Yme-Loc Eldar

I have so many unfinished projects, and so many ideas.  Why on the Omnissiah’s red earth am I starting another one?!

Well, it’s exactly because I have so many unfinished projects that I am doing this.  I am always chipping away at various things, whatever takes my fancy.  I am at peace with the fact that my hobby time is vastly outpaced by my idea generation.  But I am always trying to find ways to squeeze a bit more production out of limited time.

Then I remembered the Beasts of War Hobby Weekends.  I took part in the virtual variants of the 40K Weekend and the Star Wars Legion Weekend.  Both times I got an army done in a weekend.  Starter force, yes, but a complete gameable force.  I miss those days!

Now, to be clear, I don’t have any weekends in the foreseeable future that I can dedicate 100% to hobby.  But I reckon that if I plan the project to be something that I COULD complete in a weekend, then even spreading it over a number of weeks I will still feel progress in each painting session, and have an achievable end point.  If I can start and finish a 40k Combat Patrol in the last quarter of 2025, that will be awesome!

I have decided to do a 40k Combat Patrol.  Why?  Well it is an army in a box, and it is an army I can use in a game as soon as it is done.  My brother has a couple of Combat Patrols, including a new one he wants to try, so it seems like the perfect option.  I can use a scheduled game as a deadline to make sure I finish!

Great.  So what army?  I needed an army that I would be motivated to play, and also one where I can create a quick paint scheme.  Nothing too finicky and gribbly.

I settled on Eldar for a couple of reasons.  One, it fit the bill of something non-gribbly.  Secondly, Eldar were my first ‘love’ in wargaming.  I gravitated towards them immediately as a young whippersnapper seeing tabletop gaming for the first time.  So it is also a nostalgia project!

Cool – so Eldar it is.  There are two Eldar Combat Patrols with rules on the GW downloads page.  The newer one is a lot of Aspect Warriors.  Cool, but gribbly!  The older one looks much more doable for a simple paint scheme.

That decided, the fun part of any project – buying models!  As this is the original Combat Patrol, and not the new one, the box set is hard to come by.  But all the models are available from the friendly local game store, and were quickly purchased!

Ok so this is where I need to remind myself that simple and fast is the order of the day.  I really want to do a proper Craftworld scheme, something a bit different, but something still ‘official’.

I searched online, looked at some old White Dwarfs, and eventually settled on the Yme-Loc craftworld.  There is a text reference in the current codex, but no pictures.  There is however a short reference with a picture in an older codex which I found online:

The colour scheme really pops and I can immediately see how this can be achieved with SpeedPaints and some airbrushing.

Yme-Loc might be hard to pronounce, but it’s going to be easy (hopefully!!) to paint.

Time to make a start! First, assembly..  I decided to keep the heads off the models, and the riders off the bikes to aid speed of painting.

Airbrushing done, and onto the brush work.  It’s worth pointing out that I also airbrushed a matt varnish over everything before the next step.  When testing, I noticed that manipulating the Speedpaint in the next step was lifting the thin airbrush coats in places, so I decided to protect it just in case.

Now for Speedpaints..

With the models painted, it was time to glue the heads onto the Guardian Defenders and complete the bases.

In the spirit of speed and simplicity I opted for a glue-and-done basing mix from Geek Gaming Scenics.  Tomb World Blue in this case.

With the Guardians done, the Windriders were finished with the same steps.  The bikes were Runic Grey Speedpaint (the same as the weapons on the Guardians). Otherwise no difference.

Two models to go, but two very individual ones.  Farseer first.  I have an idea to do something fancy on the cloak, perhaps one of those galaxy effects…. But it would need to be simple and fast (as is my pledge for this project).  I’ve painted the cloak black while I ponder..