The Kabal of the Autumn Shadow (Old and busted meets new hotness)

I was recently lured back in to 40k after a four or five year break, and after re-learning the rules and amassing a couple of smaller armies of the lesser races, I decided to rescue my poor neglected Dark Eldar army from my parents attic and see what I could do about modernising it a bit.

Oh dear.



Old and busted.

Meet the new hotness. (Hopefully, this is all I will have to buy to complete the 1500 point army that I have planned!)



I have a lot of building and re-building in my near future.
And here's the first model of the new era! One of the obligatory Blasterborn.



I want to give all of my Trueborn, Sybarites and perhaps even my Archon these Wood Elf hoods. (With greenstuff scarves in some cases) but we'll see if it still looks cool when it's painted before making any concrete plans.

The obligatory Blasterborn need the obligatory Venom. I've loved this vehicle ever since I saw it the old Citadel Journal experimental Harlequin army list (it's a shame Harlies can't use them in the current Dark Eldar codex) and I look forward to seeing if it explodes with anything like the same regularity it did back then!



An old broken Vyper, a pretty straight forward chop-job and a few spare old raider parts later and it's starting to look okay.
I just need to break out the green stuff to fill a few gaps around the cockpit and it'll be ready for some paint.
Speaking of which, it’s time to see about updating my old colour scheme a little and testing it on one of the new models.



I’ll probably bring in more splashes of pink and a few hints of gold later on, and the blending between colours will be a lot smoother in the future, But I’m pretty happy with this as a starting point.



Eee gads. What a difference a decade makes. I really don’t think I’ll be able to bring myself to use any of my old troops. Urgh.
My old vehicles, on the other hand... For those I had plans.



Detailed plans.
I wanted de-clutter and re-style my huge pile (Six or seven) of old-style raiders and ravagers, both to bring them more in line with the new look and also to make transporting them a lot easier.



Here’s the first test build. This is about as far as I can get until I restock on plasticard, but the basic look is getting there! The prow will be extended back and reshaped a bit, and a few hangers-on towards the back should liven it up nicely.

Assuming I can stick to the schedule I’ve set for myself with this army, I should have new stuff worth posting in a couple of days.

Thanks for looking!

I like the new painted stuff, and who doesn't love a bag o' old busted? Looking forward to updates. Can't tell from the picture, but what is the glossy paint on the Venom?

hmm, new model looks purrrdy. Scary isn't it looking back at old paint schemes/models when you realise how much you've improved in the meantime.

Looking forward to seeing more!

Evil Space Elves wrote:

I like the new painted stuff, and who doesn't love a bag o' old busted? Looking forward to updates. Can't tell from the picture, but what is the glossy paint on the Venom?

It's an optical illusion from where the (Slightly blotchy) black undercoat has been sanded back on some raised areas.
I wish I could get black paint to go that glossy on my models. Even with several coast of gloss varnish, it never seems to go shiny and smooth enough.


Back to the project log, it's just a quick update today as most of my work on the army has been spent of building and basing the damn thing, and hoards of unpainted models are not really interesting enough to post. That said, I did manage to hit a couple of milestones worth mentioning.

My first painted squad! (okay, they're troops from two different squads, but I have enough finished to make a full squad so it still counts) and venom transport.



And here's a close up of the converted Venom



I'm pleased with how well it matches the design of the official model, but I think the green paint needs breaking up a little around the cockpit. with some black stripes of some sort. I'll experiment a bit as I paint the next one before I paint over anything on this one though

I also made a start on my command raider.



The texture is meant to be a maddening cross between dark eldar runes, circuit design and scarring.
I'm pretty pleased with the effect and, fortunately, the older style raiders have a lot less surface area so I shouldn't go too insane replicating it across my entire army.

Speaking of older raiders, I finally settled on a design that I plan to use for all of my old skool raiders/ravagers.



The real eureka moment came when I decided to bite the bullet and carve out the tip of the prow to match the new design.
I decided against the plasticard tail-sail from my last post as it was a lot of work for very little aesthetic reward.
That's one down with four or five more to go!

Here's a top down view so you can see how much closer to the new design it is in size




And that's it for now! I'm just about to start work putting my Haemonculus conversion together and I might even start painting my Archon. So I shall see you guys in a couple of days!

The hull paint on the new Raider is looking quite boss. Nice work

I really like what you are doing with the armour and hulls. Cheers!

Thanks for the kind words guys!

This will (hopefully) be the last post I make featuring any unpainted models, But I've made some progress worth noting with the army over the last few days. First, the bits I ordered to update my Ravagers arrived yesterday, so I pounced straight on that in a converting frenzy!



Heck, I've even started painting one! It's amazing how a few nips, tucks and extra bits have shifted my affections for these old models from zero to a solid ten. Can't wait to start working on the crew next.

Here's my (almost) fully constructed 1.5k flotilla.



Just that one Venom left to finish building and then it's on to do all the painting in the world.

I also finished converting my old Haemonculus and her unit of Wracks.



The wracks were made using:
WFB Wood Elf Dryad parts for their bone racks,
For the limbs I used Warrior and Wych Arms/Torsos/Lower legs,
combined with with carefully trimmed WFB High Elf Archer legs for the robes.
And their masks are made from backwards Reaver Jetbiker Helmets.

These guys were so much fun to make. And I can't wait to get some paint on them!

Loving the hell out of the Haemi and Wrack conversions. Well done!

That freehand on the raider hull is absolutely stunning! I will be damned if I won't try to do something similar once my raiders get to painting. I also absolutely dig the wrack conversions! Been thinking for a long while how to best go about making them, and wyches seem to be the most efficient base for them. I'll definitely look into acquiring some high elf bits for conversion work.

THOSE WRACKS ARE PIMP!

Oh my America that is a great idea! And I actually have those bitz laying around collecting dust! Conversion wracks here I come.

Most excellent work!

At the risk of being repetitive, the wracks are deadly! The biker helm's are wicked. Like Siticus, I've been batting around ideas on how to tackle wrack conversions. Your wrack conversions are amoung the best I've seen, if not the best, I would love to see more of them.

Just a quick update today. I've been more than a little distracted by life (and Infinity miniatures )
but I have get a little bit of painting and modelling done.

Two of my ravagers are almost finished.



And I finally settled on a colour scheme for my Wracks



I'm hoping to get the rest of the wrack squad finished by the end of the week!
(And thanks for all the kind words about these guys!)

all of the above and my own omgwtf crazysexycool to add. love the colour(s) scheme. that warrior, damn man.

i didnt like the old stuff so much i didnt collect it, some of you guys(Durathumir included) are making it look great.

Wow, really impressed so far.

I love the way you have reimagined the Raiders and I second GAR's statement about the Wracks.

Colour scheme is really good too, keep it up

Everything looks great here Durathumir, but I'm going to have to shamelessly loot what you did with the Reaver helmets on the Wracks. Very cool effect.