Razorwing? A Blast From My Past

  

When Dark Eldar got their new codex my attention immediately went to the fact that they got a fighter jet. "That's awesome", I thought. At the time I wasn't planning on making an army and that was that. Months later while rummaging around at my parents I found this old model I built as a kid. 

 

It looked like it would be about the right size so I brought it home and began to entertain the possibility of using it at some point. Splinter rifles could be placed in the recesses in front of the cockpit with a minimum of work. Dark lances and missiles could be mounted under the wings. 

I had a few squads worth of the old warrior models sitting around and would only need a HQ to have a small playable force.

Recently I threw a minimum bid on a sizable Dark Eldar force on e bay with terrible paint jobs. Getting someones old unwanted army for cheap, stripping the paint, and breathing new life into the models has been something I wanted to try out for some time. Now that I have about 2000 points worth of models to work with the project can begin but GW has thrown a kink in my plan.

 

 The official model is now up for advance order! It looks great and I would like to field more than one as my stand in bat wing has proven the units worth on the tabletop in casual games. Moving on form reserve and unleashing four large blasts can take out plenty of units and fits my alpha strike Dark Eldar mentality perfectly.

I have found other Bat Jets available on the internet for very reasonable prices but here is my question to you all. Should I just suck it up and buy the new models or continue with my original idea to convert the bat jet?

Boss Deffrolla's Looted Battle Wagon!

Contrary to popular belief, Boss Deffrolla doesn't really have any deffrollas on his battle wagons. With the new vehicle conversion contest coming up he aimed to fix this problem good and propa! There's one thing you should all know about him first though... He loves looting them Tau! Their Drones make such good hats! And when the meks start tinkerin the sparks start flyin! He is planning to come over early today and finish up his Tesla coil linkage for his ZZzzAaPPp Rolla and add even more DAKKA. Sadly, our tanks may never be safe again....

Tau, Now With Human Auxilliries In The Box

So Deffrolla Dan came by last night with a box of fire warriors to use as slaves on his looted wagon. He was all set to use a couple of them and sell the rest to my brother Jordan. Until he opened the box and found eight fire warriors and five cadian shock troops in the box that is. After the initial "WHAT!" moment he decided getting five guardsmen was a net increase of one model and was happy about it, but seriously, how do two fire warrior sprues and a cadian sprue get mixed up like that?

After that Dan worked on his wagon a little more and it's turning out to be really orky looking... in a looted tau sorta way...

I got the elmer's glue and sand put on my last games day arena and will hopefully get it mostly painted up tonight.

Waiting for watered down glue to dry in cracks takes forever.....

A Black Reach Chop Shop

Lately I have been running a five man TH/SS assault squad around with an Avenger / Gate of Infinity Librarian. One of my goals during the planetary empires campaign was to try out new things and bring a more "fun to play" list to the table. I know most people will call TH/SS termies anything but fun, but to me they are a relatively new unit and those who know me would most likely say that bashing guys in with a huge melee weapon fits my style just fine. So before the GW price increases and my loss of employment, some of us got together and made a big group order. On the top of my list was what will most likely be my final Black Reach. Ever since getting the Assault Terminator box Ive been wanting to put the spare lightning claws to use. I chopped up most of my brothers black reach nobs to make use of all the weapon upgrades found in the retail nob box and figured that chopping up the space marines couldn't be much harder. A few snips with my clippers and a little glue and I had some hulking go - go gadget monstrosities. After cutting down the arms a bit more I got em just right and was pleasantly surprised that iIhad achieved a more dynamic arm pose than the original kit would have allowed. I made three of the LC termies so I can fill my crusader though I will most likely opt to run only two and put in special characters in power armor.

This bring me to my next new model. After looking at the available chaplain builds I decided that Cassius was my man. I looked him up on the GW site to check the model and immediately started to look for some thing different. The chaplain I ended up with had always caught my eye and was one of those models that I would have always bought if it was on the store rack. After debating whether or not it was worthwhile to cut up a combi - melta form the commander sprue to make his flamer I came across the chaos terminator one. I decided that the older style weapon would be more appropriate on a model representing an ancient warrior. This model also marked my first use of the 005 Micron art pen. This thing works wonders for doing script squigglies. If you don't own one head out to your local craft store and get one today! If you have shaky hand syndrome it makes so many things easier!

Now that all my key players are ready, I'll be hoping to rock my full crusader during the next game I play. Hopefully the Crusader, five TH/SS termies, two LC termies, Cassius and the Avenger / Gate Librarian justify the huge point cost for one super death star unit!

Simple Doom Of Malanti Conversion

In his current quest to repaint his Tyranid force with a Hive Fleet Behemoth color scheme while updating his army to the new codex, my brother Jonathan came up with a simple yet effective Doom of Malanti. Using spare carapace armor from his old kits in addition to the unused portion of his Trygon / Mawlock kit he transformed an old Zoanthrope into the DOOM with a minimum of effort. As I stated last time I featured one of his conversions, "Not bad for a kid who put his models together with Gorilla Glue about a year ago!" It's fun to see him improving in his modeling and painting skills. Now if we could only get all those layers ofspray paint off his old models. Simple  green can only do so much.....

Soldering Woes = Modeling Woahs!

A few months back I needed a new water heater. I was having to reset it 3 times a day and getting lots of cold showers. When I finally broke down and decided to get a new one I figured it would be a pretty easy do it yourself project. While Soldering on my first piece of copper I used way too much and it dripped all over the top of the tank. But, looking down at my latest mess, I saw only one thing. An easy to make pile of Nurgley goodness.

How to Solder up some nurgle gurgle in 3 easy steps

1.Build your model.
2. Get some solder and a way to melt it such as a soldering iron or a small torch.
3. Drip solder where you want it on your model.

Now its actually takes a bit of dexterity to make the drops go where you want them, but a few practice piles of goo and you should get the hang of it. Remember, if you do try this, you are dropping molten metal on your plastic model and it will warp the plastic a bit. Overall I'm happy with my results and I hope you will be too!