Squidmasters Kabal of the Eternal Night

Hi all. I'm a long time lurker, only recently bothered to join-er, so I thought I'd share some of my Kabal with you.

By way of introduction, I'll say I've been collecting this same Dark Eldar force since they were first released back in 3rd edition. I've suffered along with these guys but kept them together, wavering only once for some Flesh Tearer goodness.
Anywho, the army has several conversion, as I like to keep as much of it as unique looking as possible. What I will say is that I've never really been that great of a painter. I've certainly improved since my small child days, but I'm not something to shout about.
What I do think I do well is the builds. A lot of my force are simple kit-bashes, but others are full scratch-builds that I've been very happy with.

So, that in mind, the Kabal of the Eternal Night.
Theme-wise, this is a pure Kabalite force. I will suffer no wyches or any wych derivative, however I am more than happy to throw some warrior-themed conversions at the more interesting units I like to use in the force. I am after all one of those guys who really enjoys fielding 30 Reaver Jetbikes (as soon as I get a decent picture of them all, I'll add that one to this thread).


An obvious place to start then is the Archon:
The picture here is a work in progress. He;s fully built and has been for a while, but recently I deciced he needed a fresh paint job, so the pic shows him undercoated (I hope you can make him out well enough).
It's Vlad von Carstewns body, an old Blood Dragon head, Dark Elf Execution Champion sowrd and the old Archon's agoniser-claw-thing. Some parts of the armour have been smoothed over to drop some of the vampire look, but he makes a nice and imposing figure leading my army. As well as an Archon, I sometimes use him as Asrudael Vect.



Sticking with HQ for now, some Haemonculi.
As said this is a Warrior Kabal, through and through, as such my Haemonculi are more warrior-esque than normal, but kitted out with special pieces of wargear to make them obvious.
The guy on the left has a multi-pronged pistol, intended as the old Stinger, and the buy on the right a wrist-mounted tube which was supposed to be for the Liquifier. The central figure, the Ancient, holds either an Archangel or Crucible, releasing the thing inside (with a piece from an Empire Wizard). Bodies are from old Dark Elfs, the Ancient being Malus Darkblade.



And, although I'm not happy with the paint-job or his current rules, the Decapitator.
Multi-armed, and mutli-weaponed rather than a single weapon (just thought it'd be more interesting). Old rules I could put him to great effect. Now though......sigh.



Elites I'll kick of with work in progress on a Wrack.
The unit is built and being painted, once done I'll put the whole unit up. They;re all kit-bashes with some green stuff using Warrior parts and Wood Elf Dryads.



Trueborn next.
I built these guys on a day when I was very bored and decided I liked them, so kept them on as Trueborn. Thematically, they're the hunter, each one designed to show he's skilled in hunting a particular race and have modified their armours with their trophies.. These are of course, left to right, Eldar, Human, Tyranid, Tau then Ork.



Finally, Mandrakes.
I used to love these guys, but their current rules make them next to useless in my opinion.
Even so, here they are, modeled on the nine Nazgul but given a nice assortment of weapons and green stuff flames. I'm not sure how well you can make it out in the picture, but the paintjob is supposed to make them look like they're becoming visible, energy crackling along the edges of where their camoflague is undoing.
I'm yet to find something suitable to be the tenth member of this unit, because those damn Nazgul are only nine.....




Troops, and that of course finally means the Kabalite Warriors.
All are simple kit-bashes from old Dark Eldar, modern Dark Eldar and various Eldar or Dark Elf pieces, just to keep a decent level of variation amongst the rank and file. Quite a few ended up looking grander than the others, and I think at one point I started rationalizing it saying the ones who look grander (cloaks, etc) were the full warriors, and the smaller ones were like initiates or untested warriors. The cloaked guys have earned their place, but aren't quite Trueborn, or some nonsense like that.
I have roughly 40 warriors kicking around somewhere, maybe more. These are just a sample.





A quick jump into Fast Attack with some more works on progress.
My Scourge were on of my earliest conversions and ones I still really like. They're a simple build, with Swooping Hawk bodies, splinter weapon muzzles, Dark Elf Warrior heads and OLD Scourge wings, and they fit very nicdely as Kabalite Scourge rather than the weird experimenty things they're supposed to be.
They've recently been rebased to fall into line with the rest of the army, so needed a new paintjob too. Here's one of them, undercoated and ready to be painted.



