Squidmasters Kabal of the Eternal Night

Anyway.

In other news, I've started work on my Seer Council, at this stage limited in number to five. Each will be a Psyker bei9ng grappled by a Kabalite and forced to use their powers. Images at this stage are not exciting, so I'm not bothering to post them. But progress will be revealed soon.


On top, listening to the most recent episode of Splintermind, a thought occoured to me.
THere was a biref chat on good/bad models, and Kruellagh The Vile was brought up.
Now, I always quite liked the Kruellagh character, but not the model. I though it was a bit knaff, and the guns in the arms just didn;t do it for me. Maybe it was that the "Soul Flayer" were too large and looked goofy sticking right out of her palms like that, I'm not certain. Though it was probably that.
But listening to the episdoe, and I thought "What the hell. Build one."

And so, work in progress, Kruellagh The Vile.



I plan to use my Kruellagh as a Dracon in a Trueborn squad, and I've gone a different route to the classic Kruellagh of course.

Instead of her form fitting suit which far too many people painted as just near-nakedness, I used a basic Kabalite's armour for a better armoured look. As lovely a look as almost completely naked is, I'm not sure its brilliant for a woman who leads a group called "The Emasculators".

The Soul Flayer, her life draiining hand-tubes, I've definitely gone for a much more restrained look. Instead of coming directly from the palms - which frankly is extremely impracticle if you ever want to be able to use your arms/hands again - I've made them as small units that are grafted onto the inner arms. The tubes are still there, but smaller, and attached to small units I plan to paint as fluid canisters.

At this stage, there are two things left to do. First is to finish the buttocks area by bringing the waist armour plates around to the back. Second, is the hair. Classic Kruellagh had a lot of hair, and I plan likewise. Maybe not quite to the same level, but some kind of longer hair anyway.

Hopefully this'll be done by Christmas.

I seem to be letting this log go slightly off-topic into non-Dark Eldar territories every now and then, but I simply can't be bothered starting ANOTHER new Distractions thread.

So.

That Sporefield army I was planning.




Getting there.
Most of the Spores nearly consructed, and we're up to the base level of nearly 50 Mines.
Still a lot of texturing to do on all, but we have good core units nearly there.

approximately how many ones went into the building of that army?

THe planned army list is 10 Sporefields, each with 3 units of 6 mines and 3 units of 2 spores, for a total of 60 Spores and 180 Mines.
And aside from labour, I've somehow managed to keep the whole build under £20/$30.

I can hear GW screaming in frustration because you knocked a few zeros from the price

I know. Good isn't it?

It's really nice. I'm surprised your group lets you do it (Mine is a little mean)

Really?
My group ar eusually quite open to strange and crazy conversions as long as they have actually been modelled to either resemble of be a good standin for what they're supposed to be. They would only really start to cause a fuss if I turned up with a Paperhammer army or something like that. I've not encountered a group really against the idea.
I know in "official" GW events this army would be completely against the rules (because of the 50% original rule) but in casual gaming I have seriously never encountered a group who get iffy towards creative projects.

It's usually those proud fa/tg/uys that complain.

I've started painting the PlasOb by the way.

And in the last couple of days, finished building the bas eevel of this lot:



180 Spore Mine, 60 Mycetic Spores.



I just need to seal the wool tails with PVA, and add some texture to the top domes.

This is the most interesting thing I've ever seen

More stuff!

I'm planning to move sometime early next year, so I've been having a clear out and came across a box I thought gone forever. My OLD Raiders!
I haven't gotten these out in a long time, not since I upgraded to the newer ones, so figured I'd take a bit of time over the last few days to try to rebuild and restore them.
So these are a bit of a salvage job, using whatever bits and pieces I have in my old boxes and bits box, but at this stage better they be actual vehicles than bits taking up space and maybe meeting a skip at some point in the future.

There's a few of them, so bear with me.

So here's the first, a pure transport design with nothing but room for passengers.
Still to add: a pilot at the front, and maybe a mounting for a weapon in the little slot between the front of the top platforms.



Next, a corpse-barge using pieces from the Vampire Counts wagon thing. I forget its actual name.
Stioll to add: pilot at the front, and maybe a gun mount.



A fairly pure old form Ravager next, complete with side plating (which always seemed to fall off no matter what I did). I've carved out the pilot seat just to add some variation.
Still to add: pilot at the front, and three gunners on the side platforms.



A simplistic Raider next, but I had to replace the top spike. I think the new ones gives some nice variation.
Still to add: gunner at the front.



