Eldar release impressions and project update.

Hi folks.

This is a bit of a mix and match post covering several things so please bear with me. Firstly an update on the Eldar jetbike salvage previously blogged here and here. I went back and changed one of the jetbikes using an old (and knackered) shuriken cannon once it became clear we weren't getting any new jetbikes with the release. The results and the initial basecoating can be seen below. Really pleased with how these guys turned out considering they were simply extras in an ebay auction from ages ago and I never had any intention of using them. Now they've turned out to be neat little conversions which make up for the lack of new jetbike models.

As well as continuing with the Eldar jetbike painting and painting my Marines for Blog wars 5, I am also making slow progress with a neat bit of scenery which can be seen here. It's my aim to have all 3 of these projects wrapped up over the next month so I can take the army to blog wars complete and then have a month or two off of marines, focussing more on Eldar before the rumoured marine codex hits in September time. 

Back on the subject of Eldar, anyone who hasn't been offworld for the past month will be aware that next Saturday is release weekend. I have the codex, cards, Illic Nightspear (I play Alaitoc after all) and a spiritseer on order, though for financial reasons and to get the Marines painted up with less distractions I will not be getting anything else just yet. I posted speculative posts on both the releases, jetbikes and FOC earlier on. I thought it would be good to revisit those posts and see what came true and what didn't.

Releases

I initially posted this list of releases and have added my comments in colour:

Codex: Eldar book (correct)

Eldar psychic power deck (correct)

Flyer dual build kit (correct)

Wraithknight (large kit rumoured) (correct)

Falcon/Firestorm (dual kit redo of falcon including AA option) (wrong - was a longshot anyway)

Jetbikes (3-pack like DE - options for shining spears remain as FC upgrade) (against all sense, wrong)

Wraithguard (5-pack with CC variant) (correct)

Battleforce - repackaged same as most other releases with different contents) (correct)

Autarch (plastic blister pack) (wrong, a farseer was a much better bet due to less options. No female though)

New phoenix lord (finecast) (wrong, ended up being spiritseer)

New special character (finecast) (correct, in the form of Illic nightspear)

So the recent rumours were mostly true and some of the other things didn't quite happen. The farseer was a massive missed opportunity to get sales if only they had made the sculpt female and helmetless. As the actual one is so similar to the existing FC ones, I am confounded as to why they didn't do this, especially as they mostly portray farseers as female in video games. Jetbikes again is confounding as they are much needed, not just due to the age of the sculpts but also as they have several FC upgrade packs needed to make them work and, though whether it remains an option is still unclear, no seer council. 

The FOC remains to be seen but I imagine it will be much the same, just with a nightspinner and wraithknight in heavy, two flyers in fast, wraithblades in elite and the two new FC characters in HQ. Double FOC gets around the crowding quite nicely however so I can't see it being as much of a problem as it once was. For the next 5 days I shall remain optimistic that this will be a great codex and that Phil Kelly had once again done the pointies proud.

Eldar pictures are here - Wraithknight, flyer and codex cover!

After months of waiting the leaked pics are finally here. This is simply the first of the leaks which I imagine will roll in every day for the next few days. Credit to 3++ is the new black for the images. Four items of interest as follows:

Codex:
For any criticisms I may have of GW policy and products, there is no denying that the covers of the new books have all been stunning. This is but the latest and I have to say my favourite so far.

Wraithknight:

This thing is HUUGGGGE! It looks to stand at least 8" tall and frankly is probably more at home in an
apocalypse game than 40K. I like the throwbacks to the exodite knights of old, though it is clearly meant to be a craftworld version rather than retconning the exodite fluff. For me, the price will be the main clincher on this model and despite its slender proportions, I think it may well come in at above the price of a riptide.

Flyer:
Now it's unclear to me in this pic whether or not there is more to the nose or not but from this angle the flyer looks a bit stubby. By this I mean that the wingspan seems to greatly exceed the length of the craft. It's far too early to pass judgement (although the nightwing fan in me wants to) and so I will simply add that it is probably gorgeous in the plastic and a great counterpart to it's darker cousin. (probably twice the price as well!)







Iyanden!!?!!

Nobody seemed to have any heads up on this one but it does indeed appear that GW have launched a variant army list for a specific sub-faction. No clues as to whether it is digital only as of yet but the cover does resemble the death from the skies one. My impression is this is a great move from GW as it allows die-hard fans to finally get a specific codex for their army even if it means spending a little more (though whether it is a stand-alone or C:E supplement remains to be seen). Also it allows GW to line it's coffers a bit more. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come for the SM codex.

Eldar jetbike salvage - epilogue

Just as a follow up to the eldar jetbike salvage post from last week, I thought I would show the painted results of one of them. I'm happy in so much as the rough texture left by the previous paintjob is all but disguised. It's not as bright as I would have hoped for and so I'll revisit the scheme at some point and maybe add a little something else to it - maybe some brighter blues and a brown jacket rather than black for contrast. Also, an Alaitoc transfer along the front of the jetbike. Cheers.

Eldar jetbikes - the ultimate multi-part kit - a feasibility study

Hi folks,

Continuing on with what will likely be my last bit of random Eldar speculation before we get some solid facts is this little feasibility study into what an Eldar Jetbike box will contain. Firstly, some facts:

1. Eldar jetbike prototype seen years ago may or may not be the real thing but does bear uncanny lineage resemblance to Dark Eldar Reavers. Compare:

2. A Dark Eldar box costs £24 currently (as do 3 eldar jetbikes seperately) and contains 68 parts - 

look for a similar part number and a price rise. 

