Second Wraithlord.

And here is the second Wraithlord:

The heavy weapons are the same of the previous wraithlord, but this one got a pair of flamethrowers.

Since this WL has purple gems everywhere his symbols is red.

I assembled it as if it is walking.

Here you can see him walking.

A pair of closer views.

The two guys.

Their symbols.

Fighting Waiting for the photo back to back.

Hope you like it.

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First Wraithlord

Can you recall the first lines of my fire dragons post?

The ones that say that initially I disliked the models?

Well, the wraithlord is totally the opposite case, when GW released it I knew that I will going to paint more than one of these, the mini is incredible, a impressively cool revamp of the classic eldar dreadnought of the old ages, but as a much more dynamic, eldarish, agile machine... and less bulky too.

It totally fits the high powered thin guys that the eldar army has.

And, one of the best parts of this kits is that it come with every option available for it in the codex... and with some cool extra bits, like the tabard, the wraps of cloth, the tomb for the base, the base itself... the mini is a real plasure to paint and to assemble.

And now about the rules, the wraithlord is a nasty machine, with a strenght of 10 and a resistance of 8 is a monster equal in power to a dreadnought.

It is capable of deal lots of damage in melee to anyone as well as be so hard to wound by anybody but the growing market of 2+ venom weapons, so it is a unit that should not be used against space marines and their sternguard guys.

The other surprising rule is the Wraithsight, and without a psyker near them they have a 1/6 possibility of do nothing at all in the turn and be automaticly hittable in CC, strange thing, cause the eldar, in their incredible knowledge of technology and the warp should have designed a way to override this restriction, but... Who am I to question the GW fluff/rules ratio?.

The other thing a wraithlord features is the ability to carry two heavy weapons , which is pretty nice to make a specifically designed wraithlord for each battle.

In my case I will be arming them with a bright lance and a eldar missile launcher to have more anti-vehicle and some anti-infantry (with the pinning blast of the eldar missile launcher) and my plan is to make the wraithlord a weapon platform that accompanies the bulk of my army, cause with that punch in melee, is a theat incredibly difficult to deal with, except for melta, railguns, powfist or the kind of weapons that shouldn´t be on every mini.

Oh, and they come with a pair of assault weapons, which I think the flametrower is the most used for obvious reasons.

This is the first wraithlord of a pair of them.

This one comes armed with a bright lance, a missile launcher and a pair of shuriken catapults.

I´ve painted it trying to simulate my standard craftworld´s scheme for the eldar, black underclothes, blue armour and white heads as well as red/purple gems.

The thing is one wraithlord will come with most gems painted purple and the symbol in his back red and the other with most gems painted red and the symbol painted purple, not for anything, just a detail. Closer look to the symbol.

I´m still thinking about what kind of symbols can I add to their heads, but until I found them their head will remain white.

Hope you like it.

Eldar Falcon.

And here comes my first eldar vehicle.

Initially, I thought the falcon was not a think worth have, but as time passed by, I have learned to respect the good old Falcon.

I think I will put a bright lance on it, and will be carrying the fire dragons so, if with the pulsar and the lance the falcon pops a transport the dragons will toast the unit in it but if it don´t the dragons will do the tank hunting and some other unit sweeps the infantry.

So, the falcon will be part of the dragon surprise combo.

The thing is, I think I will only using one falcon in my army, so I´ve painted in a slightly different scheme than the other tanks. As you can see there is kind of a chaotic pattern, with different markings in each wing.

As you can see there is a frosted cabin, so it doesn´t let you see the cockpit. I´ve painted the pilot as if he is lighted by the control panel in front of him but the frosted parts ruin the whole cockpit (and they are inside the cabin :( ).

That´s how the cockpit of the pilot should like (even when there is a bit of frost in the gunner cockpit too):

The other side of the machine.

The door.

As seen in google maps :)

Do you see the black three panels in the left wing?

I want to make a freehand, but I don´t know what to do in them, maybe kind of a space landscape with a galaxy in the middle and tiny stars around it with eldar runes on the lower part of the panels... don´t know, if someone has an idea let me know, please.