Now a much different Raider, this one intended to transport Wracks, Haemonculi, or other such Coven nonsense.
The front shield has been removed to create a platform where a Haemonculus will stand, and there will be probably be a gunnery platform at the rear. Or those two the other way around.
Underneath is of course a large bulbous sack, through a hole in which I plan to have monsters emerging. This was made with my joy - expanding foam filler.



And then a weird sort of landing craft Raider, with a Falcon's rear hatch at its front as a door for passengers.Bit of a strange one obviously, but I thought.....beasty monsters? Cowards who want an interior to sit in? Who knows.
Still to add: finish the rear, fill in gaps in the armour, add pilot and gunner.



Finally another really simple one.
All I've done for this Raider was smooth down the front plates and make the prow guard a little higher. I've also used plastic rodes to pish further spikes on the top spike out a bit. Just because really.
Still to add: gunner.





And finally, something I'm not sure what to do with. This was in the box, buts an old "from the vault" conversion.
This thing was my earliest attempt at a Razorwing, back when they only existed in Forgeworld form. Its made primarily from Raider, Falcon, Vyper and Reaver Parts from back before I knew the joy or plasticard.
I may just end up dismantling it for parts. Its just not as smooth and aesthetically pleasing to me as once I thought it was.



Happy new year to all.

That razorwing conversion could be used as a... a.... yes

Forgive me. I was young.

Squidmaster wrote:

Forgive me. I was young.

It makes me cry. I don't know what you could use it as

Fun news!

The PLASMA OBLITERATOR is COMPLETE!

For those who haven't seen it in progress yet, the design is twofold.
First, the tower/portal concept comes from what I think is a tactic that makes sense for Dark Eldar. Having a stationary Fortification makes no sense, so instead, how about breaching a battlefield with a large Webway Portal through which a Fortification protrudes. So the base of the building is still in Commoragh, but a portal generator opens a gateway allowing the top part of the tower - the bit with guns - to breach through into an enemy battlefield. This gives versatility and numerous options both for attack points, reuseable buildings from planet to planet, and also a convenient escape/rendevous point.
So my Plasma Obliterator, like my Bastion before it, is a tower in a Commoragh weapons worhop raised througha  portal, show below.

Next, the Plasma Obliterator cannon. I was working on ideas, I though of a Death Star type orb on top of a tower, and then somebody suggested a massive eye.
So yeah, how could I say no to that?
And for extra fun, how could I not put an LED inside that thing?



Its tempting to add more crew to the platform below the Eye Cannon, but then again the Plasma Obliterator is supposed to have occupant space too.

You have the most unique army I've ever seen

Some really great conversion work here, Squidmaster. I really like your use of the old Raider and Ravager kits. Makes me happy to see that they are still receiving some love.

The LED Eye canon is (to use a word I'm not overly fond of) epic. Stand aside Sauron, Squidmaster's eye fires death at all caught in its gaze.

Thanks for the comments guys.


________________________________________________________________


I'm just going to add another bit, and this is a bulk update for some stuff I've managed to get finished. These are some of the less creative, non-big stuff just to bolster the army and finish off a few small units.

To start, I've managed to clear out a small pile of Warriors who've been in unfinished states for a while.
First a group of five, featuring one combat ready Sybraite in the centre and a special weapon of some kind on the far right.



Next, three old metal Scourge sans-wings which work quite well alongside my standard Warriors as heavy weapon wielders - two Dark lances and one Splinter Cannon.



This, by my reckoning, brings me to 73 Warriors in total. I may dig through a bits box to see if I can round that off at some point. For now though, its a good number I'm unlikely to ever field all at one time.....
At some point in the coming weeks I'll probably try to get all 73 together and get a group shot.


Next, whilst looking around, I realised I still had a fair few spare parts from some Wood Elf Dryads I used to make my Wracks, so dug out some Warrior parts and built ten more.




Again, I'll likely get all 20 together for a group shot in the coming weeks.


Next, a quickee with a confession.
I have a lot of Reavers, but only ever had 27. I never rounded it off to 30 (based on the OLD unit maximum size of 10). Sure, not a massive issue, and wqith teh current maximum sizes of 12, it doesn;t fill out the units, but either way I finally finished the "last" three to bring my Reavers to a rounded number.




Next, a small change I'd wanted to do for a while.
I've taken four of my Scourge, removed the barrels of their guns, and magnetized them.
I quite often use all ten as a single unit just with their Shardcarbines as a good anti-Infantry unit, but from time to time I use a smaller unit with anti-tank weapons, so now I;ve magnetized the weapons and made four new barrels for anti-tank weapons.




