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(Everything in these parentheses is backstory, so skip it if you choose.

I used to post here as Aldyen Raikhaine, an unapologetic 3 WL player, until I quit the hobby in frustration after losing a few hundred USD worth of minis in the Warp--that is to say, I ordered them from some online store called Dragon*something or other*, which took my money and then closed down. I cite this sort of terrible luck as after-the-fact justification for why I needed 3 WLs.

Anyway, I had a look at some of the new and somewhat new-ish Eldar minis thanks to a friend who's also getting back into it, and while some seem a definite step backward to me--Banshees and Reapers; everything old is new again??--there are enough really nice ones that it looks like I'm in. Of course, I have a few questions.)

1) I want Harlequins but I can't stand the sort of colour scheme necessary for a fluffy unit--ridiculously fiddly (for me), yet garish, bleh. I plan on representing them with a made-up Aspect instead, but my problem is this: what to do for the Harlequin's Kisses? I could of course represent them with some other weapon, only it seems like such a cop-out when the Kiss is a perfectly logical weapon for an Aspect to use. Just buying Harlequins and lopping off the Kiss arms would be kind of stupid, but I don't feel up to sculpting them either. Any ideas? Right now I'm thinking of shaving down the rangefinders on the DA shuricats and working with those, so if anyone has some DAs and could tell me if they look feasible in real-life, that'd be appreciated.

2) On another note, could someone tell me how the parts for the older (not original) FD Exarch w/ Fire Pike come? I remember that the pike came separate (attached to the hands or something?), but what I want to know is if it is the case that the body is whole, i.e. none of it is featureless and designed to be covered by the pike.

Thanks much.

Welcome back (to the addiction...)!

Kudos for the Harlie conversions- I'm doing much the same, for the same reasons (the colorschemes are just plain silly, and checkers look stupid on everything except Orks and AM).

Might I suggest an Aspect name? There are mentions of several Aspects in old fluff that don't have rules. IIRC (and I can't remember the source, but nettrolling can probably find it- try 40KCantina, if it's still around)), three of these were the Stalking Panthers, Charging Bulls, and the Slicing Orbs of Zandros (no, really).

Stalking Panthers seemed quite right for the rules. A stealth element (Veil of Tears), rapid speed, and rending weapons all fit the name to a tee.

This brings us to conversions. Your rending weapons don't have to be Kisses! I'm thinking DE spiky bitz glued to forearms, Wolverine-style but with only one blade. Pistols either in the other hand, or perhaps shoulder- or helmet-mounted.

If you're still dedicated to Kisses, you might take shuriken pistols, lop off the front part of the barrell where it gets skinny (leaving the wider flanged part), and glue on some thin plastic rod with an angled cut to represent the sharp-ended barrel.

As for the bodies, I was going to mix DE and Guardian parts, to give a "Guardian with lots of edged things" feel. This would accompany background making the Panthers the aspect dealing with close-in, grappling-oriented killing. They stalk in close (moving through terrain effortlessly), then literally pounce upon their opponents and rend them to bits with lots of claws and blades. They would be a rather dark aspect, much like the Reapers- and perhaps rare because this dark and violent method is a bit close to the Fall Eldar psychology for comfort.

Hope that helps!

That's totally it. It wouldn't be so bad if the whole army was like that (uh, or maybe it would be worse), but alongside a (sanely painted) CE army, Harlies look terribly out of place. I know some people are choosing to go all subdued and ninja-ey instead, but I think their very name properly precludes that.

I think it's "Xandros", actually. I have some vague recollection of seeing those mentioned somewhere, but I can't google up anything at the moment, oh well. Personally, aside from those Orbs--which are just weird--the rest sound a little cheesy (in the mundane sense of the word) to me. It's sort of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Dances with Wolves, y'know? Generic exoticism. But that's probably just me.

Stalking Panthers sounds like a nice idea. Would be interested to see how that works out for you. For myself, though, I really would like a Kiss-using unit, because 1) it seems to me that if any "standard" bladed weapon should have rending, chains/biting/swords/sabers should be it, not some claw-thingy and 2) the Kiss is a distinctively Eldar weapon too cool for me not to use. I'm thinking an insect-flavoured Aspect, maybe using Incubi as a base (they're not very pointy for DE models, strangely--and also clearly quite lightly armoured for supposed 3+ models!).

Thanks for the shuripistol suggestion. It's so obvious I feel silly for not thinking about it earlier! It may be a little wide, though, even taking just the narrower part. . . . I'll probably pick up some DAs some time soon, so I guess I'll just try it then and see. After all, no sensible configuration is ever going to use that Exarch's pistol anyway, so no loss there.

