Reviving My Dark Eldar - Elites

Here are some more photos of my recently revived Dark Eldar army. You can find more pictures of all aspects of the army by clicking on the 'Parade Grounds' page found near the top and scrolling down to 'Scions of the Skin-Lord'. Clicking on this will take you to a page dedicated to the army full of background, pictures and links to associated posts. You can also find many of my other armies on the 'Parade Grounds' and you should probably check them out. 

Or you can just click this link to go straight to the page: Scions of the Skin-Lord

Trueborn Squads

Reviving my Dark Eldar - Talos Pain Engine

Here are some more photos of my recently revived Dark Eldar army. You can find more pictures of all aspects of the army by clicking on the 'Parade Grounds' page found near the top and scrolling down to 'Scions of the Skin-Lord'. Clicking on this will take you to a page dedicated to the army full of background, pictures and links to associated posts. You can also find many of my other armies on the 'Parade Grounds' and you should probably check them out. 

Or you can just click this link to go straight to the page: Scions of the Skin-Lord

The Beast of the Pit

Inquisitor Mortimer Rex - Ordo Xenos Radical

"We can learn much from the Xenos if only we open ourselves to them"

Once a proud servant of the Imperium, Inquisitor Mortimer Rex has fallen into sadism and debauchery from his dealings with the Dark Eldar. Desiring knowledge and power above all else he has aligned himself with the Scions of the Skin-Lord to learn from their Haemonculi the secrets of life and death. In exchange he has betrayed the Imperium by revealing the location of military outposts across the sector allowing the Dark Eldar to evade Imperial patrols and strike undefended worlds. The Ordo Xenos has declared this renegade inquisitor Excommunicae Tratoris but none have yet found him as he travels from world to world performing vile experiments for his xenos masters.

Reviving My Dark Eldar - Troops

Here are some more photos of my recently revived Dark Eldar army. You can find more pictures of all aspects of the army by clicking on the 'Parade Grounds' page found near the top and scrolling down to 'Scions of the Skin-Lord'. Clicking on this will take you to a page dedicated to the army full of background, pictures and links to associated posts. You can also find many of my other armies on the 'Parade Grounds' and you should probably check them out. 

Or you can just click this link to go straight to the page: Scions of the Skin-Lord

Haemonculi Apprentices

Skin-Reaver Warriors

Reviving my Dark Eldar - Lord Havelock Dread-Hand

"I can taste it in the air, the sweet elixir of battle. Blood. Sweat. Fear. Pain. I drink it in through every pore of my skin and feast upon it with my hungry eyes. I live for the violence of our age; if only so that I can dance as a gore-drenched God amongst the stars revealing in my own murderous prowess."

Gladiator and assassin-for-hire, Havelock Dread-Hand was hired by Admiral Karzein Depravum shortly after the fall of Lethis on Lehron IV. Whilst Durizael was incapacitated, Karzein decided to flee to Kharcis Prime to escape the wrath of jealous Archons in the Dark City. The Admiral sent Havelock to Commoragh where he managed to retrieve most of the information stored by the Depravum in their Citadel as well as several relics which had not already been taken by looters. He bought them to the Fleshless Palace on Kharcis Prime and was rewarded with sponsorship from the Faceless Archon and the title of 'Lord' within his court.

This model happened a bit at random as I was taking apart some models I decided I no longer wanted in my army. The parts just fell together and after one quick mock-up later I decided this would be a perfect addition to the Scions of the Skin-Lord. Using nothing but his fists (albeit augmented with Hydra Gauntlets) Havelock relishes getting close and personal to the kill. His stance screams arrogance and also contemplation; as if he has just torn your guts out with his hands and is watching you writhe around on the floor dying.

In games I will be using him as a Succubus with Hydra Gauntlets, probably in smaller games when I don't want to field an Archon but want maximum killing power.

