Kabal of the Dawnless Day

Evening.

I have been a lurker for just about over a year now and felt it was time to come out of the shadows as my Kabal has a adequate power base and the gracious patronage of the Living Muse. And neither I or my Kabal actively reside in the Dark city thus overthinking our part in your machinations is a wasteful effort. Stay outside of my way and we will stay out off yours. May you yet see another Dawn.

Welp, for supposed 'realsies', I am a returning 40k player, a small Chaos warband 00's-10's - although, my mainstay was the dark elfs in the olden fantasy battle - and chose the True Kin, as I could not honestly resist the Siren call of the true Fae. The Fae of yore, a cautionary tale of hubris and the inevitable slow downfall of a society too stagnant and too large to maintain a healthy purpose. Just something about tragedies and the fall from grace stories that resonate within.

Cough, a tangent, cough.

I started collecting Dark Eldar previous February (2017) and have some 1000 euro's worth of it now. Most of it lies unpainted. I partly blame the arduous but satisfying theme I went with and mostly the ravager that stalled me for 8 months and in actuality took a combined 12 hours to paint. Done with it and close to rounding my first 750pts list, needing to finish another Venom and then 2 Archons. The Irony is that whilst it takes about and a hour to paint a singular foot soldier I think it hard to see it in the end result. Might just be my horrendous camera work. I will try to correct that at the local game store (pretty decent lighting).

The theme's idea was to get a shadow-esque battleplate with sharp bone colored edges and bright blue energy/venom/hair-details. The Kabal's favorite technique is to induce rain cloud coverage over the targeted planet as to eclipse the sun and sky. Once the sky has been denied and the rainfall starts they descent and raid and hunt. That is why I wanted a shadow like quality to both the troops and the vehicles, especially the vehicles with nightshields. By the time the enemy would see the blue glow of their equipment it would be too late.

Apologies if I imbed the pictures wrong. Have never done so in a forum before. I'll redo it if necessary.

A group shot first then:

A basic Kabal squad:



Close up:



2 Blaster teams:

Kabalite Venoms:

Ravager and Raider:

Skimmer vehicle group photos:

Venoms each took me aroung 7-8 hours a piece, Raider about 10 hours, Ravager 12 hours and each floot slogger about an hour per model. Almost dreading at the prospect of the man hours involved in the Bomber, probably 14-16 hours. I might come across more despondent than I actually am. My way of coping with it . But I really enjoy the theme I went with, it is fun to paint. Barring that screaming skull edge highlighting. Light colors, you have not changed since the 00's. But by Khaine has the metal colors become dependable. And no more hybrid metal plastic models. PRAISE KHAINE! Still nightmares linger of my hybrid Havocs.

Man I don't typically like black armies as a rule but that looks really good. Have you considered adding a focal point with a really bright colour?

Also grey skin is really cool

I like that colour scheme but I too must add that I prefer some bright colours since my iron warriors are silver in silver added with a bit black.

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Thank you. Good to hear. Well once I somehow muster up stamina my long running plan is to rebase the entire army in city setting using the Sector Imperialis bases, their colors scheme being white metal with brown recess wash and Dark green marble tiles, also bought volunteer space marinques and imperial guard, they both will get dark angles themes on them the head cannon being my Kabal is at the moment tormenting a Dark angels allied world in the aftermath of the new Warp expansion. I wanted to my part in hurtling the Lion's cubs into the arms of the Primaris . I do not think i can really make the models themselves more bright, at least the Kabal, so much battle plate, but both Coven and Wych cult models will get Magragge blue clothing along with Hoeth blue clothing and the shadow theme battle plate. So the Coven and Cult should look more 'cheery' . Also makes more sense in my head cannon to have them more pronounced than the Kabal. Cult is about the flair and the Coven just doesn't care, Kabal is the one that wants to be cautious, I mean stealthy. Also the bases will be a more warm palette addition, it just will take a long while before that is done.

Also I'm thinking of using the Necromunda bases to base the Wyches, making them fighting as if in a Industrial warehouse or factories. The white metal flooring tying them to the other base sets and allowing me to use sprue outlines as metal bars and rubble so i can deal with the dynamic poses easier. Coven Wracks and Heamonculi would be based using just their normal default bases, then using both the mud type 'basepaint' (would have killed for the stuff back as a teen) some yellowish model grass tuff and using the vine set (leaves painted both yellow and orange (withering effect) to make them seem like they are walking in a park area and the park is withering. Using a few vines with their colours in both factory and sector bases to tie them thematically. I can already see the man hours involved in it. I guess my quirk as a Archon is overt ambition.

