Goatboy – Thoughts on the Dark Eldar Range
Goatboy here again – chatting about the upcoming Dark Eldar release.
I won’t go into any rules as I feel I won’t give any true opinions until I have the shiny information in my cold goatlike hands. What I do want to talk about today is what we saw, the models. I won’t go into a true review yet. I have wait until I get lucky enough to purchase some at a future point.
So the big thing I have noticed with all the pictures is that there is a whole lot more thought towards negative space in the model design. Now what does this mean? Well look at the new Reaver jetbike. There is a lot of space in between the model parts. Open space that still somehow feels like it fills the void there. This is a much greater push in design to doing a whole lot with very little space. You can see this in the holes and different intersecting pieces within the model. Heck these new shapes show that GW is really on the cutting edge of sprue and injection molding technology. There is no way that this wasn’t heavily Auto-caded and a complete shift in design philosophy.
The other thing I feel in most of the models is that they don’t feel – over done. A ex coworker of mine talked about some of days he spent as a concept artist for some games. The head designer talked about wanting more spikes and leather as he felt that made things a whole lot more edgy for the game. When the first few pics came out I really liked the fact that most of the pieces shown have an organic feel to them that isn’t just space elves in leather. These guys look like their were grown from some evil place where the warp twists things into strange living shapes. I really feel the overall concept and design of these models really push and feel right for what I thought the Dark Eldar would be like – dangerous without being evil cartoons.
The other interesting thing I have seen with this set is that I feel that the faces are really interesting – especially the female ones. Gone are the crazy cheek bones we normally see with any female model. The eyes also seem to be a lot more within the normal range of a model. It is something I have noticed with some of the latest models coming out. It seems that some of the crazy proportions of 40k have slowly gone down. Another thing is the fact that one of the main special characters isn’t screaming in her model. Think about it and go back to all the main special character models and how almost all of the none helmeted models are normally screaming about wanting their latte with only half a packet of Splenda.
The other interesting thing I have seen is that I feel this is going to be one of the harder armies to truly paint well. Trust me we will see lots of bad schemes whenever they come out. I know the army is a heavy black, but as a painter I know black can be one of the harder things to get to look right. You have so many choices in highlights that it can be extremely hard to get right. Do you go with the green/blue highlight to give a cold look, or do you go reds to give some kind of evil/angry light? I think purples might be a really nice way to get your blacks shaded interestingly. The amount of surface area on all the models really makes for a difficult army to give justice to with a decent paint job. Heck those raiders are at least a Land Raider full of surface to cover with over priced paint as there is no way to ignore the interior decking and crew.
Right now as a model lover I am sold on the army. It has the aesthetic I like – evil, evil, and more evil – plus it seems to really push the boundaries of plastic models at the same time. I am waiting on the rules to see if I dive into it more then just a few models here and there to appease my desire to paint up evil space elf pirates. The other interesting thing from this set is that I see a lot of cross design in some of the Dark Elves from fantasy – meaning that there is a chance for a lot of cross kit population that could occur and create some really dynamic models.
My hope is that we get a decent Xenos book that won’t get too hampered by the rain of Missile Launchers and other nonsense that is common on a lot of 40k tables lately. Maybe they could have a special power that lets them rain down Kibbles and Bits to entice the enemy in games of rope bone pulling and frisbee catching.
Its been 3 days now and the community has had time to take in all the new minis. What do you think of the revealed kits them as a whole and individually? Likes, dislikes, and plans for model purchasing.
