Byron's Pirate Eldar - Doldair's Skyraiders (381)

 

This month I painted Doldair's Skyraiders. I am very excited by this addition to my army. Let's jump into it!

First a pic of the unit together. Let's go through the team one model at a time.

First, is Doldair, the Lochiarch of the Skyraider unit. She is a champion armed with a power sword on a jetbike.

She is a fairly intricate conversion. Her lower legs come from an RT eta jetbike rider. Her torso is a left over from the Banshee that was cannibalized to make my leader model. The arms are plastic, one from a contemporary corsair sprue, I think. And the other from a plastic early jetbike rider. Her helmet is from a 2nd edition dire avenger. And, her sword is from an RT dire avenger exarch. 

The flames for the jetbike were made from a cotton swab. The white paint at the base of the flame comes from a white ink. It's very white but it always shows up as a mid grey on my camera - maybe it's too bright?

The rune on the bike is hand sculpted to look like the Isha rune to match the design on my wave serpent and the army banner.

Hopefully this video works. I took videos of the jet bikes to help capture their swooping pose.

Next we have the biker with the hand flamer. This was a frustrating conversion. He was initially a standing pose with a power fist. The whole right arm had to go and replaced with an early plastic jetbiker arm with added armor over the right bicep. Then the left leg was chopped off and cut in two around the knee and repositioned.

Some of you might be wondering about the purple cyclops hand icon. This is a hand-sculpted interpretation of one of the banner icons found in the Book of the Astronomican. I didn't get the expression quite right, but it is close enough. I painted it purple because I didn't have any yellow in my pallet yet and thought it might grab too much attention.

Another video.

Another face from the Book of the astronomican. I put a lot of effort into sculpting these designs because I have another jetbike with a harlequin face on it and I didn't want that one bike to feel out of place.

This model is a pretty straightforward conversion. Head swap with a plastic jetbiker. Right arm comes from a plastic dark eldar warrior with an eldar bright lance tip put on the end. 

This jetbiker is my favorite. I think he has the best sense of motion - resulting from his swishy top knot and his jet thruster flame curving. 

Swoosh!

Points

Leaders

Lochiarc - Champion w/ refractor field, mesh armor, power sword, las pistol  = 20 pts

Squads

Skyraider unit

Eldar w/ mesh armor, refractor fields, laspistol and flamer  x 1 = 13 pts

Eldar w/ mesh armor, refractor fields, laspistol and meltagun = 18 pts

Jetbikes x3 = 330 pts

_________________________________________________________

Total                                                            381 pts

The jetbike cost was derive from the Book of the astronomican. In the eldar pirate list, serpent squads can be upgraded to skyraider squads for 547 points. That's five bikes for about 110 points each. That seems pricey to me. 

Next, the baggage train

Here is my baggage train to date. I don't want to celebrate this too much since this month it was mostly just basing the baggage train. 

Here's a pic of the cargo drone to show how the cargo token can fit in the back of the drone to be carried around. 

Finally, a pic of everything I completed this month. 

Byron's Pirate Eldar - mulligan post (zero points)

 Ooof. After four complete OWACs I must take my first mulligan without a single complete model to show for it. 

I'll share the progress I made up until we had to start packing and moving to another house around mid-month. You can't do everything.

First is my cargo drone. This is a heavily converted wraithlord. The thighs and upper arms have been swapped to make him shorter and with a longer reach. His left hand has been replaced with a stand from an eldar weapon platform; I thought it looked more mechanical and clamp/forklift adjacent than the hand. His torso is backwards and leaned forward with a plastic spoon glued on as a sort of dump truck/ bed to store things as he moves about. To make the spoon look more eldar I added some jetbike and weapon platform bits to it. The final touches were green stuff tubes between the joints - this works both as an eldar motif (they have these tubes on their guns) but also as a structural stupport. Basically, it's a long external pin to add to the internal pinning between the joints. 

I followed the color scheme for the rest of the army, except I added a lot of scuffing. This was achieved with a sponging of dark brown and then a stippling of bright silver. It's my first attempt at a battered look and I think it looks pretty good. Maybe I over did it a little. 

Importantly, for the mulligan, his basing is not complete. 

I have yet to use it in a game with my kids. But I am thinking I would start with Wraithlord stats and then downgrade them and remove the swords and guns to reflect his more menial status. 

Next, pics of my stevedores. This pic captures the vibe of most of them, but it was taken before I packed them away for the move. I was able to finish the eldar cargo doodads on their bases too, but just didn't finish the bases. The stevedores are all blood bowl elves. I put doodads in the hands of the catchers/receivers to make it look like they were moving cargo around. 

One of the bloodbowl minis has a whip. This was taken from a 3rd ed Dark Eldar Syberite. I am using him as an Exodite beastmaster - that way I can use my wood elf beasts in Fantasy and 40k. 

Progress on the hover truck has been slow. 

I will aim to finish all of these minis and then some for the next month. 

I am thinking another trash-made tank, a jeb bike gang, or some close combat guys with dual pistols. 

On a less dour note, I attended an Oldhammer convention in Portland in early May and got to use my Pirates in some games.

Adrian's eldars - Iyanden is un-doomed (Wrap-up)

Wrap-up post!