And lastly the finished Clawed Fiend, whose comrades from the Beastmaster unit are waiting to be undercoated.
Simple build again, with some armour plates around a Cold One.




I wasn't able to get any vehicle shots fro this post, but will try to add a few at some point. I'm sitting on four Venoms (being reassembled after damage) four or five Raiders, a heavily converted Ravager, two scratch-built Voidravens, a scratch-built Raven, and am currently working on the silliest - but I think potentially most interesting - addition to my army, a BASTION.



Comments, critiques and quips are of course welcomed and encouraged.

And on a side-note, my Kabal's fleet for Battlefleet Gothic:

Great thread! Love your wracks and harmonculi conversions - might have to steal that idea and put to use some of the spare crew bodies that I have lying around

Just out of interest, what bit(s) did you use to make the corsair class escorts? Cheers

Heh. Perhaps my proudest find.

They are Cylon Raiders from the Battlestar Galactica board game.

Wow!! That effect on the mandrake is just delicious! I've never seen that executed before. The pictures don't make it clear though, are they painted grey underneath or is it just the plastic? Either way it seems to work. I love the clawed fiend as well, and the use of the old scourge wings being justified. Nice to see how you used Malus Darkblade too, surprised that model doesn't get more love.

I'm so-so on your trueborn, well mainly the one with the tau head, but I do think the paint is excellent and they do look very unique. Only a matter of personal taste, by no means am I saying their not objectively awesome. Please post more! Can't wait to see your archon.

Mandrakes are awesome! I also like your Haemunculi. Can't wait till you post a picture with 30 bikes!

The dryad warrior combo is absolutely fantastic!

I already have wracks but consider that idea stolen for some mandrakes perhaps. Really inventive stuff!

I had a fairly good day of it yesterday, and then this morning, so here's the painted Archon:




And as an added bonus, I finished off the Grotesques.



These guys were a bit of a build as all I had were some absolutely wrecked Ogres to work with. I had to completely reassemble the legs out of odd parts (sprue pieces, plastic rods, a couple of wall plus each and some green stuff).
Weapons were either from the Ogres themselves or whatever spiky things I had around, additional spiky things that didn't work as weapons just being stuck to the body along with pins and guitar wire. The heads I had were wrecked too, so I started out trying to give them something akin to gas masks. That turned into the basic "breathing-hole" they ended up with.
Finally added the small pieces of plastic rod, painted here to TRY to look like toxin vials pumping green goo into their bodies.
I was missing on arm to work with, so one of them (far left in the picture) had a lump moulded where the arm should be with a Liquifier sticking out of it.
I imagine these guys being a nightmare to transport, so its possible they'll sit on a shelf somewhere for a while until I figure out the best way.


Next on the painting table are the Wracks (3 down, 8 to go) and a repaint for my Venoms.
Modelling table is currently occupied by parts for the Bastion.

I like it! A lot of very unique models  

The Grotesques are like nothing I've ever seen before, and yet they still fit the bill. How are you going to fluff them into your Kabal-only army? I really like your Haemis as well... And your Archon... And your Mandrakes!

I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Fidra wrote:

...are they painted grey underneath or is it just the plastic?

They're painted. Annoyingly the models came as an expensive Finecast set, so not the lovely grey of plastic.

Quote :

Plastikente

The Grotesques are like nothing I've ever seen before, and yet they still fit the bill. How are you going to fluff them into your Kabal-only army?[/quote]

To be honest I hadn't thought it through when I built them. I'm trying to rationalize after the fact by saying "Why not?" The construction of insane, drug-fulled war-behemoths may not necessarily be a strictly Haemonculus only thing.....
It's a bad reason I know, but it's what I've got.

Thanks for the comments guys.


I thought I'd do some more sharing, and this time throw in a few of the works in progress.

To start boringly, a few more warriors, again kit bashed between Dark Eldar new and old, some Eldar and a few Dark Elves.



Next one of my Pain Engines.



I'll admit that I, as I imagine others do, keep a couple of Pain Engines around and alternate them between being used as Talos or Chronos Engines.
I've got two fully built at the moment, and a third that's not been finished, each one themed on a different race having been strapped into the Pain Engine (and further parts salvaged for their own unique race). The Ork is in pieces, and the Tyranid is awaiting a freshening of its paintjob so here's the Eldar, a War Walker pilot who'se been strapped into the cannabalised remains of his own Walker now converted into a Pain Engine.
I'm not sure the musculature quite works, so I might be redoing it at some points (I've been told it looks a little too much like hair).

