Light Troupe

Another step towards completing a Masque.  Shaking off the rust to get these Harlequins up to snuff and a playable force on the table top has been a struggle for me, in part because my hands are far less steady compared to when I originally painted the single unit, but in part because it's a very daunting prospect to pick up a full army and suddenly need to paint them before I let myself use them on the table top.  Hopefully they'll be a bit of a surprise to my opponent the first time I crack down with them, but until then I'll labor away and try to pain them as well as I can with the goal of unleashing an unexpected challenge upon my foe.

This unit is filled with Harlequin Kisses, in part because when the unit was first introduced I converted the unit so every model, except the seer, jester, and master, had kisses.  I really felt that the whole unit (my only one in the army) should have the quintessential Harlequin weapon.  Now I've maintained a unit entirely featuring the weapon for the new rules.  Note that the Masque is Midnight Sorrow due to the fluff connection between that Masque and Ulthwe.

Harlequin Revamp Continues

My work to bend the Harlequins to the Masque of Midnight Sorrow has taken another step forward, with a full size troupe all painted / repainted.

Coming in near 300 pts despite having 3 ablative wound harlies shows how expensive the unit can get to do what you want it to do. Eventually I'll actually get my whole 1750 that's built all painted up. I'll probably play through that a few times before I figure out what I need from the extra Death Masque stuff.

For a while I thought I'd paint them up very quickly and have the first online battle rep that was all harlequins and all painted using Cegorach's Revenge. My laziness cost me and now that's been done, so I've still got to see my way through it. With the biggest unit done I feel a major step has been taken.

The death Jesters and Shadowseers will remain in unique raiments compared to the rest of the masque, denoting their special role. At this point I just need to paint up a second Shadowseer and I'll be able to start using the cast of players along with hero's path, which I think is the intent of the codex, to be built in pieces, slowly adding to an existing force. The formations are great at letting you try out a piece here and there as you go, with the big payoff being Cegorach's Revenge supporting an apocalypse force of Craftworlders. They are more likely to avoid being an early target on that type of field.

One step closer to fun.

Shining Spears Complete

I'm In April I'd finally started converting my Shining Spears and Biketarch, but my hatred for painting white and lack of time to paint meant I've been working on the unit slowly ever since.

I had promised myself I'd finish them before my next game and I've finally met that benchmark, despite really wanting to get a game in.

I may joke that the unit's primary weapon is harsh language, but I think they may be over criticised. I look forward to trying them out and seeing if I can figure out how to get the best from them.

I think the Autarch will be the lynchpin for me to make it work, but now that the celestial lance is useable again I may try it  in place of the standard laser lance to get AP2. It seems like nowadays every MEQ has 2+ armor saves. That said, if he doesn't do the job right the first time it's just a CCW, as opposed to the basic lances now, which are AP3 in subsequent rounds.

We'll see how it goes, but I can't wait to get back to the battlefield.

Jes Goodwin's Eldar Sketchbook

This last weekend was the "birthday" of my local GW, and they had this little baby available:

This may be my favorite GW book release since the 2nd edition Eldar book.

There aren't any Dark Eldar or Harlequins in the book, but most of the Craftworld units appear. The artwork runs from 1989 to 2013.

The notes themselves provide insights into how units were originally envisioned, such as a much beefier Hemlock load out, sporting a D-cannon in the place that eventually became the Mind Shock pod.

Not to mention the little inspirational touches that can be applied to your units for building background:

When flipping through the book the look and feel of the pages gives a sensation like you're flipping through his actual sketchbook, as if you could smudge the pencilling on the page.

In all it's a top notch product and I highly recommend it to anyone that has a chance to get one, and for most Eldar fans it will be an instant must have. I wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up on eBay for a king's ransom.

New Eldrad

The New Eldrad hit this weekend and I picked him up as part of the Masque of Death. The Harlequins were enough to bump me to 2000 pts rather than the 1750 they sit at now. In addition I'll need to do a major rework of them to make them a more fluff appropriate force to join my craftworld.

On to my initial thoughts of new Eldrad:

This is a beautiful model. All together it's a similar size to current Eldrad models, but with the scenic base will be considerably taller for most players.  There is a sense of movement that is conveyed by the model that makes it feel dynamic despite a very similar pose to the original. I opted for the casting hand and spun the hand at the wrist because I prefer that to the hi-I'm-Eldrad-nice-to-meet-you angle. They've also added in the faux beard that has become standard for Farseers, which overall updates it nicely in line with the other models in the range.

The reason I have it in pieces is because I'm planning to paint it in sections, from the ground up, because I don't want to miss areas or leave ugly angles to it. I'm trying to avoid the punishment that can occur from too many hard to reach areas, especially since this is the feature character for Ulthwe.

This model will be a big seller, as it's a great base for a feature Farseer for any craftworld, and with a couple quick cuts the staff can be replaced with an ornate witchblade and the model won't really reveal that the staff is intended to be there. All in all a fantastic mode that I can't wait to paint.

Shining Spears part 1

Way back in 5th edition, when I had pretty much moved on to complete null deployment As the only real way Eldar had a chance to put up a fight (refusing to engage before turn 5) I had managed to maintain a pretty admirable unit of 5 Shining Spears and an Autarch and Farseer. They were fast and versatile enough I could get a lot out of them with other supporting units like jetbike guardians.

With 6th edition power weapons dropped to AP2. I had previously used the unit to take on small, high-value targets, but they were effectively retired despite a points drop. When I moved to Australia the models broke, and since I was never fully happy with their paint scheme I was in no hurry to repair them.

In 7th we got new bikes, but not new spears. They did get new rules, which I have found intriguing, and ultimately it drove me on a path to take all the spear bits I had and combine the old and new kits in to a sleek hybrid unit. So far I'm happy with the results:

5 more to go, and a revised Autarch and I'll be looking to test their newest incarnation on the table top again.

Codex Ulthwe: A Personal Project

For a while I lamented my rules being spread across multiple books... But then I realised... They didn't need to be!

My normal vocation is in marketing, and so I'm opting to use my graphic design and other skills to make an Ulthwe codex that's all in one! No more carrying around 3-4 books for me! Even better is it can feature my own models!

Now, my Dex is progressing well, but because It's effectively GW's writing for the rules of normal units I'm not showing them here.  That said I feel comfortable sharing the pages for conversion units I've made, which have no official corresponding 40k rules.

I'm really happy with how it's progressing, plus I'm learning a lot about how GW styles their own books.