Iron Hands progress update - 3, painting bases

This is just a quick update to prove I'm still making progress.

I've had some Dragonforge bases that I've been sitting on for a while so I decided to get them set up for the new Iron Hands. After blue-tacking them to an old box and some airbrushing followed by a little hand painting they're ready to go. I used GW Steel Legion Drab for the base color with a careful wash if GW Agrax Earthshade in the recesses. I finished with a light drybrush of GW Underhive Ash followed by GW Terminatus Stone. I'm pretty pleased with the results and, when I receive my next order of bases from Dragnforge the paint scheme will be easy to duplicate.

Just a note on the citadel dry paints, I scoffed at them after their initial release but now that I've used them a few times I think they're a solid addition to the Citadel range. My only gripe is that some of the lighter colors would be useful as layer paints as well, though it's just as easy to find some equivalents from other paint ranges.

A Poison Tree

(TL;DR? Scroll down and check out the awesome pics.)

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.

And my foe beheld it shine.

And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

-William Blake

Dark. Mother. Fucking. Eldar.

When the book first came out I was pissed. No, I was furious. I was Rudy Ray Moore hatin' on angel dust furious. I was Keith David when Rowdy Roddy Piper tries to make him wear the glasses furious. I was this guy furious:

I may have overreacted.

To be clear. I loved wyches. I loved Vect, and I was really looking to some cool new wargear and shenanigans. When I first read through the Dark Eldar codex and realized that Vect -- the Avenging Disco Godfather of Cammorragh -- and his lovely wych ho's were all screwed or gone I could not believe it. That on top of a pile of mostly shitty wargear, half of which does nothing to models that have And They Shall Know No Fear, was more than I could take.

But I took a few breaths, went through the five stages of grief, drank myself into a stupor, and then started making lists. 

This is the one I decided to play my first games with.

HQ

• Archon (blaster, Helm of Spite, haywire grenades, shadow field, webway portal)

Elite

• (9x) Trueborn (four blasters, two splinter cannons, three splinter rifles)
• Raider (nightshields, dark lance, grisly trophies)
• (5x) Trueborn (four blasters, 1 splinter cannon)
• Venom (extra splinter cannon)
• (5x) Trueborn (four blasters, 1 splinter cannon)
• Venom (extra splinter cannon)

Troops

• (5x) Warriors (four splinter rifles, blaster)
• Venom (extra splinter cannon)
• (5x) Warriors (four splinter rifles, blaster)
• Venom (extra splinter cannon)
• (5x) Warriors (four splinter rifles, blaster)
• Venom (extra splinter cannon)
• (5x) Warriors (four splinter rifles, blaster)
• Venom (extra splinter cannon)

Fast

• (6x) Reaver Jetbikes (two heat lances, two cluster caltrops, arena champion w/agonizer)
• (5x) Scourges (four haywire blasters, splinter carbine)
• (5x) Scourges (four haywire blasters, splinter carbine)
• (5x) Scourges (four haywire blasters, splinter carbine)

I played against Ed, who was piloting Vin's (of Attic Wars fame) Blood Angels. Ed's been out of the 40k game for a little while, but as a Dark Elder player himself, wanted to see how they performed. They did well.

In a nutshell: deepstriking trueborn are awesome, reavers are awesomer, scourges are awesomest. It was a bit of a landslide, but we both wanted to see what the dark kin were capable of, so Ed took it like a champ, and we still managed to have a fun game. 

I'm not sure exactly what Ed's list consisted of, but one of us will add it when we get a chance.

I played a second game against Jason's Eldar that was very similar, but we didn't take any pictures. He was running two wraithknights, a couple wave serpents, at least one fire prism, some wraithguard... and the Dark Eldar managed to take their lunch money too. A big part of that one was Jason's lack of familiarity to the new book. Also Scourges. Scourges with haywire blasters give exactly zero shits about the serpent shield's ability to block penetrating hits. They killed one wave serpent and did some hull points on turn 1 (for first blood). Things continued along those lines for the rest of the game. I'll try to get his list up here as well. 

Also, thanks to Mark for taking the photos. 

Iron Hands progress update - 2

I've been working on the vehicles for the boys from Medusa for some time now and I was hoping to finish them completely before creating this post. However, since it seems like I won't be done with them for at least a few more weeks I decided to post a progress update for now. I've added some weathering since these pics were taken and I need to add quite a but more. I'll also need to add some metallic details here and there and finish with somesource lighting on the headlights but they're real close to being done.

This first set shows the primed vehicles with just a little highlighting and the weapons and unit markings airbrushed in Celestra Grey.

And here are a few close ups of the first stages of weathering and decals.

Iron Hands progress update - 1

I started an iron hands army a while back and played some games with them which have been an absolute joy, but the painting fell off my radar for about a year. I had a strong start last year, but this fall and winter I aim to get things done in a big way for these guys.

Here are a few updates of what's been on the table lately.

The Contempter dreadnought is pretty darn close to being done. I still need to paint his purity seals and do the shading and highlighting on one fist, then finish with a lot of weathering.

I've got a few more marines in the works as well. I'm painting these guys about 4 or 5 at a time to help keep things moving along.

There will be some more updates coming soon, as the mechanized portion of the force is nearly done now.