I honestly also do prefer brighter color schemes on True kin armies but once I concocted the concept and theme for my forces I was dead set on it. Trying to subvert and old habit from way-back-when where I get getting inspired to change up my color scheme or theme before getting any real cohesive force together, kept playing with and unfinished army. So I made myself a new rule for the True kin force: "Do not play until you paint." Never stopped me from dreaming though. I came up a few months back with theme of painting the armor Scarab red (don't remember the concurrent name for it) and Khaki clothing with green hair and tube/energy. I liked the scheme idea but I already threw my die. Not that I truly regret it

I don't think true kin need to have a bright color scheme, I like having a nice contrast between dark/light on my dark eldar, doesn't need to be all bright.

I really like the warriors you have hanging off the venoms, what models did you use for that? Really want all my raiders/venoms to be fully loaded with kabalites.

I planned a bit ahead and bought a raider and 2 venom at one go. The kabalites on the Venoms are the normal crew of a Raider - I also had one extra warrior lying around -. Used 2 Raider crew and one operator for the gunner per Venom. And vice versa I used the bits for the 2 Venom gunners to make the vacant Raider's operators and used 3 of the 4 Venom crew members as the new Raider crew. Haven't yet got around to painting that. Raiders/Ravagers are draining to paint . But I ended up having a Wych Raider and 2 Wych Venoms, as well as, 1 Kabal Raider and 2 Kabal Venoms. That way I can theme them as per forces used. To a point. Can't really be arsked to get 5 Kabal Venoms and 5 Wych Venoms just to sate my pride. The children will just have to learn to share. I'm just happy that I got over painting the first Ravager, feel less pressured to paint further models. That piece sat at the dockyards for slightly over a half a year despite in the end taking just 12 hours to paint in total manhours. Also I am that crazy Archon willing to pay for the idle layabouts hanging onto my vehicles just to tickle me fancy.

Command Venom
I had a pretty productive weekend. A few extra days of leave due to a finnish holiday, Vappu. So unfortunately ran out of excuses not to paint. Some 20 hours later I stand one Razorwing and the Command Venom paint-ier - Now that I think on it, my sense of humor might be the reason why I was given duties away from the Dark city. Huh, the more you know. - as such I can now actually send them off raiding without hearing snide comments about their appearance next time I moor at the Dark City. I thought My subjects should not wear filthy skins-cloaks of lesser races, filthy. Now a collection of skulls of particularly worthy or hilariously pitiful foes, now that warms my hearth! Still likely will work on the skulls a bit more, but they no longer cause me eyebleed. Huzzah! Next I'll post pics of the razorwing.

Razorwing
This took a while. The Command Venom took about the same as the other Venoms, 7-8 hours, and a hour extra for the skulls and helmets. The Razorwing took 11-12 hours mostly because the base itself took some 4 hours to complete, and the fighter itself the remaining 6-7 hours. A fun and fulfilling project as I had not done a fighter before. Funny thing, the gored merinque is actually and old 00's biker models with added/replaced shoulder guards I bought back as teen. A horrid paint job, and disfigured by overt glue, digged out his chest cavity and painted damage over with leadbelcher and warplock broze and the finished of with copius amounts 'BLAWD FO' TEH BLAWDGOOOD!' Tried to make it look like direct hit from a heat lance. Caved in the armor and melted the surrounding armor and flesh to run down the wound areas. The ramp is actually a piece of a old toy from my youth, shich I discovered randomly in a bits box. Trying now to figure out how I'll deck out the bases Bomber which I already own and the other Razorwing I'll eventually buy. I have honestly missed how damn rewarding this hobby can be.

More Razorwing

Razorwing base

Looking real good man, army is coming together real nicely. Also that's one sweet base you made there for the razorwing.

Your army is really cold man, It looks great

Damn, the second Ravager is taking me a bit. The drain is similar to one shared by its sibling. Luckily I'll have 1000 pts list painted after this, so I can actually field it, and I can switch to painting Wych Cult. I have lined up to paint 10 Hellions, 6 Reavers, 9 Wyches (Leader and net/impaler inc.) and a Wych Raider and a Succubus (at least ill still kit-bash and prime one). Though I will definitely paint the Raider the last. The things are too taxing spiritually. I can actually feel my soul drain from the ennui. Gonna try to save the characters for a truer inspiration, they deserve the full attention. To balance the motivation/attention drain I consume fizzies and listen to podcasts or heavy metal. I feel like the correlation between Coke Zero consumption and the mental drain of painting is all too real.

I certainly hope all painters in the hobby find their balancing act. Too many times I've met new blood whom get swept up by the inspiration but burn themselves out, usually out of either overt ambition or frustration at the drain. I keep on sowing the idea of: "Your work is fine as long as it is up to your own satisfaction." I've certainly felt and still feel to this day a sting at my own pride and work when I run across a inspirational painter or an army. The frustration is not out of jealousy per say but, deeper down, at my own inadequacy. Motivational if handled correctly but that sort of frustration is insidious. It can start to affect you in a negative way. Inspiring you to raise your own expectations to a unrealistic standard. Be it your paint speed, quality or consistency. - Then again I am the sort of person who needs to at regular intervals humble myself in order to prevent ambition from tripping myself over - Taking things at your pace is better in the long run. It makes easier to reach satisfactory results. It gives you those really important feelings of success. And that satisfaction usually leads one to continue the hobby for longer.