Just a question... Why the falcon can be armed with two heavy weaopns in the turret when rules-wise you can put only one?

Hope you liked it.

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Phoenix Lords: Fuegan, the burning lance.

Hello, fellow gamers.

As I was finishing the fire dragons, I saw the Fuegan mini and thought that I was going to paint him as a "reward" for painting the whole fire dragons squad, so I did it, and re-read the phoenix lords rules, and I can say fuegan is one of the best PL´s (imo).

Despite he brings a melta weapon with a good range, he totally is a beast in close combat.

4 Str 5 attacks at initiative 7 and ws 7 is a thing to take care of, but when you read that him attack as a monstrous creature and he has 2 + save and feel no pain it turns to be a invaluable asset to any army.

Now the question: Is him as reliable in the table as he is in the paper?

I think not at all, but, as ever I´ll have to test him to say anything about it. Apart from this, he also has a fire pike with both exarch powers, so, no smoke dischargers or flat out will disturb his shots, which is a very good thing to know :).

I thing i will using him in addition to the fire dragons exarch, so I can shot two fire pikes without cover, which is a great thing to consider, knowing my fellow gamers tend to use a lot of vehicles (that is the main reason I will be using lots of anti tank in my eldar army) and to have the ability to kill things in CC with the dragons (of the ability to put fuegan out of the unit and take two targets at once.

And now about the mini:

Lot of time has passed since the phoenix lords were released, but the quality of this minis and the amount of detail and personality sculped in each one keeps surprising me, sure they have kind of a static position, but they are an impressive mini to behold and for an experienced painter they are still a challenge to paint.

And, which is the better part of the minis... they are pretty fun to paint. Not-so-long time ago, I decided to paint the aspect warriors in the same colours as the craftworld warriors, and after this, I decided to paint the phoenix lords the same way, but, due their status, I was not going to paint them the exact way so I´ve to make a difference, I´ve painted them with some more white details and the gems of this guys is yellow as well, to keep them apart the regular guys.

And here is the burning lance himself:

Side view so you can see the yellow gems.

Huge fire pike, isn´t it?

One more.

Detail of the axe.

A closer view.

Hope you like it.

Comments and criticism will be welcome as ever.

Fire dragons.

Have you ever felt when you first take a look at a mini that this mini is awful and adds nothing to the range it was made for?

That was my initial feeling on the fire dragons, at first instance I took a look and thought "Meh, this minis are totally like the old ones, but kinda taller", but when I bought the box and start to paint them I was amazed of how the fire dragons were updated while still showing the same spirit of the old classic ones, so they become one of my favourite minis of the whole range.

The only thing I don´t like is how plain they look together while looking at the same direction, but this is totally compensated by the exarch, a truly loveable mini indeed.

And another question:

Have you ever felt when you first take a look at a rulebook that a unit isn´t that good for the role that is supposedly assigned for?

When I first put my eyes on the Eldar codex I saw this guys and my thoughts went to the tau codex, in which a unit, with the aproppriate upgrades can target more than a single unit making the XV-88 apoc suits a very reliable anti tank unit.

The dragons cannot do this so they have to shoot the same unit, overkilling most of the things, but while reading the book again I realized that the tankhunting role can be taken by the Wave Serpents and Falcons (or even vypers and seer council) and make the dragons change his (fluffy) role into chase and hunt termies or powered armor guys and to pop tank squadrons, and, indeed they seem to be really good at it.

Now one very important question is... Should the exarch pick up the flamer or the pike?

I like the flamer, It is a very good weapon, but since most of the armies are pillboxed into transports the´flamer isn´t as useful as it used to be (one at a time, of course, cause some destructor warlocks or a huge ork burna squad are uber IMHO) so I decided to put the pike on the exarch, and if later I buy another box I will use the flamer to diferenciate the units.

So my idea is, put a 6 man (5 + exarch with pike) into a bright lanced falcon and throw them out hunting armoured foes and tank squadrons.

