MiJ's Eldar Corsairs

[me_in_japan]

So, big project for next Nagoyammer is my Eldar Corsairs. For those who don't know their history, Eldar Corsairs are how the Eldar were originally depicted in Rogue Trader. Mercenaries, pirates, general do-badders. Not outright evil like Dark Eldar, but certainly not as neat and shiny as Craftworlders. I think of them as the Han Solos of Eldar society. Rogues, if you like

This hobby log will be a WIP of my work on a small corsair army. The rules will all be from Imperial Armour 11 - the Doom of Mymeara. I'll start a separate thread about a few rules I think need clarifying/updating from this book, but in terms of list-building everything will be pucka IA11 Corsairs.

My aim when building this army was basically to include all the cool stuff from the list, and also to use as many of the eldar models I already have that would fit. After a great deal of thinking and pondering, I found I can build the following:

10 corsairs with jetpacks
10 corsairs without jetpacks
6 corsair jetbikers
5-10 Harlequins (as many as I can be bothered painting)
5 Wraithblades (see below)
1 corsair prince and retinue.
1 void dreamer
2 venoms
1 falcon
1 hornet
1 warp hunter
1 firestorm

I have also ordered a flyer from FW. I feel this is very much in keeping with the corsair fluff. In fact, not having a flyer would be odd.

Finally, the corsair list states that a corsair army may include a unit of Dark Eldar Kabalites (in dedicated transport, if desired) and any 1 squad of craftworlders' Elite or Fast Attack. These are not allies, they are part of the Corsair FOC. As I have a whole heap of Eldar and D Eldar, I will use this option for army flexibility. As I like the new wraithblade models, and feel they could fit well in terms of fluff, I have included a squad of them in the army. I may swap this out from time to time for some other elite/FA unit, though.

One thing I would quite like to do is include some fluff for this army. I've written a wee intro (again, IG based...) but I also have some ideas for more eldar-centric stories that I think will add a bit of flavour to the army.

So, the next post will be a wee story about the nasty xenos scum, followed by some WIP pics of my bikers and jetpack corsairs

[me_in_japan]

“You know what I hate about life in the guard?”

The troopers trudged in single file along a narrow dirt track while the rain hammered down on them like the wrath of some primitive water god. A heavily built man in the middle of the small group pulled his hat more firmly onto his head in defiance of the weather and glanced behind him to address the grumbler.

“No, Kessel, I don’t. And to be honest, I don’t care, but I have a suspicion you’re going to tell us all, aren’t you?”

“Damn straight I am.” Kessel gestured expansively at the surrounding greenery with a meaty arm. “It’s not the jungle, although the Emperor knows how much of a pain in the arse it is. It’s not the bugs, or the crappy food, or being woken up at the crack of dawn for some pointless training exercise. It’s not even being shot at by stinking xenos. You know what I really hate about this?”

“Being punched in the head by your sergeant for talking too much?” muttered the man ahead of him in line, optimistically.

“Shut up, Severin. No, it’s none of those things. What really gets me, every damn time, on every damn world we bring the light of the Emperor to,” he waved his hands theatrically, indicating light streaming from the sky, “is the thrice accursed mud. Why is it that every single world, moon, satellite or asteroid we are sent to is always, always dripping with mud? Hmmn? Did we do something particularly foul to deserve this? Why can’t we get sent to a nice dry desert world once in a while? Answer me that, Jensen.”

The man at the rear of the column grinned and shrugged in repsonse. This wasn’t a new conversation. Oh, the details changed, but every world they came to, Kessel would start on one of his rants about how Emperor-forsaken it was, and how much the universe hated him. He’d taken Kessel for a useless, whining pain in the arse at first, but in the past few years he’d seen how lethal the man could be with the sniper rifle he now cradled carefully under a stay-dry canvas wrap. He knew the complaints were all part of how the man dealt with being shipped from one end of the galaxy to another and sent into the hellstorm of warzones.

“My granddad used to tell me stories about life in the guard when I was a kid.” He offered. “They were full of adventure, and aliens, and lucky escapes. He made it all sound so exciting.”

“But no mud, right?” asked Kessel.

