These are a relatively recent acquisition - most of the Eldar I'm painting up I've had for years and just never gotten around to painting them. I never had any Dark Reapers, though. I didn't really NEED them as I have three Wraithlords, which would take care of any Heavy Support requirement to fill out a Brigade detachment... but this batch popped up on eBay and weren't too outrageously priced, so I picked them up to have a few more options.
(Also I saw some Knight players moaning about Dark Reapers on a thread somewhere - and as there are so very many Knight players around here, I figured they might be something handy to have - though I have to admit, I'm not sure why they were so terrified by them...? Maybe they were fielded in much larger quantities...?)
Asuryani Dark Reapers from Citadel Miniatures/Games Workshop.
Sometimes I hate posting pictures... especially small groups or individuals - as the pictures get blown up so much larger than the figure actually is and magnifies any poorly done bits... ugh... (I'm not super happy with how their faces turned out) Got to remind myself, NO ONE WILL NOTICE ON THE TABLETOP!!! Moving on....
Usually Dark Reapers are painted with red and/or white helmets and Reaper Launchers, but I've been trying to tie the whole Biel-Tim Warhost together with purple helmets and green weapons one EVERYONE (from Guardians, to Warlocks, to Aspect Warriors) - so I've stuck with that pattern here, albeit with a darker green for the weapons and a more reddish purple for the helmets....
The Warhost Gathers....
I've been reading Gav Thorpe's Path of the Warrior (the first book in the Path of the Eldar trilogy) and that's been making me want to paint the Striking Scorpions I have (even though I have no plan on using them in my tournament force) as that is what the main character is. I'm almost done thought and then I'll be on to Path of the Seer - hopefully that will make me forget about the Striking Scorpions (for the time being) - and will only inspire me to finish off the remaining Warlocks - of which there are only two or three... and they're mostly finished anyway...
Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Wraithlords. Yeah, pretty sure it'll be the Wraithlords. though I've been jumping around a bit, work on the Warp Spiders has been going very slowly, and I haven't even touched the Swooping Hawks. I do have a few more Warlocks and a second Autarch on the workbench that I've been working on, bit by bit (that I totally DON'T need for the tournament - so should probably try and focus on the things that I DO need!!)
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Thanks, Michal!
ReplyDeleteOh man, you really are a victim of "Oh! Shiny!" in terms of painting, aren't you?!
ReplyDelete(I would be too if my painting wasn't sooo slow and infrequent)
A bit, yeah. I find I'm more productive if I have a plan or goal... but also if I'm painting stuff I'm interested in. The General Plan/Goal at the moment is to finish up 1000 points of Eldar for a tournament in a little less than four weeks. the units are small enough that I can bounce back and forth between what is of interest to me at the moment - as one gets close to being done I'll finish it up (because it's exciting to finish something!) and eventually I'll get to just units I'm less interested in generally... but I'm so close to finishing the project, that I'm motivated to paint them anyway because being DONE something is fun!
DeleteAnother friend of mine works in a different way; he forces himself to do a unit that's boring, then "treats himself" with a "fun" or "easy" to paint unit.
I'm trying to be less "Ooh! Shiny!" with the purchasing this year - so trying to find fun stuff amongst the lead pile to keep me out of trouble!
Read Andy Chambers' Path of the Dark Eldar - It's very well done, Chambers is much, much, much better than Gav Thorpe. he's one of only four BL authors I will read without reservation. (Abnett, Dembski-Bowden, and of course Sandy Mitchell are the others)
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about checking it out, but wasn't sure. Amanda bought a pile of Drukhari last year for me to paint for her, so I was thinking it might be fun to read for some background fluff/inspiration. If you're recommending it, though, I'll definitely check it out!
DeleteAnd grab Chambers' The Masque of Vyle as well, it's a novella that deals with the Harlequins - best representation of the Harlequins to date, for my money.
DeleteKeira has it, and, I think, it's the only BL novel she's actually read (of all the ones she's bought). I think it kind of turned her off BL novels because she bought it expecting it to be all about Harlequins and, according to her, it was "mostly about the drukhari"... She has the Jain Zar novel and maybe one about Asurman and one about the Ynarri...? I don't think she's finished any of them.
DeleteWe've picked up a number of audio dramas to listen to while painting that have been fun. There was one about Harlequins - but the Harlequins all talked like Shakespearian actors... or.. maybe even like Rowan Atkinson's version of Shakespearian actors...?
Delete"Oh, shiny" gets me, too. I think it does help to have a plan or goal, but that takes a bit of discipline. lol
ReplyDeleteNice work! I know what you mean about pics and how they can be blown up and magnify imperfections you wouldn't usually catch in play. Sometimes that can be good, like when I found some stray paint had gotten onto part of a mini I did, so I was able to touch it up. But it can also be a hindrance, if you keep trying to make the mini look good when blown up.
Yeah, I try to keep telling myself that, if I didn't see it while painting, no one's ever going to see it on the tabletop - when they're looking at it from a much greater distance!
DeleteThis is a hobby - it is supposed to be FUN! I find it hard to keep doing something when it starts to feel like drudgery.
I keep having to remind myself of the 2' rule: if you can't see an imperfection from 2 feet away, it doesn't matter. The problem is that I know it is there and it bugs me that it is even if I have problems finding the imperfection later.
DeleteHowever, battle damage doesn't bother me in the least. In my mind, the painting was as good as I could get it and it's current condition is immaterial.
Exactly! (although, knowing it's there also bothers me... well... for a while... sometimes I get lazy and leave it long enough that I forget about it).
DeleteI'm also slow to repair "battle damage" - unless it's an entire limb off, or something!
Entire limb off invokes a call of "Medic!", which results in receiving Crazy Glue or similar.
ReplyDeleteNice dark reapers, you've been doing Guard for ages, what is it four armies? So it's only right to move onto another army for a while, they all look great together!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Well.... PARTS of four... or five... It's more like two full fieldable armies (Catachan and Tallarn), with more to paint for one of them (Tallarn), and a third full fieldable army to finish painting (Valhallan)... and then small elements of two more (Cadian and Steel Legion)...
DeleteCheers!
Great job Tim. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Greg!
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