~The Blade of Vect~
'Let it be known that El'uriaq and all his spawn will will feel the edge of my blade...'
~Asdrubael Vect (984.M37), three days prior to events in which a warp rift opened mysteriously above the rebel satellite realm of Shaa-dom, allowing a burning Imperial battleship to plunge into the city destroying it utterly.
Part 1.Hi all,
Time for me to finally kick off a Dark Eldar army project log...
After a few trials, I've decided on doing the Kabal of the Black Heart (yes, I know - not that original. But to be honest, the only KOTBH I see around are store armies - not ones by players).
In any event, I'm adding a slight twist:
The army will be known as 'The Blade of Vect' (inspired by the fluff entry on page 22 of the DE codex). As you might guess from the quote above, this army will be portrayed as being Vect's well resourced hit squad - a group whose agenda is primarily focused on eliminating other competing DE interests in the Dark City.
That's not to say that they don't enjoy hunts in the material universe, or that they might have their own goals...
I'll be using other fluff entries in the codex as inspiration for the army's background (and there are quite a few. Vect has a lot of enemies...), and I expect all elements of the codex (kabal, wych, haemonculi) will be (or could be) well represented.
Here's an almost finished warrior:
My original attempts at painting DE had the armour being a lot less sharply highlighted. It took me a while to realise that this type of hyper highlighting is the key to the DE models. Really dark schemes with jarring highlights are the way to go.
I'm using a combination of paint mixes from both the original White Dwarf in which the new range were released as well as the instructions on the GW website (they aren't exactly the same).
Naturally enough, I've changed a few things here and there (the skin is a lot paler than the 'official' scheme, as it is supposed to be eldar rather than non-eldar skin).
I should say that highlighting is not completely finalised in these shots, but I was keen to get something up on IR to prove to certain people that I am actually progressing in the hobby!
I wanted to base these models so it looked like they were situated in Commorragh.
I found these excellent 'alien temple' bases (some of which are littered with skulls, although the above is a simple modification I did using a left over part from a raider).
Getting the colour right was a headache in itself. I spent so much time in my local GW staring at boxes of DE models, trying to determine what colour they'd used in their box cover shots (strangely, it ended up just being codex grey - if you look carefully at a box cover, the colour of the ground on which the models stand is a lot less green than the background).
Given the models themselves are quite green, the grey seems to work well (the lichen I'm still toying with - it's black in these shots, but will either be an orange or a much more olivey green).
Hopefully won't be too long till my next post, but I am taking my time on these...perhaps they'll be ready for 6th edition!
Next up will be a reaver I'm working on.
Subject: The Blade of Vect (Kabal of the Black Heart) 
Wed Dec 28 2011, 21:50
