Power from Paint: Dark Eldar reinforcements

Hello once again fellow readers.

In my last 40K article I had decided on taking the wonderfully spiky Dark Eldar to the upcoming Mayhem tournament. The Dark Eldar have an army wide special rule called "Power from Pain", hence the name of a series of articles around the process of building, painting and playing evil space pixies; "Power from Paint".

Um, no. Not suitable for Dark Eldar. Fine for cheaty Craftworld Eldar though.

So where does every good hobby project begin?

 Hours agonising over army lists and then a shopping trip of course!

Boxes of spiky goodness!

So that's two copies of Gangs of Commorragh, some Venoms and Wracks. Gangs is one of GW's new "budget" level board games; it comes with 6 Reaver jet bikes and 10 Hellions plus rules, dice, some cardboard terrain, etc. for less than the price of buying the Reavers separately. Bonkers.

I might try the game out some time, but lets be honest, I just bought the sets for the cheap plastic crack.

And straight into some building once I got home:

Reaver Jet Bikes

First set of Reavers built. Just the bikes so far as I plan to paint these separately from the riders, and I still need to attach the weapons as I'm erring and aahing over selections. Might need some magnets to keep my options open.

I've also taken the opportunity to try out cork basing. Regular flying stands are pretty boring so jazzing them up seems like a good idea.

Basing Work In Progress

I've had a roll of cork in my hobby supplies for ages; ever since Warhammer Dave from the Kingston store inspired me with a tutorial on his Ork Facebook blog.  

Its easy to put the base together:

• Cut two pieces of cork approximately the same size as the flying base.
• Rough the edges of the cork to give an uneven rock like appearance.
• Drill a small hole in the centre of each cork piece to allow the stalk of the flying stand to fit through. Test for size
• Assemble the flying base as per normal
• Fit the larger of the cork pieces over the stem. Apply some superglue to the top of the flying base and push the cork down to fit.
• Fit the second cork piece over the stem. Apply some superglue between the two cork layers and push the second layer of cork down.
• Allow to dry and done!

I've finished the hobby session off by painting the base:

And done!

Nothing fancy here; base coat black, then dark grey up to a light grey drybrush on the edges. A total of 5 minutes to make the base, 5 minutes to paint, plus dry times, so these will be easy to churn out for a whole force.

Next hobby session; more bikes and bikers I think.