used Fleshdhade where I should have used a red wash. I'll give them a red wash and see how they look. They may need re-highlighting after that

[MithrilForge]

I don't think it's a bad thing to have two different skintones on your models, I actually like the difference , I'd personally say keep em that way !  

 

++EDIT++ Although on reflection I do realise they are supposed to be Flayed flesh.... 

 

Looks great by the way...the whole lot of em look great (the whole army) 

 

Cheers, M 

Edited February 1 by MithrilForge

[TrawlingCleaner]

Cheers Mithril! They're not bad and would be good for something else, the downside is that I was aiming for skinless flesh like the first 5

I went back and redid the skin somewhat:

 

They're not perfect but they match enough with the original 5 (left)

 

A nice unit of 10 Wracks and the Haemonculus done:

 

I've another 10 I need to do and I need to take stock of the force as a whole and what I want to do with them with their lovely new detachment

[TrawlingCleaner]

I decided to make a new Court of the Archon but kitbashed to make them a bit more of a "Bonkers Brigade" to go with Mistress Salaine:

Sslyth:

 

Lhamaen:

 

Medusae:

 

Ur-Ghuul (the Siren of the Ghoul Stars):

 

I've also got a 1500 point 3 game tournament at my local store this Sunday too. So far my list is looking like:

 

Archon (Nightmare Shroud)

Archon (Sadistic Fulcrum)

Haemonculus (Spiteful Raider)

 

2x Kabalite Squads

5 Wracks

 

2x Raiders

2x Venoms

 

Cronos

10x Incubi

5x Mandrakes

Ravager

5x Scourges (Heat Lances)

Talos (Heat Lances)

 

A good mix of stuff I think. The idea with the Sadistic Fulcrum is to keep this Archon and his Kabalites near 1 of the 2 Venoms so they can jump out, have a pain token and give it to the Venom + guys inside, then the unit uses the Sustained Hits 2 strat. I think Heat Lances work best here with a good few Dark Lances scattered around with the Heat Lances being good into monsters too as the local store tends to be pretty heavy on Monsters and Terminators too

 

We'll see how that goes!

[TrawlingCleaner]

So I went to my FLGS 3 round tournament with my Drukhari and had an absolute blast! The new detachment doesn't feel overpowered (at least in my hands) but most importantly it feels fun! It feels very thematic and really gives a boost to things like Incubi and even just mounted Kabalites. It was so cool to run Incubi and have them do well again!

I swapped the Cronos out from my list above for a second unit of Mandrakes

 

Game 1 was vs an all suit Tau army that looked something like:

Spoiler

Farsight+6Crisis Suits

3x3 Stealth suit squads

2x Railgun Broaddsides

2x Riptides

2x Ghostkeels

 

This was a rough game dice wise for me. I think my positioning was great I just whiffed hard on nearly all my important shots. First turn I lost a raider to 4 6s from the Railguns taking 18 damage in DevWounds. The Nightshields, it does nothing!

The Talos had a 4 Turn slap fight with the Ghostkheels, losing one of my Talos in the first turn and in return doing... 3 Wounds over 4 turns to one of 2 Ghostkeels. It was always hitting but never wounding both with Combat and with Shooting. I was really scratching my head!

The Incubi jumped out their transport to charge the Crisis Suits and Farsight and with no pain tokens left as I'd only killed 1 unit so far, I killed 2 suits and then promptly lost 7 Incubi to Farsight and the suits. I Wraithlike Retreated into their Raider which was destroyed in return and the Incubi and the Archon died to Farsight in combat the next turn. The Ravager exploded and did more damage to a Riptide than it had done all game

Other than the Incubi charge and the Talos repeatedly charging the Ghostkeel, I failed all the other charges I attempted which was very annoying bu thats the way it goes!

It was one of those games that really tests your paitence for the first game of the day, it was an absolute blast to be honest even with that luck!

 

Game end: 28 to me, 75 to my opponent

 

Game 2 was vs Guard with a whole bunch of tanks:

Spoiler

Tank Commander with Plasma turrent

2x Dorns

Russ with Autocannons

2xCadian squads

Command Squad

Castellan

2x Bombast Cannons

Basilisk

Techpriest

 

Blimey, Dorns are tough nuts to crack!

This game went well for me even if it took several turns to deal with one of the Dorns, my speed meant that I could take the flanks with no push back and I could touch the Russes and Dorns to shut them down. The Incubi jumped into their backline Turn 2 and killed Cadians and held a Dorn, the Tank Commander and the Bombats in combat for 4 rounds of combat and slowly chipped them down. The Mandrakes proved their worth and took the two flank's objectives one Turn 2 and made them "Sticky"(because of the mission rule) and kept me getting 15 points a turn for a couple of turns.

 

Game ends: 78 to me, 35 to my opponent

 

Game 3 was vs Orks:

Spoiler

Warboss with 10 Nobs in a truck

2x 10 Burnaboyz in Trucks

10 Gretchin in a Truck

2x10 Kommandos

Rocket car with the drill ( I can't remember the name)

2x5 Stormboyz

3Bikes with Warboss on Trike

 

The deployment was lengthways (Hammer and Anvil?). I deployed the Mandrakes forward to chump any charges from Kommandos, Bikes etc as I knew any charges I take will kill me. I got first turn and pushed up with the Talos and kept a lot of stuff back in an attempt to keep my resources going and options around for longer. A combined effort from a Venom with 5 Kabalites disembarking with Sustained 2 and the Mandrakes wiped the Kommandos out on one flank and the Talos continued to scratch paintwork with their Heatlances. The Ravager put a dent in one of the Trucks but little more than that. Orks piled up the board with my Mandrakes falling quickly and the nobs jumping out and crushing my Talos utterly. In return I kill 8 of the Nobs and the Warboss with some precision from the Haemonculus, I kill the other squad of Kommandos, one squad of Stormboyz and also jump the Incubi out to charge the Rocket Car, a Truck and some Stormboyz. I screw some placements up so the Incubi only kill the Stormboyz and don't get into the Rocket Car. In their turn 2 the Burnaboyz rinse my Incubi enough for the Rocket Car to Tankshock them and the Archon to death. My anti infantry weapons have basically all dried up at this point and I can't deal with the amount of bodies on the table but I still manage to eek some points in:

Game ends: 45 to me, 65 to them

 

1 Win and 2 losses puts me at 4th place out of 8 and a respectable effort. I need to get better at positioning and also improve my target priority. In the Ork and the Tau games, I should have moved in a way that allowed me to crush one flank entirely, instead of spread myself too thinly across multiple. It's better to overkill something and keep more of my units alive then try to go for multiple kills  in one go.

Units wise I think all units did their thing except for the Scourge and the Talos. I think Heat Lances are nice but they take too long to get into range and start doing the business. In hindsight if I'd given both Haywire, they would have absolutely done work into all 3 opponents with their multitudes of Vehicles although perhaps the Scourge with Dark Lances would've been better. I would've been less scared of them getting Overwatched by moving into range with their 36" guns.

 

I need more practive with the army to be honest, there's plenty I want to try out like Wyches and Reavers as well as Hellions of course. The new Court of the Archon I made are slowly getting there too!

 

[Ulfast]

Nice tournament and good report :)