Lissanne's Eldar- Welcome to the Machine (358 pts)

Defense of the Maiden World part 6
(Wild card month)
 

Unexpected reinforcements!  Space Pirates!  These space pirates have a secret base on this maiden world.  Since they take great pains not to disturb the world in any way, or be tracked here, the Worldsinger Yavanna lets them be.  But they will join the fight to keep their base a secret!

   For my Wild Card month, instead of painting more of things I already have, I finally decided to do as many 'must paint' minis as I could.  Didn't do to badly!

First, this tempest has sat around for decades with a bit of blue and red paint splashed on it.  I decided to finish it for the Wild Card, because anything goes.  But I will only take partial points, because it was started, just the color design, but...  (Not like I need the points, anyway)  Keeping with the prog rock art theme, this one is based on the illustrations of Gerald Scarfe,  specifically the Sea of Blood and Metal Monster, images from Welcome to the Machine, adapted to fit on the Tempest.  I am very very happy to have it finished after all this time! Here are some pics, and since I paint tops AND unseen bottoms (and it doesn't need glue) pics of the parts too.  Even painted some of the adoring hands from the Sea of Blood on it!

And a squad of Space Pirates!  Well, Shadow Spectres posing as 2nd edition Space Pirates.  A squad of 5 and an Pirate Captain (exarch).  And what self respecting crew of space pirates would go anywhere without their Jokaero!  Anything goes this month, as long as it's in your army list!

My story of the Shadow Spectres- you can skip this paragraph if you don't like stories.  Long ago, GW ran a series of in-store battles to determine the fate of Cadia.  Oh, and by the way, if Cadia fell, Ulthwe would fall as well.  If it stood, a new type of Aspect Warriors would appear.  It was an anything goes battle of just 6 turns, so I came up with a novel strategy, that myself and my 2 juniors used.  We brought our Armorcast Titans, stepped in front of the gate round 1, and shouted 'We don't care about the mon-keigh,  we're here to save Ulthwe.'  And such like. The opposition couldn't blast the titan AND the gate in 6 turns.  We won 6 of these games that way, myself 3 and my junior captains 3.   I think Cadia ended up winning by 3 games, if I remember.  But it seems there were GW reps at every game, and they couldn't help but hear our battle cry.  We said it often. So Cadia fared less well than it might have, but Ulthwe stood, and the next aspect warrior figures to appear were the Shadow Spectres.  As a result, I have an undue fondness for this faction, and took this Wild Card opportunity to finally paint them.  They weren't easy to paint either, fiddly little things.

Here are the 'space pirates' in pairs, and a back shot which is mostly ribbons.

Oh, I have them unpainted too. should be fair about it (when I remember to take 'Before' pics)

   The Jokaero- another mini sitting about for about a decade, when I got the bright idea to paint it for the challenge.  Some pics

So there you have my last entry for this OWAC.  I'm not bothering figuring wargear, I don't need the points, and I don't like math.  And Jokaero are in RT not 2nd edition, so no points there,  I'm only taking half points for the Tempest because I had decided the color pattern beforehand (but again, don't need the points)

Rundown:
Tempest- 300 pts
Space Pirates-45 pts
Pirate Captain-13 pts
Jokaero- 0 pts
total (more or less) 358 pts

I hope everyone else had a fun and productive OWAC too!  Next, the wrap up post!

Adrian's Eldars - The Witch and the Dragon (445 points)

Rank and File month #3 

The deepest parts of the Forest saw skirmishes erupting here and there. The swarm was advancing and the eldar line could not wistand the numbers much longer. Pockets of resistance from the guardians and shrines of aspect warriors tried to maintain safe routes for the incoming withdraw. 

But the tide shall be halted or else the Eldar could not get to the rearguard.

Among the oldest trees, some of them seen the ancient soils of the Inner Planets of the Eldar Empire, everything came to an unnerve silence.

When the swarm was crossing the deepest forest, the unnatural scream came from all directions.

-Lets burn them.

