Dire Avenger and Dark Reaper Exarchs

 Last year, I "finished" a squad of Eldar dire avengers. I wasn't terribly happy with them, as I felt that they could do with a bit of tidying and weren't quite "enough". I went back and neatened the painting a little. I also painted the "fins" on the sides of their guns bright red, to make them a bit more interesting to look at. I added three more basic soldiers to the unit. 

And this gave me the opportunity to paint the exarch for the unit. In true Warhammer style, you can tell that he's in charge because he's pointing at something and has a bigger hat than anyone else. Just in case there was any doubt, I put him on a larger base. I originally thought this was a slightly boring model, but I really came to like the miniature in the course of painting it. It's very stylish, like the rest of the old metal Eldar, and the balance between sleekness and detail is just right.

Here's the exarch.

And here's the whole squad, ready to do battle in rooms with high ceilings.

I also finished off a 2nd edition dark reaper exarch that I had lying around. This guy is a space elf who dresses like the grim reaper and hits people with a bolas made of crystal skulls. Strange to thing that there are people who take 40k seriously. Anyhow, I used the old 2nd edition trick of reversing the colour scheme: his unit are black with bone details, but he's bone with black details. Another really nice miniature. I used a very thin chestnut ink glaze to make his armour a bit more interesting.

That means that I've finished a squad of all the aspect warriors in the 2nd edition codex, with the exception of the Shining Spears. (I'm not counting them, because there are no pictures of them in the codex, and the models were a later conversion kit for the jetbikes.) Result! 

I'm not sure what I'll paint next. There are certainly more Eldar to do, but I recently won an ebay auction for two really obscure models that I've wanted for years. I've just got to figure out how to get all the paint off - it sticks between their scales...