And now for something completely different.
I Recently attended the
Tempus Fugitives event, The
Hammer of the Gods. Tempus Fugitives are themed events with Codex restrictions. The idea is firstly to change the Army flavour to the
30th-
32nd Millennium and the period of the Great crusade, when the Armies of the Imperium were heavily integrated with the
Adeptus Astartes. The
Legions still existed and the Imperial Army was commanded directly by Space marines.
What this means in practice is that its about the 18 First founding Legions. If you want to field
Imperial Army units, the army command and much of the support must come from the Space Marine lists. I applaud this as it encourages conversion and painting of even standard space marine units to reflect the armour, weapons and tactics prevalent in the 30th Millenium.
For me however it is a bit of a blocker. When I re-entered the GrimDark in 2000, I like many others settled on the Space marines as an army to collect. I painted and converted 4 space marines armies: Blood Angels; 2 home grown chapters; and finally settling on the Exorcists. After a Brief Foray into the world of the
Adepta Sororitas, I eventually I had my fill of trying to make
Power Armour look good and I drifted to Guard and the
Korps. In Short: If I never have to paint Power Armour again it will be too soon.
This left me in the cleft of a dilemma: I wanted to go to a prestige, highly themed campaign event, where I couldn't field my beloved 291st; And the prospect of modelling the army you are encouraged to take left me cold.
Looking at the event list left the following alternative armies to build:
- Necrons (The world of God Hammer is a weaponised tomb world)
- Eldar/Dark Eldar/Corsairs (Enforcing the Ancient "No Fly Zone around the Auld-Enemys Artifact)
- Mechanicum (The whole world is a machine!)
- Laer / Independent Human High Tech Empire (and why not!)
Looking at the list, I like the idea of a Mechanicum list, but I had limited time to gather and paint the army, and it will be unusable outside a narrow realm of these games. Eventually, given there was no codex finalised until the 11th hour I excluded them. The Independent Human High Tech army was aimed at a Tau codex with Guard/Tau equipment mix. This is intriguing, but again it will be unusable outside a narrow realm of games.
Laer? No. Just no. It doesn't inspire and would be almost 100% sculpting and heavy conversion work. No.
Necrons? They were a definite maybe. I had an idea to do LED glowing eyes, and I did quite a lot of research into this. I even built a test squad of 20 Necrons and a lord with glowing eyes. I figured I had 1500 points (At a push) painted already and if I failed to meet the tight deadline I could just roll out these lads. In the end I thought "No". I have yet to solve the problem of the battery housing and off switch. So they went to one side.
That left Eldar. Having recently acquired
IA:11Doom of Mymeara, I was intrigued. I liked the look of the winged Eldar models, the codex was sound (Even slightly Cheese). All I had to do was complete a 2000 point army in 5 weeks. From scratch. Having not painted an Eldar model since 1980 (Harlequins). No problem.
So I cracked open the "Doom of Mymeara" and created a list which I think would be OK, and off I went to the
Forgeworld website. Then down to the local Games Workshop for more Eldar kits. While I was waiting I tried a colour scheme on a Guardian Squad. It Worked and passed the "Does the Wife like it" Litmus Test.
Then I started to paint. For Five weeks all my spare time was dedicated to making the deadline. This is the result.
The List:
HQ: Corsair Princess with Retinue:
 |
| Corsair Princess Idril Celebrindal, WANTED: for Crimes against the Imperium |
Elite: Corsair Void Storm:
Elite: Shadow Spectres
No Photos Please, were Shy.
Troops: Corsairs 1st Squad
Troops: Corsairs 2nd Squad
Troops: Wasp Assault Walkers
 |
| Wasp Assault Walkers for Chopping down power armoured troops |
Fast Attack: Nightwing Interceptor
 |
| Eldar Nighwing, Just plain evil |
Heavy Support: Warp Hunters
 |
| Three Warp hunters, for legalised cheating. Very strong cheese. |
War Machines: Lynx
 |
| Eldar Corsair Lynx. Right 3/4 High |
 |
| Corsair Lynx. Left 3/4 High |
 |
| Corsair Lynx: Profile |
.... And that was it. I met the deadline except for One Corsair toting an Eldar Missile Launcher. The Shadow spectres were to a table standard, but lack finish so no Photos.
There were no real stand out models during the event, no "Man of the Match". The army either Triumphed spectacularly or crashed and burned in the first two turns. More to do with me and the complete lack of play testing and learning games before the campaign weeked. Still it was fun. The Eldar faction won the event, and My army was nominated for Best Painted army. It got a lot of comment on the table and attracted a lot of stares.
I will be playing these for a little bit longer.