Next, I thought I'd get a vehicle in here.
Not one I've used very often as it's one of my older Raiders. Specifically, back before I streamlined the force a bit, this was the Haemonculus/Grotesque/Wracks transport.



It started out with a ramp at the front kind of like an assault boat, but that quickly shifted into a pit with a Haemonculus onboard. The throne at the back would have held a Haemonculus master (or Ancient now I suppose) but I never got around to building him.
Some parts in there salved from an Eldar Falcon, a Reaver Jetbike and of course an old style Raider (with green stuff, plasticard and some weird gooey hole-filler I found in a craft store as the pit-goo).

Next, one of my oldest conversions - my Ravager.



Now, this guy I build a LONG time ago, but it's suffered some damage recently so is on the shelf being repaired and having a few structural enhancements made to make it sturdier and less likely to break in transit.
The idea behind the build was simply a tower of death. Looking at Commoragh, I had the idea of Dark Eldar not only living in massive towers, but also just slapping grav-generators to them and floating around in them. From there, the idea simply went to make a smaller-scale version that could hover over a battle-field as a gun-boat. This Ravager represents the early version that I've not quite been able to top yet.
It's built on a Falcon's engine at the bottom of two plastic tubes from the middle of till-rolls (now strengthened with a pend running through the middle of them). These were wrapped with wire mesh (from a frying pan spit-guard) and had some chain wrapped around in places.
Four back-spikes from old Raiders and an old Raider front for the top and it was set. The spike at the top holds up a Vyper control console, as there's usually a pilot standing on top driving this thing, but I was quite unhappy with the guy who was there so a new one is being built.
The guns are represented by the two units floating at the sides held in place by guitar wires. These are two of the things being strengthened at the moment, as they do have a tendency to flop around.

Next, something OFF-THEME.

I recently had the notion to add some Eldar allies. I've not yet figured out what I'm adding or how I'm going to get it to match the theme, but to be honest I just wanted to build this AVATAR.



The base was General Zod (a small, cheap action figure) with liberal amounts of green stuff and some plasticard. I started out by posing Zod (some cutting and smooting needed) and adding some plasticard head-wings.
I then gave him a coat of liquid green stuff so he'd be easier to paint later. The rock plates were then just added as blobs of green stuff. Once on the body and shaped, they were each pressed with real stones (the lumpiest I could find in my garden) to give them some texture.
Weapons were added (the spear being a plastic rod with various lengths of plastic tubing, the head from a poundland skeleton toy that in no way ripped off the Tomb Kings mould, the sword being from the same toy), and that was it! An awesome imposing presence.

Now, back to Dark Eldar.

Remember how I was talking about the floating towers of death I pictured for my Dark Eldar? Well Fortifications have given me the chance to go ahead and realize at least something similar. The idea has evolved a bit, and is now working towards my Dark Eldar BASTION.



The idea here is that having a decent gun-platform with decent armour would really help my force. Sure, it might just attract heavy fire, but that's fire that for a turn at least won't be making mince out of my more fragile units. A collection of Heavy Bolters and the opportunity for either an Icarus or Quad-Gun to deal with Deep Strikers and Flyers also really appeals.
It's also entered my mind that this would actually make Mandrakes viable for me again, as I can infiltrate them straight into the Bastion to man the Icarus/Quad-gun!
The build is based on a crater, which will be filled in a little to look like a web-way portal. The idea is that the portal has ripped open here (wrecking the ground) and a gun-tower has thrust through to lay down suppressing fire. This solves the problem of how Dark Eldar would transport it around - they wouldn't! The tower would be based back in Commoragh, but would raise up through portals opened in each battle-field.
The tower stem them=n is a pair of pens and some plastic tubes (till-rolls again). I happily found some circular clock-face and gear/cog looking christmas tree decorations this year, and these have formed the top and bottom plates for the crew compartments.
Around them are the yellow/green things which are actually from a hamster ball. To survive transit, I pictured the tower being closed like a ball, opening once through the portal. The crew (the four heavily armed guys who will represent the emplaced Heavy Bolters would be inside the sphere, and standing in this crew compartment.
I haven't finalized some parts of the design, as obviously it has some flaws:
What if people enter the building: Representative? They could be "through the portal" but still count as in the building?
It's small...: Obviously it's much thinner than the standard Bastion (but not taller!) and I already hear the cry of modelling for advantage. This is why for fairness sake, I'd say all measuring is to the base (the crater) which actually makes it BIGGER than the standard Bastion (though it's own weapons would still be from the weapons themselves). It's actually a DISADVANTAGE for the sake of looking awesome.

