New year, new project, old concept.
I'm an Eldar fan; it was the army that I collected when I discovered the hobby in the late ’90s. The last days of the 2nd Edition rules were underway, I was super-gluing ’white metal’ guardians, painting without an undercoat and buying £3 blister packs. Times have changed, sadly in the case of the latter, but it's still the Eldar army that inspires me the most. One of the oldest models I have is an original harlequin and the concept of a Harlequin army is one that I've wanted to get my teeth into since buying it.
Lots of people have built armies around are the harlequins. But why wouldn't you? A troupe of hyper-nimble, neuro-shredder totting, webway stalking dancers who protect the knowledge of the Eldar and darkest secrets of the 40k universe. I've decided that this year I want in on the fun.
As with all prospective Harlequin army builds a choice has to be made about which codex to pick and which models to use as a base for any conversions. I ended up selecting the Eldar codex as it allows me to pick up and play the army more easily than the fandex. It also allows me to build a Wraithlord and a Farseer, both of which I have Harlequin conversion ideas for.
With that choice made my basic army list is:
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Eldrad
Harlequin Troupe
Pathfinders
2 Squads of Jetbikes
2 Wraithlords
All told, it comes to around 1500 points.
So, the blog. The aim is to post a weekly update as a means of giving myself an incentive and hopefully inspiring one or two others. The updates will be split in two parts, separating the modelling and painting. I'll also try to focus in on the particular conversions or painting techniques I've used, some of which may be useful. If there's something you spot and want a few more pictures or some explanation please let me know and I'll add it in.
Week 1
Modelling I've started off with the Pathfinders.
Parts used: Harlequin legs, Dire Avenger arms and Shuriken Catapults, Dark Eldar Jetbike Rider torsos and heads, all with a little greenstuff to finish.
To give a nice smooth finish to the cloaks I followed the following steps.
- Take a ball of greenstuff and place between two sheets of baking/greaseproof paper. Then using the handle of a scalpel roll out the greenstuff as you would pastry until it reaches the desired thickness.
- Using the tip of a sharp, wet scalpel cut the paper and greenstuff ’sandwich’ into the desired shape.
- Peel away the top layer of paper and then place the greenstuff in the desired location, applying slight pressure where it joins the model.
- Peel away the remaining paper and allow the greenstuff to harden over 30 minutes.
- Make any final adjustments to the shape of the cape such as curls at the end, rips, holes, etc before allowing the greenstuff to cure fully.
PaintingAs it's the first week of the build I haven't started painting (failed already!) but I have added magnets to the bases of the models to make them easier to spray-paint/transport later on. They're embedded in a thin layer of cork, which makes sure that magnet is as flush with the bottom of the base as possible.
Hopefully that was useful to somebody; I don't claim to be an expert by any means but the Internet is great for sharing ideas so hopefully it gave a few people some inspiration. It would be great to hear any feedback and ideas, or if you'd like to see any more pictures or/more explanation then please post away.