Kabal of the Shadow Void

Well I spotted the link from Lucky No 5 and my Dark Eldar are probably my most consistent project this year in that they keep getting worked on as I switch from working on one army to another.

The Kabal actually consists of three parts: The Kabal of the Shadow Void under a yet unnamed Archon, the Wych cult of the Dying Flames under Succubus Larena and a Haemonculi Coven under Daleran Skirath.

I've been primarily working on the Kabal and the Wyches whilst waiting to see what was coming for the Coven. The fluff to the whole army is being worked on in conjunction with a Tau army I'm also painting up to 1500 points at the moment (with two months left to do 500 points in) and I've got a narrative that switches between the Dark Eldar and the Tau to tell the story.

The Dark Eldar army is very much based on the fact I had an old army from when they first came out and I didn't see a reason to just drop all those minis without trying to use them in some form or other in the new army.

I don't have an up to date photo of where I'm upto, but the most recent shot of what was done is below.



The two schemes are quite different, but I've tried to use some colours in both to tie them together.



The Kabal scheme of purple - I've used red on wires and yellow eyes to tie them to the Wyches.



And the red, orange and yellow of the Wych scheme with purple wires to tie them to the Kabal.

As you can see from some of the models above I've definitely embraced combining old and new to get more variety amongst the Dark Eldar.



Yes that's a chopped up Mandrake retasked to be a wych



The reavers have been the most fun swapping around and one of the big impetuses for getting a Wych army functioning by itself which I've never had before.

Figured it was best to break up this initial batch of posts to allow people to read it a little easier.

As I said I've been kitbashing and converting a lot of the army, moreso now that I've been collecting parts together specifically to work up certain models.

From my initial fluff

It is said that the plans of Dark Eldar can take centuries to come to fruition. An Archon might arrange the construction of a tower so that in 200 years he had a place for a sniper shot at an opponent. Maybe this is why the Haemonculi Daleran Skirath has cultivated familial bonds between an archon and a succubus and brought together the Kabal of the Shadow Void and the Wych Cult of the Dying Flames.

With no wish to step to the foreground, and whilst still considered a youngling by some in Haemonculi circles, Skirath has helped some fallen Kabals rebuild under a single Archon. The rumours of Duke Sliscus’ backing have also aided in keeping some from attacking potential upstarts.


I always had the idea of working on Duke Sliscus and so far have built two versions to paint up.



The old version from old DE warrior bits, a Dark Age head and a GW Melnibonian warrior from the 80s.


The new version converted from a Dark Elf Corsair and Archon head with warrior legs.

These go alongside the Haemonculis


A Grafter from Dark Age.




Daleran himself converted from an Isle of Blood Mage. First big conversion I've done and a big learning process.

And the current Archon.


The proper archon body has now found itself amongst my current conversion project of Incubi from new Incubi bodies sans other bits and a desire to do staff blades like the old versions.




I'll post more work later, but I figured this gave a flavour of all the stuff I'm up to in terms of building up the army.

Nice! I like how you're splicing all these different models together into interesting and unique figures.

I'm not a huge fan of kitbashing the old models with the new, but your Incubi look sweet.

Yes, using hellglaives on incubi is an excellent idea - might adopt that for my Incubi Hierarch's weapon. Not that of a fan for using those heads on incubi, however... Gives them a look more like armoured wyches, IMO.

I just think the klaives look ridiculous. A little over the top in my book.

The reason for using the heads is I want to give them a definite look that no other unit in the army has. My trueborn are getting the heads with cuts down over the eyes and the scourges got the sharp teeth heads. It's a definite aesthetic choice by the archons/haemonculis.

I'm back from my weekend away with an Avatars of War Vampire picked up to form the basis for my succubus. Failed to get a GW succubus so that will have to wait.

As I mentioned the scourges I figured that's a good lead in to show the conversions I've done.







As you can see obviously based on Raider models converted with hellion heads and wings from Dark Age models. I'm planning on getting 2 boxes of new scourges to go alongside these guys and also to give me a whole load of carbines to use with my trueborn.

As I said I picked up an Avatars of War Vampiress to convert into the lead Succubus for my wyches.

So first thing was to sort a head.


I've got more work to do on blending the hair - which doesn't really fit either of the original heads that came with the model either - but that seems to work.


Arm in place and since this shot moved up a little. Now to add some arm plates on the side once it's set.

Then past that I built Incubi #4

I've also done the shoulder pads for all the others so just back banners to finish sorting out.

Dah! I asked this on Warseer, but how tall is the AoW model next to wyches?

I'll get a comparison shot, but the reason I bought her was she fitted size wise.

Comparison shot of the succubus against two wyches.

Nice! I want one!

Well before I paint any of the special characters I'm finishing the first unit of Wyches.



Once I've done them I should also finish the first unit of warriors. I've been looking as well at how to build up some trueborn and also to differentiate between trueborn builds so the blaster squad will look different to the Carbine squad.

Man I want a vampiress now. She looks fantastic!

Thanks Incubi. She's being used as a bribe to get me through painting some other stuff.

Well after a bit of messing around the first Wych squad is now done.


It's the Agoniser that takes the time because I start worrying about getting it done.


Decided with these guys to add a little more variety by doing some tattoos.


With these done I've pulled the last 2 warriors for squad 1 and the first of the new Incubi out to paint whilst I finish off the Tau. Once the Tau are done these revert to being one of the focus armies for a bit so I can get them to 1500 points at a minimum as well before doing a buy of new stuff to convert up.

Lots of cool conversions, I love the Succubus and the mix of old and new is great.

The Agonizer looks the goods as well

I know the pain of a painting backlog, keep up the good work

Thanks Vanq.

Will be back to these guys properly next month. Picked up some old Confrontation models to use for various things.


These guys will all become wracks after some converting.



If you look at some of the detail I think you can definitely see why they will end up serving the Haemonculis. My plan for the Wracks is to construct them from various sources as I hate the idea of uniformed wracks as Haemonculi want to experiment.

They'd almost make a good Haemonculi themselves...do they scale well with the rest of your guys?

Here's the scale shot.



So the one is tall, but not horrendously so. The one I was concerned about being short is actually the right size. Of any area of the army that can deal with scale issues it's the wracks

Keravin

If you stated this already in your posts, I apologize. I love your Archon! Where did you get his head with the elaborate head dress?

Semnos.

The archon head is from the Dark Elf Corsair plastic box.

Things were progressing well, but I ran out of Badab black so the jacks, assassins etc I was working on have hit a snag. Get some new wash tomorrow so I can get more done, especially with a week off work. With those done I can work on getting some Dark Eldar done, though part of me is waiting to get new bits to build the next wave of stuff.

As a result of building for Inquisitor 28 I had spare bits and I've been thinking what I might use them for. I'd cut the body off the new Chaos Sorcerer and now looked to find him some new legs.



I think I may use it as a dark Eldar character, but I'm not certain who. Could be another Archon I suppose.

Would fit pretty nice as a body for Drazhar, I might make him that way even if you don't...

He definitely looks like he's wearing a lot of armour.
Klaivex or Drazhar...