Craftworld Elanesse

My army for 2005. I wanted to try painting a new technique, and the eldar were the perfect army to do that with. i decided to paint the army as if the armour was all crystal or gems. To make the army stand out, i got some very

The army was to be all mounted in waveserpents (unless i ran out of points, hence the swooping hawks), to play the fast and fragile game. to fit the theme i named the army, craftworld Elanesse, or tears of the crystal dragon, all the units were named after something either dragon like or after the aspect. I used an elven (LOTR) translator to get the names.

The army was designed to be all aspect warriors, with a leaning towards firedragons. the theory was that the aspects are quite powerful on this craftworld, so rather than getting generic vehciles from the motorpool, the shrines have their own vehicles and crew. this allowed me to paint the vehciles in the same colour as the aspect, to keep the units and army more cohesive. i also themed the weapons of the waveserpents to the aspect as much as possible, as long as the army stayed effective.

The use of magnets made the army more transportable and able to keep the look of the army up.

All up the army cost about $550 US for the models and about $100 US for the resin bases.

The army is up on ebay at the moment, check it out

Tourney Results:

You can read a couple of the army lists here (1850), and here (2000) (in excel), a word doc with some background, and a powerpoint presentation i gave out at liber animus (warning 2mb)

The Whole Army

Here is a photo of the whole army, on the display base i used in tourneys and also on the carpet to show them more spread out;

Fuegan the Burning Lance

This army was designed to be an aspect army, with no guardians etc, so i did not want to use a Farseer, and an avatar would not fit the army playing style. so i decided to take Fuegan, as the army has leanings towards firedragons more than any other aspect, and i like the fuegan model a lot.

Painting wise, i painted him like the dragons, but with a lot more effort. his armour is designed to look like a gem, but also look slightly smouldering. i painted his lance like the other dragons, but for the heat patter, i went all the way to white, to make it look even hotter. his axe was painted to look super hot, with the tip being whitehot. the scales on his armour were painted the same as one of the squads, which is the one he usually is deployed with.

Autarch

This guy was built for a tournament in melbourne, where we had to make a hero model for one of the missions. he is designed to be an Autarch, with mandiblasters, a laser lance, and eldar jetbike. I wanted him to look cool for the tournament and also be game legal in the future. As an Autarch has been multiple aspects, i wanted to show that, so he has dire avenger armour, swooping hawk head, shining spear laser lance, and scorpion mandiblasters. as with the other relevant models in the army, i put a magnet in his bike and his flying stand, so i could take it apart as well. to keep it stable, the flying stand goes over the hull, so i painted the top of the stand the same as the bike engine, to hide it.


Dire Avengers

The core eldar unit. very nice to paint, and quite nice models. i made sure each model had two of the armour vanes, and that the exarch had the big ones. to make them a little more interesting, i added different black markings on their white face plate. the helmets were a red and white, to tie into the rest of the army and to provide a focal point of the model. all the loincloths are pinned on which was a pain btw. the exarch has been given a banshee power sword arm and his pistol arm has been bent around, and his legs moved a bit to give him more of a dynamic pose. and i used a base with a small clif to make him look more like he is striding down.



All the waveserpents were done in the same style. they were all painted in the same colours as their aspect, and had the shrine symbol place in the middle of the front vanes. i made the symbol and frame out of plasticard. In addition i added tear drop gems to both sides and the front hull and back door. i used the tear drop as it fits with the craftworld name and theme. all the exhausts are painted to look like they are still hot and or cooling down. All the serpents are magnetised all over (see later for diagrams)

This one has turreted twin linked shurikannons, and a hull shurikannon.



Fire Dragons 1

The two squads of dragons are able to be diferentiated by their scales. the scales were painted to look a bit like a chemical flame, so in this case they are a green to blue so maybe some sort of methane flame? painted in the same way as Fuegan, with less hot guns.



Same as Direavenger serpent, except different colours, and weapons. this one has twin brightlances and the firedragon symbol. to differentiate between the two, i painted the squad scale colour on the fins and symbol.



Fire Dragons 2

Not much to say about these guys, basically the same as the first squad, except their scales are in a purple to blue scheme, so a different kind of chemical flame. The exarch is a conversion, there is is little point paying 18pts for another 6" range, so i gave him the normal gun (which is from the other exarch). i also gave him the pointy finger from the swopping hawk exarch.





Striking Scorpions

These guys are cool, i used the old scorpions for the core squad members and the Karandas model for the exarch. i replaced karandas's head with the head off the new exarch with powerfist. for the green i used a fair bit of yellow to make them look different to most green paintjobs (which are usually Dark angel green and snot green), i think it gives them a nice glow. The wave serpent has twinlinked eldar missle launchers.not the best weapon in the game, but good against both tanks and troops. and it looks like a mandiblaster, so fits the squad quite well.





Howling Banshees

i really like the new banshees. i wanted them to look fairly dark on the armour, but with a bright contrast in the red and their swords. the armour is a black through to bone highlight. the swords are painted to look slightly crystal. the exarch has had her arm chopped off and replaced with jainzars, and given a new weapon pole with the exarchs original blades on them. the serpent has been given a starcannon as the army needed one.






Swooping Hawks

The hawks were different to the others in that there was no black in the base coat of the armour. i used a shadow grey, darkened down and worked up to a white or skyblue. it gives the amrou a nice soft look. the white on the wings and face and gold give them a nice contrast. the exarch has been extensively converted. she has the original exarchs legs, with a plastic guardian torso, a new right arm, with jainzars silent death (as a web of skulls), and some sculpting to fix the torso sash.

 




Warpspiders

The last unit i painted, when i took the army from 1850 to 2000pts. i used mostly the traditional scheme via the red, but with the same gem style as the rest of the army, but used a bit of gold on the guns and made the body suit a bit lighter. to make the guns look better i added energy arcs inside the guns, i felt it added more of a hollow effect to the gun which makes the barrell look like its just the struts, not a huge barrell.

i freehanded the spider symbol onto their faces, and a web pattern onto their back.

The exarch was slightly converted, i bent his legs to make him look like he is crouching like the cool artwork, and of course had to paint the webbing on him, i wish the other models had this as the green makes him look very cool. his power swords are the same as the rest of the army.





Objectives

Various objectives for different tournaments. The coolest one is definately the crystal farseer.


Magnets

Becuase of the moving parts and flying stand of the waveserpent i decided to use magnets for it. This allows movement for things you want to move, things you want to stay on to be taken off when needed and it can be stored easier ans you don;t have to store the vehicle on the base, this allows it to fit in a case much easier.

there are magnets in the following:

  1. In the turrent ring and the turret itself, to keep the turrent in place without it falling off
  2. Inside the turret, i have wrapped the gun axle with magnetic strip and put two magnets in there. these hold the guns in place so i can lift them up and down without them just flopping to the bottom like so many do (which looks bad imho)
  3. 1 in the hull and one in the shuriken catapult so it can turn on the vehicle without falling off, and so it can be taken off when its destroyed, and i won;t lose it.
  4. 1 (bigone) in the hull and one in the flying stand to hold the flying base to the hull. this means you can just pick it up and move it without having to put the base back on and if the vehicle gets immobilised you can take it off.
  5. 1 inside the back door and 1 on the ramp, so the door closes properly without sitting partly open (which i hate), to open the door, there is a gap behind the gem on the door so your finger nail can slip behind it.
  6. 1 inside each back door axel point and there is paper clip inside the axle, this allows the door to partly open.


In this next photo you can see the painted interior and ramp that is common with all the waveserpents.