Sorry about the tangent of the latter segment, but I earlier today run into a guy the LGS whom I had seen get into the hobby back in autumn. Unfortunately he had ran into the problem of frustration and was very much off put from the hobby and dropped it. Wasn't able to convince him to take another stab at it. From my understanding he had made the unfortunately common mistake of overt ambition. A shame. But it also reminded me to be more appreciative of the time I have given to the building/painting work. Ironically his lack of motivation fueled my own and I find me myself more motivated to paint than previously this week.

How Drukhari of me to use the pain of another to fuel myself. (<-- humor is a defense)

We are our own worst enemies at times. I can relate with the drain, but I'll say this - I have a full squad of Wyches that are still only basecoated after eight years since assembly. Most of my vehicles never went further than the very basic paintjob I did for them due to all kinds of reasons. But looking back, all the years of experience have influenced the way I do my models and I have learned a few shortcuts how to achieve a decent outcome.

Just take your pace, take some breaks and don't push it too much. A simple gaming standard will work for games and then you can add the detail work later (6-7 years later in my case, but hey).

Khaine be midly admired! I finished my second Ravager. That also means I can field a painted (excluding chars) 1000pts list. Last I remember playing Dark Elves was back way when in 2009. And taking a week to procrastinate painting the ravager was certainly faster than its sibling, which I procrastinated over half a year on. And as the flashy icing I get to focus 500 pts of Wych cult next: 10 Hellions, 10 Wyches, 6 Reaver jetbikes, a Succubus and a Wych Raider. Probably in that order too. That Wych raider is definitely the last on the priority list.

@Siticus the Ancient. You need not convince me of that approach, I practice it as much as I advocate for it . I might've used different words in my incoherent late night rant but I very much tried for the 'At one's own pace'-mentality of hobby-ing. I find it works for me and my paltry sample size of acquaintances seem to have had most success with it or a minor variation of it.

I will honestly be glad to change up the painting style that Wyches demand. Whilst the theme remains very very similar their different focus on gear does make for a nice change. The Succubus will also need to be more towards the tail end so i get in some more practice at Wyches style before trying to pretty her up.

I have penchant for posing the models as if to avoid repeating their poses and appearance. Like with the Ravager I just finished. But differentiating the second ravager from the first was a pretty easy task comparatively. Making a new squad of Kabalites, now that would be strenous for me. I've assembled 40 of them. With no one-to one duplicates. And now if I want to assemble 10 more, as I will eventually, I have to live up all 40 already assembled ones, into a formation by their feet types and then meticulously crosscheck for torsos, heads, arms, weapons, heads/helmets to avoid duplicates. I don't think there is real a need to make the effort but darn it If I ain't gonna try. Against all reason its tedious and fun.

I'll eventually take a photo of the second Ravager if I can conjure decent shots of it. I bid the fellow dark scions a pleasantly murderous evening. 7 hours of painting, I need my sleep now.

I really need to find a decent place to compose the shots, well work in progress. In the meanwhile here is the Second Ravager!

Ravager the 2nd

In the words of the Dark Muse of Logistics Billy Mays: 'And that's not all!' I had inspiration to paint my converted Lahmeamea.... Lahmuea.... Laaaaahmea-h..... The Poison Lady! Damn it if it was not invigorating. Using a similar palate as the rest of the army but the focus of it made it feel almost new to paint. Never did count the time to paint but I think I used about 3-4 hours. Now I'm rather pleased with her. Still more to fix but well enough that I can stay my hand for the for-see-able future. The body was a old 3rd party dark elf sorceress. I used Green stuff to fill the position of the neck of the helm and to further add (hair)color to the model. A wych knife arm, a reaver helm and a pistol to make it seem more 40k-ish. The white snek skin is now, in my head cannon, my Kabal's Slyyyysths..... Sluuths... sliiiths..... Snek People skin color. I like splash of contrast it gives. Although white is a pain to paint, but I get away with snek skin as it is being incosistent at times. Also until I get around to paint my actual Archons she will subsitude as warlord. Also not really set on the bases on Incubi, Archon and Court so I left that to a later date.



The Poison Lady

Breaking my own order I felt inclined to paint an Archon. Took me Tuesday to do it, some 7 hours. But I do feel it was worth it. The previous day, monday, I hade went ham and kitbashed in total 2 Archons and 2 Succubi and a Scourge "flock" leader. On the Latter i ut enough effort that he could substitute as a winged Archon if ever GW went far on a office christmas-party bender and gave us the option of a winged Archon. I doubt it but might aswell as I took the poor scourges' legs and substituted them with Archon legs. Still paint I can repaired/pretty up but finally good enough I can leave it be for now.