We are the Earth-Intruders, We are the sharp-shooters - Amalynn Shadowguide & Spindle Drones

Eldar were actually my first serious army, in any game with miniatures at all, so I wanted to do something special with Amalynn Shadowguide, a model I thought was so close to being awesome, but had ended up a bit flat.



First off, I understood the idea behind Games Workshop's posing: showing her main characteristics of knife, gun, and female space elf. (I would have shown my WIP here but, embarrassingly, I've misplaced my greens.) After cutting her arms off, I tried having her actually aiming her rifle in a few different ways, and it just wasn't working especially well.

So, I dropped her arms to a resting position and turned her head. The result was something of a badass—IMHO—pose, where she's scanning the room or ready to go, rather than the stock pose that recalls old single-piece metal models' flat poses, and not in a flattering way.

I'm not sure if it's the hood that overhangs further, or that the weapons are now forward, but, despite not changing her torso or legs at all, Amalynn also no longer seems to have the same issue with her chest out and poor weight distribution across her feet.

I was pretty tempted to paint her in Ulthwé colors, those being said Eldar army back in the day, or in Alaitoc pathfinder colors, being the classic elite Eldar ranger style. Instead, I tried going for a heavy variation on her native Biel-Tan craftworld. I went with a sort of alien camo sensibility (just  bit of stippling on her cloak for a pattern), with no true greys and nearly no primary colors. The only hint to her craftworld is the green ribbon on her scan-a-majig. She's a haughty alien, but that doesn't mean she's going to go running around with a big green target on her, when everything's gloomy here.

She got kind of an Infinity vibe, IMHO, by the time I was done with her.

I realized after the fact that she's actually fairly close to the colors I used on my Spindle Drones. Let's say she was trying to be extra-sneaky and fit in. I didn't take many liberties with these guys, mostly just doing my gloomy interpretation of the stock paint job. I really hope GW adds some more aliens in their next Blackstone Fortress expansion, since I much prefer the unusual alien baddies to yet more Chaos goons (not to say said goons aren't well executed; this is just a great opportunity to expand the setting past more variety of Chaos).