I was going to post my review of End Times: Thanquol this weekend but for various reasons I am yet to finish reading the book despite it sitting open on my desk permanently. I should however be able to get that review up next weekend as I have a far less busy week this week than last. I have been able to do some more painting though this week; Nagash is about half-way finished and I have done some converting with my elves but not much. All of this I should be able to get on the blog sometime near the end of the month. 

Life at university - a 3 month hobby review

As you may have noticed from my occasional moaning about having no money or time and my posts on Glottkin in particular, I am a student. I started at the end of September and as I come to the end of my first semester I thought I would do a little review of what I have done in the hobby thus far.

If you haven't seen my rambling several weeks into the semester you can read them here: My Glottkin woes and hobby life as a student.

Much of this post will just be random thoughts I have had combined with the occasional self-promotion for things I have posted or will be posting in the new year. There is also a mini-review of the latest Hobbit film near the bottom which I might write up more fully when I have seen it more than just the once. As it was the Lord of the Rings films that got me into the entire fantasy genre, seeing the final film of the Middle-Earth saga was quite the roller coaster.

I still can't believe its all over...

My Glottkin woes and hobby life as a student.

For a while now the blog has been largely running on pre-prepared posts I have scheduled in advance due to the fact that I am now at university and do not have time during the week to do much hobby stuff. This will therefore be a slightly unusual post for me as it will largely just be ranting and random thoughts: a bit of a vague general update on my hobby life more than anything else. 

First I will rant a bit about Glottkin. Getting hold of this book has been an absolute nightmare and ultimately I have failed to procure myself a copy. As you may have seen a few months ago I bought the Nagash book and wrote a review of it; praising the design team for such an excellent product. I have no doubt that Glottkin is just as impressive but has been much harder to get a hold of. 

I managed to miss the book when it went up for Pre-Orders on the webstore due to being a student and actually having a Friday night social life. I was then unable to reserve any copies from any of the local suppliers and on the day of release the woefully few copies my local GW had were sold out in literal seconds. I even called in a range of favours people owed me, ringing friends across the UK and telling them to run to their local warhammer shop to buy me a book. None of them; from York to Oxford, Chesterfield to Aberystwyth, were able to get a copy for me. 

Nooooooooooooooo!

Reviving my Dark Eldar - Coven Master Aringrax the Twisted

"Flee pathetic mortals! You can run as far as you want but your flesh belongs to me now!"

 Following the fall of Lethis Depravum on Lehron IV the master of the Coven of the Ebon Hand was slain and the Haemonculi fell into chaos. From this anarchy rose Aringrax whom had previously ran the mere day-to-day business of the coven. He offered the coven order and stability if he was made master of the coven itself, the alternative was a swift death at the hands of his pet Talos Pain Engine. Aringrax thus ascended to the power he had craved for so long, killing any who got in his way. Knowing he had many enemies within Commoragh who would seek to usurp him; Aringrax chose to take his coven into exile with the Skin-Lords and became the Faceless Archon's second-in-command. Paranoid and living in the shadow of his long-dead masters he seeks to build and triumph above all his predecessors. He will succeed where they failed and become the greatest Haemonculus in all history! For Aringrax failure is not an option.

Reviving My Dark Eldar - An Army Reborn

Looking at my armies this year as I finish off the last few models I decided that my Dark Eldar army looked a bit bland and uninspired despite the amount of background I wrote for it. You can see it in these posts: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. I decided it was time for a dark and gritty re-boot so I moved the story of the Depravum on a few years to their fall and to what sick creatures have risen from the ashes. You can read the start of the story here: Rise of the Faceless Archon and it will continue over a series of upcoming posts that will be grouped together on a dedicated page. For now you can enjoy some army/unit pictures and some of my thoughts on the Scions of the Skin-Lord...

The Scions of the Skin-Lord

Reviving My Dark Eldar - Lord Maugris Depravum

"I said this would be the triumph of our family. That I would see generations of our Trueborn rule the stars as hungry gods. I was wrong, and now you forsake the future dreamt of by your ancestors for vengeance born of a mental fever. I will follow you 'Skin-Lord' but only whilst your blood is that of my kinsman and family."

