'Ello, Dar

It's only taken since 2014, when dipping was the trendy painting technique, but I have finished my Eldar army for Warhammer 40,000.

Behold the forces of Craftworld Ad-Hoc!

These miniatures are all from the first two editions, aside from a couple of characters, and the Exodites. More on them later.

The "command squad". The second character is a Spiritseer from around 2013, and you'll have seen him as Fateweaver Duu'ey in my Stargrave reports. The two on the right came to me painted so I need to go back and bring them in line with the rest of the army, but it feels a bit of a shame to ruin the one in black.

Scouts, as they were back then, Rangers now. The big lad is from fourth edition, I believe.

There are six of these ladies in the army, but for some reason I only got five of them out for the photo op. Photo oops more like!

Two lots of Striking Scorpions. A special Brainsplurge No-Prize for anyone who identifies the colour scheme inspiration, if you can even see it with this poor lighting.

Exodites! Space elves on dinosaurs! Only legal in second edition -- the best edition -- but they never got models. These are Dark Elf Cold One Knights kitbashed with an old Storm Guardian close combat sprue, and the only models bought new from an actual shop. Not the most elaborate of conversions, but good enough.

Dark Reapers, the very first miniatures I painted for this army, and if I'm going to repaint anything, it'll be these lads.

And finally, a classic spread-eagled pilot War Walker, and a couple of Dreadnoughts, including one with the funny tiny head. Since it has a missile launcher I decided to paint it like a Dark Reaper, to suggest that it used to be a Reaper in life. These are very heavy and very spindly so will likely shatter if ever dropped.

So that's it, 12 years of collecting and painting, 76 miniatures, all done.

Well...

I should probably repaint the Dark Reapers, and the two Warlocks, and I have a couple of odd character models that never got rules. I also have a couple of "holy grails" that I'd like to get, but for now, we are done.

I've loved the Eldar ever since seeing them in an early White Dwarf -- on hexagonal bases, hence my "basing scheme" -- and while these are a million miles away from 'Eavy Metal standard, I'm happy enough with them.

Shiny

This is not me bragging about my miniature painting skills, for the simple reason that I have none; put a paint brush in my hand and I lose any coordination I may have had, my hands turning into chunks of unresponsive meat.

No, this post is about the exciting world of varnishing. All of these Rogue Trader era Dark Reapers were painted in the same haphazard fashion but were varnished in different ways.

(Click to see all big and stuff.)

As I am a lazy and incompetent painter I thought that dipping seemed like a good idea as it would not only cut out the shading stage but would also varnish the miniature; it does indeed do both of those things although the dip itself -- I used Army Painter Quickshade -- is thick and difficult to control, resulting in some patchy shading, although it does produce a nice shiny finish. Mr Blotchy on the left was shaded and varnished in this way.

The middle miniature was washed with Army Painter Strong Tone ink -- I am told that it is a close match for the popular but discontinued Citadel Devlan Mud wash -- then varnished with Citadel 'Ardcoat. The shading isn't as patchy although the result is more dull overall and you'd probably want to apply a few quick highlights after the ink wash. The 'Ardcoat is easy to apply but varnishing an entire army with it is going to be expensive.

The Reaper on the right was also washed with the Army Painter ink and varnished with Pledge Multi-Surface Wax, which as the name suggests is for household use but seems to work for miniatures too. It's quite thin and not very waxy so I gave the figure two coats to get the same sort of finish, but you do get 750ml for £3.15 -- in Sainsbury's at least; other suppliers may differ -- whereas the 'Ardcoat costs £2.40 for 12ml. You can find out more about the Pledge -- including local variants -- here.

I am far from an expert on miniature painting -- exhibits A, B, and C above, your honour -- so I wouldn't expect anyone to take my word as anywhere near authoritative but it seems to me that a combination of ink washing and the Pledge Multi-Surface Wax is a much better -- albeit slower -- approach than the dipping I was using before.