I would like to kindly request more oh dark squid overlord.

The avatar is absolutely fantastic. As is the grav powered tower.

The crisp lines of bluey shades are really beautiful as well.

I love the idea for the bastion! I've never liked the idea of DE fortifications (I justify my own as Imperial ones they have captured on the way through), but your idea is just how they would do it - deploy a floating building straight from the webway. Brilliant   

Impressive avatar! His pose looks odd though. If he was floating I'd above the base it would be fitting. Otherwise I think he should be standing normally instead of on his toes a bit twisted to the side.

Nice conversions overall, you got some very good ideas. Thumbs up!

facelessabsalom wrote:

Impressive avatar! His pose looks odd though. If he was floating I'd above the base it would be fitting. Otherwise I think he should be standing normally instead of on his toes a bit twisted to the side.

Nice conversions overall, you got some very good ideas. Thumbs up!

I started to find that the higher he was, the more unstable he'd become. He's a little top-heavy, and prone to falling flat on his face with the slightest nudge, so I ended up having to put him floating almost at ground level.



I've got some more stuff to share!

I've had a week or two of little to no work, so I've been a bit bored, and thus at work. First, a few more warriors.



We've got here some of the special weapon guys, one of whom is a salvaged body and Dark lance from an old Scourge. The rest are the usual kit bashing.


Next, I've got my Wracks sorted.





I said in the original post with the work in progress image of one of these Wracks, they're a basic kit bash between Dark Eldar/Eldar/Dark Elves and the Wood Elf Dryads. A lot of the Wracks I see about tend to simply be ugly monstrosities, whereas I wanted mine to be "flesh gone wild". Also, tentacles are always awesome in any context. ANY context.
A fair amount of green stuff was also used both in smoothing over the armour and adding a few more lengths of flesh to wrap around the bodies and eliminate any sense of divide between the armoured parts and the Dryad parts.
The bottom image is the extra eleventh member of the squad. He started life as a Hex-Rifle totting Haemonculus, but as the rest of the squad took form he was added into them as either a Wrack with Liquifier or an Acothyst with Hex-Rifle.


Finally today, as an extra little something, my Razorwing Flocks finally got finished.



Rather than go with Flocks, I wanted to simply go for a single large bird for each Razoring, and rather than a boring bird, I wanted to go along the Eldar Robot route. The Eldar HAD robots, so I thought why not something like an aerial scout, or Laserbeak-like monster?
These guys are completely scratch-built. The wings are strips of plastic can carefully arranged and glued in place, the pressed at the tips with some lengths of wire to give them stability.
The head is thicker plastic stripping, and the body is made up of beads. Yes, beads. With wiring thread through them and the areas between each one filled in by wrapping thread around them (which was then given a coat of liquid green-stuff to smooth it out).
The legs had to be crafted from whatever small pieces of plastic I had around.



The Bastion is waiting for me to find somewhere nearby that sells plasticard sheets so I can work on the spines/spikes that are going to hold the outer plates in place. I've also not quite figured out the best way to build the top-plate.
In the meantime I've got my unit of Scourge next on the painting table, along with the usual collection of half-painted Warriors. All of them have their white areas and flesh painted, hey just need the blue armour and weapons done. There are 23 of them, and a further 5 who are painted but are waiting for new bases.
The building table, as well as being taken up by the Bastion, also has the Khymerae nearly done (also waiting on plasticard sheet for the final touches) and the Beastmasters, who have only one slight tweak before being ready to undercoat.

I love the Wracks.  The dryad pieces work really well with the (Dark) Eldar bits to create the impression of mutation.  "Flesh gone wild" indeed  

As I said before and as said above, I adore those wracks! I have to find a place for them in my force! Inspiring stuff!

pretty interesting log, not all 40k players, not even the ones who also collect dark eldar themselves like these oldschool models, if you check my own log, you'll see I'm a huge fan too.

