Howling Banshees: Second Batch.

There is my second batch of howling banshees:

A detail of a banshee.

In this batch, the exarch comes armed with a executioner.

Yes the executioner is bent because is a total pain to assemble.

A detail of the Exarch.

Next post: Dire Avengers.

.

Howling Banshees: First Batch.

Ah, the good ol´banshees, a unit which holds the privilege to be one of the masters of CC (mistress in this particular case).

With his initiative, his abilities and a power weapon you can expect the banshees to cause so much pain and discomfort in the heavy armored infantry of the enemy, the only issue is their low strenght, which can be compensated by powers from a supporting farseer or adding jain zar to the squad, but the latter solution is a bit pricy.

The case is that the banshees are usually painted in brownish colours, but I prefer my banshees to fit a bit more with the "ghostly" look that the aspect name implies, so I painted them white with clothes and crest in blue, which I think gives them the proper phantasmal look although a bit dirty.

Here they are.

Here you can see the crest and tabard colours.

A pair of banshees.

The swords are painted metallic and heavy washed with asurmen blue.

As almost every one in my craftworld, except for the characters, their gems are purple and red.

Here is the exarch with dual sabres.

I have to wash with badad black the space marine helmet in the base.

A detail of the mask and the sword.

Hope you like it.

.

Objective Marker.

Here is my first objective marker for the eldar: a Wraithlord sword stuck into stone, like a giant future elven excalibur.

I didn´t thought about some history to fit this objective marker or make some planning and designing of it, I jus saw the wraithsword while cutting the wraithlords out their sprues and started to play with the spare bits, added a bit of a bright lance to the bottom of the blade and a bit of a heavy weapon to the bottom of the latter, and with a spare bit of polystyrene and a spare monster base it came together.

I´m still thinking what to do in the marker to make it "come to life" and add a bit more of character to it, I will paint the "rune" in the blade and try to add a directional source of light to the rock from the sword.


P.D.: I also played with the glue and the sand in the base, that is why there are "waves" in it.

What do you think?.

.

Wave Serpent.

I remember when the wave serpent was designed as a boat with a huge shield surrounding his weapons... I´m talking about times when the epic 40000 game was called "Space Marine".

Don´t know why, but I really liked this design, I suppose I liked it for its alien look, but I have to say the actual model is pretty good and fits more the eldar look of today.

The wave serpent is the only decent way the eldar have to transport their troops around the battlefield (no, the warpgates aren´t in the rules and I consider the falcon more as a gunship than a transport) and with the shield and its speed is a decently safe one

The serpent is a fast and gravitic transport so you can zip your troops from one corner of the table to his opposite in a pair of turns, or more turns while firing a heavy weapon, which is a think to consider.

The main role for the wave serpents in my army is to carry a squad of dire avengers and the squad of howling banshees thile providing anti-tank support (with twin linked bright lances).

My wave serpents are totally painted in blue, with a stripe along the main section of the hull that ends in a straight line in the left wing.

The pilot is painted as if the purple lights in the control panel were lighting him, which is a very simple and fast technique to paint the eldar pilots that looks pretty good if done properly.

Hope you like it.

.

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.

.

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.

.

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.