Dark Eldar Pirate Display Base

Arrr! The pirate fleet is now complete--at least the 1850 point tournament standard is. The miniatures themselves were done a month and a half ago when the Razorwing Jetfighter (upper left on base) was finished. However, serious tournament goers are now expected to arrive with a suitably themed diorama-like movement tray and I finished mine yesterday (and spent today taking pictures of it). I learned this lesson the hard way when I showed up to the Baltimore Grand Tournament in 2008 with my Eldar army on well-used cookie sheet. I won second in "appearance" and I believe the absence of this unwritten requirement (I took them off the cookie sheet for judging :-) may have lost me a couple of points. I created a better display base for the Eldar in July 2009 for future tournaments (see blog posts at this time) but it was fairly plain and more function than form.

The design for this display base is intended to highlight the nautical theme I emphasized in the way I modified the stock models. The flying bases on the vehicles have specific spots in the water and their flying bases have had the same wave effect modeled. The rocky outcrop was made from 2" thick polystyrene foam cut with a hot wire (aka "wonder cutter") and the wave effects were added with Woodland Scenics (tm) Foam Putty. This foam putty is the same material I used to make the snow effects on the bases of my Eldar (also seen in July 2009 blog post) but laid on much thicker. With the right amount of water, this material gains the consistency of thick whipped cream and dries like Spackle. I simply spooned it onto the base and then used the same spoon to shape small white-caps.

Khymerae Substitute

The Dark Eldar Beastmaster unit has become a popular choice among players due to its hardiness, mass attacks, and relatively cheap cost. My unit contains 4 beastmasters, 6 razorwings, and 5 khymeraes. I've chosen to use the Flesh Hounds of Khorn instead of the actual Khymerae models and painted them in my purple and blue scheme. I wanted them to appear darker than normal so I left the majority of their flesh black or dark purple. Nevertheless, I made the highlights in light blue and white to maximize the contrast and reflect their mystical nature.

Ravager Battleship

The Ravager model is a simple modification of the Raider transport by adding two dark lances to each side. In the GW version, the center sail is insignificantly different. I wanted this ship to appear heavier and therefore added a second set of sails (as compared to my Raider model). This makes it stand out against the transports when combined with the whole army and I think it makes it look more like a battleship.

Venom skiff

The GW version of the Venom transport (bottom pic) required a little pirate-love before being added to my army (top pic). I let the wych models that were provided as crew walk the plank and replaced them with the Kalabite Trueborn mods that I created from the Eldar Scouts. Each model has a small neodymium magnet mounted between its feet that matches up to another magnet on the vehicle. Similarly, I have two movement bases that each have magnets glued on top. This allows me to pull these two models off the vehicle and onto the bases when its time for them to disembark. This serves as a good WYSIWYG reminder and reduces the number of models I'd have to paint. I've also mounted a sail from the Raider transport in place of the original cannon mount. I needed a sail to match the army's theme and thought this new profile made the model looked more balanced (and kind of shark-like :-)

Kalabite Trueborn mod

Games Workshop has not produced models for the Elite Dark Eldar warriors (Kabalite Trueborn) yet, but I had a set of models already in mind. The top picture is a squad of modified Eldar scouts that I'll be using for the above mentioned unit. The bottom picture is the unmodified version of the squad from GW's webpage. I picked these models primarily for their ponytails, pointy ears and flowing robes, which I think fit well in the theme of my army. The modifications I made were not significant and pretty easy using the new resin (instead of metal) models. First of all, I substituted Dark Eldar muzzles to ends of all of the guns. Two of these received the splinter cannon parts and the remaining three got the regular splinter rifle. The model that originally came with an eldar helmet was lopped off and replaced with a pony-tailed she-elf head. The model with the cloaked helmet received some re sculpting to better resemble a dark eldar version. I used split, carved, and stained craft sticks on the bases to resemble planks that might be found on a pirate ship

