Army Showcase - Dark Eldar

Hellions!

I realised that it's been ages since I did a HOTT army showcase. I thought that since I'd showcased both 15mm and 25mm armies in the past, it was time to go for a smaller scale, and I also realised that, since painting them about three years ago, I'd never taken any pictures of my Epic 40K Dark Eldar.

So, here they are - my HOTT Epic 40K Dark Eldar.

Now, officially there are no Epic 40K Dark Eldar (that I know of), so the army is made up of figures drafted in from other armies, and various conversions. Some of them look like they troops they're supposed to represent, but others don't. Basically I did my best with what was available and, since HOTT Epic 40K doesn't really deal in the detail of particular weapons, it doesn't really matter.

The Dark Eldar army is based around speed and striking power. In Epic 40K HOTT the core of a 24AP army is:

4 x Warband (Warriors)
2 x Riders (Jet-Bikes or similar)

Let's look at the Warriors first.

I used some of the newer style Eldar Guardians for these, with no adjustments. As described above they are classed as Warband.

They are led by an Archon or Archite, who is a Warband general.

I have eight elements available.

Supporting the Warband are the Riders. These represent a whole range of troops, from jet-bikes and the hoverboard riding Hellions, to more heavily armed skimmers. This is HOTT, though - they are all Riders. Their role is to outmanouever and outflank.

I didn't have any spare Eldar jetbikes when I made this army (my brother subsequently sent me some from his collection), so ended up using anything I could find. Basically I used small spaceships, and dropped various spare figures into cockpits I drilled into them.

These are space-fighters from Irregular Miniatures.

The larger craft are some plastic spaceships I acquired years ago. I can't remember who made them.

The one jetbike I did have was set up as another Archon/Archite, so the army has the option of a Rider general instead of a Warband one. Behind him are the Hellions. They are Chaos Beastmen, mounted on hoverboards made from some scrap pieces I found on my painting desk.

Here are the Riders - all eight elements of them.

That's the core of the army dealt with. Now onto the special troops.

First, the Talos, which appear very much like large mechanical scorpions. I decided to class these as Beasts.

The basic hull of each, as well as the 'sting' is made from the plastic bridge pieces from a Battlefleet Gothic Chaos Cruiser. The 'pincers' are more scrap pieces; I'm not sure what from.

The Incubi are infiltrators, and are classed as Lurkers. They are made from some spare Chaos Flamers.

Wyches are skilled gladiators and warriors, and this element of them is classed as a Hero. The figures are Eldar Aspect Warriors.

Finally - this. It's a Behemoth, but I can't remember what it's called. I came across it in the fluff for an early version of the NetEpic project (which continued the Space Marine game after GW re-released it as Epic 40K), but can now longer find any reference to it. Supposedly it was some kind of mighty creature from the gladiatorial arenas of the Dark Eldar homeworld, that was dragged through the portals by some raiding forces as a somewhat uncontrolled shock-weapon. Be that as it may, it's a Behemoth.

The figure is a Demonworld Chaos beast of some kind.

Here it is with some Dark Eldar warriors.

Ideally I'd like to add in a Titan more in keeping with the Dark Eldar style, but I don't have a suitable figure yet.

Here's my complete force. It comes out to 46AP and consists of:

8 x Warband
8 x Riders
2 x Beasts
2 x Lurkers
1 x Hero
1 x Behemoth

46AP may seem an odd number, but the Dark Eldar are raiders rather than the kind of force you'd find in a big-battle sized force, so I have assumed that I would never really field much more than 24AP of them at a time. In a big battle they'd be allies of a larger army, although quite who I don't know.

Coming Next - The Dark Eldar in action!