Dark Eldar are famous for many things: spikes, pain,
spikes, topknots, spikes... the list goes on. What they are not famous for is being conducive to
last-minute paint jobs. It’s all those smooth, crisp lines. Most experienced
hobbyists would not, therefore, try to paint a squad of five of them and a six-man hive gang and a character model the night before
they’re due to be used.
To do something like that, you’d have to resemble the end
of a bell.
Konk, konk.
I spent hours and hours on that bloody character development pack, and hours more on painting one of the agents participating in
the Inq28 scenario. The other twelve models got an evening (and a good chunk of
the next morning whilst waiting for everyone to arrive).
The added challenge? The Dark Eldar were a secret. It’s
not easy to keep a secret when you’re painting at the dining table and live
with two of the people playing in the fudging scenario. Bless ’em, they did a
fine job of looking the other way when told to, and my hands were frequently
used as a shield too.
In case you’re wondering how I painted the armour, it was
drybrushed chainmail and then given a glaze of equal parts blue ink, green ink,
and Lahmian medium. That's it. I had no time for highlighting, so just moved straight on to the other details.
They were also good fun to use in a roleplay scenario. By
way of example, the leader’s phantasm grenade launcher covered the area in inky
black hallucinogenic smoke, which made it a little
tricky for the protagonists to
keep track of where she was. It ain’t a fight with Eldar unless they’re right
proper gittish.
I might go over the actual scenario when I’ve finished basing
the agents (and thus can accompany said description with pretty pictures). Rather
than running a big long narrative, we’re taking it in turns to GM single,
day-long standalone missions. Much easier to manage when some of the players
have to travel big distances to play, see.
It’s nice to have finally done something with the Cetus sub-sector setting that Jeff designed aaaages ago. I just need to remember to
update the wiki with the new stuff I just pulled out of my brain-meats, so that
the setting can grow. Organically. Like a tumour.
~Charlie
For a "last minute" paint job, those are quite good, well beyond the "serviceable" paintjobs you sometime see for RPG figures.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mr Packer! To be fair, the other models fitted rather more solidly into the "serviceable" category you mentioned...
DeleteI thought they worked well, they have a kind of beetle/insectile look to them that makes them look very alien. Those damn smoke launchers though... grrr... I was very pleased to finally put a bolt through her head (having already taken off an arm and a leg). It was an epic battle and I was very surprised to ultimately emerge unscathed. Subtle he may not be, but Colonel Michael's carapace armour and breathing mask were totally worth it in the end.
ReplyDelete