Reviving my Dark Eldar - The Admiral

The deck was in chaos. Brother fought brother as friends became enemies in a heartbeat. Lethis was dead. Lehron IV burnt and the empire was lost. Instincts older than memory awakened as each man fought for himself. The void-ship was careening haphazardly to and fro as it failed again and again to ignite its web way portals. The engineers at least seemed to be trying to save the ship even if the rest of the crew cared only for their own petty rivalries.

Dracon Harakon the Red cut a bloody swathe through his former crew-mates with his dual cutlasses. This was his moment. He tasted the air; relishing the iron tang of blood upon his tongue already wet with ecstasy induced saliva. Pain is the pleasure of the dark eldar and the suffering of their own kin is a delicacy to be relished. Harakon smiled gleefully as he sliced another reaver in twain spilling entrails across the gore-slicked floor, ripples of euphoria filling every corner of his being. With Lethis dead the time for mutiny had come; the ship was ripe for the taking and glory awaited those who could take it. It hadn't taken his men long to reach the deck and any loyalist had been easy prey. Depravum reavers had soon arrived in a counter-attack and provided some resistance but the mutineers were beginning to prevail. The red harvest was brutal with heavy losses on both sides; rivers of blood gushing across the deck set to the symphony of the dying.

Reviving my Dark Eldar - Scions of the Skin-Lord

He choked on the air, thick with ash and vaporised blood it made him retch. Not that it was an unfamiliar sensation; but rather in the ruin and pain of Lehron IV Durizael had taken leave of reality. The thick black bile slopped messily from his broken jaw: a cocktail of half-digested flesh, acrid stomach juices and his own life-blood mingled into a stream of undiluted self-loathing. He could barely even see the world around him as one of his eyelids flapped uselessly where his face had been half stripped from his skull, his right eye burning red raw from exposure to the cruel desert world beyond the safety of skin. The left eye remained mercifully clothed in flesh though no less bloody giving him a vision of only gory ruin.

Durizael had long since fallen to his knees, scrabbling amongst the dirt for his senses. He crawled spasmodically along the dust carpeted floor; kicking up clouds of fine grit that attacked his exposed muscle and sinew. Finding energy to drag his broken form further through the jagged grey rubble, Durizael lurched forward like a crippled beast in flight from a hunter. Sounds of battle raged on every side, echoes of death and woe as promethium flames held his kinsmen in tortured embrace.

This had been madness from the start, she had gambled everything and lost. Worst still she had dragged him into this; beloved sister and psychotic bitch, Lethis had done this to him. Ruined all he had worked for. Ruined the family. Ruined his face. His handsome, handsome face. This would not be the end he vowed. This was only the beginning. They had mocked him, defeated him in battle and had taken her away from him. The universe was such a cruel mistress; a mistress with a needle-knife of suffering. Cutting away everything. 

Durizael's breathing was becoming more and more haggard as his internal organs began to fail him. This was almost it, he could feel the predations of the warp caressing the outermost parts of his soul as the darkness began to close in around him. Merciless unknowns and uncertainties played along the edges of his consciousness, sinister legends of damnation attempted to slither between the lobes of his brain to bring mental anguish to the dying vessel. But he would not allow this. His own madness would sustain him, a violent force of hate and malice wrapped in black fury consumed every fibre of his being. This was not death. This was rebirth. With red agony coursing through his veins Durizael raised his hands. This was not death. This was rebirth. Spidery fingers tensed as they gripped his once handsome features now half-hanging limply from a ruined face. This was not death. This was rebirth. Setting aside the insanity of an uncaring universe and all the pain of a hopeless future he tore the dangling flesh from cheek to cheek. This was not death. This was rebirth.

