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Offline Plastikente

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Re-vamping old Dark Eldar
« on: December 15, 2012, 06:27:37 AM »
I recently purchased my LGS’s club Dark Eldar army as no one seemed interested in playing with the old, part-painted models in various states of disrepair. Having started to collect Dark Eldar in 4th Edition, I have a certain fondness for the old models, so I saw a cheap opportunity to bolster the numbers of my Kabal.



I don’t consider any of the miniatures to be in a fit state to even field on the table yet, so my project (for as long as it takes) is to turn them into a usable supplement to my forces.  I’ve got the following models to work with:

8 Grotesques
9 Mandrakes
3 Raiders
1 Beastmaster w/ 4 Warp Beasts
1 Female Haemonculus w/
6 Warriors w/ Blasters
17 Warriors w/ Splinter Cannons
2 Warriors w/ Dark Lances
About 60 Warriors w/ Splinter Rifles
Kruellagh the Vile
8 Wyches
7 Incubi
9 Reavers

I will post occasional updates as the work progresses...

Offline Plastikente

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Re: Re-vamping old Dark Eldar
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2012, 09:00:08 AM »
Stage 1 - reclaiming some Wracks

I have now sorted through the box and decided on the first stage of me recycling project: turning the old Mandrakes and Grotesques into Wracks to supplement my new Finecast versions.  Being quite old metal miniatures, they come in a small variety of poses and I found several duplicates, so I combined them with my coven bits collection (Talos, Cronos and Wrack spares) to try to update them and add some variety.  One of my chief goals in these conversions was to avoid having any two models in a squad which look quite the same (this is my big objection to the finecast Grotesque - minimum unit size of 3 but GW only produced one pose?! But that's another story...).

Grotesques
Once upon a time, Grotesques were not immense, mindless killing machines, but instead were the servants/test-subjects of the Haemonculi, much like Wracks now are.  I considered green-stuffing masks for this lot to make them match the new models, but then I decided that the various deformed faces they have match the theme quite well, so I left them.




Mandrakes
Similarly, there was a time when Mandrakes were not ethereal, semi-demonic creatures of shadow, but sort of ... bondage fans who carried splinter pistols?  Most of these were wearing masks anyway, so I didn't bother to green-stuff their heads either.  In a few cases, I replaced the splinter pistols with liquifiers (slightly oversized ones, because the bits came from Talos/Cronos sets), but I couldn't be bothers to do arm swaps on all of them.  The old-style pistols are all spikey enough anyway that I will claim they are just another shape of punch-dagger.




And so, with a minimum of expenditure and a few hours at my modelling table, I have reclaimed 17 playable Wracks.  I will post more pictures when they are painted  :)

Offline Plastikente

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Re: Re-vamping old Dark Eldar
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2013, 04:06:18 PM »
I'm finally done with the Wracks.








I'm quite pleased with the results, and think they make a passable complement to my new Finecast Wracks.  With a bit of judicious conversion I have managed to disguise the duplicate poses and I won't be embarassed to field these on the table.


If anyone is interestested in the paint scheme, it is as follows:

Skin.  Rakarth Flesh, shaded with Nuln Oil and Reikland Fleshshade, and then highlighted again with Rakarth Flesh.
Metal.  Leadbelcher drybrushed over a black spray undercoat.  The poisoned blades also got a wash of Biel-Tan Green and a drybrush of Moot Green.
Leather.  Mournfang Brown, highlighted with a light drybrush of Kislev Flesh.
Armour.  Wazdakka red highlighted with Evil Sunz Scarlet.
Cloth aprons.  Painted as Tau skin - The Fang, shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade and Nuln Oil, and then re-highlighted with The Fang.
Pipes and vials of liquid.  Caliban green and then layered up with various lighter shades.
Bases.  A layer of Castellan Green, with Citadel Snow flock over the top.  The grass is Army Painter Battlefields Winter Tufts.

Next on my list are the Reavers. I don't have any of the new Reaver models anyway, so these old ones will fit perfectly with the 5 Reavers I already have. I intend to convert 1 into an Arena Champion (for a total of 2), give 3 of them Heat Lances and 3 of them Blasters. This way, although I will not be able to legally field all of my Reavers at once, I can set them up either as 2 Squads of 6 (with 2 special guns and a Champion in each) or 1 squad of 9 (with 3 guns).

Offline Dralith

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Re: Re-vamping old Dark Eldar
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2013, 11:40:08 PM »
Great job man I look forward to seeing what you do with the rest of the old uglies.
And Oromë loved the Quendi, and named them in their own tongue Eldar, the people of the stars.

Offline Plastikente

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Re: Re-vamping old Dark Eldar
« Reply #4 on: February 3, 2013, 09:56:51 AM »
The project has been on hold for a little while while I've been concentrating on other things (mostly the painting challenge), but now I've selected the models which I'm going to work on next:  Reavers.

I don't have any of the new Reaver models anyway, so these old ones will fit perfectly with the 5 Reavers I already have. I have converted 1 into an Arena Champion (for a total of 2), given 3 of them Heat Lances and 3 of them Blasters. This way, although I will not be able to legally field all of my Reavers at once, I can set them up either as 2 Squads of 6 (with 2 special guns and a Champion in each) or 1 squad of 9 (with 3 guns).

8 of the 9 models had already been undercoated with black spray, so the grey additions are easy to see, but I have also circled them in green.


These heat lances were taken from the Talos/Cronos.  I just had the trim down the dorsal vanes a bit with a hobby knife to create a nice flat surface to stick them to.


These "blasters" are actually disintegrator cannons.  The one on the under-fin (on the right) comes from the Ravager kit, and the nozzle has been trimmed down to make it look more blaster-like.  The two mounted on noses are from the Razorwing kit, but I didn't bother to trim it down as I thought that would make them too snub-nosed.


The Reaver on the left is the Arena Champion.  He has a head swap from the Hellion kit (not easy to see in this photo) and an arm swap for some weighted flails.  Of the other two, the one on the right was missing an arm, so required one from my bits box to complete the model.  Finally  the one in the middle got an arm swap too, because I didn't want him to feel left out as the only model of the nine with no modification  ;).

Offline Plastikente

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Re: Re-vamping old Dark Eldar
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2013, 03:25:12 PM »
Slow and steady wins the race...
Here are the painted Reavers:

Larger images can be seen in my Flickr Photostream, via my sig.  Next project on the list is modernising a classic Raider model - watch this space...

 


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