Thanks much!

Cheers!

You can probably find _lots_ of those DA pistols for trade, too. Extra exarch heads and PW or banner bitz are probably worth 2 or 3 pistols apiece.

I am so loving this idea-its like a paradigm shift...

 

This would be expensive but you might give thought to the assassins minis as well for some imagery, especially the two that poly morph and the one that just rampages using terror.  The assassins cult minis might also be a nice base.

 

@Savnock: Good point! I suppose I'm not alone in finding no use for a Diresword Exarch, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if people were practically giving the pistols away.

@jfrazell: I'm not sure about the OA assassins--they look pretty distinctively Imperial to me and, no offence to those who like them, the models are kind of showing their age IMHO--but those Death Cult ones are interesting. I don't forsee fielding more than 6 Harlies in a Falcon, so I'm not that concerned about expense--anything short of buying actual Harlequins just to hack off their hands is fine by me! (If only there was actually some use for Harlequins without Kisses other than as paperweights, I would happily do that and resell the Harlequin bodies, but alas, it's not to be.)

I hear ya-just thinking some visual images for you. Death cults are also liked and like slightly off kilter which would lend to an aspect type.

Your thoughts on guardians/DE bits is good (and less expensive which is great). Mayhaps a guardian top with more dynamically posed legs (from DE, dark elf or wood elf minis). I'm not sure what you'd do to the head to snaz it up a little to make it more aspect like.

Oh, but the Guardian + DE = Stalking Panthers idea is actually to Savnock's credit, not mine. My current idea is to go with a shuripistol or rangefinder Kiss, and Incubi. I happen to have a pair of unneeded Incubi (bought to paint only, as I've never played DE, but I never did get around to it!) on hand to examine/hack apart. Looking at them, it seems to me that they would make plausible Aspect Warriors with the helmets filed down, skull-tooth gaps filled in, and the shoulder plates made a little less ridiculous. They were pretty clearly designed to remind people of CE, which is fortunate for me.

Now that I've seen the Death Cultist models, I'm reconsidering this plan. I'll have to pop down to the local store and try and see how they look up close (hopefully they have some in stock). From the pictures I can find, they seem like they'd require a fiddlier conversion than the Incubi, which I may or may not be up to. Thanks for the suggestion.

On a totally unrelated note, I was drawing up an army list and did a real double-take when I realised that I had just added a Wraithlord to the list (instead of a third Falcon) in order to be less cheesy. o_O Never thought I'd see the day!

Inquisitor Bob forwarded me this. A lot of these give me epileptic fits, but if you look midway down I think these are dressed up incubi
http://www.agisn.de/html/dark_harlequins.html

While I am not keen on the paint scheme it does give some ideas if one were envisioning these as a new Aspect. It'd keep the harlequin's kiss (maybe abit bigger) and rename it the Panther's Bite or something.  Annyway for what its worth:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok I do kind of like these last two with a less carnivale paintjob.

I am in the same boat as you. While the harlie minis are nice, they are a bit too OTT.

So I am going cheap. I am using guardian plastic with shuripistols and ....DE splinter rifles slightly converted to rep the kisses. When mounted on the left forearm, even the curled hand does not look out of place. It doesnt take much to do, and fairly well reps the kisses.

It make the harlies a quick converting option (if youre only doing 6 for the falcon) and its very cheap.

I like the Harlie minis rather well too, and looking at them in the store yesterday thought they would do really well with a more mime looking paint job. All black clothing with a white mask, with small black designs on it. Sort of thinking like V (as in Vendetta) or a phantom of the opera sort of thign. Green and red checkers just make me nuts.

@jfrazell: I don't much like that colour scheme either (after all, it's exactly that sort of thing that makes me avoid proper Harlies in the first place), but it certainly confirms my feeling that Incubi can be made to look very CE-ish indeed. Thanks a tonne for those pics!

@Hellfury: Cool. WOuld be interested to see how it turns out. It often surprises me how good some budget conversions can look.

@Wehrkind: Well, they're beautiful minis, that's for sure, but I don't consider muting the colour scheme to be an option. More power to you, of course, but to me, the brightly-coloured diamond pattern is inseparable from the Harlies' roots in the commedia dell'arte. Too bad for me.

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Thanks so much for the help, guys. Could anyone answer the second question, though? Surely someone has the last version of the fire pike FD Exarch lying around somewhere?