3. Several current jetbike-based kits currently are metal/FC hybrids (shining spears, autarch) or have no available model (farseer/warlock, shuricannon) and so this is an ideal time to address this. 

My proposed kit is as follows. A kit that sacrifices some of the variability of the DE bikes (alternate blades, canopies) for variability in the riders. It essentially kills all birds with one stone and allows you to build the following models from one, 3-jetbike box:

3 guardian jetbikes, one option for shuricannon

3 shining spears, one option for exarch with 3 weapons options. one option for shuricannon

1 model may be autarch, using SS exarch torso, SS laser lance and appropriate head (from this kit or Autarch FC kit)

1 model may be farseer/warlock, with robed runic armour torso, spear/blade options and a head for each. (this way, you can build a seer council and other jetbike units from multiple boxes)

Several people have said there's no way this will happen due to the amount of parts you would need. I have tallied up and compared the contents of the two kits (existing DE and similar Eldar with options mentioned above) and guess what, both have exactly 68 parts. Now some may be larger that others in both kits, but essentially the eldar have more weapons and a couple more heads, where the DE have different accessories and variant parts to balance the numbers. Here's the breakdown:

So, not so unfeasible after all. I have high hopes that the actual kit will be somewhere along the lines of this - what an amazing kit (and huge seller) it would be while minimising shelf space and removing FC products from the range. As leaks come out end of next week we will get a better idea so here's hoping. Cheers.

 

More Eldar ramblings - this time the force organisation chart

Greetings folks.

All the Eldar chatter has again had me thinking about what we may be getting in a few weeks time, this time in terms of FOC slots. I’ve assembled the following ideas based on the proviso that these are the new models we will be getting and also a few caveats:

New farseer

Iyanden spiritseer

Alaitoc ranger (squad upgrade?)

WraithKnight

Dual flyer (Hemlock/Nightshade)

Normal/CC wraithguard

New jetbike kit (triple build)

Caveat 1: All 5 main Eldar Craftworld themes will be inherently buildable without the need for SCs. (i.e. 1 troops choice for each)

Caveat 2: The firestorm will make an appearance – this is probably unlikely (I had originally hoped for a retooled falcon dual kit) but here’s hoping it gets the FW hydra treatment.

HQ

Eldrad

Yriel

Irianna (new - no units need test for wraithsight?)

Phoenix lords (paths allow that aspect to be taken as compulsory troops?)

Avatar

Farseer

(warlocks)

Autarch (paths allow that aspect to be taken as compulsory troops?)

Troops

Guardians / storm guardians (ulthwe)

Rangers / pathfinders (Alaitoc) + upgrade ranger character?

Wraithguard / CC wraithguard (Iyanden) – can add spiritseer to cancel wraithsight

Guardian Jetbikes (Saim-Hann)

Dire Avengers (Biel-Tan)

Dedicated Transports

Wave serpent

Falcon

Elites

Howling banshees

Fire dragons

Striking scorpions

Harlequins

Wraithlord

Fast Attack

Shining spears

Warp spiders

Swooping hawks

Vypers

War walkers

Hemlock (new fighter)

Heavy support

Dark reapers

Fire prism

Night spinner

(Firestorm)

Support platforms

Nightshade (new bomber)

Wraithknight (new large wraith construct)

That’s my initial impression and a lot of it will depend on how accurate the rumours (such as paths granting aspects as troops) turn out to be. Obviously all speculation at this point, but overall looks pretty balanced on the surface and I wouldn’t be surprised to see something not far off this.

Eldar Jetbike salvage project

Hi folks,

Very quick post just to show a little side project I had earlier today - these little side projects are a blessing and a curse. I was looking through my Eldar in preparation for next months release and found a few neglected seconds in there. Basically there are 3 jetbikes and a Vyper, which were part of an ebay lot. 

The main problems with these guys are the paint and a few missing limbs. I've never been a huge fan of the jetbike riders but the bikes themselves are OK. To start with I chopped off the heads and replaced them with some spare guardian ones. I toyed with the idea of replacing the torsos also but thought I'd keep the jackets for now. I then replaced the missing limbs with a couple of spare dire avenger ones. The flagpoles were replaced with spare guardian backpack fins and some dire avenger targetters added to the top of the canopy, in a similar fashion to the DE ones. 

The Vyper needed cleaning up a lot more but even several coats of paint stripper didn't take it back to plastic. I replaced the arm with a forceshield arm waving the host onward but may replace it with a different one should the newer kits provide spare arms. The main problem with the paint on all of them is the texture rather than thickness, but I'm hoping a bit of filing on the worst bits and the mottled Alaitoc paint scheme will ultimately disguise it. I may swap out one of the twin catapults for a falcon shuricannon, but will wait and see what the new codex provides first.

Ultimately happy with how they turned out considering what they looked like initially, but ultimately the paintjob will be be the test of whether they are still salvagable or not. Cheers. 

 

Tau scenery painting update

With all the blog wars prep I'm doing the Tau scenery has stalled somewhat. This is a shame as it all happened very quickly to start with and I had hoped to get at least one quad gun, bastion and aegis line done by now. As it's ended up I have the bastion (minus guns) and quad gun well on the way to being painted, with one aegis panel (of 12) finished and the others ready for spraying. If I get a chance and am ahead with BW painting I will hopefully have a day of just going for it. Eldar are not far away though and so I fear if I don't make some progress before then it will end up being yet another half finished project in the cupboard. Here are some pics of where things are for now. I went with crazy camo and an energy field around the structures to make them more interesting.