Eldar Rangers and a Heavy Weapon Platform

The first of the 2nd Edition metal Eldar are the Rangers and the single Heavy Weapon Platform. 

I didn't wash these guys before I painted them, and I really regretted it. The paint was literally rubbing off with a pretty gentle touch. I also ummed and ahhed about how to paint them. Initially I was going to do their cloaks in the same Mymeara colours as their armour, but it was far too much of the same. It was a pity, because the cloaks looked really great after they were finished. 

Nevertheless I was really happy with how they turned out. They took a lot longer than I wanted them to - as usual I want these Eldar to be what I consider tabletop ready, and that's always a compromise between speed and quality. It had been a long time since I'd done any metal miniatures, and there were a few things that really slowed me down. A lot of extra filing, a lot of post-extra filing, and these models were particularly rough, so some of the brush work was a little pesky. And they really soaked up the paint of the undercoat! 

Here's all of them together. I was a lot happier with the heavy weapons base here than the last one. Interestingly, the original metal platform here was intended to sit on the ground, with no base and no stand to raise it up, just three semi-circle antigrav doobywhacks (although if they're anti-grav, why are they on the ground?).

You can see the base a little better here. A friend of a friend (really) moulded a bunch of bases and this is one of them. It sounds silly, but it was such a treat to paint. It was fast, simple, and looked great. Stylistically, this older platform is a clear precursor to the newer one, which is great, because I really love the design of this original. Unfortunately, the plastic weapons don't really fit, so this is and will always be a scatter laser. I did much prefer the newer Guardians to the old lasgun models, but these two platform crew really have something over the newer models. 

I took these Rangers out to paint first mostly because I really love the model at the front here. I kept the Mymeara blue on the helmets rather than the normal grey so as not to get lost in the cloaks (for which I've used the same base colour).