Byron's Pirate Eldar - Kelvandar Breezekin's Razor Wings (166.5 pts)

 This month I have a small group of minis. Only ten minis painted (and the Ghostdragon below). Here they are all together. (I have another 8 on the paint desk nearly done, but they won't finish in time.)

Next, here's the progress on my close combat troops (4 new ones). Like the previous batch they are a combination of old RT era minis (mostly harlequins) and some 3rd ed Dark Eldar bits. In games these close combat troops usually end up getting to grips with my son's marines. In 4th ed battles I tend to use them as wyches (when playing as Dark Eldar) or as a Falcon Squad (when playing as pirates). They don't do much damage, but the Pelagarch or Archon (coming next month) usually takes out a few and wins the combat for me. 

 

Kelvandar Breezekin's Razor Wings unit is now complete (4 new models). These are a combination of RT/2nd ed era eldar, a 3rd ed dark eldar, and then most of them have had their weapons chopped off and replaced with a shuriken cannon - so they are on the less evil side of the shuriken/splinter divide. But in games with my kids I used them as 4th edition Scourges with splinter cannons or as Pirate razor wings (also with splinter cannons). My daughter plays Tyranids and she hates these guys and I don't blame her. 

2 more warriors to fill out my warrior units. These guys are swooping hawks (one with a striking scorpion head swap). I use these guys as warriors because in 4th ed Eldar have the fleet of food rule which means they can try to run faster instead of shooting, and these minis embody that rule well with their pose. 

Points

Warriors

Eldar w/ mesh armor, refractor fields, and lasguns x 2 = 24 pts

Falcon Squad

Eldar w/ mesh armor, refractor fields, hand weapons and las pistols x 4 = 46 pts

Razor Wings

Eldar w/ mesh armor, refractor field, jump pack, lasgun x1 = 14 pts

Eldar w/ mesh armor, refractor fields, jump pack, heavy heavy bolters x 3 =  82.5 pts

Total: 166.5 pts

Enter the Ghostdragon!

As I explained in my first article for OWAC 8, the ocho, I am theming my Pirate Eldar army around my Space Fleet Eldar force. As I also noted in that first post the original Space Fleet line of miniatures lacked variety and only included 2 types of ships: the Wraithship and shadowhunter.

However, the Doom of the Eldar game introduced two new ships: the Nightwing and Ghostdragon.

Chits from Doom of the Eldar

The nightwings came along shortly in the Epic range of minis. But we were never graced with an appropriate Ghostdragon mini. What follows is a description of my efforts to make one for myself. 

First, references and images of the Ghostdragon are scarce. There is only one image that is directly labeled as such (the chit noted above). There is a Jes Goodwin concept sketch that was included in WD 119. However, it is not labeled as a Ghostdragon. Instead, it is labeled as "super-battleship or carrier".

Effectively we have an image from up above and one in profile and a leap of faith that they are meant to describe the same ship. 

Here is my component list if you would like to reproduce my Ghostdragon

1. 2 Wraithships

2. 2 Epic Wave Serpents

3. An epic Eldar Titan head and torso

4. A library card cut into a big sail

Sourcing parts

The first step was finding eldar bits that fit the bill. I looked through old era-appropriate catalogs for bits that might look the part. 

Here I am sizing up the turret from a wave serpent

Turning a wave serpent hull upside down to see if it matches the lower armor of the super-battleship. 

This process wasn't easy or perfect. I also acquired other epic eldar bits - extra nightwings, some epic tank guns, and those spines from the back of the Eldar Titan that weren't used in the final ship. 

The most stressful step was committing to cutting up the red wraithship. Once it was cut I couldn't go back and I'd have basically destroyed a perfectly good (and pricey) ship. 

Blue lines roughly showing what was cut on the red wraithship.

The blue wraithship was a little easier and involved shortening the main forward hull and gluing its tail on upside down at the rear.