“Mud did not feature heavily in his tales of heroic adventure, no.” conceded Jensen. To be fair, his granddad had made it clear, once he was old enough to understand such things, that life in the guard was bloody tough, but it paid well, and if you were lucky, as the old man had been, they would even ship you back to your homeworld after your tour was over. Jensen was increasingly worried about this current tour. His grandfather had been mostly deployed fighting greenskins in the Samorn Reaches, just a few light years from their homeworld. This jungle world, however, was two months warp-jump distant, and he’d heard stories about how that kind of distance could do strange things to time. Stories of men sent home to worlds where their grandchildren had already grown old and died. Still, the war here was almost over. They’d been able to take out the greenskin general, the warboss, as his squadmates had called him, without too much trouble, thanks to a well placed demolisher round at messily close range. After that, the orks had broken and run for the hills. Their patrol had been dispatched to make sure the nearby ranges were clear, and after weeks of the same they were getting extremely good at it.

“Eh up – looks like Neth’s seen something.” Muttered Kessel.

“Everybody down and into cover!” barked the squad sergeant. Neth was a small man, but had a stare like a shark and his orders brooked no disagreement. The five-man squad scattered and within seconds all that could be seen were trees, rain and mud.

Jensen peered out carefully from behind a fern, taking care not to disturb its movement in the light wind. Just around a bend in the track he could make out orkish voices. They sounded worried, insofar as he could tell. He grinned to himself. He’d be making them even more worried once he got a line of sight on them with his lasgun. Suddenly, the orkish grunts turned to screams and yells, and without warning a huge greenskinned brute came sprinting towards them down the path. It was clearly terrified, and barrelled past their cover without a glance. Kessel looked at Jensen in puzzlement. Touching his combead, he whispered, “What the feth? There are no other squads out here. What-“

The ork collapsed in a heap, seemingly without reason. Simultaneously the combead came alive with chatter, a babble of sound. “…Repeat. Enemy engaged! We are under heavy fire! Requesting support! Squad Omegon Delta! We need support now, dammit!”

Jensen glanced at Kessel, concern lining his face, “Omegon Delta? That’s the command group. They’re still at base, aren’t they?”

More and more chatter came through, all telling the same story. All the guard units, whether on patrol or manning the base camp were under attack by an unknown enemy force. “But that makes no sense.” Muttered Jensen. “The orks don’t have that kind of numbers. That’s impossible.” He stopped as he saw the expression on Kessel’s face. The man had frozen, looking over Jensen’s shoulder with an expression of pure fear etched on his features.

Time slowed down. Turning, he raised his lasgun in anticipation of a greenskin attack, but instead was met with a scene he thought he would never encounter outside his granddad’s stories. A sleek, elegant craft swept into view from just beyond the bend in the road. Its curved and bladed form hovered just above the ground, throwing up curtains of mud from whatever motive force kept it aloft. In the rear of the vessel, Jensen could make out three or four figures dressed in bone white armour with pointed crimson red helms and shoulders. Something in his gut told him that although they looked like men, they were not of his race. Something about their joints, they way they moved. He was filled with a sense of loathing, and raised his lasrifle to his shoulder. A sudden sting in his knee made him wince, and his shot zipped futilely past the alien ship. He glanced down at his leg, and realised that Kessell was slumped in the mud just behind him. A series of thuds from the other side of the path caught his attention, and he looked over just in time to see Sergeant Neth’s limp form flop out onto the muddy track, falling face down into the mire.

“Xenos scum!” he screamed, and turned to take another shot at the floating craft. As he turned, his left leg slipped in the mud and he fell heavily. He tried to get up, but his hands seemed to have gotten tangled in his lasgun strap. He feebly pawed at the gellid muck around him, desperately trying to escape, to shoot, to shout, to do something. As he lay in the mud, his body twitching uncontrollably from the toxins pouring through his veins, the last thing he saw was a blood red helm filling the sky overhead, its onyx eye-slits gleaming as it gazed into his soul.

NEXT EPISODE: CAPTURED BY SLAVERS!

[me_in_japan]

Prototype jetbike 1



Rest of the squad


Jet packers

[me_in_japan]

Wraithblades


Tall lads, those wraithblades...

