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Todays figure from the vaults is the leader of the Eldar army that I painted in 2002, the Eldar from the Iacon fleet.

The army was made from GW parts from a variety of sources but mainly from a mix of Eldar and Dark Eldar parts.  At the time I played using the army chosen from a Craftworld Eldar list, but I wanted to be able to field the figures as Dark Eldar if desired too, even though I never did in the end.

The background for the army plonked the Iaconian Eldar somewhere between the Craftworld Eldar and the Dark Eldar in philosophy.  The idea was that rather than base themselves in a craftworld after The Fall, that the Iacon fleet had assembled for safety in numbers.  As a result the fleet contained ships of many sizes along with occupants with their own agendas.  Obviously this was loosely based on the concept of Battlestar Galactica, although the remake wasnt around at the time.

Another influence was a vaguely Egyptian theme, mostly added so that I could tie the figures to some cheesy decorations that I had been collecting with a magazine around then (visible in a game here).  It also helped to focus me on some of the visual elements of the army such as colour and some of the decoration.  Everyone is familiar with the concept of “Space Egypt” anyway due to Stargate.  Funnily enough I didnt like the Stargate show (because it is shite), although the look of the tech in the movie was cool.

Farseer/Archon Yuminor

Yuminor above is assembled exclusively from plastic parts: Dark Eldar and Craftworld Eldar jetbikes, High Elf arms, a modified pair of High Elf spears, Dark Elf torso and helmet, a bit from a Falcon grav tank, some old shuriken catapults, some styrene strips and a Bretonnian helmet crest.  I think that the cape is High Elf too, but it might be from a Chaos Warrior, I cant remember.

The circular thing stuck to the back of Yuminors head is a part of a Falcon kit.  It is supposed to tie in with circular gold Egyptian decorative elements that were used to venerate Ra, representing the sun.  The piece of plastic that I used was just a bit too thick and so looks a little odd (or maybe just a little bit foreign and alien if I am feeling charitable).

Jetbike Canopy & Singing Spear Detail

Just about visible in the shot above and easier to see in the photo above it is the hand painted glyph in the side of the canopy.  Each unit in the army has their own unique glyph inspired by both the existing Eldar look and Egyptian heiroglyphs.  Obviously they dont mean something specific or anything like that but they do give a nice element of detail on the figures, Yuminor included.  I find that one area on a miniature brought to fine detail like that can help to give a sense of scale to figures.  When it works the figures start to look a little less toy-like and just a little more real (as far as space elf sorcerers on jetbikes look real, but you know what I mean).

Another element that I carried through the larger models in the army was a phoenix-y bird type motif.  The main reason that I did that was because there was a suitable crest on the High Elf sprues that I had in sufficient numbers to put on all of the vehicles that I had planned for the army.  The bird on the jetbike canopy above however is a Bretonnian knghts helmet crest with some styrene strips making a sort of tail.  That shot also shows the High Elf Spear which I made double ended because I think that it looks good like that.  It also looks a bit like Prince Nuadas spear from Hellboy II now that I look at it.  That cant be a bad thing.

The Entire Model

I like this model a lot even though as I mentioned in a previous Iacon post the paint scheme was laborious in its execution.  Still, Yuminor (name inspired by a character from the super cool Ulysses 31 cartoon) is one of my better examples of a unique figure used to represent an army leader.  Yuminors career didnt have the same gaming span as my Nurgle Chaos Lord but he still stands as one of the better examples from my own corner of the hobby.

Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2002, 40K, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Iacon, Vehicle | Leave a comment »