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Firstly, my apologies to anyone who has stumbled across this blog so early in it's life. It's a bit of a mess, but i'm still working on it.

So check out this sketch i did the other day. I was stuck at a family thing, miles from home, trying to avoid engaging anyone in conversation as i normally do when the OAPs decide everyone needs to be together in the same room. So anyway, i popped out a sketchbook and scribbled this down, trying to remember what the models looked like for reference.



It was done on pretty small paper - A5 or so, and i just scanned it a minute ago. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks i'll get some time to turn it into a digital painting, so look out for it.

Also, another unit from my current eldar army. I painted this a few months ago, i notice the infinity symbol on the face isn't quite right. I corrected this on my wraithguard squad (which i will post soon). i am happy with the freehand details and the pose in particular, there are a few little touches on this model that give it character.



The wraithlord on the tabletop is a fearsome opponent. Its a toughness 8, strength 10 monsterous creature. Reasonable points depending on weapon choices (no-ones going to choose the TL bright lance are they?!?). I gave mine a shuriken cannon, missile launcher and 2 flamers which i think gives good versatility. Being able to move and fire 2 heavy weapons is great, and its status as a monsterous creature is a huge advantage making him tougher in close combat and hard to kill. There are, however, particular disadvantages to the wraithlord. Most obviously: wraithsight. Having taken up a valuable heavy support choice, the last thing you need is for him to do nothing for a turn. This means it pretty much requires a psychic presence nearby. I've tried a few things for this...
1: walking a seer council around with it. pop in some destructors and you have a lethal close range flame squad and a good number of hits in cc which will hurt anything. This option is expensive on points and in practice the warlocks do little on the battlefield as not many players will risk letting this little tag team close enough to be effective.

2: lurk it with some Heavy weapon platform buddies. You can add a warlock to a heavy weapon team. So make you wraithlord a long range 'sniper' and have him sit at the back with a couple of vibrocannons. Also in this role it acts as a deterrent to pesky reserves coming in to shut down your artillery. You sort of miss out on the fear factor that a rampaging wraithlord causes when advancing. also, this is a second heavy support slot used and i like falcons....

3: Guardian guardians. Either vanilla with a weapons platform (which can also move & fire) or as i prefer - with storm guardians, 2 flamers and the all important warlock with either destructor or enhance (I5 makes a difference!). My 2nd favorite team. all those flamers can really leave a hole, and although the guardians almost always end up dead or running by the end, they normally cause a few headaches before they do so. Adding in an avatar is fun, but will attract lots of attention. Consider this a sort of wraithlord delivery system, almost great for assaulting objectives, if only those stormies had grenades....

4: Finally... The wraithwall. A troops choice of wraithguard and the wraithlord. At over 500 points, this is expensive and as a whole still quite vunerable to massed firepower or particularly large squads in CC like boyz or gaunts (they just dont have enough attacks to cut their way through). The main concern here is their points value. You want to avoid this expensive and powerful unit getting bogged down for 3 turns in assault.

Overall A wraithwall is my pick. As the rest of my army tends to be mobile i find that opponents will focus on the immediate threats of my skimmers and bikes allowing the wraithwall to move in close. Large outflanking units are still a danger, particularly if they are also fleet, which would make it unlikely to see a volley of wraithcannon shots hit home before the charge. i'm thinking genestealers are a particular concern, also given the rending rule.

As if all that wasn't enough.... here is my desk!
Notice the sinlge most important accessory in a painters arsenal:
a wet palette! if you don't use one of these, or worse... don't know what one is: stay tuned as i will be ranting about this very soon.