We lit the signal flare and before we knew it Reivers were descending out of the night like wraiths. I hope they scare the xenos because they sure as hell scare me!

Tobith, Guardsman

Another long running project draws to a close as I finish Reiver ‘Squad Bast’ one year and four months after beginning the first member! This squad has a long and storied history before even hitting the table top; you may remember that Sergeant Bast won the Bronze Everchosen award at the Nottingham Warhammer store and that the half-finished unit appeared on the Warhammer TV Community Hobby Round-up.

From the start I knew I wanted this squad to be arriving via grav-chute with some members of the unit still in the middle of landing. How exactly to achieve that while also hiding the LED wires in a convincing way is one of the reasons this unit ended-up on the back-burner for a year. In the end I settled on the idea of the Reivers descending above an illuminated signal flare.

As you can see from the ‘work in progress’ picture above, the Reivers are held aloft by a small length of stiff wire. The connecting LED wires are then looped tight around this wire to keep them neat. All the wires are then hidden by cotton wool sprayed red to mimic a signal flare. If you’d like to know a little more about the LED techniques involved then don’t forget I have my LED Eye Lens tutorial here and my LED Muzzle Flare tutorial here. The signal flare effect was enhanced with an additional Tru-Opto 1.8mm 3V Red LED on the base. This was simply wired in parallel with the helmet eye lens LED as it is an LED of the same type.

Now the Reivers are done there is just one more unit to add to “complete” the Crimson Fists for Armies on Parade 2020 and bring the Power Level to a nice round 60 Power. Check back soon to find out which unit it is!