And here they are my 6 (5+1) squad.

I kept the craftworld scheme, cause I don´t like the eldar armies that look like an explosion in a paint shop so I adapted the scheme to fit this guys.

The grenade tossing guy in a close view so you can see the scheme better.

Hmmmm... they are fisically fit, aren´t they? :D

The exarch... an awesome miniature.

The same guy from the back.

Another point of view.

A closer view to see better the details.

Same.

As ever comments are welcome.

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Eldar Ranger/Pathfinder

Today, here they are one of the coolest (although not the most useful) troop units in the 40k universe, the rangers/pathfinders.

I´ve ever liked ´em, the fluff, the long coats, the craftworld colours almost hidden under their garments, the sniper stuff... they will always have a spot in my lists, even when I know they are not the best troops, but they still are very reliable objective takers, if you make they run away of the flamers, of course.

Here they are the guys.

At the moment they are a 5 man squad, but I´ll buy and paint 5 more (I´m still thinking about buying the "special" model in GW page)

I wanted a leather effect in the trenchcoats, so they were painted as follows:

Primer: Citadel Chaos Black.

Basecoat: Citadel Foundation Khemri Brown.

Ink: Citadel Badab Black (heavy wash).

First highlight: Khemri Brown once again.

Final highlight: Tallarn Flesh.

In this image you can see better the leather effect, the badab black makes the recesses so dark and the Tallarn Flesh make a soft bright in the coats.

As you can see their backpacks are well detailed, and this makes the backpack a very important thing in this mini, cause if you paint them in a way that fits the rest of the mini they will enhance the final look of it, but if not they will seem totally out of place.

Having this in mind, I´ve painted the packs the same way as the patfinders, using the same technique for the browns and using the same whites so they don´t broke the main scheme.

The buttons for the rifle sheath are metallic while the buttons of the pockets are little red gems (just a curiosity).

I have tried to maintain the craftworld colours at a minimum, but still recognisable, cause they will be infiltrating everywhere but are (ironically) proud renegades of the craftworld.

I think these are very good minis and a pleasure to paint, as are most of the eldar range, and there is a thing that I consider as a great success in the latter miniatures:

Look at the photo below, now whatch how the boot shapes where the kneepad should be, that makes a very huge step to reality, cause when you see the mini you think that the boot is standing outside the classic eldar armour (which is not, cause, after all, it is a pewter miniature) and gives a sense of a dressed guy, and not the sense of a chunk of metal, that is a little but nice detail that make the latter miniatures a lot better than the older ones.

I´m very proud of these minis, so I hope you liked them.

As ever comments and criticism are welcome.

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Guardians

Hi all, fellow gamers.

Today I´m going to show you the artisan guys that are called to the army when need arises, the Guardians.

It´s kind of strange for a dying race to send their civil people to war, but hey, who am I to question the wisdom of the millenia aged farseers (and the way games-workshop did the eldar fluff...).

Thing is that I don´t like the horde-type eldar army, I find totally out of place a dying race army full of untrained civilians, but still, they are cheap and useful, and came with a Heavy Weapons Platform allowing them to shoot on the run, so, they make good far-from-enemy-assaulters-objective takers.

So here they are the guys.

I´ve painted them in quite a simple scheme, and instead of highlight them as usually, I drybrushed them, so their armour looks clean but old and not well maintained.

For the body:
Primer: Citadel Chaos black.
Base: Citadel Shadow grey.
Ink: Citadel Asurmen blue.
Drybrush: Vallejo Grey blue.
Final highlights: Americana Baby blue. (yep, three different paint manufacturers in there).

All this process except for the final highlights took me about 3 hours for the whole squad (the platform was painted apart)

For the heads:
Primer: Citadel skull white (which, after it dried, had a sandy texture that made me curse GW several times, and is the reason these guys don´t have their eyelenses painted).
Ink: Badab black.
Drybrush: Vallejo Silvergrey.
Final highlights: white (citadel or vallejo, I´ve used both in those guys).