Hundreds of melta bombs annihilated the first wave of biomorphs and the scouting creatures ahead of the main horde. From the flames came the witches screaming and slicing the monsters like butter. And then the dragons came covering them with flaming rays, disintegrating any tyranid than could get beyond the dance of swords of the Howling Banshees.

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Third month ready. I have been experimenting with heavy glazing and seesh, for a moment I thought I would get the Mulligan. However, at the last minute I saw Lissanne incredible fire dragons and I could not falther now that Team Eldar is posting such awesome pics.

First and foremost, the banshees

7x Howling Banshees - 189 points

1x Exarch - 69 points

I wanted the armour resemble the second iteration of Jain Zar from the Eavy Metal team in the 3rd ed. Eldar Codex. That pearly grey was awesome.

Harder than I thought and took more time that I originally intended, but I am more than pleased with the result.

The swords and the axe follow the traditional red for energy weapons with a bit of nmm spice added to the mix.

4x Fire Dragons - 112 points

1x Exarch - 75 points

These boys are hot. At this point you'll want to see another take to the fire dragons, but no! there is plenty more orange in the Team Eldar pots. Non-orange dragons for another owac, sorry.

I forgot to draw the aspect rune in the helmets but I had little time left this month. Maybe I will add them at some point.

Lastly, the moment of truth, this month we reduce the quota to only 381 gemstones painted. 

#GoTeamEldar

Adrian's out.

Lissanne's Eldar - I bring you Hellfire! (376 pts)

Defense of the Maiden World part 3
(rank and file #3)

 This will have probably been the hardest month of the challenge for me, 10 Aspect Warriors with two of them being that difficult Warp Spider exarch.  But I made it through!

First up, another squad from the Black Widow shrine of Warp Spiders. 4 Warp Spiders led by one of those Warp Spider Exarchs.

And a squad of 4 Fire Dragons of the Fire Wasps shrine led by the other Warp Spider Exarch.  Hooray for 2nd edition!  Any exarch can lead any unit of Aspect Warriors!

I've painted a lot of Fire Dragons in my life and I think these came out the best yet- they are certainly my favorites!  I thought the Warp spiders had a lot of gems, these have 47 +18 gems more on the sides of the helmet each!

So....

Black Widow shrine
4  Warp Spiders 164 pts
Warp Spider Exarch 50 pts

Fire Wasps
4 Fire Dragons   112 pts
Warp Spider Exarch 50 pts

total 376 pts

That is all the reinforcements coming throught the gate- Next up, more native forces- the Exodites!

And here is the obligatory midway picture with all I have done so far- 15 scouts, 11 Warp Spiders and 4 Fire Dragons.

Lissanne's Eldar- So where were the spiders? (329 pts)

Defense of the Maiden World part 2
(Rank and File #2)

 Reinforcements arriving!  Warp Spiders from the Black Widow shrine.  Seriously, this exarch is one of those beautiful and incredibly technical and time consuming figures.  And I have 2 more exarchs slated for next month...

This is the first of the squads of Warp Spiders I am doing, in black and bone with red as an accent color.  I seriously question the color choices of the designers here, and took some liberties with the traditional look, mostly downplaying that red.  Unfortunately, the models don't vary much, but the rank and file Warp Spiders are fairly easy to paint, so I am happy.  Except for the gems.  I counted 46 on each model.  Really.  46.

And the last five scouts of the Brown Recluse squad I did 10 of last month- 3 of one sculpt and 2 of another.  I think I like the hoodless sculpts best of all, I think they came out great!

5 Brown Recluse scouts- 115 pts
Black Widow shrine
4  Warp Spiders 164 pts
Warp Spider Exarch 50 pts
total 329 pts

Why did I put off painting the Spiders for decades.  Well, being an artist, I know when you are told to do something that looks a bit awkward or doesn't come out right, just add excess detail!  A dragon or a vase covering that foot, and the client thinks they are getting more for their money.  So, these Warp Spiders have an awful lot of excess detail- large tassels, too many gems, hmmm.....

Next month the rest of the Warp Spiders and the Fire Dragons.  All my Warp Spiders are from the Black Widow shrine, but the different squads will have different back markings.  And good painting to everyone!