[me_in_japan]

When ah wuz just a bebbe, mah mamma tol’ me, “son”…

Consciousness returned to Jensen grudgingly, awareness coming only after a concerted effort, momentary sensation fleeting and soon lost. There was cold. A floor. Metal, perhaps. Muffled sound – animalistic roars and yelps, mixed with mumbled words and more human cries. A stink of blood, and the ever present mud, mingled with a more subtle, alien odor. Something slightly spiced, almost fruity. Gradually, he regained control of his body and became aware he was lying on what felt like a steel floor. Coughing to clear the congealed mucus from his throat, he slowly opened his gummy eyes.

He immediately wished he hadn’t. Barely a foot in front of his face was the lower jaw of what could only be an ork. As he opened his eyes more fully, he made out the rest of the gargantuan shape, sprawled in an ungainly heap in a distressingly similar manner to himself. It was breathing, and at this close range he could see its lips twitching in a way that heralded imminent consciousness. Jensen amazed himself by moving from a prone position to bolt upright so fast he almost tripped over his own feet. He looked around frantically for something to use as a weapon, and as he did so he became aware of the sound of quiet laughter. Gingerly trying to keep one eye on the supine ork, he quickly glanced behind him for the source of the sound.

“Damn, Jensen, that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen you move.”

Sergeant Neth was sitting on the floor a few feet away, smoking a lho stick.

“Sergeant! You’re alive! Praise the Emperor!” Jensen made to clasp the sergeant’s hand, but as he did so Neth raised his own in warning.

“Don’t move, private. You’re about 6 inches from an energy field. You would not enjoy it if you walked into it. Trust me on that. In fact, trust that ork. He was extremely keen to pull your head off, until he collided with the field between your cell and his. He’s tried 3 or 4 times, now, and it looks like he’s about to try for number 5. Not the quickest of learners, I have to say.”

Jensen turned, and as he did so the ork behind him regained full consciousness. For something so big it moved damned fast. It leapt to its feet and, staring at Jensen with an animalistic fury deep in its piggy eyes, charged straight at him. It barely managed a single step before there was a laser-bright flash and it collapsed onto the floor, once more deeply unconscious.

“Well, that’s some comfort at least.” Jensen said, regaining his composure somewhat. “I thought I was in deep shit for a moment there when I woke up.”
“Oh you are, private. You are in very deep shit indeed.” Neth responded. “Do you remember what happened back on Betalis III?”

Jensen trawled his memory. “There were other xenos! Not orks, no way. They were…almost like us.”

“Like us? Damn, Jensen, you must’ve had your brain scrambled worse’n I thought. Let me tell you, private, you may not know one xenos from another, but the bastards that ambushed us were eldar. Eldar. Does that mean anything to you?”

Once again, Jensen tried to coax his beleaguered brain into action. “My grandpa used to talk about them.” His face paled. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”

“Trouble. Yes, well you could put it that way. Now, I’ve been on a few tours. More’n you by a long stretch, anyway, and in my experience there are two types of eldar. There are the ones that try real hard to kill you. And there are the ones that don’t. The ones that don’t are the ones you have to worry about.”

“I dunno, sergeant. In my experience any bastard trying to kill you is something to worry about.” Jensen said. “What’s so bad about these eldar?”

“Rumour has it that they’re slavers.” Neth said, lighting another lho stick. “ I’ve known guardsmen who escaped from engagements with eldar. Escaped, mind you, not won. Every one of ‘em said they lost squadmates whose bodies never showed up. Lots of squadmates. The eldar took ‘em. Alive, you have to presume. Why?” Neth shrugged, “They need big strong guys like us to build stuff for em, I reckon. I mean, look at em – they’re so skinny it amazes me they can even pick up their guns.” He gestured to the far end of the hallway.

Jensen took a moment to survey his surroundings. Assuming the silvery lines etched into the floor denoted the boundaries of his cell, there were about 20 or 25 cells on this side of the hall, and an equal number on the other. Almost all contained the form of a guardsman or an ork, in varying degrees of consciousness. The walls which made up the rear of the cells seemed to be made of some kind of ceramic, or hard plastic. It glowed faintly, providing a warm, pale light more than sufficient to see by. At the far end of the hallway he could make out a doorway and standing just beyond it the form of what could only be an eldar. It lounged against the door frame, and did not seem to be carrying any kind of weapon. If it was a guard, it was a very lazy one.