And finally, an odd one-off build.
I posted a little while back that following on from listening to Splintermind, I had a sudden burst of inspiration to build a new, less sexy Kruellagh The Vile. I think I posted a work in progress picture, but here's the final model.
So as I mentioned before, the design is based on a better Kabalite Archon look. I wanted the full armour rather than the tight skin suit (or completely naked depending on how you painted her). I've removed anything on her belt, because frankly an Archon should have people to carry their stuff fgor them, and added the weird bulky tube things on her shoulders. These are replciated on her forearms units from which her signiature weapon the "Soul Flayer" extrudes. These units I'm thinking are storage containers for the fluids the Soul Flayers extract.

And of course I've painted her in her classic red and black, rather than the colours of my own Kabal.
And I have a thought on that.
My original plan was to use her as a Dracon in a Trueborn unit, but its occured to me that for a while I've been using random Warriors as stand-ins for a Court of the Archon, because I;ve never bothered building actual Court models. And then I think to Vect as he appears in Path of the Archon, and the coterie of Archon who serve him. So, new plan. A collection of smaller Archons, each in their own individual style and colours who are subservient to my Kabal's own Archon. As his servants, they can be his Court of the Archon, and Kruellagh can be the first.
Anway, here is Kruellagh The Vile.



Based on the Court idea, I'm going to need ideas for new Archons to add. I may have to dig through for some inspiration from old Dark Eldar characters, and may have to add both Duke and Baron )sans-board probably), but I'm open to suggestions!



Left on my painting/building table...........very little.

• Those Raiders I posted about recently still need some smoothing and crew.
  
• THe Sporefield needs finsihing, but is wearing a little bit.
  
• Seer Council. Yes, this is underway, a minimum size of a Farseer and four Warlocks, modelled so that each is being held captive by a Kabalite. In progress. We'll see how this goes.
  

One quick addition - a preview of the Seer Council.



The base they're currently on will actually be the top plate of a floating platform (yes, I plan on them being Skyrunners). This one will actually be the Farseer. The whip will be entended to wrap all the way around the captive's waist, and more flowing robes will be sculpted onto the Farseer.
I plan on trying to model something on the Farseer to make it look like some kind of power is manifesting, but I haven't worked out the best way to do that yet.

Moving swiftly on, full five man Seer Council work in progress:

Wracks group shot, as promised.



21 lovely Wracks, mostly generic, four Acothysts, one special guy with a gun.

I'll try to get all the Warriors together some time soon. Raiders too if possible for an overall group shot.

That seer council is amazing o.o

Then here's more of them!

All five guys fully built:

A bulk upload here, with some projects being finished off.

This post features the completion of some recent salvage operations, and also some "guest" pieces which came to me by way of Santa's Secret Space Raid. My thanks to Devilish for a lovely collection of models who I have cheekily used for a slightly different purpose than I think he intended.


First though, a pair of Chronos Engines. I have for some time just had a simple collection of random Pain Engines I've mixed and matched and used as either Talos or Chronos Engines, but in this year's Space Raid Devilish sent me a lovely pair of little Pain Engines which will work excellently as Chronos.




Next, a pair of Venoms.
I managed to find a few of the snowflake decorartions my other Venoms were made of, but lacked the rest of the original pieces. So these two I made of new components and intentionally made them look different so that I could distinguish Venoms not carrying Warriors from those with more fun in them. These are slightly squatter, a little bulkier, and lack the spikes of the others I've built.
As is, I still have to build a couple of passengers to hand off of them, but I'll get to that soon.




Next, a Ravager. One of the recent Salvage jobs, repaired from one of my OLD Ravagers and cleaned up, with new crew and a nice new paint job.




A collection of Raiders now, all from the salvage table.
All of these are rebuilt and heavily cleaned up from broken old Raiders which got discard saome years ago. They're found new life now, and hopefully will see some table time in the future.


This first one is a simple job. To distinguish this one, I just smoothed out the forward hull and added an extra shield for the front crewman.




Another new one, this one with a Wych at the front as a gunner, a new fin, and a collection of tubes and holes around the place just to make it different. I realise on uploading the image that I haven't painted the tubes yet, but they are planned to be poison containers.




Next, a Raider specifically for the Haemonculi. This one is covered in bodies taken from the Corpse Cart and crewed by a pair of Wracks from Devilish. It also features a driver who appears to be piloting through the power of shouting at the console.




And finally, a full lounging platform. No bulk, no fin or spine, just flat areas for passengers to stand or relax on, featuring a Devilish gunner whose knife has been adapted into a handle for the Dark lance.






Thats all for now. There's one more model from Devilish (a Slyth) I haven;t finished painting yet, but he'll be standing in my Court of the Archon alongside the variety of new Demi-Archons I'm filling that out with.

And painfully, that Slyth and one other Archon are all that remains on my crafting table.

I may need a new project soon.........