Ravenborn

Fantastic! Really great to see a lighter looking flying vehicle, instead of the flying bathtubs.

Love the manacle, great idea even if you didn’t need it to hide the joint.

What about adding an old school dwarf flame cannon to the base? That could rep your storm shooting attack.

Absolutely beautiful work, full of personality. I especially love the names you’ve given them.

Update: I finished building my bolter crews. I wanted them to look heavily armoured since they do get Stormcast armour saves, and also make a visual connection to both the corsairs and darkling coven troops. Here’s my old base and crew. I’m a mini-snob, so I’ve been wanting to replace the metal crew for quite some time, but just didn’t know what to use for parts:

1. I’m modifying a Tauralon for my manticore, and plan on using the black dragon rules since my army is all dark elves. 2. If you scroll up this page you’ll see my cold-one driven dark elf Hurricanum. I’m going to have an elf sorceress in place of the Medusa, who’s a temporary placeholder.

Looks great! Really enjoying the cool colours and detailed bases. What city are you running these as?

I’m still grinding away at my dark elves, and just about have my first 500pts completed: 1 Kharybdis 10 Darkshards 2 Celestial Ballistae 1 Sorceress That’s 560 I think. I still need to build and paint the crew for the ballista. Not sure why, but I’m really struggling with motivation for them.

I was going to work on corsairs next, but got distracted by my old bolt throwers. These are the old metal versions. I built them about a decade ago, with the brilliant idea of putting in spaces for the crew to sit on the base. Of course, the rules for DE bolt throwers in AoS were lacklustre at best, so I only used them once or twice. Now, with Cities of Sigmar, I realized I could run them as Sigmarine Celestar Ballistae, and have decent rules with great old school models that keep my CoS army completely dark-elfanized. I needed to rebase them first, and I also wanted to replace the bolt heads to something a little sleeker and more consistent. I have some Wild Rider javelins that fit the bill perfectly, though I had to pick up a second box to get six for each of two throwers, plus spares for the crew to hoist around. I do love this hobby Especially all the plastic, which is so easy to work with. I had to remove the metal spears, and that took a whole night in itself; gave me flashbacks to doing conversions 20 years ago, when everything was metal!

GHLUBLARGALGURGLE!!! 170 pts of tentacled horror ready to haunt my table. C’thulhu would be pleased. The beastmaster chaperone is not glued in place, just pinned, so the angle’s a bit goofy. But I need to move on to something new already. Going to update some corsairs for the army. This was a lot of fun to paint, but I kept repainting areas over and over. I just couldn’t get the dark plates on the back to work, until I realized the secret was to reverse it out, and paint a light colour between the plates. I’ve seen something similar on tortoise skin, where dark plates sit on light skin, giving a really interesting contrast.

Well, here’s my first completed unit for my Cities of Sigmar armies. It will be all dark elves, but some units will be conversions of non-elf units for fun. Up next; finishing my Kharybdis.

Thanks! Not sure about doing a guide, but I’ll try and get some close ups to help show what’s going on. Honestly, it’s a lot of trial and error, gluing together bits then ripping them apart when they don’t quite work. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to do with the “balcony” and Drakespawn, but had to scrap other ideas that wouldn’t quite work with the pieces I had. It’s fun and frustrating in equal measure.

What head’s did you use for the shamans? Vampire counts? Love the feral look they give

Ha! Those are brilliant! I love armies with a strong, unique theme to completely different them from anything out there. White fur was an inspired choice, they really stand out well against the red armour, and give them a bit of an otherworldly appearance. Can’t wait to see more!

Thanks! Yeah, I love the dark elves and eldar aesthetic, pointy spiteful malice is the best. I’ve been painting for... (oh god, math is hard)... carry the one... 32 years. Dammit. I’m older than dirt.

Could you leave us old timers just a little bit of granularity in the game? Please?

Working on my Dark Elf themed Hurricanum, which I’ll also use as my Bloodwrack Altar for my Daughters of Khaine army. I’ll have a different crew for this when using it for my CoS.

Nice! Will your whole city have the Arabian theme?

Still have some work to do. I’m going to add her right arm, with reins leading to the Drakespawn. I also plan on a second crew; the Medusae will be the driver for the Bloodwrack Altar, but I have a sorcerer planned for the Hurricanum, possibly with a second crew member whipping the lizards to a frenzy. I’ll use rare earth magnets to allow for the switch, and I now have a unit that’ll fit both my armies. How’s that for efficiency? Stay tuned.

Wow, my elves have been on hold for eight months now. I needed to sell my house to downsize, and that meant packing away all hobbies and distractions while I shifted my attention to house repairs and upgrades since the seller’s market has been brutal for the last five years. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could find a victim, er, buyer, to pay enough so I could afford the move, but here I am, finally, in my new home. So. The new Cities of Sigmar book was quite the pleasant surprise, giving me something to dream about while replacing flooring and painting bathrooms. I’ve been enamoured with the dark elves for over twenty five years, and as much as I like the Daughters of Khaine, I’m more excited by cold one knights and corsairs. The cold, efficient brutality and pokey heavy armour gets my imagination going, and I ended up with literally dozens of conversion ideas. With the house sale complete, I rushed out and picked up several kits to make these dreams a reality. First up; a Hurricanum/Bloodwrack Altar. To be honest, I wasn’t too sure I’d build the Altar for my girls. I’m never excited about duplicates when it comes to large kits, and this was no exception. But after reading through the CoS book and comments about the weaknesses of “pure” CoS elf lists online, I realized a Hurricanum would be a requirement for a competitive list. I’m an average player, and play for fun more than wins... but wins need to be an option, at least, if I’m going to keep playing. I saw the new Anvilguard Get Started box, and knew I wanted a Kharybdis and extra Corsairs... But what about the chariots? Never really been on my radar. Until now. I realized if I combined that with an altar, I could replicate a lot of the the aspects of the Hurricanum; two powerful mounts with a “balcony” looming above, all pulling a massive eldritch contraption. Perfect. So, here we go;

20 years ago I moved to a new city with my wife and two young’uns (4 y/o and 6 m/o) to start a new job. Money was tight, and I was needed at home evenings and weekends, and that’s when I returned to painting my little plastic soldiers after a five year hiatus. It was actually pretty productive, hobby-wise. I didn’t play at all, but got a lot of painting and conversion time in, and was always around my girls. Hobby-wise it was a blessing in disguise... I had enough time to practice painting, enter a GD and win a Slayer Sword. So... I agree with the people who say pick your favourite army or two and purge some stuff. Put the money away for your kids, maybe a bit towards a rainy day fund for growing your army. Have a dedicated painting table, even if it’s just a small fold-up TV tray, so you can hobby in those short breaks between baby naps and feedings. And do not feel guilt (unless you’re ignoring the wife and kids ). Humans need mental health breaks. Painting is a “zen” thing for me, helps me relax and tune out the challenges of being an adult for a while. As long as you’re not ignoring your family, it’s good for them too because you’ll be happier and calmer in the long run. I just moved into a smaller home last month, and even though I’ve got boxes to unpack still for some rooms, I desperately need painting time to de-stress after all the commotion. So I’m stealing it when I can, even just assembling models on the couch. Life’s too short to give up hobbies completely. Good luck!

Perfect, thanks. That’s exactly what I was looking for. I haven’t been to happy with my own leaf attempts, and yours really enhance the autumn feel... they beautifully match the tree, and the warm tones in the elf and wolf.