Tuesday 20 September 2022

ARMOUR IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR SKILL

 Lady Vickatrix the Succubus of the Wych cult of the Crimson Veil, stood watching the new recruits being put through their paces by the newest Hekatrix, she was being particularly hard, and had already maimed two, and killed a third, there was no room for weakness after all ! She took a sip of the rejuvenating fluid, to help heal her new face, she would have her revenge on that She Bitch Lilith, before she drew her last breath.

An adjutant ran into her observation box.

"Mistress the armourer has arrived, and requests an audience with you"

"He better have what I ordered, if he likes breathing !"

Vickatrix entered her throne room, where the armourer bowed deeply before her.

" Do you have what I ordered ? "

"Actually I bring something new, which is all the rage with the other cults, Even Lil . ."

" Choose your next words carefully before I dispatch you with my bare hands!"

"I meant no disrespect, just highlighting how the other cults are enamoured with the latest design I have"

" I have no respect for any of those curs, as they pollute the purity of their cults allowing males to join, so hurry up and show me what you've brought, before I tire of your prattle !"

"As you can see, I've increased the area that is covered in armour to increase protection."

" Extra armour is no substitute for skill, you buffoon, GUARDS, take this wretch from my sight and feed him to the menagerie !"

" Please wait mistress, accept this as my gift to you, and I will bring what you ordered later today, free of charge"

"Very well, but you fail me again, and I will throw you in the arena, and let my bloodbrides, have their way with you!" 

"I won't"

" Give this new armour to the new recruits, they may last a little longer, until their skills develop"

So why the short story, well I wanted a reason for the different styles of armour in my Wych army, and all will become clear as I show you the different units. This first unit was originally part of my tournament army, but I've had to change a few models, as the second addition codex, removed the option of taking a blaster, it also changed the number of specialised Wych weapons in a unit from 3 to 2, and then changed Hydra Knives to Hydra Gauntlets, and a Falchion and razor snare, to Chain Flails, the Shardnet and Impaler stayed the same. I also added a new Hekatrix (Squad leader) as the original model would be better in a different unit.


Below is the raider for this unit, and has converted models for the crew.


This next unit was all converted from Witch Elf models, as there was very few models that were female for the Dark Eldar Wyches.

And below is this units raider, also with converted crew.


Now we get to GW's plastic Wyches, as you can see, they have a lot more armour than the original models, now I could have gone down the GW route, and replace my squads with new models, but after so much work, converting and painting, I thought a short story was better ! LOL


I still need to do a raider for these models, and may do a new style one, as fitting the new style models.

This last squad is my Hekatrix Bloodbrides, these are an elite unit of Wyches, and can have three specialised Wych weapons, instead of the normal two, the models are all converted from the original Mandrake models, which I've included a picture below to show what they started as. The bloodbrides, according to the codex, smear the blood of their victims over themselves, to strike fear into others. I still need to finish their Raider.


Next is my converted Succubus Vickatrix, the model started off as Jain Zar from the Eldar range, she has no markings on her as she doesn't like to cover her beauty, plus as she's in charge who is going to argue with her ! LOL


Last today is my Venom, which will be the ride for my Succubus, I still need to do four blood brides as a retinue for her.


Bit of a long winded post today, but may highlight why my posting has been a bit small recently ! LOL That's all for now, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

17 comments:

  1. Lovely painting and conversions, Dave! I really like the bone colour you've used, it makes a nice change from the usual dark greens and blues you usually see Dark Elves painted. Are these older models?

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    1. Thank you Matt, my Wyches have the bone armour and dark green weapons as an opposite to my Kabal warriors which have Dark Green armour and bone coloured weapons, then the flesh cult has red armour with metal coloured weapons, all to unify the three different forces but mark each one as individual. All are older versions of models except for the unit of plastic Wyches, which was the third squad down, and are metal as well ( which shows how old they are ! LOL)

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  2. Nice work on these and a short story to boot! Although I didn't really get into GW stuff till way late, I still find some charm in their older models and who can argue with a band of Wych Elves?!

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    1. Thank you Brian, I must admit a lot of the time I prefer the older models, as they have more character than the newer 3D sculpted pieces, but can normally find a use for both ! LOL As an army Wyches are a close combat nightmare, but are weak until they are in combat.

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  3. Wow, I love them! I don't think I've ever seen Dark Eldar in these colours, and I believe it's a total win! They look terrific, congratulations!

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    1. Thank you Suber, as you probably know I like to go my own way on colours ! LOL Nice to actually see an end in sight.

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  4. I’m trying to make a joke about which Wych being which inside the that terrifying sandWych of figures but I don’t know what a wych is on the GW verse. 😀
    But the miniatures look good and very sinister.

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    1. Thank you Stewart, very funny mate ! LOL I got so carried away with the short story, I completely forgot to add in their description, The Wyches are a cult that strive for martial prowess, and hone their skills in arenas fighting all manner of creatures,, some of which are used by the Beastmasters.

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  5. As weird and wonderful as usual, but the wo flyers really stand ou.

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    1. Thank you Joe, The original Raiders are my favourite out of the two that have been released as well.

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  6. Thank you John, as I had painted my Kabal the opposite way round, I thought it would tie my Wyches in but also make them different. As for being up to date, they have released another codex since, which I haven't bothered with or even looked at, as I no longer keep up to date with GW rule sets, and am now using my own set of rules, that play the way I think they should, some may say that's cheating, but I see it as getting use out of my models, with rules I enjoy playing ! LOL

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  7. As others have said, the Dark Eldar have a really cool scheme. I can't say I've seen anything like it before which is not an easy thing to accomplish. Your tastes in 40k seem similar to mine (well other than the Kroot, I was never into Tau) as I like Emperor's Children and Dark Eldar quite a bit. There must be something wrong with us as they're just about as evil as it gets in 40k! :D

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    1. Thank you Jeff, high praise indeed, to find a colour scheme that you haven't seen. For me the appeal was armies that weren't massively popular at the time, and you know where you stood with these armies straight out evil, no trying to hide behind pretences of were doing this for the greater good ! LOL

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  8. Lovely work as usual mate! The dark Eldar have some very cool looking stuff, I especially like the "Barsoom" style flyers, though I've always been told they are a terrible army in the 40K universe, true?

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thank you Roger, from the very first codex they had some cool stuff, and I love the old flyers more than the second edition one. As for how they are in gaming, they are a tricky one to get right, and you need to cover the different weaknesses until you can play on their strengths, I find making everything super mobile helps, plus dark lances are devastating ! LOL

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    2. Thank you for the clarification mate, Elves all over quick but not resilient 😁

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    3. No problem mate, and indeed, the flesh cult are a bit more resilient and with the pain tokens, can be very brutal.

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