Thursday 7 January 2016

Eldar Battle Drone - Executioner Class

Happy New Year to you all. Things are moving apace on the gaming front over the next few months. I've just booked flights to attend Knavecon in Ireland at the end of April, but more pertinently for my output for the next few weeks, I'll be joining in a new Inquisimunda campaign.

My initial thoughts were to use the Rogue Quest band, but I had a last minute change of mind, deciding they were too similar to Inquisitor Dirske and his retinue from the last campaign. Instead, I've decided to use a motley band of Eldar Void Pirates, which will include Taal Spellsinger, Prince Nuadha and Caspalta Silverhair. I've always liked the old Eldar Battle Drones / Ghost Warriors, and as a Void Pirate Captain can be accompanied by a Construct (effectively a servitor), I decided that I'd use one as a 'counts as'.

I've actually got a dozen or so of the Ghost Warriors sitting in a case - back in 2010 I attended my last ever 40k tournament with a Wraith-themed Eldar army. Much to my embarrassment, I only base-coated the entire army with purple bodies, grey heads and black weapons. I cringe even now when I think about an entire army of poorly based coated Eldar on the table.

On the left, the 'painted' starting point.
 
Happily, one of these lovely models has been salvaged for immediate use. I did very little other than to overpaint the purple with a nice new lilac and paint up some metal parts. The most important part of the whole model is the addition of the retro-Rogue Trader feel pink tiger stripes on the helmet. I think they elevate what is essentially just a quick spruce paint job, to something a little more interesting.
 


I have a couple more figures to complete for the warband. Rest assured, I'll post photos of the whole group in due course.

22 comments:

  1. Great sculpt and a great retro PJ that ticks every RT criteria. I'm eager to get to the eldar phase for such models.

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    1. Eldar have consistently been my favourite race. They were pretty much my first 'actual' 40k army. I'm planning to slowly revisit some of the earliest models to try and scratch that itch ;)

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  2. Looking good, it's always nice to get a half-finished model done with a new sexy paint job. I do love these drone models.

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    1. Thanks David. I really do like having that motivation from necessity - it seems to push things along nicely. I remember painting one of these up in blobby thick white, black and red back in about 1990. I wonder what happened to it?

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  3. You're right, that pink does really bring it to life. Interested to see what else makes it into the warband.

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    1. There's only 8 to start with - the 3 Eldar from last year, plus this guy, a human advisor and a couple of models borrowed from my existing collection. I will be painting up a heavy weapon though - probably in another RT scheme :)

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  4. Love the new scheme you've done, very effective. I've got a small force of RT Eldar I'm just waiting to design a good scheme for.

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    1. Thanks Evo. These guys will each have their own scheme - like jewels in an Eldar crown :P

      A single unified force is something I would love to do in future though. I've got some Armorcast falcons crying out for paint!

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  5. Very nice mate - Eldar are my Kryptonite, so my hat is off to anyone who manages to make 'em look good!

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    1. Thanks! The large smooth areas are pretty tricky. Happily the RT space elves have lots of mesh armour underneath to bring break it up.

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  6. Great work.

    Warburton

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  7. Looking good, that pink tiger stripe really brings it back to RT.

    I have a few eldar (mostly newer) kicking around that I really ought to do something with. (I have even gotten to the point of a few test models, which I really ought to photograph)

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    1. I slightly adapted a scheme shown on one of the Epic Falcon illustrations. There are so many crazy schemes in the old WDs, you can eat your heart out :)

      I'd be interested to see your Eldar too.

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  8. Wow a whole dozen of these. It took me forever to get my hands on an assassin pattern ghost warrior; they are seldom up on eBay and when they are it is for a fair chunk of change.
    That being said, they are very powerful when used as infiltrators especially the assassin with it's teleport homer. Absolutely brilliant.
    Your purple paint scheme is very original, I'm on the Eldar path myself and they have not been fun or easy to paint. Great work.

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    1. I picked mine up a few years back and they were pretty cheap. Sadly I did convert a couple,so have instantly devalued them :(

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  9. It's amazing what little details like the above can do to improve a miniature by leaps and bound. Nice work!!!

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    1. Thanks! Sometimes an extra 15 minutes of effort really makes a huge difference I think!

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  10. I am loving the pink pattern on the carapace! A really bold effect and one worth stealing!

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    1. Thanks Orlygg. I think the trick with RT Eldar is to go as bright and whacky as possible :)

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  11. Nice job on those axiom, the pink and lilac works very well. The Eldar have been my favourites since day one too and I have always come back to them.

    Despite wanting the models way back, I never got around to buying any of them for whatever reasons. In the end I managed to get my hands on one of each pattern.

    The design has a lot of appeal for reasons which I cant quite put my finger on. Will you be adding an Assassin class to this warband too?

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    1. Thanks cheetor. For me they're the models I started with. When I first started with Citadel minis, my parents had a scattergun approach to buying figures. On one occasion they gave me a blister of Blood Bowl humans, chaos dwarf swivel guns, and an Eldar Spirit Warrior (including the drone).

      I suspect I'll paint up the Assassin class in due course, but for the purpose of the Inquisimunda campaign, I'll just be using one.

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