“Do you reckon we can get out of here, sergeant?” Jensen asked quietly. “The one at the end there doesn’t seem to be paying us much attention.”

“No, it doesn’t, but that would be because we‘re packed away neatly inside energy cells, or had you forgotten?” retorted the sergeant. “Look, Jensen, I appreciate the sentiment, but I’ve been awake for an hour now, and I managed to do so by not trying anything stupid like escaping. You do try that and boom, you end up like your sleepy chum in the cell next door. No, my advice to you, private, is to sit tight and wait for them to transfer us. As soon as they let us out of these cells, that’s when we make our move. Until then, get some rest.”

Jensen settled himself against the glowing rear wall of his cell. He knew there had to be something he could do, but he recognised the wisdom of his sergeant’s advice. He closed his eyes, hoping he would be able to get some sleep.

. **************************************************

“Jensen! Private! Wake up!”

Neth managed to bark orders even under his breath, and Jensen started awake with a gasp. The lights in the hall had strengthened to bathe the cells in a bright glow. Jensen could hear noises coming from outside the doorway, and as he looked in that direction a pair of lithe figures entered the hall. One was male, and wore no helm, although he was otherwise clad in the same pale bone armour with red shoulders as the raiders who had captured them. His face was sharp and aquiline, with a slightly cruel cast to the eyes. The other figure was female. Definitely female. She wore a skintight black suit criss-crossed with slashes, showing moon-pale flesh beneath. Both figures moved like dancers, but she was without doubt the prima ballerina of this show. Jensen found himself watching her with something approaching awe as she moved closer to them. The two aliens conversed in an unintelligible tongue, with the armour clad male doing most of the talking. The female seemed content to nod from time to time, occasionally giving voice to a short phrase. When they reached the end of the hall, she nodded, as if in satisfaction, and the two figures bowed to each other. They then turned on their heels, and left.

Jensen glanced at Neth. “What was that about?”

Neth grinned, sharklike. “We’ve just been sold, private. Best get yourself ready, Jensen – it’s game time.”

. **************************************

According to Jensen’s chron less than an hour had passed when the lights brightened again and the high pitched wail of an alarm rang through the cells.
“Wakey wakey, everyone,” Neth muttered sidelong to Jensen. “Time to move out.”

A group of armoured figures came through the entrance door, and this time they were carrying guns. Most of the weapons seemed to be of the type they had used back on Betalis III, but two or three of the aliens carried a far heavier looking weapon with a strange nozzle shaped barrel and an unholy contrivance of blade like appendages spinning around their tips. Jensen watched the xenos approach the first cell. One of them deactivated the door field, and immediately the ork within charged at them, bellowing furiously. Smoothly, and seemingly untroubled, one of the eldar levelled his rifle and fired. The ork immediately stopped running and staggered to a halt. It looked around blearily, as if unsure what to do. A third eldar walked quickly towards it and clamped a thick collar around its heavily muscled neck. As soon as the collar was in place the ork started to move sedately towards the doorway, seemingly tugged by some force within its neckpiece.

The eldar moved from cell to cell, repeating this procedure. Soon, they came to a cell containing a guardsman. Jensen looked closely – It was Kessell! Just as the eldar were about to deactivate the field, Neth shouted loudly, “Kessell! Go along with them. No heroics! Once we’re all out we can do something, but not before.”

Kessel glanced up. His face was badly bruised, but he nodded his understanding. Jensen turned to Neth. “Sergeant, why did you say we were planning something? Won’t they try to stop us?”

“Tell me, private,” said Neth. “Do you speak eldar, because I sure as hell don’t. What makes you think they can understand us? Can you see any human sitting down and teaching Gothic to a xenos? They can hardly work it out by themselves, can they? No, I didn’t think so. We’re safe. So far as they’re concerned we’re just making noises.”

