Back in the swing of things: Eldar diplomatic landing party

I'm finally able to paint again, which pleases me immensely, and in between catching up on commission work, I've been working on a small group of Eldar to ease me back into painting, and this is what I've got done so far: 

As usual, more details after the cut:

These are a diplomatic landing party of the Craftworld Amlyth, consisting of Prince Yldruin and Princess Khelvae, siblings of a minor royal family on the Craftworld. Guarding them is a protective detail comprising of two sections of warriors, commanded by Shadowlord Amtyn, a ranger drafted in to oversee the party as a whole. As well as the Eldar, there are also two Xenos, of unknown origin, who are the pilot and navigator of the shuttle that the party uses to land on the surface of the planets that they visit. Currently in orbit around Jamakeer, the party has recently landed at Port Imperiale, in order to pick up what supplies they can. 

The Amlyth is one of the smaller Eldar Craftworlds, and is in fact only a tiny section of the original ship. During a catastrophic attack by chaos millennia ago, the Amlyth commanders decided to jettison the damaged but uncorrupted part of the Craftworld and it's population in a desperate attempt to save their name, lineage and knowledge. The vast majority of the Craftworld then self-destructed in order to kill off the chaos incursion at its source, a corrupted webway gate. 

Whilst successful, this has left the Amlyth cut off from the webway, and with a tiny fraction of their original population and resources. Because of this, the Craftworld itself is now in a terrible state, being damaged in the battle, and having deteriorated over the centuries, and so they need to regularly visit developed planets to obtain supplies. Unlike other Craftworlds, it is not unknown for them to employ non-Eldar crew when necessary due to shortages, hence the Xenos pilot and navigator shown here. 

Anyway, on to the photos: 

First up are Prince Yldruin and Princess Khelvae, minor royalty. Most of the mid- and lower-tier Amlyth nobility spends some time working on these diplomatic missions to give them experience in dealing with other races, and also occasionally using the combat training they also learn as part of their upbringing. 

The models themselves are unconverted, and are the 'Eldar Trader' from the RT601 40k Adventurers & Pirates range, and a private fan model, sculpted by Bob Naismith and commissioned by Jon (of the wonderful 'Magpie and old Lead' Blog) as a prize for his local gaming group's tournament that I managed to pick up from him many years ago. 

Next up are the Xenos pilot and navigator, G'Kin and G'Kaj:

Little is known of their origins, but they are believed to be part of the same species, and are inseparable. They have a symbiotic, psychic relationship with each other, allowing them to communicate and operate effectively without actually speaking. 

Again, these are mostly unconverted, apart from the Eldar helmet the pilot, G'Kin, is leaning on. The navigator, G'Kaj, is again from the RT601 range, actually called 'Navigator', whilst the pilot is from the Colony 87 range, available via Crooked Dice and part of their 'Sci Fi Street Folk' pack. 

The full Protective Detail: 

Shadowlord Amtyn is the leader of the military section of the party: 

A former Scout, Shadowlord Amtyn is in fact effectively in control of the whole party. Whilst the Prince and Princess are the highest noble rank and control the diplomatic side of any missions, they know to defer to Amtyn's centuries of experience when it comes to operational security, military intelligence and tactics. 

Model-wise, this is just a straightforward 430701 Eldar Ranger, sculpted by Jes Goodwin. This is probably one of my favourite RT-era models of all time; the pose, the sculpting, everything about it just screams Rogue trader at me, not to mention that the lasgun is just a thing of beauty to look at. 

Finally the protective detail troopers. In this instance it consists of two sections, one with lasguns, the other with shuriken catapults, but on more dangerous missions it may be expanded with further sections as required:

Shuriken section: 

The Shuriken section is commanded by a Captain with a shuriken pistol and power sword, and fire support is provided by a Heavy Plasma gun. 

Lasgun section: 

The lasgun section comprises of a leader with a laspistol and chainsword, whilst the heavy support comes from a lascannon in this case. 

The models themselves are a mix of late RT/Early 2nd edition Eldar Guardians (with the plastic arms and weapons) combined with the original RT 'Space Elves' for the heavy weapon troopers. 

Paintwise, these are all just fairly quick n' dirty paintjobs utilising a black Contrast basecoat over wraithbone for the bodies, and highlights and details added on where needed. I'm finding using contrasts as a base coat works quite well tbh, especially with my general dark and gritty painting 'style' (or lack of it!)

And finally, another group shot:

So, there you go, another small project finished. Having said that, I am currently looking into whether I can scale up and modify some Battlefleet Gothic stl files I found online in order to create and 3d print their shuttle, but that's for another post!