First post - Wraithlord of Ynn-Bydos Craftworld

I've been playing 28mm games since 1988. I started with 2nd Edition Blood Bowl, with its wonderful Astrogranite (TM) pitch. I quickly progressed to Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40,000 and caught the tale end of Third Edition and Rogue Trader. I never played much of either, and it was really the 4th Edition WFB and 2nd Edition 40k boxed sets that got me into regular play rather than just dreaming. I didn't play at all during 3rd and 4th edition 40k, and have never really started playing WFB again, but it is still the Rogue Trader and Oldhammer eras that catch my imagination the most. Slaves to Darkness and Lost and the Damned are still, in my opinion, the pinnacle of what Games Workshop have ever created.

I now play at HATE Club, which stands for Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts. We are a large group of gamers who play twice a week in Bethnal Green. Luckily there are plenty of casual gamers amongst us as I really don't have a competitive mentality.

One of our founder members moved to Hastings a little while ago, so of course he then founded HATEstings - Hastings Area Tabletop Enthusiasts. As a result there is a now a slow-grow 40k campaign called Ascension being run at Hastings but with visits from London HATE. I took all of my Eldar out of my parents' loft to build a Spirit Host army for this campaign. I've been sharing pictures on Facebook and DakkaDakka, but wanted something a bit more dedicated to me, so I decided to chronicle this army here. I expect I will add other projects as time goes on. This army will have both old and modern models in it, though I'll lean towards vintage whenever possible. My other armies are some old (RT-era Raven Guard, RT-era Chaos Renegade Marines), medium aged (A huge number of Badab Secessionists from all four chapters) and brand new (A Genesteaeler Cult and a Deathwatch Primaris army). I also own at least one of every Jes Goodwin Chaos Champion.

But, to get things rolling, the centre-piece model of my new Eldar army. I wanted my first post to be something awesome, and for it to be a start-to-finish account, to here goes...

This started 9 years ago when I decided that the old Wraithlords needed to be reposed. I hacked this bad boy apart and put him together again like this...

After that, he joined all of the rest of my Eldar in my parents' loft for almost ten years, until the above-mentioned Ascension campaign made me drag them all out. After that, I decided he needed a nice big sword, so I took out some sheets of 1mm and 0.5mm plasticard and some greentsuff and made this...

...but I knew I wanted to make more than one of these blades (for um... the other eleven Wraithlords I own) so I cast up a copy in resin...

I made a haft for the weapon from the vane at the back of a Falcon turret. I whittled the corner of a sprue to made the crossguard. The gem comes from a random bit. I cut around the edge, shaved the back carefully and set it in greenstuff. The rebirth-of-ancient-days rune comes from the little statue that comes with Dire Avengers. I think the bits that juts out was from some sort of weapon, maybe a Star Cannon, but I am not even sure.

The next problem was that this model does not come with a gripping hand, so I had to sculpt one...

I also wanted him to get up close and mix things up, so he needed shuriken cannons as they are assault weapons. I wanted something unique though, so I made my own version...

And it was time to get an undercoat on...

I was pretty bloody happy with him by this stage, but he still needed paint. I gave him a basecoat of Dheneb Stone, a wash with Army Painter Soft Tone and then built him up with combinations of Dheneb Stone, Bleached Bone, Ushabti Bone and white. I painted some bits with Eshin Grey and then did the gems with a variety of different blues, starting with Necron Abyss, then Mordian Blue, Enchated Blue and Ice Blue.

I am delighted with how this model turned out, and am glad I have him for my first blog post.

I hope you enjoyed!