A lot of interesting conversions, a pretty unique army


I know what you mean on the decapitator, I have my own version too from the old codex, but now it's just an awesome lord I use occasionally.

The nazgul are pretty cool models, I also had some, sold them but I enjoyed them while I had them, I also thought for a long time about using them in my army somehow.

Hello again, and a few more updates.


First, as is traditional, a few more Warriors.



The usual mix of kit-bashes, this time two basic Sybarites on the left, a special weapons man second to right with the tip of a Fire Dragons blaster stuck to a Splinter Rifle butt, and a salvaged metal Ravager Gunner on the far right adding to the assorted mix of armours in my Warrior squads.

Next, a bit overdue, are two Raiders.



I wanted my Raiders simple and streamlined, so I did away with both the sails and the rudders.
In both cases the gunners at the front come away for easier transport and storage.
Both Raiders are more of less basic as from the Raider kit, with the exception of the Drivers. I've salvaged a pair of spikes from the old Talos and mounted them on plastic rods as control consoles. The top picture should give the idea that the consoles have assorted flat-screen icons on them. I did attempt to be a bit clever, but not sure how well I did or you can tell, by trying to make it look like there was a raised holographic interface as well. I'm not sure if you can make out the green web-thing under the pilot's hands?
I'm not sure it worked as well as I'd hoped, so I might look to a better way of accomplishing this at a later date.

Next, some firepower from a Reaper.



When I first decided to build this guy, I did NOT want to buy another Raider hull for a vehicle I wasn't sure I would use very often (I was wrong) so I went for a simpler route - an add-on to an existing Raider.
The bottom plate is plasticard rods, designed to slot under the platform the Raider gunner stands on, the top part of the clamp coming I think from an old Gundam battle-suit model kit.
The main core of the gun was from a very old Zoids kit that long ago broke and ended up in pieces in my bits box, and then the barrel parts were from various Dark Eldar spikes (old Raider nose spikes I believe).

And finally for today, my Webway Portal.



This should be about representative of how the portal beneath my Bastion should look.
The core of this one is half a christmas bauble. The outside has been covered in small gem-things I found at a local craft shop (though annoying to get them onto the bauble, each had to be superglued). The inner part are tiny broken glass fragments, sold as decoration for flower pots.
All of this is mounted on a small blast template to make sure the size is exactly right.

This update was a bit of a side-line, so next to paint are still the Scourge, and the build table is still the Bastion, finishing touches to the Khymerae, and finishing the repairs to the Venoms.

And at some point I'll try to get all the Reavers on here too.

I like the Webway portal - another original conversion.

Plastikente wrote:

I like the Webway portal - another original conversion.

Totally agree, this was a very nice conversion. What do you think about the hole in it though? I'd like to see it covered up, looks odd I think. But it could be practical that hole. In case we look right into the portal you can peer through from behind and have your eye staring back at us.

I'm not really that bothered by the hole, though I suppose that filling it would be a slight improvement.

I had considered adding something in there, but instead of just filling it in putting the actual physical portal generator in there.
Which do you think would look better?

I had a few things out and about as I was packing the army ready for some gaming tonight, so thought I;d get a quick snap of one more thing to show you.

It's another Raider, but a different one.



This one has sometimes doubled as a Dais of Destruction, when the mood took me to use my Archon as Vect.
The basic hull is the old style, the rear spike and pilot's seat removed. The side platforms have been extended, simply by carving out half the undercarraige of spare platforms and putting them on.
The nose has had a weapon stuck through it's guard, which itself is doubled up to give extra bulkiness to the front armour. The side armour plates are plastic strips, VERY carefully bent into shape to match the curve of the platforms.
The rear spike has been replaced with the dais and throne, which was made from the seat from an Imperial Guard Sentinel with two old Raider spikes cut down into the chair sides. The rear is adorned with old Reaver arts for a few extra spikes, and there are the odd Dark Elf emblems (and Mordheim building gargoyles) dotted around the thing for extra decoration.
I built this one some time ago, but have never quite got a round to building the pilot for the front of the craft or someone to sit on the throne, mainly because I can;t find a decent sitting figure to match my Archon. Chances are I never will, and the seat will just remain empty. A pilot really is needed though...

Putting the portal device behind the whole would be nice. Very nice raider/dais, gives me inspiration to make myself a custom one. I mean, having identical raiders aren't as cool as different models and such