By now, the eldar had almost reached the end of the hallway. Only Neth, Jensen and the unconscious ork next door remained. The aliens opened the ork’s cell, and made to drag its massively muscled form away. Suddenly, the ork sprang to its feet and charged them. Taken unawares, the eldar were pushed aside, colliding with the force field walls. There was a brilliant flash and they collapsed unconscious. The ork roared its fury and started running down the hall towards the remaining guards. They raised one of the strange, nozzled weapons and fired at the ork. The beast crashed to the floor, wrapped in what appeared to be fine thread. It howled at its captors and thrashed wildly. Its struggles soon weakened, as the threads constricted around it. Soon, it was tightly bound, but its beady eyes and muffled grunts showed it wasn’t giving up. Suddenly there was a crack, and spurt of blood shot out of the tightly bound form. The ork seemed to redouble its efforts, but this only caused the bonds to tighten further. Soon they were cutting through its warty green hide, then deeper, into its flesh. Within moments all that was left was a vaguely ork shaped bundle surrounded by a huge puddle of stinking ichor.

Jensen looked on in horror. Neth’s escape plan was looking increasingly unattractive. Just then, a commotion caused him to tear his eyes away from the body of the ork. A female eldar had arrived, and seemed to be berating the guards. She, too was wearing the body armour of the raiders, and seemed to occupy a senior position. She gestured angrily at the dead ork, then back down the hall at the remaining cells. The guards nodded their assent, and moved towards Neth’s cell. They deactivated the energy field, and, clearly taking no chances, levelled their web-wire guns at the sergeant.

“Looks like we’d better go quietly, eh, Jensen?” Neth said wryly as he stepped out of his cell. Jensen watched as the sergeant was led away. Then, to his surprise, the remaining guards turned to follow.

“Hey! What about me? “ he shouted after them. “Hey! I’m still here? Don’t you want me, too?” Jensen had a sudden image of himself, trapped here alone for Emperor knew how long. “Hey! Eldar! What about me?”

The female eldar in armour turned back and approached his cell. She stopped just in front of it. She seemed…curious. Her eyes narrowed in thought for a moment, then she spoke.

“You. Mon-ke…,” she paused, then began again. “You. Human. You…want go, also? You want go there, also?

Jensen was astounded. She spoke Gothic! So much for Neth’s escape plan.

“Yes! Yes, I do!”

The female laughed softly.

“No, No. You no want go. They go Commorragh. Commorragh not happy place for you. You stay here. You…” she stopped, muttering under her breath in her own xenos tongue, then looked up again. “You will stay here.” She seemed pleased at producing this sentence, and repeated it. “You will stay here with me. I will study you. You will be a good….” her brow furrowed. “You will be a good pet. Yes? You will like that? You will be a good pet?” The female smiled at him, turned away, and walked briskly out of the holding hall, leaving Jensen alone with his thoughts.

[me_in_japan]

Righty-ho then. Enough of this waffly fluff stuff. Time for some actual painting.

Here's where I was yesterday:


And here's where I am today:


Not a huge amount of progress, I'll grant you, but progress nonetheless.

Here's the army in all its beige glory, btw:


I intend to add a couple more hornets to this lot, as well as the vypers I have under construction (cant work out their passenger platforms, so have temporarily shelved them. One squad o corsairs can walk for a bit...)

[AndrewGPaul]

The feathery Falcon rides again?

[me_in_japan]

The feathery falcon has been riding for a while (hence the fact it's already painted) but it will soon be getting a new corsair-themed paintjob.

[me_in_japan]

more work done on bases.



and the flyer base:



Still WIP at the mo. Next thing is the metal bits (tin bits, drybrush bg metal and mithril silver, then muck about with rust coloured washes). After that I think I'll drill out the holes wot need drilling for the jetbike stems and skimmer stems, then stick on a fairly large amount of static grass and some meadow flowers. Many thanks to Konrad for the meadow flowers idea

[me_in_japan]

OK: This weekend I did more work on bringing out the details, and spent a rather boring hour painting the edge of all the bases black. I listened to The Ocean At The End Of The Lane (by Neil Gaiman) while I was doing it, though, so it wasnt so bad. He does have a terribly relaxing voice, does Mr. G...



just grass clumps and maybe some weathering to go, now. Oh, and drilling out holes for the skimmer base stems to fit into. That's going to be fun, lemme tell ya...