Nights best spent crafting flesh

The first five Wracks stagger free of the laboratories.

This edition of Tower of Snakes comes to you straight from the painting table, i've been buoyed ahead with painting recently, feverishly brushing acrylics/inks/mediums/varnishes onto any Dark Eldar models within my reach and i'm happy with the results so far!



I finally completed the first five wracks for the army and got the next five assembled (you can see them loitering around undercoated just out of shot..)  as well as assembling any other Dark Eldar models i had lying around, i really love the Wrack models and they just drip character.  The stitches across all of their throats are one of my favourite details, i went hell for leather with blood, hopefully stopping just shy of overdoing it, i want these suckers to look like half-living lobotomized alien lab assistants god damn it so there will be blood!

The Horrific Talos Pain Engine.

 I've been working on the first Talos as well and he's coming together quite nicely, the armour plates have all been gloss varnished which didn't really photograph very well but looks a lot nicer in the flesh, the Wracks have all had their armour plates and masks varnished as well.  I like the play between different surfaces on the models, the bone wracks, metallic areas and fleshier parts of the Talos are free from gloss to make the model a bit more interesting to look at, it has been a bit odd trying to work out how to paint the different areas of the model but i really like the vast array of green tubes/bubbling vats etc.  they add to the whole crazy laboratory theme.

After re-reading the Dark Eldar codex i have re-assessed my feelings on Cronos Pain Engines so after i get the next squad of wracks together i will be adding one of those, the large blast Spirit Vortex weapon looks quite fun, even if it is only Strength 3, also the Cronos are even cheaper than the Talos and dishing out a few pain tokens here and there to get the army fully tanked will be quite fun.

Lady Malys, the Gravesinger.

I'm still rather bemused as to how to construct an effective list with the Coven troops at the core but i am hoping to play some small points games with what i have so far soon, i'm still adapting to these new rules!

Also i constructed my Coven-themed Lady Malys recently as well, converted largely out of the plastic Dark Elf Sorceress from Warhammer, with a Jetbiker helmet hollowed out to add to the coven theme and a few witchy bits here and there added, my big inspiration was to add the Cronos tentacles bursting out of the ground, quite wibbly and odd but i thought the model needed a touch more majesty, i like the idea that some sightless thing follows her underground and lashes out at her enemies (perhaps a good alternative background source for her Djinn blade attacks?)  She will eventually take pride of place at the head of a monstrous unit of Grotesques with her Haemonculi buddies for supreme beatdowns/Webway portal deployment.

I'm really loving the Hexrifles at the moment, i like the idea of having a smattering of them about the place for the odd lucky sniper shot here and there.  Toying with the idea of giving them to both the Haemonculi, but i will experiment with the one on the Acothyst of the Wracks for now, i will report my findings in due course!

Back to torturing the innocent.