Dire Avengers: Part 1

Getting underway with Dire Avengers next, and carrying the bright purples over as well. 

In principle... very much like guardians. 

In practice... a bit of additional detail to work on.

I never had any of these guys in 2nd edition - not entirely sure why, other than they seemed similar to guardians while there were so many more extreme aspects to choose from. 

They seem to have become a popular choice by 9th Ed, and I ended up with 3 squads of five*; for the most part going together just like guardians.   

The legs and loincloths do need to be paired up as they aren't interchangeable. I noticed quite late in the piece that there is a letter embossed on the join between them so you can actually work out which goes with which very quickly. Apart from that, heads, arms, torsos are basically any combo.

The exarch heads have some extra detail. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do 3 of them (have 3 squads of 5) or have bigger squads and only 1-2 exarchs. So my usual solution comes into play - magnetise the options. 

With more than 50 eldar finished already, the basics are starting to feel a bit more routine. Black primer, caliban green, then moot green on top areas. 

Heads fairly basic - grey primer, a good spray of dead white towards the top/front, then a solid gloss varnish to help the later stages. 

My magnetised options for the exarchs are fairly extensive - there are 4 different loadouts they can be equipped with, each made up of 2 separate arms. I've also installed magnets on the back to allow for a back banner or knife to be added. 

As the white areas are pretty flat, I wanted to add some subtle colourings to the green - this is the back banner after moot green through the airbrush, plus a biel tan wash all over (making the creases darker). 

The purple weapon effects were quite effective on the wraithguard, so these are being carried over to the dire avengers too. As there are only the 3 exarchs to worry about rather than a whole squad, I took the small amount of extra time to mask and double-side the bladed weapons. 

I also decided to have a go at using the same colours for the helm plumes. Originally I was going to pain these with a blue fade to hint at the classic dire avenger colours - but given the models have white, green, black, red gems and purple weapons; the dance card is already quite full. Green & white are still very much the dominant colours on the model but keeping to fewer additional colours is preferred.

I'm still not sure if I'll go full colour on other aspects - eg, orange dire avengers with green only on ribbons - but for now, keeping to craftworld colours is the go.  

Quick test with magnetic options for one of the exarchs in place - I think it works. Even the slight stripe on the cloth ties in with the weapon colouring. The colours on the plume are slightly towards the my-little-pony-unicorn bright colours - will I regret that call at a later stage?

Working through the remaining details on the bodies is fairly quick - there are a couple of metallics, gemstones, some cloth. I'm not adding even the squad marking stripes that were used for the guardians... so these are pretty much done.

Working around the rest of the helmets was kind of fun. For ref it was roughly a third each vallejo hexed lichen, warlord purple and squid pink. Then a mix a mix of lichen + warlord, thinned and glazed to soften the join between those colour. Repeat with a pink and warlord mix between the other join. Then a very very watered down screamer pink more like a wash all over to shade between the hairs. Light drybrush of the edges with something light (think it was ulthuan grey but lost track... may have just been the squid pink or white on my palette)

Painting the eyes on these sucks. They are so much smaller than on marines and much harder to clean up on the white if a mistake is made. The only saving grace is that I'm painting the face panel black which hides a few sins. 

The detailing on the arms isn't finished but these are starting to look the business. Decals on the exarchs and super posable with the magnets in play.

With helmet decals applied and carefully gloss varnished, the regular troops are glued together and essentially finished.

That just leaves the arms and several smaller details on the exarchs to go - the back banners were neatened up with some masking tape and white. Couple of thin layers of grey seer first, then a dabbing of dead white on the high points to give a little bit of texture.

With all three banners up to that level, I've then gone back with abbadon black (air - it's thinner and easier to control), and added random strokes & symbols to the white stripes. 

All the exarch loadout options take effectively a whole tray in one of my storage boxes. The lower shelf are the options for guardian weapon platforms. The top shelf has spare heads, knife for back, single catapult, dual catapults, spear/shield, sword/pistol. 12 attachments per exarch. So we're nearly as bad as my wraithguard magnet shenanigans. 

Decals for the banners - probably should have been 1 size smaller. I got ambitious and figured they could take about the largest icon. If I was doing these again, I would have used a smaller one and left a bit more breathing room between the white stripes.

Finally a picture lineup of the exarchs in all their varied glory. 

This loadout, plus a head swap effectively makes them into a regular dire avenger - so I can change the squad sizes from 5 to 10, etc if that ever seems like a good idea.

Dual catapults, while not being as sexy looking as the close combat weapon colours - is apparently the more popular option to run in games these days. It makes sense - if your dire avengers are in close combat, you have probably done something wrong already.

 Another unit down. They feel like a good transition step in building out the army - very similar to the guardians but adding some more unique flair. Together, everything still looks very much like it's the same group; maintaining that with more exotic aspect squads will be more of a challenge.

*So... I actually found a whole extra sprue of dire avengers in my box of marines about 3 months later. Seems I had misplaced it and re ordered a box thinking I only had 10 models. At this point I'm not sure I have the patience to match the painting style exactly on the purples for another squad of 5. The extras may just go into my bits box for other uses.