 Another OWAC, another troop removed from the pile of shame.

It was a fun project. From painting to create the scenes and write some stories accompanying the updates. It was less stressful than the orc and goblins except for some odd months. However, this time having a job a constrained schedule felt a lot in the planned "extras". Maybe in a future coming back to Iyanden I can add the terrain from the Tyranid invasion or some scattered details from the craftwold gardens.

Painting yellow may seems a bit tedious sometimes but the experience of years collecting eldars and the mix of models I selected made the task a much easier.

I enjoyed the pirates a lot with the mixture of armour colors, one of my favourite units of this challenge. Also I can finally claim my small achievement, completed the unit of eldar exodites after so long. Some of the eldar scouts and wood elf wardancers were purchased in blisters, and the cold ones were the ones from their very first release!

The Doom of the Eldar has not been my personal doom, I finished another OWAC! It has been so much pleasure to paint it as to show them to you all. Hope I get my hand in some units and can continue this project in a future OWAC.

Oh, remember the last year when I lost a goblin for the last set of pictures and found it after the recap post? I have made the same mistake with my wraithlord bright lance. I had it in my hand the other day!! 

Commanders

1x Grand Farseer (general) Ylshor - 170

1x Phoenix Lord Maugan Ra - 179

 

Elites

1x Dark Reaper Exarch - 90

3x Dark Reapers - 201

1x Fire Dragon Exarch - 75

4x Fire Dragons - 112

1x Howling Banshee Exarch - 69

7x Howling Banshees - 189

 

Battleline

1x Dire Avenger Exarch - 56

9x Dire Avengers - 198

10x Guardians - 110

1x Grav Platform with plasma cannon - 55

1x Veteran Pirate captain - 31

9x Eldar pirates - 135

 

Fast Attack

1x Exiled veteran - 50

4x Exiled Knights - 152

 

Heavy Support

1x Eldar Wraithlord with its (missing) laser cannon - 190

58 miniatures and a grand total of 2062 points of eldars.

Thinking about my next project, I will probably return to fantasy and my (other) main army, the mighty dwarfs!

I cannot finish this post without a special thank to the Team Eldar for their support and their awesome entries (as well as everyone in the OWAC!). And the final gemstone count recap, made by the exarchs of the Aspect of Patience: 1532 gemstones.

 

See you in the next challenge.

Adrian's out.

Adrian's Eldars - An Undying Lord and her knights (444 points)

Rank and File month #2 

The Shrine of the Thousand Blades was a perfect bastion to resist the tide. The Dire Avengers have been doing so for almost a day since the end of the battle in the forests. Their short range weaponry and unmatched skills in close quarter combat will make suffer the tyranids if they wanted to take their position. 

However, Taeroth knew that with the guardians falling back and no heavy weapon support, soon or later the swam would unleash one of their monstrosities.

And so they did.

The giant biomorph was a true titan. While the lesser creatures were cut whenever they tried to approach the temple, the shuriken munition did nothing against its mighty carapace.

The doom was before them, but they will resist and die.

[A laser canon struck the beast in the front and stunned it in the place, surrounded by fellow avengers died with its charge]

-I see my opponent through the veil of death, and it will taste the cold of the eternal dream.

The dead exarch Kelrye stopped the confused blows of the giant claws of the creature and hit with all the force its dreadnought confers her. The creature fell to the ground.

One final attempt to get up and continue with its rampage. But Kelrye punched the head, sticking her fist and ripping the head off.

-We will strike in the heart of the swarm and tear it apart.

Following their undiying mistress, the dire avengers countercharged the tide, disbanding the charge.

----------

Second moth finished. Wosh, February was a pain, those fewer days pay a heavy toll, especially when there are other deadlines mixed. In the end, I tried my best to paint something extra instead of the 10 miniatures. Maybe, an eleventh one. That will make the deal.

9x Dire Avengers - 198 points

1x Exarch - 56 points

For this squad, I made a little turquoise blue instead of the usual blue. I didn't want too much turquoise/green because I want to paint a unit or two of Swooping Hawks at some point in the future and I love the schemes well differentiated.

Taeroth, as well as other exarch of the army (wait and see...) had his scheme inverted with the contrast colours of the unit. That's makes some variation in the colours and the leader stands out a little bit.

The sword was painted in blues simply because I paint power swords in red, normal in blueish grays and psychic swords in purple. And then the Dire Avengers come with a Dire Sword, and the simple plan goes to rubbish. At least I am pleased with the result, it pops a little despite all the blues.

1x Eldar Dreadnought - 190 points

Lastly, Kelrye piloting the wraithlord. I painted her in the typical Iyanden yellow, but then, it was like a bit flat... I looked at the painted wraithlord of 2nd ed codex and came with the idea of runes in the body.
Also, a small yellow bits in her trophy, I tried to put some colour in the Kraken's red carapace like in the Advance Space Crusade alternative box art that Steve Beales and Lissane discovered/suggested for me. Thanks!

Ah, the moment you were really waiting for, not these painted miniature preambles: February ends with a total of 405 gemstones painted. Why on earth there are more gemstones in the backpack and the weapon of the wraithlord?!? We will not falther, there will be more gems to come!

#GoTeamEldar

Adrian's out.