This is a progress picture of the ship mid assembly. At this stage it was mostly a matter of gluing the components in a line. 

For scale next to an emperor capitol ship

Next followed some guess and check. You can see in these pics that I built up the hull a bit more and experimented using an existing sail. This would ultimately be removed in preference for the hand-made sail.

Note how the front-most sail slot has been covered with an additional laser turret.

These next pictures show the final product before painting. You can see that I built up the structure in front of the bridge (titan head) considerably. There is lots of texture sculpted on to it, largely trying to extrapolate the texture from the wraithship components. The spine at the end was built up and textured so that the rear sails fit in. A large sail was cut from a library card. The detailing around the sail was meant to scale up the details on the plastic sail bits. The greenstuff triangle that anchors the large sail was my invention because I needed the model to be more durable since the large sail was proving to be finicky. In the area under the Titan head and between the red hull and wave serpent fin I sculpted a giant window to capture the detailing from the WD sketches. Finally, I sculpted the under-city on the lower half of the ship. I wanted this part to echo the cities on the backs of the imperial ships, a sort of inverted cloud city. This is a bit of artistic license that deviated from the concept art, but it also served to add stability to the model by increasing the surface area with the flight stand. (aesthetically, it also balances out the sails on top of the ship.

Finished product

I'm very proud of the accuracy of ship. I'd like to show that off by comparing the birds eye view from the chit and the profile view from the concept art.

Next the view in profile. 

The name, Caledor, aligns with my
Warhammer fantasy naming theme and
 because Caledor is the region dragons are from. 

Rules for the Ghostdragon

GHOSTDRAGON - 330 points 

Speed: 0-3 (super maneuverable) (speed 0, 1, 2 depending on the solar wind)

Damage: 12

Shields

    Front: 10

    Sides: 6

    Rear: 6

Laser batteries: 

    Range 1-2: 7 dice

    Range 3-4: 6 dice

    Range 5-6: 5 dice

The Ghostdragon is armed with a Fusion Cannon that is identical to the Ironclad Battleship

Stelhene plating  (same rules for firing at a Stalwart escort ship apply to the Ghostdragon)

For good measure I have also included my made up rules for Nightwings.

ELDAR NIGHTWING FIGHTER ATTACK WING
(each model represents a wing of fighters. Each wing is represented by the following rules)

Speed: 5            Damage:1                      Points:25

Weapon Table

Weapon            Arc of Fire        Range 1-3

Lascanon           Forward Arc      2 Dice

Weapon            Arc of Fire        Range 1-2

Missiles             Fixed Forward   D3 Hits

Special rules

Movement: Nightwings are super maneuverable

Fighter craft: Nightwings may roll twice as many dice when shooting their Lascannon at spaceships mounted on small bases (e.g., Cobra destroyers, and Tyranid Drones).

Missiles: Nightwings are each armed with a cluster of guided missiles. Once per battle, these missiles may be fired. The missiles are fired at such close range and against such large targets that they automatically hit. Each missile cluster causes D3 hits (Roll a D6 and divide it in half rounding up, results of a 6 causes 3 damage and a critical hit)

Anti-gravity thrusters: Nightwings are capable of being used both in deep space and in the atmosphere of a planet. Nightwings may enter the same square as a planet without penalty or incurring harm.

Attacking Nightwings: Due to their small size, you can place 3 nightwing in 1 square.

There’s no critical Damage Table for Nightwings – because they are so small any critical hit automatically destroys 1 nightwing.

Nightwings at short range: Because nightwings are so small, they can never ram other ships – and they’re too maneuverable to be rammed themselves.

However, they can move into the same square as another spaceship in order to swarm round it in an attack at close range – simply place them in the same square around the other ship. Both sides fire at each other counting the range as 1 square.

To work out which facing each Nightwing attacks, roll a dice and check the following diagram:

Holo Fields: The Nightwing has holo fields following the same rules as the Shadowhunter.