Saturday 6 July 2013

Eldar exodite Dragon riders as shining spear

Hi chaps,

I posted a few weeks ago about these guys in a speculative post about exodite armies. I couldn't resist trying to make some and as I have no shining spears in my army it seemed a great way to go. Shopping list:

5 Dark Elf cold one knights (£16 at FLGS)
shining spear upgrade set (£10 at FLGS)
autarch upgrade set (£9 at FLGS)

So cost for 5 overall £35. Same as you'd pay for a deathwing command set and actually cheaper than building a shining spear squad using jetbikes even with discount. Unfortunately the shining spear finecast sprue had a bit missing so I've got to send them back but in the meantime I built up the autarch and the cold ones. Here's some pics:


The eye of isha shield from the DElf set works really nicely (as for some reason the jetbike autarch has no forceshield) and the figure fits really well on the cold one mount. Heating the legs in boiling water allowed slight repositioning of them - the joys of finecast. I'm ultimately hoping to add the banner to one of the riders also and to go for a teal/pink colour-scheme - the wife approves!

One last thing niggles me, however. I want them to count as jetbikes and discounting the amount of ground the cold one could cover when turbo boosting (clever girl...) the other thing missing is a shuriken catapult. There may well be times in game when they are preferred for shooting - if you are out of range for the 6" lances say or would rather kill a higher volume of light infantry. However, the rider legs get in the way of mounting the catapults behind the saddle and even if I spaced them wider they would not quite fit practically - should the cold one move it's head or the rider it's arm in the wrong place they'd get chewed up pretty quick!

So I decided to go for an under chin mount using wave serpent catapults as I have several spare. It looks a bit iffy but there are several things in it's favour. Firstly, I'd imagine Eldar technology is so sophisticated that it would weigh next to nothing anyway, so bulk isn't an issue. Second, the straps are there to mount the gun on already, demonstrated in the pics below on a spare head from the set. Thirdly, I like the idea that the psychic Eldar dragon riders are in some way empathically in contact with their mounts (dino-riders/Avatar spring to mind) and so can easy instruct the mount to move it's head in the right direction to shoot - a lot easier than maneuvering its whole body at speed.

Opinions on the shuricat appreciated as I'm almost comfortable with it but still have some reservations. Might be a few weeks until these guys see some paint due to the shining spear issues and holiday coming up. Until then, cheers.


1 comment:

  1. Great idea for a conversion mate. The shuriken catapult looks to big. Might be better to mount a pair of guardian sized ones perhaps.

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