The platform and the platform operators:

Two guys.

Two guys... again. The back of those two guys.

And that´s all.

Hope you liked it.

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Autarch

Hi all guys.

Today I´m gonna show you my first painted mini for my eldar army: The Autarch (What the plural for autarch is? Autarches, Autarchs or Autarch?).

Things are that the Autarch is supposed to be the pinnacle of eldar fighting, a guy that walked over all the military paths, mastered them and now uses his skills to lead entire eldar armies into war, but the truth is they are ignored by players in lieu of the more classic, useful and psychic powered farseers, or the burning brass encarnation of the bloody hand god that is the Avatar (not the james cameron Tau-esque guys, the ORIGINAL Avatar of Khaine).

I think the Autarch as they are in the codex has a pair of flaws.

First of all, they cannot purchase Exarch powers, which, in my opinion would be cool, fluffy and would make the autarch a very customizable unit (although some players would tweak him into an almost broken combat monster), and will give the Autarch a more prominent role, as well as more survival capabilities.

I´m not saying that they give him the option to buy full array of exarch powers, just some of them limited in number or create even Autarch powers.

The second flaw is the partial lack of equipment. Why, being the peak of the eldar military, cannot they access to exarch equipment?

For example, let them equip with a Triskelion, or warp spiders exarch´s dual web spinners, or a fire pike, etc, that will make them even more customizable and more valuable units in the field.

Or even make some unique Autarch items with rules â la Warhammer Fantasy (I mean, no the classig +1str power weapon or doubles the strength counts as a power weapon kind of weapons.

Thinking a bit I can tell you, apart of solving those flaws (in my opinion, of course), what I would make to the Autarch to invigorate it a bit.

.- If GW want the Autarch to be mostly a leader, then, give him some abilities to do so, for instance, an orders system as in the imperial guard command squad, but call them Warcries or Rune commands or whatever eldar-fluffy and make the autarch affect the behavior and performance of the units in his army... that is what a leader should do, and don´t limit his abilities to a +1 to the reserves roll.

.- Another thing, that is as old and fluffy as the eldar itselves are the names of their leaders, so, take advance of this fluffy and well stablished feature and make a surname system similar to the Space Wolves Sagas system plus Wood Elves hero path system, allowing them to take or compose surnames that gives the autarch some abilities example given:

.-Windrunner: upgrades his fleet of foot rule.

.- Bladeweaver: upgrades his WS skill

.- Dragonrider: alters his skill in a bike.

.- Warphunter: adds some abilities when equipped with a warp generator.

.- Packlord: gives him some leathership tricks.

And so on, something that make us seem the Autarch as the millenia trained combat and tactics master that he should be.

.- The last thing is add another entry in the codex and add an higher level of autarch, that is: The Eldar Prince, equal to the Autarch but better (kind of captain/chapter master difference), which is a concept introduced with Yriel so it won´t be something out of the sleeve.

Apart from this, I like the Autarch model a lot so I painted one as the first mini of my eldar army:

Black underfit with grey blue armour, "dark white" details, purple and white markings, purple bandannas and red or purple jewels... and that´s it.

The base needs a little revamp, the paint was torn off because I used the base to handle it while painting and it was painted grey and the bases of my eldar are light brown.

A shot of his backpack so you can see the markings that will be army-wide used.

Also the chunk of metal in which he is standing is supposed to be part of an imperial tank, so I am tempted to paint it in the colours of the space marines chapter of one of my friends (almost everyone of us have a space marine army, that are:

- Ultramarines.

- Imperial Fists.

- Blood angels.

- Dark Angels.

- Space Wolves (my fellow blogmate)

- My Raven Guard (I will not paint my eldars with raven guard bits all over the place, so RG is discarded for this :) ).

- I can also use the Custos Fidis white that fit with my eldar army colours so it will not outstand and doesn´t taunt anyone :D

A detail of the helmet, which I am quite proud of (especially the eye lenses).

I suppose he will be equiped with a fire dragon gun, for tank popping, a power sword for dude killing and a warp generator for high mobility and great chances of retreat if the need arises.