Fleeing from the defeat of his sister Lethis on Lehron IV, Durizael Depravum managed to gather what was left of the crumbling Depravum empire and fled the Dark City to the death world of Kharcis Prime which lies on the very borders of the southern galaxy. Having lost his face and much of his sanity Durizael vows he will take revenge on the cruel universe: all his life he had cowered in the shadow of his sister as a failure to his family but no more. The Fleshless Palace of Kharcis Prime will soon be adorned with a thousand bloody tokens of vengeance as the skin is torn from the living bags of meat who dared to wrong him and hung as tapestries for the Faceless Archon to enjoy.

Battle report: Eldar vs Deldar 1500pts

Today's post is a battle report! This time it's the shiny Eldar versus their twisted, depraved cousins in what promises to be a bloody match. It was good fun and highlighted the strengths of the units and also the importance of deployment, even for two fast armies.

All the details are below, my personal reflections are in red.

Points value: 1500

Dark Eldar - Apocalypse

To lead my Dark Eldar into the apocalypse I have added the current matriarch of the Depravum family to my army: Empress Lethis Depravum. She goes to battle with her own wytch cult; the Cult of Ecstatic Fear which I have recently bought the first unit of. I have also created a huge monstrosity to use as a Dark Eldar Super-heavy unit.

My Dark Eldar only reach just over 2000 points but I thought it would be fun to create a super-heavy for them to use in apocalypse games. All conversions for such I have seen so far are simply repurposed Eldar titans or really big raiders. I decided to go a different route and create what is essentially a large Cronos Parasite Engine. In the background the Haemonculi regenerate fallen dark eldar in their laboratories, I thought it would be interesting to have a mobile regeneration unit that uses the souls of those slain on the battlefield to restore a dark eldar lord and empower him. I therefore created this monstrosity.

Army Showcase - Part 6 - Coven of the Ebon Hand

The Coven of the Ebon Hand is the Haemonculi Coven sponsored by the Kabal of the Immortal Sin. Based out of a huge gravity-defying underground facility known as The Pit; they provide the Kabal with all manner of services and often accompany them on realspace raids. Rumoured to be as old as the Dark City itself, they are a small but incredibly influential coven with access to secrets long forgotten by much of the galaxy. 

Army Showcase - Part 5 - Kabal of the Immortal Sin

The Depravum family can be traced back to the days of the Eldar Empire where they were a secretive family of criminals that provided their services to the most wealthy and powerful noble houses that resided in the webway. With the rise of the pleasure cults the family acted as a supplier of all manner of exotic things to the secluded pocket dimensions many nobles ruled as havens to live out their every whim. When the fall of the Eldar occurred they were safe in the webway, in the port of Commoragh. They were quick to establish themselves as a shadowy organization that ruled the noble houses and later the kabals with many puppet rulers or loyal cousins. Hundreds of family members are infiltrating every kabal in the dark city all the time, the Depravum’s ultimate goal to rule the entire dark eldar race as family members ascend to archons of every kabal united under a single patriarch or matriarch of the Depravum. During the short and unsuccessful reign of Durizael Depravum as patriarch many family operations were put on hold as they consolidated their grip on the Kabal of the Immortal Sin, soon becoming it’s de-facto rulers and using its fortress as family headquarters. Under the new rule of Lethis Depravum the family has renewed its activities, conquering district after district of the dark city; creating a small empire centered around the dark citadel of the Immortal Sin. 

The Kabal of the Immortal Sin are amongst he oldest of the Kabals; able to trace their origins to a mercenary group operating out of a fortress deep in the centre of the dark city. For millennia they have served as a front to the Depravum family, one of which serving as the Kabal Archon. Safe behind the walls of their impenetrable fortress the Kabal of the Immortal Sin very rarely attempt to exert their influence much beyond their immediate surroundings, only in recent years under the reign of self-styled Empress Lethis Depravum have they begun to expand. Previously under the reign of the incompetent Durizael Depravum the Kabal suffered from factional in-fighting and was at it's weakest when Lethis returned from her mysterious absence. Since her return Durizael has remained Archon though the

de facto ruler of the Kabal of Immortal Sin is Lethis.

