Kabal of the Drowned Temple

Hey all,

Main goal of this project/blog:
I'm attending a tournament in the end of February that's supposedly one of the best tournaments in Denmark with a Army Selection, and the people who attend are mostly there to show off their fluff lists rather than their spammy lists. I like that.

The tournament is in less than 2 months and I need to paint up a full lists of 1650 pts before-hand, so I'm quite busy with painting whenever time permits from now on. I'm writing this blog to help motivate myself, and get some feedback and ideas.

Reasoning behind the choice of army:
Around mid december I switched from the honorable Space Wolves to the notorious Dark Eldar. A switch I was happy about as I was looking for better jump infantry, better speed and a flyer. Another requirement was that it had to be a newer codex, not Grey Knights or Necrons. The choice was obvious!

A bit about me:
My first game of 40k was with Eldar back in 3rd, a very short journey really as I grew older and video games were just so much more interesting, and as I got on my own feet I realized Warhammer was quite expensive, and out of the picture. July 2012, I got back into the game with Space Wolves, just before 6th edition. Had a blast, but, as I mentioned earlier, I was looking for a change.

Gallery: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7h7uw8mhkcpusgz/kT8Oyzn55W
22 warriors done. 18 Splinter rifles, 2 Dark lances, 2 Splinter cannons. I'll probably only be using the 2 dark lances in the tournament but as I was already painting I thought I might as well do the last 2 guys so I can customize a bit.

Looking good. I experimented with purple myself but ended up with a dark teal as my preferred choice, going to see someone succeeding where I failed!

I particularly like the non-metallic metal you've done - any chance of some close up shots?

Off to a great start. Purple is where it's at!

Panic_Puppet wrote:

I particularly like the non-metallic metal you've done - any chance of some close up shots?

Sure, although this is as close as my camera goes I'm afraid. This is also where you really can see I'm no pro at painting but hey, it gets the job done, especially on the tabletop.

My "trick" to paint:
Cover the entire bit with Mournfang Brown.
Cover the upper halft with a mix of 2/3 Mournfang Brown , 1/3 Ushabti Bone.
Do a small line at the top with a mix of 2/3 Ushabti Bone, 1/3 Mournfang Brown.

And that's really it. Seemed to take forever when painting 5-7 models at a time but I'm very happy with the result. The end result works well with the very dark purple plates and highlights.

Front:


Also, I did some touch ups today. Painted the handle of the daggers, and did an attempt at Eye of Errors liquid guide. I'm not happy with the result, but it will do for the warriors. I think the problem really is that the vials are very small, and I don't have a proper midtone green colour to go with the green highlight. Will have to get that for the next piece that needs (Scourges I think).

Did some good progress on my first raider yesterday. Still missing a few details such as various control panels for the pilot/steerman, as well as the sail, the cannon and the 2 crew members. Hopefully I'll have a finished raider before tomorrow!

WIP image from yesterday:
--- accidently overwrote the picture with the final one. Look further down for the actual raider! ---

Your hardlines look good on the Raider. Probably one of the hardest things to master as the slightest shake of the brush can screw up the entire piece. Great practice though and once you've finished your 9th raider it should look outstanding!

Loving your color scheme, it closely resembles mine.

Thanks for the response Beerd, very kind of you. Hoping after 2 raiders and 2 ravagers it will start to look better.


Progress has been slow. I got very sick last friday through the entire weekend. As I'm writing this I'm licking my wounds and getting ready to go back into the paint war.

I've finished up most of the raider with the exception of the 2 crew members. The sail is more or less done. Gotten a real slick surface on one of the sides of the sail however the other one.. well not so much. It seems beyond fixable unless I strip all of the paint off, and it's not that bad unless you go close and up. I'm ok with it, I'll just have to be better with the next.

In my local gaming clubs campaign we are raising the points to 1400 this week. Means I'll be fielding Hekatrixes now with my Wyches. I got heavily inspired by Evil Space Elves convert, and made up 2 with more or less the same bits.