Dark Eldar Reaver Jet Bikes

The above image shows two of the six Reaver Jet Bikes I completed recently. I learned my lesson on jet bike squad size from the Eldar and six is near optimum. With fewer, they get destroyed/broken in one round of mediocre shooting and with any more they become too much of a point sink. I will eventually have two squads in the army--each of them with slightly different paint schemes. This squad has the blue on top and purple on the sides. The next squad will reverse those colors. The color of the riders will remain the same.
These new Dark Eldar Jet Bike models are gorgeous. The detail of the sculpt and the manner in which they are assembled is amazing. Unlike the Raider (tank) that had to be painted in seven different parts, I could completely assemble the bike and the rider before painting them. This makes it easier to coordinate shadow and shine direction across the entirety of the model and prevents wasted time spent painting parts that eventually get covered during assembly.
Although the non-metallic metal paint technique I used on the blades and engine nozzle were the most complicated parts of the model, I'd have to say that hard-lining all of the edges is what made them so time-consuming to paint. There are joints, ridges, and sharp pointy bits all over the bike and rider that required lots of attention.
The whole Dark Eldar line shares the ultra-edginess and its not uncommon to see nice-looking models painted with attention given to only the edges. The model is spray painted a dark color like dark blue or black and then all the edges are painted with a very bright or white color; nothing else. If the lines are straight and even in thickness, they will look great on table. I just love to add fades so the hard-line-only option was not going to work for me, but even the GW staff painters have been recently and frequently using this style.

Dark Eldar Corsair Warriors

The above image shows the first 7 of 10 Dark Eldar Warriors in my pirate army. Once again, I believe that GW did a great job redoing the Warrior models for the Dark Eldar in this release, but they just don't have that special look I'm going for. Consequently, I've combined the bodies from the Fantasy Dark Elf Corsair models with the arm parts from the 40k Dark Eldar Warriors to create a Renaissance-Sci-Fi look. I think they fit together quite well.
The colors are very similar to the wyches from previous posts and I'm happy that these, too, did not come out dark. There is no doubt that I've committed to that cartoon style with the high-contrast purple hair. I wouldn't be surprised if many were not fans of the green and purple, but I'm going to stay true to my theme. With all the units beside each other, the scheme is very attention getting and I like it.
I need to finish the last three from this squad and then I'll probably give my first Reaver Jet Bike squad a go.

Eldar Pirate Wyches

The first squad of wych models is complete. I limited the black to just their boots and I am pleased that they did not turn out as dark as the previous models. I also think that the excessive contrast I was trying to achieve worked and they have that cartoon look that I like. I love the look of the blue hair and the way it allowed me to nicely place all three colors (green, blue, and purple). Its hard to see but the purple is subtly used as the highlight color on the mostly-black boots.

Some quick notes on the models themselves. First of all, I think the costumes on these Warmachine models perfectly match the pirate theme I am looking for in my army much better than the skin tight leather look by GW. Warmachine is very steam-punk-ish so I guess its natural that my renaissance-pirates-in-the-future was a good fit. The models come armed with razor flails; which are one of the DE wyches actual weapons. Unfortunately, they are not available to the whole squad so I'll play them as though none of them has one. Nevertheless, it provides the right look. Removing the horns and then resculpting the hair was not as bad as I was anticipating. If you look close, you would see that the original sculpt has been changed, but its not obvious from a normal viewing distance.

This squad took about 3 weeks to paint. I was hoping to take a finished DE army to this years NOVA Open in September. I'm worried that I won't get it done in time. I still have one more squad of wyches, one squad of warriors, 12 reaver jet bikes, 10 elite warriors (I'm going to use modified Eldar scouts), 5 more skimmer tanks, and 2 venoms (if they get released in time). The math does not look good. Maybe I'll find a technique that speeds up the tank-painting time.

Dark Eldar Pirate Ship

I finally finished my first Dark Eldar Raider and I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed. First of all, this was a very difficult model to paint due to all of the hard lines that had to be covered and the fact that it had to remain almost entirely disassembled during the entire painting process. Second, it ended up being a dark model even though I tried to mitigate this effect through high contrast. Third, the model is just not as sleek as the Eldar Wave Serpents I'm used to painting.
The blue to purple fade seems to have worked fairly well on the hull. I plan to repeat this theme on all the Raiders and use a blue to green fade on the Ravagers.
The original plan for the sails included a pair of masts with double sails but it turned out to be crowded when I put them in place. The gunner in the front was almost completely obscuring the art on the lower sail, so I decided to break them apart and only use the single mast, centered in the deck. I think I will go back to the two-mast design on the Ravager, to set them apart from the Raiders. However, I won't put art on the lower sails.
I think I'm going to move to troops for while, before returning to the vehicles. Next up, the wyches.