Fat boys

I finally wrapped up my Dark Eldar Grotesque conversions using Ogres.  They've got big, fat bodies with little pea-size heads due to the current blend of hypersteriods in use by my Haemonculi.  They'll get it right, eventually.  I suppose I should make a Grotesque with a ridiculously huge head and little stick legs, just to show them over-correcting the dosage.  Anyway - pictures, or it didn't happen, right?

 Before finishing and basing:

After finishing and basing:

The third butterball from the left will be an Aberration (unit upgrade for Grotesques).  He will either pack scissorhands or a flesh gauntlet.  The dude far left is a Grotesque with a liquifier.  Anyone who's seen a Talos Pain Engine kit will recognize many of the bits used.  They're not pretty, but they will work.  A box of Ogres costs not quite twice as much as a regular Grotesque model, but it was worth it.  If I didn't have leftover bits from the Talos kit, it would have been a more difficult conversion.  If you look at the bottom picture, you will see a guy second from left - I tried to make him a mask using green stuff, and well..   Let's just say he made a good test model.  These guys are coming soon, to a 6" x 4" table near you!  If you live near Albuquerque, New Mexico, that is.

A random picture from our 2000 point ETC style tourney at Ares Wargames back in December. More events can be found at Bolters con Queso. Here are my Dark Eldar versus Duncan's Black Templar:

I wound up losing that one, curse those Dreadnoughts and their Heavy Flamers! And yes, that is a real picture of Duncan. 

I'm having a good time with the Dark Eldar though adapting to playing a non-MEQ army for the first time has been a bit challenging.  They're fast, fast, fast and fragile, fragile, fragile.  Raiders are made of paper mache soaked in gasoline.  I've been running a lot of raider-borne Wych squads with attached Haemonculi, but I'm having limited success to date.  The fact that most of those poor outings are due in no small part to tactical blunders committed by yours truly is beyond doubt, though I do wonder at times if I'm using the wrong tool for the job.  I like having the pain token granted by the Haemonculus but I do miss that extra special weapon (A raider holds 10 models, 9 Wyches and a Haemy in my case - 10 Wyches are required to get 2 special weapons so mine only get one).  I may try a suggestion from Geoff over at Warhammer 30,000: running 2 large Wych squads, each with 15 models one of whom is a Hekatrix with an Agonizer and 3 Wyches equipped with Shardets and Impalers.  I've always been a fan of the shardets, and being that I usually ask my Wyches to tar pit enemy units in drawn-out assaults they would help in that regard.  The only thing I wonder about is if the rules governing assaults in 40k will allow me to move my shardet wyches into base-to-base contact with more than one model when I charge.  A cursory perusal of the "Moving Assaulting Units" rules leads me to believe that I can put them into base to base contact with multiple models provided they are not the first model that I move in the assault.  According to my reading of the rules, the first model moved needs to be placed into base to base with a single enemy model.  Subsequent assault moves must get my models into contact with unengaged enemy models - but they don't say that I must get them into contact with a single unengaged enemy model (unless I missed it somewhere?), so I guess technically I could put my model in contact with however many unengaged enemy models there are within my assault range. I wonder if I could get my shardet Wyches into contact with one unengaged model and one engaged model?  Hmm, more questions for the local rules gurus.  Duncan, are you listening?