Welcome to PAIN!

Hey everybody!
If you read my last hobby progress blog of 2016, you’ll no doubt remember the bit where I talked about not wanting to get into building any new armies anytime soon, having quite enough to be going along with, between the Tomb Kings, the Necron revitalisation project, and the Slaanesh daemons. Well, I’ve already failed at this first hurdle, and it only took me a couple of days to do so. Glorious!

My local GW is doing a bit of a “new year, new army” thing in a similar fashion to the Horus Heresy build-a-legion thing that started back in November, and I rarely need an excuse to buy more models from GW. Back when I was still new to the hobby, and trying to get my head around all of the lore and whatnot, I was drawn to the Dark Eldar aesthetic – partly because the Dark Eldar codex landed not long after I’d started to get interested in 40k.

I feel like I say this a lot whenever I buy any kind of new models but, while I’ll always love the Necrons, I love all of the sweeping lines of these things, they look so delicate yet so deadly. When I bought Death Masque last summer, I sold all of the Harlequin bits as I didn’t want to get involved in all of that stuff, though I did like the look of those Voidreaver things, which have a similar look to them with the swooping wings and whatnot. I’m actually half-tempted to buy another copy of Death Masque to get some Harlequins, as the Deathwatch chaps won’t go to waste either! But that might have to wait for the time being…

At any rate, I spent a good portion of the New Year weekend investigating these guys in preparation for my new project, so thought I’d share some of the fruits of that investigation with you all today!

Let’s take a look at some history…

Back in the day, there was just the Eldar, carving up their empire from the galaxy after the Necrons all went to sleep. Their advanced technology meant they could get away with doing very little, and this idleness caused many to lapse into hedonism and beyond. They perfected the webway, building cities within its depths, including the city of Commorragh, which became a centre of the many Pleasure Cults that grew up to attempt to experience all the heights of excess. Eventually, the decadence of Eldar perversions caused a massive Warp disturbance that was the birth of the Chaos god Slaanesh, who formed with an insatiable thirst for Eldar souls. This disturbance caused the reality rift that came to be known as the Eye of Terror.

Safe within the webway, the Eldar of Commorragh discovered that they could stay relatively immune from She Who Thirsts if they fed off the pain of others (while their Craftworld counterparts created the spirit stones to keep their souls out of the clutches of Slaanesh). The Dark Eldar therefore developed into a race of cruel, ruthless pirates who regularly raid Realspace to replenish their stocks of slaves to torture.

The Dark Eldar have begun to increase their raids as they increasingly crave the souls of others, which some think they use to temporarily sate Slaanesh by proxy. If they harvest enough souls of others, Slaanesh will leave the Dark Eldar alone. The rejuvenating effects of devouring these souls means that the Dark Eldar will never die from old age, and thus risk their souls falling to She Who Thirsts – provided the constant supply of souls, of course.

So that’s what the Dark Eldar are all about – stealing folks to torture them, their agonies preventing obliteration at the hands of Slaanesh. I’ve recently talked about creating a Slaaneshi daemons army, of course, so there’s something clearly about the Dark Prince that draws me, either his followers or his sworn enemies! Of course, I suppose there could be something to be said for having an army of Dark Eldar fighting alongside Slaaneshi daemons – providing those souls for Slaanesh or something…

So far, then, I’ve bought the Codex, the Start Collecting box, a Venom and the painting guide. I love those things because they really inspire me, even when I’ve got a bit of an idea with where I want to go anyway. I’ve already started to build up the Kabalite Warriors, and while the weather is pretty murky and rubbish, I think I may also build up the Venom. As I’ve mentioned with my Novamarines plans, I’m going to build up and paint a Kill Team first, so that I can actually start to play with these things rather than trying to build up over a thousand points. My current plans for said Kill Team are five Kabalite (one upgraded to Sybarite), the Venom, and five Wyches (one upgraded to Hekatrix), which is 190 points. I’m considering my options for those final ten points, but I think I might go for a sixth Wych, as I get the feeling more bodies is more useful!

At any rate, I’m excited to get going with these guys!

And look what’s apparently just around the corner!! Seems the folks over in Nottingham are all too aware of when I start to collect new armies…