The Depravum Archons
Maugris, Durizael and Karzein

Battle Rep: Wolfwing vs Webway 2000pts

So the Wolfwing take to the field again, this time against a pretty fun Deldar Webway based army fielded by Melons. It features a heavy hellion cohort (I'm a fan of Hellions, did I say?). It set up to be a pretty interesting match, we were both fielding very fast lists so it should kick off pretty quickly. Wolven savagery versus Eldar cunning. Which would win out?

Lists:

Deldar
HQ:
Baron Sathonyx - 105
Haemonculus w/Webway - 85
Haemonculus w/Webway - 85
Haemonculus w/Webway - 85

Troops:
10x Wracks w/2x Liquifier Guns - 120
10x Hellions - 160
10x Hellions - 160
15x Hellions - 240

Elites:
4x Trueborn w/2x Splinter Cannon - 68
3x Trueborn w/2x Splinter Cannon - 56
3x Trueborn w/2x Dark Lance - 86

Heavy Support:
Ravager w/Flicker Field - 115
Ravager w/Flicker Field - 115
Talos w/Stinger Pod, Extra Close Combat Weapon, Chainflails - 130

Dedicated Transports:
6x Venoms w/Dual Splinter Cannons - (6x65) 390

2000 Points

Wolfwing
HQ
Canis Wolfborn - 1 FenWolf
Wolf Lord - Thunderwolf mount, Thunder hammer, Storm Shield, Runic armour, Saga of the bear, 1 Fenwolf

Troops
15 FenWolves
15 FenWolves
15 FenWolves
15 FenWolves

Fast Attack
4 Thunderwolf Cavalry - 4 Storm Shields, 1 Thunderhammer
4 Thunderwolf Cavalry - 4 Storm Shields, 1 Thunderhammer
4 Thunderwolf Cavalry - 4 Storm Shields, 1 Thunderhammer, 1 melta bomb

First, the vital statistics:

Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Warlord trait(s): both warlords rolled immovable object making them scoring.
                           The Warlords were Baron Sathonyx and the Wolf Lord

So, this wasn't that bad for me, I got the best warlord trait I could as it meant I actually had something to seize the objective with. Hammer and Anvil wasn't great as it gave Melons a lot of space to retreat into with the Relic and he had the speed to get there quickly. Thankfully, Wolfwing is fast too so I should be able to catch him eventually. The real point of contention would be those Venoms, they were going to be a real pain to catch and they could throw out enough torrent to deal with any of my units. This would be tough as I would have to be very proactive due to the heavy firepower facing me.

Themey McTheme Theme!

Greeting and salutations fellow tabletop gamers!

It has been a while since my last post (regrettably Uni has kept me pretty busy with exams and coursework) but I shall post when I have the time or when I have enough news/ideas to actually fill a post!

Along with the Euphemism you have probably noticed that I have been doing some themed lists too (See the Wolfwing vs the Nasties battle rep) and the only one up to yet has been a Haemonculus Covern (aptly named 'The Nasties') which was created soley of the Haemonculi and their creations!

Battle rep: Wolfwing vs Deldar Coven (aka the Nasties) 2000pts

It's battle report time!! Today we have the unusual match-up of:

Wolfwing v Haemonculus Coven (aka, 'the nasties' as Melons entitled them) at 2000pts.

Yes, this was me V Melons (the reckoning. I figure it needed a subheading) on the old Vassal. Pictures follow

Pictures of Snakes!!

Doombringer's Harlequinade Part 2

Continuing with my Batman themed harlequins we have my Death Jester - The Penguin. Primarily based off of the Adam West TV series but with some influences from Arkham City and the comics. I wanted to cram as many classic Penguin motifs into it: from the crooked top hat to monocle and cigarette holder. It doesn't show up very well in the photos but his hands have been made into flippers like Danny DeVito's deformed version of the character in Batman Returns.