Hope you like it.

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Yet another army... ELDAR.

Hi again guys.

I know it has been a long time since our last posts and that is due to a pair of facts.
First of all, my fellow blogger Elahir found a job in another city 600 km away from our city, so he has hard times keeping up with the hobby (but eventually he comes and play some games and usually beat the crap out of us).
The other fact is my father broke his hip, but since my father got cybernetic body, an Iron Halo, is Stubborn, and has Feel no Pain he is recovering surprisingly well, thanks to his doctor too, which gives the rule "This is a wound? shut the f*ck up and let me do some apothecary tricks in there" that put everyone in the hospital back in their feets in no time with almost no sequels (I think the codex where my father came is a bit overpowered, but... meh, right now I´m pretty happy with it :) ).
The thing is I´ve been caring him, but since I´m quite an active guy I´ve been painting some marines, playing some games and, which came up to this post... starting my eldar army.

The eldar were my first "complete" army (since no army is complete ever, IMO), back in the times of 2nd edition, and I´ve loved them since then, indeed, I have the insect mask farseer (1990) waiting to be painted as well as the previous incarnation of the wraithguard, that I think will be painted soon (farseer sure, the others... not so soon).

This is the farseer (indeed I have every mini depicted in this image)

And this two are the wraithguard (they were called Ghost Warriors back then)

Since my childhood group was disbanded (with no reason I can remember), I inherited part of the eldar army, cause we were young without much money to spend and bought the armies as a group, and almost everything of it is lost so I´ve had to start from the almost beginning, not counting my about 15 warlocks, my old farseer, Eldrad, and some other old goodies from a time when GW minis was much much cheaper than today, eldar had access to powerfists and almost everything was made of lead (yep, pewter was not applied to minis at this moment and plastic was a rare thing in our hobby).

So, I´ve started an eldar army once again.

As a side note... I really want to keep it up with the Marines and Tau, but since the Tau codex is going to be updated soon (well, soon in GW standards... you know) I´ve had them in a hiatus of painting, although I am still having games with them, and for the marines... I´m waiting another 10 legs (pairs of, of course) to make two squads of vanguards and two squads of sternguards, but still playing with them too.

The thing is I struggled so much to find a scheme that I like so after some test (brown eldar with blue lenses/jewels and grey eldar with blue lenses/jewels) I decided for a somewhat classic scheme but, as my friends use to say... a bit sad.

My friends think that eldar should be colourful and jelly like, but I don´t like that concept for what the fluff tell us is a dying race, so I painted them with a Shadow Grey base for the blues and Deneb Stone for the whites so this two colours make my army kinda Sad, but that is the way I intended to paint it, so, in contrast of the sadness of my army I´m kinda happy with it :) .

That is the scheme for non guardian units in my army (my guardians are all blue with white helmet):

In the eldar painter this scheme doesn´t seem to be so sad, but that is cause I also used inks (Asurmen blue, How appropriate!!) to darken it a bit, example given: two guardians:

As you can see, the blue becomes kinda sad, cause it seems more a coloured grey than a blue and the white seems kinda darkened.

I have the scheme I wanted... Now what?

Then I read the eldar codex lots of times and played with army builder to know what units I want in my army, which in the grajo+eldar case is not as useful as it seems to be cause I really like every unit in the codex, except maybe the Swooping Hawks, but it was a good start to have some base units to build the army around them so I started with an autarch (I don´t want to paint that farseer untill I have the scheme totally mastered) a ten man guardian squad with its platform and a five man pathfinder squad (although I do prefer the Dire Avengers, but the guardians are soooo easy to paint).

I have to say that I really love the jetbike guardian squads and the wraithguard, but I´ll wait till they get a new biker model and plastic revamp respectively in the new codex, which is mandatory.

Oh, and the biker council too.

After that, Fire Dragons, Fuegan and their falcon, Howling Banshees and their Wave serpent, a pair of Wraithlords...

So... wait for more eldar posts soon.

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