40k 2nd Edition Army Challenge IV: ELDAR – Intro & Slice 1

Another year another glorious dive back into 2nd Edition 40k. Where the bolters are red and the bases are green. Mr. Cowabunga has this time broken the challenge into two camps: Painter & Gamer. Both have their own unique things to try and achieve and ways to select your force. I ended up going with the painters challenge as the model count would be lower and I could work on models that seem fun as opposed to having to build a real legal army to play with.

This year I am going off the deep end personally to do an army I’ve never painted a model for in all my gaming years. I have painted their dark kin before, but this is the first time trying to do some full on Eldar. Thanks to a very, very generous trade with a buddy up island I have acquired a massive pile of metal in exchange for some old Lord of the Rings models.

It took awhile to sort through the toolbox full of precious metals, and while there is a lot to work with, many of the sculpts were from 3rd edition as well. And being an anal purist means I have to use only 2nd edition sculpts .. 🙂 . Funny enough some of those though are still the current sculpts! Due to the weird mix of models, I realized I had enough here to do almost all the different special aspects (Warp Spiders, Fire Drakes.. etc). There wasn’t really any basic troops, so in gaming terms it would be a very odd army…

Above is the planned 6 slices of 2nd Edition pie. Starting with Warp Spiders for slice 1 and heading left from there each month. You can see it’s got a fun mix of paint schemes to work with, really cool characters like Maugan Ra and Fuegan. One thing that will keep this fresh and interesting for me is that each month I’ll be painting totally different colours and model styles, something you don’t really get with marines for example.

I plan to add a few extra units in as we go, if I can acquire them in time and for reasonable prices lol.

SLICE 1

Starting off with everyone’s favourite, Warp Spiders! I probably could have done a few more models but I just grabbed 1 of each sculpt, and also the Exarch. My inspiration for this was from the codex using one of the alternative themes they have shown.

One of the fun challenges with this unit is the free handing of web designs and the aspect logo I got to try out. I have to say painting webs on their shells was harder than I figured due to the odd shape and curve it has.

It didn’t take too long to get these finished, I think a couple weeks. The hardest part was just figuring out where to start painting, which is usually the case with a new type of model for sure. Overall an enjoyable set of model to work on for sure. Below you can see the finished group shot.

I have probably another 10 or so in the box still.. so I should add a few more I think.

Tune in next time for SLICE 2 – Fire Dragons!

Also please go check all the other awesome contestants over on Cowabungas blog! – https://cowabungajournal.com/2023/02/01/40k2ndac-iv-month-1-wave-1/ – He is also doing weekly updates with some WIP teases as it goes :). I hope you like little red daemon butts.