Funny side note; about a week ago I went and bought a new pack of wyches to be able to make the hekatrixes, but seeing the poses on Evil Spave Elves' models, I figured I could use the remaining bits and bobs from the other kits.

So, behold, my 2 hekatrixes:


The base is a part of the nose from left overs bits from Raiders. At first the plan was to get a nice pose out of the legs from venoms/raiders, but the more I look at it and think about it, the more sense it makes. My raiders often get shot down, so naturally, it's noses from the raider that just got blown

Looks great!

Oh, I'd love to take credit for the poses/basing, but they were my gifts from Eye of Error from the Secret Santa Raid gift exchange.

Oh.. Well kudos to Eye of Error!

Update time!

The monthly vow here is closing in at a hasty speed, so today I bring to you a few finished pieces!

Raider:


Venom:


Reavers (without riders):

Picture is pretty bad - focus was all over the place (or you coul say it wasn't).

Close up:


The reavers is kind of a bonus/sidetrack. I still need to paint an entire Raider for the monthly vow and I do feel like I should finish the riders first for the reavers. It's going to be a busy week painting wise, but it should be alright as I got the entire weekend to finish it all up.

As always there's a few more pictures for both the reavers and the venom in the gallery here.

Finished up Wyches last night (apart from the bases which I'll do late tonight. Hekatrix, Hydragauntlets and 7 normal wyches. I'll be fielding them with my Archon for the upcoming tournament.

Wyches


Hydra gauntlets:


Hekatrix:


A few words about the choice of colours:
I decided not to go with the primary colour purple I use for all my other models as I feel the Wyches aren't really a part of the Kabal or the Dark Eldar I normally paint. I'm kind of not happy about me already painting a Venom with the Kabal colours rather than my Wych colours as I feel like the Venom is a Cult vehicle, not a Kabal.

It will be alright though -- for the tournament I'll be fielding Trueborn and Warriors in Venoms rather than Wyches, so no hard feelings there. Now I have to figure out how to angle the part where my Reavers are Kabal colours and the riders are Cult colours!

I also finished up my Ravager during the weekend. Quick bad photo here:

Also, on a side note;

I'm not too happy about the name of the kabal. Kabal of the Drowned Temple just seems a bit "merh", as well as I'm having trouble finding out how a symbol could look like let alone painting it free-hand on sails and flags.

I've been thinking about picking an Eldar symbol and convert it somehow to something more sinister, and use that as inspiration as well as main symbol.

I'm open to ideas and suggestions, so if something pops to your mind please let me know.

It's been a long journey for my Kabal. I recieved the boxes the 12th of december and got a 1200 pt list put together for the local gaming club tournament the day after. What a night that was!

Since then I've been more or less glueing, coating, painting, making lists, painting some more and, well, yeah, paint more. Yesterday I finally completed my last unit, Scourges, for the upcoming tournament here in Februrary. Considering my Space Wolves was my 1st army since I started in late 5th/early 6th where I've only finished like 1000 pts painted over a 8 month period, I consider this to be fairly sweet. I'm pretty happy about the paint job considering the speed painting process as well as I'm not that experienced a painter yet. I got to try out a couple of new techniques as well as common practice. I'll be using this for my next project, whichever that will be.

Now, I'm hoping I can fit in some time to make a few custom pain token counters for the tournament, but alas, I can't stand the look of paint nor glue at the moment. So it will have to wait.

I'd also like to change the name of the Kabal. I'm not too happy with the name. It reminds me more of Lizardmen than Dark Eldar, not to mention the symbol itself would be pretty hard to paint free-hand. I mean, a drowning temple?!

Anywho, enough talk. Here's each unit finished for the tournament list, as well as it all put together:


Archon


Trueborn


Warriors


Wyches


Reavers


Scourges


Raiders


Venoms


Ravager


Razorwing Jetfighter


You can find more pictures right here (link). It's some quick photos during the painting period both WIP and finished models. I'm not too happy about the photo quality. I can't seem to find a moment where there's daylight to take the photos, it's always in the evening.