Mean streak! Blood Bowl Dark Elves Progress

I finally got round to painting up my first figure of 2014. Not only that, but I base-coated a second model at the same time - I know, that's pretty radical isn't it?!

Here's my latest work:

Dark Elf Runner

Cute and furry, but with a sting in the tail...

It's been nearly a month since I posted any actual models I'm working on, so this is probably overdue. For those of you who play Blood Bowl, you'll be aware that sideline figures and re-roll counters are a nice opportunity to model something that can have an in game effect, like additional coaching staff or cheerleaders.

Dice re-rolls are a key part of Blood Bowl...you could use the card ones that come with the game, but it's much nice in my view to model something on a little base. I had been mulling this over for a little while, but couldn't think of anything suitably Dark Elfy beyond some sort of spikes/torture gear.

Then it struck me...Dark Elves like Manticores...I'll make some baby ones (from now on referred to as Mantikittens!

Original Art: Spacefleet Eldar by Tony Hough

Back in 2008, I happened to flick through my copy of White Dwarf 127 from July 1990 (still my favourite issue because of the Craftworld Eldar background and army list). There, on page 18, was a 10.5x8cm reproduction of a piece of Tony Hough artwork. The image, in the imitable Tony Hough style, shows a group of Eldar talking tactics, poetry or perhaps musing on what they will have for dinner, while in the background, beams of catastrophic energy pulse from one side of the image to the other.

If you're not familiar with the image, here it is as it appears in print:

White Dwarf 127, p18

Heavy Resin: The 'Tempest' Mystery

Earlier this month I splashed out on something unusual. This ebay auction from The Wargaming Trader listed a model I didn't recognise, but something clearly repurposed in the style of an Eldar Tempest. Given that the price wasn't too bad, I decided to take a punt and buy it - after all, it would fit nicely along with the rest of the Heavy Resin collection!

Just what is this mystery model?

Heavy Resin: Eldar Tempest Super Heavies from the 1980s and 1990s!

Let's imagine we're back in the late 1980s & early 1990s. For most people, the largest thing they'll ever see in a game of Rogue Trader is probably a metal Land Speeder or plastic Space Marine Rhino or perhaps a Land Raider tank. Some ambitious folks might build a Baneblade using Tony Cotterell's templates in White Dwarf 132, but that's probably your lot.

Enter then, Mike Biasi from the USA. After upscaling an Epic Titan to 28mm, Mike secured a licence from Games Workshop to produce a range of 40k vehicles based on the Epic designs under the trading name Mike Biasi Studios. Soon, other companies were in on the act, with Epicast, Armorcast and Forgeworld USA holding licences for various vehicles until Games Workshop set up its own in-house, large scale resin casting unit (Forgeworld).

The Eldar Tempest is unusual in that not only was it one of the largest non-titan kits produced, but that Mike Biasi's original sculpt was reworked and put into production no less than three times (Mike Biasi Studios, Forgeworld USA, Armorcast), over a period spanning at least 6 years!

Eldar Tempest

Tutorial: Greenstuff Pustules / Armour Studs

Over at Talk Fantasy Football I'm organising a Legacy Team project (a bunch of people sign up to paint and contribute a player to a pre-agreed Blood Bowl team; a lottery determines the winner who gets the whole lot).

This year, it's a Nurgle themed Chaos team, and my contribution is a disease-addled Pestigor (beastman of Nurgle):

WIP Pestigor conversion

 

I was never going to paint it all...heavy resin

My very first collecting bug was with the Eldar. For many years I spent a lot of time (probably too much) tracking down every single Eldar model I could get my hands on. The ambition was to collect, build and paint one of every single Eldar model Citadel had ever produced.

Now that's not really the ambition of a sane person, although to all intents and purposes in early 2013 I had achieved part one of that goal and collected Citadel's entire set of Eldar releases, models produced under licence, rarities and a good number of unreleased figures.

At that point I sat back and looked at everything and came to a rather shocking revelation.

I was never going to paint it all!!

The vile Pan Tang

A slightly belated Happy New Year from my first post of 2014. I'm very much looking forward to what 2014 brings for me and my hobby interests, and I currently have a great deal of enthusiasm (obsession?) for Citadel's Eternal Champions range.

I thought you might like to see some of what arrived with me in or around the Christmas period; namely some significant progress in filling out the Pan Tang ranks. Back in mid-November, I didn't have a single Pan Tang figure. Here's how things stand after around 6 weeks of searching, buying and trading (for reference, these figures cost roughly £3 each - it just goes to show that the £30 BIN auctions are somewhat overpriced from the actual market value).

EC05 Melnibonean Personalities
The Pan Tang Officer was mislabeled on ebay as a Citadel Oriental Warrior, while King Urish was in a big bulk lot of models (along with Rakhir the Red, not pictured). The seller agreed to pull the 2 models out and sell them to me separately, which just goes to show it doesn't hurt to ask!

L-R: Pan Tang Officer, King Urish, Theleb Kaarna, Jagreen Lern